Growing nonprofits and conscious capitalist organizations with Robbie Tombosky

Dane Groeneveld: Welcome to the Future of Teamwork podcast. My name's Dane inaudible and joining me today, I've got Robbie Tombosky. Welcome, Robbie.

Robbie Tombosky: Thank you, Dane. It's a pleasure to join you.

Dane Groeneveld: We've been doing some pretty fun work today. We were just talking about it before and over the last few weeks around a few different projects that focus on teaming up, partnership in the community with a particular bent on wellness for our youth. But maybe you could kick off telling me a little bit more about yourself and how we've come to get to know each other recently.

Robbie Tombosky: Yeah, absolutely. I've had a fantastic opportunity to have a very diverse career starting out very much in the arena where wealth and impact meet each other. I really started out in Citi Group and Merrill Lynch, in that setting. Our focus was primarily how do we take people who have a lot of money and resources and they want to leave a legacy and how do we connect them with projects, opportunities, endowments, trusts, and things that they could fund over time to really make that difference in the world. Goodness, that was 28 years ago and the world's come a long way since then.

Dane Groeneveld: Wow!

Robbie Tombosky: Yeah, I know. Somewhere along the way, about a decade into it, I realized that I really wanted to be very focused on helping the nonprofits grow and attract the kind of resources and the kind of board leadership that they would have to impact. Did that for a while and then I had this really eye- opening event that happened around the horrible instance around Katrina. Something happened that caught my eye and I've changed the way that I do work and the way we have impact projects ever since. That was simply in the aftermath, we found that the entity that had the most impact immediately after Katrina, wasn't a governmental agency, it wasn't a nonprofit. You might be surprised to hear this, but it was actually Walmart because Walmart had-

Dane Groeneveld: Wow.

Robbie Tombosky: On the ground, they had an army of people, they had distribution, they had the opportunity to have inventory. They understood the local needs and they had a supply chain that was able to make that difference. And then they brought tremendous value and resources. And to me, that was an eye opener, that organizations that are corporate in nature that have a diverse set of goals that they're trying to accomplish can actually do tremendous good in the marketplace. And so for the last number of years, I've been focusing on trying to help corporations, which I would consider our conscious capitalistic organizations that aren't giving up profit, that are making more profit. But when they're looking at their stakeholders around the table, they're not just looking at the stakeholders being potentially investors or potentially being the market as a whole, but there's the environment, their grandchildren and how they're bettering the lives of the world within which they serve. And so that's where we've met in around this ambassadors of compassion program, which is doing just that. Doing tremendous things to bring great value to our youth and to the leaders of the future.

Dane Groeneveld: Oh, that's really neat, Robbie. 28 years, I hadn't realized it been that long. That's really doing something to stick with it and to keep finding joy and passion and new learning through that sort of journey that you've been on. And particularly the Walmart story, that's fascinating.

Robbie Tombosky: Yeah.

Dane Groeneveld: We've come through obviously another big shock, not Katrina, but COVID, and that really changed the way that we team up in businesses, but also in the community. Whether it's impact projects or the way companies are reorganizing, re- engineering their business models. And there is a theme out there right now that bundling, partnering, playing the ecosystem is really the way to make positive progress, no matter where you are in sort of the continuum of private business or individual, or not for profit.

Robbie Tombosky: Yeah.

Dane Groeneveld: So that's a really good story you've shared. Thinking about the teams that you've been a part of, what does teamwork really mean to you? Where's a good experience of teamwork that's allowed you to go the extra mile, create more impact in one of your initiatives?

