How’s your ‘people picker?’ Most of us do a pretty good job choosing people to surround us – but sometimes, there’s more ‘drain’ conversations than ‘gain.’ This can lead to fatigue and burnout. Join Greg Leith, CEO of Convene, and Dr. John Townsend, Business Consultant, Leadership Coach, Author, Psychologist & Founder, Townsend Institute for Leadership and Counseling, as they dive into the ‘7 C’s’ – a relationship model (from Dr. Townsend’s book, People Fuel) of the different types of relationships to help you be more intentional about who and where to invest your time.
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What Every Leader Should Know About Balancing The 7 Types Of People In Your Life With Dr. John Townsend
I am excited to be together with my friend, John Townsend. He is a business consultant, a leadership coach, and a psychologist. He has written over 30 books, selling 10 million copies, including The New York Times Bestseller, Boundaries, Leading from Your Gut, and Handling Difficult People. Congratulations. We’re going to talk about your new book called People Fuel. John, welcome to the show.
Thanks. It’s great to be with you and all the Convene family, some of my best friends out in that world.
Get The Right Guidance From Coaches
Thank you. You’ve been a very important part of the Convene journey from the early days to now. We thank you for that. Getting right to the point, you work with leaders, and we work with leaders. Leaders work with people, but sometimes, we are overtaxed, overburdened, and feeling stressed. I talked to a gentleman who couldn’t get out of bed one day. He was so full of stress from the decisions, the people, and the pressure. You wrote in your book, People Fuel, about different kinds of people. I’d love to unpack that, because in People Fuel, you talk about a model of the seven Cs or seven kinds of people. Let’s dive in. How’s the first one, which is Coaches?
To your point about all the stress, a lot of that has to do with a lot of us fueling ourselves with the wrong sorts of people or the wrong people at the wrong time. Even though the Bible says we need each other, we’ve got to make sure that it’s the right kind of fuel. The model of the seven Cs starts with the highest quality fuel. The last seven will be stuff that you want to avoid.
The first one, or the highest level of fuel you can get to give you energy, creativity, a great mood, and great focus, is what I call the Coaches. I’m using that as a generic word for anybody who is in a leading, guiding, or developing position with us. For example, a Convene chair would be a coach. It could be a mentor, a discipler, a counselor, a spiritual director, but someone who has three components.
The first thing they have is that they have subject matter expertise. If you want to get a coach in music, they’re an expert in music. If you want to get a coach in business, they’re an expert in business. They’ve got to know their bona fides. The second thing is that they know how to coach. Some people who are good at something aren’t very good trainers. They don’t know how to take people through a process. A coach needs to know, “How do I help a person with the goals, the obstacles, and this sort of thing?”
The third thing, and this is my favorite, is that they have no personal need for you. They don’t need you to be their best friend. I’ll have Coaches for the rest of my life in various aspects of my life. What I love is, let’s say I call my business coach, and I say, “Hi,” on the phone, and he says, “Hi.” I don’t spend the first fifteen minutes talking about his vacation, how his kids are doing, and his health. I say, “Hi,” and he says, “Hi,” and then he goes, “Let’s get to it.”
He’s nice, but he wants to be there for me. He doesn’t need me to be his best friend. I pay some of my Coaches, and some of my Coaches do it on a friendship basis. That’s the cool thing because you can feel healthily selfish about it. This hour is for me, my growth, and my development. If anything gives us energy, it’s that.
Achieve Significant Growth With Your Comrades
I love it. The second kind of person is a Comrade. Talk about those folks.
I got that term from the Military, like comrades in arms and comrades and foxholes. That has to do with the people. They’re not our mentor, leader, or guide. They’re the people we go through life with. For example, the Convene group is a bunch of Comrades. There are several characteristics of that. These are people who are serious about their growth. They want to grow, be whatever God said, and do whatever they feel called to do in their own abilities. They’re serious about growth.
