Unpacked with Ron Harvey
People Always Matter. Join Ron as he unpacks leadership with his guests.
Unpacked with Ron Harvey
The Root Cause of Your Success; Super Performance with George Pesansky
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In this episode of Unpacked with Ron Harvey, Ron sits down with George Pesansky, author of Super Performance and president of My Blended Learning, a consulting firm he's led for 17 years. George brings a rare blend of military service, corporate leadership, and entrepreneurship to a conversation that challenges everything most organizations believe about performance, feedback, and growth.
Here's what Ron and George unpack in this episode:
- The "golden hour" framework — how to identify and replicate the root causes of your success, not just your failures, and why most leaders only ever do half the equation
- What "utility" really means — and why your ability to create value is a more reliable foundation for business security than any individual client win or loss
- The prison of expectations — why high-performing teams often hold back their best work, and how leaders can build cultures where full effort is safe, even when it doesn't end in a touchdown
- Strengths over gaps — why pouring resources into a 4-out-of-5 skill to make it a 5 is often the wrong investment, and how to organize teams around contribution instead of correction
- The entrepreneurship mindset shift — how George discovered that running your own business creates more security than corporate dependence, and what losing clients taught him about resilience
- Feedback that sustains, not just improves — George's principle that "you cannot sustain what you can't explain," and why asking for three things to keep matters just as much as three things to fix
Whether you're leading a factory floor, a consulting firm, or your own entrepreneurial journey, this episode delivers a practical framework for unlocking the performance that's already inside your team and yourself.
Super Performance by George Pesansky is available now on Amazon and at bookstores everywhere. Connect with George at georgetheauthor.com, myblendedlearning.com, or on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
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Just Make A Difference: Leading Under Pressure by Ron Harvey
“If you don’t have something to measure your growth, you won’t be self-aware or intentional about your growth.”
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Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization or entity. The information provided in this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners should consult with their own professional advisors before implementing any suggestions or recommendations made in this podcast. The speakers and guests are not responsible for any actions taken by listeners based on the information presented in this podcast. The podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or services. The speakers and guests make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in this podc...
Welcome And Show Purpose
SPEAKER_00Well, good afternoon, everybody. This is Ron Harvey, the Vice President, Chief Operating Officer for Global Course Strategies and Consulting, back with you again for another episode of Unpack with Ron Harvey. I'm super excited about the work that we get to do around leadership and all the guests from around the world with all different backgrounds, different things and different work and different things they care about. But the one thing we have in common is we all care about leadership. And so I'm really, really excited to have our next guest that'll come and I'll invite them to the microphone. Is always ask our guests to invite themselves. I'll let them share what they want you to know. And we'll promote their business, we'll promote their books throughout the entire show. We are business owners, some of us in corporate America, but I promote what people do. And I think that's important for me is to highlight people for the great work they're doing as a gift for them coming on the show and giving value to our audience. So, George, I'm gonna invite you to the microphone, man, and you can introduce yourself however you wish to.
Meet George Pazanski And His Book
SPEAKER_01Oh, wonderful! Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I really, really appreciate the opportunity. Of course, my name is George Pazanski. I'm the author of Super Performance, uh, which is available at bookstores everywhere. And I'm also the uh president and founder of myblendedlearning.com. Uh, we provide solutions in helping organizations really optimize operations. So we do a lot of process improvement work, a lot of reliability work, and most importantly, a lot of development of leadership and teams. So I've uh been the president of My Blended Learning. We founded the company uh just about 17 years ago. So it's been an amazing journey that has culminated with uh the release of uh my book here just a just a few uh days ago.
