Building Teams That Win: How Relationships Fuel Success with Keith Ferrazzi

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0:32I can't wait to see you there. Welcome to the Jasmine Starr Show, where here you probably have heard me say that good people know good people. So a few months ago, I was texting with a gentleman by the name of Nick Sonnenberg. Now, if that name sounds familiar, it is because Nick was a guest on my show. And there we talked about building systems and systems that scale. And so what he wanted to do is build a real authentic connection with me. And Nick and I have now gone on to do multiple things. I speak in his community and he's been on this podcast and he's just one of those movers and shakers.

1:03AKA, he's a good person, not as just a business ally, he's a good friend. And so he reached out to me with this singular text that said, do you know Keith Ferrazzi? To which I replied, no, not personally. This is his text message. This is Nick's text message with permission I'm sharing. He's brilliant, big heart, magnetic, connector. Every year, Keith goes out of his way to make sure I have somewhere to be for Thanksgiving. World-class speaker and world leader in helping teams co-elevate. I was like, say less, make an introduction to me, please, Nick. And so since that time, I have dove head first into Keith's work, really deeply understanding why he believes people shouldn't eat alone, which are like, wait a minute, what?

1:48And why people shouldn't lead alone. At the beginning of 2025, I restructured our team meetings after deep dives of listening and reading Keith's work. So Keith doesn't know all the deep digging I have done around what he has been doing. So let me read a little bit about what the world sees him and then bring him into the show to have you get to know him. Keith Ferrazzi is an executive team coach, a keynote speaker, influential thought leader, founder of Ferrazzi Greenlight, where he has spent more than 20 years coaching Fortune 500 companies and focuses on team transformation. He is a business coach that challenges the way that teams work to achieve breakthrough results.

2:26But hold on, hold on. I'm gonna introduce him right now and you're like, Jasmine, let us at it. Yes, I know. but I want to read something from his website. You'll see on his website in big, bold words, we unleash unsuspected growth and radical adaptability by maximizing team performance. Y 'all prepare your hearts. Keith, welcome to the Jasmine Starr Show. I wanted my mother to listen to that. It's okay. We'll send her the recording. Please do. Yeah, good. Please do. This is wonderful. Jasmine, thanks so much for having me. I am happy. And your beautiful home. This is extraordinary. Well, thank you.

2:55Thank you, Keith. And you know, I'm a rather private person. I'm what you might call like an outgoing introvert. And so when I get to bring people into my sanctuary and a place that I get to build and dream and get to do it with other big thinkers and big dreamers, it is an honor. So thank you for coming out of your way. Ladies and gentlemen, he flew here for this interview and this is a place of service for him. So what I want to do is I want to get into team building specifically, but how about we start with one of your multiple books, but the first book that hit New York Times bestseller and what kind of shifted the way that people saw you?

3:26So I spent most of my life in large corporations. I was the chief marketing officer of Deloitte. I was the first chief marketing officer at Starwood Hotels, head of sales at Starwood when we were creating the W.O. Del Jane, St. Regis, the Star Preferred Guest Program. And then I started my own firm. And the reason I did is because I was looking at the two teams that I was a part of, the team at Deloitte and the team at Starwood. And the reality was we crushed it at Deloitte. And a lot of it was because we were a band of brothers and sisters taking hills together, kicking each other in the butt.

4:01I call it co-elevating, right? Collaborating, pushing each other higher. And at Starwood, we were very competitive. It was not the kind of a culture that embraced psychological safety. There was a lot more back-channel conversations than there were direct conversations. And the reality is at Starwood, we had to sell ourselves to Marriott, right? We didn't achieve the kind of breakthrough outcomes that we did at Deloitte when we were the lowest of the big eight going to where we are today. So I decided to start a firm, Prazer Greenlight. And I wrote a book early on, and it was very much because I was a sales and marketing person.

