Mentoring Students to Support Their Builder Talents

Tara Nettifee from the Grand Island (Nebraska) Area Economic Development Corporation was our guest on a recent BP10 edition of Called to Coach. Tara shared her passion for developing and encouraging the builder talents of high school-aged young people, and the steps she has been taking to create business-school partnerships for mentoring these young people, including the challenges of doing so during the COVID-19 situation in the U.S.

Below is a full transcript of the conversation, including time stamps. Full audio and video are posted above.

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Jim Collison 0:00

I am Jim Collison, and live from our virtual studios around the world, this is Builder Talent Tuesday, recorded on March 24, 2020.

Jim Collison 0:24

This BP10 edition of Called to Coach is a resource for those who want to help others discover and use their strengths and their talents. We have Gallup experts and independent strengths coaches and BP10 coaches share tactics, insights and strategies to help coaches maximize the talent of individuals, teams and organizations around the world. If you are listening live, we have a chat room. The link to it's right available in the video window there. We'd love to have you click over to our YouTube instance; jump in the chat room and join us there. I'll be taking your questions. If you're listening after the fact and you have questions about anything, just email us: coaching@gallup.com. Don't forget, if you're on YouTube, subscribe to the page right now. It's right below Todd down there. There's a Subscribe button. Click the notification bell -- other side, Todd. Click the notification bell, and you'll get notified whenever we go live. And if you are not listening to podcasts yet, you should be; all the cool kids are. We're on every podcast platform that is available to you -- just search "Gallup Webcasts" and you can get this one: Builder Talent Tuesday. Todd Johnson is our host today. Todd's Gallup's Channel Leader for Entrepreneurship and Job Creation. And Todd, always great to have you. Welcome back to this kind of reboot of Builder Talent Tuesday!

Todd Johnson 1:30

Yeah! And bravo! And, as I mentioned, we had talked a few months ago about firing this up again; there's an added importance -- I'm not going to be opportunistic by any means, but boy does our supporting entrepreneurs and their small businesses mean a whole lot. And that's about as much as I'm going to dwell on our current situation. I'm going to publicly embarrass you a little bit Jim Collison, but what you do and how you wire these advocates and friends and coaches around the world together, is just simply awesome and appreciated from this little tiny shareholder to this citizen of Nebraska in the United States and the world. So, thanks for what you do. I know you're doing a lot of it.

Jim Collison 2:11

Yeah. You're welcome. Appreciate it.

Todd Johnson 2:13

I appreciate it. And I know a lot of people on the call do as well. Gosh, I've been looking forward to today. You know, you have heard me over the years talk about our initiatives in, in Lincoln and Omaha and Mexico. And, you know, we've had some incredible competitive advantages. We're doing great things in those cities. But you know, Lincoln, of course is the home of the CliftonStrengths Institute and, ultimately, Don Clifton and positive psychology. And so we should and are doing incredible things there -- Omaha, we happen to have a couple, 6, 700 employees around town. And, you know, there's, there's advantages -- Mexico, when the president's on your team and half the governors of the country, you have certain competitive advantages. But Grand Island [Nebraska]'s a little special because none of those competitive advantages, if you will, existed, but one big one does exist. And she's sitting next to me, to my left. Tara, Nettifee, and we're going to focus on, on Tara and what Tara is doing. This is your first Called to Coach -- not your last.

Tara Nettifee 2:31

Yes, it is.

Tara Nettifee 3:11

Thanks for being here. And give us your "elevator bio," and you've got 9 floors.

Todd Johnson 3:18

9 floors.

Todd Johnson 3:18

So push the button and tell us who you are.

Tara Nettifee 3:21

All right, I'm Tara Nettifee. I'm coming from you from Grand Island, Nebraska, and I work for the Grand Island Area Economic Development Corporation. I started there a little over a year ago and hit the ground running. Previously, I worked in drug and alcohol prevention as a youth program coordinator in Lincoln, Nebraska. And I did that for about 6 years and then took a little time off from the professional world, had a kiddo, and went back and got my teaching degree, and then I taught high school education for 5 years. And I really missed working in the community, and it was time to come back. And I still get to work with the kiddos, but I still -- I work with the businesses and the community again.

Tara Nettifee 4:00

So now I am coordinating the Future Builders Challenge for Grand Island area. So it's not just Grand Island. And then, side note, like, I'm a proud mama, single mama of a 9-year-old and he's hanging out at home right now with Grandpa and Grandma. And love to travel and supposed to be going to Peru in June. So we'll wait and see on that, but.

Todd Johnson 4:25

We'll see on that.

Tara Nettifee 4:26

Grab another country there.

Tara Nettifee 4:28

Awesome. You know, you're not a Certified Strengths Coach yet, which I would say that probably 75% of our global BP10 coaches -- and we're well, we're approaching 400 now -- are Certified Coaches. So what, what -- what's your history with Gallup? How'd you -- hopefully, you know a little more than the poll. I have met people who haven't even heard of the poll. A little scary out there. But, how did you stumble into this, this movement and revolution if you will?

Tara Nettifee 4:58

Well, I've always loved Gallup. I've had my strengths; I've taken it multiple times throughout my life, you know, as young professional; in the middle in there, and then I took it again recently, just to see if anything changed and, nope, I'm still a Woo. So my Top 5 are Woo, Communication, Input, Includer and Relator. And -- are you a Woo too, Jim?

Tara Nettifee 5:21

Us Woos have special bonds with each other. Some people run away from us. And then when I started with Grand Island Economic Development, this project was presented to me. I think there were some meetings probably about 5, 6 months before I started. And there wasn't really that person or an organization entity that wanted to take this on, and it fit right in my talent box of things. And so, I started, I don't remember when I started, but I started last year in 2019. And then by June, I was -- I went and got my -- I went and got talent trained and my coaching and spent 2 days up in Omaha at the summit and received my certification.

Todd Johnson 5:32

Were you at the BP10 course around the summit, was that -- ?

Tara Nettifee 6:12

Yes. Yep.

Todd Johnson 6:13

OK, cool.

