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Episode Overview:
Ken discusses the importance of community for C-suite leaders and the challenges they face in the current business landscape. He highlights the need for a safe environment where leaders can share ideas and problems with peers. Ken also addresses the challenges of managing the hybrid work environment and the importance of purpose and adaptability in leadership. He emphasizes the value of building trust by doing what you say you will do and aligning actions with values. Ken offers his network, Vanguard, as a resource for leaders looking for community and coaching.
Additional Resources:
Skot Waldron (00:00.368)
before this platform. All right. So with Riverside, it can sometimes, um, Oh, I hope Randy's thing wouldn't didn't go away, um, is that. With Randy, it has to upload after we hit, after we stopped recording. So what's going to happen is don't, don't bail right after, don't close your browser or anything. We have to wait for it to upload. And, uh, and then at that point, um, we'll, we'll.
Ken (00:00.583)
No.
Skot Waldron (00:29.628)
We'll manage what happens. And then, um, the other thing is, um, if it gets glitchy, if it starts to get pixelated or whatnot, then it's still recording high res on your side, high res on my side, it's just kind of in its buffering process. So, you know, we can land people on the moon, but sometimes we have. Glitchy, you know, glitchy video. Um, but all right, well, I'm just gonna, we're just gonna roll with it and we'll.
Ken (00:50.179)
Exactly.
Skot Waldron (00:59.152)
Guide the conversation. Okay. Well, I'm going to focus kind of on the C-suite first. Um, so she's tend to have a lot of expertise in that arena and talk about problems and how we deal with those. Cool. All right.
Ken (01:12.727)
Sounds good.
Skot Waldron (01:17.18)
Ken, wonderful having you on the show. Thanks for being here.
Ken (01:20.611)
Thanks for having me.
Skot Waldron (01:22.936)
Let's, uh, let's kick this thing off by introducing you to the world. I want to know where you came from and why you're here and why we should listen to you.
Ken (01:34.851)
Mm-hmm. Well, let's see where I came from. I was born in Germany actually, so I'm an American citizen, but my parents were there when I was born. So I was in another country. I grew up...
a lot of my time in Germany and in Italy, so sort of an expatriate background. I then went to college at Amherst College. I went to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, and then I spent about 10 years with Time magazine, in large part covering Eastern Europe during the Gorbachev era, so it was a real period of positive revolution, which is very unusual. And after that, I ended up in due course
in a sequence of real train wreck companies with a CEO and some other colleagues who became very adept at how to fix them. So we, in the end, I guess I was involved in probably 11 or 12 turnarounds, reinventions, et cetera. And through that got a lot of experience in the two areas that I think I'm major in now, which is leadership and, and culture or way of working change, how to get places to go
good to even better. And after finishing up my last stint, which was with Bausch and Lomb, I then started what I run now, which is Vanguard, and really put some of those capabilities to work. So now we work with mainly C-suite leaders on those same topics of leadership and change. We create networks among them, which I think has been really effective because it gives them a chance to work a kind of peer-to-peer on things that matter to them. And then we also do a certain amount of advisory work as well. So those are our kind of two,
sides of our coin.
Skot Waldron (03:16.456)
Very cool. That's let's tackle the C-suite today. Um, you, you deal with multiple levels of leadership. Um, you've built entire communities and around this idea of, of the C-suite. Let me ask you this about the community aspect of that angle of your business and, and why that has been so relevant, uh, for you and for them, but why is community important?
for someone in the C-suite.
Ken (03:48.495)
That's an interesting question because you'd think that they might have that community and so why do they need to build one? I think what we've found, Scott, is that at a high level in organizations, especially people actually have quite lonely jobs. You know, there's no one really that they can talk to who works for them, perhaps for obvious reasons. They also aren't always that comfortable speaking to people upwards. I mean, if you talk to the board of directors about problems you're having or, you know,
anxieties you're facing in your role, you might run the risk that they're wondering whether you should be in that role and what exactly is going on here. So I think it's a way of bringing people together at a similar level who can share.
not only problems but ideas about how to do things better and to do it in a kind of safe environment. And so I think that's really what we've created, which for whatever reason seems to be relatively unusual. Most things that executives go to seem to be really some variation of PowerPoint slides and podiums and presentations. I'm not sure whether that's always the best formula.
