When things don’t occur properly at the leadership table, the organization struggles. In this episode of Church InTension, Dr. Jon Chasteen talks with leadership expert Hrishi Baskaran about the importance of vulnerability and the pitfalls of transparency and false modesty.
Hrishi Baskaran is a principle consultant for Patrick Lencioni’s Table Group and the founder of Hrishi Baskaran Company. He’s a consultant who helps executive leaders and pastors with organizational health, teamwork, and leadership. His clients include Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, Lockheed-Martin, and many more.
Dr. Jon Chasteen: Today, my guest is a good friend of mine that I’ve really come to respect and know. His name is Hrishi Baskaran, and he’s a consultant. He’s a principal consultant for Patrick Lencioni in a group called The Table Group. He’s a consultant who helps executive leaders and pastors with organizational health, teamwork and leadership. And he’s worked with some amazing organizations. He works with huge corporate companies, CEOs of multimillion dollar organizations, but also local pastors and local churches.
Jon: I love what he does. He’s worked with some companies … Let me see if you’ve heard of some of these companies. He’s worked with Chick-fil-A. He’s worked with the Coca-Cola company. He’s worked for Morgan Stanley. He’s worked for Louis Vuitton. Don’t tell my wife that, Hrishi.
Hrishi Baskaran: I haven’t worked for them, but I’ve supported their leadership.
Jon: Well, you worked for them when you bought your wife one, probably.
Hrishi: Well, that’s true. Yeah. I guess I still work for them then.
Jon: That’s true, technically. No, we’re honored that you’re on the show, Hrishi. You bring a wealth of understanding and leadership, and I can’t wait for our listeners to dive in and hear some of the things that God has been putting on your heart. Before we jump into that, just tell us about yourself. Tell us how are you. Are you married? Do you have kids? Where do you live? Tell us about Hrishi.
Hrishi: Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you, Jon. Thanks for inviting me. It’s such a pleasure and an honor to be here. I live in Dallas, and I have two little girls, my wife and I. My eldest is 10 going on 15.
Jon: Yep, I got one of those.
Hrishi: Yeah. Youngest is seven. It’s been marvelous. We moved to Dallas six years ago. And prior to that, we were in Toronto, in Canada.
Jon: Got you. Really?
Hrishi: Yeah.
Jon: How was that?
Hrishi: Awesome. It almost felt like we were back home this last week with the weather.
Jon: Yes, no doubt. Right.
Hrishi: But it’s been great. I don’t think there’s any place quite like Texas.
Jon: Yeah. So, you bought in, huh? You’re one of those Texas guys.
Hrishi: I’m a convert, I guess. Yeah.
Jon: So, what do you do before you got into the consulting business?
Hrishi: So, I was in technology for many years. 15 years I spent with a very large technology distributor. We worked with companies like IBM and Microsoft. Really, really cool intellectual giants in the industry. And one of the things I had the opportunity to do was take their technology to other organizations. The company that I enjoyed working with the most and probably the largest opportunity I had at the time was a company called BlackBerry. Remember them?
Jon: I do remember them. Those little bricks.
Hrishi: See, most of the time, I mentioned their name, people have a smile, and then it changes, and like, “Oh, I remember them and I miss that device.” But you wonder. This is an organization that kind of revolutionized the way the world connects on a device.
Jon: No doubt.
Hrishi: I mean, we didn’t have smart devices.
Jon: It’s where the addiction of phones began.
Hrishi: They started it all.
Jon: They started this problem.
Hrishi: But yet, in such a great industry, with the resources that they had, the support and everything that they had, it makes you wonder how come they’re not bigger than they are today. Why did they fall? Why did their trajectory get affected so much? Being in the technology industry, being exposed to all that, sitting here serving this behemoth of an organization that I absolutely adored, and I wanted them to win, but I saw the writing on the wall. There was something that wasn’t happening well enough at the leadership table.
Hrishi: Okay. The reason why BlackBerry has gone by the wayside per se, I know that they’re not entirely irrelevant in the market, but the reason why they are where they are today is because they didn’t work with their developers well, or they didn’t do this well. They couldn’t decide keyboard, no keyboard. “What am I doing with my device?” You can say all of those things and more, but I’m convinced those are downstream issues of something that didn’t occur at the table when the leaders came together.
Jon: Is that where your passion for studying leadership and analyzing? Did that kind of begin to birth this in you of becoming this where you are today?
Hrishi: Yeah, I really think that’s probably where it started was where I started to think, “Hey, something isn’t happening.” These leaders know how to run a company, but they don’t know how to work together. And because of that, everybody else that works in this organization is now struggling. They’re not gaining leadership. Jon Maxwell said leadership is influence. I didn’t feel like they were influencing their people the way that they really intended to.
Hrishi: That’s where I got exposed to Pat Lencioni stuff to see what can I do to help them be a little bit more aligned. How can we actually accomplish the work that we want to accomplish? Yeah, that’s absolutely when I started studying more into leadership, more into the areas that we can grow and develop. And it’s not easy, but it’s also not necessarily complicated. These are simple truths that we just have to be more disciplined around.
Jon: That’s so good. The title of this podcast, the name of this podcast is Church InTension, and we talk about the tensions in the church. We also talk about the intentions of the church, like what are they trying to do that sometimes we miss. And so today, I want to piggyback off that topic, but talk about it from the perspective of leadership. So, leadership intention. The tension points of leadership, but also, what are the intentions?
Jon: Like you said, it’s not overly complicated, but we need to have our intentions lined out and true. So, the struggles of leadership. Whatever we want to end up naming this thing, but the leaders are in tension. There’s a tension point. And we went to breakfast before we recorded this, and we really started talking about these four things that I want us to dive into that I think are brilliant, that I think will really help. It doesn’t matter if it’s the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or the pastor of a church of 100 people. A lot of these are so across all planes of leadership. So, let’s dive into those.
Hrishi: I think they’re universal.
Jon: Yeah. Let’s dive into those a little bit.
Hrishi: I have to say, before we even get into that, this might be overly simplistic. I mean, if anything, you might want to call me Captain Obvious today. I think everyone that listens to this, I think I know that, and I probably know the other one too. And leadership isn’t complicated. So, the first thing is, I think for me, just the kind of guy I am, I need to keep things simple.
Jon: But isn’t that what we’re supposed to do, Hrishi? The Bible says that one of the things that the Holy Spirit does is bring things back to our remembrance. So, a lot of times, it’s not what we don’t know that holds us back. It’s what we do know that we’re just not implementing.
