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October 9, 2025 20 mins

What if the strongest driver of performance isn’t a strategy deck but the quality of your community at work? We dive into how trust, clear accountability, and psychological safety transform teams from collections of roles into villages that solve harder problems together. Instead of choosing between “personal” and “professional,” we frame community as the shared ground where activities, places, and people meet, your neighborhood, your product squad, powered by the same habits of care and clarity.

We get specific about culture as a system: the behaviors you encourage, tolerate, and stop. You’ll hear how top talent leaves when belonging is scarce, and why accountability actually boosts happiness when it’s paired with empathy and role clarity. We unpack a vivid turnaround story from Washington’s NFL franchise, showing how new ownership, professional leadership, and a reflective, documented coaching approach shifted the atmosphere first and performance next, proof that intentional choices can reset trust faster than most expect.

We also spotlight employee resource groups as engines of inclusion and practical change, especially when allies step in and executives sponsor outcomes. Then we share simple, repeatable rituals that any team can adopt to build sub-communities, weekly wins, learning circles, cross-functional coffees, and preview what’s ahead: a growth fundamentals series with C-level operators and our live “From Vinyl to Viral” panel featuring five generations in conversation. The thread through it all is simple and powerful: community is a capability you can build, measure, and scale.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a teammate, and leave a review with one example of a ritual that builds belonging on your team. Your ideas shape where we go next.

Follow and stay connected:

Website: fourbarspodcast.com
YouTube: youtube.com/@FourBarsPodcast
Instagram: @edges_Inc
Facebook: EDGES Inc.
LinkedIn: EDGES Inc.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Welcome to the Four Bars Podcast.
I'm Ken Leees.
And I'm Patty Lees.
We are your host for somecompelling dialogue, encouraging
our listeners to strengthentheir connections and build
strong communities lifting eachother up and connecting in ways
that matter.
We named the podcast Four Barsas a reference to how hard we
work to find a four barsconnection on our devices.

SPEAKER_00 (00:19):
And we wondered what could happen with the
relationships if we worked ashard at connecting.
Let's find out.

SPEAKER_01 (00:25):
Welcome back to the Four Bars Podcast.
I'm Patty Leaf, your co-host.

SPEAKER_00 (00:29):
And I'm Ken Lee, your co-host.

SPEAKER_01 (00:31):
We're excited to have our listeners and viewers
back.
And if this is your first timelistening, you'll learn a lot
about the podcast.
Um, today we're going to explorea question that comes up from a
lot of our viewers andlisteners, and also people that
we talk to about engaging in umdialogue on the podcast.
The question is about is this apodcast where we're looking at

(00:54):
personal relationships or workrelationships?
And it really is a podcast wherewe're exploring community.
Um so it's exploring goodconnections in life, work, and
community.
Community is that common pointinside of both our personal
experiences and our work-relatedprofessional experiences.

(01:16):
Ken and I, in a in our work asum with our growth advisory
firm, have seen a couple ofreally constant things in
successful organizations.
And one of those constants isthere is a strong community
inside of a successfulorganization that encourages

(01:40):
people to work together, lifteach other up, and have each
other's backs and solve problemstogether.
So we tend to look at communitynot only as my neighborhood or
my wellness center or my bookclub, but also as my um my
workplace and my civicvolunteerism and uh and and

(02:02):
communities that we serve.
And you might remember from ourearlier podcasts, we talk about
that community really is hasthree ingredients: activities,
places, and people.
So anytime you are engaging withother people around an activity,
whether it's work or personal,you actually are building
community.

(02:23):
And communities can be thevillages, and it takes a village
to really be our best selves,whether that's at work or at
home.
So we wanted to really kind ofspend a little bit of time
talking about community at work.
And then we're gonna also take alittle bit of this podcast to
let you know what we haveplanned for the next year.
In our last podcast, we werekind of celebrating, low-level

(02:44):
celebrating our um, we'vereached a year and uh and we
have just some really excitingthings planned for your team.

SPEAKER_00 (02:52):
No, it's very exciting.
And uh, we're actually very,very thrilled that we're we're
still able to do this one yearlater and that we are growing in
viewership and helping people.
And in the end, that's what thisis about is how do we connect
with people ourselves and how dopeople connect with each other
to the point of community?
How does that what does thatlook like?

