January 9, 2025 • 39 mins
Ahad Ghadimi, the mastermind behind Forums at Work, joins us to share his remarkable journey from Toronto's vibrant entrepreneurial scene to the international stage. Listen as Ahad recounts growing up in a family-owned restaurant and cafe chain, where his entrepreneurial spirit was sparked early on. From selling pastries in school to crafting DOS programs, each venture was a stepping stone to a bigger vision.
As we explore how organizational culture can be a game-changer, Ahad shares his transformative experiences from being a young entrepreneur and the effect of forum throughout his life. Discover how he helped craft an environment that encouraged employees to unleash their inner entrepreneurs, emphasizing psychological safety and ownership over traditional financial incentives. We also discuss the power of forums and peer groups in personal growth. Join us for an inspiring conversation where business acumen, emotional connections, and a shared vision pave the way for success.
Please visit www.internationalfacilitatorsorganization.com to learn more about Mo Fathelbab and International Facilitators Organization (IFO), a leading provider of facilitators and related group facilitation services, providing training, certification, marketing services, education, and community for peer group facilitators at all stages of their career.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Heart of Business podcast sponsored by
International FacilitatorsOrganization.
I'm your host, mo Fatalbab.
Today, our guest is Ahad Gadimi, founder of Forums at Work and
serial entrepreneur.
Ahad, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thank you, I'm so glad to be here with you, mo.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Great to have you with us.
Where do we find you today?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Today I'm in Toronto, canada, where I grew up.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Oh, love Toronto, Wonderful, so I would imagine
you got your entrepreneurialroots somewhere in Toronto.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Where did it all begin?
What got you inspired to doanything entrepreneurial and
when was it?
That's right.
So I come from a long line ofentrepreneurs.
Both my parents areentrepreneurs entrepreneurs.
They had a and they still havea successful restaurant and cafe
chain here, and so myentrepreneurial education
(01:13):
started at the dining table, inthe car rides, in the
restaurants on weekends andafter school that's.
You know, that was sort of theMBA, before I actually went to
business school.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Amazing, amazing.
And did they have you workingalongside them as you were
growing up?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
That's right.
Yes, I'm the eldest, and so itwas, yeah, I guess, just natural
that you know, especially whenyou know we were new to Canada
at the time and so I was justalways at the restaurant and you
know you're watching yourparents work and so you get
(01:56):
behind the counter, you startcleaning tables and handing out
receipts.
You know when you're five, sixyears old, and then also I think
to like osmosis, right, becauseyou're always just listening to
discussions and to problems andto problem solving, and so it
(02:17):
was just a very immersivechildhood experience of sort of
thinking like an entrepreneuryeah, love it.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So what was your first or next venture after that
?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
um, oh gosh, uh, I think that the first thing that
I can it's funny, I've the firstthing I could think of is back
when they're like um, so we usedto use dos, you know, and you
need to think of this for dosand there's like the big floppy
disk.
I remember creating um, uh, aprogram and and selling it.
(02:55):
So that was sort of the firstthing, and then I guess it must
have been like 10 or 11, um, ohmy god, or even before that.
Actually I'm just you goingback into the mental archives.
Yeah, at the end of the day, myparents would bring home.
Yeah, when you have cafes andpastry shops, you have the food
at the end of the day, and soI'd ask them to bring stuff home
(03:18):
, like the cinnamon buns and thechocolate croissants, and I'd
go to school the next day andI'd sell them.
So that was probably the mostprofitable business I ever had
because I had no cost of goodsand so I got 100% pure profit
selling pastries to kids atschool.
I love it, yeah, and it wasjust like a whole bunch of just
wacky things.
I remember there was one wherethese sort of personal alarm
(03:39):
systems where you pull the thingand it makes an alarm sound in
case you get sort of attacked ormugged, and so I remember doing
a presentation on that in thecondo that I lived in.
I think I must have been 12, 13years old, so yeah, I guess
there's always just been thisnatural propensity to find
(04:00):
things that people wanted andand just to fill that gap.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Love it.
And so then, where did you goto college and what did you
study?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So I went to the university of Western Ontario.
There's a great business schoolthere called the Richard Ivey
school of business, and it's sothe Ivey business school is the
second biggest case producer, soafter Harvard.
So it's a case study school andwe, so you know, so you prepare
three cases, you go to classand you sort of battle it out
(04:30):
and discuss it with yourclassmates.
And actually during that time Istarted a business magazine,
the.
It was like making businessinteresting, provocative,
engaging for business schoolstudents and young professionals
(04:51):
.
And so it gave me theopportunity, you know, during
business school, you know, andan undergrad, to go and meet Jim
Balsillie, who was theco-founder of Research in Motion
, blackberry back then.
Yes, yes, yes.
So I'd skip class and go andmeet him.
Or Scudamore, the1-800-GOT-JUNK guy, or Michael
(05:14):
Bragman, who was, like our ownHoward Schultz, the big second
cup founder here in Canada.
And so it was just thismagazine that allowed, it was
just really an outlet for me tobe able to go and meet really
brilliant people and and askthem unconventional questions.
That just sort of gave, broughtmore of an interesting or an
(05:38):
alternative perspective, a morecolorful perspective, I guess,
to business.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Love it and were you one of these brainiac good
students or one of theseentrepreneur dropouts, Because
you know, we see all flavors ofentrepreneurs.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, no, I was.
I managed to stay in school,but I was a lot more interested
in getting out there and doingthings.
That was really so school washard for me.
You know, I think I was anunlikely student.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Me too.
Me too.
That's why I asked thatquestion.
Yeah, absolutely, it was hardfor me.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, and it was hard because I was surrounded by,
you know, the brilliant studentswho you know would get 90s and
say it was fun and easy.
You know, that was just not myexperience.
It took a tremendous amount ofeffort to just keep up and sort
(06:35):
of be in that pack.
So I can yeah, I can completelyempathize with that.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, yeah, thank you .
So then, after college, did youget a job or did you go say I'm
going to start a business?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
It's a bit of a crazy story, but I met a family in
Toronto towards the end of mybusiness school program.
They sort of pioneered thevilla rental industry, so they
were like the analog Airbnb, youknow, and they were so
(07:14):
fascinated by the magazine andthe stuff that I was doing.
And you know, long story short,the husband and I became really
good friends and he was marriedto a former Miss France and so
we ended up creating a highfashion swimsuit company.
They were living in Costa Rica,so we launched a high fashion
(07:36):
swimsuit company called Vida Sol, out of Costa Rica.
So I came up with this conceptof creating, uh, putting most of
sort of the designs of theswimsuit on the inside of the
bikini.
So it's like, you know, it'slike your own personal little
secret.
So it's just completely uniqueconcept at the time and very
different long before the yearsof social media.
(07:59):
Um, we got featured and all thebig fashion magazines,
including Sports IllustratedSwimsuit Edition, and so we
became.
It was just one of thosescenarios where we're just a bit
of an overnight success.
It just kind of blew up veryquickly and, yes, we had a
really great product and just avery unique story, and so that
(08:24):
took me from Costa Rica and thenI moved to France to help sort
of grow the business in theEuropean market.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
What a great story, Amazing.
So did you end up?
Is that business still exists?
Did you sell it?
What was the exit?
Yep.