Tara Nettifee 6:13

Yep. On the -- part of the summit.

Todd Johnson 6:16

Yep. And it was actually Rich Clawson and I -- we've had Rich on the show before -- we came out and met a bunch of your community leaders. Your incredible superintendent, Tawana, is truly an incredible leader and had a lot of energy. But you're right. There wasn't kind of that person sitting around the table that said, "I'm going to grab this, run with it, own it, and make a big difference in the economy and the community" until you came along. So that was awesome. And it's been about a year that you've been working on -- What, what happens -- what happens in that year? Walk us through kind of the process of getting this community initiative spun up.

Tara Nettifee 6:57

Well, I wanted I'm very much a visual learner -- visual hands-on, tactical; I wanted to see it. And so I went down and spent the day at the Lincoln program. I didn't do the half-day; they made -- their first day is a half-day event. And then so I went down and spent, it was like 12-plus hours down there for that full day. I talked to people throughout the day. I talked to the kids involved. I talked to the coordinators. I talked to just anybody I could and got ideas. I walked away from -- with more than 10 pages of notes that day. I had my own agenda plan by the time I left. I had what I needed to do and how I wanted to tweak it and make it our own for our own community.

Tara Nettifee 7:40

And I came back, brought that back to our team here in the office and they said, "Go!" And so started meeting with schools because that was the first thing you need -- you need kids. And I didn't do phone calls. I set meetings up and we had face-to-faces. And so I drove to -- I had meetings with 8 different schools and ended up having 7 jump on board. But we didn't just focus on Grand Island. So we have 4 high schools within Grand Island, the largest being Grand Island Public Schools; the smallest being Heartland Lutheran. And then, so all 4 of those schools were a "Yes" right away. Had the one-on-ones with them. And then I was like, we want more. And we have a lot of smaller communities surrounding us. So reached out to Aurora Public Schools. They jumped on board. St. Paul Public Schools was a "Yes." Centura High School jumped on board and then Wood River -- Wood River Rural High School jumped on board as well. So that pushed our numbers to almost 1,000 sophomores.

Tara Nettifee 8:44

And we decided to focus on sophomores because freshmen are kind of squirrely and they don't know what they want yet, and so sophomores is kind of that sweet spot. And then juniors and seniors are thinking OK, what's next out of high school? So we wanted to focus on those sophomores because then we have that couple years after we could do follow-up programming if we want to bring them back as mentors. And so all those conversations happened actually before I went and got BP10 trained in June. And then, then we just kept moving forward.

Tara Nettifee 9:20

I'm gonna even take a step backward. Shame on me because there could be people on the call that have no idea what we're talking about.

Tara Nettifee 9:25

Yeah, I thought about that too.

Todd Johnson 9:27

So, you know, the Future Builder Challenge is kind of our, our equivalency to what we've been doing for the athletes and the intellects for hundreds of years, which is Identify, Celebrate, Develop, and -- in a lot of cases critical to the communities that are on this call and all over our country and all over the world -- Retain. So, Identify, obviously with the, with our assessment. We can Identify intensity of the talent to build. Celebrate, I was -- I had the benefit of going to your inspiration rally. God, that was fun, Tara. You know, and I took a few of the builders from Omaha and Lincoln, and we drove out. And watching a kid next to his parents get recognized and celebrated -- in some cases, and this is gonna sound breathless, for the first time.

Todd Johnson 10:16

You know, we, we're great at celebrating our kiddos who win state championships and spike volleyballs and get perfect ACT's. And we've got all this infrastructure and intentionality around the academics and the athletics. But it's so much fun to light up some kids -- and their parents and not forget about the parents -- light up the kids who are, quite honestly, being recognized for the first time. I remember vividly a few of those kiddos in I think the second or third row. And they were just glossy-eyed the whole time. Because here's a bunch of business leaders and, you know, a few local celebrities and, and Tara Nettifee! And everybody here saying and I'm great at something.

Todd Johnson 11:00

And, and then putting a development plan in place. So, again, other communities have called it other things; we're kind of -- we're not trademarked. But Future Builder Challenge has been something we've kind of hung our hats on. Quite honestly, we have a steadfast goal in Nebraska of doing 20 cities, which, our economic developers say make or break our state. And then, of course, those that have read The Coming Jobs War, or followed Jim Clifton's economic views of the country, we think about 200 cities in the United States of America might make or break our GDP and our economic growth.

Todd Johnson 11:39

So we are putting a big energy around Identifying -- scientifically -- Celebrating (never gonna forget that part, and it's important for so many different reasons), Developing, because of course, not only in Nebraska, but I know Luke's over in Kentucky and other places, just because you weigh a cow doesn't make it fatter. So just having an assessment without a development and plan (I'm talking to a bunch of coaches, so everybody on this call knows that) but, you know, having that developmental experience, which we're going to talk a little bit more in detail about what we're doing next. And then Retaining or recruiting. I absolutely, it's happening in parts of the country. I'm seeing it, I'm catching rumblings of it.

Todd Johnson 12:24

But, you know, economic developers are recruiting builders, entrepreneurs much more intentionally and aggressively. Some have heard me say this, but I do a fair amount of mentoring in different accelerators around the Midwest, and our great entrepreneurs get recruiting letters from Canada and say, you know, if you run into visa trouble or if the regulations start to put a crimp on your business growth, we're open 24/7. I love it. Bravo to Canada. I think it's inspired. And so that recruiting retention component is, is also critically important. So, Tara is leading the Future Builder Challenge initiative in Grand Island. That's, maybe I should have opened with that. So you can mess around with the editing, right, Jim where you can put this up front and you can bring it back. You have all that technology. [Jim shakes his head, "No."]

Todd Johnson 13:19

Yeah, well, on the edited version, no one will know I started the introduction midway through. OK, so we're -- we've got all these, well, 100 kids identified. Their parents are excited. Their teachers are thrilled. I talked to a few of those teachers that night. Finally you got through to Johnny, because Johnny was bouncing along, not fitting in the box that we made for him. And then what happened? We had kind of a bump and glitch and what are we doing now, Tara?