(03:12):
Yeah, in our work environment asin our other environments,
community is one to where wefind out how do we fit in, how
do we work together, how do weuh engage, interact with people.
Because really those ways thatwe make that happen are the

(03:32):
methodologies that we use toalmost find our place within a
community.
And that again, within ourbusiness, yes, we will have a
role, for example, what our jobrole is, but even within job
role, if I'm working on a team,or even I'm an individual
contributor and I will stillinteract with teams, it is how I
can able to understand them andby understanding them more, I'm

(03:55):
able to work with them and andhelp them feel comfortable with
me, myself.
And that brings uh the abilityto have trust all communities,
internally, externally, businessuh and community.
It those communities really arebuilt upon trust we can all come

(04:15):
into communities with differentum uh values to a certain
extent.
But when a business environmentalso, when I sign up for working
for an organization, I they havevalues and things like that.
So I'm signing up and agreeingwith those values.

SPEAKER_01 (04:30):
True.
Yes, true.

SPEAKER_00 (04:31):
But with and with really strong companies, what it
means is I can as long as I sayyes, I sign up and I work within
those values, when I can come inand be my authentic self in a in
a uh business community and beproductive, it's empowering.
And we hear that from people allthe time.
It's one of the most empoweringthings because people want to
come to work to be able to feelI want to be a part of this

(04:55):
team, but I want to be able tobe a part of that team being who
I am as a human being.

SPEAKER_01 (05:00):
Yeah.
And and there is a lot ofresearch that shows that um top
talent leads organizationsbecause they don't feel like
they're a part of a team.
And and and building thatcommunity, building that
engagement, it's an intentionalfocus inside of an organization.
Um, it happens kind oforganically in in some

(05:22):
instances, but but to really geta healthy, strong, inclusive
community that supportsbelonging in an organization in
ways that that enable safety topoint out things that we need to
be thinking about, to try tosolve problems, that that takes
effort on everybody's part.
And yet non-doing it is thereason that that top people

(05:45):
leave companies.

SPEAKER_00 (05:46):
It is very true.
And as we've seen in our um workwith Edges, is that the things
we just mentioned in the way welook at what happens in a in a
um office environment, abusiness environment, really it
comes down to in the end, it'sthe culture.
Does that culture promotepositivity, accountability?

(06:09):
By the way, we believeaccountability is a great word,
and there are a lot ofengagement surveys out there
that talk about the more thatthere is clarity on
accountability, then the happieremployees are, and happier they
are to be within an organizationworking there.
But it is the culture thatdefines how well the
interactions are, how well weblend together, how we are able

(06:32):
to solve problems together.
And it ensures, again, withingenerally all good cultures,
there is that feeling of safety.
And I feel safety within it.
And that's uh again, it empowersme to come to work uh Monday,
next Monday.
And when I go to work, I canfeel safe.
You know, psychologically, Ifeel safe just coming in and

(06:54):
being able to do my work andhave my friends and my community
group within the work.
It's because you have subsets ofcommunity within companies also.

SPEAKER_01 (07:03):
And so I I think Ken, you're hitting on some
really, really good points.
Community is a part ofeverything that we do.

SPEAKER_00 (07:10):
Yes.

SPEAKER_01 (07:10):
And it's going to happen organically.
And if we want it to be reallystrong, we have to get more
intentional about it.
Let's think about aneighborhood, for example.
That's a community.
Um, we can all not come out ofour houses and not know each
other and others' names.
Um, but we're still a communityand and and we're going to come
together for the POA orwhatever.
Um, but but but if we'reintentional about it, we can

(07:33):
build strong community, we cancreate bonds, and we can really
create a village that makes allof us better.
You have that same choice inwork.
But what you're saying isreally, it also has to be
integrated into the culture.
This commitment to buildinghealthy, healthy communities
needs to be, needs to beintegrated into the culture for
an organization to be successfulat that.

(07:55):
But if they do, theirrelationship building is going
to be stronger and their abilityto deliver customer service in
whatever industry they're in isgoing to be stronger.

SPEAKER_00 (08:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
And there is a really greatexample, because sometimes
people will say, well, if ourculture is not right and our
communities aren't right withinthe business, then it's going to
take a long time to change.
And it could.
However, there's a the casestudy I'm alluding to is one
where it went very, veryquickly.
Um for anyone out there whofollows NFL football, for year

(08:32):
and I will say for years, uhcoming from the Washington, DC
area, I was a Washington fan.
So and good years, bad years, itdidn't matter.
However, uh uh until just a yearago, the Washington team had
become one that was looked at asthe lowest of of in
organizations.

(08:52):
And it came out in their surveysfrom their players and their
employees.
They were all very low.
Um, community had quit on themand people had total distrust
for ownership.
And because of some of theirdecisions and who they brought
in to lead and manage, they haddistrust in those, and they had
lack of any thought that itcould ever get better.