And you don't have to tell usnumbers, I'm just what's the
story now?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Sure, yeah, yeah.
So I stayed with the businessfor a few years, ended up.
So the whole idea was I wasgoing to sort of start this for
the.
It was going to be like sort ofthe Miss Frances business.
That was sort of the whole ideathat he was going to sort of
we're going to kind of get thisgoing and she was going to run
this business.
So I sold my shares to thefamily and ended up, um, I ended
(09:06):
up moving to paris, um and uhand getting a job with dan and
yogurts and in waters and uh, itwas just kind of an unlikely.
I got hooked up there with aformer uh, with, like with an
alumni from my business schooland uh, it's a very sort of
different track but definitely alife-changing moment because,
(09:30):
uh, you know, dan and uh,especially at the time, I mean,
you know they're yeah, this islike 2006.
All they talked about was wasculture, and nobody spoke about
culture back then nobody is thatsomething to do with yogurt
culture or corporate culture?
That was the whole thing right,exactly Like a probiotic culture
.
Maybe that's why there are suchfront runners on it.
(09:55):
This is a company even from the70s.
They just thought a lot aboutthe company's impact in society.
And, which is interesting,because in french the the word
for company.
In french it says society,society society.
Yeah, so for them it was likethe uh, uh, uh, uh, like the
(10:22):
role of a company in society.
So there were such frontrunners of this concept of um,
inclusion, uh, acceptance,diversity, uh, people first,
like these are the stuff that wereally spoke about, uh, which
today is, I guess, far moremainstream.
But it was not the case backthen in my role.
(10:43):
So I landed in this role oftraining manager, and so I was a
global training manager for Dan, and so I worked with you know,
there are 110 countries and soI worked all over the world with
them, and what they had figuredout was how to create a Dan and
culture.
(11:03):
So, whether you went to Egypt, Iwent to Cairo or Sao Paulo or
the Czech Republic or Milan,when you were in the four walls
of Dan, and it was, you were inthe Dan and universe, and people
spoke the same way, engage thesame way, treat each other same
way, show up to meetingsprepared in a certain way, and
(11:27):
so it was just this incredibleeducation of that you can really
hone and craft your own culturein an organization.
You can.
You can curate it, you candesign it, you can be very
deliberate about it, versussaying oh well, this is Italy,
and in Italy that's like thepervading culture, yeah, yeah,
(11:50):
and I could throw outstereotypes here.
But in Italy people are likethis, or in Brazil they're like
this, or in Germany they're likethis and it's like no, no, dan
and four walls were like this,and that is consistent all over
the world.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
How cool is that?
Love it.
So after Dannon, what happenednext?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
So you know, I think it's just that, perhaps that
entrepreneurial DNA you know Ilove being at Dannon clearly I'm
still sort of an ambassador forthe company, yeah but that
entrepreneurial itch was reallyreally strong and I wanted to
really pursue it and just to getback at creating and so I left
(12:36):
Danin and continued on the samethread of sort of taking what
I'd learned, sort of this pieceof culture and change management
, you know, within organizations.
I got really lucky again andlanded with a really renowned
turnaround artist, a guy namedGeorge Michel, who was doing a
(12:59):
turnaround at Boston Market andat the time Boston Market had
just come out of, I believe,their second bankruptcy.
He was like two or three.
He was like the third CEO in ayear and a half and what was
really incredible with George isthat he's a strong believer in
culture and creating a certainmentality and and focusing on a
(13:20):
culture change.
And so we were just a reallygreat match and I got to support
him and the organization to gofrom this culture of just
surviving and just trying tolike not collapse to like
thriving and um and so all thosethings that I learned at then
and you know I was able to sortof apply it there and in doing
(13:42):
so, um and a lot of that sort ofinvolved creating environments
of safety where people can shareideas and, you know, create a
culture of non-judgmentpsychological safety.
These are huge elements that Isort of took away from my time
at Dan and what I noticed thatis ahead of its time.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I got to tell you that's very much ahead of its
time.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Right, yeah, yeah, ahead of its time.
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, um itand that's even just clear for
me thinking back to it, becausebefore it was just like the, the
world that I lived in, andwhat's fascinating is is look I,
I was just like per se.
My story sort of portrays.
I was just not a corporateperson, and so for me to land in
this place, feel so included,be able to create, contribute so
(14:27):
much and still feel so it's notoften that people feel so
passionate about companies theyworked for and and continue
waving that flag, all these,like there's something about it
that that causes that, um,affinity.
You know all the all theseyears later, and so, um, yes, I
(14:47):
very much credit Dan, and forthat education I call it my, you
know my, my master's degree in,in in culture, and I guess
after it was sort of working onmy PhD, on, on, on on culture.
And so at Boston market you knowI had to there was this one
moment, I'll never forget it,where what I just started seeing
(15:08):
was that people, the employees,were starting to think and act
like owners.
They were like they werestarting to become
entrepreneurial also.
So they had taken personalownership, and it's not because
they had shares or there was anelaborate incentive scheme.
They felt emotionally connectedto what we were doing.
So, whereas before, like beforeI arrived, they had laid off a
(15:30):
third of the staff.
And so when you do, when youlay off a third of the staff,
that means everybody to theright of you is no longer there,
right?
So that puts everybody on edge,and so you just don't want to
be next on the chopping block,and so that's.
That was that culture ofsurviving.
Let's just, let me just notrock the boat.
And and so creating thisculture of um safety that we can
(15:54):
try, because what we needed todo is be innovative, try new
things, make mistakes, scared todo that in that environment,
but that's what you need.
So there's, there's a it's aweird dilemma, but by doing that
, it just created this likeincredible buy-in from from
people where they were just likeall in um, and I just watched
with my own eyes that, that,that, that, that, that that
(16:17):
shift from people being so umshell-shocked to just leaning so
into this process and this,this concept of employee
ownership and creating a cultureof ownership.
That was sort of my first veryexperiential introduction to it.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So we're talking George Nadev, the founder of
Boston Chicken and the biggestIPO at the time, if I recall
correctly right.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, so the IPO was in.
I believe it was in the 90eties,and so this was like this was,
I think some some years later.
So they had, they were like ahigh flyer and then sort of got
too big and then it crashedExactly.
And so when George Michellecame in and took over, it was
really about trying to.
It was like, you know, tryingto save this crashing airplane
(17:09):
and writing it.
And so after that, you know, Iwas like, wow, this is so
powerful.
And around this time I becameaware of this phenomenon of
retiring business owners, allthese business owners that were
sort of hitting retirement age,retiring business owners, all
these business owners that weresort of hitting retirement age.
(17:30):
And so I started looking forcompanies that I could take over
from retiring business ownersand help transition to an
employee ownership structure,because there is far more
sellers than buyers and maybe alot of people listening don't
know this, but 80 percent ofbusinesses that get put up for
(17:51):
sale don't get sold.
You know it's it's quite hardfor small businesses, small,
medium-sized, especially on thesmaller side businesses to get
sold, talking like 10 to 50employees, um, and so so.
So I started looking for thesebusinesses that I could take
over and transition to employeeownership.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Amazing, amazing.
And so when did you startForums at Work?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
It was after I had done this a few times.
So now I transitioned fromconsultant to CEO.
You know, one of my thoughtswas seeing the impact I'm having
as a consultant.