Like it or not, that's kind of what they get exposed to with what we're doing. It's a really sitting around a table with four or five other people, somewhat like you, uh, you're talking about topics that you've chosen to discuss during that meeting. And, uh, what we're doing is we're kind of facilitating that discussion and leading it, but we're not dictating what you hear. And we very rarely, uh, because of the same reasons, uh, we rarely bring in, you know, outside experts to lecture on topics. We might bring in people, uh, to join the conversation, but almost always it's in a kind of conversation.
And that seems to resonate extremely well with this group. And I think that need to network and talk with people who are kind of like you, but in a very, you know, as they say, Chatham House rules, meaning, no, nothing goes out of the room is really, really valuable and maybe more valuable for people at that level than at any other.
Skot Waldron (05:51.14)
When we're, when they're discussing things around the table, what, what are you hearing from these exact, I mean, they're bringing their issues to the table. What issues are you hearing?
Ken (05:57.345)
Mm-hmm.
Ken (06:02.975)
Well, you know, it's all over the place in some respects, but I'd say what is really standing out at the moment, and of course, you know, I'm sure, you know, two years ago it was different, two years from now it'll be different again, but at the moment, a lot of concern around some specific things like how to deal with the hybrid work environment. And, you know, one might think that that's not that complicated to figure out, but I think that it really is because it's a fundamental change in the way people work.
And so, you know, I don't think it's crazy that CEOs are devoting a lot of their time now to how to figure that one out, particularly because what they're concerned about is not only how do they keep people connected at senior levels, which is, you know, often hard to do when you're all on Zoom, how do you create a culture for an organization when you're not there? And yet it's very important to success to have a way of working. And then I think they're especially concerned about younger people, you know, sort of Gen Zs or somewhere around that age group.
who are.
Really trying to do their jobs at home with, you know, a, basically a, a laptop and a dog, you know, in a, in an apartment somewhere, and often those people don't know what they don't know about why they should be sitting down with real people and learning how, for example, someone more senior to them would do a certain task by observing all those sorts of things get lost when you're at home. So I think that's one big area of concern. Another one is of, um, I'd say the, uh, polarized landscape that they're working
It doesn't matter what end of the spectrum they're on. I think that they face real problems with the societal polarization, the political polarization. You only have to look at the US upcoming elections to kind of get a sense of that. You look at the Middle East. And the reason that affects them is that in part it affects their employees. So they've got people who in different ways are stressed by this environment that they're in. It also makes the business environment that they're working in difficult.
Ken (08:03.781)
the political and other environments really affect your business directly or indirectly. For example, the Mideast crisis has shut down a lot of shipping lanes, and that means that a lot of supply for agricultural businesses and others is directly affected by that. So whereas maybe 10 or 20 years ago, CEOs and senior people at least had the illusion that they were insulated from certain things like that, I think they're now beginning to see that all of these tensions and problems are interconnected. So that's another major issue.
that we hear about. And then I'd say a third area that really embraces a lot of things is the need to be able to adapt. And I use that word because in the past, there have perhaps been some formulas that you could apply to how you should do your job as an executive. You should be maybe a good person.
more able to communicate your direction to people. You might need to have a effective structure for your company. You might need to have a really good strategy. But today, I think most of the people we're seeing are and talking to are recognizing that none of that stuff has really much help. Things are changing so quickly and there's such profound change in their environments happening at a rapid rate that the real job is not to come up with a five year strategy. It's to come up with how we're gonna adapt
five or six days in some cases. And to be able to turn on a dime, be able to be very agile, and then to get your organization to be able to adapt and change as well. So I think, you know, there's a lot of discussion, maybe not using that word, but that's really what they're talking about is how do I create that adaptability, first of all, in myself and then in the people around me.
Skot Waldron (09:50.6)
When we talk about the idea of the hybrid, let's go back to that for a second. Because I'm interested in that's something that was highly adopted because of the pandemic and we were forced into this hybrid work environment and it was kind of already happening, but it just became extremely accelerated.
And some companies stuck with it. You've heard all kinds of companies that are like demanding everybody comes back to work and, and all types of things. And, um, what do you think is working or not working when it comes to managing the hybrid work environment?
Ken (10:32.139)
Well, I think that, as you're implying, I think it's here to stay. I mean, and I think that it's here to stay partly because it is very effective. I mean, as little as what, seven or so years ago.
there was no real zoom. It was very clunky systems that if you touched a button, they'd explode. I mean, it was just not something that ordinary people would venture into day to day. And now you've got these very effective means of bringing people together through technology. And I think that there's a lot of...
denigrating of Zoom and other means because they're somehow not upfront and personal. But then you think about how effective they are for people to connect with one another. And back in the...
pre-Zoom period, if you were in a remote part of the world with a large company, the odds of your sitting down with anyone at headquarters might be once a year and the rest of the time you'd be doing it by telephone or email. And so, I think these new technologies have made it possibly really connected. Also, I think on the plus side, it's I think people who have problems with remote working are...