They’re also people who have nothing but grace for you. They would never judge you. They would never condemn you. Even if they disagree, it’s all grace. Thirdly, though, they tell you the truth. If you’re going to make a bad decision, you’re using poor judgment, or you’re doing something impulsive, they’ll say, “We got an issue here, to tell you the truth.” They’re vulnerable. Comrades are vulnerable. They open up and talk about their struggles, their hurts, and their hangups like you do. There’s this mutual, “We know each other at a deep level.”
One of the best parts about a Comrade is that they have a structure to their relationship. A comrade can’t be like, “I’ll see you when I see you. That was a great talk. I had a wonderful lunch. Maybe I’ll see you because we’re all busy.” Comrades say, “Let’s meet at a certain time. That’s why Convene’s great because there’s a structure to it. Those are the people who are your army of growth and health.
I love it. There’s something you wrote in your book that I think is pretty cool about Comrades. You wrote that they’re fully involved in their own growth. Don’t you love it when you get together with those kinds of people? It’s Romans 12:2, if I’m not mistaken. The verse says that people who are doing well in growing are honest with themselves about who they are. They’re doing the work on themselves. They don’t sit around and tell you this and that. They’re like, “I have this issue. I read this book. I’d love to talk about it.”
What is more motivating, to your point, is when you share about your life and challenges, and they’re there for you, and then they share about those, you think, “I’m in a place of great growth.” That’s why I love Jesus’ words in the Beatitudes, where He said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They’ll be filled.” When you hunger and thirst for righteousness, what you’re saying is, “Growth is not just something I do on Sundays from 11:00 to 12:00. Growth is something I’m into all the time.” They hunger and thirst. Nothing’s better than being around a bunch of good Comrades.
Enjoy The Things You Love With Casuals
We’re going down the list. We’ve had Coaches and Comrades. Number three is Casuals.
Casual is our friend. They’re our social friends. It could be the neighbor that you like, or you both see each other at your kids’ soccer games. It could be somebody that you see at church and you want to have lunch with. They’re nice people. They’re an endorphin for you. They’re positive people. They’re people you like to be with. We go have a burger and a beer with them, and it’s a good time, but that’s it because it’s not a lot of time for them.
The greatest thing besides the fact that they’re nice, positive people to be with is that I believe that your Casuals are a farm team for the second C. They’re the farm team for the Comrades. You start spending some time with somebody, and you go, “We’ve got similar values, similar faith, and similar life circumstances. We see life the same way. I wonder if they’d be interested in diving deeper into personal growth, business growth, emotional growth, and relationship growth.” That’s how you invite them. You’re always scanning and observing those wonderful Casual folks in your life to see whether there could be something deeper.
Let’s push pause and digress for a minute. This is interesting. I’ve had this happen three times in checking into Convene groups around the country that are new and getting going. As we go around the room and say, “Why are you here? What are you looking for from the group?” On 3 separate occasions, 3 different states, 3 kinds of people, and 3 different age groups, I’ve heard this phrase. They say, “I don’t have any friends, so I’m looking forward to being in this group.” Why do you think there are people in the world who certainly don’t have a Coach, they don’t have any Comrades, and they don’t have any Casuals? What’s going on? What would you say to them?
I say the same thing. It feels endemic sometimes to me. You see it a lot with high-capacity people, the people who have accomplished a lot in the business world. Where are the friendships? I’ve noticed several dynamics. One of them is that they have trust issues. It’s hard to open up. You can’t have a deep friend if you don’t open up and talk about struggle. For some reason, they learned that trust was a bad thing, so they keep things on the shallow end. They might have great faith. They might be an elder of the church. They might be great in business and nice to their kids, but there is nobody they’re opening up to. Trust is one thing.
Another thing is that they have a centering on what they do well, which is work. They’re very effective. They’re great strategists and great vision people, but the relational part, they don’t have the skills for it. They have the skills of achievement, but not the skills of connection. The third one is that, unfortunately, some of them have learned to be self-sufficient.
They get all their needs met by God and the Holy Spirit in the Bible, which we’re supposed to do, and their spouse is the only person they open up to. They have Max, their Golden Retriever, who will lick them because they’re their dog. The problem is their spouse tends to be overwhelmed and says, “I wish that you would find other people because I can’t take all your hurts and your hangups.” The self-sufficiency makes them only go to the only human that they can. It’s not fair to the spouse. I help them figure out which one of these three roadblocks could be yours as a reason you don’t have friends.
