ROUND 4 | OCTOBER 19–23, 2026

This Week’s Theme: The Way of Embodying

Last week, we explored The Way of Weaving, where people, resources, ideas, and opportunities connect to generate growth.

This week, we turn to the third interlocking phase of the Third Angle Way of Thriving Model™: The Way of Embodying.

The Way of Seeing helps us recognize what growth is possible and where to find the assets and opportunities to make it real. The Way of Weaving connects those treasures to one another and to the business system already in place. The Way of Embodying makes growth tangible, turning Integrated Growth into a personal and cultural way of doing business.

How? By demonstrating it, not just as an outcome, but through the everyday habits that make growth happen.

As Benjamin Franklin put it, “Well done is better than well said.”

The opportunity is to make Integrated Growth something people experience in how they learn, lead, make decisions, measure value, and reflect on their work.

This week’s four strategies are:

• Utilize Informal Teaching and Learning
• Use Icons and Stories That Resonate
• Provide Value Measurement and Feedback
• Step Back

Let’s explore how these strategies can help make Integrated Growth part of the way you work.

Day 1: Four Strategies of The Way of Embodying

The Way of Embodying is where the principles of Integrated Growth become visible in everyday actions.

It is one thing to identify growth opportunities and connect the resources needed to pursue them. It is another to make those ideas part of how people think, behave, and work together.

That requires more than a strategy or a set of instructions. It requires leaders to demonstrate the behaviors they want others to practice and create an environment where learning, meaningful feedback, and reflection are part of the work itself.

Think about someone in your network whom you admire for growing a business while also growing people and relationships. What do they consistently do that makes this possible?

Great growth leaders understand that their everyday actions can teach others what matters. They use stories and symbols to make purpose tangible, pay attention to measures of value that go beyond financial results, and take time to reflect before deciding what to do next.

These behaviors reinforce one another. Learning informs action. Stories make purpose memorable. Measurement helps people see whether progress is creating value. Reflection reveals what needs to change.

Together, they help turn Integrated Growth from an aspiration into a habit.

Today’s Actions

Think of someone in your network who embodies leadership in growing a business while growing people and relationships at the same time.

What actions do you see them employing consistently?

Now consider your own leadership. What is your personal hallmark action for demonstrating and promoting Integrated Growth?

Write it down. Consider how you can make it a more consistent part of your everyday work.

Day 2: Utilize Informal Teaching and Learning

“For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” — Aristotle

I have been in the education business a long time. I have a lot of formal education and have served as a professor for many years. Funny enough, I have never really liked school. What?!

Education for its own sake, credentials without practical meaning, and passive learning disconnected from experience have always left me cold.

Experience has taught me something different: learning and teaching are primary skills of great growth leaders.

A friend of mine, T, was recently promoted to President of his company, a business charged with delivering high growth. He told me he would spend the rest of 2026 traveling to learn.

He has worked in the company for several years, so he is not starting from scratch. Still, he has the humility and wisdom to recognize that there is always more to learn from different people and sources. What he learns will influence his leadership and decisions. Likewise, his company, customers, and partners will expect him to teach them how he thinks and what is changing.

In my 30-plus years of tracking masters of Integrated Growth, I have interviewed hundreds of people about effective growth leaders. Their number one observation is that these leaders excel at informal learning and teaching.

They understand that new knowledge is more likely to stick and translate into action when it connects to people's needs, motivations, and existing experience. These connections often emerge while people are doing things and solving problems, especially through projects and everyday work.

This applies to customers and partners as much as it does to employees.

Consider a recent experience of my own. I bought a new car, and the dealer gave me a 15-minute walkthrough of its many functions and buttons. He mentioned that opening the gas tank was different from what I was used to, but that detail got lost in the flood of information.

When I later needed to fill the tank, I pushed the gas cap cover. Nothing happened. I looked for a lever, consulted an online AI tool, and even searched the owner's manual. None of these efforts helped.

Finally, I asked another driver for assistance. After a few minutes of trying different things, neither of us had figured it out. Then I returned to the gas cap cover and pushed it with two fingers, one on each side.

It opened.

The solution was simple but nuanced. It was also a reminder that learning often happens through experimentation, frustration, and discovery rather than through instruction alone.

I took away two lessons. First, simple but nuanced is often the secret to good design. Sometimes the answer is hidden in plain sight, and we need to step back from our assumptions to see it. Second, we cannot assume that something new works the same way as something familiar. Sometimes we need to unlearn what we already know.

