Dr Ciela Hartanov was part of the founding team of The Google School for Leaders and Head of Next Practice Innovation and Strategy at Google, She is a psychologist and human behavioural expert and is the founder and CEO of Humcollective, in this episode, you can learn:

Why some leaders run towards disruption with excitement yet others will be afraid?
How we become our own psychological architects.
What is "Innovating Next Practice?”
The four perspectives of emergent mindset.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Ciela below:

Ciela on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cielarose/

Ciela on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CHartanov

Humcollective Website: https://www.humcollective.co

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors, and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush, and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov is a special guest on today's show. She's an ex-Google executive, psychologist and the founder and CEO of humcollective. But before we get a chance to speak with Ciela, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: It's been a while since we've dug into the history books to find those lessons of leadership that we can draw on. So, I thought we'd start with a couple today. In the early 1960s, a marine biologist and author, Rachel Carson was working to overcome some immense personal and professional challenges. On top of writing what would ultimately become Silent Spring. Her watershed book, exposing the dangers of synthetic pesticides and their impact on the environment. Carson was fighting a battle on a whole other front, cancer. Professor, Nancy Cohen, chronicled the stories of her and others for Harvard Business School and Cohen focused on attitudes and actions in the face of crisis that made a positive difference to the world. Carson's moment of forging her crucible, stretched out for more than two years, Cohen writes, this long slow burn demanded again and again, that she find her way back from the perceptive despair and then recommit to her mission.

Her ability to stay the course, finish her book and exert enormous impact was fueled only by her unrelenting dedication to a mightier cause. Despite being played by a series of health complications that took great physical and emotional tolls. Carson remained staunchly committed to her mission. Cohen described it as to bring the wonders of the natural world to the public and to spotlight the responsibility we each have to protect the earth and to sustain all life and Cohen notes that unlike many other prominent leaders throughout history known for their charisma or aggressiveness and assertiveness. Carson was shy in retiring, almost quite introvert whose leadership approach was characterized by a quiet, determination, resilience, and stone wall commitment to doing purposeful and driven work.

Frederick Douglas was an abolitionist like Carson. He was driven by deep sense of mission. After escaping from slavery in 1838, he used his experience in bondage to become a leader in the anti-slavery movement and a champion for black freedom. In her book Cohen notes. Douglas realized that in order to enact large scale change, he had to be self-committed and to create his own internal, moral, intellectual, and emotional infrastructure, a framework for both understanding the power of slavery and how to consistently and effectively combat it. Douglas devoted a great deal of effort to building his framework within himself. He then used us to develop an effective leadership style. This would've been thorny and complicated work. We can often imagine the series of conversations he'd ever had with himself as he started to work through his own architecture. Cohen had written that these internal discussions had formed a cornerstone of Douglas's leadership, helping him make day to day choices, communicate with the mission and navigate through the moments of doubt and despair. All individuals who aspire to lead effectively must build their own foundation.

Throughout his life. Douglas used his perspective and personal experiences as tools to fight for social change. He also used his writing and public speaking to inspire others, to stand with him and Douglas recognized that making a significant impact required motivating and empowering his fellow citizens and used his communication progress to achieve that objective successfully. Cohen goes on to write. We long for a leader like Frederick Douglas, who understood that the country could only achieve its full potential when Americans faced and write the critical wrong that Douglas led from the lecture hall and from the newspaper stand, which was as much or more than he did through the offices of elite politicians. He believed that positive change began with ordinary citizens and his work, a leader to help them affect the individuals who governed them. So, their leadership hack here is, whether you are a mid-career professional or an emerging senior leader or brand new to leading others.

The stories that these iconic individuals in part are important, real-life lessons that we can learn from. So, by fostering engagement and cohesion, amongst your team, finding a purpose that connects your passion and developing a leadership approach that informs how you inspire and mobilize others. You can become a more courageous leader and take your career to the next level. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Big shout out to Karen, one of our regular listeners. Who's introduced us to the work of Professor Nancy Cohen. If you've got any insights or stories that you want us to showcase, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Dr. Ciela Hartanov is our special guest on today's show. She was part of the founding team and the Google School of Leaders. She was Head of the next practice Innovation Strategy at Google. She's now a Psychologist and a Human Behavioral Expert and the founder and CEO of humcollective, and innovation strategy firm, preparing organizations for the future. Ciela, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: So lovely to be here. Thank you for having me.

Steve Rush: So, I'm really fascinated to learn about how you meandered through corporate life to end up leading humcollective. Tell us a little bit about the journey?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Well, meander would be a good description of how I think careers are built these days. When I started graduate school, I actually thought I was going to be an academic and that was my presumed path. And there was a sister school to my school that I was attending in cultural psychology in IO psych school. So, I started moonlighting and wondering, hmm, what are these other students doing? What are they learning? And I realized, you know, it was fascinating because I was learning a lot about culture, human behavior, and organizations from a very specific sort of academic lens. But on the IO psych side of the school, they were actually working with organizations, and they had projects where they were working with leaders who were struggling. And I just became really intrigued about how do you apply the theory in practice?

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: So, I started moonlighting even more and ended up doing sort of a dual degree in cultural psychology and human behavior with a sort of a subset in IO psych so that I could actually bring the theories and practices into organization. So, I abandoned the academic path and went into corporate. I started with a leadership consultancy called the Ken Blanchard Companies, which is a small family run company, which is very unique family run companies are, which we can talk about. If that's interesting to you?

Steve Rush: Very well known nonetheless.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: [Laugh], yeah. And he wrote The One Minute Manager, which many people know is sort of a seminal leadership book. And I think that was an introduction to me around, gosh, how interesting? How leadership becomes this really critical and evergreen part of organizations. And so, I had firsthand ability to see that inside this consulting practice. And I had a wonderful mentor who threw me into a job that frankly I was not qualified for, but she saw something in me and said, hey, why don't you go and reorganize our international consulting practice. And I got to travel a lot, to England and Singapore and other places. Rethinking the structures and practices. So that was my first sort of foray into change management, and it really stuck. So, I have a real system thinking mind. So, I was like, okay, this seems like the right path for me. And at the same time, I was finishing my doctorate degree and this same mentor just pushed me out of the nest. And she said, I think you've done all you can do here, which was a really seminal moment for me and my career. And I ended up at that point moving into tech and I stayed in technology firms for the remainder of my career until now where I'm running my own consulting practice. So, it's like, I've come full circle.

Steve Rush: Yeah, indeed. Of course, you were part of that massive growth in Google.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Yes.

Steve Rush: That must have been a fascinating time in your career to see that evolve?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Absolutely fascinating. And speaking of leadership, I think you see this inflection point where leadership needs to look different and change. And I saw that firsthand not only for myself as a leader, but also for the leaders that I was leading. And that became a really important and critical pivot point for myself and my career and what I was doing at Google. When I started thinking about, you know, leadership needs to look different in the modern workplace, both for scale, but also because we're really moving out of the industrial era. So how do we do that effectively? And because of that, I pitched an idea to build an innovation practice inside the people function at Google, which I think is probably the first one that's ever been built. Hopefully now there's more. But what I came to realize is that we needed to have much more of an innovation lens on developing people on thinking about how the people practice needs to evolve and beyond the industrial area logic. And that puts a squarely of course, where most organizations are now grappling with the future of work.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: And that's true in every single organization across the board at this point, which is part of the reason why I left to build my own consulting practice, because I think every organization needs to find their way forward in a contextual way. And that requires some support and some expertise.

Steve Rush: And as part of your time at Google. You talk about the future of work. Now you're perhaps ahead of the game a little bit in visioning and strategizing what the future of work could be at Google. And it's now probably form almost part of most of our routine lives today, and you've created the next practice innovation strategy there.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Yes.

Steve Rush: So, what is next practice innovation?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: So next practice innovation is using foresight and anthropological methods to anticipate what likely is going to happen next, looking at scenarios, and then merging that into a strategy that works for the organization specifically. So, what I am a big fan of is, it's called next practice for a reason, because I think replication is a really, bad idea when we're trying to look at what's next for an organization and help an organization leapfrog. So, I understand the value of best practice and benchmarking as a way of understanding but replicating becomes a challenge because then we all become the same.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: So, the idea about inventing next practice is the call to action that every organization has the opportunity to think wider and think bigger and be at the forefront of their industry, their people practices. And now more than ever, I see that when it comes to the future of work, organizations can't replicate what other organizations are doing because it needs to work in context. So, I see that across the board, when we talk about things like hybrid work, this is a grand experiment and every organization's going to have to grapple and take some next practice bets for themselves to see what will work inside their own organization.

Steve Rush: And there's no playbook here either is there?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: No.

Steve Rush: Because all organizations are so diverse and so different to your point, it's around just figuring it out and finding out what does work and doesn't work.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: So, there's no playbook, but there is an innovation process and practice. And that's what I want leaders to know is that there is a process to hold onto. The process I run is a three-step process that gets you all the way from scanning and the big ideas to thinking about what do you need to employ in your strategy now to build the next practice for your organization? And how do you look at that over time and adjust as you go and be much more, you know, adaptive over time. That all is a process that is completely possible. I'm leveraging the work that I did at Google building the innovation next practice lab. So, this is all tried and true, the process itself. So, there is no playbook, but there is a way forward.

Steve Rush: Right. I love the unconscious anchor in the language next practice as well because it's forward looking. It's allows the unconscious behavior to be a little bit more visionary, doesn't it?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Absolutely. And I think that's really exciting, you know, when we can unlock ourselves from the fear of uncertainty, which is a natural human reaction, when we don't feel stability, we feel scared, fight or flight, we know that. But what this gives us is an anchor and a hold to say, how do I, before were looking, and then how do I enter that place of awe and excitement about what's possible? And that's where human ingenuity comes from. It's within us. That's part of our human nature.

Steve Rush: So, what's the core work you are undertaking there with humcollective?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: So, there's a few things that I'm really interested in right now. The one piece that I'm focusing a lot on is research that I think is going to become even more essential as we're looking at the new age of work. And that is how do we look and build the next practice of culture and connection inside organizations. So, we've spent a lot of time thinking about flexibility, personalization, and where we do the work. Now we need to turn our attention to how we do the work in this new context and how we build those essential connective tissues that make up an organization. So that's where I'm focusing most of my research and my conversations with organizations right now. I really believe that if we only focus on flexibility, we will lose the fabric of what makes an organization sing.

Steve Rush: It's a really interesting cold concept, this hybrid world. I've noticed, you know, through the journals I've been reading, the blogs I have been reading over the last couple of weeks that people are getting a little bit uncomfortable with hybrid now, and we're starting to creep back to being more present in the office and less flexible. What's your take on that?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: I think that's because we haven't invented the next practice of how we build that connective tissue.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: So, my call to the organizations that don't want to backslide is, okay. Now's the time to think about what is the next practice in culture, connection, networking, and start building some of these next practices. So that there isn't a backslide because I understand why there's a backslide, because it's what we know about how we build bonds is by being in the office.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: And even employees I talk to are saying, you know, I left this organization that I joined during the pandemic because I don't feel any resonance or connection to this organization. And so, there's a longing on the part of the employees to feel that connection as well. So, the organizations that do answer that call are going to be the employers that are able to draw the best employees.

Steve Rush: It's almost an unconscious corporate muscle memory, isn't it?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: That's right.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: I mean, it's like any habit change, you know?

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Like it's so easy to go back to what we've known and where we've been. There's no judgment in sort of the backsliding because it's natural that we would want to gravitate and grab onto what we know, but this time is a time like any other where we can truly invent the modern contemporary workplace. And I hope organizations and leaders will take that call.

Steve Rush: I think, you know, if they don't, there's a real risk to their future attraction and retention strategy as well, by the way.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Yeah, and we're already seeing that of course.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Right. That even though you know, the economics are different now than they were when this whole great resignation conversation started. I think what we're going to continue to see is that one, because employees have started executing more choice. They're going to be reticent to let that go. And the employer employee contract will continue to adjust whether or not organizations go kicking and screaming or not. It will still continue to be present and in an important conversation that leaders are having around, gosh, how are we defining this new contract? And are we getting ahead of the game?

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely. So, with so much uncertainty around the world, you can have a look at companies, locations, countries. There seems to be so much uncertainty and volatility around us at the moment. What is it that makes those leaders and those people in business run towards it and get, you know, excited about that disruption yet others might feel that this is something just want to avoid and hide away?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Yeah, that's a great question. I think it goes back to what I sort of described about the human condition. If there's too much uncertainty, our brains simply cannot handle it. So, we retreat. And because this is sort of a cognitive issue, my recommendation for leaders is always to find a place of stability inside that uncertainty and those leaders who do find a place of stability are able to go towards the uncertainty with openness excitement, because they have a stable ground to come back to. So, I did a big study while I was at Google about what are those most transformative, agile adaptable leaders doing? And it was exactly to answer your question, why do some run towards the uncertainty with excitement and why do some retreats? And what we found is that the core of it was that they had a set of stability practices that they never would let go of. And that could be anything from, you know, showing up to dinner at 6:00 PM every evening with your family to a meditation practice, to an exercise regime. So, it was nothing grand, but it was specific and consistent. And if you find that consistency where you find that stable ground for yourself, then your brain will feel safe enough that it will allow in that uncertainty in a way that it'll look at it as novel and exciting.

Steve Rush: That's really fascinating. I think, you know, I've studied this genre of leadership and you find that most successful leaders have these rituals that they put aside in their practices and routines.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: That's right.

Steve Rush: To create either conscious stability or indeed recovery time. But I've never really noticed it as a tactical, almost safe location to go where you have that anchored routine. I think it's quite fascinating.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: And it was really actually surprising to me. I thought there would be something else that created that for these leaders. I thought, you know, maybe they had a background where, you know, they had grown up all over the world or traveled a lot or something had created inside of them, the ability to handle different conditions and no. Really it all came down to your point about having a ritualized practice around stability so that they were ready and able to take on the volatility.

Steve Rush: Yeah, love it. So, if we think about the future of work that we're in at the moment, it's fair to say, it's going to continually be uncertain and there's going to be things that are going to be unknowns of the future. What kind of give maybe tools and ideas as to how we might best embrace that uncertainty?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: So, the first thing I think is important to realize is that the pace of change is not going to reduce. And so, the place that I always start when we are thinking about organizations and leaders, is building awareness about that truth, and helping educate around why that might be the case. So, I really do encourage leaders to get educated about driving the shifts in organizational life, but also just the colliding forces that we see. So, I do a lot of work with leaders, helping them see what are the shapes, the, you know, the future signals that are shaping, how organizations are going to change? Doing scenario planning. So doing all of this awareness building is another way for us to gain comfort around the uncertainty, because then you're starting to understand the shades of what might be possible. Of course, you're not predicting, but you're giving your mind and understanding around what might be possible.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: So that requires all of us leaders. But I think also just all of us employees who are working in the world right now to become a bit of a futurist. So that's the first piece of the puzzle I think, is really important. Is this awareness building around, why is this happening?

Steve Rush: There's also a bit there as well, isn't there? About just being uncomfortable, being uncomfortable.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Mm-Hmm, so that's the second piece I was going to say, which is going back to sort of yourself inside this uncertainty. I know that this idea of self-awareness gets overplayed a lot. I think it's because we misunderstand it, but one of the things that I'm writing, I'm writing a book right now. One of the chapters that I'm writing about is called the sensing self. And I think it's essential in this era of volatility, uncertainty. There's a lot of names for what we're experiencing right now, but we need to anchor and find ourselves and become what I call a sensing self, which is the ability to understand ourselves, but understand others and also understand the context that we're inside of. So, it's this elevated idea of self-awareness. So, I talked first about becoming a better futurist and understanding the context, but it's equally essential for you to understand yourself inside that context so that you know, how you can make moves to be effective inside that context.

Steve Rush: Yeah, one of the things I love about your work, I read an article of yours in The New York Times. I think it was a few weeks back, was around this whole notion of psychological architects. And you have this real strong belief that we're in control of building that architecture for ourselves. I'd love to just understand a little bit more about that.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: So, for me, I think that, so I have a psychology background obviously, and one of the pieces of work that I spent a lot of time when I was at Google thinking about was mindset. Why and how do we build our world beliefs? And that these become sort of our operating system and they dictate our choices and our behaviors, and those mindsets don't have to be static. Those psychological ways of sort of viewing the world don't need to be static. We can work with them and change them. And what we've learned through neurosciences, that there is this cognitive flexibility that's possible. We see it all the time with children because children have a much more modular sort of minds. And then they start spaces in the mind, and then it starts to harden over time. But as an adult, we can still architect that for ourselves too, where we're examining our mindset and making it object to ourselves, and then we can work with it and change it. So, when I talk about self-awareness from a leadership standpoint, what I'm actually talking about is working with mindset at the deepest level around that sort of psychological architecture versus getting a 360 feedback, for example.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so is it as simple as making a choice of which mindset you have, or is there some deeper activity that needs to take place for that to happen?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: So, there is deeper activity. The thing about mindset when we're really working with the deepest core of our mindset is that it's deeply attached to our identity. So, what starts to happen is if you believe something to be true about you, it's a bit hard to unravel that, right? So, where I see leaders getting most stuck about not being able to handle uncertainty or change is because them having to change, to grapple with whatever the situation that they're in hits that sort of a root issue around their identity. So, to have the biggest sort of impact around mindset, we're really talking about working with your identity. Now there's entry ways into that though, that don't feel so overwhelming. And the way into that then is to start working with what I call assumptions. So, looking at assumptions means that you start having other people or yourself name what you're assuming about a situation.

So, an example of this might be, you know, I'm entering a situation with a colleague, and I always have an issue with this colleague, for example. We don't seem to see eye to eye. And so, what starts to happen over time, you might notice is that every time you enter that meeting with that other person is that you are coming with an assumption that that meeting is going to be dismal, for example. So, the work then is to start naming your assumptions about how you're entering into different environments. And then you start trying to shift that. So that would be as easy as when you're entering this meeting, you could say, okay, I know that I'm entering with an assumption that I think this meeting is going to be a disaster. How do I reframe that for myself? Let me just reframe that. And maybe you don't even believe it, but you're just repeating it to yourself a reframing, you know, this meeting is going to go well, this meeting is going to be unexpectedly excellent. You know, you just sort of start reframing in your own mind. And then what starts happening over time then is then your mindset actually starts to shift, and those assumptions start to shift. So that's the easiest place to start is just working at this sort of assumption level.

Steve Rush: Yes, neat way of using assumptions because often folk use assumptions in a different way. And that creates other behaviors. So, paying attention to assumptions can often, without being really thoughtful about it, reinforce some negative behaviors, right.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: That right.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: That's right.

Steve Rush: Awesome. Now you have this notion of emergent mindset.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Which comes with some principles and some perspectives I'd love to get into them.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: So, one of the things I'm thinking a lot about is okay, if we are the psychological architects and we need to work with our mindset, then what might be some of the mindsets that we would want to be holding to handle emergence or uncertainty. And I use the term emergence on purpose because I think that's a more accurate representation of what's happening right now. So, what's starting to happen is we're living more and more in this interconnected environment. And because we're in this really interconnected environment, there's these emergent outcomes that happen all around us all of the time. And so, it means we have less control over the outcomes. And a great example of this, just to give you a visual is, there is a park across the street from my house, and there's a lovely walkway that's been built and paved, et cetera. Except now there is this path through the dirt that has been created because people have started walking through this dirt, right.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: And so, this happens all the time in parks. Like urban planners. This is their worst nightmare is, that they try to plan where people are going to walk and then people walk somewhere else. And then what happens is, then a brand-new path through the dirt gets built. That is an example of emergence because you and I didn't agree that, that we were going to do that. But what happened was each person sort of started doing that. And then it became a collective outcome that we couldn't have predicted beforehand. So, this is what I believe is happening inside organizations, inside societies is that we are all participating in this grand, you know, experiment of modern work. And it's really hard for us to predict where that walkway is going to be, for example, because we're all participants in it. So, in order to handle that kind of interconnected emergence, we need to hold a different set of mindsets. And this is true for leaders, but I believe this is true also for everyone who is working in the modern context. So let me share with you what I believe this emergent mindset is made of.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: And there's four sort of shifts that I ask people to think about and take on. And I would invite your listeners because we talked about assumptions. When I share with you this shift, think about what assumptions are you making about that shift? What assumptions automatically come up for you, because then you know what your mindset is that you're already holding and where your resistance might be. So, the first one is moving from predicting to adjusting. This one is essential because really businesses need to respond to the changing needs of the environment. And what this gives us is the ability to access human ingenuity against the context of something that's not predetermined. So, one thing that we've spent a lot of time doing in organizations is trying to set up sort of predictive strategies around what is going to happen. My question then becomes instead, why don't we ask ourselves what might happen and how do we adjust to the future? How do we build systems that are more adaptable and that maybe it's not a repeatable practice, but it's still essential so that we can adjust over time? So that's the first one from prediction to adjusting.

Steve Rush: Like it.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: The second one is from simplicity to nuance and anyone who has read my work or any of the podcasts I've been on, I am on a big diatribe I guess you could say about us moving to a more nuanced point of view again. We have oversimplified the understanding of how organizations worked. We've tried to build structures that predict, like I said, and that we are really obsessed with this idea that there's right and wrong, and that's not how the world works. In complexity and emergence, what we're dealing with is that there's all of these sort of irreducible parts and it's reduction is thinking is not going to help us. What will help us is understanding more nuance about a situation. And that requires taking multiple perspectives and understanding and seeing all of the shades of gray versus turning our eyes from it.

So that's the second one from simplicity to nuance. The third one is moving from data to insight. So, I know we have a lot of data. We have a lot of big data that we've worked with and I'm a fan of data. It's absolutely essential to help us create more multiple perspectives and more nuance if we use it in the right way. So, I really believe that we need to take data and make it more nuanced and more interesting. And by that, I mean, it's not enough for us just to push out a data set that tells us an answer. Instead, we need to look to what I call thick data. And anthropologists are the ones who came up with this idea of thick data.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Which helps us delve deeper into sort of the meaning behind what the data's telling us and illuminate the human experience inside that data. And that's where true insight comes from. We need more insight these days. We don't need more data. We just need more understanding. And that comes from diving deeper into this idea of thick data.

Steve Rush: Love it.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: And then the final one is from moving from linear to indirect. And this one I find is the hardest one for people to grapple with, because I know we all love a step-by-step plan. And often on podcasts, I get asked, you know, what are the five things that a leader needs to do right now? And I never answer that question because that's linear [laugh].

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: And that's not how we're going to make our way through. So, we need to get more comfortable with an indirect path these uncertain circumstances will lead us through sort of a murky winding road. And we have to account for that and how organizations are built and how outcomes are achieved.

Steve Rush: And it's interesting because we are naturally drawn to linear step by step process, aren't we?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Well, we've been taught that.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: But if you look at children when they play, that's not how they play.

Steve Rush: No.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: So, I always look back to sort of the essence of the child brain, because we can pull that forward. And in brain science, they're learning more and more about the fact that the right hemisphere of our brain is not linear at all. And it's where the creativity lives, but it's all preverbal. So, once we start moving it into the language part of our brain and we try to articulate it, that's where we start getting the step by step, because we're trying to articulate something that's not articulate, can't be articulated, right. So, it's sort of the idea that how can we build back into our whole brain and allow that to thrive inside organizations because that right side of the brain has a lot of non-linear connections that are being made that can unlock a lot of potential.

Steve Rush: Yeah, such great perspective. Thank you for sharing it. So, this is where we get to turn the tables a little bit, and I'm going to consciously not ask you for your top three. I'm going to ask you for your three most indirect nonlinear hacks.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: [Laugh] that's a great question. So, as you know, I'm not a big fan of hacks. And so the place that I will go is back to what we sort of talked about throughout this conversation, which is where and how can you get the space as a leader or otherwise to allow your brain to wander, to allow yourself that spaciousness where that right brain can start doing its thing, where you can start being more excited about the future, because what I'm starting to see more and more right now is that leaders feel so pressured and constrained and burnt out that the innovation part of their job has been completely crushed. And I think that is a real shame. So, if there was one called action, which is not necessarily a hack, but I think it's essential to deal with these modern times is get yourself some spaciousness, find your way out of the churn and the day to day so that you are investing in a long-term creative process that ultimately will create the next practice for your organization. But you can't do that if you don't get yourself off the hamster wheel.

Steve Rush: Definitely so, and you know, I've said before, actually, you know, even though our show is called The Leadership Hacker, my job is to hack actually into your mind and into your experiences.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: [Laugh].

Steve Rush: Not to shortcut any solutions because we all know there aren't any right?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Right, there are any and yet I think what we've learned from sort of the research on habit formation is, and I'm a real big fan of James Clear who talks a lot about how habits are formed is that it's about the doing so when I say something that is like simple, like make sure that you have at least some spaciousness in your week, what matters there is that you do it regularly. And that is what is probably the biggest hack if you will, is using the habit formation research to be able to change your behavior over time.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and the next part of this year, we call it Hack to Attack. Essentially is where something hasn't worked out as well. We may have learned from it. It may now be a force of good in our life or work. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Mm-Hmm, so when working in innovation research, you have a variety of different people that you're working to influence. All those people from those who are, you know, the operators who are spending most of their time on the job, building out outcomes and OKRs all the way to people who are much more visionary. And I've learned, I have to say the hard way that in order for people to get excited about the future, you really have to meet them where they're at with a story about, you know, how this relates to them. And this seems obvious in retrospect, but because I am such a big thinker and I'm always looking around the corner, that's what gets me excited. But if I come forward with that, for someone who is not like me, or doesn't think like me, that can feel really intimidating or even nonsensical. So, I've learned over time that to become an effective visionary, you have to be able to tell the story in a way and multiple ways that people can understand. And I think every leader who's created a vision probably has learned this, but I think it's essential that how we talk, the narrative that we build is just as important as the vision that we've decided on.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that's very true. Very true. So, the last part of the show, we give you a chance to do a bit of time travel now. You get to bump into Ciela at 21 and give her some words of wisdom. What was it going to be?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: So, the words of wisdom that I keep thinking about right now that I wish someone would've told me when I was 21, is that it is about the process, not the product. And this is a bit counterintuitive of course, to how businesses are run, which is often about output and what is the product you're producing. But in life, it's really about the process and having what I've been reading about lately, which is called active patience. So, setting into motion your plans, your hopes, your dreams, your desires, and then making steps towards that. But alongside that waiting and have patience around that and enjoying being inside the process versus just waiting for the outcome to be achieved.

Steve Rush: I love that notion active patience.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Mm-Hmm, I'm loving it too.

Steve Rush: Yeah, as you said it. I'm thinking I need some of this [laugh].

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Dr. Ciela Hartanov: We all need some of this, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah, I often find myself being impatient in delivery and I'm missing the journey, right?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Absolutely, and you know, I think things are always unfolding in ways that we can't really always expect. And you could say this is serendipity or luck, but there is always an unfolding that's happening if you're doing enough work. I think one of the things that we've sold, that's a myth in the Western culture is that if you work harder, you try harder, you'll achieve more. That's not actually the sort of the physics behind outcome.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: You set something in motion, and it'll become like a flywheel. And that's why that active patience is essential because you don't know how that's going to evolve and change, but you can be part of it and do your one essential component.

Steve Rush: I'm sold on the idea. I'm now going to be, as soon as we're done into some research to find more about active patients [laugh] and for our listeners, they're also, I'm sure going to want to learn to find out a little bit more about your work, when the book's coming out? all of that kind of stuff that you're doing now with humcollective, where's the best place for us to send them?

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: So, if you could find me on LinkedIn at Ciela Hartanov, that's where I post most everything. And if you want to reach me, feel free to reach out via my website@humcollective.co.

Steve Rush: We'll make sure your links in our show notes as well.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Wonderful.

Steve Rush: Ciela, thank you so much for taking time out your busy schedule. I know you are super, super busy at the moment, so it's been a great opportunity for us to have you on this show, dive into your mind and thank you for being part of our community.

Dr. Ciela Hartanov: Real pleasure, Steve. Thank you so much. Take care.

Steve Rush: Thank you.

Closing

Steve Rush: I genuinely want to say heartfelt thanks for taking time out of your day to listen in too. We do this in the service of helping others and spreading the word of leadership. Without you listening in, there would be no show. So please subscribe now if you have not done so already. Share this podcast with your communities, network, and help us develop a community and a tribe of leadership hackers.

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler their @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Adrian Simpson is a Co-founder of Wavelength leadership group; for over 20 years he's taken top leaders into the boardrooms and shop floors of the world's most successful, innovative and admired companies. Today you can learn about:

What makes a great leader?
Why leaders learn best from leaders?
How great leaders talk candidly about failure.
The secrets behind some global transformative cultures.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

some audio issues in this show – thanks for your patience.

Find out more about Adrian below:

Adrian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrian-simpson-b600139/

Adrian on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AdieSimpson

Wavelength on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wavelengthleadership/

Wavelength Website: https://www.wavelengthleadership.com

Full Transcript Below

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Adrian Simpson is a special guest on today's show. For over 20 years he's really been immersing himself in amongst some of the top firms around the world, including the likes of Apple, Tesla, Netflix, and Google. And we're going to dive into some of those leadership secrets, but before we do, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Purpose is a real key part of all leaders’ capabilities, but often leaders get it wrong. Commonly, we see leaders think that purpose should be the same as their company's vision, mission, or purpose, but it shouldn't. Believe writing a leadership purpose statement is not a onetime exercise at all. It's something that should evolve, and it should connect the individual to the purpose of the organization. It's incredibly important and it needs deep insight and deep thoughts. So, what is leadership purpose? Your leadership purpose is your statement about who you are as a person and how you bring those unique qualities into your world.

First and foremost, leadership purpose is about your values and what's important to life for you. It's often also considered as your why statement or your reason, your beliefs. Think about your leadership purpose statement as being your beacon, enabling people to have a real clear understanding of what your direction in life and work is. In doing so, it'll help you drive the right behaviors on a daily basis and keep you engaged when circumstances around you can be challenging. It doesn't need to be overly complicated. Your leadership purpose statement must be a living and breathing document that you can share so, others understand it too. And it'll likely change as you change as a person, or your career grows or changes shape. So, you should always update it regularly. And remember your leadership purpose will not only help keep you grounded, and you stay on your path, will help you be a better leader and the leader you're meant to be. Most important, it sets a declaration of the kind of support you're prepared to give as a leader for the people around you. So, they can also buy into your journey. So simply put, think about the purpose, your why, and make sure it describes your values, your beliefs, and your vision, and how that aligns to the organization that you work and serve with. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Let's dive into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Adrian Simpson is a Co-founder of Wavelength leadership group. For over 20 years he's taken top leaders into the boardrooms and shop floors. Some of the world's most successful, innovative and admired companies, including Alibaba, Netflix, Apple, Tesla, Lego, and Google but a few. Andrew, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Adrian Simpson: Thanks, Steve. It's great to join you this morning.

Steve Rush: Really looking forward to diving into some of the lessons learned from some of these huge conglomerates, but tell us a little bit about you, your background and how you've arrived to do what you've done?

Adrian Simpson: Gosh, so yeah, so a very, very brief resume. Started my career in retail with John Lewis Partnership then decided at sort of age 21 to go off to University in Manchester, did a degree in business and marketing. And just after University, I managed to stumble into a role with the incredible Tom Peters Group. And for those that aren't old enough, Tom Peters was certainly in the 1980s, nineties, the most successful management guru of his time, his Jim Collins of his day, who wrote an amazing book called In Search of Excellence and sold many millions of copies and to give us sort of sense. So, I was putting him on stage in the 1990s at about $120,000 U.S. dollars a day back in those days.

So, and then one day, yeah, after being at the Tom Peters Group where I was helping put him on stage and find some, he really wrote about companies that had kind of amazing cultures that really just sort of got it. And indeed, I'm still visiting some of the companies he wrote about wrote about 30 years ago, like Southwest Airlines. The phone rang and a small innovation company called What If was on the phone. And one thing led to the other and a conversation snowballed into a coffee, a coffee into a lunch, a lunch into a come join us. And I moved into to join What If for 11 years. When I joined, we were 10 people when I left, there were 355 countries. And it was the ride of my life and had an incredible opportunity there to provide our clients with some inspirations, started running for the study tour events, and then 14 years ago made the jump to co-found Wavelength.

Steve Rush: So, what is it specifically that Wavelength do?

Adrian Simpson: Our specialism is bringing the outside world in. Basically, we scour the world looking for examples of practitioners. What are the leaders? The organizations that have compelling stories to share with our clients and really providing our clients with a combination of what I would call inspiration, education and provocation. And our hypothesis really is at the level at which we operate at, is the leaders learn best from leaders. So, as I mentioned, sort of, you know, scouring the world, looking for practitioners you know, got real experience on topics that our clients were interested in. Albeit, you know, I was literally in America 10 days ago with a group of 20 leaders from all around the world. We had clients from Australia, from India, from Japan, from the Middle East, six across North America, the rest from across Europe, from lots of different organizations.

They flew into Dallas Texas on a Saturday. We began on a Sunday morning with a sort of half day workshop. And then for the first day and a half, we spent going inside the legendary Southwest Airlines and Ritz Carlton, really focusing on excellence in culture and leadership and service. So, they can value the three and a half days, looking at innovation, disruption, new business models, what's next? And what's next? Next. Doing some set piece visits but also doing some incredible things like going for drives in the world's first, fully autonomous robots, taxis operated by crews to have no drivers in them at all [laugh] or doing metaverse meetings in the metaverse, Oculus quest headsets.

So, we do things like that to very, very intense one-week immersions for very senior business leaders. We have at the other end of the spectrum, we have a digital only program called inspire, which is every single month. Typically, on a third Thursday of the month, we take a cohort of leaders from lots of different client companies live inside a great business, somewhere around the world of an audience with a really accomplished leader. Last week we hosted a session with Alastair Campbell on mental health. Next week, we have the former Prime Minister of Denmark. Helle Thorning Schmidt on how to lead the country. We've got Jesper Boring coming up IKEA Chief Exec. We've hosted Alan Jope Unilever's Chief Exec. We are hosting Tim Steiner, Ocado Chief Exec in September, and they are just short, sharp, regular doses of live world class inspiration for our clients. And we've got amazingly 700 people signed up to that program from around the world. So, we do, you know, whether it's digital only, short, sharp, live inspiration, whether it's weeklong, or we have other programs, one called connect, which is sort of, has about 50 people on it and is UK based, it runs about nine months or whether it's just, you know, helping clients bring speakers in for a particular offsite or conference. But again, any speakers we will use, will be practitioners.

Steve Rush: How awesome. So, you managed to really bump shoulders with, and as you said, immerse other leaders with these great leaders from around the world. What's the reason your focus is heavily aimed at making leaders learn from other leaders.

Adrian Simpson: I just think there is a relevancy that you cannot get and that applicability that you cannot get from any other kind of learning when it comes to leadership is in my view. Now I'm not for a second saying there is not a role for, you know, academics and business schools and some kind of provocative, rigorous thinking. I think there is a role for that, but I suppose my best sort of summary when I had a chief exec who has been with me, a chap. He was chief exec of a fortune 500 company. He came with me to America for a week. He came with me to China for a week. And I said, you know, John, why are you doing these programs? And he said, it was very simple Adrian. He said, my previous HR leader, he said, kept on telling me to go to Harvard.

And I kept on saying to her, tell me where I should go to business school to learn about business from someone who never run a business and I'll go. He said she didn't. So, I didn't [laugh]. And I thought, and he said, so when, you know, she put in front of me the chance to spend a week in the U.S. alongside peers from different industries, different sectors, learning from companies and leaders that were perhaps bit further ahead of us in terms of their narrative. He said it was a compelling proposition because they know what it's like to sit in my seat. They know what it's like to sit it as a board director with multiple stakeholders, internal and external, limited resources, having to make informed decisions. And he said with the greatest respect, no academic, no guru, no consultant knows that reality unless they have also at some point run a major business.

So I think it's that sort of you know, real applicability I think and I think it's, you know, what, I've, I've learned as well is that, you know, when you give clients the opportunity to hear from other leaders and learn from other leaders, you know, it's easier almost to swipe with glee, if you like, what it is that they've done, you know. I mean, I'll just give you an example. There was a, you know, I actually did a podcast myself with a tremendous guy called Fred Reid couple of months back, and Fred was the founding chief executive Virgin in America. He was the president of Delta Airlines, the president of Lufthansa. He went on to work with five years of Brian Chesky Airbnb and he also did a stint with Larry Page at his private company Kitty Hawk. So, you know, he is worked with Richard Branson, Larry Page you know, Brian Chesky, and also been a twice president and onetime CEO. And I was talking to him about the challenge of, you know, communication and how do you, as a leader, you know, build an understanding in the business of what business you are in and operational realities. And he told this fantastic story about when he was both at Lufthansa and Delta faced with that challenge, he decided to create a board game. And basically, what he did was he would invite cross sectioned cohorts of leaders from across the business, whether it's air stewart’s, pilots, mechanics, ramp agents, didn't matter. And they would be invited to take a day out, fully paid to play this board game.

But what the board game was full of was real operational data and decisions. And in sort of teams of eight, they have to like to make a decision. Are you going to give people a 3% pay rise? Are you going to buy new uniforms for the air stewardess? Are you going to pay the loan off on that plane? Are you going to buy the new plane? Are you going to make invest in the innovation fund? Because innovation director says we're not innovating fast enough. Are we going to, you know, are we going to hedge on oil right? And he said, throughout the day, they had to make real operational decisions based on real operational data that we'd given them from the airline. And he said, the only decision in the day they had to make was to appoint a president. And he said, it was hilarious. They all pointed each other and said, it's you, it's you.

View Details

Martine Kalaw is the author of The ABC’s of Diversity, she’s a speaker and DEI consultant helping individuals and organizations overcome unconscious beliefs and implicit bias. In this insightful show you can learn about:

Martine’s fascinating story from being a stateless, undocumented person to CEO
What diversity really means, looks and feels like
How has the hybrid world has impacted firms approach to DE&I?
The ABC’s of Diversity

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Martine below:

Martine on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/martinekalawconsulting/

Martine on Twitter: https://twitter.com/martinekalaw

Martine on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/martinekalaw/

Martine’s Website: https://martinekalaw.com

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Our special guest on today's show is Martine Kalaw. Martine is a DEI expert; she's worked with some of the world's top companies, helping them navigate through their organization's diversity, equity and inclusion, and created more diverse and inclusive workspace. She's also the author of The ABCs of Diversity. Before we get a chance to speak with MartinE, It's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: We all know that telling stories is a great leadership skill. So today I'm going to have a go. Once upon a time there was a beautiful kingdom ruled by a Prince. He took over the kingdom after the death of his father, the King, after a few months of ruling, the kingdom things started testing. There was no rain. Drought had brought losses to farmers and killed many animals, birds, and precious plants in the forest. It was followed by an unknown disease that caused loss of many lives. After a few months of pain, things started to improve gradually, but before they could recover completely, an enemy took over the kingdom, killing many people and imprisoning them. The young King managed to escape. He planned to meet his childhood friend, a King of a neighboring kingdom. On his way he was thinking about the past. He was born to be bred King of this powerful and wealthy nation.

Now he's lost everything. He believed that he was cursed because nothing had happened to his father. It had only happened to him. When he reached the neighboring kingdom, and he met his friends. The guards did not allow him to pass because he looked dirty, and bedraggled. He tried many times to get access to the kingdom but failed miserably. Being cast outside the kingdom, he eventually took a job so he could buy food and clothes. Several weeks had passed and he'd now earned enough and ate enough. So, they allowed him to look presentable. So, he set off in a chance to get through the guards and to meet with his friend. After carefully navigating the guards and entering the kingdom. He was greeted warmly by his friend, the King of the neighboring kingdom, after explaining the sad story and things that had happened to him.

The King took pity and ordered his people to give him a herd of a hundred sheep. While grateful, the King was a little surprised as it was expecting much more than just a hundred cheap. He was a King after all. He doesn't want to be a shepherd. Down on his luck. He realized there was no way out. After a few days of grazing his herd, group of wolves attacked his herd and killed all of them. And while the wolves were merely feasting on this new herd, the king ran away. He returned to his only allied at this time, his friend, the King from the neighboring kingdom. This time he gave 50 sheep in pity. But once again, he failed to protect the walls. He returned for a third time, and this time the King gave him 25 sheep with a clear message of, there are no more sheep.

And this time the young King decided if he didn't protect his herd, he knew that he would be on his downers. So, this time he took a different approach. He examined the environment. He understood where the wolves were living, the areas where they would attack. He built additional fences and guards around the herd to protect them. He set up a schedule to monitor those key places and key times when he knew that the wolves would be most active, a few years had passed, and its herd had grown into a thousand sheep. His activities were monitored by his friend, the King and in recognition of his great feat in growing a herd, his friend had ordered his ministers to give him a whole state to rule. He asked his friend, why did you not give me the state to rule when I first come to help you? His friend, the King replied. The first time you came for me for help. Your mindset was like you were born and bred to be a leader. You were expectant. And the truth was far from it.

The King went on to say, you may have been born with wealth, pride, and power, but you have never had proper education and training to lead your people. So, when I gave you the herd, I wanted you to learn how to manage and lead others. Dear friend, I have seen you suffer, return, be resilient, work out a plan. And now I believe you're ready to lead. The moral of the story and leadership hack if you like, is that, just being born into a powerful family or being born with privileges, doesn't mean you'll be successful. Being a manager or leading people in higher position does not make you a leader. Being in charge, such as a King or a Manager or a CEO does not make you a leader. Holding position is just a position. Leadership is a behavior and leadership is a service. The most important role of a leader is to build and develop other leaders. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Let's dive into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Martine Kalaw is a special guest on today's show. She's an author, speaker and DEI consultant. She's the founder of Martine Kalaw Enterprises and her firm offers strategy development, implementation, and education, and helps organizations overcome unconscious beliefs and implicit biases. Martine also published her second book, The ABCs of Diversity. Martine, welcome to the show.

Martine Kalaw: Thank you so much for having me, Steve. I'm excited to be here

Steve Rush: Now, you have a most fascinating backstory. There are not many people that you can say. I understand how that is because there's not many people would understand your position. Just tell us a little bit about that backstory and how that's really given you the passion to do what you do?

Martine Kalaw: Yeah, certainly. Born in Zambia from the Democratic Republic of Congo. My mother and biological fathers were from there and having been raised in the U.S. but having spent seven years of my life as an undocumented immigrant and stateless individual in the United States in removal or deportation proceedings for seven years has really shaped the work that I do around DEI, in the years that I, you know, navigated through. One being orphaned, two, being undocumented, three, being stateless. I was exposed to various communities. I actually had to, you know, I had to learn how to pivot into different communities as I navigated the world on my own. And so, what this taught me was to, it gave me a different perspective on how people show up and view different circumstances.

It also gave me a level of sensitivity in how to and putting myself in somebody else's shoes and trying to see things from their perspective. And so, for that reason, I feel like I can be a bridge builder in a lot of ways across different communities. I also knew from my experience of being undocumented and stateless, I also understand the importance of having individuals invest in you rather than help you when you're marginalized, right. When your part of an underrepresented community, that's how we actually strengthen our communities, how we strengthen our workforce, is when individuals who have access recognize the access that they have and, or privileged, and some people are not comfortable with that word and then extend that to others and bring them in and do it in a way that's not charity like, and they're not positioning themselves as saviors, but really they're investing in others because they know they're also gaining something back. And in that way, we strengthened our communities. And so that was the experience I had as an undocumented immigrant and stateless person was setting it up so others can invest in me. And then once I, you know, navigated through my journey. Sharing that and passing that forward to my mentees and other people within undocumented stateless community, but then tying it into the larger conversation of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and I guess what you've really described is so extreme in its diverse experience, but to your point, gives you that sensitivity to be able to be really thoughtful in your approach, right?

Martine Kalaw: Right, absolutely. And just having seen, and just the intricacies of bias and discrimination in various facets. I mean, people don't necessarily think about immigration, and you know, statelessness and think of diversity, equity and inclusion, but it's a subset of it.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Martine Kalaw: And certainly, it's nuanced. I mean, we can see that with, you know, the war in Ukraine and we saw the response and how different communities of African immigrants, how they were treated, Moroccan immigrants. We saw that, right. We see that time and time, again in the policies that are enacted around immigration in the U.S. based on different subgroups within immigrants, you know construct. So, in that way DEI is a subset of immigration. Immigration is a subset of DEI, so, it can be a microcosm for the larger conversation around diversity equity and inclusion.

Steve Rush: And diversity also transcends lots of different religions, colors, and creeds, doesn't it? It's not just about, you know, an atypical perspective somebody might have when they join a firm. What's your take on we pet peel, the layers back, diversity in its simplest terms?

Martine Kalaw: Diversity is about variety, right. And representation across variety of different groups, different backgrounds. So, in its simplest term, diversity is offering and embracing variety. Now variety, when we talk about diversity, I like to break it down into three different buckets, right. There's the physical biological bucket in terms of defining diversity. And that can be, you know, that's race, gender, race, it can be age, you know, all of the elements or subcategories of diversity that has to do with somebody's physical definers and their biological, right?

Steve Rush: Right.

Martine Kalaw: Sexual orientation. And then the second bucket that I you know, I group diversity into is, cultural. So cultural can look like a number of things. It could be nationality. It can be your marital status. It can be your education background. It could be your socioeconomic status, right? So that's cultural. And then the third category especially within the work or business context is really around business. The culture or the persona you bring into the business. So, some people are introverts, some people are extroverts. You know, some people are more strategic in the way they show up to work. Some individuals are less strategic, you know, they're big picture thinkers or there, you know, detail oriented. So, these are the different categories, these three different buckets or categories, and they are interrelated. There are correlations between one bucket, right. The business persona that you bring into the workplace is influenced by your culture, the cultural, you know, associations you're a part of. And then that can be influenced by biological, you know, physical. And so, another way of saying it is, look, you know, as a black, you know, African woman in the United States right, these are some of the physical, you know, being black and African are some of the physical you know, associations that I'm a part of.

So culturally, you know, perhaps if I grew up in a community where it was predominantly you know, black and predominantly African immigrants, right. That might influence how I show up in the workplace. If I go to work and everyone else doesn't look like me, everyone else ends up being white. And I'm the only African immigrant. It might actually influence my communication style. Because I'm responding right to the experiences I have and I'm responding to my outward environment. So that's how these three categories or buckets can be related or correlated.

Steve Rush: The interesting thing that you just shared is a perfect example of how diversity can be seen different and that's where equity comes in, isn't it?

Martine Kalaw: Right.

Steve Rush: Tell us a bit about that?

Martine Kalaw: Yeah, so, I'll say, you know, diversity, equity, and inclusion. I feel strongly that they are like a three-legged stool. You can't have one without the other. So certainly, you can have variety and representation, but that's not enough to keep people, right. You can have, you know, you have the representation, but if people aren't treated fairly, right. Equity is really about fairness. It's about distribution. If people aren't treated fairly and they're not given the same equitable opportunities, then why would they stay? What would be their incentive? I like to distinguish equity from equality, because people say, oh, well, you know, equity is about equality. It's actually not right.

Steve Rush: No, it's not. And that's where people get confused, right?

Martine Kalaw: Right, equality is what we're aiming for after we reach equity. But right now, across the globe, I mean, you know, this is not just specific to the U.S. or the UK or any one place, but across the globe, what we know is that there are different communities, they're different ethnic groups, they're different races and not everyone has had the same history in their country and have had the same access. In the U.S. we can see that because the history of slavery in the U.S. that was so prominent has made it, so, there have been systemic inequities in the workplace, in education, all of that has been the trickle effect from slavery, right. And as a result of that, it's still trickles. It's still there. It's still, you know, and so what happens is people show up in the workplace and they don't have the same experiences.

They don't have the same access, right. someone who has grown up with certain privileges, access to certain academic institutions, access to certain you know, in a higher echelon of socioeconomic status, right. Might show up in the workplace with a different level of acumen, right. To the business and feel more comfortable navigating the workplace, feel more comfortable looking for a mentor, reaching out to the C-Suite Executives and asking for them to be a mentor and also feel more comfortable showing up in spaces. Like, you know, work off offsite events, right. Like lots of work offsite events, at least historically were like you know, usually they're sports events, they're, you know, happy hour, golf events, what have you. So, if you come from a space where you're familiar with that, it's easy for you to just an acclimate to that. If you come from a space where you didn't have access to that, it's a lot harder for you to navigate that space in the workplace and create more accessibility for yourself. And so that's where equity comes in. It's having the organization find ways to create that level of fairness. So, the best visual that actually someone shared with me, an anecdote is, you know, equality is giving everybody a pair of shoes, a pair of sneakers, let's say. Equity is giving everyone a pair of sneakers that fit their feet.

Steve Rush: It's a great analogy. Love it. So, the workplace has changed over the last few years with the pandemic and our approaches and responses to that. How do you see that that's impacted on how firms are dealing with DEI now?

Martine Kalaw: Yes, that's a really great question. So, what I've seen is in the last two years, so prior to the murder of George Floyd, because I really think that's what sparked this new, you know, movement across organizations, quite frankly, globally, before that it's not that diversity, equity and inclusion didn't exist. It did. But at that, you know, before that it was really focused on diversity, right.

Steve Rush: Right.

Martine Kalaw: It was focused on diversity and there was less of an emphasis on equity, less of an emphasis on inclusion. This is generally speaking. And you know, when you look at the numbers and the statistics in the workplace, white women were the prime beneficiaries of those diversity initiatives, right. And so then, two and a half years ago with, you know, the murder of George Floyd, things shifted, there was a greater awareness that whoa, you know, there's a lot of inequity, that's still trickling into the workplace, right. That's happening nationally, but it's trickling into the workplace because the same people that are in, you know, that are in society are also going into work, right. So, we can't distinguish these two, these two worlds collide and that's in the workplace. And so initially organizations, again, generally speaking, were responsive or reactive to what was happening, right. There was a level of reaction because employees or staff members were hypersensitive and hyper aware, right. And almost like daring the organization to do something, fix this. So, organizations generally speaking were reactive and trying to like quickly fix things and quell the concerns of their employees, right. The responses with that with, a lot of programs, let's come up with programs, let's give money to this organization. Let's have an internship program and bring, you know, look at interns from certain colleges and universities that we wouldn't have looked at before, at least in the U.S., historically black colleges and universities, HBCUs, right.

Things like that, very reactive. So that's not a bad thing because I think the programming was important, but the thing is, there are two issues with that. When you have program without strategy, it's really hard to sustain the initiative. And when you don't have strategy, it's hard to position what you're doing as a real business imperative, right. It doesn't seem like a business structure. It seems more of like something you're just slapping on a band aid, and you know, wanting to move on. So that was the first challenge. The second was the fact that the same people were doing the work, we're being charged to do the work, mainly human resources professionals who don't always have the experience or the expertise. They are also oftentimes already overburdened by their workload. They were being charged with the responsibility of doing this work. As well as, you know, employee resource groups, basically employees who are part of underrepresented communities or are allies, right. So, the same individuals we're being charged with this responsibility, right. And that's exhausting. It also means that everyone else wasn't as involved. And what we know is that if not everyone is bought into an initiative, it's not going to work, right. You need leadership's involvement; you need manager's involvement. So that's really where we are at the moment. And the organizations that really want to do the real work are reaching out to consultants like myself, they're reaching out to others, right. They're bringing in chief diversity officers and saying, look, we want to go beyond just the performative and you know, with programs, we want to have strategy.

We want to have our leadership involved in this. We want DEI to be positioned as part of the business strategy. We want to be able to tie metrics to things, right. We want to be able to connect our programs with a larger initiative so we can scale these programs. So that's where we are now, right. So not just about training and programs, training is great, but training has to be reinforced with strategy. So that's where we are now where organizations are at this, impasse where they can either keep doing what they're doing and being you know I guess their employees are feeling impatient and are putting the pressure on them or they can actually start to really build strategy and make DEI part of their business structure.

Steve Rush: And let's be realistic here as well. Those businesses aren't, are also missing out, not on just massive opportunities to unlock human potential, but there's also a direct correlation to return on investment too, isn't there?

Martine Kalaw: That's it. I always talk about the ROI of DEI. And so that is, one of the very first things that I do in working with organizations is, especially if I'm working with human resources, professionals, not directly with the like the, you know, CEO is getting that HR professional to identify what that return on investment is so that they can position it to the leadership, right. Discussing ROI is the common denominator. The challenge that we've had historically with DEI is, certainly there's an emotional quotient component to it. That's the most significant component. Stories, people's experiences, experiences of employees and how they felt marginalized. The biases they may have experienced, that is critical. But when we start with that approach, what we end up doing is, we exclude indirectly and unintentionally. Exclude anyone who doesn't understand that. Who cannot relate to this story, right.

Steve Rush: Right.

Martine Kalaw: People feel either shamed or blamed or they just don't get it. So, they tune out, right. And then again, we're just reaching to the cryer, the same people who have the issue are the same people engaged in these conversations. So that's why I always recommend starting with return on investment, let's look at the value that DEI can bring to the organization. Let's look at the numbers. Like let's actually find what that metric is. If your business to business, business to consumer organization, there is a possibility, there's always a possibility of increasing market share. There are certain markets we have not considered if we're providing a service or a product, right. And so that is where DEI can actually help. If you educate your salespeople and they are much more savvy and they're representative of a larger group of individuals. There's more representation in your salespeople let's say, or if they have more sensitivity in navigating DEI, then they're more likely, they'll know how to reach and look for new markets, right.

Explore markets they haven’t considered. And once we've attracted those markets, it's building those relationships, that rapport with those markets. So that's one way, for example, that a business to consumer organization can benefit. Revenue wise, ROI wise from DEI. When we talk about business to business, same idea in terms of retention, in terms of building those relationships and attracting new partners, right. I mean, if you're business to business, think about the clients that your partners or that business you're supporting, think about who their clients are, think about who their customers are. And if we're supporting them, we also need to understand their clientele. We also need to help them or support them in reaching a larger market share. We also need to make sure that we're able to create more diversity in our partners, right. So, these are ways in which we can actually measure ROI. We can look at the retention of our partners. We can look at recruiting and gaining more partners. And what does that mean in terms of our dollars? So, there are direct correlations between DEI and return on investment. And what I encourage is for organizations to start there, start with that number, start with what the cost, right. What we think the estimated cost of bringing in a chief diversity officer, bringing in a consultant, you know, doing this work might cost. And then let's talk about what the potential return could look like.

Steve Rush: Yeah, love it. Now you wrote the book, The ABCs of Diversity.

Martine Kalaw: Yes.

Steve Rush: Let's quickly just spin through the ABCs and dive into a couple of them.

Martine Kalaw: Yeah, I mean, the ABCs is kind of what I, I alluded to this a little bit earlier, which was, a lot of the work is dumped on human resources and I use the word dumped intentionally, because that's how it feels like, right. It feels like a burden to them, to them and sometimes employee resource groups or diversity, task forces, because these are individuals that don't always have the expertise. They can come to this from a very emotional standpoint. And so, it's really unfair to expect them to have all of the responsibility around DEI. So, the ABCs of diversity, by the way, the subtitle is a manager's guide to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the new workplace. So really what this book really encapsulates are two main things. One is that when we approach the conversation of DEI, we make it sometimes over complicated, right.

It's very ethereal. There's a lot of jargon. A lot of you know politically correct terms and people are so afraid of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing, that they'd rather disengage and not involve themselves in DEI conversations. But what I want people to understand is that, okay, we don't have to focus so much on the jargon, the terminology, it's really the fundamental practices, the fundamental things that we do. And a lot of it can be driven by managers. So, when we think about who shapes and influences the makeup of an organization, there are two main groups, human resources, and managers, managers influence hiring decisions. They influence compensation decisions. They influence promotion decisions. They influence attrition when people decide to leave, right. All of that is influenced by managers and they're working in tandem with human resources.

So, what we get to do is pivot our lens when we look at all those elements, those foundational elements of being a manager and consider how we can have more representation and less bias in these different areas, right. And so that doesn't require learning all this terminology and jargon. It just requires thinking a little bit more broadly. So, for example, as hiring managers, one of the things we can do differently, we're looking at resumes is, asking our talent acquisition or recruiting team. I'm seeing like a lot of similarities across these resumes. Like it seems like all of these individuals are from the same region. This is just me speaking, hypothetically. Is there a possibility that we can look at other resumes more broadly? Can we look at other resumes or can we look at candidates from other regions? right.

This is just a small way as hiring managers, we're looking at, we're interviewing candidates and we immediately feel we have this affinity bias, right. Where we have a preference for someone because, oh, they went to this college and you've heard of this college, or you're familiar with this college. Well, what we can do is, manages go, oh, wait a minute. I'm picking up on the fact that, you know, I feel more, you know, I have this affinity, this person, just because of what I'm seeing on the resume, let me then assume, what if every other candidate went to the same college, right. Let's rule out. Let's take that one scenario or that one qualifier out. And let's focus on all the other, whether the candidates who actually can do the job, right. And when we're interviewing candidates, let's see how we can be consistent in the way, the order in which we ask questions.

Let's also invite other people on our teams to interview these candidates, right. And when they are interviewing candidates to avoid influence, influencing our decision, let's have, you know, the other people are interviewing candidates, our candidates. Just share their feedback to the talent acquisition team rather than to us, right. And we don't actually hear, or, you know, know what they're thinking until the end, after we've made our decision on how we feel about the candidates. So, these are things that we can do as managers. Another example of creating, establishing inclusion as a manager or equity is mentorship, right. So, as you know, a lot of organizations, some organizations don't have formal mentorship programs. And as I mentioned, based on your background, some people might come into a company and feel really comfortable looking for a mentor. They might be invited to certain spaces like golf events, like a happy hour, where they will engage and build relationships and then ask someone to be their mentor.

What I can say is not everyone has that familiarity or that confidence, not everyone is invited to the same events in the same spaces in the workplace. So as a manager, what we can do is, we can establish a way to make sure that everyone on our team has access to a mentor. We can invite mentors to come to our meetings, invite our senior leadership, to come to our weekly meetings or biweekly meetings with our teams and let people know that, you know, make sure everyone on the team understands that, you know, you can access and reach out to this person if you need a mentor, right. These are subtle things that we do to create equity, right. Create fairness, accessibility. So that's the ABCs of DEI, right. Its common knowledge. Things that we're already doing as managers, but we just don't realize that this is actually reinforcing DEI, right.

And it's natural. It's much more organic than thinking, okay, I have to put on my DEI hat, and you know, I have to use this specific terminology. So that's really what the ABCs of DEI is. And it's really meant to be a workbook, you know? So, when you open it up, it really actually is a primer. It reads like a workshop, like you're in a workshop. And at the end of each chapter, it's 150 pages, not long. At the end of each chapter, there are two takeaway exercises. One is for self-reflection and the other is something you can take back to your team and implement as a manager. So, there's actual application.

Steve Rush: Awesome. Now we're going to give folk a chance to get hold of a copy or find out how they can get hold of a copy in a moment. So, I'm going to flip the lens very quickly, do some quick, short fire, top leadership hacks. What be your top three leadership hacks?

Martine Kalaw: My top three leadership hacks would be you know, one is, to be transparent and vulnerable, right. I would just combine those two. Transparency. I mean, as leaders, we can't be completely transparent with everything, but at least walk people through why you're doing what you're doing. They'll appreciate it more. They feel like what they're doing, adds value to the end goal. So being able to be transparent in that way and being vulnerable. If you have challenges, if you have issues, things aren't going the way that you ideally wanted them to. It's okay to share that with your team as a leader because what they're observing is how you respond to it, the solutions, your problem-solving abilities, that becomes an example for them.

So that's one leadership hack. Another leadership hack for me would be to find people who are smarter than you, to be, you know, part of your team. You know, I think as leaders, sometimes we're afraid that somebody's going to outshine us, but really what we want to do is bring people who have skills that we don't have, because what that ends up carrying us, if they grow, we grow, right. And so, I do believe that's a really important one that I've always you know, believed in and it's really been beneficial to me. And the third leadership hack would be, I have to think about this one. I would say, always be on quest to learn. So maybe that's more humility or just always learn. As leaders, we can never know enough. We're always learning, learn from our team members. The people who report into us. Learn across the board, pick up a book, read. There's always something we can learn as leaders, right. And so as long as we show up in our role as leaders in that way. We're always going to continue to grow and be better than who we were the day before.

Steve Rush: Awesome advice. Now you shared the biggest Hack to Attack that we've ever heard, which is your story up front, but if you could give yourself some advice when you were 21, what would that be?

Martine Kalaw: Ah, that's a great one. If I could give myself advice when I was 21 was to, trust the process, right. Meaning like, I'm a little bit of a magical thinker in a sense that, you know, if you take action and you do everything that you need to do, sometimes things just need to kind of work themselves out, right. Kind of like everything has to sort of be synchronous, and it takes a little bit of time. And I think that's something that, you know, millennials, you know, Gen Z, like, you know, there's sometimes a level of impatience right, with things. And so sometimes, you know, put all the pieces together, do your part and then give it a little bit of time, right. For things to come together. So, trust the process a little bit.

Steve Rush: That's great, and that's definitely been the case for you. You've a perfect walking example of that. So, thank you so much. So, Martine, conscious, we want to make sure we can get our guests to connect with you beyond today. Find out a little bit about the books that you've written and maybe buy a copy. Where's the best place to send them?

Martine Kalaw: Perfect. you can go directly to martinekalaw.com, www.martinekalaw.com. And when you go there, you'll have access to the link from my book, which is on Amazon. So, you can purchase the hard copy and you can also purchase the audio book on audible. So, if you go to my website, it'll give you the link to both of those sites. And certainly, on my website, you also have access to sign up for my complimentary, otherwise known as free master class, which is coming up on July 21st. I usually have a monthly one-hour monthly masterclass where I really work with human resources professionals. And I offer them the five things that they can do within the next 90 days to really drive DEI in their organizations.

Steve Rush: Awesome.

Martine Kalaw: And so that's something that you can sign up for if you go to my website.

Steve Rush: We'll also put those links in our show notes as well. Martine, I wish you had more time to chat. I really love chatting to. You’re such a great advocate of doing exactly what's right for folk when it's right. So, thank you ever so much for taking time out of your super busy schedule, being with us on our Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Martine Kalaw: Thank you so much, Steve. I enjoyed it too.

Steve Rush: Thank you, Martine.

Closing

View Details

Timothy Bradshaw is former British Army Intelligence Officer and graduate of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. His work as a Covert Human Intelligence Officer and Target Acquisition Patrol Soldier saw him recruit and run foreign agents worldwide and influence the outcome of extremely sensitive and dangerous situations. Recently, he’s been running aid missions to the Ukraine. He’s a keynote speaker and author of the book, “Because I Can”.

This is packed full of leadership lessons including:

Leaders need to make decisions under pressure, how different was that in the military and what can we learn from that.
The secret sauce to resilience and overcoming challenges.
Why wanting to quit is normal and how can we overcome that.
Why is the military approach to leadership is a good blueprint for business.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Tim below:

Tim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothy-bradshaw/

Tim’s Books: Because I Can

Tim on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TimBecauseICan

Tim on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/timothy.bradshaw/

Tim’s Website: https://www.timothybradshaw.net

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush, and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Our special guest on today's show is Tim Bradshaw. He's a foreign British Army Intelligence Officer and recruited and run foreign agents worldwide as a Human Intelligent Officer. He's also the author of a great book, Because I can, but before we get a chance to speak with Tim, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Leadership is about us everywhere. And I wanted to dive in to find some funny, and innovative ways of us, bringing some of those leadership lessons to life. So, if ever you've watched a movie Star Wars or any of the Star Wars Trilogy, you'll find loads of leadership lessons packed within there. Yoda is one of my favorites. He has this great saying that said. Do or not do, there is no try. And I'm often using that lighthearted analogy with any of my coaching conversations, but a long time ago in a galaxy far away, the leadership lessons were created amongst this epic series of films.

So, here's a few, it's been proven that being born with talent is not enough. As we all know, Luke Skywalker is born with a natural talent to be a Jedi. Yet when, we watch the movies. We know that was not a given. He had to work hard at that. We watched Luke come to grips with putting himself in challenging situations and homing in on that force. And there are traits of good leadership, but true leadership takes place, self-reflection and mentoring, which we also saw through their relationship with Yoda. Adaptability is also a key leadership lesson throughout the Star Wars movies, all of those Star Wars movies demonstrate that life does not always go to plan. And if you are rigid in your plans are stuck in your ways, you're not going to win. From Han Solo, adapting, a broken hyper drive by hiding by the rubbish shoot instead of a surprise alliance along the way. If you're able to adapt and think quickly, you're able to lead a team through any surprises. We know it's okay to ask for help as leaders. Sometimes you can't get yourself out of a situation without calling on someone else. When Princess Leia was in a bind, she'd always know the right people to call and ask for help without hesitation. Some good leaders need other good leaders to advise them on their journey. And the one thing that is really true across all of the movies that chasing power is the path to the dark side. Leaders undeniably have power and authority, but leadership is much more than that. Once you begin to be at attracted to power and to chase power, you are heading to the dark side. Good leadership is all about sharing power and authority and creating more leaders. It's about people with good ideas and evolving those good ideas so that everyone becomes more powerful. So, the next time you hear yourself saying, I'll try, just think you've been Yoda. Do or don't do, there is no try. Let's get into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Timothy Bradshaw, is a special guest on today's show. He's a former British Army Intelligence Officer and graduate of the Royal Military Academy of Sandhurst. His work as a Covert Human Intelligent Officer and Target Acquisition Patrol Soldier saw him recruit and run foreign agents worldwide and influence the outcome of extremely sensitive and dangerous situations. Recently Tim's been running missions to Ukraine, delivering really, really important aid. He's a keynote speaker and he's also the author of the book, Because I can. Tim, welcome to the show.

Timothy Bradshaw: Thanks Steve. Thanks very much for having me on.

Steve Rush: Really looking forward to getting into the diverse world of Timothy Bradshaw. And remember from the first time that you met and how you described what you did in the army and in your work as an Intelligence Officer, I think I might have called you the James Bond [laugh] at the time.

Timothy Bradshaw: I mean, that's very flattering and unfortunately every time somebody says that I caught so much flack off all of my friends, but.

Steve Rush: [Laugh].

Timothy Bradshaw: I'll take it Steve. I've definitely been called worse things.

Steve Rush: I think your response to me at the time, Tim, if I remember rightly was, and you might have had the work of James Bond, but you certainly didn't have the dinner suits and the expense account.

Timothy Bradshaw: No, absolutely not. And I'm still waiting for the Aston Martin as well.

Steve Rush: That's it, yeah. So, tell us a little bit about you Tim, your early backstory and give that listens a little bit of a spin through to how you've arrived to do what you do.

Timothy Bradshaw: It's not that exciting, Steve really, which I think is almost kind of the point. You know, we talk about resilience and all this sort of stuff and actually I haven't done anything that essentially anybody else couldn't have done if they wanted to. I did my A-levels. I finished school. I kind of looked at university alongside everybody else and realized that I was doing that really, because that was kind of what everybody else did. Not really what my sort of passion was, and maybe there's a bit of a theme there that'll continue. So, I was offered a place to go to the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. I literally just turned 18 in the October and went in the January. So was really very young. I quite often laugh when we talk about leadership.

My first ever job out of school was sort of leading 37 soldiers aged 19, by the time I got to that point. And frankly probably wasn't very good at it. Who's very good at their first ever job out of school, but I had a lot of training, and a lot of backups. So, made the best I could really. I've kind of never really done anything else. So very much experienced based career, I guess. And I did that and that was the kind of the mid-nineties. And I went out to Germany. Ironically, it's really funny looking back now, I say funny, slightly tongue in cheek, but obviously we were very much kind of the end of the sort of cold war doctrine and everything we were looking at was very much basically about the Russian Army coming across the Eastern German planes which with what's going on now, obviously out in Ukraine, seems a little bit surreal, to be honest.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Timothy Bradshaw: But anyway, and I sort of did that for a bit and it was bit of a lull really, an activity, certainly for the sort of regular army at the time. And then I pursued a career in training after I served out my commission and subsequently once sort of Iraq and Afghanistan kicked off, I looked to go back to the military. I felt as though I had kind of unfinished business and hadn't finished serving yet. I've always had quite a strong desire to serve rightly or wrongly. So, I decided to go back and a friend of mine had said to me, oh, you should look at, you know, look at reserves and I said, crikey you’re joking. You know, to me, the TA sort of, as was, was dad's army. And, you know, that's absolutely not the case anymore. So, I went through a patrol selection course, which is a particularly arduous sort of running over the Hills, big ruck sacks, small teams, very much becoming self-reliant, self-sufficient, relying on your teammates in small groups as a buildup, really to go towards Afghanistan. And then I kind of thought to myself, well, if I'm going to do this, I want to do something that perhaps my interim years as a civilian brings something to the party rather than putting me behind the curve. So Human Intelligence is, is exactly that, it's about building relationships and influence. And actually, you know, we always sort of joke, but if you having to use the cars as the guns, you've kind of got it wrong, essentially. It's absolutely about building relationships and influencing people. So, bit of a sucker for punishment, really, I put myself through yet another grueling selection process.

Steve Rush: [laugh].

Timothy Bradshaw: Its theme isn't it, really. And we did that. I passed a course and then what ensued was a fascinating few years working with some truly inspirational people on all sides of the divide, really. Some of those obviously worked for essentially terrorist organizations. Some of those were people that absolutely keen to help their communities. But the theme was always the same. It was always about relationships and influence. And I was doing some keynote speaking the other day and I sort of laughed and somebody ask, how could you sum it up? And I was trying to think of a sort of corporate analogy. And I said, well, imagine trying to lead or influence somebody that not only do they not work for you, but in fact they work for your biggest competitor. And that was about the best I could come up with really. Obviously trying to persuade somebody who has very strong views of their own that actually there might be a different way or a better path and to give you, essentially feed you in intelligence.

So yeah, so that's what we did. Did that for a few years, which was truly fascinating. Couple of tour Afghanistan. I did point out to somebody recently whose head went down a little bit talking about lockdown. And I think I calculated that I have actually spent more time in Afghanistan than I have in lockdown.

Steve Rush: Wow, yeah.

Timothy Bradshaw: And I don't actually know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, to be honest with you, but it is a fact. And then I think having left the military. Again, I have a very low boredom threshold Steve, which I think is, probably the theme. But actually, for me, I've always been quite a big advocate of mental health. I've always struggled a little bit with sort of depression and anxiety. It's not a good thing or a bad thing. It's just the way my brain works really. And you know, it's a bit like a bank account in some of the respects. You take out, so therefore you have to pay back in. Anyway, we decided as a team must that we try and climb Mount Everest and shout from the highest point on earth that it was okay to ask for help. So, we did, we picked the wrong year. We did it in 2015, which those of you that into mountaineering or the region will know was when all the sort of major earthquakes hit. So, we found ourselves in the middle of one of the biggest natural disasters sorts of ever to happen, certainly in that region, really. So again, it kind of turned on its head our whole outlook on what was going on and certainly tested our resilience in a very different way to the one we perhaps spent two years planning and training to do.

Which again, I think we talk about leadership aren’t we Steve really. For me, that's one of the themes is, it's that ability to flex, adapt and overcome actually, rather than when it's all going perfectly.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Timothy Bradshaw: And then, yeah, and then having done that, we've transitioned into doing this and we do all sorts of wacky stuff. And then we now run a company. And for me it's about, can I share my lessons as accurately as possible? We were joking, weren’t we Steve, just before we went live that there's a lot of self-help stuff around, you know, and it's like, yeah, get a growth mindset, do this and do that. And you kind of think, yeah, I'll do that, how?

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly.

Timothy Bradshaw: And that's really what the book was about. The book was a kind of user guide almost to dealing with some of these problems. So rather than a kind of conceptual you know, big yourself up and feel better, it was right, do this. When this happens, do this [laugh] and I guess that then led, I was sitting on the sofa, we were watching what's happening in Ukraine. And my now wife looked at me and said, you could probably do something to help that couldn't you. And I said, yes, I can. And she said, well, then you should. So, we put a team together and we've now delivered three quite successful aid missions. But I would think the point I'd like to make is, that we've built a network of people inside Ukraine. So, we've got live communications almost on a daily basis. So, we know exactly what people need and what challenges that they're facing. And we are taking that aid specifically and delivering it directly to the people that need it. So, we met, appreciate we're not going to share their names here, but we shared directly, we drove out to Kyiv, which is where we were last week. And we met with these groups, and we hand over exactly what they need. And fortunately, that's captured the imagination of a number of large corporate businesses that have really helped us out actually.

Steve Rush: Right.

Timothy Bradshaw: But I think that's because again, it's not faceless.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Timothy Bradshaw: Steve, I think that comes back to our theme of kind of leadership and relationships, right?

Steve Rush: Does Tim, yeah. And homage to you genuinely. One of the things I know about you Tim, is that you see danger very differently to other people that I've, you know, come into contact with specifically in the business world. You almost see this as an opportunity, it's alluring for you. And I just wondered to, I wanted to unpack a little bit about that with you, because it seems to me that you are almost attracted to that danger and ambiguity that comes with things like running an aid mission to Kiev.

Timothy Bradshaw: I think, I'm not I’m necessarily attractive to it, but I certainly see opportunity in it. So, we often at the moment sort of voker is quite a big thing, right? Vulnerable, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, and we can use all the analogies you want. But for me, there's always then opportunity because if everything is absolutely, you know, tickly, boom and perfect and jogging along then we often joke that's the point that you need effective management rather than necessarily an effective leadership. And I think if you look at sport as an example, you know, if you look at rugby in offense, you're trying to create a break in the back line, right. Or if you see a break in the back line, then there's the gap that you need to get through for your Canadian and American listeners, that's a real sport where you don't wear armor and helmet and stuff.

Steve Rush: [Laugh], nothing like a little bit of counter finishing in the mix there.

Timothy Bradshaw: [Laugh] But by understand that the theory is probably very much the same, you know, you are looking for that break in the back line, right, to go through the gap. And I think that the same is true. I'm sure it's true in ice hockey. But I think the same is true in business. If everything is the same, then you are unlikely to either improve or get a different result. And for me as an effective leader, really, you should be seeking out the change or the opportunity, but of course that's uncomfortable for people. So, if you can create a toolkit that enables you to initially deal, I guess, with like the biological reaction to change and stress and then see clearly and find the opportunity. So yes, I mean, Steve, I do see it as an opportunity, but that's because if something's changing, then maybe it's a chance to get in front, you know, if anyone watch the Formula 1 that was on at the weekend, the minute it rains, the teams down the back of the grid a little bit, see an opportunity, don't they?

Steve Rush: Yeah

Timothy Bradshaw: And it's the same theory.

Steve Rush: Absolutely, yeah. So, in terms of your experience of diving into Ukraine recently, you talk about resilience in your work a lot. What have you noticed about the resilience of the people in some of those war tone areas you've met recently?

Timothy Bradshaw: Oh, I mean, Steve. It's phenomenal. I was trying to describe this to somebody the other day. It’s both harrowing and inspirational in the same breath. You know, you're talking to people, some people have lost their whole homes, their families and everything else, but then those same people have a look in their eye, and they are not taking a step backwards. They are refusing to take a backwards step. And that would be enough for me to want to support them regardless of any benefit to the UK or anybody else anyway. Because I just always think that level of courage should be at least supported if not rewarded. But again, you know, when we go into businesses and we talk about clear communication and perhaps more importantly, a unifying purpose, you know, a focus and outcome that we're trying to achieve, then that's the ultimate outcome isn’t it, right? When somebody invade your country.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Timothy Bradshaw: That defense of your home or your family. I mean, that has to be the kind of ultimate unifying purpose I would think.

Steve Rush: And I suspect, and you'll know this more than most. In war tone situations, period, you find a deeper, more meaningful resilience than you'd ever have anticipated in the world of business. I mean, the things that we get stuck up and worried about and stressed about in our world of business, pale insignificance in those situations, don't they?

Timothy Bradshaw: Well, there's no way-out Steve, which is what I think's interesting, okay.

Steve Rush: Right.

Timothy Bradshaw: So, I remember talking to somebody about special operations, special duties, special forces, selection processes, and the theme all over the world different, you know, every country has its own variance, but the theme is always one the same, it's adapted and overcome and adapt and overcome. But actually, if you talk to the selection teams, a lot of them will tell you that the biggest dropout rate is in fact, not on the course, is the day before because people get the jitters the day before they go, because they are anticipating what's coming. And they have an option. So, they don't turn up, they talk themselves out of it or believe it or not, the vast majority of people that go through all these processes, they don't get failed. They what's called VW, they voluntarily withdraw. In other words, they quit because they have an option to quit.

Steve Rush: Right.

Timothy Bradshaw: And I think when we work with businesses, there is always an option to quit. And I think when we, you know, implement something new, push ahead with a new process or a system or a change, whatever that might be, there's always the option to go back to where we were before or to opt out. And I think when the pressure comes on and when you get nervous that kind of opt out to your comfort zone becomes more alluring, right?

Steve Rush: Right, yeah.

Timothy Bradshaw: When somebody has invaded your country [laugh] and it's your home, you just don't have that option. So, you have to keep marching forwards almost at all costs. And that's why I think in these situations you see such, all inspiring levels of sort of courage and resilience because the option to sort of take the easier routes gone, is it's been removed. So, people dig really deep and they find whatever it is that's, you know, inside themselves.

Steve Rush: I love the whole notion of there is no get out. There's no plan B philosophy. And that forms mindset that we talked a little bit about earlier. So, there's an example where you can't teach that, you have to experience it in order to shift and create the right set of mindsets. But I do wonder if we apply that level thinking, can that impact on our mindset, do you think?

Timothy Bradshaw: Yeah, because I think once you've done it once or twice and you've proven to yourself, you can, which is for me where the sort of, title for the book came, Because I Can. Then what happens is, you kind of build confidence and it's almost like any new skill you pick up, you know, whether that's a sport or learning to drive or whatever. You go, oh, I can do that. And then you do it just once and you go, I can. And I always say to people, not enough people debrief the wins, you know, we're very quick to debrief the losses, but the problem is, we still don’t know what good looks like. Whereas actually I mean, you know, I've been a ski instructor and stuff like that in the past. It's a passion of mine.

And if you're teaching something to ski and they get it right, and you go, wow, that was amazing. Do that again, that was excellent. They can repeat it. And they have the confidence and the courage almost to repeat it, if that makes sense. And I think that's super, super important. And then you can start to instill that mindset in somebody. So, we have this expression that if you can reward the behaviors that you want to see again, that is ultimately how you change a mindset. And I think certainly professional services businesses at the moment, we have this impression that performance is this kind of perfect thing all the time. And somebody does something 95% correct but we jump on the 5% that they got wrong, and you know, we call them out on it. And then we're surprised when that person doesn't come back to us for more feedback.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so what was the inspiration for the book, Tim?

Timothy Bradshaw: I think it was an idea I had in my head for ages. I'm certainly not academic in any way, shape, or form. For me, it was probably the furthest I've ever been outside of my comfort zone, to be honest. So, I kind of started it and therefore had to finish it. And I just wanted to have a little bit of a user guide for people. You know, you do seminars and you do keynote speaking and you kind of hand out notes and PDFs and it's all bit old hat, isn't it? So, I just sort of let's do something a bit different. So, a lot stuff I talk about is in the book, but in terms of, don't do that, do this type of a way. So, I guess a bit sort of, I don’t know, user guide, that was the idea

Steve Rush: And the whole notion of because I can, is that self-talk almost to say that anything is possible, right?

Timothy Bradshaw: Yeah, absolutely. The whole thing, because I think sometimes you just have to remind myself, I can do this. I can do this. You know, I've been through various selection processes. We've talked about before, down various big mountains and on a number of occasions, I've found myself having to remind myself like, you've got this, you can do this. And I think it's also, it's about finding ways to do something, finding ways to make something happen. You know, we were talking in the past about leadership and taking decisions under pressure. And how does the military impact on that? And I don't think that the military necessarily guarantees somebody becomes a good leader. But it does guarantee that you become a kind of a good decision maker.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Timothy Bradshaw: But the one thing that is really interesting when you work with the military is there is never any question that we are going to do anything other than achieve the task, if that makes sense.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it does.

Timothy Bradshaw: So, the whole theme is focused on achieving the aim. And that's probably the biggest takeout and and that's a theme that runs through the book is, this is what we're going to do. So how do we make it happen? Accepting we're perhaps going to change course a couple of times and you know, it might evolve a little bit, that's okay. But fundamentally, how do we make it happen?

Steve Rush: I'm pretty sure it was you in the past Tim, actually, that taught me that in the military, the first thing you get to learn as a leader is, you have to make a decision.

Timothy Bradshaw: Yeah, that’s right.

Steve Rush: Tell me a little bit about that because I think that's a really interesting frame of mind that, you know, when you are still in a relatively young leadership position or indeed you're running a global organization, is that making the decision is key, right?

Timothy Bradshaw: So, yeah, I think it wobbles. It's really funny. It's a great analogy, right. We've all done it. Imagine you are driving your car and you approach a big roundabout. And I live quite near the A9, the key roundabout, which is, anybody's ever been here near Scotland will know, because they'll have sat there for 40 minutes trying and get across it. And you approach a roundabout and the person in front of you kind of half goes then stops then goes to go, then stops.

Steve Rush: [Laugh], yeah.

Timothy Bradshaw: And chaos in ensues, right? Because you kind of go then stop. And then you hit the brakes, believe or not. It's the most common cause of accident, people hitting the back of each other and what's caused all that chaos is indecision. Now, if that person was either waiting for a huge gap, it's frustrating, but you can see what they're going to do, so you work with it. If that person, I swore then, says, I'm going for it anyway, drops a gear and goes for it. Scary as that might be, you can see what they're doing, and you can react to it. It's the indecision in the middle that causes the problem. And certainly, my experience at Sandhurst was, you don't fail Sandhurst to making a wrong decision. If you make a wrong decision, you learn from it, you evolve, but it's the indecision, it's making no decision that will make you fail. Because when you have sort of this sort of wobbly indecisive, that's when the wheels come off, that's when morale drops. That's when the good ideas club get together, that's when people start going off and doing their own thing in opposite directions. And me certainly, one of the biggest things I've learned across everything that I've done is, in high pressure situations, particularly when you're working with educated people is, you can need to provide reassurance and then direction. And that direction is where, you know, the decision-making is, part of giving that direction because you then get forward momentum. And to me, if you can gain forward momentum, then actually, everyone starts to move in that same direction together. And sometimes it'll be quicker than others, but essentially it does work.

Steve Rush: Yeah, now you'd have been faced with a bunch of challenges throughout your careers. And I say careers because they've kind of, whilst it is still one career, there's been number of different facets to what you do. What's been your secret source to overcoming those challenges and turning it into a positive outcome?

Timothy Bradshaw: I think sometimes firstly, understanding it kind of all things must pass, you know, at various situations throughout my life, I've, made mistakes, I've been impetuous, I've done stuff. And I think, oh, why did I do that? And you think the world's kind of ending around you, but as you get older, you kind of realize that actually, okay, it's mistake. It's going to be okay. And these things have a tendency to write themselves somehow and you come out the other side of it. So, I think, you know, accepting that you're going to make mistakes and get it wrong, take whatever lessons you can out of it. It is super important. I think at the moment, particularly we're quite vulnerable to people having huge opinions about things that they know very little about. And I think that's largely down to the ability for kind of social media, for people to kind of take a swing at you, if you like, actually without, you know, people you've never even met [laugh] essentially, and I think that can be quite damaging. So, I think accept the fact that you're going to make mistakes, focus on the bits you can control which is, which is your own performance and the way you react to staff and take feedback from the people you trust. But don't worry too much about the kind of naysayers or the people almost. I think we sometimes come across people, and I think it's a bit of a UK disease at the moment where we almost want people to fail and I think I find that a bit strange, but you see it quite a lot.

Steve Rush: You do, yeah. Where do you think that comes from?

Timothy Bradshaw: I don't know really. I honestly, for me, it's a bit of a complete anathema that is really, I don't really understand it, but whether that's a kind of jealousy thing or whether that's just, I think it's very easy. I can't recite the whole poem off the top of my head, but it's Roosevelt's poem, isn't it? Where he says, it's the man in the fight. You know, don't chastise those that try and fail. And I think sometimes people just, when we're outside of comfort zone or perhaps people are attempting something that somebody else hasn't wanted to try, they almost don't want them to succeed. I personally find that a bit strange, but yeah. Try to override it and get past it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I think business is becoming more receptive to failure in the old world of what failure might have been and most businesses that I certainly work with and know of, recognize that it's part of success, making those steps and pivoting to something else.

Timothy Bradshaw: Yeah, no, Steve, I actually agree with you and actually if you want to push the boundaries, if you want to learn a new trick, so to speak, you're going to get it wrong a couple of times first, right. But if you want to adapt to overcome, and if you want to grow process, then by definition, you've got to develop and change. And if you're going to develop and change, you're going to do stuff differently. And sometimes that's not going to go quite to plan, I think, sort of accepting that and then also creating a structure within a business so that when that happens, we are supportive of each other. Yeah, we have this expression, covering each other's blind spots.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Timothy Bradshaw: You know, so actually we are supporting each other rather than kind of going, oh my goodness me, look at that. Steve made a right mess of that. You know, we should be thinking to ourselves, actually it was brilliant that Steve had to go at that and actually that bit were quite successful. So, if we take those two bits out, support Steve, make sure he's okay. And then let's build on those two elements that work really well. To me, that's much healthier.

Steve Rush: Super, now you mentioned a little earlier on you'd suffered with depression and anxiety in the past. Are you comfortable? Let's go there Tim.

Timothy Bradshaw: Yeah, I don't mind at all Steve. I think it's important that we do talk about it.

Steve Rush: Thank you. So, I know that this is a driving force for you now and you use it as a force of good to push you into other activities. But I wondered if you might just share with our listers a little bit about the journey you've been on and what some of your coping strategies are?

Timothy Bradshaw: Yeah, I mean, for me, it's interesting, right. So, my brain works at speed, as you already know, rightly or wrongly, and I have an ability to latch onto something to focus on that, to not necessarily see some of the boundaries that perhaps other people see and to therefore drive towards achieving that. And that enables me to think very laterally, to get to a location that we need to get to. But that same way my head works if you like comes with a price and the price is that occasionally I then latch the things that I don't need to latch to, or I overthink people's reactions or I overthink the way people come back to me, which then causes me to go into a, we call it, like a negative spiral, sort of catastrophic thinking spiral which is not uncommon with other people. And I face people. I don't suffer from it. I live with it. I don't particularly want curing if that is a thing. Because I am me and the bits of that that make it very challenging. And my wife's amazing at helping me also made me really good at other stuff. So, to me, you kind of can't have one without the other.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Timothy Bradshaw: But what I've tried to do, in 2018, we did a year of challenges, which was another terrible idea. And we essentially did an endurance challenge a month, every month for a year. We did like a half iron man triathlon. We climbed the Matterhorn amongst other things. I cycled L'Étape du Tour, which is a terrible idea for any people, in your audience that are mammals, middle-aged men in Lyra and who have push bikes worth more than their cars that they perhaps haven't told their other halves about.

You know, it's the ultimate challenge. You get to cycle the mountain stages like Tour de France. And I was definitely not ready for it and not prepared for it. And it put me to a really dark place. But one of the reasons that we did all these challenges was almost a bit of an experiment on me for me to try and work out, you know, how'd you get through these things and how'd, you cope with it and kind of consciously deal with it. And I think for me, it's about momentum. So, the first thing, we have this expression, it's in the book actually, called fear, false expectation appearing real, and any bits ever suffered with a bit pressure anxiety, one often leads to the other will find the clouds kind of roll in and you start to think, oh, this is going to happen and that's going to happen.

And Steve's thinking this off me, and if Steve's thinking that of me, then this is going to happen and now that's going to happen. But the reality of that is, although that feels quite real to me at the time, the reality is actually not real. It's a perception of what's going on around you. So, what you have to do or what works for me, I've never tell any what they have to do. What's worked for me is, focus on what's real. So almost list the facts. And our company strap line is intelligence, not information. So, list out the facts. This is what's real. This is what I know. And what you'll find is, I find is, that starts to then sort of push the clouds back because now I'm dealing with the reality of a situation, not my perception of a situation. And once that started to happen, you start to gain a little bit of traction.

And then I have this other expression, which is, remember for your big goal. You know, why did I get out of bed this morning, essentially. Ignore the dangerous middle ground and get there by taking small steps. So, in other words, using the tour as an example, two mountains in terms of two of the four we had to cycle up. I was, you know, flat out, done, finished, couldn't do it. But I reminded myself, I was doing it for mental health charities. So therefore, I wasn't going to let them down. That was my big picture.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Timothy Bradshaw: On mountain two, if I tried to think about mountain three or mountain four, I would've talked myself out of it, if that makes sense. So actually, what I did was then focus on the next aid station, the next peak, the immediate target in front of me, and we call it micro goal setting. And at one point I could have told you how many lampposts [laugh] were up the final street to the final climb because I was literally going one lamppost at a time.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Timothy Bradshaw: But it's quite a good analogy. So, when that starts to happen, you set yourself a micro goal. So, it's like, okay, can I get this done? Yes, I can. Can I get to the next one of these? Yes, I can. And then gradually that builds momentum. And it sort of starts to take you forward. And I hope that, you know, I hope anybody listening, if that helps just one person, it's not easy. But for me, that's made quite a big difference. And the more times I do it, I now go into a little bit of a routine, and I can find myself start to deal with that

Steve Rush: Amazing insights. Love it. Thank you for sharing that, Tim. I really appreciate it. So, this is where we get to turn the tables a little bit now. So, you've been a army officer, you've led businesses. You now run a really successful consultancy business. So, I want to tap into that leadership mind of yours. So, I'm going to first off, start by asking you to choose and pick amongst all of the lessons that you've collected on your journey and narrow those down to your top three. What would be your top three leadership hacks?

Timothy Bradshaw: Have a toolkit, not a process. Everyone loves a process, right. Everyone, except me. Processes are designed to make sure you get the wing mirror on the car, in the right place at the right time on a production line. They don't work with people. And I'll argue that with everybody all day, so build a toolkit of skills and experiences and in the same way that if you had a problem at home, you'd go to the toolkit and go select the right tool for the right job, rather than blindly following a process, think to yourself, which tool is going to work, you know, for the job that I'm trying to. So, my first one would be, have a toolkit, not a process.

Steve Rush: Nice.

Timothy Bradshaw: The second one as a leader will be, pull not push. Somebody once said to me, always try and be a warrior, not a mercenary [laugh] so, and by that, what I mean is, empathy is an interesting concept, but try and put yourself in the shoes of the people that you are trying to lead and ask yourself, what is it they want out of life?

What is it they want to achieve? And you know, the motto Sandhurst is, served to lead. So, in other words, the leader serves the team, not the other way around. And I think at the moment we have a tendency to go, well, I've made it, I'm the partner, I'm the CEO and whatever. The millions will now run around after me and doing my bidding. Whereas actually, if you can create a pool so that you have a company full of warriors, rather than mercenaries, that are working for a check, then to me, you will achieve far more. And certainly, when crazy stuff happens, like the pandemic or whatever else, that team of warriors are much more likely to rally round and find a way out, rather than sort of simply take the paycheck out, if that makes sense.

Steve Rush: Love it.

Timothy Bradshaw: And then I think my final one would be of the three would just be simply sort of, don't stop and keep reevaluating all of the time, keep reevaluating the situation. I'm a massive believer in John Boyd. The new Top Gun film is out, right. So, I'm about say it's brilliant. I was very skeptical, but no, it was brilliant.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I'm with you.

Timothy Bradshaw: But a lot of people don't realize is that the actual place, fightertown in Miramar came about because a guy called John Boyd who's a Colonel in the American Air Force came up with OODA loop thinking which is, observe, orientate, decide and act, and it goes round in a loop. So, in other words, what happens is, you gather intelligence, you interpret that intelligence, you take a decision, you carry out that action, like your life depends upon it. But then what you do is, you instantly start to observe the reaction if you like that you've carried out and is it working and adjust accordingly? And what that does is it means, rather than having this kind of linear decision-making process where the outcome is, be all an end all. In fact, any decision is simply part of this kind of ever rotating process, where you're constantly adjusting the course. And the best analogy I can think of is sailing. You know, you don't kind of set the course sail for 10 days and hope for the best, then check the compass again. You know, you're constantly checking the compass and constantly adjusting the course. And for me that would be it.

Steve Rush: Great lesson.

Timothy Bradshaw: So, that you're always adjusting.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I love that. I love that last one as well, because the world isn't as linear as people think it is, people are not as linear. Processes and organizations are changing intraday. And having that ability to be fleet of foot is, is really powerful, isn't it?

Timothy Bradshaw: Yeah, totally agree Steve, absolutely. And we're proving that more and more, you know, we kind think coronavirus, and thought, that's done. And then the Ukrainian thing happened and there will be another one, you know, when this is sorted, there will be another one.

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly. So next part of the show, Tim, we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something hasn't worked out as you'd intended, it might be something that's gone quite wrong, but you've actually taken that as an experience. And it's now positive in your life and work. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Timothy Bradshaw: I think you've got to; you've got to seek out the positive outcomes from anything you can find to take the lessons out of it. And I think, you know, using an analogy and I guess this is not everybody can use it, but we can use the lessons that come out of. It was, we spent two years trying to pull off the Everest expedition and we got it all sorted. And we got to the mountain, and we thought, wow, this is it. We're going to do it. You know, we all joke sort, you know, book, deal and TV show. And then, when all the earthquakes happened and everything else happened around you, I think the first thing that happened is you kind of feel quite sorry for yourself. And you think that this is outrageous. I put all this time and money and effort, and now this has all gone wrong.

And then you suddenly realize that the people around you have lost their homes and their families. So, whilst you can't help the way you feel, it puts it into context, and I think you have to accept that. And at the time, I kind of walked away feeling like a little bit like of a failure really. Even though they were situations so far out of my control, you know, it's not even fathomable to think you could have controlled that situation. But actually, now we use that experience to help school kids. So, we've spoken to over seven and a half thousand school kids about what it's like when it doesn't quite go to plan about how you adapt and overcome and about how you refocus and how you keep working the problem regardless of what's going on around you. So, in fact, that very negative situation, what was that 2015? So, the best part of 10 years later. Now is providing a very positive input and outcome to schools as to how to overcome the challenge that they faced over the last couple of years. So, I think, like I said, to take out the positive lessons, you know, wherever you can.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely. And that was an extreme example of where learning happens, but sometimes the evaluation of the learning is sometimes afterwards, right?

Timothy Bradshaw: Mm

Steve Rush: Mm.

Timothy Bradshaw: Absolutely, yeah.

Steve Rush: So last part of the show, Tim, we get to do some time travel with you. You can bump into Tim at 21, probably just finishing or midway through Sandhurst. I suspect at the time, what would your advice to him be?

Timothy Bradshaw: I think [laugh] when we take decision making or when I teach critical decision making now, which I do a lot of with big corporate. The first thing we tell people is take a tactical pause, which is just take a deep breath for a minute. You know, when you in an airplane, there's a reason why they tell you to put your own oxygen mask on first. And I think it would be, take your time, you know, just pause for a minute and respect the experience of those people around you. And kind of let it happen a little bit, let it come to you rather than necessarily instantly try and force every situation. So just take a minute, take in what's happening to you and have faith that whatever is, you know, is going to come to you at some point, don't necessarily sort of instantly try and force it

Steve Rush: Very wise words. Indeed. So, then Tim, what's next for you?

Timothy Bradshaw: So, we are busy at the moment with keynote speaking and we are currently talking to companies about kind of mindset development programs. I think we are really passionate at the minute. I think there's a huge opportunity at the minute for businesses to really reevaluate how they lead, how they make decisions, how they motivate their workforces and make a change. And I think probably now more than ever, there's a window for people to seize that opportunity and go, we're going to take lessons out of this. The workforce is up for it, we're up for it. And let's see if we can make a difference. So, we're quite keen to kind of be a part of that wave. And then the next mission, we're planning our next trip to Ukraine. The boys and girls that we were talking to the other week have got a massive problem. They haven't got enough vehicles to bring casualties back from the front line to the hospitals. So, we are talking to a few people at the moment, we've set up a charity called the Sandstone Foundation, and we are working to try see if we can't get some four by old fours out to these guys to help them and bring back casualties. So that's the next project, I guess.

Steve Rush: Awesome, brilliant news. And for those folks that listen to this, Tim, I'm pretty certain, they're going to want to know how they can get a copy of, Because I Can. Find out a little bit more about the work you do with Sandstone Communications. Where's the best place for us to send them?

Timothy Bradshaw: Two things, really. The book is on Amazon. Just simply search either for me or for Because I Can or Waterstones, I think have it as well. And the best way to find out or get in touch is via LinkedIn. So, Timothy Bradshaw on LinkedIn and I would love to hear from anybody. I love learning. I love talking to people. And particularly as I said, if you've got a lot of listeners across, you know, further up field, America and Canada and all over. I'm always fascinated to hear how, what we think resonates elsewhere. So please, yeah. Drop me a line on LinkedIn and then I'll always do my best to respond.

Steve Rush: We'll make sure those links are in our show notes as well, Tim, but I'm just delighted that we've managed to get you on our show. You're an incredibly inspirational guy. You've got such a lot of experience that we can learn from in lots of different parts of our lives and work. So, Tim, thanks for being part of our community on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Timothy Bradshaw: No, thank you very much, Steve. Really enjoyed it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, thanks Tim.

Closing

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Frank Forencich is an internationally-recognized leader in health and performance education. A Stanford University graduate in human biology and neuroscience, he has over 30 years teaching martial arts and neuro health education. Frank holds black belt in both Karate and Aikido. He’s a multiple author, including the book, Beware False Tigers: Strategies and Antidotes for an Age of Stress. We can learn lot’s from Frank, including:

What are “False Tigers” and how to recognize them.
The "primate's predicament" and "the state of the human-animal."
How to notice the big stressors of our time - The real tigers?
The consequences of high stress on business leaders?

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Full Transcript Below

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush, and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

If ever you wonder what the relationship was with the animals in the Savannahs of Africa and our own emotional intelligence, you can find out today. Frank Forencich is an internationally recognized leader in health and performance education. Having studied human biology and neuroscience. He's dedicated his life to understanding the relationship we have with our brains. But before we had a chance speak with Frank, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: You'll know if you're a regular listener, there's always top tips and ideas to help you on your way. But we're going to flip that round today and look at things that we can avoid. So here are the five common mistakes that both young and experienced leaders make and how to avoid them. Number one, in properly delegating work, failing to properly delegate work is a number one, common leadership blunder, good leaders, hand out assignments, according to skills and interest. Don't assign a writing assignment to a developer and vice versa. You know, that just makes no sense, right? Another way to innovate and get results is to award certain work with those who volunteer for it. By taking a chance, you might discover unique skills from the person who least expect it. Number two, communicating poorly, feel like you're not providing enough feedback to your team. And it's time to revisit the lines of communication, make it a priority to have open communication, regardless of who it is. Reiterate this need to have weekly meetings, stress the importance of timely replies. Just as long as your team will answer, and you do the same. You can create a huge swell of energy that's positive. Overcommunication in a crisis is even more relevant, but the hack is to set out sometimes and set out some expectations of what it is you are intending to send and receive from your team. Number three, focusing too much on strategy and not enough on day-to-day tactics.

Some leaders get blindsided by the alluring strategy rather than the day to day, but it’s these everyday tactics require strong focus in order to arrive at your final solution in the first place. I used to call these BBCs or basic, but critical behaviors, things that you expect to see happen that are task driven and focused on outcomes. They're all people centric, and you're able to connect the dots to your strategy, but those daily basic routines help you on your longer journey. Number four, failing to balance a hands-off approach with micromanaging. Many leaders are either two hands off or they over manage. The optimum solution is to find the balance between the two and to help you get there, accountability and empowerment are the two triggers. Get your accountability and empowerment imbalance you create more leaders and high performance.

Number five. Forgetting to teach, train, motivate, and reward. Ongoing training and learning and development is not only vital for the individual, but for the entire company. There are thousands of online seminars for pretty much any discipline, especially in things like digital, many are free. And for those that aren't, you might be able to pay them through relationships. Doesn't have to be a direct cost. And of course, the biggest learning comes from doing. The experiences you have that naturally occur across your organization. Sometimes helping people recognize that actually that is exactly what's happening. They are learning is part of that process. Next is motivation. Now you've pretty much worked out I would imagine that you can't actually motivate anybody, but you can create the right environment for those to be motivated in whether it be a senior group of people or junior staff. It's more important that you find those good old-fashioned things that are really important to them. Understanding their internal and intrinsic motivations will really help you connect the dots and the purpose of the work that they do. The things that make them tick.

And it's a mistake, but many leaders just don't even ask, what is it that motivates you? And lastly, reward, if an employee excels, provides more bonuses, small gestures of thanks, doesn't have to be huge amounts of bonuses, but again, linked to intrinsic motivation can make a world of difference. And of course, it'll be different for everyone, but find out, ask a question, how do you like to be rewarded? And you'll also get some great data that you can rely on as a leader.

Leadership mishap and blunder are an inevitability. We're going to do it. The most important thing is to learn from those blunders along the way. So as leaders, we can truly be in the service of our teams. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. And thank you to Rebecca, one of our listeners who encourage us to look at this from a different lens to flip the context and to look at this as a lesson learned activity, let's dive into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Frank Forencich is a special guest on today's show. He's an internationally recognized leader in health and performance education. He's a Stanford University graduate in human biology and neuroscience. As over 30 years, teaching martial arts and experience around health and education. Frank holds black belt in both karate and aikido and his many research trips across the world, including Africa, has helped him really get into and study the human origins and ancestral environment. And that's where he got his inspiration from his new book, Beware False Tigers: Strategies and Anecdotes for an Age of Stress. Frank, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Frank Forencich: Delighted to be here.

Steve Rush: So, I'm really intrigued at how you can get two black belts and two martial arts, as well as all of the experience you pull together.

Frank Forencich: [Laugh].

Steve Rush: And written many books, Frank. So, I can't wait to get into the journey. Perhaps for our audience. You could just give us a little bit of the backstory as to how you've arrived to do what you do today?

Frank Forencich: Right, well, I first became interested in the martial arts in my early twenties. And this was when I was an undergraduate at Stanford and I was studying human biology and I was fascinated with physicality and with movement. And I thought that there was something there that was very important. And as an educational experience, the martial art was just fantastic for me. It was a time to feel really focused. And I had a lot of really fantastic teachers. And at the same time, I had a professor in human biology who said, if you really want to understand the human animal, you have to go to Africa and study our history. And so, I took him up on that and little by little, all these various pieces started to come together. And later on, I studied athletic training and massage therapy and it's been a really exciting journey to look at the human body where it came from and how it functions. So, I've, been exceptionally lucky in this to have all these opportunities to do.

Steve Rush: And many scholars that kind of walk in your path almost have gone to Africa into the Savannahs and have used that as a backdrop to really understand human behavior, as well as animal behavior, haven't they?

Frank Forencich: Right, and I think it's so essential that we are involved in this because the modern world is kind of an illusion. We tend to believe that the world has always been the way it is now, and we've kind of parachuted into the modern world. But in fact, we have a history, and that history is deep and important.

Steve Rush: And that history I suspect that you talk about is where we had no distractions. We were kind of in our original settings and that's how we were programmed physiologically to behave, right?

Frank Forencich: Right, you can study the stuff directly. But I think for people who haven't studied it is to have a look at the movie. The Gods Must Be Crazy. And you might remember that one where, the first half of the movie, actually the first 20 minutes of the movie, they look at the lives of the Kalahari Bushman in South Africa. And they compare that to the modern, urban people living in Africa. And they really show the mismatch between our original experience and what we experience today.

Steve Rush: So, some of our folk will be familiar with that fight or flight freeze and appease that comes with that physiological response to an environment. But the irony is, that what was created through our evolution to protect us and service in times of danger and need, actually, we now trigger for this, you know, being late for work or I'm behind on a Zoom meeting or something like that, right?

Frank Forencich: Right, and that's sort of the irony. We've created a world, a modern world with a lot of comforts, but at the same time, we've created a lot of new and unique threats to our bodies and our lives and things like computer viruses and phishing attacks and all of these fine print sort of things didn't exist until recently. So now we have, you might say new tigers in camp.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so hence the title of the book, right. Beware of False Tigers.

Frank Forencich: Yes.

Steve Rush: So, what was it that compelled you to write the book and tell us a little bit about it?

Frank Forencich: Right, well, this goes back to my experience in massage school, because of course there was a lot of talk about stress and reducing stress. And the more I looked at that, the more I started to realize this is a major, major theme for the modern world. It's not just feeling a little bit anxious, or it's not just a threat to your own personal longevity or health. This is something that afflicts the entire human population now in a way that's historically unprecedented.

Steve Rush: Right.

Frank Forencich: So, this is a major theme for all of us.

Steve Rush: Yeah, you call these tigers. How do you recognize tigers?

Frank Forencich: [Laugh], well, we recognize them through the limbic system of our brain and our autonomic nervous system. And this is something that happens oftentimes below conscious radar. And we experience a feeling, a threat to our personal welfare. And then we get to try and interpret what that is. You know, the voice of stress is not always that articulate. And we may feel a threat to the organism, a threat to our welfare. And then we get to try and decode what that feeling is all about. So, it's an exercise in learning the world and an exercise in learning who we are.

Steve Rush: And the whole notion of them being false tigers is, we're probably releasing the tigers unnecessarily?

Frank Forencich: Right.

Steve Rush: Would that be a kind of fair take on things?

Frank Forencich: Right, it's always about perception. So, if you have an event in your life and you interpret it as a tiger, but maybe it's really not an actual threat to your life, then you're turning on your fight flight system.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Frank Forencich: Unnecessarily, and if you only do that, occasionally, if you get it wrong, occasionally that's no big deal, but if you get it wrong consistently over the course of months and years, then that's going to degrade your health, but not just your health, but your cognition and your ability to function in the world. So, it has huge ripple effects across your entire life.

Steve Rush: The one thing that struck me when I started reading your book, Frank is, why don't they teach us in high school? And why don't they teach us in, you know, kindergarten and junior and primary schools?

Frank Forencich: Oh yeah. That's a big pet pave of mine because this is something that's so important to our ability to function. And yet we mostly ignore it. And the way I pitch this, I say, for the human animal, we have to have an understanding of what's dangerous in the world. And in the paleo, this was always obvious because everybody, even little children in your tribe, in your camp, would've known that carnivores and predators are dangerous and that wildfires are dangerous and fast flowing rivers are dangerous. That sort of thing, and danger, would've been palpable and easy to understand, but now we have all these new threats, and we don't educate for that. It's unlikely that any of your listeners have ever taken a course called what is dangerous.

Steve Rush: That's right, yeah.

Frank Forencich: But we should be doing that. And that would help us sort out genuine dangers from false dangers. And that would seem to be a fundamental part of human education now.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I agree with you. So, within the book, you talk about a couple of things I'd love to unpick them with you. One of which is prime makes predicament.

Frank Forencich: Yes.

Steve Rush: Tell us about that?

Steve Rush: Yes, what is the state of the human animal right now? And then there's of course controversy about all of this. But from my point of view, we are under such a high level of stress. A total stress burden that we're carrying around with us means that we have a population level predicament here. And some of the numbers are staggering. There's like 1 billion people in the world now who have in mental health problems.1 billion people in the world are living with chronic pain. That's like one out of eight. So those are huge red flags that the human animal is having trouble adapting to the modern world. And this gets back to mismatch this idea that we have. These ancient bodies trying to make a go of it in the modern world. Some people do pretty well with that mismatch. And some people adapt easily, but an enormous percentage of people are struggling with that challenge. And by and large, we aren't taking it seriously.

Steve Rush: What's the root cause to that mismatch. Do you think?

Frank Forencich: Well, it's kind of a byproduct of our intense creativity. We are really good at devising innovations and short-term solutions and the world becomes progressively more complicated ever since the industrial revolution. We've had this just escalating series of innovations that the human animal hasn't really had time to adapt to. All of this innovation has happened in the blink of an eye and boom. Now all of a sudden, we're in this new world.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and if we kind of fast forward to, you know, the next 10 years. Thinking about the real stresses of our lives and our times and the real tigers, how do we kind of figure out what's real to us versus what we are fooling ourselves as false tigers?

Frank Forencich: Right, well, I think the number one thing that we have to be doing right now is listening to the science and especially climate science that is without question, the alpha tiger on the planet right now, that is the biggest threat to human welfare, human civilization and our ability to have any kind of a future. So that is the tiger that we have to be working with right now.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely. And it's, I guess you could call it a real tiger because we've got the evidence that comes with that.

Frank Forencich: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So much like in the paleo, we could see the, you know, the burning forest. We could see the rapids in the water. We can actually see that happening around us now. So, I guess it helps us make that awareness that it is a real tiger. How do you convince those who are maybe less aware that it is real?

Frank Forencich: Oh, that's a great question. And what I'm seeing is a lot of frustration in the climate community among climate scientists who are saying, we need to convince people that this is real. There's a lot of frustration there. A breakaway group of climate scientists now have become activists. And they're saying the conventional channels really aren't working. So, I'm not sure what it is. I think it's going to take some shocks to the system that are going to make this obvious to more people. But right now, it's an uphill battle.

Steve Rush: You used the word that I just want to explore, which is activist and activism. And I know that's something that you've been really passionate about, but people also get confused with the word, don't they? Because they see it as something that's aggressive and it's contrary. And actually, you have a very different spin on it. I wonder if you could just share that?

Frank Forencich: [Laugh], right. Well, the book I'm currently writing is about activism from a martial arts perspective.

Steve Rush: Okay.

Frank Forencich: The idea here is that we are immersed in a world where their conflict is inevitable. And once again, we don't have much training for that at all. Our educational systems basically ignore that fact of conflict and we don't teach young people how to deal with that. So that's why there's so much angst, I think in people who are trying to make a difference, we basically don't know how. We don't know whether to be hard or soft in our various styles, whether to be linear or circular in the way we approach conflict. So, there's a lot of work to be done there, but I think activism is essential. There's plenty of research to show. It actually improves the quality of our health. When we act on things that we find meaningful, then the body tends to do better.

Steve Rush: That's really interesting perspective too, isn't it?

Frank Forencich: Mm-Hmm.

Steve Rush: And it is that act on something that you're really passionate about, which kind of underpins that whole activism bit, I guess, that what you see in the press and on the TV of activists is usually the far end of, the extreme ends of where people have already been triggered and are probably overplaying that, right?

Frank Forencich: Right, yes. And it's easy to focus on the spectacular acts of activism, but there's a lot of invisible activisms that's going on as well. And it may not be spectacular, but there's a lot of work that people are doing currently that is very important and may not be as dramatic. So, we need to keep that in mind as well.

Steve Rush: Now, for many of the folk listening to this show, they'll be either leading teams or businesses or even leading themselves. And therefore, from their perspective, what do you see as the certain consequences of them not getting hold of this in terms of their managing their stress and their energy?

Frank Forencich: Right, well, there's a whole list of consequences that come when people are under chronic stress. And one of the most interesting for me is called reversion to the familiar. And we all know this in our own personal lives, because if you're having a hard day, what do you want to do? You want to go home and sit in your living room, a place that's familiar to you and you want to read the same books you've always read. You want to watch the same movies that you've always seen. You want to eat the same foods. You want to go back to the familiar and for people who are leading teams, this is also important because maybe you need new ideas. Maybe you need creativity going forward to come up with solutions to the problems you're facing, but the stress, it inclines people to revert to what they already know. And that makes sense, and it's fine in moderation.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Frank Forencich: The dose makes the poison here. So, if you go home at the end of a hard day and you revert to the familiar, that's good for you. But if you, do it all the time, you're never going to make any progress.

Steve Rush: Ironically, it could even make the stress worse in the future because the gap between the intention and the act gets bigger, right?

Frank Forencich: Right, exactly. And that's what we're seeing in the world of climate and ecosystem. Collapse is, that as the stress escalates, people are going to just double down on what they already know, and that's going to make solutions even more difficult to arrive at.

Steve Rush: There is a notion too, isn't there. That stress is actually not a bad thing if you get the dose, right?

Frank Forencich: Right, and the way I say it is that stress is a frenemy.

Steve Rush: I like that.

Frank Forencich: And it's a wonderful thing for the body and the mind, small doses of stress are good for us. And this is the job of the teacher, the coach, the therapist, and the leader in an organization is to be precise in how much stress we put people under. And we have yet to really do this in any kind of systematic way. But it's essential to remember that there's an inverse U-Shape curve to this. A little bit of stress is good. A little bit more stress is even better. And then of course there's a tipping point and a reversal where stress becomes bad. But this idea in the standard narrative, that all stress is bad, and that the ideal life is a stress-free life. That's not very helpful.

Steve Rush: Is there another word we could switch out for stress? Because I think it actually has a word itself, it's probably unhelpful. Is there another word you might use that would kind of help us think about stress in a positive way?

Frank Forencich: Right, and that's a good point because it's been worked so hard in the popular press. Everybody seems to think that they know what it is and it's kind of a pigeonhole problem, right. So, one workaround that I use there is, I talk about our encounter with novelty. So, a little bit of novelty is exciting and therapeutic, young children love novelty, right. And they seek it out. Young adults love novelty, more is better, up to a point. And so, you can think of stress of in the same terms. This is our encounter with novelty. A little bit is good. A little bit more is great. Too much novelty becomes toxic.

Steve Rush: I love the reframe because as you've just alluded to, as soon as you mention the word, novelty, people are intrigued. They want to find out. They want to learn a bit more don't they? And that gives them that unconscious permission to dive in a bit deeper.

Frank Forencich: Right, and it's an essential part of our creative process is to have that encounter with novelty. But there has to be limits. There has to be guidelines, and there has to be a recognition that you may be encountering too much novelty. And then you've got to take care of yourself.

Steve Rush: Maybe you can just take us through some of your tried and tested methods for relieving, some of that stress or some coping mechanism solutions, call it what you will?

Frank Forencich: Right, yeah. Well, I've got quite a list here, but the first one of course is to ask the question, is this a real tiger? Or is it not? And that, it seems such a simple approach, but it really works. And it's worked in my life where I'll be worrying about something, and something has dominated my consciousness. And then I take a step back and I say, okay, is this a real threat to my life? Is this a real threat to my future, my welfare? And if the answer is, yes, I have to take action. If the answer is no, I can safely let that thing go. So that's helpful.

Steve Rush: That's really powerful, right. Because in that moment, you're able to pretty much evaluate that whole, is it a real threat or not? And therefore, unconsciously will trigger different chemical reactions in our mind, won't it?

Frank Forencich: Right, right. And you can always revisit it. You can always reevaluate whether it's a genuine threat or not, but it is a powerful starting point. The other bit of advice that I give people is just to say, give yourself a break. I mean, this climate predicament that we're in, this level of mismatch that everyone is experiencing, this is universal across the planet. It's not just you, [laugh], that's experiencing this. And just knowing that in itself can be helpful.

Steve Rush: And if I'm stressed out right now, I'm in the moment, I'm listening to you Frank. What would be the one thing that would enable me to kind of step out of that?

Frank Forencich: The scanner prescriptions are quite good here. I mean, focusing on the breath is really good. And the other bit, I think that's really important is just slowing down. This is another part of a modern world. That's so difficult for us is, that a sense of urgency is very contagious among hyper social animals. So, if the people around you are in a big hurry, which is often the case, then that tends to rub off on us. And then we start speeding up as well. So, the reminder here is, whatever you're doing, slow down.

Steve Rush: And in your experience, Frank, having traveled the world and worked in different locations, studying, not just humans, but also animals. Is there a blueprint we can look at in the animal kingdom that is replicated in how we behave as human sapien?

Frank Forencich: Well, yes. And I had an insight into this when I visited a museum in the American Southwest, and it was a desert museum, and they had all the types of things that you would expect in a desert museum. But we walked around into a courtyard at the museum and there was a large cage there with a wild Jaguar, a wild Panther that had recently been captured. And this was an extraordinary thing to watch that this Panther was pacing back and forth in the cage and exhibiting what you might call hyperactivity or ADHD or whatever you want to call it. The animal was very anxious. And from a modern perspective, you might say, well, that animal was having some sort of a neurological problem or a lifestyle disease or some sort of anxiety disorder. But on the other hand, you look at that animal and say, no, that's an absolutely normal response to being incarcerated.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Frank Forencich: And so, for me to look at animals in that kind of situation, and then to look at humans and this epidemic of depression and anxiety that people are experiencing now. I tell people, look, you are not diseased. If you are feeling this way, this is the normal response of a normal animal to these kinds of difficult surroundings. So that's a big stress reliever right there, because.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Frank Forencich: Once you realize that your body is behaving the way a normal animal would behave, it's not you [laugh], it's your animal life. And so that I find very helpful.

Steve Rush: You do a lot to help people get out of that environment, don't you? So, you use things like movement, your martial arts as an example of that. Just tell us a little bit about how some of those things can help.

Frank Forencich: Right, well obviously getting outside is crucial and a lot more people are recommending this now, and it makes sense, but it's not just the experience of being outdoors. It's this psychological identification with nature that I think is what we really need to see as native people have done for a very long time now, this thing called nature is not other, it is actually itself. It is actually us. So, when you look at a forest or you look at the ocean, you look at some natural terrain, that is an extension of you. It's an extension of your body, the native people call this the long buy. So that is a very helpful way to look at this as well. The other part of your question there is, with the movement and the martial arts, this movement in a social setting and touching other human animals that has a very therapeutic effect as well, developing rapport with other people through the body that eases our sense of fear, and it makes us feel great.

Steve Rush: Awesome. Really fascinating. I could spend all day picking your brains but.

Frank Forencich: [Laugh].

Steve Rush: Unfortunately, we won't have the time. One of the things I would love to do now though, is just to turn the tables a little bit and dive into your brain, thinking about some of the things you've experienced from a leadership perspective over your 30 plus years in teaching leaders and others to get to grips with their human self, what would be your top three leadership hacks?

Frank Forencich: Well, the first one, and I love this one because it's kind of counterintuitive, I say, treat people like animals.

Steve Rush: [Laugh], right.

Frank Forencich: And, for some people, this sounds so surprising.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Frank Forencich: And so shocking because when we use that phrase, we were treated like animals. We tend to think that that was a bad thing. We were on the airplane, and they treated us like animals because that's, I guess, what we've done historically is, we've treated animals poorly, but I turn this thing upside down and I take a veterinary approach to leadership or teaching or coaching, any of these things, look at your people, your students, your clients, your patients as animals first and foremost. And if they're coming into your setting and they're already hyper stressed, now you've got to work with that. Maybe they need more stress. Maybe they need less, but you have to look at what their experience is right now. And that is a whole new domain I think of leadership because we have to look at the physical experience and the psychological experience that people are bringing to the setting.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Frank Forencich: Now some people have suggested, well, we need to measure their cortisol levels and that would be a technical approach. But they, I think there's another approach there, it's just more humane and means listening better.

Steve Rush: Yeah, love it.

Frank Forencich: Other leadership hacks. The other one I like from the native and indigenous tradition is called contextual leadership. And this simply means that people are leaders, not across the board, in every situation, but in certain domains. So, you might be a really good leader on the hunt and people in your tribe would recognize that. But when you get back to camp, you might not be such a great leader at preparing food. You might not be such a great leader telling stories around the campfire. Other people are good at that. And this is part of the indigenous tradition that people say, well, you are a leader in this situation, but not in another one. And I think this is something that we can also take to heart and assign and invite people to become leaders in other roles.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and if you think of yourself as an animal in a tribe or a pack, they all have their roles to play and that's good old fashioned, situational leadership, isn't it?

Frank Forencich: Right, and I think in the modern world, we often get this wrong because we say, if a person is a good leader in one domain, then they must be a good leader in all things, but that's best crazy.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Frank Forencich: And then the third leadership hack, I think is, just to recognize the power of story and this is so important because the stress response is driven by our perception and our interpretation of reality, which means there is a story body connection. There is a connection between story and the autonomic nervous system. And if we can change or reframe stories, then we can literally working with people's bodies and we need to be better storytellers.

Steve Rush: Love those, their awesome. Thank you, Frank. So, the next part of the show we call Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something hasn't gone well and maybe been catastrophic, but we've taken the opportunity to learn from it. And now is a force of good in our life or work. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Frank Forencich: Right, well, looking back at my life and some of the mistakes I've made, I can trace some of this back to having a poor understanding of what's called the drama triangle. And you may have heard of this, is a popular theme in the world of psychotherapy and counseling, where therapists have recognized a common pattern. And that's when things aren't going well. We tend to describe ourselves as victims. And when we do that, then we typically blame perpetrators for our situation. And then we go in search of rescue. So those are the three points of the drama triangle. And this is a very popular thing [laugh] that people do. And it sucks us in, because we say I'm a victim. There must be a perpetrator out there somewhere. And so, we blame these people or governments or institutions for our unhappiness. And then we'd go looking for rescue from ideas or ideologies or substances, whatever it is. And when we get immersed in this drama triangle, things tend to spiral out control.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Frank Forencich: So, the way out of the drama triangle, as most coaches and therapists recommend, they say, look, you have to be creative, stop blaming perpetrators, stop looking for rescue and start focusing on the creation that you want to do in the world.

Steve Rush: Nice.

Frank Forencich: And that took me some years to realize

Steve Rush: [Laugh], it's nice. I like it a lot, yeah. So that last part I show Frank, we get to do with you is taking you on some time travel. You get to bump into yourself with 21 and you get to give yourself some advice. What do you think it might be?

Frank Forencich: Yes, well, I would say to my 21-year-old self, that taking responsibility, and this goes back to the drama triangle. Taking responsibility is powerful because the more you take on the more meaningful life becomes.

Steve Rush: Mm.

Frank Forencich: And you don't have to just take responsibility for your own personal life. No, you take responsibility for the entire world. And so, for example, I didn't cause climate change, I don't cause racism or sexism or xenophobia or anything, but I do want to take responsibility for those things in the world and doing what I can. So that is a path towards meaning and that is a path towards fulfillment. And my 21-year-old self really would've benefited from that.

Steve Rush: Yeah, mine too. I think [laugh], wise words. So, what's next for you then Frank, on your journey?

Frank Forencich: Well, I'm really excited about this book about martial artistry and activism. The title is The Enemy is Never Wrong and I'm excited about the title because this is a teaching that I had from a martial art teacher some years ago. And he advised us to stop getting emotionally involved in the rightness or wrongness of our opponents. He said, look, whatever the enemy does is just what you have to work with. Don't get attached to any particular strategy or outcome. You have to just take the enemy as is, that's a good teaching there. And that's something that we can do as activists.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Frank Forencich: So, I'm really excited about that title and that concept and that's where I'll be going for the next year.

Steve Rush: Excellent, and I love that notion as well, because more often not, you can get so easily involved in the problem or the solution rather than just seeing it as it is, which when we wind it back to 1.1, being present and in the moment stops those false tigers, doesn't it?

Frank Forencich: Yeah. Yeah. It's a powerful teaching, so.

Steve Rush: Awesome, so how can our listeners get copies of many of your books and indeed find out a little bit more about the work you do beyond our conversation?

Frank Forencich: Right, well, it's easy to remember the website. It's all there, it's exuberantanimal.com and if you type in exuberant animal, you'll get it.

Steve Rush: Cool, and we'll put those any links you have to the various books and work you have in our show notes as well Frank.

Frank Forencich: Nice, nice.

Steve Rush: I've really enjoyed chatting. It's such a fantastic parallel to our world and your work has brought it into the world of business because it's a real thing. We all have tigers. Some of them and in fact more of them are probably more false than real.

Frank Forencich: Right.

Steve Rush: And just understanding them and being able to deal with those can help us become better leaders and better people to work with. So, thanks for sharing your information, Frank, and thanks for being on our community, on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Frank Forencich: Oh yeah. It's been great fun. I've enjoyed It.

Steve Rush: Thank you, Frank.

Closing

View Details

Dr Bob Nelson is author of the multimillion-copy bestseller 1001 Ways to Engage Employees, he’s also is president of Nelson Motivation, Inc. and the world's leading authority on Employee Recognition and Engagement. He has published 31 books that have sold over 5 million copies that have been translated into over 30 languages. In the humorous and insightful show you can learn:

How "Work" and "Fun" go together in the most successful workplaces to motivate employees
Why do employees rank “Fun” at the top of the list at the Best Companies to Work for
What the best companies do to find the latest value in employee reward programs beyond gift cards and handshakes
Innovative and creative ways businesses can amplify their culture and increase productivity with “Fun"

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Dr Bob below:

Dr Bob on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drbobnelson

Dr Bob on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBobNelson1

Website: https://drbobnelson.com

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush, and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Today's special guest is Dr. Bob Nelson. He's a world's leading authority on employee recognition, motivation and engagement. Dr. Bob has authored over 30 books, which have collectively sold over five million copies. Before we get a chance to speak with Bob. It's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today. We're going to explore how social media can really make a difference to any business of any kind anywhere. So, we're going to look at a fast-food joint when from a local eatery to internet stardom, thanks to iconic memes and a catchy theme tune. And this is a story of Binley Mega Chippy. Now, for those that are in North America and around the world, a chip shop in England is a place where you go to buy French fries and fast food. It started out as unassuming, local, fast-food joint, and it's now arguably the most famous fast-food joint on the planet. For years, it was just like any other English eatery, serving French fries, chips, fish, and of course, other really unhealthy, deep-fried foods.

It's not particularly attractive to look at. It's a vision of red and gold, but it's a reliable Oasis to many people in and around Coventry, but the Internet's taken Binley Mega Chippy and turned it into a TikTok fiesta for culinary destination for anybody visiting this part of England. Owner, Kamal Gandhi, 70-years-old. Now has a huge number of customers. Some of whom have apparently traveled from as far as France, America and even Australia. So how did this local chip shop go from a small fry to a huge gastronomic location of choice? Well, the first mention of Binley Mega Chippy hit the internet in just 2009, and it was a simple kind of nod to here's where we are and what we do. Fast forward to 2022, Binley Mega Chippy began to appear, but still continued on relative obscurity, not knowing what's to come. Viral hysteria hit the fast-food outlet. In 2022 when it featured in the slideshow of multiple UK, fast food joints and TikTok in April. It's first month, there were 82,000 views and 11,000 likes. Fast forward now, millions and millions of people are using this as a backdrop to other memes and are joining in with the chant of the song. Decades of research and millions of dollars and pounds of advertising who have shown that society loves a good jingle, and it helps sell a product. And the same appears to be true for fast food outlets. On the 25th of May, binleymegachippyfan53 posted just a ten second clip with a static picture with a Bingley Mega Chippy Jingle. Now for obvious marketing reasons, I’m not able to play that for you now. I'm sure you can find it if you choose to. That short clip now has just over 2 million views and has spawned various spinoffs and remixes.

And now hashtag Bingley Mega Chippy has over 500 million views and naturally people have been visiting it from all over. So having fun, better jingle, the power of the internet can change the lives of anyone and good luck to Kamal Gandhi and his store, we wish him all the success. The leadership hack here is, marketing could be as simple as a ten second clip. It could be something that you say and do. What makes a difference is that emotional connection. So, the next time you're communicating a message or you're building a story or you're creating an internal marketing campaign or external, is it going to hit those real emotional keys to get people stirred into emotional action? That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Let's dive into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Dr. Bob Nelson is a special guest on today's show. He's a multimillion best seller author of, 1001 Ways to Engage Employees. His latest book, Work Made Fun Gets Done. He's also the president of Nelson Motivation Inc. One of the world's leading authorities on employee recognition and engagement, and Bob's published over 31 books and sold over 5 million copies and been translated in over 30 languages. Dr. Bob, welcome to the show.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Thank you for having me, Steve.

Steve Rush: I'm really looking forward to getting into this because I remember the first time you and I met when you also then started to think about this. Over 15,000 ways to reward employees and over 1,001 ways to engage employees. It was a bit of a kind of a journey for me to get my head around those numbers. So, I'm delighted that we get a chance to dive into some of them, not all of them today.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Excellent.

Steve Rush: Before we do that, Bob, let's give our listeners a little bit of a backstory if you like on the journey that is taking you to where you are today.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Well, well, well, I've always been a writer and going back to high school, I remember my English teacher passing out papers and she stopped at my desk and she over hitch, she weighed my paper and said, best paper in five classes. And I was kind of embarrassed and surprised and went back and reread it. And, you know, and I just got the message that I could write. And so that's always been a backdrop for me, and I published my first book when I was 21, a guide on job hunting and have just recently finished my 31st book. So, it's a hard activity, somehow, I keep coming back to it, I guess, like a moth to a flame [laugh].

Steve Rush: Yeah, and do you think that moment in that English class, when that teacher kind of gave you that feedback at that time, do you think that was a catalyst for you at that point?

Dr. Bob Nelson: Well, it's certainly, anytime someone gives you feedback, I think, we all need to see how other people see us and if it's in a positive light then that's good news. You need to hold onto that one. And I think, you know, John Lynn’s said, life's what happens when you're making other plans. So, you got to work into the plans, what people tell you you're good at. And then of course, things that you enjoy doing is important as well.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Mark Twain said the two most important days in anyone's life is the day they're born and then secondly, the day they find out why, so [laugh].

Steve Rush: That's great, yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: It's ongoing journey for each of us to say, what was I meant to be here for? And if you get clues from those around you, who give you feedback, you need to hold onto those and listen to those. And so, I feel fortunate for the career I've had, I've been blessed with having worked with some true experts, each which I've learned from. Ken Blanchard, went to work for, he published the One Minute Manager, which has sold 14 million copies. And so, I learned a lot from him about selling books and I got my PhD from working with Peter Drucker, the father of modern management.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: And I'm currently a personal coach for Marshall Goldsmith. Who's the number one voted executive coach in the world.

Steve Rush: That's right, yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: So, I've been very, very blessed to have some great people to learn from and lean on. And I like passing it on to others when I can.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and we are going to pass that on for sure today. You know, I heard something that I probably read it. You'd coached or had worked with something like 80% of the fortune 500 companies, is that right?

Dr. Bob Nelson: I have, yes.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Spanning 25 years, you get around. And that included, not that long ago, wrapped up a six-month project working for the United Nations. So that was a fun, fun activity. So, you know, life takes you a lot of interesting places and if you can go for the ride, it's usually pretty enticing.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it is. Isn't it?

Dr. Bob Nelson: I found anyway [laugh].

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely so. So, you've managed to find a real niche or a passion, if you like for employee recognition and engagement. What was that defining moment for you when you realized actually, this is the thing that really excites you and makes you tick, and others tick as well?

Dr. Bob Nelson: Well, again to me, it's piecing together the pieces. I was taking a graduate school class and we were talking about; it was a control systems class and professor was talking about the informal control systems. And he made the offhand comment that has proven as the principle for informal reinforcement is, there hasn't been a lot of application in the business world. And I remember thinking I'm going to do something about that [laugh] and actually that evening after my hour and a half drive home from graduate school class in Los Angeles, I typed out a letter to president of publishing firm in New York City and sent it overnight and spent two weeks trying to get him on the phone. And finally, could heard his assistant say, this guy keeps calling, would you talk to him? [laugh] and literally the president of the company, he goes, what do you want? He answers the phone like that. And I said, well, my here's my name. And I sent you a letter about a book and he cut me off. And he said, you sent us a letter about a book. We'll, we'll never do a book based on a letter you sent us, you have to do a proposal, of the 70,000 books that are published this year, that year anyway. Why yours has to be one of them? And why we're the only publisher could possibly do it right. And literally as he's hanging up, he goes, and by the way, we get 10,000 proposals a year, we publish 24 books to click [laugh].

Steve Rush: Nice.

Dr. Bob Nelson: I could have said, well, well, you know, gave it a try, but I said, hey, game on, time to do a proposal [laugh], so maybe there's a lesson there, you know, don't accept defeat.

Steve Rush: Did you go back to this guy though?

Dr. Bob Nelson: I did actually [laugh]. I did the proposal, I got an agent and then next time I met with him, I was sitting across from him though. I flew to New York at my own expense, and he had the proposal in front of him and he opened it up. And my agent had said, well, it'd be helpful if you could lay out a few pages, see what it was actually looks like. I explained it. That should be good enough. No, no, no. It would help people visualize it. So, I did that, and then she said, well, could you do a few more. I go, oh, come on. And I did a few more. And darn, when I'm sitting across him and he doesn't open the proposal to those pages and he goes, this could work. The guy was very visual.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Up here working, was his name. He was a creative genius. And, he only did books that where he personally saw that it could work. Does he see it? Does he see what you see? And so, now he's still on project. He still doesn't know about me.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: And so [laugh], he turns his attention to me and starts asking me questions. I go, well, I'm an administrator for this company in San Diego. And, but that's not what I really want to do. And he goes, what do you really want to do? And I said, be a bestselling author. And I could see a little twinkle in his eye and done deal. And that was [laugh].

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Yeah, they sent me to 27 markets at a time when that wasn't really done anymore. And in the first, gosh, I think of, in the first two months, the book sold 40,000 copies.

Steve Rush: Wow, yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Yeah, which is stunning. And as a business book and now it's in its 64th printing and sold over 2 million copies.

Steve Rush: That's amazing.

Dr. Bob Nelson: So yeah, a lot of people ask me about the book story, because there's a lot of books out there. Over a million books are published year now. When this book came out, seventy thousand. Now it's a million books a year.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Publish each year, and that's with self-publishing and Amazon and you name it. And there's not more readers, but there's a lot more books.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: So.

Steve Rush: And there's still an opportunity for the same folk to, you know, face into the resilience you did, get in front of people and say, look, you know, if you've got a compelling story, just tell it because there will be people who want to read and listen.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Yes, yes. It's, definitely more difficult because it's more constrained and for a typical publisher, the first thing they want to know is, what's your platform? What vehicle do you have to reach people, you know, in terms of number of followers?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Or do you speak, do you do public speaking or are you in media, you know, are you on TV every night? You know, all that kind of goes in the mix.

Steve Rush: Does.

Dr. Bob Nelson: As a result, just a few books get published.

Steve Rush: I remember when I published my book, which was probably about six years ago, having the same conversation with an agent. And at the time I was starting out on my entrepreneurial career, a few years into it and having this kind of light bulb moment that felt I'm not worthy because I haven't got a million followers on Instagram and I haven't got all of this, but you know, what I had was something that was interesting, yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Imposter syndrome.

Steve Rush: Oh, totally.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Yeah, you got to trust your gut. I think, my moment of doubt was, I knew I could write, but then, trying to understand my motivations for writing. That cost me a couple years because I couldn't, hard time starting, why do you want to do this? Is it to make money? Is it for fame? Is it to help people? And that really had me in a bind trying to sort that [laugh], and finally I decided it's for all those reasons.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Yes, I want to help people, but yes, if I make money from it, I could help more people because I could, you know, get the book a wider audience and so I've never quite looked back from that point. I've have done, like I said, I've done 31 books and each one is, writing is difficult. It's very hard. It's exposing your mental thoughts to the world. And man, you better be braced to [laugh] take the feedback and [laugh]. And so, but I've had good success and I love helping other people with the same journey, because there are a lot of good messages to go out there and lot of messages that could help others. And if you have one like that you deserve to be in print.

Steve Rush: Very much so, yeah. And then your last book, Work Made Fun Gets Done. It's one of those titles that when you read it, you go, yeah, that's absolutely true, of course it is.

Dr. Bob Nelson: [Laugh].

Steve Rush: And everybody buys into it. Yet, we also find that that doesn't happen everywhere [laugh] and that some people go to work and it's not fun.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Well, some. Most people actually.

Steve Rush: What did you find out in your research?

Dr. Bob Nelson: So, my books, I tend to favor kind of proven truths or maybe obvious truths that are not obvious in practice. And so, the Work Made Fun Gets Done is one of those, it's part of the mix on having motivated employees and staying with the job over time. And the younger employees, 59% of millennials say they want to have fun at work. So as more and more workers are from that age group, almost 75% now, you know, it's a topic you've got to take seriously as a company. What are we doing to make sure that people are having fun while at work? Now, if you're a cynical or old-line manager, the answer is simple, hey, here's an idea. They can worry about that on the weekend. We're paying them to work, God damn it, you know, and so,

Steve Rush: Yeah, there's still a lot of those around, unfortunately.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Yes, there are. So, you got to say, well, I could see where you would think that, and that makes a lot of sense, but let me tell you, have you looked at your exit interviews? Why people are leaving? You know, on the positive side, for this book. We did research. We looked at the hundred best places to work in America. And we dug in their data. We found that that one of the variables they ask about is, this a fun place to work. And for those companies that work for one of the hundred best companies to work for in America, 82% of their employees, when surveys said, where they work is a fun work environment. And we contrast that to those companies that applied for that award but didn't receive it. Only 61% said it was a fun place to work.

That that 20-point differential was actually one of the largest in their database [laugh] on sorting successful companies from also ran. So, if you want to look at the positive data that supports making fun, a serious part of your business, it's there. And that's why, you know a lot of companies have even made it a core value of their firm, like Best Buy, it's their number one core value is have fun while being the best or Jet Blue, number four, LinkedIn, number six, Mercedes-Benz number three. So, it's workday number five. So, not everybody, but a lot of companies are staking it out saying, yes, yes, we agree. This should be a core value for what we do every day. And if we do that, if we do that well, then guess what? People will pass it on to their customer and to the colleagues. And it'll be easier to come to work, because you're enjoying who you're working with and who you're serving and just everything will go more swimmingly, you know.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: So, it's a simple, it's a simple thing, but common sense, not common practice, an observation first made by Voltaire in 1640.

Steve Rush: [Laugh].

Dr. Bob Nelson: Those things that are common sense are not very common he said [laugh].

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: And hey.

Steve Rush: Wise words.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Still true, still true today.

Steve Rush: And there's also direct correlation to revenue here as well, isn't there. So, the companies you just mentioned are all profitable or high revenue generative businesses.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Yes, yes, yes, they are. And so, it’s a flip side of you know, if work is fun, it's going to be more profitable. If it's more profitable, then of course it's more fun and we're able to pay people better and have better benefits. And so, it's kind of a chicken and egg type thing. I know what comes first. We think that, just make sure it's part of the mix. It doesn't have to start with that. And increasingly we share stories in the book about how people found their way to this. Like the President of Belmont College in Nashville, Tennessee, he did a year sabbatical where he examined high performing companies and he came back and he said number one thing he learned is that every place he examined, high performance companies, they were all fun places. And so, he said, we got to have more fun here. And he immediately created a fun committee and volunteers and charged them with, to do fun things, you know, find out what needs to be celebrated and work it into our culture. Had a group and focused on that. Maybe gave him some budget, and when there was a time, the morale is low, or we have good news to celebrate. Let's do that very well. Let's do it as a group. Let's do it as a team. Let's do it individually. And that's what they do, or I'll tell you another company. I was in Seattle years ago, I was presenting to 800 people and this person in the front row, go, you look really familiar.

And she goes, yeah, yeah. I met you six weeks ago when you were speaking here before, back in Seattle again, after six weeks. And I had to come tell you what happened. I go, well, tell me what happened [laugh]. And she worked for a company. She said, I left your presentation with one thing in mind. I said, this is real. It's happening. I'm going to do it. I'm not asking permission. I'm doing it [laugh] because I believe in it. And that's what she did. I said, well, what'd you do? She goes, I did a bunch of stuff. Like I created a happiness committee in my department, and it had three members of it. No one knew who they were, but anyone could say, it's time to do something. I go, well, something like what? She goes, well, we held a picnic up on the roof in downtown Seattle to celebrate. We bartered meeting space with a company on the next block. That was a limo company, so now we have limo rides we can give people for letting them in our meeting space once a month and you know, on and on. They are just you know, didn't start with a big budget, started with some creativity and some fun. And what difference did make? And she goes, it had a stunning difference [laugh]. People could see it, it changed how they came to work. And she said, I had other managers saying, what are you doing in your department? Your people are so excited. You're on fire. You go, hey, come to the next meeting. We're don’t having any secrets here. And it just grew organically. And you know, and now she's giving me part of the story. So, I went back, and I wrote it up and I put it in the press and navigated external validation for what she's doing internally. Well, fast forward 18 months from that first day I met that woman, that company, Perkins Coie, a law firm of all things, entered the best places to work in America. Number 23 on the list.

Steve Rush: Amazing.

Dr. Bob Nelson: I would content from one person, one person standing up, not at the top. Sometimes we feel only the CEO can make a difference, you know, but in the middle, she was a finance manager in one department. And I would suggest that she personally converted that culture and made it more recognition savvy, where people felt more valued for the work, they were doing every day. Anyone listening can make that same thing happen, where you work.

Steve Rush: Great story.

Dr. Bob Nelson: You could light the fuse. It doesn't have to all be on you, but you can get it going, get going in your walk, in your realm of influence, whatever position you have and invite other people on board. And you can make something happen.

Steve Rush: It's because fun is infectious. So too is misery by the way.

Dr. Bob Nelson: [Laugh].

Steve Rush: And I suspect, you know, that's why, you know, you get that dichotomy between different firms, different teams and in different organizations. But if you were given some advice to our listeners today who may be thinking around, yeah, I want to take some of this fun and energy and ideas forward, but I know that I'm going to bump into maybe a stuffy boss or a stuffy culture. How would you think that would be the best way to maybe break into that?

Dr. Bob Nelson: One of two approaches, either ignore that and make it happen anyway, for the people that are interested. So even if the boss isn't interested, get it going with others, or the second thing is make a personal appeal to your boss and say, this is why I like to do it, or why we should do it and try to sell them on being on board or let's try it. Let's try it for a month. Let's try it for three months. Let's do a pilot program, because I think, you know, I think for example, that if we did this, it would impact our turnover rate, which it will by the way [laugh].

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: If you create a culture of recognition where people are valued for what they're doing. Research indicates you will be seven times more likely to hold onto your people if they feel they're in an environment where people are celebrated and thanked for doing a good job, as simple as that. Seven times, seven times for their career by the way, not just for another, for another six months or another year that they will once they feel that they will want to stay working for your company for their career.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: So that's the price of admission right there, right now.

Steve Rush: Right, yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: In the midst of the great resignation, where at least in America, four and a half million people a month are leaving their positions. This has been for the last 18 months straight. Four and a half million a month are leaving their positions. And often they find another position and now they're leaving that one [laugh].

Steve Rush: I know.

Dr. Bob Nelson: So, because they're in search of a place that you know, the pandemic taught us anything. It's like, you know, life is short and unpredictable. You better have a good job now, better enjoy what you're doing now. And so maybe what a lot them realize that what they're doing, it's not worth what they're being paid for, and they're not getting enjoy from it. And they, they hate their job. They hate their boss and time to [laugh] go, to seek out something that's more meaningful to them that gives them, makes them feel they're part of something larger themselves, where they can have pride in working there and enjoy the people they're working with and who they're serving.

Those jobs are out there, and they are they're plentiful. And so, if you hold your sites to that type of standard, you will find it. Of course, you have to have the skillset. So, it's a mix, clarity of purpose and mission. But I know people, for example, I worked with Walt Disney World for 15 years, and I met people that moved to Orlando Florida, because they had to work with this company, had to work for this company and they got there, and they didn't care what the job was. They had to be a part of this organization. They'll pick up trash in the.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: In the park, you know?

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Bob Nelson: And maybe they started there, but they quickly moved on up and man, oh man, because people are treated right. And then they blossom and then you get more of them and their best thinking. And then all of a sudden you got a career. So, it could be frustrating for people that feel that they're in a dead-end position or a position they don't enjoy. How do I get to a different area from where I'm at? But you know, maybe that starts in the current job you have.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Maybe look at that differently. Because a lot of times you can get to the job you want, start with the one you have and start to ask for responsibilities or make it known what things you're interested in doing. And that might be a selection for responsibilities and assignments, especially for a small company. They need people to wear many hats, you know. And so, there's more of flexibility and variety that you can help morph your job towards what you want to be doing.

Steve Rush: Yeah, you mentioned reward and recognition as being a key component of that fun and you cited that, that law firm's growth was one of the reasons that they focused on was kind of how they step into recognition. And when you think of the subject and the notion of recognition, most organizations typically have a recognition program, which could have, you know, e-cards and buttons and gifts and.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Yes, years of service awards.

Steve Rush: But it's way more than that, right? Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Yeah, but often, they're doing stuff, but it's not the stuff that matters to people.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Bob Nelson: So, I've never met an employee that, you know, stayed another day at work to get their 10-year pin, you know, it's sort of like [laugh]. So, along the way, the topic was started in an incentive industry with people trying to move merchandise. And this is another way if we can get, you know, people to buy you know gifts for employees and we'll sell a lot more merchandise and that's kind of how the market started and for many companies, that's where it ended too. So, it never really got to the motivations. It got to, hey, you get stuff, you know, and it becomes really a money substitute to get points or gift cards to be thanked for a job well done. So that's fine, but that's a limited view on this topic because I tend to find that the most powerful motivators are things that don't cost money at all.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: So, a personal, thank you, or being part of a team or being asked your opinion, being allowed to pursue an idea you have, being thanked, certainly when you do, do a good job or for helping someone else. And if you make a mistake, you know, it's easy to criticize someone that makes a mistake. You know, they already usually know they did something wrong. Why don't you embrace it and say, hey, what'd you learn from that? That's the more important thing here [laugh]. And take the long-term view of the relationship instead of being critical in the short term, be supportive in the long term, you know, Bill Gates, former chairman of Microsoft, he once said, you could tell a lot about the long-term viability of any organization simply by looking at how they handle mistakes.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Because if you embarrass people [laugh], and in front of their peers and make them want to quit, they probably will [laugh]. And, yet it's opportunity to take a long-term view into, and to say, we're bigger than that. And that's good news. You made that mistake because that's the best training you'll have all year. I'm glad you made it.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: And see what else other people can learn from it. So fundamental difference in a simple choice that comes up daily, really.

Steve Rush: Culture plays a massive part in this. And I think what I heard you talk about directly and indirectly was, those organizations who have fun embedded into their values, embedded into their culture, their employer brand have a better chance at not only acquisition, but also retention.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Yes, and they got to the, you know, they didn't start with that. Maybe they put it on the table.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Bob Nelson: As the core value, but it's working the value to say, what does that look like in practice? And if we were having more fun, how would things be different? And maybe they'd say, well, maybe upper management would be more involved. I worked with in California, the pension fund. Teachers’ Pension Fund of California, which is a nine billion.

Steve Rush: That’s huge.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Billion-dollar fund. Yeah, and they brought me in, consultant and sure enough, they had very little recognition. And when I brought the topic up, they go, no, we can't do that stuff because, you know, we're a public entity. I go, really, that's what's holding you back from doing the right thing. Yes, yes, it is. We got to think about something we might do might end up in the headlines of the newspaper and that will not be appropriate, our fiduciary responsibilities. I go, well, I'll just hold on a minute [laugh]. What if I brought you a list of other federal state and local governments that are doing this type of stuff, what exactly they're doing? The legislative authority, they have to do it [laugh] and the contact information. And they go, that would be very interesting. And I [laugh] created that you know, it was like a 20-page list, and they took it into a board meeting. They came out and they said, we're doing it.

Steve Rush: Good.

Dr. Bob Nelson: And they started investing in low-cost ways to thank people. In fact, one of the first things they did out of the shoot. This is a state government, okay. They decided to make a music video that they had their senior managers all sign up to be in a music video to talk about the changes they're making in the direction of the firm. It was an enormous hit [laugh], you know, because people saw that their leadership was coming, you know, was now part of them and helping lead the charge. And it was very exciting, and it was very fun.

Steve Rush: It is often a mindset shift for some of the senior executives in these firms and organizations, isn't it?

Dr. Bob Nelson: It has to be, it has to be. Yeah, so it's okay if you're not comfortable with something, but, if you have the logic, if you have the data, especially if you have the data from your own employees where you know why they're leaving, or what would make them stay, you know, right now, one of the big things is on flexible working hours and ability to work from home. God, we've got enormous data on this, 36% of employees said they would skip a pay increase if they'd have the ongoing flexibility to work from home, 40% said, you can give them a pay cut if they.

Steve Rush: Yeah

Dr. Bob Nelson: [Laugh], you know, if you give them the flexibility and the time they work from home, because that's more enjoyable to them, it's more convenient for their life that not even counting the, you know, the commute time, you know, the hour or two hours or three hours that they have to waste a day to get to a central office and to get ready for that. And you know, besides saving that time, they've got more control over their life, and you know, and you want the data. It's like overwhelmingly people are allowed to work from home are more productive.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: And I've tracked this with my own employees. I had people log their time. It turned out to be twice as productive, you know, like I could see the work of the results they got, because they weren't interrupted. There wasn't as socializing. They were able to dig in further and get more done. And so, it all makes sense. What holds a lot of companies back is, senior manager saying, well, that's not what I'm used to, you know, or if I can't see them, I don't know they're working or the CEO of JP Morgan in New York City finance firm said, if you can go out to dinner in New York City, you can come to the office and work in New York city.

So, okay. Well, that's a point. Narrow minded point, but you know, I guess if you pay people enough, you can force them to do anything. And so, but over four and a half million people moved out in New York City during the pandemic, because when we shifted to allowing people to work from home, if all of a sudden, they didn't have to be in New York City anymore. So they went to work in a smaller town or where their family's from. And a lot of Zoom towns popped up, you know, where people preferred to live. If they can live anywhere, they're going to go live in Bend Oregon. They're going to live in you know.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: In places that they can enjoy living more. They can work from anywhere. And, people are holding onto that, 65% of employees that had a chance to work from home during the pandemic said, they want to continue that flexibility. It worked better for them. It was more productive. And, if they're forced to come in, which is kind of the dance we're in right now, where companies are saying, no, you have to come back to the office. Fortunately, only 4% of companies have said everyone has to come back five days a week, but you know, half the people say you have to come back, you know, at least three days a week. And the other half have more flexibility. So, my wife's a virtual employee. She has to come in one day a week, you know, and that's that kind of borderline for her, you know, [laugh], she does it begrudgingly the whole time.

She's kind of swearing on the commute, but yeah, one day a week is, you know, and that'll work. If they increase that, she will definitely quit. I was surprised that she stayed just for that because you could get another virtual job, you know, and we already proved it works.

Steve Rush: Right, yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: [Laugh] so it's like, we don't need to keep proving it works. We know it works and well, we can make excuses while you can't be as collaborative. Well, maybe make some adjustments to be more collaborative, you know. So, Anyway, we're still on the journey on that one. And again, you know, fun would be part of that, recognition would be part of that. And, you know, or what I find is like, I say, well, we're on Zoom calls now, how can you, you know, we can't do recognition. Oh, yes, you can, you know, come on, you know, next Zoom call you have, before we get in our agenda, I like to just take a few minutes and go around the group. And as I call out someone's name, I like everyone else to say what they most value about working with that person. Let's start with John, okay. Now, Mary, now Sally, and 10 minutes later, where are you? Everyone's gotten personal feedback about what the people they work with most closely think most highly of what they do and their work, they contribute. Well, that's pretty powerful. Make people feel great about the job they're doing. I guarantee you that whatever they're called out for, they're going to do more of that same thing, because what gets recognized gets repeated.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: So, it's a universal rule. And then, you know, the groups could be tighter working unit because they now have insights into each other, and they know so it's going to be more of a team going forward. So, you could do that in, you know, 10 minutes in the Zoom call.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: You know, I call that a praise barrage. You just take time and we're just going to focus on praise. No negative feedback, just praise, just thanks and praise from open mic from employees to other boys.

Steve Rush: Love it.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Very powerful. Very simple.

Steve Rush: Very much so. So, we're going to turn the tables a little bit now. We're going to start to hack into your mind. Now of the 31 books and the 1001 Ways to Engage Employees. We're going to try and dis distill all of that down now into the top three leadership hacks that you can share. What would they be Bob?

Dr. Bob Nelson: There you go. Okay, well, here it goes. I'd say all motivation starts with the person. So, ask them what motivates them. Don't try to guess. Just ask them, ask them individually, or as a group, would be the first thing some, again, advice I'm going to give you is going to be very simple, because this is what I swim in. So, ask the questions, take the answers seriously, do the top one or two things that they mention. So today that might be you know, and managers often are scared to do this because they say, well, when people are going to say they want more money, well maybe they will. And you know, is that valid? Then maybe they should be paid more. I don't know. But more times than not, I find that the things that come up are, do not involve money, but being thanked by someone, they hold in high esteem by their manager or upper manager.

As I indicated. Being involved in a decision, especially one that affects them, 89% of employees say, they'd like to have that. 92% say they'd like to be asked for their ideas and suggestions. And if they have a good idea, given autonomy and authority to pursue it. So again, from my research and application of these concepts, most of the things that come surprisingly amazingly delightfully don't cost money to implement, just a little bit, you know behavior. So, a little bit of insight, a little bit of thoughtfulness.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Bob Nelson: And then actually doing it. So, it's not good enough to know you should do it. You got to actually do it in your practices, in your daily regimen as a leader. So, ask, prioritize and do. That'd be the three I would say.

Steve Rush: And it sounds so simple that we get caught up in our busy worlds. And it's just one of those things that we don't pay attention enough to. So, I love that, great stuff.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Yes.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Next part of the show we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something in your life or work has not worked out as you'd planned, might have been quite catastrophic at the time, but as a result you've learned from it and it now serves you well, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Dr. Bob Nelson: Well, I'd say, not just me. For a lot of people doing a switching gears and tact, and what you're doing when somebody's not working. So, the pandemic change work for a lot of people. I was making my living probably 9% of my revenue was from physically speaking at conferences and traveling to work with companies and that kind of all stopped overnight actually [laugh] and so.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Bob Nelson: They go well, okay. So, I pivoted to do, you know, other things and to do things that were not in person. So, a lot of that's virtual. I've done a lot of webinars and I've been doing more consulting. So, you know, I think pivoting would be my recommendation when something's not working, try something else. And if that works a little better, then do more of that. And actually, my personal [laugh], strategy over the last 30 years has been, if I've got three or four or four or five strategies in play, then, you know, two or three are going to pay out and that has happened in my career. So that, I think [laugh], I think that canon could work for anyone. That whatever you're doing right now, isn't working for whatever reason, you could fight that and fight that, or you can change and modify and pivot and try something different, maybe build off of what you're doing, do something different. And, then you try different things. One probably going to work better than another. So, there you get your own feedback, right there will take out in that direction.

Steve Rush: Yeah, paying attention to oneself is really important. That you're often the barometer of those decisions, but we.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Sometimes get a bit stubborn when it comes to ourselves.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Yeah, and it's easy to say, well, this should work. It worked before. Well, okay. Times changed somehow. And for whatever reason, it's not working now. So, you could sit in that in state for a long time and you can begrudge why the world has changed, or you can.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: You can change with it. I'm far more taking positive action to make your life better.

Steve Rush: So, the last part of the show, Bob, we get to give you a chance now to do a bit of time travel. You get to bump into Bob who wasn't the doctor at the time at 21 and give him some advice, what would it be?

Dr. Bob Nelson: I would say double down more on my instincts. So I, which I think is good advice all the time, to trust one's instincts, but you know, a lot of times we don't because we feel well, we don't know much about this topic, or, you know, and so we override our instincts, even though our gut tells you this doesn't seem like a good person to work with, or this doesn't seem like, you know, we stick with it. And I would trust my instincts more.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: You know, because when I've had those, they've been good and I would have gotten even better results had I'd done more of that.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: There you go.

Steve Rush: Awesome.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Opened myself up to you there.

Steve Rush: [Laugh], thank you for that, Bob. Appreciate it. So, we're coming to the kind of top of our show now, and I think it's really important that we allow all our listeners to tap into some of the fun and energy that you bring to your work and that your career has proven to be so successful around Bob. How can we best connect our audience to you?

Dr. Bob Nelson: Well, I've got, wouln’t you know, an email and website, my email is bob@drbobnelson.com. That's d-r-b-o-b-n-e-l-s-o-n.com so they can email me or even call me directly, 8582185049 in San Diego, California USA would be ways. I have a website. My website's had some glitches here lately, so it it's been on and off, but it's www.drbobnelson.com. That's d-r-b-o-b-n-e-l-s-o-n.com. I've got an online store and a lot of my books are on that store at discounted prices, cheaper than Amazon or.

Steve Rush: Cool.

Dr. Bob Nelson: You know, and then of course the book is available wherever books are sold. My books, Work Made Fun Gets Done. Latest, the one before that is 1001 Ways to Engage Employees. And the one that most people know before is, 1001 Ways to Reward Employees Now in the new addition, 1501 Ways to Reward Employees.

Steve Rush: [Laugh], and as you keep collecting them, the books are going to keep growing and evolving, I'm Sure.

Dr. Bob Nelson: I guess, yeah, I guess.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Bob Nelson: It's an ongoing story [laugh].

Steve Rush: You're probably the only guest we've ever had on an international show, like ours to give away their phone number. So fantastic, and homage to you for that!

Dr. Bob Nelson: Yeah, no, I love hearing from people. I love helping people. And of course, if you have an opportunity that you'd looking for a speaker for your organization or for an event or for your association, I still do a lot of that and would love to help you out.

Steve Rush: Awesome, bob. We'll make sure those links and information’s all in our show notes as well. So, people can demonstrate over to your website and have a look at some more of the stuff that you do. From my perspective. I just want to say, thank you. It's been super fun. You've been really insightful, some great stories, and I'm just delighted that we are connected through this medium and welcome to our broader community, The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Dr. Bob Nelson: Thanks so much for having me. Steve, it's been a pleasure.

Steve Rush: Thanks Bob.

Closing

Steve Rush: I want to sign off by saying thank you to you for joining us on the show too. We recognize without you, there is no show. So please continue to share, subscribe, and like, and continue to get in touch with us with the great new stories that we share every week. And so that we can continue to bring you great stories. Please make sure you give us a five-star review where you can and share this podcast with your friends, your teams, and communities. You want to find us on social media. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter @leadershiphacker, Leadership Hacker on YouTube and on Instagram, the_leadership_hacker and if that wasn’t enough, you can also find us on our website leadership-hacker.com. Tune into next episode to find out what great hacks and stories are coming your way. That's me signing off. I'm Steve Rush, and I've been your Leadership Hacker.

View Details

Simon Alexander Ong is an award-winning life and executive coach, keynote speaker, an author of the book Energize. This show is packed full of leadership hacks, tools and ideas that will get you energized, including:

How we can awaken our power.
The benefits of rewiring our energetic state.
Why we need to manage our energy and not our time.
How to supercharge our impact.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Simon below:

Simon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonalexanderong/

Simon’s Book: https://getenergizebook.com

Simon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SimonAlexanderO

Simon on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonalexandero/

Simon’s Website: https://www.simonalexanderong.com

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush, and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

I'm delighted to welcome to our show today. Simon Alexander Ong. He's an award-winning life and executive coach, keynote speaker, an author of the book Energize. But before we get a chance to speak with Simon, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: What would you do with an extra two hours a week? Just two. Now, imagine if you could even create more free time, here's an equation I want you to think about. Structure plus discipline, equals freedom. Do you believe that to be true? The reality is, by giving us disciplines within a structure creates capacity for us to do other things. But if we get caught up in the moment, here's a few tech hacks will help us unlock capacity.

Set up email filters. in a perfect world we'd only have emails hit our inbox for those that we really needed. The reality is, our inbox gets inundated with emails, not only internally, but from marketeers and those who choose to spam us. Given the fact we don't already have enough, right? You can set up rules that help you filter emails. There's software out there as well. But your firm will probably just let you use the one that you are used to use. But most email service providers let you automatically create labels, filters, and folders. And rule of mine, when I’m on vacation, CC into the delete box. And only if it's resent as a main message, I'd read it.

Asynchronous and automatic meetings. Now asynchronous meetings means that you don't have meetings per se, but you use other mediums to communicate through Teams or Zoom or slack or whatever it is you use. Collectively the stuff still gets done, but in a more flexible way, other ways of course is using automation. And according to a recent survey by Dialpad, 83% of professionals spend between at least four to twelve hours in back-to-back meetings.

And in my experience, I'd love it to be so few. To help you. You can use automated meeting calendars and you can ask your teams to work with that calendaring system. Also just create space and blocks so that others don't take advantage of your open calendar system. For those of you, a little late adopter to computers, talk to type functions, you might want to take a look. Speech recognition software can really speed up how you take notes, prepare meetings, and you can even use your computers, talk to type function, to dictate emails or other documents, or even play emails back to you invoice while you are walking the dog, or you are in between meetings. And while voice recognition software has come a long way. It's not perfect. So, you'll need to make sure that you use it in the right way and double check it, particularly if you're going to publish to anywhere.

And in the hybrid world, we're in, this is not necessarily a tech hack, but a hack it is nonetheless. Let somebody else do the cooking. If you're working from home, weekday meals could take up a lot of time, including the planning, shopping, preparing, cooking. And if you find yourself running late or nipping to the store, by the time you've got your produce back and you cut your vegetables, you might already have wasted another hour. You can use lots of pre-cooked meals or boxed meals to help you become more efficient in the way that you work and the way that you prepare your dinners. Our greatest commodity is time. And once we spend our time, we can't get it back. As of today, 48% of people say that they don't have enough time to do what they want. So, take control of some of the technology and some of the innovation that is around us and give it a try.

Remember, there's a bit of learning here, so you'll have to spend some time figuring out what works and what doesn't work for you. For that reason, look for apps and look for other technologies that support you in your approach to being awesome. So, get out there and have a go. That's been The Leadership Hacker in News. Don't forget you can always share your ideas and things that you want us to talk about in the show, by contacting us through our social media.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Simon Alexander Ong is our special guest on today's show. He's a personal growth entrepreneur, coach, and speaker. He's also the author of the book Energize. Simon, welcome to the show, my friend!

Simon Alexander Ong: Steve, thank you so much for having me on.

Steve Rush: I'm really looking forward to today. And the whole subject of energize is probably the most timely for everybody. All of that will become much more apparent as we dive into the themes. The tagline of the book though, Simon is, Make the most out of every moment. And that's exactly what I intend to do with you. So, let's jump straight in and learn a little bit about Simon and your backstory and how you arrived doing what you're doing?

Simon Alexander Ong: Sure. So, I was born here in the United Kingdom, Steve to Malaysian parents. And I grew up with this mistaken and belief that success was determined by my job title, be a banker, be a doctor, be a lawyer, be an accountant. And so, my definition was limited to a few choices that I believe would make me successful.

Steve Rush: And it's interesting, isn’t it? Those labels kind of set you off on a trajectory, didn't they? So, you ended up in a career in banking and then before you knew it, you were doing something else, right?

Simon Alexander Ong: Definitely. I mean, I ended up going down the bank route at what was probably the worst possible time, Steve, because this was in the middle of 2007, I had just graduated, and this was also year before the financial crisis. And the first company I started was with Lehman Brothers. And so as, you know, that company collapsed into administration in September, 2008, and now while it was painful at the time, I mean, for anybody who's gone through a redundancy, it is never a nice experience, but at the same time, in hindsight, it was a blessing in disguise because it kick started for me the journey to where I am today, because it got me to question those beliefs that I had held for so long about whether they were really true and whether that was serving me or actually hurting me. And so that was where my interest in the word of entrepreneurship started. And, then it wasn't until 2012 that I really started to focus my energy on what I now get to do today, which is to coach those in leadership positions to speak at conferences and companies. And more recently having finished writing my first book,

Steve Rush: Those sliding door moments, isn't it? Where, you know, in the face of adversity, you leave a job that you'd been primed to do all of your life to then find actually it was the sliding door that opened another path.

Simon Alexander Ong: Mm-Hmm, mm-hmm. And it's interesting because when I think about that sliding door and I guess many other sliding doors as well, it's that what I've come to understand is that those moments in which we feel at the time are setbacks or failures are actually the very moments that equip us with the wisdom to create the best moments of our life, to step into a path that were completely transform what had come before.

Steve Rush: And how much of your growing up with that kind of real strong influence of your folks to say, right. You have to get yourself an academic career and get yourself into a role. How much of that you now still rely on, but in a different way?

Simon Alexander Ong: I think I rely a lot less now, obviously because I am not following those definitions now, but I think taking the, I guess the human values from my parents, from my dad's side, I think it has definitely been the hard work element. My dad has always been very committed to what he does. And I think I've taken a lot of that on board. When I do something, I want to see it through to the end. I want to make sure I've given it my best shot. For my mom's side. It has been the empathy, my mom, when you know, before she gave birth to myself and my brother, she was a nurse, and she was very understanding about what other people were going through. And she was able to connect with others in a very powerful way. And so, I think I've taken some of that on board in the work that I do, because coaching, speaking, they are very much a people business. And so, when you engage with someone, it is very important to have that level of emotional intelligence to be able to relate to other people. So, I think those are the values and those are the characteristics that I feel I've taken from my family.

Steve Rush: Yeah, awesome. So, then fast forward, you've now just published, Energized, and I have to say, it's a fantastic read. And most importantly, it's getting loads of coverage and you must be really pleased with it, how it's been launched. In fact, I go, as far as say, every time I turn on my social media, there's you and [laugh] and so, you and your marketing team are doing a fantastic job by the way, but I marched to you for that. So, tell us a little bit about that journey.

Simon Alexander Ong: Thank you so much. So, I think whenever you start a business, there are lots of roles that you have to take on board because you become your own financial officer, you become your own marketer, your own publicist and so on. And I think when you run a business, you have a natural preference for certain activities, more than others. And for me, because I've always enjoyed speaking, I've grown up with social media, if you like when I was finishing university, I very much enjoyed the marketing side. So, for me, in getting the book out to the world, once the marketing campaign kicked in, I was very much in my element, Steve, because I was looking at ways that we can take videos of the journey. I was looking at partnerships that we could create. I mean, we partnered with The Connaught Hotel to create a signature cocktail inspired by the book. We put together a video trailer in the same way that movies do before the film is released in the cinema. And just last week we partnered with two companies to host one of the world's first book launches in the metaverse. And so, for me, that's what really gives me energy is, to explore this creative side of my brain especially when it's been around the book, which has also been a very important milestone for myself.

Steve Rush: Mm-Hmm indeed it has, yeah. So, what was that defining moment then Simon? When you thought I've got something here? I need to kind of put pen to paper.

Simon Alexander Ong: [Laugh] well, what is interesting because if I look back at the book journey, Steve, I wasn't actually planning to write a book. I mean in the middle of 2019, where I sat down and reflected on the first half of the year and started to plan for the second. Writing a book was not on my top three or even top five priorities until towards the end of that year, I got approached by a boutique publisher. And they asked if I was interested in writing a book and I thought, well, it doesn't hurt to have a conversation. And so, I went along, I had a coffee to hear what they had in mind. And I came away from that conversation thinking, well, if I was to only write one book, would I be happy with what they were sharing and working with them?

And the answer for me was, no. I mean, I had a feeling inside of me that would regret if I didn't think bigger than where I was at the moment. And so, I went away, Steve and I started to reach out to the Penguins, Simon Schuster, Harper Collins, Hay House, some of these big names in the publishing world. And out of the people I reached out to, Penguin was the only one that responded. And so, in January 2020, we met up in person. And still at that point, I didn't know what I was going to write about because I didn't even know if I was going to get a book deal and if this was going to progress. And so, after that conversation, they came back to me and said, Simon, we would like you to put a book proposal together. And I think that was the time that I started thinking about what this would be about Steve.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Simon Alexander Ong: And the book is called Energized. But at the time submitting the proposal, the title I put as a working title was actually originally energy is everything. And the reason I put forward that title is because it spoke a lot to my own journey, but also to the fact that when I study some of the most successful leaders in any industry, what I've often found is that they're not necessarily the smartest, the fastest or the strongest, but they are the best when it comes to managing and sustaining their level of energy, because they know that you cannot show up as your best self, if you're always feeling exhausted and drained.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and that's cuts across every genre, whether it be business, sport, you look at those that are in peak performance of anything is how they manage their energy to get that optimum performance, right?

Simon Alexander Ong: Definitely, definitely, because.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Simon Alexander Ong: You have to realize that unless you manage your energy in a sustainable way, you're going to very quickly burn out. And if you want to achieve anything of, you know, on a big scale, you are going to need a lot of energy. And so really understanding how to manage and optimize that will help you in the long term.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and energy is everything.

Simon Alexander Ong: [Laugh].

Steve Rush: And there's no question, but let's dive into some of the themes within the books and our listeners will be dying to hear about them. Now you've developed four key components as I've called them. They're probably kind of big blocky chapters with lots of really great hacks and tools and tips within them. And I thought it would be really interesting to be able to spin through them and maybe dive into a couple of those themes.

Simon Alexander Ong: Definitely. So, I split the book into four parts, part one, awaken your power to rewire your energetic state, three, protect your personal energy and four, supercharge your impact. And the reason I did that is because that takes the reader very much through the journey that I have been on as well as touching on important areas that I've learned over time that can really help us show up as our best selves. So, in the first part, awaken your power. This speaks a lot to the beginnings of my journey. Transitioning from a corporate world to the path of an entrepreneur and how you've got to have some baseline of energy before you can apply some of the knowledge, the strategies, the tips, and hacks that you may hear about. And for me, that always starts with our health. I mean, if there's anything that we've learned over the last couple of years, Steve, is that health really is the first wealth.

Steve Rush: Absolutely right, yeah.

Simon Alexander Ong: You may have lots of dreams, hopes, and wishes, but unless you're healthy, unless you're able to put those things into action, they will just remain a distant dream. A good way to think about it is this. A healthy person will have lots of things they want to do. The sick will only have one, and that is to get healthy again. And so, once we've put in place some healthy habits, once we've prioritized our health, then we've put a powerful foundation and platform to really build upon. And so that leads into the second part, which is rewire your energetic state. Understanding that it is often the state that we're in that determines the actions, the choices, and the behaviors we take. And then the third part is protecting because once you've got to a point in which you have a lot of energy in your life, it's in a question of, well, how do I protect that? So, I don't leak it away doing things that actually drain me of energy. And I think that can be very challenging for a lot of us, especially when we are ambitious, or we have lots of things we want to do. We forget that creating boundaries to protect our time and breathe oxygen into the things that matter most, just fall by the wayside.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Simon Alexander Ong: And so, we have to be aware and conscious of protecting our energy that is aligned to what we want to do in the long term. And the last part really speaks to legacy. You know, I think ultimately, we all want to leave a good legacy behind. And so, the final part, supercharge your impact inspires the readers on how they can go about doing so.

Steve Rush: So, let's dive into a couple of things, because there was a few things as I read it that really pricked my conscious, the first one, ironically, was under your, awaken your power. You talk about how we can elevate our consciousness and be really in the presence and in the service of our thoughts. Tell us a little bit about what that really means and how as a leader, I might do that?

Simon Alexander Ong: Sure. So, what that speaks to is the fact that you cannot have self-development without self-awareness because you simply can't change what you're not aware of. And so, by elevating our consciousness, it's understanding that beginning of true wisdom is knowing ourselves and that begins with our thoughts. So, when I encourage readers to take up the practice of writing or journaling, what I'm really doing is getting them to better understand themselves because the activity of writing is the cheapest form of therapy. As you get to know yourself, your thoughts, your desires, your challenges, you get greater clarity and understanding on what to do next. But most of us, we keep all of that in our mind and we don’t download it onto paper that it can feel overwhelming.

Steve Rush: Yes, right.

Simon Alexander Ong: But when we can transfer that clutter from our brain onto paper, what happens is that we're able to organize our thoughts in a way that opens up the path to knowing what the next step is.

Steve Rush: And that's really quite a powerful thing to do, isn't it? And for those people who haven't yet experienced journaling, it does also take a bit of practice and a bit of discipline too. Doesn't it?

Simon Alexander Ong: Definitely, and I think the key with any new practice, Steve is not to pressure yourself on whether I'm doing it right or whether I'm doing it wrong because there's no right way to journal. For some of us, we may need prompts for others we may just want to write down whatever comes to our mind. I mean that's something that was encouraged by Julia Cameron as a concept of morning pages, how I just download whatever's on my mind and then I can filter food out after I put it onto paper. So, the key is, as long as you're journaling, however you're journaling. That is the most important part.

Steve Rush: So, as we spin forward, I've kind of raised myself awareness. Now my power is definitely awake. We often find ourselves bumping into what you call energetic blocks.

Simon Alexander Ong: Mm.

Steve Rush: How would you describe that to our listeners?

Simon Alexander Ong: So energetic blocks for me are things that stop you, making progress towards where you want to be and often those can be mental. To give you an example is that if you desire to achieve something, but your critic jumps in and says, you can't do that, it's too difficult. You're too old or you're too young. What's happening is that you have blocked your path of achieving what you want to do. You're setting up these obstacles, these blocks that are going to prevent you from making progress. So, once we understand the nature of how this works, of how energetic blocks will actually prevent us from making progress the way we want to be. We then have to understand how we can rewire the way our mind works. So that actually those blocks will melt away and allow us to make the steps forward to where we want to be. And very often it simply begins with speaking to ourselves in the same way we would to someone we care about. Because even when we achieve something, Steve, what happens is, the critic was still jumping.

Steve Rush: Right.

Simon Alexander Ong: You know, when you finish a marathon, despite finishing that challenge, your mind often doesn't focus on the fact you finish it. It says, well, I didn't get the time I wanted, I didn't do this. I didn't do that. And what happens is that we're always focus on what we didn't do rather than what we did.

Steve Rush: Yeah. The voice in the head is so powerful. Isn't it Simon? You know, the one that we wake up with in the morning or the last voice we hear before we go to bed and I often have shared before, you know, it's also going to be the last voice that we hear before we die. So, this voice has got to help us out. It's got to be an empowered of us rather than the limit, right?

Simon Alexander Ong: Totally. Because the person and you alluded to it just now, Steve, the person you are going to speak to the most in your lifetime is yourself. And so, words do have power. I mean, they have the ability to serve a prison sentence to your potential or free and awaken it to achieve and express its full creativity.

Steve Rush: I love that. I'm going to write that down. Prison sentence to your potential. That’s a belter. I love that, Simon. So now we've managing to get round our blocks. What we often find is that we perhaps don't pay enough attention to our energy states and indeed where we get our energy from and how we manage that. And my favorite chapter in your book is managing your energy, not your time because you know, you can't manage time. Time's going to manage us, but we've got full control over our energy, right?

Simon Alexander Ong: Definitely. I mean, when we think about productivity, a lot of us jump exclusively to managing our time better. But the issue with is that if we only focus on managing our time better, we forget that our energy is not constant. When we only focus on managing our time, we mistakenly assume that our energy's uniform for the whole day when in fact it isn't. And so, if I'm opening up my calendar and I look at the afternoon and I go, okay, I'm going to block out four o'clock to five o'clock to go and do a workout. I'm then going to tackle this big task at six o'clock. What actually happens in reality is you never get around to doing so because on average, our energy starts to decline as we move through the afternoon. And so, what you're doing here is you're working against your energy rather than with it.

And so, once we start understanding our own energy rhythm, so for some of us, we may be early rises. Others might be night owls. Some of us might be energized in the afternoon. Some of us might get a slump in the afternoon. Once we understand those data points, what happens is that we can begin working with our energy and not against it. And so, if you are an early riser, then it makes sense to tackle your most important task first thing in the morning, if you are a night owl, then it makes sense to do some of that work at the end of the day.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Simon Alexander Ong: But you won't know that until you understand at a deeper level how your energy fluctuates throughout the day. And that's why a term that I used in the book; Steve is being a better CEO.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Simon Alexander Ong: Energy officer.

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly. And if you look back over the millennial, this has been written about by all sorts of different religions and gurus that energy as its key source is what's going to create your capability or your productivity. And I know you quote quite a lot of different themes of energy in the book in including, you know, the Chinese Chi and that's very much kind of central to making sure that you are productive.

Simon Alexander Ong: Definitely. And that's why when you see somebody, and we would've all come across people like this. You will notice that those who have high energy can get more done in days or weeks than many will get accomplished in months or even years.

Steve Rush: Right.

Simon Alexander Ong: And that is because how they show up in the same hour that others show up is infinitely different.

Steve Rush: And also, I know that this isn't just about being on your game all of the time, a key part of managing your energy is recovery and managing that energy flow too. Isn't it?

Simon Alexander Ong: Indeed. I think what we're missing here, Steve is the fact that we are very quick to schedule into our diary, work meetings, social events, and holiday plans, but not so quick in scheduling in me time.

Steve Rush: That's right.

Simon Alexander Ong: And so just imagine if we were to schedule into our calendar me time, as quickly as we do those other things, I think what then happens is that we start to prioritize those moments of intentional rest rather than just being on all the time, because we can't be on all the time. We're not built to be on all the time. And so, we do need those periods to reset, rejuvenate and recharge.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and one of the things into this part of the book, I love as well is, you call it how you can go about electrifying your environment. Tell us about that?

Simon Alexander Ong: I've gone through a number of experiences that really electrified my environment, Steve. So, one of the messages I often share with clients and audiences is that the fastest way to make progress is to design an environment that makes it impossible not to succeed. And a lot of that comes down to how you are electrifying your environment, because if you are in environments that simply electrify you, open your mind to new ideas, elevate your thinking from big to astronomical. Then what happens is that you have a constant supply of energy from that source. Now your environment, isn't just people you spend time with. It is also what you watch, what you listen to, who you follow on social media, your physical environment, your digital environment, all of these things act as a force and an influence are not only how you see yourself, but what you see as possible for your future.

Steve Rush: And we often don't realize that our environment has changed so much over the last ten years. Some of the things like news, media, TV, and social media, that's so accessible to us now, if we're not really thoughtful about where we consume and indeed what we consume from those channels, it can have a massive impact on energy. Can't it?

Simon Alexander Ong: Definitely. And that's why it goes back to the point of being aware. You know, if we're not a aware or consciously aware of how our environment is influencing our behavior and our energy, then what happens is that we simply become a victim to external events. But when we begin to take responsibility for where we are and where we want to be, that's when we actually deepen our awareness of, are we spending time focusing on things we can control or we're focusing on things we can't? And for many of us, it tends to be on the latter.

Steve Rush: You also talk about the environment being broader than what we just talked about indeed people as well, that you actually can infect and be infected positively adversely by people's energy states too.

Simon Alexander Ong: Definitely. And this is why you know, being aware and curating your environment is so important because energy is neutral in the sense that it doesn't care if you're spending time around negative or positive sources, you simply become infected by whatever quality of energy you spend time with. So of course, the more time you spend around negative sources of energy in no time, you're going to feel very negative. And likewise, if you spend a lot of time around sources of energy that are positive, in no time, you're going to start feeling very positive. And this is why we have to be very careful about the energy that we expose ourselves to. Because very quickly we become like the energy that we are associated with.

Steve Rush: You can't always visibly see this, but you can feel it. It's almost like a, I don't know how you'd describe it, but like it radiates from people. You can physically get good vibes, bad vibes, call it what you like from people. And that draws people to people, and it pushes them away. Doesn't it?

Simon Alexander Ong: Definitely, I mean, there's an interesting study that I came across in the research from my book, Steve, that showed that young children especially those under the age of three or four actually understand this in a way that we don't. So, to give an example, under the age of three or four children are still learning to speak fluently. So often they still speak quite broken, but if they were to walk into a room in which you know, parents have had an argument, a child can sense that and will react very differently to if the parents were very happy and were showering the child with love because they can't articulate those things in words, but they do it through emotion and body language. It's been shown that children actually can feel the energy of a room.

Steve Rush: It's fascinating, isn't it? In fact, I was chatting to a future guest last week.

Simon Alexander Ong: Mm-hmm.

Steve Rush: And they do leadership work with horses.

Simon Alexander Ong: Mm-hmm.

Steve Rush: And apparently horses can also feel energy from people in a very similar way. And, you know, they've described taking leadership teams to stables and the horse’s kind of spooking because they're not particularly effective. And conversely, you know, you can see these animals physically manifest when there's a positive energy with this team. Find it really fascinating.

Simon Alexander Ong: Definitely. Even if we look at organizations, I mean, those in positions of leadership are like the thermostat of the energy field of an organization, the leader is.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Simon Alexander Ong: Constantly emitting positive energy and vibes, then guess what? The people beneath him or her will feel exactly the same. And it's seeing when they show up with.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Simon Alexander Ong: Negative energy, of course, everybody around him or her will start feeling negative. And so, that's the same thing when we think about organizations

Steve Rush: And you close off your book with supercharging your impact, and ironically, the title of the book that you had planned was the last chapter of your book.

Simon Alexander Ong: [Laugh]

Steve Rush: Energy is everything. And how would you just kind of summarize the whole kind of energy and energy state?

Simon Alexander Ong: Sure. So, to summarize, think of it this way for the listeners. You may call it Chi. I mean, we've touched on that before, you may call it Chi if you come from Chinese culture. If you come from Maui culture, you will probably call it Mana or if you're a fan of the Star Wars film franchise, you will call it the force. Now, whatever we are referring to, it is the same thing, which is energy as a life force. And for me, once we start to tap into that from a spiritual and emotional and mental and a physical perspective, we begin to not only unleash our deepest potential, but what happens is we actually start to contribute to a story that will positively influence all the lives of people to come into contact with us. And that for me is how we supercharge our impact. It's by understanding the relationship we have with our energy as a life force and then to sharing that with other people so that they will be inspired to step out of the shadows of their own story and into the light of their hero potential

Steve Rush: Love it. I think it's amazing. So, we are going to share with our listeners at the end of the show, how they can get a copy of the book and learn more about you. Before I do that, though, I'm going to just flip the lens a little, and I'm going to hack into your great entrepreneurial and developmental brain and try and get you to distill all of that wise learnings and research into your top three leadership hacks, Simon, what would they be?

Simon Alexander Ong: Sure. So, if I had to extract free leadership hacks, the first would be to ask for help. The second would be to help others. And the third would be to diversify your inputs. And I'll just elaborate briefly on each one. So, the first ask for help. Simply taps into the concept that we never get to the top alone. And unless you are humble enough to embrace that eternal student mindset and to ask for help from other people, people that may be better than you in some respects with regards to skills or knowledge or insights, then what happens is that you start to think more innovatively and creatively. So, ask for help would be the first one. Second would be help others. You know, something I learned from one of my mentors, a man called Bob Burg, who co-authored the book, The Go-Giver is, that the secret to success is giving. And that is because our value as a human on this planet is determined by how much more we have given to the world than we have taken from it. And I think that the more we can help others, the more that we can unleash other people's leadership potential. Then what happens is that through that process, we are demonstrating leadership ourselves.

Steve Rush: Perfect example, of course, is when you give energy to people and you give the right attitude and environment, you get it back.

Simon Alexander Ong: This is Kamer in action.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Simon Alexander Ong: And the third one there is to diversify your inputs. And this is what I mean by diversity your inputs. If you only look at your competition, you can only be as good as your competition. And that immediately sets a bar to your growth because you're only using your competition as a benchmark. But once you open your mind to people from very different industries, from different walks of life, from different experiences, you begin to awaken your creative potential. And this is how innovation is born. It's not born by looking your competitors. It's born by looking at people outside of your industry, and then bringing in the impact and influence of those inputs into your own so that you are seen as innovative. So, to give an example, the idea for the cocktail to mark the launch of my book, Steve, that came about from being connected to the bartender, the world's best bar, The Connaught Hotel. The idea for the video trailer came from my conversations with a friend who directs movies. And so, by diversifying the inputs I have into my environment and my mind, I'm able to really explore my creativity.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I love it. Super hacks. So, in the next part of the show, Simon, we call it Hack to Attack.

Simon Alexander Ong: [Laugh].

Steve Rush: So, this is typically where it hasn't gone well. Now, you've had an incredible success journey, but there have probably been times as all of us where, you know, it's all gone wrong, and it's not worked out as we'd intended. So, as a result of that though, has there been a time where something's gone wrong and it's now serving you well?

Simon Alexander Ong: Definitely. I think the first example that came to my mind as you asked that question, Steve was the beginning of my speaking journey. And you may record a story actually because I shared it in a chapter in my book and it was when I got invited for my first paid speaking. I'd never done that before. I mean, I've done free talks before, but this was my first paid speaking.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Simon Alexander Ong: And so, I prepared rigorously for the delivery. I had notes, I had bullet points on what I wanted to cover. And I made my way to the event, which was held in Canary Wharf in London. It was at the top of one of these skyscrapers and fifty minutes before we were about to start, I checked him with the team. I said, are we all good? Can they see my slides? Does the tech work? And everything was okay. And then as I started to put my notes on the keyboard of my laptop so that I can reference them throughout the delivery, I noticed that in my rush, out of my house, I brought with me the wrong set of notes, i.e., the wrong set of paper.

And suddenly I was thinking, do I continue? Or do I stop.

Steve Rush: One of those moments, isn’t it?

Simon Alexander Ong: Where your kind of like, well, I didn't expect this. And so, I had to really regroup myself. And just for context, keep in mind this wasn't like a Ted Talk that was only 20 minutes long. This was a 90-minute workshop. So, this was a lengthy delivery, but I stayed there, and I followed through and delivering to the audience. And if there's anything I took from that experience, Steve, it's how to buy time when you need time to think about what you're going to say next [laugh].

Steve Rush: Yes. I've been there many times.

Simon Alexander Ong: And so, I remember a point saying to the audience when I needed the space to think what was going to come next, because I didn't have my notes with me. I would say things such as well. I would like you to take a moment now to turn to the person to the left and right of you and share your thoughts to what I just asked. And I would give them around five or six minutes or so. And I would use that time to think about what I'm going to say next, or what was I meant to say next? And so that taught me how to speak when things don't always go your way but also to speak without notes. And I think that has served me well since then, Steve.

Steve Rush: Super example. So, the last thing we get to do is give you the opportunity for a bit of time travel.

Simon Alexander Ong: [Laugh].

Steve Rush: And you can bump into Simon at twenty-one and give him some words of wisdom. Now, what do you think that might be?

Simon Alexander Ong: So much to share so much to tell Steve. I think the first thing that comes to mind, if I were to sit in front of that twenty-one Simon would be trust what your heart is telling you more than the approval of others. Because listen to your heart may not always get you to where you want to be, but it will always get you to where you need to be.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Simon Alexander Ong: And it's far better spending a time doing that than it is seeking validation from people who don't really care about your success.

Steve Rush: It's an interesting use of phraseology as well, listening to your heart because actually people argue, you probably have people at the end of their devices now going, how do you listen to someone's heart? The irony of what you've just described actually is listen to your energy. Meta physicians around the world will tell you that that's what's happening. It's the energy, right?

Simon Alexander Ong: Definitely because that's why I described in the second, I think it's the second or the third chapter that the longest journey we make as humans are the inches for my heads to our hearts.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Simon Alexander Ong: And the reason, it's never an easy journey because as you say, Steve, it's really about listening to our body and our energy. And some of us got the opportunity to do that when the world was in lockdown, because when you couldn't go outside, the only place you could go was inside.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that’s right.

Simon Alexander Ong: And so, as we reflected at a deep level about where we were in life and whether we were doing this sort of work, that brought fulfillment, it made many of us question what our next set of actions would be.

Steve Rush: Mm-Hmm.

Simon Alexander Ong: And I think a lot of that did contribute to this experience that is going on in America. And I'm pretty sure elsewhere in the world called the great resignation because people are now awakening to the fact that maybe I should give what I really want to do a shot.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and we're seeing that everywhere in every walk of life, which is really fascinating too. So, what's next for you then Simon? What's on the cards?

Simon Alexander Ong: [Laugh]. So, for me, I'm just enjoying as much as I can now, Steve, the book being out in the world, seeing in people's hands. I'm due to speak in India next month, next month, being June. So doing a free city tour and then Dubai in September. And I'm going to start thinking about book number two, because I'm already flush with lots of ideas on the back of this book. And so, join us for a moment, Steve, and then I I'll slowly see what's next.

Steve Rush: Fantastic. Sounds like episode number two for you.

Simon Alexander Ong: [Laugh]. Indeed, indeed.

Steve Rush: So, Simon, where can our listeners get a copy of Energize and tap into the great resources that you're putting out to the world right now?

Simon Alexander Ong: Sure. So, to learn more about the book and purchase a copy. You can head to getenergizebook.com. That is energized with a Z. And if you would like to connect with me or ask any questions on the back of this conversation, then you can find me on all social media platforms. But the two that I use the most are LinkedIn and Instagram in which my handle is at @Simonalexandero.

Steve Rush: Simon, thank you ever so much for coming and join us on the show. I am pretty certain that there is a massive opportunity around a corner for you. You are putting great energy out there and I'm certainly benefiting from it personally. So, thank you for that, and thank you for coming on the show and being part of our community.

Simon Alexander Ong: Steve, thank you so much and very grateful to have been invited onto your show.

Steve Rush: Thanks Simon.

Closing

Steve Rush: I want to sign off by saying thank you to you for joining us on the show too. We recognize without you, there is no show. So please continue to share, subscribe, and like, and continue to get in touch with us with the great new stories that we share every week. And so that we can continue to bring you great stories. Please make sure you give us a five-star review where you can and share this podcast with your friends, your teams, and communities. You want to find us on social media. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter @leadershiphacker, Leadership Hacker on YouTube and on Instagram, @the_leadership_hacker and if that wasn’t enough, you can also find us on our website leadership-hacker.com. Tune into next episode to find out what great hacks and stories are coming your way. That's me signing off. I'm Steve Rush, and I've been your Leadership Hacker.

View Details

Joseph O’Connor is the founder of the Neuroscience Coaching Centre, Co-Founder of the ICC, The International Coaching Community. Joseph is one of the worlds most renowned experts on NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming and written dozens of articles, over 20 books and education material on NLP and Coaching. In this show you can learn about:

What Neuroplasticity is and how we could develop it.
How can we coach the brain?
The difference between experiences vs. the medical parts of the brain
What is hot cognition and why it is so important?

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services.

Find out more about Joseph

Joseph’s website: https://www.coachingthebrain.com

Joseph on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephlambent/

Joseph email: joseph@thecreatorsclub.net

Full Transcript Below

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as The Leadership Hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors, and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush, and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

The Leadership Hacker News

How many leaders does it take to change a light bulb? Well, the answer's one, however, it takes seven or eight leaders to decide that it's the right light bulb to change that it needs changing now, and that we have the right technical kit and equipment to change the light bulb. So where am I getting at here? Well, I asked a question. What is the optimum number of leaders that we need typically in a quorum to make the right decisions? There's lots of research about this. So, I dove into Harvard Business Review and Governance today. Harvard Business Review claims that seven is the right number and odd numbers in fact of any criteria is a good thing. While Governance today said it was eight to ten. Getting back to your actual number, think about the benefits of a large group. The more people you have, theoretically, the better chance you have getting the best information.

However, if that said seven or ten have really opened channels of communication, have created a flow of information through their workforce, then it is probably the right number. What is critically important however, is the diversity of that seven to ten, making sure they bring social sensitivity to situations, making sure that they reflect the true voice of their workforce in those meetings and have the real clarity understanding of expectations from not only their workforce, but their shareholders too. Going way back to the 1970s research concluded by Hackman and Vidmar on the Optum size of groups for membership, communication and outcomes actually composed an optimum size of four point six. This is based on research and science and still holds true somewhat today. Their study concluded that senior teams operate best when the optimum size of number is about seven. Correlated with our recent research, the research and studies provide evidence that the more the numbers are in a team and particularly a leadership team, the more likely the team is to encounter problems with its functioning and its outcomes. So, getting the size right, get the diversity of your team, right, tick, but let's not forget. Engagement of that team is incredibly important, and size alone is not sufficient in creating a winning success. That success depends on you as the leader of that leadership team, encouraging, engaging, and facilitating great conversations so they put their energy to the front so that you all collectively can achieve your goals. And for those listeners here today who have maybe smaller teams than seven in its entirety, who's on your personal board? How do you extend that team? So, you get diversity of thinking input and ideas. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Let's dive into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest today is Joseph O'Connor. He's the founder of the Neuroscience Coaching Center, co-founder of the ICC, that's the International Coaching Community. And he's one of the most renowned experts on NLP Neurolinguistic Programming. Joseph's written dozens of articles and over twenty books on the education of NLP and coaching. In his new book, Coaching The Brain, he explores how we can use our knowledge of the brain to help ourselves and others learn. We're truly in the presence of one of the world's global thought leaders in this space. Joseph, welcome to the show.

Joseph O’Conner: Thanks Steve. It's great to be here. Many thanks for those kind words.

Steve Rush: You're very welcome. You have an incredible history. There are very few guests that I get to speak to where I already have a bunch of their books that have taught me on my journey and yours is one of those. So, I'm delighted that we have the chance to speak it through. Tell us a bit about that, journey for you?

Joseph O’Conner: Originally [laugh]many years ago, I was professional guitarist. I was a professional musician, and this got me into an interest, of course, in how we perform? You know, how people do well or not. Because if you're playing classical guitar in front of a group of people, it's quite nerve wracking. So, I found that with most players, I could teach them how to play, but I couldn't teach them how to be able to give their best in front of a challenging audience. If you see what I mean, you know, that's just the first thing. I think in any kind of skill you can teach the skill, you can learn the skill, but it's something else to actually be able to do the skill when you really need to, especially if it's under challenging conditions. So, this really got me interested, in first of all, NLP, coaching you know, in a game of all sorts of things and really how we can get out of our own way when we really need to deliver.

Steve Rush: And since then, you have really dedicated almost a lifetime's work in that subject of NLP and coaching. What were the things that really drew you into that as a genre and as a philosophy, if you like?

Joseph O’Conner: Well, I've always been interested in the inner game as it were. It's fantastic to see people who are really, really good at something, you know, whether it's athletics, music theater, presentations, teaching, it doesn't matter, in anything. You see someone who's really, really good at something and it looks easy. I can remember as a kid seeing these great guitarists and thinking, hey, I could do that. You know, that looks really easy. And then when you actually come to do it, it's not, it's quite different. So, it's like what goes on inside as it were, these great people that allow them to not only do so well, but also to make it look so easy. And I guess this is what interested me all through when I was learning anything, that inner game thing, really.

Steve Rush: And the inner game as you call it, it's almost where NLP really overlays particularly well. So, the neuro is the neocortex, the part of our brain that's kind of supportive. And then of course.

Joseph O’Conner: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Neuro and linguistic is in how we teach our brain to perform in a certain way. And it is about teaching in habits, isn't it?

Joseph O’Conner: Yes, it is. I mean, I got on to NLP [laugh] again, through music, which was funny, but yes, neuro you know, the brain, the mind, how we think? Linguistic, how we communicate? Because language is just so amazing. There aren't that many words, but the ways that we can put them together to be able to communicate with ourselves and with others is just incredible. And my father was an actor and a writer as well. So, I kind of got that quite early and then programming, because I don't think the brain really works as a computer. I think that's an out molded metaphor, but the programming in the sense of how do we accomplish things, you know, how do we actually do things? How does it all work together in order to get things done? I think that's the basis of NLP. And then of course those things in terms of, what do we want? What are our goals? What's important to us? What do we believe? How do we act? This is all really important in coaching and getting the best from ourselves and from other people.

Steve Rush: And the irony of course is, that we've all been programming our brain broadly unconsciously from the moment that we were aware of the first environmental things around us. We started that coding and programming from a very early age, often that send us on a track, which we either recognize is helpful or hold us back, right?

Joseph O’Conner: Yeah, well, you know, when we're babies and children, we just take in the world and we don't discriminate very much about it you know, we don't make judgements about it so much. So, we are very, very sensitive. I think that's the great strength of human beings. We're incredibly sensitive to each other, to language, to the messages we receive. And we're always, always looking to try and make it mean something. To try and understand it, and to help to predict what's going to happen because a random world, you know, where we just don't know what's going to happen next. We can't prepare for it. It's awful. It's an awful idea. So, we're always trying to predict, we're always trying to have ideas, beliefs, mental models that allow us to predict and find our way through the world in the best way.

And yes, we are very sensitive to this, and of course our great strength and weakness is our ability to learn and to take in information and on a neuroscience point of view, it's that neuroplasticity of the brain, it's the brain's ability to change itself in response to experience. So, I like to think of the brain as a verb, you know, when we think of the brain, we kind of think of a big lump of whatever. It's a bit like soft butter, really, but it's stuff, but it's really a verb. It's really an organ for converting our experience into nervous tissue.

Steve Rush: Mm.

Joseph O’Conner: And then the nervous tissue in the brain in turn influences our experience and what we do and what we can do on from that. So, it's an amazing dynamic process. And our brain's changing all the time you know, my brain's changing, yours is changing. Our listeners brains will be changed after listening to this podcast. You can't help it. We are influenced by that. And that's both a blessing and a curse because in terms of the brain, the brain doesn't discriminate between some really poor messages and some really good ones.

Steve Rush: Mm.

Joseph O’Conner: So, it doesn't matter whether people are telling you or you are telling yourself more insidiously you know, I'm no good, I can't do this. This'll never work. All of these repetitive thoughts are going to build up the connections in the brain. That's going to start to make that a habit of thinking. In other words, a thought that's going to be the default easiest thought to fall into, in response to whatever happens.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: So, the brain doesn't discriminate about that. If you repeat that and if you get those messages, that's what the brain learns. Whereas of course we don't want to learn that sort of thing. We want the messages of, you know, you are good. You can do this. This is great. This is interesting, but we've got to take charge of our own learning very often.

Steve Rush: And the reality is as a species, a human being, human sapien, we really want it to be as straightforward and as easy as possible. We often look for the quickest, fastest, easiest route because our body doesn't like to face into the emotions that come with that challenge, right?

Joseph O’Conner: No, indeed. And we're quite lazy thinkers. There's this idea of the cognitive mind, you know?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: It's hard work to think clearly and well and we tend to move away from it, which means that sometimes the sapien part [laugh] doesn't work so well.

Steve Rush: That's right.

Joseph O’Conner: My sapien ends.

Steve Rush: And I noticed that you drew a correlation early in your studies, when you were looking at professional musicians who were incredibly well versed, and you facing that kind of ambition to want to do the same. If we apply the approach of neuroscience to those individuals who are excel at anything actually.

Joseph O’Conner: mm.

Steve Rush: The two or three things that you notice that happen alongside is, one. There's repetition and practice. Because without that, you don't get good.

Joseph O’Conner: Yeah.

Steve Rush: But also, there is a definite conditioning of the mind that said I can, which keeps people going rather than I can't and holds people back. And that's also a core part of NLP teachings, isn't it?

Joseph O’Conner: Oh, yes. Yeah, absolutely. You know, there's that saying? Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you are right.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: Because in that sense, you've conditioned yourself to, or put it this way, if you're going to succeed, it's good to believe it, right. You go into it fully, wholeheartedly, committedly. You're much more likely to succeed than if you go into it thinking, oh, well, maybe, you know, I'm not so sure about this. I'm not so good. That's kind of setting yourself up for failure. Now, there's no guarantees in the end of course. You may or may not get what you want, but you're more likely if you enter into it with those more positive intentions and positive ideas.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: And the repetition is important, absolutely. That's the way that we build habits. And we want to build habits because habits just help us to do things automatically. And we don't want to have to think over carefully, everything that we possibly do, these habits are really important, there's the saying, I think from the Chinese originally, that habits start as cobwebs, but they may end as chains. You know, we want to be careful what sort of habits we form because they're incredibly powerful.

Steve Rush: Yeah, be careful what you wish for and all that, isn't it?

Joseph O’Conner: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: So, we're going to dive into a little bit about coaching the brain and neuroplasticity and neuroscience in the moment before I do, though, I'm just intrigued to dive into the whole community that you set up and founded. So, the ICC is definitely one of the most recognized international coaching communities in the world. And that must be a fantastic experience to have seen that grow from a little acorn into hundreds of trees all over the world now. Tell me a little bit about the ICC?

Joseph O’Conner: Yes, well, we started the ICC myself and my wife and partner, Andrea. We started it in Brazil. In fact, around about 2001, we wanted to form something that encapsulated those three words. Like coaching, yes, absolutely. We were both coaches. We were both passionate and are passionate about helping people to be the best they can be as well as ourselves. So coaching, yes, international, we started internationally. The first was in Poland, I think. The second was in Rio Janeiro. The third was in Arboga in Sweden. So, it's like, it was international right from the start. And, you know, there's something about coaching something about people and helping people in this way that is international, it's transcends culture and country. When you dig down, we're all human beings and we all respond to the same basic things of what we want and what's important to us.

That international was very important from the start and then community, we chose that word quite carefully because a community is a group of people that wants to be together that shares value. I think very important for a group of people, because yes, you can kind of group together, you can be together, but do you want to be together? Do you share those values? And that for us was really important. So yes, we started then and now the ICC has, oh, I don’t know, the exact numbers, but something like sixteen thousand trained certified coaches in over sixty countries. And we have fifty trainers all over the world.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: So, it's wonderful to see.

Steve Rush: Amazing legacy, amazing legacy, and then fast forward to today. What's the focus of both you and Andrea's work today?

Joseph O’Conner: Well, I'm particularly interested at the moment in creativity, this kind of strange word you know, we say creativity, but it's really a process. Again, it's really about, how are you thinking? What are you doing? And it's probably the most valued and valuable commodity, process, gift, whatever you want to call it, talent that there is around because, you know, as the world moves so far, especially technologically. You can create good products and have good ideas, but then, you know, [laugh] maybe a year, maybe months, maybe weeks later and the world's caught up and you've got to continue to do it. And I think you can see this really clearly with businesses. The businesses that are doing well are, the fast, nimble creative ones that are always being able to change and adapt and come up with something that works rather than the more monolithic you know, here's the product and this is great, and this is how it's going to be. You've got to keep changing. So that ability to come up with something new, that works, that's appropriate, that fits, is just so important and something that I've got really interested in and how it relates to our intuitions about what to do and what works.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and I've also had a passion for creativity and studied it too. And delighted, we can kick this around, because what I've found in my research and exploring this whole philosophy is, this is something that as young children, we did incredibly well, we were naturally intuitive and we were naturally would go with our gut feel and we would be creative and we would play. But as we got a little bit older and more mature in our years and our days, it often was squeezed out of us unconsciously or consciously in some cases by our environment. What's the reason from your perspective, do you think that some people really struggle with this whole label of creativity?

Joseph O’Conner: Well, yeah, a lot. I mean a lot of people think they aren't creative. They think that it's some kind of magical talent that you are born with or not. And I don't think that's true at all. I think we're all naturally creative just by virtue of being human.

Steve Rush: Right.

Joseph O’Conner: I mean, you're quite right about children and being creative. And I can remember myself and I think we all can of those feelings when we were young, when it's just, yeah, we could just think and play, and it would be very spontaneous and flowing. And then gradually as you say, this tends to go. And I think, I mean, there's many reasons, but I think one of the reasons is the way sometimes that people are taught, like, here's the right answer, okay.

Steve Rush: Mm-hmm.

Joseph O’Conner: And this is how it's done and well, yes, this is all very interesting what you are doing, but you know, you're not quite right. This is a little bit silly. This is how it's done. This is the right answer. And we get imprisoned by the bars of the right answer. And then we forget all about the other answers and we forget that the right answer is only right in terms of the right question. It's the question that's important. Not the answer.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: The answer is only a response to the question. If you generate interesting, good, powerful, and new questions, you are going to get better answers. And I remember reading a statistics somewhere and I can't remember it exactly, unfortunately, but it's something like at the age of seven. The average child asks something like two hundred questions a day, right, [laugh].

Steve Rush: Wow.

Joseph O’Conner: By the age of twenty-seven, it's down to about four questions a day.

Steve Rush: Blimey.

Joseph O’Conner: Of which one is probably, what's for lunch? [Laugh].

Steve Rush: [laugh].

Joseph O’Conner: But you know, you can see that and that I think encapsulates what happens with us and how we tend to kind of sink into this well yeah. But all the answers are out there, let's just fit into them.

Steve Rush: And do you think there's something to do with habit here as well? We get out the habit of being creative. We get out the habit of play. We get out the habit of asking questions.

Joseph O’Conner: Yeah, we do. You know, for again, from the neuroscience point of view, habit is something that you've practiced with attention. And if it's a good habit, it fits, and you've done it and you've built it up consciously. So, you forget about it. You know, all of these things that we do automatically, we don't have to think about them. We forget about them. I think there's something really important about choosing your habits well. You choose your habits well, including habits of thinking, then you are going to do much better. And if one of those habits is thinking yes, of course I'm creative. Even if it's only in small ways, I am creative, I am intuitive. I can do this. And to give yourself the opportunity to do it and to continue to repeat doing it. Although of course you're not always going to be so successful as you would like, it's that repetition, it's the attention. It's the emotion and the value behind it. That's going to drive you forward and you'll get better at it. There's no doubt about it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and there's part of the limbic system called the basal ganglia, whose job it is to keep us in that habit. And as soon as we don't give it attention, it starts to lose that habit. And all the, while we think that habits formed, we can also lose habits as quickly as we can repeat them and gain them.

Joseph O’Conner: Yeah, we can lose habits. And of course, a lot of people want to lose habits.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: And that's fine. And you can, of course, and the way to lose a habit is to replace it by another one. I like the metaphor of the ski slope. It's like, you've got the ski slope with this unbroken snow, which is like the metaphor for the brain. And there aren't any connections. So, then the first skier goes down and makes a track. There's already a track in the snow, tends to follow that. And the third and the fourth. So, after a while, because so many skiers have gone down in the same way, you've got this track and that's the habit.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: And that's the connection in the brain that's been worn down. So that's the default way that people will go down. Now, if you want to change the habit, what you have to do is, to ski down another way, not use the ski track that's already there.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: And if you continue then to ski down the other way, you'll make a track there and the snow will cover over the first one. So, we are more in control. We are in control of our habits as long as we feel that, and we can change them when we become aware of them. And of course, the difficulty is always, the habit is easy, it's the path of the least resistant.

Steve Rush: It's a fabulous analogy. I'll be absolutely using that from today onwards. Thank you for sharing it.

Joseph O’Conner: [Laugh], good.

Joseph O’Conner: So, let's dive into the book, Coaching The Brain. What was the inspiration for you having? And if I can be so bold, you've covered pretty much every genre across the whole NLP and coaching landscape that I can see. Then coaching the brain seems like an obvious place to fit because that's pretty much all of the teachings I think you've had in the past. But what was the inspiration for the book for you?

Joseph O’Conner: Well, two things. I like to write books on things I'm interested in, and I want to learn about, so I don't like to, I don't want to write a book on something that I feel that I know a lot about, and I'm an expert on, and it's just kind of filling in the pages. I want to write something that I'm interested in. I've always been interested in neuroscience and from a coaching point of view. Well, from any point of view, really, I like to look at the gaps, what's missing in some study? In the same way that as a coach when you ask questions and when people are talking to you, it's of course, interesting to know what they're saying, but it's also very interesting to know what they're not saying. What's missing? What could or even should be there in order to understand what's going on. So, in the same way if we go back a few years, there wasn't a great deal of representation of neuroscience in coaching.

Steve Rush: That's right.

Joseph O’Conner: And I thought this was a gap, and I thought it was important because the more we know about the brain, the more we can understand the purely psychological models of what works and what doesn't work, and we can refine them, and we can also change them. And we can also get new ones because the cognitive neuroscience is the biology of the mind. So, to understand that biology of the mind is going to help us to understand our mind and others and to use it better. So, the book came from that. It's like, yeah, neuroscience is interesting. I think I want to learn about this. I think it needs to be in coaching. So actually, I went first of all to New York to get a brain scan for myself.

Steve Rush: Ah.

Joseph O’Conner: [laugh] it's like, you know, let's start with yourself of course. I wasn't ill in any way, but I did want to do this and to find out. So, this was very interesting, and I came back with a lot of highly colored photographs and a lot of insight into how I think and you know, some kind of explanations about, oh yeah, that's always puzzled me. Well, yeah, that's how it works after all. And so, took the book from there, talking with many people, of course, reading and putting it together, but always with a sense of the subtitle of the book, which is practical applications of neuroscience to coaching.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: Because, yeah, of course neuroscience is interesting and you can really delve into it how the brain works and you can go into all the Latin names of all the, bits that are there. But in the end, unless you can actually use, for me, anyway, unless you can actually use that to make a difference for yourself and for other people, then for me, it's you know, it's only the first step, so, you know, hey, yeah. How can we use this? What's important? And that's how the book came about.

Steve Rush: And I observe in my coaching career, so I've been coaching professionally and as an amateur coach, probably for twenty-five years. And it wasn't until I really understood the impact of neuroscience on my coachee that I really changed my coaching game because it is as simple as just understanding some of the subtle levers we might want to pull or not, as the case may be, the language we could choose, the environment we're in, all of these have an effect on an outcome, don't they?

Joseph O’Conner: Yes. Oh yes, they do.

Steve Rush: So how do we go about coaching the brain specifically?

Joseph O’Conner: [Laugh] well, when you say that's phrase, it's an interesting question, because paradoxically my immediate response would be, we got to be careful not to isolate the brain and to think about when your are coaching somebody, you are just coaching their mind or their brain or any particular part of them. And of course, as coaches, we know, and all good coaches know that you are coaching a human being, mind, body, spirit, all the time. So, in terms of that metaphor of coaching the brain, it's well, how does our understanding of the biology of the mind help us to be better coaches for our clients who come to us and indeed for ourselves in order to be, you know, healthier, happier and more productive? There was three important things. I think, if I could pick the three biggest, most important things that came out of my studies for that book.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Joseph O’Conner: And they're not rocket science in a way. And you know, anyone listening may think, well, yeah, that's obvious, isn't it? Well, yes. In a way it is, but that's again, you know, when we look at something and say, oh, that's obvious, I knew that. Then sometimes that's an excuse just to forget it and think, well, okay, fine, you know, been there, done that, got the t-shirt and we can forget about it again. But if you take these things seriously, they make a huge difference. So, the first one was sleep. Sleep is really, really important for our brain and for our health. You know, there's only a few things that you die if you don't get them, one is air of course, very quickly, another, is water, food, and the fourth is sleep.

If you don't sleep, you die. Takes a few weeks, but you do. And the brain needs sleep in order to consolidate the memories and the skills that you've done. The brain needs rest and healing every night, it's really important. And one thing really struck me with regard to some of the statistics which is, in the UK, of course we have this daylight-saving time where at the end of March, the clocks go forward, I think, and you have one hour less sleep. And even on one hour less sleep. The road traffic accidents due to people not paying attention, spiked dramatically the next day.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Joseph O’Conner: Even, you know, one hour less sleep. So, to expect people to function well on poor quality and poor quantity of sleep is crazy. And it's such a shame when, you know, hardworking executives will say things like, well, you know, yeah, I can do fine on four hours sleep at night. There’s a lot of work to do, right. It's more important than sleep well, in one way, it is. But in the other way, they're working against themselves because if they took an extra two, three hours of sleep, they'd actually do better with the work that they had to do during the day.

Steve Rush: Yeah, just one observation actually around sleep. If you think about it in simple terms, if you didn't eat for a whole 24-hour period at worst, you'd be hungry. But if you didn't sleep for a whole 24-hour period, you'd start pumping into psychosis.

Joseph O’Conner: Yes.

Steve Rush: That's the difference between the two kinds of approaches, isn't it?

Joseph O’Conner: [Laugh] yes. Well, I don’t know, I'm tempted to say we've all done it and pulled an all nighter. I certainly have, and you're just useless the next day. Completely useless. It's you know, you just lose a day [laugh] instead of doing some good for yourself at night, you just lose the next day. So yeah, absolutely.

Steve Rush: So, what were the other things that came out?

Joseph O’Conner: Well, exercise, physical exercise, because of course the brain is embodied, it's part of the body and if the body isn't healthy, then the brain doesn't do well either. So physical exercise very important. And the third is meditation, some kind of meditation or mindfulness practice has really iron clad research, in terms of benefits for emotional intelligence, emotional stability, focus, concentration for the brain.

Steve Rush: Yeah, all form part of resilience as well. Ironically.

Joseph O’Conner: Yes.

Steve Rush: Yes. So, when I dove into the book, there were a few areas I'd just love to explore with you. One was hot cognition. Tell us a bit about what that is?

Joseph O’Conner: Hot cognition. Yeah, well, I guess the metaphor here and there's been a metaphor like this for thousands of years, the Greeks had this metaphor of the human being as a charioteer. And they have two horses drawing chariot. One is black horse, which represents emotions. And one is the white horse that represents reason. And in the metaphor, which I think Plato used first. The chariot is always trying to get these two horses to kind of work together. And the problem is, very often the black horse of emotions kind of going off their own way and drawing the chariot to one side where they don't want to go. And sometimes that indeed is our experience of emotions kind of take us over and we do or say things that we regret afterwards which is a pity because emotions have enormous energy.

And to be able to harness that energy in a constructive way is, really, really important rather than allow the energy to either, you know, explode like in anger or to kind of implode like in anxiety or fear and stop us doing something or in anger, you know, make us do something that we didn't want to do. So, you know, that's one metaphor. Now, the metaphor that I prefer is the hot and cold streams, because all of our thinking is warm to some extent, right. You don't get anyone who's completely cold, rational, logical thought outside Star Trek, you know, outside the Falcon.

Steve Rush: [Laugh] yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: It doesn't exist. You couldn't do it actually. You couldn't make decisions for a start. So, there's always emotion there. There's no thinking without emotion, there's no emotion without thinking. It's just that our thoughts change temperature, depending on what we're thinking about, who's with us and these sorts of things. So sometimes the thinking is much hotter. It's got much more of an emotional component. So, the parts of brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex that's involved with emotion and integrating emotion is more active. And at other times, the part of the prefrontal cortex is more about rationality and reason, and logic is more active. Most of our thinking is fairly lukewarm. Occasionally maybe if we're doing math’s or something, it gets quite chilly. And then if we get really angry, it gets very hot indeed. So, how do we manage that? I think is, the important question in terms of coaching neuroscience and this idea of what sort of thinking and how do we best manage that emotional intelligence as well?

Steve Rush: And one of the other areas that I really liked, and I often find itself presents when I'm coaching is the whole notion of identity, the labels people wear.

Joseph O’Conner: Mm-hmm.

Steve Rush: And I wondered if you give us your spin on how identity forms are part of a coaching conversation and how we might want to help people pay attention to their identity?

Joseph O’Conner: Oh, wow. Yeah, how long have we got? [laugh] A couple of days? [laugh]. Well, identity is a strange concept. And again, bit like creativity or the brain. I think it's a process. I don't think it's a thing. I think that once you kind of decide your identity and fix it, then I think you've lost something. I think you've lost an important part of living. Here's just a couple of thoughts. I think irreducibly we all are aware. We can all say I am, and that is in a sense, quite impersonal and the absolute bedrock of our identity. Everyone can say, I am. Now the things that then get pulled on top of that, where people start to say, you know, I am a coach, I am a leader, I am a father, a mother, a child, a teacher, a good person, a bad person, whatever it might be. Those come from the process of living an experience. And sometimes we identify with those for good or bad. So, I think the quick answer would be identity's a process that's always under construction. We all have a bedrock to it, the foundation of it, which is this feeling of I am. And I also think that it's more mutable and more changeable and more chewable perhaps than we sometimes think.

Steve Rush: And it can often also create behaviors based on the identity you choose to wear.

Joseph O’Conner: Mm-Hmm.

Steve Rush: Because as you rightly said, you can choose that identity in different scenarios, and that comes with a different set of behaviors, right?

Joseph O’Conner: Yes. Yes. I mean, in many ways we're fully functioning schizophrenics, you know, we are two different people, depending on the context. You know, we all know when I'm with my daughter, I'm a different sort of person to when I'm standing on stage giving a training or when I'm coaching or something like that.

Steve Rush: That's right.

Joseph O’Conner: We're very flexible in that way, amazingly flexible. But at the same time, there is something there underneath that we can always come back to and know clearly.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: To ground ourselves.

Steve Rush: So, we're going to give folk an opportunity to dive into the work you're doing. Find out about the book in a little while. Before we do that, though, this is where we turn the table a little and we get to hack into your years of experience of leading teams and leading others. And just dive to find out what your top three leadership hacks would be? Top tools, tips, or ideas.

Joseph O’Conner: Oh, wow. One would be authentic, be yourself. Don't try to pretend to be something that you aren't because it doesn't work. Usually, people will see through it. So whatever leadership context you're in, be authentic. Secondly, and this may be a bit of a paradox. You need to adapt to other people, as to what they are. I think one style of leadership for everybody doesn't work. And I think leadership has evolved over the last fifty to a hundred years from a time where it was, this is what you do to be a good leader, you know, learn these characteristics and you'll be a good leader, kind of laundry list thinking. Two, well, there's a whole set of skills here and people are very different. And leadership is a very mutable changing kind of skill that you've got to be very flexible in terms of, you know, it's not just about, I am a leader, but who are you leading? Because a leader, without anybody, as it were to follow them doesn't exist. You know, you can't be a leader on your own crying in wilderness. So, you've got to pay attention and adapt to the people that are with you. Let's put it that way. So that would be the second one. The third one would be the ability and willingness to say no where necessary because you know, people who are good leaders are usually pretty good at delay thing.

Therefore, they are under a lot, people ask them, you know, the better you are at something, the more people will ask you to do stuff. And this becomes a vicious circle whereby you start being pretty good at something people start asking you then overburdening you. And very soon, because you're trying to do too much and spreading yourself too thin you lose that edge that you had at the beginning. So, I think again, part of being authentic is to say, this is what I want to do. And these other things, while very interesting. And I wish you the very best with them. They're not for me.

Steve Rush: Power of no, really important. Love it.

Joseph O’Conner: Yes.

Steve Rush: The next part of the show we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something in your life or your work hasn't worked out well, could have even been quite catastrophic, but as an experience, you now use it as a force of good. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Joseph O’Conner: There's many examples. Just maybe a more trivial one. Some years ago, I was involved in some marketing, I think it, through some social media or LinkedIn or something like that. And I sent out an email, which I meant to send to one or two people. I sent it out to a list of some thousands of people. And, you know, you have that horrible. Oh my God moment.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: You've just pressed send, and then you think just a minute, did I do that right? And then that horrible thinking feeling where, oh God.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: So, and you know, a lot of people didn't like that at all, and I felt embarrassed and there was a number of emails back from people, but it taught me lot. It taught me to be able to, and I can remember this now after it happened, it's going, you know, initial panic. Yes. Absolute panic. And then you go, okay, well that's happened and there's no way I'm going to get this back. So, you better deal with it [Laugh]. And so, in that sense, it was a very clear example because often these things take much longer to happen. You know, you do something, and it carry on doing it and it takes maybe a few weeks. And then you think, oh my God, we know what have I done? And then there's a lot of trying to take things back or trying to change it or say, no, I didn't really mean that or whatever it was, and which can sometimes make things worse or covering it up. You know, they say that it's not the crime, it's the cover up that gets you into trouble.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that's right.

Joseph O’Conner: So, I think this was a good example where it's like, okay, that's done. No way to get that back. So, you better deal with it. So that was one lesson, and second lesson was, I've never done it again. I [laugh].

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: I made sure that I learned in excruciating detail how these things work [laugh] so that, you know, I was much more a master of communications and marketing than before. And even now I have an email address where there's a two-minute delay that's programmed in so that I press send. And if it's wrong, then I know, oh, thank God it hasn't sent yet. It won't send for two minutes.

Steve Rush: That's a perfect example of where neuroscience has created an instant reaction in you and created a really big, thick layer of neuroplasticity.

Joseph O’Conner: [Laugh].

Steve Rush: Neuro pathways. I'm not going to repeat that one [Laugh].

Joseph O’Conner: Well, yes. You know, with neuroplasticity. If you repeat stuff, you learn, but also you have one big emotional experience.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: That also it's like a very heavy skier [laugh] or like a bulldozer going down the ski slope.

Steve Rush: That's it. Tracks already made. There it is.

Joseph O’Conner: It make a really big track.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so the last part of the show, Joseph, we want to do is, we get our guests to do a bit of time travel. You get to bump into yourself at twenty-one and give yourself some advice and some words of wisdom. What would it be?

Joseph O’Conner: Twenty-one, oh my God. Oh, I don’t know. It it's like, hey, man. Yeah, I love you. You're going to be alright. Don't sweat the small stuff, you know, sleep well and it'll be okay.

Steve Rush: Awesome. Sometimes that's all it takes, right. It's just that little bit of reassurance. And I like that, yeah.

Joseph O’Conner: I mean, you know, from that perspective, you know, what would you say to your twenty-one-year-old self? But supposing you are twenty-one and some guy comes, suddenly appears in your room and goes, hey, it’s going to be alright.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I'm not sure I'd ever paid huge amounts of attention.

Joseph O’Conner: But how would that change your life?

Steve Rush: Indeed?

Joseph O’Conner: Or would it?

Steve Rush: Sliding doors maybe?

Joseph O’Conner: Yeah, yeah.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so that's the whole kind of crazy notion of time travel, isn't it? Is that, you know, you are who you are, you've created what you've created because that Joseph at twenty-one gave you the permissions to do what you did. If you change that, then who knows what the future would hold. That's a whole deeper, meaningful conversation. Let’s not go there.

Joseph O’Conner: [Laugh] yeah.

Steve Rush: So, I've loved chatting. I'm really delighted to be part of our community on The Leadership Hacker Podcast, Joseph. So how can our listeners get hold of a copy of the books? And I say books, there are many, and find out a little bit more about the work you've done?

Joseph O’Conner: Well, first of all, I'm on LinkedIn, I’m on Facebook as well. So can contact me there. coachingthebrain.com is the website where you can read about the courses there. And I'm just starting the creator's club. So, if you're interested in creativity, intuition and hacking into to that, then you can get me at joseph@thecreatorsclub.net.

Steve Rush: Brilliant. We'll put those links in the show note and you can count me in. I'm absolutely in. Joseph, thanks ever so much for coming on the show, some great stories, some great lessons, and thank you for helping the world on the journey you've been and personally thanks for helping me on my journey too.

Joseph O’Conner: Well, thank you, Steve. It's a pleasure. Yeah, we do what we do and it's like we all drop pebbles into the lake, don't we? And the ripples go out and we have no idea where the ripples go to, and we hope that they ripple against the shore in some good places. And I'm really pleased that it's happened. So, thank you and wish you the very best.

Steve Rush: Thanks, Joseph. Really appreciate it.

Closing

View Details

Fred Joyal was founder of of 1-800-DENTIST, which for over 30 years has generated over a billion dollars in revenue. No he’s a keynote speaker, coach and author of the book Superbold: From Under Confident To Charismatic In 90 days. This amazing show uncovers:

What boldness really is?
The PRIDE method, so you can unlock boldness.
What “Dosage” is and what happens if we have too much or not enough.
Why having an “Every Day Action” can transform your life.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Fred below:

Fred on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fredjoyal/

Fred on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fredjoyal

Fred on Instagram: https://instagram.com/fredjoyal

Fred’s Website: https://fredjoyal.com

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Today's special guest is Fred Joyal. He's a speaker, author and business coach on the superpower of boldness and the author of Superbold: From Under Confident To Charismatic In 90 Days. But before we get a chance to speak with Fred, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: We're going to explore names, names matter. My name is Steve. Everybody introduced themselves with this one special gift that we were given from the moment of our birth. Yet, how often do we get people's names wrong? And how often do we give ourselves the permission to say, oh, I'm terrible with names, but I'm great with faces. A somewhat convenient excuse, maybe. We live and work in a really multicultural society. Our names come from all over the world and not necessarily from the location you are in, they sound different, they have different spellings, they may be shortened names that are nicknames almost in replace of their real names but come in many different ways.

Some of my kids in fact have even changed their names. Well, metaphorically changed names growing up because they thought they weren't comfortable with this particular label, but soon changed it back. Whichever way we think about our names, it's our identity. You must know how it feels when somebody gets your name wrong and that's because getting someone's name right really matters. It may take a bit of extra effort. You may have to ask them to spell it. However, often minimal effort as a leader can really engage people when they know, you know them, and this demonstrates you're willing to take an interest in them and from wherever their name derives their culture too. So, is this such a big effort? Let's have a look. The acknowledgement, firstly, that the name is tricky for you is okay. Let people know that if they have got a tricky name. That demonstrates you care enough; recognize you may need to take time to practice somebody's name.

And as much as that sounds crazy, it will make a huge impact to the relationship. Ask the person for clarification if you are unsure. I've made loads of mistakes on this podcast initially, when I've had guests come on the show and made an assumption on how their name was spelled. Only to have to re-edit episodes to get their name right. And by practicing and persevering until you do get it right, you create a bond between the individual and you, when we address your colleagues by name, especially in team settings and meetings, it helps collaboration, and that behavior will help create effective teamwork. Saying people's names is a strong signal that you see them, you value them and that you want their input. So, make this an everyday practice, greet people by their names, look in their eyes as you do so, and introduce colleagues to each other by their names and let's get it right.

So, the next time, you're not sure on how to say somebody's name. Just politely ask. I'm not sure how to say your name, please can you help me pronounce it or just be brave and go for it and ask them, did I get that right? You'll soon find out. And most importantly, demonstrate once more that you value them. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Let's go ahead and dive into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Fred Joyal is a special guest on today's show. He was the co-founder of Futuredontics, the parent company of 1-800-DENTIST, which for over 30 years has generated over a billion dollars in revenue. He's just written a fantastic book called, Superbold: From Under Confident To Charismatic In 90 days. And it's an Amazon and Wall Street Journal bestseller. He's also been a TV and commercial actor as well as a standup comedian, and now sharing his learning through coaching, speaking and other business consultancy. Fred, welcome to our show.

Fred Joyal: Steve, excited to be here.

Steve Rush: So, I've just finished reading Superbold, and I can tell our listeners without hesitation. It is an amazing read. And personally, for a middle-aged guy falling into habits, I still found myself thinking, wow, that's me. So, we're going to get into some of that a little bit later, but before we do, it'll be really great for you just to share some of that very varied and wide experiences that you've picked up along the way.

Fred Joyal: Yes, I'm happy to do that. I started many years ago as a junior copywriter as an ad agency, and that was the first job I really liked. Like, it was the first groove I really found. I was wandering and trying all sorts of things. I was fairly directionless, and then when I hit the advertising world, I thought, oh, I could actually do this for a lifetime, you know, for a career. And it led me to starting my own business, which was 1-800-DENTIST, which is a referral service for dentist, where we run advertising, run a call center to attract the calls and then disseminate those calls out to dentists. And I did that for about 30 years. I owned the business and sold it about five years ago. And it was much more successful than we imagined.

But tons of twists and turns, you know, you run a business for 30 years, you know, through recessions and internet booms and busts and all of that. And plenty of good and bad things happen along the way. And that's actually what I coach businesses on now is, how to hit different potholes than I hit or not hit them at the same speed that I hit them so that they can accelerate their success.

Steve Rush: Right.

Fred Joyal: And then of course, got to the point where, you know, Superbold became an emerging theme that I really wanted to get out.

Steve Rush: So, when you hear the word Superbold, you call it Superbold because you actually have come to the conclusion. I think, as I have having read the book that it is a superpower, right?

Fred Joyal: Absolutely, yes. I mean, if I had to give my child one thing, it would be the confidence and understanding that confidence is the foundation. Boldness is taking that confidence and going into action and learning what happens when you're bold that bold people have always understood whether they learned it as children or they never unlearned it. But they learn all of these things that all of the great stuff in life really occurs when you're bold.

Steve Rush: Right.

Fred Joyal: And that's how you can have the most impact on the world.

Steve Rush: And you cite in your book, actually, a bunch of successful business leaders and entrepreneurs just share some of those that you share in the book. And actually, we probably all noticed that there is boldness that comes with that.

Fred Joyal: Yeah, certainly you know, somebody like, Sir Richard Branson is constantly making bold moves. He'll jumps from industry to industry which is a fairly reckless thing to do for most people. But he had learned that if you approach it in a certain way and you protect your downside risk, amazing things can happen. And you can take that brand from a record business to a telephone business, to a soda business, to an airline, to outer space. And now a cruise line and hotel line, all of these things, he has 400 brands under the Virgin emblem, as far as I know. Somebody like Tony Hsieh who started Zappos and he didn't start it. He actually came into Zappos as the CEO and had made millions very young. He and his brother had made a very successful exit early on that gave him tens of millions of dollars. By the time he was done, he had poured every bit of it into Zappos.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: And Zappos reached a billion dollars of revenue in 10 years. So, he generated a hundred million dollars of growth a year by just saying, I could go into the shoe business by approaching it in a completely different way and pushed all his chips in the middle of the table when he had complete financial security, but he went to the next level.

Steve Rush: And people like Elon Musk at the moment, who's continually reinventing himself, just bought Twitter. And everybody's asking the question now, what does this guy want with Twitter?

Fred Joyal: Yeah, and he's not going to tell us right away.

Steve Rush: Exactly.

Fred Joyal: But it fits into his grand scheme or it's just something he said, this has to be done differently. Just like, he looks at transportation as being needing to be disrupted and satellites and outer space. And, you know, like why would you launch a rocket and throw away the booster? You know, he looks at things like that. You know, why would you build a car and not use the battery as the chassis for an electric car, those kinds of things, and why not dig tunnels under cities? Why not create that technology?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: What Twitter's got to do with that? Who knows?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: But he guesses right quite often.

Steve Rush: He does, yeah. And to your experience, when you think of entrepreneurs and businesspeople, can you actually be successful and Uber successful without being bold?

Fred Joyal: I don't think so. Because you need to go into action without certainty.

Steve Rush: Right.

Fred Joyal: And actually say, whatever happens, I'm going to learn from it. I'm going to absorb that knowledge and make whatever changes or go in 180-degree, different direction. Because the marketplace has told me something about, that what it wants, and it wasn't what I thought I wanted.

Steve Rush: Hmm.

Fred Joyal: But they gave me a big clue and now I can go in that direction.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: You know, he started, even when, you know, Elon Musk started you know, the Tesla, it was a little Lotus with an electric engine, and it was a sports car. It really, only was fast. It wasn't comfortable. It wasn't useful as a car. It was a toy.

Steve Rush: Mm.

Fred Joyal: But then he said, okay, what people really need is a multi-passenger vehicle. And he actually created a seven-passenger vehicle. And the reason a lot of people don't realize that the original Tesla sedan was seven passengers, because he's got five kids.

Steve Rush: [Laugh] practical as well.

Fred Joyal: Yes. Little things like give feedback takes boldness, except feedback takes boldness, meeting people. The cornerstone of anybody's success is their ability to meet whomever they want.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Whenever they want and create a real connection with those people, not network, but actually connect.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: With people. And that takes stepping up and it takes developing those skills. Boldness allows you to develop these skills. You can read about them all day, if you're not bold enough to put them into action, you'll never develop the skill. If you want to learn to be a great public speaker, there's a hundred books on it. You could read them all. You'll still be a terrible public speaker.

Steve Rush: Yes, right. Very true.

Fred Joyal: But get on stage and suck [laugh] and watch the video of it and you'll get better.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: And every time you get on stage, you'll get better.

Steve Rush: So, in its rawest sense, how would you describe boldness?

Fred Joyal: It is chasing your dreams, however, going after an opportunity, a moment, whether it's fun, whether it's meeting somebody, whether it's taking a chance on a business, it's putting your idea out there, putting yourself out there, bringing your full self to the world, whether it's in a personal situation or business situation, personal situation could be say, I really want to meet that attractive young man or woman across the room at this party. Or it could be, I need to raise 10 million from my business and I have to pitch it so that they believe that I will execute it. And you know, if you know investors, they bet on the person, there's millions of ideas out there. They call it, we bet on the jockey, not the horse.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: Is what they say.

Steve Rush: I've heard that before, yeah.

Fred Joyal: Yeah, and so you've got to, it takes boldness to say, I can make this happen. I will do whatever it takes to make this happen and project that. You can't succeed without it. And it is, just allowing your full self to blossom. You don't become somebody else. I'm not somebody else than who I was as a young man, very shy. I am the full me. I can bring the full me in every situation.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: And that's impactful.

Steve Rush: What's the reason that some people often get boldness confused with either arrogance or confidence in your experience?

Fred Joyal: Because they confuse a narcissist with somebody, bold. A narcissist is actually extremely, under confident, extremely insecure. Whatever you think of former President Trump, he had an incredibly thin skin. Every little slight offended him. And that's very typical of that type of personality. That's not bold. True boldness has an element of humility in it because you know that there's so much more that you can become rather than pretending that you are enough or more than enough, or amazing or great. It's, you’re moving through the world saying, I can be better.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: Because that's what true boldness teaches you is. Wow. Just like what you're saying with my book is, you consider yourself probably a fairly bold person. But as you read the book, you say, wow, that's like five areas I could be bolder.

Steve Rush: Definitely, yeah.

Fred Joyal: As you mature in life, you become more humble because you appreciate how much more there is to know. But to me, boldness is, you want to have as much of a positive impact on the world. Because that's mature fulfillment. It's not about taking advantage of people or conning people. Because that's what a confidence man does is con people. He convinces them to trust him, and that takes a certain amount of boldness, but you've feeding the dark side.

Steve Rush: It's almost misguided boldness, isn't it?

Fred Joyal: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and the irony behind Superbold as well, Fred is, that you learned the techniques that you scribe in the book, but not in 90 days, but in 30 years, right. So, you were a really shy individual, struggled with boldness. How did that transformation come about?

Fred Joyal: You know, I get to really examine it as I was writing the book and I realized that it was just a tremendous amount of frustration that actually I was angry at myself at times because I said, wow, you actually have missed a great opportunity. Whether it was meeting a terrific woman or speaking up in a certain situation or missing out on you know, a great adventure or just a very powerful moment or very important moment, like giving a eulogy for a friend and you know, so many people do this. They say, oh, I'm not good at public speaking. I hate to be in front of people. It's like, really? Your best friend just passed away and you're not going to get up and say something. You're never going to get another chance, that window's going to close. And that's analogous to a lot of things in life.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: These windows of opportunity shut, whether it's that person across the room that you want to meet and you say, oh look, nobody's talking to Jeff Bezos right now. I can go over and talk to him, and it takes you 10 minutes to get up the nerve. Meanwhile, somebody has walked up and talked to him and now you can't interrupt, or you have to interrupt, which is going to be even hard. I'll take you 10 minutes more to get up the nerve to do that.

Steve Rush: You describe a bunch of situations in the book actually, where you've shared situations where you'd missed out or you thought you could do things. And it was only after the event that, that kind of boldness aha moment presented itself for you.

Fred Joyal: And I saw bold people and I would say, why are they like this? Why are they not processing rejection the way I do? Why does it bounce off them? They just go in fairly uncertain about the outcome, but they don't care because they know they're going to discover something. And once you start doing it, once you start behaving boldly, you say, oh yeah, this thing was totally unexpected, but this thing's great that happened. I was hoping to do this, but I was open to anything and then something completely different happened that was better. I love to emphasize this, especially early on because a lot of people don't realize this, and bold people know this. It's almost as fulfilling to try and fail as it is to try and succeed. Almost. It's very similar. What hurts? Is not trying, that's painful. That nausea at you for years, if not forever

Steve Rush: Moments lost almost isn't it, you know?

Fred Joyal: Yeah, but if you tried, you go a lot easier on yourself. Look, I walked over, and I talked to that woman, and she told me she was married, and I turned around and I said, well, that's lovely to hear, nice to meet you and walked away. Instead of saying, geez, I really should have met her because she's the girl of my dream. Now what bold people also find out is, they're wrong about those things. They know is like, I could stand here and fantasize that person is my soulmate, a bold person walks up and realizes, wow, there's very little to connect with this person, but they're not as concerned about the outcome. So, they don't project the giant fantasy on top of it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, now all the way through this spine of Superbold, you've created this methodology called pride, which is really an acronym of a couple of activities that really help people along the journey. I'd love for us to dive into that because it was when you were describing the pride method, particularly a couple of things that will come out as we kick it through. That's definitely when I had my aha moment and I'll share with you and our listeners kind of some of those experiences too. So how did the pride method come about for you?

Fred Joyal: You know, when I first started teaching boldness, I said, I have to break this down into how I did it and how you could apply it. What would you summon to develop this boldness muscle and have the tools in any situation to know how to react? And pride means something. That word is very special because I tell people it's not being modest. It's about living a life that you're proud of. Why wouldn't you want at the end of your life, be proud of that life you lived. And that means you left it all on the mat. You took every opportunity. You took every chance. You didn't stack up the regrets. And so, let's break down the acronym. The P is preparation. R is relaxing. I is insight. D is dosage and E is everyday action.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: Let's start with preparation.

Steve Rush: Good place to start.

Fred Joyal: What a lot of people don't realize is that we prepare for all sorts of things like driver's test or the bar exam or whatever it is, getting a fishing license even. But we think we don't need to prepare for social interactions and that sort of very specific behavior. They say, I don't know what I would say to somebody, it's like, that's because you haven't thought about what you would say.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: Break it down to something simple. I want to meet somebody. I'm going to talk to a stranger. By the way, this is what I recommend to everybody is, talk to a stranger every day.

Steve Rush: And I do that now.

Fred Joyal: Yeah.

Steve Rush: That's one of the keys learns for me is, I don't even know how this happened, right. Because I would've said quite bold. I can walk through my village and my town head down, right. Quite comfortable in my own skin, but actually just smiling and saying hi, makes such a difference.

Fred Joyal: Yeah, and why not uplift somebody else with expecting nothing in return.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: And so, people say, they put all this pressure on themselves. Oh, I want to meet this person. So, but I can't think of anything interesting or clever or funny to say. It's like, wow. How about being nice? [Laugh]. How about just introduce yourself, take the pressure off yourself because if you come up and you're that clever, now you've set the bar high. They have to come back and be clever or just admire you. Is that what you needed? Did you need to be admired or did you just want to meet them? And when you prepare yourself to connect with somebody, it's simple, a compliment, ask a question, just say your name and say, hi, I'm Steve. I'd really like to meet you. That's you know, that's such an interesting pair of glasses you got on. I would love to know where you got them.

Steve Rush: Hmm. Yeah.

Fred Joyal: That's all you have to do. And you prepare yourself to do that. Now, you move on through life and say, okay, I'm going to look for a promotion. I need to prepare how I'm going to have that interaction with my boss. I'm going to rehearse that. I'm going to know what I want to say. I'm going to prepare my speech to go raise money from these investors. You're not going to walk in there and say, oh, I know my business really well. I have watched so many entrepreneurs, grossly unprepared to walk into investor meetings. And they think because they know their business so well, they can talk about it really well. Instead of preparing a methodical laying out of their business. Their biggest problem is, they know too much about their business.

Steve Rush: Hmm.

Fred Joyal: You say, what does it do? And tell me what it does. I actually just did this weekend. I said, tell me what your business does in one sentence, this woman talked for five minutes.

Steve Rush: [Laugh].

Fred Joyal: I went like, that was a long sentence.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: And I'm not sure what you do, because you gave me so much detail that I missed the bullet.

Steve Rush: That's right.

Fred Joyal: And, so, preparation is critical in any sort of interaction. And, once you get good at it, here's really important fact. Preparation is the foundation for spontaneity.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: You can be spontaneous if you've got the backup. If you know what you could say, I've walked up to plenty of people knowing I'm just going to say hi, I'm Fred, nice to meet you. And in the moment, I noticed they have amazing eyes or something like that, or an interesting piece of jewelry or they're reading an interesting book, whatever it is. And now I can talk about that.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: But I got my backup and it's the same thing on stage, you know?

Steve Rush: So, relaxation and insight are they correlated?

Fred Joyal: Yes, because the part of relaxing is understanding that you can control your state. And a lot of people don't realize that you can control it just by breathing. Now I go into detail in how you do this. But if you check your physiology, because we tense up in certain situations. And if you just relax your body, before I walk on stage, I just shake off any excess tension in my body. And I take three deep breaths. Breathing will relax you. And there's more techniques that I talk about, but you can relax yourself, but it doesn't happen when somebody says, why don't you just relax? That just makes you more nervous.

Steve Rush: It does.

Fred Joyal: Because it’s like, oh I didn't realize I looked nervous. That makes me more nervous. But once you relax yourself, it reverses the process and you say, oh, I can control my state. And you know, as a public speaker, you turn that into energy. You're not like so relaxed that you're like a sloth. You are just, you've taken all that anxiety and turned it into energy. So now you're bringing your full self to the stage. So that's the key is, is learning the simple ways that you can relax yourself. And some of the ways you relax yourself are the insights. Bold people have key insights. The number one thing is, people are not thinking about you anywhere near as much as you think they are.

Steve Rush: [Laugh] yeah.

Fred Joyal: Who are they thinking about?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: Themselves, right. They'll think about you for about four seconds before they rotate back to themselves. But we think twenty years later, they're still thinking about that embarrassing moment that we had with them. And if you get to talk to them about it, they say, I have no recollection of that. And you go, no, really, I was so humiliating for me. And I was like, it's been nagging at me for decades. And you say, why would you do that? And so, this is what bold people do is, they have a tiny, tiny group of people whose opinions really matter to them and everybody else's, they don't, they say other people's opinions of me are none of my business. And they act that way.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: It's very powerful.

Steve Rush: It is, isn't it? Yeah.

Fred Joyal: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Now your next one, I've got to tell you, was probably more aha moments thinking about dosage and how I behaved and how I continued to behave than any of the other things in the book, because this is where you either overplay for something or underplay it and just don't get it right. Tell us about what dosage means for you and how we could use it?

Fred Joyal: It means controlling the intensity of the experience as you build your boldness muscle. And it's the same principle as exercising. If you were trying to get in shape, you wouldn't start by trying to bench press three hundred pounds. Because the bar's going to fall on you. And basically, decapitate you, you would start with lighter weights. This is how you build your boldness muscle is, you do simple things that build that strength to interact with people. Start by smiling at people, talk to a stranger every day, one or two sentences. What people do is, they overload themselves. They say, you know, I got to stop being shy. I'm going to go to a party and meet people and I'm going to meet five people and they don't meet one person because they've made it too challenging for themselves. Say, I'm going to go to this party and I'm going to say hi to three people.

I'm going to introduce myself to one person. You control that dosage so that you don't retreat back into your shell. And what happens is, you gradually expand your comfort zone wider and wider and wider. And you look back at yourself and if you do it the way I lay out in the book, you look back at yourself three months ago and you say, wow, that was really challenging. Now, it's nothing. Anybody in the coffee line, I'll walk right up and talk to them, and I'll think of something to say. And before I know it, we're engaged in the conversation.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And you'll say that was impossible for me. And you know why? Because you built up gradually, people do these things, they put themselves in situations where it's so intense. There's so much at risk that when it fails, they're tormented by it. Instead of, you know, if you want to meet your soulmate, start meeting everybody so that when you actually meet your soulmate, you can talk like a normal person and have a normal interaction, not overload the whole conversation. And you also learned that maybe who your soulmate might actually be or not be, don't not be prepared by leaping into a situation that's way more than you can handle. If you going to do public speaking, don't start with an audience of four hundred people. You're going to crumble. You're going to be tongue tied. You're going to sweat bullets. And you'll barely get through your presentation.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: Start with five.

Steve Rush: And when I reflect back on the things that I've done really well, it's probably because I got my dosage right. Where I've got it really wrong is because I've usually got way too much going on and I've been overconfident because I think that's the right thing. Or I've been over bullish trying to make a sale. And that's definitely been a bit of a moment for me. My mom and dad would've probably told me as I was growing up, don't run before you can walk, which used to frustrate the hell out of me because I wanted to run.

Fred Joyal: Yes.

Steve Rush: But if somebody described it as just get the dosage, right. You know, lift the right amount of weights before you do your three hundred pound bench press as an example, you can start to think that actually we all have to find the right level of dosage. Otherwise, you will never be confident enough or feel confident enough to be more bold.

Fred Joyal: And it's a very personal thing. You have to decide what dosage is right for you. Everybody's developing their confidence and boldness from a different starting point. So don't compare yourself to somebody else and say, well, this person, they just walk through the party, and they meet everybody they want to, I want to be that. So, I'm going to start doing that.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: You are where you are and you're going to work your way up from there. You'll can get as far as you want to go, but it's a steady, upward climb. It is not serious of quantum leaps.

Steve Rush: Indeed. It is. Yeah. So, when I look back on my career, I think I've actually forgotten to be bold. I've got up the habit of being bold and what you've allowed me to rethink and reframe is your Ian pride, which is everyday actions. Recreating those simple habits to become more bold. Tell us a little bit about what that means?

Fred Joyal: Yeah, and this is really a life skill is to know that if you want to accomplish something, if you want to achieve something, whether it's personal growth or building a business or writing a novel or whatever, or learning an instrument, work at it every day. Even if it's for five minutes. I learned this from someone who was talking about how they wrote a book and they said, I had a requirement that I was going to write one sentence of that book every day, no matter what. And they said, you know, what happened is, sometimes I'd write a sentence and I'd let myself off the hook because I was tired or whatever, but I always wrote a sentence and then sometimes I'd write a paragraph. Sometimes I write a page or two pages. I'd hit a sweet spot in a way I'd go.

But the fact that, they got to it every day tells your brain, this is who I am. And if you don't, if you do it on the weekends or you do it, when you feel like it, you're a dabbler and your brain say, oh, we're a dildock, we're a dabbler. This isn't important to us. And I ask people to say, well, I write when I really get in the head space, really feel like it. I said, wow, do you only exercise when you feel like it? Because that would only be like twice a year for me.

Steve Rush: Exactly right, and me.

Fred Joyal: [laugh], you know? And so, and the other thing about setting a goal to do it every day is you don't have to decide to do it or not. It's like brushing your teeth. You're going to do it. It's just when, and you'll get to that point where you say, oh my gosh, it's like seven o'clock at night. I haven't talked to a stranger. I'm going to go to the grocery store.

Steve Rush: [Laugh] Yeah.

Fred Joyal: You know, I'm going to talk to somebody in the produce department just because it's like, I can't go to bed without doing that. Two things happen. The first thing is the brain said, we are a person who meets people comfortably. We know how to behave boldly. The other thing that happens is, just like controlling the dosage. It aggregates. Everything that you work at every day, no matter how little, aggregates. You want to learn a language, learn three words a day. At the end of the year, you know, a thousand words, that’s fifteen words, in any language, you can have a conversation with anybody.

Steve Rush: Yeah. It's powerful stuff, isn't it?

Fred Joyal: So, it aggregates, it builds gradually and your dreams decay. Not because they're so hard, it's because you don't get to them.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: You think you will get to them. I can get to that next year. And you and I have both lived long enough to know how fast the decade goes by at this point.

Steve Rush: Totally.

Fred Joyal: Yeah, and that's a harsh, harsh lesson

Steve Rush: Indeed. So, we are going to give our listeners an opportunity to find out how they can get hold of some tools that you got on your website that will help people with some of these activities. But before we do that, we are going to just flip the lens a little bit. This is where we hack into your leadership brain. And I'm super looking forward to this because you have such an enormous back catalog of experiences to draw from Fred. But we're going to ask you to dive into your top three leadership hacks, there your top three tips, tools or ideas, what would they be?

Fred Joyal: My favorite one that I tell everybody. And it's because I have to tell myself every day too, is, one word, start, just start something. It's amazing how the hardest thing for human beings to do is to start and then you get through it. Whether it's working out, I've begun more workouts by saying, look, I'm just going to do some pushups. Because I don't have any time and I don't feel like it, but I just drop the floor and I do them. What happens next? I do some sit ups and then before you know it, I'm saying, I might as well go for a run or a bike ride, but I started. But what we do is, we do everything but start and we'll burn two hours sometimes. I was reading that the who wrote the Alchemist, I'm forgetting, Coelho is his last name.

I'm forgetting his first name. But he was saying, I do everything possible in the house before I start writing [laugh] he said, I will clean everything. I'll sharpen pencils. I'll walk the dog; I'll take two showers. He said, it's like, finally, I'll sit down, and I'll start. We all do it. We torment ourselves. So that thing, if you just start to say, I'm just going to start right now, sit down, do it. And all of a sudden, where you go, whatever it is.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: The other big hack for me is, to celebrate failure as a step up to say, it's a two-stage process. You can feel terrible about it for ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, whatever it takes. And then now you're going to say, okay, what's in this for me? How do I mine this for information? You allow yourself the emotional reaction, but you don't stay attached to it for the rest of the month of the year or forever. You say, all right, there it is. I had the emotional outburst for what happened. What's in this for me? There's a term in Aikido where it's called embrace the hit as a gift. And the more I've done that in life, the more I've said, wow, this is terrible. What's in it for me? And then it turns into something really interesting, and I've lost a million dollars on stuff. It was expensive tuition, but I learned from it, and I turned it into a multiple of learning from that.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: So that's very powerful. And then the other hack is to get really good at asking for help, try to figure out who can help you. It keeps you from being a micromanager or a soloist because collaboration is amazingly powerful. I am a much better speaker because I get feedback all the time on it. I have a personal coach that talks to me every week and it's painful sometimes because he ends every session with an action plan. Like, what are you going to do? Like, I'm doing a Superbold workshop. And I've been wanting to do it since I put the book out. And so, he finally said to me, so what's the boldest thing you could be doing, which of course is a very painful challenge. He knows exactly how to come at me. And I said, well, that would be the workshop. He said, okay, how long would it take you to put a workshop together? I said, yeah, probably about 90 days. He said, all right. So, what's the date? Okay, June 24th, June 25th. He said, all right, put it on the calendar.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: That's what I'm doing. I'm aiming for that date. I have to make it happen. Because I booked the rooms. This is another hack. Let the door lock behind you. Don't give yourself a way out. So, you have to figure out what to do.

Steve Rush: Yeah, love that.

Fred Joyal: They call it, you know, burning the boats in the Harbor or whatever. But it's like, if you say, well, if this doesn't work out, I can always just do this. The entrepreneurs, I know that succeeded. They get in so deep. They couldn't get out. Tony Hsieh was in so deep with his money. He had to make Zappos work.

Steve Rush: Very true.

Fred Joyal: I get in so deep with 800 Dentists, I had to make it work. I owed my family money. I owed $200,000 in media that I had to figure out how to pay. You know, I had a personal guarantee on the rent. It was like, I had three doors locked behind me.

Steve Rush: Mm.

Fred Joyal: My partner and I had to figure it out.

Steve Rush: Focuses the attention. Doesn't it. That's for sure.

Fred Joyal: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So next part of the show, we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something in your life or work has not worked out at all well, maybe even screwed up and been catastrophic, but as a result of it, that experience is now serving you really well in your life or work. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Fred Joyal: A lot of people fall for this, and I certainly have, which is the whole sunk cost thing. Where you say, I've got so much into this. I have to keep putting money into it. Instead of cutting it losses, saying, look, take the pain now, because it's just going to get bigger. And you know, sometimes it's about money, sometimes you've put so much money into something. You've bought this piece of technology and you're trying to make it work. And it's the wrong technology, [laugh] it doesn't fit or it's too old or you know, whatever, and you just have to sell it or park it and get the right technology or it's the right person versus the wrong person. Everybody I know in business fires, that person that they know they need to get rid of months after they know they need to get rid of them.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: You got to sunk cost in that person. You say, I spent so much time and money training them. I think I can make them better, you can't.

Steve Rush: [Laugh] That's very true.

Fred Joyal: Abandon the sunk costs. So that's, been, you know, just applying that to money and things that I've put time and money into and people.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: It's benefited me so much now because, I got so many scars from it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, the last thing I want to explore with you is, you are now twenty-one years old, your toe to toe with Fred and you get a chance to give him some words of wisdom. What would it be?

Fred Joyal: Nothing bad happens unless you decide to label it that way.

Steve Rush: Nice.

Fred Joyal: And all these things you're afraid of are things you really want to do, so do them.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: Be willing to be afraid and do them and use the fear as a directional signal for yourself.

Steve Rush: And of course, fear is one of the very reasons why we avoid boldness in the first place.

Fred Joyal: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Fred Joyal: Because we are incredibly good at calculating the worst-case scenario in our heads and the voice in our head loves to come up with all of these things, but really terrible at calculating the odds of it actually happening.

Steve Rush: Yeah, very true.

Fred Joyal: You know, smiling at 10 people a day, somebody's not going to smile back, but a really shy person said, nobody's going to smile back, but until you do it and you realize nine out of ten people smile back. The tenth person, who knows why. It could be the worst day of their life; they could have bad teeth. When you learn not to take it on, that's a really powerful thing. I'd say that to Fred too. You don't have to take any of this stuff on. Just keep moving. We're all flawed human beings working our way through life. Billionaires and homeless people. We're all in a struggle. Nobody is perfect. And trying to be perfect before you leave the house is a failed strategy.

Steve Rush: So, in terms of dosage, I would love to have more of a dose of Fred, but we're coming to the top of the show. What I would love to do though, Fred is to let our listeners know how they can get hold of some of the tools you talked about. Maybe get a copy of Superbold and learn a little bit more about the work that you do beyond what we've talked about today?

Fred Joyal: Yeah, easiest place is to go to fredjoyal.com. You can download the first chapter of the book there. You can buy the book on Amazon, it's in hard cover and Kindle and audible, and it's me reading it. And if you do the digital version of it, you can go to fredjoyal.com and download the exercises because there's a whole bunch of exercises. You're going to want a physical copy of them. So, there's a PDF of them in the website. You can also see a couple of boldness lectures that I've done there. And if you're in LA or if you're willing to fly in. The first workshop is going to be June 24th and 25th in Santa Monica. And then I'll going to be doing them around the country and who knows? I might have to go to London, you know, I'll, do it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly right. So, Fred, I just wanted to say thanks ever so much. I knew the first time I met you, that there was a reason I've met you. Having now read your book and you've been on the show. You have definitely shone a light on the lack of boldness I didn't even know I had and helped me reinforce some great behavior. So, I just want to say personally, thank you, but also thank you for being part of our community on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Fred Joyal: Thank you. It's been a real pleasure. I hope everyone benefits.

Closing

Steve Rush: I want to sign off by saying thank you to you for joining us on the show too. We recognize without you, there is no show. So please continue to share, subscribe, and like, and continue to get in touch with us with the great new stories that we share every week. And so that we can continue to bring you great stories. Please make sure you give us a five-star review where you can and share this podcast with your friends, your teams, and communities. You want to find us on social media. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter @leadershiphacker, Leadership Hacker on YouTube and on Instagram, the_leadership_hacker and if that wasn’t enough, you can also find us on our website leadership-hacker.com. Tune into next episode to find out what great hacks and stories are coming your way. That's me signing off, I'm Steve Rush, and I've been your Leadership Hacker.

View Details

Matthew Cox is the CEO and Founder of the Never Give Up Foundation, he’s a coach, speaker and Co-author of the book, The Courage to Learn Differently. In this remarkable conversation learn about:

How Matt became a successful entrepreneur despite his learning disability
How your emotions can be a gift?
What is emotional growth and how to unlock it?
How as leaders, we can tune in to the emotional needs of our teams

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Matthew below:

Matthew on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-cox-64228256/

Matthew on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewLCox1

Matthew on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matthewlelandcox/

Matthew’s Website: http://www.matthewlelandcox.com/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Our special guest on today shows Matthew Cox. Matthew was diagnosed with a learning disability in high school where he was told he would never attend college and he wouldn't amount to anything. However, Matthew was an incredibly successful businessman. He's the co-founder of the Never Give Up Behavioral Services and Never Give Up Foundation. But before we get a chance to speak with Matthew, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: For any organization to be successful. It must find a way to develop talent. It isn't always possible to hire great talent in leadership, particularly from outside the organization. So being able to develop leaders within the organization is a key success factor and will help the company grow and meet future needs. I'm going to share with you four principles that really help drive leadership development and leadership potential for 2022. The first principle is taking ownership. This is about being fully responsible for your leadership team and their personal development in that journey. And it's different from being in charge. Taking ownership is simply about empowering people around you, but being fully responsible, knowing that it's actually a shared responsibility, great leaders make it their job to keep pushing things forward. They didn't sit back and wait for tasks to be given to them. They search for new ways to improve.

That includes developing them and their teams. Learning through mistakes and continually being brave enough to make them. When everyone takes ownership, people are willing to do what's needed without finding ways to skirt responsibility. By taking ownership, this is also creates consistency and consistency creates routines, habits and patterns that others can also learn from rather than just one off activities. Principle two, use next level thinking. How do you know if you did something right? Most people look at the task. Did you accomplish it or not? Did you do what you said you were going to do or not? Well for leadership, we need to shift our thinking. Each task is important, and we consistently need to measure our productivity versus key performance. But next level leadership requires a shift in a perspective, helping people move away from linear thinking is really important. Linear thinking follows quick snap decisions without much analysis and a usually short term.

Instead, we need to think systems thinking, see the bigger picture. Interconnection between the various parts of a system. In doing so, it gives us the ability to have much broader perspectives and allow better decision making. And if we think of systems thinking as the full business system, not individual parts, it gives us the ability, much deeper, more meaningful decision-making. Principle three, respect time, your time and others. There is an old adage of time management. And if anybody's ever worked with me, you'll know that it's a myth and I encourage you to think of it that way. You can't manage time. You can only manage you. The hack here is I want you to think about reframing time management to prioritization. And if you're able to look at tasks and compare them in terms of their urgent and important status, what you need to tackle first, that creates space providing you, create the space for recovery and wellbeing in your plan, create a model of the week that you want to see happen and feature into that model time for you and for others, but also encourage others to do the same, because by respecting others' time, you'll be able to be more efficient.

You also need to micromanage and principle for focus on progress. Not perfection. Nobody is perfect and chasing for perfection means we forgo, experimenting or testing things because we don't want to screw up. You may be familiar with the terminology trial and error. By definition, there mean there will be error and that's okay. Doing so means continuous improvement. Create the space for people to feel psychologically safe so they can experiment. That means that they've learned it removes the need for criticism. The key learning here is that every time you win a step forward, it's a step of progress towards a goal, but not perfection. Of course, there are more than four principles that are going to keep us well for 2022. When we start thinking about our leadership development and I'd encourage you just to focus on what's working for you but take a step forward. Not a step back. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Let's dive into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Matthew Cox. He's a CEO and founder of Never Give Up Foundation. He's a coach, speaker and the co-author of the book. The Courage to Learn Differently. Matt's story is even more remarkable as whilst he's an entrepreneur having sold multimillion dollar businesses in the past. He's also learning disabled. Matthew, welcome to the show.

Matthew Cox: Thank you. Well, thank you, Steve. Appreciate it.

Steve Rush: So right off the bat Matt, when you hear the word learning disabled, what does that really mean?

Matthew Cox: Well, it can go two different ways. Learning disabled is a learning disability or intellectual disability versus the physical. So, when somebody's learning disabled, they struggle either with some sort of element like dyslexia, illiteracy or something that impairs them to not learn the way what's called normal society [Laugh]

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: So, it's been based on if you can't read or write, if you can't do something a certain way, you're a learning disabled. If that makes sense.

Steve Rush: It's a label that most folk aren't particularly comfortable with, but you seem to have grabbed hold of this and created it as part of your identity. I'm keen to just learn a little bit about how that came about?

Matthew Cox: Yeah, it wasn't always tough or easy. Growing up, it was trying to get, as you hear that saying, getting comfortable in your own skin. And so, throughout my youth I struggled with it like anybody. I didn't know why I wasn't able to keep up with all the other kids in the classroom. Now, if I was on the soccer field, that was another thing. I was pretty good at that. But when it came to the classroom, I hated tests. English was like a foreign language to me. So, it was tough that way. Until I got into my thirties, I finally got comfortable with it. But growing up from an adolescent to about then, it was always trying to hide things, was not comfortable. And then it just clicked one day. I just finally realized through some personal work, having a coach and having mentors, having good people around me, I finally just realized, it doesn't define who I am, and the definition of learning and art today is like reading and writings. It's not something that's been around forever. It's something we created as a society and we make decisions on scoring our kids, scoring our people around us that if they do X, then they're intelligent. So, it wasn't telling my thirties, Steve, that I finally just kind of got comfortable with it with a mentor that kind of guided me through it. And then from there on it's just been, it's, you kind of miss out, if you don't get to know me. So, when I do presentations, I don't stress anymore if I spell wrong on the board.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: I've kind of embraced it, which is freedom in its own self.

Steve Rush: So, I'm not sure many listeners actually know this either. Actually, I'm dyslexic. And I've also written a book. Albeit it, was the best couple of thousand dollars I'd ever spent hiring an editor [laugh] to rewrite my book. I'm not sure that she was anticipating the amount of work and rework that was going to be required. But I too had found that actually, stood in front of a flip chart having to write up people's notes. I was able to get away with it by just squiggling on the board and people just, not even. So, if I just got a little word blind, which often still happens by the way, I can get away with it. As long as you were confident enough, did you actually find any of that play out for you?

Matthew Cox: Oh, all the time. I have code, but before I was so forward about it, I used to try to just say, oh, I'm just going to abbreviate it or put a code up here for you.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: And I kind of get around it that way until. Now when I do a presentation, I tell my story.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: And I say, look, if you're a spelling Nazi in the audience, you're going to have fun. It's going to drive you crazy today. I wish you well.

Steve Rush: Exactly, I like that.

Matthew Cox: And so, I just make humor of it.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: And usually when you're vulnerable and you make that humor, people embrace it and I've never had an issue with it since then.

Steve Rush: And often, it is about that disclosure that makes it safe, isn't it?

Matthew Cox: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Finding this out and this level of comfort in your late thirties is really quite interesting because up until this point, you've gone through quite a lot of different twists and turns in your career and.

Matthew Cox: Yes.

Steve Rush: You've gone through some personal tragedies, and you've come out the other end and been a successful businessman. I'd love for you to just share a little bit of the backstory.

Matthew Cox: Yeah. So, you know, through all that fun time growing up, I learned early on, I was an entrepreneur, I'll start there, and I think it was after we lost my father when I was younger. I think I was ten at that time. And I had seven other siblings at the house. So, my mom raised us all. So, I started finding ways to make money. Because after that loss, we were struggling financially, and my mom did her best. And I remember my first business was a yard care business. I was mowing lawns for neighbors. And then I just kept building it and took it to the extreme and by buying trailers and buying a truck and buying more equipment. And so, at seventeen, I realized the power of entrepreneur. I was making four thousand U.S. dollars a month as a seventeen-year-old, still in school.

And I was going, wait, there's something to this. And it wasn't until I started listening to Stephen Covey, kind of switching that mindset. And then that's when my business bug kind of just went from there. And then I started several other businesses after that and had a few failures in there, like any entrepreneur. And then when I was in my twenties, I was introduced to mental health. What I mean by that is, helping kids in foster care, helping kids at risk. Because I was one of those kids growing up where, when we lost a father, I struggled, I started hanging out with wrong crowds. And I talked about this in my book. Just the journey I went through because it was easier to get accepted to the wrong crowds when you're struggling with self-esteem as a LD Kid and growing up. So, in those twenties, I learned that I could influence kids on the soccer field and then somebody introduced me to foster care. And that's when I started my journey down that whole road. And I've been in that field since, and I'm 44 now. So, it's been a long journey.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: But it's been really, really rewarding because I've found that was my gift. And I think in any situation, Steve, a lot of entrepreneurs when they find their sweet spot, just like a basketball or a professional star or sports person, they always told me when I would work with them, coaching them and stuff they'd say. There's a sweet spot when you're playing your game. And I think as an entrepreneur, you have to find that. And in my life, I found it and it was helping people.

Steve Rush: That sweet spot often referred to as purpose.

Matthew Cox: There you go, purpose.

Steve Rush: It's now played full round, isn't it for you? And the Never Give Up Foundation that you now run is focused entirely on giving people the opportunity to grow. Tell us a little bit about the work you do?

Matthew Cox: Yeah. So now currently what happened is, from the foster care I moved in 2009, I moved to Vegas, and I started an outpatient company, which that means, outpatient in the mental health world is, people come in for therapy or medication management. And we serviced four to all the way up to ninety or a hundred or on, so there is no age gap from the limit. Me and my wife started that in 2012. Then in 2016, my brother approached me and says, hey, let's start an inpatient and for adolescence. So, we started that in 2016, we were the first one in Nevada. So, we were the first ones to do this type of work or inpatient. It's called a psychiatric adolescent facility. And it's for residential where they stay nine months to a year within the facility where all services are under one roof.

And then they transition back into the community. Currently that facility has hundred and forty-four beds, and it serves adolescents from eight to seventeen. And then we have Sober Living Company that we started right after that. And the Sober Living serves adults, all ages and they stay there while they do treatment. When we did something unique with that sober living, we actually don't charge rent for them. We pay the rent and then we provide services around that. So, it's kind of a unique model that we run there. And so that's kind of been the journey for the [laugh] since 2009 to now. When I came into the state of Nevada and then we're now expanding into other states, we're buying other facilities around the U.S., and it's been a pretty crazy journey, but I've enjoyed every step. It's a very needed, especially after the pandemic, it's got very busy with mental health.

Steve Rush: Indeed. And I guess globally now. The whole issue is magnified because of the pandemic.

Matthew Cox: Globally, yes.

Steve Rush: And from your perspective, how have you seen the patients and associates you work with change because of that?

Matthew Cox: Oh, wow. We've seen, I'll start with just the adolescence. I mean the acuity level from when it was prior to the pandemic is a lot worse. When I say acuity, kids are trying to harm themselves. Eight-year-olds are trying to drown themselves in pools. Just the cases I see or hear. It's got a lot worse and then adults and colleagues, the anxiety and stress level has went off the charts, just the what ifs or the unknown. So, in the adult’s people, are just worried about the economy and what's going on.

Steve Rush: And neurologically, of course, we're built to look for certainty and pattern and comfort and routine, and the pandemic's throwing that up in the air, for many people, right?

Matthew Cox: Yeah, and I think it's that sense of reality or that purpose, right?

Steve Rush: Mm.

Steve Rush: So, like you said, that reality or that normal mundane everyday thing we do, just got disrupted. And so, in the world of psychology, it's that, hey, my story or my baseline. And that's where a lot of people, when I've coached a lot of my professionals or business owners, a lot of them are worried about what's going to happen to the economy. Am I going to have a business? And I think half the time our session is, in my high performers, I say, hey, you can't control that. What can you control? And you got to live today, not tomorrow, not five days. And so, a lot of people are doing too much, living way ahead. And that's when it causes a lot of mental health issues when we're thinking too much or too far ahead.

Steve Rush: It's the traditional power of now, isn't it?

Matthew Cox: Yes.

Steve Rush: You can only control the moment you're in, rather than the one that's gone and the one that's ahead of you.

Matthew Cox: Correct.

Steve Rush: But that takes courage to think differently, which is exactly what the book talks to, of course.

Matthew Cox: So, we create it in our outlines. The courage to learn differently was designed for kiddos or parents that have kids with learning disabilities. And so, when we went to start writing in it and Steve, like you said earlier, my coauthor bless her hearts, Erica Walkingstick. She's, the coauthor of True Colors. She's she wrote a book on the basis of temperament; her husband was the founder of True Colors. And it was founded in 1937. And it's a temperament theory using four colors to define your personality.

Steve Rush: Mm-Hmm.

Matthew Cox: It's based on Myers Briggs, all those different ones. They're all kind of, every one of them, yeah.

Steve Rush: Similar to any of the jungian personality types you might see, right?

Matthew Cox: Pretty much. And it's pretty accurate. I've been using it for a long time. So, what we did is, we took it, and we developed this book around that concept of temperament theory and developed it to where the temperament theory helps us understand how these kiddos or parents needing to understand how the kids learn. So, for me, I'm a high blue orange. So, a blue is very emotional. Orange is a risk taker. And so, knowing that as a learning disability, if you have a kid with an LD and you know, their personality types, you know one, how to one teach them or approach them, and it works in as adults. And so, we use this within our business and it's really good just around the book. So that's why I've I started, I wrote this book because I wanted a tool and it's actually a workbook for teachers, special ed teachers within any school district. It doesn't matter if you're whatever, wherever you're at, it doesn't matter what part of the country or world you're in. This will apply to whatever it is with a kid with an LD, or if you're a parent or a special ed teacher or a teacher. Because a lot of times Steve, in the mainstream classroom, most special or most mainstream class teachers, don't get a lot of training to deal with us, ADD kids or us dyslexic kids.

Steve Rush: That's very true. Very true.

Matthew Cox: Because when we're younger, we're a little more frustrated because we're not seeing things. Now, the books, all designed around my story of my life, growing up with it. So, you get a little bit of different struggles. Then me and Erica do what's called a brainstorming session and we kind of do a dialogue back and forth and she didn't know how much work it was going to be either Steve, when she was helping me write. Luckily, she's a great writer. So, she did a lot of the ghost writing and so it's been a great journey and we're excited. It's going to hit the stores here soon, in all online stores as well.

Steve Rush: What I particularly love about it, having had a sneak preview is, it is really super practical.

Matthew Cox: Yes.

Matthew Cox: And whether you are a kid or whether you are a parent or teacher, like you said, it just gives you a bit more visibility of the treatment strategies, the approaches you might want to take in order to get the best out of people. And that what I particularly love about it.

Matthew Cox: Yeah. And that's what I was shooting for. I wanted to make it simple but have some really strong principles in there. So, it's an easy read, but you can follow the storyline really easy.

Steve Rush: So, what's the reason it does take courage to think differently?

Matthew Cox: I think the courage to think differently or learn differently is, it took me courage to rethink or learn different because I don't learn the same way as mainstream education teaches and something you got to think is, kids like us or adults like us. We don't learn that way. School's designed for a certain type of personality. It's designed for the gold green kid. And so, for us, orange, blue kids or kids that struggle, we have a tendency not to really form in school. And so, school's tough for us. And so that's why we either really do well in sports or we do well in something that's more hands on. I think that's why it takes courage because when I was in school, I just, wasn't never comfortable unless I was on the soccer field. If that makes sense.

Matthew Cox: Yeah, it does. So, I'm blessed with having four children all come with a completely different set of skills, behaviors, and attitudes and where I see the courage is the courage and the conviction that if you're not as academic, then it's almost the courage to hold on, have that conviction that you will find your sweet spot. It will be there for you, but it's holding onto it without getting stressed and caught up in the moment of not having the best grades and not having, you know, some of the other things that other kids may have.

Matthew Cox: Yeah. And I learned that throughout my high school, but also my college career. Because I flunked out college about seven times. When I first went to my basics here in the states, you know, that bachelor's degree or the associates.

Steve Rush: Yep.

Matthew Cox: The associates was a nightmare. I mean I couldn't get past math and [laugh] I remember going to the math department and crying to the head of the department after I fell so many times, I'm like, please don't fail me [Laugh] and what I did do is I learned how to shop teachers. So, I think what my disabilities taught me as, is to be creative and to be a problem solver. So, in my business, all my executives call me when they need something solved in a matter of minutes. That's my sweet spot. I've learned that from this, it created a superpower. So, I'm embraced and I'm grateful. I think it was God's gift of keeping me humble.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: And also giving me the directions because I don't use logic. I go, okay, that's a bummer. We're there. What do we do next? So, I immediately always go into it. So, I remember when I was trying to solve the math one, I immediately went in and started interviewing every teacher. And I finally found Mr. Bowler. He was a lawyer. He only taught on summers and the summers in the states are very short.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: That's only a few months versus a whole semester. And I said, I'm going to take your class and the only class I'm going to do. And I sat down with him and told him, and he helped me through, and I got a C minus, and I said, piece out, thank you so much.

Steve Rush: That'll do, yeah, it's a pass, right.

Matthew Cox: But I learned you had to shop. We can either be victims our circumstance or we can solve it and move on. So that's one of the lessons I learned in that.

Steve Rush: Emotional intelligence is a core foundation that you see in many entrepreneurs. And actually, I did the research for my book and looked at what the key themes were between entrepreneurs versus, you know, some very good successful businesspeople who were less entrepreneurial. And ironically, there are more entrepreneurs who have learning disabilities than don't. And I found that really quiet a remarkable, statistic actually.

Matthew Cox: Yeah. Sir Branson. I always forget his first name.

Steve Rush: Richard Branson?

Matthew Cox: Richard.

Steve Rush: Yep.

Matthew Cox: He's highly ADHD. Steve Jobs,

Steve Rush: Job source. He was, yeah.

Matthew Cox: He was kind of more autistic or somewhere up there. He was off the chart somewhere. And then you have Microsoft guy, Bill Gates. He has something going on there and I think it engages certain types of the brain. I remember going into my master's degree. I had to do some testing and to get accommodations for the school because you know, having a learning disability, you can get accommodations throughout your schooling. And the guy that was doing it, he was a good friend, but he was also a psychiatrist or psychologist. His previous career. He worked for the CIA. And so, he used to go in and try to get people to go to our side. That's the kind of psychology he did. He would profile the individuals. And so, when he was doing my testing, he did the normal IQ test. He says, Matt, you're 109 as an IQ. You're normal. He said, but he went on and did some other testing. I don't know what it was called. He said, but your IQs around 160, 165.

Steve Rush: Blind me, that's pretty high.

Matthew Cox: And it’s because of the effort you put in. And he said, most people that have high IQ don't go past because there because they don't put in any more effort. It comes easy for them.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: He said, you have to work at it. And it was an interesting insight. I remember that conversation with him. He's a great man. He's passed on since then, but it was just really interesting because his career and where he'd been, and all the trials and we talked for a while. I think that's why you see all these entrepreneurs, like we're talking about Steve, that's why they're so off the charts because they put more effort. Like Elon Musk. A lot of people think he's an odd duck, but he just has a lot going on. He's firing off. If you hear his memoirs, he talks about when he is a little kid, he just was having ideas from a little kid.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: And that's just, I think they're gifts. And these individuals just finally kind of click in and use them.

Steve Rush: And thanks to the work that you and others like you, Matt are doing by the way that are bringing this to the front of our consciousness, because there is no direct path to success.

Matthew Cox: No, there isn't.

Steve Rush: It's about getting the right people to do the right things at the right time. And recognizing that some people are just really good at school.

Matthew Cox: Yes.

Steve Rush: And others are really good at life. And actually, you know, never the twin you’ll meet sometimes.

Matthew Cox: No, and I have a lot of doctor friends. I have a lot of lawyer friends, and they're good at it. And like even my wife is very good at school. She was a nurse but there's a balance there because she's good at what she's good at. And I'm good at what, and it's a good partnership just like in partnerships like my brother, and I are business partners as well. And I think I shared with you that when we were talking prior is that we have a joke. I'm Walt Disney, he's Roy.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: And he tells you, and I liked what you said, you know, business, a lot of entrepreneurs, if they're honest, you fall into success. One day you wake up and you're like, wow, we made it [laugh].

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: Because you fumble and you make mistakes and there's a lot of messiness to get to where the end result is, right?

Steve Rush: Absolutely. And the opposite is also true.

Matthew Cox: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Academics tend to stay in academia.

Matthew Cox: Yes.

Steve Rush: Because that's what makes them good. And that's what makes them successful. They've got the ability to learn, research, regurgitate, apply, learn, and so on.

Matthew Cox: Yes.

Steve Rush: And you just don't see that in entrepreneurs because they're in the moment. They're attaching their energy to the emotions that are presented for them and the opportunities that come along for them.

Matthew Cox: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And that's the dichotomy perhaps those two genres, right?

Matthew Cox: Oh, it is. My brother's very academic. He has the gift of entrepreneur, but I mean, he can sit down and read anything and understand it after he reads it. I'm the visionary that has twenty ideas and only three are good, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: But I'm constantly looking at the trends of the market. I'm constantly looking at things that most people don't see, it's like the matrix, right.

Steve Rush: [Laugh] exactly.

Matthew Cox: I see it and I'm like, hey, this is what's going to happen. And then he's like, okay, because he is very laser focused. And he has to move from one thing to another. I can kind of juggle five things at once. So, it's good to have that visionary and integrator. Because if you have that, if you have a visionary in what you're doing and then an integrator to help bring it down to the ground, I think that's where our success took off. Because when we put that combination in, it was game over.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: But before then when you have too many visionaries, if the visionary is doing everything, it's a nightmare for the company. Because the visionary is all over the place, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly right.

Matthew Cox: Yeah. Because we started, but we need the help and that's what I found as an entrepreneur, you got to put good people around you.

Steve Rush: Yeah. And it's having the emotional awareness to recognize that too, from my experience having worked, coached and spent time with some superb entrepreneurs, is that emotional trigger if you like is very acute.

Matthew Cox: Yes.

Steve Rush: They know their strengths, but they also very much know their weaknesses.

Matthew Cox: Yeah, and it takes them a little bit to figure that out after so many failures.

Steve Rush: Yes, indeed.

Matthew Cox: I'm not a CEO, I'll never be a CEO. I'm just not a CEO type. So, I create positions within my organizations like visionary or strategic officer because the CEO needs to be a very gold or (A) personality type, where they get things organized and they love to attend meetings. I hate meetings because I'm more high vision, bigger things, bigger ideas, bigger relationships. So, I think when entrepreneurs really figure that, especially if you're the founder or visionary entrepreneur. The founder of your company, when you finally figure out where you're good at and like we're talking about you get into that sweet spot, it helps everybody around you.

Steve Rush: Yeah. You've also now taken your learnings of work and business and how you've learned, and you coach others.

Matthew Cox: Yes.

Steve Rush: And one of the key things you focus on is the application of helping people with their emotional growth. Now for those folk that maybe aren't aware of what emotional growth is, be great if you could just explain it and maybe give us some insight as to how you coach that.

Matthew Cox: Yeah. So, a lot of times, I find in high performers or individuals that are performing at that high level or executives, there's a lot of emotional. I mean, so many coaches out there and a lot of the coaches forget about that emotional growth. And I think having the mental health background and dealing with my own emotional health as that visionary entrepreneur. I really focus on that with them, the founders of the companies, the ones that get off the ground, because I can teach you all the systems in the world, but if you can't manage your emotion and your emotional stability, you're going to drive everybody crazy around you. Because we're odd ducks. I mean, if you think about all those guys that we talked about, like Steve Jobs, they struggled in their personal lives because we think so high level that a lot of times, I drive my wife crazy.

So, I have to find my own person to go to that kind of can grasp my overload and that's my business partner and brother and he knows, he knows how to address it. So, what I usually do is, I start with your emotional stability as the higher performer. Once we figure out where you're at, then we go down and start working on traction and getting the system in place and envision because that emotional health, we have to have a people plan.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: And the most important person is you because everything ripples down. If that makes sense.

Steve Rush: Yeah. It makes bucket loads of sense. Yeah, for sure.

Matthew Cox: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And actually, it's one of those things that doesn't crop up in the classroom.

Matthew Cox: No.

Steve Rush: You know, nobody teaches you this stuff, right. It's one of these things you either bump into, you learn or you find out as you are learning from mistakes and challenges, there is definitely this bit that comes along with it, which is, innate radar to maybe spend more time focusing and being aware of people's emotions because you have to, but this is also something that you sometimes need another person to help you with, right?

Matthew Cox: Yes.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: I encourage all leaders. And this is why I tell them, you know, hire somebody like me to walk you through it or hire a therapist if there's more emotional growth that you have to do, therapy's not a bad thing. And when I tell high performers this, they're like, what, everybody could use the therapist or somebody they can go to work on certain things in their life. Everybody has something to work on. And when you discover that, you know, I had to discover when I worked with my individual person that I worked with, either it was a counselor or coach. Each of them would always teach me, you just got to slow down a little bit. Because being ADD, I kind of would go too fast for people.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: Or I would capitalize the conversation when I'd call an employee because I see a division, I see something coming and then by the time they're overwhelmed after a 30-minute conversation on the phone.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: Because it's kind of like an emotional dump, if that makes sense. Does that make sense, Steve?

Steve Rush: Absolutely, yeah.

Matthew Cox: I see this coming and as a high visionary, it was too much. Even my brother would say, hey, you got to break it down. So that's where that emotional growth as a leader's going to come.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: And so, when I teach leaders, I say, hey, you got so much going in your head when you call your manager or whoever's under you, you kind of throw up on them.

Steve Rush: [Laugh].

Matthew Cox: And so [laugh] pick one thing. And so, we calm issues. I say, pick one issue. So, if you can get three issues in that week, you've accomplished more. So, we, you know, one of the things I do as coach, I teach them how to run a more effective meeting. So, when they come in they don't do the whole soup. They don't throw everything into the kitchen, in that soup and start stirring. I say, only bring three or four issues and let's talk about them and round table and they find that it's a lot more effective and then they just have this ongoing issue list that they just kind of work at. If that makes sense.

Steve Rush: I like it. Yeah, really practical, yeah.

Matthew Cox: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So, here's the thing. Do you think that we're all broadly on the spectrum of some sort?

Matthew Cox: Oh, I think everybody has something. Yeah, I think everybody struggles with something. I call it that everybody does have a learning disability, some sort. We just don't embrace it. It might be an emotional, like you might be quick to get anger. You might be highly intelligent. So, everybody to you is dumb.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: That is a disability. It's an impairment because it's not true. Not everybody around you is dumb. It's just, they don't think the way you think. So, I think it is, I think everybody needs to step back and kind of see what they struggle with and be aware of it. Because we're all human beings. We put our pants one leg at a time, and I think the best thing I ever heard from a personal friend is said, you know, a good friend or somebody that's going to lead you as a coach. I'm going to tell you, you have a booger in your nose and your zippered down, you know, and that's, what's hard for a lot of high performers. I'm going to be honest with them.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: And sometimes, I've scared some away, but if you're wanting to grow, don't hire somebody that's not going to be truthful to you.

Steve Rush: And there is still stigma with accepting that you have an issue.

Matthew Cox: Oh yeah.

Steve Rush: Or you have some needs that are different.

Matthew Cox: Yeah.

Steve Rush: That need a different treatment strategy, right?

Matthew Cox: Yeah. Even some of my high performers, I said, you need to go get, you need to go get therapy. I've had to tell them that. I said, there's some traumas there that are causing you to be a bad leader. And they're like, well, what do you mean? And we had to walk through it. And I had some that said sure. And they did it. And they've had very successful careers and some chose not to, and they've struggled.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: Yeah, so a lot of them don't want to accept it. And I here's what, I just encourage any leader, listening, not everybody's broken. Brene Brown's one of my favorite authors. It's just that daring to lean into it. If you ever want to read some good books, go read her stuff. Because she kind of addresses that society norm that everybody numbs out. Like most of my high performers that are numbing out, they're either using some sort of substance. They're staying up late, their workaholics and that's a form of numbing out. And so, you have to understand why that is. You have to have a good balance if that makes sense.

Steve Rush: It does, yeah. So, we're going to give our listeners an opportunity to find out how I can get a copy of the book and a bit more of your insights in a little while. But before we do that, we're going to just flip the lens a little bit.

Matthew Cox: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And I'm going to hack into your leadership brain. And I want you to share with our listeners, your top three leadership hacks, Matt?

Matthew Cox: I'd say my top three leadership hacks, or you know. Have purpose, lead with purpose and understanding, but help others understand that purpose. Number two is, just let go. Once you hire somebody, let go, let them fell, help them understand their seat. Be very clear, what the expectation is. And then number three is just have fun. Enjoy the people you work with and love but have passion in what you're doing. If you don't have passion, it's going to be tough. Every day is going to be tough. Because being an entrepreneur is tough. And the last thing I'd just say is have a coach, because everybody needs a coach. Everybody needs somebody to guide them when they hit the ceiling.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: Because you will hit the ceiling.

Steve Rush: Awesome advice. Thank you, Matt.,

Matthew Cox: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Next part of the show we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something hasn't worked out. It maybe been catastrophic even, but as a result of that experience, it's now serving you well in your life and work. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Matthew Cox: I think as an entrepreneur or business owner, when you're wearing all the hats and you need to start hiring and increasing your team or grow your team, I've hired some bad people, and these are people I've known. So, I've had one that I hired as a head nurse, and I'd known her for years and it was the worst hire that I ever did. Because you don't know people until you start working with them, you might know them in a community base. You might know them somewhere else. So, from that experience I learned it's okay to hire people but hire slow and fire fast.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matthew Cox: And so from that experience, I learned that.

Steve Rush: It's interesting dynamic, isn't it? When you only have a social view of somebody who can talk a great game.

Matthew Cox: Yes.

Steve Rush: Seeing them apply it is often sometimes different.

Matthew Cox: Yeah. The way you live your life, it does ripple into how you work.

Steve Rush: Yeah, does. Last part of the show, we get to give you some time travel. You can bump into Matt at twenty-one and give him some advice and some words of wisdom. What would it be?

Matthew Cox: If I bumped into myself at twenty-one, oh geez, I'd say never give up. And that's the theme of my life has been, I'd tell my twenty-one-year self, I say listen to people around you that are good mentors. But I would probably just tell, him, take a break and enjoy things on the way as well.

Steve Rush: Good advice. And taking a break is part of that recovery system that gives you the emotional capacity to go on and do great things, of course.

Matthew Cox: Yes. It rejuvenates your battery. You need it. No matter what phase you're in. I think a lot of us entrepreneurs, we think we need to keep working all the time and I tell you don't do it.

Steve Rush: So, I absolutely love the work you're doing Matt. I think you are making a massive difference. I think the book is going to be a game changer for many people around the globe in helping them understand their approach to other people who are somewhat different to maybe what they think they are. And I'm really excited for you that you are on this journey. If our listeners wanted to get a copy of the book and find out a little bit more about the work that you do, where's the best place for us to send them?

Matthew Cox: You can reach me on LinkedIn. I'm actively on there. You could also email me @matthewmctraining.com or it's going to be available here soon in all the Amazon's online book, Barnes & Noble, all the different online ways to buy it. So, it'll be coming out soon or go to the website, matthewlelandcox.com.

Steve Rush: We'll put all of those links in the show note, Matt, and also as, when the book arrives in the various different jurisdictions, we'll help you get it out to our audience and our listeners. And we wish you all the very, very best with it too. I just want to say thank you for being part of our community in coming on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Matthew Cox: No, thank you, Steve. Appreciate it.

Steve Rush: Thanks Matt.

Closing

View Details

Our very special guests are global business guru Pepyn Dinandt and Military Cross holder, ex-army Colonel, Richard Westley OBE. They teamed up and wrote the book Business Leadership Under Fire. This is such a compelling show, packed full of hacks and lessons including:

Why establishing leadership can stop your platform burning
The “Who Dares Wins” approach to strategy and tactics
Building and managing an excellent leadership team
Team and organization structure to maximize business impact

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Pepyn and Richard below:

Website: https://businessleadershipunderfire.com

Pepyn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pepyn-dinandt/

Richard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-westley-obe-mc-66875216/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

What do you get when you smudge one of the world's global business leaders and one of the UK's top Army Colonels? The answer, Business Leadership Under Fire, our special guest today are Pepyn Dinandt and Richard Westley OBE, and they wrote the book, Business Leadership Under Fire, but before we dive in with Pepyn and Richard, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Have you ever heard, focus takes you where it takes you? Inspired by a blog by Seth Godin many years ago, he had a focus of depth of field, and I'll share a story with you around how and why focus is so important. Picture the scene. There are two runners, both have exactly the same capability, exactly the same pace and the same injury, an injured left toe. The runner who's concentrating on how much their left toe hurts will be left in a dust by the one who's focused on winning.

Even if the winner's toe hurts just as much. Hurt of course is a matter of perception. Most of what we think about is, we had a choice about where to aim that focus, aim that lens of our attention. We can relieve past injustices, settled old grudges, nurse festering sorts. We can imagine failure build up its potential for destruction and calculate its odds. Or we can imagine generous outcomes that we're working on. Feel gratitude, feel compassion for those that got us here and revel in the possibilities of what's next, we have an automatic focus are instinctive and cultural choices, and that focus isn't the only ones that are available to us. Of course, those are somewhat difficult to change, which is why so few people manage to do so, but there's no work that pays off better in the long run than focusing on positive and progressive outcomes. Remember the stories that you tell yourself, your story is your story, but you don't have to keep reminding yourself of the story you've told yourself before. If that story doesn't help you change positively for the future, it's probably not the right story in the first place. So, focus on the future stories that you want to tell yourself, and guess what? Those stories become a reality. That's been The Leadership Hacker New. Really looking forward to our conversation with Richard and with Pepyn. Let's dive into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: I'm joined by two very special guests on today's show. Pepyn Dinandt is a business executive with 30 years’ experience successfully leading and restructuring companies in challenging situations as CEO and Chairman. Or in Amsterdam, Pepyn has lived in a number of countries over the years, including Turkey, Ireland, Switzerland, South America, and UK, where he attended University and now lives with his family in Germany. And he's joined by Richard Westley, a military cross holder, who's commanded soldiers and operations at every rank from Lieutenant through to Colonel and environments of desperate situations, including Albania, Afghanistan, Balkans. He retired from the army in 2010, having been responsible for pre-deployment training for forces bound for Iraq and Afghanistan. Between them, they teamed up and wrote the book Business Leadership Under Fire: Nine Steps to Rescue and Transform Organizations, Pepyn and Richard, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Pepyn Dinandt: Hi Steve. Yeah, good morning. Happy to be with you.

Steve Rush: Me too. Hi Richard.

Ricard Westley: Hi Steve.

Steve Rush: So, a little bit about your backstory independently, and then we maybe find out how you kind of collided to come together to write the book. So, Pepyn, a little bit about your backstory?

Pepyn Dinandt: Well, after leaving University, I somehow ended up in Germany and after spending three years at McKinsey, which was my paid business school, as I like to say, I landed my first CEO role in Eastern Germany, which was then just, you know, unified with Western Germany. And I ran a company which had a revenue of 50 million euros, but also losses of 50 million euros. So that was my first contact with the challenge of rescuing and transforming businesses and challenging situations. And I had so much fun. I mean, obviously it was very tough at the time, but I had so much fun doing that, that I have kind of never left that type of challenge.

Steve Rush: Brilliant. And I guess it's the thrive of being able to rescue those firms that has kept you in that space, right?

Pepyn Dinandt: That, plus the fact that you know, these are environments where you need to learn, because if you're not willing to listen and learn, you know, you're going to fail. These are always very, let's say complex situations, they're fast moving, they're fluid. And you know, it really kind of sharpens your skills and obviously, you know, some cases have been more successful than others. You never have only just big successes, but I thoroughly enjoy helping teams be the best version of themselves and you know, rescue these companies, rescue these organizations.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and Richard, before what you do now, have you always been a military man?

Ricard Westley: Yes, I joined the military pretty much straight after school and spent 25 years as an infantry officer serving around the world. Almost exclusively in operations and training roles. I managed to avoid the major staff roles and the ministry of defense for my 25 years. And then I left earlier than I, perhaps needed to, but I was ready to move. And I spent the last 12 years working in a number of appointments in commercial companies and now run my own consulting business.

Steve Rush: Great. So, when did the stars align for you to both meet?

Pepyn Dinandt: Well, I have been always interested in the application of military best practices in business. And I had met about four years ago, a gentleman called Tim Collins. The famous Tim Collins and you know, I had been discussing these ideas that I had about this crossover between the military and business. And he introduced me to Richard, that's how the two of us met.

Steve Rush: And then Richard, from your perspective, what was the moment you thought, how we are going to do some business together, we're going to write a book. How did that come about?

Ricard Westley: Yeah, so Tim. I was working with Tim at the time, and he mentioned Pepyn. So, he would you be interested in a conversation. I said, well, I'm always interested in conversations, and I generally like meeting new and successful people. So, you know, Pepyn and I had initial discussions and then some supplementary conversations and started looking at some sort of solution for leaders. It was a discussion over a number of months really. And then the book was a nice fallout because at that time we were in lockdown, and I think Pepyn, and I were both looking for something else to occupy our minds. And hence the hence the book,

Steve Rush: Of course, when you think of the role that the military play versus the role that the commercial enterprises play, there's such a lot of crossovers in this sphere of leadership isn't there?

Pepyn Dinandt: Yeah, I think, you know, when we sat down and this is interesting because as Richard just said, you know, we started working together without actually having physically met each other. We were basically, you know, we got to know each other digitally and spend a lot of our early relationship on Zoom. So, you know, we used these experiences, both Richards and myself to kind of look at our learnings, our insights, you know, from good and bad experiences, as well as insights from research we did on successful leadership cases, as well as fade leadership cases and developed from that, the concept for, you know, the book, including obviously the nine steps and Richard being, you know, a very hands on guy than me. So ultimately being somebody who's you know, a hands-on executive, I think developed a book, which is very much rooted in real life experience, has a down to earth approach. We believe is straightforward to understand because it's nine steps, with which we try to really cover all angles that we believe is important for leaderships facing transformation challenges. And ultimately, we produced, we believe a very practical guide for leadership when transforming organizations.

Steve Rush: Yeah. It's a very chronological approach to how leaders can really consider how to transform and continue to grow their business, which we're going to dive into a moment. But I want to come to you first, Richard, just to explore the parallels from military leadership to commercial leadership, we've been very fortunate to have a number of major generals appear on the show already. And the one thing that's been really consistent from them is that leadership as a behavioral almost has been drilled from the very moment you join an organization, but actually that's often learned in the commercial organization. Been interested in your spin on things.

Ricard Westley: Very much so. I mean, the military has the luxury of being able to devote time and resource to training and developing their people. And officers go through the RMA Military Academy Sandhurst. Mottos, serve to lead and behaviors are really focused from the get-go. So, you know, a young graduate who spent three or four years at university in quite a selfish sort of environment is suddenly thrust into a very pressurized, initial six weeks of a yearlong course where they're put under significant amount of pressure and strain to behave in the right way. And doesn't matter how good or well prepared they think they are, or how fit and robust, or how intellectually gifted they are by about day 10 of the RMA Military Academy Sandhurst. You are so stretched physically, emotionally, mentally, you are quite exhausted, and you have to reach out left and right, and grab people and say, look, we need to work together here.

This is not about me. This is about us. And so that team bonding which then translates into the leadership of that team you know progresses and then going through your military career, you know, you are prepared for every new role you go. You are course trained and you are developed. And then at the collective level, you know, units or battalions or regiments will prepare for operations, deploy on operations, recover from operations, then start that circle again, that cycle, of course, in the real world, in the commercial world, companies don't have that luxury. You know, they are on operations 24/7. And so, it becomes really important at that stage that the leaders make time to develop their people and to nurture their talent. So, I think there are things that both can learn from each other. The final point I would say is that business find themselves in very, very volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous circumstances most of the time, and certainly now, and the military is designed for that voker, uncertain world. And so, to me, it's a natural progression for the military to talk to business because they're comfortable and are designed for that voker world.

Steve Rush: Yeah, Pepyn, I wonder from your expense of being chairman and CEO on a number of businesses, whether or not there's room for that preparation to take leaders out of the operation space and really immerse them into some intense training and support.

Pepyn Dinandt: Well, look, the practice in most corporations is unfortunately completely different to what Richard has described. In other words, people are not really prepared systematically for leadership. And in the book, we talk about the so-called career X point, which is an interesting phenomenon we've seen with many failed leadership examples where people, you know, over time, they do learn initially, and they advance in their career. But when you get to a certain level in organizations, you suddenly believe your now CEO, head of big division, have been successful in the past that you don't need to learn anymore. When the learning line crosses the career line, which keeps going up and the learning line flattens, we talk about the career X points, and that's when people basically start making mistakes in business.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Pepyn Dinandt: And that's why it's fascinating to look at the crossover because especially the British military, you know, very, very actively train their leaders to be good, not many businesses do it that way. It's more always, you know, advancement by chance, advancement by opportunities, but not those systematic.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that makes those sense. So, let's dive into the book and the nine steps and maybe get some perspective from you as to how the steps within that book can help us and Pepyn we start with you. The first step in the book is that building platform, you call it establishing leadership. Tell us about that?

Pepyn Dinandt: So, Steve, you know, you coach leaders, you coach people that run businesses, you know, so you're seeing a situation where there is an obvious problem with the business.

Steve Rush: Right.

Pepyn Dinandt: Financials are declining, for me, for us. When we define the steps, especially the first step, we said, you know, this is an environment. This is an opportunity. This is a window where you take that situation, and you call out a burning platform. And with that burning platform, you basically achieve two things. First of all, you establish yourself as the leader, that's going to take charge of this situation. You know, that's about conveying the fact that you are safe of hands, having simple messages on, you know, what's happening and what's going to happen and projecting certainty as a leader, in a sense of conveying to people. You have a plan; you're going to get this done.

You're going to save the situation. So that's the establishing leadership part. The other part, and this is very often something that you see with formally successful businesses. You know, the organization, which is ultimately the people that work there are in the comfort zone. That's very often the reason why the business in trouble in the first place. And one of the things you need to really focus on is to galvanize the organization into action, into a change mode by explaining why they need to change. And that's why it's so important to do that in the very first step. If you don't get people in a mentally ready for small or big change, you're going to have trouble later on with the other steps.

Steve Rush: Yeah. Complacency is a real killer in most organizations, but often people don't even realize they're in that comfort zone until others like you or I, or other people on their team pointed out to them and go, this is a problem [laugh]. So, step two, Richard, you call in the book analysis and determination of mission targets. So very much a military focus. Tell us how that translates?

Ricard Westley: Yeah, so the military has a command philosophy called mission command. What we would call you know, empowerment and it really centers around telling your people what you want them to do and why, but not telling them how to do it because they should have the technical skills and they may well be considerably more able than you to actually do the, what. What this chapter is about is really making sure that you understand the intent of your boss or bosses or board or shareholders at whatever level, making sure that everything you do and all the direction that you give to your subordinates is in line with that. And what's required here is real clarity, real clarity of vision to make sure you've got it right. And then clarity of expression to make sure that everybody, you know, from other board members down to the people on the shop floor, really understand what you are about and why you are doing this, so that's what it is. And chapter two really digs into that idea of getting the big idea, right. And then conveying the message as simply as possible to your people.

Steve Rush: And it's that simplicity that often gets lost in translation, because my experience tells me that the more simple people can align to a common goal, purpose, mission, vision, the more likely they're going to achieve it, the more complex it becomes, then people lose that through a bit of diffusion.

Pepyn Dinandt: Yeah, you know, Richard and I, we had a discussion about step one and two in the sense of what comes first, but we like to use the following analogy. I think, you know, if you're going to be the new chef of a restaurant before you actually get told, you know, what the goal is, what the mission is, it's good. That's step one, to get to know the kitchen and the team before you do that discussion. Why step one first and then step two.

Steve Rush: Yeah. It makes sense. There's been lots of debate about which comes first. And I think I concur with you that you have to, what if you just think of the chronological order, you get hired first before you decide what you're going to do exactly. And it follows that same principle, doesn't it?

Pepyn Dinandt: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And in step three, you talk about the evaluation of the environment. I kind like this theater of operations. Tell us about that?

Pepyn Dinandt: You know, steps three is, ultimately very big step, but we like to keep it simple and practical. It's the moment when you look as a leader closely at your competition or in the military term, your enemy, as well as your, you know, your customers, your market that you are serving, or in the military term, the environment that you're operating in. And we've seen my own experience, learnings, you know, good and bad, but also from the research we did, we've seen a truly great business leaders, never underestimate their competition. Everything they do is centered around staying ahead of the competition. And, you know, I talk about the degree of skill and business acumen. So, what's important is to know your business very well from both an inside perspective and from an outside perspective, know your strengths and weaknesses and those of your competition, because very often when people develop strategies and we'll talk about that in step four, you know, they overestimate their own strengths, and they underestimate the strengths of their competition. And interesting under step three is the fact that you may find things. You may find out things about your business, about the competition, where the mission you've been set under step two becomes maybe not even only just difficult, but maybe even impossible. So, you know, we do write in the book that after step three, it may be necessary to revisit step two, depending on what you find out.

Steve Rush: Is it fair to say that there will be a continual revisiting of step two as their business and their firm or their mission if you like starts to evolve?

Pepyn Dinandt: No, I think if you do it properly, and there's a great Chinese general called Sun Tzu who wrote a book, The Art of War two and a half thousand years ago, you know, and in my experience, as he says, if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of one hundred battles, but if you know, neither of the enemy, nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. So, in other words, if you do your homework properly and you really know your business well, and you really know your competition, well, I think you can then move on to the next steps. I think could be that instant

that instant where you need to go back once to step two. Yeah, but at some point, you just need to have done your homework. Otherwise, you're in trouble as a leader. Anyway,

Steve Rush: I suppose it plays to the philosophy of having no plan B.

Pepyn Dinandt: Yes, exactly.

Steve Rush: Yeah [laugh] like it. Yeah, so in step four, I love title of step four, who dears wins. It's a very common used phrase in the military. I think this comes from the SAS, if my memory is correct. And this is about strategy and tactics, Richard.

Ricard Westley: Yeah, and step four. I mean, I guess the theme that runs through step four is that simplicity rules. The military uses the acronym kiss, keep it simple, stupid, or keep it short and simple. But that strategy for me is about getting the big ideas, right. Giving clear instructions to your people as to what you want them to do. Supervising the execution, but not getting too close. And then having a good process for lessons identified in order to inform best practice. And the chapter actually draws on some work by Michael Porter, where he talks about cost leadership, differentiation and focus in niche markets in order to ensure that, you know, you can deal with your competitors, but stay on track. And as Pepyn says, it builds on, you know, you build on your strength and you attack your competitor's weakness, which is very much in keeping with the military maneuvers approach, which is, you know, find the enemy's weak point and exploit it whilst defending you know, your center of gravity.

Step four, gets into an idea about risk taking and how you manage risk, how you mitigate risk and accepting the fact that you can never rule out risk. So, it leads on to stuff that we talk about later, such as contingency planning. And it also indicates that occasionally you have to go back to your mission and say, okay, something's happened. Something's changed. Is the mission still valid in its format at the moment? And therefore, you know, am I okay to crack on, or do I need a little bit of work here so that I can get on with the other steps?

Steve Rush: It's an interesting spin on risk too. Because research has provided loads of evidence over the years that those organizations and entrepreneurs and business leaders who avoid risk actually prevent growth and stifle innovation.

Ricard Westley: Absolutely, absolutely right.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Ricard Westley: You know, from a military perspective, I always encourage my junior commanders to take risk. You know, my mantra was, go now with a 75% solution and tweak it. Because if you wait for the hundred percent solution, somebody will get there first.

Steve Rush: Yeah. And I guess that spins then into step five Pepyn in the book, which is around determining the best course of action. And I guess the question I had was, is there ever a best course of action?

Pepyn Dinandt: Well, that's a good question, Steve, but if we take a step back, one of the fascinating things for me, you know, looking at the crossover between military and business is that. Step five is something which in the military, in the best practice cases of the military is always done very, very, very well, but in business, not done very often. And the reason it's the following, you know, in business, a situation is typically where the leadership and the let's say top team develop a plan and then basically give the plan to the organization to get done. But what we say in step five is that, you know, if you want to do it properly, what you do is, you sit down as the planning group with the execution group and you get, you know, you brief them on what you want to happen, and they are allowed to give their feedback.

And you know, you have to take the time to get that feedback. You, you know, you really have to also be open for a reality check of your plan. And the SES here is brilliant because, you know, in their mission success cycle, which is plan, brief, execute, debrief. The brief part is so important where the guys that have planned go to the guys that are going to execute, present the plan, but get feedback from the people that will be executing the operators and then maybe even change the plan because they see that from an execution perspective, things that are not well thought through maybe even unrealistic. And this reality check, that’s step five. Entails is something whereas a leader, as a CEO, you need a healthy ego, you know, to be able to deal with that. Because it means that somebody may criticize your plan. You know, one of the people that you are going to be hiring or that you're going to be entrusting with opening the French office of a company that is up to now only sat in Britain. You know, he may be telling you, well, this plan's not going to work because ABC and you have to be able to accept that criticism and go back and redo the plan. So that's why step five is critical. And it's unfortunately not seen so often in business, you know, not well done in business.

Steve Rush: And I love the notion of healthy ego. Again, similarly, there's been a lot of research that, and in fact, to be fair, there's been lots of publicity and things written, ego is a bad thing, and it is if it's overplayed and it's not helpful, but having a healthy ego gives you confidence, direction and purpose. And I wondered what your spin on that would?

Pepyn Dinandt: Every leader need ego. By definition, a leader has ego, but the problem that we have, and we saw this when we did the research, especially for the bad leadership cases, you know, many of these leaders are egocentric. And we see this, for example, again, in the military, the special air services I think is very, is a great example here. You know, you can have great leaders that haven't healthy ego that are, let's say, aware of their own limitations, are open to criticism. And basically, as you, in that podcast mentioned, you know, they don't have a centric ego, but rather a healthy ego. And I believe that that you know, good business managers, good business leaders, not necessarily founders entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos, but the people that are entrusted to lead these businesses in the second-generation. Key is for them to have a good, healthy ego, because it's so important to creating a learning organization.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Pepyn Dinandt: And that stops you from, at some point in the future, getting into a problem where you need to do transformation.

Steve Rush: And that also will help you find other people around you who bring additional strengths and characteristics, which is leading into step six, which is about building and managing that excellent leadership team. Richard, this is essential in the military as well as in the corporate world, isn't it?

Ricard Westley: Yeah, it is. And you know, this, whole idea of pulling together and then maintaining a high-performance team is absolutely crucial to mission success, as is, you know, spotting and nurturing potential. And we've already mentioned you know, committing time and resource to developing your people to make sure that team that you've selected is then maintained and developing your team to make sure, you know, they've got clear aligned, you know objectives and values. Those teams need to be encouraged to communicate frequently and effectively, they need to be collaborative, you know, that sort of collaboration breaks down the silos that can often slow up business. And that team needs to build trust through relationships, but it also needs to be able to learn and adapt. And we get onto that in step nine, but it is, it's about making sure that you get the right people and that you don't default to just people, you know, but actually getting the right people and the right job, and then giving them the responsibility

Steve Rush: And step seven plays into that lovely, doesn't it? As part of that whole organizational structure in order to get the right people in the right place to get the best results. Pepyn, what's your experience of making sure that in that space you've got the right people?

Pepyn Dinandt: Yeah. Look, I think, in my own experience, very often you come into a company that is in trouble and you have to very quickly, you know, go through your steps and act. So, one of the key questions is to look at the culture of the organization and to try to understand, because often, as I said before, these companies have been successful. So for example, find a customer centric culture in this company, or is a very technical culture. It's important to understand, you know, what you're dealing with because ultimately, as I said before, the organization is, another way of saying, you know, five thousand people, ten thousand people, you know, whatever the size of the company is, you need to get them to do something different. So, is it a dynamic organization or is it a company that is clearly in the comfort zone?

You need to understand this because then you have to organize yourself to take that plan and make sure you develop the structure that has maximizing the business impact from what you're trying to achieve. My own experience, Steve is that in general, smaller units are much more effective than large units. But the thing that ultimately guides, you know, the structure that you're going to be implementing is, what you are facing in the market. In other words, are you competing against smaller competitors who are organized in smaller entities? Is it a local market? So, you know, once you have all this information, you can then develop and define the structure that you believe.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Pepyn Dinandt: Is going to be most effective. But what you need to do is, change it, only for the sake of getting it out of its comfort zone. So typically, I find larger structures, more functional organizations, and typically I define them smaller. And I like to call these business units that have, you know, delegated responsibility, or as Richard said before, you know, where the people leading these smaller entities take responsibility and have freedom.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Pepyn Dinandt: And degree of decision making.

Steve Rush: That makes load of sense. So, step eight, Richard, there's two words in there that have really interesting connotations. Campaign delivery. So, for me, when I read that, the first thing I thought of is, oh, this is wrapped up in a campaign strategy at IE. There's a start and end. There's lots of moving parts all in the right places. And of course, the one thing that's essential in every business is you have to deliver, what does it speak to?

Ricard Westley: Yeah. So, you've got your plan and you're probably feeling quite proud of your plan. But how can you stress test it? And how's it going to survive contact with a competitive arena. And that's absolutely based on the military assertion that, you know, no plan survives contact with the enemy because your competitors or your opponents on a sports field for that matter, they have a vote. And have you contingency planned against their likely responses you know, what is the market going to do when you introduce some new product or service in there, which disrupts, what is their default setting going to be? And how do you plan against that? And this whole idea of contingency planning is that, of course you can't plan against every possible contingency. And I always in the military planned against the worst case and the most likely case, because if you've got a contingency plan for those two, anything else happens in between, you can sort of tweak it, but it is about war gaming and red teaming.

And this is not confined to the military or to business. One of the examples we cite in step eight was the way that the British Olympic Committee approached their metal chances and the matrix that was created by the likes of John Steele and Peter Keen in the committee that they would go and pour over, you know, twice a week to make sure that actually they weren't missing something. And if they need a contingency plan against, you know, an outbreak of, you know, foot and mouth in the country just before, what were they going to do? So, war gaming and red teaming, you know, which businesses should do, but often pay lip service to become really important. And finally, it comes down to accountability. Yeah, it's the leader's responsibility. You know, you take the credit when things go well, I'm afraid if they don't, then you've got to be held accountable. And it's all down to you at the last at the last count.

Steve Rush: When you start to get people to think about plan for the end planned. The mindset will take you to what you know, or broadly what you can anticipate. But I bet that's changed in the last two years. Me included by the way, got caught out big time with how the pandemic through that perspective to us. And I wonder if in the future organizations will be more thoughtful to that because of what's happened in the last few years.

Pepyn Dinandt: I think Steve, you know, step eight is, obviously, it's the execution of the plan, but it's so much more than that. And, you know, I learned for example, an interesting military term, which I believe is also very applicable to business, which is UDA. You know, this is something developed, I think during the Korean war where they saw that the inferior U.S. jets were winning against superior Russian jets flown by the North Koreans. And somebody figured out that the reason was because the pilots flying those American jets were much more in tune in what was going on in the world, let's say, applying a concept that was later called UDA, which is observe, orientate, decide and act. In other words, they were, you know, able to adjust to what was going on in the field. So as Mr. Von Moltke a famous I think Prussian General once said, you know, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. And that's why we also emphasize in step eight that a leader needs to be close to the action. Needs to see what's going on in the field with his plan so that he can adjust real time. You know, as Richard just said, have a contingency plan, but make sure the leader is leading that change of plan together with this team.

Steve Rush: Which is why step nine is also then so important, which is that final after-action review.

Pepyn Dinandt: Yeah, and the after-action review is something for me personally, that was completely new. I learned this from Richard, you know, Richard can maybe add to this because he was very instrumental in bringing that to the British military, but this is a very interesting concept. And this is by the way for the SAS, their last step in their four-step model. So, you know, when you have finished your transformation program, be it, you know, a cost take out exercise or a relaunch of a growth initiative. You know, you sit down with everybody which includes the boss, but also the people that have been, you know, executing parts of the plan and you have an open and frank and honest discussion as to what went right, what was good, but also what did not go right? And what can we learn for the next time?

So, it's seldom a business leader. I have to say that is, you know, able to sit there in the room and take constructive feedback, open bracket, maybe sometimes criticism, you know, of their plan and then take that and think about it and, you know, change things for the next time. But as I said before, this is something which is so important to do, right. Because you create with it, the ultimate learning organization. And I, myself, you know, as I said, this has been a great, interesting learning for me personally. I have seen it in very successful organizations where this is practiced. Maybe not so systematically as we describe it here in step nine, but it's definitely something I would recommend for all companies to do because it’s so powerful.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and it stops repeating mistakes in the past and focuses you on building on the strengths that you've achieved as well.

Pepyn Dinandt: But also, you know, just a signal from leadership to do this, to you know, sit there and take criticism. I think it's so powerful for the organization because it just sends a signal. You know that there is a culture of openness where if it's constructive, if it objective, you know, people can step up and say, look boss, I don't think this is the right way. I think we need to do it differently because 1, 2, 3.

Steve Rush: It's a really pragmatic nine steps. I'm really delighted that we were able to dive into them and get into them and we'll allow our listeners an opportunity to find out how they can get a copy and dive to learn a bit more about your work later on. But first I'm going to turn the tables a little bit. And this is part of the show where our listeners have become accustomed to where we get to hack into your leadership minds. So, I'm going to come in turn and quick fire, top three leadership hacks from you both. Pepyn kick us off?

Pepyn Dinandt: My top three leadership hacks. One, you know, as I said before, absolutely paramount to get your first step right in a transformation situation. If you don't get that right, you're in trouble. Second, the plan is nothing. The planning is everything, you know. So, I love that saying from Benjamin Franklin, fail to prepare and prepare to fail. And three, if you want to be a really good leader, then you need to have a healthy ego because that is a key to being very impactful and leading a learning organization.

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, Love it. Richard, what about your top three leadership hacks?

Ricard Westley: First thing I'd say. Two leaders is a need to learn to listen and really listen. Not, listen to respond, but to really listen, to understand their people because otherwise they'll miss so much more than just the technicalities and the practicalities. They will miss stuff that involves culture and culture is important. Second one is, you know, whatever you do, issue clear instructions, let people know the intent, the why, and empower them to get on with it. And thirdly, you are there to make decisions. And as my first colour sergeant said to me, you know, at the end of the day, Mr. Westley, you have to make a decision, good decision, great. Bad decision, regrettable. No decision, unforgivable.

Steve Rush: Yeah. And bad decisions lead to learning as well [Laugh] you know.

Ricard Westley: Indeed. Yeah, yeah. You've got to fail to learn and thrive.

Steve Rush: That's it, yeah. So, the next part of the show we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is where we ask our guests to share an event, a story or experience where something has particularly not gone well for them in their work or their life, but as a result of it, they've learned. And it's now a force of good in what they do. What would be your Hack to Attack Pepyn?

Pepyn Dinandt: Yeah, look. First was when I was a, you know, first time CEO I had come from McKinsey, and I thought as many McKinsey do, that I could walk on water and do it all alone. But I was lucky because through fortunate circumstances, I very quickly learned that it's individuals that may play the game, but teams that beat the odds. And that's been one of my mantras ever since. And the other one is that later on in life, I learned the hard way that not every mission is accomplishable, yeah. So as a leader, you need to be brave enough to stand up to your board, sponsor, owner, and explain that this mission that you have been set is impossible and will not work as envisaged, you know, and not many leaders are brave enough to do that.

Steve Rush: That's very important lessons learned there, and I can particularly resonate with the last, because there comes with a fear of particularly if you’re leading somebody else's strategy, letting them know that they've also screwed up in the process.

Pepyn Dinandt: Yep.

Steve Rush: Yeah. Richard, how about you?

Ricard Westley: Yeah, I'd harp back to a peacekeeping mission in Bosnia that very nearly failed. I mean, very nearly failed. It nearly brought down the UN and the British Prime Minister, John Major offered his position up to the cabinet because of what had happened to us. And we managed to model through and the town that we were defending did not fall unlike Srebrenica just up the valley and sadly but I would say what I learned from that is, you know, the depth of mine and other people's resilience and how you have to keep working at that and keep topping up their resilience banks when times are tight. I learn to never give up, to keep thinking, keep moving, and again, keep contingency planning at every level,

Steve Rush: Really powerful lessons, particularly in times of crisis like that as well. You can rely on those foundations to help you through, can't you?

Ricard Westley: Indeed.

Steve Rush: So, the last part of the show is you get to do a bit of time travel and all the years of wisdom you've been able to attain in your more mature days, you get a chance to bump into yourselves at 21 and give yourselves some advice. What would Pepyn advice to Pepyn at 21 be?

Pepyn Dinandt: Well, by the way, I wrote the book or we wrote the book or the idea for the book came about of providing my younger self, something useful and practical to work with. But to answer your question directly, I think for me, knowledge and experience, you know, the realization that these are greatest weapons in times of trouble that, you know, the good and experienced people that have trained it and done it a hundred times before. They are so valuable to you as a young person. And as a young man, I would advise myself to adopt the scout mindset. So be curious, be open, be grounded and learn. So, to listen and learn from those more experience around you, because typically, you know, young you, does not know at all, even if you think you do.

Steve Rush: And the scout and soldier mindset are those kinds of different perspectives. And we can use a metaphor of almost a kind a growth and curious mindset versus a fixed and closed mindset, right?

Pepyn Dinandt: Yes, exactly.

Steve Rush: Yeah. Richard, 21. I guess you were heading off at Sandhurst, weren’t you?

Ricard Westley: I was pretty much passing out at Sandhurst at 21.

Steve Rush: Oh, yeah [Laugh]

Ricard Westley: What I would say to myself there is, the one thing I really learned is the most, for a military commander, but also in business, I guess that one of the most important information requirements you have is time. How much time have I got and when do I have to achieve this by? And so, I would say to young RJ Westley at 21 or 19, get better at time management. Because I don't think I was terribly good at it. And of course, I was fueled with the mindset of most young infantry officers that wanted to go and earn their spurs, go and prove themselves and yeah, and go into violent situations and win. And I guess what I would say to that young person is be careful what you wish for.

Steve Rush: Yeah, very good advice, indeed. So, I've had a ball talking, I could spend the rest of the day diving into these subjects because as you probably already know, I'm a bit of a leadership geek and you have an enormous amount of lessons that we can learn from. So firstly, thank you for sharing them so far, but if our listeners did want to get a copy of the book, learn a bit more about the work that you both do now. Where's the best place for us to send them?

Pepyn Dinandt: Well [laugh], there is a website, www.businessleadershipunderfire.com where they can learn more about the book. And then there is a link on the website to go directly to Amazon where they can then order it. I think that would be the recommendation for your listeners.

Pepyn Dinandt: Perfect. And we'll include that link along with any social media links that you have in our show notes. So as soon as people listen to this, they can dive straight in and find a bit more about what you do. It just goes without saying, to say, thank you ever so much for coming on our show, joining our community here on The Leadership Hacker Podcast. Pepyn, Richard, thanks very much.

Pepyn Dinandt: Steve. Thank you very much.

Ricard Westley: Absolute pleasure. Thanks.

Closing

View Details

Matt May is Founder and CEO of Premier Team Building and Interactive experiences, he’s also a speaker and author of the Book, "Take the Fear out of Team Building." In this engaging and fun show, you can learn:

Why “team building” is not a “bad word.”
Why grown-ups have developed fear and anxiety around play and team building?
How do you go about having fun/play yet keeping the learning real and authentic?
How do you get folks to participate who just don’t want to get involved.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Matt below:

Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattmayptb/

Matt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PremierTeamBld

Matt on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/premierteambuilding/

Matt’s Website: https://premierteambuilding.com/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Our special guest on today shows Matt May. He's the founder and CEO of Premier Team Building & Interactive Experiences Company. He's also a speaker, an author of the book, Take The Fear Out Of Team Building. But before we get a chance to speak with Matt, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: The values and culture play a real part in leadership post pandemic. We're going to look at how environments have changed dramatically over the last 10 years and particularly since the pandemic. It's exposed weaknesses and for some businesses strengths and the effectiveness of company values and how they're put into practice. I want to dive in and have a quick look at how leadership drastically changes company culture and how values inform it.

There's a fantastic report from the ILM called leading through values if you get a chance to get your hands on it, which gives you much more context and detail about the things I'm going to talk to you about. And just to throw something else into the mix that helps inform culture and values, right now. I wrote an article in CEOWorld Magazine and on LinkedIn called Mind The Gen Gap. For the first time, we now have four generations in the workforce, Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Zers or Gen Zers if you're in the UK. And the reason this is important is because values is the principles, the rules of the game, and we all have perspectives based on our generations. And whilst these are not scientifically proven, it's a good barometer and we should take it into consideration. The ILM research found that 69% of people will reconsider a job if the company culture seems to be toxic, 77% felt that company culture was incredibly important to them and the values that their boss also brings to the culture and 56% ranked opportunities for growth as more important than their basic salary and package. So, the top values that impact on culture are having a person centered and authentic approach with the core elements, being congruence. In other words, your words and actions make sense to your employees. Being genuine in essence, empathy, having a deep understanding of what it feels like for employees of every grade and every level and an unconditional positive regard for the individual.

And only if there is a genuine approach to demonstrate these values from senior leadership. There can be congruency throughout the organization. You'd expect wellbeing of employees to be up there and of course, it is. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, CIPD. Run a survey of over 3000 individuals in the UK. And the survey consistently found a 38% of workers experience work stress on a weekly basis. The problem in a lot of companies is that there is no clear standalone health and wellbeing strategy. In fact, only 8% of companies had such a strategy And at least 34% of managers expressed a need for independent authority and feel unempowered to really do anything. My observation here is if we have a people centered approach, wellbeing should be part of that, and we don't necessarily need to have a strategy or strategic. We do however need to be more thoughtful and compassionate.

And as a talent management and learning and development, professional. It’s music to my ears, to see self-directed on autonomous learning to sit up here in the top tier, there's been a significant shift away from organizations investing in organization-wide learning programs and much more focused self-directed autonomous learning and it's becoming more prominent in most company’s culture.

And this means that the company values are the basis of helping employees engage when it's meaningful and when it's right for them. But this strategy provides some challenges, too. Some people really struggle to learn on their own. They do need guidance, support, and others to help them on their journey. There are people not able to extract and absorb the information in the same way and still need that for face-to-face facilitator led sessions. And there's such a thing too, to have too much freedom. The number of possibilities can create overwhelm and anxiety. So, we have to sometimes help people direct them to the most appropriate resources.

And their last one on my list today is recognition. Remuneration is important for sure but recognizing staff for good jobs well done is most important and a significant indicator in value-based leadership. Many employees want to feel that their work is being valued and valuing values plays an important role in this because they should stipulate in some way that there is a recognition of the hard work outside of the salary and the direct results as a result of their work. This will also inform great culture and culture can be formed so that this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The final thing I want to draw our attention to is your company's purpose is not your purpose and your mission, but finding that connectivity by what you do to why they do what they do will really help you find true purpose in your work, as well as in your life

Values based culture gives you the principles to accelerate progress together and purpose will anchor the activities that bring people together to drive great culture. That's been The Leadership Hacker News, lets dive into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining on the show today is Matt May. He's the founder and CEO of Premiering Building & Interactive Experiences Company. Who's putting the fun and energy back into play. He's also a speaker, an author of the book, Take The Fear Out Of Team Building. Matt, welcome to the show my friend.

Matt May: Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.

Steve Rush: So, I'm really looking forward to our interactive experience today. But before we get into that, maybe you can just give our listeners a little bit of the journey from where it all began in theater to you and how you ended up running in interactive experiences firm.

Matt May: Absolutely. So, I was in music and theater in high school, middle school. I always was creative. Hey, let's put on some sort of a show or a presentation or do something for the family and the parents and the yada, yada in the backyard, in the garage. And when I went to school undergraduate, I went for theater. I earned a dual major in theater and arts administration. So, I got that business side. I also was a camp counselor when I was a teenager. I went through a three-year counselor in training program as a camper. Took some psychology courses in undergrad, as well as a number of leadership courses. And I don't know if they're call all seminars or what but opportunities that were presented through a variety of organizations within the university setting. So that kind of all sorts of came together for me after I graduated school, I went to New York city and did the professional entertainment thing for a while, but I also was always kind of had an education thought in my head. So, I really did a number of different things. I finally left New York after five years. I said, I'm moving to sunnier pastures because I want to be able to have my coffee outside, whether it's January or June.

Steve Rush: That's right, yeah.

Matt May: [Laugh]. I moved to Florida in the states and really haven't looked back. But when I moved there, I started working in administration at a performing arts high school and college and had a number of different opportunities that I embraced and did. And finally sort of fell into team building per say. I happened to be bartending at a comedy show on campus at the Fort Lauderdale Performing Arts Center, the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. And the stage manager happened to be staffing an event, a team building event, just helping the company, which is actually based in Massachusetts. So not even close by. And she said, hey, do you want to do it? And I said, yeah, absolutely. And that was my first official team building as an assistant staff. And I said, oh, huh, there's something about this.

So, jump ahead, several years I was facilitating, I started doing a lot of producing because of my theatre background. I was able to do production and logistics and whatnot, and finally said, you know what? I quite honestly, I'm tired of being on the front lines and not having control and what goes into all of the preparation beforehand and created my own company. And I like to call it a perfect storm because I have my logistics and my business and my entrepreneurship and my sales skills. And by the way, sales is my least favourite thing to do. But I get guess I have some sort of a knack for it. But then I also, when I facilitate jump on stage and I'm able to get people working together and be entertaining and whatnot. So, I'm able to use all of my experiences and all of my different training, whether it be from education or professional or theatre or business, and it kind of a perfect store and collides together. So that's kind of how I got to where I am now. And looking back, of course, hindsight is always 2020, I think. Oh, all right. Well, that's why I did all of those different things and worked in education and professional theatre and, you know, did some temping offices and whatnot so that all of this came together for me to where I am now,

Steve Rush: Steve jobs, I think famously said you can't always connect the dots forward, but you can definitely connect them back. And that's perfect example, right? If you were trying to create the path to where you are now, you'd probably never get there.

Matt May: No. And you just made me think, I don't know if I'm the only one, but I remember as a kid, when we would try to do mazes, you know, the mazes that you draw, the pen or the pencil through it all.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt May: Some reason, they seem to be easier going backwards.

Steve Rush: Oh, that's interesting perspective. I wonder if that's something to do with the way that our brains are wired as well.

Matt May: It must be, I've never really researched it, and until you mention that Steve Jobs quote, I hadn't really thought of it, but I think that's on my to-do list this afternoon.

Steve Rush: Shout out to all amateur neuroscientists, or any professional ones that listen to the show, they can maybe contact us and let us know. That'll be interesting to have a look at.

Matt May: Yes.

Steve Rush: So, the work that you do now, it's very still theatrical, isn't it? So, you get to be that front to stage guy, but also then be that production guy as well. Is there a natural kind of thing that you prefer? Are you more of a front man or more of a production man? Where would you say you’re kind of true passion lie?

Matt May: Geez, that's a tough question to answer. You know, certainly being a performer as I was younger and going to school for it initially, that's instilled in me, but it's funny. I will have clients who are new clients often come up to me after an experience ended and say, where did you come from? And the first few times that happened, I didn't understand it. But now I do, when I walk into a ballroom or whatever, and I'm setting up and managing staff and we're getting ready, it's very organized and logical. And you know, I'm just doing what needs to be done and I'm talking to a client or whatever, and it's very professional, but something happens that when I jump on stage or jump in front of a crowd or grab a mic or whatever, I just inherently turn it on if you will.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt May: And that's what they refer to now. The challenge is, in my line of work is. I'm not there just to entertain, right. And I'm reminded of the late Alex Trebek from Jeopardy. He was never wanted to be introduced as the star of the show Jeopardy. It was always the host of the show because his feeling was that contestants were the stars.

Steve Rush: Yes.

Matt May: And I try to keep that philosophy that the participants in the experience, they are the stars, the light shines on them. When I start a program, I'm doing kind of what I like to think of as audience warm up. And yeah, I do my skit and whatnot, but that gets people going. But then once the experience really gets going and they get hands on, it's all about them.

Steve Rush: Yeah. And of course, the biggest thing, most of all is, you're there to facilitate a learning outcome.

Matt May: Exactly.

Steve Rush: And that's the one thing that is different from a performance, because actually as a performer, you are still having an ambition to want to entertain, but you are not having to be as thoughtful of the specific way that you construct an experience so that somebody takes away a different learning outcome, right?

Matt May: Correct. Correct. And when we're watching as patrons watching entertainment, whether it be on a screen or on a stage. We are there for them to entertain us. Where in my line of work, I'm not here to entertain you. As you said, I'm here to facilitate the experience. So, you put in as much as you're going to get out of it.

Steve Rush: Exactly right. So, when we start to think about the whole concept of team building, when you mention that word to groups of individuals, what's the reason you get a different response. So, some people will love it and some people will running in fear from it. What causes that?

Matt May: The simple answer in my opinion is bad experiences.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt May: They have been thrust into experiences that didn't have positive outcomes for them, for whatever reason. So many people think of team building as trust falls or paintball or zip lining or white-water rafting, you know, extreme sports, if you will, or sitting in a room and being told, this is how you work together as a team, while watching a slideshow, right. I don't do any of those things. And I think it's because people have been thrust into those things, or that's the majority of their experience. They just have a negative connotation in their head that team building is a bad word. Now there's also, as you mentioned, some people are very excited about it. People who are extroverted and tend to be well, extroverts generally like it more because they're excited and their energy is locomotive full speed ahead. Where people who are more introverted and maybe have anxiety, or even if it's not full-blown anxiety just don't like to be in a crowd or don't like to be in a small group because they can't hide as easily. Those people have more apprehension. So, when they hear team building, I think their negative thoughts are even more heightened.

Steve Rush: Of course, in any audience, you are going to have a mix of those types of individuals, because many will be extroverted and thinkers and feelers, and others will be introverted thinkers and feelers. How do you make sure that when you are constructing a session that you are thoughtful of those different types of personalities that might come out?

Matt May: Well, our experiences are designed in such a way that everybody is on an even peel, equal, right. I generally tell clients; I don't want to know who the boss is. The CEO is here, okay great. Don't tell me who he is, or she is. I don't want to know because I want to treat every single person the same. Now Murphy's Law inevitably comes into play nine times out ten, and that's the person I wind up picking on [Laugh] just organically. And then, oh, that's the CEO, well, thanks for playing [laugh]. But generally, most of our experiences, Steve call for teams of ten, and we start off having everybody in the team of ten, doing a group exercise, and they're all doing the exact same thing before they even break out into, quotes, unquote. And I'm using air quotes here, roles and responsibilities that they will be in charge of, if you will, during the experience.

Everybody does the same icebreakers and the same introductory games and challenges and activities. So that everyone is completely even keel. Then a lot of times when you break off into the experience, say it's building bikes for kids. For example, some people are more mechanically inclined, or they're really good with wrenches and they want to put something together great. Somebody else is better with puzzles and mind games and mind solving great. They'll focus more on that. Other people are better at marketing. And so, they'll kind of work on their team presentation more, but by the same token, a lot of times people say, well, you try this. This is not your forte or what you would normally gravitate to, this particular component. Why don't you try this? And that allows people to see their colleagues in a whole different light.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt May: For example, sometimes the CEO or the C levels or the Directors, whatever will be on teams with somebody who's the front desk receptionist. And that person will, for whatever reason, wind up in more of a leadership role or whatnot. And then next thing you know, the boss is saying, you are totally underutilized signing for packages and answering the phone. We need to talk next week. And, you know, ultimately the person becomes an office manager or whatever, because he or she was seen in a different light.

Steve Rush: I suspect that having the opportunity to throw away the natural conventions of the work labels gives everybody the opportunity to see how others behave and perform.

Matt May: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I love that. So as kids, when, you know, you first got up in front of your folks and did your, you know, theatre production and, you know, I probably did the same. What is it that causes some people like you, Matt, to continually have this energy to want to continually innovate and play where others like me will, you know, be a bit stuffy and go, well, I don't do any of that kind of stuff anymore?

Matt May: Well, I don't know. I don't know if there's a certain quote unquote thing that is in me or not in you or whatever. I think some of it is inherent and its personality and as well as likes and desires, you know, what we follow or chase, but I think a big part of it too Steve is that we are conditioned as we grow up. Now I can only speak for the States, right. I can't speak for European school upbringing, but for the States, and this is changing to a degree, but for so long, it was sit at the desk, take the information that's presented to you, go home, do some exercises, commit it to memory, come back and regurgitate, wash, rinse, repeat, right?

Steve Rush: Right.

Matt May: So, as kids if we look at it, their favourite, well, I'm generalizing. Often the favourite part of the day is recess because they get to go outside and play. But as we get older, recess is removed from the school day. And by the time we're out of primary schools and into middle school, junior high, high school, and then certainly in college, we go, and we ask people to give us information and educate us that we are then going to theoretically use, but the play is gone. So, I think that's a big part of it is, just society. And don't get me wrong. Look, adulting is hard [Laugh] okay.

Steve Rush: That’s true.

Matt May: We all have responsibilities. We can't play on the playground all day. We have to work so that we can survive and support our family or if we don't have a family, at least keep a roof over our head and keep us fed and clothed. But the fun element in our work and our workday seems to have been removed.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt May: And it, takes like going on a boy's weekend to have our fun or the girls. I'm going out with the girls tonight or whatever. That is how we have our fun. Well, why can't we still have fun in the workday? And I know fun is not necessarily something we use to measure success or productivity, but it doesn't mean it can't be prevalent. And it doesn't mean it doesn't help success and productivity.

Steve Rush: I think you actually might be able to measure that. So, when you look at things like employee engagement, you'll see fun represent itself in different ways. So, commitment to the organization, prepared to stay, creativity, innovation, elements of peer group recognition, that kind of stuff. But often we don't apply that three-letter word to it because we feel it's got less relevance in a workplace.

Matt May: Correct.

Steve Rush: Would that be fair selection?

Matt May: Absolutely. I think that's very fair. And I will let you in on, well, I guess it's not going to be a secret because I've already told other people coming out there right now. I am a Hallmark movie junkie. I fully admit it. I'm a sap. I'm a big romantic at heart. I love Hallmark movies. And there was one that I watch about a year ago now. And there was a line that I sort of kind of touched on a moment ago, but the line was, and I know that fun, isn't typical metric in the corporate world, but you know what it's worth because fun allows people to relax and be fully themselves, which makes them productive and more engaged. And that affects the bottom line.

Steve Rush: Right. And is that something also that helps remove some of that fear and anxiety around team building as well?

Matt May: Absolutely. And I've had, I don't want to say arguments. Discussions with people who have said anything competitive is not valuable in team building. Well, hold on, going back to the whole paintball, I will agree with you on that. I don't, for me, that is not exciting. That is not team building. That's just crazy, whatever. However, the majority of our team building experiences are competitive in nature. However, we're not talking about tackling each other and taking each other out with guns. We're talking about light-hearted competition. People are naturally competitive, Steve, right?

Steve Rush: mm-hmm.

Matt May: Again, I'm generalizing.

Steve Rush: That’s a fair generalization, yeah.

Matt May: Yeah. When we start, we go to school, we earn, or we are provide with good grades for positive work and productive work. The mother of all, and I don't know if you have this over in the UK, but at least over here, the mother of all winnings is the lottery. People play, whether it's scratch off or the big one, people go to a casino for a night out, whatever, but they put their coin in the machine, pull that lever and they want to get the pay-out. We are competitively, we like to win things. So, when you tell people, hey, you are doing this for the winning title, and yes, you're going to win a gold medal at the end, whatever. It's just fun. We're just there to have some light-hearted competition, but people inherently enjoy that. Then they start talking smack to their colleagues. You're going down, whatever. Just again, it's all light-hearted fun. Nobody really means any ill will to each other. But doing that in an environment outside of the office allows you to see your colleagues in a different light

Steve Rush: And neurologically, of course. It releases dopamine.

Matt May: Right.

Steve Rush: And that's a rewarding chemical transmitter, neurotransmitter that we thrive on. And you get a hit from that. So not only is it fun, it's also a learning, so you want more of it.

Matt May: Exactly. We crave more of it once we've had the burst of it.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt May: And like I said, the whole medals, I have a discussion and I usually talk about it on when to do team building exercises. I always say, if you have people that don't know each other and coming out of the pandemic, I have hear from more and more people, we're doing the sales meeting and 75% of our team has not met each other, other than on Zoom. Okay, well, then I would recommend doing it at the beginning. Well, we wanted to wrap up the three-day conference with it. Okay, we can do that. But if you're telling me, people don't know each other yet, do it at the beginning, they're automatically going to know nine other people from their direct team. The winning team is going to win gold medals. Maybe they'll wear them at lunch that day. Maybe they'll wear them that night to the cocktail reception. We'll encourage them to wear them the rest of the three days to remind everyone that they were the winners. Good for them. Well, that's a conversation piece right there. Somebody else might come up and say, we were robbed. Yeah, well, sorry. We got the medals, right. So, it automatically creates conversation. And again, it was based on that fun competition factor.

Steve Rush: So, during your experiences as well, one of the things that I've noticed through the work that you do, Matt, is that there is always a purpose behind what you do. So mentioned kids for bikes earlier. So that's something that you use, exercise as a team together, but something that's also serving communities well. Just tell us a little bit about some of the things you do.

Matt May: Well, as far as the philanthropic experiences, yes. Building bikes is for kids is one. We have an experience where we build wheelchairs for veterans, or maybe not even veterans for people who are mobility challenged. Foster care programs, kids entering foster care. Kids that need snacks. They don't get them during the school day when they're on vacation, places that they can go to get the snacks because they're underserved and maybe their parents can't afford to give them a snack every day. So, all of those types of things, many companies have CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives. And if we can align with them, that's great. Because, let's say, let's be honest. If we can get something out of it, i.e., getting our teams to work together, having fun, doing something out of the norm of the workday and give back, well, then it's win-win for everybody.

Steve Rush: Yeah. Ticking all the boxes, right?

Matt May: Exactly. And it doesn't have to be philanthropic. It could be a culinary program and your company, I don't know, maybe your company makes salsa. We could do a salsa margarita challenge. See, oh, wait, maybe that is the next new recipe for your brand, right. Or for an alternate version of your salsa, or maybe you make hospice sauce and, well, great. Let's use your sauce in this culinary team building experience. So, there are ways to incorporate the company as well.

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly. Love it. So, have you ever had a time where you've just had a participant who's just, you know, folded arms, stuffy, I'm not getting involved in any of this? Have you ever experienced any of that?

Matt May: Yes [laugh].

Steve Rush: How do you deal with that?

Matt May: To be honest with you, I don’t, and I'll tell you why. Usually, well, it's never not happened. So, knock on wood. The person ultimately says, well, I look like a schmuck standing over here, and I'm the one who's not having fun. Who wants to be in the corner? Right. All by him or herself. If your colleagues bring you in and you insist upon being that stuffy jerk. Okay, fine. You're only hurting yourself. So, peer pressure I guess, is the bottom line. And I say that in a positive way, not a negative way. That ultimately your peers are going to say, come on, let's go. You're being a jerk.

Steve Rush: [Laugh].

Matt May: And it happens, right. If somebody doesn't have the realization by themselves, that there are only hurting themselves and look like dunce. Somebody else, or several other members of the team are going to say, come on, let's go. Now, I'll be patting myself on the back. That rarely happens because our experiences are designed in such a way that you really can’t sit out, starting right at the get go. And when I facilitate, and our other facilitators have been trained to really put on the charm immediately, put on the energy immediately. So, we inherently, not we, but the participants inherently say, okay, I'm already in this.

Steve Rush: The one thing I notice in those experiences as well is the other thing of course, is that, that individual's looking at everybody else having loads of fun, thinking. Now I'm losing out.

Matt May: Correct.

Steve Rush: So, I know over the last couple of years, Matt, you've had to really pivot your business model as we were going through the experiences of the pandemic. But I wonder having had the experience of being face to face and virtual, what the pandemics really taught us about how we participate or get involved if the case around things like team building or activities, what's it really highlighted for us?

Matt May: Well, I think that it's proven to us that face to face interaction is necessary. And it's certainly good for us. We learn so much more and we get and give so much more when we're face to face. When you're on a video call, yes, you can see the person, but you may not see the person's hand gestures because the camera is close, right. And you don't get the body language. You don't get the nonverbal cues. You don't get touch, right. Human beings need touch. There's a wonderful book and its old. And it was Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom. And there was a movie made with Jack lemon and Hank Azaria, many, many years ago. And I'm paraphrasing here, but Morrie was diagnosed with ALS, and he basically taught this former student, Mitch Albom life lessons. And one of them was, when we come into this world, we are cradled by our mothers, right. Until we learn to walk. And even then, we are constantly cradled by our parents. Craving human touch. When we die, nobody wants to die alone. I know this is a grim thought. And I apologize for doing that on the podcast, nobody wants to die alone.

Steve Rush: Right.

Matt May: So, we crave it, but why do we push it away for the majority of our lives? Why do we begin and end with it, but not continue to make it so important to us during our adult lives? But again, going back to face-to-face, handshakes. Now, I know people are still, some of them are nervous about that and whatnot, okay. Then do an elbow, bump, whatever. But when you touch someone's hand and you grasp it, you are having a physical connection that you don't get virtually.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt May: Now, team building experiences and other were very valuable. They still are. We do them. I personally prefer face to face, but I know a lot of people are saying, we're just not ready to go back yet or we don't have the ability to bring in everybody just yet. We've got it six months down the line, but we want to do something right now. Great. So, it's still valuable because you're getting people interacting and hopefully having fun. But the face to face in person is just so much more valuable. Yes people were doing virtual events. I get that. But this wasn't even in our brains, right. As a thought, this conversation right now.

Steve Rush: Right.

Matt May: Because of the pandemic is why we're having this discussion. I can't articulate this. I don't know why, but going back, we never would've thought about that before.

Steve Rush: That's true. And it's fair to say I think that people certainly in my experience in the last three to five months, I would say, are really grateful in when people come together as a group, there's definitely much more appreciation for that now.

Matt May: Yes. It's not just, well, we're going to a sales meeting. It's oh my gosh. We're going to a sales meeting live and in person.

Steve Rush: [Laugh] and therefore there's something deeply intrinsic that you refer to as that kind of cradling. That is a, also a very real metaphor for us wanting connection with people, isn't it?

Matt May: Yeah. And when we're in face to face, at least in my experience. Observe people being more organically involved, right. When you have a computer screen behind you, how many times have we seen somebody looking down and we say, oh, well, he or she's checking text messages right now, or, you know, or, oh, oh, he's reading his email, we can tell. You're not as engaged because you have so many more distractions and there's no real accountability either.

Steve Rush: That's right.

Matt May: And I don't use that as a negative term. I use it as a positive term, even to ourselves, we're just not accountable because we have so many other things right in front of us on that fancy screen, that when you take that away and what's in front of you is an actual face. Oh my gosh. Okay. I'm totally engaged with you right now.

Steve Rush: Well, fingers crossed for wherever anybody is listening to us in the world. They're going to get back to some level of connection and normality pretty soon, anyway.

Matt May: Yes, I hope so.

Steve Rush: So, this part of the show, Matt, is where we start to turn the tables, you've learned lots of different teams and had lots of different leadership experiences over your career. And I'm keen to really hack into those now. So, what I'm going to ask you to do, if you can, is try and think of all of those experiences and just distill them down to your top three leadership hacks. What would they be?

Matt May: One is to utilize people's strengths and not only participants, but also staff and facilitators, right. In an office setting, in an assembly line, in a factory, whatever. We hire people based upon their qualifications and skills. So, let's do the same thing in a fun atmosphere. Now, again, this is going back to what I said before. Maybe let people get outside of their comfort zone, but at least for me with staff, I always want to find the right staff person, not only the experience, but the client.

Steve Rush: Right.

Matt May: What's the demographic of the client who is going to work best with that demographic? So that's one. Utilizing people's skills and strengths. My catch phrase is regress to kindergarten. Take off the sport coat, take off the tie, take off the high heels, whatever you're wearing. You're in a safe space. Nobody's judging you, if they are, judge them right back, because they're probably doing the exact same thing. It's not going to go anywhere. It's kind of like what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. What happens in this room stays in this because if you don't have those inhibitions, you're going to organically be in a much better place to give of yourself for your team and the experience.

And the third leadership hack. Geez, I would say. It's really kind of, my new catch phrase is, take the fear out of team building, which is the title of the book. And that is, let's give people experiences where at the end of it, they say, okay, so my goal is, when you see me walk in six months from now, you're not going to go, oh, that team building guy. Hopefully say, Ooh, what are we doing today? Or at the very least say, all right, let's see what he is got out of his sleeve today. Let's see how it compares to last time.

Steve Rush: Mm-Hmm. There must have been some magical experiences you've had over your careers. If you could just maybe call one out. The most fun, extravagant experience that you've had with a group or, an individual in a group, what would that be?

Matt May: It's hard to pinpoint one. And I can't remember the exact number. I facilitated a military care pack program. This is probably seven years ago or more. Those always get me. I'm a big supporter of the U.S. Military. And I know you're over in Europe, but I'm a big supporter of people who put their lives on hold to make our lives better.

Steve Rush: Absolutely.

Matt May: That is very important to me. So military care pack programs always hit me pretty, pretty tough. They hit me hard in a good way. Also, when you see a kid who is part of a boys and girls club or whatever, come into a room and they don't know why they're there. And then all of a sudden there are 12, 24, 50, bikes, and they're then told these are going to your organization. The look of huh, on their face is just amazing. And little ones are just, I don't have kids. I'm too old to start at this point, but boy, some of the things they do and say they just melt my heart and make me just crack up [laugh].

Steve Rush: Makes it all worthwhile, right?

Matt May: Exactly. I'm always appreciative for that.

Steve Rush: Well, the next part of the show we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something hasn't worked out for you. Maybe been pretty catastrophic, could have screwed up, but as a result of it, you've learned, and it's now a force of good in your life or work, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Matt May: [Laugh] be careful what papers you sign to be quite honest.

Steve Rush: [laugh] yeah.

Matt May: Really and be careful with whom you go into business and protect yourself because you're the only anyone that's going to protect yourself. And I don't want to sound cold and snarky, but it's true. You can be a wonderful person and be very giving and loving and generous and still protect yourself.

Steve Rush: Yes, you can.

Matt May: And that's the business side of me, careful what you sign and know who you're getting into bed with proverbially.

Steve Rush: Yeah. You're not the first guest mine you to have said that over the two years or so, we've been running the show. We must have at least half a dozen of our guests have, you know, some really similar circumstances where the greatest trusted relationships have gone wrong because of one piece of paper.

Matt May: Exactly, exactly. And it's bad that happens. But it's the reality of the world we live in.

Steve Rush: Certainly is. Now the last thing we're going to do is you get to go and give yourself some advice at 21. So, if that time travel happened now. You stood right in front of Matt. He's 21, you're in front of him. What's your advice?

Matt May: Probably to embrace the opportunities that you're presented with wholly, don't be fearful of them. Again, hindsight is 2020. The older I get; I do subscribe more to the philosophy of everything happens for a reason. And for whatever reason right now, this is where you're supposed to be. And it may not be the happiest of circumstances, but what do you need to do to not only get through this but thrive beyond it and learn from it.

Steve Rush: Great advice.

Matt May: That would be my two words. It's okay.

Steve Rush: Hmm. Love it. So, what's next for you and the team?

Matt May: Well, we are very excited to be getting back to face-to-face experiences. Really trying to provide those to people who are ready. I hope more and more people continue to be ready and jump on this. My hope is that now, companies who are allowing people or have just made the decision to, we're not going to own real estate or rent real estate anymore, because we know work from home, works for us. Great. That money that you're saving, bring your people together. At least twice a year, quarterly is better. Have an all hands. Even if it's just lunch, an address from the CEO and a team building experience where people get to play and work together, hands on, do it. It's more important now than ever. My dream would be that it becomes instilled in everyone's minds that this is as important as ordering copy paper.

Steve Rush: Right. DNA and the fabric of an organization should have all of those experiences to really exploit some of those unlearned or unobserved behaviors that you talked about earlier, right?

Matt May: Exactly.

Steve Rush: Yeah. So, when folks have listened into this Matt, where's the best place for us to send them so they can bump into some of the work and maybe get a copy of the book?

Matt May: The best place is the website, which is premierteambuilding.com. It's premier as in like number one without the E at the end of it. But if you do happen to put it in, it'll direct you to the correct place. There's a contact form there. There's a links to Amazon where the book is. All of our social media links are there. You can follow us there. I love to travel personally. So, we do programs throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, abroad. I'd love to get over to the UK at some point. So more than happy to do that for anyone who's listening over there.

Steve Rush: Course of action. Yeah, exactly. Well, Matt, listen, I've love chatting to you and you know, there's no surprise that you've been a success in the business that you're in and the energy and focus you bring to it. So, I just want to say thank you and we'll make sure all of those links are in our show notes. So, when folks have listened as well. They can dive straight over, but thanks for being on the show.

Matt May: Thank you, Steve.

Closing

View Details

Jill McAbe is a bestselling author of “It’s Go Time: Build the Business and Life You Really Want.” Jill’s recently been ranked #1 in Entrepreneur Magazine's inspiring education Entrepreneurs to watch in 2022. We dove into a bunch of topics in this awesome conversation, including:

Jill’s involuntary life reset and how that shaped her future.
What is a “hot goal” and how you don’t need willpower to achieve them.
Learn about the MOMA method.
What “all-in” really means.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Jill below:

Jill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garydfrey/

Jill on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jillmcabe

Jill on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jillmcabe

Jill’s Website: https://www.jillmcabe.com/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Steve Rush: Jill McAbe is a special guest on today's show. Jill is the bestselling author of Its Go Time. She's also a teacher, coach, and a business guru, but before we get a chance to speak with Jill, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: We all know leadership can be tough, right? Despite the success. And sometimes a glory leadership can bring, the lows can be incredibly low. The job can feel quite lonely at times, especially when you have to make unpopular decisions. As leaders, we must all deal with stress, but the very best leaders handle the ups and downs with ease. They let things slide off their backs with resiliency, grace and grit, and it's not easy to do. Leaders can't afford to break down, lose their cool and be oversensitive. Instead, they must be steadfast, tough, no matter the up and downs.

In an article from Entrepreneur Magazine, Kerry Siggins talks about five things that can make a big difference. Be determined. Determination is often overlooked as a leadership attribute but is needed to get through the difficult situations. You must be resolute in your vision, decision making and resiliency. During the early days of the pandemic, the uncertainty was unbearable. Like so many of the leaders many had to make difficult decisions about expenses and staffing. Kerry Siggins planned and kept one thing in the front of her mind, her determination to succeed. And that grew stronger than as she arrived in into the pandemic in the first place, determination helped drive her decision making and kept her focused and resolute. Know when to let things go. The flip side of determination is knowing when to say enough is enough. And when things aren't really working, and resiliency is not about consistently pushing through. Resiliency is also about letting know when to let things go to move on. There are times when you must be tough enough to back down, let go, change your mind, pivot, whatever words you want to use. Just because you think you are right doesn't make it so. So, when people around you and the evidence suggest that you are moving in the wrong direction, make the toughest decision of all and let go.

It's quite natural to get defensive when you receive tough or unpleasant news through feedback, but it doesn't mean you should allow yourself to go there just because it's a natural response. If you want a toughen up as a leader, you must handle yourself with grace and hearing hard things as being part of the way we do things. Kelly's trick for doing this is to look for the truth in the information. She recently hired a consultant to perform a leadership competency assessment for her executive team. When going through the results, she was told. The reasons you haven't got grown the company faster is it takes you too long to assess and tell the people on your team that they haven't got what it takes. You let things is slide for too long. You must give this type of feedback faster and more directly. It's a problem for you. She was hurt by the words. She was inclined to defend herself and going to say that she did give people feedback all of the time and she wasn't afraid of those conversation. But instead of vocalizing those thoughts, she analyzed what was shared by compartmentalizing, the feedback. She could see that the individual consultant was right and gave her an opportunity to reflect and adapt her approach. She looked for the truth in his words, and face to feedback with action,

Find gratitude. When most people think of gratitude, they envision what they're grateful for in life, such as family, health, and possessions. A more profound gratitude practice considers being thankful for the hard things in life as well. So, if you want to be stronger leader, you must look for the good that comes out of difficult situations. What are the hardships you're grateful for? What are the challenges that you've been faced with that you've now are faced and overcome? In her article Kerry talks about the overcoming addiction has been something she's really grateful for. And even though it causes pain is suffering for her life. She wouldn't change anything. And she's grateful for the lessons it taught her.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. It's harsh but true. Exceptionally leaders require us to stop feeling self-centered and sorry for ourselves. Being a leader is difficult at times and can be really thankless, but that's what you've signed up for. We can't allow ourselves to take things personally. We need to let things slide off our backs. We need to make sure that we face into every opportunity. That situation with passion and energy, our job is to make good decisions for our team and our company. Not necessarily to manage people's opinions. Our job is to lead, so lead with confidence. With leadership comes great responsibility, responsibility to make good decisions, be transparent, give good feedback, with standard our setbacks and to be a great leader we must toughen up. So, the leadership hack here is finding the sweet spot between awareness, compassion, and self-care. Getting that right means you can focus on the things that matter. Thanks Kerry, for sharing the article. Thanks all for listening to our Leadership Hacker News. Let's dive into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: My special guest on today's show is Jill McAbe. She's a bestselling author, teacher and coaching the business success and finding one's purpose, particularly around the science of high performance and change. Her bestselling book. It's Go Time. Build the Business and Life You Really Want. Teaches the order of operations for building expertise-based businesses. Jill's also been recently ranked in entrepreneur as magazine as top 10 inspiring education entrepreneurs to watch in 2022. Jill, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Jill McAbe: Thank you very much, Steve. I'm really happy to be here.

Steve Rush: Jill. What's really great about your backstory is it's not followed traditional path to get you to where you got to. In fact, there's lots of bumps and twists and turns along the way. And we'd love for you to maybe just share a little bit about the backstory that led you here?

Jill McAbe: Oh, wow. Alright. The super quick backstory that led me here, I would have to say as most stories do started when I was young, probably trying to figure out what I was going to be or do when I grew up, but that was a really difficult decision for me because I was very unsuccessful in school. I struggle with fairly significant dyslexia and what was called ADD now often termed a ADHD growing up. And so, I really struggled in school and my grades were poor, which made me realize that a lot of my options were limited at that time. It just felt like I wasn't going along a traditional track. And I very exceptional siblings. I like ridiculously exceptional siblings, you know, one scouted for professional sports, I'm Canadian. My older brother was invited to be a U.S. citizen upon the submission of his masters because it was so brilliant. And I had a sister who excelled in the arts and sports and academics and looked a little bit like Marilyn Monroe. So, it was really tough growing up. And my goal was simply to learn how to be successful because my mother used to, you know, worry about me and she'd say to me, Jill, some people are good at school. Others are good at life, and you'll be good at life. You're wise.

Steve Rush: That's a great lesson. Isn't it? Wise words though seriously. At such a young age, because it would be really difficult to disassociate that, you know, some people just aren't academically gifted and others are, right?

Jill McAbe: Yeah. It's interesting because when I ended up going back and doing my masters, I got (A) plus pluses across the board. So, the academics, it was really about not fitting into the way of learning that the schools liked to taught and my brain needing to comprehend information differently.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jill McAbe: And I think that led me. So, what got me here was frankly, a very bumpy road of trial and error. Sometimes I'd hit and I'd, you know, and I'd get a home run and I'd do really well. And other times there was a lot of hit and misses and I have spent a lifetime really studying and understanding and creating tools that help me be smarter than I am [laugh]. So, I love creating like tools to make decisions or tools to make things happen. And I love taking all this research and turning them into practical tools. Had a scientist tell me once, he's like, you're like a translator, you take our work, you make it very easy to apply.

Steve Rush: Nice. And the tools that you created along the way, is that also a bit of a coping mechanism to help you with your dyslexia?

Jill McAbe: Yeah, I'm sure it is. You know, what I understand. So, I was very fortunate, much more than many people who might have been in that situation because my mother actually is at the forefront of research at that time for how to rehabilitate people such as myself. So, I had a great deal of support and rehabilitation that a lot of people might not have access to that kind of help, but what I come to understand about people like me, and I'm sure there's some listeners who are going to relate is that I like to dive deep into things and the tools are actually a result of that. So, you know, I'm the person in class who sometimes annoying asks a hundred questions. So, if the teacher says something I say, but I read this other thing and no that's not consistent with.

And if you look at this person's information, so I've always been someone who will find the question in something and dive deeper and explore it rather than accepting. Instantly what's been said, if it goes up against something I've heard that that doesn't fit with, but it's also allowed me to find consistencies from very diverse places. So, I found consistencies from leadership research you know, Neuroscience, Daoism, Christianity, you know, any of the religions really with, you know, business teachings. Like I will actually spot the through line and go how fascinating. And that's when I create the tool, when I see it come from all sorts of different directions.

Steve Rush: Nice. What a gift too.

Jill McAbe: Yeah. Yeah. You see, there you go. It's one of the things, it didn't feel like a gift growing up.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jill McAbe: But it can be used as a gift.

Steve Rush: Definitely so, yeah. Now you had a moment in your life, which in your book, you actually called it, your involuntary life reset. Tell us a little bit about what happened? That was so significant and how would that then set you on a different path?

Jill McAbe: Yeah, I was 40 and I thought my life was humming along really. In my early thirties, I found my first sort of calling, which was a restaurateur, and I opened a restaurant with my brother in Toronto and we actually became internationally successful, which was, you know, really, we just had a lot of passion. He was the chef. I was very good at operations, management, and leadership. And those two things together really brought together an incredible business and ended up selling that. Because this is a leadership podcast, I'm actually going to veer off a little Steve and just going to share something really fun.

Steve Rush: Go for you.

Jill McAbe: So, restaurants are known for having a lot of turnovers because they're known for having very transient workforce, but we had sort of high-end food and, you know, the sommelier where our servers. So, we had sort of a more educated staff and we were known for being, you know, a group where people didn't leave. When we sold it after seven years, the average person was with us for six years.

Steve Rush: Wow. That's quite unusual in catering and hospitality, isn't it? Yeah.

Jill McAbe: Yeah. And at the four-year mark I got, you know, I had these new ideas and so I started saying to the team, hey, you know, hey, let's try this, let's try this. And I thought I was this great leader, you know, because we were so successful, and my team was so happy, and they really resisted. And that Steve, I understood that there is a different kind of leadership to forged straight ahead than one who wants to turn a corner. In fact, that became, I didn't talk about this in my book. Because it wasn't, you know, necessarily just a leadership book, but that became my lifelong quest to really understand what does it take to turn a corner? How do we make a change? And my team would say to me, we're so successful. Why do we need to change? And I'd say, because we're successful because we forged ahead four years ago.

Now everyone's copying us. It's time to be fresh again. And I started going to all sorts of courses and studying leadership. And I went to act my team who didn't want to, you know, try anything. And I said, listen, guys, I'm bored, I'm bored. And I need to be able to try this. So please will you please try these things for 30 days? And if you nix them, they're next. But if we like them and we enjoy how things are running, then we move forward. And I basically made this bargain with my team. We had about 30 staff just to give you a sense of the size of the business. It was small and that became my leadership lab. And then I'll fast forward. So, we sell the business and I really want to move off in this like leadership growth direction. And I got pretty good at understanding what motivated individuals and people and off I was going to go into this consulting direction, and I'd sold the business and clients were coming to me from all sorts of industries.

And I'd say, what do I know about your industry? I'm a restaurant person. And they said, Jill, you know, we watched your operations for years as clients, they were tight. We'd like you to work for us, for sure you can help. And that's how my career started. But the involuntary life reset, I was hit by a car. The driver was talking on his cell. It was a very serious accident, both on his side and mine because he critically injured a couple of his children because they were not in seat belts and me. When the ambulance drivers came to my car, you know, one of them remarked they didn't think they were going to find a live body inside. So, it was 18 months of recovery. The life reset was that prior to that accident, I was pretty excited about being good at leadership and good at operations and good at cleaning up businesses. But after that accident, and it probably was relevant that the client that I had at the time was really horrible to his people. And so, he was sort of truly one of those people who was making money on the backs of others, there was thousands of people in his organization and the way he treated people was terrible. And so those two things at the same time really, really got me thinking about, am I just going to help people like that make money?

Steve Rush: Right.

Jill McAbe: I have to do something more meaningful.

Steve Rush: And from the first time that you and I met, one thing that really struck me is you have a laser focus to serve others and it's unwavering. And I wonder how that moment shaped how you think about things now?

Jill McAbe: Wow. yeah, I think, that's a great question. I think I was ashamed to be helping this man make money. There were people in his employee for 10 years making minimum wage.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jill McAbe: And he was so happy with the operational you know, one thing I have with this, I'm really good at mathematical. Like figuring things out. I have a real creativity to see solutions. I'm exceptional at it. And I was with his company for months and he offered me a lot of money to stay. And when I saw people who had worked in his employee for 10 years, it was a food manufacturing facility, and they were making minimum wage, which you can't live on in Toronto. And at the end of every day, if there was any, you know, food or any waste or whatever, all went in the garbage, he wouldn't let them take it. I was so sickened. So, I think growing up sort of sitting on the outside, not fitting in, made me someone who just watched people and cared about people. And I just realized I couldn't do that.

Steve Rush: Yeah, yeah. And then fast forward to all of the experiences you've had, you managed to kind of collect them together and you created a real system now that helps people achieve high levels of motivation productivity within their work and their lives. At what point did you recognize that, you know, what you had was a thing?

Steve Rush: Yeah. I created a tool called mind code, and I think that's the thing, you know, when I think about what the thing was that really changed the game because there was a lot of, I did all this research. I mean, for over a decade on, you know, goal setting or planning. And then I ended up getting certified in changed leadership. And then I did my master's in leadership. And I looked at all these different things. The behavioral science aspects really became powerful. A lot of us are looking at goal setting, planning, and implementation as different skill sets. And I realized, well, any project needs all of that. I'd studied project management but that was often overly complex for the needs of a small department or team.

And I think I realized when it was a thing. First of all, when I would apply change leadership in organizations, and despite the fact that the organizations would look at me and say, this is not going to work, like point blank. I've had that said to me so many times.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jill McAbe: And we have succeeded anyway. And it's like, you're powerful to stop this? Or you're beyond saving. But the truth is, you're powerless to stop us when we understand change leadership. And Steve, I know you get that.

Steve Rush: Mm-Hmm.

Jill McAbe: It's like, no, you don't understand. I can rearrange your environment. I can add people and subtract people and you'll change and not even know you did. Steve, you know what I'm talking about, right? With change leadership.

Steve Rush: I totally do, yeah.

Jill McAbe: Yeah. Change is a equation. And once its supplied, change happens.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jill McAbe: So, I became sort of amazed at the power of this tool. When people would say, Jill, this will not work, and I will not do it. And I’m like, it will work anyway. One of my clients was like, oh my goodness, you can move mountains. And I'm like, it's not me. It's this tool. It's amazing [Laugh], you know, what's good about me is I'm willing to follow it. I'm willing to go through the steps. So really the system is not mine, you know, it's what I've learned. And my willingness to apply it, one of my clients and their organization did about 40 million and we're having a chat one day and I'm feeling pretty chuffed, you know, look at the great job I've helped you guys do this year.

And he was not happy. Like he was visibly not happy. And I'm thinking what is going on? And he just said, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, it's good. I'm really happy with the organization, but I'm personally not happy. And I said, well, look, you know, we just use this tool that got an entire, and this was about 300 people that just got a, you know, a massive shift occur in your organization. What do you say we rework this and make it a personal transformation tool? And I later found out Steve, that the reason a lot of people don't create these tools for personal transformation is because there's no money in it.

Steve Rush: Of course, yeah.

Jill McAbe: Organizations simply pay more for that. And I've learned that the hard way because I tried to sell it. And I went from doing very well to not doing very well. So, I did learn the hard way. There's some truth in that, but yeah, I reworked it for a tool that individuals or teams can use. And that's a tool I called mind code and I share aspects of it in my book. And I think that's the moment when I realized when I reworked it, we used it on him first, it worked, then I used it on me. And now I've worked with dozens of people. I sell it as a standalone tool. I work closely with clients and use it and time and again, I mean, people have breakthroughs in their performance, and they have it fast.

Steve Rush: Yeah. And a lot of breaking through performance is about decoding, almost our neurological pathways and our thinking that causes to get where we need to get to. And you have spent an enormous amount of time, energy, studying and focusing around behavioral science and neuroscience. And how has that really shifted your perspectives on the art of the possible?

Jill McAbe: Wow. You know, what comes to mind? So, I'll say it is, my research started with behavioral science, which is, you know, really for the listeners, it's really thinking about what are the aspects in our environment that lead us to behave the way we do. And behavioral science would look at, you know, our social influences, our influence, our beliefs from growing up, our abilities, our personal abilities and our environment. And that was the first really profound. That was very profound research for me. I guess it goes back to this nurture versus nature question.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jill McAbe: And really understanding just how much in our environments, socially and physically were really causing us to be the person that we are. Like I used to think I was this autonomous thinking in control person of my life. And when I studied behavioral science, I understood, I was like a pinball in a pinball machine.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jill McAbe: I went wherever the people who had control of certain social and physical aspects of my reality wanted me to go. And we've seen that, you know, we've seen that in social media, like, come on, we've seen it over and over how fake news and environments and people can pull some levers and absolutely change.

Steve Rush: Totally

Jill McAbe: Yeah, absolutely change belief systems.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jill McAbe: So, I think that was when I realized, that's what got me interested there, but then there was this problem and this problem was, I couldn't seem to do it for me [Laugh].

Steve Rush: Right. Expert for everybody else, yeah.

Jill McAbe: [Laughing] Like why isn't my life going the way I want to? You know, and when I got really honest with myself, there were some big things that I didn't seem to be able to do for myself. And honestly it was a fluke. My dyslexic brain wanted to, why, why, why, why, why does everybody talk about goals? Why does everybody talk about vision? And I decided to study the neuroscience underpinnings, and I'm fortunate to have a good friend who's a leading international academic, which means I have access to leading international academics, which means that somebody who had not normally give the time of day to someone like me, actually, you know, would sit down and have several conversations and guide me to cutting edge research that was, you know, just being published. And hadn't gotten down to the levels of press yet and consultants. I wanted to understand what was it about a goal that would make it work?

Because if a goal worked, then all goals should work. So why were only some goals working? And that's when you know, I used to have the popular neuroscience of, you know, reticular activating system that almost infuriating neuroscientist, who's one of, you know, William Cunningham. Who's a leading neuroscientist in the area of goal cognition and the brain. And he just, please, don't talk about that. And, you know, because they really care about specifics and accuracy. And for some reason, it just really helped me to understand what created the kind of goal that was likely to be achieved? And then I was able to modify. And as I talk about in the book, I describe there's a popular system of goal setting called smart goals, which is you know, specific, measurable, attainable. I think realistic and timebound, and or something like that. Sometimes people change the acronym.

Steve Rush: You're absolutely spot on. But it's commonly taught, isn't it? When you hear goals, they have to be smart.

Jill McAbe: They have to be smart and smart goals have a critical flaw in that.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jill McAbe: They're not often meaningful and gives to the willpower of peace, but they're actually good for strategy. They're actually good for developing strategy, interestingly, strategy, fancy word for plan, right. But they're not a good tool for developing goal or outcome statements. And what do we want to be true at a later date? And that was really a flaw. And I ended up getting to speak to, I actually ended up getting to speak to, you know, one of the foremost goal researchers in the world as well and look at his, you know, 2000-page book on goals, like no joke. I've really got into studying this. I was so fascinated and really started to understand how we need to change the way we think about the outcome slash goal development piece to make our brains naturally want to work. And so, one of the things that's made mind code such a powerful tool. Mind code is an acronym that stands for eight steps of goal setting, planning, and execution. And one of the main things that makes it powerful is the act of doing it helps whoever uses it to automatically program their brain to want to work on it, which of course is very important for any goal is the application of your energy behind it.

Steve Rush: Yeah. And you call these hot goals in your book, right?

Jill McAbe: I use a term that I learned from a neuroscientist. So that's a term from a group of neuroscientists actually, oh, gee. I want to say his name was O'Reilly, but it's not, it might not be fresh at the moment, but it is a group of neuroscientists who studied the kind of goals that are the ones that determine how you behave. And so, it's a term from neuroscience that describes the trigger of action. And so, if you're hungry, for instance. The hot goal might be, you know, life, right? Like I want to keep living, so I need to eat. So, it's sort of the top goal. And if you're making a decision between two things, it's, you know, whatever it is that you're spending your time on or moving yourself toward, that's currently the hottest goal. So, it's a neuroscience-based term for what it is that's actually leading your behavior or triggering your behavior.

Steve Rush: And what I particularly like about this focus, and certainly the focus you put on this is, it's actually directly correlated to mindset as well. So, you talk about having prevention and promotion goals. Well, I have often referred to mindset as being a prevention and promotion mindset, which I direct behaviors away from risk averse to protection. That's a prevention to promotion, which is, you know, what can I do next? What can I explore? What can I find new? what's alluring? How does that correlate to helping people get that depth of clarity in their goals?

Jill McAbe: Absolutely. I think mindset is, this is sort of the prevention and promotion is really what I was looking at there, which fits beautifully with what you were saying is the biological push/pull

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jill McAbe: Of why we do what we do. So biologically we are really moving ourselves. There's a part of our brain that we don't have cognitive access to. That's making decisions about our behavior. And that part of the brain is making decisions about, what we see, say, and do. Millisecond, up to ten seconds in advance of us even becoming aware of what we're going to see, say, or do, which is incredible. And it's basing those decisions about action on prevention goals, which is preventing us from harm. So, and that could be emotional or physical threat. And so that tends to be automatic.

Our responses tend to be very automatic that prevent us from harm. And I actually share one with your listeners in a second, that I think will really help them understand an aspect of their lives of something that they might feel held back in at the moment, whatever it is. And then there's promotion goals that the brain is using, are to move us towards more life. And the promotion goals, the big one is to have babies, right? And so, it's like more life. Preserve humanity. And so, the problem with promotion goals is that more money, more happiness, a lot of the things that we strive for just aren't biologically understood as necessary to live. And so that's why we have to put a little more effort into forming our goals and outcomes and objectives so that they are understood biologically sort of by this part of the brain, the amygdala.

So that the action center of our brain is actually going to automatically take action. And so, I really used it from this level of, so if I was going to link it to the mindset of the promotion things and what we want, what would be important is taking those things that we want and really deepening our clarity about what they are, so that this part of the brain that you can't. I talk about these two parts of the brain, having two different languages, one's using ideas and thoughts and concepts, and the part that we need to program, if you will, hot goals with promotion things, what we want, it doesn't understand words. So, we need to give it images. We need to give it emotions. We need to give it feelings, which is why we really need to create clarity around our future desire state in terms of visuals and emotions.

Steve Rush: And of course, the bigger and deeper that emotional connection is the more likely of achievement of those goals, right?

Jill McAbe: Yeah. Because the part of the brain that's determining our actions, milliseconds up to ten seconds in advance of the action being taken is the part of our brain that's connected to our emotional center. So, it's like a way of translating because if it can't understand ideas and concepts like success, what's that, right? Oh, you want a blue, two-story house, three blocks from the ocean. I can get that. So there needs to be a concreteness to what we want in a way that we can see it in another little hack is to see how it's good for others.

Steve Rush: Hmm. Yeah.

Jill McAbe: So, a lot of times we look at, you know, in my case where I'm helping individuals build businesses. But even when I was working with leaders and their team is to really take the time to explore the benefits to the group is actually very motivating for this part of the brain, because social, you know, being a safe part of a social circle is critical. And so when we understand something we want to achieve is going to be good for the collective that makes it more motivating. And what I see happening, or, you know, what I know when happens with groups and leaders is that we think that that's just a given, we have an objective and we're like, well, it's just a given that that will be really good. But unfortunately, that would be like saying, you know, going to a country where you don't speak a language and saying, it's just a given that they understand everything that you want. No, it's not just a given. We have to really make an effort to translate our concepts into the kind of images and emotions that the parts of our brain who will decide if we do this or not [Laugh].

Steve Rush: It's great perspective.

Jill McAbe: So, we have to take a minute and onboard that part of the brain

Steve Rush: Love it. It's a really interesting perspective. So, if we get our goals, we're really methodical about this. I'll say that again. Does willpower play into this?

Jill McAbe: Yeah. So, I have a cheeky chapter in my book, you know, who needs willpower? So, no, right. It's just an easy home test. Everybody can do this. If you have a stated goal and you're working toward it, then you know, it's a hot goal. It's something that you're automatically working on and you're good. You're just going to keep moving in that direction. However, if you have a stated goal for yourself or your organization, and there is not regular progress being made on that goal, then you know, it's not hot and you know, you're not going to, which is a problem. So, willpower is not needed once you've properly established a goal.

Steve Rush: That's fascinating. I think it's a common misconception that people think you must have to have willpower, but to your point, if you've articulated it so well, and it's got all of the right drivers that are neurologically linked to you, then it's just going to happen.

Jill McAbe: You can't stop yourself, Steve.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jill McAbe: You actually cannot stop yourself once you have properly established a goal. I work with some organizations, one of my passions is helping companies develop vision and strategy. That's my strength, who I use sort of a bigger version of mind code for that. And we'll do their strategy for the next three years or five years. And when we’re revisioning, that's why it's so important to be careful about the goals so that because when they're set properly, you actually can't stop yourself from working. You physiologically impossible to stop yourself from working on them because you've literally coded yourself. Because again, I think it's more than 90% of our action is triggered milliseconds up to ten seconds in advance. So, like that was the moment Steve, when I realized we have to stop focusing on the actions we're taking and start focusing on programming, the part of our brain that's taking action.

It's like, we were looking at the wrong thing all this time. No wonder there are so many frustrated initiatives in the world. And so that's like one of my, you know, I get really excited. And then that's when I say, hey, be very careful what you decide to program in your subconscious, because not only do you not need willpower, you'll have to use willpower to stop working on it. Just so I'm accurate, because like my brain needs to be sort of accurate. Sometimes you need willpower to program the goal. So, you don't need willpower [laugh].

Steve Rush: Yeah, I get it.

Jill McAbe: That's where you can use some willpower.

Steve Rush: So, willpower becomes part of the goal setting process.

Jill McAbe: Yes. It's part of the goal setting process.

Steve Rush: Once it's set up.

Jill McAbe: Yeah.

Steve Rush: You're off.

Jill McAbe: Yeah, exactly.

Steve Rush: Got it.

Jill McAbe: You're off. You're done.

Steve Rush: Excellent. I love that. And I've never really, until I've read it in your book, I've never really had that aha moment that actually if you program your behaviors and you’re thinking right at the outset and they're strongly aligned and they're hot goals, it just takes care of itself.

Jill McAbe: Yeah. And it's not so instant to do that, but it is so worthwhile.

Steve Rush: Yeah. So, you often hear people saying, you know, unless you're all in, it's not going to happen. So, when you hear somebody articulate the words, you have to be all in, what does that really mean for you?

Jill McAbe: I personally use the term all in for my book. Probably what it means to me is faith. I mean, that's what it means to me. There was a point at which I was wondering, you know, am I going to be successful in developing my own education company? Or am I going to have to work as a consultant, some nice clients, some less nice clients, you know, what's my future look like? And there was a moment at which I really needed to make a decision if I was going to follow my heart and really try to make a go of my company, or go back to a world that I knew I could succeed in. And I guess having the life reset of the car accident, the stakes were a little higher because my life felt very empty after that car accident, I really felt like I lost it all. And I wondered what I had lost. I'd really gone into this 18-month rehabilitation but also significant depression and real questioning of what was the point of life. And all in for me was, like, well, I had to give it all.