Tara Nettifee 13:48

Yeah, OK, so I'm going to back it up even further. So this -- and I saw a couple people commenting, What was BP10? And I saw Jim posted up what Builder Profile 10 is. And then, for those of you who already are familiar, I just want to let you know my Top 4 is Relationship, Delegator, Determination and Confidence are my Top 4. People who know me aren't surprised by those. But once we have the schools identified, and we've kind of figured out who was on board, another piece that people are looking at this for community development and what they want to do this for their own -- the biggest component is cost for the surveys, for the students, that BP10 assessment.

Tara Nettifee 14:33

And so I went and had those conversations back to the schools again. It's like, OK, what are we going to do? How are we going to support this? And then, you know, Lincoln and Omaha went corporate sponsorship, and we chose not to do that in Grand Island. We wanted to keep it in house as much as possible. So we as econo -- Grand Island Economic Development, we said OK, we can afford this much and let's figure out how we're going to do the rest. So I wrote a grant to our local Go Grand Island organization. And we were able to secure a grant for the next 3 years to support what the schools couldn't, as far as covering the cost of the surveys.

Tara Nettifee 15:14

And so, for example, Aurora High School, they came back and like, we can do half. And I was like, OK, where are we going to come up the other half? And so I reached out to their economic development, and they're like, Yeah, what else do you need? Yeah, we'll write the check. And the great part is, when you talk about supporting kids and looking at entrepreneurship and builder skills, and talents, they are super excited to help support these students. St. Paul Economic Development didn't even let the school offer to pay. They just said, "We're paying for this." And so, you know, we had -- we have a lot of great community support, especially in our rural communities. They were like, "Yes, we're going to jump on board." Grand Island was like "Yes, what else do you need?"

Tara Nettifee 16:00

So that was awesome as far as the financial piece goes, because I know that is a big question that most people have when they start approaching a program like this. What is the cost? After we had that conversation, it's like, "What's next?" A piece that I found missing, because I do have that education world background, is that we want -- I wanted to make sure our teachers who are administering the assessment and then the counselors at the schools who work with the kids had that background in the Builder Profile 10 as well. So I developed a one-day training for all of those educators and administrators, counselors, whoever was going to be working in that area. So they had the background knowledge to work with the students because a biggest, big piece of Builder Profile 10 is developing a common language. And those, that just -- it helps so much when you're working with students because it's 10 talents. Everybody can remember their 4 of their 10. And say like, Oh, Miss Nettifee, what was your Top 1 or Top 2 and then, and then I can relate to -- it helps relate to those students even more. And it helps build that excitement and that cohesive, cohesive, you know, it just brings them together even more.

Tara Nettifee 17:20

So develop the trainings, and we train -- I had four different training sessions, so I spread it out, not big groups, but they all took the Builder Profile 10 before the training. We did the activities that they would do with the kids, we did all that stuff. So that way, it wasn't just the assessment and done within the schools. But those teachers who administered it, they had the toolkit then to do the activities and do the follow-up with the kids within the classroom and make it even more impactful. And then the kids knew that their teacher took it so they can put their stuff up on the board and like here are my Top 10 in the order they fall into. And so it really enhanced and increased the, the buy-in on the program; increased that -- the support that we needed within each school. And that's -- then that led up to the spring.

Todd Johnson 18:18

That part is so important, and we did some of that in various iterations. But I know you'd really owned and ran with that. Gosh, that's important. The one advice I give to community leaders -- and I didn't have to because you already figured this out -- Don't call it a test. It's not a test. Our schools are overtested. If you walk in the front door of any school anywhere in the world and say, "I've got another test for the kids," you will be ushered out. This is -- even assessment -- I've used the word "profile." You know, this is a celebration of what they're great at. Obviously, we're all talent people -- recurring patterns of thought and behavior that can be applied to building, building their life, building their educational journey, building their friendships, building. And that alleviates concerns but yet don't, don't lead with, "We're going to give them another test." Our kids are overtested.

Todd Johnson 19:07

And yeah, I just love the way you got that buy-in without knowing exactly -- well, I know, in general, we had the very highest participation within some of your schools, and I dare say because you had that advocacy, and people proficient in the science, regardless of whether they advanced on to the programming, you know, there could be a Saturday 2-hour workshop. There could be office hours on Thursday at 2:30. There could be -- and that's just so consistent with the mission of this overall initiative. So Bravo.

Tara Nettifee 19:40

Oh, yeah. I have to give a huge shout-out to those teachers and the counselors, administrators for making sure this got to -- like the kids took it and they, they got through all of them and it was great. Like, "Hey, we're done! We're done! We're done!" And like, "Oh, we only got a couple left. They were sick." Like they were so on board and they were excited about it. So I saw somebody asked, like, Who did we celebrate? We celebrated, we chose. And this was based on numbers. And that's something Todd and I have talked about, like, your, when we do the actual program for Future Builder Challenge, we're constrained by our venue. And so I chose -- it ended up being about the top 12 to 15%. We identified top 20% that way because we know there's some kids who can't make it. We were right in the middle of beginning track season, and we're, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna hit -- nobody's available all the time. And so you want to identify a little bit higher than what you're actually gonna have at the program. And then you will have some attrition there based on availability for the space.

Todd Johnson 20:54

Yeah, we had wrestling -- state wrestling was the night of the inspiration rally, so there were no wrestlers in the room. But probably ...

Tara Nettifee 21:00

And girls' district basketball.

Todd Johnson 21:02

Yeah, that's right. And that's just life. But -- and that's kind of a cool segue into our online virtual programming -- because now, there is no track for the immediate future. Track ... it comes back. But yeah, there could be, again, opportunities abound for builders and those with building talent. But, you know, what are we going to do now? We can't, we can't get into groups; we can't do in-person programming.

Tara Nettifee 21:31

Right. So our program was supposed to take place March 20 and then March 23. We made ours an all-day for the both-day event. The first day was broken down into we're going to revisit the Builder talents; they were going to get put into teams based on their role. We're mixing up the communities. And then we were going to bring in kind of our local experts to talk about what those community gaps and needs are. And then the students had to pick -- the teams, they had to pick something to focus on. And then they were going to develop a business plan.

