Speaker 1: So let's talk about the business environment that we're all operating in today. It's a pretty competitive place, isn't it? We all can agree on that. And if we were to think about what are the biggest roadblocks that get in the way of our success, what would be at the top of the list? In our experience, the biggest roadblocks to success are almost never the external ones. The marketplace, the economy, the competition. In our experience, the biggest roadblocks to success are almost always the internal ones. The culture inside our company, the way we interact, the way we communicate, the way we meet, the way we prioritize time, the way decisions get made. In our experience, the biggest roadblocks to success are self-imposed. And what are the biggest causes of these internal roadblocks? Let's focus on two. The first one is organizational, a culture that doesn't respect time, too many meetings, too many meetings that run too long, not enough time given to people to do work, to think, to breathe, to absorb. The meeting culture in most organizations is a significant roadblock to success. And the second one is individual. There's a significant communication skills gap for the vast majority of people inside most organizations, an inability to get to the point quickly, to make the point clearly, to articulate the value, the benefit, the implication, the things that your audience really cares about. These are real problems that won't go away on their own. So what do we do about it? Let's look at the solutions from two angles, the first one organizational and the second one individual. From the organizational level, take a hard and honest look at the company culture. Do you have a culture that respects time? Do you have a culture that allows people and encourages people to protect their own time so that they can show up prepared, so they can show up ready to contribute, so they can show up ready to make a decision? If you have a culture that does not respect time, far too many meetings will be a waste of time because people will show up unprepared, will end up multitasking, decisions won't get made, time will be wasted. From the individual level, take an honest inventory of your own skills, take responsibility for your own skills. Do you have the ability to get to the point quickly? Do you have the ability to make your point clearly? Do you have the ability to paint the implications and summarize and simplify things for your colleagues when it is your turn to lead the conversation? Are you able to make it valuable for the people around you? Over the last 20 years, we've become students of business and business culture and business efficiency. One of our biggest lessons learned from these 20 years is that the things that get in the way of business success are almost always self-imposed. Very rarely are our biggest roadblocks external, they are almost always internal. Solve the internal problems and you will be on your way towards business success.