ROUND 5 | NOVEMBER 2–6, 2026

Cultural Cowboys™ Week 2: The Codes

Last week, we explored three paradoxes that Cultural Cowboys™ manage well: Business and Personal, Insiders and Outsiders, and Inspiration and Perspiration. These paradoxes help explain how they see opportunities, connect people and resources, and lead growth in ways that challenge conventional thinking.

This week, we'll take a closer look at the codes that guide Cultural Cowboys™ and why they are essential to creating Integrated Growth for businesses and the people involved.

What are Cultural Cowboys™? They are people who live and work outside the norm while recognizing and leveraging the assets within their environments. They challenge the status quo, but not simply for the sake of being different. They see possibilities where others see limitations and take an open, optimistic approach to solving problems and creating new value.

Their approach to growth is grounded in a few simple but powerful principles: explore future possibilities while making the most of today's resources, get close to the people and work that matter, learn from failure, and give people room to grow.

Let's explore these codes and what they mean for how we lead Integrated Growth.

Day 1: What Is a Cultural Cowboy™?

“Live each day with courage. Take pride in your work. Always finish what you start.”
— James P. Owen

Cultural Cowboys™ are not gunslingers who ride into town, guns blazing, creating chaos without improving anything. Nor are they people who break rules simply to be different or look down on the everyday work that keeps a business running.

They may challenge conventions, disrupt established practices, and encounter resistance along the way. But they do so with a purpose: to get things done, change systems from within, and uncover Hidden Treasures that can be repurposed to create new value.

Cultural Cowboys™ do not run from challenges. They are dissatisfied with the status quo, yet they approach opportunities with optimism and a willingness to explore what might be possible.

In fact, they often gravitate toward complex challenges that others consider too risky for their careers, impossible to solve, or simply not worth the effort.

Tell a Cultural Cowboy™ that something cannot be done because it has never been done that way before, and watch the fire blaze in their eyes.

These are the people who can help businesses grow beyond what they already know how to do. They recognize that the potential for growth often exists within the very systems, relationships, and resources that others overlook.

The challenge is learning to recognize these individuals, appreciate what they bring, and create opportunities for them to make a difference.

Today's Actions

Last week, I asked you to brainstorm six images or words that come to mind when you think of the term Cultural Cowboy™ and identify where these qualities show up in your company and networks.

Today, take that exercise a step further.

Brainstorm six people, inside or outside your business, who come to mind when you think of a Cultural Cowboy™.

For each person, consider:

• What qualities or behaviors make them stand out?
• What one or two lessons would you like to learn from them?
• How will you go about learning those lessons?

Remember, these individuals may not have the most obvious titles or positions. Look for the people who challenge assumptions, recognize overlooked opportunities, and find ways to make things happen.

Day 2: Cultural Cowboy™ Codes

Explore Frontiers While Grazin' Locally

“Your diamonds are not in far distant mountains or in yonder seas; they are in your own backyard, if you but dig for them.”
— Russell Conwell, Acres of Diamonds

Cultural Cowboys™ live and work by a set of codes, or simple rules, that guide how they lead Integrated Growth.

The first is Explore Frontiers While Grazin' Locally.

This code is about looking ahead and moving resources toward where your industry, economy, customers, and business are going, while continuing to operate today's business well.

It means preparing to move onto a new growth curve without neglecting the current one. It means sensing future possibilities while respecting and leveraging what already exists.

This is not just the responsibility of Research and Development or Market Research. Cultural Cowboys™ recognize that sensing and making sense of the future is a shared responsibility, particularly for those involved in growing the business.

Why? Because the Hidden Treasures that fuel tomorrow's growth are often already present in today's environment. They may be underutilized technologies, overlooked customer needs, untapped relationships, or capabilities that have not yet found their most valuable application.

Consider a company whose technological capability was being used to support only 18% of its current business.

Through road mapping and NEWCO™ mapping, the company identified where its industry and customers were headed. The team recognized that this existing technology could play a much larger role in the future.

Its Cultural Cowboy™ CEO and team mobilized funding, gained Board support, and helped employees shift their attention toward bringing tomorrow's business more fully into today's operations.