(09:15):
And so when the uh owner sold toJosh Harris and his ownership
group, everyone was really builtup in that area, and it's like
their hope came instantly.
But everyone's like, okay, it'sgonna take a while.
No one, including ourselves,thought that what we was uh

(09:35):
observed could happen, whichJosh Harris and his ownership
team selected a veryprofessional, very good general
manager.
And then that general manager inturn selected a what he thought
would be a very strong headcoach based upon some of his
behaviors.

(09:55):
And if you haven't uh don't knowmuch about Dan Quinn, one of the
things I've read about himthroughout is he used to coach
the Atlanta Falcons years ago,went to the Super Bowl, um, but
when he left there, he spent ayear or more and he he's talked
about it, written about it,where he just went out and he
reviewed his games.

(10:16):
He reviewed how he managed, howhe coached, and how he co even
led his uh assistant coaches andhe created and documented all
this.
And then he started to s say,when I get another opportunity
someday, this is the way I'mgoing to do it.
And he wrote rewrote his entireplaybook about how we do it.
And he has come to Washingtonwith that playbook.

(10:36):
He surrounded himself with veryprofessional assistant coaches.
And that team had a great yearlast year, yes.
They selected uh Jaden Daniels.
Some people say, well, they gotlucky because he was still there
at number two.
Whether that happened or not,yeah, I could say yes or no.
But what I did see after thatwas they put together plans that

(10:58):
are now attracting players.
They couldn't attract players tocome there as free agents
anymore.
Now there are players who dowant to play for them.
And there is an entire regionthat is energized by this
decision of the NFL saying wecan't have this gentleman run a
team, own a team anymore, andbringing in that new ownership

(11:19):
was the spark that did it.

SPEAKER_01 (11:21):
Well, John Gordon, he's a very leadership writer
that I follow on social media,actually did a post about it.
Um, you can sense the community,you can see it with the coaches,
you can see it with the players.
And because they've changed theculture and they're building a
community, that community is onits way to becoming great.

(11:42):
Um, you know, we're not havingthe best year this year, but but
but everybody knew that it wasgoing to take a little bit of
time.
They have a lot of new players.
It but but what has changed isthe entire atmosphere is more
positive.
So it can be done quickly.
Um, but it has to be doneintentionally.

SPEAKER_00 (12:02):
And you're right, they are a work in progress
still.
But I will say that we're onlygoing to game three this year.
Yeah, I know.
It's true.
It's true.
It could still be a very goodyear.

SPEAKER_01 (12:09):
But regardless of that, nothing about this
commander's turnaround uh storythat is not to love if you're
thinking about culture andcommunity in in the workplace,
um, or even not in theworkplace.
There's nothing not to loveabout it, even if you aren't a
Washington fan.
It's it's really a substantialstory of relationships.

SPEAKER_00 (12:31):
Yes.

SPEAKER_01 (12:32):
And and people respect each other and they
matter and they care and theyand they build each other up.
Uh on that note, I'm I will alsosay that um we have a lot of
clients that engage in um thedevelopment of employee resource
groups uh that are uh specificcommunities inside of an
organization um based on perhapstheir their heritage or their

(12:56):
sexual preference or their umage, um, male, female.
There's generally a lot ofdifferent groups.
And the purpose of these groupsis to build even more community
inside of the organizations inwhich um individuals can come
together who have similarchallenges and support each

(13:17):
other on the solutions thatmight be necessary to make that
better.
But there's also an uh anengagement of people who may not
be directly in that group to beallies for that group.
So that's also an extremelyeffective, intentional community
building that takes place insideof an organization.

(13:38):
And my hats are off to theorganizations that we know and
those that we don't that aredoing that great thing.

SPEAKER_00 (13:44):
Yeah, and a positive community within an
organization, you can spot that.
You can you can see interactionwhen you walk in the door.

SPEAKER_01 (13:51):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (13:52):
Um, you can see there's engagement.

SPEAKER_01 (13:54):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (13:54):
Um, there's generally a little bit more
higher energy within that teamthan you walk in there.
So when you know when you thinkabout that in the future, take a
look at your team.
Yeah.
And if you think that it's notthere, then then talk to others.
Because one of the things youcan do, anyone can do, is within
communities, you havesubcommunities.

(14:14):
So if you start with yourcommunity, even if it's not the
perfect situation, and you bringpeople together and you start to
really connect and help to buildup the spirit of the team, if
you would, then it can grow fromthere.
Yeah.
We've seen that happen withinorganizations.
We actually wrote a book uh witha um another uh c uh co-writer
with us who would ask us to be apart of that.