But but often the theroadblocks or the hurdles to
truly transforming a company isthe owner and is the senior
(18:47):
leadership as a CEOo.
And the irony is is oftenespecially when I was a
consultant doing this you knowthe ceo or the owner would hire
you to behave and they'd have along list of um complaints and
grievances about the leadershipteam, the employees and you know
and in, and I guess when I wasearlier in my career I I'd hear
(19:08):
this okay, so my goal is tochange them.
And then I realized, wait asecond, like the issues stem
from the top.
You know, I mean it's obviousnow to me, but it wasn't back
then and then.
So I found that I was.
That was like a big part of mylearning, learning and I thought
, okay, if I can, I wonder if Ican.
Just, if I was in that role, inthat CEO role, could I drive
(19:33):
change faster?
If I was, if I was spending notall my time trying to like
change the CEO, can I, can I?
How do we drive change faster,and so that's when I was able to
(19:53):
get some opportunities to leadcompanies, either in transition,
or one of them was also abankrupt company, a
manufacturing facility, and itwas around this time that I
joined YPO also and became awareof this forum concept, this
concept that you can get a groupof people together and, by
simply yet powerfully creating avery intentional structure,
(20:17):
that, okay, when we get together, we're going to finish and
start on time.
We're not going to shareanything outside of this meeting
.
We're going to push to be morehonest than we typically are.
We're going to talk about ourfeelings, the good and the bad
and the ugly, and we're going topush to be more honest than we
typically are.
We're going to talk about ourfeelings uh, the good and the
bad and the ugly, and we'regoing to take turns.
Everyone's going to have theexact same amount of time to
talk.
We're going to be verystructured about that, and
(20:37):
experiencing that was a justmassively transformative for my,
for me, you know, I justthought, like I experienced how
much more open, connected,supported, supported, I felt,
and then, particularly given mybackground in training, my sort
of knee-jerk reaction was well,how do you bring this into a
(20:58):
company, and so I started doingthat.
I started bringing it, taking acompany of a few hundred people
that I was leading and breakingthem down into little tribes,
little groups that would meetregularly, um, and while in like
a ypo forum, it's very sort offocused on yourself.
You're talking about yourpersonal business, your, your
(21:21):
career, your family, yourpersonal stuff.
It's really centered on you.
This was was really more aboutlearning groups, so getting
groups that would learn together, discuss together.
It was still about them sharingabout themselves, but it wasn't
about them bearing their soulsto one another.
It's just helping each otherget to know each other better,
(21:43):
and every time they meet we'dhave different discussions.
Discussions know, discussionscould be, could be around things
like you know, how we cancommunicate better together, how
we can support each otherbetter or how we can make
product improvements better, youknow, find efficiencies better.
But it was always in this sortof structure of everybody's
(22:04):
equal, same amount of time totalk and with a very focused
theme.
And so, having done that at mycompanies and just seeing how
dramatically successful it was,it just changed the way people
interacted with one another, howpeople felt more connected to
each other and therefore thecompany company, um after after,
(22:36):
uh, so I had two exits in thesame year.
I was like, okay, like I justrealized that I was just a lot
more passionate and excitedabout that, the people seeing
people change, seeing peoplegrow, and how that contributed
to like how that had an outsizedimpact on the company, then the
actual product itself, and so Ithought, you know, I'm just
going to focus on creating atool where this can be more
widely accessible, and so that'show it forms at work.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
I love that and I want to get into that, because
we have a very big sharedmission.
But before we get to our verybig shared mission, you said
your forum had a meaningfulimpact on you.
Can you give us an example ofone way?
Or, if you can?
I know it's all confidential,but it's about you.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah, I'll speak
about it for myself.
Look, I remember my first forummeeting.
Uh, I remember first hearingabout this concept about a forum
and, um, I feel silly almostnow, like sharing my, like, my,
my reaction.
But my question was, like, allright, so should I just come
back to complain about like,what like is that?
Is that what this is reallyabout?
(23:41):
I just, I just never had thismodel.
You know my I, I never had thisidea of talking about what's
your challenges, um, talkingabout how you felt about them.
For me, I, I couldn'tdistinguish between that and
complaining, and you know it'slargely raised that you just put
your head down and get to itand just get it done and and
(24:04):
have like a can-do attitude andand what I realized is that
they're not mutually exclusive.
You know it's like you can'tget help if you don't share
where your challenges are.
There's parts of ourselves thatare in a complete blind spot
(24:28):
and in having people that sortof know you and you share about
yourself with regularly helpsyou identify those blind spots,
and a part of that is sharingabout yourself more and letting
people know more about you.
So I'd say for me, I mean,there's been so many junctures
(24:52):
where form has been reallypowerful.
But I'd say it's just likeunderstanding more about A.
It's just actually developingthis muscle of being more
comfortable to share and moreopen to share.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
That in itself is just a big blind spot, you know
yeah, it takes, uh, it takescourage, which you have in
spades, right yeah, it's, yeah,it's.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Uh, I think courage is like a muscle that you just
keep building and you build itby um, taking that risk.
You know, I think that's whatit is of, of sharing and um, and
they're ultimately theiremotional risks, which sometimes
, you know, sort of have feellike they have the, the, the
most at stake, um.
(25:38):
But I think that's why I justbecame so passionate about it,
because I just saw the impactthat it had on me and also the
impact that it had um onAbsolutely so, ahad.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Let's talk about our shared vision, mission and our
belief of what this can do to betransformative in this world.
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
So you know, I'm public aboutthis.
It's on our website and I sayyou know, I think that we need
to have every human being in aforum or a peer group, whatever
(26:15):
you want to call it.
And, to be more realistic, Ithink a billion people made more
sense to me as a number that'sachievable, and I think when you
and I first met, you're like ohmy God, mo, I've had the same
vision.
Is that right or was itslightly different?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
It's spot on, and so I don't think I even told you
this, but I was, I was, I leftlike I think it was a GLC, a GLC
conference, the.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Global Leadership Conference, where they train the
chapter officers for YPO, whichis Young Presidents
Organization for those thathaven't heard previous episodes
and to be a member you have tobe under 50, joined by 45, and
have at least 15 million insales and 50 employees, and
those numbers can be higher insome chapters that are more
(27:01):
exclusive, but that's basicallythe minimum.
So, just so everybody knowswhat organization you are
referring to and you joined, soplease continue.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah, yeah.
And so I jumped into a cab withanother member.
We're both going to the airport.
We got to talking and I sharedthat that's what I'm, that my
vision, that you know what doyou do.
And I talked about the billionand he says well, I know someone
else who wants, who wants toput a billion people in forums.
And that's when he told meabout you.
(27:31):
And that's when I read oh mygod, who was it?
Speaker 1 (27:35):
um, I don't recall his name okay, you'll have to
let me know.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, wow, amazing um , I believe he was from
washington, but I don't rememberhis name right now, um, but it
was just.
You know, we were like therewas no calves.
He, he got into one, he goeshey, if you're going to the
airport, we can ride together.
And but it was just I wasthinking about this before we
got on today how we just gotconnected.
And so there's, we're united bya number, absolutely, and by a
(28:01):
vision.
And when I hear you, when I hearyou talk about your views, I, I
just feel I can't look away.