Robbie Tombosky: That's a great question. To me, teamwork has taken on different meaning throughout my career. And right now, the way I look at teamwork really begins first and foremost, with what I would call shared reality. We set the goals sometimes and we say," This is what we want to accomplish." And we share roles and responsibilities, and we have delineation of what it will take to succeed at the goal. When I sometimes enter and a team is not having their best result or their highest function, what I sometimes find is that they've never taken the time to actually come around a shared reality because we know that perspective is so unique to the individual. One of my favorite stories was written by a poet in the 18th century and his name evades me, but I'll tell you what it is later. And he tells a story of a Native American troop of wise men that are traveling through the Outback, so to speak. And they happen upon something that they don't know what it is and they have to quickly discern," What is this thing that we've come upon?" So they are in unique group because they're six wise men, but they're all blind. So they're blind wise men. So they don't know what they happened upon. And so the story goes that they encircle this thing and the person in front reaches out and he holds onto this... Well, it's kind of long and scaly and slithery. And he quickly realizes this must be a snake. And he screams," Everybody step back. It's a snake, it's a serpent. We're going to die." But the guy in the back reaches out and he's holding onto something that's leathery and is kind of knotty. And he goes," Wait, wait, wait. No, it's not a snake. It's not a snake. It's a rope. We're okay." And the guy on the side is pushing you against the side of it and he says," Hey, wait. No, this isn't a rope. This is like a wall. Whatever this is, it feels like a wall." On the other side, the guy's got his arms around this thing and he goes," No, it's a pillar. I can barely get my arms around the circumference. It's huge." And somebody in the front grabs and is holding onto a flappy long thing and it feels like maybe a Palm. He goes,"No, this is a Palm bush." And the other person in the front is holding onto a sharp pointy item that's protruding from the front. And he goes," No, no, it's something of a spear." Well, they all come together and they discuss, and then they recognize," Obviously, this is an elephant, right?" Because-

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Robbie Tombosky: But any one perspective certainly wouldn't have got them to that point. However, I once heard a speaker say something a little bit different, because that's a very famous story and lots of different iterations. And he said that challenges that if all the people around the elephant only have an elephant in their lexicon to compare it to, so they'll come to the conclusion, it's an elephant, but what if it wasn't even an elephant? What if it was a mystical creature that was part serpent and part rope and part wall, part spear and part trunk and part tree. How do they know it wasn't? Well, they never experienced that before. So I think in that experience, one of the most important parts about a team is not only perspective and shared reality and knowing what that is, but potentially also knowing there are things outside of our experience and we need to have the ability to understand that. So I would say one of the most unique learnings I had in that venue was a gentleman who had actually was one of the founders of Apple Music and he had many other successes in launching very innovative projects. So he had asked me to join this team and hired me as a consultant. And I would fly out to San Francisco once a week and actually the Bay Area. And we'd have these meetings and afterwards he would debrief for me and everybody around the table actually had so much experience in this area. And there was very little that I would add other than answering questions he had at the end before I would head back to the airport. And after a while I was just like," Jeff, I got to ask you, thank you so much. It's a great engagement. I love you. The team's really nice. Why do you have me here? I don't get it. What am I adding to this equation? I want to make sure I'm bringing value." And so he said," Well, it's really simple Robbie. I have you here because you offer perspicacity." And I said," Thank you."

Dane Groeneveld: That's a word.

Robbie Tombosky: And then I went to the restroom and I went on my phone and I Googled perspicacity because I didn't know what that meant. But basically what he said was one of the things that he had learned from Steve Jobs early on is if you have everybody around the table has a specific perspective, so then you can get to shared reality and that's really good for a team, but unfortunately the reality is going to be dictated by the people around the table. And sometimes when you're in the innovation space or the project management phase, or solving big world problems goal, then you have to have people around the table that don't look, sound, or have experiences like anybody else, because then you get to the point of perspicacity. You have a unique perspective at the table. And so whenever we're working on a project for our clients, we always look at who's around the table. We try to get shared reality so everyone's perspectives are invested in that, but even more so we make sure there's perspectives at the table that we may not have thought were valuable, because they're different than ours. And every single time, that adds to the teamwork because we can now say," Maybe that's not an elephant, maybe that's a magical creature. Let's be sure we know what we're dealing with here."

Dane Groeneveld: That's super cool. And I'm adding that word to my glossary here.

Robbie Tombosky: There you go.

Dane Groeneveld: I think... Perspicacity. It's a cool sounding word too. I love that viewpoint that you've got on teamwork, which is it's not just about what they output. It's kind of what they can imagine, what they can design for what they can hope for because realistically... And in some of our episodes, we get pretty caught up on the analogy with sports, but realistically teams achieve a lot, not just scoring goals and winning games and driving innovation. I think is an exciting theme, particularly at this time. We've come out of COVID, we've had this acceleration of change, whether it's social change or whether it's technological change. We're seeing a lot of really cool stuff come together and I think the ability for teams to now form in a way that brings all of those different perspectives and capacity for different perspectives is probably never been easier. So that's a really good call to action.

