- PNC is proud to support "Business Forward," where community leaders discuss the issues confronting business in Central Illinois.

(slow dramatic music) (slow dramatic music) (slow dramatic music ends) - Welcome to "Business Forward."

I'm your host, Matt George.

Joining me tonight, good friend of mine, Eric Potter, founder and lead consultant for his company, Lead From Center, welcome.

- Yes, it's good to be here, thanks for having me on.

- I'm glad, you know, I always like knowing where you're from.

I always like to know about your family, and I happen to know your family, but I don't know whether you grew up around here or not.

- No, I'm from the State of Iowa, I should say the Great State of Iowa.

- [Matt] The great state, it is a good state.

- More correct, so Sioux City, Iowa, grew up, and I grew up in family of five.

I have a, I was born with another, I have a twin brother.

He lives in Florida, he's a teacher down there, and yeah, so grew up in Iowa, went to University of Northern Iowa, and then found my way to Peoria, Illinois in 2004.

Been here ever since, and it's been, yeah, been great.

- Northern Iowa, that was Kurt Warner's school, right?

- Yes, Kurt Warner, yep, that's true.

So I ran track there and my wife ran track in her college, and that's how we met at Kansas Relays back in April of '01.

so.

- Well, that's good to know, you've got great kids.

- Yeah, three kids, and they're flourishing at school, and just enjoying it, yeah.

- Yeah, that's awesome.

- Right now, I live in a gym, 'cause of basketball season for all the kids.

- I can feel you on that one, and then, volleyball comes, it doesn't stop, so.

I know.

- All right.

So let's talk business.

You know, I wanted to have you on, because I like going into 2023, I went into this mindset of businesses, small business owners, but really all businesses are really re-looking at their business as they move forward.

There's a lot of strategy going on right now.

A lot of rethinking of strategic plans, you know, back in the day it used to be, let's put together a three to five year strategic plan, now they're looking at one year, two years, not much further than three, four, all that's going on with business.

You're talking about turnover, and you're talking about onboarding, and the lack of employees, and you're seeing this in your business, but before we go into that piece, I want to talk to you about you.

You're also a pastor, is that correct?

- Yes, correct, yeah.

- Okay, let's talk about that, 'cause I like this.

I like the leadership tie in to what you do.

- Yeah, it does.

So began in youth ministry, did that for 17 years, and loved it, high school ministry was my jam, and then about 5 1/2 years ago, I was leaving youth ministry to take on a lead pastor role at Metamora Mennonite Church.

And I went from being with, leading people who are all younger than me to people who are all, you know, lots of gray hair.

- [Matt] All over, all over.

- Well, yeah, but it's an old, it's kind of an aging church.

So everyone was older than me then, so leadership had to change and just, I've really enjoyed what I've learned over the past 5 1/2 years doing that.

- Yeah, I mean think, think about that switch.

I mean, because as a, as you're going around, you're with all these younger kids, right?

You almost become an idol, just like a good coach, so to be.

- Sure.

- I mean, you sit there, "Oh, there he is, there he is."

- They look up to you, yeah.

- They look up to you.

- All that.

- They, you know, so you have to look at everything that you do, manners, morals, and all those things, they're learning from you, and then you switch to a different demographic, which is another huge part of leadership.

- Yeah, that change, that shift.

- Yeah, where I went from authority, really, to everyone around me is further in the spiritual journey, if you will, and why am I teaching them?

I should sit down and learn from, learn from the sages.

- But don't you think though that you also learn, and they learn, and it's a combined thing.

- Yeah, it's reciprocal.

- Yeah, I agree.

- It's both ways, sure.

- So the name Lead From Center, what does that mean?

- Yeah, Lead From Center.

Well, let me start with just a quote from an Irish painter, Francis Bacon, he says, "It's a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everyone else and still unknown to himself."

- All right, you got to read that again, so I get it.

- "It's a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everyone else and still unknown to himself."

Okay?

- That's strong.