Tara Nettifee 22:07

That same afternoon on that Friday, I was bringing in those people who do that for a living help do business plans. So we had people from our extension offices and small business development, we had all those people lined up to come in, they're all volunteering their time, and then help the kids get a business plan started. And we were going to do like a Business Plan 101 session with them. And then they were going to return on Monday and keep running with their business plan and develop a pitch. So think "Shark Tank" style kind of thing.

Tara Nettifee 22:38

And we were bringing in -- I had over 30 mentors, business mentors lined up from all the different communities; people volunteering 3 hours of their afternoon on that Monday. And they were going to work with the kids, help them polish, help them practice, ask those tough questions that students don't think about. And then they were going to do two rounds of a business pitch competition again and then bring in new people because I didn't want that bias. You couldn't mentor and judge. And so new people come in to judge, and we're gonna do it speech-tournament style. So they had had rubrics, they had everything laid out. And then based on their scores, pare it down to the top 5 teams. They would pitch one more time to a brand new panel of judges. We even had Miss Nebraska lined up to come in. And the director of economic development for the state of Nebraska lined up to come and help judge the final round of the pitch competition. And then we had cash prizes ready to award as you all ...

Todd Johnson 23:41

Let me just -- I'm going to interrupt because you touch on something so important. This is not just about the next generation of builders. This is about integrating them with the current builders of a community. And again, I've had the privilege and honor of being involved in these in quite a few different places. Nobody says, "No," when you present the opportunity to spend some time, and literally treasure -- time and treasure, but not treasure as we know it financially, but of experience and helping the next generation. Again, pure economic development, pure humanity; who's not going to help a kid?

Todd Johnson 24:19

And listen, I swear I've recruited again a lot of mentors and judges. And they're, they're slightly different, in terms of their time availability and maybe their position in the community, but they just don't say "No." They say "No" if they're out of town. Or if they -- and we want them to say "No" if they're sick; now more than ever. But we, it's, it's really true. And I'm gonna go back to your budget. Gaining the budgets for these is not hard. The trickiest challenge to anybody who's running these around the country is getting the kids to take the 30-minute assessment, the BP10. Because somebody has to lean in on them; kids don't wake up and say, "I'm gonna figure out my psychometric profile, the talents to build something!" That's not how our kids wake up. At least mine don't.

Todd Johnson 25:03

So, you know, the getting that involvement with the existing businesses. And I loved how you had a couple really successful business leaders in Grand Island at the inspiration rally. We were sitting in that back row passing notes, but they just say "Yes." Who doesn't? If anybody cares about their community, they're going to care about the next generation coming up and into it. And if they don't, just get up and walk out of the meeting, because you're not going to change them, they're probably -- I'm gonna digress here. You can edit that part out too, Jim. But engaging the existing business owners, economic developers, the chamber folks, the city government is really not -- and I don't mean to diminish the great work you did -- it's that part's not that hard.

Tara Nettifee 25:54

It's not hard. No, because you bring it even when I was like, OK, how are the schools gonna pay for, you know, how are we gonna pay for the assessments? And it wasn't hard at all people are like, "Yes. What else do you need?" The financial part's not hard. You talk about mentoring kids. They're like, "OK, when do I need to show up?" Unless they're out of town, like legit that they're out of town. They have a doctor's appointment. They're sick. Like there's -- nobody said "No," based on just, "I don't want to."

Todd Johnson 26:11

I love that. I love that part of this edition.

Tara Nettifee 26:26

And the same thing went with even just setting up the meals. I went and had conversations with our business leaders as far as like different owners of different corporations and they were just like, OK, so we're gonna shoot you a heck of a deal. And I was getting one of our, one of our local people was like, "How about $2.50 a meal?" I was like, "OK." It was like, I mean, it's just amazing how a community rallies around the kiddos and helps support them and they want to be involved in something like this. And it's something that really shows just that support of our young people. And I see somebody asked if I was doing this through -- Yes, I was doing through -- this through my job here at the Grand Island Area Economic Development Corporation. So this became part of my position here. And what my job duties were, so.

Todd Johnson 27:22

Great. Wow, I, just to digress and because I'm a bit of a storyteller, but we've been a few years here in Omaha with a great exciting company called Builder Trend, and they're just growing like crazy. I, I actually talked to another sponsor and they found out and I got in trouble because they're like, Are you kidding me?

Tara Nettifee 27:40

They don't want to give it up.

Todd Johnson 27:41

This is where we do recruiting, recruiting these kids. What, what great company doesn't want to get a sniff and a look into the next great, you know, builder and talent coming up the pipeline? You know, and they turn on their Mountain Dew machines and that -- if you have a Mountain Dew machine, jacking these kids up with Mountain Dew is really a -- not that they need jacked up by, by Monday, but that's strategic. And yeah, a lot of the mentors, I've run around these different initiatives and reminded them that these are 14-, 16-year-old kids; you got to talk to their parents before you "hire" them. You know, a lot of internship opportunities, you know, spin out of these. So we're going online -- is that what I heard rumblings?

Tara Nettifee 28:25

So, Todd and I had a very invigorating conversation about what's next. So world has changed, as we all know it; right now, many of you, I'm guessing most of you, are tuning in from home. And we are trying to figure out OK, so postponements, and that's what we initially did was postponed until the end of April. Right now it doesn't look like this is gonna be over by the end of April. And so my next thought was OK, should we just push it off to the fall and then we do this program, then those kids are juniors and then we roll forward with the sophomores and then do the spring program as scheduled? I believe that part, with a spring schedule, we'll move on that way for next year. But what about all these kiddos we've identified? I invited them; I told their parents about it and all this stuff.