4:33It was very much about how the interdependency of sales and marketing would define the future of business success, at least from a growth perspective. And what I realized, and I wrote a book called Never Eat Alone. It's all the importance of the richness of relationships. When I was a chief marketing officer, I used to talk about something called high-touch marketing. The ability to have marketing where you identify the most important relationships that could elevate your brand, that could elevate the growth of your business, that could really push you forward as an organization. Okay, can we pause here for a second?

5:06I'm a natural born storyteller. My father didn't learn how to read until I was about 25. And so we learned alongside with my dad to read. And so he would tell a story from memory. So if we pause here and you say that creating those relationships and to never eat alone, can you go back and think of in your early career where you decided, probably not consciously after post writing the book, but before where you're just like, I'm going to eat with somebody. Like explain, get us into that. Let me, I'll start with something even earlier. My dad was an unemployed steel worker in Pittsburgh. Steel industry had crashed all around us.

5:38Mom had to become a cleaning lady. I had to go work at the local country club just to make 20 bucks a day, which is what my mom was making as a cleaning lady. And there was a woman named Mrs. Poland. So Mrs. Poland, she was the best female golfer in the club. And she wanted to be the best golfer in the club, but that was difficult because the club was owned by a guy named Arnie Palmer, who was a pretty good golfer at the time. Arnie Palmer. Arnie Palmer. Uh-huh, uh-huh. I get it. And so what Mrs. Pullen taught me was very interesting and very powerful. After she had me as her caddy one time, she asked me to be her caddy again.

6:12And I was like, a big deal, because sometimes you only got out once a week. How old are you at this time? Probably. Well, I actually lied. I should have been 13. Okay. But I was 10. Okay. Oh, wow. I was 10. I was a little bigger boy at the time, but I was 10. And then she had me play caddy for that time and she had asked for me again. At this stage, it was a really big deal. And Mrs. Poland asked me a simple question after three days. She said, Keith, what do you want to do with your life? Now, my dad and I had conversations about this. My dad was an immigrant. They came to this country to allow their son to have anything in the world.

6:49And we talked about it. We were like, one of these days, I was going to be governor of Pennsylvania. I was going to fix the steel industry in Pennsylvania. God knows why I thought the governor could do that. But anyway, I was going to fix the steel industry in Pennsylvania. I was going to be president of the United States. I was going to fix American manufacturing. And that's what I wanted to do with my life. Crazy ambitions. And of course, I couldn't share that with Mrs. Poland. Because she was a rich lady. And I was a poor kid. and all I kept playing on in my head were all those kids who used to tease me at school because of the clothes we had, the car we drove.

7:25And I just, I couldn't bring myself to be that vulnerable, to be that open with her. Ultimately, I did. She kind of beat it out of me. She's like, Keith, what do you want to do with your life? I said, well, I told her the story. And she said, you know, Keith, you could, and I would vote for you. Two weeks later, she went to get her local congressman to join her foursome, to introduce me to that guy. It opened up doors that you can't imagine. I mean, that man took me under his wing. He ended up opening his library to me to study. He suggested I get involved in speech and debate. It was the change.

8:01I ended up going to Yale University because of that relationship, right? Now, pause for a second. Years later, I asked Mrs. Poland, you know miss poland why did you do that for me and she said keith you took two strokes off my golf score such a powerful lesson for me and the reason was i hustled i was afraid of not getting that 20 bucks right i showed up at the golf course a half of an hour early just to understand where the pins were placed how the greens were cut and i absolutely hustled hustled hustled in service of that mission that I had to be the best caddy possible. I took two strokes off of her golf score.

8:42The lesson that I learned very early on is I didn't have to be born into a rich family. Every relationship that stood in front of me that could open doors of possibility, that could make a new business possible, a new business relationship possible, a new client possible, all of that were relationships that I could proactively build. And if I build those relationships, I'd have all the success that I ever wanted, political or otherwise. So that, you know, it's not just about never eating alone. It's really about how authentic relationships define the future of your success. And that's how I started my business.

