2063 – Building a Peer Group for a Strong Network with Vistage’s Bob Carrothers

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1:05With us right now, it's Bob Carruthers. Bob, you are what's known as a master chair in Vistage worldwide, which a lot of folks are quite familiar with. But you have been involved with Vistage since 1996. So you've seen some stuff. And for that time, you've been based in the Denver area. Bob, it's great to have you. It's great to be here, Josh. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. Well, listen, I would love to have you maybe share a little bit about what you do as a Vistage Master Chair today. And we'll just do some table setting. Maybe if you want to explain who and what Vistage is. For those who don't know, that'd be great, too.

1:49Okay, great. Thank you. Yeah, I'm a Vistage Master Chair, which means I've met certain criteria within Vistage as to number of members, retention rate, things like that. And the quality of my chairing is basically what it gets down to. I've been doing this for 28 years, like you said. So I've seen a lot of businesses come through it. Vistage is an international organization that puts top leaders into peer groups so that they can use each other's experience and knowledge to help them navigate the waters of being a CEO. or a key exec. We bring in outside speakers. I do individual coaching. And it's all about growing the companies and helping them reach their goals faster.

2:47And we, in a national average, I think we grow companies 2.2 times faster than other companies. Wow. If we were to drill down on that, what do you think are the main contributors? What does a peer group provide that would enable some of that faster growth? And kind of asked in a different way, without the peer group, what are these leaders doing that are keeping them from that growth potential that they might be able to have? Well, they're definitely not in trouble. They are successful CEOs in all types of industries within a group that have all kinds of experiences and knowledge. so one of the members can take a topic to the group say I'm thinking about doing this bonus plan for my people and I'm just wondering about your experience within doing that then the rest of the group will ask them a lot of questions and they will go around and share their experiences it could be i did that once um and it it cost me three hundred thousand dollars without a lot of uh thankfulness in the people you know you didn't feel like i it was enough um or it could be i've done it and it this is how it worked this is how i'd roll it out, you know, that kind of thing.

4:28So it gives them a whole bunch of information to use in making their decision on what to do. So what that really helps is they make better decisions and get better results and become much better leaders. and i'm certain that you've seen now with your longevity in uh um in vistage um vistage is probably a different type of organization today than it was 20 some years ago yeah tell me about the evolution uh that you've seen well 20 some years ago i think worldwide we probably had 500 chairs doing what I do. And we're in, I think, probably six or eight countries. Now we're in last count that I know of 35 countries, we have over 45 ,000 members.

5:25So it's a concept that works. And it works worldwide. You know, it's the same in Mexico as it is in Germany, that business owners grow and learn more from other business owners or professional CEOs than they do by themselves. You know, it's like 15 brains are better than one, basically. Yeah. I mean, it's quite similar. How is a, by the way, how is a Vistage group, how is it going to be different and similar to having a board? We call call Vistage Groups boards without any consequences. You know, it's it's kind of like having a board, except, you know, they don't hold you. They hold you accountable, but there's no chance of getting fired.

6:21There's no monetary costs or whatever. So they can roll things out to their board, which is the Vistage Board, and then test it out and see if they're right. If they're about to make a presentation to their board, they can go through what they're talking about and maybe just make it a better presentation. Yeah. So, Bob, you know, in terms of like in your region, you know, how does, you know, if you're the chair of a Vistage board, and obviously you've been a very successful one, have a long track record in history. If someone, just out of curiosity, if someone, let's say, wanted to start a Vistage group in their area, what would you recommend to them today to attract really great members?

7:16Well, it takes a lot of work to start a Vistage group because it's a lot of asking for referrals. It's a lot of cold calls, unfortunately. it's it just takes some work and just a lot of effort but once you get a group going then the rewards are so much much uh they're just great so you know once you get over the hump of starting one it's it's really really good career yeah as a uh as a chairperson what what what's what responsibilities do you have um well i lead the groups i keep the groups full and i do coaching and i also you know design the meetings run the meetings work with vistage corporate or the headquarters to do things they'd like have done and that's kind of what I do.

8:22It's a great job because in coaching, I'm led into their lives at a deeper level, probably than anyone else in their world. Because I'm not judgmental. I sit and I listen and let them formulate thoughts. I ask questions and it helps them make better decisions also. Mm-hmm. Yeah. What are some of the things that you see folks, leaders, that you get to work with? Are there some common stressors that you hear? Say, especially like over the past year? Oh, yes. Yeah, absolutely. A big one now is attracting people. Great employees are getting more and more scarce. the population the size of the workforce in denver i think we have three percent unemployment so to find good people is tough um another one is um what do i see here um

9:36well a lot of them are personal you know it's not just business it could be i've got one going through a divorce right now i've got another one that's having trouble uh with a son you know it's so we talk about those things and the groups talk about those things too. If a person isn't complete on their whole world, how can they be a good leader if their mind's on something else? So we try to achieve that balance that helps them take care of all the things in their life. All right. So for folks listening to us, and they happen to be either in the Denver area, Bob, or beyond, you know, how might they know if Vistage would be a good option for them?

10:34Well, I would suggest they just reach out to Vistage at Vistage.com. There's a place where you can, you know, naturally fill in that you're interested in learning more um that that person at vistage will line them up with a chair um and then they can meet with a chair and learn all they need to know and they'll know probably if it's a fit for them or not awesome it's not all right it's a selection process yeah bob carruthers again Vistage Master Chair, based in Denver, Colorado. Of course, Vistage's website is vistage.com, which you might imagine. But you can also just Google Vistage. Vistage has been around for quite a while.

11:26Do you know if Vistage offers resources for those, even if, I don't know, just someone's listening and whether it's content? I think Vistage has a podcast, maybe. Do you know of resources that they make generally available? Yeah, we do webinars with great speakers that'll do a presentation. They can join those. Reach out to me or reach out to just Vistage in general and say you want to attend. We do them. I think we've got one on the 27th of this month of September. i don't know when this this will air but we generally do them at the end of the month and then we do have the podcast um you know we've got all kinds of written things we have a research department that puts out reports um we got it's just go to vistas.com you won't have terrible finding yeah sounds great sounds great Well, Bob Carruthers, again, Vistage Master Chair, Vistage.com.

12:41Bob, it's been a good conversation. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Bye-bye.

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