(14:36):
And when the book focuses on howto identify the culture within
your commun within your businesscommunity.
And by doing that, then what doI do?
How do I influence others to beable to make uh some change as
necessary?
So I we share all that to saythat organizations, as Patty
said, they are communities.
But the community starts witheveryone starting to come

(14:59):
together in the same way that wewant to work in this scenario
because it's a work environment.
How do we want to work?
How do we want to engage?
How do we want to communicate?
All of that will determine how Ifeel about my organization.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 (15:13):
We wanted to really address this because we have had
a lot of questions recently,viewers, listeners, and people
that we're talking with aboutgetting involved.
Um also to queue up some of whatwe have coming.
Um we are uh a business growthadvisory firm, and we in the
first six months of 26, we willbe uh really exploring the

(15:37):
fundamentals of growth for anorganization, and we'll be
interviewing um C-level peopleinside of organizations that
have seen substantial growthabout their story, and they are
stories of grit and caring foreach other and respecting one
another and solving problemstogether and risk taking, like

(15:57):
just some of the stories thatwe've heard with the guests that
have agreed to participate.
I just cannot wait to share thiswith our listeners and our
viewers.
Um, and and we'll be exploringthe importance of community and
collaboration inside of theirorganization as they grew.
Um, so we did want to sort ofcue that up.

(16:18):
Uh, cannot wait for that seriesto start.
We'll be kicking it off inJanuary.
Um, and we'll have uh sixsessions around each of the
major components that areimportant for a growing
organization to be looking atand thinking about.
So we um are so excited to bedoing our podcast off site, not

(16:42):
in this room, um, but at anevent at Blake Street uh here in
town, where we will be uhoffering a panel on building
intergenerational communities.

SPEAKER_00 (16:57):
We're calling it From vinyl to viral, which I
love.

SPEAKER_01 (17:00):
And can came up with it.

SPEAKER_00 (17:02):
And and and really what this is we do uh some
things uh away from four barsand away from our uh everyday
work.
And one of its uh the projectswe work on is called Full
Signal, where we bring peopletogether and we talk about
topics that they want to talkabout in groups, and we help
them kind of build upon those,maybe in some cases solve for
them, for themselves or as acollective.

(17:24):
And within that, we ask themalways, what would you like to
hear about?
And one of the constants thatcame up was we would like to
learn more aboutintergenerational interactions
and the impact of that on ourcommunities.
Um and there's a plenty ofinformation out there.
So we will be meeting andmoderating um a panel that has

(17:44):
five different generations.
So going from Gen Z up totraditionalist.
And so we are very excited to beable to have these really great
storytellers who are going tocome together.
They're going to share stories,and we have five different areas
that we're going to uh have themexplore, and then they will have
the opportunity to then get inquestions also from the

(18:08):
audience.
Uh so it's going to be a verycollaborative, very uh wide,
wide open thought process, butit's really going to talk about
and get to the point of whereare we really not different?
We're similar.
Yeah.
And if there are anydifferences, what are some of
those drivers of thosedifferences?

SPEAKER_01 (18:27):
And our youngest panelist is 24 and our oldest is
82.
So we're just going to have acollection of fabulous stories
around ways to build it andreasons to build it and and and
the benefits of of theseconnections across different
generations.
So we are so excited to be ableto put this into the podcast

(18:50):
format and share it with morepeople.
Um, because Full Signal is verysimilar to four bars and its
emphasis.
It is about developing anawareness around you to build
community.
Because community is the villagethat makes us crazy.

SPEAKER_00 (19:05):
Yes.
And we always love feedback andquestions.
So whether it was from the fewminutes ago, we were talking
about communities within ourwork environment or about, you
know, vi viral, excuse me, vinylto viral.
If you have questions or want toknow more about it, please uh
drop those in on the websitehere.
Yes.
And we will respond back to youand connect with you in order to

(19:27):
answer any questions you mayhave.

SPEAKER_01 (19:29):
Yep.
Four barspodcasts.com, or we canreach Ken and I directly on
getEges.com.
Um, but we we look forward tothis and we can't wait to share
it with you.
So thanks for listening.
Have a great rest of your week,and we'll be back soon.

SPEAKER_00 (19:45):
We'll look forward to seeing you next time.
Yes.

SPEAKER_01 (19:47):
Thanks.
The FourBars Podcast has beenbrought to you by Edges Inc., a
growth advisory firm based inBentonville, Arkansas.
I founded the company in 2001.

SPEAKER_00 (19:56):
Edges promotes growth people, companies, and
ideas.
Our team collaboration toolcalled Interface Methods is a
basis for teams to work togethermore collaboratively, understand
each other, and acceptdifferences and address
challenges together.

SPEAKER_01 (20:08):
We also started a nonprofit called Unform Your
Bias.
We teach kids and their adultinfluencers how to utilize
storytelling as a means toreduce bias in the world.
We hope you'll check us out,subscribe to our podcast, and
look at our website.
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