Hrishi: That’s good.
Jon: I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Let’s bring some of these things back to people’s remembrance.
Hrishi: Well, the first thing that we were talking about, even when we had breakfast this morning was this thing called invulnerability. I think it’s, again, such an obvious thing and such a simple thing, and yet such a difficult thing.
Jon: So, what do you mean by that? Because usually, we hear people say vulnerability.
Hrishi: Absolutely.
Jon: And that’s kind of the buzzword. Everyone knows we’re supposed to be vulnerable, but what does it mean to be invulnerable?
Hrishi: Maybe I can describe it by saying this. I have had the privilege of working with several CEOs and leaders like you said, whether they be pastoral leaders or whatever. CEOs just tend to be generally very powerful people. They know they have this influence, and they mistakenly believe that they would lose credibility if somebody were to challenge something that they would say, or if they needed to say, or ask for help, or even say sorry for things.
Hrishi: So, many of the CEOs that I’ve been exposed to are not comfortable with that realm of vulnerability where I could just look at you and say, “Hey, Jon, you know what, I’m sorry, I don’t think I said the right thing there.” Or, “Right now, I’m kind of struggling. I’m not sure where to go, or what I should do here.” When we could just be ourselves. When we could be honest about our feelings. Okay. We say the word transparent a lot. Can I just be transparent with you? I think there’s a difference between transparency and vulnerability.
Jon: Dig into that. Yeah.
Hrishi: Well, we’re getting on tax season very soon, and if I was to tell you, “Hey, we’re getting ready to file our ’20 taxes. Man, Jon, I haven’t even filed my 2018 taxes yet.” Yeah. That’s being transparent. And you’d look at me and say, “Well, I guess, thanks for telling me that. I don’t know what to do with that piece of information.”
Hrishi: Now, if I was to say, “Hey, the reason I haven’t filled in my 2018 taxes yet is the IRS is challenging me because they’ve discovered that I’ve got some world income. And the truth is, Jon, it’s so insignificant. It’s nothing. But now, I got to go back over the last few years and actually pull that out and talk about it, or rather declare it accurately. It just seems like a lot of work for just nothing. It’s almost less than $100. It’s almost irrelevant. But if I don’t do that, it’s an integrity issue. So, Jon, I’m stuck, and it’s caused me not to file taxes for more than two years now.”
Hrishi: So, what I’ve done is I’ve taken a truth, and I’ve associated risk with it. Because now, you can judge more than just what the whole situation of my taxes. You can judge my character based on what it is I’m telling you. That’s the difference between transparency and vulnerability, is that associating risk.
Jon: That’s so good. Are you saying that leaders have difficulty making that leap?
Hrishi: Well, it’s countercultural today. How many times have you heard, “Hey, don’t let them see you sweat?”
Jon: That’s so good.
Hrishi: In fact, if you’re the leader, you need to be the most confident in the room. In fact, you are responsible for helping everybody else feel like it’s going to be okay.
Jon: Yeah. I think a lot of leaders have this feeling inside themselves that would say, “I don’t want anybody to find out what I really don’t know.” There’s a piece of every leader that’s like, “I don’t want anybody to know how clueless I really am.”
Hrishi: Come on. Yeah. And unfortunately, I have met leaders that surround themselves with people that feed their ego. That’s what they do. Here’s what I’d say, Jon. Vulnerability is not non-biblical. That’s what we were meant to do. That’s how we’re meant to behave.
Hrishi: In fact, Jesus made himself vulnerable on the cross. He was God made man, and I’m reading a statement here. I don’t know where I heard this first, but I’ve used it several times. Jesus humbled himself to share in our humanity, and we rarely share our humanity with each other.
Jon: That’s good. That’s really good.
Hrishi: I would say vulnerability is at the forefront of everything. We’re going to talk about four different things, vulnerability being one of them, or invulnerability, because it’s so almost, like we said, anti-cultural, or it’s things that we’ve been told not to do. We grew up this way protecting ourselves from exposing ourselves to other people.
Jon: Isn’t that what it is? In a lot of ways, it’s this self preservation. I have to keep up this, whatever it is to protect whatever it is.
Hrishi: I would say invulnerability. From what you just said, Jon, invulnerability is the ultimate expression of insecurity.
Jon: Wow.
Hrishi: I cannot trust you with me.
Jon: Yeah. Are there lines to that though, Hrishi? Can we become too vulnerable to the wrong people? There’s always two extremes to everything, right? It’s always trying to find the balance. But is there an extreme to where I’m just walking around with my emotions on my sleeve, and everyone is like, “Oh, boy, here’s the leader again crying about something else.”
Hrishi: Okay. So, that’s really interesting you would say that, and I would just be blunt by saying, “Can you be too vulnerable?” I would say no. Because I don’t think we truly understand what vulnerability is. Now, have I seen things that are inappropriate? Yes. “Oh, my gosh I’m not going to do that very well.” Or, “I’m not the greatest leader in the world.”
Hrishi: There is such a thing as inappropriate modesty, and there’s also something weird that kind of creeped up in society today. The self-deprecating statements where I just met a leader recently and he’s just been promoted to a fairly significant role, and he asked me if I could help him and I said, “Absolutely. I just don’t know if I have the availability today, but can we circle back in about 30, 60 days?” He goes, “Yeah, totally. As long as I don’t burn down the place by then.”
Hrishi: And I said, “Why would you say that? Do you think that I feel differently about you now because you said that? Are you expressing some level of humility, or did you think you were?” That self-deprecating statement is not vulnerability. That is either, A, inappropriate modesty or just simply inappropriate. “Oh, I’m such a horrible leader, guys. I don’t know what the heck I’m doing.” That’s not vulnerability.
Jon: Yep. That’s good. That’s good distinction.
Hrishi: “Hey, I don’t know the exact direction to take at this point, but I need your help team. Let’s figure this thing out together.” And again, the spirit of vulnerability or just the spirit behind vulnerability, cultivating that environment of us not always knowing what we need to do, or easily being able to ask for help, or saying sorry when we need to, that is so important as we talk about these other three. And I’ll tell you the statement first. If we don’t do vulnerability well, if we don’t cultivate it, if we don’t own it as leaders, the other three things we’re going to talk about become political.
Jon: Wow. So, it’s like a foundation that we need to lay first.
Hrishi: Absolutely. And unfortunately, as a leader, we are responsible for establishing that foundation. I mean, that’s the reason why you get paid those medium sized bucks is you get to set the foundation of vulnerability.