From Corporate Leader To Entrepreneur
SPEAKER_00Wow, yes, yes. So we're gonna learn a lot. 17 years in business. I tell people, you know, it's it is a journey, um, it's very rewarding, um, but it's work. And so we'll dive into that that experience as well. Um, and do you have a copy of the book? Can you show it on the screen with you? Oh, yeah, sure, sure thing, right? Yes, yes. He has it on the shelf behind him. Um, he has the book. So um, and you can find it everywhere. You know, he's like you said, all bookstores. I mean, but the idea of being able to improve processes, streamline work and right now, you know, as we go into it, George, I definitely would tap into the the AI space and and what's changed for leaders and that and and process improvement, all those things that are happening for all of us. Um let's let's dive into no, we spend all our time around leadership, and you've been in business now 17 years. What were you doing before you decided to become an entrepreneur?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I well, it was actually a very similar role, except I was working inside of a very large corporation, kind of running quality and also doing the same kind of continuous improvement work for that organization. And it was really what set me up to really understand the space and also understand the gaps and the needs that uh I've really tried to focus on in my business. Uh, before that, uh before I was kind of in corporate America, I uh I spent a few years as an officer in the army and uh before that uh you know was in school.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, love it. I saw the army on there. So, you know, uh thank you for your service. I too have served. Um I always always appreciate when our veterans come on um and share and and about their journeys and their leadership. I mean, I've learned a lot in the in the uniform that I've translated over. When do you think about transitioning from uh out of all of that for our business owners, our entrepreneurs, people that are on that fence and getting ready to walk away from corporate America or walk into entrepreneurship? What was the most valuable lesson you learned um as you were transitioning into that space of entrepreneurship?
SPEAKER_01You know, there's an enormous fear that comes with the idea that you're not going to have a steady paycheck, you're not necessarily going to have security in your health insurance and all the things that are so important for us to take care of our families, take care of ourselves. And what I discovered was I actually had a lot less security when I was really just focused on kind of one role, one kind of solution, one provider. And being able to start my own business, a service-based business, it allowed me to kind of really diversify. And uh over the years, I've lost clients, I've gained clients. And what has really been able to happen is a level of security that I don't think I would have ever been able to have if I stayed in that corporate role looking for that next promotion or kind of just looking to uh to kind of survive until retirement.
Losing Clients Without Losing Confidence
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love it. Can you unpack a little bit? Um, because the journey of entrepreneurship, you know, gaining clients and losing clients can be very tough to adjust to and even accept sometimes. How do you navigate that space when you lose a client that that you are counting on, the revenue, the support, uh and the emotion that comes along with losing the client?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure. Uh, you know, and I think one of the things that is inevitable is that uh there is always some churn. And and sometimes it can be for reasons that you can control and you can add value or you can do things to try to slow or prevent that churn. And in other cases, it's you know, macroeconomic factors, it's transition of people that you may have had relationships with and new people come in wanting to do new things. And and this is something that I had to accept and embrace relatively early. That it's okay if you end up kind of losing an opportunity or you don't gain what it is you are hoping to gain, because there are far more opportunities in the marketplace for somebody who is focused and understanding the value that people are willing to pay for, uh, that really needs to be your security, not the individual win or loss of a particular client that you've gained or, you know, that has kind of left for a different solution, but the recognition that you have utility, uh, something I talk about in my book, Super Performance. You have that ability to create value. And, you know, the reality is that regardless of the marketplace you're in, uh, I also own a local business that does plumbing and heating and HVAC kind of solutions as well. Whether it's the plumbing business that I'm a part of or whether it's my training and consulting business, they have the same simple truth that if you have utility, if you have the value that people are willing to pay for, then the clients are going to be there. And it's not something you should lose sleep over.
