Ep225: TrueSuccess Blueprint - Thriving Teams and World-Class Ideas: Building a Culture of Growth and Innovation

What does it take to build a thriving professional network and create leadership tools that stand the test of time?

In this episode of the True Success Blueprint podcast, host Mimi Mitrius talks with Humanergy co-founders John Barrett and David Wheatley about two foundational TrueSuccess Goals:

1. Grow a strong network of Humanergy professionals
2. Build and refine world-class intellectual assets and tools

They discuss the mindset behind Humanergy’s generous, people-first approach and how that has shaped a high-trust, high-impact network. You’ll also hear how tools like the Four Choices, Red Path/Green Path, and their custom 360 Leadership Assessment evolved—and why they remain relevant after decades of use.

If you're a decision maker focused on sustainable leadership, talent development, or team performance, this episode offers insight into building for long-term impact.

Topics covered:

• How values shape lasting partnerships
• Why generosity leads to stronger networks
• How Humanergy tools are developed, tested, and refined
• The power of immersive 360 feedback
• Lessons from 25 years of leadership coaching

Learn more at https://humanergy.com

#LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveCoaching #TrueSuccess #Humanergy #TeamPerformance #LeadershipTools #OrganizationalHealth

Learn more about Humanergy's work: https://www.humanergy.com

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Transcript

Mimi Mitrius (00:10)
All right, welcome back to the True Success Blueprint. I'm Mimi, and in today's episode, I'm sitting down with Humanergy's co-founders, John Barrett and David Wheatley, to talk about the two goals that are all about growth: our people and our ideas. We'll unpack how we've cultivated a thriving network of Humanergy professionals and how our tools and resources have stood the test of time.

If you're building a team or creating something meant to last, this one's for you. John, David, welcome back again.

So what makes our Humanergy network special, and how do we keep it thriving?

John Barrett (00:45)
Well, my thoughts on what makes it special... at its core, it's aligned. It's people of like mind around the most important things. For me, the most important things at the heart of everything that we do are a care for the greater good, a commitment to impact, and a value and full engagement of people. That's at the very heart of things.

It informs how we work with each other. It informs how we reach out and connect with people. It informs the work that we do. When you have people who are drawn to that, then it just makes it very easy because people are there in a sense for the best reason. So I think that's one thing that makes it special for me.

How about you, Davey?

David Wheatley (02:04)
I think I was going to go to the greater good as well. Quite often, when we're working with clients, we'll talk about stakeholder maps and say, “Who are the stakeholders in your organization?”

When I think about Humanergy—apart from our wonderful team—we have our clients, who we see as partners. We have other types of partners who work alongside us to support clients. And we have some key people that have been resources to us, including our advisory board.

If we take all those into account and understand the sustainability—the long-term future—of all of those relationships, then that's what we're talking about with this network. It's all got to be focused on how we keep this energy, this vibrance, this work—everything John just described—going.

It means partnering with people in a qualitatively different way than just about the money.

John Barrett (03:07)
Thanks for that, David. That inspires me a little bit to make this next comment. It's a bit of a callback to one of our previous sessions—the idea of being “wisely selfish.” In recognizing that by investing in others and the greater good—by having the trust that if you put things out there without it being transactional—it comes back to the network and it comes back to you in abundance. That honestly has proven itself over and over again.

We tell clients they’re clients for life, whether they pay us or not. Not everybody takes us up on that, but it’s not unusual that years later, people will reach out and connect. Maybe they have a question or something they’re looking to explore. And every one of the team is generous in seeing that as a gift—an opportunity. We’ll fully respond in a thoughtful, generous way that isn’t like watching a meter tick over, like in a taxi.

It’s just, “Hey, you asked a question—great to see you—what can I do to help?” And once you start to reap what you sow, it becomes really easy to continue investing in the network. Because then the network invests in you. And that’s really what makes it so special.

David Wheatley (05:03)
Sometimes you can see that as feeling a little transactional—but it’s not. It’s just a matter of care. If you're between jobs and you want a 15-, 20-, or 30-minute conversation that helps you out because you’ve found value in what Humanergy folks have done—that just becomes something our team will do.