Like, you know, I've, I've, youknow, this past year, we put
hundreds of people in peerlearning forums in Africa, in
(28:26):
West Africa, people inmanufacturing, tech, insurance,
retail, and and it's, it's just,it's consistently the same
thing how their confidence grows, how their sense of self grows,
how their family lives change,how their people around them
tell them that they're likedifferent and they just seem
(28:48):
more confident and better, andhow they then and then how they
feel everybody should have this.
And so I just think it's so,when you see that and we've just
, in the last year, you know,have launched that in Turkey, in
Manila, you know, we've done itin South America, across the
(29:13):
United States, when you see justhow universal it is across
industries, across cultures,from senior leadership right
down to factory floor.
You know steel welders inMexicali or El Centro,
california.
You know right down the borderof Mexico and California who
(29:37):
have been in these sort ofworkplace peer learning forums
and and then and I've spoken tothem I say so what's this like?
And they're like, you know,like I, just I feel a lot more
connected to the people I workwith.
I like being here, I, I, I'mgrowing, I'm learning, and you
see that excitement that you andI both share, and so you
(30:00):
realize that, yeah, it's likewhat.
There's a reason why you and Ifeel so strongly about this.
There's a very concrete,tangible reason.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
It's really a crime that the world does not know
about this.
You know, I my first book in2008, forum the Secret Advantage
of Successful Leaders.
Why did I title it the SecretAdvantage?
Because in my world in 2008, itwas just CEOs, and it was many
CEOs around the world.
Right At that point, I'dalready worked with CEOs in YPO
(30:30):
and EO in over 30 countries, andyet it's still a secret.
And today I think the secret'sstarting to come out.
So that's our job, my friend.
We got to let people know thattheir lives will be better in
every measurable way, and insome very immeasurable ways,
right as a result of belongingto a forum that works, following
(30:54):
this model that we've known andloved for so long.
And it's really the model thatmakes it work, I think, because
we're not taught to not giveadvice as we're growing up,
we're not taught not to be sojudgmental with a facial
expression or with here's what Ithink you should do with your
life.
We're not taught to bevulnerable.
(31:17):
We're, in fact, taught to beinvulnerable, to protect
ourselves and to not show ouremotions and big boys don't cry.
And so to have this incredibleoutlet gives us so much space to
learn, to grow and to getthings off our chests.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Beautifully said.
I mean, it's so refreshing tohear you say this and describe
it, because you say it with suchsimilar words and similar
passion that I feel.
And to hear you say it andsomeone with just the breadth of
experience that you have andthe impact that you've made is,
(31:57):
is so reaffirming.
I think it's like one of thosethings where you're right.
It is you said it's a crime andyou said it's a secret, and I
agree with all those things Ithink about and I know in my
bones that one day there will bejustice and everybody will have
(32:21):
an opportunity to join a peergroup and there will be.
It will no longer be a secretand it'll be so widely known and
I think it'll be one of thosethings that people will be like
well, how did people survivewithout this?
I mean, when they did it, itjust kind of just suffered, you
know, in isolation, and it'slike that makes no sense.
(32:43):
It's like, yeah, well, it didit, you know.
And so I just know that's goingto happen and we'll look back
on, you know, conversations likethis and think and just sort of
see the before and after.
And so I'm I'm just so thrilledto have met you, because you,
you know, if you think about itin by definition, it's important
(33:11):
to like come together to createthis for everybody, and you
can't do this alone, you know.
Come together to create thisfor everybody.
You can't do this alone, youknow, if you bring a billion
people together to create sortof a different operating model
with which people communicate,because now I'm incapable of
giving advice, right, unless heasks for it.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah, even then I struggle.
So, ahad, let me ask you thisso we get a billion people in
forums through whatevermechanism they need, whatever
mechanism that works for themvirtual, in-person, whatever but
we've got a billion people thatare living by this culture, are
living by this ethos that we sohold dearly.
(33:53):
And I'll remember the days whenwe started forums at Google.
We started 12 groups forunderrepresented minorities, and
what was very clear early on isthey loved these groups and
evaluations were incredibly highand they said we love the
culture of these peer groups.
How can we make that theculture of Google itself?
(34:15):
Of course, we didn't reachenough people to have that
impact, but when you insist thatevery member of the company
gets to participate, thatchanges things, doesn't it?
I think you have a story aboutthat.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
I'll share an example.
Actually another tech company,so one of our clients.
They've been running these peerlearning forums within their
company for years now and now,and it became just like what you
(34:49):
described with Google.
It was voluntary first and thenit kept growing and then it
became no, this is who we are,and now they call their groups
Heartbeat, so this is theirheartbeat.
I love that.
Now they call their groups umheartbeat, so this is their
heartbeat, and they have a Ilove that and they have
heartbeat t-shirts and it's justthis is part of their heartbeat
and uh and it's, and whathappened was was someone had
(35:12):
joined the company and I guessthey had fallen through the
cracks, but they weren't putinto one of these groups.
Yeah, and they started havingfriction with some, but they
weren't put into one of thesegroups.
And they started havingfriction with some salesperson,
with some of the operationalpeople.
And that happens, right, salesand operation Sales sometimes
calls operation the anti-salesdepartment, and so they're
having this friction andeventually this salesperson
(35:35):
storms into the CEO's office andis complaining and is
frustrated.
And he was just listening toher this is a great YPO and a
great advocate of forums andforums in the workplace and he
said wait a second, are you in aheartbeat group?
She's like no, no, they weresupposed to put me in one like a
month ago and they just stillhaven't.
(35:56):
He's like that's what's goingon.
She just was not, had not becomepart of her group, so she was
not communicating the wayeverybody.
Uh, she was part, like there waslike two cultures, was the
people who were part of thiswere communicating, listening,
understanding one another, had,were, were, because they meet
(36:16):
weekly in the in these groups.
So so when you do that, you'rebuilding a muscle, a
communication muscle, way ofbeing together and she was just
not part of that.
So she had not, she was stillkind of doing it her own or like
so she's still like an outsideractually, yeah, and so it
really showed that the sort ofdifference in disparity when you
(36:40):
become part of this and you'reregularly meeting, building
relationships, practicing thisstyle and form of communication,
and then when you're not.
So that's why it's so important, because what happens is the
people that are in it, alwaysconsistently, they love it, they
, they're, they're, they're,they're, they're engaged, they,
(37:03):
they change, they transform theway that they listen and
communicate.
And then when you, when youhave people who aren't, then you
have sort of haves and havenots and then you start having
two very different types ofcultures.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Love that.
I love that.
Ahad, what an amazing, amazingstory you've had and what an
amazing impact we are going tohave.
I cannot wait to figure outways for us to join forces to
really make a difference.
I want to end with one lastquestion One person that's had
the most impact on your life,one person that's had the most
(37:38):
impact?
Speaker 2 (37:41):
on your life.
I would say my, my mother hashad sort of this impact on my
life and and I think it'sbecause she's just always been a
safe place for me to go andtalk to I mean, she's you know,
I think I could.
I've really never truly beenalone because I've just always
(38:06):
had her to go and talk to andand and be myself with.
So she offered me that spaceand that opportunity and
continues to do so.
So, yeah, I feel super lucky.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
My spine is tingling.
My friend, my mother, is mybiggest cheerleader, always has
been, no matter what.