- Yeah, so Lead From Center, this started about 14, 15 months ago, so fairly new small business consulting, and Lead From Center really takes a look at leadership, personal development, growth, transformation is what we're after.

Have you ever followed a great leader in your life?

You know, be it in, you know, childhood, could be a teammate, coach, a teammate that you had, or a coach that you had, or maybe it's a college professor, someone that just, maybe it's a political figure that you're just, I follow this person because they're a great leader.

So we all had those experience, but we also have experiences where, maybe we're underneath a leader, and you might assume that the day they taught leadership in school, they might have been sick that day.

(both laughing) All right.

- Okay.

- You know?

- Yeah, I know what you're saying.

- So we've fallen under leaders that we maybe, you know, either don't respect, or don't trust, or just don't understand.

Right?

And a lot of times those leaders who maybe need to grow in their development, their leadership skills, it really kind of comes down to self-awareness, okay?

When there's leaders around us that have this lack of self-awareness of who they are, then that can affect how they lead, and that affects their culture, that affects every relationship they have, whether be it in the workplace or at home, so yeah.

- That's interesting.

- So self-awareness is what we really are coaching, and consulting on so.

- Yeah, I mean if you think about it, that's strong, because I think every, you can be given a title, but it doesn't mean you lead, but you also get into the mode sometimes of putting out fires, and things like that, and when you're a leader, people's eyes are on you at all times.

You know, back at Children's Home, I always remember that I was one day walking by, and I was texting, this was a long time ago, and someone said they'd said hi to me, but I wasn't paying attention, and I never brought my phone back out after they told me that again in the hallway, because I realized everyone's eyes were on me.

They wanted me to say hi, they wanted me to smile, they wanted me to really give 'em the look that everything's okay, it's that self-awareness.

- Yes, for sure.

- And think about how many people don't do that.

- Yeah, well it's a journey.

It's a journey towards self-awareness.

I mean, it's not something we're born with, we need to kind of discover it.

- Yeah, and so I had somebody that, somebody that was recently somewhat out of school, and I said, you know what?

I think you need to go take this class, and so put 'em in in your class, and he came back after the first week, 'cause it's multiple days.

He came back after the first week, and was glowing.

I mean, he was just sitting there going, it was like, you know, when you go to a conference sometimes and you come back, and you're like, I don't even know how to explain how I feel to my wife, or to whoever, and he had that.

And then the next week came back again, and after that session we kind of had a little mentoring session, and he pulled out his book, and he started talking to me about these, and he started talking about things that he hadn't talked about before, and I thought that right there is why I needed to call you to get you on because I wanted you to know that impact that you have on just that one person.

I used to hate when people would say that, they'd say, if you could just help one person, but really the impact that you feel, or I felt that day kind of gave me chills, and I just wanted to give you credit for it.

- Cool, well, thank you.

- Yeah, that's pretty cool.

- Yeah.

- So when you think of any business, culture's everything, isn't it?

- Yes, amen.

- I mean, talk about that.

- Yeah, culture, well, you know, you alluded to it maybe earlier, but, you know, employment these days, and retention, and living or working in a place where you wanna show up to work every day, and there's joy when you are there, and there's even joy when you go home, right?

And culture is everything, right?

And so how, how can we, so at Lead From Center, we're trying to help teams, organizations, groups of people who are, you know, in the trenches together to understand, A, themselves, and then, B, the team that they work with, right?

And we use this tool of the Enneagram as one of the primary tools that we use to coach towards self-awareness, which then leads to social awareness, which affects culture, so.

- And what is the Enneagram?

- Yeah, the Enneagram.

- I think a lot of people know it, but I think they hear so many different things.

So why don't you explain about that.

- Yeah, so Enneagram is a personality typing tool.

Ennea is Greek for nine and then gram is point.

So it's a nine point- - I didn't know that.

- Yeah, it's a nine point interconnected personality mapping tool.

You've probably heard of Myers-Briggs, DISC assessment, StrengthsFinder, all fine tools, great.

I think what those tools give you, or give someone, is knowledge, they give self knowledge.