Tara Nettifee 29:19

So it's like, OK, can we do something online? And so just kind of Todd put the bug in my ear. And so then I've spent a little time here now, like, let's look at what -- can we do a curriculum? And can we still put them in teams? Can we still do a pitch challenge digitally? And I think the answer is yes, we can still go forward and do something for them because, you know, they're so excited to be home right now and bored. And let's give them something different that's not graded, and they can actually do something challenging to their -- future. And it's supporting their future endeavors. And we can still get the mentors on board. We can still get the judges back on board. It'll just be from the comfort of everybody's couches.

Todd Johnson 29:33

And again, seeing opportunity everywhere, because that's what builders do, the, you know, we can include mentors from other communities. Heck, we could include the 2,000 kids who took the assessment in Lincoln and have the same physical gathering realities. So conversations are underway whereby we might hitch wagons with a bunch of great kids and mentors in Lincoln, a couple hours down the road. You know, there's a day this could become a national thing. You know, we do it for the kids that can spell; we ought to do it for the kids that can build or teach them how to build. And so the opportunity to engage, maybe not only the top 15%, but how about everyone, right?

Todd Johnson 30:58

So I was thrilled after our last conversation about what could be, and how much -- we all have the talent to build. Now some of us are on this end of the spectrum and are going to build companies to change the world; got to find and develop those. But all of us are on the builder spectrum. Why don't we just help everybody? And through an online virtual, and I don't know if it's Zoom or Blackboard, I don't, I don't know any of that. And everybody knows I don't know that, so it's safe, but having the ability to engage our audience that is landlocked, not technology locked, but landlocked and having a much more inclusive development opportunity. God I, I'm excited about that.

Tara Nettifee 31:45

I am too.

Todd Johnson 31:46

Onus and hitching a few likeminded communities together. And, you know, we're, we're going to give them certificates of completion and recognition; our governor's all over this. Our, you know, some of our entrepreneurs that built the state of Nebraska can't wait to engage as a mentor. Maybe they couldn't show up in Grand Island yesterday afternoon at 4. But I'll be darned if we can't get them on a video or a Zoom because they're at home too. And so ...

Tara Nettifee 32:13

Oh, absolutely. And this is an opportunity too for the kids. I mean, they wouldn't get this part necessarily in the regular program. But we could do elevator pitches of how did, how did you start your business? Where -- what's your story? And even do little snippets like that, because that way the kids can see what it takes to start a business; how many times people maybe have failed and had to restart until they got to that success point. It'd be really, I just think the engagement piece would be really deep as far as being able to connect those businesspeople and the entrepreneurs to these students.

Todd Johnson 32:55

Yep. I -- my prediction is obviously this current environment is going to get better and we're all back, and the distancing thing is going to go away. Not sure when, but it will. We're going to still do this online version. And we're going to have a way to maybe engage with those kiddos who are going to miss because of wrestling or track. But this, you know, we're going to create a structure where we can help them identify and harness and put a language. I love what you said earlier, put a language to their talent to build and give them exposure to builders that they otherwise would not have exposure to.

Todd Johnson 33:36

I'll sign you up right here publicly without asking, but Willie Thiessen who built a pretty good restaurant called Godfather's -- he's one of your mentors. He will absolutely tell a story -- I don't know if he's listening, but if he is, you're doing it, Willie. And, and others like that, that helped build the economy of Nebraska. They're all going to participate because this is important, now more than ever -- sounds breathless, but I really do believe that. And so I love the -- I'm not gonna say the word "pivot" because it's way overused and misunderstood -- but the adaptation to the realities.

Todd Johnson 34:11

And yeah, today was gonna be the day after our big event, which was yesterday, but life has a way of throwing things at you. So what you've built, what you've orchestrated will be truly a case study. I know you're already helping -- something I love, and I'm digressing here -- you're gonna, Collison's gonna edit all of this out, but we've got communities across Nebraska that call Tara on the phone. She's like, "Here's everything I learned." Well, guess what? That's because that's what Rich and Don did from Omaha and Lincoln. I don't think it's just Nebraska. I think it's, quite honestly, global in nature. But the desire to help other communities spin these up has been really fun to watch. And the folks in Norfolk are traveling here and you are going to Lincoln, and there's no elbows ...

Tara Nettifee 35:05

The collaboration has been amazing with this. I mean, when I was starting from scratch, I had 100 questions, and everybody is like, here's all my stuff. Like, they're just giving it to me. And I'm like, thank you. And, you know, I've had those conversations. Yeah, Norfolk, and then OPPD [Omaha Public Power District] is looking at doing a program for southeast Nebraska. And so I mean, they're just being available as somebody to -- it's, it's, it's very cool having that come back. Yeah.

Todd Johnson 35:37

And, and I've watched it and I've made a few introductions over the, over the journey, but again -- kind of like recruiting the mentors -- Nobody said, "No, I'm focused on Hastings, and I don't care about anybody ..." absolutely not. Now, I don't know if all the communities say the same thing when they're recruiting companies and/or, you know, polishing incentive programs for acquired growth. But they all -- and I said that facetiously, because I don't think all communities share their notes on acquired growth strategies -- but they do in this one. And that's really cool. And it's a lot of fun to be part of.

Tara Nettifee 36:14

Somebody had a question about finding local mentors for the kids. I just reached out to our local businesses. We have a lot of partners with, with the Economic Development Corporation, we have a member list and so started there. I belong to the Young Professionals Organization; I put a shout-out there. I asked people, like, who would be a good mentor and it was really that word of mouth. I didn't know our outlying communities as well as the people who live them. So I tasked them with that. I was like, "Hey, I'm looking for some people." And so we went, you know, I drove to Aurora and sat down and had conversations like, "OK, here's what the program is; here's what we're looking for." And like, "Yeah, sign me up!" I mean, it just the -- you have to go to the people who know and who know those people, and then they steered them towards me. And we talked and they all said "Yes!"

Todd Johnson 37:08

Do you love Grand Island?

Tara Nettifee 37:10

I do.

Todd Johnson 37:11

OK, that's, that's obviously was a -- we didn't prepare that question, but I knew the answer. Because something I found is that for these to really succeed and thrive, you know, I think of the folks involved in the different cities and there's just always one or a handful of people that simply love their community and, and care about its future. And without that, these are a lot harder to spin up.