I had to try my very best. I couldn't go back to just tolerating things and it meant going all in on my dreams and that's what it meant to me. And then it was also having the faith because I noticed that I was very good at helping organizations make striking advancements and teams make striking advancements when we'd work together. I'm very good at bringing forth the power of the individuals in the room. And then I thought, what is going on with me? Why have I been so successful at their businesses? And then in my own been, you know, lackluster result. Because after that crummy client, after my car accident, I only accepted clients who I really, really, really believed in. And I realized, yeah, I get results for people because I'm all in for them. And I have a hundred percent belief in them, and I was not taking action as though I knew I would succeed, but yet when working for my clients, I would take action with a singular focus that we would succeed.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that's great. And now you're all in for you. How's that changed?

Jill McAbe: [Laugh] most days. It's still harder. It's still harder when it's me!

Steve Rush: Uh huh.

Jill McAbe: But how has that changed? No, it's changed a lot. I've had, you know, is really, every day could be a slightly different answer. Some days I'm definitely feel like, you know, I can achieve anything and other days it's still running your own business is so challenging and there's lots of ups and downs. I think what's changed for me overall. Oh, well, I mean, the big picture is, when I really went after my dream. I mean, now I haven't established business. Back then I was not paying my way, you know, I'd gone from a fancy consultant to, you know, not being able to buy cereal and having my partner supporting me and you know, it was very humiliating for me. And now, I do, I mean, I have a business that, Entrepreneur Magazine is recognized as number one.

Steve Rush: Exactly.

Jill McAbe: You know, to watch in 2022. Like pretty important, actually. I'm pretty excited about that, but it's the people I also get to call, you know, it's the relationships that I've built along the way. There are so many extraordinary people who I call up and say, hey, you know, would you teach, you know, my people in BOOMU, would you teach them the stuff that know and they're like, sure. And that gets me every time, how many people I've reached out to and wanted to speak to or asked for them to do something for my community. An they say, yeah, and honestly, that's been one of the most exciting things is that I've been building something somewhat secretly. And even just now were sort of forming the outer view of the world. A lot of people who are only in our, like clients and students only see this because we are in a building phase, but it's truly a collection of incredible people sharing their gifts. And it's a dream. It's a dream come true. And I guess, because I almost got taken out of life with that car accident and I think COVID has helped us all see the need to maybe seize the moment. I'm really working towards building something that outlives me.

Steve Rush: Awesome. I love it. So, this is a part of the show where we are going to turn the tables a little bit. We all know that you can't hack leadership, but I can hack your mind. And the objective of the next part of the show is, I want you to share with us your top tips, tools, ideas around leadership. So, what would be your top three leadership hacks, Jill?

Jill McAbe: My top three leadership hacks. I'd say, this is just so small, but I think one of my favorite things. I teach, but I have a teach a collaborations course, and I think leaders listen first. And I think we know that leaders listen first, and you know, listening is power. Because understanding someone else's point of view before inserting your own is how to truly guide someone as opposed to speaking first. So that can be as simple as I have a very rigorous rule to always socialize for a moment before jumping into work. And in fact, it got me a quarter million-dollar contract once because I was representing a client and a possible investor came along and he was jumping in, you know, and he was like, all right, let's go. Let's talk business. And I looked at him and I held up my finger.

This is the person with all the money. And I held up my finger and I said, just a moment. It's Monday morning, we socialize before we jump into work, how was your weekend? And he just looked at me like, who are you? We went to lunch, and I did a big project for his organization. And I do think that just taking a moment to be with people is critical. I'm going to say a leadership hack is definitely vision and having a clear vision. When I did my master’s in leadership, I was amazed, you know, I thought I was going to go find the unequivocal way forward in leadership and discovered there are as many leadership theories as there are theorists. So, I realized, oh, there isn't one rule. And of course, my dyslexic brain wanted it to be easy, but it wasn't. But then there was the power of vision, which for over a century, nobody had been able to disprove could actually help you know, leaders outperform their competition by two to twelve times, which is staggering. And it got so boring to researchers. They couldn't disprove it. And vision, by the way, fancy word for big goal, right?

Steve Rush: Big goal, yeah. Yeah.

Jill McAbe: And so, these visions are really critical that they be underscored by purpose and long term and not all visions have that. I do have an article on LinkedIn about the kind of vision that has that. So, I'd say that's a hack because once you do that and get your organization on board, they're automatically working to worry about willpower. I mean, you don't have to worry about procrastination and willpower and people not working.

Steve Rush: Totally.

Jill McAbe: It's such false economy not to take that week and bring in a facilitator and get that vision done because it's such false economy just going to work. So that's a hack. And then the third one I'm going to say is, I have a tool for decision making. ABC decision. I'm pretty sure there's an article about that somewhere. I teach these courses as well through my website, but that one really helps us go back and it helps remind us where we are. (A) is aligned to your long- and short-term goals. (B) is broaden your options, always choose from at least three. (C) is compare contenders and do not use pro and cons, those are really bad. And then (D), detach before you decide so that you don't make emotionally biased decisions. And I think that once you have that vision, you have the ability to use something like A, B, C, D decisions to navigate and stay on course, those are my three hacks.

Steve Rush: Brilliant. I love that last one, particularly because it's one of the things that we often are knee jerk about making decisions and just being ordered and considered gives you the space to think.

Jill McAbe: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Love it. Next part of the show we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something has not gone well in your life or work. Now you've already shared a couple of hacks to attacks already, but was there maybe something else in your work or your life that was maybe an aha moment that you've learned from that's now serving you well?

Jill McAbe: A mistake that I seem to make regularly [laugh], which is embarrassing. In light of the show is, that I think I can outsmart my tools because I created them.

Steve Rush: [Laugh].

Jill McAbe: [Laugh], you know what I'm talking about?

Steve Rush: I totally understand that, yeah.

Jill McAbe: So, I don't sometimes use them and then my projects don't go well, it's totally embarrassing. But I would say going back to really setting, I mean, for me, the tools, mind code and ABC decisions, I use the two of them in conjunction, but for me, it's going back and creating that second half. For me, it's that I stop using particularly my goal setting and planning tools, my execution, I'm pre-programmed on execution. I'm excellent execution because I program myself to be, so it's going back. Yeah, I have big fails or projects that are super lackluster, and then I realized I didn't start them the way I teach other people to start.

Steve Rush: It's ironic. I, however

Jill McAbe: [laugh]

Steve Rush: It's reality. The reason that those tools were created in the first place, because it gave you results, it gave you processes, it gave you a methodology and you know what, we're human, aren't we? At the end of the day. And it's easy sometimes just to leave out some of those foundations, but the fact that, you know, that is a really powerful thing.

Jill McAbe: Yeah. Like they bring out my smarts, right. I think I'm so smart. But the point is, they actually draw forth my smarts.

Steve Rush: Yes. got it. So last part of the show, you get to do some time travel, bump into Jill at 21 and give us some advice. What would your words of wisdom be?

Jill McAbe: So, this one is not leadership related at all.

Steve Rush: Cool.

Jill McAbe: Or business related. When I think about this question, I think about what would 21-year-old me actually listen to? And that's key, right. Because I might say a lot of things to 21-year-old me, but I have to go back and ask myself, what would 21-year-old me actually take action on? And so, with that in mind, I would tell 21-year-old me to go find the course in miracles.

Steve Rush: Mm-Hmm.

Jill McAbe: And I think 21-year-old me who was, you know, not into anything around faith and prayer or meditation or anything like that, I think almost really anti all those things because of how I had grown up. Would've been fascinated by a concept that there would be such a thing as a course in miracles. And I think that that would have helped 21-year-old me accelerate my career dramatically faster.

Steve Rush: If only I could have bumped into a course of miracles at 21, in fact, I probably wouldn't have even listened to anything. I'd have said to me at 21, if I'm being brutally honest, but hey, that's another show.

Jill McAbe: [laugh].

Steve Rush: So, I've absolutely loved talking with you. You are an incredible example of learning by doing and turning it into something powerful that's a force of good. And just delighted that we have the opportunity to share your story and some of your models and tools with our audience. If our listeners wanted to get hold of a bit more of your insights, how to access a copy of the book, It's Go Time, find out a little bit about BoomU, you where's the best place for us to send them?

Jill McAbe: Come on over to my website would be a great start, jillmcabe.com with just one C a atypical spelling and or boom-u.com. And that's where free copy of my book can be found or link to my brand-new podcast, Thinking Vitamins, where I am sharing actionable ideas and practices that boost abundance and anyone interested in learning about MindCode would be able to learn all about that there and my other sweet of performance skills for leaders and entrepreneurs. So, I think that would be the place to send them.

Steve Rush: And the good news is, is that if they're listening to this right now, they'll also find them in our show notes so they can head straight over as soon as they're done listening. Jill, I just want to say thank you for being part of our community. I've loved to chatting with you. And it's no surprised that, you know, Entrepreneur Magazine have recognized you as someone to watch this year. So, thanks for being part of our community.

Jill McAbe: I'm grateful for the opportunity to be on the show. I've really enjoyed speaking with you.

Steve Rush: Thank you, Jill.

Closing

View Details

Rhamy Alejeal is the CEO of People Processes, he's also an author and an HR guru. In this fun and engaging show we talk about:

What comes first people or processes?
What the HR systems are that business can’t live without?
The differentials between human and resources.
What common changes occurred to people and processes since the pandemic?

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Rhamy below:

Rhamy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RAlejeal

People Processes Twitter: https://twitter.com/people_process

Rhamy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhamy/

People Processes Website: https://peopleprocesses.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peopleprocesses/

Full Transcript Below

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Today's special guest is Rhamy Alejeal. He's the CEO of People Processes. He's an author, an HR guru, but before we get a chance to speak with Rhamy, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: One of the main reasons that keep business leaders awake at night, I ask that question to my network and reached out to over a hundred business leaders. And this is the top six things that they came back with that keep them awake at night. Number one is planning, planning around the short term, financial, their tactical, their team, and their strategy. Having a bad or an ill-informed plan keeps people awake at night, which is also strange. Because number two is long term strategy. So, it goes without saying, if you don't have a short-term plan, you're never going to have a long-term strategy. But long term to me is beyond five years. Beyond the linear.

The next thing on the list was dealing with market changes and in particular, how they've responded to COVID, but generally how supply chains are moving and changing around. Hybrid working wasn’t before on the list but how they can gain access to their team's insights and behaviors while being remote and distant from them. Number five was around staff retention. We've heard lots of discussion in the past about the great resignation but holding onto real talent has become a real challenge for many business leaders and a final one coming in number six was finding enough diversity in their workforce through either gender, race, or just deep thoughts, because thoughts is about differentiation too. And there of course is then the elephant in the room. So, for those who listening to this who sleep peacefully at night, there's also a reason for that. And that reason is that you've likely gone from an intention to an action. You've made something happen. You've made a decision; you've closed it off before the end of the day. And therefore, you can do what your brain's designed to do when you get to bed and that's repair and recover. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Thanks to a number of you in the community who have raised us as a subject that you wanted us to feature on the show. So please also get in touch if there's something that you want to hear. Let's dive in.

Strat of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today is Rhamy Alejeal. He's a CEO of People Processes, or if you're in North America, of course it's Process and they provide the entire HR department for your business. He's also the author of the book People Processes, How Your People Can Be Your Organization's Competitive Advantage. Rhamy, welcome to the show.

Rhamy Alejeal: Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here.

Steve Rush: Me too. Now you have a really fascinating introduction to the world of business that started much earlier than many of us. In fact, you started out your first gig when you were 13 years old and actually made a bucket load of cash as a young man. I love for you to share the story with our listeners and how you got there?

Rhamy Alejeal: Yeah, well, I was a lucky kid. I had an amazing grandmother and I loved to spend time with her. She was in insurance sales, she sold what are called Medicare Supplements. So, for people internationally, when you turned 65 in the U.S., you get to go on the Government Health Insurance Plan. There's a nationalized healthcare plan for people over age 65 called Medicare. And my grandmother would call them you know, right around their birthdays. And she got a big, long list of them. And I wanted to spend more time with my grandmother, but she would never let me spend the night on weeknights in retrospect, probably because she sure didn't want to spend [laugh] needed a couple nights off, but she told me it was because, hey, those are my cold calling nights. I can't have you come.

So, at 13 I told my granddaughter, look, I could cold call. I can figure this out. Let me cold call for you so I can spend the night. And she somewhat, I think to humor me, gave me a copy of her, you know, 24 cassettes of call training and the big Medicare Supplement Guide and scripts and told me to read and listen to it all and she'd be happy to have me cold call. Well, I don't know that she really thought I'd do it, but I did. And I loved it. And I came in and said, hey gran, I'm ready. Let me cold call for you. And she, you know, this was back in the nineties and, you know, she said, well, let's give it a shot. She sat me down at her desk, handed me the big, you know, line printed green and white paper. Came in a big, long green, you had to tear the edges off.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I remember them well.

Rhamy Alejeal: Of everybody turning 65 and a zip code and said, get to calling. And it was, you know, first call, didn't go great. But on the second call, I said, hi, this is Rhamy. I know you're turning 65 soon. And my grandmother, she helps people who are turning 65, figure out Medicare, and she'd love to meet with you. And it turns out 13-year-olds calling people turning 65 and saying, my grandmother wants to meet with you was just the perfect, [laugh] the perfect phone script for a cold approach. And it started worked very well. I wound up setting a lot of appointments for my grandmother.

And then I wound up growing that into a little bit of a dance with a couple of other agents and setting appointments for them. And by the time I was 14, I was making, you know, $50-60,000 a year setting appointment for Medicare Supplements Agents in my hometown. So that was my introduction to the world of business. It lasted for a few years before we figured out that, hey, there are some compliance problems with this, but it all went great and really gave me a good basis for understanding that world of rough cold calling and learned a lot about insurance and dealing with clients and having systems to make sure you’re consistently performing. And it was a great start.

Steve Rush: And your journey into entrepreneurialism started that way. And I think from the last time we kicked this around, didn't you end up in insurance at some point?

Rhamy Alejeal: I did, yeah. So, I worked with my grandmother till I was 16. After that I launched a lawn mowing company for a few years that also, you know, turns out mowing lawn over the summer with three other guys and some trucks make some decent money. At 19, I bought my first investment property. My wife and I bought a foreclosure in 2007, the height of the market. Moved in, it had no floors, no walls. We learned how to renovate ourselves. And after graduating, I actually launched Poplar Insurance Agency. I got my bachelor's degree in finance and economics with minors in math and physics, you know, so I could sell insurance like you do. And totally made a lot of sense to me. And over the years that company, Poplar Insurance Agency. 13 years later has morphed into People Processes and really helped me find my niche and the people I love to work with.

Steve Rush: And you've done that through a series of acquisitions, and you've now got a really successful business, which is predominantly around helping organizations with their HR and their people processes, right?

Rhamy Alejeal: That's right. It started in the insurance space of dealing with employee benefits, right? So, making sure you had attractive reasonable benefits to make sure you can attract and retain good talent in your industry. And very quickly that morphed into also managing the payroll side of the business, because that was a big part of benefits at the time, you try trying to figure out how to keep all that stuff straight, get the bills paid, which led to compliance problems and understanding. In the U.S. Obamacare, the affordable care act came out in 2013. And that really changed a lot of how benefits as a regulatory environment needed to behave. And each time the market became more complex, we either acquired a company or launched our own internal so that we could provide those services broader and broader. And by 2015 or so, we were simply functioning as an entire HR department. Not just benefits, not just payroll, not just compliance, but also looking at things like recruit and retention and performance management, retirement plans, the whole piece of it.

Steve Rush: And of course, when people hear HR, it's human and resources and they're actually quite different things, aren't they?

Rhamy Alejeal: Yes, [laugh]. you have a lot of humans and no resources, and sometimes you have a few humans, but plenty of money to go around. It's an interesting world.

Steve Rush: And however, big, however, small you are, you need focus and attention on those humanistic things and the resources and processes that come with it. What's the reason when organizations scale, they might see HR as being a side gig rather than an integral part of their business.

Rhamy Alejeal: Ah, well, especially, you know, your smaller businesses when they start out, I like to break into three stages. Imagine you are, I don't know, a guy selling insurance, just to use a random example. You start off, you have a product, how you wound up in the industry may be relevant, may not be. Your product is likely very similar to that of your competitors. Your pricing is likely very similar. There's a stage in the early part where you have to focus on your product to make it unique or valuable, find your unique proposition. Another way I like to put, is you just have to start by not sucking at your job, right. You have to learn how to be a provider that doesn't suck. You've got to fulfill your promises. Those promises have to be unique or good in the market, and it's a tough journey. And a lot of small businesses fail there, right. Your average tire chain shop starts off with a completely homogenous product that doesn't differentiate, and they have to figure out how to make their product, their company special. From there, they scale their operations. They start realizing, hey, I've got a thing that people want to buy. I've got new clients coming in through the door and they realize I can't just change all the tires myself. I need other people. And they focus on what I call operations processes. This is the E-Myth Revisited, right. This is writing down your standard operating procedures and figuring out how to benefit from labor arbitrage, where you can have somebody else change the tire, but you can focus on the overall business and continue to grow. That step alone eliminates 90% of businesses. They have enough trouble figuring out how to scale their operations,

Steve Rush: Right.

Rhamy Alejeal: But once that's done, you now have a new problem. You may have standard operating procedures for the standard things. In my business for example, we realized, hey, we've got you know, when we were in one state, in really one city with 25 clients, we developed processes. We grew our staff to around 10, 15 people, and everything was going fine. But then we started to really grow. We entered 50 states. We had clients who were headquartered in LA and in New York and in Memphis and in Kansas City. And the thing that started happening is that new items came up. Not just every once in a while, but every day, things that couldn't be written down as a standard operating procedure. My wife and I worked together; we started the company together. All we really had to deal with was the new stuff. The new stuff happened three times a day. And we were dying. That's where people processes come in, people process. So, first product doesn't suck. Then your operations are standardized. Then you need processes to develop people who will make the same decision you would make.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rhamy Alejeal: But without you, right.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rhamy Alejeal: And that requires a lot. That requires they have guidance on behavior. They need to know how you think. And in a small business with four people, maybe the answer is they start off changing tires and then they drink a beer with you every afternoon and you hang out and they get to know your family. And eventually they just think like you would.

Steve Rush: Right.

Rhamy Alejeal: That can work. It may take a year and a half, but eventually you got somebody you can trust to make decisions. You've got a leader you can trust, but that not scalable. People processes is this operating system basically that allows us to take an enthusiastic new hire to someone you can trust to make decisions when you're not there.

Steve Rush: So, here's a chicken and egg kind of question for you. What comes first? Is it the people or the processes?

Rhamy Alejeal: It's a tough question, when I first thought about that question, my answer was actually people come first in that if, you know, if you have a process for requesting time off, but your top guy, you know, breaks his leg and needs to go to the hospital, and he doesn't fill out the form first. Well then obviously people come first, the process is secondary, and that is true. You have to be a human, right. You got to treat your people with respect and realize that processes can create a bureaucracy that can harm your relationship. So, you don't want that. On the other hand, I believe the development of those relationship so that you can trust people to not abuse systems so that you have the ability to say, hey, I know that Steve would never just not do a thing because he doesn't want to do it. It's because there's a good reason and I can trust him. The development of that trust has to be a process.

Steve Rush: And it's interesting, isn't it? When you start to think about how that they're not mutually exclusive at all, that they're entirely intertwined, aren't they?

Rhamy Alejeal: Absolutely, especially you were talking about, how do people start valuing this HR side of the business. When they start off, they're all external. They think all about how do I get new clients? How do I make my product better? How do I make it so that the promises I've made actually get delivered upon? They're thinking externally. And they're constantly looking at that framework. The internal process is what allows you to scale up your business. And those internal processes are around people. The only thing that does anything in your business, people. So, it's kind of like saying, if you look at it from an external focus and you think, well, what comes first? Client or product delivery processes or sales processes. And the answer is, the clients come first, but you're never going to talk to them or they're never going to stick around. You're not going to be able to do a good job for the client if you don't have those processes in place, it's the same for your employees. You have to have the processes in place, or you're not going to be a good employer. Doesn't matter how deeply you care about them. If you have to reinvent the wheel every single time for every little part of the employee process, you're not going to do a great job.

Steve Rush: Guess a lot of the systems as well that you are talking to are actually when you are small in scale often unconscious or at the back of, you know, the own operators mind. But as you grow, they need to be shared and people need to understand them.

Rhamy Alejeal: A system exists. Absolutely. It may just be that you know Steve makes a decision [laugh] every time and that's a system, but until they are standardized, public trained, some of the key pieces that are necessary to implement a process across an organization, it's very difficult for them to be improved. That's the genius of a system or a process. What I often train my small business clients to do is not try to invent whole cloth a better way to deal with an employee performance management, a performance management process. Maybe that's a bonus structure at the end of the year or an evaluation of their behavior or even a goal system. Don't start with that. Start with what you do now. Write that down, publish that, put that in front of the employees and say, this is what we do. And you will find within weeks, a lot of times. There are obvious, you don't need an HR expert to tell you, hey, that's kind of stupid we should do it different.

Steve Rush: mm-hmm.

Rhamy Alejeal: Right.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rhamy Alejeal: And make a small improvement to it. Systems processes, the great genius of it is that you can make a change and see the result, make a change, and see the result. And until you actually make it a public system, as opposed to one that just exists in your head, those iterations are very difficult to actually stick. So, the advantage isn't that having a system, lets people know what to do. Though that's not a bad one. The advantage is, is that the system allows itself to improve over time.

Steve Rush: Yeah. So, I heard you talk about standard, standardization quite a bit Rhamy and I wondered how that sits alongside being agile and innovative and does one suppress the other?

Rhamy Alejeal: It can, I mean, bureaucracy can kill a business.

Steve Rush: Right?

Rhamy Alejeal: I would say, you know, there's a line between chaos and order and you want to straddle it, right. You want the flexibility so that people can rapidly make decisions and experiment, but you need the order to make sure that everyone's going in the same direction. The information is shared freely so that good decisions can be made. There's a balance to be had there. What I find in most small businesses before hierarchies are heavily developed is that they are more chaotic than orderly

Steve Rush: Right

Rhamy Alejeal: Now when you're talking, for me, a 1500 person or 2000-person organization, I'm sure in 10 and 30,000 person organizations, it has been processed to death, right. There's a process for everything. They just may not be very good ones. They may not provide the flexibility necessary for employees to be able to well exist and grow inside of them, but in small businesses anyway, I often find that they're too far in the chaotic sphere.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and it creates this discipline in the space, I guess, then to give that individual the opportunity to be innovative.

Rhamy Alejeal: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rhamy Alejeal: Well, think of it. Think of it. Anything that has a process removes, significant mental load off those who need to figure it out, right. So, let's take a maternity leave as an example, right. I'm going to have a kid, I'm pregnant. It's three months in. I've got six months to figure out what's going to happen with my maternity leave. That is not the time for the business owner to be deciding what does maternity leave need to look like in our business.

Steve Rush: [Laugh] Yeah.

Rhamy Alejeal: That decision needed to be made while ago, right. And it may be that the decision they made a year ago and put in place and communicated and is easily accessible to the employee is not the optimal decision. It may very well be that. It's better to have made a decision in most cases so that the employee knows what to expect and knows how this is going to go then to have not made a decision and have to figure that out when you're staring down the barrel of a choice, a fun way to think about this is, perhaps you should think up the name of your child before the baby comes, right.

Or at least before the epidural and you're knocked out on drugs, sorry, I've got a four-month-old. So, I'm a little into this world, right. We had to at least narrow down the list a little bit. Because if Liz, my wife had to make that decision, you know, under the epidural with the baby there, like I don't know what we would've been named, but I know she really loved Godiva Chocolate during the last couple months there. And I'm pretty sure it would've been Godiva [laugh] even if, David was born, so we got to put some time in upfront to make those decisions better. And I think that having the decision, having been made, having it as a process allows you to remove a lot of uncertainty.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rhamy Alejeal: And that uncertainty is a huge mental weight on your staff and you. Doesn't mean you can't improve it. You should improve it.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rhamy Alejeal: See how it goes, run it through. If there's an immediate obvious, problem fix it, but allow it to be a process rather than the whims of how you're feeling that week or, oh my gosh, we can't let that employee go on maternity, she's too important. I tell you that kind of stuff comes up and you lose that employee. She's too important to go on maternity. Well guess what? She's way too important, not to, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rhamy Alejeal: So those are the kind of decisions we want to make upfront.

Steve Rush: Now Rhamy, you've had the opportunity of work with thousands of different people in businesses over the time and create and work with them around their systems. And I just wonder if there's a natural leveling or a pecking order on the systems particularly that businesses can't live without. And I just wondered if there was maybe one that sticks out above the others as being the most critical HR system or process that I might want to have in my business?

Rhamy Alejeal: Well, gosh, I think, you know, I love all my children. You need to pay your people on time. You need a payroll system. You know when they work, you need time and labor. You need to know when they're going to work, you need scheduling. You need to know how to recruit. You need a recruiting system onboarding, off boarding. God, you need a way to fire people. And what happens when they quit? All of them are important, but I will say the one that separate the big boys from the newbies, right. I can often tell how developed an organization is by the existence at least, or complexity and depth of their performance management system. Now if you're a small business, the truth is, if you have seven employees, you know what all of them do, [laugh], you know, if they're doing a good job. You may not need an in depth, performance management system outside of maybe setting expectations, right.

So that the employees know what to do, at least that, but you probably don't need an in-depth dashboard that connects and executives and HR and make sure that everything is connected. But what I often do is, one of the first things I try to deep dive in is, where are they in this performance management spectrum? On one hand, a small business where the owner provides nearly no expectations and nearly no review. And everyone is surprised when they're in trouble. That would be the bottom of the spectrum up to something like Google, where every single keystroke, metric, time spent, thought had, contribution made is analyzed by a machine learning algorithm to generate analytics and demographic data. And they know that you're going to quit before you do. Like, there's a whole other world all the way over there that honestly, I like to read about, but I don't get to play with much. If you are at marginal scale, say 20 to 50 employees, focusing on your management of your existing employees, your performance management can often have an outsized impact in both your turnover, your employee satisfaction, and your ability to deliver to your clients.

Steve Rush: And that's where you get your marginal gains, right?

Rhamy Alejeal: They come from everywhere. But absolutely it's much better to have a system in place that allows good employees to become great employees, right. And allows you to keep your great employees than not. And that's probably less work or less financial investment anyway, than a system that allows you to rapidly replace top performers with new people, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rhamy Alejeal: That's an important system too. Your top performers will leave eventually, and you need a way to do it, but for many businesses they could cut their turnover significantly just by really focusing in on that performance management piece.

Steve Rush: And I wonder as well, the whole notion of performance management can sit differently with different focus or can't they, so some will thrive in the opportunity of having clarity and guidance and the process that follows that where others might feel a little bit uncomfortable and uneasy as they start to evolve that as well. What's your experience about some of the psychology that sits alongside performance management?

Rhamy Alejeal: Well, that's a very good question. People creatives, which by the way, entrepreneurs and artists have the same brain, it's the same high risk, high reward drive a lot of times. So, you find that systems that constrain behavior are very important in a hierarchy. It's very important in a system, a business to give people places to go and know what to do. But you will often find that creatives and those who are more entrepreneurial, like a salesperson may find those constraints significantly more constraining [laugh] right. They may chafe under that pressure or the limited pieces there. For them you want to design performance management systems that are primarily around them setting their expectations, right. And then a method of making ensure that their expectations or goals align with the company's expectations and goals. It's a lot more a system of alignment than it is say, giving them a track to run on.

Whereas in an accounting organization, you can be significantly more focused on very specific, measurable pieces. There's actually a great story of a company that did customs management. So, every time someone would come in, every time a shipment would come in, they'd have to fill out all this customs paperwork. And they moved to measuring their primary KPI for their direct frontline agent was not number of cargos filled out because some cargos required hundreds of pieces of paper, some required two, and counting the pieces of paper, which were government forms that had to be filled out by hand or in a typewriter. These weren't even digital forms because it was a customs international thing. They did it by the ounces, by the weight, by the weight of paper, they moved, literally. They had their intake and outtake replaced with scales.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rhamy Alejeal: And that was their primary metric every day and said, hey, are we improving or not? That sort of micro level of performance management may suit some, but likely would not do well with a group of aggressive salespeople, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely right. Yeah, I can see that. So, you managed to gather all of this experience and you threw it into the book, People Processes. Tell us a little bit about how the book came about and what was in inspiration behind it?

Rhamy Alejeal: Well, People Processes the book came about because of a podcast that I did call Don't HR Alone. I did a daily podcast for about a year and a half, closer two years, really. Couple hundred episodes. They were daily 15 minutes, hey, we're going to dive in on this issue or there's a new compliance update, or gosh, Minnesota's changing their minimum wage. And what does this mean for you? Whatever I could find honestly, to fill a daily podcast but it did pretty dang well, and that actually led to the book deal. The book truthfully, I wrote almost 400 pages, single spaced in word over the course of six months. I'm effectively made an HR textbook. My editors took that and laughed at me and said, what are you trying to make around Rhamy?

Because this thing, ain't no one going to read. this. [Laugh] right. Are you trying to make a college textbook that people will assign, or are you trying to make a book that your clients or your target clients would like to read? And that really changed everything. People Processes is a broad guide that lays out the key sections of the employee life cycle from onboarding to offboarding, right through termination and even alumni management. It lays out what the key processes are, what a good process looks like, what a bad process looks like. And then the last quarter of the book is actually almost a workbook. It's exercises for you to actually lay all this out in your own organization. The first quarter is justification for small business owners and boards on why they should invest in the time and energy in necessary on these.

And the idea was, and again, I give credit to my publisher on this, was that this book would be an excellent book for all business owner to read, to get their head around or for an HR professional to read quickly. It's nothing earth shattering in there. There's some good fun insights and some great stories, but to read and then pass on to the executive or the boards that they have to work under because it will show them both why it's important, and how it can be accomplished in a reasonable manner.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rhamy Alejeal: And that's where the book sits. If you're an HR professional, who's Sherm certified and done this for 10 years, you're going to find the book to be fun and entertaining and cover all the basics [Laugh].

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rhamy Alejeal: But if you're a small business owner, who's looking at maybe be turning in inward for a little while, you've got the business growing, but you're realizing that the pieces inside your company, aren't up to the task of delivering on the promises and clients that you've been able to make and gather. This is the book for you, because it will give you the steps you need to get this well, moving inside your organization.

Steve Rush: Awesome. And if you think about the journey that we've all been on over the last couple of years through the pandemic, as we hopefully start to move beyond the pandemic, how have you seen people change their approach to processes and their people?

Rhamy Alejeal: Well, HR has been a hot topic over the last few years, of course. In the U.S., especially we had lots of diversity equity and inclusivity issues, and then the pandemic changed everything. And suddenly CEOs started realizing that their processes for keeping up with their people were heavily reliant on management by walking around, right. You had managers and they just kind of talked to their employees every day and sat next to them. That was a big part of management. That doesn't work very well in a remote world. It doesn't work in a global world where it may be 9:00 AM my time and 3:00 PM your time. Many companies were able to adapt very quickly to the pandemic and remote work and hybrid offices and the globalization of the marketplace very well, because they were already there. They already had the processes in place to manage remotely and not just rely on the gut of the manager, right. But the ones that didn't were hit very hard and they, I think over the last two years, three years have learned that they have to have processes in place to be able to scale that people's side of their operations.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rhamy Alejeal: Both over a larger staff, but also over time at distance.

Steve Rush: Yeah. It's that moving from one place to another place, but if it's not there in the first place, then you're going to end up back in that chaotic basically you articulate earlier, right?

Rhamy Alejeal: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah. So, we're going to flip the lens a little bit now. You've been leading people and teams, since you were 16 years old from those grass cutting days, right the way through to now where you've got a really large organization. So, I'm really keen to hack into that leadership experience of yours. If you had to dive in and think about the top three things, the top three leadership hacks, what would they be?

Rhamy Alejeal: I think there are a few places where everyone can improve. Of course, one piece of leadership is to understand and embrace that you are on stage, that what you do matters. It is the price of leadership. And it's not really a hack. It has nothing to do with people processes to a large degree but know that your organization is a reflection of you. And I find that often my business does best when I think about improving parts of my life that are not relevant to my business, right. Being in better shape and having a closer family and having a better balance, it shows, and it matters. So, no matter what processes and what technology and where your industry's at. Know that by signing up to lead an organization, either through entrepreneurship or in an executive role, you are signing up for a public role, a role where you will be judged in a role where the things that are not necessarily exactly tied to your performance at work matter, it's a public role. So, some people just need to hear that and understand that is what it is.

Steve Rush: Like It.

Rhamy Alejeal: It's a tough thing. Next up would be that the genius of processes, as we mentioned earlier, is in their iteration and improvement. Many people, especially leaders are high performing individuals who have turned in perfect papers, their whole life, right. Who have been at the top of the pack, the fastest runner, the best player, the top academic, and they've done it through hard work and perseverance. Business is a little different. Business never has an in season. Well, most of them anyway, unless you're running a football team.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rhamy Alejeal: But most, it's going to go on forever. And the great genius of systems is that you can put one in place and then improve it and improve it and use the scientific method. Change one thing, see what the effect is, change one thing, see what the effect is. It's so much more valuable for you to put something in place and then improve it than it is for you in your great leadership genius, to sit in a dark room with Brandy and think hard for hours and come up with the perfect answer because you won't, there's no chance of it. It's just too complicated. So, I try to pull back my clients from feeling like their unique genius has to be expressed through any system inside their organization, allow it to exist and then make sure that a part of the system is to improve itself. And it will over time become significantly better than anything you alone could have dreamed up.

Steve Rush: Great.

Rhamy Alejeal: The final piece of leadership hack that I would say is, just a random kind of piece of information is to always think at the front lines, many organizations and a lot of times in the smaller organizations, as well as the larger ones, the executives think about other executives. If you ask a small business owner, who do you want to hire? It's always me, right. I want someone who's going to read my email, reply to it as if it were me, make my decisions, handle my books, and talk to my clients and just do me. And that's unfortunately not going to happen.

Steve Rush: That's right.

Rhamy Alejeal: Instead, look at what you do on a day-to-day basis and break it into the smallest job possible. The most focused job possible. One of the exercises I have my client go through as a true hack is to design your org chart for what you envision the future of your company to be. Recognizing that there are only 12 of you now, or 20 of you now. In my organization, our org chart is about twice as large as we are currently. We actually review that org chart quarterly, and that org chart is about half empty. And we've done that since we had three employees [Laugh]

Steve Rush: That's great.

Rhamy Alejeal: We had six people on our org chart and that gives you a direction to go and recognize that you, as the executive in a small business are probably doing seven jobs and your top people are probably doing three or four and that's okay. But think about them as unique individual jobs that have different requirements, descriptions, metrics, goals, competencies, skills. Recognize that in a small business, you may be doing multiple jobs, but think about them as individual ones. And that will give you a path to growth significantly faster. It will help you understand where your next hire are going to be and what needs to be done. And then fill in from the bottom to the top, the number of seven-person, small businesses I've spoken with that have a CEO, a chief marketing officer, a director of finance, a COO, a receptionist and a bookkeeper, right. And I'm like, wait, hey, hang on, buddy. You got to always start. And especially if you're new to hiring and scaling a business, start with the smallest job, you're going to screw it up. Might as well be that rather than a partner,

Steve Rush: Next part of the show, we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something has not gone well, might have even screwed up, but as a result, you've learned from it. And it's now a force of good in your work or life. What would be your Hack to Attack Rhamy?

Rhamy Alejeal: I've screwed up so much. It's hard to pick. When I started my company at 22, I had $105,000 in the bank. I rent a quarter floor and a high rise because I needed a beautiful place for my clients to meet me. I was spending $5,000 a month on marketing and advertising, and I didn't know would be successful. Six months in I had $4,000 in the bank and a payroll due of five and a rent due of five in like three weeks. And it's only gone down from there. We did well. We survived that, but multiple times throughout my business, I have come to these points of near utter failure. I have sobbed in my office. When I first launched payroll eight or nine years for example, my sister who'd worked with me for years. Young college student, she really took it over. She took over payroll. She helped me find the company that we purchased, which she helped me with every client. She was the head of payroll. And after graduating and then getting her master's degree, well, I couldn't afford to pay her as much as a big accounting firm. And it was right for her to move on. But man, I sat in my office and cried [laugh], why are you leaving? I thought we were going to grow this together. And it was incredibly painful.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rhamy Alejeal: Some of the lessons I've learned, every single one of those issues has forced me to find a better way. And they have been the points of the greatest growth in my organization.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rhamy Alejeal: Every single time, every single time without fail, I have actually come to like when reality steps up and punches me in the face and says, you're doing it wrong. There's a major problem. So, try in that moment to take a deep breath and think. I'm so lucky that it happened now and not two years from now, two years of wasted work when I'm just building further into the structure that doesn't work. So, look out for those moments and consider them an opportunity.

Steve Rush: Super advice. Thank you, Rhamy. The last part of the show, we get to give you a chance to go and do some time travel now. Bump into Rhamy at 21, give him some advice. What would it be?

Rhamy Alejeal: I'm going to say 22, because that's when I started my company. 21-year-old Rhamy was going to be a physicist. He was pretty sure. So, that didn't work out. But 22, the day I opened my company. Some of the advice I would give me. Some of it I wouldn't need, but reading, learning every day is a huge value. I don't know that I need to tell myself that I've read and listened every day. So, it made a big difference. I think for most, it shocks me the number of successful businesses who don't just look at a library and salivate and go, oh my God, there's just so much success in there. I got to go look at it. I got to go read it. So that's my number one piece of advice for a younger person. For personally. It would be that this is going to be harder than you ever expected. And the spreadsheet you made, you know, everyone makes a spreadsheet a couple months before they start their business.

Steve Rush: That's right.

Rhamy Alejeal: And they project out and say, hey, five years, I'm going to be making money. And in 10 years, I would tell myself, that my spreadsheet is way optimistic for the first five to seven years of my business, that I was underestimating how incredibly difficult and hard this will be. But I would also say that my spreadsheet at 10 years has way underestimated how good it can be.

Steve Rush: That's nice. And that leads me to ask of you Rhamy, how we can get our listeners to connect with you? Find out a little bit more about the work that you and the firm do, but maybe you'll get a copy of the book?

Rhamy Alejeal: Oh yeah. Well, peopleprocesses.com is our website. You can search People Processes on Amazon to find in the book. It's also linked from our website. @peopleprocesses.com. We have some great free resources for subscribers, including things like overall templates to use, great onboarding checklists, ways of setting up a performance management system. Up at the top there's an academy where you can sign up for courses. That'll help you develop this in your own organization. And of course, right on the website, there's a contact us where you can reach out and schedule time with my staff or even me to figure out if we can work together. We work in the United States, but our academy is internationally focused and can help you with anywhere across the world.

Steve Rush: Excellent. And we'll make sure that's in our show notes so that as people finish listening, they can dive straight in.

Rhamy Alejeal: Wonderful.

Steve Rush: Rhamy I've really enjoyed chatting to you, and it's no surprise that you've made an enormous success in helping others build their business in the way that you've built yours. So, I just want to say thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule, to be on our show and thanks for being part of our Leadership Hacker community.

Rhamy Alejeal: Thank you, Steve. I really appreciate it.

Steve Rush: Thank you Rhamy.

Closing

Tune into next episode to find out what great hacks and stories are coming your way. That's me signing off. I'm Steve Rush, and I've been your Leadership Hacker.

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Gary Frey has served as president of a number successful companies, including Bizjournals.com, a business news portal which he helped transform from a three-person organization to a $100 million company which he sold to Microsoft. In this show you can learn about:

The most important attributes of successful leaders today
The role gratitude plays in leading others
The philosophy of just connecting with good people
How to use the Thrive-Wither self-assessment.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Gary below:

Gary on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garydfrey/

Gary’s Blog Page: https://gfrey.wordpress.com

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Our special guest today is Gary Frey. He's an entrepreneur, multiple C-suite executive, and now super coach. But before we get a chance to dive into the conversation with Gary, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we explore how to balance employee happiness and building business expectations. Toxic workplaces are nothing new. We've likely heard of horror stories of offices run on terror. What is new is, few workers are willing to put up with such conditions, a recent study for the Human Resources Management, SHRM. Completed the study that indicated one in five have left their job in the last five years because of company culture. So that culture is not only bad for the health of employees, but it's also bad for business with an estimated cost to businesses of being over 200 million pounds. Clearly, then keeping employees happy is critical to run a successful enterprise but needs a balance, and that balance needs to be achieved so that you get productivity too. And we can't become subservient to the needs of every employee, or we lose sight of the business needs.

In 2017, Google's apparent overcompensation of some staff politically was incorrect at the time called the F.U. Money, but colloquially led to a departure of many, and they took their hefty paychecks and used them to pursue other roles. And if you're underpaying employees so much that they can triple their salary elsewhere, well, then they should leave. However, if we allow every person who is headhunted to jump ship, we won't be left much talent at all. Those do stick around most likely to be under performers and unable to get a job elsewhere. And therefore, the companies left scrambling again. So, we have to create the right environment that fosters loyalty and motivation, so that talent feel the need to stay and want to continue on that journey. And of course, some businesses may not have the budget or flexibility to pay more, but it's still vital to show employees that ownership or leadership of a firm are doing all they can to cultivate happy and healthy work culture.

Paying more doesn't necessarily mean you get results. And this is where the key to balancing employee happiness lies. It's critical that we first communicate clearly and transparently any responsibilities that are tied to a position. If performance doesn't match that position, then there needs to be some open dialogue about standards, expectations, and the consequences of positively achieving and negatively achieving those outcomes.

And honest, candid conversations can motivate individuals to work hard, to improve their skills while simultaneously given them a reason to stay finding their purpose. There'll also be times when it's in the best interest of the employee to leave too whether we'd like them to stay or not. Someone may get an offer that comes along, gives them new opportunities. In that case, I know that moving on is likely to be best for the individual in the long term, albeit it's going to be painful for you.

The goal for each staff member is to thrive in tandem with the business and as leaders to clearly communicate honestly and identify the circumstances that will allow them to thrive and clear communication and openness fosters trust. So, show people your engage with careers so that that helps them want to succeed. And the hack here, with clarity, trust, and mutual understanding on both sides, you are more likely to achieve your expectations and outcomes and therefore standards are adhered. Expectations are met and positive consequences achieved by all. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Dive into our social media and let us know what you'd like to talk about.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today is Gary Frey. He served as president as a number of successful companies, including bizjournals.com, a business news portal, where he helped transform the business from a three-person organization to a hundred million dollar plus company, which ended up selling on to Microsoft. He's now done two turnarounds and held executive positions in two Fortune 100 Companies, and now runs an incredibly successful coaching business and community. Gary, welcome to the show.

Gary Frey: Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be with you.

Steve Rush: Looking forward to diving into learning a little bit about the journey you've been on so far. And we'd like to kick things off by our guests, just giving our listeners a little bit of a perspective on how they've arrived to do what they do. So, what's the backstory for you?

Gary Frey: Oh man, we don't have enough time. I started out as a graphic designer early in my career and did my first turnaround when I was 28 years old. I had no credentials whatsoever to be able to do that. But we did in nine months, which was really cool. I thought it was going to be my forever home. It became the Morris Frey Agency. So, my name was on the door, and we grew it into a really cool creative small but powerful little juggernaut. It was only a dozen people or so when we turned it around and then caught my partner, you know, his hand in the cookie jar one too many times financially. And I had to leave my own company. And so, I always thought I'm just going to, you know, I define myself as a creative director, you know, a designer and creative director and a guy in the ad agency world.

And you know, again, kind of, I planned God laughed and my career journey has been anything but to typical. And it's been an amazing journey, actually terrifying in many times and exhilarating in other times and taking me into places that I would've never imagined. So, as you had mentioned, I've run four companies and done a couple turnarounds and I've been inside the belly of the beast of two Fortune 500 Companies and that's where the MacGyver in my title comes from actually was one of those Fortune 500 Companies, which was really cool. But you know, being able to look back in the rear-view mirror and, you know, it's easy to see patterns when you're looking backwards. It's hard to see it when you're in the fog of war.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Gary Frey: Anyway, I'm extremely grateful. It's taken me into industries that I had no business doing, including bizjournals, you know, I was not a publishing guy and I was not, you know, a tech guy and yet, you know, I was running a .com in the middle of crazy .com stories. And I got some amazing, funny and wild stories from that time too. But, you know, on insulating glass manufacturing company, like what do I know about that? Nothing. When I look through all of these things, all of my jobs, except for two were because of somebody that knew me or had worked alongside me and saw something, typically they saw something in me that I didn't see myself.

Steve Rush: Right.

Gary Frey: So anyway, and I've had great leaders and I've had really terrible leaders and I've learned from both. So, you know, you're talking about, you know, leadership hacks, you know, that's awesome to be able to have worked under some really powerful and wonderful leaders that demonstrated servant leadership. And then under ogres that demonstrated just because you're sitting in a power perch, doesn't make you a leader.

Steve Rush: Exactly, right. So, when you head did off on your entrepreneurial journey and you started bumping into these opportunities, was there something that was common amongst them that was alluring for you? What was that one thing that drew you towards the opportunities you had?

Gary Frey: You know, it's funny. Relationships actually, quite frankly, a lot of it. And I would say early in my career, you know, there were some star gazing moments of, you know, I'm going to, you know, put my name in lights or whatever, and that was pretty short lived, you know, one thing about it, you get kicked in the teeth a few times and then you lose that luster. But one of the things early on, when I was 31, I caught my partner doing some financial impropriety things that he shouldn't have been doing and caught him twice, you know, which, you know, when you got to leave your own company and I chose to leave, because I wasn't going to destroy him, you know, he had made some bad choices, were all one stupid choice away from disaster, I think.

Steve Rush: Yeah, you're right.

Gary Frey: And I didn't want to destroy him, and I didn't want to destroy my own name. And I would've had to do that if I would've taken the company across the street, everybody in town and Wichita, Kansas knew who my partner was. He had been the head of corporate communications for Cessna Aircraft, and he was 20 years older than me. And you know, that’s a big, small town, you know, a few hundred thousand people. And so, my choice was, I'm not going to destroy him and I'm not going to destroy my name. So, I got to start all over again. And one of the things that I did was at the ripe old age of 31, did this really simple T-Chart that I call thrive, wither. And you split the piece of paper in two. On the left side, you right thrive. And on the right side, you write wither. And I didn't have a ton of experience, but I had enough to know what environments and the kind of tasks and the kind of responsibilities and kind of environments that made me come alive. And on the right side, the wither side, I also had enough experience at that point. I've got a whole lot more now, but enough to be able to say, what are the things that I might even be good in these things, but they just drain my tank.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Gary Frey: And you know, one of the things that I learned really quickly when we did that, turnaround, everybody quit except for me and my partner, we had to take 20% pay a cut. Everybody hit the doors except for me and my partner. And so, I had to do everything except for the PR, he was a PR guy. So writing, designing, selling, billing, that all fell on me.

Steve Rush: Right.

Gary Frey: Then when you scale, you got to divide and conquer, and you got to find other people that will never do it just like you did. And I had to find three people in particular pretty quickly to take some of the things off of me and, you know, we didn't have a lot of money. So, I had to hire younger folks, you know, with less experience, but had kind of batteries installed already. And so, I learned really quickly, you know, more about how to communicate better. I wasn't perfect at it, but, you know, set the sites on what the target is, let them find their own way to hit it as long as it doesn't violate core values and who you are as a company and what you're trying to instill, they're going to find a different path than you would've taken.

And that's okay. So, I would say, you know, keeping, you know, true to my, you know, what makes me come alive. I started looking at all these additional opportunities that eventually came and some of them, they came on the heels of destruction, you know, quite frankly, where you're just forlorn, wondering, you know, if the world has fallen, you know, do you have what it takes to continue to move on, et cetera. I started really trying to evaluate, well, does this fit me and my unique giftings and that sort of thing or is it asking too much of things that I might even be able to do or that I really suck at that would drain my tank because that's not going to be a good move if that's the case. So hopefully that answers some of the question.

Steve Rush: Sure does. And one thing, I guess I've just noticed in all of the things that you've just shared is that in entering those entrepreneurial journeys, you were pretty confident you had most of the attributes that were going to get you there, but not all. And therefore, there was definitely this energy that comes with that around confidence and conviction, as well as having a majority of the attributes, but not all of them, right?

Gary Frey: Yeah, and quite frankly, in some cases, I didn't think I had any of them.

Steve Rush: Right.

Gary Frey: You know, it's really funny. That turnaround, that was kind of the first of many times where I've felt completely outgunned, completely unworthy, you know, completely like they've tapped the wrong guy on the shoulder. In some of those cases, in some of the biggest moves I've actually been brought into, which had me terrified. And I thought, oh my gosh, no, I'm not the right guy, because you know, then once I take that job, then they're going to see the emperor has no clothes. I don't know what I'm doing. In all of those cases, people identified stuff in me. So that first one, this guru that was brought in from Richmond, Virginia. He was a really a business development guru. And it was a Hail Mary because my partner was basically bankrupt. I mean, it was a last-ditch effort to try to keep from going bankrupt. And this guy was extremely expensive. I mean he was 10,000 bucks a day plus expenses in 1991.

Steve Rush: That’s a lot of cash.

Gary Frey: It was a lot of money, but it was, like I said, a Hail Mary. And when they called me at home, we didn't have cell phones at the time. I didn't know him from Adam, and he said, Gary, you know, I know you don't know me, but here's the opportunity that I'm looking for. I've talked with a number of people and your peers around town, your name keeps coming up. And I said, I don't know anything about, you know, doing a turnaround or anything. Like, he goes, yeah, but these are the things that we need, and you know, the kind of position in the marketplace they were wanting to own. And I had worked for the top firm in town that had that position that they wanted to have. And that firm ended up selling to a larger company.

And so, kind of destroyed a lot of the stuff that made it unique and special. And in all of those cases, bizjournals.com, same thing. When their top publisher said, Gary, you're the guy, we've got national search looking for somebody to be president over this entity. And I said, Ed, I don't know anything about, you know, publishing, I don't know, I'm not an early adopter technology guy, that's not me. And he goes, no, no, no, but here's what we need. You have started, run, and turned around companies and we need somebody to take this three-person entity and grown into real Bonafede business. Two, you're a bridge builder, you know, you connect really well with people, even in warring factions, in big companies. And I'd done that in a couple big companies. And he said, we got 41 publishers that basically run their own businesses. And they are terrified of the chairman announcing that we've got this .com entity and it's a separate entity. And they think they're going, by the way, the dodo bird, they're very defensive and we need your bridge building skills. And then the final thing is, it's called am city.com for American City. The holding company was American City Business Journals. And he said, it doesn't make sense, that name makes no sense for papers that are called business journals. And some of them are business chronicles. His was the Atlanta Business Chronicle and he was the top publisher. And he said, so we're going to have to rebrand this thing and you're the right guy to do that. So, he outlined very succinctly three things that I would was really good at, but I was terrified of going into a situation where I was going to fail because I didn't have those credentials. Oh, and by the way, I'm a college dropout. So, you know, I have two years of college and was offered a job at the height of the great recession actually before 2008-2009. But in 1982 is the highest unemployment in U.S. history since the great depression. And so, I had this job offer and my advisor said, ditch the paid scholarship and take it because grads aren't finding jobs. So, I had this additional achilles heel or, you know, albatross around my neck that was following me around everywhere saying I'm not good enough.

Steve Rush: In hindsight, Gary, do you think that the fear of the unknown has actually been a driver in many respects?

Gary Frey: I don't know if it was a driver, but it was definitely there. And the responsibility of providing for my family, you know, I got married at 21 and my wife was 19 and we're still married 39 years later. And we had kids, you know, a couple years later her after we got married and she stayed home with the kids. So, I had no option, you know, I had to provide for my family. I wanted to provide for my family.

Steve Rush: Right.

Gary Frey: And in many cases it threw me into situations where if I would've had an option, I wouldn't have taken the option. I would've taken a safer option. So, you know, the best boss I ever had was still one of the top execs at Bank of America, a woman. And she would often say, Gary, we have more confidence in you than you do, which was very true. But she did the same thing where she would just push me and encourage me, you know, you've got more under the hood than you think that you do. And sometimes a little bit of that kind of encouragement and cajoling combined with the necessity of, I just got to do this. has pushed me into it, but she would often say, Gary, you're just so entrepreneurial. And this place was a pretty entrepreneurial place. We went from 80,000 associates or employees to 160,000 in two years with the three largest bank acquisitions in history at that time. And so, it was a whirlwind all the time and she would say, you know, you're an entrepreneur. And I'd say, you know what, actually I'm not. I'm more of a turnaround guy. Entrepreneurs, like they see the non-existent and they call it into existence. I've worked for some I'm amazing entrepreneurs. And sometimes you would go, well, you're lying but they would go, no, I'm not lying. I can see it, even though it's not there yet. And that really isn't me, but I am a problem solver, and I can see things. And so typically I love to come in alongside, in bizjournals, the same thing, three people, we turned it into a real business, but you know, somebody had gotten that thing off the ground, they got it moving and then they needed some additional oomph to take it to the next level.

Steve Rush: That must have been some moment though, when you know, Microsoft come along. Hundred-million-dollar company at this time, and you sell out. That must have been a really proud moment for you, right?

Gary Frey: It was very interesting. So, they bought 20% of the company for $20 million. And before that, that was the second all offer that we actually had. And that was a year after the .com bubble blew up. And so, we had .com wasteland everywhere. The one before that though, and this was only a few months into my time there as the president, I was meeting with a competitor in San Francisco, we put a million dollars in this competitor, and it was before I got there. So as soon as I got there, the chairman said, I need you to go out to San Francisco, meet with these guys. I put a million bucks into them. I go, why'd you do that with a competitor? And he goes, and he just kind of winked at me. And he's like, I like to keep my enemies close, like smart, right.

And so, I go meet with these guys. And then shortly after, within a few months I developed a pretty good rapport with them, but one of the first meetings was really hilarious. They were losing 40 million a year, burning it. They were just spending money like drunken sailors. They had a million-dollar top line, not quite. And I asked the guy, he was an Oxford educated, really brilliant Egyptian guy. And I said, Timor, you know, I was just blown away. They had big screen TVs everywhere when they were about $15,000 a piece, you know? And like, it was just crazy. Hundreds of people running around, bringing you lattes, doing neck massages between meetings. I'm like, what the heck is this? I said, what is your business model? And he says to me, look, Gary, it's a very nimble business model driven by eyeballs. That's what he said, word for word. And I said, so Timor, what you're telling me. I said, I'm not a real smart guy. And I didn't go to Oxford, but what you're telling me is you don't have one. And what you do have is advertising.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Gary Frey: And he goes precisely. Well, they sold about a month later. He calls me and he says, Gary, you got to come out here and you got to meet with all these investment bankers. We're having this big celebration party. We sold to NBCI for $225 million. We're rich, and I thought, you have freaking got to be kidding. After they sold, they wanted to buy 20% of our company. And they had that same valuation. But we were going to have to take all of our traffic and run it through. It was called allbusiness.com. And so, I take this to my chairman. He has to think about it for a few weeks and he comes back and he says, you know what, that's mind blowing. But he said, I don't think these guys are going to be in business in 18 months. He goes, Gary, this whole .com thing is going to blow. And he called it to the month. He called to the month, and we ran extremely conservatively. I had gone from running tens of millions of dollars in marketing budgets at Bank of America. I had to arm wrestle this guy for, I think, 7,500 bucks for the whole year of marketing. But he called it. And so, when the next year when Microsoft came through and I mean, that really validated what we had, you know, a .com that sells to NBCI for stupid money in the stupid world of the .com crazy at the time.

That was novel, but it, you know, toysrus.com had a much bigger valuation and they were losing money, hand over fist versus their brick and mortar, so that was kind of not real. Microsoft made it legitimate. But what that also meant was I was not going to be having the reins that I did and, you know, things were going to change. And so that's when I left actually to go, I had merged two companies together when I was at Bank of America. I was consulting with two friends who owned separate firms. And I actually merged those things together. I made the introductions, they asked me to be the third partner. And I said, no, you know, I'd been through the partner fiasco that I'd bitten once, I'm not doing that again.

Steve Rush: Right.

Gary Frey: Well, they came back after they heard about the Microsoft thing and they said, you know, why don't you come and be our third partner? We'll still give you a third of the company. You be president, so it's truly a merger because I don't really actually believe there are mergers. Somebody acquired somebody. And then the person that got acquired, they're made to feel better by yeah, we merged in with them. Well, you actually, he got acquired. In this case they really did merge. They both had very complimentary groups of people, their places in the marketplace. And by having me come in as president, it wasn't, well, one acquired the other is like, I'm completely a neutral party. And I actually brought those guys together. So that was kind of a cool thing. So yeah, it was cool with Microsoft, but it also meant that okay, things are going to change and I'm probably not going to enjoy a lot of it, you know, beholden to somebody out in Seattle

Steve Rush: When one door closes another open though, right?

Gary Frey: Well, yeah. And it did, yeah.

Steve Rush: It led you to do what you do now, didn't it?

Gary Frey: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Quite frankly I loved what I was doing there, but I'm glad I'm not in publish, you know. I mean, I loved it and I loved the people, but I've been in private equity since then. I've been in some really interesting places that I would've never been brought into had I just, and I actually took a pay cut to leave that gig and, you know, joined these two partners.

Steve Rush: And one of the things that I remember from the first time that you and I met Gary, is you have this philosophy that cuts across all of the work you've done and that's just connecting good people with other good people. And that's been a real tenet of yours, isn't it?

Gary Frey: Oh yeah. I love it. If I was a billionaire and when I was in private equity, we actually had a couple billionaires in the group, and I learned so much from these extremely high net worth people. But what I learned from them is even if they were in their eighties and some of them had run the largest oil companies in the world, you know, I mean just some amazing human beings. They were still engaged in what they loved to do. And, you know, rarely were they out playing golf.

Steve Rush: Right.

Gary Frey: You know, they were engaged in business. They were engaged actually in helping other people. And that was one of the things that I did within that private equity group, where we had 300 ultra-high net worth families in the group. I had actually invested in it a year before they bought my company. And I was small potatoes compared to all these other guys, quite frankly. But what I learned from them was, and what I learned about myself I guess was, I became the connecting rod in between these people, because they're all high value targets. They can't trust anybody for a good reason, you know, everybody is coming at them with an angle, and they want in their pockets quite frankly.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Gary Frey: And so, it was an honor and a privilege to be able to connect these really amazing people with other people that they could trust. Because it's very lonely. It's very lonely, actually running a company and at the top of a company, but I can't even imagine being a billionaire or worth $350 million. And when you've gone from not much to that, and then all of a sudden, you know, everybody's coming at you for something rather than for who you are.

Steve Rush: It's an interesting perspective, yeah. Because people then see people that high net worth as a commodity, don't they? Rather than a person,

Gary Frey: Oh, big time.

Steve Rush: Right.

Gary Frey: Big time.

Steve Rush: So, you're now focused on coaching some super big hitters, as well as some startups and a really nice diverse portfolio of coaching. What's next for you on your journey then Gary?

Gary Frey: Well, so here's, what's interesting. Coaching is really lonely and every time I've done it, somebody's tried to hire me. So, the biggest one that I got to work with was the CEO of Yokohama Tires in California. And it was because the top American introduced me to them because after he had gotten to know me for about a year or so, I was helping them on some challenges that they had. He's like, you need to meet Mr. Karashima and so I did, and from what I can tell, I was the first kind of American outsider that was allowed to come into the inner circle, which was really cool. That was wonderful. And then they tried to hire me, you know; we did this huge project. And it was re really successful even to the point where a number of years later, when I talked with Jim, who was the top American, I said, you know, and this is right in the middle of the rubble of 2009, when the decimation of the great recession was everywhere.

And our company, our private equity firm blew up 30 million bucks, most of us got wiped out, including me. And I just felt extremely low at that time. And I said, Jim, did we make a difference? And he said, do you know how many people we had to let go during the recession? And I said, no, I was just going to be even more depressed. And he said, zero. I said, are you kidding me? He goes, no, we didn't have to let go one person. And he goes, you know what? Karashima still says to this day that, that exercise and, it was kind of a repositioning and getting them really clear on their core values and their purpose. They had been chasing, you know, each CEO would come in after, you know, they'd do a three- or four-year stint and they would chase and put their own mark in the American market of whatever they were chasing.

And they'd kind of lost their way, quite frankly. And so, all I did was help them using some research, but then also guiding them as to no, you guys need to own this market, hold fast, don't waiver. And, you know, they saw great success. Well, he said that was the single most impactful thing. He said, Gary, and I think we charged him a quarter million bucks for this. He said, you could have charged us 10 times the amount and it would've been worth it. And I thought, wow, this is amazing. But I've kind of taken that bait one too many times. But as soon as you take the bait and you go on the inside of the company, you lose your voice as the coach. And so, I've got kind of the best of both worlds right now. I rolled my coaching practice into a regional CPA firm.

I'm not a CPA, don't want to be, but it's very unusual because 11 of the 80 of us have started run or turned around companies using our money. That's extreme unusual in the CPA world. And we work with privately held companies. We love helping them grow. So, for me, one of the things I learned early on part of my thrive, wither was, I got to be part of a team to really have fun. I could make more money just being a solo guy, coaching. And all you got is, you know, your brand and your time. And if you can, you know, one to many it by doing programs and stuff like that. But I love being part of a team. I swam my fastest splits when I was a swimmer in high school and college on my relays because I wanted to win more for the team than I wanted to a win for me.

And so, I think, you know, I'm probably going to be the first non CPA to become a partner and buy into this company, because even if they changed all the tax laws and you could mail it all in, what we do is help business owners who know their industry and they know their company, run their companies better, more financially prudent and smarter to where they understand those things. But also, on the culture side to where they can get above the three line and not have to just be working in the business but working on the business. So that's kind of my happy spot.

Steve Rush: Excellent stuff. So, this is the part of the show where we turn the tables a little bit.

Gary Frey: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And I get to have the great honor of diving in and hacking your great leadership brain. And if I could, I'd ask you this to get those leadership hacks down to your top three belters, what would they?

Gary Frey: Yeah. So, the first one, and there's no substitution for this, in my opinion. And it comes down to, are you going to adopt the position of I'm going to serve or I'm going to be served. And only each CEO can really ask that, or each leader. Is my objective to be served or am I going to serve? That's the number one, the best leaders I've ever had and worked around. They had the disposition of humility, and I am going to serve. I'm going to choose to serve, and they walk among the troop. They're the ones that stay in the fight versus issue edicts from a position of safety. That's hands down, the number one thing. Number two would be, understand kind of your own thrive and wither. Like what makes you come alive and what makes wither? Because if you do that and then you do it among your team, then all of a sudden, what I do with my high growth coaching clients on a yearly basis, we'll go through kind of their thrive, wither.

And then we'll look at how their functions are working you know, do we have bottlenecks where too many people are going into this, you know, are waiting for this person where they've got too much on their shoulders. And I do, I call it horse trading of responsibilities. The CEO is still the CEO, the CFO is still the CFO but sometimes stuff that they've willingly shouldered because there was nobody else do. It's dragging them down, kind of like barnacles on a boat, slowing the boat down, you got a dry docket. And then you see, oh gosh, we got barnacles, scrape them off, so that's really an important number two. And it is in that order because you could do thrive, wither and all that, but if you still have the disposition of y'all are serving me, well that's, you know, it's going to show, and you aren't going to go real far.

Steve Rush: Yep.

Gary Frey: And then the final thing is, really how do you, and you got to keep asking this question because you never really arrive, but getting the team, your team one, your core team around you. Aligned, focused and executing on the important versus the tyranny of the urgent. Those are my three.

Steve Rush: Awesome. I love this whole notion of thrive, wither. Because it not only is it visual, but you can actually almost anchor energy to what makes you thrive and what makes you be aware of dragging that energy away from you as well. Love it.

Gary Frey: Yeah. It's so simple, man. I'm again a T-Chart. you split the piece of paper vertically into two and you write and do a horizontal line at the top and you write thrive on the left and you wither on the right. And I have everybody do this. I say, give yourself 30 minutes, quiet, turn off all the distractions. And seriously just give yourself 30 minutes. Stream of consciousness, all the stuff that makes you come alive, the environments, the variety, or the routine, whatever those things are, focus on, what the positive first then move into the wither and think about even the stuff that you've accepted, because you may be good at it. You may be the expert in pivot tables, but you just hate doing pivot tables. Well, put it down.

Steve Rush: Yeah, super. Next part of the show we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is to where something hasn't worked out well, but as a result, you've got some good learning out of it. And it now serves you positively. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Gary Frey: You know when I was at Bank of America. Early on, I was given a team because I had to go figure out why did this acquisition, why is it not working? And why is our attrition high and blah, blah, blah. They thought it was a communication message. And you know, having run Ad Agencies or whatever, that's why they thought. And I was from that part of the country, this 11-state region in the Midwest versus the East Coast. And so that was another reason why I was in there. But what was interesting is, one of my lieutenants, she was really good at helping me kind of navigate the organization because you start in and you know, everything's new. But I had a very young associate vice president that was on her team. And what I was doing was I was actually micromanaging some stuff like; I wanting status reports probably too frequently on some stuff. I mean, we were moving at the speed of light, it seem like anyway, just trying to, you know, assimilate these acquisitions and then getting stuff done and dealing with problems and all this. And they were long days and short nights for sure. But this Lieutenant came to me and said, Gary, you know, Lisa, you are just killing her, you know?

And I said, well, first of all, I'm really glad that she raised this to you. I wasn't aware that I was doing it.

Steve Rush: Right.

Gary Frey: So, she has complete access, and I was a senior VP, and she was, you know, three rungs down. She can come to me anytime if she sees me kind of grab up in the wheel again, she has a permission to spank my hand. Like, no, no more of that, and I will adhere to it. So that was one thing but another one that was kind of hand in hand with this is, she said when's the last time you ran? Because I was a big runner and I said, oh, it's been a few days. And I said why? And she kind of looked at me, she's go, Aah. I go, what do you mean? And she goes, well, your kind of edgy. I go, really? She goes, yeah. And so, she said, I'm going to take over your calendar and I'm going to make sure that at least three days of the business week, because on the weekends, I would run anyway. But at least three days, we're going to put meet with Jim and that's code to get your butt to the gym, strap on those running shoes and go run. And that was a huge thing for me, and my wife acknowledged that. She's like, yeah. And so, I know that I'll get more edgy. I want to get more controlling. If I'm not physically exerting myself and getting exercise to clear my head routinely. So not six days a week, period. I don't miss it.

Steve Rush: Awesome.

Gary Frey: So that's another one.

Steve Rush: Yeah. And the last part our listeners have become really accustomed to and love diving into is you get a chance to give Gary some advice when you were 21 and do that time travel. What would your advice to Gary 21 be?

Gary Frey: Well, I would've said ditch the Tom Selleck mustache that I was trying to hide behind first of all, it was ridiculous. But seriously I'm actually writing a book right now with this is the working title and it's ignored the imposter, give me anything but typical. And the imposter syndrome was really heavy with me. College dropout, every job I was up for was masters preferred, bachelors required. And yet somehow, I landed these jobs, but I always felt less than, and I was always comparing myself to somebody else. And it's been working with so many CEOs and entrepreneurs that I've realized that they have had some. There's this woman, she had 10,000 employees at one point, privately held business. And she's become a very good friend and she had two years of secretarial school. She never even had a CFO, even a fractional CFO when she had an organization that big, and she said, Gary, I don't know what I'm doing.

I said, Tana, I know people that don't even have a hundred employees that they still can't survive without a fractional CFO or a CFO. You are far better than you thought. And some of those conversations just reinforced to me. Oh dang, you know, we're all created uniquely. We all have unique fingerprints by design. And so, I'm very, very passionate about helping people understand, like, you know, that imposter syndrome none of us are immune to it necessarily, but there's a way you can silence it and that's, you know, and some of that kind of goes back to thrive, wither and being true to yourself is, you know Shakespeare said, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah, very much. So, Gary, I've loved chatting with you. You got loads of great stories, and I'm confident that our listeners would be thriving versus withing as a result of the conversation.

Gary Frey: I hope so.

Steve Rush: But how can we make sure that we can get them in touch with you?

Gary Frey: Yeah, probably the easiest thing is just connected with me on LinkedIn, you know, it's just Gary Frey at LinkedIn and that's probably the easiest way to do it. I'm also on Instagram and again there, I’m just Gary Frey.

Steve Rush: Brilliant.

Gary Frey: But I love writing about leadership and things. Some of the crazy things that I've experienced to hopefully help and bless somebody else and give them encouragement. I'd be remiss if I mentioned we started a podcast like you.

Steve Rush: Absolutely

Gary Frey: A couple years ago and it's called the Anything But Typical Podcast. And we just feature privately held business owners and entrepreneurs. And primarily in my City, Charlotte, I've had people from around the globe say, hey, can we be on that? And typical, I say, no, because I want to continue to elevate what's happening in my own backyard first.

Steve Rush: Well, Gary this goes without saying thanks ever so much coming and sharing your stories with us and thanks being part of our Leadership Hacker Community.

Gary Frey: No thank you. It has been a blessing and just a ton of fun. So, thank you.

Steve Rush: Thanks Gary.

Closing

View Details

Matt Schlegel is the Principal of Schlegel Consulting and Evolutionary Teams, he’s an entrepreneur and ex Tech Executive and now author of Teamwork 9.0. In this show you can learn:

How Matt evolved Teamwork 9.0 and why numbers and not letters?
How Teamwork 9.0 plays to “Whole Brain” thinking
Neuroscience and the Enneagram
How to build problem solving muscles

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services.

Find out more about Matt below:

Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattschlegel/

Matt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MattSchlegel

Company Website: https://evolutionaryteams.com

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Matt Schlegel is joining me on the show today. He's an author, consultant speaker, and founder of Schlegel Consulting. But before we get a chance to speak with Matt, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: We've all heard of the great resignation, right? However, employees say and sustainable workloads and expect are the things that are driving to quit. In a recent article by Emmy Lucas of Forbes. She describes that not only unsustainable workloads or one of the top factors contributing to the great resignation, others such as uncaring managers, inadequate compensation, lack of career development are all contributory factors. However, survey completed by McKinsey recently, which queried nearly 600 employees looked at those who'd left without another job lined up and those who returned to work. Much of the analysis of how to solve the great resignation is really focused on giving workers higher pay, better career opportunities and nicer perks and days off and mental therapy and help and better family leave. But there's been less attention paid to actual workloads employees have. And how employees plan to address that issue. 35% of respondent said unsustainable work performance expectations were they reason that they left their job without another in hand.

And the same percentage said that they would leave uncaring leaders or a lack of career development. Following these reasons were a lack of meaningful work, better support for employee health and wellbeing, inadequate compensation, but ironically compensation ranked six as a reason of leaving, suggesting that evidence that pay isn't everything. It means something, of course, the report showed that those who work in an environment, they like also find purpose in their work and have better relationships and therefore, probably stick around. When it comes to returning to work. 47% of the 600 respondents polled and about a quarter of those return to non-traditional work, whilst three quarters went back to traditional employment and of those 600 respondents who left without another job lined up, 44% of them said that they'd have little or no interest in returning to the same job doing the same work in the next six months. The highest-ranking reason for why people did return to work in the work they were doing previously was having a strong identity and policy that addresses workplace flexibility. So, post pandemic workplace flexibility includes not just ours, but flexible places, space, time, empathy, understanding. Commitments to the work that they're undertaking. So, organizations and employers really need to take a hard look at whether they're ready and can actually deliver on making the right structural changes to actually deal with things like work overload.

As we move into the next phase of change, we're already in the future of work. So, it's really important that the work itself is prioritized. We tend to want to make those quick and easy solutions, but it will take us all effort and time to readjust in the hybrid world or whatever label we choose to give it. So, my leadership hack here is. Often when people leave an organization, we conduct exit interviews. I wonder if it is time for us to have stay interviews, to really get to the heart of understanding. What's really driving the needs and desires of people who want to stay here. And if we listen, adapt, and create the right environments for our teams, our coworkers, and our organization, we're all going to be the beneficiaries of that. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Really love for you to share any stories, insights on either our social media or through our website. Let's get into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Matt Schlegel. He's the principal of Schlegel Consulting and Evolutionary Teams. He's an entrepreneur and ex tech executive. And now the author of teamwork 9.0. Matt, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Matt Schlegel: It is a delight to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Steve Rush: It's our delight too. And we always like to kick off our shows to dive in, to find out a little bit about the man behind the magic. So, tell us a little bit about how you, Matt ended up doing what you're doing now and moved away from the tech business to help lead Evolutionary Team.

Matt Schlegel: Oh yeah. thank you so much. Yeah, so like you said, you know, I started out with a tech background, studied engineering, electrical engineering. And as I, you know, proceeded through my career, my boss came to me one day and said, hey, Matt, you know, we want you to manage a team. I'm like, why do you want me to manage a team? I know nothing about leading people. I only know about leading electrons. And he is like, don't worry, you'll be fine. Well, I'm not the type to be not worried. So, I was worried. And when I get that way, what I do is, I go and study and get my hands on everything, you know, information I could find and learn about, you know, what it is that I'm embarking on as you know, a leader of people.

So, along that journey, I encountered a system called The Enneagram and Enneagram is, you know, commonly understood as a personality system, has nine types that are in the system. And by the time I had encountered The Enneagram, I had already been exposed to other you know, personality systems in the workplace like Myers Briggs and Disc and Strengthfinders, there's a bunch of them. And so, I kind of put it into that category and, you know, I want to use it and I tried it and I used it for myself and my family just to kind of test it out. And I found that it was so powerful and fascinating and helped me understand myself in a way that I'd never understood before and understand my relationships both professionally and personally as, you know, my type interacted with the other types. And so, yeah, so, you know, that fascination just led me on this journey of exploring it more and more. I started to use it in the workplace and had incredible results and that's why I went on to build a consulting practice around that. And you know, eventually wrote my book Teamwork 9.0 to share, you know, some of the learnings that I had along the way.

Steve Rush: And was there a pivotal moment for you? Because, you know, let's speak quite frank about it. You're quite modest. You had some big roles in some big organizations, you know, you were part of the PalmPilot evolution, you know, back in the day, there must have been, you know, you were riding the crest of a corporate career at one stage and there must have been a pivotal moment you thought, you know what, I can take what I'm learning and I can share it with others, what actually happened there?

Matt Schlegel: Yeah. So, my career you know, it started out in tech. Started in San Diego, I was raised in the Bay Area. And so, when we had children, we wanted to move closer back, you know, to where our families are to raise the kids. And so, I started on the, you know, just that journey of startups and it was just exhilarating to be in that environment, and you know, and developing new products, you know, cutting edge all the way. And so, you know, being in that for, you know, 15 years or so, just very intensely, I got to the point, and I guess it was around 2007, it was during the downturn. And I just had this idea of, you know, one day I wanted to go into consulting and have my own practice.

And at that point in my career, I said well, if that's kind of what my long term path is, why not test it out? Why not see if I can start a consulting business and run a consulting business now and, you know, if it works, great, because then, you know, in my dream role, you know, earlier than anticipated. If it doesn't work out, then my Plan B, you know, go back into tech. Well, fortunately and gratefully it did work out really well. And so, I was able to just go down that path and build my consulting practice. And I've been doing it now for 15 years this year.

Steve Rush: Yeah. Excellent story. So, when you talk about The Enneagram, it's revolved around nine numbers, which I guess is what's driven the whole Teamwork 9.0.

Matt Schlegel: Right.

Steve Rush: What is it about the numbers then that is so different with what you do versus then some of the others which are letter driven like Disc and Myers Briggs and the like?

Matt Schlegel: Right, as an engineer, you know, one of the things that I found really satisfying about The Enneagram as opposed to some of the other systems is that it, really speaks to, you know, our evolving over time, how our behaviors change over time. And those behaviors will change depending on our stress level. Are we feeling secure or insecure? And our level of maturity. Are we younger? Are we older? And so, this is one of the fascinating things. And if you look at The Enneagram diagram, you'll see these lines within the circle. And that's what those lines are talking about is, how it moves. Well, so that was one aspect. But then I did ask that question, why are they numbers rather than letters? And it turns out there's a reason why they're numbers and it's because it speaks to motion around the outer circle.

And so, if you look at The Enneagram, you just look at the circle and numbers, it looks like a clock, right? And just like the hands of a clock, go, you know, clockwise around the circle, The Enneagram is also describing a dynamic of clockwise motion around the circle. And when I thought about it more, I realized, oh, this is describing a process. And these are the steps, the order in that process, one through nine, and it describes the way humans solve problems. It's a problem-solving process.

Steve Rush: Right.

Matt Schlegel: Once I had that epiphany, I'm like, oh, now I have a problem-solving process. I can work with my teams on. And there is a personality type that's perfectly tuned for each step-in problem solving. And once you have that, you know, model, then you can have, you know, great success with teams understanding how to work teams around problem solving to get results.

Steve Rush: So, it's almost kind of decoding the problem inside out, isn't it?

Matt Schlegel: Exactly, exactly. And it lets you understand, you know, where your teams are going to be really good at problem solving. It's going to tell you where they might struggle or where, you know, steps they might skip altogether, just because there's no dynamic represented by the team at that point in problem solving.

Steve Rush: And from the top to the bottom of those nine steps, there's a neurological and chronological order in the which way we do this, right?

Matt Schlegel: This is another thing that before I really dove into The Enneagram, I wanted to make sure that there was some neurological underpinning to the system and it's still very early. And we don't have, you know, really good understanding yet. But I found a fellow who described a model of how you could get those nine distinct types out of two parts of the brain, which is the Amygdala and The Prefrontal Cortex. Each one of those parts, since we have a Bicameral Brain, you're going to have right dominance, left dominance and then a middle, Ambi or Ambiguated. And it's the three states of the Abliqua, times the three states of The Prefrontal Cortex give you the nine types. So that's a model that I came upon and it seems to match well, the behaviors described by those states of the Abliqua and The Prefrontal Cortex match well to the behaviors described by The Enneagram. So, it kind of gave me, you know, at least two ways to look at the way people are behaving that were consistent with one another.

Steve Rush: When we first met Matt, I had this kind of look bit of an aha moment around the fact that this is where it can really start to engineer great teamwork and thinking, because if we're thoughtful of what triggers a reaction or a threat response in our Amygdala, which is that part of the brain that regulates the emotion.

Matt Schlegel: Right.

Steve Rush: We can maybe think about tactically, how we can avoid them. And then we can practically spend more time in our executive thinking, which is that Prefrontal Cortex. And it was that aha moment for me around, ah, that's why there's nine and that's how they kind of fit together.

Matt Schlegel: Yes, exactly. And you bring up such a good point. And this, you know, speaks to one of the ways that an individual can use The Enneagram is, once you understand, you know, that Amygdala trigger in yourself and what that feels like, and what you know, that's going to cause you to do. Once you have an understanding of that at intellectual level, then when you do go into that state, you know, you can know it better and manage it better and then, you know, bring yourself through it and back out to, you know, a more secure and healthy state without inadvertently just letting yourself be taken over by that emotional state.

Steve Rush: Right, yeah. So, let's dive into the nine themes. Like, it'd be really helpful just to get a sense of what are they and how they work and how they all related?

Matt Schlegel: Right, right. Yeah. So, you know, I'll go around in order and also describe how each one of the types helps in problem solving. You know, so, you know, what's the first step in problem solving? It's, you know, hey, there's a problem. It shouldn't be like that.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Schlegel: It should be like this. Well, that's the dynamic of type one. Often called the perfectionist and the perfectionist is the one who's going to like identify, hey, things shouldn't be like that. They should be like this. So, that's the dynamic of one. And then the dynamic of two, speaks to, you know, who cares, right. And that's the next step in problem solving is like, you know, if there's a problem, then you need people to care enough about the problem to actually want to do something, to solve the problem.

And type two is called the helper. And so are there are ones who identify, oh, there's something that needs to be done and I'm going to help get that done. So that's step two, and that's the dynamic. Then, you know, step three in problem solving is just coming up with ideas for how to successfully solve the problem. And the dynamic of three is, they're often called the achiever and they're the ones who want to succeed. And there always scanning for, you know, what ideas can I work with and execute for ultimate success. And they also have this wonderful ability to suppress their emotion because every time somebody throws out an idea, you know, most of us are going to go, oh, that's a great idea or, Ooh, that's a terrible idea. Well, the three doesn't have that filter and so when they start throwing out ideas, they can generate lots of ideas, kind of unfiltered. It's like throwing spaghetti against the wall.

Steve Rush: Right.

Matt Schlegel: Right. So, then you get to step four because step four is to see what sticks, right. It's that, oh, that's a great idea. You know, it's that emotional reaction to any idea and type four they're often called the romantic. But what it's saying is that they are the most emotionally tuned in to, you know, the emotional content in their environment. But it also in problem solving gives you kind of this emotional filter to pass ideas through so that you outcome, you know, the most positive ideas. The ideas that the team wants to pursue and has the emotional energy to pursue because, hey, we still have a long way to get the problem solved, right?

Steve Rush: Right.

Matt Schlegel: So now we move over into, what's called the head group. The head group is the five, the six and the seven. So, after you have your positive idea, then what you want to do is validate that idea. You need to test it; you need to analyze it. You need to, you know, so you do your pro, con analysis, your cost benefit analysis, and maybe some prototyping to make sure that the idea's going to work. Once you have validated your idea, then you need to build, oh and by the way, type five is called the analyst or the observer. They're the ones who like dig in and go very, very deep and explore ideas and collect lots of information. So, then you go to six. Type six, it's kind of like a planner. They're always thinking about the future, and they map wherever they are, connect the dots into the future to a successful completion of the goal.

And so, you have that idea. Now you map into the future, and you create your plan, okay. Next step is, you need to sell the plan to, you know, the rest of the team or the broader collect of stakeholders and get buy-in and that's step seven, that's called often called the enthusiast. So, you can imagine a cheerleader, you know, saying, hey, we found a great idea. Let's go, let's go solve the problem.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Schlegel: And get everybody excited, okay. Now what have we done steps one through seven? Talk, talk, talk. Now we get to eight, time for action. The type eight is one of the most action-oriented types and they want to get stuff done, you know, they want to just get to the point and just move forward. And the type eight dynamic is essentially wanting to secure control of the environment. So, it's really a take charge, get stuff done, type of dynamic. And then finally we get to nine, you know, you think, oh, after the eight's done, you know, oh, okay. We solve the problem. And inevitably whenever you have any kind of transformational change, some feathers are going to be ruffled and some toes are going to be stepped on. And so, what you want to do is, you know, have the conversations to smooth out and integrate the solution with the broader community. And that's the dynamic of nine, is listening, understanding other people's perspectives and trying to reduce and conflict and harmonize with everybody. And inevitably in those conversations, people are going to identify new problems, which is why The Enneagram is a circle

Steve Rush: And it goes round again.

Matt Schlegel: Exactly.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Schlegel: So that's in a nutshell, that's the dynamic.

Steve Rush: So, if I completed an assessment on Enneagram, would it give me a kind of a push and a pull kind of, so I might be strong in a nine, but less in a one, how would it kind of play out as a result?

Matt Schlegel: Right, and that's a great question. And, you know, I advise people when they take an assessment to just, you know, use it as a process of eliminate because whenever most people take the assessment, they score highly on two or three types and low on other types. So, you eliminate the low scoring types, and you keep the higher scoring types.

Steve Rush: Right.

Matt Schlegel: And, you know, the first time I took the assessment, I scored highest on type eight. But I'm not a type eight. It turns out I was a type six and that was my second highest scoring. But I was in an environment where I had to behave like an eight and environment the encouraged me to be like an eight. And so, when I'm taking the assessment, it's like, yep, I do that, yep, I do that. Yep, I do that. But it wasn't really speaking to, you know, the way I would like innately, you know, respond is just my environment was encouraging me to respond in that way. So, you know, that's pretty common. And so, when you have, you know, high scoring on several types, then you have to kind of go to that next level of understand those types, understanding the underlying motivators of each types, and then identifying which of those motivations best match with your internal innate motivation.

Steve Rush: Got it. So, is there a naturally occurring opportunity or is there a natural occurring time when it's best to do this?

Matt Schlegel: Oh yeah. It's probably okay to do it anytime if you are interested in, you know, knowing more about yourself, knowing what, you know makes you tick and knowing that, you know, having that knowledge will make you, you know, a better leader, a better entrepreneur, you know, it just can improve, you know, all of the relationships that you have in your life, both personally and professionally. So, you’re ready for that, then that's the best time to take the test and then start to ask those questions about yourself. You know, what is making me tick? You know, where is it that I excel? Where is it that I'm not as interested? And I want to put people around me that can, you know, compliment my skillset so that we can be an ever stronger and more effective team.

Steve Rush: And I love the whole idea as well, that, you know, when you first did it, you came out as an eight, but actually you recognize you're more of a six and it's important that we don't just do this once in isolation, that we may be revisit it from time to time to ensure that we fully understand that, how the environment's impacting on our behaviors as well, right?

Matt Schlegel: Exactly. And once you do understand your dominant type, you know, and I kind of look at it this way, it's like handedness, you know, our brain has dominance that drive our handedness and it will, you know, people will say they're right-handed or lefthanded, or maybe you know, they're ambidextrous, well, the same way with your Prefrontal Cortex and the same way with your Amygdala. And so, you know, one of these Enneagram types tends to be more dominant than the others. And that's kind of your starting point. And then you can, you know, once you know that, then you can see yourself change over time based on that Enneagram model and those lines within The Enneagram.

Steve Rush: So, is there a perfect map for a team? So, you've just studied this for years, and I'm just curious to find out whether or not you've noticed a pattern occur over that period of time that said, in order to have the perfect mix across a team, this is what it might look like.

Matt Schlegel: Yeah. And so, you know, I'll start off and say, you know, it's highly unlikely that any team that you come across is going to be completely and well balanced. For whatever reason, you know, you're not going to have all nine types represented on your team.

Steve Rush: Right.

Matt Schlegel: When you start to, you know, work with a team to try to, you know, solve a problem, you know, if you have an initiative that you want to, you know, bring your team together to tackle, what I found is, you need to pull people in from whichever starting point they're at. Pull them into the dynamic of that step-in problem solving, right. So, you know, step one is that, you know, let's define the problem and take the time to get everybody to think through what is the problem from their perspective.

And then also think. Once the problem is solved, you know, what will the world look like? So, in that step, you're essentially getting your list of things that need to be solved, and then also creating a vision for the team of how the world would look like once the problem is solved. And, you know, and even though you might not have any type ones on your team and type ones would just naturally get this, but you can pull people into that if, you know, direct the team to actually focus on it and make sure that all the voices are heard. And so that's how I use it. I just pull people into that dynamic and then work through the various steps so that the team systematically hits each one of those energies.

Steve Rush: Yeah. And I suspect also, if you are highly dominant in any one of these nine, then that also becomes then a development area I suspect.

Matt Schlegel: Right. Right. And, you know, and this speaks to, you know, how people want to play to their strengths, right. So, they want to jump to that, you know, point in problem solving where they're naturally gifted, right. So, the eights want to jump right into action, you know, so they already have a sense, I know what needs to happen, let's just go do it, you know, and they want to jump straight to type eight, or excuse me, step eight, without having worked through, you know, the other steps. And so, you'll see this in teams, you know, so if you go into a team that is dominated by a type eight leader, you know, you'll find that the team has kind of learned to just, you know, do what the eight said. And then, the type eight leader might confide in me and say, you know, I really wish the team would take more initiative and you know, come up with ideas and execute them themselves.

Steve Rush: Mm

Matt Schlegel: Well, right. And I'll say, well, you know, you would need to let them do that in their way, working through those steps, because the team might not have that same intuition about what to do that you do. So, if you want to encourage them to, you know, take initiative, you have to allow them to do it in their way, which won't be your way and give them the space and the time to work through this process.

Steve Rush: Hmm.

Matt Schlegel: So, that's one of the ways I guide, you know, my clients who are type eight leaders is to, you know, let them work through the process and let them kind of build that problem, solving muscle themselves. So, they're not always relying on the type eight leader for direction.

Steve Rush: Right. And I also wonder if a type eight leader might make assumptions by jumping straight in at eight that could have been identified by going through the steps proceeding that?

Matt Schlegel: Well, of course, you know, when you jump straight to action you know, you are having assumptions and you're making assumptions and, you know, the interesting thing about the type eight you know, they're in the intuitive group, which is the eight, nine and one. So, they already have intuition about what it is that they want to do. The other interesting thing about eight is that they don't really dwell on, you know, failure, you know, they're happy to just jump in, try something, hey, it doesn't work, okay. Let's adjust and you know, do a course direction and start going in this direction, right. So, they will, you know, just, you know, by always acting iterate towards the solution without necessarily stepping back and taking time to think things through. This works great for type eights, but, you know, for those of us who aren't type eights, it can be a little uncomfortable because, you know, like type six right. We're trying to map the dots into the future, right. And we're thinking, but if we do this, then this could happen or that could happen. And then our brains start racing on, you know, all of the problems and that we want to try to mitigate, but, you know, rather than, you know, crashing into the wall and then changing direction. So, you know, and that's where a dynamic, you know, that's just like a six, eight dynamic that happens on teams.

Steve Rush: Yeah. So, you wrote the book Teamwork 9.0.

Matt Schlegel: Yeah.

Steve Rush: How does that differentiate from the traditional Enneagram? What would be the kind of the extra layer of context they get from that?

Matt Schlegel: Right. So, the thing that I really wanted to focus on in my book was that dimension of problem solving, and, you know, there are many books about The Enneagram as a personality system. So, I didn't want to write another book just about the personality side of The Enneagram. What I wanted was to take that and then build onto it that dimension of working through that outer circle of The Enneagram in order of those steps with teams to you know, show that The Enneagram has this other dimension to it, of a problem-solving process. And so that's where I talk about the problem-solving process. I give some case studies and anecdotes. I talk about as a leader, you know, how do you respond when your team doesn't have a specific strength in problem solving and how to overcome that? How to get each of the team members to step up, I call it shared leadership, you know, because if you know, you have somebody who's really strong at a certain point will then encourage them to take the lead at that step and problem solving. I talk about the creativity, you know, each type brings a distinct creativity to problem solving. So, there's, you know, a number of aspects that you can apply The Enneagram to when it's in the context of team, problem solving.

Steve Rush: Love it. And we'll have an opportunity to share with our listeners at the end of the show, how they can get hold of some of that information too, before we get there, want to dive into and hack into your leadership brain. Now having led and worked with numbers of teams all over the world to distill all of that great knowledge and learning you've had on your career, Matt and hack into those top three leadership hacks, what would they be?

Matt Schlegel: Right. So, you know, the first thing that, you know, I mentioned at that opening story, you know, is, I realize that you know as a type six, that worrying is a part of my dynamic and that is caused by anxiety. So, you know, the five, six and seven are in the thinking group or head group, but the underlying issue for us is anxiety. I have this like feeling in my gut, that's kind of a constant friend I have, and I could feel it kind of go up or down. I like a thermometer and The Enneagram gave me a word for that. It's like, oh, that's anxiety. That's, what's causing that.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Schlegel: But it's also, you know, it's like a nuclear furnace for me. It gives me tremendous energy. And now that I know what's going on, I can use that and say, okay, well, where am I right now? Am I feeling comfortable? Are we headed in a good direction or my Spidey senses telling me, oh, you know, something amiss and we need to kind of reflect and look back? So, you know, so that's one way as a leader learned to just be more conscientious of my internal state, both to, you know, understand myself, but also to make sure that, you know, whatever is causing my anxiety, doesn't spill out over into my relationships with my team that, you know, might adversely affect our forward progress, right.

Steve Rush: Right.

Matt Schlegel: So that's you know, I think just that self-awareness is super important. And then, you know, the other aspect is, you know, once you understand yourself, you can really start to understand the dynamics of the other folks on your team. And they really appreciate this because you are understanding them in a way that helps you better communicate with them, helps them better motivate themselves, you know, and you can put them in roles where they can really thrive and show off their natural gifts and allows you to have deeper, more meaningful conversations with your team, so that you can better build rapport and trust with them, which is another key to leadership.

Steve Rush: And your third

Matt Schlegel: And the third I would say is, you know, once you have that, then you can understand what your, you know, the strengths and weaknesses of your team. And then what you want to do is like realize, okay, I have gaps in my I team. I want to make sure that, you know, we have a diversity of perspectives and so many people are talking about the need for diversity on teams. And there are many dimensions of diversity, but I would also say that, you know, be aware of style diversity.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Schlegel: Because people tend, you know, to like people like themselves. That's why we have the saying, you know, birds of a feather flock together. And, you know, if you're a hiring manager and then you're hiring people, you like, what's going to happen is, you're going to build a lopsided team. So having the understanding of, you know, the value of having a more diverse team in terms of styles, you're going to get, you know, a better set of ideas to work with. And you're going to have, you know, better overall outcomes, because you have all of these different perspectives that are adding to the overall success.

Steve Rush: I love that last one. Difference makes a difference.

Matt Schlegel: Yes, exactly.

Steve Rush: So, the next part of the show, we actually call it Hack to Attack.

Matt Schlegel: Okay.

Steve Rush: So, in essence, this is where something is just screwed up. It hasn't worked out well, maybe it's been catastrophic, but as a result of the experience, you've now taken that as a learning, and it's now a force of good in your life or work, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Matt Schlegel: Yes. And you know, so one of the things that I've learned, you know, as a person who is somewhat based in anxiety, I tend to be on the cautious side. And so, I might overcompensate on being too cautious. And so that's one of the things I have to, you know, I've learned about myself. And then I learn, you know, and this is where I can, you know, value the perspectives of others who, you know, aren't necessarily as prone to that perspective. And then, you know, tap into that dynamic when I need to. And that's been a great learning for me, and it's allowed me to better appreciate the other perspectives and the other members of my team so that I can, you know, rely on them when my anxiety might start to, you know, get too much. So, I would say, you know, one of the, you know, bigger learnings I've had to, you know, deal with personally and overcome personally

Steve Rush: All starts with self-awareness again, though, doesn't it?

Matt Schlegel: It does.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Schlegel: It does. And I think, you know, that was the starting point. That self-awareness was the starting point for some of, you know, the best learning and experiences that I had in my career. That's why I got so excited about this and wanted to pursue it and write the book

Steve Rush: Exactly. Last part of the show. We get a chance for you to do a bit of time travel bump into Matt at 21 and give them some advice. You have a chance giving some words of wisdom, what would they be?

Matt Schlegel: Yeah, that's a great question. And if you ask my kids, they'll tell you what it is because they know, and that's you know, learn The Enneagram. Learn that, you know, style is, learn, you know, how that's influencing your behaviors and your decision making and learn that, you know, your style, isn't the only style. It's not the correct style. It's not the right style, you know, and once you understand that, you know, there are these distinct styles and that you can now put them into context of, you know, it's valid to just be, you know, like the type four swimming and emotions, what does that bring to the party? How does that help the team move forward with that, you know, connection to emotions or, you know, where are the intuitive people that sense of how is that informing the team? And so, just that appreciation of you know, where each type is coming from is hugely important. And I think as a young person, to be able to appreciate that and understand the value in it, you know, just makes you have a better appreciation for all the people in your life.

Steve Rush: Great advice, as you are sharing that, you know, I'm thinking I need to get my young teenagers and my kids in their early twenties into this, because actually the more dynamically they're aware of things, the more it can help them. And also, I wonder if this works across the family as well, right?

Matt Schlegel: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Schlegel: You know, and this is really, you know, how it's commonly used to help people, you know, understand, you know, the dynamics with, you know, in your personal relationships. It's, you know, very valuable for that, because then you can end up you know, avoiding, you know, conflicts and understanding if you do go down the path of conflict, why that's happening and then how to get back out and great tool for that. And then young people, you know, they're experimenting with different relationships in their life, you know, and then, you know, having a framework for, oh, okay, well, I'm a type eight. And I was, you know, I had a relationship with a type nine. And what did that feel like? How did that work? Is that feel right for you? You know, and at least understand and navigate those relationships a little bit better when you have that framework to work with.

Steve Rush: Awesome stuff. So, as folk have been listening to this, Matt, I'm pretty certain they're thinking I need to get a copy of Teamwork9.0. I need to find out a little bit more about The Enneagram. And of course, you've got a bunch of resources that can help them. Where's the best place that we can send them so they can connect with your work?

Matt Schlegel: Oh yeah. Thank you so much. So, my website is evolutionaryteams.com. So that's all one-word evolutionaryteams, and there you'll find you know, some resources, there's a complimentary assessment. Enneagram assessment that you're welcome to take there. And also, you can find out information about teamwork 9.0, and then I blog and share, you know, different topics on leadership decision making and teamwork. And I'm doing a series of interviews with leaders who are using their essentially self-awareness about their emotional state in their leadership practice and how that motivates, inspires, and drives their leader of behaviors. So, it's really fascinating stuff.

Steve Rush: Great. We'll put those links and the links to your social media connections as well in our show notes. So, folk can connect with you as soon as they finish listening to this.

Matt Schlegel: Well, thank you so much, Steve. I really appreciate it.

Steve Rush: Matt, it's been fascinating talking. I am incredibly excited about the different dynamics that Teamwork9.0 brings about, and actually how that can help other teams become more effective in their work that they do. And thank you for coming and sharing your stories and being part of our community on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Matt Schlegel: Well, thank you so much, Steve. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Steve Rush: Me too. Thanks, Matt.

Closing

Steve Rush: I want to sign off by saying thank you to you for joining us on the show too. We recognize without you, there is no show. So please continue to share, subscribe, and like, and continue to get in touch with us with the great new stories that we share every week. And so that we can continue to bring you great stories, please make sure you give us a five-star review where you can and share this podcast with your friends, your teams, and communities. You want to find us on social media. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter @leadershiphacker, Leadership Hacker on YouTube, and on Instagram the_leadership_hacker and if that wasn’t enough, you can also find us on our website leadership-hacker.com. Tune into the next episode to find out what great hacks and stories are coming your way. That's me signing off. I'm Steve Rush, and I've been your Leadership Hacker

View Details

Michael Sahota is a thought leader, author, and speaker in the Agile industry. He's also the co-founder and CEO of SHIFT314, and he's joined by Audree Sahota, Chief Metaphysics Officer and also co-founder of SHIFT314, together they wrote the book Leading Beyond Change. In this amazing show we discover:

The story behind SHIFT314
What is emotional science and how that could that help me as a leader
Why leaders find it so hard to unlock the right energy in our lives
The SHIFT314 Evolutionary Leadership Framework (SELF)

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Michael and Audree below:

Michael on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelsahota/

Audree on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/audreetara/

Michael on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MichaelSahota

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shift314_leadership/

Company Website: https://shift314.com

Full Transcript Below

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Our two special guests on today's show is Michael Sahota who's the founder and CEO of SHIFT314, he's a speaker, a thought leader. And the author of Leading Beyond Change. His co-author is Audree Sahota who's also the co-founder and Chief Metaphysics officer at SHIFT314. But before we get a chance to speak with Michael and Audree, it’s The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: It turns out in times of crisis, that's a perfect opportunity for us to do some self-reflection and think about what's really important to us. According to some recent research completed by Microsoft, workers' sense of worth grew during the pandemic and during 2020 during terms to crisis, so did their expectations. For almost a year of publishing the first study, Microsoft shared results of another iteration of the Microsoft world index. And it's a study run across 31 countries, 31,000 people along with analysis of trillions of productivity signals in Microsoft, 365 trends on LinkedIn and labor trends.

Some findings found that flexible working is here to stay. And leaders seemed out of touch with employees while workers were highly productive, yet also exhausted. Gen Zed or Gen Zers if you're in the U.S. needed, re-energizing due to a lack of networking opportunities. And finally, talent availability grew with the hybrid work, but the word hybrid work means so much to so many. Organizations still grapple to get an understanding of what hybrid work really means to them. What comes out in research from Microsoft is that COVID changed our relationship with work forever. 53% of employees are more like to prioritize health and wellbeing over their work compared to that pre pandemic. And in addition, 47% of responders said that they're most likely to put family and personal life first ahead of any work commitments. Employers must be ready to accommodate the needs and trends that are playing out or risk losing their talent to competitors who might offer exactly what they're looking for.

The study shows that many hybrid employees, in fact, 51% say they'll consider a switch to remote working over the next 12 months. And even more remote employees, 57% said they would consider a switch to more hybrid. And while the two data points could be confusing, they clearly speak to the role of hybrid working is here to stay, providing the flexibility needed to lead a more blended life while offering opportunities to stay connected with coworkers. And it clearly shows that deciding what's best for your talent will not be a one size fits all affair either.

Needs will be different based on the seniority within the company, the type of job, how long somebody's been with the organization, their home circumstances. It's also critically to fully understand and embrace hybrid work so that it requires more than just offering working from home. It really does mean making sure the employees feel part of their work at home and are also being seen and communicated as if they were in the office. And the final data point I wanted to share with you is that 54% of leaders felt that productivity had been negatively affected since going to a more of a remote and hybrid working environment. Although 80% of the same employees said that there had been an improvement in their productivity since that shift.

Getting people back into the office must be driven by the employees and those who want to have a real desire to build connections. But particularly for those who were joining during the pandemic and may have not yet had the opportunity to form strong relationships. And the leadership hack here is, it's not just about flexible work location, flexible environment, but most importantly, flexible mindset and a flexible mindset from business leaders who understand their talent, know that it's not the same as it was two years ago. And they also know that their needs have changed. Understanding intrinsically what's driving each individual on your team could be the one thing that really unlocks true high performance. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Looking forward as always to hearing your tweets and information about what you'd like to hear and see on the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: I'm joined on the show today by our first ever husband and wife duo, who are also business partners, Michael Sahota is a thought leader, author, and speaker in the Agile Industry. He's also the co-founder and CEO of SHIFT314. He's developed unique IP to unlock success with agile, digital, and lean, in other new ways of working. And he's joined by Audree Sahota. Chief Metaphysics Officer, and also co-founder of SHIFT314, and Audree has a mastery over many practices and techniques for rapidly shifting consciousness, which I can't wait to explo.re. Welcome both, to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Audree Sahota: Thank you.

Michael Sahota: Yeah, pleasure to be here.

Steve Rush: So, first husband and wife duo, first question. Who made the first move?

Michael Sahota: That would probably be me.

Audree Sahota: Well, yeah. Considering I didn't really like Michael, when I first met him,

Steve Rush: Which is often the case, isn't it with relationships?

Audree Sahota: Right, yeah. He was kind of a thorn on my side. We actually met in India in a really incredible personal growth and transformation course that we had both been involved in for many years. And they put our classes, no, you skipped, did you skip a grade?

Michael Sahota: Yeah, I did. I did two courses back-to-back.

Steve Rush: You, only just found out now, right Audree?

Audree Sahota: Normally you're supposed to wait six months and then join the next course. And I was in the course ahead of him. I think I was in the pilot program, and he was there, and we had some mutual friends and so eventually as I got to know, Michael, I was like, oh, this guy is kind of different on the inside than what he's projecting on the outside. So, you know, it's a longer story. But what I found was that when I needed help and I was working through a really, really deep block, that was probably the biggest block that I had that was blocking all of my success in my life. We were sitting around the dinner table with a bunch of people, and I was expressing what was going on with me.

And it was like 10 o'clock at night. We had all been processing and doing these like crazy, very intense, deep, personal growth and transformation processes that included a lot of breathing and dark spaces and stuff like that. So, we were all pretty crispy and everybody one by one just kind of left the table. And it's just Michael and I sitting there and Michael's like, well, do you want to work through this issue? And I said, yeah, I want to remove this block. And he said, well, I'll only work with you if you go all the way through, like, I don't want you to stop, I want you to opt in fully into this process. And I said, yes, I'm totally ready. And so, as he was working with me and kind of holding a space and facilitating my process, which was touching into some really, really deep, deep issues, I was like crying. And it was just like really intense. And at the same time, every time he would say something as a facilitator, I would be like, oh, that's what I would say. That's exactly how I would work. And at the end of the whole entire process, which was incredibly liberating for me, I went back to my room with my roommate, and I said, hey, you know, that Michael Sahota guy just helped me with a really deep issue that I had. And he works exactly how I work, how I facilitate. And I've never met anybody like that. And she's like, oh, he's your other half. And I was like, no, not Michael Sahota, there's no way, he's not my type. And she kept saying it. And I think that, that was the moment that I knew that there was something else deeper going on, and then it went from there. Then we started discussing like our kind of, like our dreams and our hopes and our life purpose and stuff. And turns out we had the same life purpose, which is, take it away Michael.

Michael Sahota: Yeah. So, it's really about helping people evolve from their current limitations. Like this deeper level of work that gets ignored, that isn't fully addressed by traditional means to allow us to show up as the partner we want, the parent we want to be, the leader we want to be, which ultimately is what we need to create, create high performance environment. So, it's really about creating a better world, a better workplace, starting with ourselves.

Steve Rush: In my experience, having spoke to hundreds of very successful business leaders and coached many, it often starts with ourselves.

Michael Sahota: Well, yeah, there's this funny saying, everybody's heard this, and everyone knows this true. You can't change anyone else. You can only change yourself. Everyone knows this, but 98% of leadership behavior acts as if this statement doesn't exist.

Steve Rush: What do you think the reason is for that?

Michael Sahota: Oh, there's a really simple reason. It's the ego, our default egoic conditioning causes to look outwards for the problems rather than look inwards.

Steve Rush: Hmm.

Audree Sahota: Right.

Michael Sahota: Basically, we're all tricked by the ego.

Audree Sahota: And we always say, you know, we're the problem and we're the solution. But I think that we don't really know where to go with all of that as well. So, part of it is the ego blocking and the other part is, if you don't have the tools, the techniques, mostly the knowledge or the education about what's actually really going on, it's very difficult to start to explore your inner world. And so, I mean, we found ways to do it through our own, I think our own evolutionary process and our own journey.

Michael Sahota: Our basic view is that everyone is innocent.

Audree Sahota: Yeah.

Michael Sahota: Like, so if someone is listening to this call and they, well, geez, I'm not doing that. I'm mostly focused on outward. And how do we make changes around me, blah, blah, blah. You're innocent, and the reason is because, you don't have the tools. You don't have the knowledge and awareness and understanding. Even if you discovered that there's some sort of inner block inside of yourself, actually work through it. And that's really what our work is about is, giving leaders, the evolutionary capabilities for not only the self-evolution, which is one part of it, but it's also how to put that into practice, right. There are lots of people who go to yoga classes, they go to a, you know, 10-day meditation retreat and they go back and it's the same thing all over again, like nothing's changed in their regular world, right. They have a little bit of stillness and then it fades off.

Steve Rush: Right.

Michael Sahota: As they go through their day. And so, it's really about how do we integrate that into our regular work? How do we do that in every single thing that we do at every single interaction as a leader, as collaborator, as a parent?

Audree Sahota: We even think about coaching and leadership. And we always say that it's a transmission, like transformation is a transmission. You're very being, who you are and what you've been through, and all of your experience is what is going to shift and change another person or another organization. And we find the clarity in that statement, you are the transmission, a very powerful perception to have when we're looking at organizational change, or we're looking at working with our clients who, you know, want to show up as better leaders or create high performance, or we, you know, for our own selves personally, in our relationships with our family and our friends and in our partnership as

Well.

Steve Rush: And the whole evolutionary framing that you have, and you talk about. How did that come together from your different work experiences to create what you do now? Because you both have very different backgrounds that have now come together as SHIFT314.

Audree Sahota: Right. So, I have a little weirder background. I'm a professionally trained energetic healer. So, what that means is I didn't take a weekend workshop and I became a healer. I actually went to eight years of formal training. I worked on a medical team for five years. I worked with very, very ill people. But what that really means is I've studied the psychology of disease. So, I learned in my profession, thoughts, belief systems, behaviors, lifestyle, all these things contribute to a healthy body or an unhealthy body. And so, I believe that looking at the psychology of disease, you start to look at, what's going on in your mind? What's going on in your consciousness? What's going on in your perceptions? And so, that's where I take this weird thing of energy, kind of mixed with psychological background. And then I start to work with my clients in a way, not only to heal, but also then to transform their lives. But in order for me to do that, my training has always been you first.

Steve Rush: Right.

Audree Sahota: Always, I'm the transmission of the work. If I'm clear and clean in my perceptions, my glee systems, my psychological makeup, and my body, I'm able to transmit a very high vibrational frequency that will aid in the healing of somebody else. So that's kind of where my background is from. It's like the weird stuff.

Michael Sahota: Yeah, my background is the exact opposite. It's an engineering. I worked in research. I've published papers and artificial intelligence, robotics. I went professionally, started working as a software developer and had management roles and got involved with a thing called agile, bringing organizations to like a more people-centric way of working, a more evolved way of working. And that eventually led me to this realization. Well, wait a second. It's really hard to help companies make this shift because the leaders don't get it. The leaders are stuck in these traditional mindsets, these traditional patterns that are totally incompatible with these new ways of working, what they call agile, digital and so on. And then I looked at it, I said. Well, how do I help these leaders like transform? How do they help them show up as leaders that we can create these amazing work environments, we can actually get high performance? I said, well, the only way to help them to solve this is to help them grow. And I thought, well, am I equipped to do that? And the answer I got back was well, no Michael, you're a well-intentioned hassle. You can see everything that's going on, but you are not showing up in a revolved way. So that's what kicked off this realization that I'm the problem and I am the solution. That I am the limit for everything that I want to create around me. And so, kicked off this you know, really broad scoped search for, how do I grow myself? How do I evolve? And I had no idea. So, I just started doing random things. And eventually this is one path took me to India, right, and that's where I met Audree.

But really, I think this is true for me still today is, that I am the limit of everything that I want to create in the world. And I continue to invest in my own personal evolution. That's why I got a lot of humility around this. It's not like, well, oh, I'm better and blah, blah, blah. It's like, hey, we're all on our journey of evolution. All of us, every single one of us, the only question is, how much energy are we putting into our own evolution? Number one, and number two, what are the rate of progress we're making? And what we've seen here is a lot of leaders are at zero rate of progress and zero investment in their evolution. And as a result, they're continue to be the same leaders that they've always been

Audree Sahota: Because it's so hard.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Audree Sahota: The pressure to succeed, the pressure to get things done actually takes you backwards. So, you have to be very, very careful because that's where you get tripped up. It's like when something's happening and the organizations in a crisis or your teenager just, you know, crashed the car, it's either one.

Michael Sahota: And It’s kind of weird, right? Because I started as an engineer, right. And scientifically running experiments of like, what can we do to a system to improve performance? And I followed root cause, eventually it said, wait a second. The only way to do this is through inner evolution, integrated with, you know, external models, tools and so on. And that's what we've created is this technology, this co-creation of Audree and I, we didn't like wake up one day and say, here it is. It's been this evolution over like the last decade of both of our work.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Michael Sahota: It's called the self-framework.

Audree Sahota: Right.

Michael Sahota: And it's just really this beautiful tool kit,

Audree Sahota: And we didn't even know that we had a framework, we had no idea. We were just trying to explain to people what we did. And it was through writing the book. It was through that process of writing the book that it actually really homed in

Michael Sahota: What it is we're doing.

Audree Sahota: Yeah, what it is. First the intention that we had no idea what we were doing.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Audree Sahota: We were just doing it.

Michael Sahota: Be very successful.

Audree Sahota: Very successful.

Michael Sahota: Training thousands of leaders around the globe and giving them transformational experiences and like, this is the thing, is like, you know, on the outside, okay. It looks like we're leadership trainers, looks like we're organizational consultants. So, we help companies with agile. That's the external, right. That profile fits lots of organizations around the world, but there's some something special and deeper about what we do. That's very human where it's not just about the workplace. People who go through our trainings realize, oh, wait a second. This is actually more important to me with my family.

Steve Rush: And the reality, I guess, of what you've just described is that evolutionary journey that people take. But if you went to an organization and started with those energetic, emotional science-based conversations, most organizations would go, whoa, hang on a second. That's a bit too deep, but they could probably understand and contextualize the broader conversations around leadership development and organizational consultancy, right?

Audree Sahota: Right, and high performance.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Audree Sahota: Because everybody wants results. Everybody wants to do well. Even people sitting in a yoga class, why are they there? It's because they want to make their lives better. So, I think it's a natural occurrence in nature. Nature is always perfecting itself. And it's really, really beautiful, you know? We think of like having a disease or birth defect and transitioning or not living as something that's really, really terrible. And we look at the way nature functions. It is always trying to perfect itself and we're doing it everywhere. It's not just in nature, but we are nature, we're animals. It's the natural progression in the life cycles of an organization that we're looking at where things have to get destroyed in order to create something new and something better. So, we tend to forget the natural cycles that occur in life.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Audree Sahota: And when we start to look at, we're just wanting to create high performance and that's okay. It's okay. Michael said all the time, in our courses, he goes, I don't care if you're here because of financial success and you're worried about the bottom line or you're here because you want to make workplaces a better environment for people. We don't have any judgment of why you're here, but what is that there's this merging together of, oh yeah. I want both. And why can't we have both?

Steve Rush: Right.

Audree Sahota: Yeah, and it makes sense that if your workplace is healthy and people are happy and engaged and love what they do and they're supported, there's a benefit to the organization and it's a financial benefit.

Steve Rush: And there's loads of science about.

Audree Sahota: Yes.

Steve Rush: That happy workplaces create better productivity, better productivity creates better and happier environments and therefore more purposeful business. And it becomes self-fulfilling, doesn't it?

Audree Sahota: Yeah. But it's an old way of thinking in the traditional work environment, it's oppressive, it's slave like mentality and it's this old way of how humans existed in society. That is beginning to change because we realize, oh, oppressing people doesn't actually work. You know, having poverty and lack doesn't work.

Michael Sahota: I mean, no manager goes into work and thinks, oh, I'm going oppress people today, right. Nobody thinks that, but everyone is caught up and this is why I see people as very innocent. We're caught up in this industrial machinery, this structure's is a business as unusual and we're just like hamsters running around the hamster wheel. And so, it's about helping people wake up to say, wait a second, do you see what's going on? You're just following in this traditional pattern, traditional management path and these are the consequences. That's where we start. We don't talk about any of the personal shift, any of that stuff. Because like, hey, let's just have a conversation about what's going on in your organization and how's it working for you? And it's never working out well for organizations. Everybody is struggling out there.

Steve Rush: Yeah. Audree, you spend quite a lot of time with metaphysics, energy, you know, the root of kind of what drives people's behaviors. I'm keen to just understand a little bit about why it is that organizations and often individuals who lead those organizations and teams find it really difficult to peel the layers right back to where they need to be effective and explore some of that?

Audree Sahota: That's a great question. And I actually don't know the answer.

Michael Sahota: I know the answer. So, the answer is, we don't ever try to get anyone to do anything.

Audree Sahota: But he's saying like a general, like.

Michael Sahota: Why is it happening?

Audree Sahota: Why is it happening?

Steve Rush: Why is it so difficult?

Audree Sahota: It's a really deep conversation that I'm not going to go into right now. And a lot of it is that, oh, it's way too deep to go into. But I can't tell you that. We're raised from birth in a way that we're just in this command-and-control habit, we're in a habit of fear and anxiety. We're in a habit of thinking and believing. We're duped into believing that we deserve eternal punishment.

Michael Sahota: Yeah, and everyone listening to this. Well, that's not me. And it's like, well, if you don't know that's going on with you, you just don't know what's going on with you, but it's going on with everyone until you're actually enlightened. So, it's there and most people aren't aware, but we don't even start there. I just want to back up, this is not a good starting place. The starting place is what we actually do in our trainings, which is saying, well, okay, great. We're here to talk about how do you create business agility? How do you be high performance leaders? Right? So, the egos invested. People want the result. People want the outcome. And this is what our whole book Leading Beyond Change goes through. This is the anti-pattern of what you're doing in your traditional business. And this is the pattern for what is happening in healthy organizations that get really extraordinary performance. And we just take people through a series of patterns where they realize, wait a second. What I am choosing to do every day creates low performance.

Audree Sahota: Nobody wants to understand the fundamental fabric of why humans are in suffering.

Steve Rush: That's right, yeah.

Michael Sahota: Yeah.

Audree Sahota: Except for me.

Michael Sahota: So, what we get people to do is realize, wait a second. When I try to drive a change program, I'm actually create a lot of resistance. When I mandate things as a boss and use my power without listening to other people first, I'm creating damage.

Audree Sahota: And inner more advanced courses what we do is, once you can see that behavior, that I'm creating damage, then when you have the tools and the techniques and the understanding, then it's easier to look inside. And we always ask, what does it feel like in your body when you're trying to drive change?

Steve Rush: Because your body's a good barometer to tell you exactly what's going on, right.

Audree Sahota: It is the thing, that is the radio receiver. So, the body will tell you, it's like, oh, I feel tight. Oh, it's hard to breathe. Oh, there's a knot in my stomach. And then we have the tools to help to dissolve that because those are patterns from the subconscious part of the egoic system that are actually, it's like the root cause of why you're trying to drive change to begin with. It doesn't mean that you're not going to create change.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Audree Sahota: But an impact change, but it's going to come from a very different place where there's a release within your system and you're letting go. You're not attached to the outcome, which is very, very hard to do. But when not attached to the outcome anymore, you're no longer pressing onto the system and creating that resistance. And there's an opening that happens.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Audree Sahota: We always call it the secret to the universe.

Steve Rush: Wow. If only we could all tap into that, it sounds incredibly.

Audree Sahota: We all can, and we all deserve it.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Audree Sahota: Like every single one of us deserves to be successful and happy and productive

Michael Sahota: And having an amazing day at work every single day,

Audree Sahota: Every single day.

Steve Rush: And the reason why some do, and some don't is completely about how we are showing up, thinking about or how our mindset is driving, how we're thinking and showing up at work.

Audree Sahota: Oh yeah, and that's a choice.

Michael Sahota: Well, actually there's two factors. One is internal. What is our internal composition? And how are we choosing to perceive the reality that we're in. The other one is the external system because a really beautiful organization can help people uplift, to help people heal and help people grow. Whereas their traditional organizations are taking people down.

Steve Rush: Yeah. So, you both talk about a series of patterns, which are the series of patterns that you explored and bumped into as you started to write the book Leading Beyond Change, and you talked about this self-evolutionary framework. I'd love to get into a little bit about that and explore some of the elements of what that is and how I might use it?

Audree Sahota: Well, let's start off with the name. SHIFT134 Evolutionary Leadership Framework.

Michael Sahota: The abbreviation is the S E L F or the SELF.

Audree Sahota: And then we went, oh my God, about the self, it is the self.

Michael Sahota: Think about it?

Audree Sahota: But it was an accident.

Michael Sahota: Yeah.

Audree Sahota: I just want to say that's how miraculous it is. It was an accident.

Steve Rush: So where does SHIFT314 come from?

Michael Sahota: Ah, okay. So, everyone has heard of this number 3.1415, and you go, oh my gosh, it's Pi.

Steve Rush: Pi.

Michael Sahota: A Pi symbolizes the universal timeless principles of the universe through mathematics. With SHIFT314 we give the universal principles, the timeless principles of human dynamics and organization dynamics. We're talking about how do things actually work. Not some, you know, popular, made-up theory, do these three things and you'll have success and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's actually worth the laws of cause and effects of human beings. And when human beings working together and creating change in organizations

Audree Sahota: And how to mitigate the damage.

Michael Sahota: Hey, so here are the patterns. Hey, do you notice when you do this, when you oppress people, here's how you're oppressing people. It actually disengages them, demotivates them so on. And when you create a space for people to contribute, they can, and they're happier and they perform better, like very simple, simple ideas. And we go through, I think about 40 patterns in the book to give people like a really clear sense of wait, when I'm stuck in this matrix, this mindset, trap of traditional business, or even slightly, some of these progressive things are actually, very weak sauce countermeasures, you know, oh, wait a second. I'm not getting high performance. What I'm doing today is not high performance, it’s the opposite.

Audree Sahota: And a lot of it is common sense. It's just that we don't set our intention to really think about it. And I believe we don't do that, and I'll go back to it is, we don't have the tools and the techniques to move through these patterns. So, like for one of them is, we talk about leaders speaking last. So, when you go into a meeting, you allow everybody else to speak first, before you give your opinion, give an answer to the problem, you know, give a solution.

Michael Sahota: Yeah. I show you the anti-pattern, hey everyone, you know, here's my idea for this. What do you guys think? Yeah right. Versus like, hey, you know we need to solve this problem. I've got some ideas, but we're all smarter together. Why doesn't everyone share their ideas and then we'll have a conversation.

Audree Sahota: And everybody goes around the table, gives 30 seconds or a minute. Shares their perspective, shares their opinion.

Michael Sahota: Then we get the deeper truth of well, okay, but this is not a trick. It's not a tactic. For a leader to do that they have to get their ego under control. They have to stop trying to be the smartest person in the room and create a space for others to be leaders and to want to build other people, to be leaders. That's the inner journey. That's why people need tools to make it.

Steve Rush: Is there a particular pattern that you've recognized through these different of patents? Is the stickiest, like people get stuck the most.

Michael Sahota: Command and control habit. Command and control habit. We don't understand that we're addictive.

Audree Sahota: Very different and we're exactly the same.

Michael Sahota: We don't understand. We're addict. Gender is the commanding control habits, is actually two different words to the same thing. We don't understand. Like right now, everyone listening to this probably said, I'm not addicted to command and control habit. That's what everyone's going to listen to, is going to say to themselves, I'm not addicted to it.

Audree Sahota: I give people their freedom, let them explore. I give them autonomy.

Michael Sahota: Guess what? Get into one of our trainees. And you'll see that you actually don’t, and you'll see the damage you are causing. And it's going to wake you up to an extraordinary journey. That's going to change, not just your workplace, but all of your relationships with your partner, with your kids, everything. That's what happens because we're stuck trying to use the same words that everyone else uses, you know, leadership and culture.

Audree Sahota: Mindset.

Michael Sahota: And blah, blah, blah. But we're doing something at a very different, very deeper, much more personal level, touching the core of our being.

Steve Rush: Which is where energy plays that vital role because you're dealing with then raw emotions, much of the time, aren't you?

Audree Sahota: Yes, my philosophy on healing has changed quite a lot. I mean, and I've been doing this since probably 1994. So, what I can say is that I no longer believe there's has to be a story. I no longer believe there has to be something that takes a very long time. I do believe in instantaneous healing, I believe up and out, up and out.

Michael Sahota: Not just believe, we live that with our own work on ourselves and the work we do with our partners, clients and those in our training programs is like the, you know, we tell people, if you get stuck, don't stay stuck, just reach out to us and we'll get you unstuck. We've got a lot of tools.

Steve Rush: Mm.

Audree Sahota: Right, and I think the biggest thing here is that it's a choice for everyone, no matter what you're doing, whether it's like our work or somebody else's work or your own work or whatever you are doing in your life. But we really believe that if you're having an issue or a problem that you don't have to, you have a choice. And when you understand that you have the choice, that becomes a very different perspective to live by. And when you make the choice not to have the issue or the problem, the solutions come, it just makes it easier if you have the tools and the techniques ahead of time, on purpose, you know, striving towards creating more success.

Steve Rush: That's the essence of metaphysics as well, isn't it? You know, it's the kind of the whole energy. Allowing the energy to feed your direction, so to speak.

Audree Sahota: Yes, and energy is moved by thoughts.

Michael Sahota: Yeah. So, this is where it all ties together. Like, you know, our oppressive behaviors, our anti patterns of traditional business, our low vibrational frequency, like it's actually like stuck trapped energy in our bodies. And we're walking around basically emitting all this like sort of toxic radiation. That's most traditional leaders right now are walking around emitting toxic radiation, acting as a beacon of a very destructive, oppressive culture, which is why so many people are disengaged. Now really effect leaders aren't doing that. They haven't evolved consciousness. They're pure in their being, they're operating in from a higher vibrational frequency. They're emitting positive energy around them, and people just feel good around them, right. It's not just what they're doing. So, what we're saying, it's a transmission. And, you know, taking it back to the energetic layer, they're actually admitting, you know, good vibes, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Audree Sahota: But Michael, what if you're not the leader and you're just in an organization with those toxic leaders, then what do you do?

Steve Rush: That's a great question.

Audree Sahota: I will interview Michael.

Michael Sahota: Well, first of all, the first thing you need to see is that how those toxic leaders are taking you out and you are now part of the problem.

Audree Sahota: Exactly.

Michael Sahota: And so, what we see is that anyone and everyone can be a leader. Our approach or framework is about leaders at all levels that anyone at any place in the organization can create change starting with ourselves, because we can't control everyone else, but we can control ourselves. So, change, therefore, is 100% possible if we choose to do it.

Audree Sahota: And it's a moment-to-moment choice. You can, you either choose to be in resistance and negative, in anger, in frustration and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or you can choose to be in peace in harmony and calm in not getting taken out by the drama and the chaos that's going on. So, you can actually just show up and function with your full intelligence.

Michael Sahota: Yeah, we're calling it almost like radical responsibility, like just taking full 100% responsibility for one's interstate of being, thoughts, actions, energetic stake, and taking responsibility in stewardship and taking action and looking after it, the way you look after, you know, a child that was in your care. So, we need to look after our interstate of functioning.

Audree Sahota: Yeah. I think as a society on a whole, we're generally in a low vibrational state, we're always in the state of fear, anxiety, worry, anger, blame, all these different aspects of who we are. And it becomes an addictive pattern. There's actually an addiction going on in your body. So, if you start to really slow down and feel like, just watch the news, that's a really great example. While you're watching the news, what's going on in your body? Oh, I'm feeling this searing burning sensation and this, you know, tightness in my chest, sit with that searing burning sensation in your chest for a while. You'll start to feel like, oh, that feels really good. And then start to notice how many times a day do you actually instigate that sense and that feeling in your body, there's a chemical release going on in your body. There's a biological reaction to whatever emotional state is happening. You know, that's caused by the environment and what happens is our bodies become addicted to those chemicals, the cortisol and all that stuff that's going on in the body. So, you really have to almost like take back control of this addictive patterns. That are not only, you know, psychological patterns, you know, with emotions, but it's also.

Michael Sahota: It's like energetic, it's physiological, its neuro chemical, it’s societal, it's in our environments and the conditioning. So that's what we're talking about, breaking out this matrix, we're trapped in, right. And that's where, you know, our work is very, very different because we're looking at, you know.

Audree Sahota: Everything.

Michael Sahota: Universal principles, what is really going on here? Oh, I'm in fear. So therefore, I'm not getting blood supply in my frontal cortex, therefore my brain can't operate. Ah, okay, no wonder, now I know what's going on, right.

Audree Sahota: And just taking it back to something really simple because you shouldn't believe anything that we're saying at all, it should be an actual personal experience to validate your own belief system. And so, this is what I always offer people. Find somebody that you can't stand, that you have a huge problem with. And let's just say, it's your boss okay. You could pick a lot of other people, but let's just say, it's your boss, because this is an easy one to work with. There's somebody in your organization that you have such a hard time with and spend a bunch of time, maybe 30 minutes just sitting and feeling positive about this person. Like what if everything I thought about this person was wrong? What if, and just start to calm the nervous system down, calm your body down, calm your mind down, open your heart and change your perception of this person. Just do it, make the choice and just do it. No matter what the external circumstances are. I guarantee everybody, if you do this, that relationship will automatically shift.

Steve Rush: Like it.

Michael Sahota: That's the advanced step. Most people aren't ready for. The first step.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Michael Sahota: The first step for that is just see how you don't want to do that. Just see how you not want to do what Audree just described. That's how you are the problem right now. You're not ready to let go of that anger.

Audree Sahota: Oh yeah. Because you're addicted to it.

Michael Sahota: Yeah.

Audree Sahota: It's an addiction.

Michael Sahota: It's not your fault. You just need to be aware of it. Step one.

Audree Sahota: It’s like drinking, smoking, doing drugs. It's the same thing, right. We love it. Oh, we love getting angry, oh my God.

Michael Sahota: At that person. We tell other people about it, yeah anyway.

Audree Sahota: Right, sometimes our identities are wrapped around, you know, certain situations that we're having. For me personally, when I started to look at, why do I want that? Why do I want the negativity? And then I was like, oh, wait a minute, I don’t. Why do I want too not be successful? Well, wait a minute. I want to be successful. Why would I create something that's you know where I'm going to fail?

Steve Rush: Addiction.

Audree Sahota: Why would I do that to myself?

Steve Rush: Yeah. So, this is where we turn the tables because I could spend all day talking to you by the way. You are in incredibly fascinating and I'm getting juiced up listening to you. But this is a show that we have thousands of people listening to all over the world and it'll be rude for me to not exploit the opportunity to hack into your years of experience and wonderful learnings. So, I'm going to now ask you to tap into your top leadership hacks. So, if you consider the things that you've experienced, things that you've done, and of course we know leadership's not hack, you've got to work at it, but what would it be if you were to distill top tips, ideas or tools?

Michael Sahota: Listen to other people's ideas before sharing your own.

Audree Sahota: I think for me, it would be. Asking what if I'm the problem? Just what if I’m the problem.

Steve Rush: That's a fabulous reframe, isn't it? To think of a different perspective.

Audree Sahota: And then the other one for me, this is my favorite question. How can I help you be successful? Turn the tables instead of it being about you, how can I help you be successful? And that might mean that you're on a team and the whole team is like, how can I help another team be successful?

Steve Rush: Really, really like that last one. So, the next of show, we affectionally called it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something in your lives or work has gone, particularly not well. It's been more catastrophic. It might have been a complete failure, but as a result of that experience, you now have that tool that is useful in your life and work. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Michael Sahota: You know, it’s really interesting, it’s really a great concept and our answer is, everything. That’s one of our teachings is, everything that’s going on around you is a gateway to learning.

Steve Rush: I like that.

Michael Sahota: And most of our lies, we ignore everything, all these gateways to learning and evolution, but it's every single moment, every single frustration, every single you know, thing we perceive as failure, everything we're resisting and we're not flowing with life is the gateway to evolution.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Audree Sahota: Oh, I would say my marriage, my first marriage.

Steve Rush: Well, without that serendipitous moment that you had in India, of course you wouldn't be where you are today either.

Audree Sahota: No.

Steve Rush: So, the last part of the show, we get to give you an opportunity to do some time travel, bump into yourselves at 21 and give yourselves some advice. Audree, you go first.

Audree Sahota: Oh my God. I would say stop partying so much. And, you know, I don't really know. I think for me it would be things are going to get better and you stop sabotaging your own self, yeah.

Steve Rush: Great.

Michael Sahota: Yeah, for me it would be Michael, you're not going to believe me because one of your problems is you think you have it all figured out and you don't need to listen to anyone. So, I'm not going to ask you to believe anything I'm saying now, but just keep in your back pocket when things are going to go wrong, because they're going to go wrong. And when they go wrong, I just want you to think about this.

Steve Rush: That's super.

Michael Sahota: You can't help anyone else until you stabilize yourself and your own healing and growth is the most important thing you can do. And I know it will not make any sense to you now. I understand that, but when things are going wrong, it's not about what's happening around you. It's what's happening inside you.

Audree Sahota: I think you told yourself at 21, you're going to go to India and meet some hot girl and to pay attention.

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely. If only we could have a crystal ball, right? So, I'm pretty certain that you've inspired people to want to learn more about what you're doing and maybe get a copy of Leading Beyond Change, diving into some of the communities that you work with and run, where is the best place for us to send them?

Michael Sahota: The best place is our website shift314.com.

Audree Sahota: Yeah, we also have another book, Emotional Science, and I think you can get through to both of those books, Leading Beyond Change and Emotional Science from shift314.com

Steve Rush: And we'll make sure that links to the website and how people can get hold of the copies of the books are all in our show notes as well.

Audree Sahota: Thank you so much.

Steve Rush: I've really enjoyed this conversation. I hope it's not our last. I'm pretty certain it won't be, and I'm really delighted that we have you both on the show to share some experiences and get us to think differently about a few things that you've really poised today. So, thanks for being part of our community on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Audree Sahota: Thank you so much for having us here. We really appreciate it.

Michael Sahota: Yeah, our pleasure.

Audree Sahota: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Thank you both.

Closing

Steve Rush: I want to sign off by saying thank you to you for joining us on the show too. We recognize without you, there is no show. So please continue to share, subscribe, and like, and continue to get in touch with us with the great new stories that we share every week. And so that we can continue to bring you great stories. Please make sure you give us a five-star review where you can and share this podcast with your friends, your teams, and communities. You want to find us on social media. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter @leadershiphacker, Leadership Hacker on YouTube and on Instagram, the_leadership_hacker and if that wasn’t enough, you can also find us on our website leadership-hacker.com Tune into next episode to find out what great hacks and stories are coming your way. That's me signing off. I'm Steve rush, and I've been your Leadership Hacker.

View Details

Richard Medcalf is Founder and CEO of Xquadrant and an executive coach to some of the world's most impressive and successful CEOs and their teams. He’s also the host of the Impact Multiplier CEO Podcast. In today’s show you can learn about:

The productivity paradigm and the infinity trap.
Why we don’t need a productivity hack, we just need a mindset shift.
Why many struggle to focus on higher-value tasks and prioritization.
How to kick start our strategic thinking.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Richard below:

Special Link to resources: https://xquadrant.com/hacker

Richard on LinkedIn: https: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardmedcalf/

Richard on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rmedcalf

Podcast: https://xquadrant.com/podcast/

Company Website: https://xquadrant.com/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Joining on today. Show is super coach Richard Medcalf. He's the founder of Xquadrant, and he's an Executive Coach of some of the world's most impressive and successful CEOs and their teams. He's also the host of The Impact Multiplier CEO Podcast. But before we get a chance to be Richard, it's The Leadership Hacker News

The Leadership Hacker News

Time is a valuable commodity that should not be wasted. A marketer is likely to be concerned with both time and money about the value they create. Luckily, plenty of thought leadership techniques are also available for those who do not mind spending time on their strategy, but don't wish to spend a lot of money on marketing. Thought leadership is a leader's best friend for promoting what they do. Recently I researched Services, a global thought leadership agency that focused on evidence-based research, published a list of techniques and ideas to help leaders in the space of thought leadership. And I'm just going to share with you the top four.

Be accessible. Thought leadership is about being visible. You can boost your visibility by making yourself accessible to others. Sharing your expertise freely and having your team do the same. Don't be afraid to speak to media outlooks or bloggers or write articles. It can all help you get your brand out there and your message to the audience.

Always create content. Consistently creating content can take time, but it also can help you build an audience for your brand. Additionally, it can help you create more ideas, content creations is an excellent way to show that you're aware of your industry. You're aware of the news and you're aware of what's trending. This can really help you become an industry leader, become more renowned so that people can see your content and become familiar with who you are and what you stand for.

Hone your problem-solving skills. Problem solving is a life skill and one you should hone. It shows that you can identify, analyze, and solve a problem. It also shows that you are innovative and capable of being an industry leader and helping others solve problems with you, demonstrates credibility. Be a leader. Thought leadership is about being a leader in your industry. This means that you should express ideas and take action when the opportunity arises. While you shouldn't strive to jump into every issue of controversy that abounds, you should also not be content to sit on the sidelines, particularly if it concerns your industry, it's all about having balance. So don't be afraid to try any these techniques for your thought leadership. It will cost you nothing. It might cost you a bit of time, but you'll get loads of value, and you'll learn along the way. So good luck with your thought leadership. That's been the leadership hacking news, and we are looking forward to sharing more news as the weeks go by. So please let us know if there's something specific, you'd like us to talk about.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on today's show is Richard Medcalf. He's the Founder and CEO of Xquadrant. He's an Executive Coach and coach some of the world's most impressive and successful CEOs. He's also the host of The Impact Multiplier CEO Podcast. Richard, welcome to the show.

Richard Medcalf: Hi Steve. It's great to be here. Thank you for inviting me

Steve Rush: Looking forward to getting into the mindsets behind some of the work that you do and the work that Xquadrant do with you and your clients. But before we do that, we'd love to get the opportunity for our guests. Just give the bit of the backstory as to how you arrived doing what you do? So, tell us a little bit about Richard?

Richard Medcalf: Well, sure. Obviously talking about myself with my favorite subject. So, you've got a spare five-hour, strap in and we'll, no, just kidding. So, my background is that I'm a bit of a strange hybrid. I like to describe myself sometimes as what you get. If you take a kind of a McKinsey Consultant, a slightly unorthodox pastor, and an entrepreneur, and you put them in a blender.

Steve Rush: That’s interesting.

Richard Medcalf: I'm a Brit’, but I've lived in France now for twenty-two years. My first role having studied Oxford, got my master’s degree there. My first role was in strategy consulting. I was asked by one of the partners in that firm to come over, to help him build out the Paris office for a year or two, sounded like a good idea. And then 22 years later, I'm still here. I married a lovely French lady and have kids and everything else. So that was how life evolved. I really enjoy strategy consulting; I think have a strategic brain naturally. And that all work really well. I became the youngest have a partner in that company, worked with a whole load of really interesting clients at board level, mainly the tech and telecom space. And then I was head hunted by Cisco, just at the point I'd been in the partner role for a couple of years. And I felt, you know, perhaps it was time to do something new and keep learning. And so, I joined Cisco, obviously a huge tech company. So, I became a smaller fish in a much bigger pond and cut a long story short after about 11 years again, I had a really interesting ride at Cisco. The last role was in a small team set up by Cisco CEO to really catalyze board level business initiatives with partners and customers. I'd like to describe it as fulfilling rash commitments made by the CEO in executive meetings.

Steve Rush: Which happens a lot, right?

Richard Medcalf: Yeah, so they both get excited about, you know, let's do something together in enterprise, you know, Wi-Fi, or I don't know, in internet of things or in the cloud or whatever the subject was, and they'd get like very excited and then we'd get the phone call to say, okay, there's some excitement to the CEO level, but now you need to help these organizations find something in that space that is strategically meaningful, operationally feasible, and both sides actually want to do at the actually operational level. So, it was really interesting role. For various reasons though, I kind of started to think after a couple of years of that, you know, although it was a lot of fun, I was thinking, you know, what's the legacy I really want to create in my career, in my life? What do I want to be telling my great-grandchildren when they're on my knee? You know, at age 90 or whatever it is.

And I realized that although I love creating business results and I still love doing that. I didn't just want to tell my great-grandchildren that I helped increase, you know, AT&T and EBITDA margin by north 0.5% or whatever, you know, that wasn't quite enough. So, I decided to really look at what did I do really, really well, you know, what was my unique secret source? What’s the impact that I really wanted to make in the world? And I kind of came to the conclusion that what it was, was helping already competent successful leaders make an even bigger and more positive impact in the world. And to do that, you have to obviously make a bigger impact in your organization, in your people and on the mission that you're there to create. And I think that was for me, the heart of it, was saying, you know, how can I actually help people who have already got a success formula that works really well as evidenced by their track record?

How can I help them reinvent that success formula and think strategically and get past their own fears, perhaps of change or of failure or of stretching too far to actually create the impact that they can make? And that's really what sets me on fire today. And so, I set up Xquadrant a few years back, it's basically a small boutique coaching and consulting practice where we help leaders generally often CEOs or Founders, or sometimes other C-suite members, generally of tech firms or firms going through a lot of technology, disruption and shifts. It really help them find what their next level of impact is going to be? And to do that, it's always about thinking more strategically and operating more influentially and that's it.

Steve Rush: Got it, yeah. So, the title Xquadrant, is there something in the name there?

Richard Medcalf: Yeah, there's a few things in the name, obviously, apart from the fact that the domain name is available.

Steve Rush: So, it was a good start, right?

Richard Medcalf: Yeah, there's a few things. So, you know, the first one is a bit of a, you know, a nod, right. Consultant’s love drawing two by two matrices and drawing an X in the top the top right corner to say, that's where you need to be. And so first of all, it kind of speaks to ambition, right. The second one is, is often, insight is found when we realize that it's not an either-or choice in front of us, but there's perhaps a new option that allows us to do both things, right. So, you know, we either support our team or we challenge our team. Well, you know, what happens if we created an environment where we really support them with high support, but we also create really high challenge? Right. Suddenly something feels like an either or becomes a both and.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Richard Medcalf: And that is also kind of, if you like that X on that two by two represents to me. And the final reason for Xquadrant is, the X stands for multiplication. And this is really key for me. It's easy in a sense to continually add value and play the game of being incremental, but I'm really interested in what does multiplication look like, right? How do we create an exponential curve for people? Where behind us, it looks flat and ahead of us, it looks vertical because we're on such a curve, and that's what excites me.

Steve Rush: I like that, really nice. So, when we are talking around exponential and matrices. From the last conversation you and I had, I'm going to be talking about a lot of execs get stuck in this productivity paradigm. So, tell us a little bit about what that really means and how I get out of it?

Richard Medcalf: Yeah, so the name I like to use for this paradigm is the infinity trap actually. So, the infinity trap is, you know, we live in a world of infinity, right. There's an infinite number of tasks, of people, of content out there. So, there's always more to do and we just can't get through it, right. The more books we buy, the more recommendations on books we get, the more emails we reply to, the more emails we get back. It's never ending, right. And so, we can't use productivity to break out of that because you can't defeat infinity with productivity. There's always more to do. And so, the infinity trap, and I see it all around and is, just for people going, you know, I'm crazy busy or even I'm good busy, but people are so focused. They're running, they are perhaps very clear on what they're trying to achieve actually, but they've got their heads down trying to achieve it. And so, what happens is, they haven't got enough time to think. They know they're not really thinking about all the big issues around them. They've got tunnel vision, in fact. So, in a sense, they might be really focused, but perhaps they've even lost serendipity from their lives, lost a bit of randomness or lost a bit of contexts. So, it shows up in different people in different ways.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Richard Medcalf: But I think the infinity trap is really where we are running fast. It feels good. We kind of feel that we are making progress. We kind of feel that we are perhaps being the super leader in our organization and, you know, lifting things on our shoulders and everything else. And we know it kind of works in a sense, but actually progress is becoming incremental at this point.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Richard Medcalf: We can't see it.

Steve Rush: However, I guess the flip side of that is, we still need to keep productive and improve productivity where we can. And I remember, again, from the conversation we had before, there aren't any real productivity hacks. It starts with yourself, and it actually starts with shifting your mindset. From your experience what's playing out there?

Richard Medcalf: Yeah, so obviously there are things we can do to kind of organize ourselves and do things differently and create an environment around us that's conducive to the work we need to do and all those things, right. But I think the fundamental limits to all that are, it's what we believe, right. It's what we believe is necessary desirable or achievable, possible around things. It depends on the self-image we have, right. How do we achieve things? How do we get things done? Right. What has to be true for us to succeed? What is success? All these things actually shape us. So let me give you an example. A couple examples come to mind. Let me just start with this one. I was talking with an executive, just being promoted to board level in a seven-thousand-person firm. It's pretty big firm and he'd got operations around twenty different countries.

And I was being asked to help him really onboard into this executive role, into the C-suite and maximize his impact as he does that. He was clearly a high performer. People loved him, but he knew he really wanted to play bigger game. And so, we identified together a couple of big transformational projects that he was going to champion throughout the business. Things that had never been done before on a global scale. And he was really going to move the needle. And he was very excited about this, and all the stakeholders were excited, and he was working on them and making some great progress. And then one day he came to me and said, you know, Richard, I'm just stuck in my email. I'm just like, I'm not getting enough time to work on these projects. They're not going as fast as I wanted.

And so, I kind of asked him, well, why is that? You know, why are you spending so much time in your email? He says, well, you know, I just want to be a good team player. I want to be trustworthy and reliable. I don't want to be the guy that people have to chase up. I don't want to be that person, right. The one who never replies to emails, who is a bottleneck for everybody else, who's not pulling their weight in the team. And indeed, he was a people person, right. He really wanted to do his best with people. And so, I stopped, and he was asking me for a tip, you know, Richard, what tips can you gimme about email? And I said, well, you know, if you’re coming to me for a tip, it's probably a waste of your money, right. You can probably Google the tip, right. I don't think that's what you need from me. In fact, I can just tell you that whatever tip I did give you, you wouldn't do anything with right now. I can't help you on that level. And he was like, what do you mean you can't help? I said, well, you've just told me that the reason you do your email and you spent so much time there is, because you want to be reliable and trustworthy and a team player. So, I'm not going to tell you to be an unreliable, untrustworthy, non-team player. You're never going to buy it. So, he was like, ah, that's a good point. So, I said, well, let try it another way. If the CEO was in the room with you, what would he be asking you for? He had to think, and he said, well.

Yeah, work on those big transformational projects. Because he's really excited about the benefits that's going to bring. Okay, what about the investors? What would they be asking for if you were in, one of those board meetings? Oh, well. I guess same thing I suppose, because that's going to make a really big difference on our financials if we can shift the employee experience in this way, okay. What about the employers themselves then? What about the team? What do they most want you to be doing if they could be in this room with us right now? And he thought, he said, well, I guess the same thing, right? Richard, the same projects, because they're sick and tired of the old ways of working and the inefficiencies that we've been working with.

And what about customers, if they could talk to us, what would they be telling us? And he said, well, they won't know so much. Because it's a bit of an internal project, transformation project, but I guess it'd be the same kind of thing. Because if the employees can focus less on internal admin, they can spend more time with the customers and solving customer issues. So, I said, okay, so at this point, you're telling me, that all these different stakeholders really want you to focus us on these two or three transformational projects? Yeah, that's right. Okay, so let me put it to you that you're being untrustworthy, unreliable, and not a team player when you are busy getting to inbox zero, you know, and managing all these inbound requests. And at this point, you know, the penny drops, right. And he’s like, oh, you're right. Like, this is not who I am anymore, right. I need to be playing a different game. And so, at that point he didn't need me to tell him how to set up a filter in Gmail, right, or how to turn his notifications off. Although those things always help, right. I’m a strong believer in turning notifications off, right. I mean, these are proven things, but the key shift was in that identity, you know, thinking actually, what is the trustworthy and reliable thing for me to do?

Steve Rush: Yeah, and then choosing that right identity creates the right behaviors and beliefs that come with it, right?

Richard Medcalf: Yeah, exactly. I was working with somebody else, and he was explaining how he couldn't possibly delegate to his team because things had to be done at certain level of quality and he wasn't sure if his team was able to do it. So, I just kind of made up a concept on the fly and said, oh, so you're telling me you're being the high performing janitor. Then you want to be the high performing janitor, you know, wiping those floor tiles to perfection. Whilst there's a business to be running. And again, he just a little aah. I know you're right. Perhaps I'm focusing on doing low level tasks incredibly well.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Richard Medcalf: And perhaps not getting on into the messy business of working on the big issues.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Richard Medcalf: Which I'm not quite so certain on. And again, it's these kinds of shifts that when you make this shift, then the productivity stuff finds its natural flow.

Steve Rush: And the story you just shared, ironically is not, you know, an isolated incident. You get a lot of people, certainly at the senior level, also getting drawn into those menial tasks.

Richard Medcalf: Certainty.

Steve Rush: From your perspective, then Richard, what would be the reason that many executives and this is not exclusive to executives by the way, this could be, you know, junior team leader, right the way through to senior executives. I think most people will struggle with this. What's the reason we then struggle to prioritize in the right way typically?

Richard Medcalf: I mean, there're actually a bunch of possible reasons, but I think some of the common ones are, yeah, number one is instant gratification and the comfort zone. Have things put in front of us that we deal with. So, you know, if you're always getting notified by your email, then it's easy just to deal with emails as they come. Because they give you instant gratification, right. It's not the important work necessarily, but it’s some something. So, I think that's part of it. I think the comfort zone is another, right. In other words, there are some areas that we know how to do pretty well, but those are probably areas which actually are not the cutting edge of the work that we need to do. But we do know that we add value when we do them.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Richard Medcalf: So, there's a bit of fear. I may as well just do the things that I'm really good at, and I know that's going to do some benefit, right. Rather than tackle this kind of other stuff, which I probably should be doing. But it's a bit less clear and that's really the third point is, ambiguity, right. We don't often take the time to really define what are those high I value tasks? Right. If I had five minutes, how would I actually proceed on them? Once we can define how you'd spend five minutes, then it's quite easy to do that five-minute task. But if it's like, I'm just need to do some strategic thinking. Where to begin on that? Right. It's really difficult. So, I that mixture of that kind of comfort zone, instinct gratification, and then this kind of fear and ambiguity on what are these higher value tasks that we want to be doing. But all those things play together

Steve Rush: And there's some chemical reactions that go on with us as individuals that happen there. This is not kind of an instinct. That instant gratification, and it gives us that dopamine rush. It makes us feel good in that moment. And therefore chemically, we're also drawn to those quick hits rather than the other chemical reactions that come with uncertainty and fear and challenge that can sometimes hold us back as well, right.

Richard Medcalf: Yeah, exactly. So, it's also important to try to hack those emotions a little bit, right. And celebrate when you start to feel those, right. I've defined something that was a bit ambiguous, like give yourself a fist pump, right. Actually, reward yourself for making a dent in those ambiguous fluffy areas that are actually the important ones.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and you mentioned strategic thinking there as part of that kind of role that we all have and strategic thinking's quite overplayed in my experience. I'd love to get your spin on this, by the way. So, for me, strategic thinking is just about thinking about what we don't know yet and thinking about what we don't know, that we can then translate to what we actually do know. And again, role agnostic, whether you are a junior team leader or a C-suite executive, it's all of our responsibilities to think that way. What's your experience about how strategic thinking plays out in our workplace, these days?

Richard Medcalf: Yeah, I mean, you're right. I mean, there's a couple of ways you can look at strategic thinking, right. For me, strategic thinking actually is a laser, right. Or it's a lens, right. For me, it's a lens that focuses us in, right. So where do we put our focus and our attention? What are the subjects where we need to focus? So that's part of it. And I think the other part is the more diffuse one, as you said, which is like, what is it in the environment? What are the factors that I’m not, that we're not folding in at this point? And I think those are both important ways to look at it, right. But I mean, but for me the most pragmatic way or most is to think about, there's a book I called The One Thing. And it's quite a helpful question they ask, which is, you know, what's the one thing that if we were to achieve that would make everything else easier or more relevant?

Steve Rush: That's a great question, isn't it?

Richard Medcalf: And I think just focusing on that, so what's the one thing right now that we most need to do? Right. I think that's just a really simple way of thinking about this.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Richard Medcalf: And the answer to that lens, right, that focus. My particular angle on strategic thinking is, I suppose I kind of call it exponential leadership, right. So, I'm always thinking, you know, how do we multiply impact rather than add value? How do we multiply value, not add value? How do we multiply things? And the way to think about that is, what's the constraint, right? Where is the constraint in the system in which we're operating at the moment? There's pretty more than we can get into right now on that and exactly all the constraints, but for example, we have limited time, we have limited attention, we have limited resources, you know, there are kind of things.

We might have limited ambition, right. I need to understand, like what frustrate me personally, as a leader and also in the organization. And again, the goal here is to find, what's the one area that if we were to address and improve would allow all this whole system, this business, for example, to kind of expand up to the next level of impact or to the next level of results? And for me, that's kind of the question. So, it's about rather than just turning the handle on the machine, it's trying to step back and look at the machine we've built and think about, you know, what's the one thing that's holding back performance? Just a little point on that. If people are interested in this idea of exponential leadership and moving from a more of an incremental, to more of a multiplicative mindset, I've actually written a short email series is about, I think, six emails and people on my newsletter have just been going through them. And I think I've had more feedback on that one email series than anything else I've ever written. So, it's really resonating with people, it's called The Exponential Leadership Principles. And it walks through, you know, these different constraints and what and do to overcome them. If people are interested, they can just go to xquadrant.com/hacker is a simple way for them to find their way there from this podcast.

Steve Rush: We also make sure that links in the show notes, because as you said, it's just a simple process that gets people to think and reflect, and that's half the challenge, isn't it with strategic thinking? It's giving yourself the capacity, the time that you need to be thoughtful about what it is you're doing.

Richard Medcalf: Yeah, it could because just one insight can change anything, right. One insight can certainly make us see the world in a new way, see the options we have differently. See, what's not working, that we're spending so much time on or whatever it is. And so often it's just encountering new ideas, new people, having new conversations that opens us up, right. To get onto a different trajectory.

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely right. Yeah. Now you managed to interview some of the world's largest CEOs on The Impact Multiplier Podcast. And it's really interesting to dive into, I've listened to quite a few of your episodes now, and they all bring different perspectives and different stories, but there are still some commonalities. And I'm sure you find, as I do with many of our guests, that there are some common themes. From your perspective in having those conversations, Richard, what would you say is the maybe the most common challenge that keeps representing itself in and amongst these CEOs and Executives?

Richard Medcalf: Yeah, I've seen this. Yeah, right on the podcast and in my own work with these kinds of leaders. Actually, there's a couple of things on trends. I mean, a bonus point, I'd almost say one of the things I've really seen as a success component actually is a theme, you know, is (A) genuinely being interested in people, right. And (B) really thinking about creating structures that multiply in fact, right. I interviewed some of the CEOs of the fastest growing companies in Europe and in the U.S. and like their common refrain was how they pushed down decision making responsibility, created independent little entities, you know, and empowered leaders who could build their own subparts of the business, and really, really interesting. In terms of the challenges. I mean, I suppose what I really see is, I think there's an internal challenge actually in a lot of people, which is even at that level, it's about confidence and imposter syndrome and all those things that's always there. There is that kind of focus challenge of getting out the weeds. I think, you know, they all say, you know, my next level is going to involve me living behind even more operational tasks, right. Trusting in my team, even more. Focusing, even more on some of the new areas, perhaps it's, you know, it's an acquisition plan they want to roll out or whatever it is. And so, continuing to get out the weeds and focus on higher level tasks. And the third one is, that one around nailing the critical conversations. So, you know, leadership is delivered one convers and at a time, and you can have all the plans and strategies you want, but actually just slowing down to master that one conversation with that one report, that one stakeholder, whoever it is, perhaps bringing them on board to what you're trying to achieve is really important. And so, I think perhaps those three areas that, you know, be in a game of confidence, the kind of higher-level activities and those critical conversations would be the three themes that I see come up.

Steve Rush: Awesome. Yeah, good. And delighted you share those now, however, I'm going to turn the tables a bit and hacking to your top thinking and your top tips for the future. And I know we think about tips and hacks and ideas. People kind of have this different perspective about what they mean. And in essence, hacking for me is just shorting into your great thinking. So, if you think about your career as a leader and what you do now, if you had to kind of get them into your top three tips or hacks, what would they be?

Richard Medcalf: Number one would be play the long game, which means they'll always be so transactional, right. It's easy to kind of get transactional and just focus on the thing in front of you, but, you know, build relationships for the long term. Think about where you want to be, you know, a little bit longer than the next year or the next quarter. Play the long game, right. And build relationships that last, right. So that'd be number one. The second one would be, go in the direction of your discomfort. See the discomfort zone is where you learn, that's where you grow and therefore treat imposter syndrome as a feature and not a bug. In other words, when you're feeding imposter syndrome, it generally means that your confidence is lagging your competency, in fact and it also means that you are actually playing a bigger game, right. You're pushing yourself; you are seeking to add more value and as a result, it feels a little bit uncomfortable. So, I think that second one, go in the direction of your discomfort.

Steve Rush: I love that.

Richard Medcalf: And then, I think the third one would be, I guess it comes back to what I talked about earlier is, focus on the key constraint, think about multiplication and not addition. Goes back to that email of course, I mentioned. Goes back to that thinking around yeah. How do I stop just using my time, doing the same tasks, time and time again? And how do I invest my time?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Richard Medcalf: To remove constraints

Steve Rush: Three fantastic hacks. I particularly love the idea of playing the long game. I guarantee many people listening to this will be going, ah, because we often don't think long game. We think, you know, this quarter, this year, next year, but actually it's all part of the long game, isn't it?

Richard Medcalf: Yeah, it's what I said. I thought about, where do I want to be when I'm 90?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Richard Medcalf: One thing I love to ask my clients, you know, is what's so important to you that you have to 100 X it? What really matters, right? What do you really want a 100 X? So, for me, for example, wouldn't it be amazing if I got a 100 X, you know, the number of leaders who really point to me as a real catalyst for the impact that they've had in the world, right. As somebody who's really helped them a 100 X their impact. So, I'm on a mission, you know, I said, let's actually do that for a hundred leaders, right. Let's actually a hundred X the impact of a hundred leaders, that'd be a fantastic legacy. So that's what I'm excited about, but play the long game, think about, what would that 25-year vision be? What would be bring a silly grin to your face? Because it's so exciting, get a bit embarrassing. Because you're not sure how you're going to do it.

Steve Rush: Yeah. My unconscious thinking though, is just worrying and ticking as I'm thinking about my own long game. So, I'm hoping that it's inspiring our listeners in the same way. Next part of the show, Richard, we call Hack to Attack. So, this is affectionately where we dive into something in your life or work that has not worked out as you'd planned, could have been a complete catastrophe. It could have been a minor hiccup, but as a result of that event, it's now serving you well as a learning in your life or work, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Richard Medcalf: Yeah, I think when I look at my time at Cisco, I think there was a period at that time and perhaps it was okay. It was just life. There was a bit of a time in that 10-year period where I think I stagnated a little bit I, my kids were very young. I was in my comfort zone, shall we say, right. So, I was delivering, I was performing, people like my work, but I think I had not necessarily growing and not necessarily increasing my impact for a period. And looking back, I felt that's a bit of a missed opportunity because just like putting money in the bank, you know, things compound over time, right. If you want to play an exponential game, things compound over time. One example that's recently come to my mind is, you know, dominoes, right. If you lineup dominoes and you knock the first one over, it can knock over another domino, that's 50% bigger than itself. And then that one can knock over another domino that's 50% bigger and that's again, exponential, right. And so, I think I got into a time at Cisco where my dominoes were all the same size, shall we say, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Richard Medcalf: And it was okay. But I think that also started to kind of, I got to a think at a stage where I realized that perhaps I'd missed some opportunities and again, I had a good career, right. Good thing, and I got into this amazing team that was, you know, reporting to the CEO. And so, it wasn't a bad moment, but I think within that, before I got into that team, there was a phase where perhaps I wasn't making the most opportunities that I've been presented with. Wasn't my eye on the ball. And so, I think that's something I've really thought about now is, invest in myself, you know and reinvent. I think probably reinvent is probably the best word, right. So, I always say to people, what's your Madonna moment? You know, Madonna who, you know, turns up and she's like, we got a new style and, you know, whatever it is or any other rock band or pop star, who's been around for a long time. And most of them have had moments where they've reinvented themselves and they've changed things up.

Steve Rush: That's right, yeah.

Richard Medcalf: And I did when I left Cisco, you know, I changed things up. And it's worked really, really well. And I think continuing to reinvent ourselves, not to leave things behind actually. We think we are leaving things behind, but we don't, we just build upon them, right. And we add to ourselves, we become more multifaceted, and I think that's what I would say. So, reinvent ourselves.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Richard Medcalf: Get stuck.

Steve Rush: Cool. Now the last part of the show, we've affectionately become used to giving our guests some time to do some time travel. And you get to go and bump into Richard at 21 and give him some words of wisdom. What would your advice to Richard at 21 be?

Richard Medcalf: I think, I'd say read self-development books. Invest in yourself more, generally, never be scared of investing in yourself. Don't always wait for your company to do the investing in yourself and always be wary of the comfort zone. And I kind of knew that in some ways. But I think all those things I kind of learned more and more over time. Yeah, so now I invest in myself more than, you know, more than ever by orders a magnitude. I remember when I was in the corporate world, I was invited to go to a conference by a friend who's running the conference. I knew it was going to be a really, really good conference, but I didn't go because I had to pay for like a 200 Euro, you know, Eurostar ticket or something, right. The company wasn’t going to pay. And so, I said, oh, I'm not going to go then, and ridiculous right. I mean, and nowadays I write checks for, you know, five figure checks, right. I wrote check for $25,000, the other day for my own self development, right. Because it's so important.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Richard Medcalf: And yet, you know, there I was in a well pay corporate job and even spending a few hundred euros, seemed like a bit of an ask. It's completely ridiculous. So, investing ourselves is the best investment we can make.

Steve Rush: Great advice. So, what's next for Richard and Xquadrant then?

Richard Medcalf: Well, there's quite a few things. This year we're kicking off a CEO mastermind group. I've got a group of really, really incredible CEOs. Some of them are running kind of startups, scale up. Some of them got million-dollar companies in the U.S. and in Europe and other places around the world. And we're creating that community, which is really, really exciting because, you know, iron sharpens iron, right. You know, you get these really impressed, capable leaders together, often of whom they don't get enough of that peer input. And that's really exciting group. And then I'm also doing another program for kind of the slightly lower-level leaders as well, but another kind of community for them called Xquadrant Core. We kicked off the first session of that a couple of weeks ago. And that was a really strong start as well. So, there's a couple of kind of programs I've been up to. And moreover, what I'm focused on is that mission right. Of helping a hundred top leaders multiply their impact by a hundred. That's what gets me out me of bed.

Steve Rush: Yeah, awesome. And if we want to connect our audience with you beyond today, we know we've got that one link that we shared a little earlier, but where's the best place for us to send them?

Richard Medcalf: Yes, absolutely. So obviously, if you go to xquadrant.com/hacker, that's going to be a blog post. You can sign up at the bottom to my email and newsletter, The Xquadrant Insider, which is where basically once a month, I talk about something around this whole idea of multiplying impact. And you can deep dive into different topics if you're interested at that point. The podcast you mentioned as well, right. The Impact to Multiplier CEO Podcast where I interview some really interesting business leaders. And people are always happy to look me up on LinkedIn. Just if you send me an invitation request, just customize your message so that I know why you're connecting and where you found me. And I'm always happy to have a conversation, right. Because play the long game, build interesting relationships with interesting people, add value and generally good things come back to you over time when you take that approach

Steve Rush: And we'll help people play that long game by making sure those links are in our show notes as well.

Richard Medcalf: That's perfect.

Steve Rush: Richard, I've really enjoyed chatting with you and looking forward to you and I working together in the future. And I'm really looking forward to letting our audience find out a little bit more about the work that you do and explore some great things together. Thanks for being part of our leadership packet community Richard.

Richard Medcalf: You're welcome. It's been fantastic.

Steve Rush: Thanks very much.

Closing

Steve Rush: I want to sign off by saying thank you to you for joining us on the show too. We recognize without you, there is no show. So please continue to share, subscribe, and like, and continue to get in touch with us with the great new stories that we share every week. And so that we can continue to bring you great stories, please make sure you give us a five-star review where you can and share this podcast with your friends, your teams, and communities. You want to find us on social media. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter @leadershiphacker, Leadership Hacker on YouTube and on Instagram, the_leadership_hacker and if that wasn’t enough, you can also find us on our website leadership-hacker.com Tune into next episode to find out what great hacks and stories are coming your way. That's me signing off. I'm Steve Rush, and I've been your Leadership Hacker.

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Rasha Hasaneen is the Vice President of Innovation and Product Excellence for Trane Technologies. A former executive with global businesses, Rasha also leads the Center for Healthy & Efficient Spaces as Executive Director. In this show learn about:

Why, when the world is diving into ESG and Climate measures we are not normally drawn to consider inside spaces, – why is that?
Why is how we live indoors so crucial to a sustainable future?
What is the impact on productivity loss due to unhealthy indoor spaces?
Covid 19 is not the first pandemic and not likely to be the last, learn about the “extra layer.”

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Rasha below:

Rasha on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rashahasaneen/

Rasha on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rhasaneen

Company Website: https://www.tranetechnologies.com

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Today's special guest is Rasha Hasaneen. She's a Vice President and Executive Director, at Trane Technologies where she runs Center for Healthy & Efficient Spaces. Rasha is also a board of advisor member, a board member for a number of technology and climate tech companies and councils. But before we get a chance to speak with Rasha, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we explore whether or not organizations and leaders are taking ESG seriously. And if they do, how it can directly correlate to great results. The letters ESG of course stand for Environmental, Social and Governance, and are typically how organizations structure activities and commitments to each be it greenhouse gases and emissions and waste, that's E. Staff, labor, relations, employee safety, that's the S or board diversity in supply chain management, that's the G and while most organizations will have a view and a lens. Having tactical and focused activities can be really relevant to the business world and more and more shareholders and stakeholders, as well as customers, staff and consumers are starting to take more notice around ESG and ESG ratings.

The momentum towards ESG has not slowed with the pandemic. The crisis has intensified and reinforced the important issues of ESG. George Serafeim, a Harvard Business School Professor and ESG expert said COVID 19 has caused us to dive deeper and integrate our ESG inside organizations around them management and their strategy. And it's no longer just about feel-good issues. We're talking about even more important value drivers. So, let's have a look at how ESG can really drive shareholder return and maximize value for the organization. In one HBR Study, they found that $1 investment yielded $28 return over 20 years for companies that focused on ESG. And those that didn't focus on ESG measures only returned $14. In a recent study by McKinsey's, they explained executing ESG effectively can help combat rising operating expenses. Affecting operating profits as much as 60%. For leaders who want to reap such reports, they should immediately begin measuring ESG metrics alongside other KPIs.

Of course, companies can then demonstrate what they measure and the impact that has to returns, and ESG helps with talent too. According to Wharton, Professor Peter Cappelli. Most hiring is a result of drastically poor retention. This issue has only been compounded in recent years with Mercer Global Talent Trends, 2020, calling the great recession. Revealing that nearly half, that's 46% of C-suites believe that their organization is ill equipped to attain, attract, the right talent. Though ESG and talent may seem unrelated, they are deeply correlated. A study from Marsha McLean & McLennan found employers with an attractive ESG strategy, attract, and retained the best talent in the marketplace. In addition, saw performance roughly 25% higher than average employers. There's enormous amount of evidence pointing that ESG is a value driver and will be even more of when moving forward. So, if leaders want to win, they should be putting those three letters, ESG at the heart of their strategies. That's been The Leadership Hacker News, as always please get in touch, in news, stories or insights that you might have.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Rasha Hasaneen is our special guest on today's show. She's the Vice President of Innovation and product excellence for Trane Technologies, a former executive with Global Businesses. Rasha now leads the Center for Healthy & Efficient Spaces as Executive Director for Trane Technologies, Rasha welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Rasha Hasaneen: Thank you, Steve. It's a pleasure to be here.

Steve Rush: So, you and I have taken an absolute age to try and get together, right? With the moving schedules, global pandemic but we are finally here at last.

Rasha Hasaneen: Yes, agreed. It's been a little crazy. I mean, every time we think there's, you know, there's light at the end of the tunnel, there's more to come. And so, I think we're all trying to navigate it as best we can

Steve Rush: Indeed. And the first time you and I met, we were talking around climate change and the role that Trane Technologies plays in that. And if anything, timing's perfect because the world has just really grab hold of the whole climate change initiative, hasn't it?

Rasha Hasaneen: You bet, absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah. I'm looking forward to getting into that in a moment before we do, though, we love our guests to give our audience the opportunity to share their backstory and understand a little bit about how they've arrived to do what they do. Tell us a little bit about Rasha?

Rasha Hasaneen: You bet. So, I'm originally Egyptian. I moved to the United States very young. My mom came here to study. And then, you know, I spent my formative years between sort of the U.S. and the Middle East. Came back to do University, actually in Canada. So, I am also Canadian. Then worked for a few years, came back to the U.S., did a Masters, then sort of dug in on the digital side of things. So, I worked in Silicon Valley for a number of years. Decided I was really interested in sustainability with a big S, versus sort of sustainability with a little less S. Sort of doing stuff at home and composting and doing all the cool stuff. I wanted to really understand how I could impact climate change at the time.

I will not date myself by telling you when the time was, but it was before climate change was cool. But I realized that sort of the combination of digital technologies with actually the industrial world was going to have a much bigger impact than the combination of digital technologies with the consumer world, which was kind of all the rage at the time. This was the early days of Amazon, again, dating myself. The early days of Amazon. You know, I had an iPod before the iPhone came out, which a lot of listeners may not remember.

Steve Rush: Yep.

Rasha Hasaneen: But it became clear to me that actually the integration of digital and industrial was really where it was going to be. And so, I went back and did the Doctorate, focusing on sustainability, but really focusing on industrial businesses. Made my change from Silicon Valley to sort of oil and gas and power. Finished my Doctorate. And then I was really on the supply side, I would say of climate change. So, power generation, you know, fossils versus renewables, et cetera. And then at the time Ingersol Rand, which then became Trane Technologies, came to me and said, hey, how would you like to be on the demand side? And they presented a very compelling argument about what it means to be on the demand side of climate change and really understanding how to reduce consumption through efficiency and so on. And so, they convinced me, and I joined the company to do product excellence and innovation and have never looked back since.

Steve Rush: Awesome. So where did the bug come from? Because the whole career so far for you has been around sustainability.

Rasha Hasaneen: Yes.

Steve Rush: And where did that kind of a little S turn into a big S?

Rasha Hasaneen: For me, you know, I'll share a very personal story. When I was working in Silicon Valley, I got really sick. I was in the hospital for about nine days in the intensive care unit. I was very young. And until that point I was kind of invincible and so was the world. And then you kind of examine your own vulnerabilities at that point. And then, for me, it was more about what, you know, you get to a point where it was like, what do you want to do with your life? And you want to do something that matters, right? And you also want to do something you're good at, and that you enjoy. So, I knew I enjoyed building things. I enjoyed, you know, building teams from scratch, doing things that were completely new and what I loved to do.

And so, when it came to where I could apply my skillset in a way that would really help, sustainability became sort of part of the narrative for me personally, right. It was like, you know, how do we make businesses more sustainable? How do we make it better for people all over the world? Not just people in certain economic situations or in certain countries. And how does that the ubiquity of climate, how do you impact that? It was a big problem to solve, and it seems really overwhelming. And that was kind of, you know, it became a big puzzle for me, like, it's overwhelming, how do you break it down into kind of bite size pieces? And so, I started to understand it more and I wanted to really work on something that would really like change the world.

And, you know, at the time, you know, apps were growing in popularity. And so, people would make apps for everything, right. I think at one point there was an iFart app. I was like, that's not what I want to work on. And so, I started to really sort of get the bug back for, you know, industrial businesses, I’m Mechanical Engineer by trade. My Masters is in Industrial Engineering, so I kind of missed that sort of the tangibility of being part of a business that builds things. But I also knew that it was that combination of my digital experience, bringing it to sort of the heavy metal type industry that was really going to make a difference. And every time I looked at something that was made better by digital, it was like the gains were humongous. And, so for me, it was really about doing something of import with sort of your superpowers. And that's kind of how I landed here. Some of it was serendipity of course. But a lot of it was really just having an internal sort of self-reflection over a period where your kind of most vulnerable, I think.

Steve Rush: It's a great reflection. So, when it comes to climate change, our listeners are probably thinking, you know, traditional ESG measures. It's unlikely that when they do think of climate measures that they think of indoors.

Rasha Hasaneen: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And being drawn to consider indoor spaces, what's the reason it doesn't get the same profile, maybe as some of the other more explicit things that folk are undertaking right now?

Rasha Hasaneen: Absolutely. Great question. And it's a question I think about a lot. So historically it has taken a very long time, even for climate measures to become acknowledged as quote unquote real or something that we need to pay attention to. It took focused effort by science and researchers. It took, you know seasons and seasons of intense weather for sort of this very deliberate approach to take hold among the population. Indoor climates are very similar. They're intangible, right. Like your indoor climate is fine until it's not.

Steve Rush: Right.

Rasha Hasaneen: And it has to be really bad for you to want to do something. Like, just think about your own home, right? Like you're in your home, if you're a little cold, you put on a blanket, right. You know, if it's a little stuffy, you open a window or you kind of deal with it. And it's not until like somebody burns something that you're like, okay, I got to turn on the hood vent. I've got to clear out the smoke and it's got to really be irritating. And humans tend to go to the bad, like I want to make the bad better. I rarely want to make the good, better if it's good, it's fine. And indoor spaces are no different. The impact of negative indoor environments is chronic. It's not acute. So, it happens over time, and it could be so many factors. And like, is it genetic? Is it this? Is it that? Why do I have asthma? And so, in the south here, in the United States, we call it the boiling frog syndrome, right. If you put a frog in really hot water, it jumps right out. But if you put a frog in cold water and you heat up the water slowly, it can boil to death. I know it's very gruesome, but without realizing that that's what's happening to it. And that's kind of how indoor environments are. You can't see it. Most of the times, you can't smell it. You can't feel it. And so, these indoor environments are not given as much attention by individuals.

Steve Rush: Mm, and also. People perceive climate change to be an outside thing. They don't actually make the association that it's everything around us.

Rasha Hasaneen: Inside, exactly. And so, were so focused on planetary health and sort of, you know, our very existence that we won't always then come back and think about human health. And if you just think about ESG metrics, the E gets a lot of attention. The S gets a little bit of attention, but not nearly as much. And human health is really a part of that social piece, right?

Steve Rush: Right.

Rasha Hasaneen: So, if you think about, you know, environmental, social, and governance, that social piece, that human health, the health of employees. The health of communities, it's something that's very big. It's very nebulous, very much a like climate change, but hasn't gotten the same attention. And people don't realize that, you know, you experience 90% of the outdoors in indoors, right. Because that's where you spent most of your time. And if you're bringing outdoor air in, if you're bringing in, you know, outdoor lights, you're bringing that in, but you don't think about it that way, because those walls are up and it feels very safe inside and you could be creating some negative health effects or maybe not negative health effects, but they're not super positive, right?

Steve Rush: Right.

Rasha Hasaneen: They're okay.

Steve Rush: Yeah. What are the things that contribute to inside sustainability? The things that are around us at work and at home we can be thought full about.

Rasha Hasaneen: That's another really great question. So, I think that what people most associate with is thermal comfort, right. Am I too hot? Am I too cold? If I'm too warm, you know, I can't sleep. I can't work. I can't get creative. I have to sort of get to the right temperature and that's absolutely part of it, but you also have a number of other factors. Air quality is one of the main one’s. Different levels of what we've historically measured as a proxy, CO2 can improve or decrease productivity and the amount of CO2 in a space can make you sleepy, but it can also make it very hard for you to think and process information and complete tasks. In addition, you know, with respect to air, you know, there's compounds that are generated all the time, either by the materials in your room or by activities of people, we call them volatile organic compounds.

Those can be pretty harmful. They can be irritants. You hear about allergen, so air quality is a huge part of it. Lighting is another part of it. We've seen a lot of focus on lighting recently with the capability that LED gives you. So, when you had incandescent bulbs, you know, it was just one temperature, it was on or off, and so, you took it for granted. The productivity that came with the introduction of electricity and indoor lighting will far outweighed any potential issues with lighting. But as we started to have more access to light emitting diodes, now you could vary dimness, so light intensity, you could vary the temperature of the light. Is it white? Is it yellow? Is it sort of darker or lighter? You see daylight bulbs come out; does it simulate daylight?

So, lighting has a huge component on our circadian rhythm, but it also plays a huge part in how well we also process information and so on. So, the third one here is lighting. And that's part of a bigger sort of piece around visual comfort. And that includes things like outside views. It includes things like, is there enough greenery? You know, our bodies are programmed to feel better when we are exposed to things that are good around us. And we're programmed to love plants and love outside views and so on. So, lighting and visual comfort is really important. And so, the last part of this is really acoustics. So, acoustics is really about sound and noise and really poor acoustics that you get from either equipment in a building or even externally coming in. So outside noise pollution can have a huge impact on how productive you are, how well you sleep. So, you might be able to sleep. You might be able to work, but the quality of that sleep and that work matters. And that has a lot to do with ambient noise, whether it's noise intensity, or noise frequency.

Steve Rush: That's really insightful actually. And as you were spinning through those different themes, I'm putting myself in that scenario in my office and thinking about, oh, I'm not got enough light here or you know, I know how frustrated I get when I hear some outside noise and I get distracted easily.

Rasha Hasaneen: Right.

Steve Rush: They're all things that contribute to that. So not only is that sustainable, but absolutely has a direct correlation to people's wellbeing, doesn't it?

Rasha Hasaneen: Exactly. That's exactly right, right. So, we think about LED lights, for example, we use the lighting example as being a phenomenal way to reduce energy intensity in the home or in the office, right? So, you see all these sort of LED projects where I'm like I'm going out and replacing all of the lighting in a skyscraper, all of the lighting in a mall. But what you don't understand is, what we are starting to understand is that that also improves wellbeing. So, that technology has enabled us to vary lighting temperature in a way to make, you know, and commercial organizations have known this for a very long time, right. The type of lighting you have changes, you're buying behavior. So, if I want to buy something, it's got to have the right lighting around it in order for me to be attracted, to buying that. Or if I'm at a restaurant, I have to have the right ambiance in order for me to feel relaxed or romantic or whatever it is you're aspiring to do in terms of the restaurant.

Steve Rush: Right.

Rasha Hasaneen: LED lights have turbocharged that, right. So, in an effort to reduce energy intensity and improve outdoor kind of sustainability or the carbon footprint of the built environment, we've also introduced a tool that can improve human health indoors, but you have to use that tool. So even though for example, LED lighting is very dimmable, most switches are still on, off. The dimmability of light is very important, right. You need to reduce light intensity throughout the day so that you can sleep at night, so you can be healthy the next day, so you can be productive. And, we're still learning in the built environment, how to do that. Air quality is no different, acoustics are no different, right. And so, as we're starting to learn about the impact of these different elements on human health, we can start to change how we build things, how we implement these systems in a way to take full advantage of not only their impact on sustainability, on climate, the big climate, but also their impact of the indoor climate on human health and start to tune these environments in a way that allow you to have different environments for different situations.

Steve Rush: It's far more scientific than most people give this credit, right?

Rasha Hasaneen: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: You are talking about it in almost a forensic way, which I love by the way. I think it's really insightful, but I wonder how many people have to struggle with getting as thoughtful about that?

Rasha Hasaneen: You're absolutely right. And we did a survey recently of just homeowners, right. So commercial spaces are a little bit different because a lot of times, you know, facility managers and building owners are really focused on employees, but the home tends to be where kind of your average consumer is. And when we talk about indoor air quality, for example, it's like, so what are the types of things you would do to improve your air quality? It's like, we light a candle. And you're like, oh my, right. Because it's like that fantastic. Except you know, there's so much more to air chemistry, you know, than lighting a candle and you could be making it worse.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rasha Hasaneen: Funny story, we're doing a project with a company in India and it's an indoor air quality sensor. And they had put it in these locations and every day and around the same time, they would see these particulates go up, right. And particulates are not great for a lot of reasons. They kind of get into your lungs and they cause asthma. But they also kind of carry viruses, bacteria, et cetera. And some particulates would go up and they would spike around the sensor. And so, they went to this place, and it turns out they were like lighting incense to worship. And it's like, okay, well, you might not want to get too close to God right now, right. Or in this way, there's other ways. But they were lighting incense right around this sensor. And the incense was creating, you know, this really crazy indoor environment. Now, again, in the grand scheme of things, right.

Huge space, little stick of incense, not a big deal, but that's how people think about this kind of air quality. It's very unspecific, unscientific, but really the impacts on human health, super scientific, lots of studies out there that show the impacts of different elements of air and light and acoustics on productivity and health. And so, there's a lot out. And the challenge we're going to have through the pandemic have been sensitized to this is really bringing that science to the average consumer in a way that they can understand it and that they can digest it, right. And then really developing solutions where I don't have to have the consumer know every scientific detail to implement those solutions where they can just say, hey, I want a room for an asthmatic child. Can you please dial that in for me?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rasha Hasaneen: Right, and somebody else who understands the science, who understands the situation can help them really get the best indoor environment.

Steve Rush: And it's like anything with, if you take the whole climate or journey to net zero, whatever your focus is right now.

Rasha Hasaneen: Yeah.

Steve Rush: It's everybody taking personal responsibility to do their bit, that will make the big difference overall, right?

Rasha Hasaneen: Absolutely. And there are definitely strategies just like with anything else that could give you a really fantastic indoor environment that could have a really devastating impact on the climate, which then creates a poorer outdoor environment, which makes you have to work harder to create this really good indoor environment. So, I'll give you an example of that. If you in an urban environment, a lot of times the immediate microclimate around where you live or where you work is not fantastic, right. So, then you get the indoor environment, and you know, guidance that says, hey, you need to ventilate. The easiest way to ventilate is to open a window. Well, if you're out in the country, or if you're in a suburban environment, chances are your outdoor air is fantastic. And if you open up a window, you're going to create a really great indoor environment.

However, if you have an HVAC System, if you've got your air conditioner on, summer, you have your air conditioner on. It's going to have to work harder because your kind of air conditioning, the world, right. All of that cool air sort of goes out your window, and the hot air comes in. So, it's going to work harder. It's going to use more energy. A lot of that energy is still very much fossils, and you're going to start to get a degrading outdoor environment. So even when you now open the window, you're not going to get the environment you want. If you're in an urban environment, you're already there.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rasha Hasaneen: When you open a window in an urban environment, a lot the CO2 and all of those things that are accumulated inside, they dilute, that's great. But what you're bringing in could have different things going on, right. You could have different pollutants coming in, allergen, smoke, VOCs, et cetera, depending on where you are in an urban environment. So, it's not easy, right. It's not easy. And your actions as an individual have a direct impact on climate. So, if you do one of these things and you have to use more energy to do it, multiply that by 7 billion people.

Steve Rush: Right.

Rasha Hasaneen: Right, so if everybody, and not 7 billion, not all 7 billion people have air conditioning systems, but a billion, let's talk about a billion, right. If everybody opens their windows and keeps their air conditioner on, or if everybody opens their windows, turns it off, then everything gets hot or everything gets cold depending on whether or not summer or winter or where you are in the world. Then you have to bring down the temperature again or bring up the temperature again, if it's cold, that air conditioning unit is working so much harder, multiplied by a billion.

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly

Rasha Hasaneen: Right. And so that's the issue, and that's just homes, right. Now, let's talk about industrial environments or commercial environments and so on. And so, there are things that if you do them, could give you a negative environment on climate and give you a positive outcome when it comes to indoor environments. And the key is to get those indoor environments in a way that also reduces your greenhouse gas footprint, because you don't want to do one at the expense of the other. And that's why, you know, we call it The Center for Healthy & Efficient Spaces. It's because we want to make sure that the actions we're recommending to our clients, we want to make sure that the actions that I recommend in these podcasts are actions that will have a positive impact on both indoor and outdoor climates.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's all about pulling levers and getting balances. Isn't it?

Rasha Hasaneen: Exactly. That's exactly right.

Steve Rush: Yeah. Now you mentioned this a little earlier on, as you were talking through the different things that we could be thinking about, and you mentioned productivity, and there's a real business case that sits behind this, alongside that sustainability case, isn't there?

Rasha Hasaneen: There absolutely is. So, if you look at a given building, right, let's say you're renting a space in a building or you've got a building and you've got a small business, you're an entrepreneur. The amount of money you spend on energy is a 10th of maybe the amount of money you're going to spend on people. It could be as much as the hundredth, right? So, it's a much smaller amount of money that you're going to spend on things like utilities and that's sort of our proxy for energy consumption, right. But your people are probably going to be one of your biggest assets and the health of those people becomes a huge economic lever for you as a business owner. We know, for example, that indoor air quality can have a productivity. So, let's just take indoor air quality as an example, and we can do this.

We have studies on lighting. We study on acoustics, but I like air for a couple of reasons, you know. It's not just about sort of direct productivity every day, cognitive function, et cetera, but think about airborne pathogen transmission, which is still, I think, top of mind for a lot of people with the pandemic kind of still raging. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year is lost in productivity due to absenteeism.

Steve Rush: Right.

Rasha Hasaneen: Same with schools, then you combine both, absenteeism as a result of kids being sick from school. And then there's hundreds of billions more of loss productivity as a result of employees working while sick. Now think about that. I don't even have to make everybody perfectly safe from pathogen transmission. Like, I don't need to reduce a hundred percent of pathogen transmission in a building to improve this. If I can just improve the air quality in a building such that I reduce transmission of cold or flu, or COVID in this particular case by 10%, tens of billions, right. 20%, like, just think about that. Those are not big numbers, but if I create these environments in such a way that I can just reduce absenteeism, that's hundreds of billions of dollars.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rasha Hasaneen: And that's, just one part of the productivity. We know that air quality impacts asthma, chronic illnesses, which reduce productivity without creating absenteeism, right. If you're a chronic sufferer asthma or upper respiratory disease that has an impact on your productivity, but also impact cognitive function, right, as much as 30%. You can have poor indoor air quality and just your ability to process things and do tasks at work goes down dramatically.

Steve Rush: That's a significant amount of time too, isn't it?

Rasha Hasaneen: Absolutely, and learning, right. So, we think about school systems and the measures they have with student learning. Let's take out absenteeism for a second, right. Like just kids being sick. We found that, not we, researchers have found that the indoor environment can have as significant and impact on test scores as grades. So just think about public test. You want to predict how well a student is going to do on a test, okay. On a public test. There's a number of factors that can give you an indication of how well that student is going to do. The most common one we think about is, are they a good student? Do they get good grades? That has a really strong correlation with how well they're going to do on these tests. As strong a correlation, how good is their indoor environment?

Steve Rush: Wow.

Rasha Hasaneen: As strong a correlation on how well they're going to do on this test is whether or not while taking that test, do they have a good indoor environment? And that includes acoustics, it includes lighting and includes air, and it includes temperature. And so, you're thinking about this and you're like that child's ability to score on a test is that dramatically impacted by indoor environments. Like it boggles the mind, right. And these are, I mean, these are scientific studies. They're peer reviewed, they're out there. You can kind of see them, but I mean, these are, you know, they've done control groups and testing doing these things on days where it's good indoor environments, days on bad indoor environments, it's amazing to me and that's the type of productivity we're talking about. And so again, there's so many people on the earth, right. Multiply that by hundreds or millions or billions. And you're talking about a huge sort of impact, not just on human health, but also on sort of economic productivity.

Steve Rush: Yeah. It's amazing when you start to just think of the tiny little changes we could make and then multiplication across the globe, we can make a massive difference, not just for sustainability, but also productivity and wellbeing.

Rasha Hasaneen: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Really fascinating.

Rasha Hasaneen: And then when you think about, just to close this up, when you think about the places that have poor indoor environmental quality, it's typically those places that don't have a lot of investment.

Steve Rush: Right.

Rasha Hasaneen: And therefore, they're in disadvantaged communities and disadvantaged areas. So, it exacerbates any equity issues we have, right. So, you just think about social equity and having sort of high-quality indoor environments as a human right almost, right. To say, look guys, like kids in school and disadvantaged communities, have the card stacked up against them already. And this is yet another card that's kind of stacked up against those who are less fortunate. And so, you start to look at the equity impacts of this and how much this exacerbates that. And you start to realize that a lot of where we think about human health and social equity, it comes right down to, you know, can I create these indoor environments for people in different economic situations, in such a way that I'm leveling the scales a little bit as it relates to social equity.

Steve Rush: So, ponding, how many of our listeners right now are thinking about their environment as they listen to this? Very interesting to get some feedback from our listeners about that, wouldn't it?

Rasha Hasaneen: Oh, you bet.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rasha Hasaneen: Absolutely would love to hear from listeners on that.

Steve Rush: So, we're going to flip it a little now, and this is where I get to hack into your leadership brain.

Rasha Hasaneen: Awesome.

Steve Rush: But before I do that, I just wanted to get a sense from you that if I was a listener listening to this and I was a leader or an entrepreneur, where's the first place I should really start to think? What's the immediate kind of win I can make?

Rasha Hasaneen: When it comes to indoor environmental quality, it depends on your situation, right. If you're working, you know, from home, if you have control over the environment, definitely you can start by doing things as simple as improving your lighting, right. You can get LED lights pretty much from any hardware store, you can get dimmers. You can improve of your lighting. You can connect with your HVAC provider, make sure you have the right number of air changes that you're getting enough ventilation, that you've got filters, right. The simplest thing is make sure your filters are changed on a regular basis. You know, there's a lot you can do when it comes to acoustics, to insulate things like window coverings and in fact, now there's actual window coverings that say on them, how much energy they save. You know, there's a lot you can do when it comes to your own space or the space for your employees. And then you can also consider in room type solutions. If you don't have access to those broader systems, right? So, we carry an in-room air purification solution, you just plug it in and run it and away it goes, and you do a little bit of maintenance. You can do an in room HEPA. You can think about opening windows on a regular basis to make sure there's enough ventilation. So, there is a lot that can be done by the individual, by a small business, an entrepreneur just by being conscious of this, if you want to do things that are more sophisticated, definitely, you know, you would need to connect with a professional. And I would say, if you do have a larger business or a larger building, it's not a do it yourself.

Steve Rush: No.

Rasha Hasaneen: Right.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rasha Hasaneen: It's definitely not, because you want to make sure you're balancing energy or make sure you're balancing the different elements of indoor environmental quality. So definitely if you're a listener, and you're a building owner or you've got multiple buildings, you're a real estate investor, or you've got sort of a number of opportunities to improve people's and their environments. Don't try to tackle it yourself, definitely reach out to a professional and have them come in, do an indoor air quality assessment or indoor environmental quality assessment, understand where some of the gaps are. There are fantastic certifications, right. Out there for building performance. So, whether it’s wealth certification, fit well certification, there's a number of certifications out there that can be done to ensure, and to communicate to your tenants, that these buildings are optimized for indoor environmental quality,

Steve Rush: Great advice, good hacks too. So, leadership hacks time.

Rasha Hasaneen: Awesome.

Steve Rush: I want to dive into your experience. You've led businesses all over the world, different types of businesses and different types of teams. And I want to try and get into your top three leadership hacks. What would they be?

Rasha Hasaneen: That's a really good question. So, my leadership hacks, or I think there are things that I do deliberately that if I were to say them, you would be like, of course, but most people probably wouldn't do subconsciously. I know I wouldn't do subconsciously. So, the first thing I do is, you know, so most of the teams that I lead are innovative high performing teams. And I think there's a leadership approach that says you have to have a vision and the strategy, and you have to have the answer as a leader. And the answer is you don't. And it's very jarring for employee or for team members that are used to kind of having a more autocratic approach. So, I take collaborative to the sort of, to the extreme and I work with my teams and have for years to build strategies, to build visions. I don't expect to, you know, I don't expect to come up with the vision and kind of have everyone follow. So, for me, it's really around early and often with the team. Talking about the team's vision and the mission and how we want to be seen. And so, that sort of extreme collaboration, I'm not going to call it delegation, but really working with your team and giving them ownership of not just the tactical execution, but also of the strategy. Really for me, has worked exceptionally well. The outcome is a lot better. It's scratchier, and so that's my second sort of leadership hack, which is, don't be afraid if people are uncomfortable, don't be afraid to be uncomfortable because that's when kind the best outcomes are. And I always feel like afterwards people really appreciate discomfort.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rasha Hasaneen: I've had a couple of team members that are just, oh my gosh, I never want to do that again. But most of the time people start to get it and they're like, oh, I get it now, right. And it's like, there's no epiphany there. It's a really uncomfortable place when there's a lot of disagreement about where to go and feels very chaotic, I think at first. So that's the second one, is to really get comfortable with other people's discomfort and your own discomfort, right. Of not having the answers and maybe being seen as vulnerable. And that leads me into my third one, which is really sort of leaning into the vulnerability piece with teams. And again, a lot of times there is this view that the leader has to be a strong leader and you have to kind of carry the burden. And I don't actually think you do, you know, being comfortable with not having the answer, being vulnerable with your team, being very authentic. Like I tend to hear on the side of being transparent.

Steve Rush: Right.

Rasha Hasaneen: And again, for some people that's very uncomfortable, but for a lot of people, I think having that context and transparency, even if it takes a little bit more time matters. And what that then leads me to do is I actually have unstructured time even during the pandemic. I have a lot of unstructured time with people I interact with. And I feel like people really appreciate that. So, by unstructured time, I mean, like we're in a meeting, it's 30 minutes. It may only take 10 minutes to get the work done. But you know, taking that extra 20 minutes to get to know people, having them get to know me. Being really transparent about what's going on just in your life, just creates this sense of empathy with others and with yourself that gives sort of, and I may use a very Southern term here, that allows people to give and get grace, right. Like there's so much of business interaction that is very businessy.

Steve Rush: Right.

Rasha Hasaneen: Get the work done. Don't waste my time. And it's like, no, no, there's grace too. Like no one is perfect. And so, if you know people's circumstances, you can give them grace, if you know people's circumstances, you can be empathetic. And so, when they do make mistakes or if deadlines are missed, there's a very sort of collaborative approach to it versus being very adversarial. And I think that comes with really getting to know people and showing them that kind of grace in interaction. I know they're very wishy washy, but those are my top three.

Steve Rush: Awesome advice. No, not wishy washy at all. The next part of the show, we call it Hack to Attack. This is typically where something in your life or your work hasn't worked out, but there's a real learning that come from that, and it serves you well, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Rasha Hasaneen: I thought, didn’t I already share the time I almost died. Like that was my thing in life that didn't work out well. But you know, that to me is probably the standout one. I've had many sorts of things that haven't worked out well. In Innovation you tend to have something called a pipeline conversion, which is, how many things have to fail, fail is a bad word, but how many things don't turn out the way you expect it before you kind of have something succeed, right. And for me, I look at it like, if things don't break when you're doing them, you're probably not taking enough risk.

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly right.

Rasha Hasaneen: And so, things go wrong around me all the time, right. And the question just is, what are you learning from that? And how are you turning that kind of into a positive experience? And I feel like I do that all the time. I've had a couple of big ones, or probably the biggest is when, you know, you expect your body to do something, and it doesn't want to comply. I like if you expect your body to breathe and it doesn't want to breathe, that's not a good thing, but I did learn a lot around sort of work life balance or work life management, whatever you want to call it, making choices about who to work for, where to work and being sort of an understanding that you're blessed enough to be able to make those choices, because that again, leads to a lot of grace when it comes to working with others. So, for me, it's hard to point to one thing outside of almost dying.

Steve Rush: Yeah, maybe dying kind of does it though, doesn't it?

Rasha Hasaneen: Yeah. That kind of trumps everything you possibly could do.

Steve Rush: So now, the last thing we get to do. You get to do some time travel, bump into Rasha at 21, give her some advice. What would it be?

Rasha Hasaneen: Don't color your hair. That's the advice.

Steve Rush: If you have hair, of course.

Rasha Hasaneen: If you have hair, of course. But me at 21, I did, and I had a lot of it, and it was starting to turn gray. I remember at 21, I was started to get gray, and I was obsessed with coloring the gray and it led to about 20 years of hair damage, which I have now thankfully reversed.

Steve Rush: On a serious note, though. That's really serious advice. If it starts to happen to you, it can change your future outcomes for sure.

Rasha Hasaneen: Yeah. Well, that's it, I mean, for me, it does come down to sort of being really authentic as a leader. Don't color your hair is just a euphemism for that, you know, at 21, man, I had just graduated college. It was my first kind of job. I was still a competitive martial artist and appearances really mattered and they kind of don’t anymore.

Steve Rush: Talking of which, little bird tells me, you were actually national karate champion, is that right?

Rasha Hasaneen: I was, I was. And so, I will tell you at 21, I was pretty oblivious to a lot of stuff going on around me and I grew up in a very sheltered sort of, high school. It was a small girl finishing school in the Middle East. And you know, my graduating class was like 10 people. I was very sheltered, when I went to college, I didn't have the same college experience as everyone else, but I will say, you know, at 21 that would be the one thing is, sort of, you know, while I would say at 21, I was definitely judged differently because I didn't have a lot of the credibility I have now. I do feel like I spent an inordinate amount of time sort of maintaining appearances and I was very naive. And I feel like, one. I trusted people too much, but at the same time I felt like I only trusted them so far, which was kind of the worst of both worlds, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rasha Hasaneen: So, you're either all in, like you're all in, on being kind of your authentic self and your kind of over the top or you're sort of super reserved and it's kind of in the middle that confuses people a lot. And I was definitely in the middle for a long time before I embraced being all in on authenticity. So, I'm glad I did that, but that would be the one thing. Negotiate your salary. That would be another thing like, yes, you can negotiate and no, that's not enough. And the third thing I would say, would be, definitely look at work relationships differently than I did. I would say, I probably didn't understand the role of sponsors and mentors and sort of those work, call it friendships. I didn't understand how important they were at 21. And I made some sort of real mistakes in terms of getting that kind of sponsorship early on. And so, it took me some time to get there, but that's it. That’s what I would say.

Steve Rush: It's some great advice for people listening to this, for sure.

Rasha Hasaneen: Yes.

Steve Rush: So how do we get people who are listening to this to connect with you and Trane Technologies? Where’s the best place to send them?

Rasha Hasaneen: So, couple of things. Definitely they can reach out. We know tranetechnologies.com I think, is what it is now. The Center for Health Efficient Spaces has a spot under sustainability there. And you can definitely connect via the inbox. In fact, that likely get a faster response since the team definitely monitors that and there's a lot of great resources on The Center for Healthy Efficient Spaces. All of those numbers, I quoted about productivity. We have a primer on indoor environmental quality if people want to learn more. I would definitely recommend they go to the Trane Technologies website and look us up at Center for Healthy & Efficient Spaces.

Steve Rush: We'll drop those links into our show notes as well.

Rasha Hasaneen: Absolutely. Thank you.

Steve Rush: Rasha, thanks ever so much for taking time out and I know you have a really, really busy schedule, so I am super grateful that we've been able to connect and get you on the show. Thanks for being part of the community.

Rasha Hasaneen: I appreciate it as well. You've got a lot of fantastic guests, and this is a great podcast. So, thank you for having me and help helping us tell our story.

Steve Rush: Thank you, Rasha.

Closing

Steve Rush: I want to sign off by saying thank you to you for joining us on the show too. We recognize without you, there is no show. So please continue to share, subscribe, and like, and continue to get in touch with us with the great new stories that we share every week. And so that we can continue to bring you great stories, please make sure you give us a five-star review where you can and share this podcast with your friends, your teams, and communities. You want to find us on social media. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter @leadershiphacker, @LeadershipHacker on YouTube and on Instagram, the_leadership_hacker and if that wasn’t enough, you can also find us on our website https://leadership-hacker.com. Tune into next episode to find out what great hacks and stories are coming your way. That's me signing off. I'm Steve Rush, and I've been your Leadership Hacker.

View Details

Shannon Russo is the Chief Executive Officer for Kinetix, After a successful career as a finance executive Shannon founded Kinetix with the goal of creating a firm that could help growing companies get the talent they need to compete. In this special show, learn about:

How to pivot in a pandemic.
The six flavors or “potential factors” for success.
How has the workforce changed and how you need to change in it.
The Great Resignation, is it just a moment in time or a change to how we work for good?

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Shannon below:

Shannon on LinkedIn: https: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonwrusso

Shannon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kinetixhr

Shannon on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kinetixhr/

Company Website: https://www.kinetixhr.com

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Today's special guest is Shannon Russo. She's the CEO of Kinetix, has a background as an executive with companies, such as M&M/Mars, Kidder Peabody & Company, and after riding the corporate wave, she opted to run her own firm and founded Kinetix, with a goal of creating a firm that could help grow companies, get the talent that they needed to compete. But before we get a chance to speak with Shannon, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: The great resignation is a real thing and it's happening to many people around the world, but of course it even impacts on global enterprises as well as global superstars in the world of business. Tesla, CEO, Elon Musk has joined the great resignation, or has he? He's tweeted numerous times over the last few months that he's quitting his job to become an influencer. But while he still sits as a CEO, his role has significantly shifted to appeal to his lifestyle choices in philanthropic adventures.

Shareholders, customers, and regulators haven't always appreciated the humor in Elon Musk's approach to his Twitter or high jinks, 2018 Tesla shares plummeted after he posted an April fool’s day message saying the company gone bankrupt. He quoted earlier this year that he was going to dispose of all of his shares and equally had a massive impact. Tesla shares fell from about 20% from November to now, as Musk has offloaded his shares. And he tweeted in December that he would be able to buy by a poll that he took whether or not to sell his stake in the car maker. So even Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and space exploration technologies cited to be the world richest person with a fortune and an estate worth 266 billion dollars. Even Elon Musk has been affected by the world around us over the last couple of years. So, if you're a leader, listening to this, pay attention to how our teams are performing and behaving. Some of the idiosyncrasy, and little idioms that you might notice in people's behavior could be a sign that they're being restless and actually having conversations to help people find their purpose is really what it's all about.

Finding out what your team need, want and expect from you as a boss is incredibly important as well as appealing to their intrinsic motivation, and that can really help the great resignation become the great retention. So that's been The Leadership Hacker News today. Please continue to get in touch and contact us through our social media. We'd love to listen to your insights and ideas about what we can talk about on the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today show is Shannon Russo. She's the chief executive officer for Kinetix. After a successful career in finance, as an executive, Shannon founded Kinetix with the goal of creating a firm that could really help growing companies get the very best talent that they needed too to compete in a marketplace that is really tough. Shannon, welcome to the show.

Shannon Russo: Thanks Steve. Great to be here.

Steve Rush: So, I'd love to hear about your journey from finance executive to Kinetix. Tell us a little bit about kind of what happened and indeed before that?

Shannon Russo: Yeah, absolutely, thanks. Really, and it's a sort of a joke because prior to forming Kinetix, which now has been 16 years, crazy. I was a finance person for an HR company. For a workforce solutions company for the prior 10 years. So, while I was doing finance, I was helping drive the strategy for a company that was in the workforce solution space. So, I've had a much longer perspective. I think what finance gave me was really this ability to drive analytics into the HR processes and talent acquisitions specifically. And so, when I went down the path of forming Kinetix, it really was because I saw some opportunities to really bring value to clients. And it was my finance background and the analytics that I did. Sort of looking at it that helped me come up with, there's a better way, right? These multi-billion-dollar companies do it and outsource their recruitment, but smaller companies never think that they can do that. And I came up with a model in which small and growing companies up to big companies, could do it in a way that's slightly different than what it was done before. So, it kind of helped me feed what I was doing if that makes.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and I remember from the first time that we met as well, it was kind of almost born out a bit of frustration from you. Watching how others were getting it wrong and how the opportunity was just almost there for the taking, right?

Shannon Russo: Yes, well, and part of it is that the relationship between recruitment providers and clients, right. Hiring leaders and companies in my mind is very much like the real estate. I don't really like that relationship. And so that was the other thing we were trying to do is, really go at it a little bit differently. We can really provide some leverage, perspective, process, you know, a lot of that kind of stuff that, especially if you're a growing company you don't have, but we could also provide this perspective if you're a large company that said, you're doing it wrong, you're taking too long, right? You're caught up in your own things and bring that to the table and really provide value. So, it's really been an interesting ride because of that. I don't want to call it a conflict, but just difference in terms of what, the historical way that firms deal with each other, to what we've been trying to build.

Steve Rush: Right, yeah. And there's a double sword question for you.

Shannon Russo: yeah.

Steve Rush: Interesting to learn a little bit about the work you do specifically now, and just wondered as a result of the crazy world we've been in over the last couple of years, how that might have changed?

Shannon Russo: Yeah, thanks Steve. You know, what I would tell you is, the media loves to talk about the great resignation in air quotes and how this is this amazing opportunity for workers and while in some cases that is absolutely true. I think that the mist that we are living through that my team and my clients, and hiring leaders are living through painfully is, for many folks. They think that that has given them the right to be in many cases, unethical in doing things and really not to realize that this is some kind of a relationship that's happening. And when you're going down the path to get a job, you should decide who you want to be with. And if you accept a job, you should take it. So, what we are seeing is sort of the dark side of the great resignation is this willingness for people, again, to be unethical, in that. They will accept a job and then take another job before they even start and just ghost the first job.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Shannon Russo: Just doing things that are really horrendous and somehow thinking that that's okay and the world is all about them and there's no honesty and things, it's okay if you don't want to work for someone, right. That's the whole reason that you go through this recruitment process is to figure out if it's right fit for both parties.

Steve Rush: Right.

Shannon Russo: If it's the right fit for you, take the job, don't look back. If it's not the right fit, say no, move on.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Shannon Russo: This sort of, we're seeing it. And it's not just low end. We're seeing six figures plus people doing things horrible things like that, where they take a job and two weeks later, they take another job.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Shannon Russo: That's ridiculous.

Steve Rush: And do you see that this being generational as well? Because I think I might have shared the story with you before that when my son who's 22. His most recent job he's in now, and it is the one he stuck with. He was kind of almost lining up these opportunities and in so much as he was going to have like a juggling game at the end, when they'd all offered. And I said to him at that time, you know, hey, this isn't right. You know, focus on one role, the role that you want, because ultimately there's people in the process at the end of this. And actually, you're taking up space for other people at the same time, right?

Shannon Russo: Yes, without question you are, yep. And I do think that the younger generations have been, they're less jaded than us on the one hand, but because of it, they're more enamored with this. It's all about me perspective.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Shannon Russo: And so, I do think there is a little bit, well, we've seen it. Irrespective of age, I do think that what we are seeing is a little bit more willingness to do that. If you are slightly younger than myself, I'll say.

Steve Rush: And I guess, that comes with a little bit of naivety, maybe you can be a little bit green around the gills, but actually, at one point in time, you're also going to become the hiring manager. And at one point in the future, you are going to be in a position where you have a group of people applying for a role. And I think, you know, what goes around, comes around.

Shannon Russo: Steve, that is exactly the right perspective. And part of the reason that they're so willing to do it is because they haven't had it happen to them for someone who they were really excited to join their team.

Steve Rush: That's right, yeah.

Shannon Russo: And that might hopefully change their perspective a little bit, but that's an experience thing, right? That's a time thing.

Steve Rush: Totally. So, you talk about the great resignation and it's, you know, everywhere you turn, somebody is quoting it, somebody's referencing it. I'm curious from your perspective, because you hire thousands of people into different organizations, right. And I'm just curious to find out, is this just a moment in time for us or do we think that maybe this is something that's going to be with us for a while?

Shannon Russo: Great question. I wish I knew the answer to that. What I would tell you is right now for the next 18 to 24 months, it's with us.

Steve Rush: Right.

Shannon Russo: Beyond that. I don't know that I can give your perspective because I'm hopeful that instead of this dialogue about, we just have people that have been beaten down and the great resignation is them fighting back. That we have a dialogue around the actual realities of what the employees are doing, right? So, this is a relationship and both sides have a part to play. And it's not all one sided in terms of who's wrong and who's doing things that are not so great. And so that's really where I don't know how long it'll be around is because the media loves to play that. But here's what I could tell you that, is a significant shift that's going to be with us for a while.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Shannon Russo: Because of that. And because of really some of the workforce mentality and shifts that we are seeing a tremendous difference in the volume, we are needing to contact in order to get to the same number of candidates to be interviewed. So, we call that the funnel and so the top of our funnel has gotten significantly bigger in terms of the amount of outreach that we have to do because less people are responding. Even if they're saying like, hey, not interested. And then because of some of these other things, we just talked about. Less people moving through the process, because we have people dropping out in the middle which doesn't necessarily bother me except for their ghosting us instead of saying, hey, I took another job. I'm not interested or whatever it is, any of those things are okay. So, it's just making the recruitment process from a delivery standpoint, more challenging, right? You're talking to more people; you're reaching out to more people. I don't that that's going to go away for a while. I don't love that, but it's sort of what I'm seeing, and I can't see until sort of the mentality starts to change.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Shannon Russo: Some of that changing and then we have all the demographics that are working against us, right? Aging population, people retiring, right. People getting tired, all of that stuff that just makes it where we really have to kind of build up the younger generations to where there will be enough people for certainly some of the technical jobs going forward.

Steve Rush: And from your experiences. The great resignation just for those specialists and technical jobs because the talent pool hasn't significantly changed in the last two years, right?

Shannon Russo: Nope. Now, that's the rub, right? So, here's what I would tell you. You're seeing it across the board for the niche’s skills, you're seeing it, but you're seeing it for things that you and I might consider pretty basic, where there's a pretty good volume of employees or candidates, you're seeing it there as well. And so, I think that's driving a lot of dysfunctions across those. I literally have a client in the Midwest. I'm not joking. We are hiring candidates that I consider to be making a decent amount of money. So, between 45 and $75,000 a year, so not low, low end, right. These are not $10 an hour workers. And they are having one half of their hires drop off after they have accepted an offer.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Shannon Russo: Between then and start.

Steve Rush: That's massive in terms of cost for hiring, isn't it as well?

Shannon Russo: Think about that.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Shannon Russo: Yes, just in terms of the volume and what you're doing, and we've been working hard together to kind of shorten that, so right. Because time is part of it. But also, how do we kind of close out people? Yay or nay. It's more we, right? The hiring processes are not taking so much time with people that are not going to make it to the finish line.

Steve Rush: How do you expedite that as a process then to make sure that you do, you know, speed up that early kind of vetting if you like?

Shannon Russo: Yeah, it's a great question. So, you try to truncate the recruitment process once the person has been, right? Are they qualified and interested? Once you know that. For us, that's around the submittal. Then the interviews should be fast, right? Even if you do some of them via video and some of them face to face, so you don't want to have this really long 10 step recruitment process. And then at the very end in your kind of pre onboarding and onboarding for some clients, we're actually starting candidates while the background check is finishing. So, for some states where the background check process is long because the court systems are slow, we're having people accept, what we would call a contingent offer as long as their background comes back clear, they start early and they get paid for that, right? So, there's nothing untoward happening, but we're doing things to kind of speed up that onboarding.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Shannon Russo: To lessen the time from when you accept the job to when you start. And obviously that depends on if you're coming from another job, then that has to be two weeks, but just how can we make that as tight as possible?

Steve Rush: And having you talk through kind of the process, I wonder how many of your hiring managers maybe have changed their approach in so much as maybe feeling a bit more anxious or bit more, you know, desperate almost to hire people because of the environment we're in now and whether or not that's going to help hold people back?

Shannon Russo: You know, I think it's interesting, you're right. The ones who are really taking it on the chin right now, they are starting to adjust. Where I see as big of a challenge in terms of people being willing to be flexible are folks that maybe don't hire as much and don't have as much experience in the world that we're living in right now. Still thinking that, oh, everybody wants to come work for me. So why don't I have ten candidates to review for this, you know, very nichey job. Well, the reality is, that the world has changed and you're going to have to move faster. You are going to have to actually sell the candidates at the same time, as you are vetting the candidates to figure out whether or not they fit you. So, it's a very different challenge than some of these older mentalities. It's not an age thing, older mentality. Like if you were a hiring leader three years ago, your perspective is very different or needs to be different than it is today in terms of how you deal with the candidates that you are talking to. Does that help clarify a little bit?

Steve Rush: Yeah, it does.

Shannon Russo: Big shift.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and of course it's in parallel to future employees and candidates having the opportunity to completely reevaluate what's important to them in their work and life at the same time as well, isn't it?

Shannon Russo: It is, 100%, and that's what we're seeing. And one of the things, and you'll chuckle, your son may have done the same stuff. Sometimes the candidates have unrealistic expectations of what they're getting and they just sort of lay that out for hiring leaders, which they think they’re a little bit smug in that, oh, hey, this is what I want. And this is what I got to have, and I'm all that, right? And sometimes they're off in what they're thinking, right. In terms of the reality of, you know, this is a job where, I'll give you some limited examples, that'll make you laugh, right. The big call now, along with the great resignation is a hundred percent remote. Everything has to be a hundred percent remote. Well, if the job requires you and I to touch each other or face each other, or do any of those, then guess what?

Steve Rush: Exactly

Shannon Russo: Not remote.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Shannon Russo: And so, there's a little bit on the middle of the spectrum where, you know, there's some myths where people have a job. We did something for a manufacturing company, and they needed the person to be on site because they're actually doing quality, right. How else can you do that?

Steve Rush: Exactly.

Shannon Russo: But for us to have to actually have the conversation to be like, no, you can't check the quality of what's happening on the line unless you are physically there.

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly.

Shannon Russo: And so, some of those things are, you know, in some ways surprising, but some of the shifts with this where people maybe aren't, they listen some of the stuff in the media and then they don't think it all the way through, into the reality of either their kind of job or any of that. And whether they do or not, they want some of the other stuff.

Steve Rush: And you know, you and I have seen these cycles a few times in our careers. I'm sure Shannon, and one thing is for sure, is that in a few years’ time, 2, 3, 5, 10, whatever the number of years is, there'll be a time where jobs are scarce, and the tables will have turned. And it's important that we're just really thoughtful of that in terms of our behaviors, isn't it? When we start to proceed on these journeys.

Shannon Russo: It’s 100% vital. And what I would tell you, unfortunately. I agree with you, who knows when it's going to be. But the inflation that we're seeing is kind of making me a little, you know, stressed about how soon it might be. But what I can tell you this time. This will probably make you chuckle Steve, is the whiplash is going to be very harsh.

Steve Rush: I think so too, yeah.

Shannon Russo: Because if you are really trying to hire right now, how you're getting treated by candidates. Yeah, it’s going to come back to bite some folks on the other side, I don't disagree at all.

Steve Rush: So, there's one thing that you have created, which I really love. And you call it the Kinetix Code and it's definitely not a playbook because I know you say it's not a playbook. It's not a handbook. It is really a set of principles, or you call them flavors actually that are just really potential factors that you not only help your clients with, but it's also key to your team. And I'd love for us to just get into those six principles or potential factors.

Shannon Russo: Yeah, thank you Steve. So, you're exactly right, right. In the United States specifically, handbooks are very typical. And in many cases, you need them. Same for us, right?

Steve Rush: Right.

Shannon Russo: Certain things in terms of the basic expectations and legal requirements and what we're expecting when you have to start work, when you finish, how does pay time off work? All of those kinds of policies, HR policies necessary. For us, we know that's important, but coming out of the HR space, one of the things that we felt like was missing and that's the Genesis of the Kinetix Code and then I'll get into the potential factors. As part of this, and you heard me talk about it, right? You're vetting candidates, but you're also trying to share with them and either, on the one hand sell them.

But, but conversely, maybe repel them, if who you are, isn't a fit. You don't want them literally. You don't want them. Think Zappos back in the day, who used to give you a bonus to leave. If you weren't the right fit, it's sort of in that model that says on the one hand, I want to be as transparent as possible to have everyone understand who we are as a company and how we operate and what the expectation are. And if you like that, that's going to lean you in. If you don't like that, my hope is, it's going to lean you away because I don't want us to dance and waste each other's time, right. So that was sort of the first part. And we wanted more than just the policies, which is sort of the, you know, legal jargon. But we set about with the Kinetix Code to really introduce you to how we think about things and what kinds of people are successful, so we could get you there.

And then the potentials as a key part of that, the potentials for us are what other companies call their culture or maybe their values. That's probably the best comparable. So, if you think about your values, our potential factors, our values. And I'll talk about them in just a second, but what I would tell you is they flow through everything. They're not just in the Kinetix Code, as what we think is important. We use them when we give kudos to each other, on a daily basis and when we do performance reviews. Your job is one part and those potential factors, right? Our values are the other thing that we rate you on when we try to decide kind of what's next for you. So, most companies have values, for us taken that to the next level and put it into as much of everything that we do. So, if you are an employee of ours, you know what to expect, how we're going to rate you. What's important to us and all of that. And so that's really how we came up with it. And as you mentioned, we have six, we tried to do five. But we just couldn't get it done with five. And so, when we came up with it, the last one is KICK ASS TEAMMATE, and it's really important. Plus, we call it a plus one because what we found is, the people who are the most successful, that is one of the traits of who they are. And Steve, you know, you've worked with people who that's, who they are, and you've worked with people by the way, who that's not who they are.

Steve Rush: Definitely.

Shannon Russo: And so, when we were doing it, we just ended up adding that to the table. Because when we thought about who, was the most successful working for us? That was something that with the other potentials or values, however you want to frame it, that might have been missing in that. So hopefully that gives you the framework.

Steve Rush: Let's dive into them, just maybe give us a bit of a framing on each of them and what that means. And as a leader, then how I can think about using that with my team.

Shannon Russo: Yeah, yes. So, one of the things you'll notice, and you heard it from my sixth one that I just mentioned, these are not things. So, we actually spent more time than average thinking about them and I'm going to piss off some folks with what I'm about to say.

Steve Rush: Go ahead.

Shannon Russo: They don't include something like integrity. And I'm sure there's a lot of people whose head's going to be like, what do you mean? Integrity's one of our values. Yes. Integrity is something that we find very important. Here's the problem with integrity. How do I measure it? You either have it or you don't. And I typically only find out if you don't, when it's too late.

Steve Rush: Yeah. It's not one of those things you can jump on an e-learning course to see, you know, I'm just going to take a course on integrity and top that up, that doesn't work.

Shannon Russo: Right, and so while we value it, since we were using the potential factors across how we're going to rate you, how we're going to decide if you're the right employee, how your performance management is going to go. Integrity, because you either do it or you don't, or you have it, or you don't, how do I, to your point, how do I say, you're doing really good Steve, let's do a little bit better on your integrity. That's not how it works. It's a switch.

Steve Rush: Right.

Shannon Russo: Right, either you do, or you don't. And so, we spend a lot of time really making sure that the things that we have as our potential, our values, that they were also things we could articulate. And they were also things that we could measure and rate people on.

Steve Rush: Got it, yeah.

Shannon Russo: So, all right. I'm going to go through the six. I'm just going to them one at a time. And Steve, please give me your comments.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Shannon Russo: So, the first one is, get stuff done, because for our perspective, listen, it's a job, right? We're hiring you to do stuff and to execute what's in front of you and to not get distracted by all of the things that can help you slow down. So, for us, getting stuff done very important, we operate at pretty high pace and our clients are relying on us. So that's a really important one for us.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Shannon Russo: And we brought it down to something that makes sense, right. Get stuff done, Steve, I'm pretty sure you know what I mean by that.

Steve Rush: You don't get paid for effort, do you? You get paid for results.

Shannon Russo: Exactly. Exactly. We also call it shipping product, right. Getting stuff done, executing and moving things forward, yep, that's it. The next one is, figures it out. Again, Steve, I'm guessing, you know what figures it out means. We call it the smart factor and we spend a lot of time because politically, that doesn't sound nice, right. But here's what we mean by that. This is not an IQ discussion. This is, we're going to give you incomplete direction sometimes. And we need you to dive in and figure out what we mean by that. Ask questions. Do any of the stuff to figure out how to execute on what's in front of you and what your job is. That's what matters to us, not high IQs, willingness to figure it out, take the next step to deliver for our clients.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Shannon Russo: So again, we try to dive in a little bit deeper. So, the next one is one that we found some of our most successful people have this as part of who they are. And that's passionate innovation. This one was a little harder, frankly, for us to kind of dive in. But I feel like we got to a good spot and so passionate innovation. If you asked just about anyone, Steve, Steve, are you passionate? Do you believe in passionate? Yes, right. Like, are you going to pick up the garbage?

Steve Rush: Yeah. Everybody's passionate. Everybody says they're passionate, right?

Shannon Russo: Right, but here's how we define it. So again, defining these so that someone can understand what you expect more than just saying you're into it. What we are expecting is that you love what you do so much, that you routinely spend discretionary effort. Let me be really clear, discretionary effort, which is more than average, more than expected, extra time learning things that can make you better. Experimenting on things to make processes better. That's how we define it. Not just some esoteric. Oh yes, I'm passionate. No, how do you do things routinely that help you and us do better, get better? Figure things out.

Steve Rush: Like it.

Shannon Russo: All right. So, the next one is self-evident, given that we are a recruitment firm connector, right. You've really got to be able to connect with people for all different ways, right? So, you're doing it because it's who you are. These kinds of people connect when they're at the coffee shop, right. It's just how they are. And they also, as part of that for us, we include a little bit of that paying forward because I might connect with someone or you might connect with me, Steve and I might not be able to help you fill a role you're working on right now, but a good connector at Kinetix means I'm connecting with you and I'm getting your information because tomorrow I might have that great opportunity for you. And so, we see it as a little bit, even more than that, all right, I'm coming into the home stretch, Steve with this. The next one for us, again, we're kind of keeping these front and center, but they are real in that. These are things that make Kinetix a successful company. The next one is called likable. Yep, we said it, likable.

Steve Rush: It's one of those those things that people are quite uncomfortable using that word these days, because it doesn't feel particularly quantitative, but actually we all feel it.

Shannon Russo: That's right. And again, it’s similar to the other ones, we've dove into kind of tell you what we mean by that. So yes, for us likable means authentic, means professional, means that you have command of what you are doing in person, on the phone, how you write and communicate with people. So, it's very much around communication. But at the same time, you're viewed as approachable, and you can work with teams. So, this is something that we actually spend a lot of time on. We talk about being classy honest. That's the other part of being likable is being real enough to tell the truth, even if it's not what the person wants to hear, because ultimately that does make you likable because you're trustworthy.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and without that trust and likability, you actually can't be honest with people. So, if you wanted to give some feed forward or feedback to somebody and you didn't like them, it would be really uncomfortable. And it would be really hard to execute because you have this unconscious worry about offending them. But if you have that trust and likability with somebody, then that communication's going to be more, free flowing anyway.

Shannon Russo: 100% Steven. We even take it a step further with our views on being classy honest. Here's what we would say that aligns perfectly Steve, with what you just said. I could give you Steve, some feedback on the job you did for me yesterday. And I probably could get that done in thirty seconds to a minute in terms of giving you very direct feedback, Steve, that might not be how you can receive it.

Steve Rush: Right.

Shannon Russo: So, as a leader, I need to take a step back and maybe I need to take five or ten minutes to give you that feedback in a way that you can hear it and that you can a simulate it and not burn you up. Being honest does not mean I need to scorch the earth with you. I just need to be honest and truthful about the situation, especially if it's a performance thing and communicate that to you, but the likability part for us comes in. I don't need to burn you up to get there. I can take a little bit longer. I can be a little more caring in giving that feedback.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely so, and when you think about your six flavors, your potential factors, how has that evolved your teams since you've introduced it?

Shannon Russo: What I would tell you is, it has really helped, and this is our view of what's critical about how you manage culture at your organization as a leader. One of the reasons that we spent so much time on the languaging was, we want people to use it in their regular conversation. We want people to reference it and that Steve is the benefit, that is what has happened. So, we literally talk to each other about man, Steve, that call that you were on, you were so likable, right? You really showed that. As I mentioned, you know, way back in the old days, we used to put it on cards. We had six of these cards that you could write on and put on my desk, but now we actually use an app where I can share kudos with the whole company on an app, and tell you Steve, the great things that you did. So, we've really kind of brought it into our day-to-day culture and the app that we use, which is called Recognize, we buy it. It actually integrates to outlook what a great way to be able to just get it done. So, we tried to make it as simple as possible for our team to recognize each other and recognize when they are executing on these potentials. And then to cement it, we use it for performance management, but let me tell you what really gets people going. At the end of every year we have, and if you didn't know this by now, I'm sure you do. Orange is one of our main colors.

Steve Rush: Exactly.

Shannon Russo: And so, we have the bleed orange awards. How do you get a bleed orange award? You ask Steve. You get it by getting the most of these kudos

Steve Rush: Love it, yeah.

Shannon Russo: So, we're keeping everyone very, also focused in their day to day, because it's really easy to lose kind of those cultural tenants if you don't make them part of everyday conversations.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and so many come make the mistake of just having words on wall. And that's the perfect example of creating some themes and making them part of what you do rather than words on wall.

Shannon Russo: And that that's how we make a difference. It makes it easier for us to recruit people. Here's what I could tell you. Like so many people, 2021 was a heavy recruiting internally year for Kinetix as well. We have doubled the size of our team. It helps them because here's something that I hear from new employees regularly. What's amazing is how consistent everyone is and how everyone that I meet kind of displays the same value, is like, by the way, for me, as CEO, I'm like, oh, can I hug you? That's exactly what I want.

Steve Rush: Exactly.

Shannon Russo: Because that's how we're successful, right? And the bigger you get, the harder that is to do. So, continuing for us to focus on it, is really how we think, you know, we continue to be successful.

Steve Rush: Well, kudos to you. So, this is part of the show where we get to flip a little bit and dive into your leadership brain and tap into your years of experience and leading teams and others, as well as, you know, coaching other leaders around the way that they do things too. So, the first thing I'd like to ask you is, if you could try and dive in and think about what would be your top three leadership hacks?

Shannon Russo: Whew, big one. So top three leader hacks are a little bit aligned with some of the stuff that I talked to you about on values. So, I'm not cheating, but that classy honest that you heard me talk about in terms of being likable, being a leader is very much about making decisions, executing on stuff, or driving execution as a leader, right. And then holding people accountable and performance managing that. So that classy honest is a leadership hack.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Shannon Russo: That too many people on the hard, and I'm very hard driving, but on the hard driving side miss that I would tell you is a critical one. Here's the other one that some folks, especially people trying to get into leadership. Often what I hear people say is, I can't wait to be a manager and have to do less. Like you don't really understand what's coming.

Steve Rush: No way.

Shannon Russo: And so that's the second part because I do see this sometimes, especially with candidates that come from very large organizations where their ability to actually do stuff gets limited by the nature of the organization. So, my leadership hack is being willing to dive back in at any moment. Now that doesn't mean you always do that, but I had a situation. I'll give you an example of where it kind of came back to me and it made me smile. We had a situation where we were working on a presentation for a client, and I'm not normally in the middle of all of that, right. As you might expect as the CEO of the company, but the account leader really was struggling with a couple things, and I had some history, and we knew that. And so, I dove in with her and we worked together one afternoon. And unfortunately, because the presentation was the next day into the evening, she was like, oh my gosh, it was so amazing that you were willing to dive in. And when I heard that, you know, I thanked her, but I was like, but that is being leader. Not just let her fall.

Steve Rush: And it's the willingness bit that's most important is just letting people know that you are willing too.

Shannon Russo: That's right. That's right. And here's what I would tell you about that person that works for me, she will never doubt me again.

Steve Rush: Right.

Shannon Russo: Now, I didn't do it for that. But after she told me and I thought about it, I was like, wow, wow. That's not why I was doing it. I was doing it because I wanted her to be successful and I wanted us to be successful. But the reality is, I was building my leadership profile with her in the process without even realizing it, last one. I would tell you; this is a mixed bag because some of the worst leaders do this too much, but I still call it a leadership hack. Because for me over the last two years, it's really been a rough two years, like so many people, and I've really had to work on this and that is, take time for yourself. Don't be embarrassed about that but be willing to do it and balance it, right. Don't bleed it through everything that you're doing but be willing to kind of take that time for yourself, whatever that is.

Steve Rush: So Important.

Shannon Russo: Right.

Steve Rush: So important, right.

Shannon Russo: And so, I know you didn't probably think I was going to give you that as a leadership hack, but I would tell you it is, because that's about sustainable leadership.

Steve Rush: Totally, yeah.

Shannon Russo: Those are my three.

Steve Rush: Awesome, really great hacks, great lessons for people to dive into. Next part of the show we call Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something in your life or your work has maybe screwed up. Hasn't worked out as well. But as a result of the experience, you've now got something that you can use as a force of good for you, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Shannon Russo: So, my Hack to Attack was, I formed Kinetix. So, I had come out of the finance as you know, I'd come out of the finance side, which means. I was in the corporate infrastructure of a very large company; we were Fortune 500. And so, when I formed Kinetix, right, I didn't have a ton of experience running a small and medium size business. And so, I have lots of learnings, but the learning that really was a challenge that now has become better from my life and from work is realizing a couple things. And that is, I don't know, everything. And by the way, it's 100% okay.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Shannon Russo: Right. So that was the biggest thing because coming up in the corporate environment of a very large company, you really were known for what you knew, right. And so, you sort of build this up in yourself and when you sort of, I don't want to say I started over, right. But I sort of started with a small business that I was going to grow into what Kinetix is today. But the reality is, there was so much, I didn't know. And so, my willingness to ask questions and be opened to feedback, because some of the feedback that I got, I did not want to hear. And I did not like, but being opened to do that, because it really, you know, listen, I was not a young kid when I started Kinetix, right. I was in my late thirties and like so many folks in their late thirties, right. A very successful Fortune 500 top five person, LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, all this stuff that says I'm good at what I do, whatever, yeah. What about the stuff you've never seen before?

Steve Rush: That’s right.

Shannon Russo: What about the situations you've never had to deal with? And so, the big learning, some of them did not go well. And my takeaway that I really feel like has made me better today is, darn you know, don't let my ego get in the way of being willing to learn every day from anyone. Because that was the other thing. Working for big companies, right. You're working with all these very smart, very professional people. You can learn as much. And I did from somebody who really doesn't articulate very well.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Shannon Russo: But they can teach you some hard lessons and they can teach you good lessons. So be ready and willing to accept that learning wherever it's going to come from because that's literally a hack.

Steve Rush: Yeah, totally is, isn't it?

Shannon Russo: To getting better.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely so. So, the last thing we get to do today, Shannon, is you get to do a bit of time travel, bump into Shannon at 21 and to give her some advice, what would it be?

Shannon Russo: Oh shoot 21. Wow. That's a long time ago, Steve. But here's what I would tell myself. There was some things that I feel like I've learned later. The biggest one is, when you've done all the work and you have gotten all the perspective, don't be scared and don't waste time before you make the decision. I had some things that I ended up getting involved in as I was coming up in my career were looking back, if I had, you know, an example was. I needed to let somebody go whose role I was taking over, but I was afraid. I didn't know what they knew. There was all this other stuff. And so, I waited six months. That was the worst decision of my life. I should have let them go immediately and taken the risk. That's the kind of coaching that I would give myself because I only got it by hard learned results. And so, I would tell myself again, not to be ego, right. So don't be ego. Be careful, make sure you're getting all the information, but once the decision has been made and you're ready to go, go, take the risk. And a lot of times it's around things like letting people go, right. Liberating them, freeing them, freeing you.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Shannon Russo: Be willing to just jump off the cliff. Once you're prepared, don't wait, nothing good can come of it. And that's probably the coaching I would give myself at 21, that took me a while to learn.

Steve Rush: Yeah. It's lovely. I like it a lot. Thanks for sharing that, Shannon, great stuff.

Shannon Russo: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Rush: So, for folk, listening to us talk today who might be curious around the work that Kinetix do, maybe getting their insight around the Kinetix Code, but also tapping into you and your network. Being true connectors in your potential factors. How can we make sure we connect them with you?

Shannon Russo: Absolutely. So, our website is kinetixhr.com. That's K I N E T I X hr.com. You can get a little bit of scoop about us, connect with us. Any of that kind of stuff. Also, that kinetixhr is my handle on Twitter. It's my handle on Instagram. So, if you want to find us there, LinkedIn is name obviously. And then if you want to dig in a little bit more to The Kinetix Code. One of the things we did for recruiting as well, but it's an opportunity for you. You can go to the kinetixcode.com.

Steve Rush: Awesome.

Shannon Russo: And that's where it is, and you can actually see it all. So, it's not locked up in some vault. We want it to kind of be living and breathing and it can give you a perspective on who we are and kind of how it makes us tick if you're thinking about that kind of thing for your company

Steve Rush: And we'll dump all of those links and connections in our show notes as well. So, it's dead easy for people to connect with you beyond today.

Shannon Russo: Wonderful, wonderful.

Steve Rush: Shannon, I've loved chatting. You had I had some really interesting and deep conversations about the world that we're in and how it's changing and evolving. And I'm just delighted that we've got you on the show so that we can share that story with our wider audience. So, thanks for being part of the community.

Shannon Russo: Steve, thanks for having me. It's been really fun, kind of talking through some of this stuff. You made me think about some things that I haven't thought about for a while and I think that's always super helpful.

Steve Rush: Thank you, Shannon.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

John Reid is the president of JMReid Group. He's an entrepreneur and author of multiple books, the latest being the Five Lost Super Powers, why we lose them and how to get them back. In this show explore:

John survived cancer 4 times, find how that builds resilience.
Why context is king.
Compassion with Empathy is life changing.
Explore the Five Lost Super Powers and if you need to get them back.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about John below:

John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-reid-a3007a2/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jmreidgroup/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jmreidgroup/

Company Website: https://jmreidgroup.com/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Joining me on the show today is John Reid. He's the president and founder of the JMReid Group, a global behavioral change organization, specializing in leadership development, sales effectiveness, and skill enhancement. But before we get a chance to speak with John, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Recently, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella pointed out the power of empathy in an interview with Harvard Business Review. He connected empathy with not just taking care of people, but also to design thinking, to innovation, customer care, and ultimately the bottom line. We’ve been taught since school, that empathy means stepping into somebody else’s shoes and seeing the world from their perspective, but truly powerful forms of empathy, neither start nor stop there. They reach all areas of our life and work. They help us feel seen and safe, connected to others and empowered to manage conflict with kindness and inclusivity. A truly empathic leader is proactive.

Good leaders just don’t solve problems when they arise, but they actively seek out ways to smooth the path for their people and smoothing the way and removing obstacles requires empathy. It requires the ability to understand the wiring, the needs, the pace of people, and to respond accordingly. This kind of proactivity may require you to do your homework on the people you work with, understand their strengths and their challenges. It may also be required that you occasionally push back on things. And it’s difficult as those things may seem, the kind of investment in your people. The compassion you need will really drive empathy and pay you back richly. Cognitive empathy is just what it sounds like. Empathy based on cognitive understanding. Somebody else’s perspective. It doesn’t require emotion from us, but it does require understanding and a willingness to engage with what is their understanding.

Effective empathy is empathy that is based on emotion. When somebody cries or feels anger. This is effective empathy at work. A truly empathic leader is inclusive. More than just seeing someone else’s perspective. Empathy means slowing down and seeing others’ needs, speeds, and creeds, and then helping them find the environments that work best for them. An empathic leader is a leader who understands that not all of our brains are wired the same. Taking time to see other people’s perspectives. Seeing them as individuals with unique wiring, with unique needs and unique motivations that creates them as an individual. So, if you want the best work from the people that you work with to encourage innovation, design thinking, all of the good things that come from psychologically safe environments, then take your compassion and your empathy muscles out for a workout. Building empathy as a leader is a skill and it’s a great investment. You can do it for yourself, your people and your organization all at a time when the world needs kindness more than ever. That’s been The Leadership Hacker News. We’d love to hear your insights and your stories, so please get in touch with us.

Start of Podcast.

Steve Rush: My special guest on today’s show is John Reid. He’s the president of JMReid Group. He’s an entrepreneur and author of multiple books. I’m delighted to have John on the show. John, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

John Reid: It’s great to be here. Thank you, Steve.

Steve Rush: We always like to dive into our back stories of our guest, because they provide such a great landscape to how people have arrived at doing what they’re doing. So maybe we can start John by this digging into a little bit out your background and how you’ve arrived to do what you do.

John Reid: Why, thank you. I think everything’s, you know, everything’s important and sometimes nothing’s important, but I’ll leave that to the audience, I’m the youngest of five, and I grew up in Maryland, went to the university of Maryland and got an undergraduate degree. At that point in time in America, anyway, companies would come interview you on campus, and I got interviewed and got hired by Dow Chemical. What’s interesting there, is that I’d never taken a chemistry course in my life and there was a brief period where Dow would hire people that they thought were good communicators for sales roles, despite having no chemical background.

Steve Rush: Right.

John Reid: And I joined them and that’s the beginning of my chemical career, which I had great success in. I was actually in chemical week magazine as a rising star of the chemical industry back in the early nineties. So I was in sales, marketing, business — I had P&L responsibility, sort of the classic path. Left all that behind to join the training and development industry because I had a real passion around that. Around the idea that people could get better and wanted to get better if the development training was better. So, I got into that industry and worked for several different companies and ultimately started my own company 13 years ago.

Steve Rush: And what was that pivotal moment for you when you thought, okay, now it’s time for me to lead my business versus work for others?

John Reid: It’s a great question. And the truth is, I’m a four-time cancer survivor. And in America, again, at that time, when you have cancer, you need health insurance. I had four kids and I was the worker. So, I had to have health insurance and it’s hard to have health insurance. So, I changed jobs to work for a company in Dallas, Texas, and we were negotiating to be the head of sales. And I was asking for, you know, a compensation, should they decide to let me go. And they said, no, that’ll never happen. They’ll never let me go. But I did negotiate health coverage for a period of time. And within three months they let me go. They were having real cash flow problems and they couldn’t really afford me they thought. Interestingly enough, they called me two weeks later and asked me to come back because I made the point to them that they had a revenue problem, not a cost problem, but they thought they had a cost problem, let me go. That was the driver to start my own company, because I had that safety net of having health coverage and I could take a chance finally.

Steve Rush: Yeah. It’s funny, isn’t? How unconsciously, we sometimes just need a little bit of security to give us that entrepreneurial flare of spirit to moving different directions.

John Reid: Yeah, absolutely. Because we’re always making risk reward calculations.

Steve Rush: Right.

John Reid: That’s part of the work that I think about when I do leadership or sales training — you watch current behaviors and how they’re behaving, you know, unconsciously, they’re making this risk reward calculation and oftentimes they’re making it incorrectly. And that’s why they’re behaving the way they are. And so sometimes you have to— you need to have them see a different calculation for some of these behaviors.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely so. Nonchalantly you just said, yeah. Four-time cancer survivor. That is, one. It’s incredibly unusual to survive cancer four times. But what I’ve learned from having met you previously, John, is you have this huge amount of resilience that comes from having been able to battle through these different events, time after time. And I just wondered, you know, how much of that drives your current approach and how much of that helped you with resilience?

John Reid: Oh, it’s helped me greatly. I had a type of cancer that you should frankly die from. It was a spindle cell sarcoma, which is a very rare sarcoma, and they don’t know much about it and all that good stuff. To survive that of course you need others. So, I had a strong social network, particularly my wife Rose. So, you know, you need to have that. What it does give you — I had a friend who was a New York Times a writer and he had the chutzpa or whatever to ask me, you know, so what’s good about having cancer? And I thought that’s a gutsy question, you know, but it is a good question. And what’s good about it is, it does give you perspective, you know, it does make you step back and what really matters? Like what am I doing? What matters?

Steve Rush: And for your perspective’s, been massive, isn’t it? In all of your work in life. And I’ve seen that through, you know, some of the articles that you’ve read and some of the writings that you’ve done. There’s lot re recall to perspective and get people to think about that context.

John Reid: If I could wave a wand across the world and if I had my wish, I just wish everybody knew they’re just walking around with a perspective. They’re not, objectively, right. They’re just not, it’s all subjective. So, it’s just— we’re people walking around with perspectives. And unfortunately, we quickly because of the way our brain processes and all the stuff we know, we quickly go to right, you know, and us versus them and right versus wrong. When no, it’s just a different perspective.

Steve Rush: I love the framing of that because we all do have a perspective, but from often we come from a position of being sure or being right or being wrong about things. How do you get people to think about reframing that perspective so that it can serve them well?

John Reid: When we look at learning and development, we’re very learner centric. We’re very much “who’s the learner and where’s their head at and why are they acting the way they do? Do they even know that?” And we don’t approach anything from right wrong or from bad to good. People aren’t behaving— I mean, bad is bad and bad is obvious. So, we don’t, you know, we’re not going to say— but most people are behaving good. They just could be better, better versions of themselves, better decision makers, build trust in a different way. So, they could be great, right? But most of us behave in a good way. So, to get the learner there, you’ve first got to say, hey, you know, we all make inferences and assumptions and that’s quickly easy to do. You can have an inference test where people make all these inferences and you say, look, and then you show, them like the ladder of inference, how we move from data to selecting data, to assumptions, conclusions, and forming beliefs.

And then you can have them explore another person’s ladder and show that. And so, you can get people to quickly realize, yeah, I just have a perspective. And then what’s cool is, we have this activity where we have a list of hot topics and not that hot, but topics like, I think vegan stuff is nonsense, or I think college should be free. Whatever the issue is. And the other party selects a topic that they have some interest in, that they have a point of view in, and then they’re required to ask questions to a different point of view. So, I’ll play the other point of view and adults simply cannot ask a good open ended, curious question about a topic that they believe they’re right in. The questions are leading questions. Don’t you think? Wouldn’t you agree? How about, you know, it’s just, we struggle. We can be curious in stuff we don’t know about, but once we have a point of view, we really get in our own way.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I love that. And curiosity is one of the things you were called out for when you were in your sales career at Dow, when you were on that rising star and RMB telling me it was that curiosity that really set you apart from all the other salespeople. Tell us a little bit about what happened there?

John Reid: Yeah, and it was a blessing, right? These are all hidden blessings. So, I get hired by Dow. A lot of chemical engineers, chemistry degrees, technical experts. And there’s little old me, you know, with the university of Maryland marketing degree and I’m going out and I’m actually one of the most successful salespeople in the company. And they had a rating system. And anyways, I just simply was. And I was because I would ask questions because and you know, I didn’t know anything, but turns out, surprise, surprise, something with all know, people like to talk about themselves. People like to talk about what they do. They like to talk about their machinery. Now I wasn’t going around acting like a complete idiot, but I was like, geez, you know, I don’t know much about this operation. Why do you do it this way versus a different way? And people would talk. So early on I realized, you know, let the client talk. I do believe that salespeople work way too hard.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Reid: By that, I mean, they’re just talking too much. Just ask questions and let them talk. They’ll come to you; you know. I was lucky not to have that knowledge. There is a curse of knowledge. There is the technical expertise trapp. The more I knew, the less curious I got. There were people Steve who would say, I would never ask that question because you should know that, but I don’t know it.

Steve Rush: Even if you did know it, you should still ask the question.

John Reid: Yeah, and it’s not fake until you make it. A lot of technical salespeople by the way, what they do, having observed them now year after year, they’ll hide their technical expertise in the question.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Reid: You know, ‘what do you think about a high membrane ion exchange system?’ It’s like, okay, what are you doing there? What is that? You’re trying to show what, you know, in your question. That’s terrible. So yeah. There it was a good blessing to be who I was at that time.

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly. And it’s an interesting notion, the whole sales thing. So, you know, at some point in my future, I’m going to regurgitate this in either in articles or maybe even another book, but this whole notion of, if you want to be really successful at selling, don’t sell, ask, be curious, ask questions, find out, learn. And by default, if you have a product that helps fill those gaps and problems and solutions, then people will buy it from you.

John Reid: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I would say the other part of that, which I’m sure you agree is, listen.

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely. Starts with 1.1, right?

John Reid: A colleague of mine has a great quote that the customer will tell you what your next question should be. What I see, you know, because of how people have been trained is that they prepare a list of questions and they’re going to be consultative, but they’re really not consultative. They’re quasi consultative because they’re only asking questions about stuff that drives to a sale.

Steve Rush: Right.

John Reid: They go through the question in order. And so, the buyer could say anything, to the answer the first question and there’s no, let’s chase that rabbit. They go right to the second question, right to the third. So, they’re not really listening and then going in a conversation. So, we’re doing a lot of work now on just, how do you have a conversation? We need to untrain salespeople on, how do you have a consultative sales call, where you ask questions and then, you know, position yourself, versus having a conversation, which is much more fluid.

Steve Rush: It’s ironic, isn’t it? That if you’ve got a list of 10 power questions or whatever, you know, the buzzword in that organization is, you can’t be listening because you’re cueing your next question.

John Reid: Ah, it’s even worse than that. And we have insight selling and hypothesis selling and it all makes great sense. The idea that before I go in, I ought to have a point of view. And I agree with that. I go in with a point of view, but it’s so hard to unwind somebody that, you know, your point of view could be wrong.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Reid: Right. Your point of view is not objectively right. Just having a point of view going in, they get trapped by their own point of view.

Steve Rush: Goes back to your perceptions and assumptions.

John Reid: Yes,

Steve Rush: Exactly right. So, in your latest book, The Five Lost Superpowers. Title, which of course I absolutely love and it’s around why we lose them and how to get them back. And you talk about these five key elements that as leaders, if we were thoughtful of them, we could pay attention if we started to lose them or indeed lost them, but here tactically, how we could put them right. And I wondered John, if we could just spin through each of those five, just to get a sense of how I might pay attention to them and notice them and maybe tactically, how I might go about fixing them. First one, ironically is curiosity.

John Reid: Yeah, a fan favorite with me, of course, curiosity. And it was the first one that I came up with. So, years ago, I would say, I would teach it as a lost superpower in the sales training. And of course, at one point I said, there must be at least five lost superpowers. And so, I got a team together and we brainstormed, and we came up with these five and they had to be independent. They had to research based. I mean, you know, it wasn’t just an opinion. It had to be something grounded in research, curiosity is for leaders. I mean, it’s critical, right? It gets back to this. You don’t know everything. One reason why leaders make terrible coaches. We actually ask this question, Steve, you know, we ask people, ‘what do you have to believe to coach somebody?’ And people will say, oh, that they’re motivated, that they have skills, they have capability. They miss the most important thing that you have to believe to coach somebody. And that is that the person you’re coaching knows something you don’t know.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Reid: Otherwise, why would you ask questions? Except for, to lead them. But we act like we know it all. It’s just the human condition. We act like we know every everything, you know. And so, curiosity’s critical to be more curious about why this person’s behaving this way, doing this thing, you know, how did that get done? How can we leverage that? What we talk— it all gets squelched, by the way, most of these get squelched, you know, in school.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Reid: And with our parents, right? We have our parents to blame. We have society to blame. I mean, it’s just, you know, we grow up wildly curious and all of a sudden, we stop asking questions and we’re rewarded for answers and all that good stuff. We say here, cast a wide net, read fiction. That’ll make you more, well there’s a variety of things that fiction does, but you know, cast wide net, read a lot of different things, be a person of interest. You know, ask better questions, questions that make the other person think, questions that demonstrate you really care. Not just, how’s your day going? Which, you know, do you really care? Do you really want to know? Is that the best you can come up with?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Reid: So, there’s better questions in there. There’s perspective seeking, of course. You know your own perspective, you love your own perspective. You want to be… great? Good for you. Who cares?

Steve Rush: Exactly.

John Reid: Find out a different perspective and learn something.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that’s really neat.

John Reid: You know, and then of course the whole system is sort of designed. I came upon this in the research. I can’t remember the researcher but explored then exploit. Like the idea as we explore stuff. And then as we get older, we exploit what we know to make money, to make a living to do that. And we sort of lose that explore part.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Reid: So, I like the explore exploit idea. They continue to explore.

Steve Rush: I like that too, yeah. Your second lost superpower is resilience. Now, if ever there was time, we needed to grab hold of some resilience is now, right?

John Reid: Oh, absolutely. And it’s doable, right? It’s teachable. It’s not something that if you’re not resilient… it’s not a fixed state, right? It’s all learnable. The key things around resilience are always, you know, the network, your tribe, your group. Do I have a group that supports me, or do I have a group that brings me down? In other words, when things are going bad, they, is it ‘hey, you can get through this’ or do they say, ‘yeah, you know, they took advantage of you. You ought to leave. You know, they don’t like you’ you know, what group am I hanging around? So, the tribe matters. Of course, optimism, right. Having an optimistic viewpoint. And that’s all the, you know, ‘Is this permanent? Is this temporary? Can I get through this?’ But there’s an Optimism— Seligman from University of Pennsylvania calls, explanatory styles.

How do I explain things when they happen to me? Do I explain them if I’m a victim? Or do I explain them in a different way, that’s more optimistic. Of course, meaning. Finding meaning in what you do with what you do is a way to get through resilience, find something of meaning. So, there are techniques and of course being present.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Reid: You know, being mindful, being in the moment. I don’t subscribe to, you know, go out and meditate. I’m not one of those people, you know, I meditate it every day. Because I think it’s all up to us. I had cancer four times. I’m almost always in the moment.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I should well imagine that. Gives you a sense of focus that meditation just won’t give you, right?

John Reid: People will say, oh, you know, I’m always in the moment where, but I know that people in other places are worrying. Whatever their words are, searching for. But you know, they’re worrying about the future. They’re thinking about the past, but I’m pretty much in the moment. And you have to decide for yourself. Now we’re not necessarily good, right, at self-assessments, but nevertheless, you have to figure out what what’s going to work for you.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Reid: But the point is, you want to be present when it comes to resilience.

Steve Rush: And it’s got to be right for you. There’s no good trying to read a journal or replicate somebody else’s behavior. So, it doesn’t fit for you, right?

John Reid: Yeah, context is king, which is, you know, it’s the number one premise of my company. When I went through training in the chemical industry, what I was shocked to find out and still happens is that, you know, a training company built something let’s say in 1980 and there you are in 2021, and it’s the same program being delivered to you and voila. They just happened to have designed it in ‘80 for you. It’s the silly season.

Steve Rush: Right.

John Reid: I mean, nothing off the shelf was designed for you. Does it have value? I guess some, but we all want to be considered unique. We want to be appreciated. We want to be respected. And you do that by understanding the context and, you know, treating me with some respect versus treating me as an empty vessel that you’ve got to fill with a model.

Steve Rush: Sure. Now authenticity is your third superpower that we’ve lost. Now, it’s interesting because 10 years ago, everyone was blogging around authenticity and it’s almost become a little bit cliche in so much as a little bit overused, perhaps. How do you think we did end up losing some focus around authenticity and how do we get it back?

John Reid: Yeah, that’s a good question because I think it’s anything, so authenticity is just the latest, you know, in the bag, is the answer, right? So unfortunately, there is this desire for simple answers to complex problems.

Steve Rush: Yep.

John Reid: So, the simple answer is empathy. Oh, the simple answer is grit. The simple answer is purpose. The simple answer, you know, it just drives me up the wall, frankly, as a learning professional, and these people participate in it. I mean, the people that create this stuff, you know, don’t say, no, this is just an answer. It’s not the answer.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Reid: They go full in it. This is the answer. Authenticity, you’re right, it was in the mill. I think it gets it because, you know, people know when they see it and there’s genuine authenticity and transparency. And there’s something that you learned in a classroom that you’re trying out, which by definition isn’t authentic,

Steve Rush: Exactly. You know, the other funny thing I hear a lot is I’m going to be my authentic self. Well, one, if you’re having to tell me that, then you’re probably not going to be. And because you’ve given it a label, you’re probably not going to be.

John Reid: I always think I’ve operated under an…. So, you know, there’s a better version of yourself, right? That’s why we’re all after, right? We’re after a better version of ourselves

Steve Rush: And that’s the right language

John Reid: And there is a better version of yourself, right? When you fly off the handle, you know, there’s a better version of you that wouldn’t have flown off the handle. When you were gossiping, there’s a better version of yourself that doesn’t gossip, whatever it is, there’s a better version. You want to be the best version of yourself. And that best version of yourself, you know, is authentically you, it’s your true self that we’re after. So, we have a relationship with a company called The Wise Advocate. The idea that there is this wise advocate inside of us, all, you know, there’s two mental pathways. One is the habitual sort of reactive “How do I get out of the situation?” The other one gets in the executive center and says “what’s the right thing?” And what we want to encourage people is to take that other path and think about, is this decision, is this behavior aligned with my best true self?

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely spot on. Allied with that is compassion, which is your next lost superpower. Tell us it about that/

John Reid: Well, Compassion’s probably my favorite, again, I had other authors, so I should have said this earlier, not just me, but there was Corena Chase, she wrote Authenticity, Lynae wrote Resilience, Andrew Reid, my son wrote the chapter on compassion. So, I have other authors here, which I should have mentioned earlier. Compassion, I love compassion. And I’ll tell you why I love compassion because I was tired of empathy a little bit on so many levels.

Steve Rush: So, here’s the thing, what’s the difference then between empathy and compassion, is there a difference?

John Reid: There is a big difference, and it depends on whose definition. So, everything becomes definitional, but I think the majority of people would agree that compassion is empathy with action.

Steve Rush: Nice.

John Reid: Empathy is, “I feel your pain. I can take that perspective. I feel what you must be going through” but I don’t do anything about it except for verbally maybe acknowledge it. Compassion has risk. Because now I put myself in that situation, that’s personal risk. I take action. So, compassion is, I think what we ultimately get judged on, not what you say, but what you do. And we want to encourage people to take more action, an inclusive environment. It’s not like sitting around going, oh, you know, it’s got to be tough. And I know, you know, I’ve thought about this a lot and being different but what am I going to do about it? You know, am I going to become an ally? Am I going to risk my neck? Am I going to say something? So, Compassion’s the right word.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Reid: And I think Compassion’s the next authenticity, unfortunately. As you point out that authenticity might be dated, compassion might be, I might be cutting edge on compassion. So, part of my problem with empathy, and this is debatable, but I had cancer four times and I did not want empathy. I wanted sympathy.

Steve Rush: Yeah, big difference too.

John Reid: And Brené Brown acts like sympathy is some horrific thing. And I’m like, she’s wrong about this! She’s brilliant. I think she’s brilliant, but she can be wrong, right. And I don’t know. I would like to have her on the podcast now to explain, maybe I’m understanding it wrong, but all I know is in that moment, I wanted sympathy. I don’t want you to say, oh, I know what it must like to have cancer four times. You have no idea. You just have no idea.

Steve Rush: Absolutely.

John Reid: And you look foolish and why are you putting yourself into my pain? If you’re not going to do something about it. So, the other thing about empathy that is problematic Steve, is that we are empathetic to people who are like us. This is the us, them quandary. I’m very empathetic to people that look like, me act like me or who are in my socioeconomic. It’s the them’s that I have trouble with, right? Humans now, not me personally, but you know that doesn’t get talked about enough. We get told either that we’re not empathetic, which is not true. And we know it’s not true because we are empathetic or, you know, so we ought to be told, hey, we teach empathy, we do, and we do in terms of emotional intelligence, we say, look, you’re wildly empathetic. We tell that to the participants, right? Because they are when it comes to people like them. So, we say, hey, here’s the data, here’s your empathetic, here’s the bad news. So, we have to expand, we have to have a different way of viewing the ‘them’s’ in a more inclusive way or a more belonging way to think about the others in order for us to tap into our empathy.

Steve Rush: And for me, compassion is a little bit more experiential as well. It means, I’m actually really thinking and immersing myself into that situation so that I can change either a behavior or a skill, or indeed my approach to other people in different situations, right?

John Reid: Yeah, it takes bravery. The five lost superpowers, we have the superpower theme. So, we try to carry that through the book in some degree that wasn’t hokey. But for each of the superpowers, we have like a tool belt and the tool belt for a compassion is BAM and the B stands for brave, right? It takes a level of bravery to be compassionate.

Steve Rush: It does, yeah. Because you put yourself out there, right?

John Reid: Yeah, you’re putting yourself out there.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Reid: You’re taking personal risk. I mean, he took personal risk, obviously again and again and again. So yeah, compassion is very deserving of being a superpower.

Steve Rush: Your Last Lost Superpower. I absolutely love, and I’m really excited to kick this around with you. And it’s a whole notion of playfulness. Now, as kids, we had no boundaries and we would’ve done this willingly, vast majority anyway. And yet it’s something that when we get to become more mature and we get careers and jobs, we do less, and it can unlock such a lot of greatness in our lives and work. Just wondered if, what your take on that would be?

John Reid: Yeah, I mean. I loved playfulness because, you know, I’m writing a book for businesspeople and, you know, there’s risk, right? With playfulness, you know, we don’t want to be silly and we’re adults now and we shouldn’t be playing. And that sounds like a waste of time. I mean, the biggest thing is that being playful sounds like a waste of time, you know? But in fact, if we look at imagination, we look at creativity, we look at innovation, there’s a sense of playfulness you have to have. So, we went playfulness versus the other words. The time I came upon playfulness in the business context, when I was reading, unfortunately, the report about the towers, the 9/11 report, and it starts with, it was a lack of imagination and I thought, wow, that’s, you know, we never could see that happening.

We weren’t imaginative enough. Which lends itself to… we’re taking ourselves so seriously we couldn’t just go there and think wildly. And then as I got in the business world, I ran into this theory by Lev Vygotsky that really transformed our thinking around this. Lev Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist who talked about children on the playground playing a head, taller, meaning he observed that five-year-old played like eight-year-olds and eight-year-olds play like twelve-year-olds. We took that quote to mean that kids from a playground would take these risks. They played head taller. They took risks, but eventually we play a head shorter and that’s tragic, right? We don’t take those risks. We don’t extend ourselves and it’s not the best version of ourselves again. And so that really struck me. And then when I looked at like things like brainstorming, I always had this resistance to brainstorming. This idea, that great ideas come in this antiseptic where no ideas are judged and everybody’s ideas the same. And I always thought, boy, when people are being creative, they’re having fun. They’re laughing. They’re making fun of your idea. That’s a stupid idea, it’s just like, we forgot to have fun. Now it needs to be safe, and people need to be respected and talented, but you can interrupt people and laugh at some idea or, you know, be a fool yourself, and I think you can get more creative than what we’ve been led to believe by a lot of this stuff. So, and I think we know that now to, even to a large degree, but playful is an exciting one to think about. It’s not being silly. It’s just not taking ourselves so seriously. And there is a gift of going second. I love this idea, Steve. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it, but if I, as a leader can be playful and make fun of myself. I’ll give you an example. Can I give you an example real quick?

Steve Rush: Yep, yeah. Please shoot for it. Yeah.

John Reid: So, I’m six foot four and I weigh too much, but I went paintballing once in the woods and there was a tree and I tried to hide behind tree, but the tree was a small tree. And so, people were pelting me with paintballs because they could see me. Well, years later years later, I find this picture of a bear hiding behind a tree. So, I send it to all my employees. I say, this is me at the paintball game. Now they thought it was funny, but that allows them to be silly. So that’s the gift of going second, if you, as the leader can say, you know, we’re all human. We have foibles, we do stupid stuff. I’m like you, and you get people’s again, you get their best self at work. You get their playful self, their imaginative self, a ’try this’ self, a sense of that can take risk. You know, not everything is life or death. I mean, I think you want that in your environment. I’m glad you like that chapter. And I think it deserves its own space.

Steve Rush: And also, this is not about whether somebody’s introverted or extroverted because there’s also an unconscious assumption that if I’m introverted, I can’t be playful. It’s just a different style of playfulness.

John Reid: Yeah, I’m one of those introverts who can do extroversion obviously by the pace at which I talk and all this, but I am, you know, much more regenerated when I’m alone reading, thinking, or small groups than I am in large crowds. It’s where you get your energy from and it’s so easy to judge somebody quickly or you’re an extrovert and like, see, you don’t even know what it means and that’s not good. And why are you putting me in that box? And what does that mean anyway?

Steve Rush: But it happens all the time, right?

John Reid: Oh Yeah. We love boxes. We’re trying to make it simple.

Steve Rush: Labels.

John Reid: Labels and boxes, and you’re one of them and you’re DiSC style is this. And your insight style is that, and therefore this and you do that. And it’s like, oh my gosh, what’s that about?

Steve Rush: Well, listen, I’m delighted we had the chance to spin through those. We’ll give you an opportunity at the end of the show so we can connect people to find a copy and the rest of what you do. Before we do that, though, just going to turn the tables a little bit. Now you’ve been a successful leader in lots of different businesses, including of course leading your own successful group. So, I’m going to tap into your leadership thinking and your leadership brain right now, John. And I’d like you to distill those down to your top three leadership hacks, what would they be?

John Reid: I would say, what we did, which was very clever of me by accident, I think. We didn’t declare values until we lived them. So, I had a company that was going on for four or five years and I said, okay, what are our values? Because we give grace, have a perspective, you know, but we actually lived the values before we declared them. So, I like that, well, I like the idea of having alignment, right? If you’re going to say you’re about this, you got to hold yourself accountable to that. Because people are going to look to when you’re not. So, I think as a leader, you always want to be very clear. You don’t want to leave it to people to try to figure it out. You want to be able to articulate. Here’s what matters to me, and here’s what it looks like.

So, people have trust in you. So, there’s building a trust. I would say the other one related to trust, because trust is the coin of the realm. As a leader, you’ve got to show an interest in the whole person. So, if they say, hey, I’d like to take off, my dog’s sick. You’ve got to ask, oh, what’s wrong with your dog? Most leaders are like, okay, no problem, you can work later or something tomorrow. They miss the opportunity to build a human-to-human connection. And then they wonder why people don’t trust them, don’t like them, don’t confide in them, don’t leave, you know? Well, because you just missed all these rapport cues.

Steve Rush: Compassion again. Of course.

John Reid: Yeah, it’s just taking that extra step to show you’re listening and oh, and that doesn’t mean you have to care about this person’s dog. No, what you care about is this person and you know that to care about this person, have a relationship. The dog’s important to them. So, I’m going to ask about the dog. People get all caught up and that’s not authentic, that’s not me. I don’t care about dogs. No, you do care about a relationship though, right? So, get out of your own way and ask about the dog. So, there’s rapport building, there is aligning your values or whatever it is. I think the last one and this is where the training industry always gets it wrong. Not wrong, I shouldn’t say that. But candor is a compliment. Being honest with people about their performance is a compliment, good and bad.

Oh my gosh. Could talk so much about this. If you do nothing else, start recognizing people more. When they do something, right, thank them. That was great. I like how you did this. That makes having the difficult conversation so much easier.

Steve Rush: Exactly.

John Reid: You can just go right into it because you’ve got that. You’ve done that. You’ve told them when they’re good. It’s much harder when you’ve never said anything good to them. And now you want to deliver some bad news and then you try to hide good news in it and create that infamous crap sandwich. So, people that work for me never have to wonder what I’m thinking about their performance. They just don’t, that burden’s gone. Sometimes they’ll say, wow, that’s terrible. Oh, don’t do that again. What was that? You know, but I do it in a playful way. We shank that one, we talk about that in the book, ‘shankapotamus’ - I shank that one. But that’s what you want to do as a leader, you want to recognize people and then be honest about their performance. People deserve honesty. People deserve to be treated a like adults, not children. And they deserve the truth in a way they can hear it. Not just let it all hang out, but in a way that is intentional about the way they can hear it.

Steve Rush: Love that, great advice. Next part of the show, John, we call it Hack to Attack. Now this is typically where something in your life or work hasn’t worked out. But as a result, the experience you’re now using as a force of good. Now, we’ve already talked about surviving cancer four times. But if there was a moment in your life where you look back and think, well, that’s definitely something that was pivotal for me. What would that have been?

John Reid: I think the moments that are pivotal in my career were when I was under stress, and I didn’t deal with things in the best way. And that happened a lot. And so as much as I said, I was mindful in the moment, I still had stress, right? Because you have cancer. You’ve got kids, you have kids in college. And I worked for some managers who were great. And I worked for some managers who were really not good human beings. They were really, you know, dysfunctional human beings and those dysfunctional human beings got to me. And one of them made me cry. I was like 50 years old or 45 years old. I don’t know. It’s a long time. It was like 45 years old. And I’m crying because this person is making my life hell. And it was funny when I did my exit interview, I said, you know, you made me cry.

He said, do you think I meant to? And I said, I don’t know what you meant to do. All I know is I cried. And I’ve never cried before, but I think those turning moments are, you know, not dealing with it, trying to wish it away, not taking control of it, not taking action on it, but just becoming a little bit of a victim, right? Where you look at things that are being done to me and losing your sense of agency. And that’s where I first fell in love with the word agency, right. That we have to have agency and we don’t have agency if we’re so helpless until we’ve got to regain it if we don’t have it, we’ve got to find a way to regain it.

Steve Rush: And that’s where it’ll make you stronger and you’ll become more resilient and more effective as a result of the learning that you get from that experience.

John Reid: Sure, and I want to give people agency, I want them to know everything. I mean, I tell my employees, we just had a meeting and here’s all the numbers. Here’s everything you need to know. Here’s everything I know. So, you know, you’re making choices with full information. Because you’re an adult and you’re entitled to that, and you have agency and I want you to know how we’re doing.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely so

John Reid: The right thing to do.

Steve Rush: So last thing we get to do today is we get you to do some time travel, bump into John at 21 and give him some advice. What would your words of wisdom to him then be?

John Reid: Well, I would say to John at 21, there’s some things about you that the world is going to say is wrong, but it’s actually your secret sauce. So, the secret sauce was, I was always authentic. I was never anybody, but me. I was always curious and always playful. I think those three qualities I had from the beginning, what I would tell 21-year-old me is, you know, it’s not about you though, right? I mean, I was that guy. I was a little bit too much of that. Hey, look what I did, look what I accomplished, and nobody likes that guy. And also, there was a better version of me, a sort of a more controlled. I used to walk in a room of people. This is what I would tell younger me. I would walk in a room, a group of people, 21 and probably just start talking. And I would defend that behavior by saying, well, that’s me and the people around me go, that’s John, look at John, only John can walk in a room and just start talking. But you know, there is a good percentage of people in the room are like, you know, I hate John, John’s a jerk. I was talking and John interrupted me. And this John that some of you like is kind of a jerk. And it took me a while to realize that you can be authentically John without being a jerk. And you know, I think that’s what I would tell 21-year-old, John. I hope he would listen. He wasn’t a good listener, either 21-year-old John.

Steve Rush: Well good news, it kind of all figured out at the end, right?

John Reid: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So, John, listen, I’ve really loved chatting and I could spend all day chatting or be at our listeners will probably drop off about now, because this is typically where our shows kind of run to and from, but before we wrap up our conversation today, how can we make sure our global audience can connect with you and the work that you do, maybe get a copy of some of the books.

John Reid: Yeah, please reach out. A couple ways, one, is the website, http://www.jmreidgroup.com and I’ll give my email. Can I do that Steve?

Steve Rush: Absolutely. I know you’re really connecting with people, so please do.

John Reid: It’s John, J-0-H-N at J-M-R-E-I-D group.com. And please email me, any emails I get I’ll send a copy of the book if it’s in the United States of America area. But the book also available.

Steve Rush: Hashtag expensive international postage.

John Reid: Exactly. But you know, we’re on Amazon. We’ve had good success with the second book and the first book. So, you know, they’re readily available. We’re going to have an audio version coming out, I think in the next month.

Steve Rush: Sure thing. We’ll make sure that the links to your books, as well as to the JMReid Group and your email are in our show notes. So, folks can click straight into when we’re done.

John Reid: Great. Thank you, Steve.

Steve Rush: John, I’ve had a ball and thank you ever so much for being part of our community. Wish you ever success. I know that you are in the moment, and I know that there are some great things ahead for you and the JMReid Group. So, thanks for being part of our community.

John Reid: Thank you.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handle there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Dr Kerstin Potter is an Executive Coach with over 30 years in international business the private and public sector, She is the Founder and CEO Visual Metaphors at Work. Explore these topics:

What is the difference between metaphors and visual metaphors?
The unconscious thoughts and neuroscience triggered by visual metaphors.
How visual metaphors help leaders express themselves in situations they find difficult.
It’s not about being a leader of – but a leader with.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Kerstin below:

Kerstin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerstin-potter/

Company Website: https://www.visualmetaphorsatwork.com

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Our special guest on today's show is Dr. Kerstin Potter. She's an executive coach with an enormous amount of international experience, and she's now the CEO of visual metaphors at work. But before we get a chance to speak with Kirsten, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: How can use in the news today, we explore how we can control our brain for optimal functioning, that mighty three-pound organ that sits in amongst our skulls. How do we get that to work for us instead of against us? When we are preparing for significant events in our careers and our work, we tend to focus on preparation. For a big presentation to do we practice until we get comfortable. If we have an interview for a new job, we'll practice some research so that we understand what the obvious questions might be. When we take this approach however, we're only doing half the work of being effective and successful.

How often do we take time to prepare our brains? What do you do to ensure that you keep that pivotal organ in the game? Not just your body in actions, it's fair to say that physical preparation is what controls the brain, but there are specific things we can do to ensure that our brain is as prepared as our body for those important career situations. Let's dive into a few areas. Thoughts play a massive part in how our brain is used. Truth is, we can manage emotions, but it starts with controlling our thoughts. Every emotion we experience comes from a thought which occurs consciously or unconsciously. Then we experience one or more emotions based on it. And if those thoughts don't serve you well, it can be pretty destructive. You might find yourself getting into a Whirlpool that takes you away from the work that you're at distracted, and therefore will reduce your opportunity for peak level performance.

The hack for brain training here is to be thoughtful around whether or not your thoughts are helping you move forward, or they're going to hold you back. Take the time to consider these thoughts and replace them with data by asking yourself specific questions. These questions can help you replace the thoughts with information that could be really helpful. An example could be consider how many times you've given a successful presentation and then do a quick mental scan of what it was that helped you accomplish what it was that you set out in that presentation. What were the things that helped you? Do you have evidence to support your experiences, aligned your education, your previous jobs and your career accomplishments, all will give you data to reinforce your capability in order for you to do a great job. And when you provide your brain with evidence and data, it doesn't have to do the hard work of finding the information to fill the uncertainty, but reminding your brain, you have the skill sets to take on the task that you have the background to be credible on the topic.

Your brain will create the right emotions that align with these thoughts, replacing anxiety with confidence, the power of words is a really important hack to continually evolve and build brain power. As a professional, you're like to be aware of the power of words. It can be used to motivate, demoralize, strengthen, undermine. But how often do you think about the words which you use on yourself? Yourself talk. Such words might be conscious ones that you say to yourself, as well as the unconscious words that whisper around in your ears when you're thinking to yourself. The problem here of course, is that words create thoughts, thoughts create actions. So, these words have to be the ones that serve you well. And I've been quoted in saying before, this is the voice in your head that you wake up with. It's the one you go to bed with, and it'd be the last one you hear before you die.

So, it has to serve you really well. The heck here is to avoid the words that don't serve us well. And there are a few examples could be, should, have to, need to, must have, which create thoughts of you not doing enough or not being enough. They may experience feelings of guilt or put you under a position of pressure. To avoid creating an internal climate of negative thoughts and emotions. Replace these pressure words with power words, such as, want, will, do. Instead of telling yourself, you should going to work to review X, Y, Z, use the words I will. Changing the pressure word of should to will and want. Shifting the focus from my making a mistake to building confidence puts you back in control of your thoughts and emotions and builds brain power. And with the hacks that we've shared so far, we've talked about the thoughts that are creating actions in the way that we do things.

These all stem from mindset. When you work on a project for your organization, do you plan to start and only complete 50% of it? Of course, you don't, but this is a metaphor of how we've been engaging our brain when it comes to preparation for our professional roles. Overall, how you function is your choice, it's a mindset. You can determine what thoughts you want to encourage to create beneficial emotions, your mindset related to create the thoughts you need to get you closer to big performance. And that mindset will allow you to decide what words will generate the right behaviors and actions that align with you achieving your goals. And you can tell your brain where to focus and in doing so unlock the results that you want. These simple strategies and hacks will help your brain become a better tool for you and remember mindset triggers, your thoughts that triggers your behaviors. That's been the leadership Hacker News, we'd love for you to share your stories and insights with us so please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today is Dr. Kerstin Potter. She's an executive coach with an enormous amount of international experience of over 30 years in leading both private and public sector businesses. She's now the CEO of Visual Metaphors at Work. Kerstin, welcome to the show.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: It's great to be here. Thank you.

Steve Rush: I'm delighted that we've got you to come on our show for two reasons. One, the first time that you and I met, it was a kind of a bumping into visual metaphors. And then subsequently I've been coached by you. And it was an enormous experience for me. And I just wanted to get our listeners to feel how that might have been for them. But before we dive into the whole notion of what you do, let's get to know a little bit about you. What's your backstory?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Right? Well, I was born in Sweden, and I spent my early childhood there. And then when I was 13 years old, my family moved to Switzerland. I was placed in a convent school where only French was spoken. And I didn't know where to French at the time. And my family wasn't religious. So, I didn't understand any of the rituals either. So, I felt very much as a mute, you know, for six months I had to really get by, by looking at how people were acting, what they were doing and the tone of their voices and so on to try to understand what was going on. And at the beginning I made many mistakes and didn't really get it at all. And then I got better and better at really looking at what's going on around me. And after six months, I was ready to then with my French to start the normal school. But I think with hindsight, that time of newness was what made me really interested in how people work and operate and listening and looking at people in that way. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the life and culture in the French part of Switzerland. So, I stayed on there and trained as a scientist by reading chemistry at the University Lund. I was interested in how a scientist mind worked in the observation experimentation, looking at feedback from systems and then making changes and looking how that worked. I then had a brief interlude in Sweden, reading history of art. This is where images came in, I think. And this was really because I needed to see Sweden or this culture of Sweden from the viewpoint of grownup, rather than a child, because many people were asking me about Sweden, I couldn't really answer them.

After that brief interlude. I then went to the UK to do a PhD in chemistry, in Cambridge. And this was really to get myself or make myself a better scientist by training in actually doing real research work. After I had finished my doctorate, I joined a pharma company AstraZeneca as a graduate trainee. I think I went into this with some detail because I think this is the pattern of my career really is trying to move on into a different and new industrial or business area. And at the same time change country, because I really enjoyed the learning and the new culture.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: The new cultures I encountered. So, I carried on in that pattern. After working the pharma industry, I moved back to Switzerland as part owner of a startup, and that was specializing in mentalized textiles for high precision printing and also protection cages for electronic equipment. So, a completely different area again. I then spent three years with Nestle in food ingredients, six years as management consultant in Germany. And then I moved back to the UK, setting up European safe effort for high tech consultancy. Again, in Cambridge, I was back made a complete tour. I then moved on to become director of Executive Education at Cass Business School in the city of London, the school specialized in finance. So again, I walked into a new area for me. This is also where I was first asked to act as a coach, particularly for me for women who moved in from outside the UK into the higher levels of management in the city of London, I thoroughly enjoyed coaching. I mean, this was, again, something completely new to me and I felt I needed to become more professional here. So, I trained as an executive coach at HEC Business School in Paris. I wanted to do this in Paris rather than in the UK, because at the time UK coaching was very much influenced by the US. And I also wanted to see how a different culture was working with coaching. And in addition, I also knew that in France at the time a team coaching was very important, and people were very interested in how this could work out. That hadn't really started yet in the US and in the UK. So, this is where I then really started as a coach, as a professional coach.

Steve Rush: So, one of the things that just rung a bell with me is, you were talking about that Kirsten, is that the kind of whole notion of cultural backdrop of coaching. Do you notice that there is a kind of a difference between different cultures in the way that we coach and are being coached?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, we have a different attitude towards power in different regions of the world. We have a different attitude to how we communicate in general and also the sort of careers, because executive coaching is about coaching people in their business careers, the way you look at your careers and what is important is completely different.

Steve Rush: So, from the time that you became a professional coach, how did you end up with Visual Metaphors at Work?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Well, I've been part of teams and I've been responsible for teams during my whole career. And I was starting to become really frustrated and worried. By the way that corporate culture and office politics get in the way of change and growth both at the level of the organization and the visual. So, this is where the team thing comes in. When I remembered some pioneering visual metaphor work carried out by Professor Angela Dumas at London Business School. She used images and objects to help teams reveal tacit knowledge and promote deeper conversations and trust within the team. I came across though when I was working with this high-tech consultancy in Cambridge. She'd been mandated by the consultancy to kick off a series of workshops for a client in Finland. This was an engineering company producing giant paper making machines. And they had acquired a smallest Swedish company.

Directors and the management teams from both organizations were to meet for the first time to agree on a common strategy for product development and service development. And Angela Dumas had been asked to pick off this whole thing using her images and objects. I was very worried because I don't like putting people into boxes, but I think it's well known that Swedes and Finns are not particularly talkative. And adding to that a group of engineers having to face up to images and try to talk about them. I was worried that it was going to be a complete disaster. I didn't know whether I was actually going to be there and see this big car crash or whether it would be better for me to just keep away from it. But yeah, my curiosity took over and I ended up joining them all. It was in middle of the winter. It was very dark in Finland, very cold. And Angela Dumas took out her bag of tricks, showed all her images, asked her questions, et cetera. And I was absolutely amazed. After 10 minutes, she had these people talking together in a very constructive manner and having fun at the same time. And they ended up with some really strong decisions and ways forward that they actually acted on, which I thought was amazing. So, when I had finished my training as a coach, then as a team coach, I remembered what had happened there. And so, I contacted Angela again to see what had happened with her methodology, her visual metaphors, et cetera, and unfortunately, she had been very ill and had to leave London Business School.

So, I ended up sitting by her bedside and then we took walks together, slow walks together in the park as she was in convalescence and listened to her talking about her research in the area, watch she'd done, the experiments she'd done. And I was also going through her paper asking her lots of questions. So, after that Angela and I decided to start a company together, which is now Visual Metaphors at Work. We set it up in Dubai in 2012. And we started working on developing the Lephorus to be a coaching tool for coaches, facilitators, and executives and companies to have some coaching experience to use with teams and we call this Lephorus. Angela then decided to retire in 2014. And I've been carrying on the work since then.

Steve Rush: This leads us to this point, right? So now you have your organization, and you are inspiring different coaching conversations using a really neat and different talk. And before we get into that, let's just for our global audience. We have 94 countries that listen to this podcast. So, on that basis, let's start with metaphors. For those that might be less familiar with that English phraseology, metaphor. What does that mean?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: We humans have been using metaphors for a very long time, indeed, and young people or young children from the age three or four, understand them without any problem at all and they exist in every culture. So, for example, we say time flies to show that time may have a direction for us and that it can go past very quickly in a flash. We also say time is money. We have hourly monthly wages. So, we paid for the time we spend at work or the time we give to the companies where we are working for our work. And also, if we do something wrong in society, we pay our dues by spending time in prison. We also say time heals. So, these are different ways of framing and reframing the quite complicated concept of time. Using metaphors like this is a way we have developed able to actually get a handle of complex concepts and to talk about them with others. Scientists use metaphors a lot in order to try to explain to each other what's going on in their experiments and so on, for example, I mean, say atoms bumped together, they don't, but it's very helpful to describe it in this way. There are also other metaphors like gestures, and also there are sound metaphors, for example a rooster crowing in the morning could indicate a new start, a new beginning. So that's met metaphors in general, and then there are visual metaphors and visual metaphors are images. We say an image is worth a thousand words, for example.

Steve Rush: Another metaphor as well.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Yes, exactly.

Steve Rush: So, I remember when you coached me, the thing that made the real difference for me in using metaphors is it helped me unlock my unconscious thinking. And when you coached me, you were using words around a situation. So typically, it would start with, let's talk about this situation and I want you to look at these images. And I remember you saying, look at the image. What do you see? What do you notice that similar to that situation? And on the face value, you look at an image and you think, well, it, can't, here's a bunch of colors and shapes and directions, or here's a chair that can't be possibly similar to the situation I’m in, but actually when you allow yourself to be present and in that moment and think about it, you can start noticing some patterns and some similarities. And that was the one thing that really intrigued me about this whole process. So, for me as a coachee, what's actually happening there?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Well, actually when I talk to people and it's interesting the words you've been using there, what people say is that when you see the images you seem to have an instant reaction to these images. It's a more like a gut feel. You know that bit is important to me, but you don't know why. They then say they try to process them intellectually, so there's an internal conversation. And then they go back to the instant reaction, the gut feel they had in choosing one particular image in that situation. So, it's not really very reasoned. It is a gut reaction, you know, does that make sense in what happened to you?

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely. What's quite ironic is we're talking about visual metaphors on a podcast, which is an audible means of communication. But even as we are describing this, I suspect our listeners can start to think about, if I described that, you know, we had four boxes each within an image, some would have shapes, some would have curve lines, some would have bright colors, some would have less bright colors, and you are naturally drawn to an image that for whatever reason, draws you there and there is no intellectual reason for that either.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Exactly, and then what people say to me is that that picture that you have selected gives you an anchor, it's an anchor point to be confident and specific about articulating the feelings around that situation and the insights you have, so you can do it. It goes very quickly. You start talking about important things very fast, and I think it's also something to do about if you have a white page, you know, how do you start writing? It's always difficult. The same thing, if you are asked to talk about your situation, you know, tell me more about it. Again, it's a blank page. Whereas if you have this image as a sort of anchor, it makes it much easier to are talking about things.

Steve Rush: And I suspect then unconsciously, because something been triggered in that conversation. We've triggered the conversation. Then it allows you as a coach to then ask additional relevant questions because you've got something out early.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Absolutely. And what we also do and what's important with Lephorus is that we use several sets of images. So, we keep on asking questions, using different types of images. That's what you saw too Steve, didn't you?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: And also, it's not just any images. These images have been developed. Starting off bound, read your mind, then by us, we now are at the third generation of images because we have learned as we go along, what works in well in certain situation and what works less well. So, it's very important. The type of image, the family you use, the questions you ask and the type of questions, you have to be very careful with how you word your questions.

Steve Rush: And I suspect if you are not careful, you end up leading people to anchor into an image that they might not naturally migrate towards, right?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Absolutely. And also saying things that they think they should say, because, you know, it's the way you prompt the way you ask questions about the image to try to get deeper into it. You can't ask leading questions, that's clear.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and people learn in lots of different ways. So, if we go back to the core foundations that most of us learn, it's either visual, auditory. So, we see things, we hear things, we like to touch things that's kinesthetic. So, what if I'm not naturally visual, will it still have the same effect for me?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: You know, it's an interesting question. First of all, from the experience, there is no problem. Everybody actually gets this very, very quickly. The only people we've had real problems with are those who are actually in the art world or in the design world, because we use images of abstract images. So, they're immediately trying to get back to, you know, who might have painted that.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: You mentioned images of chairs. They might say, well, who might be the designer of that chair? So, they get into their professional life before they look at the image, just as an image.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Those are the only people who've had problems with. It's interesting, you're saying this about more visual or more sort of language based. It's actually been shown that, and that was some recent research carried out in 2017 by Elinor Amit at Harvard Medical School who showed that, in fact, we internally use both sort of language reasoning and visual reason, but it depends on the complexity of the issue at hand, which one we turn to. When the issue is quite simple, we use more language thinking. And when the complexity is increased, we start to go more towards the visual. And that happens with everyone.

Steve Rush: That's really interesting, isn't it? Yeah, so particularly when we find ourselves in difficult situations or elements of particular conflict, you found that people using visual metaphors can also unlock some learning in themselves far quicker than if they would do through regular coaching. What's the reason that happens?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Because It's yourself, the person itself who is actually finding these insights within themselves, you then move on to actually understanding how you can go forward in a quite different way. You know, if you move towards something, you have to know what would be good and you have to know what would be bad for you. And then you can start building the road.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: From where you are today to where you want to get to, again, using images to show you the different paths you can take. And you then very quickly, very easily get into, right. I can try to do this. I can try to do that. If that doesn't work, I can move on to this other pathway and so on. So, you get to something very quickly and something practical.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and also from a team and group perspective, this can really also help stimulate conversation in broader teams rather than just individuals as well. And I just wondered what your experience was of that.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Oh yes. Well, I mean, one of the things that people do say also is that this creates, you know, the famous psychological safety.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: You know that Amy Edmondson of Harvard Business School has been talking about for many, many years. Here, were actually seemed to be creating that. And there are two things. One is the ritual. We ask each person of the team, one after the other in silence, choose an image that represents the situation or the issue at hand or whatever. And then to talk to their teammates about this image. And we find that when they do that, people lean in and want to listen to what their colleague is saying. They're very interested to see which image their colleague chooses. And then to listen to what they're saying about that image. You then very quickly, have other team members more questions about the image. On fact, for example, saying, well, I chose that image too, but for this and this reason, which is different from yours, and you have a conversation happening again very quickly. And because you're talking about the image, you're not talking about the person, it's becomes nonconfrontational and non-aggressive.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: So, you have an openness in the team that happens very quickly, and which is very constructive.

Steve Rush: And to your point, psychologically safe then, isn't it? Yeah, like it.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: They say afterwards, I feel as if, you know, I've been working with these people for years but after this session, I feel as if I'd been to school with them.

Steve Rush: How fascinating, yeah. So, if I'm a leader listening to this and I'm thinking, great, I'll just whip myself onto the internet. I'll download of images, and I'll try and run this with my team. What's the danger in doing that? Or is there a danger in doing that?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Well, it depends on what you want to do with it. I mean, there's something called photolanguage that has been used for very many years in teams, when you start a workshop, for example, and photolanguage is the selection of images to use about 50 images, photos. And it has people in it, it has animals in it, it has as cars, you know, anything. And it's very useful. If you say at the beginning of the workshop, say, you know, how are you feeling now? Or what do you want to get out of this workshop? Instead of doing the usual flip chart, you know, what are you wanting to get out of this workshop? You do it with this image, and that's been going on for years and years and that's useful. However, you don't get any deeper than that.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: You know, the important thing with the Lephorus is that we have the different types of images for different depths of conversation. We are really digging in, we're starting at the higher level saying, you know, what's your situation? What is the situation as a whole? And then we dig down during a workshop, which usually takes about two hours or two and a half hours.

Steve Rush: And your images are scientifically chosen over time through experience and through methodology to make sure that they stimulate the conversation, right?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Yeah, they've been chosen through experience. I don't know about scientifically. But yes, over, you know, over many years, since 2012, we have been working with those images and looking at how they worked in workshops.

Steve Rush: So, if I wanted to dig into visual metaphors, what's the easiest way for me to kick that off?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Well, our website is a good way to start because there are videos there explaining what metaphors are and how they work. And they're also courses for coaching and facilitators to learn the techniques. And in a few weeks, there will be an eBook with more background, more theoretical background and so on. So, there's quite a lot of information there. And then I'd always be happy to talk to anybody about my experience, our experiences and also give examples of what we've been doing and the issues that we have been helping organizations face and find solutions too.

Steve Rush: Excellent, and at the end of the show, we'll make sure we capture how people can connect with you so that they can dive into some of that. But at this part of the show, typically where we turn the tables a little, we're now going to hack into your leadership mind. So having led a number of different businesses, lots of different international experiences, I'm really keen to dive in and hack into your leadership mind. So, if you had to think about your life's work and distill that down to your top three leadership hacks, what would they be?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Right. Well, I think the first one is that it is not about being a leader of, for me, it's being a leader with, so it's about walking together, walking side by side with a team. And I find that important because there is an intelligence in a team. There's an intelligence in an organization that we often don't take account off.

Steve Rush: Okay.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Number two, if you do work in that way, you know, rather than being a leader with, it's very important that wherever you are, the top management, actually agrees with this because if that's not the case, and you do listen to the intelligence of the team and you then are not able to take account of that, then that's worse than not listening in the first place. I've seen that happening. We have been working in organizations where we actually have walked away because we had to say, no, this is counterproductive. If we don't act on the intelligence of the organization that is destructive rather than constructive.

Steve Rush: Definitely.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Numbers, three. Unforce humor is important, has an important place. So that's why I really like when we are running these workshops that those early banter, you know, people laugh a bit about the images, about the things that's being said. And then very quickly when they realize that important things are coming out, it becomes serious, but there is banter and laughter and I think that's important.

Steve Rush: It also unlocks the chemicals in the brain to allow that deeper thinking and trust also comes about as a result of that, doesn't it?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Yeah, that's right. And I think, you know, if we can have more unforce humor in organizations in general, we'd all be happier.

Steve Rush: Definitely, yeah. Next part of the show, we've affectionately called Hack to Attack. This is where something hasn't worked out, it may have been pretty catastrophic, but at the time you took some learning from it and it's now a force of good for you in your work on life. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Well, I told you that I've been moving from one job to another and into and out of different countries. And of course, that can feel very risky and scary. But I must say that at the end, every time it's actually produced something very good, but for me and my family, even in places or in circumstances, when I've been asked to leave an organization, which is never an easy place to be in, with hindsight, that's been a good thing. And I've seen other people in similar situations thinking that their world has had ended. And in fact, this was actually an opening for something new, something different. So yes, it's scary. But I have learned that it's actually, usually very positive in the end.

Steve Rush: It's that moment, isn't it? That you make a call that either something is scary or alluring and it's a very fine line, isn't it? Last part of the show, we get to give you some time travel. You get to bump into Kirsten at 21 and give us some advice. What would your words of wisdom be to her then?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Right. Well, I'm naturally quite introverted and I would advise myself at the time to be kind to myself because I tried to be something I wasn't, I tried to be extrovert because I thought that was the way to be.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: And I've learned over many years that it's better to accept what you are and then to find ways of doing what you want to do, but in that context. So, for example, I go to networking events, but I allow myself to leave 30 minutes. So, it's those little things to be kind to yourself, not to stop yourself doing things because they are, you know, you're worried about them, whatever, but find ways of working it so that it fits with who you are. I have to say that if I'd said that to myself, age 21, I wouldn't have been listening.

Steve Rush: That's the other thing, isn't it? With hindsight. I reflect back on the same question to me. That's been asked many times and at 21, gosh, I was a very different individual and a different framing. If only we could listen to ourselves at 21, our life may have been a bit more seamless.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Perhaps.

Steve Rush: But who knows? Then we wouldn't have had those learning experiences either, right?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Exactly. I was going to say you need those bumps.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely, so. So beyond today, what's the best way we can connect our audience to your firm and to you through the work that you do?

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Well, our website is visualmetaphorsatwork.com. It's a bit of a mouthful. But as I said, lots of information there, I'm also active on LinkedIn. So, you can connect with me through that. During the last year, I've discovered that I like doing videos during the pandemic, last two years during the pandemic. I really like doing videos. So, we'll soon have a presence on YouTube as well. Particularly describing case studies from our clients. So, you know, guest contact me via LinkedIn or the website, and I can then give you updates on where things will appear that you might find of interest.

Steve Rush: Super, and we'll make sure all of those links are in our show notes. So, folks can literally head over soon as they've listened to this and click in and find you.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Thank you.

Steve Rush: So, Kerstin, thank you for coming on our show. I am really delighted that we've been able to showcase your work and my experience have been coached by you. And in hope that others will also find that visual metaphors can really unlock their experiences at work. So, thank you for coming on our podcast and thank you for sharing what you do.

Dr. Kerstin Potter: Thank you for having me.

Steve Rush: Thanks Kerstin.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the Leadership Hacker.

View Details

Amy Lynn Durham is the CEO of Create Magic at Work. She's also a Berkeley Certified Executive Coach, and one of the world's leading practitioners on spiritual intelligence. In this intimate

conversation we discuss some great learning including:

What is Spiritual Intelligence (SQ)
How we can use SQ and EQ at work as leaders
What to do, to create magic at work
How to feel connected with your teams or organization

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Amy below:

Amy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amylynndurham/

Create Magic at Work Website: https://createmagicatwork.net

Amy on Twitter https://twitter.com/durham_amy

Amy on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/createmagicatwork/

Full Transcript Below

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Amy Lynn Durham is a special guest on today's show. Amy is the CEO of Create Magic at Work. She's also a Berkeley Certified Executive Coach, and one of the world's leading practitioners on spiritual intelligence. But before we get a chance to speak with Amy, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Given today's show is about spiritual intelligence. We're going to start off by diving into emotional intelligence. So what is it? Well at the most basic level, emotional intelligence is the ability to understand your own emotions and other people's feelings. A high level of emotional intelligence will help us as leaders engage with others effectively. Emotional intelligence affects all aspects of our professional and personal life. From our ability to self-regulate our emotions to manage behavior, sell an idea and lead and form healthy relationships.

Many companies have determined employees with a high level of emotion, intelligence increase a company's productivity and significantly impacts on the bottom line. So as a leader, if you're looking ways to boost your emotional, here's a few steps to help you on your way. Learn to stay cool. As the saying goes, you attract more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. You're more likely to get what you need by being polite rather than being rude. We say things we regret when we are stressed and angry, while stress is of course a normal part of life, it can so distract us from the rational thinking that we absolutely need. Stress, however, dramatically affects how we deal with problematic situations. You feel yourself getting stressed, take a walk, get some fresh air, sip some water, but take a break. If you want to boost your emotional intelligence, you need to learn how to avoid succumbing easily to the stresses in our personal and professional lives.

Next, develop empathy and compassion. Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage not only our own emotions, but for those around us as well. Their opinions, judgments, demands, requests of others can also cause us to lose our cool. But by stepping into their shoes, understanding can really set us apart. Be present in the moment and try and examine it from all angles. It could be entirely possible that you are reading into a situation that isn't actually happening right in front of you. Their intent could be altogether different from your understanding of their situation.

Be definitive. Are you someone who has things happen to them or are you the person that makes things happen? Learn how to take ownership of the situations in our lives. You're in driver seat after all. With higher emotion intelligence, you'll realize that you are in control of all of your outcomes, even though you might not think so, emotion and intelligence help you respond in an empowering way where circumstances and situations could be even really quite challenging and help you find a way around. Remember you're in the driving seat.

Change old habits, change how you engage with others. If you are in a habit of cutting people off, when they speak, practice stopping it. Learn to be fully present when engaging with others. Listen thoroughly to what somebody is saying without thinking how you're going to respond, just be in the moment. And yet it takes practice. And lastly, practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practice of observing the present moment without judging what you notice. The more you're able to observe without are judging the less slightly you are actually to react to the environment that’s around you.

And to sum this up nicely, Victor Frankl, author of Man’s Search For Meaning. States that everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of the human freedoms, which is to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. And developing our emotional intelligence will help us all enjoy this freedom to choose your attitude in any given circumstance. So, in conclusion, researchers have determined that emotional intelligence has more impact on success than IQ, your intelligence. The good news is that your level of emotional intelligence is not fixed, and it can be changed, and we can nurture it and it can grow. If you want some more informational emotional intelligence. One of the godfathers that brought this to our four is Daniel Goleman and he has a book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Please continue to keep your new stories flowing to us. But for now, let's get into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today is Amy Lynn Durham. Amy is a certified executive coach. She's the founder and CEO of her company Create Magic At Work and they offer spiritual intelligence and emotional intelligence tools to energize and transform the workplace. Amy's also written fantastic book named of course Create Magic At Work. Amy, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Amy Lynn Durham: Thank you for having me, Steve. I'm happy to be here.

Steve Rush: We always love to kick the show off with an opportunity for you to share a little bit about how you've arrived doing what you're doing. So, tell us a little bit about the backstory?

Amy Lynn Durham: How have I arrived? What a question. Yeah, it's a roller coaster ride for sure. Being a solopreneur entrepreneur. My background is in the corporate world as a corporate executive. I've worked for private and publicly traded companies. At my peak, I was working for a large telecommunications company, and I was operating about 40 million dollars a year in operating income and managing a little over 400 employees. And I mainly ran half of California, which is the size of a small country if you will.

Steve Rush: It's in fact bigger than many countries, right?

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah. And part of which was the Bay Area in Silicon Valley. So, I have a strong background in achieving sales goals, HR, recruiting, employee engagement, workplace culture, and all of those things that are involved with that. While I was in my position there, I really felt like my creativity was stifled in the workplace. And in my final year in that position, I made a goal within myself that I wanted to show to the C-suite leaders, that human connection improves productivity and profitability versus pitting people against each other in unhealthy competition. And so, I planned for a year to leave my job and I didn't tell anyone because I wanted to go on a journey where I reinjected myself back into the workplace to do these connecting activities. But what I did during the year that I stayed in my job was. I used my employees to test out these field, tested activities that I ended up putting in my book and I wanted to make sure I left on top, again, to show that these things work in the workplace.

Steve Rush: Awesome. And in doing that kind of test and learn under the radar, so to speak, what did you fundamentally learn about your existing team that happened as a result of you changing your approach?

Amy Lynn Durham: Wow, well, it freed me up as a leader to actually do my job. I'm going to start with the end result and then kind of unthread it from there for you. Once the team members saw the humanity within each other, with these activities, we were doing that really at the end of the day, elevated their spiritual intelligence, their SQ, and their EQ as well, their emotional intelligence. They worked together better. So, you know, one person would call the other if they had a question or needed help, collaboration skyrocketed. I wasn't the only main point of contact anymore. And the other thing that it did, which is a huge result of skill building and spiritual intelligence in the workplace, is it decreased the ego induced drama.

Steve Rush: Right.

Amy Lynn Durham: That is pretty time consuming in the workplace. And there were a lot more results. As far as like the ripple effect for humanity. I mean, there were some beautiful moments that I feel were healing that people had where they could really show who they are authentically in the workplace. And I know that team remembers each other forever now.

Steve Rush: Because they've got a deeper, more meaningful connection, right.

Amy Lynn Durham: A hundred percent.

Steve Rush: Yeah. So, you pivoted then into the world of helping others on this journey that you'd experienced yourself by really diving into that, what you call spiritual intelligence. Now for focus, listen into this. They may be more familiar with the language of emotion intelligence, but perhaps less so for spiritual intelligence. So maybe you can just give us a little bit of an overview if you like, as to what spiritual intelligence is and how that differs or not as a case maybe from EQ?

Amy Lynn Durham: Right? Right. Yeah. So, this is an arguable data point, but I'm going to share it because it's a great way to frame it. You get to SQ by way of EQ. So, if you have been working on self-awareness of your emotions and working on building connections in the workplace, that's sort of skill building in EQ. SQ you is when you start pondering, you know, why am I here? What is my life purpose? What are my values? And am I living in alignment with those values? And it's that point in your life where you start thinking of those different questions for yourself. The adult development theory says it typically happens around your early to mid-thirties, but obviously we're all human and there's exceptions, right?

Steve Rush: Right.

Amy Lynn Durham: The definition of spiritual intelligence is the ability. And this is from Cindy Wigglesworth who developed the 21 skills of SQ. And her definition is the ability to maintain inner and outer peace, make decisions with wisdom and compassion, regardless of the situation, even under great stress. So, if you take that definition and think, wow, what if all of our leaders were able to do that in the workplace? How amazing would that be?

Steve Rush: Be an amazing place. Yeah, definitely.

Amy Lynn Durham: Right, yeah.

Steve Rush: It's an interesting notion that in order to get to SQ, you've got to go through this emotional intelligence journey, but actually it starts with self, doesn't it? In that kind of foundation block.

Amy Lynn Durham: It does. I mean, you don't even have to know what emotional intelligence is. Again, the adult development theory says that that's around your early to mid-twenties where your brain is developed enough to really start experiencing compassion for others. But if you're in that space and you're working on self-awareness of your emotions, building connections, having emotional management strategies, all of those things.

Steve Rush: Right.

Amy Lynn Durham: The next steppingstone would SQ.

Steve Rush: If I was a leader, listening to this thinking around. Okay. So, I thought relatively grounded in my emotion intelligence. What's my next step to start exploring spiritual intelligence?

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah. Okay. I offer an SQ experience that I take you through all of it. I issue an SQ assessment on the 21 skills, and you can see what level you're operating at, at this current timeframe of the 21 skills of SQ. And then you can go from there, you can deep dive into whatever skill resonates with you. You don't have to work on all 21 skills if there's a few that you're like, I don't even care about this. Great. we can work on the ones that resonate with you. And for me, it's a life lifelong journey. So, I have a client just to give you a client story that knew their life purpose for the majority of their adult life. And they really did a great job with their career, and you know, working in that life purpose space. Well, now they're in a different phase of their life. Their life has changed as our lives do, and they're trying to rediscover a new life purpose. And so, this stuff can be cyclical too. It's not like a one and done.

Steve Rush: Right.

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Got it. So, what are the core elements of then spiritual intelligence?

Amy Lynn Durham: The first Is creating an awareness of your ego versus your higher self. Once you've created that awareness, this is my opinion. This is what I think is really the core element here is moving on to, okay. I'm aware of when my ego gets in the driver's seat, I'm aware of when I'm operating from my higher self, and now I can practice seeking guidance from my higher self. I can practice operating from the space of my higher self-more. And that to me is the core of all of this. How can we become aware of our ego and when it's operating? How can we work to have our ego in service to our higher self? And how can we practice seeking guidance from our higher self? So spiritual intelligence is faith neutral. You can be agnostic, you can be atheist, doesn't matter. As long as you believe there's a place within you that comes from wisdom, compassion, love, that you can access. You can work on the 21 skills SQ.

Steve Rush: I guess you have to have gone through that realizing first in order to be open to this, right?

Amy Lynn Durham: The realization of separating your ego?

Steve Rush: Yeah, and also realizing that there is something else to explore that you haven't yet gone through to find new ways of thinking and behaving.

Amy Lynn Durham: Yes. You have to definitely have some sort of awareness and some sort of curiosity to want to do the work that's required. Absolutely. It does take looking in the mirror and some inner work.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amy Lynn Durham: And some leaders don't want to do that. And that's okay. That's the space they're in right now, but I really truly feel, this is what will make you and your company a next level organization is operating from these skillsets.

Steve Rush: And from your experiences being a coach using the spiritual intelligence, SQ steps. Maybe just share with us a story or an example of where you've seen somebody really transition and make a significant difference to the way that they lead their business and the team?

Amy Lynn Durham: So, there's a really common skill that a lot of clients want to go to and talk about it. And it's in quadrant four at skill 19, and the skill is making wise and compassionate decisions. And let me tell you where the transformation happens. The transformation happens with the individual most often, lately. And I don't have the scientific data behind it, but I can speak to a correlation with the pandemic. These leaders are great leaders. And what ends up happening is when we dig a little bit deeper, we discover they need to make wise and compassionate decisions for themselves. And they're great leaders, obviously, because they want to dive into that skill, right? Oh, I want to dive into making wise and compassionate decisions. I want to operate at a really high skill level for my team and my people in that area. That is a great intention, beautiful, creating that ripple effect as a leader, but oh, by the way, are you making wise and compassionate decisions for yourself?

Steve Rush: Right.

Amy Lynn Durham: Are you burning yourself out? Are you overworking yourself for your team? Then we get into boundary setting and a little bit of self-care with that. So interestingly enough, the transformation happens with the individual taking care of themselves so they can take care of their people in a better clearer way.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amy Lynn Durham: That's one example.

Steve Rush: It's a great example. And I remember when you and I first met. You shared this story with me around how you go about helping people on this journey. And I remember you sharing the approach that you take because you genuinely take coaching to another level when it comes to SQ, where you not only do you get the report to make that spiritual connection yourself. I remember you sharing that, you know, you meditate over the report and the words you actually use, which I was quite inspired by was you actually almost ingest the energy that you get from their reports. And if you remember you and I had this conversation, is that the right word? And I think that felt really quite powerful for me. And I just wondered if you could share how that experience evolves?

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah. So once we start the SQ experience. They start the journey with taking the SQ assessment, and then once the results come through, I spend a lot of time reading those results, meditating on the results. And really, like you said, and I ingest the energy of the results. So, I can really show up for my client and be there for them. And then I create custom coaching questions for them in order to help move them forward on their leadership journey with this. It's a really cool experience. I had one particular client. This is just coming to mind. I just love this story. I love to share it. He scored so high on being able to operate from his higher self. And I was like, oh my gosh, did you know that you have this magic gift already innately that you just operate from your higher self?

And when a leader can do that, you know, like I said, before ego induced drama just kind of falls away, or you don't attract drama or people that are angry in your presence, the anger sort of dissipates. And I pointed that out to him because it's nice to name that and to know like, yeah, when I'm in a space with other people, my energy as leader, or as someone in a position of power actually ripples out 10 times over. So how amazing is it that this type of energy, this coming from a place of common healing presence, inner wisdom, compassion, love, is rippling out to the people that I'm interacting with. And he said, oh my gosh, when I was a little boy in school, the teacher would always sit the bad kid next to me. And she always said she did that because he seemed to behave better when he sat next to me.

Steve Rush: That's really fascinating, isn't it?

Amy Lynn Durham: And I said, yeah. The things that come about with these interactions are really cool and people discover hidden strengths that they know we're there, but they just need a light shined on them.

Steve Rush: Yeah. So that's tapping into spirituality the much deeper level, isn't? Than perhaps most people would consciously be aware of.

Amy Lynn Durham: It is.

Steve Rush: And I wonder as a coach, how do you get people tuned into that depth of understanding?

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah. So, I have two parts to the way that I operate. I have that deep stuff that I was just talking about with you. And then I have the super fun, playful tools that I offer. So that's why I designed Create Magic At Work. I put all the fun leadership activities in my book that leaders can grab. My book is like 64 pages, it's tiny. And I did that on purpose, and I designed it for the leader that can just grab it and go to an activity and do the activity with their team. The activity elevates their EQ and SQ, but it's super fun.

Steve Rush: Right

Amy Lynn Durham: So, yeah, we do the deep inner work with the one-on-one SQ experience or the workshops or the speaking engagements. But at the same time, you can just do something fun with your team and it can start simple. It doesn't have to be this huge, deep dive into SQL. I have a journaling exercise in my book. It's called journaling with a twist. I designed a journal prompt card deck for the workplace and for your career. So, you can pull a journal card for your team to journal on a theme. Time them for 10 minutes. They rapid write answers to the questions. And then if they're comfortable, they can share it with everyone. That was a huge connecting activity that I did with my team that brought everyone together. Because once everyone hears each other's answers, you start seeing the humanity in each other. And it's simple.

Steve Rush: Yeah. And fundamentally, this is about that human connection. About how we become more connected so that we become more empathetic, more productive, more, right?

Amy Lynn Durham: Absolutely, yeah.

Steve Rush: What would be your experience that generally in corporate life? We don't have as much human connectivity as we both perhaps could have or should have.

Amy Lynn Durham: Okay. I'm really glad you asked me this. I saw an article the other day on some neuroscience data and I know that there's all kinds of intelligences coming out right now, but it narrowed it down to the three to IQ, EQ and SQ. And to answer your question in the short form, it's because the workplaces that we're working in are mainly designed to only operate under IQ, that part of your brain that works under the IQ space.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amy Lynn Durham: And then, I'm going to answer your question longer now. I'm just going to give a simple example. Let's say you're working for a company that's like super IQ only, you know, P&L statements, Excel spreadsheets, no team connecting. They don't care about EQ. We're not going to do that woo, woo stuff. We're not going to kumbaya by the fire. Whatever, right? Like boiler rooms. And then you finally get to go home, and you get to kick up your feet and relax a little bit. And then that EQ part of your brain starts being able to kick in. And this neuroscience data was showing that it's actually different parts of your brain that you're accessing when you're utilizing these skills. And so, yeah, you get to use some emotion at home. You get to relax; you get to be who you are. And then finally, what they were saying is the spiritual intelligence part of your brain is another place you can access that takes you into that beautiful feeling where you're aligned with the ebb and flow of life, where you're in that creative, innovative, playful zone. As a couple of examples.

And as I read that article, because I know Steve, you and I are on LinkedIn, and we see all of the latest and greatest for workplace topics. And lately, even on my podcast, we talk a lot about how to be your authentic self at work. Can you be your authentic self at work? Why can't you be your authentic at work? All of those things. And I thought, no wonder, no wonder why some people feel like they can't be their full, authentic selves at work. Well, it's because a lot of these systems and these places that we work in. Their environments that allowing for accessing one third to maybe two thirds of our total potential.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amy Lynn Durham: Of our brain.

Steve Rush: And typically, and I could be really candid here, right. We just don't teach spiritual intelligence in the same vein as we do with emotion intelligence as we look at leaders, right?

Amy Lynn Durham: No. And I think that some leaders might get caught up with the word spiritual and think that it's religion. And then, oh, we don't want to talk religion in the workplace. We don't want to touch that. And for lack of a better word, I think it's just a little bit of un education or ignorance on what exactly it is and the benefits of it. So that's why I'm happy you have me on The Leadership Hacker to talk about it because it's so deep and it's so much more than that, yeah.

Steve Rush: It's really more about higher self, right?

Amy Lynn Durham: Totally. And when I talk about accessing your inner wisdom and your higher self, if you have a specific religion that you follow, that's beautiful. And if you want to utilize seeking guidance from your higher power, same thing, right. and so whatever works for you in your life.

Steve Rush: we're going to ask you at the end of the show, how folk can get a copy of what you're doing around, Create Magic At Work and so and so forth. So, hang fire to the end of the show and you can find out how to access Amy great stuff. Before that, though, we're going to just flip the lens a little bit Amy. We're going to hack into your broad and deep and wide leadership experiences. I'm going to try and get you to get them down to your top three leadership hacks. What would they be?

Amy Lynn Durham: Top three leadership hack. Okay. So, if you want to asked corporate Amy, like 10 years ago, they would've been like super corporately answers, like on time management and on productivity. But now that I am the spiritual executive coach, I am going to share my top three leadership hacks that are going to be so different for you. The first one is when mistakes and chaos occur in the workplace, take a moment to look for the innovation and inspiration hiding underneath. That will put you in a quantum leadership space and move you into the space of being a true wise and effective change agent. So that's the first one. The second one is, remember, it's never too late to start and there are never perfect circumstances. And the third is, I'm tying it into our whole theme today, Steve. Take time when making decisions to practice accessing your higher self and your inner wisdom or that higher power if you believe in that. We seek advice from a lot of experts. That's okay, as long as you're not just literally doing what they're saying, and you're taking a moment to sit with advice, you seek from an expert and see if it's actually right for you and practice seeking that guidance from your higher self and putting that ego aside in the process. I

Steve Rush: Love that last one. I can honestly say I act on advice that intrinsically feels right and seems right. And off I go into a direction of activity yet had I maybe just spent more time trying to tap into that thinking it might have changed the activity instead, right?

Amy Lynn Durham: When we feel unsafe or scared, sometimes we run to experts to tell us what to do. And I just say, take a pause and see if that really sits right with you before you make a decision, whatever it is. You know, I'm just, real broad here. But think about that because giving away responsibility to someone else to make decisions for your life is not where you want to be. I was going to say it's an SQ failure.

Steve Rush: I know you mean.

Amy Lynn Durham: I don't want to say that. Because it sounds so harsh, but the only reason why I'm sharing that is because I personally went through that journey during 2021.

Steve Rush: Right.

Amy Lynn Durham: And it was a beautiful learning experience for me and yeah.

Steve Rush: And often we will behave differently at work than we would do in our non-work life. We will ask people for advice and decisions and help me make these decisions at work. Whereas at home we probably make them ourselves because we have less people and noise around us.

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, or, I mean, sometimes people really have their EQ and SQ like really locked in the workplace and then personal relationships forget about it.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amy Lynn Durham: And so, that's our practice. Thank you for the lesson. Sometimes it's our personal relationships. That's really our practice that makes us better at work.

Steve Rush: Definitely. Yeah, I can resonate with that one for sure. So, the next part of the show we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where an event, an occurrence, a thing, has happened in your life or your work that hasn't worked out well, but as a result of the experience, you know, use it as a positive force in your life, in your work. And you've clearly articulated a direction, travel using some of those techniques, but was perhaps one event which created that Hack to Attack for you?

Amy Lynn Durham: I'm going to be super vulnerable and share something I did with my business that I don't like. At one point I decided that generating a bunch of leads for my SQ experience was a good idea. And I got talked into using the LinkedIn automated thing, you know, I should have sat with it like we talked about and felt whether it was a right fit for me or not. And I utilized it for a couple of months, and it just was not authentic. And it was not for me. I really learned from that because, it's my whole, you know, transforming workplace culture, human connection. How did I miss that within myself? And I had to shut it down. And what I learned from it is the power of, again, as we know, a reminder, the power of just connecting with people.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amy Lynn Durham: And having a real conversation. And I knew that, and I gave up my responsibility to some expert, you know, quote unquote experts and I had to take it back.

Steve Rush: That's great. And then trustingly, you know, even when you look at some of the advances in machine learning and data science, there still needs people that are humans that are connected to each other and to the work that they do in order for making the data science advancements in the last 10, 20 years as well. So, without human connection, we still can't even advance through our automated life.

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah. Last part of the show, we get to give you a chance to do some time travel. So, you get to bump into Amy at 21 and give her some words of wisdom. I'm fairly sure I know we is going, right? But I want to sense check and get a sense from you as to what would your advice to Amy 21 be?

Amy Lynn Durham: Oh my gosh, she was a completely different woman than the woman she is today. And my advice would be to slow down. Everything's going to be okay. Take moments, really, to be with yourself, stop running away from yourself.

Steve Rush: Like it. Really wise words. Great stuff.

Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So, I'm conscious that in the world of human connection, what we do through our medium of podcasting and writing is about that connection and therefore want to make sure we help you connect with our global audience. So, where's the best place for us to send them now we're done.

Amy Lynn Durham: Well, I already mentioned LinkedIn. so, I'm Amy Lyn Durham on LinkedIn. And then also my website createmagicatwork.net has all those fun tools I talked about for the workplace and also the SQ experience that I offer. And you can message me on LinkedIn. You will get me responding now, the full human Amy.

Steve Rush: The real you.

Amy Lynn Durham: Exactly. And I love to connect and chat and discuss the topics like we discuss today.

Steve Rush: So super.

Amy Lynn Durham: yeah.

Steve Rush: We'll make sure we put those in the show notes, along with your other social media links as well. So, folk can head straight over and connect with you from here.

Amy Lynn Durham: Perfect. Awesome. Thanks Steve.

Steve Rush: Amy. Thanks for coming on our show. I love chatting with you. I think the whole notion of SQ is going to explode in the future. I'm a big fan and would love to explore personally some more. So that's call to action for me. And thank you ever so much for being vulnerable, being part of our community on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Amy Lynn Durham: Thank you. Thank you for having me. And I hope we sent some magic to everyone today.

Steve Rush: We certainly have. Thanks Amy.

Amy Lynn Durham: Thank you.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

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Steve Rush, The Leadership Hacker interviews the top 5 guests by download during the shows 100 mega episodes. Listen in to this special show with special guests, Dr Oleg Konovalov, Michelle Boxx – The Blonde Fixer, David Marquet, Andrea Sampson and Andrew Bryant.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

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Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

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Start of the show

Well, hello and welcome! I'm incredibly excited; this is our 100th show. If you haven't had your opportunity to join us until of late, we started out in March 2020, right at the beginning of the first ever lockdown in the United Kingdom. While all our guests are as global as our audience comes from all corners of the world, we have been a lockdown podcast. And I want to reach out to you personally, while you're listening to this to say, thank you. I really mean that from the bottom of my heart, without you showing up every week, tuning in, downloading, and listening to our podcast, there is no show. There would be no Leadership Hacker Podcast - period. And I think that's an amazing sentiment to everybody that is contributed to the show, both as listeners and more importantly as our wonderful guests. So, to our guests who are listening to this, we have had the most amazing diverse group of CEOs, C-Suite executives, leadership coaches, and experts, and have shared over 300 hacks with us and with our audience. And we're now connected through algorithms, through the internet, through our websites. And I'm incredibly proud and privileged to have been on this journey with you. So, to celebrate our 100th show, we are going to dive into our top five downloaded shows. We're going to revisit some of the stories and we're going to revisit some of their learning that we had from our great guests.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov

Steve Rush: The first of our five top downloads is Dr. Oleg Konovalov. He's global thought leader, author, business educator, consultant, and C-Suite coach. Oleg is named amongst the top global thought leaders and shortlisted the distinguish award in leadership by Thinkers50. He is a Global Gurus top 30 in leadership and has been recognized as the number one thought leader on culture by Thinkers360. Having been named as da Vinci of visionary leadership by many leading authorities of our time, Oleg is helping companies to create and execute their vision and strong purpose and corporate culture. And in our show, we got into talking about visionary leadership and vision is not gift, but a well-structured algorithm can be taught. We talked about how to create and execute a strong, compelling vision and leadership being a system of growing. And you join the conversation. As we talk about why knowledge is the most important part of every leader's kit-bag.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Knowledge is the sexiest thing in the world. Knowledge is their most demanded product in the world. Knowledge is what shifts us into the future. Knowledge is always in demand. And it's always respectful and always well paid, but it's most rewarding thing when you see people succeeding because of you helping them. This is far beyond our instant necessities, like food and shelter, because it is impact on the next generation, it is everything. You see when we talk. The digital era being now, we should assume that it is a knowledge era triggered by people who changed the things in management that allowed to change technologies and so allowed to make this digital era coming, so it is knowledge

Steve Rush: And I guess knowledge was what led you to put pen to paper and your first best-selling book was The Corporate Superpower. And that was around, you know, taking some theory if you like, but giving it some structure and having read it myself, it's around that whole theory of how do we give structure to culture? Tell us a little bit about that?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: It started from very, very curious point. We love talking about positive culture and how culture is important. Then I looked at, hold on. Why are we not talking about negative culture? Because the majority of companies, these days. They are still have negative culture and what I have found. Right about 450,000 articles, you could find only from academia on positive culture and only about 72 articles on negative culture. Whereas reality is completely opposite, and I said, hold on, what is the algorithm? Because whatever we are reading in the books or listening to the conferences. All discussion is wrapped around how to have a good culture, but how to have a clear, simple and effective algorithm was still remaining as a gap. And so, I decided to cover this gap and created Corporate Superpower as an algorithm, as a response for everyday needs. Where every leader, every manager could open it and see how to create culture. What stance on it? you know, how to create values or defined values? What’s the properties of engagement? Everything, so to find the code, therefore I called at the end of the book. I called defined making a checklist because it is like winery; you are taking care of it. You growing, you cultivating it, and then you get a great result. And therefore, it was important to give people really practical solutions instead of general chit chat and that's a good point of being an efficient industry. You must come with a result.

Steve Rush: Right

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Because you can't sell the fish that you don't have. People need exact instructions, simple, because we don't have much time for philosophical conversations about something being good or not.

Steve Rush: You've either caught fish or you haven't caught fish, right?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Absolutely. I love catching big fish and so big results

Steve Rush: But laying behind that, I guess, would still be all of that foundation of disciplined, structure, the people you work with. That does not change, does it?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: No, because I would call myself lucky, blessed, whatever, because I have worked with incredible professionals. I learn and study from incredible people from academia. You know, I am really grateful because it's a matter of who teaches you and not just a personality, not just a professional, but a whole person from whom you really learn how to be a whole person yourself and that is incredible. For instance, if we look at a simple point, which we often neglect, and outlook is one thing, but how you could connect dots, which seems like very non-relevant is a mastery itself. So, you must know how to make so nice pictures, really vivid pictures that could give you the right answers or most effective answers.

Steve Rush: I always enjoyed talking to Oleg. And what we learned from this episode was knowledge impacts on everything and everyone, it informs our next generation. It isn't the digital world that is changing, it's the people's knowledge that is changing the digital world. And I particularly like the way he reframed the whole notion of being taught and people who teach us doesn't have to be in academia it doesn't have to be a college professor, but anybody who teaches us should be teaching us to be the whole person ourselves. Thanks Oleg.

Michelle Boxx – The Blonde Fixer

Steve Rush: Next up, we're going to introduce you to Michelle Boxx. Michelle is a CEO of Boxx Marketing and started out on her entrepreneurial career when she was just 15 years old, starting out in politics, helping folks fix campaigns and was a real campaign manager for many years. She then had a stint as a successful real estate agent. And after achieving great successes realized that using her public relations knowledge and campaigning, she could turn her hand to marketing. And she's now a small business advocate helping teach small businesses and owners to really thrive. You join us at the part of the show, where I ask Michelle to just describe how her early life in politics and real estate sales has helped her grow her business today and some of the core capabilities.

Michelle Boxx: You know, I learned a lot through policy and politics. I learned a lot about communications, of course, but I also learned a lot about leadership. You know, speaking at that one, the video you found. It’s so funny that you found it. I have tried to take it down so many times, but I have lost access to the account. Through that, I ended up launching a website a few months later that was really a policy website geared at covering legislation here in the States and I recruited a whole bunch of my fellow high school friends to help me with it, and so we would literally read legislation, we would post content every day. And so, the website got 10000 page views monthly just organically from us posting this information, and so that was really my introduction into marketing, into leading the team and everything that I do now as a CEO.

Steve Rush: And it is a super experience because people get often confused with leadership, has something to do with the job title or a career or a salary, but actually what you have demonstrated is leadership is about just behaviors and we can have leadership skills and behaviors at any age, right?

Michelle Boxx: It is so true. A lot of it is really just jumping in and saying, okay, you know what? I am going to do my best here and I am going to figure it out. So many of us in life do figure things out as we go along. And so, it's better to not wait for that moment of coronation, if you will, and instead just jump in and say, okay, I'm going to do my best here. This is the result we are looking to achieve and nurture these people in the process.

Steve Rush: So here we were talking about leading ship as a behavior, not as a thing, not as a job title. And as often we find ourselves just jumping in, gives us the experience to find ways of working and nurturing people on the way. We've rejoined the conversation when I ask Michelle from her experience of being a young entrepreneur through politics and real estate, what her biggest learning in leadership was?

Michelle Boxx: I think the realization that you can't do everything alone, that you really do need support, so you need your mentors, you need your team, you need. If you have a lot of internal drive, it is very natural to think, you know what, I can figure this out on my own. I can do all of this on my own. I am independent. And then just really putting your ego to the side and saying, you know what? I don't have all the answers. Like you said, you know, copy, and paste and really having the network around you to support you along your way up.

Steve Rush: Super wise words for Michelle there. No leader can be successful on their own. They need a team who can support them and help them on their way. And many of our guests have echoed that sentiment throughout the series. We thank the blonde fixer Michelle box for being part of our show.

David Marquet

Steve Rush: Number three, highest downloads of all time was for David Marquet. David's a real superstar. I met David on location in London. We talked about his humble background being pretty much down to earth in math club when he was in Pittsburgh. Then joining the U.S. Naval Academy in 1981, where he ultimately took control of the USS Olympia. A Nuclear-powered submarine as a Captain in the U.S. Navy, it was there that he started evolve his leadership career when he was appointed to lead the US submarine, Santa Fe, which was the worst performing submarine in the fleet.

It was these foundations that gave him the story that now forms Turning the Ship Around his global best-selling book, where Stephen R Covey, the infamous author and guru, spent time on the Santa Fe and ended up creating The Eight Habit. In recognition to his global successful leadership, based on David work. Since retiring from the U.S. Navy, he has shared those lessons and is helping Leaders to think about creating more leaders, and giving control to only those who need it the most. You join us in this show where we were talking around how the language of leaders has changed over time and how the labels, we give people have been unhelpful. How by reframing some of that language and changing our perspectives, we can get a greater outcomes from our leadership behaviors ourselves.

David Marquet: So, we have work. The industrial age organization design was this. One group of people will make decisions and one group of people will execute the decisions made by the first group of people. And we have labels because they all look like humans, but we need to know which tribe you're in and we call them leaders and followers or thinkers and doers or management and workers, and we pay people by salary or by hourly. White collar, blue collar. We wear different uniforms but there is this whole cultural industry with artefacts and rituals to put us in one of these, two groups, and this is one of the things that is suddenly embedded in our language and in minor organization design, which is totally unhelpful.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and you talk about this in your new book. Leadership is Language.

David Marquet: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And you give the type to behave as color, don’t you? Just tell us a little bit more about that.

David Marquet: Yeah. As an author, you have to create a new term. No one gets credit, here is a bunch of great ideas. Aristotle said everything let me reiterate them. I call them red work and blue work. So, the doing work is what we call red work. Red being typically the color of focus and action and blue work the color of creativity, and the difference is when red work. I want to narrow my perspective, but in blue work, I want to broaden my perspective, so I am using my brain in two fundamentally different ways and industrial organizations solve the problem by not asking people to change. The thinkers were just do thinking and the doers just did doing. And we didn't need the thinkers to do doing and the doers to do thinking. Now we say let the doers be the deciders. So, what we're going to do is say this group to the organization at the bottom who used to just do what they're told. We are now going to pause and give them the chance to think and actually make decisions, but that requires them to use their brain in different way. That requires us if we are in the leading group, to talk in a different way.

Steve Rush: And as leaders, it is our responsibility, isn't it? I guess through our language will influence and either help new ideas and creativity or we will stifle them.

David Marquet: You can only control yourself. So, when you say, oh, well, this person does not speak up, it the really frustrating working with them. The unhelpful behaviors is to go give them a lecture. I give you some feedback? i.e., can I permission to be a jerk? You really need to speak up more. Well, how about this? How you look inside yourself and you figure out. You know what, the way we are running the meeting, the way I am asking the questions, if someone comes to me and says, well, I am not sure about this decision, and I said, why would you say that? Again. Subtle, but it sends a signal, you are wrong. Justify yourself, not, oh, tell me about that. I am really interested in that. We really need to know before we go ahead, launch this product. If you think, we are off track.

Steve Rush: So, what David's describing here is the outdated leadership model that we've all perhaps learned about at some point in our leadership careers, however old or young you may be, it doesn't seem to work anymore. It's time to shift perspectives, fall out of love with our own voice and to listen to our teams, let the doers be the deciders is how David described this. In order to harness the eyes, the ears, the minds of our people, our teams, the people we lead and work with. We need to foster a climate of collaboration and experimentation that encourages people to speak up. And when they notice problems that are not working well, to identify them and to get on with testing solutions, we salute you David, and thank you for being part of our community on the podcast.

Andrea Sampson

Steve Rush: Once upon a time in a land not too far away, there is somebody reading a story to somebody else. Wow. The power of story continues to be the most important way of communicating. Well, why is that? Well, it's been the way we've been key communicating for millennia. People have been writing on walls and drawing pictures, around campfires, around dining room tables, as we've evolved, because stories make the emotional connection. I'm going to introduce you to Andrea Sampson. Andrea not only tells great stories but is teaching the world how to tell better stories through her TED Talks, coaching business, Talk Boutique.

Andrea was a former strategist and consultant spending over 25 years in a marketing, in advertising space and with a natural flare for compelling stories and persuasive content. It wasn't long before Andrea sort after, assisting teams and executives in developing their presentations and pictures. Having worked on a side hustle with TEDx Toronto, where she volunteered initially as a speaker coach. Worked out that her technique for teaching storytelling could be really powerful. That led her to create Talk Boutique and is now the founder and CEO.

Not only is this a second downloaded episode of all time in our series is actually the number one for 2021. So, if you've not yet unlocked, the power of storytelling with Andrea now is the time to download that episode. You join us at that part of the show where Andrea was telling us about what she'd learned from her time, coaching TED Talks and how she developed story by helping unlock great emotional connections with audiences.

Andrea Sampson: What I've learned in doing TED Talks and now working with very seasoned professional presenters is that it's really about building a story in five steps. And we developed, so my company Talk Boutique has developed a process that we call the story-spine, which really allows for a speaker to take about, you know, anywhere from 30 seconds to three to four minutes at the beginning of their talk and set up the premise of a story that will hold the idea.

Steve Rush: Really interesting.

Andrea Sampson: The spine is so important because what it does is it forces us as humans first of all, to think about the things that create good storytelling, because it starts off with what we call the environment. So, if you think of an environment, the environment is your sense of place. Now, most of us, when we're at a cocktail party or meeting up with a friend and we started telling a story, what do we do?

We rushed through the environment, first of all, and we rush right into the purpose of the story. But if you take a moment and you step back and you say, okay, let me just set this up for you. So, I was walking in the woods the other day. Now it was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, you know, it was warm, but not hot. You could feel that the day was going to get really hot. But we weren't there yet. And the moisture in the air was activating the pine needles. So, I could smell as I was walking, that musky scent of pine, and it was just a beautiful morning, and it was peaceful. Now you're all on that walk with me, aren’t you?

Steve Rush: Totally, I’m right there.

Andrea Sampson: Right, now when you do that, what's happening is everybody is leaning in, but what's really happening is their brain has just gone to the place when they were last in the woods or a meaningful moment when they were in the words. That smell, the sounds of the birds, the feeling of this sun dappled through the trees, everybody. Now, if I were to stop the story right there and ask a question around how everybody felt, the likelihood is, I've got everybody at the same place in that moment, which is, in a peaceful place, in a memory that is enjoyable. And from there, it's almost like I'm a mind reader now, because now I'm controlling how they are feeling and what they're thinking.

Steve Rush: Its very powerful, isn’t it?

Andrea Sampson: It’s incredibly powerful. That's the power of environment. So, once we have the environment, the next thing that we want to do is say, who's there with you? Who are the characters? Now, you know, characters, aren't just me and my friend. You can do that, but the thing is, you've robbed the audience of getting to know who you are and who your friend is. So, what you want is just a little bit of a backstory. So, there's me, you know, this was about five years ago. So, I was in, you know, maybe an emotional place. This was just at the breakup of my marriage; I'm making this up. And my friend, who was a dear friend, who was supporting me through this very emotional time, her name was Shawna and Shawna was a lovely human. She's still a dear friend of mine, but she's one of those people whose incredibly compassionate and helps people through really difficult times. So here we were on this early morning walk, going through the woods and, you know, we can hear the birds chirping, and I'm at that point in the separation where we are, you know, separating stuff. And so, it's a difficult moment, and Shawna is helping me to see, you know, that I can let go of things that I thought were really important, but the reality is, they weren't. Now, again, I just want to stress here. I'm fully making this up.

Steve Rush: Hey, listen, you may be making this up, but I'm still ironically with you because of the compelling use of language.

Andrea Sampson: Right, the language I'm using. Every piece of language is using rhetoric, really, right. I'm using a combination of metaphor. I'm using emotional words, words that have meanings that go deeper than just the core idea of that word. I'm also using in some cases repetition. So, I'm using metaphor all the way through it. So, what we've gotten through now is the environment, the characters, and we've gotten to the issue or opportunity. That's the third part of the story spine. And this is where most people jump into a story because this is the real reason, I could've just started it off.

Steve Rush: That's true, yeah.

Andrea Sampson: I could have started off going, you know, the other day I was walking in the woods and Shawna was helping me figure out what I was going to give to my ex, right? Because that is really the story, except you can see I've built it out, right? And so, then what you want, the fourth part of the story spine is what we call the raising of the stakes. This is the difference between a good story and a great story because the raising of the stakes is that tension moment. It's the end to them, and so, you know, as Shawna and I were talking about the things that I was going to keep and what I was going to let go of, we came to that blanket. You know the one, the blanket that my family had given us, but it was also the blanket where we had our first date. And it was the blanket that had followed us all the way through our relationship. And there was a part of me that really wanted that blanket, but there was a part of me that actually didn't ever want to see that blanket again. And I was distraught in that moment. How could I let go of the blanket? Now I think if you're following me, what you know is that blanket is really a metaphor for the relationship.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it is. But it's ironic because it is still also a physical thing.

Andrea Sampson: Yeah.

Steve Rush: It's a metaphor, but actually we all kind of have something that we relate to in our day jobs and our lives that are similar metaphors of physical things but carry loads of emotion with them.

Andrea Sampson: Right, and so, as I'm going through this story, you know, anyone who's listening to this, you know, they may or may not have lived a similar story, but they have lived, everybody, because, you know, here's the thing about stories. Stories are all meta stories, as humans, we all live the same stories. And so everybody has walked in the woods or has watched, you know, a movie or seen an image of walking in the woods. So, there's some experience of it. Everybody has a good friend who helps them through things. Now, you know, you may not have as good a friend or maybe your friend is better, but you have the experience of it. The human condition is that we all go through relationships and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't and heartbreak is common. And then the idea of having something that represents that, you can see, it's a meta story. right?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Andrea Sampson: As I'm going through this story, everybody is having the same experience because they're living their own experience and my experience at the same time. And that's what makes it so powerful. So, when you take the time to build it, when you take the time to use emotions through it, what you're doing is, you're building a connection with anyone who's listening to that. Now we've gone through the four elements of the stories. By the fifth element is just the OCA. It's the way in which you tie it together. And so, in this case, it could be that in that walk in the woods, you know, Shawna helped me to understand that the blanket was in fact, a metaphor for my relationship. And as much as it was something that I was having a hard time letting go of, it was time for me to let go of it because I was letting go of that whole part of my life. And that blanket was in a part of my life that was no longer going to be in my life. So, it was time for me to let that go. And by the end of that walk, I had not only let go of the blanket, but I had let go of the relationship, I was ready to move on. So, there's the story spine in action.

Steve Rush: It's the most compelling model. And if you are anything to do with telling stories or engaging audiences or helping people understand something that they don't yet understand well enough, let's think about how we could use the story-spine to really bring our stories to life. Andrea, thank you for being part of our show and bringing our stories to life.

Andrew Bryant

Steve Rush: When I look back over the 300 plus hacks we've had on the show, the one thing that keeps presenting itself is, “lead yourself first” - Self-leadership. It sounds so obvious when you say it in such simple terms, but before you can lead others, you must first lead yourself. If you lack self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-learning, you'll fail to really, truly reach your full potential. And our top downloaded show of all times so far, is Self-Leadership with Andrew Bryant. Andrew is a motivational speaker and has become the number one authority on self-leadership. He's featured on TEDx and wrote the book, Self-Leadership, of course. You join our conversation as we explore the notion of, what really is self-leadership and why that can help us or hold us back.

Andrew Bryant: The concept of self-leadership goes back to the Roman Stoics. It goes back to the Greek philosophers. It goes back to louts. Influencing others is strength, but influencing self is true power. The concept itself is not original. It is human reality around that, we have some sense of personal power if we take ownership and so it is very much the ownership of what can you take ownership of?

And you can actually take ownership of your thinking. We all have thoughts, but do the thoughts have our us or do we have the thoughts? We all have emotions. But are we having the emotions or the emotions having us? Now, if you have ever been in a fury about something, you know that the emotions had you. If you have ever been really sad about something, you've been gripped by the emotion, you were not in control, but when we go, I'm angry about this. Why am I angry about this? What is driving that anger? What is that really about? Then, we take that step back into the observer place, and that gives us choice. You know, that is the heart of Stephen Covey work. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People was that proactivity between idea and action, that there is a choice point that we have as human beings.

Steve Rush: And in my experience as a coach, Andrew, and I am sure you see this a lot with your clients too. Is most of my work is in a bit in the middle, the gap between the idea and the action and the evaluation of how you get people to move forward. How has that been part of what you do right now?

Andrew Bryant: Just before I came on this, I was talking to a CEO pharmaceutical company who wanted me to coach one of his executives; I have been interviewed by his head of HR. Before, I spoke to him, she was obviously playing Buffa, I didn't waste his time. Then his opening statement was, tell me about yourself, because I haven’t had time to read the briefing material. I kind of wanted to do… groan, because that means I've got to tell my entire life story, which I'm doing again. It is a long-life story and I have to edit it, and I just I want to come across as like, why are you a different coach? How do I go about that? I really took this point that, you know, the classic coach comes from the inner game and the outer game, and you will be familiar with a book called The Inner Game of Tennis.

Steve Rush: Sure am, yeah.

Andrew Bryant: And that is coaching is about inner landscape. Outer coaching is how you hold tennis racket, how you serve the ball. The inner coaching is how you think about yourself as a tennis player and with leadership coaches, is how do I think about myself as leader? I mean, just this week as coaching the CEO of an organization, it is very successful CEO. I have coached him in other organizations. He has been parachuted into this company, Joint Venture Capital Support, and he his stressing himself out because he built this runway, and he has attached his ego. When I say build the runway, build the runway to profitability in a certain amount of time and a curtain number, and he's attached his ego to that. And if it doesn't work, he's feeling like a failure, and so the way he's created a mental schematic of that is, his inner world is driving his outer communication. The coaching was to help him not spread doubt amongst his troops, because he's having these doubts. But as the leader, there his doubts, they're not their doubts and their only doubts because he's made such a big deal out of this. Now, if the company burned to the ground, he would rise from the ashes and he would lead another organization. He is very successful, very competent, very intelligent individual. But the coaching is around that gap between his inner thinking and his execution, in this case, his speaking was not as aligned and motivational inspirational as it could have been.

Steve Rush: So, David's talking here about the inner game, the voice in our head, that inner coach, and we need that coach to serve us well every day. But in order for us to serve us well, we need to be mentally agile and fit. We need to be physically agile and fit, and we need to be focusing on ourselves first. And you listen to the full show. You'll find out why self-leadership is not self-centered or selfish, but essential for us as leaders. We rejoined the conversation as we're talking about ego and why ego can sometimes get the way of us being really successful self-leaders.

Andrew Bryant: Somebody drives outside the restaurant of the hotel in the Maserati or a Lamborghini, the Ferrari, gets out, you know, after having revved the engine so that everybody's paid attention to him, and then throws the keys to the valet. Do they have a big ego or a small ego? Most people listening will say big ego. But actually, from a psychological perspective, there ego is fragile. Because they are engaging in egocentric behaviors, right. Look at me, look at me, right. So egomaniacal egocentric behaviors are based on a need to feed an ego. When somebody has a healthy ego, a healthy sense of self. They don't need the attention. They don't need to throw the keys at the valet. They could turn up on a bicycle and they would be fine because they know who they are, right. So actually, when you do the work on yourself, you are a better human being to be in relationship with others, right.

Steve Rush: Like that.

Andrew Bryant: Carl Jung talked about ego means sense of self. Egocentricity is a fragile ego. Look at me. Look at me. I am not Okay. You know, a relationship should always be a Gestalt, where the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts. If two broken people meet each other and trying to make one complete person, they are co-dependent. When two people have got their stuff together, meet. They create a relationship that has things over and above themselves. Self-leadership is not selfish because when we have taken care of ourselves, we have all the energy to focus on other people. We can listen. We can help and the simplest one is a metaphor that precedes me, but I use it as well. And that is, if you are on the airplane and the oxygen mask does fall from the ceiling. You are supposed to put it over your nose and mouth first before assisting others, because if you don't look after yourself, you're useless to anybody else. The biggest compliment you can do for somebody is to turn up and authentically be yourself, right? If you are hiding behind some mask or you're playing some game and then manipulating them into whatever bizarre reality you have, then you're really not doing anybody a favor.

Steve Rush: So, it's interesting, isn't it? Ego has been seen as being quite a bad thing, but it's a healthy sense of self. It's egocentricity that is unhelpful. And recognizing that egocentricity will hold us back from engaging and behaving in the true sense of self is essential part of our leadership behaviors. Andrew was on one of our very early shows in March 2020, as we launched the podcast, but continues to get regular hits through our channels and our media. And therefore, goes to show that the message of self-leadership is always going to be relevant. Andrew, I'm incredibly grateful for you being part of our community and helping us all lead ourselves better. Thank you.

Closing

Steve Rush: So, we're coming to the end of our time together on our 100th show. It's been an incredible journey and thank you to our five guests for reliving some of those moments from our hundred episodes over the last two years.

And please remember we have 95 other guests who bring diversity, stories from across the world, different genres of leading and leadership. So please head over, download the show, and never miss a future episode. And this is a shameless plug. If you like what we're doing, please tell others, please share it with your business communities. Please share it with teams at work and let's help spread the word of leadership and leadership development so that we can all grow. We can all learn, and we can all develop because the irony here is there are no hacks to leadership. There are just great tools, great tips and great ideas. But if we shortcut them through our learning and our lessons with you, the quicker we learn, the better our teams perform and the better our teams grow.

And before I sign out, I want to make a special mention to Jermaine Pinto. He's my trusted, side-kick and partner in the show. He's been a great support and a great aid as we've developed a hundred episodes together. Thank you, Jermaine. I appreciate you, man.

And I'll be super grateful for you to leave us a five-star review and let us know how you think we can continually grow our Leadership Hacker Community. It's the way that we grow, and it's the way that our audiences get to meet our great guests. Thank you for being part of the community. Thank you for being on our journey. That's me signing out, on our 100th show. I'm Steve Rush. And today I have The Leadership Hacker.

View Details

Jeff Chastain is a business transformation coach, he’s the founder and CEO of Admentus Inc and the podcast host of Building to Scale. In this show you can learn about:

The differences between leadership in a Start-up vs. a growth-oriented business.
Leading with a visionary mindset, how is that different from the well versed Growth vs. Fixed.
The key components of an effective business vision and how does the business leader make that vision actionable.
The reasons some leaders are unable to break through the glass ceiling that could be holding their team or business back.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Jeff below:

Jeff on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/omarlharris/

Jeff on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffDChastain

Jeff on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/admentusinc/

Admentus Website: https://admentus.com

Full Transcript Below

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The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Now we're already a hop skip in a jump into 2022, and there are lots of emerging things that leaders need to consider. So, I'm going to give you my top six predictions based on what I'm hearing and what I'm seeing in the world of leadership and people transformation.

Number one, leaders need to give people a reason to stay beyond money and beyond extrinsic motivators. The great resignation is absolute for sure. There are so many people across the globe quitting their jobs because they're focusing on what really means for their life. Therefore, as the problem continues to grow, leaders need to continue to adapt and change and think about their proposition. So, people feel connected to the organization. They have a purpose and most importantly feel that they have something to add value to their lives and their work beyond their compensation. I believe the most productive companies this year will be those that give people a reason to stay beyond money.

Spear no expense when it comes to real time gatherings. Whenever the COVID 19 pandemic moves to an endemic and companies move back to a normality in ways of working, whatever that may be in the future. When the hybrid world has cemented itself in our workplace, we will need as leaders to spear no expense in bringing people together, whether it's once a year, twice a year or infrequently, but leverage the opportunity in bringing people into a real time place together, create experiences for those two, spend time together and experiential team building activities, nice dinners, real quality time together just as if they were long lost family and expect people to be spending more money on hiring the best people.

There'll be a point where organizations wherever they're from in the world facing into this war of talent and therefore we'll need to compensate people better and compensate search firms in helping them find that talent too. I think accountability will come back to the forth. Since remote workers cemented itself in our future and our culture. We're able to see very clearly people's productivity. And it's evident if team members are doing the job that we expect or not even in a hybrid and remote world. And managers have noticed that making people accountable must be a priority in their leadership approach for this year. And I define accountability is the obligation of an individual or organization to be accountable for its activities and accept responsibility for them. And to be transparent, accountable leaders provide a path of person improvement, team performance and life performance.

I can see organizations focusing on their underperforming leaders in a far more rigorous way. In a recent study. Gartner predicted 30% of teams won't have bosses by 2024. And I don't see it this way because leader’s teams don't work. However, collaborative, broad, bigger teams may be part of the case, but poor leadership cannot be tolerated. Organizations will invest more time in assessments and surveys and understanding the human experience. Great leaders will notice this and unlock it in their teams. Poor leaders will fall by the wayside.

And the final one to wrap it up is probably the most controversial of all. Multiple income streams will be accepted by most organizations in the future. In the hybrid will world. There's no reason why we couldn't do two or three roles, two or three jobs. But if this is really about life and human experiences, suppose if we had the opportunity to negotiate with our employer, that I wanted to work three or four days a week for them, and maybe another day a week for some philanthropic activities and giving back to the community, but also maybe a subtle pivot to how I go about earning my total compensation, who knows.

But if we do want to retain our best talent, we might need those leaders to be thoughtful and encourage multiple ways of them making money for their family and their lives, whatever the future holds for us as leaders. It requires flexible thinking, rapid action and elevating others into leadership, thinking and behaviors. The leadership environment we're already in, in 2022 has already changed from 2021 and will continue to rapidly change. And if you don't change with it, you'll be one of those victims too. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. I'm looking forward to more news and more stories that keep coming on a regular basis. So please keep sending them in. Let's get onto the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Jeff Chastain. He's a business transformation coach and the founder and CEO Admentus Incorporated. He's also the podcast host of Building to Scale. Jeff. Welcome to the show.

Jeff Chastain: Hey, thank you. And thank you for having me.

Steve Rush: It's my pleasure. So, tell us a little bit about Jeff, where did it all begin for you and how did you end up here?

Jeff Chastain: We probably don't want an hour long to show just on that, but I'll give you the quick version. It's been lots of lots of twists and turns over the lifetime, but that's been, I don't know, I've find that's the journey of most entrepreneurs. We jump into the deep end and have it all figured out right off the bat. But now, my background actually started actually in corporate America and in technology so completely different fields there but spent a number of years with corporate America and just honestly was bored as anything. It's like, okay. Just showing up for a job every day just was not my mentality, not my wiring. At that point and couple that together with a reshuffling, reorganization of the company, and one day, all of a sudden it was surprised. Find myself out with the corporate umbrella without the parachute, et cetera there, and trying to figure out, okay, what do we do now?

So, like most people in business getting started, I said, hey, I've got a technology background. Let's go form a CTO, kind of consulting firm. And that's really, where Admentus actually got its start, was in the technology world. But over the years in working with different companies, both large and small, from a technology standpoint, I kept having people coming to me, working with people, et cetera, that were looking to technology basically as business solved. I go back to one case I had where the guy, of course, all great decisions are made on the golf was kind of a thing there. The one CEO was talking to his friend on the golf course and saying, hey, our sales numbers, our sales trajectories down this year. And his buddies said, well, we just got this new CRM. We've really been using this new CRM. It's really helped our team. So that was the point of introduction to me was say, hey, can you help us implement this new CRM system in our business and go going through the process effectively. We figured out, hey, you don't have a sales process. You've technically got a sales team in terms of people, but there's no strategy. There's no vision. There's nothing to your sales team here. They're just kind of fly by the sea of their pants and just putting in a shiny new object, a new CRM system here, not really going to fix things by any means. So just ran into that over and over with business leaders. That for most of us in business, we probably identify pretty well. I know I'm that case of the shiny object syndrome, kind of a thing there, hey, let's go try this. Let's go try that.

And people, these days tend to turn to two technologies quite often for that. To me, technology is just a magnifier of whatever's underneath. If you've got a great system, a great process, yes, technology can make you more efficient, but it's not going to fix the underlying foundation. So, that was really the transition pivot point to me to say, hey, instead of sitting here trying to sell you a new CRM system or something like that, that honestly, I know is not going to really get at the root of your issue. Let's go in and fix the business foundation. Let's fix the underlying systems, the underlying structures, where it's still kind of my systems, my process nature. But that was really my transition to say, okay, let's move from consulting into the coaching realm and say, let's get the foundation fixed. And then we can go put on technology, or then we can go scale the company, whatever we want to do, but we got to get that foundation structured first.

Steve Rush: Yeah. And it's interesting, even if you remove technology period, the behavioral stuff that is still needed to think about strategy, vision, and structure of an organization and a team. That's kind of transferable across every sector, every industry, isn't it?

Jeff Chastain: Oh, it really is. And I'll see it, even talking like marketing or sales, hey, we've been doing Google ads now we're going to try Facebook ads. This salesperson's not performing, so we're going to go hire a new salesperson or we're going do an outsource sales or something like that. It's like, we're always trying new things because what we've got may or may not be living up to expectations. It' the grass is always greener kind of mentality. There's always got to be something over there that might work a little bit better without ever really getting to the root of the issue at that point.

Steve Rush: Right. So, what's the key focus for the work at Admentus right now?

Jeff Chastain: I'm actually narrowed things down recently here within the last year, really focusing on those smaller business, smaller entrepreneurs’ kind of thing. A lot of the times, what I found over the years was the coaching industry, especially out there, when you look at big name systems, like an EOS or like a scaling up or anything, they always focused on more the larger size companies. You got at least 20, 30 kinds of employees. You've got a three- or four-person leadership team. And it's like, wait a minute. We're leaving out the smaller guys, the guys that, hey, I want to go out and I've got a dream, I've got a vision. I want to go build my business, but I don't have $30,000 to go invest in a coach, or I don't have a big team yet that's profitable.

We're still in the early stages. But at the same time, this individual is typically forward thinking enough to say, hey, I want to lay the foundation right in the first place. Let's figure this out in the first place, rather than creating a huge mess and having to come back and pay to clean it up. So, we're really focusing more on that. I don't want to say entry level, but still that early-stage kind of entrepreneur, that early-stage business owner that says, hey, I'm an expert in my field. I know my field, whether that medical, legal, finance, whatever, kind of an area they're in, but saying, hey, I realize there's a lot more to business. And to building a profitable and scalable business than just being a good lawyer, or just being a good accountant or whatever, the case may be there.

Steve Rush: Of course, most big businesses started out with some more businesses and smaller ideas that then just grew, and that's been a force of your work. Isn't it? It's helping businesses scale up.

Jeff Chastain: It really is. And even still, I take a lot of this, even from my personal journey that when I first got into I.T. consulting. The company was me, myself, and I kind of a thing there. While yes, I was having fun with the work I was doing, and I had ideas for what I wanted to become. We actually talked about it just briefly before we got on kind of a thing. It's like all of a sudden, I'm looking at, okay, kids got soccer games or an awards ceremony at school or for that matter, even a vacation with my wife, kind of a thing there. And I started putting that into the mentality or I had what came to mind every time started looking at those as well.

That's two hours at a soccer game and equating that back to a billable, right? Wait a minute. That's a $300,400 soccer game there. Do I really want to do that? Or the vacation, the worst case, actually the vacation turns into three and four times the cost, because not only am I paying to go rent the hotel or do the travel. Now I'm looking at the effectively lost time, lost wages to go do that. And it's like, okay, this is not a good place mentally to be. But at the same time, it's like, okay, what's the solution when it's just you? Because most people jump in and say, well, I'm going to go create a new business. I'm going to start a new business. But effectively what they've created is a job for themselves where, it's they're the CEO, they're the frontline worker and the janitor all in one.

And unless you can figure out how to scale that, how to grow that, then you're effectively locked into that job. And if that's okay with you great. But when it was turning into my direct time was the service to be delivered. It just wasn't scalable at that point. So that's really where it's like, okay, got to figure out a better way to do this. I know other people are doing this, we got to figure this out. So that kind of led journey and now turn around and handing that back to other people that way.

Steve Rush: Yeah, great stuff. So, when it comes to leadership of businesses that you've helped scale up from startups to some of the larger organizations, what do you see as being the differences between leadership and a startup versus leadership in a traditional growth orientated, established business?

Jeff Chastain: I don't think they are necessarily different leaderships. I think what it is, is a case of many times people having to learn how to lead or learning what it means to lead because you take the lawyer that's used to, okay, this is my law practice at best. I've got a virtual assistant or a paralegal, somebody kind of working with me, but it's a different mentality for them to say, okay, now I want to go manage two or three other lawyers in my firm and actually build out a firm model with a support staff, et cetera, kind of a thing there. So, they really have to make that mental shift to say, okay, this is not just me doing whatever it takes today to move the business forward. And now I've actually got to have a plan, have a strategy in place for everybody. Otherwise, we're effectively kind of that rudderless ship of saying, okay, I'm going to walk into the office today and figure out, okay, which way is the boss leaning today? Because that's the direction we're going today. And that's to me is not leadership.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jeff Chastain: That's somebody that's still struggling saying, okay. I don't know how to move out of the solo practitioner into an actual leader in a firm leading a team, driving a business forward.

Steve Rush: And what is it you think when you think about those folk who scale quicker versus those who may be more laggards in that space? Is there a, maybe some secret sauce that goes on there?

Jeff Chastain: There's always a little bit of, I'd say any business, there's always a little bit of luck involved, but to me it's more the planning side. It's the system, it's the strategy because okay. I refer to it kind of as the cornerstone of any significant business or any business there is really what I refer to as a strategic vision and execution plan. Anytime, again, going back to my corporate days, we always talked about strategy planning and stuff like that. And it'd be multiple days of just boring meetings and marketing mumbo jumbo kind of talk. You ended up with all these plans that would go into some drawer or some cabinet that never got seen for another year or two. So, when we look at that from a small business standpoint, we say, I can't do that.

I can't afford to put that together and there's no use for it. Why am I investing in that? And while yes, I completely agree with that. I also say, okay, you can't go the other end of the stream and say no plan at all. We've got to have an entrepreneurial focus middle ground that says, I literally document your entire strategy, your entire execution plan on a single page, caveat, asterisk it's double-sided so you could call it two pages, but still it's that small, that tight that you can sit there and identify who we are as an organization, where we're going, how we're planning on getting there, such that even if you are still the solo premier entrepreneur, you've got that plan to say, okay, I know the direction we're going. I know what we're trying to hit. So that when that shiny object does come in, I've got a measuring stick that I can say, okay, is this a good fit?

Is this something that's still going to further advance my strategy here or do I ignore it? And then once they start growing into multiple employees, bigger team, it gives that visibility to the rest of the team so that, okay, we know as a team. Again, who we are, where we're going, how we're planning on getting there. So, you've got everybody kind of united the boat, everybody's rowing together the same direction, rather than just flailing about trying to thing, wasting resources that honestly most small businesses don't have. So, it's really having that plan. Having that guide, is what's going to jumpstart that the most right there, just to say, hey, we know what we're doing. We're not out there changing direction every month, kind of a thing. And wasting the time, wasting the limited financial resources that we've got.

Steve Rush: A lot of this is also down to mindset, isn’t it? Of those individuals and the way that they approach it. And I know that from most people listening to this, they might be well versed with things like growth mindset, fixed mindset, but you have a different take on this around visionary mindset. And I wondered if you could just give us a bit of a sense of what that would mean?

Jeff Chastain: In a lot of ways, it kind of encompasses both of them really. I really see most people and it's not a across the board people, but most people that go out and start a new business have that kind of visionary mindset. They've got this big idea of, I want to go bring this problem to solve, or I've got a help kind of attitude. I want to go attack this issue I see out in the market or out in the community, kind of a thing there. They've got that bigger picture, visionary attitude to them to say, okay, this is where I want to go. Where they struggle with the most is saying, okay, I'm not necessary the tactician. I'm not necessarily the execution to say, okay, how do I get from where I am right now to that big picture vision that honestly may take 15 or 20 years something out there.

And that's where a lot of times I'll see them struggle because they're still, again, they've got the big idea and great, okay, here's this new other idea. And they end up moving all over the place. It's almost a pairing is what I see the best. Companies in place to say, okay, you've got that visionary person, but you've also got that second in command, that strategist or that technician kind of thing right there to say, okay, feed off of each other. We're work off of each other there, but you've almost got to have both mindsets. And it's rare I find that it's one person has both in place. So, it's either that visionary to say, okay, we need a plan that can kind of reign you in a little bit. Or we work with the technician types to say, okay, it's not just about today. We've got to figure out a bigger plan. We've got to figure out a bigger aim for your business. So, it's almost kind of creating that dual mindset in the case that we don't have a partnership working together to figure out, okay, how do you balance long term, big picture vision with execution today to help you reach that longer term vision?

Steve Rush: Yeah. And I don’t know who it was. It was for almost quote wasn't there? That said, a vision without a strategy and a plan is merely a dream. I think that's what you're inferring at there, right?

Jeff Chastain: It really is.

Steve Rush: And without that kind of core foundations and components, then it's just a hypothetical dream.

Jeff Chastain: You've got to be able to come back in and execute on it. And the same time, the flip side is that, okay. Execution without out a longer-term vision is just busy work at that point. And, yeah, that quote's been rewritten so many times. I always wonder, like, okay, who's the original purpose on this one thing? Because I've seen it rewritten several different ways and it always means the same thing, but yeah, that's exactly what it is.

Steve Rush: It was some guy called “anon”. He's written loads of quotes.

Jeff Chastain: Quite a few, yeah.

Steve Rush: So, talking about then that kind of execution, that business vision, what are the key components that you'd expect to see happen for every team, every business as they kind of grow?

Jeff Chastain: Well, it really starts out with me for that long term picture to say, okay, I put everything in terms of like climbing a mountain or something like that to say, okay, this is our path up the mountain. We're aiming for that peak, that pinnacle on top of the mountain. So, it's clearly identifying what that is in the first place to say, okay, where are we even trying to get to in the next 10 to 15 years? And this is not something that's super detailed. It's kind of the peak, the mountain up there in the clouds. On a given day it may not necessarily be super clear. And the reality in what I like to coach people with is to say, okay, if there's not at least some bit of doubt in your mind that you can even reach that, then it's not big enough kind of a thing.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jeff Chastain: It actually goes back to like Jim Collins, The Big Hair Audacious Goal kind of attitude, right there is, we've got this big thing out there on the horizon, but then it's really working from the execution standpoint to start backing that down to say, okay, great. That thing is out there at 10, 15, 20 years. Something way out there, that's take some time, some significant effort to get there, but okay, great. What do we need to do now as more of a plateau, a resting spot, a milestone on the mountain to say, okay, our first goal is just to get here? Yeah, we've got that in mind. But our first goal is just to get to this first camping spot here. And that's really in the three to five kind of year range to say, okay, this one's a little bit closer, a little bit more defined, but I don't want to go overboard with this. I don't want to get super detailed roadmap because especially after the last year or two with the COVID pandemic, we all realize now for sure. The world changes pretty quick, kind of a thing.

Steve Rush: Doesn't it, yeah.

Jeff Chastain: So, we've got to be able to adapt, but still we've got to have those kind of pictures out there. So, it's a three-to-five-year kind of milestone there. And then bring that back down again to say, okay, with that three-to-five-year milestone, what do we have to accomplish this year? The one-year kind of plan, that's what I'm working with through everybody right now to say, okay, what is our plan for 2022 here? What are our specific goals, objectives, things that we need to go accomplish? And then working with that back down into what I refer to as more the 90-day world to say, okay, we're only carrying specific details from a detailed planning standpoint about this quarter.

We need everybody on the team this quarter to understand, okay, what's our key number. What's our key metric that we're working towards, what specific goals, tasks, projects, et cetera, need to be done this quarter again, in order to reach our one-year goals, in order to reach our three-to-five-year milestones, kind of a thing like that. So, it's bringing that back down step by step. And each step, it gets closer. It gets more detailed, but that way you've got this longer-term picture, this longer-term strategy laid out that everybody understands. Because that was one of my biggest issues in corporate America was just like, I was just going in every day. Yeah, I kind of knew what my responsibilities was. Maybe I knew what a project was at that point, but I didn't have any bigger picture vision to say, okay, what am I doing right here?

How does that really matter? Even in terms of the overall division, much less the company and with a small business, we can't afford to have our limited resources right there effectively kind of get disillusioned. They need to understand and feel part of the overall mission of the organization. Not just be there for a paycheck, because honestly most of the time we're not going to pay them top dollars. So, we need them to really feel like being bought into the organization, bought into the company there for something more than just that paycheck and having this kind of a plan to where they can see, hey, this my role. And this is exactly how I fit into our 90-day numbers or our one-year numbers. And I can see what piece of this I'm carrying is really what gives them that buy-in, that incentive right there to say, hey, I really am a part of this. I'm not just here for a paycheck.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's one of the big things, you know, I notice when I coach other business leaders and other leaders of teams is they're able to articulate the vision really, really well. And it's well versed amongst a team, but if there's any gaps in context, people don't buy in as well as they could do, right?

Jeff Chastain: Exactly, yeah. And they people throw around the terms all over the place, but it's almost like, okay, treating the business itself as its own entity to say, okay. We talk about, okay, your personal legacy. What do you want people to remember you by? I almost looking at it in terms of the business, what do you want the business to be known by? If your business was to go away in 20 years or something, what would you want people to remember? That, hey, this business accomplishes this, it's like, we look at a lot of the stuff going on today with like an Elon Musk sitting there putting the new space flight missions up kind of a thing there outside of our NASA program here in the states.

And it's like, okay, he's got a bigger picture legacy, a bigger picture vision. And you look at that and say, okay, what's the business legacy? Then bring it down to say, okay, what's our mission? Why are we here beyond just out to make a profit? In my case, out to make entrepreneurs' lives better, give them back the freedom, give them back the enjoyment of their business while still being able to profitably grow and scale. And it's kind of that articulation that you're sitting there. I'm assuming you're referring to, to say, okay, my whole team needs to understand this is really what our end goal is. Yes, we're a for profit business. Most people are kind of a thing there. And even if you're not for profit, you're still got to raise money either way, but got to have a bigger picture mission out there or that people can really understand and buy into. And you've got to be able to articulate that and define that both from an employee attraction standpoint and a hiring perspective from an employee retention standpoint, and even from an outside perspective to say, okay, your customers looking at that, do they identify and believe in that? And most likely that's what attracting them to the company. In addition to the solution that you're solving at that point.

Steve Rush: You talked about getting your plan, your strategy down to kind of a quarter in 90 days, but for you, does it ever get more detailed down into the weeks and the days?

Jeff Chastain: From a company standpoint, I don't ever break it down further than that. From an individual standpoint, we don't typically look at that or our coach kind of a thing into that. There are all kinds of systems out there for managing your week and stuff like that. But to me, the bigger picture issue is to say, okay, you understand from an individual standpoint it's the, who was it? Steven Covey. The rocks, sand, water kind of model, kind of a thing.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jeff Chastain: You understand what your big rocks are for this quarter to know that, hey, I know I've got to get project X done, or I know I've got to get these five steps towards that project done. So having in your mindset and then what we do is, or at least what I coached, I'm losing his name now. Meeting rhythm, meeting, Lencioni’s strategies, kind of a thing there to have an effectively a check in style team meeting on a once-a-week basis, because what they found over time was that this goes back to those that still remember their school days, kind of a thing. Most of us, when you get the paper assigned or the project assigned, we don't start working on it that day. We would effectively wait till the night before and sit there and do the cram kind of style session to get that paper written. And that carried forward into the working environment where you'd see this almost a kind of an exponential curve of effort. Whereas as time got closer, as it got closer and closer to the deadline, all of a sudden, the amount of effort would exponentially increase in order to meet the deadlines. So, by doing more of a weekly style check in, just almost a standup kind of meeting, whatever to say, hey, where are you on your project? What's going on? It starts bringing that back. And you start seeing these little weekly spikes of effort at that point that, hey, I've got a report on this, on Friday's meeting. So therefore, I better get a little bit done this week. So, I can actually have a positive report Friday. Starts getting some of that progress moved in, but in terms of actually doing like a daily planner or anything like that, that's typically smaller scale that we typically work with.

Steve Rush: And let's be honest, I guess you are expecting people to be smart enough to work out the roadmap of what week to week is going to get you to achieve your quarterly objectives anyway, aren't you, right?

Jeff Chastain: You really are. And to me, that's again. Good leadership is, one being able to hire the right people from a mentality standpoint that yes, they can self-manage. They can be their own person. You're hiring the expertise there, but the other side is really getting out their way, because it's interesting with the business leaders I've interviewed on my podcast and say, okay, what's your biggest struggle? What's been the hardest thing in growing and scaling your own business? Almost always come is back to the idea of delegation that, especially when you start small, you're used to having to do everything there yourself and being able to start handing that off and saying, okay, yes. Now I'm going to go trust you to do the marketing, or I'm going to go trust you to handle the finances side without sitting there, reinserting myself back into that role is some of the hardest things that people have to deal with. And to me, that's the sign of a really good leader, is that okay? I can truly hire the right person. I can give you the systems, the tools, et cetera, you need to be successful, but then I'm getting out of the picture. I'm stepping back and letting you run with this, because honestly, hopefully you do a better job at it than I could do, because finance is not my area expertise or marketing for sure. Kind of a thing there.

Steve Rush: So, when you think about the folk that you've interviewed for your podcast, typically, what are the kind of common traits that you see that set those really successful leaders apart? What would they be typically?

Jeff Chastain: It actually goes back to kind of what we were talking about earlier with that visionary mindset, the ones that have the big ideas, the ones that really truly know, hey, we've got a mission here. We're out to go solve this mission here. Honestly, the way I started to say, hey, I know I.T, I'm going to go be an its consultant. Those ones typically struggle more because a lot of times they're more the technical kind of technician type personalities there, the ones that really have that bigger picture vision. And then again, what we've talked about can articulate that vision, can bring that vision, turn that it into a plan and bring a team together to drive that mission forwards. Those are the ones that really seem to have more success from the ones that I've talked to.

Just, again, having that bigger picture, this is more than just ourselves, more than what I can accomplish. And therefore, I need my team to come alongside me to come out and execute on this. Those are the ones that grow. If you're just sitting there looking at it solely as I'm the only one that can do this, I'm the best one at all these tasks. That's just a self-limiter at that point, more than anything. And that's where a lot of the technician types kind of struggle.

Steve Rush: So preneurs versus entrepreneur, right?

Jeff Chastain: It really is, yeah.

Steve Rush: Yeah. So, we're going to turn the tables a bit now, Jeff. This is where we typically hack into your leadership thinking, your leadership brain.

Jeff Chastain: Okay.

Steve Rush: So, I'm going to ask you to think about all of the experiences you've had throughout your career and having coached some fantastic leaders yourself too and distill them down to your top three leadership hacks. What would they be?

Jeff Chastain: To me the first one more than anything is kind of knowing your identity. Either personally or having an identity for the business, because especially when you're the solo entrepreneur or the early-stage entrepreneur, you and the business are both pretty well tied together. So it's like, okay, how do you define out that identity? Your who and your why kind of a thing of your business at that point to build, get other people on board, and then really the second step or of the second hack there as you were calling it kind of a thing for, okay, we know who we are. Building out a roadmap, building out a strategy. Actually, had it written down. Morris Chan is, one of the quotes that was along those lines, saying. Without strategy, execution is aimless. Without execution, strategy is useless.

So, it's that same kind of quote that we've talked about. There are so many different versions of it out there. And then the third option, like, or third piece of it is really being intentional about the delegation. Plan to delegate, even if you're still that solo entrepreneur, or you're still the two- or three-person team, right there. Actually, work with those people to say, okay, we're going to draw out effectively the org chart, draw out the functional kind of chart there of all the different functions in your business. Even though it may have your name on 90% of these boxes, we need to help you understand what that bigger picture plan is for your business. So, we can start identifying, hey, this box over here, I'm not being very good at accomplishing the goals here. Maybe this is the first one we need to go work at delegating or find somebody to hire in for. So really developing that kind of plan for delegation, that kind of plan for hiring, even if you can't financially do it right now, but just start thinking in that bigger picture, because the ones that have that bigger picture, vision, that bigger picture strategy to say, okay, next year, I am going to hire these two new people. At that point, you've got a goal. You've got something to work towards rather than just being solely focused in today. So, to me, that's almost really the three things in my mindset is, the identity, the roadmap, and then just planning to delegate, planning to grow.

Steve Rush: I love that last one. And it also relevant for people that work in organizations, where if you theoretically map out an ideal org chart or an ideal team structure, it's how you then go about either recruiting, hiring, or giving away some of that responsibility in hiring in to fill your gaps playing to your strength, right?

Jeff Chastain: Exactly, yeah.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jeff Chastain: As an entrepreneur, we tend to try to take on way too much stuff. And I was like, we were talking about it beforehand, kind of a thing. The ones that can truly sit there and say, okay, yes, I'm not the greatest at everything. And the ones that can delegate are the ones that are going to grow and succeed faster.

Steve Rush: Next part of the show Jeff, we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something screwed up, hasn't worked out well, it's not been a particularly great experience, but as a result of it, we've learned from it. And it's now serving us well in our life or work. So, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Jeff Chastain: Well, I'd say I haven't necessarily completely dealt with this one yet, but to me, it's perfectionism and it's anytime, even previous ventures, everything like that, anytime it was building a product, building a service, anything like it. It had to be completely perfect before it could ever go out the door. And that just leads to paralysis honestly, more than anything.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it does.

Jeff Chastain: It's really this idea of saying, hey, just get started. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's version 1.0, its version 0.1 kind of a thing here. It doesn't have to be perfect. And your team, your customers, whatever will provide the feedback, honestly, probably to build a better system or a better product than you would've dreamed up in the first place. But that's still to this day something I have to keep in mind that, okay, this doesn't have to be perfect. This doesn't have to have every single bell and whistle right out the door. We just need to get started. We just need to get something out there and move forward and iterate on it. So that's been my biggest challenge since day one and still tends to be.

Steve Rush: No thank you for sharing. I think many people listening to this will resonate with that, right. Because we've been taught from an early age that you don't ship a product, you don't buy something, you don't finish your homework, you know, whatever it was at high school, all of those things have to be done completely. And to the end degree. And we have to unlearn that in leading teams and leading businesses, don't we?

Jeff Chastain: We really do. To me that even goes back to the strategy level, that okay, if all you've got in mind is that big 20-year goal out there, you end up paralysis at that point saying, okay, I don't even know how to start reaching that. It's the adage of the little quote about how you eat an elephant is, one bite at a time. You got to figure out how to break that down to individual bites and just say, okay, I'm going to take the first step. Even if it's not perfect, I'm going to take the first step, get it done. And then we can move on and start building that momentum at that point in is really the key to it.

Steve Rush: Yeah. I think it was Steve Jobs that infamously said that you can't connect the dots forward, but you can connect them back, but just make dots.

Jeff Chastain: Yep.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jeff Chastain: Exactly.

Steve Rush: Great. Last part of the show we want to give you some opportunity to bump into Jeff at 21. So, you're going to do some time travel now.

Jeff Chastain: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So, you have an opportunity to now visit yourself in the past and give yourself some words of wisdom. What would your advice to Jeff at 21 be?

Jeff Chastain: Oh, and part of it, I would say is just get out there and try things. Again, not worrying so much about okay, what's it going to look like? Is it going to work? Is it not going to work kind of a thing? Because again, I was always the perfectionist, it goes back to that standpoint of saying, and I would really get stuck on things saying, okay, if I can't do this perfectly, the first time out, then I'm not going to do it all. I think, honestly, I missed a lot of opportunities by that kind of mindset.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jeff Chastain: To say that, hey, just try something. If it doesn't work out, it's not the end of the world. People are most likely not going to remember it anyways, but just try something and who knows, something will stick. Something will work here.

Steve Rush: That's it, great advice. And I often ask this question every week, as most of our listeners listening to this will know already. And it's interesting, you know, that if we could turn the clock back, how wiser we would've been, you know, a relatively short space of time.

Jeff Chastain: It really is, an actually had somebody ask me a slightly different version to say, hey, what do you regret doing? Or what do you regret having made decisions before? And I kind of got to think about, it's like, you know, I wouldn't call it regrets on most anything, because hopefully we've learned from all of it.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jeff Chastain: So that's kind of the idea of wisdom is that you've got to go through the experience to hopefully learn from it and do it better the second in time. And if you didn't have that experience the first time, then there wouldn't have been any learning at that point. So, to me, that's the story of the journey that, hey, very rarely do you see an overnight success, an overnight business or anything. And if you, do it probably crash just as fast.

Steve Rush: That's right.

Jeff Chastain: So, most of these, you look at the HP or the Microsoft or anything like that. It's like HP came out a garage somewhere. It didn't pop onto the scenes as this massive corporation. You got to start, you got to build. And it's just one step at a time and plan for it. Just not happening overnight. It's going to take some time; it's going to take some effort. And that's why I always look at it as the mountain climbing journey. We're not going to just parachute into the top of the mountain here. We've got to actually make the climb and it's going to take some effort there to get there.

Steve Rush: Yeah, sure. Is. So I've really enjoyed chatting, Jeff, we're coming to the end of the show now, but I want to make sure it's not the end of our listeners connecting with you. Where's place for us to send them?

Jeff Chastain: All of our programs right now are wrapped around the idea of Building to Scale. So, it's buildingtoscale.com is our podcast. It's the coaching programs, everything like that for small business entrepreneurs. So, if it's an entrepreneur just simply saying, hey, I know what my dream is. I want to get there, and I don't have a plan or don't have a system, don't have a strategy. Then always just happen to have a conversation at that point, but it's just buildingtoscale.com.

Steve Rush: Awesome. And of course, we'll make sure all of your social media links are in our show notes. So, folks can listen and connect with you beyond today as well.

Jeff Chastain: I appreciate it.

Steve Rush: Jeff, it's been great having you on the show. Good luck with the future of what you're doing and good luck with your or show too. And I appreciate you being part of our community on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Jeff Chastain: Thank you very much. I've enjoyed the conversation.

Steve Rush: Thanks, Jeff.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Dr. Jerry Fu. Jerry is the founder and owner of Adapting Leaders; specializing in helping Asian American professionals. He’s an executive coach with expertise in conflict resolution. This great conversation is full of hacks and learning for everyone including:

The importance of mindset in Leadership
What causes conflict in the first place
The reason people will avoid having a difficult conversation
The framework for dealing with those hard conversations

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Jerry below:

Jerry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerry-e-fu-pharmd-acc-53710187/

Adapting Leaders Website: https://www.adaptingleaders.com

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Joining me on today's show is Dr. Jerry Fu. Jerry is the founder and owner of Adapting Leaders. Specializing in helping Asian American professionals who want to get better at their leadership. Specifically, with helping them with conflict resolution, Jerry, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Start of Podcast

Dr. Jerry Fu: Hi Steve. Thanks for having me.

Steve Rush: I'm delighted to have you on the show. You bring an enormous amount of experience and an enormous amount of leadership perspective that we are really looking forward to get into. But before we do that, we always like to give our audience an opportunity to get to know you a bit better. Tell us a little bit about Jerry?

Dr. Jerry Fu: Yeah, I love traveling. I remember when I did a school rotation in Dublin, Ireland, and I that's what gave me the travel bug to see more of the world. And I love salsa dancing that has been a hobby. I never would've expected for myself but has become one that has just consumed my life in such a great way. And I love trying new food. And so, Houston is the most affordable multicultural city anyone could ask for. So, it's fun to try any kind of new restaurant you could think about trying.

Steve Rush: Awesome. And tell us a bit about the man behind the business. How did you kick off your professional career and where did it lead you?

Dr. Jerry Fu: Yeah, yeah, so I have this healthcare lineage in my family. My grandpa practiced in Taiwan as a doctor for over 50 years. Several of my uncles are involved as physicians and I even grew up with two cousins. Both of whom went to Harvard and then went to med school. So, the bar was set pretty high.

Steve Rush: Yeah. Right.

Dr. Jerry Fu: I didn't have the bug for myself. It was just more of a cultural default to say, hey, you want to be a doctor too, right, Jerry? And I said, well, yeah, sure, okay. I don't really have any other interest. Nothing had really, you know, struck me early on in life to say, okay, this is definitely one I want to do the rest of my life. In contrast, I have a best friend from high school who wanted to be a pediatrician from a young age. He was great with kids, loved being around them, loved serving them. And, you know, he has a growing clinical practice where he is now. And, you know, that's wonderful to see, but for me, I grew up in a home where my mom protected me from a lot of stress and anxiety because, you know, she's my mom, she loves me. She doesn't want me worrying about things that I have no control over. But the challenge with that is that when I moved away for college, right. I began to face challenges I didn't have the discipline to challenge to face and actually work through. And I say this, because eventually that got me a C in organic chemistry. I had never experienced failure to that level before. In my mind, like my med school dreams were over, right.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Jerry Fu: I was just like, nope, don't know how this is going to work. So let me just remove the possibility of the shame that could happen if I were wait listed or rejected from med school. So, while I still want to do healthcare, what else could I consider doing? And so, I said, well, pharmacy seems pretty good. So let me apply to pharmacy school and convince pharmacy school that I would make a good pharmacist. My grades, just decent enough to give him a chance. And so went to pharmacy school, finished pharmacy school, but that was where my life took another challenge in conflict because by now I'm in my mid-twenties and my mom decided that she needed to step in to make sure my life was on track with what she felt was successful.

This involved two main things. Number one, working for the chain pharmacy, she thought would be the safest career choice. And number two, marrying a girl that she had set up for me that she pulled from her network of Asian parents. I had moved back home. let her convince me that moving back home and working for this chain pharmacy, I wasn't excited about working for, was somehow the best option. I realized that was almost like a strategy tactic, because she convinced me to move home, not only could she be a louder voice in my life then she could really push me to marry this girl.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Jerry Fu: And even though my mom had never worked a day in her life in pharmacy, you know, moms know best, so here we go, right. And so, I had this very fixed mindset about leader, about conflict and about just life journeys in general, right. Where I felt like, you know, it was key in my twenties to make sure I worked for the best company or marry the best girl or anything else like that, because if I started off poorly, right, somehow that would just kind of lock me into other things. And so, when I felt like I was locked into working for this company and marrying this girl, you know, I was just really not happy with where my life was, you know? And went through just this. You could say self-pity phase. I was living a home; I was making good money. I was using the money. I would've spent on rent to travel and take some fun trips.