Utility Versus “Value Added” Thinking
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love it. I love it. Um, you use the word utility. Can you ex can you expand on that a little bit? When you say have the utility, for those that haven't heard it, uh, I call it the problem solving, know what what people need from you. Can you can you expand on an unpack for us, if you will? What do you mean by if you have the utility? So whether it's the HVAC plumbing or whether it's the training leadership, you know, what do you mean utility?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it you know, it is it's really key in you know, in the book Super Performance, uh, and it really is key to our consulting practice because uh, especially in the space around driving process improvement and reducing costs, improving quality, those things, one of the things that is constantly talked about, heard, and discussed is something being value added and the creation of value. It's just, you know, a constant drumbeat of conversation. And I really believe that that is a lagging measurement, that whether something is value added or not is ultimately made by customers, made by the marketplace, you know, made by the client or customer that you're trying to gain. And if they decide to purchase those services, if they provide decide to use you, then obviously you're adding value. But if that's all you're focusing on, you're really keeping track of wins and losses. If you focus on utility, which is your ability to create value, what are those things that actually generate and you can control that will allow you to, you know, bring innovation, bring efficiency, bring knowledge, bring solutions. And, you know, whether we talk about somebody working in kind of that sort of uh plumbing space, the utility they bring is their knowledge, their experience, and sometimes their tools, equipment, or even insurance. And that makes them an ideal selection to work in your home. The same exact thing works in a large corporation hiring a consulting firm. It really is what utility are they bringing to make that value decision?
The Golden Hour And Root Causes
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I thank you for that. I mean, I don't think I've had anyone put it in that context. So, you know, definitely it's in the book. So super performance, it's in the book. You I'm sure you walk through it. When you look at that's one of the key elements within the book, you know, super performance. What else do you hope readers that purchase the book walk away with that makes that that provides utility for them?
SPEAKER_01You know, uh being in the space of trying to drive change and improvement for so many years, you know, I've really been doing this about 30 years, if I kind of include some of my time, you know, in company and well as out of company. And uh one, again, consistent truth I find is that we often look at the glass being half empty. We're focused on the problem, we're focused on the defect, we're focused on what's preventing us. And I think to a certain extent, that's just natural human behavior. But the secret that we really kind of unpack and you know, we kind of really focus on in the book is this idea that you know you can focus on the root causes of your success, not just looking for the root causes of your problem, mistake, or failure. And what I think all of your listeners can find is that if they unpack some of the things that have allowed them to have great success in their lives, they may find things that are root causes that contributed to that success that are applicable in other areas, other opportunities, or even other challenges they may be facing in their lives. Uh, what we have found is uh getting operators, getting employees to focus on what we call the golden hour, which is where everything is just working, you know, imagining that moment where everything just seems to fall in place, you know, all of the lights on the way to work are green. Well, what really contributed? What was the root causes of that golden hour of ideal performance? And when we really start to use the same level of scrutiny on that that we do on failures, we start to discover that there's a lot we can control in being able to, you know, kind of leverage the natural talent, skills, or abilities we have that allows us to then overcome these problems that we focus on. And that really is what super performance is all about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love it. I mean, I liken it to um, you know, in uniform, we always call the mental toughness or getting into the zone. Uh, can you evaluate the the day that everything went well and what all took place? Because most of us get to the root cause of a problem. But do I love that you you shared in there, Georgia? How do you get to the root cause of your success?
SPEAKER_01And you know, sharing that experience, that military experience, I think that may have been the very first place that I discovered it or I kind of was exposed to it in any structured or organized way. You know, the AAR, the after action review that is a part of everything from moving to the child hall to, you know, a road march or even uh, you know, a an action. Uh it comes with a number of structured components, but one of those always is going to be what did we do well? And you know, that conversation about what we did well, how somebody contributed or what we found was working. And now we want to keep that. We want to, you know, retain that. We want to make it that standard operating practice so that we always have this kind of secret sauce that we can now leverage as a unit or as a team. Uh, I think it's what makes you know, uh, our military, our soldiers so effective is we're really always reinforcing the things that are working and really standardizing that, which you know, I think makes us so lethal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I want to tell you for everyone that listening, you know, uh George dropped the AAR after action review, um, which is every action you should you should have a chance to pause, reflect, and recognize. Um, and and we do it well, but we watch rinse and repeat. And so we take the AR, we watch, rinse, and repeat. If it's working, keep doing it till they can't, till it doesn't work.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00If you want to be successful, do an AR. For those of you that are not military, we have our own language sometimes, so we got to be mindful of that for you. So actually review and then watch rinse and repeat it. It like, do I love that you you said you know that we we will triage like when we do things wrong to the end of the day, but do we triage when we do it right?