Robbie Tombosky: I appreciate that. Never easier, never more, never more important. Innovation isn't anymore for startups or for the tech world. We live in a world that's changing so rapidly that regardless what part of the economy you're in, there's a need to see things differently than we have in the past. And if we're not doing it for only our business model and for the ability to compete, we have this additional layer, which is a challenge for some companies, but I would see it as a tremendous opportunity, which is the marketplace now demands purpose. So if someone's going to buy your product, if someone's going to work at your company, if someone's going to invest in what you're doing, the question is, do you know your purpose? And are you innovating? So you're not just making carpet or opening restaurants, but you're doing more than that. That's a beginning springboard to where you go. So that collaboration and that shared reality and that innovation is, I think it's everywhere. It's more important than ever.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. And purpose, I think is changing too. We were at a conference recently, Dan Pink spoke to us for the day and he talked about purpose. Big P, little P, I thought it was really cool. He was basically suggesting that yes, there is the purpose of a company or a purpose of an organization, but individuals deserve their own purpose with a small P too, because we play different roles in teams. And we've also play roles outside of teams, whether it's in our community or in our family or wherever it might be. And this whole concept of," I want to attach myself to a company that has a great purpose to brands that I consume that have great purpose. And I want to be known in my community for sort of living out this kind of set of values and this idea of where we're trying to go." That is very important, particularly in a world, which has become so populated and unfortunately, so confusing, conflicted at times with just all of the different agendas that are running around right now on a global basis and the availability of technology, which kind of means that we're all swamped with lots of different pains and challenges on a daily basis. So where do you see... Thinking on that theme, where do you see the role of information, community, social media? Where do you see the role of teams in kind of trying to drive a different agenda there? We all seem to be running into the same brick wall, no matter what, no matter who you speak to right now. There's a lot of negativity and we're not really seeing the innovation or the hope that I think we should be experiencing in those community platforms.

Robbie Tombosky: Yeah. So I think part of it is coming back to Maslow's hierarchy of need, right? So human beings generally are very altruistic people. Human beings are also very narcissistic and not narcissistic in the clinical sense, but narcissistic in the sense that we have needs that need to be met. And it's very hard to get to an altruistic place if those needs aren't met. And the challenge is that I think we marginalize those needs, especially when we are one generation talking to a younger generation in certain ways and maybe belittling the need or the desire to identify and create identity through social media. Through my digital communities of purpose that I bring together around things that I care about. Being willing to pay a premium for a brand or an experience from a company that echoes my values and the things I care about most in this world. And so you have sort of like some old timers that are like," That's just narcissistic," right? That's not really going to make a difference. But the reality is that if you really get to delve into what's happening in that millennial and centennial marketplace, there is a very strong, underlying ethos, value proposition that says," I need to feel like I am a part of something." This individualness, this rugged self- made person thing that kind of built the previous generation is not in any way, what motivates where the world is headed. And if we don't embrace that, so then we are not learning and evolving and being able to grow into that. So what do I see? And the work we do is I see people who say," I want to collaborate with people that care about similar things that I care about. I want to address some big world problems. And even though I may be small, I can be a part of something really, really big by coming together with lots of other people. And if I can get my companies and brands that care about this involved. And if I can deal with the celebrities and the athletes that care about this as well, and we come together as a meaningful group of people who care deeply, then we can really start to change the world." We had a client who had a$ 2 billion foundation and they wanted to address one specific issue. And they wanted us to run some scenarios to see how could they affect that issue. And it was an issue that$ 2 billion just didn't touch. And money alone, isn't going to change our planet, save the environment. It's not going to feed the hungry and educate those that are uneducated. First, we have to win over hearts and minds. We have to create communities of people that really want to come together around those things. And that's just teams on steroids, right? So in a microcosm, when I'm leading a team and my entire world is multiple teams. If I'm the team leader, which oftentimes I'm blessed to be, my first goal is to make sure that the needs of the team are met and understanding what those needs are. So are those needs, identity? Of course, there's a financial aspect potentially, and there's a career and development aspect of that, but what are the other layers that need to be met? And I don't wait for them to ask me how to get those met. I show them how we are going to do that together. And once everybody understands how their individual needs are met, whether articulated or unarticulated, inarticulate it. Now I have the opportunity to get everybody around that same shared reality, not only for what we can accomplish, but really in feeling altruistic about what we're doing forward. I think that's true on the global macrocosm as well. I think that we have a generation ready to do everything they can, but they find their identity in each other. It's not a self- driven identity. They find their identity through coming together, through whether that's social media, whether that's going to be web three, however that's done. That's how we are able to create that collaboration.