In part, it's generational. I think people who are under the age of 30 or 28 or something tell you that they can read emotions very well on a screen, whereas someone who's in their 50s say, oh, it drives me crazy. I don't know what someone's really thinking. Well, if they talk to their children or one of their younger colleagues, they'd say, I can read it perfectly fine. So I think that it's a certain element of being really super adapted to a technology and being able to use it. I'm sure there were people who found the telephone very difficult to adapt to at one point or another.
Ken (12:20.871)
So those are the plus sides of it. But I do think there's a challenge of, you know, you need to know what the right applications are for the different ways of working. So Zoom is very valuable for a lot of things. What it's not good for is, you know, for example, for relatively younger colleagues to kind of learn at the side of somebody. They, you know, they need that ability to look around the corner or look around the door and ask a question. You know, you can't schedule that on Zoom.
can't schedule that 10 second check-in. And also likewise, there's a need to kind of refresh your face-to-face experiences. I think I have a CEO colleague who
Said these kind of an equation that he can have, you know, he can, he can get by very nicely with, uh, you know, a zoom or remote discussion for like 10 or 12 days, but on day 13, he really feels it's important to have a face to face with somebody, uh, to just kind of refresh the relationship to, to have that, you know, that, um, that, that kind of feeling of being in touch with somebody, uh, that you can't quite do electronically. So I think that, um,
The way that really good organizations now are utilizing these different ways of connecting is very situationally and not just based on, to my mind, crazy ideas like you've got to be in the office four days a week no matter what, or you don't need to be in the office at all. But whatever it is, it must be for a reason. So there's a really good CFO that I know working with one of the big law firms here in New York.
Ken (14:04.193)
activity of his younger cohort people when they're in the office. So they're not coming in and sitting on their screen doing exactly what they could do at home, which is ridiculous. They never go on the screen, basically. They're meeting with the chief partner. They're sitting down to listen in on strategic planning discussions. So they're getting all those things that you can't do from home. And when they are at home, then they're doing the things that are really well suited to that where you can concentrate and get a document done. And so I think that kind of mindset is really the way forward.
But how to do that is still a huge challenge because what's the right balance? How do you get... ..
often more senior people to come in the office. It's quite ironical that I think there's a feeling sometimes that it's the Gen Zs that wanna stay at home. Often they're coming into the office and their supervisors are staying at home. And so you also, I think as a leader, have to distinguish between what's effective and what's convenient. So it's convenient to stay at home, is it effective? And so I think that's another question that they have to ask. But I think it does need to be really rather carefully calibrated based on
you're doing. One last example, I mean, you have, we have a lot of life sciences leaders in our networks and, you know, for some of their people who are scientists, you know, they have to be in the lab. No one's yet figured out how to do an experiment from home or not very easily. And so they need to be there. And that raises interesting questions too of is there, are there sort of two classes of employees, you know, the ones who have freedom to do whatever they want, more or less, and ones who have to be in because of the nature of their work.
Uh, and, uh, that's another problem too, that some organizations face. And it's hard to say who's first class and who's second class actually, because, you know, as you probably know, you know, in some organizations, it's clear that you do better by being there. Right. I mean, if the CEO is in the office or the, or your manager, you're probably actually going to be better off if you're there at least a few days a week. If you're never visible, you're really, you are really out of sight and you may be out of mind.
Skot Waldron (16:05.584)
I never really thought about the mentorship angle of digital. And I mean, I should have. I don't know why. I talk about a lot of things in this space often. I was just kind of, but it just really hit home for me that training somebody via Zoom, via video conference is not ideal. And if we can have that one-to-one touch, that personal interaction.
I'm feeling the energy of you in the room and, and you're feeling that is, is really, really valuable. And I also hear though, from another, um, agency that I, I coach is, is I'll hear some of the younger people or even just any of them, I'm not even going to say the younger people say, Oh, I could just do this at home. Why am I commuting for 45 minutes to come into the office?
Doing things I could totally do at home. And I'm actually more productive at home because people aren't bothering me. Quote unquote bothering me all day, like coming and talking to me and whatever. So I can actually get more done at home. And so why don't they just let me work from home? You can have what I hear you saying is that you can mitigate those conversations by simply making that purposeful that they're in the office intentionally and purposefully scheduling things that happen in the office.
that make them say, oh yeah, I'm glad I was here or yeah, there's no way I could have done this from home. Like that is a strategy. I think leaders need to start.