Jon: What would you say would be some of the triggers or signs that, as a leader, I need to begin to practice more vulnerability? Are there things that I can recognize in my organization that would say, “Okay, I’m not being vulnerable enough. I can see X, Y, and Z, or A, B, C?” Which then tells the leader, “Okay, this is showing me that I’m not being vulnerable.”
Hrishi: Yeah. When you said that, the first thing that immediately jumped out to me was, when I see people covering their tracks. When I see people that are not quick to admit their own failures. When they want to say, “I’ll figure it out.” Or they’re making me believe that they know what they’re doing when they really don’t.
Jon: Or you find that they were covering up stuff. They were covering their tracks to hide something, or something. Yeah.
Hrishi: Hiding things. It’s so painful. It’s so destructive to organizations. And the reason it happens … We said this earlier. It comes from insecurity. I didn’t want you to know that I don’t know what I’m doing, and I was afraid …
Jon: Which means you’ve been modeling that as a leader.
Hrishi: And maybe that’s because that’s the way you were raised as leader, or your previous leader, that’s the norm that they established. I think in order for us to be successful today, we as leaders have got to cultivate this environment of vulnerability where it’s okay for us to go there. Not the inappropriate stuff we’re talking about.
Hrishi: And certainly, if we show up to work every day. “Gosh, Jon, I messed up over there. Daniel, oh, I messed that up over there too. Oh, man, I was late for that as well.” That’s not vulnerability. That’s a competence issue. That’s a discipline issue. That’s something that needs to be addressed and discussed. That’s not vulnerability. Vulnerability is us being comfortable with being real, being human, tapping into our humanity and recognizing, like I said, it’s not non-biblical. It’s actually how God intends for us to be.
Jon: Do you think some of that is generational? The reason I ask is when I first became a pastor, my dad was a pastor for years. My dad pastored for over 20 years in a small denominational church and I become this pastor. I’m a Gen X. My dad is a baby boomer. My approach to leadership was much more, “Hey, I’m a pastor, and I struggle with this. Let’s get through it together.” There was a lot of vulnerability. I think you get down into Gen Y and Gen Z, there’s a real hunger for just authenticity.
Hrishi: Absolutely.
Jon: Let’s not be fake, and let’s not pretend. And so, part of me even wonders if there’s some generational impact.
Hrishi: There’s got to be.
Jon: That baby boomers were raised a certain way. My father was always like, “When I was a pastor, I had to wear a suit and tie. I could never show weakness. I could never show that I didn’t know what was happening as the pastor. I could never show that I didn’t quite know how to interpret this particular scripture.”
Jon: So, it was really shocking for him to see his son lead from a place of, “Wow, son, you can’t tell your congregation that you don’t know. You’re supposed to know.” So, I think there can even be some elements of the way we’re raised. Like you were saying, that’s what triggered me to say that.
Hrishi: I’m sure that plays into it. It’s got to. I think the thing now is, like you said, people are expecting authenticity. And as much as I’m a leader, I’m a big follower. I have leaders that I submit to. And I can tell you, their leadership becomes more and more attractive to me every day I realize they’re more human. And every time they show up as Superman and acting like they know everything, they figured everything out, I don’t want to say it repels me, but it doesn’t cause me to draw near to them just the same way.
Hrishi: Like I said, I’d love to move into the other three, but vulnerability is the foundation. And the other three is certainly not … We’re not exclusive to these four things when it comes to leaders’ intention, because we have tension over so many things. But if we don’t do that, if we don’t set ourselves up as humans first so that they can see our human side, warts and all, the others become political.
Jon: That’s so good. Craig Groeschel’s podcast every time, his leadership podcast, I’m going to butcher it because I won’t get it exactly right, but he talks about how people will always want to follow. They don’t want to follow a leader who’s always right. They want to follow a leader who always cares, who’s just there. I think that’s really important. So, with having that foundation of vulnerability, what can we move into from there?
Hrishi: That’s great. I just took a note down because you said leaders that want to be right, because I want to bring that up again. That’s so good. The second thing that I think … Again, there’s probably many, but there’s just four that came to mind for our discussion today.
Hrishi: The second one is this pursuit of harmony, especially in this world that we live in today where there’s so much turmoil out there. We’re living in a world of COVID, I want to say. Leaders have this tendency that there’s so much trouble outside. “I want my people to feel at peace here, where we work, at the church.”
Jon: This is a big one.
Hrishi: Yeah.
Jon: For sure.
Hrishi: And so, we pursue that with all our heart. And actually, I don’t think that the pursuit of harmony is the way that we achieve harmony. In fact, most people, most leaders believe that I need to get to a place where, “Can we all just get along? Can we all just stop? Can we just agree on everything? Can we not disagree?”
Hrishi: In fact, that’s how we were raised. I was raised that I’m not … I wasn’t supposed to challenge anything. Gosh, I would never say, “Hey, I think there’s a little too much salt or something my mom …” Oh my gosh, I would go to bed with no food that day. We were trained not to disagree.
Jon: Keep the peace.
Hrishi: Right. But I’m convinced, conflict is actually a good thing when done in a healthy team, in a healthy way.
Jon: This is so important.
Hrishi: The conflict is not fighting. Definitely not infighting. Conflict is a passionate discussion around ideas, around topics, around issues. When I have the permission to challenge you on a particular approach you have or an idea that you brought to the table. Oh, by the way, have you ever heard there’s no such thing as a bad idea?
Jon: Yes, I have heard that.
Hrishi: That’s total bull.
Jon: There are bad ideas.
Hrishi: There’s a lot of bad ideas out there, right?
Jon: Yeah.
Hrishi: Oh, man. That’s great. Yeah. Hey, let me write that down.
Jon: That’s so true.
Hrishi: You’re not writing anything down.
Jon: It’s so true.
Hrishi: In fact, even in our culture today, we have an expression. “Oh, that’s so good.” How many times have you heard say that? And I listened, I was with a team the other day, and I must have heard it 17 times, and I’m not exaggerating. I was put in a little notch. “Oh, that’s so good. Oh, that’s so good. Oh, that’s so good.” I sat there and I said, “I’m sorry, that’s not so good.”
Jon: If all of that is good, we don’t know what we’re going to be doing.
Hrishi: So, innovation. Innovation comes. It’s not a pursuit. Innovation comes from learning to disagree around ideas and issues, and trying to pursue the truth behind it all.
Jon: Yeah, at breakfast, you said it this way, and I’m going to use a different analogy, but this is basically what you were saying. And you can correct me in the way you said it, that harmony isn’t necessarily a seed. I’m saying it differently than you did. It’s the fruit. So, we think that harmony is what I’m going to create, but harmony is actually a byproduct of conflict, a healthy conflict.