It's not a matter of “I expect this to turn into something later on.” It’s just: I care about who you are and your success. And that focus of care has often resulted in a long-term relationship, but that’s not the reason we do it. It’s not “If I do this, then B will happen.” It’s “Someone's asking for help, and I can support them, and that’s a good thing.”

John Barrett (06:04)
There’s a nuance there that I think is at the heart of what makes it special. The genuine intent of “I'm doing it because I care”—it’s authentic and real. That feeds the culture. Now, it also turns out that if I do A, then at some point, B-squared might come back in some way, shape, or form.

However, if you do it with a transactional focus, it breaks the magic. It defeats the intent. It defeats the whole experience.

Mimi Mitrius (06:57)
I think that’s a really good point to hit hard on—the generosity. As I came into this company to work for Humanergy, there was this abundance mindset. We’re not necessarily trying to gatekeep our skills or our tools.

Which brings me to the next question: We have this plethora of tools we’ve built over the last 25 years, and we do give them away freely. If you’ve tuned into the Humanergy Leadership Podcast, we go through them often. We have free ones listed on the website, and if you ever email someone at our company, we’ll just give you a tool.

How have the tools we've built stayed relevant for 10, 20, even 25 years? And why be so generous with them?

David Wheatley (08:00)
There are a few things in your question. One is the abundance mentality—the belief that if you put it out there, it'll come back to you. We've always had that kind of sense about us. If somebody wants to take our stuff and use it for their own gain, then that's on them. We can put it out there and be generous with it. And that’s always paid off. But it’s a mentality.

As for staying current—we’ve built, maybe by luck or something, an engine. While we're doing our one-on-one coaching, if we’re really listening to the problems that leaders have, sometimes we’re able to synthesize that into a simple diagram or tool. That’s real-time, happening in a coaching session.

Then, once a month, we have a Learning Academy that brings all of our Humanergy team together. We try to share those things. So if I see something in one coaching session, and then it comes up again in a second, I’ll bring my sketches to the Academy and say, “Here’s what I’m seeing. What do people think?”

Quite often, other people say, “Yeah, I’m seeing that, and here’s what I’d add.” So we generate a tool that’s a simple summary of a bunch of coaching conversations. Once we think that’s solid enough, we give it to you—and you polish it into something pretty—and that becomes part of our toolbox.

But it doesn’t just stagnate there. Things continue to evolve. That was especially clear in 2019 when we chose to write What Great Teams Do Great. We built it on the Four Choices of leadership, which had been fundamental to everything we’d done. And we started pulling it apart and changing it.

We realized there were things we thought but hadn’t yet articulated. Writing the book helped us do that. That process continues today with the whole team. That engine keeps returning value. We take the tool and offer it back in coaching sessions—and people say, “Wow, that captures exactly what I’ve been thinking about. That’s really helpful.”

And that links back to generosity. We’ve learned from our clients, and we take that learning, turn it into something useful, and give it back.

John Barrett (11:01)
Great summary, Dave. If I could add one thing—one of my favorite sayings is, “If you have a hammer, be careful not to treat everything like a nail.” That’s a caution for any consultant or helper.

We have tools, but when tools dominate the interaction—when they shape what we see, how we see it, and even the solutions we offer—then we limit the impact. We are people- and impact-centric, not tool-centric. The tools are an extraction of insight.

The mentality we have is about people and impact, and the tools are always secondary. Also, every interaction we have, we treat as a learning opportunity. After every coaching session, each Humanergy coach is thinking: What worked? What didn’t? How did that fit? What were the limitations?

That action learning cycle occurs multiple times a day at the front line, and also more formally in the monthly Academies. These tools are constantly being refined—not just in what they look like but how they’re interpreted.

Eventually, some things stabilize around proven impact. Dave mentioned the Four Choices. Even that’s not sacrosanct. The world changes. Each generation brings something new. We work beyond our backyard—into the broader community, the U.S., even globally—and we discover limitations, gaps, and cultural biases that we adjust for.

Mimi Mitrius (14:02)
Which of our tools or intellectual assets has had the most impact over the years? I know they evolve, but are there ones you’d say have had the most staying power or influence?