The results went beyond retaining existing customers. The company attracted new customers, developed a healthy new revenue stream, and motivated employees who were eager to learn and contribute to the business's next chapter.

The opportunity was not simply to find something new. It was to recognize the future potential of something the company already possessed.

Sustainable growth often begins by seeing today's resources through the lens of tomorrow's opportunities.

Today's Actions

What Hidden Treasures play a minor role in your business today but could become more valuable as your business evolves?

Develop an informal exploration plan for a small growth team. Include networking, conversations, reading, and experiments that test how these assets might be leveraged in new ways.

As you build your team, include the three types of leaders introduced in The Way of Seeing: Edison, Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade, and St. Paul.

Give yourselves one to three months to propose ways to use these assets to pursue future opportunities without diluting the current business.

The goal is to explore what's next while making the most of what you already have.

Day 3: Cultural Cowboy™ Codes

Get Down Off Your Horse for a Lot of the Work

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

One of the premises behind these Daily Growth Notes is that cultivating and leading growth is a roll-up-your-sleeves, down-to-earth, daily ground game.

Integrated Growth does not happen from a distance. It requires leaders to understand the business, the people who make it work, and the relationships that determine whether opportunities can be realized.

One of the best examples of a Cultural Cowboy™ I know is my colleague Brian, who was recruited to become CEO of a failing nut company. His mission was clear: turn the company around.

During his first few months, Brian embarked on a learning journey to uncover the company's assets, points of failure, and areas of disintegration across its markets, business functions, opportunities, and resources.

One of the most important assets he identified was the nut growers. They were essential to the supply chain and the quality of the company's products. Yet the former management team had treated them strictly as a commodity, repeatedly reducing their payments as the company struggled to remain profitable.

One of the Five T's of Measurement, Trust, had been decimated.

Brian could have rushed into a new negotiation. Time was running out, and the company needed a turnaround. Instead, he took the time to understand the growers and their businesses.

He walked their fields, got to know them personally, and learned what a win would look like from their perspective.

Only after rebuilding some semblance of trust did Brian and his team work on a turnaround plan that involved the growers and incorporated their input. The goal was to help both suppliers and customers become profitable while delivering better quality and variety to consumers.

It worked.

Today, the supply chain has grown to meet increased demand for the products that use these nuts as ingredients.

Brian's story illustrates an important Cultural Cowboy™ code: Get close enough to understand the work and the people behind it.

Numbers and reports can tell us a great deal, but they cannot always reveal what people experience every day, what they need to succeed, or where opportunities are being missed.

Sometimes, the most valuable insights come from getting off your horse, stepping into the field, and learning firsthand.

Today's Actions

What part of your business do you understand through numbers or from a distance but don't really know in your bones?

Identify two or three activities you can complete within the next month to help you better understand that part of the business, its network, and the people involved.

Before you begin, write down three questions you want to explore.

Then get out there, listen, observe, and learn.

You may discover that the people closest to the work have insights that could fundamentally change how you approach growth.

Day 4: Cultural Cowboy™ Codes

Be a Rodeo Skills Champion and Tip Your Hat

“A paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.”
— Jim Collins, describing Level 5 leaders in Good to Great

Cultural Cowboys™, like rodeo cowboys, are not immune to getting thrown.

Growth involves uncertainty. Targets get missed, regulations change unexpectedly, key employees leave, and important customers move on. Even well-conceived projects can fail.

What distinguishes a Cultural Cowboy™ is not an ability to avoid every setback. It is the willingness to get back up, learn, and help others do the same.

Consider Jean, an Integrated Growth Leader at a major consumer foods company. She is known and respected for her Cultural Cowboy™ tendencies, including her willingness to use a failure story to teach rising executives how to become better leaders.

Jean did not simply share her story with these emerging leaders. She told it in front of fellow executives, including the woman who was about to become CEO.

Not long afterward, the new CEO complimented Jean on the many contributions and successes she had delivered to the company. But what she appreciated most was Jean's account of the failed project and the lessons it offered.

The CEO recognized the courage it took to go against the prevailing culture and share such an experience openly. That willingness earned Jean the CEO's highest respect.