9:21I wanted to make sure that sales and marketing people knew that those relationships were crucial to breaking through growth in the company. I wanted to make sure, and then as I started to study and expand, The interdependency of executive teams are so transformative of whether a business is going to be successful or not. What I witnessed at Deloitte, what we failed at at Starwood, the reality was as I moved from never eating alone and the recognition that relationships would be important to never lead alone and the power of teamship, even over leadership. That was a 20-year journey that redefined my life.

9:58I mean, we could just end the podcast there. Done. Except for the fact that you're such a compelling storyteller that I actually want to get into the beautiful arc of never eat alone to never leave it alone. A lot of the people who are here right now watching and listening are leaders and or aspiring leaders. These are people with teams of two to 222. And so I found your work particularly helpful to me because what I want to do with my team is I don't want to lead alone. And so I'm going to start here. Can you explain teamship? Because some of the stuff that I was reading is you were shifting from leadership to teamship.

10:39So I want to use that word, but I want to normalize the vernacular. What is teamship to you? I'll do it by being a little contradictory to leadership, meaning a great leader gives feedback. We all know that. Yes. But an extraordinary leader gets the team to give each other feedback. You know, like a great leader holds the team accountable, but an amazing leader gets the team to hold each other accountable. A great leader cares about the team and cares that the energy of the team is well managed. An extraordinary leader makes sure that the team gives a damn about each other, that the team lifts each other up.

11:15So the shift from leadership to teamship is a shift to recognize that you do not have to lead alone. If you're a leader and you're feeling that it's all on you, running around playing whack-a-mole, bringing all the great ideas, you are actually limiting your success. You need to expect more from your team. And the research that we've done over 24 years is 10 critical shifts to level up your team. And they're all based in simple practices of how do you collaborate? How do you meet? How do you bring your team together so that they know their job is to elevate? And I call it crossing the finish line together.

11:57No single individual on the team should think of themselves as being successful until the whole team's successful, which is exactly what you're looking for from a team. So I'm a firm believer that with the content that I put out is you show your best, you give your best, and it incites and encourages people to follow through. There's 10 shifts that you outline in your book, and I've made it a big goal, and y 'all can testify. I do not do book tours. I do not have people come on just talking about their book. I have people come on for things that have actually implemented and I'm taking part of so of the 10 Can we talk about two two shifts that somebody can make today for their team size of two or 222 or 2022?

12:36What are the two things that right now we're listening? We're watching we say keith This is going to be a game changer because then people want to go for the rest of the eight I'll try to give you i'll give you three in the same period of time Okay, okay So the first one is moving from conflict avoidance to candor The average team, if you ask them the question, can we challenge each other in the room when it's risky to do so? The numbers are as low as one on a scale of zero to five. And typically they're in the low twos. Yesterday I was coaching a team where the score was 1.3. I said, okay, we recognize on a scale of zero to five, we do not challenge each other.

13:15We don't have the courage to debate each other in the room. that comes with a mindset that says, well, if I challenge my peer, I'm throwing them under the bus. Or if I challenge my boss, that's a career limiting move. Those are the mindsets that guide that. But I don't care about mindsets. I know that sounds crazy. And most people come on here will probably talk about mindsets. I don't believe that you think your way to a new way of acting. I think you act your way to a new way of thinking. So I'm going to give you a couple of simple practices. There's a thing called - Can we say that again, but slower?

13:45Just say that. I mean, it deserves, I mean, please tell me this has been a pulled quote on Pinterest or Instagram, right? It has to be. I'm sure it's a t-shirt somewhere that says Keith Farazi, whatever. Yes. But you don't think your way to a new way of acting. You act your way to a new way of thinking. It's what we who are behavioral scientists think about when we say, it's not about trying to change a person's mindset. That's a pretty tough job to do. I just want to give them a new practice. And if they do a new practice, they'll be like, oh, wow, that was easy. I like that. That was beneficial.

14:16I'll do the practice again. You start doing practices, you change your mindset. That's right. So that's it. I'll give you a practice. It's called, I'll give you a couple of them. A candor break. In the middle of a meeting, stop the meeting and say, you know what? I'm not sure we're having as rich a dialogue as we feel we should. I'd like to do a candor break. In groups of two, talk and come back in two minutes with the answer to the following question. What's not being said in this room that we absolutely need to be saying? And I don't care what the topic is. You're falling behind in - Hold on, hold on.

14:50But now let's go back to a story. Whenever you've coached, because this is what you do, and then you introduce the idea of a candor break. Have you ever been in the process where somebody took a candor break and then people come back and say, oh, this is the thing that we need to be said? All the time. Yeah. So we just did yesterday. Give me a juicy one. Yeah. I mean, look, yesterday I had 50 people in a virtual room. Okay. Which feels unwieldy, but it doesn't need to be because what I said to this group is, this is a Fortune 20 company. Okay. One of the largest companies in the world. We all know the brand.

15:18And I said to the group, you know, what's not we're talking about transforming the company over the next five years. It's been flat in its growth. What's not being said that should be said. Right. And they went into breakout sessions and a couple of things. First of all, people were they came back and they said, we've been scared of rocking the boat because it's so big. were afraid of breaking something. And so it was interesting. There was not psychological safety to take big, bold risks, and that wasn't being encouraged. There were people that had very specific initiatives. We've launched an entire division that has not been successful.

15:57It's not being well run. We should shut that division down. It was a multibillion dollar division. And this group of the top 50 leaders of the company, what will come from this session is massively breakthrough in terms of lining up those answers. and some of them need further discussion. They weren't just answers by themselves. We ended up scheduling subsequent discussions just around some of those topics, right? So this happens in every business where there's pent up insight, wisdom, and opportunity that doesn't get brought out. That's a simple one called a candor break. I'll give you another one.

16:29I don't know if in your business, if you have a critical initiative that's important for this year, I say most businesses have five big rocks they're working on at any given time. what's a big rock that you have i want you to have the person leading that initiative stand in front of the team and say i call it stress testing they stand in front of the team and they say i would like you to help me be successful by stress testing where i am on this initiative not doing a report out where everybody listens and then politely doesn't say anything i want you to beat me up and stress test where i am because i want you to not let me fail that's the kind of camaraderie that I want to have among a team.

17:09And so stress testing is when a person stands up and says, here's what I've achieved. Here's where I'm struggling. Always make the person report where they're struggling. And here's what I'm going to do in the next quarter. And everyone's heard that and they know they're going to stress test it. So they're taking notes. And then everybody goes into breakout rooms of two or just turns to the person next to them. And they write down in a Google Doc or somewhere, here's what you're missing. Here's a risk you're not seeing. Here's an idea or an innovation that you might consider. And here's where I'd be happy to help.

17:41Now, that simple act of sending everybody in the room to small discussion groups to critique the thing that was just shared, you've just turned the kind of culture you dream to into an assignment. You want a challenge culture. Of course you do. You want a supportive culture. Of course you do. You want a curious culture. Of course you do. You just turned all of that into an assignment and people will step up. People say the culture changes stuff. It's not. Just change the practices, you change the culture. So that simple stress testing is a big, big one for moving from conflict avoidance to candor.

18:16That's one of the three shifts. Move from conflict avoidance to candor. The next one is start to kill your meetings. Meetings has got to be one of the most debilitative, useless forms of collaboration that we use. The average meeting of 12 people have four people think they're hurt. And what you want is you want people to really be thoughtful. You talked about yourself as being a bit of an introvert. I believe I'm a learned extrovert. I would much prefer if I had a little bit of time to think about a question instead of just having to respond to it immediately. So if before a meeting you said to your team, here's a problem we're trying to solve.

18:59I want everybody to go into a Google doc and write, what do you think is the most important element of that problem? What do you think is the real problem we're trying to solve? What's your perspective on the problem we're trying to solve? And then what is a bold solution that you have for that problem? And everybody in your team writes that down. Now you look at that and holy cow, first of all, you may have an answer already embedded, but at a minimum, if everybody sees that in advance, you can dive right into fixing the problem, seeing everybody's point of view in the meeting when you have it.

19:32Normally, the meeting is the beginning of the collaboration. The meeting could be the end of the collaboration. The cycle time of getting your answer could be so short, you could do it all in a week. But if you started the conversation in the meeting, then there's the meeting after the meeting and the walk down the hallway and people lobbying behind each other. So let's have the meeting in advance in asynchronous collaboration. And then we get in the meeting, we land the plane. That's called meeting shifting. And that's another big shift. I listed as kill your meetings, but yeah, okay. Meeting shifting, that's a little nicer.

20:00Kill your meetings. They're usually useless until the very end of the collaboration. And then the third is moving from what I would call individual resilience to team resilience. The world of work's tough. People are frustrated. They're fatigued. There's fractured relationships. It can be tough being in this world of work today. What if the team really felt that they had each other's back? What if the team felt that they showed up with a group of people that cared about them, cared about lifting them up, cared about their energy, knew that their mother was struggling in an assisted living or that they had in the back of their head a spouse with a diagnosis that was troubling?

20:44that stuff often doesn't get shared among teams but there's a simple thing called an energy check a practice where every month the team goes around and says here's where my energy is and what's bringing it down and if you do that every month with with having established a social contract that says we will lift each other's energy up where the team is responsible for hearing that and writing down, call Jane next week when she gets her biopsy or whatever, right? That idea of moving from individual resilience where everything's on your shoulders to the team has each other's back. That was actually the name of one of my books, Who's Got Your Back?

21:24That's a powerful shift. So there's three shifts moving from conflict avoidance to candor, right? Meeting shifting, where you're actually moving from collaboration starting in meetings to moving to what I call 21st century collaboration. And then the third is moving from a individualized responsibility for your own energy and resilience to a team's responsibility to have each other's back. That's three of the ten. It's funny because you said it as three and I now hear it as three, but I wrote it as four and I thought Keith gave us a bonus. So I wrote down a candor break, stop the meetings, put people in groups of two, two minutes come back and say, what's not being said.

22:01Then I have a stress test. So the stress test is one of two, two different practices in the same chapter about candor. Dang, you are such a, you are a seasoned speaker, brother. You come in and you're like correcting me on my notes while you're just ripping off the top of your head. One of the things that I have highlighted was like practices change culture. That's right. And that's what this book does. This book is 32 practices that you can use with your team. And I want you to just consume this book like popcorn. Yeah. You don't have to go beginning to end. You just open up the chapter. By the way, every chapter has a diagnostic that you can ask your team a couple of questions anonymously to determine where you are in the candor spectrum, where you are in the relationship spectrum, where you are on how agile are you as a team.

22:48So there's 10 shifts. Each one has a diagnostic. Each one has a hero story. But most important, each one has a couple of practices. You could just start trying. So this is not part of my notes, but since you're here, can I be a little bit selfish? Yeah, please. So a lot of the book that I read, the podcast that I started consuming, I started implementing a lot of these shifts into our team meetings. And we've seen growth in some areas. But I would say that prior to the book, we've fostered a rather candorous culture. And I think that we stress test a lot. And I beg people to give me feedback. I'm like, please tell me where I'm wrong.

23:23And I would never be upset at somebody for telling me something that wouldn't work. I would be upset if you saw something and then you didn't tell me. That's where I would get upset. So how do we, and of course, there's always room to get better. So given these things, given that meeting shifting and individual resilience to team resilience, I feel like how do we up level? Like, how do we take this and say, okay, that's a great level. This is where the Olympians dwell. Yeah. First of all, I want to take you back to what you were saying you've done well, which is getting your team to be willing to challenge you.