Ken (17:39.327)
Yeah, the challenge with it is it takes a lot of effort and time, you know, because to have, let's say you have, maybe you have 10 people working for you, let's say, and they're, half of them are somewhat younger, you know, cohorts, so they really need that kind of structured time. You know, you're spending probably a half day a week working out their three days of the week, and that's a big lift. On the other hand, I think leaders who get it really understand that that's worth it
First of all, it's going to keep these individuals really productive and also satisfied with their roles. In a so-called war for talent situation, you want to keep your best people really feeling like they're getting a valuable experience with you. Also to have them develop, you need to do that. Yeah, it's true that they can stay at home and crank out documents all day long, but where are they going after that?
Ken (18:39.141)
careers or their lives five years from now. And so I think that's really, I guess, where all these technological topics converge with development and people issues. It's not just where people sit, it's how you develop them, how they grow in their roles, how do they learn about other things they could be doing. And also, how do you keep them with you? Because if they start to get bored or annoyed with a company, especially Gen Zs, we know
that they would go somewhere else.
Skot Waldron (19:11.848)
This is true. And how would, let's, let's move on to the polarized idea on the polarization that's happening and what do leaders need to, you know, the C-suite leadership, what do they need to be mindful of? What's the advice you give to them when dealing with the polarized landscape?
Ken (19:12.833)
Yep.
Ken (19:18.646)
Yeah.
Ken (19:29.387)
Well, I think it depends.
to some degree on which aspect of it they're concerned about. So for example, if it's affecting their employees, for example, in areas of diversity, you only have to take a look at what's going on campuses right now in the US to see a big challenge there of people who either don't understand each other, who are in conflict caused by this external stress. So I think one thing that one has to do is to, as a leader, keep front and center
What's, what's your role in making the business successful? So you got to navigate some of these areas, uh, not because of what you believe about a particular issue, but what's going to actually be kind of best for the business. And, uh, sometimes what's best for the business is not to really, uh, engage with some of these topics. So, you know, there's, uh, we've, we have a big contingent of, uh, general councils and they're always under a constant stress, uh, to decide whether a certain
company has to talk about. And so whether it's issues around diversity or issues around the Mideast conflict or around what's going on in that respect with college campuses, there's always somebody in the organization who says, oh, we should put out a release or should we make a statement or we should do something internally. And sometimes the answer is we really shouldn't be commenting because that's not really related to our business.
But in some cases you feel like you really have to because your own, your own employees kind of demand a point of view. So it's a, you know, there's not an easy answer to it, but I think that idea of navigating things in terms of what's best for the business is at least one way to go with it. Um, the other way to address this, I think is kind of back to, um, this idea of networks of, uh, like-minded, well, probably not like-minded, let's say like jobbed people, uh, people in the same role as you, um,
Ken (21:27.999)
we find it's often very important for them to just know what other people like them are doing or saying about something. And one example is that this circle of general councils that we have, in a couple of instances, a smaller subset of them that are part of a round table each month actually addressed some of the early issues in the Middle East together because they realized that they all had similar problems. They all were unsure how to go about the, you know,
disaster or catastrophe in the Middle East. And so rather than try and figure it out separately, they actually shared their draft releases with each other and talked through how they should write about this problem. And I think probably in a few cases they decided that they shouldn't write about it, and in other cases they decided that they should. And what the result was interesting, Scott. On one hand I think it kind of improved the quality of what they were doing, and they managed to avoid banana peels that they might have slid on without some of the feedback
from like-minded people. And then they also said that they had an enormous benefit of being able to go into the CEO or the board.
And to say that, uh, this topic is something they talked about with 10 or 12 of their peers. And so here's what all of those different people were tending to say about this, how to handle it and what the, what the issues were. And so it just gives them enormous strength and credibility because they're not just talking for themselves. They're, they're reflecting, you know, views that other people in the same role had. Um, and, uh, kind of increases their credibility basically, and also increases the quality of what they have to say.
really complex and divisive tensions, you know, there's no easy answer, but I think that idea of comparing notes with other people like you is really smart. And that's where having that existing network, I think can be quite valuable. A little hard to just dial people up cold and say, you know, you're not, I know we're both CEOs, but you've never heard from me before, but I'd like to get your opinion about the crisis in the Middle East. It's, you know, not likely to generate really helpful input, but if it's someone that you're saying, hey, it's me again, I just thought I'd ask your opinion.