So right there with you.
Love to our mothers.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Yes, love to our mothers and yeah, we're really
lucky to have that and to haveour mothers around and to still
be able to benefit from thattype of really unique love.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yes, I love it.
We'll end it there.
Thank you so much, ahad.
You can follow the Heart ofBusiness podcast wherever you
get your podcasts.
Also, podcast reviews have areal impact on our visibility,
so if you like today's episode,please give us a review.
Finally, you can listen to allour episodes at our website,
internationalfacilitatorscom.
(39:04):
Thank you for listening andhave a great day.
Welcome to the Heart of Business podcast sponsored by
International FacilitatorsOrganization.
I'm your host, mo Fatalbab.
Today, our guest is Ahad Gadimi, founder of Forums at Work and
serial entrepreneur.
Ahad, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thank you, I'm so glad to be here with you, mo.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Great to have you with us.
Where do we find you today?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Today I'm in Toronto, canada, where I grew up.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Oh, love Toronto, Wonderful, so I would imagine
you got your entrepreneurialroots somewhere in Toronto.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Where did it all begin?
What got you inspired to doanything entrepreneurial and
when was it?
That's right.
So I come from a long line ofentrepreneurs.
Both my parents areentrepreneurs entrepreneurs.
They had a and they still havea successful restaurant and cafe
chain here, and so myentrepreneurial education
(01:13):
started at the dining table, inthe car rides, in the
restaurants on weekends andafter school that's.
You know, that was sort of theMBA, before I actually went to
business school.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Amazing, amazing.
And did they have you workingalongside them as you were
growing up?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
That's right.
Yes, I'm the eldest, and so itwas, yeah, I guess, just natural
that you know, especially whenyou know we were new to Canada
at the time and so I was justalways at the restaurant and you
know you're watching yourparents work and so you get
(01:56):
behind the counter, you startcleaning tables and handing out
receipts.
You know when you're five, sixyears old, and then also I think
to like osmosis, right, becauseyou're always just listening to
discussions and to problems andto problem solving, and so it
(02:17):
was just a very immersivechildhood experience of sort of
thinking like an entrepreneuryeah, love it.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So what was your first or next venture after that
?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
um, oh gosh, uh, I think that the first thing that
I can it's funny, I've the firstthing I could think of is back
when they're like um, so we usedto use dos, you know, and you
need to think of this for dosand there's like the big floppy
disk.
I remember creating um, uh, aprogram and and selling it.
(02:55):
So that was sort of the firstthing, and then I guess it must
have been like 10 or 11, um, ohmy god, or even before that.
Actually I'm just you goingback into the mental archives.
Yeah, at the end of the day, myparents would bring home.
Yeah, when you have cafes andpastry shops, you have the food
at the end of the day, and soI'd ask them to bring stuff home
(03:18):
, like the cinnamon buns and thechocolate croissants, and I'd
go to school the next day andI'd sell them.
So that was probably the mostprofitable business I ever had
because I had no cost of goodsand so I got 100% pure profit
selling pastries to kids atschool.
I love it, yeah, and it wasjust like a whole bunch of just
wacky things.
I remember there was one wherethese sort of personal alarm
(03:39):
systems where you pull the thingand it makes an alarm sound in
case you get sort of attacked ormugged, and so I remember doing
a presentation on that in thecondo that I lived in.
I think I must have been 12, 13years old, so yeah, I guess
there's always just been thisnatural propensity to find
(04:00):
things that people wanted andand just to fill that gap.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Love it.
And so then, where did you goto college and what did you
study?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So I went to the university of Western Ontario.
There's a great business schoolthere called the Richard Ivey
school of business, and it's sothe Ivey business school is the
second biggest case producer, soafter Harvard.
So it's a case study school andwe, so you know, so you prepare
three cases, you go to classand you sort of battle it out
(04:30):
and discuss it with yourclassmates.
And actually during that time Istarted a business magazine,
the.
It was like making businessinteresting, provocative,
engaging for business schoolstudents and young professionals
(04:51):
.
And so it gave me theopportunity, you know, during
business school, you know, andan undergrad, to go and meet Jim
Balsillie, who was theco-founder of Research in Motion
, blackberry back then.
Yes, yes, yes.
So I'd skip class and go andmeet him.
Or Scudamore, the1-800-GOT-JUNK guy, or Michael
(05:14):
Bragman, who was, like our ownHoward Schultz, the big second
cup founder here in Canada.
And so it was just thismagazine that allowed, it was
just really an outlet for me tobe able to go and meet really
brilliant people and and askthem unconventional questions.
That just sort of gave, broughtmore of an interesting or an
(05:38):
alternative perspective, a morecolorful perspective, I guess,
to business.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Love it and were you one of these brainiac good
students or one of theseentrepreneur dropouts, Because
you know, we see all flavors ofentrepreneurs.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, no, I was.
I managed to stay in school,but I was a lot more interested
in getting out there and doingthings.
That was really so school washard for me.
You know, I think I was anunlikely student.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Me too.
Me too.
That's why I asked thatquestion.
Yeah, absolutely, it was hardfor me.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, and it was hard because I was surrounded by,
you know, the brilliant studentswho you know would get 90s and
say it was fun and easy.
You know, that was just not myexperience.
It took a tremendous amount ofeffort to just keep up and sort
(06:35):
of be in that pack.
So I can yeah, I can completelyempathize with that.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, yeah, thank you .
So then, after college, did youget a job or did you go say I'm
going to start a business?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
It's a bit of a crazy story, but I met a family in
Toronto towards the end of mybusiness school program.
They sort of pioneered thevilla rental industry, so they
were like the analog Airbnb, youknow, and they were so
(07:14):
fascinated by the magazine andthe stuff that I was doing.
And you know, long story short,the husband and I became really
good friends and he was marriedto a former Miss France and so
we ended up creating a highfashion swimsuit company.
They were living in Costa Rica,so we launched a high fashion
(07:36):
swimsuit company called Vida Sol, out of Costa Rica.
So I came up with this conceptof creating, uh, putting most of
sort of the designs of theswimsuit on the inside of the
bikini.
So it's like, you know, it'slike your own personal little
secret.
So it's just completely uniqueconcept at the time and very
different long before the yearsof social media.
(07:59):
Um, we got featured and all thebig fashion magazines,
including Sports IllustratedSwimsuit Edition, and so we
became.
It was just one of thosescenarios where we're just a bit
of an overnight success.
It just kind of blew up veryquickly and, yes, we had a
really great product and just avery unique story, and so that
(08:24):
took me from Costa Rica and thenI moved to France to help sort
of grow the business in theEuropean market.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
What a great story, Amazing.
So did you end up?
Is that business still exists?
Did you sell it?
What was the exit?
Yep.
And you don't have to tell usnumbers, I'm just what's the
story now?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Sure, yeah, yeah.
So I stayed with the businessfor a few years, ended up.
So the whole idea was I wasgoing to sort of start this for
the.
It was going to be like sort ofthe Miss Frances business.
That was sort of the whole ideathat he was going to sort of
we're going to kind of get thisgoing and she was going to run
this business.
So I sold my shares to thefamily and ended up, um, I ended
(09:06):
up moving to paris, um and uhand getting a job with dan and
yogurts and in waters and uh, itwas just kind of an unlikely.