Hrishi: Absolutely.
Jon: You can’t find harmony without conflict.
Hrishi: Here’s how it might play out. You and I are working together, Jon, and you’ve got some ideas, and every time you bring them up in a meeting and you’re like, “I don’t get it. I’m not following.” No, I wouldn’t tell you that. So, here’s what I do. Number one person I talk to is my spouse. I go home and like, “Jon doesn’t get it.”
Jon: “Jon is an idiot.”
Hrishi: “Oh, he doesn’t get it. I don’t know why he doesn’t get it. I don’t know why he doesn’t see this thing.” But you know what’s worse? I talked to your peer, Jon. The guy that works right beside you, Daniel. So, Daniel comes by and he’s like, “Oh, I walked by the office. I know you’re in a meeting with Jon, so I didn’t want to disturb you.” “Oh, yeah, I was talking to Jon.” “Oh, man. Oh, really? What does that mean?” “Oh, that guy doesn’t get it.” And the only person that I don’t say anything to is Jon.
Jon: Is the one you should have said something to.
Hrishi: The one who can actually change something about it.
Jon: That’s good.
Hrishi: So now, I have this disagreement with you. The challenge is if I don’t address that disagreement on an idea that you presented, or on a direction that you’re headed, if I don’t address that, it will always ferment the conflict around our relationship. I come from a place where I say, “Jon doesn’t get it.” To, “I don’t like Jon anymore.”
Jon: We’ve all seen organizations like this where there’s harmony on the surface. But under the surface, it is anything but. It’s almost like a riptide. On the surface, you don’t see it, but if you walk out there into that organization, the undertow will rip you to shreds, because there’s harmony in appearance, because everyone is smiling and greeting one another. “Oh, how’s your day? Great.” But behind the scenes, there’s this massive disharmony because there was never conflict to resolve.
Hrishi: Yeah.
Jon: Yeah, that’s so good.
Hrishi: What that is, that’s artificial. That’s artificial harmony. You’re a pastor. I haven’t read the scripture. You’d have to tell me where. I completely skipped over in the Bible where Jesus said we need to be nice to each other just like you’re nice to your neighbor. You can say that. I think he said we’re supposed to love our neighbor like we love ourselves.
Hrishi: One of the greatest expression of love is to actually look you in the face and say, “Jon, I’m not following. I’m struggling with that idea or that direction. In fact, I don’t think that program that you’re running is a good one. So, I might be missing it. I know I need some help, but let’s talk about it.”
Hrishi: In that conversation, one of two things is going to happen. Well, they’re probably several things, but I believe there’s two key areas. Either A, you’re going to help me better understand how you see this program, or how you see this thing you’re doing, and I’m going to have great respect for you, thereby creating harmony.
Hrishi: Or you’re going to see my part of it and realize, “Wow, Hrishi, I never saw that perspective before. In fact, I know we don’t really have much time now. Do you mind if we go for coffee? And can you talk to me about that?” And maybe you’ll do it just the way I’m saying it, or maybe you’ll do it a different way, but all of a sudden, you have new insight. So, that conversation allowed us, again, to come to a place of harmony.
Jon: So, there’s really two types of listeners right now. There’s listeners who are leaders of people who even while we’re having this conversation, are thinking of a person on their team that they need to confront and produce conflict, which will then produce harmony, but they don’t know how to do it. What would you say to that person first? And then I’ll identify the other person. What would you say to that person to give them the confidence to pick up the phone, to walk into their office, to sit down and to address whatever this issue is?
Hrishi: Well, let me answer that by painting a picture. If we walk into meetings saying, “Gosh, let’s never say anything difficult. Let’s never disagree with one another. Let’s never say something so that maybe in the future I’d need to apologize.” We limit ourselves from walking in love with that individual. And that individual deserves your honest response, deserves your love, and here’s the thing, deserves your leadership.
Hrishi: So, if you don’t want to have that conversation, it comes back to what we talked about the first. We’re not being vulnerable. Either A, you haven’t cultivated an environment where there’s vulnerability where that individual can actually be okay with being wrong and say, “Actually, Jon, you’re right.”
Hrishi: I know I’m answering this, I’m telling a story at the same time, but I once heard this CEO of a large Silicon Valley company and he walked into a meeting with his chief marketing officer, and the marketing officer puts up a presentation. And within, I don’t know, minute one, the CEO just stood up and said, “Hey, Fred, this isn’t a very good presentation. It feels as if it just kind of came together pretty quickly, and I don’t even know if they’re directionally correct. So, if we don’t have anything else on our agenda today, let’s wrap this meeting up. Fred, I’d like you to give it another shot, and let’s come back together and do this.”
Hrishi: Now, that’s probably a little extreme. Fred followed the CEO to his office and knocked on the door and said, “Hey, so just a quick question. Do I still have a job?” And he said, “Yeah, absolutely, but don’t do this again.” And so he said, “The truth is, I was told to do this presentation yesterday, and I had so much work on my plate. I didn’t even start building the slide till 2:00 this morning. And yeah, it was a rush job, and I don’t even know the direction. You’re absolutely right. So, thanks for giving me another chance.”
Jon: That’s so good.
Hrishi: A week from now or week from that date, they came back. The CEO came back to the room, and they had this meeting, and he had a much better presentation. The moral that story was the CEO said, “I will come into conflict with you to challenge you about something you’re presenting, and that’s not a problem. You have the opportunity to make the adjustments so that we can together have this discussion to serve our organization best.” The worst thing that CEO could have done is sat there with a big smile on his face, artificially acknowledging what the other person is doing.
Jon: That’s good.
Hrishi: And then what? It’s actually the fourth point we’re going to talk about when we say Fred doesn’t get it. In fact, I don’t even know Fred belongs here. We haven’t given Fred the opportunity to make any adjustments, because we’re afraid … Hear this. We’re afraid we’re going to hurt his feelings. So later, when Fred hears it from Daniel or somebody else …
Jon: That hurts feelings worse.
Hrishi: “Oh, the CEO thinks you’re an idiot.” Yeah. So now, we’ve respected them because we haven’t disagreed with their opinion.
Jon: That’s so good. I hope that encourages somebody out there to have a difficult conversation. Now, the other person that I was referring to is the person who needs to confront something in their boss. How do you do that? How do you present something to your oversight? And obviously, there’s elements of that as how healthy is the organization you’re in. Can you be vulnerable back the other direction? But what are some advice to people who need to confront something in somebody that’s superior to them, it’s an oversight?