One of the watch words I heard from you as some advice to those people is to be more transparent. When somebody says, “How’s it going?” and your daughter is on drugs and your son is suicidal, don’t say, “God is in control.”
What you’ve done then, on a mechanics physics level, is said, “I don’t want the grace of God that comes through people. I only want the grace of God that comes through God.” We ignore the hundreds of verses that say we are the stewards of His manifold grace. We’re the delivery system. We’re the gas station. The person who does that has said, “I’m going to live without fuel.” That’s a difficult life.
If you have vulnerable attachments, you will have fewer health problems, a better career, and better relationships. Share on XThere’s an author you might know. His name is John Townsend, who wrote in his book How People Grow, that it’s doubtful that someone can grow in Christ apart from community. You still believe that, right?
Even more than when I wrote it. I look at the longitudinal research about successful people. We all want to be successful. We want our kids to be successful. In the longitudinal research, the smart people who make these meta studies finally said that the number one factor in a successful life, successful parenting, and successful relationships is the level of attachments you have. If you have the vulnerable attachments, you’re going to have fewer health problems, fewer mental problems, a better career, and better relationships. There are other factors, but nothing takes the place of the relationships, which is all the Bible is saying in the first place.
Find Fulfillment At Work With Colleagues
We’ve had Coaches, Comrades, and Casuals. We’re on number four of the seven Cs, which is Colleagues.
We all have to work, don’t we? We’re all working steps. We love to work most of the time, but we spend a lot of time at work. One of the best things you can do is to make sure you’re around the healthiest people possible. If you don’t own the business or you don’t run the department, you can’t always pick the people you’re with, but I can tell you the three factors that cause people to be very happy, fulfilled, and productive with their Colleagues.
Number one, they tend to be people who are good at something. They have their SME or their Subject Matter Expertise, whether it’s marketing, finance, sales, or administration. They’re good. They paid their price in getting their training. The second thing is that they’re also warm, relational people. They’re not in this covey, sitting here, working on things, and not talking to anybody. That’s not what culture is about. We see from Gallup, Forbes, and Harvard research how important culture is.
You and I are both Peter Drucker fans. When he said, “Culture will eat strategy for breakfast,” he was talking about relationships. It will chew up your strategy. They’ve got to be relational people. The third capacity is that they do well on teams. They’re not primadonnas. They’re not onesie-twosies. They cooperate. They collaborate. They encourage. They clash when they need to, but they’re good team people. As much as you have choices of them, make sure you’ve got those three capacities in your Colleagues.
I’ve said this before. I love it when I get to work with people with whom I can be friends. I love being friends with people I work with. That’s one side of a continuum. The other side of the continuum. I was talking with a 501(c)(3) very prominent leader at one point in time, and I said what I said to you. He said to me, “I have no idea how to be friends with people I work with.” What would you say?
I’m a why guy, as you are, too. I’d say, “Why would they be?” Most of the time, there’s a story. The story is something like, “I got burnt because I made friends with somebody. They took advantage of me because I gave them information, and they exploited me somehow.” Once bitten, twice shy. What I’ll say is I get that, but let’s not generalize human rights.
There’s something in you that probably missed some character flaw in the other person, like deception, control, narcissism, gaslighting, or laziness. We have to help you work on your people picker because you can have tremendous friends at work. Don’t give up on that dynamic because some wacko person made it worse for you. Learn discernment better. That’s why I wrote Safe People to say, “Here’s the difference between a safe person and an unsafe person.”
Avoid Draining Yourself While You Care
We’re closing in. We’ve had Caches, Comrades, Casuals, and Colleagues. Let’s go to Care. We’re getting down to the side of the thing that causes stress for leaders. Talk about the individuals who are without something they need, and you are the only way they’re going to get it, so they suck you dry.