I got hooked up there with aformer uh, with, like with an
alumni from my business schooland uh, it's a very sort of
different track but definitely alife-changing moment because,
(09:30):
uh, you know, dan and uh,especially at the time, I mean,
you know they're yeah, this islike 2006.
All they talked about was wasculture, and nobody spoke about
culture back then nobody is thatsomething to do with yogurt
culture or corporate culture?
That was the whole thing right,exactly Like a probiotic culture
.
Maybe that's why there are suchfront runners on it.
(09:55):
This is a company even from the70s.
They just thought a lot aboutthe company's impact in society.
And, which is interesting,because in french the the word
for company.
In french it says society,society society.
Yeah, so for them it was likethe uh, uh, uh, uh, like the
(10:22):
role of a company in society.
So there were such frontrunners of this concept of um,
inclusion, uh, acceptance,diversity, uh, people first,
like these are the stuff that wereally spoke about, uh, which
today is, I guess, far moremainstream.
But it was not the case backthen in my role.
(10:43):
So I landed in this role oftraining manager, and so I was a
global training manager for Dan, and so I worked with you know,
there are 110 countries and soI worked all over the world with
them, and what they had figuredout was how to create a Dan and
culture.
(11:03):
So, whether you went to Egypt, Iwent to Cairo or Sao Paulo or
the Czech Republic or Milan,when you were in the four walls
of Dan, and it was, you were inthe Dan and universe, and people
spoke the same way, engage thesame way, treat each other same
way, show up to meetingsprepared in a certain way, and
(11:27):
so it was just this incredibleeducation of that you can really
hone and craft your own culturein an organization.
You can.
You can curate it, you candesign it, you can be very
deliberate about it, versussaying oh well, this is Italy,
and in Italy that's like thepervading culture, yeah, yeah,
(11:50):
and I could throw outstereotypes here.
But in Italy people are likethis, or in Brazil they're like
this, or in Germany they're likethis and it's like no, no, dan
and four walls were like this,and that is consistent all over
the world.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
How cool is that?
Love it.
So after Dannon, what happenednext?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
So you know, I think it's just that, perhaps that
entrepreneurial DNA you know Ilove being at Dannon clearly I'm
still sort of an ambassador forthe company, yeah but that
entrepreneurial itch was reallyreally strong and I wanted to
really pursue it and just to getback at creating and so I left
(12:36):
Danin and continued on the samethread of sort of taking what
I'd learned, sort of this pieceof culture and change management
, you know, within organizations.
I got really lucky again andlanded with a really renowned
turnaround artist, a guy namedGeorge Michel, who was doing a
(12:59):
turnaround at Boston Market andat the time Boston Market had
just come out of, I believe,their second bankruptcy.
He was like two or three.
He was like the third CEO in ayear and a half and what was
really incredible with George isthat he's a strong believer in
culture and creating a certainmentality and and focusing on a
(13:20):
culture change.
And so we were just a reallygreat match and I got to support
him and the organization to gofrom this culture of just
surviving and just trying tolike not collapse to like
thriving and um and so all thosethings that I learned at then
and you know I was able to sortof apply it there and in doing
(13:42):
so, um and a lot of that sort ofinvolved creating environments
of safety where people can shareideas and, you know, create a
culture of non-judgmentpsychological safety.
These are huge elements that Isort of took away from my time
at Dan and what I noticed thatis ahead of its time.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I got to tell you that's very much ahead of its
time.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Right, yeah, yeah, ahead of its time.
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, um itand that's even just clear for
me thinking back to it, becausebefore it was just like the, the
world that I lived in, andwhat's fascinating is is look I,
I was just like per se.
My story sort of portrays.
I was just not a corporateperson, and so for me to land in
this place, feel so included,be able to create, contribute so
(14:27):
much and still feel so it's notoften that people feel so
passionate about companies theyworked for and and continue
waving that flag, all these,like there's something about it
that that causes that, um,affinity.
You know all the all theseyears later, and so, um, yes, I
(14:47):
very much credit Dan, and forthat education I call it my, you
know my, my master's degree in,in in culture, and I guess
after it was sort of working onmy PhD, on, on, on on culture.
And so at Boston market you knowI had to there was this one
moment, I'll never forget it,where what I just started seeing
(15:08):
was that people, the employees,were starting to think and act
like owners.
They were like they werestarting to become
entrepreneurial also.
So they had taken personalownership, and it's not because
they had shares or there was anelaborate incentive scheme.
They felt emotionally connectedto what we were doing.
So, whereas before, like beforeI arrived, they had laid off a
(15:30):
third of the staff.
And so when you do, when youlay off a third of the staff,
that means everybody to theright of you is no longer there,
right?
So that puts everybody on edge,and so you just don't want to
be next on the chopping block,and so that's.
That was that culture ofsurviving.
Let's just, let me just notrock the boat.
And and so creating thisculture of um safety that we can
(15:54):
try, because what we needed todo is be innovative, try new
things, make mistakes, scared todo that in that environment,
but that's what you need.
So there's, there's a it's aweird dilemma, but by doing that
, it just created this likeincredible buy-in from from
people where they were just likeall in um, and I just watched
with my own eyes that, that,that, that, that, that that
(16:17):
shift from people being so umshell-shocked to just leaning so
into this process and this,this concept of employee
ownership and creating a cultureof ownership.
That was sort of my first veryexperiential introduction to it.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So we're talking George Nadev, the founder of
Boston Chicken and the biggestIPO at the time, if I recall
correctly right.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, so the IPO was in.
I believe it was in the 90eties,and so this was like this was,
I think some some years later.
So they had, they were like ahigh flyer and then sort of got
too big and then it crashedExactly.
And so when George Michellecame in and took over, it was
really about trying to.
It was like, you know, tryingto save this crashing airplane
(17:09):
and writing it.
And so after that, you know, Iwas like, wow, this is so
powerful.
And around this time I becameaware of this phenomenon of
retiring business owners, allthese business owners that were
sort of hitting retirement age,retiring business owners, all
these business owners that weresort of hitting retirement age.
(17:30):
And so I started looking forcompanies that I could take over
from retiring business ownersand help transition to an
employee ownership structure,because there is far more
sellers than buyers and maybe alot of people listening don't
know this, but 80 percent ofbusinesses that get put up for
(17:51):
sale don't get sold.
You know it's it's quite hardfor small businesses, small,
medium-sized, especially on thesmaller side businesses to get
sold, talking like 10 to 50employees, um, and so so.
So I started looking for thesebusinesses that I could take
over and transition to employeeownership.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Amazing, amazing.
And so when did you startForums at Work?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
It was after I had done this a few times.
So now I transitioned fromconsultant to CEO.
You know, one of my thoughtswas seeing the impact I'm having
as a consultant.
But but often the theroadblocks or the hurdles to
truly transforming a company isthe owner and is the senior
(18:47):
leadership as a CEOo.
And the irony is is oftenespecially when I was a
consultant doing this you knowthe ceo or the owner would hire
you to behave and they'd have along list of um complaints and
grievances about the leadershipteam, the employees and you know
and in, and I guess when I wasearlier in my career I I'd hear
(19:08):
this okay, so my goal is tochange them.
And then I realized, wait asecond, like the issues stem
from the top.
You know, I mean it's obviousnow to me, but it wasn't back
then and then.