Ken (23:38.021)
about how you're handling that and they'd say, oh yeah, well here's what we're doing and maybe we should call Jane and Peter over in the West Coast and see what they're saying. It's that kind of, that's the difference.
Skot Waldron (23:49.02)
Okay. There goes the plug for the community aspect of things, right? I think that's brilliant.
Ken (23:51.839)
Yeah, I think so. And it's not necessarily ours, even you can create your own. But I think having that in place is very important. Yeah.
Skot Waldron (23:58.448)
Yeah, that network, right? That, that, because it can be lonely, you know, they say it's lonely at the top. And I mean, there's, there's a lot you're going through a lot in your own head space that you either, you have to use that discretion and discipline in order to communicate the right things to the right people at the right time. There's a lot of pressure with that. And you're answering to shareholders and all, you know, stakeholders and all types of people. Um, so a lot of, a lot of pressure in there. Let's talk about the idea of adapting.
Ken (24:03.235)
Yes. It is.
Ken (24:20.995)
Exactly.
Skot Waldron (24:25.98)
What's your advice to leaders who are learning that C-suite level that they're challenged with adapting and that whole idea.
Ken (24:36.259)
Yeah, I guess the thought there or the takeaway for me from a lot of conversations with these individuals is that, you know, it wasn't too long ago and it's still the case, I think, that you often find, you know, magazines and books that are all providing a kind of a particular way to address things, you know, steps one through five or look at just, you know, organize things differently or structure your business differently.
Ken (25:06.153)
a more real insight to what
top people need to be able to do today, which is to, I think, be very, very agile, to not be caught up in particular hierarchies or even particular ways of doing things. Not too many years ago, I think a lot of CEOs had a kind of a mindset about how to do stuff, and that was their trademark. I think effective CEOs more and more, their trademark is being adaptable. So they'll say, yeah, for this particular circumstance, I'm going to use a kind of a
down approach because that's going to get people to understand what we're doing.
But in a different circumstance, I'm going to change and approach things in a very different way. Maybe I'm going to lead through influence rather than through command. And I think the challenge of success in this area is to know what to do when. So some, and that's, I guess, one side of great leaders is today they can kind of select the right approach for the right moment. And they're quite ready to tear up their supposed five year strategy and redo it.
because things have changed. And there's even a somewhat radical, but I think not at all crazy idea that you should really.
Ken (26:24.963)
start to avoid having long-term strategies and instead have long-term goals. And then you just decide through every week practically how you're going to reach that goal. But the strategy part of it might be very overstated in its importance that you can do really well by having goals and then very opportunistic ways of doing things as you get there. Now that becomes harder and harder when you're dealing with very big enterprises.
a smaller firm with 50 people, probably easier when you have 50,000, a little harder to get that to happen. But that's where you, I think, you know, you do find that some of these really great leaders today telegraph that same mentality to the people in the trenches. And so they're saying, I don't, you know, I'm not going to be dogmatic about how we do things here. You have the freedom, you know, within, you know, what's lawful and compliant and what's not going to cause craziness in our business. But you have a lot of latitude to figure out how you're going to do things.
in Taiwan versus in Ohio. And we're not going to insist that everybody follow the same plan. We do, though, expect everyone to achieve the same goals. And that's a different way of thinking about business.
Skot Waldron (27:36.68)
Hmm. Because I was going to say you just like trumped over the strategy thing with goals. Like I think every CEO in there would be like, whoa, wait, I throw out my strategy in lieu of goals. Like that just sounds crazy, Ken.
Ken (27:54.507)
Well, maybe it is. I don't think you really get rid of strategy, but I think it's more just being very realistic about how.
wedded you are to a given strategy and maybe another way of looking at it is your strategies become, they evolve quite a lot, you know, as you go along and you don't just sit there with a rigid plan. You may have a strategy but it's going to be very different by year five than it was in year one and that's not a failure, that's a success. The failures are the ones who stick with the strategy despite the change in the environment and so I guess it's really saying that the environments are changing so quickly and the challenges are so unexpected.
that it's a little hard to have a very detailed strategy for how to address that. And, you know, there's, and there probably still are organizations that spend, you know, large amounts of the CEO's time and an entire strategy department on the strategy. And it's, I think it's just a question to ask how valuable is that approach.