Tara Nettifee 37:36

Oh, yeah.

Todd Johnson 37:37

But in every community, there's, there's those that love it and care about its future and taking control of it. You know, I'm not gonna go off on my speech here, but I'm not sure the federal government or even the state government is going to be the main driver of the communities across this state or across the country. It's got to happen organically and locally. And at the last Governor's Economic Summit, it was all about, What's your community doing? We're gonna help. Of course, that's what our governmental structure is about. But this is a local community. And I know if there's 40 people in the community, let's get -- and there's 40 kids in the high school -- let's get all 40 engaged with how they're gonna build their life. And you might just find, you know, a Bob Doherty or a Marianne O'Brien or a Ed Williams in the pack. Jim, it looks like you're dying to bust in here.

Jim Collison 38:28

Well, we got some, we got some questions that I want get to here just a second. But -- and let me just say like Grand Island is not even in the top 3 in population here in the state of Nebraska. And so -- right? It goes Omaha, Lincoln, Bellevue. And so, when we, when we think about how -- this scales really well, both down. Oftentimes we think about, well, we got to be in a big city or we got to have thousands of kids or we have to have thousands of companies. And I think what you guys have proven with this is that it doesn't require that; it requires people who care. And so it scales both up and down. Todd, you and I interviewed Bobby Shaw and his partner, right, down in Austin, that were doing this. And they are in a big city doing this. We're doing it in Grand Island, Nebraska; or Lincoln, Nebraska; right, or Omaha.

Todd Johnson 39:18

We've got coaches out in the Sandhills in Scottsbluff, you know, who've got literally 50 kids in the high school. Let's get them all in the ocean, and let's teach them all what they're great at. There's no size or scale, if you believe in the impact that an individual can have on their life and on a community. So

Jim Collison 39:42

Tara, Mark says, Virtual is now the best way to learn how to collaborate in a flat world, right? Everything in business is virtual from the workplace perspective. I agree a little bit; I disagree in some regards. I don't think we're gonna ever go 100% virtual. I think it's really important that we do some of these events where we get people together, right? I mean, there's so ...

Tara Nettifee 39:59

Absolutely there's something to be said with a sticky note paper on the wall and having that creative collaboration in one room.

Jim Collison 40:08

I think what's good about this situation, if we can find a silver lining on what's going on now, is it's forcing us to take some old models that were maybe only in-person and retrofit them, or I actually think, find new opportunities in these. Todd, you and I were talking a little bit about this in the preshow: find new ways of doing things. And, and so that doesn't mean -- and by the way, I don't think that means we have to throw out one for the other. I think they can both coexist, kind of based on what's the strength of either-or? I want to, I was just thinking about this, why don't we livestream what you guys are doing? So we'll take the Zoom stuff that you're doing and figure out a way. I'll just broadcast the Zoom call live. And folks can watch, can kind of watch this. Tara, how possible would that be to be able to get in there?

Tara Nettifee 40:55

I don't think it would be impossible; I think, yeah, we just need to figure out details and what this is all going to look like. Kind of preliminary thoughts was I would probably do a live feed once a week to the kids and like, here's, here's the new topic of the week; let's work together on this. And then a lot of the other stuff would just be digital based, as far as their work and getting back to me or if they want to set up Zoom calls with me, we could do that as well. Or with the mentors, we'd set up Zoom calls that way. But I think, yeah, definitely, if you put me on the spot and do live, live with Tara!

Jim Collison 41:33

We don't have to, but I think there's some interesting -- again, this is a new situation where we think, OK, if we were going to livestream this, like, you know, the gamers, the egame are huge right now. People are just watching things on Twitch, right? Or on YouTube. If we, if we started designing things with that in mind, to start saying, OK, we're going to do a large virtual event where we bring everybody in at the end, and there's some interviews that are going on. Well, hey, that's -- all of a sudden, that's my realm. Like, I know how to do that. And I can do that really well. We've brought people in from all around the world in that setting. And we can stream these kind of events out to them. We just have to think about it a little bit differently. Like, OK.

Tara Nettifee 42:11

Absolutely. And when the kids pitch, they've got to figure out how are they going to do a pitch from 5 different households? And ones -- like there's going to be hiccups to that. Because before, yeah, you can pitch online as a group. And you can do your own video setup. And you can do all these things, but how do we enable them to pitch collectively without one kiddo doing all the work? And make it a good video pitch without it falling onto one or two people?

Todd Johnson 42:41

We'll figure it out. And the same thing happened when we had 5 kids standing next to each other on the podium. You know, the winning teams were those that, that drew upon the talents of their partners, and we had teams where one person did everything, and they didn't win, so we'll get around all -- I see nothing but opportunity.

Jim Collison 42:58

Well, and as we look at the YouTube culture right now and what they're doing, it's a completely different way of doing things than maybe we would have thought of doing them and being successful on YouTube. And so this pitch now is that, you know, we kind of think of a pitch of maybe a PowerPoint presentation or somebody doing something. What if it was more like a YouTube, like a, you know, like, like the kids are creating on YouTube today? What if it was more, yeah, more along those lines of we could have some Snapchat or TikTok, right?

Tara Nettifee 43:26

Yeah, exactly. They, they are so creative that they're gonna blow our socks out of the water, no matter what they come up with. They just, they have that ability to make those cool things happen.

Jim Collison 43:39

Yeah. Todd, there's a question in the chat room from Mark. He says a volunteer with our local First Tee program. A conversation I'm having with the leadership is to administer CliftonStrengths to their student coaches/mentors. Should I consider BP10 instead? You're a little biased, my friend. I'm here to keep you in check!

Todd Johnson 43:57

Help me know -- CliftonStrengths? I think I've heard of it. You know, it's a, it's a great question. It's a great issue. They're different assessments measuring different things. And, quite honestly, they're additive. We've spent years bringing this new assessment, and some of you on the call are probably learning about it for the first time, which is fine. You know, a lot of our best coaches aim CliftonStrengths at the BP10 results and analytics and demands of building. So they're stronger together than independent. I think if the focus is on building vocation, entrepreneurship, business, BP10 is, is much more in that realm and space.