And that was a nice side benefit. But I wasn't happy. One stretch, I was happy while I was living at home, working for this chain pharmacy was when I worked for a store that had a really flexible scheduling, all of a sudden, I was able to travel a lot more, do a lot of my own more of my own thing. And I knew how rare that was. So, I was scared to leave it. And so, when it went away anyway, after I had to reshuffle my schedule and do other things, I ended up at another store, which was much busier and I was unhappy again, because I had lost that autonomy over my schedule and it took a really, really ugly customer service incident 11 years ago in January that just said, okay, I can't stay here any longer. I have to find another job.

And so, the problem with that is that, you know, I wasn't working on my career at all. I was just content to work for this chain pharmacy, as long as I was doing better than 70% of my workflow and my staff on other pharmacists, you know, my boss was happy with my effort. And so, I didn't work on my career. So, when I wanted to get into teaching pharmacy students, I didn't have much of a resume to stand on for a conventional university job. But one of my friends who works for a pharmacy consulting company here in Houston told me, hey, I got promoted. My previous teaching position is available. Would you like to apply for it? I said, oh absolutely. So, I get the interviews, I convince them I was worth taking a chance on. All of a sudden, I am taking this part-time teaching job over a full-time job with benefits, which of course my mom did not respond too well. And so, I knew though I wanted to do this and head in this direction. So, I'm moving to Houston from Tennessee where I was living at the time. And you know, I had local friends to help me get settled in Houston fairly quickly. So that was nice. But I realized quickly I was in over my head after the initial honeymoon phase was over. There were some big assignments that my boss had trusted me to handle which is mainly writing new test questions. And for whatever reason, either I got writer's block or mismanaged my time, but ultimately, I didn't want to admit that I was in over my head because I didn't manage my time or anything like that. And so I was still in this mindset that somehow if I told my boss, you know, a good enough reason as to why I didn't get the job done, somehow, she would understand.

And unfortunately, the day before the first exam where I was supposed to have new test questions, she saw the exam and needed to come in early and just rehash everything because she's like, this is well below, you know, the standard that I had expected from you, and I realized quickly, right? Like your boss, isn't paying you to tell you stories as to why I think get the job done. Your boss wants to get the job done, but that was not a lesson I could embrace until much later. But anyway, I say this to say, this set a bad precedent for me. And she struggled to trust me after that. And so eventually after enough rope, 11 months later I got fired and that was just a tough wake up call I couldn't appreciate at the time.

And you know, me still dealing with the failure and the shame and the embarrassment of wasting this opportunity at a company that a lot of my friends covered it, you know, respected. And I just thought, oh my gosh, what am I going to do? And so that's where the rollercoaster for my career took a really bad turn where I ended up at an independent pharmacy job. House of cards, four of my paychecks bounced crooked doctored And after the first check bounce, actually my boss, owned up to him. was like, hey, something happened, sorry about that. We'll we for it. But here's the problem, Steve, is that I didn't have a local bank account.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Jerry Fu: I never bothered setting one up. And so, I was mailing my checks home and when checks two, three and four bounce, right. And my boss eventually I said, hey, we've having some more problems. And I checked with my mom, I said, did I have some mail? Oh yeah, these checks were overturned but I was just too afraid to tell you, and it's just like, no, like this is not how you handle bad news, right.

Steve Rush: Exactly, yeah.

Dr. Jerry Fu: If a patient has cancer, you don't tell him, well, I can't afford to tell him he has cancer because that would be terrible. It's like, no, he needs to know so he knows how to treat it, right. So anyway, in my own conflict diversion still, right. I felt like was bad at conflict. I was never going to good at it. So anytime someone confronted me or was upset with me, I just needed to take the path of least resistance. And so, what do you do when the boss is clearly ripping you off, right. And so, after nine months of back and forth and trying to chase down as much of the shorted money as I could before finally quitting. My friends got me on with a different, more legitimate company, but money was really tight. And so, they said, hey, we can't pay more than eight hours a week. And I said, uh-oh, so what do you suggest I do? And they said, well, you can cover at our Austin location, which is about two and a half hours away. And you can get more hours that way.

And I said, okay. And so, I'm driving out to Austin with no idea what my life is going to look like. And people would tell me, hey, Jerry, you could end up in worst cities. And I said, yeah, technically, but it just didn't feel like home at this point, right? And so, this summer, this is 2012. Now this was the summer that some friends of mine who run a pharmacy leadership, nonprofit contacted me and said, hey, one of our facilitators had to back out for a national meeting. Would you be interested in stepping in? And these were friends I'd made over a couple years. I said, oh, I love them so much. And so, I said, absolutely, I want to step in and help out. And so, teaching leadership kind of unlock some possibilities in my head because before I said, wow, leadership is hard.

The few times I've tried it. I wasn't really that great at it. I don't know if I'll ever be good at it. And so now I was asking myself, well, what if I could be a good leader? What would that look like? What kind of work would that involve? How I care myself? And so that fall, I had the opportunity to either stay in Austin part-time, which was a great work team, or take on a full-time management position in Houston that had opened up. And I said, okay. I can't be scared. I can't stay safe. I have to take on this challenge. I'm ready to come back to Houston. So yeah, let me take on this challenge.

Steve Rush: It's a great story. And what I'm noticing as you're describing it though, Jerry, right. Is this whole journey of mindset that shifts for you on this exploration, what happened next?

Dr. Jerry Fu: Oh, I got written up again. I had technicians who are not pulling their weight and causing a lot of problems and in my conflict diversion, right. So, leadership I was able to, but then the specific area of conflict resolution I was still struggling with. And so, you know, again, trying to be gracious, but the management said, hey, their behavior is a problem and your unwillingness to discipline them or even fire them is also a problem. So, your kind of in the doghouse again we're going to put you on a performance improvement plan and things. And of course, you know, all my friends around me are saying, you got to own up, if you just want pity, that's not going to help you with the situation.

So, you got to own up to what you got to do and what you have to work on. So, I managed to get out of the doghouse right around the time the company had their funding pulled. Basically, the owners at that point felt like the pharmacy model was no longer viable, so they just decided to pull out. I was still looking to quit and move on, but that didn't change things. It just made a little more urgent. And so, I managed to land on my feet only because I have leadership experience on my resume now. They tell me, hey, we're interviewing you because you have leadership experience on your resumes. So, I tell people, leadership save my career in that I got more job options.

That next job unfortunately didn't last very long. The revenue model was not sustainable for smaller pharmacies that actually offer a higher quality of life. Incidentally, along the way, I had to fire a technician who had gotten pregnant after I'd hired her. And that was tough because when the clinic that I was working with, wasn't happy with her. And then they told my boss and my boss said, hey, look, you got to handle it. And I knew that if I did not fire her, that I would lose my job too. And so that was the main impetus for saying, okay, I got to fall in this grenade, right. So anyway, the next couple of years I managed to land on with another company that I liked a lot, you know, they had good benefits, good hours. And I was hoping that would be the last company I ever had to work for.

And again, you realize, these smaller pharmacies that offer high quality of life don't last long in the pharmacy landscape. And so, when that company went under four years ago, I told myself, well, you know, I'm tired of dealing with insurance companies. I'm tired of trying to chase doctors for scripts, but I love teaching these leadership workshops, which I've done consistently since 2012. What would a career in leadership coaching and facilitating look like, you know, what kind of work would that involve? And so, I proceed to ask some friends who are in this space, and I'm still scared of failing rejection. So, I don't actually start anything, not for real. And I tell people, Steve, that it took a pandemic for me to kind of wake up and say, hey, well, you know, how much longer am I going to wait? Right. You know? And last October file the LLC, got the website up, opened the bank account and you still got to hustle, right?

Steve Rush: Of course, yeah.

Dr. Jerry Fu: The world doesn't owe you success just because you decide to put some skin in the game.

Steve Rush: You spot on Jerry, but actually there is no substitute for hard work. And what I do know about you is you are incredibly hard working and focused, right?

Dr. Jerry Fu: Exactly.

Steve Rush: The first time we met was like 2:00 AM in Houston.

Dr. Jerry Fu: Yeah.

Steve Rush: That's the kind of guy you are, you're prepared to go above and beyond in order for us to have that conversation because it was important to you.

Dr. Jerry Fu: Yes.

Steve Rush: And what I do know about you is that while you still might bump into some of that fixed mindset stuff, the growth mindset is massively dominating your future. And I suspect that's what help you get to where you get to now, right?

Dr. Jerry Fu: Absolutely. It has to, and the fact that you would need to keep growing is really the opportunity there, because I think there some myth that somehow if you have enough of growth mindsets mindset, that somehow you could just stop and say, okay, now I can hit cruise control. And as David Allen says in his book, Getting Things Done with personal development, he says, the better you get the better you'd better get. And so, it's like, wait, it doesn't end. It's like, oh, it doesn't get easier. It's like, well, in a way it does, but only so you can handle bigger challenges, right?

Steve Rush: Right. It's the start of something for you. Having a growth mindset just gives you the permissions to explore, to find things, to learn more. But then you still have to do something with what you learn, what you find, what you've explored, otherwise you bump into that fixed mindset holding you back. So, what was the point that you thought, right. I'm definitely onto something here now. And specifically with the Asian American community that you work with a lot. When was that kind of defining moment that you thought, yeah, I've definitely got something here?

Dr. Jerry Fu: Yeah. Great question. I saw something when I landed my, technically, my first paying client. I met my first client through the church that he used to go too. He's a Chinese guy, similar background, his parents came over from a different country and he was recognizing that, hey, a stable nine to five job only goes so far and maybe I need to take on some leadership challenges. So, he actually left Houston to take on a job in a different city that he felt like that would give him a higher quality of life. And not just give him a boring nine to five or a toxic work culture. And he realized quickly he needed to improve. And so, when I was first trying to test out my coaching, I said, hey, try me out six months for free, just because I need to get better at this.

And this way you have some level of help. And so, after six months I said, okay, I'm ready to start charging, are you on board with this? And he's like, yeah, are you willing to give me a discount if I commit to a year of coaching? And I said, oh absolutely. That's when I knew I was onto something and then same thing with my second client. She was dealing with her own challenges at work. And so, when I helped her navigate a really difficult conversation with her very temperamental, passive, aggressive boss, after he blew a batter, trying to restore things. I knew that this is a problem that a lot of Asians don't want to admit that they struggle, right. I know how private and prideful I was about my own challenges to deal with things and have this image that I have to maintain that, no, no, no. Like I'm tough enough. I should be able to do it on my own, right. And then you realize, how's that working for you? right. Just to be too proud to ask for help when you need help, right.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Jerry Fu: Still trying to figure out how exactly to help other more Asians realize, hey, it's okay to say you don't have it all together. Like it's okay to say, hey, like you're dealing with some challenges, you're struggling to find your own solution for them. And yeah. Happy to get a solution that's more within your preferred budget if that's what it comes down to. So yeah. I know I'm onto something there because I think a lot of Asians are dealing with that. Whether it's temperamental bosses or parental expectations about how their life should go or even just within themselves to say, hey, what I grew up hearing isn't jiving right now.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Jerry Fu: What do I need to do differently? So that I'm actually charting a course for myself in my own life that I know I would be more satisfied with.

Steve Rush: Yeah. And there's no question, of course, that having that experience of being born in a Asian community and living with some of the things that people like, you know, white, Caucasian guys at me just will not get is absolutely going to be a massive strength to those conversations that I just couldn't empathize with the greatest respect as a great coach, I could do my absolute damnest to explore and develop and understand with deep empathy and respect but I still wouldn't be able to get it like you would, right.

Dr. Jerry Fu: Fair enough. I mean, on one hand, I think the joke or not joke, but the interesting thing in coaching is either you want someone with completely fresh eyes that has no frame of reference. I think there's some merit there and at the same time, you know, what better person to help you navigate a path when they have the same skin, right. And they have the same eyes and perspective that you have because they've dealt with the same racial taunt or, you know, familial stress and prideful culture that we've held onto for so long.

Steve Rush: And I definitely think there's something about having a fresh set of eyes in perspective but as part of an intimate coaching relationship, there'll be things that naturally spark off for you that would never even enter my subconscious, right?

Dr. Jerry Fu: Yeah, yeah. I'm just a little further down the path. I skin my knee a couple times and as much as you could learn from skinning your own knee the same, why don't I spare you some of that, right.

Steve Rush: Exactly right. Yeah. And in talking of skinning your own knee, what it seems to me, Jerry, is that those experiences you shared earlier around not facing into some of the conflict, not facing into some of the challenges that you had are really core elements of the learning that you've now applied in the work that you do now, right?

Dr. Jerry Fu: Oh, absolutely, yeah. I mean the biggest catalyst for me, recognizing I need to get better was admitting that the cost of not dealing with the situation is worse than messing up and failing at, you know, engaging the situation.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Jerry Fu: And then also to recognize, hey, you know what, even if I fail, it's better than not doing anything. And then also, you know, the paradox is okay, let me just not settle for, well, at least I tried. It's like, okay, let me really study this and improve this so that I give myself the best chance of success every single time I engage.

Steve Rush: So, from your perspective, are there some common traits that cause conflict in the first place?

Dr. Jerry Fu: I think the first thing is just mismanaged expectations, right? That's usually the easiest conflict to realize, right. This is just, hey, I was expecting you to show up on time. You showed up 30 minutes late. Okay. We have a conflict done, right. That's the first simple conflict. The second conflict I'll see is, you know, expectations for myself and my own path versus expectations that others have for me, right. That's another one. Cultural expectations, right. When just in like social circle, right. When I remember in high school, like a classmate came over and he didn't take his shoes off because he just didn't know, but I was too afraid to tell him, hey, you need to take your shoes off before coming in and now I have to deal with the conflict, right. He's not even aware of this unless he told him.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Jerry Fu: And then, there's healthy conflict, right? The current version of you versus the future version of you or business conflict, right. What makes us money now may not make us money in five years from now or even within healthy business cultures, right. Morale and results usually are on opposite sides. And then, you know, innovation and systems usually don't pair up well, right. Because innovation says, hey, we got to look for new stuff and systems say, well, you know, this is how we're built to handle money now. Those are the most frequent conflicts that I see.

Steve Rush: You mentioned very briefly there around conflict can be positive. Most conflict happens in that part of the limbic system that we try to deal with that whole fight flight freeze in the peace situation. And that's typically get an emotional response. So how can conflict be positive in that sense?

Dr. Jerry Fu: I mean, conflict tells you that something has to change, right. I'll give a specific example from my work, leadership lab in a way. So, my lead technician will call her, Denise. For the longest time she would just show up late, chronically late. And one of my other technicians who is consistently punctual is very upset at this, but Emily, this punctual technician, right. Emily doesn't handle conflict well. And because she's a harmonizer, she wants to get along with people. She doesn't like it when people dislike her for things. And so, she's just quietly frustrated with Denise tardiness and one day on our group text, right. Emily says, oh, basically Denise was late again. And so, Emily is just texting all these really passive, aggressive texts on our thread. And it's like, okay, this is a problem, right. Because when it starts to spill over into these kinds of messages, it's like, okay, now we have a conflict, right. And so, the conflict really revealed a lot of good things that we needed to work on, right. That was the good of conflict because Denise realizes, okay, my tardiness is affecting my team's ability to focus and get things done. And, Emily is recognizing, oh, like holding this in is not healthy, right. She's not going to change until I say something to her. At least I don't have a chance of seeing how she'll respond unless I say something to her. Even though this is an unhealthy conflict, because it reveals a lack of empathy for the other person and just an unaware of the consequences of my own selfishness in this case for either woman. This was the catalyst for both of them to realize it's like, okay, Denise, like, if you don't want her to start passively, aggressively communicating with you, you need to step up your game, show up on time. And Emily, you know, if you're upset, go ahead and say, like we don't want you holding that in.

Steve Rush: What are the kind of main reasons that people don't just air it when it's fresh for them, you know, first time out an incident occurs. What is that kind of fundamental reason we just don't let it out so early?

Dr. Jerry Fu: Well, I mean, I know for me, it's this fear of antagonizing other person. Like I'm just going to throw them on defensive if I confront them about something that I think is problematic. Part of it is just the way people have dealt with conflict with me, when they just, send this really polite email heading like, hey, right. And then you open the email and then they just blast you with everything you did real wrong, right. And so, yeah, number one is just the desire to be liked. I think if I bring this thing up, they won't like me anymore.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Jerry Fu: And then even worse is that you bring it up in a way that shows, you're scared to bring this up with them, which is, you know, almost just as insulting as just not wanting to talk about it with them, right.

Steve Rush: I can say that actually.

Dr. Jerry Fu: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And it's ironic. I never really thought of it in that way that you can physically see the non-verbal communication happening way before, can't you? Somebody been stewing on this situation or the event and now they're going to have a conversation, but they're dreading it. You can see it all over their face often, can't you?

Dr. Jerry Fu: Oh yeah. You die thousand deaths before you ever get stabbed, right.

Steve Rush: And one of the things that comes back to your earlier observations was all of this is mindset. The fear of I'm not going to do that is a mindset, isn't it? The assumptions that we make about how people respond to us is a mindset. And actually, often when you get it out there, it's nothing like it.

Dr. Jerry Fu: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Yeah. Excellent. So, talk us through a little bit about the work you've been doing recently. So, I know you have your downloadable version of the framework that you've got. I think we really need just to spin through how that might help our leaders listening to this.

Dr. Jerry Fu: Oh, of course. Yeah. So, in trying to expand the help that I can offer potential clients or anyone really, who's curious about my business. Have this great guide that details a framework on how to handle hard conversations, because basically I took some, you know, material from references and books that, you know, friends introduced to me. And then I kind of put my own spin on it, my own spices in the common recipe if you want to use one analogy. So yeah, the five steps for handling hard conversations, according to me. Number one, you have to imagine what a successful conversation would sound like.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Jerry Fu: Too often, right. I know what I do in conflict to say, well, I don't know how this is going to go, but I'm just going to go in there. And I guess, you know, even if it goes poorly, well, you don't have to settle for that, right. Maybe the conversation can go easy, right. You could just say, hey, can you stop leaving your dirty dishes in the sink? And they say, oh yeah, sorry about that. Maybe it could be that easy, right. But you don't know. And kind of like, to my point about being a good leader, you give yourself permission to succeed at something, right. Hey, maybe I could actually be good at this.

Number two is to find 10 seconds of courage to set things in motion, whether it's sending that email or sending that text or picking up the phone, right. People think, oh, I need to be more courageous. I need to feel like Superman or Wonder Women. And it's like, if you wait until you feel like you have enough courage, like you'll never do it or even worse, you wait three months, six months. And you know, now all this damage is continuing to go. Like this fire is still, you know, eating up all this property. And it's like, well, I'm not ready to deal with that yet. But it's still causing problems, right. So, you need to stretch yourself for 10 seconds to kind of set things in motion and lock the gate behind you, so you can't back out, right. And that's kind of helped you force yourself forward.

Number three is to script your critical moves, right. So don't just think about what you need to include, go ahead, and write it down, right. Because if things are rattling around in your head, you're not going to remember everything in the moment. So go ahead and write things down you know, organize into a logical flow and make sure this way you can address things impartially. Number four though, is to rehearse those critical moves, right. Rehearse in front of a mirror, record yourself on your phone, get your friends to role play with you, make sure that you train in the dojo before fighting on the street, right.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Jerry Fu: Make sure you practice that courage and then step five, do it. You've done the homework, you set things in motion, you've practiced. And the cost of backing out now is too high. So just follow through and learn from it. Make sure you say, hey, how could I do that better? But those are the five steps

Steve Rush: Also of course, by just mapping out those steps and stages, as you've just described, will help unlock that growth mindset that we need to be effective in that moment.

Dr. Jerry Fu: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So, we're going to flip the coin and turn the tables a little bit now Jerry. We're going to dive your leadership experience of which you've had, not only the ability of leading teams, but have had the opportunity to coach great leaders too. So, I want you to dive in, if you can, and just try and get to our top three leadership hacks from you, what would they be?

Dr. Jerry Fu: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, great, great question. So top three leadership hacks. Number one. Kind of like what we were referred to earlier saying, hey, what's the cost of not doing anything, right. So, to do that, just to say, hey, 10 seconds of courage, you don't have to wait until you're ready. Just start doing things, right. Try something, learn, adjust, and then repeat the cycle, right. And yeah, what's the smallest amount of change I could do right now that I would feel okay with doing, right. Just shrink something down into a manageable step, much like Atomic Habits said, or David Allen said, you know, what's the next action? So yeah, the first leadership hack, what's the minimum viable action you can do, right. number two, leadership hacks. I mean, learning is big. And so, for me, I download audiobooks through an app called Libby. Let’s you rent audiobooks and eBooks for free through whatever library you have access to and then listen to them a on 1.2, five speed and learning right is the second leadership hack and then finding ways to make learning fun. And to be opportunistic with that, right. Because I haven't had as much time to read physical books as I used to, but the next best thing is to listen to books while in the car or I have other moments of dead time. So that would be the second leadership hack I would say. And then third leadership hack. Ask meaningful questions. Because questions are what helped me shine the flashlight on important things, I want other people to address, and it feels much less pushy when you're trying to motivate someone to think a little differently. And if you help people realize things for themselves, then it's a lot easier than me just telling them what I think they should do.

Steve Rush: A part of every great coach of course.

Dr. Jerry Fu: Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Rush: So, the next part of the show, we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is where something hasn't worked out well. Maybe it's been pretty catastrophic, but the event itself is now cause some learning and that learning serves you well, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Dr. Jerry Fu: I'll give a situation from my current job. When I first started, I brought on a technician from my previous company who was one of a lead technician, but it turns out was just because you have the title mean people respected her. And when I brought her on, we realized too late that she wasn't a good fit for the company basically. She was willing to undercut her teammates anytime she made a mistake because she was too afraid of looking incompetent and she didn't want to lose her job. And so even though she wasn't lead technician now, she was still acting like she was and just causing a lot of problems that she just didn't want to admit to. And so, you know, my attempts to write her up and discipline her didn't go well.

And this went on for like a year and a half before we finally said, okay, we can't do this anymore. Like, and so yeah, I mean, those failings, that was probably like, I don't want to admit how much we set our company back because I was just too afraid to engage. Because she knew how to deflect. She knew how to bite back and then we just realized, hey, you know, even if this is true, like we're still in charge. And if we're not happy with her performance, it's still up to us to push her out the door.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Jerry Fu: And so, this set a tough precedent because we didn't entirely build up a bulletproof case, even though we had more enough evidence, we just didn't line it up properly. And so, when she filed for unemployment. The workforce commission ruled in her favor because we didn't line up all our ducks in a row. And so, I say this because was a good lesson because when it happened again with another employee, we just realized, okay, it doesn't matter how much this employee refute our story. It's still up to us to write her up. And so sure enough, after we, you know, hit the last straw with her, you know, we made sure that we had a strong case. And so, when she tried to file for unemployment, she was denied. And to say this, not out of like satisfaction, I'm just happy that we protected the company from people that were draining its resources.

Steve Rush: And the lesson learned, of course, otherwise you'd repeated the same mistakes.

Dr. Jerry Fu: Oh, absolutely. That was more satisfying, even though it was exhausting both times.

Steve Rush: I can imagine. It's never an easy thing to do, but it's a byproduct of managing performance and people, right.

Dr. Jerry Fu: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So, the last bit of the show today is we get a chance to give you a of time travel. You get to bump into Jerry at 21 and give them some advice. So, what would your words or wisdom be to Jerry at 21?

Dr. Jerry Fu: Yeah, I would tell him three things. I think number one, it's okay for people to disagree with you. If you like something and they start to badmouth that you don't have to be the hero and prove them wrong. Like, if you like, what you like and you know, why you like it, it's okay if other people don't like it. So just be more secure in that regard. Number two would be, it's okay to say no, you know, don't people please. Like if you are honestly not excited about doing something, don't do it and it's a lesson to remind myself today, actually just say, hey, it's okay to say no to things. And then number three, I would say explore more. I'll tell you this, Steve, this was a funny moment. I basically got funneled into a German language learning program when I was in middle school. And so, because I'd already learned German in middle school, I just continued it through high school. I remember after going through a tough lesson, getting a bad grade on a test, I just said, oh my gosh, you know, when am I ever going to use this? Steve, I've met so many great German people like everywhere I've traveled.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Jerry Fu: And the number of cute German girls I'll meet. And even if I have no shot of dating them, I could just see God just like, you know, talking to me and looking at me, going, I tried, like to expand your perspective and it took a while for me to really appreciate. Oh wow, global perspective is amazing.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Jerry Fu: And there's a big, great world out there to explore and learn from and really embrace. I would tell myself, hey, as much as you like video games, you know, maybe there's something better out there for you.

Steve Rush: And in the big diverse global world we have, we are so lucky that we have 94 countries that listen to our show and therefore we want to make sure we can connect you with those and that audience too, Jerry. So, when we are finished today, where's the best place we can send them.

Dr. Jerry Fu: Yeah. You can connect with me on LinkedIn but the best place to go to connect and where all the free goodies are, is my website, which is www.adaptingleaders.com. In addition to the free guide that you can download, you can schedule a complimentary 30-minute call. You can also check out the blog where I summarize useful and interesting leadership books and offer other life hacks that maybe useful to you

Steve Rush: And let the leadership hacking continue, and we'll make sure that we connect our audience with you. And all of those links, Jerry will be in our show notes.

Dr. Jerry Fu: Great. Thanks so much, Steve.

Steve Rush: It's been awesome talking. I'm absolutely convinced that the whole approach to conflict resolution is something that we are going to look back in 10 years and you are going to be one of those global experts because you bring a really neat and simple perspective on something that is really quite uncomfortable and challenging. So, I just wanted to say thank you for being on our podcast. Thanks, Being part of our community Jerry.

Dr. Jerry Fu: Ah, thanks, Steve. I'm so happy I stayed up till 2:00 AM to finally meet with you because I could have just said, you know what? Nope. I'm not willing to do that. And to have this meaningful conversation with you and to know that we're giving so much benefit and useful information to your audiences is humbling and exciting.

Steve Rush: Thank you, Jerry. Appreciate it.

Dr. Jerry Fu: All right.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

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Welcome to our first show of 2022. I’m delighted to kick start this year off with Omar L Harris. Omar is a former Executive Leader of GSK and Allergan with more than 20 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He's the founder managing partner of Intent Consulting and author of The Servant Leaders Manifesto and Be a J.E.D.I. Leader, Not a Boss. This warm and insightful conversation is packed full of learning including:

The greatest gift that diversity has presented to Omar.
The difference between equality and equity.
How inequality can so easily disrupt your team and organization.
How to be a J.E.D.I Leaders and not a boss.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Omar below:

Omar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/omarlharris/

Omar on Twitter: https://twitter.com/strengthsleader

Omar on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/omarl.harris/

Omar’s Website: https://www.omarlharris.com

Be a J.E.D.I Leader not a Boss (BOOK)

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Joining me today is Omar Harris. He's a former executive of GSK and Allergan, more than 20 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He's the founder managing partner of Intent Consulting and author of The Servant Leaders Manifesto and Be a J.E.D.I. Leader, Not a Boss, but before we get a chance to speak with Omar, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Although we can't predict the future. What we can say is 2022 will not be returning to business as usual. The pandemic, social unrest, cultural divisions, and new remote working, all but guarantee that leading teams and business in the coming year will be anything but business as usual. Leading in the hybrid world, digitalization, automation, all of which workers need to learn skills outside of our routines and our normal roles. Combined of course, we're getting used to that hybrid world. So how do we prepare for challenges as leaders in 2022 and beyond?

So, I'm calling the six themes as leaders we need to be focused on. Starting with using technology in human ways for human reasons. When it comes to embracing the hybrid workforce, embracing technology is a priority. Professor Roshni Raveendhran and completed some research and explored the integration of novel technologies into the workplace and where those technologies intersect with the psychology of human behavior. With studies, including the examination of monitoring technology in the use of virtual and augmented reality, Raveendhran focused on use of new systems to augment human life and how new technologies can be used responsibly. For example, the use of avatars may relieve that sense of social threat through psychological distance or how an organization's behavior tracking application may be used as a better means of collaboration rather than for people to be feeling that they're constantly monitored. As companies start to rethink about how remote working impacts on the workforce.

Raveendhran also said, “One key challenge pertains to the missing social connection, that feeling of being part of the same group. So, the use of things like virtual reality and other augmented reality is going to be a key critical part that drives the psychology for people to adapt some of those technologies too.” One thing in 2022, all companies will need to focus on and that's improving company culture. Darden Professor Laura Morgan Roberts is an expert human potential, diversity and leadership. And she notes that compassionate, responsive leadership is what every organization needs, whether face to face or screen to screen. She also sites learning as being a key element of that culture change as well as peer to peer support. A crisis is messy, and so too is innovation. Roberts goes on to say, “As organizations compete and grow, the successful ones were emphasized on a culture that is inclusive, authentic, and has development at the heart to retain talent.” Successfully leaders in 2022 will forge beyond diversity efforts and developing that minority talent, pushing that organizations to really embrace the importance of equity and intelligent inclusion.

Ultimately the impact of diversity equity and inclusion efforts. However well meaning, will depend on how well they're executed by its leadership. Decades of research in social psychology and organizational behaviors show that when individuals question the value of group identity, that social identity threats increase, they register, and they're massively damaging, not just to the individual, but to the organizational relationships. Professor Martin Davidson is Darden University global chief diversity officer goes on to explore how those organizations can design and Institute programs and policies that worked at eliminate inequality. He calls out in his studies that the biggest focus should be reducing the psychological reactivity that arises in response to any racial friction. And let's remember in 2022, we're all in the same boat. Friction can sink the boat, keeping team members out of sync. When in fact they should be pursuing the same meaningful goals that are aligned through all the organization.

Professor Lynn Isabella is an authority on managing teams and she likens a business unit to accrue rowing on the water. What it takes to row together with seven or eight people is true of the manifestation of teamwork in action, winning crews share common characteristics. Not only must every team member have the master with technique at a similar level but have different strengths that each can learn to row with the rest of the crew. Professor Isabella goes on to say in their recent studies. “As a member of the team, each row must learn to follow and lead simultaneously. Individual stars will only slow the boat down.” So, what about leadership capability? or to take their teams to the next levels of achievement. Successful leaders of organizations and teams will need a cohesive understanding of what leadership really is and what it's not. Having interviewed hundreds of great leaders and coaches from around the world.

What I know is true, is: Leadership is about influence and not power, it's more about inspiration than control. Power is based on the development and dependence of others and the authority based on the formalization of a simple hierarchy that we've become used to. Command and control approaches lead to burnout and disengagement. The thing is, working through influence takes more effort, but over the long haul. Leads to more engaged, purpose driven and productive teams. Until you create more leaders who are willing to provide their efforts in your direction, you're not really leading. And my final message to kickstart 2022 is business is human. While COVID 19 and the pandemic has accelerated the mass adoption of new technologies. The things we can rely on are human related. Leadership is profoundly human. We can't rely on AI and technology to replace the human traits of judgment, compassion, empathy, and ethics.

And in 2022 leadership will require a human touch now more than ever. So whatever new bold technologies you adopt and the innovative solutions you seek, let's just remember human centered leadership is what's going to make 2022 a real success for you and the teams that you lead. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Let's get into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Omar L. Harris. He's the founder of Intent Consulting. He's an expert on business and servant leadership. He's a thought leader, speaker an award-winning bestselling author of five books, including The Servant Leaders Manifesto and be a J.E.D.I. Leader, Not a Boss: This is about leading in the Era of Corporate Social Justice, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion. Omar, welcome to of The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Omar Harris: Happy to be here, Steve. Nice to be speaking with you.

Steve Rush: So, tell us a little bit about you and how Omar arrived to do what you're doing and how you're making such a great impact on the world. Where did it all start?

Omar Harris: I mean, it started early on, I think my parents, especially my mother really invested in my town talents early on in my life and kind of, you know, gave me something to aspire to in terms of telling me that she wanted me to do something great in the world with my life. I was enlisted into the gifted program in the third grade. It was kind of a funny story about that. I thought I was being studied for like mental disorder or something like that. And it turns out that it was actually an assessment for the gifted program. And you know from that moment on really kind of having extra time to invest in my intellectual acumen, having the best teachers, having the privilege of being able to expand my mind and learn in different ways. And I think that when I reflect back on it, I always thought I was a bit unfair that I was going to classes, getting access to, you know, information and, you know, different types teaching that other students were getting.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Omar Harris: And I thought it was fundamentally inequitable. And I think that, you know, this is what starts in Western Society. Specifically, around the fact that there are people that we see as elite or having certain pedigree or whatever it is. And you get that, you know, these privileges begin to happen at an early age. And then you have those who never receive any types of privileges who have to overcome constantly for the entirety of their life. And what I fundamentally believe is that everybody is uniquely special and talented, and that everyone needs the same kind of investment in order for them to unlock their true potential, which is what I do now is try to help every single person that I encounter, unlock their unique, potential, their unique purpose and help them connect that to their goals and their progress.

But I mean, I think that I evolved there over the course of a 20 plus year pharmaceutical career, living all over the world, you know, U.S., Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. And I've lived a life when I've been able to kind of do what I'm good at all the time. And I just want everyone to have the benefit of that.

Steve Rush: And I love the fact that you've raised inequity in this whole process, because it's the one thing that gets often lost between diversity and inclusion, because it is not about race. It's not about color. It's not about creed.

Omar Harris: No.

Steve Rush: It cuts across all of those lines, doesn't it?

Omar Harris: It does. It's a big intersectionality about inequity and people confuse equity and equality all the time, but they're not the same thing.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Omar Harris: And that's why it's very important to explain what equity is for people. So, they understand really. There's a famous cartoon that shows three children at a fence looking at a baseball game. Let's say it's on the soccer pitch for your global audience or the football pitch. And imagine looking over, trying to look at the watch match, and you have one tall child looking over the fence easily, and you have one kid who's basically can't even see over the fence, kind of get a glimpse of some things. And you have a little short kid who can't see anything, right? And so, this is fundamentally inequity that has nothing to do with anything. It's happened to be three different heights, right.

Steve Rush: And the treatment strategy for those three people in that case is different.

Omar Harris: Exactly. And the tallest person's also standing on a milk crate.

Steve Rush: Right, yeah.

Omar Harris: So, it has a little bit of a boost. So, you take the milk crate away from the tallest one, you give the shortest and the next shortest person, the milk create they need to be able to see over the fence, and then everybody can participate in viewing the match.

Steve Rush: It's a really interesting approach. And I'm glad you've highlighted, as I'm a visual, I can actually see these three characters actually stuck about the fence.

Omar Harris: Right, right.

Steve Rush: Now you had a wonderful, diverse career across full continents and had the experience to really firsthand learn and experience around the whole kind of diversity equity and inclusion genre. But from your perspective, is there may be a time or a moment or experience where there's been this kind of this moment for you where you went, ah, this is it?

Omar Harris: I don't think it was certainly a single moment for me. I think it's just being observant to your experience and the experience of others. I think that for me, one of the things that really affected me early in my career was the fact that I was one of the only African Americans in marketing, in my entire 30,000-person company. And asking myself the question, why are there not more of us in pharmaceutical marketing? At the time I was working in cardiovascular disease and cholesterol, and this is a disease that disproportionately affects you know, black and African American people.

Steve Rush: Right.

Omar Harris: Not only, you know, bring the solutions to market more effectively, but also have more effective consumer messaging and messaging to doctors around the disease modality, you should at least be representing the demographics of your primary patient populations.

Steve Rush: Absolutely.

Omar Harris: High blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, you should have a higher propensity of people, of African descents in those teams. I think just because they're going to have a personal connection to that story. I mean, both my parents have high blood pressure, everybody you know, every person that I have, that's a friend of mine, or over 40 has high blood pressure in our community. So, we have a connection to it, an emotional and intellectual connection to this that others may not have that would give us an advantage in terms of messaging and marketing and all the things we're trying to do. But at the time I was the only person of color on that team in the world.

Steve Rush: That's a remarkable stat in itself, isn't it? Did you find out what the reason was for that?

Omar Harris: I think it comes back to the fact of where they're sourcing talent. I think, you know, once again, there's this whole misnomer or myth that there's not enough of a certain type of group for certain position. We don't will have enough, you know, African American talent for marketing. We don't have enough women in tech. We don't have enough, blah, blah, blah, whenever you see scarcity, it's because you're not looking in the right place.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Omar Harris: Or you're not actually investing in planting seeds to create the crops that you need for your future success. So basically, intelligent organizations, it's sort of like going back to our football example, there's a reason why there are junior clubs, right? Right. So basically, the top, you know, Manchester United, scouring the world for the next stars, 15, 20 years before they ever become adults.

Steve Rush: Of course.

Omar Harris: You know, they're looking at seven-year-olds, ten-year-old, and they don't care where you're from. You could be from the middle of Sub-Saharan Africa, or you could be from Latin America, you could be from Timbuktu. It doesn't matter because they understand that they need a constant supply of stars, and that star base is not going to come from a single demography. And this is something that corporations, we don't understand yet, we're not actually building a pipeline early enough. Pre-College, right? You know what I'm saying?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Omar Harris: Like looking at where the talents are. There are talents all over the place if you create a wide enough net early enough to find these individuals and groom them, which is why all the work in stem is so important and trying to encourage, you know, African Americans and women and immigrants to get into that space. Because now we're trying to build a pipeline of future engineers, entrepreneurs, or whatnot. That same philosophy needs to be applied to regular. Business, finance, HR, you know, marketing, sales leadership, all these different functions. You do the exact same thing. There's no difference in those approaches. In my case, I think that I was only there because my particular organization happened to be sourcing at least one or two African Americans from my school, which was a historically black college and university every year. But most corporations were not using HBCUs as a talent pipeline source. And that's why the demography were so bad. And even with them actually having a pipeline, you know, you're one of ten every year, I was one person brought in and given a chance every year.

Steve Rush: And that in itself just feels wrong in today's society that you were brought in to be given a chance. I mean, how disrespectful to your education and your future talent is that just that notion almost right?

Omar Harris: Yeah. So, you know, you understand that you recognize that you know it's not right. But then you have to basically try to change things from the inside while you're in there.

Steve Rush: Right.

Omar Harris: So now my job is to, first of all, perform and demonstrate that, you know, they didn't make a mistake with the hire. And then second of all, which creates an immense pressure actually, by the way, that you know, other people don't understand the pressure that, you know, you're female or your different demographic talents are putting themselves under because they realize that there's not a lot of them and that if they don't succeed, they carry the bag for everybody else. Which is different than some other racial groups don't have that same baggage.

Steve Rush: That's very true.

Omar Harris: Coming in. Like, basically we're carrying the bag for everybody else of our type.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Omar Harris: You know, they didn't speak concerned about themselves. I'm worried about me, I'm not worried about everybody else who looks like me or from the same ethnic group or racial group as I am. But I know that at least in the U.S., and I know this exists in a lot of people from African nations is that when we get these chances, we're thinking of them not only for ourselves, but we're thinking about everybody else who could potentially be coming in behind us. And so, we take it very seriously. And we put ourselves into, an enviable position of having to be perfect to succeed.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and I was very fortunate. I was brought up in the outskirts of West London, a very diverse community. But I get white privilege. Most people have to actually really give themselves a nudge to consider that it is actually a privilege being a white, Caucasian male, in most cases in the workplace until recently where things have really started to change.

Omar Harris: Right.

Steve Rush: And we've got higher profile, that's making people think very carefully about that. I've always been acutely aware of that from a young age. That's not as frequent as you bump into you, right?

Omar Harris: Well, no, I think it's an interesting point you bring up. I think that we all talk about capitalism, and we believe in capitalism, we believe in these society. The capitalism, the free-market economy is based on competition, right. The more competition there is, it basically brings the best out of everyone, right. But when there's advantages in the system that prevent competition from happening, then we all stagnate. So, what we're seeing today is finally, we're seeing the ideal competitive landscape where basically, you know, for a given job, you have women, you know, immigrants, different ethnicities, different genders, different gender identities, all competing for the same positions that only makes everybody better at the end of the day.

Steve Rush: Of course.

Omar Harris: The issue however, Steve is that leaders have no idea how to lead these diverse teams now. That creates a whole different problem, which is, you can bring in the talent, but can you manage them?

Steve Rush: Well, that's a really interesting notion. So, I run a coaching group, a volunteer coaching group. And, you know, for the first time we put this whole white fragility on the table. As coaches have been, do we talk about it? And how does it hold us back if we don't? And it's really interesting that still in today's community, there is this sensitivity that still sits around race and sexuality and diversity, but people are still or still a bit nervous of bumping into, in fear of doing the wrong thing.

Omar Harris: It's prickly. I think people would rather avoid the conversation and assume that everybody thinks the same way. And that's where the issue comes out to.

Steve Rush: Right.

Omar Harris: You can't assume. Assuming, you know, gets us all in trouble. And I think that having structured dialogue is important. But for me, more important than the dialogue and I guess some of the recognition of biases and beliefs is the point, why are we doing this? Are we doing this, trying to be become better people? Are we doing it for moral imperative? Okay. Those are really good reasons to make change happen. But for me, fundamentally, this is about business risk. And this is about, you know, what higher executive level executives are paid to do, which is to mitigate future business risk.

And the best way to mitigate future business risk today is to have an environment where injustices are consistently eradicated, and inequities are consistently eliminated. Diversity is consistently expanded, and inclusion is consistency enhanced. And so, I believe that when you approach it from the position of business risk and the need to create an environment that fosters a culture where your diverse talents, whatever you have, whatever your demographic mix is, can actually provide the innovation that all the statistics state are available. The teams that are more diverse than those are homogenous. This is when you begin to see the real benefits for business. And when you can begin to finally add value to not just shareholders, but, you know, customers, the community, the environment, and your employees

Steve Rush: Yeah, hallelujah to that, love that. So, you've created some great products working with your team Intent Consulting. You have TYMPO, which is an innovative solution for enhancing employee inclusion. And you also have Equity Pulse. Wonder if you could maybe just tell us a little bit about how you use them and how, as a leader listening to this, I might think about using some of that methodology?

Omar Harris: So, I'll start with TYMPO because basically when I was writing my most recent book, Be A J.E.D.I. Leader, Not A Boss Leadership in the Era of Corporate Social Justice, Equity, and Diversity and Inclusion. I was thinking about what solutions exist to highlight in the book, basically, what can you go to as a leader who's trying to do this important work within your organization. There's a system them I roll out around in justice in the book. And then the diversity, there's a lot of work and great solutions around hiring diverse talent and, you know, making sure you capitalize diverse talent, but I realize that the equity and the inclusion pieces where areas where it's more difficult to quantify for business leaders, the impact of these two areas, right.

Steve Rush: Right.

Omar Harris: So, what do we get when we invest in these areas and what is the outcome for our business? And so, I began challenging myself to think about, how I can come up with solutions. And I think about technology a lot in turn, how can we leverage technology to make things more transparent, make things more equal and make things more visible to everyone. And so, the idea for TYMPO was basically thinking about the corporate all hands meeting, the town hall, where you have your senior leadership coming together to talk about, in all the companies, you know, employees coming to together to talk about performance, initiatives, benefits, whatever the topic dejour may in that quarter. And what happens is you have the CEO and their leadership team talking at the employee base. There may be some Q&A that happens with employees, but it's not really an inclusive event. It's really a one-way conversation, right.

Steve Rush: Right.

Omar Harris: This is what I want to tell you. And so, I thought about how I could transform that into not only a two-way conversation, but in a fully inclusive conversation where we can lean into the difference that we have in our organization. And so, TYMPO takes the idea of audience response systems, where you have a polling function, and you're allowed to basically poll the audience at different moments. And specifically turns that into an opportunity to allow your employee base, to include themselves in the three most important questions leaders should be asking. First of all, when I communicate, what do people understand? Of what they understand, understood, what do they agree with? And of what they agree with, what do they align to do?

So, these three questions, Steve drive business. Understanding agreement and alignment. And so, in TYMPO, the type of polling you ask is related to those three questions, understanding agreement, and alignment. What we can visualize, basically the percentage of our population that agrees, understands it is aligned with whatever we're talking about, right. We can also drill down by demographics for the first time in real time. So, we can see, you know, but let's say Boomers versus Zoomers on a given issue of agreement or understanding or alignment. And then we can allow people to ask questions directly linked to understanding agreement and alignment. My job as a senior leader is to present strategy, but also to make sure you have high understanding, high agreement, and high alignment. Makes me work harder as a senior leader, which puts me in the position of a servant leader. I have to serve and support you in order to get your understanding, your agreement and your alignment. And I have to include you in the conversation in order to move the organization forward. And that's what to take me designed.

Steve Rush: Love it.

Omar Harris: Yeah. So that's TYMPO. In the U.S. in 2019, this organization called the business round table, which is comprised of the top 200 U.S. corporations across various industries changed the definition of a corporation away from shareholder capitalism, which is the profit motive for shareholders to what they call stakeholder capitalism, which is a more benefits for more stakeholders like employees, customers, communities, and the environment in addition to shareholders, and basically they committed to transform capitalism in this direction. The question I asked myself was, is who was holding them accountable?

So, I created Equity Pulse as a service, similar like glassdoor.com where employees can actually rate their employers on their progress related to J.E.D.I. issues. And it's fully anonymous, and employees can come from any company, go to equity polls, fill out our brief survey. And what will happen is, we're going to create company profiles based on their J.E.D.I progress through the lens of the employees of the organization. So, the most powerful feedback you can possibly have is, your employees telling you how they think you are doing based on this survey that we've put together,

Steve Rush: It's a really neat approach to getting people to focus on what really matters, which is subtly different to most employee surveys. It kind of focuses on that inequity, doesn't it?

Omar Harris: Exactly, exactly. And so, it's kind of a third party, external accountability tracker that hopefully will get into the zeitgeist. So, people will begin to reference it and say, okay, before I make a, you know, before I decide what company I want to go work for, let me check out the equity pulse on that company. Let me check out the, you know, let me see if their walking the talk, and that's what I was trying to do. That's the intention of Equity Pulse.

Steve Rush: So, when you came up with the notion of Be A Jedi Leader, Not A Boss, how much star wars influence was there actually involved there?

Omar Harris: Zero. Well, I won't say zero. I won't say zero. So, in The Servant Leaders Manifesto. I had a throwaway line where I said that servant leaders wield influenced like Jedi wield the force.

Steve Rush: Ah-huh.

Omar Harris: And so that was a throwaway line, which is very much linked to Star Wars, if you think about that line.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Omar Harris: But as I thought about, you know, Jedi, the acronym, because when I wrote that line, I didn't know there was an acronym for Jedi that was just as equity, diversity and include, I didn't know, this was a thing, a real thing in this zeitgeist. The Jedi acronym was actually created by a man named Marcella Bonta who works in the environmental advocacy space, right. And so when I learned that there was an actually an acronym for Jedi, I took the same idea and flipped it on his head and said, this is a compelling, it makes a great title, but also like, there are some parallels between if you think about the Jedi and you think about, you know, the Knight at a round table, and you think about the people who are forces for good in the universe. And so, although I don't really make explicit Star Wars parallels in the book, you cannot with, you know, they're very litigious.

Steve Rush: I can imagine.

Omar Harris: The idea pervades subconsciously, which is, being a force for good in your team, department, division, function, organization, community, what does a force for good look like today? And a force for good means, we can't allow the stuff to persist. We can't allow bad actors in our systems to just go walk around willy-nilly. Not being, you know, with no retribution or no justice for them. We can't allow these pay gaps; gender pay gaps to persist. We can't keep trying to make, you know, everyone conforms to a particular style of working in today's day and age. And we can't exclude people if we want to be successful. I wanted to give a language, but also a methodology to what it means to be a force for good in the corporate setting.

Steve Rush: And as part of that force for good, you manage to call out those business sins of employee equity so that we can get rid of some of that toxic boss behavior, and then you've overlayed some principles as well. Maybe we could just spin through those?

Omar Harris: Yeah. So, there's five business sense of employee inequity. And I think these are relevant to your global audience, Steve. The first one is privileged hiring. So, the problem begins right from the start, which what we just talked about, which is, you are only looking at a certain area for your new hire. So, you're basically looking at, you know, pedigree or what university person went to or where they previously worked, or how many years of experience they have. None of these things are proxies for success. None of them guarantee success.

Steve Rush: Right?

Omar Harris: The reason why we have these filters, and these criteria is because managers are lazy, and they don't want to onboard and train people. So basically, the justification is, the pace of work is too fast to have to onboard and, you know, help people come up the learning curve. But anytime you do it in an organization, regardless of how much pedigree you have and how much experience, you're going to have to go through a learning curve regardless. And people fail all the time, they come from the best institutions, with the best education and the best background. It's not a guarantee for success. So why not cast a wider net. So basically, the solution to privilege hiring is hiring for behaviors and not pedigree. So basically, the behaviors I recommend are. I call up the whom, work ethic, heart, optimism, and maturity. When you put a team together, people who work hard, have shared passion are solution oriented and mature enough to overcome inevitable conflict. That group of people will trump, you know, your high IQ, elite, intellectual talent, every time. That's the first that equity, the second employee equity is sink or swim onboarding. So, as I mentioned before. You come in the door and your first day you're working, and no one is giving you the keys to the kingdom, telling you how to navigate this new system, who you should be talking to, answer your questions about the who's, what, when, where, why, how's everything works in the organization. You basically are given 90 days to sink or swim. And if you don't make it, we're going to kick you out the door, which makes no sense if you think about how much money companies invest in recruiting, right.

Steve Rush: And people don't perform well when they're into that kind of pressure either do they?

Omar Harris: Exactly. So why would you not just do what I say in terms of going overboard on onboarding? So basically, onboarding is not HR job. Onboarding is the hiring manager’s job. And when I onboarded people from my organizations, I spent a minimum of three hours with each new employees, making sure we aligned on expectations, on trust builders and trust breakers, on communication styles, on our collective strengths and how we're going to work together and what our mission was together. And so, at the end of that section and making sure I make myself fully available to them to answer all their questions in their first 90-day period and building a robust 90-day plan for them. That transformed not the trust that we had together, but it transformed the success rate and the hit rate for people that were bringing into the organization, right?

So, get rid of sink or swim onboarding, and go overboard on onboarding will be the second thing. The third thing is, okay, so we bring you in, we onboard you, but then we basically want you to be like everybody else. We whitewash your talent. We just basically say, forget what you're good at. You get to go through this process. And how many people who are young coming into an organization are told, like, put your head down, just do this thing for five years. When you become a director, then you can change stuff. We're not going to listen to you or give you any airtime or let you speak to us until you have been here long to be worthy of speaking. It's ridiculous because young people coming in today know a lot more than young people, maybe 20, 30, 40 years, did, coming into business.

Steve Rush: Totally.

Omar Harris: So, you are doing your business, a disservice by not giving these people some room to run when they come in the door, because they're going to do things in a different way. That's going to transform how your business connects with what's current. What's happening now in terms of business. So rather than whitewash your talent, you should look at every individual and try to extract the maximum talent they have for the benefit of your business. What I call, turn talent industry, and build everybody up who comes in the door to be their most productive and engaged self. The fourth inequity is corrupted compensation. So basically, nobody can understand in organizations how they're being paid, like ask group people, you know, explain to your compensation system to me. Explain why certain people get certain bonuses, explain why certain people get certain options, explain the variable compensation element of your pay. Explain this to me.

You talk to 10 people in a company, 10 people will give you 10 different answers. Because companies don't compensate consistently. There's all this bias and subjectiveness in compensation. I'll give you an example, you know, I've been in talent conversations where the most passionate manager in a room is able to justify someone getting a 15% pay raise to keep them in the organization, just because of their skill of arguing for that person's compensation, right. Whereas someone who's not as good at arguing, their employee basis stays 15% lower. Just based on the ability to argue.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Omar Harris: And debate, not based on objective matters of performance.

Steve Rush: There lies a problem as well, right? The measures of performance are also inequitable, often.

Omar Harris: They're inequitable and they're more subjective than we would like to admit.

Steve Rush: Right?

Omar Harris: If there's anything that needs to be objective, it needs to be compensation. And you make your conversation more objective. HR does these market surveys with Mercer and companies like that, where they come up with their benchmarks and their goal is to basically have the majority of their employees at the median or a little bit above the median number, right. For that particular function. However, they don't do internal equity audits to understand the variability of compensation within their own organization. So, I'll give you an example. I was the youngest, senior marketing director in the history of my company at the age of 31. And there were senior marketing who were making $200,000 more than me and the inequity there was ageism.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Omar Harris: Because I was young. They could get away with paying me less. And because other person had basically had the benefit of, you know, pay raises, annual raises, whatever it is, or they came in at a higher level. So, you have this gigantic range of pay between me on the low scale and someone else from the high scale, right. But I'm aware of this. You think this is not going to affect my performance in terms of how much I give you, because you're not giving me what you could give me.

Steve Rush: Right.

Omar Harris: Right. So clearly you can pay that amount of money for this role. You're just choosing not to and justifying and saying, because I'm young. Well then don't gimme the job. If I was too young to get the job, then don't gimme the job.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Omar Harris: You gave me the job, which means you believe that I can do the job. And by the way, I was leading the company's flagship division. So basically, you had senior directors who were managing, let's say 700 million to dollars. I was managing 5 billion, getting paid $300,000 less than the next person.

Steve Rush: Doesn't seem at all fair in this.

Omar Harris: Like, is that fair? I don't know. I don't think it's fair. But you know, that's either here or there, I'm over it. So, last one we go to is, targeted termination. I literally comment on this, my local area now because there's a company called Better.com who just yesterday fired 900 employees over a Zoom call.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Omar Harris: They invited 900 employees. And if you were on this call, you're being terminated, being fired over Zoom by the CEO. Oh, that is horrible for a number a reason, and even worse. They eliminated their entire diversity equity and inclusion recruiting department.

Steve Rush: It sounds to me like a recipe for disaster.

Omar Harris: First of all, from an investment perspective, why would you invest in this company? Second of all, the managers who made the bad decisions that put the company in the position to have to downsize are never terminated. They made the calls, the bad investment, the bad forecast, the bad whatever that led to this moment. And they're the ones who get protected time and time again. And it makes no sense. It's fundamentally unfair and inequitable. And so, for me, I say, you know, employee termination, like the broad base employee, base your frontline employees should be the last resort. We should terminate everybody before we get rid of the frontline employees, because that's your connection to the customer, that's your connection to the market. That's your connection to the actual productivity center of your organization. Your CEO is very far away from productivity of your organization. Get rid of the CEO, get rid of the leadership team. Once again, they're the one who steered the ship into the iceberg. Why don't they get terminated when things go bad?

Steve Rush: It's often because they control, unfortunately rests with those people protecting their own positions, right?

Omar Harris: It's fundamentally equitable, right? So, you're getting paid more and you get to protect yourself. I'll give you an example. Let's say, when I was a general manager in Indonesia. I was making, let's say 300 times more than a frontline sales rep in the marketplace, right. So, my salary could pay for a hundred reps, right. You should get rid of me if I do something wrong.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Omar Harris: You know, versus getting rid of these individuals who are at the frontline and, also not being compensated enough as it is for what they do.

Steve Rush: Really interesting spin on things. I'm glad we went there with that conversation. Thanks So much.

Omar Harris: No problem.

Steve Rush: So how is the future of work? The hybrid work that we find ourselves in now, following the pandemic, and as we come out of it, how do you think that's helped or held back quality?

Omar Harris: I think companies that embrace it are actually going to create much more equality and equity. As long as you have managers who are equipped to properly manage this, right. So, you know, one of the biggest issues is that when you become a manager, there's no training to become a manager. There is no guidebooks to becoming managers. You have, you know, some type of training programs that come into play, but largely it's kind of like learn on the go, learn on the fly, right. And that's just regular management when you're going into an office together, think about the managerial skills and communication skills and abilities you have to have when half your team is working virtually. Some people work it hybrid. The skill set, the ability to manage and lead has to go up several notches.

And so, for me, this is only going to work to the degree that we have. We're improving the quality of management and leadership, which is why I have a lot of work today. Because a lot of people are calling me saying, how do we do this? You know, how do we elevate the skill of our managers? People are recognizing that if the managers don't improve, then this great resignation trend that we're having, and all these types of things are going to continue and they're going to continue losing talents. Everyone's going to be saying, we have the same ability to let you work from anywhere, if I can work from anywhere, imagine now I can work for a Chinese company from North Carolina or I can work for anybody. So, the hiring pool is in the competition is greater than ever before. You've got to really have your standards up to par, to not only bring in, but to keep your talent and develop them and keep them happy. So, it's going to be quite challenging.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it is. So, this part of the show, we typically turn the tables a little bit and I get to hack into your leadership brain.

Omar Harris: Sounds good.

Steve Rush: And having had the vast diverse experience you have; I'm really looking to get into your top three leadership hacks. What would they be, you think Omar?

Omar Harris: So, I mean, top three leadership hacks. I think that the first leadership hack is one that I call MHT, and this is for mindset habits and tracking. And the reason why MHT is important is because in order for you to evolve from a toxic boss to a servant leader to a modern leader, is you have to minimize your ego. And the way you minimize your ego is by making sure you're taking care of yourself in other areas. So that basically you don't require the ego boost that come from having power over other people. So, when you have that product mindset, meaning that you are focused on what you can control and influence and not focused on managing things like corporate politics, or who's going to get promoted when that you have no power over, you have the habits, high performance habits.

So, you are taking care of your mind, your spirit, your personal development, you’re learning, and your exercise, your fitness. That allows you to be able to power through and hold yourself accountable, but also hold other people accountable based on the way that you hold yourself accountable, right? So, I think that's the tracking the T of the MHT. So, that's three-leadership hack, the mindset, the habits, and the tracking are things that I advocate for every manager to upskill on today, in order for them to reduce their ego and show up as the brilliant leader that they actually can be.

Steve Rush: It follows a regular thing we see on the show actually, where the great leaders, the great entrepreneurs put themselves first, and there is this strange notion of some leaders don't feel that's a value investment, but actually if you don't put yourself first and get you fit to lead, you can't then be in service and be servant leader to others, can you?

Omar Harris: No, because you need their service to you for you to feel good about yourself.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Omar Harris: And then nobody gets anything done, because everyone's worried about trying to meet, you know, take care of your ego needs and your ego needs have nothing to do what the customer wants.

Steve Rush: Next part of show, we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something hasn't worked out in your past and your work, maybe you've been quite catastrophic in its outcome, but as a result, the experience you've learned from it and, you know, use it as a positive, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Omar Harris: So, I think that in this instance, it's basically going back to what I said earlier, so basically coming up as the only whatever, only African American in my team in marketing, then becoming the only, you know, African American business director, general manager, and several different organizations, you know, this idea that I had to be perfect led me to have, you know, horrible panic attacks, be taken to the hospital, have nervous breakdowns, all these horrible things. And the key learning from it was just be yourself. Like, don't put that pressure on yourself. You're not responsible for everybody else who looks like you, even though you may think you are, do your best, be the best version of yourself and that'll take care of itself and have healthy habits. I was working, you know, 20 hours a week.

I was not sleeping well, I was drinking too much, you know, I had all these horrible things that were happening because I was trying to show up as perfect for my organization. And I learned later on that I could be just as effective, more effective working half the time by being a lot more focused and taking the pressure off myself. The thing about it is that the perfection doesn't exist, right.

Steve Rush: Right.

Omar Harris: And the thing that I've learned is that we get paid in organizations to increase our success rate when it comes to good decision making, right. And not right decision making, good decision making. And there's a difference, right and wrong decision making is a function of time. You never know when you make a decision, whether it's right or the wrong. Only time will tell you that, but you can definitely leverage process to make more good than bad decisions.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I agree.

Omar Harris: And so, I think that for me, it was, you know, focusing on making quality decisions for myself and for how I was going to work versus trying to control the right outcome, which I don't have any control over ultimately.

Steve Rush: Yeah. Some very wise words. So, Omar, the last thing we want to do with you is do a bit of time travel. You can get to bump into yourself now at 21 and give yourself some advice. What would it be?

Omar Harris: I wrote an article about this actually a couple years ago about 42-year-old, me talking to 22-year-old me.

Steve Rush: Right.

Omar Harris: I think the advice would be the same. I think I would tell him, run your own race. Don't worry about perfection. It's going to be okay. As long as you run your own race and don't compare yourself to other people, don't worry about what people have that you don't have. Don't worry about these types of things. Those things fundamentally fade away over time and all that matters is becoming the best version of yourself. And I think that's the advice that I would give myself at that age versus trying to achieve some unattainable standard. Just be the best version of yourself.

Steve Rush: Yeah. That's great advice too. So, Omar, we are running to the end of our show now, but I don't want this to be the end of our audience listening and working with you. So how can we best connect them when where done?

Omar Harris: So best place to reach me is my website, www.omarlharris.com. If you're on LinkedIn, you can follow me, Omar L Harris. We can connect there. And that's probably the two best places for you to reach me.

Steve Rush: And of course, they can get a copy of Be A J.E.D.I. Leader, Not A Boss, pretty much anywhere. And all your other books are available on Amazon. We'll be make sure all of those are in our show notes as well.

Omar Harris: Wonderful. Thank you, Steve. It's been a great conversation.

Steve Rush: I've loved the conversation. I love the fact that you bring such a lot of experience and diverse thought leadership on the subject, and you are making an amazing difference to the planet. So, I just want to say thank you for the work you do, but also thank you for being part of our community now, Omar, as well.

Omar Harris: I love it, Steve. Hopefully we can talk again soon.

Steve Rush: Yeah, thanks Omar.

Closing

Be a J.E.D.I. Leader, Not a Boss: Leadership in the Era of Corporate Social Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

View Details

Eddy Badrina is the CEO of Eden Green Technology, he was previously the President and founder of BuzzShift. Eddy shares some amazing entrepreneurial insights and leadership hacks including:

How to adapt in a changing world, during and post pandemic?
What does sustainability means for leaders?
How he keeps innovating in a world that's already innovating at light speed.
Why we should treat our teams generously to evolve a great culture.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Eddy below:

Eddy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eddybadrina/

Eddy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eddybadrina

Eden Green Website: https://www.edengreen.com

Eddy Personal Site: https://www.badrina.com

Full Transcript Below

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Joining me on today's show is Eddy Badrina. He's a CEO of Eden Green Technology and AgTech company, which is changing the way people grow food and people. He was previously the president and founder of BuzzShift, digital strategy agency. But before we get a chance to speak with Eddy, you got it. It's The Leadership Hacker News

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: With the great resignation, still looming. Employee engagement is key for any successful organization. So, employee engagement is based on trust, integrity, two-way communication, commitment between the organization and its team members. And you will know, as I. Great engagement leads to increase productivity, performance, wellbeing, and can be measured in a number of different ways. And organizations have taken to a number of different methodologies to measure employee engagement. As a leader, and as an employee, what does employee engagement really mean? For me, it's about getting up in the morning, thinking, great, I'm going to work. I'm going to make a difference. And I'm going to make a change. Employee engagement is about understanding individually what that means for each person that works with you and be really clear and sight and energized where that fits into the whole organization and aligning it to its purpose and objectives.

And alignment to that core purpose. and objectives is really important in fulfilling the organization's longer-term goals and purpose and objectives too. It's about being inclusive, fully inclusive and included as a team member with clear goals, trusted and empowered, receiving regular and constructive feedback and feed forward support in your development and innovation and opportunity. So as leaders, how aware and how engaged are you in unlocking your employee engagement? Are you regularly and restlessly, always looking to draw out deeper commitment from your team, finding new ways of working, drawing on their experiences and their backgrounds for innovative ideas, are you helping them make parallels to the organization's purpose by connecting the dots to their own purpose and experiences? And it's sometimes helpful to think of employee engagement about what it's not. Employee engagement cannot be achieved by a mechanistic approach, which tries to extract discretionary an effort by manipulating employees and commitments and their emotions. It's not about the number you get once a quarter, once every six months on a scorecard around a load of measures. And it's not something that you tactically do.

Our employees are hardwired to spot that kind of behavior and when they do spot it such attempts will fall quickly and become vain and create cynical and disillusion behavior across your workforce. So, the leadership hack here. Allow employee engagement to be a behavior, not something that you do. Provide the opportunity for development, inclusion, and innovation, aligned with super leadership years. Your teams will be engaged. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Please get in touch with us if you want us to feature anything on our show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Eddy Badrina. He's a successful entrepreneur. And now at the CEO of Eden Green Technology, a leading vertical farming business and AgTech company, Eddy, welcome to The Leadership Hacker podcast.

Eddy Badrina: Hey, thanks so much. I'm happy to be here.

Steve Rush: We delighted your here and I'm really intrigued to get underneath how the business is growing and, in more ways, than one, excuse the pun, but also, we'd love to find out a little bit about the background of our guests before we get into that. So perhaps you can tell us where it all started for you?

Eddy Badrina: So, I was born here in the states to Philipino immigrants. And so, I think that's important to note, because I think it really developed my work ethic. My parents started from scratch here in the United States. So, I had a very, very high work ethic, resourcefulness and just this sense that there was no safety net, if you will that others had to rely on. And I tell that to entrepreneurs and folks that, you know, just ask me, like where does the drive come from? And I tell them that, you know, the risk to jumping out on your own or the risk to do something big here in the United States is actually not that risky at all.

If you think about, you know, what's the worst that can happen? And I'll ask folks who are jumping out on their own or starting up businesses, what the worst that can happen? And they say, well, you know, I'd lose my house. I would have to go back; I'd probably have to move in with my parents, right? You think about that, like, oh, man, that sounds devastating. I said, well, stop there because most of the world already does that. That's just their normality, right?

Steve Rush: Right.

Eddy Badrina: And so, when you can put it in that context, and I have family in the Philippines that four generations under one roof. And when you look at it like that, then you understand the the risk that we have and the safety net that we have is actually normal in everyday life for everyone else in the world. So, it puts the element of risk into context. And so, it just gives me confidence, like, hey, what's the worst that can happen? Right. So, that's important to note. Just my background of how I grew up. And then, you know, spent a couple of years in DC. I got my undergrad and masters, and then went up to Washington DC. I was an analyst at the State Department for about four years, both pre and post 9/11. So really got to experience what it was like to work. I didn't know it, but I was right in the middle of history.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Eddy Badrina: And work under extreme pressure on some really high-profile subjects when I was, you know, at the old age of 24. So that really helped me cut my teeth on what it means to work under pressure. I think a lot of folks think they're pressure, but contextually, it's not that much pressure compared to what other folks around the world are doing in industries and in topics that, you know, one, I think all consuming from a world point of view, but also two, the stakes are just so much higher.

Steve Rush: Very similar to the whole principle, isn't it? That you talked around with regards to risk.

Eddy Badrina: Yes.

Steve Rush: People's context and perspectives are sometimes skewed by comfort, right?

Eddy Badrina: Yes, absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Eddy Badrina: I think it’s also important thing to do from a leadership perspective is to always gain more context about the world that we're living in. And look at other people doing other remarkable, you know, things in high pressure situations, because it does give you context for the work that you're doing. And in a lot of senses, it gives you a little bit of relief, like, okay, this isn't world crushing what I'm doing here. I can work a full day and go home at night and sleep well knowing that I gave it my all for the day and then wake up tomorrow and start all over again. And nothing's going to fall apart if I don't get that last email done.

Steve Rush: Right.

Eddy Badrina: Right. So, there's a lot of benefits to having that context. So, you know, worked again, four years in the State Department then actually got to work at the White House. I was President Bush Asian American spokesman for about two years. And that was a really, really wonderful time in my career. I couldn't have imagined doing that. And I was 28 at the time. So, I couldn't have imagined that in my wildest dreams coming out of college. Those six years in DC from a leadership perspective really showed me instances of great leadership and instances of bad leadership. And because of all the pressure that was in there working at the highest levels of government. Your strengths and your weaknesses are very amplified in that setting.

So, I got to see some leaders that because of the pressure just came out to me, at least in my eyes, came out golden. And really my respect raised for folks like Colin Powell, who I was able to work under for a bit, Condoleezza Rice, and then both Presidents Bush, senior and W. The things that I learned just the viewing them from a very near point of view, I think have shaped my leadership acumen up until this point, for sure.

Steve Rush: And it's interesting, because most people can only ever really see the exterior perspective of how they operate. And those of you have the opportunity to work very closely, get to see a different dynamic I suspect.

Eddy Badrina: We do. I think for the good leaders it's very cliche and again, you can usually only read this in books or hear it on interviews, but the great leaders are separated from the good leaders in that. They always remember the personal side of things. They look at the people around them, the team around them, and they remember that they're humans. And that they have lives, they've got families, they've got their own things that they're going through on a very personal level. And they take that into context when they're making decisions. Those great leaders are ones that ask about how your family's doing, and they want to know how your family's doing because it helps them as they interact with you, and it helps them coach you and mentor you. And that's what great leaders do, right? So, I think that was probably the key takeaway from my time there, noticing what made great leaders different from just good leaders. It was that personal attention to the humanity of the folks working around them.

Steve Rush: And I remember from the last time that you and I met, that's still really cool for your leadership style today, isn't it? That's something you carried forward and there's still a real core tenant of how you do things.

Eddy Badrina: Yeah, I do. I really try to do that and not just do that on a personal level. I try to do that honestly, on a company level and it’s a part of how I've built my companies. As much as I can advocating for the person. I follow this creed of redemptive framework for building companies. Leaders are sacrificial. It's where employees are not just treated fairly, they're treated generously and it's where culture and society around the company are not just advanced, but they're actually redeemed and restored.

And I had a, you know, an audience member asked just, hey, how, how practically do you apply some of that redemptive framework? And I said, well, when it comes to employees, treating them fairly is giving them, you know, and this is a real practical application. Treating them fairly is looking around at the market and saying, okay, what does maternity leave look like? You know, maybe it's eight weeks, maybe it's, you know, even 12 weeks. Okay, so how do you treat that generously? Right. How do you think about that generously? Not just treat them fairly in relation to the rest of the marketplace. Well, generously would be saying, okay. I know personally that I've got three kids and that my wife was able to bond with them. Three months was really the minimum time.

And she could have gone back to work, but man, if she had only just had that extra two weeks it really made a difference. And I don't know what that three-month mark is, but it just is. And so, to treat employees generously, then my response is, well, gosh, what would it cost the company to give four months of maternity leave, right. Is it really all that much? Is it a difference between 12 and 16 weeks really all that much? And the answer is it is, but it isn’t, right? Can we do that and can that scale?

Steve Rush: And it's also investment, isn't it?

Eddy Badrina: It absolutely is an investment.

Steve Rush: It's an investment in people.

Eddy Badrina: That's what we do. We give people 16 weeks of maternity leave and then we think broader, like, okay, I value adoption and I value my friends that do foster care, okay. So can we provide adoption, same as pregnancy, right. Can we give 16 weeks for leave for adoption? Can we give an amount of time for foster care? Can we give paternity leave? That's more generous? Right. There are just practical things that I don't think a lot of folks, you know, care to think about and expand just a little bit that make a world of difference to the employee, a world of difference to my teammates. And so that practically is how I take the personal care of my employees to a corporate level. And does it, you know, affect margins in operating margins? Yeah, it does. But is it totally defensible to, you know, the world outside, whether it be investors or capital partners? Absolutely.

Steve Rush: And also, I remember in the conversation, you and I had last, that was a real key pivotal moment for you when you once sold BuzzShift, the successful marketing agency that you created and founded, but then bought it back for the same reasons.

Eddy Badrina: Yes, and that's a, you know, that's a really remarkable chapter in my life of taking a company from scratch, bootstrapping it with my business partner and then getting it up to the size that we were able to sell it. It's about six years later. So, we started it in 2010 and then sold it in 2016. And when we sold it, I think everyone was on the same page, the acquiring company and us about vision and mission. But I think really quickly as with a lot of M&As, actually the vast majority of M&As, I think the visions just get sidelined by practical realities. And so, we had one party I would say that was focused on using the agency as Bizdev and the other party, including us, were focused on seeing it as a business unit, a profitable business unit.

And so, when those two diverged at a point in time, I think everyone looked around and said, man, this is not working the way we intended it to, and maybe it would be better if you guys just bought the company back. And so, we did and, you know, I'll just say we sold high and bought low, so that was really good. But the main reason that we bought it back was because we saw our team just kind of falling apart and really going through some painful just merger type scenarios. And I think on both ends, we were just like, this is not the best for the teammates that are in here. And would it be better to go our separate ways and to rebuild these business units.

And so that's what we did and, you know, that was the driving force for me, was the relationships and those people in there that I just didn't want to leave high and dry. And then two years later, we were able to sell it again actually for a second time. And I told my team on the last day, the CEO who's, my business partner stayed on, and I left. Actually, I had been gone. I had taken a step back to run Eden Green, but on the last day, just as an owner I was able to talk to the staff and I just said, hey, here's the reason that I feel confident about the sale the second time is that the whole time that I've been running BuzzShift for the last, you know, call it 10 years or been an owner for 10 years, the point of it was to be a good steward of that, which God had given to me, it wasn't really my company to begin with.

I was just tasked to be a good steward of it. And when I could find someone who could steward it as well or better than I could, then it made sense for me to let that go. And so, I just told them, I think, you know, this acquiring company who is fantastic by the way that they can be a better steward than I can. And so that why I'm selling my portion of the company and, you know, I think it was well received because one, it was authentic. It was actually true. And two, because they knew my stance was consistent with what I was saying at the very end. I think everyone knew from the very beginning that man, I just wanted to grow a company, but do it in such a way that my identity is not tied up in it and more importantly do it in such a way that they can thrive those employees and those teammates can thrive because it's growing.

Steve Rush: And therefore, it becomes a sustainable business that you can confidently leave behind in good order knowing that that's going to continue in that spirit too.

Eddy Badrina: Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Eddy Badrina: Yeah, absolutely. And they've done a fantastic job of stewarding it and helping it grow.

Steve Rush: And you're now on a new journey with Eden Green and Eden Green technology for those that aren't familiar are leading the way really of this whole kind of farming ecosystem that you've managed to create. Tell us a bit about the journey so far.

Eddy Badrina: Absolutely. So, to two years ago I became CEO of Eden Green, and we'll call it greenhouse's infrastructure, but it's a vertical farming inside of a greenhouse, which is remarkable in and of itself and it's a platform that allows us to grow really efficient efficiently and really profitably a large quantity of greens that is safe. It's season agnostic and it's really quite accessible to the consumer. And we're able to do that because of my COO who invented the technology back in 2011. And they have a remarkable personal story as well. That was really the Genesis of Eden Green. They were engineers and they were handing out food and actually candy in South Africa where they were born and raised.

And a kid came up and stuffed his pockets. Five-year-old boy came up and stuffed his pockets and they asked like, hey, why is he stuffing his pockets? Like there's enough food to go around. And the response was that, well, it's actually for his three-year-old sister at home. It's not his day to eat, it's hers. And so, he's bringing the candy back to her and for them that really struck a chord. And both of them said, man, this is not right. Like, we've got to find a way to fix this problem and, you know, kudos to them. They were engineers, construction engineers, and they just turned their minds. Both of them turned their minds to figuring out a way to grow greens really efficiently in an economic and an environmental scenario that is South Africa.

And so, it was very resourceful. They invented it out of their garage actually, and it was very resourceful. And after about six or seven years, they took it to the United States for expansion of capital and commercialization. So probably, you know, a couple years after they took it over, took it here to the states is when I came on board as CEO. And I was just tasked with providing vision. The mission remained the same, which was to change the way that we're farming food and change the way that we're feeding people, but the vision of what it could become and then taking it to market and providing product market fit and taking it to market was something I was tasked with. So, I came on four months before the pandemic hit.

Steve Rush: Exactly, yeah. Timing's everything, isn't it?

Eddy Badrina: Yeah, timings everything, right. And so, a lot of teams and organizations have suffered because of the pandemic. And I think because of the flexibility and the adaptability and the grit of our team. We were able to not just survive it, but really thrive in it. The pandemic hit and we realized, man while capital drying up for now, we can really focus on what we do best, which is the technology. Can we use this time? And obviously with patient investors, can we use this time to up our yields per plant spot, which is kind of the going metric in our industry. It's how much produce can you yield in a year from a square foot? So can we use that time to work on our tech? Work on our operations to get that yield per square foot, to a point where it was not just competitive with organic, but it was actually competitive with conventional produce.

And we're just about there. And so that's really exciting for us. Someone once asked me like, hey, what's the best piece of business advice you learned? And really, the biggest competition that you have is who you were yesterday. And so I tasked my team to say, hey, every day, I just want us to get better than we were yesterday, whether that's the yield going up 0.1, you know, 0.1 pounds or operational efficiency going from a 96% cleanliness rate, is rated by you know, third parties to a 97% or from sales and marketing, let's go from 24 leads a month to 25 leads a month, right, whatever that is, if we can just be better than we were yesterday it really sets the tone for a company, even in the pandemic where we looking for positive improvement day to day.

And I think as we added that up over, you know, the past two years, I think what that's resulted in is the team is very confident about our product. We're very confident about the numbers and the quantitative data that we're putting out to back up what we're saying. And more importantly, we're very confident about the team itself because we're all on the same page and we're all working towards incremental improvement.

Steve Rush: Yeah

Eddy Badrina: So, that's what the pandemic did for us. And, you know, again, I would be nothing without my team. I just had a good team that responded to the call of self-competition every day. And I think it's proven to be just a winning recipe for Eden Green.

Steve Rush: One of the other things I loved about the mission of Eden Green is, it's not just around sustainability from a produce perspective as well as its great eco centricity that comes with it, but also the sustainability about the communities that you're in. So, I know one of the core tenants you have is making sure that if you're going to build a business or a location you do so by employing the neighbors, tell us a little bit about that, how that's disrupting the marketplace you're in?

Eddy Badrina: Yeah, you know, from a broad point of view, the parameters that you set on a business are really the values that you instill in the business. And so, if you say, hey we're going to try to make this as profitable as possible. That takes a business to its logical end. And that logical end is just, eking out every bit of margin that you can out of the business. I'm not going to say whether that's a good or bad thing or healthy or unhealthy, but I'm saying that's not where we're at. One of the parameters that we put in is we want to employ as many people as we can while maintaining a good margin, positive economic margin, because if a business is not profitable, it's not a business, it's a hobby, right?

So that's one of the parameters that we put in and it is really a core value of saying, hey, how can we care for the community around us? Well in practical terms, what that means is, hey, we've got to make the rest of our operations so efficient. The rest of our greenhouse is so efficient that we don't have to rely on robotics. We definitely use AI to assist our growing methods, our nutrient mixes all the way that we handle air and water and the environments inside the greenhouse. But when it comes to planting and monitoring and harvesting. We love the fact that human hands are touching that and are monitoring it and are looking at it. We never want to take the humanity out of the feeding other people.

Steve Rush: Right.

Eddy Badrina: So, because we have that core value and I'll even call it a parameter in place then we had to work. If that's just a part of our margin is up to 30 full-time people in one of our greenhouses, then what do we have to do on a technological and operational end to make sure that fits in healthy business margins. And so that's what we did.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Eddy Badrina: We're proud to say, hey, we actually want to be in the urban areas. We want to be in and around the communities that we're feeding. One, because it's just smart business. The geography of underdeveloped and under-resourced economic areas are the best and the cheapest places to put these greenhouses. But then also once you put them in there, we have the ability to hire our neighbors.

And so, our neighbors can work in these greenhouses. They're no longer migrant workers. It's full time with benefits living days' wage for these workers in these greenhouses. So, they're able to provide for their families consistently. They're able to partake of the harvests that are coming out of them. So, they're really changing their dietary and health lifestyle, not just for them, but they're or families. And then finally, they're in an industry that's on the cutting, it's one of the top 10 industries of, you know, technological growth for the next, you know, 10 to 20 years. And these folks are right at the base of it. And it's not a dead-end job for them.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Eddy Badrina: It's actually a career platform. So, because of that core value, all of those benefits can result, but it's only when you have that core value and you stick to it that you have to find ways to make, you know, the company profitable while sticking to that core value. And that's super, super important to me.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and sustainability is just that one keeps echoing in my minds. I'm listening to you speak Eddie around. It's not just about the sustainability of the produce, but the whole ecosystem of that organization and how it fuels itself by getting that core value, right?

Eddy Badrina: Yes.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Eddy Badrina: You know, when we talk about sustainability, we talk about economic and environmental sustainability because if it's not economically sustainable, then there's no scalability and there's no longevity to the business. So, we're very practical about it. About finding ways to be economically sustainable, but while also adhering to the environmental values that we've set.

Steve Rush: And sustainability's got a lot of press of late with COP26 happening, not so long ago with lots of focus on the environment that we're in and what's happening with global warming or not as a case may around the world. And sustainability is quite cliche at the moment, you hear lots of leaders diving into and using the word sustainability in some senses and having now clear ESG measures in their business, et cetera. What does sustainability mean to you personally when you hear that as a, business leader?

Eddy Badrina: That's a great question. I think for me, sustainability is, you know, if you break down, I took Latin as a kid. So, if you break down the word sustain, it really means to maintain a consistent level of wherever you're at to sustain energy for a period of time or to sustain success for a period of time, you know, really means to provide for long term presence. And so, when I think about sustainability for Eden Green, sustainability for the environment is how can we endure? How can we thrive for a long term without draining and exploiting the resources around us, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Eddy Badrina: And so, on an environmental level, how do we run a company? So that the operationally, we're not exploiting the environment around us, but we're actually adding to it, we're additive to it. And then from a company level, how do we continue to exist? How do we grow without exploiting the community and society around us? I think in very basic terms, that's what sustainability means to me.

Steve Rush: Good answer. I love it. So, one of the things that I'm keen to explore with you is this whole notion of how you keep innovating? In a world that's already innovating at light speed. Where do you go for that inspiration? Or how does that come about?

Eddy Badrina: I think it just comes about from that thing that I mentioned at the very beginning, which is, how do I get better every day? Right. And innovation I think for me, comes from when I start to sort of level out or the incremental gains in my own personal life are starting to become smaller and smaller. I just take a step back and I've afforded myself to take a step back and say, okay, how do I do things differently? If I had to scrap all this. I'm not saying I would, but if I had to scrap all of this, all the structure and the parameters in my life, how would I do things differently? In order to, you know, achieve a better life. And I really think, that's where my personally, my innovation comes from, but then it just goes to goals, right? Before I can say, you know, get a better life. Well define better, right? So, I think from a corporate, but then also from a personal level.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Eddy Badrina: You really have to know what you want. And I tell on entrepreneurs that all the time and folks who want to be entrepreneurs, but also just leaders in general, in order to be a great leader, you have to know what you want. And it's actually a part of my personal story moving from BuzzShift to Eden Green. BuzzShift was going really well. It was running quite well, so much so that, you know, I had a bit of time on my hands, but I'm not a maintainer. I'm a builder, I'm a creator. And I knew that as much about myself that I just became really impatient. I became, you know, honestly a little bit unhappy because I was just maintaining and incrementally growing this business, which was great. I think from the outside looking in, I had it all, but from the inside I just wasn't happy. And so, the first thing I had to do was, I had to define, and this required a lot of what I call heart work. Not hard work. It is hard work, but it's heart work. And in this heart work, I really had to define what I wanted. That took a lot longer than I thought it would.

Steve Rush: What was the reason it took so long?

Eddy Badrina: I think it as a type A in engram, I don't know if you're familiar with any engram. I’m a type three which is an achiever. And most of the folks who are really high up in business are achievers, engram achiever status or they maybe, what's called a challenger. We see a goal and we get it, we see a task, we hit it and we just go on to the next one and the next one and the next one, and we get caught up in sort of this task and performance. And at least for me personally, because when I just do that and I feel I have this temporary, like feeling or dopamine hit of success, I sort of lose sight. I can lose sight if I'm not careful of what I'm really about and what I want. And from a day to day to the level, I want to hit those goals, but from a year to year or a legacy type level, that just takes more thought work.

Steve Rush: Right.

Eddy Badrina: And you have to get off that cycle of success after success, after success, and really take a step back and say, okay, what is this success about? I'm climbing this ladder, but is it leaned up against the wrong wall? Right. I think that's why it took so long is because I was just used to getting the daily and weekly successes. And I lost a little bit of vision, my own personal vision because of that. Back to the defining what I want. After about nine months maybe even closer to a year. Three things emerged, you know, out of that time. One is, I had to define very clearly and succinctly and articulate what I wanted to others, but more importantly to myself, right? And those three things were, I wanted to run a hardware/software business. I had been there and done that gotten the M&A t-shirt for professional services.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Eddy Badrina: Two, I wanted to have an exponential impact on my level of effort. So, for every one unit of effort that I put out, I wanted to see it a 10 to 20 X return in community and culture around me. And then three is I wanted to run a redemptive type of organization. So, the fact that I'm able to articulate to you, those three things so clearly took a lot of work, but I was able to do that. Once I was able to articulate those three things. Then the second thing I did was I passed it before friends and colleagues and family. And she said, hey, tell me if this is coming from a healthy place, or tell me if this is coming from what the Bible calls a selfish ambition and vain conceit.

Steve Rush: Often also known as ego.

Eddy Badrina: It's ego, right. Great book by a guy named Ryan Holiday and he studies the Stoics, but he talks about the ego is the enemy, but two, I had to, you know, run it through a filter of friends and family who were going to be brutally honest with me. And that's another thing that most entrepreneurs don't have besides that they can't articulate clearly what they want. And then two, they don't have the courage or the wherewithal, or even the friends around them to say, hey, is this a healthy thing for me? And then for friends, to be honest enough with them and say, yeah, it's healthy, or no, you are being very, very arrogant, and egotistical. You should not pursue that. I articulated it, passed it to friends and family. And then the third piece that did. I let it go, and I knew that if that was supposed to happen and my friends and family approved of it. I just had to let go of striving so hard for it. And I worked towards it, but I also wanted to be diligent and excellent in my work at BuzzShift and to the team there. And so, I just had to release that and be mindful and hopeful that it would come back to me if that what's supposed to happen. And indeed, it did.

Steve Rush: And it's often the case, isn't it? When you strive so hard for something you don't necessarily see it or experience it, but when you do let go, you are open to natural occurring, coincidences, opportunity, higher spirit, call it what you will.

Eddy Badrina: Yeah.

Steve Rush: But that then find you in another way, right?

Eddy Badrina: Some people call it serendipity. I call it providence, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Eddy Badrina: That was probably the biggest thing of it all. I was just talking to my wife the other day about what I've been learning over the past couple of years. And I think the loss of control has been the biggest learning for me, you know, the pandemic obviously heightened it. But really the core issue is one that everyone goes through at some point in their life of you realize even over your own body, you don't have that much control.

Steve Rush: That's very true,

Eddy Badrina: Right.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Eddy Badrina: Pandemic prime example, right. You can mask up or you can take the vaccine as much as you can, but the reality is you might still get sick and that's totally out of your control. And it's so frustrating for people. We see it right now. It's so frustrating for people who don't accept that they can't control everything.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Eddy Badrina: And that comes out in terms of the way it manifests. Mostly it manifests itself in terms of fear, and sort of a protective nature. But when you can understand and except for me, especially when I can stand and accept that I don't have control, it really frees me up. I don't even have control over, like I said, over that, which I articulated and was able to, you know, confirm with my friends and family. Like, this is a really good thing that's on your heart and you need to go after it. Even as I go after it, I realize I don't have a lot of control over the external factors.

Steve Rush: Very true. Wise words. I'm going to turn the table to a little bit now, Eddie.

Eddy Badrina: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And we are going to flip the conversation a little bit to focus on taking all of your learnings, which are in abundance. And we've had bucketloads of hacks already, but I'm going to try and distill them down as best we can to your top three leadership hacks. What would they be?

Eddy Badrina: Man, I think you would go back to top leadership hack one, know what you want, know yourself, right? That takes a lot of work. It's not a hack in the sense that you can get to it quickly but knowing yourself self and being brutally honest with yourself about your strength and your weaknesses is number one. Because when you know that you'll immediately hire for your weaknesses, right?

Steve Rush: Definitely.

Eddy Badrina: And that's a good goal to have, you know, the biggest jump for a lot of leaders and entrepreneurs is hiring that next person. Hiring the first person in your company, because that's a very real equation of I'm going to take profits out of my own pocket as a one-man band, and I'm going to give some of it to someone to short up my weaknesses. That's a crazy equation, but the equation actually works out in your favor if you're willing to do it. I would say the second big hack is have a circle of advisors who can be honest with you. A lot of leaders have yes, men around them and they'll just say yes to whatever. Is this a good idea? Oh yeah, sure it is, go.

Find that person that you can say, hey, is this a good idea? And they will say, no, that is a horrible idea. You are off your rocker, right? Or that is not healthy for you. For leaders and just for people in general, I try to get people away from saying right and wrong, and I get people more into the mindset of healthy versus unhealthy. And that changes your posture towards letting other people in, because if you can let other people in and say, hey, is this right or wrong? It's sort of, it can be offensive to you, but if you can say, hey, is this healthy for me? Or is this unhealthy for me? One that connotes that they know a level of health about yourself and two that they're able to say in such a way that is for your benefit. Yeah, that's not really healthy for you. I'd probably go in a different direction.

Steve Rush: I love that.

Eddy Badrina: And then yeah, I'd say those are the top two and then read a lot, read a ton.

Steve Rush: What would be your hack number three?

Eddy Badrina: Read, read all the time.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Eddy Badrina: And allow yourself the time and the space to read. So, I actually have a blog post on my own personal blog. I don't have many blog posts on there, but I have a blog post on there just on books and on how I read, when I read, what I read. And that for a number of folks have gotten back to me and said, man, that was a really, really, really useful framework to go by in terms of reading.

Steve Rush: Next part of the show we call Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something hasn't worked out as planned, and yet you've managed to use it as a force of good. What will be your Hack to Attack?

Eddy Badrina: I think the Hack to Attack has actually been the reading piece. I used read a lot of social and then thought I was reading the right types of social media or the right types of blog posts. And I was just doing it really inefficiently. And I think over the course of a number of years, I've really been able to dial in for me at least what has been a good intake of info information, why I take the information in, and then and then really, you know, the modes of intake, and it's helped me to focus more. And it's helped me to be more mindful and thoughtful about how I lead.

Steve Rush: Awesome. And it's an interesting notion actually, because many top execs that I liaise with, worth work, coach, one of the core foundations is often just consume knowledge as much knowledge as you can, because knowledge is power.

Eddy Badrina: Yeah, but it's also the type of knowledge, right?

Steve Rush: Right.

Eddy Badrina: Long form books are the result of long form thinking.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Eddy Badrina: And as a leader, that's what you're tasked to do. You are tasked to think critically. People don't get paid the big bucks or the mediocre bucks in my case to just fire off emails, because anyone can do that. The good leaders, the great leaders are ones who have to think through five emails in a day, right? And think really, really critically before they hit send. And that type of deep thinking is critical to good leadership. And you can't do that unless you're intaking deep knowledge and deep knowledge comes from books.

Steve Rush: Wise words. The last thing we wanted on the show, Eddie is to give you a chance of time travel now. So, you're going to be at a bump into you at 21 and give yourself some advice. What do you think it might be?

Eddy Badrina: Oh man. I would tell my 21-year-old self, keep your eye on the prize and the prize is relationships.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Eddy Badrina: I try to think with the end in mind as do most good leaders. And when you think about the end in mind, the end-end for me is when I die and when I die and they're reading my obituary, they're reading the homily, you know, in the church, they're reading my tomb, my tombstone. I think it would be a total failure if they ever mentioned the words, Eden Green or BuzzShift. That would be a failure in my life if the companies actually came up in my obituary. What a waste if your corporate success is the thing that people remember about you, what I want them to remember is, he loved people, he loved his wife well, he loved his kids well, he loved his friends well, he was a good friend and honest and a faithful friend. He loved others, even folks that he didn't know, he was generous. He was winsome. He spoke truth in love. He was bold, right? He was adventurous. That's the stuff I want people to remember me by and more importantly, that's the legacy that I want to leave with my kids and the folk around me. And so, as you think about generational legacy, you think about legacy at the end of your life. None of that involves the names of my businesses necessarily. Those are just means to an end.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Eddy Badrina: It all involves the relationships that I pursue all along the way. So, beginning the end in mind, I would tell my 21-year-old self to focus on the relationships.

Steve Rush: Great advice too. So, Eddie, how can we make sure our listeners from all over the world are able to tap into your blog and the work you do, and to find that a little bit more about Eden Green Technology?

Eddy Badrina: Sure. So edengreen.com is the best way to find out. We've got a treasure trove of information just about hydroponics and about what we do, about the industry, edengreen.com and then on the socials, it's all Eden Green Tech. In terms of my personal it's badrina.com, it's my last name, badrina.com. And either one of those have ways to get ahold of me if they really want to ask me questions.

Steve Rush: And we'll also make sure those links are in our show notes. So, folk can head straight over once they finish listening to this.

Eddy Badrina: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Eddie, thank you, my friend, it's been a great opportunity to talk to you and have you on the show. And I'm really excited to see the trajectory that Eden Green on and in future. So, congratulations and thank you for being on our community here at The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Eddy Badrina: It's been my pleasure, my pleasure. Such a great way to have a part of my day to talk to you and to be able to share some of this.

Eddy Badrina: Thanks, Eddie.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Punit Dhillon is the chairman and CEO of Sky Bioscience. He's an entrepreneur, keen athlete, an author of the book, Catapult: How to Think Like a Corporate Athlete to Strengthen Your Resilience. Learn about how Punit’s athletic approach to live has helped catapult his business including:

Growing up as an athlete he noticed the parallels in corporate life,
The components of a corporate athlete.
What mindset has to do with growth as a leader?
How to live by true accountability and be purpose driven.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Punit below:

Punit on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/punit-dhillon/

Punit on Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/PunitDhillon

Punit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/punitdhillon/

Sky Bioscience: https://skyebioscience.com

Catapult (Book) https://punitdhillon.com/book/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Our special guest on today's show is Punit Dhillon. He's chairman and CEO of Sky Bioscience, and also author of Catapult. But before we get a chance to speak with Punit, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: It's easy to get caught up in the great resignation craze of quitting. Its human nature that makes us see where millions of people are doing something we follow along with that herd mentality that is millions of years old, and it's quite understandable after almost two years of enduring a pandemic and seeing loved ones, get sick and pass away. It changes our outlook on life. And that realization that life is actually quite short. We're all going to go through a collective thinking what we should do with the rest of our lives, finding a new job with purpose. Meaning more money is alluring, especially when you're stuck in a going nowhere role with a boss who micromanages your every move. Here's the leadership hack.

Before you follow the crowd and make the big leap of going after a new shiny job, take the time to think deeply about why you're doing this in the first place. There's an overwhelming narrative when it comes to searching for a new job and its deep within you, the default is it's usually your boss and often is by the way. And you often will be giving yourself some internal dialogue that it sounds like it's their fault. You've got to move on. You've got to get away. Sometimes this is the case, but actually it could be you. It's really convenient to blame everyone else, but there may be other issues involved as well. So consider this. If you're just running away from a problem, when you secure a new role, will a problem repeat itself? Will you be happy? Will you still feel dissatisfied? Most of us are too self-critical. We dwell with that short come are, our inner coach gives us negative thoughts that play around in our heads. And while we're all grown up adults, we still carry around the burden of past trauma, failures, insecurities.

And if we're fortunate enough for learnings, there is the desperate hope that by quitting we'll magically become a new and different person. And with a new job, everything will fall neatly into place. The new environment will be our cure and make us happy. So while it may be an answer, it may not be. Switching jobs may not make the difference at all. You might end up just as miserable and thinking and behaving the same way. It's similar to when you travel or you move. That initial feeling of euphoria being in a new world or a new house can be really alluring and great, as time goes by it becomes normal. And why? We are the same person. As time goes by you realize the same person with the same challenges is now just in a different location.

So my hat to you is think before you make that great resignation greater, because your opportunity could be just under your nose if you looked hard enough for it. We love sharing stories that you bring to our attention, so please keep doing so. That's been The Leadership Hacker News, let's get into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me today is Punit Dhillon. He's the chairman and CEO of Sky Bioscience. He's an entrepreneur, keen athlete, an author of the book, Catapult: How to Think Like a Corporate Athlete to Strengthen Your Resilience. Punit, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Punit Dhillon: Thank you so much for having me, Steve, it's a pleasure

Steve Rush: Looking forward to getting into your story and was particularly inspired about the stories that you shared when we first met. So perhaps for those that have not been familiar with your work or your company, just give us a little bit of your back story?

Punit Dhillon: Yeah, basically been an athlete growing up, but then as of the last 20 years been focused on the life science space. So happy and very lucky to be regarded as an entrepreneur in that area in terms of what the different work that we've done. I've been developing a couple different technologies in my last 20 years. My most recent company that I was involved with was working on a cancer immunotherapy drug and presently we're working on a novel class of molecules for an ophthalmology application or various ophthalmology applications. So I think by working in the life science industry, it's been very rewarding and I've had a wonderful set of teams that have been a part of and lucky to be continuing to work with some of them over the last two decades. So it's been quite a pleasure.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so if we peel that back a little bit. There are a couple of things in your early life that set you on your journey, if you like into becoming an athlete and indeed how that then transferred into your ways of working at business. Tell us a little bit about that?

Punit Dhillon: Yeah, so the discipline of growing up as an athlete really has stuck with me and it care into my professional career. And that's what I kind of have written about, but I started as a competitive swimmer and then moved into rowing at university. And then after that, I had basically an opportunity to move to the U.S. where I started in life science industry. Actually didn't do anything competitive at that point. I was still working out regularly, but then I became pretty comfortable as a runner and sort of participating in different like half marathons and marathons. And in my early thirties, or like, as I was turning 30, I kind of had a bucket list thing that I wanted to accomplish.

And there was doing an Ironman. And I basically got hooked on triathlon. So I've been competing in triathlons over the last 10 years on and off. And I still enjoy endurance sports. So essentially that has been a very interesting parallel for me. That relates really well to the professional work. We were talking about this earlier, leaning into what it takes to complete an ironman or any triathlon for that matter, or even just endurance training itself. There has a real connection in terms of the component of drive. There is mental aptitude involved. I think it's really helped me in terms of being able to process a lot and it's really shaped my approach to life and the approach I take into work and in a border sense.

Steve Rush: And we're going to dive into this and we're going to have a look at some of those parallels in a little while, but for again, those who have not bumped into Sky Bioscience. Tell us a little bit about the current areas of work and how that's evolving for you?

Punit Dhillon: Yeah, it's very exciting. I had the opportunity of seeing what evolved in the cancer immunotherapy space. I started my last company in 2010. Well actually it was formed in 2011, but kind the business plan was being written in 2010. And when I began that company there was only one kind of new drug launched in the current era of cancer immunotherapy. So over the last decade really saw what has transpired in terms of anyone that is diagnosed with cancer. They have a lot more options. There is a lot of success in terms of these immunotherapies being highly personalized to have that response that patients are looking for. In the current company I’m working in. It earlier stage, but it's similarly tackling a very interesting opportunity where the endocannabinoid system, which is a network of receptors is linked to a whole range of different diseases from kind of neurological disorders to central nervous system disorders.

And then there's also, you know, this link to the ophthalmology applications. So we've tried to kind of narrow in the field here, see if we can change the biology in the eye by utilizing this unique mechanism that's at play with these different receptors. And we're developing our initial drug for glaucoma. And what we've been able to demonstrate to date is that it's showing a really good activity biologically. And were about to start our first clinical trial. So this now is about recapitulating the data that we've seen to date in animals, in humans. And we were quite excited about that. That I think for the entire industry in terms of the area that we're in, really lays the bedrock for a lot more opportunity in terms of utilizing this side of human biology.

Steve Rush: It's such a fascinating subject, as you're talking it through, I can see that actually what you're doing is really groundbreaking. It's fundamentally shifting the outcomes that people can expect to receive, right?

Punit Dhillon: Absolutely, and that's the fascinating thing about life sciences. I mean, there's one frustrating side of it that it takes a long time to develop drugs, and there's quite a process. It's not like you, you know, you come up with an application and all of a sudden you utilize. Technology companies are notorious for being able to demonstrate kind of proof of concept to something you're holding in your hand relatively quickly. In life sciences there's definitely a longer lead time. However, there's certain science, you know, that's underway today that is truly groundbreaking and necessary. You know, unfortunately what's happening in ophthalmology applications, patients develop tolerance to some of the existing drugs, they become ineffective. So there is a need for having disease management or you know, change to be available for these patients or options to be available for these patients. So this is what I think we accomplish with the technology that we're developing right now. And then on the business side of the equation, it's also exciting because Big Pharma who will ultimately be where, you know, we will try to exit the last company I was involved with. We had an opportunity to partner with Merck, similarly Big Pharma has the need to have new intellectual property and new drugs.

Steve Rush: As a serial entrepreneur in such a really niche area of business, how do you just keep innovating? Where did these ideas come from?

Punit Dhillon: So there's a huge amount of patience from the teams that we're working with. I think the ideas are always there. There's so much inspiration around us, right. In my particular case, I feel like I have this very good creative bug about me, but then it's also balancing that with the reality check, you know, you have the important people around you that can make it pragmatic in terms of the way that things can be developed. So in life sciences, there's no sort shortage. I think of similar types of creativity and opportunity that we can explore. It's just trying to be pragmatic about the resources in order to deploy it. I've been in the industry now for 20 years, I actually started on the healthcare fund side.

I worked on a venture capital fund and then moved into the operational side and been in operational roles for the last 20 years. But the great thing we're seeing today, I mean, compared to 10 years ago, is the intersection of these different industries now. And I even touch on this in Catapult. My last chapter is called like Mavericks and, and it's really a call to action, there's very important themes that are still underway today, macro level. You can take that and apply that in any industry. I see intersections between AI and life science happening right in front of us in terms of opportunities we're looking at. We see opportunities of deep learning, you know, being applied on being able to rapidly scale up drugs.

You look at what happened with the COVID 19 vaccines, you know, they were able to see sequence the virus and then come up with several solutions and rapidly move them through development. And you saw entire industries kind of come together in order to make it happen from the manufacturing that's necessary to the science, to the scale up, to the distribution. You know, everyone was talking about, you know, taking five years before you can get a vaccine and we saw it unfold in front of us within a year. That's quite impressive.

Steve Rush: I would imagine that also gives you the permission as an organization to think that you can scale quicker than you may have done in the past. So having had that experience around you, it unlocks different thinking as well, doesn't it?

Punit Dhillon: Absolutely, yeah. I benefited from coming from the corporate finance side and it's a very regulated industry, life sciences, but understanding operations, understanding kind of the governance side, and then these international components, business building, licensing, there's so many moving parts. So I've really enjoyed as much as there's a component of life sciences that sometimes sounds like it's like, oh, it moves like molasses, you're actually running super-fast. It may not always seem fast on the outside looking in but inside it's been amazing to see that growth. And there's always an inflection in required in early stage companies, early stage industries. And we're in that right now. I mean, I'm working in an area that is truly kind of a novel area. There's not many companies in this space. There's a limited amount of data, but there's an impressive set of data as well. And there's been a few companies that have already proven, you know, how this is an effective development space. So, I expect there to be like any industry, like there's going to be literally a hockey stick style growth that happens eventually once you prove that efficacy.

Steve Rush: Yeah, fascinating stuff I will watch with absolute closeness.

Punit Dhillon: Thank you.

Steve Rush: You wrote the book Catapult, which really you talk around is that parallels earlier from your training in resilience as an athlete and the application at work, what was the moment that you thought, right. I've got something here that I could share with others. I'm going to write it down?

Punit Dhillon: Well, didn't happen until after I wrote, like what a hundred thousand words

Steve Rush: For the case, right?

Punit Dhillon: I didn't originally plan to share this outside. This was a function of what happened. What we all went through in 2020, right? The pandemic, you know, forced us to be in indoors and slow down and take stock of kind of our lives, right? So there was a definitely a component of me having that opportunity. And then the other side of it, I was also hitting a personal milestone. I've always wanted to kind of sit down and write down what I believe in, in terms of my own principles of what have I learned over the last 20 years and what would I have told myself if I had the opportunity, tell myself 20 years earlier, what, you know, what would be the way to do it?

I talk about this sometimes with my wife and in the last 10 years, I've been living in San Diego. I've only appreciated the lifestyle in San Diego brings, really in the last 5 to 10 years. And maybe it's partially because as the kids are older and so forth, but the other aspect of it, reality has been that, you know, I didn't take advantage of that beautiful lifestyle that Southern California brings in the early part of my career. I was very focused on working hard, you know, working those long hours and putting in that time. And as you get to a certain, you know, stage in your life, you're able to kind of look past a lot of those type of things and be a bit more reflective of how to be not only efficient, but at the same time more purpose driven in terms of how these other aspects impact our lives. So Catapult was an opportunity to do that. In one respect, I feel very blessed with the opportunities of working with several different people. Having the chance of building these different companies and the technologies, and truly it's been rewarding because you're seeing, you know, you're seeing that these drugs actually save people's lives. I have to pinch myself in terms of the opportunities that we had. So that was an opportunity in a period where I was just really focused on saying, well, I don't know if I'm going to be able to have that same definition of success in the next phase of my life. You know, there's a certain trajectory that comes with going into your forties.

Steve Rush: Right.

Punit Dhillon: A different trajectory afterwards and it's nothing to do with age. There's an author, David Brooks, he kind of talks about it in two mountains. In terms of the first mountain of your life. It's basically a checklist, right? You have to finish your school and you maybe do higher degree. And then you established your career and then you want to start a family and stabilize your life with the things that are necessary, the food, shelter type of equation. Like the basic needs, Maslow's hierarchy.

Steve Rush: Right.

Punit Dhillon: And then once those things are in place, then you're really moving on to your second mountain and your second mountain ends up being a lot more about self-fulfillment. And that's the thing I think that I was wrestling with as an individual. I believe I've had a wonderful opportunity in this first segment of my life, but how do I define that same success going forward for myself and you know, whatever quote unquote, what does that trajectory look like? It may not mean that it's like, you know, it's not the same definitions that were very prescriptive, I guess, in the first 20 years.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I like it. And also, I guess, whilst it's not about age.

Punit Dhillon: Yeah.

Steve Rush: It is definitely about experience though, isn't it? So, you know, some people get over that first mountain really quick.

Punit Dhillon: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Some take much longer to get over it, but I think all of us can recognize that at some point we go, okay, where is this all heading? And in order for us to really tap into that, that's where that corporate athlete can really help us. So you talk about this corporate athlete with having some core foundations, some themes behaviors that are associated with them. I wonder if you to share those with us?

Punit Dhillon: So as a corporate athlete, it's really this aspect that strengthening resilience can help you attain the success that you want to achieve. So I believe there's so many similarities in behavior and training in approach that both the athlete and call it a corporate athlete face to really realize their dream and then lead to whatever breakthrough or, you know, sometimes it's an innovative breakthrough, sometimes it's just a personal breakthrough and that's really the underlying premise of the book. And I feel I use this word blessed a lot, but I have to kind of state it because I wouldn't take kind of re redefine anything or redesign any component of what my experience has been. I was raised in India. I grew up in, in East Vancouver in Canada, and then had an opportunity to move to the U.S., to work in a career and had the opportunity to also work with companies that not only were incredibly successful, but they also had their own challenges along the way.

Probably been at the brink of like insolvency. Working in startups half a dozen times in my career, which is interesting in itself. So all of those aspects I think have a definition of resilience. I believe that I'm kind of wired to go through the hard stuff in order to experience the positives and the benefit out of it. I don't know how often your wife's making you train for the iron man, but, you know, when you go about training, you know, like a bike a bike session. You usually want to work that hill and do what's required to get up a steep mountain climb or whatever. And then the reward is usually coming down fast or it's the fun part of the session. So I enjoy that climb because I like enjoying the satisfaction of the feeling on the other side of it.

Steve Rush: That's interesting.

Punit Dhillon: And a lot of people just don't take enough stock or notice of that important part of that climb.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Punit Dhillon: In anything.

Steve Rush: She absolutely loves climbing hills but I absolutely hate it and we have different perspectives of it. So, you know, she gets this real rush.

Punit Dhillon: Yeah, and we all hate it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, she gets this rush of energy. It gets her up there. I do the opposite. I have the rush of energy of, I got to hold it in and get to the top of the climb. And then boy, I can fly down the hill, the other side.

Punit Dhillon: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And therefore mindset has got a massive part to play in this too, isn't it?

Punit Dhillon: A hundred percent.

Steve Rush: Because people will come from it from different perspectives.

Punit Dylan: That's the thing. Whenever anybody gives me a challenge, I'm in the happy place. Like that is something that I've lucked out in terms of being able to really take advantage of seeing these difficult situations and having a half glass, half empty type of attitude about anything. So it's not always pretty, but I do really well in that situation. And partially what I do well in is visualizing what that outcome looks like on the other end.

Steve Rush: Right.

Punit Dhillon: I already am picturing what the success looks like at the other end of that. And I try to kind of recapitulate that to the best of my ability on the completion. So yeah, this book was about encapsulating, a lot of that. And I believe as an athletes, they go through a lot of that. They go through visualization techniques, they go through a lot of rigorous training. They go through a lot of pain in order to reap the rewards and have the discipline then to compete at the world stage. So I haven't had the same, you know, same level of success being able to compete at the world stage, but I've also benefited from training at a pretty elite level throughout my career. So I've tried to apply those things into day to day in terms of even working with my team.

Steve Rush: So if you think of the component parts of being a corporate athlete, you've got things like mental aptitude, holding yourself accountable to the things you commit to, making sure that you've got a real strong regime of training that is not just regular training, but its endurance, which means it gets stronger and deeper. And then of course you have this focus drive element that you call out in your book. Of those kind of four things, is there one that's more important than the other, or do you think they're all interrelated?

Punit Dhillon: I believe they're all interrelated and each one of them stands, you know, capable of being on its own. You just have to recognize that there are a big part of it. I mean, I've looked at this trapezium situation many ways, and I purposely designed it in a way that it has an openness to it. So there's no closure to it. So a big part of it is the fact that, by defining your purpose or defining you’re, like kind of understanding of what's that engine in that's in inside of you, and what's leading you that is a big part of the source of motivation and the source of determination. So if we were to prioritize, that is a very important part of it. The other components like accountability, the physical capacity, the emotional intelligence and the mental capacity, those are all helping really support that and really achieve that impact that you're looking for.

Now that this book has had a bit of time to breathe, even kind of reflecting on it further is like, is my message coming across too harsh in terms of, does everyone have to make some sort of significant impact or dent on the planet? I don't think that has to be the case. It has to be kind of your own personal definition of what that dent is. So sometimes people get lost and trying to make a connection with whatever their purpose has to be something that's, you know, too lofty or not communicating enough to themselves in terms of what is maybe right in front of them. I really am challenging people to go and spend the time to understand your purpose and define what that means for yourself. And don't try to compare yourself to, you know, Oprah Winfrey's purpose or whoever else, you know, everyone has a different definition of that. And in order to help you achieve second mountain, it's the underlying, you know, these underlying components.

Punit Dhillon: I wonder how many people who don't end up feeling like they've had this impact on life, get stuck because they perceive the journey to be too big. The second mountain is too big. Rather than actually looking at themselves internally versus looking at external events happening around them.

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely. That's why I think it's a really important question you asked about what are these things or most important because everyone has to take a very holistic approach and that why this joy component that's emphasized in this book is another important lens to that equation. This proverbial balance in life doesn't exist for anyone. Most often we're working towards our professional goals and we're working towards our personal goals and we're working towards our individual goals. So finding joy in work, in yourself and in life is part of the necessary thing that helps you continue to have that nuclear engine inside of you as well, that keeps spinning so that you have that source of motivation. Joy is a hundred percent linked, I believe, to giving somebody that intrinsic motivation to actually do what they ultimately want to do.

Steve Rush: I like that. There's so many people you bump into who hate getting up in the morning, going to work.

Punit Dhillon: Yeah.

Steve Rush: They go around in these routines, they get stuck almost. And it's because they can't find joy, because joy is emotionally and locks, everything else, right?

Punit Dhillon: Yeah, and I hate like when people get stuck, trying to define what other people's routines and other people's definitions for themselves. I guess the health industry does this really well. Everyone's always hawking the next plan and whatever the next diet regime or, you know, or workout regime or whatever. So people try to implement their model onto someone else. And I tried to avoid this in this book because I was trying to be very clear that these are my principles that I believe that help. And what it is? It's giving you a framework, but please spend the time to identify your own set of principles that work for you. And that this takes time and effort, you know, how often are people sitting down and writing down what their principles are.

But the point that you raise is really important. We don't have to follow, you know, anyone else's routine, if it brings you joy to wake up at nine o'clock and start your day with, you know, a quant rather than starting your day with a, you know, 30 minute run, then I don't see anything wrong with that. You got to really navigate for yourself what it may means to get to wherever you're going in terms of your motivation, of course, underlying that there are still things like you have to take good care of your health, and you have to take good care of your mental health and being continuing to be accountable to yourself to be a high performer. But the definition of high performance is different for everyone. And it doesn't need to be like what first images that come to mind when we say the words high performing. I think that's what's unfortunately, you know, gets very frustrating for people and then people lose that joy and that energy that is pretty intrinsic in everyone.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's a hundred percent. And for anybody listening to this now who are thinking, I can never run an ironman, or I never perform in an ironman or run a marathon or take up a new sport. That is absolutely just a mindset. Now, respectfully, there are also some physical things that might be going on around them, but it doesn't have to equally be an ironman. It could just be a personal best in something. It could be starting something new, it could be leading a different team, getting different results. So it's absolutely about personalizing some of those principles and behaviors. Isn't it?

Punit Dylan: Absolutely, 100%. I think that philosophy of that mindset is where we all need to continue to focus on. I'm very happy that, you know, like my nine year old, you talk to her any day and she'll always quote somewhere along the line about having a growth mindset. And I don't know where she picked it up, obviously she's got some strong influences around her, but it reminds me to always also have that growth mindset.

Steve Rush: It does, yeah.

Punit Dhillon: We sometimes get caught up with all of the other noise in our lives and we forget the simple things like that. And sometimes just starting something different, maybe try your routine different or work with your team differently.

Steve Rush: So our folks listen to this will be familiar that this is where we start to hack into your leadership brain, start to get all of those experiences and shortlist them into your top three leadership hacks. What would they be?

Punit Dhillon: My top three leadership hacks? Okay. Well, I definitely use the lists. I talk about that. So that is a big part of my daily routine is checklist. So I'm a big list person. I use a top three, I use a longer list of 10 things, but every day there's three things that have to get done and it's regarded as a top three, otherwise, you know, I do use lists often. Number two has been really being myself. I find that that's a constant reminder in terms of everyone that you're around is just to be yourself. And that's big part of the first part of this book is called true accountability and kind of try to define a formula around that. And the third has been try to enjoy Friday nights.

As long as I can think, you know, I try to have a lime margarita or something like that, or, you know, just remind myself that there's you know, a lot to be thankful for, you have to find joy and sometimes really make room for it. In the book, I talk about different routines so people can, kind of dive into that, but sometimes it's a Sunday on Sunday nights and other times margarita on Friday nights.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and some reward too.

Punit Dhillon: Oh, yeah, right.

Steve Rush: For all of the disciplines and that you apply in your life and work, we all still need that reward don't we?

Punit Dhillon: Yeah, and by the way, there's the obvious ones that I have to wake up in the morning and start my day with working out. So I guess one of the biggest leadership hacks that I can emphasize is that I really take pride in owning the morning. So if you get the morning, right, it really helps you set yourself up for success the rest of the day. So by really taking the time to own that morning and on a organize yourself, and that means, you know, starting the time that allows you to do that, it really helps you be successful throughout the day without being feeling flustered the rest of the time.

Steve Rush: Great advice. Next part of the show, we call it Hack to Attack. So this is typically where something hasn't worked out well, but as a result, we've learned from it, and it's now a force of good in what we do. So what would be your Hack to Attack?

Punit Dhillon: Lack of planning. There's definitely been a couple situations in my career where not having a plan has basically been, like a plan to fail. When we're developing different drugs. And there's quite an extent a process involved and most often clinical trials is kind of your measurement point along the way. So there's different stage gate decisions that lead to a clinical trial, but once a clinical trial is underway. I think many people get kind of caught up, for different companies have get caught up with just getting to the on inflection point and not properly planning for the success of ensuring that the trial can go smoothly. Sometimes that's linked to enrollment and sometimes it's linked to the appropriate resources. And I've been through a situation where both of those were not properly sought after, in terms of the resources and the bandwidth that was required in order for us to really succeed in the time that was given.

So what it ended up leading to was over budget, not being able to complete the trial and the amount of time that we've had had allocated. And we didn't get to our end goal in time, a very basic example, but it's a, very important one in our industry.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Punit Dhillon: Because I think sometimes entrepreneurs or just teams can get caught up with just feeling like, okay, we just got to get there. And once we start that it'll happen, but it's not anything like that. You're always having to think way past that. Talk about this, about thinking past the finish line. This is a very important takeaway for this, is that in, in anything that you're doing, sometimes your mind is only set on achieving that goal that you had set and it could be lofty or important or whatever it is, but it's most often getting to that is usually not the problem it's actually following through and finishing whatever, you know, is required after that. And so thinking past the finish line is a critical one. And in my case in that clinical trial, we ended up getting to the end result, but it wasn't pretty in terms of getting there. We almost ran out money as a company. It took too long. The number of patients that we had to enroll in the study had to get larger. And then we had to go to more sites around the world. And a lot of those things could have been avoided earlier on.

Steve Rush: It's an old cliché, but the whole failed to plan, plan to fail philosophy, isn’t it? Exactly right.

Punit Dhillon: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So last part of the show we get to give you a chance to do try and travel, bump back into yourself at 21 and give yourself some advice. What would it be?

Punit Dhillon: I think my advice to myself, would've been to take more time soaking it in. In terms of the different experiences. Oftentimes we work with some really wonderful people and we fail to kind of recognize that in the moment. And I think each one of the interactions that we have in our careers is super critical in terms of building those experiences. So just enjoying those moments and treating every single interaction. Sometimes it's with your boss, sometimes it's with your team as great opportunities for learning. That would be my big takeaway and part of that, I wish I spent a bit more time writing about those experiences sometimes like you're so in the midst of doing these transactions, like I pulled All-nighters and I've done these complex deals, raising capital for companies and licensing deals and we're talking like mega million deals. And I wish that I had taken the time to kind of journal around some of those experiences because.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it would be another couple of books written.

Punit Dhillon: It's not even about that, but just in terms of appreciating, like what you get out of those things.

Steve Rush: Exactly.

Punit Dhillon: You're dealing with all of these complex, you know, legal terms and all of these things that are great learning experiences, but it's all in our head now. Like, you know, I can recall it vividly in terms of the pain points that we've experienced in those things. But I just wish that I had taken more time to really appreciate those moments because they went very rapidly.

Steve Rush: And that is thinking past the finish line, right?

Punit Dhillon: Yeah. What I've learned from my boss is a responsibility that I expect, like my team to be able to share with their teams and so forth. So I think it's like a cycle that continues to evolve, but it's an important one because that's how innovation happens.

Steve Rush: It certainly does. It certainly does. So for folks, listen to this, who'd like to get a copy of Catapult. Would love to learn more about you, the work that Sky Bioscience are doing, where's the best place for us to send them?

Punit Dhillon: Yeah, you can send them to my website and its punitdhillon.com and there are several tabs on the website that can lead you to the book as well as contacting me if you have any questions. I would be happy to respond.

Steve Rush: Brilliant. And we'll make sure they're in the show notes as well.

Punit Dhillon: Thank you so much, Steve.

Steve Rush: So thanks for ever so much for being on the show, Punit, and thank you for sharing some stories and we very much look forward to having you a part of our network.

Punit Dhillon: Thank you so much, Steve.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Colin Hunter is the author of Be More Wrong, he’s a mentor, entrepreneur and coach and the CEO of Potential Squared. Colin shares an intimate journey of how his career developed and led to the work he does now. We can learn some great lessons in this weeks’ show including:

Why being more wrong helps us unlock great learning.
How creating “virtual playgrounds” can provide the perfect environment for development.
Colin’s three enablers of leadership: Purpose/Identity & Presence.
A new take on leaderships styles.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Colin below:

Colin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhunter

Colin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bemorewrong

Potential Squared Website: https://www.potential2.com

Be More Wrong (Book) https://info.potential2.com/en-us/bemorewrong

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Colin Hunter is a special guest on today's show. He's an author of Be More Wrong, a mentor, entrepreneur and coach. He's also the CEO of Potential Squared, but before we get a chance to speak with Colin, it's The Leadership Hacker.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In news today, we explored the world's top female friendly companies of 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic is taken an especially heavy toll on women around the world. It's estimated more than 64 million women around the world, lost their jobs with at least 800 billion in earnings lost last year in U.S. dollars alone. And that's a result, the time it will take to close the global gender pay gap has increased from 99 years to 135 years, according to the world economic forum. And these issues are achingly familiar, inadequate childcare, managing work, home stress, lack of opportunities. And in many cases, COVID may amplified the burden to the point where many women just left their jobs.

Forbes Magazine recently teamed up with market research company Statista to help identify companies leading the way when it comes to try and support women inside and outside their workforces with an all-girl ranking of the world's top female friendly companies. So which company clinched the number one spot? Well CEO Michelle Buck became the first woman to lead the chocolatier in its 127 year history, you've got it? Hershey. Today women make up 42% of the Pennsylvania based businesses board. By 2025, aims to increase the percentage of women working in its workforce to 50%. And then this leadership population to 42%, that's up from currently 48 and 37% respectively. To reach its goals, Hershey launched a five-year plan called Project Pathways and it's to help its workplace and communities become more inclusive. And the project is run by collaboration of human resources and The Women's Business Resource Group and provides their teams with resources, such as, childcare, transportation, tutoring, and eldercare resources.

Another firm to meet the top 10, Zoom. Video Communications Team, Chief People Officer, Lynne Oldham said that the Silicon Valley tech company had redesigned this recruiting and hiring strategies, diversifying its pipelines, revising job descriptions that they feature inclusive language and introduce uniformity across its interviewing process in an effort to reduce bias and increase the number of female hires. Zoom has also sought to support women through partnerships with charities, such as, If Chloe Can, a UK Organization that hosts workshops and connects teams with mentors to prepare them for the workforce. When admitted stay at home orders were unable to continue with its usual impersonal operations. Zoom stepped in, offering to facilitate their programming through services free of charge. And there are many other organizations who are demonstrating great diversity equity inclusion principles when it comes to hiring female employees in their workforce. If you want to get a full list, go to Forbes and look for the world's top female friendly companies and Statista surveyed over 85,000 women in 40 countries to curate this great report. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Please let us know what you'd like us to feature in the news on our Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Colin Hunter is a special guest on today's show. He's an author of Be More Wrong. He's a mental, entrepreneur, coach and the CEO of Potential Squared International. Colin, welcome to the show.

Colin Hunter: Thanks Steve, it's a pleasure. Real pleasure.

Steve Rush: So how have you been?

Colin Hunter: Yeah, well, good. Life is, and I hate to say this sometimes nowadays, but life is good. It's busy, but the new startup business which we're working on at the moment and yeah, we've got a lot of things, but I'm struggling to deal with sometimes with this new hybrid world. I'm sure everybody out there is. But starting to work with the new norm.

Steve Rush: It's kind of ironic. We've tried to have lunch for six months and we're like ships that pass in the night when it comes to London these days, because we're in that hybrid world, right?

Colin Hunter: And I'm sure it's nothing personal. It's nothing personal from my side.

Steve Rush: Sure, likewise. Yeah. So Colin for the listeners that haven't had the opportunity to meet with you, just to give us a little bit about the backstory and how Potential Squared came about?

Colin Hunter: Yeah, so if I go back, so I've been in leadership since 1996, but before that, if I go back, I was brought up in Newcastle, Northeast of England. Father was a pediatric cardiologist. And part of me telling you this, because there's a story that I grew up with him working on looking at ultrasound for baby's hearts and was an amazing doctor, saved many people's lives. And I had a grandfather was professor of Theology. So my early part of my life was wondering how the hell do I actually compete and match up to my father and my grandfather. So I spent most of that time working, trying to be somebody I'm not. And then around about 30, 31. I had a moment which I'm sure we'll talk about, which redefined my career. And since then I've been working in the form of leadership consultants, working on leadership, looking at leaders and how they work.

And more luckily I've started to recraft my career and our business around creating playgrounds to disrupt the way people are led. I started to realize I wanted to have some fun, Steve. I wanted to, to play with our work and I started one to experiment. And since 2007, I have set it out, whether it's about the use of actors or VR, virtual reality. I've started to look at how we do immersive, but real experiential workshops and training for leaders to shift the way and disrupt the way they think about leadership. And that is where I am now. And I'm still experimenting, still learning, but there's still suffering a bit from what I went through up to the age of 30 and how that's impacted my career, yeah,

Steve Rush: Yeah, you comfortable? Let's go in there, if we talk about that time. Because I think it's a really important lesson for many people listening to this story because it really defined who you were at that time, but also how you ended up where you are now. Tell us about what happened that defining moment that you called it?

Colin Hunter: Yeah, So I spent my childhood exploring experiments, having loads of groups of friends and I loved my life. I was out, my mother and father used to say this, you know, many forms of communication, but one was, “go tell Colin” and he would go tell somebody else and then I'd have conversations, a startup conversations. So I spent up to a probably the ages, 17 of loving my friends, my life, and even despite school, enjoying the rest of what I was trying to do. But in the background, my father being what he was and my grandfather being a professor of Theology and, you know, I was known as AM Hunter grandson. Pardon he was an author a writer in the New Testament. And therefore I spent my life what I would do to reach the levels that they'd got to?

Steve Rush: Did that happened at quite an early age for you as well, that awareness of who you were and the indeed unconscious pressure that you felt from that. Happened at quite an early age, right?

Colin Hunter: Yeah, it did. I mean, if I go back to when I was 11, my grandfather sat me down and said, for those who know, Robert Burns. He said, Tama Shanta, I want you to be able to learn this and re-slate Tama Shanta. And I want you to do this over Christmas and I want you to learn. And so therefore I started learning. I realized I couldn't, firstly I couldn't learn it by road, Secondly, I didn't know why I was doing it. And thirdly, they seem to be some sort of tests that I was going through and I don't criticize my grandfather for it. He was an academic, he was looking for me to show that I could be logical. And that I could work in a principle in a way that could have constructed arguments in the right way.

All I cared about was relationships and emotions. I was in that space going, you know, I sat at his feet and I looked up at him. I thought, wow, this is great, but in no way could live and breathe what he was doing. He was just brilliant at constructing an argument. And I felt that in my depth. So that was at the age of 11 and 12. And then my father was in that space and he was working on ultrasound. Looking at how they diagnose and the baby's hearts. So I used to go in and see him in the hospital's saving baby’s lives and that tiny, small babies and how we had this care, but this ability to teach others. And I thought this, I can't do this either. So, therefore I thought, should I be a doctor?

Should I be an academic? Should I stretch myself? And therefore, I always looked at others from an early stage with a degree of imposter syndrome and said, I'm not worthy. And I wouldn't call it in those days, but what it meant was, I searched out areas that I could play in, but they tended to be away from my family. They tended to be away from those areas of logic and academia. And therefore I fought school, fought and in some ways, literally out a major argument with one of my teachers who suggested the age of 17. I leave school and go and get just a job in retail because that's all I want to achieve in my life. So, therefore when it comes to how I started off my career, I took everybody's advice. I joined and became a tax consultant. And I spent my life sat in a cubicle doing hand written computations attacks and wondered why I wasn't happy. And then, so I went to Procter & Gamble and had a great career there, but I was doing a job where I hated it. I mean, I was successful, but the cost of my energy in that role was huge. So I ended up having a breakdown basically at the age of 30 where I went back up to my parents' house in Newcastle in the Northeast of England from Nottingham. And I spent two weeks in tears. And I'm happy to talk about it now. And for many years I wasn't, but it was this clash where I was walking in a house where my father only cried once that I can remember when our dog died and therefore I walked into the house and I was crying. And it was almost like, they knew how to deal with it, but they didn't know how to do with it.

Steve Rush: So how were you received by them at that time? Because I suspect having that strong veneer of professional academia around success doesn't come with showing much vulnerability. So how did that play out?

Colin Hunter: I was lucky that he was adopted and, you know, bless him. He passed away earlier this year and I've done a lot of soul searching and he dealt with it in the way he knew, which is he suggested that I go see the doctor, a local GP, a general practitioner. And so therefore it wasn't a case of they weren't unsympathetic, but they were looking for a cure for it. And my mother has laterally suffered from mental health issues herself. And therefore there's more understanding in that space from that side, but I was lucky. They sent me to Gusto Silver, a GP and he canceled the appointments ahead of me and after me and he sat down and he did this brilliant thing, Steve. He told me the story of when he was in a car accident and how this card flipped over.

And he remembered in slow motion, the car sliding along on its roof. And he remembered the music going slowly on the radio, but he saw his life flash in front of him. And he said something which has always stayed with me. He said, I have a gift then to learn about my life and what I needed to change. And he said, you've been given a gift, might not seem at the moment, but you given a gift that life is about energy systems and your energy is at zero basically. And your mind is telling you, you can't cope with it. And now is the time to think about your energy systems that feed your life and how you use them and be much more intentional about how you feed them and how you spend them in your life. And that was the most powerful thing somebody ever said to me in my life. And it's changed the way I work now.

Steve Rush: When you look back on that time, do you see that as a gift now?

Colin Hunter: Oh yeah. I mean, it's interesting when I was writing the book and I was thinking about it. I suddenly realized I had never gone back to see Gusto Silver. I'm not even sure if he's alive now and I feel guilty about that. Because that was a transformational piece for me, but I also think it's taught me, if I look now and how I'm bringing up my daughters who are 17 at 16, it's taught me to realize that real connection with them is so, so important. But as a leader, it's taught me so much more.

Steve Rush: Yeah, indeed. And one of the things that astound me about you, Colin is, you are incredibly successful, incredibly well presented, strong courageous leader, as I see you today, but you still suffer with this nagging imposter syndrome from time to time. And I knew that of you, but how do you deal with that?

Colin Hunter: I think the first thing is sharing it.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Colin Hunter: So I was doing a keynote last night to an American audience, and these are all my competitors, the learning and development professionals globally, we meet each year at this conference. And I was sharing in this webinar with them, this story, and said about the imposter syndrome. And what was amazing for me is that however many people suddenly started to share that they had the same thing. So I used to walk into this place, center for creative leadership, vital, smartest, crucial conversations, and just feel I wasn't worthy, but so many people in that same space have the same feelings. And so therefore by telling that story, and I think this is where the humility and the humble nature of leaders. If you tell your story of where you have struggled, it's amazing how many people suddenly go. Yeah, I'm the same way.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Colin Hunter: And that's what's happening now, but there's other things I've been possibly to work on, but sharing the story has been one of the biggest, first steps.

Steve Rush: And I don't know about you, but I think just having the label imposter syndrome, which, you know, wasn't there sort of 10 years ago, it helps us to actually recognize that it's a thing and that we can actually deal with it. Whereas before we might have dealt with it as something else.

Colin Hunter: I think the senior leaders, you know, work in this space, we work with senior leaders. I'm amazed how many of them senior leaders have imposter syndrome, one version, or the other, you know, wondering how the hell they got to the top of the organization. Secondly, wondering how the hell they're going to lead this organization, because whether it's intellect. I was chatting to a client friend the other day, and he's been dyslexic diagnosed probably later in his life, but he's been very, very successful in this career, but he's always worried that somebody's going to find them out. However, he's used that positively because he leads with a humble nature because of that, it's been a powerful piece. And I think that's what a lot of people need to hear about the imposter syndrome is it starts you from a humility in a humble space, which is a powerful places that you needed to start rather than an arrogance and a belief in your own power and ability, that can be worked on. But listening to that voice in your head, not removing it, sometimes I described this as it's the loudest voice at a dinner party. And all you've got to do is dial it down and dial up the other voices in your head and the other neural pathways that allow you to be successful.

Steve Rush: Yeah, great words. I often use the same analogy, but help people to think about, it's the one voice you wake up with in the morning. It's the one that you go to bed with and it'd be the last voice you hear before you die. So it needs to serve you well.

Colin Hunter: Also, my meditation headspace in the morning and my exercise in the morning is a powerful piece of me. As Jamie Smarter wrote a book, clarity said, when you fall out to your thinking, it allows you to come up with inspired action. And I find that really heavy in the morning and within my head space and something pops into my head and it's just, oh, yep. That's the answer. That's the answer. But how often do you do that?

Steve Rush: Thanks for sharing that story. And I think it's really important to help people understand you actually as a character, because you are incredibly successful now, and you're running a successful business with Potential Squared. And I think it just gives people some insights that we all come from different perspectives to arrive at where we've arrived at. And that journey is really important, isn't it?

Colin Hunter: Yeah, it’s massive. Hero's journey as they say.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so tell us a little bit about the work that you and the team are doing at Potential Squared at the moment?

Colin Hunter: We're having fun, and I think that's a key sense. Because we're in a startup on one area of business and anybody who's been involved in a starter, we'll say it’s fun, but at the time it doesn't feel like it’s fun quite a bit at the time. We're doing a couple of things. One is, we are restlessly dissatisfied about our work. So we've got our P2 leadership side of the business, which is leadership development and working. We've got VR, we've got virtual reality in there. We've got the use of The Actors, which is a powerful piece. And the always gets most positive feedback about the work we do, bringing in actors to explore conversations, getting people to have a, almost a who's line is it any way, if you remember the comedy program interaction and we find that that immersive experience of getting the conversations in leadership is the same as now, as the VR is allowing us to do where people are in the headsets, they are in this virtual reality.

And they suddenly find that they're being themselves, you know, their true behaviors are coming out. So we're doing a lot of good work in there, but there's always been something missing from that work. And so therefore our new project is something called the 500 where we're looking at saying so biggest challenges in this world at the moment is equity. Increasing equity for people when they're young in terms of moving up in their careers. And if you look at where organizations are facing challenges at the moment is finding new talent, they're all fighting for talent in the same pools, is costing them more. Most of them can't afford that extra cost. And then we've suddenly realized that we're probably only tapping into 25% of the talent pool. And the other 75% is set in places, either places where they've had a very difficult backgrounds.

So they've had a life story that's, you know, I wouldn't recognize even despite my stories, I'm telling you. Mine is trivial in some ways, compared to what others are experiencing. And therefore they've got newer diversity side to that where they're challenged by that. So we're, doing some work to say, so how do we train leaders and develop leaders to think with a wider view of life? To explore into different areas of the community? Exploring different areas of society and have a wider vision for that? Which benefits a couple of things Steve, which I'd never really thought about before. One is design thinking. You look at Procter & Gamble. You look at all the different types of organizations I used to work for. And you look at how they are trying to design for the different needs of different people and whether its disability or whether it's [Inaudible 00:20:01] or whether it's age or gender, all of these things need to come into play.

But then you've got this talent pool where suddenly people are realizing that in that near diversity pool, you've got some brilliant thinkers and brilliant ideas, so how do we tap into that? But you've also got these people, they come from those places that you're trying to sell your products into. So why wouldn't you tap into that? But the third thing, I think the most important thing for me is that if you look at where most leaders are now, and particularly with the pandemic, that said, most people thinking, how do I give something back? How do I tap back into society? How do I do some good for the wider population? And I see so many who are willing to spend their own money to go and do something for others. And this new project works along those lines. So that's what we're working on at the moment to get people into a wider space.

Steve Rush: Sound fun.

Colin Hunter: Wider vision, it is.

Steve Rush: And when it comes to your work, one of the things that I particularly like about what you do is, you called it at the beginning of the show actually. You have these equal playgrounds that you create to really tap into helping people unlock different behaviors. From your experience, by just having the notion of creating playgrounds, what behavior does that then unlock?

Colin Hunter: There's two things, you can't tell people to have fun. The old saying, well go have fun.

Steve Rush: That’s right.

Colin Hunter: It doesn't help. But if you think about some of the best times you've had, it's that stepping out of where you are now. Stepping out of the front door. And for some people, playgrounds is going off into the wilds and just taking some time by itself. Scotland for me has been through the pandemic because looking after my father at the time as allowed me to go on these coastal walks and experience nature, and that's a playground for me, I gets inspired and some great thoughts. I have had an old collogue who used to work when they were doing the Marks & Spencer turnaround, his idea was working 14, 15-hour days doing the night shift in the marble arch store of Marks & Spencer. And his playground was discovering new ways of working.

But the idea in my head was, how do we create a place where it makes people think they're going to have fun? They're stretching themselves, but it's almost like they've got a safe place with a soft landing if they fail to try something different, rather than sailing their ship around the Harbor, as we describe it and doing the same thing safely all the time, why not seek rougher seas? Why not get barnacles on your butters as I described it and go and stretch yourself. But if it's in a playground where the highest risk is that you might get it wrong and somebody who's going to give you feedback, you going to learn. And why don't we do that? And just take a simple thing, like having a conversation now about race, skin, color diversity, wouldn't it be great to have a safe place, to allow people to have conversations, to learn and grow, but as soon as you say something wrong, you're hammered for it. So that's what we're talking about. Playgrounds, safe places to land, where people can explore.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's a great metaphor and the reality as well, I guess, if you were allowing yourself to think that way.

Colin Hunter: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and did that help you then start to think about using that notion to write your book, Be More Wrong? Was that kind of a trigger that led you that way?

Colin Hunter: Yeah, it's ironic that the title is be more wrong and it took four years for me to be comfortable to publish it.

Steve Rush: So, let's talk about that because actually I recall when we had a conversation about this before the whole notion of calling a book Be More Wrong is an oxymoron for most people, isn't it?

Colin Hunter: Yes, the title was probably the first thing I put down because I was starting a thing. So I've had so many screw ups in my life, but I'm still here and being successful. So surely there's something rich in this. But I think the biggest thing that helped me was in writing the book was I was introduced to IDEO through a Canadian company experience point where the whole principle of failing early, failing fast and learning first was introduced to me. And I started the think that all the work we do is around that. So to write the book, I suddenly realized we need to find using the hero's journey, metaphor, stepping out of your house, going on a journey, gathering your team together, carrying your followers together, having an inspiring story, a quest, a purpose, going and failing, facing good evil and failing and succeeding in equal measure, but learning and having a guide to do that was what we'd be doing for years. And actually the only bit that was missing was this design thinking piece, which is getting out there and experiencing and having a go at something, observing people in the real world. So therefore, the be more wrong philosophy is embedded in that fail fast, learn fast philosophy and give it the juice for the book, yeah.

Steve Rush: And of course, if you reframe being wrong and failing to actually that's a learning experience, it helps you to grow from it. Doesn't it?

Colin Hunter: It does. I mean, it is fascinating in our culture, that one failure and make somebody a bad person. Whereas actually, if you look in many different aspects of our life, these failures are learning and they are spaces where people can start to work on different ways of living. I still a big fan of Mandela and the sessions he had, the conversations he had after apartheid and he didn't let it go. He brought those people who had diminished the rights of people to understand and work on. So you could learn. And there's a classic example of a mistake of failure in many people's eyes that had to be learned from rather than just finishing it and getting on. We had to learn from the lesson. And some cases, some days, I actually feel that we haven't learned from those times or those mistakes and therefore, how do we create that environment to do it more again?

Steve Rush: And do you think there's a lot to do with mindset and how people have perceived the event? So if you take Mandela as a perfect example, right? This is a guy who was imprisoned in Robben Island for decades, who could have been really bitter, twisted, and angry, and the people that imprison him. He then subsequently taught, educated and encouraged to think differently. And that's got to be down to mindset and other behaviors. What's your experience with that?

Colin Hunter: I think it is. I think it is mindset. But I think it's a gift of mindset because I think if he hadn't that experience, a tough experience and he hadn’t had the time to reflect and be really, really clear. And he was very intentional about his learning from that. And he was very intentional, but how he treated people around him, even his wife in terms of how he works in there. And I think there's leaders who, you know, they almost celebrate failures in the workplace as learning pieces, as long as there's learning and there's movement forward.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Colin Hunter: What is a mindset?

Steve Rush: One thing you said that specifically kind of, I think, was also being intentional.

Colin Hunter: Yes.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Colin Hunter: I think purposeful practice is a classic piece. You know, I'm not a sportsman, but I love my sport. And when you look at all the workers in here, having a purpose towards something whether it's being a top tennis player or competing at a particular level. And then there's purposeful practice, intentional practice of small, small things that can be. So, what we call practices. So how do I make a practice to become a habit habitual that feeds the system that makes me successful? And Brailsford with the Sky Cycling now, and he did it with British Cycling. Now critics always have these things, but if you look now in all sports, soccer, you look at American football, the small incremental gains that people are making intentional failure towards something, stress testing, working with exactly what this is about

Steve Rush: Exactly right, yeah. And ironically purpose is one of your three enablers of leadership. So you have purpose, identity and presence. And I thought it'd be useful just to kick that about.

Colin Hunter: Yeah, again, it's funny when you put something out there and Simon the snake put his work on purpose out there, you know, his Ted talk, which has been watched by many people and I loved it. And then you look at other people like Tom Peters, who said, well, purpose, it's great to say, you can just find it. But a lot of us don't find our purpose immediately. We stumble across it. But there is an intentionality about what motivates me. What is my passion? What do I want to do? And even when somebody says, well, my purpose is to be a good father, a good mother. There's that question afterwards, what type of a father or mother do you want to be? And so, for example, if I take the person identity for me, my purpose is to create playgrounds, to disrupt the way people are led.

That's the mantra that I worked on to do that. But my identity I also have, and I hold as a father of daughters. So, my whole being and the identity of father of daughters is to start to think about how I disrupt the way that people lead and recruits and give opportunities so that women and my daughters have equal opportunities in the future. And therefore, my personal identity, then every day when I'm looking at things, not only for gender, but for race, and I'm starting to say, so how do I get more equity in society from that? So that purpose and identity. Now for most people, it's a tough one to establish a purpose. And that's why we do a lot of work on stories, getting people to tell their stories and working out their stories. When she listened to your stories and you realize, how have you crafted your life, what you've hated and what you've loved, you normally can find an underlying purpose that you can work on, but it's an experiment. In my work, it might be rejected. And then you move on to the next one. So, purpose and identity and the identity piece, I love this, which is, do I cycle or am I a cyclist? That's the classic piece. And if I'm a cyclist, I suddenly take it professionally. And I take it with great importance. So if I'm a father of daughters, I've suddenly put an identity. I need to work at it to be proud of. So those are two elements we've got. But I think the bit that I love the most is the presence piece that we have. In which if you think about it, we have to learn to dance to the music as a leader. We need to be agile. We need to go on a crazy train through the pandemic, and we're on an even crazier train next year. So how do I dance to that music?

But the piece I love is, why not dance to other people's music and learning to do that? So rather than bringing the music I would have as a leader, how do I learn to be agile in the moment with other people's music? We'll be able to adapt and move to that music. And therefore we do a lot of work around gravitas, prominence, executive presence, and teaching people from an early age, how to have more impact in the vocal, physical, and also mental in terms of how they come across. So those are the three things. Purpose, why we do stuff, how we do it, and then the presence is how we show up.

Steve Rush: I love it, yeah. Really simple. But actually, they're all aligned, aren't they?

Colin Hunter: Yeah, if you get one of them wrong, it has a knock-on effect, like all systems on the other ones.

Steve Rush: Coming back to your identity piece, that kind of sits in the middle because it gives permission, I suppose, to delve into purpose and also permission to how you show up. And we can change that identity by the shifting label that we wear, right?

Colin Hunter: Yeah, I'd love that. I mean, it's a bit of, “Tonight Matthew”, Matthew, for those, you know, there's a program in the UK where people go on and say, tonight, Matthew, I am going to be, but actually with the use of the Actors is given me a lot of work to say, how do I adopt an identity and how do I live and breathe it? And how do I learn to be authentic in that new version? And I think that's one of my other biggest challenges is authenticity is normally given as an excuse by somebody who say, well, this is how I am. I'm not going to change, but authenticity, Herminia Ibarra, London Business School says, authenticity is something that adapts and dresses, different circumstances you face. And therefore tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be this to try and develop something. That's going to be my future identity and my authenticity.

Steve Rush: Yeah, very much so. So, one of the things I've seen about the work that you've had is that you're not afraid to challenge some of the traditional status quo of how we perceive leadership and leadership styles has been written about and quoted about for many years in different guises. You've reframed some of those, and you have your own full leadership styles now. And I wonder if you could share those with our listeners?

Colin Hunter: Yeah, and I love this because it fits into the hero's journey. So, whether you're a Lord of The Rings fan or everything else that goes into Harry Potter, whatever your choices is. We talk about leaders, need followers, followers need leaders. So, the first system is, we describe it as how do I get engaged connections? How do I get followers to follow me? And how do I be impactful in that? And we call this the host. So, if you imagine a host at a dinner party or a host in terms of relationships, most of us only worry about our relationships on networks, our teams, either we've lost a job or we need to recruit, we need to hire and we don't pay attention to them. So, the first one is, about how I creates psychological safety? And how I create real difference diversity, inclusion, in my network? So that I'm not sitting in an echo chamber listening to my own thoughts.

So that's the first one, the host. So, if you think about Frodo and Sam, a dwarf and an elf and Aragon, there was real diversity and different thinking and different views that came to that. And once you've your followership and you've got your hosts and you've got your team together, then the second system is the Energizer or what I call inspired energy in there, which is, how clear is your story? How clear are your inspiring stories that allow other people to see a part of your story as the leader? And therefore, we talk a lot around storytelling. We talk a lot about points of view around how we work and crafting that story and crafting the future story you've got is important in that, but the other part of energy is personal drive. So how resilient are you? How anti fragile, and a lot of my work at the moment, particularly in the pandemic is about poaching people to be more resilient, to put systems, whether it's meditation, fitness, diet, breath, other works in there, to have the energy by osmosis, give it to your team, but also spend it on the right thing.

So that's the Energizer. And then the third area is disruptor. And this was given to me by IDEO, but how do I get fresh ideas through experimentation, but also how do I get ruthless and narrowing choices in there? So, we always believe that 80% of your experiments will fail, 20% be successful. Every day, I'm thinking, what are the two to three experiments I'm going to start running that could succeed, could fail. But as long as feeding, the system of fresh ideas, we're going to run in the team. And then when you think about Gandalf, you think about Dumbledore, there's always a guide. So as a leader, how strong is your mentoring and coaching and growth of capabilities? So the final style we talk about is catalyst. So as a mentor, having points of view and almost lighting fires under backsides for people to get them in the right direction, giving them points of view and direction, and then the coaching, which is lighting fires in their bellies by coaching and spending time. So, host, Energizer, disruptor, and then the catalyst of the four styles that have been use.

Steve Rush: Great. I love the descriptive nature of them as well and brings it to life for folks listening to this, hopefully too.

Colin Hunter: It's good. I love it.

Steve Rush: Next part of our show Colin, we get into turn our leadership focus and hack into your leadership mind, which has enormous experience, not only leading the businesses you've led, but also having worked with some of the best leaders around the world. So first place I'd like us to go tap into your top three leadership hacks.

Colin Hunter: So, the first one is pay it forward. So I was given a gift by a gentleman called Mike Taylor. And this is about network. For the last probably seven, eight years. I've practiced the principle on that for a leader, which is, I work my network, not wondering what I can get out of them, but by thinking about what are the three things I can do for people that I have connections with? So, I very rarely say no to a connection, very rarely. I'm going to a great club. That's celebrates massive mistakes in lives. And it's called the Cock-up club in London. I've never been to it, but I got an invite. And it's about leaders who go in and celebrate that. But I'm already going into that meeting by saying, so what are the three things that I can give to people I'm meeting there that night? What are the three things that I take? So that's my first leadership hack.

The second thing is a very simple one. I don't know if you've ever heard of Churchill's prayers, but during the war, Churchill did something very simple with all his leaders every day. He got them together for a very short space of time. We now call a pulse, a daily pulse. And in that daily pulse, we talk about what did I do yesterday? What am I doing today? What am I doing tomorrow? And we started to do that in our business. And it gives a really clear idea about what people are working on, what gaps we have, but it's amazing how we identify resource issues and work in there. So, it's a very simple hack to give people, 9:50 in the morning, till 9:45 each day, we meet as a team for half an hour and we do that. And it's a breath of fresh air in terms of communication.

Final hack. I was going to put something down here, but I'm going to change it. It was one given to me by an ex special forces gentleman. And he talked about brief back, check back and brief back, check back is the most simple thing in some ways, but we avoid it. So once I've given a brief to somebody and I've said, this is what I'm expecting, this is the project. We very rarely asked the question, which is what we tend to ask the question is like clear. And everybody goes, yeah, yeah, that's fine. Go away. But what we tend to not do is ask the question. So repeat back to me, please, if you could, exactly what you've heard. And in that brief back, it's amazing how often the articulation of the idea is different from the receiver than it was from the giver. So that's the first bit, what that allows you to do is correct any miscommunication or misguidance of the expectations you've given, but it also allows you with confidence for them to go off and just allow yourself to check back in. So it's a core part of empowering people and giving people accountability in there. So that's the final one

Steve Rush: Love that last one. And we've had a couple of major generals on actually. This has come up in the conversations we've had with them too, because it's rooted in when you're about to send somebody off to war.

Colin Hunter: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Asking somebody, if it's clear, it's just not enough. Asking somebody if they really get it and understand it is absolutely essential, great hack. Next part of the show we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is where your be more wrong principle starts to play in really well. So, this is definitely where something in your life and your work has it worked out at all well, but there is an overall learning experience form them. You shared one that was a pivotal moment for you, but what would another Hack to Attack?

Colin Hunter: So that the act for me is the need for a business partner. I've spent most of my life and it's probably related to the imposter syndrome, worried that if I didn't have a business partner, my business would not be successful because my level of capability and intellect and decision-making was not enough to drive it. So, you know, I had probably more business partners than I would care to admit, but when I look back, it gave me an insight that what I needed was less of a business partner and more of an advisory board. And so, I took on an advisory board in the last two to three years, three people, different skills, one in innovation and design, the other person more on the sales side. And the third one tended to be around more of the strategic direction and what are summarized by getting their noses into our business. But in most cases, fingers out, you know, as an advisory board, I had all the benefits of a business partner without needing to end a relationship that certain points, they could do that. And that's been my amazing Hack to Attack that I've deployed. And now we're seeing it as a proving ground, a playground for some of our advisors have never done advisory board roles before, never been non-execs. So they get to play and practice with us before they go on to bigger and better things afterwards. So that's, my Hack to Attack.

Steve Rush: That’s a great attack because what I'm hearing is exactly that and non-executive director role, who provides you with the counsel and direction. And then there's not that awkward. You know, this isn't working out for us when we have the tie, you know, equity, stakes and all the mess that comes with partnerships.

Colin Hunter: Exactly.

Steve Rush: Yeah, great.

Colin Hunter: We pay them.

Steve Rush: Yeah, of course. And the advantage, I guess, in doing so still is that when that time has served and the mutual value has got to its natural kind of capacity, you can switch them in and switch them out as the business starts to pivot and change directions as well.

Colin Hunter: Yeah, and it's interesting on the latest business venture for the 500, we started to think that the advisory board we're going to have for that is I've got a contact who runs a business mentoring ex-convicts coming out of prison. And I'm starting to think, so that would be a great person to have it as an advisory board member and maybe somebody of your diversity area. So you can play with this in a good way to get different voices in your head and different points of view. So, it's a great process.

Steve Rush: Definitely, yeah. So, the last part, the show Colin, you get an opportunity to go back and bump into Colin at 21 face-to-face toe-to-toe and give him some advice. What would your advice to Colin be at 21?

Colin Hunter: It's interesting because I struggled with this at 21 because I look back to 21 and I struggled to work out what it is. And I had one thing that goes through my mind, but just mentioned before, but I would say to him, go find your own music to dance too. Find out what the music is that you want to dance too and then go dance with it, but also find other people whose music interests you to go dance with. And the key thing here, and I think Amazon web services have, this is one of the core values, which is natural curiosity, be curious enough to explore other people's music as well and find out what you like and go with it.

Steve Rush: Super stuff. So, Colin for folk, listening to this, wanting to get a copy of, Be More Wrong, or learn a bit more about the business that you lead and the work that you do, where's the best place for us to send them?

Colin Hunter: So, Be More Wrong, @bemorewrong on Instagram, be more wrong on Twitter. Website is bemorewrong.com, go explore that. For the business itself, potential2.com and go find out more about that. I'd love to connect with any of the listeners and explore more with you, but they can find out more information and connect with us there.

Steve Rush: And they have to jump into the show notes and find all of that information in there as well.

Colin Hunter: Lovely.

Steve Rush: Colin, I've loved chatting and always do and wanted to say, thank you ever so much for being vulnerable, sharing your stories and being part of our community on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Colin Hunter: It's been a pleasure, Steve, looking forward to that lunch when we can finally get it right.

Steve Rush: Indeed, yeah, exactly. Thanks Colin.

Colin Hunter: Cheers.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Dr. Benjamin Ritter is a globally renowned leadership and career coach. He's a speaker, podcast host, author and founder of Live for Yourself [LFY] Consulting. In this great show find out about:

Ben’s eureka moment that sent him on a path from Healthcare into research and to follow his life’s passion.
Why leaders struggle with leading themselves.
The Three “C” of self-leadership.
If we are stuck how we can break free.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Ben below:

Ben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritterbenj/

Ben on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ritterbenj

Ben on Twitter: https://www.instagram.com/ritterbenj/

Ben’s Website: https://benjamin-ritter.com

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Joining me on the podcast today is Dr. Benjamin Ritter. He's a leadership and career coach and founder of Live for Yourself Consulting. But before we get a chance to speak to Ben, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we explore careers that are taking off in the post pandemic world. We've been contacted by a number of our listeners asking us to explore, what are the next best places to work? And what are the sectors that are rising stars in amongst the post pandemic era? When it comes to the future, uncertainty is the only certainty. Think about remote work way back in 2019, it was slowly gaining acceptance that most managers would allow people to maybe work from home on a Friday or a Monday. 2020 companies and their employees were forced to adapt. And today many workers have traded that long commute for a casual stroll to their home office or to their lounge or kitchen or wherever they work from.

So when it comes to predicting which careers will flourish in a post COVID world, that's not easy, but there are some definite trends. Of course, if you're already loving your career, I'm not suggesting any radical change or course of action here. However, if you are considering a change, here are the top five growing fields that perhaps could lead the way to a new future, maybe unsurprisingly, but healthcare leads their way. Those working in healthcare have really promoted, demonstrated the abilities that they have and the impact that they have across our communities. Perhaps weren't visible before the pandemic and careers, such as nursing are getting huge amounts of interest. And of course now you'll have to earn a bachelor's degree or a science or associate degree in nursing. Then you'll need to be like licensed in some countries. It's truly proved that nursing is a professional and respected career.

And many people are attracted to that level of rigor and indeed impact on society. And with many responses being passed to the nursing community, introducing roles, such as nursing practitioners who are responsible to do as many things as many GPs do has elevated their reward and recognition that comes along with it. But despite this, many people still see this as a purpose driven role. One that people can make it impact on communities and society. Second on list is information technology. And of course IT has been a growth feel years. What's different, of course, is the increased focus on remote work and smart technology has increased the demand for things like software development and app development. Organizations are pivoting their recruitment strategies to hire people who can code online and who can work remotely that tap into infrastructure. That office for national statistics in the UK seen this increased by 18%.

And the bureau of labor statistics in the U.S. has seen this grow by 22% this year. And with the average income over six figures, it's definitely pulling people into this space. Supply chain management comes in at third, and you probably aren't surprised to find that this is a growth field. The panic buying that began before last year's lockdowns shifted the focus away from that just in time delivery methodology that many retail long relied on. Jobs in this field include things like purchase agents, logistic analysts, distribution managers, procurement, and although many start out with having to have a degree. Many top earners in this field are often coming from an engineering or a practical background where they understand the supply chain. So if you're skilled with math’s and statistics and have good sound engineering principles, then supply chain management might be a career route for you.

Financial management is next. Careers in this field are expected to grow by over 15% in the next 10 years, financial advisors, financial managers are hired to examine a company's spending and income, looking for ways to maximize profitability. Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies often seek candidates with an MBA. Although smaller organizations now are hiring managers with a simple degree or bachelor's degree, or even offering modern day apprenticeships in the world of finance and accounting. This means there's a really great pipeline with young talent growing world of the financial accounting space and the financial advising space. And remember apprenticeships in the UK are not about age. Many organizations are hiring senior people in their second or third career who are looking to apply their life skills with a new approach to work. And the last one that's on the list is Actuaries and Statisticians. Now Actuaries enjoy enormous income relative to their peer groups in accounting. And it's also expected that this is going to grow by another 20% in the next 10 years. And with the average income of way over six figures, what we're seeing is quite an often stuffy and introverted role and job is now attracting great new talent. If you enjoy data and statistics, it could be the perfect high growth field for you. And of course, we've looked at some high paying and growing and trending careers. And the best job for you might not be about being highly paid nor the fastest growth. The key thing is it leveraging your skills, achieving the best possible outcome and finding your purpose within it. And besides how many of us would've guessed that the number one fastest occupation, according to the Office of National Statistics is Cinema Projectionist and in America, Motion Picture Projectionist. So it turns out, we are returning back to normal. We are getting out there and we are consuming more movies than ever before. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any stories or you want us to talk about a certain topic on the show, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Dr. Benjamin Ritter is our guest on today's show. He's a globally renowned leadership and career coach. He's the founder of Live for Yourself [LFY] Consulting. He's a speaker, podcast and author. Ben, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: I am ready to get hacking. Let's do it.

Steve Rush: Good stuff, and me too. So first hack then Ben, let's get to explore what you do now, because I know there were lots of twists and turns on your path. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about it?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Yeah, there are a lot of twists and turns. I think most importantly, I was working as a healthcare executive and I was promoted into that role from a position that I really enjoyed, which tends to happen to high achievers. I felt my work was meaningful when I was initially working in healthcare as group systems analyst and my official title, but basically I was in process improvement. I was improving clinical outcomes for patients. I did such a good job. They made me manager of business operations, which basically was kind of the right hand of all the executives. I was on the executive team, but I was a doer and things done. And so I worked as a financial manager. I worked in business development. I mean, you name it. I did something for it. I worked with everyone on the team, but I didn't do any of the stuff that I used to like before that. And so over time I started to resent my position and resent my organization because I didn't feel it was giving me meaning anymore. I blamed it for not giving me direction. I mean, like there's a certain positive aspect of having autonomy. But it becomes a negative when you don't have clarity.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: In terms of what you are actually supposed to achieve, what you're supposed to do and why that matters to you. What's meaningful about it? And so I got into this place in my life where I was bringing negativity home with me. And when I went into work, I wasn't really trying to work. I was really trying to avoid doing anything because I didn't see the point in it. I was like, why am I here? This is pointless. All these people, like, why should I invest in them? I was like digging my own grave, to be honest. And they still thought that I was a high achiever because I would do the work that they wanted me to do while I was just getting more spiteful and resentful as every day went on.

Steve Rush: And did you notice the parallel before? So you mentioned the fact that it didn't give you that sense of purpose and it did from the work you did before. What was the kind of the moment when you recognized that was the case?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Well, luckily that came to me one day when I was walking to work, when I was kind of seething that I had to go back into work again, and I kind of had two feet out the front door and it wasn't really that I knew what it was that brought me meaning. I didn't have the sit down and reflective moment up to that point. I just knew that I didn't feel the same way. And so luckily though I had this little epiphany moment when I was going into work and kind of looking around me and I sensed that everybody was feeling the exact same way that I was walking by. Like these zombies walking into a work that they hated and that was so dreadful to them. And I remember thinking, you know, I'm doing this, it's not my employer.

I'm creating this for myself. I am the curator of my own environment, my own mindset. And that's when I actually woke up. And I started asking myself the tough questions. Like, why do I feel this way? Why did I feel that my work was meaningful before? What is it that I really want to accomplish right now at this job? What skills do I want to learn? Who do I really enjoy working with? How do I invest more time in them? And that led to me finally, pivoting from what I was doing to having a little bit more direction. And I get it, we tend to be very reactive in our careers. And up to that point, I was very reactive, you know, I didn't mean to work in healthcare. I fell into it because I was networking my butt off because it was the middle of a recession. I couldn't get a full-time job or two and a half years. I’m out of grad school and I had two graduate degrees and experience in public health. And every job offer that I got during that time was actually canceled after I signed on a dotted line, this happened four times. And so I was just looking for something, anything, and you know, how you got to the job you were in today is very much reflective how you think about it and how you think about your career and how you think about work. And so as a leader, you know, if you're working with employees, they all have their own backstory. And at that point in my time, my backstory was, you know, you didn't do what you wanted to do. You took what you could get and the organization was the one responsible for creating your job.

Steve Rush: Right, so what you're really talking about is, you were asking yourself a series of questions. And for me, that sounds a bit like coaching? Did you recognize that, that's actually, perhaps what you were doing at the time, was coaching yourself?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: That's why I pivoted towards this industry. So at the time I was side hustling as a coach in a different area, more like life, dating and relationships. I was an avid passionate kind of personal, you know, thought leader in terms of personal development and professional development. I lost who I was when I was younger and we can touch on this, but I became interested in the field of personal professional development because of it. And so at the time I'd spent a lot of my free time on reading, studying, and learning. Now I'm doing it as a side hustle, but then I also was selected for 16 months of leadership training. So I had my own coach per se in the organization. Director of people, we met like once a month, maybe less, but it was something, it helped me become aware of the fact that this existed.

And so very much though when I was going through this transition, I think mentally, you know, when I was waking up, I knew that I had to coach myself and I coached myself in every other area of my life. From confidence, to interpersonal dynamics, to dating. I mean, I studied business, how to be persuasive and what worked in terms of marketing and sales in just how to walk into a room and create friendships. But I kind of forgot that we needed to do the same for our career. And I think we're taught that, you know, throughout our lives, we're taught that you don't choose what you do or how you do it. You find some place to do it and you do it there. I kind of had to wake up and change my mindset and relationship to work.

Steve Rush: I had a really interesting conversation just this week, actually with a guy I was coaching who was a senior executive for a firm. And what he was describing to me is, his challenge of that work and life balance. And for me, that's where the problem was. Because he was trying to segregate activities and behaviors at work and at home, and actually they're interconnected, that's just life. But he was giving himself these completely different set of rules to how to behave at home and how to behave at work. And then he was neither genuine in either position. What's your take on that?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Well, it sounds like such a separation. I was two faced for the majority of my career. You know, when I was working in public health, I was going to school full time and I was bartending full time and working odd jobs and like promotions, like as a brand ambassador to pay for it all, even though I was still working for the school as well. And then when I was working in healthcare, I was side hustling as a, you know, as a coach trying to get a business off the ground and also of having other income streams, still working in hospitality and bartending. And I never brought my full self to work. And, you know, I had experiences that I think created. When I first interviewed for the job in healthcare, I got to the final round. I got the interview by networking as a bartender.

Like I met someone across the bar and he got one of my friends, a job as an RN, and then ended up getting me an interview. I found out that the CEO didn't select, well not the CEO, the VP at the time didn't select me because he found out that I was a bartender. And, you know, they brought me back a year later. Exactly a year later when that person transitioned to a different site, a different hospital to get trained, to be the CEO, by the way, for the current hospital. They brought me back and hired me and, you know, there are certain experiences that I've had that kind of taught me not to bring my full self to work, which I think is very detrimental to our own health. Because I tell you today I am who I am. I am my full self and it is so freeing and I don't want to work for an organization that doesn't allow me to bring my full self to work.

Steve Rush: So, really interesting perspective. And I just want to explore it a little more for you. So in bringing your full self to work, how do you know that you're not hanging onto some of that baggage of the past?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Well, we're in a day and age and I think directly answer your question indirectly. We're working in a day and age where a lot of us are remote and virtual. And so now there are cameras into our homes and into our lives. And we're also forcing connection because without having connection within the workplace, we need to create the opportunities to connect. So we're doing icebreakers hopefully, and we're doing happy hours.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: We're basically prompting questions that we normally might not have even have answered in the normal in person environment. And there's this desire and need or movement towards bringing your whole self to work. And there are a lot of individuals that are afraid of this, especially new leaders on, am I really acting like a leader. If I share a certain issue that's happening in my life or I share how I feel about something in my life. And I think there's a fine balance between people who know who you are and what you care about and what you enjoy and what you're dealing with and what your story is to I'm really emotionally respond to this situation that I'm going to feel different about tomorrow. And I think there's a strong distinction there between, you know, who I am. So we build a relationship to, you know how I feel when I want to complain.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Which I think is some people don't fully understand that separation.

Steve Rush: Yeah, one of the things I think is prevalent amongst most entrepreneurs and most successful leaders that I've spoken to on the podcast and indeed coached and worked with is this real focus around making sure that they are steadfast. They are well physically and mentally before they start thinking about what else is on their journey. And lots of great leaders attribute self-leadership as a real key tenant of their behaviors, as well as their approach to how they lead their businesses. And you developed something similar to that along the lines of self-leadership and you call it your three Cs. I wonder if you could tell us the story about how that came about and maybe spin us through the three Cs themselves.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Yeah, and just to, because I don't want to overlook your last question. I think they're interrelated. If there's something that you want to accomplish or feel like you want to say or do in your place of employment and you are not doing it, then it's probably due to a story or expectation or previous experience that you've had related to work. And so if you ask yourself, what do I want to accomplish? What do I really want? What am I of goals? Which people tend not to actually define, which is the first C of self-leadership. And you find that you're not taking action there. And there usually is something that you need to identify from your beliefs about work, about leadership, about organizations that you need to then challenge. And so the, the three Cs of self-leadership came about because I was working with clients initially with the live system, the live framework, and this was goals, intentions, values, and expectations. It was like a decision making process that I would take clients through for them to be able to feel more comfortable and more fulfilled about what they were trying to achieve. And I realized that some clients had a much easier way of doing it than others. And this is when I was also completing my dissertation. I was researching a bunch about leadership and about job satisfaction about motivation. And I started just really trying to analyze what was it about these specific clients? What traits did they have that led to greater success? And I discovered that there were three main pillars and components that led them to be able to take action. That led them to be able to lead themselves. And I coined this, the three Cs of self-leadership and there's a lot of three Cs out there. I luckily I don't think I've seen these Cs together, but a lot of models you'll tend to see.

And I think this is a Testament to the fact that it works. A lot of similarities between different models out there. After I created them, I was like, I really hope nobody has these because I'm going to copyright I, so luckily nobody did. The first C is clarity and this is clarity of, you know, what you care about? But really mainly why you care about it. So what is the motivation, the attachment? I think we've all heard the why is more important than anything, but then that why tends to also create, so you have your values, your motivations. You have, you know, the heart of what you're trying to achieve, but then you have the what, so what am I actually trying to achieve long term and short term?

And can I break that down to daily tasks? So I know what my priorities are on a daily basis. The, the second C is confidence. So when you have clarity in something, that is the foundation of confidence, if you know why you're trying to achieve something and what you stand for and what you're trying to work on, that tends to create a personal sense of belief in your, and what you're showing up as, so that you tend to actually have like, your inner critic has less of a voice because you're so adamant. And so sure of what you're trying to achieve in yourself. It doesn't change the fact that you need to go study and learn and get educated. So there's confidence is self-efficacy and self-esteem, so it's not just the belief and what you're trying to achieve in yourself will the belief in the skills that you have.

So that requires you to listen to this, you know, listen to this podcast, go sign up for journal articles. You go talk to people that are in the field that have already achieved what you want to achieve. And then, so when you have clarity and now you're confident in what you're doing and you have the skills for it, you more likely to take action, and so that's control. This is I am intentionally acting in a way that is in alignment with the why and what I'm actually looking to achieve in my life. And that control stays constant despite any sort of emotions or situations that you're going in through life. And also allows you to build a community around yourself that supports what you're interested in, the other two Cs.

Steve Rush: And it seems to me that they're absolutely interrelated as well, aren't they?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Very much so. So for example, let's say you know what you need to do, but you don't know why you're doing it. And don't feel confident in it. A lot of people tend to be in jobs where they don't know why they're doing something and they don't feel like they act actually can accomplish it. That is so distressful. That is a situation for burnout that is going to cause people and to leave your organization. Now, let's say you're very confident in something, but you don't actually take any action towards it. So again, you know, like these all need each other to be able to work. You need to have all three.

Steve Rush: What do you think the reason is that we struggle with the whole notion of self-leadership as a population? and I'm clearly generalizing, but most of the execs, I speak to do a great job of the leading teams and organizations, but often put themselves further down that pack in order.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Oh, there are so many reasons, but I'd say the main one is that no one's ever given us permission. No one's ever told us that we are more important than anyone else. Our health and our desires and our goals can only be define by ourselves. And if we don't take care of ourselves, then other people aren't going to be taken care of.

Steve Rush: Yeah, there's almost this perspective, isn't there? That if you do put yourself first, then that's somewhat selfish or even extreme narcissistic, but actually it's critical for the benefit of the people that work with you, isn't it?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: I love when people hear live for yourself and they go, that sounds selfish.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Because it is a magnifying glass into how they define self-care, how they define really trying to understand what they want to achieve. Because if you don't feel that you're important, you're never going to spend time figuring out what you want to do. And so if you don't figure out, you want to do, then can you imagine all of your actions are going to be based on other people's desires, where does that then leave you?

Steve Rush: So how do you get permission? How do you end up giving yourself permission and feel secure and safe in the knowledge it's okay to focus on you?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Well, I go out on a limb here and say that we both give all the listeners permission.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: To pause and figure out what is it that they really care about. And what's at the core of their attitudes and beliefs and how that translates to goals. It's the great resignation, everyone's leaving their jobs because they feel the solution isn't in the organization that they're at. When I first started in this field, my message was fix where you're at, craft the job you have to become a job you love because most of the time the solution is not somewhere else, the solution's inside. And then as being able to feel empowered and to have the permission to alter where you're currently at to be best fit for you. You see this a lot with leaders.

Steve Rush: That's where the adage, the grass isn't always greener comes from, isn't it? Because people have this perception that, oh, going to work for another organization, but actually the root cause often is ourselves.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: You go somewhere, you work for six months and you don't really have the opportunity to sit and think because it's a new job and everything's new and novel and you're learning. And so after six months you start noticing the issues. This isn't really what I wanted. This isn't the work that I thought I signed up for. These aren't the people that I really wanted to be around. I don't really understand why we're doing this, the impact. And so then you wait, you kind of coast around for another six months, you see maybe it will change. And then you spend the next year looking for another job and then you leave.

Steve Rush: It's so ironic, isn't it? And it repeats itself. I suspect.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: I'd love to see a career ladder within organizations. And I think there's a lot of people that are discussing it now, how do you career map, right? How do you retain your talent by giving them opportunities in the organization itself? Well, you can't do that unless the people in your organization actually feel like they have permission to do that. And you can't make that happen if the leaders aren't aware that they need to start looking for opportunities to develop and grow their talent, instead of just have them meet their expectations at their job.

Steve Rush: So you talked a little earlier around this kind of, almost epiphany that you had, which led you on this path now. Tell us a little bit about the work that you are doing with Live For Yourself and maybe some of the key areas of focus that you are helping others with now.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: It’s kind of split into two main areas. I'll work with organizations, I'll host, you know, ad-hoc corporate workshop, I'll create performance development programs, new manager training, go in and redo communication structures and Desi organizations, to coach one on one with leaders, group coaching and individual. But then it's also working just one on one with senior leaders, the senior managers up to the executive level on how to develop them else, right. How to feel confident in their role, how to show up, how to define their executive presence, how to lead manage teams in a way that leads to the specific outcomes that they want, but also how to find another job if it's not right for you. Like if, where you're at really isn't right for you, how to find the place to that, it can be right, because there is so much, you can do it in an organization.

Steve Rush: Right?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: And if one day you wake up and realize that what you want to do, isn't where you're at. Or you find meaning from different things and where you're at. Because you haven't thought about it before. It's okay to leave. It's okay to make that pivot.

Steve Rush: And how much of the great resignation that you spoke about that's happening and it's not just in north America and Europe, it's happening in pockets all over the world. How much of that do you put down to the global pandemic versus it's just the opportunity to cause people to spend more time being intro focused?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Yeah, think about the times that you've had major have change in your life like graduation from uni, moving, maybe to a new area, the end of a relationship, the start of a new relationship, the end of someone close to you, the end of hearing a certain story, right? That also highlighted the fact that life is short potentially, an injury you know, an injury potentially to yourself as well. Anytime that we remember right. Have reasons to that what we were doing was comfortable and that there are other options. Anytime there's disruption leads to growth and the world has been heavily disrupted heavily.

Steve Rush: Yes.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: And so, no matter what that's going to cause you to start reflecting on what you've been doing, why you've been doing it and what you want to do next. And at the same time, I think we've shown that there are more opportunities and options in the world than maybe we previously thought.

Steve Rush: Right, yeah.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Put those things together, and all of a sudden, now you have what we call the great resignation. What I would be careful of is, if we don't spread this message. And I think of what we're talking about today, that it's not where you are that matters more so than how you show up where you are, then this is going to keep happen.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and for many people, then not in the position to leave a role, leave a job, leave an organization, and go find another. And many of our listeners who are listening to this podcast from different jurisdictions and countries around the world, haven't got the luxuries of being able to just walk and find another gig. So re-engineering themselves is a fantastic way of creating a new job in the same organization almost isn’t it?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: And you can't do that without self-leadership. I tell people often when I work with them as clients and not as clients. Where you are, is not as bad as you think, and it might be. It might, it might eventually be, but have you done the work to figure that out and have you actually put the effort in to change where you're at, to be more suited to you. Now, sometimes you don't have a leader that actually allows that to happen. They block you, but have you tried, have you tried to have the conversation with them? And often, especially when I first start working with the clients, those conversations haven't happened, I don't know about you, someone comes on as a client and they go, I really want this to happen in my organization. I really want to do this type of work and great, what have you done so far for it?

Steve Rush: Exactly, it's the first question, isn't it? And you often find the responses. I've thought about it.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Yeah, and maybe, they've mentioned it once.

Steve Rush: And that knowing, doing gap, isn't it?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: The biggest thing that I've been seeing lately is that people get the courage, like leaders that I've spoken with, employees of all levels. If get the courage to say what they want one time. And the leader says, okay, but it's not the leader's responsibility to follow up. So reliability is a huge part of executive presence. If I was to list off those four keys to executive presence and reliability is one. A real executive would follow up, but that doesn't always happen. So we need to take responsibility for what we want. And so how are you following up on the things that you mentioned? You have to be that tripping faucet. That's what self-leadership is. It's I'm going to keep going until I get what I want.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I love it. So next part of our show. So this is where I get to hack into your leadership thinking, your leadership brain and keen to try and take all of that knowledge and get it down to your top three leadership hacks. What would they be Ben?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: So leadership hack number one would be communication. Maybe not so secretive to a lot of people, but weekly one-on-ones conversations with individuals. And so I'd say one-on-one communication. I can't tell you how many leaders I've worked with that say, I talk to my employees all the time. We have group meetings once a week, we talk about projects. Okay, you need to make space. You need to create a safe space to build trust, and get to know your employees, to be able to ask questions such as, how's work going? What are your priorities? How can I help with that? Where do you want to go in the organization? You need that information to be able to retain and develop talent.

So I'd say that would be number one. The second piece is that nothing is concrete when it comes to a job role. So let's drop this idea that the job description is everything. If you want to retain talent or also want to be happier at work for yourself, understand that there is flexibility in what you do each and every single day. And if it's not in the actual work where that flexibility is, the flexibility is in how you do it. So for example, if there's something that you really don't like doing, then can you buffer that with something that you really like doing? Or can you do it while you are at home if you are in the office or can you do it while you're listening to your favorite podcast, such as this, or in your favorite, you know, cafe. So even not even just not changing the work, but flexibility in how you do the work. So look into job wrapped.

Steve Rush: That comes back down to the control C as well that you talked about earlier because there is this fake notion of if you high levels of control, you haven't got space, but actually it's the control that gives you the space and flexibility, isn't it?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Very true.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: The third piece would be engage, engage, and engage. Can't tell you how often I work with individuals that want to move up and get promoted in the organization. And they think if they do their work, that is enough. People will know that they're doing good work. And I'd say that, you know, it doesn't matter how good you are at your work, if nobody knows about it. And if no one knows who you are, for any level of leader. And if you're a leader that has employees that have intentions for growth, then you should also be ping them in meetings and having them start speaking up. People need to know who you are. You need to develop a professional brand and the day where you will just automatically get promoted and move up in an organization without any knowledge or awareness of you, your work, you know, just even your personality. Those are gone.

Steve Rush: That last one particularly is so important for folk, but actually it comes back down to how I give myself permission. And am I feeling confident in order to be able to do that and put myself out there and be vulnerable?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: It's so scary for some people, and I understand that. One of the top three things that I've worked with clients on are fear with presenting and fear with speaking up in meetings, fear with even just asking for a skip level meeting for someone, you know, above your boss, someone outside of the organization, this is required. There's some pretty staggering statistics on people aren't promoted if they're not in office, right? If you're a virtual, if you're a hybrid workforce and that's because the FaceTime is missing. So this is even more important now than ever before. If you are working an organization, have plans to move up or want even opportunities to move up, you need to be dedicating a portion of your week to connecting, to engaging. I mean, I even say one more thing, make yourself a rule. And I do this with clients. Every meeting, you have to ask a question and make a comment period, no matter what.

Steve Rush: So tell us how that might go.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: You're in a meeting and any topic whatsoever. You have to ask a question to a leader or to a coworker. So you're obviously paying attention and you're engaged. And then you also have to make a comment on something that is being said throughout the meeting, no matter what. It's a pretty simple rule, I'd say. If you're only doing that, you probably will, at least, people will be aware of you. From now on, take a look at your meetings and see if you attend the meetings or you don't say anything. If you're attending a meeting where you never say anything, you shouldn't be in that meeting. So make it a point to be engaged in those meetings or don't attend them.

Steve Rush: It's a great hack because it simply just forces dialogue. It forces not only does it force you to listen and pay attention, because you're going to have to ask a question, but it forces that sense of connectivity across a team, really simple, but very effective, I would imagine.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Yeah, and those are the little things that matter.

Steve Rush: Yeah, totally. Definitely, so. So, next part of the show we call it hack to attack. This is where something in your work or your life hasn't worked as you planned, but as a result of the experience, it's now serving you well. So what would be your Hack to Attack Ben?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: I have so many twists and turns in my career. I just have to focus for a second. I wanted to be a professional soccer player growing up. I dedicated my life to it, I played D1 Athletics. I went overseas, actually played in the UK for a little bit, but not professionally, kind of like a feeder team. And when I gave that up, I lost who I was. I had no idea who Ben was, because I didn't do anything else. I didn't watch really anything on TV. I didn't have friends that were outside soccer and it was a very low moment in my life, but it brought me the realm of personal professional development. I took all of my energy that I dedicated to the sport and I said, let's go define who I am. Let's go build confidence. Let's go study, you know, social psychology, behavioral psychology. And without those moments, without that moment, I wouldn't have had all the others serendipitous like moments that came after that, but led me to today.

Steve Rush: Still play soccer? I do. I actually ended up hurting my knee about two months ago. So it's healing right now, but I'll be back at it.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Awesome, good for you.

Steve Rush: So the very last thing we're going to take you on is a little bit of time travel. Now we get you to have the opportunity to give yourself some advice when you are 21. And if you were now toe to toe, face to face with Ben at 21, what advice would you give him?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Nobody's opinion matters.

Steve Rush: Nice.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: My mind was my worst enemy as a kid, my lack of confidence in my myself, the fact that I'd hit the hit the field in doubt, every single touch I'd have on a ball. The fact that I would not give myself confidence to have a conversation with a stranger. The fact that I would wonder if people were laughing at me when I was walking down the sidewalk, like my mind held me back from so much in my life that when I finally grabbed, when I got hold of it, I was able to be the confident person that I am today. To be so sure of myself, to have the clarity that led the confidence and then be able to take actions that were matter. It was life changing. So if anyone doubts themselves today and you know that you doubt yourself when you go into a room and you say something and you look for people's reactions to see what they think about what you said, spend some time really figuring out what you care about.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Because then you'll be a little bit more confident in yourself.

Steve Rush: Awesome advice. Particularly if anybody's listening to this now who is experiencing that, that's going to be a real game changer for them. Question, bit of a side hack I guess. How do you keep on track? How do you keep focus? How do you keep that mind serving you in the way that you do today?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: You show up as the person that you know that you want to be. I know what my top values are and I show up each and every day in alignment with those values. When I don't, that's when I get off track.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: So what are the things that you truly care about and how are you doing them on a daily basis? So health is a big one for me, from nutrition to fitness. And then, you know, I care about talent development and personal, leadership development, career development. So if I get to show up each and every day, I'm blessed to the point that I've crafted a life where I can do the things that I truly care about. And that allows me to stay on track. Because that's what motivates me.

Steve Rush: Great advice. So Ben, if folk listening to this, want to fight a little bit more about the work you do with Live For Yourself and indeed tap into some of your broadcasts, some of your writing and maybe listen to you speak. Where's the best place for us to send them?

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Go check out, liveforyourselfconsulting.com, just liveforyourselfconsulting.com. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn, So if you reach out to me on LinkedIn, tell me that you heard this conversation and say, what's on your mind. I'm happy to connect and continue the conversation.

Steve Rush: Great stuff. We'll also put those links in our show notes as well. It's important for us to keep that conversation going. And I just want to say, thank you, Ben. It was amazing talking to you. It's absolutely because of your work that you do today and your focus and dedication, and you can just hear the passion and energy you have for that self-centered approach to leading yourself. So I want to say thank you for being on that show, being part of our community.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Thank you so much for having me. And it's just so important and critical to how I live my life. The most important leader that you're ever going to meet in your life is the one that lives inside you. No one else is responsible or accountable for your own wellbeing and let's go live that way.

Steve Rush: Powerful words. Thanks for being here, Ben.

Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Thanks for having me.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Major General Robert Mixon retired from the army after over three decades of extraordinary leadership success. He’s the founder of Level Five Associates, the co-author of Cows in The Living Room and author of the Amazon bestseller, “We're All In”. So many hacks in this show it’s hard to highlight them, here’s a few:

The Big 6 Leadership Principles to building culture
How as leaders we can be “All in”
Learn about the leadership azimuth and how we work it
How to drive successful strategies and sustain them

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Robert below:

Robert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertmixon/

Level Five Associates on Twitter: https://twitter.com/levelfiveassoc

Level Five Associates Website: https://www.levelfiveassociates.com

Full Transcript Below

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Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Today's guest on the show is Major General Robert Mixon. He's a retired officer of the U.S. Army. He's a public speaker, author of a few books, and he's the co-founder of Level Five Associates. But before we get a chance to meet with Robert, it's The Leadership Hacker New.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we explore how many of our leadership characteristics and behaviors have changed since the global pandemic. And it turns out that empathy is the go-to leadership skill of the moment. Yes, it can be learned even if we didn't think that was the case. As a brand new fortune 500 CEO, Kirsten Peck of Zoetis, didn't have all the answers as to how a fast growing pet health company was going to survive the pandemic. She'd only ascended to the corner office in January of 2020. So when COVID 19 hit and revved up in the March of 2020, she was feeling quite nervous and anxious and frankly, little overstretched as to whether nearly 12,000 workers, I would imagine. So in one of her COVID era blogs on the company's intranet, Kristin Peck talked not about typical subjects you'd expect new CEOs to be talking around like earnings or sales projections, but something else entirely.

The importance of listening. The first step begins with slowing down and spending a lot of time, listening to the challenges people are facing personally and professionally she wrote. Later in a LinkedIn post, she shared her own personal story of raising a child with special medical needs to show it was okay for employees to talk about the reality of what life can be like outside of a tinted glass work window and ask for help if they needed it. She goes on to say what the pandemic did was make everybody realize that we were all the same and we were all in the same storm, but our boats were quite different. We had to become very clear about the importance of listening to people and understanding their needs and being flexible, practically that meant shifting her entire workforce to a different way of working. Largely working from a home model about 70% of Zoetis global workforce actually started working from home and it meant providing beefed up benefits like health care concierge services for caregivers, a student loan repayment program and improved mental health support food services, like an employee assistance program, and Peck efforts seem to have hit the mark. The company employee engagement metrics are higher than they've ever been. Now at 88% and eclipsing the pre-pandemic levels.

And who says being empathic is a soft measure? The hard numbers look like the stock price has done very well indeed; from the pandemic to November 8th, Zoetis stock price grew by 38% and it's currently bumping around at all-time highs. She's been recently quoted the saying, if anyone pretended they had all the answers, no one had believed it any way. Despite the crisis and the upheaval, Zoetis is an example of empathy being a core strong foundation and a real metric. And the leadership hack here is dead simple; it starts with just listening. Listen, to understand, not to que your next question. That's been The Leadership Hacker News, if you'd like to hear any interesting stories, we've got some things to share, as you've always done, please keep in touch with us.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Major General Robert Mixon is our guest on today's show. After being retired from the army, he achieved over three decades of extraordinary leadership success. Not only including the U.S. Army, where he commanded the seventh infantry division and Fort Carson Colorado, and then subsequently he served in an executive leadership position in a number of non-for-profits and for-profit organizations before starting his own organization, Level Five Associates. He's the co-author of Cows in The Living Room: Developing an Effective Strategic Plan and Sustaining it and also of the Amazon bestseller. We're All In: The Journey to World-Class Culture. Rob, welcome to the show.

Major General Robert Mixon: Thanks, Steve. It's wonderful to be here with you and your listeners today.

Steve Rush: I'm incredibly excited to delve into your very diverse and extensive leadership career. And I thought it would be useful really just to start off where it all began for you?

Major General Robert Mixon: Well, it began for me, as growing up the oldest of six children in Georgia and North Carolina, and dreaming about being able to go to college. And as a result of a mediocre level of athletic ability, I was actually recruited to a couple of schools and one of those schools was the army football program at West Point. And I didn't know much about West Point and certainly didn't have any big dreams of being in the army, but I did have dreams of being a college football player. So I know football has different connotations in different audiences here, but I'm talking about the American tackle football.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Major General Robert Mixon: And I had good enough grades and things worked out where I got a chance to go to West Point and play football for a little while, until I got hurt to the level I couldn't play anymore, but I would entered a world that I'd never dreamed I would enter when I stood out there in the parade field at West Point in the summer of 1970 with about 1400 other young men. And, you know, in about 24 hours, we learned that our lives are going change. If we stayed with this adventure, it would change forever. And so from that experience, four year journey, about 40% of the group, didn't make it through. The 800 plus of us who did graduate in June of 1974, came into a military that was very conflicted. At the end of the Vietnam War, many Americans felt like, you know, the military was to blame for some of the policy decisions that had cause the Vietnam War to end badly. And as a result of the resources behind the military, the draft system went away and we went to a volunteer force, but we were under-resourced. And we struggle for a number of years until we came out of it in the mid-1980s and became truly a world-class military in every respect again, and because we had been before.

Steve Rush: Right.

Major General Robert Mixon: But I stayed with that journey because I met some men and women who really changed my life because of the leadership role models they represent it, despite the hardships. In fact, I think the hardships bring out the strongest leaders, you know, when things are tough.

Steve Rush: Yeah, develops that level of resilience as well, doesn't it?

Major General Robert Mixon: Yeah, you know, people who could learn from mistakes, who could underwrite others, who could develop trust and bring it to life. And so I found myself, you know, as a career officer, even though I'd never planned to be, and I was privileged to spend 33 years in uniform and command soldiers, you know, up to a division installation level, which was a wonderful privilege. And then as I realized, you know, it was time for me to open the next chapter. I went into the corporate career in the middle of the depression of 2008/2009, which was another tough learning experience. But again, you know, I was able to learn from others and grow and come out of that and then realized my dream, which was to have my own company, Level Five Associates and help other companies and organizations and leaders. Perhaps not make the same mistakes that I had made. And so that's been my calling now for the last seven years.

Steve Rush: Awesome. During your time in the military, you mentioned that there was this time where from the seventies to the mid-eighties, then there was a real shift. What role did the incumbent leadership, if you like in the military play in making that shift happen or was that more of a bottom up change?

Major General Robert Mixon: I think it was a two-edged sword Steve, and I say that because there were senior leaders who had to underwrite some of the fundamental changes in our culture. And I think basically in the military, you know, we had a very deeply entrenched culture of compliance, you know, in that mid-seventies timeframe, you know, do what you're told. We're not going to talk about why, you know, we want you to comply. Then with the senior leadership, and I think the junior leadership sort of coming together in a common view of what we should be, we began to develop a culture of commitment where people did what was right, because they wanted to do what was right. And they believed in the leaders that they were with and who they were working for. And that takes years to do, this is not something that happens in a month or, you know, six months, it takes years to do it. But with the senior support and the junior commitment, a level of energy, we were able to move our culture from compliance to commitment. And that was a very significant change in our army.

Steve Rush: And how would that manifest itself in today's military? Having evolved from compliance to commitment?

Major General Robert Mixon: I think in today's military, as a father of two, in fact, three soldiers. Now one who's on the career path, I have seen that the military culture of commitment is very strong and it's in fact more dependent now on the junior leader level of commitment because the senior leaders now were the ones who were in the transformative junior ranks in the eighties and nineties. And now they're the senior leader. So it's an even stronger movement, I think now towards the importance of why, the importance of commitment, you know, the importance of being an all-in, shameless book promotion.

Steve Rush: Yeah, we're going to get into that in the moment actually, because I love the whole philosophy of we're all in, but there is definitely something there isn't there about, if you fundamentally want to shift a culture, you do have to throw your entire self into this, don't you?

Major General Robert Mixon: We do, and it has to be from the top down, I think, and the bottom up, it's got to be a two way street where we are all in, because we believe in who we are and what we represent. And we're going to walk the talk and if we're willing to do that, then you can have a level five culture as I call it, where people believe in who we are and what we represent and they bring it every day. They're going to give all they can give to the mission to each other. And there's an element of selflessness here that I think in the military, I learned early on. The mission first, but I think in other organizations, it's not so evident unless the leadership really embodies it and nurtures it among the other leaders in the organization so that it has an enduring quality, you know, culture is never static. It either gets better, it gets worse. And so the culture of commitment is one where you live it every day and then tomorrow we're going to live it again and we're going to keep living it because we know what right looks like. And it's going to be our legacy that we grow leaders who are better leaders than we were at their stage of life. And I think that's a real a real opportunity for us as leaders to do that.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's also a gift, isn't it?

Major General Robert Mixon: It's a gift.

Steve Rush: In so much as that when you're sharing and partying, encouraging other leaders to be greater leaders, then you're not only sharing your experiences, but you're also guarding their future.

Major General Robert Mixon: Yeah, I think so. It's really what I've seen in the companies I've been able to work with in my level five part of the journey now is that many companies and organizations don't have the persistence at the senior leadership to sustain a world-class culture. And it's important that we reinforce each other because this is hard work. Its adult work, one of my leaders used to say. The concept of creating an ecosystem where people want to belong too, takes a lot of effort. And there are sometimes, you know, you get tired. You say, well, shoot, this is too hard. Let me default back to being directive and we'll be compliant. And we'll just, you know, to quote the sort of famous guy, Larry, the cable guy, you know, we'll just get her done, right? And that defaulting back to the directive leadership framework, it causes the culture to erode and the culture can erode very quickly when that happens.

Steve Rush: Definitely, so. Now from your corporate career, having left the military and had some senior leadership roles, what was the pivotal moment for you when you thought, right? This is more about me coaching, sharing, and teaching others to come on this journey. What was the moment that made you look to grow your own organization?

Major General Robert Mixon: I know it's been so many years of my life working for someone that I had a lot of opportunity to learn from many wonderful people, you know, including General Colin Powell, who's one of the finest leaders I've ever known. And, we all, I think, are deeply saddened by his loss here recently.

Steve Rush: That’s right, yeah.

Major General Robert Mixon: But, you know, I had had the privilege of working with extraordinary men and women who helped shape me as a person and a leader. And I wanted to give back, you know, as I look towards the next chapter in my life, I said, well, where could I make a difference? Where can I give back? And I think the defining moment for me was, you know, once you've had privilege of leading executive level, a number of different organizations, you can take one to two routes in my thinking here. One is, you can sort of, you know, quietly fade away and, you know, turn the mantle over to others and wish them well. And I know a lot of people who do that, and it's a very graceful transition to do that, but I'm wrapped too tightly. And as a result, I couldn't do that easily. I wanted to still be engaged and involved in growing people in organizations. And that's why I went to the level five route, and why I come to work every day looking forward to the opportunity to help other senior leaders grow leaders.

Steve Rush: Excellent, I love it. And the fact that you're still doing that today, and this is part of that education and evolution, isn't it? Being on the show, I guess.

Major General Robert Mixon: Yeah, that’s great. Thanks Steve.

Steve Rush: And one of the things that I love about your work is that your writing is really quite innovative. And I love the first book that you co-authored, Cows in The Living Room, and I'm quite a visual. So I have this picture of this huge cow sat in my living room right now. And this is about developing effective strategic plans and sustaining them, tell us a little bit about the concept of where's the Cow in The Living Room Come from?

Major General Robert Mixon: Well, you know Steve, we had it, when we wrote the book, we were going to title it, developing effective strategies, sustaining them. And then we shared that idea with our families, you know, spouses, and we got some immediate feedback and the feedback wasn't very good. The feedback was, you got to be kidding me. You know, who's going to read that book, even mom's not going to read that book. And I said, okay, well, what else could we do? And as a result, they gave us great insight about a story about cows in living room. And essentially the story is that there was once a young farmer who wanted to find a wife. So he went to a nearby village and successfully courted a woman, married her and brought her to living home on the farm. As they began their new life together, raising dairy cows and winter began. One day, the wife came in and found that all the cows were the living room.

Astonished, she asked why? Her husband replied, well its winter and the barn has no heat. Since we depend on these cows for our living, they need to be inside. Slowly, very slowly, she became more and more accustomed to having the cows indoors. Then after a few months, a neighbor from her village came over to see how she was doing. When she came in the living room, she was shocked to find the dairy cows there calming standing around. What are you doing with council living room she blurted out? To which the wife replied, which cows? And the story here is that most of us have cows in our living room as leaders of organizations, companies, and organizations of all types. And we become used to the cows and we don't see them anymore. So if you don't effectively address your strategic planning process, then basically you're just tolerating the cow’s living room. You're not doing anything to heat the bar. And that's really where we got the idea for the title. It wasn't an original thought. In fact, I don't think I've ever had original thought, but in any case, you know, it was catchy and a lot of people have asked about it, and hopefully they liked the book too.

Steve Rush: It's a great metaphor, isn't it? Because particularly whether you're visual or auditory, actually in telling the story, it gets people to recognize that we're all creatures of habit actually, and it's dead easy to get used to our environment. And that's when we get comfortable. And when we get too much in control, that's probably when we don't focus on what we need to focus on.

Major General Robert Mixon: Well, you know, Steve, 50%, I think of the fortune 500 companies of 30 or 40 years ago no longer exist. And that's because many of them were absorbed in other companies, but also they became complacent and their business model faded and their competition, you know, ate them for breakfast, if you will, because they were more innovative and more driven not to allow their cows in the living room to stay there.

Steve Rush: And then your second book, which is not a shameless plug in any way, it's a real, it's an honor to plug it in your behalf.

Major General Robert Mixon: Thank you.

Steve Rush: We're All In is very much around that connect cultural habits and sustaining in the future. And I just wondered from your perspective, have you ever been party to, or observed an organization successfully lead a culture where they're not all in?

Major General Robert Mixon: I have not. I say that because I don't think organizations are truly successful unless they have a world-class culture. They can be successful in a temporal way. They can make a profit for a period of time by just directing the activities or micromanaging the processes, but there's a tipping point. The most successful companies don't allow that directive culture to dominate their way of life. They insist on engaging in involving all the members of the team in the future of the organization. And so I don't know if I addressed the question directly, Steve, but I do believe it takes both heart and mind to create a world-class company, a world-class organization.

Steve Rush: Totally buy it.

Major General Robert Mixon: And those that I have seen and been part of have had both. Now there are ebbs and flows, but I think that the development of your ecosystem, your culture to a level of where people feel as though they're engaged and they're part of it, they belong. That's where a greatness, the opportunity for greatness resides.

Steve Rush: Absolutely, and as part of that developing culture, you pull together what you call your big six leadership principles to develop that culture. And I just thought it'd be great for our listeners to maybe spin through them with you.

Major General Robert Mixon: Oh, great. Yeah the six principles again, I learned from basically screwed them up, you know, I have scar tissue from not following these principles. So, now I really believe that we can do better, you know, if we're willing to pay attention and commit to the journey and follow the principles. The first one is set the esbit. A lot of people don't know what an azimuth is. I took it from my military career, but basically the azimuth is the Cardinal direction of your organization. What's your mission? You know, who are we? What do we do? Why do we do it? What's our intent? And then I like intent more than vision because I think vision's kind of fuzzy. Intent is, based on that mission. What's our end state in three to five years? What does success look like?

Then what are the key tasks we have to perform to reach that end state? And then what's our purpose? What's the why? And why are we doing all this? So you have mission and the intent, then you have your values. What do we believe in? And I think you have to define those values as a team because everybody doesn't understand what they are. And then fourth, what is our culture? What are the behaviors that we are going to demonstrate and expect from all of us to bring these values to life? So, setting the esbit is the first of the big six. The second one is listen. And as my mom said, God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Major General Robert Mixon: But I rarely followed that teaching from my mother. My mom's awesome, but I wasn't a good listener and we don't teach leaders to listen very well, you know, Stephen Covey talks about, are you listening with the intent to understand? Or are you listening with the intent to reply? I would say 90% of the leaders that I've met are in the latter category. We don't really listen with the intent to understand because we don't know how, and as a result we don't demonstrate to others the kind of behavior that really represents listing leadership. And so in the workshops that I do, we we've focus a lot on practical tools for your toolbox to bring these principles to life. The third is trusted in power, you know, empowerment is the manifestation of trust, but trust I think is one of the critical factors in creating this culture where we're all in and you've got to commit to it, and you've got to be willing to do things like underwrites of mistakes or empower others.

When the tendency, the powerful tendency is to go do it yourself. That's a learned skill, and I think the best leaders are those who can trust and empower very effectively. The fourth principle is do the right thing when no one's looking. And as we said, depending on this brief swell, but it is not easy. It's not simple and it's not easy. It takes a real commitment on the part of the leadership top to bottom that we're going to do the right thing. And whether someone's looking or not. Unfortunately, there are a lot of circumstances in instances over the past several decades, people, and most recent times when leaders in companies have not done the right thing and there've been disastrous results. The fifth principle is when in charge take charge. And that doesn't mean you have to be loud, profane, abusive. That's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about here is when you're in charge of being the calm in the chaos of having the tactical patients to understand that the first report is usually wrong. To develop others as part of that, being in charge, have that presence. And then the six principles balance the personal and professional, which is not about time. Most people think that balance is about time, a time at work, time home, not really, that's not the case. And I think balance is a battery of energy. Balancing the four battery levels we have all of inside us. The physical, the mental, the spiritual, the emotional, and there are tools. There are ways you can do that in yourself and in others to create that sense of balance, which it's a way of being healthy in a framework here, healthy personally and professionally, and really creates the opportunity for people to, as we used to say in the army, be all, they can be.

Steve Rush: I love the six principles. They naturally feed each other as well. But the final one ironically feeds through them all and is always consistent, is that balance because without it, you end up either being overworked or stressed or not having the right levels of energy to perform sustainably for the future. And that for me is the one that kind of has the big core all the way through them. So I love the princess.

Major General Robert Mixon: Well, thanks Steve. They all are interconnected. In fact when I conduct presentations workshops, I use a gears as the six principles that they're all interconnected, you know, and the whole mechanism of the culture turns as those gears work together with the centerpiece having the right values

Steve Rush: And what you've described for most people listening to this would perhaps make loads of sense and be quite academically sensible, but it takes work, doesn't it? It takes real practice and lots of habit forming to make sure that this is part of everybody's routine. How might I start that journey?

Major General Robert Mixon: Usually I will go in with the senior leadership and we'll talk about you know, whether they have specific goals in line for a certain, you know, a certain element of the team or whether they want to take the whole organization and move the needle. And most of them want to do the senior leaders upfront, then cascade the big six throughout the organization, as the mechanism to grow their culture to that level five, and I'll be upfront here. I think it takes a couple of years to do this. You know, you can't have it in 30 days. Most of us want everything in 30 days, but you can't have it. You're going to have to develop your culture in a deliberate way. And I use a series of workshops, a small group interaction, and one-on-one executive coaching with senior executives and high potential leaders to help get all these gears in place and move them forward. And specifically we use a strategic planning process to set that three to five-year goal that we want to move the organization toward. So there's an interrelated set of tools that we bring to a team or organization to help them succeed in this journey.

Steve Rush: And I suspect the reason it takes some time is that of all of those six cogs moving at different times, we've all probably got some of them moving at different speeds and cadences than the others, right?

Major General Robert Mixon: Yes, we do.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Major General Robert Mixon: And typically, Steve, but saying yes upfront on, some people will push back a little bit say, well, I don't have time to the esbit. Well, I don't think you have time not to set the azimuth. So we've got to get through that part and, you know, establish our mission and values culture. Then I think the next hard part of the process here is developing listening leaders who really do listen to the intent to understand.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Major General Robert Mixon: And we bring some practical tools for them to help do this. One of my favorites that I'll share with you, Steve is the back brief.

Steve Rush: Tell us how that works? Yeah.

Major General Robert Mixon: There's and old saying about, I don't know what I told you, until you tell me what you heard. Quite oftentimes, I have made this mistake. I get a group of soldiers together, or team members in my corporate life together and say, all right, here's what we've got to get done. But you know, everybody should know what you have to do to make that happen. All right, everybody got it? And they all say, oh yeah, we got it. And they head out and do something completely different. Well, usually you find out that they did something completely different because they didn't hear what you thought you said. And the back brief is a way where they back brief you on what they think they heard before you go out and try and accomplish great things. I think that's a way of confirming that what was said was heard and that's where communication lives, sharing information, email, texts, that's not communication, that's just sharing information. You don't get confirmation what they read was what they thought you wrote. Same with what you said and heard. So I really liked the back brief or confirmation brief as a tool for your toolbox that gives people more clarity across the team as to what are we doing and why are we doing it.

Steve Rush: And saves huge amounts of time, retrospectively having to undo stuff that people have set off in the wrong trajectory.

Major General Robert Mixon: Yeah. You know, manufacturing companies, I hear that saying over and over, we didn't have time to do it right the first time, but we always have time to go back and do it again.

Steve Rush: That's true, very true indeed, yeah. So, given your experience of diverse leadership and teams, what can we really learn from the last couple of years, having gone through quite a lot of crisis, and that would be varied for different people in different organizations that will really help us be more all in.

Major General Robert Mixon: I think what the change in our world over the last couple of years has taught us is that we need to have strong fundamentals in order to endure and succeed in crisis. You know, many leaders that I've worked with have come back to me and said, Robert, we went back to the big six when things really got off the rails. We said, okay, wait a minute, let's have a tactical balls here. Let's go back to the big six and let's check our esbit as our esbit intact. Do we have people in the right seat, in the right bus, as Jim Collins said, good, good to great, you know, let's revert back to those big six principles and reaffirm them across our team and organization. And those that did said they were absolutely game-changing and enabling them to keep their team intact, to work through the anxieties and the stress to build bore inclusivity in their teams, despite the fact that they were in many cases in a hybrid world that was all virtual than it went to somewhat virtual.

And now, some people are back to being in person, but I don't think we'll ever go back to the way it was in terms of the overall environment. We're going to have to lead through change. We cannot prevent the changes from occurring. You know, our world has changed and it is what it is. It's up to us to effectively adapt to it. And I wrote an eBook here about a year or so ago called Who Saw This Coming? Now, What Do We Do? And you can get it on, on my website, but there I talked about what the crisis was doing to us and how the big six could be our bedrock, our touchstone to get us through it and grow and learn beyond it.

Steve Rush: And I guess the esbit for every organization will be different now than it was two years ago, because lots of things that are impacting on all of that purpose behaviors, culture, values.

Major General Robert Mixon: You have to check you’re esbit on a regular basis and you have to be willing to adapt it. You know, it's I was guilty as a young officer. You know, if I wrote a plan, then we were going to execute the plan. And if the truth changed, so, you know, I'm still not changing the plan. That kind of stubbornness was not healthy. My organizations did perform well when I stuck to the plan and I didn't adapt the plan to the reality that the enemy was out there and had a vote and the environment was changing and had a vote. And the characteristics of my team were changing and had a vote. And I had to be able to adapt to that framework. I was kind of stubborn, I was good at that.

Steve Rush: Great lessons. So I get the honor now to hack into your leadership mind, having had all of these leadership experiences and many, many different environments that you've gathered insights and experience from, I'm going to try and get you to get them down to your top three. So what would be your top three leadership hacks? Robert.

Major General Robert Mixon: I would say the first would be willing to listen to the ideas of others, try and dispense with your preconceived notions and do a lot more listening than talking. That would be my first one. And it's very difficult to do when you grow up in a world where the leader is expected to be transmitting all the time and not receiving. And I think the opposite is actually true. My second one is develop a perspective where you can have others take more ownership of the decision making. The idea here, trust and. I really had to learn to delegate, but I saw a huge return on investment when I delegated to others. One of the tools I use is called a decision tree. I write out the decisions that I must make in my position, and I tell my leadership team, then you've got the rest of them.

So don't come in here and ask me to make decisions that are yours to make. I may challenge you on some of the decisions you make, but you made them. And my job is to help educate you and support you so that you have the tools at your toolbox to make good decisions. So delegation would be my second hack and the first two I've talked about were not easy for me. So I'm not saying this is something you get, you know, in a week or two. I've learned over my journey about them. And the third one I'd say is that, you know, caring leadership has huge second and third order effects in our organization. There's an old saying about, I don't care how much you know, until I know how much you care and that, you know, empathetic leadership is not necessarily sympathetic. There's a big difference between empathy and sympathy.

Steve Rush: Huge, yeah.

Major General Robert Mixon: And I talk about that in the work I do with teams on emotional intelligence, it really was important for me to develop an appreciation for the value of caring leadership. So those would be my top three leadership hacks Steve.

Steve Rush: Great lessons. Thank you for sharing them. Next part of the show we call Hack to Attack. So this is where something in your life or work hasn't worked out as you'd planned, but as a result of the experience, you've now learned from it, and it's now force of good for you. So what would be your Hack to Attack?

Major General Robert Mixon: I would say that my Hack to Attack is that I really was not a patient leader for many parts of my life. And I made a lot of mistakes because I acted too much on impulse and instinct, and I didn't do enough of making an assessment of what decision would be the best for the organization at this point in time. Or in my lack of patience I think I sometimes failed to be as vulnerable as I should have been. You know, people need to know when you make a mistake and you need to step up and say that, admit it. It's not weakness. You know, vulnerability is not weakness. Vulnerability is being authentic. And that's what’s the essence of Level Five Leadership is. It's being authentic.

Steve Rush: Very powerful stuff. So the last thing we do today is give you a chance to do some time travel. So you get to go and bump into Robert at 21 and you get to toe to toe, give him some advice. What do you reckon it might be?

Major General Robert Mixon: Ooh, oh boy. Talk about a challenge Steve. This is really awesome here. Robert at 21 was a very driven young man. I don't know where necessarily I got it from, but you know, I was wrapped pretty tightly and I think what advice I would give myself at age 21 is think before you act. Use that, you know, two second pause or ten second pause to say, hey, before I jump off of my tank and go running off into the woods here. Do I really need to get off the tank right now? Or do we all need to, you know, as everybody needs to just be moving, is all forward movement progress, no it's not. All forward moves is not progress. And I'd say, Robert, you got to, you know, mentally slow down sometimes and take a step back and say, okay, what are we doing? What's our esbit here? You know, what's our mission, what's our intent? Don't just, you know, everything has to be in motion all the time, and it's hard. It'd be hard for Robert at 21 to take that because he was a guy in motion and he felt like leadership was, you know, motion, direction, guidance. You know, I was in that seventies culture of being directive. And I thought that's what right looked like because that's what many of my leaders demonstrate it.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Major General Robert Mixon: So that's the advice I would give me, hopefully I would listen.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's a really interesting one, isn't it? Because time and culture play out so differently based on historic events and you look at how the military has evolved. It has probably been the biggest evolution in the last 25 years that the military have ever had up until that point. It was pretty much kind of command and control, wasn’t it?

Major General Robert Mixon: Well, yeah, the command and control discussion is interesting. Steve, because control is the allocation of resources and time and space. And many of us believe that that's what leadership is. It's really not. That's sort of bandaging in my view. Command is presence. It's establishing an environment where people can be effective because they trust you and they believe in each other. Sometimes you have to have some control. I'm not downplaying that, but you've got to figure out where the balance is to go back to the big six of command and control. And I would say the more command and less control the better, but sometimes you've got to work very hard to get to that level of commanding and control.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I have this mantra, which is, only control, only the things that you can control and everybody else has got their own.

Major General Robert Mixon: That's good advice. That's very good advice Steve.

Steve Rush: So Robert, how can we make sure our listeners can hook into the work that you do, maybe get a copy of the books, find out a little bit more about Level five associates.

Steve Rush: Yeah, great. Our website is you know, HTTPS www.levelfiveassociatess spell out the five levelfiveassociates.com. I certainly invite any of our listeners to you know, come to the site and you'll learn more about me and the work that we do. And you can contact me by, through website or my email address is robert@levelfiveassociates.com. And you know, we'll circle back with you. If I don't circle back with you, you know, something seriously wrong with me,

Steve Rush: We'll make sure that we put some of those links in our show notes as well, Robert.

Major General Robert Mixon: Oh, thanks, Steve. It was wonderful speaking with you.

Steve Rush: And it's been a real honor having you on the show Robert. I love that the six principles, I think there are really great philosophy for leading teams and culture. So we'll do our best to help share this message with our global audience.

Major General Robert Mixon: Well, thanks, Steven. I wish you continued success with The Leadership Hacker program and the good work you've been doing.

Steve Rush: Thanks very much Robert.

Major General Robert Mixon: All right, take care.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker, Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Raj De Datta is a serial entrepreneur, he's the co-founder and CEO of the global software platform, Bloomreach. He's also the author of the book, The Digital Seeker. This show is pumped full of hacks and insights including:

What is the seeker and why we need to focus on them?
Why we would want to swap customers for seekers.
How to harness Raj’s “Three A’s” to unlock creativity.
What the long-term effects will be via digital experiences in the future.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Raj below:

Raj on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rdedatta/

Raj on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rdedatta

Bloomreach Website: https://www.bloomreach.com/

Full Transcript Below:

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Raj De Datta is a special guest on today's show. He's a serial entrepreneur, he's the co-founder and CEO of Bloomreach, which is a leading software platform. He's now an author of the book, The Digital Seeker, which is a guide for digital teams to build winning experiences. But before we get a chance to speak to Raj, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Have you ever tried to change anyone's behavior at work? It can be extremely frustrating. So often with great intention, it provides the opposite results ending in poor relationships, poor performance, and often causes the person to dig their heels in. Still some approaches clearly work better than others. In a study completed by the Harvard Business Review, a data sample of almost 3000 direct reports of almost 600 leaders focused on manager’s 49 sets of behaviors and assessed the leaders under, effectiveness at leading change specifically the manager's ability to influence others and move in the direction the organization wanted to go to. They then analyzed those at the highest and the lowest ratings on their ability to lead change. Then compared with the other sets of behaviors, they found that some behaviors were less helpful in changing others. And also that two had little or no impact, therefore providing useful guidance on what not to do.

Being nice: I'm sorry, but being nice suggests that you may finish last in the game of change. It might be nice and easy, if all it took to bring about change was to have a nice, warm, positive relationship with others. Unfortunately, this research suggests that that's just not the case, and by giving others incessant requests, suggestions, and advice. I refer to this as “nagging” to be quite honest. Now, for most recipients, this is highly annoying and only serves to irritate them rather than change them, but is also often the change that most project managers adopt in the first instance and continue to do so despite their lack of success.

But there were some indicators and some behaviors that did correlate with exceptional ability to drive change, and here are the top four. Unsurprisingly at the top of the list: Inspiring others, and there are two common approaches that most of us default to when we try and motivate to change others' behavior. Broadly, we could label them as push and pull. Some people intuitively push others, forcefully telling them what they need to change. Providing frequent reminders that sometimes following steps and stages with a warning about consequences, if they don't. But we noted earlier that push doesn't often work, if it's certainly not executed well, the alternative approach of course is pull and we can employ variety of ways, and these include working with the individual to set aspirational goals, exploring alternative avenues, to reach an objective, seeking out ideas, methods, design thinking, creativity. And of course this approach works best when you begin to identify with the other person and what they want to achieve and making the link between the goals and the change that they need to see happen.

Providing that clear goal sits at the top of the list too. If I was a farmer attempting to plow a straight furrow, I need to select a point in the distance and then constantly aim in that direction. Change initiatives work best when everyone's site is fixed on the same goal, therefore the most productive discussions around any change being proposed, start with that end in mind. And it serves that strategy well. Challenging standard approaches, successful change often requires leaders to challenges, status quo or the standard approaches and find alternative ways of working. Leaders who excel at driving change will challenge even the rules that seem to be carved in some. And what seems academic simple to say, courage is next on the list. And it is academically simple to say, but behaviorally it takes a lot of practice. Aristotle said you'll never do anything in this world without courage. It's the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

Indeed, every initiative that you begin as a leader stats with that first courageous act, be that a new hire, a change in process, a new product that you decide to pursue, any changes to your team or your organization. Every speech, all of these require courage. The need for courage covers many realms. We sometimes hear people say, oh, not comfortable doing that. Well, my observation is this, great leaders get comfortable being uncomfortable, especially when they change efforts, demand the willingness to live in discomfort for longer than usual. So for those of you that are regular listeners to this podcast, you'll know that I'm a many models kind of guy. I don't believe in following one set of principles or one set of rules. But what I do know is whichever model, whichever book you read, you'll find these traits of behaviors around leading change and leadership in pretty much most of them. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Please get in touch with us, if you have anything you want to promote through the stories that we share on the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Special guest on today's show is Raj De Datta. He's the co-founder and CEO of Bloomreach. Bloomreach is a leading software platform that powers over $200 billion of digital commerce experiences. And that represents over 25% of retail ecommerce in the U.S. and the UK. Raj is a multiple time entrepreneur and now written in a book The Digital Seeker. A guide for digital teams to build winning experiences. Raj, welcome to the show.

Raj De Datta: It's great to be with you here, Steve.

Steve Rush: So tell us a little bit about your story and how you ended up with Bloomreach.

Raj De Datta: Yeah, for sure. You know, I grew up actually in the Philippines and back and forth between the Philippines and India for most of my life and came to the U.S. when I was 17 and went to college and then, you know, spent a number of years in Europe building my first entrepreneurial venture starting at the age of 21. Came back to the U.S. for business school, and then moved out west in 2003 to California and had been doing kind of startups and growth stage ventures really ever since. And somewhere around 2009 was when kind of the initial idea for Bloomreach came about and we were off and running.

Steve Rush: Awesome. So at 21, you set up your first business. Tell us a little bit about that experience?

Raj De Datta: You know, it was a crazy story. I had finished university. I had gone and worked on Wall Street for about a year and a half or so. And I was intending to go back to business school, had accepted admission to do so. And then my boss's, boss said, hey, you know, you've got a summer in between, you know, finishing up with us and going back to school, do you want to help us sort of with a business that we're getting off the ground, that it involves building high speed internet in Europe. And I said, great. That sounds like a fun way of spending a summer, I'll do them. And as I got into it, I got so passionate about working with him. And another colleague that the three of us just decided to start that business together. You know, they had families in New York. So I picked up, I had never been to Europe before, but I picked up, got on the flight and first went to Paris and then London and decided, you know, I didn't really want to go back to school at that point. I was just too passionate about the business we were looking to start and was off and running. And so it was definitely an adventure, learned a ton in that first entrepreneurial venture, but very much career shaping.

Steve Rush: And did you notice that it was an entrepreneurial adventure that you were on at that time? Or was it just one of those things that you look back on and think, oh yeah.

Raj De Datta: You know, I think at the time I just thought it was a ton of fun. You know, the adrenaline was definitely pumping, you know, it was it was just a crazy period of time as well, you know, perhaps dating myself, but it was, you know, in the late nine, 1990s and there was a bit of an internet bubble and telecom bubble going on. And so it was just a crazy time and I didn't really know any better either. I just found, you know, I was doing every job. I was a product manager, I was a developer, I was negotiating financing, I was raising money, I was dealing with regulatory stuff. It was just a ton of fun and much more fun than, you know, kind of the previous work experience I had both on Wall Street. And I had also been an electrical engineer. I felt like it was a very fulsome experience. That was challenging day and night. I worked 24/7, but I just loved it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and it's often those early career opportunities, where you have to put on all of the various hats that you sometimes later rely on in a more mature entrepreneurial life, right?

Raj De Datta: I think so. I mean, you know, I have a blog post out on LinkedIn that talks about why I believe early career people should either start or join, you know, relatively small startups and the logic is that provided you can afford it. The learning curve, you know, for every year that you spend at one of those places is equal to seven years that you might spend at, you know, a big company. And therefore you learn very quickly whether you love it or whether you don't. And, I had a lot of friends and colleagues that I worked with in that adventure who later on went back to more traditional jobs because they just found it wasn't for them.

Steve Rush: Right, yeah.

Raj De Datta: And, you know, and I took the opposite course, but either way, we both found out very quickly, much earlier in life than most.

Steve Rush: Now Bloomreach has been a massive success and it continues to grow. And when you start to think of the fact that you power a quarter of retail ecommerce across the U.S. and the UK, that is an enormous scale, where are you going next?

Raj De Datta: Well, you know, I think there's a long run way, you know, if we look at the eCommerce market as a whole, you know, it's about a $5 trillion market and it's been growing consistently at 15% year over year. We're still in a world, believe it or not, where about 18% of retail sales happen on digital channels. So it's still really early in that adventure. So first and foremost, we're going to just ride the wave and ride the growth of e-commerce to make that happen. But it's really our belief that, you know, kind of the first 20 years of e-commerce. E-commerce is about a 20 year old industry at this point. And the first 20 years of really been about what I call standing up the store, simply being able to transact online in the same way as you could transact at a physical store, but really the next 20 years are about standing out from the crowd because now digital has become a very competitive place. Amazon is one click away, and so the question is what are you as a brand going to do to distinguish yourself so that your shoppers and your customers stay with you and come to you and prefer you? And that's what Bloomreach is focused on doing, is all the many ways we can enable those brands to compete online for scarce attention.

Steve Rush: Time passes really quick, but when you reflect back 20 years for a whole industry to be creative, it's no time at all really, is it?

Raj De Datta: Indeed, you know, I mean, if we think about how old retail is as an industry, well, it's actually dates back to the beginning of civilization, right? People were trading something probably, you know, the first people on earth were trading something with each other. So relative to that, e-commerce is a very young industry in many ways. And indeed, you know, like most technology trends, the level of acceleration of adoption gets faster and faster just as, you know, iPhones were adopted faster than televisions. And you know certain social media platforms were adopted faster than iPhones. So everything just gets faster and quicker.

Steve Rush: Yeah, is it fair to say that we're all digital teams these days?

Raj De Datta: It is fair to say that, and if we're not, then we're definitely on the losing end of the digital battlefield. We're all digital teams. Digital is at the heart of really every enterprise that's out there, every business that's out there. And in fact, you know, I think one of the key differences I'm sure we'll talk about the book that I wrote, The Digital Seeker, and one of the key sort of research outcomes of that is that, you know, in the first age of digital adoption, people thought out of digital as their marketing channel, you sort of had a business and you said, oh, you know, I sell shoes. And now I create a website to sell those shoes the same way I sell the shoes in my store. So digital was a marketing vehicle for my business. And what's true in 2021 is that view of digital is it tends to be very narrow. Indeed, digital is at the heart of everything we do. And therefore at the heart of our teams.

Steve Rush: Do you think there's still room for businesses that don't have a digital or an e-commerce representation these days?

Raj De Datta: I think it is extraordinarily challenging, you know, I will never say never. There's always going to be, you know, the incredible restaurant that everybody knows with word of mouth that has the amazing chef that somebody's going to, you know, that people are going to line up outside to get a reservation at that perhaps doesn't need a digital presence because that's how well known they are. But we have to say at this point, that that's very much the exception rather than the rule. And certainly wouldn't be the way forward when we're building a business.

Steve Rush: Right, Yeah. So you have the book, The Digital Seeker. So what is The Digital Seeker?

Raj De Datta: Well, I think it starts with really trying to ask the question, why do the winners win and why do the losers lose? And it turns out that if you look across digital winners in category, after category, we're seeing a tremendous evolution in the nature of digital experiences. And I describe that evolution as the movement from the customer to the seeker. And so, you know, to make it very real, if we think about what's happened in our own lives digitally, you know, the internet was supposed to make our life easier. And indeed it has, there's a lot of things available online that we would otherwise have difficulty procuring, but really, you know, places like Amazon have trained us to do a lot more work as consumers. So, you know, we figure out what we're interested in buying. We ask our friends, we do the research and then we just show up on Amazon and buy it.

That isn't the way it used to work. We used to, you know, go down to the trusted store and ask them and get some consultative advice and they would do a lot of the work. So Amazon has democratized commerce, but that doesn't mean it's made it easier for consumers. And in many ways, the to-do list of all of us digitally is very, very long. We sit in front of our mobile devices or computers and have a long list of things to do. So, you know, it's our view that the winners actually, aren't just going to make customers lives easier. They're going to go to the root of why somebody's buying the product in the first place and build the experience for that. And that's what I mean by saying, build for the seeker, not the customer, figure out what they're really seeking behind the purchase. If they're buying some plywood, they're clearly not seeking plywood. Maybe they're seeking the idea of building out a deck to entertain their friends. So maybe build the website, building the app for building out the deck.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Raj De Datta: Not selling plywood. And that really is the thrust of The Digital Seeker is that all of us have something deeper we're looking for.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Raj De Datta: Build for that.

Steve Rush: It feels to me almost like you flipped content marketing on its head somewhat, because, you know, you are looking for a transaction and event knowing that actually that's part of a much bigger picture that you can then fulfill through that experience, right?

Raj De Datta: That's right, exactly. And indeed content is a huge part of it, right? If I was building an eCommerce experience for building a deck, I would need to have videos and links to contractors and you know, maybe virtual reality or augmented reality to place the wood in my own surroundings. There's a lot of things I would build that would go beyond, here's some plywood, check out, here's the price, you know, transact.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Raj De Datta: And indeed it turns out that is a much richer experience. It's what consumers want, and it's also the source of competitive advantage if you're an entrepreneur, because if you just put some plywood, then the consumer just says, well, where's the cheapest plywood? I'm just going to buy there. But if you build this distinguished experience, there's a good chance that you'll drive a level of loyalty that you want otherwise.

Steve Rush: So in your book, you call this out. I think you call it by saying, putting the seeker at the center and that's real philosophy of let's forget the transaction that's just occurred. What about the seeker? And what's happening in other parts of their life and work.

Raj De Datta: That's right, you know, and very often we've heard for 20 years or more the idea of customer centricity and often what that means is, that's code for reduce the friction for people to buy from us. And that's fine, I mean, indeed I like it too. If I have to go through two clicks rather than five clicks in order to buy something online, but that misses the boat a little bit on all the other work I did before I made those clicks in the first click.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Raj De Datta: And that's very much what putting the secret at the center means. It turns out to be, you know, everything from what products I build, how I build those product, how I construct my teams, what work they do, how I do research about their intentions. And then certainly how I scope out and build out the experiences that they have with me as a brand.

Steve Rush: So if I was an entrepreneur or a small business owner or a leader of an organization listening to this conversation, and I start thinking about the notion of switching out my focus from my customers to my seekers, how do I start that off?

Raj De Datta: Well, you know, I believe it starts with a lot of whys. So, you know, what you're trying to do is, you're trying to discover your seeker first. So to use, you know, some examples from the book. There's an example of a business called Hotel Tonight and Hotel Tonight, you know, today owned by Airbnb, but was originally a business that was started because the idea was that, you know, you could go to Priceline and you could go to Expedia and you could book travel really easily. But so often there's a certain percentage of travel that are looking for serendipitous travel. They're literally looking for a hotel tonight, not rather than planning a vacation. So what the entrepreneur discovered was, yeah, you could go do that on Expedia or Priceline or any other one of these travel destinations, but it's not a great experience if that's my goal, because it doesn't give me all the experiences that I would look for in terms of serendipitous travel at that moment.

And so what the entrepreneur did is ask a bunch of why questions, why is this person looking to travel? Oh, it turns out there's a certain percentage of travelers that are looking to plan vacations and others that are looking to just book them immediately. And then by asking the why question behind the, okay, why do they want to travel serendipitously? Much of that might be dating, much of that might be last minute business travel, whatever it might be. And then why are they looking to look for a hotel? Oh, well, they're looking for a hotel that has certain character. So by asking deeper and deeper questions, you can really get to the heart of the seeker's intention and build these unique experiences. And then when you end up scoping out Hotel tonight, you find, wow, it looks pretty different than Expedia and Priceline. And now it becomes a lot harder for Expedia and Priceline to compete with the Hotel Tonight experience.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Raj De Datta: Because it's built for something deeper. So it's all about asking the deeper and deeper questions behind why a customer is buying.

Steve Rush: Completely different experiences, aren't they? Same proposition, same product, but different proposition, different experiences.

Raj De Datta: Exactly.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Raj De Datta: And we can find leader after leader in industry, after industry who is asked these deeper question and built profoundly different experiences, which then enable them to compete long term much better than simply I've got the same thing for a lower price and a little bit more convenience.

Steve Rush: So I'm intrigued to learn that when you have conversations with your clients and they already have a well-established set of products and solutions and services, how do you then start journey from, I know you want to sell this stuff, but let's take a step back and look at how do we evolve that seeker intention?

Raj De Datta: Well, it's a great question. And you know, so many brands and our customers and others are a bit in a rat race, you know, they can be chasing next quarter’s earnings or market share, you know, for e-commerce. What we find is that, you know, the wake up calls typically come from their competitors because, you know, if they are not acting in this way, there is some entrepreneur in a garage somewhere, maybe a well-funded garage these days looking to build a digital proposition in exactly this way. So very often the wake up calls tend to come from external forces like that. And then you start to ask the question, well, look, if we don't alter our own thinking, then that doesn't change the market. The market is still going to adopt.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Raj De Datta: The better experience. And that tends to be the bit of the kick in the butt, you know, to rethink this.

Steve Rush: So in your book, you have a model that you use around helping some of this creativity flow and you call it The Three A's Model. And I just wondered if you could spin through let's know how we might harness them.

Raj De Datta: I think the observation is that, you know, this isn't just about sort of business thinking. This has a lot to do with technology. And indeed if you're a business that has aspirations to serve thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of customers, then you can't possibly construct a proposition manually for each of them that speaks to them, because you want that experience to be deeply personalized. And so that's where technology really comes in. And, you know, the three A's are really about the three technology forces that are changing how we understand our seekers and ultimately build experiences to win them over. And those three A's are, you know, first a collection of ambient devices. These days there's more sensors on a piece of clothing than there might be, you know, in an industrial plant.

And so, you know, there's just a lot of ways our customers are speaking to us through mobile devices and sensory devices and ambient devices. And that's the first stage is listening to the ambience. The second this AI, which these days have been, you know, very much democratized and AI is there to make sense of all this data so that it can figure out well, you're the person who's interested in, you know, this type of apparel and somebody else might be interested in a different kind of apparel. And if I'm an apparel retailer, I should construct differentiated experience on that basis. The AI can help you figure that out. And then the third A is what we call APIs, which is a bit tech speak for all right. If I want to go build a hotel tonight experience or an Uber-like experience, I can't possibly build everything required to do so, but it turns out there are services across the internet powered by APIs that I can harness to build these unique experiences. So real the three A's are a bit of the technology trends that we can harness to make our life easier to build secret centric experiences.

Steve Rush: And API's (application program interfaces) are absolutely everywhere across the digital landscape these days, which does allow more collaboration and more effective use of technology. How's that played out for your organization?

Raj De Datta: Well, everything Bloomreach offers is a collection of API’s. So if we think about what Bloomreach offers, we're in the business of offering what we call a commerce experience cloud. And that means, you know, if you're an e-commerce business, what do you need to build your experiences? You need smart marketing, you need content storage, you need a great search engine. You need to personalize that experience. Well, every one of those is an API from Bloomreach. So you could just plug into it and get that service and power your experience and not have to build it all yourself. And that paradigm is very much true in every aspect of so much of digital building block building. Indeed, as you say, APIs are all across the web and they're really the Lego blocks that we can harness to build the skyscrapers we're envisioning for our businesses.

Steve Rush: Yeah, love it. So how have you seen COVID 19 pandemic impact our digital lives, as seekers?

Raj De Datta: You know, I think the pandemic, you know in the book, we talk about how it's accelerated the notion of digital and we know are not as the rate at which COVID 19 has spread, you know, through the world and it's been really fast. But the other acceleration has been the rate of digital adoption. In one year in 2020, a five year acceleration of e-commerce and digitally adoption all happen in the same year. So it's profoundly accelerated everything about digital, whether that be an urgency. We're seeing new shoppers come online that never were before, we're seeing people spend more money digitally than they never were before. We're seeing new categories like grocery and autos, you know, arrive online. So it's just been a tremendous accelerator for digital and it's really caused organizations of all sizes to put digital at the center and then ask how they win, which then raises the question of the seeker.

Steve Rush: And how do you see organizations taking advantage of digital in terms of, not just their e-commerce experience, but their internal experiences?

Raj De Datta: Yeah, I think internally we're seeing a profound, you know, kind of revolution in how people work to begin with, right? So we at Bloomreach have moved to a completely work from anywhere culture where, you know, we believe that for a technology business, the scarce asset is great talent and talent is found everywhere in the world. And so why should we be limited by where we have offices? And so that mindset, you know, I think has itself been a pretty profound shift in how we work and changes everything about the resources and the planning and the hiring and the collaboration and, you know, the culture and all the questions that we previously built around physical spaces now have to be built around digital spaces. So it's changed everything about the interaction between people. Actually I think it's going to create a tremendous productivity, boom, economically, you know, for the globe.

Steve Rush: Hmm, yeah. I agree. I often see organizations who maybe 18 months ago might have been digitally aware are now really digitally enabled. And as a result of it, it's unlocking new ways of working and new learning along the way.

Raj De Datta: Indeed, It's really been a shift pretty dramatically in how businesses work. Now, I think to be fair, we have to be careful about leaving behind the billions of people that do work, that isn't digital. And we've seen that through the pandemic as well. All the people that kept us alive, the teachers, the healthcare workers, the food delivery people, you know, and on and on who may not have been in digital work and we've found we need them more than ever. So it raises as many questions as it answers.

Steve Rush: Coming back to mindset. I suspect a lot of that is mindset of, I'm not in a digital world, whereas many of those careers and manufacturers are in a digital world, but may not have experienced it or felt that they were part of a digital community at that time.

Raj De Datta: That's right, yeah. That's certainly the case. And I think we can do a lot. We have the technology and the desire I think to make lives, you know, just as effective through digital for that group of workers in our economy, as we do for many white collar jobs.

Steve Rush: You've been in the digital e-commerce community for a number of years. And I'm just curious to find out from an innovation perspective, how on earth can you keep tabs of future emerging trends when it's moving so fast?

Raj De Datta: You know, it's incredibly challenging to do so. But I think the benefit of the place we sit is that because we work with 1100 of the world's largest brands in the world, the data flowing in is very rich. So I try to invest in my own education. I try to invest in conversations with people that might be outside the ring of where of interaction and just keep challenging myself. And I'm constantly amazed. And so it is a rich learning experience, but that's what keeps it fun.

Steve Rush: It's also what unlocks your next journey because it's the unknown, unknowns where the future is, of course.

Raj De Datta: Indeed. Yeah, it's certainly true.

Steve Rush: So we're going to turn the tables a little now, hack into your leadership thinking and experiences, having led a number of different businesses over your career arch, and I'm keen to try and get them down to your top three leadership hacks tips or ideas, what would they be?

Raj De Datta: Yeah, you know, I think the first one is, you know, if I were sort of advising a first time entrepreneur, it would start with believe in yourself or don't start the business in the first place. Because all you have really, as an entrepreneur is your own judgment and your own wit and your own work ethic. And so very often, you know, we have these dark moments as entrepreneurs and we struggle with how to deal with situations. And ultimately, you know, the answer is in our gut, and we may as well trust it because it's ultimately what's going to either make us succeed or fail. So, I believe in belief.

Steve Rush: Right.

Raj De Datta: Let’s start there. You know, the second is to be deeply authentic in the business you start and the people you work with. You know, of course the leadership books about how and should do things, but the most important thing is to be true to yourself and express that in every other way, because authenticity is what we all value, whether it's a customer or whether it's an employee or anywhere else. And then the third is to constantly pay attention to culture and values and how rebuild the business as much as whether the business succeeds and lots to talk about in terms of how to achieve that. But those are the three things that come to mind for me.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I love those three. They're great hacks and culture sits at the heart of everything, doesn't it? And will shift.

Raj De Datta: It certainly will. And, you know, I think that the fundamental mistake that most organizations make is that they think that culture is a static thing. And they think that it's really about what the culture is. And you know, lots of people spend lots of time in meeting rooms, defining the culture and to tell the story of Bloomreach, you know, I wrote the document around what our culture and values should represent before I started the business, you know, before I even knew what the proposition was.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Raj De Datta: But actually I think the most important thing we did is to make it real in the everyday lives of every team member. And that means treating it as an operational priority, the same way I would treat sales as an operational priority or product development or anything else. I would say, all right, I've got this culture now, what am I practically going to do every day, every week, every quarter to advance my goals of meeting the aspiration of that culture, because it almost it's never done. And it always is a work in progress.

Steve Rush: And I love the way you operationalize it as well. Because many people that I coach and leaders I coach, we often have the conversation around culture being this non fiscal return, but actually there's a direct return on investment on culture, isn't there?

Raj De Datta: There totally is, and a world in which so many businesses are reliant on high quality people, you know, a culture, you know, hiring the right people and putting them in the right culture is 80% of the game.

Steve Rush: Absolutely. Next part of the show, Raj, we call it Hack to Attack. So typically this is where something in your work or your life hasn't worked out well at all. In fact it could have been quite catastrophic, but you've learned from it. And that learning experience now serves you well in your life or work. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Raj De Datta: The story of Bloomreach, my own business has had lots of twists and turns in the road. And I would say several near death experiences. And, you know, if I think back to where the business was, I had started it in 2009. We were somewhere around 2015, 2016. The business had been successful early on, but was definitely falling apart. And therefore, you know, by 2015, 2016, 7 years in, it was on the verge of complete failure. The initial product was no longer working as effectively as it once did. And the newer efforts were very nascent. And in the meantime, we had hundreds of people in the business. So, you know, it required a fundamental shift in mindset, in thinking and just a dogged stubbornness to continue and press forward. And I remember the meeting I had with the team members in 2016, where I said, look, we're going to have to let go of some people and that's going to be really painful. And let's face facts. It's not working. And I'm here because I want to be a fixed point in the ground. And I believe we're going to build this into the business we all aspire it to be, but we have a lot of open questions and I'm not exactly sure how and that authenticity and the culture we had built kept the team together. And seven years later, it turned out to be a much larger business than the original one that we built.

Steve Rush: It’s fantastic, takes a lot of nerve, but most importantly takes a lot of commitment to pivot away from something when it isn't working too.

Raj De Datta: It does, you know, and that's the quality about entrepreneurship that I think is perhaps less talked about is, it's this really narrow Venn diagram between dreaminess and reality, you know, ability to see reality and truth, because without the dreams, there's no aspirations, there's no long term goals. And you know, you don't aim for the stars, but without the reality, you never get it on, you know, you never start to build a rocket.

Steve Rush: Yeah, in fact, most entrepreneurs who fail aren't grounded in reality at the same time.

Raj De Datta: That's right.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Raj De Datta: Exactly.

Steve Rush: Awesome. Last part of the show, we get to give you a chance to do some time travel. Bump into Raj at 21, and you get to give them some advice. What would those words of wisdom be?

Raj De Datta: Yeah, 21, you know, I think I would say I had, you know, all the optimism, all the drive to go do something big. And I think I would tell myself, you know, go after it. Fortunately I feel like I did go after it in many ways, but I might have said, you know, go after it even bigger, go after it, even earlier, go after it with even less regard to whether it will work out or not. The world is an incredible place and our time is scarce. And so I would just say, you know, get after it.

Steve Rush: Love it. What sets you apart Raj, is the fact that even though you've been Uber successful and created some superb and successful businesses, you still have this ability to be restless and not satisfied that there is something else out there that keeps you going, where does that come from do you think?

Raj De Datta: You know, I think it probably comes from my parents more than anything else. My father is a really world renown agricultural scientist and he was unrelenting in his pursuit of, you know, what he described as feeding the world. My mother was a very well regarded, you know, actress and dancer and a consistent learner. And after never having, you know, completed high school at the time when I was born, now has a PhD and did most of that later in life. We studied together in many ways. And so, you know, both my parents have that restlessness and I think it's a good word.

Steve Rush: That's a great story. Thank you for sharing it. So how can we connect our listeners to you? Maybe help them get a copy of The Digital Seeker and understand a bit more about Bloomreach.

Raj De Datta: Yeah, well Bloomreach. We can go, you know, you can go to bloomreach.com B-L-O-O-M-R-E-A-C-H and you'll learn all about how we really drive business growth for e-commerce. And on The Digital Seeker, you can find it in any bookstore. You can go to Amazon and search for The Digital Seeker. You can go to Barnes & Noble or any other bookstore and it's available online.

Steve Rush: Brilliant, we'll put some links in your show notes as well, Raj so that people can finish listening and head on over.

Raj De Datta: Thank you very much, Steve.

Steve Rush: Raj, it's been great chatting. I'm delighting you to see Bloomreach, grow, and continue to grow. And I'm also delighted you shared your lessons through The Digital Seeker, and thanks for being part of our community here on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Raj De Datta: Absolutely, Steve, it's been a pleasure.

Steve Rush: Thanks Raj.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Celine Williams is the Founder and Chief Strategist at reVisionary. She is an entrepreneur, coach and keynote speaker on the subjects of innovation culture and change management. Celine also hosts two podcasts: @canadaspodcast and the Leading Through Crisis Podcast. In the great show you will learn about:

What a culture engineer does and why its central to success in any organization.
The things that could hold us back from developing a great culture.
What a culture of innovation is, and how to I create it.
How culture has changed though the pandemic.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Celine below:

Celine on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/celinewilliams/

Celine on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reVisionary_ca

Celine’s Website: http://revisionary.ca

Celine on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/revisionary.ca

Full Transcript Below:

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Celine Williams is a special guest on today's show. She's the founder of Revisionary. She's an executive coach, culture strategist and expert in leadership development, as well as being a public speaker. But before we get a chance to speak with Celine, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: While mulling over my weekend coffee, it came to me and I wondered if we could do some research to find out which of the organizations across the globe had the most loyal and dedicated staff, and which of those that didn't. Good employees are a valuable commodity for any business. Hiring training and cultivating top-notch workers takes an investment of time and money. So a loyal workforce is a big plus for employers. So how to companies with similar lines of businesses compare when it comes to typical employee tenure? Why do employees stick around at certain companies and then jumped ship at another, is it all about pay or is it about working conditions? Well, let's dig into a few.

In the world of finance. We're going to compare two companies, AIG and Visa. We've all seen the movie Wall Street and finance is cutthroat and fast-paced industry to work in, but even though they've had their share of bad press over the years, AIG boasts superb employee tenure, almost three times, as long as visa. The average employee tenure at AIG is five years where it's 1.8 at Visa. And even though Visa employees report higher satisfaction rates and earn significantly more than their peers at AIG. Folk at AIG have less stress and are more satisfied. So let's have a look at the healthcare sector. Tenet Healthcare Corporation, and Universal Health Services are two of biggest healthcare companies in the U.S. Each employee is around 60,000 employees, but those that work at Tenet genuinely spend 4.6 years with the company while the typical UHS employee only clocks in at around 1.8 years, stress levels at each company appear similar, but Tenet employees can earn more and report higher job satisfaction.

When we get to technology, the global powerhouses of Microsoft and Google battle out. The software developers and engineers at tech companies rely on are really in demand and always well compensated for their skills. And many of the jobs that are around in these organizations didn't exist a handful of years ago. So it's no surprise that the techies report short 10 years across both organizations. The average Microsoft employee sticks around for four years. A lifetime when you compare that to its archrival at Google, where the typical employee stays with the company for just 1.1 years, of course, Microsoft has been around since 1975, more than twice as long as Google. So they've had time to develop more long-term employees and develop a more refined attraction strategy. And when you look at the manufacturing sector, some really interesting stats come out, Eastman Kodak, boasts the most loyal employees on our list.

The typical worker spending 20 years on a job, given the bad press that came with Kodak's massive drop in profits and revenue, those that stuck around continue to stick around, compare that to the folks that build trucks at PACCAR Corporation, where the median employee tender is only one year, even though employees seem to earn significantly more money and report lower stress levels. And so the leadership hack here is, it's not about salary, it's not about stress, it's about your whole environment. And therefore the better the environment is, the more likely your employees will stick around and contribute to significant and better outcomes for you and your organization. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. We'd love to hear whatever it is that's on your mind. So please get in touch with us in your usual ways, by our social media channels.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today is Celine Williams. She's a founder and chief strategist at reVisionary. She is an entrepreneur, coach and keynote speaker on the subjects of innovation culture and change management. And she also helps two podcasts, Canada's podcast and the Leading Through Crisis Podcast. Welcome to the other side of the mic Celine.

Celine Williams: Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here Steve.

Steve Rush: I'm super excited to have you on the show. I particularly love having other podcasters come and share their stories because you'll know as I, we have the beautiful gift of speaking to so many people, it just gives us more context and more stories to share. So I'm looking forward to getting into it.

Celine Williams: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Tell us a little bit about you and how you ended up doing what you're doing?

Celine Williams: So, I always say it was a long and winding road to get to what I'm doing now. I did not follow any sort of linear path, and I think it's important to acknowledge that because there are people who have a very linear path and there are those of us who don't and both are equally as valid and important and interesting as far as I'm concerned. So both of my parents were immigrants and entrepreneurs. And so I grew up with parents who ran their own businesses, very different businesses but neither of them ever worked for someone else. And so when I was very young, that was kind of part and parcel. I didn't necessarily think I had to work for someone else or be an entrepreneur. I had that kind of a lens on how life could be. And so my first job, if you like to call it outside of like teenage jobs was I actually ran my own tutoring company for a number of years. And which was fun and helped me build a business pre-internet days for those of us that remember that.

Steve Rush: Yeah, just about.

Celine Williams: Before all of the like internet marketing. It was such a different beast when I went back into the world of entrepreneurship. Because I did that for a few years, sold the IP that I'd created for that company. Because I created some programs and actually then went and worked in the corporate world for 11 years and stepped completely out of entrepreneurship into an organization in a very niche kind of area of focus and had a number of roles in my time there, I worked in five very different areas. So I worked in HR, I worked as a project manager, I always joke I was the world's worst project manager, but legitimately I was the world's worst project manager. I'm not detail oriented enough to be good at it. I was just good at the people side of it, like getting people to help me out.

Steve Rush: There should be almost a role for that!

Celine Williams: I know.

Steve Rush: Project manager/people sidekick role.

Celine Williams: Yup, that would have been my role because actual project management, I was not good at. And then I did change management, which I was better at because it was more people oriented. And then stakeholder engagement and communications roles. I kind of did a number of those things over the 11 years that I was in corporate. And at that time I was, you know, I was running teams and had people reporting into me and I started coach training and I was like, I like this. And I like working with people in this way and I'm fascinated by human brains and what people are up to. And I absolutely hated working in the company that I was in and the corporate environment I was in because of the culture, things that you learn in retrospect is understanding that I stayed as long as I did because I liked the managers, the leaders I had.

And I liked the people I worked with day to day, but the overall organizational culture was really toxic. And so I left and stepped into coaching and starting my own business and figuring out being an entrepreneur when the internet was a thing and everyone was throwing all of the different ways to be an entrepreneur at you and made one thousand mistakes and also managed to have some successes along the way. And now I get to have more fun than I've ever had in my life doing the work that I do. And I work with incredible organizations and leaders and we do culture design. And so we, you know, work with organizations around being very intentional and specific with their culture and how to put it into action and make it something that is tangible and real for the people in the organizations. And I work with, very people focused organizations. And I work with leaders who are very committed to being the best leaders that they can be in a meaningful way for the people around them. And yeah, and that is the journey to why I do what I do now and how I was one of those people who was an entrepreneur before I ever thought about working in corporate, just out of the way that I was raised and what I saw around me.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and did you realize that in your early days, that entrepreneurship was a thing or you just going with the flow of what felt right intuitively for you.

Celine Williams: I don't think I really realized it. And parts of that is, that my parents would never have called themselves entrepreneurs. That's not language that they used. It wasn't popular language and the way we use it now in the seventies and eighties. So my parents weren't saying, you know, I'm an entrepreneur. My dad owned a business and my mom owned business. And because they both did it, I didn't really have the connection of parents who go out to an office to work every day, in that way. They both had, you know, businesses that were based in the house and went out to different. Like my dad had a very specific role in construction. And so he would go out to job sites and he would go out to other places, but his office was in the house. I didn't really have an awareness of it. And it wasn't the language that was being used. So when I started, you know, tutoring business, I'd worked for a tutoring company in University, because quite frankly, the money was better than anywhere else. So I was like, oh, I could make under $7 an hour working at any other place, or I can make 25 to $30 an hour working at a tutoring company.

Steve Rush: Yeah, not a tough call really.

Celine Williams: No, and then I realized that they were charging each child $50 an hour. And I was working with four kids at once and I was like, what am I doing? And that's why I started my own business. To me, it was like, well, this makes more sense. And I just knew it was an option. Because my parents, without the language were running their own thing as well.

Steve Rush: And you share in that continued tutoring via the medium of podcasts, teaching and sharing goodwill and insights around the world, but you've run Canada's Podcasts. But also if ever there was a time for one in the last two years, Leading Through Crisis Podcast.

Celine Williams: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Pretty timely, right?

Celine Williams: Yes, so Canada's podcast, there's a group of us who host for different parts of Canada because we have enough different parts of Canada that one person couldn't do it all. It's a network and I host for Ontario cause I'm based in Toronto which is a lot of fun and it's a great, you know, it's great to get to share the stories of Canadian entrepreneurs, but leading through crisis is really my baby in the sense that it started sort of at the beginning of the pandemic, unfortunately and fortunately I had another podcast idea and I kept getting requests from people I worked with or had worked with around where can we listen to conversations that, you know, are timely and about how we lead in these challenging times and what that looks like. And not just there's one way of doing it, but how people have done it and their experiences.

And I thought, well, I know some awesome people. I'll do this, like, you know, short-lived kind of timely podcasts and have some conversations and put it out there. And it just seemed to work and it connected with, you know, an audience and I've continued to do it. And it's incredibly fun and interesting to get, to talk to people in different environments, in different ways, with different backgrounds who are sharing their stories of either how they have led through challenging moments and moments of crisis or how they have worked with people. Who've done it in different ways, and it's fascinating and its lots of overlap and lots of different perspectives.

Steve Rush: And of course, crisis notionally is actually quite subjective, isn't it?

Celine Williams: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So for some people, crisis can be “every day” just dealing with simple small tasks, whereas it doesn't have to be a global pandemic.

Celine Williams: No, and I love that you said that Steve, cause it's one of the things that I say is, that the tagline is leading, you know, leadership in challenging times because it doesn't have to be my definition of crisis. My definition of crisis is, basically change because I think that when people think about, and by the way, I'm not opposed to change. I’m actually someone who has probably more capacity for change than the average person, and I think it's great. And even with, for myself, I know that my initial reaction to change is often like, oh, what are we going to do about this? And that is that crisis moment. And I think it's important that I allow people to define it for themselves and what it means to them. And we start from there, it's not me saying it has to be one way because everyone is different and that is part and parcel of the conversation.

Steve Rush: It is, yeah, definitely so, so I remember when you and I first met, you described yourself to me as a culture engineer, which I love the concept of engineering culture, by the way. So a lot of our work that we have to do with is going to be centered to whether a culture is going to be enabling or holding back performance on people. So how would you go about firstly, just defining culture?

Celine Williams: So, you know, I think the briefest and most basic explanation and, you know, many people have heard this, as it's the how we do things around here. And it really is the values and norms and expectations that are in practice. And I say that in practice is really important because a lot of organizations have culture, I'm air quoting, you can't see me, air quote culture that are, you know, they're words on a wall, right? They are, here's what our values are. Here's how we do things. Here's what we think of, you know, showing up with each other, how we treat each other and that's not actually in practice. And I see that, I wish I could say, I saw that less than I do, but I see that all the time, that the minute you start to talk to people in the organization, they're like, that's not how this works.

We don't even see the leaders doing that. And so for me, the culture is yes, those things, the values, the norms, the expectations, and the behaviors. And most importantly, the behaviors, right? How this shows up in action, because the worst behavior that an organization is willing to accept, that's the bar of their culture. If you accepted behavior, if you let it continue in one person, that's the bar you've set for your culture. And if that's not, what the words on your walls reflect, then you don't have the culture you think you have.

Steve Rush: I love the way you call out the words on the wall, because most of us can associate when we see organizational culture in often things like Z cards or posters, things that are around us to demonstrate what the culture is. But actually there is often a lost translation between those imagery in the marketing collateral. Then the behaviors that go on inside an organization, and the wonder what you think the reason could be behind that?

Celine Williams: Well, I think there's a few things. One, I think culture, it's a buzzword in a lot of ways. And so organizations, you know, we'll hire someone or do something themselves where it is designed to make them more appealing to potential employees, you know, in the world to competitors, whatever the case may be. And it becomes aspirational. So because it's a buzzword, there's an aspirational side to culture. And that's the words on the wall is, we're just going to put something together, that sounds good. And it's like maybe loosely based on what we hope it will be, so aspirational as well. In my opinion is a big piece of it. One of the other things is that if leadership is involved in designing the culture or putting together that language. They are often, especially executive leadership, really disconnected from the actual lived organization and the actual lived culture. So, they genuinely think that their experience with the eight people that they interact with on a regular basis is everyone's experience, and that's just not the case. And we often find that you get to, you know, middle management, whatever it is, and that's where the experience of culture shifts dramatically. So if leaders and organizations are not speaking to the people who are below, at and below that middle management level, then they don't actually know what the lived experience of the culture is. And so, it's well-meaning, it's just not accurate.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I see that too, and the other aspect of that as well, I guess, is that if it's not created bottom up, as well as meeting the top down aspirations, that's also, I guess, where it gets a little bit lost in translation.

Celine Williams: Absolutely. It has to be, you know, when we go in and we do culture engineer, you know, engineer culture, we design a culture with a company. One of the things that I insist on, I've learned to insist on at this point is that yes, we will 100% talk to the senior leaders and get their perspective and hear what they want the culture to be, hearing what they think it is. And if there's not an appetite for us to also survey and have conversations, not just a generic survey with people in the organization, different parts of the organization at different levels of leadership, individual contributors, if they're distributed from different, you know, in office, out of office, whatever, if we are not getting an actual breadth of input, then we will not do the work because then it is words on walls. And I'm not interested in that.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and equally nor would be ironically yeah. Vast majority of the employees in the organization.

Celine Williams: Right.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Celine Williams: Right, and that's just it, if it's not serving them, then what is the purpose of it?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Celine Williams: Because then it's not really about, you don't really care about culture and that's okay, but then let's just admit it.

Steve Rush: So what are the things, the traps if you like? That hold back organizations from truly developing a great culture that they seek?

Celine Williams: Well, I would say, I think one of the biggest ones, there's two, I'm laughing because there's two that immediately came to mind. One of the biggest ones is looking at a different organization and saying, we're just going to copy their culture. You can't copy another organization's culture. And so that holds us back from actually designing a culture and creating a culture that works for our organization, our people, our team. Every organization's culture is different because there are different people in every organization. So to look at, you know, in North America, it's often Zappos or Google or Facebook, or, you know, one of many other big names that are known for their culture and companies say, I want to do that. And they try and copy it. You can't copy it. And that really is a big detriment.

And it holds the leaders, the organization and the people back from stepping into what their culture could be because they get stuck in someone else's idea of culture. And then it never is that, and they, you know, kind of spin out on the fact that they're not getting what they want to get, or it's not looking the way they think it should look because it looked that way for Google. The second thing I would say that's really big is that people think that culture is events or a ping pong table or lunches or whatever. And they get stuck in the, these are the fun things we do that mean we have a great culture and miss entirely the day to day importance of how culture shows up. And that happens again, way more consistently than I wish I saw happening. But it's real, right? People think it's the fun stuff. It's the event. It's those moments that make the culture and it's like, well, your culture is actually your day to day. And shows up when things go wrong. If when things go wrong, people aren't behaving the way you want them to behave, things aren't going the way you want, you know, you think you want them to go, then that ping pong table doesn't make a difference.

Steve Rush: And I've been party to a number of different change programs where ping pong tables and other fun stuff were introduced, but it isn't the materials or the processes that change culture, it's behaviors, isn't it?

Celine Williams: A hundred percent, but it's a lot easier and a lot faster to buy a ping pong table or to have Friday lunches or, you know, whatever the case may be than it is to do the work on the behaviors.

Steve Rush: Particularly, if you buy a ping pong table and then shout at the people playing ping pong, because they're making too much noise, that kind of stuff doesn't work, does it?

Celine Williams: No, and it's real. It's definitely real.

Steve Rush: It's happened in my space. Let's put it that way.

Celine Williams: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So having some of those quirky themes and designing new ways of working are all part of innovation. And that's definitely something that we need to tap into. Because actually that can sometimes change behaviors. But when it comes to innovation culture, how would you go about creating the space so that people can be innovative, that then can then inform the culture?

Celine Williams: So I think the two most important things are vulnerability and failure. You have to create space for people to be vulnerable and to be okay with them. And this is like, I'm going to use Brene Brown's language for this, but that messy middle where it's not going to be perfect. People are going to say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing sometimes, step into awkward conversations, not know the results. That level of vulnerability has to be encouraged because without that, we can't be comfortable failing. And the way that we step into cultures of innovation is being vulnerable with each other so that we are okay with failing and that we embrace those failures and failures, bigger or small, mistakes, missteps, all of that. That's what I'm putting in the language of failure, but we have to talk about it. And we have to be very open about it, many, many individuals, but also organizations have a lot of shame around making mistakes and we try and cover them up and we try and hide them away.

And we try and, you know, blame other people, you know, we get defensive about them, whatever the case may be. Individually teams, cultures that is built into many, many, many organizations and without the encouragement of vulnerability and the ability to step into that meaningfully, that doesn't change. And it's not one or the other, because we can sit at a table and say, failure's great. Let's share failures and let's be as open as possible. But if we haven't created a safe space for people to be vulnerable and to really open up about it, it doesn't happen. Or they bring things that aren't the real failures and the real mistakes that matter. And, or they struggle to learn from it. And they struggle to reframe it into what the lesson is and what the possibility is. And they get stuck in the actual mistake or thing that hasn't worked out the way they want it to work out.

And so I think those are the two most important things that organizations need to work on when it comes to creating cultures of innovation and in some parts of the world, as an example, in some parts of the world, some pieces of those are easier and some of them are harder and that's real. And so it's starting from where you are, where your organization is, where your leaders are and moving and taking the steps forward. You don't have to go from an organization where no one's connected to each other and no one's open, and it's very formal to, you know, everyone is weeping on each other's shoulder and knows everything about each other overnight because now we've embraced vulnerability. There are steps to take along the way, and those steps move all of the innovation forward and they move everything forward and in a meaningful way, when we're on that journey

Steve Rush: Can we go there, and how about explore around some of those steps? Because as you were talking, what I was thinking to myself was, “vulnerability is an integral part of shifting the culture”, but if the culture isn't right, that doesn’t allow me to be vulnerable. How do I break that cycle?

Celine Williams: Well, I'm going to become….

Steve Rush: A bit of a deep question, right?

Celine Williams: No, it's great. I'm going to be a bit of a Brene Brown pusher right now. Because I think this a lot of what she talks about is exactly in this space and that is, you know, it takes courage. It takes courage to be vulnerable. And I think the challenge or the struggle can be that courage, that vulnerability in a larger setting in bigger groups is what holds people back from doing it at all. And I think that the more we can create spaces of safety, spaces of vulnerability, even if it's with one other person at a time, the more we can start to step into the vulnerability and the courage that it takes to be vulnerable. And it is a lot easier for senior leaders for executives to lead that charge and model it. I recognize that than it is for other people. So for any senior leaders and executives who are in organizations or in cultures, that don't really feel that safe or don't have that level of vulnerability, you know, this is a call to arms to be courageous and open it up and make that space for your people because it is a lot scarier for individual contributors or middle management to start and lead that charge.

Steve Rush: Yeah, you also need fast followers behind you, don't you? So behind you is probably the wrong word, “with you” is probably the right word. So you demonstrate vulnerability. You want other people to do it super quick. So you create a movement of people that are helping others.

Celine Williams: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Feels safe.

Celine Williams: And I think that when we lead by example, we find that faster than we think we are going to. And the scary part is the stepping into leading by example when no one else is doing it.

Steve Rush: Right, yeah. So how do you think culture might have changed generally? And this is a big generalization through the pandemic and over there the kind of last 18 months, two years?

Celine Williams: Well, I think there's a lot more awareness of the fact that the things that we thought were culture, a lot of things that a lot of people thought were culture like the ping pong tables don't matter nearly as much as they thought they did.

Steve Rush: Or at all.

Celine Williams: Or, at all, exactly. And I think a lot of people and organizations and leaders realize that the realities. I'm going to put it this way. What they thought was their culture was not actually their culture because the minute that people were not in the same space, day to day, everything went awry to put it that way. And so I think that there is a, I think people are more interested in the realities of culture now, and they're thinking about it in meaningful ways. I think that people realize that even the non-event parts of their culture was really dependent on being in person.

And the hybrid way of working where, you know, distributed, some people are remote. Some people are in office. So, you know, whatever the specific cases may be is here to stay. And I think that the idea of culture has changed dramatically because of that, because what you would do in person doesn't necessarily work with people who are at home. So how do we help people feel connected and safe and like they belong when we're all in different places. I think that the idea of belonging has become, you know, a much bigger topic of conversation in the past 18 months inside of the culture conversation, belonging and safety, because especially in North America, there has been, you know, if you remember to a year, last summer. Not the summer that just passed, but the previous summer, there was a lot that happened culturally.

And you know, in various parts of the United States and Canada, and that changed the conversation dramatically because it affected people at work. And so I think that the realities of mental health have become a bigger part of the conversation around culture. And I think that what people are willing to accept in the ways they work and in the cultures they're looking for has changed. And it's why, you know, people are talking about the great resignation, the language all over, you know, HBR and whatever you're reading right now.

Steve Rush: Right.

Celine Williams: Because people want to work for organizations that care, people want to feel like they matter, people want flexibility. And that is part of culture, your culture can enable that, or disable that.

Steve Rush: And I suspect if we did a survey in a year or two's time, and look back on the organizations who did not suffer as a result of the great resignation, they would have strong foundations of belonging as part of their culture.

Celine Williams: Absolutely, I would completely agree with that, and it's belonging and flexibility where there meeting people, where they're at and people know that they matter. And that they're cared for. That is huge right now.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it certainly is. So I'm going to change tact a little bit now.

Celine Williams: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Going to hack into your leadership brain. So having led startups and other organizations, as well as the firm that you run now and having opportunities to hack into other's minds, I'm going to try and distill your top three leadership tips now. So what would be your top three leadership hacks Celine?

Celine Williams: So I already said this one, I'm going to repeat it because it bears repeating. Lead by example, so it sounds so, so basic. And it's so challenging when things are hard to actually lead by example. But I think a lot of people, and a lot of us do this, we read books, we consume information, we listen to podcasts. We think about the ways things should be, but we don't actually put them into action and we don't try them. So leading by example to me is probably the number one leadership hack. And that means you're embracing failure. I joke all the time that I am the master of trying things out and they don't work and being like, well, I did a thing. It didn't work. Here's what I learned from it. Let's move on. And I share it because I think it's really important to put things into action and to try and to lead by example, you can't expect the people around you to do it if you're not doing it.

So that would be my number one thing. The second thing I would say is to be positive, but not be toxic, not be toxically. I'm making a word up for you, positive, so avoid toxic positivity. Seeing the potential in things, seeing the lesson and things stepping into that space is really important. And we know that it matters for cultures, that there is a real lens of positivity in the leadership and in the culture itself. And let's not overcompensate and not be real and vulnerable by being toxic about the positivity. Everything is not fine all the time. It's not going to be fine all the time. It doesn't have to be perfect. It is okay to acknowledge the reality of things while still holding in your mind, the potential that this could work out in all of these ways. And here's the lessons inside of it.

So, you know, being positive, but not toxic about it would be my second thing. And the third thing, and this is the thing that has probably made the biggest difference to me over my life and is probably the thing that the leaders that, you know, the executives I coach now, they come to me for more than anything. And that is get perspectives that are not the same as yours and work those perspectives into your decisions and how you show up. It doesn't mean you have to agree with them when you get other people's perspectives. Understanding another person's perspective does not mean you agree with it. The more we can get different perspectives. The more we can think about how other people are thinking, how things are going to land differently, the better and more effective we are as leaders. And unfortunately, many of us who are leaders are surrounded by people who think the same way we do, and we create a confirmation bias and we create a cycle that is not actually balanced and is one perspective over and over again.

Steve Rush: I love that last hack. Confirmation bias plays out so much, I’ve heard it called confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, we're actually unconsciously just looking for endorsing our own mindset rather than flipping it and taking it other's perspectives. Because that's what we really learn and grow, isn’t it?

Celine Williams: Absolutely. And, that's, you know, it's really easy to work with people who think the same as us. To be surrounded by people who think the same of us, same as us to not be challenged about the things that we're saying. So we look for it and healthy discomfort, healthy tension is where we often learn and where all the growth is.

Steve Rush: Right. Next part of the show, we call it Hack to Attack. This is typically where someone hasn't worked out at all, maybe have gone wrong, but there is some learning there. And it's now a positive in your life and work. If you had to call out one event, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Celine Williams: I have so many of these. I have so many of these, but here's the one that I would say. And this is kind of an entrepreneurship and you know, questioning assumptions one. When I stepped back into the world of entrepreneurship and I left corporate and I started coaching, I was very focused. So I worked in healthcare slightly more technical than that, but I worked in version of health technology for 11 years. So when I left that world and I started coaching, I was like, well, I'm going to coach people who work in health care or health technology, because that's where all my experiences is, and I know that world and that's going to make sense. That did not go as planned. I hated every minute of it. I struggled to get clients to keep clients.

I was absolutely miserable and it wasn't until I really, first of all, burned through all my savings. When I tell you, I have made every mistake in the book, I promise you I've made every mistake in the book. It wasn't until I had burned through all my savings. And you know, was like, I just hate every minute of this, that I took a step back and was like, oh, I assumed that I needed to be doing it in this way. Cause I had all this experience. I assumed these are the only people who would actually work with me. I assumed all of these things. And when I reframed that and started differently and approach things differently and, you know, got rid of what I thought it should be and how it should look. And these were the steps I should take and did it differently. That's where I found success. And that's what I've learned from is that, leaving the shoulds behind, leaving what I assumed things were or what I think they should be. That holds me back, and there's no lesson in that when I discard that, that's where the opportunities have come from. And I continue to remind myself of that constantly.

Steve Rush: Brilliant. “Should”, really toxic word, isn't it?

Celine Williams: Yep. Very, much so.

Steve Rush: Yeah, last part of the show is we get you to do a bit of time travel and you able to bump into Celine at 21 and give her some words of wisdom. What would your advice be do?

Celine Williams: Stop caring so much about what other people think.

Steve Rush: Nice.

Celine Williams: First and foremost cause that was definitely it. I'm going to go back to the shoulds, that things don't have to look the way you think they should look in order to get you where you want to be and embracing the differences and embracing the unknown as early as possible is going to serve you well, because that was a challenge for me. Now, it feels easy because I have many years on that 21 year old. But at that point, you know, caring what people think and the shoulds has really held me back.

Steve Rush: Yeah, great advice. So Celine, if folk wanted to get hold of information and insights about the work you're doing, maybe tap into your podcast, what's the best for us to send them?

Celine Williams: Absolutely, reVisionary.ca is my website. It will be updated at some point soon. It's a little out of date, but it's a great place to connect with me or leadingthroughcrisis.ca you can message me there and that's where my podcast is hosted.

Steve Rush: You do quite a lot of promotion via LinkedIn as well. So we'll make sure that those links as well as your podcast links are all in our show notes.

Celine Williams: Thank you. That would be perfect.

Steve Rush: I always enjoy chatting with you and you know, we share a lot of common interests around the whole concept of change in culture. And thank you for sharing some of your stories and some of your wisdom as part of The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Celine Williams: Thank you for having me, Steve. It was great chatting with you.

Steve Rush: Thanks Celine.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

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Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze is an internationally recognized coach, leadership development expert, and author of The Unexpected Gift. In this really authentic and wonderful conversation, you can learn:

What is the unexpected gift?
The 7 steps to the gift.
Why when Barbara starts coaching, people have been known to do crazy things.
How to find inner focus and inner leadership.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Barbara below:

Barbara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbara-dalle-pezze/

Barbara on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DPBarbaraHK

Barbara’s Website: https://www.barbaradallepezze.com

Barbara on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barbara.dallepezze/

Full Transcript Below:

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze is a special guest on today's show. She's an internationally recognized coach leadership development expert, an author of The Unexpected Gift. Before we get a chance to speak with Barbara, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we explore the notion of productivity and how you can knock out those two minute tasks super quick. In a super busy world, we all have to pay attention to getting the right things done at the right times. Blocking out time in our calendar is great for deep dives and specific tasks, but you might be thinking what about the many tasks that are on our plates each day? The ones that require a few minutes, the ones you can get the quickly done and put to bed. How do we focus on making sure that we prioritize him the right way? Author and productivity consultant David Allen is famous for his Two Minute Rule.

And the rule is, if it takes less than two minutes, then do it now. And the reason for this is dead simple, many of these tasks like replying to an email or calling someone back. The effort needed to keep remembering them is even harder and takes up more time. Just think about it for a minute. How many times have you thought about that quick to do, but I'll get round to it moment and then you get distracted or carried away only to find by the end of the day, it's turning to a number of tasks that might take a lot of time. And there are other benefits of knocking out this two minute task rule. One reason is it helps you build momentum while you've enhancing your mood. And studies have shown that crossing off even small tasks from your to-do list or to don't list gives you a boost of momentum and boosts your mood.

So by simply recognizing it is a two minute task that we can get done quickly, we stop planning. We engage in the activity and it's gone and we're training our brains to think less and do more, but in a responsible and focused way. The two minute rule is also helpful to declutter your mind as well as your workspace. So instead of holding onto those potential tasks that you might need to do at some point, you clear them out the way so you can focus on what really matters, which is helpful to stop procrastination and improve productivity. Sounds simple enough, but there's one obvious problem. What if the two minute task is completely unrelated to what I need to be doing right now? Worse if something interrupts you or you simply choose to attack it and it takes longer than two minutes. So for Allen two minute rules to work, we need to set some limits.

Number one, only work on two minute tasks if they relate to a larger assignment, you are working on, not distracting you. Number two, set aside larger time blocks in your calendar for your two minute tasks, which might be a half an hour section in a day where you can bundle your or two minute tasks together. Number three, immediately decide on your next steps. This might include designing a time in your calendar to do those tasks, or is it something you do now? And my leadership hack on this is dead simple. We all know every day, there are things that we don't know are going to happen, but do. So plan for it, plan for the unexpected and plan for your two minute tasks. So the response is, do it now or do it in my two minute task window. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. We'd love to hear any quirky stories, insights, or news you have from around the world, so please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today is Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze. She's an international recognized coach, leadership development expert and author of her book, The Unexpected Gift, Barbara, welcome to The Leadership Podcast.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Thank you, Steve. It is an honor to be here with you today.

Steve Rush: It's my pleasure, and hey, how was my Italian pronunciation of your name?

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: That was awesome. You could be Italian.

Steve Rush: Right?

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Yes

Steve Rush: Good. So how's Verona today?

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: It's beautiful, it’s sunny, we have autumn coming in and the colors are amazing. So I would say perfect day to day.

Steve Rush: Great. And as our audience listening from around the world, I can imagine that there is a bit of envy to want to be in Italy with you today.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: It is indeed beautiful these days, so I have to admit.

Steve Rush: So we'd love to get into a little bit about your back story, because you came from a very academic perspective and then turned that on its head to do what you do now, but just tell us a little bit about the story.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Yes, so I am Italian and as you say, I do have a background in academia and I have it also in business and actually the two path kind of went together because I started by loving doing research and it was research into understanding more the dynamics that are between human beings and behaviors and understanding more what the human being is about. And while I was doing these, I was researching, I was studying at the same time. I was passionate about crossing over to the corporate world and do training and coaching in corporations because it seemed to me that what I was researching and discovering within my university and academic world could have benefited so much. The business world, and at the time I was in Hong Kong, so a melting pot in a very eclectic place. And it was the perfect situation where I could tap into both worlds.

And so, and so I did. And so I did, and it seems strange, but my research was in in philosophy and was also in what is called medical humanities researching on pain and suffering and what I was discovering actually it seems very appropriate to bridge into the corporate world where there were a lot of frustration, difficulties, in managing relationship and managing themselves and sometimes very demanding and painful situation. So I love mix and match. And so I tried to bring everything together and it worked.

Steve Rush: Yeah, awesome. And I love the fact that what you studied from an academic perspective is actually the kind of foundations for what you do now in the work that you do now. But I also know from having met with you before that the learning that you were experiencing, the research you were gathering and the work that you were doing was all also going to have to be a really foundational crutch in your personal life, which kind of created that bit of a pivot for you. Just tell us a little bit about that journey.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Yes, you’re absolutely right because when all of the above what was happening, I actually moved from my country to Asian, particularly to Hong Kong and at the same time it just happened that my marriage collapsed. And so I found myself in a position where I had to rebuild basically everything, my sense of identity and my future. And I had to do it by being in the midst of a different culture in a different country with different culture. And really what I needed to find out is how can I rebuild myself? How do I find myself again? And how do I imagine my future again? And that was a call to be leader of myself and leading myself into a new territory that was unknown. And I untapped into, I didn't know what I was going towards.

And so I decided that I needed tools that at the time I knew I did not have. And so I started studying counseling. I dug deep into psychology and the branch of philosophy that actually helps you to clarify concept, like, what does it mean to be? What does it mean to become? What are the structures of the human being? And by I doing that, that helped me actually to find a way for me to reinvent myself and my life, a new beyond. What I have always believed in and what the culture I was brought in, the frame of references I had, everything was new and I needed to find a way to navigate that newness with new tools. And so that's why I decided, you know what, let's me get some tools and learn.

Steve Rush: Do you know what? I particularly like though, is that you actually used yourself as the research method at the time. So you were using your own experiences to kind of heal and to rebuild, and now all of those experiences, you reframe it as an unexpected gift.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Steve Rush: So, as people are listening to this, I suspect they might be thinking. Here's a strong, independent woman who's great in her career. And then she goes to all of this personal tragedy and learning, how do you end up calling it a gift?

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Well, you know, at the beginning it was not at all a gift. At the beginning actually, as you probably imagine, they tell you, well, you will see that this is for your own good. And you are better off like this. I used to get very angry because at the time I did not want at all, [laugh] the divorce to happen. I wanted my marriage to work and I still wanted to be in that marriage. So didn't feel like a gift at all. And however, because my decision was to face what was happening to me and to my life. And as I just said before, trying to find a way to move forward, I allowed for new perspectives, new way feelings, new people coming into my life, new opportunities. And actually in time, I discovered that actually, and that's why I called my book The Unexpected Gift.

The Unexpected Gift actually was not the divorce, [Laugh] the unexpected gift was the journey that single event took me on. And the path I walked that was actually paved with what at the time I did not recognize as gifts, but as my emotional state got better, as I quieted down from the inside, as I got back a little bit of peace and harmony, and I was able to kind of turn and look back a little bit on this new path, I could see that actually so many gifts were there and they were in the form of people that I barely knew offering me opportunities. Situation that were created and that were independent. From me, it was not my doing and yet they were there and they gave me opportunities. It was in the form of being in a country like it was at the time Hong Kong that presented lots of opportunities and many, many unexpected situations.

People circumstances that in time showed up and became actual gifts and opportunities. Let me give you a very simple example. When this happened, I just finished my PhD and literally it happened the same day I was awarded my PhD that my husband delivered the news, and so that was a shock. And I was in no position to find a job or cultivate my career at the University because I was heartbroken. And what happened is that a person that I just met and then knew about my situation and what happened, introduced to me what I call three angels, because they were three ladies from the British Aristocracy that in order to help me, and look, I did not know these ladies, but wanted to help me. And so they kind of invented that they wanted to learn and speak about Italian culture and philosophy and doing it in Italian.

And so they offered to pay me to entertain conversations them about art, politics, culture, all these kind of things in Italian. And so they were like angels because I was like, is it even real that you have people that wants to pay and offer you a job for speaking about these things? And it did happen to me. And so they were my first three angel that helped me to get back on my feet. I had people that I barely know that offered me to stay in their apartment in the center of Hong Kong. And just because they could do that and they had that apartment available. So I didn't have to make an immediate decision on where to move in or where to stay when at a time that I had no clue. So tiny little things like this, they just kept happening. And so if in time I could see how many of these expression I now say of love, and they are those invisible gifts that happen. And you don't recognize them that they are gift when they happen, but then if you pay attention, they are really there. And they are always going on. They are constantly happening. And so that's, why there was a gift, that there was a long answer.

Steve Rush: That's a great answer. The thing that's really quite nice is that the whole human spirit can always kick in, in adversity, can’t it? And there's always great stories of that. And I wonder how much of that experience early experience for you kind of set you again on that path discovery?

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: If you mean the attitude and the disposition I learned to have towards what was happening.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Definitely it has been the greatest discovery and the greatest gift because it really created disposition so that you are open to receiving. And you really never know what is coming your way. And it is my experience that often what we expect is so much smaller than what actually happens and comes your way.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: And so I think it was for me a great lesson to always be open to what's seemingly impossible because that actually can happen in both ways, right?

Steve Rush: Sure.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: In a positive sense and in a negative sense, but yeah.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and as a result of that, do you think that, and I'm generalizing here across the global population, as a species, how much of that lack of awareness or lack of opportunity is because we've just got comfortable and in control?

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: I think that a large of it comes down to what you just said. We tend to choose to be comfortable, and we forget that, yes, that comfort is the one that we have managed to achieve to the point where we are comfortable, but there is so much more than what we have experienced already. There is so much more about us, about our life, about possibilities and opportunities. And it is really, I think it really depends on what you eventually want and how ready. And I would say open you are to actually explore and expand yours sense of who you are, and therefore the reality you can create and can be open to.

Steve Rush: Whole notion, isn't it? Of the more open you are to opportunities and coincidences, the more coincidences happen.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Yes, and let's say the most difficult part is probably to learn, how do I open up to possibilities? What do I need to transform about myself? What do I need to change in order to allow for opportunities to actually show up? And I say show up, but in fact, they are already there and they are already shining in front of us. It's us that hope, and often we are not refined enough in our ability to be aware of those opportunities, because as we just said, we tend to protect yourself and look for safety instead of actually look closely and be more attentive to what is already there.

Steve Rush: And you chronicled all of your experiences into your book, The Unexpected Gift, and you actually created seven steps to the gift to help people on that journey. And I thought it would be really great for us to just spin through those seven steps and maybe get into a few of them.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Absolutely, absolutely. These seven steps are those that actually allowed me to overcome and transform my situation. And very briefly, the first step is of course, to awaken to your own story and actually owning your story. Because as you just said, I was very comfortable [laugh], it was out of a blue that this situation happened. I thought that I was on top of my game. And so it was a shock and clearly I was not really conscious of what was going on in my life and in my then husband's life. So be really conscious in making an effort to be honest, as much as possible as to what is going on in your life and what your reality is about, because then you can expand as we just said before, right.

And you can notice what's at the edge and that maybe is not just in front of you, but nonetheless it's there and needs to be taken into account. I am a philosopher and I was a philosopher. And so, my inclination is to be curious and ask questions, somehow that was not enough because clearly there was something that I was not.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Paying enough attention too, right. Those things at the edge. So first step, be conscious and own your own story. So the second step is building radical relationships. And that was for me, was a key element in the experience and in the traumatic experience I went through. And first of all, radical relationships, when I say radical, I mean, those relationships that actually are solid and grounded, and they are unshakable, they can be relationship that you have built in time.

I was blessed with very long time relationship of more than 30, 40 years, even which dates me a little bit [laugh], but could be also relationship that you have built in the past year, just one year old relationship. But those people with whom you'd really connect, you are aligned and they actually care and build radical relationship are those is key because when these events traumatic difficult happens and they always happen sometimes. And at the certain point in our life, for me, the key of this radical relationship was that they were able to remind me of who I was and what I was about when I was in no position to remind for myself.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: And that for me was key. And it was key in this very difficult moment. And it was also key when I succeeded and I needed somebody to celebrate with it that I actually was going to be happy for me. So spending time, energy resources to look for relationship that can be transforming to radical relationships and actually build those relationships. It's like really putting a treasure into a bank. And then when the time comes, you can go and get your resources out as radical relationship.

Steve Rush: Love it.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: The third step that was for me, very important was finding clarity of mind because when situations like the one I experienced happened to me, there was a lot of confusion in me because what I felt, the way I have thought till that moment, my thoughts. They did not make sense and did not match reality at all in that very moment. And so for me, it was very important to clarify what is actually is going on here, where do I stand? And what can I believe? What can I trust? Because all of these became confused and reality did not make sense for me. I did take a lot of time to find a new level of clarity. That was actually just up to me because in my particular story, unfortunately, then my still husband was not offering me any perspective or any clarity, any reasons for what was happening. And so I had to find somehow clarity within myself. And so I discovered that there is a level of depth at which we can have clarity, no matter what's going on around us. And I have learned to live my life at that level of depth, where clarity was up to me and when it came to others that would bring their elements if they were not willing to do that, that I needed to be okay with that. And so, the third step is finding clarity and distinctions about what was going on that worked for me at the time. And that gave me the minimum level of peace of mind really. The fourth step is what I call enlisting the body.

Steve Rush: That sounds nice and deep. Enlist the body.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Yes, it is. And that was an amazing discovery, Steve, because my mind was racing to find a truth that was nowhere to be found. And so the clarity was just talking about, and my body became kind of a night for me because I realized that I needed energy. I needed positive energy, and my mind was not able to provide that. And so in the very difficult situation where I was in this traumatic experience, I did not have a full-time job, that was difficult, but it was also a blessing because I had lots of time to take care of my health and mental health and also physical health.

So my body, I actually decided to literally leverage my body and the energy could produce. So I would spend hours hiking because I realized that the more I was hiking, the more I was sweating, the more the pain was residing a little bit and the endorphins were produced. And so a sense of normalcy started to appear again within me. And it was amazing because, as an author would say, traditionally built. So I'm not a petite woman. And so I do have a lot of energy and using the energy of my body and my muscles to actually work for me in this case. It was amazing, and just to give you an example. I would really walk for four to five hours a day. That was how much I needed to walk in order to get a sense of a relief a little bit.

And I had found a job after the three angels experience ended, in the evening, teaching in the evening. And so during day I would walk, in the evening, I would go and teach for three or four hours. And by the time I would go home, that was the most painful time when you are alone and you go back into an empty apartment and you realize the life you had is no more there. And every night was a reminder of it. The fact that I used my body so much, I worked out so much and it kept me awake all day. At night, basically the body will drag all of us to sleep. My mind wanted to still ask the questions. No, the body's too tired. Let's go to sleep. My heart was in pain, no way, the body would drag us to sleep. And so it was an amazing blessing to discover this body of mine. And still to today, I keep going with this routine, not five hours a day, but keep the body in the picture is very important.

Steve Rush: It fuels so much other things as well, like sleep. So you just said that, you know, rather than having those things stew over, your body goes now is time to sleep and therefore you get double recovery don't you from that?

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Absolutely. Absolutely. And there was no way that my mind could contradict the body. No, we are going to sleep. The body would say.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: [laugh] and I would just collapse because I was too tired. So that was a blessing in itself.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: [Laugh], so at the last three steps, I will be quick. So the number five is partnering with mentors. Mentors to me, they were unexpected mentors and they are what I called the giant of the soul. And I found mentors in books and the books that tell the story of survivors and particularly survivors of the Second World War in concentration camps. And the reason I found in them, my mentors is, because people around me, my friends, my families, my colleagues, although they wanted to be close to me and help me, they did not go through such a profound painful situation.

And so somehow they could not reach me and help me and be close to me at that level of depth. And I needed to feel like I belonged to a group of people that actually understood really what I was going through because I felt I was at war when all of these happened. And so I discovered that reading about the story of people at survive, the atrocity of war or genocides in Africa, for example, those were the people that were actually helping me a lot. And so I started reading all those kinds of books and I started learning from them. How they were they thinking during their experiences were? What did they do? What did they rely upon? And I learned from them and I felt that I belong to that community. Not that I am comparing my painful situation with theirs, not at all, but exactly because theirs was so much more painful and more tragic and more difficult if they made it, if they succeeded, they were the voice from the future I wanted to listen to and I wanted to learn from, and so I did. In fact, after going through their stories and reading and learning from them, that's when then eventually the shift happened in me because I was looking at their stories as voices from the future.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: And I was learning and they taught me how to look differently at my life and myself and the future. And that was an authoritative voice, [laugh]. It was great, I was so grateful that I was able to learn from that in that manner. Giant, giant of the soul.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: That's what they were. Number six is forward in the future because at that point I was free to look at a future that I did not want at first, I did not know what it was. It was completely different from what I've always imagined and until that point, it was very scary for me to look at my future and imagine what it could have been like, because I had no clue what it could look like. I've always thought I will be married, I will have kids, I will have my career, and that would be it. And now, here I am, not married, I don't have kids. And my career is in the making. And so I needed to learn how to be in a new world as a new person. But by then, I was able to make the step into that new future. And I started to imagine in a new way. And therefore I started to forward the future and started to make it happen and bring it to life because then I was ready and step seven, which is a crown to all of these is what I call paying it forward to complete a healing process. To complete this path of renewal and transformation essential is that I could pay it forward.

So all people that have helped me throughout this journey, and they have done it just out of share love and willingness to make me feel better or contribute. I needed to pay it back. And so part of what I do now, and my life is always having this very clear in front of me that I need to pay it forward. And so when the opportunity comes, I want to do it. So, what these people have done for me, I am going to do it to somebody else that it might be in need, and there is something I can do to help. And that is actually the crown, as I said, of these path and all of this become a gift.

Steve Rush: And you're paying it forward that gift, by the way, you're paying forward by just sharing that story with us today. So it's just amazing. And I love the way that you've kind of been able to create that almost flow of activity to get you to the state and space you're in now. So well then you

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I could not, not do it,

[Laugh].

Steve Rush: Yeah, and that paying forward is also now a huge part of the work that you do through coaching and supporting other people. And ironically, I remember when we spoke last, you were telling me that you often come with a bit of a health warning when people get to coach with you, because, you know, I remember you telling me that one person said to you at one stage. When Barbara starts coaching, people start resigning, be careful. Is that part of that kind of unlocking people? And is that part of that process?

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Actually, I think it is because after going through my story actually, [laugh], and my story made me who I am. For me, it is essential that the people I work with, in order for them to fulfill and to feel that they are living their purpose, they do need to be aligning. They need to own their stories. They need to be connected to who they are at that moment in time when I meet them and be authentically who they are and align with their core values. And often if this is not the case, and for example, in the situation they are in, and the job they are in, they are not aligned. Then they are not in alignment with who they are really. And that's also what caused them to be frustrated or not being fulfilled or being actually in pain, because it often happens.

If you want to regain efficiency, a level of wellbeing that you do need to function and to be creative and generative in your work and the people you lead, you do need to be connected with who you are at a very deep level. And when these happens, situation shifts and change. I don’t know if I mentioned to you, but I mention it now because it is a beautiful story. I was working in China with a top executive. She was heading the sales of a big chain company in China. And she has been doing that for many years. She was financially free by then and still very young, but she was not happy, she was a woman. And we started working together and we worked together for one year, bit less than one year.

And eventually what ended up being for her is that I don't to work in this position in this company anymore. What I actually I want to do, that I've always postponed it. And that is something that I really care about. And now I am in a position of doing, but she didn't have the courage to do. She wanted to go and spend time with penguin and research on penguin in Antarctica. And so, that's what she decided to, that it was time to do. And so she decided to quit her job and to transform completely her life following what she did not have the courage to follow with before. And that was the result of just helping her reconnect with what she really wanted to do and who she really wanted to be.

Steve Rush: Awesome.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: And that she did not have the opportunity, the courage, and it was perhaps not the right moment before, but it became the right moment. So this is kind of an extreme situation. Not saying that it's always happening

Steve Rush: Just for anybody who's considering hiring Barbara as a coach, your team are safe. Nobody's going to be, you know, leaving in droves.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Thank you, Steve.

Steve Rush: You're welcome. I just thought it was worthwhile putting a little bit of a public warning message out there just in case everybody's thinking, blimey, I'm not hiring Barbara. On the contrary, what you are talking about with Barbara is purpose, right. Finding people's purpose, and we all need that in our lives and our work.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Yes.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Absolutely, that is what motivates us, right?

Steve Rush: Absolutely.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: And even if we are not connected with our purpose, we can push our self. We can strive to obtain results and we do, but the cost and the energy and actual, the actual results are not as well rounded and as great as they could be if we were connected to our purpose.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: So, yeah.

Steve Rush: So you've been doing some traveling, taking some time out, but what's next for you and your work?

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Well more and more, well, hopefully I will resume the traveling as soon as the situation settles a little bit more. And that continues to be important because for me is a source of creativity and learning from diversity for me, it's key. So I always am in a curious and in a learning. I want to help the other, you wanted to keep learning from others, right? So traveling is there for me and more and more working to help people and my client overcome and transform relationship conflict. And when I say relationship conflict is also because what I mean, and I tell you in a minute. Due to the fact that the situation we have been living has put a lot of pressure into relationships, all kinds of relationship. Relationship that we have at work, relationship that we have at home and in family and all relationship become core in the way we live our life and we can achieve results. So more and more, even because of my experience, I want to help people overcome and transform relationship conflicts into opportunities, opportunities for change, to reconnect with a purpose that people might be scared to look at. And from there actually working towards developing the leadership, I don't know even makes sense all of this, but starting from a relationship.

Steve Rush: Everything is a relationship, isn’t it? Whether you're at work or at home. And they're so connected that if your relationships at home are not great, then you are not going to perform at work. If your relationships are home are great, but they're not at work. You're going to take that back. And then one in impacts the other, doesn't it?

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Yes, and particularly now that, the hybrid kind of working, right, we might be working remotely more than before. We don't go to the office as we used to before. Become expert and capable of mastering, actually relationship at a distance. It is an art and we need to learn it more and more because it is too important. As you say, everything is relationship, and the means to which we relate to each other and connect, and the way we interact has changed. And we need to learn the art of relating to ourselves and others, I believe.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I concur. So, you know, Barbara, at this stage, the cadences of the show is, we get to turn the lens a little bit, and I'm going to tap into your leadership mind and try and get all of the life's lessons and work lessons into your top three leadership hacks. What would they be?

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Wow, condensing it into three.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it’s a tough gig. I know that.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: So I would say, first, do the inner work, do really the inner work and discover all that influences who you are and how you behave and how you feel. I call it the inner work of leadership. The second is collaboration, collaboration beyond differences. So cultural differences, gender differences, age differences, learn to collaborate in all kinds of possible directions, because I believe that's the future as well. Given that differences are many and are there, and at the same time it is as if they're are, the differences are, don't play a role because we need to connect and relate beyond differences and collaborate beyond differences. And the third, I would say humility, we need to relearn to be humble. And by saying humble, I don't mean that we need to be hesitant in doing things or don't need to be aggressive or this kind of thing. When I say humility and learn to be humble, it means to recognize that in order to move forward, in order to make situations better, we do need the help of others and from many different others. And so we cannot be arrogant anymore and pretend that's all up to me, but become aware and conscious that actually everything I do is supported and is made possible, but the contribution of others even if I'm not aware of it. So I think that these three, inner work, collaboration beyond differences and humility would be the three top tips ideas.

Steve Rush: So next part share, we call it Hack to Attack. Now you've already had the head start on this one because your unexpected gift is undoubtedly a Hack to Attack, but we kind of frame this in where something in our life and work hasn't worked out well, but that event has now created a positive in our life and our work. So outside of your unexpected gift, there any other gifts that have become Hack to Attack for you?

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: I don't know if this is a gift, but I think it's a funny story, [Laugh] that I like to say. When I was deciding what I would become, right. And starting at the university and what would I be? Architect was a possibility because my family business, my father is an architect and he has always had a very, successful practice. And so I was supposed to become an architect. And at a certain point, I started for a couple of years, architecture. And then I decided, you know what? I cannot build houses and studying the materials, the mathematics of building houses or buildings, if I don't know how a human being is built. So the people that will inhabits the house [laugh]. And so, I just decided to leave the studies I was doing at the university. So I stopped studying architecture and I moved to philosophy. And when that happened, it was kind of a tragedy because [laugh], what would Barbara do given that the business here was already set up and successful and the rest was to be built and fast forward. Now everybody is saying, we are so lucky that Barbara didn't study architecture [laugh] because the houses that would come up will be very strange because my sense of the measurement are really funny. And so now it is a joke around here that luckily Barbara stand up for what she believed in, [laugh].

Steve Rush: Managed to preserve the architecture of her own.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: [Laugh] exactly. It would've been at risk, so [laugh].

Steve Rush: Awesome.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: And I say this, which means that I learned that really what you need to stand up for, what you believe in, and trust your intuition, even if people around you are against you and don't understand it because eventually time [laugh] showed me that was the right thing to do.

Steve Rush: And that's the hack right there, isn't it? Listen to that intuition.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Exactly.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and the last part of the show, we get to give you an opportunity to do some time travel and you can bump in to Barbara at 21 and give her any advice in the world. What would it be?

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Wow, I think that it goes back to what I said at the beginning of this conversation. I would tell Barbara at 21 to be open to the seemingly impossible because it does happen. It can happen and you better be open to it both in the positive sense as well as in the negative, but be open to what is seemingly impossible and don't limit yourself to what you can imagine, but really learn to go beyond your imagination. I think that I would say that to Barbara at 21.

Steve Rush: And I think she would think that would be great advice as well. So how can we connect our audience with the work you are doing? And maybe let them get a copy of The Unexpected Gift. Where's the best place to send them?

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: They can connect with me on LinkedIn. I am quite active there and they can write to me and I will be happy to send them my book or if they prefer the Kindle version it is available on Amazon, the Kindle version, or they can connect with me through my website, my name, barbaradallepezze.com

Steve Rush: You sound so much better than when I pronounced it earlier.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Oh, no, you pronounce it very well actually, Steve.

Steve Rush: And we’ll make sure that we put those links in our show notes as well for you.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Thank you very much

Steve Rush: Barbara, it's been wonderful talking to you. I love the fact that you've taken your life's lessons and it is now created a great and successful future for you. And I just wanted to say grazie for being on our show.

Dr. Barbara Dalle Pezze: Oh, that's amazing, prego. It was really an honor and a pleasure, Steve. Thank you for having me and really you have a great show here.

Steve Rush: Thanks Barbara.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

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Kevin McCarney is a successful entrepreneur, owner of the restaurant chain, Poquito Mas, public speaker, and mentor. He's also the author of Big Brain Little Brain. Kevin has managed to flip neuroscience into easy to digest language. You can learn about:

Neurological responses in our big brain and little brain.
What the Little Brain Activators and Big Brain Boosters are and how we could use them.
How to “find neutral” and execute awesome communication.
How to avoid little brain baggage words and make sure every day is a big brain day.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Kevin below:

Kevin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-mccarney-5989a92b/

Kevin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigbrainlegacy

Big Brain Little Brain Website: https://bigbrainlittlebrain.com

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Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Today's special guest is Kevin McCarney. He's a successful entrepreneur, restaurant chain owner, speaker, and mentor. He's also the author of Big Brain Little Brain, but before we get a chance to speak with Kevin, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: There's a communications theme in today's show. So having spoken to hundreds and hundreds of leaders around the world, we've distilled the top five communication hacks to get us going. For many of us and for many companies and industries around the world, communication has changed drastically. And for many of us, our tried and tested communications methods may no longer work as they used to. Now, this might not seem like a big deal, right? But considering how many online collaboration tools there are available, even the choice of your online tool can make a difference to how you are communicating based on quality and experience. And when we change our communications channels, we fundamentally change how we also communicate whether that's conscious or unconscious.

So, in the transit to remote working, we all knew video would be an important thing. And a lot of us still try to avoid using video. If we've had a bad hair day or feeling lousy, or we just want to put some really casual clothes on, but think of how many video conference calls you've had, where most of the participants have kept the camera off, what's happening for you unconsciously? Well, Tracy Brower, author of The Secrets to Happiness at work says it's a mistake to avoid using video. And she outlines those reasons as. Video demonstrates responsibility, communicates confidence, will help build trust and rapport, will help you engage, and video can make you memorable to other people. And Tracy goes on to explain, of course, video may not be appropriate all of the time, but situations where it's preferable, take the advantage of making yourself known.

When we start skipping into writing, many of our in-person conversations have turned into emails, Ms Teams messages, texts, notes, and project management apps, and intuitively we tend to send simple texts or messages. But the problem is, that you lose a lot of contexts when you turn your verbal words into text. Business Communications Expert, James Chapman explains what this means. And he says, we can't see smiles or friend expressions. We can't hear a person's voice when we read an email, we're missing the details that help us perceive the mood of the moment. All we see are blunt words, black and white. Lacking is an important visual and audrey cues, makes us fill in the gaps. So, hacks when writing? Ask don't tell, direct instructions can often seem as demands, try and avoid using exclamation points or overusing them. But if you do want to make a sentence sound upbeat or happy, then that's the right time to make a statement appear less flat, start your message with a disclaimer.

If you're given feedback or addressing a difficult topic, start with a sentence that says you are writing with kindness and a smile, positivity helps. When you're communicating, explain your intent. And it might seem obvious, but there is a real short of digital body language when you were online and on our Teams or Zoom or Slack meetings. And because there are less physical cues to clarify our intent, people assign meaning to all sorts of non-verbal things that we are trying to say, but do so unconsciously. So, the hack here is by stating intent early, people understand where this comes from, where the message comes from, and it removes the ability for them to start deciphering their own meaning of what you're trying to say.

Use storytelling to make your message more engaging, think of how many dull meetings you been into it where just didn't really get to understand what the desired outcome would be. The hack here is to zoom out, to think bigger before we go deeper. And sometimes we get so enamored in the deliverable. We lose sight of the larger story or the larger strategy, and we focus too much on the detail and sure detail is incredibly important, but if people understand how it connects to a bigger story, they're more likely to pay attention and more likely to take action. And finally focus on your communications by creating an experience. Jennifer McClure, CEO of UN Bridal Talent and disrupt HR said, that the adoption of a new communication tech wasn't always a strategic, it could have been. Jennifer says that a major failure of adding in new communication technologies is they're often implemented without a clear goal, which leaves holes in our internal communications and other communications tools get added to patch these up and in turn, it makes a mess of the whole communication system, but as communicators, we own it. It's up to us to create an experience that unifies the people that are paying attention. So, use one platform, but use other tools if they add value, if they don't, ditched them. That's been The Leadership Hacker news today. We always love hearing your stories. So please continue to get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Kevin McCarney is our special guest on today's show. He's a successful entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Poquito Mas chain of restaurants. He's a speaker, mentor and author, and his latest book is called Big Brain Little Brain. Kevin, we'd delighted to have you on the show.

Kevin McCarney: Pleasure to be here Steve. Thank you so much for your time.

Steve Rush: So, you have a really great story to tell, and I'd love to kind of get to a little bit about how you arrived and what you're doing today, because it's not a traditional route that you took and actually involved a little bit of an epiphany along the way. So maybe tell us a little bit about the backstory?

Kevin McCarney: Yeah, thank you very much. Well, I grew up with a very, very big family where winning the argument was the right of passage. I had four older brothers, two younger sisters and my parents and we we're constantly arguing about different things. And I learned how to win the argument. I learned how to deal with lots of different situations because we moved so much. I think we moved eight times before it was eleven. And so, I got used to reading people before I could even read a book. And I went to work early and I got a job at Universal Studios when I was about 19 and I became a tour guide there and I thought, oh, this is really cool. All I have to do is say the same thing every day, and I'm good, right?

And I don't really have to pivot very much. I don't have to think really. And so, it's like, it was fun for me, but then, it was one particular day, you know, I'm this 19-year-old snarky kid. And there was a really hot day. The trams were breaking down because it was over 110 degrees. And all of a sudden, I got a call over the speaker, Kevin, tram on the right. They're all yours. It's a group from Europe, they are not happy, good luck. So, with that, I walk down the tram and I try to make smiles and say hello to people. And they are arms crossed, brow furrow, they were just not going to look at me at all. I get to the front and the leader of the group grabs my arm. He said, take us back to the bus. We don't want to do this anymore. You can't do this to us, and I looked at him. I said, sir, that's way above my pay grade, but you're going to have to sit down because we're moving. And the driver heard me, immediately started moving the van, and this is a three-car tram. So, I have 128 people on this thing. And they're all looking at me like they're angry at me. Like I'm the one who's responsible. And so, my immediate snarky, 19-year-old self-asked the gentleman to sit down, he did, but he looked at me. He says, well fine, but we are not going to have a good time. You cannot make us laugh. We will not enjoy this. And so, I looked at this and I said, okay, in my mind, my snarky 19-year-old says, oh, this is just another argument to win.

Right? I'm going to win this argument. I'm just not going to give them a good tour. I'm not going to point things out. I'm not going to show them different things that they've paid to see. I'm not going to do that. And then in the front row of the second car was a family from the Midwest who was completely sunburn like everybody else because of the time in the sun. And they had big smiles on their face and they had t-shirts from the football team that they liked. So, I could see where they were from, but they were smiling at me. And I looked at them and I didn't realize that in a split second, I just made a decision like, wow. Instead of giving a really snarky tour, I'm going to give this family the best tour I can because they're there to have a good time.

And so that's what I did. And I began to give that tour to them slowly but surely the people around them came along on the tour and they all started laughing by the end of the tour. Everybody was having a good time and laughing except for the grumpy leader. But it was amazing to me that I didn't even know I had that in me. I didn't know that in a pressure situation, I pivoted from being this kid who wanted to get back at this group to somebody who wanted to make these four people happy because they were smiling. And so, the group said goodbye to me. They were very friendly. But the family waited to speak to me. The father looked at me, said, son, you really turned that group around. Because they were not happy. And I looked at the family and I said, no, you turned them around you. Your smiles gave me permission to switch completely, to a different attitude. And I said, I was going to give completely different tour. It was not going to be friendly. It was not going to be nice. But instead, I gave that tour and the mother of, I can feel her hand to this day, puts her hand on my shoulder. She said, well, I want to thank you for choosing to give us that tour because, we can never were afforded to be in California again. This is the only time and this just made our vacation. Wow, so, I had no idea the power that I had, even as a tour guide, doing my job on these people's life.

Steve Rush: It's an amazing story, Kevin, isn't it? You think about the whole principle behind what makes people tick? You could have changed and made a bad day for dozens of people, right?

Kevin McCarney: Oh, so many and myself included because what I didn't see until the end, there was one of my supervisors getting off the back row of the tram, because he was auditing me to see how well I was doing. So, you can imagine where my career would've gone and it's a good idea for everything in life, you know, you don't know who's listening sometimes, but in this case, it was a lesson to me. She said chose, that stuck with me for a long time. I'm trying to understand what's happening in pressure situations where you can pivot from one attitude to another one in a split second under pressure. And what I realized and I started doing so much more research on this, which was one of the Genesis of the book, I started making notes on throughout my entire career is how people handle different situations.

Steve Rush: What I particularly love about the story, because you tell it in the book is, you've described throughout the book, actually this whole kind of neurological response to how people deal with communication, except you've done it from a non-medical, non textbook perspective and used your own life choices and experiences in playing it back for people to understand in simple terms, right?

Kevin McCarney: Yes, absolutely. I started my own restaurant company after that, did a bunch of stuff, then started my company and I realized, okay, I'm learning this stuff myself, how I can manage any particular situation, I can handle pressure. Now, how do I teach my team how to do that? How do I teach other people how to handle these situations? And use a really important segment there, a non-medical, a non-academic language. So, it was easy for people to grasp and they could see it, rather than sounding like, oh, I'm going to use these fancy words. I want to use everyday language so that it made sense in everyday situation.

Steve Rush: And I guess that's where the whole notion of Big Brain Little Brain comes from, right?

Kevin McCarney: Exactly, and I did enough research to where I started asking everybody and friends of mine, physicians and stuff like that, and you know, it really comes down too, you know, when people drink, their big brain gets cut off from their little brain. The little brain is that reptilian fight or flight brain. And the big brain is that neocortex, all the smart stuff that we know, we know what the right thing is. And what you realize is do different influences, whether they're chemical or environmental have an impact on the way we communicate. Our communication is in constant state of evolution. We're learning from the people around us, but one of the things I noticed and I started really understanding is that the big brain is that brain that's in control. It's genuine, it's thoughtful, its kind, it’s a good listener, and it builds trust when you communicate with the big brain. The little brain is that impulsive, sarcastic, snarky, selfish. The brain that snaps back, just a slightest provocation and a really poor listener, and it creates mistrust. And the difference between these two worlds is you're going to have a peaceful life or you're going to have a life that's going to have a lot of bumps of chaos in it. And little brain will create chaos, where big brain will try to come in and clean it up. But if you use your big brain to begin with, you have a much smoother path ahead.

Steve Rush: One of the things you said at the top of the show really interested me actually, and it plays on that whole notion of how you read people before you read books. And that's kind of ironic because it turns out that you are dyslexic, and therefore actually you had to rely more on your unconscious behaviors playing out and reading people than you would've done, perhaps working around text and stuff. How much of that did you notice was developing into something over time?

Kevin McCarney: You know, so much in growing up. That's exactly what I did. And one of the things that I got really good at reading and again, I didn't read my first book until I was 21. And I was convincing from a friend of mine because I was just so frustrated with the words and everything. But what I got really good was reading tone and I realized how important tone was to every communication. And tone's very difficult in a digital age because I don't think emojis quite give you the tone that they're intended. And so, what I really got to learn was, how much the tone is the message of what you're saying, because you can say the same words in a different tone and they mean something completely different.

Steve Rush: Right.

Kevin McCarney: I walked into my house one time, 19-hour day. I just want to get in there, sit down and grab some water and relax. And there's 25 choir kids jumping up and down and singing at the top of their lungs. I hadn’t known about this meeting, but I opened the door and it's like, okay, what have we got going here? Right. That's what I said, because I had trained myself in situations. But can you imagine if I walked in and went, okay, what do we have going here? Same exact words, but the message to the audience is completely different. And I can tell you, my daughters appreciated the first tone because that's the one I used. And what you really understand, especially as a parent, but also with employees. The tone is the message. And if you can control your tone, you can control the conversation. You can maneuver any conversation. And the most important part of that is that tone is usually the first thing that begins to escalate in a conversation that turns it into a confrontation.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Kevin McCarney: I had four, older brothers, I had to get good at this, right. So, I got really good at managing my tone and pulling other people into my tone instead of following them into their little brain tone.

Steve Rush: And you call out in the book actually, little brain activators and big brain boosters, right?

Kevin McCarney: Yes, that's correct, yeah.

Steve Rush: Got it. So, what are they and how would we use them?

Kevin McCarney: Little brain and in the book, we have the little brain words in that, but it really comes down too, what people think about you is the last impression that you made on them. So, if you're thinking about, oh, I want to use this company for doing some editing or something and you're thinking, oh, you know what, let me think about which company, and you go to that company and your first thought is going to be the last impression that person made on you, not the first impression, but the last impression.

So, if the last impression was that person's rude or disrespectful or abrasive, you're going to be switching to, you know what, let me look at somebody else because what happens is, when we get activated and it could be something as minor as somebody disrespecting our favorite football team and all of a sudden, we think, well, I have to fight for my football team and I have to say something back or it could be cutting off in traffic. Somebody cuts you off and I have to go after them or just somebody being loud in a movie theater. And I think that these are all little everyday situations that if we allow them to annoy us, it gives little brain a lot of power over what we're going to say. So, the idea is, yes, there's going to be things that annoy you and bother you every day. And it could be all these little things. It could be anything at work. It could be things that have been piling up. But if you allow any of these everyday situations to turn that annoyance into a confrontation, then it's because you haven't taken control of that moment. And that's the whole idea buying Big Brain, Little Brain is keep Big Brain in control. Keep Little Brain out of the conversation.

Steve Rush: I remember when we first met Kevin, we talked about this whole notion. One of the things that I found really inspirational is your ability to what you call finding neutral. And often that's the bit between where people are activated, triggered, other language in other walks of life. And that emotional response kicks in, is often then too late to tap into your big brain. But you find this bit in the middle called neutral. And I think that's a really essential part, then isn't it, how we then learn how to respond, right?

Kevin McCarney: Exactly. And as we mature, we get better at it. And the more we use neutral, the more natural it becomes for us in these situations like where, you know, I walked in and I got surprised, or you get surprised at work with somebody ambushed you with a report. They want you to do anything. But if you can get to neutral and you know, Victor Frankl who survive four different concentration camp, wrote 29 books on human behavior. He had the best line on that. She said between stimulus and response, there's a space. And in that space is our power to choose our response.

Steve Rush: Right, yeah.

Kevin McCarney: Very much like I chose to give a better tour. And I didn't even know about Victor Frankl at the time. We have a choice, no matter what pressure we're under, whatever somebody has done, somebody's poking us or prorogating us. We still have a choice. And we talk about the fight or flight brain all the time and media and stuff like that. Oh, it's fight or flight, but it's much deeper than that. There's another part of that whole idea is neutral between fight and flight, there is neutral and between and neutral is where you get to pivot and decide where you're going to go. And flight doesn't always mean running away. Sometimes it means stepping out of the way of a problem and fighting doesn't mean you're always going to be confrontational as much as you're going to stand up for yourself if you need to. But the idea behind getting to neutral and having a neutral word and my neutral word as you heard is okay, right.

I practice saying, okay, in a very positive tone of voice, because even if, no matter when I'm surprised, I'm going to use my neutral word or my neutral phrase, and we give a whole example in the book. People keep sending me their neutral words. One of them is already or oh really, or interesting, or gosh. Any of these phrases or whatever one people have. And I believe everybody has their own neutral word already. They just don't see it as a tool, and it’s a wonderful tool because if you can get to neutral under pressure, it's an immediate awareness that, oh, I had better not let my little brain finish this conversation because it's going to create a problem for me that I got to clean up. That's I got to bring my big brain into here to finish this off. That's what neutral is. And more you use neutral. The more you use that neutral word, the better you're going to be, because it's going to make you stronger and stronger.

Steve Rush: So, the Importance of having a neutral word is really essential, isn't it? Cause without it, I guess you would then trigger more little brain activators.

Kevin McCarney: Yes, exactly. And I think that what will happen is, you fall into a little brain cycle of, oh, what's the next little brain thing I can use or say, if you don't realize, because the neutral gives you the awareness that you need in that moment. You use your little brain, somebody else is going to respond with their little brain and you just get into a little brain cliche war of talking back and forth and you're get completely off top and you get away from even the conversation you were in, you get more into a reactionary comment.

Steve Rush: And without that, can you still get into neutral or does access to big brain become really difficult?

Kevin McCarney: No, you can get into neutral at any point. Let's say you've gone down the road a little bit and you may one or two little snarky comments, as soon as you become aware of that, you can go, oh, you know, I probably shouldn't have said it like that. Let me rephrase that. Let me go back. And that's where big brain takes over because it really does. You're constantly evolving in that conversation. You're constantly going to have different moments of awareness, but if you can know that your neutral word is, I see, or oh really? Or you want to take some time and let's say somebody pushed pressure on you. Well, what do you think right now? And in the book, we have a section where we talk about time parachute. Giving you a little time before you answer a question.

And, you know, one of the things that I don't like to do is when somebody pushes me, answer this now, right? I go, you know what, I need a little more time to ponder that. That's a really interesting thing. Let me think about that. Let me give that some more thought, let me give it the thought it deserves. Something like a time parachute, gets you out of a lot of sticky situations when you get into them. And I think it's one of those graceful exits that keeps you out of little brain.

Steve Rush: It's also gets you straight to neutral.

Kevin McCarney: Yes, exactly. And it's a tone of voice. As I never realized how critical it was, but if you watch any movie or any TV, you'll see how manipulative tone can be.

Steve Rush: So, in the virtual world, how have you seen this change? So obviously you can hear tone, but I wondered if you could see tone through the way people are typing or the way that they are using emojis in the digital world.

Kevin McCarney: Great question. It's more to difficult now than ever because tone is usually decided by the person reading the message, right? So whatever mood they're in, they're going to decide the tone that you wrote that in, whether it is not that tone or not, which is why I always tell people if they get a little brain email from somebody or the little bring text from somebody, instead of trying to out little brain them or out comment them in a text, pick up the phone and just say you know what, or say just say, you know what, can we talk? You know, can we have a conversation? Break away from that medium into a different medium? So, you can really have the time because it's hard to read tone in text, it's just almost impossible, but some people are really good at it.

But most people, when it comes to the quickness of communication today, I think the internet has made everybody so fast and impulsive and how quick they think they need to respond. And one of the things we discuss is, no. You don't need to respond right away, give yourself some time, process some of the comments, especially in a business environment or even a family environment where you get an email where somebody was obviously upset or frustrated, you know, it's a good idea to ponder for a little bit before you respond to that. And it really is, go to neutral and think what's the best response I can have for this person in this moment, in this particular communication.

Steve Rush: I'd never really joined the dots together actually in so much as when you receive written word, you read it in your own emotive state. Of course, you do. But actually, now you've said it out loud, it makes loads of sense. And that's why lots of people read same text and get a different message, right?

Kevin McCarney: Yes, absolutely. And I've been the guilty party on several of those over the years. And I think that one of the things, and I've also been a receiver of so many where I look at something now and I really train myself. And I think that when it comes to communication, we have to constantly being the state of improving, evolving, and training ourselves to get better. We have to practice our verbal muscle memory really to get better at how we respond to different things. And I'm grateful that I've had the time to sort of focus on this for the last several years.

Steve Rush: And to help that muscle memory as well in the book you call out some little brain baggage words. I just wonder if you could share to our listeners what they are and how we could maybe use them to help our communication?

Kevin McCarney: Yeah, what we call out in the book, there's seven different areas of communication where all these different principles show up that I talk about, whether it's control, tone, words, time, responsibility, power, and awareness. These are the seven areas where all these things can show up, but little brain, again, little brain. These baggage words is the last impression you made. And it's the last thing you said, or the last interaction you had with that person. And so, if your little brain you're going to have under control, you're going to rude. And, you may have under tone, you may have disrespectful and words, abrasive. People know this stuff, they remember this, they remember the little brain component of your last communication, more than they remember the big brain component, because they'll remember if you were immature or snarky, they'll remember that, and a big brain, you know, legacy words, you know, you've got to work harder to make people remember those, whether it's sincerity or trusting or welcoming, considerate, it is two different worlds when it comes to what people think about you. And it really is, you know, essentially your reputation is online with every communication that you do

Steve Rush: To your knowledge and experience, is the reason why we can remember little brain words more because it sits in the emotional part of our brain rather than the logical part of our brain?

Kevin McCarney: Absolutely, and again, with tone, but a lot of these words are how they make us feel. And the negative feelings are definitely more prominent and it sits there a little bit longer. And, you know, I think that you can erase these words by the way, you can get rid of the negative little brain baggage words by recognizing, oh, with this person. The last time I talked to them, I think I was a little bit rude. So next time I talked to them, I'm going to start off with, you know what, hey, by the way, apologize for last time, I think I was a little snarky or something. You can just take it away. And that's the beautiful thing about, anybody that you've had a difficult communication with. You can go back and look where you may have made a mistake and you can undo it. You can erase it by, going in and literally addressing it and dealing with it so they can say, oh yeah, okay. I remember that, but he said something and he's he apologized or they said, oh yeah, it was for a different reason. The idea is, you always have control over this communication. Even if you said something wrong, you can go back and fix it.

Steve Rush: So, I guess falling into the trap of little brain language, little brain words, and baggage words, that's natural behavior because we've learned that way of doing things. And we've learned a response set in response to different emotions or events. So how can we make sure that we are spending more time in the big brain?

Kevin McCarney: Well, I think the first thing you can do is, every day you can take a look at where you're at and recognize it. You get up in the morning, you go, okay, what's going on today? Is anything wrong physically? Is there anything bothering you emotionally? What are some of the outside influences that might be controlling you today? And so, if you go through that and go, yeah, you know what? I got this report due and I'm of anxiety. Just go through, and there's a whole list in the book, check them off. There’re eight little areas, check them off to make sure that if you know, you've got something, a situation that's going to go into little brain, you know, that going in, which means you can stay in big brain much longer. And it really is a daily checklist of making sure you can do that. The other thing I think is the most important thing is every day, wake up with the idea that if you control your tone, you control your life.

Steve Rush: I like that, very powerful, the same words, different tone, different outcome.

Kevin McCarney: Yeah, different outcome completely. And that's the greatest lesson, because you know, I've seen it so many times and I've given so many presentations to different groups and you watch sometimes when you talk about neutral, you see light bulbs go off. I have people practice their tones. I go, okay, say this word in an angry tone. Now say this word in a pleasant tone. And when you really use a little bit of tone training, all of a sudden you get people immediately to become aware, oh, and it's because we're not taught this in school or when we are growing up, we gather our information on communication by the environments we're in. And if the environment doesn't teach us, then we've got to go out and find it somewhere else.

Steve Rush: So, here's the thing. It's a really interesting point you just come across. Actually, I've had this conversation with a number of people over time. What's the reason we don't teach this stuff at school?

Kevin McCarney: You know, I think interpersonal communication is sometimes seen as it's not academic. And it's not something that people have paid attention too. My local school, just beginning to pay attention, because you know, everybody's talking about mindfulness, right? Well, mindfulness begins with the way you communicate. And I'm pushing them to do something along the lines of getting people to communicate. And again, not just about, you know, how to handle confrontations or things like that, but really how to communicate more effectively. And I think from an academic standpoint, they're looking at curriculum and that's all they have time to deal with. So, it's outside the curriculum, and I've spoken at a school every year, locally here to this group of kids because they want this message for that group. And it's outside the curriculum, but it's inside the school.

And it's really beginning to help. I think it would be wonderful if more people could do this because you're right. I just think that the academic world is not their fault as much as they're not necessarily aware of this. And even my book, isn't going to be seen by an academic culture as, oh yeah. Even though it's laid out where you can teach this, it's going to be, they have to understand it's not based upon some academic school, this is street psychology. This is observational life psychology. And it's not about white coats and animals testing or putting wires on people. This is everyday life and it's more difficult for people to accept.

Steve Rush: And ironically, the more academia we have it's put into work in everyday life, which is the, where the rubber really hits the road. So actually, what you have in absolute terms is the effect of all of that psychology going on, which I think is why it plays out so well.

Kevin McCarney: Yeah, I think it does. We have to always understand that we're evolving in our communication every day and every situation and every environment we're in and we can get better at it. And I think that everybody has the ability to get at communicating. And I think that's going to be the challenge. I think that one of my favorite stories is my own story where, you know, I got much better at tone after my five-year-old daughter taught me a lesson when I was under a Christmas tree, trying to put up some lights. And I saw her walking up the steps of a ladder, and I said, Caitlyn, get down from there, right. And then she did, she kept walking up and I yelled again. Caitlyn, get down from there, raise my voice, right. And I get out from the tree and I'm about to launch a very louder, angry tone. And she looks at me and she's got an angel in her hand. She wants to put it on top of the tree. I did not see that, which is a metaphor for life. We don't see everything, you know, that we react to. And I looked at her and she looks at me and I said, Caitlyn, it's dangerous. You've got to get down from there. And this five-year-old looks at me, she goes, I like that tone better daddy.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Kevin McCarney: Wow.

Steve Rush: How interesting is that?

Kevin McCarney: Yeah, because if we're tuning into our kids, they're much more pure in their communication. They're much cleaner in their communication. They're not muddled, by all the other extra words, they know what they're reading, they're reading tone. So, it's a wonderful lesson for me. It was a wonderful lesson and it still is.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Kevin McCarney: But it really comes down to, we're constantly evolving and don't ever think that we've learned enough to where we don't have to learn anymore about communicating. This is everyday communication. We still have to get better at it.

Steve Rush: And it'll always be evolving because the world's changing. The way we communicate changes, the medium in which we do so changes and in therefore our response to it. So, it'll always be something that's new and fresh for us to get into, right.

Kevin McCarney: Exactly, and I'm grateful. We got podcasts like yours, that are out there to get the word out to more people. Because I think podcasts have been one of the greatest things that the digital generation has created. More information, more sources of good information where people want to take the time to listen. The idea that there's taking the time to listen to a podcast. They're not just looking at something on a screen, but they're listening is fantastic because we have to train people to listen more. Because that's when they start thinking things through when they're listening.

Steve Rush: Yeah, superb and thanks for endorsing our podcast as well. And the genre, because I'm with you, right. This is a means to help people and grow people's awareness. And actually, the more we can do that collectively as an entire community, then the better.

Kevin McCarney: Yeah, absolutely. My goal is to get the entire world to neutral for a while.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Kevin McCarney: You know, so we can pivot and be more productive.

Steve Rush: So, I'm going to ask a step into neutral as we now pivot into the next part of our show.

Kevin McCarney: Okay.

Steve Rush: So, this is part of the show where we start to tap into your broad and extensive leadership career and I'm looking for you to kind of tap into all of that experience and think about, what would be the top three leadership hacks you could share with our audience?

Kevin McCarney: Probably one of the most important is something that came out of a situation again where I had employees not talking to each other and they were grunting. And I finally sat one of them down and said, listen, there's a meeting coming up. The other, person's not going to be here. I want you to say three things that person does really well at the end of the meeting, and then end the meeting. And he did a wonderful job of doing that. And the next day after that meeting where the person who he wasn't speaking to wasn't there, but the next day he walked in and all of a sudden that person was speaking to him and being very friendly. And what we noticed is that, without her being there, he used what we now have labeled as good gossip.

Good gossip is one of the greatest leadership hacks ever because you can strategically use it. It has to be honest, otherwise it won't work, but it's strategically talking nice about somebody or saying nice about somebody behind their back, because it does multiple things. In today's world, it gets back to everybody, there are no secrets anymore. You can't whisper, that doesn't make a different. People just turn up the sound. And when it comes to that internal communication of a company. Gossip is a cancer where good gossip is a cure.

Steve Rush: Fantastic.

Kevin McCarney: Because if you can say nice things about people behind their back, it not only makes that person to feel good, because they'll hear it, but it makes the people that are listening to you, trust you because now they're getting, oh, that's really cool that they're saying something nice about somebody because that elevates their trust level in that person.

So, I would say, definitely say one of my hacks would be good gossip because it's absolutely incredibly powerful and incredibly useful. The next thing I would say is, control your tone. You know, it is probably the most important thing and practice your tone. And I think that, you know, realize that no matter what situation you're in, you always have a choice. You always have a choice. You don't have to do or say anything. You always have a choice. It's going to be to understand and really use these words, say it to yourself. How I can communicate is who I am. And how you communicate is who you are. And if you can understand it, how you communicate and that the words you use today are going to be with you forever. Especially in this environment, we're in where everybody's got a recording device on their hip. The words you use today will follow you forever. So, choose the words you want to follow you.

Steve Rush: I love those. I particularly love the good gossip. I think it's just a great notion and would drive so many positive outcomes.

Kevin McCarney: I saw it work and we still see it work so often. And again, watch it even amongst your own friends and watch how they respond when you're talking good about somebody who's not there. And it's a way we can train people to use good gossip because it travels the same path as gossip, exactly. But it has completely different and much more productive results.

Steve Rush: So, the next part of the show, we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something hasn't worked out as well as you'd thought and would work out or maybe it's quite catastrophic, but as a result of it, there is a learning experience for you. And it's now a positive in your life or work. So, what would be your Hack to Attack Kevin?

Kevin McCarney: Well, I think that the thing that has taught me the most is standing behind the counter at the restaurant for the first seven years and realizing because I was so good at winning arguments, you know, customers would come in and they would say something and I know I'm right, right. I knew that they ordered the food wrong or something. And I kept trying to win the argument with the customer. And only realize is it's not that the customer's always right. They're not, and I don't want to throw employees under the bus. Oh, the customer's always right. The customers not always right. But in the pressure of the moment, customer actually believes that they're right. And I learned that lesson a couple times when I was trying to win the argument and I saw people storm out and I realized, gosh, how do I get that person back?

I don't want to win the argument. I want to win that moment. I want to win that person back. So that was part of the Genesis of what we're talking about is that, I had to learn that winning the argument is sometimes losing. And it's not that the customer's always right. Again, they're not. The customer believes though in that moment that they're right. And you have to bring them back. You have to bring them back to your reality because we're in the hospitality business, we're in the business of bringing people back to life. I realized when I was behind the counter that I'm in the business of serving people with low blood sugar.

Steve Rush: Yes, it's true actually, right.

Kevin McCarney: So, they walk in, they're hungry. So, they're not necessarily mentally exactly who they normally want to be. And so, if you get anything wrong, it's physiological. They're hungry. So, what I learned is, oh, okay. There's a physiological state here that I'm dealing with. I have to train all my people, how to deal with people in this age, because our job is to bring people back. I want to bring as many people back, you know, there was situation in a restaurant where a customer got completely out of control, and we were able to bring her back and to the point where she apologized. And when I tell my employees right now, I said, look, the word restaurant comes from the word restaurant it's a French word, right? And it comes from a 1765. A guy named Boulangers in Paris is the story that Marion Webster puts out there.

Couldn't get into any of the food union. So, he created his own little soup and stews place, and he put a sign, at his window, come in you weary traveler. And my stews will restore you. And it's the perfect idea of what the restaurant business is all about. And I think any business, really. People are looking to be restored. They're looking for something to make them feel good, whether it's listening or whether it's eating, they’re looking for something and make them feel good. So, they're going to come back to something that makes them feel good. I’m in the business of restoring people. They come in, they're hungry. Somebody was angry at work. Our job is to send them back out restored. My employees have done a wonderful job of doing that for 37 years.

Steve Rush: And what's made Poquito Mas so successful Kevin? If you put communication at the heart of all of that, right?

Kevin McCarney: Absolutely, communication and honesty and freshness. And just knowing that your customers are human and your employees are human and you know what? You're going to work with whatever situation comes up, it will be fine. I can't say I'm not surprised, but I'm not shocked by many things anymore.

Steve Rush: Now the last part of the show. We get to give you a chance to do some time travel. You get to bump into Kevin at 21, and you get to give him some advice. So, what would it be?

Kevin McCarney: Listen more than you speak, because you will learn so much more and you will know what to say when you do speak. Because my 21-year-olds self was not a great listener. And I think that listening was probably the one lesson that I learned gave me the most insight. Do that, listen, and don't be in a hurry.

Steve Rush: Really powerful words, really powerful. Love it. Now, having listened to you today and knowing all the great work you do, Big Brain Little Brain, by the way, is a great read. It's packed of tools and traps you call it. So, if folks will listen to this, I wanted to copy of the book or wanted to learn a little bit more about your work Kevin, where's the best place for us to send them

Kevin McCarney: bigbrainlittlebrain.com. And you can go to kevin@bigbrainlittlebrain.com. And I return all my emails and you can click on the link and get to Amazon to buy a book and please leave a review, good or bad, leave a review, whatever you feel about it. I think it's the most important thing right now is to get the word out to people.

Steve Rush: And of course, unless you're in California, you're unlikely to bump into Paquito Mas.

Kevin McCarney: Yes, absolutely. Paquito Mas is in LA. We've got eight locations. We've been around, like I said, 37 years and we make everything from scratch every day. Every tortilla, everything. So, it's good food. And you know, we're still in business and I feel grateful that we've survived this last year and a half. And I know that no matter what's ahead of us, we'll deal with it.

Steve Rush: Yeah. Kevin, thank you ever so much for sharing your stories and helping us all find our neutral word. I think that's the goal for the day and sharing your wider experience with us and just thanks of being part of our community on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Kevin McCarney: Well, Steve, I can't thank you enough for doing this. I listen to your stuff and it's just such so healthy to listen to a program like this. It's healthy, and I appreciate you're here

Steve Rush: And I appreciate you too. Thanks, Kevin.

Kevin McCarney: All right, sir.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there: @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Crystal Robinson is a retired professional Basketball player and coach who's played the highest level in the Women's NBA. Today, she's a thought leader in the space of conscious leadership, mental health, and diversity. In sharing her life and professional lessons Chrystal talks about:

Growing up in poverty in rural Oklahoma and learning to deal with poverty and racism while dealing with her own sexual identity.
How Basketball became her coping mechanism.
How learning to deal with life’s challenges helped build resilience in her career.
After writing her book, “Finding Myself”, she admits she still hasn’t found herself and continues to learn.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Chrystal below:

Finding Myself Book: https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Myself-Crystal-Robinson/dp/1777573726

Full Transcript Below

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

And a special guest on today's show is Crystal Robinson. She's an American basketball coach and former Women's NBA, All-Star. And she was the first black woman to be inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. Now, after chronicling her life's lessons in her book, Finding Myself, she's now an ambassador for the LGBTQ Community, but before we get a chance to meet with Crystal, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we explore how diversity and inclusion has evolved and diversity education started in the sixties, so it's nothing new to us. And over time we would have all become aware of how it's evolved to take into consideration inclusion. And while many think that diversity and inclusion are the same thing, they're not. Diversity is the act of creating community, comprised of people with varying backgrounds, creeds, ages, differences, and inclusion is finding a way of making sure that all of those people feel really valued in what they do and how they behave.

Wait, where did equity come from? Well, it's always been there. In recent years, diversity and inclusion issues have been bolstered by the addition of the concept of equity and unlike equality, which focused on providing equal resources, regardless of context. Equity actually focuses on the process of just being fair. Equality is treating everyone the same. Whereas equity is about achieving the same benefits, even if it means that everyone receives different, there's still fair and justified treatment and experiences. Regular listeners will know that we love the difference that makes the difference. And that's because all humans are different. We all have components of our identities that are both seen like race, gender, identity. And then there are hidden things like our mental health or disability or sexual orientation, and whether you're willing to admit it or not, we all come from different backgrounds and we hold multiple interconnecting identities and biases that show up in our relationships and our workplace. Research also shows that higher levels of diversity may lead to increase conflict and misunderstanding. And often because we struggled with accepting and celebrating our differences. Inclusion doesn't mean that we can just pretend those differences don't exist. It means that we can acknowledge those differences and take advantages of differences to create diverse, equitable, and inclusive communities that we work and live in.

And therefore, we now arrived at our current incarnation, this essential tool that features equal and equitable attention on diversity, equity and inclusion. And as I reflect on this, a single piece of the puzzle missing could create an incomplete picture. Diversity is the heart of different voices in any conversation. Inclusion is uplifting, validating and hearing each and every voice and equity as a manner in which we amplify those voices. So, the leadership hack is dead simple. When you're thinking diversity and inclusion, think everyone everywhere, and do you have equity? Not equality. Making sure the right treatment for the right people, the right places at the right times means that we all get to benefit from diverse and inclusive behaviors and diverse and inclusive communities. That's been The Leadership Hacker News, I would love for you to share anything that's on the top of your agenda, so get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Crystal Robinson is a special guest on today's show. She's a retired professional athlete and coach who's played the highest level of basketball in the Women's NBA. Today, she's a thought leader in the space of conscious leadership, mental health, and diversity. Crystal, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Crystal Robinson: Thank you for having me.

Steve Rush: So, let's just start by calling out a few of your kind of credits to your name. So former WNBA player and coach, named an all American by the WBCA, you earn a rookie of the year award and an ABL All-Star, you've been indicted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame, indicted into the NAIA Hall of Fame, drafted overall sixth by the Women's NBA. Now author, coach, and ambassador for the LGBTQ community. Wow, that's not a bad backstory.

Crystal Robinson: Yeah, I've had a pretty fun and exciting life.

Steve Rush: Now, it hasn't been always that smooth sailing to be fair, has it? So, I know from the last time that we met, you grew up in rural Oklahoma. Having had a really kind of tough upbringing, having to navigate some poverty, a lot of racism issues, and then having to deal with and come to terms with your own sexual identity along that, on the journey, I guess. So just tell us a little bit about how early life really was for you.

Crystal Robinson: Overall, I guess, at some point in life, you know, I was just a poor kid growing up happy, you know, you don't know you're poor until you learn you're poor, but lots of struggles, but I think everybody in life has struggles. I think in my book, I write about them, but that's really, for me not wasn't the focus of my life. I think I wrote about those struggles basically for people to understand that that are commonalities with all of us. We all have struggles, but just kind of how we end up dealing with them, determines where we end up in life.

Steve Rush: Yeah, wise words, is often the case, isn't it?

Crystal Robinson: Yeah.

Steve Rush: You know, often, most people are faced with adversity of some kind, but it's a reaction to that adversity that makes the difference. And clearly, you know, you face into those really well because you ended up as a professional athlete. So, tell us a bit about the journey of how you ended up in baskets ball?

Crystal Robinson: Both my parents were college basketball players. I was just something, they were both all Americans that I was an innate. I was born with a great ability and five years old; they gave me a basketball goal and I started playing on it and fell in love with it. Then the rest was kind of history after that. So, I just excelled, I played basketball all the time. Basketball became a place for me to take out my anger and anything that I wasn't feeling good about. It was a place for me to, you know, just release all of the negative feelings that any negative feelings that I had.

Steve Rush: And having the foundations of using basketball if you like as a bit of a coping mechanism, most people will use some form of coping mechanism to deal with some adversity, but there is a different level of coping when you turn into being so good at it. You become recognized in your country as being the elite in your sport. Tell us a little bit about when that kind of pivotal moment happened for you when you became a pro basketball player?

Crystal Robinson: It's so funny, you know, there was no professional women's basketball whenever I started playing basketball, you know, we were young girls. We didn't have the ability to look and say, hey, I wanted to be in the WNBA one day. So, you know, I just played all the time. I play with my guy cousins and overall goal was to be as good as my best cousin and things just kind of snowballed from there. Then I ended up being recruited by every college in the country. The town I grew up in, it's a population of about 400 people. It's called Stringtown, Oklahoma. So, you start having people from all over the United States coming to watch you play basketball and offering you scholarships. I'd say at that point, I thought I was pretty good and believe, but I don't think it wasn't until, you know, hindsight after your career, you kind of evaluate and see where your skillset fit in to your professional career.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and you've told the story through your book, which is just an amazing read, called Finding Myself and tell us a little bit about how you decided to put your stories down into pages for others to read about?

Crystal Robinson: I wanted it to be interesting, one, because, even though I've been a basketball player, I'm not Kevin Duran or Stephan Curry or no one with a big name like that, putting your story down for other people. It was about, you know, helping people, helping people see that. One thing, there's few things that we all have in common. Like it doesn’t matter what color you are, what race you are or how rich you are, nothing matters. We're all going to encounter obstacles. Some of them make us stronger. Why does it make some of us stronger, and some of us not? You know, some of us suffer. So, I think that lots of people that are suffering feel alone, but just putting those stories out there that we all suffer at times. It's just about, you know, figuring it out. The perspective on how to navigate it.

Steve Rush: Was there an element for you as well, as you wrote the book and you put all the stories down and into kind of words and stories, was there a little bit around another bit of therapy going on there for you at the time as well?

Crystal Robinson: Honestly, it was all therapy going on there.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Crystal Robinson: Honestly, to tell you the truth, I went to therapy and I was told to journal and I didn't set out and write a book like, oh, I'm going to write a book. I started journaling and just writing things that bother me, things that made me feel good, things that just, I don't know, things. And after seven or eight journals later, I felt better. And I sent and all of it to one of my friends that writes for the Amsterdam News in New York. And she said, this would be a really good book. You should organize it. So that's kind of how the book journey started. It wasn't that I just sat down to write a book. It just kind of happened. I probably have stories together and then put it in book form.

Steve Rush: I would love to get into some of the stories if you are okay with that, because there were some really inspirational things that happen to you that we can all get some life lessons from. I remember the time that you talk about it in your book, when you were playing little league baseball, your dad turned up at a game to watch you, he was blind drunk. And despite that, you kind of played a brilliant game. What happened for you in that process and how did you use that as a positive?

Crystal Robinson: I think in those moments, you don't ever feel like it's a positive, I think, but for me, I think that it taught me perseverance, you know, and at an early age, I had to figure out how to, you know, really just walk with my head, held high, even though everybody in the town knew that my dad was a big drunk. But my dad was a very functioning drunk. He worked, he went to work at times, you know? I think that taught me, first off, you know, the people who are going to care are going to care. At that point, I think I started to learn to not care about what other people thought, you know, some circumstances we were put under, we don't ask for them. We just have to learn how to deal with them and cope with them.

Steve Rush: I would imagine that taught you a huge amount of resilience.

Crystal Robinson: Yes.

Steve Rush: Not just that occasion, but many occasions like it, I guess.

Crystal Robinson: Definitely resilience. And I think that just in life, anybody who wants to make it, or just to be successful in life, it takes resilience. I'm sure when you started this podcast, it wasn't easy. You have to get people to come on, you know, you have to get all this things together, and I'm sure there's many, a times that you go through things you might want to quit, but you're resilient enough to know the benefits of it down the road, or you have a foresight to keep going. That's the best way to say.

Steve Rush: Absolutely, yeah. And some of that kind of resilience, I guess, was also born about, through your experiences in high school. And I also remember reading in the book that when you were playing high school basketball, you came acquire a bit of, you know, racial slurs and verbal abuse. In that environment, you know, how do you deal with that when you're trying to focus on playing a game?

Crystal Robinson: Oh, man. My stance on this has changed so much over the years, just recently in my hometown, I was racially profiled and pulled over, basically taking the jail for no reason until they realized who I was. Then they tried to let me go after like six hours of wasting my time. And I said, no, so they trumped up a charge. And it was just a lot, like, it just kind of changed my stance on just how I am. I think that the racial environment in the world right now has everybody on edge. And I think that I find myself having to go back to a lot of that stuff and a lot of the teachings and a lot of the way that I used to feel, just because of the place that the world is in now and the experiences that I've had.

Steve Rush: That's really interesting. You you're most talking as if at one stage in your life or your career, you thought you'd got through that, but it seems to almost have another resurgence.

Crystal Robinson: Well, I would say that, I would probably say that I didn't experience a lot of racism as a young kid. I did once or twice in my life, but I live in rural Oklahoma where there's no, we still bury people in black cemeteries and white cemetery. So, racism is definitely alive and well.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Crystal Robinson: You're really good at sports and you really good at things. You know how it is, people overlook that. And then at the back end of my career, you know, people change, times change and some young cops pull me over and don't know who I am and they just proceed to search, the car, I'll all this stuff because I have my dreads down. And then when the speaker of the house representatives and the judges are called in, like, what are you doing? And at this point I'm a voice. I'm a voice that can bring some attention to it. And it was just a lot, so my stance on that, I find myself, I won't say in prayer, but really having to check myself and think about that a lot more now, just because I feel the world is racially charged right now.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it is. I sense that as well, right. And here I sit as a white caucasian guy who has had no racial issues to deal with per se, right? Yet, I still feel there is that racially charged tendencies. In fact, there is this terminology, isn't there? For people who are of my ethnicity called white fragility, where, you know, we're not having the conversation because we're almost afraid to. What's your spin on that?

Crystal Robinson: For me, the people who are on that side, people like you, you shouldn't have to carry that burden, it's just like the Taliban. There's a certain amount of people with money that are racist, but everybody has to pay the price for that. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Steve Rush: Absolutely.

Crystal Robinson: Just like certain amount of my population that might be thugs. That might be certain things, but all of us have to pay the price for that. But those people are louder than people like you.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Crystal Robinson: Heard more, and I think that when people stop having that fear and stop feeling guilty, you have nothing to feel guilty about, you know, but I think a lot of Caucasian people have a feeling of guilt and stand on the sidelines because I've had to really reconcile some of my friendships because I feel like some really powerful people stood on the sidelines and are standing on the sidelines that could expose this. And it would stop, but they have no interest in that because they're not boat rockers. They keep going the way it is, it doesn't matter that they hurt my career for no reason.

Steve Rush: The whole kind of racial tension that exists today seems to be far louder than it ever has been. And I remember, so I grew up in the outskirts of London, very diverse community, lots of different ethnicities in my community. I didn't even know there was a racial issue until I probably hit high school, right. So, at what point do you think we're going to actually have a face into this and deal with it or do you think we could ever deal with it?

Crystal Robinson: I think that there's a group of people that doesn't want it to change. It'll take a lot of bravery on a lot of people's parts for it to change. For some reason in society, there always has to be someone getting stepped on. I don't know why that is. I saw something on the news the other day, not the other day. I saw it maybe today scrolling through on Instagram. And I saw where Mexicans were showing up down there, given the Haitian people water and food, lots of things that they were providing for those people. And I was just thinking it's always the downtrodden that show up first because, no one's more, you know, trying to cross the border or get into the United States or do, you know, more than Mexican people. So, for them to be down there helping the Haitians, it was amazing to me.

Steve Rush: Yeah, awesome. I think the more we can celebrate that and promote that, then the better it will be, right?

Crystal Robinson: You’re saying it so good. What you just said, what you said was basically, media publicizes the bad things. There's not enough said about things like.

Steve Rush: That’s very true.

Crystal Robinson: They keep us at odds because that's what you see. And I shared that story simply because, you know, I said, it's not enough good things being shown in the world today. There are good things happening, so.

Steve Rush: Hallelujah to that, yeah. So, as you were growing your career in basketball, and as you becoming more successful, not only had to deal with the racial slurs, but internally there's stuff going on for you, as you were trying to work out your own sexuality and having feelings for the same sex. Tell us a little bit about how you dealt with that kind of confusion and managed to come to terms with that and move forward in your life?

Crystal Robinson: Very sloppily, to able to figure those things out. I knew I was different; I knew it wasn't accepted. I knew I lived in the Bible bell. I did go to church, and how are you supposed to be when everyone tells you your whole identity is something that you're going to hell for? I mean, you know, it was a lot at that time. That's all I could say. I didn't really have anybody to talk to. I just went with it. But at a certain point, I just, you know, I think that you get to the point to where either I have one life to live, I'm going to live at the best way I possibly can. And the people who want to be friends with me will be friends with me and the people who won't want. And that's just life in general.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Crystal Robinson: I think that once you break it down to, you know, that simplicity of that, no one likes anybody a hundred percent of the time and no matter how good you are, some people are still not going to like you.

Steve Rush: It got so bad for you at one state though, you were seriously thinking about taking your own life, right?

Crystal Robinson: Oh, yeah.

Steve Rush: That doesn't get any deeper than that, does it?

Crystal Robinson: On more than one occasion, I felt like that, you know, but I won't say it's because of the way people treated me, it's because I just wanted to fit in. I didn't want it to be different. I didn't want this; I didn't ask for it. It's just who I was.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Crystal Robinson: I was born this way.

Steve Rush: And you still live-in rural Oklahoma. How have things changed for you? Are you more accepted by those same people? Have they become less bigoted and more educated? Tell us what that fell like for you now?

Crystal Robinson: I wouldn't say that. Oklahoma is still about 25 years behind the rest of the world, you know, I have a group of people that are very educated. They travel, they do a lot of things and they don't have no problems with it, but there's always going to be a group of people who will have a problem with it, but won't say it out loud. They might talk behind their back and stuff like that, but I don't spend any energy worried about those people.

Steve Rush: Good, and also you can see it and spot it, can’t you? Because there'll be little micro behaviors and micro language you'd spot, perhaps because you've had more experience of it than some. And therefore, you can make those choices, right?

Crystal Robinson: I think that for me, you know, being a professional athlete people that don't even like you, still will come up to you and ask you for an autograph, you know, that's just a kind of a part of the thing. I just kind of take it for what it's worth, you know? And I think that's one of the strengths that people should work on building is not really caring what other people think, you know, and living your life to the best of your ability for you.

Steve Rush: That's really that easy to say though, right. But you've been in the public eye, you've been featured on TV. You've been, you know, press would have followed you. And that's got to take some toll when that's adverse commentary, right?

Crystal Robinson: Yes, it's different. I tell you; I really took a completely different stance and approach as a pro athlete. I kind of immersed myself with the fans. They all knew who I was. They spent time with me. If they saw me, be like, oh, hey Crystal, I was around so much that they left me alone. I didn't put a barricade between me and them to set myself apart to where they wanted to be around me. If you understand what I'm saying.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely, so, yeah.

Crystal Robinson: I gave them access, like after games, I might stay two hours and sign everybody's autograph. And that way, when they see me with my family, it's just, hey Crystal and they keep going. You know, I think that that's one of the things that was just different about me. I love basketball. I love what I did. I was blessed to be able to do it, but that's just what it was. It was a great talent. It doesn’t really change or sets me apart from people, on the fact that I had some really great experiences.

Steve Rush: I love the way you've approached that, by the way, because many people in the public eye aren't accessible and actually become less accessible because of their publicity and their public figure. Whereas actually, I wonder if some of our pro sports people and actors and other people in the public eye, if they gave more of themselves to their fans and their public, whether or not they'd actually have much more of a peaceful life anyway.

Crystal Robinson: Well, you know, that is true. I agree with that. But at some point, some of these fans are not normal, right? I mean, I had a teammate named Debbie Black, this man had a whole sex change and change his name to Debbie White and sat outside and he stopped her.

Steve Rush: Oh dear.

Crystal Robinson: There is some danger to it.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Crystal Robinson: Oh, and you know, when you get a certain level, like I'm not a star to that point to where people are wanting anything like that, other than the autograph. But, you know, for some people, it is definitely dangerous. As little as I am, I just was, you know, it was inducted into the New York Liberty Ring of Honor. And a media person made up a bunch of lies and tried hard to tell me they wanted me to be in a documentary and all this stuff. My publicists kept telling me this stuff, but she didn't have no credentials. So, a lot of the big things that she should have, so it just didn't make sense to me. And she was not legit. So, stuff like that definitely happen.

Steve Rush: So, when I read your book, one of the things that struck me was there were, you know, paragraph after paragraph, there was real crappy experiences, lots of abusive relationships, lots of adversity, but on every occasion, you managed to find it in yourself to kind of lift above that and keep positive. Just for those listening to this who maybe are struggling to find themselves like you did. How did you manage to just keep that positivity?

Crystal Robinson: I think it's probably sheer, what's the word I'm looking for? Just the fact that I don't ever like to give other people control over me. I can't be anybody's victim. So, I had to figure out a way to persevere and persevere in a way that I was still whole. I wouldn't say that I found myself. I think I'm still finding myself every day; we grow and we change, but, you know, I didn't want those experiences to control my life. And I think that when you get stuck in places, those experiences control your life.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I love that. Was there a particular time though for you, as you were coming to terms with who you are today and the great work that you do now, where you thought, yeah, I'm happy, I'm content. I've found myself for now. When was that moment?

Crystal Robinson: I would say I haven't.

Steve Rush: Oh, great.

Crystal Robinson: I definitely different. There’re people who have the same jobs for 50 years. And I applaud them to be able to do that, but I'm not that kind of person. I'm the kind of person who I was great at sports. I mastered something in the business world, thought leadership world now, and I'm trying to master that. I'm pretty comfortable being uncomfortable. And for me, the experiences in life is not, I don't want to be at the same job for 30 years. I want to experience as much as I can. So, lots of people look at that and they say, oh, you're not settled, or you don't do this, or you don't do that. But you know for me, that's how I choose to experience life.

Steve Rush: That's fabulous, and the reality is of course, for those people who are comfortable and aren't in control, probably aren't actually growing as much as those that are restless and are comfortable being uncomfortable.

Crystal Robinson: I would really agree with that statement. I think that, you know, young ages at sports, I went away from my parents and stayed for long periods of time to be able to play basketball. And then I went to Europe, I played in Europe for eight years. I have had so many different kinds of experiences in so many different countries. And to me, that's what life's about. Like, I don't have no opinion about Italy. If I can't go there, I spent four years there. I live like the people, you know? And to me that's where I found value in life.

Steve Rush: Yeah, can you knock up a great Italian pasta dish though?

Crystal Robinson: Oh, I can make, pasta, actually my own tomato sauce.

Steve Rush: Awesome.

Crystal Robinson: So, I lived in Italy. I actually had a translator my first year. And then the second year I was there, I stayed in that country for four years. One of my teammates was going to college to learn English. So, I helped her with English. I had a Spanish background, so it just kind of came together. And then by the end of that year, I was completely fluent. So, I loved Italy and most countries that I did play in, I just really tried to understand their culture and at least learn enough words to be able to live like them.

Steve Rush: Empathy is everything. So, you had a super pro career, then you coached pro basketball. So how much of that experience in your sporting life is now shaping your approach when you coach others?

Crystal Robinson: Well, I think that leadership is leadership. Like as a player, I was a leader on the team and I think that as a coach, I have the opportunity, you know, we kind of were trailblazers. There was no WNBA. We started something and these young players are figuring it out, you know. When I played, there was no free agency. Now there's free agency. True free agency, where girls can go out and get their own endorsement deals. The league owned all our likenesses. So, we couldn't shop our names around. So, there's so many things that I still have a hand in with the younger generation, helping usher this end for them and help them make decisions that I still am highly involved in, in basketball.

Steve Rush: That's great. So, on the basis, you're still finding yourself, which I love by the way, what's next for you?

Crystal Robinson: What’s next for you? We will see, I took a year off of work to promote this for basketball. To promote my book and who knows next year, I could end up back in basketball. But I only want to be back in basketball in an head coaching basis, just because it's a lot of work at the pro level. You don't really have a life; coach has a life because the assistants do all the work.

Steve Rush: But you've earned that even the ability to be able to pass on that knowledge and to help guide, and actually also helps other people lead in that space as well, doesn't it?

Crystal Robinson: How much public speaking as I can possibly do. I like to influence, so those are probably the two things that I would end up in. I'm already public speaking. I do a lot of that. Next month, I'll start doing a lot more of it. But eventually I'm sure basketball would probably call me back into it.

Steve Rush: Is it a bit of a drug for your, basketball?

Crystal Robinson: It used to be. Now is a completely different challenge. Now it's a challenge of convincing people. As the head coaches about psychology, you have all these great players. Convincing them to give up seven shots and give up a $50,000 potential bonus to help your team win. Like it's all psychology of moving people. And to me, that's a great challenge. It's easier to do things than it is to get people to do them. So, I'm still very driven towards perfection and figuring that out. And I think that, you know, as an assistant coach, most of the time I've been hired, it's been because of my ability to problem solve and my ability to keep the locker room good. So, I'd like to try that from a head coaching angle.

Steve Rush: Cool, look forward to seeing you on the WNBA circuit soon then.

Crystal Robinson: Yes.

Steve Rush: Yeah, awesome. So now I'm going to turn the lens a little bit.

Crystal Robinson: Okay.

Steve Rush: Now you talked about leadership as a player and as a coach and having been a thought leader in your space as well. I'm going to ask you to try and think of, to distill all of those great leadership learnings that you have. And to narrow those down into your top three leadership hacks, what would they be?

Crystal Robinson: My top three leadership hacks. The first one, probably be, treat people how you want to be treated, you know, being relatable. I think that one of the things that I've learned as a leader now with this younger generation, if they don't relate to you, you can't convince them to do anything you want them to do. It's going to be a fight and struggle with everything, you know, being relatable. Second thing I would say is, I was recently told by someone that I went into business with, you know, I'm a partial owner of a business and he told me, you can't tell people what to do if you don't know what to do. So, I suggest you get down there on the bottom level and learn what to do. So, I think, know what your employees are, what the people you're leading have to do. So, you can go back to relate to them, to help them along to be able to do it a better way. And then I would say, make sure everyone, it’s not input. Everyone has to feel valued, you know, as a head coach in sports, you have this always a balancing act, you know, of treating everybody the same, but then you have players that score 30 points and you have player the score, no points, being able to make them feel important, no matter what their role is, I think is something that a leader should be able to do.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that’s great advice. It's not all about scoring goals, isn’t it?

Crystal Robinson: Yes, not all about that. I'm telling you, the best teams I've ever played on. It was a bunch of mediocre players who completely knew their roles and work together to make it happen. And it takes good leadership, and for me, I was in college, I could average 65 points a game, but in games where I could score 10 points and we could still win, I'd give my teammates their opportunities to shine. So, when I take over games, they, got out the way and they were very conducive to what we were trying to do.

Steve Rush: The next part of the show Crystal, we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something in your life hasn't worked out well. And we know already having learned some of the stories from you already in this short conversation and having read your book, you've had a bunch to choose from, but maybe if there was one experience in your life that was perhaps at adversity, but you now use that specific advent for something that's positive in your life or work, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Crystal Robinson: I was drafted into the American Basketball League and I was almost the last pick taken because I ended up leaving the NCAA school and going to a really low-level school, but I was still beating everybody at a high level. The American Basketball League where I was rookie of the year, and I was first team, all everything, it folded after two years. And I had no idea what I was going to do with my life at that point. I had a teaching degree, but I didn't know exactly what I was going to do. And then I got drafted in the sixth overall pick in the WNBA. Through that time period before that happened, I had gained some weight. I've kind of given up and whenever the WNBA came into play and I was the sixth overall draft, it just changed my life and my outlook on everything. And in terms of, you know, I almost given up hope, like I had been given this gift of basketball, and it would just snatch from me. I just made up my mind that, no matter what happened to WNBA, if anything ever happened, I was going to land on my feet and have a plan and be ready to go.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and sometimes it's just being available and open to coincidence as well, isn't it?

Crystal Robinson: Yeah, it is.

Steve Rush: Sometimes when you're driving so hard to achieve things, you don't often see what else is going on around you.

Crystal Robinson: And not being prepared for it.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Crystal Robinson: You know, I just thought it was going to last, you get caught up in that euphoria, just wasn't prepared for it. When I retired from basketball, I retired at a very early age. I retired at the age of 34. I probably could have still played for four more years. But I knew basketball wasn't what I was going to do forever. I'd done everything I could possibly do in it. And my body was sore, so I retired.

Steve Rush: Yeah, get out of the top. That's what it's about, right. So, if you could go back and meet Crystal at 21 and give her some advice, what would be your words of wisdom to her then?

Crystal Robinson: I think my words of wisdom would be, always be kind and never give up, even when you don't see a way, don't stop. That would be my advice to my young self.

Steve Rush: very profound, and indeed your pussy cat like that.

Crystal Robinson: She just got closed and now she's making noise to get out.

Steve Rush: So, Crystal. Your book by the way, is a fantastic read. So, any of our listeners who want to get their hands on a copy of Finding Myself, where's the best place for us to send them to? Not only get a copy of your book, but to learn a little bit more about the work you do now?

Crystal Robinson: Amazon.com or go to susanhum.com. It's a thought leadership platform where I speak for a foundation called Still Rose. I'm also on the board of a foundation called Code Red, it's a foundation. It's a lot to that foundation. One of them is sex trafficking. And one of them is school shootings. We designed an app that schools don't have surveillance systems in them, but this app goes on teacher's phones. And if in a situation like that, it turns into a surveillance system, it’s route it to a private company. And then I'm on a foundation of a board of Go Friends. You can also go to gofriends.com and read things about me. And basically, we go into prison systems, female prison systems, and we teach goal setting to try to help them when they get out of prison, hopefully they can stay out of prisons.

Steve Rush: You’re doing some fantastic work, honestly, from the journey you've been on, the adversity you've been through to now still being in the service of others. I just wanted to drop my hat and say, thank you. And thank you for being part of our community here on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Crystal Robinson: No, thank you so much for having me. These are the podcasts that I love. I would much rather prefer to talk about this stuff than basketball in general. So, thank you for having me.

Steve Rush: It’s our pleasure. Thanks Crystal.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the Leadership Hacker.

View Details

Matt Phelan is an entrepreneur, the Co-Founder and CEO of The Happiness Index. He's also the author of Freedom To Be Happy: The Business Case for Happiness. In the superb episode you can learn from Matt:

How to turn emotions like happiness into business metrics.
What the business case for happiness is.
The role neuroscience plays in happiness.
Why happy people are also the most productive.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Matt below:

Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewphelan/

Happiness Index Website: https://thehappinessindex.com

Matt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewphelan

Join the humans and happiness community: https://thehappinessindex.com/join-happiness-community/

Full Transcript Below

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

On the show today, we have Matt Phelan. He's the Co-Founder and CEO of The Happiness Index. And he's the author of Freedom To Be Happy: The Business Case for Happiness. Before we get a chance to speak with Matt, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: On today's show, we explore the notion of, “is crisis caused by communication?” And the reason we're focusing on this today is there are a number of different things happening globally, where because of communication; situations have arisen that might not have existed in the first place. Here's a few examples. There was a chip shortage around the world. Now, not a potato crisp or a bag of chips if you're in the UK, but the electronic chip come under great shortage due to supply and demand issues. And the reason that's happened is due to supply and demand due to supply chains, and of course, the COVID pandemic has massively impacted on it. But because of the hype that's been caused by the communication, It has caused manufacturers to overbuy, also causing big motor engineering companies and electronic manufacturers to grab hold of every supply they can. Therefore, rocketing price and reducing the market flow that would ordinarily be there.

Early in the pandemic we saw the same thing happen with supermarkets, where we were told that there would be a shortage of supply. Of course, it wasn't. Yet many people still bought toilet rolls to fill spare rooms and pasta that would last a year. Most recently in the UK, we have a driver shortage for haulage firms and lorry drivers. Taking our fuel and our goods and services around the country. And as such, the media said there might be a fuel shortage. And guess what? You're right. Panic buying at the pumps, people filling up cans and cans of petrol, diesel and fuel. Supermarkets going bare, why? Because the media is driving something that perhaps wouldn't be there had we just carry on our day-to-day life and routines.

So, what's the leadership hack? Well, if we think about how people respond to communication, if we have a perceived problem or a perceived threat that may not be true, and communicate it early, we could reinforce behaviors that could actually make that problem become a reality much sooner. And it may be the problem that wouldn't have arrived. Had we rethought our communication strategy and approach. So, the leadership lesson here is, if we think there may be a problem, be sure that there is a problem before you communicate it. Have foundations, have evidence because unintentional communication can send people down a rabbit hole and lead to challenge and adversity. Thank you for those have raised this through our social media platforms with us this week, so that we could bring it to the attention of our listeners. If you also have some stories or insights that you want us to hear, let's get in touch. In the meantime, let's get on with the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Matt Phelan is the Co-Founder and CEO of The Happiness Index. He's also the author of Freedom To Be Happy: The Business Case for Happiness, Matt, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Matt Phelan: Thanks for inviting me on.

Steve Rush: Delighted you're here too. So, tell us, how did you end up running and leading The Happiness Index and what is it?

Matt Phelan: So as with most of these good stories, complete accident, so when I was twenty-five, I started a marketing agency and we used to have a saying that employees come first, not the customer. So, we were the opposite. We didn't believe the customer came first. And over a ten-year period, we delivered something like thirty-three quarters of growth. I'm a data geek, and I started to wonder whether that was true, because it sounds good, doesn't it? Your customers will be happy and the business will grow. But as a geek, I've got a very inquisitive mind that I wanted to find out if it was true. So, we built a piece of code to correlate at the beginning. Just to understand the correlation. Is there a correlation between employee happiness and customer happiness? And then our customers of our marketing agency started asking for the code. And we said, you can't have it. It's a rubbish, rubbish piece of code. We'd be ashamed to show at twenty-one, but like most entrepreneurs we saw more and more phone calls came in. So eventually we realized that there was probably a business here called The Happiness Index. And it went from being an internal tool to being a business entity in its own rights.

Steve Rush: So as an organization, how might I use it?

Matt Phelan: So, you would use it, I would say to start off with, to visualize your culture, to figure out where you are. And once you know where you are, you can start to plot where you want to go. So, we say, it's an upgrade on employee engagement. It does measure employee engagement, but also includes employee happiness, which we think is subtly and importantly different.

Steve Rush: So, how would you describe happiness, Matt? Somebody asked you over a beer, what is happiness? How do you response?

Matt Phelan: Yeah, there's technical scientific answer, isn't there? I love your question, Steve. And this is why I'm sort of filling to try and answer, which is, I would say, it's your happiness of how you experience it is just a window into everything else. Like your wellbeing, how you are in life? I see it as a data point. I know that's a very geeky way of seeing happiness, but I think your own happiness can be a way of understanding how the rest of your life is. That could be in your personal life. That could be in your career. That could be in your relationship.

Steve Rush: And your hesitance was because you were going down that kind of geeky data space, right?

Matt Phelan: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Tell us a bit about what's the flip side of that kind of emotional response then?

Matt Phelan: Yeah, so the reason I hesitated is because we collect this information in over a hundred countries. So, I'm in the spreadsheets every day, but what I can share with you is like, everyone's different, right? So, my happiness is different to your happiness and so on and so on. But there are huge trends that we have that are similar and also different. But if I give you the top four which is, we define happiness as what the heart needs. So, to give the analogy, if you were thinking of a car, we say engagement is the sat nav. So, it's like the direction. So, it's the clear direction where you're going, what the route is going to be. Whereas happiness is that energy that you need to get there. I used to say, it's the petrol in the car, but it's, I think it's electric vehicle week Steve.

Steve Rush: It is indeed, yeah.

Matt Phelan: I have moved to electric. So, I'm trying to find a new, so let's say it's the electric in the car. The sat nav is the engagement and the happiness is the electric, is that energy, but the top four are psychological safety, positive relationships, freedom to take opportunities and feelings of acknowledgement.

Steve Rush: And are they consistent in all of the teams that you work with and the organizations you work with? Do you see that those manifest themselves in positive score?

Matt Phelan: So, relationships is always number one. But what is number two, changes per person, per company, per country or region?

Steve Rush: Interesting, yeah.

Matt Phelan: I know you have a lot of North American listeners, Steve. I pulled out an example from the data for you. So, European companies often lumped together. The United States of America and Canada, which we shouldn't for many reasons, but in our head, we see this kind of like geographical mass. If you take all the American data and all the Canada data. In America that the second most important thing, and I'm going to add engagement now and happiness together. The second most important thing in America is actually an engagement metric, which is a clear direction. In Canada, it's acknowledgement. So, you could look from over from Europe, you could look over the pond and think they're very similar in terms of their culture and so on and so on, but there's a clear difference every time we run that data, I've got some views and why I think that is and feel free to jump in Steve and why you think that might be, but that's what we see in the data, very clear different. So, if you're an HR Director that indicates that you need a different strategy for the different locations.

Steve Rush: I think it's probably a few things that kick around there, isn't there? You have some cultural differences between Canada and the rest of the U.S.

Matt Phelan: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Which could present itself in the results you get. But also, I would imagine that even within Inter-country and inter-regions, there are nuances that are also different, right?

Matt Phelan: Yeah, absolutely. And I don't want to get political, but I think in America, in the United States of America, your employment is very much tied to also things like your healthcare.

Steve Rush: Of course, yeah.

Matt Phelan: If you think about that, if you think about, I'm in London, if the happiness index failed and I lost my job and my family would still retain their health care. So, acknowledgement can be higher. It's a bit like the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. But if you know that if you were to lose your job and you would lose your health care. Clear clarity on what your role is, is hyper important, Isn't it?

Steve Rush: Absolutely.

Matt Phelan: So, you think it would be the same for everyone, but we're human beings and those underlining elements change how we are in the workforce.

Steve Rush: That's really fascinating. And I guess also organizations make assumptions about what makes people happy, right?

Matt Phelan: Yes, every single day. And we all do it consciously and subconsciously.

Steve Rush: So, what would be some of those assumptions and how right or wrong are they?

Matt Phelan: So, let me run a live case study for you in a real life. There European pan wide retailer, they were focused. The HR team said to us when they briefed us before they did their cultural assessment, that the number one priority is staff retention. Which is a normal thing to hear.

Steve Rush: Yep.

Matt Phelan: When we ran their first cultural assessment. And we cross-reference that with their financial performance data, we found that the managers of the stores that had the highest performing stores financially had been in the business the shortest amount of time.

Steve Rush: Fascinating, yeah.

Matt Phelan: So, the reason that is an important assumption is, the assumption is, retain staff things will be better if we retain our staff. What they found is, the newer managers had happier teams and were performing financially better. So, this is where it's important to not make an assumption again, the second assumption. So, the first assumption was staff retention was the most important thing. The second assumption, and then the next bit is where you can easily lump into assumptions again, which is, for example, you could think, okay, after five years, the employees get bored or lazy, or you could make an assumption actually after five years, we've we just left people alone and actually they need training. So maybe they need to call Steve Rush and think about how they can develop people over the entire employee experience. So that's where data just gets rid of the assumptions, because you could make so many assumptions on those two things, we've discussed there Steve.

Steve Rush: I’d love to get into that whole notion of how you take all of these data points and map that into something that is typically been described as something pink and fluffy. Happiness, it's an emotion, right? So, how do you shift from taking an emotion and turning into a business metric?

Matt Phelan: Yeah, it's really hard for me to answer that because I'm so converted the other way, and I deal with this every day, but I'm going to go out and try and take a step back. So, I think the first stumbling block and the first change in people's mind is a business term called, if you can measure it, you can manage it.

Steve Rush: You hear it a lot, don’t you?

Matt Phelan: You hear it a lot. I believe that to be wildly untrue. And what I would change it for is, and I say this as a measurement company, if you can measure it, you can better understand it, which is a subtle change, right, Steve. But I think we've gone down this road where we almost view people as robots. And we think, oh, if we can measure it, we can manage it. But I think, and this is quite a big concept to put out there. But I think the entire idea of management is flawed.

Steve Rush: It’s Ironically made up too. We created management in the last hundred years, it didn't happen before that.

Matt Phelan: Exactly, and it goes back, this is sort of taylorism and the factory floor stuff, isn't it?

Steve Rush: Right.

Matt Phelan: So, I think trying to see data as better understand, lead you to seeing data is helping you make better decisions. If we go back to your original question, how is this helping? And this is the second change that I would like to leave people. So, the first is not to use data to manage, but to better understand. The second one is, if we take a piece of data like revenue, generally, if revenue goes up, it's good, and if it goes down, it's bad. Emotions are supposed to fluctuate. It's normal for you to feel happier at one stage in the day and feel unhappy at the other, that's normal, right? So, trying to artificially get people to be happy all the time is actually not a good strategy. So, the second thing I want to leave your listeners with is to see emotional data, more like a weather report.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and can you forecast it?

Matt Phelan: You can certainly start to, we say, today's emotions are an indicator of tomorrow's performance, and that's why we call it the happiness index, right? So, the reason I think this is useful is that if you're a board and you're looking at this data is giving you an indicator of what your future performance may look like. There are subtle shifts, but I think once you start to do that, you start to realize that actually these are important business metrics. They're not the only business metric. They all have to work together. Just like you have revenue in your P&L. We now have companies as big as half a million employees that are measuring happiness in their board report.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Phelan: Times are changing, but it takes time to take people on that journey from the sort of taylorism that you say, like we've made up in the last a hundred years through to seeing happiness is a really important business metric.

Steve Rush: I totally agree, and productivity is a sidekick for happiness. Happy people are more productive than less happy people. You don't need data to see that, you can see that around you in any store, in any factory, in any office location, happy people are more productive.

Matt Phelan: Yeah, and one of the things that we plot. We're doing this on the modern version of radio. So, I'm going to try and draw it in your head for you. Happiness without engagement is unfocused. So, we see this in a lot of charities where they have happy staff, but not engaged.

Steve Rush: Yeah

Matt Phelan: But we also see the flip, which is highly engaged and unhappy, which is, you get this in a lot of organizations where they think they have a thriving culture when really what they have is a competitive culture which can show up some good metrics. But under the surface, lots of nasty little things are happening. It's going to eventually hold back the growth. So yeah, if you imagine it as a full box quadrant, we want the top right box to be where people are happy and engage is what we're trying to work towards.

Steve Rush: And you also, I know from the time that we've met before, you apply a lot of neurosciences, so this isn't just about data, we're talking about data and science and the people skills coming to this. So, what role does neuroscience play when we look at happiness?

Matt Phelan: Neuroscience is massive for us because if we think again, we've sort of looked at the history or business and taylorism, and so on and so on. If we look at the history of psychology, a lot of psychology is based on observation. Sorry if people eating their breakfast, but also dead brains. That's where we got a lot of our understanding of the body and how we work, observing people in the workplace and also dissecting their bodies, which, sorry, if you are eating a breakfast that I've really offended you.

Steve Rush: Or any of the meal at any of the time, of course, being a globally diverse podcast.

Matt Phelan: Really good point, isn't it? You should be allowed to be upset while eating your dinner as well. But I think what neuroscience just from a technical perspective is, it allows us to go under the hood and see what's happening in a body in real time. So that a huge leap forward, but before everyone turns off the podcast. The reason I love it so much, let's say you're, let's keep with a car, let's say you in a car later, there's a road rage incident, what neuroscience does is it helps you question why you acted in that way? Like, why did that person make me feel angry? Or when I had my meeting with my boss, why did I feel unsafe? Neuroscience is really just helping us understand the emotions. We divide it into four, how you instinctively feel, how you emotionally feel, how you actually feel and how you feel in a reflective basis. Which we think is really important. Businesses tend to be bad, understanding emotions and the instinctive behavior and focus on rational and reflective. But I think it goes back to that. If you can measure it, you can manage it quiet. It's easier to measure and manage rational and reflective beings, but guess what, Steve, there's no human beings out there that are holy. We're all emotional and we're all instinctive. And personally, that's what I think makes us beautiful.

Steve Rush: Well, the emotion reaction comes first anyway from a neuroscience perspective, we'll have an emotional reaction, which we either then can rationalize or not rationalize. And that's where we hit that kind of fight, flight, freeze or appease moment.

Matt Phelan: Yeah, and that's why we say from a neuroscience perspective, there's no such thing as too emotional. So, if your boss made you angry, your emotional responses is how that makes you feel. Anger is just something you're feeling. What you do with that anger is like the good or the bad thing. Because if you feel angry at your boss and then you punch them in the face, that's illegal, right? In most countries. If there is country where it's not, please tell me, Steve, that's bad behavior, right? Punching your boss in the face is bad behavior, but it doesn't change the fact that you instinctively and emotionally felt like that. And that's why we see emotions like happiness as a data point. Because if your boss makes you feel unsafe, it's important to step back and think, why does my boss make me feel unsafe? Maybe this is time to get out of here or speak to someone else or change role. But from a neuroscience perspective, telling someone they're too emotional is like telling a parent that they love their children too much.

Steve Rush: That a great analogy. Yeah, love it. So, here's the thing. Can you ever be

Too happy?

Matt Phelan: Yes, the answer Steve.

Steve Rush: Oh Okay!

Matt Phelan: To be happy all the time is a mental health issue as severe, as being unhappy all the time, which people are often shocked when they hear that. But our emotions are supposed to fluctuate and the fluctuation is what is important. This is kind of why I wrote my book. Self-help books, good to a certain degree, right? But if you have a chemical imbalance, which means you're unhappy all the time. You need to go and get help to get out of that. And it would be the same if you were happy all the time, that would be a condition there that you would need help with. We took a lot at the moment about incongruous, did I said it right?

Steve Rush: Yeah, yeah, you nailed it.

Matt Phelan: Incongruous emotion. So, and incongruous emotion could be your mother dies, but you feel happy. So, you feel happy because she was in pain for five years. And you feel that she has had a release, but you feel guilty that you feel happy. The emotion that you feel happy, you can't help how you are feeling in that moment. But what happens is, you can then end up feeling bad. Your rational brain can tell you to feel bad because you think you should be unhappy because your mother just died. So, these are all complex subjects, but it's important to know that it will fluctuate. And the reason I bring up the incongruous bit, sometimes people end up on a downward spiral because they feel unhappy and they get annoyed that they're not happy.

Steve Rush: And it makes it worse.

Matt Phelan: Yeah, certain event. The other way can happen as well. So, to answer your question. Yes, you can be too happy, which I think does surprise a few people when they hear that.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it does. And, I guess the reason that might surprise people is, because it's easy to notice when people are less happy than when they are happy, right?

Matt Phelan: Yeah, and I think we need to bring up an elephant in the room on this one, Steve.

Steve Rush: Let’s do it.

Matt Phelan: Which is toxic positivity.

Steve Rush: Oh, go on…

Matt Phelan: We made this mistake when we first started The Happiness Index, which is, as soon as we built that software in our old company, we made happiness a target. As in, we said, we want our staff to be on average eight out of ten or above happiness. What I learned from doing that is, it's a terrible idea and don't do it. And the reasons it’s terrible idea, and don't do it, is that if you saw someone in the office or down the pub, and they looked unhappy, it's the equivalent of telling them to cheer up. If you tell somebody who's unhappy to cheer up, the only thing that's ever going to happen is, they're going to get unhappy.

Steve Rush: That's true, isn't it? Very true.

Matt Phelan: Yeah, and it goes back to that, seeing it like a weather report, you can't tell the rain not to rain and the sun not to shine. It's just natural, this is what's happening. So, all you can do, if you see someone unhappy is to be there and try and understand what's driving that emotion. And if you can help then great. But if you can't, your job, like we've all learned is to be there to listen. And actually, just the process of listening could actually really help people. But you need to get permission before you go into fixed mode because I think it's an entrepreneurship thing and there's also gender differences in this element, but I'm definitely somebody who likes to jump into fixing.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Phelan: Before I've been given permission that this person actually wants me to help. That's definitely one of my own developments as leader that I've had to work on.

Steve Rush: And in terms of getting balance over the last eight months, two years, where we've gone through this crazy world, that we've been all experiencing, how has that kind of presented itself in terms of people's happiness during and through the pandemic?

Matt Phelan: So, I'm going to use a word from the island in geography back in the day, which it's been a kaleidoscope. I've just been waiting to get that word in really.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I think it's the first time anybody use that word on our podcast. So, congratulations, well done.

Matt Phelan: Thanks Steve, I'm going to send it to my mom. So, she's proud of me, but I think in reality, it's just been different. It's been different for everyone, but there's huge themes again. So, similar to what I was saying about global emotions, some people are happier. For example, introverts many introverts have preferred working from home. Because they don't have people like me walking around the office, asking them how they are.

Steve Rush: Of course, they get their energy internally. So, they don't need to be surrounded by other people to get their energy and focus.

Matt Phelan: Absolutely, some people have really struggled. I've really missed human connection myself. The relationships bit is definitely key, really important for me. The top level, the world was way unhappier in the last two years than it's ever been recognized of unhappiness, just to get that on record. But where we've seen is, we've seen people want to communicate times for the normal amount.

Steve Rush: Wow, that's a lot, isn't it?

Matt Phelan: Yeah, which shows that the digital world is great. But it leaves you with what we call an emotional deficit. So, I think the digital world, I don't want to get too much into hormones today, but I think the digital world really drives your dopamine. Like that reward signal thing that you get from all the social.

Steve Rush: Instant gratification.

Matt Phelan: Yeah, I think we get that a lot from tech and that's not by accident. The Mark Zuckerberg of the world know how to design platforms to do that for us. But there's a huge piece missing on connection there that sitting around the fire, having a chat, all that sort of stuff, you can get bits of it from the digital world. But ultimately, I do think there's a real-world stuff that we need.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I agree. And given all the research and data points, you get, you've gathered data from all over the world. Has there been any pockets of happiness or sadness that spikes, or where's the kind of happiest place to live right now and where would be the place that we might want to avoid?

Matt Phelan: So, this comes up a lot because the nordics always come out as the happiest place. But actually, I think if I’m really brutal with the analysis, I think all human beings, I don't think there's a happier country and a less happy country. There are facts that do come into it that we can't ignore like war and famine.

Steve Rush: Of course, yeah.

Matt Phelan: There is no doubt that if you're in Afghanistan at the moment; that it's going to be impacting how you feel. But if we just take a normal situation, I think in reality, there's measurement differences on it. So, I really encourage everyone to go back to what is important to you and your environment and what's around you because. Denmark and so on, always come out really high, but guess what, Steve, I have to deal with the situation that I have in front of me, which is what I always encourage people to do. So, it's great to be inspired by other countries and other locations, but I think it's more important to look internally and look around you in your own facility. Otherwise, if you heard of that Roosevelt quote, it's like comparison is the thief of joy.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Phelan: And you can easily do that. Like when I went out to Copenhagen, I loved going for a swim in the harvest that they have there. But I can't do that.

Steve Rush: And here's the other thing that was really interesting bit of a data point overlay on that. Denmark the highest taxed country in Europe, you pay more tax out of your earned income than in any other country in Europe. And in fact, I think in the Northern hemisphere.

Matt Phelan: And I think we talk about that a lot. I talk about that with Jens Nelson. Who's our representative in Denmark and there's a mindset shift. They don't see tax as the thing that's being stolen out of your back pocket after you've done your work.

Steve Rush: Interesting, yeah.