Somebody said, “You’re the only way.” It’s a big one. We’re at number 5 out of 7. These are the draining things, but not all drains are bad. In fact, Jesus told us, You’ve got to take care of the poor.” We’re supposed to serve, help, and develop. There are people who need us. That’s anything from our family, our spouse, the people in our church, if we’re leading a church endeavor, our employees, the people we’re developing, and then those are impoverished, like people in trafficking or people in third-world countries that can’t make it. Care is a norm, but too much care will drain you.
There’s a great book in Missiology. I love missions. It’s called When Helping Hurts. Every business person ought to read it because they talk about how helping is great, but when you don’t make people accountable for their own skin in the game and doing their own work, then it builds entitlement in that person. They become very dependent and want more. You’ve got to be a person who has boundaries, even when you’re caring.
You have to set clear boundaries even when you are caring for other people. Share on XThis is one of my favorite phrases that a pastor friend of mine said. He said, “A need is not a calling.” I thought about that for about a week. They need me, but it doesn’t mean I am necessarily called to it. I take their request seriously and look at my own resources. I’m like, “Do I have time? Do I have bandwidth?” The calling part is God’s. That takes some pressure off the care.
Deal With The Zero-Learning Curve Of Chronics
I’ll do a shout-out to the people who are reading who might be on seventeen boards of directors. It could be that you feel too needed when you are not. We’ll leave it there. Number six is Chronics. We’re getting to the difficult people.
It’s going a little bit dark.
Bless your heart, people.
Chronics are people who always have a crisis in their lives. As long as you’ve known them for twenty years, they’ve either got a kid problem, a marriage problem, a health problem, a money problem, or a, “I can’t find my niche,” problem. They’ve always got these little skirmishes going on in their life, and they never get better. The thing about Chronics is they’re nice people. They’re not evil, dark people. We’ll get to that.
They tend to be good-hearted people, but here’s the problem with them. I’m being charitable when I say this. They have a zero learning curve. It’s a flat learning curve. They come to you, and they want you to have breakfast with them, mentor them, be with them every Saturday morning, and tell them how to live their life.
You’re working hard because you are a giving leader. You give them bible verses and principles. You pray for them. You give them skills and homework. They leave, and they feel great for about four hours because you were their Prozac. They’re up and are like, “I had Greg Leith talking to me. I feel great.” Prozac lasts about four hours in our bloodstream. After that, it goes away. They’re left with the homework, and it’s too much trouble. They hit their heads and make the same mistakes over and over again.
If you read your Bible, Proverbs is an equivalent term to a fool. A fool is not a bad person, but it’s a person who’s not learning. You have to guard your heart like Proverbs 4 says. Of all the leadership things I’ve worked with, number six, the Chronics, is where people will go, “I have got to prune back. I am pouring, and nothing’s happening.” The Chronic has no learning curve.
I imagine there are a lot of people reading who are leaders who might be people who like to help people who have one too many Chronics on their team. They’re exhausted as the leader, and the Chronics are not exhausted because the leader keeps fixing everything for them.
Can I give those people a hint or a tip?
Yes.
I’ve certainly been in the same situation. Start holding them accountable for homework assignments. Every coaching mentor, disciple, or whatever you want to call them, when they tell you their thing about business, kids, marriage, or whatever, give them a homework assignment. When they come back, the first thing you say is, “How did it go?” If they go, “I’ve been busy, but I love being with you,” then you confront them and say, “We won’t be continuing unless you start doing these things I’m asking you to do.” A certain percentage of those find somebody else who’s codependent. God bless them. A certain percentage goes, “Busted. I’ll start doing it.” Those are the people I would not mind investing in.
In my personal world, I was mentoring a person for probably two years and finally cut the cord. It happened when my wife said to me on the way out the door one time, “How long are you going to keep giving and pouring into this person who does nothing every time you meet?” She was right.
Thank you, Shelly.
This gentleman said, “I need to meet with you.” It’s a classic case of what you said.
They’re like, “Please be my Prozac.” Four hours isn’t worth my time.
