 Got it. Hey, Aloha, and welcome back to the Think Tech Hawaii studios for this episode of Security Matters Hawaii. Today, we have author Mel Fatahbab with us, and we're going to be talking about the friendship advantage. Mel, thank you so much for joining me today. I know you're a super busy guy, so I appreciate you sharing with us. My pleasure, Andrew. A pleasure to be with you. Thank you. I've got to do my own sort of generosity thing for a minute because I'm one of these guys. I wanted to know about 20 or 30, maybe more security CEOs and owners who've shared with me many wonderful things, and I think that I can blame you for that, that you influence them in a lot of the meetings, and then they bring that same generosity out into the rest of the community. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. I'd like if you could go ahead and give our audience just a little bit of your background as much as you care to share, sort of bring us up through EO and then into the Forum Resources Network and maybe up to this book. You got it. You got it. So 1990 Fresh Outta College got a job as Associate Director of the Entrepreneurs' Organization. Within about a year, I was promoted to Executive Director, and while I was there, we were putting together forums for our members, our entrepreneur members, and these forums were groups of roughly 8 to 10 people that meet every month to help each other with anything and everything so they could be the best that they can be. And by 1997, it became my favorite part of my job. I really decided this is what my life's work is going to be, so I quit. I started Forum Resources Network, and that's how I got into the business of peer groups for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and how I started with the PSA Security Network and with these groups that we've got going with them. It's been absolutely wonderful. We've had two groups for 10 years now, maybe even 11 for one of those years. And it's been really amazing to watch the relationships within the groups blossom and to see some members sell their businesses or do amazing things. Yeah, it's interesting. And the security folks, security people attend in my mind to be sort of, I'm going to say hardheaded, and that's probably not very nice, but they come from law enforcement backgrounds or military backgrounds a lot of the times and relationship building maybe isn't their first skill. How did you hone in or how did you break into working with security groups in particular? Yeah, there was a guy, Mark Murphy, who was a speaker for PSA, and he heard that PSA was interested in putting together a couple of groups, and he referred them to me. And that's how I got started with PSA Security. Well, and then are there other security groups outside of that or other like low-voltage industry groups that you work with that you could compare and contrast like security ownership with other, because we're sort of like contracting industry folks, are there other groups that you work with that are contractors like electrical contractors or construction, I guess like general contractors that build buildings and things like that? Do they have groups like this as well? They do, they do. So there's definitely, there are groups in the construction industry through the National Association of Home Builders. They call them 20 groups and I've worked with some of those groups over the years. There are some construction companies that I work with directly, one out of New Jersey, one out of Chicago. And really at the end of the day, I'm going to go back to what you said. You know, you're like, how did you get these people that are bullheaded to really kind of soften up and listen to one another? And, you know, what I would say is the process is pretty proven. It's the same process that I've applied to many entrepreneur groups over the years. And I would say just being an entrepreneur or a CEO also requires a bit of bullheadedness. I wouldn't necessarily say that that is more true in my observation of the security folks. I'd simply say they're entrepreneurs or CEOs. And what I hear from a lot of CEOs, Andrew, I don't know if you've heard this is, you know, I'm not employable. I started my business because I'm not employable. Yeah, well, my wife says that about me, but I don't know if I said it about myself. Yeah, yeah. So back to the other question is, you know, how do we get to the book? So when I started realizing and working with a lot of these groups, as often people would say, wow, you guys are like better than my best friends or I've shared things with you that I haven't shared with my best friends. And initially, I took a pride in that. I'm like, we're doing something really good here. But I started to realize the reason for the book is so people can take these lessons and apply them in other parts of life, apply them to their relationships at work, and these groups were simply a conduit to teach those skills. So the seven keys to building relationships really comes from what I learned in working with these groups since 1991. Wow. Yeah, and I know, in particular, this book opens, it opens with a story about Carl, who's a fictitious person for our purposes, but I think all of us can empathize with what Carl was going through with the medical condition with the family member of his. What do you think differentiates the company that allows everyone else to empathize and share in Carl and the ones who don't? I think the culture starts at the top. So whenever I go work with a company, I can tell you 99% of the time, I'm getting a call from the CEO. Okay. Nobody else. Nobody else is making that purchase decision for whatever reason. It's coming from the CEO, whether I've worked with a company that's a $2 million company or a multi $100 million company. It's always a call from the CEO. Wow. And the culture starts at the top. So I start with the executive team. And how does the executive team work together? What are their tools for communication? How effective are they? How do they deal with conflict? Do they avoid it? Do they take it head on and punch each other? Or do they do it kindly? So the chapter on that conversation is called kind truth. And kind truth is the ability, the skill to say the difficult thing that has to be said in a way that is pleasant. In a way that it's going to be heard. And not just to bludgeon somebody on the head with it or to avoid the conversation altogether. Because you know what happens when you avoid it. It doesn't go away. Of course. So interestingly, I've seen it myself just from a small business perspective. But I didn't consider the fact that larger organizations may require this relationship building to happen amongst like the C-suite if it's large or upper management first, before it can really flow down, I guess genuinely flow down to middle management and to other team members on the staff. Would that be a fair thing to say? That's how it's been in my world. I mean I could imagine that there's a big multi-billion-dollar public company where they say we have a problem in XYZ department. But it always starts with the head of that department. Because if the head of that department doesn't buy in to the notion that we're going to have open communication, that we're going to treat each other as human beings and not just transactionally. And that means we're going to be vulnerable. We're going to be real. And if that department, if the CEO isn't buying into that and isn't studying that example, then who's going to buy it? Yeah, it's interesting. When did you start to see in business in general the change to relationships? I mean was already there in the 90s where everyone was already recognizing this need to relate to other? I mean I remember IBM's sales training for example you know you made your statement and then you didn't say anything else until the other guy spoke and all that type of stuff. So was there a recognition early on or was this fairly new to the business community itself? The relationship building could actually improve the bottom line, improve productivity, efficiency, all those sort of things. I think we're riding a trend. I mean I'll never forget, I worked at General Motors as a co-op when I was in college. And this was in the 80s. And the CFO who was CFO of this plant was this guy that was kind of a mentor to me and I thought he was the sweetest, nicest guy that I could imagine. And I was singing his praises to some of my co-workers and I couldn't believe what they said. They said you should have been here two years ago. He literally was on somebody's desk. He would stand on somebody's desk and yell at them. At the top of his lungs. And that is not the person I knew. So I think we're part of a trend and I think more and more companies are becoming aware of this trend and the importance of treating people like human beings. I'm speaking April 23rd at a conference, Conscious Capitalism. And there are 500 people coming to this event and really they're all about how can we be conscious about what we're doing as a company. How we're treating our people. And not just running this machine that's here to make money. Yeah, I don't know if that was left over from sort of a assembly line type of mentality from Industrial Revolution the whole, you know, you're a piece of a system that moves stuff through instead of you are actually the investment. You are actually the value of the firm itself. I'm not schooled enough in this to know when that sort of occurred, but obviously it's needed. I don't know how organizations function today, keep staff, build any kind of morale or anything at all without sort of that a bit of others centeredness. You know, at least understanding what others are going through, you know what your coworkers are going through. It's interesting to me that things happen at all. It must have been very sterile. You know, I mean, the Navy was, I guess, kind of sterile when I got in in the early 80s, but it changed a bit, you know, with Tail Hook and this focus on HR and sexual harassment things. It was a bit of a wake up call in the military. I'm just guessing that commercial industry sort of followed some of that awareness about other and the condition of other and how we impact other with our words and our actions. Yeah, and it's funny that you use the military reference, because one of the things that I know from my friends who have served in the military is particularly if you've been in a war zone with somebody, you develop this real powerful bonds and part of what I believe causes that bond is, you know, when you're in a foxhole with somebody, when you have a shared purpose, when you have those shared values of what are we going to do to survive, thinking it to an extreme case in the company, it's not usually about survival, but in the military it certainly is. That bond is people in a way that you cannot imagine, and you can imagine it because you've been there. Yeah, so I think recreating that, I do talk about that with our team if you haven't had sort of that sense of life saving urgency, right? Everybody does their job or someone dies. That kind of an idea doesn't, it's hard to sell that in a corporate environment because no one should be dying, obviously, as long as, you know, we're taking safety and things responsibly. It's interesting. Yeah, the other thing is whether you're talking about security companies or whether you're talking about any company in general, and you look at the low unemployment rate in this country right now, you know finding good talent is not easy. Retaining good talent is not easy, and it's costly. And so if we have the people on the bus that we want on the bus, then let's invest in getting them to actually love each other, know each other as you please, and value their time at work more than just coming and getting a paycheck. Yeah, and I do think there's that sense of personal sharing, being able to empathize with what others go through, and they're like, you know, outside of the work, creating that shared experience. And we're definitely going to kind of walk through these seven keys and walk through the book in the second half of our episode. But I do think that it's a critical element that, you know, a lot of the great offices that I go in have that going on. But I'm sure there's many that are still missing the boat trying to catch up and maybe those of us who are doing this are all their good people away from that. I don't know. Tell you what, we're going to take a break for about one minute. We'll pay a few bills and we'll be right back, Mo. All right, thank you. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business, sports, and life, which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go Beyond the Lines at 11 a.m., aloha. Hi, Mabuhay. My name is Amy Ortega Anderson, inviting you to join us every Tuesday here on Pinoy Power Hawaii. With Think Tech Hawaii, we come to your home at 12 noon every Tuesday. We invite you to listen, watch for our mission of empowerment. We aim to enrich, enlighten, educate, entertain, and we hope to empower. Again, maraming, salamat po, Mabuhay, and aloha. Hey, aloha, and welcome back to this episode of Security Matters Hawaii. We're in the Think Tech Hawaii studio, and we've got Mel Fatahbab with us. He's remote today, and we are talking about the friendship advantage. Mel, we're going to get into this book a little bit now. We've done the background, I think, for everybody. We talked a little bit about Carl's story, but I want to get into these seven keys. The first chapter really rolls into some of the research that you did, I think, to support that meaningful workplace relationships really can create a better business. Yes. So the keys. You want me to get going in there, or do you want to try and see what's your son? Well, I was just, so this research was, I read through it. I didn't notice if it was, was it 20 years old? Was it 10 years old? Was it modern? Is it ongoing work that you continue to keep track of to just to help sort of bolster for maybe some people who are more metric driven? You know, what's this really going to get me if I do this investment in my people? Yeah, yeah. So the work that is the majority of the book is purely based on my own observations of working over 20,000 CEOs and 2,000 groups since 1991. And that is absolutely purely my observation in working with these groups. Okay. However, there is some research in the book which cites how much more productive people are, how much happier they are, how much nicer they are to the customers, how much healthier they are if they have a best friend at work, if they have somebody they could trust and talk to at work. So that research has been done and it is out there and you'll see it referenced in the book, but clearly there's lots of research that shows that having a friend at work absolutely has a big impact on all sorts of areas. And I think it's a great way to start the book as well because if you're reading it for a business purpose, like from a business owner and you're trying to understand maybe some of the things you are or aren't doing with your organization, that should give you enough impetus to turn the page to chapter two which gets us into one of that first tough things which is judgment. It can be one of the really biggest traps. We think we're encouraging someone or we're saying something to someone or maybe we're trying to help them, but we're really coming off as very judgmental or they're just perceiving what we're saying is judgmental when we didn't intend it that way. How do we avoid that trap of getting into that judgment mentality? Yeah. So I think the most common way that people get trapped in that is when somebody is needing help, they often say, I want your advice. And you could interpret it that different ways. If I say I want your advice, you could say, oh, he wants me to tell him what to do. Or you could say, he wants me to listen and to understand what's going on. Or you could say, he'd like my experience. What have I been through that might be similar? That might be helpful. And the path you choose can have different implications. So if you have children, I know you do, but for those people that do out there, you know pretty early on the moment that they start to tell you, I'm not doing this because you told me to do it. Right? Yeah. And you know, I believe from Gazelles and scaling up. And one of the things he always says, I think tongue in cheek to the CEOs that he works with is you guys are not really in business to do whatever you think your business does. You're running adult daycare center. And so in that paradigm, you know, you could say whether it's your employees or whether it's your children or whether it's your friends, just giving advice obliviously is a big trap for somebody feeling judged. And so when someone says to me, I want your advice, you know, the first thing I say was, is tell me what's going on. And then when they tell me what's going on and I understand it, you know, I make sure I understand it. And then I want to find out what they feel about that. So often you get a lot of facts, is it something frustrating? Is it angry, angry in you? Is it making you sad? What are your emotions? I could fully understand how it's impacting. And then I might say, sorry, I was going to say the giving of advice starts with more questions. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And then I might say, so how can I help? Right. And often my friends might say, well, that was helpful already. You're such a great listener. Thank you. I feel heard. I feel understood. Sometimes that's all you have to do. Okay. But sometimes it takes a little more. And I say, well, would you like some experience? I have a similar thing that happened to me. Yeah. That kind of sharing is, is awesome. And it's, I do think people have to train themselves to do that. Right. Just takes practice. One of the next. Sure. Yeah. One of the next keys that I was wondering, I missed you this fun. Can that go too far? It can go too far. You got to be careful. When I thought of this as one of the chapters, I definitely had mixed feelings on the one hand. I chuckled. I was excited. I knew it's real. I know it's real. Right. Cause you know, your closest friends are people with whom you do something where you are a little more comfortable that you wouldn't do with people that are not your closest friend. Yes. And by having that differentiator, the very people with whom you don't do that already, you have a barrier with because you're not being yourself. Very good. So I don't care. Snowballs at cars when you're a kid or throwing firecrackers in a trash can and watching the lid blow off. But what is it? What is it that connects you in a mischievous way? Yeah. Trust. Maybe. Yeah. It shows I trust you. Yeah. And then our next key is the vulnerability and we've, we've been doing some Brene Brown work at our place with shame and vulnerability. Really tough. Really tough one for a lot of people to practice and to get into a vulnerable or recognizing when their courage takes is vulnerable as well. Kind of advice do you have for people to practice being vulnerable? Yeah. So the first thing I just want to quote, because I think it's brilliant when I heard it, David Bradford, who is a professor at the Stanford graduate school of business, says vulnerability is the currency of relationships. And without relationships, vulnerability, without vulnerability, relationships remain surface. Yeah. So when I first heard that, it just hit me between the eyes as the most succinct way to explain the value. So you have to take a risk. I got that. And you have to decide with whom you're willing to take that risk and that takes a leap of faith. But the thing to remember is there's a chicken and egg of who goes first. Will you go first? Well, I go first. And at some point, at some point, somebody has to say, okay, I'm going to take this risk. And when that happens, I'm watching very carefully to see, does the other person reciprocate? Or do they roll their eyes and come across as judgmental? Or do they just give me advice? Or do they tell me, oh, your issue is no big deal? And just kind of... Terrible. And if those things happen, what do you think I do next time? I'm with that person. No, you don't talk. No more sharing. Fine, life couldn't be better. Awesome. So we have... We're back to kind truths. So kind truth. Yeah, we've been saying clear is kind in our office. That's another one that people don't always receive well. And I think the book does a great job of talking about sender, receiver, and understanding messaging and how things can be miscommunicated and how to work through that. So kind truths, is that something you have to practice in the groups that you facilitate? Because I think it would take a bit of learning for a lot of folks. Yeah, so every meeting, we start with something we call clearing the air. We go around the room and each person looks at each other person and says, I'm clean with you. Or briefly says, here's why I'm not clean with you. It hurt my feelings that you didn't respond to 10 e-mails of mine. Or you're late and we waited for you. And that bothered me, right? And so it's little things, but if I don't say them to you, either I'm just bursting inside, carrying it with me, continuing to make up stories about you, which are judgments, and probably not true, or I'm doing what's even worse and poisoning other people. I complained to other people about you. And now I'm fairly poisoning them without giving you an opportunity to ever be aware of how I feel and how I was impacted by what you did. We've only got a minute or so left, but one thing about one of the last points, not one of the last ones, but one of the next chapters is about sharing and generosity. And you're being very generous with your information here today. I want to thank you for that. I want to let everyone know this is a great quick read with great tools that you can deploy very rapidly. You can read this before you even go to a meeting. You can read a chapter when you walk in the door for that meeting. Thank you for your generosity. Yeah, I don't thank you, but take a final minute. What's your number one tagline you want to share with our audience today? Well, as it relates to generosity, I'm going to quote my friend Maria Sipka from Sydney, Australia, who says, people either come from givington or takington. And so I think I come from givington, and as such, I choose to surround myself that also come from givington. Because if you don't, then somebody's in a struggle in that puzzle. Awesome. Thank you so much. Be from givington, people, not from takington. Thanks a lot. We'll talk again soon. And thanks to our audience here for joining us today. Hello, everyone. My pleasure. Bye-bye.