Matt Phelan: There is something that is contributing to society and good. They see it as good; we would need a podcast just to get into the cultural.

Steve Rush: Oh gosh, that's a whole other show, right?

Matt Phelan: Yeah, we'd be back to King John and the Magna Carta to understand that from a UK perspective, maybe that's the follow-up Steve would do King John and the Magna Carta and happiness.

Steve Rush: And then we'll have to of course involve the Romans who started all the thing.

Matt Phelan: Totally.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so you created a fantastic community by the way, called happiness and humans community.

Matt Phelan: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And you always have this question that you'd like to pose and it's what makes you happy. So, I'm going to ask you the same question. So, what makes you happy Matt?

Matt Phelan: Oh, thanks for asking me, Steve. It's where I got the title for my book, which is Freedom To Be Happy. So, freedom was in those top four that I mentioned earlier on happiness, but for me, it's by far the number one thing. like for me, I see life as an adventure. I didn't come from a wealthy family or anything. So, I do have to earn money to pay the mortgage and stuff like that. I do have that side to me, but I can't work anywhere for a second if I don't have freedom to be myself. And it's really higher in that perspective. So, that's all parts of life. That's in my relationships with friends, with my family, with my work colleagues, like I need to know that I can leave at any point. If I was told to come on this podcast, it's very childish. I wouldn't have come on, but because you invited me, I came on. I know it's a very subtle difference.

Steve Rush: It is.

Matt Phelan: I probably need some therapy to work through it, but for me, it's freedom.

Steve Rush: Lovely, awesome.

Matt Phelan: And you, I have to ask?

Steve Rush: Oh, I knew you would do that. So, I'm trying to just articulate this because I've not thought about it and I should have done so it's kind of schoolboy error. I think it's around environment for me. So having happy and calm people around me makes me happy. When there is anger and disruption and chaos, that makes me really unhappy. And I react emotionally in those environments differently.

Matt Phelan: Can you feel that, Steve?

Steve Rush: Oh, hugely. I can feel it even before it happens, so I can sense in a room or in an environment, mood shift and change very, very quickly before it presents itself in the either physical or verbal way.

Matt Phelan: I think that's one of the most important aspects of the COO role. I think a lot of people, when I think about the COO in an organization, I think that person is one of the most organized people in the business, which is also true. But I don't think you can have a COO that can't sense that because the COO has so many interactions with all the different teams.

Steve Rush: Well, actually, I coined the phrase, my Leadership Barometer, right? So that's kind of how it feels for me. You've made the correlation with weather earlier with happiness, didn't you?

Matt Phelan: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So, it's ironic that even without having this conversation before or even connecting the dots, that's exactly what happens with me. I get a sense, a barometer of mood shift, energy shift, culture shift, and I migrate towards it and can energize it and make it better. And I avoid it when it's not or tackle it to re-engineer it, so that it is.

Matt Phelan: And I'm just going to get a bit of free consultancy from you for all your listeners quickly, Steve, with one more question, and then I will stop questioning. I get the sense that you intuitively do that, right?

Steve Rush: It is an intuitively.

Matt Phelan: But if you get people that are not as natural at doing that, right. If you went into an organization and they were low on that skill, do you think you can coach and help people improve that? Or do you think you're just born with it?

Steve Rush: No, I totally believe you can coach it and have done because it's around awareness. So, starts with yourself, and are you paying attention? Are you noticing? And then secondly, it's around, how do you notice? So, what are the clues, the cues, the things that happening around us that make us open to those coincidences. Open to observing those behaviors. So, it's definitely a learned behavior. It might be an intuition for me now, but it probably wasn't twenty-five years ago.

Matt Phelan: That's brilliant Steve and I'm thinking about lots of clients and stuff now where I know that's a challenge they've got.

Steve Rush: Anyway, back to me, it's my show, [laughter] I'm going to spin the lens now and we're going to hack into your leadership mind. So, you've led some really successful businesses and still do, and therefore want to get your leadership spin on how you might do that and what's going to set you and others apart. So, first thing I want to ask you is, if you think about all of the experiences you had, what would be your top three leadership hacks Matt?

Matt Phelan: I think the number one is, I love from my granddad who I never met. So, I learned something from my granddad that I never met, but I learned it through stories passed on to me. This leadership lesson sounds a little bit outdated, because we're probably talking about it from like the forties and fifties. But the thing that I learned from my granddad is that as a leader, your job is to help someone. I'm trying to think of the exact phrase, but it's help someone improve. And I think when you look at it, forties and fifties, it was more like, like my family were immigrants. So, it's about like working your way up and all that kind of stuff. But in a modern world, I see it as personal development. I think if you look at all your employees and think, how do you help them improve? Ultimately that's going to help your organization improve as well. But the massive caveat that I would add to it. For it to really work, you have to be able to have an honest conversation with someone when you think that improvement will be better served outside your current organization.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Phelan: Which is tough, and you have to park your ego to do that and you to have open lines of communication. But if you've worked with someone for example, five years and you both think, you know, what the best thing this person could do is go and work at this other organization. You have to have a relationship where you could have that conversation with that person. So, I think it's focusing on their improvement, but the caveat that you would be aware that sometimes that improvement might not come from in your organization.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Phelan: So, we've got number one. And number two, I think is, we've mentioned it before Steve, which is listen. And again, the caveat is not jumping into problem solving. So, it's really listening to your team. But waiting to be invited on the fixed part. And I've learned that the hard way.

Steve Rush: Yeah, easy done though.

Matt Phelan: Yeah, and I think the third point, and this is why I think this is why your podcast has done so amazing Steve is, the power of storytelling. Because I'm a geek, right? And ideal in data, but unless you can turn that data into a story, it just sits in a spreadsheet, isn't it?

Steve Rush: It does, yeah.

Matt Phelan: They're just numbers, aren’t they? But until you start looking at trends and then once you turn them into trends, you start saying the stories, that's how other human beings learn. So, when you're looking at your cultural data, then taking out those little nuggets and stories, that's how we share it. And we learn and we improve as an organization. So, to recap that I would say self-improvement for the team, really proper listening. And the third point which I just mentioned.

Steve Rush: Love it, really great advice. So, the next part of the show, we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something in your life or work has not worked out at all well. Could have even been quite catastrophic, but it created a learning experience for you that you now use as a positive in your life and work. What would be your Hack to Attack Matt?

Matt Phelan: I think my Hack to Attack was where you were going to Steve, a bit with like listening to your own body. So, I learned through coaching, my coaches is a neuroscience coach that the most important thing I could do is listen to my body. And the reason that was important was when I first started, I was twenty-five and, you know, what’s it like, we took an off the record about how tough the last year has been for both our businesses. But like, you can hit these big moments, can't you? People resign, you lose clients, cashflow is tough. What I used to do to deal with tough experiences. Like when I came home, I found it hard to switch off. So, I would drink red wine to sort of like, get that nice hazy feel.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Phelan: But what I learned from listening to my body is that it would give me that hazy feel and it would push back the negative thoughts, like, oh my God, we've lost this client or this has happened. But then those thoughts would come back to me at three o'clock in the morning which was a downward cycle because then I couldn't sleep. And then I was getting less sleep, which was negatively impacting my wellbeing. So, Hack to Attack, now I look at my wellbeing as I know that if I'm going to turn up for a meeting or a podcast, my wellbeing and foundation to be myself, needs to be there. So, I've learned that I just need to keep feeding that in. So that led me to doing a year off alcohol. I came back drinking for my brother stag do which I felt like I obliged to him because he drank on my stag do and so on and so on.

And I want it to be part of that, but actually, I don't know if I'll drink again. Now, I've came back for that social event. And I definitely think that I'm a better leader. And the other thing I've learned from it is that there are non-drinkers within the happiness index that have gravitated to me towards me socially.

Steve Rush: It's very interesting.

Matt Phelan: Because in the media world, drinking is part of the world. And that was my old world.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Phelan: Actually, it's like a diversity thing, isn't it? Which is, drinkers socially gravitated towards me. And my co-founders drink, but actually as a diversity perspective, the fact that I'm a non-drink is actually quite useful. So other people would come to me and say, Matt, we're doing this event, it's got drinking involved. Maybe we could do a different type of activity. Whereas I don't think they would've come to me if I hadn't like explained why it cut down on drinking.

Steve Rush: And we avoid the rabbit hole that says also there's a chemical reaction that gives you an instant high when you drink alcohol, but then it also impacts you negatively after the event.

Matt Phelan: I would recommend to read Alcohol Explained. And for any level of drinker, I wouldn't say I was someone who was a huge drinker, but I was someone who became aware that, I looked at it like a loan in the end, which is, I reckon I had one day up for two days down. And I thought, you know what? This is like a high interest loan that I don't want to keep paying off with interest.

Steve Rush: Like you currently can.

Matt Phelan: But that book alcohol explained, especially if you're into neuroscience and stuff, it explains why that high comes and so on. And I don't want to preach because I've many years of actually really enjoying drinking and lots of friends and families do drink, but I would recommend people to read Alcohol Explained whatever your level of drinking from. Problem drinker to one a month.

Steve Rush: Great stuff. Now, the very last thing we get to do is we get to give you a chance to do some time travel, bump into Matt at twenty-one. And you can get to give him some advice Matt, what would it be?

Matt Phelan: You don't realize how much opportunity you've got. And I would say, go and work in other countries. Like right now, obviously we're in the middle of the pandemic, well, we're not hopefully we're at the beginning of the end, but again, like maybe I'm saying this because our freedoms been locked down and stuff, but I think you can learn a lot from travel, right. But imagine how much you can learn by going and working in another country.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Phelan: It's been good for me because I've become very ingrained in London. So, anything I need or speak too, like my network in London is huge and London's a global city. So, I've benefited from that perspective. But actually, if I were speaking to twenty-one-year-old Matt, I'd probably say, go and work in Shanghai for a couple of years.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I didn't start working my professional career abroad until in my late twenties and then only really in the last kind of ten or fifteen years, if I had the opportunity to travel the world and see and experience those, and you do get much of a richer experience and diversity of thinking and behaviors, is really powerful, isn't it?

Matt Phelan: Yeah, it would be as simple as that.

Steve Rush: So beyond today, if folk wanted to continue the conversation with you, stay connected with you, where's the best place for us to send them?

Matt Phelan: Yeah, at the moment we realized that moving from engagement to happiness for some can be scary. So, any company in the world of any size can go to the happinessindex.com and they can do a free trial for three months of our entire platform. So that's it on a product perspective. From a keeping in touch perspective, the happiness and humans community, you can find that on the happinessindex.com as well, the test is, do you want to positively shape the future of work. If you are thinking, yes, that's what I want to do, Matt and Steve, then please join that community is people from all around the world. People pose questions, challenges. But most importantly, people connect up and there's been people that have become friends, business partners, they've hired on there. So, yeah, please join the happiness in humans community if you want to positively shape the future of work.

Steve Rush: And we but a little join here button on our show notes as well. So, people can do that as soon as they started listening with us.

Matt Phelan: Thanks Steve.

Steve Rush: Matt, I love chatting with you. You bring a really great perspective to something that is an emotional subject, and you have given us that business case. So, thanks for being part of our community and thanks for being on the podcast.

Matt Phelan: Thanks for having me, Steve.

Steve Rush: Thanks, Matt.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

David Wheatly is the Principal and Chief Question Asker at Humanergy, he's the author of “What Great Teams Do Great” and “50 Dos For Everyday Leadership.” You’ll love listening to David talk about his journey from England to the USA with lessons including:

The components and elements of leadership choices
The common themes that set great teams apart
The red path and green path (which one are you on?)
What makes great questions “great.”

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about David below:

David on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/humanergy/

Humanergy Website: https://humanergy.com

David on Twitter: https://twitter.com/davidwheatley1

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Joining me on the show today is David Wheatly. He's the Principal and Chief Question Asker, Humanergy, leadership development consultancy. He's the author of What Great Teams Do Great and 50 Dos For Everyday Leadership. Before we get a chance to speak with David, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: When the chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Indra Nooyi was asked by Fortune magazine, what's the most important leadership advice she's been given. She said, whatever anybody does or says assume positive intent. And when you follow this advice, your approach to a personal problem becomes very different. When you assume negative intent, you're often angry or annoyed. If you let go of this anger or annoyance and assume positive intent, you'll be able to listen generously and speak straight and more effectively. And this advice is not insignificant from a leader who has made one of the boldest moves in their industry in recent years.

Nooyi was featured in 2015 issue of Fortune for her bold move of taking PepsiCo in an audacious strategy shift beyond unhealthy snacks and drinks. Despite her critics at the time, PepsiCo has had positive year on year organic growth and has crushed the shares of rival Coke. Assuming positive intent is clearly a powerful leadership move. However, to get good at it, you must first recognize your automatic tendency to sometimes see the negative intentions in people. And then you must deliberately practice looking for positive intent. When you look for positive intent, you automatically give people the benefit of the doubt, and you give yourself a chance to learn about what could have caused the situation you find yourselves in. In fact, you might even be surprised something you hadn't expected might come out of the woodwork. Maybe in a few cases, you'll learn that the person had positive intent, but it just landed negatively.

Allow yourself to learn this rather than jumping to conclusions without clear information and doing so you can take action. And of course, by assuming positive intent, you're also practicing great leadership. You'd like to avoid many of the embarrassing situations that come with having negative connotation. So, the leadership lesson here is when you hear or see something that feels negative, reframe it and ask yourself what could have been the reasons behind the action behind the event. And you'll find some positivity in there somewhere. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. We'd love to hear your stories and insights. So please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: David Wheatley is a special guest on today's show. He's the Principal and Chief Question Asker at Humanergy, a leadership development consultancy focused on helping people transform themselves along with those who work with them. David's a co-author of What Great Teams Do Great and 50s Dos For everyday leadership. David, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

David Wheatley: Thanks for having me on.

Steve Rush: So really keen to get into your backstory that helps send us down a little bit about why you do what you do now. So how did that go from Leeds end up working for The Met Police in London?

David Wheatley: I'll try and give you the short story of this, but I put it all down to whitewater kayaking and I taught whitewater kayaking when I was a kid, I'd spent most of my summers in the lake district. And I was looking at different times to go in the Navy. I thought about Dartmouth. And then I'd always said, well, I don't get in there, then maybe the police. And I saw an advert for the police in London that had a guy kayaking on the front of it. And I thought that's the one for me. And so, I applied and got in and spent five years with what's known in England as the met, which is the police force for greater London. And so that was the easy story of how I ended up moving 200 miles south of my hometown to go seek my fortune in the Capitol.

Steve Rush: So how long were you at the met police?

David Wheatley: I was there for five years in the eighties, which was an interesting time to be in London.

Steve Rush: Because London bit like most cities, if you look back in history and certainly some of the big cities in the U.S. and around the around Europe and the world actually. The eighties was kind of their revolving or revolutionary years where they went from what they were to where they are now. And London was definitely one of those cities, wasn't it?

David Wheatley: Yeah, it was definitely in transition. So, there were places that you would feel safer than not. And there were definitely communities that were in transition at the same time. So, and now a few riots thrown in during my time too.

Steve Rush: And when you look back on your time with the metropolitan police, were there lessons that you learned then that you now carry forward to the work that you do now?

David Wheatley: If you look at anything, right. There should be a lesson that you can take out of it. And there were thousands of when I was in that place and I was a cop on the streets of London at twenty-one. And the advice I'd give myself is to stop being so fully yourself and arrogant and being an ass, start growing up a bit quicker and paying attention to what's going on around you. And I think that's one of those things, isn't it? That the great quote says when I was eighteen, I couldn't believe how stupid my dad was. And when I was twenty-one, I was surprised at what you'd learned in three years.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it’s a great quote, isn't it?

David Wheatley: I wish I had the thought and the calm, the willingness to stay calm and question back then, rather than the energy and enthusiasm and excitement and arrogance of a twenty-one-year-old.

Steve Rush: So how did you end up then becoming from a place officer to leading a great leadership consultancy in the U.S.?

David Wheatley: Again, I put that back to whitewater kayaking, because I got to place in my police career where my colleagues were saying that's five down, only twenty-five to go, and then I can buy a house in the national park and a sports car and do all my hobbies and my hobbies, where, like I say, whitewater kayaking and a bit of climbing. And I thought, well, 30 years’ time and a career of thirty years, maybe I won't be able to do those things. So perhaps now's the time to go. And I left the police and moved to the lake district of England, which is a national park in the Northwest. I went to a college in the heart of the lake district to get an education degree while I could still continue my kayaking. And across the lake from the college, I went to was another college that was doing management training using the outdoors. And they needed people with the right bits of paper. And so, I would quite literally paddle from one college across lake Windermere to the other college to go and work with these leadership teams whether it was building a raft or out kayaking, getting to know each other that way. And it evolved from there. We came away from the outdoors and it becomes much more about asking questions that people in their own settings these days. And I've been in the states now for twenty-five years and with Humanergy for twenty-one.

Steve Rush: So, what was the pivotal moment for you then to leave blighty and move to the U.S.?

David Wheatley: Well, it's part of that college course. I did a six-month exchange to the U.S. and I went back with a wife and a three-year-old. And so, my wife spent five years living in Kendall in Cumbria and decided that she'd love to move back to the states. And so, I looked for some work over here and got a job here in 1996, or as someone told me the other day, the late nineteen hundred which makes me sound really old. And I was working with my now business partner and that company folded in 2000 and we started our own company, Humanergy, which has been around since.

Steve Rush: Awesome. Are you still Kayaking?

David Wheatley: I was kayaking this last weekend, although the water's a lot less white around here.

Steve Rush: Yes, indeed. Unfortunately, I have the Thames, so I'm able to jump on my kayak and shoot up the Thames as long as it's not going upstream after heavy rainfall.

David Wheatley: Yeah, so we have the Kalamazoo River just on our doorstep here and it's a beautiful river, goes through the nature center. So, it's all very wilderness, but it's quite flattened, slow moving. So, my whitewater kayak looks a little out of place on it.

Steve Rush: I bet it does, yeah. You co-wrote the book, What Great teams Do Great. And in the book, you talk about leadership choices. I fundamentally believe that there are loads of those, but from your experience, what are the kind of key components and elements of leadership choice?

David Wheatley: Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up because that's fundamental to our philosophy of leadership. We believe that leadership is not about your title or your rank or the size of your office, the brass plaque on your desk or any of those things. It's about the choices you make that influence the people around you. And if you think about it that way, then everybody, every day is making leadership choices. They're making choices that influence those around them. And you break it down into that level of simplicity. I'm making a choice, that's influencing you. Then I have some level of leadership and then we broke it into a couple of areas that we could focus on. One is, that choice focused on me or the greater good? And you can kind of draw a line between those two. So, if it's a self-focused choice, then it's about me at the cost of everybody else.

If it's a great good choice, it's about me and everybody else that I'm naturally connected to. And we believe that as a leader, you want to be closer to that greater good choice and of that continuum. The other continuum we identified as one of the levels of commitment, which kind of goes from a place of comfort to a place of impact. So, am I committed to my comfort or my committed to impact? And when you plot those two continuums, you end up with, what we've identified as four leadership choices that kind of show the different styles that go from destructive, which is I'm committed to impact, but it's all about me. Passive, which is I'm committed to comfort, and it's still all about me or the better choices which hit that greater good end of the continuum, which is a productive choice, which may be that I'm still committed to my comfort little bit, but I'm willing to help. And then a transformative choice, which is when I'm committed to impact. And I see the greater good and all the work that we do is trying to get people to make more choices in what we would call a top half of those four, which is the productive and transformative quadrants.

Steve Rush: When you hear people talk about choices, often that comes with a connotation that people have made a deliberate decision, but I'm looking at your research. Often, the choices that they've made are contributory to where they end up, right?

David Wheatley: I think that's just one of the questions we ask is, are your choices yours to make? And when people say yes, most of the time. Although I had a class this week and somebody said no, not really. If I'm told I have to do this by my boss, I don't have a choice. And then somebody else in the room said, yes, you do. You don't have to work there. And she said, yes, I do. I have to work here because I have bills. And then they got into the discussion about how they were all choices.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

David Wheatley: And even the decision to choose, to work there, to choose, to continue to work there after a boss mandated, we're all their choices. And it's kind of interesting at the moment, especially in the states, we're seeing a lot of people see that and make the choice to leave companies. There's a bit of an exodus of companies because people are saying, I don't have to put up with this anymore. There's opportunities and I'm going to choose to leave and choose to go find somewhere that fits a little better with my values.

Steve Rush: In the U.S. actually, there's this great resignation that's going on at the moment where there is a bunch of people leaving in droves, their organizations.

David Wheatley: Yep, and in some cases, they're not finding a role elsewhere. They're doing something on their own and other cases that lost to the ether somewhere. But yes, that's this mass exodus that people are making the choice to say, I don't have to put up with this. And I think it's interesting. I was just in a meeting before we came in here and people were talking about, they don't have people, which means that the people they do have are being pushed to do twice as much work as they would do in the past.

Steve Rush: Right.

David Wheatley: And the result of that is some of them are leaving.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

David Wheatley: So, that's a choice. It's been interesting to see that that's seems to be more comfortable choice for people at the moment.

Steve Rush: What'd you think the reason is that some people, even though they are making choices, don't perceive them to be choices?

David Wheatley: I think people get stuck, don't they? Especially over here, we could get a bit philosophical that if you're motivated externally, then the choices you make are about how you look and what you have. And I see that the most centered, balanced leaders are motivated internally and it's about who they are and doing the right thing and making sure they're constantly on the journey inwards. And I think it was Dag Hammarskjold who said, “The longest journey of them all is the journey inwards.” I think half of my work are leadership coach is helping people take that journey inwards rather than to take the journey outwards. Because if you're on that outward journey where it's about how I look, how I'm perceived and the stuff I've got, then that can make us feel like we can't make choices.

Steve Rush: All right, that's back to that continuum of comfort and impact people feel comfortable. It comes with another load of emotions that make them feel secure or safe, but actually that sometimes can be holding them back, right?

David Wheatley: Yeah, over here in Michigan. It's not unusual for families to have a cottage up north, on a lake somewhere. And you hear people say, oh yeah, I've got a cottage, but I've not been there this year because I've been so busy working. It's like, so why have the cottage?

Steve Rush: Yeah, why not work from the cottage?

David Wheatley: Yeah, exactly. And these days you can, of course, but it seems like it, but then people get locked into this. I have to go and work here. I have to make this much money. I have to do this stuff in order to have the things that I perceive, but I don't actually make the time to use them. It's one of the things I try to do in my work is keep as much balance as possible. So, I take a lot of Fridays off in the summer so we can hit the water. My vacation for next year is already scheduled. I don't know whether it'll happen at precisely that way or not, but that's important time to get, so I put that in first, before I start filling in the work around it, because it's those experiences that happen on my vacation that are important. And the bigger question is, are you living to work or working to live?

Steve Rush: All of which, are your choices, of course.

David Wheatley: Exactly.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so you've done a lot of work with teams throughout your career and focusing on helping team performance as well. And I thought, what would be helpful is digging into the whole notion then that says, you know, what great teams do Great. Well, what are those things that set great teams apart?

David Wheatley: Funnily enough, I have a book on this. It's available all at all good book store. There's a couple of things that we've identified that really work for the book, if I break it into two things. One of them is what we call the set-up box and teams tend to skip around the setup to get straight into the plan. And when we talk about the setup, it's about getting to know each other. So, who do we actually have on the team and what do they bring? Making sure we understand the environment that we're in at the moment and what that impact is on us. Getting clarity as to what we're trying to achieve and then establishing our non-negotiables. So, what are the small number of things that really, we want as our values or our non-negotiables, our behavioral expectations of each other, build that team. And the more time we spend there, the more we're setting ourselves up for a successful experience. And folks can often jump through that because they think, oh, let's just take that as read and we'll get straight into what we're going to do. And then they find issues occur later that require them to come back and spend the time though. So, it's another one of those things that I know of find that time to do it right by always make time to do it over.

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly.

David Wheatley: And teams that spend the time in that set up box will save lots of time later on because they did the work. The second piece is that comes back to the choices we make and we break it into green path and red path choices. So that productive and transformative choices I talked about earlier will be green path. The passive and destructive will be what we call red path choices. And it's when we have issues and red path choices, or when we see people be defensive, attack, avoid, accommodate, make excuses, whine, all of those things make the team worse. And we actually put them up there and labeled them so people can see if you're doing any of these, your part of the problem. The flip side of that of course, is the green path is, means I have to be caring, honest and direct. I have to be willing to listen. I have to take in all the perspectives and engage people in a way that drives us forward to a solution. And if I'm doing that, I'm part of the solution. And now that's significantly harder than the whining or the excuses or the attacking, avoid, but it builds the team and it builds the credibility of the team.

And it sounds simple but putting it out in front of people and saying, you know, is this a green path or a red path choice, or in other words, is this building us or is this degrading us over time? Is the other thing that all too often, we see teams that have got problems and that could have been resolved six weeks ago if they had just had a good conversation about it, but they didn't. And then, it started to fester and they neglected things. And next thing, the teams falling apart and the results, aren't where they need to be.

Steve Rush: So, for those teams who do follow the green path, what's the reason that they're able to keep laser focused and follow the green path and not be distracted?

David Wheatley: And the reality is we're all human. So, we all make choices on the red and the green path consistently. The better leaders make more choices on the green, but they don't necessarily make none on the red. What I find is that people are making more green path choices, it encourages and emboldens more green patch choices. So, if you come back from lunch and there's a piece of lettuce between your teeth, and I tell you, there's a piece of lettuce between the teeth in a way that's caring, then you will appreciate that. You might be slightly embarrassed, but you'll appreciate it. And then when you see me with something so good like that, you're more likely to let me know that so that I'm not as embarrassed later on, those are simple green path choices that help us build the relationship. But then that relationship helps us deliver the results that we need when we need it. Because when we build that relationship, we have that level of trust. We're more willing to do what it takes to get us to that that result. And if it means digging in a bit deeper, I've been a bit more creative or working on some things, I'm willing to do that because we built that connection. As simple as you were willing to tell me, I had a piece of lettuce between my teeth.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's the small things that make the big differences, right?

David Wheatley: Yeah, and if I don't do that and you get home five o'clock tonight, and you're looking in the mirror and you say, wow, I've still got a piece of lunchtime lettuce in my teeth. How many people have I passed that didn't tell me that?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

David Wheatley: And then you go in tomorrow morning with a completely different attitude about those people, and you're right. I just was in a meeting where I said, I think I used the phrase, it's driving me crazy. And someone put it in the chat box, but we're really trying to lean away from using the word crazy because it cannot not always be inclusive to people with mental health issues. And I thought, wow, that's kind of cool. And, but rather than have the conversation in the chat box, let's have the conversation in the meeting so that we can get this out here and understand what you're saying. And I can learn from it as well as everybody else can learn from it. And if that's turning some people off, then we need to know it, but we need to be willing to have those conversations so that we can align and make it better as we move forward.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I love that. Now, all teams, including high-performing teams have an achilleas heel, having your experience of working with many teams, what do you see as the biggest achilleas heel for teams?

David Wheatley: Ego.

Steve Rush: Okay, tell me more?

David Wheatley: I wanted to see what would happen if I just said that and nothing else afterwards, but I think ego gets in the way, because we're not willing to see ourselves as being wrong or not perfect. And all too often that trips teams up when somebody or some people in that team let their egos get the best of them. If you think about my continuum going from self to greater good, in some ways I have to manage that ego to be part of the greater good, because if it takes over then that drives me back to the self and of the continuum and makes my choice more red path than green path. And that's when senior leaders don't want to be told that they might be wrong. When people aren't open to feedback, when people aren't learning from the folks who are operating machinery, for example, and I was talking to a client this week and the folks who operate the machines, keep telling the engineers that there's some better ways of doing it, but the engineers aren't interested because the folks who operate the machines don't have engineering degrees. In my mind, that's an ego issue that is negatively impacting that team.

Steve Rush: Agreed. And it happens in every business, right?

David Wheatley: Yeah, it does. If those engineers actually got on the floor and talk to those folks, they'd probably find out there as smart, if not smarter as their engineering degree, because they'd been operating that machine for twenty years. Now, they may not have the ability to draw it or to capture or do all the technical stuff they learned in college, but they know what that machine is doing and they know how to get the most out of it. And yet it's ego that gets in the way of that.

Steve Rush: Agree. So, one of the things I wanted to kick around with you is this whole notion of failure versus success. So many teams that I've worked with or work for often spend quite a bit of time debriefing what went wrong and getting stuck in the moment of failure versus elevating themselves into success. What's the reason that that happens typically?

David Wheatley: I think that's fits with the red path, green path idea because when we're looking at failure, we're really looking to blame and we're looking backwards. I think that failure can drive opportunity. The American army have a process called the after-action review. And it's a simple learning cycle, you know, what did we say we were going to do? What did we do? What did we learn from this? How can we apply it next time? And so, you could pull that out. And so that's a simple learning cycle. One of the key differences is, the attitude they want, when you go in, this is not about blame, this is about learning. This is not about rank. This is about what we did. And if you had a part in this, you've got an equal say in this conversation. And again, that comes back to our ego conversation, doesn’t it? If I'm willing to say all of this could have been wrong, but we're going to learn from it and apply it next time, then people are more likely to follow you then if I'm trying to scapegoat and looking backwards at failure, and I don't know why people spend so much time on yesterday because they can't do anything about it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's interesting. I had this the same conversation, not so long ago about performance management in so much, as many people get stuck in looking at historic data and past performance. And actually, you can't manage performance because it's happened. You can do is manage the performer when it's going forward, which is your green path way path.

David Wheatley: Yeah, and the green path said, we're forward focused on a solution. And that should be the attitude all the time. I might use yesterday to help educate me, but I'm educating myself to make tomorrow better. And leaders who drive that way, are a lot easier to follow than those who want to spend a lot of time on failure.

Steve Rush: Aren’t they just, yeah. Now you'll known at Humanergy as the Chief Question Asker. So where did the Moniker come from first of all? And then let's get into the concept of asking some questions.

David Wheatley: Because some of your listeners are in the UK. I probably say this a little bit easier. We've never had titles in our organization. We've always said to people use the title that will get the job done, whatever title you need, you have that title if you needed to get the job done. And a few years ago, my business partner, I noticed on his LinkedIn, it said chief insight officer. And I thought, that actually fits with him. He's the kind of deep thinking one on the team. And so that fits, but what am I going to put now? Because if we're going to this, I should have something. And my first thought was chief humility officer, but I figured I might be the only person that thought that was funny.

Steve Rush: That’s right, yeah.

David Wheatley: And then I started thinking about, when I'm doing my best work, what am I doing? And it keeps coming down to this. I ask a good question. And if I can ask a good question that unlocks that thinking of other people, then that's where, you know, where I have my value. And so, this idea of being the chief question asker was just a different way of looking at how I want to lead and the work I do at Humanergy.

Steve Rush: So, if you ask a good question, how do you know if that's a good question or not?

David Wheatley: Usually because people stop and you can see the cogs whirring as they think. And the key to a good question as well in my mind is to leave a lot of space afterwards, because if it is a good question, you can literally see it having its impact. And as people stop and think and their eyes, you can see them adjusting as they going inside their brain. And they're applying that straightaway. It's literally unlocking their head. You can see it happen in front of you. And when that happens you can just sit back as a coach and that warm feeling and say, I probably don't need to talk much for the rest of this meeting because they're going to come up with everything. I just had the question that unlocked their thinking, and now they're ready to go and primed. In a good coaching session, the less I say probably the better the coaching sessions been.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and great questions also should be informed by the conversation not pre-ordained, or I see some sales teams having the top fifty questions to ask clients. And, you know, for me, if you're pre-loading your questions like that, you can't be then listening to your responses because listening is a sidekick to great communication when you ask great question, right?

David Wheatley: Yeah, in my mind, that's the foundation for a great question, is the listening piece and not only the listening, but also being able to summarize what you're hearing. And sometimes you don't need to go to a great question. You just simply summarize what you just heard and that's enough for the person to say, oh, I guess that is what I said. And now I hear it back to me, this is what I'm thinking. And you've unlocked their thinking again, but absolutely it's in that order, you first have to listen, then you summarize well, and then potentially you ask a good question that unlocks their thinking. And so absolutely you're right. It's all part of a set.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so this is the part of the show where we get a flip a little bit. So, I'm going to think about your leadership experiences, leading others and coaching many, many leaders throughout your career and ask you to try and distill them down into the top three. So, if you could, what would be your top three leadership hacks?

David Wheatley: One of them we've already talked, about the powerful question and knowing what makes a powerful question. And it's quite often, it's usually a question that can't be answered yes or no. And it's not a question that's advice, disguised as a question. So, if you can stay away from those things, then you're probably leaning closer to a powerful question. The second thing that goes with that, and I've already alluded to this too, is what a friend of mine shared. This comes from some of the work of Humble Inquiry. There should be ten seconds that you leave after a question, because most people's thinking doesn't really kick in until about second seven. And I actually have a group that I'm working with at the moment, and they have a lawyer in the group and I have to wait till twelve or thirteen seconds for them because that's when his question kicks in, but it's kind of funny to literally count.

And I count to ten and there's silence for ten seconds. And then I keep a little bit longer just for this one individual. And his question usually comes at twelve seconds after, or his thought comes twelve seconds after my question, because he wants to think about it. All too often, we're not comfortable with that silence for that length of time. But if I ask a question, I should give the space and the time for people to truly think about it before they respond. And then the third one in my mind would be assume positive intent. And this is something we use quite a lot in our work that all too often people's problems are because they assumed that somebody had ill intent about it. And if I go through life, assuming that people don't mean me ill, then my life will be so much more fruitful, better and enjoyable than if I worry about all the possibilities that could be happening when I see two people in the distance talking, or they're talking about me? I assume positive intent. And if they are talking about me, it's for good reasons. So, then I can let it go and not have to worry about it anymore. So those are my three, the powerful questions, leave ten seconds, at least after your question and then assume positive intent,

Steve Rush: Great hacks, great advice. Interestingly, the last one. There's been some scientific research done quite a few years back. That's actually proven that 99.9% of our actions are with a positive intent. They might not often land positively and they may have a different impact, but the intent is positive. And I think just reframing that even when people screw up and do horrible things and you feel bad about it, if you can reframe that and allow yourself to recognize that it started out with a positive intent, it can often help you deal with different, right?

David Wheatley: Absolutely, yeah. And that's green path thinking in my mind, I'd love to see that research too, because that's been my intuitive assumption. And yet half the time we're working with people who see something and they do what I call conspiracy theory thinking. Where they think about every bad possibility that could be going on in that world, and then life gets depressing. And just switching that off and saying, well, if we assume a positive intent, what could be going on? And you start to see them say, well, I guess they could be thinking this way or that way. And night and day switch people's perspective on a situation.

Steve Rush: Yeah, you're right.

David Wheatley: But it’s hard.

Steve Rush: Yeah, next part of the show, David, we call Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something hasn't gone well. It could be that we've royally screwed up at work, whatever the case may be. But as a result of it, we've learned from that experience that we now use it as a positive in our life or our work. What would be your Hack to Attack?

David Wheatley: Well, it's to take feedback. And I think when you're younger and people give you feedback about how you could be better or something that's going on or something that you haven't done quite as well, it can be very easy to resist that feedback and for your ego to get in the way. I've found that the more open I am to feedback, the more life is enjoyable and I get better at what I'm doing. It doesn't mean that I have to agree with it, but at least about process it, then there's usually something valuable comes out of it. And that, you know, I can be mad about it for a while and I can be frustrated by the fact that I got the feedback, but usually that frustration is based on the fact that I didn't like my performance and the feedback is accurate, but I don't necessarily get there straight away.

And there's a great English comedian, Sarah Millican, who has a rule that she calls the 11 o'clock rule that applies to her comic stand-up that if you had a bad stand-up gig on the night before. She has till 11, o'clock the following day to whine and mope about it, and then she has to stop and let it go and move to the next one. And the same goes for when she has a great stand-up gig. She has till 11:00 AM the following day to celebrate it. And then she has to stop and get on with the next one. And I've actually used that a lot with people that are in leadership roles. If you get feedback, if somebody didn't go right, if something's really making you mad, then you've got till 11 o'clock the following morning to fester on it and then stop and move on.

Steve Rush: I think it gives you some boundaries, doesn’t it?

David Wheatley: Yeah, I like that fact that it's saying, yes, you can mope about it, but only for a very limited time. And so that's the Millican rule or the Millican war is my Hack to Attack.

Steve Rush: Awesome, and I never realized that we'd ever get Sarah Millican even by reference on the show, on a Leadership Hacker Podcast.

David Wheatley: There you go.

Steve Rush: So, you alluded a little bit to this earlier on in the conversation, when you were reflecting back on your days in the Met, we kind of always close out around giving some advice at twenty-one, but thinking back on all of your experiences, if there was just one kind of opportunity to bump into yourself and say, right. It's just this one thing, David, what would it be? What would you change?

David Wheatley: I said some of it earlier, but I guess it can be summarized in don't take yourself too seriously.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's easy said than done that, right? So, it's an academic. You don't take yourself too seriously. I think has been said to me many times. And I have also probably said it to many associates, children, the family, right?

David Wheatley: Yeah.

Steve Rush: How do you go about doing that though? Because it's easier said than done.

David Wheatley: I think it's one of those things that we again get stuck in ourselves, especially when we're younger that, you know, the world revolves around us, whoever you are, the world revolves around you. Someone once told me that we're all extras in everybody else's movie. And so that sense of, you know, you Steve sees the world revolving around you because you can't suddenly step out of your body and be somebody else. And it's that realization that everybody else is in that same spot. And the older you get, the more you realize that everybody has a backstory, everybody has issues that they're dealing with. Everybody has a broader sense of life that you're not aware of. And it's getting out of that that place that said the whole world revolves around me and understanding that everybody's got a little piece of it, which, you know, don't take yourself too seriously. Because we're all in this together kind of thing, is easy to say.

The recognition, the realization that everybody is in the same boat and they have their issues and a backstory is the difference maker in my mind. And so, getting people to think about that and explore other people's perspectives can sometimes get you out of everything's about me.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I like it. So, what's next for you and the folk of Humanergy?

David Wheatley: Well, I continue a book, What Great Teams Do Great, which was released just in time for the pandemic. And so, we couldn't get out and physically advertise it. So that's still ongoing and we're constantly looking for what's next. At the moment, we've got some training that we call our high-impact leadership training, which is a twelve-month leadership adventure which takes four hours of classroom time a month. We used to do that. Face-To-Face in different locales, but COVID took it virtual. And there's been some fun doing that on Zoom with people that are coming in from all over the country, in some cases, all over the world to participate in a leadership journey that lasts for twelve months and continues to build, that's the fun project that we've got expanding at the moment.

Steve Rush: Awesome, and wish you every success with it too.

David Wheatley: Well, thank you.

Steve Rush: So, our listeners might want to get hold of a copy of What Great Teams Do Great, and some of your other work and indeed find out a little bit more about what you and the firm are doing. Where's the best place for us to send them?

David Wheatley: Well, humanergy.com and that's humanergy.com is where you can find everything about us and contact us and What Great Teams Do Great is available. All good bookstores and Amazon.

Steve Rush: Awesome. We'll make sure those links are in our show notes as well for you.

David Wheatley: What I'm encouraging folks to do. When you think about that greater good continuum is, if you can hold off a little bit, then go and order a book from your local bookstore that's been struggling for the last eight-teen months. It might take a little longer to get to you. It might be a little bit more expensive than it is on Amazon, but at least we're sharing some of the wealth with some people who've been struggling. And Jeff doesn't need any more money.

Steve Rush: That's a great, call, love it. David, thanks ever so much for coming on the show, loved talking about the journey. I can really see the value that you talk about from red path, green path. I can see how teams can adopt that language super quick to really help them focus on the right things and thanks ever so much for being part of our community on the podcast.

David Wheatley: Well Thanks, Steve. And I look forward to continuing listening to this journey.

Steve Rush: Thanks very much David.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

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Dr Jeffrey Hull is an author, educator, and consultant with more than twenty years’ experience partnering with C-suite executives on issues of high-performance leadership, change management, organizational strategy, structure, and culture. He’s the CEO of LeaderShift Inc and also a clinical instructor in psychology at Harvard Medical School. In this inspiring show you can learn about:

What is organizational anthropology?
Why leadership really is an art and a science.
Learn about the age of the post-heroic leader.
Jeffrey’s F.I.E.R.C.E. leadership model.

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Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Jeff below:

Jeff on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-hull-ph-d-bcc-062b09/

Jeffrey Hull Website: https://www.jeffreyhull.com

Jeff on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffreyHullPhD

Jeff on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjeffreyhullphd/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Joining me on the show today is Dr. Jeffrey Hull. He's the bestselling author of the book Flex, he's in Harvard faculty member, a C-suite coach and CEO and founder of LeaderShift, Inc. But before we get a chance to speak with Jeff, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: As generations as pass through the workforce, they become more transient and no more so than Gen Z. Gen Z has had enough, according to a recent Adobe survey, 5,500 workers found that 56% of those aged between 18 and 24 in the workplace say they're planning to switch jobs within the next year. Research from Microsoft and Bankrate back this up reporting that 54% and 77% of Gen Zs respectively are thinking about quitting in their organizations. Sometimes these statements don't always line up with actions, but across the globe, a record number of Gen Z quit their job in April equivalent to twice the number of the previous April.

Anthony Klotz, a business professor at Texas A&M University has deemed as the great resignation. The term that's caught fire in recent months, Klotz explained that many employees only stay at their jobs because the cost of leaving is higher than the cost of staying. And this ratio has shifted for many workers in the past year. He goes on to say, “The costs of staying have risen due to burnout while the costs of quitting have decreased due to unexpected pandemic savings.” So how as leaders, can we avoid this Exodus? Here's a few ideas that will get our Gen Z workers wanting to stay. Ignite their passion. We all have differences and gap have recently concluded that the great resignation is actually just a great disconnect. So rather than being an issue with pay or industry or working conditions, the pandemic has changed the way people work and how they behave. So, reversing the tide in any team or organization requires leaders who care, who engage and who give our workers a sense of purpose. Really find what it is that turns them on and makes them successful and energetic and aligned their work to that Passion.

Banished the busy-ness syndrome. One of the real issues ushered by the pandemic was a need for newly remote workers to look busy, particularly for those who were young and relatively unproven in their careers, trying to make a name for themselves. Half of remote workers in a recent study showed they were worried that their manager had doubts about their productivity leading to 44% to work longer hours and 37% even skip breaks, which of course naturally is going to impact on productivity negatively. In the Adobe research suggested that 86% said that their task would now becoming more mundane and repetitive. And therefore, as leaders, we've got a real opportunity to strive to banish the busy-ness syndrome and find things that are purposeful, meaningful, and give people the opportunity to be creative.

And the last thing that comes out in this survey is get rid of the nine to five mentality. Of the workers in the Adobe study, who planned to switch jobs in the next year, 61% said they wanted more control over their schedule. And this applies particularly to Gen Zs as only 62% say their most productive hours fell between nine and six. It's time for our leaders to banish the idea of that mandatory nine to five, just exploring why people can be more productive outside those hours can really unlock talent, unlock ideas and creativity. The rules for leading people have changed. Even in turbulent times. The key particularly to retaining Gen Z employees is not a mystery. Retention requires an intentional commitment as leaders to understand to their unique needs and demands. We can't expect Gen Z to behave like Gen X, Gen Y, Baby Boomers.

They've been born into a different world and have different perspectives. And the war for talent is definitely putting pressure on organizations and teams to provide the next gen employees, the opportunity to be successful. So, the leadership lesson here is create some awareness here and understand how our Gen Zs are thinking, feeling, and behaving and make sure that you can adapt and provide them with the opportunities to grow, notwithstanding, maintaining great standards and expectations. That's been The Leadership News. We'd love to hear from you, if you have any insights, stories, or quirk things that we'd love to get on the show. So please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today is Dr. Jeffrey Hull, he's the CEO and founder of LeaderShift, Inc. He's a Director of Global Development at Harvard Institute of Coaching, and he's also a faculty member of Harvard Medical School. He's a speaker and the author of the book Flex. Jeff, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Good to be here. Thank you for having me.

Steve Rush: So, you really have a fascinating story and loads of experience, and I'd love to just start with a bit of a summary if you like, of how you've arrived at leading the organization you do now?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Well, I think it's probably the easiest way to sum up my career is in three phases. Early phase after college, in graduate school, was in HR working for the consultancy based in New York. Global strategy firm called Booz Allen Hamilton that many people know. I worked my way up early in my career to a director of HR role where at that point I discovered my favorite part of that job was mentoring and coaching the up-and-coming leaders. And it was really kind of early in the coaching profession. So, I don't know that I had the option to become a professional coach at that point, but I knew I liked that part of my work. So, when I had an opportunity in the second phase of these three to jump into an entrepreneurial stage of career, a good friend of mine who was an investment banker, we were in New York.

At the time we got together, we started a company to do leadership development consulting. And over the next five to seven years, built a pretty successful practice with leadership training, customized seminars and retreats, and with financial organizations, software companies you know, we worked back and forth between Europe and New York. And over that time, I've kind of honed my training and development skills, but also started doing more coaching. And that led to the third phase, which I guess I'm still in, which is eventually really kind of honing in on executive coaching. And so, for the last 15 years or so, I've really developed a pretty wide-ranging practice of executive coaching in all different industries, whether it's still in the financial space, but also software, tech, pharma. And then more recently doing a lot of work in healthcare where I got connected to Harvard medical school and the folks at the Harvard Institute of coaching. And that's kind of where I kind of give back, give back in my career. I work part time as one of the leaders of the Institute. And it's really an opportunity for me to get involved with research and education around scientific or evidence-based underpinnings of this profession that we call coaching, which these days, I think it's safe to say as a profession, but, you know, it's still, it's still the growth phase. I mean, it hasn't been around that long.

It's still quite a relatively new notion, isn't it? In an organizational sense. Of course. Exactly.

Yeah.

And you've also as part of your work and your studies as an organizational psychologist over the last 20 years have kind of really developed an interesting spin on things. And you have this notion of organizational anthropology and I'd love to learn a little bit more about what that means and how it differs.

I think that that's just my euphemism for going below the surface and being a bit of a detective of what is going on within an organization that may not be explicit and may not be visible. It may not be seen, but may actually be having a huge influence or impact on the organizational success or on the leaderships way of interacting with their people. So, I was trained originally in my doctoral program in Jungian psychology. There's another quick phase I went through earlier where I want it to be a psychotherapist. That's a long story we'll do for another day. But out of that training came my recognition that a lot of the time, the way things are really happening in organizations are sort of implicit or unvisible or invisible. And so, the anthropological part of me is looking at my coaching opportunities with clients to dig under the surface.

Like what's not so obvious that's going on in the dynamic with the team or the way you interact with your people as a leader and having an opportunity for people to feel safe in a coaching dynamic, then they can reflect on some of these blind spots where they're not even aware of the way they're coming across or the way they're interacting with their people. And that can be helpful I think in two ways. One it can help the leader become more self-aware and then secondly, it can also help with the culture building aspects of organizations.

Steve Rush: Right?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Because a lot of the aspects of culture, as you know, are more implicit, they're more kind of the way things we do around here. And, you know, this is the way we put our offices, or this is how we operate in virtual calls these days or whatever it is, but there's sort of the unwritten rules. So that's what I mean by kind of the anthropological lens, like looking under the surface and getting into the shadows, so to speak.

Steve Rush: And that's a skill, and a massive skill to get below those couple of layers because we all come with our lenses and we all come with our layers. What are the things that you've noticed that really help you to be able to get really deep and underneath those kinds of layers?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Well, I think a lot of it is being an observer of the dynamics between individuals and their teams that they don't even notice. You know, I look for, and I wrote about this in my book as an example, I look for the somatic or the energetic dynamic that's going on between a leader and their people, not just what they say by that, I mean, you know, in live space and example would be how they handle the energy of the team dynamic in terms of where they sit, how they set up their office, the timing, who participates and who doesn't, power seats and, you know, presence, you know, how do they hold their body as a leader? Do they lean in or do they lean back? Do they look at people directly or do they often kind of look distracted are they on their cell phone being, you know, texting and things like that. So, some of the more subtle physical elements are ways to detect kind of what's really going on underneath the surface, despite what people may be saying. And I would add that that shows up even more, or explicitly, in these virtual situations where we're now like on Zoom calls or Microsoft teams or whatever, and all of those things, my clients are often surprised when they hear from me that some of the more non-verbal physical presence dynamics are actually even exaggerated in the virtual space.

Steve Rush: That's really fascinating, most writing or articles I've certainly read in the last 18 months to two years as we’ve been going through this crazy world, suggest the opposite. How have you managed to fine tune your skills and your acuity to find that in what you do?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Well, it's a great question, but it starts with some of the basic scientific principles. And I mentioned, I wrote about some of this in my book too, which is, you know, we're learning more and more about how people operate when they feel a sense of psychological safety or how they build trust or what it takes to operate at high performing levels. And these things often trace back to physical or somatic energy issues such as eye contact and feeling like your being listened to, you know, this sort of a subtle thing. Like when you ask someone, how do you know when you're being heard? You know, that's kind of a subtle question. How do you know? Right. So, when you think about that question in the virtual space, it becomes quite granular. And the studies have shown that things like direct eye contact and smiling and on a virtual call showing, your hands occasionally. Not just being, you know, the talking head from the neck up, those small gestures, those small things actually make a lot of difference. People feel more connected. They feel more heard when you look directly into your camera, rather than looking distracted. Now that's true in the real world, but it's even more exaggerated in the virtual space.

Steve Rush: Right., yeah.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: So, a lot of what I do for my coaching around how to become more effective in those Zoom calls or those Microsoft team calls is to pay attention to the way you’re paying attention, right?

Steve Rush: Conscious, consciousness

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Exactly, and know your habits. We all have our little bad habits, you know, like looking down and taking notes or occasionally glancing at my cell phone or, oops, I got a text message better read it. That's all, you know, even in the real world, that's a little bit distracting, but in the virtual space, it can come across as downright rude.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it can, can’t it?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Yeah, exactly.

Steve Rush: The book that you've written, Flex: The Art and Science of Leadership in a Changing World, if ever there was a time to have written a book, right? now, is it. Tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind the book and maybe some of the key themes it covers?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Well, the inspiration for the book was really more on a sort of macro level, which is that in my executive coaching practice and in my work with the Harvard Institute where I get to interact as part of a community of hundreds of coaches around the world, you know, there was a sense that the demographics and the dynamics of what it takes to be successful in a leadership context were changing rapidly in the last few years. And I think it's now become pretty well known that organizations are becoming flatter, more networked, more democratic, more interconnected, more multicultural, more multi-national. I mean, the whole thing with the pandemic and virtual work is just exaggerated all of that. But what that leads to of course is you have a new generation of leaders stepping up that don't always come the same way as the ones that I coached early in my career.

For example, they're not all white men and they're not all charismatic and they're not all authoritative leaders. So, there's a lot more variety than there used to be. And what I'm called on to coach around. Things like emotional intelligence and building trust and getting high performing teams to be cohesive and work together in alignment with a vision, you know, these things are more complex and the good news is there's some good research on how to make that happen. And so, what led to the book was basically my recognition that, you know, we needed to kind of move on from what I considered to be the paradigm of, you know, probably 2000 years of leadership, you know, the white guy coming in on the horse to lead the troops with the vision and the directive style. Not that that's really not appropriate when I'm under the surgeon's knife, I definitely hope he's a nice authoritative directive person, or when I'm sitting on an airplane, I expect my pilot to be authoritative and directive. But, you know, in most situations these days, there's room for a lot more variety. And sometimes in fact, there's a benefit to bringing in the more consensus driven collaborative maybe the leader who leads by following or building a coalition. And so that's really what led me to want to describe in the book, case studies and coaching examples of a really much wider, diverse range of what I considered to be sort of the next generation of leadership.

Steve Rush: Definitely, so. You state actually in the book that we're in this age of the post heroic leader.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Right.

Steve Rush: So how might that have looked and what would be the stark differences?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Well, I think the fundamental theme is that the traditional archetype is that heroic leader, right? So, as I mentioned before, you know, the Knight that comes in on the horse to save the world, and that is a very individualistic definition of leadership, that it's a particular person with a particular personality that shows talent, that has high potential. And they, you know, they need to be groom and then they run off and lead the world. And, you know, as you're getting back to your question about anthropology, you know, that's an archetype, it's not a fact.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: And so, in today's world, there's much more space for a whole broad range of leaders to be impactful. And some of the most influential leaders that I work with are not like that at all. They're actually more introverted. They're actually more consensus building. They're actually good listeners. They actually create an environment that more and more people can lead as a team. So, the fundamental shift is from an individualistic approach to leadership, to a team or community, or a group focused way of leading, and that sort of collective approach can be equally effective. So, I consider that to be post heroic in the sense that there's no longer always just one singular individual leading the charge. And the best leaders, and I think I dig into this in the book are those that really understand the benefits of both ends of the spectrum, what I call the alpha, which is the heroic type, and then the beta, which is really more of a consensus builder.

Steve Rush: And equally they bring different skills and attributes to a team. I guess the key here is finding others around you that have different perspectives and more diversity, right?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Absolutely, and that's probably where you're pointing there is one of the fundamental themes of my book, which is this adage, that there are only a few people in any organization that are considered the high potentials that we should, you know, give extra training or extra focus. I really think that's an outdated meme, that the best teams these days recognize that there's leadership potential in everyone.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: So as a leader, your job is to uncover that talent and nurture and exploit or take advantage, or leverage the talent and all of your people.

Steve Rush: And that's really massive for me when you played that back, because I instantaneously think back to when I was in leading businesses and I was working in HR. You have a typical talent grid, maybe a nine-box grid, and you identify those who are talent, and who's not. I wonder how different the world would be today if all of those nine boxes were classed as talent, yet we just reframed it in a different way.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Well, you know, it's so interesting you mentioned that because I too have come full circle around that dynamic. And one of the things that I do with my clients now that are like heads of HR or chief operating officers, or even CEOs, is I will support them to go through that exercise to identify those individuals in their organization, that show, you know, really what I would consider to be evident talent. Like they're sort of a natural born leader, right? So, oh, those are the superstars. So, we create our nine box or whatever it is that we're doing to evaluate for succession plan. And we create our list of the top tier of the next generation of talent, so that's cool. But then what I do is, I throw a wrench in the mix, when I say, okay, I want you to go through your talent pool.

And I want you to pull out all the people you think are not high potential, top 10, top 50, you know, what are those people that you think are real questionable? And so we go through that exercise, and then I throw the second wrench, which is, okay, I want you to reflect on whether or not the people you just threw on the dust pile or on the trash bin are the most talented people in the organization.

Steve Rush: Interesting.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: What if you think of the people who have the least potential as the ones who have the untapped most potential, how would that change the way you operate?

Steve Rush: Really neat. I'm literally playing it through, in my mind as you're describing it. What it really tells us is that there are lots that we just don't know about people. There are lots that we just don't understand about that capability. And ironically, we might never know if we exclude them from some of those conversations.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Yeah, and I'll give you two examples. I mean, what you're really pointing to too when you go through that exercise is number one. If you're in a leadership seat and you're going through the list of potentials, you know, all the people on your team that have been working for you. Let's say for a year, two years, three years, and you pick out the ones you think are obviously high potential. Well, guess what? They're all going to be just like you, that's the stereotype.

Steve Rush: Right?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Our affinity is for people who are like us, oh, I love Mary. She does a lot of the same things that I used to do when I was a child. Like, great, okay. So that's just keeping the stream moving of everybody being the same, but the other side of the coin is the people that your kind of frustrated by, or, oh God, that guy, he doesn't have a lot of potential. He works in the middle of the night. He never shows up at 9:00 AM like everybody. He has no potential, but he's a maverick. Oh, maybe he's super creative. Maybe he's very, very innovative, but doesn't toe the line. So, the people at the other end of the spectrum, as I said, that you, as a leader are kind of dismissing because they don't fall into your stereotype of towing the line, the way you do to become a leader. May actually be the most creative, innovative, talented maverick folks in your whole organization. They may be secretly working at two o'clock in the morning on solving the problem that will make you millions.

Steve Rush: That's right, yeah.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: So, it's worth taking a second look, I guess, is the bottom line, right?

Steve Rush: Definitely, so now you call the book, Flex: The Art and Science of Leadership. And I wonder for most people listening to this, they'll get the science because it's prevalent and we talk about Neuroscience; we talk about some of the tools and techniques and Jungian approach you talked about earlier, but what about art? Is leadership really an art?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Yes, because I think there's an intuitive, creative, almost really hard to put your finger on a piece of interconnectivity with people that is kind of poetic or musical, or if you think of the works of art that stand the test of time, they would be hard pressed to be created through scientific means.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Right? They're special, they're unique. And, so I think that's what I'm pointing at when I say, you know, the good news is we have more evidence about what it takes to lead a group, to build trust, to build alignment, to share a vision with communication strategies that really connect the dots for people. So that they'll follow. I mean, we do know what it takes to do that. We've done studies, but on the other end of the spectrum, if you run your team all through data, all through science, you know, people are not robots.

People are creative, intuitive beings, and you want to tap into the imagination. You want to tap into that sort of unspoken, intuitive side. And as I said earlier, sort of learn to nurture the Mavericks. If people are acting a little crazy. And I gave you that example where I did have a statistics guy who was refusing to work during the day, because he was just super creative, late at night. And his boss was frustrated with him. And you know, I had a counterintuitive coaching discussion with my client because I said, instead of being mad at this guy, why don't you dig underneath, what's that creative impulse that shows up in him at 2:00 AM? How do you nurture that?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: So that's the art side of it.

Steve Rush: I buy that and I wonder how much mindset plays into this whole principle of me being a leader and thinking of myself as “artistic” in my trade.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Oh, absolutely. I mean, that's kind of what I get into when I talk about the anthropologic. I asked my clients, you know, when you think about blind spots, that's sort of a paradox, right? Because a blind spot is something you can't see. So therefore, how could you know what it is? And that is often an opening for a conversation with my clients around the benefit of, first of all, being open to feedback. And second of all, to see that the people that you're getting feedback from, if they have your best interests at heart, are going to point out things to you that are going to be super supportive in expanding your skills, expanding your repertoire and that, you know, everything that you think you're doing is great is not necessarily seen, not necessarily what's you know. I mean, it may be some of your hidden talents that are showing up that people are taking advantage of or aware of. And so, learning about those sorts of unseen gifts, I think is a really important element of being an effective leader and doing the same thing with your folks.

Steve Rush: I love the way you framed that by the way, unseen gifts. Just allows us to receive it in a way of a gift, doesn't it?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because again, going back to the science, we now know that if you frame things positively, as opposed to problematically, then people can look at something that appears to be negative and reframe it with a mindset that turns it into an opportunity.

Steve Rush: Yeah, love it. And you have a model that you help your leaders with called Fierce, F-I-E-R-C-E. Love you just to spin through how we might use that as leaders in our work?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Well, that was simply a distillation of a lot of the research and interviews and focus groups that I did with my clients and with many, many coaches that I work with to discover what are the areas that leaders need to really hone in on and today's world to be effective. So, there are six dimensions that just keep coming up over and over again, one is decision-making and developing a flexible style. So that gets back to the core of what we talked about before, which was, you know, are you authoritative and indecisive or are you flexible and being more democratic and consensus building and both are valuable, but they're two ends of a spectrum. The second is the acronym and fierce is the letter I, which is intentional. So being more intentional in your communication style, and we've already talked a little bit about that. Looking really closely at not just the words you use, but the way you communicate. The tone, the eye contact, the gestures, the use of humor, all the different components of effective persuasion and influence. The third, the letter E is emotional intelligence and becoming aware of the key side of human beings, which is emotions is crucial, you know, developing your own emotional intelligence is like a muscle that leaders these days cannot avoid developing. The next one is R in the acronym, and that's building up your integrity and your credibility through authenticity or what I call realness. And that connects to being more humble and knowing when to be transparent and open and vulnerable. So, a lot of leaders tend to focus on competencies and strengths, which is great, but at the other end of the spectrum, you also need to be humble and vulnerable and connect to your people as a human being. And that's kind of the other end of the spectrum. So, all of the different components of being an authentic leader are absolutely crucial today.

And then the final two components have to do with collaboration. You know, the letter C for me, I started to dig into how do we effectively become coaches for our people? You know, it's great to have a coach, but you also need to become a coach. So, I dug into some of the science that we use at the Institute of Coaching around becoming an effective coach for your people. Listening, asking good questions, creating a sense of safety, confidentiality, knowing the difference, for example, between mentoring and coaching, because they're not the same thing. And then finally the letter E is about how to engage with your team. And we spoke a little bit about that in terms of how to create an environment that gets the best out of everyone, whether you're in a virtual space or in a real office or in a hybrid. And that focuses on the energy that you exude as a leader, your nonverbal communication, how you create the space for people to show up, how you facilitate introverts and extroverts. So, it's really sort of stepping back and looking at some of the key principles of creating and motivating an environment where everyone can operate at their best.

Steve Rush: I love the model; I love the framework. It really helps people get into that space of ask yourself some questions around each of those six acronyms.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Right, exactly. That was my intent.

Steve Rush: And yeah, you'll start to find out then what you need to. kind of pull the leavers on, right?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Exactly.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: And, you know, and what I did is, then I brought a lot of case studies in, so that as you're reading through some of the science or some of the themes, there are lots of different examples of people sort of at different ends of the spectrum in all those categories. And so, the idea was to be able to reflect on your own leadership style, whether you're early in your career or whether you're the CEO and say to yourself, oh, I recognize myself.

Steve Rush: Exactly, yeah. It starts with us as leaders. Doesn't it?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Exactly.

Steve Rush: It starts with us. And in terms of leadership, I'm going to spin the tone a little now. Trying and hack into your leadership brain.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Okay.

Steve Rush: Having led businesses and teams over a number of different years, I'm going to try and ask you now to take all of that learning and distill it into your top three leadership hacks, what would they be?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Top three? Well, my top one is to own your blind spots. Like as a leader, one of the most humbling aspects is to even recognize that you might have blind spots. So, if you have a starting point from saying to yourself, okay, I'm a human being. I must have a blind spot. What is it? So go on, you know, like almost an architect, what would be the word? Archetype dig into your own blind spots, ask your friends, ask your spouse. Don't be afraid to find out what it is that gets in the way of your operating at your finest, that's number one.

Steve Rush: That’s a big one too. And I'll tell you, I have a funny story about this. When I was coached by my coach a couple of years back, and we were talking about blind spots and I had this really crazy moment of going. No, I just don't see it. I just don't recognize it. It's a blind spot.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Yeah, oh yeah. Okay. Just starting point of being aware that you might have a blind spot is a really important step as a leader because it's humbling and it gets you going onto an investigation where you may be open to feedback.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Number two hack is kind of along those lines. And I call that to know the strengths list of your people. Because if we're going to move from this heroic style of leadership to a more group or post heroic style, then what you need to do is to know your people. And the best way to do that is to put together a short list of their strengths. So, I make all of my clients do this exercise, which is if you have 10 people reporting to you, or you have five people reporting to you, get out a notebook and write down the top three strengths of every single person on your team.

Because if you have that as a handy dandy available note, you'll be able to use that when things get tight or there's a crisis, or there's an upset, because you'll be able to say, oh, but Mary you're so good at X, Y, and Z. I need to know what happened when this didn't happen, right? So, knowing the strengths of your people is really important and you'd be surprised how many leaders don't take the time. They're like, oh yeah, I like Mary and Suzie's good. I'm not so sure about Peter, but then when I dig one level below that, and I say, yeah, but what's Peter's number one strength. They're like never thought about that question.

Steve Rush: It's a great situational hack, isn’t?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Exactly.

Steve Rush: It looking for those opportunities? Yeah.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Yep, know your top three. No, the top three strengths of all your people. And then the hack number three, which I think is the real punchline of this whole line of questioning is know how the strength becomes a liability.

Steve Rush: Would that be an overplayed strength?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Yep.

Steve Rush: Yep.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Exactly, know the strengths of your people and yourself, so know your own strengths and then ask yourself, when does that strength get me into trouble?

Steve Rush: Love that.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Because 90% of the coaching I've done in my life, we have ended up somewhere where wherever the big talent is of my client is also their liability. They overuse it. They rely on it too much. One trick pony, whatever way you want to articulate it. It's incredibly common that the thing that we do super well often becomes the thing that trip us up when we want to go to the next level. It goes back to Marshall Goldsmith, who I'm a big fan. One of his 100 coaches. What got you here won't get you there, right?

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: His best-selling book. And the theme of that book is really whatever it was that got you to where you are, is probably going to get in the way of getting you to the next place.

Steve Rush: Very, very good. Like that a lot. Next part we'll show Jeff, we call Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something in your work or life hasn't worked out as you'd planned, may have been even that we've screwed up in the process, but as a result of the process. We've learned from it, and it's now serving us well in our life or our work. So, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Oh, well that one is, I love that question because it's actually really easy, but embarrassing, but hey, you know, that's life, it's a humble.

Steve Rush: Let’s do it.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: No, but the truth is I was very fortunate that I screwed up very early in my career, right out of college. I was hired as a recruiter for a tech company and I was only in my early twenties and, you know, got a fancy cube. I didn't get an office, but I got a very fancy cube. And I got a secretary, I had an admin and within the very first few weeks of my job, what did I do? I asked my secretary to get coffee for me. I was like, oh, can you do this? Can you do that? I was like, oh my God, I have my secretary. She's going to do things for me. And about a month later, my boss came to me and he was like Jeff, I have to sit you down and just discuss the way we work around here.

Because this was a tech company. And then even though it was quite a few years ago, even back then, it was really a more egalitarian invite environment. And he said, you know what Jeff, you really should learn to get your own coffee. And I looked at him and I was like, what? He goes, your administrative assistant is really there to support you to do your job better. Not just to be your lackey. Like, you know, she can get coffee. It's not really a problem, but is that really the best way to treat people? And so, it wasn't so much the getting the coffee that was the issue. It was my attitude, and that was humbling. And I was young and I was immature. But I have to tell you that advice treat people well, realize that even the person who takes your coat or the receptionist who welcomes you in the door or the administrative assistant, who's just setting up the coffee and the bagels for the meeting. Those are human beings. And not only are they deserving of respect, but as I've learned over the years, they also have a lot of inside information.

Steve Rush: They do, don't they?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Yeah, exactly. Like 10 years later, when I was the director of HR and I had learned my lesson and I learned to be respectful. I remember we were interviewing MBA candidates and what I would do at the end of the day, they would come in from Harvard and Northwestern and Stanford and Yale, and be very arrogant. And, you know, just as I probably was back when I was in that age bracket and I would say to the receptionist, okay. So, tell me who should I hire and who should I not hire

Steve Rush: First impressions?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Yeah, exactly. Her name was Irene. And she said to me, you know, Jeff don't that guy. And I'm like, yeah, but he came across really smart in the interviews. She goes, yeah, but he was really rude to me when he first came in, he basically threw his coat at me to hang up and, you know, that's the fundamental lesson, treat people with respect no matter where they are in the organization, because they are part of the fabric of the team. And not only do they deserve to be treated well, deserve to be treated with respect, but they also have a lot of insights. So that was my big learning. And, you know, I'm not perfect. I probably still snap at someone once in a while, but I really took it to heart that, you know, it's the people at the lower end of the totem poles that really, not only do they do the yeoman's work in an organization to keep things humming, but they also have incredible deep insight into what's really going on in the C-Suite or behind the scenes. And you can learn from them those people.

Steve Rush: Super lesson, yeah.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Yeah.

Steve Rush: The last thing we want to do today, Jeff is give you a chance to do some time travel. So, you get a chance to go and bump into Jeff at 21 and give them some advice. What would your advice to him be then?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: My advice would be to learn from everyone. Don't get into the habit of just being funding with the ones that have big titles or big paychecks, you know, look at every single person that you interact with in your community or organization, your network, and think of them as being able to offer you something

Steve Rush: Awesome advice. Every day's a school day.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Exactly, you know, and I hopefully learned how to be a student along the way and I'll never stop.

Steve Rush: Great stuff. So, what is it you're working on next, Jeff?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: The things that most interest me now are taking leaders from sort of more traditional environments like finance and software and integrating them into the more eco sustainable world organizations that are environmentally more attuned to what's going on with our climate change and the planet and all, you know, we need to integrate these things. And so, one of my passions is helping my leaders that I work with, get more in tune with broader impact that their organizations are having on the planet. Like if we look at, you know, all the crazy stuff that's happening with the climate.

Steve Rush: Exactly, yeah.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: And we just don't have the luxury anymore of saying, oh, well, that's all in the energy department, you know, I'm in finance. I don't have anything to do with that. Well, you know, downstream, it's all one stream, right? So, my passion is trying to get my leaders in all these different places to become more in tune with how they have impacts in the world. Not just impacts inside their organization.

Steve Rush: Love it, yeah.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: You know, and it's a challenge, but we coaches we have a role to play. So, hopefully going to do my part.

Steve Rush: Good for you. So, if our listeners want to get hold of a copy of Flex, or they wanted to learn a bit more about the work that you do, Jeff, where's the best place for us to send them?

Dr. Jeffery Hull: My own website under my name, Jeffrey Hull, H-U-L-L, jeffreyhull.com. We'll have a lot of information and access to the book. Obviously, the book is available on Amazon and all the other, you know, outlets that we find our books these days. And then I would also encourage folks to look up the instituteofcoaching.org. I'm there as part of the leadership team. There's a lot of interesting resources. So those are probably the best places to go.

Steve Rush: Wonderful, and we'll make sure that those links are in our show notes as well.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Great, appreciate that.

Steve Rush: Jeff, I've really enjoyed talking with you. I love the energy that you bring to the subject and I love the work that you're doing. And I just wanted to say, thank you for being part of our community.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: Well, it's my pleasure. It's always good to spread the word on what kind of leaders we all want to develop into and develop into the world, bring into the world these days. because there's a certain amount of urgency, I think.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely so.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: If we are going to save the planet and ourselves along the way.

Steve Rush: Well said - Thanks for coming on the show Jeff.

Dr. Jeffery Hull: My pleasure. Thanks Steve

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Lisa Marie Platske is the President and CEO of Upside Thinking, a leadership coach and speaker, she’s also an international best-selling author, In this intimate show we explore some amazing leadership lessons including:

How being in New York at 9/11 in law enforcement became a turning point in her career
How self-examination can help with forgiveness
The 3 steps and 7 pillars to unlock courageous leadership
How can we remain relevant as leaders in such a dynamic and changing world?

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Lisa below:

Lisa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamarieplatske/

Upside Thinking Website: https://upsidethinking.com

Lisa on Twitter: https://twitter.com/UpsideThinking

Lisa on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UpsideThinking

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Lisa Marie Platske is our special guest on today's show. She's an award-winning leadership expert and number one, international bestselling author of Designing Your Destiny.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we explore the notion of the law of attraction or LOA, as it's often known. Simply put, the law of attraction is the ability to attract into our lives, whatever we're focusing on. And it's believed regardless of age, nationality, religious belief, we all susceptible to the laws which govern the universe, including the law of attraction. And it's a law of attraction that uses the power of the mind to translate what is ever in our thoughts and to materialize them into reality. And here's the thing, in basic terms, all thoughts turn into things Eventually. If you focus on negative doom and gloom, you remain and direct cloud and be pretty grumpy and miserable. If you focus on positive thoughts and have goals and ambitions and aim to achieve them, you'll find ways to do so.

The law of attraction is one of life's biggest mysteries. Very few people are fully aware of how much the impact of law of attraction has on their day-to-day life. Whether we're doing it knowingly or unknowingly. Every second of our existence, we are acting as a human magnet, sending out our thoughts and emotions and attracting back more of what we put out. Unfortunately, so many of us are still blind to the potential that is locked deep within us. Consequently, it's all way too easy to leave your thoughts and emotions unchecked. And this sends out the wrong thoughts and attracts more of an unwanted emotion and event into your life. And unfortunately, because it comes with a bit of a stigma because people have this perception that it is pink and fluffy, and it's not particularly real, people often don't pay attention and don't focus on it enough.

The law of attraction stems back to mystical and historical claims haven't been first thought of by the immortal Buddha. It's believed he wanted to be known that what you have become is what you have thought. And this is the belief that's intrinsically deep within the law of attraction. So is the law of attraction pink and fluffy, or is there science behind it? Well, the work of quantum physics during recent years has helped really shine, greater light on the incredible impact and the power of the mind has on our lives and the universe in general, some would argue it's actually just a mindset. As physicists and neuroscientists come to supply us with more and more information regarding our brains. The law of attraction simply becomes more logical and the more we can rejoice in truly liberating impairing the realization that we are, the creators and the controllers of our life and the energy that we give out and attract the more successful we become.

The best description I've heard or seen about the law of attraction is thinking of ourselves as we were artists with a blank canvas, creating pictures of our intended life and making the choices and actions to make that happen. So, what if you don't like the picture? Well, you can change it because life is a blank canvas of possibility. We're in control of what that finished picture could look like. And the law of attraction is just that. And it's just that simple. There's no catches. The laws of nature are completely imperfect and the law of attraction is no different, no matter what you're looking for, what you want to achieve in your life. If you can hold on to an idea and see it for yourself in your mind's eye, then you can make it yours because you'll start to find and look and notice for the opportunity, the natural caring coincidences that help you fulfill that picture in your mind.

So, the leadership lesson is here. How much of our work as leaders is about helping people realize that mind's eye view, helping them articulate, helping them paint that picture and helping them on the journey to attracting the right energy, the right behaviors and people around them to be successful. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. As always, we're delighted when you nudge us comment and share our stories. So please get in touch if there's anything specific you want us to feature on the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Lisa Marie Platske. She is the President and CEO of Upside Thinking. She's a leadership coach and a speaker. She's also the international best-selling author of a number of books. You want to hang on to the end of the show today because there's a special gift that you can get hold of later on, and it is the “Influential Leadership Blueprint” from Lisa. Lisa welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Lisa Marie Platske: Thanks Steve. So excited to be here.

Steve Rush: Me too.

Lisa Marie Platske: Thanks for having me.

Steve Rush: So, you had a really fascinating meander to get to where you get to. Started out, your early career in law enforcement, and now leading Upside Thinking, tell us a little bit about how your journey evolved?

Lisa Marie Platske: Well, I can honestly share that I was never looking to be an entrepreneur or run a leadership development organization. I started off in law enforcement because I just loved the work. And back then, when I was looking for career paths after college, there was no internet to go researching. There was a library and lots of little books and file folders, and it sounded really exciting to be working in international trade and travel. And so, I took my criminal justice degree and went into law enforcement. And on that journey, loved leadership, was passionate about leadership and was fortunate to have the opportunity to develop leadership curriculum, both at The Leadership Development Center in Dallas, Texas after 9/11, and also to teach at The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in the United States. So, for me, this was something that I just was loved and I was getting to utilize the leadership pieces. However, I was faced with an opportunity and that opportunity was marriage Steve. So, I couldn't figure out how I could both be good at a 24/7 career and have a husband who also was going to have a 24/7 career in law enforcement and how we could both do this. And so, I just figured I keep doing it and live in a different state and just continue moving forward. And it actually was a friend who said, you know, people who get married, usually live in the same household.

Steve Rush: That’s right, yeah.

Lisa Marie Platske: And I said, all right, so then what will I do? And the love of leadership is one of the reasons why I opened up side thinking was I believe that leadership affects every single decision and every facet of our life. And so, to be able to do this and take what I learned in law enforcement and look at what the world's best leaders do differently has been just such an incredible journey. Although, you know, if you also understand owning a business has its unique pieces to it, for me, has been the greatest personal development journey of a lifetime.

Steve Rush: And I bet it hasn't stopped either?

Lisa Marie Platske: No, No.

Steve Rush: Exactly, and that's the gift that we have, I think in doing the work that we do in terms of coaching and helping leaders on their journey is that every single time I have a conversation with a podcast guest or I learned some new content, I'm just constantly learning.

Lisa Marie Platske: Yes. Yes. And there are more opportunities to be filled up if you're open, I believe on this journey than I could have imagined. And I thought that every day was a new day when I was in law enforcement and truly the entrepreneurial journey is a very unique animal.

Steve Rush: So, an interesting notion I wanted to share with you, and that's while hearing you talk about your career in law enforcement and then leadership in law enforcement. Often people have this perception of those who work in public office or in the military or law enforcement that they can see visibly people's leadership progressions because of the stripes on their shirts or the pips on their shoulders, and they often don't recognize that does come with a completely different set of skills. That is that leadership responsibility. How do you notice the difference between what you learned in law enforcement and what you see externally now?

Lisa Marie Platske: You just said something that I believe is so brilliant. So, I really want to reflect and say, thank you! Is that what I walked away with in law enforcement was understanding human behavior. And when you put on a uniform, there's the expectation that you have certain qualities or characteristics, integrity, is one of them. I remember getting my credentials that said, you know, this officer possesses integrity. And I thought, wow, this is like almost like a seal of approval or a stamp. And it was so interesting, you know, to think about that in terms of how we look at leadership. And if we could only walk into an organization and see somebody's credentials to have that stamp, where were all of their qualities and characteristics were listed. And you know, when I look at human behavior and the little nuances of what I learned then even from micro-expressions or how people show us who they are just by little movements. In business, it's been just critical to take those skills. There's something I'll do at my annual conference. And it's in reflecting back to the use of force continuum and how the use of force continuum started with officer presence and then went to verbal commands, soft techniques, hard techniques, and deadly force. And it's something that no officer ever wishes they're going to ever get to deadly force. And yet in business, it's interesting because those same use of force continuum. And I see forces as really more of a power move.

Steve Rush: Right.

Lisa Marie Platske: And that is how you show up, the words that you speak, the techniques that you use and how you knock somebody out with your presence, your executive presence. It actually translates really quite beautifully.

Steve Rush: There is a lot of parallels, isn’t there?

Lisa Marie Platske: Yes.

Steve Rush: So, remember when we met first, you talked about this kind of quite pivotal moment in your career when you were in law enforcement and 9/11 happened. And not only did it change law enforcement and probably the careers for all of us actually in hindsight, but there was a real kind of big turning point for you at that time. Tell us a little bit about that moment?

Lisa Marie Platske: Well, with law enforcement, I was stationed in New York and over 9/11. And so, I was in the height of, in the midst of everything and working sixteen-hour days, twenty-one days, straight, very little sleep, and just the entire country was on high alert. So, a lot of angst, just the feeling when you walked out of your house, you could feel the heaviness and the stress. And what I realized after sending employees to funeral after funeral, after funeral for honor guard, losing my mentor and sending employees to look for what would be remains at the site. I recognize that there was this level of anger that was growing inside me, and it wasn't good, Steve, like it was not, it was a mixture of tiredness and sadness and grief and frustration and helplessness, just all rolled into one where, you know, the human body, it's made to rest. It needs a certain amount of rest.

Steve Rush: Right.

Lisa Marie Platske: And so, I got to a piece when I recognize what was going to be, what would open that and change that and shift that and keep me from being a really angry person was forgiveness. And so, I went down a journey of learning about forgiveness, what it is, and really being willing to forgive self, forgive others so that I could lead unencumbered without any judgment, without any negativity. And it has been one of the best decisions. And it's been something that in bringing it into organizations in business, recognizing that sometimes there are actions that are holding organizations back in their leaders for years, for decades, because of a lack of forgiveness.

Steve Rush: Definitely, so. And as you speak, you can hear in your voice, by the way that kind of, the resonance that comes with that. So, as you're recalling that moment, I can sense in your tone that it's still real for you. How did you use that as a positive and how did you flip from anger to forgiveness? What was kind of the trigger moment?

Lisa Marie Platske: It's interesting that you can hear it because it's one where I can feel my body be moved to tears, and yet it's been, you know, many decades and yet that lives within you, that moment, that experience still lives inside me. And so, I just really appreciate your acknowledgement of it because it was such a painful time. And, and that, I don't know that going back to that moment, that doesn't go away. The moment that, you know, if I could sum it up in one moment, it was a situation where and perhaps you've experienced this or maybe not. It was a situation where I was going to be spending time with somebody that I actually really liked, okay. It was a friend that I enjoyed spending time with and I was out, you know, its good time. I'm outside having something to eat.

And there was just a small little something that should have been a small upset that I recognized an incredibly irrational reaction of mine. And so, I understood at that moment that I wasn't angry at what was going on. I was just simply angry and that anger was not directed at a person or a place or, you know, not getting my food. That anger was just an internal rage over the injustices that I saw were going on at families, losing loved ones for no reason. The sense of stress that my colleagues were experiencing, just many things, that for me, I no longer had joy being around people that I loved. I no longer had a, you know, a sense of, you know, life is good and the world is a safe place. And recognizing that in that moment, that if I did not do something, that the people that I was with, the people that I was leading at work, you know, that would carry through in every interaction and just simply would poison. The organization would poison the team, would poison my family relationships. So, it wasn't like it was this big aha moment that came down from the sky. It was a simple outing that with an irrational response that had me look at who I was becoming

Steve Rush: Really profound, and what you described is academically dead simple. I just forgive everybody and cleanse myself and it'll be fine. Academically sounds simple, behaviorally though, that comes with a whole set of processes and systems that need learning. So how did you go about that?

Lisa Marie Platske: You're you are so right. Like it's not just well, we had the awareness and then the next day everything was wonderful. One of the pieces on the journey was extending grace. And so, I say that the forgiveness had to start with myself because oftentimes when leaders will see themselves or see a response, they will, you know, be angry. Like why did I respond that way? And that doesn't help the situation. So there had to be self-forgiveness. And so, I began identifying not just in this situation, but what were the times when my responses were not ideal and began doing a journey of self-examination. And so, to dive into various principles, I went into the process in emotional intelligence and the research that was there around, you know, self-examination.

And I took myself on retreat. I went and was quiet and reflective. I began researching instead of reading books that were on law enforcement or on criminal behavior. I began reading books that were more about the mind and human behavior in the sense of empathy and compassionate leadership and changed what it is that I was putting into my mind, into my body. And I also focused on my health. And one of the things that I recognized is that when you're angry and then when you're stressed and even if you want to be in forgiveness, it's really hard to do so. So, taking better care of me, allowed me to then better care for others around me, whether that was the guys that I worked with, or whether it was family members that I went to visit. And it was a journey, it was a journey of forgiveness. Forgiving me first, and then forgiving others for perhaps their own limited views or their own paradigms in the world versus being angry.

Steve Rush: I love the way you considered the whole approach by the way, because it does start with self-assessment. It starts with the self-actualization; and again, it's one of those things it's dead easy to say, but putting yourself first can often be seen as quite selfish or self-centered, but in my experience, if you don't do that, then everybody else suffers, right?

Lisa Marie Platske: Yes. Yes. It's interesting. When I opened my business sixteen years ago, that was one of my, you know, core pieces that I would teach is, self-first, family second and work third. And when I would go into organizations, they would say, you can't teach that. And I said, if you really want employees that are going to perform and research shows that you don't get the best out of your employees, the best you get is 80%. And if you, and that's like the best of the best. So, on average, you're getting between 40 to 60% output on an employee. And if you really want that to increase so that your bottom line increases and your operational effectiveness increases, then you will invest in your employees the way that you invest in your innovation and new ideas, because they are the ones that are going to implement.

That doesn't mean that you're not looking at. It's not important to just give people whatever they want. That's not what it's about. It's about understanding that we're humans in this experience, in this leadership experience, and as human beings, we require different things in order to have optimal results to produce, to thrive. And so, you know, I had focused so much in the past on the human doing this, that I forgot the human beingness part and getting back to the being it's really difficult when you're in the doing, and that's your sole focus to enter into the forgiveness journey, but the health part and sort of the putting self-first piece and all of the people who said that was, you know, crazy or frivolous or selfish, you know, it's what led me.

You know, now I have seven pillars of leadership that I've researched over the years. And in pillar, number four, there are seven areas of wellbeing and wellbeing is simply a word for wealth. And what I found in those seven areas of wellbeing is that too often individual leaders and top contributors would tell themselves that once I do well at work, then I'll be able to take care of my physical health or that's when I'll be able to take care of my financial health. That's when things will fall into place. And I found that that's not true, that you've got to start with the physical, you've got to start with you in that area and your emotional wellbeing and your intellectual wellbeing and your spiritual wellbeing and your relational wellbeing before you can truly thrive and be wealthy at work.

Steve Rush: A hundred percent agree with that, a hundred percent. You've taken to writing, you've written three books. Connection, Design Your Destiny, Turn Possibilities into Realities. What was it that drove you to put pen to paper and share some of your stories and learnings?

Lisa Marie Platske: Like I said, with the entrepreneurial journey, so much of it has been this, you know, well, what's put in front of me and that's why I say it's somewhat accidental. There's intention in it, and there's also sort of surprise. And so, my first book in 2007, the reason why I wrote it was not because I had this idea that it was going to be great to write a book. It was because I was going into organizations and Steve, I would ask three questions. Who are you? What do you want? And why does it matter? So, I would be in these coaching sessions and these trainings and ask those questions and get this blank stare. And I found it fascinating because the answer of who I am was generally titles. And what do I want was generally, well, I'm supposed to want the next promotion or the next opportunity. And when I would really dive in and say, why does that matter? And like, what do you really want? What I found was that the overwhelming majority. Over the 80th percentile truly didn't want what the next opportunity was that was in front of them. And if they could have had it all their way, they would have been doing something different. And that for me was just so mind-boggling.

Steve Rush: Yeah, right.

Lisa Marie Platske: How could this be?

Steve Rush: And what did you find the answers were?

Lisa Marie Platske: Well, it was more giving people permission, permission to be in that conversation. I remember a woman who was chief counsel in an organization and her saying to me, and I believe at the time she was forty-two years old and she said, no one has ever asked me that question. What do I want? I was sad. I was sad. I thought, how could this be? And so, here's someone who has a family and children and people that are watching you and role model, and you've got a position and the position is something that's well-respected and you had to go to school and operate in choice, and you're ending up here. And now we're having this conversation. And you tell me that no one has ever asked you that in four plus decades of your life, like, it was just heartbreaking.

Steve Rush: I bet, yeah.

Lisa Marie Platske: I thought, so if I could write a book that would give people permission to ask that question and to sit down and have some thought and intention around what that would be, wouldn't that make the world a little bit better?

Steve Rush: Yeah, it sure would.

Lisa Marie Platske: And so that was the impetus, you know, for that, and for the last fourteen years, I've done an annual three-day conference called, the same name as the book, Design Your Destiny Live, or similar name, we go through my seven pillars of leadership. And in the end, it's about, like who are you? What do you want? And why does it matter? Because I believe everyone's got something. I mean, that's one of the things I loved about your story, Steve, you know, you're someone who went, well, like, who am I? And like, what am I doing here? Like this isn't what I'm called to do. This is not what I'm hardwired for. Like, I could stay here and, you know, I'm probably being paid pretty well. However, I making a contribution? Am I a force for good on the planet? And you know, from our conversation, it was, you know, it's what really inspired me to want to be in deeper conversation with you.

Steve Rush: Sure, I appreciate That. Thank you. So, of your three books, do you have a favorite child?

Lisa Marie Platske: Do I have a favorite? I actually can say that every book, every article, everything that I've ever written, there's no favorite. They're just a series of lessons learned that allow me to relive them.

Steve Rush: Said like a true parent and any custodian of work!

Lisa Marie Platske: Yes, yes.

Steve Rush: Brilliant.

Lisa Marie Platske: Like, oh yeah. I remember that.

Steve Rush: So, your seven pillars then. You have three steps and seven pillars, and I wondered if it would be worthwhile, if we could just spin through them?

Lisa Marie Platske: Sure, sure. So, the seven pillars came from research. So, I wanted a shortcut, you know, here I am, I'm a criminal justice major. I had my career in law enforcement. I loved it. And now I'm opening up a leadership development company. And so, it's like, well, what do leaders do? The best ones? What do they do differently? So, I just began interviewing people and I got seven themes and the seven themes are. I had them all magically start with a P isn't that great?

Steve Rush: That’s very innovative!

Lisa Marie Platske: So, and then they have phrases. So, the number one is plan. And it's start with a written plan. Begin with the end in mind. I found that all the leaders I researched did that. Number two was understand your personality, be clear who you're not and who you are. And I found the best leaders really understood their strengths and delegated the rest. Number three is partnerships, create partnerships, create powerful partnerships. And this was all around the essence of connection. They had networks and really understood that you could make life easier by being deeply connected to others. And they weren't formal partnerships. And then number four is priority, not priorities. And it was understanding what matters most. So, live your priority. And regardless of whether or not other people look at it, and it makes sense to them. That's where those seven areas of wellbeing live.

And it's where that idea of putting yourself first lives too. And then number five is all about presence, creating a meaningful and memorable presence in three areas. By what people see, by what you say, and by being in the moment. And so, there's gratitude. There's positioning that is all in this element. It's a very, very robust pillar. And then number six is progress, and this is evaluate your progress. It's also the pillar of profit. With this pillar I find that in organizations, sometimes people will talk about the annual performance review and performance is something to be evaluated daily. It's to be evaluated moment by moment. What do you want? You're either moving further away or closer to it by every action and every word that you speak. So, I'm in self-examination and reflection daily and evaluating my progress, whether I'm on track. That was a hard one for me, Steve, because I was really hard for me to get rid of ideas that I created.

Steve Rush: It's unlearning some of the stuff that you'd learned, right?

Lisa Marie Platske: Right, yeah. Exactly, exactly. So, that's just so true. And then number, number seven is professional development and personal development. And that's investing in personal and professional development. And I found that the leaders I spoke to who really were just so far ahead and the best of the best, they took time off. They had these circles, mastermind circles and peer connections and coaches and people they learned from. And so, it was amazing how intentional there were about where they went and how they were some were industry specific and some were that had nothing to do with their industry. And just who was the next person for me to learn from.

Steve Rush: I love those, they’re really succinct. And if people are listening to this for the first time, just having those seven pillars to go through is a great blueprint to kind of set you up for success. So, thank you for sharing them.

Lisa Marie Platske: You’re welcome. You’re welcome. I want everybody to dive in and I share that, you know, sometimes it's just a small tweak. You might do really well in five of them or six of them. And there might be a small tweak that can just make a huge, huge difference. So, they're important. And those three elements came from, well, what are the seven pillars rest on? Like, what's the foundation for them? And the three elements are really all about courageous leadership. And those three elements are vision, vulnerability and voice. And vision is having that clear vision, the key or the hidden key that unlocks it is clarity. Vulnerability is not a marketing tactic. It's a way of being, and it's how you live out your vision and the hidden key to unlock that is forgiveness. You can't be vulnerable and have it really be authentic and transparent unless you've done your own forgiveness work

Steve Rush: Wow that’s really quite powerful. Yet, I've not actually thought of it in that way, but your so, so accurate in the that you reflect that because vulnerability means that he can't be carrying any baggage, can you?

Lisa Marie Platske: Exactly.

Steve Rush: In order to be vulnerable, you have to get rid of that.

Lisa Marie Platske: Otherwise, it comes out really weird and that's when it sounds judgmental.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Lisa Marie Platske: And you go, huh? I can't figure that out. Like, what is it? It seems like they're being vulnerable, but something not right there.

Steve Rush: And we're built intuitively, and you would have been taught this in your law enforcement days, to spot that disingenuous behavior. We're trained unconsciously to notice when it doesn't feel and look right.

Lisa Marie Platske: Exactly, that's is so true, which is the reason why you and I can be an ocean away and still, you can feel what I felt when we were talking about 9/11. Like as if you were looking at me as if you were, absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah. So we've been in a bit of a crazy world in the last couple of years, and you know, as every decade goes on, there are events that come and shape the way that we work and the way that we live. And certainly, the pandemic is one of those. How do we as leaders keep and remain relevant when the world is changing such a lot?

Lisa Marie Platske: You know, when I look at how the world has changed, there for me is, I go back to a story and an experience that I had, and that is a business coach who said to me several years ago, Lisa you're one disaster from going out of business. And I said, how could this be? Like, I have, you know, all of these clients and all of this. And he said, yes. And he laid out, you know, the vulnerabilities in my business. And so, I went on this journey to, I didn't know at the time, but to pandemic proof my business in the sense of who, is it that has all of the information in the organization, what are the activities that I'm doing? Who is it that I'm investing my time with? What's my most precious commodity? And, you know, when you speak about how the world has changed and how do you remain relevant? As humans, we're often creatures of habit and being comfortable for many people is a high value and comfort doesn't change the world, vulnerability really opens doors.

And so, it goes back to what you and I have had many conversations, have brought up in conversation many times is the idea of the self-reflection. Remaining relevant means looking in the mirror and asking the question over and over again about where have I gotten comfortable? Where have I gotten stagnant? Where have I gotten, dare I say lazy? And where have I gotten entitled? And when I looked at my business several years ago and was really honest with myself, I had a mentor at the time that I had a conversation with. And he said to me, you know, Lisa, here's what happens when there's too much sizzle and not enough stake. And I understood what he meant, right? And so sometimes when things are looking good or things are running smoothly, even if someone has fared really well like myself through the pandemic, there's still the need for examination, examination, examination in order to remain relevant. And when you're busy or there's additional work that's coming in, I find that organizations and leaders often put that on the back burner. They take care of what's urgent and self-examination and organizational analysis and assessment falls under that important category and important in the long run is always more valuable than urgent.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely. Love that, thank you. So, this part of the show is where we're going to turn the lens and we're going to focus on your leadership career and over all of the experiences I'm going to ask you to try and distill them into your top three leadership hacks or tools or tips that you would like to share. What would be your top three?

Lisa Marie Platske: Top three hacks to share. One schedule, schedule, schedule yourself in your calendar, put yourself in there as the most important meeting of the week and just get quiet. That's so important because there will always be people and situations pulling at you. And if you don't do that, it's not possible for you to truly be in the vision, vulnerability and voice courageous leadership conversation. Number two hack would be invest in what you do best and network the rest.

Steve Rush: Nice.

Lisa Marie Platske: Spend time using your gifts and do not, do not invest time in learning something that's just not yours to learn. Time is your most precious commodity. And number three, the third leadership Hack. Steve, I can't say enough about the who versus the how. Focus on the who on your journey, not the how. There have been so many things that have happened that I have no idea how they've happened. How many doors in organizations? I have no idea how they open. And it always came from who was in my circle and who I invested time with and the who always matters more than the how.

Steve Rush: Yeah, very powerful. Like it a lot, thank you. So, the next part of the show, we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something in your life and work hasn't particularly worked out as you'd planned, but as a result of that experience, you now use it as a positive in your life. So, what would be your Hack to Attack Lisa?

Lisa Marie Platske: When you talk about things that didn't work out, it's like that is, I have learned to become friends with failure. Like that's truly like a superpower.

Steve Rush: In fact, I've become so friendly with failure. I actually just now call them learning.

Lisa Marie Platske: Oh, there you go. There you go. Yes, it's just one where I go, you know, I didn't see that. And so, one of the pieces to share with this is I trusted somebody. It's a good example. I just trusted somebody, ended up hiring, actually it was more of an investment. An opportunity that someone was having an event. And the person took my money and it was ten thousand dollars, and they said, sorry, I'm not giving it back. And I'm not honoring the commitment either and your choices to come after me or, you know, or not, but I'm not honoring the commitment. I'm not honoring the contract and I'm not giving you your money.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Lisa Marie Platske: So, it was one of those pieces where at first, I was really embarrassed and really like, how could you not have known better, Lisa? How did you not do all the research? You know, you were, how could you trust this person? Just a thousand and one things. And then there was this part of me that was like, okay, so what's going to come out of this because I could take lots of money and lots of, excuse me, lots of time and chase after this. And I could go after this person or I could see what else to create. And what ended up happening was my decision to forgive and let go. And just say, there must have been a reason that this showed up me. And as you said, it's not a failure, it's a lesson learned. What happened was over the next six months. My business literally quadrupled. I'm sorry, not quadrupled, tripled. It was three times. Had I invested energy and chasing after an air quotes, missed opportunity, I would have failed to have put the time and energy into what was right in front of me and what was for me all along.

Steve Rush: Yeah, really powerful stuff. And you know, what goes around, comes around. Doesn't it?

Lisa Marie Platske: Absolutely, and I'm not tracking it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I'm fairly certain karma, call it what you will, it catches people up eventually.

Lisa Marie Platske: Yes, yes, yes.

Steve Rush: So, the last part of the show, Lisa, is we get a chance to do some time travel. You get to bump into Lisa at twenty-one and give her some advice. What would be your words of wisdom to her then?

Lisa Marie Platske: Everything happens in divine right timing. Everything happens in divine, right timing. Trust the journey and enjoy it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, very powerful stuff. I wish we had some more time to talk, but unfortunately, we're coming to the of top of our show. And I just want to say, thank you. I really loved talking with you. I get a real sense of some commonalities and some shared passions that we both have. So, I think that helps in extract some great conversation. So, our learners and our listeners can be connected to you. Where is the best place for us to send them?

Lisa Marie Platske: My website is upsidethinking.com, U-P-S-I-D-E, and the word thinking T- H-I-N-K-I-N-G.com. And if you do “backslash” stay-dash-connected, you'll get access to my influential leadership blueprint as well as I have an upside thought, which speaks about lots of lessons learned and one action to take each week,

Steve Rush: Brilliant stuff. We'll make sure that we'll put the links in so that people can get hold of the influential leadership blueprint, as well as all your social media and other links as well. So, we can continue the journey beyond today.

Lisa Marie Platske: Thank you. Thanks so much, Steve. You pulled things out of me that I've never shared, and I just feel as if we've known each other for a very long time.

Steve Rush: Yeah, feelings mutual. And Lisa, thank you for being part of the community and we'll have to do this again sometime.

Lisa Marie Platske: I would welcome that. Thank you. It's been an honor.

Steve Rush: Thanks Lisa.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Dr Jeffrey Magee is a Chief Culture and Learning Officer, Editor in Chief at Professional Performance Magazine, author of 31 books, he’s also a speaker and board adviser. In this really inspiring show you can learn about:

The importance of investing into Human Capital
How to become part of the Top 1% high achievers
Why settling for a “B” grade will stimulate mediocrity
How to find your X Factor and trajectory

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Jeffrey below:

Jeffrey on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjeffspeaks/

Jeffrey Magee Website: https://www.jeffreymagee.com

Professional Performance Magazine: https://professionalperformancemagazine.com

Jeffrey on Twitter: https://twitter.com/drjeffspeaks

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Dr. Jeffrey McGee is a special guest on today's show. He's a human capital developer and chief culture and learning officer. He's also a multiple author and editor-in-chief at Professional Performance Magazine. But before we get a chance to meet with Jeff, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In years in the news today, we explore some research completed by Boyden, a premier leadership and talent advisory firm, who's completed the study on talent led transformation in a post pandemic world. The global study explores the business outlook among CEOs, boards and other senior leaders, talent trends, priorities, and investment in the wake of the pandemic throughout 2022. Studies finding show that while seventy-seven percentage of respondents are extremely confident or confident in their organizations, growth potential just forty-seven percentage are extremely confident or confident in having the right talent to align to that strategy. Half of all respondents describe their business approach in 2022 as one of growth or expansion.

And just over a quarter twenty-six percentage as a learning or transformation opportunity, this bullish approach versus a lack of talent alignment, jeopardizes post pandemic growth. And this lack of alignment goes up to board level with fifty-two percentage respondents saying that the different mix of skills is needed at the board. And despite this only thirty-eight percentage of respondents are likely to conduct a board assessment or review over the next two years. The findings do show that respondents are reinventing talent. Seventy-four percentage are extremely likely or likely to invest in leadership development for high potential employees, sixty-six percentage to hire new leadership talent and six five percentage to redeploy or retrain existing people. The research shows a number of trends that are looking at talent, and it reveals a lack of alignment across the leadership team, particularly around things like diversity, only forty-seven percentage of HR leaders think that it's extremely likely that their organization will hire talent into diversity roles.

Sustainability, forty-two percentage of marketing leaders think is extremely likely or likely that their organization will hire talent into sustainability roles compared to thirty-one percentage of CEOs and supply chain. Thirty-seven percentage of finance leaders think is extremely likely their organization will hire talent into supply chain roles compared to twenty percentage of CEOs. In submarine attracting talent respondents consider the two top drivers to be a strong overall company's reputation, fifty-seven percentage and a purpose driven organization fifty-two percentage. Followed by the workplace of the future with a hybrid working arrangements come in at thirty-eight percentage. And the leadership lesson here is, however big organizational team is. There's never a wrong time to start reassessing how you go about nurturing and growing your talent. It's our future. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any insights, news or stories? Get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Dr. Jeffrey McGee is a special guest on today's show. He's chief culture and learning officer, editor-in-chief at Professional Performance Magazine. He's the author of 31 books, a speaker, and a board advisor. Jeff, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thanks for your time, Steven.

Steve Rush: No worries. Listen, let's get into it, but before we do, it'd be really great for you to give a bit of a sense to our audience about your backstory and how you've arrived at being a multiple author and as well as a speaker and a board advisor. just give us that backstory if you could?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Great question, dangerous question. We could go on forever. So, I'll try to make it really concise. I grew up in the Midwest USA on a farm. Went to college on an athletic scholarship and journalism scholarships. Running and running, I've always been passions. And after college I spent some time in Midwest USA as a journalist doing broadcast news and print and kind of fixated in the area of business and found that to be fascinating area. But very quickly also became discouraged with the state of journalism in the eighties and nineties as a very negative caustic and toxic industry. It's obviously not that way today at all. And that caused me to kind of leave that the industry. And as I tell people in my audiences and just in conversations, if you're ever discouraged with what you're doing professionally or you're unemployed, there's always a job anywhere in the world, but especially in America. And it's called the sales job.

Now, if you're not good at sales, you may not keep it, but there's always a hunger for the person who generates the revenue for an organization. So that took me into sales very quickly and in a trajectory, I had not planned on. And I had the opportunity to spend a little time with a fortune 100 company in the United States in sales. They introduced me to adult learning, which I didn't know existed as an industry where you would go, you know. To advance training or education at the college level or business development programs at a local hotel that might be a day or two-day long program. And I was doing that after hours and found that to be fascinating. To jump forward over the past thirty years, that evolved me into training and development, which led me into management roles and leadership roles into owning a business.

And along the way, I started writing some books. Those books caught traction here in the U.S. and globally became a couple of bestsellers. And that led me to designing and creating a training and development company. While I worked with business leaders around the world from Berlin to Vermont wherever. Helping them to basically leverage their human capital as I have come to learn and even you and your business, I would believe you would agree. You can get a building, I can get a building, you can get equipment, I can get equipment, you can buy vehicles, I can buy vehicles. But the one thing that really makes us different at the day is the human equation. The people that work for you don't work for me and vice versa. And that's what led me to where I am today in terms of working with business owners and leaders, to accelerate their growth and success through leveraging their human capital and creating a culture and environment by which great want to come and be a part of you and stay with you.

Steve Rush: Awesome. Now the interesting thing here, right, is the whole notion of human capital. It's something that's been recently reintroduced into our vernacular almost, but from your perspective, having worked with organizations where they are investing in their people, their human teams, is there a real return on investment to be had in your experience?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: It's a great question. So, one of the training companies, I was a part of for many years and sold my stake in here in the U.S. at least for our global listeners today, if you're a CPA in the financial accounting world, or you're an attorney in the legal world, you have to have ongoing educational credits every year to keep your license and certificate, to be able to professionally do your practice. And in that space, I started learning many years ago that we spent a tremendous amount of time in every business. White collar, blue collar, labor intense, automation, doesn't matter. Training and investing money into equipment and assets and tangibles and buildings where we typically say, okay, what's the ROI on that going to be?

And then we do a lot of technician training, you know. How to work the machines? Or et cetera.

And a lot of, you know. Return on that investment through efficiencies and productivity and profitability. One of the elements I have been using, even at the title on my business card for decades, even though you just made comment, it's come back and it's fashionable today, but people like you and I have known it for many years, and that is human capital. So, one, what is human capital? We spend a tremendous amount of time talking about that. Two, how do you develop that human capital on talent pathways, career expectations, market needs, business needs? And is there then an ROI on that? Absolutely yes. And I believe there's a greater and a more lasting ROI on human capital than any other capital you can have because almost any other measurement of capital, which is around tangibles depreciates very quickly. You buy a new car soon as you drive it off the lot there in London, or you drive it off the lot here in Las Vegas. It depreciates tremendously, as soon as you leave the parking lot. Human capital depreciates, if you don't challenge it. It depreciates if you don't hold it accountable. It depreciates if you're not growing and developing and feeding what individuals goals needs and purposes are. But if you can align all of that, the ROI is massive.

Steve Rush: And you can see on the balance sheet as well, can't you? So, if you look at the organizations who do invest in their people and have strong engagement scores, low attrition, holding onto that talent, then there's a direct correlation of those businesses returns in real sense, too, isn't there?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Absolutely, you can see from the, you know. The boardroom conversations to the executive suite, to frontline, you know. Leads supervisors, managers, directors, whatever the title is that an organization may have for its first level, and then, you know. Sending upward of leadership, absolutely. And, individuals, you know. They come to an organization where they see an organization best in their people and provide multiple for development and growth and development of those people, not just in the job, but development of them in terms of promotability, sustainability, longevity, absolute, it's a massive recruitment tool as well as a retention tool. And then again, think about the turnover. There's a hard HR statistic that's used globally, and you can debate the number, but even if you debated it, doesn't change the output. And it says, basically, let's take an administrative job and a business, a white-collar job.

I hate the labels, but it gives us some point of reference. And they talk about the amount of financial attached to the turnover. Let's say Steve's working in our business and an administrative role, white collar role, the amount of money attached to losing you, advertising, promoting, interviewing, hiring, and onboarding someone to get them up to baseline functionality of what Steven was doing is any work between one point five and three times what your annual paycheck was. So, it's very expensive.

And then you add on additional, such as again, what are the relationships that Steve had before he left? And if those were good, both with vendors, suppliers, coworkers, colleagues, employees. It could take a long time to rebuild those relationships. So, can you start to put some numbers to it? Absolutely. The institutional knowledge that someone has to know how to finesse relationships or situations to be more productive and profitable, if I'm in a client relationship role, development role, again. Knowing how to cross sell, upsell. Knowing what a client's long-term goals are and how we can align those with our own organizational goals? Yeah, the conversations can just go on endlessly, but the finances attached to it are staggering.

Steve Rush: Yes, there are some big numbers there, aren't there? And if you think, even small organizations, that's a massive number relative to the operating cycle of a business.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so you develop the principle and notion of Talentification, which is also you wrote book about, so what is Talentification?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Great question, so looking at the concept of talent, and you can finish that statement for our listeners today, a lot of ways, whether you call it talent management, talent development, talent acquisition, and I started recognizing working in this space over the last thirty years, both with fortune 100 global clients to individual industry, rockstar businesses that the common person on the street would never know the name of that business, unless you're in that space, whether it's agriculture or manufacturing or high-tech, or what have you. So, to me, Talentification that concept in the word deals with what I've identified to be the eleven elements to execution and achievement. I used the word achievement as capital letters. There's, you know? Those letters stand for each of the eleven phases of what talent life cycles are about. So, it's eleven elements of execution and achievement of the talent management model that I've identified for basically healthy and sustained and engage organizations. And how do you create that culture where everyone, not just the leaders, not just the talent management team understands what their role in stake is in health and wealth of an organization? Again, if you're my supervisor or you're my peer, you're my subordinate, doesn't matter. All of us have to understand when it comes to talent, what really are all those key aspects we're talking about? So that's what the book deals with, those eleven phases. It talks a little bit strategically, tactically about what each looks like from anyone in organizations perspective. And we can look at high growth organizations, again, just as you said, whether they're a small family business, a sole proprietor, or whether there are mid-size or large going concern, you know? Those eleven phases are critically important. And as you get people engaged at their capacities, eleven different areas, it also becomes a massive retention tool. Your entrepreneurial energy becomes organic to some of the questions you and I were just visiting around.

Steve Rush: So, if I was a leader, listening to the eleven phases and thinking about my talent and my talent strategy, is there a, maybe a golden starting place or a golden end, is there maybe one place that you think that has to be part of my talent strategy?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Absolutely. So, you know? In the human relations world, HR Management. There are different models that are used. One of the models that kind of has grabbed the globe in the last decade is, using stars as a metaphor for your employees. And so, to answer that, let me share, teach a model real quickly, because I think it absolutely is explosive in answering your question. It also answers the questions of how you can guard against making sure you don't have a toxic cancerous person in your team that’s going to be working actively or passive aggressively against you and take you down. So, to me, there's different sort of stars. You have a rock star in your company, rockstars are from an aptitude and a level very high on the scale and from an attitudinal level, very high on the scale.

So, they're, you know? They know what they're doing. They're your subject matter experts, are always looking to grow and develop themselves, but they're always willing to push and achieve more. So, you have your rock stars, then you have developing stars. These are people that have good attitudes. They need knowledge and attitudinal growth, which could take time. And some people are not patient for the amount of time it may take to grow their brain in any sort of a job or vocation. You have, you know? Emerging stars, these are people that that know how to do the job, but they've got a chip on their shoulder, or they're not as motivated or they're somewhat discouraged. We have to know how to engage them. You have your problem players, which I call those, your crashing stars. You have employees that maybe you don't know very much about. Those would be your unknown stars. And then you've just got your work horses. You know? Basically, you're contributing stars. And lot of times contributing stars want to be a part of organization, but they don't really want to ascend upward into, you know? Any sort of job role with this lot of spotlights. They don't want to be a leader, a boss. So, you need the whole mix’s. To answer your question. What I've recognized, you know? In working with global talents. also from my media company, Performance Professional Performance Magazine. Interviewing phenomenal people all over the planet, is that the real secret to your question is the rock star population, that rockstar demographic, knowing that if I've got a rock star at any job, sit down and do some character analysis and say, okay, what are the quantifiable that makes Stephen my rock star at job ABC?

And when I can start to write down those characteristics of Stephen as a rockstar in his job, I now have a benchmark template. I can use the interview to find another rock star. I could use it and kind of put it up on a wall for anyone else who wants to become a rock star like Stephen and said, okay, these are the traits or characteristics or skills or behaviors or actions that you need to exhibit or master. And I think that's how you start to answer your question is to clearly focus on the rockstars. See the reason I go off on that tirade is that what we've done for the last twenty to thirty years, and we were not paying attention on the planet is, we actually started lowering the performance bar where mediocrity is actually seen as rock stars today in most places on the planet that I go.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: And if mediocrity, as soon as the rock star, then you can see how pathetic and how bad it gets real quick. Here in the United States, Gallup Organization did a massive research project right before COVID. And so, it got lost in the noise. The challenge to the research project model, Steve is, I think the numbers are worse today than what they said before, but basically said this. They surveyed thousands of American and global businesses based in U.S. And they found that fifty-six percentage of the respondents. So, thousands of businesses mean tens, if not hundreds of thousands of individuals participated in the survey, but fifty-six percentage of responders said they're disengaged or complacent in the workplace, so fifty-six percentage basically saying, hey, I'm going through the motions. I realized I don't have to kill myself. So, it's kind of like, you know? If I'm doing some tough love here, what's the minimum I have to do for maximum paycheck? Then fifteen percentage identified as actively disengaged. These are people that wake up every morning, look for something new to complain about, which leaves you mathematically with twenty-nine percentage leftover that are engaged. So, let's call those engaged, you know? Some of the rock stars or developing stars or emerging stars. And that's what you realize. If you want to have a successful business, you build it around the star metaphor, but you build it around rock stars, because if Steven's a rock star and you hire me, then I know where the performance bar is set and I'm going to step up. And as consumers, you and I, and the listeners today can validate what I've just shared as consumers is, look at the places you go and ask yourself, are you really getting rockstar level service, or are you really getting mediocre service that people are calling rockstar level? And so that's a series of answers to your powerful question,

Steve Rush: That’s a great response too, and it's interesting that the whole mediocrity can be really cancerous in an organization, can’t it? Because if you allow your average to be sub average, than your average, occasionally we'll just continue the slit versus your average should be your rock stars of now.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: It should be your average is in the future, right?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Yeah, I coach people that if you have, again, we can call them whatever you want. So, I don't want anybody to get hung up on labels here, but as a reference point, if you have a job description or a job profile that says I'm hiring Geoffrey McGee to do job ABC, I'm going to hire Steven to do job XYZ. So obviously we're both going to ask our boss the same question, which is, okay, great. What's this job responsible for? What do I do? What are the expectations? So, when you start to identify the work product and then how does it need to be accomplished or how often, or how much? We have clarity to our job and everything's built around it. But with that, what I coach is, if someone is doing one hundred percentage of the job you've hired them to do so, first thing I just said is 100 hundred percentage of the job you've been hired to do, then that means they're meeting expectations.

Meeting expectations would be like, you're going to school and you're getting grades. And again, we use different scorecards around the globe. So, in the United States, if you're going to kindergarten to high school and into college. The grading system we use is A, B, C, D F. Well, I always tell people, if you want to get clarity, get rid of letter B for boy and get rid of letter D for dog. And all you should have is either an F, C, or an A, you're doing a hundred percent of the job expected. Then that's a C, you're meeting expectations, you're average, but that scares people. Therefore, any part of your job description, you're not doing, you have to get an F. I mean, we're not going to give any wiggle rooms for B's and D's. So, someone says, well, how do I get to be an A? Then I say go right back to your job description.

And in any one of those areas that you exceed, that I, as the organization amount, obligated to give you an A in that area. So, if you take that metaphor and you use it to any sort of a job we have, I mean, everything has been degraded down. I mean, if you're a rock star player and you wake up tomorrow morning and you're not motivated, and you're just, you know? Not highly excited, we've all had those days. I tell people and ask people, well, what do you bring to the office? Do you bring you’re A game and your B? Well, most of the answer is B. Well, if you go home within that day and reflect on, I brought my B game to the office and I'm still a rock star by a mile. Well, what do you bring back on the subsequent day?

You can bring back you’re A, or do you calibrate down to B? And most of us, we calibrate young to B, and then someday in the future, you wake up, not motivated. Do you bring your, A, B or C? Well, we know A is not in the game anymore. So, you bring your C and that's how we've done things, we make an exception. We elect people that are mediocre, and then we make excuses when they're pathetic. We hire people that are mediocre, and then we make excuses when they're pathetic. And that's, what's sad about the model, instead of all of us trying to be the best we can be and raised the bar, we've actually made it globally convenient to lower the bar.

Steve Rush: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Spot on. I love the concept that you've applied to the kind of ACF, because it removes the opportunity to sit in some middle ground, doesn't it?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: You hit it dead center, and that's the element. I mean, if I am going to traditional college that are traditional age, we have all those wiggle grades, and it's amazing how we, our faculty, our parents, we justify those wiggled grades. But now, if you and I are business people, as we are here today and majority of our listeners, and you were paying out of your own pocket to go to a developmental program to get more education, so you can become better. It's amazing, we're paying it. We don't want the wiggle grade. We want the best grade possible. Well, imagine if the B and a Ds off the table, it either is your understanding the topic, so that's C. There's nothing wrong with that, where you're not understanding it. So, we're not going to pass you. You're going to get an F. I mean, you go in for brain surgery. Do you want your surgeon to be an F, an D, an C or an B surgeon for med school? Would you prefer they be an A?

Steve Rush: Exactly, you don't want your brain surgeons to be a B on any type of surgery, do you?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Your parents, you’re taking your child for heart surgery, I changed the model, and I say, a parent, you're taking your child and you want your surgeon to be an F, D, C or B or an A? I mean, so if you change the dynamic, everyone kind of like raised their eyebrows. Like it's obvious A, but then in other professions, we accept C's and D's and F’s all day long.

Steve Rush: And did this thinking set you on your trajectory? I'm going to use the word Jeff, to when you wrote your Trajectory Code. So, this is a book that you wrote around how to change your decisions, actions, and directions, and to become part of that top one percentage of high achievers, right?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: So, you've got within that, your mental DNA, just tell us a little bit about what that is and how we could get into that top one percent?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Great question. So, a couple of models, it's a really easy book. I tell people it's not going to be difficult. I spent two years in first grade as a child. So, nothing I do is hard. It's pretty simple, but what I identified of the thirty-one books, I've written, twenty-one languages, four bestsellers, and four graduate management textbooks. Your Trajectory Code is the only book, so people can buy it online, or they can buy the audio book. The only book I've written, it's about personal success. And it primarily draws upon one business model I've used for years called the trajectory code, the trajectory code models, like a letter V for victory. And that that diagram helps us to recognize what actions, behaviors, and mindsets take you to derailment and failure. And what are the actions, mindset, and behaviors that take us to success. Within that,

there's a concept called your mental DNA, and it plays off of a formula. So, it's chapter five in the book that talks about your player capability index. And so, I'm a formula kind of a person. So, what I recognize, if I look at Stephen and Stephen comes to Jeff Magee and said, I like you to be my performance coach and helped me to accelerate my successes. Here's the goal of where I want to go. Well, I'm going to have to do some diagnostics, whether it's an online platform or just you and I are visiting via video call. Because I prefer video calls versus to telephone that way, we can see each other. Because a lot of visual communication takes place. It's very insightful. But what I've recognized in that formula, Stephen, is that there's very specific variables that make up a human being such as knowledge.

So that's one of the letters in the formula. So, whether it's formal or informal education, technical, non-technical, certification, non-certification. Another part of it, it's going to be our life experiences. How does one life experience build and set the stage for the next? And how do we leverage those to be better? You know, the next time we do something. How about the culture we were raised in, or the cultures we've been a part of or, you know? Ebbed and flowed in and out of. That influences how our thinking styles and belief systems and confidential, we lack thereof. So, there's a lot more to the formula and it's very easy to read and understand, but that becomes the DNA. So, if I want to grow someone in, let's say between today and in the future, we don't know what the future date is, to be the new CEO of a business.

Family owned a global international business, a local mom and pop shop. Then I would first, okay. So, to be a great executive, I use the same DNA model and you and I, or whoever the appropriate stakeholders would be, we would sit down and say okay. For us to have a great CEO, what would we like them to possess in terms of knowledge or skills or education or degrees or certifications? You know, some, none, what are they? What sort of attitude, mindsets? What sort of passion? What sort of experiences do we want them to have? What sort of a relationships? People that we want them to have interacted with, grown with? Network with or known? So, this formula also gives us a great DNA chart to scope out how do you build a great leader. Leader of nations, leader of communities, leaders of business, leaders of our ourselves.

So, the DNA concept has multiple applications, personal development, career development of someone, creating, you know? Job descriptions that client says, hey, I need something, listen to what the client says they need. They'll tell you exactly where you need to go. But the last way of answering your question is that part of this model, Steve is very objective and that's the real power behind it. It gives you the objective template to assess yourself or someone else and pull all of the emotion and ego and personalization out of it to see exactly what we need to do to be smart at the end of the day,

Steve Rush: Laser focus.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: You got it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and in the book also, you talk about having the opportunity to understand your X factor when you're on your trajectory. Does that form part of this?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: It is exactly. So, the X factor is the first side of this equation. I know I'm talking to a global audience here and we have, you know? fortyish percent of your listeners are in the U.S. and forty to forty five percent might be in the UK and the others are global. So, this X factor concept is not like the entertainment show from the great British businessman, Simon Cowell.

Steve Rush: He has a lot of answer for X-Factor now, doesn’t he?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Exactly, so I've been using my X-Factor longer than he as, of course, he's richer than both of us, bam, he wins.

Steve Rush: Exactly.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: But the X-Factor represents any thing you're measuring is what X represents in this formula. So, if we're measuring, you know? How fast can you run? That's an X-Factor or how fast can you compute some mathematical questions? That's an X-Factor, you know? How good are you at wood crafting? I mean, so whatever it is you're measuring, that's X. So, to answer, let me use this example. So, let's say we go on to any school campus around the world of, you know? Kindergarten, to primary, to high school grade. And you were to say on that campus, there's a range of athletic sports that are offered. Well, the varsity sport, the highest level of proficiency that high school, I'd say. Of a hundred percent of the kids on that campus.

If we're measuring athletics as our X-Factor, of a hundred percent of the kids on any campus, X percent would actually be good enough to make the varsity team of any sport. So, if you ask that question to a group of people, it's always going to be a small number. Of a hundred percent of kids on the campus. You might hear someone say twenty percent, or ten percent or five percent, then I said, okay, so let's track it two more times. Of a hundred percent, then of those high school, varsity athletes, X percent would be good enough to go play it at a collegiate level, at a college level. Get a scholarship to go to the advanced level, what percent? And it's always a smaller number that migrates and said, okay, so final question. So, we started with a hundred percent mass at a high school, and we saw that how many kids are were good enough to be on the varsity sport at a high school level, smaller number, go play at the college collegiate level, smaller number. So, what percentage would be drafted from a college level to go play at the professional ranks? Whether it's, you know? Football, rugby, whether it's, you know? Basketball, football, hockey, whatever, it's always a really small number. So, get people to recognize whatever you're tracking is an X-Factor and whatever that smallest finite number you just came up with using athletics is what we tracked. We're all professionals, so if you really want to see where you should be focusing your energy or how to grow and develop yourself, what are you really proficient in as an X-Factor? So, let's do the math. Let's say high school is twenty percent, would be at the high school team. How many go to college? Let's say it's five percent. How many go on and play at the pros? Point zero, zero, zero, whatever percent. Oh, okay. So that point zero, zero, zero, that's you and I, as professionals, we're not competing on a planet about the twenty percentiles, because this is not high school.

Real life is not high school. It's not college, it's pros. So, if you really want to be successful, then you've got to identify, what is your X-Factor. For me, growing up in primary school from kindergarten to high school, I was not a great writer. I thought I was, I mean, teachers were very critical of my writing. Well, maybe it's because I wanted to be a writer and they were giving me additional attention. I didn't really like to read books in high school or college. So, it's fascinating, you know? Forty years later, I love to read, I love to write, I love to do research. And all of that forms a basis of my ability to coach executives and businesses to be in hyper-growth faster, quicker And sustained.

Steve Rush: It's a really, yeah, lovely way of thinking about it, this whole kind of one percent or zero, zero, zero, point one percent of professionals. I wonder how many people actually can even associate that in their profession today, they're already there? And that's a lot to do with mindset, I suspect.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Absolutely, you know? It is. And there's actually some quantifiable ways to answer that because you've posed a great question. Someone says, okay, how do I know if I'm in the top percentage of my industry? Or how do I know if I'm starting to rest on my morals and accomplishments? Or how do I push myself? So, I always tell people, in your job and your profession, is there another formal educational degree you could achieve? And if yes, then you're not at the top of the list, pull yourself down at least one notch on any scale, because there's something there you can quantify that you could go after that you're not, or are there certifications in your industry? And if that's a yes and you don't have them, then bring yourself down another notch, you know? Have you written any papers or are you asked to speak on this?

Are you asked to be the trainer in your business on these topics? So that's a great question. You've posed for our listeners. How do you know when you're at the top of the game? There are ways of knowing it. And if you study another way of looking at this one percent factors, I've interviewed, you know? World leaders from your country, Tony Blair, to Richard Branson, Richard Branson, I've written three books together, whatever you look at incredibly successful people. What you'll recognize is that they associate with and typically hang out with, from their view, their vision, other phenomenally successful people, whether it's in their industry or not, you don't see a great athlete typically hanging out with losers. I mean, there might be, you know? A phenomenal singer. It might be a phenomenal artist and maybe a phenomenal business leader. You know? So again, successful people typically associate with other successful people. Because that's one of the ways they benchmark themselves to always be being pushed because great successful people in any capacity can call you out on whether or not you're truly working or you’re coasting.

Steve Rush: It's interesting, as you were saying that Jeff, I was thinking about sports people. Perhaps are easy to quantify because they've got measures, personal bests, they've got fastest times, greatest passes. All of those things are quantifiable, but in business they're perhaps around us yet we don't spend as much time quantifying it. And I think that's a really key message for me.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Huge, you just said something massive for the listeners, thank you. A pro athletes live for quantifiable performance feedback in real time when they're practicing, they have videotapes. They can go back and study. They have coaches and sub coaches that are always, you know? Measuring them, pushing them, tracking them. And so, it's interesting in what I call the real business world where you and I live, it's amazing how the mindset of most people is, we resist performance feedbacks. We resist performance reviews. We don't like quantifiable data. Because sometimes, you know? It's misused against this instead of being used to help to grow us, we need to create that pro athlete mindset around performance execution, and then we'll become much more successful in any capacity.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely so. So, in your experience Jeff, has human capital, the world of talent management changed over the last couple of craziest through COVID?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: It has, you know? And it's interesting. I find myself posing the question just this recent weekend. I was here in Las Vegas on the strip speaking to a large convention. And, I posed a question that, if you and I were sitting in a large business audience conference, whatever topic, doesn't matter, and it was January of 2020, and the person in front was asking the audience questions like how many of you have a business plan, a game plan for 2020, almost every hand would go up. You know? How many of you are optimistic for 2020? Everyone's hands probably would go up. From a sales standpoint, maybe the more specific question then. How many of you have a sales plan or strategy for 2020? Almost every hand would go up. What about your talent management, your human capital, you looking at your key employees in your organization?

You feel comfortable with that team? A lot of hands would go up. Are you looking to hire hands would go up? Have you thought about flight risk and anyone leaving you? Probably hands wouldn't go up. No one thought that way. If we would have posed the last question in January, 2020 to a large business audience, you know? What about letting a lot of your employees work remotely or virtually, you know? How many of you are open to that idea? Very few hands would have went up, but if we would have had that same conversation in June, just three or four months into COVID. In June of 2020, I said, well, you know? How many of you are working remotely or have a lot of your employees working remotely or, you know, virtual? Tons of hands would have went up.

So, we jumped into 2021. We're recording this here in, in August, September of 2021. And what I'm finding is that a massive number of businesses that have had to make massive changes in 2020 to stay sustainable, or that have actually been in thriving mode, have embraced looking at how they do their businesses differently. So COVID has pushed our business models easily ten years into the future, just in the past year. They've pushed businesses to actually operate the way that we were only considering a year ago. And so, from a human capital standpoint, it's also pushed us to recognize where are some of our hidden jewels that maybe we were smothering and didn't realize we had phenomenal talent before COVID that is actually stood up in shined. And it's caused us to recognize how do we keep people engaged? How do we maintain our culture? When we have pockets of people working together and some are distant. And how do we grow and develop our people to keep them at peak performance? So, has it changed in some ways? Absolutely, no. Because how to be successful in a position? A lot of similarities. The other way of answering it, has it changed? Absolutely, yes. I think, looking at how we are more mindful of our people equation, our human capital has really become more front and center today than where it was a year ago. So yes and no to that question

Steve Rush: And many different rockstars now than perhaps two years ago.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: But equally as important of course, is to make sure that rewriting that DNA of what the rock star is today in today's world, right?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Exactly right. A hundred percent correct.

Steve Rush: Love it. So, this is part of the show now where we get to flip the leadership lens on you. I'm going to hack into your great years of experience of leadership development and leading others. And ask you to try and distill down, if you can, your top three leadership hacks, what would they be Jeff?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: I think one, that we have actually touched on and that is to player capability and next model. Really recognizing what's the unique talent that you can possess, that I can possess that can allow me to be competitive with the market space of today and tomorrow. Anticipate where the market's going, so I can be not just competitive, but I can set the bar of what competition looks like. That's one, two is accountability. I've really have learned that people fall into very distinct camps when it comes to accountability and reliability and trustworthiness and integrity. And so, number two is not a very, a fashionable conversation. Going to make people feel uncomfortable, but the reality is, there are a lot of disingenuous people on the planet and you just have to be conscious of that and put your big, you know? Your big adult armor on. So, they don't penetrate you and kill you because everyone has an agenda and that'll be the third answer. And once you recognize everyone has an agenda and it's not necessarily right or wrong, just everyone has an agenda. Then the real mastery is to find ways to align your agenda, personally, your agenda professionally with others agendas. And when you can find places of alignment, then great success can happen forever everybody.

Steve Rush: Alignment is just massive, isn't it?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and it's really interesting. The whole accountability thing in my experience as a coach, when you use just simply use the word accountability, you can almost see people think that means I have to deliver on something. Yes, that's right. And that's no different, isn’t it?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: It is.

Steve Rush: To any other day of the week, but by just simply raising its awareness.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: And that's what scares people. And again, if an organization supports its people to be the best, they can be. Then within that are going to be layers of accountability, whether there, you know? Obvious or not obvious. And again, if people want to be the best they can be, then there's going to be accountability. And their businesses around the globe that really demonstrate, you know? Accountability. And so, when I look at successful businesses, I've identified accountability happens on five levels. And so, here's another teaching moment for our listeners and business leaders. You know? First of all, the way, you know? You have a truly engaged workforce organization that is going to be in survival mode on its worst day. And there'll be in thriving mode on almost every day, is accountability level one is self.

People hold themselves accountable. So, if I'm looking to interview or hire someone, I should incorporate accountability questions to vet and find out, is this person hold themselves accountable? Yes or no. And again, you can still hire someone if they fail the first question, at least now, you know what you're in for. Accountability starts with self. Then it goes to number two is going to be systems, what systems or processes or checklists, or, you know? What do we have out there that we can put our arms around, they help to hold us accountable so that we can go back to default number one? So, one is self, two systems. Three is going to be peer. Do we have peer to peer accountability? Do we work in an environment where no one's trying to play I gotcha? No, one's trying to toss you under the bus. But it's, you know? We're all here because we all have skin in the game. We all want to help each other to be vessels or peer accountability.

And then four is going to be an essence customer. If that's an external constituent, what mechanisms do we have in place? Our customers can give us feedback, help us to be more successful every day. And so, they hold us accountable. And if we ask for customer feedback, we really listened to it. And do we really respond to it? Or is it just a game we're playing? And you have these layers of accountability. So again, one is self, two is system, three is peer, fours is customer. You'll five is going to be boss. You know? Whatever you define boss to be. Supervisor, leader, executive team, ownership, the board of directors, mom, and dad at home. You know? The boss should always be last. So, in any organization where you have the paradigm flip, the other direction, where you have accountability, it's driven by bosses first.

You're never going to have a culture that's going to allow people to be truly successful because there's going to be questions of, does the organization trust me? Do they believe in me? Do they support me? Will they empower me? If the boss is always having to be there with their thumb on everything? So, accountability is scary. And that’s problem we have in the world, I mean, I grew up to be a journalist and I love to write articles on successful people in organizations and share that story. So, people could replicate success, but here in the us, I mean, those articles are settlement ever written. And that's why I love your podcast because it's always about success. Just like my magazine, Professional Performance Magazine. It's always evergreen content, and it's about success from other people's lenses.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: But journalism is, should be holding all political people accountable. Don't have an agenda in A and B playing favorites. Don't be a journalist and like one political party over the other because you're not doing your job of accountability. And that's what we see happening on the planet is, all of these mechanisms for accountability have been bastardized, polluted, degraded or just imploded. And that's why, you know? Sometimes when we find a great person or a business that blows our brain up. Because, oh my gosh, that's what success looks like.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: That should be norm.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's a great, great reframe, love it. So, the next part of the show, we call it Hack to Attack. So typically, this is where something in your life or your work hasn't worked out well, but as a result, you've got some learning from it. And you now use it as a positive in what you do, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Woo, there's a loaded question. So, I merged my business years ago with another business. It doesn't need to be named. And what I learned is that when you work with someone for a number of years and you decide to align yourself with them and go into business, it's a completely different mindset you take in that relationship. Then if Stephen and I, you're in the UK, I’m in United States of America, we know of each other. We don't really know each other. We've never really worked with each other. If you and I were to merge our businesses, we would ask a lot of forensic questions, not to be mean and rude and disrespectful. We'd ask a lot of forensic questions to make sure that this merger of human capital and minds and product and deliver and businesses make sense. And if it does, we would have a great relationship. So, what I learned is that whenever you're you go to work with someone, you need to look at it from an objective lens as if you've never met them and really do the discovery questions. So, it's like when I worked with an organization, if I have any prior knowledge of them. I've learned to not bring that to the table in the beginning, backup and ask all of the questions you should be asking if you didn't know them to really vet and find out, are you in alignment? Are you both being transparent? Does the data add up? Make sure you're not about to get scammed. And that probably has been my number one lesson learned for the past decade plus. Matter of fact, I wrote an executive article on it with thirteen questions I didn't know to ask that I learned afterwards and it was saved me a lot of pain so that the hack that really has caused me more success. And sometimes I'm still guilty of violating it because when you're romanced in your head and you like someone, or you like the thought of doing something, you sometimes are not as objective as you could be a need to be. So, I go back to those thirteen questions in an article I wrote years ago. So, it really is be more objective and you will have more success.

Steve Rush: And I love that because most people, whether they own a business or whether they work for an organization often just have too much emotion in the game.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: And therefore, won't allow themselves to be as objective as they could be.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: You got it.

Steve Rush: So that forensic look, I think it’s really key.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: That's the way I lived.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Absolutely, it will save and your listeners, a lot of pain, grief and that loss of money. Let's say it that way.

Steve Rush: Indeed. So that last bit the show Jeff, were we get to give you a chance to do some time travel and bump into yourself at twenty-one, toe to toe and give them some advice. What would your advice Jeff be at twenty-one?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Great question. And you have stolen a page right from me, Steve. I use that same question when I get a chance to interview phenomenal people for my magazine. So, I love that question. It's fair turnaround, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: You know? At age fifty-seven today, I don't see myself at fifty-seven. I always thought that was an older person's number. Now that I'm there, it's like, oh my gosh, it's pretty doggone young. So, the question, if I went back to twenty-one, I would think I would share a couple of pieces of information. Number one, I might've shared, get serious and focused faster and find a way to do a career that twenty to twenty-five years from age twenty-one. You could retire out of and have a base income, base benefits to rest on for the rest of your life and use that first career to gain and learn as much as you can, that you could then leverage in your second career in your mid-forties to go on and have a phenomenal life. And I say that because as I look over the horizon and see people that have done just that, you know? The ability to be in your fifties and sixties and have a base retirement paycheck for the rest of your life and a base, you know? Health benefits to have for the rest of your life. It twenty-one, you don't understand the magnitude of what that means, but at fifty-seven, looking at that as massive, because now you could do your second career in a lot of ways and not have the stress of, I've got to make a paycheck, I have to, and you finish that have to in a zillion way.

And one is, I would say get serious. I see a lot of successful people today. They're successful because they have that base set up. If you're in your mid-forties and you've changed jobs, many times, as a lot of your listeners have, and maybe you've not doubled down and really got a lot of good advanced education because you started your family and had jobs that you just didn't make the time happen. You really find yourself in a challenged position of having to work really hard next twenty years, if not the rest of your life. And that's the norm on the planet today. And that's also the norm I see with a lot of young people today in their twenties that are not hearing this advice that I'd give back to myself for your question you've posed. And they're setting themselves up thinking that they're magically going to be wealthy, whatever that means and not have to work the rest of their life, whatever that means. And I think they're setting themselves up for a massively rude awakening.

Steve Rush: Yeah, here, here, I agreed. So, Jeff, listen, I always love chatting to you. You create some great content, both verbally through your talks and speeches, but also through your written work. How can we make sure our listeners can keep connected with you?

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Great question, I appreciate it. There's three ways that we can stay connected. One, we should definitely be connected on LinkedIn. So go LinkedIn, again Jeffrey Magee, Dr. Jeff speaks, we need to be connected, follow me. I don't sell anything on LinkedIn, but in the spirit and thing of what we've just been visiting with here, I post on LinkedIn every day, some sort of mental piece of information, whether it's a quote, whether it's an article, whether it's a video, whether it's a blog to cause people to think at a higher, deeper, faster level. So that's one, if you want to find out more about, you know? Products, deliverables, how I do what I do, then obviously you can go to jeffreymagee.com, that's my website, jeffreymagee.com. It's J-E-F-F-R-E-Y. So, it's the non-British spelling and McGee is M-A-G-G-E and then my media company is professionalperformancemagazine.com. So those would be the three places, professional performance magazine.com, jeffreymagee.com or go to LinkedIn, and then we can stay connected and keep the brain going.

Steve Rush: And we'll shoot those links into our show notes as well.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: You're awesome. Thank you so much, Steve. Thank you very much opportunity to share information ideas with your listeners and anything I can do for you and them, just let me know.

Steve Rush: Jeff, it's been amazing to talk, take care of yourself and thanks being part of The Leadership Hacker community.

Dr. Jeffrey McGee: Thank you so much.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handle there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

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Brandon Smith is, "The Workplace Therapist.” He's the Founder and President of The Worksmiths, an Executive Coach, Speaker and Author of the book, The Hot Sauce Principle. In this fascinating conversation you can learn about:

The reason there is so much dysfunction in the workplace.
The best survival tactics for eliminating dysfunction.
How to stimulate urgency and avoid panic when driving performance.
What the Host Sauce Principle is, and why getting balance is essential.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Brandon below:

Brandon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonsmithtwpt/

The Workplace Therapist Website: https://theworkplacetherapist.com

Brandon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheWPTherapist

Brandon on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewptherapist/

Full Transcript Below

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

On The Leadership Hacker Podcast today, we have Brandon Smith, the workplace therapist. He's a founder and president of Worksmiths, executive coach and speaker and author of the book, The Hot Sauce Principle. But before we do sound speaker Brandon, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Have you ever avoided just putting stuff off that you know, that you should be doing. Well, procrastination could be the most expensive cost in life and business. Leading to stress, misunderstandings and missed opportunities. Many people put off task until the last minute. And according to psychology today, twenty percent of people are chronic procrastinators. More than ever people are getting pulled in different directions and demands on time, schedules and energy are increasing. So, in order to cope with the pressures of life and work, many spend excessive time tuning out non-work activities, scrolling on social media, engaging in group gossip, reading blogs, watching TV. The activities that make us feel better in the moment yet prevent us from taking the action on our tasks.

So how can we perform at peak performance levels? When our self sabotage can often hold us back. According to an article by Balkis & Duru, procrastination occurs because of a number of things, including poor time management. I like to call that self-management by the way, lack of motivational skills, organizational skills, inability to concentrate, unrealistic expectations and personal problems, a fixation on negative thinking or negative beliefs about one's capabilities, perfectionism and anxiety, and fear related. Also contribute to procrastination. So here are five tips for peak performance and to bust through procrastination. Number one, question yourself like you've never questioned anybody else. The voice in your head is the one voice you wake up to in the morning, but it can be questioned. So, have you asked that voice in your head questions like? Are you setting and realistic expectations for yourself? Am I putting pressure on myself?

What types of things are you hearing? What's the why behind what I need to do today? What are the consequences and what are the rewards of getting this done? Take time to just keep asking those questions. Two, you might be familiar with the Eisenhower Matrix often called urgent and important matrix. In a time where everything is urgent and important. The reality isn't really that true. So many of our tasks and deadlines can be adjusted or renegotiated and a powerful strategy that can help us do that is the Eisenhower Matrix. There are four quadrants that help label tasks, urgent and important, urgent and less important, less important and urgent and less urgent and less important. So, identify which of the task go into which quadrant which will help focus your energy time and attention. Number three is called the one-minute method. Start something for one minute.

All it takes to get into action and get moving is one minute, sixty seconds. Jump in regardless of how you're feeling. Start that task before you're ready. Many people think too much, take too little action. Set your timer for sixty seconds and take action. And before I call the bracelet technique. And I learned this technique while studying neuro-linguistic programming. Start out by getting an elastic or rubber band and wear on your wrist like a bracelet. And every time you find yourself putting something off or thinking negative thoughts, snap that elastic rubber band on your wrist. This act associates, physical pain with negative thoughts and procrastination. It can be an effective way to overcome procrastination and the negative thoughts that sometimes come along with it. And number five, the timeline. Can setting deadlines and timelines really help when overcoming procrastination. Well, according to a study mentioned in the psychological science journal, it's been reported that setting deadlines does in fact, improve the ability to complete your task.

Self-Imposed external deadlines, really quite effective. Play a game with yourself, run an experiment and set a small internal deadline to see if you can complete it in a specific amount of time, a little competition between you and your internal voice in your head and your words and actions can be fun. And it also turns out the procrastination is actually a mindset. So, if we think we can do it in the time we have, and we can do it now, and it won't cause us discomfort, we're more likely to do it. And if we think we can't, guess what? You're probably right. So, the leadership lesson here is when you're engaging with your team and the people that work with you. Think about and observe, are they holding back something? Are they're procrastinating? And if so, how can you help them engage the voice in their head? How through the power of questions, can you help them unlock their thinking? So, they can really hit peak performance. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, stories, insights, you know where to find us through our social media, we look forward to hearing from you.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Brandon Smith. He's the founder and president of The Worksmiths. He's an executive coach, speaker and author of the book, The Hot Sauce Principle, Brandon, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Brandon Smith: Steve, I am thrilled to be on the show today.

Steve Rush: Me too. It's been a real challenge for us to get our calendars to connect since the last time we spoke. But the world's a very different place too, to be fair, right?

Brandon Smith: That's absolutely right. That's absolutely right. You know, it's funny. I used to think to myself. Oh yeah, I'm pretty good about predicting what's going to happen.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Brandon Smith: The last eighteen months has been very humbling for me indeed. So, I've thrown my crystal ball and it's just, you know, take it as it come.

Steve Rush: Exactly right. Now I remember from the first time we've met; you have a really kind of tragic slash challenging kind of upbringing that really kind of led you on the path to what you're doing now. For the listeners that haven't had the chance to meet with you perhaps, can you just give them a little bit of that backstory?

Brandon Smith: Sure, sure. So, I was the youngest of three boys. Both my older brothers were adopted. My parents were told they couldn't have children and surprise I showed up. And so, both my older brothers were twelve and eleven years older than me. So, I would always tell folks, you know, if you've ever had older brothers like that, you know what the inside of a dryer it looks like, you know, it's like someone say, don't ask questions, just drink it. That's what older brothers do to little brothers. And my life was, you know, when I look back on it, I would say generally, I feel grateful, but there was some times in my life where it's was very dysfunctional as hell. My older oldest brother, Chris, he was in and out of either jail or rehab centers, my entire life growing up.

And when he was home, it was a lot of yelling and screaming in my house. And so, when I was ten, he ran away from a rehab center and he was living with us and he just decided life was too hard. And he took his life one night and it was very, very tragic and very, very challenging for all of us. In fact, it was so challenging for me that within about six months of that happening, I came down with an uncontrollable stutter. So, I couldn't speak in public at all. And so, every day before school, I would go in and see my speech therapist early in the morning. I'd work on my Bs, my Ps, and my Ts, the letters that would always trip me up, and then I'd go on to the school day.

So, between growing up with that dysfunction of my house, and then the way kids with stutters are treated at school. I made a kind of a conscious or unconscious decision that I just wanted to distance myself from people. They were just way too dysfunctional. And so that's kind of how I went through high school all the way to college and university. I just kind of kept myself kind of arms distance. Well, ironically enough, I ended up majoring in communications at university. And like most communication majors. I couldn't find a job after graduation. And I took a job in a small chain of retail stores. It was a family-owned business. The woman who started the business had fifteen stores. And I was going to be the assistant manager at one of these stores. And my boss was the son-in-law of the owner.

So, her daughter marries this guy, he’s, my boss. So, on my first day of real work, so I'd worked other jobs before, but this was my first day post university full-time job. I show up at the store, he greets me at the door and he says, I'm so glad you're here, before you get started, I have task for you. Waiting for you in the back room is the current assistant manager of the store, but he does not know you're coming. So, your job is to go back there and fire him and you get his job.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Brandon Smith: That was my first task on my first day of work. And that was how my manager rolled. He loved to do everything that we know as kind of really followers and lovers of leadership. He would do everything that's opposite of what we believe to be true and good about leadership. He loves to do surprise visits, to try and catch people doing the wrong thing. I had to do more layoffs of people in that first six months of that job than any other time in my career. That kind of experience really woke me up, made me really realized three things about my life. First, work should not have to suck. It should be a place for fulfillment and purpose and meaning for all of us. It shouldn't be a place of anxiety and depression and worry. I mean, it is work, it's not perfect, but it should have all those positive things. Not those negative things. We can't always choose the families we get, but we could choose our workplaces. We have a lot more control over that. Second, if my boss was any indication of the state of leadership in the world, I really want to change that. I want to improve how we lead other people and the impact we can have on workplaces. And third, that was where my purpose was born. I decided at that moment, I want to eliminate all workplace dysfunction everywhere, forever. Having no idea what I signed up for Steve.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Brandon Smith: So, I went on and pursued a clinical therapy degree and practice in the clinical world for many years. And then also then got my MBA to kind of balance those two things. So, my version of kind of chocolate and peanut butter combined, somehow it works. And that was where my handle of kind of the workplace therapist was born. So that's a little bit of my journey that kind of got me on the path that I've been on.

Steve Rush: And having met with you and looked at some of the work and spend some time looking at your book. There is a real purpose behind this. This is not something that somebody is doing for a job. You are doing this because intrinsically it's something that you want to eradicate, right?

Brandon Smith: Absolutely. Absolutely. We have enough challenges in life, you know, if we can make work, not one of them, that would be a really great thing.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so what do you think the reason is that there is so much then dysfunction in the workplace today?

Brandon Smith: There's always been dysfunction in the workplace for one primary reason. We bring our own stories to work. We bring our own histories; we bring our own family dramas and family place to work. And so, you know, we put that on other people. So that's always been true about us as human beings. So that's always going to be a challenge, but you used an interesting word in that. You said, why is so challenging today? So, today's a little different time in the workplace. So, what I've experienced and you've experienced is, it doesn't matter where in the world we meet somebody. There are two things that are true about our workplace today. Time is our most precious resource. It's not money, it's time and everything feels urgent all the time. And that creates a whole other set of distinctions to fall along with that, because we're rushing and everything feels urgent, we don't spend time giving positive feedback to our team members. We don't get to know them or look to align with other leaders in the organization. It causes a lot more challenges particularly with communication. So, there are some interesting challenges, we can even go further down the rabbit hole of working remotely on some of the challenges there, but there's a real interesting opportunity let's say, for our workplaces today.

Steve Rush: And the world has changed as we've moved to more of a hybrid world working from either our desks or our homes, or a combination of both. Have you seen the change to how people are responding in that environment?

Brandon Smith: Yes, absolutely. So, in the first six weeks, two months of this event, everyone around the world probably said something to this effect. Well, you know, this isn't so bad. I just picked up two or three hours in my day. I'm not commuting, so I can kind of wake up in the morning, have some coffee, maybe have a little bit of breakfast and then hop on my first meeting at nine am. At some point around that six-week mark, eight-week mark. Everyone realized, everyone wasn't commuting and they start scheduling meetings at eight thirty in the morning, eight in the morning, seven thirty in the morning, six o'clock at night, six thirty at night.

Steve Rush: Right.

Brandon Smith: So now when I talk to my clients, one of the challenges they say, they say, I don't know how I'm going to go back to the office because I have staying meetings at seven thirty in the morning. That's when I'd be commuting. And I have meetings during lunch. So, we we've packed our days, even more full with all these meetings, and so that's the first one. Second, I hear constant kind of complaints from folks about being on camera all day long and the strain that's putting on them. I think that's the second one. The third one is people just aren't able to really fully connect. It's hard to build relationships over zoom or teams or whatever platform you use. Those meetings tend to default to more task, operational things. Let's catch up about how your weekend was. We often do those over meals and we haven't been able to do that. So, it's hard to build those relationships. I met a lot of people. I know you have two that have started with a new employer within the last year, and they have not even ever met their coworkers yet.

Steve Rush: Right, exactly.

Brandon Smith: Let alone go into an office. So, I would say those three at least would apply to everybody that's been working remotely. There's been some real challenges around that.

Steve Rush: And the principle of everything being urgent all of the time has been expedited because of that, right?

Brandon Smith: That's right. It's very difficult to tell what really matters and what doesn't matter. And because there's constant change. And we could attribute some of this to technology, we're always available, on call all the time. We could also attribute some of this to general global media. There definitely a frenzy regardless of what media you listen. It definitely heightens that sense of anxiety and urgency really is that. Urgency is anxiety, so we're living in a very anxious time right now.

Steve Rush: Of course, the only one person that can control it, is ourselves.

Brandon Smith: Well said, well said

Steve Rush: You wrote the book, The Hot Sauce Principle, how to live and lead in a world where everything is urgent all of the time. So, what is The Hot Sauce Principle?

Brandon Smith: So, it's a really simple analogy. From now on, for everyone listening to this. When you think of urgency, I want you to think of hot sauce. And why that analogy works so well is because, you know, I love hot sauce personally. I really do. I put a little bit hot sauce on something and that's flavor, it adds focus, it adds spice. It really makes it stand out. And so, urgency by itself is not a bad thing. It's really preps prioritize things. But if everything that's coming out of the leadership kitchen is covered in hot sauce. The appetizer, the salad, the entree, the brownie, the iced tea that you're drinking, at least in the U.S. we drink a lot of iced tea here. If all that's covered in hot sauce, your mouth is going to be on fire. You're not going to be able to taste anything and you're going to be overwhelmed.

And so that's really why the idea is so sticky because we want to make sure we're very thoughtful and intentional about what we're putting hot sauce on for our teams, but also pushing back if our leaders are putting hot sauce on everything, because it makes everything a priority, which then means nothing's a priority. The other reason why this is also such a great analogy is, you know, we know our teams, some members of our team just need to drop or two hot sauce and they they've got it. They know what they need to do. And often running, we've got other members of our team that need a bottle or two to really get them moving. So, knowing your people and knowing how much urgency they need is another kind of important element around that analogy.

Steve Rush: I love it. It's really, I'm quite a visual guy and therefore, and olfactory. So, I can see this and taste this and smell it. And therefore, it's a really great analogy tip to let leaders know that actually you're holding the hot sauce bottle most of the time as well, right?

Brandon Smith: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And what you choose to put hot sauce on and how much you choose to use is going to either create an amazing, wonderful dish, or you're absolutely going to ruin the whole lot. So, it's a good image for leaders.

Steve Rush: So, here's the thing. It's a really fine line between urgency and panic. How do you differentiate the two and maybe how do you recognize it even?

Brandon Smith: So, I'll tell you a story to illustrate that point. So, I was having a conversation with a client of mine some years ago around this idea, this analogy, and he was an entrepreneur. He owned a marketing business and he was probably one of the most anxious guys I've ever met. And so, kind of unusual to be an entrepreneur. I mean, he was almost shaking when I'd meet him. He was just so wound up. And when I spoke to the folks in his organization, they said, you know, we really like it. He's a really nice guy, but he makes everything urgent all the time. And it's really creating burnout around here. To your point, it's like panic. So, I told him this analogy, well, on his own, after our conversation, he went to the grocery store and he bought three bottles of hot sauce. And he put them on his desk, one, two, three, and whenever there was a new project or initiative, when he was assigned that to a member of his team, he would hand them one of the bottles of hot sauce.

And he instructs them to keep the bottle of hot sauce on their desk, representing the importance and urgency of that initiative. And until the project was done, they had to keep a hot sauce bottle there. But once it was done, they had to return the hot sauce bottle to him. Here was the beautiful thing that kind of gets to your question. He only had three bottles he could give out. So, because he only had three bottles, that was like a forcing mechanism for him. So, he was able to prioritize, but he couldn't create panic because he didn't have an infinite number of bottles. So, any way you can limit the number of bottles you put out, or the number of hot sauce items you create, that will help to keep it on the urgency side and not tip the panic.

Steve Rush: And what do you notice in people's response? Either through their verbal and nonverbal communication that might help you recognize as a leader, if you've gone too far, you've nudged into the panic zone?

Brandon Smith: So, the panic zone by itself is not as concerning as the apathy zone. That's where you get past panic. So, we pass panic and now we're into full on burnout. And that's when the people are just apathetic. So, no matter how much hot sauce you put on them, they just respond to the same way. That's when you know, you've gone too far. And so, another way analogy around this is, I've often heard working today in our workplaces, it's almost like you have to think about like interval training, high intensity interval training. So, you're running or pushing or exercising at a high intensity, but then you need to take time to rest and then do it again, time to rest and then do it again, and time to rest. And of course, the challenge with our workplaces today is there there's no time to rest. So, another way that we can manage panic is make sure that, you know, if you are pushing your team really hard on something that's urgent, give them a little bit of a pause before you immediately throw another urgent item on them.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I want to go back to the apathy bit. Because something you said that really struck a chord with me, most people, when they hear apathy would maybe have a thought process or a connotation of somebody who is lazy, disengaged and not the opposite, which you described as going past panic. And I wondered what you'd noticed and how that might've played out for you when you've coached your clients?

Brandon Smith: So, when we think about love, the opposite of love is not hated. The opposite of love is apathy. We were no longer invested. So that's why when you get to that place, it's a really dangerous place to be because you've lost your people. They're no longer invested. They're no longer committed; they've got nothing left. They feel like, it doesn't matter how hard they try. It's never enough. They've almost given up at least emotionally and maybe even mentally. So that's a real, real, a dangerous spot to be because when I see clients get to that place, really the best antidote for them is to take a vacation or holiday. They need to take some time away to reset and recharge it. Often it takes at least two weeks. And the more time they can take off the better. Because it takes at least week to get that apathy out of your system and start to really reconnect to what's important to you in life and what really matters to you, but you need that space. So, my hope would be that leaders don't push their folks that far because it takes time to recover from that.

Steve Rush: And most of it, of course, from a leadership perspective, in my observation, in any case, is this, isn't an intentional thing that leaders do. It's often very unintentional as a byproduct of bad behavior or too much urgency, right?

Brandon Smith: That's exactly right. And I'd say that the biggest culprits in this would be your publicly traded companies, because what they do is, because of the way the markets move, the markets put pressure on them to change quickly and transform. So, then those C-level executives make everything urgent all the time and pat themselves on the back and say, I'm a great leader. I just pushed lots of urgency into the system. And all they've done is just given the organization an overdose of anxiety. And so, then that goes down to the next level of leaders who push it down to the next level of leaders who push you down to the next level of leaders. And it just kind of funnels all the way through. And so, it's a real dangerous place for us to be. And so, if more leaders can be conscious of how much they're doing of this, it can be good for not only performance because it creates more focus, but the overall health and wellbeing of everyone in that organization.

Steve Rush: And I suspect that also then contributes to more dysfunction in the workplace?

Brandon Smith: Absolutely. Absolutely. Funny when you said dysfunction, the first word that came to mind for me was kind of a close synonym to that, which was chaos. A lot of chaos, a lot of chaos, because again, if everything's urgent, nothing's urgent, it's just chaos. There's no focus. And then it becomes really hard to know what to work on, to align, and do all the other things that we need to do.

Steve Rush: Yeah, indeed. And in your book, I love the fact that you call this out, you have an emotional booster shot. Love you to share with our listeners what an emotional booster shot is and how might they want to go ahead and get one?

Brandon Smith: So, let's think about how you can do it for yourself. So, when we talk about an emotional booster shot. Think of it as resilience, we really want to try and help ourselves have more resilience, be kind of stronger, almost more flexible, like almost like stretching. We're going to stretch if we use the analogy again of, you know, a workout, okay. So, there's a couple of ways we can do that. First, we can reframe the situation. So, when people are pushing down more urgency on you, you can reframe the situation as this is not a crisis, we're going to get through this. And you do that with your teams, communicate that, we can overcome this. Second one is, think of it as a learning opportunity. I'm going to learn and grow through this.

It may be really hard and challenging, but I'm going to get stronger. And it's going to help me, help me grow. And the third way we could look at this is kind of how can we maintain kind of hope that things are going to turn out better on the other end of this, that everything's going to kind of work out for a reason. There was a famous theologian at Emory University name James Fowler, and he used to have this beautiful saying, he would say. As leaders, we want to give people hope and handles. And I just think that's so beautiful, hope and handles.

Steve Rush: Love it, yeah.

Brandon Smith: What's the future going to look like? And what can we do right now to move kind of further down that path. So those are all ways that you can reframe it for yourself. But also think about how you can use those same techniques, with your team.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I love it. I love the principle of the hope and handles and hope is a word that we sometimes quite uncomfortable in business using because it has this notion of being not grounded in purpose and not grounded in something, because it's hopeful, but actually that's where most vision and purpose drives from, right?

Brandon Smith: I agree with you, hundred percent. Hope feels like it's out of our control, but if anything, over the last eighteen months as taught us, there's a lot of things out of our control. And so, it's okay to be helpful. We're hopeful that we can meet our teams again, by the first of the year, we're hopeful that, you know, life will start to resume some sense of normal by 2022. Hope is a good thing.

Steve Rush: So how do you see the future of work playing out as the workplace therapist and in the work that you do with organizations with Worksmiths, what do you think the future of work will look like for us? And how might we want to adapt for that?

Brandon Smith: Here is what I hope it's going to look like. I hope that we we've learned a lot from how we've learned to work together over the last eighteen months, and we carry that with us into the new future. So, I think hybrid workplaces are very healthy things. That said, I still think we need that time with each other. So, I'm really worried about the organizations that say, oh, we're going to go virtual from now on. I've worked with fully virtual organizations before that were virtual, even before the pandemic. And they have a whole set of dysfunctions that are very difficult to cure. Then there's largely two of them. One they really struggle with alignment because they don't ever get in the same room with each other, they're virtual. And two, they struggle with giving each positive intent, assuming positive intent. So, they give each other feedback, some of the feedback in those organizations is absolutely brutal because they just don't know each other. So, I still think we need those times and moments to meet each other in person for collaboration, innovation, and frankly, just connecting over a meal. That's always been important to us as human beings. So, I wouldn't want to lose that, but if we can bring in technology, I think it can allow people to have better work-life balance, a better wellbeing and a lot more care and compassion each other.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I agree. It comes back down to compassion a massive driver here, isn't it? More we understand about people, the more we can empathize, the more we can adapt ourselves.

Brandon Smith: Absolutely, and just hearing you say that Steve reminds me, you know, now we've been given the gift of being invited into a lot of our coworker’s homes, at least virtually. We may see their children; we may see their pets on camera. We may be talking to them in their kitchen and they're dressed more casually. And so, we've learned more about their lives, and I think that's a really good thing.

Steve Rush: Do you think we'll have a return to the future moment at some point in the future where we become more connected and go back to being more office and location focused?

Brandon Smith: I do think so, but I think that is going to be not nine to five, Monday through Friday. I don't see that for most workers that are able to work virtually. Now, there's always going to be jobs out there where you don't have the opportunity to work virtually, you're a frontline worker, so you've got to be onsite, but for those jobs that allow for virtual work and collaboration, I think a hybrid is likely, I don't think there's going to be a lot of organizations that are going to require everyone to be back in the office nine to five, if there's options.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? That for so many decades, we got into a routine of doing things and within eighteen months, the whole work environment has completely changed.

Brandon Smith: Absolutely. Absolutely. And most organizations that were really nervous about that change. Their fear was, I won't be able to see my people working. Therefore, they won't be working there. It's going to lower productivity. And all the research that has come out has actually shown increase in productivity with people working from home. So, the good news is that fear wasn't valid. But again, how we carry that forward is going to be the real challenge.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's going to be the game changer, isn't it? So that we don't move beyond urgency into panic and we maintain that trust and work-life balance as you called it. Absolutely. So, so what's the focus of the work with Worksmiths and for you now, Brandon?

Brandon Smith: Yeah, thanks for asking. So, I've always still had my practice, which is the Worksmith, probably is very similar to you. I'm an executive coach and I work with individual clients as well as teams and also teach and facilitate sessions on helping people become better leaders. And that work really hasn't gone away, even through the pandemic. There's still been a lot of leaders and teams that have needed that extra support and counsel. The one additional change is I co-founded another business this past year called The Leadership Foundry and what we do there is we do leadership development, all virtual, but with cohorts of leaders. So that's been a big change because a lot of organizations still want to develop their leaders, but by necessity, it's going to have to be done virtually.

Steve Rush: Right.

Brandon Smith: But without it, it's actually a lot easier to coordinate. You can easily schedule a two-hour session. You don't have to find a big meeting room or a hotel ballroom or whatever happens to be location, to get everyone in. And you can give people kind of small doses of leadership tools and training to kind of keep them nourished and supported. So that's been a new evolution that I've really enjoyed, kind of exploring over the last year.

Steve Rush: Great stuff and congratulations on the new venture as well.

Brandon Smith: Thank you. Thank you.

Steve Rush: So, there's a subtle shift to the tone now is we're going to start to hack into your leadership brain. And my job as a leadership hacker is to grab hold of those great ideas, tips, tools, or ideas. So, if you had to wrap your arms around your extensive career and narrow that down to be your top three leadership hacks, what would they be?

Brandon Smith: So, the first one, and this is order of priority. First one is, drive clarity. You can prevent fifty percent of dysfunction in your workplace by setting clear expectations, not only of yours, but also of the person that you're working with. What do they expect of you? Whether it's your boss, your customer, you're a direct report. So, clarity from my perspective, it's the first job of any leader is for her or him to drive clarity. Second, I think it's really important that leaders look to continue to find opportunities to connect and spend time with their people. That consistency is really, really important. So, we've got another kind of letter C here. Consistency is really important. So, making sure that you're consistent in your rhythm and your meetings with people, that's really important. And that goes out the window when everything feels urgent all the time. There was a group of researchers and they did work on studying kind of what's the most dysfunctional kind of leader to work for.

And I expected them to come back with angry, yelling and screaming boss or the micromanager. None of those were the worst. The number one worst was the one who is highly inconsistent because you don't know what you're going to get. So, the more we can be consistent with our messaging and consistent with our meetings, the better. And the third is just probably a really simple, easy tactical thing that all leaders can do, all individual contributors can do. Be highly, highly responsive. There was a piece of research that found that the thing that separated the best managers from everyone else is they were highly responsive to all of their people on their team and that communicated that they valued their people and respect to their people. So, if we drive clarity, we're very, very consistent and highly responsive, it's going to really create a strong team environment. And it's going to prevent a lot of dysfunctions.

Steve Rush: I love It. It's really simple, but very, very effective advice. Thank you for sharing that, Brandon.

Brandon Smith: Of course, of course.

Steve Rush: Next on the show we call Hack to Attack. So, in essence, this is where something hasn't worked out well, might've even been quite catastrophic, but as a result from that experience, it's now a learning and a positive in your life or work. So, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Brandon Smith: So, I would say probably the number one for me, you know, thinking about the way you say that, there so many Steve, gosh. Things I learned from, miss steps that I've made along the journey. I would say there was one. And this was probably more driven out of fear. So early in my career as workplace therapist, I kind of straddle the fence. I taught part-time and multiple universities. And then of course, I also did my coaching and leadership development practice. So, I kind of lived in both worlds. And what I found was the university world was a very political world. And it actually limited a lot of my other opportunities because it was one that consumed a lot of my time. But there was fear of leaving that because not only would I maybe lose some of the credential, I lose some of that stability. And ultimately, I made the decision to it. And it was scary. It ended up working out for the best, but I would say the learning in that was, I probably waited a good five to ten years too long to do that. So, if I could go back in time, I would probably say, wow, Brandon, you should have probably done that a little bit differently.

Steve Rush: That's really interesting. You're not the first person on this show. And certainly, the many leaders I've worked in coached over the past ten or fifteen years have also said that it's sometimes the fear that holds us back and the stability and not being comfortable with discomfort that stops us moving forward, right?

Brandon Smith: That exactly right. I've always heard this adage that, you know, when you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Brandon Smith: And the opposite was true in this situation. If I say no to that, that means I can say yes to a lot of other things, but the scary thing was, I didn't see what those things were. It wasn't like I had a whole bunch of things I could choose from. I had nothing to choose from. So, I was kind of creating this vacuum where this void hoping that it would be filled. So, there's that word hope again, and luckily it did.

Steve Rush: And of course, you can't sometimes even see those things until you've said no. And the yes appears, right?

Brandon Smith: That's exactly right. That's exactly right.

Steve Rush: Yeah, really fascinating. Love it. So last thing we get to do today is give you an opportunity to do some time travel and you get to bump into Brandon at twenty-one and give them some advice. What would be your words of wisdom?

Brandon Smith: Okay, here's probably, gosh, I have a couple. One, here's what I would tell the younger Brandon. Younger Brandon really watches the relationships that you're in, personal and professional and make sure you don't stay in some of them too long. So that's been a big learning I had. I had a business partner for some years that I worked with, wonderful man, wonderful guy, brilliant man, not a very good business partner. I stayed in that too long. I've had some other folks along the way that I've been, you know, stayed in too long, that ended up limiting. So, I would say, you know, make sure that all the relationships you're in, are always healthy and are getting you what you need and you're giving them what they need. The second one I would say is, write your book sooner, Brandon, you don't need to wait until you're forty-six to write it. You can write it sooner, it's okay.

Steve Rush: Yeah, there's this strange notion, isn't there? About putting pen to paper. That you have to have this inordinate legacy of a career behind you to share your lessons. Whereas when I coach some very young leaders now, they already have some fantastic lessons that need to be shared. And that comes back, I think, to your point around fear saying no, opening another yes, and vice versa, right?

Brandon Smith: Right, exactly, exactly. And then of course, with something like a book, a bigger project like, that no one else is putting on your plate, you're putting on your own plate. You've got to be really intentional with your time and block that off and, you know, manage that. Which was a hard thing for me. I struggled with that for many years until I finally hired a book coach to hold me accountable.

Steve Rush: Yeah, right.

Brandon Smith: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So, is there a book two?

Brandon Smith: There is a book two, I'm working on a second one right now. It'll be out at the end of the year. I'm really, really excited about it. I won't spoil it yet, but I think it's going to be so incredibly helpful for leaders. Very practical, easy to use, help them learn how to sit in the right seats with their leader and with their team. So ultimately, it'll get them using their time in the way they should be.

Steve Rush: Awesome. We'll make sure we get you back on the show so you can tell us a little bit more about it another time.

Brandon Smith: That sounds fantastic.

Steve Rush: So beyond today, we want to make sure our listeners can stay connected with you. Where's the best place for us to send them?

Brandon Smith: The best place frankly is, just go to theworkplacetherapist. I'm the only one, so if you just google the workplace therapist, you'll naturally go to me. And so that's a site, it's got free resources, it's got blogs and articles and podcasts for my show that folks can listen too to help their workplaces become smoother and better and less bumpy. And then of course, if they're interested in anything beyond that, then there's links on that site that will take them to either the Worksmiths or The Leadership Foundry. But the workplace therapist is the best place to start. And if you haven't bought a copy of the book, The Hot Sauce Principle, how to live and lead in a world where everything is urgent all the time. You can find that on Amazon and lots of other places as well. So that's another option.

Steve Rush: Awesome, we make sure they're in our show notes as well.

Brandon Smith: Okay, thank you.

Steve Rush: And I'd just like to say, thanks, Brandon. I think we've had just enough hot sauce today to get everything to spice up. So, you've done a brilliant job in the time that we've had together. I've always enjoyed talking with you and just thanks for being part of our community at The Leadership Podcast.

Brandon Smith: Steve, this has been absolutely fantastic. Please keep up the great work. I know you're doing so much good in the world.

Steve Rush: Thank you very much, Brandon.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Jeremy Snape is an ex-England International Cricketer, since retiring from playing internationally, he studied a master’s degree in sports psychology and has been a coach and advisor to business leaders, premier league football clubs, other international cricket teams as well as the England Rugby Team. Now he is the CEO and Founder of Sporting Edge. In this amazing show you can learn about:

What does make a champion?
The valuable role mindset plays in performance.
The common parallels in sporting champions that also are present in Business Leaders?
How neuroscience helps us and holds us back.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Jeremy below:

Jeremy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremysnape/

Sporting Edge Website: https://www.sportingedge.com

Jeremy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesportingedge

Jeremy on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremy.snape/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Jeremy Snape is our special guess on today show. He is a ex international cricketer. Since retiring from playing cricket, he’s studied is Master’s Degree in sports psychology, and now coaches and advisors, business leaders and sports teams around the world. He's the founder and CEO of Sporting Edge, and now hosts podcast Inside the Mind of Champions. But before we get a chance to speak with Jeremy, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: There's a mindset theme in today's show. We're going to explore to be a great leader you need the right mindset. So, the question, do organizations get the best bang for their buck from their leaders because mindset can sometimes hold them back. Well, research suggests that it's likely because most organizations overlook the specific attribute that's foundational to how leaders think and behave, which of course is our mindset. In some research conducted by a friend of the show Ryan Gottfredson, and if you missed our show is episode twenty-three, Success Mindsets. Well, he identified four distinct sets of mindsets that have been found to affect leader's ability to engage with others. To navigate change and to perform in their roles more effectively.

So, we're going to summarize those four different characteristics of mindsets to help you think and consider how you might rethink and reframe your own. Growth and fixed mindsets. Well decades of research have found, those with the growth mindset are more mentally prime to approach and take on challenges, take advantage of feedback and adopt the most effective problem-solving strategies and provide developmental feedback to those around them.

Learning and performance mindsets. Compared to those with a performance mindset. Leaders with a learning mindset are more mentally primed to increase their competence, engaging deep level learning strategies and seek out feedback to exert more effort. Deliberate and incremental mindsets. Leaders with a deliberate mindset of heightened perceptiveness, to change. Do you recognize it? And can you help them rethink and reframe how their mindsets either helping them or holding them back? Please keep sending in your stories, insights or nudges of ideas that you'd like us to talk about on the show. That's been The Leadership Hacker News.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Jeremy Snape. He's an ex-England international cricketer, and since retiring from playing international cricket, he studied a Master's Degree in Sports Psychology, has been a coach and advisor to business leaders, premier league football clubs, or international cricket teams, as well as the England Rugby Team. Now he's the CEO and founder of Sporting Edge and hosts a superb podcast Inside the Mind of Champions. Now you'll want to stick around to the end of the show to find out how you can get a special discounted membership to the Sporting Edge members club, Jeremy, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Jeremy Snape: Hi Steve.

Steve Rush: So, you have an amazing sporting career, that for those outside of the UK might not have had an opportunity to see, unless of course, you're in the Indian Premier League or South African Cricket, but for those that don't really understand your backstory, perhaps you can give us a little bit of a potted history around, you know, how you got into cricket and how you ended up pivoting into what you do today.

Jeremy Snape: Sure. Well, that's very kind, to say it's an amazing career. I think I was the journeymen pro pretty much, but yeah, I suppose growing up sport was always something that we did on holiday and in the back garden, I've got an older brother, so grew up pretty competitive trying to keep up with him. He was taller and stronger all the way, and that probably forced me to be more competitive, but got into a cricket, sort of early teams and actually got into the system. And I think once you get into the under eleven, under twelves, under thirteens for your province or your county in the UK, then you get into that conveyor belt, if you like. And, that led me through to captain England under fifteens team, which was a huge surprise to my parents. Because we were planning to go on holiday and completely the other direction to where the tournament was heading the next day.

So, we have to cancel our holiday. And I took on the role as England captain, which is a great thrill. At sixteen, I started as a professional cricketer and went through the ranks with North Hants with some stellar names that were incredibly talented individually, but never really won anything as a group. I moved then to Gloucestershire with the journeymen team, but actually we won and dominated English cricket in the one-day format for about three or four years. That was incredible, and that springboard it'd be really in the England team because coming from that successful county set up, it gave me a chance to play eleven times for England. Test myself against the very best in the world. Sometimes it worked, many times it didn't, but I learned a huge amount about, you know, performing under pressure. And then I went on to Leicestershire, finally I was doing my Master’s Degree in Sports Psychology at Loughborough, which is nearby. Captain Leicester, we won a few trophies there in this new innovative tournament, the 20/20 version, which was much shorter and forced us to rethink our strategy.

So, I guess, yeah, innovation, mindset, strategic leadership were all the sort of threads that have woven together into my second career after the Master's Degree, which was working with elite sports teams and business leaders. So, I now spend my time interviewing elite performers or coaching elite performance on mindset and team culture and leadership, or actually you know, working with corporate leaders around the world as well, because for me, you know, getting the best out of ourselves and getting the best out of our talent, you know, is exactly the same in sport and business.

Steve Rush: So, for those listeners who are in North America, who perhaps don't really understand the game of cricket or don't get an opportunity to see and experience it, like we do, it's really quite a strategic game. And there's lots of parallels. isn't there? between the teaming in a cricket team, as you would expect to see in a boardroom or a business team, perhaps just give us your perspective on that?

Jeremy Snape: Well, we'd need hours I think to explain the rules of cricket our North American colleagues. I'm not even going to go there with that one, but imagine it's like baseball but more fun. So, I think, you know, just like baseball, it's incredibly statistical, you know, the transparency around individual’s performance is really that, you know, and also the collective, you know, teamwork, it's a great game, you know, full of psychological pressure, full of strategy. You know, lots of cat and mouse that goes on within the game. And, you know, certainly, you know, it was a thrill to me to be able to play for nineteen years and again, you know, play against, with some of the best players in the world and, you know, moving into my second career in psychology and leadership development, you know, getting a chance to, you know, study the mechanics and the theory. But actually, I did that on the back of seeing these brilliant leaders and captains and coaches delivering it in person. So yeah, a real privilege for me to play at that level for so long

Steve Rush: Now, having worked with champions and indeed coaching champions, your podcast by the way is just amazing. It's one of the very few that I get an opportunity to listen to and absorb myself into. So, Inside the Mind of Champions Podcast, let's talk about the notion, first of all, of what really is a champion, how would you define that?

Jeremy Snape: Well, it's a great question. And I think a lot of these definitions are being reflected on at the moment. I don't know whether it's the sort of the great pause that we've just been through with the pandemic and everyone's reflecting on what success really looks like in our lives or whether it's the Olympics that we're seeing recently. I think obviously a champion by definition is somebody who overcomes the odds and beats their rivals to get to the pinnacle. So, you imagine a, you know, somebody with ripped muscles, standing on a mountain top, you know, holding a loft, some kind of trophy or metal, but I think that's a metaphor really for me, you know, I think everyone has the opportunity to be a champion every day. I think the way I sometimes look at this is, we get two versions of ourselves, one wakes up a little bit sluggish, pulls the duvet over, you know, switches the alarm on to snooze, the duvet beats them.

They have an extra 40 minutes in bed. You know, they have a sort of not particularly healthy breakfast or they skip breakfast, they don’t have a very productive morning. They get a bit grumpy; they don't have any water, they fall out with a few colleagues, don't do that to do list, get annoyed, get frustrated, no exercise, you know, eat unhealthily, have too many drinks and then their sleeps compromised the next day. And that's contrasted with the sort of champion version of ourselves, which is, you know, getting up early and doing something that feels good to us, whether that's meditation or mindfulness or yoga or running, or a dog walk or whatever that might be just to get our heads straight for the day, really zero in on those priorities of what's going to be a gold medal day for us. And that can be two or three key things.

And again, this isn't, you know, for somebody who's been struggling with depression or with anxiety or whatever, you know, even just getting out of the front door and going to the shop could be part of that gold medal plan for the day. So, I think for me being a champion is doing the difficult things, you know, on hard days when you're not naturally motivated to do it. And of course, what we see with the Olympians or with the elite performers in sports and in business is they aggregate those days, almost like they're linking, you know, links in a chain together. And that chain of good days connecting together actually has transformational impact. Whether it's about our mindset, our savings, our business strategy, or our, you know, health and wellbeing. If we have two hundred good days in a row or twenty good days in a row, then we're in much better shape than if the chain had been broken, you know, every second day. So, I think that the champions idea is a metaphor. And I think what I'm trying to do with the podcast is translate the lessons from the elite performers that I've worked with and met, and actually translate them into everyday strategies that we can all use in our teams and business, so, yeah,

Steve Rush: And I love the reframe you have on it. From the last time we met, I remember you reframe it, almost personal mastery, whereas it doesn't matter where you start from, having a champion outcome day by day is what's most important. And that does definitely start with that mindset, doesn't it?

Jeremy Snape: Yeah, and I think we're so, you know, we have to make everything competitive and we celebrate these icons, what they look like and how much money they've got and what house they live in. And, you know, this world of comparison and individual icons is the world we live in. That's the story our media gives us. But, you know, I think as you say, we've all got our own personal quest that we've got to define. And I almost think we've got to turn the volume down on the outside on what everyone else is doing, you know, normally that's a eighty percent and the volumes twenty percent on ourselves, it feels selfish to be thinking about our own goals and what we want to do, but actually it takes real discipline to turn down the noise and you know, just focus on what's going to make us happy and successful.

And actually, it's irrelevant what anyone else is doing because they've got different resources, you know, different networks, different timing, you know, and that can just be demoralized. And of course, use it occasionally to give you a, you know, a kick up the bum and a bit of motivation if you want to chase somebody down, of course, but we shouldn't be living our life in other people's shadows. I think part of being a champion is, you know, carving your own path and you know, chasing it down every day, inch by inch, day by day. And actually, it's the striving where the great thrill and fulfillment comes from, not the achieving, you know, many people who've won the lotto or the lottery, you know, they're not any happier than they were, but people who sort of building a business and you know, building a network and building content and those kinds of things, or learning new skills, that's where we tend to see people in their element. So, we shouldn't be too quick to get to the destination and we should enjoy that process of chasing mastery and excellence in our everyday life.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I agree. And one of the things that's really interesting is, there's lots of science behind this as well, isn’t there? it's not just, you know, observed behavior. There are some scientific evidences to suggest that if we don't put ourselves first, then the people around us don't become better and healthier and fitter physically and mentally as well. What's your spin on that kind of whole self-discipline before others?

Jeremy Snape: Well, you know, we hear on the airplanes when we used to travel, make sure when the oxygen masks drop down, put your own on first, before you sort of look after your kids or the people around you. And I think, you know, that's more than a survival mechanism. That's a thriving mechanism really, because, you know, I've been a brilliant selfless team player, and I've also been a destructive, selfish force in a team. And I think when I'm investing in myself, when I'm healthy, when I'm doing lots of exercise, when I've got my goals clear, then I'm a pretty good person, because I feel like I'm balanced. If I'm not being disciplined with myself, then I can take that out on other people. It's just my frustration. It's not that they've done anything wrong.

So, I think the first step always has to be for us to take accountability. I like to think of it, like I'm the CEO of my own performance company, and I've got a share price that goes up and down through the day and through the week and the better choices that I make around my exercise, my prioritization, my communication, you know, my health eating or whatever it might be. Those things affect my share price. Now it's not always going from bottom left to top right. Of course, I'm human like anyone else. But I think when we take control and accountability for the choices that we make, a we start to build some momentum around them, then that can have transformational effects on our energy and our focus and that then cascades into other people, our relationships, our teams and our leadership. And I think that's why starting with yourself and your own mindset is actually not a selfish thing to do. It's a great thing today, if you're trying to develop a high-performance environment for everyone else.

Steve Rush: So how much of that high-performance mindset is learned versus inherited through our DNA?

Jeremy Snape: Well, that's a very good question. I think some of it's probably inherited and, you know, nature without a doubt. But you know, there's that whole field of epigenetics as well, isn't there? Where whatever you've got in your DNA and your genes gets activated by the environment that you find yourself in. And, you know, to me, again, part of this champion mindset and this growth mindset for me is that you take accountability. You don't make excuses, you drive, you know yourself to get into these positions. So, I'd love to think that we can learn these new skills. If we look at, you know, the work of Carol Dweck with the growth mindset, it's been very, very popular around the world. And then if you look at the neuroscience behind the back of that, around neuroplasticity, that people's brains actually changed shape and form, the dendrites and these connections between different pathways in the brain actually strengthened when people learn a new skill and got to have the discipline to start learning a foreign language or learning the piano or whatever.

So, our brains are adaptable. And when our brains adapt, obviously that gives us that foundation to be able to build those skills and build those instincts on the top of it. So, I'd like to think that we are twenty percent set, and eighty percent is in our control. That's just the way I look at things. I'm sure it's probably not quite like that, but I think it's incredibly liberating, no matter how many challenges or whatever difficult situation you've been in to see that you can sort of champion your way out. You can find a way to win from any position. And I think that's incredibly liberating.

Steve Rush: It isn’t? Yeah. And also, if you consider that the notion that everybody has the opportunity to grow and develop, then everybody has the opportunity to become their own champion in their own world, right?

Jeremy Snape: Yeah, and I think that's really important and I think there's so much satisfaction and pride that comes from growth. I think, you know, we're actually built for safety. We're built to park in the same place that we've always parked. We drive the same way to work. We try and eat the same foods each week. So, so we're built for habits and to dumb down everything into its simplest form for the brain, so that we free up as much of our energy for that threat that might come around the hill, you know, in the form of a saber tooth tiger or a, you know, nasty email from the boss or whatever it might be. So, we tend to prioritize short term survival and safety and routine. Whereas our most fulfilling moments usually come from stretching ourselves, achieving something we never thought was possible and doing it with people that are different to us.

You know, so it's a really strange situation that our proudest moments are achieved in diverse teams, doing things we never thought we could achieve, and we've been stretched. Yet our personal instinct is to stay safe, stay on our own and do what we always used to do. So that's where the role of leadership and coaching comes in, to help people to sort of make that step change into that new future and help them to stretch and have the confidence to make that change. And I think it's, you know, I've seen lots of people that are, you know, you would think have everything, but are actually quite unhappy. And it's because they've stalled in their progress. They've achieved everything they thought they could. And actually, if you can keep continuing and keep growing and keep pushing yourselves, then I think it's, you know, that's where the pride and the satisfaction comes from.

Steve Rush: Perfect example actually of a fixed mindset, isn't it? So, people have this perception that people with fixed mindsets, don't excel, don't get on in their lives and work, but actually they do, but hit a plateau at some point where they've self-actualized what they think they can achieve. And that's when you notice a fixed mindset play out for those kinds of people, right?

Jeremy Snape: Yeah, and it's a little bit like, I suppose, you know, I work with smaller businesses and massive corporations and lots of the big corporations that I'm working with at the moment are really struggling to transform their business model because of, you know, digitization or, you know, the COVID epidemic or whatever it might be that the consumer has completely changed their behavior of the last few years, but small businesses have lots of flexibility. And as the business matures and scales, we need more systems and processes, which actually become more like the scaffolding. And then they become more like the concrete. So, before you know it, you've built, you know, a ten-story building that can't shift anywhere. Whereas, you know, previously that the sort of young, small supple businesses, more like a, I don't know, bamboo tree, you know, that can flex a little bit in the environment.

So, I think we're the same when we're young and, you know, entering a new sport or scale or whatever it might be. We're open-minded, and we'll explore different avenues and possibilities. But then as we prove ourselves, actually we become more about preserving that pride and that achievement, rather than almost breaking down the building and starting again, which I think feels like a massive risk when you're a high achiever. And that's why some people that have achieved incredible success in business and sport actually find it the hardest to adapt and to make that transition away from their first career or for something that they've been renowned for, because it's so entrenched and sort of interwoven into their identity that they sort of can't see themselves being anything else or doing anything else. And that can be a stressful place to be.

Steve Rush: I guess some of that is also about unlearning what you've learned to be able to relearn thinking new ways.

Jeremy Snape: It's just about courage I think, you know, curiosity, you know, what else is out there? What else would I like to do? What else could I be? You know, where else could I take this? That's a really exciting set of questions and mindset to have, and then just having the courage to sort of fail forwards into that and say, well, I'm not going to be a concert pianist, you know, after ten days. So let me just make a few bum notes and, you know, it'll sound a bit squeaky to start with, but, you know, I'm enjoying learning, you know, again, we're trying to compare ourselves to other people who can play the piano brilliantly and have everyone round for a dinner party and play Tchaikovsky or whatever.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jeremy Snape: But actually, you know, enjoy the learning and enjoy the process, enjoy the development because, you know, I've met lots of people that have achieved their dream and they're now happier than when they were striving.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it was the old attitude that the journey is more alluring than the destination sometimes.

Jeremy Snape: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so what would you say would be the common parallels that you've observed in your sporting career as well as now, coaching business leaders that present themselves in both situations? So, sporting champions and business champions, what would be those kinds of common things that are present in both?

Jeremy Snape: Well, I think, they have to have a goal. I think there's an ambition statements and the champions in sport can do something very special. They can almost visualize what that's going to feel and look like. It's almost like they can see themselves lifting the World Cup or lifting, you know, having the medal around their neck and seeing their family and friends talk about them. They can almost read the articles of how the characters shone through. So, they've got that ability to, you know, jump forward in the timeline and really immerse themselves in what that change will bring to them. It'll be a change in the way people perceive them and the way they perceive themselves when they've achieved that goal. I don't think business does that so well, I think business just sets a financial target. So, I think there's the ambition. Then I think there's the focus to say, well, we are going to do this, but we're not going to do that. And I think the second one of those of what you're not going to do is important because we can say yes to everything and that just slows us down. I think there's that courage element and confidence to be able to take risks and be bold in those situations. And then I think there's the resilience to handle the setbacks and just keep going, you know, so few days have your name in sort of head lights and spotlights. It's all about what you do in the shadows. I think that's what I've seen, you know, that daily grind and that process, and just stick into those almost like the gold medal behaviors that you're doing in the gym for four years are the thing that present the gold medal opportunity for you, you know, in the Olympics. And I think that the leaders in business that are disciplined enough to stay on that track and keep doing the reps, that's, you know, transformational over time.

And then of course you bring in the coaching and leadership elements of where you need to inspire the people to be the best they can be and be aligned to what you're trying to achieve. I think it's easy to micromanage when your name's on the top of the, you know, the business, or, you know, you're solely responsible for the sales figure at the end of the year. It's easy to micromanage everything, to take control, but actually if you can coach people and unlock there potential and get them to strive and improve and get on that sort of growth journey, then you can achieve exponential success. Because now you've got, ten, twenty, thirty people that are all flying and, you know, moving the business forward. Whereas it's very heavy lifting if you're trying to do all that yourself. So, I think being able to let go a little bit and become more of a coach rather than a dictator is a critical thing that translates and unlocking that diversity in the teams, you know, new starters, people from different businesses, people from different backgrounds, you know, unlock all of those ideas and those silly questions because there might be absolute gold in it. You know, our consumer base is incredibly diverse. So why shouldn't our teams be diverse in openness to create the best solution,

Steve Rush: Some great parallels there, really good stuff. Thank you for that. So, when was it that you first noticed that mindset and you paying attention to your mindset was going to be something that you needed to spend more time on? Was there a moment perhaps in your international playing time or your county cricket time where you thought my mindset is not helping me here, or my mindset is helping me here?

Jeremy Snape: Well, it's a good question. And I don't think, you know, the sort of, I retired in two thousand and eight and obviously things have moved on significantly in the last decade or so. So, I think there was one particular moment when my mindset seemed to be, some days I felt bulletproof confidence, in control. I was going to dominate the game and I did, you know, there were rare occasions, but that was the case. I actually felt like I could win the game for my team. I got man of the match on my England debut and, you know, there was some great performances where I was absolutely, you know, in the moment and absolutely loving in my element. And then there was a moment in India. I think it was two thousand and one, two, where I played a previous tour in Zimbabwe and smaller team and smaller crowds.

And then India, for those that don't follow cricket is the powerhouse of international cricket. So, there are one and a half billion people, and they either like Bollywood films, or they like cricket, and they probably liked both. And I think half of them were packed into the Eden Gardens Stadium in Kolkata back on this balmy night where England were desperate to win this game of cricket. There were hundred and twenty thousand people in the stadium, which is just massive. I mean, I played at Lord’s and other big stadiums around the world, and there were usually about twenty-five, twenty-eight thousand people. And that was all, you know, got the nerves jangling, but you're sort of used to that, but a hundred and twenty thousand people, it was incredible. I made a bit of a mistake. I sort of run out one of my team mates, which wasn't great, Freddie Flintoff.

To be fair, He was the only person he could have won this game for England. So, it was down to me. So, I was left in the middle of this massive stadium, like a cauldron of noise. And there was just this, you know, despite there being a hundred and twenty thousand people screaming, the loudest voice was the one that was in my head that was saying, what have you done? You know, you're not good enough to be here. What do you think you're doing? You know, it's all on you now, what are the press going to say tomorrow after that? You know, and basically, I was so focused on, you know, nerves and failure and what the consequences of my actions were going to be. The critique of the media the next day, but I forgot to watch the next ball and I missed it and got out myself.

And I was walking back to the pavilion, just thinking that was just like the craziest minute of my life, because I felt like I'd been emotionally hijacked and sort of carried into this false hostage situation where I couldn't move my arms and legs. And couldn't think straight, my heart was racing. My eyes were flickering around the place, and I wasn't even thinking straight. So, I think we all write these plans on a flip chart or in our diary, but unless we can deliver them under pressure, we're never going to be able to progress. And that moment for me was, you know, a bit of an epiphany really, because I realized that if my mindset's not right, then I'm not going to be able to deliver what I want to do. So that's when I started my Master's Degree and actually came to the back end of my career and used some of those strategies in some games. I've learned about focus, I've learned about taking my mind off the outcomes and, you know, the score board and that kind of stuff. And actually, focusing on controlling my mind, controlling my breathing, controlling my posture, because if I can control those things, then I can actually control the way I respond to the way the bowl pitches or throws the balls. I've been using some of these techniques and training as I've done my Master’s Degree, and I was in this massive final. So again, I was, you know, in a high-pressure situation, a few balls, we needed four runs to win, you know, one of the best one-day bowlers in the world, Azhar Mahmood running into bowl, you know, my brain could easily have taken me away to that place of, here we go again, you're going to fail. But actually, I started to refocus back on my breathing and my posture and my game plan and where my strongest shots were coming from.

And in that moment, when I was thinking about my breath, believe it or not, I played one of the best instinctive shots I've ever played, hit the ball for a four, time it perfectly. And the players run on the pitch and carried me off. And we got sprayed in champagne. And it's one of those moments where you think I just played one of my best shots ever. And I wasn't thinking about cricket, because I think your muscle memory, you know what to do, what you've got, what you've actually got to do is get out of your own way, get out of your own head sometimes and let that instinct and let your flare come through. So, again, that sort of transformation moment for me that I know the power of our mindset, because it's so intangible, we don't know how to invest in it.

Everyone says mental health is critical. So, I've made a real concerted effort through Sporting Edge to try and create a framework for mental health. Because when we say mental health, we often talk about mental ill health, which is sort of depression, massive anxiety attacks, and suicide potentially, but mental health should be like our normal health. It should be eating healthily, exercising, you know, socializing, those things affect our normal mental health, but then we've got confidence. Then we've got, you know, our focus, we've got our ability to think clearly under pressure. We've got, you know, all of those different elements, our ability to reframe setbacks, these are life skills that help us to keep a healthy mindset so that we never have to worry about mental ill health. We've built a sort of a six-factor model at Sporting Edge around the winning mindset. And we've got a thirty-day course that's helped thousands of people to develop the skills because I think they're fundamental. And if we can get our mindset right, we can achieve everything, you know, whatever we want to, that's not to say we're all going to be you know, billionaires or NBA stars. But I think if we all set goals and feel like we're making progress towards, that's liberating in itself.

Steve Rush: They're great lessons to look back on. And I remember specifically, you shared the whole principle of emotional hijack at that moment in India. Well, actually that's neuroscience playing out. Because technically that's exactly what was happening. You were cognitively impaired because your focus was elsewhere, right?

Jeremy Snape: Of course, the amygdala was trying to play the shot for me.

Steve Rush: Yeah. yeah.

Jeremy Snape: You know, the amygdala takes you higher cognitive function and executive function offline. And, you know, interestingly through our research at Sporting, I have interviewed neuroscientists talking through that process, but no one had ever told me that could happen. They would just say things like, oh, he choked under pressure, or we lost this head under pressure, well, that's not particularly helpful. Because I don't know what that means. And I certainly don't know how to retrain myself. And I get it a little bit now speaking at conferences around the world, you know, there might be a thousand people in an audience and I still get those butterflies and these sweaty palms and my brain starts to spin a bit, but I've now got strategies to understand that, that's just my body preparing for performance. So now I go through a little routine that helps me to stay calm and focus so that my, you know, first line comes out okay. And from then on, it's fine. Whereas I think, you know, we've all got a brain and we should understand how to use it. And I'm amazed this isn't part of our school curriculum to be honest.

Steve Rush: I had many conversations with academics and people in education with exactly the same principle, the sooner in life, we can allow people to know that these things naturally happen for us. And there are ways to control them from a very young age, the more advanced, I think people will be in their own mental health. And you rightly called this out around when people perceive this to be mental ill health, I call it mental wealth because actually the more you invest in your thinking, your strategies and understanding about how you react to certain situations, the less likely that you're going to get adverse reactions.

Jeremy Snape: Absolutely, and I think one of the transformational huffs of comments is that, you know, that voice that we all are have in our head, that's the voice of our parent, a teacher, an early coach, the media, a critic, it's somebody who got in there early and we've never argued with it. We think that's the truth just because it's the same voice that we carried around for fifty years. You know, it's almost like being in a courtroom where you've got the prosecution and the judge, but no defense. So, it basically says you're not good enough and I can prove it. And there's no defense to say, well, hang on a minute. I've done this before. And I have played well here and I do care about people and I have practiced. And you know, I've got a track record here, you know, because that would be quite an interesting debate, but we tend to just take that negative voice, which bear in mind is trying to keep us safe. It's trying to keep us away from anything that's threatening our ego, like playing in front of a hundred and twenty thousand live on television or standing up at a conference and making a speech, that threatens our ego and our pride and our self-esteem. So, it wants us to stay sitting down. That's why it tries to hijackers, but if you sort of speak gently to it and say, well, yeah, thanks very much for the warning signs, heart rates and sweaty palms and vision getting a bit blurred. But I'm just going to take a couple of deep breaths here and, you know, focus on my first line because I want to do this because I know I'm going to feel better for it. And I've got lots of people that I need to help here. So, thanks for the warning, but I'm carrying on anyway. I think that's an important lesson for us.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it is. Yeah, It's great. So, you've had the opportunity to interview some real global superstars and really get inside their champion mindsets from the people that you've interviewed met and work with. Who'd be maybe the kind of top two or three that have been real outstanding and memorable experiences for you?

Jeremy Snape: Well, I think there's lots of different people. And if I had to build a perfect composite, that's probably what I'll attempt to do. Some of the coaches, Eddie Jones from England rugby, incredibly restless. He almost this T shape of the leader where he can skim across the, you know, the forwards, the backs, the nutritionists, the strength and conditioning, the people that are organizing their schedule and he can drop down at any point into the weeds, into the detail and forensically examine. It's almost like he's got this whole system mapped out and he's on it. So, here's sort of ruthless around discipline and standards across the whole matrix of a high-performance environment, I find incredible. So, Dave Brailsford from team sky, team cycling, I think his ability to translate, you know, things down into simple solutions and processes when they're incredibly complex was fascinating.

And then there are people like, I met two of the guys actually that were in prison with Nelson Mandela for twenty-six years, Ahmed Kathrada and Denis Goldberg. And they feature in one of my podcast episodes, which is really about, it's called Lessons from Isolation. And you know, two of them, they didn't need to go to prison. And this is the thing I find remarkable, but they knew that if they went to prison alongside Nelson Mandela, they had more chance of him staying alive and being protected for as long as he was there. So, they gave up their lives to stay alongside their team mates. You know, they had all sorts of things done to them on Robben Island, in prison for 20 odd years, all their privileges were taken away. And they stayed resilient because they had a deep burning purpose that they wanted to overthrow the Apartheid regime. So again, you know, people with a purpose, people that want to make a difference can do incredible things. Those guys, I think there was eight of them in this particular group. Never break ranks, never snitched on each other, never broke the chain in this team. And they stood together strong for twenty-six years and walked out of prison together. And when they came out, because of their solidarity and their personal resilience, they changed South Africa, and over throw the Apartheid regime and they changed the history of the world and, you know, that was from isolation and I'm sure they all had negative thoughts and incredibly low moments, but they stayed together and did incredible things. So yes, some of the insights and lessons have come from sport, but equally they've come from some of these other, you know, academics or incredible, you know, characters that I've met along the way as well.

Steve Rush: It's an amazing story of resilience and mindset playing out in real time for us to all observe as well, great lessons. So, I'm not going to flip a little and tap into your leadership thinking and your leadership mind and ask you to think about all of your experiences and studies and try and distill in if you could, into your top three leadership hacks. So, if you could call out the kind of two or three things that really drive and guide you, what would they be?

Jeremy Snape: That's a good question. I think one of the first principles would be, everyone's so focused on the outcome. Everyone wants the gold medal. Everyone wants the billion-dollar turnover, you know, and most of the clients I work with, that's how they set their goals, but we have to use those almost like a north star to look up at them and think, yep, that's where I want to get to. But then we need to say, right, if I want to win, w-i-n, if I want those billion dollars or that gold medal, I need to look down now and say, what's important now? Or what's important next? that's what winning looks like on the day. So being able to translate our long-term goals into short term controllable behaviors and habits that we can build discipline around is transformational. And none of the media are interested in the swimmer getting up at six o'clock, five o'clock every morning and swimming five miles because it's not sexy.

They want the outcomes and the times and the gold medals, but actually that's where they won in the shadows of the process. So, process against the outcome and also not comparing yourself to other people's outcomes. I think that can be, you know, debilitating. I think probably the second thing is about lead the ship and that's definitely to create a high-performance group around you, a talented group of individuals and empower them. You know, don't stifle them, don't direct them too much. Give them that intent to say, we need to solve this problem over here. Here's the commercial lens. Here's the ethical lens. Here's the method, you know, that's been tried before and discuss it a bit, but then set them free and let them go and do it for themselves because when people feel like they can own the sort of tactics and the strategy, then that can be incredible. So, I've seen that, you know, make a massive difference, empowerment.

And then probably the third thing is about, you know, our hunger to keep learning and that can be following people on social media, listening to podcasts, and it can also be surrounding yourself with a, you know, almost like a virtual board. Maybe there are five or six people in different industries that you can get hold of that you can just catch up with once a quarter for half an hour, just to pick their brains and maybe can meet them once a year or whatever it might be, but have these industry leaders, all these thought leaders, all these culturally leaders, you know, at arm’s length. So, you can dive into them and pick their brains because if we're continually stretching ourselves and we've got the confidence that our ideas are on the right track from these mentors, then we can really commit to our skills and, you know, do special thing,

Steve Rush: Thanks for sharing those Jeremy, there amazing hacks. Thank you. Next part of the show, we call it Hack to Attack. So quite simply, this is where something hasn't worked out well. It may have been quite a catastrophic event, or it might not have worked out in the way that you wanted it to, but as a result of the event, you've learned from it. And it's now a force of good in your life and work. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Jeremy Snape: Well, big failures, there's been many. I think one formative one for me actually was failing, an eleven plus exam to go to the same school that my brother was at. So, I was eight, eleven, three papers, messed one of them up and didn't get into this school. And actually, it scared me a little bit, I felt like a real failure to my family and, and myself, you know, I'd let myself down really with it. And that really gave me the drive then to say, I'm not going to fail again. You know, I'm not going to feel that embarrassment and that shame again. So, I think that spurred my work ethic on for any setback that I've had, you know, since then, I tend to look at them in the moment and say, okay, you failed that because you didn't do this and didn't do that. That's on me, next time I can make it better. So, I don't see myself as a failure. I see myself as somebody who's failed in these moments with specific skills. And I can transcend that if I keep working hard and, you know, testing my ideas with other people. So that would probably be, sort of overcome setbacks with a bit less emotion and to sort of skip through them as learning experiences.

Steve Rush: Brilliant reframe of mindset as well, because as you use the word failure, what you actually described was learning.

Jeremy Snape: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Yeah, great. The next part of the show is to give you a bit of an opportunity to do some time travel. So, you get to bump into Jeremy at twenty-one and give him some advice and some words of wisdom. What do you think it might have been?

Jeremy Snape: Twenty-one, well, I was playing professional cricket then, I'd just finished my first degree. I was sort of bursting into the first team, I suppose, of my first professional county and I probably got some doubts. So, at twenty-one, I'd probably say I was traveling the world, which was great, so that was fun. But I'd say you're good enough. I probably, you know, whisk myself away from the crowd. I'd probably be having a few beers with teammates after the game or whatever, and I'd just pull myself to the side and say, you're good enough at this. You're going to be good enough. You'll find a way to be successful, but you got to be courageous. You've got to take some risks. When somebody coaches you and gives you these different strategies, it might feel like you're going backwards for the first few days, but stick with it and try it because you're in the experimental phase. And if you have courage, you could be, you know, twice the play you are. So that's probably the advice I'd give myself.

Steve Rush: Powerful advice as well. As we've kind of get into the end of our show together today. It's not going to be the end of our listeners, hooking in with the work that you do. And we want to make sure that we can connect our listeners to you and vice versa. So, where's the best place for us to send them?

Jeremy Snape: Well, my Twitter is at @sportingedge. LinkedIn is where I post most of my, you know, thoughts. So that's Jeremy Snape on LinkedIn, but also sportingedge.com. So, the podcast Inside the Mind of Champions features all the interviews that I've done and breaks it down into a toolkit. And then we've also got access to our video library. So about thousand, two-minute videos across eighty different business themes and leadership themes. So, we've got a community called our members club and that gives people access to our events and our digital content. So, they can kick off a zoom meeting or just a, you know, keep your own learning going and trying to accelerate your own quest to mastery. So, over a hundred experts have been interviewed there and every one of the videos has got little practical toolkit for you to use in your career. So, yeah, sportingedge.com, and LinkedIn are the best places, but it'd be great to connect with your network as well Steve.

Steve Rush: and also, our listeners get an opportunity to get a discount. So, you've got a special discount code that they can use to get some access to sportedge.com.

Jeremy Snape: Absolutely, yes. The membership is normally, twenty-five pounds per month, but, if you use the code podcast fifty in the checkout, then you get that half price for that first month to have a good look around. So, it will be great to introduce some of your network.

Steve Rush: We will make sure they're in our show notes as well. Jeremy, I just want to say thank you. I know you're incredibly busy guy and I do love listening to your podcast and it's just a great honor and a privilege to have you on our show. So, thanks for being part of our Leadership Hacker Community

Jeremy Snape: Thanks so much for the invitation and good luck to everyone listening.

Jeremy Snape: Thank you.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

John Warrillow is an entrepreneur, author, podcast host as well as being the CEO and Founder of the Value Builder System. In this super conversation you can learn:

Why he coaches entrepreneurs to consider selling from the outset
Making yourself dispensable - your ultimate poker hand - so what is that?
Why we should focus on value above all else
“Parenting” your team and business can deliver great value

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about John below:

John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnwarrillow/

Value Builder System Website: https://valuebuilder.com

John on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnWarrillow

Full Transcript Below

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Our special guest on today's show is John Warrillow. He's the founder of The Value Builder System, a practice management software for business advisors. His best-selling book, Built to Sell has been internationally recognized as one of the best business books. He's also the host of the Built to Sell Radio. But before we get a chance to meet with John, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

So, as we head towards the end of the summer holidays, business leaders and team leaders are going to start thinking about how to get ready for 2022. Although we can't predict a future, we can say that next year will not be returned to business as usual. The pandemic, social unrest, cultural divisions, new remote, or hybrid working, schooling possibilities, all but guarantee that leading teams of businesses in the coming year will be anything but business as usual. The technological trends in which workers will need to learn new skill sets outside of their roles, combined with new ways of working. Remote, in person, or hybrid of the two, would require leaders to be nimble, empathetic, and inclusive as well as strategically focused.

So how do we get ready for 2022 and beyond? Use technology in human ways and for human reasons, when it comes to even the near future, the ability to adapt to new technology is always going to be a priority. And the question often in its minds of its workforce, is this tool a force of good or the enemy? Professor Roshni Raveendran research explores the integration of novel technologies into the workplace and where those technologies intersect with the psychology of human behavior. With studies include an examination of monitoring technology and the use of virtual and augmented reality. Raveendran keeps focus on the use of new systems to augment human life and how to use those new technologies responsibly. For example, the use of avatars may relieve a sense of social threat through psychological distance or an organization's behavior tracking application may be used for better.

If it's for the information for its employees to self-analyze, rather than making them feel monitored constantly, as companies start thinking about making remote work a long-term reality, one key challenge pertains to the missing social connection, the feeling of being part of the same group, said Raveendran. So, there'll be a lot more demand for immersive technologies like virtual reality. That's why it's important for us to understand the psychology that drives people to adopt some of those technologies. Let's look at maintaining and improving company culture. If a company does maintain remote work as a status quo, how can leaders nurture a sense of teamwork and company culture across a distance and the difference that might exist? Well, Darden Professor Laura Morgan Roberts is an expert in human potential, diversity and leadership development. She knows compassionate, responsive leadership is what every organization needs, whether it's face-to-face or screen to screen, because learning needs to happen so rapidly.

The fastest route is often peer to peer through nonlinear ways of thinking. Even after a crisis, there will be a normal, normality and leaders need to map out old values and behaviors and norms, even especially the unspoken ones. And then contrast them with what we now know to be the normal as it is today, or as we'd like it to be. As companies compete and grow, the successful ones will emphasize with a culture of inclusivity, authentic ways of developing and retaining their talent. And the last thing I want to call out for how organizations and teams can get set up for 2022 is advance your diversity efforts and intelligent inclusion as we move forward next year or any year for that matter. Successful leaders will forge beyond diversity efforts and developing minority talent, pushing their organizations to embrace the importance of intelligent inclusion, ultimately the impact of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

However well-meaning will depend on how they're viewed. Professor Martin Davidson, who also serves as Darden's senior associate Dean and global chief diversity officer, said, create an inclusion climate is inherently ambiguous task, how organizations and to take inclusion matters is key. Decades of research in social psychology and organizational behavior show us that when individuals questioned the value of group identity, the social identity threats they register are massively damaging, not just to the individual, but to the individual's relationship with the organization they work in. Davidson and explores how those organizations can design and Institute programs and policies that work to eliminate racial inequality by reducing that psychological reactivity that arises in response to any racial friction. While Davidson's research was focused on racial equality. For me, intelligent inclusion is about any minority. Age, race, religion, sexuality, cultures. The more we can recognize that we're all in the same boat, heading in the same direction, the better we can serve each other. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, insights or any information that you'd like us to showcase on the show? Please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is John Warrillow. He's an entrepreneur, a writer, he's a podcast host, and he's also the founder and CEO of The Value Builder System. John, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

John Warrillow: Hey, good to be with you Steve.

Steve Rush: So, delighted to have a fellow podcaster and an entrepreneur on the show today. But for the folks that listening for the first time that may not have heard a little bit about your backstory, let's just give us a little flavor of how you ended up creating The Value Builder System and doing what you're doing now?

John Warrillow: Oh man, it goes back 25 years ago. I had a market research business where we did quantitative market research for big companies. We had a decent sized company. I think we were five or six million in revenue, 20, 30% profit margin. So, it was a good business. I thought I was sitting on a gold mine and I went to see an M&A professional guy named Harry Mielly in Toronto. And I said, you know, what do you think it's worth? And I was kind of rubbing my hands together, waiting for his number. And he said, well, it kind of depends on the answer to a couple of questions and I said, shoot. He said, all right. So, like, you do research? And I’m like yep. He said who does the research. And at the time we worked with these massive companies, Bank of America, Apple and JP Morgan Chase.

And so, I was involved. So, I said, well, I'm involved in the research. He said, all right, who does the selling? And I'm like, we're working with these giant companies. Of course, I'm doing some of the selling, right? He says, okay, well John, there is nothing here I could sell, your company is worthless.

Steve Rush: Wow.

John Warrillow: And man, that was tough to hear for me, especially going into that meeting, thinking, I was sort of sitting on this goldmine, kind of counting my shekels, so to speak. And leaving, realizing that I had built this business that was effectively unsellable. And I spent the better part of, I guess, three years, really trying to listen to what Perry had to say and others frankly, and transform that business, made much change we create. It’s a subscription model I got out of doing the selling out doing research. Long story short, it was acquired by a New York stock exchange listed company in 2009.

So, it had a happy ending, I think kicked off for me to sort of lifelong journey that I'm on to this day, which is to really discover what drives the value of a business. And hopefully, you know, you talking about purpose-driven leadership, hopefully helping other entrepreneurs you know, not have to experience what I felt and maybe save them some years off their lives by building a business from the start that's valuable. So, I've written a few books on that topic and of course, Value Builder is a software platform that advisors use to help their clients sort of understand some of these principles. So that's me in a kind of nut shell.

Steve Rush: Was that kind of an epiphany for you at the time where you had a perception there was valuing the business because of its turnover, yet when it comes down to its underlying asset value, there was a real mismatch. Was that the kind of defining moment to set you on this path I guess?

John Warrillow: Yeah, I walked around thinking my business is going to be valuable because it's profitable. And because we have great clients and people would say to me, they would say, wow, you work with Bank of America, you work with IBM, you know, fill in the blank, large enterprise organization. You're going to be, you know, this business is going to be valuable. And, I was under the impression that an acquirer would buy us for our client list. So, my focus for many years was to really win clients that were prestigious clients, right. We worked with British Telecom, biggest Telecom company in Europe at the time. And that was an aspiration for us. Not because they were necessarily great clients or the biggest revenue, but because we could put that logo on our PowerPoint slide deck to say, hey, we worked with British Telecom, and I was chasing the wrong stuff. What I came to learn was that clients are great and having kind of blue-chip clients can help the value of your company, but they're not going to make the value of your company. They're instiller tertiary to the overall value. So, it was a real learning experience for me.

Steve Rush: What's your experience then John, in helping other entrepreneurs on this path, when they start to think and realize that value isn't derived from turnover?

John Warrillow: Yeah, it can be a bit difficult, right? Because again, we have these yardsticks, I think as entrepreneurs. As a society, we celebrate top-line turnover, right? Like that's all the newspaper articles and the magazine articles are like this company's growing this quickly. And their top line revenue is this amount of money, yet it's generally not necessarily the most important driver for value. You mentioned Built to Sell radio in the intro of podcasts, where I interviewed different entrepreneurs. I did two interviews kind of back-to-back a few months ago. And one guy distributed a product and distribution companies by their nature, terrible businesses to sell, they're really difficult to sell. And he distributed product, built it up to $15 million in revenue turnover, and ultimately sold it for 25% of one year's revenue.

Well, literally the next day I did an interview with a guy named Rob Walling who built a company called drip, which was a SAS product software and service product. And he focused exclusively on this one product, focused a hundred percent on recurring revenue and built it to just two million dollars of turnover. So, the day before I'd talked to the guy who had a business with fifteen million turn over, sold for twenty five percent of one year revenue. The next day I learned from Rob Walling that he sold his two-million-dollar turnover business for somewhere between nine- and thirteen-times top line revenue. He didn’t show the exact number, it was a multiple of revenue, not a multiple of profits. And it was a large, high multiple of revenue. And it was just such a black and white contrast for me, of here's two companies.

One is a fraction of the size of another. Yet the tiny company is trading at a much, much higher value than the large company. And so, I think we boast about and kind put out our chest and say, yeah, we get a million in turnover a week. You know, we got ten employees or we're at five million or whatever the boast is, but oftentimes it's kind of revenue sort of vanity, I think for a lot of entrepreneurs. And yet the real value oftentimes is not in the revenue, in the other elements of your business.

Steve Rush: So, what are they John? What are the other elements that you would really drive conversations to focus on value?

John Warrillow: Probably the biggest one, I think is finding something, an area where you can absolutely dominate. One feature, one product, one offering where you can be the dominant provider. Because again, when you look at an acquire, if you put your acquire hat on for a second, they've got generally tons of money. They've got tons of resources. If you're just selling a commoditized product, if you are offering something where you're competing on price, you're responding to RFP’S, you're selling by ounce or pound or whatever. That large enterprise organization is just going to basically come to the conclusion that it's a lot cheaper to compete with you than it would be to buy you. So, this is going to lower the price in the market for that service or product.

Steve Rush: Right.

John Warrillow: Get in a bidding war with you, and basically pick up your business. Whereas if you do something really unique, they're going to draw the conclusion that it would take years to replicate what they have bill. You know, if you go back to Rob Walling and Drip, he had a really beautiful, elegant email marketing software, which lead pages, which was ultimately his acquire didn't have. And he had some features that would have taken years to build out. And he had a two- or three-year head start, could lead pages with enough developers have replicated Drip, of course, but for lead pages where time was money, they thought, you know what, this is too unique. We can just acquire this. And I think, again, going back to distribution companies and why that fifteen-million-dollar distribution company was so difficult to sell and ultimately got such a huge discount is they're not selling anything unique. They're basically taking someone else's product and selling it. And again, if you're a fortune 500 or a large enterprise organization, you can simply do that without buying the company.

Steve Rush: Right? Yeah. It's a pretty interesting perspective, isn't it? And also, there's been some recent articles around the human capital element that plays into that value stream. So that's the people on your balance sheet versus the assets on your balance sheet. How do you frame that in?

John Warrillow: Yeah, look, the people on your team, again, a lot of acquirers will look at that and say, could we recruit all these people with some unique skillset? Yes, of course is yes. With enough money and time could, in many cases acquire will look at that and say, you know what, it's just going to be a lot cheaper rather than spent two years and many hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds on a recruiter. Why don't I just buy this company? Now, those valuations are referred to as acquihires in the industry, those generally are much lower than you would expect from a acquire who is placing value on other elements of what you do. So, I don't think you're going to get the highest valuation for your business if you're just looking at an acquihires, okay, effectively, you're selling your team. But you will get some value for that in particular, if they have some unique skill set that that is, you know, obviously if you have a bunch of people who are doing AI right now, or even people who have a real skillset in the area of digital marketing, those are very hard to come by. And so, someone might value that team of yours, but generally that's not going to be an astronomical multiple relative to having some sort of unique product that is more valuable.

Steve Rush: Sure, is there anything in the value set that you look at that should be avoided by potential entrepreneurs?

John Warrillow: Interesting, yeah. I mean, I think cross selling is probably one of the biggest mistake’s entrepreneurs make and they come by it, honestly, because if you listen and talk to virtually any sales and marketing guru that gets the stage or writes a book, they'll tell you that cross selling an existing customer is like eight or nine times cheaper than going and winning a new customer. And so most entrepreneurs here that, they're focused on scale and growing and top line revenue and they say great, we've got a few customers, let's cross them. And by doing that, they're ultimately diluting their value proposition and ultimately making the business less sellable, certainly less valuable than it would be if they stuck to their knitting. I'll give you an example. There's a woman I interviewed on Built to Sell Radio named Stephanie Breedlove. She built up a payroll company and they had a special niche where they did payroll for parents who had a nanny, an HomePay to pay.

And her niche was very small. And she reached a point at three hundred thousand dollars in revenue where it started to become harder for her to get new parents who had a nanny to pay. She was based in Texas. She was focused mostly locally. She reached three hundred thousand dollars in revenue, so tiny business, was just her and one employee. And she had this kind of fork in the road. She could go, and although it would be hard, find new parents who had a nanny to pay, or she could do what everybody else was telling her to do, which was to cross sell other services to her existing customers, right? So, what else did busy parents have a nanny need? They need, you know, lawn care services and meal deliveries, and you could go on and kind of brainstorm what busy parents need? And Breedlove was being told at the time that that's how you grow your business.

Yet to her credit, she did not do that. She instead took the much harder road. She went and said, I'm going to double down and go find more parents who have a nanny to pay. Twenty-five years later, she built her business up to nine million dollars in revenue, ten thousand parents who have nannies to pay. Nine million in revenue over twenty-five years. It's not liked the next Tesla, right? Like it's not a super-fast growth company. It's a kind of twenty-five-year overnight success, it's a slow burn.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Warrillow: And she goes to sell it. She sells it to care.com, care.com, I'm not sure if they have it in the UK, but basically if you plug in your postal code and it will render babysitters and Au Pairs in your local market, that all be five stars rated. Have you seen that, Steve?

Steve Rush: Yeah, yeah. Right.

John Warrillow: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, she finds care.com and care.com at the time of the acquisition had seven million subscribers. So, she made the case, look, with just one percent of your seven million subscribers by my payroll service. That's seventy thousand customers. We're a nine-million-dollar company on the back of ten thousand customers. Long story short, Stephanie sold her nine million business for fifty-four million dollars.

Steve Rush: Wow.

John Warrillow: That's like six times revenue. That's like unbelief. It doesn't make any sense on any valuation table you could possibly conceive of. And it would never have happened, had she done what ninety five percent of gurus would have told her to do at a time, which was to go cross sell her existing customers because care.com wanted a very elegant solution to provide payroll to their seven million subscribers. They didn't want meal delivery services or lawn care services, right? Like they had a very specific need. And that's really were understanding what a strategic acquires looking for and sticking to your knitting. Doing one thing is where I think so much value can be added, but also undermined and lost if you sort of follow the mantra of growth is good. Top line revenue is our number one goal. I think you can, many cases hurt you more than it can help you.

Steve Rush: That's super fascinating. Almost contradictory to what certainly I've heard. And most people have muted along the way because you build up a client base to cross sell more revenue. So, but I get the whole focus on the whole be great at your niche or your niche. And most importantly, be super, super good at that. And therefore, it just grows and develops and its strength and capability, right?

John Warrillow: Yeah, and again, put your acquirer hat on for a second. And when you're looking at company, they closed the boardroom door, you're not invited to the meeting. And the head of corporate development sits down with the CEO and says, why are we buying this company again? And why don't we just compete with them? Are they doing something that unique, that's special that we need to acquire them because it'll be a lot cheaper and a lot less disruptive if we just get in a price war with them and for six months drop our price, ten percent below them, we can sustain that way better than they can? Why don't we just do it and get in a price war? And then the corporate development head as to fight back to the CEO and say, no, but you don't get it. They got something really unique that would take us years to build, you know, many millions of dollars to replicate. And that's the conversation that happens when you're not in the room.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Warrillow: And so, if you're just selling a bunch of, I mean, like, I don't know what it's like in the UK, but in North America, the cable providers had a monopoly and they would package up their television programming so that if you wanted like one or two channels, you couldn't buy the one or two channels, you'd have to buy like two hundred channels. And it was the most frustrating thing on earth, right. Because all you wanted was a couple of channels and you're paying for something you really don't need.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Warrillow: And then along comes Netflix and now Disney and all these discreet channels where you don't need cable anymore. And they're obviously losing customers in droves because people are like, all I want is ESPN, Disney and Netflix, and I'm good. And I don't two hundred channels.

Steve Rush: It's exactly the same in Europe.

John Warrillow: The Acquiror of a business makes the same.

Steve Rush: Exactly the same. You have written the book Built to Sell. And it comes from that mindset of how you encourage entrepreneurs to consider building their business with the intention to sell at some point in the future. Tell us a little bit about what that mindset is and how we might need to reframe some of that thinking along the way.

John Warrillow: Yeah, I mean, the essence of building to sell is you're creating a company that can thrive without you, the entrepreneur, founder, doing all the work. And when you've created a business that can succeed without you personally doing the work, you've got all of the options, like think of the poker player who gets like a royal flush. I mean, you can't lose basically. So, you can run your business without having to do the hard lifting, right? The hard yards, as they say. You can just simply be the CEO and letting your teams sort of run the business and take lots of time away from the company. You could bring in a manager and literally leave and have the manager run the business. While you kind of think of it as a passive asset, as it works, you could bring in a private equity group and sell sixty percent of the company, put some cash in your jeans and then continue to run and get a sort of second traunche of equity.

When the private equity group sells, you can sell to a strategic. I mean, you've got every option available to you. If it can succeed without you personally doing the work and the inversus is not true. If the business is deeply dependent on you showing up for work, you've got very few options. You've got effectively a job, not to put too fine point on it, where you can't really get out of it. And then you're in this weird position where you got into business for the freedom, right. Freedom to do what you want, when you want, financial freedom, et cetera. Those were all, and for many of the entrepreneurs I speak with the aspirations. And yet, if the business is dependent on you, you actually have less freedom than most employed people.

Steve Rush: That's very true.

John Warrillow: Like if you go to work for Proctor & Gamble and you put in your fifty hours a week, and you're a good corporate citizen, you can have your weekends, you can have your evenings to do the things that you want to do with your family, et cetera. If you run a company that's dependent on you, your life sucks. You're not only putting in your fifty hours, but you're working all the hours in the evening, the weekends, you're on call for your customers, you’re thinking about it constantly in your back of your mind, worried that this is going to happen, that's going to happen. So, you have none of the freedom and none of the benefits. So, for me, I think if you're going to create a business, really the aspiration should be, if freedom is your goal, to get it to survive without you. And that gives you the ultimate program.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so you hold all the next play, don't you? And of course, if you are part of the play, so your part of that key human capital, then actually you could be at risk financially and probably the value of the business will be less, I guess.

John Warrillow: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Warrillow: The other piece of this is, that you can get out more cleanly if and when you decided, just did an interview with a woman based in the UK, your name's Jodie Cook, she started a social media company and the beginning, it was her. It was actually JC Social Media or something. It was her initials in the name of the company. So, it was totally dependent on her. And over time she realized that really what she wanted to build was something that didn't actually depend on her. And she ultimately came a decision that she wanted to sell the business and what she did not want to do, which is what most, every entrepreneur in the marketing services industry has to do, was to sign up for an earn-out. An earn-out is when you have a portion of the proceeds of the sale of your company at risk in the future.

And you've got to reach some certain goals that the acquire puts in place, and Jodie is an independent woman, and she just had no interest in that, right. Of kind of working for a company for three, five years and have some goals out there that she had. So, she said, I'm going to create a business, that's not dependent on me. And she focused on building out her standard operating procedures. These are like the processes that people need to follow to do the work. And she spent months building out these SOPs. I said but Jodie. I mean, for a young entrepreneur, like you, that must have been torture to spend all that time kind of systematizing your business and thinking about all the processes and so forth, Yeah, John think about this way, if you're going to go to jail, would you rather go to jail for four months or four years?

Steve Rush: It’s an Interesting philosophy, isn’t it?

John Warrillow: And her point was, I could sell the company, but then I'm going to have to be in a four, five year earn-out, while I’m working for some middle manager who reports to some senior manager, who reports to some division for some giant conglomerate and have no control over my destiny. Whereas if I do this work in creating standard operating procedures now, yeah It sucks for a few months, but man I'm much better off. And so, she sold her company, She left two weeks later and that's almost unheard of in marketing services, almost all marketing services deals have some sort of burnout, but good for her for doing the work.

Steve Rush: Totally, right. Yeah. So, what's the reason you think then John, that entrepreneurs fall into this trap?

John Warrillow: You know, I think there's an element of ego to it, if I'm honest, I was just, you know, the same as I think many entrepreneurs. It feels good to be wanted, right? It feels good to be the Knight in shining armor, you know, that swoops in and saves the day and fixes the customer problem. And this, you know, this happens in virtually every industry where you, as the owner gets brought in to some really technical challenge or some difficult customer relationship, and you solve the issue. And for a few months or years, or a few weeks, probably. It feels good to be there and be the Rainmaker for your company. I got a chance; this goes back twenty years. So, bear with me, Steven. It was a while ago, but I got a chance to go to something called the birthing of giants.

It's simply, it's been renamed, something different these days, but it was a group of sixty entrepreneurs who were invited to MIT's executive education center for a three-year program of entrepreneurship, it’s called the birthing of giants. And we got to hear from these amazing speakers, like Patrick Lencioni who wrote The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and lots of other books in the area of leadership. He came in and spoke, and there's lots of speakers that came in. One day, this guy came in towards the end who just sold his company. And he started off the conversation with a ploy. Okay, raise your hand if you're involved in selling your product or service. And like every one of our hands went up. This is like sixty eager young entrepreneurs, we were all kind of, you know, the fourth grader got with the answer to the question when the teacher asks, like, we were all sort of like proud of that.

And he said, all right, put your hands down. He says, here's the deal. You've all got the right skills. You're selling the wrong product, hire salespeople to sell your product. Your job is to use those same skills to sell your company. And it was like, for me, it was an epiphany. Like I felt like an amateur who had just seen a professional game for the first time. Like I actually saw that my job was not to do the work. It was actually to sell the company and I don't mean sell it transactionally. I mean, to promote it, to be having conversations with strategic investors, people who might one day want to buy the company, that's the job of the CEO. I'll never forget that meeting again. It goes back twenty or so years now, but it was a real light bulb for me.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's interesting that a lot of the principles that you've created within your writing and your books are all around that kind of take stock and be thoughtful about your role as the business owner, the CEO, rather than being the practitioner inside the business, right?

John Warrillow: Absolutely. I think one of the things that helps people get their head around that, or start the journey down the road of getting it to not be so dependent on them is this concept of recurring revenue, because for a lot of businesses, there are some transactional business models, right? So, you kind of run around bidding on jobs, finding clients, responding to RFP’s to win the project, and then it takes it two or three months to delivery. And then you kind of wake up, you delivery the project and then you've got nothing on top to follow and you're on this kind of hamster wheel that gets really frustrating over time. Because you kind of have the sense, I think, at least I did at the time when I was in a kind of a business transaction model where you just not making any progress. Every month, you kind of dread the beginning of the month. Because you know, you have to go create the magic again next month, right. And, you know, sell everybody. And so, I think one of the things in addition to finding one thing that you're really good at, Stephanie Breedlove did, I think the other thing is, is to create some recurrent revenue, put your company as much as possible on an annuity stream where customers have to opt out versus opting in.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

John Warrillow: And I don't mean that in a nefarious way, but I do mean, like if you're a carpet cleaning company, you know, don't wait for your customer to call you to come in and clean their carpets. Most customers frankly have better things to do, then think about how clean their carpets are. And most people only remember to clean their carpets well past the date where they should've had them cleaned, right. Whereas if you say, look, once a month, we'll come in on the third Tuesday of every month and clean your carpet, let us know, if you ever don’t want us to, but we'll be here on the third Tuesday of every month. And all of a sudden, first of all, taken something off your clients or customers to-do list to remember, to have the carpet clean and come in every period of time. And number two, you've got recurring revenue. Now you can decide how many people you need? How many trucks you need on the road? et cetera. It creates this sort of domino effect where it makes a much more predictable business and ultimately a whole lot more valuable. So, I'm a big believer in this notion of recurring revenue as an important element to building a valuable company.

Steve Rush: Of course, if it's recurring revenue, it's also bottom-line value on the balance sheets as well.

John Warrillow: Absolutely. I mean, I just looked at this recently, the security companies, you know, the folks we use to secure our homes and offices, you come in and they put together the sensors on the windows and they call the fire brigade if there's a fire. Those companies have two forms of revenue. They've got their installation revenue where they come in and do the initial setup for the system. And then they had their monitoring revenue. And you have the kind of thirty, forty, fifty-dollar revenue a month, they charge us to come on the system. Those companies, when they go to sell a typical acquire will pay about 75 cents for every dollar of installation revenue, because it's kind of one and done transactional, not very valuable. They'll pay between two and three dollars for every single dollar of monitoring revenue. Another way your recurring revenue is worth like kind of three, four dollars for every dollar of installation revenue you have.

Steve Rush: That’s really fascinating, yeah.

John Warrillow: We see it in virtually every industry. Carpet cleaning, you can look at HVAC, you know, heating and air condition, any industry. Your recurring revenue is going to be what acquirers place the highest value on.

Steve Rush: You know, it's just struck me actually, there are a number of different businesses taking the same approach. I have the same now with coffee beans. So, I have a coffee machine. It knows broadly that every two months, I need another three kilograms of coffee beans. And every three months I get a box of coffee beans. So same principle, right?

John Warrillow: Absolutely. Think about? For that coffee company, how much more valuable you are then sitting around, waiting for the phone to ring or buying Google ad words, trying to get you to stimulate your purchase because that's what most people do. They effectively manufactured demand through advertising. Whereas you're locking in, actively demand by subscribing. It makes it easy for you. You don't have to worry about that, you know, the morning you wake up and there's no coffee beans, it's like the dreaded morning of my life.

Steve Rush: Absolutely right.

John Warrillow: And so, knowing that you're going to get that order every two months or whatever preemptively allows you to just kind of sit back and relax and know what's coming. So, it's good for the customer. It's not something nefarious thing. It's good for the customer. Not only that, it makes it way, way easier for the coffee company, because they're probably not, you know, they're probably not growing their own coffee beans. They're probably buying them from a supplier. And when you're at the mercy of a transaction business module, you never know how many coffee beans to buy. I reminded of a company I wrote about in the automatic customer called H. Bloom, and they do flowers on subscription. They focus on hotels that want to have like a fresh cut bouquet of flowers on their reception table. Typical flower store, at least in North America. I'm sure it's the same in the UK or similar. Typical flower store in north America, will throw out sixty percent of its inventory every single month. Why? Because it's dead, rotting in your refrigerator, right? Like you guess wrong, you guess how many people are going to come in and want gerbera daisies, verses roses, verses daisies or whatever. And so, you've got a bunch of inventories you can't sell and you throw it out. 60% of the inventory, a typical flower store is thrown out. H. Bloom comes along and says, we're not going to sell flowers in some retail shop. We're going to sell flowers on subscription, were going to focus on hotels, four- or five-star hotels that just want that bouquet of flowers fresh cut every two weeks on the reception table. There spoilage rate, in other words, the percentage of their flowers they throw out every month is less than 2%.

Steve Rush: Wow, that's amazing.

John Warrillow: I mean, if you think about, which company would you rather own? Which company would you rather invest in? I mean, it's not even an argument. A company have a predictable revenue where you only buy the number of flowers you need to fulfill the subscribers you have is a much different model than worrying about guessing how much you need every month. And again, for your example, same thing. They're probably buying their beans from a third-party provider and beans have a shelf life. And if they guess wrong, they've got a bunch of beans that can't sell. Whereas if they get guys like Steve to subscribe, they only buy the coffee beans they have for subscribers, they need to fulfill. And it just changes the business entire.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it really does, yeah. So, when it comes to that moment where I'm now going to sell my business, walk away and leave it, is there ever a perfect time to sell it out?

John Warrillow: Well, you might make the case that right now is pretty good. I mean, I think, you know, interest rates are very low and of course, acquirers, in many cases in particular, private equity groups are one of those common acquires for SMEs right now. They make their business model work on debt. Like it doesn't work without debt. So, they take on a bunch of debt to buy a business and they try to sell it later on for higher multiple. And they put a little bit of equity in, but they give a lot of debt and that allows them to choose their return on investment for their investors. Private equity is fuel on interest rates. And right now, we're at a point in the history of our world where interest rates are still very, very low. And so that's creating an enormous sort of volume of sort of acquisitions.

I think on the flip side of that. I think we're also in a point where a lot of SME owners have come through the worst of the pandemic, I realized as we record this, the pandemic is not over, but there is a lot of entrepreneurs that have kind of come through the worst of it and said, enough is enough. I can't do this anymore. And they're willing to leave their company for less than they might have prior to the pandemic. And, I see that again, I do this Built to Sell Radio episode or Podcast. And in the last few weeks I've had that sediment two or three times where people said, yeah, you know, I was just at my wit's end. I wanted out and, you know, almost at any price. And so, I think those two things are off setting one on the right now. On one hand, you've got a lot of demands. On the other hand, you've got a lot of really burnt-out owners who are effectively willing to sell for lower prices. So, I think they're balancing right now, but you might make the case, at least economically that right now is a pretty good time.

Steve Rush: So, as we start to transition into me hacking into your leadership brain, the last time you and I met, we had a really fascinating conversation around Fortnite and how kids were getting dragged into Fortnite and consumed by video games. And that you had a great parallel to this, which is this whole concept of leadership being a bit like a parent. There's tell our listeners a little bit about that.

John Warrillow: Well, I think a lot of SME owners, small business owners, think of their role as being the leader of their company, the CEO, oftentimes they're involved in doing some of the selling, the rainmaker, the driver of their company, right. And that's all fine. I think a lot of us would be better served thinking of ourselves, not as the CEO of our company, but as the parent of our company. And again, I'm sure a lot of your listeners are parents. And if you think about your job as a parent, it's, you know, some people want their kids to go to Oxford or Harvard or some fancy school, but for most of us, we would be happy if our kids got out of the basement. They went into the world as adults and they were happy functioning, independent adults and like box check that as a parent, if you're able to succeed and do that.

And so, you know, despite the fact that many parents are sitting there with their, you know, kids play a lot of Fortnite and wondering, will they ever sort of get out of the house? I think that's the job as a parent is to kind of nudge them and cajole them and teach them to be independent functioning adults. And if we're successful in that, then we've done our job. And again, I think if we go back to our job as the owner of a company, I think if you can get your business to thrive without you, to be independent of you, it is the most rewarding thing in the world psychologically, but it also gives you all the cards when it comes to the value of your company. So, I think we'd be better served in a lot of ways, not thinking of ourselves as a rainmaker, as the CEO, but more as the parent of our business. And our main goal is to get it to become an independent thriving adult.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it’s a really great reframe. I love it. So, we're going to now start to tap into your leadership brain, having led and run businesses and coached other businesses for over twenty years, I want to hack into that leadership brain of yours. So, if you had to distill your top three leadership hacks or tips, what would they be John?

John Warrillow: I'm a big believer in journaling and really reflecting on what's working and what's not. And whether you do that in a sort of formalized program or just a white paper or white board every week or so. So, I'm a big believer in journaling and having the people you're leading also journal, I think is big win. So, I think it helps you, one for yourself personally. And two, for the people you're leading. I guess, you know, to take that hack to another level. I think there are some really good journaling tools out there. I know I'm a user of the high-performance planner, I this its Brendon Burchard product. I mean, there's nothing magical about it per se, but it's a good journal. And I think having some sort of system around that can be super helpful. So, I'm a big journaling guy.

Steve Rush: Me too. So, the next part of the show we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something has gone wrong and as a result of it going wrong or not working out well, you've now used the experience as a driver and a positive force in your life and work. What would be your Hack to Attack?

John Warrillow: You know, I would actually go back to the very beginning of our conversation. And I think my hack was when I really got punched in the nose by a Perry figuratively. And he told me in no uncertain terms, that what I built was not a successful, not a valuable company. And so, I take that, although it was really strong cheese for me to hear at the time and very, you know, difficult, frankly for me to hear, I have now taken that. And also, you know, it's really informed everything that we do professionally, out the books and so forth. So, I think that's been super helpful and I'm also maybe inspired a little bit by that fairly straightforward with business owners, probably it's sometimes offensive at times where, you know, I make the case hopefully gently that a business isn't as valuable as they perceive it to be because it's too dependent on them personally. So, I think I've tried to sort of to honor that as time has gone on.

Steve Rush: Awesome. Last thing we want to do, give you some time travel. So, if you could go and meet John at twenty-one and give them some words of wisdom, what would your advice to him at twenty be?

John Warrillow: Stop chasing other people's approval. At twenty-one, I had graduated, I'd left university early because I hated university and I was trying to get a job. And I was in this funny zone where, you know, my father had worked for company all his life and I thought, okay, that's what I should do. I should go get a job and climb the corporate ladder. And so, I also knew at the time that I wanted to do my own thing, be an entrepreneur. And I was in this kind of really conflicted zone where I wasn't sure which path to take. And I spent a couple of years working for a company and probably three years actually. And I wish I had, if I can rewind the tape basically just started as an entrepreneur at twenty-one. I think I would have learned more.

And I think I would have, you know, in retrospect gotten as much, if not more experience just doing it. So, if I was twenty-one again, I would say, look, this one time in your life where you don't have dependents. You don't have stresses; you can live on a couch. That's the time to start something and really go all in.

Steve Rush: Yeah, isn’t it?

John Warrillow: Some people have the opinion, oh, you should work for a company for 10 years, get experience, understand the corporate world and then start a business. Well, good luck doing that when you've got, you know, a spouse, a mortgage, kids on the way, the whole idea just seems so much less attractive. But at twenty-one, I think that's a great time to start something.

Steve Rush: That’s great words of wisdom. Thank you for sharing that, John. So, we're very fortunate, in the fact that in order to keep our conversation going and keep our listeners connected with your work, you’re going to create a URL for us. So, we can get some free resources to share with us a little bit about how our listeners can get hold of some of that stuff.

John Warrillow: Yeah, just builttosell.com/hacker. We put together a landing page where you can get free video series on the eight key drivers of value in a company. We've also put the nine Subscription Models at the whole recurring revenue theme was sort of resonated with you. We've got a checklist that you could identify, which of the nine models might work for you. And then the art of selling your business workbook, which again is a digital workbook. You can work through to help you think about what you need to do to get prepared to sell your company. So, it's all free and it's builttosell.com/hacker.

Steve Rush: Thank you for doing that, John. And that's some great resources and we'll make sure that, they in our show next too, and of course, outside of the corporate arena, you blog, you're regularly quoted in lots of different articles. So, we'll make sure that your social media links are in our show notes as well.

John Warrillow: Thanks Steve. It was fun being with you.

Steve Rush: Love chatting, John. Good luck with the new book. Good luck with The Valuable Builder System continuous growth and thanks for being on the community.

John Warrillow: It's my pleasure.

Steve Rush: Thanks John.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Dr Alise Cortez is the Chief Ignition Officer at Gusto, Now! A management consultant who ignites passion and purpose. She’s the author of the book Purpose Ignited and the host of her weekly radio show; Working on Purpose Radio. In this show you can learn about:

How Alise found her purpose and how she ignites others
Why in finding our true passion, it will help us contribute to the world
How conscious capitalism is full of purpose
The steps and stages to ignite our passion

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Alise below:

Alise on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisecortez/

Gusto Now Website: https://www.gusto-now.com

Alise Website: https://alisecortez.com

Alise on Twitter: https://twitter.com/alisecortez

Alise on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alisecortez/

Full Transcript Below:

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Dr. Alise Cortez is a special guest on today's show. She's a management consultant, radio show host and Organizational Logotherapist. But before we get a chance to speak with Alise, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: We've recently had International Friendship Day. So, in the show today, we explored the notion around should leaders be friends with their coworkers and teammates. So can you be properly friends with somebody you work with? While some will say yes and others will say no, yet there's plenty of research to suggest that generally speaking, we highly value workplace friendships and having these friendships positively impacts on the work that we do and our approach to our jobs. A study of thousands of employees by UK based team building company, Wildgoose found that more than half. In fact, it's 57% of workers said that having a work best friend made their work more enjoyable while 22% argue, it makes them as or more productive.

What's more, it seems that many workers who don't have strong relationships in the workplace may be struggling with things like loneliness, since 15% of those who were surveyed don't have a work best friend, but would ideally like one. All of us appreciate having good friends in our lives says Nic Marks, happiness expert, statistician and CEO of the Friday Pulse. Nick's also a good friend and was the guest on show 18, hacking happiness. Nic said, it's good to have people whom care about us and who care for us. Why should work be any different? Especially when we consider how rational the world of work is. Nic explains, we have a thick core relationship within our team, as well as a thinner, more peripheral relationship with other colleagues and customers and suppliers. The quality of these relationships is not only affects our own experience at work, but work is indisputably better when we get along with people, it's also business critical, but workplace friendships remain a controversial topic for a number of reasons, not least because they're associated with the formation of cliques and friendships can also be potentially undermining effectiveness of teams.

Some of the worst performing teams, I know are great friends, but they can't get anything done said Pam Hilton, a collaboration expert and author of Supercharged Teams - 30 Tools of Great Teamwork. Collective intelligence research tells us that teams who avoid constructive conflict in favor of consensus make fewer successful decisions because they don't challenge each other enough. Hamilton believes that while it's easy to assume that friendship is the first step towards team ship, it's really the other way around. We need to come to work to achieve something, whether it's to launch a new product or to serve our customers and putting friendship before team ship means that we might launch an inferior product because we don't want to hurt someone's feelings or to forget to serve our customers because we're too busy having a good time. So regardless of whether leaders promote or frown upon workplace friendships, they'll continue to exist.

Humans are hardwired to form connections with others, and we're likely to form especially strong bonds with those that we have something in common with. Inevitably, we're likely to find more of those people at work. So, the leadership lesson here is awareness. If we're aware of friendships that are productive and helping us as a business move forward, we should encourage and promote it. But where we recognize their clique and holding back performance of productivity, we should challenge it. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. We're looking forward to hearing from you, interesting stories and any insights that you might have. So please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Dr. Alise Cortez. She is the Chief Ignition Officer at Gusto Now. A management consultant who ignites the passion and purpose in her clients. She's the author of the book, Purpose Ignited and the host of a weekly radio show Working on Purpose. Alise, welcome to the show, my friend.

Alise Cortez: Thank you so much for having me, Steve. It's so great to be on your show.

Steve Rush: It's great to have you on our show too. And we've had the opportunity to have met a few times over the last year or so. Really looking forward to getting into the whole principle of purpose and passion. But before we do that, maybe just for the folks that are listening for the first time and haven't met yet, be great to give us a little bit of a backstory as to your early life and passions.

Alise Cortez: Well, I grew up in a small town in Oregon and literally it was a great place to grow up Steve, but honestly, I couldn't get out of there fast enough. And in my late teens, I found myself in Portland and then finally found my way into college at about age 24 after bottling around for a bit and made myself a promise when I got into college, Steve, and that was, I needed to learn French and play the piano. So, I did those things going through my first two years of college. And then I found myself with my boyfriend. And when I was 26 years old, he got moved to Madrid, Spain for his company. And I came with him. I was just a college student. I didn't have a career. And so now here I am, mind you, small town girl from Oregon.

I've landed in Madrid, Spain. I can speak French. And I learned some Spanish in the restaurant I worked at when I was waiting tables to get through college so I could speak the Spanish. And so, I'm going to Madrid and I'm like, oh my gosh, this place is amazing. Everybody is kissing, there's amazing communication. So, I went all over Western Europe on my French and my Spanish for about six months. And then they moved us to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where then learned Portuguese and went all over South America for two years. And so, Steve, I just couldn't get that out of my system, right.

Steve Rush: Right.

Alise Cortez: Once that had been imprinted for like almost three years, there was no going back. So that's where the passion for language and travel started.

Steve Rush: And you still have that passion for language and travel now.

Alise Cortez: Absolutely, I do in fact, I still use Spanish. I do Spanish programs and I do some Portuguese programs and yes, I keep traveling, absolutely.

Steve Rush: What do you think it is that creates that Alise in you? Where does that come from?

Alise Cortez: Yeah, good question. So, you know, I remember distinctly when I was growing up in school, my parents had a big restaurant. Breakfast, lunch and dinner place. And I worked there when I was in high school and waited tables. I was the oldest of four siblings and my parents expected, being the oldest that I would take over the restaurant, but what they didn't know, Steve was that all those years that I was waiting tables in the small little town with 4,800 people. And it was that people from really exotic places like Portland, Oregon would pass through and I would learn from them and hear about these outside world experiences. And I just was drawn to what what's out there. What could there be?

Steve Rush: You got a really curious mindset as well, haven't you? Which I suspect is why you've ended up doing what you're doing now. Tell us a little bit about how that epiphany came about?

Alise Cortez: I do have a curious mindset. I'm learning that more and more as I go through life. You know, I have to say, one of the paths to purpose I should say, Steve is paying attention to and learning from what's ailed us in life. And so, you would think that amazing experiences that I had living in Spain and Brazil, where incredibly phenomenally positive, and they were, but at the same time here I was 26 years old living in Brazil. I had a maid, chauffeur and a gardener. I had the world by the tail, you would think, but there was just one problem. And I problem was that I was miserable in many ways, because what I really wanted to do was to matter.

I wanted to make a difference in the world somehow. And all I was doing was consuming a beautiful life. And what we know about meaning and purposes is, when you're serving other people, that's when you're most fulfilled. So actually, had a meaning crisis back in my mid-twenties. And then later on in my early thirties, when I came back to the states, it manifested into what I would call a sort of an early midlife crisis. And so that my friend is when I found my way into getting a PhD. I didn't have an affair, buy a sports car, no. My answer to a midlife crisis was to get my PhD. So that defining rod that I like to say was working its magic. And then just literally over time, I just kept paying attention to, trying to literally, you know, feel my way to what that dividing rod was trying to tell me to do.

And that's when I found my way into the human capital industry, some 20 years ago. I began studying meaning and work and identity for my research and PhD, consultant along, engagement performance, leadership, et cetera. And then I have to say, I found myself just this incredible internal force of, you know, replicate that research, at least make it bigger and make it deeper. And I did that in 2014 and I got published by going to a business conference there. And of course, I was in India. So, I have three weeks in India. And I had that experience, right? The experience people talk about going to India, totally stepped into my soul and really realized this is where I need to be. I need to be doing this meaningful purpose stuff really more on a full-time basis. And lo and behold, Steve, right around in there is when VoiceAmerica called me and said, hey, do you want to host your own radio show? Oh my God, this is all connected, right? So that's were working with purpose radio was born. And that's really how it all started for me Steve. It was this ongoing, unfolding, unveiling of like literally my soul emerging from myself, I would say

Steve Rush: The one thing I noticed about you Alise is, I still don't think you found the end game for you. I know from our conversations that we've had together, that, you know, every day is a school day for you and you're continually learning and continually evolving your thinking and continue looking for new ways to ignite not only other’s purpose, but also finding new elements of purpose for you.

Alise Cortez: Oh my gosh, thank you for seeing that. I agree with you. And it's so amazing to be seen like that Steve, thank you for that beautiful gift. Yeah, every day is a learning day for me. And I can't wait to see what's around the corner. I have no idea what I'm doing next in terms of how I use this meaning and purpose work in my life and for my clients, but I love it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and we'll come back to mindset, which I think determines whether you see things as really exciting and alluring versus scary and doubtful. We'll come back to that in a moment because I want to kind of get into the premise of when you started to do your studies, you bumped into the notion of logotherapy, and that really was quite an inspirational guide for you, wasn't it? In terms of how you evolved and developed your own thinking?

Alise Cortez: Yeah, you know, I really ran into when I started my PhD studies in my early thirties. And of course, you know, here I was doing a PhD in Human Development. So, I was studying Lifespan Human Development Psychology. Of course, I ran into Viktor Frankl work, he's written like 22 books or something, but logotherapy became really sort of a way of life if you will, for me. And what I was drawn to is that it's really a therapeutic approach that helps people find meaning in life. And the whole premise is that our primary motivational force in life is to find meaning. And so that just made a lot of sense to me. And of course, what did I do? I went off and studied me needing work and identity, but today, why is that one of my two main anchors? It's because that local therapy is really an optimistic approach that teaches that there are no negative or traumatic aspects of life that via the stand we take to them, which is also about mindset. They can't be transmuted into positive achievements. And I find that so empowering.

Steve Rush: Yes, yes.

Alise Cortez: Why wouldn't I want to stand in that space.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so thinking about its linked then to mindset, so you call it your governing star. So, what do you mean by that?

Alise Cortez: Well, you know, I love that question. Thank you for that. And so, when we think about mindset, it's really our internal operating system, right. It orients where we put our attention and how we interpret the world. And really frankly, it dictates our success and failure. If we think we can? We can. If we think we can't? We can't. It's just so deciding, right? It's so definitive. So that's why I call it your governing star.

Steve Rush: That’s quite neat, isn't it? And I suspect that's the reason why when you frame it, as it's exciting, I'm really excited about what's coming around the corner. However, perhaps with a different mindset could feel in fear of that?

Alise Cortez: No doubt about that, absolutely right. And thank you for that. That is such a really important point to make for our listeners because how we orient ourselves to the world. In fact, I was just listening to a podcast this morning when I was getting ready. When we say things like, well, I have a terrible memory. Guess what? You're going to forget things. If you say things like, I remember people's names like nobody's business, guess what? You do. It's just so definitive. So, when you think, what's this great beautiful life that I'm going to go live today versus, oh, what am I dragging myself through today? You can see the difference in the energy right there.

Steve Rush: And people often say to me, you know, Steve, this is a little bit kind of pink and fluffy, but actually it's based in science. It's neuro-plasticity, it's creating new layers of memory that are either going to help us or hold us back. And I wonder what your experience of that was with perhaps your clients?

Alise Cortez: Oh gosh, no question about it. You know, one of the greatest things speaking, neuroplasticity. One of the greatest things that I get to do my work, and I think we talked about this when you were on my show is, I have never replicated the positive feeling of witnessing someone, literally their molecules change in front of my very eyes as they transform themselves, right.

Steve Rush: Right.

Alise Cortez: I don't know of a better feeling than that. And the work that you and I get to do allows us to do that. So, we literally are witnessing that neuroplasticity in the works as we watch them grow. So yeah, and teaching them away. And that's why like therapy so much Steve is because logotherapy teaches them a way to be able to achieve this for themselves every day of their lives. And therefore, I'm empowering them. They don't need me after we work together. If I do my job right, I've empowered them.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and the empowerment creates habits and positive rituals, and eventually it becomes the way we do things, right?

Alise Cortez: Yeah, and then it's got infinity to it, right. And magnitude to it, and who knows where that goes.

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly. In your book, one of the things that I read that I really loved, and I want us to explore and share with our listeners is the fact that you encourage people to be moment hunters. So, if I'm listening into this today, how do I become a moment hunter?

Alise Cortez: That's such a delicious question. And thank you again for such a lovely read of my book. So, you're the one who read my book. It's so good to know. So, where I got the whole moment hunter idea Steve, as you know, I've been hosting my radio show, Working on Purpose for six years, and generally speaking, the last two or three years of that has really been interviewing subject matter experts and authors and business leaders. And so, I happened to come across a book called Ichigo Ichie and it's by two authors name, Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles. And essentially what they are talking about is this Japanese concept Ichigo Ichie, which means something like what we are experiencing right now will never happen again. And so therefore we have to evaluate each moment like a beautiful treasure, and that takes being present and mindful and grateful for the moments and cherishing them as part of our one precious life.

And so, when you realized that you literally can be, at least if you allow yourself. A child skipping through life, really enjoying and savoring the moment, what a difference that is again, then dragging yourself through a day, right? So, if I teach you to become a moment hunter and I I empower you and you learn a lifelong habit of doing that, that is a night and day difference to the way that most people tend to go about living. And that's where I want to be. I want to be at moment hunter.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely. It's one of those things it's academically very easy to say, but it's quite difficult to practice to into a habit of doing so. So where would I start with that?

Alise Cortez: Well, it's first it's mindset and I will tell you the first thing, this is a great story actually, the very first thing you can do is literally I kid you not just at the end of your day, just write down, maybe in a journal, three things you're grateful for. And what that starts to do, is it starts having you look for what's good and right in your life. And the story that I want to tell is one of my clients actually started reading my book and he got to the bit that we're talking about here, a gratitude and writing it down. He said, I got through that in my day. And I realized, I couldn't find three things to say that I was grateful for. This is a very successful man, runs an engineering practice. And he said, that's when I realized I need to fire one of my clients, they are just making me miserable.

Right? And so, he said, as soon as I got present to that reality, and I then realized what I needed to do, I began to see that there were things to be grateful for. And then I could actually enjoy more moments, but it took him getting present to being miserable with this one particular client and then firing them literally. And what a difference in the lift he got. So again, if you start with what you're grateful for, you'll start to be able to step into the place where you can experience being a moment hunter, and more of that Ichigo Ichie.

Steve Rush: And in your experience, the more you do that, does that present itself to be more natural in the future?

Alise Cortez: Absolutely, it's a habit so many things in life, right? It becomes a habit, a way of being, right. I bet you I've gone through this, just like any one of us have, if we really think about it. Moments in time where we are more high on life, right? Then other times when we're a bit more low, but there is a way to cultivate that high. And it centered on mindfulness and centered and that's why mindset is so important, right.

Steve Rush: Right.

Alise Cortez: And you know that in your work that you do, right? If we're in charge of our mindset, we don't let it govern us. We have a much better chance of being able to be an ongoing moment hunter versus someone who's literally either auditing life or worse yet, walking through life dead.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely so, and much of your work is focused on igniting purpose in others now, and you call out that relationships are a massive part of that. Just tell us about your experience? And also, maybe we can get into some of the techniques that you call out in your book.

Alise Cortez: Yeah. Yeah, so in my book, I talk about this notion of in terms of wellbeing informed by what Dr. Martin Seligman refers to as the PERMA Model, which of course is an acronym and the R is for relationships. So, what we know about relationships is, we as human beings, we really are, you know, created as a social being, I don't care how introverted you might be or extrovert you might be. We still really do need meaningful relationships in our life to be mentally well and healthy. And so, what we find is that it's the lack of meaningful connection with other people that often contributes to mental and physical demise and where we get into depression and isolation, et cetera. So, finding a way to stoke relationships in a way, the ones that are important to you, not everywhere all the time, but the ones that you choose so that they're healthy and mature and reciprocal is really, really important.

And let's take it one step further, right? So, when we're working from the place of purpose, the reason that purpose works so well is that it requires us to be serving other people. So therefore, it got a self-transcendent quality to it. And the moment we step out of being absorbed in our own life and our world, and we focus on serving and helping others, we're already in a better place. We're already in a much more healthy place.

Steve Rush: Right.

Alise Cortez: So that's two reasons why relationships are so important.

Steve Rush: And you've got a technique called lifeline that you call out in your work, tell us how you would use it?

Alise Cortez: Yes. So, lifeline refers absolutely to those meaningful connections that you have in your life, whoever they might be. Maybe it's your best friend, maybe it's your partner, maybe it's a child, but the lifeline is really about being, again, mindful and present to that relationship. What are you doing to nurture that relationship? What are you doing to really go looking for and see that other person? And I know that you know this too, because of the work that you do, developing leaders, right, Steve, right. So, to me, what's a great leader? It's the same sort of technique that you would use in the lifeline approach. And that is a great leader of goes looking for what's great and fantastic about the person on their team. And then they look to see how can I lead them to a greater sense of themselves? How can I bring them to see and realize, and go after what I know is even a greater aspect of who they could become? So, to me, a lifeline as you're practicing that sort of set of behaviors in those close relationships in your life.

Steve Rush: Yeah, the one thing that struck me in reading that as well was we all have choices about our relationships, but we often don't bring that to our conscience enough and that helps us do that, right?

Alise Cortez: Absolutely, exactly right. And again, that's why, you know, it's so important to have silence in our life too. We are the ones in charge here, not the rest of the world. So as fast as the world moves today, right. If we can come back to hold on just a second, I always have one thing under my domain, and that is my mindset.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely. And it starts there, doesn't it? It literally starts there.

Alise Cortez: Literally, yes. And ends there. I would say.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely so, yeah, I agree with that. Now, true passion. You've called out in your radio show and the work that you do and it's in your book, you call it out as it being a real contributor to the world. Where have you may be seen that play out the most, or maybe some experiences where you've really seen that work?

Alise Cortez: This is just where it gets really yummy. How much time did we get to talk about this Steve? That's so awesome, right. Okay, so I want to distinguish two things. So, passion is absolutely a mechanism to be able to contribute to the world meaningfully. So, what I say about passion, and this is absolutely explicated in the book is, passion is really one of our three sources of meaning through energy. I do this through for my local therapy sort of work. So, what passion really is, it's the creative value of what we give of ourselves to the world. It's something only we can uniquely give through our being, right? And so, the more we give of ourselves our passions, the more energy we have, right. And everybody understands the importance of energy, right? So, when we show up and we really channel our passions, what happens there is that can then lead us to our purpose.

Not always, but it can, it's one path to our purpose. And when we serve from our purpose, of course, now that's where the real magic happens. And this is where it gets really interesting from my perspective, Steve. So, purpose acts as a unique filter through which each of us sees the world. And then when we look through that lens, we see possibilities, or we do something that no one else we've seen or done. And that is the source of innovation impact that we all aspire for. So, you know, that notion of people confuse passionate and purpose. They're not the same thing, right? Passion is really a way of being in the world. It's really sort of anchored in meaning and the expression of what it is that you find meaningful of yourself and purpose of course, is your north star, why? Which orients all of your activities and why you're doing something and the difference that you hope to leave in the world. So that's how I like to see those two together. It's profoundly important to be able to go after passion and purpose.

Steve Rush: And they're not mutually exclusive, are they?

Alise Cortez: No, not at all.

Steve Rush: And people often get them confused. What causes that?

Alise Cortez: That's a great question, you know, one is, we can't go through a day to day, I don't think Steve, without encountering, at least the words, meaning and purpose. People confuse those two words as well. And so, I think the reason people confuse them is because that word, passion, purpose, and even meaning has become so overly utilized and therefore it diminishes its utility. And it just becomes part of the parlance almost like saying things like yeah and huh.

Steve Rush: Yeah, indeed.

Alise Cortez: It delude it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I can see that. And unconsciously then by just merely saying, I have purpose, doesn't actually mean that you have purpose. It needs to be backed up by lots of other evidence and actions.

Alise Cortez: Boy, now you're getting at one of my major pet peeves, Steve. So, when people say things like, you know, if I see another sign that says muffin on purpose, tires on purpose, I'm going to go ballistic, right? So, people say things like, well, you know, I do this on purpose or such is my purpose. Well, just because you declare something which becomes like a goal for you, does not make it purpose. The only thing that makes something purpose is that one, it literally is that which is called from within you and the service through that you’re channeling for, makes a difference to the world and is in service of other people. Very often when people say things like, well, such and such is my purpose, engineering is my business or my purpose or whatever. Developing people, even as my purpose, if you just declaring it as something that you do or a goal, it's not your purpose, it's not the same thing at all.

Steve Rush: Totally agree with that, totally.

Alise Cortez: Right.

Steve Rush: So, one of the things that struck me and I've never come across this notion before of conscious capitalism, but underpinning that is all of those things around passion and purpose. But I wondered if you could share with the listeners, what your view of conscious capitalism is and how we might want to use them in our roles as leaders?

Alise Cortez: Another yummy topic for me, I actually devoted the last chapter of my book, as you probably know, because you read it, too the idea of conscious capitalism, that's chapter nine. And I have recently joined the board of Conscious Capitalism here in Dallas as well. To me, it makes so much sense. So let me share, there's four tenets actually of a conscious capitalism that will help our listeners really understand how it works and why they might want to be involved. So, the first tenets is just higher purpose. And so, this really gets to knowing your company's why and doing business beyond profit. If you're just in business to make money, that's one is going to get empty pretty fast. And two, you're not going to distinguish yourself in the marketplace among others that have elevated their gaze above just profit.

So hard purposes is the first tenant, the second tenant is stakeholder orientation. And what that is, Steve is that's really a recognition that a business has an interdependence on the ecosystem in which it operates. And so, it's important that a business is focused on serving its employees, its customers, its suppliers, investors, the community, and the planet. Those are all part of the ecosystem in which it operates. And too often, what happens is we're focused on investors at the expense of everything else. And that's where the train falls off the tracks. So, the third tenet is conscious leadership. And so, this is the notion really that, you know, the human social organization, right? And so, it's guided by leaders who understand that they need to inspire others to travel along the same path of consciousness and purpose with them. To raise them along the way like I've been saying, and then the fourth tenet is conscious culture, right?

So that's the FOS, the values, the principles, the practical’s that underlie that social fabric of the business and connects the stakeholders to each other, united in their purpose and their processes. And of course, there people, so those are the four tenets. And if you listen to those, I can't imagine that you go, heck, I don't want to do that, right.

Steve Rush: Exactly, yeah.

Alise Cortez: What about any of that would make you say that you don't want to play with that? I don't understand. So, to me it's such a natural obvious path that unites the best of what we've been doing together as humanity to bring us forward. So, I think for me, it's a no brainer and it's important that listeners also know that conscious capitalism is only one of like 20 different organizations that are stewarding a similar mindset like this in business. So, this is becoming much more ubiquitous.

Steve Rush: And its okay, to make money and be a capitalist underpinning all of the service to other people, if it's purposeful, right?

Alise Cortez: Absolutely, in fact, you know, that's the thing about it is, what I appreciate about conscious capitalism is it celebrates capitalism as the best system that we found so far in the world. And frankly extends and expands it so that it actually serves even more interest to lift more boats. So yes, absolutely, profit is fantastic.

Steve Rush: There's almost a mystique around the word capitalism because it has a different connotation in people's minds, but actually as you've described it with those principles, it becomes a really honorable and emotive thing to be thinking about as a leader, right.

Alise Cortez: Oh, I liked the way you said that, Steve. Yeah, so to me what that is, is why would you get out of bed in the morning and go, you know, I think I just kind of want to fly under the radar and just do the minimum that it takes to get by. Why would you do that? When you could lift your gaze just a little and say, hmm, who could I help today? Who else could I help today? What else could I do to make the world slightly better today?

Steve Rush: Yeah, and suppose if there were people listening in today who maybe don't naturally have that passion or still haven't yet found their purpose, maybe having a mindset that says, you know, it's too late for me to change. What would you say to ignite that passion today?

Alise Cortez: Oh, well you're not going to like the first thing that I would probably say to them, let me say it anyway. So, if somebody said to me, you know what, it's too late for me to change. I can't find my passion. What I would say to them Steve is, get your shovel. Let's go ahead, you and I both start digging your grave because you're practicing death right now. And that's what I would say. So, it's never too late to work on passion. I don't care if you're in your nineties or a hundred, you know, I will tell you, Steve definitively, both of my parents died 28 days apart in January of 2019 and I'm firmly and all the more affirm in my logotherapy work. My mother was 73 years old. Yes, she had suffered a long time from COPD and she was tired of the suffering. She was ready to leave, but I am absolutely 185% convinced that if she had done something, than sit and watch the TV all day, she got out and even volunteer one hour, a week of her beautiful mind and given to the community. Gave her humor, which is part of her passion. She would still be with us today. That's how important passion and meaning are today. They actually literally can save your life, do save your life.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I agree. And it, again comes back down to mindset because if you think you can’t, when you think you can, you probably, right,

Alise Cortez: You are right, yeah.

Steve Rush: So, the next part of the show we get to do is spin around a little and I'm getting now tap into your awesome leadership brain. And the first thing I'm going to do is try and distill your experiences and ideas into your top three. So, if you had to do that, what would they be?

Alise Cortez: My top three are, just coming off the last question that you asked. The first and foremost, find and plug into your passion. And the reason why is, just I've shared, when you live and work from it, you're irresistible, you're magnetic. People want to follow people on fire in their own life, right? So that's the first thing. Find and plug in your passion. The second thing which I've already alluded to is become an inspirational leader. And the way you do that is first you're on fire for your own life. And then you go looking for what's amazing and different about each team member that you have and you help them lead them into their greater self. That's how you become an inspirational leader. And then third go looking for and articulate to each of your team members, how their work threads up into the company's overall purpose. So, it's really important. What this does is it helps that individual person recognize just how important the work that they're doing is, and therefore it gives them meaning. And so, when we feel like we're connected to something bigger than ourselves, it's incredibly motivating. So go help them understand how the work they're doing, connects to the company's larger whole and purpose.

Steve Rush: I love that, and also connecting those dots will create that higher purpose, which will lead to yes conscious.

Alise Cortez: Yes, if we do it right, exactly.

Steve Rush: So, the next part of the show, we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something in your life or work hasn't worked out. Could have been catastrophic or you screwed up. But as a result of the experience, you've learned from it and is now a positive in your life or work. So, what would your Hack to Attack be Alise?

Alise Cortez: Well, I'm not recommending this for everyone or anyone for that matter, but this really worked well for me. And it's this little called divorce.

Steve Rush: Yeah, little thing, right.

Alise Cortez: It was not my idea to get a divorce. I'd been together with my ex-husband for 18 years, but it was a very good idea as it turns out and what it did was it forced me out of a certain apathy that I had fallen into in life. And it forced me to catalyze into a higher being and to grow and to learn from the pain and, you know, starting off in a different place in life. And I needed that. In fact, I will tell you that in my view, we all need this agitation catalyst in our life to grow and change. And I'm not saying it needs to be divorced, but usually it needs to be something pretty hard.

Steve Rush: A disruptor.

Alise Cortez: A disruptor, yes. Thank you.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Alise Cortez: And so that was a huge disruptor for me. And what it did Steve, was it gave me this fantastic clearing that I could pursue, whatever I saw in front of my path that I wanted for myself. There were no more excuses for myself. And that was one of the best Hack to Attacks for me in my life to date so far.

Steve Rush: Yeah, do you think you would have found your purpose had that not happened?

Alise Cortez: I already had found my purpose. Here's the amazing thing. I was not living not living Steve and you know what? I hated myself for it. I hated myself for it.

Steve Rush: Interesting, Isn't it? Yeah, it was always there, but you were probably suppressing a lot of it?

Alise Cortez: Yeah, the worst thing is, is that when you're aware of it and you're not doing something about it, I will tell you that it's hell on earth. It really is.

Steve Rush: I can see that. The last part of the show, we give you the opportunity to go back and meet Alise and do some time travel and you get to bump into her at 21. And give her some of your words of wisdom. What would your advice to her be?

Alise Cortez: Oh gosh, you know, I would tell her to listen to the wisdom emanating from within. So, Steve, when I was about 21 years old, I did know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was one of those people that felt like to your point, I'd always been very curious. I'd done a lot of reading. I found all of this self-help literature in Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled. And you know, I was reading all those kinds of books and I came running to my mother one day and I said, mom, I know exactly what I want to do when I grow up. And I said, I want to lead success seminars. And she burst out laughing. She said, you can't do that. You are not successful. And then of course the little dream in me shriveled up and died.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Alise Cortez: Well, what am I doing today essentially is, I'm helping people to really discover that which ignites them and helping them steward their field of human growth and transformation. And I didn't know how to call it anything else back then, except for success, which she was right. I wasn't successful back then. But what I would tell my 21-year-old self is listen to that just because you didn't quite get the words, right. There is a wisdom in there that when you listen to that, which is emanating from within you, it's trying to tell you something. Now the divining rod ultimately came around and took me there, but it took me 20 some years later to get back on that track.

Steve Rush: Yeah, indeed. Good words of wisdom to have had at the time, maybe.

Alise Cortez: Exactly.

Steve Rush: And of course, everything happens for a reason, doesn't it? So, the other kind of, part of your evaluation that you take us on through your book is that it's kind of, everything is a learn. Everything is a lesson. If you choose to have that thought process around it, right?

Alise Cortez: Yeah, absolutely, I love that. Everything is a lesson, there's so much to learn and enjoy and appreciate in this wonderful thing called life.

Steve Rush: So, what's next for Alise, what are you working on?

Alise Cortez: Yeah, gosh, what am I not working on? So, I've got my next a women's anthology book is coming out as being published next month, where I found 25 women from across the world to tell their stories, it's coming out in a book called Passionately Striving and Why. So that's one thing, I'm also working on the men's anthology as well. Looking for stories of men who are working from purpose from around the world, would love to hear from someone if they are. And then the other thing that I'm working on, that's really got my attention. You know, when we were going through the pandemic, I was trying to figure out how can I help? What can I do, right? How can I help more people, especially get out of any kind of a mental or wellbeing, demise or malaise? And I discovered that I could actually take the first part of my book which is really about how to develop passion and purpose within yourself and create that as a wellbeing, subscription, mini model for employees inside companies. So, they get literally a wellbeing, drip of content, of exercises and listening to something for a podcast every week. So, what I'm doing now is bringing that into companies as a subscription model. So that's what it's really got my gaze and my focus right now.

Steve Rush: Excellent stuff. Good luck with that. Both projects or good luck with all three projects.

Alise Cortez: Thank you. Yes, I told you, I’m having more fun than I'm supposed to have, so don't tell anybody.

Steve Rush: I know, it's too late now. It’s all out there.

Alise Cortez: The cat's out of the bag, is it okay?

Steve Rush: Exactly, yeah. So, if folks wanted to find out a little bit more about your work, where's the best place for us to send them?

Alise Cortez: Easy to go to my website, alisecortez.com, that's the easiest place to go.

Steve Rush: And there's a bunch of resources on there. There's links to your other social media that you're active on as well. And of course, you can get hold of a copy of Purpose Ignited, can’t they?

Alise Cortez: Absolutely, and please do.

Steve Rush: So, I always love chatting to you. There's never a time where we've spoken, where I haven't felt juiced up as a result of it. And that's no exception today. So, I just want to say thank you for unlocking purpose in our lives.

Alise Cortez: oh, thank you so much for having me Steve, it's been a delight.

Steve Rush: Love chatting to you.

Alise Cortez: Likewise.

Steve Rush: Thanks, Alise.

Alise Cortez: Likewise, thank you.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handle there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Dr. Laura Gallaher is a keynote speaker, a leadership coach and Organizational Psychologist. She is also the CEO at GALLAHER EDGE. In this super interesting conversation, you can learn about:

How she leads culture change using a blend of org’ psychology and industrial engineering.
Learn about the “inside out” model and that is all starts with self.
Why changing culture, you can influence positive outcomes and performance.
How to recognise if you have imposter syndrome, how you can go about dealing with that.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Laura below:

Laura on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-gallaher-phd/

Gallaher Edge Website: https://www.gallaheredge.com

Laura on Twitter: https://twitter.com/drlauragallaher

Laura on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drlauragallaher/

You can get Laura’s new book here

Full Transcript Below:

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Our special guest on today's show is Dr. Laura Gallaher. She's an Organizational Psychologist. Who's worked with Walt Disney and NASA to help transform culture. She's now a speaker and the CEO of GALLAHER EDGE, but before we get a chance to speak with Laura, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: If you're a regular listener of the show, you will know that we love diversity and difference on this show. One the news today we explore what leaders can learn about mindfulness and entrepreneurship from Bhutan of all places. So where is Bhutan? Well, it's a small kingdom located deep in the Himalayas and native of Bhutan Dr. Karma Phuntsho who's an Oxford educated founder of the Loden Foundation believes that leadership lessons from Bhutan can lead anyone to success in life and in business. Dr. Phuntsho first discovered the benefits of mindful leadership after studying as a Buddhist monk for over 10 years, he then obtained his PhD at Oxford, completed some research at Cambridge and was the first Bhutanese Oxbridge fellow.

As self-described go-between linking Western business philosophies with Buddhist traditions, Dr. Phuntsho contains fascinating insights on humanity, culture, business, and how leadership ties it all together. Perhaps nothing demonstrates this more than the Loden Foundation. His non-for-profit organization for aspiring Bhutanese entrepreneurs built on mindfulness, innovation and tradition. At the Lowden Foundation, Dr. Phuntsho, whose mission isn't only to create a thriving network of Bhutanese businesses, but it's also to shape tomorrow's entrepreneurs as a force of good within their communities throughout the world. In 2008, Dr. Phuntsho, along with a small group of colleagues launched the Lowden Foundation to face the growing challenge of high unemployment in Bhutan, along with a lack of entrepreneurial spirit, largely caused by the tradition of hand-me-down farming, the non-for-profits supports entrepreneurship in Bhutan through education, inspiration, and outreach. They also offer interest free collateral free loans through the Lowden Entrepreneurship Program, which ties the repayment plans to the businesses strategy and structure.

To date they've supported over 5,000 aspiring entrepreneurs and funded over 200 businesses in Bhutan, 72 which are run by women, the Lowden Foundations dedicated to preservation of Bhutan's culture and deeply rooted in its Buddha beliefs. And with this comes the intrinsic tie to being mindful, compassionate business leaders. And of course, demonstrating those mindful and compassionate leadership practices, cornerstones of course of the Buddhist philosophy. What Dr Phuntsho believes should be the cornerstones of every leader's philosophy, no matter where they live on the planet, he says it's important for us to bring prosperity, to improve people's ordinary standard of living, but we have to seek that without losing the overall meaning of life. And one wonderful way to never forget the joys of life is, been remembered that every human, every organization is somehow interconnected. And there's a great leadership lesson here. Of course, mindfulness and compassion are given these days, but the role that habits, rituals and mindsets play in communities is still rife and it sometimes takes a bold leader to disrupt that status quo. So, the next time you notice rituals or habits that may be holding your community or team back, will you be that disruptor? That's been The Leadership Hacker News. We'd love to hear your stories, insights from wherever you are in the world. Bring difference to our difference. So please get in touch with us.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Dr. Laura Gallaher. She is a keynote speaker, a leadership coach and Organizational Psychologist, is also the CEO at GALLAHER EDGE. Laura, welcome to the leadership hacker podcast.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Thank you so much for having me, Steve.

Steve Rush: So, I'm really keen to find out how you ended up leading GALLAHER EDGE and what happened beforehand. So just give us a bit of a potted history of your kind of early career and some of the passions that led you to do what you do?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Absolutely, I started looking at psychology in college and thought I would go the route of being a therapist, something kind of, you know, traditional psychology starter type. And then I realized how interested I was in social psychology. What happens when we get groups of people together? And what are the ways that we form impressions and how does that affect the way we treat each other? And then I realized there's this whole field called Industrial Organizational Psychology, where we can look at those kinds of dynamics in the context of the workplace. So, I came from Phoenix, Arizona over to Orlando, Florida, and I studied Organizational Psychology for another five or six years after undergrad and got the chance to work for NASA. So, I was working for NASA while I was finishing up my PhD. And after about seven years there, I started this business GALLAHER EDGE on the side of the NASA job. And after about 10 months of that, I was like, you know what? Let me try this full time. And after about six months of that, I was like, Ooh, I don't know about this. And I went back to a nine to five role with Disney and 10 months later, I was like, you know what, I'm going to try this again. And so ever since 2015, I have been running GALLAHER EDGE as my full-time role.

Steve Rush: Excellent, and it was really interesting from the notes I made when we spoke first, you joined NASA at a real kind of pivotal moment in their history, and it was not long after the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy back in 2003. And you were called in to help transform and enhance the culture at the space center in Kennedy Space Center. What was it you noticed about what was happening at NASA at the time and what did you learn from that time?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yeah, so it was a really somber way to get things started my in my career, you know, and I obviously believed in the importance of psychology and organizational psychology, but to have the chance to come in and work for NASA. When they did the investigation about the accident, the investigation board report said that NASA's culture was as much to blame for the accident is the actual piece of foam that struck the orbiter during the launch.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: So, yeah, it was a pretty strong indictment of the culture and what I find so incredibly remarkable about this. And you know, I worked very closely with my now business partner, Dr. Phillip Meade. He had been out at the Space Center. He was working there for many years before the accident occurred. Was that just months before the accident happened, NASA was rated the number one place in the Federal Government by its employees. So, when they surveyed all of the employees and every agency of the Federal Government about their workplace and how engaged they were and how motivated they were and how much they had job satisfaction, NASA was number one. So, I don't know about you use Steve, but when I hear like, oh, culture was to blame for this tragedy, I'm like, Ooh, man, that must've been a, what a mess, you know.

Steve Rush: That’s right, not aligned is it?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: It must've been just awful, people not getting along, like overbearing managers. Like this must be a terrible place to work and that wasn't the case. And so, what evolved in the work? I mean, I learned so much in my time there was understanding that there's a difference between having a quote, good culture and a quote, effective culture. So, it's really important to be able to say, what is it that we're actually wanting to achieve and accomplish in terms of results and how we truly designed the culture in a way that we will get those results versus just, hey, do people like working here?

Steve Rush: That's a really interesting dichotomy, isn't it?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yeah.

Steve Rush: As you're saying it, I'm trying to kind of frame it almost as in so much as good cultures don't necessarily give you great performance. So, what was the gap if you like between the two?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Of course, as you can imagine, you know, culture. So, we described cultures as emergent property. It's based on the interactions of the common behaviors and beliefs with the employees and organizations are complex adaptive systems. So, I definitely won't have time during our conversation today to get into all of the details about it, right. And the reason I qualify it so much is because I think it's really easy for anybody to be outside of a situation and look in and go, how could they be so stupid? So, some of what I want to describe an point out, it's easy for somebody to fall into altruism and go, oh, well, I would never do that, right? Or that would never happen here. And when you do that, that's a deep form of defensiveness that stops us from learning from the mistakes of other people.

Steve Rush: It does, yeah.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: So, my invitation to everybody listening is, you know, see how you can actually take some lessons away from some of what I can share about NASA history and find out when might that also be true for me, right. Rather than going like, man, how did they miss that or whatever. So, there's really three levels that I can talk about when I explain what was happening in NASA culture, leading up to the accident. This is based on our inside out model. We have self at the core, everything comes back to self, and then we have team as the middle layer. And then we have the organizational level at the broadest layer. So, these like three concentric circles. So, at the organizational layer, one of the biggest challenges is they had the program manager for shuttle in charge of everything from safety and technical concerns, but also programmatic concerns like budget and schedule.

So, when it comes down to it, you're looking to one person to try to effectively balance all of those things at the same time, that's just an organizational design flaw. You don't have people sitting around the table with an equal level of leadership, voicing their opinions when it comes to, well, what does technical say? What does safety say? Okay, what does the program say? It was all falling on one person. And so, they were essentially unknowingly creating a virtually impossible situation for this person to actually make good decisions, right? So, a big piece of what we looked at was how can we design the organization differently so that we're not asking people to fight against the system and ask an engineer who's two or three or four or five levels down from the program manager and say, yeah, stand up in a meeting and say, hey, I don't have a lot of data, but I'm really worried about the shuttle. Even though y'all have made a bunch of decisions in the past to say that we don't need to worry about this during flight, like, wow, like that's really challenging. So, at the org level, work design matters a ton, you really want to pay attention to how the design of the organization affects the culture.

Steve Rush: My experience, having worked in lots of different organizations is often they try to fit org design to fit the team and the individual into the organization and not the other way around.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yeah, we work with our clients and organizational design, it's so funny because I'm a psychologist and more so human centric. And when we go into that process, we're like, okay, we really want you to not think about people. Like don't think about human beings. Don't think about who you have right now. We really want you to think about the organization as a system, the organization as a machine. And we want to design it optimally to get the results you want to get and not design it around the specific humans, right. Because then you kind of end up like duct taping things together. Like, oh, well this person, I don't know if we have right now a right person to play a chief revenue officer role. So, let's not do that. Let's just go ahead and, you know, keep this kind of biz-dev over here and this kind of sales here, or like, oh, you know what? I don't know if these two people really get along very well. So even though it makes sense for them to be in the same department, let's just break those up. They're doing the best they can, and sometimes they make very flawed decisions for org design because they're trying to base it around those specific people.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I can see that.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yeah, so that was the org design, one of the biggest org design pieces. And that was one of the biggest initiatives that I supported when I first started my work there. At the team level, there were some things happening with communication. So, one of the findings that just, it actually got a lot of attention at the time was the phone strike. And so, for anybody who doesn't know, just briefly during the final launch of Columbia, a piece of foam fell off of the external tank, which is the large orange structure on the shuttle system.

And it struck the orbiter, which is the part that looks like the plane. And they didn't know exactly where it hit. They could see that it hit, they could see it and make contact. They could estimate the general size of the foam, but they just weren't sure. And foam had been hitting the orbiter. Unfortunately, it happened numerous times before and it had never been dangerous. It was always something that they had to deal with when they check the orbiter back and processed it to get ready for the next flight. They would need to change out some of the tiles for the heat shield, you know, so they previously made a decision like, hey, when foam strikes happen, we don't have to worry about it in flight. It's something that we'll deal with during processing. So, this was something that they thought they decide and the foam strike, and because they didn't know exactly where it hit.

And it looked quite large. It was some conversation, but it was like a third sub bullet, on a PowerPoint slide or something like that. And, you know, a presentation to the decision makers. And so that was one of the things that got a lot of attention was, hey, like what's happening with our team communication here and are we over-relying on trying to make things really brief and succinct and not giving things enough airtime to really understand what it is that we're deciding. So that's one of the things that I really invite leaders to do is, we're all so busy, right? And we all feel so stretched for time. And it's so tempting to just want to push through decisions really quickly and not give them enough airtime. But, in some cases, unfortunately in this case potentially catastrophic.

Steve Rush: Yeah, sometimes you just got to go slow to go fast, haven’t you?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Absolutely, I slow down to speed up is one of our favorite mantras. We're always inviting our clients to do it. And do you know what? We work on it too. It’s something that we feel is vital, so I can understand the difficulty. And the other piece that I want to share, it just always stood out the most to me as a psychologist, was that the self-level. So, at the self-level, when it comes to culture, there were numerous people, numerous little groups, little teams, actually around NASA that were looking deeply into this issue of the foam hitting the orbiter, and they were really concerned. They were really concerned, but they didn't have a lot of data. And NASA is very data-driven. And so, like I was starting to allude to earlier, it's really difficult. It was difficult to NASA culture at the time to say, hey, I know we've made a decision in the past.

That foam is not something to worry about in flight, but let's just pretend that's not true. And also, I don't have any data to actually tell me that this is going to be a catastrophe, but it might be. So can we talk about it and spend some more money to get some imagery so we can just determine better. That was a request that actually was made, but it was being made in all of these indirect ways, all these indirect channels and because of the interrupt, personal fear to like really stand up and say, you know, hey, I'm actually terrified about this. And I don't have data to back me up. Every time the request to get more imagery, was shut down. It wasn't well understood. And at a certain point, people stopped fighting for it because they just didn't know.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and as a result, a catastrophic event happened, it could have been prevented. Had somebody been a bit more forthright or had communicated more effectively?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yeah, I mean, there’s probably numerous conversations, right? That could have gone differently.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: And one of the additional challenges is, if they did in fact get the imagery and discover, oh no, this is quite a large hole that the foam has created in the orbiters wing. They actually didn't know what they would do about it. There was no clear path or plan to fix that problem. And so, part of what we believe is that, if I don't think that I know how to solve a problem, or if I don't think that there's anything that I can do about it, then subconsciously I might actually convince myself that it's not really a problem. And then not even allow myself to be fully aware of it. And that's a big part of what we think was happening when it came to the decision making of the shuttle program manager at the time, just, you know what, it's not an issue. There's nothing we can do about it, so it's not an issue. There's actually a quote in the Columbia accident, investigation board, almost exactly to that effect.

Steve Rush: That’s really fascinating. We could spend loads more time on that, I'm sure. But culturally, that kind of three layers that inside out model you just described, all played out here, you can still have a good culture, but that's where performance problems can happen.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yeah, it's, you know, there are so many things that unfortunately ended up working against the intention. Like one of the key things that was also happening for the agency was there was a lot of pressure, mean the shuttle program at this point was over 20 years old, it was constantly considered to be on the chopping block in terms of budget. Maybe they were afraid the program could be canceled. Everything that they were doing to build a space station would potentially be canceled. They had huge schedule pressure to get the international space station finished by a certain date. So, this whole like save the program mentality, led people to subconsciously make much more risky decisions than they would have otherwise. And we equate it to, you know, if there's a large beam, just going 50 feet off of, you know, the Sears Tower and I put a hundred-dollar bill at the end, are you going to walk out and get it? Most people would say, no, I'm going to pass. But if I put your child out at the end of that beam, are you going to go and get your child?

Steve Rush: Yeah, it changes the dynamic somewhat, doesn’t it? Yeah.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Absolutely, so when it's like save the program, saves the baby. Because that's how the program, the shuttle program felt for a lot of people, they would subconsciously start making riskier and riskier decisions to save the program. So riskier decisions to try to maintain schedule, riskier decisions to say, oh, we don't have to worry about that right now because we need to keep moving forward. And so those were a lot of the things that we helped leaders pay attention to and take a look into.

Steve Rush: Some great lessons too.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: So, you were then hired by Walt Disney to help with their brand. And this is another interesting dynamic in so much as that when people think of Walt Disney they think of this high energy, positive culture. Tell us a little bit about what your experience was like with Walt Disney and then how that might have changed their perspectives around what culture meant for them?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: When, I was working for Disney. I was really excited about what they were focusing on because the big culture change, they were wanting to bring was around changing how I did performance management. And if you think about performance management in any organization, if you ask people like, hey, how do you like it your performance management process and system? It tends to just get met with groans, right? Leaders start to look at those conversations as like performance rating, justification conversations, employees tend to feel, you know, demoralized and frustrated and judged. They feel like they ended up trying to defend their own performance. Like almost nobody likes them. And the worst part is they don't actually tend to improve performance, which is the whole point. They're supposed to help improve performance. And so, what I loved about what they were doing was they wanted to get away from this whole idea of, you know, judging the people and saying, here's your rating, right?

We're going to grade you now to say, no, we want to train leaders how to coach. It's a totally different part of the brain. It's a different way to show up, it requires growth mindset, right? And not just for oneself, but a belief that this person I'm talking to can and absolutely will grow. And we're in it together kind of thing. And so, I thought that was a really exciting project that they were doing and huge because it changes so much of what people are comfortable with. This idea of like, it's so much, we just kind of give people a grade and then move forward. And so, I was working with them primarily on that project. And it was actually still an ongoing project when I made the decision to leave and focus full-time with GALLAHER EDGE.

Steve Rush: It's a massive mindset shift though, isn't it?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yes.

Steve Rush: Moving away from self-justification of here's what I've done versus here's how I'm helping the future evolve, which is what that coaching culture will create, right?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, part of what I took from that, and I have continued to build on with the clients I work with now is a paradigm chapter, I mention model chapter around, what does it mean to look at your employee’s performance? Stop thinking about your employee's performance as a result of, you know, your employee's competence, right? It's their performance is actually a result of their performance and your performance and the relationship the two of you have together. And when you start to think about your employee's performance in that way, then it really makes it feel in these conversations like this is you and me on the same side, working toward a solution together versus that you versus me thing that happens with those performance justification conversations, right? Of the more traditional style.

Steve Rush: Exactly, and the other really strange notion I've found is that you actually can't manage performance when it's done, it's done. When you have achieved a result, it's done, it's locked in time and history from that point onwards and therefore spending time over analyzing that is almost counter-intuitive, isn’t it?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yeah, it can take people backwards. You may remember where this came from Steve. I can't remember the attribution, but feed forward instead of feedback.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it’s something I deployed all the time,

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Love it. It's such a powerful concept and it starts to become like we use this communication framework. It's an acronym, Fric. It's FRIC. And so, you know, useful, especially when you think about this whole paradigm is shifting performance management away from rating and judging and more into just regular coaching conversations. We want it to be regular. We want it to be timely. We want it to happen in the moment. And so sometimes that it's hard. People are like, Ooh, these are hard conversations. So go ahead and start with the fear of the feeling. Get that out of the way, acknowledge if there is any emotion that you're noticing within yourself as your parts of the conversation, just lead with vulnerability. The R is for request, what do you want? And this is an example of feed forward.

So, I'm not harping on somebody for something that like you've said, Steve is done. It's in the past, it's over, it cannot be managed, but I can make a request of what I would like from you in the future. And it's not a demand, it's a request. And then the, I is for inquiry, which is essentially, you know, what can I do to make it easier for you to honor my request? And this is recognizing that whole co-creation idea, this recognizes like, hey, whatever's happening with us, whatever's happening with the performance. We're both creating it. We're both contributing to it. And I think I see something that I'd like from you, that's my request. What do you see within me? What would you like for me? How can I also participate and move together with you towards a solution? And then you want to get to at least one commitment, maybe two. And sometimes it's more, sometimes people have some communication debt and they don't really talk openly for a while. And so, they actually want to go back and forth to make multiple requests. And what they're doing is they're designing how they want to work together. And it's very, very effective at getting people past some of these conversations that they normally avoid, whether it comes to improving performance or improving team dynamics or anything like that.

Steve Rush: I love the simplicity of that little model and you can actually help just frame the conversation as well if you use that simple process as well. And one of the other things I also noticed that kind of is aligned to that almost is the principle. When people talk about performance, I get people to talk about the performer rather than performance, because the performer drags their performance, between better and different.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yes, very true. Yeah, I keep the focus on the person.

Steve Rush: Love it. What are the things that you're working on with GALLAHER EDGE and blending that psychology and industrial psychology together?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yeah, so this is really fun. So, I mentioned Dr. Phillip Meade is my business partner and he and I worked at a closely at NASA following the Space Shuttle Columbia accident. So, we've worked together now for, I guess, about maybe 15, 16 years, something like that. And so, he's got this industrial engineering background and I've got this industrial organizational psychology background. And so, when we bring that together, it's been for me at least, it's been really cool because I get to stay really focused on the psychological elements. I get to stay deep within the human issues that are going on because humans within ourselves, we are these complex adaptive systems, right. But then at the organizational level, there's this whole macro, you know, systems, theory, systems thinking, and how can we really make sure that we're fully designing everything, so we use metaphors of like, you know, designing a car, like, what are the design requirements of a vehicle?

Are you trying to create like a dump truck that can carry heavy loads? Are you trying to design a race car that can turn really quickly around a corner? Like there's no good or bad, but let's just be really intentional. So, he's brought so much of that macro, like organizational level thinking and allowing me to stay really focused on the human side. And we've built this model that really connects all of that, where we focus on these cultural traits, these things that emerge, you know, maturity, diversity, community, and unity, but we tie it deep into human motivation, like fundamental human motivation. We cause that there are four key drivers within us. And this gets you away from carrots and sticks, right? This is just human staff. We are all driven for growth, for belonging, for connection and for identity. And so, you know, these are like the missing links. We talk about linking the human beings together in a way that we can tap into these drivers, these fundamental motivations, and then what we get are these emergent traits. And so that's been a really exciting process. We've writing a book about that and tying in all the work that we did with NASA's culture, following the accident, what we've learned and how we've continued to apply that throughout working with different clients throughout different industries over the years.

Steve Rush: It'd be great to get you and Phillip back on a later show when the books out and really get into some of that together.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: That will be fantastic.

Steve Rush: So, from the last time we met, which is you present as a really confident, successful individual, who's got a huge track record of success and cultural shifting and changing behind you, but it hasn't always been that way for you. And I remember from the last time we met; you had this real problem with imposter syndrome for some time until you had this aha moment. And I wonder if he might be able to tell us a little bit about that.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yeah absolutely. Gosh, imposter syndrome. Well, I mean the first time, the first time that I really felt imposter syndrome was certainly when I began my work with NASA, I was actually 24 years old when I was hired. And I was asked to consult directly with the senior executive service director of engineering, which was this new organization that was being formed, right. As we were reorganizing the space center. I’m like, okay. Now what is it you're going to be able to share with him that he's going to look at me as this 24-year-old kid and go, okay, great, thanks so much.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: So, I really struggled with that when I very first started and I noticed that in this technique, this took me many years to figure out. That it really came down to a lack of genuine self-acceptance, right. Which means being fully okay with myself. Exactly

as I was in the moment, all my flaws, all my imperfections, all the things I didn't know, and also being okay with my talents and my strengths. So, in the beginning, the imposter syndrome hit me super hard and it would result in a lot of like, I would end up being rigid sometimes, right. So instead of being more flexible and co-creating with the people that I was working with, I was really just wanting to be right. And what that meant is I was focusing too much of my energy on trying to prove that I was right, rather than focusing on getting it right. And, you know, working with them and where I really saw that affect my performance was actually with my peers. So, the crazy irony about my early career, you know, I was brought in to NASA to really help them focus on psychological safety.

How can we help leaders create psychological safety so that people are no longer afraid to say, hey, I don't have any data, but I'm really afraid about this. Can we please have an open conversation or whatever it is, raise a dissenting opinion, champion a dissenting opinion. And so that's what I was working on with my internal customers and that was working out reasonably well. But I went through this experience. It was a five-day workshop called the Human Element just a couple of years into my career. Threw out that week, I got all kinds of feedback just as we were going through. And it was a lot of stuff that felt really weird at the time. But the short version is, I found out that I was actually engaging in a lot of the same exact behaviors with my team, that I was asking the leaders in my personal organizations to not do. So, I wasn't creating psychological safety within my team.

I was shutting people down without realizing it. And that realization like shook me to my core. I mean, I didn't even realize up to that point that I had low self-acceptance or lower self-acceptance. I mean, it's not dichotomous obviously, but it really made me take a much deeper look at things. And so, it took me still a couple more years to really figure it out and recognize that, you know, being competent isn't about knowing stuff. That's a very, you know, like grade school kind of mentality that children are taught, you know, learn this stuff, memorize it, take a test and then it's right or wrong. It's very binary, very black and white, but competence isn't knowing stuff. Competence is the ability to learn, grow, adapt, figure things out.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: And I can do that with other people and I don't have to be right. And so, I understood my own defense mechanisms to a much greater degree. And once I got there, I realized that this idea of imposter syndrome, Steve, it's actually very like arrogant and judgmental because if I have imposter syndrome, part of what I'm saying is, oh my gosh, these people around me are so stupid. I have fooled all of them into thinking that I actually know what I'm doing.

And I was like, whoa, like I thought imposter syndrome was kind of this like internally, like, oh, you know, I'm just, I'm insecure. And yes, it is. And insecurity leads us to not only judge ourselves, but judge other people. And so, it just started to completely shift my whole lens as I looked at what this meant. It's like, you know what, do I know everything? Not even close, right. The more I learned, the more I realized, I don't know, but my value isn't just in knowing stuff. My value is in being able to work with other people and continue to learn and grow and adapt and even whatever it is that I think, I know, I don't know anything, like were all wrong all the time. And so, if we can just shift the lens and get away from binary thinking, I think a lot of imposter syndrome will start to fall away from people.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and by asking more questions and learning more things, not only do we get richer, but we actually create more aha moments in other people as well.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Absolutely, yeah. Asking questions and really listening are two of the most powerful and sometimes underutilized behaviors and skills.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so I if our listeners are listening to us talk about imposter syndrome and they have a perception that that could be them. What would be your counsel to them to maybe go about dealing with that?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: So anytime we can develop a practice of self-acceptance, it's going to significantly reduce this feeling of imposter syndrome. And so, I define self-acceptance as being fully okay with yourself. Exactly as you are right now, that includes your flaws and imperfections as well as your talents and strengths. So, I'll give you a couple really tangible things that listeners can do to develop a practice of self-acceptance. And it's a practice you can think about it, like something you want to do on a daily basis, brushing your teeth, for example, or, you know, moving your body, some kind of physical exercise. It's not a light switch you just get to flip on and off. Okay, I've accepted myself. It's a practice, it's a rewiring of your brain. So, one way to practice higher self-acceptance is, we call it taking credit. Another way to frame it is like, what am I proud of myself for?

So, let's say for example, I want to start running. And I'm like, I'm going to run three miles and I get all my gear on and I go out there and I run and maybe I'm like not quite a mile in, and I'm starting to cram and I can hardly breathe and my legs are on fire. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't think I can do this. And so, I might have this raging imposter syndrome in the moment and I'm like, oh my God, like, I want to be a runner. Who am I kidding? I can't possibly be a runner. So, taking credit would be, instead of focusing on the gap of, oh my gosh, I wanted to run three miles. I only ran one. What is wrong with me? So, embarrassing. Like I’m an idiot, why did I think I could do that? Right. All that really negative self-talk the inner critic. Taking credit is saying, you know what? I am proud of myself for getting out there and running a mile because that was a mile more than I ran yesterday, or I'm proud of myself for getting out there and giving it a shot because that was a kind of a tough step for me. And I want to allow myself to feel good about that as an incremental step. So, taking credit or being proud of yourself for things that represent courage, represent progress, doing that regularly will actually accelerate your whole journey of growth and make it much easier for you to get over this whole idea of like, oh my gosh, I'm a phony and they're all going to figure me out.

Steve Rush: I love that.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: So that's one tip. And then I'll give one more tip too, which is around forgiving yourself. So, we're really trying to quiet the inner critic with a lot of these and like give more volume to the champion voice. So, forgiving yourself, it's so easy for us to fall into a pattern of beating ourselves up. Most people actually, at some point in their lives, they believed that they have to beat themselves up or they won't learn, grow, improve. They think that they need that really mean voice in order to actually get their button gear. And until you can truly experiment with quieting that voice and leaning just in the champion voice, you'll never learn that there are so many other things that still motivate you to move forward because it's something that we're just fundamentally wired to do is grow as humans. So, find the things that you want to forgive yourself for and forgive yourself as quickly as you can, even if it doesn't feel totally real, like let's say that I miss a meeting with a client, you know, something happened with my schedule or just, I don't know, I dropped the ball and I missed a meeting with a client.

I could beat myself up. I could get all mired down in all of the ways that you know, oh my gosh, who are thinking, I'm kidding. Trying to, run this business, trying to be a consultant. I can't even show up to a meeting on time. That's my inner critic, right? And she can be really brutal or I can say, okay, you know what? You actually did have a lot going on. And you know, that you would never intentionally miss a meeting. So, let's make sure that we learned from this and, you know, whatever it was that caused me to miss the meeting, I'm going to make sure that I always have a reminder set for myself. So that doesn't happen again. And it's okay. And so, it's this combination of having self-compassion while also recognizing that, you know, I'm not living up to my current standard. And so, when you can bring in that balance of holding a boundary for yourself while also having self-compassion, when you fail to meet it, that's you forgiving yourself. And these are practices that when you do them every day, your self-acceptance will get higher and higher and higher. And not only will you end up defeating these imposter syndrome moments, but you'll just be able to work so much better with other people. You'll be able to laugh at yourself. You'll be more attentive to other people, and you'll be able to emphasize more easily. You're going to basically have a deeper trust in your underlying ability to cope with whatever the world throws at you, because it's always going to throw things at you.

Steve Rush: Exactly, right. And what you've just described is almost a rewiring of that neurological pathways that we've created those previously bad habits.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yes.

Steve Rush: With replacing them with positive rituals and positive behaviors. And I love the fact that you call it self-acceptance practice because exactly that's what it is. You'll continually have the practice at it until it becomes second nature, right?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yes, absolutely. It's a practice and it gets really metta to Steve because if I find myself falling away from my self-acceptance practice, I can actually practice self-acceptance around that.

Steve Rush: Yeah, your right.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yeah, so, you know what, I have actually been really hard on myself lately and I haven't been using some of these tools and that's okay. It's a lot of wiring I'm working against and I am committed to bringing in that practice back.

Steve Rush: Excellent, brilliant. Okay, so this part show, we close out on three things, and the first thing we're going to close out on is to tap into the leadership aspects of your work in your career. And I'll ask you to narrow down some of those things that you've been working on, but to call that, perhaps your top three leadership hacks or your top tips or ideas, what would the top three be?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Top three, okay. The first one we've alluded to a little bit when we talked about slow down to speed up, so, pause. The power of pause, you know, I think that when leaders are really struggling, it's usually because things are moving so fast and in the moment their energy is not leaving enough space, for other people to truly be who they are and sort of this angsty energy can spread throughout. And it ends up stifling conversation and decreasing the effectiveness of decision making. So, taking more moments of pause in conversation, I think significantly improves the quality of those conversations. And that's another practice that leaders can bring into their daily lives. I invite my clients to do like an eight second pause between every meeting, between sending an email, literally just eight seconds of breath in and out, and then onto the next task. And it just sort of brings a calmer energy to the whole thing, which I believe is much needed.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it’s almost a little bit of a reboot, isn’t it?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yes, oh, I love that framing of it. Yeah, that's really good. Another one is listening, listening, listening, listening, and I know that Steve, you do a lot of working in change and I'm sure you've heard this too. I work with so many leaders who, when they're wanting to bring about a change and they're feeling resistance, either passive or active, but the people just aren't, they're not doing it. They're not stepping in line. They tend to focus on, I guess I have to tell them again, I guess I have to tell them differently. I guess I have to tell them louder, right. And what I want them to do instead is, like you were saying, ask questions and listen, listen, they may not even know themselves.

Why they're resisting the change or whatever it is that you're asking them to do. They may not be self-aware enough, but when you can ask those questions and really hold space and truly listen, not only to what they're saying, but listen for how they're feeling. Listened to the things they're not actually saying out loud, you will increase their self-awareness as well as your own. And then you're going to actually know, oh, okay, this is the true problem for us to solve here so that we can get back on the same page. So, listening, very powerful. And then the third one I would say is openness, which another way you can talk about that is vulnerability, I think.

I think this is becoming something that leaders are understanding more and more, but too many leaders I think still believe that they're supposed to know, or they're supposed to be able to figure things out. And their lack of vulnerability in conversation leads them to actually show up with more rigidity, which again, stifles communication, it can shut down conversation and it can harm trust actually. So, when leaders can go first with vulnerability, go first with being open about what they're really thinking and feeling, being open about you know, what they'd liked. We use that Fric acronym again, here to invite leaders to be more open, then others tend to also be more open. And that's where we get more information flowing back and forth. Trust increases, collaboration increases and performance, super

Steve Rush: Super lessons. Thank you. Next part of the show we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something in your work or your life hasn't worked out. Could even screwed up, but as a result of the experience you've learned from it, and it's now serving you well, what would your Hack to Attack be?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Hmm, well, I think, you know, the biggest one for me for sure, was what I had described earlier with, you know, my experience finding out that I was actually stifling the people that I worked with without even realizing it. But I'll go a little bit deeper into that whole recovery process because once I became more self-aware and I realized that I was not actually creating psychological safety within my team, my immediate go-to response was to try to imitate other people who seemed like they were doing it well. And it seemed, you know, I think I was still like mid-twenties at that point. So, I was like, oh, this is great, you know, I can just watch behavior and I can model that behavior. I even had like acting experience as a kid. I was like, oh, I can totally nailed this.

I can behave like this. I can act this way. And I came to learn, unfortunately in the first several months of trying this approach, that trying to only shift my behavior only shift how I was showing up on the outside without actually believing anything differently about the world, or really just sort of being in a lot of inner turmoil. I was actually still hurting trust. So, people were noticing that I was showing up differently, so totally know how to be around me because they could feel that I wasn't being myself. And so, you know, I think the Hack to Attack would be to don't think that you can just focus on shifting behavior and think that all the rest will follow, really see what the belief is underneath. How can you rewire your brain? That's driving the behavior. So, the behavior changes is a more natural, more emergent reality. So, focus on what is it that I believe about myself and the people around me, because that's, what's driving my behavior. How can I shift those beliefs around? Because you know that at least some of those beliefs are wrong, right? So much of what we believe is wrong. So, if I can shift my beliefs and allow the behavior change to follow, that's going to be a much more genuine way to approach growth.

Steve Rush: And ironically, you know, from a psychology perspective, you know, this more than most being an organizational psychologist, we have as human beings in innate BS monitor through our neuro transmitters.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yes.

Steve Rush: Whereas we listing and smelling it and sussing this out straight away that it's not congruent. And then straight away we can recognize that it doesn't feel right.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Absolutely. Even if we're not totally sure what it is, we're like that conversation did not feel good.

Steve Rush: Exactly, exactly. And the last thing we're going to do is ask you to do a bit of time travel bump into Laura at 21. And you now get to give us some advice, what would it be?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Oh, I would want her to recognize as early as possible that she does have very strong perfectionist tendencies and that this drive with perfectionist tendencies is actually working against her. So, I would want her to lean into being messy and recognize that, you know, you go forward even five or six years in your life and nobody gives a crap about your grades. So, like there were so many things that I was so focused on that just didn't matter. And of course, you know, getting good grades in college helped me get into grad school and that's great, but I literally will tell students now, especially those who are in grad school and like, you know what, just learn, focus on learning. I'm like, I don't know if I would've listened to this advice myself, but I was so focused on the evaluative component of it. And any advice that I could have given to Laura at 21 to encourage her to instead focus on the journey and focus on the learning and growth that's occurring rather than this sort of, how do I look to other people?

Steve Rush: Fantastic advice, really good stuff. So, we're going to have to find some way of working together, you and I, because we've got lots of parallels and lots of commonalities in terms of the work that we do.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: I would love that.

Steve Rush: We have to do that.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Yes.

Steve Rush: But outside of today, our listeners are probably wanting to learn how they can get to know a bit more about you, GALLAHER EDGE, when the book comes out, how can they find him? Where's the best place for us to send them?

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Best place to find me is at gallaheredge.com. I know a lot of people think it's Gallagher, because that's way more common, but it's actually GALLAHER. So, gallaheredge.com and there you can you can email me and you can see our phone number there, or you can just see the different ways that we work with people.

Steve Rush: We will make also, they're in our show notes so that people can go straight away from listening to this and connect with you.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Thank you.

Steve Rush: Laura, I love talking with you. It's been a few months since we met last and every time, I do speak with you, I get this real sense of desire for more learning. You spark things in me. So that's been great and I hope our listeners have got that out of our show today. And I just want to say thank you for coming on and being part of our community and wish you every success with the book launch. And we'll have to get you back on the show in the future.

Dr. Laura Gallaher: Thank you so much, Steve.

Steve Rush: Thank you, Laura.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Matt Somers is a super coach who helps senior leaders to become better coaches; he wrote the amazing book, Coaching At Work. You can learn bucket loads from Matt in this show including:

Why leader coaches get confused between leadership and expertise
The importance of focusing on the right type of goal
How to coach in a way of being as a leader/ line manager
What the “Peak” coaching model is and how to use it

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Matt below:

Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattsomers/

Matt’s Website: https://www.mattsomers.com

Matt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MattSomers

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Our special guest on today's show is Matt Somers. Matt is a management consultant specializing in providing coaching skills for managers and leaders. He's got over 20 years’ experience as developing leaders as coaches. But before we get a chance to speak with Matt, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: There's a coaching theme in today's show. So, for those of you that have been regular listeners, you may have heard me talk about the notion of having helpful conversations. There are purists out there who condemn coaches for giving advice, tips, and ideas, and straying off the line of pulling the information and helping their coaches self-discover. Well, the lines are often blurred between coaching, teaching, mentoring, and counseling. And the reason for this is that many people receiving coaching or coachees are they're often referred to have challenges, situations, and goals that are not very linear in fact, need a blended approach.

And that's why I invite you today to reframe coaching into having a helpful conversation that way we don't beat ourselves up for not sticking to the script. You'll hear Matt talk today about the coaching leadership style, which embraces the helpful conversation philosophy. A coaching leadership style is an approach that creates the culture of high-performance. The characteristics of this coach is collaboration, empowerment, fulfillment, and collaboration is the most important these characteristics. And this is often contrasted against the command-and-control approach, which we all know stifles potential. Coaching leadership incorporates, coaching mindsets, and behaviors, synthesizing them to create a highest potential and the highest performing type of leadership. And it does it by unlocking and enabling potential. So, the next time one of your team or a client asks you for coaching, take the opportunity to consider your approach, but don't get hung up over the conversation.

Just make sure it's a helpful one. I just want to take this time to say thank you to our listeners. Who've been sending us information and ideas that appear in The Leadership Hacker News week on week. So, if you also have a topic or an idea that you'd like us to cover, please just continue sending them in and get in touch with us through our various social media sites. So that's been The Leadership Hacker News, let's get into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Matt Somers is a super coach who helped senior leaders to become better coaches and have more powering and sometimes difficult conversations. Matt is also the author of Coaching At Work. Matt, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Matt Somers: Thanks for having me on. Steve, great to be here.

Steve Rush: So, tell us a little bit about Matt?

Matt Somers: Tell you a little bit about Matt? The place to start probably is, I'm a failed banker. So, I came out of education and started working in banking here in the UK and found that I wasn't very good at that Steve. I would lend people money; they had a habit of not giving it back. These days, they probably qualify you for a knighthood, you know, but back in the early 1980s, when I started my career, that wasn't much. So, I guess somebody somewhere thought, well, we need to do something else with this guy. And I found myself in the world of personnel and training and so on, you know, and found that that was a very comfortable place for me to be. I really enjoyed this idea of thinking more about the people who work this side of the counter, rather than the public, the customers, the other side.

So, began really a lifelong interest in the idea of developing people to the point where later on in my time in banking, I found myself on a coaching course and learning about coaching. This would have been the early nineties where the idea of coaching and business was still pretty new. To me, it came along as an absolute revelation. And I remember thinking, well, if I'd been managed this way? Life would have been a lot easier, you know, and I'd have probably gone a lot further.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Somers: And then when I took my exit from banking and set up by myself the obvious specialism that was suggesting itself to me, I suppose, was to get into the idea of the leader as coach and courses and programs and so on with that in mind.

Steve Rush: Awesome, and you've dedicated your whole career really, since then in helping other people and helping leaders think of themselves more like coaches.

Matt Somers: I have, yes. I mean, I've done other things. And I suppose though that one of the things that I discovered was that there was little else that seemed to be as useful to the leaders that I was working with. Then getting their head around the notion of coaching for performance, getting results from their staff, making that transition from being somebody who got results for him or herself through their own endeavors. Through to getting results via other people, which I think is one of the trickiest career transitions to make Steve, isn't It? It's very obvious in say something like sales, where typically we take the best performing sales person at that point in time and give them the role of sales manager and then wonder why they struggle a bit, but the skill sets almost diametrically opposed. They're very different discipline.

Steve Rush: So, if somebody said to you Matt, what is a leader as a coach, and how does that differ? Just give us your spin on that.

Matt Somers: Well, this is really interesting to me because I'm going to say, I'm not sure it does in important ways. So, I have this idea that leaders or coaches, whether they like it or not. And the Genesis of that idea, as I said in the previous answer, alongside one in my coaching courses would do other sorts of leadership development type activity. And I would often get the groups I was working with to produce lists, and I would have them list the qualities of an effective leader. And then on other programs would have them list the qualities of an effective coach. And what I began to find more and more was the two lists were very, very similar to the point of being identical. For example, qualities that were often cited on both lists would be trustworthiness. It would be able to keep focus. It would be being a good listener. I mean, boy, that came up time and time again. So, I realized that certainly viewed through the lens of what is it that our people want, then the roles of leader and coach are synonymous in my experience. Now, you know, other people have fought me over this and that's fine because I understand that there are, you know, if the two Venn diagrams overlap at that point, then there's clearly sort of other things that both roles do separately. But in terms of the leader as coach, you know, I found that the level of skills and attributes and qualities, they're so similar.

Steve Rush: So, I'd love to kick this around a little bit more.

Matt Somers: Okay.

Steve Rush: The whole principle of I’m a leader and leader by the way, as you know, I've been bleating on about for years, it doesn't have to be a hierarchical thing. It's somebody who assumes that role and provides that support, council, encouragement. It doesn't have to be a job role, but let's just assume for this conversation, we're talking about leadership in terms of hierarchy and management levels.

Matt Somers: Okay.

Steve Rush: What's your experience that as people gain that hierarchical levels, so they become more senior in their roles. Do you observe them coaching more or less?

Matt Somers: That's a great question, Isn't it? I think I observed them coaching less.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that's my observation too. And I just wondered what your thoughts were as to why that would be?

Matt Somers: Well, I think firstly, that is because of a confusion between leadership and expertise. My observation would be that leaders often feel that they assert or they feel they have to assert their leadership through their expertise. They've got to be the guy with the answers. If people come to them with a problem, leadership requires them to solve that problem, you know, to seen this before, to have encountered this issue before and know what to do about it. And I think, well, my goodness me, if that wasn't the case before February 20, it certainly isn't the case now, post COVID. I find that a lot of work I'm doing is with leaders who say, look man, you know, my experience, my expertise is kind of redundant now. We're coming back, to this so-called new normal and the rules of the game have changed. How do I help my own people when I don't any longer have the answers? You know? So, I think one of the reasons why leaders coach less is a false expectation that they shouldn't have to somehow if that makes sense.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it does. And I think the other notion is, as a senior leader, who is also maybe managing senior leaders, there might be an assumed level of capability and expertise that requires them to coach less we're in my experience actually, is that that's a great opportunity to really unlock that knowledge, skills and capability to coach more.

Matt Somers: I'd agree with you. I think it's this idea of leadership by osmosis. You know, somehow, you're supposed to be imbued with all of these skills and abilities overnight, because somebody now put the word leader on your business card, on the description. I have a friend of mine, quite a well-known speaker called Andy Hanselman. And he has a lovely turn of phrase when he says, leadership's the job you get by being good at something else. Which goes back to this idea of, you know, the best performing sales person, turn them into leaders, wonder why they struggle. Because in many ways, you know, leadership is a learned skill, isn’t it? there's certainly skills and attributes that that can be developed even if one is a sort of natural leader to begin with. So, it's fair to expect that people are going to need to go through that learning journey and get a chance to practice their leadership skills, get a chance to develop them and to be able to acknowledge when they're struggling with the leadership requirement.

Steve Rush: That's right, yeah. And I guess also many leaders are also line managers and there is maybe a subtle difference with coaching as a line manager. We have skin in the game, having absolutely no vested interest. And I wondered what your thoughts and observations were about that as a notion?

Matt Somers: I agree with that. I think if I recall the days when I would have groups assembled in front of me, we we'd be running coaching programs and this would often come up in discussion and I would find myself saying, I think people like me, external coaches in some ways have an easier job than does the internal coach, because we don't have those other requirements to manage at the same time. So, if I'm a line manager coaching a group of people. Well, I've also probably got to manage their workflow, you know, I've got sickness absence to deal with. I've got all sorts of other things going on at the same time, including by the way that I might have to be maybe the disciplinarian sometimes with some of those same folks, you know, having to have some difficult conversations and have people wake up and smell the beans.

I think that, you know, coaching alongside other management responsibilities can be a tricky combination, but it can certainly be done. Because I think where the coaching approach is sort of inherently part of the managers or the leadership styles. So, it's coaching as part and parcel of who I am and how I conduct myself rather than coaching as a task that I pick up and put down like a performance appraisal or something else. Then I think the beauty of coaching is, it enables you to have that sort of default way of dealing with people that you can move in and out of then, you know, and perhaps toughen things up if that's even the right expression if you need to.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so what I think I heard you say, was coaching as a way of being rather than something that you periodically do?

Matt Somers: Definitely, yeah, definitely. I think that's where the prize is. And again, when I'm working with leaders who wants to learn about coaching, I think one of the barriers that they'll start the training with is, where the hell am I going to find time for this? You know, if I'm not busy enough already, and now this guy's going to have me wanting to do all these coaching conversations. Well, the way that I address that is to say that all of those occasions in which you could do some great coaching aren’t happening anyway, you're just maybe not seeing them as a coaching opportunity, but I think really as a line manager or a leader, and I'm going to make the distinction and say to me that somebody who has to get results through others, at least in part, you know, so my assumption is that somebody got the typical sort of six or eight people that reporting into them. Were really at any time, one of those people calls you up and has a conversation about something that they're struggling with or something that's already going quite well. They getting bored now and want to take it to the next level. Those are coaching opportunities; the day is full of them. And so, in some ways, you know, if we abandon this idea, that coaching has to be some formal timetable set up and instead it's part and parcel of natural day-to-day activity. Well, then you don't need to find additional time to do a new task.

Steve Rush: That's right, yeah. Great stuff. I remember from when the last time you and I met. Goals have been something that's forefront of your mind, that's part of your kind of coaching philosophy. I just wanted to explore the fact that in the changing world that we're in now, how easy is it to help people keep focused on their goals when the world around them is changing so readily?

Matt Somers: Yeah, well it depends what you mean by goals, I think first and foremost.

Steve Rush: That’s really a good place to start, right?

Matt Somers: Yeah, well, because when we think about say that the smart model. The goal ought to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, or variations thereof, those what I think of I've come to appreciate as performance goals, you know, so run a hundred meters in under 10 seconds, or put a thousand people through health and safety training in a given year. We need only to think about the start of 2020 when the pandemic hit. So, you realize how vulnerable those sorts of goals are to changing circumstances. So perhaps the way to deal with that is to recognize that there are other sort of elements or other parts of goals If you like, now I'm going to say this was popularized most recently by Simon Sinek. You know, the idea is start with the why.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Somers: So, the why or the end goal or the dream goal using my same two examples would be, I want to win the Olympic gold, or we want to eliminate accidents, so if we keep our eye on the long term, the ultimate goal, then we can adjust the performance goals underneath that without quite so much disruption and the way to do that. There were various ways, people have vision boards or storytelling is very popular now to describe that sort of high-level goal. And then the ones that cascade from that we can be much more nimble with, you know, they sort of survive ever changing circumstances.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and I guess also underneath those performance goals, there are things that you have every single day that you have high levels of control over that make those performance goals become more of a reality, right?

Matt Somers: Well, I call those processes, yes. So again, if we follow those couple of examples. The dream is to win Olympic gold, and then the performance goal might be on one occasion, run a hundred meters in under 10 seconds, but there need to be supporting processes of course, wouldn't they? Training regimen and diet, all of that, same with the health and safety requirements, you know, you're going to need six sheets and control and check mechanisms and all sorts of processes. And when I'm coaching people, one of the things I find is often very useful is to make sure that those three things line up. The end goal or the dream, the performance goals, and the processes are all synchronized if you see what I mean.

Steve Rush: Yeah, totally. And I guess without that focus on those processes and performance, the end goal, isn't going to happen anyway. Because you have absolutely no control over it, right?

Matt Somers: Of course, yeah. And I think the other thing that happens and it often makes people in a work situation, very frustrated is, maybe the end goal has changed or has inside of them, you know, what they consider to be important, but they're still pursuing the same old processes. You know, their work life therefore becomes very sort of boring and frustrating and tedious because their end point has changed, their other goals and processes haven't sort of caught up and it can happen the other way round as well. This is very common; I think in coaching. That people are very focused on the sort of the end point, the big picture, the vision. But haven't really thought through, down to a detailed level. What does this require me to do sort of day in day out or week in, week out in order to move slowly, gradually, but definitely towards that? So, you need all three, you know, we need the inspiration and the mechanism and the goal as well. You know, that sort of determines what that looks like, the specification,

Steve Rush: I wonder if it's because those folks who are very successful during the pandemic perhaps had that focus around what was in their control versus those who felt out of control at that time?

Matt Somers: Yeah, I think so. And I think that other people may be found that during the pandemic, certainly at the start, I mean, the stuff that I follow online was full of people who had escape, what do you call it? The mouse is wheel, you know, they were like a rat that had been lifted out of the maze and then stopped sort of running around, banging their head against a walls. And it actually, maybe for the first time in their career, really been able to stop and sit down and think and wonder about what they really wanted from life and what was it all about? And I think we're still seeing that shake out now. And I think it'll carry on for some time to come before we, as a society have moved fully through that process.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I agree Matt.

Matt Somers: Very interesting times. Very interesting times to be working in fields like yours, and mine Steve.

Steve Rush: Definitely, yeah. And the great news is, with a little bit of focus, little bit of clarity of some of the things that people can have high levels of controlling, it sets the motivation and momentum off, doesn't it?

Matt Somers: It does, yeah.

Steve Rush: And you wrote the very successful book Coaching At Work and within that you created the peak coaching model and I'd love to kick around the concept of what the peak coaching model is and how we could use it?

Matt Somers: Okay, sure. Well, the first thing I want to say is that model it's very much a synthesis of the work of two main influences on me. Now, one would be, listeners might have heard of these guys. One would be Tim Gallway, most famous for The Inner Game of Tennis, but also a series of inner game books.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Somers: And then the late Sir John Whitmore here in the UK.

Steve Rush: Great guy. I had the pleasure working with them about 15 years ago.

Matt Somers: Oh, well, okay. So, you know, he was a great guy. We miss him terribly and he and Tim did a lot of work together, of course, so they influenced each other, but I want to say that I've always felt my book did a poor job of acknowledging them and the source of my ideas. So, I'm always very happy to sort of reinforce that a lot of what I talk about in my stuff, you know, very, very much builds on and take some of those ideas and resynthesize them. And my model that I wrote about in my book, I guess, would be take a while to explain, but I thought it might be nice just to pass on a couple of sorts of essences from that people can start to play with.

Steve Rush: Awesome, let’s do it.

Matt Somers: Straightaway, hack. So, taken from the work of Tim Gallway is something that became known as the coaching equation and that you would set out as saying that a person's performance is equal to their potential minus the interference, right? So, if you can imagine that sort of express deserve formula, you've got a big P equals little P minus I. So seen in that way, if we want to improve performance. And you know, that itself comes under a number of guises, but it might be, you know, sales improvement or quality, or who knows how we would judge performance, but to improve that we can do one of two things. We can either add to potential, and that's what a lot of Orthodox training and development is all about, isn't it? It's giving people more stuff to lean into. More skills, more experiences, or we can look at reducing or eliminating interference.

And this to me is one of the ways in which coaching is different from other training and development methods. And I think that we do the latter of those less often. And there is low-hanging fruit by paying attention to that. One of the things that I encourage coaching leaders, coaching managers to do is, to speak what is interfering. You know, there might be external interference that could be to do with policy, position, procedures, culture, the way the organization runs more often though. It's what we might think of as internal interference that the individual who's trying to do, their best stuff is experiencing in the moment. So that is probably some sort of expression of fear or self-doubt. Imposter syndrome is very popular at the moment. People talking quite a lot about that, you know, the way in which mentally we get in our own way. So, there's a first hack, you know, rather than put all of our attention on raising potential, pay some attention to reducing interference. And I think you'll find that you know, there's some immediate headway to be made on that.

Steve Rush: Great, I love that. I really love it.

Matt Somers: And now the other hack. My model sort of goes on to build on that because performance, doing something that we're good at. Doing that well, I think is a key source of this idea of intrinsic motivation. Now, again, that in itself is a big topic, but intrinsic motivation to me means, you know, something that's motivating inherently in the work itself, rather than being introduced externally from outside, pay and another rewards. Performance, doing something well is a source of intrinsic motivation. But so too is learning and enjoyment. So, learning again, let me clarify.

I don't mean necessarily going off on courses and qualifications, but finding the work interesting, you know, being able to be curious about things and get answers to questions and enjoyment. Okay, again, not necessarily something introduced from outside socializing or something like that, but just finding the work inherently enjoyable. But I think the mistake that we often make is to see those things as separate and almost competing activities.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Matt Somers: Almost as if we could say, well, we can be performing, we can be learning, or we can be enjoying, but again, there's a quick win there. If we start seeing those things as part and part of the same experience, if we can start creating an environment for people in which they can perform, learn and enjoy at the same time, the potential for that to effect results is mammoth. You know, there's some real headway to be made there.

Steve Rush: Yeah, sure is, definitely. So, we've tapped into a couple of coaching hacks. Now it's time for us to spin around a little bit and think about your leadership experience and all of the great leaders you work with and for, and the teams that you've led, what would be your top three leadership hacks Matt?

Matt Somers: Well, I, again, I mean, many of them, I suppose, are going to resonate with the coaching approach, but maybe that's because I have this idea that they're almost one in the same thing, but I guess it comes down to three, three hacks. Ask, listen, and observe. So, to go through them one by one. Ask, if we think of, maybe we've got somebody working the telephone and they're editor in a customer service role or a sales role or something like that, they're working with customers. What I don't mean is the typical sort of high level, how did that call go? That's not what I mean, by asking more questions, it might be something like thinking about the call you've just had, at what point in that call, did you know you were going to have a successful outcome? And depending on what the answer is, we might delve into that more deeply.

Well, was it something to do with the customer's tone or was it the word that they used? You know, when I ask a question that's really going to require the person that I'm leading or coaching to notice what's happening to them. You know, it's a subtly different sort of question. I think good leaders are able to be incisive. They're able to cause their people to pause for thoughts and learn from their own experience, so, asking more. Listening, that comes up always, doesn't it?

Steve Rush: It does, yeah.

Matt Somers: If we're trying to develop a leader's ability. And I think that of the countless times I've asked people to think about improving their listening, or what do they notice in those that do that? Well, three things are key. One is, use of silence. I think pausing, just being quiet as a leader, you know, enabling your people to speak. Find the words to describe their own thoughts without being hurried along, is massively important. Removing distractions, and I don't just mean, you know, get stuff out of the way behind when you're on a Zoom call. I think, I mean, probably remove internal distractions more. Worrying about the call that you've just had, or the calls that's going to come, to try to really give the person who's speaking in that present moment your fully on divided attention, difficult thought that is, again is key. And then the third listening tip would be to summarize using their own words. You know, there's something very engaging about hearing people saying, so if I've understood you correctly, what you seem to be saying is, and playing back their words, you've done that a couple of times on this call today, you know, it's really helpful in enabling people to think well.

Steve Rush: Hmm, yeah.

Matt Somers: And then observe, I mean more difficult these days, I guess if we're not doing quite as much face-to-face interaction as we once did. But it's really a question of, is the body dancing in tune with the words that the person you're using? And if it's not, if there's a dissonance there, it's perhaps being able to challenge that in a sensitive way by saying, okay, you know, you're telling me you're full of enthusiasm for this latest change initiative, but that's not what I'm seeing in the way that you're sitting. Is this something that we can talk about some more? So, those would be the three hacks to ask, to listen, to observe.

Steve Rush: That's great. I love that last one as well. And I think it's probably one that we still don't tap into enough and it’s that intuitive response when we see somebody in something that’s in-congruent, as a coach and as a leader, as a coach. Our job is just a voice that, isn't it?

Matt Somers: Yeah, I think so. I often say perhaps the big trick is just to do it from a place of curiosity. So, Steve, I'm noticing that what you're saying is X, Y, Z. But what I see is A, B, C, you know, it could be me, but could we just talk about this for a moment or two? So, it's almost providing that gentle opening for the person who's answering the question so, well, actually, now that you say that, yeah, here's what I'm feeling. And as a leader, that might be a difficult thing to have to hear, but I've always found that it's much better to get it out in the open, then this thing just kind of going on under the surface.

Steve Rush: Definitely, so, and of course it could also be a bias from the coach themselves. And therefore, again, just by using your words of curiosity, by being curious about it, at least it gets it out. And therefore, we get to know whether it's true or not, don’t we?

Matt Somers: Yeah, what harm in the coach saying, well, this could be my bias, but, you know, because it's the spirit of exploration. I mean, to go back to Tim Gallwey I mentioned earlier on, he has this lovely turn of phrase, and he says that. Coaching is a conversation in which two people are learning. And yes, that's absolutely been my experience as well. This is not about the coach, you know, kind of doing something to somebody. It's two people meeting as equals, exploring a situation. And I invariably find out lots about the way that the world works and the way that people operate in it when I'm poaching people from the wonderful answers that they give me, you know, the fantastic thinking that they're able to do.

Steve Rush: Yeah, great stuff. So next part of our show, we call Hack to Attack Matt.

Matt Somers: Okay.

Steve Rush: So, this is where something in your life or work hasn't worked out, but as a result of the experience, it's now serving you well, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Matt Somers: Okay, my Hack to Attack. So, this goes back to my early career which I mentioned at the top was in high street banking. And when I was on the counter, we used to call it in the UK, working on the tilt, you know, but you were facing the public exchanging money and so on. We had a leader, she was called the first cashier, I think, in a space that would be the head of teller or something like that. And she would often close down, you know, busy time, but she would close her tilt down and start doing other things. And this sort of really annoyed both the staff and the customers alike. And one day when I guess, was feeling particularly miffed about this. I got some correction fluid and I added a little S at the front of her sign that she would turn around, which would normally say tilt closed, you know, and she would put it in a glass screen and let the world know that her tilt was closed.

So, I added this S which means it’s still closed, you know, now this raised a laugh and I suppose, made everybody sort of have a chuckled and feel a bit better for a while. But what I realized looking back on that was, I absolutely undermined that lady’s leadership by doing that, you know, and I'm pretty embarrassed about it now, if I'm honest, because what I realized really the Hack to Attack is, that if you want to be a better leader, well start with being a better follower, you know, if I was in any way, feeling that she wasn't asserting the greatest of leadership, well, then why not help, you know, instead of make her job even harder. So, I got a nice ego stroke out of it, you know, cause obviously the clown for an afternoon. But it wasn't great looking back on that, certainly not to be recommended.

Steve Rush: That great awareness though. Having gone through that experience and recognizing that you actually can really help leaders by giving them some feed forward, can't you?

Matt Somers: You can, sometimes again, it comes up in the sort of training I do. Matt, can I coach my boss? And I'll say, yeah, absolutely. And please do, because I'm sure they need all the help they can get. I mean, you might not sit them down and say, right boss, I'm going to coach him for the next two hours, you know? So, we're going to turn the lighting down and sit in soft furnishings, but the idea of coaching enabling other people to work with greater awareness and learn from their own experiences, you know, is not connected in any way to a hierarchy. It can flow in all kinds of directions.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it can. So, the last thing we're going to do is give you an opportunity to go and do some time travel, bump into Matt at 21. And you're able to look him in the eye and give them some advice. What would it be?

Matt Somers: Well, I heard this question come up on some of the other podcasts I listened to before this. So, I did do some thinking about this in advance. And then the first thing I wrote down on my notes here actually is, I would say to him, don't have that next Budweiser. It really doesn't end well, but that's a conversation for another day. Two things really, seriously to my 21-year-old self or anyone at that stage in their career, two things. One is, take more risks. You got less to lose and you have a lot longer to recover, you know? So, I wish I'd gotten involved in trying to set up my own business or do something entrepreneurial a lot earlier than I did because by the time I was working in that way, you know, I was married, I had a child and mortgage, all of those things, don't make it impossible, but it's certainly not easier.

So, take more risks and have more fun. I always say to people you've only got 10 years to be in your twenties. It's a short time, it flies by. You may still be in your twenties.

Steve Rush: As you well know I’m not.

Matt Somers: I think probably took myself a little bit too seriously back then. It was all about the career, you know, and sort of moving up the greasy pole and I already had a mortgage on a home. I don't know, I could have waited. I could have spent more time perhaps drinking Budweiser and doing other fun things, you know? So, take more risks, have more fun, is what I would say to 21-year-old me.

Steve Rush: And they echo very similar conversations I have with my 21-year-old daughter. And I've got two boys in their early twenties as well. And you know, it's that kind of seize the moment. And I love the notion of you've got a longer time to recover because I don't think you realize that a young age, do you?

Matt Somers: No, you don't. I think, I've got to cut it all sort of squared away. And again, you know, there's the COVID lesson isn't there. Lesson they had, so much disruption in the last 15, 18 months that I think, yeah, some of those other concerns can wait, they can be working a lot longer in their lives than you and I are Steve. There's plenty of time.

Steve Rush: Exactly right. So, what's the focus of your work right now, Matt?

Matt Somers: So, I found a sweet spot. A sweet spot between executive coaching that sort of one-to-one relationship and the coaching skills training. So, in other words, I'm doing a lot of coaching skills training, still helping leaders adopt a coaching style of leadership or to build that into their style. But I'm tending to do that now on a one-to-one basis rather than a one to many, a typically, which is great. I think for two reasons, there's one. Going back to one of our earlier conversations, for more senior leaders who perhaps don't want to sort of launder these ideas in a group setting, they can find that very helpful. The other great advantage, of course, everything can be done real time on their own business, you know, rather than sort of fictional case studies or things that they might have encountered on a program. So, that's proven to be quite popular and working quite well.

Steve Rush: Great stuff. So, if our folks wanted to find out a little bit more about the work you're doing and maybe get copy of Coaching at Work, where's the best place for us to send them.

Matt Somers: Oh, okay. Well probably the best place would be my website, which is wwwmattsomers, M, A, double TT, S O M E R S.com. But equally and preferably actually I like it when people reach out on LinkedIn. So, I'm on LinkedIn forward slash Matt Summers. And I prefer that because that tends to mean we can get a dialogue going, you know, and have a discussion about things. So, find me on LinkedIn. That would be lovely

Steve Rush: And they won't need to find you because we'll make sure in the show notes of this show, they can click on those links that will be embedded in there for you.

Matt Somers: Oh, that will be great Steve, thank you.

Steve Rush: Matt, I've loved talking coaching with you. Thanks ever so much for taking time out, to be on the show and really appreciate you being with us.

Matt Somers: Yeah, that's my pleasure Steve. Been really fascinating and thank you again for having me on.

Steve Rush: You're welcome. Thanks Matt.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there, @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Cody Lowry is the President of the Automotive and Retail Division of the Intermark Group. He's also the author of Schmooze, What They Should Teach at Harvard Business School. Listen to Cody share:

How he went from blue blood wealth to rags, moving 32 times before he was 11.
How he intuitively used his schmooze to get on in life and work.
Why paying compliments is more powerful than paying a gratuity.
How to avoid the “What If Syndrome.”

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Cody below:

Cody on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cody-lowry-63a339a/

Cody’s Website: https://mrschmooze.com

Cody on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/misterschmooze/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Today's guest is Cody Lowry. He's the President of the Automotive and Retail Division of the Intermark Group. He's also the author of Schmooze, but before we get a chance to speak with Cody, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

In today's news, we explore the concept behind hybrid working, or as it's often referred to, flexible working. Since the onset of the pandemic, a myriad of corporations have overhauled the way they operate. Now with the possibility of return to office on the horizon, only two thirds of workers are wanting to remain working from home, according to a recent survey by Gallup, their research has found that organizations need to develop a long-term hybrid work strategy that meets the needs of both employees and businesses. In determining these approaches, leaders should keep one concept at the top of their priority list, and that's flexibility. So remote working is no longer an added benefit, but a requirement for happy and productive people.

So, here's some tips and ideas to help you think about your hybrid strategy. First things first, people come first. Support and organizations don't make assumptions about the way they think their employers currently work and want to in the future, you need to know exactly how your people want to work so that you can plan and putting the necessary steps in place, by gaining better insights and asking the right questions of your team, you can adapt and think about getting the best out of them so that you benefit as an organization. Create a number of different spaces and when I mean spaces, not physical spaces, but workspaces. Of course, some permanent desk spaces will still be needed, but your organization might want to start thinking about hot desks, video conferences, called pods or remote collaboration spaces that will help you get the best out of people working differently at different times, and from different locations.

Create a truly inclusive workplace. There are obviously huge benefits of embracing the world of hybrid working, but it's also important to avoid that any inclusivity issues may arise when you kind of move to this model, there are concerns by some that it actually might lead to a creation of a two-tier workforce. Those who are constantly present in the office and those who designed to work more remotely, and as leaders, we need to make sure that people understand that whether they're in the office or not, their work is equally valued, you also need to be thoughtful around how and when meetings are held so that everybody feels included.

Health, safety, and wellbeing are at the absolute heart of this activity. It doesn't matter whether your people are working from home or in an office. As a leader, you have a duty of care over your team. For those in an office, it's important to ensure that all the necessary steps are taken to create a COVID safe environment or those working from home need to be informed of the ways in which to protect their physical and mental health. And remember mental health is just as important as physical health, especially at the moment. And there's lots that we can do to make sure that we keep our physical and mental health employees at the front of our conversations.

So, in summary, let's think about what needs to happen. We need to be thoughtful about the people, their environments, the choices that they make, and tapping into technology that helps us do that the best, whether we're in an office or whether we're working remotely. What's most important is, without your people being motivated, focused, and engaged, it doesn't really matter where they are. That's been The Leadership Hacker News, if you have any insights, information, please get in touch with us.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Cody Lowry is a special guest on today's show. He's an entrepreneur, he's the President of the Automotive and Retail Division at the Intermark Group. He's also a speaker and author of the book Schmooze. Join me in welcoming Mr. Schmooze himself, Cody, welcome to the show.

Cody Lowry: Well, thank you so much, Steve. I am delighted to be with you today and your folks out there, don't know how popular you are, but Steve and I actually had a conversation nine years ago and I finally got an opportunity to be on his show. So, I'm tickled to death to be here.

Steve Rush: Schmooze and accent already, and we've only just got started, huh?

Cody Lowry: There you go. There you go.

Steve Rush: So, Cody, you have an amazing backstory and I will be really interested for the listeners to get a sense of kind of where you came from and how you've arrived to do what you do?

Cody Lowry: Yeah, Steve, I really got a different story. We always hear about the rags to riches, while I'm actually a riches to rags kid. I was born into a family of wealth and blue blood, and by the time I was five, it was all gone. We lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and with a seven-year period in a seven-mile radius we moved 32 times. So, it was you know, the lights were turned off. St. Vincent De Paul was my favorite Saint because he used to be there Christmas day. But, you know, just backtracking a little bit. There's a high school in Detroit named after my grandfather, there was a book written. He was the first President of Wayne State University. My mother was, actually, I call her the debutante mom because she made her debutante and went to a finishing school in Washington and, you know, had all the trappings of, you know, just a great life and a good life to come.

She met my father, they were both camp counselors, swimming coaches at camp Chicopee in Northern Michigan. And he came from a pretty well to do family, but for whatever reason, they got married, had four beautiful children. And I was one of them. And they came to Florida and ran through whatever money they had. My dad became an alcoholic. My mom was an alcoholic. It was kind of a Helter Skelter childhood, was screaming and hollering and, you know, no food, the lights being changed and then moving 32 times. We actually lived in two places twice.

Steve Rush: That's incredible.

Cody Lowry: I can remember coming home with my little brother from school and we didn't live there anymore. So yeah, I had kind of a different childhood at age 11. I started selling papers and you're from across the pond there. So, you know who the Artful Dodger is.

Steve Rush: Sure do.

Cody Lowry: And at times I felt like the Artful Dodger, you know, my mom and my other siblings have been very successful. And I credit my mom. I can remember her after, you know, a few martinis looking across and say, you know, we may not have anything now, but you guys, you kids have blue blood in your veins and you can do whatever you want and blah, blah, blah. So, she instilled a confidence in us, I don't think otherwise would have had. And one of them was, you know, you got to get out there and make it happen. And, so at age 11, I started selling papers for the Miami News. Now I've got to ask you a question, Steve.

Steve Rush: Go for it.

Cody Lowry: And I want you to be real honest with me here. Would you buy a paper if I told you where you got your shoes, what state you were born in and how many birthdays you've had?

Steve Rush: Pretty neat, yeah, I would think.

Cody Lowry: Of course, you would, for a nickel. You got your shoes on your feet. You were born in the state of infancy, and you've only had one birthday the day you were born.

Steve Rush: Nice.

Cody Lowry: So, when you look at you know, where I came from and then I was raised with the doctors' kids and the lawyers' kids, because my mother made us believe that, you know, we were as good as anyone. And so, with that said, we always worked. And I think selling papers actually gave me a pretty good foundation for my life in general.

Steve Rush: It's really interesting that 32 moves in such a short period of time is just a huge amount of disruption, isn't it? For a young person, young family,

Cody Lowry: Christmas day, we moved.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Cody Lowry: And then my my mom is screaming at my father about you know, what about the Christmas tree? What about the Christmas tree? And the next thing, you know, Steve, he runs in the house, grabs the Christmas tree, lights, Tencel, and throws it on the back of a pickup truck. And with some expletives said, get in the truck and we're leaving. He did leave by the way my mother raised the four of us. And yeah, I can't tell you how much she really means to me. And, I think my siblings would pair at that comment.

Steve Rush: Sure, I did some research a few years back, actually around resilience and what are the foundations and what could cause resilience and ingenuity and irony is, those people who are brought up in a service background who move a lot consistently in childhood have greater and deeper resilience.

Cody Lowry: Really?

Steve Rush: Because they're used to having to adapt. And I wonder if some of those foundations that you've got in your adult career and being successful around that resilience and that grit and determination come from that learning to adapt in those 32 moves?

Cody Lowry: I would guess it did, you know, not everybody is obviously wired the same. And I can tell you that, I mean, I love people. I engage people at restaurants, the waiter, by the time that food is delivered. I know everything about that person and, you know, where they're from? What their dad did? And I just find that terribly interesting. And there's so many people in this world that we're never going to have an opportunity to meet. And I kind of regret that, and so, you know, I think when you're young and you're going through all those kinds of things, you learn how to make friends easily, or, you know, I say easily, you learn how to make friends. And with that, you know, you ask a lot of questions and I always ask a lot of question. I ask a lot of questions today.

Steve Rush: Now you were affectionately known as the king of Schmooze. For people who have not heard of schmooze or not familiar with that, how would you describe what schmooze is?

Cody Lowry: Well schmooze actually comes from the Yiddish word, which means to chat ideally, or to chat in a friendly persuasive manner, especially to gain favor in business or connections. And what I have done Steve is, I've redefined the word schmooze. And for me schmooze is a lot of things. The publisher put up 25, you know, different attributes for schmooze. And it's about building relationships. It's about a winning smile. It's about, you know, looking out after the little guy. It's about being contrarian and it's about, you know, having a heart and you know, it's about appreciating and there's 25 of them. I could list them, but it would you know, take a while here.

Steve Rush: Sure, now you recognized at an early age that, we would call it, in the side of the pond, gift of the gab or the schmooze was the key foundation for you to be successful. What was it when you realized you were onto something around using this as a positive to help you become successful?

Cody Lowry: So, I guess I learned, you know, the school was difficult for me because you know, moving around like that. And didn’t, you know, live up to my own expectations. And so when I finally realized that, you know what? I got something here, I actually transferred from one high school to another high school. And it was transferred in my senior year. And I wasn't there, you know, probably six weeks and they were doing the superlative, you know, for the seniors. And somehow, I made it to my senior year, I don't know how. And they nominated me for the most talented, how did I get nominated? You know, I'm not even in the school two months and people are nominating me. Well, you know, that turned out to be a pretty pivotal year for me, Steve, because I was, you know, I was master of ceremonies of this, master of ceremonies of that. I got really heavy into, you know, theater and speech productions. And I think that's when I really found myself. And, you know, it obviously helped me once I got into college,

Steve Rush: You managed to use schmooze in a number of different situations. And there are a couple you call out in the books. I'd love to explore them with you.

Cody Lowry: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: One was, how do you set up the meeting with the President in just one week from nowhere?

Cody Lowry: Yeah, that was really something. At the time I was general sales manager for a large Chevrolet store and Jimmy Carter was coming into town. And he was running in for President and we were having a management meeting with the dealer and the General Manager, and what have you. And I just started thinking about him coming into town. I thought, oh my gosh, wouldn't that be a great PR move? If we could somehow set up a meeting with the President of the United States. Now I got to tell you, I had an angle. And my angle was, is that our dealer, Anthony Abraham. He was a very conservative guy, but he really thought that Jimmy Carter was taking a lot of heat at the time. He ran an article in the Fort Lauderdale news.

I’m sorry, the Miami Herald, The Tampa Tribune and The St Petersburg Times. And it was called A Summer of Discontent by Walter Annenberg, another, a very conservative guy. And the thrust of the article, Steve, was that, you know, no matter how much you dislike the President or whatever issues you have, he's the only President we have, and we've got to support him and coming from two very conservative guys, you know, that was, you know, quite a tribute to put those full-page ads in those newspapers. So, I did have an angle and I said, the President coming in next week. Why don't we set up a meeting and see if we can't get a little PR out of it? And the dealer laughed and the general manager who was always watching his back thought I wanted his job, you know, he kind of ridiculed me somewhat, but they said, well, go see what you can do. And I did, the office I called was Jody Powell. You may remember Jody Powell, but he was the President right-hand guy. And he threw me to one guy, and then they threw me to another office and this office. And finally, I got ahold of the scheduling office and you know, my persistence was, you know, on full charge. And I was really wanting to make this thing happen. And the guy let me know really quickly. He said, Mr. Lowry, do you realize how many people want to set up a meeting with the President of United States? And I immediately shot back Steve. I said, well, that's probably true, but you could count on one hand, how many men just spent $20,000 in three of Florida's largest newspapers in a state that's going to be critical to the President in the upcoming election.

Steve Rush: Wow, yeah

Cody Lowry: And then he started “hoobadda habbada hubbadda wheeer!” you know, who am I talking to here? You know, and next thing, you know, I get a meeting with Kesha Grant and let her know what's going on. And we have a meeting with the President of the United States and that, by the way, you can Google that. Cody Lowry, President Carter or Tommy Abraham, and it shows, you know, the President's schedule back then, and today. They've got every little minute, you know, logged in, what he did? Who he talked to? And so, yeah, so we set up a meeting with the President of the United States and that did not hinder my progress with Abraham Chevrolet, I did very well after that.

Steve Rush: Awesome. And also, there's a couple of whacking, great leadership lessons there isn't there? That whole kind of persistence and resilience and never let up is a really big one for me. But you know, the other is the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

Cody Lowry: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: And you know, if you're really passionate about something and you want people to know that you're passionate, if you stop squeaking, you're not going to get the oil.

Cody Lowry: Well, that's absolutely true. Yeah, I agree with that.

Steve Rush: So, the other one I was really fascinated by, is you ended up carrying the Olympic torch for the Olympic games, and that again was because of your schmooze. Tell us how that came up?

Cody Lowry: Well, you know, in the book I talk about mentoring and the importance of mentoring. I can remember when I was in college driving a Corvair, unsafe at any speed that used more oil than gasoline. And I was, you know, robbing Peter to pay Paul as they say. And you know, I was a big brother, and that's not in the book, but for those out, in other parts of the world. Big brother and big sisters, where you take on an individual, a young child who's comes from a, you know, a really difficult situation and, you know, you mentor to them. And so, carrying the torch was just that. As you pointed out in the beginning of the show, I'm in advertising.

And at the time we represented all the Chevrolet dealers in the Tampa Bay area. And one of the gentlemen that was in charge of Chevrolet at the time was Kurt Ritter and just a wonderful guy. He lives in Bel Air California now. And he is, I think, chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising, but at the time he was moving up the ladder with a Chevrolet and he had moved out of the Tampa Bay area, went to Detroit. He was head marketing manager for Chevrolet motor division. And I get a call one day, and while we were close, we weren't, you know, I mean, we talked, you know, maybe every six months if saw each other at a meeting, but his son was living in in Tampa and struggling at the time. He graduated, just graduated from college and was having a real difficult time getting a job.

And, and Kurt called me and asked if I could spend some time with him, and I said absolutely. So, we did kind of like, you know, Tuesdays with Morrie's right. It was Tuesdays with Kurt’s son, and he was, you know, flipping hamburgers at Friday, that's a hamburger joint. And would he just couldn't get his footing in the segment he want to get into, and that was a film, and what have you. And so, I remember after about six weeks, he called me up. He says, can I come in and talk to you? And I said, sure. He was excited. And I kind of thought maybe he had a job. And he said, I got a job.

And I said, really, where is that? And he goes, he says, well, it's with Campbell Ewald. And all of a sudden, a red light went off. Campbell Ewald was a national agency for Chevrolet. And I know how he got that job, and that's not the job he wanted. And after he was done telling me about, you know, being a junior account executive, and I just looked across the table from where we were, and I said, you know what? You don't want to take that. I said, that's not what you want to do. Your dad can pick up the phone today, tomorrow, a year from now and get you that same position. I said, you're passionate about the film industry. You're passionate about, you know, what you went to school for. I said, stick with it. And don't, you know, he took my advice and a week later he got his dream job out of Miami.

Well, now I start becoming very close to the family. I'm invited to weddings and, you know, when he's in Florida, you know, we go to the football games together. And I think the mentoring is what really makes it happen in life and being able to give something back. Then the next thing I know out of the clear blue, he calls me up and said, Cody, he said, how would you like to carry the torch in the Olympics? He had reached that level at Chevrolet motor division, where he could pick a couple of people. And I must tell you, he had relationships with agencies that were huge, right, the dwarf mine.

Steve Rush: Right.

Cody Lowry: He knew all the big Chevrolet dealers in the country. He called me and asked me, and I credit it with the mentoring.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? And it just goes to show that if you're not open to opportunity, because you've been directed or you've been following a path that you don't believe to be true or purposeful. You miss out on that natural occurring opportunity, right?

Cody Lowry: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so when was it you thought, right. There's definitely something in this schmooze, so I'm going to write a book about it. How did that come about?

Cody Lowry: So, you know, I knew I wanted to write a book because some, you know, obviously crazy things have happened to me. If you'll indulge me here, you know, getting a baseball signed by The Pope, getting a super bowl ring from an NFL hall of fame coach, auditioning for Saturday Night Live within a 48-hour notice. And, you know, I just felt like I was wired a little bit differently. And you know, I was living this journey, this eclectic journey that I'm still living. And some really wonderful things have happened to me as a result of, you know, reaching out and being there for other people, and my personality, I don't know if your pre notes show it, but I was actually born with a lampshade on my head. So, you know, the humorous aspect of my personality didn't hurt. And I just decided that I was going to write a book, and that was 2017. And, you know, I'm still working full time. And so, you know, I did it at night and put together what I thought was a really good life story, not a biography for sure. But you know, life lessons from somebody who's walked the walk.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Cody Lowry: So many times, I'm in a situation where I see a speaker, great in front of an audience, or I'll read a book and so much of it. And I say this respectfully is, regurgitated, internet stuff. And then I hear the same thing this guy said, and this person says this. And, you know, every story in the book that I have, I mean, it's me, it's real life. It's, you know, it's really, you know, it's from somebody who's walked the walk.

Steve Rush: Did she walk the walk or did you schmooze the schmooze?

Cody Lowry: I think I probably did a little bit of both; you know, I was schmoozing and when I didn’t know what the word meant.

Steve Rush: Exactly, yeah. So, in the book, you call these out as schmooze essentials. So, what are they and how as a leader might I use them?

Cody Lowry: So, yeah, the last chapter is schmooze essential. And it's a collection of things that I wanted to leave people with that are just real important and you know, paying a compliment. There's actually 10, so I won't go over all 10, but paying a compliment. You know, you go into a restaurant, somebody gives you a great service and you throw down your money. And I know in some countries that's not required or not the custom, but in the United States, you know, we leave a gratuity. And one thing that I have learned over the years, it's much more important than a gratuity is to pay a compliment. You know, John, that was maybe the best service I've ever had. And I mean, they light up like a Christmas tree.

I mean, it's amazing. So, you know, paying a compliment. It's about laughing at yourself and, you know, some of us take ourselves way too seriously, and I've been with some movers and shakers who are, you know, they wouldn't put a smile on their face if they had to, but, you know, it's about actually not taking yourself too seriously. I'll tell you a real quick story, if I may. I'm charging and I come home, I've got three little kids and I said, little kids, they're ten, nine and eight. And my wife and I had just bought this brand-new suede couch, green suede couch. And, you know, I really felt like I had arrived, Steve, you know, to have this couch. And so, I walk in and I look at the couch and there's a big stain on the couch, and I almost can't believe it. What happened? Well, immediately I called the three children. Cody, Chelsea, Kit, get up here right now and up they come, you know, and I look at that couch, the stain, and I said, I want to know who did it? I want to know now, and I want to know the truth. And young Cody looks up at me. He said, dad, you can't handle the truth, from the movie, you know? He disarmed me and I started laughing. How stupid? Why am I getting so upset about a stain? And so, you know, it is about laughing at yourself. It's about making sure that you understand that, you know, not just, Coca-Cola not just Nike, you have a brand. Who are you? What slags do you waive? If a hundred people had to say something about you, what would they say? And think for young people starting out in business, I think it's so important that you establish who you are and build your brand.

And so, you know, that's in there, it's about appreciating what we have, you know I told my kids when they were growing up, you know, bemoan the fact that maybe they didn't have the latest and the greatest this or that, because I didn't believe in giving it to them. You know, you have it better than 99.9% of all the people that have ever lived on the face of this earth. And you know, I think that actually connected with them, you know, in the book, I've got all kinds of things. In the last chapter, there are 10 different things.

Steve Rush: I resonate with that. I had very similar conversation with my youngest son just this weekend actually.

Cody Lowry: What happened?

Steve Rush: Well, it was a case of just not recognizing the value of what he had versus the value of what he didn't have.

Cody Lowry: I gotcha.

Steve Rush: And sometimes it's just about helping people who have been, and I class myself to be very fortunate in having the spoils of a successful career behind me. And he's been born into a life that I wasn't born into with lots of spoils and lots of other things that I would have never had at his age. And just sometimes helping to reframe how fortunate they are. Isn't all about either material things. It's about the surroundings and the environment they're in too, right?

Cody Lowry: So true. So true. You know, one of the things in the last chapter is, I tell people to be a pushover, you know, I'm an easy mark for these people on the street. And I mean, I never say, no, I feel guilty if I look down and, you know, I'm in my car and I don't have some change or some whatever to give them, but I've done my homework. And most of these people they're hungry, 85% of these people are hungry. So yeah, there are some people that are trying to put you together. And in the book, I talk about being a pushover and I actually talk about a story when our whole family went to a West Virginia and the airport was closed down.

And I went downtown with my kids and my bride and we were going to get some food and it was a cold night and the kids were probably right around that, you know, 7, 8, 9 ages. And all of a sudden somebody grabs me on my shoulder and I turned around and, you know, I see this guy with all his hair going on and, you know, kind of, you got some money or something like that. And I said, no, I don't. And, you know, I kind of shoot him away, I thought, and then, you know, about a minute later, there he is again. And now I get in his face, because I'm really upset. I'm very protective of my kids and I don't want this guy, you know, endangering my family. And I react like, I guess any father would. So, you know, I got in his face, tell him to get out.

I was going to call the police, so on and so forth. I got to the restaurant and my son Cody remembers this. And I said to my wife, I said, you know, I didn't really treat that guy too well and who knows what's going on in his life. And so, I gave her my watch. I gave her all of about, you know, 50 bucks that I had. And I said, I'm going to go find him and see what's going on. So, I left the restaurant, I walked up this alley and down the street and there he was, he was sitting on a park bench with his significant other, and they had a blanket around them. And I came up to him from the side there. So, he didn't really no I was coming and I said, Hey.

And he looked at me, he almost jumps, you know? And I said, no, no, no. I just want to tell you, I apologize for the way I acted. And I said, are you guys hungry? And they both looked at me and they said, yeah. I said, well, come on. Let's go. And so, I was actually thinking about taking them to the Mexican restaurant and there was a McDonald's across the street, not too far from where we were. And he said, well, how about McDonald's? And I said, sure. So, we went into McDonald's and, you know, his girlfriend was first and she looked back at me and I said, go, whatever you want, just get it, you know? So, she got two big Macs, she got an apple pie, she got the big fry, whatever it was.

And I thought she was ordering for both of them. And then he got up there. He said, I'll take the same. But, you know, my kids learned a big lesson, as I said, Cody still remembers that day. And all of my kids have followed me as it relates to being, you know, maybe considered overly generous to these people. But you know, when you look at what's been the stowed on me and my family and, you know, everything, even talking to Steve here, you know, it's you know, I've got a lot to be thankful for, you know, I know that everybody does,

Steve Rush: It's a great lesson as well, isn't it? So, the one thing that struck me in the book as well, that you call out was called the what if syndrome.

Cody Lowry: Oh, the what if syndrome? Yeah. Everybody is always, you know, what if this happens? What if that happens? And it's about, you know, when I talk about stepping out of your schmooze zone and I tell people that I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to jump off the Skyway Bridge or the San Francisco Bay bridge or bungee jump. But, you know, in life I have looked at things, I've looked at challenges and, you know, I've always gone for it. And I think a lot of people are held back by, you know, their peers and people that, you know, their bosses and what have you. And they have this fear of people. Well, I've never really had that fear. So, if I thought maybe, I could do something, you know, I just went out and did it.

In the book I talk about, you know, running a marathon, somebody bet me a hundred dollars that, you know, I couldn't run a marathon. And I said, well, yeah, I could run a marathon and they laughed. And, you know, I'm really in great shape today, Steve. But back then I was a little sloppy, right. And I remember Steve Chapman, he was President of the DuPont Registry and he was running the Marine Corps marathon. And I said, well, I could probably do that. Maybe I'll do that with you. And he started laughing because it was the funniest thing I've ever heard. And I got to tell you in high school, I think the most I ever did from an exercise standpoint, I think I had to run a mile to actually get my diploma.

So anyway, I took him up on it. And it's a great story, it's a fun story. But I got to tell you, when I started off the first the first week trying to, you know, kind of get into this thing, I thought, boy, I had really made a big mistake. I couldn't get a quarter of a mile before I was gasping for air. I was going around this Lake Hollingsworth, was three and a half miles. And I went, dear God, I can't even get around this lake. And but, before all was done, I had run around that lake eight times. And I did, I competed in the Marine Corps marathon. And so, I would say my advice is just, you know, go with what your gut tells you. And don't listen to some naysayers out there. And you know, we've got a lot of great people, have accomplished a lot of things in this world by taking that advice for sure.

Steve Rush: Definitely, so. I'm going to ask you to step out of the schmooze zone now, Because I'm going to turn the lens a little into your world of leadership. So, you've been a successful leader of a number of different businesses. So, I want to really tap into that leadership mind of yours now. First place, I'm going to go Cody, is to ask you what your top three leadership hacks would be?

Cody Lowry: So, you know, a big part of the book and a part of my background in business. And then, you know, my whole life has been building relationships, building relationships that last, you know, Steve and my business, if you have an account for two or three years, you know, you can be very, very thankful. We have accounts on the book that have been there for 30 years, plus 30 years. And I always tell people it's about the secret sauce. You say the three things, number one, build the relationship. And I think a lot of people get this wrong. They say, oh, it's going to take me years to build a relationship. You build the relationship within the first 60 seconds that you meet somebody.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Cody Lowry: And I'm well aware of that. If I go into a meeting, I know more about that guy than probably the people that work for him. So, it's building the relationships and then it's earning their trust, okay. That's the foundation of every relationship. It's the foundation of every business relationship, earning their trust and being there for them. And then number three, endeavoring to never let them down. And you know, I've got clients, I'm their blankie. I mean, they call me on the weekends, you know, Sunday, you know, and a lot of times it's not even related to you know, the business necessarily it's, you know, something that's happening in their life. And if I have been with them for 20 to 30 years, I'm also their friend, right?

Steve Rush: Right.

Cody Lowry: So yeah, so building the relationship, getting them to trust you and then never letting them down.

Steve Rush: Awesome tips and ideas. Thank you, appreciate you sharing that. The next part of the show we've called Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something screwed up. Hasn't worked out well at all, but as a result of the experience, you now use it as a positive in your life and work. So, what would be your Hack to Attack Cody?

Cody Lowry: Yeah, my Hack to Attack. I mean, you know, one of the quotes that's in the book and it's a Japanese proverb and it says fall down seven times, get up eight. And I can tell you I've done that, you know, many, many times in my life and no one is you know, everybody's got adversity in their life. And so, when I get people that kind of get carried away with it, I remind them of this deal that you know, you have to get up and you have to keep charging and early in business. I was, you know, I got taken by a guy that was, you know, I thought he was my mentor, right. And he was the big shot in the Tampa Bay area as far as advertising, I'm not going to mention his name, but he brought me on, he wanted me to work for him and that didn't work.

So, he made me kind of a quasi-partner, if you will. And we became partners. And after about six months I realized that he had been going to the accountant and taking money out of the company to buy a home in St. Croix and this, that, and the other. Well to make kind of a long story short. When I finally realized that this guy needed to be out of my life, I had the accounting people came in and they said, well, Cody, you're in the hole about a half a million dollars. I almost couldn't believe it, right? Half a million dollars, me? Little Cody Lowery, you know, paper boy. I'm in debt, half a million. So, the attorneys got together and they decided the best thing for me to do would be to just file bankruptcy, you know, in our country, you can file bankruptcy.

You can actually start the next day in another job. And they said, this is our only way out, your only way out. And I looked across the table at you know, three people that went to pretty good law schools. That's not what I'm going to do. And I said, I'm going to go to the suppliers. I'm going to talk to them. I'm going to tell them exactly what happened. The reason it got so big, we were dealing with TV stations and, you know, TV time, and it's very expensive, but I went to maybe six TV stations where the bulk of that was, and I met with the General Manager or President of the TV station. And I told him exactly what happened. And I said, I can't pay you today, but I will pay you over time. I believe I'm going to be successful. And you know what, there wasn't one that said no, and every one of them got their money, so, yeah.

Steve Rush: It's a lovely story. Many people would have taken the easy route out and, you know, file for bankruptcy, but that just shows a kind of character that sits behind the man. So, congratulations for you.

Cody Lowry: Thank you. Thank you.

Steve Rush: The last thing we want to do today, Cody is give you a chance to do some time travel. So, you now have the opportunity to go back in time, bump into Cody at 21 and give him some words of wisdom, some advice, what would it?

Cody Lowry: I would say, and not to rehash what we've already talked about, but if you have a dream, if you have a goal, don't put it on hold, find a way to, you know, go after that dream or that goal. And I would say, you know, get rid of the naysayers in your life. And, you know, when I was starting out at age 21, Steve, I mean, I got to tell you, I was a little naive and I don't think being naive is really so bad because you go down avenues that maybe other people would know or can't, what are you crazy? You know, and so I think part of my advice would be, you know, it's okay to be naive, you know, just, just real quick. Auditioning for Saturday Night Live within a 48-hour period, I was doing standup comedy and I went to New York.

I had, you know, enough money to last, maybe a week. And, you know, I did catch a rising star and the improv and what have you. And I decided just you know; I've got two days left. I know what I'll do. I'll audition for Saturday Night Live. Oh, really? How are you going to pull that one off? Well, I was naive, you know, and it worked for me. And, you know, two days later there, I was for Saturday Night Live doing my Jimmy Carter. My name is Jimmy Carter, I always tell the truth. If I could tell lie, I grow another tooth. It's okay to be naïve, and you know, so that would be my advice.

Steve Rush: Awesome, So Cody I've loved schmoozing with you, but for our listeners who might want to continue the conversation beyond our show today, where's the best place for us to send them when we are done.

Cody Lowry: mrschmooze.com, that's mrschmooze.com. My book Schmooze, what they should teach at Harvard Business School. It's obviously available on Barnes & Noble and Amazon. There is also an audio book out there, which is I hear pretty good. And so yeah, the website's good and wherever books are sold.

Steve Rush: Awesome, we'll make sure those are all in our show notes as well, so that people can literally stop listening to us and start listening to some more of you. So, Cody, thank you so much. I know you're incredibly busy and it's a real privilege and an honor for us to have you on our show. And thanks for being part of The Leadership Hacker Community.

Cody Lowry: It was an honor speaking to you, truly it was.

Steve Rush: Thank you, Cody.

Cody Lowry: Thank you.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Once upon a time… Ever wanted to speak in public as if you were on a TED Talk? Andrea Sampson is former strategist and consultant, she has spent over 25 years working in marketing and advertising, presenting and developing strategies for fortune 100 companies. Andrea is now a TED speaker coach and the founder and CEO of Talk Boutique. In this show you can learn about:

The emotional connection in story is the same as when we buy
How to put your brand ideas into the world
The key components to design your story spine
Why aligning your vision to your core purpose – is your story!

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Andrea below:

Andrea on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/acsampson/

Talk Boutique Website: https://talkboutique.com

Andrea on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LightningRod29

Talk Boutique Twitter: https://twitter.com/TalkBoutiqueInc

Talk Boutique on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talk.boutique

Full Transcript Below

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Today's special guest is Andrea Sampson. She's an executive speaker coach, communication expert and business strategist. But before we get a chance to speak with Andrea, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In today's news we explore why storytelling is so important in business. Humans always told stories and they're a vital part of our daily communication, but stories have meaning beyond entertainment value. In fact, storytelling is a strong business skill and when it implemented effectively, it can really boost business in a number of ways, such as improving customer loyalty, creating strong marketing strategy and increasing profit as well. Storytelling conveys purpose and businesses with purpose are noticed and win loads of customers more readily. So, it's not enough to just have a product or a service that can solve a problem, your company needs to stand out. The most successful companies have deep and thoughtful stories behind them that stir a sense of a larger purpose and meaning to what they do such as Google or Apple, who had not just businesses. Their brands made by visionaries who wanted and want to transform the world.

If your business has a vision, the audiences can really believe in and buy into them more likely to be successful. People want to buy into companies that they believe care, empathetic companies. And that was highlighted in a global empathy index where businesses near the top of the list were among the most profitable and fastest growing businesses in the world. The top 10 companies also generated 50% more income and increased in value more than twice of the other companies in the bottom 10. And it was shown that storytelling was at the heart of this. And storytelling shows your company can be empathetic and is more likely to lead to your company's success. So, experts say, just watch Steve jobs on YouTube when he introduced the iPhone and told the story about why they were doing what they were doing back in 2007. Stories, emotionally connect people and create loyalty and the best stories of evoke emotional reactions, and people generally relate and connect with those stories that they believe in and believe in the company and what it stands for.

When people listen to a story, they feel what the protagonist of the story is feeling. So good way of using a story to connect with the audiences, to tell the story about the journey you've been on or the mistakes you and your company have made, or a failure that wasn't going well for you. So, people can understand the reality of the journey and people will relate to this as we've all experienced mistakes and failures, and the more the audience relates to you and understand what went into creating your brand and your organization. The more likely they'll listen to you. And remember humans typically make emotional, not rational decisions. So being able to evoke an emotional reaction through a story is a powerful tool. So, transfer your vision into a captivating story and clearly communicating it, using a sincere and open approach and remember stories, give audience purpose and a motive to take action.

An example of this was when Wharton Business School found that when participants in an experiment were asked to collect donations in a call center, those who told the donors how the money would improve the lives of others earned, were able to collect more than double than the other group who were merely just collecting cash. The sense of purpose led to the first group earning so much more because of the stories that were able to tell that invoked that response. So, in conclusion today it's difficult to find a successful brand that doesn't have a good story. Stories provide meaning, they create context, they evoke a sense of purpose. Most humans are more receptive to stories than compared to facts and data. So, stories help us to relate, empathize and to remember, and this is why businesses are increasingly recognizing the importance of storytelling and the leadership lesson here is, as leaders the more stories we can tell to create an emotional connection with our teams, the more likely we're going to get buy-in to the journey we're taking them on. That's been leadership, if you have any insights, information, or ideas, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today is former strategist and consultant Andrea Sampson. She spent over 25 years working in marketing and advertising, presenting and developing strategies for fortune 100 companies. Andrea is now the founder and CEO of Talk Boutique. Welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast Andrea.

Andrea Sampson: Thank you, Steve. Wonderful to be here.

Steve Rush: I'm really looking forward to getting into the story about how Talk Boutique came about and the work that you do now with TED speakers. But before we get there, perhaps you can give our guests a little bit of a summary of your backstory?

Andrea Sampson: Sure, so as you said, you know, I spent almost 25 years working in marketing and advertising, and most of it was working on the agency side. I worked for some of the largest agency networks in the world, and I worked on some of the largest brands in the world. My role within the agency world was a planner, and what that means is I was basically a strategist. So, I worked on understanding the basics of why humans make the decisions they do. We would do a lot of research, a lot of understanding at the human behavioral level. And then we would come up with, me and my team would come up with the underpinnings of many of the advertising campaigns that you see in market which would go of course, to the creative teams who would do the actual advertising, but we would do the strategy underneath it.

Steve Rush: Oh, interesting. So, where there a number of key behaviors or you could identify that caused people to make decisions?

Andrea Sampson: Well, you know, I mean, the reality is, is that we buy, we make decisions based on emotions rather than needs. And I think, you know, this is not news to anyone. But we forget it all the time. We think that when we tell people the features of a product or the features of a solution that people will say, well, yes, I need that, absolutely. And people do listen to those, but the reality is we buy what we want. It's a want versus a need always, which means that you need to appeal to the heart before you appealed to the brain. And that was, you know, 100% of the time that is true. So how can we get into the hearts of consumers in such a way that we help them to make the decision that is right for them, but was also in line with what we wanted them to do.

So, it was always that sort of dance, I guess, a little bit, but what I found, you know, what was so interesting for me was that, you know, with spending all of the time in advertising and I got to a point, you know, after about 25 years where I started to realize that some of the early goals that I had as I came into the world of communications and advertising, I wasn't going to be able to hit. And those goals were really personal and deeply held. And I'm not sure that even coming into that world, I fully understood them because they were really based on making a difference in the world because ultimately Steve, I'm an idealist and, you know, I wanted to change the world and I saw this medium of advertising with its mass reach and thought, wow, now there's a way that if I can influence at a very core level, I can help do good in the world.

And I tried and I really tried. And the reality is, is that while there are many brands out there who do good in the world, they're few and far between, and at the end of the day, I really wanted to do good at a very core level, not trying to get consumers to do something else. And so, I knew that, you know, as the idealist in a capitalist world, I had to start thinking a little differently about my future. And at this point I was, you know, approaching my 50th birthday and I started thinking, you know, well, I've got hopefully another 30, 40 years on the planet. What am I going to do with that time? And how can I start to address this, underlying need, goal that I had. And I had the very good fortune to be volun hired.

And what I mean by that is, I volunteered, but I had to go through a hiring process to work with the team at TEDxToronto. And I was hired as a speakers coach. I didn't know what a speakers coach was to be quite honest, never heard of it, but I was presenting three to five times a day and, you know, in my regular day, because that's what I did all day, every day I present it. And so, I thought, well, with a little bit of training, I'm sure I can do this. Well, that first year that I worked with TEDxToronto, I worked with you know, a geneticist who was working on the worldwide human genome project. I worked with an architect who was connecting the internet of things to our daily tasks, to our walls, to our alarm clocks, to our windows. I worked with a food specialist who was looking at the way in which we were going to move forward with our food. And I worked with one of the foremost experts in the world on body language, I was hooked.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Andrea Sampson: And what I saw was, I came to them thinking, okay, well, I can teach them, you know, probably how to present. But what I learned pretty quickly about myself was all this training I'd been doing for 25 years in advertising as a strategist where I was getting to that core consumer insight. The reason why we do the things we do was the absolute perfect training to take a TED speaker and be able to shape their idea because ultimately an idea at its core is an insight. And so, what I did in that first year was I became aware of this skill I didn't even know I had, which was taking insights and building stories around them.

Steve Rush: It’s kind of ironic because that's exactly what great marketing is, isn't it? It's about building those stories, creating the emotional connection with the audience so that they listen and pay attention to the advertisement you are creating, which I suspect is the parallel right to a TED speaker?

Andrea Sampson: Well, that’s exactly it. And I think when we're doing it as an advertisement, you know, we're not as uniquely aware of what we're actually doing because it's contextual, right? Like in advertising, you're doing it because you've got a product, a brand that you're putting out there with the consumer. So, you're putting the brand at the center, you're getting an idea that you can sort of, you know, build that, you know, take the brand idea and put it out there in the world. But we don't really think of it in the same way we think of a TED Talk, which you know, is often termed education. Sorry, how do they term it? Oh God, I can never think of it, it's the combination of entertainment and education. So however, you put those two edutainments, that's what it is.

Steve Rush: Edutainment? That’s cool, yeah.

Andrea Sampson: Edutainment, so we never really think of an ad as we would think of a TED Talk because a TED Talk doesn't actually want us to change our buying behavior or the things we're doing. It's often inspiring us to look at the world differently. So, it's just contextual, like it was really making the leap that said, well, everything I've been doing in advertising is exactly what it was to create a good TED Talk. But now instead of trying to sell a brand, what we're doing is we're selling an idea and that idea has the ability to impact the world.

Steve Rush: And do you notice any parallels in reverse where marketeers and now using the same principles of storytelling in their advertisements and their campaigns?

Andrea Sampson: Well, you know, here's the thing. As I've become, you know, really an expert in this world of not only storytelling, but building talks that create impact and create change. I now look at all the work that I did in advertising and wish I had known then what I know now, and I'm seeing that many marketers are beginning to embrace the idea of very purposeful storytelling. You know, storytelling in the ad world was always a means to an end, but we didn't really pay as close attention to how to build out that story. Now, there are so many different story arcs out there. When you've only got 15 or 30 seconds to do an ad, which is, you know, your typical ad length.

Steve Rush: Right.

Andrea Sampson: It's hard to use one of these very long story arcs. I mean, most of the story arc is actually, you know, are meant for screenplays or books. Whereas, you know, in a 30 second ad, you just don't have time to build that arc, but you would. And you know, what we would often do is take pieces of it. But what I've learned in doing TED Talks and now working with very seasoned professional presenters is that it's really about building a story in five steps. And we developed, so my company Talk Boutique has developed a process that we call the story spine, which really allows for a speaker to take about, you know, anywhere from 30 seconds to three to four minutes at the beginning of their talk and set up the premise of a story that will hold the idea.

Steve Rush: Really interesting.

Andrea Sampson: Yeah, the spine is so important because what it does is it forces us as humans first of all, to think about the things that create good storytelling, because it starts off with what we call the environment. So, if you think of an environment, the environment is your sense of place. Now, most of us, when we're at a cocktail party or meeting up with a friend and we started telling a story, what do we do? We rushed through the environment, first of all, and we rush right into the purpose of the story. But if you take a moment and you step back and you say, okay, let me just set this up for you. So, I was walking in the woods the other day. Now it was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, you know, it was warm, but not hot. You could feel that the day was going to get really hot. But we weren't there yet. And the moisture in the air was activating the pine needles. So, I could smell as I was walking, that musky scent of pine, and it was just a beautiful morning and it was peaceful. Now you're all on that walk with me, aren’t you?

Steve Rush: Totally, I’m right there.

Andrea Sampson: Right, now when you do that, what's happening is everybody is leaning in, but what's really happening is their brain has just gone to the place when they were last in the woods or a meaningful moment when they were in the words. That smell, the sounds of the birds, that the feeling of this sun dappled through the trees, everybody. Now, if I were to stop the story right there and ask a question around how everybody felt, the likelihood is, I've got everybody at the same place in that moment, which is in a peaceful place, in a memory that is enjoyable. And from there, it's almost like I'm a mind reader now, because now I'm controlling how they are feeling and what they're thinking.

Steve Rush: Very powerful, isn’t it?

Andrea Sampson: It’s incredibly powerful. That's the power of environment. So, once we have the environment, the next thing that we want to do is say, who's there with you? Who are the characters? Now, you know, characters, aren't just me and my friend. You can do that, but the thing is, you've robbed the audience of getting to know who you are and who your friend is. So, what you want is just a little bit of a backstory. So, there's me, you know, this was about five years ago. So, I was in a, you know, maybe an emotional place. This was just at the breakup of my marriage; I'm making this up. And my friend who was a dear friend who was supporting me through this very emotional time, her name was Shawna and Shawna was a lovely human. She's still a dear friend of mine, but she's one of those people whose incredibly compassionate and helps people through really difficult times. So here we were on this early morning walk, going through the woods and, you know, we can hear the birds chirping, and I'm at that point in the separation where we are, you know, separating stuff. And so, it's a difficult moment, and Shawna is helping me to see, you know, that I can let go of things that I thought were really important, but the reality is, they weren't. Now, again, I just want to stress here. I'm fully making this up.

Steve Rush: Hey, listen, you may be making this up, but I'm still ironically with you because of the compelling use of language.

Andrea Sampson: Right, and so listen to that, the language I'm using every piece of language is using rhetoric, really, right. I'm using a combination of metaphor. I'm using emotional words, words that have meanings that go deeper than just the core idea of that word. I'm also using in some cases repetition. So, I'm using metaphor all the way through it. So, what we've gotten through now is the environment, the characters, and we've gotten to the issue or opportunity. That's the third part of the story spine and this is where most people jump into a story because this is the real reason, I could've just started it off.

Steve Rush: That’s true, yeah.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it is. But it's ironic, because it’s still is also a physical thing.

Andrea Sampson: Yes.

Steve Rush: It's a metaphor, but actually we all kind of have something that we relate to in our day jobs and our lives that are similar metaphors of physical things, but carry loads of emotion with them.