Dane Groeneveld: I really like this concept of communities are really just teams on steroids.

Robbie Tombosky: Yeah.

Dane Groeneveld: That's a very positive way to frame it. And you touch rightly on millennials and centennials as people that... It's not that they follow the crowd, they place a lot of weight in the viewpoint of the crowd. Almost over and above the authority of a traditional figure, like a doctor or a professor, or whatever it might be. Naturally because they've grown up in a world where they've got all that information available. So harnessing those teams and I guess what we're saying is that people are able to exist in concurrent teams around different purposes.

Robbie Tombosky: Absolutely.

Dane Groeneveld: But harnessing them in a positive way could be really, really powerful in driving good change. What would you say? Sorry, you go, Robbie.

Robbie Tombosky: No, I was going to say, and in that is the value of influencers and athletes and celebrities, because now we have the digital community, now we need the amplifier. And what we find in our work with celebrities and athletes is that they also authentically have a need to be something beyond just the role they have in their celebrity dump or in their influence. And so they can take that spotlight that's shining on them and they choose to shine that on the cause, and that's sort of the trifecta. We have the corporates that are wanting to accomplish this, we have this amplifier of the spotlight, and then we can build a really robust community of individuals around that. And then we can start to change some big world problems. Go ahead, inaudible.

Dane Groeneveld: No, that's super cool. And I love threes, so the fact that you are bringing those individuals in to play a key role on the team is... That kind of goes back to your theme earlier on good team leadership and team leadership becomes fairly democratized, really. It's not just the CEO or the figurehead of any given community or team on steroids. There's now this opportunity to bring team members in from all sorts of corners of the community. So that's pretty cool. I think when you look at the role of these celebrities and you talked about where wealth meets impact, some of these wealthier families, families that have been very successful wealthier corporations that have got pretty healthy balance sheets to leverage through their foundations or through their for profit activities. It's a unique time in the sense that we bring them in to be in a project but they don't have to design the project for themselves. You can connect them with the new concept or the movement that is going to drive an outcome for them. We came across a group just recently called the Unconnected Young Lady called Mia Thompson, who we hope to have on as a guest in the future. And they're doing a lot of work around bringing internet connectivity to marginalized communities. Whether that's women in a town in Uganda or students in Indonesia, or senior citizens in a small Mexican town, just the power of technology in bringing those people into the world and giving them more opportunity to access services, but also to do good. Because let's be honest, if you've got that connectivity, you can be part of doing good. And I think that begins to fuel a lot of... It fuels a lot of fabric in teams when teams know that they're, they're doing good and when you've got these companies coming behind these initiatives to help bring internet or cellular service to these areas. That's pretty powerful. Where do you see right now, some of the bigger emerging themes particularly coming out of COVID when you are working on some of these impact projects? Are there key focuses that you think are going to drive more teamwork, but more opportunity going back to your earlier comment for people with diverse backgrounds to be around the table sharing their perspective? What do you see as the big areas of opportunity?

Robbie Tombosky: Yeah. America was founded on families and never before, has family been more central or important in where we go moving forward. So we find a lot of our projects that we are helping to incubate and to grow are really in one way or another focused around preserving and enhancing the family and the family unit. And it's the family, as you define it, right? But it's that ability and families are really nothing more than high functioning teams as well. You could have a... It's if you are...

Dane Groeneveld: Or low functioning teams.

Robbie Tombosky: In some cases which...

Dane Groeneveld: Right.