Strengths Beat Fixing Every Weakness
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we you know, I think giving license to yourself, uh, and you know, one of the questions I'm often asked about the book is um, how do I become a superperformer or what is a super performer? And I think it's a fair question, it's a good question. And you know, not to spoil the ending, but the reality is everybody is a superperformer. And what is really preventing a super performance, you know, the ability to really have that level of success that we'd like to aspire, you know, being able to reach our full potential is really understanding that, you know, if I'm not good at playing a musical instrument and all I focus on or all the mistakes I make in playing that instrument, it's gonna be pretty miserable, it's gonna be pretty difficult. And the likelihood of me going to a concert, you know, for people to listen to me playing my music is not very great. And, you know, that sort of running against the wall, I think we do in our jobs, we do in our careers, we do in our teams. But if I recognize that I have an unusual level of memory, I have a skill to be able to see and understand and listen very rapidly, very quickly. So maybe I don't have the dexterity or the ear for playing music, but I have this root cause of success in other places that have really helped me be successful. So becoming a conductor and being able to know the pattern and tone and when and where and how the music is going to be played may be the path that would allow me to really achieve and reach my full potential. Uh, I think again, you know, we way too often end up giving too much license, too much oxygen to the things that are preventing. Uh, and we try to optimize, you know, really very difficult or bad circumstances when reality the wall we're trying to go around, you can literally just find the edge of it and walk around it instead of trying to climb over it. Uh find a different path, you know, don't suboptimize or don't optimize something that isn't necessarily even useful or necessary.
SPEAKER_00Wow, I I love it. I want to unpack something for you because you know, people, you know, back in the days, you know, you will talk, hey, whatever you're good at, you know, your strengths, and then they come up with this weakness, like get better at the things that you're not good at. Yeah, I've never really endorsed that. Um because I think there's just some things in life you're never really good at on your best day, it's still not gonna be it's still not gonna meet the standard that you need it to be at. What do you tell people that that are you know focusing on well, you're horrible at at this thing, get better at it versus leveraging? What are you good at and stay in that space and do it well? You know, if you want to be a super performer, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01I I I'm I'm in your camp. Um, you know, and and a couple of points that maybe your listeners will immediately relate to. Yes, uh, having the chance to visit factories all over the world. I, you know, have I do what I might consider industrial tourism, you know, being able to kind of go to all these sites and locations. And there are commonalities that you start to pick up on really quickly. And I think one of the commonalities is every organization puts a huge amount of scrutiny in hiring people, bringing in the right talent and making sure that that talent is contributing something that's maybe new or different or necessary, and they're they're they're they're kind of coming in for what it is that they have to offer us, and they're such a good fit for our organization. And then as soon as they're in the organization, what do we do? We start the performance review process. And what do we start to talk about? All of the gaps, all the things that you can build on, all the things you can improve on. So, your point you're making, um, I think everyone who's ever had a performance review can relate to it. And yes, we're gonna talk about our strengths in that performance review, but we're gonna focus a lot on those gaps. We're gonna focus a lot on those things that are different. Every single organization that I've watched go through a turnaround where they've been underperforming, they've not been succeeding, and they really kind of flip that script. They end up, you know, performing at a very high level. They've always made personnel changes, they've always gotten the right butts and the right seats, you know, that's what you'll hear a lot of operation leaders talk about. And that is that superpower that really great leaders understand that if I'm really taking somebody who's, you know, really kind of grouchy, really frustrated, you know, maybe a little bit retired in place, and they're my HR professional hiring people, that may not be the best fit. It may not be the right first impression for my organization, but I do need somebody, you know, who's going to manage quality, who does need to be a little bit grumpy and intolerant, you know, and and recognizing that maybe what I need to do is not get rid of people, but I need to find what are those things that they are contributing that I can really leverage and take advantage of. I can really kind of use to grow, you know, my capability, my capacity. And there's no question, I'm not at all endorsing that we don't want to work on our shortcomings. But in my opinion, the amount of time, money, and effort we put at, you know, kind of taking something that's at a four and moving it to a five is really substantial. But if you're already at a five and you know, you have that natural skill, why would you just not want to take advantage of that, right? Why would you want to put all that effort to go from the four to the five when there are people, talent, resources that may be there already? And we can obviously grow that. We can kind of develop it, we can expand it. And uh, and that organization is also looking at really respecting the contributions of its employees. We're not talking about the shortcomings our workforce has now. Now we're thinking about the contributions and and how we organize those teams and contributions in a way where we maximize the output. Uh, to me, that's super performance.