Andrea Sampson: Right, and so, as I'm going through this story, you know, anyone who's listening to this, you know, they may or may not have lived a similar story, but they have lived, everybody, because, you know, here's the thing about stories. Stories are all Mehta stories, as humans, we all live the same stories. The details are different, and so everybody has walked in the woods or has watched, you know, a movie or seen an image of walking in the woods. So, there's some experience of it. Everybody has a good friend who helps them through things. Now, you know, you may not have as good a friend or maybe your friend is better, but you have the experience of it. The human condition is that we all go through relationships and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't and heartbreak is common. And then the idea of having something that represents that, you can see, it's a Mehta story, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Andrea Sampson: So, everybody, as I'm going through this story, everybody is having the same experience because they're living their own experience and my experience at the same time. And that's what makes it so powerful. So, when you take the time to build it, when you take the time to use emotions through it, what you're doing is, you're building a connection with anyone who's listening to that. Now we've gone through the four elements of the stories. By the fifth element is just the OCA. It's the way in which you tie it together. And so, in this case, it could be that in that walk in the woods, you know, Shawna helped me to understand that the blanket was in fact, a metaphor for my relationship. And as much as it was something that I was having a hard time letting go of, it was time for me to let go of it because I was letting go of that whole part of my life.

And that blanket was in a part of my life that was no longer going to be in my life. So, it was time for me to let that go. And by the end of that walk, I had not only let go of the blanket, but I had let go of the relationship, I was ready to move on. So, there's the story spine in action. Now, when you're using a story like that. So, one of the things that we teach, because the story spine is one element. But the other thing that I did when I started working with TED speakers is, I started to understand that a TED Talk has a very robust underlying structure and that underlying structure gets eliminated in the talk itself, but in the building of a TED Talk or of any presentation, quite frankly, that structure is essential.

And one of the things that I did was I developed something that I call the talk canvas narrative framework, and it's a framework that helps speakers and anyone from, you know, boardroom presentations to investment pitches, to TED Talks, develop their underlying structure so that they can literally obliterate it with story.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Andrea Sampson: But it's such an interesting thing, because again, if I go back to, and this is a very long answer to your question, which was the, you know, the commonalities to what marketers do, this was where I really wished I'd had this structure because one of the things that I found was when I was in the agency world and we'd be building, let's just say a pitch to a new client, and we would spend, you know, countless hours, you know, stressful hours developing a presentation.

And the question always was, is it understandable? And have we missed anything? And what the talk canvas does is, in my new details, shows you all of the things that you need to address in order for your presentation to land, to be compelling, and to have all the information that the listener needs in order to be able to take in what you want them to take in. And so, it begins with the story spine, so it starts there, and then we move into what we call a core purpose.

Steve Rush: Great, so I wondered though, if you think about the notion of pitch presentation and speech, is there a huge difference and how you construct those or do they follow a similar path, but just the vernacular changes?

Andrea Sampson: So, there are differences for sure.

Steve Rush: Right.

Andrea Sampson: You know a stage presentation, as an example, you have much more latitude to use less visuals and more storytelling. And, you know, that's why TED Talks are so incredibly powerful, right? So, what they've done is, they take an idea, they wrap it in story, and then they tell us this amazing story, which then gets unfolded throughout the course of, you know, 10 to 18 minutes. When you're doing a presentation in front of a boardroom, as an example, there's a bigger expectation that you're going to get to the actual, you know, sort of core meaning or the core thing quicker. You can weave story all the way through and you should, but what you're doing is it's a bit more of a dance between the functional, here's what I want you to know and the emotional here's, how I want you to feel.

And so, Nancy Duarte, who's a TED Speaker and also an amazing thinker, developed what she called the shape of a presentation. And it really is a toggling between the functional and the emotional. And so, this is what we do in a presentation. We're using more visuals, because often we need those visuals to keep the audience, the boardroom audience with us. But what we're doing is we're moving between the visuals and the story and the visuals in the story. And then when you get into a pitch, which is a very different thing. Now, pitches you know, if we're talking about investor pitches, there's a lot of things that are really required, that the pitch, you know, that the investors know because they're putting up money. But what's similar is story and ideas still live in there. And what you're doing, the things you're telling them are a little different, but you're still using the commonality of story and idea. And that is true across a stage presentation, a boardroom presentation and a pitch. That's the commonality, some of the ways in which you do it are different.

Steve Rush: Hmm, that's super. And the irony here is that we've learned through story from generations after generations, after generations for thousands of years. But it seemed that certainly through my early part of my career, kind of in the nineties and in the two thousand, we seem to lose that. And only really in the recent years, I've seen story re-emerge has been quite a powerful medium of communication. What do you think the reason was for that?

Andrea Sampson: You know, it's interesting. I've thought about this a lot and you know, in the fifties. First of all, humans are hardwired to respond to story. And if we go all the way back into, you know, sort of the stone age, you'll see that the story has been our medium of communication.

Steve Rush: You can see it written on the walls of caves.

Andrea Sampson: Exactly.

Steve Rush: And that's how they used to tell their stories, right?

Andrea Sampson: And when you look at those cave drawings, what are they about? They're about the emotion of what was going on, right? There was the victory of the hunt, there was this sadness of the death. Like you could see it in these beautiful drawings on caves, but what happened for us is humans started to become more industrialized and really, you know, we've had about 150 years of industrialization with the advent of the industrial revolution.

And with that, what happened is, we became much more efficient. We were focused on efficiency. The belief has been, stories are not efficient, now that's not true. In fact, stories are incredibly efficient, but the belief was, I just want the facts man, nothing but the facts. And so, as we became more industrialized, our stories became about facts and we got narrower and narrower and narrower on facts. What's happening now, and it's so interesting because we're at the dawn of the fourth industrial revolution. And this is the first industrial revolution where humans are not being industrialized. And so, and what I mean by that is in every other industrial revolution, humans became the labor force, right? Well, now what's happening is we're being released from the labor force. We're being allowed to go back to what it is we do best, which is to feel, to emote, to tell stories, to create and being in our creative place.

And it's a challenging time because we don't actually know how to do this anymore. We don't know how to be creators without that end goal. Like I'm going to sit on the line and I'm going to put this widget in this hole. And at the end of the line out will come a car or a thing. Well, now there's robots doing that. We're not really very good at doing the same thing over and over and over again. That's actually not what humans are designed for. And so, as we are coming back into what we are designed for, which is to be creators, to be creative. We're bringing back this medium of storytelling. My own supposition is, that this is the first, you know, process of training our brains to go back into the creative beings we actually are.

Steve Rush: It's great supposition, and one I have listened to you articulate it so well, can wholeheartedly concur with, because the whole principle of management is made up too Management only happened because of the industrial revolution, but we wanted to get some control and some measures and some guidance, which is also the reason why we lost some of that great core leadership experiences along the way as well.

Andrea Sampson: You know, I'm listening to Yuval Harari great books Sapiens right now. And I love, you know, there's a part in it where he talks about storytelling and he talks about us humans, that's actually everything about our lives, our story. And he goes all the way back to the beginning of the corporation and his supposition is that the corporation is really just a story that we've all bought into

Steve Rush: That's ironic, isn't it? Gosh, your right.

Andrea Sampson: It's true, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Andrea Sampson: It's so true, so we don't see it that way, right? Because it's like, well, no, a corporation is a corporation. It's a legal entity. No, actually it's what we've done is we've taken a story and we turned it into a legal entity.

Steve Rush: My head's starting to go into crazy spins now thinking of different things, but it's, great that we're having this conversation because it's all really relevant to the role that we play when we're communicating with others, isn't it?

Andrea Sampson: Oh, absolutely. It's so important that we start to use our storytelling skills again. Because you know, the more that we do this, this is where, you know, as I go back to my own journey into the world of speaker coaching, I started to understand that when I live in a place of emotion, that is where I'm creating the deepest, most meaningful relationships. Whether those relationships be with, you know, people who are in my family or with my clients, because when we're starting with story, we're immediately starting with heart and it's such a different place from business, you know, having been in the corporate world for 25 years, you know, I got to tell you, there was not a lot of room for anything that, you know, smelled of heart-centered ness and that's not the case anymore.

Steve Rush: No, you're right. And one of the things I remember from the conversation that you and I had some months back, you were telling me that, you know, subject matter experts don't promote themselves very well. Is that a reason for them being dragged into the detail versus being thoughtful about their self-promotion?

Andrea Sampson: Yeah, I mean it's interesting, you know, subject matter experts and that's one of the things I, love, love, love, love working with deep subject matter experts. These are people, you know, and just to kind of frame that for the listeners, you know, these are people who are often in the back rooms and you know, they work in science and technology and academia, you know, they're really, really good at doing the work that they do. And many of them are working on things that are literally changing our world, but they're so busy doing that work. And they know often the importance of the work they're doing in the context in which they're working, but they don't look up and they don't tell the rest of us about this work that they're doing. They don't self-promote because it doesn't even occur to them to self-promote.

But here's the thing. When we don't understand what's actually happening in our world when these deep subject matter experts who are doing work in the world, that literally is changing our world. And we don't understand that we are at the effect of media, which also doesn't know that and who's choosing what we do know. And so, it's a real challenge for us to sort through what is real and what is not. So, these deep subject matter experts need to be heard. And we need to encourage them to come forward. And again, I come back to TED as a platform, also Singularity University, which is one of the partnerships that I've had through Talk Boutique. These are places where these deep subject matter experts are finally getting some airtime, but of course the challenges because they tend to be in these very complex places. What do they talk about? They talk about the facts. They tell us the process; they bring us into the world that is so complex and so abstract that most of us don't really understand it. And so that's not helpful either. And really this is where storytelling really shines.

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely spot on. So, from a story perspective, you must have had the opportunity to work with some really fascinating storytellers and some really fascinating people. Has there been a moment in your career as a coach or even just as a listener to stories where you've gone wow! that is the most compelling story I've ever heard?

Andrea Sampson: What immediately comes to my mind. So many years ago, I was working with a TED Speaker. He is a cosmologist, which is in the study of astrophysics, study of the universe, cosmology is the study of the actual universe. So not the stars, not the planet, it's not even the galaxies, the entire universe. So first of all, you kind of just go like, wow, I can't even contextualize that. I mean, as most of the subject matter experts that I work with incredibly smart, and this is sort of the story I hear all the time, oh, I'm not creative, right? So, here's an individual who says to me I want to talk about the origins of the universe, but I'm not creative. I don't really know how to do that. And as I spoke with him and started to understand more about him, it turns out that he also played in a band and he's does some visual art, of course not creative though, right? This is often what I hear from scientists.

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly.

Andrea Sampson: But what was also really interesting about him, didn't know this, this was sort of fun fact, the driest place on earth is the south pole, which also happens to be the coldest place on earth. Now, why is that even a part of the story? Well, the reason is, is that as a cosmologist studying the entire universe, you need to have really powerful telescopes. Well, in order for a telescope to see the universe, you need to be able to have absolute absence of water because water obscures our ability to see in distance. So, in order to see the universe, you have to go to the driest place on earth, which is the south pole. And so, this individual lived for almost a year in the coldest place on earth. And so interesting story, first of all, like what is it like to live in the south pole?

And then there's the story of the universe. Well, working with this individual, what we were able to do was to build a story that literally wove together the origins of the universe and his own experience of spending a year, isolated in minus 100-degree weather in a station with about 30 other people, as they literally begin to degrade because it happens every year with them. There's only about two or three months of the year where they can actually get in and out of the south pole, planes can't actually get in, it's too cold. And so, they can't land, the steel would snap. So, listening to this story, it was phenomenal. It was literally poetic and this is a scientist. He literally wove these two stories together. So that comes to mind and it's one of those, great for me, moments of working with a speaker where I saw the academic side ma married beautifully with the art of storytelling.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that's great. Great story to refer onto it as well.

Andrea Sampson: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So as a CEO and a leader in your own, right, I'm now going to ask some questions of you in terms of getting inside of your leadership brain.

Andrea Sampson: Sure.

Steve Rush: And thinking about how we can share some great tips and ideas with our listeners. So, the first place I'd like to go, Andrea is to ask you what your top three leadership hacks would be?

Andrea Sampson: So, number one is, as a leader, you are not alone. So, make sure you have a good network. It can be very lonely at the top. People say that all the time, but if you think of leadership as a solitary sport, not only is it going to be lonely, you're not going to be very good at it. So, the reality is all good leaders have a great network of people who are advisors, who are supporters and who help them. So, make sure you've got your team in place. Number two, take care of yourself. You know, you as the leader of anything, you are the one who's making all of these decisions. So how have you taken care of your brain today? You know, look at the self-care that will help you be able to show up at your best. You know, are you meditating? Are you finding ways to work through whatever blocks you have? You know, what is your routine? Are you exercising? What's your food intake like? These are things that people don't like to talk about because it's like, oh, you know, we've lived for so long in a world that said, you know, just sacrifice everything and do it all. And that is the worst advice that you can get as a leader, make sure you are taking care of yourself. And then number three, make sure that you have very clearly articulated and identified what your vision is and that vision isn't just for your business.

It's also for your life. So, you need to have a vision that aligns with what your core purpose is as a business person, but as a human as well, because only then will you be able to continue to move forward with consistency. If your core purpose is out of alignment with who you are or what you believe, you will very quickly come to a point where you can no longer do it. You will run out of steam. So always asking yourself, do I have passion for this? Am I committed to it? Do I wake up in the morning knowing that I am moving forward on something that I deeply, deeply believe in? And if you can say yes to those things every day, you're going to jump out of bed and be excited for the work you're doing

Steve Rush: Really powerful stuff. That last one, particularly also, I bet makes your storytelling much easier as well, right?

Andrea Sampson: Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Rush: If it's intrinsically connected to something that's overly emotional for you, then it's going to be so much easier to convey emotional stories.

Andrea Sampson: Yeah, absolutely, yep.

Steve Rush: So, the next part of the show we call Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something hasn't worked out particularly well, and it could be that it was quite catastrophic, but as a result, you now have created some core foundations or something that's working really well for you in your life and work. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Andrea Sampson: So, you know, this past year, you know, we're recording this, you know, at a time where hopefully we're coming out of a global pandemic and this has been an incredibly difficult time, not just for me, but for everyone.

Steve Rush: Right.

Andrea Sampson: And you know, if I look back to a year ago where we were, I'm in Canada and, you know, in June of 2020, we were just coming out of lockdown and you know, wondering how the world was going to recover. Well, here we are in June of 2021, and also just getting out of lockdown and wondering how the world is going to recover, but we're in a very different place. Emotionally a year ago, I was really in a place of, I'm not quite sure how we're going to move forward. You see what had happened for me was I had made the choice to take over the company solo.

I bought out my business partner just prior to the pandemic and suddenly the world fell down around us. And I didn't know whether or not I was going to be able to make a go of it with Talk Boutique because, you know, the reality was we were an event-based business. We work with speakers and every event was canceled. And so, a year later I look at that and go, oh, thank God, because you know, sometimes things need to die in order for them to live. And what I mean by that is when you're in a partnership, what we had created together was important, but it wasn't my vision. And I needed the deconstruction to happen. And I'm not sure that if we had continued, the business had continued as busy as it was in the pre pandemic time, but I would have had the time to really stop and think about my own vision and purpose. And so, this past year of retooling and re-imagining the business, I've had the time to do that. And so, I look forward now with so much hope and so much gratitude for what happened a year ago. And so, I can see now that what I'm creating is much more in tune and aligned with my own purpose and vision about shifting the social narrative, you know, working with thought leaders, working with those who are doing good in the world and helping them to get their stories out in the world so that we can all see the good that's happening in the world and contribute to that, become part of that. And a year ago, I'm not sure I would have been so clear on that. So, you know, that is for me, it's sometimes the breakdown is really a breakthrough.

Steve Rush: Wow, that's really powerful words. I love the whole principle of how you framed that about breakdown to breakthrough. So, thank you for sharing, that's really powerful.

Andrea Sampson: You're welcome.

Steve Rush: The last thing we want to do is get a chance to do some time travel with you. So, our guest have the opportunity to bump into their former selves at 21. So, what would your advice to Andrea be if you could bump into her at 21.

Andrea Sampson: So, Andrea at 21 was driven and passionate and fearless. And, you know, if I were to go back and give her some advice it would be to keep going, first of all but also to slow down, don't worry that everything has to happen right now. You know, that was who I was. I was this, you know, young person who wanted to make my mark in the world. And I would tell Andrea at 21, that life is long and there is plenty of time and you don't have to get it right the first time. In fact, you're not going to get it right the first time. And sometimes the not getting it right, is the whole reason why we do things, because it helps us to learn. Failure is such an important part, you know, I grew up in a family where we were very much driven to perfectionism. And so, if I couldn't get it right, I moved onto the next thing instead of sticking with the thing and getting it right. And now, you know, many years later, I've learned that when you focus on something and when you take the risk to do it, and when you take the risk to fail, you are going to learn so much more than if you just abandoned it because it didn't work out right away.

Steve Rush: Yeah

Andrea Sampson: So that's a big one.

Steve Rush: It is, that's huge. So, Andrea, what's happening with Talk Boutique? Tell us about the journey you're on now and maybe how our folks can learn a little bit more about the work you're doing.

Andrea Sampson: Sure, so Talk Boutique now, I mean, we are both a speakers bureau and we represent deep subject matter experts who are doing the work in the world that I've described earlier, and we are speaker coaches. I have a team of coaches who work with me, who have all been trained in my methodology. And what we do is we work with thought leaders. We work with corporate leaders and we work with teams and we help them to become storytellers in every presentation or talk that they give. We train them through one-on-one coaching and through programs that we aim at the, you know, the core of any organization, we bring the TED-style into the corporate world, and this is a really powerful program. We also have an open enrollment program that we call The Thought Leader Academy for anyone who wants to work with us on a one-on-one basis, but they might not quite be able to make the commitment to come in through a corporate program or to work with our coaches one-on-one.

And that is a digital offering that includes group coaching. And so, The Thought Leader Academy, we do a couple of intakes a year. Our next one will be coming up in the fall, but we are doing some work right now around getting the story spine out there in a bigger way and doing some small trainings. So, if you're interested in working with us, you can go to our website at talkboutique.com, or you can email me directly at andreatalkboutique.com, either work. We love working with individuals and with teams. So always happy to help out in whatever way we can.

Steve Rush: We'll make sure our listeners can hook up with you as well by putting your links for your website and email addresses and stuff in our show totes too.

Andrea Sampson: Fantastic Steve, thank you so much.

Steve Rush: You're very welcome, Andrea. I'm super glad that we have you on the show, the whole story spine, and learning a little bit about how you are making connections through storytelling is a really inspirational one. So, thank you for sharing and thank you for being part of the community on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Andrea Sampson: Oh, Steve, thank you. It has been my absolute pleasure. Thank you for asking such amazing questions and for adding so much to today's call. It has been amazing.

Steve Rush: Thank you. My pleasure.

Andrea Sampson: All right, take care.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the Leadership Hacker.

View Details

Raimonda Jankunaite is the founder of the Women in Business Club. She's a visibility expert, mentor, coach, and international speaker. In today’s show you can learn about:

How Raimonda regained her voice after not being able to speak for 2 years
How she’s inspiring collaboration and communities working together
Having an innovative mind and being open to having those different conversations is key
Why as a leader you’ll never conquer anything alone

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Raimonda below:

Raimonda on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raimondajan/

The Women in Business Club Website: https://womeninbusiness.club/raimonda-jankunaite/

Raimonda on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RaimondaJan

Raimonda on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/raimondajankunaite/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

The special guest on today's show is Raimonda Jankunaite. She's a founder at Women in Business Club. She's a visibility expert, mentor and coach, as well as being an international speaker. but before we get a chance to speak with Raimonda, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we explore why women make the best bosses, according to science. Regard, of far we'd like to believe gender equality in the workplace has come. There's still a big gap between male and female leaders in the professional world. While it's not a huge shock that women are somewhat underrepresented in leadership positions. What is surprising though is the fact that females may be actually better suited to lead in almost every area. And that's according to findings from the BI Norwegian Business School. In their research, Professor Oyvind L. Martinsen and Professor Lars Glaso survey 2,900 managers with special focus on personality types.

And the results were clear. Women scored higher than men in four of the five major leadership centric categories. Business must always seek to attract customers and clients to increase productivity and profits. And our results show that women naturally rank higher in general than men on the ability to innovate and lead with clarity and impact explains Martinsen. While some people believe that men inherently make better leaders, probably because of the picture that they had imposed on them as a youngster. This research suggests that women are actually better and more methodical at management, gold setting, openness, sociability, and supportiveness, as well as being innovative. There was one area in which men scored higher than women though, and that was on emotional stability and ability to withstand job-related stress and pressure. The results suggest that women are more sensitive to the effects of high pressure and high emotional situations.

The survey suggests that female leaders may falter through their stronger tendency to worry or the lower emotional stability explains Glaso. He goes on to say, this does not negate the fact that they are decidedly more suited to management positions than their male counterparts. If decision makers ignore this truth, they could effectively being pairing less qualified leaders and impairing productivity he said. And my take on this is the fact that the very same qualities that make women sensitive to pressure, namely their sociability and supportiveness are some of the very qualities that make them effective leaders. Obviously, it's really important here to consider the individual and to consider the differences because their differences can make a difference. So, anyone regardless of gender or indeed age, sexuality, ethnicity, and any of the elements of diversity, equity and inclusion, they can all be competent bosses. So, the leadership lesson here is the next time you're hiring for a management position. You just might want to give their resumes a harder look and particularly harder from female candidates because as they say the science doesn't lie. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, insights or stories, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today is Raimonda Jankunaite. She is a serial entrepreneur, a mentor, business coach and international speaker. She is the founder of The Women in Business Club and international community and events club to help women become more visible go-to experts, Raimonda, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Raimonda Jankunaite: Thank you so much Steve, so great to be here today and meet your incredible audience.

Steve Rush: I think they'll be looking forward to listening to your story as well. And for those that haven't had the chance to find out about your work, maybe you can give us a little bit of a backstory as to how you've ended up here?

Raimonda Jankunaite: Yeah, absolutely. Well, great to be here on today's show, as Steve just mentioned, I am motivational speaker, serial entrepreneur and visibility experts. I support women in business, and this is where my journey really began as entrepreneur more than 10 years ago. I had a dream and a vision of becoming a serial entrepreneur at a time, I was just 20 years old, completing my business degree in London in the UK, and really looking for that next opportunity in my life. And whilst my peers were going off to find work placements and jobs and experience, for me it was about realizing my own dream and my potential. And I remember starting to travel the world and read magazines like success magazine, listening to podcasts and inspirational people. And I had this vision of having my own business. So that started, that seed was planted 10 years ago.

And ever since I've been not only going through my own entrepreneurial journey and learning the lessons along the way, but also helping others and learning a lot about visibility, social media, personal branding, how to actually become your own personal brand. And since five years ago, I have built a platform for other women to come on board and do it together rather than unintentionally. I think as I was going through my own entrepreneurial journey, I found out through networking and events. I wasn't necessarily able to find a community for me. So, I started at five years ago as a way to share those experiences with other female entrepreneurs and people who go through seeing, you know, personal development. Because I see your own business as, your biggest personal development journey. So yeah, now I support other people, entrepreneurs in becoming entrepreneurs and business owners.

Steve Rush: Awesome, so where was it that you found that passion for helping other women in business?

Raimonda Jankunaite: I think having been through that journey myself of 10 years of personal development. That passion really came through connecting with other people, especially women and seeing the incredible things that they do, the stories that they have. So, the way Women in Business started was through one event where I was helping and supporting five other businesses to start up, which in more of a crowdfunding sense. So, we hosted our first event and the incredible women that came to this event, more than a hundred and just hearing their stories and how they are impacted by other stories into either starting your own business or doing things differently or just believing that you can. And after this first event, women just naturally started to gravitate and find us and ask for more events to have that platform where we can share incredible conversations and stories and be inspired.

Steve Rush: What do you think the reason is that women have migrated to the club, The Women in Business Club, is that the community, the sense of kind of supporting each other and what does it you think they get from that sense of community?

Raimonda Jankunaite: There are many women based immense groups, and I think there is a general movement as women realizing that empowerment, we can empower ourselves, but when we empower each other and we come together to support each other in business and have that safe space where we can share our stories or struggles and learn from others, it becomes a really powerful catalyst for your projection of life, your achievements and your goals, because now you see other people doing it. So, for at Women in Business, I think people are attracted to me to the energy that we have and the values and the platform that we've built. A lot of people when they come to Women in Business, they see it’s a diverse group, they see its global group. So, it doesn't matter where in the world you are, you might be working in your bedroom, but you feel like I can relate with these women, even if they're online and making these friends virtually, it's so powerful because one day you get to meet them. And that's the exciting part that we The Women in Business Club, also hosts in-person events. And that's, I guess, a differentiating point.

Steve Rush: And you've also over the last few years created the women thrive summit. Tell us a little bit about that?

Raimonda Jankunaite: Over the years, I think events generally has been such a passion for me, just seeing people in person, it's been amazing. So last year we were setting out for a global expansion because our community has grown from London to our second biggest city being New York and LA. Now we have a big community of entrepreneurs in IB and through the in-person events. There has been number of speakers who invited us to be part of or creative events in the same parish or internationally. And one of the speakers flew to London from Atlanta. So, we usually have people flying in from the States and Europe and this lady, Michelle and Jolie. She suggested that we do an event in Atlanta. I said, fantastic, let's do it. At that stage, honestly, hands to my heart. I knew one person which was Michelle, well previous speaker in Atlanta, professionally. And year later, I said, okay, we need to do our first event.

So why don't we choose Atlanta as a main city? Because after doing a lot of researching, you know, where is the good place to start geographically? And what's going on in Atlanta in terms of a lot of women, entrepreneurial groups and events happening already. So, we decided to host our first 2020 international events in Atlanta. And I booked a venue for 250 people and we were three weeks away from the event. People already booked their flights, their tickets to be there. And of course, the pandemic hit and we got the news. So, we actually won't be able to fly and we had to do something. And this was end of February, just beginning of March and our event was two, three weeks away. So, we had to do a really quick pivot and announced to everybody that this wasn't going forward. And everybody had the same feeling of, oh no, we were hoping this was going to happen.

So, what now? And as a leader, as someone who initiated this event, I had to really face that situation and make a decision. What are we going to do? Because we have nearly 200 people booked in person and virtually as well. We we're planning on stream it, so we decided to pivot that into women thrive summit because during the beginning of the pandemic, people felt lost. People felt like we need leadership and this moment in time could really crumble us. So, we need to hold onto something. We need to have vision and inspiration and knowing this is going to work out. So that is when we launched our women thrive summit. And we reached, I think 3000 people. We had 34 speakers, five days fully live event. And I've spoken to many event organizers and they said Raimonda, you are the craziest person to do that. So, we did it.

Steve Rush: And you've had a really successful women thrive summit as well too, haven't you?

Raimonda Jankunaite: This year? Yes. So, since the events are not back on, all of our in-person events had to close and cancel for last year and this year we did again, because we just simply don't have an option. And March was really special one. It's International Women Day and also, you know, a global event to celebrate, women's month. So, we tend to do events around March and this year we couldn't. So, we decided to do again, women thrive summit, which become its own platform because one of my passions is to actually give women who have never shared their voice or their story on stage to give them the platform. And this is where it was really exciting that through every single event, almost 50% of our speakers are first time speakers, and this year we hosted 42. So, last year was 34 this, year 42 speakers. And this year we've done 10 days event because it was just too big, we expanded so much.

Steve Rush: That's an amazing story, isn't it? When you think about where you were at the start of the pandemic and now having a global platform where 42 women can really express themselves to a global audience, that's just amazing.

Raimonda Jankunaite: Yeah, I think this is one of the most fulfilling aspects of what I do.

Steve Rush: Giving women their voice is kind of ironic because I remember the last time that we met, you told me a story that was really quite empowering in so much as, as a professional speaker now, not so long ago, you had a period in your personal life where you lost your voice and couldn't speak. Tell us a little bit about that experience and how you managed to recover from that?

Raimonda Jankunaite: Well, this is part of my life or a moment in my life, which I haven't really, truly explored yet. And suddenly when in the last two or three months, I've joined a community called Hungry to Speak by Les Brown. And he is, if you don't know who Les Brown is, he's you know, world renowned, motivational speaker, he's been speaking on stage for more than 40 years and transforming lives, changing lives and saving lives through his events and speaking. And when I joined his group, he asked me a question of why do you want to be a speaker? And having been naturally, not necessarily naturally a speaker my whole life. I've simply created a platform and I was drawn to do the work that I do almost unintentionally. So, I had to learn to use my voice over the last five years. I remember doing lives and being completely scared or delaying an event by half an hour to get up on that stage because I knew I would have to share my story.

And it was difficult, when every time you share a story for the first time, it's really, really personal. So, when I joined Les Brown group, he asked me, why do you want to speak? And yes, I know the work that I do truly inspires me. Truly makes an impact and it makes me happy, and it's a work that I feel it's worthwhile pursuing. But when I was asked that question of why I realized the moment in my life, when I was 23, 24 years old and going through a personal relationship and trauma through that relationship, that led me to losing my confidence, myself, my self-identity, my self-worth. And with that also my voice for two years, I couldn't speak, I couldn't use my voice. I would look in a mirror and say to myself, you need to speak, I don't know who this person is in front of me. So having lost that identity and gone through self-healing and coming out on the other side to start to build a platform for other people. And I always say, I'm your biggest cheerleader. I want to spotlight every woman doing incredible things and their stories, but a lot of that time is building a platform to spotlight others was a distraction for me to look into why am I wanting to speak and going through that journey, so yeah.

Steve Rush: And was that a psychological reaction to you losing your voice or was that a medical reaction?

Raimonda Jankunaite: It was more psychological going through the trauma.

Steve Rush: Right.

Raimonda Jankunaite: Right, so I think that was the biggest impact. I could speak, but I chose not to, and I couldn't,

Steve Rush: And when was that moment for you when you realized that there were some options for you to be able to speak, but more importantly in you speaking that was a bigger audience for you to leverage?

Raimonda Jankunaite: I had no idea of what parables was. I was just desperately trying to rebuild myself after that and do what it is that I love to do. And entrepreneurship was one non-negotiable. I wasn't going to settle for a job or wasn't going to settle for a career because I knew my career was entrepreneurship. And with building our business and being an entrepreneur, it comes with certain demands of you to show up you, to have that leadership quality, for you to have your voice. It's necessary, and when it's necessary, you have to do what it takes to get through it because as crazy as it sounds

Steve Rush: Okay, and what's the core focus of the work that you and The Women in Business Club have right now?

Raimonda Jankunaite: I think for us is about making an impact. If it really comes down to making a positive social impact and empowering women, because through that, through the power of community collaborations, coming together, sharing information and having a place where we can celebrate each other is truly the goal to impact lives and change minds with what we do.

Steve Rush: That brilliant, and it's fair to say that diversity, equity and inclusion has got a much bigger audience, and certainly it's much more receptive around most boards and organizations today. But from your perspective, what do you think the reason is that there's still so much work to do in this space?

Raimonda Jankunaite: I think world is changing, generally. World is definitely changing and I have younger generation, which is my niece and my stepdaughter. And we have these conversations, a lot about diversity inclusion by the world events that's happening. So, we starting this conversation at home and my stepdaughter talks a lot about LGBTQ Community. And I think world is divided, world at large is still very much divided. We find things to fight and how war is about whether it's from religion perspective to color, to you know, your rights as a human. And there is a huge uprise going on right now in Lithuania about political aspect of LGBTQ Community and changing the laws. So ultimately the older perspectives are still around and they're still there and they're still impact that negative impact. That's still happening on individual basis on individual, in individual lives and the community at large in terms of how people see things.

So, I think there's a lot of work to be done. And only by actually taking the steps and showing unity, talking about positives things, there are a lot of people I meet that say, I don't even want to go on social media because amount of conversations is happening around politics, about negativity, about things that I don't want to hear. And I don't have that because I filter my community, people that I surround myself with and all we talk is about positivity. And recently we hosted the Women Thrive Summit, and a lot of that was focused on diversity inclusion, LGBTQ, and just generally celebrating those aspects of life. And since I started connecting with so many more people on my LinkedIn, LinkedIn, all of a sudden become the place that I want to go, because I know every time, I go on there, I see positive things. So, as much as it is on the grand scale, it's still an issue and a lot of work to be done. It's also possible on a personal level, to change your perspective and surround yourself with new sources of information.

Steve Rush: It's ever evolving too, isn't it?

Raimonda Jankunaite: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So, the fact is that it's easy to have a perception that organizations are changing and the business world is responding to diversity. And again, whether that be from gender inclusion, race, background, ethnicity, sexuality, et cetera, that's kind of irrelevant. But actually, when you then drill in, there are still pockets of communities and emerging countries. And when you think of the world that we work and live in today, it's a global landscape. It's still very accessible, so when you get into those smaller communities, I suspect is where it becomes even more relevant for the work you do, right?

Raimonda Jankunaite: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the few things that I don't tolerate, or it doesn't really even happen within my own community where anyone has been mean to each other or discriminate in any way. And there has been a few comments recently came about from the summit or someone told me that I feel like I don't fit in, or I'd feel like there was a clique. And this is one thing that I try to always avoid having these clique. Because if everyone only shares one perspective and one way of doing things and you don't embrace the voice of the community and people around you, then truly you're not creating open environment for everyone to grow and learn and be different and actually be celebrated for their differences.

Steve Rush: And that's the key thing, isn't it? Celebrating those differences. Because for me, the more you do celebrate difference, the more difference creates innovation, energy, growth.

Raimonda Jankunaite: Yeah, absolutely. There's a little secret I actually haven't shared with anybody.

Steve Rush: You're going to share it with us now?

Raimonda Jankunaite: Yes.

Steve Rush: Go for it.

Raimonda Jankunaite: So back in 2006, I started a company called Innovation & Simple Ideas. This was my personal passion of creating innovative ideas, solutions to solve the world problems. One of my first businesses was in sustainability and changing the way we consume plastic and drinking water. And this was an innovating machine that I created, but that didn't work how the way I wanted to. So, I started a business called Innovation Simple Ideas for the intention of developing new ideas, technology, innovations, and talents. This was my business, which now evolved into becoming The Woman in Business. I changed the original name to that becoming a Woman in Business. And although I had an idea to develop innovations. Now we develop people, to have innovative ideas and be empowered.

Steve Rush: And more scale and more powerful as a result, I suspect.

Raimonda Jankunaite: Yes, certainly. I think we learned a lot.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so looking ahead to, let's say the next few years, what do you see as being the biggest challenge for women that are in the business community today?

Raimonda Jankunaite: I think the biggest challenge is conquering ourselves. That is always the biggest challenge for ourselves as individuals wanting to achieve great things. Of course, I don't underestimate challenges personal and otherwise that surrounds us in the world right now. But if you truly want to achieve something, I think having that innovative mind and being open to having those different conversations and exploring your mind. So, a lot of the times, the reason why we don't actually achieve something in life, or we don't fulfill our potential because we have a fear within ourselves, what would happen if I truly reach for my dreams? What would happen if I truly aimed for that big goal that I have? But when we conquer ourselves and this is what I said earlier about running your own business, it's the biggest personal development journey you ever take. And the most conquering that you will have to do. Everything else is just strategy, techniques, tools, information, and putting it all together.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Raimonda Jankunaite: It's to you that always stops you from going where you want to be.

Steve Rush: Some of those unconscious biases that are holding people back, right?

Raimonda Jankunaite: Yeah, in many aspects of our lives.

Steve Rush: So not only are you an entrepreneur, businesswoman, you've also turned your hand to writing and your first book is out shortly. Tell us a little bit about how that came about and what was the driver behind it?

Raimonda Jankunaite: Yeah, it's still surreal being an author, but this has happened again through the very same journey of discovering my reason of why, why I wanted to share my voice. And for the first time coming out with this personal story of losing my voice and just the overwhelming response from so many, of course women, because this is my main audience that I speak to and deliver my messages to. So, women came forward and said, I have experienced that myself. And since sharing that story and other women coming out and me having those conversations and empowering them and just seeing how quickly they can change when they feel like I am not alone on this, you know, this personal journey. So since sharing that story two weeks later, or actually the very next week, one of my past Women Thrive Summit speakers. Who's also a published author and she has a publishing house and she created collaborative books. And this is one of the collaborative books that just happened right there. She reached out to me, she said, I still have two more spots if you know, anyone who would like to share their story. And this was me on a story that I have never shared before. So, I thought that was a great occasion for me to actually tell my story of what truly happened. So, I'm very excited and the name of it is Younger Self Letters. So, the publisher, Adriana Monique Alvarez, I'm very excited about this.

Steve Rush: Brilliant.

Raimonda Jankunaite: Thank you.

Steve Rush: So, you should be too, it's a great credit to you as well. So, what's next for you in terms of focus of work.

Raimonda Jankunaite: I love to travel the world if the world opens.

Steve Rush: Yeah, wouldn't that be nice?

Raimonda Jankunaite: I would love to, we have made so many friends globally that honestly, that's the one thing that I cannot wait to go and meet all of my friends across the pond in the states, in Europe and just have some fantastic events.

Steve Rush: And with that connection, my experience tells me also that sometimes the events follow the conversations for the motivation, you know, those natural occurring opportunities to collaborate this pop-up, don’t they?

Raimonda Jankunaite: Absolutely, we just don't know where, you know, what we do could really take us in life.

Steve Rush: Hmm, I agree. Being open to opportunity and coincidence is the big key, isn't it?

Raimonda Jankunaite: Life happens. Life evolves. It's not always just coincidence. I believe you have a path.

Steve Rush: So, who are the women in your life that have inspired you?

Raimonda Jankunaite: I actually have been asked this question recently by a few people. And there's one person that always comes to the top of my list, which is definitely my mother. And I have come from a woman, I wouldn't say dominated, but a lot of women in our family. So definitely have a lot of that feminine energy and also seeing how strong my family roots, the women in my community, in my family have been really strong and determined and you know, willing to do whatever it takes. So, I think having that drive is certainly from my family, but in many other, you know, we quite often write about other women. And to be honest, you don't have be a celebrity or someone known in a public eye to inspire people. I am inspired by the women's stores that are here every day by the people that I have and share a stage for Hungry to Speak family with the Les Brown, you know, and we plan on doing some events and I just feel so privileged when we create events and we collaborate with people to have that opportunity like yourself before you get people onto podcasts to hear their real and raw stories before they actually get up on stage.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Raimonda Jankunaite: That’s what really inspiring.

Steve Rush: Yeah, awesome stuff. So, I'm going to flip the conversation a little bit now, and this is my chance to hack into your mind and ask some really deep and challenging questions around your leadership experience. So, if you think about your career to date, and we distilled that down to your top three tips, tools, or ideas, what would be your top three leadership hacks?

Raimonda Jankunaite: As, if you haven't grilled me enough, Steve [Laughing], and that was always fun to have these conversations. And I truly appreciate, and honor your incredible questions today. I think first of all, is the confidence to have within yourself. Because without confidence, of course, you can kind of borrow confidence when you surround yourself with incredible people, but that mindset has to start within you. And there's a lot of mindset shift that needs to happen within ourselves. Two, I think having a clear vision and a goal and idea of what you want to have in this life, because a lot of the times we can follow a path that are going to that direction for far too long and not changing the gear can lead us blind to all the other opportunities and possibilities that we can have.

Right, so having some kind of sense of direction of what you truly want and not following the herd or how it's been done, so going against the grain. And three, I think surrounding yourself with people because no leader, no man on a mission, no person who ever wants to conquer anything have done it solely by themselves, right? We always have that support network, whether it's family, whether it's friends, whether it's your mentors, coaches, communities, groups, where do you belong? What is your community? And if you don't feel like you belong anywhere, have the courage to create your own. Because this is where you're going to make impact.

Steve Rush: I love that last bit, by the way. So, we often have this perception that we have to find communities, whereas in your case, what you've done is create communities. And that's actually really quite empowering and alluring as well, isn't it?

Raimonda Jankunaite: Any leader can do that, any entrepreneur and you know, whether they're big or small. This is you; this is yours.

Steve Rush: Yeah, going against the grain. There's something else heard you say. And of course, the one thing that I observe in having interviewed dozens and dozens of entrepreneurs is that restlessness to go against the norms is where they find themselves.

Raimonda Jankunaite: Yeah, and do whatever it takes. And it takes you personally on very interesting destinations.

Steve Rush: Exactly, so next thing we want to talk about is what we call Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where you've had an experience in the past that might not work out very well at all. In fact, it could have been quite a steep learning experience, but as a result of it, you now use it as a positive in your life and your work. So, Raimonda, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Raimonda Jankunaite: Suh a rich question and so many different stories, and you see in life, things doesn't always work out. And this is my general, I guess, insight into having tried many, the business that I have today, it happened by chance. I didn't plan for it, but there has been many intentional businesses and ventures and ideas that I have tried to pursue over the last more than 10 years. And there was a reason why they didn't work out like having my first business. And I face the adversity of being a 21-year-old girl building a business, which was more technical than you can imagine, building vending machines and systems and purification systems and brand and huge projects. And that business not working out, led me to another path in my career when I was working in crowdfunding. And that didn't work out, just as we were about to launch and having invested maybe 10, 15, 20,000 and 30,000 thousand of my own personal time. That not working out and then Women in Business happening. So, I remember when we were launching the crowdfunding platform that I've spent two and a half years building, actually the launch part of the launch event was called The Women in Business, which was our first official event. And that becoming and the crowdfunding platform becoming basically obsolete. So, every part of your journey, when things don't work out, there are doors that will open. And for me, that was Women in Business, which wasn't completely unplanned. It was just following my passion. So, I'm just so blessed to be here and have this community.

Steve Rush: And I wonder if that's just down to your entrepreneurial spirit of not looking at the adversity, but looking for the opportunity.

Raimonda Jankunaite: Yeah, I guess. You got to know how to turn any bad situation into a positive.

Steve Rush: Right.

Raimonda Jankunaite: And when you have that perspective, you'll find a way and that's generally, you've got to find a way, in a life of business.

Steve Rush: The very last question I'm going to ask you today is if you could go back and meet Raimonda when she was 21, and you could give her some words of wisdoms and counseling and coaching, mentoring, what would your advice to her be then?

Raimonda Jankunaite: Actually, when I was 21, one of my mottoes was to believe, achieve and inspire. And as far as I can remember, I have been a creator of motivational and inspirational content. I just didn't know where it was leading, but all those skills that you, as a 20-year-old accumulate, as a result of pursuing something will become so worthwhile. And this is something that you're going to lean on a lot. So, every part of something not working out, the mistakes, the lessons, the bad decisions, the bad investments that you have made, it's just a stepping stones to you knowing better. So, make those mistakes, don't be afraid. Go out there and conquer your dreams and believe, one in yourself, achieve what you set out to achieve, to show the world and then inspire others, right? Because once you have achieved your goals and dreams, which I have done over 10 years, when I was 21 or 25 years old, my mom would say, when are you going to get a job? Are you still doing this thing? It's been five years, get yourself a real job. And I was like, no mama, I'm unemployable. So, I have had to achieve my goals and dreams to show, not only my friends and family, but the world to say it was worthwhile. It's 10 years in the making, but it was worthwhile.

Steve Rush: It's funny how people's perceptions of what other people do, where it doesn't have, you know, routine and you go to a location and a desk and you clock in and clock out. People still have a perception that you don't have a job. Yeah, I have a job, it's just a little bit different from others.

Raimonda Jankunaite: Yeah, I always laugh when people ask me, oh, what do you do?

Steve Rush: Depends.

Raimonda Jankunaite: I always laugh, because I know, you know, it could be a long conversation to explain how it works. So, I just say I host events and motivational speaking, things like that

Steve Rush: So, for folks listening to us talk today, Raimonda, and for them to want to learn a little bit more about The Women in Business Club and indeed the work you do, where's the best place for us to send them?

Raimonda Jankunaite: I think a website journey has a lot of most up-to-date information about our events, things that we do and the work that we carry out. So, womeninbusiness.club would probably be the best place to go check it out. We've got lots of blogs and some amazing resources, so definitely go and help yourself out.

Steve Rush: Yourself out, quite active on social media as well, aren't you? Through Instagram I know, and LinkedIn and Twitter. So, we'll make sure that we scoop your social media handles and put them in our show notes as well.

Raimonda Jankunaite: Thank you, Women in Business, you usually find me one of the social media platforms hanging out.

Steve Rush: Awesome. So, thank you ever so much for joining us today. I love speaking to you. You got a real calming, yet energetic approach to life. And I know that for the women who work with you, they get huge amounts of value and working with you and in growing their visibility. So, thank you for sharing that in our podcasts today and thank you for being part of The Leadership Hacker Community.

Raimonda Jankunaite: Thank you so much. I celebrate you Steve of what you have achieved with your podcast is the phenomenal. When I have heard about your community, I was just so honored to wait more than six months to do this Steve with you, so this is special moment.

Steve Rush: I know, thank you Raimonda and thanks for joining.

Raimonda Jankunaite: I appreciate you. Look forward to hearing from everybody. Thank you so much.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Martyn Clark is the CEO of Gadfly Consulting and author of the new book, “Love Incorporated.” In this fun and exhilarating conversation you can learn about:

How Martyn had to reframe his mind and his life following a debilitating illness.
Adversity in his early life became foundations for success in his career.
Why laughing helps your employees become more addicted to your organization.
How incorporating “love” into your business creates more purpose and meaning.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Martyn below:

Martyn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martynclark/

Gadfly Website: http://gadflyconsulting.com

Martyn’s site: http://www.martynclark.com

Martyn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/martynclark

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Martyn Clark is a special guest on today's show. He's a CEO of Gadfly Consulting and author of the new book Love Incorporated: The Future of Business, but before we get a chance to speak with Martyn, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Throughout the world there are a number of football or soccer tournaments happening. You have Copa America, and of course you have the Euros. Some of the world's biggest and most influential players and managers come together to showcase their skills and capabilities. So, I wanted to explore what can we learn from some of the best football and soccer managers in the world? Jose Mourinho is one of the best and most successful managers of his time. He has a theory of aligning personal ambition to team objectives. He offers each payer a deal. If they commit to his philosophy, which will bring them success as a team, he'll do everything in his power to make sure he brings success to the individual.

So, by aligning the individual ambition to the team's objectives, Jose Mourinho creates a clear line of motivation, which enables him to create the ideal environment for team success, which is a combination of high stakes and high belief. Pep Guardiola had conquered every league he's ever led to teams in. At both Barcelona and by Munich, Pep Guardiola didn't in this case buy players into the mission, but into a particular way of playing. Barcelona always had a reputation for their flare and Bayern Munich had a reputation for their domestic success. Yet for both clubs, winning was no longer enough. They had to win a certain style, a certain way, and pep Guardiola focused on why and that why was the enabler articulation so that all the players would get behind and buying into the belief system that was driving passion and energy into football. So, the Y in his belief system established loyalty, trust between the players and the manager. Claudio Ranieri has managed clubs in the U.S. as well as across Europe.

But whilst as manager of Leicester City in the UK Premier League, he achieved the seemingly impossible by winning the premier league in a league that's traditionally dominated by money. Leicester City wage bill was a snippet of the other teams around them. And what Claudio Ranieri area achieved was to make each player play with a level of passion that money couldn't buy and a commitment to fight for each other. Wes Morgan, the teams captain described Claudio Ranieri creating a brotherhood. Claudia Ranieri said that the secret of getting people to put others ahead of themselves is in fact, a selfish endeavor, and this may seem paradoxical, but the strongest human instinct is the instinct for self-preservation. We're all wired to survive, and we survive by being a pack. We are drawn to be part of packs in order to ensure survival, especially if that pack provides us with a level of significance and security.

So once established, Claudia Ranieri pack or brotherhood established a real fight to remain together as a pack and to work together. Jurgen Klopp joined Liverpool football club, a club full of rich history and tradition that had waned for many years. His successful mental approach was demonstrated in the quarter final of the European Cup. Liverpool were playing Borussia Dortmund and at halftime Liverpool were 2-0 down and needed three goals in the second half in order to win. During his halftime team talk Jurgen Klopp turned a negative situation into a highly positive one by focusing on opportunity. He urged his players to create a moment to tell their grandchildren about. A night to make fans that they would never forget. The team went out in that second half and ended up winning the match 4-3 and booked a place in the semi-finals. Klopp understood the psychology of leadership here and understood that high performance occurred when people were in a positive state and not in a negative state and turn the negative two, nil into an opportunity for positive outcomes.

So, whether you're a football or a soccer fan or any sports fan, there's always opportunity for us to learn from leaders and managers in other walks of life. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, insights or stories, please get in touch with us.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today is Martyn Clark, he's a CEO at Gadfly. Gadfly creative studio and leadership consultancy that uses creativity and design to transform the way people work and live. Martyn is also the author of the book, Love Incorporated: The Future of Business. Martyn welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Martyn Clark: Hi, Steve.

Steve Rush: So, when we worked together last year, it was about eight or nine years ago, and we reconnected at the beginning of this year. And what I learned is you've been on a really incredible journey that I hadn't even known about. So, for our listeners, perhaps it would be really useful if you could just give us a potted career history and then explain a little bit about your most recent personal journey?

Martyn Clark: Yeah, sure. I'm laughing at the introduction because I recognize all the words, but hearing it coming back at me, I'm like, you know, sometimes when you write things or say things or explain yourself, it's like.

Steve Rush: I don't know, that's what I do.

Martyn Clark: Yeah, thanks Steve. And I love that that about conversation. We can clarify things for each other, so I come looking forward to this, this opportunity to do that.

Steve Rush: Me too.

Martyn Clark: My story to another, to know the easy answers. I have a tendency to start with what I studied, physics and music. But the more difficult story is the more personal one. And I think those more difficult stories have value. So, I grew up in a fundamentalist household, very, very, very, very, very straight. Like I wasn't allowed to dance or listen to music that had to beat. I wasn't allowed to do karate because that's violent and evil. There a was list, like as long as you can imagine of stuff that I wasn't allowed to do. So, I grew up in Switzerland, in Southern England, watching people who had freedom to do whatever they wanted to do from inside this tiny little box where I was allowed to do almost nothing of what I wanted to do. And I just sat with that tension as a child. And I knew it from age five, six, I was aware of this, like really aware of it. And I was a naturally very, very curious, very eager to explore the world kind of kid, still am. And I just wanted to explore everything. So, I would find ways to explore things without exploring them, without anyone seeing, because I was a part of this fundamentalist community where everyone was watching me. So not only was I in a fundamentalist community, but my dad was the minister.

Steve Rush: Right.

Martyn Clark: And that meant everyone was watching me, and I was meant to be an example. And I knew this from age six that I was the minister's son and therefore expected to be good, I already didn't care. Like I really just didn't care about being good, but I knew what would cause problems for me. And I knew what get me rejected by everybody.

Steve Rush: So, did you start to notice that there was an opportunity to exploit and how you might do that rather than being in cognitive, but how you could do that more publicly?

Martyn Clark: Well, right. So, I explored the community that I was in. I explored what I was allowed to explore, like right to the very, very, very edge. So, I learned a lot about where the edge was and learnt a lot about people and how they work. And like one of the elders in the church was a chief executive and other was a chairman of an international corporation. And I hung out at their houses and they weren't as narrow as my parents were. So, I lived in this tiny little box, they live in a much, much bigger box. So, it was constantly darting in and out of different boxes, as I called it in my head. In a one day spent driving the personal tank collection of this CEO, another day spent with his son and his motorbike collection, knowing I wasn't allowed to drive tanks, knowing I wasn't allowed to ride motorbikes.

And just kind of going, how far can I go without getting in so much trouble? My whole life will be wrecked. So, I became very, very aware of boundaries and edges and people's limitations. So, people's emotional limitations and very, very, very, very curious about all of that. And I guess that's why and how I ended up studying physics and music and how I just ended up exploring people and how they communicate and systems and how they work and how people communicate within systems. And I mean, when I was basically seven, I decided I wanted to fly in Concord to New York to have cool meetings, to do cool stuff, to travel the world, to influence things, to change the world. I had this idea of how the world worked, because I saw these guys who had this freedom that I didn't have. And I just wanted that freedom really, that's what I wanted. And of course, 30 years later after meandering my way through studying music and physics, and I did a bit of neuro-psychology, earth science, and did degree in rocket science and like I just meandered through life and then found myself in a position where I was flying around the world, working with leaders, doing cool stuff in cool places, realizing that it felt kind of shallow to me.

Steve Rush: Isn't that kind of ironic after that early experience of having now created that personal freedom for you then feeling still a little empty?

Martyn Clark: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I don't want to get too deeply into my own self, but there were two aspects. One I was looking for freedom outside myself rather than inside. And two, I realize that this system was as trapped as I was, and these people were as trapped as I was. And at the core of capitalism as it is currently structured and companies, as they currently are run is a form of ideological fundamentalism, just like what I grow up with.

Steve Rush: Did you come to that conclusion? Where did that sense of realization for you come from?

Martyn Clark: Well, particularly coming up to the crash in 2007 to 2010, I was doing like incredible projects where I was just given free rein to flow around organizations, talking to people and basically untapping the potential of organizations. Like trying to work out, what is the thing that is sticking them and that's stopping them from changing in very big way? So, I was working on retainer for some of the largest banks in the world and many other companies as well, but the banks are the ones that just, really, really, really struck me. Because like I knew the crash was coming because I felt like I understood how people were talking. I saw the numbers in the boardroom. I was working with a number of boards at the time, and everyone was trying to avoid it, avoid talking about it, avoid thinking about it, avoid the consequences of it.

And I was looking at this thinking, these are some of the most powerful, influential people in the world. These are the equivalent of those guys that I grew up with. Chairman and CEOs of international financial organizations and all they really care about in terms of how they make choices, right? Not in terms of how they talk, not in terms of what they feel, but in terms of how they make choices.

Steve Rush: Right.

Martyn Clark: All they care about when it actually comes down to the value system, all they care about is money. The only thing that matters in that boardroom is money. The only thing that matters in that system is money. And it doesn't matter how many initiatives you do or change programs or how much leadership training you do. If the fundamental philosophical building block of the system is, what do we do to get more money? The behaviors all flow from that.

Steve Rush: Right.

Martyn Clark: So, like in that period, I had freedom to roam basic, and I roamed the whole organization to try and get an answer to this question. I talked to janitors, I talked to security guards, I talked to the people who worked in audit and financial crime. I was in group services, HR, in the boardrooms, in the retail side, in the backend site, in the money collection side and debt. I covered basically the whole of financial services. And in three years, every aspect of the system, trying to understand what is the driving force and how can that be changed. Banks being really at the core of how we structure society, like your credit rating tells other people, whether you are a good person or not. And I just wanted to understand this.

I remember sitting in, I think it was the NatWest, the old NatWest boardroom in London. At one point, it's like the boardroom that's in Mary Poppins. It may actually be the boardroom in there. It's an Oak paneled leather desk boardroom. And I remember sitting there like looking at the care with which that place was put together. Because it's like maybe 120 years old, that particular room. And I was sitting thinking, this is not what the people who built this organization initially intended, what's gone wrong? They cared about something more than money. So, what's happened? How did they accidentally build a structure that has turned into something that only cares about profit? Sitting in that boardroom, I was waiting for an executive, right. I was getting paid a full day rate and I'd flown down from Scotland where I was living to London, sitting, waiting for a whole day, doing a half hour session.

And I got paid for a full day. And I remember sitting thinking, I'd completely forgotten about this, actually, Steve. Really interesting, I remember sitting thinking, do you know what? When I grew up around Mr. Williams and Mr. Ide dreaming of flying on Concorde. I had a different idea of how these organizations ran and it was a Christian idea because they were coming at it from a fundamentalist Christian. Well, they weren't so fundamentalist, but they were coming at it from a deeply Christian perspective. And I started thinking of experiences that I'd had in other organizations, like in the Royal Bank of Scotland, in Edinburgh, sitting in the boardroom there and looking at the pictures of the old directors who were elders in the free church of Scotland and the church of Scotland. And I was like, oh, okay. So, what we've done is we've taken, what was a relatively neutral frame, a legal frame for these organizations, which is as directors, you have to do your best. Legally, you're obligated to do your best for the organization to grow the organization, to provide. And the rest is up to you as an individual. And the rest is up to you as an individual. What moral or ethical frame you choose to put over the top of that? Because the people who founded these organizations, didn't think for a moment that anyone would ever get to be a director who didn't have their own personal ethical frame, that was about how the world should be or how we should behave or how people should be treated. So, there was an implicit assumption that companies would have a human aspect to them. And that there would be a strong value system that meshed together with the corporate value system to create something that was socially beneficial to all.

Steve Rush: We've seen quite a lot of that shift and certainly the last five years or so, where that human centric approach is becoming much more prevalent, but there's still a bunch of work to be done, right?

Martyn Clark: I would say in the last five years, we're starting to have the conversations.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Martyn Clark: Even if I just think about that comparison, think about the directors who started these UK banks, just as an example, most of the directors who started the UK banks also had poor houses.

Steve Rush: That's right, yeah.

Martyn Clark: So, they had their own charities that they paid for out of their own pockets to keep thousands of people in basic work, in homes, so they might've been getting paid 20 times what the average was getting paid, but most of the money actually went to the community. So, they saw it as their duty to use that money to benefit community. And they saw their capacity to make decisions and their capacity to make sense of the complexity of the world as a responsibility, not just about whether they can get a second home in the south of France,

Steve Rush: Lots of the experiences that you've had, particularly in transitioning from your corporate careers through consultancy has been the foundations of the book that you wrote, Love Incorporated. But before we get into that, and we'd love to dive into that with you. It'd be really interesting if you could also maybe share for our listeners some of the recent challenges and how you've applied some of the similar thinking in order for you to take the next steps in your personal journey?

Martyn Clark: Yeah, that journey through corporations ended very abruptly for me, not because of the crash. I was actually doing fine during the crash. I had plenty of work, lots of exciting opportunities, but I ended up moving house and I wanted to rent for a while to have the freedom to move. Like I was really questioning lifestyle, questioning choices, ended up renting an apartment. It turned out three years later, I discovered that it had mold in the walls and in the ceiling, toxic mold. But I didn't know that at the time, so I moved into this apartment and within a month I was just not feeling right. I had asthma my whole life, my asthma suddenly got worse. This happens sometimes, like a mild asthma. I was a hill runner, an athlete, and it never stopped me from doing anything, but there are moments in life and periods where it's just worse.

And I was like, okay, it's a little bit worse. So, I'll just cancel some of my work and give myself a break and stay at home a bit more. And it just got worse, and I was put on oral steroids for the first time in my life. It's like the scariest ride, I think it’s possible chemically that I can imagine. Anyway, it's like a near death experience in a pill for me at least. It's extraordinary, it's like fear in a pill and I deal very well with fear and high pressure, but then my goodness. So, I was on steroids for just a few weeks and then came off and then got sick again and on steroids and off and sick again. And I ended up on steroids for almost a year. Done scans, to check that my bones were okay. Because steroids can leave bone density getting worse. But when you're taking fear in a pill every day, it's a real challenge. My meditation practice basically disappeared because I couldn't do it anymore.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Martyn Clark: Not possible, not taking steroids, but needed to breathe. Breathing comes first before meditation.

Steve Rush: Not a huge choice to take when you’re that poorly right?

Martyn Clark: You need to be able to breathe to be able to meditate. It turns out, try doing it without.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it brings a whole new meaning to focus on your breath, right?

Martyn Clark: Exactly, I ended up with mycoplasma pneumonia, which is nursing home pneumonia. It's like what old people whose immune systems are dead get. I had it twice, ended up being allergic to the, oh my God, I'm glad I can laugh about it. Because it's like telling the story. This isn't even half of it. The antibiotics I took, turns out I'm allergic to, and that took me months to recover from. And of course, I needed steroids to recover from that. So, just can't in this whirlpool of pain, fear and drugs. And it turns out that it was all because of mold in the apartment. And as soon as I discovered, we moved out and my health immediately started to recover. But the journey of recovery it's taken me four years, my goodness, it's four years and two weeks.

Steve Rush: And when we last spoke, I recall you telling me that, that four years and two weeks, so it's still really important to you. You time it, you know, you have a measure of this, but that took probably your biggest gig of your life.

Martyn Clark: Well, the biggest gig of my life was walking in the mountains. Like I had to walk in the mountains for my health for three years, every day. There was no medicine that I could take. I had become basically allergic to everything that would help me through having too many steroids. And my liver was damaged, like just in a really bad place from this toxic mold. And the only thing that helped me to recover was walking in the mountains, like pure air exercise. And it's like an antidote to chemical fear that steroids lead to. So, I had to get myself out of that rut. And that led me, you know, walking in the mountains, moved to Italy, to the north of Italy and ended up walking in the mountains, just looking down on the planes below that are polluted and have Milan in the middle, thinking about and reflecting on all of those experiences I had in corporations. And I'd taken notes, I'd taken notes about all of my thoughts about this stuff and had decided I wanted to write a book about it at some point, but thinking about it from the top of a mountain is a very different thing to thinking about it while flying to meetings in the city.

Steve Rush: And you can almost feel that journey, feel that clarity of thought you have when you read your book, because you tell it in such a vivid story about the experiences and the thoughts that you were having at that time, you can always bounce around the different stories as to how they were happening for you at that time. Is that where kind of the real inspiration for Love Incorporated came from?

Martyn Clark: The inspiration came from frustration, really, which is like, it shouldn't be that hard to build organizations that are okay for people to work in. It shouldn't be that hard. Like we're amazing, amazing creatures. We've built incredible civilizations. How is it that like 60 to 70% of people who work in large corporations have no motivation, like they're literally flogging themselves into work. I can't think of any single client that I worked with who was actually, or would I say living a life that felt integrated.

Steve Rush: That's probably a good word for actually, isn't it?

Martyn Clark: So that lack of integration, I mean, disintegration. They're all interesting complex concepts, but ultimately, I think it's about psychological splitting and the splitting comes from the split in the system, which is it's fundamentally dehumanizing because it's missing half of what it is to be human. The mystery, the unknown, the spiritual, the empathy and the stuff that religion has tried to capture for thousands of years and it was stripped out of organizations and were needing to find new ways to put it in.

So, I just decided, I'd been trying to write this book for a number of years and I just made a choice to write it. And I was like, okay, where do I need to go to write? Oh, you know, I’ll write in a cafe. So that was the beginning of it. I decided to go and write in a cafe in Lugano while Brendan, my son was on work experience. And that was the beginning of a three-week experience that I've tried to capture in the book. I just decided to do it until I finished it. And as you know, the beginning of the book is actually about my own personal experience of trying to write about something so deep in places that feel like there's no room for feeling that.

Steve Rush: Yeah, there are many paradox that you go through in the book, aren't there? In terms of that whole kind of Ying and Yang and trying to establish a sense of reality almost of what's happening for you at that time.

Martyn Clark: Yeah, trying to be really, really deeply honest about my own experience of trying to write about stuff that is very subtle, like it's right at the edge of my own awareness internally. And what does it take to have that wholeness, you know, to try to honor that wholeness inside myself? What would it take to build a company that honors that wholeness? What would it take to build a team that honors that wholeness? What would it take to build a whole system that honors that wholeness? Is like, starting from that simple experience, it's a really simple experience. How can I find the peace that I need to write about this very deep stuff in a meaningful way as a metaphor for what it is to build a corporation that has space for people to be human?

Steve Rush: So, did you have that you needed to kind of close off these questions for yourself first, before you then started to think of others?

Martyn Clark: Yes, no. I think it works both ways, right. I think through contact with others, I can experience more of myself and through contact with myself. I can experience more of others as well. So what matters is doing something right. I chose to do the go insight path for the book. I could have done the opposite. I could have interviewed all of my clients. And I think it would have led to the same place just differently. That would be an interesting follow-up, won’t it?

Steve Rush: Book number two?

Martyn Clark: Okay.

Steve Rush: So, how do you incorporate love and why do you see this as the future of business?

Martyn Clark: The title is Love Incorporated. It's interesting to me, I've wrestled with it as, you know, from reading the book. But to me, it's about my internal wrestling to incorporate love into my life. I grew up in environments that talk about love all the time and don't show much.

Steve Rush: Right.

Martyn Clark: So, my journey in life was about learning to show love and talk about it less. And here I have a book, that have word love on it, and I'm talking about it.

Steve Rush: The Irony behind this Martyn, is that the word love, you just don't see it in business because it has this real strange notion that it's bagged with lots of other things that go on and in its simplistic sense, how would you describe love in business?

Martyn Clark: Caring about anything other than money.

Steve Rush: Right, yeah.

Martyn Clark: Caring about money is like a motorbike mechanic caring about a spanner. It's like, it's just not interesting, right? You don't, you know, some spanners are really cool, I'll give you that. There are special spanners that have special purposes, but caring about money is just a tool. We can build things with it; we use it to shift value around. Money is just not that interesting.

Steve Rush: It's very true.

Martyn Clark: You know, even preparing for talking to you today. And I was thinking, oh, what is my motivation for making money? What is my own personal motivation? And I've never really thought about it before, but my own motivation is one thing, I hate detail. So, I want a life where I have no detail to deal with. And that means I need an assistant. That means I need someone to manage the stuff around the house because I am basically allergic to detail. If someone sticks some detail on my desk, I just whitter. Like I’m detailed, fragile, it's like an allergy. So, let's solve the system, the problems of a whole system. Because that's not detailed, and money is just a way for me to get away from details.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's interesting. Isn't it? And I guess the opposite side of that is you are Uber creative?

Martyn Clark: Yeah, which involves lots of detail.

Steve Rush: And you often find that Uber creative people just don't have that same attention to detail and vice versa.

Martyn Clark: Yeah, and I've had to work to have it, to be able to put out there the things I want to, the details. Reading the book, you'll see some of the details that I went through about, well, you know, wanting the size of it to fit in a pocket. And while I'm walking in the mountains, thinking about what I'm writing, trying to design that experience so that people have an attachment experience to the book itself and I've designed books for many years. And I love watching people pick them up. I try to design books where people's thumbs, don't get in the way of things. And when they pick them up, it feels a certain way because that's the relationship that people have with an object. Very often affects how they,

Steve Rush: Yeah, what's really interesting is ergonomically your book feels very different as well in your hand to other books. So, did you spend time thinking about that as well?

Martyn Clark: Oh yeah. The whole thing is designed super, super, super detailed. Turns out, in order to avoid detail completely, you have to embrace it.

Steve Rush: Another paradox.

Martyn Clark: Maybe that's all it's about. Maybe Love Incorporated, incorporating love is a paradox.

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely.

Martyn Clark: Because when you incorporate love, you have to be willing to say no to people and you have to push people away and you have to have strong boundaries and you have to know what you're about as a business. So, as we try to integrate the more human into business, we have to say, you know, this is what we're about. These are our values. This is what matters to us. This is what's meaningful to us. And I'm really sorry if you don't see that, but that's what we're about. And that's exclusionary, that is discriminatory, it will offend people, people won't like it. There are people who hate my book.

Steve Rush: And what's the reason for that?

Martyn Clark: It's all about me. They didn't get to the bit where I write about, maybe our personal stories. Our metaphors, that’s all.

Steve Rush: Yes, exactly. And you wrapped many of those and what you call the gadfly principles.

Martyn Clark: Yes.

Steve Rush: Sadly, we haven't got time to get into all of the gadfly principles, maybe that's another show. Maybe you could summarize for us what they are? And if I was reading the book or using those principles, how might use them?

Martyn Clark: I guess they're my attempt to humanize my own company. That is my attempt to capture the principle by which I have worked and the people who've worked with me have worked over the years to promote change in organizations. And like it's an imperfect attempt, but it's a bit bit like, you know, the 10 commandments of gadfly, they're just happened to be, how many of them are there? They used to be 87. I know I edited them down to 35 now, 35 commandments. And the purpose of the principles, it's really internal. Like it's an internal document. It's for myself. It's for people who work with me, it's for clients, it's for people who want to engage with us as a company. But as the book is about how can we humanize companies? I've framed it as well. This is how we came up with these principles. And if you, you know, the aphorisms, the quotes that adopted through the book and the principles, the quotes are my attempt to summarize each section.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Martyn Clark: I wanted to wait to find things more easily for myself

Steve Rush: And make sense, simplistically, I guess, of them. Is what I read from them.

Martyn Clark: Yeah, just to try to understand what I was writing about.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Martyn Clark: What was the essence of what I was trying to say? And the principles actually started out as a list of what I was trying to highlight in the entire book about how we work as an organization. And it turns out these principles are really quite generalizable to any organization. There are some very specific things, but they are quite general principles based on the human condition in the workplace. Because they have to be to do the work that I do, so that makes them generalizable useful, I guess, to other people, the principles that all of the people who've commented to me about the book, that's the section that they comment on. They say, oh, the stories were amazing, but you know, those principles, I'm just still thinking about them. And I'm still thinking about them.

Steve Rush: The benefit in having them as principals. They are just there as nudges to get you to think about you and how you and your teams are behaving and performing. They're not rules to follow, they're just principles. And they will always evolve I suspect.

Martyn Clark: And I number them for a reason. I number them, so people would take them more seriously and people do take them more seriously, because the numbered. Like it was just a list of stuff, but it looked silly as a list of stuff. But the numbers actually have left me taking them more seriously and realizing that there is a real depth in them that I wasn't aware of when it wrote them

Steve Rush: And throughout the book as well Martyn. And you've got these quotes that you alluded to, and they're kind of dotted throughout the book and appear to be kind of almost reflections that you had at some point, either writing it or reflecting on what you'd written. And there were some belters in there by the way. Some really thought-provoking ones. My favorite I'm going to tell you is, the more grateful we are for the things that we have, the more easily we can see the harm we caused by having them. And that got me really thinking around. So, I'm really grateful having these things and then being really thoughtful around, are they serving me well or are they serving a purpose? And it's just really thought-provoking nudge. Do you have a favorite yourself?

Martyn Clark: I have a number of favorites, but the one I can't ever forget is rain on windows connects us to nature, but the glass separates.

Steve Rush: I like that.

Martyn Clark: And I can't forget it for two reasons. One is because I remember that storm hitting the windows and feeling so isolated from nature after walking in the mountains for a week and being really grateful, I was isolated from nature. And the other is that my kids who are teenagers always make fun of me using that one because they're like, oh, you think you're some Buddha or something. So, it's like keeping me humble.

Steve Rush: Kids do that wonderful thing of pulling you back into reality, you know. I often think of myself as a bit of a Sage to my kids sometimes. And then I just get the dad look and then realize I should just maybe make a cup of tea or something else.

Martyn Clark: It's like having a daily reminder, you know, other people may call dad, but we know you're not.

Steve Rush: Oh dear.

Martyn Clark: The other one I like to end with here which is I think a summary of what I'm trying to do with my work with, with Gadfly, with the book, with everything which has power and status come with responsibility. And if we ignore that, we cause harm.

Steve Rush: Very powerful.

Martyn Clark: That stares me in the face every day. Every time I pick up this book, it's like, oh, easy to get caught up in stuff, in money and in getting places and success and all sorts of stuff that really doesn't matter, but that actually causes harm if we forget other things.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so what's next for Gadfly and for you?

Martyn Clark: I think just getting out and doing more of this, I'm currently creating a framework for doing organizational interventions based on all this stuff. So individual team, divisional, whole organizational interventions that are based on the Gadfly leading change framework, which is quite exciting. And we're calling it alchemy, so, it's alchemy. Personal alchemy, team alchemy, divisional alchemy, organizational alchemy, systemic alchemy. To this idea that if we take lots of inputs from lots of different directions, pick the system apart in all sorts of different ways, in human ways and analytical ways. And we really allow ourselves to be whole, everything that we are, we create the conditions in which magic happen, and that can lead to very, very, very fast, very deep, very profound, very impactful change in organizations, not just human stuff in terms of how organizations structure themselves operate. Very, very powerful way of working

Steve Rush: How exciting, look forward to seeing some of that work as it starts to evolve

Martyn Clark: Me too. Me too.

Steve Rush: So, this is the part of the show our listeners have come to affectionately known as our close out cadence or whatever it is that they label it as, but we get to spin the lens around and hack into your great leadership mind. The first place I'd like to go is to hack into your top three leadership hacksC

Martyn Clark: I was thinking about this last night. Talking, listening, and laughing, every intervention that I have done, every piece of work, the book, every everything I do. I talked to people and I talk with an intention to listen, to hear, to connect. And it almost always leads to laughter and I won't talk and listen and not laugh and I won't listen and laugh and not talk. And won't talk and laugh without listening. So, like the three, just, maybe it's just being Irish. So, I if you can all just be Irish, everything will be fine. Banter is part of how organizations work and it doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter where you are. All of the work gets done through human connection.

Steve Rush: And of course, the more you laugh, the more crappy chemicals you release along the way, of course. And that only helps aid productivity.

Martyn Clark: Yeah, it helps your employees to become more addicted to the organization, right?

Steve Rush: It does. Yeah, definitely so.

Martyn Clark: We're just creating a different kind of addiction. People enjoy themselves.

Steve Rush: So, Hack to Attack is the next place we're going to go to now, you've already described and shared a whacking great attack that came from a time in your life, which was really tough for you, but from a corporate perspective, is there something maybe else in your life or work where that learning experience is now a core driver in what you do?

Martyn Clark: Yeah, I did a giant project. It was a billion-dollar project that I was coordinating the human aspects of bringing 10 corporations together into a co-creative space. It's a giant, giant, giant, giant project. And I basically proposed these corporations, scrap their legal frameworks for choosing suppliers and try something new, which was basically human centered corporate collaboration. And I'm laughing, I'm laughing because there was a certain naivety about how I did it, but it was an incredible project, just incredible. Brought 10 very powerful teams together from around the world. And 10 corporations started to work differently together until the moment that I used one offensive word with one team in one meeting that triggered blackmail, a 200 million blackmail of withdrawal of business from one company from the other in a giant power move. That destabilized basically the whole industry.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Martyn Clark: Because it was a very high-profile project. And the whole project collapsed basically because I used one word that someone found offensive. Of course, I don't think it was real offensive. I think it was just an excuse to trigger a power move. But what I learned that following on everyone in the industry heard about that project and everyone heard about what we were trying to achieve. And everyone heard that it was actually working and everyone heard some of the outcomes of the project in terms of decisions that were made. And it turns out that the best thing that could ever happen was that project failing because it left so many people inspired to try something similar and to make it work. And that led to industry-wide change, that wouldn't have happened if the project had been successful.

Steve Rush: Often the case, isn't it?

Martyn Clark: Absolutely. Plus, there's more to laugh about because it failed

Steve Rush: That’s so ironic, isn't it?

Martyn Clark: Yeah, right.

Steve Rush: Only when sometimes things do screw up that they provide us with that level of learning.

Martyn Clark: Well, I can talk to people and say, do you know what? Even if this fails.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Martyn Clark: I know that it'll have an impact because I know we're doing something that's meaningful here. And I know that for these reasons, you know, and being able to have that confidence, it reassures people, you know, the worst that can happen is I personally will get removed from the project and blamed for everything. So, I'll take the hit.

Steve Rush: Some more dinner party stories as well. Awesome learning, awesome learning. So, the last thing we get to do is give you a chance of some time travel, get to bump into Martyn at 21 and give them some advice. So, what would your advice to Martyn at 21 be?

Martyn Clark: I was trying to think of a serious thing to say, something related to business.

Steve Rush: But you got stuck then I thought now I've been fighting serious now.

Martyn Clark: When I was 21, I had a girlfriend and I really, really loved her. She loved me, but we knew it just couldn't work. It was a very innocent kind of, not really heading anywhere, anywhere fast. And we hadn't kissed, and I decided to not kiss her because I didn't want to hurt her because I knew it wasn't going to go anywhere. And my advice to my past self is just kiss her, come on.

Steve Rush: Kiss the girls, yeah.

Martyn Clark: And I think the lesson from that is actually about living with abandon. So, there's a deep lesson in it which is to know that we will cause harm. And like, it goes back to the power and status and responsibility thing. We know that we will hurt people, whatever choice we make. We know that will cause harm no matter what we do, but actually life is just a bit of a ride and it's okay to enjoy it and it's okay to mess up and it's okay to make mistakes. And as long as we're paying attention to that responsibility and paying attention to how we are and our impact in the world, it'll all be okay.

Steve Rush: Very nice words, well said.

Martyn Clark: Thank you.

Steve Rush: If our listeners, wanted to get a copy of Love Incorporated Martyn, and learn a bit more about what you do. Where's the best place for us to send them?

Martyn Clark: Amazon, any large online retailer has it. If you want an eBook, if you're not sure you want to commit to the, you know, to buying it, just send me a message on Instagram. I can send you an eBook free course, undermining my sales of eBooks.

Steve Rush: Missed out on the economics feeling, generally it's the best feel of a book I ever had. That sounds really crazy as I'm saying it now.

Martyn Clark: No, no, it feels amazing.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Martyn Clark: And the paper smells very good as well. It's a full experience. It was designed as an immersiveexperience. And I thought very carefully about that because of the environmental impact. But I think some things are worth it. I tried to use that as a benchmark to make a book that's worth the paper, worth the destruction that has value that it can add. And I believe it does

Steve Rush: Add more value than it does destruction. How about that?

Martyn Clark: Yes, exactly. Buy online or get in touch. I'm more interested in conversation and having coffee with people than I am in books sales.

Steve Rush: And we'll make sure we put some links in the show notes so people can carry on those conversations with you when we're done.

Martyn Clark: Cool.

Steve Rush: I just want to say, thank you, Martyn. I love chatting with you, always do. We always have a bit of a laugh and you always come from a completely different direction than anticipated in our conversations. And I love that about the work that you do as well.

Martyn Clark: I like that you avoided using the word crazy, it's good.

Steve Rush: I've said it unconsciously with some other language you probably picked up on.

Martyn Clark: Thank you.

Steve Rush: So, on behalf of our tribe, thank you for being part of our community and thanks for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Martyn Clark: Thanks for the opportunities too.

Steve Rush: Thanks Martyn.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Amira Alvarez is the founder and CEO of The Unstoppable Woman, a global coaching company helping entrepreneurs, empire builders, athletes, creatives, and rising stars in all fields achieve their dreams and goals in record time. Learn about what tactical strategies and mindset shifts are required to get out of your own way, live life on your own terms, and master the art of achieving any goal you set your mind to. In this show:

How to create the framework for unstoppable success.
How your inner talk and mindset can help you or hold you back.
The importance of only getting feedback from people who matter.
If it’s not working, blame the system and not the person.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Amira below:

Amira on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amiraalvarez/

The Unstoppable Woman Website: https://theunstoppablewoman.com

Amira on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theunstoppablewoman/

Amira on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmiraAlvarez

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Amira Alvarez is the special guest on today's show. She is the founder and CEO of The Unstoppable Woman. She's also the host of The Unstoppable Woman Podcast. But before we get a chance to speak with Amira, here is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today. We explore the notion, what is unstoppable? Unstoppable people are like warriors. They're always ready to take on the world. They're guided from something within. Full of boundless energy and unwavering in their goals. So how do they do this? Where do they find that strength, that stamina to keep going? Unstoppable people keep their inner fires burning and developing characteristics necessary to become successful. So as today's show is focusing on being unstoppable, it sent me down a rabbit hole of research to find out what are the key characteristics and traits that make people become unstoppable. And here's my top eight from the research.

Number one is Belief. Use whatever term you like to describe these people. But the bottom line is that confidence is key if you want to be unstoppable. You have to have the courage to put yourself out there in the first place. You have to believe what it takes. Mental challenges will be among the biggest obstacles you face as an entrepreneur, as a leader, and without a healthy dose of confidence, you'll be tempted to accept defeat when you should be actually finding a way to bounce back from failure.

Two is Vision. All unstoppable people have a really clear vision and every path to success starts with the vision. It gives you a sense of direction, and it's the reason for working as hard as we do. Once you have a vision for what you want your future to look and feel like you need to set a series of goals to achieve that dream. This is your plan for getting there. Your vision and mission should be something that you've really clearly defined. It's written down and regurgitated by everybody that can speak to you.

Three is Persistence. You can be the most talented, intelligent, and creative person out there, but without persistence, you're going to be doomed to mediocrity at best. Successful and unstoppable people know they must dig deep to find their real true grit and determination to reach their goal. And they don't let hurdles hold them back. They find a way round obstacles and keep moving forward. And persistence is a habit, you must develop that through practice and not from procrastination.

Four is Self-Awareness. Becoming self-aware allows us to understand ourselves as unique individuals, beyond the roles we play with our work colleagues and our friends and family, but being self-aware is understanding who we are underneath our patterns of behavior, strengths and weaknesses. Unstoppable people take time to understand themselves on a much deeper level.

And self-awareness is the key to goal setting, of course, which is also paramount to being unstoppable.

Number five, they are Change Resisters. Unstoppable people don't panic in the face of change. They understand the importance of being flexible and embracing new developments and innovation and being adaptable means having the elastic mindset that allows you to adjust to environment. They understand they must be resilient and versatile or resist becoming ineffective and irrelevant. They learn the importance of being able to bend and flex, or the alternative means being broken and discarded.

Number six is Responsibility. Taking responsibility has two parts. They answer for them, mistakes and failures, but they also take credit for their successes. Relentless people own their failures as much as they revel in their accomplishments. They acknowledge and learn from both in order to gain wisdom and knowledge necessary to pursue even bigger dreams and goals.

And taking responsibility is about acknowledging that you and you alone are in charge of your life. You're the driver in the driver's seat. No one else can take that role and no one else can dictate your future. Unstoppable people recognize they are in control.

Number seven is they're lifelong Learners. Our ability to learn and grow is key in our ability to improve and innovate and to be unstoppable we must embrace learning. We should be an avid consumer of knowledge, information, skills, and be constantly seeking to educate ourselves. Unstoppable people recognize becoming a voracious learner will feed their mind, allowing new connections and ideas to flourish. And those who relentlessly pursue their goals, never stop seeking to expand their understanding and increase their knowledge of the world around them.

And finally, number eight, no Ego and no Jealousy. There's a huge difference between self-confidence and ego. Self-competence is when you understand your worth and you believe in yourself, an ego is when your sense of self becomes overinflated. You become focused on your self-interest. Ego and arrogance are often closely related to jealousy and resentment. And unstoppable leaders understand ego and jealousy operate out of fear. They recognize if left unchecked, these emotions will get in the way of their own success. Conversely, humility will bring out the best in those around you. Someone else's success is not a threat to your own advancement, their achievements don't span out your future. They recognize that ditching defensiveness and stopping making it all about themselves helps them be unstoppable.

So, the leadership lessons here is if we want to be unstoppable leaders, we need to focus on results. Keep your mind open to new possibilities, constantly learn and recognize our self-worth. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, insights or stories you'd like us to hear, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today is Amira Alverez. She's the CEO of theunstoppablewoman.com, she's a coach and podcast host of The Unstoppable Woman Podcast. Amira, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Amira Alvarez: So excited to be here Steve, thank you for having me.

Steve Rush: It was another year since we spoke, I was looking at my notes. We last met in December, believe it or not. And we all thought then that we'd be out of the pandemic and into a world of milk and honey, but we're still kind of in somewhat of a lockdown. How have things been for you?

Amira Alvarez: You know, I always look for the opportunities. I always look for the positive stuff, so I'm sticking with that. I do realize that it has been one heck of an experience for all of us. And I have a lot of compassion for those of, you know, in our community who are really struck in and hurt by what's happening. For me, I'm just enjoying life at its fullest, you know, given the new parameters.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and I think that's the right way to adopt to it. I mean, we all are faced with adversity and we all are faced with challenge, but there is a lot to be said about having the right mindset and facing into it in the right way too, isn't there?

Amira Alvarez: Hundred precent, helps so much, helps keep you going, helps you know, helps you grow your business too.

Steve Rush: And that's why you are the unstoppable woman.

Amira Alvarez: Well, I'm one of many unstoppable women, okay. The brand is called that to call people forward into understanding. What's what is in fact, stopping them from executing on their potential, executing on their greatness, executing on their goals? We all have this potential for greatness, if you will, but not all of us on it. That was me for many, many years. I stopped myself. Nothing outside of me was stopping me. It was me, that was stopping me.

Steve Rush: Good.

Amira Alvarez: And that's where the brand really came from it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, well, before we get into that and find out a little bit about the work that you do now, just maybe for those that are listening in, who haven't met with you before, just give us a little bit of a backstory as to kind of how you've arrived through your career to do what you do today?

Amira Alvarez: Sure. So, I would say that I had the classic middle-class upbringing. I was brought up by two parents who were very pro education, pro you know, getting good grades, going to college, getting a good job and being successful in life. And that was my modus operandi for most of my life was do a good job at whatever you're doing and you will be successful. And I played that out, I did that, and that worked really well in sort of my management career, my corporate career, because there was a structure to the organization that was like how you study for a test and get a good grade on a test. You knew what you needed to be successful more or less when you're moving up that corporate ladder, their quarterly goals, things like that, initiatives. And yet when I went out on my own, there was no test to work towards. All I had was what I desired, what I wanted to create, but I had no framework for how to create that. And I struggled and I struggled like lots of really smart go getters who have passion, who want to be great in this world.

Steve Rush: Right.

Amira Alvarez: Want to make an input. My one tool Steve was work harder, right? Like just put everything at it. If you're not getting what you want, just work harder. And ultimately, I got to the place where I was, you know, classic entrepreneurship working 14-hour days, 16-hour days, 12-hour days, whatever it was. And I wasn't getting ahead.

Steve Rush: Right, so step back a bit. What was it that took you from that corporate career to becoming an entrepreneur? What was the pivotal moment for you?

Amira Alvarez: Oh, very, very clear. So, I loved my corporate world and I had every tension too, you know, rise to the top, be the CFO, CEO of a company. And I was working in Silicon Valley and this was during the tech boom. And then we had the tech bust, right. It all fell apart, and all the companies were really impacted. And the company that I worked for went through round after round, after round of layoffs. And when the CEO got laid off, I raised my hand and I said, I'm ready. I'm ready to try something new. Now at that point, I had a huge amount of physical pain that I was working through because I was so committed, right. Just work harder was my adage that I had lost feeling in my fingertips. I had neck and back pain. It was pretty horrendous. And I was quite lucky at that point, the company was giving six months’ severance and I got to step back and decide, what did I want to be when I grew up? And it was from that point on, that I decided I wanted to start my own business. And I went about doing that and I had to really learn how to do that. I had some natural innate skills, but a lot of it, I had to really study and learn.

Steve Rush: So, from there you managed to grow a really successful coaching business and helping dozens and dozens of women really grow their business exponentially. Just tell us a little bit about the work that you're doing now?

Amira Alvarez: A hundred percent. So first I had to do the work myself, right. There was some natural ability, I'm going to give myself some credit. First year in business, not a ton of money, but I made 30K. Second year in business, I tripled that. Didn't cross that Six-Figure mark, but I had done something significant, tripling my income. Third year in business, got to 138, and that's when I was like, I can't work any harder, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amira Alvarez: I remember Steve. I don't know if you've ever had this experience, but I was sitting, it wasn't a client day. So, I was sitting on the floor of my office and got my laptop on my lap. I was just trying to get one more thing done. My husband called up from downstairs and said, hey, dinner's ready. And I was like, I just need to get one thing done. 45 minutes later, he's like, I'm starting. To his credit, he was just good to go, right. But me, I was like, oh, this is not okay with me. I can't continue this, and the truth of its Steve was that I was still in the clothes that I'd slept in. And they weren't like sexy, pretty clothes. They were, you know, sweats with a ripped t-shirt and dog hair all over them, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amira Alvarez: I hadn't showered. I hadn't brushed my teeth, right. And this wasn't pathetic, okay. I was like, I cannot run a business like this, but I was so driven. I can't let anyone down. I'm less important than other people. I want to be clear. I'm not against hard work. And I had to figure out a different way. And that's when I studied success, I studied what actually create success. And I went from $138k to $708K in one year as a solo entrepreneur.

Steve Rush: That's a massive shift. What was the one thing within that time you thought? Yeah, that's definitely the thing that's made the difference.

Amira Alvarez: Okay. Well, I can't give you one, okay. I will call out two things. One is an inner game thing. One is an outer game thing, that's connected to the inner game.

Steve Rush: Okay.

Amira Alvarez: Okay. The inner game thing was what I really needed to get help. And I needed to see myself, both with my skillset, right. With how I was powerful and showing up in this world. But I had to realize that I didn't weigh on my own and I had to get, okay. So, I hired a really kick mentor who helped me see myself. That's super critical, your own identity, your image differently. So, you have to do the identity, self-image, work, who you are? And if you're interested, I can speak to that more, an outer game level. I raised my prices, okay. And I learned how to do sales and not sales in an arm-twisting manipulative way, but sales in a way that serves the client first and the business and myself second.

Steve Rush: Right.

Amira Alvarez: Okay.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amira Alvarez: And there's no way to raise your prices at the level that I raised it. Not just 10%, let me tell you, okay. There's no way to do that without changing yourself, image in your identity, how you perceive you own worth.

Steve Rush: So that's where it starts, isn't it? Because you can't do the latter without the first, right?

Amira Alvarez: A hundred percent.

Steve Rush: So where do you start with that?

Amira Alvarez: The first bit is you have to understand that you do have a self-image and it lives in your subconscious mind, which means its autopilot. Your subconscious cannot decide not to do something. It can only execute on the program if you will. Your conscious mind can choose yes or no, except, reject, left, right, up, down, right. We'll go in this direction; we're not doing that. We can eat the cake; we don't eat the cake. Your subconscious, eat the cake, eat the cake. You're someone who eats cake, okay. You're someone who has no control over your eating. You're someone who needs paper. I’m using that as an example, that's outside for people because there are things that's a common one that drive us, even though we know. They're still driving us, have to recognize that you have this mechanism inside of you. It's a cybernetic mechanism. It's like the autopilot on a plane. You set it to where you want it to go. And it's going to go there regardless if you go off track, a little bit left, right, left, right. It's going to not target. So, if your target is someone who always struggles to make money, I am someone who never gets ahead. I am someone who doesn't achieve their goals. I'm someone who is fundamentally wrong, right. Everything I do, can't be enough. You're going to keep creating that outcome, and its very sneaky Steve, tell me how deep you want me to go? I can keep going here.

Steve Rush: Go deep.

Amira Alvarez: Okay.

Steve Rush: Yeah, because what you're talking about really is, our inner self-talk, our mindset.

Amira Alvarez: A hundred percent and it's on autopilot. That's the thing that people need to know.

Steve Rush: Right.

Amira Alvarez: That you're not saying those things to yourself again and again and again, because you consciously think they're true. No, you're saying them because they got as who you are at a very young age when you did not have the conscious intelligence to choose otherwise. And they've been on autopilot, driving all your behavior since then.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amira Alvarez: And what happens is, we think that we can make conscious choice, right? Something comes into our world from the outside. There's a pandemic. There's an opportunity, okay. There's a client that calls and leaves a message. Here's a good one from my own personal life, okay. My own personal business, this was four years ago, but I just watched it, watch the car crash as it was happening. I had to change it afterwards, but I thought, okay.

So, I wanted to start speaking on bigger stages. And we did a whole initiative in the business to do outreach and get me in front of bigger stages. And I got a call almost immediately, not an email, but a personal call from a person in this extraordinarily large organization. And I listened to it and I didn't call the person pack. I got too busy, right. I got too wrapped up in something else. And I saw that happening. Now, people oftentimes don't return, right. That's you avoiding an opportunity and it's your subconscious distracting you from what you consciously want, because you're going above the level that you see yourself at.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amira Alvarez: And so, it looks like I got too busy. It looks like I needed to do this other stuff. It looks like there were fire drills in the business that I needed to attend to early, but really?

Steve Rush: It's the unconscious stories we tell ourselves to give us those unconscious permissions to do something or not do something, right?

Amira Alvarez: Correct. And you have to recognize what's happening and be unstoppable around, and that's where accountability comes in.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and I've heard you talk about this as self-ownership somewhat. Is that kind of the same thing or is that different?

Amira Alvarez: It's related, so you have to own your self-image. You have to own who you're being, your identity. And you do that, not in a vacuum. There is some deep work that you could do with a mentor. You can even journal it out to some degree, there is some thought work that needs to happen for you to get super, super clear. You have to see the thing that you're not seeing. We call that a blind spot.

Steve Rush: Right.

Amira Alvarez: By definition, you can't see it. You need to see what you can't see. Then you need to take action on that in a way that feels quite frankly, terrifying to you, okay. You need to do the thing anyway, in that lane where you developed the truth of who you are, true self ownership. So, using my personal example from four or five years ago, at that moment, if I had had the recognition more fully, I would have called that person back, being afraid and terrified and not knowing what to say.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amira Alvarez: Okay, and when you actually do that thing, you become the person who's not afraid, not terrified and knows what to say.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amira Alvarez: That's how through the inaccurate self-image that you have of yourself, you actually have to become that person as well as just envisioning being that person.

Steve Rush: And it's the unconscious mind that holds us back from being the person we could be, right?

Amira Alvarez: Correct.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amira Alvarez: Correct.

Steve Rush: So, I have this notion of mistake it until you make it.

Amira Alvarez: I love that.

Steve Rush: Not fake it until you make it because fake it until you make it comes with a lack of authenticity and you get spotted because other people will have that intuitive worry about, oh, that doesn't feel right. But if you are genuinely doing it, you can screw up with good permissions. And eventually you'll learn from that and mistake it till you make it.

Amira Alvarez: Love that, that's exactly true. And yet, so many people feel afraid to make a mistake because when we're brought up children, if you made a mistake, the love was cut off. Now your parents maybe didn't intentionally decide to… the energetic flow of love in that moment. But as children, we make that mean that all are secure gone, because we know we're going to be fed, clothes, survive, if that flow of love is there with our significant parental units.

Steve Rush: One of the things that I know you focus on as well, when you're working with your clients is helping them think about not only their own internal voice, but then they met with other critics that are outside of them. And you've come up with some ways and techniques to help really kill off your critic’s power. Tell us a little bit about how you do that and what that might look like?

Amira Alvarez: Fundamentally, you have to want what you want more than you care what other people think about you, okay. That's the fundamental thing, so I always work on with my clients on what do they really want and not the surface level, but the core deep level, that's really driving them and to get them super attached to the pleasure of achieving that, but also the regret of not achieving that. And so, in that moment, when you hear the critic's voice, you have to understand if I give into this, right. If I dive into this, which side of my executing on? The pleasure or the regret, okay.

Steve Rush: Right.

Amira Alvarez: And then fundamentally you have to really look at what that person has as their driver, their motivation. This is super critical. People will give you compliments and people will give you critiques as manipulation. And it's like, you have to just open your eyes to this. We're taught in many ways to really trust people, regardless, especially when they give us compliments, okay. But let's say someone who you admire critiques you. Not just a troll on social media, okay. But then you have to ask yourself, what is their motivating factor? What do they have to gain if you will? Because people do this unconsciously. I'm not saying that people do it consciously, but they may want to cut you down in order for them to feel better about themselves. This happens with our best friends. This happens with our family.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amira Alvarez: It's sad, but it it's true.

Steve Rush: It happens in business all the time. I see it as a coach and leading others in exactly the same way. People will reduce others position to elevate theirs.

Amira Alvarez: Correct, and so you have to really see what is their motivation here. Some people are motivated to help you, okay. It's from that place that you need to go, oh, I'm going to take that in with this caveat, Steve, have they done what you want to do? Who are you taking advice from?

Steve Rush: Right.

Amira Alvarez: That was a big thing for me. Like, am I taking advice from my ex-husband who I love dearly, but who never built a business? Nope. That's not the right person to take advice from. That's someone who doesn't have the mindset of an entrepreneur, okay. Doesn't know how to build a business. Am I taking advice from my great uncle, who is a super nice guy and super smart, but has never done what I want to do, whether it's in corporate or in your own business? Like you have to really look at whose advice you're following as well.

Steve Rush: For me, that's massive, right? Because we often will take advice from people close to us who love us or good intentions are giving their advice to us. But actually, as you've just described, it's probably not relevant advice and unhelpful advice because it's probably coming from their perspective rather than the perspective of yours to grow, where you need to grow too.

Amira Alvarez: Correct, and circling, linking this back to the whole self-image piece and identity piece. If you're someone who has the self-image that says family above all else, which many of us do. I know, I love my family dearly. If you have a loyalty pack with your partner, your romantic partner, or your parents that says, if I do something different than what you want, I am rejecting you and breaking the tribal bonds if you will, you won't make a decision that is actually great for your business, great for your professional career and ultimately great for your family.

Steve Rush: Right, yeah

Amira Alvarez: It's really dramatic.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I've perhaps not made that same correlation. And I think it's so relevant that folks should pay attention to that because unconsciously, again, it comes from that unconscious place. We'll make a decision to appease or please, or support another. We're actually, it might be contrarian to where you really need to go. And that's a tough gig to deal with too as well, isn't it?

Amira Alvarez: A hundred percent, a hundred percent. So, you need to learn good communication skills. You need to learn to look at your goals and the results you're getting, not at the emotional side. Emotions are funny, Steve. Like you have to feel into things that’s going to give you a lot of data, but if you let your emotional fears, that's the way to distinguish. If you let your emotional fears drive you. You'll be held back from your good, what you really want to create in this world.

Steve Rush: Right, that comes from the good old neuroscience that sits in the middle of our brain, doesn't it? Where you have to have emotion to act, but actually you need to balance the emotion with logic and data and other facts that come with it. So, it makes sense of the world.

Amira Alvarez: Correct, a hundred percent.

Steve Rush: You are massive around desire and passion in successful people. And I know you've said it in the past that the one thing that really sets successful people apart from others is the level of desire that they have. So how can I influence my desire? Isn't that just an innate thing that I have or not?

Amira Alvarez: Yes and no. So, here's what I see happening for people. They have some reasonable goal that they think is achievable, but it isn't a true desire. It's not what they really want, or they have what their family thinks is acceptable. Go be a dentist and accountant, a lawyer, a doctor, when you really want to start a recording business, right? Like there's something totally at odds there. So, it has to be your true desire and you'll know it by how it feels.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amira Alvarez: It needs to feel a little scary. Like how the heck am I going to do that? And you probably will have the question of, who do I think I am? Wanting that. Asking for so much, okay.

Steve Rush: Back to your identity again, isn’t it?

Amira Alvarez: Correct, okay. It's got to be a stretch for you. And that's where it's a true desire. So first you have to really own that true desire, and that is a feeling state. It might feel a little scary, but it is a feeling state and then you have to really want it, okay. So, they're connected, but slightly different. You have to be someone who wants that and is willing to do whatever it takes, as long as it doesn't limit someone else's life. And that is a discernment thing that I teach my clients in order to get it, which means, like I had to learn how to do things that were hard for me.

Steve Rush: Right.

Amira Alvarez: And I had to move through them. I needed to be so committed to it that I wasn't going to stop.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and you can't teach that level of desire, but you can unlock it, can't you?

Amira Alvarez: Correct.

Steve Rush: So how do you go about doing that?

Amira Alvarez: I keep asking questions, until I can see it and feel it in the other person,

Steve Rush: Right, I guess it’s one of the natural feelings, isn't it? It's all there. We all have these passions, desire. But all of the other stuff around the edges, you know, life, paying the mortgage, being secure, safety, all of some of the good old-fashioned hierarchy of needs gets in the way sometimes of actually allowing that desire to come to the front, right?

Amira Alvarez: And sometimes I will tell you. Sometimes it requires that education, the personal development side, that the really understanding how the world works, understanding how desire works, understanding that making money is good, not bad, right? Like raising your level of awareness around that. And that's one of the things that, you know, we do in the podcast. We do in our morning mindset club, we help people raise their level of awareness so that they can even begin to say, actually, what I really want is this, because until you let go of some of that baggage, you won't be able to claim what you truly want, and it will be very challenging.

Steve Rush: I agree. I agree. So, what's some of the work that you and your team are focused on right now?

Amira Alvarez: So many things, Steve, it's so good. Well, fundamentally, I'm going to say it again. I love the teaching that we do in the podcast. That's totally accessible and free to everyone. So that is a big initiative of ours. We put out three teaching episodes every week. One is a coaching call that you can listen into. And then two others are different formats on me teaching how to really scale and the success mindset around that, so that's a big one. We are currently in a process of really scaling our mastermind. It's called The Spirit of Wealth Mastermind and Masterclass. And it is all about the self-ownership piece, owning clear desires, quantum leaping, if you will. I use that phrase with an acknowledgement that it may be overused for people, but if you're someone who's like, what did she do? I want to do that too. Like this is the format for it. And I will tell you, we've just had so much success with it. From people who are already successful, meaning lawyers that are making $50K a month, going to $135K a month, in two months kind of thing. Yeah, right. It's like amazing. And not isolated, multiple lawyers doing this. To people who don't have a business, or they're just starting their business. And they're making their first, you know, $10,000 a month in three and a half months, four and a half months. Just this year, I can count four or five women in the group who are in that category. And that's really inspiring for me, Steve, because, you know, I used to dissuade people who didn't have something already to leverage from joining. But the fact of the matter is, this process works in terms of changing yourself image, moving through the blind spots, letting go of those loyalty packs, building a scalable plan and executing on it because you have the accountability and the focus and the community. We built this whole, you know, really amazing, if I do say so myself, a really amazing program and it shows in the results is what I'm saying. Getting this out to more people is our big initiative right now.

Steve Rush: Kudos to you, and congratulations. That sounds fantastic.

Amira Alvarez: Thank you, I appreciate that.

Steve Rush: So, we're now going to spin the lens a little. We're going to ask you to bear some of your leadership experiences. Now I'm going to dig right into your top three leadership hacks. If you had to distill them Amira, what would they be?

Amira Alvarez: Okay. So, the first one is blame the system, not the person. If you're growing your business, if you're growing your corporate career, you need other people, you need a team. You need other people in the organization. And by nature, things are going to not work out. We've all made mistakes. So instead of being accusatory, being frustrated, being in blame, blame the system, figure out a better system, usually it's communication. So that was a big one for me. The second one is take a hundred percent personal responsibility for all your results. Not just for some of them, not just for the big ones, not just for the good ones, but for all your results. What did I put in play that caused this? On the good side it allows you to back engineer, the positive stuff. We want more of that on. If you're getting results that you don't want, you also need to look at what causes you put into effect. And own that and make a shift, actually do something different in the face of this. That's huge. That's huge. And then the third one, and again, this comes back to team, but I thought it was a good one to bring up, was higher for judgment and decision-making. Rather than skillsets, years in the business, like ability, all of that, you do need skillset. You do need people to play well with others. But look at judgment. If you've got people who can make good judgment calls, good decision-making in your business, you can let them run with things at much faster pace than if they don’t make good decisions, then you're always going to have to put in protocols and structures, SOP, and look over their shoulder or double check their work. So that will save you a huge amount of time. And it will just make it so much fun, more fun for you to be a leader. Then you can lead, and you're not mired in the details.

Steve Rush: Great advice Amira. I have seen trust in the same process, right?

Amira Alvarez: Correct, yes.

Steve Rush: So, the next part of the show, we call it Hack to Attack. This is typically where something hasn't perhaps worked out for you. It could have been catastrophic screw up, but as a result of it, you've learned from it. And it's now serving you, well as a positive in what you do, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Amira Alvarez: So, the big one for me was learning to invest money and not freak out if it didn't go the way I wanted, that was a big one for me, because as you're growing your business, you're going to make mistakes around money and the faster you fail and the faster you learn from it, the better. So, here's my experience. I hired marketing contractor for $30,000. The idea was that X, Y, and Z would happen. And all my red flags were going off when I was signing that contract, he was mansplaining to me, right. He was talking down to me when I was asking questions. Saying things like, I've never had anyone questioned my contract. If anyone says I've never had someone questioned my contract.

Steve Rush: They properly have.

Amira Alvarez: Right.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Amira Alvarez: Of course, question my contract. I want you to be clear when you sign a contract with me, I want you to be a hundred percent clear about what you're signing.

Why would I not? Right. But he came highly recommended from someone I trusted and admired. This was many years ago and I was like, who am I? I'm just starting out. I need to get over my fear of spending money. So, I signed on the dotted line anyways, did not execute, was in some ways a complete and utter waste of $30,000, which at the time was a significant amount of money.

Steve Rush: Right.

Amira Alvarez: Now, the thing that I learned from this, which I now see as a huge positive, and it saved me millions of dollars, is that I now trust myself implicitly. I know what a yes is and I know what a no is. I know what a red flag is versus you’re playing small. I didn't know that before that experience. So, from that experience, I learned this incredible skill and I've never made that mistake again. And it's saved me millions of dollars since then, because I know with absolute certainty, what is a yes, and what's a no.

Steve Rush: It’s also paying attention to intuition, particularly when we're growing businesses and we're maybe less experienced in our career. We often think that intuition, that gut feel we get, perhaps doesn't serve as well. And probably four or five times it will, right?

Amira Alvarez: Yes, yes. A thousand times, yes, Steve. People really need to learn to trust themselves. But here's the rug, you can't in a vacuum, you have to take action and experience the result. Some of the results are going to be massive failures, massive, and you have to be willing to experience that so that you can know the difference.

Steve Rush: Yeah, got it. So, the last thing we're going to do is give you a chance now to do some time travel. So, you get to go back to pump into Amira at 21 and give her some words of wisdom. What would you advise to her at 21 be?

Amira Alvarez: Okay, so I have mixed feelings about this because fundamentally, I don't want to live my life differently, right. All of it was what got me to where I am right now.

Steve Rush: Right.

Amira Alvarez: However, I understand the question, okay. So, you know, it comes down to being lovable, okay. And I know that's a little bit of a woo, woo kind of thing to say, but if I had understood at 21 that I was truly lovable, it would have cut back on so much jumping through hoops, trying to be someone I wasn't, feeling bad about myself, thus slowing down how I executed on things and how I followed up on stuff. It would have eliminated my fear of rejection and how that showed up in my life and my business. It would have just eliminated so much noise, emotional noise, which is what keeps you from actually executing. And then of course, I would have told her to learn sales, right. Like fundamental.

Steve Rush: And of course, all of the things that you have learned is the reason why you are still unstoppable. So, for folks listening in, but want to listen to the podcast and get to know a bit more about the work you do, where can we send them?

Amira Alvarez: Absolutely, so you can go to theunstoppablewoman.com. So that's with the, in front, theunstoppablewoman.com/listen for the podcast or slash free stuff for a ton of resources that we have. The morning mindset club is a great one to start with. We have an income breakthrough, jumpstart guide. There are all sorts of things on that free stuff page. So, theunstoppablewoman.com/freestuff

Steve Rush: And they will be in our show notes as well.

Amira Alvarez: Awesome.

Steve Rush: Amira, listen, I love chatting to you. You are so passionate about the work you do, and it comes with a real sense of cause. And I love that about you. And I just wanted to say, thanks for coming on our podcast and joining our community too.

Amira Alvarez: Thank you so much for having me, Steve. Such great questions, and I hope it helped your listeners be unstoppable too.

Steve Rush: Without a doubt. Thanks, Amira.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Dr. Catherine Rymsha is a leadership development expert and lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She’s a TEDx speaker and also the author of the book, The Leadership Decision. In this show, you can learn about:

What the leadership decision is and how you make it
How to use the A.P.E. Model to make the decision
Why listening is a key component in leadership
The importance of getting more feedback in your day to day

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Catherine below:

Catherine on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crymsha/

The Leadership Decision Website: https://www.theleadershipdecision.com

Catherine’s TEDx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cARuUGgSl7I

Catherine on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theleadershipdecision/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Dr. Catherine Rymsha is a special guest on today's show. She is a leadership development expert. A lecture at University of Massachusetts Lowell. And she's also the author of The Leadership Decision. But before we get a chance to speak with Catherine, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: If you've already made the decision to lead or contemplating making that decision now, indeed it could be you're helping others to make the decision to lead. The question many people often find themselves asking, is, are leaders born or bred? Do I just have it? And it's a persistent question that we've been asking for years, some senior managers and policymakers believe it's absolutely true. That leads the bread that they must come from the right background, have the right characteristics and have the right genes. While others argue strongly that anybody could be made into a leader given the right training or support. So, who's right?

Well, the answer is a bit of both. In fact, there are two elements to be a good leader. Certainly, they must have the right individual characteristics. The desirable characteristics that include proactivity and tiny levels of intelligence, proactivity and fluid intelligence are innate traits, but crystallized intelligence is experiential and gained as part of our education and learning experiences. So therefore, it might be really difficult for somebody who's highly introverted to Excel when the role calls for extroversion, charismatic and transformational leadership approaches, it's difficult to learn how to go against one's intrinsic feelings, right? Each leadership approach like transformational leadership or transactional leadership and a like, cause for very different levels of behaviors and the ability to exhibit that behavior is conditioned by our own personal characteristics, beliefs and mindsets. The personal individual characteristics are part territory and part experiential and research suggests that 30% of our leadership competence is hereditary. So those who say that leaders are bred up partly right, but that also means that for the rest, 70% of the potential leaders, characteristics are all about their understanding and adapting to the upbringing early experiences, life experiences, while also learning about people along the way. This is why many believe it's important for youngsters to immerse themselves into competitive sports to captain the rugby or the football team at school, or the take up opportunities of clubs and associations and start excelling at public speaking. And these early experiences build those personal profiles that help build the right foundation for later learning. So, if the person has the right personality and innate personal characteristics, and they've continued to develop that through their informative years, they are potentially in a position to be taught leadership. Because of course of one thing that you can't teach in leadership is passion, desire and energy.

And even if you were a great scholar, you had great genes and you came from a captain, the background of your sports team at school, without that innate energy and passionate, and desire, it's unlikely that people will succeed and like any subject we need to learn about leadership and behaviors and people, and therefore immersing ourselves in knowledge and understanding. And theory is part of that, helping us reinforce those behaviors and actions. So, in summary, I've explored that leader must have the right personal characteristics. So partly hereditary and partly from early life experiences to succeed. But most importantly, they must learn the right behaviors and develop those behaviors over time in line with the leadership approaches that they may choose. So that's been The Leadership Hacker News. Please get in touch with us, if you have any insights or stories that you'd like us to air on our show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today, we have Dr. Catherine Rymsha. She's a learning and development expert. A leadership lecturer at U-Mass’ and author of The Leadership Decision: Decide to Lead Today. Catherine, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Thank you, Steve. I am so thrilled to be here.

Steve Rush: Me too. I'm really intrigued to find out that there is a leadership decision and that one we can take, and we'll get into that in a little moment, but first, maybe for our guests listing to you for the first time, maybe give us a little bit of a backstory as to how you've arrived at what you're doing?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Sure. I'm going to go back a little bit. So, bear with me. But when I was in college, I went to school for journalism because I thought that was a very noble ambition to try to unearth the truths in the world. And I learned a ton where I went to my undergrad college and when I was there, I took a few courses in marketing, believe it or not. And I hated the courses in marketing. And I thought I will never be in marketing in my career because I just thought this would never be something that I would do. So obviously no offense to any of your listeners who may be in marketing, because that is a very interesting field with its own challenges and levels of success. But when I got out of college and I started to think about, you know, what I really wanted to do, I wanted to be a journalist, but I was young. I had student debt to pay off. I was anxious to start my life and saw what journalists were making and all of that nobility and wanting to be a writer, went out the window and I got my first job, believe it or not in marketing.

Steve Rush: Ironically, yeah.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Yeah, of course, ironically. And I worked for about 10 or 12 years in marketing and was able to do a lot of really great things in terms of doing healthcare conferences and meeting presidents and fortune 100 CEOs and was really fortunate to get the marketing experiences. But I cried my way through my marketing career because it just wasn't a good fit for who I was or am as a person.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: So, along the lines started studying leadership and really became obsessed and started, you know, I got my master's degree. I got my doctorate degree at Northeastern in Boston. I started teaching on the side and then once I got totally burned out from marketing, made the switch over to doing leadership development, full time. And then along the lines and through my studies, you know, started to write the book and, you know, after seven or eight years of plotting through that, finally published it last fall, but I took a roundabout way to get there.

Steve Rush: All right. So, when did you first notice this passion for? I guess there's two things, isn't it? There's the education, there's teaching other people, but there's that real passion for the subject matter, which came first for you?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: The passion for the subject matter.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Really did come first. And then once I got so into it, then came the idea of how do I get others excited about this too.

Steve Rush: During the last kind of eight years or so. And you've been in the world of teaching and leadership development. You had the foresight to craft a great book, The Leadership Decision. Tell us a little bit about what the inspiration was behind that?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Yeah, you know, since I've been teaching and looking at the topic for years, you know, I always get a kick out of it because people always will come to me and say like, oh, Catherine, I want to be a leader. What do I need to do? And it's just, if I get promoted, I'll finally be a leader. Or my boss is a jerk Catherine. Like they're not going to let me lead. And you know, throughout my studies and teaching both in the academic and corporate worlds, I had people coming to me all of the time with, you know, these excuses about why they couldn't be a leader. And I was finding myself getting so frustrated and saying to them, or giving examples of like, you know, so-and-so who we work with as a leader here. And they didn't, you know, they weren't told to lead or asked to lead. They just made the decision to lead.

And, you know, you can go through more famous leaders. And whether that be in the corporate sense or the academic sense or the political sense or the humanitarian sense. I thought about that a lot because people would, you know, like I said, they would come to me with what I considered to be excuses of like, hey, I can't lead because of, you know, I didn't get the promotion. And I thought, well, that's such crap because that's not what leadership is. It's not a title at work. Although for some, that's a piece of it. I mean, so much bigger than that. And I think because I struggled myself with my own career ups and downs and having some people say you can lead and some people saying, no, you can't, you know, and then hearing others say the same things about experiences that they had. I thought there's so many books on this topic and yet all the books talk about the skills and the abilities, all of which are great, but yet there's a really practical element to this too, is that some people are going to take the initiative and decide to lead. And some people aren't, and that's really where it comes down to, who becomes a leader and who doesn't. It was a mix of those experiences and frustrations and kind of, you know, realizations that helps me get to writing a book about the topic.

Steve Rush: And there's a massive difference, Isn't there?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Oh, totally.

Steve Rush: Where people aren't in leadership roles, but they think that they're leaders and behaviorally nothing like leaders, there's a complete kind of oxymoron. People get a title with leadership in it or leader in it. Doesn't make them a leader, does it?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Not at all, and maybe I'm too close to it sometimes, and naturally just because of everything that I do and I don't know why other people don't realize that and get so stuck in this mindset that they have to be a leader or be kind of granted that permission to lead. And they look at that at the sense of a promotion. And I think, well, that's being a manager at work, you know, once you get that final title to say like, okay, now you're getting paid to lead formally. I mean, that's not the real, the true essence of leadership. And I still wonder where and how people get stuck with that.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's interesting, Isn't it?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Totally.

Steve Rush: One I've kind of been probably kicking around for many, many years too. The best way I've been able to describe that is, you can watch young kids in kindergarten demonstrate leadership. You can watch young people on a sports pitch, demonstrate leadership, and it's got nothing to do with the pay grade or a title. It's an absolute behavior.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: It is an absolute behavior. And I can tell people that until I'm blue in the face and the ones that I need to tell that over and over again are just not in that mindset to lead. But then I see plenty of people who I don't even need to tell that to are making great leadership decisions and making the decision to lead each and every day, whether they realize it or not. And that's what the true differentiation is between being a leader and not is making that decision to act in that way and behave in that way.

Steve Rush: So, the decision. The leadership decision, is that a physical thing? does it manifest itself in a physical way for you and for the people you teach?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: I would say so. I think that people who make the decision to lead have a huge level of initiative and they make decisions to act and to take charge. And that's what puts them in the light of being leaders, title or non-title, corporate or non-corporate, but people still get so stuck in that headspace. And I think that's where it can be so frustrating in terms of trying to give people guidance on how to be leaders, because they either get that basic factor, they don't.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: And that's the tough thing about being in this job, but it can also be the rewarding element too.

Steve Rush: You've referenced a lot about making a decision. That seems to me, it's much more about their mindset at that time than it is about what's going on around them?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: It is, it is about mindset, and I think a lot of that can be attributed to the way that people are brought up, but the way that people interact within the culture that they're in both for about organizational culture, or even more of a cultural element of how they were raised in their backgrounds. But I do think it's so surprising how, regardless of gender, regardless of culture, regardless of any of that, is that you still see some people making those decisions to lead, regardless of what life throws their way.

Steve Rush: What do you notice about the gender element that is different for some folk?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: I do think that women, and this might be a generalization. I think some women hold themselves back with their own leadership decisions because of fear. And I think back to my own career and experiences that I've been put in and, you know, reference in the book in terms of things that men will say to women when they go to lead, or if you're a woman and you're trying to be too, I don't want to say dominant because I don't want to have that kind of negative connotation, but when women make leadership decisions and begin to be more forthcoming in that, I do think that they are met with different struggles then.

Steve Rush: Yeah, there's no question.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And you know, just the labels and the fact that you wanted to hold back from saying dominant because there was a perception of a label that comes with it, it’s true, Isn't it? You often don't see a male leader being described as dominant.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: No, you don't.

Steve Rush: And exactly the same way.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: A hundred percent. And it's funny, I was looking through some old evaluations on a session that I gave a couple, maybe about two years ago. And I just happened to stumble on them up in my attic. I mean, with COVID. I mean, people are home cleaning all the time, and there was an evaluation that talked about how within the presentation that I gave, I was very clear. I was very concise and I was very direct and this person learned a lot. And the negative feedback that I got or the area for improvement was, could be warmer and her delivery. And I've been thinking about that since I found the piece of paper, actually rooba was spinning around upstairs and actually came across it. And I've been thinking about that for the last week or so, because the session that I gave was all too women and here's one woman within that group, that's still criticizing me for my tone and not being warm. And I thought if I could get up there and convey a message and be very clear and concise and direct, those are all beautiful, wonderful things that you want a facilitator or a leader to be able to do.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: But yet, because she didn't perceive a level of warmth in my delivery because I was trying to be factual, then that's where I still get criticized. And I don't think a man would get that type of criticism.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's very true. So in helping people make that decision, as part of the book, you created a model called the A.P.E. model to help enhance those decisions. Tell us a little bit about that model and how it might work?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Sure. So A.P.E. stands for Awareness, Practice and Evaluation, and it was one of those things that, you know, I was brainstorming about the book and my house was covered with sticky notes and the concept of leadership being a decision had been with me for a while. But then I thought like, oh gosh, I just can't throw out this concept of like leadership being a decision, because how vague is that? Because some people are going to say that or read that or hear that and say like dah Catherine, of course leadership is a decision. Some people are going to be like, oh wow, I never thought about it that way. But I thought in order for me to help develop people or encourage people to take action within their own lives, I needed to give them some sort of model. I mean, at least with a model, you can kind of cut it out of a book and hang it up on your cube or your refrigerator, and it gives you some sort of word to stick to that you can hopefully be mindful of throughout your day as you're making leadership decisions.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: But I was thinking about this kind of ongoing cycle that the leaders that I saw doing well and really making decisions to lead or being very mindful in their awareness. So, they were learning, they were reading, they were having conversations, they were extending their network. They were going to conferences. So, it was different levels of awareness or even outside of the corporate sense. It was being very in tune to what the community wanted and where people in the community wanted it to get better. But then, you know, there's so much with awareness that people can read every single book in the world. They can watch every LinkedIn learning course. They can watch every Ted talk, you know, at this point and learn a ton, don't get me wrong, but where you really start to make an impact and see a difference is where people practice and that's where they fall down.

Because I do think that people get fearful of making mistakes or looking like they're a failure, which is natural and psychological, and there's no fault in, but I had so many folks say to me when I've trained over the years, like Catherine, Catherine, you know, I took your course. I learned a lot. I went back to work and nothing changed. And I'm like, oh really? Oh, why do you think that is? And not to be condescending, but it would be like, oh well, did you do this that we talked about? Did you practice this tool that we had talked about in the course? You know, and they say, oh, no, I didn't. Well, that’s where are you become a leader. And yet that was still hard for people to comprehend. And then I would talk to some people and they say, you know, and this is the beauty of doing this within the corporate world, because you can kind of fact check, you know, okay, so-and-so took the course. Then you can go talk to so-and-so's employees, you know, in the lunch room, back in the day when we were face-to-face and say, oh, how are they doing as a leader? Are they doing X, Y, and Z? And some employees would be like, yeah, they really, you know, making a big difference and things are really getting better. And some people were like, no, they're not doing anything like this. So, it'd be a way to kind of check my own work too. But you know, the practices where it comes down to it, but then that final element with the evaluation is really getting into the nitty gritty of feedback. And, you know, feedback is such a hot topic. I mean, you can't battle Ash about seeing feedback on Harvard Business Review or Ted or any of these other kind of leadership sites and podcasts, and it's incredibly important, but it's still something that people are absolutely horrified by of just getting comfortable with getting feedback, giving feedback, and being very mindful of what they do with feedback.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that's a whole another podcast, that one, isn't it?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: It is, indeed.

Steve Rush: The whole subject of feedback, feed forward, how you get it? Who gives it? How do you take it? How do you respond? How do you avoid getting triggered? All of that kind of stuff is really, really important. And suspect that's perhaps some of the reasons why the “E” in your model is probably the one that you might see way more than the others.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Totally, and people just get so fearful of asking for feedback.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: And I get to tell you. I think we over romanticized feedback because I always say to leaders, we'll just ask people, how did this go? What did you think about this? I mean, it doesn't need to be a 360, anytime you do anything on the job, it could just be simply as picking up the phone or doing a Zoom or even a text of like, hey, how do you think that when? Or where do you think I could have done better? And once you start doing that more, it becomes so easy. And then you're going to be getting feedback all the time and being able to pivot and course correct, and make a better leadership decision.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I agree. Also, I guess it's one of those labels, isn't it? That people have a mindset about when you mentioned feedback, some people will feel really good about giving and receiving it. Others will have a different experience. And therefore, instead of asking for feedback, just simply ask, as you said, how did it go?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: That's it, that’s all it needs to be sometimes.

Steve Rush: Now within the book you have, there is another model that helps kind of leaders get more focused called the toll model. T-O-L-L, tell us about that?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Sure. So, toll stands for timing opportunity, looks and likes. And when I first started studying leadership at maybe 23 or 24 years old, I was still, I was very new into the career world. And you know, my parents to their credit had always tried to give me kind of guidance that. You know, you can work hard and yet things might not go right your way. And you don't really realize that until you start working. So, the irony was, I was going to school for leadership. Learning all these great concepts and thinking about what makes a leader, a leader. But the caveat to that as I was so conscious of what made a leader, a leader and where there were good behaviors and bad behaviors. So, I would think about it all the time, but yet I was also getting my own dose of reality each and every day.

By trying to understand like, what I call in the book is toll. Like you said, so it's timing opportunity looks and likes. And there were points in my career that I would be working so hard and killing myself over these jobs, trying to get a promotion and yet a year or two might go by and it didn't happen. And it would be like, oh, well, the timing's not right. Which was such crap too, because I felt like I was working and that I would see people who worked for what I perceived less than I did getting promoted. And that's where those other elements of toll came into play to. Like I said, put this real practical lens on it, because if you're not seizing opportunities, when you see them or even talking to the right person when time permits or, you know, figuring out where there's opportunities for you to maybe kiss up or leverage a skill set, or just know when to push yourself, I think that's where you see a lot of people get promoted from that formality. But I think even within my career, it became more apparent to me that there are some places and there are some managers who will promote based on their own bias.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Whether that be, you know, they promote the people they like, you know, and we see that happen all the time. And that can be incredibly frustrating for people who aren't in the kind of click, but then it's also the matter of looks. And I get to tell you, you know, growing up, my parents and family were like, wow, it looks count. And you know, I was of this age of like, wow, if you work hard and, you know, bring a, you know, unique perspective, you know, maybe it doesn't quite matter, you know what you look, but I had this one manager at some point who was pretty open to say like, well, we're not going to promote this person because they're overweight or we're not going to promote this person because they don't dress like a leader. And that's a huge reality too, whether we want to face it or not. And I felt so superficial talking about that in the book and still trying to be just, but that's a real problem too. Bias is all over the place these days too. But there's so much of that in the way that we define leaders, promote quote, unquote leaders and really view leadership.

Steve Rush: It's a really great observation because I don't think we'll ever be rid of bias. You know, it's one of those unconscious behaviors that we all have and we all carry on. And actually, just being aware of that as a leader can help you pivot what you do so that you can at least try and face into it and adapt and modify it, and second guess it almost, right?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Right.

Steve Rush: Yeah, love it. Now you have a fantastic TED Talk by the way.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Thank you.

Steve Rush: Which I thought was really authentic. And if anybody hasn't had the opportunity to do so, please get an opportunity to look at it. I think it's called, if you want to become a better leader? Just listen.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Yes.

Steve Rush: Brilliant. So listening is such a key component to leadership, isn't it? What's the reason you focused on that for your TED Talk?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Focused on that, because there had been times in my career at that point that I had had great experiences with people who were then leadership roles that really took the time to listen. And in the TED Talk, I gave a, you know, an example of somebody who was in a leadership role and was very mindful about giving people space to talk and was very aware of how he listened and then changed or made differences based on the feedback that he was getting. And I think a lot of that, he equated to taking the time to listen, which was so mature for a leader to have that level of awareness. And I say that, and I kind of cringed as I say that, because you would think that most leaders would have that maturity, but yet I've worked for leaders and in the TED Talk too, talked about a leader when I was expressing some concerns and that he was totally out of the conversation, he wasn't listening at all. And, you know, I think there's a funny element to that story, which is why I don't want to ruin it for anybody who wants to listen to the TED Talk. Hopefully people think it's funny, but I was pretty horrified and, you know, listening is one of those things that it's so critical, but you know, I've trained all over the world and gone to China and all over Europe and the United States and LAT’AM and what have you. And I always ask the question when I train, you know, who here has ever taken a listening class, and I got to tell you, in the states, no, we don't ever teach kids in school, grade school, how to listen, like I said, I've been everywhere. The only place that I've heard of people taking a listening class is that when I've worked with people who have gone MBAs in London, at London schools, they've had it as a part of their MBA curriculum. So, I got to tell you, that's stuck with me for years is, why people don't get listening classes when they're growing up through school? But yet only in an MBA class, within one small pocket of the entire world, are they teaching listening as a skill as a part of an MBA? So, what does the rest of the world missing out on?

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's interesting, Isn't it?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Yeah.

Steve Rush: I think when you and I first met, I shared with you that as part of my work, I spend quite a bit of time teaching listening, which in itself, people start to think of notion as a really easy thing to do, but when you actually break it down, because we get easily distracted in our virtual communication, as well as our physical communication, it's not as easy as people perceive.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: You’re a hundred percent, right. And I've thought about you often over the last couple months, since we first chatted. Saying how you train people to be better listeners, and that is no easy task, but yet it is so critical. And yet people in schooling and organizations fail to give anyone any sort of formality on that for the most part, but yet considering this virtual environment that we're navigating now, I mean, look at how crucial those skills are today compared to what they might've been a year and a half ago.

Steve Rush: Even more tough, right?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: A hundred percent.

Steve Rush: So how have you seen that adapt in the last year or so as we've pivoted more to a virtual world, what have been the big themes presented itself in the world of listening?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: I get the question a lot about the TED Talk and with the listening and then, you know, trying to utilize some of that within the virtual sense, and I can understand why it's so important. And then I think, you know, how do people really become better listeners virtually? And I do agree that there's an element about having the camera on. That you can begin to understand some of the nonverbal cues through, you know, watching somebody on the other side of the side of the screen and being more focused or taking extra time to call somebody or text somebody to check in, you know, after a meeting or just, you know, randomly throughout the week to still connect. And one of the tools that I've been utilizing and training on isn't mine, and it's one from a group up at West Point, New York here in the states called Thayer Leadership.

And they've got this tool called back briefing, and I'm sure it's called other things. I don't think that they're the first kind of creator of this. And that's one thing that I've been training leaders within the corporate sense to do more. So simply the concept is to, you know, give someone some instruction or some context of what you need them to do and why, and then ask them to repeat back what they heard. And at first, I thought, oh gosh, that is such a horrifying tool to use because that just sounds so condescending in many ways, and it's not something that you could use without giving somebody some sort of introduction or, you know, heads up that you're going to start using that tool. But yet that's one tool that I think has helped people just check for alignment. And just to confirm that people are saying what they mean to say, and people are hearing what they need to hear.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: I think that's one thing that stuck with me a lot over the last year and a half.

Steve Rush: I like that because, I think you're absolutely right. You need to frame the concept behind it, but actually just by framing the concept down, people will pay more attention.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: They will.

Steve Rush: And therefore, you know, it captures the attention right from the get go as well, doesn’t it?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: It does. Because it's kind of like giving them a pop quiz every day of like, you know, saying, well, what did you hear me say? Like you're a parent or in grade school, but it does help. And there are so many other tools and instructions out there that give people insights on how to listen better. I just think the trick to that is practicing it too and using those skills and they're highly beneficial when somebody does.

Steve Rush: And in a virtual world, we have less opportunity to pick up on some of that physical environment and some of the nonverbal cues that happen below the waist. And you know, all of the things that we would take into consideration as part of that listening exercise. Now we have to rely much more on tonality and pace and how people breathe and that kind of stuff. And I just wondered in the conversations you've had, whether you're not, you see that becoming more challenging for folk or easier given the environment we're in now?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: I still think it's a challenge. I think listening's always a challenge for people. And I do believe that with COVID and the pressures of people having to homeschool and work and be cooped up within their homes all day, although that is beginning to transition, that made listening harder because of some of the mental stressors and distractions. It's something that I do think leaders need to be more mindful of knowing that all of that background noise is happening for them to struggle through.

Steve Rush: Yeah, got it. One thing is to spring to mind is, what do you think the reason is that we don't teach listening from a very early age as almost like a subject?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Because it's assumed.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I guess it is, isn't it?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: It’s assumed that people are going to develop that skill on their own. And I had somebody on YouTube and somebody made a comment that it was like, well, if somebody listens, they'll get good grades in school. And then because they'll get good grades in school, they'll do well in their careers. And I think I'm quoting that comment on YouTube wrong. But I think about that a lot because you're making the assumption that they're learning that skillset just by nature of being a person and around other people, but yet there's no tools or practicality granted that helps people really be mindful of that from our larger sense.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I agree. So, we're going to spin the lens a little now.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Sure.

Steve Rush: We get a chance to hack into your great leadership experiences and your leadership mind. I'm going to ask you to try and get down to your top three leadership hacks. So, your top tips ideas or tools, what would they be?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: So, the first, which is broad is, I think that people need to consider how they're making leadership decisions and that, like I said, can be a bit vague, but we're making decisions as leaders each and every day, whether we realize it or not. I would say the second thing is get used to asking that question of how do you think things went, because that can be a great way in a very easy way to start getting more mindful and getting more feedback in your day to day. And I do think the third, you know, going back to those points that we made a few moments ago, I should say. Really think about how your listening and if there's a way that you can learn more about that topic or use a tool like back briefing, or even gain more instruction on ways to be a better listener, because that will do a huge world of difference for your relationships and understanding and what you do moving forward as a leader, if you get really in tune to what people are saying and what they're asking for.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I love that. And of course, practice because you can practice listening.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Yes, a hundred percent, practice.

Steve Rush: Next part of the show, we've affectionately called it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something hasn't gone as well as you'd planned, might have screwed up. But as a result of that happening, you now have something that's positive in your life or your work. So, what would be your Hack to Attack Catherine?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: When I was in marketing, I worked for a woman and she did not like me. And this is where some of those elements of toll come into play. And she was pretty vocal about not liking me, which was pretty detrimental to my self-esteem and my confidence within the role itself, and one day I snapped at her. She had pushed me and pushed me and talked so terribly about me for years. And it was a pretty raw experience. And I sucked it up for a long time. And then, like I said, I snapped at her one day and I was like, you don't listen to me. I'm like, you don't respect me. And that conversation did not go well, to say the least. And although I say that now and laugh, like I was horrified at the moment, but I think that's been one thing that has helped me developed empathy, but also pushed me to be more vocal with people around me when things aren't going well or if I'm sensing any sort of conflict or uneasiness to try to address that to never get to that point again, where all of a sudden you blow up at a manager and have a less than desirable experience after that.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I think many people can have empathy with that, for sure. And of course, that's a leadership decision too.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: It is.

Steve Rush: By being vocal earlier, by being thoughtful about how you're responding and reacting to others around you.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Totally.

Steve Rush: So, the last thing we want to do is give you an opportunity to do some time travel, bump into yourself at 21 and give yourself some advice. What do you think it might be?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Oh, I was going to say, don't go into marketing, but I had a lot of great experiences in marketing and it helped me do a lot of other great things within my career. But I would say to be more vocal. I think for many years I was, you know, shyer, more of an introvert. And I think that developing the skillset to be more vocal and to be more comfortable doing that would have helped me do more overall if I had just been able to conquer some of that shyness.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's interesting. As we get older, some of these things that become very natural to us, if we could have only done them as well before, years before would have just expedited everything, wouldn't it?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: I mean hindsight's 2020, so yeah.

Steve Rush: Isn’t it just?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: It is indeed.

Steve Rush: So, I would Imagine if anybody's been listening to this, they're probably thinking, how do I get ahold of the TED Talk? How do I get a copy of Catherine book? So, when we're done, where's the best place we can send our listeners?

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Sure. So, the book is on Barnes & Noble, it's on Amazon and it's on Apple Books. I also have a website, theleadershipdecision.com. And then if you go to the TEDx website on YouTube and Google or search for my name, you should be able to find the TED Talk there.

Steve Rush: We'll put the links in the show notes as well. So, everybody can head over as soon as they've done.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Excellent, thank you.

Steve Rush: Catherine, we need to find a way of working together in the future, I think.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Yes.

Steve Rush: I haven't figured out what that might look like yet, but we share such a lot of similar experiences in not only our work, but also in our futures, I'm sure. So, I just wanted to say thank you for taking time out. I know you're having a really busy time of things. Thanks for coming on the podcast and being part of The Leadership Hacker Community.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Thank you, so much for having me. It's been a joy and I do hope we can collaborate at some point in the future.

Steve Rush: Excellent, thanks Catherine.

Dr. Catherine Rymsha: Thanks Steve.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there is @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Tim Kachuriak is an entrepreneur, founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer at NextAfter. He is a philanthropist and Board Member of many firms and today you can learn from Tim:

Why despite the increase in Digital – Humans deal with Humans
Measuring efficiency vs. impact
Why marketing through values and mindset gets results
Lead with generosity and by example

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Tim below:

Tim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkachuriak/

NextAfter Website: https://www.nextafter.com

Tim on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DigitalDonor

Full Transcript Below

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Tim Kachuriak is joining me on the show today. He's the founder and chief innovation and optimization officer of NextAfter. That's a research and consulting firm that works with businesses and nonprofits to help them grow their resource capacity. Before we get a chance to speak with Tim, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: People form an impression of you as soon as you enter the room and before you utter a single word. We've been working behind a screen for over a year now. So, what does our digital body language convey about us? The way we communicate or not in email, text, phone and chats, speaks volumes too. We better pay attention, 70% of communication in teams is done virtually. We send about 306 billion emails a day with the average person sending 30 emails a day. Our electronic communication is only expected to increase over time. And sadly, the tone of half of our digital communication is misinterpreted.

As we prepare for the future of work, we need to be cognizant of what Erica Dhawan calls our digital body language, but it's not just at work where we're glued to our devices. We socialize more online than we do in person now, think about it. When was the last time you went anywhere without your phone? When was the last time your phone was off? In her new book, digital body language, Erica Dhawan outlines, four things we must do to improve our virtual communication. One, value visibility. Since we cannot offer a handshake or showed them a smile, we need to find other ways of being attentive and other ways that people know we're communicating with them and understand and appreciate what they're doing. Communicate carefully, number two. Miscommunication is often at the heart of most people's problems, being straightforward as possible in our words and expectations as well as our preferred mediums is absolutely critical.

Collaborate confidently. How can we freely share ideas and trust others in our own team so that they can take calculated risks? Knowing that their trust, knowing we will trust their judgment and trust totally. Trust occurs when people tell the truth, keep to their word and deliver to their commitments. Trust can only happen after three other steps are completed. And when trust occurs, empowerment follows. So be thoughtful about your brevity, your T-H-X or thanks, your passive aggressiveness. That might be something like, pay my last email, which probably means. Did you really read what I said? Or for future reference, let me correct. Going forward, do not do this again, or can have an impact. So, the next time you're thinking about your digital body language, you're communicating, whether you believe you are or not, that's been The Leadership Hacker New. If you have any insights, information, please get in touch with us.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Tim Kachuriak is our special guest on today's show. He's the founder and chief innovation and optimization officer at NextAfter. A fundraising lab and consulting firm, helping nonprofits with cutting edge research, Tim, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Tim Kachuriak: Thank you so much for having me.

Steve Rush: So, Tim, it's been a few months since we've spoken and the worlds evolved. We've become much more involved with digital and technology and research has been perhaps, you know, been taken to the next level where people have gained their curiosity and so on and so forth. And I'm really looking forward to getting into talk about what work you do and the work that you do with NextAfter. But before we do that, perhaps it'd be useful to our listeners. If you give them a little bit of a summary as to how you ended up doing what you're doing?

Tim Kachuriak: Well sure. I mean, it was very much an indirect pathway into the world of working with nonprofits, but my background story, so I graduated from college right after the events of 9/11, which was a really challenging time for anybody that was trying to move into the job force, especially for somebody who wanted to break in the field of marketing and advertising. But fortunately, I worked at a country club all during high school and college. I'd like to joke. I had 432 aunts and uncles that were captains of industry. And so, I went to the president of the country club who happened to be the president of the second largest ad agency in Pittsburgh, where I grew up. I said, hey Joe, can I come meet with you? He said, sure, come on down. And I did my little dog and pony show and he was like, ugh, man, I'd love to hire you, but we just laid off 30 people yesterday, 9/11 has hit our agency hard, our industry harder and sorry, I just can't help you.

And so, I spent the next six months just kind of wandering around, just trying to find somebody that would give me a shot. And I met a serial entrepreneur, actually at a golf outing. And he said, you know, why don't you do some things for some of my little businesses like I operate? I said, that sounds great. He says, you know, why don't you start a business? And I said, I don't know how to do that. He's like, I do. We've got an incubator in the second floor of our office building. I'll give you a desk, I'll introduce you to people. I'll be your partner. And the rest is up to you kid. So, I'm looking around and saying, man, what do I got to lose? I'm living in my parents' basement. I have zero overhead, no romantic interest at the time. And so, I started my first company, about six months out of college called Ambience Interactive.

And you know, we grew into being kind of like a digital marketing boutique and linked up with a lot of the general market ad agencies. And they would outsource all their digital stuff to us, that was back in 2002 and they didn't have a lot of in-house capabilities to do that kind of work. And so, I did that for about five years and I loved what I was doing, but I wasn't really excited about, you know, the clients that we had and not that they were bad. It just, you know, we had a lot of legal clients and a lot of automotive dealerships and nothing wrong with car dealerships or lawyers, but just didn't really spin my wheels. And so, my church at the time was doing a capital campaign to raise money, to build a new building. And so, I volunteered our agency to do all the marketing materials for that campaign, that was the first time that I was doing digital marketing, but for a cause that I cared about and I thought that was pretty cool.

And so, my next move, I decided I didn't want to operate this business anymore. I sold that and we sold our house, moved from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Went to work for a nonprofit organization directly. I was there for a short period of time, maybe about 18 months. And that's when I discovered that there's basically advertising agencies that work exclusively with nonprofits and NGOs. And we happen to work with one based out of Dallas. They said, hey, look, why don't you come to Dallas? We've been doing direct mail for 30 years to help nonprofits raise money. We'd really like to break into this digital world and why don't you lead that for us? And so that was kind of an entrepreneurial journey where I moved to Dallas and helped them start this digital division. And quickly, we kind of grew to be the largest, most profitable division of the company. That agency then got acquired about two years later by another agency. And during that time, I really became obsessed with trying to figure out how do we optimize digital fundraising? I mean, I'd seen a lot of the stuff happening in the full profits space. With conversion rate optimization and decision science and behavioral economics, but nobody was talking about that stuff in the nonprofit space. And so that's what led me to start NextAfter, and really what we are today is a fundraising research lab, a consultancy and a training Institute. So, it's been quite a ride.

Steve Rush: Wow. And also remember from when we first spoke, there's a bit of a sliding doors moment for you. Where you were almost going to go down the professional golfing route.

Tim Kachuriak: That is true, yeah. So, I worked, as I mentioned, I worked at a country club during high school and college and for about, I guess it was a semester. I took off and I entered into professional golf training program. I thought I wanted to be a club pro, because I honestly, I just enjoyed being around the golf course. I liked the business of golf. And my boss was this crusty old golf pro, had been doing that for 35 years. He's like, look, man, you know, go back to school, go get your degree. And then you can come join a country club, you know, enjoy playing golf. He was like, I work seven days a week, key to key, seven to seven. He's like, it's a miserable life and I never get to play golf. So, I'm glad he said that to me. And I'm glad I chose a different path.

Steve Rush: Awesome. And the one thing that struck me when we first spoke is this whole cause and purpose, it's really at the heart of what you do. And I know it's a big driver for you. So just tell us maybe, you know, what's the core focus of the work that you do now with NextAfter?

Tim Kachuriak: Yeah, so we kind of discovered along the way that, you know, we're not a nonprofit organization ourself. We're very much a full-profit company, but we've discovered along the way that we are very much a cause-based organization and our cause is to decode what works in digital fundraising. To get into the hands of as many fundraisers as we possibly can so that we can achieve what we think is our cause, our vision, which is unleashing the most generous generation in the history of the world. So practically how we do that is, by doing three things. We do research, we do two types of research, both forensic research and applied research. With the forensic research looks like, we do deep data analysis. So, we're looking at large amounts of data across the nonprofit sector. And what we're looking for in the data is patterns that lead to opportunities to unlock greater digital fundraising performance. So hyper, hyper focus around digital. We believe like many, it's the future of fundraising, but it's still underdeveloped within most organizations in the space.

The challenge we've run into though, is that the kind of data we're trying to analyze, that we most want to analyze either doesn't exist or it's not readily accessible. And that's because what we're most interested in is trying to experience the nonprofit, the NGO, the charity from the donor's point of view. So, we found the best way to get that perspective is by in fact, just becoming donors ourselves. And so, what we do is about four or five times a year, we'll launch one of these major mystery donor studies. As the name implies, we'll go out and subscribe to hundreds of different organizations at the same time. We'll monitor everything they send us. Every email, text message, voicemail, we've got boxes of direct mail, stacked to the ceiling. We analyze those pieces of correspondence and we wait for the organizations to invite us, to become a financial partner by making a gift. And when they do that, we go online to their website and we make a donation and then we continue to monitor how they communicate with us over time, and it's fascinating. I mean, what's always so interesting is how wildly varying the communication experiences from organization to organization.

Steve Rush: I bet, yeah.

Tim Kachuriak: And so, when we do these market studies, we uncover some pretty interesting findings. And so, then we go test it. So that's the second part of the research we do, which is applied research. Where we're using the web as not just a channel of communication, but as a living laboratory where we can run rigorous, scientific experiments to figure out what works and what doesn't work. And we've documented now about 2,800 different online fundraising experiences across a whole range of different types of nonprofits. And we're just starting to scratch the surface to figure out what works. And so, we take everything we learned in the lab and everything we'd learned from the market studies that we do. And we applied to the two other parts of our company. The second is the next after Institute, which is the training, the resourcing arm of NextAfter. And then finally the consultancy which is like basically we function as a digital agency for about, let's see, 35, 36 nonprofit organizations primarily across North America, although we've started to branch out.

Steve Rush: What an awesome way to find out how things work by actually just immersing yourself in that end user experience, it’s a neat idea. So, from your experience, Tim, then what sets people apart or what sets nonprofits apart from being Uber successful and gaining loads of donations to not?

Tim Kachuriak: So, the secret, it's going to sound very simplistic, but it's actually quite profound. So, one of the metta findings from our research and from our primarily is that people give to people. They don't give to email machines, they don't give to websites, they don't give to direct mail campaigns, people give to people. And so, we found honestly, one of the simplest and most effective ways to actually improve your fundraising is by humanizing. It I'll give you a practical example. So, if you look at most nonprofit fundraising emails, they've got lots of HTML and graphics and images and buttons. And the problem is, when a potential donor sees that in their inbox, all they see is somebody trying to market to them. And we're constantly being pelted with all types of marketing messages every day. But if you actually scrape away that marketing veneer, get rid of the images, the graphics, the buttons, the text, and just actually write more of a text-based appeal. So, it looks like it's coming from one human to another human. We've run experiments like that with dozens of organizations and we've done in different countries, different languages. We find that it produces 300, 400% higher conversion rates to donor, when you send those types of emails.

Steve Rush: That's a significant, isn't it? And that's the whole emotional connection, I guess.

Tim Kachuriak: Exactly right. That's exactly right.

Steve Rush: So, do you think we're more of a giving nation or giving society now than we were perhaps say 10 years ago?

Tim Kachuriak: This past year with everything that's happened with COVID-19 has been just, I mean, it's been devastating, but it's also been so inspiring just to see how people have responded in generosity, especially online. So Blackbaud who's a big data provider and company in the nonprofit space globally. They just released their charitable giving report for 2020. And what they found is that digital fundraising actually increased this past year by 21%. Where digital as a channel actually represented 13% of total revenue. And that's the first time that it's ever crossed more than 10%. So that was really encouraging, inspiring to us. Obviously, that's the work we do every single day. So, it's kind of seems that the nonprofit space has gotten a much-needed shove into digital transformation, which I think is a good thing.

Steve Rush: And do you think we'll see that continue beyond the pandemic? Do you think there's been literally a cultural shift or is it just that moment in time that kind of almost wartime spirit that's often been referred to in the past?

Tim Kachuriak: Yeah. You know, what's interesting. People that have tracked giving and philanthropy over time. During times of like economic down, you know, downturn, and even just like these kinds of experiences, we tend to see a bump, but the trend line continues to go up into the right. The one thing that's actually kind of troubling is that over the last 50 years, since they've been tracking it, the total number of giving households has been going down, but the total amount given to nonprofits has been going up.

Steve Rush: That’s interesting.

Tim Kachuriak: And I think what that suggests is, you know, kind of like some of the income disparity that we starting to see in our world today, that's part of it. And part of it's probably some other things that are probably a little bit too technical, but that's something that's interesting to monitor.

Steve Rush: How as the pandemic really impacted on the nonprofit world, from your perspective, in terms of how they engage with its members and supporters. Are you seeing much more of a move towards the virtual philanthropy? I think you coined a phrase.

Tim Kachuriak: Yeah. Everything started to shut down last March. There was all these data visualizations that were constantly being, you know, posted on the news and they're referring to like just how the disease was spreading. And I said, well, you know, we've got all this interesting data. What if we actually created a set of data visualizations to answer some of these questions that people were asking? And so, we did that. And one of the things we noticed is that email volume, so the percentage of emails that nonprofits were sending went up significantly during this time.

Steve Rush: Right.

Tim Kachuriak: And you think about it, it makes sense. Digital was the lifeline for many nonprofits. They weren't having their face-to-face events. They were not actually meeting with donors in person. And so digital became really, it became the primary channel by which they could engage with their supporters. And I think that's the biggest trend that we've seen is that nonprofits have had to figure out how to pivot during this time. They've had to figure out how to pivot in terms of how they relate to their donors, but they've also had to pivot in terms of how they actually fulfill their mission delivery. And there's been some really great examples of how organizations that have been, you know, progressive and really pioneering have taken advantage of that.

Steve Rush: What would be your experience Tim, as to why nonprofits and charities, et cetera, were late adopters in the world of technology and digital in terms of their marketing approach?

Tim Kachuriak: That's a great question. I think it's primarily because nonprofit industry in general is incredibly risk averse, right.

Steve Rush: Right.

Tim Kachuriak: And if you think about it, there's good reason for that, right. They're trying to steward these resources that have been given to them from their donors. And so, you know, there's this kind of mentality. Like I need to only do the guaranteed things that I know that are going to work. If I try something new and it doesn't work, that's a risk and it could end up hurting us as an organization. But I think what they fail to realize is that because the world is changing so fastly, right. So, aggressively that doing the same thing over and over again is actually more risky than trying something new, right? Because like, you're basically making the hypothesis that like the world is static. And, you know, the same thing I did 50 years ago is going to continue to work today and just not. So, I think the organizations that are starting to embrace that, that are finding ways to mitigate risks, but test new and different ways of approaching the market are the ones that are going to be the winner.

Steve Rush: There's also some that I think in there, isn't there? Around the whole notion of what a nonprofit is. So often people get confused with it's a nonprofit, which means they don't want to make much money. We're actually, I know some incredibly, you know, very revenue generative organizations who are making tons of loads of money, but they're reinvesting in their infrastructure. And they're still, nonprofit.

Tim Kachuriak: That's a great point, Steve. I don't know if you've ever seen Dan Pallotta TEDx Talks, but he talks about this at length. And you know, the issue he brings up is that we're measuring the wrong things. We're measuring efficiency, not impact. And a great example of this is like, let's say that we have two organizations, right? They both do the exact same thing, say it's, you know, trying to cure cancer. And one organization has a million-dollar annual budget and they have 99% efficiency, which means that 99 cents out of every dollar is going towards cancer research. And let's say we have another organization that's a hundred million dollar a year organization, and they have 50% efficiency, right. Meaning that 50 cents out of a dollar is actually going for research. The rest is being reinvested in actually trying to create greater awareness and get more people on board to support the work, which one's delivering greater impact. The one with $50 million worth of impact, or the one with $999,000 that is, you know, basically very efficient. So, it's just kind of like, you know, it's a challenging thing because I think we get kind of twisted up focus on the wrong things.

Steve Rush: So how do you go about changing the mindset of donors using digital then?

Tim Kachuriak: Well, I mean, part of its education. So, the opportunity presented with digital as a channel is that many donors, traditional donors have been acquired through direct mail, which means I'm going to go send a letter, you know, three to five pages or whatever, however long they are. And in that one instance, I have to move you from like, not even knowing who I am to caring about my organization and then giving gifts in that one instance, right. So, there's a lot of ways. I mean, you know, 1-2% response rate to a campaign like that is considered tremendous success. I look at that and say, well, that's like a 98%, you know,

failure rate, you know.

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly right.

Tim Kachuriak: So, with digital we can take baby steps, right? So, what I can do is, I can repurpose and reuse content that I have to create something that's interesting. Like maybe it's an eBook that actually helps the person to, you know, gradually learn about the cause. And now when somebody downloads that eBook, I have their email address. And then I can say, hey, did you read that? How about chapter nine? Wasn't that crazy? And then you can move them down his pathway that leads to giving more gradually, as opposed to having it be more of a direct response type of thing. So, content marketing, I think, is the huge value, add of taking advantage of digital versus other channels.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I get that too. And I see that the way that I respond to marketing, you know, if I feel I'm being marketed too, I hate that, right. So, I just delete, delete, delete, but if somebody wants to share content to educate me, I’m in.

Tim Kachuriak: That's right. That's right.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so is there some science behind what makes people give?

Tim Kachuriak: There's tremendous science, actually we're working closely with an organization based in the UK called the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy and they have the world's first PhD in philanthropic psychology. And they're doing all kinds of really interesting pioneering work in the academic space, trying to explore some of these new theories of psychology applied to the science of giving. And what we've been trying to do is working with their team. Actually, we appointed the NextAfter fellow to do this specific task of actually translating some of their theoretic research into testable hypotheses, that we can go test online with our clients and our research partners. And it's been fascinating, and one of their central theses are, is that when you, you know, when you actually present a message to a donor and, you know, you make an appeal for them to give to your organization, there's different ways you can go about that.

You can do certain things that maybe gets you the quick kit. It gets you the donation today, but it actually doesn't really do much to help the donor come to a place of higher wellbeing, right. Let me give you an example. So, you know, the hyper polarized world that we live in here, especially in the United States, I can go and create a fundraising message that leans into some of the politics of the day and gets people really frothing, mad, and angry. And I know that anger is a great leverage point to getting somebody to respond. Like they're so angry at what's happening in the world, that they're going to go give money to this organization so they can go and like, you know, try to change this thing, right. Well, that's great. And it works, but it doesn't actually do much to help the donor, you know, come to this place of, you know, higher sense of wellbeing,

Steve Rush: Right.

Tim Kachuriak: Whereas you can actually do things that actually maybe get less results today, but it actually makes the donor a better person and feel better. And ultimately, they become a more lifetime partner with the organization. The challenge with that, Steve is like, you know, nonprofits live hand to mouth, right? So, they live in this world of the annual budget. And they're constantly enslaved to like this direct response mindset that I put more dollar in, I got to get $5 out and they don't really think about the lifetime value or lifetime, you know, relationship with their donors. And so that's something that we're really trying to change.

Steve Rush: It's really fascinating. And I guess the, yeah, I'm certainly not a neuroscientist, but there is something around the chemical reaction that happens when we give that kind of, that feeling of pleasure that comes from, you know, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, all of the happy chemicals get released. And that's part of this, isn't it?

Tim Kachuriak: Very, very much so. I'm glad you mentioned that, like there's some really great research being conducted about how, you know, oxytocin, if we can elevate the oxytocin levels in our donors’ brains, like they are much more generous. Paul Zak wrote a book about that, The Moral Molecule, and he does like different studies and one where he actually had two groups of individuals and he dosed one with oxytocin and the other one, they got a placebo and they were both given a certain sum of money and they can make a decision to keep all of it for themselves, or they could give it to a needy cause. And those who were actually dosed with oxytocin are 80% more generous.

Steve Rush: Wow, that’s fascinating.

Tim Kachuriak: So, what my team is working on today is we're trying to figure out how to like, you know, get all of our donors high on oxytocin as much as we can.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and it's exactly the same in the world of leadership, right?

Tim Kachuriak: That's right.

Steve Rush: Having interviewed hundreds of people through this podcast and the work I do. One of the things that always comes along with this whole thing of gratitude, being grateful. It's the same thing, but almost in reverse, it's been grateful for what's being done and what you can experience around you. And of course, oxytocin the love chemical, as it's often referred to. People feel that they're doing something that's worthwhile and it's raising people's emotions. They're more likely to do it as well, aren’t they?

Tim Kachuriak: Yes, that's right.

Steve Rush: So, what would you say having worked alongside, the nonprofit world for such a long time, what would you see as the, maybe the parallels or the divergence that exists in the nonprofit world for the full profit world?

Tim Kachuriak: Yeah, that’s great. I've been thinking about that a lot recently. And one of the things that I think is interesting about working and marketing nonprofits is that we don't have a tangible product, right. So, you know, I don't have something that my donor is going to receive in most cases when they give a donation to my nonprofit organization. So, our marketing, you know, more like ideas and values and things like that. And I'm seeing more and more consumer brands that are, you know, shifting away from features benefits and all these things that were the traditional ways and leverage points to get people, to buy their products. And they're really moving more towards marketing of values and, you know, these different mindsets. And so, I see that there's actually probably going to be even more crossover in the future. And so perhaps some of the things that we're working on and decoding about why people give, will have some relevance for maybe some big consumer brands someday.

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely right. And I think it's also very relevant now that most big consumer brands are more thoughtful about, they're giving back to society, giving back to communities that they work in, and perhaps that wasn't visible as much 10 or 20 years ago.

Tim Kachuriak: That's right. That is right.

Steve Rush: So, what's next for NextAfter?

Tim Kachuriak: Well, one of the things that I mentioned is that we're trying to find ways to syndicate the research and some of the testing work that we're doing outside of the U.S. borders. So, you know, we primarily, as I mentioned, work in U.S. and Canada today, but we launched a major mystery donor study and partnership with Salesforce.org, and we basically replicated our online mystery donor study in nine different countries in four different languages, which required us to partner with I think five different agencies in different geographic markets to help us execute that. And that's been really interesting just to see the variance and how some of the things that we've learned here in the U.S. have relevance in other markets. And also, we learned a lot from other markets and things that we're actually now testing here in the U.S. so what I'm trying to do is figure out how do we basically like almost franchise the NextAfter model of like, you know, research, testing, and then training and each of these different markets. And so that's a big project that probably is the next three or four years going to be a big focus of mine.

Steve Rush: How exciting. And also, I guess, finding out if there are perhaps different trends, and in fact, you might even have the data to support this. Are there communities, countries that are more philanthropic than others?

Tim Kachuriak: Well, there's certainly is. There’re lists that are published every year, and it depends on like how you actually define that. So, if it's like giving per capita, or if its total mountain giving, you know, there's different ways of measuring that, but yes, there is, there's some obvious, you know, target markets that we would be focusing on initially UK, Australia, South Korea and Germany, and kind of like Germany, Switzerland area. So yeah, there some markets that are pretty interesting.

Steve Rush: Interesting. And some hope for us all in the fact that the countries that you've just stated as well are all relatively financially well-positioned. And therefore, it seems to me that there's already some philanthropy going on in those communities already.

Tim Kachuriak: Oh, for sure.

Steve Rush: And I'm pretty certain with your support. You will be able to unlock some more of that.

Tim Kachuriak: Absolutely, yeah.

Steve Rush: So, this is part of the show where we get to turn the tables a little bit, Tim. Get to hack into your leadership mind. So, you have not only been chief innovation and optimization officer. You've led a number of businesses along the way. So, I want to tap into your years of experience and try and distill them down into your top three leadership hacks if you could.

Tim Kachuriak: Okay, great.

Steve Rush: Go for it. What would your top three be?

Tim Kachuriak: I'd say they probably all fall under a central theme, which is, air on the side of generosity. That's, one of our core values at NextAfter. So, this idea of Err on the side of generosity, the three ways that we've actually implemented that into our company, that I think I've have made some big differences. Number one, we practice what we preach, right? So, if we work in the nonprofit space and we want to inspire the most generous generation in the history of the world, we've got to lead by example. So, we give 10% of all of our profits back to nonprofit organizations. And the cool part about that is that when we give these gifts to these nonprofits, we also take everything that we learned through the process of making those gifts and turn them into more research. So, it kind of feeds our research engine.

The second way we try to practice generosity on Err on side of generosity is with our employees. So, one thing we started from the very beginning and as we've added more and more staff, we just continue doing this as the free lunch program at NextAfter. Every single day, every single employee gets a free lunch provided by the company. And it's become such a great way to develop culture and build bonds among staff members because we've, you know, we've turned half of our office now into like this giant lunch room. And everybody sits down together and you sit down with somebody different every single day, but everybody takes a break and we sit down and we eat together. And you know, that does a couple of things. That gets people away from their desk for a few minutes to kind of take a breather, it gets them to talk to each other and relate. And then it also helps them, you know, be ready for the second half of the day by eating. But, you know, that's one way that we do that.

Steve Rush: I love that. Yeah, great idea.

Tim Kachuriak: We also do like a profit-sharing plan where we take half of our distributable profits. So, we put it into an employee profit share pool. So, half goes to the shareholders, the other half goes to the employees. And what's cool is there's no cap on that. So last year everybody got effectively a 24% bonus because of the profits of the company, we had a very profitable year last year. So that's another way that we're just trying to, you know, be generous with our staff. And then the last way is just by being generous with our industry. So, everything we do, all of our research, all of our testing, all of our trade secrets, we have open source, all of that. It all lives on our website. Anybody can access that. All 2,800 experiments have been posted there. There's no password required. You can just go log in and download everything. But we just feel very, very, very passionate about trying to be generous about the things that we're learning through our work with our clients and through our research. And there's a risk to that, right? Because obviously our competition gets access to all that stuff. But I think what I've found is that when we give away our best thing today, it puts positive pressure on the team to come up with something new tomorrow. Like it's positive innovation pressure when you give away your trade secrets today. So those are three ways that we try to Err on the side of generosity.

Steve Rush: And generosity begets generosity, right?

Tim Kachuriak: It does, obviously when we put all this stuff in the marketplace, we don't have to say that we're a thought leader. We demonstrate it every single day, right. And so, we have this endless supply of new potential clients that keep coming in and knocking on our door. So, we actually don't have a salesforce. And yet we have, you know, an endless supply of pipeline, you know, business. So that's a positive benefit.

Steve Rush: Yes, amazing. Well done, love it. So, the next part of the show we call Hack to Attack. So, this is where we get to explore with you, something in your life at work that perhaps hasn't worked out well. But as a result of the experience, you've turned that into a positive in what you do, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Tim Kachuriak: I guess I'd have to describe it as insecurity as a competitive advantage.

Steve Rush: Oh, Interesting.

Tim Kachuriak: So, yeah.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Tim Kachuriak: And this, I learned with my first experience starting a business. So, you know, try to picture this. I'm six months out of college. I've never had a job at anywhere. I've never worked anywhere. And now I find myself in this position of being an entrepreneur and I have to go try to get clients. And I'm like the smooth faced kid that, you know, doesn't know anything. And I was incredibly insecure and I think everybody is, right. You call it like an imposter syndrome or whatever it is, but we all have this insecurity that we kind of, you know, try to put a mask over it. I guess I learned through that early experience, I've continued through my career. It's like just lean into it. So great, if you feel insecure that causes you to over-prepare and to overwork and to actually exceed the bar every single chance you get, because you don't know where the bar is, right. And so, I've found that to be incredibly helpful especially in the kind of business of serving clients is just, okay. I feel incredibly insecure. I don't know what's going to work. Honestly, that's what led us to getting deep into this world of testing and experimentation is because as a consultant, everybody looks at you, like you have all the answers and deep down inside, I know I don't, right. But when I discovered testing, I realized that I might not know the answers. I know my client doesn't know that's why they've hired me, but we can together go find them by allowing the customers, the donors to teach us what works and what doesn't. So that would be, I guess my Hack to Attack.

Steve Rush: Brilliant, I have this philosophy as well of I've never failed at anything, but I have definitely screwed up and learned along the way. And you often hear people say, well, fake it till you make it. But I think that comes with some high risk. I have a philosophy called mistake it until you make it. And that way, you know, you're always in that mindset of being able to learn.

Tim Kachuriak: Exactly.

Steve Rush: So, the last thing we'd like to do is take you on a bit of time travel. You get to bump into Tim at 21 and give him some words of wisdom. What would your advice to Tim be?

Tim Kachuriak: Oh man, I guess I would say be present. I think especially today in the world that we live in where, you know, everybody's constantly like multitasking. I think I've found the hard way that being present is one of the most effective ways to deliver value to whoever's in front of you at the time, right. So, I discovered this probably not until my senior year of college. I always struggled because, you know, I had the typical client college experience where I didn't really care much about the schooling. I just cared more about like the party scene. And so, I would, you know, miss classes or cut classes and I just wasn't there, right. And then as I entered into my senior year, I was like, man, I need to try to figure out a different plan because this is not working out for me.

And so, I actually stopped buying books and I just went and I'd sit in the front row and I would just be present in every class meeting, I take notes and I would listen and I would engage with the teacher. And like all of a sudden, like everything turned around for me. I went from, you know, maybe a C student to like getting straight A's and it was just this idea of being present. I was like, wow, that worked. And, so I've taken that now into my work. And you know, that's one of my biggest pet peeves is, you know, we'd be sitting in a leadership meeting or something with my leadership team and everybody is so busy and they're like, multitasking. I'm like, look, let's be present and focus on what we have right here in front of us. Because if we can't take care of this, then all the rest doesn't really matter. So, I'd say that I would try to instill that even earlier, but make as many mistakes as I did

Steve Rush: The power of now. It's one of those things that I think when you get it, it's a life changer for you, isn't it? But we are surrounded by distractions and the lure of something else. And actually, just be in that moment, be present and the world will be a grand place for you, I'm sure.

Tim Kachuriak: That's right. That's right.

Steve Rush: If folks want to find out a little bit more about the work that you do with NextAfter Tim and they wanted to maybe have a look at some of the research papers and some of the great work you're doing, where's the best place we can send them?

Tim Kachuriak: Yeah, the best place would be our website, nextafter.com, N-E-X-T-A-F-T-E R.com.

Steve Rush: Perfect. We'll make sure that the links in the show notes and also, I know you're quite a prolific user of LinkedIn and you share lots of stories there. So, we'll make sure your LinkedIn profiles on our show notes as well. And we'll keep our folk connected with you beyond today.

Tim Kachuriak: Wonderful, thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed it.

Steve Rush: I think you're doing some grand work with NextAfter. It's great to see the energy, the passion you have to unlock the power of giving. And I just wanted to say thank you for giving your time to The Leadership Hacker Podcast today.

Tim Kachuriak: My pleasure. Thank you.

Steve Rush: Thanks Tim

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

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Henry Daas is a serial entrepreneur, business and finance coach. He is the author of FQ: Financial Intelligence. Listen in to this interesting conversation about solopreneurship, entrepreneurship and financial coaching. Listen in to the end to find out how to get a month’s Free Coaching. In this show you can learn lots from Henry including:

The journey from Entrepreneur to Retire-preneur
The key things to look at through the eyes of an Entrepreneur
Surround yourself with people that are smarter than you!
Let go of your baggage – it won’t serve you well!

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Henry below:

Henry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henrydaas/

Website: https://daasknowledge.com

Henry’s Website: http://henrydaas.com

Henry on Twitter: https://twitter.com/daasKnowledge

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coachdaas/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Henry Daas is a special guest on today's show. He's a serial entrepreneur, business and finance coach and author of FQ: Financial Intelligence. But before we get a chance to speak with Henry, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: If you're anything like me, 2021 has brought about numerous learning opportunities to learn about ourselves and leadership. It demanded an evolution of thinking how we work and how we behave. In research completed by Melissa Daimler for Forbes magazine, she found that there are three skill shifts required that will help people adapt in 2021, and here they are.

A shift from communication to empathy. Effectively communicators and productive leaders are intertwined. This year has forced leaders to communicate constructively, even without answers. And we've had to push beyond comfort zones. Beyond sharing updates and asking questions and listening much more attentively. And therefore, leaders have been asked to go deeper and develop empathy. Brene Brown, a professor and author say empathy, fuels connection. It's feeling with people and connecting with a person's situation. Of course, communication is absolutely essential, but communicating with empathy, that becomes a really powerful.

Emotional intelligence to emotional agility. When Ben Horowitz, a former entrepreneur and technology investor was asked the most challenging skill to learn as a CEO, he said it was the ability to manage his own psychology and emotions. Emotional agility goes beyond awareness and control. Susan David, a renowned psychologist emphasizes that emotionally agile people are not only aware of their feelings, but know how to navigate through them and how we do this. And as a leader, the more emotionally agile you become, the more readily you'll be able to understand the intent of other's actions.

Time management to context management. When it first dawned on us, that working remotely would be here for some time. We followed the same pattern of the learning that we exhibited back in the late 1990s, we took our design framework from the classroom straight to the computer without attempting to adapt accordingly. And finally, after a while, we recognize, different mediums do call for different applications. Often been referred to as the flipped classroom. We're seeing the same now with remote working and we cannot simply transfer how we worked in the office to our home space.

Cramming in meetings, presentations, brainstorming sessions are very different from Zoom or Ms Teams. And the flipped workspace was coined by Allison Baum. And it's about leveraging what's been learned from flipping the classroom to flipping where you're working remotely. And what she noticed was our context is really changed. We need to manage our time and design our days around how we work best based on what we're working on, whom we're working with and what for, but context is key.

I often refer to these as my trusted side kicks of, "because and reason". If you give people a, because you give people reason, you create context and therefore they're likely to be more productive in the time that they do have and the way they work. And what I've noticed recently is the subject of burnout has become a very prevalent and it's not our work that's burning us out is how we are working that is burning us out. So, a little bit more empathy, more emotional agility and some good old fashioned context management will help us be really successful for 2021 and beyond. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. We'd love to hear your stories and insights, so please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Henry Daas. He's a serial entrepreneur, business leader, personal finance coach, and author of FQ: Financial Intelligence. Henry, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Henry Daas: Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.

Steve Rush: So, you've got a really interesting story, your backstory, so to speak, hasn't got a particular theme or flow from it, but I guess that's part of the entrepreneurial spirit that you have. Just give the folks that are listening in today a little bit of a summary of your kind of early businesses and how you've arrived to do what you do today?

Henry Daas: Yeah, I'm kind of a word freak. So, the word that I use is peripatetic, right.

Steve Rush: Big word.

Henry Daas: That's a good word. Yeah, I know, I like it. People go look it up, if they've never heard it before. Not always the most positive connotation when you say that. But yeah, I started as an entrepreneur. I mean the year now is 2021. I started in 1991, so it's basically been 30 years. I started out with a kind of an opportunistic business where a college friend of mine was just handing me business on a silver platter. And before you know it, I said, Hey, I'm going to quit my day job. And I'm going to become an entrepreneur. And that started the journey and then it never ended. So here I am, 30 years later and now I coach entrepreneurs who are kind of where I was 25, 30 years ago. So, it's almost like a little bit of deja vu there, right. But I love it. It's fun.

Steve Rush: Thinking back to that time where you quit your day job, what was the pull to the business opportunity? Just give us a little flavor of that.

Henry Daas: Well, I'm going to say something a little bit off color, but you could edit it out if you want to. I have a saying, I say, if I'm going to have to work every day for some asshole, it might as well be me, right.

Steve Rush: Okay, fair enough. Yeah.

Henry Daas: There you go. So, feel free to bleep it if you want. I'd have no idea if this is PG or R rated.

Steve Rush: Well not any more, its fine.

Henry Daas: Not any more, I guess not.

Steve Rush: It's an interesting hypothesis, right? Because there are some people who are quite comfortable in the spirit of working for others and, you know, taking a salary and growing through the corporate culture, that's absolutely perfectly acceptable, perfectly fine. And there's some great leaders and heroes that we all know that work in that environment. But equally, if you feel constrained by that, the only way that you can really unleash your potential is by doing it for yourself, right?

Henry Daas: Yeah, what's interesting is, I'm thinking of creating another little vertical niche tent pole in my coaching practice and that's called retire-preneurs because when I was doing the research for my book, FQ. I read a whole bunch of, you know, I did tons and tons of research and one, retire preneurs are kind of the fastest growing segment of entrepreneurs. But when I started looking into the driving factors, a lot of them worked in what I derisively call cubicle world for their entire careers. And then they got out and it's like, okay, now it's a chance for me to do what I want to do, right. And know, you're 60 something years old in many cases, maybe even older, but yet people are really bootstrapping businesses because the barriers to entry, especially in the online world are almost non-existent. But they need help because they've worked for 40 or 50 years in that, you know, in that bubble where you've got hot and cold running resources, in many cases, if you work for a large company, you don't have that anymore. Now you're a solopreneur. So, it's like, okay, what do I do now? I mean, it's exciting, but it's also terrifying.

Steve Rush: Yeah. Also, I guess. The notion of retirement has changed in the last 10 or 15 years. The whole conversation of retiring. Typically, if you think across many people in the business world, there's not that many people I know of who literally down tools and don't do anything. There's definitely that little bit of coaching, counseling, consulting. Retire preneurs, and I think the whole retire preneurs thing is a real opportunity for people who are still restless and want to do things in their either semi-retirement or retirement, right?

Henry Daas: I mean, I think retirement itself is, you know, terrifying, right? Because there's actually an odd statistic of very high divorce rate for people who all of a sudden, one or the other retires. Because now you're home, right? Just like a COVID has ticked up the divorce rate because people are now under the same roof all the time. And they looked at each other and they say, oh my God, this is the guy I married 40 years ago. Not the same guy anymore. Well, you didn't notice when they were going to the office all the time and now, they're not going to the office. They're home tripping over the vacuum cleaner. Corporate America has also changed the paradigm a little bit because when I started working, which was 1981, so 40 years ago, pensions were still a pretty normal thing. Well, pensions have gone the way of the Dodo bird. I have a couple of friends who recently retired and they both got terrific pensions to the point where they don't have to work anymore. But corporations figured out how to divest themselves of that expense, by creating the defined benefit plans, at least here in the U.S.

Steve Rush: It's pretty much the same across Europe as well.

Henry Daas: Right, exactly. So, they've offloaded the risk of that to you, now and in COVID. They've offloaded another risk to you because people are, quote, working from home. And I correct people all the time. I say, you're not working from home. You're living at your office, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah, I like that.

Henry Daas: You're paying the electric. I don't know if a single person, my son, my 29-year-old son lives with us here now in Connecticut and he's working remotely. They didn't even provide them with a computer. You know, I build computers, is kind of a hobby. And I had just finished building a really, really nice super-fast computer. And he's like, dad, can I use that? It's like, don't they give you one? No, no, they don't. So, I'm paying for the internet here. I'm paying for the electric here and he's working remotely and there's no cost of the office space and all that stuff. So that's the future when you work for someone else, you're becoming, they talk about the gig economy. Well, that's on steroids now. Where even though you work for a big company, you're effectively untethered. So that actually makes it pretty easy to start an entrepreneurial business, right? Because you can start one from home. There's nobody, you know, you're working remotely. No one's snooping over your shoulder. No one knows what you're doing with your infrastructure to start maybe an FBA business or, you know, a SAS business or anything.

Steve Rush: That's very true.

Henry Daas: That's pretty cool. You know, it's great opportunity.

Steve Rush: So as a serial entrepreneur and having always been on the lookout for new opportunities and new inspirations, is there anything specifically that you look for in new ventures, new opportunities when you go, right. I’m going to invest in that?

Henry Daas: There are two things you need to know whether a business is viable. Only two things you have to figure out. Gross margin, cashflow, right? If you can solve those two problems, then it doesn't really matter what the business is. Problem is, that's really tricky to do in a lot of businesses. You want to, you know, you want to niche down, right? There are riches in niches, as they say, right? So, you want to niche down, but if you niche down too far, then you'll discover that there's no audience for whatever it is that you have to offer. So, finding that right balance, I wrote a little thing that's on my, it's like a little trip wire on my website. It's a freebie, it's like a 30-page PDF. Five reasons, small businesses fail, and I've actually done a talk. I have a deck for it. And I've done talks at various conference with this.

And the number one reason is idea. Your idea sucks. It's the reason most businesses fail, is you just have a crummy idea. You got to sit down and figure out what's my gross margin, what’s my cashflow. And then you've got to start analyzing all the other things that go with it. Who's the competition, right? Is the market morphing and changing? So, what I've noticed that's interesting now that COVID has brought up, is a lot of mobile businesses, right? It used to be mobile dog groomers. I didn't know any such a thing existed, but now there's a lot of money going into mobile automobile care. I had new tires put on my vehicle. They came to the house. I had an oil change done in my driveway. Wow, I mean, I can do the oil change myself. It's not rocket science, but I have no place to dispose of the oil. What am I going to do with it? So, and the guy looked at me and he said, you know, you need new brakes. It's like, yeah. He goes, well, I can do that for you. Really, you're going to sit here and do a brake job right in my driveway. It's like, wow. So, think about all of those things, all those touchless services moving forward. Because if you think this is going to be the last pandemic we're going to have, I think again.

Steve Rush: Yeah. I think it was Bill Gates, wasn't it? Called it early about five years ago that the biggest threat to our economy isn't through physical warfare, but it was actually through viral warfare, which he described it as. And I think you're absolutely right. We've become a culture that is now ripe for the spread of virus. And COVID-19 is perhaps not the last, I think we've seen in that for sure.

Henry Daas: No. I mean, on a global basis, the largest segment of life form greater than 50% is bacteria, right. It's just everywhere. And we're at the mercy of mother nature, whether we care to admit it or not, and we keep messing with it with all the dumb stuff that we're doing as humans. You have to expect, there will be ramifications. And with any change there's opportunity.

Steve Rush: Absolutely, right.

Henry Daas: Right. Even if you have a nice business going, you're going to have to pivot, right. One of the things that I have on my website, and I love the graphic, it's like, you know, get your business out of zombie mode, right. and I love that. Because my web designer did that and she put that little graphic in there because we had talked about zombie mode. Well, I've talked to entrepreneurs who kind of want to put their business into zombie mode. They're like, I just kind of like it the way that it is, right. And I say, well, that's fine, but wait five minutes and it's going to change. You may not change, but the world will change.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Henry Daas: Are you prepared for that? You are constantly iterating. It's exhausting for people, which is why I think so few people want to be entrepreneurs or maybe they, that's another segment which are called wantrepreneurs, which are generally people who want to be an entrepreneur, but are never going to get over the hump. And believe me, I've talked to some, I've even coached some, and it's an exercise in frustration because they're never going to pull the rip.

Steve Rush: What's the reason for that?

Henry Daas: They're scared. They're basically scared, right? You work for somebody, you get a paycheck, you go on a two-week vacation and you never have to call the office because you're just kind of a cog in the wheel. And people say, oh, entrepreneurship is too risky. I say yeah, you know, what's riskier than entrepreneurship? Working for somebody else. Because they determine your fate, 30 million people in the U.S. were laid off overnight when COVID came, right.

Steve Rush: Yeah. That's a pretty scary thought, Isn't it?

Henry Daas: Very

Steve Rush: So, there's a few things that you've talked about that have a direct correlation, or maybe it, it might not appear directly correlated to your work right now. So as a finance coach, having written the book, FQ: Financial Intelligence, there are a number of little things I just wanted to pull out there that we could maybe have a conversation around. So, you were telling around the way that people are pivoting their businesses and, you know, looking at mobile opportunities, you were talking around the fact that people had less office spaces. So that directly says to me that people are going to be, there's going to be a wash of commercial property. That's up for grabs for either reinvestment or divestment. And if there is a rush to more mobile activities, there's also an investment opportunity there. So, those natural occurring economic events that are happening around us may not be so apparent. Is that the kind of thing you coach people on?

Henry Daas: Somewhat, so. I really have two platforms. There's the entrepreneurial coaching where I'm working with, you know, entrepreneurs and business leaders and then there's the FQ, which is pretty much for anybody. Anybody who wants to level up their financial game. So, I take a very systematic, methodical approach, and it's really based on, you know, my 61 years on the planet, it worked for me. It may or may not work for you, but the fundamental tenants of how you manage things, I think there's a universality chart, right.

Steve Rush: Right.

Henry Daas: People ask me, what's the number one takeaway? Risk, right. We just touched on it, which is risker? Working for yourself or working for somebody else? Most people will tell you working for yourself. I demure on that. I don't believe so. I believe working for someone else, but it's the same thing with portfolio risk, right? So, look at commercial real estate. I talked to my former landlord in New York City. And I wrote about it in one of my bi-monthly newsletters that I put out; I call it the Nasdaq update. And I try to touch on little areas and try to dig a little bit deeper than the superficial headlines that you find in most of the, you know, financial world or the mainstream media. And he was telling me about how, when COVID hit, he's got 600 units in New York City, right? So, 600 different tenants, which is a lot and they want a bunch building. And he said, the government came out and said, you know what? You don't have to pay your rent. So, guess what people did? Or in this case, didn't do right. They just stopped paying her rent. So here I am, the big, bad landlord that everybody hates and demonizes.

They didn't do anything for me.

My real estate taxes are still due, my debt services still due. I guess they didn't care because they figured all of us are rich, which is not true. Yes, sure. Some of them are. The Routens of the world and the, and the Helmsley's of the world, sure.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Henry Daas: But a lot of them are little entrepreneurs just like everybody else. And they got slammed. And the ability to pivot when you're in a real estate portfolio, it's a lot tougher than if you just have a nimble entrepreneurial business, oh, we're a SAS business. And we were servicing this market. Well, let's service this market, right. You can pivot on a dime. Can't do that in a real estate business. It's just not just not possible, but there will be huge opportunities because think about the, I'm living at my office. Well, you got all these commercial buildings. In many cases, they've got enterprise level infrastructure built in. So, if you can convert those into live work condos, well, there you go, right. People have to live somewhere and they don't have to live proximate to an office anymore, which is why the real estate here in the United States has gone haywire. I mean, we bought our house. We went to contract in October and we bought the house. We closed in December, but we had to pay about 20% over the asking price. And there were 10 bids in 24 hours for this little house on a dirt road, in the middle of nowhere, Connecticut. That's kind of crazy, that won't last, you know. That will start to fall off a little bit after people realized that, oh my God, I just moved a hundred miles from my office and now guess what? They want me to come back because they realize they're spending 90 bucks a square foot for this office space and we better have some bodies in there. Otherwise, we made a terrible financial decision.

Steve Rush: Exactly right, yeah. So, I wonder if you think about the whole notion of there is opportunity in any crisis, how do you help some of your clients through the moral dilemma in taking advantage of other people's business downturn in order to get ahead?

Henry Daas: Well, I'm very careful about predatory behavior. I'm not a fan of it. Don't, be a predator, right. But some of this is just more pattern language, right. You say taking advantage, taking advantage of a downturn, let's say for instance, okay. Let's say the commercial real estate market collapses in the next six months, which is, I don't know if it's a probability, but it's a possibility that it just might, what do you do? Do you go in and take the cash that you've been hoarding on the side and buy stuff for nickels on the dollar? Is that predatory behavior? or are you injecting liquidity into the market where otherwise this place might just go to foreclosure and get stuck on a bank's balance sheet somewhere? It's sort of like short selling, right. Short sellers have a sullied reputation in the market.

And some of it is deserved because they will bash a company relentlessly to drive the price down and then they'll cover and they'll make a boatload of money and they really didn't do anything. But again, they brought liquidity into the marketplace. Liquidity is good. A lack of liquidity will destroy any economy, right. The biggest headwind that we faced when COVID came here in the U.S., and we learn this lesson back in 2008, with the housing crisis. The housing crisis was essentially a liquidity crisis when you strip away all the other stuff that went on there and the fed with Bernanke and Paulson came in and they were just kind of printing money, right. They're doing the quantitative easing, right. Which is a fancy word for saying, we're just going to go buy bonds and we're just going to print money and we're going to buy bonds. The first thing that the fed did here in the U.S. when that happened back in March was, they said we are going to provide an infinite backstop. We will never stop backstopping this economy. Well, I heard that and I said, that's really good news. That really, really good news. Now we're seeing the effect of that a little bit with the inflation fears that have gone on, right. The price of lumber, 1500 bucks for a thousand board feet, that might not mean anything to anybody, except that it's usually about 200 bucks, right. So, it's a stick of wood that used to call costs $2 dollars. I moved into a new house. I hadn't bought sticks of wood in a few years, and I had this mental image of what it cost. And when I walked into Home Depot here and it was $7 dollar, I thought, what on God's green earth has happened? And now it's gone up even higher.

We're planning a renovation for this house. Well, that cost just went up by about 30%. So, you know what? I can put it off. Well, then think about how that impacts the world. If folks like me put it off. That removes demand. Supply is constrained, but if we lower demand too, but then we get into the issues of stagflation. I don't want to go too far down that rabbit hole, but there's a lot of unintended consequences of these black swan events like a Corona virus. And they will take time to work their way through the system. We talked about it. I don't know if it was before we were recording, but we talk about keeping the powder dry, right? Put away a little safe store of cash. There will be opportunities. You have to decide when you put your head down on the pillow at night, whether the deal that you're trying to do fits your moral code or your ethical code, right. You have to operate; I believe by some sort of code. And for me, if I feel like I'm being predatory, there's a very good chance that I won't go through it because I don't like the idea of cashing in, on someone else's pain.

Steve Rush: Yeah. But I do like the way you reframed it earlier. So, this is definitely a mindset for me around the adversities happened, right. And inaction in itself means that could be catastrophic. Whereas some action from somebody who can add liquidity, add investment, add opportunity for others to then grow again, is a good part of the economy. And I think that definitely there is a mindset that plays out there. Isn't there?

Henry Daas: Oh, there no question that it is. And it's, you know, you'll hear people talk about smart money, dumb money, right. It's an indicator that I follow. There is a couple of indicators that I follow. Smart money are the people who make smart money moves and dumb money, or people who make the dumb money moves. Right now, dumb money optimism is stratospheric where the smart money is kind of pessimistic, right. They look at the market and say, Hey, none of this makes a lot of sense, right? Like, why are people spending huge amounts of money on collectibles? Right. Like I collect baseball cards from the 1960s and seventies. Usually, every spring when the baseball season starts, you know, I work on adding stuff to my collection. Well, it went crazy and the prices went crazy and I'm like, I'm not going to buy into that. In fact, I should be a net seller. I should probably divest some of the cards that I have because the prices are idiotic. I don't want to, that in itself could be construed as predatory because if you know that the market is overvalued and you purposely go in and sell your collectibles for a price that you think that they're not even worth, that's, you know, you're taking advantage of it, but I didn't make the prices. The market did.

Steve Rush: Sure. There's the latest craze as well of sneakers and running shoes. There was an old pair of Kanye West running shoes yesterday that was sold for one and a half million dollars.

Henry Daas: My 29-year-old son is a bit of a sneaker head. And he's got probably a hundred different pairs of sneakers.

Steve Rush: Right.

Henry Daas: He buys and sells them, but mostly he likes it because he enjoys them. He bought a pair of Jordan golf shoes. I looked at them, I'm like, wow, those are gorgeous. He's like dad. I paid like $250 dollars. I go and I buy the cheap golf shoes. You know, I'm a golfer. I just bought a new pair. I just tried to buy the cheapest thing ever. Because I know I'm going to wear them out in the season anyway. He said, dad, I could flip these for probably a thousand bucks. I said, well then why don't you?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Henry Daas: Well, because I like them and I want to play with them. All right. That's good too.

Steve Rush: There is this new trend of investment strategies around things, like there's an index now for sneakers and running shoes. There's also lots of other things that are presenting itself. They're attracting new financial solar printers into the investment space, such as Bitcoin and stuff like that, and cryptocurrencies.

Henry Daas: Crypto, yeah.

Steve Rush: What's your take on kind of taking advantage of some of these emerging investment strategies and indexes where you can't really value them as you would an old-fashioned stock?

Henry Daas: Well, for me, if I can't value it, I got nothing for you, right? I mean, this is pretty basic. Now some of this goes back to the fact that when I started trading, I was in high school. I bought my first stock, I was 17 years old, Chrysler, you know, the automobile company. So, I've been doing this a long, long time. And I started as a fundamental investor. So, I looked at the fundamentals, right. There are things like price earnings ratio, right. These are measurable things. As an entrepreneur, you can measure whether your business is successful by measuring your gross margin and measuring your cashflow and measuring your price, you know, your P&L, your profit and loss, and looking at your balance sheet, these numbers don't lie. You can make them lie, if you want to. That's what accountants are for. They're supposed to make the lie to the government. So, you don't have to pay more taxes than you have to, but otherwise they're their numbers. The beautiful thing about them is they're the same in every language, right. And they speak to you.

The crypto stuff. And I run a passive, you know, I have a passive investing mastermind group that I run. So, we talk about crypto all the time. I told the guys at the last meeting that we had, I said, look, every generation will have their snake oil. They're folly. Yours just might very well be crypto, or maybe the next generation or these NFT, these non-fungible tokens, right. Fungible means to perform. So, you're telling me that this is a non-performing token. Well, that alone is going to make me run for the Hills.

Steve Rush: Yeah. Any investment manager worth their salt would have a few worry beads about that, right?

Henry Daas: Exactly. But you know what, you can't prevent people from the folly of their own ways, right. So, when you have a guy goes on Saturday Night Live, Elon Musk, and start talking about the doge coin, which was created as a joke and now that's going up and then he says something and it goes down, do I really want to participate in a market where one person's word can cause a waterfall decline? It doesn't meet my risk tolerance.

Steve Rush: Right.

Henry Daas: It doesn't meet the profile. There are so many things to invest in. I'm primarily a stock investor, although I've invested in real estate and I own gold. And I participated in a lot of the arenas. I got to understand it. I have to be comfortable with it, right. I invest in a lot of pharmaceutical stocks. Do I understand the science behind these pharmaceutical stocks? Hardly, but I do understand the landscape and I can read a report and look at the numbers to sort of see how this is going, right. I can't do that with anything currency related or anything crypto or otherwise.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Henry Daas: And that's worrisome.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Henry Daas: So, I don't want to worry about it. I don't want to worry that in the middle of that, plus a trades 168 hours a week, right. The nice thing about the stock exchange, it's open 32 and a half hours a week. That means for the rest of the week, I got time to myself. And I know that prices are moving in the background, but they're not moving that much where crypto, I could be asleep and wake up and it loses 20% of its value as I'm having my morning coffee. I want no part of that, none.

Steve Rush: There is definitely people that have got rich on cryptocurrency without a shadow of a doubt. But like you said, they're also probably the same people who will hold onto it for too long and also perhaps not be so rich at the end.

Henry Daas: Yeah. There's a a curve that's called the, you know, it's like the boomer bus curve. There's like 14 different steps to the wave. And it goes from irrational exuberance to complete and utter despondency, right? It's like, it makes like a sign wave. I've got it somewhere, somewhere in my book. You kind of need to know where you are on that curve because that will help guide you into where you should be. Right now, I think everything is overly risky. But you know why I worry about the downside all the time. And sometimes I'll trade the downside. You know, if things get more parabolic, I'll start fading stuff. Because the probability that this thing is going to go up 10% versus down 30%, much greater on the downside. And I want the odds in my favor, I'm in this to make money, let's face it. And I don't lose sleep over the fact that some other trader somewhere that this not necessarily a zero-sum game, but if it was a zero-sum game, like in the options or the futures market, you know, there's counterparty trade, you know, he or she is a grown ass adult. They make their own decisions.

Steve Rush: So, if I'm tuning into this today, and I've got maybe a small part of cash in my pension, or have some residual cash in my business, I'm just thinking about where should I start investing. Now, I'm not asking for a specific stock here, but if I was going to start out, where would you kind of guide me as a coach. What would be a sensible place to start investing?

Henry Daas: Well, I'll relate a story that I've related to before. This was a couple of years ago, I was in Bangkok for a conference. And I had, you know, I had a sponsor. I was sort of a sponsor for the conference, about 300 entrepreneurs, what they called digital nomads. And they run location, independent businesses, which is another future trend. I mean, it's the now trend, but it's going to be even, you know, bigger and bigger and bigger. And he said, you know, can I, you know, borrow some of your time. I said, sure. You know, come up, I'm going to order room service. We'll hang, we'll talk for an hour. And he's an entrepreneur, successful one, lives in California. And he wanted to know, where do I put my money? Just like you asked. I said, well, what are you interested in?

What do you, like? He said, you know what? I really like real estate. I said, well, then do real estate, right. You got to have some affinity for the investments. So, if you love crypto and you're reading about crypto and you're totally into crypto all the time. Sure, invest in crypto, but you better keep a really close eye on it because the volatility and the risk there is very high. If you like stocks, stocks can be really boring. I've tried to teach stocks to young people, but I tell people, another one of my many, many, many idioms is, I say. If you're trading exciting, you are doing something wrong. It is not supposed to be exciting. In fact, a few years ago when I was, pretty much 10 years ago or so, when I was trading pretty much full time, the reason I stopped doing it is it just was boring.

And I was making plenty of money, but money doesn't excite me that way. There was no human interaction. You know, I don't watch any of the shows, because they're dumb. That's trader porn. Like if you watch CNBC or the other ones, it's like that can negative.

Steve Rush: Bloomberg.

Henry Daas: Yeah, Bloomberg, all that stuff can. I wrote about it in my book. How I blew a trade because listening to some yo-yo on one of those channels and I never turned him on again.

Steve Rush: Yeah – I’ve done that too.

Henry Daas: I never have. I trust my instruments. I'm flying a plane. I want my instruments, not somebody talking in my ear telling me what it is that I should do. Find what you're interested to start with. Now, people come back to me and say, Henry, I'm not really interested in any of this. I just want to hire somebody to go do it for me so I can go play golf or, you know, whatever. I say, well, if you were hiring somebody to do anything for you, do you think you want to have at least maybe a passing knowledge, maybe understand the verbiage. So, you know what they're talking about. I'm not telling you that you need to be an expert, but you should know something because if you don't, you're going to get fleeced.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely.

Henry Daas: Here's an example. I had a guy in here because the floors and part of my house are cold and the guy came in and said, oh, because your crawl space is not insulated. Yada, yada, yada, next thing you know, I got a quote for $7,000 to encapsulate, my crawlspace. So, I said, huh, all right, well, what do I want to do? I want to do a sanity check and call a couple other people and have them in. And then I had two other guys come in and they both said, you can do it. And you can spend $7,000, but it's not going to solve your problem. Because when it's all said and done, you're still going to have cold floors.

So, you need to have at least some knowledge, do some research before you can make decisions. Especially if you're going to hire somebody to manage what is arguably the most important and ubiquitous aspect of your life, which is money. You will never, ever get a day off for money. Even if you win the lottery, maybe you'll get a day off. And then the next day you got to figure out what am I going to do with this giant pile of cheddar? And how am I going to keep all these predators from trying to steal it from me?

Steve Rush: That's very true. And often could even be in a past life. I used to be the investment fund manager for a lot of lottery winners. And in many cases, it causes more stress and anxiety than before they had it, because it's now something else they have to worry about.

Henry Daas: There legendary stories of people who have gone bust. There was even a story of a guy who got murdered because he'd won $30 million and he didn't even care about the money, right. I don't even know why he bothered to play the lottery, but somebody cared about it and worked out a scheme and ended up killing the guys. So, yeah, there's are books out there about these problems. And the reason in most cases is they didn't do anything to earn it, right. They just didn't. I mean, if I went out there, there used to be a TV show called the millionaire, way back in the 1960s when I was a kid. A guy named John Beresford Tipton. And he would give people a million dollars. I don't know if it was real or not, but if you went around and gave people a million dollars and then came back and checked with them, if you gave a hundred people, a million dollars and check with them, say five years later, how many of them you think would have more of that million dollars than last?

Steve Rush: I reckon percentage wise; it must be less.

Henry Daas: It's powder. It's probably a couple of basis points of people who would. Most people would just go out and squander it on stupid stuff that they just had pent up demand for. Very few of them, and we see it with professional athletes here in the U.S. I'm sure there are similar problems. Guys who've made millions and millions of dollars and then they retire and they get out and they filed for bankruptcy. And you scratch your head and say, how could that be? That guy made four $50 million dollars in like a five-year or less than 10-year career. How did they manage to squander it? But they do, you know, where there's a will, there's a way. I don't want people to do that. You know, I look at my parents who were a very, very modest means, and yet they live very well.

And when they died, they left, you know, they left money behind, which is kind of unusual in and of itself. A lot of people die broke. And they did it not by being extremely frugal. But they were smart and they manage their money and they knew their risk tolerances. And they understood that there's sometimes a little bit of sacrifice that you have to make in the short term to get a long-term gain, a long-term windfall in many cases. That's about the mental process. That's about being mindful and adapting to that.

Steve Rush: Sure. Now you've been an entrepreneur, solopreneur. Had many businesses and led many teams. This is a leadership hacker opportunity to tap into your leadership backstory. So, the first place I'd like to go to Henry is to tap into your top three leadership hacks. What would they be?

Henry Daas: Okay, Number one is, find smart people, right. That's another, you know, Bill Gates. Surround yourself with people that are smarter than you. Now, smart is a relative term. It could be that they're more financially intelligent, emotionally intelligent. It could be that they provide stability, but whatever it is, find some people that you trust to be part of your personal leadership team, even if you're just a solopreneur. In addition to that, maybe this is one, that's number one, maybe One (A) is, find some people whose worldview is counter to yours, because it's very dangerous. You could build a system somewhere, were it's just group think, right. Where there's just a bunch of yes, men. I don’t know if you know who Tony Hsieh is? the guy who founded Zappos.

Steve Rush: Yes. Suddenly passed away.

Henry Daas: He died tragically. And I had gone to Zappos. I had gone to their headquarters with a group of entrepreneurs right after they were bought by Amazon. And we met with their, you know, we didn't meet with Tony because he was out of town, but we met with their top people and we looked at what we're doing, and this is out in Vegas. It was before they bought this compound. So, I had a lot of admiration for this guy. This guy was a self-made guy. I thought he was one of the good guys, but then I read at the end there, he kind of lost his way. He had, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, he was using it to sort of buy friends. I had no idea what this story was. And the singer Jewel had sent him a letter.

Saying, you know, you're going down a bad path here. You don't have any friends, everybody that you know is on your payroll. So, you have to be careful. You know, if you have a business idea, we're talking about five reasons business fails. So, if you have a business idea, it's very important for you to go to that friend that everybody has, who hates everything and pitch them your business idea and let them poke holes in it, right? Let them destroy your business idea and kill your hopes and dreams. You need that because if you can survive that you might be onto something with a business idea. So, it's the same thing. You need to have a nice array of people. But ultimately as a leader, the decisions are yours and you need to take responsibility. I have another, another one of my millions of idioms. I say, here's what I tell people. They want to know what makes people successful. I said, successful people make proactive decisions and live with the consequences, unsuccessful people, abdicate responsibility for making decisions to someone else and then whine about it when it goes against them.

Steve Rush: I really like that.

Henry Daas: So, you are going to make decisions and you know, here's probably number three, you're going to mess a bunch of them up. You're going to mess a lot of them up, you just are.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Henry Daas: You want them to be minor in the grand scheme of things. But I wrote in my book, how I partnered with a guy, we were building multimillion dollar spec houses and he jumped off a bridge and killed himself and left me holding a multi-million-dollar bag as the sole living, breathing guarantor on this project.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Henry Daas: This is the beginning of 2007, started a, basically a two-year nightmare where I got sued by everybody and this, that, and the other thing. And then we went before a judge and we won for reasons that to this day, I still don't understand how we won. It was a symptom of the time, because our case came at the same time that Lehman brothers failed and banks were really, really looked down upon for outside risk in the real estate business. And again, I wrote about it in the book. I called it the greater asshole theory. The judge decided who's the bigger asshole. The bank for loaning us the money or us for taking it. And he decided the bank should have known better.

Steve Rush: Thank goodness, huh?

Henry Daas: Even my lawyer, when he called me, he said, you better sit down because the judge gave you a get out of jail free card. And I have no idea why after 30 years in business, he did that, but we should thank our lucky stars. So, you can make, you know, even the smartest,

most successful people, you know, Warren Buffett talks about, how the company he bought, Berkshire Hathaway, which is the name of his company, which was a mill that he bought as one of his first, if not his first investment. And he could never make that business work. He referred to it as his, you know, biggest failure. He kept the company name. Maybe that was a constant reminder that you're only one bad deal away and from being totally humble.

Steve Rush: Absolutely, right. So, the next part of the show, we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something in your life or work hasn't worked out well, but you've then as a result of it learned from it, and it's now a positive, do you have a Hack for Attack for us?

Henry Daas: Well, I could go back to that idea of partnerships. A lot of people get into partnerships. My first partnership was with that college friend who was feeding me deals. And made a, you know, a tragic blunder. I didn't have a buy-sell agreement with him. So, while everything was nice and rosie, rosie, and beautiful, everything was fine. And we were making a lot of money, but once that turned, it was all, you know, it was terrible. It was like the war of the roses, right. What I learned from that was, I was afraid that as an entrepreneur, I couldn't be a solo act because I was dependent on him for sales. So, he was doing all the selling and I wasn't. And then when I started my next business, it's like, well, you know what, it's just me. So, I better pick myself up by the bootstraps and learn how to sell, and I surprised myself. I did, and I said, ah, you know what, I don't need a partner. But then years later I got into this real estate deal. This guy was a builder. He built multi-million-dollar homes. He knew everything. He had the crews and whatever. So, I was the money guy who married with him, right. The problem is, I didn't put in the necessary checks and balances. So, when he jumped off the bridge, I was financially blindsided by that. So again, another lesson learns.

Steve Rush: And a bit like in the investment world is expected the unexpected, isn't it?

Henry Daas: Kind of always need a put option. Certainly, if you're a trader and you have portfolio exposure. One of the early issues with crypto, which people at the time, and again, we were talking a couple of years ago was, I said, how do you short this market? And they said, well, you can't. I said, well, that alone counts me out. Because again, we're back to the idea of having liquidity, but then the CME came in and they created a futures exchange, but it's still apparently rather difficult to fade the crypto market. And that bothers me, right. You need to, you know, you need to be able to get in on the downside as much as people psychologically, don't like to bet on failure, right? 90 something percent of stock traders are long traders, probably close to 99%. Most people they go long. And in the hopes that it goes up. You need to have that other arrow in your quiver because sometimes like now where the market's really, really frothy. There's much more money to be made in my opinion, on the downside than there is on the upside, right?

Steve Rush: And it's having that balance too, right?

Henry Daas: It's also having the intestinal fortitude to go against the trend. I'm not saying to people now here in May of 2021, that you should run out and short this market, but don't be surprised when there's a downturn and there's a lot of money to be made in short periods of time. You got to have the chops and you have to have the intestinal fortitude to weather it because you talk about exciting trading, which is what we're not looking for. That gets really exciting, really fast.

Steve Rush: The very last thing we want to do Henry is do a bit of time travel with you. We've become really accustomed at this part of the show to get you to bump into yourself at 21, you get a chance to look Henry in the face and say, here's some advice. What would it be?

Henry Daas: You know, that's interesting. I've thought about that in the past. And I did, you know, what's called Hakomi therapy for a number of years. Where you actually do kind of travel back to your younger self, but I traveled back to myself and like, you know, grammar school age and during that therapy. What I learned was to forgive myself for the things that I did at a young age, because, you know, I just didn't have the knowledge. I didn't have the experience. So, if I were going back to my 21-year-old, I would say, you know, let go of a lot of this baggage that you carried as a younger person, because it's not going to serve you as an adult, right. I never thought of myself as being considered. It was my biggest pet peeve. My opinion didn't matter. My parents were a little overbearing and old school, depression babies. They, you know, they were great parents, but nobody's perfect. As the parent of three boys who were all pretty much grown ass men right now, you're just trying to minimize the number of mistakes you make as a parent, and really are kind of your goal because you're going to.

Steve Rush: Absolutely, yeah. Great advice.

Henry Daas: And I often say, I don't want to make the same mistakes my parents did. I want to make all new ones. I don't want their dusty old mistakes. I want my brand-new shiny mistakes, right. but you don't know that when you're 21, when you're just sort of, you know, coming to adult age, you don't realize how much your early upbringing impacts you.

Steve Rush: That’s true.

Henry Daas: And, you know, my book, I start with the psychology of money. So, you need to really take a look back at that younger version of yourself and say to yourself, you know, was I raised up to live in scarcity or was I raised up to live in abundance? I was raised to live in scarcity and I still have that. And every day that goes by, I worry about money, even though I don't really need to worry about money, but I do anyway, because that was imprinted on me at a very, very young age. And I've had to teach myself to live in abundance.

Steve Rush: Which do you think serves people better?

Henry Daas: Well, abundance does. As long as it's collared in some way, you know, eat, drink and be married for tomorrow, you may die. There's something to do to be said for that. But you have to have a healthy dose of scarcity to kind of keep you grounded and keep yourself humble.

Steve Rush: There's no get rich quick system, but there is many get rich, slowly methodically and disciplined way.

Henry Daas: I couldn't have said it better. I believe in get rich, slow schemes.

Steve Rush: Great stuff. So, Henry, listen. I've had a ball listening and talking to you, and I'm delighted that we have you as part of our leadership hacker community. If folks want to get to learn a little bit more about you and maybe you get a copy of FQ, where's the best place for us to send them?

Henry Daas: So, one of the things I do is, I offer a free month of coaching. If you go to podcast.dassknowledge.com and Daas spelt with two A's and one S although if you spell it D-A-S-S as many people do, it still takes you there. Because I have both URLs because I'm belts and braces. And you can sign up for a free month of coaching, which would be four sessions for half an hour. We can talk about entrepreneurship. We can talk about money. We can talk about baseball cards, you know, it’s your time. It's an opportunity to experience especially for those of you who've never had a coach before, kind of what a professional coach brings to the table. There's no obligation to continue. It's my gift to podcast listeners. If you want the book, go to dassknowledge.com, you can download it for free. You got to click on the FQ tab and somewhere in there, there's a link to download it for free from BookBaby because the only one who makes money off of books is Bezos, and he already has enough of it.

Steve Rush: He does indeed. He does indeed. So listen, thank you ever so much for coming on our show. We'll make sure those links are in the show notes as well. So, people can access them super quick, but Henry listen, good luck. And I hope that your financial frugality keeps serving you well for the future. And thanks for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Henry Daas: Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Jim Kouzes is a legend in the leadership world. He co-wrote the Global #1 Best Selling Book, The Leadership Challenge, which has been used as a manual and a guide by millions of leaders all over the world. In this intimate conversation you can learn:

How every great leader has grown because of enduring challenge, adversity or difficulty
Why you can't get extraordinary things done in organizations all by yourself
How leadership has remained relatively stable over the years, but the context has changed
Why leaders who master listening, and respond with empathy perform more than 40% higher than those who don't!

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Jim below:

Jim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimkouzes/

Leadership Challenge Website: https://www.leadershipchallenge.com

Jim on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jim_Kouzes

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Our special guest on today's show is Jim Kouzes. Jim is a legend in the leadership world. He and his partner, Barry Posner wrote The Leadership Challenge, which has been used as a manual and a guide by leaders all over the world. Having sold millions of copies, incredibly excited to get into Jim world. But before we do that, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: What is it that makes some teams and some project teams just absolutely rock and roll where others really flounder? Well, the principle of tribe blaze at the heart of it. In the world that we're working in now, even in a remote environment, as often the case may be, your task is to find new ways as a leader to develop that sense of tribe to your team, no matter what they're working on, so that they stay with you and operate at their most effective. And doing this well, will help you keep morale high, productivity at its best and ensuring your team stay with you.

So where do people get that sense of tribal belonging? Well, a sense of tribal belonging usually comes from our four key sources. Shared purpose, unique contribution, pride, and gratitude. So, let's dig into them. Everybody understands purpose. And when we're talking about a grand cause, purpose becomes very visible and very obvious. But what if your organization's role is not to eradicate diseases or fight poverty or clean ocean’s. Purpose can be found in the smallest of things. It's the why we do what we do every day. It might be to solve a given problem in an industry, whatever the purpose is, it makes teams raise their heads high, see the horizon. So whatever purpose your team might claim, take the opportunity to explore this, link it to your vision and reinforce it every single day. Ownership is key here. Owning purpose usually means that teams consistently keep their purpose at the front of everything they do. If purpose has Y, then a tribal also wants to feel the how they go about achieving it and how they did it for purpose. It's the Mark of that tribe, differentiators from others tribes. Leadership ownership is key here. So, this is how leaders relate to employees, their philosophies, how they engage in communications, the autonomy they give to their team and how they deal with diversity, equity and inclusion as well. And all brings this together in a society that they can call team or tried, no matter what contribution or challenging factors you might face. Every single individual has a unique contribution to play. If they feel it, they become part of the belonging of that tribe. And that sense of ownership. Everyone wants to feel proud of their achievements and the mark that they're leaving on the world. And knowing that they're contributing to something uniquely valuable is an important part of tribal community, but they need to fill it that individual contribution is important as well.

So, people genuinely have an intrinsic sense of pride based on their own self-awareness. And allowing them to show that pride goes a long way and demonstrating pride is not necessarily about bragging or self-promotion. You may feel proud even if somebody else is speaking on the achievements of your team, communicating the story, letting others to feel part of the journey that you're on can also build pride with those in your business that are not directly correlated to your team. And as you offer rewards for people's achievements, provide consistent updates and show the real world the influence that directly having. Praising interactions, letting people know their sense of fulfillment. People can feel grateful for what is beyond expectations outside of the normal simply out of the blue. It's the, we have your back feeling, which is to put the proof in the times of need.

The past 12 months in particular have given an exceptionally high number of opportunities to test whether we really can count on others. Gratitude is also letting people know that. You may feel grateful for something your leader has done, or your peers have done, or your team have done. Have you really let them know? In my experience, gratitude, doesn't come from a major game changing heroic act. It comes from small unexpected, absolutely sincere acts from one person to another. Behavioral science has shown over and over again that helping others benefits, both the helper and the recipient. If the team members are doing that for each other, and they really feel that they belong to the tribe, if your team are your people, then prove it to them.

Today's environment makes it more likely that people will look for that sense of belonging alongside you and your team and your business so that they can feel appreciated and feel a sense of loyalty both ways. And as a leader, you can give them that sense of tribe, that belonging and proactively focusing on purpose, the unique contribution, being proud of the opportunity and demonstrating gratitude. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any new, insights or stories, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: The guest on today's show needs no introduction if you've ever read about leadership; Jim Kouzes and his co-author Barry Posner wrote the award-winning and best-selling book, The Leadership Challenge, selling millions around the world. Jim’s work impacted the way we think or behave as leaders, and he's been named as one of the top leadership guru’s globally. The Wall Street Journal cited him as one of the best executive directors in the world, and Jim, it is an absolute pleasure and an honor to have you on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Jim Kouzes: Steve, it's a pleasure to be with you. Thanks for the opportunity.

Steve Rush: My pleasure, delighted to be here. So, when we first met, you told me, you'd been thinking about leadership ever since you were a young kid as an Eagle Scout; when you were selected in John F Kennedy’s Honor Guard. And I recall you telling me that it was that call to action from Kennedy of, “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” that really inspired you to then think about joining the Peace Corps. Maybe just give us a little bit of the backstory of how that all evolved?

Jim Kouzes: Certainly, Steve. Thanks for that reminder of my early past. I grew up in the suburbs of Washington DC and my father worked for the U.S. Government. He started out as a file clerk and worked his way up to deputy assistant secretary of labor before he retired. And living in that area, we had the opportunity to visit the memorials and the museums and all of the sites that one sees in pictures and as tourists tour around and visit. And I had the great pleasure of living in that community and being in Washington DC at least once a week. And so, I was steeped in the history of the country and the values and the vision of the country, visiting all of those institutions as a young person. And it inspired me to continue that work, particularly when I was selected being John F Kennedy’s Honor Guard as an Eagle Scout at 15 years of age. And I can still remember that very cold winter day in January, standing there before the reviewing stand, where then president John F. Kennedy and his family, and some of his cabinet members watched as the parade went by. And his call to action, as you mentioned as not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Stuck with me and stays with me to this day. And there probably isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about that sense of calling for all of us as human beings to look to serve others. So, I aspired initially to be an ambassador. When I went to university, I studied political science, wanted to join the Peace Corps after I got out, which I did. Became a teacher in the peace Corps, and as a teacher, it changed my career expirations.

I realized the impact that one individual could have on, on young people, and so I wanted to continue that work. When I came back to the U.S. I looked for a job in education. Because I didn't have any teaching credentials, they wouldn't let me teach kids, but they would let me teach adults. So, I got a job working in training and development in a Human Resources development organization; development with a consulting firm that was working with the war on poverty, another program, the Johnson administration which was for young people wanting to come involved in community activities that would help people in the United States get out of poverty. And so, I worked for this organization, training people who were in those organizations in communication skills, team building skills, leadership skills. And that was the turning point for me, that was back in 1969-70

And 1972, I was offered a job at San Jose State University to direct a grant project. Met with mental health teams, helping to develop their sense of teamwork in mental health agencies in the Nine Bay Area Counties around San Francisco. And in that process met the Dean of the business school at Santa Clara University, which was just down the road from San Jose State. And he asked me if I'd come direct the executive development center at Santa Clara University, which I did. And while I was unpacking boxes at my office at Santa Clara University, I hear this knock on my door and I turned around and this was a very tall gentleman in the doorway. And he said, “you're in my office.” Excuse me, I thought this was my office? The Dean told me this was my office and he laughed. And he said, it is your office!

It used to be my office. I've moved to another building, but a welcome to Santa Clara University. And if you want to meet some people, have some lunch at the faculty club, get a tour of the campus, please let me know, and I'd be glad to talk to you and walk you around and introduce you to folks. That was Barry Posner, and I took him up on his offer. And as we wandered around campus and talked about where I came from, my background, his background, our interests, we found that we had some common interests. At that time, it was around managerial values, and that led to a 39 year long collaboration.

Steve Rush: Yeah, It's amazing. There’re not many relationships that last for 39 years, and therefore something's got to be right about the chemistry.

Jim Kouzes: It is. We're very different personalities and very different people. And I think that's part of why it works. We're not trying, you know, he's a very funny guy. He's likes to crack people up almost, you know, every minute there's a laugh when you're with Barry practically, which is great. I'm not that person. I'm more of the serious type, but I do enjoy his company. He enjoys mine. Our families have become close friends. They are our closest friends as a couple. He and his wife Jackie, and my wife and I. So, it's been a wonderful, wonderful relationship.

Steve Rush: And you and Barry’s rise to leadership greatness came about when you published The Leadership Challenge and you've done plenty of work before then, but this really kind of excelled you and Barry into the spotlight if you like, into the global arena and be really interested, how did that come about?

Jim Kouzes: Well Barry and I worked together at Santa Clara University through the executive development center and I organized programs, created the programs, recruited faculty, be part of those programs. And there was one seminar in particular that we did with Tom Peters. Tom Peters, the coauthor of In Search of Excellence with Bob Waterman. This was back in the mid-eighties.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jim Kouzes: And Tom had just published that book and we invited him to come to Santa Clara University. This would be for his fees, went through the roof and we couldn't afford him, but we invited them to come to the University and do a seminar. He was so popular, we invited him back. And this time we invited him back for a whole day event. And then a second day, Barry and I were going to do. Well, Barry and I had some common interests around managerial values and managerial.

We called it managerial excellence at the time. But we didn't have a book at the time and we didn't have a theory necessarily. So, as we were preparing for that, I recall very clearly. It was around the time that countries were preparing for the Olympics, the summer Olympics, which was a couple of years away. I was hearing a program on personal best athletic achievements. So, you know, when athletes have their personal best time or their personal best score, people always talking about that in relation to the Olympics. And it just occurred to us. Why don't we ask the same question about leadership? Tell us about a time when you were at your personal best as a leader.

And we started doing that in preparation for that seminar that we're doing with Tom Peters. And we asked people to do that exercise prior to coming to the second day of the seminar. And then we broke them into small groups and they talked about their personal best leadership experiences, and they posted them on newsprint sheets in the halls of Kenna Hall or at Santa Clara University. And as we walked down and reviewed, approximately 80 people attending and they were broken into about 10 groups, we looked at all these flip charts and they had very similar words and phrases on them. And that was the moment we realized, you know, there's some common themes across individual stories of personal best leadership experiences.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jim Kouzes: And so, Barry and I took those case studies that people wrote about their personal leadership experiences and started to essentially sort all the behaviors into different piles. Literally three by five cards on a big conference room table, Kenna Hall, 107. And we sorted them into piles and eventually came up with a five-factor model called the five practices of exemplary leadership. And then we created a tool to research it, to validate the model, asking people to answer a series of questions, or essentially rate like 360 assessments to rate themselves and have other people rate them on these dimensions.

Steve Rush: So, is that the birth of the leadership practices inventory?

Jim Kouzes: Yes. The leadership practices inventory was developed as a research tool initially and later after we had validated and done a number of analysis to simplify it, we were able to develop it as a 360 assessment people use it in leadership development.

Steve Rush: And what were some of the patterns and the behaviors that you noticed that were reoccurring?

Jim Kouzes: Well one of the things that we noticed Steve was that every single case involves some kind of challenge, adversity, difficulty. Imagine people now during the pandemic writing about some of their current experiences, it was that kind of a challenge that people wrote about. Whether it was a turnaround development of a new business. Literally a natural disaster destroying a business, and then reviving, coming back from that experience, so we noticed that. We discovered that, challenge the opportunity for greatness, that people don't do their best when things are calm and steady and, you know, normal times. We yearn for those normal times. It helps us relax a little bit, but interestingly enough, we don't necessarily do our best at leading when things are normal.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jim Kouzes: People need to challenge the process. So, we came up with a practice called Challenge the Process. Another thing we noticed is that people mentioned how clear they were about their values and beliefs, what they stood for, and also clear about where they wanted to go. The outcomes were very clear to them, what they wanted to achieve. So came we developed two other practices model. The way and inspire a shared vision from those observations. And then number of people I remember, Bill Flanagan, who was one of the people we interviewed. And we said, Bill, tell us about your personal best. And he said, I can't. And I said, what you mean you can't? And he said because it wasn't my personal best. It was our personal best. It wasn't me; it was us. And I was just, it stopped me in my tracks. I said, wow, that's really an important observation. You can't do it alone.

You can't get extraordinary things done in organizations all by yourself. That's our practice. Now we call enable us act. And along the way, when you have face difficulty, you face failure. Sometimes you face other challenges than just the initial one, as you try to innovate and improve. And so, people need encouragement in order to continue down that path. Those are a lot of celebration, a lot of recognition of people's achievements, small as well as large which we now call encourage the heart. So, the practices emerged from that kind of an analysis of what people told us about those challenging situations that they were engaged in. Model inspire challenge, enable and encourage.

Steve Rush: I love it. It's a really great framework. One, that also stood the test of time because in having read the early leadership challenge, and then the latest version, I just noticed the way that you shift the stories. So, the framework stays the same, but you're able to tap into great other stories to illustrate the change in how we lead as well.

Jim Kouzes: That's a very important observation, Steve. One of the things that people always ask us is, what's new? What’s different about leadership now than it was 35-40 years ago? When you first wrote the book and started doing the research. And we said, well, the content of leadership has remained relatively stable over all these years. What's changed is the context. And sometimes we confuse context with content. We think that if a new challenge comes along like a pandemic now, as compared to the challenges that people face 40 years ago, somehow leadership practices also have to change. Not necessarily. Why would that be the case? Leaders face challenges, millennium before today's current challenge. What has become evident, however, is the importance of some of those more than others. For example, Steve. Contextually, because we all facing a life and death situation together right now and everyone has been impacted in some very serious ways, many people I know. And perhaps, you know, I've had loved ones who've passed away or friends who have passed away. So, it's a very, very difficult, very difficult time. And consequently, people have told us that they want a lot more caring and support from their leaders and encouragement from their leaders than they did before. Our data shows us that the two characteristics of admired leaders are separate piece of research that we have done that has increased more than the others in terms of it's importance to individuals is caring and support. So contextually, sometimes things become more important, but caring and support has always been there as a part of what good leaders do.

Steve Rush: That's right, yeah. People often get confused still to this day between the notion of leadership and management. And I know this is a really cliche subject, but management is a relatively new thing. You know, we invented this a hundred years ago to get some control over stuff. Whereas leadership has been going on for millennia.

Jim Kouzes: Leadership has been something we've always yearned for and needed, particularly during difficult and challenging times. And you're right, the notion of a bureaucracy or a hierarchy has emerged, came out of government initially and into business as a result of trying to get better organized if you will, and become more productive and efficient.

Steve Rush: One of the things that you mentioned in The Leadership Challenges, this strength out of adversity and learning from adversity, and just wanted to share some research with you and get your perspective on this. So, I've been researching people from ethnic minorities, people who have had to transverse from different locations because of either poverty or war. And what you notice is this massive, massive leadership value, and in fact that people have already got these foundations that they've carried with them, for whatever, having faced into adversity, whatever that may be, whether it be through experiences or challenges that they faced, there are foundations that they have there that some of us just take years to develop that they have an innate resource to tap into. What's your perspective on that Jim?

Jim Kouzes: Diversity equity inclusion is one of the major, major social trends that we're currently. It's always been there again. It's not something that's not been there and its brand new right now, but it's increased in its importance with Black Lives Matter here in this country and globally and Asian hate that we've experienced here in the United States and other parts of the world.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jim Kouzes: Diversity equity inclusion has become a topic we now talk about daily and there are more initiatives to try to do something about this. So, it's is a challenge that leaders are facing more today than they have and addressing it head on it, and so it's an important issue. One of the things that we all need to get comfortable with Steve, however, you're absolutely right. People from diverse backgrounds bring different kinds of experiences in their own lives that they can contribute to the improvement of organizations.

Steve Rush: Without doubt.

Jim Kouzes: Without a doubt. And diversity improves innovation because of those different perspectives.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jim Kouzes: They have different ideas about how to do things, different experiences that inform innovation and creativity. However, it's going to be more challenging initially to get to where we can perform at a higher level with more diverse groups. Why? Because people don't know each other that well, we don't always know because we haven't asked and we haven't seen these diverse perspectives. And until we get to a place where we have a better understanding of each other and feel more comfortable with each other, if you do take a look at performance, it tends to decline initially, but then becomes both more a group becomes more innovative and creative and become higher performers in a more diverse setting. Once they have gotten through that period of time of learning more about each other and learning to trust each other.

Steve Rush: I should imagine it's part of that bumping into some of those unconscious biases, becoming that they're recognized biases and learning them, and then relearning how the difference can really make a difference.

Jim Kouzes: Absolutely, and one of the things that's really important in that process is for leaders to listen. One of the things in our research and others is that the more deeply you listen and listen with empathy, the higher the performance as a leader. One of our colleagues, Rich Reynolds at DDI, Development Dimensions International did some research on this topic. And he reported that leaders who master listening, and responding with empathy perform more than 40% higher than those who don't master, listening, and responding with empathy.

Steve Rush: That's a massive shift, isn't it?

Jim Kouzes: Massive.

Steve Rush: I mean, 40% is really tangible.

Jim Kouzes: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: One of the other things that comes out in your work and research over the decades is how passionate you are about purpose and linking, not just purpose to people's work, but to people's lives. Tell us a little bit about how that might help me as a leader?

Jim Kouzes: Purpose gives us a reason for doing what we're doing. It helps us to answer the question, why? Why are you doing what you're doing? And it also, because we have that sense of purpose increases determination. So, like if we're clear about where we want to go and what we want in our lives and why we are doing what we're doing. We're going to be much more determined, much more dedicated, much more committed. So, organizations, leaders, and organizations that help people both to understand how their purpose fits with the larger organizational purpose and how in this organization, you can live out your personal purpose. We'll find that employees are significantly more committed. They're more likely to work together as teams, they see their work is more meaningful. They have a sense that they're making a contribution. So, it has a lot of positive effects. And in the world of education, interestingly students who have this sense of self-transcendence purpose for learning that is I'm learning this subject matter, not just for me to get a grade and graduate, but for me to make a contribution to others, if they have that sense of self-transcendence purpose for learning, they're more likely to continue learning when the task is tedious and difficult. So, it has a lot of positive effects, whether it's at work or whether it's in the classroom, whether it's in the community. If I could use an analogy to help people understand this. Think about having to put a jigsaw puzzle together. Let's imagine we had a box of a thousand pieces, you know, for a jigsaw puzzle.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jim Kouzes: And a leader came along and dumped them on the table in front of us and said, okay, put it together, put this puzzle together and walked away.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I can imagine.

Jim Kouzes: What would be the first thing that you would want to know?

Steve Rush: Why?

Jim Kouzes: Yeah. So why is this important? Anything else you'd like to know, or see?

Steve Rush: What's the reason I’m going to do it? What am I going to see when it's done?

Jim Kouzes: What am I going to see when it's done? Show me the cover of the box top so that I can see the finish puzzle. Then I can have a better sense of what I'm trying to put together. What happens in organizations is people are given a piece of a puzzle, it's called a job and they're told, okay, now put this piece in the puzzle without ever being shown the box top, without ever being shown the end result. Consequently, it takes more time, one struggles, has more frustration, often gets into more conflict with other people because they don't know where they fit. If we would just simply show that box top to people. When we give them a job or talk about their work, it would be more likely that they would be more involved, more committed, more dedicated, and also have a sense that they're making a contribution to the finished product, to the end result, to the destination the organization, or the team is trying to go in. So, I think for leaders to understand that it's our natural inclination to want to know where we fit in the overall big picture and what we do fits in that overall big picture. Leaders would be a lot more effective. Unfortunately, only about according to another colleague of ours John Kotter has done research on communicating vision in an organization, did a study and found that only 0.58% of communication market share. If you will, inside an organization is about the vision of the organization.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Jim Kouzes: That's less than 1%. We figure it needs to be for senior leaders, at least 25% of your time needs to be spent on communicating the larger vision of the organization and where we're headed, why we're doing what we're doing.

Steve Rush: What do you think the reason is that organizations or maybe leaders don't give it as much attention Jim?

Jim Kouzes: Its very challenging to do, we find in our research. It's very difficult to master this particular practice, which we call inspire a shared vision. And digging into that and trying to figure out why that is, what we discover is that it's more about communicating the vision than it is about having it. So, leaders can be very clear in their own minds about where we want to go and what we want to create, but getting it out of their heads and into the heads and hearts of those on their teams is a more challenging effort. So, it's largely about communication. And so, when thinking about one's own development as a leader, think about how can I communicate where we are wanting to go in the future, whether it's a month from now, five years from now, 15 years from now, where we want to go in the future? How can I communicate that in such a way that other people can see themselves in that picture? Let me use another analogy.

I'll pick a city other than London or San Francisco. When I say Paris, France, what first comes to your mind?

Steve Rush: The Eiffel Tower.

Jim Kouzes: The Eiffel Tower. So that's a physical place, right?

Steve Rush: Yep.

Jim Kouzes: Did anything else come to mind when you think about Paris?

Steve Rush: Relaxing, coffee, streets, ambiance.

Jim Kouzes: Yep, exactly. Did you pop into your mind the square kilometers or the population of the city of Paris?

Steve Rush: No, not really. Strangely enough. Right?

Jim Kouzes: Those are numbers. Those are those are numbers that, you know, leaders often, when they talk about vision, talk about numbers, they talk about financial outcomes.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that’s right.

Jim Kouzes: They talk about quantities of things. They should be talking about the Eiffel Tower and they should be talking about coffee and walking down the streets and enjoying the museums and the sights of the city and the smells in there. That baguette of bread or the croissant you have in the morning over the cappuccino or espresso, that's the kind of things leaders need to get comfortable with talking about. It's not so much about the numbers.

Steve Rush: It's about the story that's not been told yet, right?

Jim Kouzes: Yeah, exactly. And what it will be like when we have attained our aspirations as an organization or as a team.

Steve Rush: That's a really great way of framing it. Thank you for that Jim. I love.

Jim Kouzes: You're welcome.

Steve Rush: So, you wrote your latest book, Everyday People, Extraordinary Leadership. which I love by the way. So, this is how to make a difference, regardless of your title role or authority. And for me, this just absolutely illustrates that leadership is everybody job.

Jim Kouzes: Absolutely. When we initially wrote our first edition, we were talking about managerial excellence and that was what was in our heads. But what we quickly realized was that the stories that people were telling us were not just about being managers in organizations, they were often stories about being the first on a team to ascend a particular mountain peak or what they did in their community or what they did as a coach of a team of young people. And it occurred to us that when people are talking about leadership, they often think just about organizational leadership, just about being a manager, but we didn't explore it as deeply as we did with this current book. And we just decided that we would write about people who may be managers in another walk of their life, but the stories that they were telling us about their personal best were only about outside of having a title of manager, director, managing director inside an organization.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jim Kouzes: We also took our data and we have about 5 million people in a database. And we just isolated those individuals who are identified as individual contributors. They didn't have direct reports, but they were project leaders on teams, or they were people who took initiative inside an organization and emerged as leaders. And we asked those people, they worked with to give feedback to that individual contributor on the same five practices of exemplary leadership using the leadership practices inventory. And we found the identical pattern that we see with those who have managerial positions. And that is the more frequently they, as peers engaged other peers, the more frequently they use the five practices of exemplary leadership, more likely it was that they would be viewed as effective leaders. They would have teams which had hired team spirit. People would feel more committed to the organization. Turnover would be lower. A lot of those same measures, which we would use with managers were also true for individual contributors who lead peers.

Steve Rush: I love that because I've been talking about fact that for me, and having my experiences in coaching and working with great leaders around the world. Leadership, isn't a job title. It's a behavior, and what you've done is quantify that with some real data.

Jim Kouzes: That's right. We feel exactly as you do; leadership is a set of skills and abilities. It's a set of behaviors and actions and people are more likely to follow. If you will, more likely to be engaged with leaders who more frequently demonstrate the kinds of practices that other people, when they demonstrate those behaviors are more likely to want to become engaged with a leader in an organization. One of the things though that we also discovered is peer leaders need to work a little bit harder than managers to get the same kind of engagement.

Steve Rush: Interesting, yeah.

Jim Kouzes: So, if you were to look at our bar charts and you would see this perfect up into the right, the more frequently leaders engaged in behaviors, but if a manager can get say 51% of people to feel engaged when they do this at a seven or an eight, it takes a peer leader, a nine and a ten level of frequency to get to that same level. So, you have to work a harder.

Steve Rush: Is that the assumed responsibility that comes with the manager label?

Jim Kouzes: I think, yeah. People assume, well, this person is a manager and they're my manager. And you know, there's sort of the role that I'm in, the role that they're in, I'm supposed to be following this person.

Steve Rush: Hmm.

Jim Kouzes: So, you have the benefit of the position. Whereas with peers, people kind of look and say, well, you're my peer. Who made you the leader of this project? Who made you the leader of this organization? It's just a little bit more energy, a little bit more effort into it than you might, if you had the benefit of a title.

Steve Rush: Hmm. Make load of sense. And of course, the whole principle about leadership and you call this out in chapter seven of your book. Is leadership development starts with self-development and that's where leadership really starts. So, if I was a leader listening to this and I wanted to kind of kickstart that self-discovery of me, if I was a little bit stuck right now, what would be your counsel to me?

Jim Kouzes: Well, the first thing I would recommend you do is to believe in yourself. Now that may sound patently obvious. But one of the things we did find in our research is that people who have a growth mindset, that is a belief that I can learn to lead. I can change my behavior, are more likely to be viewed by others as effective leaders than those who have a fixed mindset.

Steve Rush: Definitely yeah.

Jim Kouzes: So, you need to believe in yourself, you need to believe that you can. And the next thing, if you get over that hurdle and say, yeah, I can grow. I can develop as a leader. What should you do first? I would just suggest that you write a credo memo, that you sit down and clarify for yourself what the values and beliefs are that should guide your actions and decisions.

Steve Rush: I love that, yeah.

Jim Kouzes: What are those five to seven principles that, I should follow and my team should follow? Leaders who are clear about their, what we call leadership philosophy, which is the combination of values and vision together. Are much more likely to be viewed as effectively to the much more likely to have engaged teams. The second thing I'd say is to do the life exercise, L-I-F-E. L is for lessons, I is for ideals, F is for feelings and E is for evidence. What are the lessons that you would like people to say, they learn from you? What are the ideals that you would like people to recognize you believe in? What are the feelings you would like other people to have when they are around you? And what's the evidence that you have made a difference. I imagine five, ten years from now, you've won the leader of the year award. What would those lessons, ideas, feelings, and evidence be that people would talk about? Do that exercise.

Steve Rush: And cognitively of course, having that positive affirmation to start the journey in the right direction, right?

Jim Kouzes: Absolutely. It gives you, what's called the often in literature, an ideal self. What is your ideal self around these particular dimensions? And then using that framework for yourself to ask yourself and hopefully get some feedback from others and how am I doing right now on that? And what can I do today to act on that so that I make sure that five years, ten years from now, people say those things about me.

Steve Rush: Yeah, love it.

Jim Kouzes: People tell those stories. And so, you create this sense of who you want to become, and that helps you to determine what you need to do to grow and develop. Believing in yourself that you can, and having principles that will guide you along the way. And then I would hire a coach. I would engage in some kind of leadership development activity starting at the earliest possible age.

Steve Rush: So, thinking about yourself, Jim, what is it that keeps you curious? What is it that keeps you so passionate about what you do?

Jim Kouzes: The stories that people tell me. I just enjoy so much hearing when I ask people about, tell me about the time when you were at your best as a leader. What did you do? And people's eyes light up. They get very expressive. I haven't found a person who can’t tell me at least one story and each time they say, well I don't know, you know, personal best, they pause for a moment. But once they get going, once they start to talk about that experience, I can remember a time when I was you know, I was coaching my son's tennis team and this, and they begin to just get really, really passionate about that. Or I remember the time when, you know, when I was told, no, I had two years to turn the operation around or we were going to shut it down. And that really energized me. And I began to think about all the different things we could do and they just start to be so expressive about that. That's what keeps me going is the energy I get from other people when they tell those stories.

Steve Rush: And by you translating those stories for others, we connect keeps the fuel and the energy going. Doesn't it. So, thank you for that.

Jim Kouzes: Yeah. Oh, you're very welcome. It's a delight to do it.

Steve Rush: So, I'm going to turn the lens now, a little on you, and this is going to be really challenging for you. Because I suspect of all the guests that we've had on the show so far, you have probably experienced much more leadership experiences and challenges throughout your career than most, but I'm going to try and ask you to distill your leadership thinking, your top tips, ideas, or tools down to your top three leadership hacks Jim. What would they be?

Jim Kouzes: Well, I think we already talked about two of them. And I just add would add one more. The credo exercise is a sense of values and beliefs. One of the things that we know is that being clear about personal values leads to higher level of personal commitment. It's more important to know your own values initially than it is to know the organization's values. So do that credo exercise, do some exercise where you clarify values and beliefs in the life exercise, which will L-I-F-E, lessons, ideals, feelings, and evidence. Those two hacks will help you get started on creating an ideal self and understanding of your own values.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Jim Kouzes: The third thing I would say is that in every interaction with every person, just ask yourself this question. What can I do in this moment to make the other person with whom I'm interacting, feel more powerful, efficacious, and capable, perhaps more than they even thought they could after this interaction is over?

Steve Rush: Really pretty powerful thought.

Jim Kouzes: If we could all just stop, in particularly as leaders, but just as human beings and say, when I'm interacting with this individual, what can I do to help this person feel better about themselves? To help this person feel more successful, to feel that they're more capable and more powerful? If people walked away from any leader feeling that way, just imagine how much more they would feel engaged than if they walked away feeling well, I just got put down by my boss or reprimanded or not listened to.

Steve Rush: Yeah. I love that. And very powerful as well in the process.

Jim Kouzes: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: So, you come away feeling not only have you helped somebody, but in doing so, that feeling of gratitude is going to be a self-fulfilling energy boost for us All.

Jim Kouzes: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: The next part of the show plays straight back into ironically, what we talked a little earlier about, which is that learning from adversity, we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is where something in your life or work hasn't perhaps worked out as well. But you've actually used that as a real-life experience that is now a fuel for your work. What would be your Hack to Attack Jim?

Jim Kouzes: Early on in my career, this was probably in the first two, three years. The project I was working on. It was a grant project and it was coming to an end. It was in my dream job. I was just getting started. I was really beginning to find my passion for work and contract was coming to an end. So, I knew I was going to be out of work. I was nervous. I was scared. I was newly married. I looked down the road a couple of months and there was no job opportunity. And I had bills to pay and like just uncertain about what was going to happen to me. And then my supervisor came and told me, he said, I've recommended you for a job at San Jose State University. And I didn't even know where San Jose State University was at the time. I was living in Austin, Texas.

I had to look at a map and see where San Jose California was. And my wife and I noticed it was about 50 miles South of San Francisco. And we said, we'll take it. I said, I'll take the job. And we packed up and moved. I didn't even have a contract to go, but I had some faith that this commitment that was made to me was going to be there when I arrived, you know, to this day, I look back on that and other similar kinds of events. And I learned a very important lesson. Stuff happens.

Steve Rush: Yup.

Jim Kouzes: But if you've demonstrated some skill and you have a network of support, good stuff can result.

Steve Rush: Definitely, so.

Jim Kouzes: You know, knowing that by demonstrating enough of a level of competence that other people have confidence in you and building relationships with other people early on can benefit you for a lifetime. I have learned that lesson over and over and over again throughout my career.

Steve Rush: Yeah. I talked to my kids, and I have four kids and two are in work and work, one and two students. And I talked to him about the emotional piggy bank, you know, pay it forward and you know, put deposits in other people's emotional piggybank. Make them feel good because one day you're going to get a return on that investment.

Jim Kouzes: Absolutely. And you know, that's always led me to the number one bit of advice I would give anyone about how to become a better leader.

Steve Rush: Yeah. And the very last thing we get to do, and one of my favorite parts of the show is we get to take you on a bit of time travel and you get to bump into Jim at 21, toe to toe and give Jim some advice. What would it be?

Jim Kouzes: Well just back to that story, because I was a little older than 21, but not by too many years. And that particular situation taught me that you can't do it alone.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jim Kouzes: I give that piece of advice to any young person with whom I speak, about what should I do to help myself in my career? What can I do to make sure that I can be successful? And I say, well, first of all, recognize you can't do it alone. No one who's ever gotten to the top is a self-made person.

Steve Rush: Very true.

Jim Kouzes: We hear that a lot. This person was a self-made millionaire, but really, you know, all by yourself, nobody else helped you. There was no one else involved. You did it all alone.

Steve Rush: It’s a really interesting cliche, you hear all the time, but it's completely baloney.

Jim Kouzes: It’s completely baloney. If you recognize that it takes a mentor, it takes a coach, a parent you know, you think back over your own life and think about anything that you accomplished, that's meaningful to you. And I guarantee you, there were other people involved who committed themselves to you and your success for you to get there.

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely right.

Jim Kouzes: You know, with that recognition then you know, I think, you know, during every period of my life where I grew in advanced, I can, you know, I can appoint individually coach, advice, supported, helped me along the way. And with that knowledge, if I had that knowledge previously, I would have benefited from it.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jim Kouzes: And I think everyone can benefit from just recognizing that, we grow and develop to the extent that we have people who can help us along the way.

Steve Rush: Very much so. So, what's next for you then, Jim?

Jim Kouzes: Well, Barry and I are meeting on Monday to talk about the seventh edition to The Leadership Challenge and start to outline how it's going to be different. And because of the pandemic, there are a number of new issues we're going to tackle. And where are we going to gather the new stories and start taking a look at the data, particularly over the last year and see what else may have changed other than what we've already talked about, like around caring and support, for example, or diversity equity inclusion that we might want to address. So, it's going to be a year-long project to look at the data and interview some more people, particularly during these last 18 months, what they've experienced and then do the writing. And sometime in 2023, we should have a new book out.

Steve Rush: Amazing. Amazing. And I should imagine, I already know the answer. I think to this question from when we last met, is there going to be a time we think, right. That's enough, I'm retiring.

Jim Kouzes: I had 75/25 plan and the pandemic came along and helped me with that. When I turned 75, I was going to cut back to 25% of my time. And I revised that to be 80/20,

Steve Rush: At 80 you still anticipate working 80% of the time?

Jim Kouzes: Yeah. I keep pushing it out. So, but I am dialing it back a bit to, particularly on the business travel, our global travel is a bit tiring and my family, my son is engaged. He was supposed to get married, the pandemic happened, so he and his fiancé are still waiting for the time when people can gather in larger groups. So, we can have a big wedding and celebrate that. So, a lot of family things coming up and hopefully grandkids soon.

Steve Rush: Amazing.

Jim Kouzes: And so, other things are going to be happening in our lives. We know where we want to spend our time.

Steve Rush: Well, you've been a massive impact on my life, Jim, and you've been a massive impact on millions of people around the world. And now we have an extended family through The Leadership Hacker Podcast. It's just left for me to say, I'm incredibly grateful for you taking some time out to be with us and part of our community. So, thanks for being on the show,

Jim Kouzes: Well Steve, thank you very much. You are most gracious and I'm delighted to have this opportunity to chat with you.

Steve Rush: Thank you very much, Jim.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Andrew Selley has over 30 years of business experience, more than 20 of them at board level. He is currently the CEO of a £multi-billion food company, Bidcorp UK, Author of Ignite Your Business and joins us to share his secrets and hacks of how leaders of underperforming businesses can engage their teams and explode their profit. In this episode you can learn about:

Andrews IGNITE model engage your team
How to galvanize your team into action
Why you can never over communicate as a leader
Build “red lines” in terms of what you will do and won’t do

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Andrew below:

Andrew on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewselley/

Andrews Website: https://www.igniteyourbusiness.biz

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you

Joining me on the show today is Andrew Selley. He's over 30 years of business experience, more than 20 of them at board level. He is currently the CEO of a 10 figure turn over food company, and now sharing his secrets of how leaders of underperforming businesses can explode their profits with his new book, Ignite Your Business. But before we get a chance to speak with Andrew, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Big brands have figured out how to gain attention and make themselves stand out from others. So, what can we learn from them to grow our own personal brand? Interestingly research by Duke University found big brands are so powerful and compelling commitment. They can influence happiness in marriages and partnerships. And when you have to live with your partner's brand choices, it can even reduce happiness, if you don't share the same passion.

Brand credibility is also important. A study about perceptions of value is really intriguing. Research at the University of Bond discovered when people thought wine was expensive, they rated it significantly better than when they thought the price was cheap or lower. We can learn from this too. When people perceive your value, there will be more likely to remember you and to select you for all kinds of opportunities. From the research I've distilled three top ways, which we can leverage the corporate approach.

Number one, be gravitational. First, create emotional connections based on rapport. One of the key skills for the future of work will be the ability for us to build relationships more deeply, more quickly, often through virtual means. Positivity is a magnet. We want to be around others who create that positive vibe. Listen to others, tune in and invest in learning about them. Building your brand is ironically less about you and more about others, demonstrate humidity and avoid arrogance, be gravitational and draw people to you and genuinely support others.

Research finds people, select companies and brands based on how much they can also contribute to communities. And who demonstrate that social conscience, personal brandings like this too. It's not all about you. It's often about how you enter into relationships with others and how you can help care for them.

Number two, be brave. Sometimes it can be really hard for us to put ourselves out there, but effectiveness in personal branding requires you to speak up, to take a stand, to move forward and be confident. The most successful brands are visible and memorable because they do put themselves out there. For people, the phrase, fake it until you make it, is quite apt here. You may not have all of the things figured out yet. You may not have all of the self-surety you need to keep that momentum going. Worry less about perfection and focus on making progress. The best opportunities come from taking those steps into areas that we don't know about. Staying open to opportunities and possibilities, and that learning new can really be quite alluring. Jump into the project for which you are mostly but not fully prepared for. And in doing so, you can develop your own skills along the way and consider saying to yourself, step up, step out and step forward.

Number three, be substantive. Building your personal brand must always include substance and reliability. Be sure you've got something to offer in terms of your skills and your talents. Seek to learn and develop yourself constantly for sure. Your best personal brand will be built based on the value you had to others and how you bring it to your best and your team. We've all worked with people who may talk a good game, but actually don't deliver. These people tend to be the ones who float from job to job or company to company because those around them figure them out.

Successful brands deliver value time after time consistently. And your personal brand is like this as well. Be the person who rolls their sleeves up and follows through. Others can always count on to deliver that quality work. The one who maintains their relationships over time. And when you do your benefit from a really strong network and solid lasting connections that you'll be able to rely on for years. So, in summary, your success will be based on the relationships and meaningful interactions you have with others. And there is no formula for personal branding, but it's merely a mindset to help appreciate others, invest in relationships and be your personal best. And this approach will ultimately elevate your brand and get you noticed. That's been Leadership Hacker News. If you have stories, insights or information from anywhere in the world, please get in touch with us.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Andrew Selley. He is a proven and successful high-impact business leader. He's a CEO of Bidcorp UK, a multi-billion-pound company. And after 30 years, in lots of different sectors and businesses, 20 years’ operating at board level, has now written the book, Ignite Your Business. Andrew, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Andrew Selley: Thanks for having me on.

Steve Rush: It’s my pleasure. Really excited to get into the whole principle of Igniting Your Business. Stories, of course, that you've shared, in your book, but experience of the last 30 years which I'm looking to hack into from now. So perhaps before we get into that, you can just give us a little bit of the backstory as to how you've arrived in what you are doing?

Andrew Selley: I started my career sort of, as you say, 30 years ago, it doesn't seem that long to me, but 30 years ago at Coca Cola in the UK, it was on the bottling side of the business, not the brand owner side. So, we were the bottler and distributor for Coke. It was a very fast-growing business. Just as I joined, they switched over from bottling and selling Pepsi to bottling and selling Coke, which was interesting both from an organization and cultural perspective, but also because it meant overnight the business was four times bigger than it was previously. So, I think there was just a lot of opportunity there. And I worked in a lot of different departments and I sort of moved from sort of graduate trainee through to sales director in 10 years and left after 12 years to move across to Bidcorp.

And I think unusually people would say I've been there for over 20 years, which I think is probably unusual in this day and age. But I think the reason is I keep getting opportunities there that challenged me and excite me and reward me. So, you know, over the time that I've been there, I've run the food logistics business, you know, doing all the daily food supplies for Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut and all those big brands. I've run the military supply chain business where we did all the worldwide food supply for the armed forces. So, we had to set up and operate depots in Afghanistan and Iraq and Sierra Leone, et cetera. I established our business in the Middle East and the Baltics and Spain. And then for the last seven years I've been running our sort of core hospitality business in the UK where we supply all types of food, both packaged down fresh and beers, wines, and spirits and non-food and everything to the hospitality industry. So, we turn over about 2 billion pounds. We've got about 6,000 employees. We've got about 60,000 customers in the hospitality sector in the UK.

Steve Rush: Yeah, good business.

Andrew Selley: Quiet a challenging year.

Steve Rush: I can imagine. Yeah, I'd love to get into it. You are what I would call the archetype of entrepreneurship. Often people have this perception that in order to become a great leader, you've got to bounce between businesses and you are a perfect example of taking all of those natural caring opportunities that are presented in the environment you're in. And now you’re leading a really large and successful business too.

Andrew Selley: The business Bidcorp, it's a global business. We operate in sort of 36 different countries around the world. And each country just operates as its own individual business. And the sort of authority and autonomy is decentralized down. And that's the culture that we then take within our business. So, we pushed down sort of responsibility and encourage, as you say, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship of the people who work for us, because that's what makes I think the business and the culture more interesting and exciting. And you get a different type of person, who wants that responsibility and that challenge

Steve Rush: Hmm, indeed. Now I would imagine that given the environment you're in and given the organization you lead. The last 18 months or so has been a particularly challenging one, how has that changed the focus of what you're doing with Bidcorp?

Andrew Selley: Changed the focus. It's certainly changed a lot of what we do. As I say, as a supplier to hospitality. During the last 12 months of COVID, our businesses has really gone on a bit of a roller coaster. So, when we had the first lockdown, our business declined by 70%, that's seven zero in a week which is obviously a bit of a challenge. We've had certain bits of the business which have kept going. So, we do supply food, et cetera, to hospitals and care homes and schools and prisons, but obviously all of the supply to restaurants, hotels, nightclubs, theme parks travel and leisure outlets all stopped as well. So, I think as the sort of the leader of the business, your focus doesn't necessarily change insofar as, you know, your focus is always on, you know, strategy, development and execution, you know, managing and developing and caring for the team, looking for how you're going to invest in the business, going forwards. You're dealing with big customers, big suppliers, et cetera, so that hasn't necessarily changed, but clearly our strategy and approach and what we've actually executed over the last 12 months has changed quite a lot.

Steve Rush: I can, well imagine. We're going to get into actually how your ignite model has helped you in your business because you actually use it as a case study in your book, but we'll come back to that in a moment. What would be really interesting is just to get a sense of, you know, how did the book come up? What was the kind of inspiration for you?

Andrew Selley: I don't know if that's true or not, but I've spent a lot of my time trying to develop myself over the years. I've always had a keen interest, as I know that you have as well, in terms of reading business books, broadening my knowledge, trying to learn you new ideas and new initiatives. Found that 40-50% of the books that I've read were just totally dry. And I probably didn't even finish them. They were quite theoretical. It was almost like doing a business studies degree instead of reading an education and motivational book. And I suppose, you know, with a little bit of arrogance, I thought maybe I could do better or do different, or make a book that was easier to read and more practical in terms of its application. Something that you could read and do, something with straight away rather than read and try and work out what they were talking about.

And also, a book that you could just dip into. You can read it as a whole thing, or you could just dip into a specific area where you need some help or you've got an issue. So, yeah, it was probably three years ago. I started writing it and mapping it out and started off really enthusiastic and bashed out the skeleton and then just added to it over the next couple of years. But when lockdown did arrive, clearly there was a lot less commuting because we're working from home a lot at the time. I used to do quite a lot of international travel within the sort of the Bidcorp Group, which obviously disappeared. So, I thought, you know, I can either watch a load of Netflix box set or I can actually just get this book finished. So, I decided to get it finished and get it published and get it out there.

Steve Rush: Excellent, and congratulations by the way, I've read the book. And one of the things that struck me when I read it is, how absolutely practical it is. So, you've got a sense of a story that you tell through Terra Nova, interestingly, is Terra Nova real business? Is that a kind of a guise of a, another business maybe you've worked alongside?

Andrew Selley: It’s a made-up name.

Steve Rush: Oh, interesting.

Andrew Selley: The one-minute manager, there is books that he did.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Andrew Selley: Because they were sort of, you know, an allegorical sort of approach to business. So, it's told through a story and I sort of found that no matter how many times you try to find an example in business for the point you were making. It wasn't always exactly backing up the point you were making. So, I thought I'd actually write my own story alongside it and sort of integrate the points that I was trying to make into that story, which as, you know, sort of shows the right way and the wrong way of doing the elements that covered in each chapter.

Steve Rush: What I particularly liked about it is, you kind of take people a little bit for story. Then you give them the sense check and you get them to do some reflection on their own business. And here's some tools as well. So, it's a real practical playbook all the way through each of the steps of the model. So, let's just spin through what Ignite and the Ignite model means. And maybe we can get into some of those sections as we get through it?

Andrew Selley: Yeah, certainly. I do like an acronym.

Steve Rush: Exactly.

Andrew Selley: So, IGNITE is an acronym and the I stand for inspirational vision. And I think there's two points to that. Firstly, you know, you need to know where you're going. If you're leading a business or legit, even just leading a team, you need to have a vision of what it is you're trying to do and what your purpose is, et cetera. But I think the bit that people often miss out is the inspirational bit.

Steve Rush: I agree.

Andrew Selley: It's got to be something that engages people's emotions and makes them want to contribute and makes them want to do that extra minute or extra mile and make that extra effort. So having something that engages people's emotions rather than just something that they intellectually understand, I think is important. So that's the whole bit around inspirational vision and values of what the business stands for.

Steve Rush: What I've found in having worked with lots of different clients and businesses, where they spend quite a little bit of time on the vision. They miss that inspirational bit, which is dead easy to say, but to create the emotional connection that helps people move from one place to another is a bit challenging than people perceive. What's been your experience of that kind of shift between just having a vision and making it inspirational?

Andrew Selley: Yeah. I think the point that I do make in the book is, yeah, the worst thing that can happen is that, you know, the leadership team go off into a little huddle and come back to the business and say, Hey, here's the vision. And they stick a few posters up around the business and that's it, you know, you really have to live and breathe the vision because the more you can involve your team or the business in creating that the better, I think. So, when we created our values, for example, myBidfood, you know, we had about 50 different listening groups across the business, you know, speaking to all people in all parts of the country at all levels to really understand what they thought was the essence of working at Bidfood and what the true values were.

And then we were able to distill that and basically play it back to people. So, they were all felt involved in that. And therefore, you're giving them something that they've already been engaged in rather than just trying to sell them something that you've thought of. But I do think it's about people underestimate how much you have to keep reinforcing the vision because clearly people come and go within the business. So yeah, somebody who might've started a couple of months ago, it was never heard the vision. So, if you're not constantly repeating it and engaging people and explaining it, then it gradually dilutes its effectiveness. But also, you know, you think everyone lives and breath it like you do, but they don't, you know, most people are working because they want to have a job, get paid, do well for their family, get on with other things in life.

And you know, they're not thinking and living and breathing the business necessarily like you are every day. So, you have to find a way of constantly refreshing it and explaining it and engaging with people on the vision and on the values. And yeah, that's something that we would do all the time within Bidfood is, anytime we put out a piece of communication, we always try and relate it to a value or the vision or something, and just reference that back. So, people can always sort of make that link back to, oh, yes, I understand what this is talking about because it's this part of the vision or it's that value or whatever, but you really do just have to keep banging on about it I’m afraid for want of a better phrase, you know, because, you know, you're the evangelist, you're the one who's meant to be having that passion and injecting that passion into the business. And if you don't then no one else's is.

Steve Rush: That’s right. And of course, they look to leadership to make sure that congruent with all those messages. So, there's constant points or nudges to activity that you're completing as a business and how it links back to that vision is incredibly powerful.

Andrew Selley: Absolutely. Again, talk about that in the book and that's quite often where things break down, because if your actions don't back up your words, then people will not listen to your words. So, if you say, you know, we value people within this business, but then there's somebody who completely disregards the people who work for them, but because they're doing a good job, you just sort of ignore it. And you know, you don't want to lose them as a performer, so you ignore their deficiencies in the way that they value and deal with people. As you say, there's no congruency between what you're saying and what you're doing. So, it's really important that your actions back up your vision and your values, otherwise there's its points.

Steve Rush: And it's no surprise that G in your model is galvanized into action?

Andrew Selley: Indeed, indeed. So galvanized into action. You've got to walk the talk as they say. And I think the other really important thing is, you've got to just get going. I think too many people spend too much time planning and tweaking and trying to get to what they think is the perfect model of what they're trying to do. But you know that as soon as you engage with an employee or a customer or a supplier, that model is going to change anyway. So, you might as well just get going, get on with it and then tweak it as you go, but really about, you know, as you say, galvanizing and motivating people at all levels and all different cultures, et cetera, within the business. So that's sort of the key part, because if you've got the vision, but nobody's doing anything, then you're not going anywhere.

Steve Rush: And there’s a nice build to end, which is nurture. So, you kind of set your vision, you’ve got people galvanized into action, and then it’s around nurturing that talent and the activity forward, right?

Andrew Selley: Yeah. And nurturing the team effectively because, you know, unless you are a small business, you know, you’re going to have people working for you and you’re going to have people through whom you need to deliver results. And the only way you can deliver the results that you want is by investing your time into nurturing and caring for your team, making sure they’ve got the right skills, making sure they’re happy and motivated, making sure that they understand the, you know, the vision and the journey that you’re on and the role that they play within that, and making sure that they understand what you expect of them in terms of the way they manage their teams or engage with their customers or whatever. So, yeah, certainly as you know, you know, in my role as CEO, then obviously a lot of my time is just spent around the team. Because obviously I’m not delivering those goods to the customer. You know, ultimately, we’ve got thousands of drivers and warehouse guys who are doing that work. So, it’s all about how you communicate and nurture the team to flow down through the business.

Steve Rush: Indeed. Now what was really interesting when I looked at I, which increased everything. I looked at it for a moment and I read through your chapter in the book. And as I finished reading it, I recognized that unconsciously, this has been what I’ve been doing through transformation, but you’ve taken that kind of whole higher level of focus, activity and energy and applied it in a B.A.U. sense to get people to think differently about what they’re doing. Tell us a little bit about that?

Andrew Selley: Increase everything is probably the most tenuous one in the acronym to be honest with you. It’s about the whole sort of, yeah. The 10X approach, the type of approach that the likes of Grant Cardone, et cetera, would sort of support insofar as you know, the rule that, he would say is, you know, in any situation you’ve got four options. You can retreat. In which case you’re going to go backwards. You can do nothing. In which case you can to go backwards because other people will be doing something. You can take what would be the normal amount of action in that situation, which may have some results, or you can take massive action. And generally speaking, if you’re taking massive action in those situations, you’re going to be outperforming the competition. And the key for me is that, is that very often we launch something or we launch a project.

And I think certainly my tendency is I always look at the things that aren’t quite working well. Those two things are working well over there, but these two things here, aren’t working as well as we hoped. And you sort of focus your attention on the things that aren’t working as well, and you sort of increase your, maybe your investment or your focus on those areas to improve them. But you should also not forget where you’ve got areas that are working better than you thought you’ve got to be increasing your focus on those areas as well, because you know, you’ve got some momentum, you’ve got some traction. So actually, you could double down on that and get even further ahead. But I think generally speaking, we often, well, there’s two things happen. Either we focus on the weak areas and then we’re not maximizing the strong areas or we go, actually these two areas are working, that’s great. These two areas aren’t so we’ll get rid of them. And you know, very often people sort of stop investment in projects too soon when they probably could have made them work, if they’d had increased the investment and the focus on them, or they aren’t investing enough in the areas they’re doing well. So, it’s a mixture, so depending on which way, your natural balances is, where you’re always focusing on the good things, are always focusing on the things that aren’t working. The messages you should really be focusing on both.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Andrew Selley: All the time. At some point you need to cut your losses and go, okay, I’ve really tried with this and it isn’t working. And so, yeah, cut it. But yeah, not before you’ve given it a full effort and a full focus.

Steve Rush: I also noticed that within this part of the book, there’s a bit about mindset here as well about how people will routinely do what they’ve just always done. If you don’t really shift the energy and focus forward.

Andrew Selley: Yes. And I think, and that’s not a criticism, that’s a fact of life, I think.

Steve Rush: It naturally we entrenched to what we’re comfortable doing, don’t we?

Andrew Selley: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. When I took over in my current role, the business had been performing reasonably well. They’d been growing at 3 to 5% in terms of bottom line for the last three or five years. And yeah, therefore when I was challenging people to say, you know, what do you think we can achieve in the next five years? People would go, wow, maybe 20%, 25%, you know, thinking of that would be a little bit of a stretch. So, I just said, no, we’re going to triple the profit. That’s the fact that we will be set out to do was increased by 300% over the next five years. Unfortunately, the last year was the one that’s just gone, but we were on track to, we wouldn’t quite triple, but we were a long way north of 25%. So, I think it’s about.

Steve Rush: There is a massive lesson, isn’t there?

Andrew Selley: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: So much as had you not had that approach from the outset, then it wouldn’t have allowed you to ride the storm as well?

Andrew Selley: No.

Steve Rush: Without that in the bag, so to speak.

Andrew Selley: But I also think you have to do it credibly. So, I didn’t just go, Hey, you know, we’re going to go from 3% to 300%, you know, you had to lay out some milestones, which we talk about in the communication chapter. You have to lay out some credible milestones that say, actually, if we do this, and if we do that, and if we do the other, then you can paint a path as to how you can get there. Not that it’s easy, but at least it’s feasible. And if people apply themselves and stretch themselves.

Steve Rush: Yeah. And your communication chapter, you call, tell, tell, tell, which is the T in your model.

Andrew Selley: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And there’s a theme actually across all of the different layers of your business that is really consistent around that never stopped communicating. Tell us a little bit about that?

Andrew Selley: Well, I it’s just the one thing that you can never overdo is communication, obviously. You know, we have a challenge in our business where we’re, multi-site, 25 plus sites around the country, multi-cultural in terms of the different locations of those sites and you know, different job roles within that. Everything from, you know, cleaner through to warehouse, through to driver, through to telesales, to sales professionals, to national sales professionals, accountants, I.T., marketing, digital. Yeah, we’ve got the whole spectrum of employees and ages and cultures. And you have to find a way to communicate your message to all of those people in a way that suits them. And I think that’s the key in communication is, you have to communicate in a way that suits the recipient, not in a way that suits you as the deliverer. So, I think the point I make, for example, as you know, we have teams who work in the freezer, you know, in our warehouses. So, they’re working at like minus 20 degrees every day. And you know, it doesn’t really work if you say, Hey, you know, come into the office and sit down for half an hour. Because they’re frankly not used to being that warm. And I usually not off in about five minutes and you know, if you’re doing it during that day, they’re actually looking at you going well, actually you’re taking up my time when I should be working. And I know I’m going to have to work twice as hard when I get back into the warehouse to finish the job. So, it’s the wrong environment. It’s creating the wrong situation, because they’re not really listening. They’re thinking about what they’ve got to do when they finished, et cetera.

And so, you’ve really got to think about, you know, in that instance, I’ve got to communicate to this team, actually, I’m just going to do it down in the warehouse, maybe not in the freezer, because that’s a bit cold. Down in the warehouse in an environment that they’re used to, I’m going to bring them in early and pay them for their time. So that they’re not feeling that I’m impinging on their time. I’m actually creating space and they know it’s important. And maybe we’ll lay on that with some coffee and bacon sandwiches or something, again, it’s just those little things completely then change the environment that those people are listening to what you’re saying. So regardless of the message, yeah. You’ve completely changed the way that they’re listening to you. They’re listening to you with a way that says, okay, it must be important. They bought me in, they paying me. They’re not impinging on my time; I got a cup of coffee and a bacon sandwich, fantastic. Yeah, that whole attitude is different in a way they’re receiving the message. And then obviously it’s going to be very different for, you know, your digital team in the office or your sales team out on the road. You’ve got to find the right way to communicate, again to the right teams in the right place. So again, it’s just to me something you can never, never overdo

Steve Rush: And particularly in a pandemic, of course, when you’re in a crisis, my experience tells me that more communication, regular communication is exactly what people need, not less, but again, ironically in many businesses and in many teams, the leaders under duress and pressure forget the importance of that regular communication and indeed listening of course, which is part of that communication process, isn’t it?

Andrew Selley: Yes, absolutely. And we started probably from like the week after lockdown. So, after the week after our business had declined by 70%, we started doing daily communication. So, which has was quite a challenge, to be honest, daily emails, memos, whatever either people can receive or they can be briefed out in their workplace. You know, just to say to people, you know, this is a situation, trying to be honest, you know, this is what’s happened with the volume. Clearly this is what’s happening with whatever government support is coming in. And what we’re going to take advantage of. This is what we’re doing, yeah. This is to keep you all safe in the workplace. Because obviously we still had, as I say, sort of, you know, 30% of the business going through, so we’re still got to operate all the depots. So, this is what we’re doing from a health and safety point of view and just that regular daily communication, which we probably carried on for like four months. And then maybe reduced it to like twice a week or weekly, et cetera, as things changed was really important. I think in making sure that people understood what was happening

Steve Rush: In the absence of that communication, what typically happens is folks make up their own stories and then they’re either right or wrong and usually they’re wrong because they haven’t got all the insight and information. And that can be really quite toxic too an organization, can’t they?

Andrew Selley: I mean, as they say, you know, people will fill a vacuum if you’re not putting the information out there, as you say, people will assume their own.

Steve Rush: Last E is embed and it makes loads of sense that you would want to embed all of these things. But tell us what that really means to you?

Andrew Selley: I think as a leader, you’ve got to have almost like a pipeline of initiatives that are coming through the business. And clearly you generally focusing on one at a time, but as you’ve communicated your new initiative or new strategy or new category that you’re working on or whatever, and you’ve been through the process of explaining and communicating, getting everybody on board, getting the team involved, communicating to everybody, how it fits into the strategy, et cetera. At some point, you’ve got to embed that into the business and have that as business as usual. Otherwise, you can’t release your time to bring through the next initiative. So, I think very often you that’s where you get sort of CEO or MD or whatever overload where they’re trying to spin all these plates.

Steve Rush: Right.

Andrew Selley: Because they haven’t got the way of actually saying, okay, this is now part of what we do. And then let it go, and hopefully if you develop your team and communicate effectively and whatever, then you can embed that to the business as usual. So, so maybe you should be like 70% working on the current initiative and then maybe 30% on the next one that you bring through. And then as you embed that current initiative into business, as usual, you can switch the 30% on the second one into 70% and then start to bring another new one through.

Steve Rush: I like that.

Andrew Selley: But I do believe you’ve always got to have that, I think the chapter I put the end, which didn’t fit into the acronym was.

Both Speakers: Never stopped.

Andrew Selley: Because you just can’t stop because if you stop, you’re going to go backwards. So, you’ve always got to have that sort of a pipeline or conveyor belt of ideas and strategies and whatever because fact of life is not everything’s going to work as well. So, you can’t bet the house on one initiative and find out it doesn’t work. You’ve got to have a pipeline coming through. And then that means you’re going to have to embed them, which means integrate them into the business and then optimize the performance as you go on

Steve Rush: And then go again and again and again. And which is why you’ve been around in the industry you’ve been in for so long and had such great experience in doing so. Given that you were pulling together your book over the course of the last year and whilst it’s called Ignite Your Business, it could be ignite yourself, ignite your team, ignite your department. It’s a model that you can take across lots of different teams and situations, but how did that play out for you during the pandemic? Was there a particular moment when you thought, gosh, that’s definitely a bit of focus for G or that’s definitely a bit more of I?

Andrew Selley: Yes. I think the really pleasing thing for us during the pandemic was that the things that I’ve talked about in terms of the way that the values had been created with involvement from everyone in the business. Yeah, the pandemic showed that they were real and they were the way that people conducted themselves rather than just a poster on the wall. So, we only have three and they rhyme. So that’s really helpful. So, it’s care, share and dare. And so, care is take pride in what you do, no matter what you do. Share is work together to achieve great results and dare is take brave steps to deliver exceptional results. So, care obviously came to the fore during joined the pandemic because yeah, we needed to make sure that we were caring both for the teams that were still in the business and we’re working hard and under stressful conditions.

But also, you know, at the peak, we probably had 60% of the workforce on furlough and at home, which brings its own challenges from mental health and wellbeing perspective. I think share and dare really came through in the way that we realigned our business. So, we actually went with our major competitor and worked on a sort of food relief program for the government. So, there was about one or half a million people who were stuck at home, who couldn’t physically get out of the house because they weren’t allowed to because they were clinically vulnerable and they didn’t have family support to help them in terms of shopping, et cetera. And so, with our major competitor, we set up a sort of nationwide home delivery service to half a million people in seven days and got that product procured. Because it wasn’t the sort of the normal product that we would sell.

We were procuring, packing and distributing that product within seven days. And to do that with the people who were normally, you know, toe to toe in the streets when we were in the restaurants was amazing, but it was actually done because we both had that vision of here’s a group of people who need our help, let’s come together and sort this out rather than thinking about, you know, the old competitive elements. And I think it was described as the biggest food relief efforts since world war II. So, it was clearly quite a big thing, but really again, that’s the whole share and dare, you know, doing something really quite different and working together with our competitor to deliver something that was important. But again, really showed to me how having that shared vision, even in a wider team that now enrolled was your competitors still works because it actually went like a dream, you know, because we were all just focused on the end goal.

Steve Rush: It’s a fantastic achievement and congratulations, I think it is an amazing feat to have had to pull it off in such a short space of time. And I just wonder, as you were sharing that, has that reduced that competitive edge? Is there more synergies that exist as a result of that now?

Andrew Selley: No.

Steve Rush: So, it’s kind of gloves back on then, it’s kind of back into the corners.

Andrew Selley: Yeah, I mean. There’s sort of only, sort of two main national players in the marketplace. So, there’s lots of local players on a local basis. We compete with a lot more companies, but for the big national accounts, we tend to just complete with one. So yeah, it’s business as usual, but I think, you know, clearly, you’ve got a higher level of respect and understanding, but at the end of the day, we’re now back focused on our own businesses and our own shareholders.

Steve Rush: Brilliant. So, this part of the show, Andrew, we get to turn that leadership lens on you and I’m getting an opportunity to hack into your experience of leading teams and businesses to goes, to find out what your top three leadership hacks might be?

Andrew Selley: Okay. I think the first one is really important for leadership and for life I would say is that you really do need to know yourself. You need to know who you are and what you stand for, what are your red lines in terms of what you will do and won’t do et cetera. And I think you really need to be comfortable with yourself and like yourself, because, you know, you can’t really create a culture and create a business or even being in a relationship until you really understand who you are and you’re happy and comfortable in your skin. And the more that you do then the easier it is to, I think, adapt to situations because you know, where you stand around different things. So, and I think that’s really important. And I think that we’re very often influenced by other people and what other people think and what other people say and what strong characters may say and what people who we respect and the buyer may say. But you’ve always got to sort of center back into your true north and your compass to say, does that align with I want to do and what I stand for? So, I think that’s really important.

Steve Rush: True.

Andrew Selley: What I’ve always found really good. And one of the best, you know, I’ve said I’ve read some business books that were boring. You know, one of the best books I’ve ever read was 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. And you know, it’s a great book when something just sticks with you forever. And the thing that’s always stuck with me from that book was around the sort of the time planning quadrant whereby you’ve got the two axes, one of which is not important up to important. And one of which is urgent or not urgent up to urgent.

And it’s really about how you categorize your to-do list into those four quadrants. So, you know, if it’s not important and not urgent, then actually you shouldn’t really be doing it, delete it or delegate it. If it’s urgent, but not important. It’s basically a time-waster that snuck onto your agenda. And again, you need to get rid of it or delegate it, obviously, if it’s urgent and important, you just need to get on with it. But the area that gets neglected is the important, but not urgent things. And those are the things that tend to be neglected if you’re wasting your time on those other areas. So that’s the area where things like vision and values and team development and strategy are going to sit in that, yeah, they’re really important, but they’re not urgent. So, you really need to manage your time to make sure you’ve got time to spend on those, not urgent, but very important things, so that will be my second point I would say.

And I think again, the other one to me is a life attitude is always talk to everybody and always find out everything. So, you know, you’ll find out more talking to the guys around the back of the warehouse or in the smoking shelter or the cleaner or the tele sales operator than you will, by speaking to the leaders, you know, you’ll find out what’s really happening rather than what people want you to hear. And, you know, I think always talk to everybody about everything. Even if you asking two different people, the same question, you know, if you’re getting different answers, then you’ll an inkling that things aren’t in alignment. So, and I think it’s really important as well for leaders to be seen, to be communicating and engaging with everybody in the business.

Steve Rush: Yeah. I love that. Super stuff, great advice. Thank you. So, the next part of the show we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something you need in your life or work hasn’t worked out, but as a result, you now are using it as a positive, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Andrew Selley: I think without overdoing the attacks, my Hack to Attack would be to attack every situation. And I do think obviously what hasn’t worked out for us in the last year has been the pandemic. And, you know, in any situation where you’re faced with a challenge, some people are going to hesitate because, you know, I think, you know, when there’s a real shock to the system, a lot of people will hesitate and evaluate and try and understand all of the implications of the situation. And I think if you attack in that situation, you just get on and do something, then that’s going to be your opportunity. So, like I say, we had a real hit to the business and the volume crashed, but we sort of proactively got that contract with our competitor by pushing for it. And then off the back of that, you know, we’ve developed, you know, a direct to consumer offering as well as a business-to-business offering. So, we’ve sort of adapted that skill set to actually say, well, actually, is there a demand for, you know, catering quality, restaurant quality products direct to the consumer? Clearly our pack sizes are a bigger than normal, et cetera, but for a monthly shop or for family events or whatever, there’s an opportunity there. So, we’ve taken that by sort of attacking the situation, we’ve developed another opportunity. So, I think my hack would be attack when others are hesitating and then you’re always going to be at an advantage, I think.

Steve Rush: Brilliant. And you only find out by doing of course.

Andrew Selley: Indeed.

Steve Rush: Yeah. So, the last bit of our show with you today is to get to do a bit of time travel and you get to bump into Andrew 21, give him some advice. What would you be?

Andrew Selley: I think it would be back to the point that I made, because if I looked back to myself at 21. I probably did take too much account of what other people were thinking and saying, which to a certain extent, I think it is natural, you know, in terms of, you know, the less confident you are in yourself the more you may adapt your behavior to others. But my message to myself would be, you know, again, know yourself, understand yourself, know what you stand for, and don’t be afraid to stand up for what you stand for. And I think that will put you in a fantastic position for the rest of your life, as well as the rest of your career.

Steve Rush: Yeah, great advice. Andrew, listen, it’s been a really pleasure speaking with you.

Andrew Selley: Thank you.

Steve Rush: I thoroughly enjoyed reading your book. I’m delighted that we’re connected through this great medium through podcasting. And if our folks listening to this wanted to find out how they can get a copy of Ignite Your Business and indeed connect with you, what’s the best place for us to send them?

Andrew Selley: Yeah. Well, if they’re in Europe, they go to www.igniteyourbusiness.biz, you can order the book there. If you’re elsewhere in the world, U.S. or overseas, then it’s probably best to go on Amazon and order it. And obviously it’s available on Kindle on Amazon as well.

Steve Rush: And you’re also active on LinkedIn. So, we’ll make sure that we connect you through that medium. And all of those links will be in our show notes as well.

Andrew Selley: Yes, absolutely. And if people want to contact me again, they can go through the website or email me at andrew@igniteyourbusiness.biz. Because I do have some very limited availability for mentoring or coaching of some leaders. If that’s of interest to anybody so.

Steve Rush: Brilliant.

Andrew Selley: Please get in touch.

Steve Rush: We’d love to make that connection happen. Once again, thanks Andrew for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast, it’s been a real pleasure.

Andrew Selley: No, thank you. I’ve really enjoyed it.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Dr. Erik Korem was the first sport scientist in the U.S. and has led the way in which sports and science has improved performance. Having coached Gold Medal Olympians and NFL superstars, he is now the Founder and the CEO of AIM7. You can learn the hacks of high performance including:

The relationship of sports performance to business performance
What high performance is and how to achieve it
High performance is available for everyone not just elite sports people
How short term stress can be a good thing!

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Erik below:

Erik on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erik-korem-phd-19991734/

AIM7 Website: https://www.aim7.com

Erik on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ErikKorem

Erik on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erikkorem/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

I'm excited to be joined by human performance rock star today, Dr. Erik Kareem. Was the first sport scientist in the U.S. and has led the way in which sports and science has improved performance. He is now the founder and the CEO of a groundbreaking business AIM7. But before we get a chance to speak with Eric, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: The use of sports phrases in business is nothing new. Whether you have a “game plan” or you're “pitching” to a client, or you may “drop the ball”, sports lingo pops up every day and more useful than these simple idioms has been the motivational wisdom shared by great sports coaches over the years. Just scan YouTube for motivational speeches, and there's a mixture of sports stars and business leaders, all sharing their advice using sports language. “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary,” which was a great quote by Vince Lombardi.

Lombardi was first truly great sports coach to be thought of in a leadership sense in this way. The hugely successful Green Bay Packers sports coach of the 1960s American football team, revolutionized what it was like to be a coach of a sports team. He was capable of gems, such as. “Individual commitment to a group effort is what makes it teamwork, a company work, a society work, but also a civilization work,” and “leaders aren't born, they are made and they're made just like anything else through hard work and determination.” It was very much about the greater good of a team. It was almost a form of sports socialism. And without that, he felt that you just had a group of people doing their own thing. The challenge of business and sport to get a team working together smoothly, often needs a whole range of skills. Skip forward to Premier League soccer or football, depending on where you're listening to this from. Alex Ferguson, or now Sir Alex Ferguson had over 38 years in management and he was a working-class Scotsman who won an astonishing 49 trophies who helped grow the Manchester United team to become one of the world's biggest brands. And interestingly, he often credits the work because of the shipyards in Glasgow where he grew up, as the inspiration for the foundations of teamwork that he strives for. So, in researching this subject, I pulled the top five threads that came to the fore from the various sports coaches and leaders.

Number one, teamwork, communication and self-discipline are the cornerstones of team success. Number two, perfection never happens. Be obsessed with improving instead. Number three, failure usually comes before success, so reframe it. So, you only win or you only learn. Number four, accept what you cannot control and focus on what you can affect. And number five, teams need diversity. Encourage diverse personalities. Everyone has a different skill and a different role to play.

And I guess the final word goes to John Calipari, the incredible University Basketball coach in the United States, and he states, “Leadership is about serving everyone under you and asking yourself, how do I give everybody the tools that they need for them to succeed and for them to proceed?” It's a great lesson to take into business, and there are plenty of others. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any insights, information or stories, please get in touch with us.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on show today is a groundbreaking special guest. He's a high-performance expert. Dr. Erik Korem is the founder and CEO of AIM7. He was the first sports scientist in the United States and has worked with the NFL, and numerous Olympians along the way. He's now also the host of The BluePrint Podcast. Erik, my friend, welcome to the show.

Dr. Erik Korem: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Steve Rush: So, you have a really interesting story that got you hooked into fitness, wellbeing and the studying the science behind it. And I just wondered if you might be able to share that story with our guests.

Dr. Erik Korem: Yeah, absolutely. So, I grew up in Dallas, Texas, and I was an overweight kid and I was frequently picked on and something I really struggled with as a child and it got me thinking a lot and really kind of obsessed with like, how can I improve my body? There are some, you know, certain genetic factors I was fighting. I was kind of a top-heavy kid. And I was just really interested in like, how can I get better? And really the story goes, I was watching late night, one night, I was probably like 10 o'clock with my dad. There was this group of gentlemen on TV. They were called the power team. You ever seen these people on TV that like Bend bars in their mouths and they break bats and stuff.

Steve Rush: Strongest men competition.

Dr. Erik Korem: Exactly, and one of the gentlemen got up and he starts telling this story and he said, you know, when I was a kid, I was overweight and slow. And he said, I was always the last one to finish whatever we had a race or fitness test. And he said, one day I decided that I was never going to be last again. And that was like my story to the T. And I looked at my dad and I said, I'm never going to be last again. And I wasn't, and not that it was easy, but I started. By the time I was like, I don’t know, six or seven grade, I was getting my dad to take me to bookstores. And I was just reading books on how to get faster. It wasn't so much like how to lose weight. It was like, how can I be faster? How can I improve my athletic performance? Because I played baseball. I played a bunch of different sports and as my body started to grow and mature, I started to become a pretty decent athlete, but I was hooked. I was always looking for a way to improve myself.

Steve Rush: It's a really interesting, bit of psychology. I want to unpack that with you, if you don't mind. So many youngsters at that time would have literally just gone out and started jogging or running, joined a club, would have maybe started losing weight. Yet you took to the discipline of studying what was going on first. Did you notice that was something that was a conscious act for you at the time?

Dr. Erik Korem: Well, my dad is an investigative journalist. And so, I guess the thing that he always instilled in us is like to seek the truth. It's like you have to do research. I don't think it was conscious at the time, but I figured, well, there's got to be some books on this. And ironically, I went to Barnes & Noble bookstore and I found this book called Sports Speed. And it was written by Dr. Bob Ward who was the first, I mean, he was a strength conditioning coach in the NFL, which did not really exist. Tom Landry, the Dallas Cowboys hired him. And they were doing all sorts of amazing scientific things with the athletes. This is back in like the seventies and I sort of reading this and it was actually a really good text to read for anybody. And so, I started actually doing things that were really good for me. I kind of got lucky that I didn't read some crazy, you know, muscle fitness magazine, because that didn't appeal to me. It was more like, how can I do something that's really going to transfer into something that I love, which was playing sports. So, I was always seeking and I was hungry and thirsty for knowledge. And that I guess luster or thirst for knowledge never really left me.

Steve Rush: What was a moment that you noticed that your studies versus your application of that study into your fitness and wellbeing. What was that kind of key, pivotal moment that you'd noticed it was definitely making a difference for you?

Dr. Erik Korem: Yeah. I think it was high school. I wanted to get faster. So, I was like every day after everybody was done working out, I would go out to the track and I would do track and field drills, which is so ironic because I never knew that I would end up working in professional track and field, but I was doing rudiment drills, different plyometric exercises. And then when that off season ended, and then we started going to the summer program, I just noticed I was moving so much better on the field. And I noticed my mobility was better and my athleticism was improving. And that was kind of like, okay, things are starting to translate. I also think, you know, puberty was in full effect and so it's easier to adapt during that time, but that's really, I think when it first started clicking that, Hey, what I'm doing is really impacting my performance

Steve Rush: And over this has become a real passion for you. And I know that you've dedicated your life and your work to this as a career. And we're going to about how that's pivoted in the moment to the world of AIM7, which is the film that you now lead. But before that, perhaps we could just think about what was it then that caused you to focus this as a career and help others along the way?

Dr. Erik Korem: Yeah. So, I went to Texas A&M University, which is a big school here in the states and I was playing football and I was actually a biomedical science major because I thought I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon. And there was a physiology lab attached to our training facility. And I would see people wearing these masks and they were doing like gas exchange tests and all sorts of things. And I went to our head strength, conditioning coach, and I said, Hey, what is going on here? And he said, you know, there's a real science to this. It's not just lifting weights. And I was like, yeah, I kind of know that. And he goes, I mean, there's like a real deep science. And so, I ended up changing my major and I absolutely got hooked. When I finished playing football, I went to The University of Arkansas and studied physiology and exercise science. And I was working as a graduate assistant in the weight room. I think over those two years, I think I read thousands of texts and just whatever I could get my hands on. Now I had like, you know, libraries of information. And then I actually had human beings that I could work with and test things on. And it just clicked and I absolutely loved it. And there was nothing like coming up with an idea for a specific sport, deconstructing the sport, applying it and seeing what happened. And then when the athletes had success, you know, it was just so rewarding.

Steve Rush: You then started working with the NFL, a number of different Olympians and help them with the whole notion of tracking their intake as well as their outputs. Tell us a bit about that journey?

Dr. Erik Korem: Yeah. So, when I was actually at the University of Arkansas, one day, I was in the weight room and this coach walked in and he's like, Hey, would you be interested in training these athletes? And these were world-class sprinters. One of them was Veronica Campbell Brown, and she's an eight-time Olympic medalist, three-time Olympic gold medalist, one of two women in the history of the Olympics to ever win the 200-meter gold twice back-to-back. And I was fortunate to go travel the world with her and see how the rest of the world was trading athletes. And that just really opened my eyes because in the states at the time, you know, we have a problem here in the United States. We have way too many good athletes. And so, when you have an abundant resource, it's not like you're looking for the absolute best way to train and develop them because you got so many of them, and so countries like Australia and in the UK later on, really ramped it up and we're investing money, government money into developing athletes.

And so, I went to Australia and I spent a month with an Aussie rules football team. This is back in 2011 because I wanted to learn about the emerging world of sports science and high performance. And I came back and I was working at one of the top football programs in America at the time, Florida State. And I went to our head football coach and said, Hey, I think there's something we can apply. It's called athlete tracking technology. And what it is, it's like a little tracking device that are connected GPS satellites, and that accelerometers and gyroscopes, and they can connect to heart rate. Essentially you can quantify what's happening on the field. So, imagine like you drove your car, your entire life with no dashboard and no GPS. You don't know how far you went, the stress on the engine, if your oil is low.

Well, now we could quantify the game of football and it allowed us to train our athletes more specific to the demands of the game. And then we were able to change some of the ways that we practice to reduce injuries. From the 2011 season to the 2012 season. We had almost a 90% reduction in injury.

Steve Rush: That's amazing.

Dr. Erik Korem: Yeah, and our team went on to win a championship. Well, the media started picking up and the NFL flew in and they're like, Hey, what are you guys doing here? Like what is happening? Like what is this tracking technology? And it really just blew up and expanded to almost every major college program in the country uses it. Now the NFL has adopted a version of it. It's led to things like Next Gen Stats. And so, my career changed, I went from being just a strength coach to more of a sports scientist and then something called a high-performance coordinator where I would look at the big picture of what was going on, the physical, the psychological, the technical, and the tactical components of sport and bring them together to help us win. But this came from looking at things from a system-wide view instead of just looking at one particular part.

Steve Rush: It was absolutely groundbreaking, wasn't it, that time? It really changed the way that sports interacted with science too.

Dr. Erik Korem: Yes, it did. And it just makes sense. If you look at any other industry, people are looking for advantages. They want to understand everything to the greatest resolution that they can. And in sport, it just hadn't quite been done yet because it's kind of an old school mentality of, well, we won at this point in time, but we were doing this. So, we're just going to repeat that, well, that's not very wise. And we start applying some scientific methodology to things, you can ask really good questions, and then you can see if your hypothesis is correct or not. And it allows you to innovate at a faster speed.

Steve Rush: Amazing stuff, and delighted that we have the opportunity for you to share that here too. So, a massive congratulations, but also, I guess the learning and the lessons that you've taken from your sports and scientific career has led you to lead and found AIM7, right now. Tell us a little bit about work you're doing with them?

Dr. Erik Korem: Thank you. Yeah, so when we first started using athlete tracking technologies, we had a ton of data and no idea what to do with it. I literally hired a former NASA propulsion engineer because we had so much information and I'll never forget this. After our first practice, we had these tracking devices on the athletes. I went into the head football coach. I was like, Hey, here's the report? And it was just a sheet of numbers essentially. And he looked at it, he goes well, was practice hard? And I looked at him. I was like, I think so. And he got really upset and I went back to my office and I'm sitting there. I'm like, what did I do wrong? And I realized that I'd given him a bunch of data, that he had no idea how to use. And so that's when it really hit me, that data without insight is useless.

And so fast forward, about eight, nine years, I started looking at the wearable technology, the consumer market and like, okay, we got all these Fitbits and Apple Watches. I wonder if the same thing exists, you got all this data, but people don't know what to do with like, okay, so what I walked 10,000 steps or slept seven hours. So, I started doing research and I found that the number one complaint was people literally said their data was useless. And so, without insight to change behavior, their Fitbit or Apple Watch or whatever would just end up on the sock drawer. So, I went and tested it like a scientist. I called up a buddy of mine and we're like, okay, let's see if we can link tech data from an apple watch to health outcomes. And ironically, we asked people, what is it that you really want from your data?

And they said, we want more energy, makes a lot of sense. Look at coffee and people buying Starbucks, billion-dollar industries, right. For energy. And not only were we able to predict people's energy, we could predict their energy and mood states multiple days in advance. So, what we've built is a company called AIM7 and we take data from this wearable technology and we pair it with the best in the world in the fields of high performance. And we create very simple solutions for you using your data to improve things like your energy, sleep, stress and weight loss. So, we take this data, we pair it with, you know, amazing information using something called a Decision Intelligence Infrastructure, and we can deliver custom health wellbeing programs at scale to millions of people.

Steve Rush: It's an incredibly exciting venture.

Dr. Erik Korem: That you.

Steve Rush: And one, if you think about your game-changing background, I think genuinely this could be really game changing for everybody else to tap into their own high-performance. And from the last time you and I met, I remember you describing almost like a weather forecast, but for you and your fitness, your wellbeing and your mood.

Dr. Erik Korem: Exactly.

Steve Rush: You can always fast forward couldn't you and say, well, you know, next Thursday, I'm due to be having really low mood because of what I know, therefore I might decide to work from home on that day and maybe go to the gym or take some interventions that will help me improve my mood in a safe environment, right?

Dr. Erik Korem: 100%. So, we're starting people on their journey with 16-week programs, because what I've found is, people like to be coached. So, we're going to teach them all the mechanisms that they need to know and understand to help them be more robust and adaptable. And then at the end of that journey, we become like their personal coach forever. So, you'd come into our system every day on the app, fill out what we call a calibration for like 15 seconds. And then it would be like, Steve, based off of all the things in your lifestyle that you like to do, this is where we see you right now. Here's the best actions you could take today so that you continue to feel and perform at your best because our target audience is people that care about their health and wellbeing, but they're time poor. You don't have tons of time to spend on this. And so, they want a simple solution that's targeted for them,

Steve Rush: I guess it's time, but it's also Know-how poor, isn't it?

Dr. Erik Korem: Yes.

Steve Rush: I'm sitting at my desk thinking, Gosh, I feel really quite tired, yeah. I'll get another coffee, which actually is just going to mask the underlying cause to what's really making me feel a little bit down. Having some data and some tactics available as could physically lift me without any other false intervention.

Dr. Erik Korem: I love that. Yeah. You pulled that one out. That's a great.

Steve Rush: If you think about the world of business that we're in, then, you know, I can improve my inter-day performance just by being more aware.

Dr. Erik Korem: 100%.

Steve Rush: I'd love it.

Dr. Erik Korem: If you can get 10%, 15% more out of yourself without draining the tank all the time. I mean, it's a game changer for people.

Steve Rush: So, let's get into the notion of high-performance because it's banded around a lot. We hear it in sports, you hear it in business, but how would you describe what high performance is?

Dr. Erik Korem: Yeah. So, in sport, I had this definition that I always use, when I would talk to people, I would say our goal is to develop the most resilient and adaptable athletes that can consistently obtain their performance potential. So, in any endeavor, let's just take athletics to start with. The athlete that can train the most and harness their skill and practice or skill and refine it the most under pressure has the best chance of winning. And to do that, you have to train a lot, but you can get over-trained and burned out rather quickly. And so, the key thing is the ability to be adaptable. And if you translate this to high performance in any industry, it's your ability to adapt, to achieve your potential. And the only way you can do that is you have to lean into stress. And so, stress, you know, we need to kind of reframe our mindset around stress. The last year has been really stressful for everybody in the world, but stress isn't a bad thing. It's actually the required thing to change your brain, to learn a new skill, to change physically. The key is you have to use that stress and then you have to be able to adapt to it, to improve. And so that's what high performance to me is, is the ability to adapt rapidly so that you can achieve your potential.

Steve Rush: And it's an interesting notion too, isn't it? The whole philosophy of you got to lean into stress because most of us will actually want to avoid it. Because it doesn't feel good.

Dr. Erik Korem: Right?

Steve Rush: How do you might do that?

Dr. Erik Korem: Well, we have to reframe what it is. First of all, like stress is not a bad thing. Short-Term stress, now long-term stress from certain things can be really, you know, harmful to the body, but like being uncomfortable, like imagine this, like if you want to sit down and learn something really difficult, right? Let's say you're trying to learn a new language or you're having to upskill yourself for work. And you sit down to engage in that. They're feelings of irritability, there's tension. And you're like, ah, this is not comfortable. That is exactly how your body responds to stress so that you can learn. So, here's what happens. When you have to bring your attention to something very difficult, you have to bring focus to it. So, the pathway to adapting to stress is through focus.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Erik Korem: So, focus is like a diffuse light. You want to bring it to almost like a spotlight, so you're going to go, okay, I'm going to learn this thing or I'm going to do this very difficult workout. Then your body releases a number of types of chemicals, one of which is a norepinephrine or adrenaline. So, you get these feelings of like arousal. And then when you're focusing on that really difficult thing, there is a neuromodulator that's released in the brain called acetylcholine. And what it does is, it goes in marks the neurons in your brain that are being used to learn that stressful thing or that skill that you're trying to acquire for change and modification later when you sleep.

Steve Rush: Wow, that's amazing.

Dr. Erik Korem: And when you go to bed at night and you sleep, your brain actually strengthens those connections. So, the only way that you can get to that outcome, that you want to be more resilient to change a behavior, to learn a new skill is you have to enter through the gateway of stress.

Steve Rush: I'm just wondering as you're sharing that, that seems to me so incredibly logical and sensible for me to know yet it's something that is not often shared with perhaps the wider communities in business, outside of maybe the sports industry. What do you think the reason is for that?

Dr. Erik Korem: Well, when we think of stress, we think of uncomfortable situations and think of, you know, conflict at work and, you know, maybe having to receive or deliver feedback that it's really difficult. And I think that, you know, we're always trying to turn the dial down because, you know, especially, I think in the past year, people, anything else added onto your plate feels like we need to just, you know, we need to unload and we feel was just miserable. I also don't think that those basic scientific principles have been shared, or I don't know if the connection hasn't been made. I really don't know because in sports we know that you have to train, if you want to get better. If it’s a physical thing, you got to stress the body and then you got to recover. I couldn't give you a great answer, why that hasn't leaked out into other domains. Like, Hey, if you want to get better at this, like, if you want to get better at marketing, you're going to have to go through this.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Erik Korem: Now there's also this part of stress, like this feeling of, I think most people think of stress as like uncomfortable feelings and really stress falls on a continuum of alertness to calmness and your body can go up and down this ladder. And I think that people don't have mechanisms that they can use in the moment to regulate stress. And so, instead of being able to be in a state of where we want to be as alert calmness, we start moving into these states of panic or anxiety and we don't know how to bring ourselves back.

Steve Rush: So, if I think about me being at work, being forced into focus, feeling a little bit stressful, it's even more essential than for me to get that sleep in order to transfer that down and lay that down into positivity, right? What's the converse happen? So, I'm stressed and I don't get the sleep. How does that impact on us?

Dr. Erik Korem: Yeah. So, adaptation is the result of stress and the appropriate dose of rest, sleep and something called non sleep rest. If you don't allow your body to adapt with enough rest, you have something called maladaptation, which means you're not adapting and you will get sick or if you're training, you could get injured, you could end up having like I said, you know, upper respiratory tract infections, your body is unable to mobilize resources for the dominant need at the time. And then it becomes this like really bad hamster wheel and it can lead to a whole lot of bad stuff. And so, if we're trying to burn it at both ends, there's times in life where you're going to have to push really, really, really hard, and you may not get enough rest, but if you just kind of look at the mean of your life, you need to prioritize restful and fulfilling sleep and being able to decompress or else you're going to get sick.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Dr. Erik Korem: You know, the body can only go so far.

Steve Rush: In your experience Erik. Having trained, coach, supported some of the greatest athletes in the planet, do you believe that high performance is something that everybody can achieve? Or is that just a natural born behavior?

Dr. Erik Korem: No, I love this question. I think high performance is something that we can all achieve. In athletics, there are certain things that you have to be born with. So, like, if you want to be a world-class swimmer, you got to be long, you got to be tall, you got to have a long arm. There's certain, we call morphological characteristics, but then you have to acquire the skill. And then at the end of that, it's what goes on between the years. With any industry, whether you want to be a great parent, whether you want to be a great teacher, you want to be great in business, whatever it is, you have to acquire a certain set of skills. So, you got too upscale yourself, okay. And then you got to learn how to put that into practice. And then you have to be able to put it into practice when things are difficult. And so, like the best athletes in the world, like there's this myth out there that elite athletes do not feel pressure, that's wrong. So, you know, Sir Chris Hoy?

Steve Rush: Yes, of course, yeah.

Dr. Erik Korem: Yeah, greatest cyclist ever.

Steve Rush: Absolutely.

Dr. Erik Korem: He said when he was racing in an Olympic final, that it felt like he was going to the gallows.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Dr. Erik Korem: Think about that. Greatest cyclist of all time, felt like he was going to die. But what he said he would do is, he would then like, when he was feeling these feelings, he would grip the steering wheel or he'd focus on his feet and the clips and the pedals, what he was doing was, he was shifting his attention to where he wanted it, when he wanted it there. He was basically practicing mindfulness. Anybody can achieve high performance in their own life, but you got to have the skill set. You got to acquire the skill set, whatever that is. You've got to put it into practice. And you got to train your mind to do it in uncomfortable situations.

Steve Rush: Definitely, yeah. And is there a parallel between elite sport and high-performance business people that you've worked with?

Dr. Erik Korem: A hundred percent, you know, I would say like, especially in leadership roles, you know, great coaches and great business leaders, they're great systems thinkers. They don't live in a silo; they could see the big picture. That to me is like one of the biggest things. They can apply a mental model to a problem. They don't go, okay. I've been putting into this brand-new situation. And so, we're going to do it like we did, you know, I'm at Microsoft and I'm going to do it, like we did it at Apple, no different organization, a lot of different things. You got to; you have to look at problems. You have to use mental modules that you've acquired over time. You'll have to build thinking systems. I think it, especially in the leadership roles, you have to be able to listen to people.

I've been around coaches that just try to cram things down, like, Hey, you know, I want a Superbowl here. And so, we're going to do it this way, and it just doesn't work. Copying the model means you copy the errors with it.

Steve Rush: True.

Dr. Erik Korem: And meanwhile, the person that created the models already iterated the model. Because they're realized what their errors were.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I notice that too.

Dr. Erik Korem: And we also hire talented folks. You give them direction. And then I like to say, you help them innovate with discipline. So, you know, here's the highway, there's four lanes. You can go into any four lanes you want, but here are the boundaries. Innovate, just stay within the lane. Just stay on the road. Does that make sense?

Steve Rush: I love it. Yeah, it makes loads of sense. And also, I guess if I'm a leader listening to this now and thinking, God, I need to reboot my way of work so that I can tap into my own High-Performance. What would be your advice as to how I might do that now?

Dr. Erik Korem: The things I find is people have a hard time doing focused and productive work. Maybe they're working at home and they have a lot of distractions or maybe they're at work and they just, they don't feel like they, you know, those times where you like people call it flow or whatever, where you're just like really in it. I think for any leader you want to get really good, focused, productive work. Well, you can't be focused and productive for 8 to 12 hours or 8 to 10 hours straight every day. Not going to happen.

Steve Rush: No chance, yeah.

Dr. Erik Korem: Here's something I would recommend. When you sleep at night, you sleep in 90-minute cycles of what's called REM and non-REM sleep, okay. 90-minute cycles. It's a 24-hour circadian rhythm that our body follows. And there's 90-minute ultradian rhythms. During the day your ability to attend to and focus on things rises and falls and 90 minutes cycles, okay. So, I organize my day in sprints, 90-minute sprints of work, followed by 20 to 30 minutes of relaxation.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Dr. Erik Korem: 90-minute sprints work, relaxation. Because focus is very metabolically demanding on the brain. And this is real science. This is not something that's quackery or anything like that. And so, during those 20 minutes or 25 minutes, I'll go for a walk. I'll get away from my computer, I'll take a short nap and then I'll get back into it. And guess what? I'm going to feel that stress, that agitation is, I start that 90 minutes sprint and then a minute and I'm going to hit this great peak. And then it's going to start to fall off. And then, you know, I'll take another break and I can get in four to five great sprints a day. I'm well ahead of my competition. My highs are really high and my lows are really low where they're always operating at medium. And so, and I've given this a lot of friends and they found to be very helpful in their productivity.

Steve Rush: I love that. And also, that the notion of, if you don't take that 20 minutes, 15, 20 minutes recovery time, your next sprint of activity is going to have more susceptibility for distraction, right?

Dr. Erik Korem: A hundred percent.

Steve Rush: Yeah. I think it was Charlie Chaplin was the first individual to tap into this philosophy of attention. When he created the first of a feature film, which was 90 minutes long. And he'd worked that at that time in order to get people focused for 90 minutes, even. He had to change the reel every 11 minutes or so, whether it was scientific or just by chance at the time through studies, which is about the time that we naturally get distracted, right?

Dr. Erik Korem: Very Interesting.

Steve Rush: It’s Interesting, isn't it?

Dr. Erik Korem: Yeah. Charlie Chaplain, how about that?

Steve Rush: There you go. So, even then, somebody had noticed a behavioral shift in people in order to get them to stay focused for 90 minutes. They needed time in that time to be focused.

Dr. Erik Korem: I would say this as well as a leader, don't make your meetings longer than 60 to 90 minutes. You can't expect your people to stay focused. And I'm reading a book called the leader's brain right now. It's on the neuroscience of leadership from Dr. Michael Platt.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Erik Korem: He's at Wharton, fantastic stuff. And it's very quick read. I mean, I think it's a hundred pages, which I was shocked when I saw the book online. I got it. Like, are you serious? This is, but you know, it's very discreet, short little things. And I highly recommend it for anybody in a leadership position, but there's some things in there about connecting with your team. But one of the things that I didn't read this in the book, but I've really been thinking a lot about like, how am I running my team meetings? Am I connecting with folks? Or am I making them too long where they're drifting. So be brief, be bright, be gone.

Steve Rush: Awesome. Now this part of the show is where we turn the table and start looking at your leadership career and tapping into those great lenses that you've had. And you've already shared a bunch of hacks with us, but I'm going to now try and ask you to distill your top three golden nuggets. What would be your top three leadership hacks Erik?

Dr. Erik Korem: Yeah, the first one I would say is creating the conditions for success. And for me, that's taking care of myself. Getting sleep every night, seven to nine hours, usually on my seven-and-a-half-hour person. Exercising daily and not feeling guilty about it. Spiritual for me and spending time with my family. And then I feel like that I'm fit to serve and lead others. So, I invest in my mind, body and spirit on a daily basis, I can create the conditions that are right for me to lead. Now, the second thing I would say is not assuming. My mom was a registered nurse growing and she started a catering and food manufacturing company and its multimillion-dollar company now, so proud of her. Really hustled, took her 30 years to build this thing up. And I remember as a kid, like she never used a swear word, which she would say, Erik, you know, Madison, he said, never assumed. Because you know what assuming does? It makes an ass out of you and me.

And here's the thing, ask your talented experts, deep and probing questions. And don't be afraid to not know the answers, like be genuinely curious about. Like right now, I've hired full stack engineers and iOS developers. I don't know the first thing about writing code, but I am trying to learn as much as I can about what they're doing so that I can see where the problems may come up and then you'll be able to put the pieces together. And the final thing is accountability. Like who's keeping you in check, who's holding you accountable to being a good leader, to taking care of yourself or caring about other people. You got to find somebody in your life, that's going to ask you the hard questions.

Steve Rush: Fantastic lessons. Thanks for sharing them. Next part of the show is also a bit of learning. We call it Hack to Attack. So, this is where something in your life or work has perhaps not gone well, could it be that you've even screwed up, but as a result of the experience is now a positive in your life and work. So, what would you Hack to Attack be Erik?

Dr. Erik Korem: Yeah, so I had a job, I went with a coach to a specific place and he was the new head coach and I was extremely loyal to him. And there were some early warning indicators that I ignored. Around people that were hired underneath me without my real consent. And there was a certain thing I just felt were wrong, but I ignored them and things ended up not working out. And, you know, we cordially decided to part ways. It was really amicable, but I ignored those red flags. And so, you know, my dad calls it the squeeze factor. Like when you feel that feeling in your stomach and you get that over, like you get that sensation like something isn't right here, do not ignore that. Like dig into it, figure out what it is, investigated and then act on it sooner than later, or else it's going to cost you.

Steve Rush: That's great. And it's acting on it, that's most important. Not necessarily paying attention to it, but understanding what's causing it, right. Because it could be a bias.

Dr. Erik Korem: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah. The last bit of our show, we get a chance to get you to do some time travel. You can bump into Erik at 21 now. Look him straight in the eyes and give him some advice. What's it going to be?

Dr. Erik Korem: Don't be so dogmatic. I would tell myself to be open to various ways of doing things and to what I could become because. I've been one of these people that have, you know, been very focused on a certain outcome and my career has taken a lot of twists and turns. And sometimes, you know, I have a lot of scar tissue from thinking that a certain thing should be done a certain way and it shouldn't have been done that way. And so really just, Hey Erik, you know, keep learning, keep growing, but take a step back and be open-minded to a lot of different things. A lot of different ways of getting the job done.

Steve Rush: Great stuff. So as folks have been listening to you and I talk today, Erik, I'm pretty certain that they're going to want to find out a little bit more about the work you do. I'm almost guaranteed. They're going to want to explore AIM7 and what that's all about. Because I think it's going to change our world for the future.

Dr. Erik Korem: Thank you.

Steve Rush: And genuinely want to find out where's the best place for us to send them when we are done?

Dr. Erik Korem: Yeah. So, you can follow me on Instagram @erikkorem, E-R-I-K K-O-R-E-M. And the same thing on LinkedIn and then go to aim7.com, A-I-M7 and sign up for our high-performance newsletter. And we'll also let you know when you can be one of the first beta users, our product's going to come out this summer. So, this is something that interests you go ahead and sign up on that newsletter and you will hear from us as soon as the product's available and get your first in line.

Steve Rush: Awesome. We'll also make sure in our show notes links to both AIM7 and all your social media in there too.

Dr. Erik Korem: Thank you so much.

Steve Rush: Erik, it has been a real pleasure. I'm super grateful for you joining us on The Leadership Hacker Podcast, delighted with the progress that you're having with AIM7 and I'm super looking forward to seeing how that all develops for you too.

Dr. Erik Korem: Thank you, Steve. You're a fantastic person and I love the podcast and keep doing great work.

Steve Rush: Thank you, my man. Speak to you soon.

Dr. Erik Korem: Take care.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Minter Dial is a renowned professional speaker and author of four books He’s a consultant on leadership branding and digital strategy, along with being a film producer too! In this episode you’ll learn:

About Minter’s eclectic careers and fascinating leadership hacks
How grasping opportunities enriches your life and work
You need to Lead “You” before you can lead others
The Leadership CHECK model

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Minter below:

Minter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/minterdial/

Minter Dial Website: https://www.minterdial.com

Minter on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mdial

Minter on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mdial/

Full Transcript Below

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Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is Minter Dial. He's a professional speaker, author of four books, consultant on leadership branding and digital strategy, along with being a film producer. But before we get a chance to speak with Minter, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: The subject of leadership is an enormous subject matter, but what is leadership? And how do we know when we see and hear it? Is it seen in the captains of countries, corporations and communities? Is it heard from onstage lectins and corner offices? Could it be the research from Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Oxford, or Cambridge? The reality of course is leadership is a very bespoken, very personal to us. We've been surrounded by a generation of corporate and civic leaders. Some of whom have been tainted with visions and values. What are the qualities that are missing and why do we look for leadership?

More than 60 years ago, the last place we might have expected to look for leadership was on the Montgomery Bus. And yet on the 1st of December in 1955, when a diminutive passenger occupied a seat, she set the direction for an entire country, no small feat in leadership. Rosa Parks has now been referred to as the quiet leader and she has a lot to teach us. Humbled, determined, and flappable, self-sacrificing. She was forced in a bold vision. She was willing to take a courageous risk, not knowing the results, but driven by her values and her integrity. And there was no other option for her, but to stay sat in that seat in the face of adversity. At that time, her only vision was at bus free of segregation. She inspired Dr. Martin Luther king Jr, who could articulate in words, what she had said in gesture, but they had the same dream. They marched the same march. They sang the same song. Her leadership was a quiet one, but not any less powerful. So, as we pay tribute to the first woman to be laid in state in Washington, she seems like a new icon of leadership. Named the mother of civil rights, she led by being a role model by inspiring the city to walk instead of ride and a country to re-examine itself and its values, her leadership statement ignited a genesis of change in people in assumptions, actions and attitudes, irrespective of race, color, or creed. So, what the lessons learned from this great leader? Compelling a great mission, ignites passion for commitment, challenge assumptions, be courageous and take risks, lead by example, be humble, give credit to others and pass the torch to your successors. We need more leaders like that in our corporations and our communities. The quiet leader can create levels of greatness, only if we listen beyond what they say and what they do. And Rosa Parks was a perfect example of that. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, insights or stories, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on show is Minter Dial. He's an international professional speaker, author and consultant on leadership branding and digital strategy. After successful corporate career, Minter returned to his entrepreneurial roots and the spent the last 10 years, helping senior managers adapt to the world of digital. During the last 10 years or so, He's also penned four books and has also become a film producer. So, Minter, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Minter Dial: Hey Steve, great to be on your show. I love the idea of hacking leadership.

Steve Rush: Yes, and we'll be doing plenty of hacking through this opportunity of the next half an hour or so as we get to hack into your mind, before we do that though, in the last time we met, the one thing that really struck me about you is, you've got this really eclectic backstory as to how you've arrived to do what you do today. It might be really useful for our listeners to just get a sense of what your corporate career was like and how that took several turns in the roads so to speak?

Minter Dial: Yeah, another way of saying is I've done a million things. I've done a lot of things, but I'm good at nothing. I graduated from University in the United States. I haven't been schooled in England in Trilingual Literature and Women's Studies as my minor. And with that, I went into investment banking, of course. And from there I started a travel agency for musicians and that went, flamingly horribly wrong after two years. I worked in a Zoo and Aquarium, I taught tennis, I wrote a novel and then I went to business school and I straightened myself out. And then I worked at L’Oréal for 16 years in various roles around the world. Mostly through the marketing ranks. I ran a company called Redken, which has a hairdressing company worldwide, 40 countries. And then I arrived in Canada. Then I was on the executive committee worldwide for the professional division, before charting my own path yet again, where I have essentially been trained to help elevate the debate, connect people, ideas, and dots, and make the world a little bit of a better place through business.

Steve Rush: Awesome. Now, for me, it sounds that your corporate career, if you like started to really gain its momentum through your work in L’Oréal and Redken, but what was it that you were looking for perhaps in your previous careers that you didn't find until then?

Minter Dial: Well, I just liked communicating actually. That was sort of, how do you use communication in a professional space? And so, for example, when I was at the investment bank, what I enjoy doing was translating the mumbo-jumbo of stock analysts into a terminology that the investment advisors and customers would understand. When I was at the agency, my travel agency for musicians, I was really interested in the marketing concept. How do you make us known to such a niche world of musical managers and entertainers? And after L’Oréal, when I was at INSEAD it

really struck me as at the summum of marketing and capabilities. And so, I wanted to go to the big pond where you had the best marketers and minds, I felt in the world of commerce at the time. And so that's what I was seeking to thrive in and master this idea, this weird concept that I really actually didn't fully understand before I got into L’Oréal marketing.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and marketing is so diverse these days. Isn't it? It's kind of, where does communication start and marketing end almost?

Minter Dial: A hundred percent.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Minter Dial: I think the world of marketing has changed dramatically as has leadership, sales, gosh knows research and development. The list goes on.

Steve Rush: It does. Yeah, so what's the kind of focus of the work that you're up to right now?

Minter Dial: Right now, as we speak, I'm really continuing to focus on the promotion of my book and behind that, the promotion of a new style of leadership, what that concretely means is that when you write a book by the way, you make cause ziddly, diddly, nothing. So, it's really about helping companies transform their leadership to accommodate these new technologies, new context and a very new customer.

Steve Rush: And we're going to get into the new book, You Lead in a moment, but you started writing that last book before all of your first three. So how did that end up?

Minter Dial: Yeah, that's one crazy long story. To try to make it a compact Steve. So, I graduated with a degree in Trilingual Literature, and I loved writing. I had done poems, short stories, one novel and 19 songs to my effective. And this idea of publishing a book at the age of 18. I said, gosh, mentor, to fulfill your life, you have to do five things. And one of which was to publish a book. And so, there I was at the age of 50 basically saying, ah, I still haven't published that bloody book. So, I went off to Croatia and spent a lovely 10 days in Dubrovnik. I wrote 30,000 words. I came back home and I got basically a message that my mother's husband had died. I went to the funeral, at the funeral I chatted with my stepfather's oldest son, there for my stepbrother.

And I talked about this research I've been doing in a film I wanted to do about my grandfather. And next thing you know, I get an email from a chapel I'd never heard of before, who was running PBS, the television station in America saying, I love your story. I want to run it on my television station. Well, it's not every day you get a call like that.

Steve Rush: True, very true.

Minter Dial: So, I shift gears, turn left. And then I got my film, The Last Ring Home, put it on television. And in the same space, I wrote and published my first book, which was about my grandfather, The Last Ring Home. Then I kind of put that to bed, because that had a long lifespan and it involved going to film festivals and lots of speeches with veterans and military organizations around the world, fascinating time. Meanwhile, this book, which was supposed to be my first book really was supposed to be the book of my life, the summer of everything I've ever done.

Alright, good. I'll go back to that. So, I went back to it. I went off to Iceland, my wife, let me go to Reykjavik for 10 days to write another 30,000 words. And now I had 60,000 words. I'm like, all right, things are looking good. I come back home and know very shortly after that, I have a chat with a good old friend and he says, I'm so jealous about you. You know, you've written books and I wanted to do one and my parents haven't. Anyway, so his name is Caleb. And I said, well, why don't we write one together? Our next thing you know, I had to drop my ball and I focused on that one and then thus was born, Futureproof. Anyway, finish that. The next thing happens is I'm set to go back to my book, but unfortunately my best friend had died and I felt a need to do some sort of therapy and the therapy through which I did that was to think and focus on empathy. And I quickly whipped out that book, self-published and it was a fun exercise if you will, to consider how to put empathy into business. But for me underneath it was really an a more personal journey in thought of my friend, Phillip, and put that to bed. Gosh, well, what do I do now? Well, of course, I got to go back to my, you know, the book of my life. And that's how I ended up writing You Lead.

Steve Rush: Brilliant. It's almost reminiscent of the way your career has panned out almost, and it seems to me Minter, you have this almost, “in the moment”, energy that drags you and draws you to a certain places in time. Is that something that you've noticed over your life and work?

Minter Dial: So, I think it's hard for me to imagine that over the 16 years at L’Oréal, because a lot of it is directed, you know. I change countries 50 times, I had nine different roles over 16 years. So, these are opportunities that are presented to me and I jumped on them. So, the first thing I think about is, I try to connect all the weird shit together. What links them all? And it's true that I do have a tendency to want to live in the present.

Steve Rush: Right.

Minter Dial: And take full advantage of everything comes up. And I have very much that attitude off line, or at least, you know, in real life in my person as I do at work. And I think that perhaps to your point is something that has been a thread throughout everything. Just to really live 110% kind of feeling to every day. And that definitely includes my 800 or 900 hundred concerts I've attended and enjoyed in my life.

Steve Rush: And the ironic twist and fate here is that when we first met, it was just as you were going to publish You Lead and the pandemic hit and it kind of put things off a little bit, right?

Minter Dial: Oh, yeah. Well, you know, actually that's the last chapter of this chapter, this, you know, never ending story because in fact, I did submit my manuscript to Kogan on the 13th of March, which was essentially two weeks before we went on into wholesale lockdown. And then I got this email saying, we're on furlough, everything's on hold. And I was like, oh my gosh, is this book ever going to make it? And so, a couple of things happened. Well, first of all, the furlough happened and they came out of it. But more importantly, I was as observing society leadership and myself to be exact Steve.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Minter Dial: I saw how absolutely bloody relevant the topic was. When you see cats in the background, you know, to, to use an allegory for how your personal life seeped into your new professional life, through Zooms and all that. The idea of being your whole you. Unkempt, unshaven in your own living room or bedroom meant that ipso facto your personal and professional lives were merging. Anyway, that's what that happened there.

Steve Rush: I wonder, you know, whether you call it a higher spirit, call it a force of nature, but the timing with irony couldn't have been any better because the whole principle of You Lead, how being yourself makes you a better leader is the focusing on you, the whole you, and it's now given people the opportunity to be that whole you. Tell us a bit about kind of the notion of what that you in the You Lead means for you?

Minter Dial: Well so, I have a first point out, which is, this isn't necessarily a book for the CEO of a 10,000-employee company. This is a book for anybody because really, it's about you leading yourself.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Minter Dial: And when you lead you, you then can actually model the behavior that you want others to do. You're demonstrating how to do things, but if you don't know how to do it yourself, then how on earth can you tell anyone else to do it? So really, it's all about walking the talk in that capacity.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Minter Dial: So, the second thing is, is understanding who you are. So, the way to lead you is actually to lean into understanding yourself, which means being aware of your foibles, your weaknesses, things that pop up, that trigger you. And the more you're aware of all these aspects, the less you're going to have a bloody chip on the shoulder, or some attitude that you don't need to have to put on somebody else.

Steve Rush: So, I love the whole notion of, and I've actually said this for many years, leadership is not about the job of work you do. It's a behavior that you have, or you don't have. And it absolutely starts with that. Self-Leadership, doesn't it?

Minter Dial: Yeah. I mean, everything has a nuance, Steve. We do need to perform, bring in the results, but how you do things matters deeply. It's generally the desire of everybody to focus on the results because it's rational. It's something you can put on a piece of paper and measure. This other stuff is sort of wifty, wofty almost abstract. How much of you, do you know who you? It's not like you could put down a 79% score.

Steve Rush: Right.

Minter Dial: All these other softer tissue elements that are messier, but actually once you lean into those things, then you become more complete and you can't just extract the emotions from rationality. We are one and other, your stomach impacts your brain, you know, outside of the story of the second brain, the way you sleep impacts the way you are. So how you operate absolutely will dictate the way you lead? How you are perceived as a leader and how engaged the people that are listening to you are and believe in your way, your authenticity.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Minter Dial: It's so linked

Steve Rush: Now, you wrap your model of leadership around a model called check. I'd love it, if we could just maybe get into some of the thinking behind the curiosity, the humanity, the empathy, the courage, and the comic?

Minter Dial: Yeah, so check. These are five words and like words on a wall. They don't really mean anything until you sort of plow into them. And that the challenge with these words is to understand what they mean and how much you need to change in order to really embrace them in your work life. So, let's say that the beginning step into this check framework, really starts with self-awareness. Because if you don't do that, pre-work the rest is just a yada, yada, yada.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Minter Dial: Of course, duh, let's take curiosity, which is the first one. And, oh, well, it's true that in my observation, I had done something like 600 podcasts. One of the things I ask is, you know, who are you in? And so often people will describe themselves as curious.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Minter Dial: It's a wonderful trait. I mean, who wouldn't want to be curious? I mean, close minded, that doesn't seem like a good one. Open-Minded seems better. So yeah, I'm really curious. I love learning. Well learning actually, or that curiosity for me is so representative of the child within us, it is what define children. So, hallelujah to curiosity. However, there are a couple of things, first of all, being endlessly curious is a road to nowhere. Because you actually need to shit. So, if you spend your entire day reading, ferreting down rabbit holes and doing all sorts of the great learning, oh, it's so great. But what did you produce?

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly right.

Minter Dial: So, curiosity needs, you know, kills the cat because too much curiosity.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and without action, of course, it's just knowledge that I own. It only becomes real curiosity when I do something with it and I inspire other to do the same.

Minter Dial: Yeah, exactly. So, the second point with curiosity, this is like the thing we need to get real about, is it's not about what you want to learn. It also has to be about what you need to learn. And it's too easy for me to just open up a book about the Grateful Dead, you know, my favorite rock and roll band or paddle tennis, my favorite sports, you know, I just love to learn about that stuff, right. That just passionate, that’s endless, but is that what I need to learn today? And so, in the self-awareness. Understand what you are motivated by, what you're passionate about. Love that, however, also consider what you need to learn, get uncomfortable. If you use iPhone, use Android, check it out. How different is it? Because that is and could be how many of your customers are.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Minter Dial: You know, if you are dealing, a male a lot of your clients are women. Well then, how are you learning about how women operate? Because it's so easy to think as me, but how do you think as others?

Steve Rush: Great tip. Yeah. So, humility is the next one, right?

Minter Dial: Yeah, Humility. So, think about humility is, that it's basically something someone says about you, not something that you can necessarily drive. So, you have to be again, self-aware and aware how others perceive you. And there are times when you are humble, and other times that you might come off, especially with other people's perceptions as less humble. So, it's, not an easy trait to drive. You need to understand that some people have different perceptions and you, by the way, come with baggage, you have, whether you like it or not, a label on your forehead, you know, people research where you might've gone to school, what sort of person you are, short hair, long hair, what you wear and all these other perceptions that go into you. And when your leader, people sometimes say, oh, well, you need to be giving all the tips, you need to be given the vision, give me the orders.

And that can be easily fallen into for leader and then comes the necessarily big head of like, well, I know everything. I can do everything. The key point here is to move away from that and to think (A) and it's okay not to know everything, my goodness. So, which helps curtail your curiosity streak. I'm not saying stop being curious, but when you have humility, you understand, you can't know everything.

Steve Rush: Definitely, so.

Minter Dial: We're taught at school to kind of learn everything, sort of a drive, whatever your topic is and so on, and that's great. Yet, we are never as strong as when we have a great network. So, humidity is also about the ability to say help. I need your help. Can you tell me this? And there's no big deal to show you don't know everything. There's nothing worse than a leader who gets asked the question, what should we do sir? And you think you need to give the answer. Well, that's a great question. What do you guys think we need to do? Turn it around. And specifically with regard to humility, believe that others can help you. Everybody has an interesting story, everybody can contribute. It's not necessarily true because some people don't show up and some people, you know, are not as equipped as others. And maybe you didn't ask the right question, but if you go in with that attitude, the chances are, you're going to get a lot of more people around you who want to help you. And humility is the juice that lets that flow. Then comes empathy, and of course we could spend another hour or two on this topic. It being the topic of my last, you know, one before that. Empathy is really a super power, but here's the deal. If you have no self-awareness, you're going to get it wrong.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Minter Dial: So, I've done a survey and I've had 10,000 people answer this particular question. To what extent do you believe your empathic? And there are five possible answers. One above average, above average, average, below average and well below average. And do you know that 72% of people believe that they have either well above or above average level of empathy.

Steve Rush: That’s very interesting, yeah.

Minter Dial: Isn't it? So, for the mathematicians or the statisticians out there, we have a problem. Unless of course the other 28% are all well below average and maybe mathematically that works out to have some sort of distribution. However, the point is this, we tend to think we're more empathic than we are perceived to be.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Minter Dial: And the reality is that empathy depends on the, again, like humidity on the observer's eyes.

Steve Rush: It's quite subjective, Isn't it? Empathy.

Minter Dial: Of course.

Steve Rush: I can think I am, but I won't really know unless the other people I'm working with or the other person I'm communicating with can let me know.

Minter Dial: Right, and the nuance in that, Steve is that empathy is in the eye of the beholder. Yet doesn't necessarily mean a perceptible action. Let me give you an example. You're doing research and development for a product or a service for potential customers. So, you haven't produced a product, but by listening and understanding your customer base, you then develop the better product. That better product, many actions down the road serves or sells well, then you see that your empathy was well instructed and well-informed, you see what I mean?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Minter Dial: So, it's not like, oh, Steve, I really understand what you're thinking today and feeling today. And in like of that, this is what I'm going to say or do, and have some action that follows. Then Steve says Minter is being very empathic. It's not necessarily a direct relationship. So, empathy is a skill that you can use. And this is a very important concept inside and outside the organization. In fact, if you want to be empathic and have smart product development, have great customer service, deliver exceptional customer delight, all of that needs empathy. But the key to delivering that empathy will be by being empathic as an organization, within your culture, within your organization. And once you have that coherence and congruency within your team, then you're going to be better able to let's say, quote, unquote, farm out that empathy into all the other touch points with your external stakeholders. Because by the way, sometimes in between you and your customers, you have things called distributors or third-party suppliers, and they too are going to contribute to your customer experience. So, you really need to think of it as an entire system inside out.

Steve Rush: And here's the thing. Empathy is actually a learned behavior for most people. And therefore, the more you can live and breathe and demonstrate being empathic, the more likely that people around you are going to notice that and replicate those same behaviors.

Minter Dial: Yeah, exactly. I love the way you say that. A learned behavior because in the end of the day, people always ask me, can you teach empathy? And I tend to say, knit, you can't teach empathy. More than you can teach a dead horse to drink. If the horse don't want water, won't take water. And in the case of many people, basically there are many people who empathy challenged. And so, if you want to become empathic, first of all you need to start by understanding how, where you sit on the empathy, truly, because if you think your above average, chances are, you really wanted to learn more, a little light. So, reassess where you sit on the scale and then you can adopt it. And the here's the key other sort of non-obvious concept, which is, it's not about being empathic all the time with everybody in every instance, because that's just like curiosity, that's endless. Because empathy really is all about understanding and just like curiosity, you need to have action after it. You need to do stuff, and so empathy needs to be deployed in certain moments, some more than others. And the idea of the tyranny of empathy is something I fight against because you just can't understand everybody all the time. Otherwise, you might just run yourself ragged and you do need to protect yourself, start with self-empathy.

Steve Rush: And in my experience of having coached very senior leaders in lots of different jurisdictions, being empathic is probably the one thing that really shifts the dial more readily than anything else I've experienced.

Minter Dial: Hmm. It's a remarkable skill. And, you know, I don't know about you, Steve, but it's been my observation, not just through the pandemic, but well, before that, our deep inability to listen, the number of conversations, I see. Dinner tables, on Zooms, people cutting off others without allowing for the full flow of what's being said to finish. It just demonstrates that we're not in that moment, present enough to be able to listen deeply, whether it's not just the words, but the tambour, the emotions, especially you and I are now speaking through audio. So, it's really from my mouth into a microphone, through the internet, into your earphones and the people who are listening the same idea, and to be able to just seize what's being said, feel what's being said, and that's the skill that really is behind developing that real empathy and not needing to jump to the action right away until the other person's full sack, if you will, has been unloaded.

Steve Rush: Yeah. Very wise words Minter. So, the next part of your check model is courage. Tell us a bit about that?

Minter Dial: Well, courage is a long one and in today's politically correct world, it actually requires I think, a lot more courage these days to have courage. So, for me, it's one of my core three values personally, to have courage. The courage to stand up for what you believe in. Not only is that important, just from a integrity standpoint, it's actually what helps you stand out as well. So, there's a really pragmatic element to having courage because not having courage is tantamount to seeking to be average. And a lot of things in society tend towards that. I was listening to a podcast the other day, about how, when you teach a monkey to do a really cool trick, like to use stones to break open nuts, when it goes back with an average group of monkeys that don't know how to open that swell, it dummies down and will re-employ old fashioned techniques, which aren't as effective as the ones that it has learned to do, which would equate to a smarter monkey.

So, we have lots and lots of reasons and ways to dummy us down. Well, if I say that Steve, I might piss off somebody. Well, so be it, when you build a community, when you build a tribe, it doesn't have to include everybody. Because if you want to please everybody all the time, you are nobody, you have to stand up for something.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Minter Dial: And so, the key there is to lean into what you personally stand for, not what you professionally stand for, because this idea of putting it behind a smokescreen of professional and say, oh, I don't personally believe in it. Oh, that's really trustworthy. You get a lot of people who then said, well, I personally believe in the professional, yeah.

Steve Rush: Straight away. You can hear the lack of authenticity, can’t you?

Minter Dial: Exactly. So, courage is a bombshell and it requires a certain amount of understanding that you are going to people off when you have courage and that's okay. You can't be liked by everybody. In my book, I talk a lot about this rock and roll band I followed and they're definitely not for everybody. And so, what? I stand up for this group, just like, I support a football club and I'm sorry if you don't like the same football club, but that's what I do, and it's okay. Well, why don't we have the same attitude when it comes to work? It's not about being unethical. I mean, that is a choice.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Minter Dial: But standing up for what you believe. And when you say you believe that it means you believe that is the right way. So, your ethics are intrinsically linked into this courage. You're fighting for what you believe and what you believe is right. And ethics is deeply personal.

Steve Rush: It is, yeah. I love that. I'm really intrigued at how karma plays in here.

Minter Dial: Right. Well, this is the least obvious and the one you probably don't see so frequently written emblazoned on corporate walls.

Steve Rush: In fact, I don't think I have.

Minter Dial: It's unlikely. It's unlikely, because the basic premise is give away shit and don't expect in return. And let's say that the misconception is that karma is what goes around. It's a sort of a fatalistic, goes around, comes around. The reality of karma is, it's about two things, intentions and actions. So, the very first point, this word of intentions is super important. And in a world where we tend to deconstruct stuff and decontextualize stuff, I would warn that we really need to get a focus back on intentionality, because just because these words are coming out of my mouth and you take them out of context, well, you can't re attribute a meaning to them.

They exist in a context, whether it's historical or a conversation between two people in a certain situation, a certain country and so on and so forth. So, each to understand what your intentions are and dial into those, again, self-awareness. If what you are trying to do and have the courage to stand out for and do actions on that, is impregnated in something that's deeply ethically you and meaningful and purposeful, but you fuck it up when you come to the action, but at least you have integrity and you can look yourself in the mirror. If on the other hand, you are intentions, look like you're giving away shit, but then you're going to deceive them and nail them in the back with a newsletter that you can't unsubscribe so easily. For example, to name a few ideas. Well, that's not good karma. So, karma for me is really about learning how to give away good value without immediately expecting in return. And that's how the chances are. You're going to build up a more trustworthy network and hopefully a long-term relationship.

Steve Rush: Yeah. I love the way that you've wrapped karma into something that I would have perhaps called before, thought leadership even, so where I'm giving information or insights to people, and I'm not expecting anything back. And I've had many conversations with my team that says, you know, we're giving insights, we're giving information, we're showing people how to do things, but we're not asking for anything in return because that would be then marketing. And what you've just described is something fairly similar.

Minter Dial: Exactly. I mean, we were brought up with this, know it, all attitude, you know, build up information, information is king, and I'll keep it to my chest and this idea to have the humility and generosity to give away things that is valuable to your customer is absolutely the new form of marketing in my mind.

Steve Rush: Hmm, yeah. Really powerful model. Love it. Now time is moving on. So, I want to hack into that great mind of yours some more. So, this is where I'm going to ask you to distill all of the years of experience you've had in very different environments and to try and fine tune those down to your top three leadership hacks Minter, what would they be?

Minter Dial: Well, we kind of touched on the first one at the very beginning, which is be present. You know, as much as leadership is about vision and the future and all these other things. Learning to listen is the juice with him being present. When you can solidly focus on the exact moments that are going along, which include, feeling my own heartbeat, hearing my own breathing and hearing within you on the other side, whomever you with, whomever you're dealing with. What's going on in their heart rate? Their words, their emotions. And so that is the first one being present. And so, my little hack for that has been for the last seven years or so to do 10 minutes of guided meditation every morning. And I use a wonderful New Zealand woman called Monique Rhodes, R-H-O-D-E-S, who does a 10-minute mind mindfulness. And she's amazing musician by the way, and a lovely voice which counts. And she helps spring me into me and help me be present all day long.

Steve Rush: Awesome. I will be tuning into that. I do exactly the same thing every day. I have a 10, 10, 10 philosophy, which follows a similar principle.

Minter Dial: What is your 10 and 10?

Steve Rush: My other 10 is 10 minutes of yoga and stretching. 10 minutes of meditation. And then 10 minutes of journaling.

Minter Dial: Lovely. Well, I do the stretching as well, I should say

Steve Rush: It's just a great way to be present and to be thoughtful about, you know, and I don't check my emails. I don't do any work before that. That's kind of to the priority.

Minter Dial: I love it. So, my second hack is about time and it's unbelievable how I get triggered when I hear somebody say, I don't have time. No, you chose to spend your time differently. And so, you really need to master your time. And so, here's the hack. Consider in your role, how much of your day do you need to keep free? And for absolutely everybody, there are three things that you need to keep free. Time for you, time for others that matter and time for serendipity. You can't plan serendipity, but if you have no time for it, you’re sure shit won't have it. So, these three things you block off and then the fourth one is really according to much more your position on what you need to do. So, when I was a CEO or Managing Director, I considered that I needed to have 50% of my day free.

So that 50% accommodated my other three ideas that I just mentioned, but also the time to do strategic thought, there's no way you can be strategic if you're constantly being interrupted. So, I blocked off meetings, I blocked off, I closed my door and I allowed within the 50% free of my day opportunities to do deep thought and come up with some strategic ideas. And sometimes I've included having a deep conversation with somebody, right, but you know, sometimes a little bit, not planned in some ways, just sit down, listen to others and have deep expected conversations. It can also be informal because that's also good for, or nurturing stronger relationships and friendships an so on. But anyway, so as a head of a company, you need to look at your agenda and to see if you can carve out 50% of your day to not have meetings. I would encourage, I would implore you to think that way. Because that's going to give you the time to do all four actions. If you don't have that. And you're living back-to-back in meetings, good luck.

The third and last one. It maybe not quite as obvious, but it's gets connected. As leaders, one of the issues is, it's very easy to be isolated all the more so when you're living in a lockdown, of course.

Steve Rush: Agree.

Minter Dial: And getting connected has so many benefits. So, we talked about being mindful, get connected with you, your breathing, your body with stretching, but get connected with people because we are social animals. So even if you're locked down, there are ways to connect with new people. Every day I've been doing that, I call it my green meeting. So, every day in my calendar, I’m very color-coded. I have my green meeting and my green meeting is, I’m meeting, somebody new. And I go into that very much comically with no agenda. I'm just there to listen to get to know somebody else's story. And so, getting connected to people is one of the types of connections you can.

So, getting connected to strangers, get connected to someone you haven't spoken to a long time, a friend from school, you said, oh, I really liked him or her. Oh, it'd be cool if I, oh, I wonder where they are. Send a message to your spouse or someone important in your family and say, Hey, thank you. Thank you for doing what you do and who you are. There are so many ways to get connected because that is for me, how to tap into your extra energy is, in today's world. If there's one thing that is sorely depleted along with of course, empathy, deficits, and a few other things, including financial deficits is an energy deficit and finding ways to get connected into nature. Put your hands in the dirt, my goodness. Look up and see if the stars at night. That connected and find out how small you are in the universe to understand what's important and what matters in life. Those are my three hacks, Steve.

Steve Rush: Love them. Thank you so much for sharing them. The next part of the show, our listeners have become affectionately familiar with, we call Hack to Attack. So, this is where something is screwed up in our life or work. But now we use it positively. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Minter Dial: Well, Steve, at some level, I kind of think of myself as a storyteller and funnily enough, my biggest failures have ended up being some of the best material for my storytelling. So, while I had heartache, crying and the feds busting down my door. This has created wonderful stories for the future. I mean, the biggest lessons I learned in the two startups that I flamingly failed was finding the right partners. We had great ideas, good execution, but in both cases that happened before I went to business school, the failure was deeply linked to not having the right partners, which means that I didn't have the right partners for me because having somebody who's like me is the wrong partner.

Steve Rush: Right.

Minter Dial: So that was the lesson learned. And the, you know, having the feds bust down my door has been an opportunity to tell stories at many dinner tables throughout my life.

Steve Rush: Exactly.

Minter Dial: There you go.

Steve Rush: And if you look at any great movie and stories, there's always adversity that can trigger the hero opportunity the outcome, right?

Minter Dial: Oh yeah. Well, I don't know how heroic my outcomes were, but they certainly, I mean, I really, I now embrace the journey that I went on. I mean, outside of getting the chance to hang out with, but really, you know, at some level, hanging out with the music world, not necessarily all the biggest stars, but we had Sting and Madonna as clients. So, it was a, you know, an exceptional opportunity to do things which are different and not just do run of the mill shit, which I was unfortunately can be part of everyone's day.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and loads of great stories I should imagine.

Minter Dial: Oh my gosh.

Steve Rush: Obviously, we are going to have a version two in the future Minter. So then last thing we want to do with you today is to do a bit of time travel, give you the chance to go all the way back and bump into Minter at 21 and give them some advice. What would your advice to him be?

Minter Dial: Well, first of all, it made me think or makes me think that I'd rather be 21 again, anyway. I always feel like I'm a little child somehow within me and my mum, who's 82 years old. She writes at the end of her email, I'm an 80-year-old running around with a 20-year-old mind saying where did my life go? So yeah, when I was 18, I had these five ideas, which I wanted to, which I thought would be the fulfillment of my life. And I kind of sort of pushed them off. So, as long as I do them in my life. And, so my inclination would have been to have pushed quicker earlier and specifically on one, which was get published earlier. One of my five was to publish a book. And if I had that gumption to write and publish earlier, I think that would have sent me on another path because the very act of writing has been always very therapeutic for me, publishing it makes you, I feel for me, it's helped me to become more me because if I'm putting it out in the world, I don't want it to be shit. Also, I don't want it to be wrong about me. It's got to be well thought through. So, to take an example, writing a book about empathy. So, I've written a book about empathy, in the process I learned so much because my friend Phillipe killed himself and I really was pondering, how empathic am I and how could I become more empathic? So, I lend into that idea to figure out how I could be more empathic, studied it, what people say or what the errors one makes when we think about that and so on and so forth. So, the idea of publishing earlier, really, it's not about making or suggesting that everyone else should publish earlier. It was more about being quicker to seize what was important to me and learn and lean into being earlier quicker.

Steve Rush: Great advice. So finally, I guess, folks who are listening to you and I talk thinking, how can I find out what Minter does? Where can I find some of these workbooks, information films, where's the best place for us to send them?

Minter Dial: Well, first of all, they're probably saying, oh my God, thank God it's finished. I've had enough of this already. I've got other shit to do then just to follow on this guy, but should you be interested? Google and my parents gave me a weird enough name. I'm easily Find-Able thanks to that little search engine and others, of course, minterdial.com is where I write a lot. I post my podcast, which has been going on for 12 years. You can find a tab to all my books, my speaking engagements. In other social media, I have a YouTube channel under my name and on a lot of social. My handle is mdial, M-D-I-A-L, and my book about and film about the second world war documentary is called thelastringhome.com, and you can find links that or valuable there. Hey, Steve, thank you so much for having me on and thanks for asking me.

Steve Rush: Minter It's been delightful. Always loved chatting to you. You're such an inspirational guy, and I always get a different perspective from you, each time we speak. So, I just want to say thank you for becoming part of our community on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Minter Dial: Hack away, Steve.

Steve Rush: Thanks, Minter, take care.

Closing

View Details

Alex Chausovsky is an economist, accomplished speaker, senior business advisor and Director ITR Economics. He's a highly experienced market researcher and analyst who's consulted and advised companies throughout U.S., UK, Europe, Brazil, China, featured on NPR, The BBC and the Wall Street Journal. In this episode you can learn:

You get noticed doing the work others don’t want to
How to use data to predict the future in unpredictable times
Leadership data of local teams and people is so important
You have to open yourself up to failure in order to succeed down the road

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Alex below:

Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexchausovsky/

ITR Economics Website: https://www.itreconomics.com/alex-chausovsky

Alex on Twitter: https://twitter.com/achausovsky

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is Alex Chausovsky. He's an accomplish speaker and director and senior business advisor at ITR Economics. He's a highly experienced market researcher, analyst, and economist with every decade of expertise and subject matters such as macroeconomics, manufacturing, automation, and advanced technology to name just a few. But of course, before we get a chance with Alex, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, I explore leaders from yesteryear. We are incredibly blessed on The Leadership Hacker Podcast, having great guests, share stories, hacks, and tips and ideas every week. And they're currently applying their leadership behaviors, coaching, and development activities. But many of us have learned from other people that have inspired generations. And today I'm just going to choose just two who have left their legacy on this world.

The first needs no introduction. Martin Luther King Jr. a celebrated civil rights activists, forever changed America and the world. Famously quoting, “I have a dream that four of my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Very few Americans are as celebrated as Martin Luther King Jr. The Baptist minister and social activist who led the civil rights movement in the United States until his tragic death in 1968. As an African American born in the rural South in 1929, he faced upheld battle with his life. Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, the young Martin was considered a precocious student who paid little attention to his studies and found great discomfort in religion. It all began to change though, in his junior year when he took a Bible class, which renewed his faith. By 1948, he'd earned a degree from Morehouse College before moving to Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. It was at Morehouse College that Martin Luther King opened his eyes to the racial inequality and took the action. Following years of successful with civil rights activism, he and 61 of the activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. Two years later, he visited Mahatma Gandhi again birthplace in India, which emboldened him to continue down the path of peaceful activism. And on August 28th, in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr would leave his Mark on American history by the delivery of his famous I have a dream speech. King had such a profound impact on American race relations that his efforts resulted in the passage of the civil rights act of 1964, which authorized the federal government to desegregate public accommodations.

The same year he received the Nobel Peace Prize. He'd continue his activism until his assassination on the 4th of April in 1968. And his assassination was a tragic end to remarkable life. He proved just like Gandhi that non-violent protests can influence tremendous change. Maybe 50 years after his death, his legacy is stronger than ever. The third Monday of every January is Martin Luther King Jr day. And now an observed federal holiday in the United States.

Saint Teresa of Calcutta or Mother Teresa ss we now know her. Has left an unforgettable devotion to help the world's poorest and most impoverished and vulnerable people. Her remarkable leadership was even powerful enough to cut cross enemy lines. A strength clearly exemplified during the 1982 CG Siege of Beirut. Mother Theresa managed to broker an exemplary cease fire between Israeli Army and Palestinian Gorillas to rescue 37 children trapped in frontline hospital. She then traveled through the war zone alongside red cross workers to evacuate the young patients.

So, what was it that inspired Mother Theresa tireless drive to help others? Born in 1910, she grew up in a present-day Macedonia, perhaps influenced by her father's death when she was only eight years old, she'd already decided to commit herself to a life of religion, by the time she was 12. Her real journey began in 1929, when she arrived in India and became a Nun and taught at a convent in Eastern Calcutta for several decades. In 1943, the Bengal famine, which killed a staggering 2.1 million was a life-changing moment for Mother Teresa and left unshakeable impression on her. After 20 years of teaching at the convent, she felt a calling within a calling, left her position as headmistress, so she could aid the poor. After moving to the slums, and despite the lack of equipment and supplies, she found a way to open a school for poor children, teaching them to read and write using sticks in the dirt.

Her efforts did not go on notice, a new community soon formed around her. Opening hospitals, clinics, orphanages, and within a few years, her mission went global. By the 1970s, the congregation was helping orphans and those afflicted by addiction, poverty and disability across the world. And in 1979, she also received the Nobel Peace Prize for her work to overcome poverty and suffering. Mother Teresa passed away in 1997, but her congregation continues to live on to this day, spreading her word, her vision, serving those in need. And in 2016, the Catholic Church recognized Mother Teresa as a Saint.

So, two extraordinary individuals whose leadership legacy lives on. That's been The Leadership Hacker News, if you have any new stories or insights, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Alex Chausovsky is our special guest on today's show. He's an accomplished speaker, senior business advisor and director ITR Economics. He's a highly experienced market researcher and analyst who's consulted and advised companies throughout U.S., UK, Europe, Brazil, China, and for the last 15 years as featured on NPR, The BBC and the Wall Street Journal. Alex, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Alex Chausovsky: Thanks so much for having me.

Steve Rush: So, delighted that you've been able to join us on the show. What might be an interesting insight from our folk is to how you've ended up doing what you're doing now. What's your backstory?

Steve Rush: It's an interesting one to be sure. So, I immigrated to the United States from Kyiv Ukraine when it was still part of the former Soviet Union. I was 10 years old at the time, and we became refugees for about a year before we were actually able to enter the United States. But that process of going from an upbringing in communist Russia, to the capitalist society that is Europe, and then the U.S. was a fundamentally transformative one for me, and really is a big part of who I am today of why I chose the career that I chose for myself. And really the way that I view the world through that lens of opportunity and seizing on the opportunities when they become available to you, because you have to be grateful for that. And you know, you never know what's going to happen tomorrow, so you've got to take your chances when they come.

Steve Rush: I bet; you sure do. So that must've been a really challenging time for you and your family. Having to go from what you do to be true at the time to then finding this whole world of discovery, as you kind of started to bump into new things and new ways of doing things and new insights, how did you and your family kind of transition through that?

Alex Chausovsky: Well, I think the transition was much more difficult for my parents. You see, they were in their mid-thirties when we left our previous life behind, they were both highly educated. My mother was a concert level Pianist, then my father was a Graphic Designer, but we only spoke Russian. And so, when the left the Soviet Union, they essentially made the decision of venturing out into the world, not knowing where we would end up or how they were going to take care of the family from a financial perspective. So, to them, I imagine it was much more stressful in terms of putting a roof over our heads and making sure that there's income to provide food and to cover all of the life expenses that we were going to have wherever we ended up.

For me being a ten-year-old kid, it was the adventure of a lifetime. And so, I looked at it exactly, as you mentioned through this lens of discovery, through this lens of adventure and all of the new experiences that I had, whether it was while we were living in Vienna Austria for three months or in Senta Marinella in Italy for about seven months. They were, you know, these things that truly transformed me from a shy kid, living in the confines, under the ceiling of the Soviet regime to someone that believes that as long as you work hard and are willing to do things that others might think too lowly for themselves or not willing to do, then really there's no ceiling to what you can accomplish. And so that's been a big part of who I am. It's been a big part of my career and certainly I'm hoping to pass that mentality and that outlook onto my kids now that I'm an adult myself.

Steve Rush: That’s a great lesson to have. And of course, we always talk about leadership in this sense, but actually leadership is a behavior in my experience, not a job title or a role. I would imagine both of you, even though you might have only been ten and indeed your parents would have come through loads of leadership learning and lessons along way, right?

Alex Chausovsky: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I can think of many instances both while growing up and as I entered the job market and as I went through college and got my master's degree. Where it really required someone to step up, and seize and opportunity. And I believe that my experiences growing up in the transition from Soviet Russia to the United States really made me very well adapt at recognizing those opportunities and then acting on them. There's a really funny story that I can share with you, that is a perfect example of this.

My first job in America was at 14, back then they weren't too careful in terms of checking the age. So, I started working for the McDonald's Corporation when I was younger than I was supposed to. And essentially this environment required, you know, starting at the very, very bottom. So, I started mopping the floors in the dining room of a local McDonald by my house. And then I eventually rose through the ranks, you know, went to work on the fry cooker then on the grill. And eventually I was able to get to the peak, the pinnacle, if you will, of the McDonald’s career as a young person, that was front registered. There was a particular Saturday where we were going to have the owner of the McDonald’s franchise coming in to check on the store. And so that morning, the manager really kind of fired up the team and they said we really have to be at the top of our game. We have to make sure that we are presenting the best face forward to make sure that the owner of the store is happy when he comes in. And so, through a various series of events, we had a very unfortunate incident happened on the playground of the McDonald’s about half an hour before the manager got there.

And it was a terrible mess that nobody was willing to step up and clean up. But I recognize that opportunity knowing exactly what was coming down later that afternoon. And I volunteered, it was certainly not a pleasant experience, but I got through it. And as a result, the franchise owner, when he actually came into the store, he immediately recognized my willingness to go above and beyond and promoted me to assistant manager at the tender young age of 14. So, it was a major development, as you can imagine, I did not present a severe authority figure as a manager at 14, but the great part about it. And the thing that I look back very fondly was that as a manager at McDonald’s, you have the ability to give out free food. And so, I immediately became the most popular kid in my high school because everybody wanted to be friends with me so that they could get free McDonald's.

And all of that was me recognizing that opportunity to present it itself, and then being willing to do what others weren't willing to do in order to capitalize on it. So that was a great life lesson for me. And I think it should be a lesson to anyone thinking about what it takes to be a leader. You have to be willing to do the thing that you're asking your own people to do, right? And that's like key element of having the team behind you and motivating and inspiring people to rise above and beyond, just the baseline of expectations.

Steve Rush: It's a brilliant story. I love it. And one that you've now actually ironically turned that spotting of opportunities as you called it, into a career.

Alex Chausovsky: That's exactly right.

Steve Rush: So, your focus now, at ITR Economics is spotting opportunities. Just tell us a little bit about the work that you do with you and your teams across ITR Economics?

Alex Chausovsky: Yeah, it's exactly right Steve. We spot opportunities for various industries, but we spot opportunities for companies and we help them capitalize on those opportunities. So, it all revolves around what we call business cycle analysis. Most people look at GDP and other economic metrics as raw values, you know, the value of economic activity and so on. We look at it from a rate of change analysis and leveraging our calculations and our proprietary methodology. What we're able to do is predict for businesses the next low point and high point in their business cycle. And then we're able to turn those into opportunities by advising companies to be aggressive and invest during those business cycle lows when they might not be so busy and might be able to take advantage of some other people's pessimism and lower prices and to ramp up ahead of the marketplace, therefore positioning themselves to take advantage of the growth opportunities of the future to gain market share, and to really separate them from their peers.

At the top of the market cycle, what we're able to do is prevent or mitigate the downside pressure. As we look towards the future and use our forecast, we're able to help companies tighten the belt, make sure that they don't over commit themselves or overextend in terms of capital investment and spending activities. And as a result, we have many, many clients that still to this day, for example, thank us by sending us these massive Christmas baskets at the holiday time to say, you know, if you didn't tell me about the great recession of 2007-2009, as early as 2006, we would not be in business today. And so that's exactly what our methodology is all about, is being ahead of the curve, using our rate of change analysis and leading indicators to help companies identify those opportunities and then help them act on those opportunities when it's prudent to do so.

Steve Rush: Given the shift with the pandemic, hitting us all now, isn't it pretty much impossible to be an economist now?

Alex Chausovsky: Yeah, it's really interesting that you say that because logically speaking, I get where you're coming from, but the reality is, when the pandemic first hit here in the U.S. we reacted right away. Now in hindsight, as we look at the results of our forecast. We know that our methodology held up despite the disruption, despite the black Swan nature of those events, we generated a lot of forecasts in the mid-March of 2020 timeframe. And we've now looked at the performance of those forecasts all the way through the end of the 2020 calendar year. And for a vast majority of our macroeconomic series, things like industrial production, housing, retail sales, employment figures, we even forecast foreign indicators like GDP and industrial production in the UK, in Europe and China, and the accuracy ratings of those forecasts, meaning how close to the mark, where we able to come are all in excess of 96%.

So, three quarters out with the uncertainty and the unpredictable nature, not knowing really how the pandemic was going to unfold. Our reliance on leading indicators and our proprietary methodology really held up. And now with hindsight, we can say with confidence, we were able to help businesses cut through the noise, you know, separate the wheat from the chaff, if you will, and really be able to have that clarity that they needed to make decisions into the future with confidence. And we certainly have a lot of happy clients that are very glad that they listened to us back during that second quarter of 2021, when nobody really knew what was going to happen.

Steve Rush: That's so interesting and data of course, is being relied on more and more as organizations realize the value that data has for them. How would you say the pandemic has shifted how we really use data and how we respond to it at the moment?

Alex Chausovsky: Well, I think in my observation, because half of what I do is deliver presentations at industry events and, you know, boardroom meetings. And the other half is working directly with companies on a one-on-one basis, advising their CEOs and CFOs and as well as COOs in terms of what they should be doing based on what we're seeing in that economic landscape. And I can tell you that the key difference that people have taken from this pandemic is, they can no longer trust their guts. You know, before I would say most people relied on input from their sales teams or kind of, you know, the feel of the marketplace as they're doing their day-to-day activities. But right now, most business owners are convinced that they have to be data-driven decision makers. They can no longer trust that instinct or their guts. They have to use reliable, hard data to make those good quality decisions. And that's exactly what we help them do.

Steve Rush: Of course, data, charting, indicators. They're pretty pointless unless you've got a leader who's receptive and who's bold enough to want to use them. What's the kind of typical conversation you might find yourself having to get people to move away from maybe using their gut to rely on data?

Alex Chausovsky: Well, I think in most cases, we tend to work with small and medium sized companies. And a lot of times the business community in general and leaders in particular tend to think I am unique. My company doesn't perform the way that the economy does or the way that an entire vertical market might. And so, it takes an overcoming of some of those preconceived notions by showing them that there really is a cyclical relationship that exists between your company, the market that you operate in, and overall macro economy. And in most cases, when we talk about businesses of, you know, 3 million upwards of 500 million, there is a correlation between the business cycle overall and their performance.

Sometimes there's a lead lag relationship as we call it, which means that the business either leads the economy as in the case of companies that are involved, for example, in a housing market construction. And there are other sectors that lag the economy. So, understanding that timing mechanism is absolutely key, but once we are able to establish clearly in the mind of the decision maker, that there is this correlation, then they're much more likely to look at the economic data and incorporate it into their strategic decision-making in order to make better informed decisions, rather than going by their gut or by the latest news through the grapevine, as I might be hearing about.

Steve Rush: How do you go about predicting the future that hasn't happened yet. Using historical data such as, particularly in the last 12 months or so, where it's been so erratic?

Alex Chausovsky: So, it's really interesting that we have these series. We call them leading economic indicators. They're essentially data series that consistently and accurately predict behavior in other series over an extended period of time. So, I'll give you a few examples. We typically look at the economy from the industrial perspective, from the business the business perspective, rather than the consumer perspective. Because most of our clients are manufacturing companies, they're construction companies or service providers. They're not companies that deal with selling directly to the consuming public. Now we do have some clients in that space, but the vast majority of them are industrial companies. So, our benchmark for economic performance is typically industrial production. There are at least a dozen series that lead industrial production by at least six months or more. And in some cases, they have this predictive ability of upwards of 12, 15 in many cases, more than two years into the future. And their series that most people don't track. Things like corporate bond yields and verdict for prices. We've got export activity. We have stock market performance. The purchasing managers indices are very popular, but even things that I mentioned already, like housing market data that typically predicts 12 months into the future, what the macro economic cycle is going to do.

So, to give you a specific example here, right now, what we've been tracking in the U.S. is extremely robust rise in housing market activity because of its 12-month lead time. We can say with confidence that there's going to be rise in the U.S. industrial production index all the way into early 2022, based on what we've seen in that housing market data so far over the last 12 months. And so, there was disruption, don't get me wrong. The pandemic clearly disrupted previous trends, but the leading indicators immediately picked up on the new direction. And we were able to forecast when the next low point is going to be, how severe the decline was going to be. And then when that rising trend was going to begin, and now that we look back, it's exactly played out, as we expected. We knew that there was going to be a business cycle low in the first quarter of 2021. That's exactly what has happened. And we are now gearing up for that rising trend and the leading indicators predicted many months ago.

Steve Rush: And I guess what you're talking about in terms of lead indicators, that's just another way of thinking about the economics that are happening now, and then all of the supply chains that feature into what you think is going to happen, right?

Alex Chausovsky: That's exactly right, yeah. A leading indicator is very simply put a series that has historically been able to predict what a different series does. So, when you think about, you know, for example, corporate profits is a really interesting one to think about. Corporate profits as companies recognized profitability, then they then turn around and spend that money on machinery, on equipment, on new buildings. And so, if you look at non-residential construction, for instance, like office buildings, they typically lag the economy by about a year because companies first recognize profits. Then they allocate those profits to spending. And then a year later they're buying a new building or investing in the construction of a new office tower or a warehouse or something like that. So that's what I'm talking about is, these series historically, are able to predict what other behavior is likely to happen down the line. And we're able to leverage some of those insights to accurately forecast performance of both the macro economy as a whole and of key industries, you know, to help companies make those good quality decisions at the right time.

Steve Rush: So, if I'm a business owner or a business leader, and I'm exploring using data maybe for the first time or we're using data in a different way, what's the best way you would encourage me to adopt it or to look at it?

Alex Chausovsky: I think the key is to start with your own performance. We have a great section on our website, www.itreconomics.com/slashmethodology that teaches you how to track your own sales for unit volume shipping. So whatever metric you think is important gauge of performance for your company, look at how to calculate your rates of change, plot that visually, and then how to identify leading indicators for your own business. So, series that will actually help you predict what your revenues are going to be two, three years into the future. And it's really, really important that you do this on an ongoing basis. So, most companies already calculate the growth rates once a year. They'll take a look at their overall performance for 2020 for example, they'll compare that to 2019 performance and they'll calculate a growth rate. And then they'll make a lot of key decisions based on that number.

But the reality is that number changes throughout the year and you have to stay on top of those changes to identify shifts in your own business cycle, because those shifts come with changes in your decision-making and in your actions. So, the key thing is getting access to good quality for your own business. Most companies use monthly sales as a barometer of their performance, and then plotting that as rates of change, tracking their performance over time, and then leveraging that in conjunction with leading indicator input, to be able to predict business cycle turns and then connecting that to the decisions and the actions that you take as a manager and as a leader.

Steve Rush: That sounds like a really neat approach actually, really like that. I suppose, if I'm not leading a business or I haven't got all of that kind of economic data, what about some of the practices and principles that you have experienced that I might want to adopt locally with my team, any the idea?

Alex Chausovsky: Well, I think, you know, a key part of leadership for me and I've worked with a lot of different organizations over the last two decades. And one of the things that I see as a consistent measure of success and a reflection of success in businesses are business leaders that are transparent and very direct with their employees. A lot of times, especially in larger organizations, you tend to want to hold your cards close to your chest as a business leader and as a key decision maker and the companies that are more transparent. That get more buy-in from their employees, right off the bat and have a partnership rather than the traditional employee, employer relationship. I see outperform the rest of the market time and time again. And so, I think it's that element of it, is remembering that you hired these people for a reason. You think they're talented. You think they're smart. You think they're bringing a lot to the table, be honest with them, be transparent with them and make sure that you help them see that your fortunes are tied together. As the business does, so will their performance likely do, so the better they can contribute to the vision, the goals of the business, the better along their own path to success, they're able to come. And that makes all the difference in my opinion.

Steve Rush: And data of course, people think is a physical numbers metric. But actually, data is observations, environment, how people are thinking and feeling, you know, how often we might want to check in with them as to how they're doing, whether we do pulse tests or employee surveys, or just ask people. That's still data though, right?

Alex Chausovsky: Absolutely. It is information, it's inputs that you should be incorporating into your decision-making process. And, you know, to your point, a lot of times the people on the front lines in your organization are going to have brilliant ideas about how to drive the business forward, whether that's new product development or customer relationships that are either excellent or under strain. You know, you have to be able to give people a platform to feel comfortable in communicating that. Not only to you as the business leader, but up the chain of command throughout the organization. And if they're able to do that, if they're empowered, to be able to talk honestly and openly about all of these things, even if they may be somewhat negative, like identifying the challenges and the problems that exist in the company. I think those types of are positioning themselves to have a lot of success into the future.

Steve Rush: I Agree. So, this part of the show Alex, we get to spin around and start to hack into your leadership mind. I'm going to ask you firstly, to distill all of your lessons of working with great people and leading others to distill your top three leadership hacks. What would they be?

Alex Chausovsky: Well, I think I've touched on some of them already, but I think it's that transparency and being open to change, I think is a very critical part of a successful business leader. You have to be willing to recognize that just because you've been doing something a certain way for a long time, that doesn't make it appropriate for today's marketplace or for the way things are unfolding around you right now. So, you have to be willing to recognize that change is a constant part of the way that you do business.

I think the second part that I mentioned earlier is, you have to be willing to do the things that you're asking your own people to do. They have to know that you're willing to get into the trenches with them. You wouldn't be asking them to do something that you wouldn't be willing to do yourself. And I think the last thing that I'll mention that is probably the most important one from my perspective, and this is being totally transparent with you from observations that I've made at the various companies I worked at. I've worked in banking; I've worked in marketing for a telecommunications firm. I worked in sales, selling computers at a major technology company. Now I'm in this market research slash consulting world, and that is people behave the way that you incentivize them to. And a lot of times business leaders don't see that connection or they fail to incentivize people to get the right kind of behavior out of them. But that's, I think probably the biggest driver of your employees, morale and behavior. If they feel incentivized and rewarded for getting the kind of results that you want for your business, then they're going to do everything that they can to get you there. If they don't. Then I think you're going to find a lot of people kind of default to this cruise control mode and they just do the bare minimum. But if you give them a reason to behave in a certain way, you're going to get that best performance out of them. So, I think that that's the most important one.

Steve Rush: It also has the effect that could be impacted negatively. So, if you incentivize a workforce and if you look back to the banking crisis, as an example. Where highly incentivized sales forces may be sold products that were not necessarily appropriate, the same lens applies, isn't it? So incentivizing people could be great and get great results if it's the right thing. But if you don't do it right, then unconsciously create the wrong behaviors as well.

Alex Chausovsky: Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, you don't have to go all the way back to the, you know, the crisis to see that happen. Wells Fargo recently with all of the extra accounts that their reps were opening for people and Volkswagen in Europe is another great example of the, you know, the diesel emissions.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that’s right. I remember that.

Alex Chausovsky: Fraud that was going on there. So, there are numerous examples of the negative implications of this incentivization or incentivizing the wrong type of behavior.

Steve Rush: The next part of the show, we call Hack to Attack. So, this is where something in your life or your work in the past has happened, and it was an adversity, but as a result of it, you now have learned from it and you use it as a lesson in your life. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Alex Chausovsky: I think you have to put yourself out there, you have to open yourself up to failure in order to succeed down the road. I feel like this resiliency that a lot of immigrants bring to the table is a result of multiple failures throughout their lives. And the difference being that they have no choice, but to bounce back from that, there's just no other option. And so, I think recognizing that failure is a part of the growth that you have for yourself as a leader, for your organization and for some of your employees. It's a very important component that needs to be, you know, proactively addressed by business leaders. Some of the biggest breakthroughs come on the back of failure. And so, I think that, you know, not only being willing to fail, but also having that resiliency to bounce back from failure, those are going to be absolutely key to success onward into the future.

Steve Rush: It's a really neat reframe actually, because we talk a lot in corporate world these days around diversity and inclusion, but I wonder how many have actually made the direct correlation to families who have fled adversity, have had to go through real challenge. And, you know, you described that journey with your parents coming into numbers of different countries before arriving in the U.S. that is going to create super strong foundations that you learned from. And I just wonder if organizations are aware enough to tap into that consciously right now, what's your thoughts?

Alex Chausovsky: I think that there are organizations that recognize this and they tap into it, and those are very successful organizations and yet others are, I think, in that grouping that I mentioned earlier, well, we've always done it a certain way, and we're going to continue to stick to that because it has worked for us historically. I think in general, this idea of people that have been through the ringer are going to be tougher and more resilient within your organization. Does need to be recognized on a broader scale than it is right now. But I think that the momentum is there for that to happen. I mean, we live in a, such a globally interconnected world. If you look back just a couple of decades ago, the typical makeup of businesses was much less diverse and both from a racial perspective and from a gender perspective. And I think that there is this increasing, you know, awareness of the benefits that, you know, diversity brings to the table and inclusion brings to the table. But as with many significant changes the companies go through, it's going to be generational. It's going to take time for everybody to, you know, kind of adapt to that. And I think, you know, interestingly in the U.S. we've got this baby boomer phenomenon over the next 10 years, you're going to have 10,000 people per day retiring. And a lot of those people right now are in leadership positions.

Steve Rush: That’s right.

Alex Chausovsky: They're owners of businesses, they're managers, they're CEOs. And I think as the next generation is my generation Gen X-ers and then millennials behind us, step into those leadership roles. You're going to see a hugely different perspective on the behalf of those younger leaders. That's not to say that there, aren't plenty of very aware and very woke, let's say leaders in the baby boomer generation right now. But I think it's going to be even more acute when you see some of the younger folks take those leadership positions.

Steve Rush: And I would hazard a guess that there's lots of data that sits behind that to help organizations start to think about how they're hiring and for what reasons they might be hiring.

Alex Chausovsky: Yeah, there absolutely is. Now that's not an area of specialty for us at ITR, but we do have partner companies that can help with that. And certainly, businesses need to think about that. They need to think about the fact that, you know, most of the products and most of the customer demand that's going to happen. Let's call it even in the 2030s is something that's going to look drastically different than what they're experiencing right now. So, they need to be willing to position themselves. Take that vulnerable spot of being open to significant change because as we know, companies that don't change are often left behind. And so, if you don't want to be one of those businesses, you've got to continue to evolve. And this diversity and inclusion is a major component of that evolution.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it is. And I'm going to call it here first that I think that the group of people that are in high school education now are going to be the next generational shift. So, we have a workforce now of Generation Z that are in the workforce that haven't been born since the new millennium and this change in what we've suffered in the last year. I think we'll spurn the next generation that will be more resilient and will be more thoughtful and who knows what the future holds, right?

Alex Chausovsky: Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, it'll be fascinating to see what Generation Alpha is going to bring to the table as they mature. And, you know, every generation has this transformational moment, but I think you're right. The pandemic was such a, you know, scale level event and so disruptive that it's going to be very difficult for the young people to not put things in relative context to 2020 and the disruption that brought to our lives,

Steve Rush: Very wise words. So, the last thing we get to do with you is give you an opportunity for a bit of time travel. And as a Gen X myself, this is going to be an opportunity for you to bump into your 21-year-old self and give them some advice. What would it be?

Alex Chausovsky: The advice that I would give my 21-year-old self is be more aggressive with investing when you are younger. I think whether that buying your first house when you're younger and signing up for a, you know, a 15-year short term mortgage, and then enjoying the benefits of that as you get into your late thirties and early forties, kind of the mailbox money as we call it here, in terms of becoming a landlord. Diversify your wealth and your income flows by investing in your retirement portfolio, as early as you can, as aggressively as you can. And all of that I think is focused on this concept of live below your means. I think that a lot of young people that are born into some level of privilege, it's such an alien concept to them that, you know, they allow this lifestyle creep to follow them throughout their career. As you start making more money into your thirties, into your forties, you just continue to keep up with the Joneses.

You tried to get that BMW, or you buy the bigger house, or you go on the fancier vacations. And I think that's something that is missing the big picture, which is, you want the position yourself to be in a place where you can choose what you do and becoming, you know, independently financially wealthy, whether that's rich or just stable enough to say, no, I don't want to do this thing. I can have other options available to me. That's the advice that I would give my younger self is, to be more aggressive in those terms. As far as, you know, in your early days, set a culture and behavioral pattern that you live below your means, and you sock at your money away and then be aggressive with that savings. Don't just let it sit there in an account, put that money to work, start a business, buy that property, invest in the market and let the compound interest work for you over time. I think that's a really important notion that many young people don't understand

Steve Rush: Yeah, I'm with you. So, Alex you are such a fascinating guy. I've really loved chatting with you. You've got a wealth of knowledge and wealth of experience. For our listeners who want to connect with you and learn a little bit more about the work that you do with ITR Economics. Where's the best place for us to send them?

Alex Chausovsky: Well, you can certainly check out the website that I mentioned earlier, www.itreconomics.com, We also have a social media presence on LinkedIn on Facebook and Twitter. My personal Twitter handle is @achausovsky. So, my first initial, last name. Certainly, would love some of your listeners to follow me. We're always putting out free content, blog posts and podcasts episodes, and opinion pieces, and anything that's designed to help people cut through the noise and make good quality decisions at the right time. So, I would certainly love to engage with your audience on any of those channels that are available to them.

Steve Rush: And we will help you do that by putting the links in our show notes.

Alex Chausovsky: Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Steve Rush: Alex, has been super talking and thank you for coming on our show and sharing your wisdom and your lessons learned, and here's to the prediction of getting out of the pandemic and developing our thinking and our behaviors for the future. So, thanks for being on our podcast. Yeah,

Alex Chausovsky: Absolutely. Thanks for having me and I hope we get to do it again soon.

Steve Rush: You're very welcome.

Alex Chausovsky: Take care.

Steve Rush: Thanks Alex.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

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Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum is the founder and CEO of the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy. She's an author and clinical psychologist with over 35 years’ experience and an expert in positive psychology and mind-body medicine. In this show you will hear Sandra talk about:

The passion behind starting a new business at age 65 and still be driven at 71
The relationship between functional medicine coaching and positive psychology
The P-E-R-M-A. model in positive psychology
The 24 character strengths for a positive life

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Dr Sandra below:

Sandra on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandra-scheinbaum-ph-d-17ba678/

FMCA Website: https://functionalmedicinecoaching.org

Sandra on Twitter: https://twitter.com/drscheinbaum

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

We have a self-professed lifelong learner on the show today, Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum work has been centered around education and innovation since the very beginning of her career. She's the author of Functional Medicine Coaching: How to Be Part the Movement That's Transforming Healthcare. As the founder and CEO of the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy, but before we get a chance to speak with Sandra, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Diversity and inclusion is an essential part of organization's growing and taking advantage of what diversity brings. However, many CEOs who are faced with real crisis individually often don't face into the fact that they might need to be more open about who they really are. A perfect example of this was CEO of insurance broker Bradley & Parker. Wayne Nowland, now Wynne Nowland has recently gone through gender transition and now claims to be much more at peace with themselves.

Nowland started working at the medium sized firm in Melville, New York in 1986 and held several senior positions before coming CEO and chain 2017, just a few months before her transition. During those years, Nowland buried herself in work to avoid dealing with her two personas. At work, she was Wayne, but inside and occasionally around a selected group of close friends, she was Wynne. Nowland told CNBC Make It. “One of my friends said that my work was my mistress, because it was the way for me to pour a lot of my frustration and resources into getting things done. So, from that standpoint, I guess it had some value.” From Nowland, earliest memory, she knew she was different, but it took her a long time to label it. And it wasn't until a few weeks after her 56th birthday in 2017 and four months after being promoted to CEO, she had an epiphany, an awakening and decided she couldn't hide her true self any longer.

Nowland sent an email to her 70-person, strong staff telling them that she had made a decision to transition her agenda. The note she wrote started, “I plan to begin working as Wynne starting this morning.” Nowland also wrote emails to corporate clients and board members making it clear that she plans to continue to lead the firm in a way she had done so for 30 years and the next time Nowland arrived at work, she was wearing a woman's pantsuit, pearl and a pair of Tiffany earrings and full makeup. Her colleagues greeted her with open arms that day. She goes on to say, I did not fully come out until I came out at work. Nowland 59, now feels more at peace and more ease with the work in her personal life and at home. She goes on to tell CNBC Make It.

“What I realized was that, unless you want to lead your life calculating every minute of the day, there’s a really no way to lead dual existences. Mentally you can, but outwardly, the communities are still too small.”

My advice to anybody is consistent. I think it's important to avail yourself to the professionals, to get some help and to help guide you through what could be a really confusing time. But once you've come to the conclusion, that's what you are, who you are, don't delay. So, whatever your diversity, whatever your challenge or whatever your two personas maybe, don't wait. And what a great lesson it is to us all, to be true to ourselves, whatever we are, and to make sure that we are really thoughtful about the journeys that not only we're taking, but people around us maybe taking unconsciously and unbeknown to ourselves. So, congratulations, Wynne and congratulations on celebrating it publicly. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Please get in touch with us, if you have any stories or insights that you'd like our listeners to hear.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: On the show today is Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum. She is the founder and CEO of the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy. She's a clinical psychologist with over 35 years’ experience and an expert in positive psychology and mind-body medicine. She's also the author of The Functional Medicine Coaching, Stop Panic Attacks in 10 Easy Steps and How to Give Clients the Skills to Stop Panic Attacks. Sandra, welcome to the show.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Thank you. It is a pleasure to be here.

Steve Rush: Now you have a really fascinating backstory that's caused you to pivot at almost retirement age, but before we get to that, perhaps you can give us a summary of how you've arrived at doing what you've done?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Sure. Well, where I am now is not where I began. I always thought I would be a school teacher and that's what I studied in college. I was teaching children with learning disabilities and other special needs. This was in the early seventies and I became quite interested in the, not only the stress that they were experiencing in their lives, but their parents as well. And I started leading groups for parents. They were like support groups and teaching them strategies for managing their children at home. And so, at the time I was teaching like breathing strategies and this was pretty radical and unheard of. This idea that by stopping and taking some breaths, you can calm yourself. It would increase your ability to learn more effectively. And I then went on and got my doctorate in clinical psychology and was always a renegade. At the time the world of psychology, psychotherapy, the psychoanalytic, and I was interested in people getting well now and moving forward, not spending years analyzing their childhood.

And so, I was blending these mind body medicine techniques, where you're using breathing or using muscle relaxation, use of imagery. And combining that with having people really stop and reflect on what they're saying to their selves, their self-talk. This catastrophizing, and so that comes from the world of cognitive behavioral therapy. I blended that with something else that didn't have a name at the time, and that was positive psychology, which is where you look at what's right with the person and not what's wrong with them. And you look at their key strengths. So, I've been putting all that together and found that not only were the people I were working with getting better, and these were people, I was a health psychologist. So, these were people who had a chronic health issues, or they had severe anxiety. And this was something that I knew quite well.

I had severe panic attacks when I was in my twenties. I also had a serious addiction to sugar where I would really binge on bags of cookies and all kinds of sugary snacks and not realizing how unhealthy I was becoming. I was not obese, but I was particularly unhealthy with thyroid issues, for example. And also, didn't realize that I had had years and years of antibiotics. And when I started studying functional medicine and that was around 2009/2010. I was fascinating with this idea that you could dig down to the root cause and you could develop a timeline for an individual and see, Whoa, it was that history of all the antibiotics, or maybe there was something traumatic that happened in childhood. And for me, that was losing my father when I was nine years old. So, you combine all those things and then you see what were the triggers and what was the perpetuator of not feeling well, was all the years that my diet was pretty out of whack.

So, as I started making changes in my diet. I started exercising, enjoying movement throughout the day. I was getting better as well. So, when I was 65, yes, I decided I was not going to retire because I had a huge vision and purpose in my life. I wanted to take all of these strategies that I knew worked so well and teach them to health coaches because health coaches are the ones who would be really the key to helping people to create a wellness, to live better lives. So, I approached The Institute for Functional Medicine, that's IFM, were I had trained in functional medicine and they were quite interested in partnering and creating this school to train health coaches. So, what we do now is, we train health coaches in all the things that I hah practice and the functional medicine principles that are taught through the Institute for Functional Medicine.

Steve Rush: Really fascinating. There's a couple of things there that really struck a chord to me. The whole philosophy that body and our mind are so powerful, and so intrinsically linked to our wellbeing. I think for most people, we still really take that for granted. I just wondered what your thoughts were?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Oh, absolutely. So, we don't realize that if we, let's say, we're not feeling well, maybe we have a headache. And if we tell ourselves that this is the worst thing, I can't stand this, this pain is awful. I'm always going to be suffering this way. Then that's going to create a stress response. We're actually tightening those muscles as we think those thoughts. But if we are telling ourselves, okay, if I just breathe? If I soften my forehead, if I imagine something cool on my forehead, back of my neck, that, you know, soon will feel better. And low and behold it does. And so, if we are scaring ourselves with something, if we are worried, if we are telling ourselves, it'll never get better, I'm always going to feel this way. Or the world will always be this way as we are all experiencing now. Then that's going to lead to some of our changes in our health, our guts and our brain are intimately connected. Think of those like sinus twins, they are always traveling together and inseparable.

Steve Rush: I guess that's, what's been referred to as psychosomatic?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: It was, but that term tended to be used by, for example, the psychiatric community in a pejorative way, they would tell people, Oh, it's all in your mind. It's nothing. Well, it is something. Your mind is creating. It's not like you're making it up. They often things psychosomatic as well, it's not real. This person is just making it up, it's all in their mind, but if it's in the mind and the body.

Steve Rush: Got it, that makes loads of sense. Now, I guess also the other thing that struck a chord when you were talking is this whole passion for teaching and education. Has really been a driving force for when people start to retire, you've taken it another step forward, and it's now become your life and work now at The Functional Medicine Coaching Academy. Tell us a bit about the epiphany that led to creating an organization at the age of 65?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Yes, well first and foremost, I'm very, very active and I like being around people much younger than I am. And I have this mission to want to see a health coach in every medical office and to furthest, to be the norm. And so, I know that when people are not sitting around in retirement and bored or losing interest, as the curiosity in the world, then that's when people tend to decline quite rapidly. For me, I saw my mother succumb to Alzheimer's disease, and I want to stay vibrant. I want to be young at heart. And so, when you have a strong mission and a purpose, that is what happens. At our school, which is FMCA, Functional Medicine Coaching Academy. We have a significant number of students. These learners love learning, and they are stepping out of retirement. A lot of former school teachers, for example, some retired physicians and they are studying with us and it's what's keeping them vibrant.

They're so excited. They're not doing it to build a career as our younger students are, they're doing it because they love the content, they're using it personally, or with their families. And they're going out, often volunteering, or they're not again building a career, but they are going out and serving. And that is how they are getting paid. And they're quite, quite happy doing that. And so that for me, is just having this strong, strong mission to teach. And so, in a sense, I came back to my roots. I started wanting to be a teacher and now I'm a teacher again.

Steve Rush: That's amazing. I love it. So, what's the difference between the functional medicine doctor and a functional medicine coach?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: So, a functional medicine doctor is the medical experts. They went to medical school; they can diagnose the condition. They can draw a big treatment plan for that condition. A coach is the expert in behavior change. So, they are not the medical person, or they are not the dietician. But they work on a team. They refer to those individuals and we need it all. And so, what the coach does is to listen, their expertise is in listening with people and asking the right types of questions so that somebody will become inspired to change how they're living their life. The coach is asking questions like, what do you want your health score? What brings you the most joy? And then they help them set goals that are achievable. And they're often very tiny once. And they celebrate with that person and they call, they also hold that individual accountable for call me and let me know how it's going, or we're going to talk about this again when we meet next week. So, this movement is growing and I'm really saying that I'm going to fulfill my mission of seeing a coach in every office. We have coaches who are increasingly getting hired by practices in the UK. The national health service is starting to hire coaches in the United States through the payer system here, we have a pathway for coaches to build directly, that's coming in the future. We're on that road right now. And there's, right now though, use of coaches where they can lead group visits, for example. They can be one who is in the office, monitoring all that data that's coming in from remote patient monitoring devices. Like your watch, for example, your blood glucose monitor. And so, the coach is the one who is working with that expert with that functional medicine doctor.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's really fascinating, isn't it? And I suspect the current environment that we've been in and the pandemic has seen a real upsurge in people wanting to access health coaches. What's been your experience during the pandemic. And as it's evolved over the last six to twelve months?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: A thousand percent. People are interested in health, like never before. They are wanting to work with health coaches. Also, the health care workers are exhausted and burned out and they have their hands full with acute care. They are often not able to take the time with people who have these chronic medical conditions, like type two diabetes. And that's what the health coach can do, and they do it remotely. They do it over platforms like Zoom, and they can have people that are working with all over the world. They can work with people in groups, which is a very, very effective model that is also growing because it makes it affordable and more people are accepting health coaches. There's a lot of major companies that are hiring health coaches. And there's a group that unfortunately suffering right now. And those are those people who are what we call the lawn haulers from COVID, and they are still having symptoms often months later. And so, the coaches who are trained in this functional medicine approach to have a broad perspective to look at how to help somebody with the symptoms that are not dissipating months and months after they first got sick

Steve Rush: And to help your new health coaches along the way. There's a couple of key tenants that I noticed that really key to helping the end client get better physically and mentally well. And the first one is that what you call character strengths. And I wondered why you call them the building blocks for wellbeing?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: This comes from the field of positive psychology. So, this is a field of study that looks at what's right with somebody, what makes a life worth living? Why do people flourish? This comes from the work of Martin Seligman and other researchers where they came up with this concept that we call PERMA, P-E-R-M-A. This acronym stands for. P is positive emotion. We all need to have experiences of joy in our life. We need the E, which is engagement or flow. We need to be focused on something that is truly like putting us in the state of complete mindfulness of the moment or enjoying something or deeply moved by something, the R's relationships, we need meaningful relationships. The M is meaning, we need meaning and purpose in our lives, whether that's a big mission or our meaning and purposes, our family, and nurturing our family. And the A finally is achievement. Whether that's big or small, we got up and we made our bed. Wow, that's an achievement. So how do we get to these? We get to them through our character strengths. Why are they the building blocks? These are the traits that we all have, and the researchers have identified 24 of them. Why 24? Well, they took years and years. And they went through all of the research literature, all of the teachings of philosophy, psychology, religions, various cultures around the world and found that no matter how old or how young you were, no matter where you lived in the world. There were these 24 traits that kept coming up again and again, and those are what we call character strengths. So, when somebody is asked, what are your strengths? So, they tend to think of them as the ones that are skills like, Oh, I'm good at playing the piano.

I'm good at playing sports. Well, this is what you learned. These are skills, but how do you get good at playing the piano? Oh, you need to curiosity. You need to have a love of learning to get you to the piano. Well, how do you master that? Well, you need to keep practicing and that's the strength of self-regulation. And so, we put all these together. Appreciation of beauty and excellence. You have to be able to say, well that sound is lovely. This one is discordant and jarring. And so, all of these character strengths. All these 24 bring you to achieve great things to have a life well lived. And so, some of these strengths are what we call in a cluster. They're this wisdom strength, like having that curiosity and love of learning, having perspective and good judgment. There are strengths that have to do with courage, like bravery for example, and strengths that have to do with what we call the humanity strengths. Love and kindness, teamwork, leadership, and appreciation of beauty, hope, gratitude, humor, spirituality. So self-regulation, prudence. So, there are 24, if you're curious, because we have what we call signature strengths. So, of our 24, some come more naturally to us. Like for me, it is that appreciation of beauty, is love of learning, its curiosity, it's zest and creativity. And so, you can go to the VIA, viacharacter.org. It's a nonprofit at FMCA. We work very closely with them. Their director teaches for us, it's called VIA, V-I-A, and you can go on their website. They have a free test, which is very well validated. And then you can get an idea of what your character strengths are, and we all have them. And we just, sometimes we use one or a few more than others and strengths have been studied quite extensively.

Steve Rush: Mmm, I love that whole principle of character strengths. And as you were listing them off, they're almost what you would look for, ideally, in a leader that you wanted to work with as well. They're all the things that you would want to engender that feeling of positivity and wellbeing, right?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Absolutely, and they come in clusters. So, you know, for example. One of my top strengths is zest, which is like this excitement. I'm always like jumping out of my skin, jumping for joy. And that also connects with creativity, for example, and then it's balanced with self-regulation to have the self-regulation, to sit down and study what you love learning. And so, there's wonderful ways that we help people by having them identify not what's wrong with them, but they can use these strengths. And the strengths are what bring us to having joy every day, for example, and perseverance. So right now, to have that resilience to keep going on is very, very crucial. So, what we do, what we train our coaches to do is to help people when they see their timeline, their story, that they're not just thinking about all the trauma they experienced and all the, for example, illnesses they may have had and suffered through and are perhaps still suffering.

But the coach might point out their perseverance that they didn't give up. They kept going, and so they would then ask that question, well, how can you do that today? Or what strength are you going to use today? Or you can have strengths talk with your family, for example, instead of asking your child how was your day at school? What strengths did you use? Or you set an intention at the beginning of the day. Today I'm going to practice my strength. I'm going to build my strength of forgiveness. That's one of the key character strengths that is definitely is highly correlated with physical wellbeing. Forgiveness is so important.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so the skeptics might be listening to this. Who are suggesting well, it’s all very well having positive psychology, but what about dealing with the root causes some of these problems that exist in maybe other genres of psychology? How would you square that argument off?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: So, Positive Psychology is not happy allergy. It is not about just, Oh, I have to be happy all the time. It's accepting of the full gamut of emotions. They just are, and in the course of a day, lifetime, we experience all of them. And it is this acceptance that is really the root of positive psychology. So, you have the acceptance. Yes, this happened to me or I experienced this and it was bad, it was traumatic. And how do I want to live right now? What do I want to focus on today? What do I want to be hopeful for about tomorrow? And so, yes, functional medicine is root cause medicine. It's where you dig down and say, okay, these symptoms that I'm experiencing are connected. For example, if you look under the hood to inflammation, what could be causing inflammation? Perhaps it's all of that gluten and sugar, perhaps it is lack of sleep that I'm experiencing, perhaps I am upsetting myself and I'm getting really aggravated about my work conditions.

I'm very worried about my finances. All of those things would be root causes. And it's not just one. They usually come in a huge cluster. Now, where does the positive psychology come in? Well, you would say, okay, what can I do about this? How can perhaps taking some pauses and clearing this out as I exhale slowly and take a very deep breath, I'm going to let go of what I don't think is serving me, or I'm going to use the self-regulation, character strength to go to bed earlier tonight, or I'm going to experience the joy of eating something that is going to have gluten or perhaps it's sugar. Like I was having that problem with, well, I can experience the joy of blueberries as my sweet as opposed to that chocolate chip cookie. So, and experience the excellence of that taste of that blueberry. So, I hope you could see that how this positive psychology stuff, particularly the character strengths are woven in to your getting at the root cause, which let's say often it is inflammation where your body is just chronically inflamed. And so, you're using your mind or using your body. So, all of these strategies come together. And I think too often, we dogmatic about one technique versus the other, one way of eating versus another. And I've always been a big believer in an integrative approach because you put it all together and that is quite powerful.

Steve Rush: Yes, it definitely is. And I can also see the relationship between the character strengths as you were talking that through as well. And one of those character strengths of course, is practice and like any new skill or habit, that's going to take some time to rethink and reframe how you do things, right?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Absolutely. So, some people think, well, it's all just talent. For example, we want to learn something. We have to be good at it, but it is that practice over and over and over again. Why is that significant? What's really happening is you're creating new neural pathways in the brain. And so, the more you do it, the more it becomes automatic. Think about the first time you got to a car; you were young. If you learned to drive, Oh, you had to pay attention to every step in that process. You don't do that today. If you're a driver it's automatic. And so that's how you learn. It's hard at first, but it gets easier. It's that quality when you're getting good at something it's called grit. Angela Duckworth writes about this extensively in her book, grit, and it is the example again of playing the piano. So, it's not just going to the piano and sitting down one time, it's going to make you a master pianist. No, those people spent hours and hours and hours practicing. I know a lot of professional ballet dancers and their practice started when they were very young and its hours and hours and hours at the bar practicing.

Steve Rush: Yeah, no substitute for hard work and practice, right?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Right.

Steve Rush: So, if I was interested in getting involved in this field, what would be your advice?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: So, the coaches are needed now more than ever, and you do not need it background in health care. Some of the best coaches come from other walks of life. And so many people can study to become health coaches, even if they never go out and work as a health coach, they can find that information so valuable. And most of our students who come to us are really going out and working with others, but some are not, but they are all saying I had a personal transformation by learning a functional medicine paradigm of positive psychology. So, you can study with us. We have people who are medical doctors who are also studying to be coaches. We have people who are in the fields of nutrition, for example, and some of these folks are not changing careers. They are continuing what they're already doing, but they're using the coach approach. So, one of the best things that happen when you learn to be a coach is your relationships are transformed with your family, your friends, your colleagues. And if you are a practitioner with your patients, because you are really listening to them, they feel heard, and that improves the quality of the relationship.

Steve Rush: We'll also make sure before we finish off today, that we capture all of those things in our show notes. So, we can pass on any links and tips for any of our listeners who are really interested in this. So, at this part of the show, I also get to now flip the lens a little and get a chance to hack into the years of leadership experience that you've gathered along your career and on your journey too. So, the first thing I'm going to ask you, Sandra, is if you could share with our listeners. All of the years of experience and distill that down into your top three leadership hacks, what would they be?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Sure. So, I think that it is, the first is to be, yet it's not about me, it's about the people I serve, whether that's most particularly the people on my team. To really see what do they need, and it's the power of this teamwork. So, it's not about me, it's about them. And so, I'm very mindful of really listening when I'm at a team meeting, that is key. The second one would be to have, this goes along with the first one, is curiosity. I just am very curious and ask the right questions. And that also comes from the coach approach. And the third would be creativity. I love to find solutions. I'm a quick start, I'm a visionary. And I like to see that no matter how challenging the problem may be, that there's a solution. And I love to encourage people to think outside of the box, creative thinking. To see, well, how are we going to solve this? How are we going to pivot? And that's what I did so much during this pandemic to inspire people through creativity, to have a different mindset for example.

Steve Rush: And feeds, of course, positive psychology, doesn't it?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Yes exactly.

Steve Rush: The next part of the show we call it Hack to Attack. And I know from the work that you've done, you've said your biggest wins come from epic failures. And this part of the show is where we look at maybe a time in your life or work that could have been an epic failure, or certainly hasn't gone as well as planned. But as a result of the experience, you've used that as a learning in your life and work. So, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Sure. So, we can go back to my roots and when I was in education and college. We had to have a time, we were student teachers and I had trouble in that experience. I could not control a classroom of children. This was not in special education. This was just a normal classroom. And I did not get a good grade in my student teaching. And that mean that I probably wouldn't get a job as a teacher because I didn't do well. And so, I remember thinking, oh, what am I going to do? I remember just flopping out of my bed, crying that my career is over, what am I’m going to do? I'm a failure. And so, I chose that to pivot and, Oh, I'll just stay in college and I'll get a master's in learning disabilities. Because in learning disabilities I can work one-on-one with children, I could do that. And so, I'm thankful because if I had not failed at that experience, I was gone on and had a classroom of children. And I probably would have spent years as a classroom teacher and retired with a pension and just sitting at home knitting and playing cards with my friends right now. Which I love, I don't like playing cards. I love video and I love all crafts, but that's another story, but I'm thankful for that failure.

Steve Rush: Real sliding doors moment, right?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Yes.

Steve Rush: And it's interesting. Had that had happened, how different the world would have been and all of the work and the academia and teaching that you've given since in a very different spere. So, hallelujah to failing that class is what I say.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Yes.

Steve Rush: The last thing that we would like to do today is give you a chance to do some time travel. So, you get to bump back into Sandra at 21 and give us some advice. What would it be?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: To give up concern about what others think about you. I was always pretty obsessed with being right, with doing the right thing and a lot of the shame and embarrassment of making a mistake, whether that was a cognitive mistake or even the mistake of wearing the wrong outfit to a party, always having to be perfect in every way and wanting to be like by these people. And now at my age, 71, I'm much bolder. And just speaking my mind and letting go of the consequences, still being kind but not worrying about pleasing people.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that's great advice, isn't it? And I guess that doesn't matter how old you are. You can still learn to unlearn that as a behavior, can't you?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Love it. So, for folks listening to this Sandra that would like to get a little bit more insight as to the work that you do, and if you're writing and if you're teaching and maybe some information around The Functional Medicine Coaching Academy, where it's the best place for us to send them?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: functionalmedicinecoaching.org is our website. And on Facebook it's Functional Medicine Coaching Academy on Instagram, functionalmedcoach, I should say, functionalmedcoach. Personally, I am drsani that's S-A-N-D-I on Instagram, and also at Dr. Sandy on the Clubhouse, new platform, which I'm excited about.

Steve Rush: You on Clubhouse too, awesome.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Love it, yes.

Steve Rush: Brilliant. For those folks who haven't listened to Clubhouse, it's like having podcasts on demand and lots of random conversations, but some really insightful discussions taking place.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Yes absolutely. I will follow you

Steve Rush: Super: Well, make sure that we connect and Clubhouse. We'll also make sure that all of those links you just spoke about are in our show notes so that we can continue the conversation beyond today.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Fantastic. Thank you so much,

Steve Rush: Sandra. It's been amazing having you on the show. I'm super grateful. You've been able to join us and good luck with the next 35 years of The Functional Medicine Coaching Academy.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: Thank you so, so much.

Steve Rush: Take care.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum: You as well.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Brett Cooper is President and co-founder of Integris Performance Advisors and Evans Kerrigan who is the CEO and also co-founder of Integris. They wrote the number one bestselling book, Solving the People Problem. This show is packed with hacks and tips, you’ll learn:

As leaders, we don't really have as many people problems as we think
When people have a different perspective, that's an opportunity, not a cost or a challenge
Why 62% of employees blame negative workplace conflict on personality differences
How using psychometric tools helps your build great engagements and relationships

Get your free special gift – DISC EQ REPORT https://solvingthepeopleproblem.com/disc-eq/

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Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Bret and Evans below:

Brett on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brettmcooper/

Evans on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evanskerrigan/

Integris Website: https://integrispa.com

Solving The People Problem Website: https://solvingthepeopleproblem.com

Full Transcript Below

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Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Joining me on the show today is Brett Cooper and Evans Kerrigan, both co-founders of Integris Performance Advisors. They co-wrote the number one bestselling book, Solving the People Problem. And before we get a chance to speak with both Evans and Brett, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we explored the characteristics that folk are looking for from their leaders, particularly the end of a pandemic. The CMI completed some research to see if the behaviors that folks are looking for have changed over time. COVID weary and locked down Fatigued. Employees are looking to their managers now to lead them through the gloom and giving the much-needed energy, inspiration, direction, and hope. So, let's dig in and find out what the CMI have told us.

In their research, they outlined what they believe to be the five key behaviors for leaders in 2021. They are charisma, resilience, empathy, and communication. So, charisma. Charismatic leaders inspire people to feel good about themselves and do great things and feel great about themselves. Managers who can do that. Not only achieve a lot more, but they achieve deeper, meaningful relationships. Yet many of us believe that charisma is something that's beyond us. Other people are charismatic. So how do we learn to be more charismatic? Well, by being authentic and more impactful in the way we present ourselves. Having a sense of purpose for the people around us and what we genuinely care with warmth and compassion. People naturally feel more charismatic towards us.

Second resilience. The pandemic has demanded resilience from everybody. And particularly for those that we manage, right? To build resilience in teams, managers need to remain positive, demonstrate positive energy and show great care for the people that they lead, doing whatever they can to help them. Go in the extra mile and making sure that we do whatever is possible in the current circumstances.

Empathy, empathy keeps it reappearing. It's a core tenant of any leader. So why is this prolific right now? Well, according to the CMI, trust is in short supply. Will I catch COVID from the person walking past me on the street? Is my boss going to make me redundant? Does the government really know what he’s doing? So not only are we having this internal dialogue. Managers have to deal with this as well. Showing empathy is much harder to do when you remote working. It can be really difficult to gather that facial expression from a Zoom or an Ms Teams call. It means managers really need to ask how people are feeling and demonstrate they understand.

Communication. With so many people now working from home, in the future of work, being a co-working hybrid. Communication skills have never been more important to keeping workers engaged. Keep communicating with all colleagues, telling them what's happening, what they can expect and in return, what you'll be expecting from them. Lack of engagement amongst staff is bad for business. Finding time to stay in touch, talk through issues either as a team or one-on-one does take discipline and does take effort, but in doing so, it will mean that you reap the rewards for you and them alike. Communicating stories of hope, positivity is just what's needed right now. So, what's your key essential ingredients for leading your teams? Head over to our social media, posts on our sites and let us know exactly what you think are the most important characteristics of leadership coming out of the pandemic. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, stories or insights, we look forward to hearing from you.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: We have an awesome duo on the show today. We have Brett Cooper, who is President and co-founder of Integris Performance Advisors and Evans Kerrigan who's CEO and co-founder of Integris, and between them, they wrote the number one bestselling book, Solving the People Problem. Before we introduce them, you’ll want to stick around to the end of the show because Brett and Evans have a very special gift that you can partake in, just by being part of our community, but Brett, Evans, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Brett Cooper: Thanks Steve, Excellent to be here.

Evans Kerrigan: Thanks, really looking forward to our conversation.

Steve Rush: Me too. So, what would be really helpful is for each of you, maybe just to give us a little sense of how you arrived at working together at Integris and a little bit about your backstory. So maybe Brett, you can kick us off.

Brett Cooper: Yeah, absolutely Steve, would be glad to do that. Evans and I have a long history together. We've been working together for almost 20 years. The first decade of our relationship was actually with a different organization. We were at the time in the early two thousand, working in the what's called the Lean Six Sigma Space. This is the process improvement methodology that was sweeping the world in late nineties and the early two thousand. And we were helping big organizations, GE, Cisco, Starwood, organizations like that implement this kind of process improvement methodology. And Evans, and I did a lot of really good projects back then, but one of the things we kept hearing from our clients was that they wanted to change the DNA of their organization. And we recognized at the time that the efforts that we were doing to train them on the skills associated with Lean and Six Sigma and process improvement, well that wasn't changing the DNA of the organization.

We realized that there was a gap in the work that we're doing, and that gap was really associated with activities related to leadership behaviors and team dynamics. And so, we started bringing a little bit more of the leadership and team dynamics into the work that we did and it started going so well that we decided that we wanted to take that on in a much larger way. So, we actually stepped out of the old organization and we launched our company, Integris Performance Advisors in 2011, with the idea of really going after the goal of expanding the existence of healthy organizations and great places to work. And we did that by continuing to do a little bit of the Lean Six Sigma process improvement work still, but we really got very focused on helping leaders be better leaders and teams be more effective. And that kind of set us up here. Evans, I'll let you take it over from there.

Evans Kerrigan: Sure, Brett. So, we've been doing this work now for multiple years and we've just come more and more to the realization that if we can actually hear one another, listen to one other and understand the different perspectives we come from. It's amazing what people can do. Part of why we got into this as Brett mentioned, doing all the continuous improvement work, what we found was the limitations weren't that we would come up with bad answers to things. The limitations were on the execution, on getting buy-in from people, on the communication, on misperceptions that people had about what had been discussed and what hadn't been discussed. And it really came down to the fact that it is those relationships in those communications that are so critical. And we were fixing big business processes, but not fixing necessarily some of the underlying leadership team and individual communication issues and processes that actually drive the ship for most organization.

Steve Rush: It's an interesting philosophy, really, because for many years, folk have experienced a real kind of challenge when it comes to making change happen and efficiencies because they have a perception. You can change a process with a process. And actually, research has told us in the work that you doing has proven that's actually the behavior that changes the process.

Evans Kerrigan: Absolutely, and I can even go one step further. It's actually that mindset. It's that understanding that when people have a different perspective, that's an opportunity, not a cost or a challenge. It's actually, that's an opportunity. That's where we can learn. That's where we can move. That's where we can go forward. And all too often, that's not the normal human reaction to somebody having a different perspective or pushing back on a point. So, it's really if we can get people to actually, in our language, we talk about really honor those differences. That's really the secret sauce that enables a whole lot of challenges that have seemed really major, actually be addressed much more quickly.

Steve Rush: And talking to the secret sauce. You guys have been working together for over 20 years, lasting longer than many relationships do these years. What's the secret sauce in your relationship?

Brett Cooper: I got to say, it's largely what we write about in this book. As you will learn Steve, through this conversation, Evans and I are really different guys. We have different energy levels. We focus on different things. We have different communication styles, different personality styles. And early on in our relationship, we were able to recognize that those differences between us, those things are going to make us each stronger and they're going to make us stronger as a team. So, there are things that I bring to this relationship that Evans doesn't bring, and there are things that Evans brings to the relationship that I don't bring. And as Evans was just saying, we have learned to honor those differences and yeah, to your point 20 years later, it's just really effective in being able to create and run up a pretty successful business.

Steve Rush: What was the pivotal moment in you working together when you realize that actually it's about relationships that you need to focus on rather than process?

Brett Cooper: You know, for me, it was back, long before we started Integris, when we were really focused, almost exclusively on the process improvement kinds of methodology. And in my role with that business, I was the guy who was working with the executive teams to plan out the initiatives. And it really was one particular executive at one point used that phrase, hey, I want to change the DNA of this organization. And it doesn't seem like we're moving that needle. To me, that really held the mirror up and made me realize, you know what? We’re doing some great work, but something has to change. And by having that mirror held up, it really allowed me and then through conversations with Evans, kind of say, you know what? There's a better way. Let's do this differently.

Steve Rush: Hmm. I love that. So, Evans, you collectively wrote the book, “Solving the People Problem”. So, when I read that, I thought, well, why didn't you write the book, “Creating the People Solutions?”

Evans Kerrigan: Well, there's actually kind of an interesting story around that whole title of the book. What we found was, we had people keep coming to us with what they termed people problems. And it's kind of a frequent thing in the consulting business. People come to you saying, hey, these people have a problem. At one point, the subtitle of this book was different. The subtitle of the book that we actually were thinking about using was, Solving the People Problem and the subtitle was, and You're the Problem. Because our belief is, we don't really have as many people problems as we think. People aren't the problem. Our inability to communicate, to honor one another's differences, to be able to actually see one another as individuals all the time, instead of as the issue that I have to kind of get through, that's actually the problem. It's not the people are a problem. It's that we don't necessarily communicate in the most effective way with one another. We don't work with what other well enough. And what we found is, part of why we use the people problem is because everybody thinks they have a lot of people problems. We just think they may be wrong. So, we want to redefine that a little bit. It's how do I actually work with people better, but it's not that other people are a problem.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Brett Cooper: If I can chime in just to add to that. Steve, there was a research study on conflict in the workplace a couple of years ago that really was instrumental to do what we do. This study uncovered that 62% of employees blame negative workplace conflict on personality differences. Now, if we peel that back, it's actually a startling statistic. What's that saying is that 62% of us experienced the innate differences in the people around us as a potential source of conflict. So, we think that's a really big problem.

Steve Rush: That's huge.

Brett Cooper: That’s what we call the people problem. It's not that the differences exist, but it's that far too many of us don't understand those differences. And more importantly, don't honor those differences. So, as we were naming the book, we recognize that the ideas that we were sharing really are at the heart of solving this people problem. And thus, a book title was born.

Steve Rush: Awesome. Love it. And to help peel back some of those layers and to help improve some of that, self-awareness, you've relied very much on psychometric testing to remove some of the emotion and provide some of the reality to those folks. How did you arrive at psychometric testing Evans?

Evans Kerrigan: Well, that was actually kind of really an interesting and simple way for us to go. Some of the research around emotional intelligence, which has been out their kind of over the last several decades. Show that people really kind of resonated with the general idea of if I can get better at my emotional intelligence, I'll be more effective. What people seem to struggle with though, was what were the steps I could take to actually start on that journey. And some of the research that we took a look at said that people self-identify themselves as emotionally intelligent, but those same people who identify themselves as having emotional intelligence at the same time, struggled to actually identify their own emotions unless they were relatively strong emotions. So, our ability to actually even discuss the topic and have that self-awareness most people are somewhat limited in that area.

So psychometric testing gives us the ability to get us into that conversation, to provide us a language, to talk about what are our patterns, our biases, our general tendencies and strategies, and to do it in a non-judgmental way. Where emotions are bad. It's emotions just are. So how can we actually discuss them in a rational way to kind of take a look and better understand my own reactions, my own behaviors and what I might do to start to modify those. So, from a self-awareness perspective, it enables us to kind of pull back layers of the onion so that we can actually see how we are interacting with the world around us.

Steve Rush: And therefore, it becomes much more thoughtful in the conversations you have and less subjective, I guess?

Evans Kerrigan: Yeah. It's really helped us move from the almost natural human reaction of I'm right? So, others must be wrong. To say, no, there's actually a bunch of different perspectives. All of which may have some value, but if I start with that I'm right, so others must be wrong. I can't even hear the value on the other side. So, how do we kind of lift that conversation up a little bit? So, we can say, hmm, you know what? Those differences are opportunities for me, not stressors. And how the human brain works, we don't differentiate physical threat from social threat. So, if I look at somebody having a different perspective as a threat, I had that same fight or flight response that I might, if I were being chased by a wild animal. So, I've got to do something to interrupt that practice so that I can actually slow down a little bit, actually hear what the other perspective is and see what's there to learn, what's there to gain from and how can we move forward?

Steve Rush: Now, there are a number of different psychometric tests available in the marketplace. Many of which have been born from the work of Carl Young. You arrived at DISC and I just wondered how this helps you provided that language to help people better understand themselves, right?

Brett Cooper: Yeah, you're absolutely right. There are a number of tools out there and we believe that all of those tools have their place. Some of them are really good at helping you really understand yourself. Others are perhaps something you might use during the hiring process. What we have found is that DISC is a framework that works very, very well in the space that we're talking about here. The space of team dynamics, of getting people to understand what drives themselves and what drives other people. What allows people to communicate more effectively with each other. So, I can give a quick little understanding, explanation here of DISC.

Steve Rush: That would be great.

Brett Cooper: DISC is actually an acronym. It's D-I-S-C and it's an acronym that stands for dominance, influence, steadiness and conscientiousness. And the thing that we love about this, DISC model is it's something that's very simple for people to understand and utilize in the workplace, because what it does is it uses two spectrums of observable behavior. The first spectrum is how fast paced and outspoken are you versus how cautious and reflective are you. And now most of us can think about our own pace and view others. And we can kind of say, hey, you're know what? That person is a little more fast paced. That person's a little more cautious, a little more reflective. So, it's something we can observe. The other spectrum looks at. Are you more questioning and skeptical when it comes to new ideas and new people, or are you more warm and accepting?

And again, this is something that we can essentially observe as we interact with people. So, what DISC does is, it takes those two spectrums and puts them together in a cross and essentially creates four quadrants. So, when we talk about the D the I, the S the C. Each one of those quadrants essentially is identified by this spectrum. So, taking it to the next step, D the dominance personality style, these are the people that are fast paced and outspoken, and they're questioning and skeptical. These style people are results driven, they're action driven. And they're going to challenge your thoughts. If we look at the, I quadrant. The I quadrant is people who are fast paced than outspoken, but they're warm and accepting. So, these are people that are moving really fast, but they're really focused on enthusiasm, collaboration. They're kind of life of the party, kind of people.

If we keep going around this DISC circle, we can get to the S, the steadiness quadrant. The steadiness people are warm and accepting of new ideas of new people, but they're a little more cautious, a little more reflective, right? There not speaking up. They're not the first to speak up in meetings. They really care about supporting other people, but they like things a little bit more on the stable side, and then rounding it out. The final quadrant C, conscientiousness. These are the people that are questioning and skeptical and more cautious and reflective. These are the people that really focus on accuracy and getting the job done, right. They're typically more private people. So, they're not likely to share their whole life story right out of the gates, but they're really get focus on how do we get the job done.

So, there's a little overview of the DISC kind of circumplex there.

Steve Rush: Like it.

Brett Cooper: I actually have a story from the books. Steve one of the things that we did in this book is, as we were writing, we reached out to a whole bunch of people to have them tell us basically their stories about the people problem. And we got a number of really fantastic stories back of people getting the aha moment. And I have one short story in here that I'd love to read.

Steve Rush: Please do, yeah.

Brett Cooper: It highlights an aha moment. So, it's titled saying good morning. And it's by a woman named Megan who is a performance and learning consultant. And so, this is what Megan told us. She said, my boss and I get to work early every morning. We're the only two people in the office. For a long time, I would be at my desk and he would just blow past me. After barely saying, good morning, he would close his door. And I was left thinking, why does he hate me? What did I do? So that right there, Steve gets back to that 62% of people blaming differences on conflict.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?

Brett Cooper: So, she continues. It was very frustrating and my feelings were hurt every day. Then our department began increasing our DISC understanding, and I discovered that I'm a relationship-oriented S and my boss is a results-oriented D. The next day, when he blew past my desk, again, I was hurt. But then I started thinking about the characteristics of a D style person. When he was walking into his office, he was probably thinking about all of his tasks for the day. He is in business mode and his decision not to stop and chat, isn't a reflection on me. As soon as I embrace this way of thinking, I no longer took his behavior so personally, because I realized it had nothing to do with me. She concludes by saying, I still don't understand why he shuts the door. And I chuckle when he does, but it doesn't hurt my feelings. I understand that we are different and neither one of us is right or wrong. We just are different in how we approach the day.

Steve Rush: Love it. Difference makes a difference.

Brett Cooper: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And we have story after story, both in the book and just that we've experienced on our own over the last, you know, 10, 20 years that uncovered exactly that kind of thing, where people explain that. Yeah, the personality differences used to be a source of negative conflict in my workplace, but as soon as we started to understand them and then embrace and honor them, things changed for us.

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely. And that Evans, you also overlay EQ and you talked about emotional intelligence earlier on top of that psychometric testing. Can you maybe just describe how that EQ has a relationship with DISC?

Evans Kerrigan: Oh, absolutely. So, if you think about an emotional intelligence is, more and more studies are coming out about how important it is for our long-term success and our ability to work together. And in reality, when we are called in to work with senior leaders, it's most frequently actually an EQ type of issue. It's not about their business skills, it's about their relationships, their personal skills. So, we know this stuff is really important. And as I mentioned earlier, part of the challenge for people is I know I need to do it, but what are the steps I can take? What are the things I can do? So, we found that DISC provides us a language to actually start to talk about kind of a very simple model of EQ that says there's really kind of four elements that we need to really build.

The first is about looking at ourselves and actually being aware of, who we are? And how we interact with the world? How we make decisions? How we move forward? So that self-awareness, we call it, know your style, is really all about that. And DISC is a wonderful way for people to kind of better understand themselves. We've had people who will take a look at what they get in a DISC report and realize, oh yeah, boy, this really describes me very well, occasionally a little bit too well. I honestly, the first time I did it, I was pretty sure somebody had been following me for the last several weeks to write the report. So, people get a little bit of self-awareness. They understand how they are interacting with the world around them. They also need to have awareness of others, right?

So, I build that awareness of myself. I build that awareness of others. And in this case, we talk about no other styles as a way of kind of shorthand. So, in those four styles that Brett talked about, there's still a great deal of variation in there, right? In any one of those styles, you're looking at a quarter of all people. So, there's a lot of variation, but there are some similarities. Those similarities, let us get into conversation to better understand other people. Better understand other people's needs. The things that make them uncomfortable, the things that get them really excited. So, it's helpful for us to build that. So, awareness is one piece of that, both self and others. And then we take it to the application of it, because just having knowledge, doesn't actually make anything move. It's really about how we apply that. And when I better understand my style, I start to understand what are the things that I do that are helpful and what are some of the things that I do that I need to be a little bit more aware of and a little bit, I need to adapt to my behavior a little bit. So, we talk about making our decisions wisely and actually deciding to behave in a certain way. I am an S style. I tend to be a little bit slower to respond. I tend to be a pretty good peacemaker. So, when things get a little bit tense, I might have a natural tendency to kind of pull back from that conversation. I'm a CEO, that's not a great idea for me to do, right? I've got to step up and spend some more energy to modify my behavior, modify my natural style in situations where that's called for.

And then the fourth of those elements is that we have to adapt our behavior for mutual benefit. So, my style is knowing other styles in a team situation, in a leadership situation, in an organizational situation saying, what can we do to be positive for all? It's not about how do I win a conversation? It's about understanding, oh, there needs enough that we can make sure that their needs are getting met along the way as well. So, those skills of self-awareness, other awareness and self-application and other application fit really nicely into using this DISC language as a roadmap for deepening my understanding of each of those four elements and moving forward in ways that we can be more effective in those elements. So, the beauty is that EQ unlike IQ. I can continue to develop and I can grow. So, we all take a look at where we are now, but figure out what are some steps along the way to getting better.

I was just having a conversation last week with a team that's been working together for several years. And we started talking about styles and about who we were as people. And I had them share just a couple of things. And it was really remarkable. And this happens all too often in the work world, as they shared a little bit about childhood and a couple of other things that I asked them to share about. Every person on the team, said they learned something about every other member of the team. These are people who have been working together for a while, the fact that we work together and we don't actually know the other people we're working with creates a lot of opportunity for us to have friction where we could have understanding.

Steve Rush: Yeah, really interesting overlay, isn't it?

Evans Kerrigan: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, we look at it. If you can build relationship, understanding and caring and honor those differences, it's amazing what problems just melt away.

Steve Rush: So, here's the thing. With all your experience and knowledge of psychometric testing and people behavior, is there a trend or a zone or a sweet spot within the psychometric tests that you've completed that creates that high-performance leader?

Brett Cooper: You know, there's a number of tools out there Steve, that we found effective. There are two that we actually use quite frequently. The, the first is an EQ survey that connects up with the model that Evans was just talking about. So, this is a survey that we can actually let all of your listeners take as soon as they want to for free. It's associated with the book, but the EQ survey is something that we designed to give people that opportunity to kind of self-reflect on those four areas that Evans was talking about of knowing your style, choosing your actions wisely, knowing other styles and adapting your behavior for mutual benefit. So, if any of your listeners want to take that EQ survey, they just go to solvingthepeopleproblem.com, look for the what's my DISK EQ link? And when they click on that, they enter the access code, “HACKER”.

Steve Rush: Brilliant.

Brett Cooper: For Leadership Hacker Podcast, of course, but if you enter “HACKER”, they're going to be able to take that survey. And as soon as they're done with the survey, which takes most people about 5-10 minutes to do. They're going to get a personalized report that is going to give them not only a high, medium, low kind of a score in those four areas, but more importantly, it's going to include some very specific tips, things that they can do right now, either on their own or with their team to help improve their own emotional intelligence and try to get themselves to that next level. So that's kind of the first tool that we have for folks. It's really a mirror for people to kind of hold up and get an idea of where they sit on this framework of emotional intelligence. And then the other tool that we use quite broadly is a tool called Catalyst.

Catalyst, it's essentially a DISC oriented assessment that creates a directory across an organization of every employee and what is their DISC style. So, this is a fantastic interactive platform that an organization can embrace, get all of their people on it. And what it allows them to do is it allows any employee to double-click on another employee's profile, learn what their DISC style is. Learn what are some of the things that really energize them? What are some of the things that stresses that person out? And it even does a direct comparison between your own DISC style and that other person's DISC style and gives you very specific tips on, you know, how do you connect better together, if you're working together on a project? Here's some ideas for how you can be more effective. So those are the two tools that we find are really powerful for organizations who are really trying to drive metrics like employee engagement and team dynamics, team cohesion. You want to increase those two things? Use the EQ survey, use the Catalyst platform.

Steve Rush: We'll make sure that the link to the EQ surveys in our show notes, and we'll make sure that anybody who listens to this has the opportunity to get out there. So, thank you for allowing that as part of your gift to us for being with us.

Brett Cooper: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: So, this is part of the show where I get to flip the lens a little bit and look at you as individual leaders in your own right, and I'm going to ask you a number of questions and hack into that to great minds of yours. So, first thing I'd like to ask Evans, what would be your top three leadership hacks Evans, if you had to distill them?

Evans Kerrigan: Sure, oh, I love this question because it actually made me think a little bit to get it down to three. I've heard so many over the years but here are the three that really jumped out at me. The first is for a good leader is work on your questions. There's great power in questions. And in keeping that curiosity alive and making sure that we're asking the question so that people can find answers themselves rather than us supplying them answers. I think a good leader helps grow the people around them by asking those questions, by bringing people up by helping them to look at the world and continue to grow their competence as well as their confidence in the fact that they can solve problems going forward. So that's my first one, work on the questions cause that's where the power is.

The second I've already been talking about this one, a bunch, but it really is important, which is to honor the differences. When I view somebody coming with a different perspective, as risk, as a challenge, I tend to get little bit locked up. I get defensive. I'm not hearing as well. And in the real growth opportunity for me as an individual and for our organizations is when we can actually hear one another. And we were kind of specific around. It's not even just understanding the differences or hearing the difference. It's really honoring those differences because other styles, other preferences in ways, people kind look at things, they all have value. It's actually really about honoring that value so that I can really truly listen and learn and understand. And then the third is for me, almost the definition of leadership, which is always focused on the success of those around you. It's not actually about focusing on your success. Leadership is a service job. It's about making everybody around me successful and I'm going to accidentally end up being successful if they all are. So, as long as my focus is on making sure that the people around me get great things done and are growing as individuals, I can't help but be successful. And the other fun part of that is, if you can actually really celebrate the success of those around you, that's the fun part of the job anyway.

Steve Rush: Yeah. It is. Isn't it? And celebrating the differences that created that success is even better, right?

Evans Kerrigan: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Steve Rush: So, Brett what would be your top three?

Brett Cooper: Yeah, my top three, not surprisingly similar to Evans there. And I would say they're all rooted in the concept that leadership is a relationship. So, any relationship takes two to tango. So, the first hack really is to know yourself. And I think a lot of leaders really have a good understanding of their strengths, but they have blind spots. You know, as leaders, we sometimes think that, hey, everything we're doing is so great. And we don't really recognize how we're coming across to the world on the negative side. We all have strengths, but there is a truism that very frequently is, strength overused can become a weakness? So, the first hack I would say is know yourself, take an honest look at yourself and really try to understand how you come across the world, too the world, both in the good and in the perhaps less good.

The second is kind of the opposite of that. If leadership is a relationship, you need to understand other people. And we like to talk about the platinum rule, I guess, as everybody has heard the golden rule, right? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. We actually abide by the platinum rule and the platinum rule is to treat others as they would have you treat them, right? It's a nod to the fact that we all have our own preferences. And if your leadership philosophy is to treat everybody the way that you want to be treated, you're going to be missing out on a ton of opportunity to build relationship. You want to be treating other people as they want to be treated. And the only way to do that is to really get to understand the preferences and the styles of other people. And so, my final leadership hack really would be the combination of those two things. And as a leader, you need to go first and as a leader, it's your job to help everyone on your team and everyone in your organization to do those two things, to understand themselves and to understand others. So, you know, don't keep these ideas to yourself, get out there and embrace them with your team. And everybody is going to learn more about themselves and more about each other when you do it together.

Steve Rush: Definitely. I think they are great. And the great news of having you both on this, we get double hacks, so that's awesome.

Brett Cooper: Nice.

Steve Rush: The next part of the show, we've affectionately called Hack to Attack, and this is just simply a time in your life or your work where something hasn't worked out well, it may be gone wrong, but the experience has taught you a positive outcome. And you use that now as a force of good. So, Evans, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Evans Kerrigan: So, this really made me think a lot. Partially I created a long list. And then, kind of trimmed it down because I think those things that don't go well, those are the fantastic learning opportunities. That's where you make the jump forward. But one that really sticks out to me is very early in my career. After I got out of the air force, first started working in corporate America. I did a project; I been involved with quality stuff for a long time. And so, I did a project. I did an analysis around something our organization was doing that I didn't think was really the right way to approach that situation. And I did a really good set of analysis and really kind of ran through it and came up with, you know, what we should do moving forward and then went to present my findings.

Very proud of my analysis. I had missed an aspect of my analysis that I think I probably should have known. I mean, I call this a BFL, a blinding flash of the obvious. I looked at the details. I looked at the data. I did not look at the context and history of what I was now challenging. Had I looked at the context in history, I would have realized that most of leadership in the organization had a hand in putting that policy into place for the organization. And I might've had discussions with them ahead of time because to this day, I still think it might've been a good idea to move, but I didn't do any of that groundwork. I didn't do any of that change management. I didn't have any of those conversations. I rested on the pure data, the logic of the situation. And the reality is change never happens just by logic. Change happens by being able to approach people and being able to talk with people about the logos, ethos, pathos, all of the matter, right? I can't spreadsheet my way into change. And so that was a really good lesson for me. And actually, kind of has changed my career a great deal in that. That's really the part of quality that we talk about first now is know who your people are, know what are the things that are important to them, et cetera, because that's going to enable you to actually make change happen, not just activities,

Steve Rush: Such an important lesson, thanks for sharing it. So, Brett you're Hack to Attack?

Brett Cooper: Yeah, my Hack to Attack actually came from an exercise that we did with our team a number of years ago, it's something that we use with clients and it's something we use internally. And it turned out to be a major aha for me, it's an exercise that we call the appreciation seat and what the appreciation seat simply does is something that your listeners can actually use with their team. But we get everybody on the team. And one at a time, one person on the team sits on what we call the appreciation seat. Now this is a figurative thing, and you can do this over Zoom, so you don't have to have it in a chair. But what happens is when the person is sitting in the appreciation seat, everybody else on the team goes around the circle and gives two pieces of feedback. The first is, here's something that you do that really helps move the team forward, keep doing it, thanks for doing it, we appreciate it. And then the other thing that each team member will give is some kind of a tip or a piece of feedback around something that you do that might slow down the team a little bit. You might be a little more productive if you don't do that quite as much. And so, when we were doing this exercise, a number of years ago, one of my colleagues, Renee, I was on the appreciation seat. She came to me and she said, all right, first of all, Brett, the thing that you do that really moves our team forward is you're always ideating. You know, you're always thinking about the future.

What’s next? where are we going? And, you know, you get the projects on the list for us, and that's fantastic. Thanks for doing that. Then she said, and you know, Brett, the thing that you do that slows us down a little bit is you're always ideating and everybody starts laughing. And I mean, almost immediately, I recognized what she meant, but she continued. She said, you know, after you've created these ideas and after you gotten us engaged in pursuing the idea, we're now getting to work and we're rolling up our sleeves, we're going through the details of, okay, how do we implement this? Well, you, in your ideation, you're always onto the next thing. And you don't give us time to focus on making a reality out of the first idea that we all agree we were going to work on.

And for me, the reason that this is a Hack to Attack is that, all of my ideating going back, as far as I can think of, I was always looking at it as productivity. I was being productive. I was being effective. I was helping my team. And because of this experience, by having one of my team members kind of hold up that mirror and say, that's good, but there's another side to it. It has made me realize that I need to check myself. And it really has driven me to change some of my behaviors. So, Evans might not believe this, but even though I still come up with a lot of ideas, there are so many more that I don't mention for this exact reason.

Steve Rush: Just in case.

Brett Cooper: Just in case.

Steve Rush: It's funny though. I think one of you talked a little earlier about that whole strengths and overdrive becomes a development, that’s an example of it, right?

Brett Cooper: Right on.

Evans Kerrigan: And I would say this is a work in progress.

Brett Cooper: (Laughing)

Steve Rush: Moving swiftly on, I don't want the 20 years of relationship to start breaking down live on air. The last thing that we're going to do is metaphorically, hold the mirror up for you once more and just ask you to do a little bit of time travel and you each independently get an opportunity to go back and bump into yourselves when you're 21 and you get to give yourself some advice. So, what would your advice be at 21 to you Evans then?

Evans Kerrigan: And so, I think my advice to myself at 21 would be to own each challenge. By that, I mean, when things aren't going well, to own that problem in the perspective of taking a look at what I've done and saying, how have I potentially contributed to this? How might I have been part of this so that I actually give myself agency to say, what can I do to improve it or to make it better? If I look back at my younger self, I'm sure there are times when, you know, blamed people around me for things that happened that I probably have at least a partial hand in. And I think it's so easy, especially in a team, if other people agree with you, for us to commiserate around what leadership has done or around what another group has done or something like that. But as soon as I do that, I've given away my agency to actually make a difference in those situations. So, if I look back and I look at the things that I've regretted at times in my career, it's probably times when I may not have stepped up, at least not early enough in a process to say, you know, how am I part of this?

Steve Rush: Like it.

Evans Kerrigan: Because if I wasn't part of it, I can't actually fix it either. I think too often we separate those two.

Steve Rush: Yeah, you're right. So, Brett, how about you? 21, what's your advice to Brett then? Yeah,

Brett Cooper: Yeah, 21, I actually have an 18 and a 19-year-old daughter right now. So, the advice that I would give to myself at 21 is pretty similar to the advice that I'm trying to give them right now, as they're entering college and trying to figure out their next steps. And that really is to be conscious about what you really want out of life, what you value. And don't be afraid to make adjustments along the way. My dad used to tell me that there are three types of people in this world. Those that make it happen. Those that let things happen. And those that just wonder what happened. So, I I'd tell my 21-year-old self, as I'm telling my 18- and 19-year-old daughters, be the first kind, be the type of person that makes things happen and be proactive in making your life what you want it to be. And again, don't be afraid to make adjustments along the way. You are going to be learning and being exposed to so many new things. As you go through this life, that if something comes across your life. You get an opportunity or you learn something new, don't be afraid to embrace that. If you find a you know, a change to your path, embrace it and live your best life.

Steve Rush: Awesome. I don't think I know anybody actually, who still does, 20 years later, what they were doing at 21. I'm sure there are many people who are, but you know, often our paths will take a different route and a different perspective, right?

Brett Cooper: Yeah, gone are the days of, hey, I'm getting a job with a company and I'm going to retire with that company, to your point. See, some people do that, but it's the vast minority of people that have that kind of career path any more.

Steve Rush: Absolutely. So, time has whizzed by, I would love to spend another hour talking to you, but I'm not sure our listeners would subscribe to that episode. Albeit we could have version two next time around for sure. So, for folks who have been listening to us talk today and wanting to a little bit more about the work that you do, where's the best place for us to send them

Brett Cooper: Best place for them to go is to solvingthepeopleproblem.com. If they go to solvingthepeopleproblem.com, they'll be able to connect with us directly from that website. Importantly, they'd be able to take that EQ survey that we talked about. Again, they just need to look for the what's my discount DISC link and enter the access code hacker, and they can learn more about the work we do. They can learn more about that catalyst platform. And we also share some of our ongoing ideas and observations about the world through that website.

Steve Rush: We'll make sure it's in the show notes, along with any of the social media links that you are frequenting so that there are a multitude of ways people can connect with you.

Brett Cooper: Fantastic.

Evans Kerrigan: Thank you.

Steve Rush: So, I just wanted to say it's been great talking. I've really enjoyed the way that you approach what you do and how systematic you make something that is really complex, become really transparent and easy for people to understand and allows us all to embrace the differences in our world. So, for being on our show, thank you ever so much, Brett and Evans.

Evans Kerrigan: Thank you. This has been a lot of fun.

Brett Cooper: Thank you, Steve. This has been really fun.

Evans Kerrigan: This has been a lot of fun. So, thanks a lot.

Steve Rush: Thank you both.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Atholl Duncan is the chair of the leadership development business Black Isle Group. He worked for the BBC as a journalist for over 20 years and been head of the BBC News Scotland, he's a certified coach and author of Leaders in Lockdown. In this episode you can learn hacks galore from Athol including:

The new mindset, habits and behaviors to cope with demands of the post COVID world.
The new definition of being an entrepreneur - people who are addicted to opportunity.
The seven themes for leadership in a lockdown
The LEADING model – enabling people to move to the next level

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Atholl below:

Atholl on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/athollduncan/

Atholl on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AthollDuncan

Black Isle Group Website: https://blackislegroup.com

Atholl’s Book: https://www.bookdepository.com/Leaders-in-Lockdown-Atholl-Duncan/9781911671015

Full Transcript Below:

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Today special guests on the show is Atholl Duncan. He's the chair of the leadership development business Black Isle Group. He's also worked for the BBC as a journalist for over 20 years and been head of the BBC News Scotland. He's also a certified coach and author, but before we get a chance to speak with Atholl, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: I just love it when emerging technology and entrepreneurial-ism come together. In a press release this week, Warner Music and Accenture Interactive announced, “Saylists”, new playlists exclusively to Apple music. And they're designed to augment the speech therapy experience for young people through the power of music and technology. There are 173 tracks in these playlists, including Dua Lipa: Don't start now, and Lizzo: Good as hell, the BBC reported that some, 1 in 12 children across the United Kingdom experienced some form of speech disorder or SSD, and it's also common across the globe.

Stammering or stuttering as it's often referred to affects at least 1.5 million children in the UK alone. Using an algorithm, Apple analyze the lyrics of its catalogs, 70 billion songs to identify the sounds and most commonly repeated in speech. As such the playlist centered on the sounds of ‘CH’, ‘D’, ‘F’, ‘G’, ‘K’, ‘L’, ‘R’, ‘S’, ‘T’ as an example. The frenetic sounds that you and I just take for granted. Warner's press release, includes comments from speech and language psychologists, all of whom say that these Saylists are an innovative form of therapy. Every speech and language therapist wants to keep children engaged during therapy sessions, as well as help them generalize their target sounds, both at school and at home said, Anna Biavati Smith. Saylists provide fun, new ways to practice sounds without feeling pressured or getting bored and having fun of course, it's first step on the rung of learning. So, for those that are listening, these new playlists are available to Apple music subscribers worldwide now. And I just wanted to call out what a great piece of innovation that was. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any interesting news, stories or facts that you'd like our listeners to hear, then please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Atholl Duncan is a special guest on today's show. He's a chair of leadership development business Black Isle Group. He's worked as a journalist, TV producer and as an ex-executive of the BBC for over 20 years. He's now the author of Leaders in Lockdown. Atholl welcome to the show.

Atholl Duncan: Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here and looking forward to the chat.

Steve Rush: Now we're going to get into the Leaders in Lockdown very soon. And I should imagine the 12 months of having pen the book to kind of where we are now has been a really interesting one. But for those listeners that haven't had the chance to maybe experience your work before. Perhaps you can give us a sense of what it is you've done in the past, how you are now?

Atholl Duncan: Sure, well Steve, my life has really in three acts. Act number one is, you were explaining there. I worked at the BBC for a couple of decades, covering the world's main stories, really, the world's big stories. Then act number two, hired an executive career as a bit of a transformation experts. And I worked in the utility sector, worked in the media sector and I worked in professional services. Trying to transform businesses and then act three is where I am now. Hopefully not my final act. And that's really with a portfolio of non-executive roles. Sitting on a few boards and also as an executive coach. And as you say, now rather scarily as an author.

Steve Rush: And did you find that as part of your career evolution and your various different acts of your career? I thought that there was perhaps a specific trigger or event that caused you to move from one direction to another.

Atholl Duncan: Well, I think the trigger in the most recent events was, you know, coming to together or myself as a business leader and as a storyteller. And there was one particular morning when I was walking on the beach, near my house in Scotland, the previous day I had seven emergency board meetings because of COVID. And I was pretty stressed to say the least, but I realized that this was a remarkable period of history that we were going through, probably the defining months of this century. And I wanted to capture it and capture it in this book, Leaders in Lockdown. By spending time with 28 global business leaders and asking them, how they cope with the crisis and how the world was going to change? Because of the scary events we were all going through.

Steve Rush: And delightful that you did. And we're going to get into some of those lessons that you found from some of those leaders shortly. I think it's quite an interesting moment in time. When you look back on the world that we're in at the moment to recognize that we are probably at a very pivotal stage in our global history. And I think not only will, the way that we behave change, the way that we interact across businesses will change, but lots of other dynamics that we haven't even experienced yet will be become apparent over the next few years. What's your view on that?

Atholl Duncan: I couldn't agree more. I mean, you know, part of the theory of the book is that every long-held belief in business has been thrown out the window by COVID. And I think, you know, we see that many trends in behaviors and consumer behaviors and business behaviors have really moved on probably a decade in a summer. So, the change is massive and how we cope with that as leaders is something that deserves thorough introspection and great debate.

Steve Rush: So, what's the focus of the work that you're currently doing with Black Isle Group?

Atholl Duncan: Well, Black Isle Group is really picking up from the challenges of COVID. And we've kind of set ourselves a purpose of changing the face of leadership development. A few of us have been on the other side, have been on the receiving end of a leadership development throughout our careers as business leaders. And we came to the conclusion that quite a lot of what is done in the leadership development world is not fit for the future. So, we've created a new approach. We call it the “Big Approach” and it essentially brings together a new coaching culture in businesses, a new methodology, and it marries that up with some technology that we've created, which is called nudge technology. And through this new big approach, we've set ourselves the purpose of trying to help businesses create a new mindset, a new piece of change, and really embed new habits and new behaviors, which set them up to cope with the fairly new and high-paced and agile demands of the post COVID world.

Steve Rush: So, you used the word mindset there, and I wholeheartedly concur that in order to face into our future, I suspect we're going to have a very different mindset than perhaps when we did before the COVID pandemic. But if you think about your portfolio of clients that you work with and businesses that you support in your non-exec roles, how have the different firms responded to the various different impacts on the pandemic.

Atholl Duncan: Well, if you take my non-executive portfolio. If you look at the leadership development world, you know, within 72 hours of the pandemic hitting the UK, we saw most of our clients canceling or postponing their work. Fortunately, when we got a few months into the pandemic. The more enlightened realize that there was never a more important time to have people helping you with the challenges of leadership and performance. I chair the Scottish Salmon, which is the UKs largest food exports, that sector was very disruptive because about 60%, we make about a billion pounds worth of Scottish salmon every year. And the vast majority of it goes to export. And of course, the markets were closed, the borders were closed, the restaurants were closed and that sector was really faced grinding to a halt.

I'm also the audit chair in our cinema business. And I think the cinema industry might be one that may never be the same again, may never indeed recover. The whole model may change, and the curtains fail in our cinemas in late March, 2020, and they've not risen again since, and then in the executive coaching world. Again, I think that was a moment for that sector because the enlightened leaders never needed executive coaches more. They needed the time to take a breath, to reflect, to have someone to hold a mirror up to what they were doing. So, it Fastly different experiences, and I think that's what most business leaders have experienced has been a land of opportunity, and there's been a land of desperation.

Steve Rush: And do you think mindsets got a lot to do with that as well?

Atholl Duncan: Well, mindset was absolutely fascinating in the 20 leaders that I met. I tell you about one of them is, a 28-year-old venture capital was called Pocket Sun who's based in Singapore, was born in China. Went to university in the States, and discovered that only 2.8% of venture capital goes to female entrepreneurs in the States, and she pledge to change that. Created a fund, which supported solely female entrepreneurs, and then pointed that fund at opportunities in the crisis from a health care, home testing healthcare company in Texas to an online wedding dress company, to a death care company and to a company that helped young people with their mental health. So, her mindset was all about opportunity and the great entrepreneurs who I interviewed for the book, even though their businesses sat in cutters, roundabout them, they weren't despondent. They were working out how to build back, use that phrase, hope to build back better. And they were looking at where the opportunities were that were coming out of the crisis.

Steve Rush: And I guess that's what sets entrepreneurs aside from those who are just content and happy to be working in corporate jobs versus driving their own agenda, driving their own thoughts and Pocket Sun is one of those people, you quote quite a bit during the book in terms of how she's approached her work and her teams and taking advantage of the opportunity.

Atholl Duncan: Yeah, and maybe another definition of being an entrepreneur, isn't it? It's people who are addicted to opportunity.

Steve Rush: Hmm. It's the old adage, isn't it? It's not about the event. It's how you react and respond to the event that gives you your outcomes.

Atholl Duncan: Absolutely. And, you know, in that year of opportunity, I worked a lot in the past with the Sir Brian Souter, who was the founder of the Stagecoach transport empire. And he talks very passionately about the dynamics and mechanics. Dynamics being the ideas, the vision, and the creativity of the entrepreneur, but how it always needs to be balanced with the mechanics of process and compliance and conformity and rules. And that is one of secrets to successfully growing an organization into the scaling of the one stage stagecoach was a billion pound plus business. It's that balance between dynamics and mechanics and constantly getting that in the right place.

Steve Rush: I like that. It's a nice lens to look through. So, we're now a year into the pandemic. And when you first penned the book, Leaders in Lockdown. It was just as we were emerging through that first wave, if you like, of what the pandemic brought to us. And when we last met, we had the anticipation that we'd be sat here a year in almost, and on a new trajectory, in a new direction, but we kind of still seem to be not too far further forward than where we were before, or bit of course, we got the vaccination, we have some light at the end of the tunnel. So how have folk responded to the book?

Atholl Duncan: Well, people have been very kind about the book. The reviews have been very kind about it and I've kind of moved. It's been shortlisted in the business book awards which was very been nice, but rather surprising. But I've kind of moved in a way from being an author, to being a bit of an evangelist around the themes in the book. And you're right in what you say about, we thought we would be in a different place by now. I share one secret with you, Steve, when we decided to do this book, our biggest concern was that people would have forgotten about COVID. Would it still be current and relevant when it was published in the autumn of 2020? And here we are in the spring of 2021 and lockdown is still going strong in the UK. And as you say, was not really a marriage perhaps, and seen the full impact, particularly in terms of unemployment and businesses going bust, because there've been propped up by government money in the private sector, all over the place.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and throughout the book you interviewed senior executives, thought leaders from around the world and then doing so you found that there were about seven broad themes that were consistently present. I thought it might be useful just to maybe spin through those seven themes and we can maybe dig into a couple as we go?

Atholl Duncan: Sure. So, the seven themes were really a bringing together of the commonalities between the 28-business leader’s theme. Number one, is the new age of purpose because there was a common view that purpose has never been a more important time for purpose. And you saw businesses who were very purpose focused, really flourishing, but leaders thought that coming out of covid, purpose would no longer be just a line or two to emblazoned on your website and forget about. So, they're predicting a new age where purpose really matters and purpose really counts in terms of engaging your employees and your clients and customers. Theme number two is, the new world of work. And obviously the piece that has been most discussed and written about there was moving many, many millions of people from offices to home, but the new world of work's going to be far more than that. It is going to be, hey, we cope with this hybrid and way of working, which most people predict so will come out of it.

And also, I think it's made people ask themselves, people of all generations, ask themselves what is work? And I think that will result in a complete redrawing of the psychological contract between employer and employee theme. Theme number three was tackling inequality because at every level COVID exposed them inequality, not just through the inequality of homeschooling and the inequality of the vaccine and the inequality of who the COVID killed and coming out of it. You're going to see inequality weighed in all areas of society. And this was really a feeling from business leaders that they had to play their part. What were they doing about tackling the black hole of unemployment? Were they really serious about the varsity and inclusion? Where they just making people redundant or were, they considering a new mindset towards re-skilling people?

Steve Rush: It's really been stark, hasn't it? This one particular, because it's really shined a light on where companies were focused around diversity inclusion and inequalities and where they haven't, and that void has just become bigger in my experience.

Atholl Duncan: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And all of these things, you know, the theory is that it's up to the corporate world and it's up to leaders in the corporate world to try and move in and take a list because frankly a lot of our politicians and our governments are not doing a good enough job in these issues. And that was very strong in the fourth theme, which is global cooperation. And at a moment that we wanted our politicians to be looking across boundaries, to be working together with other nations to tackle this terrible pandemic. They turned inwards, they set nation against nation. And this wasn't just China and the U.S., I think you saw this in many, many governments around the world. You saw it across Europe, and a feeling really from, particularly from the leaders of big corporates, that it was the big corporations in the future who had a strong and effective role in tackling the global problems, because we can’t rely on our politicians to do it.

Theme Number five was resilience, not just financial resilience or operational resilience, not just the personal resilience of how we as individuals got through a crisis, which has gone on for so long. Theme number six was all about resetting the supply chain and the principle that we need to move away. I mean, the global supply chain grown to halt, and we need to move away from just-in-time and moved to just in case and the belief that we can do that and save money and that the pandemic expose weaknesses and supply chains, which really developed over decades and those weaknesses are there because supply chain decisions were made about efficiency and the lowest cost. And that didn't stand up to scrutiny when we had the global pandemic that closed borders.

Steve Rush: And interestingly also it's in that whole kind of efficiency, lean management call it what you will in terms of squeezing that supply chain has proven also to stifle innovation and creativity in doing so

Atholl Duncan: Absolutely, and you know, it wasn't very efficient when the supply chain had grown to a halt. One of the other areas in there, which I just touch upon, but I find quite fascinating is the suggestion that as a result of the pandemic, you could see a lot of manufacturing moving back from Asia to Europe and to the U.S., but it wouldn't be carried out by human beings. It would be being carried out by robots. And then the final theme, which is very much in our world, Steve, we described as a maximizing potential. And this was the bit where Leena Nair, who's the Chief HR officer of Unilever suggested that we'd seen the end of the Superman leader. And she did mean the Superman leader and the start of a new area era of empathetic listening and compassionate leadership. And that was the most effective way to lead in the pandemic and after the pandemic and a number of other themes just running in there about executive preparedness, you know, we were confronted with no longer was an option to look after ourselves physically, because we couldn't get through this, unless we did. No longer as an option to take her leave, the issue of mental health for executives and for the rest of workforce. And it also explores that where leaders did have executive coaches or mentors who gave them time to catch breath, they made better decisions. They made better decisions if they had someone who could hold a mirror up to them. So those were the seven themes. There's so much to unpack in each one, but that's what the leaders in lockdown was telling us.

Steve Rush: And what you also found as part of your research and your conversations was a new way to help leaders think, and you created a model called LEAD. Maybe you could just tell us a little bit about that?

Atholl Duncan: Yes, So the LEAD or LEADING model I've played with quite a bit, and I suppose it comes back to maybe a bit of my journalistic background. And we created the leading model really by asking executive coaches, where are the areas that you find yourself, coaching executives most? And they described these as being the blockers to people moving to the next level and also the enablers to people moving to the next level and the area leading is for looking like a leader. So, the behaviors, the gravitas, the persona, the actions of a leader. The E was round about empowerment and empathy and emotional intelligence. The A was awareness and particularly self-awareness. The D was delivery, getting things done. The I is impact, your communication style, your brevity, your clarity, your impact. The N is for nurturing, and the G is for game changing. Do you, as a leader really change the game or do you only create incremental change?

Steve Rush: Given the fact that the pandemic has changed the game for all of us, this is a perfect opportunity for all leaders to reframe and rebase their game, right?

Atholl Duncan: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I think if it calls into question everything that has gone before and the way that we run our businesses. I think it calls into question the way that we lead and, you know, in the environment that the piece of change that will come now and will not slow down in the future, the agility that's required in leadership. We need to reframe the behaviors of the leaders that we have.

Steve Rush: Thinking about the examples shared with you, by the leaders that you interviewed, as well as your own experiences. You kind of captured this in the last chapter of your book called maximizing potential. So now a chance for us to do that, but what's the reason in your expense, some will grab the opportunity and run into the uncertainty and the ambiguity, but others will maybe avoid it.

Atholl Duncan: The reasons leaders do things. And, you know, we know this from executive coaching, is it comes back to past experience and to leader, know yourself, doesn't it? And you know, we work a lot with psychometric analysis of Black Isle Group and assured that's a place where you probably start with a lot of your coaching.

Steve Rush: Absolutely.

Atholl Duncan: So, if you look for the reasons why particular leaders do a particular thing, or don't do a particular thing, then you have to go to the inner game to get your answer. And quite often, when you go to the inner game of the leader, the answers are really quite startlingly, obvious.

Steve Rush: Yeah, call it the voice in your head.

Atholl Duncan: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: The one that you wake up with. It’s the one you go to bed with. It will the last voice you hear when he leaves the planet as well. So, it's got to be an empowering voice.

Atholl Duncan: Yep.

Steve Rush: So, the next part of the show, we'd love to hack into your years of experience and diverse experience to kind of try and distill some top tips and ideas for our listeners. So, if you had to distill them, what would be your top three leadership hacks?

Atholl Duncan: Well, number one, top hack for me, very apparent during the pandemic.

You need to create the space to think and to reflect. If your agenda is absolutely packed full, you will be denying yourself one of the most important things about leadership, which is the time to think, and the team to reflect. Leadership number two, you must have someone who will tell you the uncomfortable truths. There's a Scottish poet called Robert Burns, and I won't do this bit of poetry in Scottish. I'll translate it into English.

Steve Rush: Go for it.

Atholl Duncan: And it basically says, would someone the power to give us, to see ourselves as others see, it would from many, our blunder, Frias and foolish notion. And we're surrounded by leaders, I’m afraid who live in a hall of mirrors with people telling them what they want to hear in an echo chamber, which leads to narcissistic and blind leadership. So, anyone who's listening to this who aspires to further leadership, get yourself someone who will be your conscience.

Steve Rush: Love that.

Atholl Duncan: Who will see yourselves as others see us, and we'll challenge you. And, you know, I had this, I'll give you a good example of this with one of the people I was coaching through the pandemic whose automatic reaction was at the start was to act very quickly and make a large number of people redundant. And I got that person to stop in their tracks by asking, what is your responsibility to society right at this moment? And will that help by making a large number of people redundant, or will it just mean that they can't pay their mortgages? And they default, the economy goes into further downward spiral. So, he went to the people and he said, what solutions do you have to this issue? And they put their hands up and they say, we'll job share, you know, we'll take a reduction in our salary. Some of us will take temporary leave, and you know, that to me is the result of someone who is telling you the uncomfortable truth as a leader.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and how powerful is it that you having that conversation managed to help that individual reframe and actually give control to the people who could make those right decisions?

Atholl Duncan: It is, but it's a relatively easy for us because we are not in the center of the dog fight of trying to save the business, you know, I'm walking on the beach thinking, you know, what on earth is going to happen here? I have that time to reflect, and I'm here to challenge. I'm no longer a player in the game. I'm an observer from the sideline.

Steve Rush: Your right, however, part of creating the space to be a great leader is creating the space to think.

Atholl Duncan: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: And however busy we are it's about reprioritizing and giving us that freedom and that room to kick the leaves about metaphorically.

Atholl Duncan: Yeah, and, you know, first thing I would do as an executive coach is to ask to see the leader’s diary. And if there's no thinking time in it, I challenge that. The next thing I would do is to try and see is the time in diary actually aligned to the objectives, the main objectives and the main aims of the leader and most of the team isn't.

Steve Rush: Exactly, exactly right.

Atholl Duncan: So, you know, the lead leader will tell you that they want to do A, B and C and say, well, actually, you've got no time in that because you're doing operational stuff, you're doing stuff that one of your directors could do, you know, and you're spending team doing stuff which you shouldn't be doing at all.

Steve Rush: So, hack number three?

Atholl Duncan: Number three, be purpose late. And again, I think the pandemic underlines the importance of purpose. So, find your purpose as an individual and ensure that your business has find its purpose, and that the people in your business know what that purpose is and believe in that purpose, because, you know, I think COVID remains as that without purpose we're empty vessels.

Steve Rush: Yeah, very much so. And it's interesting, and I don't know if you've found this in the work that you've done, but the purpose always seems to be the one that is most alluring for folk, but yet most under-invested in, in terms of just granularity and understanding.

Atholl Duncan: Absolutely, and I think that is hopefully something that will come out of COVID. I mean, I worked with somebody the other day who was from an extremely well-known brand. And they told me with a bit of pride that yes, we were on the case with purpose, and this has helped them through the pandemic, but then revealed that they got on the case with purpose about 12 months before the pandemic started. And I was fairly shocked. So, it's that underlines your theory that, you know, real understanding and real embedding of purpose in the corporate world is still pretty sadly lacking.

Steve Rush: And also, purpose can change slowly given the environment and experiences. And you need to reevaluate that just as you do what your strategy

Atholl Duncan: Absolutely. I mean, I chair UK Coaching, which works with sports coaching and community coaches, essentially as a learning and development. Business that champions coaches and in a way COVID has helped to crystallize our purpose because the nation will not recover. And the health of the nation will not recover. Unless we protect and increase activity, movement, exercise and sports, and all of a sudden that organization has become the catalyst through which that has done because it isn't done without coaches.

Steve Rush: That right.

Atholl Duncan: So, the purpose has been crystallized and indeed the purpose is much clearer hopefully for the people in that business.

Steve Rush: The next part of the show our listeners have become familiar with is called Hack to Attack. So, this is where something typically hasn't gone well. It could have been catastrophic, it could be in your personal life or your work, but as a result of the experience, that's now helping us in a positive way. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Atholl Duncan: Well, my Hack to Attack is based in catastrophic failure. And I go back a long time, but I was asked to speak at a convention of local counselors. And I said, the people who was organizing, you know, what you want? or we want to kind of business thing, you know, are you sure you've got the right person? Yes, we've definitely got the right person. When I turned up on the night, the person who was chairing the event said, well, you're going to be funnier than that Dara or Breon. So, what do you mean? Well, we had Tim last year and he, wasn't very funny. I did not have a comic speech prepared. So, I tried to think of a comic speech while I'm eating my beef or chicken. And I think I probably went then pretty well, like a lead balloon. Managed to just escape with my life. And it was pretty, how can I put it? I was pretty down about the whole thing would be an understatement. So, it did impact quiet badly on me.

Steve Rush: I can imagine, yeah.

Atholl Duncan: And to become a more competent communicator, performer, presenter, speaker. And now one of my specialties is helping other people to communicate with brevity, clarity, and impact, but it could have gone either way. And, as quite interesting, I quite like biopics and I was watching a bio pic the other night about Audrey Hepburn and the failure that Audrey Hepburn had in her early life were quite marked. And as we see a thing with all good leaders, good stars, that is the way you bounce back from that.

Steve Rush: Totally.

Atholl Duncan: Failure is what make the woman or the man.

Steve Rush: And that’s a whole premise of Hack to Attack is that, you know, there always will be adversity, there'll be failures, but if we reframe them as learning, it helps propel us forward.

Atholl Duncan: Yeah, you know, we all want to be good though. I think we all want to be a good an influential performer, presenters, communicators. So, my Hack to Attack is see, you will bomb. You will bomb several teams and just learn from it and crack on.

Steve Rush: Awesome. Well, one of my favorite parts of the show is the next bit we get to do with you, which is to do a bit of time travel. And you now get to go to bump into Atholl 21 and give them some advice. So, what's it going to be?

Atholl Duncan: I think two bits of advice. I think whatever your ambitions are at 21 you're not being ambitious enough because I think when you're 21, you have no idea what you're actually capable of. And I think leaders seem to be, depending on what your background is. Leaders seem to be people who are in positions that perhaps you wouldn't achieve. So early imposter syndrome at 21. And certainly, when you get into the latter part of your career, that you realize that while there are obvious key skills in leadership, many, many, many people who never imagined life and leadership are actually extremely capable of doing them. And, you know, Sir David Behan, who's the executive chair of HC One care Homes. A thousand people died in his care homes in the first hundred days of lockdown. He's brilliant on this and how he sees leadership at every level in his care homes, and leadership's not a title.

So, I think that that would be one thing that I would definitely say to Atholl at 21. I think the other thing I would say, which came a little bit mid-career for me is to think international, to get yourself an international outlook, because the way that we do business globally now, I think is the key for many, many people and the opportunities of that. So, I would get a global outlook early on, so think big, think global and crack on.

Steve Rush: Awesome. I love that. So, what's next for you and Black Isle Group?

Atholl Duncan: Well just in the immediate future, you know, I was thinking I've become a bit of an evangelist for these messages and the leaders in lockdown book. So, we've developed leaders in lockdown workshops, and we're taking them out to businesses and out to business groups.

And it's more about leading out of lockdown and we're trying to help individuals and to help organizations. We're doing quite a lot of this free of charge because I honestly think that there's so much that businesses have to cope with in the next 12 months and beyond. That the business community needs to rally around together and help each other. So short term, it's leaders in lockdown workshops. I'm doing one tonight with global chief information officers. I'm really enjoying and doing them, and then beyond that, and we maybe thinking about what the next book is that we can write.

Steve Rush: Leaders out of lockdown?

Atholl Duncan: [Laughter]leaders out of lockdown. Well, I'm quite drawn. I must've met, there's two places that I'm quite drawn to. I'm quite drawn to learning more from the world's most interesting leaders. So, they're not necessarily the leaders who have the most prominent positions, but the ones who are challenging what we're doing across the business. So, I think that might be quite an interesting book. And I also have a bit of a fascination about the narcissistic leader and not because I like them, but because I think more and more, we want to be able to identify them and make sure that we learn from them and we try and stop their rise to the top. Because the shareholder damage, the damage of value, the damage of society from narcissistic political leaders is utterly colossal over time. And It's a failure of all of us not to spot these people and weed them out.

Steve Rush: And they're still present in our communities and in our workplaces. And it's spotting some of those traits that will help us call them out.

Atholl Duncan: Slowly.

Steve Rush: Yeah, love it. So as folk have been listening to this, they probably been thinking, how do I get myself a copy of Leaders in Lockdown? And where can I find out a bit more about Atholl work? Where should we send them?

Atholl Duncan: Well, Leaders in Lockdown is available on Amazon. I would say it's available in all good bookshops, but most good book shops are closed at the moment. So, the great Amazon is probably the best place to go. Book Depository if you're elsewhere in the world, because I think they're deliver free of charge. If you want to find out more about Black Isle Group, just check out blackislegroup.com. And there's a little bit more about me on athollduncan.com. That's Atholl with two L's. And the great thing about having a slightly unusual name like Atholl is, if you stick it in Google, you find me quite quickly.

Steve Rush: Can't be many, Atholl Duncan’s around.

Atholl Duncan: Not too many.

Steve Rush: Excellent. Well, it's been a super pleasure talking to you. I'm grateful for you taking time out of a busy schedule to be with us. And we're delighted that your part of our Leadership Hacker community, so Atholl Duncan thank you very much for being on the show.

Atholl Duncan: Steve, Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Steve Rush: Thanks Atholl.

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Major General Craig Whelden retired after 30 years in the US Army. He became the youngest general in the United States Army and then combined with another nine years, As a senior executive with the SES within the U.S. Marine Corps. Now he's a fortune 500 global speaker and an international bestselling author of Leadership, The art of inspiring people to be their best. In this episode we hack in to Craig wealth of leadership experience including:

The parallels of leading in the military to any other organization
The importance and power of Virtual Mentorship
The characteristics of Character
Humility is not thinking less of yourself - It's thinking of yourself less!

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Craig below:

Craig on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-whelden/

Craig on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CraigWhelden

Craig Website: https://craigwhelden.com

Craig’s Book: https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Inspiring-People-Their-Best-ebook/dp/B07NKFQJC8

Full Transcript Below:

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Major General Craig Whelden is the special guest on today's show. After 30 years in the army, he became the youngest general in the United States Army. Combined with another nine years, he was a member of the senior executive service with the U.S. Marine Corps. Now he's a fortune 500 global speaker and an international bestselling author. But before we get a chance to speak with Craig, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

When as leaders, when we make decisions, it's really important to consider the impact before taking action, right? So not just focused on what you could expect to happen, but also scenario planning and using the Kickstarter of what if to think about the other possibilities and other things that could happen. And I now think that was the case for a sushi restaurant in Taiwan, when they were setting out on their latest marketing campaign, a two-day promotion offered free sushi for the customer, along with five of their friends. If they arrived at the restaurant and then name contained the characters of G U that's, G-U-I Y-U, which translates in Chinese to salmon.

Its left Taiwanese officials completely unamused. Taiwan allows people to change their name officially up to three times. So now officials in Taiwan, as urge folks not to change the name to salmon after 150 people took the unusual move to get free sushi.

Dozens of people have flocked to the government offices this week to change their name in a phenomenon dumb, salmon chaos. It comes after a sushi restaurant chain offered an all you can eat menu for any customer whose official ID card contain the name salmon. New salmon theme names reported in local media included Salmon Prince Meteor Salmon King, and Salmon fried Rice. Officials at the interior ministry said this kind of name change only a waste time and it causes a necessary paperwork. Chen Tsung-yen said that he'd earned the public to cherish these administrative resources. And he hopes that most people will be more rational about it. One college student jumped at the chance for free sushi, and now has a name that roughly translate to explosive good-looking salmon. Except I changed my name this morning to add the characters so that I could eat for free.

He said we already ate more than 7,000 Taiwanese dollars, which is about £176 (pounds sterling), and another woman has changed their name to salmon and two of her friends did the same and therefore, we just change it back the following day and bizarrely still the Daily News reported that one resident had decided to add and record 36 new characters to his name. Most of them were seafood theme and these included characters for crab, lobster, mussels, just in case that restaurant run another campaign. So, the leadership lesson here is be careful in your communication and marketing and be careful what you wish for. They may have real severe unintended consequences, but one thing is for sure, they certainly got some publicity from their marketing campaign. The things folk will do for free meal, huh? That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any interesting stories, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on today's show is Major General Craig Wheldon. His leadership career started out as a boy scout and then 30 years later was a youngest general in the army. Further nine years, he was a senior executive with the Marine Corps. Now retired, He's a fortune 500 guest speaker and international best-selling author. Craig it's a super pleasure to have you on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Major General Craig Whelden: Thanks Steve. I'm happy to be here.

Steve Rush: So, for those of you who haven't had the opportunity to read Craig's book, Leadership: The Art of Inspiring People to Be Their Best. It's a real story of how Craig developed and evolved his leadership thinking and career across his army and his executive Marine Corps World. But Craig, for those that are listening in today for the first time, tell us a little bit about how that kind of came about and how you ended up as a Major General?

Major General Craig Whelden: Yeah, as you said, at age 14, I was an Eagle Scout, which is kind of the top level in boy scouting. And it was an interesting climb for me. It was more about the journey than it was the destination, but when I got to the top and again, I'm at age 14, they said, okay, you've now reached the top of scouting. You need to start leading. And I really didn't know what they were talking about because at age 14 I hadn't really led anything. So, it was kind of a cold water on the face. And over the course of the next years into high school and to college, and then 30 years in the army, in the private sector for a while. And then back with the Marine Corps, my leadership journey evolved over many, many decades and about two and a half years ago, when my wife said I'm ready to move from Hawaii back to the Mainland, somebody asked me, what are you going to do next?

And I said, well, what I'd really love to do is to give back to the next generation, those things that I have learned in the past four or five decades. And they said, well, you need to write a book. And I said, a book, are you kidding me? I was 67 years old. I'd never written a book before. And I thought I was a pretty fair writer. But this was a little bit intimidating, but to make a long story short, I wrote a book, I got the manuscript done and I then didn't know what to do with it. So, I hired an editor and I said, hey, I've got the outline of a book here. It's a 14-chapter book. And I'd like you to take a look at it and tell me what you think. And he did, and he said, nobody's going to read this. And I said, wow, that's another cold splash on the face. Why is that? And he said, that's because it's a memoir. It's the story of your life. And you are not famous and you are not infamous. You're not Boris Johnson. You're not Jack the ripper. If you were one of those two people, people would buy your book because of who you are, no matter how good the book was or isn't, wasn't. So, I said, well, that was not my intent. I did not intend to write a memoir. What do you suggest? And he said, you've got wonderful leadership nuggets buried in these stories that you tell, find them, pull them out, make them chapter titles, and then fold your stories underneath the support each one of them. So, I went through the manuscript with a yellow highlighter. I found all those leadership nuggets, as he liked to call them, I pulled them out and made them chapter titles. And then I folded my stories underneath them. After I did that, he said, all right, now tell me what the most important leadership trait is. And I said, well, I think it's a having strong character. And he said, well, then that should be chapter number one. And that's how character, the basic building block of great leaders became chapter one.

Steve Rush: Awesome, I love that story. And how wrong was he? In so much as people weren't buying it because it's now an international bestseller. Available all over the world, and what I found when I read the book, Craig, is I felt like I was going on the evolution of your leadership career with you and also kind of experiencing some of the things that went alongside it.

Major General Craig Whelden: Yeah, I saw it. I'm a storyteller. And I think storytelling is the best form of communication that one can have. It's time proven over thousands and thousands of years. That's how history has been recorded. And so, I wanted a book that made the leadership points that people could put in their pocket and take with them. But I also wanted them to get to the end of each chapter and want to start reading the next chapter, like a Tom Clancy book or a John Grisham book or a James Patterson book, something like that, something that was fun, fun to read. And so, I wrote it in that vein.

Steve Rush: Great. So, throughout your military career, you've developed and learned and pivoted away, lots of different leadership experiences and leadership lessons. And we'll get into some of those in a moment, but I guess one of the things I want to kick around with you first of all, is that after having such a successful career in the army and retiring as Major General, you then moved into the Marine Corps as an executive director. How was that transition moving from an army general to, I guess, a public sector role?

Major General Craig Whelden: Yeah, so I was a senior civilian. I was part of the, what they call in the United States, the senior executive service, which is kind of the civilian equivalent of being a General or an Admiral, but the Marine Corps is a special kind of culture. And it probably is for you all, the Royal Marine Corps. They like to think of themselves as a cut above the rest. There's a certain pride, but there's also a certain arrogance, I think, think of the Royal Marine Corps, think of the SAS. Think of the United States Marine Corps, think of a Delta Force and the Navy Seals and Army Rangers. Those are what most people think of as elite forces. And I would tell you that the United States Marine Corps thinks that they are an elite force. And I have to tell you that my nine years of experience with them, I would agree.

I would not want to meet a United States Marine or even a Royal Marine on the battlefield if I was an adversary, because they are a very, very special breed. Someone once asked the question, how does an ordinary American become a United States Marine? And the answer is there are no ordinary Americans in the United States Marines.

Steve Rush: Right, yeah.

Major General Craig Whelden: But I found that, you know, the fact that I was a retired two-star Army General, almost didn't matter when I joined them, it took me about six or seven months for them to get comfortable enough to accept me as a member of their team. I had to demonstrate that I was worthy of their trust and that I could stand in their ranks. And I did that, but the first year was not rough, but it was an interesting ride. And from that point on, I felt like a good part of the team. I worked for six different three-star Generals and every single one of them were very, very different, but they were all magnificent leaders.

Steve Rush: What was the most-stark difference from a leadership perspective between your experience in the Army and the Marine Corps?

Major General Craig Whelden: Well, I like to tell people it's the same church, just a different pew. So, there's not a lot of difference between, there are some supered army leaders and a number of them. I referenced in my book because that's where I had most of my experiences obviously in 30 years in uniform, but the Marine Corps is small. They have less than 100 Generals and a about 25 senior executives. Everybody knows everybody else. There are a couple of major bases, one on the East Coast, one on the West Coast. And one in Japan that most Marines have been to, they are very adaptable to about any mission anywhere. They take great pride and being the 911 force for the nation, meaning that when the president of the United States says, I need somebody tonight. Then the United States Marine Corps says, send me.

And the army is a little bit slower by design a little bit more ponderous. And oftentimes through history, the Marine Corps were the first ones in. Followed by the United States Army. And then they relieve the Marines so that they could go back onto the ships and go somewhere else. There are Marines floating around on amphibious ships all over the world. We have about 30 amphibious ships in the United States, Navy whose only purpose is to carry the Marines and their equipment to hotspots around the world and to take care of Americans and their interests.

Steve Rush: Pretty interesting. Isn't it? And the fact that you probably are one of the very few people on the planet, that's got that lens from both perspectives. And I wonder, do you see that kind of transference between the armed forces in the U.S. a lot or not?

Major General Craig Whelden: Yeah, you know, I don't know that. I mean, I don't know anybody who has had the kind of experience that I've had with two different militaries at the senior level. I had seven years as a General Officer in the Army and nine years as a senior executive for the Marine Corps. That's very, very unique. And again, I can't think of a single person that I'm aware of that has had a similar experience. So, I also was the chief of staff of a Navy joint task force when I was an Army General. So, I spent some time at sea in support of a four-star led Navy Admiral. And that was very interesting too. Again, they're all in the same church, they're all just in different pews. And each one of them brings a unique capability to the nation's needs just like your military does for you.

Steve Rush: Hmm, and I suspect it's fairly similar in any military function across any jurisdiction in country across the world, but I've wondered what the reason is Craig, from your perspective, that armed forces don't share their leadership talent pool more?

Major General Craig Whelden: We actually do that now. Back in the eighties, we didn't, and I tell a quick story, that's not in my book, but it's an interesting story. We went into Grenada, your listeners may remember when the United States went into Grenada, a little Island in the Caribbean because we had the Cubans. Back then in the eighties, we were concerned about the Soviet Union, the expansion of Communism. And obviously the Soviet Union was trying to get into Cuba in a big way in any Island that they could influence in the Caribbean. But Cuba was a proxy for the Soviet Union. So, we had the Cubans going into Grenada. We had an American University there that was at some risk. And we used as the pretext for the invasion of Grenada. The security of the American students at that university.

And so, we went into a Grenada. It was a 1984, I believe. And an army ranger found himself on the outskirts of this university, looking for indirect fire, artillery fire in support of the attack that they were just about to do on this Cuban position. And he didn't have any artillery, but as he looked over his shoulder, he saw an U.S. Navy ship with guns on it, sitting out about two, three miles off the shore, but he had no means to communicate with them. So, he went to a payphone and he called Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he had been stationed. And he said, I'm in Grenada. This was on a payphone. I'm in Grenada, I need some artillery fire. I can see a Navy ship with guns on it, but I can't communicate to them. They then called the Navy in Norfolk, Virginia who contacted the ship.

They gave them the grid coordinates and they got the Naval gunfire on the position. But that very strange way of getting the two services to work together made very, very clear to the United States, Congress, that we had something that was very broken. So, they passed a law called Goldwater Nichols Act in the mid-eighties that forced the military to work together much, much more closely. And I can tell you today, the joint forces we like to call it. The combined forces of all the services and maximizing the strengths of all of them and making them interconnected has been time tested since desert shield, desert storm, just five years after Goldwater Nichols was passed. And I'm very comfortable that all the, at least in the United States that all the military services work together. Today, you cannot become a General unless you have had a joint service job working with another service, you have to have that in your background, in your experience, or you are by law, not allowed to be selected for General.

Steve Rush: That makes loads of sense. Doesn't it? So, one of the things that struck me when I read your book was you have this really clear and very thoughtful approach, which I found really quite deliberate to how you set your stall out and to lead others. And I wondered if that's something that came natural to you, or did you learn that from somebody else?

Major General Craig Whelden: Well, I've got a chapter in my book about mentorship and I talk about four different kinds. Assigned, and what that means is, hey, I'm going to sign you to be John's mentor. The next one might be sought after, which is you seek to be the mentor of somebody else, or you seek to be mentored by somebody else. The third one would be self-appointed where I self-appoint myself to be your mentor. And the last one I like to call virtual. What does virtual mean? Virtual to me has been the most important. The one I have learned the most of. So, I want your listeners to imagine you're walking down a path, it's a dirt path in the woods. And on the path, there are rocks. The path represents your journey in life. The rocks represent the experiences that you have in your journey in your life.

As you see each of the rocks, those that represent the good experiences and those that represent the bad experiences, pick them up, put them in your backpack and carry them with you on your journey. So that when you get to a personal experience of your own, that is similar to one you have observed in the past. You can apply the good things that you learned, and you can avoid the bad things that you observed. So, I call that virtual mentorship. And for me, that's been the most valuable means of learning about leaders, about leadership and about life that I can imagine. Walking down a journey, pick up those rocks along the way, put in your backpack. I've had more than a few experiences where I've said to myself, after observing a senior leader, do something, wow. I really like what I just saw.

I hope that if I ever get into a position like that, that I'm just like that. On the other side, I've also had experiences where I've said, wow, if I ever become a senior leader like that, I hope I'm never like that. And I think it's important for people to remember those kinds of stark situations so that when they become, they have a sense of self-awareness when they become more senior, when they become older, they can say, yep, I've got a lot of ground that I've covered in my life, and I'm going to apply the techniques that really worked well. And I'm going to avoid the ones that did not work out so well.

Steve Rush: I love that metaphor of the dirt path and the rocks, by the way, because I think we can all have an experience where we've collected rocks, that as serve us well, and also, we've learned from other people that have maybe done things not so well.

Major General Craig Whelden: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: So, one of the tools and techniques that you have in your kitbag as you were one of the early adopters of using psychometric tools in the military, such as Myers-Briggs and so forth. And I remember from reading in your book, you did that quite early in your career. How did that additional lens help you and the teams that you had provided different perspective on things?

Major General Craig Whelden: For your listeners, Myers-Briggs is a personality test that you can find online. It's a M-Y-E R-S-B-R-I-G-G-S. You just type it into Google and you'll find it. It's a test that you can take in 30 to 40 minutes, it's very easy. And it gives you a sense for what kind of person you are, what is your personality? And they assign you a score that is a cluster of four different letters. I happen to be an I-S-T-J. Those are the four letters associated with my personality. And each of those letters stand for a component of my personality. I, as introvert S is sensing, T is thinking, J is judgmental. And when you look at the definition of what an ISTJ is, you get a very good sense for what kind of person this is, what kind of leader this person is and what their personal quirks might be.

So, the value of taking Myers-Briggs and having your team take Myers-Briggs is that there are 16 different profiles in this test. And you want to make sure that you understand how other people on your team conduct themselves. And you want them to understand how you are. So, every time I went into a new organization, I would explain to them that I'm an ISTJ. And let me tell you the definition of an ISTJ. Now you know, you have a window into my soul.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Major General Craig Whelden: You kind of know how I operate. And I would do that on a very, very first day that I was there and that if people were unfamiliar with Myers-Briggs, I'd set it up, so everybody could take the Myers-Briggs. The military uses that tool frequently. I've taken the Myers-Briggs in the military, probably half a dozen times over the past 40 years. And every single time I've taken that test, I turn out to be an ISTJ and it's a very useful tool. If everybody in my organization was just like me, it would be a very boring organization. I have to tell you, and we would not be able to maximize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of everybody on the team. So, understanding how everybody's made up is a critical skill I think for leaders

Steve Rush: Now as a Major General, you also would have led other Generals in the Army, and I'm interested to know whether or not as your leadership career progressed and the seniority of the people you were leading changed to having leading more senior leaders, if that dynamic for you changed dramatically, or was it just in yours, same church, different Pew?

Major General Craig Whelden: So, when I was interviewed to be the executive director for Marine Corps forces Pacific in 2010, I went before a board of three people, two Generals, and a senior executive. And it was about a 30-minute interview. And when they got done, they asked me a question, which I've never forgotten. They asked me if you had just 30 seconds in an elevator to convince the selecting official, why you're the right person for this job? What would you say? And I thought about that for a moment. And I said, well, first of all, I would not go over my qualifications because I would have assumed that the individual would have read my resume and would understand my experiences. And I would know that I was technically capable of doing the job or otherwise I wouldn't be interviewing with them. So, what I would do is I would tell them the following, you can go out and find anybody.

And I mean, anybody that has worked for me, worked with me, or I have worked for, and they will all say the same thing about Craig Whelden. That's what I said, now, why did I say that? I said that because over the course of many decades, working for other people, I found that some are near bipolar in their approach to leadership. They treat their seniors one way and they treat their subordinates a different way. And so too often, we discover that too late. And I wanted to make sure that the board understood that I'm an open book. What you see is what you get. And when you hire me, there are no surprises. Go talk to anybody in the planet. I have the confidence to be able to tell them that, hey, everybody's going to tell you the same thing about me. I don't treat, you know, a private one way and a General a different way.

Steve Rush: You being your authentic self also means that you get authentic responses back, right?

Major General Craig Whelden: That's exactly right. Having a great sense of self-awareness, who you are, where you came from. That's the reason I put character in the first chapter of my book. Character is this umbrella term, which encompasses a lot of characteristics like ambition, perseverance, self-awareness, empathy, humility, honesty, trust, integrity, charisma, and always taken responsibility of being a leader often while subordinating your own personal interests. I don't know if there's a Webster definition for this word, but there's an element of what we call grit, having grit. And I talk about that in my first chapter as well, when times get tough, you double down and you get focused to accomplish the mission.

Steve Rush: And there've been many of those in your career, haven't there?

Major General Craig Whelden: Had a few.

Steve Rush: So, you were actually a Stone throw away from the Pentagon in the 9/11 tragedy that happened in the U.S. and I recall in reading that the amount of grit you had to pull out of the bag on that day, what was your experience of leading others in and around an environment of absolute chaos at that time?

Major General Craig Whelden: For your listeners and for those who have not read the book. I was actually the Deputy Commander of U.S. Army Pacific in Hawaii on 9/11, but I was attending a conference in Washington DC, and it was a Stone's throw. It was right across the highway from the Pentagon. You could actually see the Pentagon from my hotel room window. We were in the basement attending this conference, basement conference room. And when the first plane hit the first tower somebody came in and told us that. And we didn't think a lot about it. Obviously, we were sad that an accident occurred, but we didn't know what the weather was like in New York City. And we assumed that it was an accident just like everybody else did. And then when the second plane hit the second tower, we all knew that something was amiss.

So, we asked for the hotel where we were having the conference. We asked for them to bring a television into our conference room, so we could monitor the events in New York city. And we established contact with the Army operation center and the Pentagon, so we could keep track of what was going on, but it wasn't very much longer. In fact, it was only about 18 minutes after that second plane hit the tower, that there was a huge explosion over at the Pentagon. And we couldn't hear it because we are below ground. But when somebody ran in the room and said, hey, there's been an explosion at the Pentagon, we all ran outside. We saw this big black plume of smoke. My first instinct was to call my wife in Hawaii to let her know that I was okay. And I couldn't get through on a cell phone because everybody was trying to use their cell phone at that time.

So, I ran upstairs. Obviously, the conference was over. I got on a landline from my hotel room. I could see the burning wreckage of the Pentagon from my window, and I called my wife. It was four o'clock in the morning in Hawaii. And I said, there's been an attack on the United States. Two airplanes have hit towers, the world trade center in New York. And something has occurred over at the Pentagon at the time. We didn't know it was an airplane and please call the Pacific Army Operation Center. Let them know that I'm okay. And then call my parents in Indiana and let them know I'm okay, because everybody thought I was in the Pentagon attending this meeting. But the host for the meeting was at ground zero. He had probably 45 people in the hotel as part of this conference, that would be dead today.

Had they not scheduled the meeting on that day because his offices were right at the point of impact. And the two secretaries that he left there to man the phones were both killed. After I talked to my wife, I went over to the Pentagon. There was a chaotic scene. There were first responders coming from all corners, Virginia, Maryland, Washington, DC, Federal, State, Local. There are many, many people showing up to try to do what they could to help. And I went to the fire chief for Arlington County who appeared to be in charge of putting the fire out. And I said, what do you need? I was a two-star General and I was in uniform. So, he could see that, and he said, I could use blocking and bracing material to hold the sides of the building up so that when we go in there to either rescue people or recover bodies, that building doesn't collapse on us. For your listeners, the Pentagon is the largest business building in the entire world.

And it's five stories high, but it covers quite a bit of ground. There's 25,000 people that work in the Pentagon every day. And there's another three or 4,000 that visit the Pentagon every day. So, you could have upwards of 30,000 people in this one building at one time. I called the nearest Army Unit, which was the third infantry regiment nearby at Fort Myer, Virginia, again, for your listeners, that's the ceremonial unit for the army that puts on all the parades and so forth for the President of the United States. But they also have a wartime mission and they are very, very good at what they do. They have an engineer company in their organization, and I said, the Fire Chief can use help. You have an engineer company; can you bring down material that he could use for blocking embracing material? And they said, yes, they could.

And about two hours later, I remember standing out on the grass in front of the hole, in the wall, the fire burned for almost two straight days. It was so hot and so spread out. So, it took a long time and I was standing next to an FBI Agent and Army trucks started rolling across the grass in front of us, headed towards the fire Chief and the FBI Agent turned to me and said, what are those? And I said, those are Army trucks bringing in block and embracing material for the Fire Chief. Why do you ask? And he said, because they're driving over my crime scene. And I thought a moment. I said, wow, what a different perspective we have? The Fire Chief is trying to put out a fire and save lives. The FBI Chief or the FBI guy wants to basically tape the area off and make it a crime scene. That nobody disturbs his crime scene. Very, very different perspective. Later in the day, it appeared to me that they didn't appear to be any one point where everything was being coordinated. And so, I found myself standing next to another FBI Agent, and I asked him if he was aware of any place where everything was being coordinated. And he said, no, but there is the Arlington County Sheriff Department has a command van up at the Navy Annex. That's about half a mile from here. I'm going up there. Would you like to go? And I said, sure. So, I got into his black SUV, tinted windows, radios, everywhere, antennas coming out of the top. And I said, what is it that you do? He said, I'm the Chief of counterterrorism. And I said, okay, that explains why this thing looks like a James Bond car.

So, we get in the car, we start heading up there and he turns to me and he said, nobody knows this yet. And it's very close hold. So, don't tell anybody, but we shot an airplane down. And I said, really? He says, yeah, it was headed to Camp David, which is the retreat for the President of The United States. And one of our jets shot it down. Well, in fact, we didn't shoot an airplane down. Passengers took an airplane down. It crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and that airplane was headed to Washington DC, but it took me about a week to 10 days to convince myself that there wasn't a coverup going on at the highest levels of Government to avoid the fact that we had shot an airplane down. It became very aware to me through all the evidence that evolved in the coming days that we didn't shoot an airplane down. We had some very, very brave passengers that prevented that airplane from flying into the U.S. Capitol.

Steve Rush: I should imagine there were many leadership lessons learned on that day from lots of different perspectives, right?

Major General Craig Whelden: Yup, yup, absolutely.

Steve Rush: So, when you look back over your varied career, Craig, has that been maybe a real standout lesson that you pull on throughout your career?

Major General Craig Whelden: I think the biggest lesson, if I was going to take one as a story, I already told about virtual mentorship. As you go through life and you observe the actions, the activities, the personalities, the leadership traits of other people, take notes, figuratively speaking, or literally, but take notes and put those in the back of your head and say to yourself, wow, that's a great tactic technique or procedure to use that I can carry with me and use myself. I have borrowed from many, many people, dozens, if not hundreds of things that I've observed and seen in my lifetime and tried to replicate that because I thought so highly of it. But as I said earlier, also take note of the things that you want to make sure you never repeat. We've all seen them, your listeners have seen them, you say to yourself, wow, that is disgusting. I hope I never do that myself. So, I think if there was one thing that I would reflect back on and over the past 50 years, it's the journey that I've been on and it's the rocks that I've picked up and put into my rucksack and carried with me. And I've got many of them.

Steve Rush: It's being conscious about that though. Isn't it too? And making sure that you are deliberate in collecting those stories and those rocks for your rucksack, I think that's the main thing that I'm hearing from you.

Major General Craig Whelden: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah. So, this is part of the show where I get to turn the lens a little bit and we're going to hack into some more great ideas and tips and tools that you've maybe used throughout your career. And the first place I'd like us to go is for us to try and distill maybe your top three leadership hacks, tips or nuggets, what would they be?

Major General Craig Whelden: Well, there's an old saying that treat others as you would like to be treated. I think that's one of them. I have always imagined myself on the receiving end of a communications that I have with others and I treat people as I would like to be treated. So that would be number one, secondly, that when there are successes in your team, you should give the credit to your team. And when there are failures in your team, if you are the leader, you should take responsibility for those failures as well. Now that's not a hard and fast rule. Sometimes there are obvious reasons why something failed and it may be directly attributable to somebody on your team. But generally speaking, give credit to others and take responsibility, give credit to others when things go well and take responsibility of yourself when things don't go well.

And the last thing I think, particularly with senior leaders is to show humility. Humility is one of the most important character traits for a senior leader that you can have. I'm reminded of two quotes about this that are, and I'll repeat them twice for your audience in case they want to write them down. CS Lewis once said, humility is not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less. Let me say that again. Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less.

Steve Rush: I like that.

Major General Craig Whelden: And the other one was said by John Wooden. Most of your listeners probably don't know who John Wooden was. He actually went to Purdue University, the same University I went to and he was in the fraternity that I was in, several generations before me. He's passed away, but he won more collegiate basketball games and national championships than any basketball coach in us history.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Major General Craig Whelden: And one of the reasons he was such a winning coach was the way he developed his players. Not because of the skills that they had necessarily, but to make them better people and to make them better teammates. He said one time, and this is in my book. It's at the very front of chapter one, John Wooden said, Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man given, be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.

Steve Rush: Very neat, like that a lot. So, the next part I show Craig. We call this Hack to Attack. So, this is where something in your life or work hasn't particularly worked out well. It could have even screwed up, but in the experience, we've used that as a learning and it's now a positive or a force for good in your life at work. So, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Major General Craig Whelden: Well, I have a chapter in my book, chapter 18, actually your listeners can go read it for free. That's on my website, craigwhelden.com, if they go to the book tab and then look down at a sample chapter, they can find it. It's called light at the end of the tunnel. And the metaphor applies to you finding yourself in a dark place where you think things are not going well. And my experience over many, many years has been that many times it turns out just fine. I've got the story that I tell in light at the end of the tunnel is a personal one, about a divorce I had. Very early in my life and how I got through that. But let me tell you a professional iteration of that. I was in the army for 30 years. For the first 20 years. I was a tanker.

I was a cavalryman. I was training to fight America's Wars. And that's what I did for 20 years. I was in an all-male macho environment. Everybody that worked for me were soldiers. They were all men. And when I got to the 20-year point and I became a full Colonel, the Army said, we want you to be a Base Commander. And I said, a Base Commander. And for your listeners, that's like being a town Mayor. I then was responsible for the quality of life of all the soldiers that lived on my base and all their family members. I had probably 45,000 constituents on my base, and it was in Germany. One of my many tours in Europe. And I said at the time, I don't know anything about running a base and I don't care to learn. I'm a tanker, I'm a cavalryman, that's what I'd like to stay. And the good news is that I didn't get out of that job. They put me in that job and the environment was so starkly different from anything I had experienced ever. And I'll give you a couple of examples. When I was a Battalion Commander a few years before that I had a thousand soldiers, I had 58 tanks, another 50 vehicles. I had howitzers, I had infantry fighting vehicles and I was training to go to war. When I became a Base Commander, I had 3000 employees. 95% of them were civilian. 50% of them were women. 50% of them were German. Some of the Germans didn't speak English. And I was charged with leading this very different and very diverse group in a very different mission set.

And when I went into that organization, I said to them, I know very, very little about running a base, but what I do know something about is judging people's character and their capabilities. And so, I am counting on you to help me become a better Base Commander, become a better Commander for you and to help you when you need it, you need to tell me when you need help and what kind of help you need. So, I can bring those resources to bear. Now, the good news is that I had been a customer on that base for 18 months before I took command of the base itself. And you kind of know what good looks like as a customer. So, it was relatively easy to see when something was broken and not working well. You could have town halls and have people come there and complain about, you know, the electricity or the water or the life support or the food and beverage operations or the hotel or the childcare center or whatever it was that they had a complaint about.

And then I could attack that and do what I could. So that actually at the time I thought, wow, that's a career ender. I'm done. It's been a wonderful career and this'll be the last thing I do. Well, I actually came out of that job and got selected to be a General and then carried from that point on, on a very different career path than I otherwise would have done because of the fact I was a former Base Commander and all the successes that I saw in my life, not just in the Army for the remaining 10 years, but also in my post civilian career and in the Marine Corps, all of those, I can wind back to the experience I had as a Base Commander. A job that I didn't want when I first went into it, turned out to be the very best thing that could've ever happened to me. I learned more about myself. I learned more about leadership than I ever would have in that very different environment, that uncomfortable environment than I would have. If I'd stayed in the same old path. I was at a fork in the road. I thought I should go, right. And circumstances took me left. And I'm glad I did.

Steve Rush: It's a great story and proves doesn't it that sometimes the lack of comfort that discomfort creates more learning in this than if we are in a routine.

Major General Craig Whelden: It sure does an opportunity.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely. Craig the very last thing that we want to do today, Craig is to give you a chance to do some time travel. You get to go all the way back and bump into yourself at 21 and you get to give yourself some advice. So, what would it be?

Major General Craig Whelden: Well, I'm pretty comfortable with the leadership journey that I've been on. And I don't know that I would change any of that, as I said early on, kind of started when I was 14 years old, when I became an Eagle Scout. So, your listeners may be surprised, but I think what I would say is that if I were to back at 21, the one thing I would start doing is to save money early. I would put away 10% of what I make. You won't regret it. Your listeners won't regret it. If they're in their twenties now, I would say, start saving now because nothing is more valuable in terms of capital accumulation than time.

Steve Rush: It gives you choices.

Major General Craig Whelden: So, with that lesson learned, because I didn't learn that lesson until I was in my forties, and that's when I really started saving. With that lesson in mind, I have a five-year-old grandson that two years ago, I started an investment fund with, and I'm now putting a regular amount of money into that investment fund. And by the time he's 21 years old, I'm hopeful that he'll have a million dollars in that investment fund.

Steve Rush: Awesome.

Major General Craig Whelden: And I will probably say to him, assuming that I'm still around, his name is Jack. I will say, Jack, here's the deal. As long as I am still alive, I will continue to put money into this fund. If you will, one, match it and to two, leave it there, leave it there for when you grow up, because you will not regret when you are 40 years old that I started this when you were two

Steve Rush: Wise words, Indeed. So, Craig, if folks are listening to us talk today and they want to continue the conversation with you, find out a little bit more about the work you're doing now, and maybe get a copy of the book. Where's the best place for us to send them?

Major General Craig Whelden: Well, craigwhelden.com, W-H-E-L-D-E-N. You can get a window into my soul as I said earlier on, there are podcasts there, there demo tapes of me speaking, there are blogs there, there's reviews of my book, there are testimonials about me. There are all kinds of information you can find out, plus a link to Amazon. You can get it in print, in digital form or audio book. So that's the best place to go. I think.

Steve Rush: Awesome. I loved every moment of being part of your journey through your book, through the conversation we've had before today. And indeed, talking with you today Craig. You are a really inspirational guy and I wish you every success of what happens next in your new chapter of your work and your career. And thank you for being part of our extended community here on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Major General Craig Whelden: Thanks, Steve. It's been a wonderful discussion with you today. I've enjoyed it.

Steve Rush: Your very welcome.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

Leadership: The Art of Inspiring People to Be Their Best

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Bill Coletti is a crisis communications and reputation management expert with more than 25 years experience in managing high state crises. He's also the author of Critical Moment: The New Mindset of Reputation Management. You can learn these great hacks and ideas from Bill:

His ABC model – rule No 1 in a crisis
Why the key differentiator between a good and a great crisis response is speed.
The 4 A’s of reputation resilience
How a company owns its brand, but the public owns its reputation.

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Bill Coletti below:

Bill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billcoletti/

Bill on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bcoletti

Kith Website: https://kith.co

Bill’s Book: https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Moments-Mindset-Reputation-Management-ebook/dp/B0757WXH8Z/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Bill Coletti is a special guest on today's show. He's a crisis communications and reputation management expert with more than 25 years’ experience in managing highly state crises. He's also the author of Critical Moment: The New Mindset of Reputation Management. But before we get a chance to speak with Bill, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Zoom office parties employers resorted to during the pandemic are no longer fit for purpose; end neither are the in-person team building exercises at work that took place before the pandemic, according to research from the University of Sydney in Australia. In a new paper, the University updates its study, originally released in 2009, which argues it's more important for leaders to focus on team building efforts on relationships with the parties are not very close versus those that are already close and to bring them closer still. In a statement, lead researcher Dr. Petr Mattus said, “Almost every day at work, workers are subjected to interventions that are implicitly or explicitly designed to change our networks of working relationships. Teams are formed, merged, restructured and staff reallocated office spaces when they're redesigned. And we expected to participate in drinks after work in team building sessions readily. All this work with the aim of improving workplace effectiveness, efficiency, collaboration, and cohesion, but does any of this really work?” Within the research, his colleague associate professor Julian Polack points out, “Among the participants that we interviewed. Some were really against team building exercises because they felt they were implicit or compulsory, and didn't welcome the management's interest in their lives beyond their direct work performance. We found that many people don't want to be forced into having or making friends or drinks, especially on top of their busy lives. And of course, many are already introverted and this just does not work.” Polack notes, “These activities often feel mandatory. People feel that management is being too noisy or trying to control their lives too much.”

When it comes to team building on Zoom and any other online or virtual experience, some research completed by The Institute of Leadership & Management by Jay Luddit said, “We learned from the changing environment inflicted by the pandemic, that there is no one size that fits all. Employers offering flexibility around home working together with long hours, alongside other people's commitments. And finding unsurprisingly, people found initial favor with social interactions, but as time's gone, I started to really push against it.”

Socializing works best when organic and when it's voluntary. So, allow people to choose when they engage and in doing so, you'll naturally be more fulfilling around creating a team environment. So, the leadership lens here is, how much time do we really spend understanding the internalization and the behaviors of our teams so that we can create the appropriate opportunity for socializing and networking. And I wonder if you just took a look around your team and the people that you work alongside now, how many of those Zoom pub quizzes and drink sessions are still going on today? I suspect there are a lot fewer than there were six months ago and therefore, what could be the next way that we gather in a virtual world to celebrate? That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any insights, information, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on today's show is Bill Coletti. Bill is the CEO of Kit.co, he's the bestselling author of, Critical Moments: The New Mindset of Reputation Management, he's a C-suite advisor and a strategist. Bill welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Bill Coletti: Steve, I'm really excited to be here and looking forward to a great conversation.

Steve Rush: Me too, before we get into that conversation, though, it might be really helpful for our listeners to just get a sense of, who you are? How you've arrived at running Kit?

Bill Coletti: That's awesome. So, I started my career, and so what we do is, we do crisis communications and reputation management for corporations and leaders. And I've started my career in politics. I ran political campaigns, did my first local government race, State Senate race when I was a senior in high school and then continue to be involved in politics through college, and then graduated on doing statewide campaigns and progressively larger races, and then took a five-year break and went to Eastern Europe and lived in Bulgaria again, doing politics and in Romania and Albania and a little bit in Bulgaria area and then came home in 2000 back to the United States and ran the United States Senate Campaign. And so, taking the skillsets of politics, which is as you know, in politics, it's very much crisis management. You're just trying to create one more crisis for the other guys that you have yourselves, or you're often trying to solve crises or fixed problems in a campaign is when we did that and applied those skillsets to a corporate context. And so, since around 2000, I've been doing this in a corporate context of working with corporations as they find themselves, their strategy misaligned with public's expectation. So that's where we spend all of our time now.

Steve Rush: So, I guess politics was an incredible foundation for you to get those skills that not only understanding and responded to crisis, but as you rightly said, creating crisis for your opponents, what was maybe the one kind of stand out moment for you in your political career, where you could say right, that's definitely going to work in corporate world?

Bill Coletti: You know, I think it is understanding attention span, understanding what motivates people and really understanding the limitations of your side. And so, I think great campaigns really understand who they are and what they stand for. Great candidates understand who they are and what they stand for. And what we've seen with corporations is that there's a key differentiator in crisis response between good and great. And good and great, the difference is speed, but the way you get fast is by understanding your mission and values, understanding what you stand for, and then there's elements of chain of command, so those two things equal speed. And so, what we've found with candidates is those that knew what they stood for didn't live in the middle of the road, took a position. They did better than candidates that tried to be all things to all people. And that's similar in a corporate context, not exactly universal, but similar in a corporate context. There are some differences that we can unpack if you want to talk about. But I think the biggest thing is, knowing who you are? What you stand for? Can you actually walk the walk and not just talk it?

Steve Rush: Yeah, neat. And I guess the whole 12 months that we've been in so far, it has been a crisis for most organizations. What has the pandemic bought about for you to deal with in the work that you now do with Kith?

Bill Coletti: Yeah, so to two key insights, one is ABC, always be communicating. Companies, it's not an epiphany, but I think it became much more understandable and relatable that companies always have to be communicating in particular to their employees. And that's the second key insight that we picked up in this whole COVID experience is, that leaders, whether it be the CEO or a departmental leader or political leader. They have to be a source of truth because there are so many different sources of truth around COVID-19 is, that the leader of your company has to be a communicator and they have to drive that first insight of always be communicating. So, ABC, always be communicating. And then the second part is that leaders, CEOs, the business leaders have to be the primary spokesperson communicating what the path forward is and trying to be a source of truth.

Steve Rush: It's definitely not the time for abdication at this point, is it?

Bill Coletti: Not at all now, now is the time. And that's been a real epiphany. A lot of companies say, well, this reputation stuff, I don't really need to do that. I just serve my customer, serve my employees. But the public's expectations, running in parallel with COVID. In the United States and across globally, there are these issues related to social justice. These issues related to, or populations, groups of people are demanding corporations to take a stand. Those two things, COVID and social justice, public expectation have collided. So, there's no room for application. Even if there a small B2B lumber company. You have to have a position because your customers and then your customers, customers really demand you to have a position.

Steve Rush: I love the notion by the way of ABC. always be communicating. And I totally get that. And it's something that's been really core to my heart, but I just wondered from your perspective, is there a danger in a crisis that's been, as long as the pandemic has been, that you can over-communicate?

Bill Coletti: So, there's the possibility of that. I think it's a really, really high bar.

Steve Rush: Yeah, right.

Bill Coletti: I think it has to do with tone as much as volume of how much of it that you do. I think one of the great struggles that our clients have and that we have to work with them on one is, well, I've already said that, why do I need to say it again? Or I don't know when this is going to be over? And I don't know when we're going to be back in the office? I don't know when we're going to have a vaccination? Or I don’t know what the government's going to do next? Is getting comfortable with uncertainty. That's been a great challenge for companies to figure out and for individual leaders, you know, (A) I've already told everybody that can be, I don't know what I'm going to tell them. It's okay. It is okay to say we don't know, but our best judgment or our best, here's what we're thinking about. That's really, really good enough to be able to communicate in that philosophy of always.

Steve Rush: It's filling the gaps that people have the problem with. If they understand that you genuinely don't know what your strategy is, or you genuinely don't know what your next steps are, that's easy to deal with than them perceiving that you have got insight where you're just holding it back, right?

Bill Coletti: Absolutely, and so back to that point, I made about the key differentiator between good and great crisis response is speed. The reason you're in the race, the reason that you need speed is you've got to fill the vacuum. If you don't fill the vacuum, somebody will fill it for you. Someone will tell your story for you, whether that be, you know, customer service rep, that's upset and tells it to somebody on the phone or internally at standing at the water cooler or on a Zoom call with your colleagues. Someone will tell that story if you don't fill in that breach. And so, you have to be conscious of that. The best remedy is always be communicating. I think the bar to your previous question is really high, but you can do that too much.

Steve Rush: Awesome. Now you've written a best-selling book, Critical Moments: The New Mindset of Reputation Management. What was the inspiration for that?

Bill Coletti: Yeah, it's a neat story. I was in New York with a client, a remarkably talented female CEO and she had hired us and we were engaged in this crisis challenge. And it was about ultimately determined to be about a 7 to 10-day challenge, kind of where they were in the headlines, New York Times, Wall Street Journal. Related to some operational challenges that they had. It was this slow burn, slowly unfolding challenge. During the course of the conversation, she and I had developed a friendship and a very consultative relationship. And I kept talking about this notion of reputation and reputation management, her focus, rightly so, and my focus was on the crisis. The moment, how do we get ourselves back to normal? Back to our position that we were before all the reporters started calling us? But I transitioned the conversation to, once we get through this, we're going to need to rebuild our reputation.

And so, as an earnest consultant, I was full of jargon and full of, you know, Fluffernutter as I like to call it. And she challenged me and she said, Bill, I think I understand what you need, but I need a practical understanding of what you mean about reputation management, similar to the way I understand marketing, which is related to the four P’s of marketing. Price, product, place promotion, if you're kind of an old school marketer, you might be familiar with the four P's. Price, product, place, promotion. It's the foundational underpinning of everything we know about the modern marketing mix. And we can quibble of whether digital and social media changed that, I don't believe that it is. Those four fundamentals are incredibly durable.

So, her comment was Bill. I need to understand what you mean by reputation with a model like that. So, it was with that challenge that I flew home and on a cocktail napkin. And I said, well, what do I mean by reputation management? Fortunately, I had a three-hour flight. And then that let me build out what ultimately became the four A's of reputation management. And it sort of begins with this notion of awareness, goes to assessment, authority, and then ultimately action. And what the marketing mixes it, the four P's did for corporations, is it allowed leaders to assign responsibility and budget to four distinct disciplines. Price, product placement promotion, the four A's does the same thing when it comes to reputation management. It creates an organizational framework so that leaders can actually not just do good things and hope that it impacts their reputation, but actually articulating a quantifiable budget based rational model for how to grow your reputation. So, the motivation was this remarkably challenging in a positive way, CEO. They needed me to articulate reputation in a new way, and that's what the four A's. And that's where the book ultimately came from.

Steve Rush: It's a really neat fit because marketing and reputation have very closely aligned, aren’t they? What's your kind of take on how aligned they are?

Bill Coletti: Yeah, it's interesting. I use the terminology. That a company owns its brand, but the public owns its reputation.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Bill Coletti: And so, marketing is all about the brand. It's all about protecting the brand, growing the brand, changing customer experience, changing and drawing, making yourself more attractional so that people will swipe their credit card or write a check or do a purchase order or whatever the case may be. I think that reputation is formed by, certainly customers, but there are non-customers that have a perception and reputation. So, in the United States, we've got British Petroleum, BP. And if you live in the Gulf Coast of the United States, while I may not be a customer of a BP gas station, because it's just not convenient for me, it's not on my way home or to and from the office, but I certainly have a perception about BP, that is me articulating a position and articulating a belief around their reputation.

Similar for Boeing. I am not going to be needlessly able to buy a Boeing jet engine. That's just not on our purchase list, but we have a belief and a perception around Boeing equipment because of what we've seen or heard in the media and understand that. So, brand is driven for check writers, people that are going to actually purchase it. That's the domain of marketers and I believe communications and the folks that think about reputation, that's where they live. They live in that notion of creating and growing a reputation long-term. So, I think there's a distinction because a company can control its brand, but it's the public that owns its reputation.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that's a great reframe. Love it. So, in the book you talk about the four A's of reputation and management. Might be useful just to spin through the four A’s and give our listeners a little bit of a nudge to in this (A). This is maybe what I think about?

Bill Coletti: Yeah, that's awesome. So, model of these basic four A's really critical mindset is what I'm trying to articulate. So, the first one is awareness. And so, my work is often for corporations, but it's also for individuals. And so, it fits into both a human dynamic as well as to a corporate dynamic standpoint. So, the first thing is awareness. So, who are we? What do we stand for? What is the aspiration that we have for our reputation? So, it's really around awareness and understanding of self, self-meaning in the context of a corporation. How do we understand that?

Second is assessment. Once I know who we are, and we're talking to and about ourselves, that's awareness. Assessment is to go ask others, let's go ask our stakeholders. Let's go ask, certainly our customers, let's ask our regulators, let's ask other people, our neighbors. And so, I talk about it in a context of communities, customers, and critics. So, let's actually go do assessment, which is good old fashioned survey research, or some form of public opinion research, where do we stand? Here's what we think, which is awareness. Assessing is where we actually validate that with the public. We then moved to authority and authority is the element of where you get buy in from your senior leadership team, where you're sharing the insight and that you actually have the ability to drive change, but you need to make sure that your leadership is bought in. Understands the value of reputation, understands the economics of reputation. And there's a whole lot of work that needs to be done with your leadership team. With the understanding of awareness, the understanding of assessment that leads to authority.

The cover of the book then is all portrayed as a pyramid. At the top of that third level, which is authority. There's a solid blue line, and the solid blue line is a consultant or well-intentioned employee barrier. Because the last (A) is action, is that too often companies will ping pong around and decide to be overly focused on the cause, the issue of the day, whether it be LBGTQ issues, black lives matter, all critically important topics, whether they talking about global climate change, whatever these issues are. But unless an organization is aware, done some assessment, done some authority. You can't jump to action unless you've done that work. So that's why there's a blue line. So those are the four elements. Action is actually the manifesting and doing reputational boosting efforts campaigns to actually grow your reputation for the long-term, but you can't do it just like you can't. When I lived in Bulgaria, I had a buddy of mine who was a Marine and on Thursday night, before a Saturday morning marathon, he said, wow, well, heck, I can go do that. He failed miserably and running a marathon and jumping into action because he hadn't, wasn't very, self-aware, he hadn't really assessed his body and his wife really didn't give him permission to spend any time training over the next 48 hours. So that action kind of failed

Steve Rush: I love that model on the basis that as you've already articulated. So, if you're an individual thinking about your reputation, you can apply. If you're running a team, if you're running a project or running an organization, those things still apply.

Bill Coletti: Yeah, absolutely. And that's wonderful the way you say it that way, because as a firm, that's who we serve. And so, we serve individuals with a training product, where we call KITH ACADEMY, which is all about the mindset and behavior of superior communicators, what do superior communicators do? We work with teams on simulations. How do you actually simulate these crises? How do you think about what could or couldn't happen and exercise your team? We work with the organization, which is the bigger, comprehensive transformation reputation work that we do. And then we serve, give the situation, which is crisis response, where we come running and actually do crisis response. So yeah, so the four A's are very durable in both the human context, the team context, as well as organization

Steve Rush: Now you've become renowned for helping folks get through crisis and deal within managed crisis. And I guess there've been lots of lessons to be learned from the pandemic in the last 12 months, but typically as a leader, what would be a response you would see more often from a leader in a crisis?

Bill Coletti: I think head in the sand, this will blow over. There's a very poor assessment of smoke versus fire. People misinterpreting something as smoke when it really is fire or something that's fire, but it's really just smoke. There's also this notion that, you know, that's all just a social media chatter. This is really not that important. My customers, my key stakeholders, it doesn't really matter to me. So, there's an under appreciation and then there's an over appreciation. I think the key thing of how leaders respond is a misunderstanding of this evaluation of smoke versus fire. That's the key miss that I see over and over again.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and if you think about, there's likely to be crisis in every organization, whether it be small- or large-scale crisis to deal with, and it's the old adage of, it's not about the crisis is how you respond, right?

Bill Coletti: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Bill Coletti: Absolutely, and I like to talk about crisis. You know, there are normal operational business challenges that impact organizations that are not crises. Those are just things we got to manage through. We just have to manage through that event. I think this notion of crisis is something that really distracts me or takes me off my strategy. Because of the public's expectation or what the public thinks I should be doing, even though they never paid attention to before but they're paying attention now. That's what a crisis is, that really sort of sets the stage for this notion when I talk about critical moments, that the real distinction that organizations need to think about is, the comings and goings and business, that's why we're all in business. We just got to keep grinding and keep doing the work that we do, but something that takes us away from our strategy and this aligns us with what the public expects us to do. That's the greater challenge.

Steve Rush: So, here's a little bit of side question for you Bill, that's kind of a sprung to my thinking, as we've been talking, is there a magic sauce to stop or prevent crisis happening in the first place?

Bill Coletti: I don't think there's one thing. I think there some pretty well-established recipes to minimize the threat. Now things happen all the time, and so you can't manage against that. I think a global pandemic is one that we would've never mitigated against. We could have prepared for it better, but we could have never mitigated. So, I don't think you can ever be bulletproof on this stuff or crisis proof, but I think it could be crisis ready. And there are three simple things that I advise to clients to do. One is simplest basic form. Is that your weekly, monthly, quarterly staff meeting, whenever you get your team together, pull out the major newspaper of your choice, national or international newspaper and say, pull out a headline and say, what if this had happened to us? What would we do? How would we respond? The simple act of being aware of response, the simple act of asking questions about, how would we respond? It's a basic form of simulation. That's one of the best things that an organization could do.

The second thing is actually invested in simulations, actually invest in training and testing and exercising your machine. How do we respond? What are our mission and values? What's the chain of command? Really exercising that with a various group of stakeholders within your organization. And then thirdly, most big sophisticated organizations have a risk management function. In most large multinational corporations. The risk management function is about what insurance do we need to buy in order to transfer risk so that we don't have to pay for an exposure that therefore we have insurance. There is great thinking that lives within the risk management organization, particularly for big global corporations and as well as most national corporations have risk managers. Leveraging the thinking of those risk managers, do simple simulations, do comprehensive simulations, but really leveraging the thinking of risk managers, those are three very concrete things that organizations can do. Again, the goal is not to become crisis proof, it's to have fewer of them, but also be more crisis ready.

Steve Rush: I guess, another way of putting it, is strategic thinking, isn't it?

Bill Coletti: Yeah, it is, in its simple form, and we need to do it. You need to do it in a thoughtful, realistic way because as you know, strategic thinking begets strategic planning and you cannot plan for every possible permutation. You need to think in a smart way, you need to use your imagination, but you got to be careful. And that's where risk management and risk planning lose credibility when you start chasing every crazy permutation. And so, what we've already experienced is everybody is writing pandemic plans. And I don't know about you. I don't know if we're going to have to deal with a pandemic. We might in three years, five years, fifty years, who knows, we might. But there is plenty of other risks that we could be thinking about.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Bill Coletti: And that's why I don't really over-index on the risk. I over index on the response. And how does an organization get ready to respond

Steve Rush: I'm with you on that one, for sure. Yeah, so this part of the show is where I get to hack into your leadership mind and thinking about all of the great teams and experiences and folks that you've worked with and led, and the first place I'd like for us to go is for me to hack into your mind and look at your top three leadership hacks, what would they be?

Bill Coletti: That's great. So, I try to be really, really conscious about clarity of communication as a leader. What is my vision and how do I articulate that? And I use a tool what's called an impact filter and an impact filter is where I take the actual time. Let's say, I want to plan a webinar. I want to plan a conference or something like that. Some sort of external vision, write a next book, whatever the case may be. Is that I go through this effort of using what's called an impact filter to articulate, what are the key characteristics? What's the best thing that could happen? What's the worst thing that could happen? What does success criteria look like? And that then forces me to write it down. So, I think pen and paper is one of the best leadership acts, is write down my vision and not just sort of pop it off. Because I've got sufficient throwaway in my organization that people will listen to what I say, but when I take the time to write it down, it's a lot more clear. So that's number one, is usage of an impact filter.

Related to that is trying to speak clearly. And don't lead by empowerment, but lead by agreement, is that I really want folks to agree that what we're talking about or what I request or what we're doing, everyone to agree, that's the right thing to do and really focus on this notion of leadership agreement. And the last thing I do is a leadership hack for me, is being very, very intentional about protecting my own personal space and my own personal time, because as an entrepreneur and as a leader of my own firm, having time and space to think about, what we're doing? Why we're doing it? And what we're going to do next? is a really wonderful, wonderful way for me to serve my team. And then if I marry that up with clarity using these impact filters, those are three things that I do that would try to sort of help me lead the organization I run.

Steve Rush: I love those, and most entrepreneurs also suffer with that last one where they, you know, try to create that deliberate space, but often get munched between work and personal space.

Bill Coletti: Yeah, very, very sad, but true, sad, but true. We all validate ourselves by how busy, busy, busy we are.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Bill Coletti: And it's just, I've got an entrepreneur that I fly alongside of, completely different. He's in the real estate industry, but we're very close and I just watch him and it's exhausting for me simply to observe him, I have nothing to do with his business. But it is exhausting for me to observe him, and I think he could be so much stronger if he took those moments to pause.

Steve Rush: Sure. The next part of the show we affectionately call Hack to Attack. So, this is where something in your life or your work hasn't worked out particularly well. It might have been an experience that had gone completely south for you, but as a result of that experience, it's now a positive in your life or your work, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Bill Coletti: Yeah, such an amazing question. And if you don't mind, I actually feel compelled to be very personal about this.

Steve Rush: If you're comfortable with that, we're absolutely delighted.

Bill Coletti: Yeah, I went through a divorce and it was a very challenging moment and I was working at a global public relations firm and would have a big fancy title, a global practice leader, and got caught really short of not paying a lot attention to my family, not paying a lot of attention to the needs of my kids. And so that car accident, if you will, or whatever, slamming into a wall, but that moment created, really forced me to refocus on things that really mattered. And I was caught, and then it led me to this amazing, amazing relationship that I have with my wife now, Debbie, who is such an enriching treasure. So, if I had not gone through that journey, I would not as be close and connected as I was to my kids.

I would not have gone over my entrepreneurial journey. And then I wouldn't have found my wife, Debbie and fallen in love and found an appreciation in such a different way. So that's a tragedy that lots of people go through. You can choose to make something good out of it. And I'm very appreciative of all of the characters in that play. Some are villains and some are heroes, but I'm so appreciative of all the characters in that play, because it let me stand here with you to talk about an entrepreneurial journey, which is very exciting, but more importantly as a better husband and a better father.

Steve Rush: And I love the fact that you're comfortable in sharing it as well, so kudos to you for doing so, and thank you. I really appreciate that.

Bill Coletti: Thank you.

Steve Rush: And of course, any separation, any relationship breakdown, that's a crisis. And I suspect that it gave you also some additional foundations you're pulling on unconscious.

Bill Coletti: Absolutely, and I tried to be intentionally conscious about that because you're absolutely right. And it is all about, one of the key learnings from that for me is, I still had a career. I still had a job. I still have clients. I still have responsibility, you know, to my parents, which I was responsible for their caregiving at the time. I really learned to compartmentalization, and when you realize the leaders that we work with, that I work with, that find themselves in a crisis, it's typically the worst day of their professional career. And they have to be really good at compartmentalizing because they've got their own personal paranoia about, how's this going to impact them and their career? How's it going to impact their company that they lead or responsible for? And then they've got whatever's going on at home or whatever is going on, where else in their life. So, this gave me a greater appreciation for compartmentalization and a greater appreciation for the multifaceted, the components of crisis that organizations need to go through.

Steve Rush: Awesome lesson. Thanks for sharing. So last thing we want to do with you is give you a chance to do a bit of time travel, bump into Bill at 21, and you to give them some advice. So, what would your advice to Bill at 21 be?

Bill Coletti: Be an entrepreneur earlier. You were very generous in sharing some of these questions in advance. So, I actually thought about this one. I just think the journey that I've been on the past six years as an entrepreneur and running my own firm has been so enriching to me. And it was something that I was conscious of in my twenties and thirties and forties of like, yeah, I don't want to do that. That's not really for me, but I would have explored it and neither my parents were overly entrepreneurial. But I think that journey for me has been the most transformational thing in my life. And it's transformed so many things positively in my life that I wish I had done it earlier.

Steve Rush: Awesome, love it.

Bill Coletti: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So, folks are probably going to wonder, how do we get to understand a little bit more about what Kith do? How can I find a copy of Bill's book? Where's a good place for us to send them when we're done?

Bill Coletti: Yeah, the basic one is our website. It's just Kith. K-I-T-H.co, Kith is our corporate website, Bill Coletti on Twitter, Bill Coletti on LinkedIn. That's C-O-L-E-T-T-I. And when you get to our website, there actually be a landing page and we'll put it in the show notes. Just a quick summary of some of the things that we talked about here that people want to share. And so, we'll have a link down in the show notes, but it'll be just our website. And for the people that understand what we talked about here, and I'll be able to share that. So, I'm pretty old school. Just old fashion email off the website works, LinkedIn works. And like I said, be pretty active on Twitter.

Steve Rush: Awesome, and those show notes will be all over our social media and our website too Bill. So, we'll make sure that we help connect with people who want to spend some more time listening and working with you.

Bill Coletti: That's awesome. Thank you very much.

Steve Rush: Its thank you for me, actually, for you taking time out of your busy schedule and being with us and sharing some of your stories. It's been really lovely talking with you and thank you for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast, Bill.

Bill Coletti: Well, it is my pleasure to be here Steve. Thank you for what you do. You share tremendous content, that's so valuable to people. So, thank you very much for having me.

Steve Rush: You're very welcome. I appreciate it. Thanks Bill.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

Critical Moments: The New Mindset of Reputation Management

View Details

Dave McKeown is the Founder and CEO of Outfield Leadership, He’s the author of “The Self Evolved Leader,” a sought-after keynote speaker, leadership coach and business growth advisor. In this episode hack in to Dave’s leadership lessons including:

Why every organization needs to be in a position to rethink what’s coming next
The three steps of the Self Evolved Leader
Drag folk out of the weeds to think strategically
Let silence do the heavy lifting in your conversations

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Dave below:

Dave on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davemckeown/

Outfield Website: https://www.outfieldleadership.com

Dave’s Book Site: https://www.selfevolvedleader.com

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Dave McKeown is a special guest on today's show. He's the founder of Outfield Leadership. Author of The Self Evolved Leader and a sought-after keynote speaker, leadership coach and business growth advisor. But before we get a chance to speak with Dave, it's The Leadership hack Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: We're going to turn our focus on having a lighthearted bit of News today! If you've ever missed the bus or the train or hit the snooze button, many times? Well we asked some of our listeners about the funniest and craziest excuses for being late for work. This list of funny excuses is not exclusive and we certainly haven't validated it, but it's funny, nonetheless, so join us in listening.

So, one of our listeners we'll, call her Sally; was invited to a birthday party and Sally and her colleagues have an hour for lunch usually, but on this day, asked her coworker asked if they'd cover for her as she was off to a third birthday party. “Sure”, she replied, “but just be back by 1:30 PM.” On returning late back to work, her response was, the third birthday party was my best friend's dog and he got out and we had to find him, Hmmm, interesting one!

Our next guest and we'll call him Allen. He's an I.T. manager responsible for 36 programmers in a billion-dollar company and Allen in his spare time raises Llamas – apparently! Allen's excuse for showing up late was a fact his Llama gave birth last night. Now even funnier, he didn't even seem to think that this was a problem. Sick kids, funerals, they can't be avoided; but when mentioned to HR, “my Llama gave birth last night,” I’m sure that would have been an interesting input into the data system!

The strangest yet, honest email that anybody has ever sent to their boss is from one of our listeners called Michelle. Her response to her boss was, “I love heavy metal music so much,” her email read, “Hi boss, I was waiting at the bus stop, waiting to go home yesterday evening after work, when I bumped into a lost Lithuanian heavy metal band with a create of cider. After walking for several hours to help find their destination, I got a little bit more tipsy than usual, and I'm very sorry, but I won't be able to make it in today. I hope this is okay?” Can you just imagine how the boss might have responded in that situation? The reply was, “okay.” I wonder how that panned out overall? So, if you do have any stories, insights that you'd like our listeners to hear, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Dave McKeown is the CEO of Outfield Leadership. He's the author of The Self- Evolve Leader: Elevate Your Focus and Develop Your People in the World That Refuses to Slow Down. Dave, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Dave McKeown: Steve, it is great to be with you. Thanks for having me.

Steve Rush: Is my pleasure. So, for folks that haven't met you yet, and haven't got into your work, which they'll have an opportunity to do through our connection, how did then Irish lad end up in Laguna Beach, California?

Dave McKeown: I think I just got on the wrong plane one day and it landed, and I was like, this is [Laughing ] You know what? I think growing up in Belfast where it rained every single day, I knew that there was somewhere in the world where the sudden sun shine a little bit more and I had a great opportunity about 10 years ago to move over to the States. First of all, the Massachusetts to join, actually funny enough, a family business. And then just as part of my own personal journey, met a wonderful girl, who is now my wife, called Paris. And at some point, about six, seven years ago. We decided to trade in the snow of Massachusetts for the everlasting sunshine of Laguna Beach.

Steve Rush: I can't think of what the driving factor was. But I have been on the East coast of the U.S., when it has snowed and it's been minus 15 degrees centigrade and understand that!

Dave McKeown: It's funny, the very first time it snows, you get really excited and you think this is brilliant. And then you realize that this is your life for nine months and you have to dig your car out every morning, it's not so fun.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it doesn't snow much in Laguna Beach though, right?

Dave McKeown: No, not at all. I don't know if it's ever been snowed in Laguna Beach.

Steve Rush: So, what was the backstory in business that caused you to end up leading Outfield Leadership?

Dave McKeown: So, I started my career many moons ago, back in the UK, working for Accenture, which I'm sure you and your listeners are familiar with, huge global I.T. and services company. And really enjoyed it, enjoy understanding what business was all about and how consulting worked and what leadership was about and what strategy was applied and very good initial start to my career, but always felt that it was somewhat of a very, very, very, very small cog in a huge machine. And want to get the experience of actually working more closely with leaders and leadership teams to help them really drive through change. And so, I had a great opportunity to join an organization called Predictable Success, which was started by my father many, many, many years ago, and Predictable Successes is an organizational growth consulting and leadership development company. And I worked with him for about four years or so, really got an opportunity to see what it meant to work very closely with leadership teams, particularly a fast-growing business to help them scale. I have decided that was the sort of work that I love doing and wanted to do for the rest of my life. So, about five years ago or so, step out of the family business and into my own and set up Outfield Leadership, and I've been doing that ever since.

Steve Rush: Awesome, and what's the focus of the work that you and your folks Outfield do right now?

Dave McKeown: At the minute we're doing an awful lot of work of really trying to help leadership teams reset their strategic growth plans, you know, the last year or two months have thrown, out ripped up pretty much everybody's growth plans, no matter how hard hit or well, a particular organization or industry is done, as a result of the health and economic crisis, we're all in a position where we're trying to essentially rebuild from where we're at. So, I'll be doing a lot of work with leadership teams, helping them to essentially start from the ground up, which is to say, look, given the circumstances and the situation that we're in, who are we as an organization and where do we want to go? What is our vision for a better world? And then how do we actually begin to start to take steps to get there? So, it's this type of work that I enjoy doing the most. And so, I've been fortunate and blessed to be able to do that right now.

Steve Rush: And since the pandemic it’s fair to say that any strategy that was in place prior to January, February of last year has got to be rewritten, right?

Dave McKeown: Yeah. I mean, I don't think there's a single industry or organization that hasn't been forced to rethink what they were doing. You know, there are some industries for last year, 18 months has been that great boon. You know, you look at companies that offer software as a service or virtual meeting software, Amazon, you know, there's a ton of organizations for whom it's been great from a business perspective, but most of us have really struggled to get a foothold on what's coming next. But even for those organizations, for whom it's being all things considered a year of growth for them, every organization is in a position to rethink what is coming next and who we want to be and where we want to go. And so, I kind of imagined there's a single organization for whom their strategic plan from last January is remains untouched. I think everybody's doing some massive rethinking.

Steve Rush: I agree, yeah. And as part of that, rethinking, you know, you and I had a business that would have involved being with clients on their sites, being shoulder to shoulder and then having to pivot that online, and you've done a perfect job of demonstrating how you can pivot a business model entirely online. So, my hats off to you firstly! But how challenging was that for you, if it was, and what have you learned from that experience?

Dave McKeown: Oh, thank you. I don't think it's perfect by any means, but it's certainly doing okay. You know, I think I was fortunate enough that I had about a quarter of the work that I was doing was online anyway, before the pandemic. I was not flat-footed I guess, in needing to make the shift. And funnily enough, I think that, you know, you take the devastating nature of the cause of it actually just take the problem of how do we translate in-person learning to an online environment. I actually really enjoyed that challenge. I've always in all of the work that I've done, being very intentional about creating, crafting really compelling experiences for people. Because it's one thing to come together and, you know, have a day or a day and a half together and feel like, hey, that was a good session, but what did we really learn?

And so just starting from the ground up and saying, well, how do strategic planning in a virtual world, or how do you do leadership change in a virtual world? How do we craft and experience that really takes into consideration both the limitations, but also the tools that we have at our disposal? And I think it's been positive in that it's caused most, if not all of us to elevate our game in a virtual world. And it means that from here on out, the excuse of, well, you know, we can't get our people together, virtually it just doesn't work. I think is no longer valid, and so I think that being intentional about crafting that learning experience is just the starting point, no matter where you are, and we're going to have to do this again, probably in 5 to 10 years, whenever we're put into much more of an augmented reality, a virtual reality scenario for training and development, we'll have to re imagine what that looks like for that environment. And we just approached that challenge with the perspective.

Steve Rush: And it's that thought around the experience that's most important, which I know you put an enormous amount of effort into. And I remember the old days of, you know, overhead projectors and we had to move away from those to then PowerPoint slides, that was kind of seen as amazing at that time.

Dave McKeown: Yeah, at the end of the day we are the participants of our sessions. We are in a in a battle for their time and attention and, you know, merely bringing people together just because it'll be quote unquote, a helpful experience, does not make it so. And actually, if you look at building, learning experiences for people, you've got to take them through a journey in much the same way that you would for another form of entertainment, whether that's a movie or you know, musical theater or even a concert sometimes, you know, people often the big key questions that they need to answer for themselves, are why am I here? What am I going to learn? And what do you need from me to give into this session? And if you can begin to answer those stories for your participants and then start to take them on a real journey of their own learning, that's how you get to the end of a session with a really positive experience for everybody involved.

Steve Rush: Absolutely, love that. So, congratulations your book. The Self-Evolved Leader has just had its first birthday. So, congratulations on that milestone.

Dave McKeown: Thank you.

Steve Rush: What was the inspiration behind the book?

Dave McKeown: One of the take the work that I've been doing with leadership teams and memorialize it in some way, I guess and build some, at least an initial starting point of a body of work. It's the first book that I've written. And I guess there were two aspects of it. One was selfish, and one was less selfish. The less selfish aspect is, you know, it's much more scalable in terms of the impact that you can have on people if they can partake in some asynchronous learning where they'll just pick up a book and flick through it whenever they want, doesn't require my time and attention to be in front of them versus, you know, a workshop with 20, 25 30 people. There's only so many of them you can do at a time. And so, it really helped to increase their scale, the impact that I can have. And then the second part that's like selfish one was just wanting to memorialize and start to build up a body of work. And also, you know, it gets to the point in the industry that I'm in, where funny enough people start asking you, well, do you have a book? Despite the fact that, you know, teaching and training and consulting is very different than writing. For some reason, we have kind of conflated the two together and said, well, if you're going to come and work with us, you better written these thought down somewhere, so that was kind of another sub reason for getting the book.

Steve Rush: Hmm. It's interesting dynamic though. I guess that what you talked about a little earlier around that constructing the story for people to go on a journey in a learning world or leadership development world. It's probably very similar when you start to write that book, you still have that mindset of how do I involve people in my learning and help them on that journey, right?

Dave McKeown: Oh, very much so. And I think that the best nonfictional books have a narrative thread through them in just the same way that a fictional book would. And, you know, one of the things that I wanted to avoid was, you know, that old perspective on business books that it could have been an article, or it could have been a blog post, or it could have been, you know, a 12-page PDF where there's one central theme and then the author just hammers it home in 12 different chapters with a slightly nuanced version of it. I want to do that, so I really did want it to take the leader on the journey and the reader on a journey and help them build their own leadership through each chapter in a positive way, rather than just saying, well, here's my one point again, and again and again.

Steve Rush: And the journey that you take folk on through The Self-Evolved Leader has three steps almost, and you call it the Vision step, the Pulse step, and the Discipline step, maybe be useful for our listeners just to get a sense of what each of those steps mean?

Dave McKeown: Sure, happy to. Let me just peal a layer back or elevate a little bit to, I guess, set the context for why these steps are important. The overarching theme and thrust of the book is that tide line that you ran at the beginning of the episode, which is part of elevate your focus and develop your people in a world that refuses to slow down. And the reality is that our world is moving so quickly that our leaders are basically just going in and firefighting or putting on crises or just winning the day and barely keeping our heads above water long enough to really think about the long-term direction of their team. And so, what I wanted to do was to give some encouragement and some very practical steps on how to elevate your focus, how to spend more time thinking about the long-term direction of your team and the development of your people.

In order to do that. I've seen the best leaders walk through these three steps. The first one is to create a compelling vision with your team. And by the way, the book is written for leaders at any level of an organization from a frontline supervisor all the way up to a CEO. So, it doesn't matter where you're at. You can really guide your team using it. We often confuse vision in our teams in terms of assuming that it's wrapped up or it’s bodied in the team leader, and that's not generally the case or I think it's certainly shifting. I think we're getting more and more to a point in a position where we need to create with our teams a compelling vision of where we're going, so that we're all bought into the journey, the destination, the impact that we want to have, the value that we bring as a team.

Steve Rush: Definitely.

Dave McKeown: Once you're able to create that with your team, that gives you somewhat of a fixed NorthStar, at least for a period of time that you're working towards, you can use it as a rallying cry. You can use it as a touch point for making decisions and just an anchor point for where we're going. And if you think about firefighting and being in the weeds and the tactical stuff that we fight every day, if you set a compelling vision with your team, that sets as an anchor point that kind of at the opposite end of the spectrum for that, always tries to help you pull up. So, once you set your vision, the next step is to do something that feel much less interesting and compelling, but it's just as if not equally important, which is to build your implementation pulse to get there.

So, it's fun to sit in a room and talk with our team about where we're going. It's less fun to sit in a room with our team and say, well, what are the specific initiatives and experiments that we want to try? What are the shorter-term goals we need that will help us build towards that? What is the meeting rhythm and cadence to ensure that we're coming back to review your progress? What's are our process for ensuring that we remain agile whenever new bits of information come in? And mostly leaders unfortunately handle that in a very reactive way. So, you know, customer calls that threatened to pull their business, or there's a change in the market or something dramatic happens, and we'll scramble to try to figure out what's going on. So, I encourage leaders to build a proactive implementation pulse that kind of gets you a little bit ahead of that game.

You can see some of the leading indicators coming. So, you've got your vision, then you've got of where you're going. You've got your implementation calls of how to get there with your team. And then the third part is really to build a series of key disciplines that you need as a leader to navigate the boat, to get there, you know, it's one thing that get your crew along with you, set your destination, set all of the ports along the way, but if you don't know how to steer the ship or put the seal up or clean the decks, then you're going to struggle. So, I think that there are a series of leadership disciplines that are becoming more and more important for our leaders today. And that's the final part of the book, just describing some of those.

Steve Rush: I love the simplicity behind those three steps, because actually one feeds the other then feeds the other.

Dave McKeown: Right.

Steve Rush: And you can't operate without either of them, can you?

Dave McKeown: No, they almost all sort of fit together in a circle. They touch on each other and you work on one and then you'll work on another and you realize, oh, I need to tweak that a little bit. Maybe I'll tweak that in order to make that happen. Its close to a holistic model of leadership as I could express

Steve Rush: Sure, and one of the things that you work at as part of that discipline, and you intimated it a little earlier, it's around dragging people out of the weeds and getting them to think more strategically. So, if I'm listening to this, what does that really mean?

Dave McKeown: So, one of the things that I think culturally we've got into which is a little problematic is this belief that a leader's job is to know the answers, to show the way or save the day, and that's come about for a couple of reasons. One we've just been rewarded throughout our entire life from school all the way up to first job, first promotion, or being the one that knows the answers or saves the day. That's just typically how, you know, we get a pat on the back and secondly, it feels good, it feeds our ego. Whenever we jump in to save the day and help our team out of a pickle, you know, we feel wanted, useful and valuable and needed. So, there's just a little bit of an endorphin hit as a result of that. The problem with that is that over time, your people end up developing, learned helplessness. Which is rather than trying to think for myself, or even begin to start to work out the solution to this problem. I'll just go leave it at my boss's door, because at the end of the day, they're just going to step in and fix it, and they are going to telling me what to do anyway. So, I stopped thinking for myself, and then on the flip side of that, the leader starts to get frustrated because they're the bottleneck. The more that they do it, the more they have to save the day. And eventually they're looking at their team saying, gosh, what happened to these people? They used to be so competent. They used to be able to, you know, think for themselves and neither also dependent on me, to which my response is almost always, well, you go look in the mirror because you're at least if not more than 50% of that equation.

Where I think leaders can be really effective is to break out of that cycle of mediocrity, move towards a cycle of excellence, which is all about focused on where a leader truly adds value.

We think we have value there, but we don't. Where we truly add value is in the long-term direction of our team and the development of our people. So, thinking about what's coming down the pipe next quarter, next year, and trying to help chart a course through that whilst looking at our team and assessing, okay, well, where are we strongest? And where are some of our development points? How do I grow this team? So that eventually at some point, if I wasn't in the room, this would be a really high performing team that wasn't dependent on me. So that's the key behavioral shifts that I'm trying to induce here is away from that Day-To-Day firefighting in the weeds where we think we add value towards more strategic long-term thinking and the development of our people where ultimately in the long run will add the most value.

Steve Rush: And in order to do that, we've got a crate empowerment in our teams in order for them to start thinking more strategically too. How would you go about that?

Dave McKeown: Is it funny, I'd often ask question and we usually want to just tackle that. So, how do we empower our team? My perspective is always, well, I mean, we can start there, but you're the empowerment of your team is going to last as long as, you know, it used to be, you know, depending on how good the launch was that we serve during the session. The problem is that the lack of empowerment that a team is a symptom and not a cause a whole bunch of other stuff. We think it's a cause I, and so we actually need to start backing it up and say, okay, well, how do we begin to fix this? First of all, is you got to look at any behavioral shift. I'm going to make a mindset shift away from being a leader that stuck in the weeds and that cycle of mediocrity towards a leader that wants to focus on helping my team achieve our shared goals and in doing so to become the best version of themselves, we start there and then work through those steps that we talked about, building a vision with your team, building implementation pulse, building your own key disciplines as a leader. It's only until, and unless we start doing that, that the empowerment will start coming back into our team. You can't force empowerment into a team.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dave McKeown: Nobody can force somebody to take ownership and accountability. What we can do as leaders is create the environment in which people want to be empowered. They want to take ownership and accountability, but depending on the highly acute and how long we've sort of resided in that day-to-day firefighting that cycle of mediocrity, it can take anywhere from 6 to 12, to maybe even 18 months in a team to really restore a sense of empowerment. And it all starts with the leader taking those steps that we talked about before people start to realize, okay, that things are different, not actually I can. I do feel empowered now.

Steve Rush: Some of those behaviors also could be just unlearning and having a discipline of unlearning old behaviors and relearning new behaviors.

Dave McKeown: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, Marshall Goldsmith is a big author and executive coach out here in the States. Wrote a book called, What Got You Here Won't Get You There. And then one of the saddest things that I see is whenever a leader gets to, you know, a fairly prominent position, maybe it's mid-level or even director level or above, but they basically draw a line under their learning and say, well, you know, everything that I did to get me here will stand me in good stead to get me to the next stage. And at some point, funny enough, all of those great things that did get us to a certain point in our career actually ended up becoming liabilities. And they started to track the value that we make. And I think that there are a number of key pivotal points in our leadership journey where we do almost need to unlearn everything that we had learned before. And, you know, at least just take a step step back and evaluate what's working and what's not working in order to be intentional about how we need to show up, to get to that next stage in our own growth and development.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I love that. And of course, part of us finding new ways of working and new behaviors is unlocking that creative gene that we all have. But for some reason that we seem to grow out of, or at least many of us grow out of. You call us out really as something that we need to focus on as part of those disciplines and creating that head space to get creative. Tell us a bit about how I might do that. If I'm a leader?

Dave McKeown: Thing I think I think to realize the point that you're making, which is, but culturally we're sort of assigned creativity to people that are just naturally creative or creative geniuses, and it's kind of nonsense. You look at anybody that's really creative and they'll tell you, this is not something that necessarily naturally happens to me, you know, in fact Stephen King said, in one of his books, don't wait for the news. He talks about this, not being in the spirit world. It's just another job, and equates it to like laying pipe or driving long haul trucks and so many creative folks out there in a whole bunch of fields. Creativity is just a process that I go through, and so we've got to understand that we can all build a degree of creativity. We're not all going to be Stephen King of course but it is something in there that we can develop.

Now the thing is, if our brain is filled with our most imminent to dos or whatever, the most recent thing is on the myriad ways that somebody can communicate with me, you know, I think we research starting to show that we have somewhat of a finite, like a mode of processing part in our brain to really handle stuff. David Allen is a time management expert, had a great quote, which was, “Our brain is for having ideas, not holding them”. And too many leaders just spend too much of their brain cycles, their psychic ram, just with whatever is front and center. And there's no way that we can address the process of thinking creatively, whenever that's the keys. And so, we've got to find a good way. One of the disciplines I talk about is managing your attention, got to find a way to deal with that in the appropriate forum so that we can free up some of that psyche ram, so that we can sit down and actually work through a process that allows us to think creatively, avoid the long-term direction of our team and development of our people.

Steve Rush: Yeah, the other thing that headspace gives us, as well. We're able to face into the reasons why that intention gets stuck, you probably face into that quite a bit, right?

Dave McKeown: Oh, very much. So, I think also just attach finalities is so important. Because of the fast pace and the requirements in our leaders today, often a lot of the decisions that we make just very reactive. We’re not an actually intentional about a whole range of things, whether it's sitting down to think creatively or strategically, or even just walking into a meeting. And one of the things that I talk about in the book is just the power of taking a pause, you know, we are just on this call and response mode in our organizations. And sometimes the best thing to do is just take a break and take a moment to silence. Don't just go with the first thing that comes to mind, but actually take that silence, reflect on your intention and then respond accordingly to that.

Steve Rush: I love it, and also if we've got a habit and a discipline that says, this the way I operate and I'm going to react, then that whole taking stock is a new discipline!

Dave McKeown: Very much so, for sure. And then you get to separate yourself away from your ego a little bit. You get to reflect on, well, okay, how do I show up? And what does work well and what doesn't work well, you know, maintaining curiosity about those sorts of things, about how you show up, allows you to assess in a much more objective light, just the impact that has without feeling the need to be overly defensive or even, you know, running through a lot of that negative self-talk that we often get ourselves. If we can remain curious about the impact of our behavior long enough to see that through, we can start to see some really beneficial behavioral changes.

Steve Rush: Of course, I guess creativity looks for solutions rather than anchoring into problems as well.

Dave McKeown: Yeah, very much so. And so often we don't take that approach in how we view ourselves. We're not trying to solve problems. We're not trying to find solutions. We're just trying to beat ourselves up or be the situation up or beat somebody else up because of the situation that we find herself in, rather than flipping that on its head, like you said, and said, all we're trying to do here is, we're just a group of people trying to make the world a better place or trying to, you know, find some solutions. So, let's take that positivity. Let's take that objectivity into our discussions in, in our decisions and our meetings and how we show up.

Steve Rush: So, Dave, this part of the show, our listeners are familiar with. This is where we get to spend a little and I get to hack into your leadership mind, then of all the years and experiences you have. I'm going to ask you to call out, what you think your top three Leadership Hacks might be?

Dave McKeown: Okay. So, number one, I alluded to which is, get ahold of your attention management. And I think that the best thing that you can do actually is narrow the amount of inputs that come into your day-to-day work flow. We have allowed too many inputs and it's getting really, really difficult to manage and, you know, whatever has your attention is basically, where are you going to put most of your energy and effort? Second thing is to get really good at asking the question. What do you think? I think that it's one of those powerful leadership questions that you can have in your arsenal. And it really helps bolster empowerment and reflection in your team and reduces the reliance on use. We get really comfortable just asking people, what do you think? And then third, they get really comfortable with silence, let silence do the heavy lifting on a lot of instances, don't feel like it's your job or your need, or your requirement to fill that silence. And that can range in a whole bunch of situations, whether it's waiting for somebody to talk or share their perspective, or whether it's giving some, you know, difficult or constructive feedback, just letting silence do the heavy lifting can be super powerful.

Steve Rush: Really powerful, that last one too, isn't it? Because it is uncomfortable. I was on a Zoom workshop just this afternoon. And as a result of me just sat there, looking at the camera is just a matter of time before somebody is going to break and break the silent because nobody likes it. But actually, that's where the great discovery starts to happen.

Dave McKeown: Very much so, and I think we fear as leaders that, well, number one, we feel like, gosh, the silence is lasting forever, which in reality, it's not, it's probably like three seconds, but number two, we fear that it reflects badly on us. If there's silence for some strange reason, it's the leader's job or whoever's in charge of that meeting to keep things going, then we've robbed ourselves of that room to just let things breathe a little bit. And I think it's a really powerful skill for any leader to learn, to be able to sit and rest on that silence for a beat or too longer.

Steve Rush: Yeah, great stuff. Next thing we have is called Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something in your life or your work, hasn't worked out, it might even been an experience it's been quite adverse in your life. But as a result of the experience though, you now use it as a positive in what you do, what would your Hack to Attack be?

Dave McKeown: So, it was pretty tough and difficult moving away from the family business. So, it was a particularly rough period of time for a whole bunch of reasons, which I'm sure you can imagine family businesses difficult enough it this. And it was definitely a soul-searching time for me. And I was definitely trepidatious that by taking what I had learned and try to build something on my own. But I was also excited about doing it. I knew that I could, and I was just talking to my wife about this the other day that I learned a whole bunch during that time of my life. But I've also learned a whole bunch more since then. And I think I'm better at what I do as a result of some of those challenges. And also just some of the experiences that I've had in the last three or four years where I have been on my own. And I think that it has helped me enormously. Professionally. it's also helped me just personally get a true understanding of who I am and what I hope to achieve in this life. So, negative situations are not always, not often going to stay that way. And it's really about how you approach it and those lessons that you want to glean from.

Steve Rush: It's the old adage of not the event, but how you react to it, right?

Dave McKeown: For sure, very much so.

Steve Rush: And the last thing we want to do, Dave, is take you on a bit of time travel.

Dave McKeown: Alright.

Steve Rush: So, we're going to get you to bump into Dave at 21 and you get to give them some advice. What would you advise be?

Dave McKeown: Funny enough, I don't think 21-year-old Dave would listen to the future. Probably take one, look at me and go, where you go? I was a little too cocksure at that point in my life, you know, funny enough, I do think it would have been hard for me to take anything really transformative of my life or how I showed up or how I approach things, because it was very obstinate just in my own worldview at the time, which has thankfully things changed. One thing, funny enough, I think I would have said or would have encouraged me to do at 21 would have been to keep playing the guitar. I played the guitar as a teenager right up until it was about 20 or 21, I really enjoyed it. And then I put a done for 15 years and didn't really pick it up again until about six months ago. And I've spent the last six months on one hand, really enjoying the journey of trying to relearn everything that I've forgotten. On the other hand, really frustrated that 15 years where if I had been playing for 15 years, I'd be some sort of [Inaudible 00:33:48]. So, I would just encourage myself that creative endeavor to not put a down for so long and just to see where I could have got to.

Steve Rush: I love that. And also, the whole principle of having stuff that is not your work stuff that is helping you learn new things, create new practice, disciplines and stuff. There's always a parallel that you can lead back to how it's helping you in the core way that you show up.

Dave McKeown: Oh, hugely. And I think probably just a lesson that I'm just scratching the surface of, I think from 21-year-old Dave, up until probably six to eight months ago, you know, the sole focus in my subconscious and what I was striving for was all work-related. I don't know whether I would necessarily have voiced that in that way during that time. But looking back on a now, it's really clear that that was the case, you know, back to that old conversation was great. Because it got me to some really good, powerful places, but I reach the point about eight months ago where it was starting to become a hindrance and the liability and just exploring some of those other areas of life that won't necessarily quote/unquote amount to anything, but you just do it for the sake of doing it. So, picking up the guitar and learning a new scale or a new song, or, you know, practicing something over and over again, it allows you to, like you say, apply that to just a whole bunch of other different areas of your life. And I mean, I hope from here on like that I'll continue to pursue some of those creative endeavors, even if it doesn't the amount to anything thing, because it does round out your perspective and being in the work that you do.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it definitely does. So, for folks listening in Dave, wants to find a little bit more about the work you do, and indeed maybe get hold of a copy of The Self-Evolved Leader. Where should we send them?

Dave McKeown: If you want to find out about what I do around strategic planning, leadership development, go to outfieldleadership.com, outfieldleadership.com. And if you're interested in the book, go to selfevolvedleader.com and there'll be a link to everywhere that you can buy it.

Steve Rush: Awesome, and we'll make sure they're in the show notes as well.

Dave McKeown: Excellent, thank you so much.

Steve Rush: Dave thanks for coming on the show. I love talking with you and every time that I do speak with you, I just get a sense of energy, which is awesome in what you do. So, thanks for sharing that with our listeners and thanks for being part of our community on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Dave McKeown: Thank you so much for having me on Steve. Really appreciate it.

Steve Rush: Thanks Dave.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

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Glenn Parker is an internationally recognized facilitator and leadership development expert having authored 16 books; joined too by his son, Michael Parker, Managing Director of Rockefeller Capital Management. Between them they wrote the best-selling book: Positive Influence leader. In this show learn about:

What a positive influence leader is
The four types/styles of a positive influence leader
How negative experiences can still be a positive influence
Why self-awareness is a massive contributor to positive influence

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Glenn and Michael below:

Positive Influence Leader - Website https://thepositiveinfluenceleader.com

Glenn on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/glennparker/

Michael on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/parkermichaelp/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Delighted to announce, we have two special guests on today's show. We have father and son duo Glenn and Michael Parker. Michael is a managing director for Rockefeller Capital Management and Glenn is an internationally recognized facilitator and leadership development expert having authored 16 books. And before we get a chance to speak with both Glenn and Michael, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we're going to consider the notion of influence and feeling positive. But of course, as leaders, it's our absolute responsibility to demonstrate positivity and help influence people in the right way. But how much of that focus do we really turn on ourselves? When was the last time you were a positive influence on you? As leaders we'll be coaching her colleagues, helping them find new ways of working and unlocking their potential. The one coach that I'd like you to pay attention to today is the one that you wake up within the morning, that's the voice in your head. It's the first voice you listened to when you wake up and it tells you to go to the bathroom, brush your teeth or whatever your routine is. It's also the last voice you hear when you go to sleep. Telling you what’s hanging over from the day or what you can look forward to tomorrow and rather scarily, it's also the voice in your head that you'll listen to last when you leave this mortal planet. So, we need that voice in our had to be a positive force in our life and our work. So, take a deep breath, open your eyes, look up, smile. Everything's going to be all right.

Positivity and self-talk can really unlock great positive influence in ourselves, which infects others around us. But this notion is easier said than done. We have to practice; we have to be disciplined and we have to train. And I wanted to share a story with you of something I've shifted in my life this year in response to the environment and the lockdown, has been a real positive influence in the way I do things. My morning routine for 2021 has really shifted. I wake up 45 minutes earlier than I did in 2020. And in that time when I wake up, I spend 10 minutes or so in yoga and stretching, I spend a further 10 minutes in meditation, often 15 minutes, and then I read some positive interviews or articles or a flip through a few pages of my book that I'm currently reading. Then I skip into the next part of my routine to take my dog Casper for a 30 to 40 minute walk every day, this 90 minute or so of my morning schedule has completely reformed how I think. And it's definitely helped become a positive influence, not just for me, but for those around me, what I also then noticed is in me feeling positive, it helped me with random acts of kindness and insights and help and support that may not have been quite natural to me prior to my new routines. So, with the random act of kindness week, having just passed, it's now time to go outside of your comfort zone, be loud with yourself, positivity and your kindness to others.

By focusing on yourself first, everything is not going to be just fine. Everything is going to be amazing and explore the good in you. That's been the Leadership Hacker News. Love to hear your stories, insights information, so please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today is a father and son duo, Michael and Glenn Parker. Michael is a senior executive of 25 years, is a global thought leader. Currently managing director for Rockefeller Capital. Glenn is an author of 16 books. Who's internationally recognized as a thought leader, leadership facilitator and consultant, and collectively they've written the book Positive Influence. Michael, Glenn, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Glenn Parker: Great to be here, looking forward to the conversation.

Michael Parker: Thank you Steve, appreciate the opportunity.

Steve Rush: So as a father and son duo, you are our first father and son duo on the show and delighted that we have the opportunity to speak with you today. What drew you together in this moment to put pen to paper?

Glenn Parker: Well, actually. I had something happened to me that was kind of a seminal moment, a man who had been a client of mine for almost 20 years, which as you know, Steve is quite unusual to work with someone for that long. But I notice that he had passed away and it was going to be a Memorial for him. And so, I was sort of stunned, then I started to think about our relationship and the impact that he had had on me. And I realized that he had been a very significant, positive influence on my life and my career. I went to the Memorial; I knew his family somewhat because later we became friends. And I got a chance to share some of the stories about him and they all said to me, oh yeah, that's Bill, that's exactly him. And so, I thought a little bit about it and I thought I can't be the only person that's had a person in their life that's been a significant positive influence. And I said, gee, I think there's a book there. There's something I would like to write. I'd like to research it, and I think I'd like to write it. So, I came home and the first person I called was Michael. Who's obviously not only my son, but somebody that, you know, I'm very close with. And I respect a great deal for his experience and knowledge. And he's very much in tune with the literature of leadership and management and organizations. And I ran this idea by him and he said, I'd read that book. And I said, hmm, how would you like to write that book with me? And he said, I would love it. And that's how we got started on this journey. So, it's been, you know, it's been a wonderful, it's been a wonderful experience and happy to share that with you Steve.

Steve Rush: Awesome, yeah. And Michael, from your perspective, this was your first attempt at writing with somebody alongside you who's got loads and loads of experience in writing. How was it for you?

Michael Parker: Comforting. Full disclosure, Steve, the timing was great because I needed something to do. I was on a garden leave, just very recently was entered into a garden leave for about six months. So, the timing was outstanding and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have done this on my own. It takes a lot of courage. I've learned a lot from the whole experience. And of course, on top of it being able to do with my father, who's one of my influences, positive influences and someone I admire, as he said, we're very close. And of course, on top of that, I loved the idea and the concept. So, you know, there were, you know, six or seven or eight things that just came together as a real positive and a great opportunity and timing was outstanding, so I was excited about it.

Steve Rush: Awesome, that's great news. And what wonderful thing to have as a legacy between father and son as well. So, I congratulate you on that.

Glenn Parker: Thank you.

Michael Parker: Yeah, thanks.

Steve Rush: So, the book Positive Influence focuses on the various elements of what it takes to be a positive influence leader. So as a starting point Glenn, maybe you can give us a sense of what is a positive influence leader?

Glenn Parker: Let me answer that question by telling you a story, another sort of personal story. And by the way this gives you a hint as to what the heart of the book is. It's a series of stories from which we drew very specific conclusions. So, I take you back to my very first job out of graduate school, my very first boss and my very first performance evaluation meeting. So, I’m meeting with Larry and the meetings going well, he thinks I've done a good job. And I should say, parenthetically that my job essentially involved doing research and writing reports, pretty boring stuff, but, you know, God, I was good at boring. And so, we get to a point in the performance appraisal, where you talk about your development plan, what are you going to do going forward?

So, he says to me, Glenn, you know, what’s in the future for you? What would you like to do? Well, I had been seeing and listening to the group across the hall who were doing leadership training for the organization, and they seem to be having lot of fun. They were traveling all over and coming back with stories of what happened in these programs and of course travel stories. And I thought, gee, that would be a lot of fun. So, I said, what I'd like to do is to be able to observe a class and as part of my development plan. So, Larry said, well, as a matter of fact, I'm traveling next week and I'm going to be conducting two of these leadership training workshops. Why don't you come along with me? He said, the one thing though, Glenn is that I really can't justify your travel experiences unless you teach something.

I said, teach something? Well, you know, my lip started to quiver and I thought, well, Larry, I don't know anything. How could I teach something? He said, don't worry, we'll figure it out. And he did, and we did. And I did, and it went very well. I only taught two hours on the afternoon of the second day. So, it was a pretty secure kind of experience. And essentially what Larry did is he kind of positioned me to be successful. And I thought to myself at the end of this, this is what I want to do. So, what Larry had done in the way of being a positive influence leader was to helped me find my true morph, my purpose, this is what I should be doing. He saw something in me, Steve, that I didn't see in myself, there was something there that I could do and I could do it pretty well. And so, he essentially became, I didn't realize that at the time what he was doing, but it was profound upon reflection as we thought about these kinds of experiences. So, yeah, that was a good example. It's a good example of one of the types of positive influence leaders that we've come upon.

Steve Rush: And it’s a great story, and I quite liked the whole thing that it doesn't have to be a transformational moment. It doesn't have to be this seminal moment of inspiring people. It just needs to be somebody that puts you into a place that allows you to be successful, right?

Glenn Parker: Exactly, and I love to hear your story, Steve, you know, a person in your life, but the key thing is, and I think this is sort of important is that he did position me to be successful. He didn't say to me, which he could have. Glenn, look, why don't you teach this two-day workshop? I'll sit in the back of the room, observe, give you feedback. No, he didn't do that. Because that would have been way too much, and I wouldn't have been ready for that. He recognized that again and put me in a position to be successful, giving me something that I knew, I knew well, I do could do. And it was a limited experience and I could get that aha moment. So, but Steve, maybe you've had someone in your life that did something similar may not have been this, but something where somebody was supportive or they taught you something that you needed to know.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's a great prod and I love to share it with you. So, I had my first leadership role when I was 24 years old and my first team were all very, quite misogynistic, white males, all old enough to be my dad. And none of them really want it to be in the business I was leading. And I've just been very successful in my financial services role. And as a result of taking the new role had to take a back step. So, there was no commission and bonuses. It was was now back to a salary and I was in a leadership space and I'd done my math on how much money I needed to earn to replace and what my sales figures needed to be, and my quality figures needed to be. And I felt presented with this real solution of I'm going to fail at this. I'm never going to be able to achieved this. And I went in to see my new boss who just joined the business at a very similar time, his name is Ted Wood. And I said to Ted, I've just worked my numbers through Ted. And with this bunch, I need to do 176% of sales plan. I need to do 150% of this. I need to do 130% of that, and you know what? I said, I think I've been really, you know, tucked up here. And his words to me was, Steve you wanted to be a leader, go lead. And it kind of shocked me because I wasn't expecting this, this solution. I was expecting to feed me with loads of ideas and ingenuity. And he said, just go away and work out a plan. So, I came back a few days later with my plan.

I said, here you go Ted, I've worked it out. In order to do this 176% of the plan, I'm going to have to do these things, these things, these guys have never done it before, it's impossible. He said, so how are you going to do those things? I haven’t work it yet. He said, go in, work that out. I come back a couple of days later. And I said, right, in order to do these things, I need to do all of these other things. And he kept pushing and prodding me back into my place of, until I got to that level of thinking that really unlocked the specific daily tasks and activities and things, I needed to do to really make a difference. And Ted won't know this. In fact, you know, if he listens to this, you'll probably feel surprised at that, but that was the biggest learn in a very early leadership lesson for me, because it's about being really thoughtful and really granular at the small things that you can do to enable the big things and long story short, 18 months later, this bunch of diehards who didn't really want to be there, all but one, we're having a great time.

And the one that wasn't there, we decided that it wasn't right for him either. They were all hitting their numbers and their sales plans. And we had a fabulous relationship together as a team of a new rookie leader, you know, and that's my example of that positive influence.

Glenn Parker: Yeah, that's a great story. It's a good example where a person doesn't necessarily, they kind of teach what you need to know, push you to come up with the answers yourself. And so, you have that, you have that moment where you realize, yeah, this is what I really should be doing. So, you know, again, to us, that would be somebody we would call a teacher positive influence leader. Kind of teaches you by sort of that kind of Socratic method of self-discovery and figuring it out for yourself. Does that make sense, Michael?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Michael Parker: Indeed.

Steve Rush: And Michael you come up with lots of research to find that there's not just this one type of positive influence, but there are actually four. Maybe between you, you can spin through what do they mean how would we know which one of a positive leader I've either been influenced by or could be?

Michael Parker: There's a story behind how we got to the four types that we can get into. But to bring it to your point, there are in fact, I think going into it, we thought there might be, Steve had a hypothesis. There may be just one universal style of positive influence leadership, but in fact, it’s all four. One is supportive, and that's the, you know, the person or the leader that says I'm here for you. I believe in you; I've got your back and they get you to believe that you can do it. And they allow you to do things yourself but they need to be encouraged. And we have a number of examples of that, you know, successful person who says that their mother encouraged, nudged, pushed them, pushed her and got her to believe in herself and do the things that they never dreamed of doing. Who said, you know, don't let anyone stop you from doing something that you've never done before. And there are a number of stories that we unearthed through the interviews. And the interviews that we did throughout, but supportive is, is one example.

The teacher, in fact. I just came across an article about Kobe Bryant, where a number of players were fortunate enough to be invited to a special camp that he put on for a subset of young elite up and coming players. And many of them talked about what a great teacher he is, that he brought them inside of his training methodology and how he became the great player. So, the teacher leader is someone who teaches you, the things you need to learn, but they also create in you a desire to learn. And my first boss was like that. He did not, at that time, it wasn't enough for him to be supportive. He looked at me and said, you really don't know what you're doing. I need to teach you how to do this job. And so, they teach you the skills and the knowledge, but also how to do things the right way. And so, as I mentioned, Mike, who was a former boss of mine, the first boss I ever had, who said, you know, he had to show me sort of the roadmap step by step of how to really function in a job I hadn't never done before. So that's the second, the teacher.

The motivator or the motivating leader is, is the third. And that's someone who inspires or pushes or maybe even pulls you to take action to find your purpose or your true north, you know, Martin Luther King was one of these motivating, great motivating leader, who helped people take action around their purpose. That part of people that are essential to who they are. The motivator, I think, sees something in people that they oftentimes don't see themselves or maybe they weren't ready to see it. So, I think that's the third. And then role model is the fourth, and that's a person who provides a great example, a powerful example from which we can learn how to be successful. And you may choose to try to closely emulate the person or by extracting certain traits, integrating them into your style. I mentioned Kobe Bryant, interesting to bring it together. Kobe Bryant said that Michael Jordan was his single biggest influence in life. And he said, he wouldn't be here. Wouldn't have made it the way that he did without him, but yet he didn't meet him until he was a successful player. And what he said was, I grew up wanting to be him.

I tried to copy everything that he did and everything that I saw and, you know, it turned out, he Jordan had influenced an entire generation of players just as a role model, not as a teacher, but it really has a role model. They wanted to be him from their childhood.

Steve Rush: Right.

Michael Parker: So, the effective role model is just very aware that people are watching is my favorite part about doing research for role model is, that the effective role model is aware that people are watching and they're aware that their actions must be aligned with their words. They walk the walk, talk the talk, so those are the four Steve.

Steve Rush: I guess not everybody can be as lucky, as fortunate as us in having those positive experiences. And there'll be people that have maybe had a few leaders in their life who have been less positive and more negative influences. How do you deal with that?

Glenn Parker: Yeah, we came across a number of people who told us about negative experiences, some of them were horrendous. I mean, some of them were really hard to believe and hard to realize that they could be overcome. For example, Jerry. He actually went on to have a long career as an engineer in engineering management. Engineering manager with GE, but he told us about an experience when he was in high school, where he went to talk to the career counselor about what he wanted to do. And he's told her, he said, I want to go to college and I want to have a double major in engineering and economics. And she gave him that look, like really, you. Now, I should say that because this is, you know, in some part of his story is that he's an African-American man. And he said, yes, I do. And he went onto college. He graduated with a double major in economics and engineering, went on to have a long career as first as an engineer with General Electric, and then as an engineering manager. And I said to him, Jerry, do you think that she said that to you or she gave you that look because you're African-American? He said, no. She was just bad at her job.

Steve Rush: Right.

Glenn Parker: And I said, did you ever go back to school? Some people go back, you know, Alumni day and so on, and speak to her. He said, no. He said, I didn't need to. So, one of the coping strategies that we got from Jerry and a number of other people was, they went set out to prove the person wrong. The person that said, you'll never make it, you know, you're not very good in math. You know, not many women make it in that field. Their strategy is to say, yeah, you know what, I'm going to prove you wrong. And a number of people had that, a certain amount of grit involved in that strategy. Sometimes you're in a negative experience and you cannot extract yourself from it.

Steve Rush: Yeah. I guess the negative experience is still a positive influence, right?

Glenn Parker: Yeah, you can learn from it and go on to turn it into, as you say, a positive influence. Your parents are your parents, and sometimes parents are not that positive or you're in a job and you can't afford to leave that job. You don't have another option. So, you've got to deal with this particular boss. In one instance, Mindy, someone we interviewed for the book, her first real job was in a women's health clinic. And the boss consistently fostered conflict among the employees. She also rarely listened to any ideas for many employees about how to improve services for the women that were coming to the clinic. It was a difficult and bad experience, but Mindy could not afford at that point to leave. So, she took it all in and later when she got a chance to run her own organization. She now, by the way runs a very successful program for women who have been physically and sexually abused. She took all of that in and said, when it's my turn to become a leader of an organization, I'm going to do exactly the opposite. So, you learn by saying, no, I want to do it completely opposite. And a number of people learn from that type of experience, and there's three or four other ways of dealing with negative influences that we describe in the book, which you get some idea that people were able to develop coping strategies that got them through the experience and actually made them better coming out the other end.

Steve Rush: I guess, one thing that I perhaps want to explore with you, and maybe it's one for you Michael. In the corporate world that you're in today. How much of this do you put down to just having high levels of self-awareness first around how you’re impacting on others in the leadership space?

Michael Parker: How much of this is about self-awareness?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Michael Parker: It's a big part, if not everything, you know, I was just thinking about, towards the end of the year we're talking about, you know, compensation and promotions and rewards and recognition. I try to remind myself, you know, on a regular basis that every opportunity I have to give away the credit to the people on our team who are really doing a lot of the heavy lifting but get very little of the recognition reward because, you know, if I recognize or go out of my way to put the success of the team out in front, I'll get the credit anyway. I don't need to go after the credit myself, because people around me are successful and they're doing great work and we highlight them as the leader, you get the credit anyway. So, I think there's a good example of being aware, because the people that are doing a lot of the hard work, make the leader look good, quickly become resentful, even if they're being paid well for not being recognized. And that's a great example, this time of year, we just be aware of what kind of leader you are and setting that example. That's a great example of being a role model. I have a great individual contributor on my team who is trying to emerge as a leader. And that was an example of something that I passed on to her. I said, now you have people reporting to you. But I can't tell how they're doing. You never promote them. You don't talk about them.

Steve Rush: Yes.

Michael Parker: There's a good example of awareness that fits into one of our styles as a role model.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Glenn Parker: Michael wasn't Mark say to you, one of the things that he lives by is take all the blame and none of the credit.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Michael Parker: Yeah. I think that's a good leadership hack too. Let's give away the credit where you can, and certainly, you know, assume the blame when you have to, but I bring that up to you, Steve, just because we just could have passed through this period of time where those opportunities we're literally being teed up. It's an easy one, frankly, to be a great role model when you're giving away credit and highlighting the people around.

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely right. So, if I'm a leader and I'm setting out on my journey and I want to have much more of a positive influence in my team, is there somewhere that you would direct me in terms of where should I start this journey?

Michael Parker: Read our book.

Glenn Parker: [laughing], read the book and there's a number of things in the book and I'll start with one simple thing. An organization that I know they love the book a lot and the person gave it to everybody on their team. And what they're doing is reading it in sections, reading it by chapter and at the end of every chapter. And you may have noticed this Steve, there review questions to help people reflect on what they learned from the chapter and how they can apply it to their current work situation. So, what this person is doing is every week, the members of the team are expected to read a chapter, and then they come in prepared to discuss those particular four or five questions that are at the end of each of the chapters. So, they're doing this kind of slowly. A more robust kind of way of learning, how to be a positive influence leader is at the back of the book is a self-assessment survey that where you can answer a series of 18 items and you get a score for which of the four styles that Michael described is your primary style. And so that will tell you what you're particularly good at now. And it may also tell you some areas that maybe you want to improve on and build on. What we know from this approach is that all of us have the capability of being and utilizing all four of the styles. We just happen to use one or perhaps two more often than others, something that we call your primary style. At the same time, we're also about to publish a 360 version of that survey so that you can, in a team building class or in a leadership development program, you can do your self-assessment, but also give the 360 version of it to colleagues, people on your team, your bosses, your peers in the organization, other stakeholders, and they fill it out on you, how they see you, how they perceive your style, how they perceive your strengths, how they perceive the areas that you might want to improve upon. And you use that as part of a self-development plan. You can do it with a coach. You can do it with a team. You can do it as part of a leadership development class. So yeah, there's lots of ways that you can learn how to be, to first understand who you are and then learn how to be a more effective, positive influence leader. And we've provided not only the book, but supplementary materials that support that effort.

Steve Rush: Awesome, that's great idea. And also, of course, it's not just as easy as saying, I'm going to do some reading. I'm going to do some reflecting. I'm going to put some things in place. You are only of course, a positive influence if somebody's in receipt of you and your experiences tells you, you are. So that whole kind of closing that feedback and re-evaluating and setting and going again, I suspect this part of that, right?

Glenn Parker: That's exactly right.

Steve Rush: So, this is the chance of, and part of the show for me to hack into your superb leadership minds and thinking. So, I'm going to ask each of you in turn to tell me what are your top three leadership hacks. So, I'm going to kick off with you first, Michael.

Michael Parker: Yeah, the one I just said, which is give away the credit.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Michael Parker: This is a big one, I think, as you mature as a leader, when you go from sort of contributor to leader, it's a tough one, depending on how you're wired. But if you give her, if she reports to you, you get the credit for her anyway, all right. If you care that much about praise and your people do really well, you'll be praised because of them. You chose them, you develop them, you cultivated relationships, you built them up as great performers. You get the credit anyway. But more importantly, I think there's a greater reward. And seeing the people around, get rewarded, get recognized, promoted, and credit, so that a big one. When I look at our group, you know, core principles, one of our core principles Steve is, focused on results, not on activity. We say this up front when we're interviewing people and we naturally will turn some people off, which is good. I say this to folks in interviews that are considering an opportunity with us and compensate for results and outcomes, not effort in our mind is a table stake, it's not a differentiator. Effort is expected, I don't need to be reminded how hard people work. I know they're working hard because I expect them to work hard. It's the result that matters more than their effort. That doesn't mean we don't appreciate the journey. The journey is one of the great rewards, but it's results versus effort, and activity I'll take results. Those are the two most important. Third I'd say with each member of our team, we try to find out what motivates people by getting to know them. So, we find that they fall into a variety of categories. Monetary reward, recognition, promotability, being included in key decisions. In the absence of knowing what motivates people. It's really hard to know how to lead and manage them because you may or may not be pushing the right buttons. And if you push the right buttons, you get people to rise to the occasion and follow you, so those are my three.

Steve Rush: Awesome. They're really great hacks and great learning. So, thank you for sharing Michael. Glenn how about you?

Glenn Parker: I'm going to focus on teams because I think as you know, Steve.

Steve Rush: A lot of your work, right? Is on teams.

Glenn Parker: Yeah, a lot of work was on teams, building teams. I start with the basics, which is goals, objectives, and plans. Set goals, develop specific objectives and develop plans to achieve those goals and reach those objectives. Number two, involve the team in that process. Plan is only as good as the involvement and the commitment of the team to those plans. And the only way to really get that is to involve them in the process. So, it becomes their plan, their goals. And the third is very much related to that. And it is empower the team, empower the employees so that once the goals are set, the objectives are in place, the plan has been developed. There's a budget for it, empower the team to take action within the scope of all of that, so that they are taking responsibility for the achievement of that. And that is, you know, I belief in them that I think tracks to a lot of the things that Michael said on his hacks.

Steve Rush: Great stuff, love it. The next part of our show, we call this Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something hasn't worked out at all well, maybe even screwed up and it could be in your life or your work, but as a result of the experience and the learning that's come from it, it now serves you as a positive in your life and work. What would be yours Michael?

Michael Parker: You know, this one I'm not sure is the perfect fit to your question. But I just think because I am in it, its fluid and it's happening in our lives and maybe significant things is the pandemic. So, one of the things that happened in our businesses, we learned how as individuals and as teams and as a company to adapt. The entire world was hit with this, so everyone's impacted. Businesses are impacted, some of them much more severely than others. I work in New York and ordinarily, I still go in once a week and I see the damage that's been caused, and what I think is the greatest city in the world. And it's disheartening to say the least, but we work. We're fortunate, we're in a business where we can not only survive, but we can thrive. We didn't know that when the pandemic began to take hold, we had no idea. We were in a panic like everyone else, but here's the specific thing that we learned, Steve, which was, how to optimize, sophisticated but previously underutilized technology? Still maintain and build relationships and our business. So, we were hit with this crisis. It's still going on, it's fluid, but now we're at a place where if it never changed, like if it never worked out materially better, and I know it will, we could continue to run our business and thrive. We're in a people business, a relationship business, but we can actually continue to run and grow a business, utilizing people, process and technology in spite of a of an unforeseen crisis and pandemic.

Steve Rush: It's all a learning, isn't it? And at the time when you're in the crisis, you in that moment, it often doesn't feel like learning. It just feels like existing or getting through or coping, but it is a learn, right?

Michael Parker: The only unfortunate thing is, as I say that, I also know, as I mention being in New York. I also know that not every business is afforded the same ability, which is really unfortunate.

Steve Rush: Get that, yeah. Glen, how about you? What's your Hack to Attack?

Glenn Parker: So, I'm going to make my personal and take you back to my early years when I was just entering college. I had ended up having a pretty bad experience initially because I had the idea that I was a great basketball player and I did nothing but play basketball. I practiced, I played and then I watched other games and that's pretty much what I did for most of my freshman year in college. So as a result, I ended up being on academic probation at the end of the first semester. It was a, you know, it was a horrible experience, but I had this view and I loved playing basketball. I loved watching bad. I love practicing basketball. I'm probably just not a college student. This college is not for me. And I think I'm going to quit and do something else. You know, I told my mother and my mother said, no, you're not, you're not going to do this. So, she said, no, you're going to go back to college. You're going to limit the amount of basketball you play. I don't want to take this away from you, but you're going to go back to college and you're going to go to class, because I wasn't going to class and I wasn't studying. And as a result, I did very badly. So, what I learned from this whole experience was, that I could do both. And so, it really had a profound experience impact on me because, you know, my mother would not let me, just give up on things because my mother happened to be a teacher. So, she knew that I was smart enough to do this work. It took me a long time to get my grade point average up to where it was reasonable enough that I could even think about going to graduate school, which I eventually did, but it was a long haul up. You know, I learned some things, actually I can talk about when you're, you know, your question about what would be advice to my 21-year-old self.

Steve Rush: Lets go about it now.

Glenn Parker: You cannot succeed unless you put the work in, you cannot succeed unless you put the work in. I was not only a good basketball player, which I really wasn't. I really wasn't that good, but I also thought I was a very good student and didn't have to study and I could still get good grades. What I realized from that experience, in order to be successful, you need to put the work in. And the other thing that I learned was you can bounce back from adversity. You need resilience, you need support. You need to be what we now all call grit. You need to have that something within you. One of my favorite quotes is from Rosabeth Moss Kanter, who's wrote a book called The Change Masters. And when she says everything looks like a failure in the middle, everything looks like a failure in the middle because she said, you know, there's rah-ra. It just feels great when we're kicking off a project or releasing a product or starting a new business. And at the end we celebrate the results of it. It's kind of like college, you know, looking forward to college and at the end we graduate and there's a lot of celebration. In the middle, it's pretty tough. The people who are really successful are the people that can get through, and over, and under, and deal with those obstacles that come up. And this is something that Michael and I share a lot, which is, I might not be the smartest person in the room, but there's nobody in that room that's going to outwork me.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Glenn Parker: Am I right Mike?

Michael Parker: Indeed.

Glenn Parker: Yeah.

Michael Parker: The one thing you can control, right? Is effort.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Glenn Parker: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And if you look at all of the historic really successful leaders and whatever size business, whatever type, whatever sector, you cannot substitute hard work for anything else, right?

Michael Parker: Yeah. It's the one thing in your control, but most people don't do it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so Michael, what would be your advice to you at 21?

Michael Parker: Yes, this one is of interest because it's also a current topic. I just went through a process of interviewing about 15 different candidates, roughly that age. It had been a while since I interviewed people of this age. And so, I was struck by the number of things. The majority of the candidates that I interviewed first came from very good schools, in some cases, top schools and of those, they largely had very good grades and of those they had, you know, just enough on their resume, in terms of extracurricular activities. That if I looked at those three things, I couldn't really tell any of them apart, which was unfortunate because they worked very hard to get into great schools, to get great grades. They've done things outside of school and because they're all following the same, I guess, formula, you couldn't tell apart. So now you have the interview that may be the last thing that you can use, but it's material to differentiate. And I would say, here are the three bits of advice, and I'm changing your question a little bit, here's the advice I would give to a 21-year-old interviewing for a job.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Michael Parker: Because I know this is what I wish someone would have told me this when I was that age. But I would want to know this. I think number one, if you're going to interview with multiple people for a job, make sure you know who that person is that you're speaking to. It's a simple Google exercise. I can do it, anyone could do it, right. It's not that complicated, and I was struck by how little they actually knew about me.

Glenn Parker: Right.

Michael Parker: And I don't view that as narcissistic. I mean, you're speaking to someone who's has an influence over whether you got a job or not, I want know who they are. Two, is as also struck by how little they actually knew about the company. And I don't mean balance sheet information. I mean, just basic, what's the proposition of the company. What do they do? And what's their differentiator? What's their value proposition? Still highly educated, very bright people who didn't do the work. And then three, when I would turn the interview around to ask the candidate, what questions do you have for me? In large part, the questions were, what can we do for them? How will we help them and their careers? It's sound like JFK quote opportunity. To me, I see it very differently. I think you should be asking the question; how can I help you? What help do you need? How could a candidate like me help you? Like, what is it that you need? And how could I help fill that opportunity? Because I mean, the truth be told, what do I really care about what we can do for their career? If I'm interviewing and I'm trying to fill a need. The opportunity will help your career. Don't manage it, right. It'll organically help you. So those are my three things.

Steve Rush: Brilliant stuff. So final thing for us is to make sure that we can help folks connect with you so that you can carry on the conversations. Where would you like us to send them?

Glenn Parker: Well, there's a website for the book it's www.thepositiveinfluenceleader.com, thepositiveinfluenceleader.com, you can email us there. We're both on LinkedIn and we've been posting a great deal on LinkedIn about positive influence. Like we just posted a wonderful review in the OD network journal of the book that was quite extensive and very powerful. If you want to get the book, it's available in paperback and also Kindle version on Amazon, of course, we also would love to hear your stories of positive influence. Kind of things, examples that we gave you here. We'd love to hear your stories cause we're collecting them now. And when you go to the website, thepositiveinfluenceleader.com, you'll see, there's a blog called stories of positive influence. We'd love to hear your story. Again, email either one of us, you know, you can send in your story couple of hundred words to your experience with a positive influence leader or a negative influence leader and how you overcame or coped with it.

Steve Rush: Awesome. We'll also make sure that all of those links are all in the show notes as well. So literally as people are finished listing, they can click in and connect with you as well. It just goes to me to say, honestly, it's been a delight to have you both on the show.

Glenn Parker: Yes.

Steve Rush: Michael, Glenn, thank you ever so much for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Michael Parker: It was a privilege. Thank you, Steve. I appreciate the opportunity.

Glenn Parker: Yeah, thanks for the opportunity, Steve. This was a wonderful conversation.

Steve Rush: Thank you very much both.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Dan Berger is an economist and leadership expert. He’s also President the CEO of NAFCU, The National Association of Federally Insured Credit Unions. There are some great hacks and lessons from Dan including:

How focusing on culture and wellbeing drives results
Why hiring slow and we firing fast stimulate the right attitude and supports aptitude
Sharing more of who you are builds relationships (including on his Harley Davidson)
Be thoughtful how people receive your communication especially electronically

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Dan below:

NAFCU Website https://www.nafcu.org

Dan on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/bdanberger/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is Dan Berger. He's an economist, leadership expert and president the CEO of NAFCU, The National Association of Federally Insured Credit Unions. But before we get a chance to speak with Dan, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Most of us would agree that empathy is an essential ingredient in leadership. In my book, Leadership Cake, empathy is in fact the “E” in C.A.K.E. and the lack of this essential ingredient became a talking point on the 9th of February when it emerged in an article with the Guardian newspaper, calling out that KPMG boss and Chairman Bill Michael had urged staff to stop moaning about the effects of COVID-19 and get on with their jobs in a staff video called the previous day, recordings of which soon made their way online. Bill Michael had also gnashed his teeth at employers saying they were playing the victim card with regards to current working conditions and also rallied against his own firm's inclusion efforts by saying. “There's no such thing as unconscious bias, I don't buy it. Because after all, every single unconscious bias training this firm has ever done, nothing's ever improved.” How ironic is that? Huh?

Shocked and confused and reverberated through KPMG's workforce. Mr. Michael issued an apology saying, I'm sorry for the words that I used, they did not reflect what I believed in. I have apologized to my colleagues looking after the wellbeing of our people and creating a culture where everyone can thrive is a critical importance to me and at the heart of everything this firm does. However, a few days later, he next his resignation, with a senior elected board member being a matter of replacing him as chair. Michael empathy gap sparked a significant amount of controversy across the world and across the press with Gemma McCall, head of a bullying prevention software firm called Culture Shift told the guardian. “Leaders really do need to take heed and exceed expectation when it comes to creating a safe and supportive environment for all employees.”

News of Mr. Michael blunt embracing staff called coincided with the Financial Times publication of Redis feedback, highlighting a wave of pandemic burnout that has hit the papers audience of white-collar professionals. Based on anecdotal responses from 250 readers from around the world, the FT’s piece laid bare the strain of the past year as employees trying to struggle with their work-life balance and often would their leader’s responses not particularly well align. A reader named Julie explained that she had suffered palpitations in the first 2020 lockdown compounded further by worries of her husband being stuck at work overseas. In addition, she wrote resources provided by her employer failed to address her workload saying. “I received no support or help for the projects I was expect to deliver, as strict deadlines and no extra time to deliver them.” When Julia herself eventually caught COVID-19. She had work through her illness and that situation that had to endure it protracted two-month recovery. So as leaders remember, people are our biggest asset and their health and wellbeing are essential to you. If you really want to drive great customer experiences, deliver revenue and grow your business. It's not unnice to have activity. Adjusting expectations, flexing the working day, extended deadlines and whatever can be done to make people's working loads a bit better and a bit more manageable should be top of any leader's agenda right now. So, if we find ourselves getting grumpy for not delivering the performance we expect from our team, it's important to take stock and recognize by stepping into the shoes of those that are working for us, truly understand their concerns and their experiences. Otherwise, we create our own empathy gap. And one thing we can be certain of. It seems like Bill Michael got that wrong, didn't he? That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any stories, news, insights, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Dan Berger is our special guest on today's show. He's the president and CEO of NAFCU, which is The National Association of Federally Insured Credit Unions. He's proudly advocating for the $1.5 trillion dollar credit union industry in the U.S. along with its 122 million consumers. Dan is also an economist, a leadership expert and an author, but delighted that we have him on The Leadership Hacker Podcast. Welcome to the show Dan.

Dan Berger: Thank you, Steve. My pleasure.

Steve Rush: It's been a while since you and I last met. What I'm keen to really kind of understand from your perspective, and to get us a bit of a summary for our listeners is the backstory to how you've arrived at being the president and CEO of NAFCU. How did it all start for you and where did it all come from?

Dan Berger: Where it all started was growing up in Gainesville, Florida, and just always was a political junkie, worked on political campaigns and in the U.S., politics is genuinely a who you know type of industry. And it just kind of builds upon itself and you get people elected to different positions. While there was on the local basis or state basis or the federal level. You start developing a pretty serious network. And the more people, you know, from a networking standpoint where you can educate elected officials or public officials, your value grows as an advocate. I was a lobbyist, I was hired as a lobbyist up here in Washington D.C. And then I was hired as the head lobbyist of NAFCU and then the board appointed me CEO seven years ago, and that's how I got this seat.

Steve Rush: Awesome, and I guess what you do now requires an enormous amount of politics, but in a much more of a different sense; can you see the parallels from the traditional political sense that you've been in before to what you do now?

Dan Berger: What I do now, it's an expanded role. It it's it like three-dimensional chess, it's that perfect convergence of policy and politics and business. Yes, there's the lobbying component, you know, lobbying the white house and the Congress and the relevant regulatory agencies. But there's also the business aspects of running a trade association. I mean, we're a $30 million dollar business. And so just because we're a nonprofit, we still have to have revenue and income to keep the lights on, so we can continue to advocate and educate you know, the public officials and the elected officials. So, it's just a perfect convergence. It's just no dull moment. Everything's exciting, especially now I'm sure everybody has seen it around the world.

Steve Rush: Indeed.

Dan Berger: What we have gone through in the United States in the last several weeks. One of the stranger environments I've ever been in, in my 30 years as a lobbyist. But no, it's been a very interesting couple of months.

Steve Rush: And how that shape the landscape for the conversations you've been having with your members over the last, say three to six months with what's been happening politically as well as economically around the World?

Dan Berger: Yeah, from an advocacy standpoint, nothing's changed. We are a non-partisan organization. We have Republicans and Democrats and libertarians and socialists and everybody, we lobby everybody. We're (A) political in that standpoint. So, no matter who is in control of government or Congress or the Oval Office. We always have the ability to lobby, we're educators and we educate them on the effects of, you know, regulation or laws that they pass. So, it really doesn't matter who gets elected or who gets appointed. And so, we're always prepared from that standpoint. From an economic standpoint, things will change. Whether it's a tax policy you know, more regulatory burden for our members. Sometimes tends to occur under a democratic controlled Congress. So, it'd be interesting to see how that shape out, but we're prepared no matter what color, stripes are being elected.

Steve Rush: I know from the last time that you and I spoke, you were really passionate about that whole disrupting the credit union space. Where did you start with that? And what's been the main thing that you've seen that's been the biggest disruption that you've bought about as a force of good?

Dan Berger: For a force of good. We really want to focus on having the legislative and regulatory landscape. The environment being capable for the credit union industry to grow, because in turn the credit unions that I represent on the national level, they serve in turn 122 million American consumers. And so that's a lot of responsibility. So, you want to create an environment for these financial institutions to be able to serve. Whether it's a better FinTech and online banking, or, you know, less regulations. So, they don't have to spend all those resources, whether it's money, time, people. And on the regulatory side, that they can focus on truly helping their members and helping their communities.

Steve Rush: If you at the world of credit unions, non-for-profits, versus the corporate America or the corporate world that we live in. What do you see as the things that are consistent, that you would see across all the businesses? And maybe what's the one thing from a leadership perspective that is really far out there and different from yours?

Dan Berger: From a leadership perspective, we preach improving the culture. And I don't think it just for nonprofits or trade associations, I believe strongly a strong culture will work in the full profit realm as well. If you take care of your staff, if you focus on their wellbeing and having the tools and resources necessary to do their jobs well. In term, they help your members or help their customers or your customers really well. You got to focus on that culture. And when we talk about culture here at NAFCU in our organization, we talk about hiring for attitude and aptitude. We can get you the training, you can have the skillset, but if you're a jerk that does not feed into our culture, we want people with that passion and enthusiasm to help credit unions. Because they know where the best alternative in financial services, the best banking services are provided by credit unions. It's not the big banks, it's not the payday lenders or some of the other predatory lenders out there. It is institutions that were created to take care of the American consumer. And so, if you focus on culture, you take care of your employees in turn, they take care of your customer or your member

Steve Rush: That whole passion and fire in the belly has been an interesting subject that lots of people have tried studying over the past, but it's one of those things that you can't really train. You can provide the right environment to flourish and grow and develop that passion. You can't actually train it. So how do you go about identifying that in potential recruits that you look forward to joining the organization?

Dan Berger: We have a series of various questions, almost case studies or scenarios and how they react to those situations or those challenges or problems that have been presented to them, really dives down. It's not the initial question that you ask in a potential employee. It's usually the next follow-up question or two that you kind of drill down and get granular with. And you can almost hear those trigger phrases you know, that they respond back to you and you're like, you know what, that might not be a fit for our organization. And if you focus on hiring those with that passion and that enthusiasm to be a team player and to help row. Internally we have part of the review process, employee review process, we have what's called an organizational citizenship review that goes through, how do you play in the sandbox with your colleagues? And that kind of culture. I mean, it really makes a difference and, you know, Steve, you know people. You could give them a billion dollars and they will still be grumpy. There's just nothing you can do about it, it's the DNA. We just know people like that. And they tend to be a cancer on an organization. So, we work real hard. We hire slow and we fire fast. And so, we want the attitude and that aptitude, and it seems to work. We're not perfect by far from it, from any stretch. I think we're doing a pretty darn good job. But that focuses on our culture is what I think is really strive, has really allowed us to grow and be a better organization.

Steve Rush: And you see that with the way that you've evolved as an organization too Dan. So, you're one of the early adopters if you like of that innovating space in the credit union space, where you're looking at FinTech’s and innovation and new ways of working, is it different than if I'm in an organization where I have shareholders versus members, how do I encourage my membership that's the right thing to do with their money versus my shareholders?

Dan Berger: No, I don't think it matters. The makeup of the organization, because if you focus on staff, your shareholders are taken care of, you know, your customers are taking care of. If you hire a group of employees that aren't passionate, that aren't enthusiastic about helping your company grow or helping your customers become better, it has an effect on the bottom line. It has an effect on the bottom line of in a nonprofit, it will definitely have an effect on the bottom line of a for-profit institution or company. When you walk into the lobby at NAFCU, we have a big sign on the wall, and it says our staff is our most valuable asset. And the thing about it is, you can't just put a sign in the lobby and just say that.

Steve Rush: It's true.

Dan Berger: It doesn't mean anything. It's like buzzwords, it's like sticking up those motivational posters around the office. It has to be authentic, the leader at the top, has to be the management team, really singing from the same song book of having that, you know, hey, we want people with really good attitudes and smart, and have the aptitude to learn. We want the enthusiasm and passion to make our company or our association stronger and better, but more importantly, help our members become better, help our customers become better. And in turn everybody benefits, it's that rising tide raises all ships kind of a theory.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely so. So, from your perspective Dan. If we took a leadership lens over this, how do you think the role of a leader is going to change post pandemic as we come out of the way that we've done things in the last 12 weeks?

Dan Berger: I think we're early adopters to teleworking here at NAFCU. And it's worked out really well. We pilot it and tested it and invested heavily in the digital infrastructure here. I like to say it was because we were pressing it for the pandemic, but it was actually done for weather related situation. When I became CEO, we had a five- or six-foot snow storm and it shut down all of Washington DC, that shut down NAFCU. And I was like, we can't do this. So, we need to invest in a digital infrastructure. We have to invest in the technology and the laptops and cameras and headsets and all that kind of stuff. My board of directors saw that vision and really was very supportive of making a substantial investment in it. And so, when the pandemic hit, I guess March 13th, we shut down. We pivoted and we were digital. We were virtual within 24 hours. And so, it worked out extremely well, where you saw a lot of companies and a lot of associations here in Washington DC that spent months trying to get up to speed, spent months researching and investing in the new technologies required. We were already willing to go and warring to go.

Steve Rush: Great strategic thinking.

Dan Berger: Sometimes, you know, luck is, you know, luck is a real thing, but, you know, the harder we work and then the more we strategize and try to be prepared, the more luck we seem to have.

Steve Rush: Exactly, it’s the old adage, isn't it?

Dan Berger: Yes.

Steve Rush: So, one of the things that made me chuckle the last time we met; you have this huge personality and energy that comes with you, Dan, by the way of which I'm sure our listeners are starting to get into, but the one thing that really made me chuckle, you've been known to turn up to your business meetings, riding your Harley Davidson, leaving your members aghast as to “here's this guy on a Harley and his leathers.” What kind of response do you get when that happens?

Dan Berger: Sometimes it surprises some folks, but usually they not too surprise. But yeah, my wife and I went out to, we have a big motorcycle rally here in the States called Sturgis. And you have, you know, a million bikers show up in the small town in South Dakota. And what we did is we just rode around and visited credit union CEOs in a few of the States in the area. It was great. It was well received. It's a way for me to ride my motorcycle and to be genuine. It's who I am. I enjoy riding my Harley and the reception's been pretty positive.

Steve Rush: Awesome, so what do you think the reason is that more of us don't do away with that tried and tested corporate image and be more of our authentic self? What do you think stops us doing that?

Dan Berger: I think it stops some people from doing, and then I think you see people who've had tremendous success being authentic. You know, on your side of the park, Richard Branson. I mean, tremendous, he's very authentic. He, you know, walks around in his flip flops. Of course, it's in his private Island in the Caribbean.

Steve Rush: Sure

Dan Berger: But it's, you can be authentic. You can be genuine, but you still have to be professional. And I know when to be, you know, the Dan Burger on the Harley, but I'm also know when to, you know, put a sport coat on or the environment I need to show respect to an elected official or a public official and wear a tie. I think it's just common sense, but for me, it's who I am. I love to fly fish. I love to ride my motorcycle. And so that's authentic. It's just me. It's what I do. And occasionally I share that image and in terms of executives, there's kind of a borderistic urge for people to learn more about their leaders and the CEOs of companies and associations. And if you get a peak of your authentic self, I think that it helps with engagement and it helps with connection because there's others out there. Like, you know what? I always wanted to ride a motorcycle. I also ride a motorcycle or, you know what, I too love to go fly fishing. And so, there's that personal connection you've kind of developed as well.

Steve Rush: Yeah. I think the pandemic has also helped with that, hasn’t it? The fact that we narrow Zoom in or MS Team in or whatever medium you use. There's an opportunity here to show a bit more of yourself and, you know, your study at home or your kitchen or your lounge, and that in itself creates that intimacy that perhaps has been lacking in the past.

Dan Berger: Yeah, it's kind of a double edge sword and it's like, yeah, you can create, you know, a view into people's kitchens or their dining room. I've actually set up a studio in my house, in my office. It looks exactly like the one I have here at our headquarters. Just to eliminate that. So, it looks a little more professional, but we also talk about it, you know, know your audience, you know, there's times that you can, you know, wear a hoodie and be very casual and stuff, but here, hey, we're a business casual organization and just use your best judgment. And so, we've had that discussion, because there've been instances where someone's wearing a torn-up sweatshirt, you know, and it's not an appropriate attire from that standpoint. Yeah, you want to wear a sweatshirt? Wear one that's, you know, nice. You know, so you convey a professionalism. Just because you're on Zoom and it's a relatively informal presentation or informal video conference call. You still have to do it through a filter of, you know, let's be professional because your image is the image of the organization. So, it kind of does matter. But you know, it's all part of the new Zoom, Microsoft Teams environment.

Steve Rush: It is, for sure. So, what's next on the agenda for you and for NAFCU?

Dan Berger: Well, for us, we have a new president (in the US), as you know, we have a new Congress that is, Democrats are in control of both chambers of Congress. And so, all the appointments of all the regulatory agencies that we are concerned about and that we work with very closely, they're all getting new staff and stuff like that. So, for us, so we're been already talking for months now with the transition team of President Biden administration and that'll continue to go, we've got new members of Congress we're talking to, we've already had meetings with the White House, you know, meetings with folks on Treasury, The Federal Reserve, The NCUA or Prudential Regulator. And so, all those meetings continue to happen. It doesn't happen in the environment that I like, because it's done on Video conference calls. I much rather have a meeting in person. Because you just get that feedback. I quite frankly enjoy interactions with my fellow human beings and to do it, you just can't really do it appropriately. I don't think in develop really close relationships online or on video conference calls. It's a good way to maintain a relationship I guess, but I think you can't, be an in-person contact,

Steve Rush: So, you're going to have a busy summer on the Harley? Then I sense.

Dan Berger: Yeah, typically I travel about a hundred thousand miles a year. Of course, last year rose, probably one 10th of that and you know, planes, trains, automobiles, and occasional donkey. And of course, my Harley, I like to get out and see the CEOs of our credit unions and see the members because you get the feedback. And quite frankly, they spend a lot of money to be members of our association and they deserve that high touch. We got all the high tech and that we talked about earlier, but that high touch, to be out there to be seen, to find out what's keeping them up at night and how we can be of help. That's just done in a much better environment when we see them in person.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so this part of the shows where I get to turn the lens on you and hack into your great leadership mind. So, where I'd like to go first Dan, is to just explore. If you could distill all your years of experience into your top three hacks, what would they be?

Dan Berger: Take care of your staff, invest in the technology so your staff can be more effective and inefficient and then probably lastly, take time off. That's probably the biggest thing I've learned throughout my career that almost all the successful leaders that I talked to, that I read about that I learned from, they all take time off. And then for me, that's fly fishing, for me, that's riding on my Harley. It's me spending time with my wife and daughter, but that last component. I work long hours as you do. And a lot of the leaders and CEOs that are listening to this, but you have to take that time off. You have to re-energize and I feel great when I come back after a weekend of riding my motorcycle or fishing. I'm rejuvenated, I'm raring to go. Those are part of the top three that I mentioned.

Steve Rush: Yeah, great. It's interesting, the last one you mentioned Dan. So, we run a program where we get people to think of themselves as corporate athletes. And if you think of the premise of an athlete, track and field or whatever discipline you have, they always, always, always after the event, will take time out and recover. Yet, it seems that it's only recently that our global corporate life and this whole philosophy of recovery seems to play in, and it's not a reward. This is an absolute essential activity to be a successful leader in the future, right?

Dan Berger: Yeah, and I would add a fourth to that Steve. I would say exercise, I think you have to not only put your mental state and have some self-care involved in relaxing and taking some time off and getting some downtime and, you know, putting in your smartphone in the drawer and just deep disconnecting for a while. But you have to exercise as well on a regular basis. I lift weights and my wife and I walk two or three times a week, but that kind of stuff's extremely important as well. I think it's a full experience of being a leader. You have to continue to want to learn. I mean, I'm reading new books all the time as you do, I know, and news articles, I'm always constantly trying to be a sponge and learn new things then reinforce things I may have forgot or reinforce things I knew, but haven't thought of in quite some time, but yeah, I think comparing it to athletes is spot on.

Steve Rush: Awesome, so the next part of the show we've affectionately become familiar with is called Hack to Attack. So, this is where typically something hasn't worked out well, it could be personal or work, but as a result of the experience going south, you've taken a learn from that and it's now positive in your life and your work. So, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Dan Berger: How I communicate and I had an executive coach earlier in my tenure named John Spence. He's an author and he is a business.

Steve Rush: I know John very well. He's been on our show too.

Dan Berger: Oh, terrific. Well, John from our hometown of Gainesville, Florida. But he was my executive coach and he still helps us and helps me, but he really helped me with my communication and I'm an extrovert and I'm high energy and I'm go, go, go. Sometimes I'll have a tendency unintentionally not to come across. I'll be direct, I got so much stuff on my to-do list. I'm going to check off each day and everything. I have a tendency sometimes to come across blunt or direct, and I don't mean for it to be, but you have to put yourself in the other person's chair, you're receiving it. Also, I got this one-line sentence, hey, where are we on the XYZ project? And it's like, not a hello, not a good morning. You know, it was just, hey, I got a lot of stuff to do. Just give me the answer so I can get on with my day. And I learned early on that EQ in your communication matters and I've got EQ throughout everything else and aspects of my leadership and management style. But my email communication, I had to really transform and spend a little time, you know, you do it. I manage by walking around, this whole environment is really kind of messed up for me, but we celebrate little victories and large victories and high fives and fist bumps, but you can't really do that electronically. And so how people receive your communication specially electronically matters. And that really helped me a lot because I still have to work at it. I still have to take a deep breath before I hit send to make sure that it's okay. Not because of the content of it per se, with the issue or topic I'm trying to get answered, but just the approach to it. I work on it every day, Steve, every single day.

Steve Rush: The fact that it's conscious for you is really quite healthy because we're all innately built in a certain way. And we've created habits and behaviors that are innate. And yet, sometimes we need to make sure that we get rid of some of those things that don't serve us well, but we play on the things that do. And as long as we're conscious about that, we'll be successful.

Dan Berger: I agree completely.

Steve Rush: Dan you let us into the secret. Where was the moment that you thought I need to fix this? Has there been a belter of an email you've sent somebody that you've thought oh-oh?

Dan Berger: No, it was an employee survey.

Steve Rush: Which is the best way to get any feedback, of course, because it comes in volumes then as well, doesn’t it?

Dan Berger: Oh, it really does. And you got to have it. And they're right. And it's not intentional and it's not me being gruff or I'm being grumpy and we all have those kinds of days. And I understand that it's just at the time, it just so much on my plate. I'm trying to check all this stuff off. I want some information on certain things we're working on so I can give it to our board of directors, let's say, and it's just, you know, you can spend another minute or two and drafted an email, say, hey, good morning, Cassie. Appreciate your work on this. Can you give me an update and where we are? Are we still on target to hit the 5:00 PM, Friday deadline? Let me know, thanks. It's the same email. It took you 60 seconds longer to type it and it makes them feel appreciated and in turn, all part of the entire culture we're trying to create here.

We're a fast-growing company. Our bus runs fast. We talk about it. We want to make sure the right person is on the bus. The right person is in the right seat on the bus. You have to take a deep breath and say, hey, how I’m communicating with people, put yourself in that chair. Okay, you're a 24-year-old, young lady, young man. And the CEO of the organization just fired off one sentence question to you. How would you like that or not like that? I mean, and it scares some people you know, we all have insecurities. And so why magnify that for some poor colleague of yours, that makes no sense. And so, I have to work on that.

Steve Rush: Yeah. So, the last thing we're going to do with you today Dan. Is give you a chance to do some time, travel and bump into Dan at 21, and you get to give them some advice. So, what would your advice to Dan be?

Dan Berger: I think who tried to become 1% better every day. I think when we're young, we have a tendency to have these really huge goals and want to hit grand slams and everything. But if you just get incrementally better every day, say 1% every day, those small improvements over a period of time or more satisfying, they have longevity, and I think that's the part in it. It took me probably into my thirties to genuinely understand that. And I try to do that now, whether it's, you know, reading, I got a news aggregator, I read every morning on my treadmill. I read the news; I'm trying to gather all the information so I can be better executive. I read leadership and management books on a regular basis. So, I can become a better supervisor or a better leader just that 1% every day. What did I do today? Become 1% better in any aspect, as a husband, as a father of a 16-year-old daughter, I'm trying very hard to become 1% better all the time. That's what I would have told my 21-year-old.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that's great advice. It's the laws of marginal gains, isn't it?

Dan Berger: Yeah, it really is. And it's really helped me focus. Because everybody, especially in this environment, now, Steve, as you know, it's just the instant gratification and the pat on the back and the awards and everything else you get when you hit those grand slams and stuff. But I have found the one precent theory gives you bigger rewards and more success than really focusing on those big, big projects and big challenges and awards and stuff. It seems to multiply itself even faster and further and has more longevity.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I agree. So, Dan, if folk want to find out a little bit more about the work that you do with NAFCU or indeed find out a little bit more of how they can connect with you and learn from your leadership lessons, where's the best place for us to send them when we're done?

Dan Berger: Oh, nafcu.org and of course on LinkedIn at Dan Berger and love to hook up with anybody that's listening.

Steve Rush: Awesome, we'll make sure that we put links to NAFCU in our show notes, as well as your LinkedIn profile, so folks can head straight over.

Dan Berger: Thank you, Steve.

Steve Rush: Dan, listen, it's been absolutely brilliant chatting. You are a passionate guy and I've loved the times that we've spoken together. And you know, if you can continue to just grow 1% between now and the next hundred days, what a wonderful place this world will be. So, thank you for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Dan Berger: Thank you, Steve. You're a gentleman and a scholar. Have a great 2021.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the Leadership Hacker.

View Details

Evan Smith is the principal and CEO of Metamorphosis Management Group. He's a catalyst, trusted advisor and coach to senior leaders. In this show you can learn lots of practical change ideas and leadership hacks including:

How the pace of change is unlikely to slow down
Why comfort stifles curiosity and creativity
The importance of shifting conventional thinking
Why compassion is essential for future change leadership

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Evan below:

MMG Website https://metamg.com/

Evan on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/cesmith/

Evan on Twitter https://twitter.com/cesmith_

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Joining me on the show today is Evan Smith. He's the principal and CEO of Metamorphosis Management Group. He's a catalyst, sleeves rolled up trusted advisor and coach to senior leaders and executives. But before we get a chance to speak with Evan, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: For many of us, 2021 feels really hopeful. It's a new year, we have opportunity and presents itself with us to have a reset and a fresh start. And although it's really important to be positive and upbeat, we need to keep moving forward. Leaders however, still need to be managing teams, have different perspectives and different emotions through times of crisis. And therefore, we've got to foster that agility in team resilience to roll with the punches.

As the “Twitterverse” puts it. We're not just working from home. We're working at home and during a crisis trying to work, and over the past year, crisis mode has become business as usual for most of us, even the most fortunate among us, maybe struggling in some way and knowing this, good leaders everywhere still are under pressure to fix situations for their teams. Well, guess what? You can't fix this crisis and that's okay. Even if you don't have control over the conditions or the fallout from the ongoing public health emergencies, the apparent social justice around the world, the economic crisis, you do have control over building and supporting your own team and your own personal resilience.

In an article for entrepreneur, Shelley Osbourne calls a number of ways to be a good leader in an ongoing crisis, and I've called out five. One, acknowledge you can't solve everything. Many leaders are stressed out knowing that their teams feel isolated and anxious and may be grieving or stretched thin through work, childcare, homeschooling, looking after elderly friends and family. The fact that you know, what your team members are struggling with, means you know, you can be constantly checking in with them and that's a job well done. Although you can't fix how they are feeling, the very act of asking how they're feeling can create the space for one-to-one and meetings with them. It is supportive and effective and will help them figure out how to problem solve. So rather than trying to solve every problem, having ensuring emotional intelligence will go a really long way. Check out Daniel Goleman work by the way, on Emotional Intelligence, it's still mega.

Number two, support a psychologically safe working environment. A psychologically safe environment is one where employees and colleagues and coworkers feel safe, comfortable, included, and can share perspectives and challenges without the fear of repercussions in making mistakes. Amy Edmondson, Harvard Professor and author of The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Links psychological safety to innovation and business success. In addition, feeling secure to speak one's mind in particular is really important today for helping individuals cope with different ways of what's going on in the world. For example, a safe place makes it all right for someone to say, I need a break. I'm too upset. I need help. Team members will not perform, will not do-good work if they're feeling under pressure. And therefore, it's really important to clearly communicate to your team how wellbeing and mental and physical health is a top priority.

The last one I've called out, number three, create the space to learn through challenges. For me learning is a way to process challenges and is my path forward during uncertainty. Unfortunately, with everything going on with organizations around the world, many employees, either feeling like they don't have time to set aside for learning, or they need to look too busy, you felt they can't take a break to learn. Fear about furloughs or cut backs, permeates either through the healthiest of businesses. Learning shouldn't be thought of as a break, but as an essential part of a career. Signaling value can go a long way in creating time for space, for learning with teams. As a leader by you modeling that learning behavior as part of the job, you create a great learning environment.

Have a think every day, what have been your wins and what have been your learns? And if you ask each of your team the same question as a leader, you can gather great momentum and great learning cultures and foster a great learning culture. So, the leadership lesson here is to remember that you don't have to be the font of all knowledge and you don't have to have all of the solutions and therefore creating a culture of learning, inclusivity and communication, or really help people work through what it is they're dealing with in this ongoing period of change.

That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you do have anything that you want our listeners to hear that you think could be fun, interesting or insightful, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: I'm joined on today's show by Evan Smith. He's the principal at Metamorphosis Management Group. He's a keynote speaker, a team member of the world-renowned Kotter Inc. The firm founded by John Kotter. He's also a program leader with Box of Crayons. Evan, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Evan Smith: Steve, thank you. It's a pleasure to join you today.

Steve Rush: Really looking forward to getting into the world of change and what that really means for us from a leadership perspective, but also internally as an individual. But before we get into that, perhaps you can give our listeners a little bit of a backstory as to how you've ended up doing what you're doing?

Evan Smith: Sure, and it's a story that really starts at the beginning of my professional career. I was good with math and science. Ended up completing university degree in engineering and ended up inside of renowned fortune 500 company doing information technology and I.T. work. In that early experience, and I don't know if you or your listeners might remember that moment where you step out into the world for the first time.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Evan Smith: New in your career as a professional person.

Steve Rush: I remember it well.

Evan Smith: Hopes and aspirations for the future, uncertainty, et cetera. I was carrying all of that with me and stepped inside this organization with great hopes. And within three weeks was in the pit of despair, convinced I've made a terrible choice. Our organization didn't work very well. Lots of conflict internally, conflict externally. We weren't doing a very good job delivering for customers and long story short. It was a moment of discovery for me. I was entirely, both sort of grappling with what I should personally do next, but also grappling with, why wasn't this working? in this well-resourced professional clearly top tier organization. Why wasn't it working better? It sorts of sent me off in a direction that I did not expect.

Steve Rush: And was it that observation that you had at that time that gave you that spark or that curiosity to pursue what you do now?

Evan Smith: Absolutely, it led me into looking at what is it that helped some organizations in some circumstances to perform really well, really capably, where individuals and teams and organizations at a whole. Where they rose to the occasion, and it just did unbelievable things. And then on the other side, why in certain instances with all of the right assets, other people, teams and organizations, really didn't perform at all. Really missed the mark, it became a point of exploration really that has set the course for the rest of my career from that point.

Steve Rush: And often entrepreneurs have that little epiphany that goes on that sends them in a different direction.

Evan Smith: Yes.

Steve Rush: You are now the principal of The Metamorphosis Management group or MMG. Tell us a little bit about what the focus is of the key work that you do now and the work that you do with some of the partners you work with?

Evan Smith: Yes, thanks. So, we are involved in helping support, change and transformation in organizations. And I would say leaders who are involved in that. So, I spent about the first half of my career after that sort of pivotal moment with that leading from working inside organizations in a variety of roles, working my way up to some leadership positions. So, I spent about the first half of my career there. Second half has been in consulting, coaching and change work. And our focus now at MMG is really around helping leaders who are facing a big change with their organization, helping them to get in the game, to both design and carry out an effective change effort, but also to really experience and model the same sort of change and learning that they're asking others to undertake as the work unfolds, we help people see patterns, help people respond to those patterns and ultimately make changes in your individual behavior as a leader that help you get this sort of outcomes in the organization that you need to get.

Steve Rush: I don't know if you find this, but certainly in my work, it never surprises me that change has been constant forever. I think it was Heraclitus the famous Greek philosopher 500 BC that said nothing is more constant than change. That was two and a half thousand years ago. And yet still, we seem to get surprised at the pace of change or when things like the pandemic happen. We're almost in shock rather than anticipation that this is something that's always going to be present. What is it that causes that?

Evan Smith: Well, I totally agree with the observation that this has always been with us. I am of the mind that the rate at which we're experiencing, not just sort of structured change, but disruptive change is accelerating and has been accelerating for a few decades now. I recently was reading the book, Exponential Organizations and I believe the author there was making the observation that there's a series of technologies now that are coming to the fore in our corporate and professional life, in our organizational life, including things like bioinformatics and solar technology and drone technology and things like that. When you look at any one of those by itself, it has the potential to be a Gutenberg printing press level of impact. But what we have are a dozen or more of these types of massive changes and they're happening in a coincident period of time, lot of integration, overlap complementarity. People are facing change on more fronts than I think we, as a species have ever experienced it.

Steve Rush: I think it's a really fair observation and one that I absolutely concur with, it's also probably fair to suggest that it's going to continue to ramp up. That pace of change is going to continue to grow.

Evan Smith: I totally agree with you. Yes, I don't see that slowing at all.

Steve Rush: So, I'd love to get into some of the things that can help our listeners deal with some of that as we go through that. But before we do that, I'm keen to learn from you having, being able to learn from some of the very best scholars and academics that you've worked with. John Kotter and others who are leading in their field of change. If you had to maybe just narrow that down to one of the biggest learnings for you personally, what would you say that would be?

Evan Smith: Yeah, the single greatest observation for me has been that it is really not possible to disconnect your personal experience and journey presence as a leader from whatever the larger context is. We try to do that often or we do it inadvertently, I guess. The biggest observation for me, has been both be privileged to watch and work with leaders who are in the midst of their own transformation while working with their teams and others. Watching that work is really a moment of magic.

Steve Rush: Yeah, sure is. And we often forget, don't we? As leaders and as change agents are taking individuals and organizations through change that they're dealing with themselves, and sometimes it could be quite healthy to just remember that we're all processing this different spaces, different times.

Evan Smith: Yeah, very much agree with that too. And there's a great sort of irony that comes up for all of us, right? Whether you're leading a team or an organization, or whether you are a front-line worker. Over time we learn what it takes to perform. And as we learn what it takes to perform, we get better and better at delivering in a certain structured setting and we get more and more comfortable. And the more comfortable we get, the less actual learning we're doing, we are effectively creating a set of patterns and habits that are leading us to be more oblivious, less curious, more patterned, more rote. And the sort of opportunity I think is for everyone, is to be persistently looking to be in that place where there is a sense of discomfort. Because in that place, learning is going on, we all need to be sort of leaning forward to find that rather than sort of looking for, in pursuit of comfort.

Steve Rush: Yeah, a hundred percent agree with that. I'd love to get into this a little bit deeper with you. So, this whole principle of learning is in itself is a habit, isn't it? But then there's also this almost an oxymoron that suggests the more habit forming and the more processes and the more consistency you have, you stifle innovation and creativity. So how do you square that off?

Evan Smith: Well, I agree with you. The great set of questions, and here again, I guess you ask about the work of some of my partners and I love to give a shout out to Michael Bungay Stanier and some of the work he's done. Focused on coaching and curiosity. I think the remedy, the approach for any given person on any given day is to be stepping into a stance of curiosity, to ask are the outcomes that I'm experiencing and that I'm creating. Are they the ones that I want to be creating? And what is it ultimately that I want, you know, want to be doing? And is this work that I'm doing, is this my greatest work? Am I fulfilling my greatest work, my purpose? And depending on how you answer those questions, you might decide, I need to make some shifts in the pattern of my day, the things I say yes to, the conversations I have and the way I have those conversations. What I'm doing with others, versus what I'm asking others to do, et cetera. Being in the place where you're sort of perpetually querying what it is you want and what outcomes you're creating and making intentional structured adjustments in your patterns to move towards that, I think is the opportunity that we all face in a world that's moving faster and faster like we've discussed.

Steve Rush: And I remember from the last time we spoke; you were really quite passionate about the whole principle of, in order to change. You have to shift those conversational patterns. So, if I was a leader listening to this, how would I recognize what those patterns are?

Evan Smith: That's a great question. To invite people to do often in the work we do together is I invite them to do the, asking each other more questions and different questions, even in those situations where he or she believes they know the answer. And the benefit of asking those questions and listening to others is that you get to hear whether the set of assumptions, the mental model of the world that I'm carrying as a leader does, how does that line up with the mental models and the assumptions that the people I'm working with are carrying? Where are they similar and resonant and consistent, and where are their observations or assumptions that are different? It's recognizing those places where we might have less than ideal alignment that that are an opportunity then to dig in a little deeper.

Steve Rush: We all have assumptions. And we all come to work with different experiences because it's based on our belief system, which is also based on our upbringing and lots of other things that play out to that, how challenging is it to then face into you being really candid and really honest and aware of your own assumptions versus other people's biases?

Evan Smith: It can be really challenging to do that, especially if some of those assumptions are core to my identity to go back to some ground, we covered earlier about the way that we all sort of learn to perform in the roles that we inhabit. Part of what comes with learning to perform is a lot of positive reinforcement, right?

Steve Rush: Right, yeah.

Evan Smith: You get promoted or you get recruited for the next big job, and everybody's telling you how great this is going, questioning some assumptions. Again, you know, when you're in a situation where you're questioning some of those assumptions and might cause you to question whether some of the patterns and habits you've engaged in over the first decade or so of your career are the same ones that should drive the second and third decades of your career. That's, that's really core work. And it might be difficult. It might be uncomfortable and there might be some dark times as you sort of figure out how you're going to reinvent yourself. But that process of reinvention is absolutely personal reinvention on its perpetual basis, I think is what's required.

Steve Rush: And an assumption is that it's likely to be challenging because it's coded into the way you behave. And it's formed in some part of the unconscious mind that we have maybe learned to behave that way for many, many years, but that in itself is an assumption, right?

Evan Smith: It is for sure. Some of the work that the B.F. Skinner did. And in terms of contemporary researchers, I love the work that BJ Fogg is doing now, related to tiny habits. But if you look at a pattern reinforcing cycle, which is how we get to the place where we build repetitive ways of operating, there's always a reward. And part of what we need to be identifying is what triggers me to step into behaving a certain way with a certain person in this moment. And then what do I get out of engaging in my pattern behavior? And if I was to do something different, if I was to consider responding in a different way, what's the reward that comes to me from that, what would be in it for me? And ideally in it, for them in it, for my team in it, for the organization, if I can shift the way that I show up, I think that's sort of the opportunity at a really micro behavior level.

Steve Rush: Yeah, sure. If we think about habits, it's fair to say that in the last 10 months, we've all maybe had to unlearn and relearn some really new habits in this crazy and more remote world that we're now living and working in. So, if we want to think about the way that we need to start engaging our audience differently, what are some of the habits that you've experienced or observed in others that are helping them maybe holding people back?

Evan Smith: One that it's really, really tops of mind and it might seem small. But I think it's really significant in terms of our ability to connect with each other. You know, we're all spending so much time these days on Zoom and Microsoft Teams and other web conferences. And part of what I observe is, there are ways to be intentionally in those web conferences. And there are default ways that many of us show up in those. And you can look at some of the things that happen and ask yourself whether they promote connection, engagement, empathy, or whether they stand in the way of it. And one of the things that I see people doing, you know, when it works, it works really well for people to show up with their cameras on and with their eyes looking at the camera. And for many of us, our physical structure of your machine, your laptop, your webcam, the picture on the screen might not be in the same place as where the camera lens is. That might be one of those things, that sort of a simple adjustment, but where we can sort of look each other in the eye, even though we're on Zoom. That is something that affirms our connection and it's going to go a long way to improving our ability to understand and work together. It's a really small example, but I think it's an important one.

Steve Rush: It is, isn't it? And it's one of the earliest forms of communication that whole facial expressions. And before we could speak, we would use our eyes and our facial expressions to communicate. And that still holds true today, doesn't it?

Evan Smith: It sure does, yes.

Steve Rush: How do you see the pandemic impacting on the future of work?

Evan Smith: Yeah, I love that question. I think there are so many dramatically different experiences that leaders are having in exploring for themselves and their organizations at this time. So, I think it was Dan Cable from the London business school. I heard him on a podcast recently and he said, there's never been a moment since the beginning of the industrial revolution where so many assumptions about how people work, how work is organized, what performance management means, how we do it, and what our work as leaders is. There's never been a time since the beginning of the industrial revolution where so many of those assumptions were challenged. In fact, thrown out of the window on such a large scale.

Steve Rush: Very true, yeah.

Evan Smith: It's a massive, it has been a massive experiment and it's been intriguing about how much we've learned about what it really takes. I'm amazed and I know many leaders have been amazed as well about what has really worked. A lot of the new organization around remote work. There's a lot that people have found to like about it. There are clearly massive challenges still around it. There's clearly, remaining needs to improve connection and group cohesion that even if people are able to address the line of sight, eye to eye sort of issues, that opportunities that we were talking about earlier.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Evan Smith: There are challenges for supporting group cohesion. But I do think the world, I mean, part of what is here in front of us right now is, there are some businesses and business models that are going to face really dire challenges and face amazing dramatic needs for reinvention. And that is going to take people in those organizations, bringing their absolute best, their best ideas, new thinking, et cetera. And the question for some, for many of us, if you're a leader in a situation like that, is how do you bring that? How do you stimulate, invite, engage people to bring their best in service of our collective future?

Steve Rush: It's interesting that what you've almost just described is what we talked about earlier. We'd form these habits over 10, 20, 30 years of working with technology, but we'd form habits and using it that way. Now we've had to unlearn those habits and relearn some new habits to really embrace the opportunity this now presents.

Evan Smith: Exactly, that's exactly right. Yes, yeah. We have been confronted in many ways, organizationally and personally.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so if you had to cast your crystal ball, look to the future, what do you think will be the, maybe the one or two things from a change perspective that you will see that will continue to be present?

Evan Smith: I think what's going to continue to be present in the larger environment are new demands. And part of what I think we are going to have to discover are ways to build resilience, play the long game in terms of inventing new business models that will work in the world that we have today and tomorrow. And it's going to mean real personal work around personal change and adaption and learning and growth like we talked about earlier. And I think alongside of all of that, a heap of compassion.

Steve Rush: Yeah, sure.

Evan Smith: Because one of the things that happening when you're in that learning space is you are going to make mistakes. I make mistakes. I make them every day. And the interesting question is, what am I learning from the mistake I just made? How do I want to use that in service of, you know, my work with the team or our collective work together, what am I going to do differently next time? Personally, I don't know about you. I hate making mistakes. I've always, you know, I was a good student in school and being in the place where, sort of, you can turn and look fully at something that's gone sideways and see all of what's in it for you and be in a place where you can be in conversation with others about what was in it for you and what was in it for them. That's really the opportunity we face really day to day.

Steve Rush: You mentioned compassion and compassion, we need to really dial up on the basis that we aren't going to be pushing more people into facing into their assumptions and perhaps ever before, if we want to really be adaptive for the future. And I think that's going to take a lot of crafted conversations from leaders of all levels and all shapes and sizes, right?

Evan Smith: I couldn't agree with you more. And just to tie back to the last little bit, we're going to find ourselves as leaders’ sort of stepping forward into those conversations with feeling a lot of uncertainty and not sure what the right way to do it is. And recognizing in some cases belatedly about, you know, not doing it right or in fact making mistakes, making significant mistakes. And the question for all of us is, you know, like we said, how do you examine that for corrective guidance that's going to help you? How do you let go of whatever the emotional baggage is that doesn't serve you? And how do you do it again? How do you step forward again? Repetition is the mother of skill. How do you step forward into trying it again? Inviting that conversation again, or pushing to the next level so that you can get to where you need to get to around it.

Steve Rush: I love that phrase, by the way, repetition is the mother of skill. Not heard it before. Just love it. It really resonates that if you want to ever be good at anything, however, skillful and knowledgeable you are today, it's that hitting the repeat button that makes you become more successful, right?

Evan Smith: Yes, yeah. I think that's really right. It's not original, I can't claim authorship of that. And I don't know where I heard it originally. One of the things that stuck with me from early in my career was some guidance from a man named Robert Fritz who wrote a book called Creating. Something he said that has stuck with me is he says, you know, we often hear that anything worth doing is worth doing right. His observation was anything worth doing is worth doing wrong until you get it, right. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again.

Steve Rush: Awesome, love it. Now we get to turn the leadership lens on you. And this is the partnership I love the most, where I get into hack into your leadership mind. If you could distill all your years of leadership and experience and helping others down to your top three leadership hacks, what would they be?

Evan Smith: I would say it's three specific behaviors. The first is cultivating for yourself, a stance of curiosity, and that is sort of actively questioning assumptions, reading outside of your professional domain, taking team leadership on a team that you know, not very much about. But stepping into a place where you're in that learning zone, a zone of curiosity, and you're putting yourself in learning mode. That's one, the second would be, especially if you're somebody who's leading a team, leading an organization, leading a change initiative, I would find a handful of people. You are close to who will give you absolutely unvarnished feedback and want to do that. Not just one person, not someone who's a direct report. Someone who's going to give you honest, unvarnished, clear feedback about your work and how you're showing up and what their experience of you is. All of us need that. And a lot of us, especially in leadership roles, don't get enough of it. Frequently enough, real time.

Steve Rush: Very true.

Evan Smith: The third thing is, I would recommend building a practice around explication, this process of describing your thinking out loud and what I would say around that is, it's really useful if you can do that with a discussion partner with your team, like we talked about earlier, testing assumptions out loud so that you can see what you're learning from that and what makes sense. I would say it's useful, even if you're doing it while you're driving in your car or standing in front of the bathroom mirror in the morning, hearing yourself speak out loud, it elaborates your thinking in a way that just writing something down or thinking about it mentally does not do. There's actually some research on that, that was done by a good friend of mine. But I think this process of hearing ourselves. Describe our thinking out loud is incredibly useful for getting unpacking assumptions and thinking about what's driving our behavior. There’re three things for you.

Steve Rush: Awesome, love them. And of course, questions are the only way to really unpack those assumptions. Better to ask yourself those questions first, to get a real candid via, love it.

Evan Smith: Yeah.

Steve Rush: The next part of the show we call Hack to Attack. So, this is where a situation has occurred in the past. Maybe screwed up, hasn't gone well, maybe even been some adversity, but as a result of the experience, you now use that experience in a positive in your life or your work. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Evan Smith: Yes, well, I already described to you, my early in career sort of moments of despair, my very first job out of college. I was not very good at choosing companies, but there was another moment that was pivotal for me. At one point, I was the global head of quality for a chemical company. And the short story around it is, I was the first head of quality for this chemical company. As we were moving to a global organization from what had been a very, very sort of localized, you know, national organization, we had operations in more than 40 countries and I was effectively, I was not very popular in that role. A lot of my colleagues didn't understand why we were changing and what was going on around it. At the end of the day, while I did everything, I knew how to do, I was working terribly hard. I was traveling the globe. I was entirely physically, mentally, emotionally. I was entirely spent by the work that I was trying to support. And it didn't work out, at the end of the day, my colleagues’ sort of rejected the shift towards a more global federalized structure, and I was effectively fired. And in that moment where my boss told me he no longer cared what I thought and what I had to offer. There was a moment where I had some distinct realizations about opportunities I had missed. Things I had overlooked, assumptions I hadn't questioned. It was a difficult moment, and it was an incredibly rich moment in terms of considering what I might, you know, facing an opportunity like that, what would I do differently in different circumstances? And how would I respond differently to stimuli and provocations and people and relationships? So that was a moment that I think it was a very sort of dark moment of disruption, but it was also incredibly, incredibly rich and sort of landing on my feet. Taking away all the things that bubbled out of that learning experience for me have stayed with me for the last 20 years.

Steve Rush: A really rich learning experience in the face of adversity. And that's what managing and leading through change is all about, Isn't it? It's about, we're going to be facing into stuff. It isn't the stuff that we face into it. Is how do you learn from it and how you react and respond?

Evan Smith: Yes. Yes.

Steve Rush: Awesome.

Evan Smith: Totally.

Steve Rush: The very last thing that we'd like to do is to do a bit of time travel. You get the chance now to meet Evan at 21, and you now have the chance to give him some advice. What would your advice to him be?

Evan Smith: My advice to him would be to push boundaries sooner, to ask questions sooner, to not be quite as polite. To be more uncomfortable, more quickly in situations, right. Rather than sort of sitting back. As someone who was a good student in school and sort of knew how to do that. I was not a boat rocker early enough, and I think I would encourage Evan at 21 and almost everyone early in career to be pushing those learning boundaries as early and as soon as possible in service of your own learning and that of people around you.

Steve Rush: That's awesome advice. I often found that, you know, certainly in my earlier career, I wouldn't do that, but the more experienced I got, more mature I got, the more I realized my own limitations or capabilities. The more I was comfortable to do that because I had to reframe that from being provocative, to being a learner. And I think that's the difference, isn’t it?

Evan Smith: It is, it is. That's right.

Steve Rush: Awesome.

Evan Smith: It's in service of something bigger.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Evan Smith: And how do you do that? Yeah.

Steve Rush: Definitely, so. So, folks listening to you and I have a chat about lots of different things, all of which I'd love for them to continue the conversation with you on, beyond our talk today. Where's the best place beyond today that you would like us to send our listeners to meet up with you.

Evan Smith: Thank you. Yes, so I am at evan@metamg.com, that's email address. The website is metamg.com for Metamorphosis Management Group. I'm also on LinkedIn, that's a primary professional platform we're active I’m active.

Steve Rush: Great.

Evan Smith: And I would welcome the chance to hear about a particular challenges and reactions that some of the folks listening might have.

Steve Rush: And we'll make sure all of those links are in the show notes so that we can continue the conversation beyond today.

Evan Smith: Thanks, Steve.

Steve Rush: It's just left for me to say thank you, Evan, for taking time out of your day to come and join us on the show. It's been super listening to you and I'm delighted we've connected. We share a lot of similar passions and a lot of similar thinking. So, I'm hopeful that we'll continue the dialogue way beyond today. Thanks for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Evan Smith: Thank you. It's been a real pleasure to dig into this with you.

Steve Rush: Thanks, Evan.

Closing

Steve Rush: I genuinely want to say heartfelt thanks for taking time out of your day to listen in too. We do this in the service of helping others, and spreading the word of leadership. Without you listening in, there would be no show. So please subscribe now if you have not done so already. Share this podcast with your communities, network, and help us develop a community and a tribe of leadership hackers. Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Nicole Soames is a best-selling author of four business books, she’s also the CEO of Diadem Performance. In this show we learn how to reframe your role as a leadership athlete. Some great learning including:

Why there is nothing “soft” about soft skills
Explore the characteristics of a commercial athlete?
The difference between Influencing and negotiation
The three hats of the Leader - Manage, Lead and Coach

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Nicole below:

Diadem’s Website https://diademperformance.com

Nicole’s Books http://nicolesoamesbooks.com

Nicole on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolesoamesatdiadem/

Nicole on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/soamesnicole/

Nicole on Twitter https://twitter.com/diademperform

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is Nicole Soames. She's a best-selling author and CEO of Diadem Performance. Working with over 85 clients across the globe, helping thousands of people become commercial athletes in selling, influencing, account management, marketing strategy, coaching and leadership. But before we get a chance to speak with Nicole, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we'll explore the relationship between leadership and professional athletes. Professional athletes can sometimes have a bad reputation, with stories of out-of-control behavior often seen in the media. This front-page drama in which the media in all facets of news, can often overshadow great athletic performances. And as such, it's easy to forget the important contribution athletes make consistently to society. Sports nut and journalist James Bailey wrote an article in Bloomberg Businessweek called Athletes: Natural Born Leaders, and he focuses on five reasons why professional athletes will make great leaders. And here are those five reasons.

Reason One. Professional athletes are determined. True, many are endowed with physical gifts, but realizing them as hard work. Progressing in sports means negotiating and increasingly exclusive series of hurdles that can't be cleared without discipline, focus, patients, practice, and then more practice. It takes decades of sweat and investment to bring whatever a leader possesses to fruition. We simply won't follow somebody who hasn't demonstrated determination.

Reason two, Teamwork. These men and women won't just preach teamwork, they practice it. A sports team is just like a jazz band. Integration is necessary to gather a coherent whole, but everybody gets a chance to shine. There may be a most valuable player, but he or she is first among equals. Everybody has a job to do, and nobody gets a ring or trophy. More than ever modern organizations need cross-functional teams to support them.

Reason three, Appreciating fellowship. Professional athletes appreciate fellowship or follow the leader as it's often known. And it's not just a playground game. It's actually an experience in serving greater purpose. Athletes understand the tangible advantages of executing a plan and their goal achievement is often contingent upon them following that plan well, and truly, and leading is rooted in having learned lessons of following.

Reason four, Cognitively complex. They are cognitively complex. They grasp a dynamic flow of many interrelated variables simultaneously. And any fan will tell you that any successful sporting team or sports franchise can be really quite convoluted and complex. The plays themselves always have intricacies upon intricacies. And one work, a challenge with a hundred unpredictable factors requires seamless adaptation and improvisation on and off the field or the pitch, and it's this kind of agile thinking and adaptability in today's fast-moving world that's an essential part of leadership.

And reason number five, the ability to handle pressure. Professional athletes know what it's like to work under pressure. There are enormous stakes, a lot of people are watching. Their investment in time, talent, money, reputation, all of these ever present. They have to check-out anxieties and injuries, they have to stay calm, cool, and collected under pressure. One player loses his or her nerve or composure, the efforts and the rest of the team could be absolutely flawed. There is nothing more valid in today's stressful business environment than having a level head.

So there we have it five reasons! Transferring that to the commercial world, that's another story. Well, that's been The Leadership Hacker News, and now we've explored professional athletes make great leaders. Let's get into the show.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Nicole Soames. She's the CEO and founder at Diadem Performance and she's the bestselling author of four books. The Negotiation Book, The Influence Book, The Coaching Book and The Presenting Book. Nicole, welcome to The Leadership Hacker.

Nicole Soames: Hello.

Steve Rush: Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us today, Nicole, it seems like an age since you and I last met, but in the meantime, we've been through one lock down, two look downs… I think we're in our third lock down as we record this. How's life for you?

Nicole Soames: Well, I'm just desperately hoping it's the third and final.

Steve Rush: Exactly, right. Exactly. So, for those folks that are tuning in today that haven't met you before, perhaps it'd be useful just to give a little bit of a backstory as to how you've arrived at doing what you're doing?

Nicole Soames: Sure, so, I grew up at working for a company called Unilever, selling trunk loads of household brands to major customers that I'm sure you would have heard of like Tesco and Sainsbury's and Waitrose. So, think trunk loads of fish fingers, magnum ice creams. And then when my freezer was full, I decided to move on to selling chocolate digestives, Jaffa cakes, hula hoops. So massive household brands, huge multi-million-pound contracts. And as my career developed, so did the level of responsibility I had. Instead of just having the pressure of managing these multi-million-pound customer relationships. I also found myself responsible for managing large teams of people. Managing those large customers themselves. So, I suppose, full on blue chip corporate life and the more the years rolled forward, the more it dawned on me that my passion was not just for business. It was also for people. So, I decided to retrain as a coach and a facilitator. And I've been doing that now for, I'm sort of embarrassed to say, but 17 years and I've got the scars to prove it and the gray hair.

Steve Rush: Awesome. What was the moment then for you when you said, right - I'm going to pivot away from my corporate life and focus more on helping others?

Nicole Soames: I don't know if there was an actual moment, but I was given the privilege when I was selling Jaffa cakes and hula-hoops working for a company called United Biscuits to be a sort of internal trainer, partnering up with external trainers. And I found myself at the front of the room leading and trying to help people get better at their jobs. And I was like, Ooh, quite like this being up at the front and having a platform. And that was, I think the first eureka moment, if you like that I had, that was perhaps helping people and being in the people business was my vocation was my destination. So, I think that was when it first really dawned on me. But I think in reality, it's only on reflection that you draw those conclusions. I'm not sure it's like, it happens live in the moment.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and the focus of the work that you do with Diadem Performance now is all about that kind of people development space, isn't it? And helping people move through different situations. And I guess much of the work that you've done over the last six months has probably been more remote focused and virtual world. Tell us a little bit about what you're doing now?

Nicole Soames: Yeah, I mean, it is absolutely trying to help people be the best version of themselves in this current environment, but it was always last and I think anything to do with people and helping people split like food and medicine will always need those things. And I would sort of describe myself and my team at Diadem as performance trainers and coaches, not the sorts you'd find in the gym because they're all close right now. I suppose we're about training commercial, what I would call commercial athletes. So, I've got this notion, this hypothesis, that in business, we expect a sustained performance, much like you'd expect on the pitch or on the field. The sort, I would say is delivered by athletes. Yeah, in the commercial world, we expect those results, but we're not nearly commercially fit enough or agile enough or even resilient enough. And that's where myself and my team come in. We're about helping create commercial athleticism in teams, in organizations, in companies.

Steve Rush: You and I have spoken about this before actually, and the whole principle of organizations don't take as seriously, their commercial fitness, as well as maybe they do their financial fitness or their product development or their marketing strategies. What's the reason that you find from your experience that organizations don't apply that same level of thinking?

Nicole Soames: I think it's rooted Steve in the fact that it's down side easier to measure the financial performance. And it's easier actually to provide people with technical support than it is soft skills. And these, all of the stuff that myself, and my team train and coach people in are often referred to as soft skills. But I think it's the wrong phrasing, really the wrong title.

Steve Rush: I agree.

Nicole Soames: Because… thank you, there's nothing soft about these skills. They're fundamentally important to success. In fact, I mean, there's lots of stats out in the marketplace on this and just Google these sorts of things. But most of our successes is down to what you would call, human engineering, not technical engineering. And yet most people get support and training and help in the technical space as opposed to the soft skills space. And then you add the commercial aspect to soft skills and it's even harder to provide the right stuff. So, in my experience, having worked for big blue-chip organizations, you tend to, well, this is just my opinion. I felt like I was trained by either very, very clever people like professors and university folk who were only ever theorists. They've never sat in front of customers or had to manage people themselves, or you were trained by what I would call explainers who had been there, done that. And they were going to tell you what they did and trying to provide the idea of supporting people with folk, who've got authentic experience, but then not just a goer. And it's not just about them. It's actually, I think really hard to find. So, I think that's part of the reason why people don't, organizations don't provide what I would call commercial soft skills because it's not easy to find. And the other challenge, I think Steve is people don't ask for it.

So, if you take, for example, a team of maybe I.T. folk who are very, very technical, very bright and intelligent and the more senior they get, the chances are that they then have to get results through others. It is extremely rare that they would go, you know what? I think I really need some selling skills.

Steve Rush: Yeah, very true.

Nicole Soames: I mean, it's just not going to happen. And then you take people in formal selling or client management or account management roles, and you say, so what training do you need? They're never going to ask for sales training because it's expected they would know what they're doing. So, you end up with these massive gaps and people don't know to ask for this sort of training and it's then seen as a weakness. And so, people don't get supported in this space.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and I guess you also often find that people want what they want, not necessarily what they need to become more effective. If you ask that, what training do you want?

Nicole Soames: Completely, and with the best will in the world, people have blind spots. They don't understand the impact they have on others. And so again, they wouldn't necessarily ask for these skills.

Steve Rush: Right, as a commercial athlete, are there any specific trait or characteristics that you observed that are essential?

Nicole Soames: Well, I think that what good looks like is starting with the right mindset and the right attitude. And if you're thinking about an athlete, they would have no chance of winning if they talk themselves down. So, I think the mantras I would use and the four things that are really important and in no particular order, they're all important. And it's the combination of them that is so powerful or are as follows. So, relationships count. I think that's a massively important belief to have. So, whether your relationships are internal relationships or external relationships, the better those relations are the easier it is to disagree. Actually, the easier it is to take accountability, the easier it is to commit to actions. So, relationships matter massively. So that's one mantra. Second mantra would be keep striving. Elite is not a destination. You've got to keep striving for excellence. It doesn't fall excellence like, like manna from heaven, ambition delivers results, but you've got to put in the blood, sweat and tears, and continuously put in the blood, sweat and tears, if you want to achieve and be the best version of yourself.

Then the next one is that together is better. Working collaboratively is always more successful. Lone wolves don't win, in my opinion. Just think of the amazing human endeavors we've achieved through the pandemic. We wouldn't have achieved them if people hadn't collaborated. And if you think about the news right now with vaccines and vaccine nationalism that everyone's talking about, we're trying to banish that so that we can get the vaccines out to the whole of the world. Cause we don't get out of this pandemic unless we are all vaccinated.

Steve Rush: Right.

Nicole Soames: So, you know, collaboration matters massively. And then the fourth mantra, I think that is really important to the commercial athlete is every day is a learning day. You have to hone your performance. Think like the margin of aggregated gains, you know, honing, self-reflection. And also, I think massively key is honest and timely feedback from others, which giving feedback is a skill in itself. So, I think those are the kind of four mindsets if you like that the athletes would have. And then you layer on the ability. So, the capability and then the ability to put all of that stuff into action. So that's, I think the standout for the commercial athlete, and I think what the commercial athlete does is they put emotional intelligence, front and center into everything they do. So, the how stuff is disproportionately important to what you do, the how you do it, makes the difference

Steve Rush: As part of that, how you do it. I suspect that just like other athletes, commercial athletes need to practice all of this kind of stuff?

Nicole Soames: Definitely. Practice, get feedback, you know, you've got to do these practices if you like every single day and dealing with people and getting results through people is messy. It's not easy, it's not straightforward. So continually honing and being agile and being flexible is really important. The people aspect is so fundamental to getting results, to conversations, to commercial conversations that you have. I know, it sounds like a cliche, Steve to say it, but cliches are cliches because they're true. People buy people, and I think what that really means is that people buy you, they buy your confidence. People want to do business with people that are like them, that they trust. We know this stuff, but it's like, not just what you do. It's about how you do it. You don't want to be sold at; you don't want to be told what to do. And so, the relationships and putting that at the heart of everything, I think is so fundamental and relationships are balanced. They should be mutually beneficial. Shouldn't feel like you're on the back foot and you shouldn't feel like you have power over the other person. It should be a mutually beneficial relationship because if it's not mutually beneficial, then it's a relationshalf. And those don’t tend to work out very well for one party.

Steve Rush: Definitely, so. I'd love to get into this notion of commercial conversations and commercial performance. And you use that word quite a lot. How does that differ?

Nicole Soames: I think, look, in business, the difference is that one party should be an asker and one party should be a receiver. And if the asker doesn't ask, then they have no chance of getting what they want. So, I think the commercial conversations part is about projecting confidence is about being proactive, not reactive, whether you're the asker or the receiver. So, I think that's what the difference is. It's just having confidence and control in the conversation that you are having.

Steve Rush: And the other flip of here of course, is that if you get all of these things right in your organization, in your teams, there is a commercial upside to this. There is a commercial benefit when you're doing this, you become more productive, more happy. New people stay around longer and bottom-line results go up.

Nicole Soames: Correct.

Steve Rush: Exactly.

Nicole Soames: Internally and externally.

Steve Rush: Of course, yeah. So, in terms of doing and what you do with Diadem now, maybe give us a little spin as to what the future holds for you guys?

Nicole Soames: Well, the future is about doing what we do brilliantly with more teams, which is about supporting people with how do you sell and influence with emotional intelligence? How do you sell and influence and negotiate with emotional intelligence? And lead people with emotion, intelligence, and manage people with emotion, intelligence, et cetera, all of the things that make up that commercial athlete. And if I just talk a little bit about negotiation and influencing, they're things that you have to do, you're doing every day. Maybe you're not aware of the fact that you're doing them every day, but how you do it is the bit that people will remember

Steve Rush: Before we get into that. Maybe for those that are listening, what is the difference between negotiation and influence or is there a difference?

Nicole Soames: Massive difference. Okay, so the difference is that in selling or influencing, that's about asking. And I think it's about making it easy for the other person to say yes, buy emotionally and if appropriate, commercially motivating them. So, sort of thing, pull, not push and having confidence to make that recommendation, to ask, to shift the gear from a discussion, have an opinion and back your opinion. I think to me, that's what influencing is and selling. And everybody's in sales roles. They just don't have it in their job title, then the same. So, the same principle for negotiation people don't have, I mean, who, hasn't the title? You might have sales and your job title, but you're definitely not going to have negotiator in your job title, even procurement, which is the negotiation function isn't called the negotiation function. It's called the procurement function, which is to buy to procure.

So, my definition of negotiation is it's also this communication skill. And I think what it is put simply, it's about a communication skill that helps you find overlapping positions so that the outcome works for both parties. Dead easy to say in theory, in reality, because if you think about influencing. The influencer or the seller knows that they're asking. When it comes to the negotiation, it's so much more emotional. How on earth do you know that there is a win for both parties? Tends to be in reality that one person wins the other person's expense either by design or just by one party, lacking confidence and ambition. So, there's so much more emotion and psychology, I think, involved in negotiating, which is why I think EQ, emotional intelligence plays a massive part in negotiating masterfully.

Steve Rush: If you think about the whole philosophy of emotional intelligence is there may be one theme that you see that's present in communicating in a commercial way, as well as influencing and negotiation?

Nicole Soames: I think if you understand emotional intelligence, it is an intelligence. So, it is not one thing. It's multiple things all applied in the right way. So, I would say that you can package, EQ really neatly into sort of three focus areas. So, they're stuff that you do, their self-things, there's things that you do, which involve others. And then there's also your horizon, your perspective, how you see the world. And it is this, the magic comes. And I think the differentiation and the competitive advantage comes from packaging, all those together in the commercial setting. So, you don't disregard your commercial acumen and you don't disregard your technical skills. The magic comes from combining those with emotional intelligence.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so if I'm a leader here listening to this today, and I'm thinking to myself, I need to improve the performance of my team. Where would you suggest would be the best place for me to start?

Nicole Soames: I think as a leader, fundamentally key is that you lead by example. I think what you've got to do, you have to demonstrate to your team that you do this stuff yourself. It's not just for the team, and I think then what you've got to do. So, what that means you've got to do is you've got to actively support your team, which means that you need to provide them with the right training, shameless plug. No, in all seriousness, we have found out. I mean, if you just think about the analogy of parents having to homeschool their kids right now. Parents are really not the best people to be teaching their own kids. Yes, of course parents should support what happens at school, but parents should not be relied on because they're not the best teacher for the kids. It's the same in business, the leader, isn't the best person to provide the training and the skill set,

if you like. They're the best person to provide embedding in a safe place to practice and a place for people to make mistakes, but they, the leaders should invest in proper skills to help train people up initially. So, think about someone like Andy Murray, he was initially trained by Judy Murray, his mother, then, you know, the more serious his tennis got, the more he was trained by a whole heap of other professionals as well. So, I think that's a massive part of the leader's role is to provide the right full training. But then their role is to lead by example and to allow a safe space to practice, right? So, these sorts of skills, influencing negotiating, managing others, presenting to be really successful at them. You need to practice and then do it for real. And then I think importantly, get feedback from your leader who is in the session with you so that they can make sure that the feedback is live and it's actionable and its real time. So, I think that's what the leader should do.

Steve Rush: Practice is a really interesting one. It keeps popping up every now and again, in conversations I have with clients where I asked the question around, so how are you going to practice this stuff? And in response, what I typically get is. I'm going to do it with this client, or I'm going to do this customer, or I'm going to do it with this team member, but actually that's doing it. That's not practicing and practicing for me is around setting specific time aside in a safe environment so that you can screw up if you have to. And it's okay, it's safe. But for whatever reason, people still find the whole notion of practicing some of this stuff really challenging. And I wondered in your experience, what you've observed?

Nicole Soames: Oh yes, all of that and more. What people say is that they haven't got time to practice, but that's because they don't see the value in the practice. So, and it's not just about practicing, it's about practicing under pressure. So, what tends to happen is, people do prepare but they don't then role play it for real. So, these skills take practicing with another person because they're about having a conversation, so that's even harder. You're not just relying on yourself. So, you have to ask somebody else to be involved in the practice. And therefore, it takes investment in time. So unfortunately, people think the prep staff is the practice, but it's the practicing under pressure where you can get constructive feedback that makes the difference.

Steve Rush: And it's that feedback on the result of the practice that's going to really make the difference. And of course, if you're doing it in real time, then you're not facilitating that learning loop, are you?

Nicole Soames: Correct.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Nicole Soames: And then really important. So, I believe in continuous improvement comes from really good prep then doing it. And then also reflecting afterwards on what worked, what didn't, and unfortunately, in commercial fast paced roles, and everyone's under pressure these days, the most likely part of that continuous improvement circle that will go is the reflection. So, the reflection tends to be which gap? What was the deal? What was the result? And not actually, how did you get there? What were the behaviors? What did you do? What did they do? What would you do differently? What worked? What didn't? So, giving quality time to reflect afterwards, every time that you have these interactions is what helps with ultimately unconscious competence.

Steve Rush: So, you've taken all of these experiences and you've written four books. So, congratulations, first and foremost, and also selling author, how did you end up writing four books?

Nicole Soames: Because I'm crazy. So, look, I wrote the books to, I suppose, spread the word. You know, the four topics that I've written about are things that I'm super passionate about. And if you ever get the chance to browse the bookshelves in an actual physical store, maybe the next time you're in an airport, it will happen. Don't worry. We'll get there soon. And you pick up the books in the business section or the self-help section. In my opinion, a massively over intellectualized over theoretical. So, I wrote the books because I wanted to put out there some concise advice, you know, practical hints and tips that I think really work in the real world. Things that I wished people had told me earlier on in my career. And so that's, you know, that's why I wrote the books and I can tell you what. The first one was a massive stretch. And the second one was stretching, but easier. And by the time I wrote the fourth, I was actually quite enjoying it. I knew how to do it, and each time I did it, I suppose I'd hone the skill and it took me less time to bring it to market. But I think the thing that's different about the books is I've fused the concept of emotional intelligence into what is pretty obvious, you know, presenting and influencing and negotiation. And so often they are over theoretical those topics and not actually will, how are you going to do them?

Steve Rush: And of course, it's the how that makes a big difference to everybody that when they have a learning experience. It's that, what do I do now?

Nicole Soames: Correct. It's like now what, and actually, there's lots of exercises throughout them. They're nice and concise, and they're designed so that you can put them down and come back to them and take notes. And it's like a workbook. It's like a handbook, if you

Like.

Steve Rush: So, do you have a favorite child?

Nicole Soames: Oh, they're all my favorites. It sounds like I’m dancing now. You're all my favorites... Look, they are all very different topics and they are, yeah, I think they're lost in titles. I can tell you that the one that sells the most is negotiation.

Steve Rush: Right.

Nicole Soames: Which was the first actually. So, it is definitely the fastest selling. And I think that's because most people have had less negotiation training than the other topics.

Steve Rush: This is part of the show now where I flip the lens a little. So, I'm going to now hack into all of your experience and try and extract all of this experience into your top three hacks. So, if I can do that, what would they be?

Nicole Soames: Yeah, I mean. I think the hacks would be as a leader for sure that you've got to properly consciously have three hats. I think your role as a leader is to manage, to lead and to coach. And they are all really, really different philosophies and skill sets, but they're all about getting results through others. So that will be one of my leadership hacks is like, make sure that you consciously think about those three roles. The second would be, be 80% on it and 20% in it. It's so much, it's so easy to be overly involved in the detail. In order for you to lead, you've got to be 80% on it, not in it. And I think that's really important. And then the third one is that you should be authentically you. Think it's so important as a leader that you show people and you share with them what you think and feel, and then aloof leader who's too perfect that doesn't show any vulnerability for me is like an ivory tower leader. And you're not in the trenches with them. So, I really think that you have to share how you're feeling and vulnerabilities. And if you take the lockdown right now, it, isn't not helpful for the team to think that the leader is not experiencing any challenges with working like this because it's challenging for everyone. So that's what I mean by showing vulnerabilities. So, I think those are the three, you know, if I could package it into three things for the leader, I think those would be the three main pieces of advice.

Steve Rush: Great advice as well, thank you. Next part of the show we call Hack to Attack?

So, this is where something in your life at work in the past, hasn't worked out well, it could have been that you've screwed up at something, but as a result of the experience, you've now taken that as a learning in your life and work, what would be your Hack to Attack Nicole?

Nicole Soames: My Hack to Attack would be, you can't win them all. You literally can't. If you all winning them all, then you're not stretching yourself hard enough. And so that winning doesn't then present you with the best learning opportunity. So, I think that when you don't win, you get those best learning opportunities and it's uncomfortable and it's painful, but they're the best places to learn. So, you've got to dig deep and then dust yourself down and get back up again. And I think what happens is people give up too easily or they keep themselves in their comfort zone. You know, as humans, we are always trying to find the shortcuts. We're always trying to find the least line of resistance. So that's what keeps us out of our stretch zones. But I think you've got to keep yourself in your stretch zone. If you didn't fall over, then you didn't try hard enough. So that would be my Hack to Attack, if you like. You cannot win them all.

Steve Rush: Awesome.

Nicole Soames: And you've got to be “pitch fit.”

Steve Rush: And I liked the way you framed it, so you started off with. You can't win them all. And then it was almost a case of no, you mustn't win them all because actually you don't get learning. And I was coaching a startup a couple of weeks back, and the CEO who's running this startup very, very smart guy, many start up such before. His sole philosophy is I need to fail as often as I can in these first few months so that I can really learn what I need to do. And I just love that whole mindset of why failure is good.

Nicole Soames: Yeah, I mean, clearly you can't keep failing. Otherwise, there's something else that's going wrong. I think that in all seriousness, you must've failed at the same thing again. And that's not then demonstrating you're taking the learnings. Like with everything in life, it's a balance, isn't it?

Steve Rush: Defiantly. The last thing we'd like to do with you is offer you the chance to do some time travel. You get to bump into Nicole at 21 and give her some words of wisdom. What would you advise be?

Nicole Soames: My words of wisdom to my younger self would be. You literally don't need to know everything. As you get older Nicole, realize that nobody knows everything. So, the secret is to surround yourself with people that are wiser and smarter than yourself, and they will lift you up in your life, I would definitely say that. I wish I'd have known that when I was 21. The next I would say, Nicole, your career is going to be long. Don't be in a rush. I'm not saying you should wait for the tap on the shoulder, but patience is a virtue. If I hadn't of had that real gritty, authentic commercial experience, I don't think I'd be nearly as good a coach and a trainer as I am now, if I hadn't gone through that. And the last thing that I would say to me at that age is if you want to be happy, then you really need to make sure that you love what you do. And even more importantly, you love who you do it with. And again, you have to learn that you love it. You can't just go, oh, I love that. It's not a surface thing. It's a deep thing. You've got to really know if you want to stay with the distance, you will really, really know that you love what you do. And then you've got to make sure you surround yourself with people that you really love as well. And then you will be sustained in your happiness. And I am so, so fortunate to have found that in my career and with my team and with my clients, you know, it's I really am very, very lucky.

Steve Rush: But to make your own luck.

Nicole Soames: You do make your own luck and you grab those opportunities. I do wake up every day and got on really, really lucky that I get to do what I love. And I'm not just saying that in a cliche ways, its genuine. I really do love what I do.

Steve Rush: Very wise words too. So, thank you for sharing those.

Nicole Soames: Pleasure.

Steve Rush: The final thing for us to kick around is that I'm pretty certain people are going to be listening to this thinking, how do I get hold of some of Nicole insights? Where do I get a copy of the book? How can I find out what Diadem Performance are doing? Where would you like us to send them?

Nicole Soames: So, the book, the classic places like Amazon, WHSmith, Forbes, Waterstones. All of the usual suspects, you can find all of the books. In terms of following me personally, and Diadem. Find us on LinkedIn, So I'm Nicole Soames on LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter as well, so that's nicolediadem, that's my handle. And then you can also find me on Facebook, Nicole Soames Author, and I've got an author's website. So, it's nicolesoamesbooks.com. So, lots of places, lots of places to find me. And I do regularly blogger as well with my philosophies and my opinion on things. So yeah, that's how people can get hold of me and Diadem Performance website is diademperformance.com.

Steve Rush: Brilliant. We'll put all of those links in our show notes as well.

Nicole Soames: Thank you very much.

Steve Rush: Nicole, thank you for taking time out. I always love chatting to you. Always get a sense of energy and you can tell you love what you do because it comes through in the passion and the way you describe things. So, on behalf of our listeners, thank you for being part of The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Nicole Soames: Thank you for inviting me, I really enjoyed it.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handle there is @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Steve Olsher has been an entrepreneur for over 30 years; he's a speaker, coach, Founder and Editor in Chief of Podcast Magazine. Steve is also the original founder of liquor.com. To boot he hosts the top-rated podcast, Reinvention Radio. In this episode you can learn:

How to distinguish your what from your why.
The four paths to “What”
How and why you should re-invent yourself
The importance of growing and expanding the vision of the team

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Steve below:

Steve’s Website https://steveolsher.com

What is your what (Book)

Steve on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/steveolsher/

Steve on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/steveolsher/

Steve on Twitter https://twitter.com/steveolsher

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Full Transcript Below

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is Steve Olsher. He's known as the world's foremost reinvention expert. He's an award-winning author of What Is Your What? He's a 30 plus year entrepreneur. Having founded many businesses, including being the editor in chief of Podcasts Magazine, stick around to the end of today's show and find out how you can unlock our lifetimes free subscription of podcasts magazine. But before we get a chance to speak with Steve, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today we're going to explore what sets entrepreneurs apart from the rest. I've had the pleasure of working alongside some of the world's best entrepreneurs. And during the podcast, I've interviewed dozens and dozens of world-class top entrepreneurs. And here's my top five things that I think sets them apart.

Number one, they all have a really clear vision and they stick to it. Dr. David Lennon, who's the co-founder of Tibor Health said there are two reasons why this is important. One, you must be able to communicate the value of your vision to your team in order to keep them focused, enthusiastic and on task. And two, you must be able to clearly and concisely articulate your vision so that you can attract capital and drive investment into your business too.

Two, build a brand. These days, personal branding, isn't just for celebrities. And it’s there to help everybody, including entrepreneurs stand out in a competitive market. The most recognizable brands that you will notice come with traits that most people can identify with. Adrian Fisher, who's a CEO of Property Simple said, “Think about Apple, clean lines of aesthetic and cutting-edge technology, or the nostalgia that comes with a can of Coca-Cola classic. A well-crafted personal brand has exactly the same presence and it's helped drive my business faster forward.”

So, having a clear social media presence and blogging a really good places to start building your own personal brand. Three, most successful entrepreneurs are driven by a desire to solve real problems and create concrete value for their customers. Now, this might seem obvious, but with the hype that's around fundraising and seed funding and creating grand visions for global domination, this is often unfortunately forgotten. Jesse Nieminen who's the co-founder and chairman of Viima said, “Regardless of some of his shortcomings, Elon Musk is not just an incredible visionary. He's also a skilled engineer. Who's able to break down huge engineering problems like building reusable rockets at SpaceX into smaller, more manageable parts.” Number four, follow a system. Most entrepreneurs will be following a system and see this as the most important thing to their success in any business. They have a pattern or a path to keep them on track. Katherine Adams, who's the founder of Creative Legacy Group said, “We have proven success within our insurance agency to keep it new and all agents on track. Don't reinvent the wheel. You have to be able to duplicate yourself to be successful. I want my agents to be strong and better than me. And in order to make that happen, there must be a system for them to follow that has proven results. Number five, the ability to accept failure as a learning, what does set entrepreneurs apart from the rest is their ability to accept failure. It can take a lot of time to be invested and many failures before you go on to be successful. So, having that combination of perseverance and the ability to pick up, keep moving forward is something that's ingrained in entrepreneurs. They are in a constant situation where they are hyper-focused on improving experience of their team, as well as of their customers. Building and managing deeper relationships, and at the same time remain open-minded in order to change focus when required. That's been the Leadership Hacker News today. If you have any news, stories or insights, you'd love our listeners to hear, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Steve Olsher is the special guest on today's show. He's been an entrepreneur for over 30 years. He's a speaker and a coach and founder and editor in chief of Podcast Magazine. Steve also been the original founder of liquor.com and he now hosts the top-rated podcast, Reinvention Radio, Steve, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Steve Olsher: Yeah, I appreciate you having me on.

Steve Rush: I feel like we're kind of in the presence of podcast royalty today. So, thank you for choosing to be on our show, but podcasts haven't really been your thing all along. So, tell us a little bit about your backstory as to how you've arrived at doing what you're doing right now?

Steve Olsher: Over the course of my career and reality is, man from catalogs to dot.com, raking lawns, you know, or raking leaves and mowing law and shoveling driveways. If it paid a dollar or two, I've probably tried it over, you know, at some point in my career. But yeah, you know, it's just one of those things where I've always been kind of wired to try to rub a couple of dimes together to make a quarter. So, it's one of those gifts and those curses where my mind is just always moving and trying to figure out where the next opportunity is.

Steve Rush: They say that entrepreneurship is in your blood. Where was the first moment that you can recognize that you felt that entrepreneurial spirit?

Steve Olsher: Entrepreneur can be made; they are not born. I don't know, I mean, I think that's either in your DNA or it's not, for me, it's just always been a, you know, really a part of who I am. So, I don't know, man, you know, when I look back at my career, I don't think I would have had any other choice, but to be, an entrepreneur and to do what it is that I naturally do on a day-to-day basis. As you start thinking about the entrepreneurial landscape and where the opportunities are and what that looks like to be an entrepreneur, just the whole idea of a really controlling my life and my destiny. I can't stop doing that. Like even if I try to get a job, I’m just now wired to work for somebody else. So yeah, you know, it's just kind of in the DNA.

Steve Rush: So, Podcast Magazine is growing beyond, it's getting lots and lots of followship and getting some great recognition globally, but what is it you're doing at the moment beyond the Podcast Magazine?

Steve Olsher: Things that are going on. I mean, as you say, we've got Podcast Magazine. Podcasts Magazine is a division, so to speak, of a larger parent company that we call Air Control. And so, the bigger picture around Podcast Magazine and Air Control. Podcast Magazine really represents the main media piece of the equation. So, we've got the magazine, the email subscriber list, the website traffic, the social media following, et cetera. So that's really like pillar one, pillar two under air control is our own network of shows. So, we're actually in the process of developing our own network shows. And that's something that we're pretty fired up to do, in 2021 and beyond is get shows under the Podcast Magazine or the air control network umbrella.

Number three, pillar three is our technology piece. And so, we're in the process of developing, an app that helps with discovery for both podcast fans and of course for podcasters as well. And then we've got some other technology pieces that we're developing there in terms of a podcast valuation tool and a marketplace for buying and selling a podcast, et cetera. And then pillar four, that's more of our, should we just say our event department where we've got a virtual event called the new media summit. There we give people the opportunity to pitch top podcasts on who they are and what they do, and they get booked on the spot and then we've got pod expo, which is our, I guess, the best way to put it is, it's kind of like Comic Con for podcasts. Really fan focused.

Steve Rush: Cool, yeah. So not much going on then. Sounds like you are really busy.

Steve Olsher: Nah, nothing's going on.

Steve Rush: Now from the last time that we spoke together, I remember you saying that you believe there's only one thing that really prevents somebody from living that life of happiness, fulfillment and purpose, what is it?

Steve Olsher: Discovering what I call your what and your what being that one thing, if you will, that you were really meant and made to do. And a lot of people will go a lifetime without having clarity around what their what is, and that's to be expected because we don't really teach this stuff in schools. And that's not something that a lot of people talk about or around the dinner table. But once you have clarity on what your, what is, it really does make all the difference.

Steve Rush: Now, often people talk about their why. In fact, Simon Sinek has made a career out of that famously so, but you employ people to really start to think of discovering their why. So, what's the difference if I'm listening to this, that will help me understand the difference between my what and my why?

Steve Olsher: I love what Simon does. And we had a chance to sit down with him on Reinvention Radio, and that was an interesting discussion around the why versus the what. Your why is super important, and it is really the driving force in terms of your choice around what it is that you do. So, like your, why can be to feed your family, your why can be to provide clean drinking water for people who don't have clean drinking water, your why could be to provide food for those in need, right. And that's all well and good. And those are really external factors, right? Again, you can choose what your, why is because it's outside of who you are. You're what is really that, which has chosen you. It's not that which you have chosen. So, what I know to be true is that you're what is really just an inherent part of who you are, and you can spend a lifetime in denial about what it is, but ultimately, it's there for you to tap into. So, your why is external, you're what is really internal.

Steve Rush: How would you describe what your what is?

Steve Olsher: I do think that my, what is really helping people discover theirs, but then because of my entrepreneurial background, I then have the ability to help them market, share and monetize it. And so, I think it's just a really unique combination of skill sets that I don't see a lot of other people having.

Steve Rush: Sure, and you've written the book. What Is Your what? And it's the principle of discovering that one amazing thing that you're born to do. And within the book, you mentioned these four paths. So, what are the four paths, Steve, and how might we identify which one we're currently on?

Steve Olsher: The four paths. What I'm talking about in the book is the fact that, when you look at just the people that kind of walk the earth here, I think we all have one of these four paths that we can take. And most of the time, we don't even know that we're on one of these paths. But the four paths are, well, I'll start with the easiest one, which is the path of the birther. And so, the path of the birther. These are the people that we really just kind of look at. And if you don't know what you were really fired up to do, and you don't have that kind of clarity, you look at these people and you go, you know, you just don't like them. Cause they really known like from day one.

Steve Rush: Just have a vibe.

Steve Olsher: Almost from day one, just how they're naturally wired to Excel, yeah. They just know who they are, you know, and they just know what they love and they know what they're good at. And they might get off path here, there, otherwise. But, you know, the reality is at most points in their life, they get back to really who they inherently are, okay. That's one path. The second path is the path of the wanderer and the path of the wander. This is someone who lived to really wonders through life without ever really figuring out what their, what is. And as I said earlier, it's really through no fault of their own. We just don't have these sorts of conversations. They have a job, they do this, they do that, and they get by. But they really don't wake up with a fire in their soul every single day.

The third path is the path of what I call the shifter. And so, the shifter, that path reflects someone who just kind of needs to make a subtle adjustment to what they're doing. So, when we talk about what is your what process here and what is your, what framework. There are three elements of what is your, what framework. There's the core gift, which really reflects again, how you're inherently wired to excel. There's the primary vehicle that you use to share that gift. And then there are the people that you're most compelled to serve. And so, it's a combination of the gift, the vehicle and the people that make up the, what is your, what framework. And so typically shifters just have to make a subtle adjustment to one of those three pieces of the equation. And then that typically makes all of the difference. And then the fourth path is the path of the reinventor. And the reinventor is someone who literally does a 180. So maybe they were an attorney, and now they're helping people to learn how to surf off the coast of Hawaii, you know, like that sort of thing. There's a completely different career. Like my wife reinvented her life. She was a Chicago public school teacher. And then after we had kids, when she decided she wanted to go back to work, she tapped into the calling that she's had since a very young age and pursued her degree in mortuary science. And now we're actually opening a funeral home for her here in San Diego, California. So that would be a perfect example of a reinventor.

Steve Rush: And you've also become known as America's reinvention expert. And it seems like an easy thing to say, but what actually does reinventing yourself entail?

Steve Olsher: Thrown around quite a bit since, I'm not saying I invented the term, I don't own the term by any stretch, but yeah, I've put together my first episode of Reinvention Radio in 2009. So, I've been talking reinventing for a long time. And, you know, when Burger King starts talking about reinventing the hamburger, it's probably time to revisit how we're thinking about the term. But, you know, look to my way of thinking, reinvention is really not at all about changing who you are in any sort of meaningful. It's really just about shedding the shackles of the, kind of the expectations and the whims and the agendas that others have thrown out at us over the years, and just stripping away at all of that to give back to the core, really the essence of just who you inherently are.

Steve Rush: It' easier said than done though, isn't it? Because we've come with all of this baggage, that's created us to who we are. Are there some simple tips that you could share that would help me kind of reinvent, reframe?

Steve Olsher: Yeah, and so really it all starts with just turning on the light switch. I mean, like that's, the first and perhaps the most important step, because when you think about a light switch, I mean, it's either on or it's off and most of us will go through life with it in the off position. In other words, we're not really thinking about, you know, how am I naturally wired to excel? What am I here to do? Is there something else that I can be doing that I'm potentially not doing that I shouldn't be doing? And so literally, if you just think about it from that standpoint, in terms of, you know, hey, here's the light switch moment, and I'm going to go ahead and turn this on. Once you make the decision that you want to figure out what your, what is, and you really want to jump out of bed every morning, knowing that they're just aren't enough hours in the day to do what you got to get done. That's a super important first step. And when we can get more granular, but if you could just do that, that in of itself can make a tremendous difference.

Steve Rush: It’s that awakening almost, isn't it?

Steve Olsher: It's sure. It's definitely, you know, definitely an awakening of sorts. But, you know, look, we can then be awake, but at the same token, we then have to figure out what to do with that awareness. So that's step one, step two of course, is then making the conscious decision to say, hey, I'm going to figure things out.

Steve Rush: Right, and in your experience, Steve, you've been through this yourself on a number of different occasions and being an entrepreneur for 30 years. I wonder if this is almost a similar process that venture capitalists and entrepreneurs go through when they explore new business ideas, can you see, there is a parallel there?

Steve Olsher: Look at the successful quote, unquote successful entrepreneurs. They've tried a million things before they've gotten to the point where now they have some degree of notoriety and elevated status and people look at them and go, oh wow, this company, this person is really doing some incredible things. It's very similar. It's very similar. I mean, you have a very similar situation with how you go about reinventing your own life. And yeah, you just simply have to try a number of things before you get to the point where you're like, yeah, this really puts fire in my soul.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and I guess when you head off on the journey of your new, what. You might actually find that what you thought you were heading towards might be something different and you might need that to reinvent yourself once more.

Steve Olsher: Well, and that's exactly right. I mean, the reality is once you get in motion, that's when amazing things happen. So, you know, it's step one of discovering your what is really just turning on the light switch and then step two is taking action and really, you know, making the conscious choice to seek out various modalities. You know, whether it's, what is your what are Myers-Briggs or what color is your parachute or whatever it might be to try to get to those answers then yeah. Perhaps step three, could certainly be looked at in terms of, okay, great. Now I need to run on some parallel paths and I really just need to get into motion here and bringing what I discovered to fruition. And in reality, it's when you get in motion, you start doing those things. That's typically when you come across the answer to, okay, this is what I really love doing.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and it's driven by then passion. And I suspect it becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy where you get that passion, follows energy, follows action.

Steve Olsher: Yeah, and, you know, look, I mean, I'm all for passion. Don't get me wrong. But at the same token, there's a lot of people who are moving in, so we say passionately or enthusiastically and there running in the wrong direction.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I see that too. So, can you give us some examples, maybe of people who you've worked with or coached who have really discovered their what and how they might be changing the world as a result?

Steve Olsher: Yeah, there's a couple of examples that I love sharing. One really concrete example, that isn't going to be one of these earth-shattering types of stories where you're going to go, oh, I know that person kind of thing. Let me just share this with you. So, there was a woman who came to, for years I used to teach something called The Reinvention Workshop where I would help people do exactly this, which is figure out what their, what is, and then just really help them create that plan of action for bringing it to fruition. So, there was a woman who came to the event and I'm old enough where I've learned not to ask women their age, but I'm going to guess that she was probably in her late fifties, somewhere right around there. And she came to the event, just feeling pretty good about things, but just knowing that there was maybe a piece of the puzzle that was missing for her. And so, as we started working together, she explained that she was a nurse and she was a, kind of like a general nurse in a hospital. I don't know the exact terminology, but she was a nurse in a hospital. I just put it to you that way. And so, she was clear as we looked at the what is your, what equation. She was really clear that her gift, if we remember, we go back to the gift, the what is your what framework. It's comprised of the gift, the vehicle and the people. She was really clear that her core gift is healing. Like she knows she's a healer and there's a lot of people who are healers out there. It shows up in different ways through their vehicle. And her vehicle of course, was nursing. So, she was very clear that her gift was healing. Her vehicle, it was nursing. She loved what she did, but she just felt like a piece of the puzzle was missing. And so, as we dug into things, it just really became clear to her and to us that where she was just slightly off again, if you go back to the past, she was definitely a shifter where she was slightly off as with the people that she was serving. And I remember as we started going through the exercise of trying to bring to the surface for her, the people that she's most compelled to serve. I remember when she wrote the words on the board disadvantaged elderly, and it's like, it's almost like when you have a treasure chest and you turn the key, and then it opens up and everything kind of glows the angels sing, oh, you know, all that fun stuff. Like that's what happened for her. Like you could literally just see her light up when she wrote the words, disadvantaged elderly on the board and for her that really spelled all the difference. She had been working in this hospital and you know, and again, liking what she did, but she just realized that she needs to be working with the disadvantaged elderly, and that's who she's really compelled to serve. And so fast forward, you know, a number of years now, but it took her about a year or so to land a job as the head, I believe they call it a charge nurse at a veteran’s administration hospital. So, she was working with the disadvantaged, elderly, the veterans who couldn't really take care of themselves at that point. And she's really just been loving it ever since.

Steve Rush: That's an amazing story. It just goes to show that somebody who's already on that path, but just a little off kilter with a little bit of realignment can make a real difference in the world, love it. Great story. So, at this part of the show, Steve, we get the opportunity to tap into that 30 years of experience you've got in leading teams and businesses and organizations and ideation. If we were to kind of break that down as best you can, what would you say your top three leadership hacks would be?

Steve Olsher: Well, I'm not sure that I've got leadership hacks per se. I'm not one of those people that has all these magical spells and tricks and these sorts of things up my sleeve. But you know, one of the things, and I'll throw out a few leadership strategies, if you will, that I've learned over the years. I wish I could sit here and say, these are all rocket science, but, you know, maybe these would-be good reminders for some. So, number one, as a leader, it's really your job to give ownership to your team. And so, a lot of leaders want to hang on to as much of the process as possible. And if you want to create real wealth and you want to create real growth, you just have to be willing to, I guess, for lack of a better term, grant ownership to your team of what's going on. And, you know, they may not do as good as you necessarily, like no one does what you can do, but I liken it to a sales team, right. And if you have, you're the best salesman, right? And pretty much hands down most of the time, you're the one who can sell what you do better than anybody else, but that's not scalable. So, let's just say you bring in somebody who's 60% as good as you. So, you go in and you close 10 out of 10 deals. They go and they close six out of 10 deals. Are you leaving money on the table? Yeah, you're leaving some money on the table, but let's say you then hire a second salesperson who is again, 60% as good as you are. Well now, and I don't want to get into a debate about if this math is actually correct or not, but now if you have two people who are 60% as good as you on the street, the results hopefully are that you actually have 12 deals closed as opposed to the 10 deals that you would have closed if you were in control.

So, giving them that ownership and giving them that trust, definitely something that's hard for a lot of people to do. And that's really one thing to think about. Number two, you know, from a leadership perspective, I believe that many of us tend to operate with a little bit of a heavy hand. And I'm not saying that we have to wear kid gloves and just be overly sweet and that sort of thing. I mean, there are times where correction is needed and things didn't go exactly to plan, but I am saying that, you know, you got to be really aware of the fact that people want to be respected and they want to be treated well. And especially today, if you have talent, you can find a job just about anywhere, if you're any good at what you do. So, holding on to talent, really requires a different approach today than it did even just 10, 15 years ago, right. So that's number two. And then number three, you really have to paint the picture, your job as a leader, more than anything else is to enroll people into your vision. So, do whatever you've got to do, get involved with a mastermind group, hire a coach, do whatever it is to expand your thinking. Because a true leader is always growing and expanding the vision of their team is really buying into. And so, if you're having trouble seeing where your biggest opportunity is and what that bigger vision can be for you and your company, and then you may need someone from the outside to help you to really see where that blue ocean, so to speak is and where your biggest opportunity is.

Steve Rush: I agree on great it. One thing I say that really sets those successful businesses apart from ones that are less successful, the greater clarity, the business leaders and leaders in every sense of the world from, you know, junior staff to senior staff, the clearer their vision is, the more likely of success they are.

Steve Olsher: Yeah, for sure.

Steve Rush: That's some great ideas and tips Steve, that our listeners would absolutely buy into. So, thank you for sharing those.

Steve Olsher: Yeah.

Steve Rush: The next part of our show we stick into is what we call Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something in your life or work has screwed up. It's not gone well, but the learning you've got from it now serves you well. Now being an entrepreneur for so long, I suspect you might have a bunch of these, but what would be your Hack to Attack?

Steve Olsher: Well, I mean, I would just simply say that that's pretty much every day of my life. There isn't a day that I don't fail in some way, shape or form. I think maybe on a more macro level, what I would offer rather than a specific experience. Cause I've been on a brink of bankruptcy, not once, but twice. I've had millions in the bank and I've had zero in the bank, you know? I mean, the thing that I can offer that might be more helpful just in terms of, again, a sort of a macro perspective, as far as this is concerned. Is just embracing the notion and that there really is no such thing as failure, right? Failure is one of those terms of ignorance that weak minded people like to throw out, and those who dare to soar in an attempt to bring them down.

And so, I choose to view failure as success with an unintended ending.

Steve Rush: I like that.

Steve Olsher: We're really just in the business of one particular, like our game as business owners, it boils down to one specific thing and that is gathering data. Because at the end of the day, it's not that you did something, right. It's not that you did something wrong. It's just that you're gathering data. And if you can look at this whole world of business, as that game of being in the data gathering business, and that's the game you're trying to win as gathering the most data.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Steve Olsher: I mean, like just getting inputs so that you have a better understanding of the decisions to make, that's how you ultimately make better decisions. So that's the best advice that I can offer, not as it relates to any particular failure or shortcoming or wish I did better. And believe me, I've left so many zeros on a table with at least one [Audio Gap 00:2914]. But I think this probably serves people better than that.

Steve Rush: Failure is a really interesting one. It keeps reappearing. It's almost a word that we should ban in business because it creates the wrong thinking, the wrong mindset. And I love the way that you've reframed that. So, thanks for sharing it. The last thing that we want to do, Steve is give you a chance to do some time travel. You get to jump in a time machine, go back and bump into yourself at 21 and you get to give yourself some advice. What would your advice be?

Steve Olsher: Yeah, it's interesting, right. So, at 21, I had opened my own nightclub when I was 19. Yes, it was a non-alcoholic nightclub for those wondering. And so I just got done leaving that and turning it over to my manager and business partner. And I walked away from that. And I was contemplating on coming back to Chicago from the city where I'd opened up nightclub, and joining the family business. And what I would have said to my 21-year-old self at that time, because there was a pretty interesting opportunity that was 1991 ish, somewhere right around that, is that even correct? I don't think my math is right, whatever it is. And so, this was the point in time where I started working with my mom and we worked together actually for about nine years, building a business called liquor by wire. And so that eventually became liquor.com and we launched on CompuServe Electronic Mall in 93, built a fully functional e-commerce site and 95, I mean really early into the space. And so, the 21-year-old self would that 21-year-old self needed to hear? Was, you have, I believe the word is, is it prescient? Just like, you have the ability to see the future, prescient. So, I have the ability to see trends really, really early. And what I would have told my 21-year-old self is, trust the trend that you see and listen, when you get that voice of this is something that you need to do, because ultimately the things that I decided to do were on point, but I began to second guess my decision so much so that I even signed away the management rights to our company at one point, because I didn't believe in myself enough to take us to that next step. And so that would be the advice is just really trust yourself to do the right thing, trust yourself, to make the right decisions and trust what you see in terms of where you is, Wayne Gretzky used to say, right? I mean, where you see the puck going.

Steve Rush: Where do you think that comes from that ability to see trends and predict things? Because everybody doesn't get that, right. That's not a common thing that people have. Where does that come from?

Steve Olsher: Yeah, I have the ability to, and I'm not saying I'm great at this. I mean, I'm good at it, but I mean, I missed Bitcoin when I had been in the conversation around Bitcoin. Like I had an account opened with one of those exchanges. I don't even remember which one in like 2012. So, it was one of those things where I was like, oh man, this is going to be great. And then the other part of me said, yeah, just don't pissed money away, this is stupid, right. So, you know, that would be, just an example there just like it was with dot.com space and seeing where everything was headed in the world of dot.com But, you know, the reality is that I have the ability to gather a lot of data and I've always been open to getting data from a lot of different sources. And so, I think it's because of the input and the data that I received from so many different sources that I'm able then to step back and go, you know what? This is pretty interesting. And I think there's serious potential here. And so, I guess I'm able to delineate between what I think is hype and something that might be bordering on unrealistic and where a true opportunity lies.

Steve Rush: It's a gift. So, if we look forward to 2021, throw it out there. What's your hunch for this year? What are the emerging trends that you think are going to be the future success factors in our lives?

Steve Olsher: Yeah, I mean, look, I can only do that from my business standpoint. That's what I'm really good at. I mean, whatever you choose to do on your own personal level, so to speak is, you know, I'm not going to give you personal advice.

Steve Rush: Of course, yeah.

Steve Olsher: Yes, but what I will say, is that from a business perspective, I've been playing around with Clubhouse, which is an iOS specific app. And I've been playing around with Clubhouse since all of December 14th of 2020. And as I said, I've been online a long time. I mean, almost 30 years. And I haven't seen anything like what's going on with Clubhouse in terms of the stickiness, in terms of the engagement, in terms of the stratospheric growth in expedited periods of time. I haven't seen anything like what's going on with Clubhouse in a long time. So, my personal take is much like I miss the opportunity with Bitcoin. I'm either going to sit here and I'm going to watch people do really amazing things with Clubhouse and not get involved, or I'm going to get involved with it. I'm going to devote at least six months to it to really build it up and see what we can do with it. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But if I'm right, I think there's an opportunity to write a meal ticket here for some time to come.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it could be the next audio Facebook I've heard it been discussed as.

Steve Olsher: Yeah, I mean, that's a fair, I think that's a very fair description. But I think it's even more than that because Facebook, Facebook is very much a one-way conversation. This is as much of a dialogue and a conversation as you can have with, with people who both you want to learn from, and people that you can teach as I've ever seen.

Steve Rush: Neat, I will make sure that I spend more time focusing on that. Because it's been one of those things that just have appeared in the ether recently. And yet haven't had the opportunity to fully immerse myself in it.

Steve Olsher: Yeah, trust me on this. It's if you miss the Instagram boat, if you missed the Facebook boat, if you missed all that fun stuff going on with social media, I don't want to say the opportunity of a lifetime, cause I've seen a lot of opportunities come across during my life. But this is about as compelling as it gets right now.

Steve Rush: Sure, I'm on it. So, Steve, for those that are listening today that want to learn a little bit more about the work you've done, maybe get some insights to some of the writing that you have when you're speaking, where's the best place for us to send them when we are done?

Steve Olsher: Well, I mean, we started out talking a little bit about Podcast Magazine and all that fun stuff. If you go to podcastmagazine.com/free, it's a backdoor private link to grab a free lifetime subscription. So just simply podcastmagazine.com/free. And if you want to connect with me on Clubhouse, my handle is @podcasts with an S and you should join our ClubPod. And we'd love to have you join that conversation as well

Steve Rush: Awesome, and make sure all of that information is in our show notes and on our website. So, folks can literally just click in and join up with you there.

Steve Olsher: I appreciate it.

Steve Rush: Steve just for me to say thank you. You've been an awesome guest, fabulous learning from you. And I'm delighted that we're connected through this wonderful medium of podcasting. Thanks for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Steve Olsher: Yeah, appreciate you having me.

Steve Rush: Thanks, Steve.

Closing

View Details

David Kidder is an entrepreneur and an angel investor in more than 30 companies. He's the co-founder and CEO of Bionic, unlocking growth and competitiveness in the world's largest enterprises. He's also a bestselling author, which includes: The Startup Playbook and his latest book, New To Big. Find out how you can get #TheBionicLife and learn lots from David in this inspirational show including:

The philosophy of growth and transformation
The entrepreneurs mindset
Control is a myth
The concept of a Growth Mindset for a big company
Plus loads more hacks

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about David below:

Bionic Website - https://onbionic.com

David’s Website - https://www.davidskidder.com

The Startup Playbook - Book

New to Big - Book

David on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidskidder/

David on Twitter – https://twitter.com/davidskidder

David on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/davidskidder/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is David Kidder. David's an entrepreneur and an angel investor in more than 30 companies. He's the co-founder and CEO of Bionic, unlocking growth and competitiveness in the world's largest enterprises. He's also a bestselling author, which includes The Startup Playbook and his latest book, New To Big. But before we get a chance to speak with David, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: What comes to mind when you hear the word “Startup”, if it's a trendy loft conversion in London’s Shoreditch, or a grungy basement in the heart of Silicon Valley, you're probably not alone. A large proportion of people think that startups is just a term for a team of one or two people that have a common thread. In fact, many startups include large scale growth companies, and of course a startup, does not stay a startup. It can often graduate to larger organizations readily, requiring more office space, generating higher revenues and having many employees. The global pandemic has spurned a rise in new companies, startups. In the UK in 2020, 278,300 new companies were started. And then the US 804,000 businesses were also started. That's about 10% up year on year. So, if your entrepreneurial spirit has been ignited, I just wanted to share some simple facts with you about startups. Some of the things we can get excited about, and some of the things we maybe need to be wary about.

Patience is a virtue. The average time between seed funding to Series A is typically 22 months. And between A and B is 24 months and B to C is 27 months. So, there's a long lead in to successful organizations of which 47% of Series A start up spend more than $400,000 dollars per month. Not all startups are big, but the average round for Series C investments is $50 million dollars between the UK and the US. The average time to incorporate a business globally is typically six days, not much time really. And when we look to the ratio of who's leading startups, the ratio of men, entrepreneurs to women entrepreneurs in 2020 was 10 versus 7. Statistic show whoever's leading them, but 90% of all startups fail with 10% failing within the first year across all industries.

And the number one reason for failure was that startups fail to misread the market demand. And the second largest reason why startups fail is due to running out of cash. The good news is that 33% of startup capital for employer led firms is less than £10,000 (pounds) or $14,000 (dollars). With one in three businesses, starting with a less than £5,000 (pounds) or $7,000 (dollars). So, what did the experts say? Well, according to respondents of small business trends survey, the best way to learn about entrepreneurial ship is to do it. Start a company, test and learn. And if you have an idea, research businesses similar to that, that you have in your head, and you're thinking that have been active for longer than five years, assess all the potential bottlenecks apart from the competition and make sure that the team that you gather to help you on your journey is experienced enough that you're aware of those threats and have some experience in helping you fill your gaps in knowledge and expertise.

In a recent interview with Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, he suggests the secret to successful hiring is this. Look for people who want to change the world, don't just look at the resume. And having done it and got some t-shirts along the way. The most valuable thing you can do as a founder of a business is to recognize your downfalls beforehand, learning from other businesses, how they've won and how they failed and apply that knowledge as part of your startup thinking, that's been The Leadership Hacker News. Please get in touch, if you have any stories or news that you want our listeners to hear.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: David Kidder is our special guest on today's show. He's a serial entrepreneur, having invested in over 40 startups, including SpaceX. He's also a New York times bestselling author and the CEO and co-founder of Bionic. David welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

David Kidder: Very grateful to be here.

Steve Rush: Me too. It's been a while since you and I last met, the world is a very different place now. Before we get into some of the things that are presenting themselves with the work that we do now, perhaps for our listeners, you can give us just a little bit of a backstory as to how you've arrived at doing what you do?

David Kidder: Well, I've been an entrepreneur now and founder four times. I've had three venture backed services and SAAS companies that I've sold over the last 25 years. This company I've been involved in building for the last eight years as a co-founder in Berkowitch and it started really with a book, The Startup Playbook about in 2007, 2008 and onstage at a fortune 10 company after doing a keynote with a single question, actually from the vice chairman about how to disrupt. And from there I started doing keynotes and workshops with Eric Reese all over the world. Bionic was really born out of that. And it's been an incredible journey building, you know, a $20 million dollar company. We saw the biggest CEOs in the world P&G, General Mills, Microsoft and others. Really just a privilege to be doing this work of growth transformation.

Steve Rush: And its that whole philosophy of growth transformation that sits at the heart of disruption. And when people hear the word disruption, they don't often think of it as a positive thing, but in fact, you call it out as being essential, don't you?

David Kidder: Well, I think as something that's really about you, then it could be problematic because you think, you know, it's your fault or it creates discomfort. Disruption usually is something that happens from the outside in, is changed, right? The needs and the world change, which we have experienced last year.

Steve Rush: Right.

David Kidder: And, you know, it forces you to reset and to move outside of what has been working in rediscovering things. And that's not something you can plan for. So, it draws out a completely different mindset and skillset to do that work, which, you know, is largely uncomfortable because it's managing the unknowable and that comes from a completely different skill set. So, it's an exciting chapter and we should be grateful for the test because we'll be better on the other side of it. But you can't try to get out of the discomfort and you have to be able to grow comfortable with that.

Steve Rush: And it's the uncertainty that causes most discomfort in people. How do you grab hold of that uncertainty and create more certainty?

David Kidder: Well, I think it's important to reframe it like if you have, it draws some of the psychology of loss of version, which is you always overvalue what you have and you undervalue what you could become, what is available to you. And so, in that context, knowing how the mind works, knowing how you know, humans, the species love to have planning and safety as comfort. When you have this these transformation opportunities, it's really about reframing and overvaluing, what is possible, what's available to you. And so, by holding on to that and saying, ah, I have this value in my hand, but I'm required to either replace it or add a new opportunity or new hand, so to speak that I have to become. You reframe it because it's something to pursue, maybe it's required, but that pursuit really energizes the change. And it's not to something to be feared. It's something to be embraced because it's just the natural way to evolve into growth.

Steve Rush: It's kind of ironic, isn't it? Because if you think back over the last hundred years, nothing's really been certain, we've always been in a world of uncertainty, but we've had perhaps a different mindset.

David Kidder: Yeah, I mean, control is a myth. I mean, I've made it all, lost it all. It made it all, lost it all twice now in my career just by investing in building companies and, you know, I've gone through incredible highs and I've gone through a brokenness. And I think one of the things that has accelerated my failure in the past when I've had it is just the idea that it's about you and to control. And so, the more you hang on to your plan, your vision, and you don't accept all of the possibilities from extraordinary success to extraordinary failure and be comfortable with that, right?

David Kidder: And say, success, you know, comes in two front-page coverage, you’re a hero, and you're an idiot, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly.

David Kidder: You have to be able to be a position to give it over and ask for the outcome, because then, you know, the universe and your people can conspire to help you solve the need as opposed to directly and exclusively coming from you. That's where mistakes are made is that we don't get to the truth because we don’t ask from our team and we're not willing to accept it.

Steve Rush: There's this lack of control that comes with also giving away some of the stuff that you have; and ironically, the more you give away, the more you receive in return, that's kind of how the world kind of plays out, right?

David Kidder: Yeah, you can you can always suffocate possibility by hanging on to things in a zero-sum view of the world. It's really a non-zero, right? I think this is essential to what you're saying is, that people, their very nature is there's a limited supply of an outcome. There's a limited supply of, you know, consulting. There's a limited supply of services. There's a limited supply of customers, and that's a total addressable market view of the world. That's a limited zero-sum view of the world. It's actually the non-zero. The unlimited version is to think about the total addressable need in the world and how it's evolving. And that takes you from the inside out to the outside in. From zero sum to non-zero, from fear to abundance, from market to need. And you start to really radically evolve your discovery of what your role is in solving it. The marketplace is an opportunity is unlimited. It's only limited to the fact of your ability to create the permission for you to go pursue it, that's it. And that's inside your mind,

Steve Rush: Big organizations, I guess, think the same way or the people that work in big organizations also feel the same way as that's the focus of the work that you have with Bionic. Maybe you can just give us a little sense of how you're helping organizations go through that same transformation?

David Kidder: Thank you for that Steve. We have a philosophy. That's in a book I wrote called, We, as a company wrote called New To Big. I wrote it with Christina Wallace, who was our VP of marketing and a brilliant writer and thinker. She helped curate this from the company, which is this concept that the big to bigger organizations, that scale are literally at war with growth. They're paid to create efficiency and certainty. And so, when there's change and you're paid incentivized to make what you have work, you actually can't evolve. It's actually, you're at war with growth, stakeholders and the addiction of being right and, you know, rack and stack ROI and all things really limits the organization ability to evolve because you're literally making what you have work.

New To Big, really describes a way of thinking and working. We've pioneered the idea of growth mindset in a big company and the systems to support that, we call a Growth OS. It really solves the discovery missing skills versus the planning skills inside an organization in a model. So, we set up growth boards. We set portfolios of total addressable problems and needs. We launched large volumes of entrepreneurs inside and outside the organization to experiment and test, to figure out what to build partner or buy that creates their future as we go launch it. But more importantly is that we fix the growth operations of an organization, the functions that are designed to stop new things from happening, become entrepreneurial. Marketing and sales and compliance and fines come around because they learned to act small because the question that companies need to ask is, should we do this? So, if you're only asking that with planning in five big bets a year, you're in big trouble, you're not learning anything, you're making what you have work. Our model creates that pipeline of always on growth, in the same way, you know, Six Sigma lean manufacturing created efficiency. Bionic has pioneered a model, which is sort of the anti of that. And every company in the world needs this. We've done this at the top of organizations at the CEO level P&G, General Mills, Nike, Citi Corporate, others, with extraordinary impact.

Steve Rush: And when I read this from you, I had a little bit of an “A-HA” moment because from a consulting perspective when I work with my clients, it's often around how can we do things faster, more efficient, more effectively, which comes with either streamlining a process, saving some money, looking at resources. And you literally have just flipped that on its head around, it's not about the efficiencies. It's about the effectiveness. Tell us a little bit about how you came to that?

David Kidder: It's because we don't come from the industry. You know, I, my entire background, and my co-founders are all entrepreneurs. And so, we didn't come competing with McKinsey or BCG who we do almost exclusively today. Who kind of copy us at this point which is sort of a compliment and also annoying. We could never be them and they can never be us. The way we think, they will be a radical outsider. Be able to walk away at the cost of the truth, creates a friction in the leadership that allows them to go on offense, because, you know, the leaders thought leaders like Adam Grant and Linda Hill and Justin Berg and General Stanley McChrystal who all serve on Bionic advisory board so often have driven a way to think differently as a way of running the company. And here's why this is so important.

About 70% of all growth comes from 7% capital deployed. So, if we make a hundred bags or I spent a hundred million or whatever it is, 7% of that is going to be all the returns. So, if I go back to the beginning and say, why did I invest in those ideas or innovations? They have two qualities. One is high conviction. Why us and why now? And two is, is non-consensus. We make all of our decisions from the ideas, with the highest disagreement.

Steve Rush: Wow, yeah.

David Kidder: So conversely, when you have consensus, you're basically screwed. You have to be able to hold. Non-consensus, high conviction solutions to new problems from the outside in portfolios, a lot of failure to figure out why us and why now. Disruption is important, but how you react to it is more important.

Steve Rush: I love that. And it makes loads of sense when you say it. It's almost one of those, why didn't I do this before? Because ultimately what you're suggesting is consensus is another word for group think almost, isn't it? You're looking for convergence, rather than divergence and strategic thinking.

David Kidder: Yeah, the reason why it's so uncomfortable, because it's new to you and new to the world, your entire bias is to make what you have work, and it's super dangerous.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it is. For sure. Now, there's not many chances you get to say to people. Yeah, well, you wrote the book on it and you did, you wrote The Startup Playbook and you had the network and opportunity to interview over 40 of the world's greatest Gamechangers, including Elon Musk and Sarah Blakely, just to name, but a few. What did you notice having had the opportunity to interview all of these great leaders and entrepreneurs and thinkers that was consistent?

David Kidder: Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. The summary of the book I wrote on a single flight in six hours from, you know, let's say San Francisco back to New York where I live. And I didn't realize how significant that introduction would change my life, but it was really the synthesis of those that time. I remember 10 years ago, Elan was broke, sleeping on my friend's couch in Palo Alto. And you know, last week is the world's richest guy, because he always was in his mind. What I think is interesting is that when you listen to that summation of the time with them and in the book, The Start Playbook, there's like summaries of the lenses, those entrepreneurs use to select their ideas. So, it's the way they view it. It's their mindset that allows them to lead and bet their life on an idea that has turned into in most cases, a huge outcome.

I summarize this called the five lenses. So, if you listen to all the time, basically they say an idea would pass through these five lenses in the same order, over a period of typically three years before you know how big it could be. And the first lens is proprietary gift. Why you and why now? Like, what's your unfair advantage? The second one is extreme focus. You don't want 10 ideas. You want one solution to one problem. So, getting the validation, the first principles logic in place, so you can get extreme focus. So, you have night and day obsession, conscious and subconscious working at problem is could vital to making this work. The third lens is you have to go painkillers, not vitamins. Vitamins are wishful thinking and wishful thinking is the enemy, according to Elon. So, getting the painkiller, which solves who is the customer, right?

Solves the chronic lifelong malignant problem that is you can solve forever, which leads the last two lenses, which are something that you become, which is the 10X factor was the fifth, fourth ones, which is what element of the business given enough time could be 10 times better than anyone else in the world. And then the fifth lens is permanence. Like, how do you build a monopoly? How do you put hooks and barbs in customers so they can never leave? So, you could evolve with them for years and so, they'll quit. So those five lenses are very high bar. They're not something to be thought about that some of you discovered and you need to learn them over a period of time that allows them to become true because you're deploying energy, money, capital, people into becoming that. So, I'll pause there, but they're quite profound when you think about your own business. And I hope that listeners do as well.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I love the whole principle. It's almost a systematic approach to thinking about this is the direction I need to take the business in. Need to take the leadership of the organization in as well.

David Kidder: Yep

Steve Rush: If you were to peel back all of the layers across all of the lenses across those 40. Is there may be the one thing that stands out beyond everything else that is the most important, the most significant?

David Kidder: You got to care the most, it's obsession. I'll tell you; I mean, I can speak my very modest career. But I think that whatever you do, when you care the most, it almost always works in whatever view of works defines you. So, I think that's the most important thing is that you deeply, deeply care. You just won't be able to get through the hard times if you don't. Because you know, no matter how successful the company is, you're going to go through blink at death moments. I mean, you know, we had one, you know, this last year of the pandemic and, you know, not only survived, but thrived through it as a result of that, you know, you don't sleep on the factory floor on the brink of death unless you care more. And I think that's the central limit. It's not just passion, and yeah, I love something, it's obsession is born to do it. And I think you should listen to that voice inside of you and not play to lose. You have to play to win, to be able to produce something of any meaning.

Steve Rush: I love it. Awesome. So, if I'm a leader in an established team or business, I'm not involved in the VC startup environment, is there anything that you think that would be useful for me to consider? So that would fully propel me in my existing business.

David Kidder: Yes. I mean, the idea that, you know, growth is exclusively a venture capital entrepreneurship idea is false. We proven that over the world-class bunch of years, you know, this is a form of management. In the same way have actually master’s degree of administration that solve the big to bigger, because it's no noble. We have management skills in discovering investing and solving new problems that are called growth investing in entrepreneurship as a form of a career. And it's not exclusive to outside of companies. It's that outside of companies have not created the incentive to be paid to do it, but they can do it, we've proven that, at billions of values. So, I just think that you know, the biggest mindset shift when you're thinking about how to manage and why you manage this and how to solve disruption is one of the concepts that Bionic has pioneered called TAM to TAP.

It's sort of Total Addressable Marketplace view of the world to a Total Addressable Problem. From linear five big bets a year to portfolio with a 90% failure rate, recollect five, let's 50 where 90% fail within two or three years, but they're going to discover the proprietary gifted in us and the need of the world that we had to solve become. So that Tamba Tap really changes from an inside out to an outside of a new world. So, it ends the technology in search of a problem or science in search of a customer problem challenge, that is almost always fatal because how do you know what to make? If you don't know a problem you're solving. These ideas are so profoundly simple, but they have massive impact organizations that are literally crossing their fingers and hoping their ideas work. So, if you read New To Big, the book, you'll start to get kind of the beta or the 1.0 of how to think about this. And then we have a whole bunch of new learning you can go to onbionic.com and learn more about it, or just reach out to me. But I think these are concepts that help shift the organization's mindset and begin journey of like discovery because it draws a distinction from efficiency and planning.

Steve Rush: I think mindset is massive here, right? So, when I hear you talk about a portfolio with a 90% fail rate, my stomach does starts to churn, right? So how do you get into the mindset to help people in an organization recognize that's okay.

David Kidder: Well, you need to play into their, you know, genetics, which is, you know, if we launched 90 things and it's more efficient than launching five big expensive failures, because they now, these people are really smart. They know that they're launched five things, one will work, they're all going to cost 50 million. But if I could launch a hundred, the all costs a hundred grand, I actually saved money. I get more shots on goal. I see more. I discover myself and I'm right on time because market timing drives these needs. They realize that we can't just show up my balance sheet and my brand and make it work because it's not about us. It's about solving the need. It's the outside force. It's the rip that makes the business work, not ours. And so, it's being there when it happens. When you're positioning capital or new need or the need that just changed of your customer, which is why disruption happens. Disruption happens, when the change comes to you versus you arriving with it, but it shows up at your doorstep, like what happens in the pandemic. It's all because the need changed. The customer's behavior changed, that's it. Behaviors don't lie, how it got delivered, how it got paid for, how it gets solved, AI, technology outside forces. But none of that matters. It's simply what the customer does that we're trying to solve. And in many cases, the customer doesn't even know. So how do you discover the change? The customer doesn't even understand that's happening. You only can discover that through experiments and learning with them. Not for them, not inside, for them, with them. And so, this is profound. Like, I mean, it sounds simple, but when you start working, thinking this way, this changes everything.

Steve Rush: Is academically sounds very simple, but behaviorally. There is so much going on with mindsets, behaviors, systems, political warfare internally, I guess, plays out here too. Has it been a time maybe that you found that when you've met with an organization, they've gone no way, David, we're not playing this game? This is far too risky.

David Kidder: Of course, of course.

Steve Rush: So how do you deal with that?

David Kidder: Well, I mean, listen, Bionic has worked with 26 companies in the last eight years, but we work at the CEO level. These companies work with the largest of the world. I mentioned a couple of names, Citi Corp you know, General Mills, Nike, Santander, P&G is a very incredible case study for us. There's actually an HBS case study on this work written by Linda Hill about the Growth OS, but largely about Kathy Fish, the head of global R&D at P&G, She's amazing. But the point is, is that not every company is ready because the CEO it creates or denies the permission to grow. I wrote the purpose of Bionic was to ignite growth revolutions. And what I've come to realize is it's actually not about money. It's about the interior life of the leader. They are the ceiling of what's possible for our organization.

Steve Rush: Right.

David Kidder: What freaks them out is, in the past. When they launched a hundred things, nothing ever died. They started lighting money on fire. They had to manage it. They need a way to manage it and not light their money on fire. And our model is that answer. And when they get comfortable with that, they go to scale. I mean, our partners are launching hundreds of startups, a quarter zonally vertically. They're adding hundreds of millions in some cases, billions of new revenues each year repeatedly. So, I rarely use the word innovation because of the brain damage around it, it's a toy. You have to create urgency, grow or die. When that happens, the question is, how? And the work Bionic does, New To Big is the how.

Steve Rush: From your portfolio experience. So, you're an investor and you've got a significant portfolio of your own investments that you've made in other startups and businesses. Is there one that you've got there? It's the favorite child?

David Kidder: I do. It's just one that you wouldn't think. Of course, there's the unicorns and those are exciting. And it takes about 50 bets to produce one in your life, even if you're connected, your shot is 1 in a 50. Unless you're very fortunate and network effect. And I was very fortunate because of that, but there's a company that I love and it's a founder, Lindsay Rosner, it's called Wellthy. The obsession comment I made earlier, born to do it. She is the, like the perfect case study for this, for profound reasons. So, Wellthy does a care coordination and they help families manage care at a distance. Family lives in lots of parts of the world or the country or town, even. A family member is sick, maybe they have mental illness. Maybe they have a degenerate disease or dementia, lots of stakeholders, lots of regulation and complexity.

And they built a platform to solve that. It's like a quarterback managing all the aspects of caring for a single loved one. So that everyone's on the same page always. And you know, that was because, you know, Lindsay, when she grew up, you know, her mom had MS. And she was an only child and she had to lead and love and care for her mother through her very young age, through college, where she put herself through to Ivy league schools, started her own company. She is incredible, and she did this because she was born into it, obsession and gifted. And along the way, you know, she lost her mother and that continued to drive the purpose of her life. But Wellthy is a born to do a proprietary gift story that I love to tell because I love Lindsay, but I also just love the purpose of that company is on. And it’s a great example of what will be a huge success because of her.

Steve Rush: Awesome. Now, from your perspective, looking outside in at new opportunity like that, what drives your fire in your belly more? Is it that obsession with the people you work with or is it the product or return on investment?

David Kidder: I mean, I probably should be more investment driven, you know, I've had raised a lot of venture, deployed a lot of venture. I love the becoming, I had a mentor and a relative of mine who passed away in 2014. Amazing guy, clinical psychologist, on the board of a bunch of big famous companies, great consultants. When he sold this company age 70, he passed away. Roger Fronske about nine months later. I was the last week person to see him. And he started me on my career as my uncle when I was 16. As he passed away, I saw him a couple of days before, and we were together and were forehead to ford, as he was saying goodbye. He had brain cancer, and he said, don't focus on who you are to the world, focus on who you're becoming. The idea becoming now, which is central to my philosophy but also that of my companies is that, you know, when you get to the top, you realize there's nothing there. The journey is where the growth is. That's where the love is. That's where the people are, relationships the vulnerability, the change. So, when you try to escape that, get out of that, to get to the exit, get to the top, finally get blank, you realize like what a perishable identity you have with that success. The success is falling in love with the becoming. And I really counsel my teams and the company, my culture, to create the doctrine, to make choices that choose the becoming versus, you know, performance and, you know, kind of like the silly comparison. That's a solving to probably an old shame in your life that you have to be successful but, in this case, find what you love. I love that part of the work. And so, wherever I apply, the energy will be important to me.

Steve Rush: Really profound story, thank you for sharing it by the way, David, I appreciate it.

David Kidder: Yeah, of course.

Steve Rush: So, this part of the show is where we start to hack into your leadership brain. And I'm going to ask you to distill all of the years of learning experiences in organizations and tap into the very top three leadership hacks that you have.

David Kidder: One that is new to me is to lead with the truth. This is one of the profound lessons I've learned in building Bionic is that people want the truth so they can help. Not because they're scared, but because they want to help and what they resent when you don't tell them the truth and ask them to help is that you didn't ask them because that's why they're there. So that is a gap between you, the CEO and the team, and that gap is can really only be filled by the team because most of the answers always come from the edge of the team. So that was one of the big one is lead with the truth. And it will shock you where you end up. Number two is I start in my day with a five-minute journal and it helps me understand where I am in the journey each day.

I think there's a famous saying, which says, you're always optimistic about what you can accomplish in a day and you undress it and you can accomplish it in a year. So, getting the day right is most important. So, my five minute opens and closes the day with what I'm grateful for, what I need for that day. What I asks of the truths I need that day and also ask the universe, like, what do I need? And so, I close and begin the day, figuring out those things, but also reflect on like, hey, how could I have grown? You know, what can I handle better? That's the second one.

And the third one is really the becoming part, which I just shared why that was important, but the becoming is philosophical, but it's also really important because you need a lot of patients when you're trying to create change and grow something. You know, the greatest force of the universe is compound interest. Will you do the right thing for a long period of time, it's inevitable. If you get that system right, that you'll be successful in whatever you define success, because it's what you think about. So, getting those things right, you know, those hacks right of the truth, that's reflective in the five-minute journal. And then you focus on becoming, I think no matter where you focus, your energy will lead to extraordinary outcomes.

Steve Rush: Very great lessons. Thank you so much. The next part of our show is we call affectionately Hack to Attack. So, this is where something in your life or work has not worked out as planned. Could have been quite catastrophic or even screwed up. But as a result of the experience, we've now used that experience as a positive force in our life and work, what will be your Hack to Attack David?

David Kidder: Hit the reset button, start over. I think people underestimate how powerful it is, is to set down an old truth, set down a day, set down an hour and start over. The ability to restart, reset, restart, however you want define it, is a miracle. You could restart your life. You could restart your career. You could restart your day. You could restart your relationship with person, your kids, your spouse, your co-founder, yourself. In a minute, in an hour, in a day, in a week, whenever you want. It's just a choice. And so being able to say, okay, that was a super bad morning. I'm going to restart my morning. I'm going to restart this meeting in the meeting. I'm going to restart this conversation. I'm going to restart my financial life, my savings, my spending, whatever it is. That power is available to you. I remember I had a moment when I went through total abject failure and had to build back. I was imagining myself running through these thorns, right? This my metaphor, but this how I felt. The harder ran the deeper the thorns got. I had nothing left. I was bleeding out, but I kept going because I would not fail. And I had this moment. It was probably one of most courageous resets in my life. As I imagined myself, lifting myself out of that road and putting myself on a clean new road. But what I did is as I moved myself back to when I was 20 years old. And when I realized is that all the same things that I knew and believed and was hopeful for about the future when I was 20 was still true today.

I just need to re up, re believe, reset. And what were the challenge for me was I felt foolish and naive because who does that? Maybe I should just quit and find safety, that was all fear. And so that courageousness of starting over, but starting back in time, when you knew what was possible, all that optimism back, it just an amazing force. So, my hack is to reset or restart, however you define it. I think it's probably the greatest privilege and power we have in our lives. And you have the choice to do it at any moment in your day, week or life, to begin again.

Steve Rush: Comes back down to mindset as well, doesn’t it?

David Kidder: Hundred percent.

Steve Rush: Having the conviction to say, right. Need to change, need to do it. Now, ironically, our third and final thing that we wanted to take you through was a bit of time travel and you get to almost revisit the 20-year-old. And in this case, the 21-year-old David and give him some advice, what would be your advice then?

David Kidder: To love yourself. And I think it's hard to not think about that through a lens of like selflessness, because I think that it's like, what I've discovered is that. I have three sons and I love them like the power of the sun, right? And as you think about how you love them; you would never want them to do something or be something that was harmful to themselves, that wasn't for loving themselves, right? Because they become, you know, a performance addict or, you know, all the dope, right?

Steve Rush: Sure.

David Kidder: Make the field better. So, I think if you can take that same power and shine it from your soul to yourself, you can realize, am I doing this through love or fear? And so, when you start to look at the choices that you're making in your life, in your business, yourself, especially largely they're made through performance and fear, but if you can get that orientation, right. That observer self to yourself saying, you know, I love you Steve, then I could ask the question is, why are you doing this? What are you needing? And that changes everything. And I taught my kids about this, but I would talk to myself about this, if I went back to when I was 21, because it would have saved me probably 10 years of my life, at least I'm 47 now, because I just made choices out of fear.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and we often do, because that sense of fear is that self-preservation thing working out, which is what most entrepreneurs flip to use, their opportunity.

David Kidder: Yup, a hundred percent. They're not even solving the problem. They're solving something inside themselves. Usually, it's an old shame.

Steve Rush: I did some research for this many, many years ago, actually. And most entrepreneurs happen to be the least academical individuals as well, because they've used their creativity. They've focused on intuition. They've used all of those raw kind of right-hand emotions versus the left-hand emotions that we need to be effective in business too.

David Kidder: Yeah. It's funny, you mentioned the word academic. I am almost anti academic and my dad was a psychologist, PhD. It's hilarious because, while we have a couple of PhDs at Bionic, who I love, where, you know, we create the outcome and you know, it's grounded in good academics, but it's not all that.

Steve Rush: Right. So, what's new and what's next for you David? And for the folk at Bionic?

David Kidder: You know, for now. I mean, it's the same, the purpose of our lives, the purpose of Bionic. My writing, thinking, and the company has never been more needed in the world today than any time in my lifetime. And certainly not since we started the company, I mean, transformation and growth are the most important things in the world today. And it's what we do. And so, I am in the right place, right time, you know, classic overnight journey, eight years in the work. And I couldn't be more honored to be doing it.

Steve Rush: And if ever there was a right time to get you onto our show, it's also the now. So thank you for being with us.

David Kidder: Grateful.

Steve Rush: Where's the best place for us to send folk who would like to learn a bit more about you, but more about the work that you do, you’re writing and Bionic.

David Kidder: Sure. So, there's two places for big companies. If see a big company you can go to onbionic.com O-N-B-I-O-N-I-C.com, learn more about transformation for big organizations there. For speaking or keynotes or books. You can go to davidskidder.com, D-A-V-I-D S in Steve K-I-D-D-E-R.com and there is a bunch of stuff up there. And hopefully it's enjoyable, feel free to reach out. I'm pretty available. So, we're accessible. So, no worries there but love to stay in connected with the world.

Steve Rush: You’re also pretty accessible through social media. We'll make sure that we have all of those links in our show notes as well.

David Kidder: Thank you, wonderful.

Steve Rush: It's only left for me to say thank you, David. I just love chatting with you. You're a really inspirational guy and that's no surprise why you have been so successful in winning and losing, and the 10% that are successful growing into great organizations and great companies. But thank you very much for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

David Kidder: It's my pleasure. Thanks, Steve.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handle there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

New to Big: How Companies Can Create Like Entrepreneurs, Invest Like VCs, and Install a Permanent Operating System for Growth

The Startup Playbook: Secrets of the Fastest-Growing Startups from Their Founding Entrepreneurs

View Details

Bill Flynn is the Chief Catalyst at Catalyst Growth Advisors; he's a coach, mentor and author of the number one Amazon bestselling book, Further Faster. In this, our special 50th Episode, you can learn about:

Why creating a compelling vision allows others to follow
Why some businesses succeed while others fail
How the biggest reason for failure is success
Neuroleadership is a critical skill for 21st century leaders

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Bill Flynn below:

Catalyst Growth Advisors Website - www.catalystgrowthadvisors.com

Further Faster (Book)

Bill on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/billflynnpublic/

Bill on Twitter – https://twitter.com/whfjr

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Welcome to our 50th episode. I can't believe that we're already halfway to a century of Leadership Hacker Podcast, so thank you everybody who's been part of that. So, Bill Flynn is our special guest on episode 50, he's the chief catalyst at Catalyst Growth Advisors. He's over 30 years’ experience working with hundreds of different companies, including lots of start-ups. But before we get a chance to speak with Bill, it's not The Leadership Hacker News. Instead, today we're going to do something a little bit different. I'm going to introduce you to Jermaine Pinto from our production team. And Jermaine has been absolutely inspirational to help us on our journey with the 50 episodes. So, hey Jermaine, say hello to our listeners.

Jermaine Pinto: Good day listeners. Nice to meet you all. I'm really excited, and Steve congratulations on that 50 episodes.

Steve Rush: Thank you, my man, I really appreciate it. And for those of you that are not familiar with Jermaine’s accent, he's in Jamaica and that's the wonders of the remote world that we work in. We can have remote team working all over the place. So, Jermaine, I just wanted to say from my perspective and behalf of the listers, thank you for being part of our team on this journey. And over the course of our 50 episodes, there must be a few of those episodes that really ring a bell. And there must be some learning as I've had out of this. But from your perspective, what would you say has been the best part of being involved in the journey that we've been on?

Jermaine Pinto: Always hearing the guest stories, their background stories. Those are always interesting; those are always motivating. Especially some who have start from basically nothing and build their way up. Some who have accomplished a lot and still manage to start all over, no matter the age, that is always great to hear.

Steve Rush: Yeah, the backstory is really fascinated me because there's been no two guests, right? That have the same backstory.

Jermaine Pinto: Exactly.

Steve Rush: They come from different backgrounds, different experiences, and they all bring great learning and inspiration to others to get on that journey too, right?

Jermaine Pinto: Yes, correct.

Steve Rush: So, who of the 50 shows has been the most inspirational for you?

Jermaine Pinto: I have two right here, Steve. And before I introduce the second one, my first one who be, you Steve.

Steve Rush: Aww, Jermaine, you’re such a softy. Thank you so much.

Jermaine Pinto: Steve I have to say thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of your team. It was actually March 3rd 2020.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jermaine Pinto: You reach out to me to do episode two with David Marquet.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jermaine Pinto: Yeah, and that was an amazing episode. And since then, I have been on this journey with you, and now it's 50-episode, wow! that's amazing.

Steve Rush: It is, yeah. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that man.

Jermaine Pinto: You are welcome. And the second one will have to be Michelle Boxx, The Blonde Fixer. She is just so vibrant. She's is just so cool, energetic. And I just love her.

Steve Rush: Yeah, good.

Jermaine Pinto: Yeah, so what about you Steve?

Steve Rush: Wow. You know, like you Jermaine, I try to find two or three people out of the over 50 guests that we've had on the show. Really tough, right? But there are three that really stick out for me. So, I guess in order of episodes, episode 29, a good friend, Eric Chasen, you know, this is a guy who lost his fiancé, tragically. Subsequently his mum passed away all the while his businesses were collapsing around him, but managed to find that, you know, real grit, resilience, and determination and get back not only to be successful, but to be a millionaire and retire incredibly early. That was a great, great inspirational story. Amber Hurdle, episode 40. Teen mum to superstar business woman and podcaster herself. Another great inspiration for anybody who listened to that. And I guess the one that really kind of moved me emotion actually was Nathanael Zurbruegg.

Jermaine Pinto: Agree.

Steve Rush: He was on episode 30, right? So, this is a guy who has suffered much more than most of us would suffer. You know, he was told by his practitioners, he should have been dead six times over and still to this day, whilst he still suffers with chronic illnesses, still inspires and works and inspires others to change their lives. And I think, wow, what a great guy. And that's all, you know, coming from a place of helping others. And I think that's just amazing.

Jermaine Pinto: Yeah, you're right Steve and I can tell the listeners that I'm actually one of the biggest fan, of the show. I look forward to hearing these stories every week. Most episodes I will listen to treat the three to four times to be honest.

Steve Rush: Yeah. And, you know, fortunately we get to hear all of these stories before our listeners do. So, we're in a really privileged position to get all that.

Jermaine Pinto: That's always a plus.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so if you think about how many hacks we've had on the show, we've had hundreds and hundreds of fabulous ideas and tips and tools and inspiration. If you had to kind of maybe think of one or two that resonate with you the most Jermaine, what would they be?

Jermaine Pinto: I actually have three and I'm going back to my favourite person again, Michelle Boxx, The Blonde Fixer. When she said facilitate feedback from your teammate. She is one hundred, spot on with that one. We can all relate to that. The second one would be from episode 9, John Spence.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jermaine Pinto: When he said lead with your gut, you can never go wrong with that.

Steve Rush: Absolutely, and John was another inspirational guest too. Wasn't he? This is a guy who reads over a hundred books a year and has done for 20 years.

Jermaine Pinto: Honestly Steve, I was blown away by that. A hundred books, I'm like, wow!

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jermaine Pinto: This guy's on top of his game.

Steve Rush: Sure thing.

Jermaine Pinto: And the last one it'd be from Ira Wolfe from episode 49, growth mindset. Throughout the almost 50 episodes, mindset was one thing that was always said by most guests.

Steve Rush: Yeah

Jermaine Pinto: Mr. Wolfe expound on that and try new things. Don't be afraid to fail or make mistake, and he is absolutely right by that.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I agree.

Jermaine Pinto: And so, Steve, I know you pretty much have a lot of hacks, so what would be your, maybe best three?

Steve Rush: So, I've gone back over my notes and I've gone back over the show notes. And there were three things, actually the present themselves where they keep repeating from many guest’s time and again. Then they're also things that I share. So, I guess the first thing is journaling presents itself a lot, doesn't it? So, you know, taking that time in the morning and night to really set out what your plans are for the day, how you can be thoughtful, how you can demonstrate gratitude and self-love, and self-worth that presents self a lot. Meditation, you know, is interesting, that keeps coming up. And it's something that I do every morning. So, I meditate every single morning before I look at emails, before I look at work before, look at anything. And that's now a core habit of mine. That is a key tenant in how I do things. A lot of our guests share meditation as a way to get into that zone. And the other thing that presents itself is mentoring. All the while we've been speaking to our guests, having a good mentor, having somebody they can rely on. Having somebody that they can kick the leaves around with is a real core attribute of all of our guests and anybody who's been successful. And I guess those are three things that really present themselves to me.

Jermaine Pinto: And I would agree, especially the last one there Steve, Mentoring. I have never had a mentor, till you could see now, which is again, use Steve. Those one-on-one meetings that we have, where I would bounce ideas off of you. It's really great to have someone that you can share with and you can also get their experience.

Steve Rush: You're right, your absolutely right. So, Jermaine, thanks for being on the show. Thanks for being part of our journey and behind the scenes and not often getting the recognition, I think you deserve. And hopefully our listeners will listen to this and connect with you through LinkedIn and your other mediums as well. So, cheers to the next 50, right?

Jermaine Pinto: And let's say here to a next thousand.

Steve Rush: Wow, yeah, why not? Absolutely. Let’s think big.

Jermaine Pinto: That's how big we are going with this one.

Steve Rush: You're right. Okay, so let's get back to the show. This hasn't been The Leadership Hacker News, but of course, as always, if you do have an insights, news or stories you think our guests could hear, let's get in touch with either me or Jermaine my man.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Bill Flynn. He's the chief catalyst at Catalyst Growth Advisors. He's a coach, mentor and author of the number one, Amazon bestselling book, Further, Faster. Bill, welcome to the show.

Bill Flynn: Hey Steve, great to be here. You know, they say good things come to those who wait. So, it's good to finally make this happen.

Steve Rush: Our listeners won't know that you and I have been waiting for probably four or five months, to get a hook-up and get together having spoken originally. So, looking forward to having a great conversation with you today, but for those that don't know your backstory, maybe just give us a little summary as to how you've arrived at leading Catalyst Advisors.

Bill Flynn: Sure, I'll do the quick version. So, I sort of had two arcs to my career if you will. I'm a start-up guy, early on. I'm not a founder, but I'm generally the person who comes in and helps on the scaling side. So sales marketing, that kind of stuff. I did 10 of those from 1991 through about 2015. And depending on how you count my contribution, I'm either 5 for 10 or 5 for 7 because there were 3, I left. Either they went out of business or actually I think all of them went out of business or got acquired by someone else. And then around 2015, I sort of said, what do I want to do? I had an opportunity to really reflect a little bit, I think I was just in my early fifties and I had an experienced at one of the start-ups that allowed me to basically become a coach, not knowing it at the time, of course, because I wasn't smart enough to know what I was doing.

Steve Rush: Right.

Bill Flynn: But I really remembered that experience. And I kind of said, how do I get more of that? I wanted that feeling of really being able to teach people how to fish, so to speak. So, I looked around, I looked at, I don't know, six or seven different kinds of methodologies if you will. And I had sort of made my own in that experience that I mentioned earlier, I didn't really have the confidence in, so I've never really been a CEO or a Founder. I wanted to have something that I could feel sort of backstopped me and my credibility. So, I picked one out of all the things that I looked at and began doing that around middle 2016. It's really when I go through certification and all that kind of stuff and learning and such.

And I've been a coach for four or five years, what do I do as a coach? I'm a leadership team coach. I don't do executive coaching necessarily, although it sort of is an off shoot of what I do. And what that means is I teach this framework, which I've modified a little bit from my experience and my research, but basically, it's a framework on three things, which we'll get into a little bit on my book of how to really build a healthy and thriving organization. There is a way to do it and it's been done over and over and over again, yet, most people don't know how to do it. We, do it differently and the stats show that the way we do it isn't necessarily the best way to do it. So, I'm about teaching people how to do that. So that's sort of my backstory.

Steve Rush: Awesome, and given the environment that we've been in over the last 12 months or so, how have you seen the role as leaders and teams change from your perspective?

Bill Flynn: I don’t think they've changed that much, at least on how you should be a good leader. And we should probably describe leader because people have different definitions of leader. To me, a leader is someone who has followers more than anything. It's doesn’t' necessarily mean you're in a position of authority because that's different. You can have authority and not be a leader. Leadership is, I'm a big fan of Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall a bunch of other folks. I'm a bit of a contrarian. I don't actually don't think leadership is a thing. I know it's a $15 billion dollar industry around the world, but there's no real definition of leadership, that's the same. Everyone has their own version.

Steve Rush: I agree.

Bill Flynn: But the thing that I've found, two or three things that I found that permeate and really flow through all of those things. One is what I mentioned is if you're a leader, you have followers and followership is really, I think the thing and followership is something that is voluntary, it's given. You, can't say, I'm your leader. People have to say, you're my leader. I choose you to be my leader. I choose to follow you. So, you have to give them a vision, a compelling vision, right? Because if you want to have someone follow you, you have to say, here's where we're going. Follow me here. And then lastly, I think you have to have courage. And that's the only attribute that, you know, they say humility and integrity and charisma and all this stuff. And, you know, I looked at that stuff and it's really different across leaders. You know, Gates is different than Malali is different than Jobs is different than Ballmer is different than the Della. They're all different.

You know, Buffet is a different kind of leader, but they're leaders, people follow them for some reason. But I think you have to have courage. You have to courage to be able to give up, right? make it about them and not you and risk some of that. You also have to have courage to follow that vision. A lot of people are going to tell you your vision isn't right. You have to have courage to do that. There's a lot of things you have to do. So, I think those three things really make the leader. So, if you do that as a leader, then I don't think it matters much except the platform that you have on how you use it. If you communicate well and you make it about them, and you care about these folks and you and I talked previously about really great leaders in the pandemic and what have they done, they made it about the other people. They said, look, I don't know everything. I'm going to gather information. But we're going to keep you informed. I'm going to make it so simple for you to understand. I'm going to tell you where we're headed and I'm going to ask you to sort of follow along. And those that did a really good job at that did a much better job so far in controlling the virus with COVID-19 and those people who didn't do that, or aren't doing that, we're noticing it. And we're now saying, wow, you're not really as good a leader as we thought you were because we're in trouble and we've got stark differences across the world on who's doing good job and who's not. So, I think that's what's changed, meaning we've seen it. But I think those that are really good leaders haven't changed their style at all. They've been doing the same thing. It's now noticed that it's more effective.

Steve Rush: And like you, I think leadership is a behaviour, It's not a thing, It's not a job. It's just, the way that you behave to encourage people around you to feel that safety and that courage to come on a journey with you. If we think about those organizations that will survive for the future versus those that weren't, what do you think the main reasons will be between the two?

Bill Flynn: Cash, I mean, that's really been apparent is that those people who have really understood how to generate cash or have cash in reserve, have been able to do things. Because if you have that, you know, cash is fuel. Most people I ask them sort of, you know, what's the purpose of business and they all make it about money. And I said, really, it's not really about money, is it? I mean, cash is fuel for your business, but your business should be about something else and you need the money to fuel the thing, right? You know, we don't buy cars in order to buy fuel. You know, we don't get a house in order to heat it, you know, and have electricity or whatever. It has a larger purpose, and I think too many leaders and runners of companies focus much more on that.

So, I think, you know, the ones that can come out of this really, of course, are solving a problem worth solving. It's certainly, it's more of a crucible now, right? That we're focused on just a few things. Those that were doing it already, you know, the US stock market is driven by five companies right now, that's it. You know, we go up and down based on Apple, Google, Facebook, I missed one. And I think that’s what we're seeing. If you weren't doing that, if you're not empathetic and compassionate for your customers and really understanding what their struggles are, then they're just not going to pay attention to you because they're pay attention to so many different things right now. So those two things, you got to have either access to cash or ways to generate cash. So, you can ride out this stuff. If you can't, then you have to be, I think compassionate, like Bob Chapman who runs, Barry Well Meyer who have several times, through to the 2008 crisis, you know, he lost 30% of his business, the entire group, and he could have laid people off and he never did, but he asked people to sacrifice for each other and they did. And they actually took things upon themselves. So, if you create that environment, that culture, that atmosphere, and you have the cash to be able to weather stuff like this, then you'll always be able, I shouldn't say you will always, you'll have a much, much better chance of being able to survive things like this. Cause this is, you know, this is horrible and it's different than the last two, but we've already had three crises like this in the last 20 years, right. We've had 9/11, especially in the US.

Steve Rush: Yeah

Bill Flynn: We've had 2008 and now we've had this, there's going to be another one. And statistics say every six to eight years, there'll be another downturn of some kind of some magnitude. You need to be prepared for. If you can do that, then you'll survive most things.

Steve Rush: What do you think the reason is Bill in your experience, that leaders don't put cash in that same category as other things that they would maybe plan for and think about?

Bill Flynn: Because we are enamoured growth, we were enamoured of top line growth. Revenue is vanity, and I'm sorry, but we are egotistic animals. And we like vanity, we like the social aspect and the emotional aspect of being seen as doing something important. And we measure and value revenue and revenue is vanity. You know, there's a great saying revenue is vanity, profit is sanity and cash is king, and that's true. I think revenue is great for bragging to your brother-in-law or telling a reporter how great you've done. But if you see revenue as the financial metric to measure your success, you're picking the wrong one, and that's what you do. And then you say, oh, we need to grow. So, we need to, we need to sort of take this risk with this money. A lot of the time it works out, but sometimes like this, it doesn't. And that's what you're seeing. Unfortunately, going out of business for completely unique to this pandemic, but many of them are going out of business because the light has been shown on them.

Steve Rush: Yep.

Bill Flynn: And we're seeing that they're just not very well-run companies underneath.

Steve Rush: So all of your learning and your career along with all of the start-ups and experiences you pulled together, you wrote the book Further, Faster. What was the inspiration for the book?

Bill Flynn: There were two things. There was an external inspiration, which were my coaching, colleagues and friends and my clients. When I say stuff, they'd look at me like it was different, right. They sort of said my perspective on things was unique to them. And I looked at it as, you know, my perspective isn't any different anyone else's, all the stuff that you and I do are based upon people that aren't alive anymore. You got Drucker and Deming and Shine and all these guys, and now we've got, of course Lencioni and Collins and Sinek. But we're just regurgitating the same stuff over and over again. There's not a lot new here. So, I was surprised, and I said, okay, well, that's interesting.

And the second was internal, which is. Having been through 10 start-ups and, you know, that's just almost masochistic, right? I just really found that it's a shame that really good people, really good leaders, really good businesses and really good ideas just fail or struggle for completely preventable reasons. There is a way to run a very healthy and thriving organization. There’re some other factors involved, but it's been proven over and over again for decades, if not longer. And we just seem to ignore it. We go back to conventional wisdom and intuition and, you know, I'm all for intuition, but there's something called a gut check, right? It's fine, go with your gut, but check it, make sure it's right. And make sure that there's data supporting what you're doing, at least in terms of the fundamentals of running your business. We don't do that enough, data shows that there's two sets of data, at least in US, that I've seen. There are basically the same, one is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and one from The Small Business Administration. If you start a business in 1994, you had a 50% chance of making it to 1999, five years, 50%. It was like a flip of a coin. But if you made it to 15, there are only 25% of the people that did that. And if you want to get to 20 or 25, it's 16. So, the longer you're in business, the less likely it is that you're going to stay in business, which is just a shame. And I know people choose and they retire or opt out or whatever, but even if you took those out, I don't think that that curve would change that much. And I want to do my best to help at least a small corner of the world that I'm in to not have that happen to them.

Steve Rush: Do you think that's complacency that causes that curve to narrow towards the longer period of time?

Bill Flynn: There's a saying that one of the biggest reasons for failure is success. Is that, you know, you think because you were successful before that everything in the future that you do will be successful, and that's true. I've seen that, you know, this is called Fonda Riotous in the start-up world, and I've worked with lots of folks and yeah, they just sort of feel like they can do no wrong and trying to guess what a massive people value and will pay you for. And then also be able to run an organization of completely crazy people. You know, we're crazy, right? People are nuts, people are impulsive, we're irrational, we just are. So be able to do that over and over again. If you can do that over and over again, you're pretty rare. And thinking that just the way you did it before is going to happen again, is wrong because the mix is different. Every time the mix is different and you got to be able to work from first principles. I'm a first principles guy. If you can figure out your first principles and go from there, then you can sort of bob and weave and figure out as you go, how to apply those principles. And, and we don't do that. We put our head down and we work and we never look out, you know, we don't predict the future as much as we should. And I think that's one of the reasons why we just say, oh, well, I'm really good at this. And we get comfortable and we just keep making the decision. And we think because we're making all these decisions where the answer, man, that it's good and it's not, you know, I keep telling my leaders, you need to fire yourself from the day-to-day, that's your job. Once you get through that knothole of figuring out and have some predictability and scalability of your business, you need to get rid of all of your day-to-day work as much as you possibly can, because your job is to figure out the next two, three, four years, not the next couple of quarters.

Steve Rush: Yeah, in your book, you focus on this quite a bit around specifically the CEO or the boss; they must fire themselves from their day-to-day work. And it's a really interesting philosophy because I bumped into somebody just recently, who has been a start-up engine, if you like for about three or four different organizations, but never been the CEO, because they're just not great CEOs, but in the leadership space, what would be the reason you would encourage CEOs to think metaphorically around firing themselves?

Bill Flynn: Well, so here's the deal, right? If you're going to grow your business, you have to predict the future and predicting the future is about innovation and creation and insight. And so, I asked this question, I'll ask of you to view is when do you get your best ideas, Steve, what are you doing?

Steve Rush: Daydreaming, thinking, walking, at the gym, but not at work.

Bill Flynn: Not at work and actually, I would say, you're not actually thinking maybe you're different than most, but most people it's, they're not thinking. They're actually letting their brain rest.

Steve Rush: Right.

Bill Flynn: A little bit, and that's the walk or the shower I hear a lot, or I'm on a run, just doing something else. And then somehow this insight is called the edge effect in neuroscience, where all of a sudden, a couple of different things have been floating around in your brain connect. And they actually physically connect in your brain, which is just really cool, the whole biology of it, really cool for me. And you know, there's axon and neurons and dendrites, and they actually connect to each other. And then this idea comes into your head. It's just the coolest thing. And so, if you're doing all the time, you can't do that. Your brain can't focus on more than one thing at a time, multitasking is a myth. Most of us have learned that, right? It's called context switching, and you go from one to the other, and there's a whole issue around the degradation of that, which we won't get into. So, I think you need to fire yourself the day-to-day because you need to be able to have these thoughts that come to you and, so you need to gather information. You need to go out and talk to your customers a lot more. You need to sort of roam around the business and talk to people and learn from outsiders, have an advisory board and capture all this information. So, when that thing happens, that insight happens. You've collected all this data already, and then you start making these connections and that figures out, where's our business going? What is this thing going to look like in the next two, three, four years? And you can't do that doing.

I was a speaker at Investige for a number of years. And I asked hundreds of CEOs the same question, which was, what percentage of time do you spend working in the business versus working on the business? And I would say the majority of the answers was 80% to 90% in the business. And then to 20% on the business. And I said, look, if you're going to make sure that you're not guessing on a regular basis, you need to stop doing that. You need to flip that ratio. So, you're spending a lot more time working on things for the future, which your two most important constituencies, which are your best customers, not all your customers, but your best customers and your top team, right? You're A, B plus and B players. Those are the people you need to focus on the most. If you can do that, you'll put yourself in a much better position to be able to predict the future. You don't get it right every time, but we don't do that. We got our head down. As I say, we looked down, we don't look out as much. We need to look out a lot more.

Steve Rush: Got it. You've taken the thinking of neuroscience and applied that to your work. And it's something that we both share a passion in. What's commonly referred to as NeuroLeadership, for our listeners listening in today, maybe you could just describe what NeuroLeadership is?

Bill Flynn: Yeah, I'll say one thing, but there is this great quote by Chris Voss, who I love, he’s written a couple of books and he says, “All humans should accept that we are all crazy, irrational, impulsive, emotionally driven animals, or all the raw intelligence and mathematical logic is fraught.” And when you have two people sort of interconnecting with all this irrationality and impulsivity and emotionally doing stuff, you know, you just have to understand that you have to know a little bit about how the brain works, because it doesn't work the way we think it does. It fools us on a regular basis. We have supposedly 150 unconscious biases that are broken down into five major categories, according to the NeuroLeadership Institute and its simplicity. So, we bias towards the simple, we'd rather have a simple explanation we think is better than a not simple.

Expediency, right? So, whatever it seems the fastest seems right. To us experience, we're much more likely to dismiss science because our experience is different. Even though our experience maybe an anomaly or certainly biased by our own needs and wants et cetera. The next is distance, we are biased to things that are more close to us than things that are far away and then there's safety, right? Which of course is a biological imperative. If we think we're going to die, we're much more likely to or be hurt in some way. We're much more likely to believe that. That's why there's a negativity bias. So, you need to, what's called lead with the brain in mind. If you understand that, then you'll understand that your job is to create the environment for people to use their brains, not to tell them what to do and take their brains out of the equation, because you can have, you know, if you have 200 people in your company and you can have 150 of them actually thinking for you and helping you to move the company forward, it's way better than what normally happens, which is a handful of you.

And that's it. And then you tell everyone else what to do. Jim Collins calls this the genius with a thousand helpers. I think there's a great phrase. You can't do that. You have to be able to say, I'm the genius at figuring out the future. Because I love doing that, but you know, you're much better at marketing than I am. You're much better at this manufacturing thing than I am. I'm going to trust you, but I'm going to tell you, you know, sort of where we're going, what we're doing and work with you to figure out how you can contribute to doing that. I think that's what NeuroLeadership means. You have to understand that we're all irrational, impulsive, and emotional beings.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Bill Flynn: If you understand that, then you'll be more compassionate, you'll be more thoughtful. And I think you'll be able to see it, this environment that you create is much more important than trying to figure out the answer to questions every day. You know, I keep saying you should, you should make one or two decisions a week as a leader. You know, we make dozens, if not hundreds of decisions a week, we shouldn't be making like, what kind of birthday cake should we do for the person in our group? Amazing stuff that we decide is important.

Steve Rush: It's very true. Isn't it? You talk about safety as being one of those key biases. And a, lot's been said about the whole principle of psychological safety, but it's an absolute key tenant of having the right behaviours so that you're thoughtful and compassionate to do the right things. So, if you could give our listeners a crash course on psychological safety and how to create that culture, where would you start?

Bill Flynn: So psychological safety is a term I believe was coined by Amy Edmondson, as far as I can tell, she's a person who acquainted. She has been studying this for about 20 years, I think. So psychological safety is basically is this. Creating an environment so that the people that are around you, especially your team, feels like they can screw up, admit mistakes, come up with crazy ideas without the fear of retribution or ridicule or scorn from others, either directly or indirectly. And if you can create that environment where people would just be themselves and not feel like they have to guard every thought and make sure that they're, you know, they're not looking stupid to their team, then you've created that environment, psychological safety. And then once you do that, then the magic happens, right? That's when all the really cool stuff, all those ideas, you know, you don't have to be the only one that comes up with the ideas of where to go.

You can get them from others. And as long as you've created this environment, and you've sort of put that roadmap of that vision of where we're going, then you'll recognize the good ideas. Because you're like, oh, that can actually get us. That's a better idea than mine, and that'll get us closer or that'll be a better way of doing something in your particular world. Because you know it better than I do, so you just need to create that environment, is really an atmosphere that you're creating. That people could really just be themselves, and then once we relax again, backs that thing, once we can relax and we're not worried about how people think about us, you know, Simon Sinek calls us the second job of work, which is lying, hiding, and faking, and if we can eliminate that and get them back to the main job of really contributing to the healthy growth of the business, then you've done a great job.

Steve Rush: What do you think the reason is Bill that leaders don't embrace this enough?

Bill Flynn: It's hard, right? It's trusting someone else. You know, we live in a world that we kind of value that, right? We kind of value the knowing stuff. And we think that in order for us to be valuable, we have to be seen a certain way. And so, it's all about winning for the person as opposed to winning for the team. There's this great story about a football team. American football team here, a college football team here in the States, it's called the Ohio State University. In the thirties, forties and fifties. They were a juggernaut. They were just really hard to beat. They were always in the hunt for the championship every year. And then they started giving away these stickers and they call them Buckeyes. Which is, I think it's a nut or something and they put them on their helmets, but they were for individual awards.

And over the sixties, seventies and eighties, they started to get worse and worse. And then this guy came in and I think his name is Jim Tressel. And he said, you know, we've got to create this team atmosphere. We're sacrificing our own individual rewards for that of the team or our unit. And so, he still used the buckeye thing, but he only did it when the team or that unit on the field, when the defensive unit, you know, how to sack. Everyone on the defensive unit, got a Buckeye when there was a great play that was executed on, whatever, special teams or whatever. Everyone got a Buckeye and then they started to become better and better. And they've now, they still do the same thing, Urban Meyer or someone is their coach. And again, they're back every year, they're in for the chance to be in the championship game. And actually, this year, I think they're in it. And it's because they've created this environment of being a team. You know, being a teammate is not being in a group. It's being part of something bigger than yourself. It's sharing the rewards or responsibilities, but also having each other's back. And when you can create that environment, it's amazing what people will do. We are tribal people. Let's leverage that right. Lead with the brain and mind, understand that we are tribal people. We want to work together. So, create the environment so we can in the most way, and I think you'll do a much better job as a team leader. And I do team leader in the large scope either if the organization, then you're a team of team’s leader. And then if you're in a particular group, you have a team. If you could teach people how to be really great team leaders. And I go into that a little bit, my book, and so does Amy Edmondson and hers called Teaming. And there are a few other people who talk about teams as well. You're just in a much better position and you'll do much better. So, I think that's true of what we're dealing with.

Steve Rush: I love that. One of the other things that you focus on with teams is helping them really stretch their thinking about the art of what is possible and you call these Bhag or Big Hairy Audacious Goals.

Bill Flynn: Yeah, Bhag is a term that was coined by Jim Collins. Made most famous by good to great, but I think he actually had it in an earlier book, but since Good to Great was such a bestseller. The term became a term of art. It's over 20 years old.

Steve Rush: Yeah, probably was actually.

Bill Flynn: Basically, it stands for Big Hairy Audacious Goal and being a contrarian than I am. I don't actually think it's a goal. I think it's more of a consequence than a goal because goals generally have some sort of measurable timeframe, et cetera. And the Bhag is sort of this thing that in the future, there's not really sure how you're going to get there, but this is how we would recognize it when we did. And that is, I think, sort of the combination or really the metaphor of the success, right? Of this vision that you have for the organization. This is a way to describe it in very specific terms. So, people can recognize that, hey, when we get there, we'll do this. There was a great company in Australia called RedBalloon. And they've been following this, they're doing this kind of work for a long time. So, they were an experiential gifting company, right? So, you didn't give away physical things. You gave away ballooning or jumping out of a plane or whatever. And they were tiny and they were in Australia and they were only in Australia. And so, they said, what would be the best? Like if we actually super successful, how would we know? And they came up with a numerical thing, which was, they wanted to have 2 million gifting experiences cumulatively. And they were like a few thousand, by the way, at the time. At the time when they did, they were only 20 million people in Australia. So, they wanted to be 10% of the population would be doing that. And so, a Bhag is a 10 to 30 year, according to Jim Collins sort of goal, somewhere in that 10-to-30-year timeframe, we will do this. We don't know how we're going to do it, but this will be it. And they did it in eight years. And I think that eighth year they'd push it up to 5 million. So, if you give people that, right, this, again, leading with the brain in mind. We'd love to have those targets, right? We love to be able to also see an experience and sort of recognize today, what's possible tomorrow because you've described it in such a vivid way. And the Bhag is a great way to do that. And we've seen lots of Bhags over time. You know, I think one Bhag, most people in the US know is, we will send a man to the moon and bring him home within the decade. And that was when we landed on the moon. That was a Bhag, right? We had to create new metals and also things that we didn't have before in order to get there. So, we had no idea how we were going to do it, but we said we were going to do it. And we put people on a task and human beings are wonderful, wonderful. If you give them something like that. If they have a passion for it, and it's amazing, the things that we can do, and we just need to create that environment. That's what the Bhag does. It creates something that's tangible.

Steve Rush: And in reverse, of course, the biases you talked about are the things that stop us, having the ability to think big, to move outside our comfort zone and to take those risks and to feel that psychological safety. So, we need to pay attention to that in ourselves, don't we? As well as when we lead.

Bill Flynn: Exactly, right. And this gets back to sort of this growth mindset and all the growth mindset means is you understand the power of yet, the word yet. I don't know this yet. I can't do this yet. And there are some things that you can't do, but most things you probably could if you put the time and the effort and the energy into it, and you really had the passion for it and the love for it. And we've seen this over and over again with people, especially, you know, just imagine. Lionel Messi, right? Which is probably the best soccer player ever. I mean, he had a great under fundamental talent, but man, he put in a lot of time and effort and he practiced a lot, but he almost quit when he was 15 from Barcelona, because they were trying to turn him into what they described as the ideal soccer player. And they wanted him to focus more on his right foot versus left foot. Most of us know that his left foot is just superior to his right and superior to everyone else's left foot as well. And they also wanted him to sort of stay in his lane and do his job, but that's not how he was successful, right? The reason he was really successful was he had a left foot that no one could touch. And he was able to see the field in such a way that he would put himself in a position where the ball was going to be. So that means he needed the ability to roam. And they said, don't quit. They said look, if you want to have your left foot be the main focus, you just got to be the best left foot in the game, let's focus on it. And they said, you know what, when you're on the field, we don't care where you are, just be dangerous. And that's what he did, right? And, you know, the story he is now 34, 35 years old.

Steve Rush: And I'm still dangerous.

Bill Flynn: Still dangerous. He started when he was 15, can you imagine he was doing this for 16, 17 years. So, I think that's a great metaphor for understanding being a leader, right? It's understanding the unique talents of each of your team members and then try to have them use those as often as you can every day, every week, every year. If you do that, they'll be happier, they will be more engaged. They'll feel more connected, you know, et cetera, create that psychological safety. That's why I think the NeuroLeadership thing is so important to understanding the brain is such a huge factor in creating a great organization and being successful.

Steve Rush: I agree, so this part of the show Bill is when I get to hack into your leadership mind and pull on all of the years of experiences. Now, given all of the vast experiences you've had, I'm going to ask you to narrow down what your top three leadership hacks could be?

Bill Flynn: Sure. I've got three, there in my book. And basically, there's a meaningful gap between what science knows and business does. We've already mentioned this a little bit. You know, I say challenged, conventional wisdoms. For instance, we're told often to talk to your customers and that's just wrong because it's valid, but not sufficient, I like to say. You shouldn't talk to all your customers. You should only talk to your best customers. The customers who love you and who you love, because you want to get to know them. So, you can find the next one like them, because their most profitable, they're your best referrals and references in the business. Other things like our learning, we just more recently in the last 10 years, understanding how the brain learns, yet still go back to the old didactic model, right? Where teacher stand in front of the class and fills you full of information. That's actually not how the brain learn. The brain learns in a completely different way. And my last one is feedback. I'm just not a big fan of feedback. I think feedback is a tool, but we use it as the thing, right? And to me, the thing that we want to do. Feedback as a tool for growth is to help others to improve. There's lots of great ways to help them grow and feedback is one of them. And I think it's actually one of the things you should use the least often, because there's this thing in neuroscience called reactants, right? Which is, I'll put it in terms of mask wearing. A lot of people don't wear masks just because they were told you have to wear masks, that's it, that's reactants. We are like, screw you. Don't tell me what to do. I know better. And we come up with reasons with freedom and CO2 is going to kill me or whatever, you know, we'll make up irrational reasons to support whatever we think is important. And that's the difference between science and just sort of conventional wisdom. And so, I think if you focus on the science of business and understand that there are real first principles and how to build a great business, and we've seen it over and over and over again and learn those and then see how they apply to your business and then create methodologies to help you apply those principles that work for you. The second thing is few things truly matter, but those that do matter, tremendously. Leaders do not spend enough time here. There are only a few things, and in my book is just three things, right?

It's created a team environment. Performance is a team sport. If you want to create a business that scales in a predictable manner, you have to think in terms of systems and processes, your business is just one big system made up a bunch of small subsystems. And if you can understand how those systems work, you'll be able to tweak them as they go. And by the way, if you fix one system, sometimes you break another one, right? If you fix the sales process, sometimes you break the delivery process because all of a sudden you can't deliver on time. If you fix the marketing process, sometimes you break the sales process and so forth. So, figuring out those two things. The last thing of my three, so it's team, it's creating the business operating system. And then the last is cash. It should be your primary financial growth metric.

To me, those are the few things that truly matter in business. And you need to figure out how to apply those in your business. And then lastly is, leaders rely too much on effort, luck, timing, and force of will to achieve quote unquote, success. These do not scale profitably. At some point, you're going to run out of hours in a day and energy, relying on yourself and a few people to make a business grow to a hundred, two thousands of people, just doesn't work. So those three things, meaningful gap between science, what science knows and business does, few things truly matter. But those that do matter tremendously and leaders rely too much on effort, luck, timing, and force of will to achieve success. Don't do it.

Steve Rush: Awesome, love that. Now this part of the show we Hack to Attack. It's typically where something's gone wrong in your life or your work. Indeed, it could have been catastrophic, but as a result of the experience, we now use it as a positive in our life or our work. So, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Bill Flynn: Yeah, so I've been a sales person since I was 22, 23 years old. And when I first became a sales person, I just became Salesforce by accident, to be honest with you. I was lucky enough to have a very well-connected family member in the Boston high-tech scene. And he got me a whole bunch of informational interviews. And one of them hired me, which is really cool. And they hired me as a sales guy. And I said, all right, I'll give that a shot. And they told me, here's what you need to be a good salesperson, right? You need to really know your product. You need to know it inside and out and so on and so forth. And you need to be able to relate to customers and all that kind of stuff, and I was terrible at it. Terrible, but I did all those things. I mean, I'm generally a pretty smart guy, I'm pretty relatable, most people like me. And I knew my product inside and out, but I was not good at it. And I looked at it and said, why? Why am I not good at this? All the things they told me to be good at, I am good at. But I'm still not selling. And I said, so there's got to be a next factor in here that I'm unaware of. So, I really studied it and said, what is the essence of selling? The essence of selling is helping someone else to make a decision. So, I studied decision-making. How do people make decisions? And then that's how I got into neuroscience, 15 years ago.

The brain makes decisions in a certain way. And you probably know this, but maybe your listeners don't. When a decision is made, most often the emotional centres of our brain light up first, and they actually light up often before we're consciously aware of the decision that we've made. And some people call this limbic system. There's a lot of controversy of the limbic system or not. I don't really know, but let's call it that for sake of argument. So, and your limbic system and decision-making system was designed before we really had language. So, we actually make a decision on an emotional level and then make up the reasons after the fact. And once I figured that out, I became the number one or number two salesperson everywhere I went.

Steve Rush: Awesome, yeah.

Bill Flynn: It's like a super superpower.

Steve Rush: I love that. And it's ironic, isn't it? That all buying decisions are emotional first and then logical second, but most salespeople start with that logical approach and features, benefits, advantages when actually the emotional triggers are the ones you need to be focusing on first.

Bill Flynn: Agree, there's this great theory called jobs to be done, which I love, which focuses on three things, which is the social, emotional and functional aspects of decision-making in the buying process. And all three are factors. Some out weight more than others and some before the others, but they're almost always the three of them in there or two or three of them in there. And if you notice, two of them are social and emotional, which are not something that we focus on a lot. And if you can really do a good job of that, you can actually create great products that you never even thought you should make. And people, you know, a lot of the things that I do are talking to leaders and saying, helping them understand their future, which is really interesting how to create a strategy. And I asked them, why do people buy from you? And they basically say, because we're awesome. Because we make great this, we do we do this, and their like, no, they don't. They don't really care about what you make. They care about what you do for them.

Steve Rush: That’s right.

Bill Flynn: Not what you do. And if you could figure out, how you make their lives better? How you fix a struggle or help them with progress? Then you'll actually create products and parts of products and services that support that, but we don't.

Steve Rush: It's interesting stuff. Really interesting. Last thing we want to do with you today, Bill is give you the chance to do a bit of time travel and you get to bump into yourself at 21 and give yourself some advice.

Bill Flynn: So, mine is, and actually this is funny Steve. I do this question a lot. I do an alignment question with my clients on a regular basis and alignment, meaning that these are things that they learn about each other that maybe they didn't know. And this is one of them, which is, if you go back in time, give yourself some advice and that would have made your life easier or better or accelerated, you know, your successors in some way. So, I've been doing this forever. So, I love this question, which is, to me, it would be to embrace uncertainty and to eschew certitude. I was brought up in a household that having the answer was more highly valued than asking a question and being unsure, sort of not being as comfortable. There's a saying, which I don't know if it's true, but I love it, which is that, you know, stupid people are always confident and smart people are unsure.

Steve Rush: I like that.

Bill Flynn: And you know, so you got to be comfortable holding two opposing ideas in your mind at once or more. One of both, maybe right, depending on the circumstance. And sometimes combining the best bits of each may also be right or more right. And if you sort of keep that in mind and not get stymied by it, right? Cause you can actually go into analysis paralysis. At some point you got to make a decision. I think if you can do that, you could say embrace uncertainty. You know what? This decision might be wrong. And if it is, then we'll fix it, but let's go ahead. We've got enough information, as much as we can particularly gather, let's just go with what we think is the best option, but know that we might be wrong either by hiring this person or making this product decision or bringing on this partner, whatever it is. And then if it is, then we'll fix it because we've got all this wonderful environment created around the culture and values and purpose and all those kinds of things. And we might find out that we're wrong and that's okay.

Steve Rush: Awesome.

Bill Flynn: We'll, we'll fix it.

Steve Rush: Bill, I could talk to you for hours and hours. Unfortunately, we're coming to the end of our time together today. But for the folks that are listening, who also want to continue the conversation with you, where's the best place where you can send them?

Bill Flynn: My website, which is catalystgrowthadvisors.com. And there you can find my email, my phone number, or you can actually set up a book some time with me, my book is on there. My book I give away for free on my site is if you just want to download the PDF, you can certainly do that. And more about the message than the money. If you want to buy it off Amazon, great. You can do it from there as well. There's a link to my Amazon audible on my website, but that's it. So, again, www.catalystgrowthadvisors.com.

Steve Rush: We'll also make sure those links are in our show notes Bill so that folks can head straight over and connect with you from here.

Bill Flynn: Awesome, thanks Steve. Appreciate It.

Steve Rush: Been amazing having you on the show, Bill. I wish you every success. It's no surprise that you have been so successful, some fantastic foundations and some fantastic learning you shared with our listeners today. So, we wish you all the best for the future.

Bill Flynn: Thank you, your very kindly.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

Further, Faster: The Vital Few Steps That Take the Guesswork out of Growth

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Described as a “Millennial trapped in a Baby Boomer body, a “hire authority,” and “certified prophet” of workforce trends. Ira Wolfe is the president of Success Performance Solutions. Ira is one of the world's top thought leaders and influencers, he’s author of six books, including his bestselling book Recruiting In The Age Of Googlization. This show is pumped full of hacks including:

The different value from working on the business vs. in the business
How to embrace the new VUCA
Antifragile: When we make a mistake, we learn from it and we become stronger.
The importance of not letting other’s opinions form your decisions

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Ira Wolfe below:

Ira Wolfe Website - https://www.irawolfe.com

SPS Website - https://www.successperformancesolutions.com

Ira on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/irawolfe/

Ira on Twitter – https://twitter.com/HireAuthority

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is Ira Wolfe. He's an accomplished speaker, author, global thought leader and president of Success Performance Solutions. Before we get a chance to speak with Ira, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Success from adversity is our focus for today. Thomas Edison was an American inventor and businessman who has been described as America's greatest inventor. He developed many devices in the field, such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording and motion pictures. Edison also demonstrated powers of leadership, which would rival any leader of any generation. I'm going to share a story today that just illustrates that. Even in the face of the most cruel adversity, Edison not only looked for the positive, but attempted to instil that attitude in his family and followers. And let's face it, we could all do with a little piece of that inspiration in us.

In December, 1914, Thomas Edison's factory in West Orange, New Jersey was virtually destroyed by fire. Although the damage exceeded $2 million dollars, the buildings are only insured for $238,000 dollars because they were made of concrete and thought to be fireproof and much of Edison life work went up in smoke and flames that December night. At the height of the fire Edison 24-year-old son, Charles was searching frantically for his father. And when he finally found him, he found him calmly watching the fire with his face, glowing in the reflection and his white hair blowing in the wind. When Charles finally found his father Edison, who was 67 at the time and no longer a young man, everything was going up in flames. Charles was quoted, “when he saw me, he shouted Charles, where's your mother”. And when Charles told him, he didn't know, he said, you must find him, bring hay with an excited voice. She'll never see anything like this, as long as she lives, Charles was confused by his enthusiasm at watching his entire fortune burn.

The next morning, Thomas Edison took his son Charles to the ruins of his empire and said, there is great value in this disaster my son, all our mistakes are now burned up. Thank God we can start anew. Just three weeks after the fire, Thomas Edison managed to deliver the first phonograph, which he called a phonograph record, which of course evolved into the gramophone, and the of course later the record player, Thomas Edison was able to see things definitely from most leaders in his day. He saw beyond the immediate disaster to find positives, and as leaders, the lesson here is that opportunity in adversity always is available, if we just look hard enough. So, thank you, Thomas Edison for a little bit of inspiration from over a hundred years ago. That’s been The Leadership Hacker News, if you have any stories, just like this one or others that will help us understand leadership with a different lens. Please get in touch our all fees.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Ira Wolfe is our special guest on today's show. He's the president of Success Performance Solutions. One of the world's top thought leaders and influencers, and also the author of six books, including his bestselling book Recruiting In The Age Of Googlization. Ira, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Ira Wolfe: Hey, thanks very much Steve. Really appreciate it and hope everybody's safe and well

Steve Rush: Delighted you could join us today, and what I really love about having guests like you on our show is that you come with this enormous amount of experience, but it's not one of the traditional troden leadership paths that some folk would experience. You started out your career as a dentist and then pivoted to what you're doing now. Tell us a little bit about how that came about?

Ira Wolfe: Steve, every time I hear somebody tell or frame that story, it sort of surprises me. Because I never looked at it in a way that I was making that dramatic change from dentistry to, the businesses evolve, business consultant or management consultant. Over time, I always looked at myself even as a dentist that I had a business and I just happened to be providing dental services. So, from early on when I set up the business it was about hiring the right team. It was about having a plan and a vision which certainly, you know, it changed over time. But having a plan and a vision, it was about marketing the practice. It was about messaging, it was about communication, was about customer service. So, every time I hear that and especially, someone abruptly left almost 25 years ago, I left dentistry, but after having a very successful practice, people said, well, what are you going to do? What do you know how to do? Are you going back to school? Is something wrong? And to me, it was just another chapter in my life. Certainly, we didn't have the internet when I started dentistry and, I don't have as many employees as I have now when I had a practice. But the reality is, my day-to-day operation of a business is exactly the same as it was when I ran my dental practice. And again, it was about leadership being part of a community. It was about helping other people, that's what I do.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I remember that when we spoke last, you know, you had a really successful dental practice by the way, and you were getting more excited by driving the business and developing people. And you actually were about the dentistry at the end, is that right?

Ira Wolfe: Oh, absolutely. We can go back. We were computerized in 1988 or 89. In fact we were one of the first 500 dental practices in the country, in the US at that time using the one software program that was dominate. So, there were multiple software programs, but it was pretty early on, but there weren't that many practices. There might've been a thousand practices in the country that actually were computerized, I had gone there. By early nineties we had those inter oral cameras where we were able to show people, you know, on a big screen, what was going on in their mouth. So, we didn't have to just describe it or try to look in a mirror, you know, a tiny little half inch mirror to be able to see that. So, I was always trying to advance. I love doing that. For those that are familiar with the disc assessment, the ISC or behavioural assessment.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Ira Wolfe: Myers Briggs. I had been using that, again in the eighties because we had 15, 16 people on a team. I brought in an associate, who became my partner, who I eventually sold to, but he had a very, very different personality than I did. And it wasn't that his personality was wrong, mine was right. We had different personalities, but that meant the staff had to work with two different people, customers, patients. They came in and they had a different rapport with me. And I couldn't be insulted because somebody preferred to go to him or he couldn't be insulted because somebody chose me. So, we needed to understand how do we relate differently to different people. So, we use the disc model. That was one of the reasons that when I left practice, was how to teach people how to do that, how to get teams to collaborate and cooperate and understand that conflict isn't always bad. Differences of opinion can be good and rewarding. And there are different personalities. And it doesn't mean that somebody doesn't like you because they say something some way, that's just the way they say it. They have to learn to change that. And you have to learn how to listen differently.

Steve Rush: So, having built this successful dental practice, was there a moment that you realize that now is the time to leave? And if so, how did that come about?

Ira Wolfe: Yeah, that's an interesting question. And now that I've had 25 years to reflect on that, I should have done it a lot sooner. From very early on, even in the first year of my practice, although I loved getting up in the morning, I spent a lot of hours planning. I was always working on the business. If for any of your listeners, and I'm sure you're familiar with the E-Myth by Michael Gerber. It was certainly a huge book when it came out 20, some years ago, but the E-Myth was about leaders and business people shouldn't work in their business. They should work on their business. So, I was always working on the business and I love doing that. Even as early as my first and second year of practice, I realized at one point I would probably consult. My vision was to consult other dentists and help them grow a successful business.

I quickly realized at the end of my dental career, and when I started the business, I really didn't want to limit myself to that. And two is, it wasn't necessarily technologically and technically. It was a very progressive industry, but the people that are in the industry, weren't so progressive, they sort of liked the status quo. They loved working in the business, not on the business. So, it was very difficult to coach and mentor and train many of the dentists. And again, I'm going back 25 years differently because they didn't see the need to do that. As long as they had a shingle outside and they can turn the lights on and off, they were in business, a lot has changed, but it's still a very independent profession. Many dentists are still solo. Again, I'm speaking mostly from the US but you know, even worldwide.

So again, I decided I didn't want to limit that, but I always had this vision of being in, you know, having another business or having my dental practice and being in business. But I pretty much burnt myself out. When I left the practice, I was actually working less than 20 hours a week and playing six rounds of golf. And I wasn't enjoying myself. I mean, financially, and from looking on the outside in, I had a great life. Got a nice home. I had a home near the ocean as well, had a second home there. I was playing lots of golf. I was a leader in the community. I just wasn't having a good time. I didn't enjoy it. I wrote in one of my books, how I dreaded Sunday, because it was only 24 hours from Monday, and that's not a good way to live.

Steve Rush: Definitely not. And it's also quite interesting when you start thinking of the whole enjoyment philosophy. It's incredibly important for our wellbeing, as well as our mental health to really enjoy the work that we do. Yet people still get stuck in just doing things and going through the monotony of work. What would you think causes that?

Ira Wolfe: We rationalized. When I look back is, I rationalize that this is just the way it is. We accepted that, I tended a ton of programs. Even before TED Talks, I was listening to the people, motivational speakers, and I'm going to botch this badly, but there's the saying that if you enjoy what you do, you never worked a day in your life. I can't remember who said that, but you get the gist of it.

Steve Rush: Definitely, yeah.

Ira Wolfe: I really enjoy what I do. And I did because I was always working on the business. What I didn't like doing was I didn't like to doing the dentistry, you know, in my TED Talks. I said I loved everything about dentistry, but dentistry. I finally realized that I wasn't very happy.

And the less I did, the more diversions I had, the more distractions I had but I couldn't take it down to zero time. You know, I had to at least show up at least for a few hours, but the plan I put in place was a dream plan for someone else. I built a dental practice that was a dream, which was exemplary. It's the example that they had, that how do you make a high six figure income while working less than 20 hours a week? Again, I worked more than that, but I worked on the business for the rest of it. But the 20 hours were patient care. Not that I didn't like the patients, I just didn't like the procedures. I didn't like the repetition. I love trying new things, but I wanted to try them once. When I got good at that, I wanted to move on, but the patients still needed their teeth cleaned and filled and you know, whatever else that needed to be done, I just got bored with it. But I rationalized going back to your original question. People rationalize, they just accept things as they are. And they look around and find other people that go, you know, life can't always be grand and work is hard. And, you know, you get the stories that somebody, you know, your father, your grandfather, you know, went to the coal mines and you think it was easy for them. So, we start a rationalize that, hey, that's just the way life is.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Ira Wolfe: And you don't want to look at a failure. You don't want to be a quitter. You don't want to look weak. So, we got to get over that, and I did, I certainly did.

Steve Rush: You more than just got over it. You've completely made a whole new career for yourself. You're now one of the world's top thought leaders. You're a blogger, you've written six books. So where do you get your self-drive, yourself energy, the passion, where does that come from?