So I found that I was.
That was like a big part of mylearning, learning and I thought
, okay, if I can, I wonder if Ican.
Just, if I was in that role, inthat CEO role, could I drive
(19:33):
change faster?
If I was, if I was spending notall my time trying to like
change the CEO, can I, can I?
How do we drive change faster,and so that's when I was able to
(19:53):
get some opportunities to leadcompanies, either in transition,
or one of them was also abankrupt company, a
manufacturing facility, and itwas around this time that I
joined YPO also and became awareof this forum concept, this
concept that you can get a groupof people together and, by
simply yet powerfully creating avery intentional structure,
(20:17):
that, okay, when we get together, we're going to finish and
start on time.
We're not going to shareanything outside of this meeting
.
We're going to push to be morehonest than we typically are.
We're going to talk about ourfeelings, the good and the bad
and the ugly, and we're going topush to be more honest than we
typically are.
We're going to talk about ourfeelings uh, the good and the
bad and the ugly, and we'regoing to take turns.
Everyone's going to have theexact same amount of time to
talk.
We're going to be verystructured about that, and
(20:37):
experiencing that was a justmassively transformative for my,
for me, you know, I justthought, like I experienced how
much more open, connected,supported, supported, I felt,
and then, particularly given mybackground in training, my sort
of knee-jerk reaction was well,how do you bring this into a
(20:58):
company, and so I started doingthat.
I started bringing it, taking acompany of a few hundred people
that I was leading and breakingthem down into little tribes,
little groups that would meetregularly, um, and while in like
a ypo forum, it's very sort offocused on yourself.
You're talking about yourpersonal business, your, your
(21:21):
career, your family, yourpersonal stuff.
It's really centered on you.
This was was really more aboutlearning groups, so getting
groups that would learn together, discuss together.
It was still about them sharingabout themselves, but it wasn't
about them bearing their soulsto one another.
It's just helping each otherget to know each other better,
(21:43):
and every time they meet we'dhave different discussions.
Discussions know, discussionscould be, could be around things
like you know, how we cancommunicate better together, how
we can support each otherbetter or how we can make
product improvements better, youknow, find efficiencies better.
But it was always in this sortof structure of everybody's
(22:04):
equal, same amount of time totalk and with a very focused
theme.
And so, having done that at mycompanies and just seeing how
dramatically successful it was,it just changed the way people
interacted with one another, howpeople felt more connected to
each other and therefore thecompany company, um after after,
(22:36):
uh, so I had two exits in thesame year.
I was like, okay, like I justrealized that I was just a lot
more passionate and excitedabout that, the people seeing
people change, seeing peoplegrow, and how that contributed
to like how that had an outsizedimpact on the company, then the
actual product itself, and so Ithought, you know, I'm just
going to focus on creating atool where this can be more
widely accessible, and so that'show it forms at work.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
I love that and I want to get into that, because
we have a very big sharedmission.
But before we get to our verybig shared mission, you said
your forum had a meaningfulimpact on you.
Can you give us an example ofone way?
Or, if you can?
I know it's all confidential,but it's about you.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah, I'll speak
about it for myself.
Look, I remember my first forummeeting.
Uh, I remember first hearingabout this concept about a forum
and, um, I feel silly almostnow, like sharing my, like, my,
my reaction.
But my question was, like, allright, so should I just come
back to complain about like,what like is that?
Is that what this is reallyabout?
(23:41):
I just, I just never had thismodel.
You know my I, I never had thisidea of talking about what's
your challenges, um, talkingabout how you felt about them.
For me, I, I couldn'tdistinguish between that and
complaining, and you know it'slargely raised that you just put
your head down and get to itand just get it done and and
(24:04):
have like a can-do attitude andand what I realized is that
they're not mutually exclusive.
You know it's like you can'tget help if you don't share
where your challenges are.
There's parts of ourselves thatare in a complete blind spot
(24:28):
and in having people that sortof know you and you share about
yourself with regularly helpsyou identify those blind spots,
and a part of that is sharingabout yourself more and letting
people know more about you.
So I'd say for me, I mean,there's been so many junctures
(24:52):
where form has been reallypowerful.
But I'd say it's just likeunderstanding more about A.
It's just actually developingthis muscle of being more
comfortable to share and moreopen to share.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
That in itself is just a big blind spot, you know
yeah, it takes, uh, it takescourage, which you have in
spades, right yeah, it's, yeah,it's.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Uh, I think courage is like a muscle that you just
keep building and you build itby um, taking that risk.
You know, I think that's whatit is of, of sharing and um, and
they're ultimately theiremotional risks, which sometimes
, you know, sort of have feellike they have the, the, the
most at stake, um.
(25:38):
But I think that's why I justbecame so passionate about it,
because I just saw the impactthat it had on me and also the
impact that it had um onAbsolutely so, ahad.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Let's talk about our shared vision, mission and our
belief of what this can do to betransformative in this world.
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
So you know, I'm public aboutthis.
It's on our website and I sayyou know, I think that we need
to have every human being in aforum or a peer group, whatever
(26:15):
you want to call it.
And, to be more realistic, Ithink a billion people made more
sense to me as a number that'sachievable, and I think when you
and I first met, you're like ohmy God, mo, I've had the same
vision.
Is that right or was itslightly different?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
It's spot on, and so I don't think I even told you
this, but I was, I was, I leftlike I think it was a GLC, a GLC
conference, the.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Global Leadership Conference, where they train the
chapter officers for YPO, whichis Young Presidents
Organization for those thathaven't heard previous episodes
and to be a member you have tobe under 50, joined by 45, and
have at least 15 million insales and 50 employees, and
those numbers can be higher insome chapters that are more
(27:01):
exclusive, but that's basicallythe minimum.
So, just so everybody knowswhat organization you are
referring to and you joined, soplease continue.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah, yeah.
And so I jumped into a cab withanother member.
We're both going to the airport.
We got to talking and I sharedthat that's what I'm, that my
vision, that you know what doyou do.
And I talked about the billionand he says well, I know someone
else who wants, who wants toput a billion people in forums.
And that's when he told meabout you.
(27:31):
And that's when I read oh mygod, who was it?
Speaker 1 (27:35):
um, I don't recall his name okay, you'll have to
let me know.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, wow, amazing um , I believe he was from
washington, but I don't rememberhis name right now, um, but it
was just.
You know, we were like therewas no calves.
He, he got into one, he goeshey, if you're going to the
airport, we can ride together.
And but it was just I wasthinking about this before we
got on today how we just gotconnected.
And so there's, we're united bya number, absolutely, and by a
(28:01):
vision.
And when I hear you, when I hearyou talk about your views, I, I
just feel I can't look away.
Like, you know, I've, I've, youknow, this past year, we put
hundreds of people in peerlearning forums in Africa, in
(28:26):
West Africa, people inmanufacturing, tech, insurance,
retail, and and it's, it's just,it's consistently the same
thing how their confidence grows, how their sense of self grows,
how their family lives change,how their people around them
tell them that they're likedifferent and they just seem
(28:48):
more confident and better, andhow they then and then how they
feel everybody should have this.
And so I just think it's so,when you see that and we've just
, in the last year, you know,have launched that in Turkey, in
Manila, you know, we've done itin South America, across the
(29:13):
United States, when you see justhow universal it is across
industries, across cultures,from senior leadership right
down to factory floor.