Hrishi: I don’t think you do that, Jon. I think you just deal with it. I’m just kidding.
Jon: Just suck it up and be miserable with life.
Hrishi: Yeah. Yeah, no. It’s tough. I know it’s tough. And I’ve been in that situation only twice my whole life, and both those times, it was tough. I speak with a lot more people today that are in that situation more often. So, that’s the first thing I want to say is it’s tough. I don’t want to belittle the tension. But I believe there’s a two part to it. One of them is actually the very next point we’re going to talk about, which has to do with certainty and closure.
Jon: Creep into it. Go ahead. Either way.
Hrishi: The first part of it is vulnerability. If you disagree, or you’re struggling with something that your oversight, your boss, your leader is trying to promote or position, whatever the case might be, you owe it to that individual to have that conversation in the spirit of vulnerability. “Hey, I don’t know everything. It’s possible you don’t know everything.” And sometimes, we have leaders that have operated a certain way, because that’s the only way they knew to operate. Maybe this conversation is the opening of the door for them to entertain some vulnerability.
Hrishi: I actually had the most trepidation I ever had in my career was this conversation I was going to have with my … It’s not my boss, it’s my boss’s boss. And man, I was struggling. And I knew this would be a career limiting move, but I also knew that if I didn’t have that conversation, I probably would need to leave the organization, because it was that radical to what I wanted … Or how radical I disagreed, rather, with the direction.
Hrishi: I went and spoke to him and said, “I’m struggling, and here’s the reason why. And I want to. I want to follow, I want to understand or better understand, and I want to be …” I don’t know if I said a good employee or what, but I want to know that I belong here. I’m so excited about working here, except for this direction. I probably said it differently than that, but along those lines, and this individual turned around and said, “Man, I’m so glad you said that, because I don’t know what to do, but no one has challenged me on this yet.”
Hrishi: This is my boss’s boss. I was the first person to challenge him in that way around this direction. And the first thing he did was leaned into me and said, “What do you think we should do instead?” I said, “Here, I have an alternative. And I’m telling you, it’s not a great alternative, but do you think we can do this first, at least for the first three months? Let’s test the waters. Or can we roll it out for our first 50 clients rather than doing this for 5,000 clients at once? I’m nervous about the impact. It gives me heartburn.” And he stopped and said, “I think that 50 client thing is a great idea.” And they didn’t pursue it exactly the way that I said, but they certainly didn’t press play to the 5,000 that they were going to do before.
Jon: I think the way you did that things I was picking up on, I even think as a leader when people come to me, the things that I look for when somebody is going to challenge me. First off, I think every leader … No leader knows everything, and we all know that. And inside of every leader, there’s this thing, “I wonder what I’m missing.” But nobody can tell their Emperor they doesn’t have any clothes, right?
Jon: So, there’s something in every leader that craves that kind of feedback. But what you said that really stuck out to me was, there was a preface and there was an introduction. “Hey, I love this organization. I want to be here forever.” You didn’t come in ranting. You didn’t come in, “Let me tell you what you’re doing wrong.”
Jon: And so I think when you bookend it, you come in only talking about something that’s really hard for me to bring up. “I’m passionate about this organization. I love it. I want to be here for a long time.” And then deliver it and then conclude it with, “I love this place. I think you’re a great leader and I love serving under you.”
Hrishi: Right. But as long as that’s genuine.
Jon: For sure.
Hrishi: If we’re saying things and our leaders can see right through that …
Jon: Well, if you start something by saying, “I don’t mean any disrespect,” what you mean is I’m about to disrespect to you.
Hrishi: There you go. Now, I understand, if you’re doing this for the first time, yeah, use some EQ and be respectful more than anything else. And again, in the spirit of vulnerability, and humility, and all that. But ultimately, if I was the leader, I’m speaking to pastors here or anybody else in leadership, I’d say, “Your goal is to create that atmosphere of vulnerability where somebody can say that …”
Jon: That’s good. If it’s a part of the culture.
Hrishi: Right. So, that somebody could say that to you without that Oreo cookie approach. You know the Oreo cookie?
Jon: Oh, yeah.
Hrishi: Let’s say something real nice to the end, and in the middle give it to them.
Jon: The sandwich method. If you have a culture, that’s ideal. You don’t have to sandwich method it.
Hrishi: I believe the bedrock for innovation and disrupting a marketplace in a good way is cultivating that culture.
Jon: So much so.
Hrishi: Because they get to the real discussions faster. I don’t have to give a, “Hey, man, you’re so awesome. Your hair came out really well today, by the way. When I grow up, I want to be just like you.” I don’t have to do any of that. First of all, you should know that I respect you. If you don’t, then that’s a whole different discussion. But if you and I have a relationship, I need to be able to come in the office and say, “Jon, you send out an email. And man, I don’t know where that’s coming from.”
Hrishi: But all of this is hinged to what I said before, this third point on closure. Clarity and closure. I’m not a massive fan on hierarchy. I don’t like the political approach of organizations, but I am a supporter of hierarchy for one reason, which is we need to know who’s on top. Because the guy on top or the woman on top is the decision maker. That’s important.
Hrishi: So, weighing in with conflict so that we don’t walk in artificial harmony is important, but with one reason, so that I can wait in to a degree, so that we can come to a place of closure. If I’m not the leader, I’m not necessarily the one responsible for coming up to that place of closure. If you’re the leader listening to this, and you have input from all these people, part of you gaining harmony is you’ve got to make that decision.
Jon: Yeah, you got to move.
Hrishi: And when you make that decision, even if others disagree, they’ve got to commit to that decision. And that’s got to be the most important thing. So, if you are working … So, in my case, in both examples that I had to go and talk to my boss’s boss or whoever, I didn’t have this play out. But if you needed to speak to somebody and challenge them on a direction or an approach that concerns you, and you have some good healthy conflict, but at the end of the day, the leader makes a decision, it’s their responsibility and their right to do that.
Hrishi: And if that’s not a decision you can support, the worst thing you can do is artificially stay committed to that and stay there. You kind of quit, never left. You need to realize that this organization is going in a direction that doesn’t suit you. I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to make that decision.
Hrishi: The third thing we talked about, vulnerability or rather invulnerability, that tension of invulnerability. I need to protect myself. We talked about the tension of harmony. I want everyone to just enjoy where they are. Yeah. Well, harmony is not a pursuit, harmony is a byproduct or an outcome of us having these difficult conversations.