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think and and thank you for sharing, George. I think we they do it in sports all the time. They're not gonna take a quarterback and make them a linebacker. Exactly. Yeah, it's like, no, you you got an arm that nobody else has on this team, and you know, all the the qualities. So we're going to put you in a in a position that you can excel at um so you can feel good, you can watch. And I think oftentimes you're right. We we begin to to to try to conform someone to something that that that's just not their superpower. Um, and I think that's so important for as you think about you know, superperformance. We're understanding as individuals how important is it for me to understand what my superpower is? So when I am interviewing, I am applying for jobs, um, I am out in there, you know, doing whatever the company may need. What do you what advice do you give to people to help understand what is their superpower so they can really fit into the space of super performance?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, I think it comes back to this golden hour of when have you found these moments where everything worked, everything was successful. You really didn't feel any failure, any shortcoming, you know, it just all kind of happened for you. Um, you know, I I'd like to think that I've had some success in my life. You know, uh my book just recently hit the Amazon bestseller list. Um, you know, I've had a very successful consulting firm, work with some of the biggest companies in the world. But my greatest achievement, the thing that I'm most proud of, is not really those things. It's the operator that I met working in a factory who didn't believe they would be anything other than an operator their entire career and recognizing that their kind of power was the level of influence they had over their peers. And when we talk about when everything was working well, when everything was running well, what were you doing? I was encouraging the new people, I was showing the folks that don't have the same experience I have how we can do it better. Okay, hold to that thought for a moment because your root cause of success, the thing that helped us achieve this record today, was how you were influencing others, how you were leading others. You need to post for that supervisor job. And that is life changing for somebody to really understand that they have in them something they didn't really appreciate or think that they had. And you know, I think. It's the story of everyone with success that somebody somewhere helped them recognize that you had something that was special, something that was unique. And now I can grow that, I can extend that, I can make it something of greater influence. And I think organizations that have leaders who do that, that have a culture of doing that, they're always getting the best out of everyone. And not everyone's going to have the same skills, but when you're getting the best out of everyone, you know, your sports analogy is perfect. You know, those are the teams that are champions.
Feedback That Sustains What Works
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes. For for the people that are that are that are listening, how important is it for them to really get to this super performance? How what role does feedback play in that?
SPEAKER_01You know, um, I think there's two forms of feedback in this equation, you know, the traditional feedback of what are the things that you know you could do better? What are the things that you can contribute or change? And I think that kind of feedback is obviously always useful, valuable, and also worthy of working on. And again, you know, what I'm advocating here is not, you know, kind of moving from zero to a hundred and now completely ignoring opportunities to improve. What I'm advocating is that many of your listeners may have not spent any time today, this week, or even this month, thinking, what are those things that I contribute and do better or well, or that when things are going really well for my team, for myself, for my organization, I'm the one bringing, I'm, I'm having that utility to create that value. Uh, you want to make a conscious decision of how much time are you going to spend thinking about what you're contributing and what those root causes of success are for you, and how much you're going to focus on the problems. So, as a facilitator, you know, we ask for feedback and training. And we often will say, Well, give me three things I can make better, but I also am going to ask for three things that I want to sustain. Uh, I've got a saying that you cannot sustain what you can't explain. So, if you don't get feedback about like what are those things that you're doing, and you know what they are, and I can tell you what they are, then you're not likely to continue to do them. So, you know, you'll remember it as our famous AAR that you can't just complain, right?
