Ric Franzi, on Critical Mass for Business radio, featured a 50-minute interview yesterday afternoon with Peter DiGiammarino to discuss IntelliVen and Manage to Lead: Seven Truths to Help You Change the World. Click the play button below to listen to the entire show.

An excerpt from their discussion follows:

Franzi:  You have outlined a “Support Structure for Success” of the top executive.  In it you suggest a CEO have an outside Executive Group and Belong to a CEO Peer Group outside their firm.  Would you take us through your thinking and what you why you feel they are so important?

 DiGiammarino: CEOs who participate in peer forums help each other become great CEOs and better people. Specifically:

• It is a place where a CEO does not have to behave as if s/he knows all the answers and can, instead, be genuinely open to input and where it’s ok to be vulnerable, and even to be wrong, in front of each other; there is no need to put on airs or skirt around the hard stuff.

• One of the greatest human needs is to be known and to be understood. CEO peers really know and understand each other; both in terms of personal and business goals and the challenges each faces in meeting them. Consequently, also, feelings of loneliness and depression are less common in CEOs who participate in a peer group.

• Participation increases the odds that a CEO’s goals will be met because the group holds each CEO accountable for acting in ways that are in-sync with what s/he claims s/he seeks to accomplish.  When a peer acts in a manner out-of-sync with stated goals, CEOs challenge each other in constructive ways.

• CEOs share their experiences and so learn from each other which accelerates the learning curve for any one member.

• CEOs celebrate each other’s’ successes and commiserates on failures which is surprisingly comforting.

• CEOs open their network of resources (people, money, partners, clients, training, knowledge, etc.).