Guard Yourself From Contaminants
I was reluctantly done. When I was not meeting with this person the next week, it felt great. We’re on the number seven persons, which is Contaminants. We talked about how there could be other not-so-kind words you chose that started with C. Contaminants, talk about them.
Unfortunately, if you read your Bible, there are people who aren’t misunderstood and aren’t walking in circles. There are bad people. We all have our own sin problems, but there are people who are getting themselves into evil. They have malignant personalities. You can tell them because they are divisive. They want to either control people or hurt people.
Jesus said to Peter, “Satan has asked me to divide you guys and sift you like weed.” They divide relationships, families, churches, and businesses because they’re based on envy. What they want is what you have. They’re not happy until they have what you have. Unfortunately, a low percentage of the population is those people, but they exist. They’re not like the people you have a long dinner with, where you try to negotiate it and understand each other.
Once you see that you’ve got a Contaminant, and I list qualifications in the book, there is a rock star named Warren Zevon. He has passed away already. He has a song called Lawyers, Guns, and Money. You don’t give them great conversations. Don’t be vulnerable. If they prove themself to be that, you have a responsibility to put the limits on and save your practice, your marriage, your business, and your church.
Do not give great conversations to people who are getting themselves into evil. Share on XSpeak to the leader who has a Contaminant in their organization. They heard what you said, and they said, “I can fix it if I take a little more time.”
I would say, “You probably needed this material and this model. I get it, so let’s give you a pass there. Try it one more time.” You should also tell three people in your life ahead of time, “I’m going to give this person one more chance. I’m going to protect my assets because they might be dangerous. You three people hold me to it that if I give them the chance and he is exploitative or deceptive in any way, white lies versus dark lies, I am committed to you guys. He’s out.” You won’t be strong enough to do it until you have that kind of accountability.”
Stay Away From Toxic People And Build Healthy Relationships
I love it. We’ve talked about seven kinds of people. Sometimes, there are too many on the bottom of the equation. People are bottom-heavy. There are too many Care, Chronic, and Contaminant people in their lives. What would you say to those folks who have a misaligned understanding of caring for people, and they’re allowing toxic people instead of caring people in their lives?
The first thought most leaders have is, “I’ve got to prune this stuff back because I don’t want to be bottom-heavy.” That’s not where you start because the reason you’re bottom-heavy is that you’re at the topline. You’ve got to start there first. You don’t have enough of the right people feel inside you to withstand the hard decisions, to prune back, or to deal with your guilt, your fear of conflict, or you feel like being a bad guy. You’ve got to get those Coaches in your life lined up. You’ve got to get those Comrades who will say, we’ll be your Aaron and Hur for you if you’re Moses. We’ll hold you up while you make some hard, pruning decisions.” Don’t start pruning until you get the first two set.
What would you say to people who say, “I don’t know how to be a friend, how to be a comrade, or how to be in these healthy relationships.” Would you have some advice for them as to how to go about finding more Comrades, more Coaches, more Casuals?
For Coaches, I always talk about going to referral sources. Who do you trust in the world? You don’t want to go online and look for somebody. You have to go to people you trust in business and say, “Who do you hear that’s good at XYZ?” Go to referral sources. For Comrades, look around in your circles and find the people. In the book, I talk about these different qualities, which are what you and I went over. They’re warm people. They’re truthful. They have integrity. They have character. There is some chemistry there. They’re not somebody you don’t get along with.
Look at the characteristics and think, “How would it be to invite that person to go into growth at a deeper level?” You have lunch with them, and you’ll find out. You’ll take one little baby step of vulnerability by saying, “One of my kids is struggling,” or, “Business isn’t doing great. We’ve got a supply chain issue,” or, “Our culture is not what it should be.” It’s not something major, but a little baby step of vulnerability.
One of four things will happen. That’s when you’ll know whether they can join what I would call your life team or not. One is they’ll go, “The weather is great here.” That’s a nice person, but they can’t go there. They’re anxious about going deeper. They’re not a life team person. The second group will go, “I’m sorry your kid is smoking dope. The first thing you do is you read this book. Here are fourteen verses. Are you hugging your kid? Are you disciplining your kid? Are you taking them to places? Are you on trips with them? Do you know who their friends are?” They become the advice monster because they’re nervous, too. They don’t know how to help. A nice person, but probably not for your life team.