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, I love it, I love it. So, so when you look at super performance and and people trying to make that shift, um, can you always be a super performer?
SPEAKER_01You you know, you can, and and the idea is that you know, forever is a very, very long time. And I think, you know, one of the things that again, it's just the psychology, the culture, you know, especially within corporations. Uh, I'll use safety as a great example, you know, and safety in all things, you know, the military has also always been important. That we'll talk a lot about zero loss or zero accidents. Yes, we we do not want any incidents whatsoever. And I remember as a soldier thinking, we are literally jumping out of airplanes, and we are now giving this briefing of how we're gonna have zero incidents. And I'm thinking, well, we probably shouldn't jump out of the airplane then, right?
SPEAKER_00This is not if it's perfectly fine.
SPEAKER_01Right, it's a it's a perfectly fine airplane, too. Uh, but the same thing then kind of translates into industrial environments, into all kinds of scenarios where safety may be a really critical consideration. And I think what happens is employees kind of roll their eyes and they say, I get it, you know, as an owner, as a supervisor, a manager, a leader, you you want me to be safe and you don't want to tolerate any accidents at all. So you're telling me zero, but I know in the back of your mind, you recognize that stuff happens, that that something is going to happen somewhere. And I think that's pervasive in a lot of organizations that don't have an excellent kind of world-class safety culture. And when I talk about super performance and like in operations and just in in life and management, it is kind of taking on kind of the perspective of what I think world-class safety organizations, you know, safe organizations do. And it really comes back to this golden hour that we can be perfectly safe for an hour. We can do this operation, we can make this jump, we can do things, and nobody is gonna get hurt. There's gonna be no near misses, no issues, no problems, and it is perfect. It is zero. So we should never roll our eyes and think, well, that's not possible or it's not sustainable. The reality is it was. There was that golden hour of success. Now the question is, can you do it twice? Can you do it four times? Can you do it for eight hours, twelve hours, twenty four hours, thirty-six hours? And that's where people start to say, well, no, because there's all these other things. Well, these other things may be that we're not doing the things we knew we were doing in that hour. If we continue to sustain what we know we can explain, the probability, the likelihood of that hour being two hours, three hours, four hours, when someone gets hurt, there's a lot of reasons why it can happen, but the vast majority of root cause analysis of that injury is likely to come back to an anomaly, that somebody did something different or something was happening that was different. And when we did something different, that's when we got hurt. So we were not kind of really taking advantage of what makes it work, what kind of prevents those anomalies, the behaviors, the patterns. And whether it's safety or operational performance in manufacturing or success in sales, or I think even, you know, in the amazing journey you had in podcasting, um, you know, like you said, wash, rinse, repeat, keep doing the things that work.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, I love it. I mean, and and excited. So if you if you could sum up, I mean, you have the book, and we're gonna push everybody to purchase the book and support it, um, because everybody wants to be a super performer and it matters. And, you know, one of the things I've always said to, and I and I say when I'm on stages, is whatever your you're if you're really good today, there's an expectation that you're better tomorrow. And people are like, well, Ron, why you say I say iPhone? I said iPhone's been out about 18 years, but we have 17 versions, which means they continue to make some adjustment almost every year to keep improving what they have. And I think sometimes we're we're good and we'll get complacent and comfortable. Um, but it takes a lot of work to stay at a high level or a high degree of performance.