Hrishi: The last one, or not the last one, the third one rather, is certainty. The tension of certainty. Especially in the world that we’ve … This world of COVID. I mean, geez, we just lived a year last week in, what do you call, snowmageddon, or snowvid, or whatever it was in Texas. I mean, there’s so much uncertainty out there where there’s so much tension of what’s going to happen tomorrow. There’s so much of the unknown. And in the midst of all that, leaders have this thing where we have a tendency to want to make perfect decisions. You can’t see my air quotes, everyone, but correct decisions. Ones where I don’t have to come back and apologize for doing something incorrect.
Jon: 100% certainty.
Hrishi: Absolutely. Especially that highly analytical leaders. Man, they need to ensure that all the decisions are correct, and they had to go look at 1,000 data points before they lean in on anything. And the key is not to come to a place of certainty, per se. The key is to come to a place of clarity and closure.
Hrishi: So, people, leaders are not sitting there waiting for absolute certainty, but they are wanting … People in the organization are wanting their leaders to help them with clarity, make their deliverables clear, help them better understand what is it that I need to do. So, what I see leaders do now is they’re extremely vague, and they’re hesitant in the direction, because they don’t know where it’s headed. And they want to be so accurate, and they hope that we will eventually figure it out. It will eventually play its way through. Well, get the answers along the way. That’s not leadership.
Jon: That’s so good. That’s so good, and convicting. That’s really good.
Hrishi: Absolutely. But it comes from those first two. It comes from a place of vulnerability. I don’t necessarily know.
Jon: Knowing that I’m not perfect as a leader.
Hrishi: I’m not perfect.
Jon: I can’t wait for perfection to make a decision.
Hrishi: And we may get this wrong. So, we’re not making a perfect decision, but we’re making the best decision based on the data that we have today. Secondly, how am I going to do that? I’m going to invite conflict. Not this unproductive back infighting rather. I was going to say backbiting. Infighting. Not that. I want to have really constructive ideological conversations.
Hrishi: You know what ideological means? It means take the person out of it, and talk about the issue. If we find drama in a situation … You asked me about how do I know that this is playing out in vulnerability. Well, how do I know this is playing out in harmony that we have this artificialness and not real conflict? It’s when drama presents. Drama is because it has gone beyond the ideological. I wanted to talk about a particular approach, and all of a sudden, now it feels like I’m talking about you.
Jon: A person. That’s an important distinctive right there.
Hrishi: Very. And if we can have really good conflict and really good debates around issues, it will help us to come to a place where maybe we don’t have certainty, but we can get to a place of closure. We can get to a place where we can make a decision. What do they say? Indecision is a decision.
Jon: It’s a decision.
Hrishi: And we’ve got to be mindful of that.
Jon: That’s so true.
Hrishi:
I heard this from someone else, and I captured this today. I wanted to share it. There’s three myths that leaders find themselves trapped in. The first myth is I can have all the information available. In other words, “I want another data point, I want another data point. Hey, we haven’t decided on this. Well, there’s probably somebody else in this building who hasn’t weighed in yet. I want to hear from them as well.”
Jon: Create another subcommittee.
Hrishi:
Right. Man, we sit in a data age where we’re bombarded with details on every site. “Lets google it.” I mean, I have tried. Just recently, something happened at home, and I tried to get a simple answer, and I typed it on Google, and it just went on and on and on and on. Hey, you need to put a stop to it, and you’ve got a cause. First myth, I can have all the information. I don’t think so.
Hrishi: Number two, second myth, everyone is eventually going to agree. So, let’s not create this conflict, let’s not create this place of certainty, let’s just see if we just have this fuzzy, not really clear. And somehow, we just get into this automatic consensus somehow. It doesn’t occur. In fact, some of the best organizations I’ve worked with, some of the best teams that I’ve been exposed to are a group of people that have no consensus. So, they actually don’t agree collectively, but they’re 100% committed. See, because they’ve all had that beautiful debate on this particular approach. The leader at the top, this is why hierarchy is important, because the leader gets to call. The leader will look and say, “Jon, hey, thanks for sharing that. I didn’t actually even had that perspective. So, that’s really important to me.” Now, the decision I’m leaning to, probably doesn’t lean towards that way. “Daniel, it’s probably a little closer to what you were suggesting. Julie is probably most closest to you. Here’s what it is that I think we should do. I really need you all committed to it.” So, the decision that the leader is making …
Jon: Comes from the top. Yeah.
Hrishi: And it comes from all the conflict we’ve had. “This is what I think we should do. I need you to be committed. Hey, let’s have a lot of voices and tons of discussion in this room. When we walk out of here …”
Jon: We’re united.
Hrishi: “… one heart beat, one voice.”
Jon: Yeah, that’s great.
Hrishi: That’s closure. That’s clarity.
Jon: But it’s not certainty.
Hrishi: It’s not certainty. So, here’s the last part, which we hadn’t gotten to yet, is we’re going to talk about accountability. But see, what I mean by that is if new data is presented, if we learn something new down the road that maybe tells us that this decision was maybe not the best, we go back to the first two. Our vulnerability allows us to say something. “Oh, guys, I think we need to look at this again.” And nobody on the team is going to sit there, cross their arms and say, “Well, I told you so. I knew this was a dumb idea.”
Hrishi: No. Invulnerability, we don’t do that. Then we go back, have some more conflict. Not in a bad, mean spirited way, but let’s have some good ideological debate. “Guys, we tried to think, and we went in one direction, and it was okay, but we realized it wasn’t the best. And now, we’ve got these two other data points. Let’s talk about this some more.” And we have another spirited conversation, and guess what happens. We make another decision.
Jon: That’s so good.
Hrishi: This is life.
Jon: You’re in and out of each one on a continual basis.
Hrishi: Right. And we’re not abandoning decisions. We’re just making another one. I read somewhere, and I wish I could quote it. I’m pretty sure it was Harvard Business Review or Journal Review where they said, “The best organizations, the most productive ones, or the high performing ones are the ones that can decide quickly.” And that doesn’t mean they’re schizophrenic and make a decision here and then go completely opposite and decision … No, that’s a problem with strategy.
Hrishi: This is an organization that’s cultivated the spirit of vulnerability and conflict in such a good way that they can always have conversations, and they can always … Their people are ready to commit quickly, because they know their leader will listen to them if new information is presented. And they’re not eager to say, “I told you so. We should have done it my way anyway.” No, they’re ready to go.