Todd Johnson 44:42

Having said that, you know, I'm a 25-year veteran of Gallup. CliftonStrengths is revolutionary and everybody on the call knows that it's changing the world in that regard. So, pros and cons: 1) they're just, they're, they are different. We have correlative analytics on which ones feed off each other. We have that, all that depth. I would suggest folks spend a little time on the BP10. You know, gallup builder site. We've got some videos up there. There's -- once you've taken your assessment, there's an online learning on how to understand your report. I think we're going to use that actually in Module One of the training. It's there, it's up there, it's free. We're not charging.

Todd Johnson 45:26

So, you know, team-building around businesses and, and building -- so building can happen in nonprofits. A few of us are building this new division within a 100-year old polling company. It's, it's we're all going to try to build a great life, so it's very inclusive to all of our journeys, not just entrepreneurship. That's a super long-winded ...

Jim Collison 45:55

Well, Tara, you're not biased like we are. What -- you're, you come at this from both sides. What would you say?

Tara Nettifee 46:02

I, I love -- don't get me wrong. I love CliftonStrengths. I'm excited to eventually become a coach here. I find the BP10 is easier especially for people to grasp because there's only 10. It's 10 talents, and everybody has the 10 talents. And I think I'll answer Ralph's question that just popped up there too. That doesn't -- like you don't know, like, yeah, they fall out in an order; they shake out in a 10, you know, for 1 through 10. But you don't know, just based on your results, like how strong those talents are, which makes it great to everybody. The only reason I know how strong the kids' were is because I got the analytics ran on them with Gallup. That's the only reason.

Jim Collison 46:49

And that's the CIR, right. That's the CIR report? Yeah.

Tara Nettifee 46:51

Yes, yes. So that's how, you know, and that's how we identified those top-talent kiddos. But you can do this with anybody and process the results with anybody. And without knowing their Coaches Insight Report or those, you know, what those actual levels are, it's easy to lay out. And it's easy for people to understand what those Top 10 mean and how it relates to their business-building or their builder talents in their professional lives.

Todd Johnson 47:19

And their journeys. And that's, that's -- Ralph brought up such a critical important, and we've learned a lot about this, having been in the market since 2014. In the very beginning, we included intensities on everybody's Development Report. Thought it was a great idea; the market hated it. And for the reason that we're all going to build something. And we need to be careful with the expectations that we're all going to build billion-dollar companies and sell it to Facebook and become a billionaire venture capitalist because that's, of course, a bunch of hooey. But we're all going to build, regardless of where your intensity is, knowing what's at the top; knowing how it wires with people you need around you; knowing whether you're a Rainmaker, Conductor or Expert helps you build better teams because we tend to gravitate towards those that look like us and think like us. And that's not always great in a team environment. So the -- and valuing diversity as it relates to talent and every other form of diversity, those are all things that, that it doesn't matter where you are on the, on the, the spectrum.

Tara Nettifee 48:25

No, and it's great because there's different organizations that are starting to grasp on to this. We have a great partnership with our Boys Town, our entity here in town. And they're considered a shelter. So they've got a fluid rolling of kids that go in and out there. So we've set up a thing where I come out every other month, they purchase codes for the kids, the kids will take the BP10. I go out and help them process the results. I don't know what their intensity reports are. I don't care what their intensity reports are. But we do the teaming activity, and the kids, you can see the light bulbs turn on because they're like, oh, if we have a gap in there, we would need to hire somebody or figure out how to fill that in. And it was great. It was so much fun because they -- they just, they get it. And it's easy to see like, OK, if you're running a business -- and we make them make a fake business -- and, you know, fill in that gap, how are you going to fill in that gap? Because you three don't have it in your Top 4?

Todd Johnson 49:26

People don't see blind spots; that's why they're called blind spots. And what great questions. I want to save a little bit of time for a couple quick updates. So -- and I'm sensitive to -- the clock is ticking.

Jim Collison 49:38

Well, the we may be, we may want to do that, with just about 5 minutes to go. Yeah.

Tara Nettifee 49:48

Any other questions?

Jim Collison 49:50

Well, tell you what, we'll allow some questions to come in. Todd, do, do your updates. And then ...

Todd Johnson 49:54

Well, I saw Amanda. Amanda, I wanted to give a little props to our emails yesterday and I think the day before. Amanda, Karen is putting together a BP10 kind of a meetup. It'll be virtual in nature, probably quarterly. And I'm going to be sending out emails to the list of BP10 coaches. I'm not going to give anybody's email unless they give permission, but we'd like to see -- in addition to this kind of venue, and again, Amanda took the the leadership and initiative, and Bravo to you on getting us together and, and having some questions and answering and virtual meetups for the BP10 community. So that's coming.

Todd Johnson 50:38

We're going to do a very special team research Called to Coach. Many of you are participating with us. We have some really exciting longitudinal team research that's showing -- it's, it's intuitive to all of us, but it's, it's starting to show some team functioning and business performance based on the constructs of teams. As, again, many of you are participating. But Sangeeta, in our research team, must have been 8 or 9 months ago, put an infrastructure in place. Results are coming out. We'll probably schedule that for the end of April. You know, the power of this science -- knowing self is wonderful. But when you can start to bring it into a team construct, that's what we teach the kiddos in this program at an early age is you need people that, you know, that complement and challenge you from a talent perspective; not just, you know, adhere to and see the world the same as you do.

Todd Johnson 51:35

We're, again, it's intuitive to everybody, but leave it to Gallup to go out and research it. And we have. And so Sangeeta will be presenting some of those results; we'll advertise like crazy. That will be coming up at the end of April. We're still working on a date. So those are two -- and we're building a product around teaming based on the roles and the talents. We'll release it, probably similar to the Coaches Insight Report that Tara has mentioned a few times. That's the intensity report that we make available to BP10 Trained Coaches. So some exciting things in the, in the lab that are pretty advanced. And, Tara, you're awesome! Thank you so much for -- I've couldn't wait to showcase, and I asked you that question about loving Grand Island very much on purpose. And again, knowing the answer because those that do love their community want to see its economy thrive. And -- I'll get in trouble with this, but just acquiring growth is not enough. It's important. I sit with companies all day long, say "Move to Omaha, and here's the reason why," and I should probably be on payroll at the Chamber. But it's not the only strategy in town. It's an important one.