Robbie Tombosky: Which need help.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Robbie Tombosky: Right. Exactly. Exactly. And so again, it's where do you fit in that hierarchy? Where do you fit in that environment? How is your voice heard? How are you seen? All these things are the same. How do you grow? How do you support the others? What are the values of the loyalty that you have in your family and the trustworthiness? The same exact dynamic that I find that we have in teams as well. So I would say... A mutual friend of ours often quotes a study that says that the next generation that is growing up today will either become the most compassionate or the most brutal generation in history, depending on how they learn to process their pain. And so I find the projects that speak to me the most... And there's many ways that we do that, focus on families and primarily on families that can influence their neighborhoods, their children. I'll give you an example of a really cool project that I thought brought technology innovation together with a really unique world need. So there's a company called Pavegen and Pavegen created these really interesting tiles that when you step on them, they take kinetic energy and they turn it into actual energy that can do things like run water filtration systems and things of those nature. And so they teamed with a big company that is here in the US of fortune 500 and they created these playgrounds out in developing countries where the youth didn't have a lot of opportunity and family structures needed to help be strengthened as well. These are kids that had seen a lot of war. They had seen a lot of brutality and horrific things, war torn areas. And so what they did was they created these Pavegen playgrounds. What they did then was they took these kind of like Fitbit watches, but unique to this organization. And they gave these kids these watches and then they had coaches come because sport and play and the opportunity to volunteer and to coach kids is always a great way to be involved and to help grow. And these kids would play on these playgrounds and they would get exercise, it would be healthy for them. They would get coaching, they'd learn teamwork and coming together on the playground, which is such an important part of life. And also they would get credit for the amount of energy they created through their activity. And so when they ran and played in all these things, they were accrued. They got the sense of self- confidence and the sense of purpose with a big P because they knew their efforts were actually creating a clean water for their family's back home while they were playing and they helped the kids understand to what level their activity did that as well. The points then turned into dollars that they could use for necessities they had or things that they wanted. And on a 10 to one basis, they offered them scholarships into educational opportunities so that they weren't getting a handout for education. They were getting a hand up, they earned it.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Robbie Tombosky: And we just about two years ago, put the first Pavegen playground at The King Center in Atlanta. And there was currently a very large stadium looking to put it in and power the entire stadium on game day by people who are in the stadium. Walking around doing what they would do anyway. So it's that kind of innovation where you can't have a Pavegen and have one leader who is just this wonderful billionaire jump up and down on it all day long. It's not going to solve the problem. You need the kids, you need to integrate, you need to have the stadium, you need to have... And then all of that, which comes out. So I find now projects that we work on, they're very rarely one dimensional in the problems they solve. The same action, the same activity, the same dollar can do the work of five or six or$ 10 because we can, with the ingenuity of the people around the table can really start to solve some problems that almost in a cascading pebble effect. With the ripple that is able to continue to change the world.

Dane Groeneveld: I love the family element because I think it is a unit where you can start to make a change. And let's be honest, there are a lot of families that exist today where the youth coming out of that family have more opportunity to create wealth for that family or security or comfort than necessarily their parents because we're living a technological evolution, which allows them to come in and upscale very quickly where perhaps some of their parents or aunts, or uncles or grandparents that are supporting them don't have. So it's both great muscle memory for the kids to be able to participate in something that helps their family and other families in their network. But it could also be used to bring like you mentioned with the Pavegen concept, more kids up into education and career pathways. So there there's just a huge multiplier effect by starting at that level.

Robbie Tombosky: Yeah. And it just ha has so many opportunities. There's another, an example that I was going to share with you. We did a project in Minneapolis. And so we often work with NFL players. And the homegrown NFL players who come back and they do things to the kids and these NFL players on the Vikings wanted to do a sports clinic with their kids in the community, mentorship, leadership, what it means to be a person, what it means to live with integrity. But one of the players decided that he wanted to also try to create educational opportunities for the kids as well. So we've reached out to Microsoft and we didn't go through their corporate social responsibility unit, but there's a group in Microsoft called Leap. And Leap is directly under the engineering unit and they have a strong mandate to try to help educate people in coding and the ability to then learn how to get a job. And on Microsoft creates a lot of that for people who are either in the military, people who were staying home with a child maybe, and they were out of the workforce and to get retrained. So we called them up, they were really excited. They flew down and they brought people not from their corporate social responsibility team, but they brought people who were actually coders. Who were in this Leap department-

Dane Groeneveld: Wow.

Robbie Tombosky: From their technical department and the NFL players. And we did a whole week, long half a day was getting the kids on the field with the NFL players. And then the second half of the day was actually learning coding. And each kid got Microsoft, this Microsoft Surface and if they finished the week, they got to keep the Microsoft Surface. And-

Dane Groeneveld: That's pretty real.