The Prison Of Expectations At Work
SPEAKER_01It it does. And I love I love the example because another concept that you know we unpack kind of in the book in super performance is something we call the prison of expectations. We dedicate an entire chapter to it. And and you actually explained it I maybe better than I'm going to. Uh, and it is really the situation where uh, because of very high expectations, you know, the iPhone's a great one. Uh consumers have very high expectations of what the new phone is going to bring me, the new things that I'm gonna do. When I have those really, really high expectations, I start to hedge my bets. Because if I'm able to deliver something that is truly transformative and amazing, the next time I do something, what are you expecting? Yes, something truly transformative and amazing, and it gets very scary very quickly. And what happens, I think, in teams, you know, uh in manufacturing and operations is we know that we can have this higher level of performance, we can have the super performance. But if I did that today, Ron, you're gonna expect it tomorrow. Yes, and there's a lot of things that can go wrong, there's a lot of things that I'm gonna have to deal with. And the last thing I ever want to do is for you to be disappointed in me, for for you to feel that I've not contributed or I've not succeeded. I don't want to be on the naughty list. So, what do I do? I hedge my bet and I never do too much, but I always do just enough, maybe even a little better. And the iPhone, I think, is just such a wonderful example that it's always a little better, but it's rarely a lot better because that would set a new set of expectations. And I think what's holding us back there, if we think again of the iPhone example, is if we were just to say, you know what, it's okay if Apple does something and consumers don't get excited. We're not gonna sell the stock, we're not gonna, you know, dump all of our, you know, our money away from it. We're gonna accept it and say, you know what, they tried. And yes, that ability to stretch and to really put something out there and try, that's super performance, and it's okay to fail as long as you do the AAR, right?
When Failure Signals Real Effort
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love it. Jordan, I love it because most people think that failure is not okay. And and when you get an environment where people can't work really hard and do everything right, because you can do everything right and it doesn't work. Exactly. Can you create a space where people can be innovative and creative and it doesn't always have to go well?
SPEAKER_01I I would I would go as far again, you know, as an industrial tourist who's visited hundreds of factories around the world, when you see operations where there are no failures, the morning meeting has no issues, there are no problems, there is nothing being elevated or raised as you know, a miss from what we were doing, that is the prison of expectations. I feel terrible for those people and this prison that they've locked themselves in, because inevitably what's happening is everyone is hedging their bet so that the morning meeting goes smooth and that nobody is pointed out as not meeting the expectation we should have had. If I was the owner of that operation, if I was, you know, kind of the one really trying to lead and and and provide for all of those families, what I would like to hear is we left it all on the field last night. Yes. And not every play was a touchdown, but we played our hearts out. And here's where we fell short. Okay, let's talk about that. What was going well for us, but also what helped or what caused that shortcoming of really going for it and really trying to make sure we had that perfect shift, we had that ideal performance, we set records every single day. That's an entirely different mentality of kind of accepting that failure is partly a function of effort. And when we have, you know, no failures, we probably don't have the same level of effort.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think also it creates an environment. Can I be honest? Um, when we don't win, because there's an expectation that we we always have to win. I think I go back to four when Alan Melane went in and he said, no, I want to like like they couldn't talk about the red stuff. Everybody had to have a good story. He's like, nah, this is this is insane. Like, there's some things that that will that are gonna catch us off guard if we can't talk about it in this room and protect and take care of each other. So I love that you're bringing up that like how do you deal with that that prism of of expectation? Like, is it that we always got to have a good news story? Or is it okay to say, hey, we we left it all on the field and we didn't get the touchdown, but here's what we've learned, here's what we'll do different next time, and here's what we'll do to get better. And I think that's important when you look at super performance for everyone is can you share the real story, which is why I love the podcast because it's all about unpacking. We're not showing up as though we're perfect and we got it all right. Oh, we can tell you stories, we'll probably write three or four books on how we didn't get it right. Um, but the reality is we've we've figured out and we're still here and we've never quit. We continue to do it. 17 years in business. Yeah, I'm sure you can you can lay out where you didn't get it right, and so can I.