Todd Johnson 53:00

So organically finding and developing those who, and quite honestly, sooner than later. We've had kids spinning out of all these different initiatives that are monetizing revenue-producing companies. And we'll start showcasing more of them. So, yes, the average agent of entrepreneurs, according to Coffin, is like 44-46 years old. We'd like to push that down a little bit. We do measure in the beginning, at the end, really important. We measure everything because we're Gallup. But confidence is something that we've really watch closely, and we celebrate moving it. Because when you can light somebody up with their talents to build, or their talents to live a life based on what you're good at, their confidence goes up. And that's always a big fun one, to, to watch, move the needle. So, Tara, part of our online module would be pre-, post-, and I'll guarantee -- I'll bet Jim's job that we move that confidence needle.

Jim Collison 54:05

Maybe not a great thing to say right now. Maybe not a great thing to say.

Todd Johnson 54:11

You know, and juicing and juicing confidence in an entrepreneurial ecosystem, I don't care how old they are, is, is really important. So your leadership, your desire to share, and I've just watched you pick up the phone on the weekends; I've watched you pick it up on the evenings, with other communities, saying Hey, what about this? What about that? Has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. Our chairman, Jim Clifton sent her a note after, I think, one of the launches, saying, We need you. No pressure, but, between what's happening in Lincoln and Omaha and Norfolk and Grand Island, it's gonna make a big difference. So --

Tara Nettifee 54:53

Well, and the cool thing is these kids -- like people can see it already in these; in one of the communities, when I went to meet with them for the first time about the program just to see if they would get on board, they're like, "Oh, we already know who's going to be at the top of that list." And then when we had the inspiration rally, I was looking forward to meeting this student because he -- his name was brought up by not only the school, but then their economic development. And they're like, Oh, no, he brought down business plans as a freshman in high school. And he couldn't make it to the inspiration rally because he was looking at property, to flip another property. And I was like, I need to meet this student because they're already, they're doing it. And they're a sophomore in high school, and I need to meet this kiddo. Like, I need to meet these students who are, their, their brains are just firing on all cylinders and doing cool different things.

Todd Johnson 55:47

This is intentional. This is systematic. This is a hell of a lot of fun. I don't know if you can say hell, but you can edit it out, Jim. And boy, is it important, and again, now more than ever. Game on!

Jim Collison 56:03

Todd, if -- maybe this is the first time some folks have heard about this. You and I have been at this for a while. We've been talking -- by the way, there's tons of back episodes of this on both Called to Coach and through our Builder Talent Tuesday episodes that we have going. Can they just contact you directly, Todd? What's the best way to do that?

Todd Johnson 56:20

You bet. I love this topic and I have a lot of bandwidth in these next days and weeks. todd_johnson@gallup.com [now use coaching@gallup.com]. I love nothing more than engaging with our coaches and thinking about different applications for the science, be it the Future Builder Challenge or others. It's the highlight of my day. A great day is where I'll talk to seven or eight or nine different coaches working different aspects and angles. Absolutely, and by all means.

Jim Collison 56:56

And if you can't remember that email, you can send us an email: coaching@gallup.com. We'll get that routed over to Todd. Tara, thank you for taking the time today.

Tara Nettifee 57:04

Thank you for having me.

Jim Collison 57:05

I feel like even though this didn't go where you guys thought it would, that some really cool things are gonna come out of it. So we'll, we'll talk behind the scenes about maybe figuring out some ways to livestream some things so that folks can kind of watch this happen. For some of you, you're listening to this today, and you're like, Oh, this is whole new world for me. And there's some great opportunities. If you have questions for Todd, there's a few questions left in chat, we're just out of time. Send Todd that email and he'll get, he'll just pick up the phone and call you.

Jim Collison 57:32

With that, we'll remind, we've got a whole bunch of resources; Todd mentioned this page, but let me say it again: gallup.com/builder. Pretty easy to remember. Lots of resources out there. I mentioned we have a, we have a couple playlists on our YouTube channel. So if you go to youtube.com/cliftonstrengths. And then you go -- because we've been kind of mixing all this together -- you go to our Builder Talent section, BP10 section, there's a whole list of -- we have all these talents. We've done videos around them, interviewed people. We have updates from Todd on some of these. And then we're going to do these new series. We've got this brand new series. And Tara, congratulations on being the first in this new series.

Tara Nettifee 58:07

I didn't realize it was a new series!

Jim Collison 58:09

Well, we're in kind of a reboot, right? We, we, we're doing that; bringing that in. And so those are available for you out there as well. I mentioned, send us an email: coaching@gallup.com if you have questions. Follow us on Eventbrite. If you want to stay up to date, like, we have these other sessions that are scheduled, you can register for them if you want: gallup.com -- no, it's not. That's not true. It's gallup.eventbrite.com will get you there. You can sign up for those and it will allow me to give you some notifications when you -- when the event is coming up. We do have a Facebook group just for BP10. So if you go to facebook.com/groups/gallupbp10, pretty easy to remember. You can join us over there. You have to ask to be invited and then I'll let you in as well. I kind of monitor that group.

Todd Johnson 58:47

And I'm not on it.

Jim Collison 58:49

And Todd is not on Facebook, no he is not, so don't, don't ask him questions. Because I just have to -- then I have to copy and paste it. Just send him an email. We want to thank you for joining us today. Appreciate you guys coming out. Like I said, we have another one of these coming up here, oh, in a couple weeks. gallup.eventbrite.com if you want to get registered for it. I want to thank you for joining us. If you're listening live, thanks for coming out live. With that, we'll say goodbye, everybody.

Tara Nettifee's Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Woo, Communication, Input, Includer and Relator.