Robbie Tombosky: Now listen to this, if they followed along and then they did additional educational opportunities on the Surface, then they got the opportunity to get a certificate and then to work in the local Microsoft store. And if they finished the internship at the Microsoft store, they got a scholarship that paid for them to go in to get further education and then eventually be able to work at Microsoft. And now that grew into a 13 city initiative and it's had tremendous impact. So again, Microsoft is engaging their employees who want to give back and their areas of expertise where they're really good. The NFL players want to also help these kids and condition them and get them excited about education. And these are all kids that come from disadvantaged backgrounds. And then we did a wraparound service with some local organizations so these kids also had a case worker that followed them that wasn't just about this. But if you're going home to a domestic abuse situation, God forbid, or you're going to other things, how do we help you there? So those are the kind of projects that we're very blessed to work on.

Dane Groeneveld: I've got to say, the tech pathways, we both just touched on it.

Robbie Tombosky: Yeah.

Dane Groeneveld: There's a lower barrier to entry there too. And the fact that Microsoft, as you said, they've been able to phase it through the certificate and then working in the store. That's something that it takes a big company to be able to do, but we're not far away from seeing groups of companies being able to deliver a similar outcome, particularly as they partner with new technologies. There is a technology that we're working with right now, which is a cloud based peer to peer coding school that starts with a game on your cell phone. So it's literally just one of those coding games. And if you can go through the full hour and a half, you're probably that one in 10 young person that may be able to become a full stack developer.

Robbie Tombosky: Wow.

Dane Groeneveld: Which is really interesting because we're now at no cost putting games out in the community that allow children to develop some muscle memory or young people because they may be transition age youth, 18 to 24.

Robbie Tombosky: Sure.

Dane Groeneveld: But something that's lightweight, if you can add in the incentives and the near term gratification, I guess going back to Maslow's hierarchy. If you give them something that helps today that encourages the young person to come back, you can really move a lot of people into having more hope for their opportunities out there.

Robbie Tombosky: Absolutely.

Dane Groeneveld: When do you see in those projects, you mentioned perhaps the social worker or case worker who's helping them deal with problems, but where do you see the ability to remove some of those challenges? Whether it's accommodation, whether it's security, is there much out there that you see where companies are doing a great job to provide? Even childcare for some people is a barrier to being able to get into the workforce. Do you see many good local initiatives in those areas to help people kind of be free to come to work?

Robbie Tombosky: Yeah, several of them. In fact, we even have a company, it's a really unique company and they have removed the background checks on new employees and it's in there. They run a big bakery and a big, very large industrial complex. And they meet people and they just base their movement forward on the impression that they make, who they are, allowing people to give up on sort of old mistakes as well. Which I found to be such a wonderful leap forward into believing in the human condition and the ability for people to grow and not be defined by maybe their actions or mistakes, shortcomings or foibles of the past. And their data shows that they're having a wonderful retention of those employees in growth. So that's an area that I see opening those doors and I also see a lot of companies locally that are no longer only bringing on entry level or even further employees based on pedigree of their educational background.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Robbie Tombosky: Where there's a lot of interest in. Where do you want to go? What are your skill cards? What are your character? And I think that opens a lot of doors as well. And big companies and small companies alike, larger companies obviously have this opportunity to use their large S in meaningful ways. And again, seismic shift in the way companies are approaching a lot of things that they do today. A friend of mine was saying that they don't have a choice if they want to get to the marketplace, then they want to get that$ 3 trillion in millennial, centennial spend, they have to articulate purpose.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Robbie Tombosky: And so they're being kind of forced to do this and maybe it's authentic or maybe it's just getting to the market. I don't think that's the case. I think for the longest time, the market demanded one thing from a company, quarterly earnings. Quarterly earning reports.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Robbie Tombosky: Did you get that extra 3 cents on your shares? You're good. You didn't? The CEO was out. And so when we, as a planet, as a community, demand certain things from the company. So to survive, the company would do that. I find that corporate leaders are now so relieved that the demands are more than just earnings. The demands are those other, what are you doing for the planet? What are you doing for grandchildren? What are you doing to make workers able to be comfortable in that workspace? And so I don't know that they're actually chasing it in inauthentic way. I think they feel relieved that they can bring the best of themselves. Same thing, people want to be altruistic if you remove the barriers to being so. And so I think the market has created an opening for these companies to do tremendous things and create that collaborative experience, for everybody internally and externally.