My friend T has bigger challenges than opening a gas tank, but his ability to see humor and lessons in ordinary events will serve him well as President. In high-stress situations and everyday work alike, growth leaders need to keep learning and help others learn through their example.

Today’s Actions

As you embark on your projects this week, consider your plan for informal learning.

• What questions do you need to ask?
• Who and what can you learn from?
• How will you learn from frustrations, surprises, and unexpected outcomes?
• How will you teach through your example and the way you design things?

Remember the lesson of the gas cap: sometimes, simple and nuanced works better than hitting things head-on.

The best approach depends on what you learn about your audience and what helps them open their eyes, minds, and actions to growth.

Day 3: Use Icons and Stories That Resonate

“The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor…it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.” — Aristotle

Much of what we consider new knowledge can be found in ancient wisdom.

People naturally look for connections between new ideas and what they already know or have experienced. In fact, “Why do metaphors help people change their minds?” was the starting point for my dissertation research.

As a young leader in college, I had experienced the power of metaphors to help a group I cared about change its perspective and behavior and grow toward its potential.

Stories are one of the most powerful ways to bring metaphors to life. When I ask people what makes Integrated Growth Leaders effective, they often talk about their ability to learn and teach informally. They then tell me stories that illustrate these leaders' actions or repeat stories the leaders themselves have shared.

Well-chosen stories help communicate a vision for growth, show people how it might work, and reinforce what good growth looks like.

But there is another aspect of a growth environment that deserves more attention: icons and symbols.

I am not talking about logos or conventional brand guidelines. I mean tangible things that carry meaningful stories and remind people of who they are, what they represent, and what they want to grow in their businesses and organizations.

Consider a division of a large defense contractor that Third Angle worked with. Among its many effective practices, one immediately caught our attention: a collection of 20-foot-long posters hanging from the ceiling of its manufacturing plant.

When we asked the manager who the people on the posters were and why they were there, she explained the company's five-second rule.

Every employee, including the manager herself, practiced it daily. Before finishing an assembly or handing off a decision, they paused for five seconds and looked up at the posters. They showed the young sons and daughters of employees who were serving in the military.

The employees asked themselves whether they had done everything they could to protect these young men and women before handing off their work.

The posters were icons, and the five-second pause was the action attached to them. Together, they connected everyday work to the company's purpose and values.

That is the power of a meaningful symbol. It makes an abstract purpose tangible and gives people a reason to act on it.

Today’s Actions

What icons or symbols have you placed in your work environment to remind people of your business's purpose and value, and why it is worth growing?

What stories are attached to those things?

What is your five-second rule?

Identify one simple action that could help you and others reconnect daily work with the purpose and values behind it.

Day 4: Provide Value Measurement and Feedback

“The most important figures that one needs for management are unknown or unknowable, but successful management must nevertheless take account of them.” — W. Edwards Deming

W. Edwards Deming, a pioneer in using statistics for quality control and management, reminds us that not everything important to business can be represented by conventional measures.

In fact, too many traditional, quantifiable measures can sometimes sabotage growth.

I once spoke with an executive vice president at a global parts supplier about the company's metrics. Her response was telling: they had too many measures, and those measures often worked against one another.

For years, the finance team had been rewarded for cost containment. Saying no had become a habit. When the company shifted its focus to growth, the finance team still held the same power and incentives, making it difficult to move forward.

I have seen many performance indicators mean different things to different people, lack the context needed to interpret them, or conflict with the company's broader goals.

This is why we need to simplify what counts as value: in the process of doing growth work, in the outcomes we achieve, and in the value we generate for the future.

Value means more than financial results. It includes what motivates different kinds of investors to engage, stay engaged, and contribute to the growth of a business.

These investors include financial investors, customers, employees, and partners. Each contributes some form of capital to the business, and each needs a reason to continue investing.

To help make this broader understanding of value practical, I have distilled the many possible metrics into the 5 T’s of Measurement™:

• Time: How time is invested and what it makes possible.
• Talent: The capabilities, contributions, and potential of people.
• Treasure: The financial resources and results involved.
• Trust: The confidence that enables people to engage and invest in one another.
• Talk: The conversations and exchanges that help people share knowledge, address concerns, and move growth forward.

Using these measures effectively requires both quantitative and qualitative data, along with an understanding of the context surrounding them.

It also requires conversations, informal teaching and learning, and stories and icons that resonate with the people involved. The NEWCO® Map, introduced in The Way of Seeing, can help illustrate how these measures change alongside the forms of capital that drive growth.

The goal is not to measure everything indiscriminately. It is to recognize the signs of value that matter and use them to guide better decisions.

Today’s Actions

Think about the measures of value your business accounts for and, more importantly, those it may be overlooking.

What signals tell you that growth is moving in the right direction or beginning to stall?

Time and Treasure may be easier to measure. But how do you measure and represent the value of Talent, Trust, and Talk?

How could you reward and reinforce their growth in your business?

Look beyond the numbers you already track. Consider what those numbers fail to tell you about the people, relationships, and capabilities that make future growth possible.

Day 5: Step Back

“Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.” — Peter Drucker

The Way of Embodying is not the final phase you complete before moving on to something else. Likewise, stepping back is not the last step in leading growth.

Like measuring value, reflection belongs throughout the process: in the work itself, in evaluating outcomes, and in preparing for the future.

Integrated Growth Leaders step back to look at their businesses holistically. They use Framing Questions, the NEWCO® Map, and other tools introduced in The Ways of Seeing and Weaving to explore possibilities and make informed decisions about whether, what, how, where, why, and with whom to grow.

Stepping back also means reflecting while the work is happening.

Remember the five-second rule from Day 3. Great growth leaders build moments of reflection into their own work and create opportunities for employees, customers, and others they serve to do the same.

These pauses help people recognize what is working, identify what needs to change, and respond thoughtfully rather than react automatically. They can reveal needs that might otherwise go unnoticed and prevent people from assuming everything is fine when it is not.

In The Way of Weaving, stepping back also helps leaders recognize Unusual Suspects and Integrative Passages, which can be essential to making growth efforts work.

There is another important benefit. Stepping back prepares successors and the business system to take responsibility for a growth project, allowing leaders to move on to the next growth possibility.

The Integrated Growth Leaders I admire most find ways to bookend their days with quiet reflection.

Even when they are highly action-oriented, they slow down enough at the beginning of the day to let an important concept or image take center stage in their minds. It helps them reconnect with their True North.

In the evening, they reflect on what happened, what surprised them, and what moved them toward or away from Integrated Growth. They wonder why events unfolded as they did, what additional information they need, and what they might change in their approach.

Throughout the day, they also look for signs of the 5 T’s of Measurement and other indications that the NEWCO® is connecting assets and opportunities to generate growth.

Some even jot down notes or sketch what they are noticing.

These small practices help turn reflection into a regular habit rather than something reserved for an annual review or a project that has gone wrong.

Stepping back is not the opposite of taking action. It is what helps make the next action more effective.

Today’s Actions

What are two simple things you are doing, or could begin doing, to bookend your day with quiet reflection?

Choose one practice for the beginning of your day and another for the end.

Use the first to reconnect with your purpose and priorities. Use the second to reflect on what happened, what you learned, and what might need to change.

Trust that quiet reflection can lead to more effective action.

Make Integrated Growth a Daily Practice

Throughout this week, we have explored four strategies for making Integrated Growth part of how people lead, work, and grow together:

• Utilize Informal Teaching and Learning.
• Use Icons and Stories That Resonate.
• Provide Value Measurement and Feedback.
• Step Back.

Each strategy reinforces the others.

Informal learning helps people turn experience into knowledge they can use. Stories and symbols connect everyday actions to a shared purpose. Meaningful measurement makes progress and overlooked sources of value more visible. Reflection helps leaders recognize what is happening and decide what to do next.

Together, these strategies help create an environment where growth is not simply a goal or a project. It becomes a way of doing business.

The challenge is to make these practices tangible in your own work. What do people learn from watching you? What reminds them why their work matters? What measures help them understand the value they create? And where do you make space to pause, reflect, and learn?

These are not just questions for leaders. They are opportunities for everyone involved in growing a business and the people and relationships that make it possible.

Today’s Actions

Look back at the four strategies from this week.

Which one offers the greatest opportunity to strengthen Integrated Growth in your business right now?

Choose one action you can take to make that strategy more visible in your everyday work.

It might be creating a learning opportunity around a current project, introducing a meaningful symbol, reconsidering what your team measures, or building a few minutes of reflection into your daily routine.

Record your answer and your next step in your Integrated Growth Journal.

Keep Growing

The Way of Embodying reminds us that Integrated Growth becomes real through what we consistently do, not simply what we say we value.

The habits we practice, the stories we share, the value we recognize, and the time we take to reflect all influence how people experience growth in a business.

Start small. Make the actions tangible. Learn from what happens, and keep refining your approach.

Well done is better than well said.

Stay tuned for next week's Daily Growth Notes! Subscribe here.

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