You know steel welders inMexicali or El Centro,
california.
You know right down the borderof Mexico and California who
(29:37):
have been in these sort ofworkplace peer learning forums
and and then and I've spoken tothem I say so what's this like?
And they're like, you know,like I, just I feel a lot more
connected to the people I workwith.
I like being here, I, I, I'mgrowing, I'm learning, and you
see that excitement that you andI both share, and so you
(30:00):
realize that, yeah, it's likewhat.
There's a reason why you and Ifeel so strongly about this.
There's a very concrete,tangible reason.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
It's really a crime that the world does not know
about this.
You know, I my first book in2008, forum the Secret Advantage
of Successful Leaders.
Why did I title it the SecretAdvantage?
Because in my world in 2008, itwas just CEOs, and it was many
CEOs around the world.
Right At that point, I'dalready worked with CEOs in YPO
(30:30):
and EO in over 30 countries, andyet it's still a secret.
And today I think the secret'sstarting to come out.
So that's our job, my friend.
We got to let people know thattheir lives will be better in
every measurable way, and insome very immeasurable ways,
right as a result of belongingto a forum that works, following
(30:54):
this model that we've known andloved for so long.
And it's really the model thatmakes it work, I think, because
we're not taught to not giveadvice as we're growing up,
we're not taught not to be sojudgmental with a facial
expression or with here's what Ithink you should do with your
life.
We're not taught to bevulnerable.
(31:17):
We're, in fact, taught to beinvulnerable, to protect
ourselves and to not show ouremotions and big boys don't cry.
And so to have this incredibleoutlet gives us so much space to
learn, to grow and to getthings off our chests.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Beautifully said.
I mean, it's so refreshing tohear you say this and describe
it, because you say it with suchsimilar words and similar
passion that I feel.
And to hear you say it andsomeone with just the breadth of
experience that you have andthe impact that you've made is,
(31:57):
is so reaffirming.
I think it's like one of thosethings where you're right.
It is you said it's a crime andyou said it's a secret, and I
agree with all those things Ithink about and I know in my
bones that one day there will bejustice and everybody will have
(32:21):
an opportunity to join a peergroup and there will be.
It will no longer be a secretand it'll be so widely known and
I think it'll be one of thosethings that people will be like
well, how did people survivewithout this?
I mean, when they did it, itjust kind of just suffered, you
know, in isolation, and it'slike that makes no sense.
(32:43):
It's like, yeah, well, it didit, you know.
And so I just know that's goingto happen and we'll look back
on, you know, conversations likethis and think and just sort of
see the before and after.
And so I'm I'm just so thrilledto have met you, because you,
you know, if you think about itin by definition, it's important
(33:11):
to like come together to createthis for everybody, and you
can't do this alone, you know.
Come together to create thisfor everybody.
You can't do this alone, youknow, if you bring a billion
people together to create sortof a different operating model
with which people communicate,because now I'm incapable of
giving advice, right, unless heasks for it.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah, even then I struggle.
So, ahad, let me ask you thisso we get a billion people in
forums through whatevermechanism they need, whatever
mechanism that works for themvirtual, in-person, whatever but
we've got a billion people thatare living by this culture, are
living by this ethos that we sohold dearly.
(33:53):
And I'll remember the days whenwe started forums at Google.
We started 12 groups forunderrepresented minorities, and
what was very clear early on isthey loved these groups and
evaluations were incredibly highand they said we love the
culture of these peer groups.
How can we make that theculture of Google itself?
(34:15):
Of course, we didn't reachenough people to have that
impact, but when you insist thatevery member of the company
gets to participate, thatchanges things, doesn't it?
I think you have a story aboutthat.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
I'll share an example.
Actually another tech company,so one of our clients.
They've been running these peerlearning forums within their
company for years now and now,and it became just like what you
(34:49):
described with Google.
It was voluntary first and thenit kept growing and then it
became no, this is who we are,and now they call their groups
Heartbeat, so this is theirheartbeat.
I love that.
Now they call their groups umheartbeat, so this is their
heartbeat, and they have a Ilove that and they have
heartbeat t-shirts and it's justthis is part of their heartbeat
and uh and it's, and whathappened was was someone had
(35:12):
joined the company and I guessthey had fallen through the
cracks, but they weren't putinto one of these groups.
Yeah, and they started havingfriction with some, but they
weren't put into one of thesegroups.
And they started havingfriction with some salesperson,
with some of the operationalpeople.
And that happens, right, salesand operation Sales sometimes
calls operation the anti-salesdepartment, and so they're
having this friction andeventually this salesperson
(35:35):
storms into the CEO's office andis complaining and is
frustrated.
And he was just listening toher this is a great YPO and a
great advocate of forums andforums in the workplace and he
said wait a second, are you in aheartbeat group?
She's like no, no, they weresupposed to put me in one like a
month ago and they just stillhaven't.
(35:56):
He's like that's what's goingon.
She just was not, had not becomepart of her group, so she was
not communicating the wayeverybody.
Uh, she was part, like there waslike two cultures, was the
people who were part of thiswere communicating, listening,
understanding one another, had,were, were, because they meet
(36:16):
weekly in the in these groups.
So so when you do that, you'rebuilding a muscle, a
communication muscle, way ofbeing together and she was just
not part of that.
So she had not, she was stillkind of doing it her own or like
so she's still like an outsideractually, yeah, and so it
really showed that the sort ofdifference in disparity when you
(36:40):
become part of this and you'reregularly meeting, building
relationships, practicing thisstyle and form of communication,
and then when you're not.
So that's why it's so important, because what happens is the
people that are in it, alwaysconsistently, they love it, they
, they're, they're, they're,they're, they're engaged, they,
(37:03):
they change, they transform theway that they listen and
communicate.
And then when you, when youhave people who aren't, then you
have sort of haves and havenots and then you start having
two very different types ofcultures.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Love that.
I love that.
Ahad, what an amazing, amazingstory you've had and what an
amazing impact we are going tohave.
I cannot wait to figure outways for us to join forces to
really make a difference.
I want to end with one lastquestion One person that's had
the most impact on your life,one person that's had the most
(37:38):
impact?
Speaker 2 (37:41):
on your life.
I would say my, my mother hashad sort of this impact on my
life and and I think it'sbecause she's just always been a
safe place for me to go andtalk to I mean, she's you know,
I think I could.
I've really never truly beenalone because I've just always
(38:06):
had her to go and talk to andand and be myself with.
So she offered me that spaceand that opportunity and
continues to do so.
So, yeah, I feel super lucky.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
My spine is tingling.
My friend, my mother, is mybiggest cheerleader, always has
been, no matter what.
So right there with you.
Love to our mothers.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Yes, love to our mothers and yeah, we're really
lucky to have that and to haveour mothers around and to still
be able to benefit from thattype of really unique love.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yes, I love it.
We'll end it there.
Thank you so much, ahad.
You can follow the Heart ofBusiness podcast wherever you
get your podcasts.
Also, podcast reviews have areal impact on our visibility,
so if you like today's episode,please give us a review.
Finally, you can listen to allour episodes at our website,
internationalfacilitatorscom.
(39:04):
Thank you for listening andhave a great day.
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