Dane Groeneveld: And in a market, as tied as this labor market is-

Robbie Tombosky: Yes.

Dane Groeneveld: That's critical. It becomes an essential feature of an organization that you can let people come and be a part of the big P and exert some velocity behind their small P purpose, wherever that is.

Robbie Tombosky: Yeah.

Dane Groeneveld: Otherwise they're just not going to be interest. I like that statement you made, or I'm going to paraphrase it, but let them sort of be the person who they want to be, let them bring themselves to work. That's definitely a revolution that's happening in the workplace right now. And we see a lot of companies doing some cool stuff to ask their employees, who are you? What's important to you? How can I, as an employer support you in those kind of goals or objectives that you're setting for yourself outside of work?

Robbie Tombosky: Yeah. And to your earlier point, the data is showing that this is enhancing innovation. It's enhancing productivity, it's enhancing work culture. And so the things that people were so afraid of... And maybe the door opening was COVID because for the longest time, companies said," You got to show up. You got to clock in. You got to we got to know where you are. How are you using your time? We're going to monitor your logins. We're going to monitor when you walk to the building, when you use your keypad to go from one place to the other." Because it's that old sort of factory mentality. We had no choice under COVID. We had to do things totally differently. And we were shocked because people rose to the occasion. And maybe that was part of the breaking of the mold that the silver lining, if there was one.

Dane Groeneveld: Musk, I think I use one of his quotes on a regular basis. Made a quote that humans are underrated. And I think it was in the context of saying, I'm automating a lot of things in my plants, in my factories, but there's still these amazing things that people can do if you invite them in to be their best selves.

Robbie Tombosky: Yeah.

Dane Groeneveld: And I think that's where you're sort of pointing towards is that the old ways of forming teams and allowing teams to play... The playing field was very constrained. In fact, I think my first... In one of my very first interviews in life, I went home to Australia on the surf so I had a good tan going. And one of my friends said," When they ask about your tan because you've got this big white line across your neck from your wetsuit, explain that you are a surf lifesaver. Don't tell them you're a surfer because they don't like surfers. Surfers have a bad rap in the city of Brisbane," which is crazy inaudible. But that was kind of late nineties, early two thousands. That's how some people were thinking. And I think that by having different people from different backgrounds, you're going to get the perspective, but the game is changing so fast. I know Simon Sinek talks about the infinite game. You can't play for the sides of the field or the goals or the equipment, whether it's hockey sticks or roller blades, or whatever you're using because the game's going to keep changing. So you kind of need those people to come in and almost help you pick what game you should play as a business, whether that's at a departmental level or corporate level, whether it has manifestations in your supply chain or your community partnerships is... It's all changing.

Robbie Tombosky: And the fear of too diverse is that it creates friction because the less homogenous a group is, then if people are really engaged in that team meeting then you're going to get some strong opinions and that will create friction. And I don't want to say fighting but I want to say healthy discord will be a part of that. So I think a part of a healthy team structure is allowing people to be vocal because they are passionate and you want their passion. But then also learning how to kind of guide that process through being able to stand in that fire, if you will, to be comfortable in the uncomfortable to allow uncertainty, to not be seen as insecurity. And we can be uncertain as a team for a beat or two, as we allow things to come together. And so in relationships, they say when a couple is still fighting, there's hope. It's when they stop fighting that you got a problem, right? Because then there's resignation.

Dane Groeneveld: You're not wrong.

Robbie Tombosky: Then you got the great silence.

Dane Groeneveld: People check out.

Robbie Tombosky: And that happens on teams. I was at a meeting this morning and the CEO just lay down the law and just said," No, I don't care. I don't care... We're doing this." And at that moment, I watched everybody around just kind of," That's not my company. It was a company I was doing some consulting for." They just kind of... They shut down. And then later I had an opportunity to talk to the CEO and say," Hey, let's have a conversation because you just shut the entire... You're not going to get any argument. They're going to do what you've asked them to do, but you're not going to get innovation. You're not going to get passion. You're not going to get excitement." So he said," How else do I do it? I do have to make a decision."" Let's work on that." Because there's ways to make decisions that aren't Draconian.