Entrepreneur Reality And No-Regret Work
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. And and it, and you know, I think being an entrepreneur may be one of the things that separates more than anything else. I talked about the positive at the top of the at the top of the podcast of you know, kind of the diversity of kind of where your security comes from. Well, the other side of that coin, which I I think a lot of people may or may not fully appreciate, is is when you're a contractor, when you're not an employee, you are literally the very bottom of the pile. You know, you are the very first, you know, kind of canary in the coal mine. If there's any cost constraints, any issues, any problems, uh, there's no problem kicking you out the door. Absolutely, you're expendable real quick. We owe you nothing, you know. So it's a little bit of a different mentality, uh, you know, kind of going to work at a client, knowing that every day is potentially your last day. And if you don't leave, if you don't leave it all on the field, if you don't play your hardest, you got nobody to blame but yourself. And I think that is probably what really, you know, kind of resonated with me is a measure of survival where I could not ever do anything with any client and hedge and just say, Well, I'll just do good enough. Because that's that's gonna be a loss. You gotta basically play like a pro and you gotta go out and leave it on the field every single day. And sometimes you're not gonna make the touchdown, you're gonna lose the client. But as long as you go back to the locker room thinking there was nothing in my power I think I could have done better, but I might do some things differ differently next time, but I don't have any regrets, you know. The the worst thing in life is regret, right?
Where To Connect And Final Takeaway
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, yes. George, you've been phenomenal. I mean, um, and then thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for sharing your book and the insight that you share is because this is super important. Now more than ever, we all must perform. Everybody's been held accountable, the standards are shifting, the conversations are changing, the workforce is changing, everything around you is changing, and performance really does matter. So for all the leaders, regardless of whether you're a frontline or you're an executive level, performance matters. Um, and and I will tell you to to pick up the book, um, go out on Amazon on all the sites that is available, but reach out to George, which is where I open up the mic again. George, if people want to reach out to you, they want to bring you on the podcast or they want to learn more about the work that you're doing, what's the best way to contact you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I have an author site is uh georgepazansky.com. And you can also uh get me on LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram, and also my company site, myblendedlearning.com. You can reach out to us there. And uh, if you're an organization looking for assistance and you'd like to apply some of the things we've talked about today, we'd love to talk to you.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, thank you. Any last minute thing you want to share with the listeners before I close that course?
SPEAKER_01No, well, I think you know, you actually kind of identified it a little bit. You know, one of the things that I I really uh love to really leave people with that, you know, if you're if you're a little better today, then tomorrow is always going to be your best day, right?
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, yes, and that's an expectation. That's right, that's right. That's all people like, oh my god. I say even in even if you're in your relationships, you know, at the end of the day, your anniversary, that whatever you did that first year, next year they wanted a little better, and the next year they want it a little better. So if you've been married 50 years, you kept getting better on those anniversaries, the trips and the gifts, and the flowers, and the cars, you wanted to be a little bit, so there's an expectation that you improve it a little bit every single time.
SPEAKER_01And well, my wife expects me to leave it all on the table.
SPEAKER_00Yes, like yes, I want this to be the best one. Well, honey, you know what we did last year. That was last year.
SPEAKER_01She she read the book, so she knows.
SPEAKER_00Leave it all on the pill. So every time you show up, people want you to leave it all on the field, and you should, quite honestly. Um, you want to be compensated the best that you can be compensated, and you should deliver at the best that you can deliver every single time. Leave it on the pill. I love the saying. For all you that joined us, thank y'all for joining George and I on on this on this another episode of Unpack with Ron Harvey, and we're discussing super performance. Um, definitely go out and get the book, reach out to either one of us. Um, we'll be happy to answer questions. Um, we're in business, we'd love to support you, we'd love to earn your business, but we love to just add value to you. So hopefully you walk away today. Uh so thank you. Uh with that being said, uh, George and I will sign off and appreciate everybody for being with us um for the time frame. And please invite someone to join you next time or share the link. Uh, we'd love to be able to share more information with more people. And if you need either one of us, just reach out to us. Thank y'all and have a great one, George and I are signing off.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much.