The third person says, “I thought you were a Christian. I thought you had a victorious life. If you’re serious about your faith, why would you be struggling like this?” They’re judging and condemning. Forget that. The fourth person is the winner. They say, “I had no idea that Susie was smoking dope. That is so scary. How does it feel? I’ll pray for you. Tell me more about it.” They move toward your well of pain, and then you think, “This might be a person.”
After a few more lunches and you feel like they can be open and you can be open, then you say, “I’m getting serious about personal growth these days. I’d like for us to meet every couple of weeks and have these kinds of conversations.” When I do that with a CEO, he or she will come back and say, “It took me a few months to get five of those people.” They all said, “I don’t have this either. All I’ve got is God, my spouse, and my dog. I can’t go there with anybody else, but I do now because of these five people.” It turned their lives around.
That’s what happens in the groups that you lead. That’s what happens in the groups that are Convene groups. These are places where people find friends, find comrades, and find help. They work together to solve problems, go deeper in Christ, and be real friends.
To your point, the magic of the Convene model structure is that it is turnkey. It’s built in for the community. The people have all been vetted. There’s a structure there, so people come in. All of a sudden, you’ve got built-in people you can start opening up with and talk about business things, life things, and God things. It’s built in for you. It’s one of the easiest ways to enter that kind of world.
All About The Townsend Institute Of Leadership And Counseling
If you’re not familiar with Convene, look in the lower thirds at ConveneNow.com, or give us a call under the Resource tab on the website. You’ll find lots of things that we can help you with. I’d love you to talk about what’s happening with your world in terms of the Townsend Institute. Somebody reading may want to go further and find out more about the work you’re doing. Talk about that.
It’s called the Townsend Institute of Leadership and Counseling. It’s a fully accredited graduate school and fully online. What we’ve got is three programs. In one program, you can get a credential or a Master’s in Organizational Leadership. In one program, you get a credential or a Master’s in Executive Coaching and Consulting if you want to be a coach. Another one is a credential, a Master’s, or a PhD in Counseling.
In all of these, a person can be running their business full-time because we tailor it to people who are working people. Since we’ve been out there for long enough, our people are getting great jobs. Especially people who are business people or are already in business, they may not want a Master’s, but they may want a credential to add that skillset to whatever they do.
We’ve got lots of people involved with this. These are people that we call our fellows. Our fellows are people who have accomplished great things and are helping our students and talking to them. Patrick Lencioni, for example, became a fellow institute. Another one is Henry Cloud. You know, Henry, the guy that I write with. Another one is Ken Blanchard. We’ve got a lot of people who will come in from time to time and teach the students. We’re getting good results from that.
Tell us about the website that people should go to.
It’s all under DrTownsend.com.
Thank you so much. It has been a real treat to be with you. Let’s be in prayer that people who are tuning in to us don’t just want to write seven Cs down on a piece of paper, but if they have too many of the bad folks, they replace them with some good folks. We are grateful for you taking the time. You are one of those good people that I enjoy spending time with. It’s a joy, so thank you.
Thank you.
Important Links
- John Townsend
- Boundaries
- Leading from Your Gut
- Handling Difficult People
- People Fuel
- How People Grow
- Safe People
- When Helping Hurts
About Dr. John Townsend
Dr. John Townsend is a nationally-known leadership consultant, author and psychologist. He has written over 30 books, selling 10 million copies, including the New York Times bestselling Boundaries series.
John founded and operates the Townsend Institute for Leadership and Counseling, and the Townsend Leadership Program. Dr. Townsend travels extensively for corporate consulting, speaking events, and to help develop leaders, their teams and their families.
John has a weekly call-in program, Dr. Townsend Live . Dr. Townsend and his family live in Southern California and Texas. One of his passions is playing in his and his sons’ band, The Bandits, at local venues and parties!
To learn more about Dr. John Townsend and the Townsend Institute for Leadership and Counseling, head to:
