It’s Lonely Near the Top (But Only If You’re Alone).

Recently Forbes had a piece quoting CEOs on why they join peer groups where they can exchange experiences and ideas with others just like them.

“I joined a peer group because I was making it up as I went along,” said Colleen Wagner, the CEO of McGovern Outdoor. “I just didn’t know what I was doing and I wanted to validate some of the choices I was making.”

“These events introduce me to new ideas that I wouldn’t necessarily be thinking about,” said Boris Tsibelman, Founder of Axis Consulting.

“You can have the greatest plan, without execution and accountability, nothing will happen,” said Eric Rozenberg, CEO of Event Business Formula. “Knowing that I will report on a regular basis to my peer group helps me focus and get greater results than if I was on my own.”

Of course, those are just the same kinds of things that the people who help those CEOs and other leaders communicate say, about why they join and renew their memberships year after year with our Executive Communication Council and our Higher Education Leadership Communication Council.

To keep our conversations intimate and utterly trusting—because what topic could be more sensitive than leadership communication in the fraught last half-decade, and the next?—we limit the size of our groups and we choose our members carefully.

In simultaneously searching, critical, supportive and sometimes emotional conversations on our monthly Zoom calls and especially at our in-person Annual Gatherings, people become friends and the friends make professional families that make this difficult work easier—and safer, in numbers.

We have a small handful of slots open for both the ECC and the Council, with the ECC’s 2025 Annual Gathering coming up in early May at McDonald’s headquarters in Chicago, and the Council’s Annual Gathering in July at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. 

If you’d like more information and perhaps a conversation about whether your organization might be a fit for one of our networks, write to me: [email protected]. 

We’ll get something on the calendar.