Jon: Because both sides have led with vulnerability. So, there’s a culture of …
Hrishi: That is so important. So, I said three things, three myths, and I didn’t say the third one, but we kind of talked about it. So, the first myth is I can have all the information. The second myth is everyone is eventually going to agree. And the third myth is we can decide not to decide. I kind of talked about that indecision. Yeah, to decide not to decide is a decision. We just said that, and that is going to hurt you. We have to overcome those three myths.
Hrishi: Here’s a call to action. We need to take risks. As leaders, we’ve got to take risks. I heard this story once. A friend of mine was sharing this story and I loved it so much. I wanted to share it with you. If I was to take a plank, a wood plank. Let’s just say it’s about 10 feet long and put it on the floor right here and I’d asked you, Jon, “Hey, can you walk across this plank?” You’d probably say, “Sure. 10 feet long and on the carpet, I could do that.” Then if I was to take that same plank, and imagine that I suspend it about 100 feet in the air in between two buildings and said, “Okay, go ahead. Can you walk the plank now?” What would you say?
Jon: I would probably still think I could do it, but I’d be far more hesitant to take the risk.
Hrishi: But what’s changed? Because the skill required is the same.
Jon: The skill is the same.
Hrishi: So, what’s changed?
Jon: The outcome.
Hrishi: The outcome.
Jon: The potential outcome.
Hrishi: It’s the consequence of failure has changed. And in our case, if we did that, that’s probably plummeting to death. That’s probably a consequence that neither of us want to experience, but I would submit to you …
Jon: It’s a great analogy.
Hrishi: … that many of us go through life every day in the pursuit of certainty. We go through life, artificially escalating our planks.
Jon: That’s so good.
Hrishi: It’s not really 100 feet in the air, but we do this artificially escalating the perceived consequences of failure to the point where we tell ourselves stories about what’s going to happen if we don’t take that risk. And the dangers with that is … Or not the dangers. Well, obviously, you know the dangers to that, but the reason why that occurs is because certainty, certainty, certainty. “I’ve got to get this right.” It comes back to vulnerability.
Jon: It does.
Hrishi: Are you okay to tell the team, “Hey, I made a decision …”
Jon: We messed up.
Hrishi: “… that was wrong.” Yeah. Are we okay to say that? Are we okay to re-invite people to table and say, “Guys, I was really passionate at that meeting. You know I was passionate. I thought I heard from God. Honestly, I really did. To some degree, I’m not willing to abandon. I do think I heard from God, but maybe the application of it needs to be adjusted. I mean, I’m not saying the strategy is bad, but maybe there’s an adjustment that I’m not seeing.” Are we willing to have the vulnerability to have that conversation? Are we willing to welcome the conflict? Because if you don’t, you don’t really have harmony anyway. Are we willing to take the risk to just put our foot down and say, “Yeah, this is it?”
Jon: Yeah. It even comes back to that idea of what we talked about earlier, the self preservation. How much of an organization’s success or failure … If you really boiled it down, how much of the organization’s success or failure falls back on the leader’s ability to overcome his or her own insecurities? Because really, at the end of the day, if I don’t want to walk across the plank because I don’t want to fail, you go back to the idea of, “Well, it matters who’s looking at me and who notices. And what are they going to think about me?” Even the harmony peace. “I want to keep harmony.” So, what is the fourth and final?
Hrishi: You just said it. No, you just said it. What are they going to think about me?
Jon: There it is.
Hrishi: I mean, that’s perfect. Popularity. The first one was invulnerability. The second one had to do with harmony, promoting conflict over harmony. The third one is certainty, promoting clarity and closure over certainty. The last one is accountability, which the word I used a minute ago is what I think gets in the way of accountability, which is popularity.
Hrishi: Leaders, they just want their people to like them. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, like I said, I heard from John Maxwell, I learned from John Maxwell many years ago that leadership is influence. I think what I bought into for sure is I can influence you more if you like me.
Jon: If you like me.
Hrishi: It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s also extremely dangerous.
Jon: What a strange dichotomy. Because you need influence to lead, but you can now also allow yourself to become paralyzed by that.
Hrishi: Again, when I use the word popularity, I am being a little hyperbolic. Nobody that’s listening to this is going to be like, “Yes, I want to be popular and famous and all of the above.” But the truth is …
Jon: Going to be liked.
Hrishi: Yeah. Because we really believe I can touch you in a positive … Influence in the right way. But great leaders hold people accountable. Great leaders share with their people areas of opportunity. And again, accountability is a big word, it’s a buzzword, it’s a word that a lot of people use. For me, when I first heard about accountability was when I got called out, and we even say that a lot, called out. It’s when I get pulled across the carpet, or get embarrassed in front of my peers. It’s when I’ve just become less than everybody else in the room, and that’s not accountability, not in a high performing, not in a loving, not in a real biblical team. Real accountability is what God does to us.
Jon: It is.
Hrishi: He calls up to a higher standard. He says, “Jon, right here, it’s been great, but I see you over here.” Nobody else that’s listening to this podcast can see my hand. I have my hand in the sky. So, we’re at this level of delivery and God says, “But I see the gift in you. I see the capacity in you. I see the capability in you, and it’s higher than where you’re delivering right now. And I would love to see you go there.”
Hrishi: Now, as a great leader, you lean in and say, “What can I do to help you get there? What can I do to help you to go from this area that we now see you at, we’re so thankful, and bring you to the higher level of delivery?” I call that the kind of truth. When you can actually pull somebody aside and say, “Hey, Jon, did you know that when you do this, it comes across this way? Did you know that it’s possible that people may perceive you in this manner?”
Hrishi: Let me also say this. I don’t think there’s any leaders out there. I mean, especially your audience, I don’t think anybody out there said, “Hey, I want to get a job. I want to be the boss. I want to be the guy on the top of the totem pole, so that I can walk into rooms and point fingers and say, ‘This is what you need to do better. This is what you need to do better, and you’re not that good because of this.'” Nobody has said that. And certainly, that’s exaggerating. I’m not saying you need to do that, but there comes a time where we need to be honest and tell people. “What you’re doing is actually not enough, and I’d like to see more.”
Jon: Yeah. There’s a proverb that talks about that where … I believe Paul talks about it in his epistles where it says, “If a father disciplines his child, how much does he love his child?” If our Heavenly Father disciplines us, how much more is he showing his love for us? And even as leaders, there’s this discipline, this accountability. Maybe discipline is not their greatest word for it, but if we don’t hold people accountable, do we really love them? It’s kind of what you were going back to at the beginning of the podcast.