You're an in INTJ, or whatever those things are, or here's your top five strengths, that's great, that's knowledge based.

With the Enneagram, this personality typing tool, it's not as static, it's more dynamic and fluid.

There's nine types, so one through nine, and there's different titles for all those things, and that's like a starting place, a location, a place that you primarily operate from, okay?

But then within the Enneagram, there's an invitation.

There's an invitation, it's dynamic towards your growth and transformation that some of those other tools don't necessarily provide, So.

- Like what?

Okay, well part of the Enneagram, there's nine types, and it's further divided into three sub, three subgroups, head, heart, gut.

Okay, head, heart, and gut.

- Head, heart, and gut.

- So there's three types that are head types, there's three that are heart types, and there's three that are gut or body types.

So we have available to us these three centers of intelligence.

It makes sense that we have a center of intelligence in our brain, that's intelligence, that's what we think about things, but we have an emotional intelligence as well, and that's our heart, that's our heart space.

And then we have a body intelligence, our body is constantly trying to get our attention, and this is our instinctual intelligence.

And so, how do we, as we show up in the world, as we show up at work, at home, in our marriage, whatever it may be, how do we access all ways of knowing, not just leading from one place.

- Leading from the heart.

- But yeah.

Leading from the heart, or leading from the body, or leading from the mind, but how do we become harmonized and integrated, right?

So we do these workshops, and one-to-one type of specific coaching, helping people to lead, live, parent from center, coach from the center, right?

How do you access all ways of knowing, and not just rely on one.

- You know you just said something I wasn't thinking of, because this is a business show, so I was just thinking of from a business standpoint, but this could help with family too.

- Oh, yeah, yeah.

- Or groups.

- Yep.

- I mean, you know, man, my mind's going on this because I was, you know, when I was reading about Enneagram, I was thinking to myself, a lot of times in non-profit, I'd lead with my heart, I thought, and then I'd sit there, and I'd go, well, I'd make a lot of gut decisions, you know you have to, and then you process, and think about a lot of things too.

- Yeah, later, eventually.

- And it's crazy, because I really never put the three together.

You know I always think of that I was a servant leader, that servant leadership piece.

- Sure.

- And so this kind of, I learned something in studying, and being able to talk to you, so let me ask you this.

I just use an example of someone coming in as an individual, but I wasn't thinking this either.

You mentioned you could bring in, let's say you have a team of eight, you could really bring in the team, and have that just be a coachable moment for your team, and take that stress off the leader as you're sitting here, because you could really be open to being, I can't think of the word right now, but- - Facilitate.

- Yeah.

And I think that would be something you'd do too, right?

- Yes, absolutely, yeah.

So in working with teams, that's actually, so we do the workshops, that's like individuals coming in from all different kinds of organizations and places.

That's fine, it's good, but when we get to a team, and we talk about the dynamics of that team, and the culture of that team, and how each of the nine types handles conflict, how each of the nine types handles change management, right?

There's change in an organization will, these Type Twos might react this way, and these Type Fours might do it this way.

So, and then conflict resolution, right?

Or conflicts, I mean type and conflict.

And then their leadership strengths, their leadership challenges, their type on teams, like if they're a Type Four, what does that mean on a team versus if they're a Type Seven, what might that mean, so yeah.

It's just very fascinating on how to, you know, I'm working with a team right now, there's 10 people on the team, and there's only nine types, right?

The only type they're missing is Seven.

Okay, and this is, and short of getting into what those are, but it's a very well balanced team.

So when this team has a decision to make, just by their home space of head, heart, gut, they're accessing, because of, if they're all making this decision together, it can come from a more integrated place.

- Yeah, so I was just gonna use another example.

So a team that's dysfunctional could all be the same number.

- Yes, absolutely.

- So you're talking about diversity in mental and body makeup changes the dynamic of the team.

- Yes, for sure.

- Okay, so if I was, can I use this?

I've heard of this, I know somebody that does this, but I don't know if it's the Enneagram or not, but they use this to actually hire for certain positions.

Is that- - Yeah, yeah.