Jean could have blamed the failure on individual teams, market conditions, or other circumstances. After all, product failures rarely result from a single point of failure.

Instead, she acknowledged the excellent work contributed by multiple teams while recognizing that the project had encountered a blind spot in its market assumptions.

She tipped her hat to the people who had done good work, even though the final outcome fell short.

This is another important Cultural Cowboy™ code: Learn from failure without losing sight of the people and contributions behind it.

It takes both humility and professional will to acknowledge what went wrong, examine our assumptions, and keep moving forward. It also takes generosity to recognize the work that was done well, even when the result was disappointing.

When leaders make failure a source of learning rather than blame, they create opportunities for individuals and teams to grow.

Today's Actions

Think of a failure story from your own experience that could help you and others learn.

Consider:

• What assumptions or blind spots contributed to the outcome?
• What did you learn that you could apply to future growth efforts?
• Who made valuable contributions, even though the project did not succeed?
• How can you share the story in a way that encourages learning rather than blame?

Be willing to tell the story honestly, including your own role in it. And remember to tip your hat to the people whose work deserves recognition.

Day 5: Cultural Cowboy™ Codes

The Care and Feeding of Cultural Cowboys™

“If you put fences around people, you get sheep. Give people the room they need.”
— Attributed to William McKnight, 3M

Leaders often ask me whether Cultural Cowboys™, particularly those who excel at catalyzing Integrated Growth, are born or made.

In my experience, the answer is yes.

A combination of genetics, personality tendencies, learning and development experiences, goals, interests, natural talents, role models, mentors, passions, challenges, and opportunities contributes to the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of Integrated Growth Leaders.

Cultural Cowboys™ are shaped by many things coming together over time. Their approach to life and professional growth reflects this same integration, making each individual a unique combination of strengths, experiences, and capabilities.

They are also among a company's most important Hidden Treasures.

But recognizing their potential is only the beginning. Businesses must also create the conditions in which these individuals can contribute, learn, experiment, and grow.

That means giving them room to challenge assumptions, explore new possibilities, and work across boundaries without unnecessarily restricting their initiative. It also means helping them recognize their blind spots, develop new capabilities, and connect their individual strengths to the broader needs of the business.

Cultural Cowboys™ need opportunities to make a difference, but they also need the right environment to turn their potential into value for themselves and others.

The question, then, is not simply whether these leaders are born or made. It is how we recognize what they bring, help them develop what they need, and create the conditions for their contributions to flourish.

Next week, we'll focus on how to find, develop, utilize, reward, and retain Cultural Cowboys™.

Today's Actions

Spend some time this weekend identifying people in your business network who are, or could become, Integrated Growth Leaders with Cultural Cowboy™ tendencies.

They may be employees, customers, partners, competitors, or even you.

For each person, list:

• Natural talents and tendencies: What strengths could help them lead growth for the business and its people?
• Areas for development: What blind spots, gaps, or habits could limit their impact?
• Growth opportunities: What experiences, relationships, or responsibilities could help them develop further?

Bring this list with you to next week's Daily Growth Notes as we explore practical strategies for developing and engaging these important contributors.

Keep Exploring

Cultural Cowboys™ remind us that Integrated Growth requires more than a vision for the future. It calls for the ability to recognize overlooked resources, understand the people closest to the work, learn from setbacks, and create the conditions for others to thrive.

This week, we've explored four important principles: Explore Frontiers While Grazin' Locally, Get Down Off Your Horse for a Lot of the Work, Be a Rodeo Skills Champion and Tip Your Hat, and The Care and Feeding of Cultural Cowboys™.

Together, these codes offer a practical way to think about how we lead growth. They challenge us to look ahead without neglecting the present, understand the business from the ground up, treat failure as an opportunity to learn, and give people the room they need to develop their potential.

As you reflect on these ideas, consider the Cultural Cowboys™ already in your network and the opportunities they represent.

You may discover that some of the most valuable contributors to your next phase of growth are already there, waiting to be recognized, developed, and engaged.

The opportunity is not simply to find new resources. It is to see the potential in the people and resources you already have, and to create the conditions in which that potential can grow.

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

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