Hrishi: Absolutely. You didn’t ask me this question, but you started at the beginning with vulnerability. How do I know when that doesn’t exist in the organization when there’s people trying to cover their tracks? How do I know when harmony, like the pursuit of harmony is existing? Well, when we have drama, because we’re not calling out difficult things.
Hrishi: How do I know when certainty or that thing exists? Well, when people are just confused, and we’re just waiting for things to happen versus I have direction. That’s why it’s not certainty, but it’s just clarity. I know where I need to head.
Hrishi: Well, for this thing, popularity versus accountability, how do I know? Well, if you have people in your organization, in the church, and I sure hope this isn’t happening too much, but if you have people that are just waiting on others to fail so that they can pull them aside and say, “Hey, you did that wrong.” And if you’re waiting to just call people out on all the things that they haven’t done right, that’s overdoing this. That’s indicative of the fact that we haven’t cultivated this thing accurately.
Hrishi: Actually, what we should be looking for is people that will say, “I’m looking out to see what’s an area that I can speak into for Jon. Jon, I noticed that what you’re doing right now is not going to work out for your benefit or favorably. So, I want to step in the gap and help you.” That’s real accountability. When I can be your brother, I could be your partner, I could be your peer, I could be your leader, I’m looking out for you, I want to give you feedback that will help you deliver stronger so that we don’t experience whatever it is that we’re experiencing right now.
Hrishi: And I know it’s hard. It’s hard for church people. I know because we want to love people so much, we don’t want to hurt their feelings, we don’t want to crush their spirit. However you want to describe it, we don’t want to tell people that they’re not performing well. But I would challenge you, what’s more important, the work we do at churches, or the work that they do at Chick-fil-A?
Jon: Oh, that was between the eyes. That’s so good.
Hrishi:
Why would we tolerate? I’m telling you the obvious. Why would we tolerate something that they wouldn’t? Because they give each other feedback on how they manage the drive-thru, how they pack their bags.
Jon: My pleasure.
Hrishi: You didn’t say that well enough. You didn’t say that quick enough. You just say that often enough.
Jon: I get offended when they don’t say my pleasure. When they say thank you, I’m like, “Wait a minute. I’m not leaving here till I get my, my pleasure.”
Hrishi: And I guarantee you, they’re talking about it.
Jon: That was a culture. That’s an intention on culture.
Hrishi: They’re talking about, “Hey, you know what, Jon never got the my pleasure. What’s going on?” Well, look, it doesn’t mean that we’ve got to be harsh with our people, and it certainly doesn’t mean that we go around flippant about firing people either. It means that we need to be …
Jon: Grace and truth.
Hrishi: Yeah. Okay. If you have grace and truth, then when you do eventually fire somebody, it’s not a surprise.
Jon: Yeah, that’s really good. Because you led with grace on the front end.
Hrishi: They saw it coming along. They knew that they probably weren’t delivering to the level that you had anticipated for them to deliver at. And over time, you’ve been telling them, “If we can’t make this correction, then probably this isn’t a good fit.”
Hrishi: And then when you need to make an organizational realignment, or that’s what consultants used to say, fire somebody. It’s not a surprise. And that’s why this has not to do with popularity. The greatest leaders in the world are the ones that help us. Those of us that our followers help us be better at what we do. In fact, you’re preparing me for the assignment that’s coming up after this one.
Hrishi: Let’s come back and talk about these four. Invulnerability. Let’s stop protecting ourselves and start being real. Harmony. Let’s not make harmony a pursuit, but rather an outcome from having really difficult conversations. Certainty. You’re not going to get there. Let’s pursue clarity instead, which is helping people know where we’re headed with direction. Unambiguous alignment around where we are.
Hrishi: Accountability. This is not a popularity contest. We’re going to win people not by them not liking us or the pursuit of them not … We’re going to win people by helping them realize how they could be better. And we set ourselves up for correction from whoever our mentors are or whoever our leaders are, because all of us need people that we can be accountable to.
Hrishi: All of these are areas that cause tension in leaders. And let me be the first to say this, or not the first. Let me just say this. I know it’s not easy, and I know we’ve got leaders of churches that are listening, saying, “Man, I want to do all those four, but I know it’s hard.” But I also want to say, if you don’t do it, no one else will in the organization.
Jon: That’s so good.
Hrishi:
So, we have a responsibility as leaders to lean in, in love with humility, with tremendous respect for our people, and say, “I love you so much that I want to do these four things. At the sake of my popularity, at the sake of me getting anxious with the lack of certainty, the sake of me almost abandoning harmony, it seems like at the moment, we’re getting into a fight versus getting into harmony, but it’s going to end in harmony. And in the sake of me or cost of me exposing myself in some place of vulnerability, that’s my responsibility as a leader.”
Jon: Hrishi, this has been so good for all the leaders listening, for every person listening. If we implement these four things, myself included, we not only make our organizations better, we make the kingdom of God better. We advanced the kingdom of God. And so, as leaders, have this responsibility. And so, thank you, Hrishi, for pouring into us. Thank you for giving this podcast for free what you would normally charge money to an organization.
Hrishi: It’s been my pleasure.
Jon: We are so honored to have you. If our listeners want to get in touch with you in any way, what’s the best way that they can follow you, get in touch with you, your organization?
Hrishi: I wasn’t anticipating that question.
Jon: Just your website, your Instagram.
Hrishi: We do. We have a website. But I do have a website, tablegroup.com. And if you go to our consulting section, then you’ll see me there. We go alphabetically, so I’m the second name right now. And anything we can do at all, either the organization, Table Group, I know we live to serve pastors, we live to serve leaders. So, if there’s anything at all as an organization we can do to support you, we’d be happy to do that. But if there’s anything at all, I could do personally to help you as well. My contact information is actually on my bio page of the website, so they’re welcome to reach out in that way.
Jon: What social media platform is your preferred? We’re going to follow you on social media.
Hrishi: I guess I do have a LinkedIn thing that hasn’t been updated in a while.
Jon: LinkedIn? Okay.
Hrishi: But that’s about it.
Jon: Wow, I’m impressed, man. You’re going to do anything else? We can learn from that too.
Hrishi: I have a Facebook presence, but I think the last post was Merry Christmas in 2019.
Jon: Good for you. Good for you. I think that’s amazing. Well, thank you again, Hrishi. We’re so honored to have you on. And listeners, thank you for listening to this. Like I started with, help us share this on your social media platforms. Give us a comment on the podcast and go to our website, collective.tku.edu. We love you guys. Have an amazing, amazing week.