Skot Waldron (28:51.74)
Well, and you might've heard the mantra, you know, like culture eats strategy for breakfast kind of idea and, and what are we creating? Are we creating a culture of adaptability of, of rolling with the punches? Yes, we're going to put the strategy out there because we need some guidance. We need some idea of where we're doing, going and what we're doing and why we're doing it, but you know what, you never know when a pandemic's going to hit. And that's, that is when culture is going to really play a
a role in how we adapt and how we shift the strategy of what we're doing now to make sure we're still successful in the future.
Ken (29:28.991)
Yeah, I fully agree, you know, and the other thing that I think matters, probably more than
old fashioned strategy is a purpose. So that goes together with the goals. I mean, I think in great organizations, the goals are tied to a sense of purpose. And that's what your people really buy into if you're doing a really good job. And particularly, I think that, again, the Gen Z crowd are, of course, lots of different people. They're not homogenous, but I think they hold organizations to quite a high standard now.
really, unlike probably people of their age in the past, I think one differentiator is that they're really ready to walk if words don't match actions and vice versa. And I think whereas in the past, people would have been a little bit like, well, we know that the CEO is always kind of not really, he's not always doing what he or she is saying. I mean, that's just the way it is. I think this group are saying, well, they really should. And if they don't, why am I staying here?
entirely different. And that I think is also, maybe you've seen the same thing, it's also very important on issues of sustainability and ESG in general, but climate is maybe the big one, where there's a feeling that they've been let down by older generations and they will not tolerate
you know, organizations that say one thing and do another on that. And so, uh, that's where that sense of purpose, I think is very important. You know, the, uh, against senior leaders who can put something out there that's realistic, but, uh, very, um, aspirational, but realistically aspirational, and then stick to it. Uh, you know, I think that gets you a lot of, um, of, uh, followership and a lot of engagement with, uh, a lot of people in your organization. It's almost necessary with the people under the age of, you know, 30.
Skot Waldron (31:27.176)
Totally agree. I had a guest on my show, uh, earlier that was talking, just wrote a book about trust and, uh, how a lot of leaders, he did some research over 3000, uh, different people and leaders. And, and one of the biggest things that influenced the trust in there is, is doing what you say you're going to do. Um, and, and being who you say you are.
And, and that just, uh, you're right with the younger generations. And again, with, again, a lot with the climate stuff that's popping up, it's, it's a lot of, it's not just the widgets that I'm building today. It's, it's, it's a bigger picture about life and purpose and who I am. And is that true?
Ken (32:13.867)
Yeah, I think that resonates for me anyway. And on that trust front, you know, I think that...
I don't think it, from my experience in companies and then observing leadership in different ways, I don't think that trust means simply going along with what everyone wants. That's not really what it's all about. But I think it is doing what you said you're gonna do. So for example, including things that are not very easy, like maybe it may be that your company really can't reach a certain goal within five years, it's gonna take seven. So part of your trust element is not saying that it will happen in five years. You say, look, this is a,
difficult challenge we're facing, but it's going to take seven. I know that's disappointing to a lot of people, but that's the reality. And I want to tell you the reality versus just something you want to hear. And that can go for lots of other areas. And I think really successful leaders do that all the time versus making promises that possibly they can keep, and then they lose trust.
Skot Waldron (33:13.68)
There you go. Um, this has been really insightful. Um, if there are leaders out there since those C-suite individuals that are looking for that community, they're looking to rub shoulders with some other people that are in their shoes that they could really network with and, and build that community. Um, I know that you have access to that. You've built it yourself. Um,
If they want to find out more about you, maybe they want individual coaching and help for themselves. Where, where did they go? What do they do to find you?
Ken (33:47.387)
Oh, goodness. I think they just go to us on the internet for the Vanguard Network. And they'll find us right there with, I think Vanguard Financial comes up first because of their scale. And then next comes us. So that's where they go and just tap into that and they'd find out what we're up to and how to reach us.
Skot Waldron (34:09.904)
That's impressive that you pop up right after Vanguard financial. So I'm, well, start using some of the keywords they use and maybe you could, uh, you know, bump up a little bit from Google, like a bump you up. Um, that's awesome. Well, thanks Ken. It's been really, really awesome having you. And, uh, I know that some people benefited from this as did I, and, uh, it's good to know that your network exists. So I appreciate you. I appreciate all you're doing.
Ken (34:12.683)
I know. Well, we're working on getting ahead of them, but that's not gonna happen for a while. Ha ha ha.
Skot Waldron (34:39.713)
and keep crushing it.
Ken (34:41.271)
Thank you, thanks for having me.