John Barrett (14:36)
Would you like to go first, David?

David Wheatley (14:38)
I was going to go second—figured you'd take the Four Choices, and I’d go with the Red Path/Green Path. But I’ll just take both.

The Four Choices is at the heart of everything Humanergy believes about leadership. Leadership isn’t about title, rank, office size, or paycheck. It’s about the choices you make and the influence and impact on people around you.

John Barrett (14:51)
I actually put them together.

David Wheatley (15:08)
Exactly. Everyone makes leadership choices every day. That framework has helped people realize—even if they’re not a supervisor—they’re making leadership choices.

It really hits home when someone comes back and says, “I talked with my teenager about the Four Choices.” That tells you it’s universal, applicable, and useful.

That connects to the Red Path/Green Path. Every choice you make lays a brick on your path. It can lean red—passive or destructive—or green—productive and transformative.

Our work is helping people lay more green bricks than red. The Four Choices and Red Path/Green Path tools are both available on the freebies dropdown at humanergy.com.

The red path traits—attack, avoid, defensiveness, blame—feel real. We’ve all done them. Then the green path—listen, engage, align, coordinate—is practical and powerful. Red Path/Green Path has probably been our stickiest idea. And it’s built on the Four Choices.

That leaves John with fewer options.

John Barrett (17:14)
What’s fun is, Dave and I didn’t coordinate on this. We’re really quite different people, but we’ve converged on all these key points.

I also picked the Four Choices and Red/Green Path as number one. My second number one is our Leadership 360.

We had the opportunity to develop it over 20 years ago with a great client partner. Done right—with the right tool and process—it’s transformative. Even for people who are initially resistant, they’re changed by the experience.

I’ve probably done a couple thousand of them. I’d be hard-pressed to name someone who didn’t walk away touched in some significant way. Their thinking, behavior, even their leadership trajectory shifts—at work and often at home.

And when we’ve used other tools, we’ve had people ask to go back to ours. That tells you something. Whatever we built—based on lots of experience—we cracked a real code. It may not be perfect, but it’s impactful and special.

Mimi Mitrius (20:55)
Good number one. The 360 is extremely robust. Like John said, anyone who gets the opportunity to go through it is changed. Just the idea that so many people are giving feedback on you—it’s powerful. It shows how invested others are in your leadership journey. That alone makes it special. And then you get all this rich guidance on top of it.

David Wheatley (21:38)
John alluded to something I want to highlight. I think our 360 tool itself—its competencies and behaviors—stands up against anyone else’s. But I also believe our process for engaging people in the 360 is better than anybody else’s.

It’s not just about delivering a report. It’s how we help people really understand and use the feedback that multiplies the value of the tool. That process has been refined over many years, and it’s all focused on helping the client get the best out of it so they can be the best version of themselves moving forward. That’s different from how most 360s are used.

John Barrett (22:53)
The word I’d pick up from what Dave said is “immerse.” We help people immerse themselves experientially in the 360 process in a way that takes full advantage of its potential.

It’s one thing to look at numbers on a page. It’s another to deeply reflect—guided by someone you trust—on that feedback. To replay scenarios and interactions in your mind and reshape how you think, how you operate, and how you impact others.

Honestly, I see it as a privilege and an honor to walk through that process with someone. It’s that profound.

Mimi Mitrius (24:26)
And one more thing I want to call out—the 360 was developed over 20 years ago, but it hasn’t stayed static. We continue to refine it so it stays relevant in today’s cultural climate. It’s reviewed regularly and evolves to meet the moment.

It’s not a one-and-done tool. It’s a living asset—like everything else we’ve talked about today.

Thanks to you both, and thanks to everyone listening. We hope you learned something about growing strong teams and networks, and about building world-class tools and ideas. The Humanergy journey has always been about building both people and tools—and this is just one part of the bigger picture.

Don’t miss the final episode, and be sure to catch the rest of the True Success Blueprint series to hear all eight goals in action.

John Barrett (25:42)
Thanks, Mimi. Thanks, Dave. Bye now.