Ira Wolfe: Oh, wow. I will say some of it comes from, it's got to be hereditary or environmental, you know, it's the old nature nurture argument. My mother is 97 and she lives alone. She she's becoming less independent, but, you know, the pandemic certainly restricted her travel and her activities, but she's incredibly active. And, you know, she's always interested in learning. And I guess that's part of my DNA was always learning, always interested in what other people were doing, always interested in how things are changing. So, I think that's the drive. I, you know, I'm certainly an older baby boomer. Most people don't recognize that, you know, and now using just using audio, you can't see me, but when people hear me, they don't associate that with my age or my outlook with my age, because most of the people that know, you know, I don't even like hanging around with my peers because my peers are talking about retirement, talking about going back to the way it used to be. Especially now with the pandemic, we can't get back the way it was. Not very progressive, not very future looking or future seeking. And I act like I have another a hundred years to live. Some of the people that inspire me the most are people in their twenties and maybe thirties. And they've started multiple businesses, they have multiple businesses. They're looking to transform the world to be better people to leave the world a better place than it is now, which was the boomers, you know, in the seventies, when I grew up, that was the boomers. We’re going to leave the place a better place than it was before. And we didn’t it definitely did not. And so, again, I'm hoping that I can fix a little bit of that, but I'm only one person.

Steve Rush: In fact, you have been described, haven't you? As a millennial trapped in a baby boomers’ body?

Ira Wolfe: Yeah, that's absolutely right. And, again, I got that because somebody coined that. I've walked into a meeting and I introduced myself and they looked stunned. It was like, oh did I say something wrong? And they said, no, we were just expecting, you know, we've never, you know, I saw your picture and you look younger. I just never expected somebody, you know, older to be walking in with the attitude and the mindset and the tone that you had. So, they said, you're like a millennial trapped in a baby boomer body. And I go, I like that. I'm going to keep that if you don't mind,

Steve Rush: But it's a perfect example right. Of how our mindsets are good. And I've studied for a number of years, the different ways that different generations have behave. And whilst there are certain similarities, the one thing that is common, where you see people break out of these generational labels is down to mindset, their thinking in their behaviours, and you're a perfect example of that. If there were people listening to this who feel more associated to their natural generalizations of this is my generation, I'm an X or Y a millennial or a baby boomer. Is there anything that you would say to them that would help them get out of that?

Ira Wolfe: One of my books before “Recruiting In The Age Of Googlization” which was supposed to be a sequel to “Geeks Geezers and Googlization”. So, I wrote Geek Geezers Googlization in about 2007, 2008, it was published I think in 2008. And it was about the four generations. At that time, it was the veterans, which was anybody older than 1945, baby boomers, gen X which was born between 1965 and 1980, and then millennials. And the millennials were really coming into the workforce and everybody was focused on the millennials. So, I wrote a book about the four generations, but also looking at technology that the technologies that existed in the backdrop also shaped our lives. And, you know, at the time, I mean, in you know, if we go back two decades now, but in around, let's say 2005, 2006 the economy was booming. Internet was starting to come into its own. And the millennials were entering the workforce. So, everybody blamed everything that went wrong on the millennials. They blame the recession, they blame the attitudes that millennials weren't hard workers, and they weren't educated. And so, I wrote the book and I found myself being a little bit like everybody else sort of condemning the millennials, but I put it in the context of Googlization. Googlization is just a term that I came up with. That meant the convergence of the wired, the tired in technology. Now I've refined that a little bit. Googlization is the convergence of business people and technology, and we can't do one well without the other. So, when we look at the generations, I think the wired and the tired is a better definition than talking about millennials and baby boomers like myself.

I mean, again, an older baby boomer, I am completely wired. You know, I could not function without technology. And I don't know if I want to, because you know, now, especially with the pandemic. Even my doctors have adapted to Telehealth, why do I have to travel an hour for an appointment? Sitting in the reception room. Take another hour out of my day to have a 10-minute appointment where they say, how are things going? Why can't I do that by Telehealth?

Steve Rush: Exactly.

Ira Wolfe: Look at the vaccine. Well, you're in the UK, the vaccines came out just recently. They're on their way in the US. It is remarkable how quickly we were able to do that. I don't know, I want to live in a world without technology. Yet there are people that just despise it. That it's bad, it's pushing people out of jobs. No, we're just evolving. So, I think, you know, I think that the label of generations, oh, you're a millennial. You must be good with technology. Oh, you're a baby boomer. You must be old and ready for retirement. I think the labels are bad. The mindsets are critical.

Steve Rush: Definitely, definitely so. Now folk who are going through change would recognize that back in the nineties, the US military came up with the philosophy of VUCA, which for those that are not familiar with it, that's the whole volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, much of the work that you're involved with now, Ira is helping people through that change, but you've kind of reframed the VUCA to a different acronym. Tell us a little bit about what you've done.

Ira Wolfe: Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah VUCA, which stands volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous again I did not come up with that, US military did. After the Berlin wall came down and they recognize that future Wars will not be with nation States, such as they were with world war one, world war two. And every war prior to that, that many of our enemies would be using cyber warfare. We would be terrorism which can’t be cyber war, certainly cyber warfare as well, but other forms of terrorism. So, we wouldn't be fighting countries. We would be fighting these got a nine the scrip enemy, and they needed a different strategy and they recognized our world would be volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, which I can't think of a better acronym than VUCA to describe 2020, but it's certainly there.

The challenge is that it's not a one-time event. It is the environment which we live in, and it becomes more uncertain, more complex, more ambiguous with time, but people aren't comfortable with that. We used to live in a linear world.

Steve Rush: Yeah right.

Ira Wolfe: And now everybody's familiar with the term exponential, and they could look at a graph and they can say, oh, that's an exponential curve because that's the world we live in. We live in this world that we're always sort of on the uptick, on the hockey stick up swing, that the world is just moving very, very fast. So, the question is, is how do we help people? And this is what I've been, especially working on over the last year. I've been working on for the last many years, but this year it's sort of honed in, especially because of the pandemic. And it was, how do we help people gain the confidence and the courage? How do they have a more hopeful, positive attitude toward the future? And not just change itself, but changing for the better. Taking advantage, another way I phrased that, I read somewhere else that I don't remember where I read it, but I wanted to give them credit. Was how do you seize opportunity in the right way? And there's a lot of people that just don't recognize that there's a tremendous amount of opportunity that this pandemic has created. And again, it was a convergence of people, technology and business that has done that. So, the new VUCA that came up, we still need a vision. We still need a purpose, whatever that might be. It could be something as simple as wanting to take care of your family, or it could be saving the world. You know, making sure everybody has self-care or clean water or everybody, or we eliminate literacy, but everybody has a vision, a plan for their life. We then need to get a better appreciation, a better understanding for the environment we live in. And even this conversation of helping people understand what VUCA is and the world we live in. And it doesn't mean they're bad, but people need to change their behaviours. So, vision and understanding still is, you know, is the beginning of the VUCA, but the C is really having the courage, having the confidence to move forward. We need to help people become more comfortable with uncertainty and they have to have the courage. And in order to do that, you're probably familiar Steve with it, but some of the readers may not.

There's a concept called fixed and growth mindset. It was the developed by Carol Dweck, D-W-E-C-K. You can look it up. She's got some books, there's a million articles written on it, but what fixed mindset is something that I overcame and, you know, I was a good student, I did well. But then at some point you stop taking chances because you don't want to take a course that you get a B or a C in, because that may make you look stupid.

Steve Rush: Oh, sure.

Ira Wolfe: People think you get an A, so if you get a C it's because you didn't try hard enough, or, hey, maybe you're not that smart. So, we go through life. Our parents, our teachers, our businesses, program people you have to always be perfect. You always have to get that A and when you look around and what Carol Dweck study showed is that many valedictorians, many of the top of the class, weren't the most successful people in later years. Some other people were just average students who were willing to take chances, willing to make mistakes and then learn from those mistakes. So, the growth mindset is giving yourself permission to learn permission to make a mistake.

And that was something that, you know, I had a reputation to guard. I would always deem to be the smartest students. So, you know, what if I take a class or what if I try something and I fail at it, or it takes me two or three times to succeed. I don't want to do that. People need to overcome that, especially now. There is no other option. You have to have a growth mindset. You need to do become a little bit more adept at, you know, we talk about critical thinking. What does that mean? At least in the US I use the example of you turn on CNN or MSNBC and Fox News, you turn on two opposite points of view, and it's not your decision to decide which one is right. Find out why both might be right and find out why both might be wrong. You know, what is it? Is that they had in common? People often say this, we often have more similarities than differences. And if you listen intently to the news, coming from two different points of view, much of it is the same. It's just the interpretation that's different. And how do we make sense of two opposite points of view? So, you know, how do we develop the courage and the confidence to move forward? We need to give to permission to ourselves to make mistakes and learn from them. And then the final A, we need to become adaptable. That's what I've been working on over the year. Adaptability, I work another group. Tt wasn't me who developed it but through pretty extensive study and science using an adaptability quotient to find out where people, you know, what's their grit? What's their courage? How do you help people improve that courage to keep moving forward? We talk about resilience. It's the ability to bounce back, but we don't want to bounce back to the way we were. You know, some people may be thinking they want to go back to 2019 or go back to 2010 or I hear a lot of my peers, you know, talk about why don't we go back to the simpler days and the simpler days, weren't so good. Especially if you were people of colour. They weren't so good if you were in certain minorities. They weren't so good because we had two world Wars and we had Vietnam and things weren't always so good in the past. We only want to remember the positive thing. So, we need to learn grit and resilience and mental flexibility and growth mindset. And we need to unlearn. The other part of adaptability is unlearning. It's sort of like, defragging your hard drive. I just did that the other day because I was getting a warning. You were running out of space and I go, that can't be, I've got a terabyte. And the challenge is I keep downloading things. I've got videos, I produce a lot of videos. I have images, I've got articles I want to read. You got a terabyte of space which is our brain. And we just save everything, thinking that we're going to need it someday, and eventually you got to clean it out. And that's what unlearning is, unlearning is not forgetting, you know doing a brain dump and go boy, everything I learned in college and 30 years of experience is useless. It's reorganizing it, getting rid of what's obsolete or archiving what's obsolete and making room to learn something new. When we talk about the solution for VUCA, you know, the modern vision is vision, understanding, having courage and confidence and adaptability. But the way to get there is to develop our grit, resilience, mental flexibility, mindset, and unlearn, and the good thing about those are skills, those are abilities, and we can teach people how to do that.

Steve Rush: Straight out of the bat. I love that reframe by the way, the irony here of course, is a lot of what you've talked about around the learning and the unlearning. That's habitual, isn't it? So, for people, who've got these strong foundations, it's going to take practice and habit to unlearn some of that stuff too.

Ira Wolfe: I said this tenaciously. And I didn't even realize I said it. It might've been an accident, but I was listening to a podcast that I was on the other day. And I said, there is no four-year degree, for unlearning.

Steve Rush: That’s true, yeah.

Ira Wolfe: And maybe there should be, maybe we need to teach people how to unlearn.

Steve Rush: I think you are right. I think it was Yoda who famously said, do you have to unlearn what you have learned? Right. And it’s kind of made it kind of way into the forefront of our minds, but it is a skill to unlearn stuff, as much as it is to learn. It's breaking down those habits.

Ira Wolfe: We need to learn what we need to unlearn first of all. So, you know, we need to learn to unlearn, but we also need to unlearn. So, the reality is that there are things that just don't make sense anymore. It was Einstein, if we keep doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result, that's the definition of insanity. Yet, we do that. We say, no, no, no, we're smart. We got room in our brain. We can learn one more thing. So, we learned something that a better way to do it, but it conflicts with the way we used to do it. And now we have this decision to make. Which choice? Do I do A or B? And the fact is, A should have just been archived, then go, good memory. Let's close the chapter on that. It worked for a while. We just need to stop doing that. It's sort of like the broken toaster that the one side works, but the other doesn't.

Steve Rush: I love that analogy.

Ira Wolfe: So yeah, it's still works, but it takes us twice as long to get it. And by the time we get the first piece of toast out, and the second one in, the first piece of toast is cold and it's hard. So, we need to learn how to become more efficient, to do things better. And that's really what my goal is. And that's why I'm excited because there are millions of people and the estimates, world economic forum, and a few other organizations, you know, they're talking about 375 million people being left behind.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Ira Wolfe: Because of the pace of change and some of that's due to economics, some of it's due to education, some of it's due to the job skills they have, oftentimes it's a combination of both. But there's 375 million people that are in danger of being left behind, in addition to all the people that are already in poverty or already out of jobs and they need re-skilling. There's a lot of work to do. And that's you know, that's what excitement, I mean, that's why, as I said, you know, in the late sixties, I'm acting like a millennial trapped in a baby boomer body. I'm thinking I can conquer the world. My body doesn't always want to cooperate on that, but my mind is still going pretty strong.

Steve Rush: And the good news is, we're not going to run out of things to do. There's always going to be a bunch of people who need help and assistance through that.

Ira Wolfe: Yeah, that's the great news. That's the opportunity that people miss. This was an interesting statistic and I just found this yesterday. In the US, now I can't speak beyond that, but in the US for 2020, this crazy pandemic year, there have been 12% more businesses opened than in the prior year than in 2019, which was a boom year. 2020 has seen 12% increase of new businesses classified under what they call high propensity businesses. Those aren't just people working at home, selling Etsy, or you know, making a living on social media is bad. But those are businesses that created a company and hired staff, 12% increase. We don't read that in the media.

Steve Rush: No.

Ira Wolfe: We read about all the people who are unemployed and all the business that went bankrupt.

Steve Rush: That’s our unconscious mind also, isn't it? Looking for news stories that are more catastrophizing the situation than there is to look for things that are more positive. That's just the way that the news channels and media work, I guess.

Ira Wolfe: Absolutely, but regardless there is tremendous opportunity out there. And the good news about living on an exponential curve is there will always be new opportunity because we're always going to be learning and unlearning, and learning and unlearning. There is always going to be something new to be able to do. So, if people can become more comfortable living in an age of uncertainty, they have the courage and the confidence to go forward and give themselves permission to make mistakes. Again, the future looks bright

Steve Rush: And on the note of learning and unlearning, I'm now going to hack into your leadership mind. So, this part of the show is where we get to really get some instantaneous quick hints and hacks if you like from our guests. So, Ira if our listeners will be listening to this, what would be your top three leadership hacks that you would share with them?

Ira Wolfe: We've already mentioned probably all of them, but the first one would be growth mindset. Again, just read an article, just understand that. Just figure out, what haven't you tried? What have you resisted? Because you didn't think you were smart enough. You didn't have the money. It wasn't the right time. And yet the real reason was, I don't want to make a mistake. I don't want to be a failure. So, I think number one is having a growth mindset. Number two is learning to adapt and that's part of it. The growth mindset part of it. But the learning to adapt is bigger than that. We mentioned resilience, the ability to bounce back, you don't want to bounce back. You want to bounce forward. There is a concept out there. And again, I'll throw this term out there, relatively new in my vocabulary called antifragility. And it is by not allowing ourselves to make mistakes. By business this has become popular. Six Sigma lean manufacturing, total quality management, the zero defects. We need to be efficient and not make a single mistake. That has squeezed out, it has out grown, it has hurt people, it has hurt companies and people thinking about innovation. So again, learning to adapt, learning to become not just resilient, but antifragile. Antifragile means we get stronger. When we make a mistake, we learn from it and we become stronger. So, Antifragility is probably the second one. And the third is, and this is just the leadership. We always need to help other people. And again, my focus is helping other people adapt, but you may have a different one. But find out, we live in a big world. A lot of people need help, we could be a good citizen in the global community we live in. So, you know, find something you're passionate about and help others.

Steve Rush: Great lessons. Thank you for sharing those. The next part of this show, we call Hack to Attack. So, this is a situation or a time in your work or your life where it hasn't panned out. As you were planning, maybe it hasn't gone well at all, but as a result of the experience we've learned from it, and we now use it as a force of good, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Ira Wolfe: Sometimes you just need to give, again give yourself permission. I stuck way through long in my dental career, because I didn't want to look like it was giving up. I should have gotten out five or ten years earlier and giving my myself permission to be able to do that or plan it differently. What I did was I hung in there as long as I could, and then just got burnt out. And six months later I was gone and it took me a few years to recover because I thought I would be continuing to do that for so long. And overnight almost like the pandemic within six months, I just got out and started a new business, but it was without a plan. I didn't have a vision of what it was going to be. And fortunately, I had a unique position. Like people, some people in Corporate America do, they had a severance plan. I had a buyout, I mean, I had equity in my business, so I sold it. So, I think people have to plan ahead a little bit. What's the next chapter in your life? There are no more 30- or 40-year careers.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Ira Wolfe: So just give your permission and think ahead what you want to do.

Steve Rush: I liked the reframe of the next chapter. It almost gives you that unconscious permission to say, that's the natural thing to do.

Ira Wolfe: Yeah, my next chapter is not my, you know, I mean, they always say that my peers are looking at retirement. You know, why don't you retire and enjoy life? And I go because I'm having a ball. And I look around at people who have entered into their final chapter or the winter of their lives, and I'm not ready to do that. And there's a lot of people, there are some entrepreneurs in their eighties and nineties. They're amazing, amazing people. And hopefully that'll be me.

Steve Rush: Good for you too. The last thing that we want to do is do a bit of time travel now and give you the opportunity to bump back into Ira when he's 21, and you got a chance now to give him some advice, what do you think you'll say?

Ira Wolfe: Wow, at 21. I know what my wife would say. I shared with you earlier. We were high school sweethearts. And basically, we broke up in high school. It was always a regret that we had that we sort of lived separate adult lives. If there's something you want and you're passionate about, go for it. Don't let other people's opinions, make your decisions, listen to them. I'm not saying ignore people who have a difference of opinion, except them. But it's your life, and if I look back to, I was 21, I actually thought of changing my career to business. And I was persuaded out of that. I eventually got back into it obviously, and I can't say dentistry was a waste in all those 20 years between 21 and 45 were a waste. You know, again, I learned some things, but I probably could have had a different life and a different opportunity, who knows. I mean, you can't second guess that, but if I went back to 21, I would just say, if you have a vision, go for it.

Steve Rush: Awesome, so before we kind of close off today, if our listeners wanted to get to know a little bit more about the work that you're doing, Ira, you talked about the fact that you've developed this adaptability quotion and some assessments that come with that, where's the best place we can send them?

Ira Wolfe: The number one place to me would be if you're on LinkedIn, go to LinkedIn. I share a lot of information on there. Some of it's my own, some of its other people. I also contribute to a lot of other people's work as well. So, that's one place, but my website, my company website is successperformancesolutions.com. You can learn a lot about what I do in the business there. I have in a very active blog, several times a week. There's a new post. I also have my own podcast, Geeks Geezer And Googlization Podcast. Everything gets posted on there as well. So, successperformancesolutions.com is one place. You can also go to Ira Wolfe that's I-R-A W-O-L-F-E.com. And you can see some of my other personal work that's up there.

Steve Rush: We will make sure all of those links Ira are in our show notes and on our website. So, folks can literally just click in and follow you from there.

Ira Wolfe: Well, I appreciate that very much. And I I'm very open to connecting. I've also got an active YouTube channel, which is youtube.com, IraWolfe/IraWolfe. So many different ways. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here. They said the messages 2021 even by the economist’s points of view, it's going to be a very positive year, a year of growth, a lot of opportunity out there. We need to bounce forward and hopefully some of the advice we gave today will help everyone. Thanks very much Steve, appreciate it

Steve Rush: Without a shadow of a doubt Ira. And thank you on behalf of our listeners, joining us on The Leadership Hacker Podcast today.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handle there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

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Shawn Johal is a scale up expert, entrepreneur, business growth coach, author, and leadership speaker. Hack into the key leadership and personal success habits with Shawn on this show including:

Scaling up mentality is a mindset
The four laws for “The Happy Leader”
Habits at the start and the end of the day
Unlocking the value of “community”
Plus load more habits to hack!

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Shawn Johal below:

Shawn Johal Website – https://www.shawnjohal.com

Elevation Website - https://elevationcoach.ca

Shawn on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnjohal/

Shawn on Twitter – https://twitter.com/Shawnjohal

Shawn on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/shawnjohalcoach/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Shawn Johal is a special guest on today's show. He's an entrepreneur, business growth coach, author, and leadership speaker on a mission to help you find the keys to a happy and successful life. But before we get a chance to speak with Sean, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we explore the theory of gratitude. Now the pandemic has made us wary, and while it might be cathartic to make a list of all that we've lost, all that we've tried and all that we want to leave behind. Expressing gratitude is actually a better idea. And it's a powerful, positive force. Far from a fluffy or frivolous concept. It has real impact on physical health, emotional wellbeing, motivation, engagement, and performance. So, here's why gratitude is good and how to bring more of it into your day.

Most of us are impatient with the pandemic and 2021 has arrived and the pandemic is still here. We're thrilled to usher in a new year, but we're going to need to wait a little bit longer to get life back to something closer to what it was before. The good news is that gratitude itself can actually reduce impatience and a study published in the Psychological Science found that when people focused on being thankful, they were more likely to able to demonstrate patients. In addition, the study published in The Review of Communication found that gratitude has a positive impact on our mental health and emotional state. Optimism, as an example, as well as physical health, it also predicts behaviours such as helping others and exercising. All of this means that gratitude may just be what we need at the moment while we're either hanging on to what comes next or we're attracting towards the light at the end of the tunnel. Regular listeners who have listened to episode 18 with Nic Marks, Hacking Happiness. We've also found that gratitude is the root of all happiness. It tends to focus on what you have and replace a sense of what you might be lacking. According to some philosophers, you can't feel both grateful and unhappy. So, when your mind focuses on all, you're thankful for, you’re more likely to feel joy. In addition, when you're more grateful, you tend to focus on being more present, appreciating them now, and this of course can reduce to a sense of yearning and anxiety about the future.

Philosophers have also suggested that it's a gateway emotion and it's suggested as the greatest virtue because it tends to lead to so many others. For example, an appreciation of someone can grow into love, gratitude for what you have can lead to greater satisfaction over you, loving your work and can lead to improve performance. So, here's my five top tips and how you can build and cultivate gratitude.

Number one, begin and end with intention. Start each day by thinking about all you appreciate and expect from the day. And as you go to bed at night, think and consider all you're grateful for.
Number two, give continuous attention. Throughout each day, find those small things that you can be thankful and grateful for. Perhaps you've made yourself a great cup of coffee, or you've had a really nice conversation and avoid taking those things for granted, make everything count.
Number three, be expensive. Ensure you're focusing on being grateful and not just grateful for things, but for people and the environment and conditions around you. Perhaps you particularly appreciate the headphones that you might be wearing to listen to this or the ability to walk, see, the senses that we take for granted around you.
Number 4, write it down. Research at Kent State University found that when you write down the elements that you're grateful for, that simple act can foster the happiness and wellbeing in itself. And this is probably true, because it causes us to pause, focus, reflect, and reinforce our positive experiences.
And number five, express yourself. Gratitude is both an individual and a team sport. So, when you share what you're grateful for in a team environment, it holds even more power. Thanking a co-worker in a team meeting or providing positive feedback to colleagues during the project as an example. So, when gratitude is expressed and shared, it helps both you and the group.

And let's just remember gratitude is good, it has plenty of positive effects. It could be what you, your family and your team need just to stay present, be attentive through the next stretch of this pandemic marathon that we're all experiencing, so here's a challenge. Head over to our social media and let us know what you're grateful for today. So that has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any insights, stories, or information, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Shawn Johal. Shawn an entrepreneur, a business growth coach, a leadership speaker and author of The Happy Leader Guide. Shawn, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Shawn Johal: Thank you so much Steve. Very excited to be here today.

Steve Rush: Me too. We've had an opportunity to get to know each other over a couple of conversations, and I'm incredibly excited about sharing some of those conversations with our wider listeners, but before we do that, perhaps you'd give them a little bit of a backstory as to how you arrived to doing what you are doing?

Shawn Johal: Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Excited to talk about it. Basically, on my end, I immigrated from England over to Canada when I was a much, much younger. I bring it up because I think it's important to put it into context. And I grew up with a family who was very much believing in loyalty, staying at the same company for many, many years. My father worked for Rolls-Royce, England, and he transferred to Rolls-Royce Canada. My mother worked for Nortel before the big crash. And I remember my parents always telling me when I was growing up, that it would be very important for me to find the very stable job, something that I can stay at for, you know, 25, 30, 35 years. And I even remember my dad showing me his gold watch when he had done 30 years of service at Rolls-Royce. Saying that, you know, one day son, you may have the opportunity to have, you know, get the same type of watch as I have if you stay at the same company forever. And so, I kind of grew up with the mentality that I needed to find a stable job and work in the corporate world and not necessarily adventure in through entrepreneurship. So that was my mentality growing up, you know, trying to find something a little more stable. And then I met my wife, my future wife, we're married to now and her family were very, very entrepreneurial. And they started teaching me a lot about business. You know, being a business owner, understanding how to launch a business, how to own a business. And that was really where things took off for me. And I started realizing there was this whole other world out there. And so basically, after leaving the corporate world, I was working at Rubbermaid. I'm sure that a lot of listeners know about Rubbermaid, pretty large global company, $8 billion dollars. I was a district manager there.

I was invited to join the family business and it was and led lighting business. My father-in-law had taken it public and it was fast growing, very fast growing, mergers and acquisitions. And so, I came in there as a sales manager and not part of ownership, but really having more of an entrepreneurial feel to it. Unfortunately, what happened was that during the 2006, 2007 recession, my father-in-law bought a company that probably wasn't the perfect fit for the business. The recession hit, which was terrible for the business and for the family. Within a year, our business that I've grown to 50 million in revenue, came from a crashing down. It was a very, very tough time for the family.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Shawn Johal: But the good thing was that during, you know, in every big challenge there's opportunities and my brother-in-law and I, at that point had a chance to buy back three of the different divisions. We were able to relaunch this led lighting business in our own way, and we've been growing ever since. So that was in 2009 and the businesses are continuing to go strong today in 2020.

Steve Rush: It's through that kind of scaling up mentality that you've really started to deploy all of your learning. But now also share that as an entrepreneurial and business growth coach with other people, right?

Shawn Johal: Exactly. In 2013, we hit a really bad wall as a business, so many things were going wrong Steve, I can't even tell you. We had no processes. We had the wrong people in the wrong seats. We had absolutely no strategy, no product development. And it really became ethically clear to me one day when we were sitting in our office and we had two customer service people who were working at a desk, but we didn't have enough money to afford a receptionist. And basically, they would look at each other when the phone would ring and neither one wanted to answer it because they were both really disgruntled employees and not, you know, at the right seats. And so, phones would ring. I knew they were customers and the phone would ring 10, 12 times, and neither person was willing to answer it. And that's when my business partner and I looked at each other and said, you know what? We have a really big culture problem in this business. At the same time, our biggest competitor launched a product line. They basically took our catalogue, stole all 150 products that we had in the catalogue and priced them at a dollar less in the market using the same suppliers as we use. And these were people that were part of the previous business. So, it was probably the worst backstabbing feeling I could ever have imagined in my life. These people are like brothers to me.

Steve Rush: I bet.

Shawn Johal: Yeah, and that was when we decided to take on scaling up. And we had an opportunity to read the Rockefeller Habits. In those days the scaling of book hadn't come out yet. And we found a coach and then we implemented the methodology successfully in our own business.

Steve Rush: And it continues to grow to this day, and as part of that Shawn. One of the things I've known about you for a while and come to really respect is the discipline, rigor and habits that you apply in order to make your life successful. And I wanted to get into a couple of those. So, in terms of scaling up. There are kind of four pillars to that, aren't there? That’s strategy people, execution and cash. Maybe just tell us a little bit about how that plays out in your business today and how you coach others?

Shawn Johal: Absolutely. What we noticed is that those four pillars really represent every business. The four key things every business owner should be really paying attention to. When we go into businesses, as much as my business, as any other business, we'd like to do a diagnostic where we go in there and really understand, okay, what's going well and what's not going well, you know, do you have a long-term goal that's nonfinancial? Do you have the right execution in class with being methodologies and processes? You know, how's your cash flow? Do you have good liquidity and everything that you're doing? Really those are the types of things that we go in and we analyse right from the beginning. And most importantly, do you have the right people in the right seats? And that's something that becomes incredibly clear very easily. So, once we get in there, we do that diagnostic. It's really easy for us to understand where the business is strong and where the business has certain weaknesses. And usually, we'll start off with a couple of strategic days to really build the vision of the business. You know, we'll go with that BHAG from Jim Collins, the big, hairy, audacious goal. We'll build that really cool vision long-term then get into three-year capacities, one-year priorities and the 90-day plan, really helping the business focus on execution the right way. And we'll start fixing things little by little, you know, we can't take it all in one big bite. We've been doing scaling up for seven years in our business, and we're still going strong. I've never seen a business not succeed by doing scaling up. The only times it doesn't work is when a business owner is either too stubborn to let other people share and have their own ideas or the business owner doesn't have the discipline required to implement the methodology. So those are the only two times where it doesn't really work.

Steve Rush: And of course, scaling up will never stop if you have the right mentality and the right disciplines and right approach.

Shawn Johal: Exactly, you can just keep going and going. Now, obviously it really depends on what you're looking for. I think some entrepreneurs get a little afraid when they see scaling up. Everybody wants to grow, but I don't believe in growth for the sake of growth. I think you need to have what I like to call profitable growth. I really believe in profitable growth since we've been doing scaling up in 2013, we've never had a month in the red. We've never once in those seven years.

Steve Rush: Wow, that’s great.

Shawn Johal: For us, that's what's most important. But even though we're growing at a really great pace, you know, anywhere between 10, 15, 20% a year, depending on the year. We're very careful to make sure that bottom line is always staying where it needs to be.

Steve Rush: That's consistently 15, 20% growth every year, which for many businesses, they can only dream of that. If you have to kind of peel that layer back and peel all the layers back, is there maybe one thing that is the standout action activity that you would maybe apply to that success?

Shawn Johal: 100% and it's going to sound familiar. I'm sure your listeners have heard this, but I cannot emphasize it enough. You absolutely have to have the right people in your business. I've noticed that systematically, I go into companies and I see right away from the strategic team all the way down, I can pinpoint right off the bat, how many people are not the right people in those businesses. And you and I spoke about this in an earlier conversation. I always ask this one key question. Would you enthusiastically rehire every single one of your team members? And it's shocking that the percentages I get, you know, you would think the percentages would be fairly respectable because these are business owners who have built their own business, right?

Steve Rush: Right.

Shawn Johal: But the percentages are always closer to between 20 and 50%, which means that there's more than half the company that the business owner would not rehire enthusiastically. So that means you have about 50% of the people that are not the right people in your business. It's just kind of shocking when you think about it, right?

Steve Rush: Stark, isn’t it? Really stark.

Shawn Johal: So that to me would be the number one thing. I have a very specific methodology when I go into businesses and it's been based a little bit on the whole top rating and Who methodologies for anybody who wants to read those books, the two great books, both the top rating and Who, their based a lot around talent and how to hire. But a lot of the people spend time on how to hire the right people, but they don't spend enough time on development and retention and development and retention are the two, what I would say most overlooked superpowers is that every business owner has, are you developing your people internally? And what are you doing to appreciate them? Show them recognition, make sure they feel really, really welcomed and you know, recognized every single day of the week. And what are we doing to make sure that they 10X their development and leadership and get to the next level, because if your team is not taking that next step, your business never will. That's for sure.

Steve Rush: It's one of those things that sounds pretty obvious when you say out loud, but still many businesses. And in fact, many of the clients that I speak to still fall into the trap of not developing their team and retaining and growing their talent. What'd you put that down to?

Shawn Johal: Business owners, you know, this cash with liquidity, there's so many different things that could happen in a business that are problematic. And I think that what happens is we end up taking our people for granted because our people are coming in, you know, our amazing employees or team members are showing up every single day. And we just assume that they're happy. When I go into businesses, I always ask the business owners, are your people happy? Do they feel recognized and appreciated? I always get the same answer. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they're good. You know, we do a few little things here and there and I'm sure they understand what we're trying to accomplish and I'm sure they're happy. When I asked the employees and the team members, the same question, I get a very different answer. The majority they tell, well, no, I don't know what the vision is of the business. No, one's really communicating that to me. I'm not sure what we're trying to accomplish. I'm not sure exactly where we're going. So, I get very, very different answers from the employees than I get from the business owners. And so that's why it's so important for every business owner to understand, who are my A-players and how am I going to recognize them systematically?

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely so. And you've taken your learnings and you've pulled that together and you've written The Happy Leader. Tell us a little bit about what The Happy Leader is?

Shawn Johal: Absolutely, and thanks for asking Steve. The book is a book that's written over eight years, believe it or not. I started writing this book a long time ago. I think it's really the most challenging thing I've ever done in my life, not being a natural writer or author. I really put a lot of time and heart and soul into this book. I wanted to write something that was written a fable format, you know, because I feel like some of the amazing authors out there like Patrick Lencioni and Robin Sharma, you know, some really, really great leadership speakers and authors. I was always very much impressed with the way they wrote their books. And Bob Burg comes to mind as well, The Go-Giver. And so, I decided to write a book that's written in a fable format. And what I realized Steve, being surrounded by entrepreneurs over the last decade is that entrepreneurs in general seem to be a pretty unhappy bunch. It's shocking, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Shawn Johal: Because we all have businesses. And you think that the dream is to be a business owner, but I speak to business owners and the most of the time they're unhappy. And I'm part of the entrepreneur’s organization. We have something called, you know, Forum. A Forum is a time where we get together between 8 and 10 entrepreneurs every month. And we share business ideas, opportunities, challenges. We always start with a thing called the one word open and that one word open is always the one word of where you are today, just in your mind. And the words that we hear are stressed you know, stretched too thin, overwhelmed, can't keep up, unbalanced. It's almost never positive words. And I really realized over time that entrepreneurs are really, really stressed out. So, my goal was to write a book about someone who is also, you know, a business leader who was very stressed out and whose life was kind of falling apart. And, you know, who meets a really incredible person. Who's going to teach him how to become a happy leader, really changed his life around so that he really could find happiness, joy, and success in everything that he does. Understanding that it's the journey and not just the destination.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and you've created 12 steps to help people on that journey. And within those 12 steps or surrounding those 12 steps, you have four laws. Maybe we can spend a little bit of time around each of those four laws.

Shawn Johal: Absolutely, I always believe that the first thing that we need to do as human beings is take care of ourselves first, you know, a great friend and colleague Kevin Lawrence calls it, Put Your Oxygen Mask First, which is a great book that I would recommend everybody to read as well. Are we taking care of ourselves before we take care of others? Because if you're not at the right place in your mind and your heart and your soul, it's going to be very, very challenging to have the type of success and be able to lead others as well. And so, the first law of happiness is what I call the law of self-awareness. And what that means is you have to be self-aware of where you're at yourself in your life. And so, the first part of that law is really comes down to what I consider the greatest superpower that we're not using right now, which is meditation.

You know, meditation has taken a lot more space over the last couple of years. We're hearing more about it. We're hearing a lot of incredible business leaders and incredible artists and athletes and people doing meditation. But the reality is that it's still associated with being something very spiritual. And although I have nothing wrong with spirituality, I'm a very spiritual person myself. I like to bring it back to science. And science has proven that meditation has incredible benefits on focus, on creativity, on energy levels. It literally changes our genes and the inside of our brains. And it's shocking to me how little people, even in this day and age, when it's becoming more popular, actually do it.

Steve Rush: It's very true.

Shawn Johal: Yeah, that'd be something I'd really encourage people to do. Something else that I think is really important that we don't do enough of is actually what I call, you know, circular reciprocation. And what that term means for me is what are you doing to practice gratitude, appreciation, and kindness every single day and everything that you do? Again, scientifically, they've done lots of studies and both writing down the things that make you happy and that you appreciate in your life immediately released the right type of chemicals in our bodies to bring that next level of happiness. And so, you know, doing things like that. Meditation, gratitude appreciation are really part of the first law, which is a law of self-awareness.

Steve Rush: Got it. What’s law number two?

Shawn Johal: So, law number two, now you've really taking time to be more aware and you're taking care of yourself. Law numbers two is the law of self-improvement. So now you're aware, you know, where you're at and you know, where your kind of the foundation of your mind, body and soul, and now you need to take things to the next level. And so, the law of self-improvement for me has a lot to do with barrier breaking, which is for me, meaning to commit to a stretch goal in your life, something that's way beyond what you've ever accomplished. This could be anything, it could be, you know, it doesn't have to be necessarily a physical goal. It could be, you know, some type of goal where you want to maybe write a book or you want to run a marathon, but you want to do something that stretches you beyond the obvious. And the reason that's important is that, is only when we push ourselves to that next level, that we really get to see our true potential. And I think there's a lot of people that are not meeting their true potential. And there's a tremendous amount of self-limiting beliefs out there that we seem to put on ourselves.

Everybody does it, you know, the old imposter syndrome and that, oh, you know, it's not, I can't do that. That person can do it. It's just not true. You know, the reality is that human beings are incredible race and we have so much energy and so much potential. And, you know, we shouldn't be limiting ourselves. And so, by putting a stretch goal of some type that really forces us to go further than we believe possible when you achieve that goal happens is you open up a new world of possibilities, right? Where now you start thinking, well, if I could do this, I could do a whole lot of other things, right?

Steve Rush: Right.

Shawn Johal: So, yeah. So that's really comes down to the law of self-improvement, within that law I also have, I like to call habit hacking. So, habit hacking, that's an important concept that you and I have spoken quite a bit about together in the past.

Steve Rush: Sure, yeah.

Shawn Johal: Whereas you're going in there and you're completely revamping all of your habits from morning routines to evening routines to all the way you eat to the way you sleep to the people you speak with, you know, really changing pretty much the you know, the dynamic of your everyday routine.

Steve Rush: Some of it is about unlearning what you've already learned. That's not serving you well and relearning and creating new hacks and habits to create the right foundations, right?

Shawn Johal: Absolutely, Steve. It's so important. you know, I speak to so many people and you know, business leaders are all different scopes of life on that. I noticed that the majority of them don't have a very good morning routine, you know, I asked them, okay, you know, what's happening when you start your day? You know, I wake up and right away, started looking into my phone and I started trying to see what's happening with emails to get caught up. And, you know, it's literally the absolute worst way you can possibly start a day. Like you want to start your day where you're giving yourself the intention of what you want to accomplish in the few hours that you have ahead of you. And once you've figured out that intention, you need to take on a few key activities when you wake up that are going to set you up for success and give you a lot of energy.

Steve Rush: Right.

Shawn Johal: So, you should either again, be doing some type of meditation, very quickly reading some positive literature, maybe writing in a journal, really setting yourself up for success before you become a slave to technology, which unfortunately seems to be what a lot of us do.

Steve Rush: You have this approach called 10, 10, 10, don’t you?

Shawn Johal: Yes, this was taught to me by my mentor, Warren Ruston, the incredible, incredible human being. Warren has this concept of 10, 10, 10, where he, you know, 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 minutes. That's what it represents. You would do three different activities for 10 minutes each. It would be 10 minutes of meditation, 10 minutes of journaling, and 10 minutes of reading, positive literature. When I teach this to people, I get a lot of pushback because a lot of people tell me the same thing. You expect me to take on 30 minutes to start my day. I don't even have, you know, three minutes. And so, it's a little bit of a challenge at first. So, what I explained to people to do is say, listen, you can take the 10, 10, 10, which is super impactful. If it's too much for you, what I want you to do instead is do a five, five, five. So, you could just cut it in half and do five minutes of each. And then when I get pushed back on the five, five, five, I tell people, okay, listen, if you can't even do the five, five, five, just do one time five, pick one of the three activities, do one of them for five minutes. Even that starts your day, so substituting, checking email, and you running right away into fires, you know, fire extinguishing, as I like to call it. And instead doing something much, much more intentional, such as a meditation or journal is completely going to change the way your day is approached and the way you're going to take on you know, the activities that you have that day, it really makes a huge difference.

Steve Rush: It switches on the prefrontal cortex. It creates you your strong foundations for the day, rather than being emotionally triggered by other stuff that could impact on you, right?

Shawn Johal: Exactly. It really switches the script where now you're in control of your day. Whereas when you're just becoming a slave to technology, you no longer control it. And you're no longer in that circle of influence that you know, was so well taught to us by Stephen Covey, you have to make sure that you can control your own destiny. And if you're not taking those steps in the morning, you're always going to be chasing your day and chasing your day is obviously not the type of place you want to be mentally. You want to be in a place where you're deciding what's going to happen next, and you're not really having someone else decide for you

Steve Rush: Exactly, right. And of course, if you're not in control, that's when stress starts to creep into the workplace and into our world, which is so counterproductive.

Shawn Johal: Exactly, and I think, you know, as you know, very well, Steve. Stress right now is probably, you know, especially in the virus here, it's the biggest culprit of most businesses.

Steve Rush: Definitely.

Shawn Johal: Right now, recent surveys have said that, you know, over 40% of employees are currently stressed out and they're not telling their employer. Stress levels are rampant around the world. They've been going up every single year, over the past 25 years. People are really stressed. People are really, really stressed, and we have to find ways to reduce that stress for them.

Steve Rush: So, what’s law number three?

Shawn Johal: Law number three is what I love to call the law of self-giving. So, what that means is, now you've made yourself fully aware of where you're at in your life. You've taken on new stretch goals. You've changed your habits, you're visualizing your success, and now you need to help others, you know, to do the same. There's a concept that I read a really long time ago from an amazing author, and the book was called The Dream Manager, Matthew Kelly. And basically, that book is incredibly powerful because it really explains, it's more in a business concept, but it really explains how you can go into a business and do, you know, dream facilitation and help people really achieve their goals and their dreams, because each one of us, you and I included Steve, we all have certain skill sets and we have certain connections. And if we use those and help others, we would definitely be able to help them take that next step in their journeys and their success. And so, for the law of self-giving, I like to have people do that, that dream facilitation concept for people around them, you know, it could be for family, it could be for friends, it could be for peers.

What you want to do is you want to find someone and you want to sit with them and figure out, okay, what is it that they are trying to accomplish in their lives? Is it something professional? It could be something personal? Now what is a dream that they wish they could really pursue and they're struggling with, and then you make it a point to actually go and help them accomplish that dream, you use it. I'm not saying it's financial. You know, I'm not telling people to go out there and, you know, give ten thousand dollars to this person, but you have unique skills and contacts that could probably help this person some way somehow. And so, you want to use those so that you can go and help that person accomplish their dreams, and then you become a dream facilitator for them. And so that would be, you know, one part of the law of self-giving, you know, another part of it for me, which is really important is gifting people every single day in a specific way. That's something that we just don't do enough of this. This is one idea that I think people could use really easily. One of my really good friends, Rob Murray, and he's an entrepreneur in Canada. He sent me an email last week and his email was just entitled. Thank you for being you. And the email was just three lines, very quick and short, telling me why he appreciated me as a human being for no reason, just absolutely out of the blue. And that's something that I've been encouraging people to do a lot, you know, pick people in your network and send them a quick email, just telling them why you appreciate them so much. It does not to be crazy long, does not have to be this whole love letter. Just very simply, you know, telling the person why they mean a lot to you and why they're important in your life. And just realize that the impact that will have on that person on the other end is unbelievable. It really, really is, and we don't take enough time to realize the impact our words have. And the intention has when you do something like that.

Steve Rush: It’s very true. One of my previous guests on the show actually, who will remain nameless so they don't feel overly embarrassed while I share this story. Sent me a note just a few weeks back saying, Steve, you are amazing. I just felt the whole world lift around me in that moment because nobody does that or rarely people do that. And it felt so special to get that message.

Shawn Johal: Absolutely. I mean, it's just so important. It has to be authentic, obviously, that's the key, but the reality is that people are amazing and there's so many people around us that are always doing so many great things and they have so many friends and colleagues. And do we take the time to appreciate them? We, don't and why?

Steve Rush: Exactly. It's one of those things. If you think about how we've become matured in our ways and our thinking, we've unlearned some of the things that weren't natural and organic as we were growing up, such as saying, thank you, or showing gratitude to people. Dreaming big, as you just talked about it and that facilitation of dreams. As children, we would have naturally done that. But as we become older, we've unlearned how to do that effectively. And I think that's a quite neat reframe that you put there around that whole giving law.

Shawn Johal: Yeah, I think you're right, Steve, it's very unfortunate. I don't know why that happens. It's a very bizarre thing that society and the world seems to always be pushing us down. And it's like, dreaming is only now reserved for those very, very select few like 0.001% of people in the world that are, you know, these successful athletes or entrepreneurs or artists, but every single one of us has that creativity within us, we really do. Why are we not using it? I think sometimes beats us down a little bit, trying to get yourself out of that, you know, that little bit of a prison of our minds that we're thrown into and trying to find that creativity again and everything that we do.

Steve Rush: I agree Shawn, and what’s law number four?

Shawn Johal: So, ending on number four, you know, now you've gone through self-awareness, you're starting to do go through self-improvement and now you're into self-giving and you're giving back. Finally, its self-belief. Now is really where you're taking the time to say, okay, you know I'm going to take things to the next level. I'm really no longer going to have the imposter syndrome. I'm an amazing human being and I can do anything that I want. And so, the law of self-belief as, you know, a few different elements to it, for me, one of the most important things is what I call spinning positivity. We owe it to ourselves to eliminate those things that are energy drains in our lives. Those things that are really negative, those could be people, it could be situations. It could be the environment, whatever things in your life. Should make a list of all the things that drain your energy.

You know, I like to call them energy vampires and really make sure that you're just getting those out of your way as quickly as possible. And then what I like to call the next step is really the belief building. So, where you're really building your belief system around the new you, because now you've really developed a new personality really, and everything that you've done in the first three steps. And now you can take your own personal success, whatever that means for you. It doesn't mean financial. It means whatever you think, however, you define success for yourself and you can take that to the next level. And then that final step of that last law is really what I like to call, just go big, which again, comes back to the point that we talked about earlier about creativity a few minutes ago. It's just, why are we thinking so small? Like I just don't understand it. We have so much potential, any one of us. This is for all of us you know, and again, it's relative to your own life into what you're trying to do, but I really encourage people now to really think as big and as bold as possible. You know, it's funny yesterday, Steve, I was working with my digital marketing coordinator. We were rebuilding our vision and our business on a few different levels. And we were just looking at the why our company exists and we kind of changed it yesterday. And we really put it as empowering business leaders to create and to accomplish their most audacious goals. And we really spent a lot of time on that because for us, the audacious part, we debated it quite a bit. And we said, you know what?

Why not? Like, you know, people need to be a little more audacious. Like you got to, you got to think bigger. When you think about something, I think what you're going to accomplish you should immediately like double two X that and say, okay, now what I'm going to try to do double what I just thought.

Steve Rush: It's often our worldview that holds us back though, right? Those biases, those limiting beliefs that we give ourselves that stop us really thinking big?

Shawn Johal: Exactly. I see it all the time going into businesses and with companies, when I work with them, they've already given them the cells like a ceiling. They've already, most of the time told themselves, okay, we can only accomplish this much as a business. Or I meet individual people who say, this is as far as I can strive for. And it's just disappointing because I know that they can do more, I can see it. They have so much more potential. So yeah, it is almost getting out of our own mind.

Steve Rush: Which in itself is another habit that takes practice and repetition, right?

Shawn Johal: Absolutely. You just have to be working on yourself constantly. And that's why things like meditation and journaling and visualization are so important. And again, they're scientifically proven to work. It's not spiritual. It's really science-based.

Steve Rush: Yeah, love it. So, Sean, this part of the show now, we get the opportunity to hack into your mind as a leader, and to really start to think about some of the great things that you can share in addition to what you've already shared. So, the first place I'd like to go with you is to find out what you think your top three leadership hacks might be?

Shawn Johal: I would say to you, the first one is the community. When I say the community, we all have access to some type of community around us. I'm an entrepreneur. I have, you know, the entrepreneur’s organization. I have, you know, a lot of friends that are entrepreneurs as well. And so, I'm always, you know, hacking into this amazing network and community of peers that I have, but that applies to everyone. You know, you could be, you know, a business leader, you could be a manager, you could be a frontline employee, you have a community available to you out there some way, somehow. You just have to look, there are like-minded peers that you can share ideas with and surround yourself with to help you take that next step. So, I'm always encouraging people to really get out there and make sure that they're networking and they're finding a community for themselves that could really help them take things to the next level.

So, for me, that's definitely number one, number two would be mentorship. And so, there's a community of peers that can help you a lot. We all should have some type of mentor in our lives. And you know, we'd probably take a whole other podcast to talk about how to go find the perfect mentor, but I know a lot of people are intimidated by it. At the same time, it's not as hard as you think. You know, there are a lot of different ways to find a mentor out there. A mentor could be, again, it could be professional, it could be personal. There are probably some people out there that have a lot of wisdom and knowledge to give to you. And it's not just a take, take, take situation. A mentorship relationship is very much give and take. And so, the right type of mentor will also be getting a lot from that relationship.

And so, you know, when you can find the right type of person to help you out there, it will make a world of difference. I've had several different mentors and most recently I've been working over the last few years with Warren Ruston, as I mentioned just the amount of learning that I've gotten from Warren and the guidance and being challenged on my different ideas has been absolutely inspiring. So that would be an absolutely massive element to look into. And finally, hack number three would be habit hacking. We spoke a little bit before we didn't spend a lot of time on it. You absolutely need to change how you wake up and what you do before going to sleep. Those are the two most important times of the day when you absolutely need to master your habits. You need to wake up, have a very, very specific way, whether it's working out with doing the things I mentioned earlier with meditation, visualization and the same thing before going to sleep, you know, I see people are falling asleep to writing emails or to watching Netflix. This is not how you want to go to sleep. You want to go to sleep, you're preparing your brainwaves because you're getting into that Theta brainwave. And then you're going into the deep Delta brainwave. It's a time of day where we have the most impact on our subconscious mind. And so, do you want to be going to sleep or you're stressed out and you're thinking about what you have to do the next morning. Now you're marinating in those thoughts for about eight hours, you know, maybe five, maybe six, maybe seven, and you're not putting your brain at the right place because most of the day, 95% of the time we're living in our subconscious mind. And so, what you put into your subconscious is incredibly important. And so, I always encourage all of my business leaders that I work with, make sure that you have an incredible morning routine, but just as important, make sure you have an incredible evening routine before going to sleep as well.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I love that. It's really, really powerful, and if you do it every day, then before, you know, it's just the way it happens for you. It becomes part of what you do, rather than a routine.

Shawn Johal: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Brilliant. The next part of the show we call Hack to Attack. So, this is where something hasn't worked out as planned, or indeed hasn't worked out at all in some cases, but as a result of the experience, we now use it as a positive in our life. What will be your Hack to Attack?

Shawn Johal: It's funny, this is something that's happened to me very recently. I've been following, you know, I've been coaching a lot of businesses and when COVID hit a lot of the businesses that I was coaching, you know, had to take a back seat and I basically had to work for free for about three months. Now things have come back to normal, but during that time, I learned a lot about online marketing, online courses, you know, launching virtual summits. And I jumped deep. I deep dove into a lot of these, and I followed a lot of influencers. And what happened is that I realized that a lot of these digital influencers make it sound so easy, right? Because apparently the whole world is going digital. And so therefore it's just so easy to have success in the digital world, which is just not the case.

Then recently I launched an online course. And my first online course, you know, it did not have the success that I was really hoping for and really expected. And it really hit me hard because you know, that kind of lived through that failure and to have to deal with it, was tough for me. You know, it's not something that I'm used to. I encourage my kids to fail all day, but when it happens to you, it's actually really hard to deal with. And so, you know, I looked at it and what I realized is that I had completely built it the wrong way. I'd also launched it the wrong way. And it's giving me a tremendous amount of learning. I'm going to continue pursuing that route and launching an online course over the next year, for sure. And I now have the tools necessary to do it the right way. So, I think I needed that first failure to know how to do it properly in the future.

Steve Rush: And it’s how you frame it, that's the most important thing, right? To have this principle that there's only a win and learn, there is no fail, and it's that framing of the experience that's going to make you successful in the future.

Shawn Johal: Exactly, and I think most people get caught up in the emotions of a failure.

Steve Rush: Definitely.

Shawn Johal: I do that myself, you know, it's really tough. I'm not someone who's had a tremendous amount of failures in my life without a few here and there, and they've been tough to deal with. And this one recently hit home pretty hard too, and it stopped, while there is an emotional aspect to it, and you have to be able to get over that emotional aspect as quickly as possible.

Steve Rush: The last part of the show, we get to give you a chance to do some time travel, bump into Shawn at 21, and give him some advice or some words of wisdom. What's it going to be?

Shawn Johal: It would be so many Steve, so many, but I'll pick one. I would've said master the arts of meditation and visualization at an earlier age. And for some reason it seems to come later in life where we start having more introspection. I think those are incredible tools that allow us to have so much better control of our emotions and of our own vision. And by doing both meditation and visualization for me, it's been in the last year only where I've started doing it. It's changed my life completely. And I'm trying to teach my kids now how to do it at a very early age, because to me, those are two super powers that are free and that we're just not utilizing much.

Steve Rush: 100%! Great advice. Great advice. So, if folks want to get in touch with you and learn a little bit more about the work that you do with Elevation and indeed how to get hold of some of your insights, where's the best place for us to send them?

Shawn Johal: I say two places where I spend a lot of time, obviously my website, which is shawnjohal.com, so S.H.A.W.N-J.O.H.A.L.com and I spend a tremendous amount of time on LinkedIn as well. You'll always find me posting a lot of things on LinkedIn, trying to provide a little bit of ideas and learning to the community out there. And so those would be the two best places to find me for sure.

Steve Rush: Awesome. We'll make sure that those links are in the show notes and that anybody who's listened to today can literally just click on over and get straight to find more about you. So, it's only left for me, Shawn, to say, thank you for joining us on our community here. It's been amazing talking to you. You're truly inspirational guy. I've learned loads in just listening to you today. And every time I listened to speak with you, I always pick up a couple of nuggets. So, thank you for being part of our community on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Shawn Johal: Well, thank you, Steve. It's been a real pleasure. I love what you're doing and keep it up. It's really inspiring, honestly.

Steve Rush: Thank you Shawn.

Shawn Johal: Thank you.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handle there is @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Jessica Katz is the founder and owner of Liberated Elephant, she's an acclaimed agile coach, mentor and speaker. We can learn lots about change with Jessica today including:

What actually are the “agile change values”
How to unlock your internal predator
The key themes for leading change
How to liberate your elephant with an agile mindset

Plus load more hacks!

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Jessica Katz below:

Liberated Elephant - http://liberatedelephant.com

Jessica on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeskatz/

Jessica on Twitter - https://twitter.com/ElephantTaming

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Today's special guest is Jessica Katz. She's a trainer, a mentor, and an Agile coach through her firm, Liberated Elephant. Before we get a chance to speak with Jessica, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: There is a "change" theme in today's news. So, we're going to focus on a report created by Bond Capital, a Silicon Valley VC firm, whose portfolio includes Slack and Uber. The recent report, which briefed us investors has said that the global pandemic has had a similar devastating impact to Silicon Valley as the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. So why does that matter to the rest of the world? Well, Bond best-known partner. Mary Meeker is a former bank analyst and renowned for her annual internet trends report, which many investors and entrepreneurs use as a touchstone for where tech is and where it's going. And her 28-page report calls out some really interesting themes that I thought I'd share with you. So, here's the top five things I've pulled out of the report.

Number one is data-driven forward planning, the biggest market cap growers, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Google, and Facebook, or possess short and long-term business plans centred around data and their data plans include execution, iteration, engineering, and science. The report goes on to say admits the current pandemic expect these business plans to be more widely focused with more scientists, engineers, domain experts, serving as board members and non-executive directors with much stronger, more relevant voices.
Number two, the continuation of remote working environments. With the coronavirus forcing companies to adapt to remote working environments to much greater degrees than they were used to. Many companies may find for certain positions, remote working is just fine, if not more efficient for them, CEOs and boardrooms will need to reflect on their companies and employees and ask management to recommend their evaluation of what their teams work best with together in person and what also needs to be effective to ensure maximum efficiency if they continue to work remotely.
Number three, interestingly, Meeker findings from an informal survey asking companies about remote work found that those who focus on effective written communication and documentation based off the Amazon way had the best and most efficient transitions to remote work. This form of collaboration can result in much more discerning and productive input. And of course, decision making.
Number four, and not surprising, accelerating digital transformation. The businesses that are doing the best and will make it through this pandemic with less difficulties and problems will be the companies who had already begun the offline to online transition. The current pandemic has accelerated these trends, which will place more emphasis and focus on a company's technological presence with its worker consumers, as mentioned by Meeker. This includes the integration of cloud-based business functions, persistently demanded products, accessible and manoeuvre online presence, efficient delivery methods with limited contact and digitally efficient products with a social media presence.
And number five is on-demand business growth models. With the change in the way that we as consumers and workers have adapted the demand on companies, such as Uber, Airbnb are struggling due to social distancing, staying at home orders. On the other hand, on-demand services such as Instacart or DoorDash or any other door delivery service provider has expensed large spikes in demand and are eagerly hiring new labour.

The on-demand economy has grown across the globe over the last few years. In Meeker report, she calls out that in 2018, there were 56 million estimated on-demand customers compared to 25 million in 2016. The Bureau of labour statistics also concluded the on-demand services has around 156 million workers, and that's in the US alone as of the middle of 2020. Meeker believes that the on-demand and door to door delivery service may be gaining a permanent market share in these unusual times, due to the clear benefits to consumers and the opportunity of displaced workers to receive work, income and schedule your flexibility around their personal schedules.

The report goes on to say that Instacart is reportedly hiring 250,000 workers now, which in more than Walmart and A3combined. So, I guess the leadership lesson here is as leaders and as business folk, are we being really thoughtful to the trends that are emerging in the future that are impacting on not just what's happening now, but how our business might need to adapt and change in the future? My final reflections is for you to consider. What are the top five things that are trending in your business area that could impact on you, your colleagues and your business in the future? That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Like always, if you have any information, stories, nudge it my way and contact us through social media.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Jessica Katz is a special guest on today's show. She's the founder and owner of Liberated Elephant. She's an agile coach and mentor where she really makes the elephant in the room work for you, Jessica, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Jessica Katz: Hi, thank you so much for having me on today.

Steve Rush: It's our pleasure. So, before we kind of get into a little bit about what you do now, just give us a little bit of a tour if you like of your career so far, where it's taken you?

Jessica Katz: Sure. So, my career so far, well, I started in an administrative role really and recognize that if I was going to make the kind of money, I wanted to make to support my family, I needed to something different, went back to school and ended up in project management and from project management moved over into scrum, which is a type of agile process and then into agile coaching and now into my own business, which is the really abbreviated version of my history.

Steve Rush: What was it specifically for you that says, right, okay. I've got this foundation of project management, you've pivoted into the world of scrum and agile, which is perhaps a precursor, isn't it for managing change in a more rapid and changing environment, but what was it specifically, you said, right. I'm now going to run my own business. I'm going to leave behind corporate America?

Jessica Katz: Yeah. So, I got passed over for a promotion and it caused me to introspect and realize that my personal values and desire for the way I thought business should be, were out of alignment with the company I was with. And I started my business there and I worked as an employee at there and at other places before it was really able to cut the wires and move into my own thing and have it just be my thing, you know, the getting passed over for promotion. I thought I was ready for, that I thought I was capable of, that I thought I was the right person for and realizing rather suddenly that the organization was going a very different direction than I thought was healthy or good for the people that work there. Caused me to say, you know, maybe I should be making this kind of change in the world and not just in the one place I work. And so that's really what kicked off my business. I wanted to start moving the culture of business elsewhere,

Steve Rush: Got it, by the way, I think your company name is an amazing, so Liberated Elephant. It just instantaneously puts most people that worked in any business environment, straight in that room, where there is that uncomfortable elephant awaiting to be attacked. How did you come up with the name or is it just blatantly obvious?

Jessica Katz: Well, it took a little work to come up with the name, cause lots of people have business names with elephants. I had to do a little digging to find the right name, but for me, one of my superpowers is that I'm able to identify chinks in the armour. And when I work for other people, when I'm in an employee position, then I'm what they call an internal predator. And I look for chinks in the armour and identify weaknesses in the processes or breakdowns in communication. And I bring those to light and I'm ready to work through them with whomever I've brought them to, right. And I'm not throwing them at people going now, you solve it, right. I want to solve it with them. And those kinds of things, breakdowns in communication, in effective processes, processes we've put in place to deal with personality instead of actually dealing with the personality. Those are the kinds of elephants you see regularly creating dysfunction in our organization.

Steve Rush: Now the whole principle of managing change and leading change has really morphed over the last 10 years. And for those that are not familiar with agile, there's a number of different variants of variations of Scrum, Kanban, and others. So, for those that are not familiar, just maybe give us a summary as to how you might describe somebody that you've bumped into has no idea about leading and managing change. What agile really is?

Jessica Katz: Sure. So agile is based in four values. Individuals and interactions, over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration, over contract negotiation and responding to change over following a plan. Those four values are the basis. Now agile as a whole is an umbrella term that encompasses many ways that we deliver on those four values. Scrum is one of them. Kanban is another, Lean, XP, even Six Sigma. They all fall under that agile umbrella, but agile at its core is just four values and 12 principles. It doesn't have any roles. It doesn't have any instructions on how to do it. It is just a value-based system. What we hear a lot in the world is, oh, well I'm Scrum, so I must be agile. And those two things, they don't have to be the same.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jessica Katz: You can be Scrum and not actually be living the values. You can be Agile and not be doing Scrums. So, there's you know, they can be separate. So, you know, one thing that I coach people towards in change really change management is about getting from where you are, to where you want to be and the way you move an organization from where you are to where you want to be, is you shift the mindsets and beliefs so that the behaviours follow. And often when people implement Scrum, they implement the process and then, oh, we forgot. We also need to switch people's minds.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jessica Katz: And you actually need to start with the mindset and then move into the rest. And that's a big lift for a lot of organizations. Well, we want to see results. What are the things we're doing to show that we're doing this change? And the real shift happens in small moments and in the individual minds of everybody in you company.

Steve Rush: Okay. So, when it comes to coaching other project leaders and managers around Agile, what would you say maybe the one or two consistent themes that keep presenting themselves for you that our listeners could learn from?

Jessica Katz: Sure. So, the first big one is that if leadership isn't bought in, really thinks the idea of having an Agile mindset is valuable, then we won't succeed. The reality is the transformation in organizations takes every individual to transform, or at least the majority of the people in the organization to transform. And it's weighted towards leadership because the individual contributors and your system will emulate leadership, copy what they see, because that's the path to promotion.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jessica Katz: So, what you really want to do is get your leaders bought in. So, when they bring me in as a coach, if I'm coaching an organization towards that change, I'm going to spend a lot of time with leadership. It doesn't mean the teams and the individual contributors don't need coaching, but they bring me in as an enterprise coach, I'm going to bring in a couple of Agile team level coaches to handle the, you know, the individual contributors and getting them moving in the right way. So, we attack it from two fronts. We get the leadership moved, and we get the individual contributors moved.

The second problem that shows up is the middle manager, the middle manager gets stuck. In Agile, we call the frozen middle. If you shift the top and you shift the bottom, the manager has both foundational pieces sort of shaken underneath them. And they have to figure out who they become in the new way, right? If you move both of those things, it's the who moved my cheese concept, right? Oh, suddenly my cheese, isn't where it used to be. The way I get measured, the way I get promoted, the way I promote others, the way I measure others all has to shift with that. And it can be very frightening for managers.

Steve Rush: Yeah, sure.

Jessica Katz: I'm not telling people what to do anymore. I'm letting them figure it out. And their job becomes connecting individual contributors to the larger business vision. And that's not a skill set we're taught before we become managers. So, it's can be quite, yeah, it can be quite frightening for the middle management set.

Steve Rush: And when you start to think about leading change, what do you think the reason is that so many leaders of change initiatives, change programs and organizations often put that whole process before mindset? What do you think generally causes that?

Jessica Katz: It’s easier.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I guess it is, isn't it? Yeah.

Jessica Katz: It’s a path of least resistance to say, okay, use this tool and follow this process. And then we'll be Agile. Is easier than saying, let me spend the time to convince the population that this is a good idea, and really sit with them as they work through the struggle of shifting mindset so that they can be better, right? At slow, it often even just initiating a new process, never mind shifting a mindset. It actually slows down productivity for a little while with the long-term gain of increased productivity and public organizations. You're not driven towards long-term gain. You're driven towards short term gain because that's what moves the stock market, makes your board happy. So, there's a bunch of cognitive dissonances that shows up and, you know, sort of conflicts of interest that appear.

Steve Rush: And of course, if you have to manage mindsets of others, you've also got to manage the mindset of yours. And if your mindset is perhaps less open, less growth-orientated, then you're less likely to want to be experimental and to do new things and test new ways of working. Right?

Jessica Katz: Yeah, absolutely. It takes a lot of introspection and a lot of work to look at yourself.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jessica Katz: And the curiosity of self and curiosity of others is probably one of the biggest leadership skills.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jessica Katz: If you can get curious about yourself and where you might be wrong, and you can look at others and get curious about where they're coming from and their perspective, you get a much, much richer picture. It becomes collaborative instead of directive. And everybody gets to be in the together instead of responding and being reactive to everything else going on around them.

Steve Rush: The first time I got involved in Agile was a number of years ago, and I had this experience where I'd kind of gathered my team together. We were all on point. We all felt engaged with the new ways of working. We went to our executive team who all gave us the verbal communication, they said, "yes, we're all agreed", and, "we're all aligned", but actually they still wanted to get old gunk charts. And they still wanted the regular milestones and check-ins and steer codes that came with good old fashioned waterfall projects. How do you deal with that scenario?

Jessica Katz: Okay. This is a classic Agile coach response. It depends. It depends a lot on the context. So, let's say they want those things because it's a division that's making the shift and their leaders aren't making the shift. So, they still need the same reporting to fit into the rest of the organization. So sometimes that's the situation and a well-placed project manager can be very good at the translation between what we're doing in an Agile way, to the way we used to do things in the way we need to communicate to the rest of the organization. So that can be a really beneficial asset to that kind of situation.

Another thing that I found is that there's not a good focus when they're receiving metrics. There's not a good focus on what they're going to do with that metric. So, a lot of times you can sit, you can look at somebody and go, okay, here that you want this Gantt chart, what problem are you trying to solve by having this Gantt chart and if the problem and the Gantt chart don't actually match, right? So maybe the problem is well, I want to know what value we're delivering to the customer. Well, the Gantt chart, doesn't tell you what value we're delivering. It tells you when we're delivering things, but value is usually hidden inside initiatives or features or user stories, right? And, often organizations are very bad at communicating value. They're very good at communicating output. How many, you know, how many widgets did we make? Easy communication. What impact did those widgets have on our customer base and on our interactions with the world, that's a much harder lift. And so, you sort of leave that status quo going for a while, and you start to introduce other ideas and build on that till they're satisfied that they're getting the answers, they need to answer the question. And then you let go of the initial Gantt chart type style, right? It's just like implementing a new system. You do a little AB testing, right? Here's the thing you use to get. Here's the thing we're going to give you now, which one of these better answers your question? And once they're satisfied that the new information answers their question, well, you can let go of the old information.

Steve Rush: I wrote an article about four or five years ago when I was doing exactly this kind of transitioning behaviours around how people were leading change. And I coined the phrase of water Agile for, you know, we were kind of half Agile, half Waterfall. And it just takes a bit of careful consideration, education and communication to those people, doesn't it? Not just around how you're going to move them. What can you let go of and what do you need to hold and what reporting needs to go where? But do you ever find yourself now in the world of Agile saying to your coaches, stop right there. That's just a good old traditional Waterfall project. You don't need Agile.

Jessica Katz: Well, you know, I haven't run across one of them in recent years, but I do when I teach about Agile, I do make it very clear that there are opportunities for Waterfall that make good sense.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jessica Katz: A Waterfall project works when you know what you're going to do and how you're going to do it, and who's going to do it.

Steve Rush: Definitely so.

Jessica Katz: If you know the answer to those three questions with real, like real definite, like you really know. Not we guessed about our requirements and we think it's going to be this, but like really know. Installing a new server, updating firmware on a server, those kinds of things, maybe don't need Agile, right?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jessica Katz: Yeah, and those can work in a Waterfall way because you know what you need to do and you know how you're going to do it. And you probably have the same team that always does that kind of work. So, you have all of the pieces in play. Agile really is meant for complex projects, things where you don't know what, you don't know how and the, who is wobbly. And when I say to who is wobbly, I mean, the team is changing regularly or they're a brand-new team together. Or, you know, the team has to shift as the project shifts. That makes the who quadrant unknown as well.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jessica Katz: Yeah, so we're really like, Agile is best for complexity. And when it's simple, let it be simple. Waterfalls is okay; however, I would recommend that you make it small in both cases.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jessica Katz: Yeah, that if you do a Waterfall project, that's going to take you a year to implement, it's way too big. You want to do a really small Waterfall project, not a big gigantic thing because we're usually wrong about our estimates. Almost always wrong about our estimate. The cone of uncertainty will tell you your 0.25 to 4 times wrong on your estimate. So, if you estimate something's going to take a month, it could take you a week or it could take you four months. But if you estimate something's going to be a year, it could take you a quarter or it could take you four years. And that costs associated with that kind of risk is much higher. So, the smaller you can make it the better chance you have.

Steve Rush: Risk is also a really interesting point, isn't it? That keeps coming up in my change world. When I start introducing the whole hypothesis of experiments and testing and using some of the Agile techniques to start helping move change forward, faster and release value earlier. One of the things that keeps coming back is, surely this is much riskier than a good old traditional or to Waterfall project. How would you respond if you were positioned with that?

Jessica Katz: Yeah, it only feels like Waterfall is less risky because it feels false. Like it's more sure.

Steve Rush: Right.

Jessica Katz: Right, when we do a Waterfall project, we're certain. We've built all the requirements, we know everything, but the reality is as soon as it hits the market, we've lost our surety. Now we're getting feedback from our customer base and the market could be internal to the organization or external, as soon as it hits the market, you start getting feedback. And if you can't be responsive to that, if you spent a year building a project and now it hits the market and you find out the market, doesn't like it, you've lost a year's worth of money, where if you deliver for a couple of weeks and the market starts responding and you have an opportunity to shift your requirements so that it better suits the market. In a year's time. If it takes that long. In a year's time, you're much more likely to have satisfied your customer. And so, you know, usually when you build these big Waterfall projects, you pull like one or two people from the customer base, you have a little advocacy group. You're not really getting the full breadth of your customers and your customers are really what make the return-on-investment possible.

Steve Rush: And managed well, Agile will de-risk your project, the risk of change.

Jessica Katz: Yes.

Steve Rush: Absolutely, and I'm delighted here and it's absolutely something I experienced quite a lot, so awesome. You mentioned a little earlier, the frozen middle of the middle manager. This is taking you down a path yourself now where you're putting pen to paper and writing a book. So, we'll naturally going to have you back on the show when the books up and running to tell us a little bit about that, but from your research about that kind of frozen middle, you kind of almost identified, having you? There are three roles that typically present themselves in organizations where that kind of gets stuck. Tell us a little bit about what you found?

Jessica Katz: Sure. So, if you were a manager, you wear three hats. One is the hat of being an employee, right? I'm an employee. I'm coming here to do a job, to get paid, to grow myself, right? So that's one role, the next role is one of advocate where you're advocating for the people that report to you. You're trying to create an environment that makes it possible for them to deliver, give them opportunities to grow, remove blockers so they can be successful. And then the other hat you're wearing is an enforcer. And this is the person who manages the status quo of the organization. Generally speaking, organizations want to stay at status quo. The pool will always be back to status quo. And the middle manager is the one making sure that continues down that path and in doing so, if they keep with the status quo and they present status quo and they lead like they're part of the status quo, then they're more likely to get promoted and have raises and be recognized for their work. So, there's a benefit to them in being an enforcer financially. And the other side of that hat is if you're advocating for the change, that's occurring in your teams and for your team, particularly if the team culture and the leadership culture is different. If you're advocating for them, then you look like you're not part of leadership and it will hurt your chances for promotion and raise because everybody wants to hire people and promote people that look and feel like them. And I'm not necessarily here talking about like physical attributes here. I'm talking about the, you know, the state of being, if you approach work the same way as the leader’s approach work, they're more likely to recognize you as a good leader. Then if you approach work differently,

Steve Rush: Yeah. You need that kind of Azure and provocateur that drummer the change, Meister, call it whatever you will, but you need that to push against the status quo. How do you therefore then encourage that middle manager to manage their political corporate self-whilst still doing that effectively?

Jessica Katz: Very carefully.

Steve Rush: It's definitely true.

Jessica Katz: The first thing I recommend is that if they have a change that they think is worthwhile in the system. That in this position of middle-management, you don't actually have a lot of power. You have more power than the people that report to you, but in the organization at large, you don't have a lot. So, my recommendation then is to find a mentor in the system who's in leadership, who's known for implementing change and have them help you shepherd that idea through the system because you have to move change through the system that is. It's like, I mean, we see it all the time in the United States, the way laws are made, right? You have an idea and you have to wait until there's enough social pressure behind it before laws started to happen. It's the same kind of thing that needs to happen inside an organization. You build social pressure behind your ideas, and if you can get a mentor who is known for implementing change into your system, that's already in a high leadership position. You can leverage them to help you think it through and get it through in a way that is healthy and healthy for you as a manager and then also healthy for the organization. So, it's not jarring to the status quo.

Steve Rush: And this is also where Agile can help too. Isn't it?

Jessica Katz: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So, by running some experiments and some hypotheses, you can gather some evidence that helps the energy behind the change you want to plan or design, right?

Jessica Katz: That's right. That big word that I heard you use there, the big words, hypothesis and experiment. A hypothesis looks like this. I believe, or we believe by implementing this change, we will see these results. We'll know where, right. Or we'll know we're wrong when this data is evidence and then try it a little. In fact, when I do Agile transformations, I don't recommend they changed the entire company all at once.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jessica Katz: I recommend that they set up a team or two fully empowered to make all the changes they need and test it in their system first and find out what blockers show up so that you can remove some of those blockers as you, it spread it further. So, you're not throwing your entire company into chaos, right? You're putting a company or two or a team or two into a chaos and deep learning for your organization. And I suppose that's really the trick around hypotheses and experiments is that you're looking for learning. Do you know that you're right? Is the change that you want to implement in the system a good one? Well, we don't know. So, test it, find a way to test it.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Jessica Katz: Small test it small.

Steve Rush: And if you get these behaviours right, as a middle manager, these middle managers will progress because they'll have the evidence to suggest that what they want to do, delete the organizations, right? And then you create that change culture at the top of the shop through kind of just natural growth and natural progression, I suspect.

Jessica Katz: Essentially, if you can get a groundswell, the company has no choice, but to move, right. But you'd probably need a, you know, a one in five for every leader that is resistant to the change you need at least, you know, five or more people that are into the idea of that change.

Steve Rush: Got it.

Jessica Katz: Because of that weigh towards leadership.

Steve Rush: So, this part of the shows where we now start to turn the leadership lens of you. So, I'm going to ask you a few questions now just to hack into your great leadership mind. So, the first kind of thing I'd like to explore with you is your top three leadership hacks.

Jessica Katz: Okay. So, the first thing I want to talk about is spend 15 minutes every day planning your day. It's it feels counterintuitive. Well, that's 15 minutes. I'm not working then. Right? But the 15 minutes is used as a little bit of self-care. It lets you look at the day and decide what you need to prioritize in that day to be effective, even better. If you can do like 30 minutes on Monday or Sunday. So, you know, going into the week, what to expect. Now, those 15 minutes could be in the morning if you're an early bird or in the evening, if you're a night owl for the next day, what I have found is that if I do it in the morning, it sorts of sets me up for the whole day and I'm much more effective and the right things get done. And if I do it in the evening, it makes it easier to sleep. Cause I'm not worried about what's coming up the next day. So that 15 minutes every day is a little bit of slowing down to speed up, which is a really common Agile trend incidentally that you want to slow down to speed up. It has long-term impacts instead of short-term impacts.

Steve Rush: Love it, yeah.

Jessica Katz: Yeah, so that's my first one. My second one is don't assume you're right. Just because you have a specific role. So, if you're, for example, I'm an Agile coach. I'm going to come into an organization and I want to come from deep curiosity, I can say things like, well, common practice in the Agile community is X and somebody could say, well, I don't think that kind of practice will work for here and I'll go, okay, well, let's have a discussion about what the common practice is trying to solve, what problem you're trying to solve and find a solution that better suits your needs. In a position of leadership, you need to do the same thing. I have an idea about how to solve this problem, but I want to leave the room open for other people's ideas. And sometimes that means in environments that have a high retribution culture. Sometimes that means not saying anything until other people have spoken. But in a low retribution culture where it's easy to trade ideas back and forth and up and down the hierarchy, then just leaving that open door and stay in curious to what other people have to say would be my second suggestion.

Steve Rush: Cool.

Jessica Katz: And my third suggestion is lift others up. This is the rising tides lift all ships kind of circumstance. In traditional hierarchical organizations. It's very common for leaders to put themselves forward and try and look good and doing things, always trying to hoard and do things so that they continue to promote. One, you're going to burn out at some point and two, it doesn't give the people you're supporting, the people that report to you. It doesn't give them room to grow. So, lift them up and help them shine. And you will shine as a result of it. It is another one of those. It feels counterintuitive to do, but it's the right way to scale yourself.

Steve Rush: I love it. Often though, the most important things that we need to train ourselves to do differently feel counter-intuitive. And I love the whole, you know, 15 minutes or 30 minutes a day, getting yourself in order because ultimately you called it out. This is not about time management. Time management is kind of baloney, right? It doesn't exist, but what does exist is prioritization, love those hacks. The next part of the show, our listeners have become affectionately accustomed to hearing stories from our guests where they've had some adversity, things have maybe screwed up in the past. We call it Hack to Attack. But the key thing here is that we've learned from it. And it's now a force of good in our life and our work. What would be your Hack to Attack Jessica?

Jessica Katz: So, I have been passed over for promotions. I have received bad performance reviews. I have been fired. All of those things have happened in my history and I was contemplating them. And I was like, what's the common theme really? That came out for me in those things. And the common theme is that I'm a really fast mover and a fast thinker and it is worth it for me to slow down and observe and listen to the systems I'm in to make sure I don't misstep or inadvertently cause harm where no harm needed to be. It does require a sort of deep self-management for me. So, you know emotional intelligence is you know, the factors of self-awareness, self-management, others awareness and others management. I would say the two that I was weak on was others' awareness and self-management. Really understanding the impact of my words and actions and staying around to clean it up. If I made a mistake, cleaning it if given the opportunity, right? Because if you do harm, the other person has to be willing to have you clean it.

Steve Rush: Defiantly.

Jessica Katz: That's kind of where my big learning has come in.

Steve Rush: And thank you for being so candid. There'll be many people listening to this who suffer with a similar kind of philosophy. And it's just that kind of being self-aware and organized that can make a massive difference, so awesome stuff. The very last thing that we'd like to do is to give you a chance to have a bit of time travel now. So, you get to bump into Jessica when she was 21 and you get to give her some advice, what your advice going to be?

Jessica Katz: Well, just to set the stage for your listeners. When I was 21, I hadn't yet figured out what I was going to do with myself. I chose not to go to college right away. And I was a single mom. And I was about a year out from moving to Nashville where I had no support system. And if I had a chance to do it over or had a chance to go back and talk to myself, one of the things I would say is take a breath and look at your support system. How are you going to have that support, that kind of support, no matter where you go? And a lot of what that takes is asking for help, even when you think you don't need it. It's still a hard thing for me to do, to ask for help. I'm better about it than I used to be. But man, if I could have gotten a hold of 21-year-old me and been willing to lean into that vulnerability, it could have been a huge shift in my life earlier.

Steve Rush: If only we had time travelled, right?

Jessica Katz: That’s right.

Steve Rush: By then the world we're all different and we wouldn't have had the learning experiences we've had along the way.

Jessica Katz: That's true. That's true.

Steve Rush: So, what's next for you, Jessica?

Jessica Katz: What's next for me? My primary client is a training organization. I do some subcontract training through them. So, I do have some public classes available. If anyone's interested, they can go to my website to find future classes and I need to buckle down and work on that book. I've been a bit stuck, but this conversation today may have gotten me unstuck. So, I just want to say thank you for that.

Steve Rush: You're very welcome. We can unliberated your liberated elephant, right now.

Jessica Katz: That's right. That's right. Get my elephant out of the room right now.

Steve Rush: Awesome, and I know that when you've concluded your book, we'll get you back on the show. We'll talk about some of the experiences in there as well, and we'll make sure we help our listeners connect with you. In the meantime, what's the best place for them to, we can send them to your website and that's liberatedelephant.com.

Jessica Katz: And if they want to follow me on LinkedIn, I do a bunch of posting there and it usually cross posts Twitter so they can follow me on Twitter. On Twitter I'm @ElephantTamer.

Steve Rush: Love that.

Jessica Katz: And on LinkedIn, you can find me as Jessica Kat.

Steve Rush: Brilliant, we'll make sure all of those links to your websites, Twitter and LinkedIn are in our show notes as well.

Jessica Katz: Wonderful, thank you so much.

Steve Rush: Jessica, listen. It's been absolutely amazing chatting to you. I've thoroughly enjoyed the whole exploration of Agile and the change and how you coach that through with your clients. Just wanted to say, wish you every success with conclusion of your book and most importantly whatever you do next and thanks for being part of our tribe on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Jessica Katz: Great, thank you so much. Stay healthy.

Steve Rush: Thank you, Jessica.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there is @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Tab Pierce is the CEO of Caliber Security Partners and founder and CEO of Refiners, he’s also the author of the book Upsurge, there are loads of hacks and learning in this episode including:

The importance of asking yourself great questions
The resilient steps in rebounding from wreckage to triumph
How to reinvent yourself after failure
How to become a healthy narcissist

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Tab Pierce below:

Caliber Security Partners - https://calibersecurity.com

Refiners - https://www.refiners.io

Tab on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tabpierce/

The Book - Upsurge

Tab on Twitter - https://twitter.com/TabPierce

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is to Tab Pierce. He's a business turnaround leader and author of the book Upsurge: Wreckage to Triumph, Rebuilding Your Personal and Business Life. He's also the CEO of Caliber Security Partners and the CEO of Refiners.IO. Before we get a chance to speak with Tab, it's The Leadership Hacker News,

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: What does Funny AI mean for leaders, people skills. AI is getting better at making people laugh according to a team of academics, putting robots on track, to secure a key leadership attribute. So, in the news today, we explore how leaders should react. It's long been assumed that artificial intelligence has lagged when it comes to soft skills, but that's facing a challenge now from emerging generation of human-centric robots, according to a startling article from a team of academics. Published at the European business review, the piece provides leaders with a wake-up call, chipping away at the notion that AI still has a way to go before it can successfully adapt some of the human emotional reflexes that underpin interpersonal relationships and leadership. The research was led by Dr. Jamie Gloor who's a senior lecturer in Management at The University of Exeter Business School.

The academic highlights, several AI robots that have pushed the frontiers of what was thought impossible to be possible and raise some laughs along the way, such as humanoid robots of fear, who cracked jokes on US late night tv. Robot stand-up comic called Data who responds intuitively to audience feedback. A German made irony bot that has been programmed to dish out sarcasm and a growing assortment of programs cooked up in the research labs that have been designed to serve up amusing, acronyms and song parodies and puns. This suggests that AI powered machines can indeed adapt and develop a sense of meaning, sensitivity and context that's necessary for skills like humor. With all this in mind, they point out that humor can be thought of as an extreme demonstration of whether robots have the social-emotional skills necessary for leadership. If robots can master humor, this suggests that they could be positioned to step into more human-like roles that require exemplary soft skills like leadership.

So, for us flesh and blood leaders, what should we take away from this new research? The first thing I'd encourage us all to think about is new innovation and in insight. We should be paying attention to this stuff because we never know where it's going to lead. Secondly, we should embrace it and help understand where AI can really help businesses. Indeed, some of us might already think that our bosses might have less humor than some of the new bots that presenting themselves. Well, there's an opportunity for feedback there too. So that's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any interesting stories, insights, or information, please get in touch with us.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Tab Pierce. He's a CEO of Caliber Security Partners. He's also the founder and CEO of Refiners and author of Upsurge. Tab welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Tab Pierce: Thank You. I'm really excited to be here.

Steve Rush: Me too. I'm delighted you're here. And you're all the way in Seattle today. Is it raining? folks are going to want to know.

Tab Pierce: Well, the truth is, it was raining too much in Seattle. So, my wife and I hopped on a plane and went to Phoenix, Arizona. It's going to be about 80 to 90 todays, so we're not suffering too bad.

Steve Rush: Awesome. That's really good news. Want to kick off by really getting to understand that the man behind the book and the businesses, tell us a bit about your backstory Tab of how you've arrived to run two firms, two businesses and put your pen to paper?

Tab Pierce: Well, I always wonder where do I start? You know, I was born in Seattle. No, that takes too long… So, you know, it was 2010 when I founded Caliber Security Partners. And I started the company because I'd been in cybersecurity for many years since, since 1998. And I had helped a couple of companies, you know, reach a point of being acquired and I was faced with time to go get another job. And I kind of went, you know, I'm going to rinse and repeat and do this again. And I'm going to end up where I'm at now. I'm going to end up there later. It was time for me to decide, no, I want to start my own company. And so that was kind of the start of that. It wasn't my first company I started, but it was, the kind of the first real dive in full on company I would say. And you know, things went really, really well there. And for the first, I don't know, call it four or five years, revenue was great, things were great. Bottom fell out of it; things went South really bad. And you know, it was in the middle of that, that I started writing the book Upsurge. And, you know, since then, you know, the end of the store, well, not the end of the story, but the story where we're at now is things are successful. And you know, as you mentioned started another company called Refiners. So that's kind of the backstory in a cliff note version.

Steve Rush: If you can give our listeners a bit of a sense of, you know, the kind of work that you do in the world of cybersecurity and so on and so forth, and then how that differs from the work you do with Refiners. Cause they're very different business models, aren’t they?

Tab Pierce: Yeah, absolutely very different. So, security is, you know, people will say, how did you get into security? Like a lot of things, you know, you just stumble into it. You don't, you know, I didn't set on I’m going to be cybersecurity before it was even called cybersecurity. But what we do and my niche within that market is, is the surfaces side. So, you know, large companies, you know, fortune 500 companies, emerging technology businesses, and probably everybody in between, but business to business, you know, they'll turn to us to do things like testing of systems or applications or websites, and basically act as an ethical hacker to find out what vulnerabilities they have. So, we do a lot of that. We do a lot of, you know, the compliance, the risk, the privacy side of things as well, helping organizations become ready or that, which, you know, as you mentioned, is a lot different than Refiners.

Refiners is a community of entrepreneurs, small business owners and individuals that, you know, kind of want to gravitate towards that. We're still in the fledgling building stage, but the idea of that is peers, helping peers grow as well as mentors that are there to guide them in dementors specific domain knowledge. It's interesting because you know what I've learned over time, doing two things is that I really liked security, but I love what I'm doing at Refiners. I love bringing people together. I love helping people out. And so, it's, you know, it's kind of a different, just two different flavours of being an entrepreneur.

Steve Rush: And what was the defining moment for you that said Refiners is where I want to take my entrepreneurship in that direction. What was it that kind of key thing that said, this is what I want to do next?

Tab Pierce: I guess the first thing is, I want to do them both, you know, I'll say I want to do it all, but that's a little too broad, but probably the key thing that started me into the direction of Refiners was all the trouble that we had at Caliber. And just having to go through the hell that we went through and just, you know, one day talking to somebody and, you know, I was always very open and transparent with what was going on inside the company, partly because I knew that it would help me manage things, but also, I really felt that it might help somebody else. And I think what really kind of drove me to be like, wow, that felt good. I liked doing that, was sitting down for lunch one day. And somebody had introduced me to another small business owner and I said, how's business? And he goes, it’s great, it's this, it's, this it's this. And he goes, how about for you? And I said, you know, we've been going through hell for years and I think we've got about another year. And I kind of, you know, I said, I won't go too deep into it, but you know, it's rough, but we're doing it. He did a 180 and went, can I be honest with you? Things aren’t great for me either. Because I say that because I have to put forward that. I said, totally get it, totally understand that. And we had just an open and frank discussion for the rest of the time we were together. And I kind of left feeling really good about that. That kind of started the slow pivot into.

Steve Rush: Right.

Tab Pierce: You know, I want to be able to, you know, ideally help people avoid what I went through altogether. And if they are experienced in it, get through it quicker and better than I did.

Steve Rush: That’s really great a cause. And I think for those leaders listening to this today, Tab who may be also in that space of wanting to promote a public face of great strength and awesomeness. But deep down, when you peel the layers back, it's a really tough and a difficult period for them. It's almost really important to kind of let the demons out because in doing so, you can deal with the real issues rather than the band-aid that sometimes covers them, right?

Tab Pierce: What's really interesting is, you know, we always think of, you know, and I used to always tell people, and I talk about this in the book about how, you know, people would say, man it's really great that, you know, you just went to battle and you covered it and you did it, and you know, you succeeded. And I say, I felt like a warrior dragging his sword to battle early on. I didn't have the strength to pick it up. And so often we have this mental image of this warrior with this just amazing, you know, Armor on. And it's, you know, it's just perfect and everything else. We never have the image of the warrior coming back after the fight, just alive and, you know, stumbling, but, you know, going back to clean up, rest up and go at it again another day, you know, that's a warrior. Warrior is somebody who fights hard, takes their knock and then comes back, beat up. Only to get ready and to go do it again.

Steve Rush: Right, and the book Upsurge, when we first met, it struck me. You spoke with such rule of candid is almost a playbook for others now to learn from the lessons that you went through to end up being triumphant at one stage, but feeling at one stage, it was kind of almost game over. We'd love to get into understanding a little bit about the inspiration for that. And what was it that put the energy behind the pen to start putting things down?

Tab Pierce: Yeah, I've never considered myself somebody that journals. When I was going through, early on I was going through, when I first found out just the depth of trouble, we were at Caliber, you know, $750,000 dollars in debt, 18 different individuals, government agencies, companies, we were deep in debt and I was emotionally in debt. Like probably way worse than that. I mean, I was depressed. I felt like a fraud. I let my family down. I can't believe I'm here. So stupid. I'm dumb. I'm, you know, whatever gave me the thought to think I could actually run a business like that. You know, all of those things. And I sat in a chair, this lazy boy chair with the TV set on. My wife next to me, like at the end of the day after work. And I would just stare at the TV set and I don't even watch TV. I wasn't watching it. I just was like trying to drowned out the noise in my head. She would talk to me, but I didn’t hear her. I mean, we'd sit next to each other. Wouldn't talk. That was just horrible. And you know, all these crazy thoughts went running through my head. And then one day (I think this went on for a couple of weeks), One day, I can't remember if it was a good hour or if it was a good day, but I just kind of, I felt like I was in the eye of the storm and I took out I will say I took out pen and paper. I took out my laptop and kind of pen a letter to myself and, you know, I called it, you know, I called it the poor wayfaring man of grief or something like that. And it’s funny because I read it since then. And, you know,

It’s in the book, I put the letter in the book and I just went, oh my gosh, how fricking melodramatic was I? I almost didn't put it in the book because I was like that. It’s kind of hurts the person I am now to just read that because I'm like oh so melodramatic. It was so real. I mean, it was a plea, it was a beg for me, just try to get back to some normal.

Steve Rush: But it was real feeling, right?

Tab Pierce: Actually, I don't talk about this anywhere, but later on, I felt the same way and I did a video for myself and it was like, I was just like in a great mood, I was on fire. Things are going really well. And I knew they weren't going to stay that way, but I did that. And, you know, for the guy that wasn't going to be happy, it wasn't going to be in a good Mood. So, he could go back and watch that later and just kind of like, oh yeah, hey man, that's you, that's you man. You can, you know, you can get back to that. That’s the real you and I had, you know, I mean, I haven't watched it for a long time, but I did for quite a bit. But writing that kind of started me writing a little bit more and I wrote that, you know, the first chapter on thought and when I was done, I said chapter one and because I just thought it was funny. It was like, I think I just wrote a chapter in a book. I hadn't planned on writing a chapter. I wrote a chapter called burn baby burn, which is like really to try to motivate me to like, like just build this energy and you know, this fire and this, you know, and just try to share all of this stuff. And, it's interesting because I've had people read it now and they're like, hey, you don't think that's a little arrogant. Like you get to understand what it was when I wrote that. I mean, you know, I mean, it's like asking somebody, you know, do you think you overvalue air when they've gone down under the water for the second time and they're about ready to go down on the third? You think you overvalue air? No, not at that point in time. And so, I wrote that second chapter and I called it chapter two and I went, ah, I think I'm writing a book. And then that's what started the book right there. And so, the start of the book is me in the middle of that. And then as the book gradually goes on, it's me coming out of everything. And then at the end of the book, it's, you know, me out of all of that. So, you know, it’s kind of is a playbook, but I didn't set out to write it as a playbook, it just happen.

Steve Rush: I remember when we spoke last, you were almost telling me that it was a way of you going through some almost personal reflections, some self-leadership in order for you to move forward. Is that a fair assessment?

Tab Pierce: Yeah, it is. And you know, there were a lot of times that, you know, like take that chapter, you know, that I called burn baby burn. I mean, what I was writing wasn't necessarily what I was feeling. It's what I know I needed to feel. What I wanted to feel and what I was trying to direct myself to feel. But yeah, I mean, a lot of it was just trying to guide myself and build that up, as you know, as I went through it, I didn't sit there and go, you know, I'm going to go through this and by chapter 26, I'm going to be better. You know what I mean? I mean, I didn't, have that clarity when I started writing that book.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Tab Pierce: It was, you know, it was just a step by step. I mean, after a while I was like turned into more of a reality that I was going through, a journey and I was mapping it. But early on that wasn’t the case.

Steve Rush: What struck a chord with me as you start to think about the evolution of not only writing the book, but you going through that from that place of debt and despair to being successful once more. Is that this is a real story of a real leadership experience. One that you can't take from text, it can only come from experience, right?

Tab Pierce: Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Rush: Let's get into a couple of those chapters Tab.

Tab Pierce: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Because there are some real things in there that struck a chord to me that I know our listeners would love to hear from you, but it will also help kind of understand some of that journey that you went on. The one chapter particular that kind of struck a chord with me was this whole principle of learning to ask yourself great questions.

Tab Pierce: Yeah.

Steve Rush: How did it work out that you weren't and what did you work out where the great questions?

Tab Pierce: You kind of realized that maybe you didn't ask yourself great questions after the fact, right? I mean, rarely do we sit there and go wait a second. That wasn't the level of question I need to ask. That's where we should go. That's where we need to go. But what really got me realizing that I needed to do a better job of it? It was, you know, there were some things that if we would have stopped as a leadership team and said, we don't have to make a decision right now. So, if we don't have to make a decision right now, you know, what can we do to prepare ourselves to, you know, to make the right decisions? And that would have been our best question, right? Is to ask ourselves, what do we need to do to prepare ourselves and to allow ourselves to have that time. Instead, what we did is we said, you know, we've got this, we've got this, we've got this, let's go take out this loan. And it was a bad loan. And you know, it made things worse because what we would have done is, we would have looked and said, if we take out this loan, what actually gets paid? What actually gets done? As opposed to, if we take out this loan, then we won't feel that, you know, we didn't say this, but basically it was, if we take out this loan, we won't feel the way that we feel right now. It will buy us time.

Steve Rush: Right.

Tab Pierce: Which it did, it bought us time. But what it bought was time that we were going to ultimately reach a worse place than we would have been if we would have made the hard decisions early on. So, you know, there were things like, you know, we should have been asking ourselves in that situation, might've been, you know, what are the real issues that we're facing right now? And, you know, maybe what is it we really need? You know, things like that. Maybe saying, what happens if we choose to take out a loan? What's the good? What's the bad? What's the consequences of taking out that loan? What's the consequences of doing all of these things? And so, I spent a lot of time trying to analyse how I'm going to ask myself the best possible questions and always think, you know, if I can ask myself good questions, I can get great results. So, I think, you know, where I'm at right now? You know, am I looking for something that's strategic or tactical? What is it I want to accomplish? Am I looking at, you know, what's the end game? I always look at like, you know, kind of a five-point process. And that's like, what am I specifically facing? If what I do, is it going to push me to a logical need? That's, my goal. It got to be able to help you focus on the basics and things that are logical. And I have to always open my mind to all of the possibilities, right. That's the key one, because often we look and say, if I, you know, back to my swimming analogy and I mean, it's, you know, if you're drowning, maybe it's hard to do this, but if you look up and you're like, I'm going to grab that log. A better question might be, if I grab that log, am I going to find out that it's the tail of an alligator?

Steve Rush: That's a good analogy.

Tab Pierce: I mean, it's hard to do when you're drowning, but in a case like this, those are the things that we could have done, what could go, right? What go wrong if we make that decision? And ideally it creates, you know, for us, for me, it always creates more questions. This can lead to ideally greater answers. And then I always, usually will end it with, is this is what I decided to do. Is it the best possible outcome? And that may seem like a lot to go through and you don't have to go each one of them, but if you can train your brain to prepare to ask, like, what's a better question? You know, you know, what's a better question that I could be asking that's more helpful to me today or where I'm at now than any other questions. It would have saved us, you know, just to give you an example of what really happened for us. You know, everything came out when it all flushed out. Like I said, we were $750,000 dollars in debt. We would have been in a lot less debt. It would have been more painful for us if we hadn't taken out the loan, but it would have probably been, we would have been through it in about six months instead of almost three and a half years. So, you know, that's the question, you know, I mean, you know, in hindsight, you would want it to be easier at the front and harder, you know, for three and a half years, or do we want to bite that bullet of just sucking for eight months and having a bunch of people really mad at us and then be done with it? I know what I would say now, but at the time, you know, I was more focused on, you know, finding a band aid to stop the bleeding.

Steve Rush: Right, and I guess what you've just described is self-coaching, it's kind of like the voice in our head that we talk to all the time, but it's easy to say, but like, you've also described it's much more tougher to do because it takes discipline to coach yourself, doesn't it?

Tab Pierce: And there's one thing that we always have to remember when you're in a rough situation, you're emotional. And you're like, I got to figure this out. The truth is you don't have to figure it out today. Maybe you don't have to figure. I mean, you know, maybe that's the first question is, what happens if I don't make a decision today? What happens if I don't make a decision tomorrow? What happens if I don't make a decision this week? And because then it gives you time to really set back and dive into those good questions.

Steve Rush: You've got a chapter in a book called reinventing yourself after failure. How do you go about doing that when things are tough and how do you go about reinvention at a time where perhaps you're cognitively not in the most effective place?

Tab Pierce: It'd be really easy to say, just do this, this and this. Kind of interesting, you bring this up because I recently gave a seminar or I had a speaking engagement. One of the people came up to me afterwards and said, hey, I'm going through exactly what you're going through right now. And so, we've been talking about it. I'm living through this reinventing yourself. And, you know, I'd asked them this question and said, what did you see for yourself when this all started to go south? Because this guy, I mean, is your shoulders are rolled in, heads titled, eyes are droopy. And I'm like, dude, I've been there, man. Your head is too dang heavy to hold up normally. I mean, it's a weird feeling to think my head's too heavy, but I looked at this guy.

I was like, you know, you're in a bad spot. So, what did you think of? What were you going to do? What was your vision? And he's like, ah, you know, and all of a sudden, he sits up and I was going to do, you know, he started getting hand gestures. I was going to do this and I was going to do this and this and this, all these things. And he's like, you know, he starts going over this and he goes, but, and as soon as he said, but, his tilt, shoulder rolling. And I stop. I don't want to hear anything else; you have to say. That's the first time I've seen you excited about anything. Is when you start talking about what your vision was, they said, is it still your vision? Yeah, it is.

I'm just in, I'm like, no, no, no, I don't want to hear all the, just. If it is still your vision? Yeah, that's what we're going to work on. And the thing is, is that, you know, if we can see the picture of where we want to be, and we can hold onto that and we can live on that and we can build on that, you know, we can start to get a lot of the energy and we start to believe it, but we have to be okay with having hardship, right. We have to say, this thing is hard, right, and this painful, and I don't want to do it. And you know, what we have to do is we have to train ourselves that we're going to outlast everything that no matter what comes our way, we're going to outlast it.

And that means that if, you know, if we're talking about, you know, looking at our, you know, for us, we looked at the business and said, you know, even though people were telling us, you know, filed bankruptcy and start over, I'll say we can fix it. This is still a good company. We just have to be smart, patient, resilient and move forward. And whether or not you look at your business and say, there's something still here. I just need to reset and settle in and be resilient and move forward. Or you look at it and say, you know what? I know I can something. And I know I'm strong and I know I can build something, but this thing, isn't it because it's not sustainable. It's not profitable. It's not whatever. And you know, we have to be okay to move towards risk.

It always amazes me that when I look back at where I was or we were as a company, I was okay with taking risks when I thought things were good. But as soon as things went bad, I stopped taking risks.

Steve Rush: That's interesting. Isn't it?

Tab Pierce: Yeah, that's when we should have been more willing to take risks.

Steve Rush: Right.

Tab Pierce: Because at that point in time, I mean, at our lowest low, I mean, anybody who reads the book, I mean, I'm not taking money out of the company. I've put everything I've had financially into that company. I'm driving Uber to try to live, to make it, you know, to pay everybody, to pay people off, to sustain this business, to make it go. I mean, dude, I was at the bottom, right. And I felt like I couldn't take a risk. The truth is, is what did I have to lose? Was I going to lose my business? That thing was pretty much already gone, I was rebuilding it and we don't think like that. We don't think like, okay, I can manage to find the bottom. What am I risking?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Tab Pierce: And, you know, I mean, we still have to be smart, but you know, we just have to, you know, be okay with moving towards risk. And, you know, we just have to, you know, if we're going to restart and just say, you know, either rebuilding a business or starting new a

new business, you know, go back to asking yourself, good question. What is it I really want to do? I'm not a big fan of, do what you love and the money will follow. I've never been a big fan

of that because not everything we love to do is going to be profitable with it. I'm not saying do anything, but I'm saying look for things that can work, it can be profitable. You can build it; you can sustain it and don't expect your life to be an overnight fix. You know, when we went through this and this is something I finally learned, like, no matter what I do, I can sit there and say, here's my business plan, or here's my plan to get out of debt. And I'm going to be really conservative, or maybe I'm going to be really, whatever it is. I'm going to be really conservative; I'm going to try to manage that. It's almost always going to take me three times longer than I think it's going to take. It just does, and I mean, you know, as I said that, I'm thinking Refiners.

What we're looking at doing, you know, we're going to be holding an online conference

In February. And I'm like, things are going to probably take longer than I think they're going to take. Just that's the way life is for me. So, we got to be okay, that things are not going to happen overnight, things aren't going to get fixed overnight and that we need to be consistent and we need to be resilient. And at the same time, we really need to learn to try to enjoy the journey. And I didn't start enjoying the journey until we were way into it. And I finally started to realize, you know what? If we're going to do this, once I let that bot into my head that I think we're going to do it. That was the game changer. I really started to believe it.

Steve Rush: And it's getting used to being okay with not being okay until it is.

Tab Pierce: Exactly, and you know, and just realizing that one thing that we're not good at as humans is realizing the prize at the end of it. You know, the prize at the end of it is that we're a different person and we're much better, and we're much stronger, which can lead to a host of other phenomenal things. But we don't see that. We just see the pain and the anguish, and then we beat ourselves up, but don't look at it and go, you know what I'm done with this. I'm going to stand on top of that mountain and it's going to be glorious. And this is going to be the win. These are the things I'm going to experience. We don't allow the ourselves to do that.

Steve Rush: There is one thing that you finish off the book with, which is when I read it, it was kind of, I struggled with the concept and I'd love you to explore it. It's this whole principle of becoming a healthy narcissist. Tell me a little bit about that?

Tab Pierce: You know, it's interesting because out of everything that I wrote, that is the one I get the most. Like, I don't want to say like flack, like I, I do get a little bit, you know, I've had people come to me and say, I lived with a narcissist and, you know, there's no such thing as healthy narcissist. I mean, there only one out of every 35,000 people on the planet. That's a narcissist, but everybody knows a narcissist. So, I think one is it would help us really know what that is, but I get that people don't like the term, but I didn't coin the term healthy narcissist. I'm not that clever. But the idea was, I was going through this, I felt horrible about myself. I did not like who I was. I was verbally abusive to myself. I mean, if, you know, if it was a marriage I would have been, you know, that abusive to my wife, she would have left me. I mean, I just was not a good person to myself. I mean, I constantly, you know, the words I chose to say to myself were bad. Once I stopped doing that, once I started to be gentle, be nice, be kind, be forgiving of myself. Once I started to do that, and I started to become healthy, I started to become a better person. By the time we came out of this, and it was June 18, 2019 just last year that we paid our last debt. And it was just like this phenomenal feeling of like, wow, we did it, we actually did it. And all the way up to the end, it was a battle. We were paying huge amounts of money. And it was a struggle, like nothing, but we handled it. And then, you know, as I came out of it and I started thinking about it, I was like, man, that was pretty awesome. I did a great thing. I did a phenomenal thing. I'm much better at these things than I thought I was. And I started to become really healthy in how I viewed myself. As an example, I can't think of anything that can come my way, that I'm not going to be able to handle because I handled the worst possible thing, I've experienced in 56 years, and it was brutal. So, I think, you know, I can handle anything. So that's the narcissist side of it. Feel good about who I am.

The healthy part of it is along the way. You know, I want to help everybody, you know, I think everybody should feel the way that I feel. I think everybody should feel phenomenal about their life and that the healthy narcissist side of somebody is, you know, I'm going to do everything I possibly can to help somebody help themselves, and that's the key, right. They got to help themselves.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Tab Pierce: But that's what the healthy side of it is. It's like, you look back and you're like, I feel great about who I am. I feel pronominal who I am. And I want everybody to feel this way. Sometimes, you know, I've had people like, read that. They're like, I don't like that, but did you read the chapter yet? No, go read the chapter, then come back and tell me, you know, then they usually come back and say, I think you should have titled it something else. Okay, I'll give you that. But what about the content? They're like, oh, I agree with that, awesome. It's really, how do we go about helping each other because that's the key of life.

Steve Rush: Right.

Tab Pierce: And that's why, you know, when I look at Refiners, and, you know, Refiners, it's not a for profit, you know, we're a business, but our goal is to help people, you know, help themselves, I will give them a place to help other people and to grow and to be part of a big community and all of that. And it's all of its bonds because, you know, if I would have had deeper mentors, if I would've had people that were there for me along the way, I wouldn't have experienced a lot of the things I experienced. One of the things, there's a gentleman that I've gotten to know afterwards, I'll telling him the story. He goes, man. I wish I would have known you when you were going through this, because I could have helped you do this, this and this. And it would have eased your burden and wait, what? That was actually a possibility? I said I had no idea. And so that's why Refiners came about really is because I'm like, we got to bring good people together and give them good member or good mentors in specific domains. So, people can, you know, solve these problems as best they can before they become real big problem.

Steve Rush: And that's why you're on this show to be fair Tab. Is that kind of, how do we get that learning that you've got? And we can share that with our wider audience. So, if they're bumping into the same challenges, the same issues. They can learn from you. And of course, this leads me to the next part of our show, where I get to tap into your leadership mind. First place I'd like to go would be to explore your top three leadership hacks?

Tab Pierce: One of the first ones is be grateful. Gratitude has just this amazing way of making self, more aware of what's going on. And you know, my wife and I would always like, we play this gratitude game. Like, we'll ask each other, hey, what's your frequency? And we'd go off this 1-12 to 10, okay, good. You know, it's an 8, oh no. Why is it 8? Okay, well, what are you grateful for? And it's this gratitude, gratitude just really kind of helps you set the stage. You know, that you're good, right. And that you're okay. And that you've got a lot to be thankful for. You know, another thing is, is that, you know, meditate, you know, meditate daily. I used to be horrible at it. I used to, oh, you know, in the book I talk about how I'd meditate for 10 minutes in the first, like seven of it was like putting a toddler to bed that wasn't tired. I've gotten better at it over time, but meditation really helped. The other thing is, you know, is read, study, learn, you know, start to improve the way you think. And you know, it's interesting because I'm in the process, you know, a book I would recommend to anybody that's out there is, and you probably have heard about, it's a very popular book called Psycho-Cybernetics by Matthew Maltz. And he wrote it, I think in 1960. But the book talks about how you think about yourself, the vision that you have for yourself, thinking upon the things that you want to be. Those are kind of the quick three ones. All of it really comes down to your mindset, keeping your mind straight.

Steve Rush: Awesome, yeah. And learning, which is that kind of last bit is, on the pins, doesn't it? You've got continuous learning of ourselves means that we're continually evolving our thinking and our behaviours as well. Next part of the show we want to get to Tab is what we call Hack to Attack. So, this is pretty straightforward. And I think for you, you may have already covered this, but there could be something else. This is time where something has gone, particularly not well for you. Maybe that we've screwed up. But as a result, directly of that, we have used that in our life and our work as a positive. Now what you've just described almost is that kind of whole Hack to Attack Journey. But is there anything else that comes to mind?

Tab Pierce: There is a couple of things that I would tell people, especially if they're in a situation where they're feeling down and they feel like they've let people down or that, you know, like for us, it was this massive amount of debt, you know, is to realize that in our life, there is the lead actor and that's ourselves, you know, we're always going to be the lead actor. Then we're going to have supporting actors, which is a spouse or significant other, children, parents, they're the supporting actors in your life. And then there's all these bid actors. Those people that are only going to be in a scene of your life for a short period of time, and that you just want to give the bid actors enough time out of your life. You don't want to give them too much. You just want to give them what you need to satisfy, what they need. And to try to make it a good experience for both of you. And as an example, you know, we had this hard money lender and the guy was fricking ruthless, just brutal. And, you know, I gave him all this emotional energy and all this just thought, and I mean was constantly thinking, here comes the date, here comes this, he's going to uppercase me to death again. And he's going to do this and that. And then when we wrote our, you know, when we paid the last one, he went away, you know, not surprisingly. He got his money. And guess what? That was the last one we paid, you know, June 18th of 2019. I haven't heard from him since.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Tab Pierce: Pretty sure I'll never hear from him again. So, the Hack to Attack is don't give people any more of your energy than you need to give to solve whatever that issue with, but don't overdo it.

Steve Rush: That’s really neat. And the last bit we want to do is take you on a bit of time travel now. So, you get to bump into Tab at 21 and you get a chance to give them some advice. What would your advice be?

Tab Pierce: So, can I change that question just a little bit?

Steve Rush: Yeah, go for it. How would you like to change it?

Tab Pierce: This goes to, you know, how I like to consider, like how can I really benefit myself today, right? Because telling the 21-year-old Tab, you know, how I will change it? The 76-year-old Tab showed up today to talk to the 56-year-old Tab who I am, what would he say to you? Because now I'm like, oh, I could use that because I'm 56.

Steve Rush: I like that.

Tab Pierce: What that person would say to me is don't break. Don't tap the brake, keep your foot on the accelerator. Yeah, you're 56. You've got a lot of life to live. You're just now starting to understand the things that you need to do to be a success. Don't let up. Don't think about retirement. Don't think about, are you too old? Don't think of it. That it's a young man's game because now I'm 76 years old and it's still not a young man's game. So be prepared to continue going forward. Don't let up, stay in your lane, focus on the things that you need to do and do those. So that's what the 76-year-old would tell the 56-year-old.

Steve Rush: Great reframe, love it. So, as we've been chatting, Tab, people have been listening to your story, been thinking about their own journeys that they're taking. If they wanted to get a hold of a copy of your book, and they'd learn a little bit more about what you're doing with both of the firms you work with. So, Caliber Security and indeed Refiners, where's the best place we can send them when we are done?

Tab Pierce: If they want to get the book, there's a few things. One, they can email me at tab@refiners.io, and I'll give them a free PDF version of the book. If they would prefer to have it as a Kindle or a hard copy book, they can get that off Amazon. If they want to listen to the audible version, Audible. I guess that’s pretty simple, but if they want to, you know, they want to check out, you know, more of what I do on a personal side, just you know, they can go to tabpierce.com, learn more about Refiners at refiners.io and Caliber Security Partners at calibersecurity.com.

Steve Rush: Awesome. We'll put those links in the show notes as well, Tab. So, people have them on hand. So, from my perspective, I just wanted to say, thank you. You've been a real inspiration to listen to that whole kind of journey. And I know that you're coming out the other end now. And what I love particularly is it, you're seeing this as an opportunity to start again. And I particularly love that reframe of what would the 76 Tab say to you. And that tells me that, you know, there's loads more to come from you. So, I look forward to reconnecting with you and working with you in the future too. And on behalf of our listeners Tab, thank you for joining The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Tab Pierce: Hey, thank you. This was phenomenal. I loved it.

Steve Rush: Awesome, thanks Tab

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handle their is @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

Upsurge: Wreckage to Triumph, Rebuilding Your Personal and Business Life

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Elke Edwards is the founder and creative director of the pioneering leadership development company Ivy House, she is the author of Extraordinary: How to Lead a Bigger, Braver, More Meaningful Life. In this episode you can explore:

The extraordinary skills you need to unlock a bigger, braver and more meaningful life
How an epiphany with a client changed her life and work
Why you can’t be an extraordinary leader without an extraordinary life
The importance of taking 100% ownership for your behaviour

Plus load more hacks!

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Elke Edwards below:

Ivy House Website - https://www.ivyhouse.co.uk

Elke on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/elkeedwards/

The Book “Extraordinary”

Elke on Twitter - https://twitter.com/ElkeEdwardsIH

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Joining me on the show today is Elke Edwards. She's the founder and creative director, the pioneering leadership development company, Ivy House. She's also the author of her book Extraordinary, but before we get a chance to speak with Elke, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: We would all agree that innovation is a key part of any leaders core tenants these days, but imagine trash cans or bins as we call it in UK, that could sort out the recycling themselves or alert the local council when they are ready to be collected. Well, mathematician, Dr. Hannah Fry said that smart bins might sound like science fiction, but they're now just one of the weird and wonderful new technologies that is explored by herself and her new co-presenter Suzi Ruffle in their new podcast on 5G power tech called Whatever Next.

In two new episodes, Hannah and Suzi explore how 5G is changing the way we do our jobs and unwind at home. With technologies such as hologram style, 3D calls, smart trash cans, or bins, and even smart toilets. It's a version of the future we can really get behind Hannah, a smart city where it bin chases, a rubbish truck down the street. Many of the technologies that Hannah and Suzi counter are already changing people's lives right now. In their home episode, Hannah and Suzi speak to locals in Orkney, islands just North of Scotland, where a 5G network has replaced wide internet and bought films, music, and social media to entertainment, staff locals. Faster connectivity has had a massive impact said Suzi, apparently the BBC Asian network is one of the most popular stations now on the Island of Orkney. New volume metric images and also video can be used using 5G to bring 3D models to life, for hologram-like 3D calls. Suzi said there are so many benefits of hologram, call. You can walk around a picture. You can see it from any angle. You actually feel like you're in the room with that person or that product. The technology can be used to bring 3D models of houses to life, Suzi explains, or to show off the shapes of proteins. It can help brainy people do crazy jobs, she said.

So, my leadership thought of the day is, as leaders how open is your mindset to new innovation? and what often appears to be wacky ideas at the outset, an open mindset allows us to explore the unthinkable, unlock potential in people, systems and processes. But pay attention to the voice in your head; the one that might say these ideas are trash, see what I did there? Well, it could bring our bias and our worldview right to the fore and close down new opportunities and it could hold us back. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any insights, information or stories you want our listeners to hear, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Elke Edwards. She is the founder and creative director of the pioneering leadership development company Ivy House. She is also the author of Extraordinary: How to Lead a Bigger, Braver, More Meaningful Life. Elke welcome to the Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Elke Edwards: Thank you very much.

Steve Rush: Delighted that we have the opportunity to get inside some of the things that are extraordinary and why they are maybe for some, but maybe not for others. But before we do that, perhaps you can give our listeners just a little bit of a backstory as to how you've arrived at leading the business you are in now and what you're doing right now?

Elke Edwards: So, I'll start if I may, with what I'm doing right now, because that'll give you a bit of insight into how I got here. Well, actually I don't run Ivy House. We have a CEO, I'm the founder of Ivy House and Ivy house is an organization that has a mission to put human development at the heart of how we educate people, whether that be in schools or in organizations. So, I spent my whole career working with leaders. So as a leadership developer, as an executive coach. We worked with about 40, over 40% of the FTSE 100; did it for about 20 years and worked all over the world. I think by the end of it, when I sold our last business, we were working in 37 different countries.

And while I was doing that work, I think I had a bit of a realization. I had a realization; I think I had a realization. I had a realization that there are a set of skills and knowledge that literally make a game-changing difference to how your life turns out. And of course, you know, I was working with CEOs and their boards and their teams. And actually, it started to really bug me that this knowledge was only being given to people that had already in many ways, created some success in their lives. So that sort of, I got that bee in my bonnet. And as a result, ended up selling my last business and setting up Ivy House. And we're really now focused on emerging talent, future leaders, graduates, apprentices, but also, we have a program that works in schools as well. And so, I guess I'm really in my element, I found my purpose.

Steve Rush: So, what was the initial kind of bug for you? How did you end up in the career you're in now? Where did it start?

Elke Edwards: I had the most unplanned career known to man. I did a degree in media and communication and by default I ended up interviewing a marketing director of Laura Ashley, which back in the eighties was super cool by the way. And so, she offered me a job on graduate placement. So, I ended up becoming a graduate trainee at Laura Ashley. Supposed to be a two-year program. I come from a family of sort of self-employed people. I'd always worked within the family business. So, they put me on the floor in that Cardiff branch. After the first two weeks, I'd sold more store cards than the whole company put together.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Elke Edwards: So, I got, well, it's quite simple, really. You just ask people and tell them the benefits and they say, yeah. But I got a call from the CEO who told me this news and said, you know, you've done this incredible thing. I'd like you to go on the road basically and train every one of our stores, how to do what you've been doing. So, there I was 21. I was literally, I think almost the youngest person in the store writing my first sales training program, which really no idea other than what I actually did myself and set off on the road which I did for about a month. And then when I came back, it was my ninth week. They gave me my own store to run. And these are just my sort of sales, but, you know, the store was 93rd in the country. And after three months it was number one. So, but I'm not joking. I really was just doing what came naturally in ask customers, help customers find out what they need, you know, change the window every few days, so it doesn't get boring, that kind of thing. And then to be honest, I went on a really higgledy-piggledy journey through Ad sales, through recruitment, where I really learned about people and then ended up running a call centre for a travel business that went spectacularly broke and was on the nine o'clock news, so really higgledy-piggledy journey, but what was always within it was leading people, managing people, having targets, understanding what has to happen. And eventually, as luck might have it, I got offered a job with a consultancy in London called the L&R Group. So, a guest really taught me my trade. They taught me to put, I didn't know, I guess, into some form what I'd been doing naturally to date. So, I became a consultant to organizations that were looking to improve their performance. Then I got headhunted by Ogilvy and work there, and eventually, we set up Blue Sky, which was a company that we run for 20 odd years.

Steve Rush: And award-winning company as well.

Elke Edwards: Actually, we won 43 awards in the last 10 years. In the last 10 years of me being there actually.

Steve Rush: Amazing.

Elke Edwards: And I think our closest competitor had six awards, so we're quite proud of that.

Steve Rush: So, what do you put that down to?

Elke Edwards: Bloody hard work. Am I ok to swear.

Steve Rush: Of course.

Elke Edwards: Actually, I've never been asked that actually, lots of things. We recruited an incredible team. We were very, very blunt and honest with our customers. So, we took on our customer's problems as our own. So, for clients that, you know, one of my famous calls. I got a call from Sky once on a Friday night, the marketing director at Sky had been an old client of ours at American Express.

And he really just arrived at Sky and he went. We are launching digital in two weeks. And nobody in this building knows what it is. And we have 3000 people in call centres that need to be able to sell it in two weeks’ time. And literally, you know, I turned the car around, went straight back to the office, called everybody in. And over that weekend, you know, we created a program for him that we had 30 people on site by the Tuesday delivering.

Steve Rush: Awesome.

Elke Edwards: So, I think we were just, we didn't, you know, we didn't have big company mentality. We just thought certain things were always doable and we worked really hard to get them done. We were also really results orientated. Like if it wasn't going to work, if it wasn't going to move the needle, if it wasn't going to improve engagement or improve sales or customer experience, then we didn't do it.

Steve Rush: And that's really important, isn't it? I find in the conversations I have with my clients, there almost seems to be a little bit of shyness around being so results-focused, but actually, it's what drives everything as a result. Right?

Elke Edwards: Yeah, and it doesn't matter what the results are, but you know, it could be improved engagement or it could be, you know, less, more customer attention or whatever it is. But I think as a nation in Britain, we certainly around sales, you know, people don't like to say they're in sales, so there's a shyness. But I always say to people certainly in the businesses I ever run is, if we don't sell, quite frankly, we don't have a business. You know, I think we have to get over this idea of results. But what I do think we've often got wrong is measuring things in too narrow away. So, I think we, as businesses, we need to look far broader to understand, you know, if for example, your staff retention is really bad. That is going to cause you massive problems very, very quickly. So just measuring the sales performance or the customer retention, that's not going to be okay. We have to take a holistic look to what we measure.

Steve Rush: Totally agree.

Elke Edwards: And then we have to hold people accountable to those results.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely so. So, you just had published. Your book Extraordinary and it's how to lead a bigger braver, more meaningful life. And I just wanted to say two things, firstly, it was a brilliant read. It was really well-constructed and I loved the flow. That's the first thing, but also congratulations because it's had some fantastic early reviews and it had some real great traction.

Elke Edwards: Thank you, thank you.

Steve Rush: There was one thing in the book that I read that was almost the epiphany for you, sounded like the call to action for you to put pen to paper, which was when you were having a coaching conversation with one of your clients, maybe you could just tell us a little bit about that?

Elke Edwards: So, part of my role at Blue Sky was I would coach CEOs and their teams and I was with a client, a really lovely client. About 20 minutes into his session, he looked at me and he said, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, fine, why? And he said, because you're crying. Unknown to me, I literally have tears streaming down my face and he's like, what's wrong? And I said, I can't do this anymore. And he just came out and trust me, you know, when clients are paying you a vast sum of money to coach them, that's not the best answer. And he said, what do mean you really can't do this? In fact, I think his words were. What do you mean? You chucking me? And I said, I just, I can't do this anymore. It's too much like hard work. I think what was becoming really apparent to me in that moment was that you just can't help people or develop people unless they're ready to be developed.

It just became like pushing something up a hill or whatever that phrase is, I don’t know. And he literally looked at me and he said, are you saying that I'm, you know, I'm hard work? And I said, well, yes you are. Because actually all you're doing all the time is defending your current behaviour. And actually, if we're going to create change, you're going to have to change your behaviour. And if you're going to change your behaviour, we have to look at your mindset. So, if you're not prepared to do that work, set me free. I've got other things I could be doing, and he looked at me and he said, okay, well, if this is the last session we're going to have. What I want from you is to tell me what needs to change? What am I not doing? And it was in that conversation that I actually started to frame the skills and knowledge that are in the book. That I started to articulate what I believed or what I'd experienced in all of my work to make a game-changing difference to how people's lives turned out. And that conversation then went on for hours. And we sat there for hours, he counselled his meetings and in fact, I still have the pad of paper that I was mapping out on.

Steve Rush: Amazing.

Elke Edwards: Yeah, that was it. That was a real epiphany, and I went back to the office. It's really interesting. I went back to the office and I said to the team. We need to change our focus. We're getting to them too late. We need to start sooner, and they looked at me and he went, oh God, you've been going on about that for 10 years. And I said, have I? Have I really? I literally had no idea. And I guess that was the beginning of the end of that, the beginning of this business.

Steve Rush: So, within the book, you've got seven extraordinary skills and they're wrapped behind the reason why and the reason why not. And the irony, I guess, of what you've just shared is perhaps the extraordinary skill number one is the pre-epiphanies if you like. The 10 years that you've been unconsciously sharing the list because it happened at the time before, hadn’t it?

Elke Edwards: Yes.

Steve Rush: Tell us a bit about that.

Elke Edwards: Very personal situation for me. So, it's probably worth me just explaining what I mean by core strength. So, within the book, we look at people as if they have a blueprint. So, we all have our own vision, our own purpose, our own driving forces, our own value system. And when we understand these things about ourselves, when we understand our own personal blueprint, it actually means that we're able to live and create the life that we were meant to live. Now, in my experience, the majority of people don't actually know this blueprint about themselves. So, they might well feel out of balance in life, but they can't really nail exactly why it is. So, we take on our programs, we take people on a journey to understand what their personal blueprint was. For me personally, before I knew this myself, I was in a marriage with a very lovely man.

We had all everything. You know, I had a very successful business. We had a beautiful house. We had two gorgeous girls. You know, we sort of looked like the golden couple. But within me, literally deep within me, there was just a feeling that I wasn't living my right life. And I did everything. In fact, I left the business for a while to see if that was the problem. I tried to move this house. I was thinking maybe we'll just move to a different area. Maybe I'm with the wrong kind of people. And eventually, I realized that actually, I was in the wrong relationship. And even though it tick so many boxes on the outside, on the inside, it really didn't work. So, I had to, I didn't have to, but I chose to pick up my two girls, leave the gorgeous family house, move into a rental property. And literally other than my girls, start my whole life again and start with a blank sheet of paper and go, okay, well, how do I want to spend my days? How do I want to spend my minutes and hours? You know, what work really matters to me. And you know, what kind of relationship will really enable me to thrive and bring joy to my life and what kind of friends and all of these questions. And that's exactly what I did

Steve Rush: Incredibly courageous act; and one where your extraordinary skills, if you like, that, you've now mapped into your book have probably been as a result of that learning. Would that be kind of a fair assumption?

Elke Edwards: I love that you've asked that question. And the reason I love it is what drives me mad about leadership development is people sort of think leadership development is something from outside of them.

Steve Rush: Right.

Elke Edwards: You know, like leadership is outside of us where you'll notice the Ivy House strap line is extraordinary leaders, extraordinary lives. Those two things sit together. So, understanding who we are and therefore what kind of life we were meant to lead and what kind of leader we were meant to become. So, another big thing I've got is that, you know, leadership comes in all shapes and sizes. I say, I've set up three companies. I've never been the CEO of one of them because I'd be a rubbish CEO. So, within my blueprint is to be a creative director to be the voice of the business, to be the thought leader. And within my life is to have a certain kind of relationship, a certain kind of family. And actually, those two things are so intrinsically linked.

Steve Rush: Aren’t they?

Elke Edwards: I mean, they're one, I'm one person and I live different parts of my life. So yeah, you're completely right that the skills throughout the book apply to people's outside of work lives and inside of work lives. But I think the two things are the same.

Steve Rush: And I love you've called that out. It's been a real bugbear of mine for a number of years where people have often used the phrase /analogy, “You need to bring your whole self to work”. You need to bring what you do at home to work, you are that one person and how you behave and work is a complete carbon copy of how you behave at home. You just might push and pull some of those behaviours in different directions, but the core you is you.

Elke Edwards: Well, it should be, it should be, it should be the same, but this is really interesting because on the program we often ask people to look at their behaviours. So, I always say, imagine people that you live with and I'm going to go into your house, you're not there. And I'm going to say, give me the top three or five behaviours that you see from this person every day and consistently, and then I'll do the same at work and what comes out, which is people go, oh, I choose my best behaviour at work. And I often don't choose my best behaviour at home. But the other thing that comes out all the time is people saying, you know, I'm living two life.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Elke Edwards: Well, you are not. You're living one life. And they go, no, no, one, I'm one person in work and I'm one person at home. No, no. The question is, is what behaviour are you choosing in those two environments? It takes them a while to get it. When they finally get it, the massive relief that comes over them. Is that, oh. I can just be me.

Steve Rush: It's also really energy-zapping, isn't it?

Elke Edwards: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So, if you're pushing behaviours that are not authentic, then that's really going to take its toll on you physically as well as mentally.

Elke Edwards: Yeah, although authentic behaviour is a really interesting, where are okay to go off of in a tantrum on this.

Steve Rush: Yeah, let’s do it.

Elke Edwards: Authentic behaviour is a fascinating thing because I really believe that behaviour is a choice. Authentic behaviour is a really interesting thing because people will say to me, well, look, I'm an angry person or I'm an emotional person, or I'm a you know, a shy person. Actually, our behaviour is driven by our thinking and the thinking we hang out with, we have a choice over. So, people that have stories about the kind of person they are actually have missed the piece that actually their behaviour is driven by their thinking ultimately, and they get a choice about which thinking they hang out with. So, if I want to choose kind of behaviour, I get that choice. It's not okay for me to just go, oh, well, I'm just not a very kind person. The real sentences is, I am consistently choosing not to be kind. I'm consistently choosing not kind behaviour. Does that make sense?

Steve Rush: A hundred per cent makes sense. And can we go another level deeper?

Elke Edwards: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd love to.

Steve Rush: So, if we're hanging out with the thinking that informs our behaviour, well, what informs our thinking is actually our mindset. So, it starts with our mindset, right?

Elke Edwards: Yeah, and what makes up our mindset, there's a whole host of other things around our beliefs system.

Steve Rush: Our value, belief system.

Elke Edwards: All of that stuff. Yeah, completely.

Steve Rush: But it is the one thing, the one thing that we have 100% control over, which is ironically your extraordinary skill number two, right?

Elke Edwards: A hundred per cent ownership. Absolutely, yeah. A hundred per cent ownership is, aren’t you going to take 100% ownership for the behaviour I bring to every situation, every single situation? So, it started to shout at me.

Steve Rush: Right.

Elke Edwards: I'm going to take 100% ownership for the behaviour I choose. If Boris Johnson said, we will have to go into lockdown, I'm going to choose 100% behaviour. I'm going to take 100% ownership for the behaviour I choose in response to that event. And what's fascinating is though people get that intellectually. I would say 90% of the population live in a place where they are blaming things outside of them and people outside of them for how they're feeling and how they're behaving on a daily basis. So, they're blaming the bosses, giving them too much work, or they're blaming the fact that they can't go out to the pub on a Friday night because we're in lockdown. And they're saying, well, I'm feeling rubbish because of that. And that, of course, ultimately isn't true.

Steve Rush: Yeah, a hundred per cent subscribed to that.

Elke Edwards: People don't like that though. People don't like that.

Steve Rush: It's because it turns the lens on the one person that's in control. And we don't like often to face into some of those really tough thoughts and those tough decisions that we might need to make because it comes with a consequence and it could be positive and it could be averse. But our brain's job is to keep us safe. Isn't it? And therefore, when we challenge the status quo, it's going to give us a wobble in one direction, but it's the brave that carry that forward.

Elke Edwards: A hundred per cent agree with you.

Steve Rush: So, if anybody's read any of the work I've done in the past and in my book, they'll know that I love equations. And you've got one in your book as well, which is event plus behaviour equals results, which is exactly what you just talked to. Isn't it?

Elke Edwards: Exactly that. The theory behind it, so event plus behaviour equals result. The theory behind it, not even the theory, but the thinking behind it is that, you know, the majority of events that happen to us, we can't control. It's raining, our buses late. You know, we get put into lockdown, but the behaviour we choose in response to that event is 100% in our control. And it's the equation, the summary. The event, plus behaviour. that's going to drive the results. And that affects literally every few minutes of your life. I mean, minute by minute, we're making decisions about how we're going to respond to every event, minute by minute.

Steve Rush: Now, one of your extraordinary skills is courageous learner. That really prickled me because I love the whole principle of learning and lifelong learning. But there is something that is about being a courageous learner that is somewhat different. Maybe you can give us your view on that?

Elke Edwards: So, learning is really interesting when we talk about learning, because most of us equate it to reading books, watching videos. Academic learning, which of course, where we start learning isn't in schools or, you know, it's where we sort of formally put a title on it. In schools and we're learning academic stuff. A courageous learner actually has the courage to recognize that their opinion is nearly their opinion and that other people have opinions too, and neither are or wrong or better than worse than the others. So, a courageous learner, number one has the ability to look to themselves to recognize that they have the courage. We talk about having the courage to look at the raw facts and understand that maybe the behaviour I chose yesterday when I was in a meeting, wasn't great. Therefore, I may want to apologize, but also has the courage to recognize that if you and I have a completely different opinion on something that I am able to shut up, the voice in my head that is ready to defend my opinion, ready to argue my, you know, stand up for what I believe to be right and recognize that you believe what you believe to be right too. And recognize that you have your opinion based on all the data that has informed your opinion over your lifetime, and just have the courage to, we call it sitting above the line to go into a meeting or to a conversation and go, wow, you have a completely different opinion to me, brilliant. Tell me, tell me what you think. Tell me why you think it, what data informed your decision and not with the motivation to prove you wrong, but with the motivation to go, wow, you've just added a whole load, more data to my thinking so that together we can resolve the problem.

Now, what's interesting. I did talk to a massive global organization a couple of weeks ago, over a hundred top leaders. And this was the thing they were stumbling over most. Because culturally it's true for all of us, I think. We're brought up in an environment where we say stand up for what you believe in. Whereas actually, how about listen to what other people believe in. Consider other people's opinions and they really came back at me on this and eventually, they went, oh my goodness, we are stopping our learning because we don't listen. And I was like, yeah. My work here is done again. Yes, start listening and recognizing your opinion is just your opinion.

Steve Rush: I observed this to be one of these leadership superpowers, really, because it's so academically simple to get your head around, but this behaviourally very difficult to apply. Folks just don't really get to grips with it. And I did some additional kind of research on this and there's an element of psychology called motivated reasoning. Whereas part of the learning, we're looking for ourselves to find evidence that suggests I'm right, or I'm finding through my learning evidence defined that another way is wrong. So rather than being in the service of just learning and being prepared to be wrong when consciously still have this battle that says, I'm right, I've got the evidence I'm confirming versus, ooh, that hypothesis could be completely different to what I thought. And therefore, I'm going to explore that.

Elke Edwards: And I think what you've just outlined very beautifully by the way. But I think where you've just outlined is so habitual and so deeply buried within us. When we talk about being above the line of being open to learning and being curious about different. As you just said, get it intellectually. But actually, the minute they're put into a situation where people disagree with them or where they feel under pressure to come up with the answer, which is another massive problem with leaders, you know, they feel like they've got to resolve things and they've got to come up with the answers and they got to make all the recommendations. Actually, changing that habit of a lifetime, I think is harder than it sounds.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I concur.

Elke Edwards: I always give people the example that you're at home and you're arguing with your partner about where you want to go on holiday, but that would be a nice argument. You’re arguing with your partner, my argument with my husband is I want to go holiday to anywhere that will have me. And he's like, well just wait and see what happens, we will be safe. But you're arguing and he's saying, oh, we should do this. Now, I always say to people, are you actually listening to what the other person's saying? Or are you constructing your argument so that when they take a breath and you get the opportunities to speak again, but you are perfectly communicative and eloquent in what you say and pretty much 99% of the population put their hand up and go, yeah, I’m doing that. I'm not listening. I'm creating an argument so that I can speak well. And wow and win, when I get the opportunity to speak again, now, if we take that, which exists wholeheartedly in our organizations today, if we take that sort of attitude, then how are we ever going to learn?

Steve Rush: Exactly right, now there are a number of extraordinary skills I wanted to get through, but probably not going to be able to dive into them all in the way that I'd ideally love, which is also a great call to action for those to get hold of this and explore it themselves. But the one that I do want to get into is this whole principle of intentional relationships. What was it that caused you to call this out as a theme?

Elke Edwards: I think what caused me to call it act actually is two things. Firstly, the massive dysfunction that you see in business through relationships. So, you know, I was working with another CEO. Actually, you had two members on her team that she never spoke to unless they were in a meeting and only then when she could, you know, have to literally could not avoid it. And what became so abundantly clear is this level of dysfunction. I mean, that was an extreme example, but this level of dysfunction happened constantly in sort of microelements throughout organizations. And secondly with people's home relationships or family or friends or loving relationships. So very often when you coach people. Clearly, you know, I believe we a whole person and we bring everything to that coaching. What became really clear was people's inability to have decent, effective, meaningful conversations with the people they were in relationship with outside of work as well.

So those two things brought it to my attention. I think where I ended up was giving people this idea that relationships are the thing that drive our happiness, as you would have seen the researchers as I have, but, you know, sorry, the thing that drives our happiness more than anything else in life is the quality of our relationships, but we leave them up to chance predominantly. So actually, why don't we become slightly more intentional about them and determine what is it that you and I want out of our relationships. So, as I said, I'm divorced and remarried. And when I got remarried, I took that really seriously and sat down with my husband and said, right separately, we both need to write what our independent vision for our lives are, but what our vision for our relationship is. And what's interesting is we're quite different people.

He's far more traditional, far more safe, I guess, than I am. And actually, you know, freedom is one of my core values. So, you know, we had to really understand what individually we wanted and then together what we were creating. And once we understand what together we're creating, then we know what behaviours we can show up with to deliver the vision.

And it plays out in work all the time. So, one of the things we teach people on the programs to do is to sit down with a boss and go, what does good look like for you? Oh, by the way, this is what good looks like for me and. So, what's on the outside of that and how do we deal with it when things go wrong? So, there's the vision piece, but there's also the piece around behaviour and conversation. So, I think one of the key skills, this is a passion of mine is this to be able to have effective conversations. And I believe we would cut the amount of time that we spend in work in half if we knew how to do that.

Steve Rush: Hallelujah.

Elke Edwards: And then meetings, endless meeting.

Steve Rush: Yeah, you see it everywhere, don't you? people are speaking for the sake of speaking. There is a lack of direction and lack of purpose in the communication and the conversation. And as a result, we burn hours and hours and hours, right?

Elke Edwards: Yeah, and then people then don't say, we call it naming the elephants in the room. So, then they'll go out and have, when we used to have, you know, coffee room conversations or water cooler conversations and the corridor conversations about what should it be talked about in the room. So, you know, actually teaching people the skill and we do this in schools as well, teaching people at a very, very simple framework of how to have an effective conversation. And it all starts by the way, with what your intent is, which takes us back to the courageous learner piece. So, if my intent for this conversation is to be right and win, then you know, actually the conversation isn't going to go so well, if my intent from the conversation is together to resolve this issue that we've identified, then we're going to have a very different kind of conversation.

Steve Rush: That's awesome. And my intent from this conversation by the way, is to extract as much learning as I can from you, for our listeners in the time that we have together, which means now is the time in the show that I get to hack into your leadership mind and to start thinking about some, the tools and tips that have really served you well, that our listeners could also learn from. So, first place I like to go Elke is to ask you, what your top three leadership hacks are?

Elke Edwards: I have never been asked this by the way, and I thought it was a really, really good question. So, I had to sit and properly think about it. Because of course, I would say seven, the seven skills. Actually, I went to a different level. So, the first is a skill in the book. My top leadership hack is play to your strengths and allow others to do the same. So, I mentioned earlier, you know, I've never been the CEO of the business, I found it, but I'm a good founder and I'm a good voice and I'm a good thought leader for business, but I am not a CEO.

Steve Rush: Right.

Elke Edwards: And what's interesting about leadership is so many people think that leadership is about being the CEO, being the Director or running the show. And that's just not true. That's just one form. That's just one shape that it comes in.

Steve Rush: Right.

Elke Edwards: It's just as important to have people that are brilliant at other things. So, find out what yours is and allow other people to do the same. Then my second one is, is that I believe wholeheartedly that people bring their best selves when they find meaning in their work. And we have to create businesses that are meaningful and help people find meaning within your organization. And the third is to take 100% ownership for how you personally show up as a leader. I can’t tell the number of leaders that I've worked with that believe it's okay and justified to behave like a stress ball or to, you know, be aggressive or passive-aggressive or avoidant in their situation and blaming everything else that's going around them for how they behave. The minute that we take ownership and voice that we're taking ownership. I make mistakes regularly, but I will always get on the phone and go, I'm sorry, I've got that wrong.

Steve Rush: Right.

Elke Edwards: Owning the impact we have. I believe that's what creates the kind of cultures people want to work with them.

Steve Rush: Super advice. The next part of the show we call Hack to Attack. So, this is a time where things haven't gone so well, maybe at work or at home, but we may be even screwed up. But as a result of the situation or the experience, we've got some learning from that and it now serves us well in our life. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Elke Edwards: My attack that happened to all business like everybody else was COVID. So, we we'd had an interesting time through Brexit. And March of this year, we had a number of programs that were full to the brim and were just about to launch when we went into lockdown and our programs were all face-to-face. People flew in from all over the world to do our programs and they were deep and emotional and they are deep, emotional, intense, and locked down happened in every single thing on our books literally got cancelled or postponed multiple times. And you know, it was a moment. In fact, I was in the pub just before locked down, happened with some brilliant friends of mine. And they said to me, you have to take your programs virtual, or you have to shut your business down. And I was like, you don't understand what we do. It's so deep. It goes to people's core. And then they come out full strength. So, you don't understand, we can't do that virtually. And they said, we'll shut it down then, it's just not going to work. And I had rather sleepless that night. And I woke up the next morning and I called our CEO and I said, we have to go virtual. And I'll put my hands up and say, we weren't in any way technical experts. You know, we always about the relationship and looking people in the eye and hugging is an Ivy House thing. And we had a conversation later that day. And within days, our team were refocused and set, and the question of product director, Clare Mitchell, who's an absolute stone. Nobody coached approach her please, she's brilliant. Said to me, this is not about how can we do what we do virtually, this is about how we can become the best in the market. The very, very best, and be truly brilliant at developing people virtually. And they just set themselves the target of that. And literally, I didn't know this, you can't take a face-to-face program and put it on a virtual platform. You have to rewrite the whole thing. And our programs are very long and very intense and not all of them. We have no shorter programs. So actually, what I would say is let's say the world went back to normal tomorrow. What I know is that our programs are now even better, we had a 96% NPS face-to-face, which we were incredibly proud of them, very protective of, we really worked hard for that. And it's now running at 97%.

Steve Rush: Awesome.

Elke Edwards: On our virtual programs. So, we'll never go back to a hundred per cent face-to-face unless a client particularly wants that because of the nature of people having to leave their families and, you know, get the kids cared for and all of that stuff, we think we'll end up doing blended programs. So, the people get the best of both worlds.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and you've got the core foundations to do both now.

Elke Edwards: We have, and yeah. And the other thing that's happened is we manage because we weren't taking expensive venues and people weren't traveling all over the world is, we've managed to cut the price of the programs. So, all of a sudden client that were ruled out because of price you know, are coming go, oh no, no, that makes sense, we'll have that. We'll do that. And we've also created a shorter program as well, which allows them to put it across their whole talent base and all of that creativity and intervention and upskilling came because of what I thought was one of the worst crisis that has ever hit me in my professional career.

Steve Rush: Super lesson. Thank you ever so much for sharing. I’m really grateful for that.

Elke Edwards: No problem.

Steve Rush: The last thing that we want to do is hindsight being a wonderful gift, give you the opportunity to bump into yourself when you were 21 and give Elke some advice. What would your advice be to Elke at 21?

Elke Edwards: I' got three pieces of advice. If that's all right, the first is pay real attention to what you're good at. But more importantly, what you love doing. I was one of those people that was quite good at most things that I turned my hand to, and that meant I spent years doing jobs that weren't quite right for me. So, there's a cross section between what we're talented at and what we love. My first advice at 21 is notice where that happens, where your passions and your strengths meet, and then follow a career path in that direction. I still would have still ended up here, but I'd have ended up here much quicker.

The second thing is don't overthink things. I believe that we go into our personal thinking far too often when we'd have challenges. Actually, if we get really, really quiet and quieten our mind, and we allow our wisdom and our inner knowing to do the work, then the solution comes far easier and generally for quicker. And the final thing is have more fun. I think I've worked too hard, that's the truth. When I was married to my last husband, he had a business that took him to San Francisco all the time and he would always say, come with me, come with me, and go and stay with friends in San Francisco. And you'd have an amazing time. And I'd always say, businesses too busy. We've got too much work on. And I always said no. And you know, I really, really regret that. I really regret that. So that doesn't happen anymore. Now I say yes, when people ask me to go to San Francisco.

Steve Rush: And if you're having fun. It makes the work get done too.

Elke Edwards: Oh, I haven’t heard that before, that's good, yeah.

Steve Rush: I stole this from a good old friend of mine. His name is Dr Wolf Rinke. He’s an author and great sage and he had this business cards that said “FUN” on the back of every single business card. And his mantra was, if it's fun, it gets done.

Elke Edwards: Good, I like that. I will still steal that too.

Steve Rush: So, Elke, you've been an amazing guest on the show. I know that our listeners will be thinking, how can I find out some more about Ivy House and how can I get a copy of Extraordinary? Where would you like us to send it?

Elke Edwards: Well, that's very kind. Thank you. I've really enjoyed talking to you. So, our website is ivyhouse.co.uk. You can get the book off Amazon. The other thing that we have is extraordinary unplugged, which is our own podcast. And it's all people that have put their hands up and said, I'm on a journey to create an extraordinary life and their coaching calls really where people bring challenges. And that's getting a lot of amazing feedback. So, if people are interested in this kind of journey, they might be interested in that podcast too.

Steve Rush: We'll make sure all of those links are in our show notes.

Elke Edwards: Thank you very much.

Steve Rush: Elke on behalf of The Leadership Hacker Podcast and our listeners. Thanks for taking time out of your diary. It's been an absolute blast speaking with you. I think we could probably carry it on for hours and get into some of the details. It's been super you being on the show. Thanks ever so much.

Elke Edwards: It's a pleasure. Thank you very much.

Closing

Extraordinary: How to lead a bigger, braver, more meaningful life

View Details

Corry Robertson is a leading global expert on organizational culture, coaching culture and colleague engagement. She's also the founder and CEO of The Coaching Academy for Leaders. In this episode learn about:

Coaching as a way of being
Why creating a coaching culture is key for leaders
How to adapt your coaching and communication style in a virtual world
The reason emotional connections in coaching are so important.

Plus loads more hacks!

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Corry Robertson below:

Corry’s Website - https://corryrobertson.com

Corry on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/corryrobertson/

Corry on Twitter - https://twitter.com/CorryRobertson

Corry on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/coachcorryrobertsonpcc/

Full Transcript below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Joining us on the show today is Corry Robertson. She's recognized as an expert on organizational culture and she's the founder and CEO of The Coaching Academy for Leaders. But before we get a chance to meet with Corry, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the new today we've got a fun and bizarre story just to put into context how crazy our biases can be. The guy who travels the New York, subway dressed as a giant rat as his bizarre costume makes it dead easy to practice social distancing, Jonothon Lyon purchase on the train six wearing his strange regalia as part of his work as a performance artist. And he says his costume is ideal for staying COVID secure. He's told us that he doesn't have to worry about what people are saying or how close they need to get because the six feet distance is just naturally happening. A video of Jonathon riding, the rails dresses as Buddy the Rat went viral online with the official account of New York metropolitan transport authority joking, thank you for wearing a mask. Jonothon points out that he was wearing a surgical face mask underneath his rat face. In fact, sometimes he wears an extra face mask on top of buddy face. When not infesting the underground, Jonothon works in physical theatre and puppetry as well as performing as part of a barbershop quartet, The Apple Boys. He's even done a stint with internationally famous performance art company, Blue Man Group, but Jonothon best known for scampering around on TikToK as Manhattan's largest rodent. He occasionally even carries a giant pizza slice to add a touch of realism to the scene. Jonothon said he created his Buddy the Rat character just over 10 years ago, and his first video showing buddy expedition to times square scored just over 70,000 views on YouTube.

So good luck to Jonothon and Buddy the Rat, but the leadership lens here is quite simple. However, absurd and obvious it may seem to people that a giant rat can put space between us proves that our unconscious thinking and our unconscious mindset still plays out in some simple behaviours. So, the next time you see a giant rat and you think I need to run away from it, it's probably just Jonothon. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any fun, interesting, or just plain crazy stories that you'd like our listeners to hear, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Corry Robinson is our special guest on today's show. She's a leading global expert on organizational culture, engagement and retention, particularly in the tech industry. She's also the founder and CEO of The Coaching Academy for Leaders. Corry, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Corry Robertson: Thank you for having me, Steve.

Steve Rush: Joining us all the way from Quebec in Canada today.

Corry Robertson: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: How is Canada dealing with the world and what's happening right now?

Corry Robertson: Well, you know, I think Canadians are being good Canadians, you know, trying hard to, you know, limit the spread of COVID-19, learn to keep a great attitude, you know, and just trying to keep the world turning, you know, doing our part to get through this together.

Steve Rush: Good stuff. So, tell us a little bit about your journey Corry, from where you started out to then running and leading and coaching and inspiring others?

Corry Robertson: Great question. I started with a degree in communication studies actually, and I entered the workforce and I was just so excited. It was my dream come true to, you know, get out and start working and making my mark on the world. I started realizing very quickly in that it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. You know, I was really looking forward to, you know, working with great leaders and having great colleagues. In retrospect, I realized what was really lacking for me was strong leadership, visionary leadership. And so, I moved from advertising into project managing events, which I really, really enjoyed and took a break from that when my husband had an opportunity to move abroad and we had a small child at the time. And then when we got abroad and the baby was on the way and I wanted to go back to my events business, but I didn't have a network. And so, I decided I was going to build one. So, I started this business called the Elvetham Heath business network. And Elvetham Heath was the name of the village we lived in and the business grew and grew and grew. And what ended up happening was is, I took all of my work experience that I had had from, you know, from advertising. I did some time in magazine publishing and of course there was the events. I realized that these skills were really important for my business network. So before, you know, I'm publishing a magazine for, you know, full articles written by my clients. You know, giving really great advertising opportunities. I'm organizing trade shows, I'm hosting networking events, giving public speaking opportunities to my clients. And three of my clients were business coaches and two of them became really good friends. And one of them lent me his material from this training school that he went to become a coach. And he lent me the material on Friday afternoon, two huge binders because in those days we still received our learning material on paper and on eve files.

Steve Rush: There was no Zoom then.

Corry Robertson: There was no Zoom, no digital files. Our business network actually had one of the first websites that anyone had seen. Nobody had really gotten hooked on websites yet; it was still pretty new. And I realized from clients who were coaches, what I've learned from them is that most people, although they're asking for advice, so they reach out and they ask for help. They don't really need advice. And this is really where the coaching magic comes in as you know, people already have so much information, so much education, so much experience, so much creativity and intelligence that they don't need mine. They don't need yours. They don't need anybody else. They need somebody to help coax it out of them. And that's what coaching is. So, when I discovered coaching as a profession, in Canada coaches were sports coaches, not life coaches or leadership coaches or corporate coaches. So, it was brand new to me. And it was just, it was a catalyst for me. I have this, this is really, really exciting stuff. And it's such a great opportunity to be a part of.

Steve Rush: Awesome, I had a very similar experience. Actually, its kind of gets hold of you, doesn't it? When you can unlock the potential in others through just conversation in great communication, it's almost a luring, isn't it? And you just want more of it and more of it.

Corry Robertson: Oh, absolutely. As you know, I train coaches, I mentor aspiring coaches and I always tell them, I said, there's going to come a time when you witnessed somebody's “A-HA!” moment and you will never be the same again.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I feel very privileged in having done that several occasions, if not more than several occasions. And it's a very intimate experience, isn't it? And you know, particularly cherish.

Corry Robertson: Oh, it's amazing. It's amazing. And then you think this is my blessing. This is my career. You know, people come to me and they allow me to hold space and bear witness to their transformation. And it's so special because it's not from me. I didn't tell them anything. I didn't give them anything that they didn't already have, just held the space open long enough and wide enough for them to see it for themselves.

Steve Rush: So, what’s the key focus that you're working with your clients on right now?

Corry Robertson: Bringing coaching into cultures as the leadership style, you know, not just doing coaching, you know, oh, you know, maybe I'll try my coaching hat for this problem, no. My main focus with my clients right now is bringing in coaching as the primary and fundamental culture of an organization and supporting leaders in developing coaching as their leadership style and not just a leadership trick or tip.

Steve Rush: I did my master's degree on coaching. And what I observed through my research is that the higher the leaders became in their organizational hierarchy to the C-Suite, the less they coached, but the more they recognized the need for it, how do you kind of help people through that journey?

Corry Robertson: Wow, that's an interesting one, you know, and sometimes they think that the higher people go the more they feel the value they deliver comes from imparting their knowledge and their experience and providing the solutions and thinking quickly and coming in and making things better. And that's where they feel that they're providing value. And that's what they feel they're being measured and judged and so on and so forth. But, you know, as well as I do that, the higher people go, the more they have to take on that servant leadership approach and the coaching approach becomes even more effective. So, when I encounter that, you know, when I encounter that people are getting in their own way. It's just a matter of reminding, you know, that the coaching approach is really powerful and not to forget that and then work through it. You know, in my coaching conversations, I always ask my clients, you know, bring something real to the conversation, you know, come ready to talk about what's going on in your day to day right now, this morning or what's happening this afternoon that you need to prepare for. When people are dealing with hypotheticals and what would I do if, and what if this should happen? It's less effective.

Steve Rush: Right.

Corry Robertson: Because it's fiction.

Steve Rush: Definitely is, isn't it? Communication cuts through all of the work you do now. So, having studied that as a kind of a foundation, I should imagine that you're drawing on that all the while. So right the way through organizational culture, leadership development, and coaching, how have you noticed communication shift this year particularly?

Corry Robertson: I think there's a big shift in that people don't have their water cooler time. You know, they don't have that few minutes before the meeting where everyone's gathering and, you know, sitting around the table, waiting for everyone to arrive. The energetic connection between people is weaker now. So, it makes communication harder. You know, when you can't be with a person in their daily interactions, it's, it's much, much more difficult for people to connect.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Corry Robertson: I think people are struggling with that.

Steve Rush: I like the way you framed that, that kind of energy connection, but that's exactly what it is because people have this perception that communication is verbal or nonverbal, but there is this kind of a sensory communication that we miss as well, isn't that?

Corry Robertson: I think so, and I'm glad you brought that up because a lot of coaching happens over the phone. So, my practice hasn't really changed all that much because like I was home-based before. The only thing that really changes is the training program, which is used to be all in person, but now it's online. But when you're aware of energy and I really want to take a minute to flush this out. You can still establish an intuitive connection over the phone or over you know, a video conference of some kind. It's just a matter of being aware of your intuition. You can hear a person's body language through the telephone.

Steve Rush: Yeah, you can.

Corry Robertson: You know, you don't have to see, you don't have to watch their eye movements. You don't have to judging, are they crossing their arms and legs? Are they, you know, are they, I don't know, pacing around the room? You can feel that energy beyond your eyes and your ears. And I think that is probably where leadership needs to go next. Is tapping into this ability to read energy through intuitive connection. And I know, you know, people might be thinking, oh my God, this is so wooed, woo. I don't want to listen to this. But its intuition, you know, it is part of the human capacity. You know, we used to use words like gut instinct, you know, and that was accepted language, right? So, it's the same thing. We can tap into energetic connections through intuition, if we pay attention and it's a skillset that you can learn and you can practice, you can get good at.

Steve Rush: It's also scientific too, isn't it? So, you know, intuition is a reaction in our nervous system caused by a scanning thousands and thousands and thousands of unconscious events where we're observing maybe only one or two things happening in front of us consciously, but the unconscious mind does the scan of all of the different experiences, how people breathe, how people speak, their tonality. And it's that gut feel is caused by shifting dopamine in our brain. As coaches, it's that paying attention to it that's most important, isn't it?

Corry Robertson: I'm so glad to hear the scientific explanations behind these things that have been so intangible and so therefore dismissed, but you're right. You know, studies of the brain and neuroscience, neurobiology, it's really starting to prove that, you know, what intuition is and how it works and why it works. So, you know, when we're tuned in to these things, when we're paying attention. I'll tell you a little story, when I first started my coaching studies, I went to Coach U and Coach U is an international school and it was all done online and over the phone. Our classes were all telephone-based and our, you know, reading material, our tests and such were all online. And that was a long time ago. You know, when you think, I started in 2004, so that was really pre this world that we're living in, where everything's online. Our practice groups were of people from all over the planet. And I was having my turn to coach and my colleague, when she was doing her turn to be the client, she was in New Zealand and I was here in Quebec. And I asked her question and she went silent. And as you know, one of the coaching skills that we learned to master is the technique of holding the silence, where we just let silence be for as long as it needs to be without the rush to fill in words and more questions and more explanations, just be in the silence. So, in the silence, I started to cry.

Steve Rush: Wow, that’s pretty prolific, isn't it?

Corry Robertson: Yeah, so I'm thinking, oh my goodness, what's going on with me right now? I'm in the middle of a class that's I’m supposed to be coaching a client of mine, and she's going to start talking again and I'm going to be a mess. And so, I'm thinking, oh no, what's going to happen. And then when she starts talking again, she's crying and she realized she was crying because I asked her such a profound question. It was an epiphany for her. And I thought, here I am in Quebec and she's in New Zealand. And we were so intuitively and energetically connected that I took on her emotions and felt them, myself.

Steve Rush: That's amazing story.

Corry Robertson: Oh, you know, and when you start noticing, you know, I had a client a few months ago, he's telling me this story, is so angry, something had happened at work. He was just so angry. And he said, Corry, so as he's talking to me, I'm starting to feel this terrible stomach ache come over me. And I think I'm going to have to get off this call. Like if I don't get this pain under control, I'm going to have to go. And he said, Corry, I'm so mad. He said, I feel like I've been punched in the stomach.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Corry Robertson: You see? So, there's two stories are examples of how we can be intuitively and energetically connected with another person. The gentleman I was talking about, he was in another province in Canada and we're over the landline. And my classmate in New Zealand, again, we were on landlines, you know, so it exists and it happens. And it's not just me. As, you know, you felt it too.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Corry Robertson: You have this wonderful, scientific explanation for why it happens. And I think it's where we really need to go with leadership right now and communication. Is this ability to use our intuition as a communication skill.

Steve Rush: And there may be folks that are listening to this thinking. Just not me, I can't do that. But of course, this is about practice. And as coaches, we've practiced thousands and thousands of hours over our careers. And the more you observe, we put that to the unconscious part of our mind, but we intuitively then can recognize it because we've seen it happen somewhere before, which gives us that nudge to ask more intuitive questions or more exploratory questions or more profound thinking questions. One of the key things that you help people with as part of your coaching practice is the whole principle of organizational culture. For those people who may be not familiar with what organizational culture is, how would you frame it?

Corry Robertson: So organizational culture is really how do the values that we share as people in this company, how did they show up in our behaviour? So that's really the short, short explanation of it. So how do we treat each other? How do we dress? How do we treat the property? You know, the desks and the, you know, office supplies and things, what is the decor like? You know, all of these things represent culture. Do we speak quickly? You know, or do we speak slowly? Do we have a lot of meetings? How do we treat people when a mistake is made? How do we promote people? What do we value in the way people produce their work? So, all of these things lead to what the organizational culture is.

Steve Rush: Great summary, thank you for providing a bit more context for folk on that, I love that. In order to then think about what's happened this year during the pandemic, wherever you own the world, however intense it's been for you or not. How do you think that organizational culture might shift because of it?

Corry Robertson: That's a really good question. So, I think cultures are shifting because we've had this, there's a couple of really, really amazing things that have happened. So, for one thing, things that were deemed impossible and so impossible, they were unspeakable. Before COVID-19 all of a sudden became possible, mainly work from home, you know, so the call centres for banks, for example, impossible, impossible. There's no way, you know, call centre employees from banks can ever work from home. Within a week they were working from home. So, I think cultures might be shifting in one way to see, you know, to acknowledge that what we always said was impossible, isn't impossible. So, I think cultures that are going to be opening up to a lot more capacity for innovation, you know, and tackling what was deemed to be the impossible or tackling rules or norms that were just never discussed before, because it was just always that way. So now I think we realized we don't have to live with things just because it was always that way, it wasn't working.

Steve Rush: And some of those rules that you talk about they're often applied because that's how we know we can do things and the rules and belief systems that we had prior to the pandemic, said this is how we do things. And I guess as a result of being thrust into something that we thought, perhaps wasn't possible 10 months ago, now creates the capacity to unlock new thinking, new innovation. That'd be kind of fair, summation?

Corry Robertson: I think that's a great way of putting it, yeah.

Steve Rush: Great. One of the things you've been really big on in your career is that whole, how you coach people and how you help organizations to retain their top talent. And one of the things I'd love to get into with you is just this whole principle about how people are going to feel more valued because of what they've been through, but also how people might, particularly the talent end of the spectrum might use this as an opportunity to jump if they don't feel valued. What's your take on that?

Corry Robertson: Yeah, so I think that's always been the case. I think it's much more prevalent now, it's much more obvious now. The war on talent has been something we've been talking about. You know, I've been talking about it for at least 10 years and trying to explain, there was a saying that, you know, I think it was the eighties where they said companies used to expect employees to prove their worth to the organization. And now it's the other way around where organizations are having to prove their worth to the employee. And the war on talent has been such a hot topic of discussion in my field. And I'm sure you've heard it as well. I think to attract and retain talent these days. I really do think people are looking for cultures where they feel that, you know, there's the movement for psychological safety, you know, so where people feel that they can speak out, they won't be mocked or belittled because of their ideas or their values.

They'll be able to make mistakes, you know, without fear of, you know, serious repercussions. You know, I think it's important. People feel, you know, to again, to attract and retain top talent. The whole piece around being developed. You know, people want to be seeing and feeling how they're learning and growing as human beings. You know, and this is not just a new idea. You know, you could just look back to, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And we see that the need to, you know, be connected to colleagues, to feel respected and appreciated for our work and the need to be growing and learning as a human being. Those are the top three things on the hierarchy of needs after safety and security. They're not nice to have, there need to have an organization who can understand that and provide for that will be the ones who will be able to retain their talent and keep them from jump ship.

Steve Rush: There's also been a big shift too, culturally, over the last 20 years as our Baby Boomers and Generation X are heading towards the more senior Twilight years of their careers. And in the next 10 or 15 years, most CEOs running the business are likely to be at the very least Gen Y. And in some cases, some Gen Z, colleagues too, and that plays out too, doesn't it? When you start thinking about developing talent and expectations.

Corry Robertson: It certainly does. It certainly does. You know, the things that people care about are changing. And I was just doing some research the other day on the Gen Z. So Gen Z's are now just finishing up university. They're just entering the workforce. They need transparency. They have no patience for being left in the dark. They have no patience for lies or miscommunications. They want it clear and they want it on the table. And I really admire that. They, you know, there's so much haze and smoke and mirrors and nonsense going around. And, you know, it's so many organizations and the young folks are just like, yeah, no, say it like it is, you know, one of my favourite expressions is say what you mean and mean what you say, and the Gen Z are demanding that.

Steve Rush: The Gen Z workforce that's going to be coming into play, seriously in the next 5 to 10 years are also of a cultural upbringing where there's instant gratification. So, if we're not instantly gratifying their career aspirations and helping them on their personal development journeys, then they're most likely to also be impatient around how they get there, right?

Corry Robertson: Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm a Gen X-er.

Steve Rush: I’m a Gen X-er too.

Corry Robertson: Okay, okay, good. So, what I was noticing with one of my younger cohorts recently is this request for reminders, you know, this request for more follow-ups. And I find that, you know, I'm catching myself going, wow. You know, my generation has tried so hard to reduce the number of emails and make things really clear. And, you know, just say it once and then, you know, write it down in your agenda book or note it in your online calendar, and then you're good to go. And so, can you send me a reminder, you know, can you send me that material in like three different ways? And I’m like wow. And I'm checking myself going, well, my reaction is no, I'm not sending you a reminder, write it down.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Corry Robertson: But it’s the need, it's the way that generation is moving, you know, because I think they move so fast and everything is, you know, like that constant gratification you were talking about. It's the way they want to be communicated with; you know? So, to be one who's always trying to, you know, try to walk my talk cause like, okay, maybe I need to shift. I am the older one.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Corry Robertson: You know, but as somebody who is adjusting to the new needs of the generations coming through, it's like, okay, I maybe have to be the one to adjust.

Steve Rush: It's great to ask those questions of yourself as well as part of that process. Isn't it?

Corry Robertson: Absolutely, I think that's how we stay relevant, right? And it's what we are asking, you know, as coaches, we're always asking people questions that cause them to reflect. So, we have to do that to ourselves as well.

Steve Rush: So, I saw some research recently that said over half of people that left organizations said on their exit interviews, that their line manager could have prevented them from leaving, which sounds like a real shame. But what causes that?

Corry Robertson: Oh boy, there are so many, there's so many variables that lead up to that. So, it's been proven time and time again, I'm sure you've seen this literature as well, that people don't leave their jobs. And many times, they don't even leave their companies, right. Cause you think of it, people spend many, many, many years and thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars or pounds and investing in their educations. You know, they're preparing themselves for the workforce. They're studying, they're spending their money on this. They're sacrificing for their dream job and they get into the workforce. So, it's not their job that they're leaving and it's not their company. You know, people go to a lot of trouble to choose their companies and to apply and prepare themselves to be the right fit for the organization. It's the boss that they leave. It's their direct manager. So, people aren't leaving jobs or companies. They're leaving their bosses.

Steve Rush: And it's an old habit, but it's so true, isn't it?

Corry Robertson: It's so true. It's so true. Very often it's not because the boss isn't technically competent at his or her job. They often got promoted because they were technically competent. It's because they don't have the leadership skills.

Steve Rush: Right, and that takes us full circle right back to helping raise awareness and self-awareness of leaders so that they can impact the culture so that the talent, when they come into the workforce can be nurtured in the right way. And it's then a positive experience versus a negative experience.

Corry Robertson: Absolutely, you know, and there are so many important parts of being a manager. And I always say that, you know, I compare, you know, the human interaction to something like the way that computer works and I'll say the hardware doesn't work without the software.

Steve Rush: Yes, good analogy, I like that.

Corry Robertson: You know, so it's like the soft skills. You need the soft skills to get the job done. You know, you're talking to human beings, people forget, you know, we all have feelings. We all have egos, we all have hopes and dreams and fears, and those cannot be overbooked. And it takes soft skills to be able to nurture a human being through the day's work so that they can really perform, you know, without dropping the ball and leaving the organization.

Steve Rush: It does. It does. So now I get to turn the leadership lens on you. This is part of the show where I get to hack into your great mind from a leadership perspective. And I'd love for you to share with our guests, if you could, your top three leadership hacks?

Corry Robertson: Okay. So, number one, leaders keep in mind that not everybody is like you, the people who, you know, if you're out there and your owner of a start-up and your company's maturing, and you've got a workforce now. You might be wondering why isn't everybody willing to work 24/7 and be available around the clock and make this thing happen. Because not everybody has that entrepreneurial spirit, not everybody can get an organization off the ground. And once you start growing to the point where you have a workforce, chances are, they're not wired like you. So, don't try to make them like you. Get to know yourself really well, and then from your self-awareness, start becoming aware of others and then work towards fulfilling their needs. And that's how you're going to turn it around. And it ignites passion for the organization and the organizational goals, so that's number one.

Number two, I would suggest to leaders to get curious, you know, we were talking about this a little bit before, but get curious about what's going on for people, what's going on in their minds. You know, when they come into your office and they've got something on their mind that they want to talk to you about, don't be so quick to jump in and give answers and advice and tell them what to do, ask questions. And you'll see that once they see that you're genuinely curious and you're approaching the situation with, you know, conversational curiosity, they are really going to open up and you will have the opportunity to witness the brilliance and the potential in that other person. They already know that you're brilliant. They already know that, it's your turn now to get curious and figure out what's brilliant about them. That's going to make them feel great and it's going to unleash their potential and their energy and their engagement in the role.

And my third hack is if people are delegating up, you know, giving responsibility back to you or not being able to move forward on things without coming to check with you, is this what you want? Is this the way you like it? Give me some ideas. If that kind of upwards delegation is occurring on your team, you probably haven't done my first two hacks.

Steve Rush: Yeah, true.

Corry Robertson: Yes, so if people are delegating up back to you and you feel that they're not moving ahead, I would ask you to check your soft skills and your coaching skills because they’re stuck.

Steve Rush: And it probably starts with coaching too, doesn't it?

Corry Robertson: Well, you know, you're a coach talking to a coach.

Steve Rush: We are speaking to the converted between us, aren't we?

Corry Robertson: Absolutely. You know, to me, it's Mecca, you know, it is the answer to everything. If you want to solve all of your organizational problems, just bring in a coaching culture. And you know, so many things will be better because of that.

Steve Rush: Very true.

Corry Robertson: I guess that's hack number four.

Steve Rush: In fact, that could even be a new show, right?

Corry Robertson: Oh, absolutely. What a great idea.

Steve Rush: So, the next part of the show, our listeners have become affectionately accustomed to, which is what we call Hack to Attack. So, this is a time in your life or your work where something's screwed up. It just hasn't worked out as planned. But as a result of the experience, you use it as a positive in your life, what will be your Hack to Attack?

Corry Robertson: Oh boy, my Hack to Attack would be to slow down. You know, if I think back to who I was or what I was like when I was 21, I was in a huge rush. You know, if I don't get this done by the time, I'm 23, or my career is going to be a disaster. Oh, my goodness, I'm 24 and I haven't got this. I think in rushing like that or feeling rushed like that, it causes a stunted type of energy. And so, if I were to go back and if I were to bump into myself at 21 on the street, I would say, don't worry, take it in stride, learn from everything, take it all in. And then everything good or bad right or wrong. It's all another, you know, brick in the foundation. You know, it's absolutely amazing when you look back, you know, 20 something years later and go yet, you know what? Even the painful things, even the embarrassing things, even the expensive things, they all led to now, and I can use every single one of those mistakes and embarrassing moments and lost investments. I can say hand to heart, they serve me well in this moment and they allow me to be a better coach, more empathetic, more compassionate, more experienced, gentle person.

Steve Rush: That's awesome Corry. And I guess, you know, our show better than everybody else, because the next part of our show would be to jump into giving yourself advice at 21 and you've just done it, which is amazing. So, an advocate we have in you. So, I appreciate that. So, find the part of our show. We get to help our listeners connect with you, find out a little bit more about the work that you're doing with the coaching category for leaders. Where's the best place for our listeners to come and find you?

Corry Robertson: It can be found @corryrobertson.com, which is my website address. I'm also on LinkedIn, same Corry Robertson. And I have a Facebook page called Corry Robertson Alive From 9 to 5. And anyone who's interested in becoming a coach. I am a coach trainer. I have my program, is accredited by The International Coach Federation. So, whether you are interested in using coaching as a leadership style and your day to day at work, or whether you would like to someday start your own coaching practice, I can definitely talk you through. We can have a conversation to see if you know, coaching as a profession is right for you. And if it is, then I can point you in the right direction,

Steve Rush: And we'll make sure that all those links are in our show notes as well, so that folk can click on straight away.

Corry Robertson: Oh, thank you. And thank you so much for this opportunity.

Steve Rush: You're very welcome. Hey, this has been super to connect with you. So, what's next for you?

Corry Robertson: What's next for me? Well, you know, so excited about, you know, moving, you know, at first, I did not want to move my training practice, my coach training practice online. So many people suggested it to me over the years and you can go global. I mean, I don't want to, I want to go in person and be with my people and now forced to, I when online, wow! My online program is fantastic. I've made so many improvements. So, I think what's next. The next wave is going to be for people like yourself and myself who are available online. Now we're going to have to go back out into the world probably next year and create yet another hybrid of what is the perfect blend between the online piece, which I think is here to stay. I think I for one made a lot of improvements because of the online piece and then to take the best of both worlds. So, what was great about the in-person and now what is great about the online and then marry the two, so I think that's what’s next

Steve Rush: Good, not much work to do.

Corry Robertson: No, well, you know what, between midnight and 3:00 AM, we have nothing to do.

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly. Sleep is overrated.

Corry Robertson: Oh, totally.

Steve Rush: Anyway, listen. On behalf of our listeners, Corry, thanks for joining us on the show. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. Wish you every success of what happens next in your world, but thanks for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Corry Robertson: Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening and you know, best wishes for health and happiness to you and all the leaders and all the listeners out there.

Steve Rush: Thanks Corry.

Closing

View Details

Luis Gonzales is a master facilitator and a global communications expert. We have some fierce hacks from Luis today which include:

How his multicultural upbringing shaped his corporate career positively
Why cultures play a significant part in your communication
Paying attention to one conversation at a time enriches relationships
Why noticing how your intuition informs conversations is critical
Plus lots more hacks

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Luis:

Fierce Inc. Website: https://fierceinc.com

Luis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisgonzales/

Full Transcript Below:

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

We're joined on the show today by Louis Gonzales. He's a master facilitator and a global communications expert. But before we get into conversation with Luis, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Did you know that in every language, there are more negative words than there are positive ones. It seems we need lots of words to describe my negative feelings, but we're content with a handful of ones to describe positive feelings. Researchers have found that most cultures have words that describe seven basic emotions. They are joy, fear, anger, sadness, disgust, shame, and guilt. So that's one positive emotion and six negative emotions. It's no wonder so many of us have a hard time keeping our negative comments in check. Over the last 10 years, I've been working with language and communication, and I've noticed a bunch of words in our vocabulary that are unhelpful and could adversely impact on you and your team's outcomes.

In the news today, I've called out five that I think are most limiting negative words, and really could be avoided so that we don't hurt, belittle and intimidate those around us. Let's get into them.

The first word is can't. When you tell somebody they can't do something, oftentimes they'll end up in believing you, whether you are right or wrong. This is particularly true if the person has come to trust you and to respect you and can often then limit people's behaviours.

No, the word no is a mother and father all negative words and no can impact us down to our very core. In fact, research tells us that we rap more slowly to the word no than we do to the word yes. And that our brains respond differently when we're told no. This is a great reminder for us to use this word sparingly and to be thoughtful when we do use it.

Failure as in you're a failure, is that ever really a reason to use this word in relation to another person? Until a few years ago, I actually used this on my website and I used the phrase failure isn't an option. Now I put success is your only option. And lo and behold, when people read it, they stay on the page longer. They recognize this as more of a positive enabler. It also stimulates better thinking. Positive beats negative, of course, in every situation.

Wrong, the word wrong has its place. And sometimes there's no doubt that something is wrong. However, constantly telling someone they're doing something wrong or that their opinions are wrong are likely to drive a wedge between the two of you. Using this word assumes that only, you know, best. You have the monopoly on what's classed as a truth. So, reserve this word for when there is absolutely no doubt that it is wrong and it's accurate.

And finally, the word never. Using generalizations, like always never. Often indicates that you feel very strongly something. However, it may not be an accurate analysis of the situation at all. If you want to intimidate or hurt someone, i.e. You failed everything you try then using generalizations is a great technique, but of course, if that's not your intention, it's probably best to take a different approach and get more specific. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. We'd love to hear your stories and insights, so please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Luis Gonzales is a special guest on today's show. He is a master facilitator. He's an expert in workplace performance, productivity and communications. Luis welcome to the Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Luis Gonzales: Thank you, Steve. It's great to be here.

Steve Rush: So, you've got really fascinating backstory. Having now worked as a master facilitator at Fierce, you didn't start out life that way and a very multicultural upbringing in the city of Compton, South of LA. Tell us a little bit about the journey to Compton to where you are now?

Luis Gonzales: Well many of your listeners may have heard of the city of Compton. Right now It's known for rap music and extreme gang violence, but I'll say that it was quite not like that back in the sixties and seventies, when I was growing up there, it was a very diverse community. So, I'm very fortunate to have grown up in such a diverse community as Compton. People of different colours and shades, et cetera. It also provided some challenges that I needed to work through as a young person, which made me who I am today, made me a much stronger person who I am today. It's a very working-class community. And I think what sparked me to get into what I'm into now, which is, you know, all about communication, effective communication, or as we say, fierce communication, I used to observe as a child, the different styles of communication that people from different backgrounds and races had all in the same community of Compton.

And I used to kind of study that from a very I guess, immature way, you know, why do they talk like that? How is it they're communicating? And what's the actual message they're trying to deliver? How is it being received, et cetera? And again, this is in a multicultural environment. So, you could say it could be between Latin Americans, Mexican Americans, and the way they communicate and communicating with African-Americans perhaps. So, there's two different communication styles there. So, I'm really grateful that I grew up in a diverse world, a diverse neighbourhood with lots of support. Were there challenges? Absolutely. But that has also caused me to become a better communicator today. And I would say a better person overall as well in terms of my outlook on diversity, being more accepting of differences in people, et cetera. So that's a little bit about Compton, my background and how that kind of propelled me into what I'm doing now.

Steve Rush: And I wonder if that time that you were growing up, Luis, you had an awareness of the different types of communication because you would have not only had the multicultural language communication was physical, but I suspect that there were a number of different nonverbal communication styles and attitudes that were playing out. It's almost like a communications apprenticeship, right?

Luis Gonzales: Absolutely. Absolutely. I'll give you a perfect example of that Steve. When I was very young, probably second grade, maybe I was seven or eight years old, one of the kids in school who was a Mexican American kid, like myself, was being scolded by the teacher, by the way, I went to Catholic School, but that's neither here nor there, but in those days there were some scolding when you misbehaved or were not behaving as you should. And the teacher was scolding this young Mexican American kid, my classmate. And I remember him looking down and looking down while he was being scolded. And the teacher kept saying, look at me, stop looking down, look at me. And he was getting in trouble because he refused to look at the teacher. And I remember telling my parents that when I went home and it was probably not at that time, I may have been too young, but later I came to understand, and my father helped me understand that's a cultural difference. That's a cultural communication style. That's nonverbal, as you said. So, I'll say in our culture and what I mean by that is, I identify as a Mexican American. So, in my Mexican background, my Mexican family culture when someone is scolded, you don't look that person in the eye, you remain humble and you tilt your head downward. In a US American context, however, that might be seen as disrespectful. And you need to look the person in the eye, who's scolding you, the older person, the elder, whoever it is. So that's one example right there of different communication style, all in English, all in the same country, all within the same overarching culture if you will. Here in Southern California. And yet there's a miscommunication that caused a breakdown in a relationship, and nobody really understood why.

Steve Rush: And it's the subtle nuances and those cultural communication styles that you become successful at adapting and learning about, and indeed sharing those lessons. And we'll get onto that in a little bit more detail in a moment.

Luis Gonzales: Sure.

Steve Rush: When it comes to your corporate career, though, you have a great kind of story of evolution and transformation, your corporate career in the hospitality business. Just tell us a little bit about that?

Luis Gonzales: Sure, I started with the Ritz Carlton Hotel, proud to say that. At the ripe age of, I think it was 20 or 21, and it was based here in the Los Angeles area, that hotel property at the time. And so, we receive a lot of high-profile guests, a lot of celebrities, princes and royalty from all over the world. You can imagine that this five-star hotel, the Ritz Carlton in the Los Angeles area, all the people that came through there, I was exposed again to all kinds of cultures and communication styles. And of course, with the Ritz Carlton, they set a very high standard for guest satisfaction, wowing the guests and all of that. And so, in order to exceed the expectations of a guest. That requires communication, that requires effective communication. And so, I was in the school, if you will, while working for the Ritz Carlton, I was in my own school of learning how to communicate across cultures, even within the Ritz Carlton, across departmental cultures, what to speak of. The various cultures that pass-through hotel that I had to interact with.

And please, if you will, or, you know, exceed their expectations as we used to say. So, I learned very quickly, not a lot of people were very interested in that. But for me, I took a deep interest in that. And so, for example, one example of an aha moment, if you will, that I had. Was when I was welcoming a wedding party, I had been with the Ritz probably about eight years, by that time and a big Indian wedding party, or what I thought was an Indian wedding party was coming in, everyone dressed to the hilt, all the beautiful clothing they were wearing and all that. And when the bride and her family entered the main doors of the Ritz Carlton, and I was standing there to greet them, I folded my hands in a Namaste fashion and greeted them with Namaste.

And, oh my gosh, that was one of the most embarrassing moments. And one of the best learning moments I've ever had, don't assume, they were not Indian, they were Pakistani.

Steve Rush: Alright, yeah.

Luis Gonzales: They were not Hindu. They were Muslim. And what an aha moment that was for me. Now anybody else, any of my colleagues at that time, might've just said, oh, sorry about that. And then moved on, but I ruminated on it. Like, what's the difference? And what made me assume that they were Indian and how can I now clue into the differences before I put my foot in my mouth and embarrass myself. So that's an example of just one example of some of the learning, the intercultural communication style, intercultural communication learning that I had just by my exposure working at the Ritz-Carlton, exposure to so many cultures.

Steve Rush: And I guess, you almost have a conveyor belt of different cultures and different languages that on top of your diverse upbringing, it was just another layer of learning all the way through your career, right?

Luis Gonzales: That's right, absolutely. And then not to mention on top of that communication style of the Ritz Carlton itself, they have such a genteel way, I guess this is the best way I can describe it, of communicating, whether it be hard messages to deliver, or, you know, celebratory messages or just your basic memos, just that communication style that is so smooth and gracious and concise. And I learned from that as well, in terms of, you know, another way to communicate in a business setting.

Steve Rush: I'm sure you won't mind me mentioning you started out as a bus boy with the Ritz Carlton and ended up as a senior leader for the organization.

Luis Gonzales: I did.

Steve Rush: And at what point did you make the transition from the hospitality business to being a master facilitator?

Luis Gonzales: Yeah, that's a great question. I'm glad you asked that. I was with the Ritz Carlton for a total of about 18 years. I had worked my way through the ranks, as you mentioned, starting as a bus boy slash therapist banquets, waiter, parked cars, did all kinds of things and ended up as a guest services manager, meaning in charge of all the valets and the bell persons, et cetera, and the front of the house as we used to call it. And I had reached a point where I wanted to dive more deeply into this whole idea of intercultural cross-cultural communication, global communication, something peaked my interest at that moment. And I thought to myself, okay, I've put in 18 years in the hotel industry, where is this career going? And is this what my passion is? And I think it just boiled down to that was no longer my passion.

I had developed another passion and that was effective communication across borders, across cultures. Within a year, I decided to go back to grad school or go to grad school and complete my education, which I had not done. So, I quit the Ritz, and I remember when I gave my notice, they were dumbfounded. They meaning my managers at the time, my leaders, who I respected at that time, their jaws dropped like you're going to ditch a career, this awesome career that you built for yourself. Okay, good luck. I proceeded to go to the Monterey Institute of International Studies. I got my bachelor's degree in International Studies. I got my master's degree in International Relations with a focus on culture and area studies. And so, I just spearheaded into this whole world of intercultural cross-cultural communication. And that's how I got into that.

One of my mentors was my professor. He owned a consultancy company, still does. Called Aperian Global. They do cross-cultural consulting. They did, at that time, I got under his wing. Long story short, that's how I got here to where I am today. I began to start training effective communication. And in particular global cross border cross-cultural communication. I eventually ended up at Microsoft in India, where I worked for two years, coaching and training, the software engineers that were at the customer help desk, if you will, when the cloud has gone down and companies need quick help with that, they would reach my team in India. And I trained them and coach them on their communication styles with US Americans and Canadians. And from there long story short, connected, a few more dots after that and got me to where I am today with Fierce Conversations. Been with them for five years. Love what I do, because it's all about effective communication in so many aspects. In so many different angles, if you will, but that's the short story, Steve.

Steve Rush: That's a great story. And I love the fact that all the while through your growing up in your corporate career, and I guess it may have even been completely unconscious. You already had the foundations for a bachelor's and a master's degree right there.

Luis Gonzales: Yeah, I did. But I didn't realize. It is now I'm realizing it, but yes, you're right at the time, you don't realize what you know, I guess.

Steve Rush: And it's a great story. Thank you for sharing that.

Luis Gonzales: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: So, tell us a little bit about the work that you do with Fierce, so Fierce Conversations as you called it.

Luis Gonzales: Yeah, Fierce Conversations. Let me just start with our starting point. This is a firm belief that we have, and I believe this to be true. I've witnessed and experienced this in my own life. Our careers, our companies, our relationships, heck even our lives, they either succeed or fail and it happens gradually then suddenly. And it happens one conversation at a time. So, conversations are the linchpin, the key to achieving the results that we want, achieving the relationships that we want, the goals that we want or whatever it is we say we want, it starts with a conversation and highly effective people like us. I'll include you there, Steve and I do my best to be a highly effective individual. We track the trends of our lives and we look, and we can adjust. Who do we need to have conversations with to help us achieve our goals? Where are conversations missing that need to happen to avoid any kind of mistakes or perhaps disasters? Where am I not being as candid or as forthright as I could be, or as I should be in a particular situation to help me achieve whatever goals I want. So, at the core we are all about at Fierce paying attention to our individual conversations. Because as I mentioned already, one conversation at a time, we're either moving towards the results we say we want or away from those results. We're either enriching relationships or flat-lining them, or hopefully not, but sometimes damaging them. All happening one conversation at a time. So that's our foundational belief. And from there, we take that idea and we branch out into confrontational conversations, all kinds of leadership conversations, how to have delegation conversations, how to confront when behaviour needs to change now. We talk about the idea of building emotional capital and why relationships, why strong relationships are so important to achieving our organizational goals and results. And so, we branch off in so many different directions, and now we are getting involved with effective conversations, effective communication, as it relates to diversity, equity and inclusion, because those are now topics that have bubbled up to the surface of the public discourse here in the United States, at least.

Steve Rush: Great stuff, there’s one thing that I'd love to dive into with you. And it's this whole principle of candid and why we struggle with having candid conversations, giving your experience in the corporate world as leaders can play out. What's the reason you find that most leaders struggle with that candid?

Luis Gonzales: Most leaders in my experience, and I'm speaking from personal experience as well. In addition to my 30 plus years of just work experience, it boils down to fear-based. If I'm candid, I fear that I may be wrong. I fear that I may damage some relationships. I fear that I might be wrong and look incompetent. So many fears, if you will hold us back from being candid. From saying what we really feel and want to say. Now oftentimes, again. I'll speak for myself. Many of us, we say what we feel is expected of us, to say what we should say. What people want us to say. If you're a people-pleaser like me, you will definitely say what you think people want you to say, but that may not be the real truth. So, where that gets us into trouble is if I'm not having a candid conversation with use Steve, for example, and there are pieces missing because I'm not taking the conversation to a deeper level where it needs to go, and there are pieces missing. In other words, there are pieces of the conversation that I'm not sharing with you as I'm not being so candid with you, that leads you to perhaps start assuming. You start filling in the blanks in your own mind with your assumptions and those assumptions are often wrong. And so that leads us to more in an organization that leads us to mistakes, rework, loss of clients, duplication of efforts, and all of those have a dollar sign cost to them. So back to your question, it's fear, fear of something that holds us back from being candid.

Steve Rush: It’s also, sometimes, not even intentional, isn’t it? Some people will, most of the time, we'll try to land some things so that they don't choose somebody else. They don't upset somebody, but in doing so run a massive risk of that kind of whole waterfall effect of other things playing out as a result of it.

Luis Gonzales: Yeah, I like to say by trying to avoid, you know, whatever the issue it is that you're trying to avoid and not being candid about it, you're actually exacerbating it because it's going to explode later. I've never had an experience of not addressing an issue or a problem, and it got better on its own. So, by ignoring that, and by not being candid by withholding what we really think we should say or feel that we need to say, we're actually accelerating that undesired result that we're trying to avoid. Does that make sense?

Steve Rush: Right, yeah, definitely so. there's a little part of our brain that kind of gives a little bit of a wobble when we sense somebody not being as honest as they could be with us, there is a little shift in dopamine. And that's triggered in our, what often is referred to as gut feel is its intuition, isn't it?

Luis Gonzales: Yeah.

Steve Rush: How do you encourage your clients and colleagues to pay attention to that intuition and to challenge where they recognize somebody is not being as candid as they should?

Luis Gonzales: By getting curious. That's where I always go to. So, if you're having a conversation with someone and your intuition, your sense is telling you there's more to the story here. I feel that there's some things being withheld here. I don't feel this person is being completely honest or what have you, ask questions, do not be satisfied on the surface. And when I say ask questions, it could sound something like, tell me more about that. Help me understand how you're seeing that. I'm not sure I'm clear what I'm hearing you say, is that right? I'd like to know more about that so that you can get a more complete picture of how they're seeing things. If they're withholding being candid from you. So, you can learn more, you can provoke learning by what I call interrogating reality, interrogating their reality, not interrogating the person, but by really staying with asking questions to find out more. And I always say with leaders, I've trained, don't be satisfied on the surface. Don't be satisfied with the first response you and I will say across the board, even if someone is being candid with you and they are being forthright and you know, on the surface with you, levelling with you. Still get curious, ask questions because there are details that may come out that they may not have thought of or purposely withholding from you. So, it's always good to just start with curiosity.

Steve Rush: Defiantly, I suspect also at the same time in asking more questions, you get less assumptions, right?

Luis Gonzales: That’s exactly right. I love that you said that because again, like I mentioned before, we, human beings tend to fill in the blanks. We make up stories and most of the time, those stories are not accurate. But we do that. It's human nature. And so, when I ask the questions, it alleviates those assumptions because now I have clarity on what's actually really going on here. I'm not making it, so you're absolutely right.

Steve Rush: So, if I’m a leader and I'm communicating across a global business. How can I get more aware of how to adapt and change and modify my communication approach across a wider business?

Luis Gonzales: The first thing I would recommend is if you have the opportunity to observe how different people from different cultures are communicating, that's the first step. And that's how I learned is just to sit back and watch and observe and observe how the communication is going back and forth. And then I would say, I don't know if this holds true today. And I say this because we're in a pandemic, we're all working remotely now. And I have a feeling I don't have data to back this up, but I have a feeling, our communication styles are all shifting. Even our global and cultural communication styles may be shifting as a result of us all working remotely and all being connected now on Zoom calls, et cetera. But prior to COVID I would say the second thing that I would start with is just by exploring at a very high level, what are some of the general ways or themes that cultures generally use in their communication? Are they high context? Are they low context? How do they view time? And when I say low context or high context you know, are there a lot of explanations? Do they give a lot of context? And you have to ask questions to help them get to the point or like us, US Americans, are we direct? We just get right to the point. So, it's helpful to understand that because from my experience, for example, working with Indians in India, very high context culture very averse to telling a client, a customer or a boss, no. And so you have to find out ways again, getting curious. Tell me more about that. Ask more questions to get the real answer. For example, I learned the hard way that when I was communicating with some of the Indian members of my team back in India, at Microsoft. If I would ask a question such as, will you have that ready by Friday end of day? Some of the answers I might get would be something like, we'll do our best, sir. Well, as a US American, I take that as a positive. We'll do our best. Sounds good. It sounds like they're going to pull this off, but I know I had to learn this, that's actually a no.

Steve Rush: Yeah, right.

Luis Gonzales: That's a subtle way of saying no. And so back to your question, first of all, observe how these conversations are going on. Anyone has an opportunity to join in that kind of a conversation via conference call or what have you to observe it, and then just do a little research on your own on the internet. There's plenty of resources out there to just see on a very high general level, what are those different communication styles that different cultures have? And especially if any of your listeners who are hearing this know that they're going to be working with or interfacing with people in a particular culture, then of course, zero in on how that culture communicates.

And I will say, I don't paint a wide brush, generally speaking. That’s the culture communication style, but not everybody in that culture may follow that style. So, you know, we don't want to stereotype, but those are my two suggestions. First of all, see if you can observe and see the dynamics of the conversation between people from different cultures and start doing a little exploration and research on your own into those different communication styles. Last thing I'll say is most importantly, and I almost forgot to say it Steve. It's important for us to look at our own selves. What's our communication style personally, and what's our own cultural communication style. In other words, where were we born? I was born here in the United States. I'm a very direct communicator, but I also have my own personal way of communicating. So, it's important for us to know our own communication styles and our own values that back up those communication styles, and then take a look at the other ones.

Steve Rush: Whilst I suspect stereotypes on the whole people feel a little bit uncomfortable with, there are pockets of behaviours that aren't quite consistent culturally and internationally, and it's a good starting point if nothing else, right?

Luis Gonzales: I agree, and you know, I think this kind of reminds me of what I mentioned a minute ago where cultural communication styles may be shifting and maybe kind of unifying. I remember it was just 10 years ago, 9 years ago at Microsoft in India, there was this term Global English. There was a thought that at some point we would all in business be speaking the standardized what they called Global English. And it was almost forced in a way, I guess you could say, you know, we're going to you know, there was a strong push for everyone across cultures, especially within Microsoft and the teams that I was working with to use this, you know, model of the Global English. Now, as I mentioned with COVID and all of us kind of communicating even more. Now, frequently, more frequently across cultures, cross borders, et cetera. I suspect again, and I don't have research to back it up, but I suspect it's accelerated that. I don't know if I'd call it Global English, but we're all settling into some norm, I guess you could say in how we gain more of, it's more of an internet communication style, I guess you could say.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I observed that too. One of the things that's quite interesting that I'd love your view on right now is that we're often speaking to folk around the world now via Zoom or WebEx or MS Teams and through our laptops and devices. Do you see that being a barrier to communication? Or do you see that as an enabler?

Luis Gonzales: Well, I think it's a little bit of both. At first, it's kind of a barrier and I still see the barrier, it's just a technology thing. People are still trying to understand how the technology works, what are all the buttons they need to push and the video, getting comfortable with video on all of that. So, I see it as initially a little bit of resistance perhaps, a little bit of a hindrance, and there are some challenges, but I see this as a wonderful opportunity for the world at large, for humanity to be able to now increase our understanding our cross-cultural understanding and a humanness and communication. So, I see it in the bigger picture as a plus, as a definite boon to us on the planet. But right now, I think we're still in the transition period. I did a webinar yesterday where I'm still helping people understand where the raise hand icon is, and please put your phones on mute and where the camera button is and all that. So, I think once this becomes more normal in however long of time that takes, I think we're going to see a lot more benefits than challenges.

Steve Rush: I wonder also if this could be a crutch to enable some of those more candid conversations, because I'm not having to worry about the physical environment, I'm in now, I can just rely on my communication and I'm safe.

Luis Gonzales: Yeah, and that's the tricky part. And I'm glad you mentioned that. I'm noticing that in the webinars that I deliver, et cetera, that some people, for whatever reason, maybe they have valid reasons for it, but see this as an opportunity to sit back, be quiet, do my work, not really engaged and just deliver what I need to deliver. I noticed that on my webinars, when people, you know, don't turn on their cameras and they don't participate. And I sense that some people may feel that this is great. This is an easy way for them to just stay below the radar, do the need full and get on with it. But I don't see that as a benefit because I know that we, as human beings are hard wired emotionally. There's research, there's Nobel prizes that have been awarded to those researchers that prove that at the core were emotional beings. We need to connect with one another and with COVID happening and us working remotely and being physically separated and being physically distance, I suspect that it's even more important for us now to really communicate, to really turn on our cameras, to really ask questions and to try our best, to give eye contact and communicate with people in as much, a way as possible that we used to when we weren't separated physically like this.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and I think it's a really great observation by the way, too. It starts of course, and ends with what we've started to talk about a little earlier on, which is just conversations and the more conversations you have as you call it, your linchpin unlocks the rest of communication.

Luis Gonzales: Yes.

Steve Rush: So, the next part of the show, Luis, we get to turn the lens on you now and we get to hack into your leadership mind. So, first thing I'd like to ask of you is what would you say your top three leadership hacks are?

Luis Gonzales: Oh, the first leadership that I have that works for me that I want to share with anybody else. We just talked about it. Connect with others, your team members, your colleagues,

The people who report to you, the people who don't report to you, your leader. Connect with them on a human level. And what do I mean by connect? What do you mean by connect Luis? Just what I was saying a few minutes ago, if you're on a Zoom call, if you're on a conference call, when you have the opportunity to do so, when the kids aren't running around in the background, when your spouse is not asleep on the couch or whatever reasons you have for not turning on your camera, when you have the opportunity to do so, turn on your camera, give eye contact and connect with others around you in the organization, on your team, and get curious as I've said earlier, but not the business as usual. Get curious, not the agenda. Here's what we're here to talk about today. It's an investment in time. I know we're all busy, but spend some time at the beginning of your calls to just check in personally, just as we used to do in the office, in the coffee room, how was your weekend? How are things going with everything on your plate? What's keeping you up at night? How are the kids, all that stuff, right? Well, that's been missing. Now that we're kind of new reality. So, I encourage people to do that, connect on a human level. And we all know what that connect means with the individuals that we're connecting with.

Remember the conversation is of equal value to the relationship. So, what I mean by that is. if I withhold something from the conversation, if I withhold cantor from the conversation, if I withhold curiosity from the conversation, if I will withhold going deep in our conversations, if I keep my conversations surface at a surface level, my relationship will also be surface. My relationship will not be very candid. If I'm having unreal conversations with people around me, fake conversations around me, saying what I don't really feel. Saying what I don't really think.

Well, then my relationship will also be unreal. So that's my first leadership hack, connect with people.

Number two, model accountability, model vulnerability. As leaders we all want our people to be accountable. We want people to take responsibility for what they're supposed to take responsibility for, but it's been my firm belief and my experience over these many years, accountability, this idea of accountability cannot be trained and it cannot be mandated. It's a personal choice that we have that we make. If it's to be it's up to me, given the current unfortunate situation, I find myself in. Given the current situation, whatever it is I find myself in, what can I do to move this in a positive direction, that is accountability, that can't be trained. It can't be mandated. It can be observed and people can see leaders model it and follow through with it. So, leaders and everybody for that matter. Model accountability, own up to where you make mistakes, jump in where you know, something needs to be done. And don't ask whose job was this? Who's accountable for this, oh, this isn't my job. This isn't my lane, stay in your lane. None of that, go for it. Do the needful, do what needs to be done. And when you model it, people will observe it. And most people will follow along with that.

Third is give ownership and accountability to your people. When I say your people, this is for leaders, of course. Give ownership and accountability. And I learned that way back at the Ritz-Carlton. For example, when we were at the Ritz, if we had a dissatisfied, yes, we would call that a guest opportunity. Even when I was a bus boy, or even when I was a waiter, if a guest came up to me complaining about something, they were unhappy. I could take care of that situation and turn that guest around right then and there, it didn't matter my rank, it didn't matter my title. It didn't matter my role. That's ownership and accountability. And we were able to turn those guests around on our own without having to call a manager, going through any necessary unneeded steps, I should say. So, in the corporate world, we all have teams. We're all part of teams. If you're leader of a team, give ownership to your people, let them shine, let them rise. And sometimes even let them fall on their knees. Sometimes my leaders let me do that, but I learned that way. But celebrate the successes, give ownership, give accountability to your people, allow them to have accountability and celebrate the successes. That builds trust, that strengthens the relationship. And that is an investment in returns later on down the road.

Steve Rush: Some super learning in there Luis, particularly that whole one around accountability and ownership because it doesn't cost anything, does it?

Luis Gonzales: No.

Steve Rush: To take on that responsibility, to get things fixed and all too often organizations handed off to somebody else. And that's where you lose impact and you lose customer relationships.

Luis Gonzales: That's right, absolutely right.

Steve Rush: So, the next part of this show, we call it Hack to Attack. You affectionately just referred to it as maybe fallen on your knee. So, a time in your life or your career or your work where something hasn't gone well, it's maybe not gone to plan, but as a result of the experience, we know use that as a lesson in our life that serves as well. What's your Hack to Attack?

Luis Gonzales: Well, my Hack to Attack, not too long ago, I worked for an organization. It was in the last 10 years. I had a very large shoes to fill, large boots to fill, a lot of responsibilities. I was in charge of learning and development for North America and South America. Living in India, my team in the United States. So, I was reluctant to delegate. I was taking everything on my own and I was not managing my time wisely. And consequently, my health suffered after about a year and a half of that, I reached, you know, I had been burning the candle at both ends. It was awful in terms of the stress that I went through, the headaches I got, the weight that I gained, the bad skin problems that I got through all of that. But now, as I reflect on that, what have I learned from that? And what do I do differently now to avoid that? Especially with the role I have with Fierce is I delegate.

There are two reasons why I delegate. Number one, obviously, to free my plate up so that I can, you know, add, you know, different types of projects or more important things onto my plate, making time for those things. But also, the flip side of that is I'm developing the people around me by delegating, giving them more responsibility. So, it's not just taking it off my plate, but it's actually with an interest to develop others. And so now I delegate a lot more than I used to. I used to be afraid to delegate. Didn't like it, but now I know how to have that conversation with people around me, they're willingly, hopefully will you know, accept what I'm offering to them as it, you know, will help them in their career. And then of course the time management falls into that as well. And that was a big challenge for me. I would say for up until about five years ago, when I joined Fierce, learn how to have a delegation conversation.

Steve Rush: And sometimes it's getting into that burnout zone. That is the learnings, the real learning to make you realize that there are things that are still within your control that you can fix.

Luis Gonzales: Yeah, and if I can just say this really quickly, we have so many justifications for not delegating. Some of them are valid. Like I can just do it quicker myself. It'll take time to train them to do it. So, I might as well just do it myself. They may make mistakes and I'm responsible for it. So, I might as well just do it myself and more.

Steve Rush: And that not sustainable though, isn’t it? That's the thing.

Luis Gonzales: Nope, absolutely not. I found that out the hard way.

Steve Rush: The last thing that we're going to do with you today, Luis is we're going to give you an opportunity to do some time travel and you get to go back to bump into Luis at 21 and give them some advice. What's your advice to him?

Luis Gonzales: Wow, you know, I often do this, a very reflective person. So, my advice to my 21-year-old self, imagine I'm applying for a job at the Ritz Carlton man, and I'm just a young chap and I'm a little nervous about this. Here's what I would tell myself. Number one, follow your heart. Well, you know what? I always follow my heart, Steve, but I'm going to add to that. Follow your heart and don't forget, use your logic. You have logic there for a reason. So why I'm giving myself advice? My 21 self-advice on this is because I've been like a Peter pan all my life, you know, flitting about the planet and that's been great. I've had some awesome experiences. I got a great career, but I often made decisions solely based on my emotions and I didn't use logic wisely. So there has to be a balance there, at least for me. So, number one, follow your heart. But remember use your head too, heart and head are your best friends. They go together.

Steve Rush: They do.

Luis Gonzales: Two, stop thinking and caring about what others might think. I've always been a people pleaser and people wouldn't even think that would be advice that I would give myself because people see me as just someone who always does what he wants to do. But deep down inside myself, I know, you know, I'm always concerned about what other people might think about my decisions, my actions, et cetera. So, stop that. Just follow your passions, use your logic and go for it. The third one is you can't please everyone. So be okay with that.

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly.

Luis Gonzales: Not every everyone's going to like your decision, not everyone's going to back you up. Not everyone's going to agree with you. It's part of life. Get over it.

Steve Rush: Great advice, Luis. So, I would love for our conversation to last longer and carry on. And we've had a number of conversations over the last few months and then have enjoyed immensely speaking with you. The folk, listening to us today who want to carry that conversation on with you. Where's the best place we can send them?

Luis Gonzales: Please, first go to our Fierce website to the podcast tab. That's where this podcast will be hosted and others there. That's a good place to start. So, the website is www.fierceinc.com F.I.E.R.C.E.I.N.C.com from there, you'll see the resort resources tab. We have tons of resources that are free, where you can take a deeper dive into everything we've been talking about today. The second way is I'd love to connect and expand my network. Our network on LinkedIn, you can find me on LinkedIn, linkedin.com/in/Luis Gonzalez, all one word, L.U.I.S G.O.N.Z.A.L.E.S Those are the ways to connect and continue the conversation.

Steve Rush: We'll make sure they're in the show notes too Luis, so that people can head straight over.

Luis Gonzales: Awesome, thank you, Steve.

Steve Rush: I just wanted to say, thank you ever so much, Luis for taking some time out of what is a busy time for you to join us today on the podcast. So, thanks for being on The Leadership Hacker.

Luis Gonzales: Thank you for having me, Steve. It was a real pleasure. I enjoyed it. Thank you.

Steve Rush: Thanks Luis.

Closing

View Details

Nick Cavuoto Founder at CavuotoX, he is a high-performance business coach, speaker and an entrepreneur mentor, we can learn loads from Nick in this episode including:

How to unlock your calling and mandate on life
What Metaphysics is and how we can use it to grow personally
Why relationships can be like rocketships
How being in a mood of judgment will stop you from learning

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Nick below:

Nick’s Website: https://www.nickcavuoto.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nickcavuoto

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nickcavuoto/

Nick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickcavuoto/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is Nick Cavuoto. He's a speaker, an entrepreneur mentor, and human potential expert who specializes in deep coaching, personal branding and transformational leadership. But before we get the chance to speak with Nick, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: It was Stephen MR Covey who most famously quoted in his habit number five, seek first understand then be understood. And I'm sure that any leader listening to this would subscribe to that. But what if your team were not humans, but primates? Well, that's exactly what we're exploring in some light-hearted news today, understanding what some leaders did in a research facility in Finland. Monkeys in a zoo in Finland have shown significant preference for traffic sound over their native natural jungle noises, researchers have found. A tunnel filled with sensors was installed in a monkey enclosure in core Korkeasaari Zoo in Helsinki. This allowed the white face saki monkeys to choose whether they listen to a playlist of traffic noises, natural and nature sounds and rainfall, and also had a choice of Zen music and dance music. Dr. Hirskyj-Douglas, a researcher at Aalto University in Finland said, “we thought they would much more enjoy the calming sound of Zen music, but they were actually triggered by more traffic sounds”.

The traffic playlist actually came out as most popular choice amongst the monkeys who were also grooming themselves and getting excited as the sounds of traffic were passing by.

Kirsi Pynnonen-Oudman the zoo research coordinator said the sounds of the road music mimic in some ways, the natural way they communicate. She said in the wild, the animals use high-pitched hissing squeaking and croaking noise to stay in contact indicating that they may hear those similar noise sound in traffic too. The research was an experiment to understand the characteristics of primates as part of the technology that can be used to improve the wellbeing of animals in captivity. And according to the researchers, this is the first time the sound experiment has been completed in a full controlled environment. And they hope that the findings will lead to understanding how to stimulate and positively influenced the environment in enclosures in the future.

The long-term plan is that one day they have an ambition that the animals can actually control their own lighting, temperature and sounds in their own environment. And the technology is very much open and they're looking at ways in which they can start to bridge into that area. But first started with understanding what was most important to them. As part of the next step in the research, the team are planning to install screens with tunnels, for monkeys to watch and explore their visual environment too, and despite popular belief, they do not eat bananas. Instead they feed on seeds, nuts and insects, and some fruits and no monkeys were harmed in the experiment. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you do have any news, stories or interesting facts that you'd love our listeners to hear, please get in touch with us.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Nick Cavuoto is our special guest on today's show. He's a high-performance business coach, an entrepreneur mentor who focuses on mindset, personal brand and human experiences, as well as leadership transformation. Nick, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Nick Cavuoto: Thank you so much for having me, I appreciate it.

Steve Rush: So glad we got you on the show. You've got some really interesting stories and great perspectives on the world, but your life didn't start out in the way that you have landed, right? So, you start out as a church pastor, tell us a little bit about the journey from church pastor to entrepreneur transformation expert?

Nick Cavuoto: That's awesome, man. Thank you. Yeah, you know, it's a pretty wild, you know, shift. Going from essentially being in the non-profit world and being in a sector of where you're really focused on human potential and transformation and the channel or the angle that's used to do that is through spirituality, and so it's interesting. A lot of people kind of do it the opposite way, right? Where they, you know, build a great business and do all these great things. And then they get you know, philanthropy work or whatever it may be in order for them to really contribute and give back. But you know early on in life my situation was just unique, you know, and when I got into my career path, by that time I had failed out of college twice. I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life. And so, I said, well, I might as well, you know, show up and serve and help others. I'm so, so grateful that I did that. You know, I really got into the people business. It's arguable that, you know, as far as my peers, I understand humans more than probably 99% of people because I've been exposed to high levels of whether it's trauma in people's life, or, you know, the deeper desires that are in their heart. Things they really want to accomplish in life, and also the complexities of relationships and complexities of calling or what do I want to accomplish? What's my purpose? Those conversations for me, it happened in my early twenties all the way through my mid late twenties. And just to give you context, I was coaching people on divorce when I was 24 years old with parents who were 30 years happily married. So, I was exposed to a lot of learning and a lot of experiences when it came to, you know, individuals and the way they see the world and the way that they want to really position themselves for greatness. And I'll just mention that it was a wild ride and I learned a lot. Learned, just a tremendous amount about really what makes people tick. And that's just been the greatest contribution.

Steve Rush: It's an awesome induction into the world of human beings. Isn't it? Because you're getting taken into an environment that most people just wouldn't experience at a very young age, I guess.

Nick Cavuoto: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I was actually, I was raised in the church. My father was a drug dealer until he was about 30 years old. And just had a life-changing experience of where he just made a massive shift in his life and said, you know, I'm going to do things the right way now. And that was really the catalytic shift for us. I mean, honestly at three years old, I remember being, you know, underneath the pew waking up and in these like church revivals, you know, things happening. At like, you know, midnight. So, it's like one of those things where I, you know, just had these experiences and was just part of really an incredible movement which really helped me when I shifted things into the business world, because then when it came to marketing, I understood how people think, how people feel.

I understood Maslow's, I understood how the Ascension happens from people who are foundationally. You know, just looking for the basic core needs of live all the way to the point of self-actualization of not really caring about what people think or say about you, but living out your truth in the present. And that was just an amazing part of the first three decades of my life that I was able to see. I'm incredibly grateful, and the way that translated into business was post, you know, ministry. I ended up working for start-ups and then I went from start-ups into fortune 500 in Corporate America. And from there just went on to building my own businesses. And you know, my father was an entrepreneur to the truest sense in some ways. And my grandfather also owned several businesses and his father was a farmer in the States. So, we have over a hundred years of entrepreneurship in our bloodline. And my mother has been an entrepreneur for the last 30 years or so as well. So, it's cool that I've just had this legacy of entrepreneurship and also human potential that have consistently showed up my life over and over and over again.

Steve Rush: That’s and some experience. And I guess having that to draw upon gives you almost the unconscious permission to almost do anything and try anything.

Nick Cavuoto: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Which of course is the key tenant, isn't it? Of entrepreneurial-ism, it's that whole ability that nothing's too great and nothing's too big.

Nick Cavuoto: Yeah, a hundred percent man. At five years old, animals drowned in a pool, which allowed me to confront my greatest fear very early on in life. And when that situation happened, you know, it's one of those things where when you're fighting for your life at such a young age, and then you go in the opposite direction, you know, and understand the power of fear, you know, none of us really understand our own superpower until we can see it used for good and for evil.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Nick Cavuoto: Just think of Star Wars, right? It's a great example, but like how using the force, right. It can be used in a good way or in a bad way. And that's the same thing, you know, that I see showing up in business and for people is like, you know, there's this polarization of like, what's possible for us, but also what can cripple us. And that's when one of the things that I've just always attributed to a lot of the success that I've started to experience has been through. Being able to confront my greatest fear at such a young age and by 12, I actually just confronted it and got over it. And actually, my grandmother is from Colchester. And so, you know, she was a war bride. She married my grandfather during world war II and came back to the States and she didn't really have a temperament for a weak thinking, because of all that she had been through. She was the one who actually helped me overcome my greatest fear, which now is attributed to a massive part of what I believe again is just my ability to show up in the world in such powerful way.

Steve Rush: Super, love that story. Thanks for sharing that.

Nick Cavuoto: Certainly.

Steve Rush: It hasn't always been gloried for you. So, you were at a stage in your entrepreneurial life where things were going really well, you're drawing down $150,000 dollars a month and then stuff went wrong to the point where you couldn't even afford a $30 dollar meal.

Tell us a little bit about how that happened and how you bounced back?

Nick Cavuoto: Certainly, man. So, alignment is the big key here, you know, you can go build a business, you know, I built, you know, nearly $2 million dollar business on accident, okay. And I don't mention that a lot. Meaning, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, so what'd you do to have great success. And I'm like, I'd like to actually talk about my failures. There's a lot more to learn there. So, but you know, I was somewhat of an accidental entrepreneur. When I left ministry, I didn't have a degree. I had forsaken University in order to really focus on ministry. And so, I had to kind of retool the whole map and re strategize around what I wanted to do and how I wanted to, you know, find significance and how I wanted to really show up in the world.

And so, I built this amazing company really, really fast and less than 18 months we quadrupled the company. I had a few friends who were working for me and it was fun. It was a lot of fun, but always the question was around growth. What are we going to do to grow to the next stage? Who do we need to hire? What consultants do we need to find? And that was really what our ideal, you know, kind of scenario was. Man, we build a company and you're hiring growth consultants right out of the gate, because it's just like, you know, when it rains, you know, you accept it, the harvest that comes after. And so, we planted the seeds and the rain came and it worked. And for me, I fell out of alignment. I fell out of really what I felt like I was supposed to do in life. And that's one way that life will kind of, I say it this way, God will either, he'll poke you, then he'll push you. Then he'll prod you, then he'll punch you. And that's kind of what I experienced in life, where I got punched. Because I was not where I was supposed to be. And I did know that deep down. I'm like running an agency, a marketing agency for the rest of my life is not going to be the thing. So, I made a decision, you know, to close down that business. But yeah, I mean, when you're running at a high of a run rate and you have a huge team and all these things are happening, it just takes like one small thing. That 1% shift that, one loss of focus to really bring the whole thing down, and that's what happened.

It's a fracture in relationship with one of the guys who started with me about two to three years after I had gotten going. I hired a guy, 25 years I had known him for. He's one of my best friends and hired him really to take over operationally, different parts of the business. And there was a fracture in our relationship, unfortunately. And you know, he wanted to be at a different position than where he played best. It's like in soccer or in football, if you're an amazing goal and you play well with your hands, and you're the slowest guy in the team, you probably should not be at the front of the pack, playing striker. And that's kind of the situation or in basketball, if you're five foot six, you probably don't play Center. You know, so that's kind of what was happening. I'm like, listen, man, you're really good in this position at point guard because of your height, your agility, your quickness, but like going in this position is probably not the best idea for you. You're going to be playing against guys who are seven feet tall, and it's just not the same. It's not just the same paradigm. And unfortunately, because of that he actually ended up leaving the company. Stealing the client list, undercutting our services, selling against our services at half costs. Took the leads list, you know, everything I had spent, you know, a hundred hours a week developing. And honestly, I'm not even kidding you. I was married, I was full-time in school. I was full-time working. I was, part-time working for the first two and a half years of my business when I was developing it.

So, when I say that I've put in the work, a lot of people don't do it to that level. Oh, and we had a kid by the way, in that timeframe as well. A lot of people don't put in what's truly required to be like, yeah, I work 80 hours a week and you assess it, and it's like 42. I was really putting in the time to build the business in the right way. And unfortunately, because of that fracture, it was actually the greatest blessing. Its stinks I lost the relationship with him. And that's something that's always been hard because he's just a great friend, but in reality, looking back, it was the thing that launched me into my current state, and I'm just so grateful for it.

Steve Rush: And like you said, you learn more from when things go wrong than sometimes when they go well, and relationships is now core foundation of the work that you do. And we're going to get onto that in a little bit, but for those folks listening, just give us, maybe a flavour of some of the work that you currently focus on.

Nick Cavuoto: Absolutely, so I coach high achieving entrepreneurs and I helped them develop an unshakable core, that's the big idea. So, there's these skills that are required. There is beliefs, there's accountability, there's mentorship. And there's also specific practices that are required to empower what I believe is a resilient life. And that just boils down to the big idea that I believe that we all have a mandate. We all have a mandate. And what that is a purpose with a calling and it has some level of spiritual significance to it, of where you've got to feel like we're here for a reason. That we didn't just evolve from a salamander and just turn into who we are today, but there's actually intent and purpose behind your life. And I just think for myself, and it's in my own humble opinion, that's the way that things operate.

So, whether you're an entrepreneur, you're an executive, you're a high-level professional expert. The one thing that I know that ties us all together, is the desire to have more influence and impact, and yeah, the income stuff that's important too. But what I've found is through the acceleration of entrepreneurs, of helping them get to the highest level of success. When I go into deep coaching, which is like inner work on the inside of them, and really start finding things out, you know, income is just a feedback loop that says that they're doing a great job.

Steve Rush: Right, yeah.

Nick Cavuoto: It's really not the central focus of what they do, although they might want to grow a great business and have a lot of resources. It's really not the core thing. And that's why I don't include it in the big idea.

Steve Rush: I guess, income is a by-product as well, isn't it?

Nick Cavuoto: Absolutely. Absolutely. A hundred percent. And so, when we get into like the personal branding and marketing side of things, that's another pillar as well as high performance functionality. You know, I try to get people out of their head and into their heart, into their gut, so that they can start making decisions from intuitive state, which a lot of times I tell people, you know, you already have all the answers that you need. And in fact, you have all the resources around you, through your relationships with the people around you. It's just that you don't see it that way. There's an old ancient proverb that says that if you chase two rabbits, you catch none.

Steve Rush: I love that.

Nick Cavuoto: And that's the big idea. People are chasing all these different things. I want this, I want that. I want the lifestyle. I want the money. I want the influence. You know, you actually have to switch that entire engagement. If you've ever seen a stray cat and you have some food for that stray cat, you want to give it, all you have to do is bend down in your knee and summon the cat. And that's exactly the way that we need to show up in entrepreneurship. We actually need to bring forth the things that need to be present in our lives versus feeling like we're always on this quest to chase the next thing.

Steve Rush: I love the fact that you mentioned you coach people from an intuitive state. My role as a coach, I often get people to pay attention to their intuition because for me, it's the kind of uncoded, unconscious messaging that's already there. How do you really tap into that intuition and get people to rely on it?

Nick Cavuoto: First of all, I try to get people into a state of, you know, there's a lot of different philosophies out there in the world, but I try to get people in the state of following, what Nikola Tesla said. He's just one of my heroes. He's an incredible, incredible guy. And I think his teachings are just so powerful, and he said this. He said, if you wish to understand the universe, think in the terms of energy, frequency, and vibration, I'm going to say it one more time. If you wish to understand the universe, think in the terms of energy, frequency, and vibration. And what I see as energy is like the way of being, it's like reading a room. EQ is another way to describe energy. I think again, if I'm keeping this like super one-on-one.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Nick Cavuoto: Another way, frequency is through what we hear, right? So, frequency has to do with what we're tuning into and how we're positioned. And if we're, you know, vibrating at a high state. So, in vibration, the high state vibration, I think of cell towers, 5g, they're shorter, limited bandwidth, right? So there there's more intensity over a smaller distance, versus if you're on satellite, they're longer wavelengths. Like over longer stretches of time and space. And so, these are the things that we want to be thinking about. So, when it comes to intuition, I'm going like, how's your energy? What are your drainers? What are your drivers? What's suffocating you? What are you around? What's your environment? A lot of times we can make these small shifts and it can start changing everything. The way that someone thinks is what ends up becoming, right? The big idea of like what you focus on grows.

Steve Rush: Sure, yeah.

Nick Cavuoto: And so, I tell people all the time, if you're in a position right now of where you're in a season, that's changing, change is hard. Now, if you're also growing, growth is hard, but the hardest thing you'll ever have to do in your life is being stuck somewhere that you're not supposed to be. So when I try to unlock people and get them out of a position of where they're feeling constriction or where they're feeling frustrated or where they're feeling like, you know, why me? What's going on in my life, or if they want to grow, honestly, some people come to me and they're like, things are going really well. I just want to go higher. It's like I have the blueprint that helps them go from, let's say, you know, solo entrepreneur from 20 to a 100K a month. And some of them have been able to do that literally in the matter of 14 days. And it's a shift, there's a shift that has to happen in the way that they're seen. And the greatest contribution that I have as a coach is to be a mirror.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Nick Cavuoto: I just reflect back to them what they already know to be true.

Steve Rush: You applied another level of thinking and lens on this. So, you're quite big on metaphysics. Those folks are not sure what metaphysics are. Just tell us a little bit about what metaphysics are, but how you use it specifically?

Nick Cavuoto: Yeah, well, certainly it's the core thesis that I talked about with Tesla just a moment ago. But I think it might be easier to grab this conceptually if we think in the terms of movies, okay. So, go here with me for a minute. If we combine the Matrix with Avatar and Interstellar, just to name a few. This can kind of give us a visual concept of how we exist Interdimensionally. Stranger Things is also another way to look at this if you're a big Netflix fan. We're mixing the past and the present and the future, we're mixing awareness from consciousness. So, what we're consciously aware of versus the things that we don't see, and then also the idea that we are all connected, that we're all connected to one another and everything around us is connected as well. And through that big idea, there's an extension of this vastness of like, oh my goodness, there's just like, we are just this blue inky dot on this huge map. And there's so much more around us. So that's really, the big idea is like, if you go watch those movies and look for the underlying big ideas when it comes to, you know, how we can exist in different levels?

Another way to explain this part of inner dimensionality or, you know, kind of like these higher levels of consciousness is that, you know, it said that, you know, most people operate at a 3D consciousness, so it's kind of the level playing field for humanity. You know, when you go up to, let's say a 5D level, this is where you might have quantum experiences. And so, a lot of people who have seen things supernaturally, maybe you've experienced something supernaturally. Something that's just completely out of the ordinary. That's just the big idea of, you know, that there's more around us than what we see. And the Sixth Sense, right? There's another way to see it through that movie. There is so many different illustrations to this.

Steve Rush: Where's the best place we can start tapping into that level of consciousness?

Nick Cavuoto: Well, honestly, I think it starts with the inner work. You know, I didn't start really learning about this larger concept until I got into therapy for myself. And you know, that might sound crazy, like, okay, so now this guy's a quack using therapy. Not at all, you know, I think I'm committed to the highest version of who I am. I'm doing the inner work now because in five to seven years, when I show up on the biggest stages in the world, I want to make sure I'm good that I don't lose my marriage in the process. That I don't lose my kids in the process. I'm doing it as a defence play. And that's the bigger idea around what this whole thing really bakes out too, is that when you start seeing more, there's more to address. And so, when I was going through the process of saying, I want to advance the way that I show up in the world. Metaphysics was one of those things that just helped me understand spirituality at a greater level.

You know, there's a scripture that talks about this this big idea around basically that we do not fight against things here in a 3D reality, but we're fighting against things in a 5D reality. And so when you think about, you know, the concept of, you know, angels, or, you know, even forces of darkness and all these different things, again, just put it in the context of Star Wars and it's acceptable as a metaphor, but really, you know, I started to feel like, you know, I saw people who were afflicted by things that just didn't seem normal when I was a kid. And also, when I was in ministry, I saw people who were afflicted by things spiritually. And what I understood was that there's more to this picture than what we see. There's more to the collective ability of how we think and feel than what we see. And that's what allowed me to go to that higher level of saying, there's got to be something more. So, I mean, I would just look at, you know, taking the first step of just starting, get on YouTube and start learning about this. And there's one thing that I want to mention as you start watching or consuming or learning around these concepts. So as long as you judge, you cannot learn.

Steve Rush: Wise words.

Nick Cavuoto: So, if you are looking at a situation or watching somebody or even listening to me and you are in judgment, you will learn nothing. And it just will delay the process of you getting to the next level. So that's up to you, but I'll just give you that key. It's a total master key, there is so much in life. You know, if you're in a mood of judgment, you cannot learn and you cannot find the greater things that are in life through judgment, only through curiosity.

Steve Rush: I love that. In fact, I'm going to write it down and I will quote you. I will quote you, love it. So, you're big on relationships. Having spent so much time studying them, coaching them and supporting people through different relationship lenses. You have this great mantra, which I love called relationships are rocket ships. So, I'd love to learn how did the mantra come about and how do you use it?

Nick Cavuoto: I was in a mastermind in San Diego, in California. And I remember this was at the end of, well in the fall of 2019. So, about a year ago, and I was sitting around all these incredible people that for the previous 32 years of my life, I didn't know. And there was more growth in the matter of, you know, 60 to 90 days through this mastermind group than there was ever in my life. Like that period of time was so accelerated. And I just look around and I'm like, man, relationships are rocket ships. I just remember saying that to the group. And they're all like, Whoa, you know, tell me more. So, the idea was that, you know, when you get around the right people and you spend time with people who truly want to see you succeed, it's not about competitions, about collaboration. That you get around people who understand you. Who are willing to speak life into you, people who are willing to put you on their stages, my mentor and my business coach Mike Kim, and he runs the largest personal brand podcast called Brand You with Mike Kim and just phenomenal human being, and I've known him for the last decade or so. He put me in front of some of the most prominent people in the internet marketing space and also in the leadership space with John Maxwell, with Todd Herman who wrote The Alter Ego, Billy Jean, who's a huge paid media and agency owner. And he's done a lot of incredible things, internet marketing, as well as Chris Ducker from Youpreneur in the UK. He just connected me to all these people. And I walked away, you know, from an opportunity at a live event with over a hundred thousand dollars in proposals that were out from like two or three days.

And it was like serving the moment that I was in because at that season of my life I was really thinking about coaching. But for that season, that second half of 2019, I was also doing a lot of content production because content is one of my super powers. And so video content production. So, it was just amazing that when you get around the right people, the right things happen. And it will launch you into a totally different stratosphere of the people that you're connected to, who they're connected to and how you can achieve what you want faster, but yet with integrity. And that's the big idea on relationships or rocket ships, and that's how it happened.

Steve Rush: That’s neat, love it. So, this part of the show, we're going to attend the leadership lens on you, and I'm going to hack into your leadership mind and start to drag out some lessons that we can share with our listeners. First base of like to go with the Nick, is for you to share with us your top three leadership hacks?

Nick Cavuoto: Yeah man, number one, find a mentor. I have five coaches in my life right now. And I'll tell you it's been the best investment that I've ever made in my life. Find a mentor, find a business coach and someone who can lead you to where they are. It's not a theory, it needs to be practical, but you need to be supported in a very real way. So that's number one, find a mentor. Number two, never lie, never lie. This is one of my, you know, golden principles around personal branding is to never not tell the truth. Because it will always come back. Now of course our parents, they teach us, you know, don't lie, tell the truth, all these things, but in business, I mean, it has the ability to, in a microsecond destroy your entire empire if you have one or enough to take you out, because you realize that you have a lack of integrity, and those who are advancing their level of awareness will increase the level of responsibility and the way they show up in the world of which then requires communication to say, I screwed up. It also fuels imposter syndrome. So, it's incredibly important to never lie. And then the last one is to give unconditionally, you know, I live a life to be a gift to humanity. That is my entire thesis on why I'm here is to be a gift for a small 1% shift in people's lives. For me, I could be in a room with 10,000 people and I care about one person. It's just whoever needs it the most that day. And I focus on that.

And, you know, I think that what you focus on grows and the ability to double down on just one individual that I can lock eyes with, if it's a live event, or if it's an experience or just a conversation, someone I can show up for and just give unconditionally and look for ways to give, look for ways to pay it forward. I think it's one of the most abundant universal principles. It's the ultimate boomerang of being able to give unconditionally without expectation. Yet it's a way of being not a way of doing, so it's a way of being, which is like, that's the way that I show up in the world. And if you do it to get, it won't work. If you do it because that's who you are. And it's just how you handle life, then yeah, just get ready for the rewards to come your way.

Steve Rush: The last one you talk about is really significant because I hear many people talk about something very similar, but how do you really step away from giving and providing insights, information, versus I am 100% in that giving and gifting space.

Nick Cavuoto: It is through Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You know, when you realize that you don't need anything from anyone, that's when the game shifts, you know, cause you're enslaved to whoever you need something from. If you need love then you are enslaved to your partner, if you need money, then you're enslaved to your clients or prospective clients or to your marketing strategy. You know, if you need acceptance, then you are enslaved to your community or wherever you find belonging. So, once you realize that standing on your own two feet is all that's required. And the only thing that you need is your own clear connection with yourself and with your source, that's the big shift. I mean, I'm accelerating to the highest level, but in reality, you know, that's it, and a simple way to take a first step in that is to give the thing that you need the most right now. So if you need money, go give someone else money because it's going to hurt a little bit. Don't get me wrong, but the shift that happens in you, that's what needs to happen. The laws are universal and that's what everything is run by. You know, the idea of reciprocity. It's a universal law. What you reap is what you sow. So, I would tell somebody who's in a situation right now, who in a situation where they're stuck or frustrated or feeling like, man, I'd love to give, but I don't have anything to give. Do you have a smile? Do you have a handshake? Do you have a phone where you could call someone and just encourage them? You know, if you feel downtrodden, if you feel frustrated, that's what I'm talking about.

Steve Rush: That's amazing. Love it. The next part of the show we call Hack to Attack. So, this is where something in your life or your work hasn't gone as we'd intended, maybe it's even gone completely south. But as a result of the experience though, we've now used it in our life and our work as a positive, what will be your Hack to Attack?

Nick Cavuoto: I think the whole idea around going from running $150,000 dollar a month business to not being able to afford a $30 dollar meal, that big concept has probably been the biggest, you know, hack that's happened in my career. And so, there's a totally different way now of how I view money. I think money is the consequences of doing what you love well, and there's also energy around money. Meaning it likes to go into places where it has consistency, safety and where it also has flow, like water, like a river, you know, it has to have movement. Otherwise there's stagnation, what's a stagnated river? It's a swamp. And so, money has to always be shifting and moving around. And I think I got into a place when things started going south of the business of where I started holding on very tightly, you know, I constricted my energy, which caused the river to stop flowing, which caused the money to stop flowing.

So, I would say that like, that's been the greatest lesson, cause the way that I show up now, I mean this year for our coaching programs, the first time we launched our core coaching program, we did over six figures in sales and in less than five days. So, there's a high level of understanding of what was broken before will not stay broken in the future and the way that we view resources or the continuum of resources and how they come in and out has a lot more to do with stewardship then, you know, your ability to sell. So, I would say, steward, what do you have well, keep, your hands open, better as an open hand than a closed fist. That's the big Hack to Attack

Steve Rush: I suppose it is also just trying to resist the natural learned behaviours we have in times of pressure, right? And going with that flow that you talked about.

Nick Cavuoto: Absolutely, and it also has a lot to do with not judging yourself. I'm pretty self-critical. You probably wouldn't hear it from this conversation, but again, dark in the light, right. So, the reason why I'm so optimistic is because I've been so hard on myself in the past.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Nick Cavuoto: The reason why I see that there's endless opportunities are because I felt defeated to the point of there's no way out of this situation. So yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, it's based on these experiences that typically the hardest things in your life, me sitting across from this dude and getting my card declined at a diner, that's one of those experiences where you go like, this is never going to happen again. What do I need to do to ensure that reality is true? And so yeah, your greatest victories is definitely in a place of, you know, where you've also had a grand defeat.

Steve Rush: It definitely is, definitely is. And the last thing we want to do with you Nick, is to send you on a bit of time travel. So, you get to go back and give yourself some advice when you 21 now. So, what's your advice to Nick at 21?

Nick Cavuoto: Honestly, just keep going, just keep going. There's another way that I would frame that as you're asking it and it would be, you've already won. I think that I'm just living a life where I'm catching up to a spot that I think is this, you know, place of like achievement. And the thing that I've really tried to remind myself of is that I've already won. Like the battle's already over, you know, the trophies already been handed out or the hill has been conquered and I've already won. And so just play like you've already won, you know? And that'd be my advice to myself, for sure.

Steve Rush: Very neat. So, for folks listening to this today, I suspect they're thinking to themselves, how do I get to find out a bit more about Nick's work, whereas his website and how can I connect with him? Where would you like us to send them when we are done?

Nick Cavuoto: Yeah, so you can check out my website nickcavuoto.com, That's N.I.C.K C.A.V as in victory, U.O.T.com and also on Instagram. And it's just my name as well. So, check those out. I'm on Facebook. I have a seven figure mentors’ group on Facebook. So, you can check that out as well, but primarily check out my website. You can get everything from there. And then certainly if you have any questions or you want to hit me up on Instagram, I was just on entrepreneurs, on fire a couple of weeks ago. And my goodness, I've gotten hundreds of messages and it's been a lot of fun to be able to collaborate and hop on calls with people and just learn their stories. So yeah, that's the big idea there. Connected on Instagram. I'd love to connected with you.

Steve Rush: Great stuff, and we'll also put those links in our show notes Nick. So, when people are finished listening to this, they can head straight over and connect with you there.

Nick Cavuoto: Epic.

Steve Rush: From my perspective, I just wanted to say, we've have spoken a few times now, Nick, and every time I speak with you, I just get this rush of energy. So, whatever you're doing is working and I'm feeling that today. So, thank you for being part of our journey on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Nick Cavuoto: Steve is my absolute pleasure, man. Appreciate you so much, brother.

Steve Rush: Thank you very much, Nick.

Closing

View Details

Dr. Rob McKenna is the founder of WiLD Leaders, Inc, the WiLD Foundation, and author of Composed: The Heart and Science of Leading Under Pressure. What you can learn in this episode:

Why vulnerability is essential for great leadership
How “Whole and Intentional Leader Development” can help you
The reason paradoxical leadership tension exists
Understanding why you are here and a sense of purpose is key to leadership success

Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about WiLD Leaders and Dr Rob below:

WiLD Leaders Website: https://www.wildleaders.org

The WiLD Foundation: https://www.thewildfoundation.org

Book: Composed: The Heart And Science Of Leading Under Pressure

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrRobMcKenna

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wildleaders/

Rob on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drrobmckenna/

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker. Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is Dr. Rob McKenna. He's the founder and chief executive officer at Wild Leaders. Recently named among the top 30 most influential IO psychologists in the world by Forbes magazine. He's a speaker, a coach, and the author of the book Composed: The Heart And Science Of Leading Under Pressure. But before we get a chance to speak with Rob, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we explore the notion of human capital and whether you consider it to be an expense or an investment. So, what actually is human capital? Well, it's the measure of economic value that an employee provides to through their knowledge, skills and capabilities. And on average human capital costs are almost 70% of most companies operating expenses. Most leaders would recognize that investing in their people is a core characteristic and attribute. However, from an organization's perspective, there's a real return on investment to be had here too. Spurned by a conversation with Buddy Hobart who's our special guest on episode 35 and also a good friend. He got me thinking around how by improving the core capabilities and characteristics of our workforce, can we directly transfer that cost or investment to bottom-line outcomes? Well, let's just take two businesses of equal sizes, have an equal stature in a similar sector. If one had a really deep pool of talent, a career path clearly mapped for those individuals to progress and grow as the organization grows in one organization while the other doesn't, which is going to have the deeper value when it comes to either selling or acquisition. And of course, the answer is the former because human capital should not just be considered as a cost on the balance sheet, but actually a real investment into the core infrastructure of the people within the organization. In doing so it can help us reframe how we need to think about our investment into learning and development and our leadership and coaching capabilities. And therefore, as leaders of this business, not only are you helping individuals improve, become more effective, more efficient and help them unlock their own personal goals, but you're directly transferring to the bottom-line value of an organization through investing in human capital.

And thanks Buddy, because this conversation helped me reframe how I think about investing or spending anything relating to development. Sure, I get it. I understand the real value in that personal development, but now a second lens applies for me around I'm adding to the value of my business by supporting people and developing their talent. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any information, insights that you'd like our listeners to hear, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Dr. Rob McKenna is a guest on today's show. He's recognized among the top 30 most influential industrial and organizational psychologists. He's the founder and CEO of Wild Leaders Inc, and The Wild Foundation. And he's also the author of his latest book Composed: The Heart Of Leading Under Pressure. Rob, it's super to have you on the show.

Rob Mckenna: Hey, Steve, it's such a pleasure to talk with you.

Steve Rush: So, tell us a little bit about how you move through the world of IO psychology into leadership development. How did that come about?

Rob Mckenna: Oh man, Steve. So, I think. It goes pretty far back. The son of parents who were in a university president role from the time I was very young, but my dad was a university president. And one of the things I think that affected me about that, and that was for most of my childhood was watching them lead in a pretty complex system. I always say, if you can lead at a university, you can lead almost anywhere. But watching them and being influenced by their challenges, especially of being leaders through the seventies and eighties, when they didn't have an incredible amount of support, my parents were wonderful leaders and have had a profound impact on me. But at the same time, I think it affected me because I used to sit around the dinner table as a child and my folks actually because there weren't a lot of places where leaders could share a lot of the challenges they were facing. I think our dinner table was more like an advisory board session sometimes because there wasn't a lot of space to share it. I had a leader actually just a few weeks ago, say, so Rob seems like you've spent most of your career trying to replicate that dinner table for other leaders, and I think there is some truth to that. I was also profoundly impacted by my brother who was a leader in the whole area of industrial-organizational psychology, he's 17 years older than I am.

I had the privilege of being mentored by an older brother who had a pretty profound impact on the world of work in many ways. He was at Microsoft in the early days and doing leadership development there and introduced me to this whole field of industrial-organizational psychology.

And it had a, just a deep impact on me realizing that it was one of the most. I always describe it as one of the most powerful guilds in the world. because many of us have never heard of because the people in this field are responsible for sort of the bread and butter of our field is selection and performance management. So, it's who gets in the door and then what gets rewarded once they're there and sort of the foundation. And so that had a, certainly a profound impact, but I think over my career, both a university professor, so I spent 25 years, Steve, I think, you know, this. As the as a university professor and as a business leader consultant. And so, I've had my feet in both you know, I'm sort of part-man scientist and part entrepreneur.

And so, and it wasn't until just recently, actually right before this amazing crazy season we've been in now that I actually resigned from my role as a faculty member to go full-time. And I'm in this space where I'm just kind of experiencing the big exhale of only having one job after all these years of focusing my attention on Wild Leaders and away from that. So, it's been a, I think my whole career has been really direction around. All the research that I've done over the years with different corporate leaders and non-profit leaders in government and educational leaders. Has given me a pretty deep passion and conviction about what it means to develop whole leaders. So as a bit of a backstory, but it starts way back in the beginning.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and I guess having the experience of both being a psychologist, as well as a leadership development consultant, you have the lens of this is how leadership has changed over the last 30, 40 years, because the conversations I suspect you have around the dinner table, listening to your folks talk is very different from the kinds of experiences that we'll be having today, but the psychology pretty much remains the same, right?

Rob Mckenna: Yeah, yeah. I think it does. Some of the fundamentals don't change that much. I think what's also interesting is that some of the topics that become popular, you know, in a popular sort of books that come out and so on. Some based on really good psychology and good theory and research. And then others are something that just catches. And I think some of the fundamentals have stayed the same, but for me, one of the things that has not changed is the necessity for leaders to have a space, to have the more real conversations, if you will. I think there's a sense in which, you know, in our world today, for example, we're asking leaders to be increasingly vulnerable. And at the same time, I was thinking about vulnerability. The definition of vulnerability is the openness to being hurt. So, when we ask the leader to be more vulnerable and more transparent, they were actually asking them to open up the door to the possibility that someone will harm them with whatever they share. And so, I think that the more real conversation is how do you make decisions about how to be vulnerable? What humility looks like and the tensions that are there. But I think some of the fundamentals haven't changed that much, so, yeah,

Steve Rush: That's interesting in itself almost because our brains defence mechanism is to keep us safe. In your experience as a psychologist Rob, do you find that it's less likely that we're going to be receptive to being hurt because of that kind of psychology neuroscience is playing out?

Rob Mckenna: Oh, I think that is so interesting, especially today, because one of the things, when I talk about one of the things Steve, that shaped me from early on, is an emphasis on paradox. My dissertation, when I finished my PhD was around paradox. I've always been fascinated by these tensions that leaders face, as opposed to sort of more oversimplified kind of one-off solutions to their whole developmental journey and the experiences that they're having. There's a really important call for humble leaders right now in our world. But very little conversation also, and vulnerable leaders. Not as many conversations going around the tension that they actually experienced between humility and something, for example, like courage or conviction that we have to have leaders who both have a, you know, a willingness to humble themselves and a willingness to listen and a willingness to care, but at the same time, a willingness to step out and go first and some of the most difficult leadership spaces in our world. And that's where I find the challenge so interesting because you need leaders who have the fortitude to stand in the middle of the storm and to take all the hits, but at the same time have enough of that connective tissue developing so that they can stay in touch with others. And so, I find that very interesting and also kind of more to the real story of what leaders are facing. So that's why we've spent a lot of our time focusing on that.

Steve Rush: And that’s the crux behind Wild Leaders, which stands for whole an intentional leader development. Right?

Rob Mckenna: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So how different of a focus is that if I'm a leader when I think of myself as whole and intentional?

Rob Mckenna: Yeah, the way I think about this, Steve, and this is going to sound like, I don't mean to slam anyone else's work, but this is my larger statement around what whole is about. We want books and approaches that are really simple. You know what I mean? Where we desire that kind of give me my five steps to leadership.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Rob Mckenna: Or my, you know, my three steps to being an effective leader. And one of the challenges that we see, and this is pretty apparent when you look at the last four decades of leader development research, like how and where leaders develop and grow. I've said before that sort of a one-off pithy cliche kind of solution to leader development is the equivalent of teaching. I hope this makes sense for those of us who may not be gamers, but teaching a Navy Seal or a Special Ops person to play call of duty or some other kind of video game.

Steve Rush: Right.

Rob Mckenna: And then dropping them into a hotspot in the world with an Xbox and an Airsoft Gun.

Steve Rush: It's like simulation.

Rob Mckenna: Yes, and it's almost worse than simulation. It's the assumption that, for example, if I know what I'm good at, and that's enough for me to actually stand in the midst of the storm.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rob Mckenna: And so, a whole approach would mean to take that body of literature and to say, we know that every leader if we're really interested in what we often call deep-seated leader development. That every leader is experiencing a complex set of variables, where there's this interaction between things like my competence and also my blind spots and my past experiences and the experiences that are shaping me now and where I'm going and why. And even my intention and capacity to develop other leaders. That all of these variables are sort of in play in the mind of a leader. And that if we could create a way to scaffold that development in a way that actually was relevant in real-time to what a leader is experiencing, that we might, you know, do a better job, especially in the complex times of our world today.

Steve Rush: What is it specifically that you're focusing on with your team at Wild at the moment in order to help leaders think differently and specifically around that kind of paradoxical view that you just talked about?

Rob Mckenna: When I set out on this journey and established this organization, some of the systems and tools that we have. I personally, wasn't driven to just try to inspire people. As you know, I do a lot of speaking and writing, and that's a part of my whole cadence as a professional in his field. But what I really wanted to do was to build what we describe as a repeatable and scalable system for leader development. I should say a whole leader development system, so the intention is actually provide that and what it's been built on, this system, which is called the wild toolkit by the way, which is @wildtoolkit.com. The wild toolkit is, quite literally a system. So most people in organizations have a system for operations, or they have a system for human resources and they have a system for their accounting and finance, and they have a system for their marketing and their promotional strategies, but so many lack, an unintentional system for developing leader capacity.

And so, what we built was a system that could repeat in scale. That could create a way for organizations to have a common language around what it means to develop leader capacity. And so, what it is, this is quite literally a set of 10 different tools that leaders use throughout their year to have more richer, developmental conversations that are happening alongside their business strategy. And that's been so powerful because one of the big messages behind the entire leader development research history has been, that leaders are developing on the job in what an old friend of mine named Bob Thomas describes as crucible experiences. So, to the extent that your organization is full of these high-pressure kinds of moments, then the leader laboratory is in place. And then all it takes is to put a system in place to walk alongside those leaders, as they're developing to start to multiply a leader capacity, so that's what we do. And our emphasis is on that system.

Steve Rush: That sounds neat. And I think not many people will think of leadership development as a system. We often think of it as a by-product to other systems, but I concur that in itself is a system in its own right. So, you're wholeheartedly involved in Wild now, but in addition to that, you also have a Wild Foundation. Tell us a little bit about that?

Rob Mckenna: Yeah, for the past several years. One of the things that has come up in our work with leaders across the world has been that there are so many leaders who need deep-seated leader preparation but may not have the resources to do that. I can't tell you the number of times that in our work, on the Wild Leader side of my life, where someone will approach me and say, hey, I have had someone say this just about a year ago, said I have a hundred Syrian refugee women in Jordan who need, what you do, would you go? And my immediate response is of course I would go. But the challenge has been just resourcing all these kinds of efforts. And for the past eight years, we've been working with a University in India. That's entire mission is to provide a higher education to, with Dalit and tribal populations. Are people who quite literally exist outside of the caste system. And so, I've been profoundly impacted by India in our time there. And I think over, over and over and over again, what has happened is these different kinds of organizations, for example, organizations fighting human trafficking. Another organization that we're partnered with that is actually about reforestation in the world, a huge issue. Have come to us and said, we have this group of leaders. And it's so interesting, Steve also, because these kinds of mission-based organizations that are on these just incredible missions in our world. The leaders will say that when they started off, they thought, let me take, for example, Clean Water. They thought it was about clean water, which it is at the end, but what they realized very quickly is that none of sustain without leader development, because it's the leaders, the people that have the fortitude to step out into those impossible, but so important situations that are so critical to any kind of a longer-lasting impact. And so, we set up the Wild Foundation as a way for people to raise funding and support, to provide the best whole leader training, we possibly could to all of those populations of people who just have been not denied that kind of access in the past. And so, we're excited about that as a way to serve in such important needs in the world.

Steve Rush: That's amazing, and often Rob people forget that behind any great mission. Behind any great change experience in the world where people are trying to change cultures, thinking and behaviours. There's somebody who's going to be responsible from a leadership perspective, who may not have had access to broader, wider thinking. So, I think it's fantastic cause, and we'll make sure that we share some of that work in our show notes too. You've written a couple of books. The Wild Leader was the kind of one that kicked things off for you. But latterly you've written Composed and Composed is the heart of leading under pressure. And if ever there was a time to have a book leading under pressure, it's probably now. Tell us how the book came about?

Rob Mckenna: So, I often say that I'm not that much about leadership, that my focus really is on leaders. That when I think about this whole area, I think about a person. And we started to over the years, I've been involved in several different longitudinal studies across different large corporations, and we studied non-profit leaders. We studied engineers transitioning to leadership, all different kinds of populations. And one of the factors, we started to study, was actually begun by some colleagues of ours, around how leaders learn on the job. And as I mentioned before, they learn in these kinds of crucible, really high-pressure kinds of moments. Where there's a 50/50 chance they may succeed or fail. Where everyone's going to watch when they do and where they're having to do things and draw on other people like they've never imagined before.

And as we got into that research and we started to talk with leaders to quantify their experience and qualify their experience, what we found was that there was a common factor emerging. That was simple and didn't matter whether we were talking to an executive with a multi-billion-dollar budget or a parent, a person who's parenting their children. And the fundamental issue was this challenge of pressure and what it means to compose themselves and what was happening inside those high-pressure moments. Cause I describe pressure as this invisible force that tells us that something is changing. And so, I got really interested on what it is that people were experiencing in those high-pressure moments in those leadership kinds of roles. And so, what was coming out was that there was a fundamental tension between their capacity to stay true to themselves and to stay clear and convicted, and at the same time, staying connected to those same things in others.

So, what we found is that when people transition to the role of leader, where they are now responsible for others, and they're going first, that was the tension that came up, because now it's not just about my truth. It's about what I think is important for us. And people want that from me, but at the same time, listening to multiple other stakeholders, all of whom may want something different. And so, this book got me deep into the literature on what it means to stand well in the midst of the storm, and hence the title Compose: The Heart And Science Of Leading Under Pressure. So, the book is really the result of so much of the work I've done over the years on leading under pressure and how people show up in those moments. And that fundamental tension is where it starts.

Steve Rush: And that whole paradox of tension is kind of a core theme throughout the book. Isn't it? So, you have a bit in there around you call it the fundamental tension, which you call this chapter, you and me, how does that work?

Rob Mckenna: Yes, so it is so interesting when people. And you can, you know, as a father yourself, you know, whether you're a parent or a president, as I say. That this challenge of staying true to ourselves and staying connected to others is always there. If we have any awareness whatsoever, that there is and other, then that tension is there. And what I've seen over the years and break down in the book is that most of us have what I would describe as a habitual reaction under pressure, a way of responding. And that for some of us, that habit is, or what I described as the default, is towards self. So, for some of us, what we see under pressures, we see a lot of us. A lot of what matters to me, and you have a much more, I mean, what people see is a more autocratic kind of leader under pressure, but really what it is, is a leader kind of doing what it is that has worked well in the past, or well enough.

And so that's one possible way that people go emotionally. But the other possibility is toward a heavier emphasis on others. In the book, I described these as true speakers and peacekeepers. So, the other thing is that you have leaders, what pressure does to them is that it actually impacts their ability to stay true to themselves, it diminishes, and you see an increased focus on what everyone else thinks is important. And these aren't bad leaders either because they just tend to have this habit more of making sure everyone else is okay, but we sort of lose track of who they are. And so, I worked with leaders over the years, trying to help them, not to, I wouldn't say, maintain a balance, but to maintain a capacity to live in the tension between those two things and to avoid the default, that is kind of their way, that is by the way impacted by the system of people around them. So that's why I think any concept that is oversimplified into sort of treating a leader as if they live in a vacuum, misses the reality that every leader is living with an assistant with people who will push them in certain kinds of ways as well. So that's what that tension is about.

Steve Rush: Sure, and of course every individual brings their own worldview that will shape their own behaviours as well. So, you have then in the book, a chapter about victim or volition and how we can perceive control. Now, control is really important to have in our world for us to be effective, but actually giving control away is equally as powerful as a leader. Tell us a little bit about what you were trying to achieve in this chapter?

Rob Mckenna: So, the second half of the book, Steve. The first path have to sets up that whole, like what is pressure? And this fundamental tension that I described. I love conversations that make your head hurt a little bit at the same time, I'm a person who kind of needs to know. So, what do you do about it? And so, what we studied was. What were the strategies that allowed leaders to effectively live within that tension between self and other? And so, what the last part of the book is about is these 11 strategies that emerged. And so, what you're highlighting is, one of those strategies is focusing on what you can control and what has been so interesting is that it doesn't matter the scope and the scale of power or authority or accountability that a leader has.

I have seen leaders with more budget authority than I could possibly imagine, like billions of dollars, all in one room, people who could quite literally change the axis of the earth with the push of the cash register, it feels like that. I've seen those kinds of leaders spend three or four hours talking about human resources systems that they have no control over.

Steve Rush: Exactly right.

Rob Mckenna: I remember thinking this is when I was a much younger man. I was sitting in a room one time thinking these people could change the world. If they began to think about things within their influence and control, as opposed to complaining about things, they have no control over. That's one of the places that starts. We had these, as I said, these 11 strategies, which were emerged as important. So, what we have leaders do is we have an assessment within the wild toolkit called the leading under pressure inventory. So, a lot of the book is based on that particular portion of the whole leader development toolkit. But what we have leaders do is identify what are the strategies that you're using well, and what are the ones that would help you move forward, if you were to increase your capacity in this one area and control is one of them.

Steve Rush: And I love that. I have a mantra myself. Which is, only control, only what you can control.

Rob Mckenna: Yeah.

Steve Rush: If it's not within your gift, give it away. Can you delegate it? Can you give somebody else the capacity to think of it differently? And therefore, just only control, only what you can. And then as part of your, that play out, you've got another part of the book, which I found really quite intriguing, which is chaos and calm, which I think most leaders will recognize a typical day/week. That could be both of those dichotomies playing out, right?

Rob Mckenna: That particular strategy is sort of the meta-strategy in the book and its around self-regulation. And the way I define that is maintaining your ability or capacity to make a choice. And it's one of the meta strategies, and I think one of those things I share sometimes Steve, is what we call the secret sauce. So, while all 11 strategies were important, we also wanted to know, if someone didn't have a chance to use leading under pressure inventory to read the whole book, what would be the strategies that were most critical in helping a leader self-regulate and compose themselves under pressure? Does that make sense? So, we wanted to know. If we had to pick one, what would they be? And it was very interesting, and this is emerged through a couple of decades, and I'm old enough now that I can say that.

Steve Rush: Right.

Rob Mckenna: The number one strategy. Increasing a leader's capacity to self-regulate to compose themselves into stand in the tension was sense of purpose. It was the extent to which a leader knew, had almost taken account of or audited. Like, what is the reason I'm in this situation, in the first place? And it wasn't something that was popularized in a Ted talk or somewhere else, although it's certainly critical. We found over and over again for the last couple of decades that this sense of purpose was emerging as something that was not even, it's more than like a psychological speak. It was a strategic thing, and so it's one of the reasons that even as our wild team goes into any high-pressure moment together with groups of leaders. We ask ourselves as a team together, why are we here?

And it's an example. Steve, I told you I have a 19-year-old son, and this is sort of in my own family system is if I know why I'm his dad in a given season, it will serve as a keel in the midst of the storm when a high-pressure moment comes up between us and it's whether it's that, or in my role as CEO, it's been critical. The second one I'll mention very quickly, the second, the one that's soaked up a lot of the variants as well in that whole idea of composure was focusing on potential.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Rob Mckenna: And it was the extent to which, and this was over and above sense of purpose. So it was, if I could maintain my capacity to see positive potential outcomes, when everyone else may only see barriers, it was critical. And it wasn't optimism, because optimism is that I have a half, you know, my glass is half full. Pessimists, it's half empty, that the focus on potential was a leader who says, I have a half-full glass of water. What are the multiple things I could do with that? Those were the two that stood out the most in our research, those 11 strategies. All of them were important, but if we had to pick, those would be the ones.

Steve Rush: And I reckon many people will get optimism and potential mixed up. What's your experience?

Rob Mckenna: Yeah, one of the issues is. People want it oversimplified and focusing on potential actually is a strategic working sort of strategy. In other words, we have people sit down and actually identify what are the great things that could emerge or the positive potential that could emerge in the midst of the season. Even in the midst of the season, people are experiencing. Now we're doing this often right now. So that's one of the different, the other ones Steve is so interesting is two of the strategies. One is empathy, and one is what's called taking the perspective of others, which is behaviourally listening. What we found that was so fascinating is that empathy and listening are they're highly correlated, but they're not the same thing. So, in other words, here's what we saw. In some cases, a leader who actually had very strong emotional connections to the experience of others. Actually, had a reduced capacity to listen. That connection was almost overwhelming. And we also had leaders who have this tremendous capacity to listen, who don't feel it. I think to your question is, sometimes we want to oversimplify something for the sake of simplicity, you know, and just to bring parsimony to something complex. But the reality is these things are a little bit more complex. So that's what I was trying in the book to do to break that down in a way that was consumable.

Steve Rush: Really neat and we'll make sure that we let folks know how they can get hold of a copy of Composed: The Heart And Science Of Leading Under Pressure soon. But before we do that, this is where we get to turn the leadership lens on you as CEO and leader for many years, it's keen to get an understanding of your kind of top tips. If you could distil your many years of leading others and leading teams and businesses, what would be your top three leadership hacks?

Rob Mckenna: Oh, top three. Steve, that's tough. I know, but number one would be, a bit redundant, but if any people walked away with one thing and I think this is something I remind myself of, is that. What I said before? Is that understanding why you are here? That sense of purpose. Is not touchy-feely, that's not the soft side of science. That it actually is a strategic move. And we're spending so much time in this season with leaders who, what has happened in 2020 for so many leaders is a sense of sort of an uprootedness. In other words, it has exposed whether or not they knew why they were here in the first place. And so, sense of purpose is a huge one that I've already mentioned. The second thing is, I hope this is a very, very practical approach.

My brother taught me something that has been so critical for me over the years, but I think it's related to purpose. Is he said, cause my brother used to work with all the senior leaders at Microsoft back in the early days and through the middays, and he gave me this tip and he said, anytime you go into a meeting, no matter what it is, think about the three things that, you know, deep within your gut about that meeting. And he said, let all of the rest of it go. I can step in anywhere now. If I know those three things, I can let everything else go and focus there.

Steve Rush: And that helps with control as well.

Rob Mckenna: Yeah, it's related to that, right. That we talked about before. I think that's certainly there. The last thing was, this one is not quite so practical, but leaders who are experiencing, right now in our world, and it does break my heart. Is that we are seeing leaders in real-time leave their roles because they can't stand in the midst of the storm and it's happening repeatedly in the United States right now with the incredible fortitude it is taking to stand well when social media and everything is making your perceived successes and failures public immediately. This is my word to those leaders is first of all, we say this on every, every time we're with leaders who surround us is that you are not alone. The tensions you feel between something like resourcing and humility.

Right now, I'm so struck by this because in the midst of this moment where we're trying to be aware and sensitive to things like inclusion and justice. Just absolutely, so in critical things, important things that are happening in our world. At the same time, these leaders that we have in place, or will put in place will be responsible for budgets and operations and making sure that we can actually pay people. And I think the leaders who are listening, who are saying like, yes, that's my world is, I just want you to know you're not alone. That's from my heart, and that there are people out there who are paying attention to your whole story. That includes some things you may share and some things that are more challenging.

Steve Rush: Great advice, thank you for that Rob. The next bit of the show is, we call it Hack to Attack, and this is where something hasn't gone as planned. You know, this is about that fortitude you were talking around where something's screwed up and we've learned from it, but we now use it as a positive in our life. What would be your hack to attack?

Rob Mckenna: Talk about vulnerability, Steve, you know. When I hear this question, I think of things that have not necessarily gone well. One of the first things that come to mind is a few years ago, I don't know if this is a, it is something I was trying to learn from. I choose a developmental theme. By the way, with anything that I have said, I don't claim to be an expert. I can't claim to be someone who studies this, who's also experiencing it.

Steve Rush: Right.

Rob Mckenna: A few years ago, I picked a developmental theme for my year and I picked the word conviction, which any emerging leaders who have been around me might know that that's kind of a keyword for me is helping them develop a sense of themselves and to put themselves out there. And I actually wrote this down. I had a whole, you know, theme that I'd written down for my year. And then I got feedback midway through the year from some other leaders around me that I was intimidating. And Steve, if you know me, you know, I just would never hope to, or perceive myself as someone who was unapproachable.

Steve Rush: Of course.

Rob Mckenna: And you've even known me long enough to know that I have a lot of conviction, but I almost all blindsided. I thought me unapproachable, you know, it just never occurred to me. So, it was an important moment to understand even the context within which my conviction is helpful in contexts that are a little bit overwhelming for people. So, here's what I did the next year. I chose the developmental theme of convicted care to make sure that when I'm just speaking about something that is so deep, you know, so important to me. That I would always be, it would be coming from a place of deep care and that I would try to communicate that as well. And it helped, so that was the first thing that came to mind.

Steve Rush: The fact that you've taken the opportunity to reflect, and it now forms future thinking is what kind of, that whole learning experience and the fortitude you just described as. The very last thing that we get to talk about today, Rob is a bit of time travel. So, I'm going to ask you to bump into Rob at 21, and you don't get the chance to give him some advice. What’s its going to be.

Rob Mckenna: Steve, this one is relevant, and I think fairly easy because my 19-year-old son just started University and he's a freshman in college. And so, I think about him immediately. And I think about some of the things I wish I had been told. And I would say number one that came to mind was that not all voices are right. I had people early in my career who said things to me that now I know were more about bad role modelling than good role modelling. But when I was young, I didn't know that. And so, I think of being aware that there are very smart people around us, and then there's something to learn from the good and the bad role models or from people who may not quite get us. But I wish someone had told me that early on.

The second thing was that came to mind was to be patient. So much in our world said, you're not doing it right, unless you're going fast. And I would say that at 52, I feel like I have spent my career being prepared for this moment.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Rob Mckenna: And if someone, maybe, I don't know if it would have helped or not, but if someone would have said, Rob you're in this for the long haul and that some of the things you're doing may not even be about you, but maybe about a generation of people who will come after you. I think I had some of that modelled, but I would have loved to have heard that. The third thing was this, and I told my son this to not make it all about you, but to think intentionally about how to improve the experience for others and even make that sacrifice, you know, many of our, University classrooms are going to now be, they're going to be Zoom calls or they're going to be on some sort of virtual platform. And I think it's very interesting to imagine for even a student, you think of myself at 21 as you asked. What would it have meant if someone had said to me, what if you thought about instead of how nervous you are in class or how you feel under-qualified to be there? What if you had thought about how do I make this learning experience better for other students? I just wish I had maybe begun to think about that earlier. And it probably would've calmed me because back to what we said before, it probably would have given me a sense of purpose.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely so.

Rob Mckenna: But I think realizing that it's not all about you, what's important to you is critical, but let's start practising what it means to actively pay attention to what other people are experiencing in real-time. So those would be the three things that I would love to go back and talk with old Rob about back then.

Steve Rush: Very wise words, Rob, very wise words. Now, for folks listening in, they'll probably want to think. How do I get hold of some information about what Rob is doing with Wild Leaders and the wild foundation and get a copy of the book? Where would you like us to send our listeners?

Rob Mckenna: Yeah, for the book. The book is Composed: The Heart And Science Of Leading Under Pressure, and it's on Amazon. It's also, on audible. A lot of people are listening today, I always recommend people listen to me at two times speed. Cause I talk a little slow, when reading. But any information on Wild Leaders or the wild toolkit go to wildleaders.org, and there are all kinds of things. We have a Friday conversation, we invite leaders from around the world into, that's been an amazing way to serve in this season, especially, and that's just a, no-cost jump in there with some amazing leaders. Every Friday at 10:00 AM Pacific time. And then for any information on The Wild Foundation, it is quite literally thewildfoundation.org, as I was mentioning people that would want to help resource those kinds of leaders. We'd love to hear from them, would be great. But they can also send a note to contact@wildleaders.org for any questions that anyone might have.

Steve Rush: Great, and we'll make sure all of those links are in our show notes as well, Rob. So, I just wanted to say, I'm super grateful Rob, you taking time out of your busy schedule. I know you're a busy Chap and I am super grateful. You've shared some of your wisdom, you’re learning some of your experiences and on behalf of all our listeners. Thanks for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Rob Mckenna: Thanks Steve. So great to be here.

Steve Rush: Thanks Rob.

Closing

Composed: The Heart And Science Of Leading Under Pressure

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Amber Hurdle is the CEO of Amber Hurdle Consulting, a multi-award-winning talent optimization firm; she’s a speaker, author and podcast host of The Bombshell Business Podcast. In this episode, learn from amber About:

How self-awareness can kick start your Brand refresh
The “data’ parallels of global brands vs. personal and company brands
How to sharpen your brand with the “Velvet Machete”
Why self-assessment and continuous learning makes you greater

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Amber below:

Amber Hurdle Website: https://amberhurdle.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/amberhurdle

Instagram: http://instagram.com/thevelvetmachete

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/amberhurdle

Full transcript below

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Amber Hurdle is the special guest on today's show. She's the CEO of Amber Hurdle Consulting, a multi award winning brand ambassador and talent optimizer. She's also the host of The Bombshell Business Podcast and author of The Bombshell Business Woman. But before we get a chance to meet with Amber, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we explore the upsurge of the use of digital technology and whether it's transferred power to the people. Sally Helgeson, who was cited by Forbes as the world's premier expert on female leadership, discusses how homeworking facilitated by digital technology has reversed the balance of power from capital to people. In 1993, Peter Drucker published Post-Capitalist Society. It has extraordinary lessons for leaders today, as we seek to emerge from the confusion, the pain and disruption of our pandemic 2020 society. Drucker was referring to the fact that capitalism became the primary means of production to the scale and complexity, requiring significant capital investment. Capital had by far the greatest valley in the chain of production. So, it grew to become quite expensive while the cost of people and labour became relatively cheap. As a result, the primary means of production, which of course was industrial machinery had to be centralized in factories and later in offices, via computers and tech, which meant that most people could no longer work from home. These two factors combined gave power in those who either provided a capital for enterprise or investment, or indeed hired to exercise it, that is senior management, but Drucker foresaw that the economist of the digital technology would reverse this basic logic. The digital tools that made such a transformative impact over the last 20 years are vastly more dependent on human knowledge and creativity than on raw materials and heavy machinery. As Drucker said, those tools began to reverse the balance of power between people and capital. And since people began to own the primary means of production, which of course is our brains and our thinking. That's what distinguishes the knowledge economy. And it's the reason why a new idea can make a hundred years of what was seen to be thoughtful, intensive capital development, almost obsolete overnight. And it's the reason why we now view leadership as something that should be distributed through organizations, rather than let the sole top of those leading the organizations.

This year, it's taken on a fresh perspective as individuals around the world had to spend months working from home and organizations have had to adapt really quickly to this new reality. And it's fortunate that technology has reached a point where it allows us to do this, and we can now see that the trend in working from home or working at home is already well underway. So, what will it mean going forward for the primary means of production? It will be engaged within people's homes, places of where once we used to be housed prior to the industrial revolution. In short, Post-Capitalist Society that Drucker foretold almost 30 years ago is now suddenly and with force upon us, it's consequences will reshape our organizations, our lives and for the next century, and as leaders now more than ever, we need to be thoughtful and help our teams reframe that perspective and consider what their mindset is for the future.

We may need to consider our homes as now our place of work. Stereotypes that we may have had such as stay at home moms or stay at home dads become obsolete and many more biases and assumptions could present themselves. But our job as leaders is to listen for those assumptions to challenge and to test them and to recognize that no longer capital will drive the future, but it's our people themselves. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any interesting stories or news that you'd like to share, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Amber Hurdle is our special guest on today's show. She's a multi award-winning consultant and business partner, a brand expert and author of The Bombshell Business Woman. Amber, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Amber Hurdle: I am so grateful to be here, thank you.

Steve Rush: You have a really interesting backstory from team mom to CEO. How did it all start for you?

Amber Hurdle: On the struggle bus? So just kind of going way back to the teen mom days, that seems so long ago, there was a big why, and that was giving my daughter every opportunity in the world that a child not born to a teen mom would have. And that is a commitment that I made in the hospital, indignant. That was mission critical, and with that, even though I stumbled and made a lot of terrible, awful, horrible, decisions, I did find a way to continuously fail forward in the interest of pursuing that big why. So, through that process, I had to learn at the time I had no idea what this current buzz term was, but I had to learn how to develop my personal brand so that I could position myself to get better shifts at work, to get a job I might not be fully qualified for to be able to attract the right people and opportunities to me so that I could raise this child who was brilliant and deserved better than what I brought her into this world into.

So as that continuously enabled me to move forward with success, I began to do various things to help support that, that in turn became things that I would help team members with or employees with or colleagues, or eventually when I went back to college, because I figured out there's this word for this thing that I do and it's called public relations. And then I discovered the world of internal relations. And so, I started using the same principles and the confidence that came with it because I knew that it worked because I've used it on me and everyone else. And now I'm dealing with senior leaders in my career and I'm helping shape their personal brands, like an internal publicist of sorts and increasing their influence. And it's just gone from there, I've worked with celebrities, I've worked with, I mean, you name it, I've done it. And I'm 41 years old and abundantly blessed that I get to be the wounded healer that I get to be someone who can pursue her purpose through her vocation.

Steve Rush: That's awesome Amber. And I guess part of that failing forward that you talked about ,was also maybe being brand aware at certain parts of your life. So, you could pivot your career accordingly. Would that be kind of fair?

Amber Hurdle: Oh, absolutely. You know, I was sitting at lunch with a childhood friend, someone who I've been friends with since high school. This was a few years back, and he was looking at maybe shifting his career a little bit. And he said, Amber, you're just the Madonna of professional life. You're constantly evolving and reinventing yourself. And I looked at him somewhat confused because I didn't perceive it that way. And I said, help me understand that. Can you say that a different way? And he talked about the different pieces of my career and I just looked at him and I said, that is all me wrapping everything that I do into communication and engagement. That's the vehicle, that's what I do. I'm able to communicate. I can teach other people how to communicate. I know how to engage. I can teach other people how to engage.

And throughout my career, whether I was a celebrity event planner, whether I was an internal you know, employee relations person, whether I was doing PR work or whatever, fundraising and Scc College, it was all about communication and engagement. So it is that, you have to really clearly understand what your gifting is. You have to understand what uniquely makes you, you. And so, anybody can do communication and engagement, right. I can define and position, my value by saying, I can do that and that I can do that because I was forced to learn the hard way through my teen mother experience.

Steve Rush: Right, yeah. It's huge lessons that you probably experienced much earlier in your life than most folk would've done. Right?

Amber Hurdle: Absolutely. I was chatting with a friend last night who is just so advanced. I mean, I just asked him like, why are you so smart? How did you get so smart? Cause you didn't go to college or in your neck of the woods, you didn't go to university. But he just has this wealth of business knowledge. And he said, you know what, Amber, you became an adult way early. You're a decade ahead of your peer group. I started my first business when I was 17 and its those same principles. It's just that dumb youth of learning the hard way and actually having enough energy may be to recover from the ridiculous mistakes that you make. But because we made them so young, it catapulted us forward into having a deeper wisdom around whether that's life or business or, you know, anything like that.

Steve Rush: And academia of course, is not a prerequisite for entrepreneurialism. In fact, most entrepreneurs, I know actually have less of an academic background than the former.

Amber Hurdle: Yeah, because we never stop learning. We don't go to school and then say, okay, I've learned everything I need to learn. I wrote everything I had to write. I've read everything I need to read and I'm sick of it, so the end. Again, and I have to credit my friend for kind of bringing that up last night. Good timing for this interview. When you're an entrepreneur. I mean, I just think about this year alone, everything that I've had to go back and say, okay, now I need to learn how to do this. I need a refresher on that. I haven't really learned this in probably about four years. So, what's changed? I need to learn that. So, I've taken four different courses. I'm constantly watching YouTube. We have to do that to respond to the ever-changing business environment that we're in. And when you think of learning or of my personal education or my personal intelligence being attached to formal education, you really missing out.

Steve Rush: Yup, get it. A hundred per cent subscribe to that whole principle of continuous learning and evolution is just what makes you greater. So, in your consulting world now, you've managed to unite branding and science together to really help amplify that human capital when it comes to brands. Tell us a little bit about how you've done that?

Amber Hurdle: So, branding background, PR of course. The way that big businesses approach branding their marketing is how I approach that with individuals in terms of personal brands, as well as employee bases in terms of employer brands. And so, my velvet machete brand strategy believes that if you have strong leaders with strong personal brands, they can then lead strong employer brands where people feel really excited about coming to work. They understand where their gifts and their talents and their experience fit into the big picture. And when you have happy employees delivering at that peak level, then you have a strong business brand because your customers are satisfied. Things are getting done the way they're supposed to be done. You don't have as many errors or, you know, whatever that looks like you, you know that you have a strong business brand cause it's from the inside out. So, with that in mind, let's think about like Nike, Nike does millions of dollars’ worth of market research before they do any type of marketing campaign. And so, what they have to do is figure out from data, whether that is cookies on their website, tracking, you know, where are you clicking? How long do you stay on a page? Whether that is through loyalty programs, it could be focus groups, whatever. They have to have data. They're going to take that data to understand the big picture what's going on inside of their brand, how they can most efficiently and effectively market. And they'd start to develop ideal customer profiles so that they can speak into the emotions of their customers and potential customers. Now, why don't we do that internally?

Steve Rush: Right.

Amber Hurdle: We need to do the same thing. We need to canvas our entire team. We need to understand who's working for us. We need to understand what does that landscape look like so that we can speak to them emotionally about their contributions, about why they are with our organization and why we all share the same philosophies and values and that sort of thing. That is the bedrock of our culture. And then as we hire just like Nike creates ideal customer profiles and their messaging, their brand doesn't change. Their "Just Do It". Their brand doesn't change at all, but their messaging changes. If they are targeting an elite athlete who might need some performance gear versus a soccer mom, who's just going to wear her athletes aware at target, very different people, very different messaging, same brand. So, if you look at that from the perspective of your employer brand, you have the same brand. You are who you are, these are your values, you know? And so, you need to create ideal employee profiles for each position that you are hiring.

Steve Rush: It's almost the same process that Nike is deploying isn't? But just internally, with an internal lens.

Amber Hurdle: It is, and it's so funny when I get invited into a company. I was recognized and I'm not tooting my own horn. I'm just saying, it's not novel. But I was recognized by global gurus as one of the top 30 brand professionals thought leaders for 2020, because my perception of branding is different from the inside out. And I'm just like, to me, this is so obvious. If you have the data and you know where the holes are in your team and you know, behaviourally what type of person you need in that role and, you know, personality-wise, then you can start using data to help you make informed decisions, just like Nike uses data to make informed decisions. Now you can market, now you can recruit, now you can retain and keep everybody happy, just like we do with our customers. I don't see the reach in that, but apparently, it's a new thing to talk about.

Steve Rush: It's an awareness thing, I think.

Amber Hurdle: Yeah.

Steve Rush: What you're describing is just that internal lens shift. Now the five-step process that you've developed with your velvet machete, and by the way, I just love the visual metaphor. Velvet machete, I think it's brilliant because I'm a visual kind of guy anyway, so I can almost see this really soft little machete coming down to me, but I know that it's going to take me through proper rigorous five-step process. Let's get into that and talk about how that can maybe help some of our listeners think about their own brand awareness. So, what are the five steps?

Amber Hurdle: Let's just start first with the concept development machete. So, the machete cuts to the chase. It is a direct way of communicating and influencing, but the velvet wraps the message in a way that's appealing to your unique audience. So just like Nike has different messaging. So does the velvet machete process. So, we need to keep that in mind, as you move through these five steps. Now, first and foremost, you have to become self-aware. So, as you're building your personal brand, which is step number one, you have to be able to confidently define and position your value. You have to know what you bring to the table. And I've got of course, tons of exercises that get you to that point. But only when you understand yourself, can you start to move through the rest of these processes. So, step number two is then building supportive environments, creating systems and structures that uniquely support your efforts.

So, if I know I am excellent at whatever, I need to create environments around me, whether that's people environments, or how my workflow is set up, it could be spiritual or physical or mental environments that I need to put in place to fortify those things that are great about me. Now, a lot of people like to talk about strengths and weaknesses. I can't stand to do that. I'm not a weak person. I'm also not amazing at advanced math. And so, I'm not going to say, well, that's a weakness. It's just not helpful. Me doing advanced math is not helpful to my mission.

So, with that in mind, I just bubble wrap that just like fine China. Beautiful, precious, expensive, valuable, fine China. It's not weak. It just is fragile. And so, we bubble wrap it to ship it across the country. So, whatever is fragile in your toolbox of resources, we need to bubble wrap that. So, for me, I have a CPA, I have a bookkeeper and I have someone who handles payroll. Okay? So, they teach me, but that's my bubble wrap. And you can do that in all areas of your life. But here's the beauty. When you are very confident in who you are and what you bring to the table, and then you create all of these environments to really strengthen, being able to do that. And then instead of being like, oh, I wish I was more, blah, blah, blah. You just bubble wrap that stuff. Now, now you're really moving forward with confidence. And my velvet machete leadership Academy is all about becoming a competent, compassionate leader, having that velvet machete balance. Once you have that in place and you are strong, your foundation is strong only then can you move on to mastering your communication. Because now we're including other people. So, if you're not solid is really difficult to begin to interact with others. So, you have to be able to speak with authority while listening with intent to drive results. So, I know who I am. I know what I bring to the table. Now I'm listening to you with intent. I'm being able to communicate like Nike in different ways for different audiences, with that velvet machete style that I have. And once I can master that communication, and I understand how to have a two-way conversation with my various key stakeholders, then I can move on to step four and truly mastermind engagement. And that's when I use my self-awareness, my ability to understand what type of environments I need, my ability to communicate. And once I see and harvest the greatness in others, I can rally their support. And that's where people get hung up. That is the billion-dollar problem. And I'll tell you, I was with a client a handful of weeks ago, and she is a dynamo. I mean, she's just amazing and has all kinds of experience and is pretty senior in her role. And she was stuck because she'd been working for months on something, but she could not get the buy-in of somebody that would move it forward, which would save the company a billion dollars.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Amber Hurdle: I'm not joking, billion with B. And so, we worked through how she could frame that in order to get that buy-in, to move it to the next phase of approval. She killed it. She not only got in that next phase, but she got the next phase and everything came to fruition. They're following her plan. They're going to now move forward, trying to save the company a billion dollars. She could not have done that without self-awareness, without the environments that she needed to support her, without understanding her communication style and how she needed to communicate to this initial key stakeholder plus the next round. And if she was unable to rally support from this person, that company would not have her extreme intention, her gifts, and the gifts of her team to save them a billion dollars with a B. So, once you've done these four things, now you can build influence. Now you can guide and focus people and processes towards success because now this person has everything that she needs. And so, everyone knows the goal and she can just rally that support. And then build on that, moving everyone together towards saving that billion dollars. This process is not like, oh, these are soft skills. And everybody needs to, you know, we need to increase our emotional intelligence. Blah-Blah-Blah fluffy, fluffy unicorns.

Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly.

Amber Hurdle: We're saving a billion dollars here people, this is important.

Steve Rush: The one thing that I observe when I also coach execs is that this persona, if you like of soft skills presents itself quite a bit. And I always have the conversation that says there's nothing soft about having great communication skills, being able to engage and influence people. That's real hard skills. What about some of the baggage that comes with the language that we internalize with ourselves?

Amber Hurdle: That is why I call it a relevant machete. I mean, that doesn't sound very soft. The velvet does, but that's my way of bringing awareness to. This isn't child's play, we're not on the strengths couch right now. This is an internal fuzziness. Now, anybody who works with me understands that I have no differentiation between professional and personal. We do not compartmentalize our lives. We are a whole person, and all of that is going on all at the same time. And especially if your career is a manifestation of your purpose, then now we're really coagulated. It's all put in a blender together. And so, yes, when we're talking about our environments and when we're talking about our personal brand, we might have to go into some deeply personal places, but at the end of the day, if you do the work, and that's what I tell my clients all the time, you have to do the work. If you're willing to do the work, then you're empowered into that competent, compassionate leader. That leader who can influence because people see your authenticity and they are inspired by your ability to show them how their contributions fit into the bigger picture.

Steve Rush: I love that five steps, by the way. I think it's a really neat way of just thinking about the process you need to go through. And like you say, this is not soft. This is proper work, isn't it?

Amber Hurdle: It is, and I appreciate that feedback. Thank you.

Steve Rush: So, you've also turned to writing and you've authored the book, The Bombshell Business Woman. Tell us a little bit about what the inspiration was for the book?

Amber Hurdle: Sure. So, when I left corporate and I began working with organizations through consulting and training and speaking, I had several female friends, acquaintances who came to me and said, wow, Amber, you know, you really have branded and marketed yourself well. I'm really struggling with that in my business. And so, I find myself kind of having like a part-time job of helping friends to position themselves. And of course, my whole career is PR, marketing and that sort of thing in various forms. And I've owned other businesses where I've done this successfully. So being the type of person who likes to pay things forward, I did, but then it got overwhelming. And so, I thought, you know what, I'm just going to have a one-day bootcamp. And I'm going to invite some of my smartest friends who are former executives who are now independent and we're just going to hash it out.

So, I did that and it was wildly successful. So, I thought, well, Hmm, interesting. We probably should do this again, but really dig in a little bit more. And so, I did, I had an offering of a weekly bombshell business bootcamp, and I took them through the different phases that I eventually put into the book. And I had people from five different county in middle Tennessee attend very faithfully and it was beautiful to see what they did in their businesses and how they collaborated with each other and how the whole strengthened the individual businesses. And so, at that point I was like, Hmm, I'm onto something here. So, I would love to write a book, but I'm still not super clear. I know what five-county worth of, you know, again, we're back to data, right? So, I understand this subsection, but I live in the South and there's just limitations to that.

So, I launched the podcast and develop the most beautiful relationship with my listeners. That was possible, they were so open with me. They would send me messages all of the time, they sent mail to my office, told me I listened to this episode. This is how I applied it. This is what changed in my business. I mean, it was like a market researcher dream. For me, it's about, can I serve you? And is this working for you? But the reality is this is data. And now I can use it to inform my decision making. So, with that really intimate understanding of The Bombshell Business Woman, I was able to write this book. Because I wanted any woman with $15 dollars to be able to self-educate. So, we're back to that, right? And I wrote it very much in a conversational style. The first four chapters were more about my personal life so that they can understand, like, if Amber could do it, I can do it.

I have no more excuses. Cause looking at Amber went through and then it's very tactical after that. And I did that with intention, not because I was trying to give away the form and people were like, oh, you could've made a course about that. I'm like that wasn't the intention of this book. The intention of this book was to give any woman with $15 dollars in her pocket and exact guide to get her business to where it needs to go. And so, the reward in that was people writing in saying, I'm on page, whatever, I'm in total tears. It's as if you wrote this book just to me and I wouldn't have been able to do that. Had I not had that relationship with my listeners where I knew where their pain was, where I knew, where they were stuck in their frustration. And in the end, I had a beautiful message from someone on Instagram. And she had a dream of selling her struggling yoga practice. And she wanted to open up a yoga retreat, Bali or some beautiful location. And she was really in trouble with her business. She wrote to me and said she started listening to my podcast. She listened to every episode twice. She read my book; she downloaded the workbook. She did everything that I told her to do. And not only did she get her business to a healthy place, she sold it for an absurd amount of money. And she sent me a picture of her yoga retreat in Bali or wherever it is and invited me to follow her social media accounts, to see it grow and flourish.

Steve Rush: How awesome is that!

Amber Hurdle: And again, you are too. We're in unique situations where we can't really describe the successes of our clients because it is so confidential. And so, I'm describing the success so that any listener who thinks I don't have anything to say or who would listen to me, or I'm not educated enough, I'm not experienced enough. My encouragement to you is that, you know more than somebody else out there and that somebody is looking for somebody to lead them through difficulty or to get them to a next level. And so, if you put it out there, people will find you. Your tribe will find you, if you are truly authentically you and you don't hold back, people will find you and you will help other people get incredible results.

Steve Rush: That's so true, isn't it? So true. And also, the whole philosophy of technology plays a big part in the book as well. There was one particular chapter in the book that really tickled me and it was a teaching Wilma Flintstone in the Jane Jetson world.

Amber Hurdle: Yes, [Laughing].

Steve Rush: Just tell us a little bit about that?

Amber Hurdle: The target audience for this particular book. And I'll just give you the avatar or the ideal customer profile of The Bombshell Business Woman. She's 42 years old, she has two kids. One is almost graduated. The other one's in junior high. He plays soccer. She's involved in everything. And, you know, she's chamber of commerce, volunteers, good wife, great daughter, all that kind of stuff. And yet all she can see, even though everyone else sees her as a total rock star is what she's not doing right. And one of the things that she laments over is that she's just not good with technology. She doesn't get the Twitter. The website blows her mind. Anything that would help streamline her business is frustrating. And so, what I loved, especially in that initial cohort of the bombshell business bootcamp that we did live over several weeks was I was able to show them how easy peasy things could be. And once they realized that it wasn't overwhelming, they were able to implement it in their business. Thank God. Cause now in COVID, everybody's using technology and virtual everything.

Steve Rush: Right.

Amber Hurdle: So, they had a little leg up there and it just took away that fear. And so, so much of what we don't accomplish in life and in our businesses is because we're simply afraid. And if you have somebody to walk alongside you to show you. The boogie monster is not underneath the bed, it's going to be uncomfortable for a minute. And then you're going to move past that discomfort. And just like, you know, when this particular avatar was somebody who was a hairstylist and she was in another salon and decided she could probably do it better herself. And so, she opened up her own salon and seven years in, she had 10 employees or contractors, and now she's looking at her business going, oh my gosh, how did I do this? I'm not a businesswoman. I'm not a business person. I accidentally had success in my business. She doesn't credit herself. And here's everything that I'm doing wrong because I didn't go to school to do this, that's my person.

Steve Rush: Awesome. I love that. And if I'm a leader, listen to this. So, be that a woman or a man, because we've all gotten in a bombshell, what's the first steps in unlocking that?

Amber Hurdle: I started in the book with that self-awareness with developing that personal brand because, you know, I say that I sell branding and I deliver confidence. And I just so believe that if you were confident in what you are capable of, you can get through those uncomfortable things. He knows like, oh yeah, okay. Well, I suck at math. So, I mean, not all math, but it no big deal. What can I do to improve upon this? And so, it just makes the fear go away. But I think the other thing that a lot of bombshell businesswoman or my bombshell boys as I call it, because I also got, you know, former military writing to me saying, it's like, you wrote the book just to me. And I'm like, really is your name Am? because that's my avatar name.

But it's very similar struggles, right. I just happen to write it in a language that was, you know, really intentional for women, but having a plan. And I say that almost giggling in the year 2020 when we're recording this, because we all had a plan going into this year, right.

Steve Rush: Well, yeah, that's the irony of strategic planning is to think about the, what-ifs, the wildcards or scenarios and the great art of great planning is to think of the unthought.

Amber Hurdle: Exactly, and that is exactly why when I teach my marketing process, which I call the red lipstick marketing blueprint, which all that refers to is you put in the minimum amount of effort for the maximum results. So, ladies, you understand this. When you've got to run to the grocery store, you might put on your sunglasses and some red lipstick, you look like you're put together and you did not put on a full face of makeup. Other people can do the whole Kardashians, you know, I'm going to put all this layer of makeup on and it really doesn't improve the situation much. And so, I think we all get convoluted in our marketing strategies and we're trying to do everything and everything that's, you know, every new email that comes in and tells us we should be doing this, every trend that sets off, then we get, you know, squirrel and we're over there doing that.

What I encourage is that you take things three months at a time. Yes, you want to know your entire years’ worth of strategic initiatives, but let's just mark it three months at a time. Because as entrepreneurs, we've got to be able to be agile. We have to know if this shifts in my business, or if this shifts in the market, I need to be able to quickly shift with it. So that is something that I teach. And whether that's your strategic planning, quarter by quarter or your marketing plan, you have to be self-aware, you have to know what you are great at. So, you can be confident moving forward and where you need to bubble wrap things. And then as an entrepreneur, you need to be able to be intentional about your planning so that you can be flexible when things don't go well. Otherwise, you're starting from scratch and just flailing around in the middle of the ocean without any type of direction of where shore is.

Steve Rush: Super wise words, I can almost hear the inner bombshells being released as people are listening.

Amber Hurdle: I love it.

Steve Rush: So, this is where we turn the leadership lens on you. And we get to hack into your leadership mind.

Amber Hurdle: Okay.

Steve Rush: Not only you're a great consultant and a business partner, you're a CEO and a leader in your own, right. Amber for our listeners, just share with us your top three leadership hacks.

Amber Hurdle: Sure, I'll tell you the ones that really have worked for me. One is assessments. Of course, I’m certified in two assessments. I'm also, fun fact. Professional astrology software because I think that's God's personality assessment for the world. I don't think we can predict the future or anything, but I do think we can better understand ourselves. So, assessments that is a short-fit hack. Mentorship - you don't know everything. There's no way that you can learn everything. So, look to somebody who has been there, done that. Has made the mistakes they can share with you. Who's had the triumphs that they can share with you, who can help you shortcut through life. And you will be in really great shape. And the third thing is really dialling up your people environment. And so that is surrounding yourself with people who think like you. Who have a vibrational energy that matches yours, when you're around them, you feel edified and like you can move forward, and like, you can accept their feedback because you can trust that it's within your best interest and it's not somebody who's just so scared of where you're going and they don't think that they can go there with you, that they're going to try to hold you back.

Steve Rush: They’re super snacks, awesome. So, the next part of the show we call Hack to Attack. So, this is where something in your past, hasn't worked out as well, maybe even screwed up, but as a result of the experience, now use it as a positive in your life, what will be your Hack to Attack?

Amber Hurdle: Well, we could go all the way back, I could give you like, you know, 38,000, my early teen mom days, but let's just go to the beginning of this year. So, like most people COVID dramatically impacted my business. Prior to this year really did mostly professional speaking on stages. And then in-person consulting, so as you can imagine. Within 48 hours, my entire speaking calendar through 2021 was cancelled, believe it or not, I actually had a pandemic clause in my agreement who knew, but I did. But that wasn't the right thing to do to hold people to this, I just feel like we're all in this together. So, I gave all of those deposits back so they could refund their attendees. And then within probably about two weeks, because so many of my clients are in hospitality, hotels, and entertainment. They came to me and said, we really need to be let out of our agreement because we're having to furlough our employees. And so obviously they can't pay me. So again, doing the right thing, let everybody out of their agreements. And I was left with not a whole lot. So, thank God my husband and I have multiple businesses. So, it wasn't disabling to my livelihood, but this is my passion, this is my purpose. So, I took a big step back and I was like, okay, the universe, God, whatever you feel comfortable as I tell you the story, and we'll just say the universe for the most vanilla way of saying it, it just shoved everything off of my desk. It just wiped it all onto the floor. And then I was left with the decision of what do I want to pick up off the floor and put back on my desk, moving forward.

And while that was painful and frustrating and hard, it was beautiful. And I was able to really get decisive about what I wanted my business to look like moving forward. I was able to be a start-up with eight years of hindsight, and I was able to be a start-up with a beautiful, amazing network of awesome people. And I have had to grind harder this year than in a long, long time, probably since my days at Gaylord Hotels and at the same I have grown more this year then I can remember. And so, I'm moving forward with an extreme sense of gratitude for what that reset did for me. And I'm not saying it's even easy yet. It's not, but I see where I'm going and I'm having those short-term plans and I’m bubble wrapping, everything that needs to be bubble-wrapped. And I'm keeping that positive thought process. I'm seeking my mentors. I have my people environments in place. And I'm standing on my personal brands that I can move through my own process of the velvet machete leadership process.

Steve Rush: And you can hear all of that coming through as well. And your mindset is to the untrained ear may not be very obvious, but to my trained ear, your mindset is beaming growth, open, positivity, and promotion. So, well done you!

Amber Hurdle: Thank you. Thank you.

Steve Rush: The last thing that I'd like to take you to is give you the chance to do some time travel. So, you get to now bump back into Amber at 21 and give her some advice. What's it going to be?

Amber Hurdle: Stop being so damn hard on yourself. You are an amazing human being. You are full of gifts. You are perfect the way that you are. You don't need to change anything. There's nothing to fix. You just need to figure out who you are at your core, and then you need to become more of that. And as long as you're doing it in service to other people, you're going to be okay.

Steve Rush: Super advice. And for other people listening to that, that's a great message too. So, for folks that have been listening to us talk today Amber, but I know they're going to want to listen to your podcast and find out a little bit more about the work that you do. And of course, developed machete and the bombshell businesswoman. Where's the best place we can send them as they finish listening to this.

Amber Hurdle: Absolutely. I would love for you to visit amberhurdle.com/leadershipquiz. And you can take a quick quiz. It does not require an opt-in. Although I'd love to have you in my community. Is a quick quiz to allow you, to see the type of leadership personality that you have and how you show up, I will tell you what makes you the most influential and also what you might want to consider bubble wrapping. And I love this because even the more quiet leaders really get rallied around and they can see how amazing they are and that they don't have to be that big personality leader. And then if you go to amberhurdle.com, you can find the bombshell business podcast there, and then also opt-in for when we launch Velvet Machete Leadership Podcast.

Steve Rush: We'll also make sure there is links to the leadership quiz and all your other links are in our show notes, when we're done too.

Amber Hurdle: And reach out to me on LinkedIn. I love getting to know people and following what you're doing in your career.

Steve Rush: Amber, you've been an absolute, amazing guest. There is some super stories that you've been able to share with our listeners today. And on behalf of everyone that's listening in and on behalf of The Leadership Hacker Podcast. Thanks for joining the show.

Amber Hurdle: Thank you so much. I just appreciate the opportunity to get to know you and serve your audience.

Steve Rush: Thanks Amber.

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Kyle Hegarty is the founder and CEO of Leadership Nomad, he’s coach, speaker and a marketing expert also the author of The Accidental Business Nomad. In this episode we can learn about:

How to lead in a shrinking world
Invisible culture can trip us all up
Local geographical cultural awareness is so key global success
Global communication styles differ, adapt or else.

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Kyle:

Leadership Nomad Website

Kyle on LinkedIn

Book: The Accidental Business Nomad

Full Transcript Below

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Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Kyle Hegarty is a special guest on today's show. He's a CEO of Leadership Nomad. He's a coach, speaker and a marketing expert and author of The Accidental Business Nomad. But before we get a chance to speak with Kyle, it's The Leadership News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: When we're all feeling a little down, a good bounce of laughter could be just a tonic to lift our spirits and improve our wellbeing. And it can also help you close business deals too. But ask the question. Do you really need humour to get your message across? Once the pressure's off, you may find that jokes grow organically just from the conversation. We hacked happiness with Nick Marks on episode 18. And now just want to think about how can humour play out in a virtual world? Particularly if we are working across cultures. We often make the mistake of thinking that humour is performative, but we need to think it was something much more clever, more provocative, and something that actually makes sense. In the way that we communicate. Most people are just predisposed to finding things funny and given the chance we all want to have a laugh. This means that the thought required to make a situation funny is a lot less intensive than you might think, but we do need to be thoughtful of how that plays out across cultures, given the diverse range of cultural differences in humour, it's difficult to imagine that there is a universal formula that makes sense of the world.

Over at the Humor Research Lab at the University of Boulder in Colorado, they've managed to take a convincing crack at putting this right, Peter McGraw was behind the research and he has a great Ted talk by the way, that illustrates that anything funny has two components in it. It must be unthreatening and it must subvert your expectations. If you take away jokes, benign nature, or this element of surprise, you end up with something that's unfunny at best, and sometimes downright creepy. If you are looking to introduce Humor into your work, McGraw formula is a great place to start.

What surprises people from place to place and from culture to culture can be very different. So, let's jump into explore how some of the different cultures impact in the way jokesters can get things right or wrong. We asked a handful of 10 people from different countries and cultures, how they would describe humor at their home. So, their answers provide a really interesting insight, how humor lands in different cultures, but more than this helps us to understand how a universal communication can be impacted. Humor here in Britain tends to be focused ourselves. We love to have a good laugh at ourselves and it's delivered usually at the expense of the teller. We also tend to lean towards deep levels of irony and jokes that push the boundaries of what's socially acceptable. Asking my kids if I’m a great dad joke teller. Hey, did you hear about the guy who had his entire left side cut off? Well, he's all right now! Yeah, that's exactly why I'm not on the stage.

In France, Spain and Austria, regional satire is extremely popular. Fuelled usually by competitive relationships. Germany, political satire and social taboos are often at the crux of comedy. Polish people love bitter and sarcastic jokes, and the subtleties are often lost on other nationalities. All of these different approaches to humor are interesting, but one thing that binds us is satire. If you go to Russia, Russian humor is tightly bound to subtleties of the language can often be extremely difficult to translate. In Asia comedies often deeply rooted in language, has such a vast linguistic difference that pervades across the Asian continent could be different in any one of the two countries, even next door. An example, in China, jokes are often deeply embedded into the multi-level of meanings in the words, in the writing systems.

And then we get to USA and Canada and both a hugely influential in the field of entertainment and have a diverse range of different comedic styles. In general, though, you can expect the humor from the US to be fast-paced with a lot derived from stereotypes and ethnic differences. And American humor loves to play on the absurdity of seemingly normal events. Whereas Canada often focuses on the light satire, the irony and the parody. South America, Brazilians might describe the humorous, sarcastic, dry, or in touch with the dark side, whilst in Mexico, mockery is used as a way to break down differences and tensions and Argentina humor, by contrast, is littered with references to their history and their national identity. So, in summary, humor is an intensely human habit. It's our way of showing affection, breaking down boundaries and sharing common belief systems while satire having some fun. So, if you are going to introduce humor to your conversation, through communication, just be thoughtful of how that lands in the nation you're sharing it with. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, funny stories or insights, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Kyle Hegarty is our special guest on the show today. He's the Managing Director of Leadership Nomad. He's an entrepreneur, a business coach and author of The Accidental Business Nomad. Kyle, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Kyle Hegarty: Good morning, good evening, wherever you are, wherever we are.

Steve Rush: We're speaking to you in Singapore today?

Kyle Hegarty: I’m in Sunny Singapore. Not a bad way to start the week.

Steve Rush: Yeah, awesome. So, Kyle, you've been referred to as the Indiana Jones of international business. How did you get to where you are now?

Kyle Hegarty: First of all, I've been quietly accepting credit for that, but the actual quote was this book is the Indiana Jones of international business. It was in reference to the book that I wrote, not necessarily about me, but I guess I can take credit. I, don’t know, you know, you take the compliments when you get it. You know, I've been doing international focused work for nearly 20 years. I packed up and moved from the United States to Southeast Asia here in Singapore, back in 2006. And for many people who do work in Singapore, they know that it's really kind of a stopping ground to do work elsewhere. We're a tiny little dot of a city state here of about 5-6 million people. While this is a nice little place, most of the action is outside of Singapore. So, it becomes a bit of a hub to hop around and I've been hopping around some somewhat interesting places ever since. And I think some of the stories that we can get into later might aluminate that.

Steve Rush: So, what was the key focus of the work that you do with Leadership Nomad?

Kyle Hegarty: I'm focused on, I guess it goes back to what I've learned in the last 20 years, because what got me over here 15 plus years ago, I came over and set up my own business, which was a marketing agency. And our job was to build sales pipelines for other companies. And I was also of course building my own sales pipeline. So, I was my own client in this case. Most of what happened was I was working for western companies who were rushing into Southeast Asia over the last 15 years. And they were using us as one of the first starting points to be able to get a foothold into the region. What we did was got exposed to what started out as dozens, and then turned into hundreds of companies who were trying to figure out how do you break into a new market? How do you expand? Not just from a sales and marketing standpoint, but then from a delivery standpoint. And so, what that turned out to be from me, was not only to get more experience in terms of pipeline building and how to do that in different, extremely different and diverse markets. But what I found on kind of accidentally was the fact that this invisible culture piece was tripping all of us up in various ways. It didn't necessarily mean you; you got your marketing wrong. Maybe you did, maybe your product wasn't a good fit, but more often than not, it came down to this other people problem, this communication challenge. And so, as my business evolved, I ended up pivoting a little bit, still do some of the marketing and pipe building. But what I started focusing more on was how do you enhance communication within teams?

How do you put that client facing? So, what I'm spending my time doing now is working with companies who are trying to figure out, okay, how do we deal with a distributed global team set up? How do we tighten our communication strategy internally? How do we figure out how to communicate outward to our customers, to keep them and to wow them into expand upon them? And so, a lot of my work has expanded towards more consulting and coaching that focuses on global remote teams. That's a very long-winded explanation for a very simple question you asked.

Steve Rush: That's great, great response. And naturally, it’s the unintended consequences of not being really thoughtful when you move to different jurisdictions and different cultures, right?

Kyle Hegarty: So, the problem used to be the word move. You would get to the ex-pats learning curve that everybody goes through. And I was joking with some friends here is that, you kind of see the people who've just got here. You can just tell; you can tell the companies that are just starting to put in a marketing campaign or a sales strategy. That was one of the things that triggered my work and triggered the reason that I wanted to write this book, because the patterns kept happening over and over again. I'll give you one specific example. A friend of mine runs a pretty well-known or pretty large fast-food chain. And he manages the fast-food chain for the entire region. And one of the things he said was, and he deals with some venture capital people who come in and they invest, or they look to figure out where they going to expand their fast-food chains and what countries. When the person who gets hired, who's responsible for that expansion, you could tell within a first five minutes of a conversation, whether or not that expansion was going to work based on his or her leadership. And I agree a hundred percent with that because what he was getting at was the fact that you can have a conversation with somebody. And if they think that their approach expanding into a new market, if they think their way is the right way, if they think their way is the only way, if they think that they've got it all figured out, there's going to be problems. And in the fast-food example to get into even more detail, it often comes down to local tastes and preferences, and you can almost line up fast-food chains that made it versus ones that didn't make it. And you can see those that pivoted, that adjusted, that were flexible, that adjusted their menus slightly, that adjusted their ingredients slightly, how they went to market versus those that kept to their original script from their home country. And to me, I think that industry is one fascinating case study of exactly what I'm getting at, which is, you know, you've got to have a leadership style that has that level of flexibility. And to be humble enough to acknowledge the fact that you just don't know everything right off the bat.

Steve Rush: I remember the first time I ever went out to work in Southeast Asia, and it was a trade mission, and I was going out there to drum up new business and I made the fatal mistake of not paying enough attention to somebody's business card. For me, you know, it was just a little bit of paper I used to keep my wallet, but for these people, it was their badge of honour. And it’s those subtle nuances, isn't it? That when you move to a new jurisdiction or indeed not even from a physical perspective, you just integrate with those jurisdictions is having that awareness, right?

Kyle Hegarty: Yes, here's to take that to the next level, which is even when you start developing the awareness and the business card example is a perfect one. I remember this story that came from my professor years and years ago because he was focused on Japan and he had this story and he was in the banking industry, very large client. They went out to dinner, I think it was an American, might've been a Brit. Expat would come out, and they said, look, you've got to respect the business card, right. You've got to, you know. They kind of explained, they coach the guy before this dinner, put it on the table, be very focused on it. Show respect for the business card. Fine, all good. He does the two-hand, he bows. Okay, so far so good. Halfway through the meal, someone spills something over the table. It was like a tray of duck sauce or something. And instinctively, we'll call them American for the example. Instinctively, he just, oh, don't worry. He picks up the business cards and he start scraping the duck sauce into a napkin with the business cards.

Steve Rush: Oh no.

Kyle Hegarty: And the client and his face goes just completely pale and in Japan there was nothing said or done externally, but they lost a quarter's worth of business, which was about a $20 million dollar hit because of this, you know, perceived insult to what had happened. And I liked that story because he was told and he knew, but then when you get into the moment, something hits, we flip to that, I don't know, you call it the croc brain or your instinct. Because our instinct is where we come from, it's what we're used to. His instinct was to help solve the problem quickly and to use what was in front of him to do it. And it overrode what he had just been coached on. And I think that's a really important piece because, you know, I can come in and tell people all these little pointers and things, but when the moment happens, whether it's a conversation or a physical interaction, that's where you've got to dig a little bit deeper. That's where the practice comes in. That's where you've got to spend more time kind of internalizing this stuff and it takes time and it takes effort.

Steve Rush: Right.

Kyle Hegarty: But I think that the business card things, a good example of that.

Steve Rush: Exactly right. So, with the world that has been shrinking emotionally through communication and culture and mediums of ways that we can communicate. That's probably just been expedited so much, isn't it? Through COVID-19?

Kyle Hegarty: I mean, yeah.

Steve Rush: What do you see has been some of the real challenges or opportunities even, that real shrinking is now providing us?

Kyle Hegarty: Yeah, it is absolutely, I think challenges and opportunities at the same time. So, the book that we'll talk about in a little bit, but I wrote this book and it was finished really at the end of 2019. I think we did some touch up stuff in January. I think I got, you know, we put in a footnote about this quirky little illness called COVID that might be causing some issues. You know, writing in January of 2020. What's happened is that everything just rapidly went, virtual teams got distributed, everybody's working remotely and we're using the technology to make it happen. The technology is the least of our problems. In fact, as technology expands, communication skills flatline. If anything, they might even be decreasing. So, one mistake that I think a lot of times gets made is that people mistakenly think that clear technology equals clear communication and it does not. So, all of a sudden now that we're all distributed, whether it's in a domestic or overseas, there's a lot more conversations happening. And there's, you know, you've got this kind of geopolitical cloud over everybody where there's protectionism, there are trade disagreements, traditional trade is statistically, but, you know, the data says that it's slowing down, but at the exact same time, the digital trade is expanding. The digital driven conversations are increasing. This conversation that you and I are having is, I don't know if we're paying anything to have this conversation from what 6-7000 miles away, crystal clear. The ability to have these conversations is much easier now than ever before. So, you've got this kind of dual thing going on, where there is this growing protectionism, insert any country first. UK first, America first, India first, China first, Singapore first. And any of these countries has that momentum going, but at the exact same time what's happening is that we're all on Skype and Zoom, eight plus hours a day, trying to figure out how to work together better. So, I think that the people that can embrace that paradigm and that contrast to the ones that are going to be able to sleep better at night and at least have a little bit fun during this crazy ride.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and also communication of course, is not just verbal. It's through that nonverbal communication and in my experience of having coached some execs through this; has actually lost the capacity for that nonverbal communication. So, they've having to be much more thoughtful in that little square, that is the Zoom window now.

Kyle Hegarty: Yeah, it's body language is massively lost. I don't care how good your computer screen is because you miss that informal interactions, you know, it's the elevator ride up to the meeting. It's the moments right after that conference call ends, where you hang up the call and you kind of look at the guy sitting next to you and you go, you know, the little eye roll where you go, oh, here we go again. It's these little small interactions that actually build additional rapport, it enhances communication. It drives the purpose of what is trying to be communicated, or what's going to actually happen. All of those things are temporarily out the window and it will remain to be seen how much of the face-to-face stuff comes back. The clients, the companies I'm talking to, none of them are planning to go back to the way things were at least in that a hundred percent going back, it's this whole mix of hybrid. And right now, quite frankly, it's a mess. I mean, nobody knows exactly what it's going to look like. So, I think that at least a quasi-remote world is what we are all up against. And that lack of small interaction, that lack of body language, the lack of even just that harder to define personal, you know, being in the same place with somebody physically. I think we're going to have to get used to adjusting around all of those factors that actually help build relationships. And that's going to be easier for some than others, but I do believe that there's tools that can help everybody try and march forward in a way that helps out how teams get together and how people end up becoming stronger leaders.

Steve Rush: Right, your book, The Accidental Business Nomad published the beginning of this year. What was the real pivotal moment for you when you thought, right? That's, how I’m going to put pen to paper and I'm going to share some of these lessons.

Kyle Hegarty: So, the original book, the title was different. And I'll tell you what it was in a minute. I had a client many, many years ago, this American guy out of Texas. And he was exactly what I had mentioned earlier in this talk. He was one of those guys who just was convinced that he was right. He knew what he was doing. His way was the right way. He had this software that was doing very well in the United States and North America. Think they'd had some success in in Western Europe. And they took on one client through a referral in Southeast Asia. And so, he reached out to me and said, okay, I want you to be our marketing person across the region, blast out our message because we're going into Asia. Because I've read a time magazine article that said, Asia is hot, right.

This is, you know, 2007 kind of stuff. And he sends over his marketing material that he wants me sending out across the region and its material that got baseball imagery. So, you know, North American, certainly American spelling and baseball imagery and phrases, idioms like, oh, knock it out of the park. And all of these kinds of very specific targeted localized phrases. And I was just disassembling it one by one, right? I was just kind of saying, taking it apart. You do not want to be marketing in other parts of the world like this, because you are sending a crystal-clear message that you do not know these local regions. You don't know the markets. You will be perceived as a foreign company that is just trying to sneak in here. And he got really, really frustrated. And he goes, well, it's all Asian, so why don't you just slap a dragon on it and make it Asian. And that was the moment for me, that I go, you know, there's this concept that I started labelling as slapped dragon behaviour. And I still laugh at it many years later, the original title of the book was going to be called slap dragons, which was exactly about that mindset. You can do that with a physical product, slap a dragon on it, or even in a mindset and thinking about coaching or leading teams, that your way is the right way. And that there's some superficial changes that you can make, and it'll all just work out. And so that client, I think was the caricature that drove me to put this book project together because there were so many variations of him out there.

And there still are to this day. And over the years I was keeping an eye on stories of foreign companies. This does not have to be a western companies coming over to Asia and making mistakes. It's happening the other way as well, so you get a lot of Chinese, Indian companies from around. Ozion who started expanding elsewhere. And it's a disaster because they bring their ways, their norms, and they think that's going to work. And so, the book was really born from this belief that companies have rapidly gone global, but people have not. And I wanted to tell those stories and start looking at ways to be able to help get over that mindset and what we can do to overcome it.

Steve Rush: And it goes back to your kind of first five minutes impression thing. The same happens in exactly the same way when we're trying to communicate in a new environment. If that internal gut feel says it doesn't feel right, you're going to lose credibility straight away, right?

Kyle Hegarty: I started out in one of the early chapters, just highlighting just the typical learning process. I mean the journey that anybody takes when they're learning a new skill, which is the first step is, you know, you don't know what you don't know. And then the next step is that magical moment where you realize that you don't know what you don't know. And it's one of those really important steps to be able to overcome in so many situations in the last 15, 20 years, there's been so much cash sloshing around. There's been so many, especially tech companies rushing into Southeast Asia because they've got high flying stocks back in their home stock market, and they just start slapping dragons onto other regions and, you know, throwing money at problems. And in many cases, they kind of got away with it for a number of years, because there was just so much money, right? You could just kind of buy your way into these, especially the big companies. That's what they were doing, and I believe here in 2020 and beyond, I think that that party's over. The moving forward, I think we're really going to have to buckle down and get a lot more thoughtful about not only how we think about markets, but probably most importantly, how we think about people.

Steve Rush: Right.

Kyle Hegarty: There were just so many countless examples of foreign managers coming in. High-Paid execs, who, you know, you pay somebody huge salary and you send them to the other side of the world. And man, they might start getting these illusions of grandeur. And so, because of that, you know, they bring their management style. They bring their communication style, their working style, their expectations and things don't work out. And what ends up happening is they end up getting moved around and they ended up going home. And in many cases, they don't ever go from that stage where they don't know what they don't know to, they realize that they don't know what they don't know. So, I found a lot of tech companies were actually really guilty of this over the last 15, 20 years. Then the third stage where you're trying to get to is okay, now that I realize that stuff's different here, what can I do about it? And that's where I think a lot of the longer-term ex-pats are in, I put myself in that category right now. We're still trying to figure this stuff out. We test different ideas, different frameworks, different styles, different approaches. Let's see what works, let's adapt. That fourth and final piece would be mastery, which I write about one character, I think had achieved that to varying degrees. But, you know, that is the journey that I see and the fact that nobody's really traveling. And there's probably a lot fewer ex-pat assignments being handed out these days. Means that people are doing this stuff virtually. And so, all of this stuff that we've been talking about, you know, now has become distributed. And a lot of those learnings, those moments where you make your business card mistake at the table with the duck sauce, where, you know, you don't get the body language, it's much harder to realize that you're making these mistakes virtually. So, I think that we're in for quite a ride when it comes to global teams and some of the people who are going to be leading those teams, especially for the first time.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Kyle Hegarty: And that's what I'm spending a lot of time working on, which is, you know, if you've just inherited or you've just been nominated or are promoted into your first global role and you can't travel, that's a tough gig. But the good news is, there's answers out there, but it takes work.

Steve Rush: And investment and practice, I think, was the other thing that you said earlier, because this isn't something you can just reframe right away.

Kyle Hegarty: Yeah, I had, it took me, you know, we'll talk about tools later. You have to change sometimes how you phrase things. I talk about, you know, communication styles and I'm used to a direct communication style, but a majority of the planet is not. A direct communication style is asking a straightforward yes or no question. This is going to get done in time. Do you understand? Can I help you? Right. I mean, just basic close ended questions. I'm used to that, and especially under pressure, under stress, that's what I fall back on. And what I had to do was to figure out how to rewrite that or re scripted or rephrase it all, to be able to be more effective in different conversations. And what I had to do, I physically had to print out stuff that I had on my wall, in front of me and my desk at home which had different phrases. So, it helped me avoid, in this example, close ended questions. So, stop using the words, you know, can, can you do this? Does that make sense? Is this clear? Try to get rid of those words out of my vocabulary for a lot of these conversations and then change them to what could be called softer or just variations of phrases. I wonder if we should take a minute just to backtrack and just walk me through what your next step is. And so that's a very important difference. The difference between those two ways of communicating can make or break a relationship and a team success. And if you're a small business, can make or break your entire global strategy, which sounds a little bit extreme, but definitely seen many, many companies closing up shop after spending a couple million dollars, finding that they just weren't making any traction.

Steve Rush: And it says tiny little things. That means such a lot too.

Kyle Hegarty: That's what I've seen and you know, and it's not easy. Maybe I'm more of an extreme case. I mean, I needed to really, really work on this stuff. And that's why I had these printouts. I know it's a weird kind of example, but that's how I was able to stop myself from making the same or from using my communication style that I was used to, and to be able to adjust.

Steve Rush: The book is a bit of a survival guide for a shrinking world and it's full of survival tips. And by the way, I love the way that you presented the book and it is quirky, and some really great stories in there. The one that was really funny, and I really wanted you to kind of share with our guests is, and you titled this, when Confucius just Skype Socrates.

Kyle Hegarty: Yeah, and the 2020 version, I probably could have updated it to Zooms Socrates. Some of us are still using Skype, but, you know, there was a little bit of prescient there and the fact that this is really what we've all turned into, right? Which is this Skyping, WebEx, Zooming teams all the time. What I was trying to get at with that chapter, there's a lot of research that's happened. I've been talking this whole conversation about different communication styles, different working styles. I'm not the first person to ever go through this. You're not, this has been going on for ages, these challenges. And there is an entire industry of research and researchers that have, and continue to look into exactly these challenges that we're talking about here. What these researchers are doing is they're looking at cultural, communication style, working style differences in different parts of the world.

And they're trying to measure what those differences look like. I've talked about how my communication style was more direct. Well, you can go out and see data that shows you country by country, where other countries fall on a communication spectrum. Now this is all macro data. So, you know, you got to be careful with this because obviously it does not reflect every individual, it's kind of, you know on a bell curve, but it's a really good starting place to be able to measure this stuff. They are measuring how people like to handle conflict. Do they like to be direct and confrontational to solve problems, to kind of talk through issues and be kind of just going for it, or do they solve problems in very different ways by saving face, by using back channels, to be able to get to conclusions? And there's not a right or wrong answer here, but if you can understand what those differences are in these different working styles, if you can understand it, if you can start to measure it, then you can start coming up with ideas as to what you're going to do to overcome it. So, the example of the Confucius versus a Socrates was looking at some of the background of this stuff. It's like, where did these differences come from? And I was referencing heavily from a few research books that have come out and what I did, having read it, you'll understand this. I basically took a lot of this heavy academic research and I tried to synthesize it and see; how the author explains this to me after one too many drinks at a bar? And you'll notice in many of the chapters, there's a lot of bar scenes and what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to have some fun with this, but how do you take this somewhat dry topic of cross-cultural data and all this research, if you read the primary material with which I've slogged through. Oh, my God, the acronyms and the way they phrase things. I mean, they're not oftentimes writing for a general audience. They're writing for their peers. And it's really hard to get through if you're not used to that writing style, but what they're writing about is so important and it's more important now for people than ever before, since so many of us are now just working globally, whether we deliberately did or now it's, you know, in many of us it's accidental. What I'm trying to do then is say, okay, here's all the stuff that I've read. Here's also what I've seen. Let's push this through a couple of bar room conversations to be able to give you the survival guide, just to get you started. And I think that that comes into a pretty big way in that chapter of a Confucius Skyping, Socrates as told through a half drunken Taiwanese guy, as he's explaining some of the different research, the different stuff that's out there and especially the East versus West differences.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and it's those contradictions, isn't it? I think it was really quite neat.

Kyle Hegarty: One of the things that's frustrating, certainly as a coach, as a trainer of this stuff, is that, you know, people would just say, well, just tell me, give me the answers, what do I do? And it's oftentimes it's complicated, and sometimes it's more tricky. You can't just bottle this stuff up, and some of the contradictions, I feel like that's a very western approach. Which is, what is the survival guide? Even my approach to this was a very western approach to trying to articulate what these challenges are all about. Whereas other parts there's more of an embracing of the contradiction. The contradiction itself is the answer, and that gets kind of very flighty and metaphysical and theoretical. But it's kind of a fun conversation if you're willing to go there from time to time. But I think it also helps explain some of the mindset differences and some of the ways business is so different in some parts of the world. And in China, one example when they did a recent crackdown in air quotes of some of the lavish spending from government and CCP Officials, and they were going after these guys who were spending all this money. So, one of the things that they prevented was, you weren't allowed to use five-star hotels, and this could decimate a hotel, especially if you're in Beijing and you're running a five-star hotel, what do you do? Well in China it's very simple. You knock a star off of your hotel and business continues as per normal and problem solved. And it's that kind of lateral thinking, which is one of those things that I think many westerners myself included kind of chuckle at because you wouldn't think that as necessarily the immediate answer, but in a place like China, that would be the immediate way to think about it because there's more of this kind of a swirling contradiction of the way to solve problems. All you have to do is knock a star off and everybody's happy.

Steve Rush: So, I'm going to turn the leadership lens on you now. And I'm going to tap into your leadership mind and ask you to share with our audience, Kyle. Your top three leadership hacks?

Kyle Hegarty: I'm going to give you a 2020 version of this just because it's, you know, we're in such a weird fluid time, but one tool that I'm using a ton with companies and with my coaching, it's a variation of, it's what I'm calling a communications contract. You can look these things up. There is variations of them all over. I've kind of built my own. That takes into more of a global team perspective. A communications contract is a way to take a step back, take a breather with your team. And just to acknowledge almost to use it as an example is an excuse to rewrite the rules of engagement. Some of us were just thrust into a remote team environment. Some went to A-B team splits, some are inching back to the office. Some don't want to go, some do. It's a mess, and there's not going to be a one size fits all answer. A communications contract is a way to get a team coming together and to walk them through a series of questions, just asking everybody to come to a general agreement as to what are we going to allow and not allow from a communication standpoint, what technologies are we going to use? What are the rules of engagement or off hours conversations? What's the expectation if something pops in over the weekend? How are we going to check in with each other? How are we going to deal with the softer relationship building stuff? When some of us like these Zoom wine tastings, but others go crazy with this stuff. What are the rules here? And it's kind of a helpful way just to have a team go through this exercise to be able to write their own, come up with your own plan of attack here. I have my own template. I think it's available on my website, leadershipnomad.com, but you know, look that up. So, I find that that's a really helpful one. The second one, if you are dealing with any type of overseas international global team situation, there's data out there.

Steve Rush: Right.

Kyle Hegarty: There is decades of research that looks into some of these working style differences. I try to lightly and in a fun light-hearted way, introduce that concept. There are other books, I've listed some of them in my end notes and footnotes as well. It's worth reading up, if you find that you were working more and more in a international environment. And then the third one, and I'm sure I'm not the first to say this, but you know, this is a time for introspection. You can't adapt. You can't change your behaviour unless you understand what your behaviour is in the first place. So one of the things I think that happens for thoughtful ex-pats people who go through that culture, clash, that learning curve is that you end up learning a lot about yourself, because the stuff that you do on a daily basis, most of the time, we don't really think about it. But then when all of a sudden, when you're put into a foreign environment, your behaviour actually starts sticking out. And it's these moments where you can actually reflect and say, well, oh, that is kind of the way we do things, but I'm noticing it's not the way this person is doing it. Again, without putting a right or wrong lens onto it. Let's be able to define what makes us tick. So, understand, take the time to understand our communication style, our working style.

Steve Rush: Yeah, great advice. Thank you so much. So, the next bit of the show we call Hack to Attack. So, this is where we explore with you, something that hasn't worked out so well, but you've used that as a lesson in your life and is now a force of good. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Kyle Hegarty: Oh man. In many ways, the book was exactly that, which is like, you know, I've kind of put myself into these stories to say, here's the goofy mistakes that I made. And you know, there were many of them. I guess my bit of advice would be, you've got to be able to treat people the way they want to be treated, rather than assume you want to treat people the way you want to be treated. And that was one of the big lessons that I've learned along the way, in terms of making mistakes, in terms of hiring people who I think were the right fit and managing people and incentivizing people who I would incentivize the way I want it to be incentivized. And so, all of this goes back to that self-awareness and the ability to realize that your way isn't necessarily the right way.

Steve Rush: Wise words, Indeed. So, the last bit that we get to do together, Kyle is, you now have the chance to do some time travel. You can pump into your 21-year-old self and give yourself some advice. What would your advice be to Kyle at 21?

Kyle Hegarty: Slow down, and that would be my advice, slow down. These things, you know, I think I've always had that not aggressive, but certainly forward-thinking ambition to just constantly trying something else, something new, getting frustrated quickly if things don't work out. And I think that one thing that I've learned over the years is develop your core thesis, your core purpose, your ideas that you want to try and let them kind of evolve at their own pace at their own time. You can't always force things to go faster because oftentimes the faster you push the slower things end up working, and I've seen this time and time again, especially in global teams, if you want to speed up results, you've got to actually slow down. And that's one of those contradictions that we talked about here today, which, you know, scrambles the brain a little bit, but that's also what keeps things fun and interesting. So that would be my advice to myself.

Steve Rush: Awesome advice. So as folks have been listening to this, we want to make sure that we can connect our listeners with a bit more of an understanding about what you do. Where's the best place we can send them?

Kyle Hegarty: My websites, leadershipnomad.com, and there's bunch of links there to resources, to the book, et cetera. So that's probably the best place. The only real social media I'm on is LinkedIn. I play around on Twitter a little bit, but so LinkedIn, you can find me through my name, my Twitter handles is @LeadershipNomad as well. That’s it, That's the space I play in.

Steve Rush: Awesome, and we'll put those links in the show notes as well.

Kyle Hegarty: Thank you so much.

Steve Rush: So, Kyle, it just leaves me to say, thank you ever so much for taking time out of your busy schedule today. It's been really, really super meeting with you, speaking with you and learning more about the survival guide. That is The Accidental Business Nomad and wish you every success of what you do next. And thank you for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Kyle Hegarty: Yeah, thanks for the invite.

Closing

View Details

Ryan Berman is the founder of Courageous, the author of the book “Return on Courage”, a keynote speaker and host of The Courageous Podcast. In today's show we explore:

Why courage is a prerequisite for leadership
The definition of courage
What’s common between all courageous leaders
Understand your core values to assist in unlocking courage.

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Ryan:

Courage Brands Website - https://www.couragebrands.com

Ryan on Twitter

Ryan on Instagram

Courageous Podcast

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Ryan Berman is a special guest on today's show. He's the founder of Courageous. He's the author of Return on Courage, a keynote speaker and host of The Courageous Podcast. But before we get a chance to speak with Ryan, it's The Leadership Hacker News

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Courage is a prerequisite for truly great leadership. While it has many faces at the heart of courageous leadership is the willingness to take action and mist uncertainty to do what's right over what's expected and to risk failing and falling short in the process. The reason is unless leaders are winning to lay down our psychological safety on the line for the sake of those that we serve no amount of brilliance or showmanship will ever suffice.

Now, one such leader who demonstrates great coverage is Reid Hoffman. The co-founder of LinkedIn, despite many people telling Reid he'll never win. He'll never succeed. And LinkedIn will never work. He forged ahead with the creation of a global billion-dollar company and turned those doubters around. Throughout his life, his life's mission was to enable and communicate through networks, emotions, and stories. And the irony is as whilst he's been incredibly brave, he now also facilitates braveness and courage to help others unlock their courage and entrepreneurship reach.

Reid first act of corporate courage came from walking into a magazine editorial office at the age of 12, having read pendant article when he presented the findings to the editor, the editor was so pleased that Reid was offered a job. Throughout his life, he took a view of seeking out people, not like him, but who were opposed to him. And when studying at Oxford at a time where Apple stock price had plummeted, he was able to invest a small amount of money in Apple. And at the same time launch a new product that he called SocialNet.com, In 1996. He started out as a dating site, also connecting sports clubs and friends, and in parallel, having launched an early version of the PDA called PalmPilot, which is a mobile computing device. And having unintentionally attracted lots of eBay sellers encouraged his investors to pivot. He encountered fierce opposition from them as this was not their target market. Despite this, he encouraged them all to be courageous and pivot entirely away from the mobile device, but focusing in entirely on payments using an early version, which has later become PayPal.

This was a courageous move, as he had to convince eBay, not drive them off the platform as they had their own payment system, visa to withhold the payments and not shut them down. And he also had to persuade the federal government that he wasn't a bank. And this resulted in true disruption of an industry that was very established and very heavily regulated at the time. Faced with being sued by the fed for money laundering, remap with them and challenge their whole way of operating and ask some crazy questions such as, what defines a bank? which subsequently led to the way that banking license reform played out across the world. PayPal became such a force. The only way that E bank-controlled PayPal was to buy them. When he first to his well-established entrepreneurial friend network with the idea of LinkedIn, most said it would never work.

Why would I allow access to my well-established network? He managed to convince 20 of his friends to sign up on the service and described the process like throwing himself off a cliff and assembling the airplane on the way down building as he learned. And as it developed, now a multimillionaire in his own right known as the start-up whisper of the Silicon Valley, he has made early investments against the status quo, showing courage where others didn't have that conviction, including in investment such as Facebook, YouTube, Yelp, Flicker. He's now a partner at Greylock, essentially a Venture Capital Firm, which in its own right, is now worth over $10 billion dollars. And whose portfolio includes companies such as Airbnb, Instagram, Dropbox, Pandora, and Workday. His premise for all his investments is clear and it follows a very simple five-step process. One, does it solve a problem that people don't know they have? Two, is it transformational disruptive? Three, is it a great scale mission? Four, does it have an interesting application that can help the consumer? And five, will it create world-class entrepreneurs? So, when you ask the question, what was it that sets Reid apart from others? The answer lay with action and a lack of fear of failing.

That's been the Leadership Hacker News. If you have any insights, information that you'd like to share with our listeners, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: We've got a very courageous guy on our show today. Ryan Berman is the founder of Courageous, which is a business change consultancy. He's also a speaker, podcast host of The Courageous Podcast and author of the book Return on Courage, Ryan, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast?

Ryan Berman: Hey man, thanks for having me. How are yah?

Steve Rush: I'm really good. Delighted that you're with us today. For folks that are not familiar with your work and what you do at Courage. Just tell us a little bit about the backstory, to kind of how you've arrived at doing what you are doing now?

Ryan Berman: Yeah, let me start by doing what you shouldn't do. I want to correct you out of the gate; that I don't actually know if I'm courageous, you know, I'm a compensated observationalist. Meaning, I've been able to take it quiet and go around the country and here in the States and interview people who are courageous and try to sort of connect the dots on how they're doing it and taking what I learned over three years of doing that has put me in a position to at least talk about what it takes for people to be courageous. It's funny, I met with Bob Iger who was running Disney probably six months ago and our books had come out and we swap books. And I remember saying to him, man, like, there's a big difference between observing courage and living courage. And you are living courage at Disney, like with Disney Plus and the things that they have created. And so, you know, am I an expert on courage? Do I want to nudge my clients to be more courageous? And do I give them the reasons we need to be courageous? Absolutely. Do I believe that courageous ideas are the only ones that matter? Absolutely. In my background, I'm a recovering advertising guy and I learned in New York city from the madmen days, those were my mentors and I've done creative work even till today, we're doing work for like Google and Charity Water and Major League Baseball, Johnson and Johnson, Caesar's Entertainment and their partnership with the National Football League. That's the one in America with their hands, not your feet. And now, like I said, anywhere where a company really needs to re, whether that's re-energized people or rethink an idea or re-invent tomorrow. We're swooping in and bolting onto teams and helping them muster the courage to take action on that change.

Steve Rush: Isn't courage a perspective though? So, someone argue that for you having the wherewithal to pivot from your career. Watch, learn, observe, contact these global organizations. That's surely got to take courage, right?

Ryan Berman: Yeah, and I think it's a little bit of a, to your point, it's a relative thought. Meaning, I'm a metaphor guy, so forgive me. I'm going to speak in metaphor today, but imagine you're a skier and we get you to the mountain and some skiers are bunny slope people. Some, some skiers are jumping out of helicopters on the black diamonds or double black diamonds. And so, I think the big takeaway is if I can't get you to the mountain. If there's no willingness to be courageous, then I'm the wrong guy for you. But once we get you to the mountain, we can start to build that courageous muscle. And it really is about the mindset, you know, in business, you know, this is exactly the time of year where people are goal setting for 2021, 2022. And what we usually do is we apply that skillset, like who can help me achieve this? And what's missing is the metal and the mindset, the courageous mentality to get you over all those hurdles you are about to embark on. If you take on a hard-new task called change,

Steve Rush: Right, so what would be your definition of courage?

Ryan Berman: Yeah, you know, this is the question, this is the question that sent me down my own personal rabbit hole. Because if you look at the dictionary definition of courage, it's the ability to do something that frightens one. And I don't know about you, but like that doesn't sound attractive to me.

Steve Rush: Not particularly empowering, right?

Ryan Berman: Yeah, let's do that. And by the way, do something terrifying at work and like, please step forward, I'm taking a step back. Part of my journey of writing return on courage was could I come up with a better definition of courage, a more utilitarian version that while you're in the messy middle of a project that needs courage, you can recognize, you could spot, Oh, this is exactly a moment where we are being courageous. And so, you know, and by the way, you can imagine like my own mental sparring on like, who am I to judge the dictionary definition by the way of a word, right?

Steve Rush: Right.

Ryan Berman: A guy that didn't go to an Ivy league school. But here I was, you know, the first six months of the book writing process was really trying to come up with this definition. Where I landed was three levers of courage. There's knowledge, there's faith and there's action. And, you know, you think about business and people wish that they had every bit of data, they needed to make a call. And if you're going to wait for a hundred per cent of the data, you're just going to get past, you're going to get passed by a competitor, but knowledge is important. You never going to have every bit of knowledge you need, which is why we need faith. We talk about faith; we're not talking about it from a religious sense. We're talking about it from an intuition sense, from a belief sense, from a feeling sense. And then how often in your career have you had the knowledge to make a call and you felt it was the right move and you do nothing about it. So, the action piece is the critical difference. It's the piece that takes you from doing something and not doing something. And that's the irony here, doing two or three in any directions is not courageous, right? Knowledge plus faith without action is paralysis. And faith and action, without knowledge is a reckless move. And what I've learned is knowledge and action without faith. Like if you're numb on the inside, you're probably just going through the motions, you're working on status quo. And when your idea hits the market, it's going to blend in with the thousands of thousands of other ideas. It's not going to do what it needs to do. So, you know, what we do is try to help companies think through like, you know, which knowledge should I be following? How do you actually build internal and external faith with your employees or customers? And where do we take action?

Steve Rush: That's a really neat metaphor. And ironically, you talk about intuition and faith and intuition is one of those things that you see in great leaders who could rely on their intuition. They use it, they recognize that it's got some deeper sense of understanding. Cause it comes from that unconscious part of our mind, right?

Ryan Berman: You know what, maybe that's another book. I just know, if the mind, the head part is the knowledge part and somewhere below the head part, right. I don't know if it's the heart or, you know, even started to explore this idea, Steve, of like, you know, we know where our mind is, right. We know that's up top, we know where our heart is. But where's our soul? Like where exactly does our soul reside in our body, is it everywhere? And in some ways, I think that faith part, that feel part, you know, finding that soul part of your company should be living everywhere. And I think that's part of this conversation too. It's like helping companies find their soul again and what makes them special. And then once you have that on lockdown, you know how to take action in all facets of your business.

Steve Rush: That's really fascinating. So, your book Return on Courage is a bit of a playbook for helping people with that courageous leap of faith when they're going through change and transformation. What was it that kind of gave you that energy to put pen to paper?

Ryan Berman: You know what? If I'm very honest, it was a devious attempt at first to market my creative marketing agency in a city that's not known for creativity. You know, my company is in San Diego, you know, we're known for fish tacos, not for solving, you know, massive complicated business problems. And back in 2015, and I said this earlier like we were growing and doing very good work, but the golf course conversation, as I would like to call, was complicated. We would find a decision-maker who would fall in love with us and knew that we had done the homework and that we were passionate about the work, but then when they would have to go to the CEO and on the golf course and explain. Hey, we want to go with these guys down in San Diego.

They're like, Ooh what? Let’s use someone in LA or New York. And overlay the fact that, you know, we were fully certain that Courageous Ideas were the only ones that matter that if we built like a point of view piece on courage, that would be an asset that we could drop on the desks of decision-makers. And that would give us a step up on the competition. And then of course what happens like great storytelling is I go on this three-year journey and get quiet and just interview what I call the three Bs. The brave, the bullish and the brainiac, you know, on the brave side, it was astronauts and tornado chasers and navy seals and army infantry, men and firefighters. And just like, how do they do what they do? I was fascinated by how they could put their life on the line and why do they put their life on the line?

And then on the bullish side, it was the C suites, or vice presidents and up at Google and Apple and Amazon, some of the biggest companies in the world. And you would think that it was the little company that could be agile and nimble but these big companies are figuring out ways to stay ahead of everybody else. And then on the brainiac side, it was like clinical psychologists and Cambridge PhDs and co-writer of the secret and people that really study the way that we're wired. And, you know, I went to television radio school. So, I had no idea what's going on in the inside here. And I wanted to understand, like, what's really calling the shots and you throw all that in the soup and you come out with a process for teaching leaders, how to be more courageous, right? Where do you take knowledge? How do you unlock that faith and where do you build action? And, and you know, the big joke was sort of on me. I wrote the book to position my last company. And imagine a thousand days later going to your two partners and saying, guys, I'm leaving.

Steve Rush: I bet that went down well.

Ryan Berman: Yeah, you know, it's unfortunate because, you know, I went into it going, this is an investment we're going to make as a company. And the truth is it was an investment like I wrote the book first because I feel like I needed the book. Like I needed to get myself strong. So yeah, like I said, I wrote it to position the company. It gave me the courage to fire myself and I've found something that I'm madly passionate about doing. And when your company is called Courageous, Steve, your phone doesn't ring for all those unqualified leads now and only rings when you have the right person who's willing to take on change, or at least to have that conversation. And, you know, the amount of time wasted on unqualified leads goes away because we're very focused on like, where do you need courage? And how do we push that forward inside the organization?

Steve Rush: I think it's super neat. The fact that you went through that whole self-discovery of your own limitations around where you were courageous or not, as the case may be to end up doing what you're doing now. I think it's just really super neat.

Ryan Berman: You know, it's terrifying too, right? Because about a year before I was leaving is when I knew that I was in the wrong place for me. And, you know, the irony is how can you write a book about courage and not make the courageous choice yourself? And so, I don't feel like I really had an option at this point.

Steve Rush: Right.

Ryan Berman: It's like, well if you're going to write the book, you got to live the premise. And you know, it's one of those things too, that the doors that open up when you finally take action on the things in your own life and start designing your own life along with your value system. And I never thought I'd be a keynote speaker. I never thought I'd be an author on a topic like this. I'd never thought I'd have my own courageous podcast where we were having really amazing guests come on ourselves. And you just sort of follow the thread and you keep going, you're at peace being in the middle of it all. And you just see where it takes you.

Steve Rush: And that's part of being courageous too, is letting go of what you believe to be true and letting stuff happen, right?

Ryan Berman: Yeah, what are you controlling that you really shouldn't be controlling? And what aren't you controlling that you should be controlling? If that makes any sense whatsoever, right?

Steve Rush: It makes load of sense to me.

Ryan Berman: You know, like one of the things I found myself say recently, and I'd love your take on this. Is like, you know, there's this famous line that the customer is always right. I don't think is always right. Like, especially if you've discounted your product completely, and you've now like landed on the wrong customer. And the only reason they're interested in you is because you've discounted your product for so much. That is not the right customer, and I believe the values are always right. Like if the values of the company are set and they're not BS, and they're real, that should be what's mirroring the people in your company, your products, your communication, and your customer. So, if the values are always right, which is a place I think you can control, right? Like that is on you to control that. Then there's an arrow that lives directly from those values all the way through to the customers that are acquiring buying your stuff, whether it's content or a product.

Steve Rush: My thoughts are the customer is always right in their mind about what they feel, what they want, what they want to experience. But in facts, it's more about the fact that you haven't got the right customers.

Ryan Berman: Agreed, and I liked the way you said that too. Like, because I think realistically if you're going to run into my brand for the first time and I'm going to give it to you for 50% off. Good for you, take it. But when I try to try to charge you full price, you're probably looking somewhere else.

Steve Rush: And then, therefore, they're the wrong customers.

Ryan Berman: Correct.

Steve Rush: Because they don't see the value in what you're trying to do. Right?

Ryan Berman: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Got it. Now in your book, you have a question I want to put to you. I'm dying to find out the answer. The question was, what do an Astronaut, a Navy Seal, the co-founder of Method, the former VP of Communications at Apple and the President of Domino's all have in common. What is it?

Ryan Berman: Wow. Okay, by the way, you the first person to ever ask me this question and the answer, the obvious answer is they weren't afraid to take action.

Steve Rush: Okay.

Ryan Berman: All of them.

Steve Rush: Right.

Ryan Berman: Even with the obstacles in the way, you know, Dominoes throwing out a family-wide recipe and then having the courage to change that and tell America that they changed it or an Astronaut, who's not afraid to take action and fulfil her dream of going into space. The, you know, the CEO, founder of Method, having the courage to look at a whole category of how it's always been done and yet still going on that long journey. And I'm finding a new formula, that's a cleaner formula that they call themselves the people against dirty. And pushing forward with that formula. I mean, I love the Method soap story, because it is a commodity category that they found a way to make soap cool. Like people want to work for a soap company. How amazing is that?

Steve Rush: That's nice. That's really cool.

Ryan Berman: The point is like, if soap can do it, any category can do it, right? Like if you can make soap cool, right. Same thing with Domino's, right. I tried to pick commodity arenas. Domino's right, this is cheese, this is sauce, this is dough. They found a way to take their stock price from $3 dollars to $300 dollars, their return on courage just by changing the formula and then being vulnerable with America here at least, where it started and saying, oh yes, we did. We changed everything from the crust up. Really played well here in the State.

Steve Rush: So, while we're on the food metaphor and you're a great storyteller. In the book you have for a fact that leaders have got to have this taste for courage. How would that manifest itself?

Ryan Berman: A mean, I think where it came up was with an interview with a guy named Jay Coen Gilbert. And I'm not sure if you're familiar with B Corporations over there, it's like the good housekeeping seal of approval for purpose-driven companies over here. Jay before he was doing this was running a basketball and apparel brand called AND 1. It did have a really good run like 15 years ago. And the conversation was like, you know, it's interesting because courage to me. This is Jay. And he goes, courage to me is not like a right in front of you thing. It's a peripheral thing because you're so focused on the day to day. And you've just got so much on your plate, but if you just put the business on timeout for one minute, you recognize how central this concept of courage needs to be. If you're going to win the long-term game, and that was it. It was like, how do you take this concept that sometimes isn't top of mine, it's this peripheral idea and start to bring it back to the top of mind, because if this is the difference, and I truly believe that courage is a competitive advantage for any company who can unlock it. And when you look at the staggering statistics of how many companies are failing or dying off, it is absurd. You're going to have 9,000 brands that rattle on and off the fortune 500 here in the next six decades.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Ryan Berman: And I think of all things it's knowing like, okay, this is a moment where we can be courageous and being overt about talking about like, this is the opportunity with your team.

Steve Rush: I just love that, really simple and that's the premise, isn't it? It's around something is in an unconscious making that front of your mind. So that it's really clear what action you do need to take.

Ryan Berman: And I think that's the issue too. Like you probably have, like, even if you're, like think about your listeners, like if you made it 18 minutes in here today, and you're a curious soul and you want to be better and you want to be proactive at your work. But the question is like, does anyone else at your company actually listening to this podcast as well? And maybe that's how it starts. Is like, get all 10 of your teammates in a room and listen to this podcast at the same time. Because if you're playing up one playbook and they're playing off of another, you can see why we have a hard time with change, and that's the thing. The whole point of the playbook is to get us all on the same page, all having the same conversation, which is hard to do when you have so much other stuff going on in your life, you're trying to balance a family and you're going through a pandemic and you just don't want to get fired.

And, you know, there's all of the normal things that we don't like to talk about, but we should be talking about because a hundred percent of your time is not just the 80 hours or 60 hours you spend on your business. It's all the other things too. I think the minute you bring context into the equation, then you can start to address, okay, we really don't have that much time. And If we're going to jump in front of somebody, let's make sure we give them our best shot, which is again, I know I'm a broken record here, but why it feels so strongly about the courageous idea. We're not wasting people's time and it's going to break through. And hopefully that starts to connect and land with people.

Steve Rush: And it's also learned behaviour, right? Something you have to practice at.

Ryan Berman: I really do believe that to be true. I think it's a muscle and it's like going to the mental gym and starting to grow that muscle. And I'll give you an example in the book. So, the way is book broken down, I don't actually say this in the book, but like the front half of Return on Courage is like the why now. Like why now of all things do we need courage? And why now do I see this as a competitive advantage? And we kind of like go through the four truths of what I call the business apocalypse. And if one of them was happening by themselves, that'd be brutal enough. But the fact that all four are swirling, you get why we need to make change now. Then there's a three-page chapter in the middle of the book called break glass before emergency.

And the idea is, okay, let's get you ready because you need to know how to do this stuff before you actually need it. And then the back half is the, how, you know, we talked here is our why, where's the how and the, how is the building that muscle, as you've stated, it is going to the mental gym, getting the reps you need, which knowledge should you be following? How do we build faith with ourselves or with our team? And then it's go time. Where do we take action? But one of the cool things about the book is sitting with a guy named Jeff Boss, who is Navy Seal. And then I also sat with a woman named Tricia Baylin Chaplin. I'm hoping I just got her name right, who was a bank teller.

Now the Navy Seal willingly knows that when they go through their training, they are going to see some things on the other side, right? They call it stress inoculation, by the way, which sounds like marketing to me, but basically.

Steve Rush: Its defiantly marketing.

Ryan Berman: You know, you're going to see everything in training. So, by the time you see live rounds in the real world, it won't feel the same, you'll be ready for it. And the higher purpose, all that training, you can see why Navy Seal would go through that for whatever reason that they do. Now Tricia, as a bank teller, she wasn't looking to be bold or courageous. She was looking to get a job. And like the only way she gets the job is to pass the actual module, the training module on what happens if your bank gets robbed? And if you don't pass that model, guess what? You don't get a job. She's not looking to be hero. This is up in Canada; she goes through the module. She passes with flying colours and wouldn't, you know, it, a year later, she gets robbed in the bank and she follows the protocol to a T. She tells me a story about, you know, hey, let's not turn this into a homicide and her body just takes over. The training takes over, and afterwards when the robber leaves, she goes to the cage to her boss and she's like, I was just robbed and they react. And she then sees their reaction and reacts off that then finally breaks down and starts crying. But her body went into like autopilot, right. It went into the training that she had learned, and she doesn't see herself as courageous.

She just sees herself as like, I was just doing my job and following when I was supposed to be doing. Same thing with Jeff Boss, the Navy Seal, he goes, I don't see anything as I've done as courageous. I see it as a by-product of the purpose I'm pursuing. And so, there's a little bit of irony here, right? Like when you do things that are courageous over time, it feels less courageous the more you do it. And the fear of the unknown as it becomes known, the fear goes away and you do it again and again and again, and you really start to grow that muscle. And then you've seen that thing and it makes it a little bit easier each time out. So that to me is the irony here is like, am I really being courageous? We're almost full circle back at the beginning of what we talked about, I've now like done some courageous things enough times. And I think you got to be careful cause like, you sound really pretentious being like I'm courageous, but when you do those things, it makes it easier for you to try new things and keep pushing forward.

Steve Rush: I suspect it's also easier observed by others. So, others will perceive courageous behaviour in others, easier than you might see it in yourself. Is that a fair observation?

Ryan Berman: Yeah, I think so. And again, back to it's relative.

Steve Rush: Right.

Ryan Berman: Right, so what's courageous to you might not be courageous to me, just by the experiences we've both been on. And that, you know, that red bull wing demand, you know, the guy jumps out of planes with no parachute, just the wingsuit, right? Like they've properly trained for that job, right. They know what the weather looks like on that particular day. If it's going to minimize a little bit of the risk and it's so courageous but to somebody like me who has no training and that's a reckless move, that's not courageous. But to that person who is trained for it, their whole lives, they understand the risk that comes up.

Steve Rush: So, given your vast watching observations and being courageous herself, what do you say is the biggest blocker for individuals being courageous?

Ryan Berman: I think by far it's just the action piece and, you know, cause so many people and this is just the way our minds are like are constructed, right? We have this thing, that's calling all of the shots inside your mind and your body called your central nervous system, right. And that doesn't exactly just come up in normal conversations now does it? Or you're like, hi honey, how's your central nervous system feeling today? Or did you see the game last night? Man, their central nervous system wasn't even there. When you break that term down, central. At the core view system, you're an operating system, you're a computer and right there in the middle is nervousness. Your standard operating system is nervousness and it’s designed to keep you safe but it's sending up signals saying, don't do that. Don't suggest that, don't try that. Here's why, and it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do, but it's a system that's been around a little bit and we really haven't evolved at the level that we thought we could. So, the whole idea is, how do you help people develop what I call central courage system? Like if I can help you develop that muscle, develop that central courage system to combat what your central nervous systems trying to do. It will give you the tools to try and to take action and to start off with maybe a little experiment. And then as those little experiments work, then you turn them into bigger experiments and you can do that even at work. And so, it's recognizing first, cause it's hard to be courageous. If you don't recognize a courageous opportunity, spot that opportunity first put resources towards it, make a psychological safe arena for your team to play in and then get that central courage system going and explore a little bit but experiment a little.

Steve Rush: The next part of the show is where I get to turn the leadership lens on you. And this is where you now have to get a bit more courageous because I'm going to be tapping into your leadership mind. Firstly, I'd like to explore with you, Ryan is if you were going to give some advice or tips, what would be your top three leadership hacks?

Ryan Berman: Wow, okay. I think the number one hack by far is to really get to know your personal core values and treat yourself like a business. And if you can't rattle off your own personal core values and Steve permission, granted like to have your guests email me@ryanbermanatcouragebrands.com, I will send you the values assessment and it's not lame or anything like that. I'm not asking for anything from you, but like we spend all this time scrolling social media now and I wish we'd spend more time scrolling ourselves. And so, I would get really clear, crystal clear of your top four personal core values. I'd put them in the order that they matter most. And I would start making decisions based off of those values. And I think that leads me to the second hack because once you have that level of clarity, you've got to find tools to operationalize those values.

One of the things I still do today is I've changed all my alarms on my cell phone. I've got like multiple lives, but the labels that come up are messages or affirmations that I need to see throughout the day just to make sure I'm like abiding by what I believe in. And I know that sounds silly to be like, well, if you really believe in it, you don’t need a message, but it's just important. Like start my day off, seeing what I need to see right. To stay on, like focused on the straight and narrow. So, you know, my core values, the first thing I see in the morning when my alarm goes off or the values, or sometimes I'll see build strong central courage systems. And it just keeps me focused on the things I need to do. And then I'd say, so however you to operationalize your values, whether that's putting them on a piece of paper on your refrigerator, on your phone or on your lap, you know, your computer, in a tattoo of it on your face, whatever works for you.

And then three is mentorship. Find a mentor and that's nothing to do with age. Maybe your mentor is younger than you. Maybe they're older, but like just somebody, I mean, even this is a courageous act, declaring a mentor and say, hey, do you mind? Like if I can, you know, we could talk once a month and I can, you know, ask questions on how you did this. Or, you know, you're my mentor and it's a hard conversation, but I needed one and we spend a lot of time inside our heads and we need to get out of our heads a little bit and bounce off other people.

Steve Rush: They are awesome hacks. Thanks. Ryan. And I love the whole principle of thinking of yourself as a business, really neat.

Ryan Berman: Yeah, I mean, you know, we do it for all these brands, like, well, okay, treat yourself like a brand. Like, what are you really all about in the world? And by the way, you'll be happier. Like if you can design a life that's based off of your actual values and by the way, okay, let's really kind of just dumb down what values are. Your chemical makeup, okay. The way you're wired. Like, why wouldn't you be more true to that human being? And that's just clarifying your values. Yeah, that feels like me. Yeah, that feels like me. And now that you have that clarity, imagine designing a life around that.

Steve Rush: Brilliant, love it. Next part of the show is we call Hack to Attack. So, this is a time where things haven't worked out as well. We may have screwed up, things have bumped into maybe a bit of adversity, but as a result of the experience, we've used it now as a positive in our life, what will be your Hack to Attack?

Ryan Berman: By far having the courage to like leave my last company? Cause we were 70% agency. And again, you know, I'm going on this journey to write the book. And like I said, just imagine being realizing in your heart that your values are not perfectly aligned with your partners and that you have different goals and motives. Like I said, it was taking action on that and leaving that even when it was scary and not knowing what was coming up next was a necessary reminder that you only live once. And even though it's scary and hard, if it's the right thing, you should do it.

Steve Rush: Love it, thank you, Ryan. Last thing we want to do is take you on a bit of a metaphorical time travel and allow you to bump into Ryan at 21 and give them some advice. What's your advice going to him?

Ryan Berman: Wow, one really appreciate the hair you have.

Steve Rush: I know how that feel.

Ryan Berman: I have it in the right place. But two, you're going to be okay. Continue to follow the choices that you're making and don't forget to enjoy the ride a little bit. You're doing it, I'm air quoting. You're doing it right for you, and keep going. Oh, and declare mentor earlier. I'm stubborn, I can't imagine I'm the only one that's stubborn, but like, you know, being stubborn can sometimes get you in trouble and you feel like you have to do by yourself. And someone once said to me, takes you 40 years to figure out who you are and the next 40 to be that person. And I think there's some real truth to that. So, get there faster with the mentor.

Steve Rush: Love that, fantastic stuff. Now for folks listening to us today, talk. How can they get hold of a little bit more information about you, the work that you do with Courageous and also it would be rude of me not to help promote your Courageous brand as well, while we're here, so how can we kind of get people some more visibility about what you do?

Ryan Berman: Well, first of all, Steve. I mean, if people are listening to you on the regular, they already know that I feel the same about you as they do. Like when we talked for the first time, it was so easy and we both, weren't afraid to share our own stories. And so, I really do love what you're doing.

Steve Rush: Thank you, man, I appreciate that.

Ryan Berman: And you and I are going to find a way to work together on something. I don't know what it is yet, but there'll be some opportunity. If you want more on me, like I said, couragebrand.com is a good place to start. If you're ready to really go to the playbook, that would be returnoncourage.com. Or just email me like, if you wanted the core values assessment, ryanberman@couragebrands.com and you know, I welcome questions or comments and you know, like I said, I'm very at peace with the idea that like we're all in different places in our journey. And if I can help in any way, please reach out.

Steve Rush: Fantastic, and they'll all be in the show notes as well. Ryan, it's been awesome talking. I've been so pleased that we've met and it's been a while since we spoke last, but it only feels like yesterday. So, thanks ever so much for coming to join us on The Leadership Hacker Podcast. You've been a great guest.

Ryan Berman: Thanks Steve. Be good over there. Stay safe.

Closing

View Details

Ceri Hand originally trained as an artist, she has extensive experience working with the arts and the culture sector at an executive level, and now coaches Creatives and Artists all over the world through her business, Artist Mentor. In this show you will learn from Ceri:

The parallels exist between the art world and big business
How difference makes a difference
Creative questions could unlock your business purpose
Why artists are good models for unlocking creativity in business.

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Ceri and Artist Mentor:

Artist Mentor Website - http://www.artistmentor.co.uk

Ceri on Twitter

Ceri on Instagram

Ceri on LinkedIn

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Ceri Hand is a special guest on today's show. Ceri originally trained as an artist, as extensive experience working with the arts and the culture sector, and is now coach and founder of Artist Mentor. But before we get a chance to meet with Cari, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: As the global pandemic became more and more serious. Companies learned a valuable lesson. The difference between success and failure could lay with creativity. People in creative industries have seen their work undervalued for decades. Artists, photographers, writers, and many more expected to work for exposure or to have their rates severely undercut, not really understanding the true innovation, true value their work could bring to the corporate world. And we saw creativity take a big spike during COVID-19 and during lockdown. As people searched for entertainment during their downtime. We saw creativity flourishing on social media, where people took their creative ideas to various different outlets to share their content. With nowhere to go and a limited amount of things to do the quarantine, just unveiled creativity, some may have never explored before.

If you're an entrepreneur or a business leader, who's been forced to rework their company structure due to COVID-19. The chances are that you'd have seen many of your colleagues having to work differently and unlock thinking. And without creativity that have been really difficult, your teams may be now facing challenges and then never seen before. And leaders and business owners are now being called to think differently about how they lead and run their businesses. And as a business leader, I've certainly been challenged to unlock creativity and thinking in a way that me and my teamwork. End or mid pandemic, whichever your worldview. Creativity is not only become highly valuable, but this is an opportunity to thrive versus survive. With the world facing soaring and employment rates. It's not going to be hard to find somebody who fits your creative needs. Like businesses, individuals are scaring to find new ways to market themselves and highlight their skills. And let's be clear, the pandemic is not going to solve any financial professional hardships for creators, at least right away. What people are realizing, however, is that creatives now have a higher value to play in their business. And what business owners need to realize is that there's also a price that comes with that and they should be paid fairly and appropriately for their work that they do. A 2019 Duke study backs us up to in it. Research has found that people find it more acceptable for managers to ask for passionate workers, to work extra hours without pay, sacrifice, sleep, and family time and all of the other demanding tasks. Therefore, the less creative people don't get asked. So, ask yourself this question, is that fair? Not only does it prevent more creative people from making a better living wage, it sends a message that creative work is not work.

And actually, the reason behind why so many brands are being successful compared to others, lays with their creative approach. So right now, creativity is King. If you want your brand to thrive in a post covid world, now's a chance to invest in that creativity. That's been the Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, insight or information that you think our listeners would like to hear, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Ceri Hand. Cari is the founder of Artist Mentor, having previous lead senior director roles with a number of leading art galleries. Ceri now supports artists and creatives. Develop growth and thrive their business. Welcome to the show Ceri.

Ceri Hand: Good morning, Steve. Thanks so much for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Steve Rush: Delighted to have you on the show. Now, when was it that you first noticed that you really got interested in art or the world of art?

Ceri Hand: I guess I was lucky to be raised by a family who were interested in lots of different things in life, but my father was a musician and a teacher. And so, I grew up with lots of creative people. But I guess as an only child, my imagination developed quite early on. So, I was always drawing and exploring ways to record what I was seeing, writing. And I think from a young age, when I was at school, I did things like start school magazine. When I moved schools, I ended up doing save the swans campaign where I made a box for people to kind of put in their Swaddled Festus tokens at the time. So, I guess creativity came naturally, but it was also encouraged as a way of expressing myself. And I think I never thought of it as a separate thing. It was just part of life.

Steve Rush: And I suspect for most people listening to that, they could probably resonate with it. Some people would say that they're either creative or they're not creative. And in your experience, is that something that you just have as an innate behaviour? Or cannot that be learn.

Ceri Hand: Well, I think that everybody is creative. I think that there are many different ways of doing that, but the imagination is very closely linked to memory. And so, I think that everybody has the potential from a young age, right the way through to old age, to enjoy playing and perceiving the world differently. And I think there are of course, ways of practicing and flexing that creative muscle. And I'm delighted that I've had chance to do that over my career, but I do work with senior leaders in businesses to harness their own innovation and creativity as well now. So, I think it's just a latent thing that people need the confidence to tap into and find new ways of exploring and seeing things from new perspectives. So, I think everybody could enjoy the possibility of being creative themselves, but also learning the language of creativity so that they can access other people's creativity and get real pleasure from it just as they would enjoy music. They can also learn and develop taste, if you like in visual arts, theatre, dance. There is loads of different forms of creativity that people unfortunately have been told is not for them for lots of different reasons. So yeah, I'm a big, big fan of bringing creativity to all elements of out life.

Steve Rush: One of the things I noticed, Ceri. As people get older, typically we almost lose that playfulness that is quite natural as a child. And as we grow up, we become a little bit more stiffer and we become a little bit more ordered and we almost unlearn and forget some of that natural play, natural creativity. What do you think causes that?

Ceri Hand: Fear? Sometimes as we get older, when responsibilities and obviously earning an income and having some of the stability elements in our life like a roof over our head, of course those things are all really important, but I think the idea of play often returns to people when they have kids themselves and they start seeing the world afresh through their eyes. I think the great thing that we can learn from creative people is that they stay curious. And I know a lot of business leaders understand the value of that now. And so are encouraging that senior leaders to be more curious. And we're asking more curious questions and I guess that's the key thing is that curiosity and learning from people who are not like ourselves is something that actually it's a habit. And we just get out of the habit and sometimes just like when there's a lot of people learning to go from the couch to 5k these days, you know, it's just the idea that actually you might need to practice some of those skills. I think it's something that people think is a habit that when they've got so many other things in their life, they think perhaps I don't need to practice that anymore.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Ceri Hand: But I think when they do try a little bit of creativity in their life, they realize how much joy and pleasure they get from it.

Steve Rush: It's the one thing that keeps recurring in conversations I have with senior leaders actually. And then I always have a conversation about, when was the last time you practiced at being a great boss? When was the last time you practiced at being a great listener? And it is that habit-forming practice that by being thrown into the depths of being busy, we often don't take a step back and practice doing those things and it’s the same would be any discipline, right?

Ceri Hand: That’s right, and I think actually practice taking risks is also something that is a great model from creatives that we could learn so much from. They have, what's called a studio practice, so most artists or creative people have a system, if you like, or a habit that they've developed, whether it's a space that they create, where they have a psychological safety and they fill it full of inspiring things and tools so that they can go in whatever the weather, whatever mood they're in, they have that space where they know that they get into a zone of creativity. And it's just the determination to keep showing up and keep practicing that creative muscle. But also, they push the boundaries of what they know. So, their most amazing thing about creative people is they're curious about so many things like outside their own knowledge base. And I think that's something that I would love to share with business leaders in actually bringing in congress things together, ends up having a much more beneficial results for a wider public. Finding ways of connecting a usual thing and revealing the connections and the possibilities in how we're all connected is something that artists are brilliant at.

Steve Rush: And we're seeing the benefits of that now through things like diversity and inclusion, which does a very similar thing. But I guess what you're suggesting is almost taking it to another level, being more diverse in our thinking enough. Access to information, people, resources, right?

Ceri Hand: That's right. I think, you know, a difference makes a difference, you know, so I think your team needs to reflect society and your audience. And I think that actually people are much braver and more curious than we give them credit for. So occasionally revealing processes and the kind of people behind the business, also in the same way that people are curious about how artists work and seeing inside their studios, it's really, everybody really understands that content is king right now. And that people behind the content is the story. So, artists are incredible storytellers. So, there's a lot for us to learn from how they weave and connect, what lies beneath language. Kind of sematic experience of life, if you like. So, a feast for the senses and a way of storytelling and bringing us in and through life in a more curious way.

Steve Rush: Definitely so. Now you've managed to combine both the entrepreneurial spirit and that creative, artistic flair and have led some seriously big programs and galleries during your time. How did you arrive at setting up the business that you lead now, which is Artist Mentor?

Ceri Hand: Well, I guess between a couple of roles. I decided I wanted to focus on the thing that I got the most pleasure from, but also where I thought that I could serve the biggest amount of people if you like. So, I think it was a 2014, I established Artist Mentor as a way of supporting artists at all stages of their careers and empowering them to realize their full potential, I guess, and achieve a greater impact. So, it started as a one to one coaching support and it's partly supporting them to realize their own capabilities, but also feeding back on their practice. And that takes deep listening and deep focus in addressing some of the challenges they have, but also seeing the potential of the work and where they could go. And so that takes some knowledge, so I guess training as an artist myself gave me the opportunity to get inside an artist's practice quite easily. So, I could see where they might be stuck. I can see where they might be holding themselves back or whether it's the media, whether that's the meaning and the content or the ideas. And I think my journey I've had quite a convoluted creative journey myself. So that idea of risk of pushing yourself beyond what you think you're capable of is something that I have experience of and feeling the fear of doing anyway. And so, when I'm talking to artists, I really have deep empathy with just how difficult it is to communicate and to connect with another person through an unspoken way of communicating, but also, I guess, through my own successes and failures over the years. And the idea that you just keep showing up is something that I think I could bring to the table. So, in 2014, I mentored a lot of artists and then went back into working for the contemporary art society and Simon Lee Gallery. So, I had this experience of commissioning emerging and established artists for exhibitions, for the public realm, but also selling and showing their work and placing it with museum collections. So, this broad range of experience working with artists, but also really connecting their work to a much bigger audience, I think has given me a wealth of knowledge and also empathy that I could support artists and help them on their journey.

Steve Rush: That sounds great. So, from a leadership perspective, what do you see that the common themes are for those that are leading in the art and creative world versus those that are leading in maybe a more traditional business or can manufacturers, et cetera, what would be the common themes that are consistent between the leaders of those kinds of businesses?

Ceri Hand: I think us not just focusing on the big ship, whether that's an institution or an organization, and really focusing on people first, whether that's your audience or your teams and the experiential, I think is something that everybody is really understanding how important particularly post COVID. That's connecting people with feelings and ideas and the imagination and a sensorial experience of their content, if you like is something that's ringing through for many of us. I think also this idea of leadership being vital for every single member of your organization. I think coaching and supporting people become their best selves at work is something that's really crucial. Communication and connecting on a deep level is something I think, in the arts and in business that people understand that harnessing the power of the individual makes a collective experience much stronger and true. And I think the idea that sizes and everything is also something that's coming true for us, that we have lost sight of I guess, power being, having the biggest seat at the table is not necessarily the way to connect with people on a deep level. So, I think people be looking at scale and higher scale and retaining that deep connection with that customer or client or audience is going to be really vital moving forward.

Steve Rush: So, they're all really consistent parallels almost, aren't they? With whatever business you're in, it kind of starts with that people cantered approach first. Because without people, we have no business. And at the end there is a customer buying a product of some kind and therefore the proposition and the product might change, but the process is still very similar. Isn't it?

Ceri Hand: That’s right, and I think the “why” is important for all of us, you know, really connecting with the story behind the “why” and connecting individual stories, but also the diversity of stories and multiplicity of voices in society is more vital. So, giving a fluidity to your business and the potential for people to input feedback and to harness your audience knowledge and their experiences in life, I think is going to be really vital moving forward. So, it's not a passive consumption of content anymore. Its really audience led, audience focused, and that we as leaders can learn so much for staying close to that relationship.

Steve Rush: Sure, and from a wide perspective for me, that's another way of framing, purpose, almost the reason the why you do things, your purpose. Do you find that it becomes more natural for those that are artistic and creative to have purpose, or is again that just another misconception of how people in business perceive the world?

Ceri Hand: Yeah, I do think that creative people often have a number of key issues that they return to. Key questions and they are pretty good usually at connecting their personal experience with the way that they see and feel their way through the world. I guess the great thing about creatives is they're not content and happy to stay with what they knew or know. They want to learn, and that thirst for knowledge is the thing that drives them. But there's usually core questions that they keep returning to in their practice, and it grows over a period of time. They keep coming at those questions from a different way, whether they changed the medium, whether it's video or painting one, they might still be asking the same questions, whether it's from a feminist perspective or whether it's about climate crisis, but usually interested in connecting with others. So, in those questions they're asking and implicating themselves, and they're also acknowledging their own strengths and weaknesses in their practice.

So, they're self-aware, very self-critical, but also really hungry for change. And they accept and acknowledge the tools that they have and they keep trying to push themselves forward. So, I think that deep purpose, they can't do anything other than being an artist. That's, you know, that's very often the case, but they are super entrepreneurial. So, they do have to fund and find other ways of motivating themselves to bring in income, to keep themselves moving. I think organizations that are full of creative people have a lot of sensitivity and entrepreneurial spirits at the heart. And I think that blend of mixing the sort of practical, and I guess the delivery and production side of things is where potential power is. I think for lots of organizations that I think if we always focus on production and delivery cycles, without constantly coming back to the “why” constantly coming back to, who's this for? Why are we doing it? What difference is it going to make? Who's it for? How is the world going to be better from why we're doing this? Then I think then we're just a self-serving loop that we're existing with it.

Steve Rush: That's really neat. So, you mentioned those questions. Are you able to share those little nuggets of self-reflection questions with us?

Ceri Hand: It's, so different. I mean, I work with hundreds of artists from all over the world now, and I guess it could be as simple as relationships. For example, you know, somebody may be trying to interrogate power relationships and that could be systems and structures or ecosystems. It could be personal relationships. It could be a relationship between a mother and a son, but there's something about the intimacy in a relationship and the complexities of language and communication between one individual and another. Lots of artists are interested in those kinds of ideas. There are lots of artists at the moment that are interested in the impact of technology on the body and the mind, and they are finding ways to explore the relationship between the analogy and digital, but also on our relationship with AI, for example, and how that such is shaping the way we relate to each other.

So, AI, as we know, is determining how we connect with each, but also the kinds of relationships we might connect with. So, it's literally shaping our content that we ingest and digest every day. And so, a lot of artists are really testing the boundaries of what that technology can do and trying to find different ways of having a relationship with surveillance technology, for example. So, there's lots of different obsessions for different artists. And so, there's lots of different motivations, but I would say the commonalities are that they want to connect and have an emotional connection with somebody else and that they want to shift perception. So, for us all, not to just accept the world as is given to us, but to find our own version of the world and to explore all the highs, the lows, the beauty, the horror that is in the world around us, and to find the connecting threads with each other,

Steve Rush: You've already convinced me that there are far more parallels to the arts world than to the business world than I'd ever imagined already, and that's really neat. So, thank you for that. If I'm a leader listening to this now, Ceri, and I'm thinking, yeah, I get all this and the need to create that emotional connection. I need to be more creative, but I have much more of a left-hand brain and therefore, you know, creativity, isn't my thing. How would be the way that you would encourage them to start to unlock that?

Ceri Hand: I think, I would say think fun, not functional. So, artist studios are a good model for considering what do your team need to around them to be inspired, to be innovative, to push boundaries, to produce great work and to have deeper connections. So, it's the physical environment is one thing, but also the psychological environment, you know, that everybody thinks differently and actually tapping into people's creativity and the pleasure that comes from experimenting and exploring ideas together. So, I would say don't keep doing what you've always done. You know, as leaders, we need to learn new skills, read, listen, explore diversify our interest and that's definitely going to improve our leadership. But I also think bringing your team into relation with inspiring people outside of your business realm and organization, as often as you can. Really can help generate better results. The same as you know, whether it's an arts organization, I would recommend that they bring in a waste management company or a scuba diving company. You know, I think there's so much that we can learn from different organizations that are interest or interrogating difference in a completely different way to us. So, I would say that explore, don't be afraid of risk taking outside of your comfort zone because only good things usually come from it.

Steve Rush: Okay, great stuff. And I think you said it earlier, difference creates difference.

Ceri Hand: That's right.

Steve Rush: So, this is part of the show where you get to turn the leadership lens on you. So, you've been a leader in your own, right. Having led multiple projects, multiple businesses. So, this is where we get to find out what your top leadership hacks are. So, Ceri, what would be your top three leadership hacks?

Ceri Hand: Firstly, I'd say be your authentic self at work, because I think it helps create psychological safety with your team. And people need to show up as themselves and caring for your staff and the team on their terms. So, learn their idiosyncrasies quickly and take responsibility for effective communication and a way for them to enable them to lean into their strengths. I would think talent, not jobs. So, see the leadership potential in everybody. Enable them to get there through support, coaching, regular positive feedback, clear examples of how their contribution and skills make a difference. So, I think they will blossom quicker. I'd take more beneficial risks, delivering a level they didn't know they were capable of. So, I guess it's investing in people and ideas in your organization and everybody from the engineering department to the marketing team, to the customer services team, I think all have fantastic ideas. And very often the senior leadership don't spend enough time with people at different levels in the organization that are really connected to the audience and could contribute some brilliant ideas to develop.

Steve Rush: The principle of leadership as a behaviour is really key when it comes to unlocking talent because still people have this perception, that leadership is a job role and it's not, it's absolutely a behaviour as you beautifully articulated.

Ceri Hand: That's right. And I see it in everybody, so it's exciting when people discover it for themselves.

Steve Rush: It is, definitely is. So, the next part of the show is what we call Hack to Attack. So, this is time in our lives or our work where things may have not worked out as we'd anticipated. But as a result of that event, we've now got some learning and it's positive in our life. What will be your Hack to Attack?

Ceri Hand: So I had a challenging year last year where I definitely overworked and I had quite a serious accident and it was debilitating for a number of weeks, but that time really helped me to reflect on my own processes, my working methodologies, my weaknesses, my strengths, but also gave me the opportunity to learn some new things outside of my own realm of experience. So, I was obsessive only listening to podcasts and was very happy to find your this year. And really taking the time to think about how I wanted to move forward and what impacts I wanted to have. Personally, not just at work, but in the world. And I think really reconnecting with my family, my loved ones and became clear that obviously I hadn't spent as much time because I've been working 14-hour days, every day for pretty much a year straight.

And I guess when you have a near death accident it pulls things into sharp focus. And I think that that was one key thing, but also, I think that I have always been empowering as many people as possible. And staying, if you like in a senior level. Yes, so many people would say that I was visible, but I guess that idea of stepping into your own light, I think as corny as it sounds, I think I realized that actually very often I had hidden some of my personal viewpoints because I was always working on behalf of another organization. And perhaps that idea of articulating how you really thought we should move forward in life, I guess I'd been a little bit more reluctant to come forward with that because of working as part of an institution. So, I decided to leave my job as much as I love my colleagues at Somerset House.

It was one of the best jobs I ever had and I really loved everything we achieved there. It was an incredible time in my life and I learnt so much from everybody I worked with, but I think I realized that actually I'm more interested in the people than the big ship. I'm interested in enabling people to be their best selves, whether it's at work or in their own creativity or as professionals. And I think that I hadn't really understood deeply just how much I've learnt. I've worked really hard for 30 years, and I realized that actually I like the ignition moment. I like helping people to make magic happen. I like helping people to make things happen in the world, they hadn't imagined. I could improve things for the people. So, I decided to leave my job and COVID happened. I was going to take another role, but I decided not to. And so I decided to set up Artist Mentor so I could try and help as many people as possible. And I think all of those things of bringing myself closer to an audience, whether that's artists or creative professionals or people working in business. Since that moment, I've learnt so much from people all over the world that actually working in an institution and you become responsible for directing the big ship if you like. But actually, since April, I think I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of people and their stories, their bravery, their ability to make change and their commitment to keep showing up, to try and affect positive change has been really exciting and positive.

Steve Rush: That's awesome. Ceri, there's so much in there. And actually, I think one of the things that resonates with me as I was listening to you speak is that you've definitely found your “why” now. You have reconnected through that adversity to really understand your purpose.

Ceri Hand: Yes, it's strange, isn’t it? I think it's also about letting go and letting go of what you thought you wanted and letting go of what you thought was the path you should be on is also part of coming to terms with who you really should be. And sometimes we have to have something serious happening in our life to help us wake up and smell the coffee.

Steve Rush: You're so right. You're so right. The last bit for those that have listened to this before, they know the drill. We're going to do some time travel with you Ceri. We're going to ask you to go back into bump into your 21-year-old self and you now get a chance to give Ceri some advice. What's your advice to her then?

Ceri Hand: Well, I'm very lucky to have had a consistent mentor and friend throughout my life called Paul Henry, who was a senior HR manager in the NHS and he and his wife, Jean were business partners actually, and supported the gallery that I used to run. And it's a real Testament to a deep friendship that remained solid friends today, despite closing that business. But I'd say to myself, get some additional business mentors and coaches and particularly women to help me hone my entrepreneurial spirits and to put my skills and to enable a better relationship to money and income generation. I think a lot of people in the arts have a very complex relationship to money and income generation. And I think if you don't grow up in a wealthy background or environments, that actually the idea that your creativity could help you to have an income generation that helps you to have a better, healthy, happy life is something that's really important.

So, I could have learned a lot from different kinds of business mentor, I think. I'd also say I take up yoga and a sport, you love to help with balance and healthy body, healthy mind. I think again, a lot of creative people live in their heads and I certainly did. And I think sometimes I thought that I could think my way out of a problem. And I think that actually now that I do yoga, I go walking and I, I've committed to that, particularly since locked down. I've seen an incredible shift in what I'm able to deliver during the rest of the day. And lastly, I'd say, let yourself be more vulnerable with friends and with colleagues not to suffer in silence, but to let people know how you are and if you need to help.

Steve Rush: That's great advice. And I certainly can think about the exercise and yoga. You have to have that outlet that is different to just what goes on inside your head. That balance is really key, isn't it?

Ceri Hand: Absolutely, and I find since I've become fitter than actually, I've got better ideas. So, I wish I'd known that a lot younger.

Steve Rush: It does definitely improve cognition.

Ceri Hand: It does. It does.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it does. Doesn't it?

Ceri Hand: Simple but effective.

Steve Rush: So, Ceri, for those that are listening to you today, thinking how they would like to connect with you, find out more about the work that you do, where is the best place for us to send them?

Ceri Hand: Firstly, to the websites, artistmentor.co.uk. I'm also on LinkedIn and Instagram @CeriHand, that C-E-R-I-H-A-N-D and same for Twitter and yeah, I think those are the best, best options right now.

Steve Rush: And we'll also put those in the show notes too. So, folks can go straight ahead and click and find you when we're done talking.

Ceri Hand: That is brilliant. Thanks so much, Stephen. Thanks so much for the opportunity to chat today. I've really enjoyed it.

Steve Rush: Ceri it has been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for taking time out of your schedule to be on The Leadership Hacker Podcast. We wish you every success with Artist Mentor and whatever you do next.

Ceri Hand: Thanks so much, Steve.

Closing

View Details

Claire Chandler is the president and founder of Talent Boost, a business growth and strategic leadership advisor and also the Author of The Whirlpool Effect. You will learn from Claire in this show:

How to create your leadership whirlpool
How to discover your profitable swagger
Why your “mission” is so important
How to spot and fix your “churn symptoms.”
Plus lots more hacks!