So the growing popularity of the Enneagram, I would say over the past 10, 15 years, it's had a rise in the western world, okay?

Both in marketplace, but also in faith-based organizations as well, and so there's a lot of stories of HR departments using the Enneagram as one of their assessment tools in order to place and put people in the right seats on the bus, if you will.

And so, yeah, yeah.

It's been a fascinating- - Interesting.

- Explosion of the Enneagram.

- Yeah, and I guess my mind's all over the board right now, 'cause I mean I'm thinking of different types of conflict, you know you talked about that as being, if you had conflict in the workplace, and your team comes in, you could actually identify and say, well, wait a minute, now, if I'm a Four, and I understand why I don't get along with an Eight, I can actually, if I was humble, I guess.

- Sure.

- I could actually sit there, and go, you know what, I do appreciate your point of view.

Now I know where it's coming from, you're not out to sabotage me, that's just really how you think, is that.

- Sure, yeah, absolutely.

So with the Enneagram, it's also been, it's a tool of self-awareness, but also it could be used as a tool of empathy first towards yourself and then towards others, right?

So understanding, okay, so this is why I, these are my motivations, these are my desires.

This is how I show up in the world, and, you know, the good and the bad of that, right?

So, but then if we can have empathy towards ourselves, then we can also then see, okay, now these other perspectives that are on the team, and we can understand and have empathy towards their points of view, you know, it brings humility within the team, so.

- Yeah, you sometimes hear the term harmonious work culture, what does that even mean?

- Yeah, that just mean everybody gets along?

I mean, it's gotta be deeper than that.

- Yeah, I would say it probably goes deeper than that.

Harmonious, if we're looking at the head, heart, gut space.

- [Matt] Yeah, that's what I was.

So you can have, let's just say, you know, in working with a non-profit, a faith based non-profit, they're a born team, right?

If they're all heart folks, well, what does that mean?

Then they're not accessing another way of knowing with their brain or their gut, and so, the heart folks might be slow to respond, but the gut folks, they're instinctual, right?

And they can actually, there's more of a, hey, let's get this done, and let's get out of our feelings.

Okay, all right, and then actually, let's think about this logically, and then let's actually act on it as well.

So they can bring a greater harmony, right?

- So what would you, if someone said, Eric, I'm just mentally trying to get into that good head space every day at work, I'm just trying to stay positive, what would you say to them?

What needs to be done, I guess?

- Yeah.

- Besides taking your course.

- Besides taking the course, right.

Well, my first question would be, what is their starting location, right?

So which type are they?

And that would dictate my response to that person, how do you, if you're 8-9-1, that's a gut space, or 2-3-4, that's heart space, and then we wanna go to the head.

Well, that depends on where your starting location is in terms of your personality type.

So I could give you six answers right now, but I don't think we have time for that.

So, yeah.

- All right, so let me ask you this, you've done this and administered this Enneagram many, many times.

Are you good enough now to almost, if you know someone, you can guess what numbers they are?

- Yeah, well, there's some indicators, there's some language that's- - Let's play a game.

- There's body movements, and so on, and so forth, yeah.

- [Matt] What do think I am?

- Okay, do you know your home type?

- No, but I want to hear it, then I want the explanation of what the numbers are.

I'm gonna put you on the spot.

- Okay, knowing you, Matt, I think that, and again, it's not really my role to type people.

- I'm not holding it to you.

- I know.

- I just wanna play a fun game.

- It's more of a self discovery kind of tool 'cause this tool is powerful, and it's effective.

It can be easily used as a tool of motivation, but in the wrong hands, it can be used as a tool of manipulation.

- Wow.

- Okay.

- [Matt] That was one of my questions.

- Yeah, so to use it in a positive, to use it in an invitation to growth for people, rather than beat them over the head, because they're demonstrating in the unhealthy side of a certain type, right?

And using that to hold that against them.

So, but yeah.

- I was thinking that from an HR standpoint, you know, I could beat you up over it too, right?

- Yep, absolutely, but we wanna stay motivational, and not manipulate people.