Dane Groeneveld: And there's ways to bring the team in. One of my favorite coaches, he's actually here in California. Craig Weber, he's written a book called Conversational Capacity. He talks about the sweet spot. He talks about you're either winning or minimizing. If you're winning, you're coming in, you don't care what the people think and you just shut them down and you say," We're doing this." And if you're minimizing, you might have either a great idea or it might not be innovation. You might have visibility towards saving the company or its customers from a tragic event. Might be a safety issue. And you don't speak up because you don't want to put your job at risk or be socially reprimanded for being the squeaky wheel. And so he talks about strategies that allow teams to stay in the sweet spot, stay in the middle. Great.

Robbie Tombosky: That's great.

Dane Groeneveld: There's a range of really easy exercises. It's just like," Hey, if you are the boss, ask the team to walk out of the room. Ask the team to brainstorm the three things that were missing and come back in and ask an anonymous... Ask someone to present anonymously what the team came up." Don't say," Bobby over here said that we're missing this." So there's ways to make it safe and to kind of flex that muscle too.

Robbie Tombosky: Yeah, absolutely.

Dane Groeneveld: It is interesting. We've talked a lot today about teams. I've made a ton of notes here, Robbie. That shared reality. The inaudible... I'm going to say it wrong again. It's-

Robbie Tombosky: Perspicacity.

Dane Groeneveld: Perspicacity.

Robbie Tombosky: There you go.

Dane Groeneveld: We talked about that. We talked about communities as kind of teams on steroids and I like what you said about the role of companies, of groups of people sort of amplifying key messages that are important, but it does seem like we're kind of finishing up here on this fuel, which is we all need to get a lot more comfortable with conflict. We've all got to get a lot more comfortable with hearing the perspectives of others and processing those perspectives in a way that we can actually walk away with a better outcome. I think that's in all of these initiatives, that's a really key element that will fuel progress.

Robbie Tombosky: Yeah. Agreed.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. So as you go forward maybe on as a closing note, what are you most excited about personally impacting? You go forward six months, 12 months, 24 months, what's what's most important for you to be out there doing right now?

Robbie Tombosky: So it's a great question. Wow. So I would say that the more mature that I get, the more I realize that the skill sets that I have and continue to build, allow me to help others to become those leaders of teams, to be able to have impact in significant and meaningful ways. So I always try to reframe my experience by saying it's not about me, but it's up to me. When it's about me, I get marginalized, I get fearful, maybe I get egotistical or I get entrenched, right? But it's not about me. If it's my opportunity to be a catalyst, to be a lever, to be the enhancing part of that thing. So then I get very excited and very jazz. So where we run a company called GVNG, which is basically a digital community of purpose. We help corporates create that digital nonprofit at an arms distance relationship that can have tremendous impact in that space. For a long time, it was about giving things. I give money, but what we find now, which is really moving communities of purpose. And in my opinion, corporations are simply communities of purpose with various stakeholders and constituents, but we're finding very much so that when there is a gathering of the minds, when there is an opportunity to have an impact where I can learn something, improve myself, do something, not just give, but actually roll up my sleeves and be involved and bring my skills to that opportunity and then give. And then give from my dollars as well. And then to give that charitable piece. That is really what is moving individuals and people and so we're running dozens of projects in various countries. Simultaneously, we have a really big one going on Columbia right now. We're about to launch a hundred million dollar Ukrainian refugee concert that will be held in Warsaw for the refugees there, but also worldwide with lots of activations to raise that a hundred million dollars. And so we're helping use this platform, this knowhow, this amplifier effect to help create many, many different teams, communities, families that can impact a world around. And if I can do that every day for the rest of my life, I will have a very blessed, fulfilled life to live.

Dane Groeneveld: It's very rewarding. So if people want to find you and find GVNG and participate, what's the best way for them to connect?

Robbie Tombosky: Well, you can reach out to G-V-N- G, gvng.org. GVNG is spelled without any of the vowels because there are no eyes in giving. It is a team, inaudible team sport. That wasn't the reason they named it that, but that's what I say so. That's a part of it and and I'm always happy. I'm always happy to lend a helping hand to anybody who's trying to accomplish, or they can reach out to me on my LinkedIn or through you.

Dane Groeneveld: Great. No, that's inaudible Robbie. Well, I have loved the conversation and continue to really enjoy our opportunities to keep partnering together. So me too, Dane, look forward to catching it with you soon.

Robbie Tombosky: Okay. Thank you.