- That's right.

All right, we'll go back, don't dodge my question.

So what personality am I?

- I tried to, yeah.

- Well, I would say, you know, and some are really close to each other, and you come off as a, maybe a Home Type Five.

That's the intellectual.

Okay, the wisdom person, okay.

The person who likes to gather all the facts before making an informed, logical decision.

So Type Five is the wisdom person.

Nine is a peacemaker, okay.

You seem to be pretty even keel.

You have the ability to see different points of view on a topic, okay?

And then kind of understand, well this is why this person might think this, and so you can hold all the different viewpoints in intention.

- Okay, so I'm gonna have Laura, my wife, watch this, and I'm even keeled, right (laughs)?

- [Eric] Yeah, okay, yeah.

From what I know of you, yes.

- No, so.

- But thank you for saying that, because you know, Matt, who we show up, how we show up in the workplace, and how we show up at home can be starkly different.

- Yes.

- Right?

- Yes.

- Okay?

And in different environments, different cultures, or different, yeah, different environments, different teams, so on and so forth.

So, and who you are on vacation is probably different than who you are when you're, you know, doing your thing.

- Yeah, isn't that crazy?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

But we do have a home type that we start from, so yeah.

- Okay.

- Well, I've taken it somewhere.

I need to find those numbers, that's funny.

So Nine or Five is my guess.

- Nine or Five, all right.

When you have people come through, businesses come through, like, and then they just say, we just have low morale right now.

How do you combat that, like how do you start?

Do you take them just through the process that we just spoke about, or?

- Yeah.

Do you get the leader, the mindset of the leader first, and it starts with that?

Or is it just the team as a whole?

- Yeah, well, I think the first question is, like, so that if a leader approaches us, of a team and says, "Hey, we'd like to do something," how interested in change are you personally?

- [Matt] 'Cause it starts with the leader, right?

- Yes, with the leader, 'cause if there's not a willingness to dive into some growth and transformation and some development for first, the leader, then I doubt that culture will follow.

Okay.

So it's really just paying attention to the leader, we would have one-on-one meetings with them, do an assessment with them, and then take them through type-specific coaching, which is a five, six, seven session, you know, typing kind of thing, so first really kind of understand the leader, and is it possible for a culture to change if the leader is maybe in need of some development?

- Do you ever think sometimes now that you're in this business, 'cause you've always been a leader just in different aspects of your life, when you look at other businesses, and you go, oh, their customer service stinks or this stinks, you know, do you now think of it as lack of leadership?

- Yeah, there can be lots of different factors, but leadership is, 'cause whoever's leading, if there's a lack of awareness of who that person is, then that limits, there's a ceiling on social awareness, and then how that affects the culture, so yeah.

- It's funny I ask you that because I was, I've been working with one of the world-renowned branding coaches, and you know, just talking brand.

Every Saturday, I have a two hour session with him, 'cause I'm really trying to just get better in branding and marketing, and it hit me a couple weeks ago where I actually had this aha moment.

Now, everywhere I walk into, I look at their brand, and I never looked at it that way.

- You never noticed it before.

- I've noticed.

like, cool marketing, or cool logos, and things like that, but the whole overall, now that I understand what branding is fully, I look at it a different way.

So I was just thinking from a leadership standpoint, 'cause you do wonder if, like, if a team has good players in baseball, and they're in last place, is it leadership?

- Yeah.

- You know, is it coaching, or is it general managers?

Is it, you know, all these things.

Well, I'll tell you, this is a very, very fun topic, and I didn't get to half of what I wanted to talk about, but I like the real life examples, and I just wanted you to know, from that person coming in, and saying that, it meant a lot to me too, 'cause I pushed him to you.

And anyway, I love it.

So Eric Potter, keep on going man.

This is awesome.

I appreciate you have being on this show.

- [Matt] Yeah, appreciate it, and come back in 2023.

- Oh, I will, for sure.

- I'm Matt George, and this is another episode of "Business Forward."

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music ends) - Thank you for tuning into "Business Forward," brought to you by PNC.