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Claire and Talent Boost:

Claire Chandler Website

Twitter https://twitter.com/TalentBoost

Claire on LinkedIn

Book: The Whirlpool Effect

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is Claire Chandler. She's the president and founder of Talent Boost. She's an author and business growth and strategic leadership advisor. But before we get a chance to speak with Claire, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: According to a new study, a single eight-minute mindfulness meditation exercise can improve short term visual memory. The findings appear in the journal, psychological reports, mindfulness meditation has been a hot topic in recent years with numbers and numerous studies beginning to explore and demonstrate its various benefits for those who practice it. Author of the study, Robin Kramer, who's a senior lecturer at the University of Lincoln said, “I'd previously been interested in mindfulness and meditation and how it affects time perception. A brief mindfulness exercise led to relative overestimation of time duration. Since my research focus is in face perception, my co-authors and I decided to investigate whether or not mindfulness meditation might actually influence short-term memory for faces given the previous work and the effects that we'd observed”. In the study 90 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to either listen to the beginning of the Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, listen to a guided meditation of mindfulness of body and breath, or to merely to sit quietly and fill their time however they wished. Before and after this eight-minute session, the participants completed a facial recognition task to assess their visual short-term memory. Researchers found that those who listened to the mindfulness meditation exercises tended to improve their visual memory test while those who listened to an audiobook or filled that time, however they wished did not. The inability to avoid visual distractions has been linked to poor short-term memory and mindfulness meditation exercises may help people ignore task, irrelevant information, or reduce their anxiety, but Kramer and their colleagues did not directly test this for their study. They said that although our results demonstrated that mindfulness meditation led to an increase in visual short-term memory for faces, we do not know how this came about. As such the mechanism behind this improvement remains to be identified. The key here for massive leaders is to think about how are we creating that timeout so that we can improve our memory and of course, understanding how we can become more effective as leaders, it's just part of our journey. So, if you're not already practicing meditation, really invite you to take the opportunity to find eight minutes of your day. And who knows? It could improve your short-term visual memory too. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news insights and information, you'd like our listeners to hear, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Claire Chandler is our special guest on today's show. She is an Architect of Profitable Swagger, founder and president of Talent Boost and an author of The Whirlpool Effect. Claire welcome to the show.

Claire Chandler: Thank you, Steve. It's great to be here.

Steve Rush: So, Claire, tell us a little bit about how you came to be author and president of Talent Boost?

Claire Chandler: Oh goodness. So that's a bit of a long story, but I will give you the short version. So, I spent close to 20 years in Corporate America, after by the way, swearing that I would never, never work in corporate America. So, I quickly learned never to use that word, right? And I kind of advanced through a variety of roles over those close to 20 years. Started out in communications roles and marketing and branding. Took a turn in customer relations for a few years and then spent the last several years of my corporate career in human resources. And it was there that I discovered my passion for all things, talent development, in particular helping leaders and even individual contributors tap into their true potential and kind of helping them to build a path that would advance them to that goal.

And so, in 2011, after a bit of a personal health crisis, it really kind of woke me up to, you know, the whole concept of life being too short, and all of that. I decided I was going to throw caution to the wind and leave that relatively safe cocoon of Corporate America and go out on my own. And I didn't really have a plan. I didn't have, you know, a business plan carved out. I didn't have a list of clients to call upon. I just had this burning desire to go out and make my mark in a bigger way. And so, for about two years, I meandered around a little bit and, you know, picked up work and develop relationships with clients that help me to identify what my ultimate niche would be. And so, in 2013, I formed my company Talent Boost where my focus primarily is on helping build better companies from the inside out. But more specifically from the top down in building up better leaders, getting them clearer about their mission, and aligning them around that shared quest.

Steve Rush: Got it, and you have this philosophy, don't you? That talent isn't born, it's boosted.

Claire Chandler: Yeah.

Steve Rush: How does that come about?

Claire Chandler: Yeah absolutely, you know, there this general misconception, I think from a lot of leaders that because they do not see themselves as charismatic, you know, and they sort of hold themselves up in comparison to people like, you know, Elon Musk and Steve Jobs and some of these other, you know, real-world stage, large stage leaders. And they say, well, I could never do that because I'm not charismatic, you know, and I'm not inspiring. And, you know, I would counter that and say, everyone has it within them to play a bigger game, you know, to play full out and truly to be a leader that people follow. So, it is part of my core belief that you know, leaders are not born, they're made. And I use the term boosted obviously as an homage of the name of my company, but really because of my core belief that anyone has it within them to become a better leader and the leader that people cannot wait to follow.

Steve Rush: That's great, and I observed that on whole, “I can't do this”, is just a mindset which in itself is another learned behaviour that we've had for many, many years, right?

Claire Chandler: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Now you call yourself an architect of profitable swagger. I'd love to learn a little bit about that.

Claire Chandler: So, you know, this term profitable swagger is one that has a little bit of a story to it. So recently I started going to an acupuncturist, you know, I'm trying to, you know, sort of getaway from any sort of medications unless they're absolutely necessary, right? And so, friends of mine have been recommending, you know, you have to try acupuncture. It's, you know, it's great. It's life-changing, and so I've been going to an acupuncturist for a while now, and I don't know if you're familiar with, you know, the practice of that, but they, you know, they put a whole bunch of different very thin needles into the surface of your skin. It did various sorts of pressure points. And then you basically lay there like a human pin cushion for 20 to 30 minutes.

And so, it's very relaxing, it's very peaceful. And, you know, in that sort of silence, you have a chance to, you know, kind of reflect on where you are in the universe, so to speak. And so, what's interesting is that the name of the acupuncturist practice is the Zen Den. And I thought about that and I said, you know, that's such a brilliant marketing name because it's not about what they do. It's about the outcome, right? The feeling that you get, if you give these people your business. And so, I'm laying there like a human pin cushion, and of course, I'm reflecting on business and all of that. And I thought, really, what is that feeling that I get for my clients? And rather than talking about what I do or how I do it, I came upon this phrase, profitable swagger, and I thought, that's it, that's my version of a Zen Den.

Steve Rush: I love that story and I guess it's that whole, reflective purpose-driven outcomes that makes ordinary people vs. successful people different. Those people who are really successful, just have that core foundation of purpose, and that feels to me that you found that?

Claire Chandler: They do, and I feel like I do. And what's kind of the bigger lesson I think in that story is that I didn't come upon that insight of, you know, what is my purpose-driven outcome for the leaders that I serve until I was in a reflective, almost meditative state, right? And I think that's kind of a key tip for leaders at any level and at any stage of their career. We are so bombarded with busyness, right? If you look at any leader's calendar, the typical leader has a calendar that is chock full of meetings and calls and appointments and conferences, and, you know, all of these things. And there's no breathing room in there. And a leader cannot truly be successful and cannot truly connect with the people that they are trying to get to follow them and cannot truly build and innovate and grow their company. If they don't have these periods of mindful intentional reflection, you know, that's really where the big ideas come from. It's not during the noise, it's during the silence,

Steve Rush: Really insightful, like that. So, you have written the book, The Whirlpool Effect. What was the inspiration for the book?

Claire Chandler: That's another, a little bit of a story. So, when I was first setting out to write the book at that point, I had been doing a lot of motivational speaking workshops, conferences, and the like. Really directed toward employees, individual contributors, middle managers, et cetera. And the focus of that was to help them reignite their passion for their work, because I have found, and I'm sure you've seen the same. You know, a lot of employees are miserable at work and they've resigned themselves. You know, there is all sorts of jokes and memes and sitcoms around how, you know, people have just accepted that work is something that is drudgery, you know, that they have to do. It's a necessary evil, et cetera. And so, I had been doing a lot of public speaking around, you know, helping people reignite their passion for their job. But what I was finding was, you know, that sort of topic and those sessions were really well received. They were going over like gangbusters, but the problem was the audiences were getting all charged up and re-invigorated, and going back into their workplaces to have more enlightened conversations with their managers about, you know, how they wanted to even just slightly tweak what they were focused on at work so that it was more dialed in to what they were passionate about. And they were actually getting that fire kind of snuffed out because the leaders that they were being sent back to were not as enlightened. And so, it dawned on me, I was focusing on the wrong end of the spectrum. And so, I started to kind of carve out this outline for this book that spoke directly to those leaders at the top, because it's, you know, it's another one of my core beliefs that the biggest impact on a company culture is the behaviour of its leaders. And it has to start from the top, down. So, you know, I started to kind of rough out this outline for this book and, you know, a couple of the shifts in mindset that I feel a lot of leaders have to go through. And I was trying to come up with an analogy for what true leadership looks like. And I had this flashback to my childhood, and so grew up in New Jersey, born and raised here where the summers are very hot, very humid. And it always just sorts of worked out that the most popular kid on our block was the one with the swimming pool in their backyard, right? So, all the neighbourhood kids would congregate there. And invariably, during the course of that hot summer day, one of the kids in the pool would shout whirlpool and everyone immediately understood what that meant.

It meant we stopped, whatever else we were doing. We followed each other around in a circle. And after a couple of laps in the pool, we created this whirlpool effect where we could pick up our feet and be swept along with the flow. And I thought of that childhood memory and I said, that's what real leadership looks like. You have a very clear message that your people immediately attach the right meaning to, they see how they can contribute to achieving that outcome. And they enthusiastically and eagerly contribute their, you know, their best skills, their hands, heads, and hearts to achieving that end goal. And so that's where the term, the whirlpool effect came about and really became sort of the guiding focus around a lot of my work with leaders.

Steve Rush: I love the metaphor of creating that energy swirl almost, so if you're a great leader, then you run at pace and you've got people running with you, you just create that energy flow that lifts people off their feet almost.

Claire Chandler: Yeah, the flow is absolutely the key there.

Steve Rush: If you were thinking in leadership space, leadership terms. How would you describe that whirlpool effect from an organizational viewpoint?

Claire Chandler: Too many people I think overly simplify what that flow really is all about, and they too easily dismiss that as well. You're talking about employing engagement. While I’m a huge believer in employee engagement and the power of that. The concept of flow goes even farther beyond that, because engagement can often be considered, you know sort of empowering and embedding more of an above and beyond mentality in an individual employee. Whereas flow really implies more of a group contributed collaborative flow. And the outcomes of that are, if you can get all of your employees or at least the majority of your employees around this concept of this, you know, this energetic swirl as you so eloquently kind of described it, what you end up getting is yes, employees who are more productive, but they're more productive and enthusiastically so. Because they see a deeper connection between what they individually bring to the table and how it moves the needle toward the company's mission. So, you see an increased productivity, you see an increase in innovation because people are willingly bringing their better ideas to table. They're creating an environment where there is a higher tolerance for not failure for failure sake, but failing forward, right? Stumbling forward in a way that you learn from, and that you can immediately address, you know, and continue to enhance the organization. And that starts to have outcomes such as profitability, market competitiveness, growth of the organization, a far greater attraction from a brand perspective. So, you're not fighting out in the market for talent where you first have to overcome that they don't have brand recognition, but now you have a reputation out in the market that the right talent wants to come work for you. So, it improves your, you know, your cost of attracting the right talent. Your ability to retain the right talent and mobilize them in the right direction to help you achieve that flow. And then of course, if you do it the right way, and you create this sort of sustained whirlpool effect, it really generates then a company that can be profitable over a sustained period of time.

Steve Rush: It's really neat, and I think what we can see happening across the world now is organizations are spending much more focus and time thinking about, “how do they retain and grow and develop their teams”, as we come out of this post-pandemic world, right?

Claire Chandler: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think one of the mistakes that companies tend to make, and one of the stumbles that a lot of them are making right now is, you know, when the pandemic really hit and it started to affect every company of every size in every industry, a lot of those companies had to make some very difficult choices about, you know closing down divisions, closing down, you know, entire businesses in some cases. And it impacted, you know, the employment of a great deal with people. And so now some of those companies that are looking to, you know, build back up, they're seeing the candidate market as a buyer’s market. And that's a huge mistake in my opinion, because, you know, just because there are more people available out in the market, does not mean they are the right people to help you build something.

And in fact, if you get them now and you think, well, because you know, there's a supply and a demand issue here, and the supply is greater than the demand. I can get them for, you know, a quote-unquote, discounted rate. You're treating those people as a commodity, and what ends up happening is as soon as they're in a position to do so, they're going to jump ship. You can't build a company. If your people are constantly going through a revolving door. So rather than looking at this as a buyer's market, I really encourage companies to look at it as a builder's market. And the key difference there is you're not looking to scoop up available talent, you're looking to intentionally bring on the right talent, who are the people? What are their skills? What is their mindset? You know, what are core? Genuine strengths that are in line with the mission that you are trying to achieve? That's how you build a better company. And that's an opportunity that a lot of these companies are facing right now because they had to prune because they had to cut back when the pandemic was at its height. You now have an opportunity to build back up in a much more strategic way that's aligned with your mission.

Steve Rush: So, if I'm a leader here today, and I'm listening to you speak Claire, what would be the first thing that you would encourage me to do to start that whirlpool effect off?

Claire Chandler? Absolute, first thing that any leader and any business has to get right, is mission clarity. And I've mentioned the word mission a couple of times, and a lot of people say, oh, we've already got that. You know, we've got that knocked, we've got a mission statement printed on the wall. Mission statements are almost, always not the same as a mission, unless it's a company that is very enlightened and evolves, right? So, a mission statement from my viewpoint is really meant to, it's kind of built the wrong way, right? So, it's built with a lot of flowery corporate language that's outward-facing. A mission though, is this, you know, it's the equivalent of the word whirlpool, right? It is a very simple magnetic. Some would call it sticky, you know, call to arms that everyone in the organization can embrace, can understand, can see their place in and, you know, enthusiastically want to contribute to. So, you know, for any company and any leader, I would say, don't blow past that. Like you either already have it well-established or it's even the right mission. You have to get crystal clear on the mission because it is absolutely foundational to anything else, you're going to do to build a whirlpool effect.

Steve Rush: And metaphorically, I guess, is exactly the same principle when you were that kid in your backyard and everybody shouted whirlpool. It’s when everybody can shout the mission statement and have consistency and they all own it. It’s people jump in that metaphorical pool and start the energy swell, right?

Claire Chandler: That's right, and started in the right direction, right? There was always a kid growing up who thought he was, you know, a smart Alec and would start to swim in the opposite direction. And you know, one, because it was kind of fun. It's sort of like when you walk up a down escalator, right. And two, you know, in business, that's the other metaphor for what I call churn, right. It's swimming against the tide. It's going against, you know, that energetic swirl where everyone else is moving in the same direction.

Steve Rush: And you've got three churn symptoms that you call out in your book, haven't you? So, the first one in the I read was good people walking out the door is an example of that churn system. Tell us a bit about that?

Claire Chandler: Yeah, so, you know, there were so many different examples of how churn works against your whirlpool effect in your business. And that, to me is one of the absolute key ones. It is often the most obvious, and it is very keenly felt that we keep losing our best people. We keep losing our best performers, you know, and often leaders make the mistake of concluding, well, we must just not have the right people. So, we have to throw them all out and start over again. And again, it goes back to that concept of, you know, there's a difference between the best talent, the available talent, and the right talent. And you know, when your best performers are walking out the door, it's because they are not seeing a deep connection between what they offer and what your mission is.

Steve Rush: That's really neat. And again, just simple, visible that if those people are not in the pool, you're not going to create that whirl.

Claire Chandler: That’s right.

Steve Rush: The second one you have in there, which I found really quite funny when I read it through, was, they're not saving the drama for their mama.

Claire Chandler: Yeah. So, you know, every company knows what this looks like, right? Just about every leader that I have worked with, who has called me in to help them build a better company, you know, says to me, I thought I hired adults. Why do they keep acting like petulant children? Why is there all of this office drama? Why is there so much infighting? Why can't people just behave? And it is such a pervasive infectious in a bad way, a symptom of churn and a symptom of a company that is not fully functioning under the whirlpool effect when you have, and you perpetuate, and here's the key one, you tolerate that kind of behaviour. You know, it really can detract from, you know, the mission you're trying to achieve.

Steve Rush: It's pretty infectious, isn't it?

Claire Chandler: It's hugely infectious. And unfortunately, that's always the case that the bad behaviour tends to spread more virally than good behaviour.

Steve Rush: Yeah and the third churn symptom you have is, and I think for me, it really kind of underpins most of these things around core values, just not “walking the walk”.

Claire Chandler: This brings up for me the concept of consistency, right? So those same companies that when you ask them what their mission is, they turn to look for which wall they've got the poster, you know, where their mission statement is printed. These are the same companies that also post right next to the mission statement, their quote, unquote, core values and core values are great. Don't get me wrong, right? It's been said that your mission pushes you, your vision pulls you and your values keep you from veering off the road. But if the values are not actually embedded in the culture, if they are just a bunch of nice words, but they are not lived, what ends up happening is just like this drama, this negative energy that is infectious, you get what you tolerate. And so, part of the reason that your best performers are leaving, is because there is inconsistency in how you are holding people accountable, not just for their performance, but even more importantly for their behaviour.

And that goes back to right talent, right? So, you could have, you know, three different people that on paper meet the essential requirements of a job that you're hiring for. But you want the right talent, not the quote, unquote, best performer. You want the person who gets it, right? Who embraces your mission, who can clearly see their place in the pool and can clearly, and enthusiastically contribute to that. And so, when you're in an environment where there's a lot of drama, there's a lot of values violation. Where those core values are not actually lived and people who violate those core values are not immediately addressed. That's how you lose your best performers because they say, you know, I'm not getting rewarded for the contribution I'm making. And the people next to me who are bad actors are not being held accountable. Why would I continue to contribute my full head, hands and heart to achieving this mission when the other people around me don't? and it's tolerated and it's okay that they don't. So those are just three of the examples of churn. And in my experience are the three that most often show up and work against that energetic swirl in the pool.

Steve Rush: Collectively, if these three things are present as well, it has the effect of almost pulling the plug on the pool, and all the water leaks out. And you're not left with much else.

Claire Chandler: It is extremely difficult, if not impossible for a business to grow, to succeed, and to sustain on a profitable level. If they have any of those three symptoms of churn over a long period of time, let alone if they have all three.

Steve Rush: Now we are going to give our listeners, the opportunity to find out how they can get a copy and where they can find some more information in a little while. But before we do that, this part that shows now where I turn the leadership lens to you as a leader in your own, right. So, this is where we're going to explore your kind of leadership experiences and hack into your leadership mind. So, Claire, what would be your top three leadership hacks that you could share with our listeners?

Claire Chandler: Hmm. The first one I'm going to go back to is that concept of clarity, right? And again, that sounds really simple. The phrase that I always use with people is keep it stupid, simple, right? There's this, acronym kiss. That is, keep it short and sweet or keep it simple, stupid. My mantra is kept it stupid, simple. And what I mean by that is a mission that is overly wordy, flowery, corporate ease, a type of language is not one that people are going to embrace. The best CEO I've ever worked for was one who came into a company. And he said we are going to be about three things, employees, customers, and efficiency. And that was it, and that was our mission. And that was what we were going to all about in every single employee, without exception could see a connection between what their individual role was, what their natural strengths were and how they could help positively impact at least one, if not three of those pillars of the mission.

So, you know, keeping it stupid, simple around that clarity is absolutely my number one leadership hack. I'd say my second one is, you know, it's not enough just to get clarity. You have to have a very deep connection. When you can make a connection for people between the mission you're trying to achieve and how they can individually contribute to that, both through the role that you're asking them to fulfill and the superpowers, if you will, that come naturally to them. You're going to accelerate the performance, the innovation, the market competitiveness, and the growth of that company. So, clarity is foundational, but connection is really where you accelerate growth. And then, you know, I would have to say my third hack is really more of a day today, you know, in my experience, you know, top time management tip for anybody.

And it's the concept of touch paper once. So, kind of going back to what I said earlier about how a lot of leaders have very clogged up calendars and they don't have any breathing room in between to get to kind of that, that zen place, that profitable swagger kind of an outcome. Part of it is because we are constantly revisiting the same decisions, the same pile of paperwork, you know, the same sort of to-do list. And so, you know, whether you're talking about the papers on your desk, the decision that is brought to you, you know, even going out in the field. I mean, I learned that mantra from a construction company who said, every time we're hauling dirt off of the site, every time it has to change hands, you know, from one vehicle to the next, it costs me money. So, the fewer times you have to touch the dirt, the more money you save. And so, when you translate that into how you manage your time? How do you manage your to-do list? So, to speak. Your decisions that you have to make both at work and at home when you touch paper once. You get to far more efficiency, and that's where you start to get to even cost-effectiveness.

Steve Rush: Three really great hacks. Thank you, Claire. The next part of the show we affectionately called Hack to Attack. So, our listeners will be familiar with this now. This is where we have experienced something in our life. Maybe some adversity hasn't worked out as well, whatever the case may be, but that adversity or the misadventure, the bad results we've used as learning in our life. And it is now a positive force of good, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Claire Chandler: Hmm. You know, I'd have to say this happened to me at least twice that I can think of. But more recently I was scheduled to speak at a conference in New Jersey and Atlantic City. And I was preparing to, you know, it was a two-hour workshop and I had this slide deck, already to kind of reinforce my key points, et cetera. And I had it all, you know, ready to go. And I go to save it on my laptop. Cause now I've got a pack and I've got to head off to the conference and my laptop died, not battery dead. The motherboard just completely decided that was the day it was no longer going to work. And of course, because I was under, you know, a deadline, I had not saved the latest version. I had not put it onto a thumb drive yet. I had not printed out my notes. And so, I had, you know, this sort of moments of absolute panic. And I think a lot of leaders, a lot of speakers, a lot of people, in general, have had this moment where they go, what am I without my content? How will I be able to impact and get my message across, you know, without this, what is essentially a prop? And so, I ended up, you know, I couldn't cancel, I thought seriously about canceling. And then I said, that would be ridiculous. So let me, you know, let me go down there and let me kind of do my thing. And what was great about that moment was what I thought was a source of empowerment for me. This presentation deck was actually a crutch that once I lost it, it freed me up to make a much deeper connection with my audience because I wasn't relying on props. I wasn't relying on content. I wasn't relying on pretty graphics or sound effects or bullets on a slide to make my point. And what ended up happening was it was a much more intimate, impactful, effective conversation between me and my audience. And so that was a really big lesson for me, that we get so reliant on other things and other people to help magnifier our impact. When really the best source of that impact is right inside of us.

Steve Rush: Great revelation, I guess, as well at the same time. Cause it's probably informed how you do things now, right?

Claire Chandler: It very much, very much did. Yeah. Yeah,

Steve Rush: Yeah, that's lovely. Thank you. The last bit that we want to explore with you is to give you a chance to have a bit of time travel now. So, you get an opportunity to give Claire some advice when she was 21. What would your advice be to her?

Claire Chandler: It's such a great question. You know, I loved being 21. I was still in college at the time. At 21, you had the worlds completely in front of you, you know, and there's this vast unknown, but unlike when you get older, the unknown is exciting. It's not something to be anxious or fearful about. And so, you know, looking back at where I was and who I was back then, I think my advice would be to take more risks. You know, I'm a fairly spontaneous person, but deep down, I'm a pretty conservative person when it comes to risks. But when I looked back at the road, I've traveled since 21, the greatest lessons I've learned, the greatest impact I've had on others. The greatest impact they've had on me was when I kind of threw caution to the wind. You know, it was sort of like the decision to leave corporate and just go out on my own, not really having a plan. It's in those times of taking risks and stretching yourself and jumping into the abyss, not knowing, you know, where or when, or how, or if you're going to land. That the greatest growth and the greatest insights occur. And, you know, I didn't have a clue as to all of that at 21. So that's something that I would absolutely tell my 21-year-old self.

Steve Rush: I love that, and the principle of risk-taking of course, we learn as we perhaps get a little bit older. The downside is maybe not as severe as we may have thought to anyone, because we've got a bit more life experience, right?

Claire Chandler: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Brilliant hacks. Thank you for sharing all of those Claire.

Claire Chandler: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Now this is the opportunity for us to help promote what you're doing. Now there's a few things that I wanted to mention. One, you've just written another book, which is available for our listeners to also get a copy of. Where would you best like our listeners to find out a little bit more about Talent Boost, a little bit about the books that you've written?

Claire Chandler: Sure, so the best way for your audience to track me down is, I do have a talentboost.net website. They're free to go there and visit, but if you really want to get to know more about me, about my work and either of the books, you can go to clairechandler.net. There is a resources page on that site that has a couple of resources available for download, they're all free. That leaders and employees can contest out, can apply, and immediately get some positive impact in their business.

Steve Rush: Brilliant, and what was the inspiration behind the latest book?

Claire Chandler: The latest book, which came out earlier this year. I co-authored with a colleague of mine, Ben Baker, and it's called Leading Beyond A Crisis, A Conversation About What's Next. And it was really sparked by this, you know, this global pandemic world that we live in now. And it started out as a series of conversations between Ben and myself that we put out on YouTube and as we looked back at those, you know, we realized there were a lot of lessons for leaders in there about not just managing the crisis, that's right in front of you, but maintaining an eye on the longer term horizon that you're trying to get to. And some ways and some hacks, if you will, for doing that. So, you can find a link to both that book and The Whirlpool Effect on my website. And they were both also available on Amazon.

Steve Rush: Super and we'll also make sure that all of those links will be in our show notes.

Claire Chandler: Excellent.

Steve Rush: Claire, it's just left for me to say, I am super grateful for you taking time out to come and join us on The Leadership Hacker Podcast. You've been an awesome guest and I wish you all the best with whatever happens next for you.

Claire Chandler: Thank you.

Steve Rush: Thank you Claire.

Claire Chandler: Thank you, Steve. Same to you. I appreciate it.

Closing

View Details

Buddy Hobart is the founder and President at Solutions 21; he's an entrepreneur, speaker, and author of Gen Y Now, Experience Matters, and just launched his latest book, “The Leadership Decade”. You can learn from Buddy:

How our biases can prevent great leadership
Why our new era of leadership may need new thinking
Context and “Why” are a key leadership tool
Why business owners need to shift their mindset from expense to investment.

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Buddy:

Solutions 21 Website

Buddy on LinkedIn

Book: The Leadership Decade

Full Transcript Below

Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Buddy Hobart is the founder and president of Solutions 21. He's our special guest today. He's a consultant and entrepreneur, author of five books, speaker and radio host. But before we get a chance to meet with Buddy, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Two fifths of executives are citing that soft skills are going to play a key factor in ongoing post pandemic related uncertainty. In some recent research completed by Robert Half a global recruitment and advisory firm, 29% of employees are redesigning their job roles to manage the impacts of COVID-19. They've also seen a significant shift in senior figures who are looking to fast track digital transformation for the rest of this year. While a third are still reprioritizing their e-commerce strategies. In a statement, Robert Half UK’s Managing Director, Matt Western said, “the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way many of us do business both now and in the future, remote working has enabled talent pools around the world to open up, which for some companies means that existing employees with key skills can be redeployed in the short term to deliver business critical roles.

While for others changing of customer demands means up-skill and a reskill has suddenly appeared particularly for digital transformation and e-commerce”. When we consider the term soft skills in the past, this has been linked to things like communication. In my experience, as a consultant and a leadership development coach, there is no such thing as soft skills, hard skills are the things that required that a very challenging through leading and managing, particularly in disruptive times. And if we consider that in some recent research completed by McKinsey's, they suggest that 14% of jobs over the next five years will have either disappeared or be completely redesigned in order to meet the digital environment that we're likely to be working in for the foreseeable future. So how far forward are you thinking as a leader and how much thought are you giving in the roles that you need not just today, but within the next five years, and will that need a redesign? That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any insights, information you'd like us to share, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Buddy Hobart is our special guest on today's show. He's a founder and president at Solutions 21. He's an entrepreneur, speaker and author of his bestselling book Gen Y Now, and Experience Matters. And his latest book, The Leadership Decade has just made Inc 5000. Buddy it is super to on the show.

Buddy Hobart: I'm excited about it. Thanks Steve.

Steve Rush: So perhaps for the folks that are listening, who haven't had an opportunity to bump into your work yet, tell us a little bit about the backstory as to how you've arrived at doing what you're doing?

Buddy Hobart: Well, we started 26 years ago; my background is in sales, so I started right out of University, was Xerox Corporation and started into sales and became a general manager of a business. And then I began to realize that as much as I enjoyed the sales process, I also enjoyed the organizational development and the people development side of things. So, on my 35th birthday, I quit my job, actually after probably the best year I ever had. I quit my job and started Solutions 21 and 26 years later, we're still standing.

Steve Rush: That was quite a stark thing to do. Haven't been successful in the world of sales. What was that kind of defining moment?

Buddy Hobart: I just thought that the people development side, when I was the sales leader, I saw all these resources going to the sales department. And then when I became the general manager, now I managed everybody. Sales, service, administrators, anybody, and within all sincerity, probably within a week. I was embarrassed with myself about how I had advocated for all of these resources to always be going to sales when there was a hundred other teammates that weren't getting nearly the same kind of attention, the same kind of resources, the same kind of bonuses. And so, we restructured some things and started to develop the business. And while we did grow sales, we tripled the bottom line by simply having people collaborate and communicate and having a more empowered workforce throughout the whole organization. And I realized I really liked that, that was a passion.

Steve Rush: So, you took that passion and created Solutions 21. What is the key focus of the work you do with all clients now?

Buddy Hobart: Well, it's evolved over the last 26 years, but really for the most part right now we are doing, we still do a tremendous amount of strategic planning. So, we work with mostly small to medium sized firms. Although we've worked with very large organizations around the world and we do strategic planning, helping them to decide what's the game plan, where's the bus headed? How are we going to get there? And so, we do a lot of strategic planning and then we do a tremendous amount of leadership development, both in the C-Suite in next leaders as well. So, who's that next generation of folks? Who are those succession candidates? Who are those people that are going to keep this thing going? And then also supervisory skills. So, you know, the folks out on the shop floor, the folks making things happen, how are they developing their leadership skill sets?

Steve Rush: And I guess that’s changed enormously over the last 26 years from where you started out to how things are today, right?

Buddy Hobart: Unbelievable, I think that's the focus of this next book is that, you know, the first books we wrote about generational leadership and how it was important for folks of my generation, I don't mean to be ageist at all in these conversations, but I'm a baby boomer. And so, folks from our generation who were the dominant generation for so long, the first books were about us understanding the next generations. But this book really is about 21st century leadership. And why it's critical that we leave 20th century kind of leadership techniques and tactics and ideas behind because frankly we have an entirely new workforce

Steve Rush: And that’s always going to be evolving too. Isn't it?

Buddy Hobart: I think it is. I mean, you know, the first books we wrote, we talked about how it was unprecedented, that there were four generations of breadwinners in the workforce. And if you stop to think about that, in the history of the world, there had never been four generations of breadwinners in the workforce. I mean, it just never happened. And as you and I are talking here today, there are now five generations of breadwinners in the workforce. So, I mean, until this mid-century, we're going to be in this kind of leap to leadership for this new group of followers.

Steve Rush: So, what was it that interest you and intrigued you about how different generations behave and how we need to kind of maybe approach them with subtle nuances and different maybe lenses? What were the things that kind of gave you that energy to get into the research and get into the genre?

Buddy Hobart: Well, it probably came from a friend of mine, so the first two books I co-authored with a gentleman named Herb Sendek and Herb is a major college basketball coach here in the United States and coach of the year, in the Atlantic Coast Conference, in the PAC-12 in the Mid-American conference, he's really quieted an established coach. And after the season, one year we were just chatting and he asked me, okay, well, you know what I do, you know, I used to play basketball, you know what I do, but I don't really know what you do. So, tell me about the consulting business. So, I told him about what we do and who we do it for. Clients around the world, and we were chatting and he said, well, you know, you really work across all industries and geographies. He said, but is there anything that you're seeing out there that is kind of universal across all businesses?

Now, Steve, remember this is before I did any research or wrote the book or anything. And I said, yeah, I, you know, businesses are having a hard time attracting and retaining young talent. Like they just can't get people to stay. And he said, why do you think that is? And I got up on my baby boomer soap box and I said, all of the prejudice things, all of the myths, I repeated everything. They're disloyal, they're job jumpers. There, you know, they're soft. They don't want to work hard. Like, I was as prejudice to baby boomers I could be. And Steve, he looked at me and he said, well, wait a minute. Like, what ages are we talking about? And again, I hadn't researched anything. And I said, you know, let's call them 25 something. And he said, Buddy I disagree. And I said, how can you disagree? You asked me the question. Like, how can you disagree? He said, Buddy, that's who I've been recruiting my whole career.

Steve Rush: Right.

Buddy Hobart: And man, it just hit me. And then he looked at me and he said something that I heard years later, actually from a four-star general. And he said, you know, Buddy, by definition leaders have followers. And if you can't adapt your leadership to the followership, you're just not going to be a leader for long. And so, it kind of hit me that I was off and to be completely transparent with you and your listening audience here, that my next thing was okay, open another bottle. And so that the book was born on the second bottle of wine Steve.

Steve Rush: And a lot of great writers need that inspiration. And whether it be wine or good conversation, right?

Buddy Hobart: The first bottle was a little bit more debate. The second bottle was a little more problem solving.

Steve Rush: Unleashing creativity, some would call it even.

Buddy Hobart: No doubt.

Steve Rush: So, as you were kind of going through that whole exploration, when you were writing Gen Y Now, did you bump into a lot of your own prejudices then also turned into learnings for others?

Buddy Hobart: Oh, my Steve. I mean, almost unbelievably so. So, to be again, completely transparent. Herb that evening and through subsequent conversations really did not convert to me. So, as we were writing the book, unbeknownst to him, it was starting to develop into a bit more of a point counterpoint. Where, you know, he would say some positive and strong leadership points and really advocate for these next generations. And then I was taking a bit of a counterpoint approach where I would almost debate him in writing a little bit. And I got the about the fourth or fifth chapter. And anybody that's written knows that once you get that deep into it, you're fairly committed, but I got to the fourth or fifth chapter and had a little bit of a aha moment. I had this kind of road to Damascus conversion as it relates to leadership. And I tore up those first five or six chapters and started all over again.

Steve Rush: Yeah, awesome.

Buddy Hobart: What hit me, Steve was one of the biggest things that converted me, where these generations. These newest generations in the workforce, they don't quite look at it the way we did. So, we being a baby boomer, we try to kind of bifurcate our lives. In fact, we created this term. We try to have like a work life and a family life and a social life. And we created this work life balance phrase. And I tease audiences like, how well is that working for you? It just doesn’t. We made a term up because we were so out of balance and these newest generations in my research in the first book, it hit me. They don't look at it that way. They don't try to pretend there's two or three of them. They know there's only one of them and time is life. And they don't try to separate that. They realize when they go to work, they're living, when they come home from work, they're living. The boss they choose to work for is a choice that the projects they work on, those are choices. And we baby boomers and then by extension Gen X, we didn't get that. We try to separate that and that's just not true. There is only one of us and when I saw the wisdom in that thinking, I literally tore up six chapters and start it over.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it? And you and I have spoken about this before, because we share this similar passion around how the generations more often have different perspectives on the world, and in essence, many conversations I've had with people that says, aren't you just Pidgeon holing people into brackets and giving them labels? And whilst yes, we're definitely generalizing. There is a fundamental shift in thinking that comes with the experiences, the belief systems and the revelations that each of those different generations have had. Right?

Buddy Hobart: No doubt about it. And you know, there's 78 million baby boomers in America. You can't put 78 million people in a bucket. You know, there are more millennials in China than there is population of the United States. You can't put 350 million Chinese millennials into one bucket, that's not fair. But to your point, there are certain things that define generations. You know, I'm fascinated at the moment. My mother-in-law's is moved in with us and she's 93. So, she's a member of that greatest generation. And she's a product of the great depression in World War II. And to ignore how that affected her as a young teenager, I think would be folly. Now are all traditionalist the same? No, by no means, but are folks who had those same similar life experiences, did they learn similar things? Absolutely. And I think it's ridiculous that I would try to apply my experience to everybody's experience.

Steve Rush: Right and I guess, whatever generation you're in, we always have a perception that it's moving faster, quicker than it ever has before. And a perfect example of that is 500, 600 BC Heraclitus famous Greek Philosopher said the only one thing that is constant in life is change. And here we are two and a half thousand years later, and we still have that lens. What do you think causes that Buddy?

Buddy Hobert: Well, a number of things. So, in this latest book, I didn’t quite finish my thought

when I was talking before about what got me interested in this and what really got me interested in this was my own prejudice and realizing the hurdles that I personally had to overcome to understand this. So, the first books were written to help other folks understand who this next generation of the workforce will be. Well, this latest book, The Leadership Decade really is not about millennials or any particular generation because frankly, that ship has sailed, right? I mean the oldest millennial this year is turning 40. So, that ship has sailed. We're not talking about these kids anymore. We're talking about generations and so when I started to write this book, I wanted to answer that exact question you just asked, which is why do we continue to think this way? And so I wrote an entire chapter on kind of the science around this and the biases we bring to it.

And the attribution errors that we bring to it. And one of the things in the book I talk about is the fundamental attribution error, which is where we fundamentally attribute to us, to ours, what is good and right? And we fundamentally attribute to the other, since they do it differently than us, we attribute how they do it to be wrong. Where instead of different equals different, we have this mental model of different equals wrong. And so, I think one of the reasons why that quote has been able to survive the way it's been able to survive is that we fight change. We want to attribute the way we do it to being the correct way to do it, versus embracing any amount of difference or change or innovation.

Steve Rush: And there's no doubt that we are in an era of incredible change and fast paced challenges that are coming through thick and thin, whatever you are and whatever you do. But what is also sure is what worked in the past from a leadership perspective is not going to be fit for the future. Right?

Buddy Hobert: Absolutely and I think that if there is a silver lining to COVID-19 and that certainly remains to be seen, but if there is, I think one of those silver lining, historically is going to be that it forced us into this new Dawn. And you hear a lot of conversation around this inflection point. And even prior to the global pandemic, we had researched the industrial revolutions and came to the conclusion that 2020 was going to be an inflection point and a launch into this next industrial revolution. And if there's a silver lining to COVID-19, and like I said, that remains to be seen. The one silver lining is going to be that it left no doubt that we are in a new century. That 20th century kind of tug of wars on what leadership looked like and what work looks like. Those tug of wars are over, in the 21st century is clearly one. And this inflection point has forced many of us to make very quick, very decisive decisions to be able to change quickly and adapt quickly, versus taking years to figure this out.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and for those of us that are in leadership and leadership development and have a responsibility, what an exciting place it is to be, to find new ways of working, to find whatever the new leadership playbook is.

Buddy Hobert: There is no doubt. Normally, Steve, when these things happen, they're a little bit more evolutionary, right? Where I kind of visualize this as like a daunting. Where, you know, the sun starts to peak up and gets lighter and lighter and lighter, and it takes some time. So, this was going to happen anyway. The statistics, the numbers don't lie, and so 2021, 2022, 2023, people are going to kind of be able to ease their way into this, where we went from 4.7 million Americans telecommuting in December to 75 million telecommuting in March. Like there was no daunting, this was a spotlight, this was a light switch that was thrown. And it forced us to understand we are in an absolutely new era if that is going to require new leadership skills.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so you call this the sweet spot in time, don’t you?

Buddy Hobert: I do, I think that small to medium sized businesses, as fortune 500, by the way, but small to medium sized businesses can be more like a speedboat. Like they don't need a lot of ocean to turn. They can make quick decisions, they can adapt, they can adjust. And I think there's a sweet spot in time where talent acquisition and make no mistake. The team with the best talent usually wins and small to medium sized business, have an opportunity to attract and retain talent that in decades past was kind of set aside for fortune 500 or fortune 50. And there is this sweet spot in time where the new generation of workers want to attach their career wagon to a strong leadership works. They want to work for people that are strong leaders. And at a midsize firm, you can walk down the hall and bump into the CEO. You're not really bumping into the CEO of a fortune 50, if you're a recent university graduate, you know, working on some of your first assignments. So, there is this wonderful opportunity right now for mid-market firms.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I agree. And within the book, The leadership Decade, you've got some great metaphorical stories in there and some lessons that we can pull on, I thought would be just really neat to kick around a few with our listeners.

Buddy Hobert: I would love too.

Steve Rush: So, in Gen Y now, you called out the platform is burning; and in this book, you call out another chapter, which is the platform is still burning. Tell us a little bit about that?

Buddy Hobert: Well, you know, the first books, Steve, I, you know, everything is a bit of a life lesson, right? So, the first book, while maybe it wasn't a mistake, I feel looking back in the rear-view mirror now, the mistake that I made was trying to kind of quote, unquote, sell the audience that this is what was about to happen and share with them some demographic numbers and share with them some, some data and some facts. And I thought facts would win the day and that leaders would understand this need to adapt, and boy was I wrong. It was not a fact-based situation. Once I started to do this brain research, it's emotional based.

And so, when I was pointing out, the platform was burning, what I realized, because we wrote this first book in 2008, and I am quite proud of the fact that going back all of those years, we were advocating for these newest generations because nobody was. They were all negative and negative books towards this generation. So, we were kind of pioneers in the advocacy for developing next generation leaders. And that kind of has helped us a bit, is those pioneers. And what I thought was laying out the data and letting folks know, for example, in the United States that, you know, a baby boomer turns 65, every eight and a half seconds, that every day 10,000 baby boomers are turning 65. That this generation who was the largest generation in the history of the world up to that point was slowly marching to retirement.

I thought pointing that out was going to be important and that folks would get it, but they really didn't. And the platform was burning because there was this kind of silver tsunami where we as baby boomers were all marching to retirement without having had a plan, a succession plan in place. And so, I was quoting John Kotter and his change management philosophies, where he said, if the platform is burning and you have no choice except to change or die, that you will change. And so, I thought people understanding those demographics certainties would look to change, but they didn't. They just kind of ignored it and believe that this too shall pass. And so, in the first books, I wanted to point that out. And in this book, what disappointed me in my research was that in many, many ways, especially small to medium sized businesses, they didn't get the demographic shift. And so, while they had all of this time to begin preparing strong succession plans and strong next generations of leaders and strong bench strength, they didn't. And so, the platform is still burning, except now it's burned where it's really close to now destroying many once strong, small to medium sized companies.

Steve Rush: And there's so much for each of the generations to learn from this kind of philosophy and thinking too, we've now got Gen Z coming into the workforce as they join. They're never going to have the ability to learn from baby boomers and vice versa. If we don't really grab the opportunity now.

Buddy Hobert: There is no doubts know, like I said, a bit of a mistake I made in the first book was I really kind of had that as a one-way street. I was really trying to get the more experienced generations in the workforce to understand the newest generations coming in. And it was really a one-way street. And now this next book that I have, The Leadership Decade is really about this. It's a two-way street. I think Steve you've touched on something really critical here is it is equally important for me as a senior leader or a senior manager or baby boomer. It's equally important for me to understand these newest generations of workers and the newest generation of followers as it is for these newest generation of followers to understand me.

Steve Rush: Absolutely.

Buddy Hobert: In the first books, I didn't get that Steve. I really had it as a one-way street, but there is no doubt that this next decade is all about the organizations who were able to collaborate across generations and understand this is a two-way street and all generations need to be embraced and deployed in the workforce to be productive.

Steve Rush: And very soon as well, you know, we're now seeing people live a lot longer, work a lot longer. There's less pressure on retiring at 60 or 65 or even 70 these days. And before you know it, we'll have generation alpha appearing around the corner.

Buddy Hobert: No doubt about it. And in fact, I'm going to go out on a limb, Steve and say like Generation Z. We know kind of when it started, but you really don't know the end of a generation until there's a Seminole event to define the next generation. And I believe COVID-19 is going to be that Seminole event. So, I'm going to say that we won't know this for a few years, but demographers are going to come out and say, this latest generation. The newest generation probably is going to be from 20 form the year 2000 to 2016. And the reason why I say 16 is because now, four-year olds are affected by COVID-19. They're affected by the global pandemic. They have to be home-schooled; they're going to remember this in ways that we can't understand at the moment. So, I'm going to say, Gen Z is going to stop at 2016 and this latest generation is going to start.

Steve Rush: Interesting.

Buddy Hobert: Think about that. If you're a 50-year-old right now, you will be hiring this sixth generation in 14 years before you retire, you'll be 64. You will be leaving these young folks that are in preschool now. Like it's weird to think that way, but you're going to be hiring kids who were in preschool now who are going to be completely different world views.

Steve Rush: Very true, very true. It's that lens that's really important. Isn't it? It's that being thoughtful and aware that creates that future leadership in others?

Buddy Hobert: I think so. I think that what Herb said is that a leader's job is to adapt to their followership. And I don't want the listeners here to think at all that, that I think leadership is something that is, I don't know, pliable or malleable, or that there aren't these bedrock principles. There certainly are, you know, honesty, integrity. There are certain bedrock principles, but the way that certain things are communicated and certain things are interpreted change from generation to generation. And one example that we've seen with the current pandemic is working remotely. Is that baby boomers grew up with this concept of being present meant you were a hard worker. So, coming in early, staying late, putting in the time, meant you were a hard worker. Being seen was thought as being productive, and now we have learned that that's not true and frankly never was. And people came to work and they might've stayed 12 hours and didn't do anything, that didn't make them a hard worker.

Steve Rush: Very true, really fascinating stuff. In the book Buddy, you talk about the commander’s intent. Tell us what that means?

Buddy Hobert: Five years ago, I had the almost unbelievable good fortune and was humbled by being invited to this place called the US Army War College, and the US Army War College takes American and global military leaders. And you need to be a Lieutenant, Colonel or above, and they put them in these cohorts and they ended up getting a master's degree in strategic leadership. And the last week of the program, they take civilians and they've plugged them into these cohorts. And we go to class with these military leaders, and I was able to see kind of how the best of the best work really, really hard at continuing their leadership development. And I met several military leaders. I'm happy and proud and humble to say, some of them have chosen to now come work for Solutions 21. And they taught me this concept of commander's intent, where it's way different than what I had heard in the business space, where we talk about vision and mission. And if I understand the vision, you know, we can move forward. Understanding the strategy and all that, all that's true. But this idea of commander's intent is to understand from the top. So, the CEO from the commander, all the way down to the shop floor, all the way down to the new hire. If we understand what the commander's intent, what his intent is for the vision and what his intent is for this mission, then we will be able to make quicker, better, more solid real time decisions. If we just know that person's intent, because it might not look exactly like it was scripted. But if we know what the intent of the action is, we can implement it effectively. And we've been using this concept now in the private sector and it's working almost unbelievably. So, it's been a tremendous benefit, especially when the pandemic hit for our clients, that whose employees now we're scattered to the four winds, working remotely to understand the intent. I think that's a different way of looking at it, than businesses have really done over the last number of decades.

Steve Rush: And it creates empathy for their leaders too. If people understand and have context as to why leaders are behaving in the way that they are, what their intentions and ambitions are, then people might not necessarily like the outcomes, but they will have much more respect and therefore likely to take more action.

Buddy Hobert: I think you say something there that's really critical. And that's the word context previous kind of 20th century thought processes and leadership processes really kind of announced decisions without providing context. And the word you just used, I think is critical for us to get is that in the 21st century, we need to also provide that context. And once people understand the context, they can make better quicker and frankly, more productive and profitable decisions.

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely, hundred percent agree with that. The final thing I wanted to kick around with the Leadership Decade is something in the book that you call the linchpin model of change. And it's based around the kind of whole Gordian Knot story. Tell us a little bit about how that came about?

Buddy Hobert: I had a lot of information in the last books about change management, and we started talking about this philosophy in the linchpin model, because what we had seen along the way was people hesitating to adapt their thought process to this next generation. We saw this hesitancy of developing next generation leaders and training them and investing in them. We saw it because they were trying to invent the perfect answer. And they were thinking through the whole concept of, okay, should we do it remotely? Is this online? Like they were trying to create the best answer. And then things got watered down, and we came to this conclusion that this linchpin model of change is really the idea that needs to half of which is to do something. Get it started, you create a point where then you can make adjustments, instead of trying to allowing what's the saying, you know, allowing perfect to be the enemy of good, let's get something started and then begin to make adjustments; and as you saw in the book, I use this concept of safety. We do a lot of work in the manufacturing and construction industries. And I realized that safety is now in the DNA of every single firm that those people work in dangerous environments who are in construction, it's now in their DNA. But if you go back maybe only 20 years ago or so, safety was really a strong suggestion, but they've made it a part of their DNA. They took this linchpin approach where they said, and focused and repeated and repeated and repeated this importance and they changed the culture of their organization. And so, we think that developing your next generation of leaders needs to take kind of that almost overly simplistic view is just get started, almost a quote, Nike, Jus do it.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I love it. I love it. So, this is the chance of the show where I get to hack into your great leadership mind. So, I'd love to find out your top three leadership hacks, Buddy, what would they be?

Buddy Hobert: Okay, you touched on one that I want to pick up on when you use the word context. So, if I were to give three of the biggest leadership hacks, what leaders now need to get is we need to get this concept of explaining the why. We, you know, I've had rooms of 1200 folks or I'm keynoting or something. And I say, Hey, look, everybody answered this, and it has been global. So, answer this in your native language. But if you give somebody an assignment and they ask you why what's your response? And in like 14 different languages, I'll here because I said so. And so, we never grew up in an environment where we explained the why of an assessment. We told people what to do, and maybe even we gave suggestions on how to do it, but we never told them why it was important.

And that why is what you brought up earlier, it provides context. And so, when leaders hear someone asked the question why, they hear disrespect and they hear questioning of authority. When in fact they ought to be flattered by that because the person asking is looking for your knowledge and looking for your context. So, the first leadership hack would be to accept when someone asks you, why. They're looking for context and then really take it to the next level and proactively explain the reason for the assignment, explain the why. It provides context, it allows for the commander's intent and you will get a much better end product.

The next thing I might tell leaders as a hack, which is way different than what's happened in the past. Is that leaders today need to develop career coaching skills, not just mentoring skills and helping people, quote and quote, climb a ladder because that's what most folks entered the work world into this corporate ladder. Where now the newest generations of workers are looking at a chess board. They are looking at being able to move horizontally, take one step back, one step up, stay still for a while. And it's way different than a ladder mentality. And while it's true, the newest generations will have more jobs in a lifetime Steve, they don't have to have more companies.

Steve Rush: Right.

Buddy Hobart: If you provide them with opportunity within your firm. And you look at their career development like a chess board, and you look at them as being the queen on the chess board, if anybody there knows how to play chess, if you know the queen can move any way she wants, she's the most powerful piece on the board and in their career. They can move up, down, over one, sideways, horizontal. So, career coaching is going to be a critical leadership component moving forward. And then I would say my third hack would be, I firmly believe that words matter. And that we have to understand what we mean when we say things and how we feel with words. In the past, we looked at the leadership development as an expense. We looked at, if we had a good bottom line, maybe this year we'll do some training, we'll do a couple of events. We'll use this expense dollar. So, when times got tough, we cut that expense.

Well expenses, what’s it means, it's an expenditure, but the term investment is different. Are we investing in our future leaders? Because the word invest means to expect a return. And so, if we are investing, it's not dollar spent, it's an investment for a future return. And I think businesses, business owners need to shift their mindset from expense to investment. And then I think business leaders need to shift their mindset from spending time with my folks versus investing time with my folks. Those mean two completely different things. Spending kind is almost a burden where investing time has an expected return.

Steve Rush: There great hacks and great advice Buddy, thank you for sharing. The next part of the show. We want to explore; we call Hack to Attack. So, this would be where something hasn't worked out as well in your career or your life. But as a result, we've taken that as a lesson and it now serves us well as a positive. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Buddy Hobart: Probably I would hate to admit my naivety, but at times I have been naive in that. I believed a lot of what folks were saying and presenting to be more facts. And I would say that if I had one hack to attack, it would be to understand that there are many, many, many sides to a story and make sure you have all of the information before you make a decision. I would hate to admit that I have been naive along the way. And I have learned this idea that my folks here are probably getting tired of hearing from me, which is control your outcomes. I mean, those elements that you can control, you better control. Otherwise someone will control them for you.

Steve Rush: And I think we can all put ourselves in that space Buddy, that we've had the same kind of level of, I'm not sure if naivety is the right word. It could be maybe trust or overthrust or lack of ambition to control the outcome the way that we want to, maybe.

Buddy Hobart: Yeah, I know that I have been guilty of that and they threw several curve balls at me before I started the Solutions 21, until I began to realize that, well, I appreciate you saying that it's not naive, but in looking back, I think I was overly trusting. Let's say that.

Steve Rush: Cool, the last thing we want to do is give you an opportunity to shift back through the generations and you get to give yourself some advice at 21, Buddy, what's it going to be?

Buddy Hobart: Ah, okay. I can look at my 21-year-old self. I would probably challenge myself to begin working on wisdom sooner, where you would be able to combine the strength and the invincibility of youth with wisdom, you know, instead of waiting for things to come to me, I would have studied a little bit more about making stronger leadership decisions and think through things like developing my emotional intelligence way younger, way younger than I realized I needed to do it as I got older. So that would probably be it. I pray for wisdom every day still. And going back to being that age, I wish I had known then from a wisdom standpoint, what I know now.

Steve Rush: I love that. It's great. Wouldn't it have been neat to have been born with a wise developed brain and then, you know, maybe get more playful as we get older.

Buddy Hobart: Wouldn’t that be? I mean, you would combine all that strength, all the invincibility, all of those elements of your youth with just being able to make wiser and better decisions.

Steve Rush: I've always enjoyed talking with you. I loved reading your books, but I want to make sure that our listeners get the same opportunity. So how can they find out a little bit more about you, Solutions 21? And certainly, The Leadership Decade.

Buddy Hobart: I appreciate that. So, solutions21.com would be our website. So, s-o-l-u-t-i-o-n-s the numbers 21, 21.com, as well as theleadershipdecade.com. You can go to either one of those sites and find more about the book, find more about Solutions 21, find more about what we do and how we help organizations develop their next generations of talent and next generations of leaders.

Steve Rush: That's great, and we'll also put those links in our show notes, Buddy. So, our folk can also head over to there and access them straight away.

Buddy Hobart: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Steve Rush: So, there's no question Buddy, the work you've done continue to do is definitely going to help shape the next generation of leaders and on behalf of our listeners and on behalf of Leadership Hacker Podcast. Thanks for being on the show.

Buddy Hobart: I really, really appreciate it. It's been a pleasure all along.

Closing

View Details

Preston Weekes is the Co-author of, "How To Be Up In Down Times” he’s a business builder, an entrepreneur and Chief Strategy Officer/ Co-founder of Operations X. We can learn this from Preston in today’s show:

How your passion can become your career
How outsourcing can support your virtual working even more
Explore soul tips, mind tips and body tips
The power of relentless improvement

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Preston:

Operationsx.com Website

Preston on LinkedIn

Book: How to be UP in DOWN times.

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is Preston Weekes. He's the co-author of How To Be Up In Downtimes. He's a business builder, an entrepreneur and chief strategy officer and co-founder of Operations X. Before we get a chance to speak with Preston, it's The Leadership pack Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Do you believe in fate? In the news today, we explore a really strange twist of fate. A kayaker who discovered a message in a bottle floating in the Delaware river was able to reunite the letter with the woman who wrote it 35 years ago. Brad Wachsmuth, thought the bottle bobbing in the water about two miles off shore of the Broadkill River was a piece of trash when he spotted it in August.

It was just a few days after a tropical storm that swept through the area. He told WBOC-TV, as we usually do as characters, we try and pick up the trash out the water as in when we can, but Brad friend noticed there was something inside. And the two fished out the letter written by Cathi Riddle and their cousin, Stacey Wells dated 35 years ago, 1985. They described their family pets and they asked future potential readers if they had any of their own and amongst other things, any childhood musings. Brad took the letter to the Milton historical society and a curator had reached out to the family and put the two in touch. Riddled still only lived a few miles away in Milton, and Brad was able to reunite that letter to her that week. He said he was really surprised it ended up in the same waters decades later after the storms and tides, but maybe it was fate and maybe the letter had gone all the way around the world and the ride back in the same place, who knows? What we do know is two people come together for no other reason through connectivity.

And the leadership lesson here is whenever you send a message, you never know how it's going to be landed. And indeed, when it's going to be truly understood. And it's fair to say, it's unlikely that your method of communication is going to be a letter in a bottle, but please be making sure that you know what you're saying, how you're saying it and who it's going to cause we all receive communication and we will interpret data and information subtly differently. That's been The Leadership Hacker News, if you any quirky, funny, interesting stories you want our listeners to hear, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: I'm joined on the show today by Preston Weekes. He's an author, a business builder, an entrepreneur. He's a chief strategy officer and co-founder of Operation X and to boot, he's at super, super car enthusiast. Preston welcome to the show.

Preston Weekes: Thank you. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here with you today. I'm excited.

Steve Rush: I asked you before we got on the show, you know, as a car freak, what's your wheels? And I'm sure as people hearing your occurrence enthusiastic, just tell us a little bit about where the car enthusiastic come from and what is your drive at the moment?

Preston Weekes: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I've been a car nut ever since I was a little kid. I was two years old and I'd ride around when kids didn't have to sit on seatbelts, I'd ride on the bumper of my dad's big Cadillac and he'd have challenges with his friends to name every oncoming car that we pass. And I could beat all his friends at two and three years old. So, I've been a car nut ever since I could walk or ever since I was born, but, and then I bought and sold cooler cars too. So, I could up my car from ever since I was 16. And but now, I've been lucky. I've had a lot of amazing cars. I don't have anything too crazy right now, but I've got an old Z3M Coupe, they call it for the car enthusiasts. It's got the nickname, the clown shoe. It's a little hatchback, M3 motor. That's pretty much full track-built car and got a few other fun toys up my sleeve too. But yeah, I absolutely love cars and anyone that likes cars or my immediate best friend.

Steve Rush: So, you're the kind of guy that we want to be on a long journey with when we try and spot the oncoming cars and guess, the car game, right?

Preston Weekes: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You want me on your team, yeah for sure with that. I've done a lot with cars. I've done a little racing. I was in Porsche Club and some different things like that. So, I just, I love, love, love cars.

Steve Rush: Awesome and of course you're now co-founder and chief strategy, officer Operations X. We're going to learn a little bit about what you do in the moment, but tell us a little bit about the backstory as to how you arrived in what you're do now?

Preston Weekes: Yeah. So, I actually started in the car business. So indirectly led me into what I was doing today. So, I had to figure out how to pay for college. That was one of my challenges, I wanted to go to college, decided I wanted to go and so I was ready to go and had to figure out how to pay. I knew cars, so I bought and sold cars and helped me pay my way through college, paid my tuition. And when I graduated, I couldn't find a job that paid me better. And so I went on and I went on doing it and I built a dealership and then built more dealerships and then ended up owning and co-owing 15 different car dealerships with a lot of verticals that came out of that from, you know, paint shops, to mechanic shops, to finance company and all the other things that went with it.

But it all started with one $1,600 dollar car. And I invested in myself and I had that $1,600 dollar car. The first time I went to the auction and went up there, got up to the auction and bought the car. I get 10 minutes out of the auction, the car overheats. And I chalk it up to a learning curve and I didn't even have enough money to tow the car back to my area to my mechanic. So, I take like five hours and I limped the thing home and let it cool down and drive a minute and let it cool down drive a minute. But I ended up taking that and I thought, okay, what can I control? What do I know I can do? You know, I know I can do this. I know there's different investments and things like that. But if I invest it in myself, I'm not afraid to work. I'm not afraid to do it. And I know I can have control over it. So, I did it and I kept doing it and reinvesting in myself and learn the business. And then I got two cars and then I got to 10 cars and then I got into my second dealership and then it just kept growing and growing from there.

Steve Rush: And little would your dad know that sitting on his Cadillac at two would create a business empire that allows you to then pivot away from cars to do what you do now. So, tell us how that came about?

Preston Weekes: Yeah, so the transition, so back in 2010, I was running my dealerships and trying to figure out things and build and grow. And as a business owner and an entrepreneur and especially a small business owner or start-up, you know, money's always a problem and personnel is always a challenge. And I had the lucky, lucky blessing of someone coming to me and saying, hey, there's another option. And I had a cousin that worked in an outsourcing office. It was based in Salt Lake City, Utah. She connected me with my first overseas employee. So, I started in 2010 outsourcing work overseas. And that became the weapon that all the other car dealerships didn't have. It gave us the cutting edge above everyone else. It gave me the ability to not only, you know, grow and expand and be able to afford to do it, but also hire on people on my front-line staff too. And what it did was take my frontline salespeople and actually allow them to focus on the customer and allow them to focus on the sale and allow them to focus on what actually made the money.

And so, you know, going through that and seeing that, and, you know, really having that helped me so much and help me grow and, you know, do all those things. I thought, how cool would that be to be able to provide that for other people someday. And I continued to use that in my businesses throughout. And so, I was in the car business. I actually got recruited by a gentleman named Mark Victor Hansen, who is a famous author, one of the top selling authors in the world, known for Chicken Soup for the Soul book series, a One Minute Millionaire, lightning factor and a number of other things he's got 59 New York Times, number one, best sellers. 309 best sellers, he's just been amazing, but he sold the chicken soup company in 2008 and wanting to invest in renewable technology. So, he pulled me out of the car business.

He knew me, we knew each other and he had seen what I'd done in the automotive industry, pulled me out of there and we started renewable energy company. So, we went off that way for a while and built that and sold that, which was great. Now it's put me in the position to where I can focus on helping other companies and helping these people that are going through the challenges that I've been through and that are trying to make it, or they're trying to, you know, be more successful or grow their business or the ability to do all these things. And so, I love being able to do that and I love being able to be a part of that. And now I still work on projects all the time with Mark and I have these great people and we wrote this book together, How To Be Up In Down Times with Mitzi Perdue. Mitzi, her background is from a company called Purdue Farms. I think the third largest chicken company in the world and she's just an amazing person. They ran Purdue Farms. Her dad actually started shared in hotels, which is you know, one of the more well-known hotel chains around the world.

Steve Rush: Certainly is.

Preston Weekes: So, she's a pretty amazing person, but yeah, I've been fortunate to you know, be able to surround myself with all these amazing people and keep doing business to serve others. Because I think that's all it's about really.

Steve Rush: Serving other is the kind of core proposition isn't it of Operations X now. So, when you start to think about how businesses are set up, one of the common mistakes I often observe in other businesses is that whole resistance to outsource. And you called it early by saying that you focused on getting your frontline people focused on the key activities, where they could add most value and removed some of the noise. What do you think the reason is that some businesses just get stuck and don't embrace the opportunity?

Preston Weekes: Well, you know, people like control. You have an alpha, you know, red leader of a company, you know, they want to have control over their company. And so remote work has been, you know, a learning curve for people. And thankfully for me with this whole COVID thing, it's proved it. Now I don't have to prove remote work anymore. Now either people know, okay, remote works for me or I absolutely hate it. And it doesn't work for my company. It's going to make me fail, but you've got an opinion one way or another. You've got an opinion on remote work.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Preston Weekes: And often times remote work is incredibly successful, especially now with the emerging technology platforms and different things, the way we connect with people. And so, I think a lot of times, you know, that transition of going okay, you know, to go from, you know, overseas, people don't want to give away control. And people also think about risk, you know, naturally, you know, I was like, oh, I send all my stuff away somewhere, someone I don't know, you know, kind of a thing, but what's interesting. And what's really great that when people get into remote work, they realize these are just people. They just live somewhere else. It's not liked some big, crazy conspiracy thing. If you find the people that have the skills that you need and communicate the way you want them to communicate, then there's no reason not to work with people around the world. I’m going to get into it a little bit, I really think there's some big changing trends coming up. Obviously, we we've gone through crazy trends, 10 years of change in three months across the world. I really believe that and I could probably go off for a long time about that, but I won't right now.

But you know, looking at more changes in the pipeline, all the real estate and workforce situation is going to change. You know, what our office is going to look like for companies? What is a home environment look like for work? Who is the computer and the family and everything planned together with that? And so that stuff's happening and a trend is going to follow that. Like now a lot of people are liking working from home because they go, well, shoot, I just had to commute an hour to work. Say, let's say you have to commute an hour to work. We just picked up an extra over a work day by working from home. Cause over your five-hour work week, you just picked up 10 hours. If you work in an eight-hour day, you have over an extra day of your life back every single week if you're working from home.

And so, you know, I think the trends going, keep going that way. And then I think another you know, side effect thing that's going to fall out of that if people aren't paying attention to right now and keeping their head up, they'll find themselves behind the eight ball a little bit. Because let's say remote works adopted. Let's just agree on that.

Steve Rush: Right.

Preston Weekes: Let's just say some percentage remote work, the world adopted it. So now, what's stopping us from having borders on remote work?

Steve Rush: Exactly. What do you think is stopping us? Is there anything?

Preston Weekes: Nothing and it's past perception. It's trust, it's control, you know, it's those things. And in certain businesses, you know, there's some of those things that you can't overcome, like highly sensitive information and certain processes or Government things but most businesses, you know, you can get around that once you kind of open yourself up to it. It's just been amazing; our offices are based in the Philippines. Most of the remote employees we've worked with have been in the Philippines, which has been a really great fit for our culture here because it's predominantly, they follow a lot of predominantly western culture. There is things line up that are similar, you know, they tend to make those transitions easier. So, there's less teaching, less understanding, less breakdowns and things like that. Once people understand, you know, that this sounds strange. I mean, saying it out loud, but when I meet with clients or companies here in the United States, initially they immediately think less of the people that are not around them. You know? So, they go, oh, if I'm going to hire a remote team, they're not going to be as good as the team, you know, that lives on my street.

And there's this weird kind of thing that happens. There is a breakdown and actually a lot of these people, I mean, they're just as good or better than people you'd find. Because they're just people, they're just normal people. You're going to find good ones. You're going to find bad ones. And there's some of the most hard working and talented people know all over the world. So, it's going to be interesting to see, you know, what that looks like in the future with like the breakdown of work orders and then incorporation of AI into different things. I think our world's going to get so fast in the next 10 years and I could go on and on for that.

Steve Rush: I wonder also, if you think about the dynamic of recruiting, somebody remotely, you haven't got the physical biases that you might have when you first meet somebody, right? So, you haven't got the handshake, you haven't got the broader perspective of them. You might not be able to see their height, their size, their weight, all of which unconsciously, we carry some of these biases around with us, whether they're good, bad, or indifferent, we all have them. And given that the fact that they're not present, I suspect and I wonder if we're more thoughtful about the recruitment process for hiring the person to their skillset directly.

Preston Weekes: And that's actually, you know, an interesting thing because if you look at the mentality of hiring, it is very natural for companies to hire demographically, similar people. And you look at that as the culture of a company and you go well, and maybe there's some advantages if there's a very narrow niche market company that they're dealing with, but you know, maybe they're lacking some diversity and they're missing out on some market opportunity or, you know, different things like that too. You know, that actually naturally happens in the hiring process where you go, okay, you know, you see a lot a company with a lot of older people in it. They hire a lot of older people. You see a company with a lot of younger people and they don't hire a lot of older people.

Yeah, there's interesting dynamics with hiring. And if you go back to, you know, just basically skillset, I mean, that does bring this raw authenticity to it. It's kind of great and that's where our company comes in is, we're trying to help people because people don't know, you know, people don't know. How the heck do I do this? How can I trust them guy, give him my information, they are across the ocean, I can't, you know, go knock on their door if there's a problem? So, you know, we bring connectedness and we bring local representation too. So, say if you were replacing employees with me and I was your account rep, you know, you'd have your team there and they'd be working in our offices and we'd help them all set up and everything. But if you ever had a problem with it, you'd call Preston, say, hey, hey Preston, there's a problem here. Can you help me figure this out? And we sorted out and we off boredom, we hired someone else. We figure out if there's a breakdown in communication and try and resolve it. And so, we do all those other things to help support it because it's our goal to make successful outsourced relationships work and make them last and make them strong.

Steve Rush: Super fascinating. You've written a book. How To Be Up In Down Times with Mark Victor Hansen and Mitzi Purdue. How did the book come about?

Preston Weekes: Yeah, so it was actually funny. I was in a consulting meeting with Mark and Mitzi. They're both very good friends of mine. And we were talking and Mitzi was saying, it was very, very, very early when the first words of the whole COVID thing were happening. Mitzi is really, really smart lady that has a lot of a medical background and things like that. And she says, hey, I want to do a book that's 52 ways to help keep people safe from COVID and her legal team said, no, no, no, no, no, you can't do that. Someone's going to get sick. You're going to get sued. You know, you can't go out there and provide medical advice to an emerging disease and no one knows anything about. And so, you know, she said that and she was disappointed. We were on a phone call and I said, well, how about you just do a book 52 ways to stay positive during isolation.

Because now the world's going on lockdown. And she's like, I love that idea. And basically, we started collaborating and just had this mind melt of, you know, flow of great ideas and brought Mark in. And it was just this brainstorm of positivity, our goal was to help people and give people what they needed right now. And so, we took all the information we knew and we took all the information from all the experts that we know, which that you could ever even want to access. But yeah, we put this together and we did it to serve people and we did it, you know, I mean, if you look on Amazon, we priced the thing as low as possible because we want to help people. We want to pay it forward. I want to up people's lives right now when they're having a challenge, when they're having a downtime and that's how all this came about. And so, it's really from my heart and Mark heart and Mitzi heart to go on and help the world.

Steve Rush: And I love that principle because it is very philanthropic when you read it and you've got three kinds of approaches when you look at the book. You've got the soul tips, the mind tips and the body tips. And I thought, what would be kind of neat is if we maybe just take a couple of those tips out of the book, just to give a flavour to our listeners as to kind of how you've kicked it around and what that means. So, under soul tips, you've got negative news, how to deal with it. How do you deal with negative news?

Preston Weekes: Well, this is a big, big, big issue, you know, right now. I mean how I deal with it, tell you the truth. I'm probably a little more extreme. I don't even have TV in my house. We've got all of our, you know, digital things and I get the news and I listen to news briefs every morning and you know, those things and we've got every sort of, I think, online streaming thing you could possibly have, but yeah, I don't have any network television in my home because, you know, it's just this pounding, pounding, relentless negativity, and really what you surround yourself with weighs so heavily on yourself. And a lot of times we don't realize it, and so now I had a conversation with a good smart friend the other day, and he had a great reverse engineering idea, which I love that approach in life to reverse engineering everything.

But he said, if you're stressed out or if you're feeling anxiety, or if you're feeling these things, he's like, take a look, hey, just take a conscious look at what you're watching. Are your TV shows, stressful TV shows as the news you're watching, you know, stressful news that you're consuming because you're putting in all these subconscious factors into your body and into your mind and it sits in you and it stays. And I mean, in the beginning of the soul kind of section, I have a chapter called your position in the world really quickly to kind of pin that down. It all comes down to yourself. We really need to take care of ourselves because if we can't take care of ourselves, then it's so much harder to go take care of. It's inauthentic to go take care of other people.

Steve Rush: It is.

Preston Weekes: And so, we really need to have that solid, solid grounding. And then that, you know, we give a lot of different tips to do that and go through these different, you know, methods to go, okay, you know, how can we get cantered? How can we do this? How can we be better? How can we, and then, you know, move on from there. What's the next step?

Steve Rush: That's great and under mind tips. One thing that really intrigued me when I read that was around how music brings results. Just tell us a little bit about the research that you've done that.

Preston Weekes: Yeah, so I am friends with a guy named Dr. Bernard Bendok. He's the head of neurology for Arizona. And he's a head of neurology for the Mayo Clinic. Mayo Clinics are really a really prestigious hospital. So, he is like literally one of the top, top guys with brains. And I had the amazing experience of sharing Easter with him. And so, we were just sitting there chatting. He was telling me about the two ways to basically, you know, make your brain strong and make your brain last. Because there's always things like Alzheimer's and dementia and things that people fight. And how do we make that better? How do we make our brain more powerful? And he said, he gave me the two tips and one of them is music and the other one is actually language. He said the two most powerful, interactive things in all the studies they've done when they tear apart the top of your head. And they plug in all those electrodes and they see what's firing when they do these tests because you're awake when they do the brain surgeries, which is so amazing anyway, but they actually have people come in and they're playing the piano and doing things. And they're doing these tests on them and music lights up more places in your brain than pretty much any other function of what you can do. And so, it's one of the top exercises. And what Dr. Bendok says is that your brain is like a muscle, you know, and just like exercising, like if you get a cast, if you break your arm and your arms stuck in a cast, can't use it. You get your cast off four weeks later and your arm is weak, it's not strong, it's fatigued. Well, your brain's the same way.

And so, if we're not doing things and you know, daily, to push our brains to try to do something, to try to learn, to try to do that, then our brain is like that muscle its fatiguing. I mean, it might be kind of, you know, staying there. So, I have a mantra called, I like to say relentless improvement, and I have this theory that the world's always moving. So, it's literally is, the world's moving. I am sitting here in my office. I'm not moving, but everything around me is moving. All these people are doing things, always, you know, people are getting things done, they're working, they're learning, you know, life's happening around me. And so that's creating this motion, this inherent motion around me, that's always happening. And so, I am either progressing or digressing, if everything around me is moving forward. And I'm not, then I'm going backwards.

Steve Rush: That's really a neat way of looking at it, actually.

Preston Weekes: Yeah, that's a little personal, you know, that's from my life of action training stuff. So back to the music thing, you know, if we can do things like, you know, learn a new instrument that will help your mental acuity, you know, throughout late into your life. So, we should always be trying to do those things. I bought a drum set the other day. Well, not the other day, a couple months ago, but I don't know how to play drums, but I’m stuck at my office. And when I want a break, I put my headphones on and I just go rock out. And it probably sounds terrible, but I've got noise cancelling headphones on my head. And I sound like a rock star, I don't care. And I'm having a lot of fun.

Steve Rush: But it's also a kind of therapy as well, Isn't it? Because from mindful perspective, when you really focus on a piece of music, you just love.

Preston Weekes: Oh yeah.

Steve Rush: You don't think of anything else. You just get focused in the moment, which also not only is it a stimuli, you become more centred because you're more mindful.

Preston Weekes: Oh, and the drums are too. Because it's like a physical manifestation of your, you know, beating of your rhythm and so, I like it.

Steve Rush: Yeah Lovely. And then in your body tip section, one thing that I found really fun to get my head around was you have this section called, don't forget your thumbs. Tell us about that?

Preston Weekes: Well, you know, what's funny, I myself personally am kind of an OCD hand cleaner.

Steve Rush: And even more so now, I guess?

Preston Weekes: Yeah, even more so now, but you know, just going back to it, like the body tips, you know, the body tips itself, don't forget your thumbs. These things that we do to our body and we have that Tyler, your health as well, but kind of starts out, you know, the body section, but you know, really taking care of yourself and paying attention to those details and not missing it and thinking about it and being conscientious, you know, I mean with the whole pandemic thing and the whole, you know, getting sick thing. And I think a lot of times people don't realize, and I think it’s just being aware, you know, how much you touch things and you know, like I watch it because I've got kids.

And so, you know, my kids, I will go wash your hands, you know, say, go wash your hands, make sure they wash your hands really well. And then they turn around and they grabbed a toilet and like, well, okay, that was pointless now. And so, if we're washing our hands, I mean, it's such a silly thing. You know, you wash your hands and people don't think about their thumbs. They would rub their hands together and they don't get through. So, it's their attention to detail. Like bringing that little attention to detail, but that's one thing with the book is, you know how to be up in down times with having soul mind and body tips. You know, they're fun tips, they're quick, easy reads. And what we want to do is look at it comprehensively, because if you're sick, you know, your mind's not going to be doing well. You can't be focusing. You can't be exercising. You can't be doing all these things. So now all these things go all hand in hand together to make us be vehicles and positivity and to be vehicles of change and to be able to make a difference and to be able to help come out of, you know, these crazy things and these crazy times that are happening.

Steve Rush: Right, definitely so. So, at this part of the show is where I get to turn the leadership lens on you. So, you're not only a business builder for others, but you run your own businesses. And as such, you've been a leader for a number of years. So, this is where I want to tap into your leadership thinking, your leadership brain. And the first place I'd like to start is if you could just share our listeners, what would be your top three leadership hacks?

Preston Weekes: Top three leadership hacks. I would say my mantra. Number one is relentless improvement. You always need to be improving. So, leadership hack, you got to keep your head up. So relentless improvement. Leadership hack, number two. I would say is don't be afraid to fail and an extra one too, that kind of goes along that don't be afraid to fail is if you do fail, you're not a failure. And you know, I think a lot of people have a hard time differentiating that. If they have a business that fails or an idea that fails or a part of a business that fails or plan or product, you’re not a failure, it's just that thing. You just got to get back up and keep that relentless improvement, so don't be afraid to fail.

Steve Rush: Right.

Preston Weekes: And then find, you know, a leadership hack is, know deeply what your weaknesses are and fill those weaknesses with people that are strong in those areas. I would say that is huge, huge. Being able to acknowledge, you know, what your weaknesses are because a lot of times leaders have challenges doing that. And because we want to be that person that knows everyone, everything and can do everything. And if you can go, no that's not me. And surround yourself by a team that is that then you can be really powerful.

Steve Rush: They are Super great hacks Preston, and thank you. So, the next bit of the show is we call Hack to Attack. And this is where something in your past, hasn't gone as well as you'd anticipated, and maybe something screwed up or we've bumped into some adversity. But as a result of whatever's happened, we've now learned from that. And it's become a lesson in our life. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Preston Weekes: Yeah, Hack to Attack. I think a hack to attack. It goes back to a story that I would say, I would title, let people fail. I'm a hard worker. I'm a doer, like figure things out. You know, I'm the type I think I can do anything. And, you know, leaning teams, I found back a long time ago that I was leading these teams and I had a number of employees and I'm bouncing around from location to location. Things are good, but I'm just busier than I've ever been in my life. And I'm doing everything, you know, someone's got a problem I'm running over there. You know, trying to get things done and trying to get fast. I'm fixing it, so my assistant comes up and they say, hey, I can't figure out how to do this. So, I just do it and I fix it and my account comes up and says, hey, you know, I don't know how to do this. So, I just kind of do it and fix it. And then my sales guy goes, oh, I can't close this client, can you come help me close this client? And then the detail guy is like, I can't fix this part or get this stain out of the car. So, I go over and I just do it, but it hit me that this epiphany of growth, you know, transition in a company to go, hey, I am growing and I'm doing all these things. And I'm the one who knows how to do all these things. Because I built this business and I have a certain way I want them done, but I need to let these people go out and fail so they can learn because if I don't let people fail and I don't let people learn, I don't let people go out and do it on their own. Then I'm just creating more jobs for myself and I'm not replicating myself. I'm just creating more burdens for myself.

And so, you need to have that runway with your employee team, you know, to have them go out and fail and do and go out and fail and do. It's just liked my virtual assistant that I have for myself that she helps me with. She's doing stuff for me right now as we're talking. But there's things that are probably beyond her ability level from me learning. I have her do those things all the time. I go, hey, go write this. I might not even use it, but it might give me some good ideas, you know, of what I'm going to do. But I like to push people and push my employees so that they can learn and they can grow, which was the opposite of what I was doing, which was a big failure. All of a sudden, you know, I'm at one of my locations, I got 11 employees at the lot and I show up at that lot, all of a sudden, I have 11 jobs. And everyone's running up to me to do all those jobs. And so, it's really differentiating that from management position going, okay, you know, you set your employees up for success and let them fail.

Steve Rush: And reframing the failure of a task is just another way of saying I've learned something new.

Preston Weekes: Yep, exactly. And then it goes back to relentless improvement.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely. The last thing we want to explore with you today Preston. Is if you had the opportunity to do a bit of time travel now. You get to go back to when you were 21 and give yourself some advice. What's it going to be?

Preston Weekes: You know, if I were going to go back and give myself advice, I would say, there's so many things I would want to say, but yeah, I really, really like starting things grassroots. And I had a bunch of car dealerships that I started, you know, with my own money and finance and then I had a business partner and then I got to this point where I had some issues with the business partner. So, I wanted to leave, so I left the business partner, started up another company and replace that business partner with financing, his portion of that company. My 2020 hindsight and advice to look back is if you have the ability to not finance anything in your company and do it from a grassroots to build equity, do it because in the beginning it might be worse, but in the long term, it's in the end. And I mean, I've done okay. I've been fine, I've been aggressive and keep fighting. But I look back at that and go, okay. If I had done that with that company, you know, differently, I might have more money to do more things with. So that's, that's one of those, you know, learning courses to go, okay, if you can build your own equity instead of building financing and working for the banks, start small and get nitty gritty and fight it out because 10 years later you'll be happy you did it.

Steve Rush: I like that. People often have the perception that, you know, financing helps you grow quicker, but actually can hamstring you if you don't get your supply chain, right. You don't get your inventory right, et cetera, versus that does come with it though. The rub of, you need to be more patient if you're going to grow organically. And that's the rub I guess, isn't it?

Preston Weekes: And just to bring even a little bit more depth to that comment of my story, you know, on that lot, when we shut that lot down you know, I had 15 dealerships. And when we shut that lot down, you know, that was one coming out of the partnership. And, you know, we had car inventory that we owned, which was fine, and it was good. When we shut that lot down, but we also had a million and a half in financing. And if we didn't have a million and a half in financing during the course of that car lot existence, that million and a half would have been equity.

Steve Rush: Right.

Preston Weekes: And so, life would look a little different in between. But yeah, so that's my look back, old wise words.

Steve Rush: Great lessons. Thanks for sharing that with our listeners too. So as folk have been listening to you speak today Preston and they may be thinking, where do I find out a little bit more about Operations X? How do I find out a little bit more about How To Be Up In Down Times? And what about the work that Preston doing? Where would you like to send them?

Preston Weekes: Yeah, I mean, mostly everything you can find is on operationsx.com, it's operations with a plural and then just the letter x and so you can check me out on LinkedIn. LinkedIn, I think it's backslash energy guy is my profile or whatever, but yeah, Preston Weekes, W-E-E-K-E-S and I'm happy to help people, you know, it's just truly, truly my mission to make other entrepreneurs succeed. And I absolutely love and appreciate all these amazing business owners and CEOs that I get to coach and consult with and work with to help grow their businesses. It's absolutely so much fun. I met so many amazing people along the way, like Mark Victor Hanson and Mitzi, and just these crazy big leaders of, you know, our country, billionaires and Andy Stevens and Traymore Crowes and Ben Carson and all these cool people, I have had a lot of fun.

Steve Rush: And you know, the best thing about working with great people like this is that you never stop learning either. And that's what I love about what I do too.

Preston Weekes: Yep, That’s your relentless improvement!

Steve Rush: And it is, for sure.

Preston Weekes: Yep, awesome.

Steve Rush: Preston from my perspective, I just want to say massive thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us today on The Leadership Hacker Podcast, you've been a super guest and good luck with whatever you do next.

Preston Weekes: Absolutely, thanks so much for having me. Stay safe, great talking to you. Keep up the amazing work and everyone out there have a fantastic day.

Preston Weekes: Thanks very much Preston, take care.

Closing

View Details

Ed Evarts is a leadership and team coach, a strategist and author of "Raise your visibility and value" and his latest book, "Drive Your Career". He is also the host of Be Brave at Work Podcast, in this episode, learn from Ed:

Why leaders who have high self-awareness are more effective in connecting with others
How to take control of your own career
Why having a positive relationship with your boss is a foundation for your future career
The million dollar question
Plus loads more hacks!

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more from Ed:

Ed on LinkedIn

Excellius Website

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway Video Oscar Mix up courtesy of Eyewitness News

Full Transcript Below

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Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is Ed Evarts. He is a leadership and team coach, a strategist, author of the book Drive Your Career. He is also the host of Be Brave at Work Podcast. Before we get a chance to speak with Ed, it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today. We are going to explore the notion of productivity and how that has been impacted during the pandemic. UK staff admitted that they get away with an average of 2 hours and 20 minutes less work per day because their line managers and leaders are struggling to adapt to remote working habits during the COVID-19 era. Following a poll completed by workforce behavioural consultants, mindgym, where they interviewed 2000 professionals who are currently employed, which means they need neither furloughed nor serving notice. The poll shows employees could be really taken advantage of remote working patterns to disguise slack in their schedules, which if as leaders were not careful could trigger a productivity collapse.

According to the poll, 43% of respondents said they can carry out more than two hours, less work per day without their line managers even noticing. So let's explore some of the other key data in the poll. 37% of UK workers are less motivated in their jobs and as a result, 30% admit to being less productive. Half claim that their line managers have had no impact on their performance whatsoever during remote working. Almost a fifth claim, their line managers have had a negative impact on their work. 28% cite that either a clear lack of guidance or boredom with tasks as being key to their disengagement. More than a fifth claim to not know what is going on with their immediate teams on a day-to-day basis. In addition, a quarter feel tired and exhausted from working from home with one in five suffering from severe loneliness.

mindgym co-founder and CEO Octavius Blank said, “given the anxiety from lockdown and the ineffectiveness of managers in this new environment, masses of UK workers are likely to either opt out or burnout. The impact on UK productivity would be catastrophic. The way to prevent this crisis is not to stop remote working, which when properly handled can bring great benefits, but for leaders to step up and develop new managerial muscles needed to lead effectively in this turbulent era”.

And of course, this is not just a UK issue. Wherever in the world you are listening to this podcast from will all experience similar behaviours if we open our eyes to it and these behaviours can also be present in your business too. So is the answer stronger leadership to fix the problem? So in my experience, it would help if the standards, expectations and consequences of both positive and adverse behaviours were really clearly defined. We can properly assess our effectiveness together. Compassion is a key driver. How many of us as leaders would have asked over the pandemic? What do you need from me so that you can be good? You can do the best work you can.

And of course this isn't micromanagement. This is about unlocking a sense of autonomy in your team and what we have to do as leaders to recognize that we need to tune in to what our teams need from us as leaders and a much more deeper level than ever before, so that has been The Leadership Hacker News today. If you have any insights, news, or stories, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining him on the show today is Ed Evarts. He is a leadership and team coach. He is the podcast host for Being Brave at Work, and he is a author of his new book. Drive Your Career, 9 High Impact Ways to Take Responsibility of Your Own Success. Ed, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Ed Evarts: Thanks Steve. It is great to be here.

Steve Rush: So it is always great to get a fellow podcast host on the show too. That is part of what you do now, but tell us a bit about the backstory, that got you to be author, coach, podcaster. How did that all happen?

Ed Evarts: Well, 12 years ago, I was not an author, coach or a podcaster. I was working in corporate America in a variety of roles in retailing and in business, business services with a business focus in human resources. I left my last organization in May of 2008 and decided I had really completed my experience working in corporations. I found that experience to be very unrewarding and exhausting, and so I decided to explore the idea of doing two things. One opening my own business, and working for myself and then figuring out what I would do. And the answer came quite easily, which was coaching and so I spent the summer of 2008, networking with people. To find out how to coach? When to coach? What you charge? How do you get clients? I mean everything that you can think of because I was really starting from scratch. And by September of 2008, decided I would open up my own practice, so today 12 years later. I do three areas of business in the marketplace. One is face to face one-on-one leadership coaching. Although today with the Coronavirus, most of my coaching is a virtual.

Steve Rush: Right.

Ed Evarts: I do team coaching, so I work with teams to be more productive and effective. And then I also do something I call business strategy, which is, I work with small businesses who are experiencing something they've not experienced before and it might be a new geography. It might be new technology, a new acquisition, new products or services, and they don't know how to move forward in effective ways. And so I help them think about that and then of course, as you've mentioned, a couple of secondary activities, although they are a highly active, the podcast Be Brave at Work and then my book Drive Your Career.

Steve Rush: Now we are going to get into Drive Your Career in a moment and have a think about some of the ways in which we can take responsibility for our own career development and success too. Before we do that though, perhaps just tell us of some of the key things that you are working specifically with on right now with your clients. Either themes or things that present themselves that would be of interest.

Ed Evarts: You know, one-on-one leadership coaching, the challenges that leaders have are very consistent from leader to leader for them, of course it is a unique situation, but the challenges that they face are very, very consistent. And these are leaders who are looking to be more visible or add more value to their organizations, and just are not sure how to do it. One of the things that we have not allowed to happen in corporations around the globe is spending time with yourself, right. Closing your door, and putting your feet up and looking at a whiteboard and saying, who am I? And what am I doing? Am I doing it? And am I where I want to be? And things of that nature, we have our heads down working on projects and objectives and goals and initiatives, and don't have time to think about ourselves.

So the beauty of one on one coaching is it provides people a time to do that and to think about themselves. And so that work is very, very exciting and interesting because you get to work in all sorts of industries with all sorts of people, with all sorts of challenges, and you're really helping them organize them so that they can move through very effectively. In team coaching, I utilize a program called the five behaviours of a cohesive team and this is based on Patrick Lencioni book, The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, and with that program, we are really helping leaders figure out how to work better together. And it's fantastically rewarding for teams to learn about how they can trust each other more, how they can navigate conflict more, how they can hold each other accountable more. And I love delivering that program and working with clients on that, and then in business strategy. The challenges are varied and endless, right. So there's so many different areas, whether it's legal or real estate or marketing or sales or human resources, you know, whatever it might be that the client needs help with. With one client, I am helping implement a revised performance assessment program. The current program they have is over 10 years old. I mean, it was created back in a crazy year, like 2008 or 2009, right? And it needs updates, and so I'm working with that. Another client, we are doing a salary survey. It is the first one they have done at their organization and it is a non-profit, so it has all these unique characteristics that we need to be sensitive to, so I certainly have my hands full on a variety of different areas of interest.

Steve Rush: That is great to see Ed as well and they are not mutually exclusive what you talked about, are they? So, you know, leaders have to look introspectively. They often have the responsibility to help their team dynamic shape up and of course, strategy underpins all of that, so I should imagine, you are incredibly busy.

Ed Evarts: Well, and you know, when you look at one-on-one leadership, coaching. Is I tell my clients, my number one goal is to help them build their self-awareness, so that they can self-manage more effectively, leaders who have high self-awareness are going to be more effective connecting with others. Leaders with low self-awareness ones, assuming all of us, you, me and all of our listeners have experienced are very hard to work for and very hard to work with. And their career development can be very problematic, so a leader with high self-awareness is more likely to be successful.

Steve Rush: It is really interesting that I observed when I coach leaders too. That without the forced or unforced time that we spend through our coaching environment. We set some time aside, there is still appears to be this lack of not always, but a general lack of I'm not going to put enough time aside for me, that recovery time, that thoughtful time is just treadmill, head down versus spend time with the coach. What do you think causes that?

Ed Evarts: I think it is the culture of the environment and I am speaking both from my own experience, being in corporations for 20 years, as well as a recurring experience I have with clients. And back when I was a corporate executive, we were so busy with so many initiatives and projects and activities and meetings and conference calls. We never had time to focus on ourselves nor did the culture and encourage it, so they never created a place where people could take a half hour a week just to think about yourself. They never created roles where someone could meet with you and say, hey, let's talk about you. How are you doing? How is it going? Are you working on what is exciting and fun for you? Those types of things don't exist naturally in organizations. And I think there are a few organizations that might do that type of work, but most organizations don't do it culturally and nor they have people at their companies who kind of foster that type of activity, and so ultimately it just doesn't exist. And I would tell you that the vast majority of my clients, and in my experience as a corporate professional, it doesn't happen at all.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it is really interesting, isn't it? And that whole kind of self-awareness is where it all starts of course.

Ed Evarts: It is, you know, I tell my clients all the time that at an organization, the one person who should know how people think about them and how people experience them in the workplace is you, right? I mean, you need to be the person who knows the most about how people experience you and what it is like to work with you. And we don't spend time really helping people do that effectively, and so it's a gap at most organizations.

Steve Rush: You are absolutely right and that whole self-awareness manifest itself in the same way when we look at our career development, which I suspect is aware your interest and appetite come from putting pen to paper. Just tell us, what was the driver behind you putting pen to paper?

Ed Evarts: So my first book was actually Raise Your Visibility & Value. Drive Your Career is my second book. My first book came really from my 20 years in corporate organizations and finding time, once I became an independent professional to really put what I had experienced and what I thought was happening in the world into a book. And so Raise Your Visibility & Value is really focused on helping people be more visible, a subset of which is networking but, you know, at the time I left my last organization, networking was the key word. I mean, if I had a nickel for every time I heard the word networking, I would be a billionaire. But I thought, you know, networking is a key activity, but there's really a bigger, broader umbrella, which is visibility, right? That I need to be very visible within my organization and industry.

And then if you are going to be visible, you need to ensure that you're providing value. You need to ensure that you are not just a person, everybody knows, but nobody knows what you do, but you are seen very, very valuable at your organization. So that was Raise Your Visibility & Value and then Drive Your Career really comes from my 12 years as a leadership coach and quite technically, Steve was one of those shower moments where I was just thinking about how there were current conversations I was having with multiple clients that were very similar. They were very similar experiences and stories that they were having that aligned, right? From time to time and, you know, the magic number became nine that I sat down one day and said, so what are these recurring themes or experiences that most of my clients are having most of the time over the last 12 years. And so I put the list of nine together and, you know, created some content around each of those and my goal certainly is to help people build their self-awareness by reading some information that can help them create greater alignment between themselves and their career objectives.

Steve Rush: How much of your experience Ed, do you think mind-set plays into this? Because you call out your nine high-impact ways to take responsibility for your own success, which I wholeheartedly subscribed to, but there is this mind-set thing that some people have a perception that it's not my responsibility, or I have to wait for opportunity. Ed How does that play out? When you think about that?

Ed Evarts: Well, there was a time in organizations where training, and development and career development were not your responsibility and organizations had huge structures that set up training for you and programs for you. And when you started as a junior executive, this is what you had to do and you kept growing and they kept developing you, et cetera. Today in most organizations, the responsibility for that is you and there is not these structures that require you to do X, Y, and Z in order to be successful. Of course, there is still training programs and things of that nature, but the emphasis has really shifted from the company to the individual. And it's really mostly about self-accountability. It is about being more knowledgeable as to who you are and what you want and looking for ways on how to achieve those objectives. And I'm not an expert on mind-set, but I would tell you that mind-set and getting your head around, owning your career, and that's why I call it drive your career because you need to drive where you need to go.

And what you want to do versus being a passenger is super critical because people who are passengers are going to wake up one day and say, how did I get here? What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Whereas drivers say, here is what I need next. Here is what I want to do next. How do I get there? And I go, and I figure it out to ensure that I get there.

Steve Rush: And take control of course.

Ed Evarts: And take control, right? You own your career. Nobody knows you better than you and you need to ensure that you are taking the right steps, investing the right amount of time and effort on the things that will help you. If roles or opportunities that you are presented with aren't going to help you advance your career, make good progress, you know, whatever the pluses are that you're looking for. It might not be the right next step for you.

Steve Rush: Right. Within the book. There were a couple of chapters. That I thought would be useful. just to unpick because they intrigues me, as I spun through it. The first one was positive relationship with your boss. Tell us a little bit about how important you, believe that to be?

Ed Evarts: So I don't put the chapters in order of importance, so it's not like number one is the most important. Then number nine is the least important. I think all nine are important. Although I will tell you, number one, I started it with a reason because I do think having a positive relationship with your boss is very important in the workplace. And when you think about a boss at the workplace, your boss is really like an umbrella that kind of covers your career and covers you as a participant in the organization and when people want to know about you or delegate work to you, oftentimes they're going to go to your boss first. And so your boss is the person who, if they are a good boss and I know not all bosses may fall into that category. Needs to be the gatekeeper for you.

And so you need to ensure that you have, what I call positive relationship with your boss. It does not mean you are best friends. It does not mean you go out on Friday nights, and get margaritas and visit each other at your home on weekends. But you need to ensure that if somebody asks your boss about you, they have something very positive to say. People who have a good relationship with their boss will have greater career satisfaction. People, who have a bad relationship with their boss, will have less career satisfaction. There is always a third thing in the room. There is you, there is my boss and then there is this third thing of animosity or bias or frustration or anger, whatever it might be. That is always there conflicting our relationship, and I need to get rid of that to ensure that I have a positive relationship with my boss

Steve Rush: And it does take work, it takes practice, it takes thought, it takes crafted thinking so that you communications, right. And it is a positive dialogue you having, otherwise very quickly some of the things that could present themselves, unconsciously, such as biases and so on and so forth could also then play in. In my experience Ed, this is kind of fundamental because they are the gatekeeper to whether you get on or not, aren’t they?

Ed Evarts: They are, as I mentioned. This book came from 12 years of leadership coaching and while I am not a statistician, I would tell you that 85% of my clients wish they had a better relationship with their boss. And I'm not saying the relationships were bad or that they were enemies, but they wished that their relationships were better and part of the impact they were experiencing in the workplace. Partially was due to the relationship not being better.

Steve Rush: Right, absolutely spot on. Now, there was one chapter in the book that really made me chuckle. I am keen to get inside this with you and its bell curves rock. Tell us about that?

Ed Evarts: Well my wife is a math teacher and she hates the fact that I use that phrase because she thinks of misusing what bell curves are. But you know, this is essentially a reminder to folks that as a present information to their team, as they prevent present information to their organization, they may be presenting information to a board of directors. You know whomever it might be is to recognize and think about the information they are presenting like a bell curve, which of course is as you know, bell shaped a mathematical calculation, but on the right are all the people who are going to love your idea. And that's where we tend to spend most of our time. Why is this a good idea? Why is this going to be great for the company? Why is this the most wonderful thing that anybody could ever do?

And that's where we tend to spend most of our time. We don't spend enough time on the left side of the bell curve, which are people who won't like the idea and why won't they like it? And what are the problems it might create? And what are the obstacles that we have to get through? And oftentimes when people go to present information. They spend a lot of time on why this will work and why this is a wonderful idea and they are under prepared for any challenges or pushback they might get. And so it's essentially a reminder to be equally prepared for the lovers and the haters, right? The lovers of the people who love it, and think it is a fantastic idea and let's do it tomorrow. And the haters who are concerned about cost or scope or time or people or whatever it might be, you want to ensure that you're equally prepared for both sides, so you can continue to make progress. The number one thing that will stop you in an organization or slow you down are the people who don't like your idea, who cause you to have to revisit and go back and redesign stuff. And if you had thought about those issues and concerns upfront, your likelihood for making progress would be much more likely.

Steve Rush: And they can be great advocates as well, can't they?

Ed Evarts: They can be, oftentimes in organizations, people who have customer complaints will tell you. They love a customer complaint, because if they turn it around, they now have a great story that they can tell about how somebody came, who did not like the company, or did not like the service or offering that they provided and we converted them and then people love conversions. And so, you know, these haters as I call them, are people who pushed back on your idea in the bell curve are people who you can convert, who can become great heroes for your project, your initiative, whatever it is that you're trying to convey and do to be more successful at your organization.

Steve Rush: It is a neat visual, if you think about that whole bell curve and I think it just helps give people the context of where their focus should be, really neat, I like it.

Ed Evarts: Good.

Steve Rush: Another section of your book, which I found really intriguing was pausing, is powerful. Tell us a little bit. About how that came about?

Ed Evarts: So, this also came from client experience with business owners who are very, very fast paced and these are people who think about their business more than anybody thinks about their business. And they think about their business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks, a year, and operate at that speed. And most of the people who work for you, who love you and love what we do and love the organization are not, you know, 24 by 7 by 52 weeks a year. And they find it hard to keep up, and so it's very important for leaders to recognize that their pace may be a little bit different than the pace of others. And in order to manage that pace a little bit, it can be very effective to pause. And so pausing is not stalling. Pausing is not slowing down. Pausing is ensuring that you are saying to people, things like, hey, you know, I heard a lot of great ideas at the meeting today.

I would like to think about them tonight and I will get back to everybody tomorrow with an update. It's providing an opportunity to slow down a little bit, to ensure that you're thinking deeply about whatever it is that you need to do now to remove issues and concerns and confusion later on. Most projects I have worked on, and organizations and most projects my clients have worked on. I asked, you know, are there times when you have kicked off a project down the road, do you have to pause or stop or redesigned because there was confusion or people did not do what they were told to do, or people did not understand what they were asked to do. And the answer, you know, 95% of the time, yes, we always do that. So pausing becomes a way to shift later what you're going to be doing to today to ensure that you're kicking it off much more effectively and reducing the likelihood that you're going to be late much closer to the deadline.

Steve Rush: I have also observed that those leaders, who demonstrate that thoughtfulness before they respond, tend to create more buy in as well.

Ed Evarts: Well, they create much, much better connections and I won't share the story today, but in my book, some of you who might be movie fans may remember the 2017 Oscar telecast where Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announced the wrong picture.

Steve Rush: Yes, remember it very well.

Ed Evarts: Right, so that is a great example of pausing because if Warren Beatty upon looking at the envelope at the beginning realized there was an error. He could have said, hey folks, I need to pause for a minute. I don't think I have the right envelope. Someone would have come out. They would have given him the right envelope, which you know, later on in photos; you could see he had the best actress envelope. He did not have best picture, and the whole thing would have been solved, but you know, Oscar telecasts run long, right? They are historically run way longer than people would want and it killed, you know, 8 to 10 minutes of time with people apologizing and confusion and craziness because he did not pause to think about what was happening.

Steve Rush: It is a perfect example. When you watch it back, isn't it of communication, application, leadership. There is loads of lessons in there.

Ed Evarts: Oh, absolutely. And you know, my favourite is when, you know, he paused, I say he pauses, but he wasn't pausing. He was looking at the envelope and he did not know what to do. And people thought he was being melodramatic, right? Cause sometimes you go silent before you announce a winner just to build up the emotion in the room. But in reality, he didn't know what to do. So what does he do? He hands it to Faye Dunaway. It is like, here, you take care of this, right. I don't know what to do, and she announces it of course incorrectly, right? So the whole thing to your point was just a series of errors that could have been prevented if he paused at the beginning and said, you know, I think we need to do something a little bit differently here.

Steve Rush: And just so, our listeners know what we are talking about, I'll drop the YouTube link into our show notes so that when they've finished listening to us talk, they can actually go ahead and watch it and I'll make more context for it.

Ed Evarts: That would be great. Like you said, it's really interesting to watch.

Steve Rush: Sure is, so if I am a leader Ed and I'm wanting to unlock my next career move. Giving your vast amount of experience, both in the corporate world and as a leadership team coach, but what would be your recommendation I do first?

Ed Evarts: Well, I am a big fan of helping people build self-awareness and so my first recommendation would be that you ask what I call the million-dollar question. And the million dollar question is for subordinates. It is for peers. It is for bosses. It is a question that you ask, you know, two or three times a year. You don't ask it every week, but you ask it on occasion. And the question is what's one or two things I could do differently to be more effective? And I like it because you're only asking for one or two things. You are not asking for, you know, 30 or 40, you are asking what you can do differently. You are not asking what you are doing, that is bad or you know. What can you do? That is better. Cause people don't like judging and they don't want you to feel like they're judging you and differences a nice levelled word, and then who wouldn't want feedback to be more effective. I would love to give you feedback to help me be more effective, so I think if leaders are more curious in respect to how people are experiencing them in the workplace. Listen really well to the feedback they are getting and of course the answer is always thank you, no matter how critical or costly it might be, you know, that's a great way to build your knowledge of how people experience you in the workplace and modify how you're operating in effective ways.

Steve Rush: Right, like it, so now we get a chance to turn the leadership lens on you and this is where I get a chance to hack into your leadership thinking and your leadership mind.

Ed Evarts: Uh-oh

Steve Rush: The first place I would like us to kick off though. Would be to find out what would be your top three leadership hacks?

Ed Evarts: So I think I just shared one of them, which was to ask the million-dollar question. This is not a question that gets asked a lot in corporations around the globe. And it would be super critical that people take time to find out more about how others experienced them in the workplace. And people you asked the question to will have one of three answers for you, either they’ll be ready to go and say, gee, I'm so glad you asked that question. Here is a couple of things I think you could do definitely to be more effective. They might say, gee, that is a great question. I need to think about it a little bit, so can I give you an answer next week? Or they might say, you know what, Steve, you're the best boss ever. I can't think of anything different you could do to be more effective. Everything that you do is fantastic, and all three of those are possible and you don't want to let people off the hook. So if they need more time, give them more time. If they tell, you are the best boss ever. Thank them and say, you know, I would love to still hear and maybe you just need to observe a little bit differently. What I can do a little bit different on my part to be more effective. So, you know, that is one leadership hack that I think people should take very seriously.

The second is really to listen more leaders. And we talked about it earlier, especially those leaders that don't pause or go, go, go and believe that the higher they get in the food chain, the more they know and because they know more, they can tell more. And it comes a tell exercise and of course, great leaders are not themselves, the ones that make all this decisions and do all the great work, but they have a team of people who have careers who want to grow and get challenged and developed. And so, you know, listening more and listening a lot is a great way to build your effectiveness as a leader, and most people can listen more. I can listen more. You can listen more. We can all listen more effectively to be better leaders.

And then the third, tie to listening more is being more curious. Sometimes in order to listen, you have to ask questions, and so rather than give answers to people off the top of your head. When someone comes into your office and says, hey, Steve. Client A call, they want us to do XYZ. What do I do? Most telling leaders would tell you the answer, but you know, what you might want to do is be a little bit more curious and say, wow, that sounds like a challenging problem. What do you think? And if the person says, well, I don't know. That is why I am here. Say, well, why don't you think about it a little bit. Why don't we meet later today at two o'clock and why don't you come in with two or three things you think we could do differently to be more effective? And so being more curious, listening more and asking the million dollar question are all great ways to help you build your self-awareness.

Steve Rush: Ed they are super hacks. I really love that whole philosophy of curiosity, by the way, because by default, you also start to create a coaching culture. Cause you asking the questions of other people to think on their feet, to be more agile in their thoughts. That is also the start of our coaching conversation.

Ed Evarts: It is, and you know, it’s amazing Steve, because it sounds easy to do, but it is hard to do, right? So it sounds like an easy idea. Be more curious, okay, and yet you have to remember to do it and then you have to benefit from doing it and you have to do it on a recurring basis. I have had leaders who swear to me that they are being more curious, and then as I have seen them operate one-on-one with people they are not curious at all. And you know, one of the benefits of coaching is you can call people on it without fear of bias or agendas. So it is really easy to think about, but hard to do.

Steve Rush: Practice makes perfect of course and the more you do it, the more it becomes second nature.

Ed Evarts: You got it. Most of the things that I work on with clients, most of the things I think you do require practice.

Steve Rush: It does, yeah, absolutely does. So the next part of the show, we call it affectionately Hack to Attack, so this is where something in your work or your life in the past, hasn't gone as well as planned. Maybe we screwed up with something. It may be that we have bumped into some adversity, but as a result of that experience, we've used that experience as a learning in our life and our work, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Ed Evarts: So I think my Hack to Attack would be around transparency, I will be very candid. When I first started my independent practice, I was looking for ways to generate revenue, but I was also not being very transparent with my significant other on how it was doing. And I was presenting a much more frosty or rose coloured impression of how things were going. Then things really were because I did not want her to have to worry. And that created a number of challenges for us from a relationship perspective, and so I learned, and I can't remember when I learned it, but I essentially flipped a switch and began behaving in a different way. And today I'm extremely transparent with her. About how it is going, what is working, what is not working, did I land a client? Did not land a client, things of that nature to ensure that she is very clear on how things are going. Because if she is clear on how things are going, our life is clear on how we operate and how we can move forward. So I think a lot of people, when they start something new, whether it's, you know, I can make an endless list of projects, whatever, you know, maybe a little glossier and frostier in respect to how they're making progress. And I would encourage people to really focus on clarity and transparency to ensure, you know, everybody is kind of rowing in the same direction.

Steve Rush: I love that, and I can resonate with that too Ed. Having had some similar experiences over both my consulting career and my corporate career. And you know, what, I've also learned is that people believe what you say. So if you say it is beautifully and there's gold and it is shiny, then there is an expectation that is what we give. And if subsequently you can't deliver that, then you lose credibility, ironically, don't you. And of course, therefore being transparent gives you the opportunity to be candid and to be open and naturally reduces lots of stress and anxiety that comes with it too.

Ed Evarts: Yeah, and you know, you make a great point regarding credibility because if you're not transparent, you're losing credibility and now you have to take more time to get back to zero and then grow credibility, right? So you've got to dig yourself out of a hole even to get back to zero before you can start moving forward. So it's more work to get from where you might be if you're not transparent. And I just encourage people to be transparent because then you're starting from base and moving forward versus kind of digging yourself out of a hole.

Steve Rush: Sure, so the final thing that we get to do today Ed is to do a bit of time travel. So our listeners will be very aware now that we're going to take you to a place when you were 21. And we're going to ask you to have the opportunity to give yourself some advice. What would your advice be to Ed at 21?

Ed Evarts: Well, at 21, I was graduating from the University of Arkansas in beautiful Fayetteville, Arkansas, and heading out into a career in retailing where I would spend about 20 years and then another 10 years working for a business-to-business services company. I think my advice would be, and ironically is to find a way to work for yourself sooner.

Steve Rush: Okay, yeah.

Ed Evarts: You know I left my last organization due to a layoff. I worry sometimes, or I think sometimes. I would still be there today, if that did not happen. So what was the worst day of my life where I got laid off. I tell people 12 years later was the best day of my life because I got kicked out into the cold cruel world of unemployment and independent consulting and it turned out to be a fantastic, fantastic experience and I wish I had done it sooner.

Steve Rush: If only we could have had that crystal ball. Right?

Ed Evarts: If only.

Steve Rush: Exactly right, so, Ed I guess from today, folk are probably listening, thinking, how do I get hold of a copy of Drive Your Career? And how can I learn a little bit more about the work that Ed does? Where is the best place they could 1, find the book and 2, learn a little bit more about your work?

Ed Evarts: So you can go to my website, excellius.com and that is e-x-c-e-l-l-i-u-s.com. You should get a popup that talks about Drive Your Career and you can order the book there. It will take you to a link that has a number of ordering platforms across the globe to order. So it's not just Amazon, but a bunch of other connections that you can make to order the book. And that also has a lot of information about me, excellius.com or ed@excellius.com is email, and you can always contact me there for information.

Steve Rush: Awesome and all of the information about you Ed, the website, your book, we will make sure in our show notes as well.

Ed Evarts: Fantastic Steve, thank you.

Steve Rush: Ed it has been absolutely brilliant talking. It is no surprise to me, why you have been so successful on your own outside of corporate America. And helping others develop, and I wish you every success with Drive Your Career. I am pretty certain it's going to be a big game changer for a lot of people looking to take responsibility to their career, but thank you ever so much for being with us today on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Ed Evarts: Thank you, Steve. I have really enjoyed speaking with you.

Closing

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Ben Renshaw is a thought leader who specialises in purpose led cultures; he is a speaker and author of nine books - the latest is called "Being" – what you can learn from Ben in this episode:

The concept of “Being” - shifting from humans doing to human being.
The six principles of “Being”
Why those that trust their line manager were 12 times more engaged
A creativity model – A.C.T.

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more from Ben:

Ben on LinkedIn

Ben’s website https://benrenshaw.com

Full Transcript Below:

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Start of podcast

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is Ben Renshaw. He is a speaker, a coach, consultant and popular author of nine books, including Purpose, Super Coaching, and his latest book Being but before we get a chance to speak with Ben, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Do you believe in luck? Today in the news, we are going to explore the principle of luck. Now you may have heard the phrase, you make your own luck and I certainly believe in showing up working hard and attempting to be exceptional at work. And I also subscribe there may be a small proportion of chance, timing, coincidence, and destiny, call it whatever you will. There are some people, who always seem to be on the right side of luck. We might think of them as being Jamey and lucky and fluky in some kind of strange way. You might be at a quote, a phrase such as Samuel Goldman quote. The harder I work, the luckier I get, but really being lucky is a system that anyone can apply to reap the rewards again and again, and based on my dozens and dozens of interviews with exceptional leaders, here are my five habits of these lucky people.

They show intent. The more tickets you buy a raffle, the more likely you are to win, right? People who think of themselves as lucky tend to put themselves out there more than most are willing to. They find some comfort in uncomfortableness and this means that they win more opportunities. Of course, they also lose a lot too, but you're less likely to hear about that. They practice taking risks and get better at working at what looks like a great gamble and overtime they spot the best value opportunities. Work the odds, make sure they are in their favour and go for it. Of course, constantly worrying about the negatives will stop and hold us back from getting those lucky breaks.

Paying it forward. The luckiest people I know aren't all sure business people, professional gamblers. They like succeeding in life and work and they want others to do the same too. They feel that they have been fortuitously; dealt with a winning hand and in turn, they share their knowledge. They become mentors and coaches and aid to other people. They have an attitude of gratitude. Lucky people hold an attitude of gratitude. They can regularly list out things that they are grateful for; they have trained their minds in themselves to notice where they have been fortunate and have started to believe that good luck follows them wherever they go. They say, thank you for every favour. They never forget kindness. Their gratitude means people love doing things for them too, doors always opening.

They keep it real. Lucky people are not consumed with small and irrelevant details or things that don't really matter. They are not wasting their time and energy with the inconsequential methods because they know that their input is far better placed elsewhere. They notice when they're in too close to a situation, whether they're seeing tunnel vision or leading with fear, and they can quickly adapt and switch to regain perspectives and choosing new favourable approaches. They are network magnets; lucky people just attract other lucky people. It is almost as if we think that their luck will rub off and others. The truth is that every lucky person I know is updating and speaking within network regularly. They are checking in, catching up and looking to grow their network, grow their knowledge and experiences and they don't know for sure it will lead to lucky breaks, but amazing opportunities often follow.

So maybe being lucky is merely a mind-set and a way of life. Becoming lucky, it is possible for anyone who believes it. My invitation to you is act like a lucky person and watch what happens. That has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any insights, information, or stories that you think our listeners would love to hear, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today is Ben Renshaw. Ben is a thought leader who specializes in purpose led cultures. He is a speaker and author of nine books. The latest is called Being, which is a practical playbook for leading in the age of fast change. Ben, welcome to the Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Ben Renshaw: Steve, great to be together. Thank you very much.

Steve Rush: I am really intrigued in your backstory and how you've arrived here and I wondered for our listeners perspective, you can give them a little sense of how you've arrived here. As life did not start out in the world of business and coaching, and leading. You started out as a classical violinist, right?

Ben Renshaw: Yeah, it is very true. Mine, in fact, my whole family and background was music and education and I grew up as a violinist, but you say a little music school called the Yahudi Menuhin School, which is nestled in the kind of countryside of, Surrey. It is a very beautiful patch, right now it is next to Chelsea football club, so their training ground is next door. And in fact, my father was the headmaster, so he ran the school. There was no intent when he took the role. I had one sister that we would go to the school, but we played music and went to local schools, but then all my friends are at the school and I auditioned went through all the normal channels and somehow got in and I had a very kind of love, hate relationship with it. I was talented and I was good but music was not my thing and I kind of sensed that from quite an early age. However, I really did not like academia, so there was a trade-off there. It was just easier to stay at the school, excel in music than have to peddle away on my GCSE and A-levels. When I left the school, I landed up at an institution, the Guildhall school of Music at the Barbican in London and hated it. I am not an institutional person. I rebel I rally against it, and so very quickly I quit and I fell into the world of person development, and I actually landed up in America and I did all my initial training there and just got completely passionate and ignited about human potential and what was possible and that really then began to unfold. And I went through a few incarnations. I specialized initially in the field of relationships and actually many years ago, I was kind of known as the relationship expert and fronted shows. There was a show called Perfect Match on channel 4-pre reality TV, and I did a lot with Richard, and Judy and GMTV a whole bunch of stuff.

And then I ran a project called the Happiness Project with a colleague Dr. Robert Holden, and we specialized in positive psychology. That then took me into the world of business and started working with organizations like British Telecomm in the mid-nineties when there was a lot of change and transformation, and it really went from there. And then I fell into the world of coaching and absolutely loved that as a methodology and approach for getting the best out of people and then transitioned to the leadership and that took me to where I am today.

Steve Rush: Super backstory and I wonder, do you notice some parallels between your life as a musician in terms of the discipline, rigor, practice, as well as noticing those same parallels in business?

Ben Renshaw: Yeah look, it is interesting as a great, great point, and I think they fall into a few categories. So one is about talent and if I think about the way I spend my time now, kind of really as a connoisseur of talent. I specialize in catching talent and igniting talent, getting the best out of talent in other words, people and I think growing up in a specialized environment that was very much top of mind. Secondly, around performance so again, as a musician, practicing four to six hours a day with a relentless, relentless focus on performing at your optimal ability, again, absolutely translate that into business. But I think in terms of my qualities as a coach, what I bring a lot of my music with based on things like listening, empathy, understanding, and really having that connectivity into playing together. So actually, the music I enjoyed the most was a string quartet, which is very much a team effort, a team experience, and again, I spend a lot of my time developing high performing teams, so there are a lot of parallels that I draw upon.

Steve Rush: And ironically, when you hear that metaphor, we can get the violins out. You are probably one of the few people that actually can get their violin out. Right?

Ben Renshaw: Well, not anymore. Now I actually, I kind of burnt out on the violin, which is a shame in a way, because, you know, by the age of 20, I mean, I think it was Malcolm Gladwell, the author that taught about 10,000 hours and, you know, for mastery. And I don't think I quite reached my 10,000, but I put in a lot of hours, but because it wasn't my passion and it wasn't my purpose. I burnt out and I, and again, that is something I really look at cause, you know, I am fascinated about mastery and excelling and what you do and peak performance and what that means and take. And I think that there's a whole bunch of ingredients that contribute to that. Discipline, effort, persistence, never giving up is certainly one of them and grit and determination. And I had a lot of that, but I think it also has to be married with absolute passion and love for what you do, because I think that's where I fell down in music.

Steve Rush: It is one of the only things that you can almost not train, you can't train passion. It is an innate, isn't it, it comes from other things that obviously you can train around, you to create passion. But actually if you haven't got that far in the belly, it's probably one of the hardest to coach out, isn't it?

Ben Renshaw: I agree, yeah absolutely. And for me, that's all about the discovery process and that's, you know, through my work and coaching and development of leaders, for me, it's all about drawing out that sense of purpose and that passion in order to get the best out of people on a very consistent basis.

Steve Rush: Got It, so your new book Being is based around six principles for leaders so that they can be more agile and adaptive in the world that we're in at the moment. What was the inspiration behind this book?

Ben Renshaw: All my writing is all based on experience. Essentially what I've learned over the years is I'm very, I think I'm very intuitive and I do stuff without really knowing what I'm doing. I then go through a process of writing about it and then it kind of comes and makes sense and it goes, oh, okay. So that's what I'm doing. Now this concept of Being, and the fundamental idea here is a shift from human doing to human beings. And really the reason for the book is because the feedback I always receive from leaders I work with. With probably the most powerful and impactful thing they took from my work was this concept of being, and in essence, I think what tends to happen particularly in business is that the language I user say, look, we become human doing, and we forget that we are human beings.

And what I mean by that is the level of task and transaction that people get consumed by. They literally become machines and they forget the humanity. They forget that at the end of the day, we are human beings and that quality of being is absolutely essential in order to be visionary, be inspiring, be effective, be connected, be relational. All of that starts with the quality of your being and leadership ultimately is about how are you being, which will then definitely go and shape what you do. So this is not about not doing, but you've first and foremost, you've got to be clear about how to you want to be.

Steve Rush: Really neat and you've created six principles that sit underneath the principle of Being that will help us as leaders to step through some self-discovery and self-awareness, before we get into that doing stage. I thought what would be really helpful for our listeners is to maybe take a brief tour of each of those six principles and the first one you call out is being humble, which sounds really simple to people. It is academically simple but behavioural; it is much more challenging, isn't it?

Ben Renshaw: Oh, absolutely. This for me is probably the biggest challenge for leaders. Why? Because most leaders are recognized, then they get promoted, you know, on their expertise and they begin to think that they really good at what they do and they may be good at what they do. But when you get to a position, a leadership, it's a different ball game and just being good at what you do is not enough. Being a content subject matter expert will get you so far but then what happens is, oh, you get people. Actually, then it's a completely different proposition in terms of creating followership and actually being able to get the best out of people and you just been brilliant at what you do. Yes, that is going to help and of course, it is going to get your credibility, but it is not enough. And actually the way that you then really begin to connect and build relationships and create the conditions in which other people can be at their best and do stuff is through humility because probably the number one switch off in an organizational context is arrogance.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Ben Renshaw: You know, I have seen so much of this where, you know, on the whole I don't question people's intent, leaders intent in organizations. You know, I think most people on the whole show up and their intent is to do a good job and help the organization and not deliberately undermined people, but because we're human, which means we've got blind spots. And for the majority of people, they don't have a level of awareness that they need in order to really understand how they come across and the impact they have and the shadow that they cast as a consequence of that. I mean, the number of examples I could give you where literally people's lives have almost been destroyed by so-called, you know, leaders. Their arrogance, their narcissism, their cynicism and it is unpleasant. So I feel very strongly that you need to start with this concept of humility and there are a few bits to that. That means you got to be able and be willing to be vulnerable. You've got to take the risk to show your humanity. We are human we are fallible. We all make mistakes. If you make a mistake, just say, sorry, if you need help, ask for help. It is really simple stuff but actually for a lot of leaders, they find this very challenging.

Steve Rush: I guess this comes from that place of brand protectionism or most of themselves and showing humility. There is this maybe nagging doubt that they will be less strong as a result.

Ben Renshaw: Completely and look, I think that, you know, if you look at the impact of coronavirus and you know, my experience now is wherever you go, nobody knows what is going on, nobody's got the answer. Who can predict? Who can predict tomorrow? Let alone today. So I think actually what that has really accelerated, you know, in organizations and for leaders, it absolutely precipitated this need for vulnerability and openness and humility. And in particular an amazing term coined by the psychologist, Amy Edmondson, psychological safety and psychological safety is essentially creating the environment and the conditions where everybody has voice. Everybody feels safe enough to speak up without negative consequences and it is within those conditions where people can really hear what is going on, what they see, what is their experience. They can challenge and out of that, you know, you create the Aah and the ideas in order to be able to move forward as a collective.

Steve Rush: It is really neat. Super, love it. The next one of your six is being present. What is the concept of being present?

Ben Renshaw: Yeah, so the idea here, I will bring it to life with a fellow father. I've got three kids and a fellow father a while ago told me how his 10 year old son came running home from school. This was pre COVID and came into the kitchen. Dad, dad, I want a chocolate biscuit and his father said, what is the magic word? Now, you know, we live in this instant generation. We want everything now and yet what's really interesting. We are so bombarded by information, I mean, neuroscientist estimate that we are having to process 11 million pieces of data and information at any given second. The conscious mind can only manage about 50 and that is on a good day, so we have to really learn to be in the moment to be present and available because otherwise what happens is we get run by something called the autopilot. It is a great friend is part of the brain, which essentially is associated with fight flight. Yeah, so it's literally becomes a condition response and it's just habit and it's familiarity and it's great. Because it's quick and it's fast and it's reactive and it, you know, and it's there to protect us, but in order to be conscious and deliberate, which we require today, we need to be very intentional, very present for instance, about how are we going to be? How are we going to show it? What impact do we want to have on others? And in particularly, as you mentioned earlier around the need to adapt today, you know, this chapter really talks about things like navigating speed and embracing emergence when we're in an environment of the unknown and welcoming disruption in order to navigate all of that, we've got to be able to be present in the here and now. And probably the main tool that I encourage people on that is mindfulness. I mean, mindfulness is simply about awareness. It is the ability to pay attention to what is, and to remove distractions but anybody that has practiced a little bit of mindfulness knows it is not easy. It is not straightforward, so it really is a discipline that you've got to build

Steve Rush: And like anything disciplines need practice and practice comes from repetition.

Ben Renshaw: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: The next part of your journey is around adaptability being adaptable. That kind of makes sense that mostly there's today in particularly the ever changing world where we need to be adaptable, but what is it you've observed that stops us being as adaptable as we like?

Ben Renshaw: Yeah. Look, I will give you an example. I was actually just working with someone this morning and they have just taken over a new role and executive officer role within a very established organization. And they were saying that, you know, pre-empted by COVID, but change needs to happen. They cannot continue working in the way that they didn’t even though some of those working practices didn't work, people still want to go back to them and revert to them. Why? Because of course, they are familiar and they are comfortable, even if they don't work. It is very rare, my experience. Is very rare to come across anybody that wakes up in the morning, it goes, yippee, all changed today. Some people, if I was being really generous, I'd say 10% of people love change, thrive on change, drive change, lead on change. Probably say about 5% in reality, most of us mere mortals, you know, we need to get comfortable with it. We need to then adapt to it, so if we take what is going on at the moment with, you know, homeworking. Initially, you know, it was hugely challenging for people and for organizations, you know, for many, many years, even though people said they wanted to work from home. Companies thought, no, you are just having the day off. They did not trust people, all of that. Now, you know, we're actually at a trend where people are, you know, yes, there are obviously huge challenges come from working with home in particular, you know, in terms of those young children or if they are not equipped for it. And of course it takes away from that social interaction, et cetera. But people have adapted and they're now saying they want to say working from home. We can adapt, but it is not straightforward and this chapter encourage people to think ahead, to be able to anticipate the change that's coming down the line to flex themselves and then be prepared and willing to stretch and take a few risks in order to adapt quicker and better.

Steve Rush: And in my experience as a coach, sometimes the motivation, the light bulb, if you like happens after the event, particularly if you look back over what we've just experienced.

Ben Renshaw: Completely, and again, we need to be able to build it in and so therefore that adaptability also will include that yes, there will be a bit of lag time as well.

Steve Rush: The next principle is a brand being connected, which is much deeper than just collaboration and networking. Isn't it?

Ben Renshaw: Yeah, it starts with the whole premise of trust and it’s quite interesting. There was some fascinating research done last year by an Institute called ADP and they interviewed over 19,000 workers globally. And really, you know, what they synthesize was when you're talking about engagement and people being engaged, you're talking about trust. And what they found in particular as an example was that those people that trusted their line managers were 12 times more engaged, 12 times more engaged because of trust. What is really fascinating, again back to neuroscience is actually you can measure trust, so we have, what's called neural mirrors. We get wired up to trust and pick up, and I've seen studies done where they've wired up, people's brainwaves, and you can actually see the brain frequency entered how much I trust you and whether I trust you or not. So, yes, when you're talking about being connected, it starts with that trust then out of that comes real partnership, which means obviously, and in particular in today's world where we need a lot of sensitivity, we need a lot of understanding. We need a lot of acceptance and compassion and out of that, you can then create an inclusive environment where everyone, everyone feels that they have a sense of belonging.

Steve Rush: And that sense of belonging also plays into your next principle too, doesn't it? around being curious and how you create the environment for curiosity in the workplace?

Ben Renshaw: Yeah, it is. I was interviewing for the book. I got to interview a lot of the leaders I worked with and there was one CEO. I said to him, so what is the one thing, the one thing that you are looking for from your, you know, your employees? And without hesitation, he just came back and he said, intense curiosity. Most people don't know what is on, so therefore actually, what is going to help you navigate that? Well, you've got to be curious. Intensely curious and ask questions and explore, create the time to think, you know, one of the things I have really challenged leaders with as a leader, you are paid to think, but most of the time you are too busy to think. Thinking is a form of work, so you've got to recognize that and out of that, then it unlocks creativity and all of that then really helped to accelerate growth for organizations.

Why? Because you are doing better thinking, you've got that curiosity and a real kind of growth mind-set to a company.

Steve Rush: And let's face it. It is more fun as well. Isn't it?

Ben Renshaw: It is a lot more fun. I mean, you know, I am an educationalist at heart. I have an absolute passion for learning development and helping the next generation become better and create a better world. That is one of my core drivers. If you are not curious, you are not going to get very far. So, you know, asking questions like what if, and what is possible? And that just really opens up that world of possibilities.

Steve Rush: And in the book, you've got a great model that helps people think about their creativity and you call it the act model, A-C-T. Maybe just give us a quick summary. Of what the act model is and how it can help us?

Ben Renshaw: So look, it starts with autonomy and you know, I think we all need to have a sense that we have the space and we have the conditions to think and to think for ourselves. And, you know, most, most people I work with what they really value and what they really value from leaders is where they are just allowed to get on with it. I have never, ever yet met anybody that loves to be micromanaged.

Steve Rush: Exactly, right.

Ben Renshaw: Let me be in the detail of your thinking and all your actions. It is one of the biggest turnoff. Now I get it, people need the detail. They need to know what is going on. They need to escalate. They need to manage senior stakeholders. Yes, I get that but please give people autonomy. You are dealing with adults here treat them as adults. Secondly, then you are talking about capability and we all have our strengths and that is critical, critical to really, really know and understand your strengths. And a strength is not just what you're good at, but it's where you get your energy from. It is what really energizes you. And so, as an example, you know, writing for me is not a strength or am I don't think I'm particularly good at writing. It, it is not like a natural thing for me. I have had to learn to write. I have to apply massive discipline to my writing, but it really energizes me. So strength, isn't just what you're good at, but broadening and building your capability, then obviously it's critical in terms them being able to act and be a better version of you.

And then T is for thinking, and again, part of the reason I write, for instance, literally it forces me to think. Because I am a doer, I am a man of action. I love getting on with stuff. I find that really easy where I'm very, very challenged is when I'm asked to think about stuff, so writing is my discipline for thinking

Steve Rush: It is a great tactic as well, to get you to think, and literally by just asking questions and then writing responses. Forces a habit of thinking as well, doesn't it?

Ben Renshaw: Correct, Absolutely.

Steve Rush: I love that, and then the final principle of your six is being inspired. Tell us a little bit about that?

Ben Renshaw: For me, when you look at leadership, the number one ingredient that people look for in leaders, inspiration. To inspire, you need to be inspired yourself. So where do you draw your inspiration from? And there are a few elements I talk about here in the book. Number one is around purpose, and I have a complete passion for purpose. That is kind of what I am known for, is around leading with purpose and, you know, purpose is your big why. It is why you do what you do. It's your absolutely fundamental intrinsic motivator, which really enables you to be the best that you can be, so that's a key element. Another element is about values and really living to your values and being true to yourself. Another, as I just mentioned is around playing to strengths, also having vision and really creating a compelling picture for yourself of a future that really excites you and energizes you and move you in that direction. Out of that, I think you get your energy and it builds your resilience as well. What I have noticed for myself is most of my resilience comes through from adversity and all the challenges and hardship I face, and I build that resilience and I finished the book, you know, refine, reflections, back to purpose in terms of putting purpose first.

Steve Rush: And when I skipped through the book, I just loved the practical application of it. So for me as a leader, as a coach, but also just taking away some ideas and tips, the books, pumped full of great ideas as well. So we will share with our guests how they can get hold of a copy of Being, shortly Ben, but before we do that. We are going to turn the leadership lens on you now. So this is where we get to hack into your great leadership mind and the first place I would like to go is to find out what your top three leadership hacks are?

Ben Renshaw: So look, I love the question. So number one for me is about being yourself. I deliberately avoid using the word authenticity, cause I think it's overused, but the concept of that is be yourself. Now, the challenge with being yourself is that you've got to know yourself. That is all very well telling somebody, you know, be who you are, but you've got to understand who you are, and know who you, and that for me to lifetime exploration. But I think anybody, anybody that shows up as themselves, people value it and warts and all - there's no such thing as a perfect leader. There is nobody, that's got it together. You know, being human means we are fundamentally flawed and your ability to understand those flaws and actually bring them as part of your hack humanity is absolutely key. The number one is in terms of being yourself.

I think number two probably what I feel most strongly about is about appreciating others. You know, what really drives me and why I do what I do is I have seen so much of the outcome of poor leadership where people are not respected. They are not listened to, they are not valued. They are not appreciated. They are not cared for, they are not listened to. I mean, what for me is so basic and fundamental, and yet people don't do it. You got to be kidding me, but it's what goes on. So for me, that genuine, genuine appreciative of others is key. And I think the third one is, I’m not quite sure how to frame it, because it sounds a bit frivolous, but enjoy it, you know, have some fun along the way. I mean, my experience of life is life is hard, so that is just my experiences. Life is a struggle, it is hard every day, you know, challenge after challenge after challenge, somewhere within that, you know, you have got to be able to really enjoy it and be energized by it and I think therefore all of that therefore makes it worthwhile and meaningful.

Steve Rush: More focus we have on enjoyment of the things that we do. It creates that positive mental model in our mind to help us keep focused on doing the right things versus focusing on adversity.

Ben Renshaw: Correct.

Steve Rush: About mind-set, I guess. Right?

Ben Renshaw: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Steve Rush: So the next part of the show we are going to kick around with you is what we call, Hack to Attack, and this, is where we have learned from adversity or something that has gone wrong in our life or our work, but we have used that learning and it is now a positive in our life. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Ben Renshaw: I think the main one I have had is around honesty. I found this the most challenging within an organizational context where I grew up in an environment, like I mentioned, you know, my father was my headmaster, run the school. It was a little boarding school and then age16; I found out that he had affairs throughout the marriage. My parents divorced, it was very public. It was very painful. It actually was one of the triggers for me into my own personal development. So I kind of vowed about this need for honesty and then what I found myself, working in organizations at the most senior levels around executive tables. The politics and agendas and the dynamics made for honesty, very, very difficult. And now there are certain organizations that talk about radical transparency, so like the Netflix and stuff, and they're kind of known for that. I think my biggest learning is because what I realized I used to try and get people just to hang out all their dirty laundry to dry. Did not work really did not work and actually often created more friction because people, were not ready, they were not prepared. They did not have the skillset, they did not have the mind-set, they didn't have the ability to navigate a lot of that sensitivity, so I've had to really learn to be more considerate and thoughtful about how you bring people together. How you broke a relationship, how do you create that cohesion and how do you create the environment and the conditions. And again, that probably for me, it's where psychological safety, I feel so strongly about that and I have so much resonance with that. Because most of the time, a lot of the environments I'm in people are afraid. They are afraid of losing their jobs. They are afraid of the potential implications of that. They are afraid of making mistakes. So again, helping people feel safe is key, but I have had to really learn on the way in order to do that in a way that feels right and true for me.

Steve Rush: That is super learning and I can reflect back on my career as well and I think honesty is always sort isn't it, we always want people to be honest with us, but it's also being candid and being honest is actually quite a skill because it takes thought, it takes awareness of how we communicate that too.

Ben Renshaw: Absolutely and most people don't have that awareness. Most people are not aware of the impact they have on how they come across. So even if they got good intent and they are thinking about being honest, they haven't thought enough about how that may land, what are the implications of that and potential unintended consequences. So all of that need to be taken into consideration.

Steve Rush: Diffidently does. The last thing we are going to do with you today Ben is take you on some time travel. You get a chance now to bump into Ben at 21 and give them some advice. What is it going to be?

Ben Renshaw: Relax, relax, relax. You know, if I look back, I think about all the things that I've neuros about, all the things I've worried about. So I am 53 now. So that is what? 32 years since I was 21. Most of those anxieties never came, never happened, and yet when I think about the amount of energy they took, then that was a lot of wastage, a lot of wastage. So I think that the message will be relax, trust, but of course the challenge is that until you've built muscle, in order to be able to know that you can genuinely relax and trust, you can't just tell it. So I love the idea of here is my 21-year-old self. Relax, trust the process, but I get, I also really get with that. The actually in order to get to that place where you can relax, you probably got to accumulate the scar tissue along the way,

Steve Rush: It is a real shame, isn't it? We can't kind of hardwire into our fifties when we are 21 and kind of bring some of that muscle memory forward. I think I would have been much more practical 21 year old as well.

Ben Renshaw: I know. I know. I know. You know, obviously I tried that with my kids and I would like to think, I mean, my daughter's 18 and you know, like just getting a level results and yeah, I was genuinely, I had no anxiety around it. A I really don’t about those things in turn the results. I care that she is, you know, rewarded for all her work and what she does. But not the yeah, the actual letter or number, and I'd like to think that because I'm able to be a bit more like that now that rubs off on my kids, so that's kind of where I see it.

Steve Rush: Super and actually I did some research for my book quite a few years ago around entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial spirit, and most entrepreneurs that I interviewed and researched have actually funked most of their high school or their education ironically.

Ben Renshaw: Oh yeah. Completely. Certainly if you are in the entrepreneurial space, I would almost say it is a prerequisite. Why? Because you are a rebel, and you think differently and you don't care, you don't care about the rules and you know, so absolutely. So whether you are a Jobs, Zuckerberg, oversee all the big famous ones but I would agree. All the entrepreneurs. I know they are not there because of their A level results, that is for sure.

Steve Rush: So where can our listeners get a copy of Being, Ben?

Ben Renshaw: Oh look, I mean, obviously, the easiest places, is Amazon. So you know, go on there and you are welcome to visit you know benrenshaw.com but probably where I am most active is LinkedIn. So, you know, be great for you just LinkedIn me. I was doing like daily thought for the day during the whole COVID run. I have just taken a break. I have come back. I will start kind of reigniting that, because that was really helpful for me as well, just in terms of more time to think for me. I love just being in touch and great to get your feedback and let's keep the conversation going.

Steve Rush: And we will make sure we help you with that conversation and our listeners to connect with you by making sure all of those are in our show notes, as well as on our website for when we are done.

Ben Renshaw: That is fantastic Steve.

Steve Rush: Ben I have super enjoyed reading the book; I have particularly enjoyed the times that we have met and I really wish you all the success with Being, I have absolutely no doubt it is going to be a huge hit and I wish you every success for what happens in your future, but thank you for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Ben Renshaw: Steve that you so much, you are doing brilliant work and it is great to be part of it.

Steve Rush: Really, appreciate that. Thanks Ben.

Ben Renshaw: Lovely.

Closing

View Details

Bruce Tulgan is the founder and CEO of Rainmaker Thinking Inc. He is a prolific writer, having published over 21 books, including his latest book, The Art of Being Indispensable at Work. In this episode learn from Bruce:

How to be the go-to person and not get overwhelmed
Avoid over commitment syndrome
Know when to say yes and when to say no
Get yourself a go-to-ism and think like a go to person.

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more from Bruce:

Bruce on LinkedIn

Bruce on Twitter

Rainmaker Thinking Website

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Joining me on today's show is prolific writer, Bruce Tulgan. He is also the founder and CEO of Rainmaker Thinking, before we get a chance to speak with Bruce, it's The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we explore how the generations are adapting to grammar. Experts have found that the correct use of full stops in text messages, actually make young people feel uneasy. As it symbolizes that, the recipient is either annoyed or rather simply concluding a message and they want it to carry on. A recent study claims that young people are intimidated by full stops used in social media communication, as they interpreted as a sign of anger. Teenagers and those in their early twenties who are known now by generation Z or generation Zed, if you are in the UK. Have grown up with phones and smartphone technology intend to use much short and abbreviated messages using very little punctuation.

So when full stops are used in text, younger people often perceive it to be passive aggressive and a sign of irritation. According to the Telegraph, Leiden University Dr. Lauren Fontaine tweeted, if you send a text message without a full stop, it is already obvious that you have concluded your message. So if you add that additional mark for completion, they will read something into it and it tends to be intonation or a negative term. And looking back in 2015 study from The Hampton University in New York involving 126 undergraduates found that texts ending with a full stop were perceived as insincere. Whereas messages ending with exclamation points were considered more heartfelt. Professor David Crystal, one of the world's leading language expert argues that the meaning behind the usage of full stops is changing fundamentally. He argues you look at the internet or anything like instant messaging as an exchange now uses fast dialogue. People simply don't put full stops in, he says. Unless they want to make a point, or if you are a dinosaur like me, who has been brought up with grammar. So in the age that we work in live in today, just be thoughtful of your audience, and the leadership lens here is know your audience and adapt your communication style verbally and written to make sure it makes the most sense. That has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, stories or insights, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Bruce Tulgan is a special guest on today's show. He is the founder and CEO of Rainmaker Thinking Inc. He is a prolific writer, having published over 21 books, including his latest book, which is The Art of Being Indispensable at Work. Bruce, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Bruce Tulgan: Thank you so much for, including me.

Steve Rush: It is our pleasure, indeed. We are going to get into the subject of writing and your latest book shortly, but before we do that. Perhaps you can give the listeners a little bit of an insight as to how you have arrived at being the founder of Rainmaker Thinking and a little bit about the journey that brought you here.

Bruce Tulgan: Yeah, so 27 years ago, I was an unhappy lawyer at number two Wall Street, and I set out to answer a question really, which is, what are your young employees whispering about over lunch? Of course, I was one of those young employees and I had a conversation with a senior partner at the law firm where I was, an associate. And I said to him, you know, if you only knew what your young employees were whispering about over lunch and he got so curious, I could tell, you know, so I thought, well, I'll write an article about that. And I started interviewing people and I never stopped, so that's really how I got going. My first book was Managing Generation X. That was based on my first batch of interviews, and over the last 27 years, we have interviewed more than a half a million people from more than 400 organizations and everything we do is based on these ongoing in depth interviews.

Steve Rush: And intergenerational leadership is something that is close to my heart and my clients too, it is becoming more prolific. We've now got kind of four, and in certain cases we've got five generations that are all working at the same time. And that's probably the first time that's happened, including of course the generation X and Y millennials, etc. Right?

Bruce Tulgan: Yeah. I mean, when I started out, I was young and so I was interviewing young people. One of the longitudinal studies we've done for 27 years now is about the great generational shift in the workplace and in the workforce overall, and so, you know, Gen X now are no longer young, millennials are no longer young. I mean the young people in the workplace now or post millennials, so we have tried to keep our finger on the pulse of the new young workforce for a long time now. I wrote a book called Not Everyone Gets A Trophy about the millennials. I wrote a book called Bridging The Soft Skills Gap, How To Teach The Missing Basics To Today's Young Talent about the late stage millennials and post-millennials. And every January we release a white paper called the great generational shift in the workforce and just trying to share with our clients what we're seeing in terms of generational change in the workplace.

Steve Rush: It is really fascinating and that's a core part of what Rainmaking do now, but perhaps give us a bit more broader insight as to what Rainmaker Thinking do?

Bruce Tulgan: So we have three longitudinal studies going now. The first one is the great generational shift. The second one is about leadership communication in the workplace. How people communicate up, down, sideways and diagonal, and what works and what doesn't, what gets in the way. And what we find in that ongoing study is we're always looking at why does communication in the workplace so often default to unstructured communication and when you have unstructured communication, often you lack substance. And what happens is problems hide below the radar, and so many of the things that go wrong in the workplace, we're able to tie back to unstructured communication. And so one of the things we do is try to help our clients put more structure and substance into their communication at every level, and then the third, longitudinal study we've got going is called winning the talent wars.

And it's about trends in staffing, strategy, training, performance management, and retention, succession planning, knowledge transfer and again, what we try to do is whether the labour market, is favouring employers or employees. We are trying to track long-term trends in the labour market, and what we have been tracking now for more than two decades is a shift from the old-fashioned long-term hierarchical career path to what we call a more of a short term, renewable transactional career path. And so those are the three main studies that all of our work is based on. The reason I am able to write so many books is because, you know, we're always doing research. So every once, in a while, I just press print Steve, you know?

Steve Rush: Yeah, got you. One thing that's really fascinated me about the time that we've spoke is that you have got this real insatiable appetite for writing and knowledge. Where does that bug come from?

Bruce Tulgan: I often think of Dorothy Parker, the great American writer. She famously said I hate writing, but I love having written.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I know that feeling.

Bruce Tulgan: And I think maybe, I love having written. So, you know, I'm always doing this research. I don't want it to go to waste. I type really fast, so I'm not sure. I think my insatiable desire to write, I don't know if I would describe it that way, but you have me examining my own self here in. This count as great interview because here you've got me really thinking.

Steve Rush: I guess, from what you have described, it is more about the writing as a by-product of your appetite to want to share knowledge and insights that you have captured. That would be a fairer summary

Bruce Tulgan: Yeah, I am student first, and foremost. I think probably what I am best at is being a student and what I am at heart is a student. I see myself every time I go into an organization. I want to learn about the organization and the people. I want to learn what is going right, what is going wrong, where there opportunities, where there are puzzles, where there are opportunities to help. And you know, if you're always asking questions and taking notes eventually you get common denominators. When I see a problem return over and over and over again, then what happens is I start looking for solutions and if I can find a solution then I got a book.

Steve Rush: Awesome. It sounds great. It is a great approach to capturing knowledge information, and then sharing it elsewhere. And in the latest book, Being Indispensable at Work. The principles about the book is around winning influence, beat over commitment and get the right things done. So what was it that set you on that path?

Bruce Tulgan: Well, what we see over and over again is of course, everybody at work wants to be, I mean, look, some people don't want to be that indispensable, go to person. Some people want to hide. If you want to hide, you are not my kind of person. You are not going to be interested in my books. You know, my books are not filled with shortcuts and easy solutions. Most of my books, the punchline is work harder, work smarter, work faster, work better. You know, most of our punchlines are take a walk every day and eat your vegetables. But assuming that you want to work effectively, that you want to be one of those indispensable go to people, then the thing that usually gets in the way. If you want to be a go to person, people go to you and if they keep going to you, you get overwhelmed and if you are over committed then pretty soon you are juggling. If you are over committed, pretty soon, you have to start saying no, if you're over committed, you're dropping the ball. You have delays, mistakes. You do damage to relationships. The puzzle I was really trying to solve in this book is. How do you become one of those indispensable go to people without succumbing to over commitments syndrome?

Steve Rush: And it is a bit of a by-product of being great at what you do. Isn't it? People will always come to the people they can trust. And in the book you talk about this over commitment syndrome. So if I am a leader and I have got over commitment syndrome, or my team have, how can I recognize it in me, and others? How would it manifest itself?

Bruce Tulgan: Well, look, you know. If you want to be indispensable, you have to play a longer game. And the big mistake that people make is thinking, well, if I'm great at what I do, then I'm indispensable. Well, okay, you got to be great at what you do, but we've all known technical experts, nobody wants to work with. Right? And they said, well, if I work harder than everyone else, I'll be indispensable. Well sure, but we have all seen people who work their heart out, but don't really get things done or they don't get the right things done or they don't get things done right.

Steve Rush: Right.

Bruce Tulgan: Right and they said, well, okay, it is all about attitude. I got to have a great attitude. Well, we have all seen people who have a great attitude who end up over promising and they really want to be helpful, so their way of manifesting a good attitude is they say yes to everyone and everything. Well, if you say yes to everyone and everything, you are not making good decisions; you are going to get over committed, and it means you are likely to, not really be able to serve anyone ultimately optimally. So, you know, you have to play the long game, but the long game is played one moment at a time. So look, here's what happens. Some people they want to be indispensable, so here is what they do. They say, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Until they are over committed, and then they feel like they have no choice, but to say no. So then, they start saying, no, no, no, no, no. Until they get a break or until they get some of their time back, and then they say, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, Again. But they're saying yes, because they want to please in the moment and they're saying no, because they're overwhelmed and they have to say no, but people who are go to people who were indispensable, who stand the test of time, they take each request as it comes and they try to make a good decision. They know when to say no and how to say yes.

Steve Rush: So I guess one of the coping strategies for this is, and you call this out as a chapter in your book. It is when to say no and how to say yes. How would I know when the right time is to say no and how should I then say, yes?

Bruce Tulgan: Well, you got to make a decision. So if what you're doing is saying, yes, because you want to please, that's not the right reason. Right? You want to please, so yes is where all the action is. Yes is how you prove yourself. Yes is how you build relationships. Yes is how you add value. Don't waste your yeses, right? Yes is also a commitment. If you say yes, then you better deliver and that means you need a plan of action. It means you need time to execute and so you want to say, yes, when you can deliver. You want to say yes, when it is a good idea and what we have learned is that, you know people who say you have to learn how to say no. It sounds great in theory, but you can't sugar-coat your no such that anyone wants to hear it. You know, it is still no.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it is true.

Bruce Tulgan: You know, so the key to know no, in the long term, it is having a reputation for being right. It is having a reputation for being aligned with leadership. It is having a reputation for being professional and business-like. It is having a reputation for how you conduct yourself. You are all about serving others, but you make really good decisions because you know, if you're going to serve others you got to make good decisions. Cause you can't do everything for everyone. So you have to do the right things for the right reasons, so when Steve said, no, I stop and think, gee, if Steve said, no, maybe this was not the right ask. If Steve says, no, maybe no is the right answer. If Steve says, no, I better listen to what comes next. That is the long game; you want to have a reputation. You want to be known for making good decisions for being responsible, for being service oriented. You are not saying no, because you don't want to help. You are not saying no, because you are overwhelmed. You are not saying no, because you are feeling like you are drowning in work. You are not saying no, because you don't like me. You are saying no for a good business reason, so that is the long game. In the short term, the trick is you've got to be aligned with your chain of command. So know where your boss is coming from. Know what your boss would say. What are the values, the priorities, the ground rules, the marching orders, so you have your good vertical anchor, and then when somebody makes a request? Listen, tune in. The best way to put yourself in a position to make a good decision is spend more time on the ask; now that is true if you are making an ask. Make sure that you shape a really good ask, but so much of what people have to say to you at work is asking. Stop and tune in, pay attention to the request.

What you really want to do is, is ask the asker the right questions. Exactly what do you need? How do you need it? When do you need it? How can I help you, help me help you? And the more you pay attention to the ask. The more you are going to see is this a big ask or a small ask. Is it a small ask, hiding as a big ask or a big ask, hiding as a small ask. You got to tune in and then if you can't do it, the worst thing in the world you can do is say yes. When really, you are not going to be able to deliver or if you say yes, when you really are not allowed to deliver, or you say yes, when, hey, this is really not a good idea. So a good, no is a huge favour and every good no is there to make room for a better, yes.

Steve Rush: I love that principle of tuning in, because in my experience as a coach and as a consultant, as well as leading businesses, understanding the request is so, so important to getting a yes, and actually I suspect, but the more time you spend tuning in, the more likely you're going to say yes to the right things that you'd be able to deliver effectively. Right?

Bruce Tulgan: Absolutely, that is what it is all about.

Steve Rush: Is there a room for a maybe in here?

Bruce Tulgan: Yeah, I mean, that is right. When you don't know the answer, the best thing you can do is engage with the ask, get to know that request better. Sometimes when somebody asks you for something and they make a request, you are the wrong person. Because they don't really understand what you do or maybe they're asked because they don't really understand what you do. Maybe there asked needs work. It needs to be fine-tuned, so sometimes you want to help somebody fine-tuned there ask, go back. Maybe sometimes the answer is not yet. Sometimes the answer is I could do that for you, but I will have three hours a week from Tuesday, right. Sometimes the answer is, oh, you know, I am the wrong guy. This is a job for Steve.

Steve Rush: Got it, yeah. It makes loads of sense. There is one thing I love in the book; Bruce that you talk about is the go-to-ism. What is a go-to-ism?

Bruce Tulgan: Yeah, go-to-ism. I wanted to call it the book go-to-ism, but the publishers were like; nobody will know what that is. It is the way of the go to person. It is thinking like a go to person. You think like a go to person. Look, being Indispensables in the eye of the beholder. The question is to whom are you indispensable? If you are a go to person that means people want to go to you and you want them to keep going to you. That means that you are somebody who is trusted and relied upon to deliver consistent. When other people have a need, they go to you. First, it is being a go to person but it is also finding go to people and realizing that when you go to someone else, it is not all about your needs. When you have a request or a need, you should still go with a service mind-set. I want to go to the right person because I want to give that person an opportunity to serve, to add value. I want to go, what can I do? I can be a great customer. I can help you help me. If I can't find someone, maybe I can build someone up. So it's an upward spiral. It is realizing that the way you build influence; see some people they want to use influence, right? So it is all about getting what they need out of other people. Well, if you are somebody who wants to use influence, then every time you try to use influence, you are probably going to lose influence. Because if you are always trying to get what you need out of other people, other people don't root for you, they root against you.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Bruce Tulgan: Other people see you as a taker, right. So you can either be an influence user or an influence builder. If you want to build influence? The way you build influences is by adding value, and by the way, this is not totally selfish. You don't have to be a saint, right. If you want to be valuable, add value. If you are ambitious, the number one thing you can do is be valuable. And if you want to be valuable, that means you got to be adding value every step of the way, that means in every interaction. So gotoism is thinking like a go to person. It is having a service mind-set. It is realizing that lead from wherever you are. That doesn't mean be a steamroller and I get things done, whether I'm in charge or not. It means wherever you are, you got to assess the chain of command, the lines of authority. You got to align yourself and then communicate with structure and substance up, down, sideways and diagonal and make good decisions because your time and energy is what you have to give. So every time you say yes, you're making a commitment, don't waste your yeses and then work smart. That doesn't mean, you know, you only work in your area of passion. It doesn't mean, you know, you're so smart nobody ever sees you learning. It doesn't mean you only do the things you're good at. It means everything you do; you take the time to get good at it, and then, you know, yes, you can have a long to do list, but you get things done. The longer you’re to do list, the less you can afford to juggle, you can only focus on one thing at a time. So no matter how long you’re to do list is you got to focus on one thing.

Steve Rush: Sometimes it is even better to have a to don't list almost, so that you prioritize, right?

Bruce Tulgan: Exactly, I mean, what I always say to people is, you know, show me you’re to do list. No, I want to see your do list. What are you going to do right now?

Steve Rush: Yeah, got it. In your experience, Bruce, when it comes to being indispensable, is there one thing that you could maybe anchor into that is the biggest disabler of somebody being indispensable? What would be the one thing that will hold somebody back the most?

Bruce Tulgan: Well, the biggest mistake that people make is trying so hard to be a go to person that they over promise. If you are, don't be the over promiser, don't be the over promiser. Be somebody who, if you make a promise, I can take it to the bank.

Steve Rush: It becomes an overplayed strengthen then, doesn't it?

Bruce Tulgan: I mean, look, you want to be known for delivering. And so you've got to say yes, if all you have up your sleeve or no’s, then nobody's going to go to you. You don't have a lot to show if all you have up your sleeve or no’s. When you say no, I want to no it's good for a good reason and when you say yes, I want to know you're going to deliver.

Steve Rush: Sure, now this part of the show is where we turn the leadership lens on you. So not only are you a prolific writer and the CEO of Rainmaker Thinking, you are also leader in your own, right and therefore this is where I get a chance to hack into your leadership mind. And the first thing I'd like to do, Bruce, is for you to share with our listeners, what would be your top three leadership hacks?

Bruce Tulgan: Well, if you're a leader of other people, if you’re charged with responsibility and authority in relation to someone else's livelihood and career, that's a profound responsibility. So step one, own your power and don't practice false empowerment. False empowerment is a sink or swim, reinvent the wheel figured out. False empowerment is when you say, oh, dude, whoever you think it should be done and then I let myself off the hook. Real empowerment is about setting people up for success, making it clear to people what's up to them and what's not, and providing real guidance, direction, support, and coaching, so that's number one.

Number two, don't practice, false fairness, false fairness is treating everybody exactly the same. There is nothing less fair than treating high performers and low performers the same. So, you should do more for people when they go the extra mile. Give everyone the chance to succeed, give everyone the chance to earn but everybody is a special case, so you got to treat everybody like a special case. And number three, I don't think you don't have time to lead. You don't have time not to lead. If you think, you don't have time for regular structured dialogue; here is what is going to happen? You're going to spend all your leadership time touching base, interrupting, looking at email, being in meetings while problems hide below the radar. If you don't drill down and have substantive structured dialogue with your people, you're going to miss problems hiding below the radar, and then they're going to blow up and you're going to spend way too much of your leadership time solving problems that have gotten out of control. That should, have been solved easily.

Steve Rush: Bruce, they are great hacks and the last one in particular resonates with me because I observed on in many occasions, particularly as leaders grow through the hierarchy of seniority and organizations, they actually spend less time in that structured conversation. Do you observe that? What is your experience of that in what you do with, with Rainmaker Thinking?

Bruce Tulgan: Yeah, I mean, well, for one thing, people move into positions of supervisory responsibility because they are very good at something. It is often not because they are good at leading and you know, then we put them in charge of people and often we teach them how to do a little extra paperwork. Nobody ever does the systematic work of teaching them how to do the people work. And then as they move up the chain of command, they get worried about working their lateral relationships and it's very important. Of course, collaboration is key, especially at an executive level but the best leaders. They know, no matter how high up the chain of command you go, nobody needs a weak leader and the people who report to you. Look every single day, the first person you got to manage every day is yourself. The second person, you got to manage every day is your boss, and then third, anyone who reports to you. You've got to provide regular structured guidance, direction, support, and coaching. And yeah, I mean, you got to be vigilant about that, and organizations that are committed to a leadership culture no matter how high up the chain of command you go, you still have that regular structured dialogue with your direct report.

Steve Rush: I have a quote, which I use quite often with my clients, which is, “Structure + Discipline = Freedom.”And the first look I get is, “you serious?” = That I'm going to be confined because I'm structure, and I have to be more rigorous and I get more freedom, and of course you do, because it creates the space for you, to do you what's important, right?

Bruce Tulgan: Yeah, that is absolutely, right. I mean, look you know if you are at work and somebody is paying you, there is a lot of stuff that is just not up to you. Decisions are being made. There are rules, there are policies, there are priorities and the biggest favour you can do for somebody is first clarifying for them, all the stuff that is not up to them because then they have guard rails and good news. Like once you know, all the stuff, that's not up to you, there's still a lot of stuff left over that is up to you.

Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely so. Now we are going to move to a part of show, which we affectionately call Hack to Attack. So this is a time in either your life or your work where something hasn't worked out and actually as a result of that adversity or the challenge that comes with that, you've now learned from it. And you use it as a positive in your life or your work, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Bruce Tulgan: I can say writ’ large I can say, that I have made more mistakes than I can count. What I have learned is that, you know, it is an old cliché, but you know, if you learn from a mistake, it is still a win. And another way I like to think about it is every experience is a building block, right? What did you learn from that? What are the relationships you built, even if the tangible result you created was not what you hoped or you missed specs, or, you know, it was doesn't even work. What are the pieces of that tangible result? So that kind of, I always say, if you have 1% of success on something, you better get to work failing because you got to fail 99 times until you're going to succeed. So you better get busy failing, right? Fail early and often and fast, you got to fail 99 times to get to your success. So look, you know, the reality is that anyone who has a lot of success to show is somebody who takes a lot of opportunities and you just have to look at, what are you taking out of every experience?

Steve Rush: Definitely, I couldn't agree more and the last chance we get to spin through your mind and hack into your mind, Bruce is a little bit of self-discovery for you. So we're going to do a bit of time travel. You get to bump into Bruce at 21. What is going to be your advice to him at that time?

Bruce Tulgan: You know; I would tell myself, work harder. Don't let yourself off the hook so often. Now it is easy for me to say that now, because I am 53. And so as much as I believe, I've done a lot of hard work over the years, every day I've taken off, I think, well, gee, if I had worked harder that day, then now I'd have more time to myself. You know, I always tell young people the harder you work when you are young, the more options you are going to have when you are older.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that is so true though. Isn't it? It is just so true. However, at 21 you think the world is going to be a long way away and 53 is a long way away, but it soon comes around, doesn't it?

Bruce Tulgan: It sure does and here we are.

Steve Rush: Yeah right, absolutely. Folks are going to be listening to this and thinking. I want to get a piece of the action. How can I find out more about what Bruce and the team are doing? Where can we direct them?

Brue Tulgan: Well, you can always find us at rainmakerthinking.com and we've got a lot of stuff going on there and most of it's free, and of course I'm on Twitter @BruceTulgan and I'm on LinkedIn and you can always get the book. Wherever books are sold, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, wherever books are sold.

Steve Rush: Awesome and we make sure that we put some links to the show notes so that as folk have finished listening, they can head over and click on those links and go straight to find out more about what you do. So, Bruce, from my perspective, I've just had a bunch of fun chatting with you and really listening to the passion and energy that comes with what you do with Rainmaker Thinking. I want to wish you absolutely every success with being indispensable at work. I am pretty sure that, you know, it's going to really enable people to start to be really thoughtful about how they set themselves up for success, so from my perspective, Bruce just wanted to say thanks ever so much for being on the show.

Bruce Tulgan: It is my pleasure. Thank you so much for making it so much fun and making it so easy

Steve Rush: That is awesome. Cheers, Bruce.

Bruce Tulgan: Hey, thanks so much.

Closing

View Details

Nathanael Zurbruegg should be dead six times over according to medical professionals. While still suffering from chronic illnesses, he is now the founder and CEO of Unlimit You and runs a non-for-profit business called, “Live Life to the Fullest.” In this inspirational episode you can learn from Nathanael:

How life can be amazing when we don’t focus on negativity
Surround yourself with positive people had help you become strong
How you can discover your Victorious Mindset
Why nothing can take us back if we never give up.
Plus loads of hacks!

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more from Nathanael:

Nathanael on LinkedIn

https://nathanaelzurbruegg.com

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is Nathaniel Zurbruegg. Nathaniel is the founder and CEO of Unlimit You and also the founder and CEO of a non-profit organization Live Life to the Fullest. He is the multiple award-winning global inspiration speaker. Who is really passionate about inspiring and empowering people. But before we get a chance to speak with Nathaniel, it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, I have fun story to share with you that really demonstrates innovation and giving inspiration to other people to think outside of the norms. It's not easy leading others and leading teams and leading businesses, particularly in a pandemic. But think about how easy it is if you're a cow living among African lions in Botswana. After all, there is always a threat that they are going to get eaten, and we just have to deal with the events of our businesses, right? Conservationists have found a really effective low cost way to protect cattle from their predators and help lions coexist with livestock and farmers. In this fun piece of psychological trickery. Scientists have trailed painting eyes on local cattle’s butts. Now, the idea is that imitating eyes will trick Lions into thinking that you have been spotted, causing them to abandon the hunt. As protected conservation, areas became smaller. Lions are increasingly coming, into contact with human populations, which are expanding into the boundaries of these protected areas. Dr. Neil Jordan, a conservation biologist from USW Centre for the Ecosystem in science said that the Lions are eating their livestock, such as cattle, which has really negatively impacting on the livelihood of local farmers in these rural areas.

These local farmers are attempted to coexist, but with real difficulty and with no non-lethal way to prevent attacks. Farmers are often tending to deadly force shooting and poisoning lions, which are also endangered. Dr. Jordan idea of painting eyes onto the cattle rumps came about after two lionesses were killed near a village in Botswana, where he was based. While watching a lion hunting in Impala, he noticed something really interesting. Lions are ambush hunters, so they creep up on their prey and they get close and then jump on them when they are unseen.

But if they are seen in this case, the Impala noticed the lion, the lion realized he'd been spotted and gave it the hunt. So researchers have now created a stamp, which paints eyes onto the rump of each of the capitals, and after researching, 62 of the cattle at a local herd in Botswana demonstrated a massive reduction in the number that were attacked and killed. Dr. Jordan team has now created a PhD research it project, where they are going to be painting half the herd to demonstrate a proof of concept. And if the tool works could provide farms and Botswana, and of course elsewhere with a really low cost sustainable tool that really helps protect their livestock while at the same time, making sure that the endangered species such as lion are also not hunted for the wrong reasons, and that's good all round. That has been The Leadership Hacker News. Please get in touch if you have some insights stories that you would like our listeners to hear.

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Steve Rush: Today guest is Nathanael Zurbruegg. Truly inspirational story from having been chronically ill for over 30 years, and now being the founder and CEO of Live Life to the Fullest and his business arm Unlimit You. He is a global speaker and he is a coach. Nathanael welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Nathanael Zurbruegg: Hey Steve, thank you so much for having me here today. I am really excited to spend some moments with you and with your amazing audience

Steve Rush: And from Switzerland, he joins us today. Give us the backstory, Nathanael, for folk listening to this, you and I have had the opportunity to meet and speak a few times, but you really have had more adversity than anybody that has been on this show. Just tell us a little bit about how you arrived at doing what you now?

Nathanael Zurbruegg: Yeah, absolutely. Let me say that first, today I would not be here because of so many other people as well. I want to give some credit out there to a lot of people that are helped me through the difficult. The relationship that I have and let me start with this. I have been chronically ill for about 30 years by now. I started out when I was one year old. I lost my own kidneys to chronic illness. I had to go do dialysis with two years old, which meant like as soon as anyone doesn't have any kidneys that person has to go to a replacement basically to treatment three times a week or every night to clean the blood, and I had to start that with two years old.

It continue crazy in my life and I was about three years old when I had a really big, big setback. We still don't know today what it was. Was it brain bleeding or stroke? However, I was two weeks in a coma after those two weeks. The doctors called my parents and say there nothing else we can do, please come into the ICU to terminate your son life. My parents come into the ICU. They spoke some words, some goodbye word, and then the moment the doctors turned off, all the life support machines, I started to talk again. I say something like, Hey mom; I want to go to play into the playroom. That was a huge miracle because my brain was basically a grey patch before there was no function. Even the doctor said like if I should survive, somehow. If he should survive, somehow he will never be able to walk, talk and amount to anything. I was starting to talk again and I recover over a few weeks and I come basically back to life, it continued like with five year old. After many, many years, about four or five years of struggling with my life, with my health, as well as my family, struggling a lot. My people around, we had a moment of, I said, a light was appearing in the tunnel when I got my first kidney transplant, with five years old, however, it was only for 24 hours they keep me work and then the chronic illnesses strike back and affected the kidney. There was a huge disappointment of course. But basically my parents and myself, we had no other choice to keep going and to fight and we always had kind of a sense that everything will work out for the good in the future. So I had to go back to dialysis once again, with seven years old, I have my second kidney transplant, which meant like I had it for two and a half years. And the interesting part was like, during those two and a half years, I learned everything as a kid that anyone else as a kid would learn from age one on, I learned to feed myself. I learned to try out hobbies. I learned what it meant to have free time outside, and it was such a beautiful time, a life of flourishing, a life of, yeah, of living the dream life.

However, again, the chronic illness strike back and after two and a half year, and for me, one of the biggest disappointment I ever experienced in my lifetime. For me, the kidney was my best friend who gave me the best life, who gave me the dream life, but I had to let it go again. I fell into a huge depression that meant like for two weeks I didn't eat anything. I didn't move anything. I didn't talk to anyone, even not to my parents. And yet somehow took support of my parent and actual care. I come after those two weeks; I come back to strength, the emotional, spiritual and physical strength, it continued. Somehow, I had to acknowledge that I had to go back to the dialysis again, three times a week, but yet somehow I knew there is more to life than that. About one half years later, I received another kidney transplant for about 13 months and again, that was a time of flourishing yet after those 13 months, the chronic illness strike back again.

And for me this time. I was a bit older. I was a bit wiser. I was kind of knowing that life is of course more than just having a good kidney and have to took measured, disappointment, I decided based on my faith and based on what I believed and based on that, I believed in something bigger than myself or the kidney. I started to grow with the belief that everything will work together for the good in the future. And I acknowledge again, to go back to the dialysis three times a week and there were certain type of learning with 13 years old to figuring out how I'm going to cope with all the situation. At that time, I was diagnosed that I will never be again having a transplant, which meant I would be for lifelong on dialysis three times a week, but yet I didn't lose the hope, the passion of having an expectation of a bigger life. And what I usually tell people is that after age 15, my life become very stable, but from age 1 to 15, my life was a horrible, crazy as well exciting experience with all the life struggle. And after 4,500 lifesaving treatment, dialysis for the operations. Several depression and burnout and according to the doctors, I should not be alive for six times by now.

I can look back and see how amazing life can be if we don't rely on the negativity. If we don't rely on the setback that we experience but keeping going on, pulling out the hope and the expectation of a beneficial. And that was an amazing experience so far, of course my story is not finished yet, and I love that I'm so blessed today that I can inspire so many people with this story to live a big life, to live above average, and that nothing is impossible.

Steve Rush: Nathanael that is just a truly humbling story to listen to that. And of course, folks listening to this. Also won't understand that during this terrible time as well, you also lost 80% of your hearing capacity. So here, we are on a podcast, which is relying on the auditory senses that we have, and despite that, you still see that as an opportunity and a positive way to reach out to an audience. So before we go any further, thank you for being here with us today, given everything you're working through.

Nathanael Zurbruegg: You are welcome, thank you.

Steve Rush: One of the things I wanted to explore with you is that during that description of how you arrived here today, you talked around your parents had a massive role in helping you with your thinking. You described them as having a sense of everything works out for the future, and everything will work out for the future. How much of that did you draw on to help you with your thinking?

Nathanael Zurbruegg: I think it was especially after; I lost my third kidney transplant. It was an everyday decision of course the struggle did not end, at the day when I decided to believe that or to leave out that philosophy or that belief. It was in everyday decisions that impacted my decisions. Firstly, it impacted my thinking as well my decision. And for me it shifts a beautiful experience or a beautiful excitement to know that whatever comes ahead of me, it will work out for the good, and I think this is something that has kept me over the water, over a long time and still learn. And while it has helped me to be, do or have what I do today. As well, it has helped me to realize that it is not only on my own power to change a thing. It never will be, and it never has been. It is the decision that I make, but yet I believe that it's never just my own thing to change and turn things around, whether they are parenting involved or whether they are my family, or my friend, yeah whatever people in my life and whatever high powered. I love that there is so much hope and expectation in that belief.

Steve Rush: That is fantastic, really is and resonates with me. So you now lead the business Unlimit You. Tell us a little bit, about what you do with your clients and the businesses and people, you work with?

Nathanael Zurbruegg: Absolutely, so the Unlimit You, the business that I have is basically helping people bring inspiration to them by also helping them practically victorious, mind-set mentoring. That means I am helping people to navigate through the journey of life. To develop a victorious mind-set in whatever state they are. Whether they are in that difficult business situation. Whether they have difficulties in leadership, or in finances, or in the family, or relationship. I help people to transit from firstly not letting themselves laid back from the setback, but also keeping going to make the right decision in their mind to create and develop a victorious mind-set in order to go into a direction that help them in the future to be, do or have what they dream. I think that is such a powerful journey and I have a couple of people that are currently mentoring and I love to see how whenever people get a light bulb of stepping out from all belief into new belief. And basically let's say that belief help them to get a hundred fold of what they have believed before, and hacking a life and whatever, being constantly on the line of developing themselves and being a better person as while and leaving the dream life. The vision that they have even pulling out the expectation from them to, leave in the day and in the future all day, called to be, do and have.

Steve Rush: You coined the phrase victorious mind-set. If you had to describe the victorious mind-set to somebody, how would you describe in essence, in a nutshell, what is a victorious mind-set?

Nathanael Zurbruegg: Great question. For me, it is like a mind-set that firstly focus on the positive side of whatever. Let's say we have a Monday morning situation and you have to go to work. You have a great, great weekend behind on the beach in the mountains or whatever and you realize, okay, that time is gone. What we naturally do, is like, on Monday morning we thinking on the past things that happened, the good things that happen. It can be very good and bad, and so Monday we lay in bed and we think like, okay, we have to go to work. A victorious mind-set comes into play when we change the mind-set to, okay, let make the most out of this day, let's be grateful for whatever I have today. I have a job I might have a family. I might have friends and people around me. I might have a great boss, or even if I might not have a great situation at work, I am still able taking responsibility to change what might not be there yet.

Steve Rush: I love that.

Nathanael Zurbruegg: And that for me, a victorious mind-set. To change something that is not there yet and may it better.

Steve Rush: Brilliant, and gratification and showing gratitude and being grateful in my experiences present in amongst most, very successful leaders I liaise with, and I speak with it. I often see that practice of gratification and gratitude. There is no surprise that fits part of your tenants and how you do things.

Nathanael Zurbruegg: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Now you have a program that you have that helps people through this phase of discovery to help them unlock their dreams and unlock their ambitions and you call it your 4 Steps To Unlimit Your Life. Now, step one is define who I am. Tell us a little bit, about how you kick that four steps off?

Nathanael Zurbruegg: Absolutely, as you say, the first one is about really identifying who am I as a person. I realized over the last three decade being on this planet, I realized that so many people are not living their full potential because of not knowing who they are. They might be attract to a certain group or certain vibes or certain hype or whatever. But what I realized is like the more, you know, yourself, the more you can go the way toward the dream and get the passion and the value and the strength that you can identify within that. I believe that this is so powerful to leave out because the more we know ourselves, the more strength we have; the more we know what the decision we have to make. And I believe that we need more and more leaders in this world that really know who they are, not sticking to any flow or any group of the people. To really set themselves apart from the cut out and knowing who am I?

Who am I? What are my strengths? What are my passionate? What are my values? The second thing is the question about what, am I here for? The more you know, who you are, or the more I know who am I, the more I know and more, you will know what you are here for, or what I'm here for. And this is so important because I believe that again, not to charge anyone and not to condemn anyone, but so many people live a life in terms of somebody else in this world. And that might work for a couple of years for a few years, but I realized that I've been spending three times a week in the hospital, and most of the people are above 60, 70, 80 that are on dialysis. And I realized that so many people of them are not fulfilled because they, might have been live life in the past for somebody else.

Steve Rush: It is quite easy for us to fall into stereotypes and to associate with labels that aren't really ours, that are imposed on us by other people, right?

Nathanael Zurbruegg: Exactly. Yeah, and it is quite natural for us to do that because as soon as we step out from the crowd, the opposition appeared. But as long as we go with the crowd, nobody tells something because we are comfortable, but I think there's more to life than just to go with the flow, and everything that we think like, is really natural. And the beautiful thing is like, once you step away from something that you are not living in what you are really called to do, it gives you so much fulfilment. It gives you so much strength and energy and hope and an expectation, and this is the second step that I am going through with people in the first step to Unlimit Your Life process. The third step is about basically creating a dream from the first two questions, what that means you?

You identify you, who am I? And what am I here for? But when you go into the details, you also identify your strengths, passionate and values. And from that you create a dream, and what I realized in my own life. Is like how powerful it is when we start to live in our strengths, in our passion, in our values. Instead in our weakness, in our values, maybe that we have copied from somebody else or from a group of people. From passion that we might have not experienced by yourself yet. It is amazing what it does when you live in your passion and your values, and in you strength. And the fourth step is, I help people then to develop, basically take the dream and I allow them to develop the dream over the years. And whatever that means for each individual to develop a victorious mind-set, that it is possible to live out a dream, no matter their position, whether people are for against me, where I have it all together yet or not. There are so many tanks that will come together. There will be a lot of fighting, a lot of heavy moments, but at the end of the day, if you live with the full potential. If you live with your unlimited potential and with victorious mind-set, there is so much more to live in this world for you.

Steve Rush: Definitely so, and I guess the fourth one, the implementing the dream. Is where you take all of the self-discovery, the intangible, you know, this is a dream up here, but then putting into place things that highly in their control that they can implement. That helps them fulfil that, because without that implementation, it just stays as a dream, right?

Nathanael Zurbruegg: Exactly, we can dream a lot, but yet we have to step out of the boat and literally walk on water, never knowing when the next wave will hit us, but we will always be able to get back. And because we know once we have to dream or the vision or the full potential in our mind as a picture ahead of us, nothing can take us back if we never give up.

Steve Rush: Super, that is really super words. Thanks Nathanael.

Nathanael Zurbruegg: You are welcome.

Steve Rush: This part of the show is now where we are going to turn the lens and we are going to hack into your leadership mind. So as a CEO, as a business leader and a coach, so first thing I am going to ask you is if you were to share with our listeners, what would be your top three leadership hacks?

Nathanael Zurbruegg: Great question, for me it has always be like, I already say before being positive, which for me create a hope and expectation of the future. The second one is being grateful for everything that happened, whether good or bad. I often remind myself of the statement of John Maxwell that you either win or you learn, and that is an actually a beautiful thought, because being grateful, appreciate their learning process that we naturally see. I said bad things, or the bad thing that we can turn into learning process and as well giving credit for the good things. And the third thing, I will say leadership wise is really giving credit to all the people as well. For me, as a personal faith, giving credit to God because I got the honour and privilege as 13 years old to start that unconditional loving relationship with God. And for me to God, for somebody else, it might be high powered, and for me, giving credit to him as well to my family and my friends, because no one will go on the top by himself. There will always be layers of people that help you as well. The doctors, the medical staff told me already or parents as well. I mostly didn't hear it, that I should be dead six times by now. Never should be amount to anything. Walk or could talk, and yet along the journey there was so many miracle that cannot fathom, that I cannot say, hey, it was my power or my strength. It was native human strength. Because I know that for me, my life exists and I'm still bleeding today because of a higher power and giving credit to other people, to whatever you believe in a higher power because you alone, we are just human beings, and yeah, that are my three leadership strength.

Steve Rush: And I guess what you have just described then Nathanael is a complete lack of ego, which again is something that you observe in great leaders as well. So if you're able to drop your ego, give credit to where credit's due, and as you rightly said, wherever that's from and whomever that's from. Helps you also demonstrate, gratification, and gratitude and in turn is a positive energy source for us as well, Isn't it?

Nathanael Zurbruegg: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I think the more we give credit to someone else, the more we get as well back and that’s just the law of giving and taking in this world.

Steve Rush: It sure is. Now I almost feel kind of uncomfortable going to this next space. Cause this part of the show's called hack to attack where we have places in our life and our work where we've suffered some adversity, you've had bucket loads of adversity and you've already demonstrated how resilient you become and how you use that in a positive way in your life in pretty much everything you do. If you were able to look back over your life, was there maybe one time where you thought this is my pivotal moment, that I'm going to move from where I did to what I do now. That you now use that as something that is positive in your life?

Nathanael Zurbruegg: Absolutely, I think for me, like a couple of years ago, I read a statement from the Think and Grow Rich book. Napoleon Hill says there are no limitations to the mind except the ones we acknowledge, and so what I realized I might not be, I might not have been aware of that statement before, but I might have been aware of how I lived it before I even knew in words, if you know what I mean. So what I realized that whatever situation you have in the moment.

Steve Rush: Sure

Nathanael Zurbruegg: There is always the acknowledgement in our mind, whether we limit ourselves or not. In the difficult time, do we think about all the limitations we have or do we think about all the unlimitations we can turn around? And I love that, that our brain, our mind is such a powerful tool in our life that we can use every day. It is true there are absolutely no limitations. Of course, we might be limited and we all have to die one day. We all have to, yeah; we have to go away from this world one day. But while we are here, we have the opportunity to use that tool of the mind, to turn the limitation around and make it a possibility and opportunity. And this is something that I have could learn that I have the blessing to learn all my life, to not look at the limitations, but of what could be possible. And of course the journey in that will never end. It will be a lifelong every day to decision. Every day I have to do to think about again, there are limitations, they are circumstance, how I'm going to deal with them, how I'm going to turn them around, to make it a possibility and make them better. And this is really something powerful that I could have the opportunity to learn over the past 30 years.

Steve Rush: I think it is amazing Nathanael that you call the adversity blessings, you've actually reframed that in your mind as to these are blessings that you've had to enable that learning to take place so that you can be the person you are today, right?

Nathanael Zurbruegg: Yeah, absolutely and I think it gives it so much power and enegry to continue. The moment I realized that I should read too much into the negative side, I lose so much strength to keep going on. And I have to be honest with you. There have been many times, and even still today where I don't make the right decision in my mind, but I think the higher how you go, the more you have to be careful that you don't go into the opposite direction of the negative side. Because once you go into that, it will be harder to get out of into the next direction. I imagined mostly if picture where you have a scale between 0 in the middle and then on the right side, you have the last 10 up to plus 10. And on the left hand, you have down to minus 10 and every decision you make, you will either go to the plus, or you go to the minus and the deeper you go in the minus, the harder it is to come back. But the more you go into the plush, the better it is for you to overcome the next struggle, the next circumstance, the next a leadership issue and or the next family issue in whatever situation you're in right now. I really want to inspire you today to make, to make the decision, to really think about where do I need to go from the minus to the plus, and what do I need to improve in order to have a more fulfilled and energize, and more momentum in your life.

Steve Rush: It is a lovely way of framing it. And I guess like anything, its practice and habits that create that staying in the top 10, versus the bottom 10, right?

Nathanael Zurbruegg: Yeah, absolutely. I think the emotional habits, I think to say that every day decision. Let’s say somebody crash into a car, that a huge decision we can make, whether make, whether we say we can switch into the negative side and complain about the crash about the person, or we can make fun out of the accident and say, hey, this too shall pass. At least I didn't get hurt or whatever, simple decision like that. It can be on your job. It can be when you do make exercising or when you are around with people and they are so many decision that day that we will need to make in order to stay in the top 10 in the plus 10 frame. On the other hand, I have to say that don't give up when you feel like you are in the minus 10, again, it will be harder, but it still worth fight back into going into the top 10 frame and live life to the fullest.

Steve Rush: Its super lessons. Thanks, Nathanael. The last thing that we want to do with you today is to give you the chance to have a bit of time travel and to bump into the Nathanael at 21. And you now have an opportunity to give yourself some advice at that time. What would be your advice to Nathanael at 21?

Nathanael Zurbruegg: I would say really learning more and more to give credit to other people. I miss that a little bit, the last few months. I have gone on, I really big ride and I've got a lot of success. So I need to get back in shape to give credit to my people around it and to really be grateful for where I am and that is one of my activities that I will give myself to get back in shape and not too become prideful, not to leave. Even though I might have a lot of success to still stay humble and to being a person of humility, not one humility, but the right humility to have even more a successful life. And I love people, strong people, whether they were successful in the past or in the future or in the present. People that really stayed humble within their success and this is what I teach myself and advise myself, for this and next year to do more and more.

Steve Rush: Great stuff. Now I would love to carry the conversation on with you. I have super enjoyed talking with you, not just today, but in times that we have spoken before. If folk listening to this, want to carry on that conversation with you, connect with you, find that a bit more of the work that you are doing, what is the best place, and where's the best place that we can send them?

Nathanael Zurbruegg: Absolutely, so I have two websites and one website is the business web site that I call unlimiteyou.co and if you want to know more about my personal life, you can go on nathanaelzurbreugg.com on both websites. There is the free eBook that you can download for step too Unlimit Your Life and as well on the bottom, there, some off the social media channel that I am on. And I would love to get in touch with you, download eBook. Get it for free today and let your life flourish and Unlimit yourself to the fullest.

Steve Rush: Thank you, Nathanael. We will make sure that those links are also in the show notes, so it is that easy for people to find you beyond our conversation.

Nathanael Zurbruegg: Absolutely, thank you so much for having me here. And I would love to hear from you soon.

Steve Rush: And I would like to say personally, thank you to you being here. You are inspirational. And I think that they're learning that people can take from the adversity and the mind-set that you now have to unlock their futures is quite breath-taking. And personally, for me, I just want to say, thank you ever so much for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Nathanael Zurbruegg: You are welcome. Good to talk to you, Steve, and to you all. Thank you.

Steve Rush: Thank you Nathanael.

Closing

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Eric Chasen is a resiliency coach and a turnaround expert. Having suffered adversity, he has put those lessons to work in his new book, From Despair To Millionaire. In this episode you can learn from Eric about:

It’s not about life’s events, it’s how you react to them
Why mentoring in leadership is so valuable
How gratitude can unlock fulfilment in your life and work
Eric’s ABC of leadership

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more from Eric:

Eric on Linkedin

Websites:

www.ericchasen.com

www.fromd2m.com

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Eric Chasen is the special guest on today's show. He is a resiliency coach and turnaround expert, and he is the author From Despair To Millionaire. Before we get a chance to meet with Eric, it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In today's news, we explore how Google has created its high performance culture. Take one, looking signed, incredible Googleplex, and it's pretty obvious why they receive an average of two and a half million CVS and resumes every year. From having nap pods, offering onsite massage to providing every employee with three square meals a day. Google really got this absolutely boxed off. Yet, it is not only the indoor swimming pools, the beach volleyball courts and the free onsite laundry that has led to the 300 billion pounds, giant tech getting a 93% CEO approval rating for its CEO and Glassdoor. This company doesn't need to be generating millions in revenue to hack the fundamental principles that Google set the team apart. Here are the top three lessons that every business can learn from.

Number one, psychological safety is a necessity. In 2012, Google launched an in depth study to determine what sets the teams part that struggled to work together and those that effectively meet their outcomes. Google put together a team of statisticians, organizational psychologists, and engineers to solve the dilemma. The project was called project Aristotle and it reviewed study spanning over 50 years, as well as every possible characteristic of the teams within the organization. They look for patterns of how the team is socialized outside of work, as well as inside of work. Personality traits, Jungian in it style of introverts and extroverts, and it soon became clear that these traits, the ones that are most of us would think most logically that would impact our ability to form weren't the key ones. And as they dig deeper, they found the understanding of the groups, norms, underwritten rules, by which the team governs itself almost, and the characteristics start with number one, psychological safety. Psychological safety is defined as the individual's perception of the consequences of taking an interpersonal risk. In other words is how any team member of the team perceives our ability to be innovative and admit to mistakes when it goes wrong.

Number two, it starts with the leader. The impact of having a strong manager wasn't new to Google, but a project that they launched called project oxygen back in 2008 was an undertaking to determine the best qualities of the best managers. And in the Google team, they gathered over 10,000 observations of their managers to determine what traits that their employers found most helpful and which were most unattractive and unhelpful. And on the back of Stephen Covey famous, Highly Effective Habits Theme. Created the 8 Habits Of Highly Effective Google Managers and of those 8 habits. Number one was to be a good coach. Two was to empower your team and to not micromanage. Three was to express an interest in your team members success and personal wellbeing. Four, they titled it don't be a sissy, be productive and results focused. Five, be a communicator, and listen to your team. Six, help employers with career development. Seven, have a clear vision for your team within the organization and eight, have the technical skills so you can help them advise your team.

And the third thing that contributes to high performance culture was data is empowering. It should come as no surprise to a tech company that creates enormous amounts of data, complicated algorithms and makes their decisions based on data that Google takes this really seriously, but they take it to another level. In fact, Google Human Resources Department is called, People Analytics Department because of their commitment to making decisions that flow from data. Google attention to detail and willingness to look at data from all angles, fully to understand how their people are operating and behaving is highly sought after. Whilst Google has spent millions of dollars, analysing every aspect of their employee’s lives inside and outside of work. The big lesson that smaller companies can take from this is just the importance of regular performance reviews and employee surveys. That has been The Leadership Hacker News. Please get in touch with us, if you have insights and information that you think our listeners would love to hear.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: I am joined on, today show by Eric Chasen. He is a resiliency coach, a turnaround expert, and author of From Despair To Millionaire. Eric, welcome to the show, my friend.

Eric Chasen: Thank you very much, Steve. Really glad to be here.

Steve Rush: Delighted to have you on the show. We have been talking about this for months now, so I am excited to get into a little bit, about what you do in the backstory. So for folks that are listening today, just tell us a little bit about. What does a resiliency coach and turnaround expert actually do?

Eric Chasen: Sounds good, Steve. Yeah, so I have spent the last year or so working on my book that we are going to talk a little bit about. And at the same time, my book and my story are kind of interchangeable one on the same. I went from entry-level positions in just two careers, really that I have worked in. Two industries related ones, but two distinct ones to having a great opportunity to be part of one start up and then a subsequent start up, you know, both of them doing quite well, and so very, very fortunate for that. At the same time I experienced quite a bit of adversity in particular during the first start up in, you know, that was sort of the motivation and the thought behind creating the program and the book really to help people. So what I'm doing these days is I'm working with people and with teams helping them, you know. I like to say helping them bounce back, even bounce back higher. If they are going through a tough patch of adversity, if they're needing some extra grit, some extra determination, some extra resilience, I particularly enjoy working with teams and also you know, individuals on their quest for bouncing back and bouncing back higher.

Steve Rush: That sounds awesome. Now, I guess there is a little clue in the title here, “From Despair To Millionaire”, that there's been some adversity in that backstory of helping you get to where you get to now. Just give us a little sense of kind of what it was that gave you that focus. That drive that you have now.

Eric Chasen: Steve, back in 1999-2000. Previous to that, I had left, you know, one of two careers that I sort of work my way up in. I was a phone sales agent and at the time the director of sales and a couple of other partners started a company in the same industry and Invited me in with a small equity position to help build. Because I had experience, you know, working on the phones, and I had also had previous for about 10 years before that in a management position.

So I was invited in, I was the fourth person in the start-up. To build out their sales, training, hiring, in performance of the call centre. About two months into that new start up, I was engaged and we were planning our wedding. This was in April 99 and we planned our wedding for July of 99, and my fiancé very suddenly and unexpectedly died in automobile accident, April 25th of 1999. So obviously that was, you know, devastating and it was just two or three months into beginning this new company. So on one hand it was very, very difficult. On the other hand, it was a blessing that I had the distraction of a new start up and all the demands of that. Even with all the opportunity that the start-up provided, including a small equity position, you know, it was a start-up wage.

So I was struggling financially as well as struggling, emotionally with a loss. And about six months after that in and around the beginning of 2000, 99-2000. Struggling financially to get some relief, I actually filed personal bankruptcy, which was, you know, a bit of a everything that comes along with you know, financial failure in sort of hanging, giving that up. And shortly after that in early 2000, basically a year from when I lost my fiancé and my mom who I am very, very close with, in fact, I've dedicated. My second chapter of my book is to her and there is a saying there my mum was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and that was March or April of 2000. And she passed away in August of 2000, so within a year, you know, 99-2000 I suffered significant personal loss that I've never experienced before or since, as well as you know, the financial.

So it was really a low point in my life. And, you know, having mentioned earlier that I was part of a start-up and there was lots of opportunity there to throw myself into my work you know, ask for help in you know, I certainly needed it, you know, professionally, colleague wise anybody family at the time. And that's really where my story starts. The book starts really is around those, there is this 12 chapters in the book and really the first two chapters sort of talk about the loss and the despair around the loss. The subsequent 10 chapters are really what I feel are some of the tools and opportunities and blessings really that propelled me forward to six or seven years later, being able to literally become a millionaire. And part of the next start up was pivotal in that and then actually retire in my late forties,

Steve Rush: It is really fascinating story Eric, and one that, you know, we've spoken about before and every time I hear you tell that story, that despair is still really quite vivid for you. I can almost feel you emotionally going through that as you kind of describe that. What is it you think that creates that resiliency at that time? Because ultimately when you look back, you could probably connect the dots, but I think for many people, I suspect they go one of either way, right?

Eric Chasen: Yes. You know, I think it has around, you know, they say hindsight is 20/20, right? When you're living through it, sometimes you just, you know, I can remember trying to read books on, you know, why, you know, why bad things happen to good people? And you know how to go on living when somebody you love dies? And I was joining grief support groups, even silly as it sounds and I talk about this in my book. I joined several months after I lost my fiancé. I joined at the time it was before online dating. It was much more awkward other than that back 20 years ago. I had such, you know, love and admiration for my fiancé. Feeling like it was the love of my life up to that point that I wanted to see if I could to fill that void.

And I was silly thinking, you know, just a few months after her loss that, so, you know, you do a lot of different things. And fortunately, I had a supportive at the time. My mom, she was alive for about a year after or so, and, you know, close with my brother and we became closer and in subsequent became business partners on the next endeavour. I had supportive colleagues at work and I had supportive of professionals, you know, psychologists, that type of thing as well as, you know family and some close friends. And that's really, you know, that's what gets you through the initial stage. And I think there's no substitute for time though Steve. Time is an amazing, I got that from my mother when I said to my mom shortly after losing Jen, I said to my mother the oldest in my family at 13 years old, my oldest brother was killed riding his bicycle. And I said to my mother, you know, I'm a parent now of a 17 year old. I said to my mom back then 20 years ago, I said, mom, how do you go on? I mean, how do you get over rather losing somebody so close and so suddenly, and she said to me, Eric, you never get over it. You just learn to live with it. And that's, you know, that really sums it up Steve. I have the resilience, the long answer to your very good question though.

Steve Rush: It is a really poignant answer, Eric too, because I think the whole philosophy of learning through time is part of that healing process. If that is what you call it or the realization that you still have jobs of work to do for your family and people around you. right?

Eric Chasen: Yeah, for sure. Yup, It's a classic one day, one step at a time, one day at a time and time is an amazing, you can't rush it but time really and it's by no means overstated. Time is really an amazing healer.

Steve Rush: Sure and when did you notice the pivotal time then for you, Eric? When things were moving in the right direction, you were getting that momentum behind you and you're on the upward trajectory.

Eric Chasen: It wasn't a straight line, or you know or you’re continuing, it was more of a take a few steps forward, back, up, down. A little bit more like a crazy EKG than, an even blips. So after a few years with that initial start-up that I was with when I lost both my fiancé and my mom, and then had the personal bankruptcy. My brother had this idea after being in high tech, doing very, very well with a high tech company, he sort of wanted to leave the corporate grind and saw what I was doing. I was living in Maine at the time, originally from Massachusetts and he was still in mass, but commuting about an hour and a half each way, having done that for about 10 years had enough. He was going to start a similar type company that I was working for, which was a service based call centre, sales centre.

He looked at the technology, so to answer what was really pivotal. What was a pivotal move Steve was actually relocating back from the state of Maine to Massachusetts and, you know, becoming partners with my brother, you know. I left a perfectly good job, and that start-up was doing well in Maine and they went on to do very, very well. They did well in two and a half, three years that I was there, and they went on to do very well after I left. And we used to kid my brother and I, and a third partner. We all left perfectly good jobs to do the start up here in Massachusetts, that we, you know, we went through like you know not unusual to start-ups. We went through a few years of sort of hopping from Lily pad to Lily pad to stay afloat, and then subsequent to the three really challenging initial years, we had three very good years and made the decision to actually sell the company after three to four really good years.

Steve ush: That is great news and it gives you the evidence, I guess, that perhaps what you didn't realize at the time you were going through was building up those tactile foundations of resilience, right?

Eric Chasen: Yes, you know, and it is like I said, it is like most things. It is not a straight line. There is, you know, you got to be fortunate for the peaks that you have and you got to be not too disappointed in the valleys. Because that is really, what it is about, the peaks and the valleys and to the extent that you can stay. I have a chapter in my book called guts, grit, and resilience and that is really, what it takes. Sometimes it just takes hard work. I think entrepreneurial endeavours always take hard work and sometimes that is just enough, the hard work. And other times it really takes guts, grit and resilience, which is an extra commitment over and above hard work.

There is other factors too, which is surrounding yourself with good people that we were very, very fortunate to be able to do and acquire, which was besides the three of us co-founders of the company. We had some other partners that were very helpful. Some came, and went and certainly had some incredible people that came to work with us that were just superb.

Steve Rush: That is great to hear too. So in the book, From Despair To Millionaire. You talk a couple of things within that. I just wanted to just to pick apart, so I think it would be really helpful for our listeners to get your lens on those Eric. One of which is mentor and mentoring, and you mentioned you had some really good people around you. What role do you think mentors played in your journey to becoming a millionaire?

Eric Chasen: I one of the real joys of deciding to write my business memoir was chapter three of it, which is dedicated to the mentors. It is dedicated to mentorship in general, but in particular to a handful. Unfortunate, I wasn't able to get all the mentors in their cause there's more that I had along the way, but I was able to talk about four or five significant ones. And to me, that's the difference of sitting here talking right now and having a story to write of, you know, a success story to write and not having one potentially. Two things, one is having people, my first mentor, which was before the business world was when I was interested in weightlifting and bodybuilding as a teenager. I talk about this David Berman in my book who has since passed but point is, that he taught me some attributes that were very, very helpful along the way, onward and upward in the business world.

To My first business mentor, Paul Leary, who I may talk about the most in there other than my brother. He was somebody that when I went to work for him at 21 years old as a college dropout, he was a guy that I looked at and said. I want to be like him. You know, he was a consummate entrepreneur, rags to riches story himself and a super successful guy that went on to build a number of companies from nothing. He wasn't the easiest guy in the world to work for, again a consummate sort of hard driving entrepreneur, but just an incredible motivator, leader. I learned a lot from him in my early and mid-twenties. It is one of those things; I lost touch with him for 25 years, and after writing the book, I was such an honour and such a joy. I found his email address, sent them a note and we were able to reconnect through email after about 25 years.

He was very happy to hear from me and sort of obviously thrilled to be honoured, and it was meant a lot to me to be able to do that because, you know, if it wasn't for him, my trajectory may have been different. And I talk about some other mentors along the way, right up into my, perhaps maybe the sort of my last mentor in business, which was my older brother, who's 10 years older, and he was very pivotal in sort of the home stretch of my story, basically.

Steve Rush: So really a thoughtful reflection, because as you were talking about your brother being a mentor as well, I guess people often have that misconception that brothers and business partners can’t actually mentor each other, but actually you can, can’t you?

Eric Chasen: It is a great point, Steve, my brother and I early on. So again, I was always a little brother until, you know, you get to a certain age and then we had some similar interests. Then ultimately, he invited me into his company for a good ownership stake, and that was in 2001. And we went on to again, struggled together for a few years and then do very, very well for the next several. But the point is, is that early on, we said that we were never going to let anything come between our brotherhood and friendship and it never did. And we rarely, we rarely even had any arguments. You know, he was the CEO of the company and he had the experience. He was the Chief Operating Officer of a publicly held company that high tech company, I talked about a little bit earlier and he had the business acumen, you know, he was excellent at building culture and excellent problem solving skills.

And he was just a real outstanding person to be the CEO of the company. I don't know if you have a love the job because of all the other added stuff that came along, he was the best sales person in terms of acquiring new business that we ever had. So he was excellent, very, very passionate about our business and our ability to deliver for our clients. And I was fortunate enough, Steve. He actually, I asked him and he wrote. Some of this is summarized in the foreword From Despair To Millionaire. My brother wrote the forward, Steve Jason, again, a real, I am grateful that we have the kind of relationship that he was able and willing to write that.

Steve Rush: That is great, and gratitude also plays a key part of your book and you call it the key to fulfilment. Tell us a little bit. About why that is so important to you?

Eric Chasen: I think it is critical that we recognize it is all about the old saying there of treating the person that serves you coffee, the same as CEO or, you know, that treating everybody basically the same. My default mode really is treating everybody with kindness and respect that. That is my default mode. Whether, again, whether I am getting my coffee or talking to the CEO of a company that is interested in training or coaching, what have you. And again, the gratitude really comes from recognizing that, you know, we're not able to do it alone. You know, mentorship comes in to play there as well. So I think gratitude really is just in humility, really go hand in hand, you know, being humble enough, being humble enough to be grateful and realizing that, you know, you can't do it alone. And there's a lot to be said for expressing gratitude, whether it's somebody that helped you go up the ladder to success, or somebody that cares enough to make your coffee well enough each day and delivers that kind of service. It is the old saying of the attitude of gratitude. I try to express that throughout my life. I think it comes back to me in the form of fulfilment. You know what I mean? Form of people tend to act in kind in return.

Steve Rush: I love the attitude of gratitude. I love the notion of attitude is gratitude because it just makes you realize that it's a choice that we make and people are putting themselves out there to do jobs that can sometimes be less than thankful, but the smallest bit of gratitude and recognition can go a long way, can’t it?

Eric Chasen: It's paid me dividends throughout my life because you know, a lot of times, Steve, I didn't have a lot of things. Along list of things to bring to the party. You know, I dropped out of college. I started entry level in one industry and worked my way up into supervisory and management probably before I should have. Again, that mentor that I mentioned earlier was very, very pivotal and helpful there. And then after about 10 years in that industry, Again I started entry level in the subsequent industry that I went on to be in management and in equity and ownership and ultimately early retirement and then onto coaching, mentoring, and offering. But the point is, is that, you know, there's a lot of people that helped along the way, and there's a lot of people that I couldn't have done it without them. And I think it's having that attitude of gratitude in treating others well. I was not always the easiest leader, a manager to work for because of course, you know, results are important. However, I thought being fair was critical and treating others well and which includes treating others fairly and treating others well is really the best investment you can make in yourself, treating others well.

Steve Rush: And you call it an investment, and I think it is a right word too Eric because many people don't see that gratitude as an investment. Being fair, being appreciative of people can actually, directly transfer to bottom line results in revenue, as much as just making people feel good, right? Yeah.

Eric Chasen: And don't wait for the other person, you know, a lot of times people they're waiting for the other party or the other person or the other employee or the other colleague or the other neighbour to treat them kindly and treat them well. I find that it works really well, if you make the first move, you know, 9 out of 10 times, like I said, people respond in kind and they can't do enough for you because they, you know, that's the way kind of like the way of the world, right? You get what you want in life by helping others get what they need.

Steve Rush: Yeah, the gift of reciprocity. Give to receive, isn't it?

Eric Chasen: Yeah, that is reciprocity. Respect and reciprocation are some of my core values, actually, Steve, I am glad you mentioned that word reciprocity. I believe in that reciprocation sort of very important for me to return, and that comes back to your original question of gratitude Steve. Reciprocity is a demonstration of gratitude.

Steve Rush: It is, and I hold those values true myself too. We will give the folks at the end of the show, an opportunity to find out where they can get a copy of From Despair To Millionaire, but before we do that, we're going to turn the leadership lens on you. And this is part of the show where we hack into your leadership mind, so as a resiliency coach and turnaround expert now. You have also been a leader of large-scale businesses as well, so we want to hack into some of those leadership experiences. So from your perspective, Eric, in leading others, what would be your top three leadership hacks?

Eric Chasen: Great, great question, Steve. And, you know, since I only have three I like to keep things really, really simple. You know, I learned in simple terms, I try to teach in simple terms and I find that is very duplicable and replicable. I like to think of things like in threes in this case ABC. So, you know, A being attitude as a leader and as a leadership hack here that we're talking about. Lead with the right attitude, attitude is one of those intangible qualities. We can't measure it, but we certainly know when it's there and we can tell for sure when it's not there. So if you want a team of people operating with a can do attitude and then lead with that attitude as well. Not too much different than being a parent, actually, you know, if you want your child or family to have a good attitude, if you want your team or employees to have a good attitude, it all starts with you as a leader, having the right attitude, so that's one.

Also belief. Believe in your team. Believe in your colleagues. You know, believe. Belief is in faith. If you hired the right people, you know, believe in them. My brother used to say, you know, I like people that I can give them a rope and they bring you back a horse. I don't have to tell them, you know, how to do that.

Steve Rush: I like that.

Eric Chasen: Belief that is my next hack, so hire the right people, you know, work along the right colleagues, if you can, and hire the right people and have faith and have belief in them. That is the second one, and the third one really is communication. You know keep it simple, ABC, communication is paramount. It all starts with listening. Listen first, listen often and that's a oftentimes missing part of communication, but communicate expectations, listen for feedback, listen to some more and do the best you can to communicate in the way that you and I are Steve, which is, you know, talking or nowadays, you know, I always love face to face communication. That is not always so realistic. You know, you are over in England; I am in the East coast of Massachusetts, and so we were not going to necessarily be face to face, and on top of that, nowadays is not so much face to face with a COVID in that. So, but that does not change the fact that communication is really, really critical, starting with being a very active and attentive

The listener.

Steve Rush: I love the simplicity of your ABC Eric and easy to remember, but bang on and relevant too

Eric Chasen: Thank you.

Steve Rush: The next bit of the show, we are going to turn to is what we affectionately call Hack to Attack, so this is where something in your work life has perhaps not worked out as well. And it's fair to say, you've shared with us a number of stories already that could align to this as an approach, but we've taken that situation that hasn't worked out well or hasn't been good, but we now use that as a key foundation in our work as a force of good. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Eric Chasen: Steve I think it is around responsiveness actually and that is such a long list treating others well, reciprocation, respect, which are all sort of are interchanged in connected. Responsiveness is an amazing differentiator. Responsiveness is if somebody sends you an email and it languishes for a while, you know, that sends a message. If somebody sends you a voicemail or any kind of communication, and it doesn't get a quick response, conversely, if you are responsive, mean even if you don't have the answer yet, but you say. Hey, Steve I got your email and I am working on it, and then you follow up with the answer or an update. That builds value, so in other words, what you are doing is, it is really making sort of deposits in the bank. You can struggle with performance. You can struggle with results, although those are ultimately, what we get measured by, which is, you know, performance. Results, delivery of things but you can earn a lot of deposits in the bank of trust, so to speak by being ultra-responsive. And you can also set yourself apart from the competition whether it be a, you know, you work in a niche market or a highly competitive market or industry serving coffee, as an example, you can really set yourself apart by being ultra-responsive. And that can be the difference between a competitive advantage, in times that we were not necessarily performing great, but we were very, very responsive, communicative to our clients that would go a long way in building, maintaining trust and building up, I call it the sort of the deposit of trust. That can be drawn upon at times of maybe not peak performance.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that is great and the other kicker of course, to that is. That if you are responsible, you will also be on their mind and therefore that recency of your deposits of trust, if you like will be in the front of their mind, when they are thinking of who do I need to engage to do this next bit of work.

Eric Chasen: You are excellent Steve and I find that even in this day and age of ultra-high tech and Zoom calls, and I still find that a huge competitive advantage and a major differentiator is responsiveness.

Steve Rush: Yeah, me too. Love it, sounds great, Eric. So the last thing we want to do with you is to invite you to do a bit of time travel. You get a chance now to go back to meet with Eric when you were 21 and you get a chance to give them some advice, what would it be?

Eric Chasen: Yeah and I knew this coming in and I still struggle a little bit with it Steve, but I would have, it is kind of sounds silly being an entrepreneur, right? That I would have done anything differently in somebody that was blessed and fortunate enough to, you know, I don't say retired anymore. I say took a few years off, which was like six or seven years. It started to be a year off and it turned into six or seven. But the point is, is that when I go back to 21, you know what I would've done, I would've gotten a trade. I really respect people and I work with people in the trades too, that are looking to sort of advance themselves professionally. I would have acquired a trade, where I could fall back on, you know, after being retired for five, six, seven years. Would have been wonderful to have a trade, whether it's, you know, electrician or a plumber or, you know, something to that effect. And that's maybe something I would have done differently in my early twenties.

Steve Rush: And I wonder how you would have done that though? Would you have unlocked that entrepreneurial spirit?

Eric Chasen: Well, you know what; there is plenty of super entrepreneurial and successful trade’s people too. And I know some of them and work with others that have the trade, but maybe they're looking to build on perhaps some of the you know, soft skills and executive type skills, you know, to further their entrepreneurial career. A lot of those people that are ultimately very, very successful. That is one of those things that is transferable, and you can do a lot of these trades are recession proof as well, especially things like electrician and plumber and things like.

Steve Rush: Certainly, entrepreneurial spirit isn’t devoid, is it of what you do? If it is in you, it is in you.

Eric Chasen: Very well said.

Steve Rush: And therefore, whether you are a plumber, whether you are an IT Geek or whatever the case may, be in terms of what you have as a job or what you do with your work, it is the spirit, the driver tenacity, the guts scripts, and resiliency. You call it in your book that will get you there, right?

Eric Chasen: You bet, Steve. I said earlier, I had oftentimes a short list of things to bring to the party. Communication skills, attitude, belief in myself, belief in others. You know, although they are soft skills are intangibles that are not measurable. They are oftentimes high on the short list of things that I could bring before I had money to bring or certainly any skills, any formal training rather.

Steve Rush: Got it, ao as folks have been listening to this, I am pretty certain they're going to be thinking, how do I get myself a copy From Despair To Millionaire? How do I find out more about Eric work? How can I connect with him? If we are to direct our listeners to you, Eric, where's the best and how's the best place to do that?

Eric Chasen: Thank you very much for mentioning that Steve. It is very simple. You could go to my website, which is my name, ericchasen.com, E-R-I-C C-H-A-S-E-N.com or the actual landing page for the book is www.fromd2m.com but it is available right now through either of those two sites I just mentioned or directly with Amazon. Thank you for asking about that.

Steve Rush: You have also got growing following on LinkedIn as well and I know that we collaborate on various different bits of activity within LinkedIn as well, so I'd encourage anybody who wants to see a bit more broader work that you do, and some of your insights Eric to also follow you on LinkedIn.

Eric Chasen: Thank you very much for that Steve.

Steve Rush: I just wanted to top off the show by saying, Eric, thank you ever so much for coming to share your story and share your lessons from leadership with our listeners. It has been a real pleasure in having you join The Leadership Podcast. Eric Chasen, thanks for being on the show,

Eric Chasen: Steve thank you very much.

Closing

View Details

Terry Earthwind Nichols is the Chairman of the Evolutionary Healer. He is a thought leader and author of the book Profiling For Profit What Crossed Arms Don't Tell You, he’s also the grand master of Repetitive Behavior Cellular Regression® - In this episode you can learn from Terry:

How a chance helping conversation developed into Repetitive Behavior Cellular Regression®
How imposter syndrome and PTSD share similar traits and coping strategies
How he turned people watching into profiling
How to hook into the non verbal clues when meeting with others
Plus lots more leadership hacks!

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more from Terry:

Terry on LinkedIn

Evolutionary Healer Website

----more----

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Steve Rush: Terry Earthwind Nichols is the guest on today's show. He is the founder and Chairman of the Evolutionary Healer. He is a top thought leader and the author of Profiling For Profit What Crossed Arms Don't Tell You, but before we get a chance to speak with Terry, it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: There is so much bad press and so much terrible news happening across the world right now; I am pivoting today to tell you a story, and it was first told to me by my friend and guest on episode four, Michael G. Rogers. This is a story about unintended consequences of leadership communication. Once there was a group of frogs merrily hopping through the forest, they did not have a care in the world until two of the frogs fell into a deep pit. All of the other frogs gathered round quickly around this large pit pared down into its deep vastness. They began to scratch their heads, trying to come up with a way to help. After a long period of time, they couldn't think of any solution, so they all agreed it was hopeless and yell down to the other two folks to prepare for their fate, and it was unlikely that would ever get out.

Unwilling to believe this the other two frogs started to jump and jump and jump. The group of frogs above began to shout. It was time to give up. You are never going to win. It is time to quit. You are never going to get out of here. After a period of time, one of the two frogs in the deep pit gave heave to what was being said to him, he gave up and sadly died. The other frog, however, kept jumping even higher and higher. The shouts of discouragement continued and got louder and even though it was absolutely drained, every last bit of energy, this last remaining frog had continued to jump even higher. And in a miraculous last jump eventually jumped so high he spring out of the pit. The frogs celebrated the frog’s crazy victory, gathered around him in puzzlement. They said, didn't you hear us tell you to stay down there, that you would never get out. In response the frog said, Oh, that is what you were saying. I am hard of hearing, and I thought you were telling me to jump higher, and I thought you weren't discouraging me, but actually encouraging me. And I guess there are two leadership parallels to the story, many people in your life and work and your role as a leader, including yourself talk by the way, will tell you things are too hard. Give up, don't try harder. Make the choice not to listen to negative self-talk and negative talk from others.

And positivity breeds positivity. As a leader, you can unlock Mindsets that shape thinking and develop positive behaviours, and it is so much more fun being positive than being negative. Right? So take this as an opportunity to inspire people. Don't suppress even what you think might be impossible and let them unlock their greatness. That has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any stories, new or insights, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest, on today show is Terry Earthwind Nichols. Terry is the Chairman of the Evolutionary Healer. He is a thought leader and author of the book Profiling For Profit What Crossed Arms Don't Tell You. Terry, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Thank you, Steve. I am glad to be here.

Steve Rush: So before we get into some of the really interesting work that you are undertaking with your teams at the moment, just tell us a bit about the backstories to, you know, maybe your early career and how you arrived at leading the business that you do now?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: It has been an interesting run, I will tell you. I graduated from high school. I was born and raised in the upper western area of the United States in the mountains over Rocky Mountains. You might say I am a mountain boy, so to speak, and when I graduated from high school, I did not quite make the financial grade to go straight into college. Vietnam War was still going back in 1971, and so my best bet was to join the Navy and see the world. That is exactly what I did for 20 years. I loved it. It was a great experience. Would not trade it for anything, and we can talk about that a little bit later but I had been a lifelong helper. My nickname in high school was Doc Nick. People come and talk to me and tell me their problems, so, you know my future life had started very early. I just never knew it, some 40 years later after high school going on 50, here next year.

I started helping some people again through an international ministry called The Stephen Ministries. It is a one on one crisis intervention ministry and I was helping a person from my apartment in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the upper Midwest of the United States. And she was out in Australia and one night, I was helping her, but we weren't getting very far as far as, you know really moving forward to what her issues were. And I got this hit to have her close her eyes and that's shutting off all the visual around her and just ask her what her smell, because I knew from my leadership classes in the Navy and stuff like that. First aid classes that smells is the number one trigger for a memory recall.

And so I asked her what she smelled? And she said, oh my God, gas and I go, okay, what kind? Diesel, gasoline, what do you got? She said no, natural gas. This is an all-electric building, so there must be a fire and I go, well, somehow the second before, you did not smell anything. The second before I asked you, how about just taking a few deep breaths, close your eyes again and see if you can smell that gas again and she was able to, and I say, go back and find a memory where you smell that gas and she did. And so what we now have trademarked as repetitive behaviour, cellular regression had begun. After about three to five hours a week over the course of about three months, the first CR Session, that is what we call it. CR Process Session was completed and we've now got that down to a couple of three hours, so it's a lot quicker and easier for us to work with our clients. As a matter of fact, we work in clients in 13 countries in five languages now.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Terry Earthwind Nichols: So that was 10 years.

Steve Rush: So what started out with some helpful, somebody that you were talking too, has now turned into your life's work. Because the Evolutionary Healer you now run is basically set up to help people through that regression and making sure that people are in a good place for the future. Tell us a little bit. About what you do now?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Well Evolutionary Healers started out as a mom and pop operation. My wife and I started it out with health and wellness people and taking them through the CR Process as the first part of coaching with them. Our coaches said, why aren't you teaching this? This isn't woo-woo or anything like that. Yeah but a solid question and answer sequence, and so we started teaching it and so the Earth Wind Academy was born and we still have the Earth Wind Academy going and then you know, it expanded out. My wife is an author, matter of fact she just finished her memoir, which is her 20th book, just this last month. And she started working with people to write a book and self-publish it in 30 days over Amazon and that's turned into quite a business.

So now, we have three divisions there and I started working with Imposter Syndrome. Imposter Syndrome is wild, crazy.

Steve Rush: Sure is.

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Out there in the executive world. They estimate 70% based on my conversations and my work with CEOs and Senior Executives. That is probably 85% if not higher out there, and so the consortium was born the fourth of our four divisions of Evolutionary Healer. Now in just eight years, we have gotten pretty wide with practitioners in eight countries, 45 of them and so the consortium division is working with the Executives in Global Fortune 1000 Companies. And we work with them with a vision strategy and a lot of other things, but The Imposter Syndrome was a big piece of that puzzle. Evolutionary Healer has really evolved. Evolutionary is eve of illumination or coming out or see in something new, and healer is a little more than what people ever think. Healer is to heal oneself, and to move forward and to evolve, so Evolutionary Healer was born based on that premise.

Steve Rush: Great backstory and Imposter Syndrome is high, kind of 80% in organizations is really stark. In your experience Terry, what is it that causes that?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Well, the same thing that causes a PTSD, suicide ideation, lifelong self-sabotage. All those things, what we found was the answer to what Dr. Sigmund Freud was looking for back in the late 1890s. He was a German psychiatrist that was working with people to try and find a memory of high emotional value in early childhood. Well we found a way to help a person using their five senses to inventory, a single memory one at a time. We helped them find an amnesia memory in early childhood, usually pre-language that has a high emotional value to that child at that moment, and because they are, pre-language, they can't go to mom and dad and say, you know. I just saw this happen or this just happened and I don't understand it, so what happens is there's a natural protection device in our brains called amnesia and amnesia takes over to protect us from remembering that memory. And as we grow it starts watching and protecting us in various ways, so that later on in life, when more significant emotional events occur in whether we see them or are they actually occur to us, the protection system keeps us thinking about those things. And then the repetitive behaviour sets in, and it's like being on a merry-go-round without being able to shut it off.

Steve Rush: Got It.

Terry Earthwind Nichols: That is how that works.

Steve Rush: And therefore, what manifests itself in our more mature years in our adult life. In your experience has been created much, much, much earlier.

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Correct, and it's driven by that, so when they find it, when we help them go back using an alternate neuropathway because that the protection device, the active block, this amnesia has cut off the neural pathway back to that memory and it's protecting it. So we literally, by using the five sense, we go back to the back and bottom of the brain, near the stem, where the five senses are and move forward. So we literally come in the back door with a client, into a memory that they have not been to since it happened and the memory itself is crystal clear as if it happened two minutes ago. It is unbelievable how a memory back so far in early childhood can be remembered with such clarity, it is quite amazing. Now here is the key to this, Steve, when that is found, and we neutralize the emotion of that memory, all of the other stuff they can't stop thinking about, they stop thinking about. PTSD has shut off. Suicide ideation is shut off. The Imposter Syndrome thoughts are all shut off and they don't come back because we teach our clients how to recognize new problems coming in and neutralize it before they take hold. Does that make sense?

Steve Rush: Right, yeah.

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Okay, so yeah, that is how it works.

Steve Rush: Given the vast amount of experiences that you have had. Maybe could share with our listeners, one of the, perhaps the most vivid experiences that you have shared with one of your clients?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Yeah, we go through The CR Process Session using Zoom or Skype or some audio visual, and we have used and used video on Facebook before. We watch them because; this is where the book came from because I have been a lifelong people watcher. And when we first started out in the business, our clients were alive in the room with us when we took them through the process and we would observe different things that would happen physically, as we were getting close to this memory and the person responsible for the memory. And one that was just utterly amazing. If you have ever tried to take a pinkie toe, and fold it over like you're crossing your fingers. Folded over your fourth toe, it is impossible, but I have had three different clients in different times be able to take that pinkie toe and cross it over the fourth toe when they were talking about or describing a person of high emotional value that we found out later was a perpetrator of various of different means.

That was an amazing thing to observe. Another time I was in the room person to person with a lady who did not move for an hour and a half, not a muscle. She did not move her face. Did not twinkle her eyes, not anything. She was like a hunk of stone. All of a sudden, we were talking about her grandfather and she was explaining her senses in a memory. She had dangling earrings and for anybody that knows dangling earrings, if the left one moves the right one moves too, they both go at the same time. All right, this one, this time, the left earring started to moving without moving the right earring. It was amazing, so there was just, you know, the different things that we observed going through these processes. Just mind blowing, you know, and they are indicators of where we are going to be when we get to the end of that third memory is pretty amazing.

Steve Rush: And your fascination with people watching is what caused you to have the inspiration behind the book, which is all about. How you have learned through observation to how you profile people's behaviours. Right? Tell us a little bit about how the book came about?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: The book came about because my practitioners and my business partner, my wife. Bugged me for almost two years to write the book, because I know so much, you know, I've been a people watcher all my life and when I was overseas in Europe and I would get off my Navy Ship and I would go and find me a sidewalk cafe whenever possible. And I'd sit there and have my cappuccinos. I love cappuccinos, and I would just watch people not from a scientific or behavioural standpoint, I just watch them and how they, you know, react to certain stresses. You know, that were obvious when I would be observing them, and then, you know, these oddities in muscle movements associated with our CR Process. I personally taken 147 people through this process in the last 10 years and so you learn that, there are certain things that the body does at a time that is completely subconscious movement, and so the book came from all of those observations.

Steve Rush: Right? In old language, you might have heard the term body language or nonverbal communication, which you substitute for the word profiling. Right? So tell us a little bit about the whole kind of principle. What Crossed Arms Don't Tell You, because ultimately the old thinking behind body language was if you had your arms crossed, you are either hiding something or you are negative, but you debunk that theory, don't you?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Yes, I did. And there's nothing wrong with body language. There is over a thousand books, imprint in English Language alone on body language and how to read it. For almost all of it that I have observed. It is pretty accurate. The thing that they don't go into in any of the books that I've read and I've read, I don't know, over 50. They don't talk about variables to the way a person moves, crosses their legs or their arms or whatever. With the situation that they are in. Case in point, a woman was talking to me at a networking event. One time she crossed her arms, and you know, continued to conversation, which is basically a no buy for salespeople. Cross your arms, you are done but she was cold. Okay, so it was not that she was not buying or receiving the message that I giving her, it was just cold in the room.

There are circumstances, environmental, and otherwise that we subconsciously do. For instance crossing your arms can be a security thing. You know, it is not that I am no longer in a no buy situation. It is just you are, touching on stuff that I am uncomfortable with. So crossing my arms as I was taught, when I was a kid, when mom and dad got mad at me, they crossed her arms. So when this person's talking to me and I'm hitting a couple of buttons, emotional buttons, they'll cross their arms for protection, not per se, no buy. So, you know, the way people tilt their head left or right. Means different things as well, and the way people talk on the phone and in the book, I talk about online how to look at different things in emails and phone conversations and that type of things.

Steve Rush: So all of these, just providing you with little clues and hints to give you some insight as to how somebody is reacting, right?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Got it.

Terry Earthwind Nichols: You know, how they talk to me with their arms crossed the whole thing. I have a cute story in there. I was selling custom clothes shortly after getting out of the Navy and there was a man in front of me in my custom clothing store that I have worked at. You know, and we had already talked and looked at some fabrics and things like that, and so we were both standing facing each other and he had his arms crossed. And so, you know, I'm in the process of telling and how we're going to make the suit, and how it's done and all that. His arms are crossed, he dropped his head down to the left and I stopped talking for about a half a second, and I said, so how do you want to pay for this?

And said, visa is good. I said, okay, let's sit down and let's get a deposit and start designing your suit. Okay, so a couple of minutes later, all of a sudden he sits back in his chair and he says, wait a minute, I go, you have a question? And he says, yeah. I am a professional salesman, I make $2 million dollar deals all over the United States every month. Okay, I am standing in front of you, given you a no buy sign, cross my arms, and you closed me. How did you know I was ready to buy this suit? And I go, well, both of your feet were parallel and you were facing me full on, that means neutral. Your arms are crossed, don't mean anything to me, because as soon as you dropped your head down and to the left, that told me you were trusting me, and you were confident in what I was saying, and it was time to close the deal. And he looks at me for another second or two, and he kind of shakes his head left and right, and he says, well, I'll be darned. Okay, so what do we do next? And he bought my first $2,000 dollar suits sale.

Steve Rush: Great, excellent. And if I'm a leader listening to this, Terry, there must be a bunch of things that present themselves regularly with my team and maybe with my customers and clients, what would be the kind of top things that you notice that present themselves as clues that we can be looking out for?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Well the biggest thing is if you were to dissect a person vertically. Right down the middle of their body, anything that is movement wise on the left side or the heart side of the body is confidence, love, trust, all of those things. Now, if you have ever picked up a baby who is crying or whatever, where do you put it? On the left side of your body, over your heart, so that you’re heart to heart, that's the love nurture side, okay. Now, if they start to move and movements are tilt their head to the right that is defence or distrust or confusion. Okay, so in body language, for instance, if a person is lying to you, they have a tendency to look down into the right, right side, okay. Where did we get left and right? Well, left side is the nurturer inside. Another thing to think about is back in the Roman times. They taught everybody to carry a sword or a weapon in the right hand and a defence device, a shield or something in the left hand, so that all of the soldiers were exactly, the same. That way they did not cut each other when they were standing beside each other.

And so the natural deflection of since, you know, the last 20 or more, thousand years out there. Has to been fight, flight or freeze is to the right, to run away and those kinds of things, if possible. So knowing the left side of the body and the right side of the body is a very important to remember when you are doing that. How fast are they talking to you on the phone? How fast, or slow? Cadence of, how they speak is very important. Somebody is talking very fast, could be an ethnic thing or they could be just nervous, or they are trying to figure out how to get out of this conversation. There is a lot of cultures where their cadence is quicker, so you just tune yourself, your ears to those cadence. In an email, for instance, are they long casual sentences? Or are they short and to the point? And is it a short email? Somebody trying to get this email off their inbox, or are they really trying to communicate with you? So all of that's in the book as well.

Steve Rush: Excellent, so there is lots of hints and tips. That folks can get into, if they get a copy of the book. Right?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Oh yeah. COVID, kind of messed us up a little bit. I have had some fun on webinars. I did a webinar for a sales and marketing executive international. We had about 1,121 people on that one. That was a lot of fun, but you know, when I am live, I have little things that we do it with the audience that is kind of fun, you know, makes it interesting. That is for sure.

Steve Rush: So this part of the show, Terry, we are going to turn the leadership lens back on you. So you have led teams for many, many years in different guises in different shapes, so we want to hack into that leadership thinking that sits with you and therefore, Terry, could you just share with us. What would be your top three-leadership hack?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Listen attentively. Okay, the person in front of you is communicating with you, and I teach this in my coaching. That message is everything, okay. If the person is not receiving you, a good way to understand that they are or not receiving you. Is to ask a simple question. Those of you, who are listening, write this down. The question is. Does that make sense? Does that make sense; solicit 97% of the time the person's going to respond audibly with the word yes. The other 3% they have questions or they are going to say no, and if they say no, normally more than three quarters of the time, they're going to say no, but I have a question, okay. Does that make sense? Is huge. Now here is what, does that make sense do for you as a person who is maybe selling something to somebody. You give them permission to hear themselves say yes, out loud, two or three times, by asking that question during the course of the conversation, then when it's time to propose a buying situation, they're more inclined to say, yes, it's powerful question.

The last of the three is put yourself in their position, okay. If somebody comes to you with an issue. What would you do if you were the person standing there explaining it to your boss what, it is? And did something happen to you or with you, around you? And your experience that could be of high value to that person at, this point in time. That may or may not be according to the general rules of the company, so those would be the three things. That I think are the greatest. Does that make sense?

Steve Rush: It makes sense to me, Terry that is great advice and interestingly that in your last hack there, you know, we don't often spend time stepping into the shoes of other people. Are seeing it from other perspectives. Perspective, it is really, really important, isn't it? To understand how others think, feel and behave too.

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Yes, you know, there is an old saying. I am Chickamauga Cherokee, Native American by blood. There is a great saying that they use, it has called a teaching and it is simply. You cannot give what you do not have. If you are not getting respect, that means you are not giving it. You got to give it first and then I'll come back to you, okay.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Terry Earthwind Nichols: And there is a story in the book there about my best custom clothing client came to me from a kid who washed my car in the parking garage of the building of then Pillsbury Corporate Headquarters. I go upstairs. I do my work with the top floor Executives, come down. I would always talk to the young kid. Pete was his name, and one time he said, he asked me. You always dress so well. I know you go up to the top floor and stuff like that.

That is why I wash your car, but you know, you always dress so well, not like a regular corporate person. What do you do? Now there is two things, I could have done. I could have just said, nah, you know. I just sell stuff to them upstairs, you know, no big deal, but I respected the kid. He gave me a genuine question. He deserves a genuine answer. I gave him a full spill of what I do as a custom clothing salesman and he said, that's really cool. I bet my uncle could benefit from you make in suits, and I go, well, here. Here is my card. Sometime when you see your uncle, tell him about what I do, so about a week later, this is cool Steve. I get a call in the middle of the morning and there is this guy on the other side.

He says so you sell suits. I got your name from my nephew Pete. He was over having dinner last night, and he was telling me how good you look in your suits and stuff. How do you do that? And I said, well I come to offices and blah, blah, blah. And I gave him the same spill that I give to Pete before and he said. Well, I want to come and see. I have a tough time getting suits off the rack, almost impossible and I hate traveling to New York. We were in Minneapolis at the time. I hate traveling to New York all the time and spend a week or two there, to get my each season closed. I said, okay, so I will come out and this guy turned out to be my best customer. Highest pay sales customer of all of them and he came from Pete, the guy who washed my cars, so ladies and gentlemen, respect is everything.

Steve Rush: Yeah. It is good to show, Isn’t it? Everybody you speak to has a backstory and has also connections that can help you in your life and work, right?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Yeah, the guy was Executive Vice President at the time of one of the top banks in the world.

Steve Rush: Awesome.

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Right, so this guy was no little guy.

Steve Rush: Exactly, yeah. So Terry, this part of the show also we call Hack to Attack, so this is where we maybe had something not work out as well in our past. Maybe something has gone a little awry or maybe even screwed up, but as a result of that experience, we've now used that in our life and our work as a positive outcome, what would be your Hack to Attack?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: I have messed up so many times. It is unbelievable, and I continue to, and I think that's part of the journey. Because you know, a journey is not a guided tour and neither is life. I mean, you either succeed in life or you learn, and when I am teaching vision strategy to my clients. I teach them that when they achieve something, they not only celebrate the achievement, but they take a minute and reflect on. What did they learn? Because just about any project you can come up with, things go wrong. That is just the way it works and what did you learn from it? And what can you take with you as you move forward?

Steve Rush: What would have been your biggest learn in your career so far?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: I learned it the hard way and that is, shut up and listen. When I was a young buck probably as late as my middle forties. I felt that I always had to have something to say rather than just be quiet and listen and respond, if there was something to actually say rather than respond, to respond. And that was a hard lesson, I got fired a few times because I would do that stuff, and now I make sure that my clients don't do that.

Steve Rush: Yeah, It is important. Isn't it? That whatever happens, whatever goes wrong, that we absolutely use that as a lesson and we use it as a learning experience rather than we see it as a failure, right?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Yeah, and you know, there is very few failures or things that have gone wrong and lessons that I did not get a chance to use in a positive way later on in life.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Terry Earthwind Nichols: You know, you take it with you and you keep it handy.

Steve Rush: The last thing we want to do is do a bit of time travel with you, so we effectually ask our guests at this time. To think about bumping into Terry when he was 21 and if you had a chance to Terry. To bump into 21-year-old self, what would be the advice you would give him?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Well, oh Lord, I am 67 years old and that 21, I love it. When I was 21, I had just re-enlisted for the first time in the Navy, and I got a little bit of re-enlistment money and I went out and I bought a brand new Volkswagen, super beetle. Now super beetle was a little bigger than a regular beetle of its time and it had air conditioning. I lived in Yuma Arizona was where I was at the time. It got very hot there, so some air conditioning in the car was kind of nice and I would tell myself, don't put the stickers on the car. Now there is the hack right there because I put some stickers on the paint of my car and it gets hot there, so the adhesive on the stickers kind of melted into the paint. So later when we heated him up with a blow dryer and pulled them off, it took the paint with it. Oh my God.

Steve Rush: Oh dear.

Terry Earthwind Nichols: It costs me a paint job to sell my car, and so don't put the stickers on the car.

Steve Rush: And it sounds to me that, that is still a really painful experience, when you look back on it.

Terry Earthwind Nichols: I can see the paint pulled away on the bumpers of my car. The stickers were funny and you know. When you are young, you do things without really stopping to think it through and that was one of them. And that was one of them, so yeah, don't put those stickers on the car.

Steve Rush: There is always a consequence, right?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Yeah.

Steve Rush: There is always consequence behind every action?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Yes, there is.

Steve Rush: Excellent stuff, so Terry, for those people that are listening today, who'd like to learn more about how profiling for profit can help them or more about the work that you do with the Evolutionary Healer. Where is the best place that they can find out more about your work?

Terry Earthwind Nichols: I would say Google, here is why? I have a brand that is unique in the world, Terry Earthwind Nichols. Earthwind is my tribal name. I am Cherokee remember, and there is probably 20,000 Terry Nichols in North America alone, so to keep from having to remember all websites and all those kinds of things, Google me on ask Terry Earthwind Nicholas, and you get my YouTube channels, my various companies, all my social media sites, all of it right there for you. And even how to get a hold of me?

Steve Rush: Excellent stuff, we will make sure also, that through your social media sites and a link to the book will be in our show notes, so folks can click in and find you through our site too.

Terry Earthwind Nichols: Great.

Steve Rush: So Terry, just from my perspective, it has been really fascinating listening to you and clearly being a lifetime watcher, hasn't stopped for you and I know that with a passion, this is something that you continually evolve and continue to teach. And it's been great listening to some of those stories with us today, so Terry, thanks for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Terry Earthwind Nichols: It was great to be on here Steve. Thank you very much for inviting me.

Steve Rush: Thank you, Terry.

Closing

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Patrick Ungashick is the CEO of NAVIX Consultants. He is a business exit strategist, speaker, and author, you don’t have to be selling a business to apply these leadership hacks! You will learn:

The different emotional connections of CEO of Corporate vs Owner Managed CEO’s
Why people become less strategic in their thinking as they start to plan exit?
How questions reveal the direction and decisions
Why having a stop doing list is a leadership enabler

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more from Patrick:

Patrick on LinkedIn

Navix Consultants Website

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Patrick Ungashick is a guest on today's show. He is an Entrepreneur, CEO, renowned exit strategist and author of Dance In The End Zone. Before we get a chance to speak with Patrick, it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we explore with the positive thinking in leadership is overrated. Overestimating success is detrimental to the wellbeing compared to making decisions based on sound unbiased data according to new research. In a study of 1600 participants in the British Household Panel Survey, which is a national wellbeing gauge, launched almost three decades ago by scientists at the University of BATH have tracked people's life expectations, actual outcomes over the last 18 years. And according to their findings, overestimating success is detrimental to wellbeing compared of course, to setting realistic goals. In a team assessment, what positive thinking frames optimism, and is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Decisions based on accurate unbiased data will always lead to greatest satisfaction. The team pointed out that pessimist also fare badly compared to realists. However, numbers at the end of the spectrum are relatively sparse because around 80% of the UK population can be classes, unrealistic optimists. University of BATH, School of Management Associate Professor Dr. Chris Dawson said plans based on inaccurate beliefs, make for poor decisions and are bound to deliver worst outcomes than would rational, realistic beliefs leading to lower wellbeing for both optimists and pessimists, particularly prone to this, our decisions on employment, savings and any choice involved in risks and uncertainty. The study’s co-author David De Mesa of the London School of Economics said findings of a particular resident for personal behaviours is a mix of current crisis too. Optimist will see themselves as less susceptible of the risk of COVID-19 than others and he said, therefore are less likely to take appropriate precautionary measures. Whereas pessimists on the other hand may be tempted to never leave the house or send their children to school again. And of course, neither strategy seems like a suitable recipe for wellbeing. Whereas realists take measures based on risk based assessments and scientific understanding of the disease.

The Institute of Leadership Management, head of research, policy and standards, Kate Cooper said. This is all about the pros and cons of a growth mind-set. Our guest on episode 12, Marc Effron of The Total Strategy Group. A couple of years ago, argued that advocating for a growth mind-set was only appropriate when speaking to children and even Carol Dweck who originated the term now recognizes that no one has ever got a hundred percent a growth mind-set the entire time. Surely, however, whatever you are thinking now, it is likely to be either a positive thought or somewhat of a negative thought. All of which is derived from our mindset. Guest on episode 23, Ryan Gottfredson said. It is about being more aware of one's mindset and that we are all on a continuum from negative to positive. His extensive research and studies show. Having more of a positive mind-set is more likely than not to unlock greater success in your life, your work and your leadership, and of course, that is also including your positive thinking. That has been The Leadership Hacker New. Please get in touch if you have any news, insights or stories.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Today guest on the show is Patrick Ungashick. He is the CEO of NAVIX Consultants. He is a business exit strategist, speaker, and author of two books, Dance In The End Zone and Tale Of Two Owners, Patrick, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Patrick Ungashick: Thank you, Steve. It is my pleasure to be with you today.

Steve Rush: Really excited to get into the stories that you have about how people go about preparing for exiting their businesses. But before we do that and for the listeners tuning in today, perhaps you give us a little bit of your backstory as to how you ended up doing what you do?

Patrick Ungashick: Sure, it was a circuitous path. I am here in the States, of course, and I graduated with an undergraduate degree in political science, which qualified me for very few things to do and I got lucky. I joined a business at the time was led by my father but I did not work directly with him. I was apprentice to an investment banker who has since passed away. His name was Peter Collins, but he was a wonderful boss and wonderful mentor and I spent the first six or seven years of my career doing mid-market investment banking in New York City. And it was amazing experience because I was on a small team and Steve, as you know, when you're on a small team, you get to see and touch everything. And I saw an awful lot of very fine companies and an awful with owners who are typically very fine and certainly hardworking people. Struggle to ultimately exit successfully and that made a very big impression on me from the beginning of my career.

Steve Rush: It is a common problem, isn't it? With that mid-sized business where you have grown a successful business over a period of time. You have created wealth and capital in the business, but it is then what to do with it next. I guess, right?

Patrick Ungashick: That is right. For many owners of small to midsize companies, it is life's passion, it is a calling, it is something rightly, immensely proud of doing. And if they have success with that business success. Typically comes personal financial success. However, most of that financial success is tied up in the company and the emotional and psychological desire to make sure that the company survives and continues one day is incredibly important, just as important as the financial outcome. And all of that is wrapped up in how do I exit successfully one day. Yet most owners will exit only once and they only have one shot at success and it can be a very challenging, and uncertain and disorienting position to be in.

Steve Rush: And particularly if you have, been immersed in that business for many, many years, and it has been your life's work. There's lots of emotional attachments that come with that too, Isn't there?

Patrick Ungashick: Huge emotional attachments. If you have, two human children and you are a business owner. You typically thinking you have three kids and the third child, I mean, just look at the simple math. The third child gets more of your time over the course of your life than the first two do because you are working on it minimum five days a week and probably even more than that. It is a wonderful source of emotional sense of pleasure and achievement. Most business leaders define themselves and measure their accomplishments by what they achieve in their company and you have all of those emotions swirling and wrapped up. And as we get closer to exit, and as that event draws near in life, then you've got all those challenges and all that uncertainty yet all that desire to make sure that you go out the right way.

Steve Rush: And of course, if you are a CEO of a public limited company, you don't have that emotional attachment. You just have the attachment. That is the financial one, which comes with the share certificates, right?

Patrick Ungashick: That is right, A mean. Just look in the news media, you will see routinely CEOs and other C level leaders in publicly traded companies, talk about succession planning, which is an incredibly important responsibility. Succession planning I define as being the orderly transfer of leadership of an organization and that is the mandate of every business leader. Owners and leaders of privately held companies have to think about succession planning, the orderly transfer of leadership. In addition, they have to think about the orderly transfer of ownership as well, and so you've got a double responsibility there and sometimes they flow well together and sometimes they don't. So yes, absolutely. Publicly traded CEOs won't talk about exit planning. They will focus on that succession piece when the time draws near. The leaders and owners of privately held, Companies have to think about both realms.

Steve Rush: Right, now you have been helping organizations and businesses for over 20 years with their strategy to leave an exit and pass on that legacy.

Patrick Ungashick: Close to 30 at this point, yes.

Steve Rush: Oh, it is 30, Wow, okay. Excellent, as an exit strategy, when is the right time to start thinking about exit?

Patrick Ungashick: Day one but that rarely happens. Stephen Covey his well-regarded well-known book, 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People. Points out that you have to begin with the end in mind and those five, six words sum it up rather nicely. The reality is most entrepreneurs, especially if they are a founder, you are not thinking about your exit on day one. You are excited about launching. You are excited about growing, you are excited about the customer needs that you are going to innovate, and you are going to meet and you are going to dominate your market and so on. It is natural that that thought is not part of the fabric of analysis and the picture when you first launch your company. But the reality is, that the longer that this topic is delayed, the longer that the business leader waits to start to think about exit. What happens is for that business owner and leader who is rarely, or maybe never thinking about exit, you end up making all of those strategic decisions about how you are going to grow your company without the backdrop in mind, without knowing where that is going to take you. The ideal scenario is on day one at the practical realistic scenario in the real world is when you get to your final 10 years and maybe even absolutely your final 5 years, if you're not very conscious around your exit goals and what your intentions are, you run the risk of getting yourself in trouble. I mean, five years, as you know, Steve, five years flies by. Five years is sixty months and so when you are at that point, absolutely. If you're not already consciously planning and strategizing and laying out the tactics for how you're going to exit, it'll come back to limit your success.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I agree and if you bring it into real terms, you've got 60 board meetings technically, or that kind of philosophy of thinking will start to help focus the mind on the right things, the right behaviours and the right strategy, I guess.

Patrick Ungashick: Absolutely, you've got 60 board meetings. If your exit strategy is to sell, which is not the only exit strategy, but the most common one. A typical midmarket company takes about 9 to 12 months to sell and that is starting from the point where you are shaking hands with your banking team. So now, you are actually down to 48 months of prep time, and your buyers typically going to want to see 5 years of financial history, so the month of revenue and profits that you are booking right now is actually going to be viewed by your potential buyer, 5 years from now, so you are right, 5 years out. I mean, it literally is the final stretch of the race.

Steve Rush: And of course your buyers or your partners. However you decide to exit are looking for much more than 5 years of strategic thinking and planning too, because they are buying something aren't they, that they want to inherit, grow and develop, so they get a return on their investment? And I wonder, Patrick, you're having that lens. Do you often notice people in that space become less strategic in their thinking as they start to leave or exit or more?

Patrick Ungashick: No, you are under, that is a great question Steve. You are under pressure to do things that you would not normally consider doing, or you would look through a different lens if exit wasn't on the immediate horizon. I will give you for an example. The classic scenario is perhaps I've got a sales team of a half, a dozen people, but I don't have a dedicated sales leader, chief sales officer, vice president sales. Should I go hire that person? If I am in the last few years before I am planning an exit. That person might have an annual salary wages cost of a few hundred thousand dollars or more, well, how much sales do I need to grow in order to justify that expense? Because on the surface, the immediate impact of that type of investment in expanding my senior team is a reduction in our profits. Is a reduction in our earnings, which is a reduction in company value, I need time depending upon my sales cycle, and my market and what my company does. I need time for the sales to recover and grow higher in order to justify that expense. If my time horizon for owning and leading my company is 10 years, 20 years or more, I might not even think about that decision. It might be a no brainer because I am pursuing the growth of my company but if I am anticipating selling the company, maybe sometime in the next two, three years, that decision becomes that much harder. And it's much more difficult to be strategic because I have the tactical to use your very appropriate word. I have the tactical pressure on the near term on maximizing earnings, so you are right. It pulls the leadership, the owner and the company in different directions as you are getting very close to that. What I like to call that one-yard line.

Steve Rush: Yeah, is a really fascinating approach. Isn't it? Because I wonder if that deadline of exit was not there. You would make different bets. You would make different decisions because you are still in that growth phase and I suspect as an exit strategic, do you find yourself having lots of conversations with exiting executives who are going through that push and pull kind of thinking?

Patrick Ungashick: Yes, another classic example is many companies small to mid-market size companies struggle with the issue of customer concentration. I have one, or maybe just a very small number of customers, or clients or accounts that account for 20, 30, 50% or more of our revenue. I mean, that is a very common scenario where businesses get launched. They get launched on the back of one key customer relationship and in the beginning years, you are excited by those opportunities and the customer becomes such a large portion of your revenue and your profits, because you're doing great work for that customer. Delivering superior products and services and therefore that customer is throwing more and more opportunities, your way. That is exciting, that’s rewarding. Again, that is how many companies are birthed and grow to such great success. If you're in the homeward stretch, that's all danger because a buyer is going to come along and in most situations see great risk associated with such a significant amount of the revenue and or profits being tied to one, or maybe a very small number of customer relations. So just like, you said, if I am contemplating my exit and I am working to maximize the value of my company to my buyer or a successor. I now have an incentive as healthy of a manner as possible dilute the size and the impact of that one key account, that one key customer and try and grow the rest of the business even faster, which is a challenge in most situations in of itself.

Steve Rush: I wonder how many executives even have public companies have that mindset that you have just described about how they can drive value and if I guess if there was a direct correlation between a privately owned company and a publicly owned company. They are very similar thinking in activities that go on, but the mind-set shifts somewhat, doesn’t it?

Patrick Ungashick: It does and there is that. You use the word, I believe a few minutes ago, tension and the tension applies here. I mean, growing a business and creating value often move arm and arm together, but not always. Clearly, a company that is a $500 million dollar company is in most situations without question, more valuable than a $50 million dollar company. So growth and size creates a value impact unto itself. However, growth and value are separate in a number of other characteristics. I just mentioned customer concentration. If that growth is largely achieved through a concentrated customer base, the growth might be inevitable, clearer, it is measurable, but that value increase might not be there and certainly not in proportion because of the risk that you are creating. Another challenge that is common, more common in privately held companies, but not uniquely so. Is the issue of we call owner dependency, Steve.

Steve Rush: Yep.

Patrick Ungashick: And what that is all about is. How much can this company not just survive, but actually thrive without the current owner playing a day to day role in operations, customer relations, vendor relations, and so on. A lot of small to mid-market size companies, very profitable, very successful companies will struggle if the owner or current owners are removed from the picture. So again, the growth might be there. You might be able to see the growth measured year by year, but that value is maybe not going to be there as soon as that owner who is such a key employee is removed from the picture.

Steve Rush: Right.

Patrick Ungashick: Now, that is a much more common scenario in private companies, but it is not unique to private companies. I mean, we have a wonderful business story going on right now with Tesla and Elon Musk, who is such an influential and impactful individual but at this point, where we are in the development of Tesla. Would you buy Tesla stock if Elon Musk was not in the picture tomorrow?

Steve Rush: Right.

Patrick Ungashick: A lot of investors probably would not because that publicly traded company is heavily dependent on its owner. I should say its Chief Executive at, this point in time.

Steve Rush: Can have a massive impact on the valuation of the company as well, can’t it?

Patrick Ungashick: Massive, yes. I mean, you look at any industry and when you do a little bit of research, it is common. It is the norm that you will see, there's typically a range of multiples and multiples of earnings, but sometimes a multiple revenue, but there's a range of multiples that most often apply as guideposts in that industry. It could be six to nine times earnings, or five to ten or whatever the numbers are. Well, who determines who gets the six and who gets the nine? Or who determines who gets the low end or who gets the high end of those guideposts that may apply in industry. And the answer is typically not size driven because that's already factored into the guideposts. The answers is typically these other elements that drive value. One could argue independent of growth. We have listed two or three of them already, customer concentration, owner dependency. How compelling is that brand compared to its peer group? There is a number of elements. That you could point to and say, they may not directly drive growth, but they absolutely drive value, especially in sale.

Steve Rush: Sure, given your experience, Patrick, what are the key components that make for a successful exit?

Patrick Ungashick: I think it starts with the owner or owners if it is an ownership team. Having clarity around their goals, most owners have some aspirations. They can very quickly list. I want to reach a certain amount of financial reward. I want the company to survive without me. I want the culture to be preserved and the employees to be treated fairly. Those are rather universally held aspirations, but you need to probably be more specific in your goals and your outcomes in order to be able to implement the strategies or tactics they're going to achieve your variation in your interpretation of those aspirations. That is part of it. Then the other part of it is getting the company ready. Getting a company ready for exit, especially if it is going to be sale to an outside third party buyer. Is a very different process. Than just running and leading a well-managed company.

We talked about some of the issues already that drive value sometimes independently of growth. There is getting a company ready for buyers. There is the level of financial preparation that is involved in preparing the company's books and records and financial reports for buyers. That's a level of discipline and diligence that many privately held companies don't have, especially if their buyer buyers potentially going to be a publicly traded company, which is going to have a much more rigorous approach to financial underwriting, that deal. So it goes back to, we talked about when, you know, if you're down to five years, Steve you can see that there's a lot of work to do condensed in that five years on top of just keeping the company going and keeping the company growing and growing profitably,

Steve Rush: Now we both share the backgrounds of coming from investment banking and I was always taught on day one of fund manager school, never time the market, there is never a right time to invest. If everything stacks up, go. How does that square off though? When you are exiting, is there a right time to sell or exit?

Patrick Ungashick: Yes, I think there is. What they taught us in school is correct, but we have to talk about what market are we timing. If I am thinking about the publicly traded markets and opportunities as an investor, I would tend to agree with that statement. You don't time the market. You just go, when you are talking about a privately held company and anticipating when is the right time to exit, it is a Venn diagram, we've got three circles and we want to ideally target what happens in the middle of the overlap. On one of those circles, am I ready individually? Personally? The second of those circles is, is my company ready? Which we have talked about some of the issues there, and then the third circle is, is the market ready? And timing the market when you're anticipating exiting from a privately held company is hugely important.

I mean, Steve, as we all know, here we are, and we are dealing with a worldwide global pandemic that has unevenly impacted different countries and different communities in different ways.

Steve Rush: Definitely.

Patrick Ungashick: Here in the States, economically for most companies, most mid-market companies, this would be a disastrous time to try and exit at this point in time because of the noise, the distraction, the very difficult economic environment that's here in the States right now. Then you can't make that blanket statement across all industries and all situations, but I certainly can generalize and say for most companies, that would be true.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Patrick Ungashick: And you look at, you look at the global pattern of recessions and the periods of economic growth. They tend to fall in 6 to 10 year cycles. And when you look at valuations and this is true for North America, this is true for Europe. This is true for Australia.

I know when you tend to look at market cycles, what we typically see is multiples will rise and fall by anywhere from 25 to 40% Steve. Depending upon whose data you're looking at, based upon the economic cycle, meaning when I'm in a recessionary environment, most industries, most of the time see multiples that are 25 to 40% lower than what they are likely to be four or five years later when we've moved past that recessionary cycle and we're moving into a sustained growth situation. Now, if you try and time it down to the day, down to the quarter, you're going to drive yourself crazy and it will be self-defeating, but broad macro-economic trends, a good banker can be paying attention into those trends and can see that multiples are strong and buyers are frothy to use the term we all learned. And in normal times in healthy economic times say, okay, this is a better time to sell.

Very quickly, here is the problem though Steve, is that in those higher growth, good economic times, what is the company doing? It is probably making money. It's got a great pipeline. The team has got high morale. We are hiring people. Customers are happy. You are making a lot of money. It is profitable. That is fun. That is exciting. That is why business owners signed up to be a business owner.

Steve Rush: Right.

Patrick Ungashick: That is the time that most owners don't want out, that's the time when they're having too much fun. It is when you know, I have a lot of phone calls on a typical month where I would hear, especially pre COVID-19, I'll hear business owners go, you know, making a lot of money. I am having a lot of fun. Like I said, the pipeline looks great. Why would I want to exit now? And my response often is, well, do you want to wait until the pipeline is thin? And the margins are down and you're breaking even, and morale is tight, and you know, the team is really tense, is that when you're going to want to exit? And you can hear the light bulb go off and go, yeah, that's probably not the right way to time the market, is it? No, it is not.

Steve Rush: It feels counterintuitive to leave something that is successful, and fun and energetic, but absolutely from a valuation perspective, it is probably the right time

Patrick Ungashick: So much, yeah. The emotionally the time that you will least want to exit is probably the time that you should. And the time that you probably are most emotionally interested in exiting is probably the time you should not.

Steve Rush: Do you often experience Patrick in the work that you do now, those leaders of these organizations that have built their life's work or most over a period of time, do you ever find that they also don't sell because there is this fear of what happens next? What happens after the life and the work that they have created for themselves?

Patrick Ungashick: Yeah, it's an issue that does not get the level of attention that it should. We call that issue life after exit. What am I going to do with my time and my talent and my skills and my capacities after I exit from my company? And in my experience, Steve, very few entrepreneurs seek to do nothing after they exit from their primary company. There is nothing wrong with a life of pure recreation. I am certainly not opposed to that in any way, but that is just not, what a lot of people wish to do. A lot of people see themselves doing something else and when you exit from your company and you don't have something else to occupy your time and your talent in a way that's engaging and rewarding. All kinds of negative things happen, and I have seen it. You begin to doubt. Why did I exit the first place? Did I make a huge mistake? And it's a mistake you can't undo. The risk there is either not having something else meaningful and engaging to do, or having something that you think is going to be meaningful and engaging to do, but you start doing it for a little while and you realize as a client once told me years ago, what was fun as a hobby stinks as a job.

Steve Rush: Oh, I like that.

Patrick Ungashick: And so sometimes, the mistake that gets made is I think I know what I want to do in life after exit. I do it for a little while and I realize it is not my next life calling and I end up still being stuck again. And it really doesn't matter how much money you have in the bank. If you wake up every day without something rewarding, and interesting and engaging to do. That is probably not going to be chopped up as a happy exit.

Steve Rush: Sure, purpose does not really cost a thing, does it? Having a real sense of purpose is void of money and void of other things.

Patrick Ungashick: Yes, absolutely.

Steve Rush: You created a couple of books. The first was Dance In The End Zone and it's real a playbook to help business owners with their active. What was the inspiration for you putting pen to paper?

Patrick Ungashick: True story is the inspiration was my coach and mentor at the time being frustrated with me. I remember very distinctly in our having a bite to eat. I thought I was talking with my coach to get coaching advice and I turns out, I think with a little bit of hindsight, I was probably whining in that moment, but I was telling him that, you know, at the time there's, and this is probably still true today. There is thousands of books out there on how to lead or grow a business. But at that time, there was only maybe a couple dozen about how to exit from a company and I wouldn't want to admit this in a social setting, but I had bought all of those books, courtesy of Amazon and read most of them, and I walked away disappointed.

My mentor looked at me over lunch and he said, well, why don't you go write your own damn books? And I walked away chagrined and I walked away not like being challenged. And I didn't tell anybody the rest of it, the true story Steve is I didn't tell anybody what I was going to do. I started to poll together. I had written a few articles for some publications, and I started to splice together and I got to about 30,000 words or so, and realize that I had to finish. It changed the direction of my company. It changed the direction of me as a speaker, because when you write a book and I encourage anybody who has not done it to think about the project, whether you are a writer or not. Simply because what it forces you to do is, it forces you to organize and synthesize and arrange your thoughts in a way that I think is much more clear, much more directive.

The book became an in many ways, a resource for my team to grow. It became the book we all work from, the playbook; if you will that, we all work from, so writing that first book, Dance In The End Zone. It is still very important to us from our marketing standpoint and I am pleased whenever I meet a business owner, who has read it and says it has been helpful. But I would do it all over. I would write a first book all over again, just from the internal benefits, if you will.

Steve Rush: And those thoughts that you write down can then turn into tools that you use every day, right?

Patrick Ungashick: Absolutely, yeah. Our marketing team still extracts articles through the book and white papers and slices and dices it, and we are actually working on an updated edition that will come out later this year, right now, as we speak. So it's an invaluable exercise for anyone who has even, you know, part of your job description is thinking and thought leadership, even if it never gets published. I think it is an incredible exercise.

Steve Rush: Of course yours did and so too did The Tale Of Two Owners, and I suspect is that to help people that cone an organization or cone a business, worked through some of their conflicts, goals and outcomes?

Patrick Ungashick: It is. We did some market research as part of my first book, A Dance In The End Zone and the market research had a few nuggets in there. Were incredibly surprising to us and this is a survey of North American privately held companies. The biggest learnings that came out of that research was, about 70% of privately held companies in North are owned by more than one individual. I have never seen any data for Europe, but I suspect it is probably similar.

Steve Rush: Right.

Patrick Ungashick: We went back, and looked at our client base hundreds of businesses over the years and found that it matched up perfectly. And I still wouldn't have a chance to survey if I'm speaking to a room of 300 business owners, pre COVID-19, I'll say, raise your hand if you have a business partner and typically about 7 out of 10 hands go up in the air.

And that's incredibly important because when you share ownership in a company with one or more other individuals, or maybe an organization like an investment company. Now all these things that you have to think about and address and plan for, and act on to be ready to exit. Now you are sharing that journey with somebody else and they may or may not have the same goals. Very often they don't, just because two different people, two or more different people. And so, yes, I ended up writing A Tale Of Two Owners. Exactly, as you said. As far as I know Steve. It is the only book in existence. That is specifically a resource for how business partners, should approach these issues as a team. As a partnership and how do they explore these issues together and how do they answer them in a way that is collaborative and maintains that alignment, which is probably so fundamental to their business success in the first place.

Steve Rush: Definitely so, in my experience, prior to do what I am doing now. Helping business owners that have different perspectives, different families, different outcomes, whilst they share the same goals and ambitions for the organization, they come from a different place, a different reason, and therefore the same reasons that they grow the business and want to achieve things, will definitely then play out when they come into exit, wont it?

Patrick Ungashick: Absolutely, we are working with a client right now. That's a large company based here in the United States, three owners. I will keep the example very quick and simple. Let's just say they all own a third, a third, a third and they're in the advanced stages of the investment banking process. They are likely to sell for a very successful number. They all have aspirations. They all have multiple things they want to see happen to this company that they have successfully created together. One of the owners, however, the primary drive is. What is going to be the price? How much are we going to sell for? What is the value we are going to walk away? Not that he does not care about other things, but that is the top of his mind.

Another the second, so let's just say the second or the third owners is about how are my people going to be treated? I mean, we've got hundreds of employees here. We want to make sure that they are treated fairly. It is not that he does not care about price, but the top of his mind and his priorities is what is going to be the impact of the team, and then the third owner just happens to be the youngest of the three and that individual wants to stay involved with the organization going forward. And he cares about money and he cares about the team, but he probably top of his mind is, what's this going to be an impact in him personally in his life, because he's probably got another 20, 30 working in front of him? So here, you've got three partners who share an immense bond with one another. They are very strongly rooted in their financials. They have a wonderful relationship. They built a very successful company, yet every turn and every development in the sale process, we are looking at each issue through three different lenses and they already know that it is beginning to tug and pull on them and go in different directions. And that's not a loss of personal respect, or it's not an erosion of their relationship with one another. Its three different shareholders, three different owners who are trying to row the boat in slightly different direction.

Steve Rush: Yeah, It is fascinating stuff, Isn't? Really fascinating stuff and thank you for sharing some of your insights as to what you do. This part of the show Patrick is where I turn the leadership lens on you, so you are a successful entrepreneur and CEO of your own businesses too. I want to hack into your leadership mind now and find out. What your top three leadership hacks would be?

Patrick Ungashick: I had fun with this. This is a great exercise, and I have enjoyed listening to others that you have worked with, share their leadership hacks. Mine came to me surprisingly quickly. Maybe that is a sign of a simple approach on my part, so my first one is. If you don't know what to do or say, ask a question. There has been great minds out there who have written entire books and Ted talks about the power of asking questions. My specific hack is if you are stuck, if you literally just don't know what to do in a particular moment, just keep asking questions. Usually that helps reveal the direction to go or the decision that needs to be made, so it is a trigger response. It is a default position I like to take.

My second is I didn't invent this question by any means but it's one that I find myself using often at both from my companies and also with the clients we work with. Is if I had no fear, what would I do? Or I'd like to substitute we in there. If we had no fear as a team, as an organization, what would we do? I think too many individuals and too many teams don't stop and let that question settle and really wrestle with it and explore. It changes thinking and expands thinking. It changes paradigms, so that is my second one.

And then my third, I know the source of the third. It comes from Jim Collins book, Good To Great, and my third leadership hack is a stop doing list. Most companies, leaders, leadership teams get pretty heavily bogged down with identifying those things that they need to do more of or add onto their plate or expand. And I think very few organizations or teams spend any time specifically and intentionally discussing what they need to stop doing, which is hugely important because if you can stop doing things, you create bed with, you create capacity, you increase focus with all the wonderful insights that Jim Collins shares in his book. It is one that I find myself utilizing on a pretty regular basis is just to stop and ask myself or ask my team or ask the client, Hey, what's on the stop doing list at this point in time.

Steve Rush: That is great hack Patrick, and actually, I think the reasons why people don't have much of a stop list. Is that fear of what will people think? What will people feel? It means I have invested all this time and energy doing something that might not be giving me the value, so they are super hacks. Thank you for sharing.

Patrick Ungashick: Sure.

Steve Rush: So the next part we are going to tap into is what we affectionately call Hack to Attack, so this is where something in your world in the past has not worked out in the way that you intended it to. And as a result of that, though, you've used that experience as something that's now positive in your life. So what would be your hand to attack?

Patrick Ungashick: Well, I mean, I've got a long list. If this is a list of leadership mistakes. I mean, how long has your podcast Steve? It was a variation on the first of the three hacks that you asked me to share, which is, if you don't know what to do, ask a question. When I first took over, I've got several companies and when I first took over as CEO of my first company I had a lot to learn on the job, and I was relying heavily on ask good question. And there was a moment where we were going through this, there was a recession going on. We were going through a difficult economic time and my controller came in to see me about a very difficult financial question. And as we were wrestling with it, she was getting more and more frustrated and exasperated and she turned to me in the middle of this meeting and she said, and she said something like Patrick, don't ask me another question for Pete's sake, I just need to know the answer. Tell me what to do and I think that the Hack to Attack is. There are moments to be listening, absolutely and there are moments to be asking questions of yourself and of your team.

There also are moments where got to step up and make the decision and even be directive. Teams need confident leadership. Even if you are not as confident as you would like to be, they still need a direction. They still need the decision then sometime, so there is a balance act there. Sure, we need to ask questions on a regular basis as a matter of habit and a response to situations, but there is also moments where I learned in that moment that there are times to just make a decision. Tell your team what you are going to do and get everyone alignment around it going forward and it is an art, right? It is not a science. But that's, my hack attack is sometimes I may be default too much to asking questions when there are moments where you've got to say, this is what the answer is, let's go forward.

Steve Rush: Yes, so right. Even this week, I was having a coaching conversation with one of my clients who was a very senior executive director of a fortune 500 company and yet the situation still came down to, I need to be collaborative. I need to be engaging. Yes, you do but sometimes you also just need to say, I think we should do these things.

Patrick Ungashick: Yes, yeah, and how do you read the situation? How do you read the moment? How do you the faces of the team? In order to know when you are at one of those situations, and it is a balancing act. I have made a mistake at that moment and we were all going to continue to make mistakes, but you have got to be intentional about feeling your way through it.

Steve Rush: Definitely so, and then the last thing we would like to do with you, Patrick, is do a bit of time travel. And this part of the show, we're going to ask you to jump into time machine, go back and bump into Patrick at 21 and you have a chance to give him some advice. What would it be?

Patrick Ungashick: Obey your instincts. The phrase that I think most of us fall back on is trust your instincts. Obey is a certain amount of.

Steve Rush: It is like that.

Patrick Ungashick: A certain amount more rigid disciplined response and this also an actionable. You are supposed to take action and as I mentioned, you asked me at the beginning, how I got started and I have got lucky. I must freely admit in the beginning of my career. I had aspirations around doing different things, but I did not act on those instincts. I did not obey my instincts and it is not just about, it would be fun to go back and have that conversation with ourselves to 21, wouldn’t it? But I think it also applies. I know it applies for me too today. If I find myself struggling with a decision and struggling with a course of action as a business leader, very often, if I remember in the moment to stop and ask, am I obeying my instincts? If I am struggling, I probably am not. I am probably guilty of forgetting that one, so especially in the beginning of a career, back at age 21. When there is so much flexibility and so much good uncertainty, about where you can go with your time and your talents and your career, just obey your instincts and go chase whatever you want to chase at that point in time, the rest of life will figure itself out.

Steve Rush: Love that, super stuff. Thanks Patrick.

Patrick Ungashick: Thank you Steve.

Steve Rush: As folk have been listening to this, I suspect they will be wanting to know how they can get hold of a bit more information and insight about you, your firms, and what is you're doing at the moment. Where's the best place we can direct our listeners to, to find out a bit more about you.

Patrick Ungashick: Thank you so much, so our company that does the exit planning work is called NAVIX, N-A-V-I-X, as in navigate towards your exit and our website is navixconsultants with an S on the end. navixconsultants.com, you can find information about my two books there. We have dozens, hundreds, actually of videos and articles and a couple of dozen white papers and eBooks, all of which to help business owners and leaders understand these issues and get educated on the importance and how to prepare for exit. I think Steve, probably the best place to start; because there is just a lot of content on the website is an eBook that we created a couple of years ago. That is probably our most popular you book. It is called Your Last Five Years, and it lays out what do business owners need to be thinking about and doing and tackling during that final 60 months, it's free. People just need to log into the site and download the eBook, Your Last Five Year.

Steve Rush: And our listeners will also find links to all of those sits and all of the resources that we've just spoken about in our show notes as well.

Patrick Ungashick: Wonderful.

Steve Rush: So Patrick, whether I think our listeners are either in the space of growing, developing, or considering exit for their business, they will get loads out of listening to the show. So from my perspective, I just wanted to say, thanks ever so much for sharing your insights, your knowledge and your leadership hacks with us on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Patrick Ungashick: Thank you, Steve a delight to be with you across the pond today. And I've, enjoyed becoming a subscriber to your podcast as well. Some wonderful material you are putting out. It is my honour and pleasure to be with you today.

Steve Rush: Thank you, Patrick, really appreciate that.

Closing

View Details

George McGehrin is the President of the McGehrin Group, one of the U.S. top executive placement and recruitment firms of C-Suite executives and he’s also a professional executive branding coach. In this episode you can learn from George:

Why you need a broad number of clients to survive a crisis
Top exec’s need support just like everyone else
Use your brand to find more opportunities
How your Network leads to your Net Worth

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Full Transcript Below: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Learn more from George on

Follow George on LinkedIn

Follow George on Twitter

Website: https://www.mcgehringroup.com

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Episode Transcript.

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is George McGehrin. He is the founder of the McGehrin Group. He is an executive talent acquisition specialist and brand ambassador and ranked amongst top 30 most connected recruiters in the United States. Before we get a chance to speak with George, it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: As various parts of the planet return to work and start moving towards getting back into a rhythm of productivity. Organizations still suggest that their productivity levels are down roughly 30% year on year, because of the way that we are adjusting and getting used to new things. So I'm going to share with you some top hacks around productivity to help you and your teams start moving your productivity forward.

Number one. Arrange your day in boxes of activity, so you can focus only on that box that you are in, being out of control and being far forward thinking sometimes creates anxiety, but being in control would mean you stay calm, stay focused.
Number two. Take regular productivity breaks. Our brains can really only work for about 90 minutes full on where we'll need to take some time out to recover. Make sure we get those recovery breaks on regular occasions throughout the day so that we can keep our brain focused.
Number three. If you have a to do list, don't put more than five things on it. Just focus on five things at a time. You will force to figure out what is really important to you, what the priorities are and therefore discount some of the things that really are wasting space and taking up time.
Number four. When you get to read emails, just read one email at once. When you open an email, decide what you want to do with it. To reply, delete, forward or archive it. What you can't do though, is go back to it later. It just creates anxiety and of course, it impacts on our productivity because we know that there's something haunting us for the rest of the day. Get to the habit of doing this is not easy. It takes a bit of discipline. It takes a bit of time.
Number five. Scheduling distraction time. What do I mean by that? We all know that there are going to be things that we want to look out through the day. Maybe Facebook, LinkedIn, things that are going to just curiously drive us to do stuff could even be research, right? Aimlessly browsing through Facebook and social media in and out through the date will do nothing but distract us. So plan some time in, but use that time to get really focused, so that is it for The Leadership Hacker News on this episode. If you have any insights, information or just some funny stories and you want us to listen to them, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: I am joined on today show by George McGehrin. George is the President of the McGehrin Group, which is one of the U.S. top executive placement and recruitment firms of C-Suite executives. He is also a professional and executive branding ambassador, George, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

George McGehrin: Yeah, I appreciate you having me. Thanks for having me on today.

Steve Rush: Before we got into the world of executive search and C-Suite placement, how did your career take off?

George McGehrin: Right, so it is a very open-ended question. Back in the day, I mean, I had sort of a normal, you know, I guess you would say you know, you go to decent schools, go to decent universities, land a job, and then do that for the next 50 years. That was what I was taught when I was younger. I worked for a bit for the BitForest, for Pricewaterhouse, as well as Elmstead Young and found myself with an opportunity in Miami. I am from originally from the New York area, New York City area. Found an opportunity in Miami, and next thing I know I was hanging out in Miami for a Consulting Company and three months into it, I literally walked into the office.

It was it was a German Consulting Company and they said, hey guys. We are closing down the office, so all of you are kind of out of work. Right? And so I found myself unemployed, right? Other people have called it sort of pedigree background, but I don't, I never saw it that way, but you know, I had this very sort of strong career going and then I was unemployed and I found myself literally in the unemployment line. And I don't know if you've ever had that aha moment, right? Where you say, where you start to evaluate and just say, listen, I don't think I want to do this again. I literally in the unemployment line, I decided to start a business. I did not know what business that would be.

And the game plan was, you know, and I do executive recruiting, but the game plan was just to go to a bunch of these recruiter guys, get a job, let them finance me for a little bit, and then I can start a company. And I walked into a recruiting company, I just thought I could do this easily and that was sort of it, I worked with the recruiting firm for a couple months, and then I decided to do my own thing. And next thing I know I had a recruiting firm by myself. Right, I used to say we but it was me.

Steve Rush: Right.

George McGehrin: So that is how I got into it. At the time, it was not executive recruiting. It was just very, there is the sort of lower level roles. I did that, built it up to about 50 people, the company and all my clients by the way, were banks and financial institutions. And, you know, and so this is from 2000-2009 and one day I got a call from literally all of my clients saying, Hey, George, you know, the world has gone.

Steve Rush: Absolutely right, yeah.

George McGehrin: You know, thanks for playing, but you are not welcome anymore. And I went from 50 people back to zero. It was sort of a zero to hero back to zero story. You know, for me, I learned a lot of lessons on the way.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

George McGehrin: Mean, now I've got a 30 person team and, you know, I made a lot of changes in 2008-2009 that had impact us today, which has helped us quite frankly, with this whole Coronavirus thing. But that was the, you know, it's kind of a zero to hero back to zero back to hero story. If you want to call it that. If you were to paraphrase it,

Steve Rush: And the work you do now is about placing top executives. Typical salaries kind of $300 or $400,000 dollars up to 5 million plus. Right?

George McGehrin: Exactly.

Steve Rush: Tell us a little bit, about what you are doing at the moment?

George McGehrin: Exactly and a lot of these executives. I mean, they run global brands, they run global companies, and they have lots and lots of responsibility. We do retained search, which means that a lot of times a company will say, you know. We need to replace somebody confidentially and put somebody else in there. And usually it's, you know, it's sort of a, I guess in a very cliché way, they call it needle in the haystack recruiting, but that's kind of what we're doing, right? We are finding sort of that impossible person and we are getting retained by these large corporations to find talent for them. Usually they either can't find the talent themselves, or secondly, it might be too risky, right. From an internal sort of political landscape arena.

So they hire firms like myself and we compete with, you know, Korn Ferry and Spencer Stuart, and that's who we compete with on a global level. So we have clients that are literally in every industry, geography, revenue stream you could think of, but we're working with people that are making from $300,000 a year to 4-5 million. It is a super interesting group. I mean, I can tell you, there is a lot of commonalities between. There is very few differences between somebody who makes half a million dollars a year and somebody who makes 6 million, which I found.

Steve Rush: Yeah sure.

George McGehrin: Just a very interesting group from a leadership standpoint.

Steve Rush: And having had all of that experience where you pick out some of the key attributes that you observe in some of those that you placed too, but also as part of your work, George, you have become a renowned on helping people with their branding and placement of their own brand within these organizations. And you have that claim to fame that out of all of the fortune 500 companies, at least one of those executives you've really helped with their personal branding too. Right?

George McGehrin: Exactly and that was a mistake turned into a business model. And I don't know if that as ever happened to you and your side. But, you know, just from dealing with recruiting and, you know, folks at that level. They would always come to me and say, hey, George, you know, there is a board role available, or I might be open for another opportunity. Do you know somebody? That can either take care of my CV or, you know, LinkedIn or biography? And they would ask me sort of, you know, just these questions, you know. I took on one client and it snowballed into, you know, just a different beast, right? So that is more of, I guess, a B2C play if you call it that. But the interesting thing about that is some of the B2C business that we get on that. It turns into B2B, right. Because they are running.

Steve Rush: Sure.

George McGehrin: You know, if I’m introduced to a CEO of a large corporation, because of the relationship is formed. They then, you know, sometimes become a recruiting client for us. Which is the other part of it. A lot of these folks, I mean they feel very, you know, kind of lonely at the top. Right and they are extremely talented. But they also see the value in coaches and they see the value of getting help, you know, with outside sources. And they understand a lot of these and this is how I see this as well. They understand that maybe a coach cost, I don't know, 30, 40, $50,000 a year, you could say, right. But they understand that they have a $5 million problem, you know, or let's say they run a $90 billion dollar company in revenue, but they understand they have a bigger problem than just whatever fee they're going to pay to a coach, you know, for some advice. That’s one of the common denominators I would say about some of these guys and girls on the show, yeah.

Steve Rush: Got it, yeah. So with all of the leaders that you have worked with over your career, which is extensive across lots of different sectors. What are the key attributes that you observe that your clients are looking for when they are hired?

George McGehrin: Number one, I guess the best word is that they are engaged. You know, and engaged is, even when they interview, or if it is a phone call or even if it is a private or just a personal conversation about. How the family is? or how the kids are. They are extremely engaged with whatever and focused on the opportunity and opportunity does not mean just job opportunity, but they are just focused on what they are doing. And I think that the reason they're able to be engaged is because they show up very well prepared. I've had situations where, you know, we're candidate walked into the organization with, you know, like a 28 page business plan of here is exactly what we'll do the first, you know, they just show up engaged. I think that is probably the number one attribute.

Number two. They treat everything as if it is their own business, even if it is not. They have so much skin in the game. It is just not a 9 to 5 gig for them.

Steve Rush: Right.

George McGehrin: I always ask the question. Sometimes I will say to them, you know, just in passing, you know, have you ever thought about just running your own show? Like why do this for, why not just do your own thing, you know. There is a lot of similar things going on and some of the response will be, yeah, that's my next play. Or some of the response will be, I really love running a global team and I love the fact that, you know, what I'm doing. I can make it or I can break it. You know, this 150 year old company, you know, it's like, I can either destroy them or I can make them something that they never even imagined. You know and they'd like that sort of risk.

Steve Rush: There is a bit of myth, isn’t there? That if you are working for an organization, you can't be entrepreneurial, but of course you can. It is just different bets, right?

George McGehrin: Of course. Yeah, I would say everyone at that level is entrepreneurial and there is not really one person that isn't. They are all entrepreneurial, right. And you are dealing with very similar people.

Steve Rush: Right.

George McGehrin: Right, in terms of some of the clients you are dealing with, I mean, would you agree. I mean, do you think there is a better word than the word engaged? I mean, has that been your experience with some of these folks as well?

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely. If lack of engagement from the very get go, means that you are never going to find that if you haven't got it to start with. Right?

George McGehrin: Exactly. Well, the other thing too is, and I don't know if you've, what I've noticed is the higher you go up in the chain, the more detailed questions you can ask and they really know their business.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

George McGehrin: And I think the ones that are sort of, you know, working on it, and there is a book on this, right? The E-Myth Revisited, but the ones that are really working on the business and not in the business, you know, they have a great hold of how to run a strong operation, right. They also understand the value of people.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

George McGehrin: They talk about people, processes. There people, skills are amazing and I was speaking to somebody last week. This individual, he runs a company, they do about $50 billion in revenue, right. Obviously super busy and I was on the phone with them for about 25 minutes, even on the phone, you know, he made me feel like I was the only person in the world, right. When obviously he has other, things going on and I think they have that special leadership glow. Right.

Steve Rush: That connection isn't it?

George McGehrin: Totally, totally. And I've met some, you know, I've seen some of these world leaders speak, you know, live in person and they had that spark to them. And I think that's one of the things that a lot of the leaders that I deal with, they have this amazing innate spark and an energy that they make you feel like you're the only person really that matters in the world, at least for that 25 minutes and I think it's a special skill.

Steve Rush: It is for sure it is and brand is also a skill, and often people don't perceive that actually building your brand comes with a set of skills. What would be your experience as to what brand means for you and for your clients?

George McGehrin: Brands can be use in different ways. Right? So as a leader, you can use brand from a personal standpoint to find more opportunities for yourself. You can use it and this is a way that a lot of leaders use it. Brand also is a great talent acquisition tool, right? Where people want to work for interesting people, right. I mean, it's very rudimentary basic sort of way to say it, but by having a strong brand presence. You are also able to attract way better talent than somebody that just has a very, you know, just a kind of, I don't know if the word boring is correct.

Steve Rush: Yeah

George McGehrin: But the ones that do a better story and sort of that frame their story better and market, their own personal story, as well as the company story in a better light. They just in general. They just attract better talent, so that is another piece of it as well, that some folks don't think about it. They think about brand just in terms of how they can, you know, more job opportunities, but partners and vendors and new deals, and there is all these other facets of why brand matters. At the executive level, you know, they are constantly selling the vision of their company. The culture of their company, sometimes the, you know, the good and the bad of their company. So the brand piece is extremely, extremely important. And this is a change that I have seen in the last 10 years. I would say, thanks to like LinkedIn, but you know, 15-20 years ago. I would never have a conversation with an executive about, hey, George, let's talk about brand or let's talk about my image, or let's talk about, let's talk about some of the bad news, right?

There is, you know, the reputation piece of it. And now it's a common conversation I have with people about just the storyline and how they'd like to be perceived. You know, when you and I are talking from different parts of the world.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

George McGehrin: And the market is just a global market, you have to be aware and have to control some of that elevator pitch. And I'm not talking about embellishing the story, but you need to be able to be aware that somebody from, you know, I don't know. If you are in the state, somebody from England might be checking out your LinkedIn profile, right. You might be doing business in Africa through a client that you met in Australia, right. It is just much smaller market globally.

Steve Rush: I like the principle of the story being the brand, because actually that is how it arrived in the first place. If we go back to when we lived in cave 50,000 years ago. The brand then was just about the emotional connection and the ability for me to tell stories and to hold court and to create that persona. And I guess that's just morphed to the world that we're in now, the corporate world that we're in now, right?

George McGehrin: A hundred percent. I mean, I was on a webinar yesterday. It was not a webinar. It was one of these, I guess, these Facebook live events. And they were interviewing me and I didn't say this, but the host did. I just thought it was an interesting, but they said, you know, perception is reality, right. And to some extent, that is correct. I think at the executive level, though, you have to obviously back it up with proof, you know, the proof is in the pudding, but people will only know about you, what you tell them. Right. Especially with all the access to information and all of the noise that goes on and all the, you know, I mean, it is unbelievable in terms of news stories, right? Like if something happens in Indonesia, you and I will find out about it within about two minutes of it happening, right? Now you know 60 years ago would have been, let's say 30 years ago, it would have been in the next day, right. 30-40 years ago in the paper, maybe, but people have so much more access to information and there is this sense of being an obscurity. Being able to build your brand, takes you out of obscurity in some sense or another.

Steve Rush: It does, doesn't it? And also I think perception is reality to a point and because we are connected across the world and we've got lots of different mediums. We can validate that much quicker too, can't we? So if I think I'm right about this individual, I might double check that and I might look at LinkedIn, I might look at their social media profile. I might read some articles to get verify and validate whether or not the emotional connection I am feeling is the right one.

George McGehrin: Exactly, they call that I think social proof, right? and I have, you know, on the branding side, sometimes I'll get referred to people and they, you know, when we start talking about pricing and everything else, you know, obviously they'd like, sometimes they'd like to do their due diligence, right? You know, what do they do? They go on and I think you have had the same experience, right? They will go online and they will just Google me, right? To see what I am about. You know, some people don't pass the Google test, right? And some people do. So you have to be conscious of that now, as well. I mean even this podcast, for example, that you know, that you and I are on later on, if we Googled each other's names, I mean, we'll show up on Google, right? as part of a, you know, it will show up as a link.

Steve Rush: That is right.

George McGehrin: So you have to be conscious of that. You know, I guess, I don't know if it's a play, but I think you have to be conscious of the things that you do. And also the things that you don't do. I mean, you have to be careful of what you say, and don't say sometimes it will get out very, very quickly. And sometimes in the wrong way, by the way as a service and we were thinking about this, just because people are asking for it. They are asking now, executives are saying, hey, George, you know, how do I repair some of my reputation, right? Because sometimes, I mean, you know, but like a 25-30 year career, somethings, you have employees that were not happy.

Things happen, maybe negative news, right. With the company, as and ask, you know, we are thinking about offering as a service rep. It is almost like a reputation prepare, you know, for executives. Because it is like I said before, a lot of these folks have a half a million of, you know, $4 to $5 million dollar problem, you know, one ding and when you're looking people up is a problem, right? I think you and I are sort of old enough. To realize you also have to deal with the person and see what your take is.

Steve Rush: Sure, yeah.

George McGehrin: You know, because sometimes people get, you know, what is out there. It is not always true. Right?

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely right. That is very true, and also people do screw up with good intention too, don't they? And as long as we've used that as a learn in our life, and that's been a positive experience for us, then we shouldn't necessarily come with that worldview that because something's gone wrong in the past, it means it'll go wrong in the future either.

George McGehrin: Well, I think that is the only way to learn, right? and you know, just to give you my story. So we've got 30 people, the recruiting is an eight figure business. The branding piece is a seven-figure business. That is right, on those fronts, but you know, I think everybody has those. When I had to let go of the 50 people in 2009 you know, I also lost three houses as well, right. Everybody that has done, you know, if you have done it even remotely well, I am sure you have. I used to feel like it was a skeleton in the closet, but I feel like it was a learning, you know, you learn how to deal with things. And everybody has that story, that is what I've noticed, right? The ones that take risk.

Steve Rush: Demonstration an element of resilience that bounce back ability or whatever it was called.

George McGehrin: Yeah, you also learned to suck up your ego, right. Your ego is you have to learn how to, but everybody has that in their background. I think the ones that have taken risk and you could see it as two ways. Right. You could see it as, okay, the guy failed, or you could see it, the guy failed, but he got up and he did it again. Yeah, but it is just social media and the brand, and all of this comes into play. Also for candidates and this is just, you know, for people that have kids out there who are in university. You have to be careful of your kid’s brands, your children and sort of their brand as well on Facebook and Instagram and everything else. Because employers, you know, look at this and they look to see, you know kind of what they are up to before they hire somebody.

It is also important for somebody who is younger. Maybe this show, it does not matter to them but if you are in your fifties and let's say, and you've got some kids that are finishing University. Their next employer, 110%, I know for a fact. They will be looking them up in Facebook and Instagram and see what they are up to, right. Before they even make a decision. Before they even interviewed them by the way. Not even just to see if they. They will look at the CV. Look at the LinkedIn profile.

Steve Rush: Of course, yeah.

George McGehrin: But then they'll look at the other social media, you know, obviously Tik Tok and other things that are showing up now, you know, you have to be very careful as a younger person as well. And I see this as a mistake, a lot of the younger people are not being careful because I just think there's a sense of immaturity. They don't realize that in 30 years from now, you know, they're going to, all these things will pop up and their kids will probably ask them certain questions about them.

Steve Rush: And I wonder if you notice whether or not employers are looking at parents, siblings, the social connectivity, does that feature now, as part of, you know, who you connected with, does that play out at all?

George McGehrin: I would say directly, no. I would say indirectly you see kind of who is in someone's circle. We were referred to hire somebody on our team for an inside sales role. And it was a referral and, you know, from a Facebook group, that's one of my team members was on. So then you can see who, you know, you can see the profile, you could see who they are connected to and some of the comments and to be fair, I think it gave the wrong impression of the person, right? Because you can kind of see the circle of people that they hang in, right? I don't think it's a tool that people directly look for yet, but indirectly, you know, I'm sure it plays a little bit, I mean, it did for us, at least, even for a basic inside sales role,

Steve Rush: It’s part of that social proofing, isn't it? It is part of that validation.

George McGehrin: And maybe that goes back to a larger theme about sort of classism and right, and judgments of people before you even know them.

Steve Rush: Sure.

George McGehrin: And where people come from. I have a friend of mine; by the way, this is interesting. He is a multimillionaire, right. He grew up literally with nothing and he literally, you know, he moved out of the, he grew up in this very poor area. He literally, you know, he has business relationships. He does very well, but all of his friends, like his inner circle. They are all his buddies from where he grew up and he refuses, refuses. I was invited to a baptism from a friend of a friend and he just refuses to even justify, you know, like he hasn't changed. His inner circle is the same as when he grew up. I tell him sometimes, you know, I don't know who is right or wrong, right? Like maybe, he's got it right. But he's able to be himself sometimes, but I’m sure, you know, I'm sure. He has probably lost business opportunities because of sometime the people he is hanging out with.

Steve Rush: Yeah

George McGehrin: And they are nice people, just people make these judgements about others without knowing much about them. He is like the typical rags to riches story, just happen to keep the friends, you know, he didn't get rid of their friends.

Steve Rush: I was out in San Francisco doing some business a few years back and bumped into a venture capitalist and we are having a coffee. And the one thing that resonated with me that kind of stuck with me from that point on was your Networth is equal to your Net work.

George McGehrin: Right.

Steve Rush: So if you've got a broader Network, it's diverse and it can help support your growth of your business, that's more like to help you succeed and conversely, of course, if it's very narrow and very short.

George McGehrin: Well, it is also the mind-set, right. It is the mind-set of who you hang out with sometimes and sometimes the mind-set. I mean, I find that as well. I mean every client that we have now in recruiting, it's based on relationship, it wasn't because I, or somebody on my team sent the best, you know, sort of best email ever, you know, or it was the best, you know, it was the best call. It is mostly because of relationships, right. By the way, for some of your listeners that have, you know, businesses, there is a model. I mean, I call it the pay to play model. Where you can join some of these, some of these exclusive clubs or you can go to some exclusive restaurants or you can, you know, even politically, there is that pay to play model.

And that's what people are doing, right? They are paying for access to make sure that their Networth is connected to their Net Work, right. I think that is what people do. I have a coach that I work with, and that was one of the recommendations, he had made. Is like, listen, you got to a certain level, maybe you now move to the pay to play model.

Steve Rush: Really interesting.

George McGehrin: Instead of, you know, you can get pretty much your whole core audience, right. In one room, you know, through a $3,000 dollar dinner, you know, maybe like in, you know, for some sort of appreciation, right. You have everybody there rather than spending 15 years to try to make that network up, right.

Steve Rush: It then can seem quite cost effective marketing in many respects, cant it.

George McGehrin: Of course, you are totally right. I see that a lot, right? Your Network is your, is your Net Worth. It is fairly true, I think to digress on that though, a little bit is. You have to give to people, and this is a networking tip, but you have to give to people, you know, give, give, give before you take. And I think the ones that play that, you know, the me, me, me, me game, it doesn't really work out well for them later on.

Steve Rush: No, trust either. Right? No trust.

George McGehrin: I mean you have had that call, right?

Steve Rush: Sure.

George McGehrin: Where it is just, you know, you go at a dinner party and it's, you know, it's, but the ones that give. There is a book written, I think, in the twenties, 1920, so it is called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. This gentleman, for 25 years of his life, literally all he did was interview extremely famous people, wealthy people, successful people, and he created this book for sort of common denominators and that's all he did. His life passion, his life mission was to interview these people. He talked about all those secrets to some of these folks success and one of the pieces was the law of, I think I might be paraphrasing it wrong, but it is Reciprocity, right?

Steve Rush: The Law of Reciprocity, yeah for sure.

George McGehrin: Where I give you five or six people, right. Eventually, you know, things come full circle. You start throwing things my way and being genuine about it. You can brand yourself as well as you want, but you also need to be, in terms of networking. You need to be conscious of that rule. It is a great book, by the way. He also talks about; you have seen all these masterminds pop up in the last 5-10 years. I mean, you have seen that everywhere. Right?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

George McGehrin: So the original idea for, I guess, concept actually comes from that book. I think it is the number one, the most sold book ever, you know, business, self-help book ever. I don't know if there's another book that's sold more copies than that book. So it's a terrific book, so Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill written in like 1920s, but there's so many things that are relevant to today.

Steve Rush: Still holds true!

George McGehrin: Oh yeah. It is a terrific book

Steve Rush: Thinking about then having created my brand, I have been really thoughtful about the stories I'm going to tell. And I'm now to take me to market, how do I do that without appearing needy, without appearing I'm selling or overselling myself?

George McGehrin: Well, I think the first thing, and this sounds pretty basic, right, but I think you need to think about what is your end game and what kind of client is your end game and who you're selling to. I think that is the first piece, right? I mean, in our case we target executives. So our messaging is a little different than if I were to targeting, I don't know, 18 year old kids, right. Or 17 year old kids, so I think the first piece is you need to figure out who your audience is right before you even start. The second thing is. I see this problem a lot, right. So somebody will start, you know, they will start a YouTube channel and a LinkedIn page and this page and that page, and then they don't do anything.

You know, they work it hard for about three weeks and then they leave it alone. I think the second piece is consistency in terms of the brand. So I think you need to constantly, you need to be out there and active and that is a way not to screw it up. The third thing is I highly recommend this. I mean, you need to fish where the fish are. You might be able to sell your brand better in a Facebook group. Right. You might be able to sell it better in a LinkedIn group. You need to fish where the fish are and where the correct fish are. So make sure you do, you know, do your research to figure out where your audience is hanging out. I would probably dig in with one platform and just be the subject matter expert without taking, just give advice, advice, advice, advice.

I mean there is technique where they will go in and they will answer a question, right. About something, and then they will say. How do I know the answer to this? I know this answer because I run a successful executive branding company. That is why I am able to give you some great advice. There is no sales thing. You know, like if you need advice, call me. You are just a very subtle PS. I am giving you this advice because this is what I do for a living, and that is a great way.

Steve Rush: I call it brand gifts. In other words, I am going to give you a gift of information and I am expecting nothing back in return. So I saw this, it is yours. Here is my gift of information of insight and it strikes them as thought leadership, doesn’t it?

George McGehrin: A hundred percent, but you need to make sure that you are giving the advice to the right people, right? Like you're not, if you're a vegetarian, you know, giving, you know, you're not, if you're, you know, if you're, let's say you're a meat eater, you are going to make sure that you're in the right group, right? And maybe the advice is spot on, right? What you and I are talking about right now for a 17 year old is probably, they are 17 going on 34, right? You have to make sure the audience is correct as well with your brand. That is the one thing. I think one of the big mistakes is people. They sell this brand. Like they are going to conquer the 7 billion people in the world. And I don't know if you need to conquer 7 billion. Conquer the 300 people that might buy your product later on.

Steve Rush: So, this part of the show George. I am going to ask you to turn the lens a little inward now and learn from your leadership because whilst you have been an ambassador and advisor and a coach to some of the top U.S. execs. What would be your top leadership hacks that you would share with our listeners?

George McGehrin: And this is what I do and this is what other folks sort of very well paid executives do. I would say they are experts at delegation. I mean, just without facts, just they are just experts at delegation, right? So I think the first thing is, you know, figure out what you make hourly. If you really, if you want to think about it, you can divide it by 2080 hours of work hours in a year. Let's say like to make a million dollars a year, that's $500 an hour, roughly. Be conscious of that task. You know, of even basic thing like email, right. You know, one hour of email for you would cost about $500. You could probably find somebody cheaper for 20 or $30 an hour, right. They delegate, but with a purpose, they know exactly what their hourly rate. They know what their costs are, right. They know what their hourly rate is.

The second thing I would say is. I am a big fan of the 80/20 rule. I mean, focus on two or three things that you are great at, and then the rest, let somebody else do it. That is the second thing, you know, and if you get caught in doing things that you're not great at, then don't do it. That drives revenue unbelievably well. And the third thing is, I think you just need to let go, like you need to not micromanage your team. Like your team develop their own skillset, let your team develop their own habits. You will find eventually that they can do the task much better than you can.

I was joking. I was on a call a couple days ago and I had to log into a website. I did not know the password to my own Gmail account. Right. You know, we use we used Google Business Apps for the business. But this is account, I didn't know my own Gmail password because my team manages my email, right? So I don't do email, but you need to let go and let other people do some of these administrative tasks. I think that is the number one thing I see for entrepreneurs and leaders. The ones that are like in the weeds, it just does not farewell for them later on.

Steve Rush: Super great advice. Thanks, George. This part of the show we affectionately call it Hack to Attack. And it's where we are able to explore with our guests on the show. Times where they may have screwed up, things have not gone well, but they have used that as a learning experience. Now you have intimated a couple of those already on the show today, but what will be your Hack to Attack?

George McGehrin: Right, things I messed up on, I mean, number one, and I learned this the hard way, you know, 2000-2009 cash flow king, right? If you have none, you have to make sure they have some sort of reserves. You know, so cash flow is king. The other mistake that I have made constantly, you heard this before. Be very slow to hire people, but you know, fast to fire. I think, you know, the hiring process, you need to take your time and do your due diligence and make sure you get the right person because it is a disaster when they don't work out well. Right. My team retention rate, I mean, I have not had somebody leaving and literally, it must be like six years now. And we haven't had anyone to go. It just because we took our time to hire people, right. That was the number two mistake that I made over and over. I mean, I must have made that mistake a hundred times, right. Hiring the wrong people very quickly because I like the guy or the girl, or I just thought they were cool and they were energetic and they just didn't have the skillset.

And the third thing is to have diversity in your clientele, right. So just don't get sucked into like I did, with the Banks, or don't get sucked into one type of, you know, you needed to have a different type of portfolio so that.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

George McGehrin: If one industry, you know, sort of hits the fan, you've got another industry to fall upon from a revenue stream standpoint. Those are the three things, so the cash flow, be careful to hire too quickly and then number three is diversity in your portfolio and your client portfolio, right? So just, don't have one type of industry. All of these three things literally cost me two years of my life. Right, because it took me two years to rebuild, right? Just disasters, problems I don't have now, but problems I had because I didn't have that advice.

Steve Rush: Big lessons. Well learn as well.

George McGehrin: Oh yeah.

Steve Rush: Final thing we want to do with you George is just explore a little bit of time travel. And I'm going to ask you to pump into Georgia 21. What would be the advice that you would give him?

George McGehrin: I mean, at 21, my stupidity was greater than my intelligence. I would say, you know, maybe be wiser to the people that were giving you great advice and listen to them a little more and understand that they have been around for, you know, 40, 50, 60, 70 years. So I would say, listen to some of the older advice. Number two, especially as a businessperson and even if your work for a company. Focus on process improvement and focus on to some extent automation, right. Where everything today is really a big math problem and most of it comes down to process improvement, right. And continuous improvement and if you can slowly improve something, you know, 1%, 1%, 1% then later on you. The third thing I would say would be to make sure that you take. I probably take more risk. You know, I mean, I think I was a little too safe with some of the things I had done. I would have thought a lot bigger, you know, like, you know, for me thinking big was I'm going to make 200 grand next year, right. And then I made 200 grand. I was like, okay, I am going to make 300 grand and I am going to make 500 grand. You know, I never thought of; let me make a hundred million dollars. You know. I mean, let me make 300 million. And I think if you're an entrepreneur, you need to think bigger and I would do that all over again and you know, if I could, I think bigger,

Steve Rush: That is great advice, and I am sure those people listening can resonate with that too. Final thing I want to spin through with you is that firstly, it has been super chatting with you, George. It has been really fascinating. You have a super handle on branding and placement and it goes without saying that, you know, in order to get into the space of competing at the top U.S. executive search firms, you get a lot of this right. If people want it to connect with you from today, whether they be future clients or indeed people just interested in the work that you do, how can they best do that?

George McGehrin: Right. So they can, so there is two ways. So first way is just to send a basic email, right? They can email us. It is George, G-E-O-R-G-E at, and then my surname, right. McGehrin, M-C-G-E-H-R-I-N, group.com. That is the first way. The second way is my LinkedIn is literally as 30,000 connections on it. It is maxed on LinkedIn, so now we are moving things to Instagram. Instagram it’s just exec_headhunter, right? So it's e-x-e-c_headhunter. And those are the two ways and they can just google me. If they could just Google me, if they spell it 75% correctly, then they will find me.

Steve Rush: George, we will make sure that we put all of your contact details in our show notes, along with your email address, as long with your Instagram handle too, so that when folks are finished listening to us, they can click on them straight away and bump into you much quicker than having to search through Google. And from my perspective, I'm just delighted that we had the opportunity to meet George and thanks ever so much for appearing on our show today. I wish you every success with McGehrin Group and what, happens next.

George McGehrin: Steve I appreciate it and thanks for having me on, and then you are doing great stuff and I appreciate all that you are doing for everyone else as well, so thank you for that.

Steve Rush: Thank you, George.

Closing

View Details

Kelly Lockwood Primus is the president and CEO of the leading organization that is shaping the future of the workplace for women, Leading Women, In this episode you can learn:

What gender dynamics are
Mindsets of leaders (male, female and other) can help or hinder the gender gap
Closing the gender gap starts with conversation
Some of the reasons why only circa 11% of Senior Leaders in Fortune 500 are female
Gender gaps are created by women too!

Plus great hacks and ideas.

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Kelly Lockwood Primus

You can learn more from Kelly below

Website https://www.leadingwomen.biz

Kelly on LinkedIn

Leading Women on LinkedIn

Leading Women on Instagram

----more----

Full Transcript Below

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is Kelly Lockwood Primus. She is the president and CEO of the leading organization that is shaping the future of the workplace for women, Leading Women. But before we get a chance to meet with Kelly, it is Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Throughout history and in every culture around the world, extraordinary women have pushed society to think bigger, move forward and create. So I thought I would share with you the following women who are glowing examples of that restless curiosity, boundless, courage, and world changing ingenuity. Thanks to each of them, women and girls all over the world are able to live with fewer restraints and have bigger dreams. And all men, women, transgender, or other, have better lives as a result of their work. Here is just a few.

Florence Nightingale also known as the lady with the lamp. Was a pioneer in the field of nursing. She had a massive impact on the 19th and 20th century policies surrounding proper care. Her writings inspired worldwide healthcare reform. She and her team of nurses drastically improved the unsanitary conditions at the British based hospitals during the Crimean war, and saved countless lives and influenced thousands more. When asked, Florence Nightingale said, “I attribute my success to this, I never gave or took any excuse.”

Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. The first person to win it twice and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences, both physics and chemistry. Mary Curie was quoted, “in science, we must be interested in things, not people”.

Ada Lovelace was a woman who was said to have written the first instructions for the first computer program in the mid 1800’s. Unfortunately, her work went undiscovered until the 1950s when it was introduced by B.V. Bowden in “faster than thought,” a symposium of digital computing machines. Back in the mid 1800’s Ada Lovelace was quoted, “The brain of mine is something more than merely mortal as time will show”. And wasn't she right?

Doctor Erna Hoover in 1971 achieved a patent for a telephone switching computer program. That was among one of the first pieces of software patent ever issued. Even more impressive, she worked on her idea while still in hospital, following the birth of her second daughter. She was quoted to have said, “I designed the executive program for handling situations when there are too many calls”. Basically it was designed to keep the machine from throwing its hands up and going berserk.

Rosalind Franklin was a British chemist known for her early use of X-Ray. One of her photographs led to major discoveries involving DNA structure. Although other scientists did take credit for it, Rosalind Franklin has been cited as the creator. “Science and everyday life cannot be and should not be separated”, said Rosalind.

And finally, Mother Teresa was one of the 20th century, greatest humanitarians. She founded the order of the missionaries of charity, a Roman Catholic congregation of women that helped the poor, and was canonized as Saint Teresa of Calcutta in 2016 and demonstrated leadership at every level of everything she did. And Mother Teresa was famously quoted as “peace begins with a smile”. That has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you want to share your information, insights with us and our listeners? Please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Kelly Lockwood Primus. She is the President and CEO of the leading organization that is shaping the future of the workplace for women, Leading Women. Kelly, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Steve, thank you so much for having me.

Steve Rush: It is our pleasure. We are going to get into the whole prospect of what Leading Women do and what you're doing at the moment to shape the future workplace for women. But before we do that. It would be useful to give our listeners a little bit of your backstory as to how you ended up doing what you are doing?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Thank you I appreciate that. So had the good fortune of joining a very interesting organization when I got out of college that got me on the path of working in consumer products, and after sort of moving around a little bit within different departments I ended up in marketing and communications and found that, that was the right place for me. I worked for pretty much every single U.S. Corporation that made a product that had a plug and a cord. If you could move it around and it was portable and it had a plug and a cord, then I worked for them. And over the course of my career, took a few risky moves. Went and worked for some very entrepreneurial men who had revolutionized some of the consumer product industry focus areas, and took a lot of risks. And ended up working in Massachusetts for this company called The Homes Group which was a mashup of two organizations. One very old, a 75-year-old public company that was purchased by this very young entrepreneurial organization that created the homes group and went to help them integrate the two companies together. Joined at right about that time and had a lot of fun doing it, worked really hard, was promoted to vice president.

And then within a couple of years, asked to run one of the business units, and I'll tell you, it was an enormously fun, six years of my career, and then from there I ended up rolling into one or two other organizations again, run by entrepreneurs. And I think the thing that I would say to anyone who doesn't say doesn't find comfort working for very large corporations. If you can find an entrepreneur to work for, the fun part about it is you pretty much have a very flat leadership. It allows you to take some risks and you tend to have the ear of the CEO at a much earlier part in your career than you would for much larger corporations.

Steve Rush: And gather a lot more experience as well as part of that experience. Right?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Yeah, and the fun part about it was that, you know, when you have organizations that are kind of flat and there aren't a lot of people there when a challenge comes up, you can raise your hand and say, Hey, I can do that. Even if you don't know what you're doing, they'll look to you and say, okay, it's yours. You take it, you run with it. And if you screw it up, oh, well, we'll try it again. And so you get a lot of experience that you wouldn't have elsewise. And it was while I was working for this one corporation that was looking to go public. I had move temporarily to North Carolina to do that. My home was still in Massachusetts, but I was living down there and sort of coming back and forth a couple of times a month. And when I joined the company, the idea was going to be 18 to 24 months before we go public. So as the head of marketing and communications, my job was to really get the brand out there, get the awareness going, make sure our products were in stores, make sure, you know, the industry was talking about us, do all of the things that, you know, bring buzz to the company. And within the first couple of weeks of getting there, the timeline changed and it went from 18 to 24 months to 9.

Steve Rush: Nothing like a bit of pressure to get things moving.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Exactly, nothing like a bit of pressure and there were several of us who were new to the organization. So there was a lot of crazy long days and a lot of hard work, but what I was finding for me was that, you know, had a lot of spare time on my hands. I was living in an apartment. My husband was still in Massachusetts, so I started mentoring women at Wake Forest University Business School and had a blast with it and long story short, company goes public. Yay. We all go to NASDAQ and celebrate and we have a really great time, and there's a woman that I knew in my career who was leaving the company she was working for to go work for this women's leadership organization in Dallas, Texas. And she's, still a very dear friend of mine and a business development person and she wanted me to come and be the marketing person with her. And so she introduced me to this woman CEO, Frizay Woods who was a very dynamic person and was shaking up things for this, this organization that had been around about 20 years and long story short. I was offered the job, so lock, stock and barrel. We moved to Dallas Texas, and I spend the next couple of years working with this organization to bring more women into leadership. That is the focus of that organization, the women's food service forum.

Steve Rush: And that is how you got your appetite for really driving the agenda, right?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Yes, absolutely right. So and then, you know, as life would have it. We chose to move back to the Northeast and I reached out to the woman who founded Leading Women. Really just to ask her to connect me with her network. I was not a hundred percent sure, I was going to stay in leadership because I only had a couple of years in it, but she agreed to meet me for breakfast one early Sunday morning and halfway through our breakfast. She asked if I would come and work for her and that was in 2013, and I have been with Leading Women for the last seven years and Susan retired last year. And I stepped into the role of CEO. President and CEO.

Steve Rush: Super Story.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So leading women now is really taking the drive to research and get underneath the skin to really help drive gender equality and close that gap that exists still in many organizations, in many companies across the world, so sell us a bit about what you do with Leading Women now?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Okay. So when founded, Leading Women was based on research again around competencies of leadership and what were the true skills that rising stars needed in order to be seen as future leaders of companies. And what we realized, or what was realized at the time is that the career advice women was getting, didn't include any of these skills. Women were being told to do things that made themselves great and to engage other people, but it never talked about really demonstrating that you understood the business. And so leadership development programs were created and partnered with corporate clients to help teach women how to be leaders and how to learn the skills and demonstrate the skills necessary to become senior leaders of organizations and around about, I want to say 2013. So 10 years in, when I joined the company, we had just started to do research around what we call gender dynamics.

And those are basically the Mindsets that managers have that end up putting barriers in front of women and by Mindsets, I mean, decision points that are made in people's careers. And, you know, you and I talked about this a while back. But when managers are making decisions about who's the next person to lead a project or take a role, or, you know, go somewhere in some other division of the company to get certain skill sets, the Mindsets that those managers have. Tend to make it so that they choose men over women and it is usually because women have family and they see that as a barrier to her wanting to perhaps travel or take an international assignment or, you know, have to commit to significant hours of work. So let's just say, you know, that's just one mind-set there that women are more focused on their family and less on their career, which is in most cases, you know, not true, but without asking her, how do you know?

Steve Rush: There is almost I guess, a preconceived expectation and therefore rather than enter into the debate, honestly, and openly, because often we do that with fear of what we are going to get back and how do we handle it. We then just avoid the conversation, I guess, is that what you are saying?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Exactly. Right, so, the mindset that the manager has. Does not get explored, they don't have an opportunity and the employee doesn't even have the opportunity. There was a great example of this, that I was just reading the story of these two director level people. One is a woman; one is a man, there is an international assignment coming up. The vice president makes a decision without asking the woman because she just got married. So he makes the assumption that she's going to want to have children, and instead tells the male employee that he's got the job. And he's got to go over to, forget where it was, Germany I think. Yet he did not ask the man what was going on in his life and they were about two weeks away from announcing that his wife was pregnant or that they were pregnant. And so, you know, he takes the role. He goes over to Germany. The woman who did not get the job was the one who wanted the international assignment. She and her husband were both looking to go abroad and work outside of the U.S. The other family, it ended up in a catastrophe because the wife's pregnancy was a very difficult one. The male ended up being terrible at the role because he was so stressed out and they lost both employees. Both two very high performing employees. The women left the organization because they did not give her the opportunity and the man left the organization to come back to the U.S. and took a different job so that his wife and he could be near family.

Steve Rush: It is such a shame, isn't it? That that kind of bias will impact not only on productivity in the wellbeing of people, but fundamentally that makes a massive dent in that organization's plans to go forward as well, doesn’t it?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Exactly, Right and so a simple conversation between that vice president and the two people that reported to him. If he had just asked the question, I think he would have been surprised obviously. Clearly surprised at what could have happened and how much more successful he and his team would have.

Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely and there's no doubt that the evolution of women taking leadership places across teams and boards has definitely increased over the next five years. There is still a lot of work to do, Isn't there?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Yeah.

Steve Rush: What has been the biggest contributor that you see that has enabled that to happen so far?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: I think it is the data, to be honest with you. I think probably about 10 years ago, when organizations like Catalyst and others. Started publishing including Credit Suisse and financial organizations, when they started publishing research that showed organizations performed better when they had more diversity, gender diversity in their leadership. When they were able to show direct correlation and data to support it, so it was no longer this women's live movement or you know, any kind of women's initiative. When they showed it was good for the business that got everybody's attention, and so I think when I have conversations with CEOs of companies and head of HR. They are like, no, no, this is no longer the right thing to do it. We have to do this; we have to do this because the organization needs to perform better and it is as simple as that. So I think, you know, the past 10 years has shown organizations waking up and leadership waking up to the fact that they need it. Getting there as a whole another story, which is why we are not there yet. In a recent presentation I did, I think we are at just under 11% women in senior leadership roles in the fortune 500.

Steve Rush: That is still a way off pace, isn’t it?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Yeah way off pace.

Steve Rush: What is causing that delay, do you think?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: You know when we talk about manager’s mind-sets, people that in the C-Suite are managers of people as well. And I think it's sometimes challenging to be uncomfortable, and it's a lot easier to hire someone or promote someone into a role that looks like you, and that acts like you, and that talks like you. And so until you get comfortable being uncomfortable or you finally have women demonstrating those senior leadership skills, it's easy to be easy. It is easy to pick, you know, the guy that looks like you.

Steve Rush: Right.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: So one of the things that we do, you know, at leading women is, we focus on teaching and sharing our knowledge and research around gender dynamics so that men can get more comfortable working with women and understanding that their leadership style may be different and that's okay. Women tend to be more collaborative. It does not mean we don't drive for results, and we don't aim for goals, but we do it by bringing others with us as opposed to sort of a command and control leadership style.

Steve Rush: Right.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: And many organizations are finding that is important today to have a more collaborative leadership group, but not all of them have gotten there yet. You know, the finance industry struggles with that. A lot of industries struggle with that, but there becoming more aware, I should say.

Steve Rush: And often folks think of this as a male unconscious bias, but in your research, actually, you also noticed that this bias also can present itself in women as well, right?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely, I don't want to take the time to tell a story, but I will say when I was a global vice president, I made the same mistake. I made a decision and talked a woman who was going off to maternity leave. I talked her out of her job and into another one in my department because I thought it would be best for her, so she would not have to travel and knowing, you know, first time mom. I thought I was doing her a favour and she came back from maternity leave and took this role and unfortunately, it was not a very autonomous role like she had before she went on maternity leave and she clashed with the manager. And she was very upset with me because I talked her into the job and she ended up leaving the organization. So, you know, it's these mind-sets that we talk about. These gender dynamics that we talk about; there are 10 of them that, we work on globally and try to encourage managers to see from different perspectives. And when I say manager, does not matter if you are a man or a woman. Mindsets are mind-sets, and everybody has them. And you make decisions based on what you think, so we try to help people think differently.

Steve Rush: Part of our work, we teach this whole principle of unconscious bias and how it formulates our belief systems and therefore our mindsets. And we run this simple exercise around lots of different things, but one of them, which is agenda driven, unconscious bias and I would say 99 times out of a 100. Both men and women failed miserably because of the unconscious bias that they carry.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Yes, You know, there's this test I took once and I can't remember the name of it. It is online, it asks you to associate names and pictures and words with male and female and so forth. And even after 10 years of doing this, going through it, my bias is about 60- 40, so that's not bad, but I'm still associating words like family with a woman, as opposed to a man and you know, so on and so forth. So the reality of it, is every single person has mind-sets that are part of how they grew up. Its part of the work that they do, who they interact with and so forth, and so without bringing those mind-sets up to light and showing how you could. How they could potentially create barriers for others who don't look like you, then you don't have an opportunity. And so one of the things that I will tell you, it's so much fun when we go in to a construction company that has 10 white men on their leadership team, half of whom are saying to you, you know, why are we even here? There is no problems. And after spending a couple of hours with them they turn around and say, wow, that was the most enlightening conversations we had ever had. And I never realized I was treating the women on my team, like I was their dad. You know, that is an amazing statement and it's important for people to recognize that they have mind-sets that help them make decisions that are not necessarily always in favour of the right answer.

Steve Rush: The key here is just having an awareness that we carry this mindset, and it is an unconscious bias. It is in the title, isn't it? We rarely pay attention to it, but having more data and more conscious awareness. We can then be more thoughtful about what we do and how we do things, right?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Exactly, and it is having the conversations for absolutely.

Steve Rush: For sure. Now I have spent many years leading different teams and different organizations, and I feel really proud that of significant proportion and more than significant proportion, in many cases of my leadership team have been women. And I pride myself in the fact that when I hired those individuals. I hired them to do the type of work, that was the right for them, and the agenda really come into it and I can honestly say that categorically. But was often then subsequently accused of Steve. You are driving the female agenda. There is positive discrimination here. And how do you respond when you hear it?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Bravo, I think that is lovely. So, you know, I've never heard the term positive discrimination, and I think it's interesting that people call it out. Had you hired 50% women and 50% men, do you think they would have asked you that same question?

Steve Rush: Hmm. That would never happen.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: No, exactly and so why is it by hiring more women? All of a sudden, there is something going on, right? There is something going on. Well, clearly, you know, you are leading some female agenda.

Steve Rush: Right.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Positive discrimination, just because you hired more women than men. And that makes no sense, right? You want to hire the best talent. And hopefully for those of us who like yourself, who are smart enough to realize there's so much, we don't know. It is best to hire people who are smarter than you or who know more than you, or who know different things that you, in order to be successful. So, does it really matter if it is a man or a woman? could it just be the best talent? And if it happens to be a woman, does it have to be positive discrimination?

Steve Rush: Wouldn't it be great that we just get to a place where there is a recognition that the person been hired for the right reasons? And it doesn't matter whether they're blue, pink, brown, black, man, woman, you know, wouldn't that be great place to be?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Or other.

Steve Rush: Or other, yes.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: It would be amazing if we can get there and I think, you know. Here in the States, there has been a lot of stuff going on in society and I think we may actually see a much more rapid change than anyone would have guessed at the beginning of this year and, you know, new decade. And we were really focused on, okay, how can we be as impactful in this next decade as possible for women in leadership?

Steve Rush: There is a huge movement. Isn't there?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Right and helping organizations recognize that, you know, they may have set goals for themselves, but somehow did not make them in the twenties. You know, from 2000 to 2020, and so what are they going to do differently as an organization? What are you going to do differently? What are you going to commit to, to really reach these diversity goals now that beyond gender and all of these riots and all of this turmoil that is happening in our society? The amazing part about it is, organizations are committing to change more rapidly than ever. And you compare that and add to it, this COVID-19 and forcing people to work remotely, and yet work still gets done and change is happening so much more quickly. It is very exciting, I mean, first half of the year, it has been really exciting.

Steve Rush: It is, definitely so, and also here's the thing, research also suggests, doesn't it? That the more women you hire into your leadership teams and the more executive leaders you have at board level, there's a direct correlation to better communication, improved productivity, but also there's a bottom line income, outcome here too. As well for getting, the right results from hiring women; you also improve your revenue.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: It is exactly, right. Exactly right, and from a conversation I have had with someone in the insurance industry. Risk factors are also mitigated and the cost of doing business goes down because there are not as many risks being taken by organizations. Because they have a more balanced approach to decisions, so financial performance goes up, risk goes down, more people feel engaged. The productivity goes up, people within the organization feel more included and outcomes are amazing. There are so many different statistics out there from Credit Suisse, from Catalyst, from all types of organizations that just show, you know, 15 to 25, I think McKinsey at 25% more productive and innovative when you have gender diversity in your leadership,

Steve Rush: That is amazing stats, isn't it?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: It is amazing and when leading women talks about gender diversity, we really talk about gender balance. We are not saying it has to be perfect. Not every organization is ever going to make it to; you know, a 50-50 leadership team. Let's be real about that because there are certain industries where you're just not going to have as many women employees, but there is a balance that can be achieved throughout the organization. And it doesn't necessarily mean every executive team is going to be 50-50, but throughout the organization, we have one client that hires 33% of their direct out of college hires are women. And we said to them, well, therefore, throughout your organization, there should be 33% women at every level of your company. And when you reach that, you've hit gender balance for your company.

Steve Rush: I love the principle of balance as well, because it takes away notion targets that organizations often give themselves. And actually, if you just have a target of balance, then it's okay to be subjective. It’s okay to get right fit, then isn't it? And then you, haven't got worry about a number on a bonus sheet or a target sheet.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Right, and for those organizations, you know. Who do put that number out there and say, you know, by 2050, we want to have 50% of whatever area of the organization as women. That is great, if it makes sense. If you can hire women into those roles, that is great. But there are some places and some challenges right now, when you have only 23% of the people graduating with certain degrees are women. You are going to struggle to hire 50% of your staff, right? So let's be realistic. And let's focus on bringing balance throughout your organization. So, you know, so many companies start with the recruiting and think that's going to solve everything and it's not for women in leadership. You can recruit as many women as you like, but if you are not creating the opportunities for them or giving them the opportunities and promoting them, you are going to lose them.

Steve Rush: For sure.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: There is a lot of things that need to be done but having more women in your leadership will absolutely help the organization perform better. And the statistics and data show that. That is not me, that's everybody else's data.

Steve Rush: Sure, so if I'm a leader, be that male, female, transgender or other, and I'm just wanting to progress down, start to close my diversity gap within my team. Where will be good place for me to start?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: I think it is important to take a look at who's on your team. And as you are recruiting or hiring in at whatever level. Ask your, you know, the recruiters or whomever is bringing you the slate of candidates. Ask them to give you a balanced slate, make them do their work; tell them that you want to see three men and three women. If you are going to interview six people. Ask them to do the research and find you competent people, both men and women to apply for the jobs or to interview for the roles. That is the first thing you can do. The second would be to make sure you are looking at the career plans that you have for all of the people that report to you

Steve Rush: And I guess by doing so, you are going to be entering into those conversations with a good balance of individuals. Being thoughtful about direction of where your organization's going and balance will start to take care of itself then. Right?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Right and have the conversation with each person that reports to you. To say, what is it you want to achieve in your career? Where do you want to go? Because not everybody wants to be a leader. Some people just like the job they have, but for those who want to a leader, then you said to them, okay, if this is the role that you are aspiring to. Here are the three things we need to do to help you get there.

Steve Rush: Right.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: These are the experiences you need to have and if you aren't able to have those sort of honest conversations with the people that you work with, or that work with you. Then how are you ever going to have balance in your promotions? Because if you're only comfortable talking to the white male who works for you, as opposed to the others, then you're never going to get there. So I think it's being honest with yourself that you need to have the conversations with the people that you work with and open the door, ask the question.

Steve Rush: Love it and often starts with ourselves too, doesn't it?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Rush: So Kelly, at this part of the show, we are going to turn the leadership lens on you. Now you have been an experienced leader of others for many years and lots of different scenarios, lots of different experiences. So I'm going to hack into your leadership mind now. First place we want to go to, is to find out what your top three leadership hacks are?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Great, I love this. I love this part of the podcast. I will be honest and I am hoping what I share is enlightening and a little bit different. So the first one I am going to say is you've got to act as if you own the business. As an employee of any company, whether it is large or small, you need to know how that business runs. You need to know how you make money. You need to understand how decisions are made and you have to act like your impact is going to make the company more successful. You are not just a cog in the wheels, right. You are not just someone in there to push paper around. You need to understand how the business makes decisions and then make sure you are demonstrating that you understand that. Because as a leader, we look for people like you.

Steve Rush: Yeah love it.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Second and this was a great story. I had a CEO, the one who promoted me up from a director to a vice president and then to a GM. And one of the things that he said to me after a meeting in which I got a lot of people, not happy with me. Cause I was asking a lot of questions. He said to me, don't stop asking questions. It is the only way that you will get the full picture. Make sure you ask all of the questions, whether they are easy or hard, because it is the only way to truly know what is going on. So as a leader, make sure you ask questions, and then listen to the answers, right. You can't just ask questions and then go on your Merry way with your own perspective, ask the question.

Steve Rush: And listen to the answers is sometimes a tougher bit, right?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Yeah. Sometimes you don't like what you hear for sure, but it will make you better. It will, it will make the organization better. It will make the performance better and it will actually help the people who are being honest with you to know that you are going to hear them and you are going to listen to them. And that's really the third leadership hack is you've got to get perspectives. Groupthink will kill you and your company. If you are not able, to ask the questions and engage people who are different from you and have different perspectives. And sometimes it's as simple as getting the marketing people to talk to the engineers or getting finance, to talk to supply chain, right. Or anyone within the organization. If you can't get the perspectives that you need as a leader, again, groupthink will kill you.

Steve Rush: Definitely, so.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Yeah, perspectives are critical.

Steve Rush: The next part of the show we are going to kick into is what we affectionately now call Hack to Attack. So this is where maybe something's not worked out well or we've screwed up in our work or our past, but we've actually used that now as a positive in our work in our life. What is your Hack to Attack Kelly?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Okay, so this story talks about me as a new vice president. I needed to reorganize the department and we were a service. We are a marketing organization and we, you know, we are considered a service within the company. All the business units came to us. We did all of their brand work, all their creative, all of their packaging, you know, all of the materials that they needed in order to go to market with their new products. And I needed to reorganize my department in order to elevate two people up a little bit higher in leadership so that I wasn't having as many people report to me because I had some other things I needed to be doing. And I made the decision to promote this woman who had a really great relationship with her business unit and by promoting her, it meant I was taking her away from the day to day interactions.

And we were going to backfill her role as a business partner to this business unit and I didn't let the business unit leaders know that I was going to do that. And as a result, they were quite upset with me because they felt I wasn't giving them the opportunity to be a part of this transition. And it ended up creating quite a bit of struggle and personality clashes and hard feelings, and that was my fault because I should have let them know and I should have engaged them in the process and the transition. So instead, you know, we internally in our department hired a new person, and then introduced them to the business unit and did not ask for their input.

Steve Rush: Big lesson, right?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Vey big lesson, very big lesson indeed. Had my department been an external agency, you know. A marketing agency, we probably would have been fired.

Steve Rush: Right.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: It's important to recognize that when, you know, you have teams that really work well and you are going to make a change to those teams that you best engage all of the partners in that team to make sure that they are coming along with you. As transitions are made, otherwise you may hit a very hard wall.

Steve Rush: Never underestimate that. Can, you?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: No, you can't and I, you know, a young leader at the time that was new and didn't recognize, I didn't know what I didn't know. And let me tell you, when you hit that wall, it is really hard to crawl over it. So definitely collaborate as much as you possibly can.

Steve Rush: The last thing we would like to do with you today is to do a bit of time travel, and I'm going to take you on a metaphorical journey now. You are going to bump into Kelly at 21 and you have an opportunity to give her some advice. What would it be?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Yeah, so Kelly at 21 had no idea what her career would be. She had planned for many, many years to be a lawyer and realized while I was in school. In college, not law school, thank goodness that it really was not for me. And so what I would say to her is, its okay not to know and use the time to learn. So I had multiple roles, over the course of the first couple of years from I came out of school and I did not know where I was going to be and what would make me happy. And so the reality of it is the journey will make you happy because you will find out so much about yourself and about business and what you like about it and what will be fun about it. And you'll meet a lot of great people, so don't worry so much about where you're going to be and it's okay not to have an answer at 21.

Steve Rush: That is lovely advice. I think many people actually certainly at 21; I cast myself back to that time. Would be so focused on the destination that we will perhaps not give as much attention to what the journey can give us too.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Exactly, if I could distress myself at 21 to realize how much fun you can have in your career. And the opportunities are endless for anyone and you can end up in a job like this, and frankly, I think my entire career. I've always said, I'd never really want to be the CEO. I would like to be the president so I can keep running the day-to-day business, but I never thought I would really want to be the CEO. And now that I am, gosh, I love it. What a great opportunity it is to meet and talk with people and come up with ideas that maybe someone else has not thought of yet, so the journey is important,

Steve Rush: Super stuff, and it's no surprise Kelly that you've arrived at where you've arrived at. And we've had some fantastic chances to kick into some of your leadership hacks, but the journey doesn't stop there. For folk that wants to get to know a little bit more about you and about the work that you do with Leading Women, how can they connect with you?

Kelly Lockwood Primus: So they can find us on our website, leadingwomen.biz, the biz is intentional for everyone to recognize that we focus on business. You can find our blog at that address as well, and you can find us on LinkedIn. We have a LinkedIn group; we share a lot of information, all the latest research. And we're also on Facebook and Instagram, of course, but the majority of our time and energy is spent on LinkedIn.

Steve Rush: When folks are finish listening to this podcast today, they can head over to the show notes and click straight to your links.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Steve Rush: So Kelly, for me, I just wanted to say thanks ever so much for joining us on The Leadership Hacker Podcast. I have had a great time talking with you. Not, just today but in the time that we have before. And I know our listeners will take a lot of insights, thoughts, and inspiration to think about the diversity gap that exists or not as the case may be in their organizations, but thanks for being on our show today.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Thank you so much. I look forward to listening in on your future podcasts as well.

Kelly Lockwood Primus: Thanks Kelly.

Closing

View Details

Geoff Thatcher is the CEO of Creative principals, providing creative leadership for brand experiences, museums, visitor centres and attractions. He is the author of the CEO’s Time Machine and a TEDx Speaker. In this show, discover:

The power of experience through story
The correlation between stories and leadership
What the CEO’s Time Machine can do for you
How note taking can lead to creating great stories

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Learn more about Geoff Thatcher here:

Instagram: @geoffthatcher

Geoff on LinkedIn

Twitter: @geoffthatcher

The Book web site is www.ceotimemachine.com

Creative Principles: https://www.creativeprincipals.com

Full Podcast Transcript Below.

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Today's special guest is Geoff Thatcher. He is an experienced creative director who excelled at leading projects from concept to reality. He is the CEO of Creative Principles and he is the author of The CEO's Time Machine. But before we get a chance to speak with Geoff, it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Ever wondered why you can get captivated listening to a leader who tells a great story? The history of storytelling dates back many thousands of years ago when we lived in caves where we used to use pigment to paint on our walls with our hands before we could speak. Then when we could start to communicate using our verbal communication; we used to create stories and myths while sitting around campfires in order to inspire people and let people know what was going on in our world. The ancient Greeks then carved their language into walls to tell how history was evolving for them. Generations and cultures grew and developed. Routines and rituals were turned into stories. Legends were created, and legacies were left behind for generations to pass on.

English writer and actor William Shakespeare wrote 37 plays in the 16th century. Shakespeare was a huge influence on storytelling because of his ability to really transform our language into stuff that we even use today. So how can stories help us as leaders? Well, storytelling is a key leadership technique because of its quick, powerful, energizing, and collaborative approach to persuading and entertaining people. It also helps us make an emotional connection. Yeah, of course, stories have to be authentic and make sense because if not, they become fables and folklore, then you also don't get buy in.

If through story you create that emotional connectivity, you will also create buy-in with your audience. So we may have replaced our medium of campfires with social media and high tech video conferencing, so the next time you are communicating a key message, think about how stories can bring it to life. There is an old Native American proverb I love and want to share with you: Tell me the facts and I will learn, tell me the truth and I will believe, but tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever. That has been our Leadership Hacker News. If you have any insights, information or stuff that, you would just like our listeners to hear, get in touch with us.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: I am joined on today show by Geoff Thatcher. Geoff is the founder and CEO of Creative Principles. He is a TEDx speaker and the author of The CEO's Time Machine. Geoff, welcome to the show.

Geoff Thatcher: Thank you, Steve.

Steve Rush: Our pleasure indeed.

Geoff Thatcher: It is great to be here.

Steve Rush: So before we get into the concept of The CEO's Time Machine and some of the work you do at the moment with Creative Principles, tell us a little bit about your journey into becoming a CEO yourself?

Geoff Thatcher: Well, I have been very lucky to have basically grown up in the industry that I still work in, so I started as a 14 year old clean-up boy, and that was the actual title of the job.

I was a clean-up boy at an amusement park.

Steve Rush: Right.

Geoff Thatcher: And worked all my way through high school and college, and then after a brief flirtation with journalism have been back working in theme parks, museums, visitor’s centres, brand experiences, and experiences for a long time. It is very rewarding to have been basically working in the same industry since I was 14. I just love the fact that what was part of my childhood is also part of my career now as a 52-year-old guy.

Steve Rush: So what has been the draw to theme parks and the world of themes and entertainment for you? What has been the draw?

Geoff Thatcher: That is a really good question and you know, on the surface of it is that it is fun and you bring smiles to people and it's about creating experiences. On a deeper level though. It is really about storytelling. Now, when I was, you know…train engineer at an amusement park. You know choo-choo, try having a steam engine around a Lake and, you know, looking at zoo animals. I did not think much about story, but you know, after college and you know, studying journalism and actually working as a reporter and then coming back into this industry. You really begin to realize that the best experiences, the ones that are most memorable are those experiences that are based upon a powerful story. So Steve you're in the UK and we certainly have a great love for Harry Potter here in the United States, and so when you go to Universal Studios and you immerse yourself at Hogwarts and that wonderful story. It really is quite a memorable experience, and so that is to me, what is most precious is, I love telling stories.

Steve Rush: Telling stories, not just through the written word, but through the experiences that you now create on behalf of the organization you lead. So tell us a little bit about Creative Principles, and what it is you do right now?

Geoff Thatcher: Well, that is right. I mean, if you are going to tell a story and an experience, the first thing you have to do is actually write that story. And so what we do at creative principles is we are, as the name would imply creative leaders and we work on high level creative concepts for theme parks and museums and visitor centres and corporate brand experiences. And so we started the company about three years ago. I mean, obviously I have been doing this my whole career, but three years ago, went out on our own and started the company. And since then we've worked on everything from the grand opening of Warner Bros World Abu Dhabi, which was just fantastic to work with those amazing brands. I mean, you have Batman and the joker and, you know, bugs bunny and, you know, the Flintstones. To an amazing corporate brand experience in Singapore and in Boston of all things and insurance company, FM Global. But they had a great story to tell and, you know, don't have to get into the details, of what story an insurance company might have to tell, but needless to say. We all have, I think appreciated the value of insurance here, as we faced a pandemic and other challenges before us. It is nice to have a little bit of ability to be resilient, and so the company that we work for in creating these experiences, FM Global, their motto. Their tagline is resilience and the power of resilience, and so it is important, especially in challenging times that; we learn how to be resilient.

Steve Rush: Story telling as a principle is not new of course; when we were living in caves 50,000 years ago, it was the only way that we were able to really communicate and that's where storytelling kind of got its early grounding if you like. In gathering insights, and gathering people and gathering audiences, what do you notice is the direct correlation between storytelling and the leaders that you have worked with when you are creating those things experiences?

Geoff Thatcher: Well, the best leaders tell great stories and they tell those great stories over and over and over again. I am sure if we were to talk about our childhoods we would be able to talk about those stories that our parents told us over and over and over again, to the point where you almost begin to roll your eyes and go, oh, not that story again, please no. But that's actually a good thing. I mean, if you are in the workplace and you are the CEO and if your employees start to roll their eyes and go, please don't tell us the story about note taking again. Well, maybe you are actually starting to make a difference in getting that story ingrained into the culture of your company. So I would always encourage CEOs to tell stories and tell the same story and tell it over and over again, because those stories become part of your culture and part of who you are.

Steve Rush: I observe that too when I particularly coach leaders. I make a direct correlation with those who are more effective in terms of engagement, by their ability to tell better stories than those who are aren’t. Would you noticed that too?

Geoff Thatcher: Absolutely, I mean the challenge, I think sometimes with leaders is almost all of us can tell a great story, but can you tell a great story that makes a point? I mean, for example, you know. I talk about how I got my job in the first place as a 14 year old, I wanted to work at this amusement park and I wanted what I thought to be the best job at this amusement park, which was working in their swimming pool, which we didn't have water parks back then. It was a big, you know, million gallon swimming pool with diving boards and, you know old water slides, which are much different than today's water slides. But I wanted, what I thought was the best job. I did not want to work, you know, in food service; I did not want to take tickets.

I wanted to work at the swimming pool as a clean-up boy, because I knew that would lead to the being a lifeguard, which is kind of a sexy job. And you know, that would lead to other opportunities, and so the way I got that job was politely bugging the manager, the swim pole for three weeks straight, almost single day. I would find that manager walking around the swimming pool because I was a regular; I had been a regular at that pool since I was five years old and I would just simply, you know, smile and ask her, you know, hey, I applied for the position. Is anything available? You know, hey, have you heard anything? Hey, have you checked with your manager? Hey, is there a chance for me to have a job? I mean, I always did it with a smile, but I politely bugged her.

And after about three weeks, she finally said, well, no, there's still not a position open, but fine. Why don't you come in and we will get you on staff. And you know, you may not work for many hours, but you're hired, and that I think is an important lesson that any leader could teach their employees is you need to politely bug people. If you want to get stuff done, whether you are in sales or in management, or leadership or human resources or anything else. Politely bugging gets results, and so I tell that story all the time. I have told that story to my kids so many times they are probably sick of it, but it is important to teach those lessons. And too many leaders not only are afraid to tell stories because it makes them vulnerable, but they're afraid to tell stories that make a powerful point.

Steve Rush: And a powerful point hits that emotional connection, which creates an action shift in people, doesn't it?

Geoff Thatcher: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: So, as you were growing through your leadership career, Geoff. Where did you take your leadership inspiration from or who even?

Geoff Thatcher: Well, I have been fortunate in my career to have both really good leaders and really bad leaders. And so we can learn from both, you know, I remember being a very young leader, so I was 17 years old and I got a job as an area supervisor at Lagoon Amusement Park and went through a management training course as a 17 year old. And so you can learn so much by taking those courses. I remember this is going to really date me. I remember going to a, you know, the Franklin Planner, you know, the old Franklin Planner. I think they are still around. Right, and I went to a Franklin Planner, you know, time management seminar as like a 19 year old. And it was fascinating to experience that but if I were to probably pick one leader. His name would be Boyd Clark and he was the CEO of the Tom Peters Company. And if you're in leadership or, you know, business gurus, you know who Tom Peters is.

Steve Rush: Sure, Yeah. He is a guru in learning and development for sure.

Geoff Thatcher: Oh, absolutely. I mean wrote In Search of Excellence in the eighties, which was like the big, big, big management, you know, business book of that era and still speaks today. I, I believe, but Boyd was the CEO of the Tom Peters company. He was in leadership training and development and, you know, Boyd taught me so many lessons and he was kind and just a really, really great guy. And unfortunately Boyd died of cancer, but you know, he was really a mentor to me and I remember there was just so many little things he taught you along the way. And I remember one of my favourite lessons was. We were having a meeting and the company was, you know, debating its future. And there were several leaders in the company that wanted it to shift from being a training and leadership Development Company to a Consulting Company.

And Boyd patiently listened to the different leaders in the company debate and argue whether it should be a consulting company or a training and development company, and then finally he stood up at the end and he asked a question of the people that were arguing at for it to be a consulting company. And he said, how much do we charge for a day of consulting? And they said $2,500 a day. He goes, that is our day rate for day of consulting is $2,500, and then he turned to the people arguing for the leadership side, and he said. How much do we charge for a day of leadership training and development? And at the time they said $9,500 and he goes $9,500, and then he looked around the room and he said, we're a training and development company! And then sat down. Everybody got the message, you know. Yes, you know, consulting is nice, but when it comes time to supporting the company and being a business that it is about making money.

Steve Rush: Lots of organizations make the mistake of trying to become too diverse or to pivot away from their core proposition and in doing so often and lose that key focus that they were so successful in building their business with.

Geoff Thatcher: Yeah, it is funny, isn't it? You know, I have had other experiences where I just don't understand why a company's changed when they don't need to change. I mean, there is so many examples. You know, it is really interesting, you know, look at history and, you know, certainly when we talk about The CEO's Time Machine and the book part of that is traveling back in time. There is so many examples of companies who did not change when they needed to and also examples of companies that changed when there was no reason to.

Steve Rush: And there is no right or wrong answer is there? I think it is very much around timing and opportunity. And if you think about some of the evolution and innovation that we experienced today, that is because somebody said, “let's do this and let's be creative and let's do these left of field things that we never even envisaged before”. And sometimes that creative thinking can create the motivation and indeed the business opportunity that follows.

Geoff Thatcher: What you should never ever stop creating and I mean, since Steve you're in the UK and I love my history, one of my favourite examples in history of somebody simply trying to do something new, but it leading to something far beyond his imaginations is Abraham Darby and the invention of the Blast Furnace. Now the Blast Furnace really ushered in the industrial revolution, which has changed the world in so many ways. And you would think, Oh wow, Abraham Darby, I can't, you know. You must have had this amazing vision for the future of the world, with the industrial revolution and creating the blast furnace. But it was actually just a guy trying to figure out a better way to make an iron pot, that is it.

Steve Rush: Yep.

Geoff Thatcher: He was trying to make a cheap iron pot. That is such a simple ambition and yet in trying to achieve that very simple ambition, he ended up changing the world. And so, you know, no matter what business you're in, I hope you're trying to improve what you're doing because through those incremental improvements, you may just stumble upon something that will transform the world.

Steve Rush: I love that principle of just letting creativity take over and see what happens also.

Geoff Thatcher: Yeah, I mean, it is really true. I mean, we did, this was a long time ago, but we did at the 150th anniversary of the Smithsonian, which is a big museum complex, if you will. In the United States, in DC. At the a hundred 50th anniversary of the Smithsonian. They took all of their artefacts on tour and Intel was a sponsor, and so we created a theatre an immersive experiential theatre for Intel and it was called more than you ever imagined theatre. That was the name of the theatre, more than you ever imagined. And the whole point of it was throughout time. All great inventors, never truly realized what people would do with their invention and Intel of course, was talking about the, you know, the chip and, you know, the semiconductor and that people are doing way more than the inventors of the semiconductor ever thought possible. And it was the same was true with Gutenberg, Edison, Ford, Darby, all great inventors, never truly understood the amazing things people would do with their inventions.

Steve Rush: Right, and therefore it is imperative, isn't it? That we are also scanning for new ideation because whilst somebody else might have the idea, I might be able to evolve it.

Geoff Thatcher: Exactly and can I just say for a moment that I love talking to someone from the UK, because you say whilst, and I've never been able to do it and do it properly. It is all, you know, it is always, wow. While we do this, while we do that, but it is whilst, and it just, I can't even say it right.

Steve Rush: It is a really Interesting word that I forgot I use because while I was writing my book, my editor who was American, used to say Steve, you've got to stop saying whilst, please, can you say, while. Cause nobody in America will understand what you mean, anyway.

Geoff Thatcher: He should have let you be English, right? I mean, you did invent the language for goodness sakes.

Steve Rush: Well, apparently so, so Geoff, it is no surprise that being creative director will really immerse you into the mind-set of storytelling and thinking about stuff differently. And the book, The CEO's Time Machine was one that you evolved over a period of time. Right? Tell us a little bit about that.

Geoff Thatcher: I actually wrote the book in 2016 when I was traveling back and forth between Cincinnati, Ohio and Riyadh Saudi Arabia. And we were working on a traveling exhibition for the King Abdullah foundation and King Abdulla had just died and his foundation, which is basically his family had really wanted to kind of honour his legacy. And I don't want to get into geopolitics, Steve, but there's no doubt that a lot of the changes that you're seeing in Saudi Arabia, a lot of the reforms, and it has changed so much since 2016 when I first started working over there. But those changes are doing large part to the fact that King Abdullah introduced a scholarship program that sent hundreds of thousands of students to the United Kingdom, to Canada, to the United States, to France and other countries to get an education, to get a college degree.

And then they came home and they want to change and the crown Prince is simply responding to the demands of his people for that change, and so that's exciting and when we were working on this traveling exhibition, I started thinking about time travel. And I was talking to Bruce Weindruch from the history factory who were working with on the project. And he had this philosophy and this book called Start With the Future and Work Back, which is that we all need to start with the future. Where do we want to go? But we need to look back in our own life and our own company's history and the own history of our country at those milestones to help us get to where we need to be. As I was thinking about all of these things, I started thinking about; wouldn't it be interesting if there was a CEO who had a time machine?

So we wrote a book about a kind of Elon Musk, Steve jobs type of CEO, who is always inventing the future, creating new markets. And the rumour is, is that he has a time machine in his secret R&D garage as if he's like Tony stark, right, with his secret, you know, R&D lab in the basement of his house. But this time it's a garage behind his company headquarters, and he's turning over the reins of his company to a much younger protégé. And the last thing he has to do before he turns things over and leaves the company is to introduce her to his time machine and that's what the book is about.

Steve Rush: And it is a neat, really neat idea, but the whole philosophy of being innovative and forward thinking versus looking back, splits the camps and somewhat, doesn't it? Speak about innovation, lots of people I speak to say yeah, yeah - we just need to leave the past behind and head into the future versus learn from the past and head into the future. Where do you sit with that?

Geoff Thatcher: I think that too many leaders today are focused on so much on the future as they should be, but they're focused so much on the future that they abandoned their own past. And they forget that there are amazing things that they can learn from their past. One of the examples that I give and certainly they were a client and while I was not involved in industrial designers and like that. I do know that, you know, when I worked for Honeywell, they were passionate about only really caring about the future. You know, they really did not want to talk about the past at all and then I find it ironic then. That in this obsession for the future, they missed one of the greatest inventions of the last decade, which was the Nest Thermostat. And it's hard not to argue that the Nest Thermostat wasn't based upon a very simple, innovative design that Honeywell innovated, which is the Circular Thermostat. It was the Honeywell classic, iconic, Circular Thermostat is an iconic classic design. And I think in the obsession to focus on the future, they miss that inspiration. They missed that connection to their past that could have truly brought them forward into a new future, and instead Nest saw that Circular Thermostat for what it was, which is an incredible innovation that should be repurposed and redesigned for digital age.

Steve Rush: Part of the story that you tell through The CEO's Time Machine is where your CEO is handing over the reins to the protégé. They have a walk through the garage and there is this range of seamlessly useless kit and Nintendo’s and other artefacts that this individual CEO has collected over time. But there's a story behind each of those that sets out these principles for some leadership behaviours. Just tell us a little bit about a few of those?

Geoff Thatcher: Sure, one of the cool things I think about the book is it's written like a theme park attraction. And that's what we do at my company is I'm an experienced designer. And so in the queue, if you will, in that windy path, that leads from the entrance of the garage to the time machine itself. The CEO has collected a bunch of artefacts and these artefacts are all about important lessons that we can learn in business. So for example, you know, he keeps a spark plug of a Delco spark plug, and you are like, why, why on earth would you want to keep a Delco spark plug? But the Delco spark plug is there because it reminds him of Charles Kettering invention of the electric starter, which changed automobile history forever and introduced and made the automobiles safer, not just men to drive, but really safe women to drive because they don't even have to crank the car to start it up.

And so that was an incredible adventure and it was invented right in Dayton, Ohio. And then of course at the same time, Charles Kettering was inventing the electric starter. You had the Wright brothers and keeps some artefacts and some books of the Wright brothers on hand as well, because there is one lesson you can learn from the Wright brothers is that you should always focus on innovation rather than litigation. They spent so much time suing people over patent infringement that they have failed and missed this amazing, you know, window to invent the future of aviation. And they seeded their leadership position to, you know, Lockheed and Northrop and Martin and others that we still see in Boeing, if you will. And others that we still see you know, leading the industry today and it's really, really sad. And so one thing that I think a lot of companies miss when they look at their own history is they focus on important milestones.

Like we introduced the new, you know, XY-5000 model, and who cares? what you need to focus on is lessons that were learned and why those lessons are important for us today and sometimes that's very hard to curate and very hard to figure out, but, you know, it's fascinating to me that, you know, here you had in Dayton Ohio. National cash register, which became NCR, you had AC Delco, which was purchased and really became the R&D lab for General Motors, and the Wright Brothers, here you had this amazing innovation happening at Dayton Ohio at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century. And there are so many lessons to be learned, including why they didn't maintain that leadership position. There is a reason why Silicon Valley is not in Dayton, Ohio today and yet it was in 1910.

Steve Rush: And those stories that you talked about before. Is a way to bring those lessons to life, isn't it?

Geoff Thatcher: Absolutely, and if you don't know your Genesis story of your company and how you came to be. It is very important that those stories be curated and those stories be told. So everyone in the company understands those important lessons that they can take away from things. I mean, this pandemic introduced, I think, an important lesson for my career, if you will and my little company. In our life, which is, you know, when that pandemic hit like everybody else, we looked around and we were like, oh crap. I mean, we had project after project going on hold. It is impossible to do business development in March and April is people are dying and, you know, the sickness is spreading. I mean, what are you going to do? And I turned to Zoey, who's our designer and also happens to be my daughter. And I said, you know that book, we've been talking about? That book that we have been toying around with, I said, let's do it and we just had this intense desire to get it done, and so, while I had written the story in 2016, it just sat on a shelf. So Zoey cranked out 43 illustrations in three weeks, we called a publisher. We called a copy editor. We called the graphic designer and we were able to get the book published and on Amazon in less than five weeks.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Geoff Thatcher: And it was a rewarding time to pivot and everybody is pivoting right now because of the pandemic. And I guess one of the lessons we all need to learn from this is, you know, maybe next time we shouldn't wait for there to be a pandemic before we pivot. Maybe we should, instead of treating projects in their spare time, we should actually, you know. Slot them into the project line-up. There is a guy named Jim Coudal in Chicago, who's a designer.

And he likes to say, you know, the problem with doing project in your spare time is there's never any spare time. And so his philosophy was always. If they had a cool idea, they would just treat it like a regular client. And they would give it a job number and they would just slot it into their schedule and get it done and I think, you know, one lesson I hope all of us can learn from this pandemic is we shouldn't wait for the next pandemic to pivot.

Steve Rush: This is super, yeah.

Geoff Thatcher: We should constantly be looking for ways to pivot.

Steve Rush: Ah, wholly agree with that. Whole principle of strategic thinking is just that it is the stories we need to tell ourselves for the future. “What if”, scenarios, aren't they? The wildcards?

Geoff Thatcher: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Steve Rush: What lessons are you hoping for that folks are going to take from the book Geoff?

Geoff Thatcher: Well, more than anything else, you know, I hope people really take the story to heart. And I hope at the end of the day, they care more about the history of their own company. At the end of the day. I hope they care more about the future of their company and they realize that no matter whether you travel back in time or travel to the future, you still have to be decisive in the moment. I mean you and I could travel back in time and talk to Abraham Darby and we could probably learn a lot of interesting things about the birthplace of the industrial revolution and lessons he learned in inventing the Blast Furnace, but we still have to come back to this moment in time. We still have to come back to the present and make a decision. I mean, if you and I were to go back to 1919 and talk to people about the Spanish flu, we could learn a lot, but we would still have to come back to 2020 and we would have to make a decision.

Steve Rush: Right.

Geoff Thatcher: And so that's, that is what I hope people take from this book is connecting the past to the future by being decisive today.

Steve Rush: Really great principles and thank you for sharing them as well, Geoff, by the way.

Geoff Thatcher: Hey, anytime, thank you for having me.

Steve Rush: Leadership is what you do as well as what you inspire. So this is part of the show where we turn that leadership lens on you and I hack into your leadership mind, and we're going to explore a couple of things. First thing we want to explore with you is. What your top leadership hacks or ideas would be that you would share with our listeners?

Geoff Thatcher: Number one is to write, we have forgotten the importance of writing because most leaders don't require their people to write for them because they're too busy and don't want to read. And so if you are a leader, make sure that you tell your people that you would like to read what they write and then take that extra time to read what they put together. And the reason why that's important is because you can't get to the depth of thought by simply talking about it and putting together a few PowerPoint slides. You miss the connective tissue between bullet points. If you don't actually take the time to write. And so if you're a young person in an organization, even if your boss won't read what you write, that doesn't mean you shouldn't write because your presentations, your PowerPoints, your proposals will have more depth of thought and more logic and more meaning. If you take the time to write, so number one, I would say, don't forget to read and write, which sounds very remedial and basic, but based on my experience, it's woefully missing in many, many organizations today.

Steve Rush: Right?

Geoff Thatcher: It is just so much easier.

Steve Rush: It is often the context that is missing in the communication as well, isn’t it?

Geoff Thatcher: Right, I mean, I was just working on a project where all they wanted to do was sit around the table and talk about it and talk about it and talk about it and talk about it. And, you know, at some point one smart person has to go away and write about it. So sure, talk about it, but it realized that at some point, you know, somebody actually has to go away and create a narrative. I can tell you from experience. I know what it is like, and I am sure, you know, it is like Steve. You wrote a book to be sitting there and you have this idea in your head of where you want the chapter to go, but as you are writing it, you realize that does not make any sense. That is not going to work. Well, I thought it was going to work. I had it in my head. I talked about it with my colleagues. Why isn't it working? Well because you are actually having to sit down and do it. You are actually having to sit down and write, and so, you know, someone might have an amazing business plan, but if you don't sit down and write it out, you're never going to know if it actually makes sense. So that is my number one leadership hack is to write.

My number two, leadership hack is to take great notes. If you know anything about The CEO's Time Machine. The book that I wrote, you know, that note taking is also a very important part of that, of that story. And note taking to me is perceived by most young people as being remedial. And we need to change and shift perception about note taking because the people that take really, really, really good notes, what they're actually doing is managing the intellectual of their company. And so that's a kind of job that you should have, and if you establish yourself as being somebody who can really manage intellectual property and take amazing notes, you'll be invited to the most important meetings. If you are a 24-year-old young person in an organization. That is where you want to be is in those important meetings, managing that intellectual property.

And I guess the third leadership hack I would say is manage expectations. There are so many unrealistic expectations in the workplace today, and we need to constantly manage those expectations, whether its things like how to deliver ideas. People think sometimes that there is coming up with great ideas is just all fun and games, and it is not. There can be serious arguments, and debate and clashes of opinions, so you need to match expectations. And I just think there's too many people today that have unrealistic expectations about the workplace. Whether it is about how much money they should make. About the relationships, they should have in the workplace. About the loyalty that accompany should or should not have. If you don't manage those expectations, you're going to have employees who are constantly disappointed because their unrealistic expectations are not being met.

Steve Rush: And ironically managing expectations comes from telling great stories as well.

Geoff Thatcher: It does.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Geoff Thatcher: It does, I mean, you know. One of the stories I tell when it comes to managing expectations is I talk about a colleague of mine named Todd Hall. And Todd and I after a very long day in Dubai, came back to the hotel and we were standing in the lobby and he looked at me and he said, I don't want to have dinner with you. And I looked back at him and I said, I don't want to have dinner with you either, and he looked at me and he said, good night. And I said, good night, and we turned and walked away. And people like, what, how rude. Our point is this; Todd Hall is not my friend. Todd Hall is an amazing colleague, a talented man. I love working with him, but Todd Hall is not my friend. I have never done anything socially with him. I have never hung out with he and his wife. I don't want to hang out with he and his wife and that's okay.

He is a colleague. We have mutual interests. We want to make sure that both of us do a really good job and make each other look really good, but we do not have to be friends, and so too many people come into the workplace and they think they have to be best friends with everybody on the job and that's just not true. That is what I mean by managing expectations.

Steve Rush: Super wise words Geoff. Thank you.

Geoff Thatcher: I am really a nice guy though, by the way, I believe in being friendly, to be clear. You should be friendly, but you don't have to be friends.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I get that, so we want to explore with you now. What we affectionately call Hack to Attack, and this is a time in your work or your life where something hasn't worked out as you were intending it to. So maybe it is not worked out well, or indeed, we have screwed up, but we have now used that experience and we learned from it and we use it as a lesson in our life now. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Geoff Thatcher: Well, I got fired twice. Both times, it was initially quite devastating but in the end, it was the best thing that ever happened to me, both times. And so I would say that if you haven't had a bad experience, whether it be being fired or getting yelled at or you know having a big disappointment at work. That you are probably just not trying hard enough, so learn from your mistakes, but don't be afraid of making mistakes. I am really, really glad I got fired. So don't fret about those types of things, because it'll be all right,

Steve Rush: And lessons can be learned from each of those experiences as well. Right?

Geoff Thatcher: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: So now as the author of The CEO's Time Machine, I'm going to get you to do some time travel. And I'm going to ask you to travel back in your time machine and bump into Geoff at 21, and you have an opportunity to tell him a story and give him some advice. What would it be?

Geoff Thatcher: 21, so when I was 21 years old, I was a missionary for my church. Full time volunteer missionary for my church in rural Kentucky called Paris Kentucky. It was towards the end of my six months there and I was getting my haircut from a local man who was also a member of our church. And he was talking to me and asking me questions just about my life and my family and in the course of that discussion, it came out that I have a black brother, a black sister, three Korean sisters. I come from a multiracial family, adopted. I have five biological siblings and five adopted siblings and he stopped cutting my hair. And he said, well that explains it. And I said, what do you mean? And he goes, now I know why the Lord sent you here, and I said, what do you mean?

And he said, the Lord sent you here because we needed you to help change us. And I looked at him a little surprised, and it is true. When we first came to that congregation as young 21-year-old missionaries that was a white congregation. There was not really any black members, or there wasn't any racial diversity in the congregation. We worked really hard in the African American community there in Paris, Kentucky and we baptized and brought in several members of the church from the African American community, and didn't really think anything about it. I mean, I was a kid, I just did not think at all about it at all. But this barber just was very blunt with me and he said, you know, he goes, really appreciate what you've done because you're changing us and I was still kind of a young idiot.

I said, what do you mean? And he said, well, kind of looked at me very nonchalant. And he's like, well, I'm racist and you've helped us to see we should change. And what's ironic about this whole story is that in the end, this barber became best friends with Mama Cosette, who was the matriarch of one of the families that we brought into the church. And they're still friends to this day. I saw them several years ago and saw Mama Cosette and she and his barber are still very close. So I guess what I would say to my 21 year old self is not anything that I would say. I think I would want my 21-year-old self to say back to me. To look at the challenges we face today with the innocence of a young person. Because honestly, when we went into that town, I did not even notice that there was a black section of town and a white section of town.

You know what I mean? We just started teaching people and just starting to serve and to help people. I think a beauty in not seeing colour, there is a beauty and not seeing race and there is a beauty in doing what Martin Luther King said is to, judge people by the content of their character instead of the colour of their skin. And so I think it would actually be me today as a 52 year old man learning something from my 21 year old self, rather than me trying to teach my 21 year old self anything. Because that was a powerful experience for me to have this barber talk about the power of change and his self-awareness and understanding his own personal history and the way he was raised and knowing that he needed to change and then the love that allowed him to change. Cause Mama Cosette loved him and he ended up loving her right back, so that is probably what I would learn more than anything else.

Steve Rush: Really profound story and parents can learn as much from their kids. Right?

Geoff Thatcher: Absolutely and in fact, the reality is if you are a leader in an organization today and you want to travel to the future, all you have to do is walk down the hallway and talk to a 21-year-old working in your company because they are the future of your company. We can learn a lot from our younger selves.

Steve Rush: Super words. Thank you, Geoff. So as folks are listening to this. They are probably thinking, how can I get a hold a copy of The CEO's Time Machine, but more importantly, how can they find out a little bit more about the work that you do? Where would you like them to go?

Geoff Thatcher: Probably the easiest way to find us as ceotimemachine.com that is ceotimemachine.com but sorry, just a little joke with the advertising voice there. Of course, you can Google us you know, Geoff Thatcher, you know, on LinkedIn. Creative Principles has a website, our company, but probably the quickest and easiest way is just to go to ceotimemachine.com and the book is for sale on Amazon and everywhere else.

Steve Rush: Also, make sure we put the details of the book and indeed your LinkedIn profile and websites in the show notes too.

Geoff Thatcher: Thank you so much.

Steve Rush: Geoff it just goes for me to say I have had a real ball listening to the stories and the anecdotes you shared, and it has been a real pleasure in listening to some of those stories with you. And I just wanted to say on behalf of our listeners, thanks for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Geoff Thatcher: Thanks for listening to my stories. I appreciate it.

Closing

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Ryan Gottfredson is a mental success coach and cutting edge leadership consultant. He is also author, training and researcher, and recently written the bestselling book, SUCCESS MINDSETS. You can learn from Ryan:

Mindset is a driver for our behaviour
Companies that focus on mindset are more productive
Behaviours and Mindsets get mixed up
How our Mindset impacts how we think, learn, behave, and also shapes our physiology

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Ryan Gottfredson

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Website: https://ryangottfredson.com (you can take the Mindset Assessment here!)

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Book: Success Mindsets

Full Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Steve Rush: Ryan Gottfredson is our special guest on the show today. He is a mental success coach and cutting edge leadership consultant. He is also author, training and researcher, and recently written the bestselling book, SUCCESS MINDSETS. Before we get a chance to speak with Ryan, It is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In 1962, John F. Kennedy gave his famous, “We choose to go to the moon speech”, and in just 2,503 days, Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the moon. It was indeed a small step for man and a giant leap for mankind, but the entire world celebrated the moon landing, and ironically, if you think about the way that we’ve evolved, we put a man on the moon 13 years before we put wheels on luggage. What is the reason for that? What mindsets

and the best minds in the world were focused on putting that man on the moon and not making normal travel a bit easier, so mindsets was a massive driver. Most would say to be a great leader; you need to have a great mindset, right? When it comes to investment in leadership, it is estimated that organizations worldwide will spend roughly about $350 to 400 million a year.

But research by Brandon Hall Group found that 75% of that spend was rated by those organizations as not very effective, so how come? Well, it turns out that very few will focus on mindsets as part of the overall development of leadership. So does mindset contribute to the bottom line results as well as the behaviours of those that lead organizations. Growjo a company that highlights and predicts the fastest growing 10,000 companies across the planet, and this includes existing companies, as well as start-ups.

One organization has always demonstrated the right mindset from the get go is a company called LetsGetChecked and its number one on the list. Peter Foley, their CEO and founder started the company in 2015. He was inspired to start the business after suffering testicular cancer at the age of 16, following a rugby accident, which went undiagnosed for a long period of time. It was this experience that led him on this journey to create home testing kits in the world of medicine. Mindset has been a massive driver for Peter and mindset has been a massive driver for the way that they do things. Now, if you were thinking they are only successful because of the coronavirus, that is your mindset talking by the way, you would be wrong. Their business started in 2015, but also had product that they could pivot when the opportunity presented itself, to having the mindset that was allowing that thinking was key critical to their success now. When asked, Peter said, mindset is at the heart of our success, and that has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news insights or want to share anything with our listeners, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today is Ryan Gottfredson. He is a mental success coach, a cutting edge leadership consultant and researcher. He is the author of the bestselling book, SUCCESS MINDSETS. Ryan, welcome to the show.

Ryan Gottfredson: Steve thanks for having me on. I have been looking forward to this.

Steve Rush: Me too, so mindset is a part of all of our lives and our work. So I'm really excited to get inside some of your research, some of your thinking, some of your work. But before we do that, tell us a little bit about how you got involved in the subject and what is you're doing at the moment?

Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah and I appreciate you asking, and let me even preface this by saying; I think that most people, when we start talking about mindset, they are like, oh. This is this fluffy concept. That is dealing with our state of mind and that is how I used to see mindsets. And what I'm now found is I've kind of dove into the academic research on mindsets and even the neuroscience on mindsets that our mindsets are truly the most foundational aspect about ourselves.

And so, as I mentioned is I originally didn't think this way about mindsets. How I came upon mindsets was when I did my dissertation, when I was at Indiana University. I did that on leadership and this allowed me the opportunity to look back at the last 70 years of leadership research. And what I found is that the primary focus of all of this research has been around answering the question, what do leaders need to do to be effective? And I think it's a really important question to answer. But also at the same time, it feels a little short-sighted to me because I don't know about you, but I think of leadership as being less about doing the right things and so much more about being a certain type of person. Being somebody that other people want to follow, and so my focus for the last seven years is how do we tap into this being element of leadership and everything has led me to mindsets because they're so foundational to everything that we do.

Steve Rush: And I suspect in the last 70 years, there has been a massive shift from what was once acceptable framing and mindset to what we are experiencing today, right?

Ryan Gottfredson: Mindsets is relatively new, so in terms of leadership research, the language really has not changed. I mean, 70 years ago in the 1950s, we were identifying the same leadership behaviours that are important as we are today. And we're just calling them different things, so we might say transformational leadership or a responsible leadership. Well, those aspects of those forms of leadership were identified back in the 1950s. So I think it should lead us to think why haven't we gotten more effective at developing leaders and I think the reason why we haven't gotten more effective is most leadership development programs overlook mindsets. In fact, I just did a pretty big data collection where I surveyed 150 organizations and what I found is only 12% of these organizations focus on mindsets when they develop their leaders.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Ryan Gottfredson: And when they don't focus on mindsets, they say that they're effective at developing their leaders only one third of the time. When they do focus on mindsets, they say that they're effective at developing their leaders two thirds of the time. So it has doubled the effect if they focus on mindset.

Steve Rush: That is really interesting data too, isn't it?

Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah, fascinating. I mean, it was great stuff for me being a promoter of mindset.

Steve Rush: I wonder how much of that ironically is due to the mindsets of the people leading the organization, right?

Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah, and you are so right, because when we start talking about mindsets and we want to focus on mindsets and organizations. What that is suggesting is that we have learned that in order to be effective leaders, we've got to deepen our self-awareness. And that's the first place that we need to start.

So we should not start with, here's all the things that you need to do to be effective. It's, let's dive into ourselves. Identify our mindsets; identify our fears and our insecurities that are holding us back. And let's address those before we start focusing on the doing, because we could focus on the doing all day long, but if our prevailing negative mindsets are still there. Those negative mindsets are going to resist any of the changes that our organization might be trying to make within us.

Steve Rush: Got it, so having done extensive research and continue to do research and transferring that into your consultancy world. What kind of things are you working on right now with individuals and organizations?

Ryan Gottfredson: Great question. The thing that I have been doing is I have developed an exercise that helps people awaken to their mindset. So here's the thing that we need to understand about mindsets is our mindsets are things that most of us aren't conscious of, but they are dictating how we think, how we learn and how we behave.

So, for example, and I think there's many people that are familiar with fixed and growth mindset. When we have a fixed mindset, this means that we are naturally mentally programmed at the current moment to see challenges and failure as things to avoid, because they send a signal to us, that we are a failure if we were to fail. But when we have a growth mindset, we are mentally wired to see challenges and failures as things to learn from and so, depending upon our current wiring, we non-consciously approach challenging situations differently. Those are the fixed mindset; they are inclined to back away from those challenges. That is just there natural processing those with a growth mindset. When they see challenges, they are inclined to approach them and that is their natural way of processing. And if we've got a group of a hundred people in the room about 50% are going to be more fixed, the other half are going to be more growth. And the 50% growth are going to naturally approach challenges, the 50% fix, are naturally going to avoid that very same challenge. And they're unaware that they process the world differently. They may not understand what mindsets that they have.

And so one of the reasons why I love focusing on mindsets, because when we do this, we help people awaken to themselves at a level that's deeper than they've ever gone before. We are starting to make these previously non-conscious mindsets become conscious to them. And as they become conscious to their mindsets, then they become empowered to do something about them, to change them if they need to and as they shift their mindsets more towards the positive, they're going to unlock greater success across their life, their work and their leadership.

Steve Rush: So superb and I think most people listening to this will be familiar with the terminology of growth mindset and fixed mindset, but due to your extensive time and research. You have taken it another level deeper have not you? You have found out some different dynamics to mindset; tell us a little bit about that?

Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah, so when I first started to come across research studies on mindsets and saw that they had powerful effects on how we think, learn and behave. My first question became, well, what mindsets do I need to have? And I literally, I do what an academic shouldn't do, but I did what most normal people do is I went to Google and I type in Google. What mindsets do I need to have to be successful? And I start pulling up dozens and dozens of articles and what I'm finding across all of these articles that I'm pulling up is that the vast majority of these articles, aren't even talking about mindsets, they're talking about behaviours. And so this led me, okay, I really want to come up with an answer to this question, what mindsets do I need to have?

And so I then went to the academic literature and I opened the flood gates. Just to try to find any study that is out there on mindsets, and what I found is that mindsets are being studied across psychology, education management and marketing. And they have been for the last 30 years, but across each of these different disciplines and domains. They are focusing on their own pet mindsets or their pet set of mindsets. And so what I've done in terms of my work. Is I have just pulled all of these different mindsets together into one framework, and so I focus on four different sets of mindsets. Each of these sets range on a continuum from negative to positive, which allows us when we understand these different mindsets. It allows us to identify where we fall along each of these continuums, are we on the more negative side? Are we on the positive side? So where are we currently at and where do we need to go in terms of shifting our mindsets to unlock greater success.

Steve Rush: I never really thought about the concept of behaviours versus mindset, but they are completely different. And now you've just mentioned that you're incredibly right to point out that people do get behaviours and mindset mix up, don’t they? Behaviours is the effect of a mindset, right?

Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah, so behaviours is largely driven by our mindset. So let me give you another example here. If we've got a closed mindset, so this is another continuum that I focus on. A closed versus open mindset. We've got a closed mindset. We generally think that what we know is best, and when we think that what we know is best, our primary focus becomes on being right. And when our primary focus is on being right, then that shapes our behaviour.

So we're going to be the one that's quick to provide answers. We are going to be the one that is quick to shut down others ideas, particularly if they differ from ours, because we are going to be inclined to see these different perspectives and even disagreements as challenges and as threats. But if we foundationally have an open mindset, which means that we believe that we can be wrong, instead of believing that what we know is best, our focus is no longer on being right. It is focused on finding truth and thinking optimally. And when our focus is on finding truth and thinking optimally, then our behaviours change. We shift from being the one that wants to provide all the answers to being the one who's asking all the questions and inviting feedback, inviting new perspectives, because that's the only way that we're going to ensure that we're thinking optimally and that we're finding truth. And so this is just hopefully another example that paints a picture that our mindsets, our mental lenses, that we wear. Shape how we process in our world and shape how we behave in our world.

Steve Rush: That is a great metaphor. Those mental lenses that we wear. Because that is how you would see then, the world that is presented to you. Right?

Ryan Gottfredson: For sure. Do you care if I give another example, that has been pretty powerful for me.

Steve Rush: Yeah, please do.

Ryan Gottfredson: Okay, so, and this was originally introduced to me by one of Brene¢ Brown books, Rising Strong, and in her book, she asked the question, do you think others in general are doing the best that they can? And in prior to reading this book, I'll be honest with you. My answer to that question would be, no, I did not think that others were doing the best that they can. And one of the places where I saw this in my life is when I would come across a homeless person, asking for assistance.

And that's pretty common here in California, where I'm at. In fact, I learned that half of the United States homeless population is in California, and so this means it's not too uncommon for me to pull up to the street corner. And there's somebody standing there asking for assistance. Well, when I would see them as not doing their best, and this is a form of what I call an inward mindset, then I was really quick to be critical of them. That is how I would process this. I would think, what are you doing, asking for my hard-earned money when you are just standing there, why don't you do something more productive? And I would be less inclined to help them or navigate that situation in a way that's aligned with my most ideal self. But when I read this book by Brene¢ Brown and it led me to ask the question, what if I saw this person as doing the best that they can?

And, and as soon as I asked that question, are they doing the best that they can? I quickly grow empathetic because that leads me to ask another question. What in the world has happened in their life that has led them to believe that this is the best way to live? And so when I look at these homeless people through this new lens, I no longer am critical of them. I am very sensitive to what has gone on in their life and I am much more inclined to help them and to navigate that situation closer to my ideal self. And so this was a huge change for me, just a small change in terms of how I saw them as not doing their best versus doing their best. Changed how I thought about them and how I behaved towards them, and I did the same thing, goes with leaders.

So we've probably all had leaders who saw us as not doing our best and we've had other leaders who see us as doing our best, and depending upon that lens, that they looked through. Shaped how they interacted with us.

Steve Rush: Right, and there's a very similar parallel I talk to my clients here, which is on the principle that every leader's action has a positive intent. Now the landing of the action may be very different than it is intended, but the intent is driven from a place of positivity, either for them or their organization. And it's the same principle with mindset, I guess, if what you just described.

Ryan Gottfredson: No, for sure. And you bring up such a fantastic point because when across these four different sets of mindsets is, there are desires that are associated with the negative mindsets and other desires that are associated with the positive mindset.

Let me maybe if I could just let me give you four different desires and I'm going to pose the question to you, which is, tell me if these desires are desires that society in general suggest our desires that we should have. Is that okay?

Steve Rush: Go for it.

Ryan Gottfredson: All right.

Steve Rush: Yeah, let's do it.

Ryan Gottfredson: Okay, so here is the four desires, and again. Tell me if you think society suggests that we should have these desires. So they are a desire to look good, the desire to be right, the desire to avoid problems and a desire to get ahead. Would you say that society suggests that these are good desires?

Steve Rush: I would say that would be a fair assumption from what I observed, yeah.

Ryan Gottfredson: Right. I mean, I feel the same way because I mean. These are very justifiable desires. Who wants to look bad, be wrong, have problems and get passed up.

Well, nobody does. I think the kicker here is we need to ask ourselves the question. When we have these desires, where is our focus? So if we are focused on looking good, being right, avoiding problems and getting ahead. Our focus is primarily on ourselves, and these are the four desires that are attached to the negative mindsets. And I think a lot of us get here because it's very easy to justify. And often, because we just don't understand that there's higher order desires to have. So on the positive mindset side, instead of having a desire to look good, we have a desire to learn and grow. Instead of a desire to be right, we have a desire to find truth and think optimally. Instead of a desire to avoid problems, we have a desire to reach goals. And instead of a desire to get ahead, we have a desire to lift others. And across these two sets on the negative side, when we have these self-focused desires, and what I called self-protection mode. But when we shift over to the other side, the more positive side, we move into what I call as organization advanced mode or contribution mode. And so, what you said is that people act with intent for either for their own personal benefit and when they're in self-protection mode or for the betterment of the group around them, in contribution mode. And if we can awaken to these fundamental mindsets and their desires, then we could get a better sense of how we are operating. And he quality of how we're processing. Are we in self-protection mode or are we in this organization advance or contribution mode? Does that make sense?

Steve Rush: That is awesome. Yeah. I love it. It makes loads of sense. It is filling lots of my thinking gaps as we are kicking this through, so that is great stuff. within the research you've kicked around. You also stumble across and have called out promotion mindset and outward mindset. What does that refer to?

Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah, let me start with this continuum that deals with prevention versus promotion. So on the prevention mindset side; this is when we have a desire to avoid problems. On the promotion sides, when we have a desire to reach goals and to make these ideas come to life. Let me share an analogy. If we are a ship captain in the middle of the ocean and we have a prevention mindset. Our number one focus is on not sinking, so we don't want any problems to occur. We don't want to take any risks. We don't want to rock the boat, and when we have this mindset and we see a storm coming towards us on the horizon, because we don't want to end up in the bottom of the ocean. Our natural inclination is to run from the storm and go to a place of safety. But we've got to ask ourselves, is that place of safety that we run to maybe a Harbour or a port.

Was that the destination that we originally set out for? Well, usually not. Well, those were the promotion mindset on the other hand. It is not that they are not concerned about sinking because they are, but their focus is different. Their number one focus is on reaching a destination and I am making progress towards it. And so when the storm comes on the Verizon rather than immediately run from it, they ask themselves, does this storm stand between me and where I want to go? And if the answer is yes, then they prepare to take on the storm and they're become willing to take the risks of going towards the storm, braving the winds and the currents of the sea, because they know that that's the only way to get to the destination that they chose. And so effectively, those are the prevention mindset end up going the course of least resistance.

And they operate in a rather comfort focused way as those with the promotion mindset that become willing to do the difficult things to reach goals. And they're much more purpose centred.

Steve Rush: And it is not about taking more risk or being Maverick, either, is it? It is just about being focused in one direction versus another. Right?

Ryan Gottfredson: For sure. I mean, I don't have a podcast myself, but I'm on a decent number of podcasts. I look at podcast hosts like yourself, and I am thinking, man. Why would somebody start a podcast? It is a lot of work to do it. I mean, if I was going the comfort route, I would never start up a podcast. The only reason why I would start up a podcast is if that was one-step in a larger destination that I am seeking, then in order to get to that destination, starting up a podcast is maybe the most important thing that I can do. Now, I think every podcast is a little bit different, but whenever I am talking to somebody like yourself. I am thinking, man, this person has got to be promotion minded. Cause if they were not, they would never start up a podcast. I don't know. Does that resonate with you?

Steve Rush: Yes it does. It for sure resonates. So if we start to think about how our mindsets can help us, it not only having the right mindset will help us unlock performance in what we do, but also there are some medical implications in having the right mindset too, aren't there?

Ryan Gottfredson: There is and this is where the science is super fascinating. Is not only does our mindset shape how we think, learn and behave, but it also shapes the physiology of our body. Let me give you an example of a research study that was done, and so in this research study, they went to a group of financial professionals that were all stressed out and this actually occurred near the last economic collapse about 10 years ago. And they broke these financial professionals into two groups and they showed one group, a three minute video about how stress is debilitating. They showed another group, a three-minute video about how stress is enabling. And these are both backed by science around stress and then they tracked their engagement, their performance, and their blood pressure over the next two weeks. And after two weeks, what they found is that those who saw the stress is enabling video had higher engagement, higher performance and lower blood pressure. One of many studies that showing that just how we see our world. Not only shapes how we think about our world and even behave in our world, but how our body actually processes our world. Pretty cool stuff.

Steve Rush: Really fascinating research, isn't it?

Ryan Gottfredson: Oh yeah.

Steve Rush: So if I’m a leader listening to this and I am thinking. I have a bunch of people who are in my charge, who I want to support, grow, develop, and mentor. How would I start that journey on evolving and helping them evolve their mindset?

Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah, great question. I mean, it is a little bit tricky because for most of us, we are not conscious of our mindsets and when we are not conscious of our mindsets. 1, that makes it difficult to introspect about them. 2, is most people don't know what mindsets are even out there. I mean, when I ask groups, can anybody identify a mindset that they need to have to be successful? The two most common answers that I get is no answer or positive mindset. Which I think positive mindsets is a good answer, but it is also a really vague answer, and so when we don't even know what mindsets are out there, we don't have labels to mindsets. There is no way we are going to ever be able to introspect about that. If a leader in the organization wants to help their leaders or employees to awaken to their mindsets, the most foundational aspects about themselves, I think the first thing that they need to do. Is they need to help them learn the language of mindsets.

They need to put labels to mindsets and help them understand these different sets of mindsets. And that's one of the reasons why I love talking about this is because we're just giving people our language now, it gives them the opportunity to introspect about their mindsets. And then in addition to that, and hopefully help make it easier for folks is I've created a mindset assessment of people could take. It is only 20 questions; it is free on my website at ryangottfredson.com but what it does is after answering these 20 questions, they get results on the quality, their mindsets, relative to 10,000 other people who have taken the mindset assessment. So not only does the results of the assessment, give them these labels and descriptions of the mindsets. It also helps them to awaken to their current quality of their mindset. And when we understand where we are, and we understand where we want to go in terms of shifting our mindsets, then we become empowered to get there. The results also have a guidance on activities that people can engage in to activate and strengthen their mindset so that they come to rely upon their more positive mindsets as they go throughout their day-to-day lives.

Steve Rush: And it is fair to say as well, that mindsets will shift based on scenarios too, right?

Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah. Great point, so how we have the mindsets that we have now, and I think it's interesting to point this out that most of us probably just intuitively think that how we see the world is the best way to see the world. I mean, if we thought we could see the world in a better way, we would have done so already. So we have just got to, 1, we've got to awaken to these different mindsets and as we do so, as I mentioned, we become empowered to shift these to the positive.

And so part of what shifts shapes our mindsets is. 1, our life's experience up until now and then 2, the current culture in which we operate within. So if we are working in an environment that is highly competitive, we are going to be inclined to self-protect. If we are operating in an environment that is very collaborative, we are going to be inclined to organization advance and to contribute, and so our mindsets are shaped by our environments but we aren't at the mercy of those environments. So regardless of our circumstances, we can always be intentional about the mindsets that we want to bring to those circumstances.

Steve Rush: Got it, and therefore, I guess there is probably a propensity to have a certain kind of mindset that is almost like a core mindset. Is that fair?

Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah, and this is where I think, as we went through those four different desires on the negative side, on the positive side, and we said that society suggests. That it is good to be focused on looking good, being right, avoiding problems and getting ahead. I mean, society as a whole is essentially incentivizing more the negative mindset. And I think that one of the reasons why more people don't have positive mindsets. In fact, across the 10,000 people who have taken my mindset assessment, only 5% are in the top four tile for all four sets of these mindsets, so most of us have gotten some mindset work to do.

Steve Rush: Right, That is interesting alone, isn't it? I suspect those 5% that are in those top core tile are the ones that have high levels of self-awareness, who practice being aware to their mindsets too.

Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah and that is what I found is, as I have talked to some of these folks that are there. Is one, they have invested a lot in themselves and in deepening their self-awareness, they seem to be consistent learners. Also, one of the things that I found is that these folks have generally they either, or because of the world that they shaped around them, they have created a world around them that incentivizes these more positive desires. So if there is somebody, or if there is a context that is really draining on them. They realize the negative effect that that might have on their mindsets. And they try to get into a better place, a better state of mind. So they are generally much more intentional about the context and the environments that they play within. And so one of the things that I found is. I do coaching with leaders is the leaders that have a tendency to have more of the negative mindsets. It is just part of an observation is that those that have the more negative mindset generally were raised in an environment where they did not feel very safe. Those that have the more positive mindsets, they were generally raised in environments where they did feel safe. And that isn't to say that we, can't shift our mindsets as we go older. It is just, when we are in a safe environment; we are more inclined to take on the positive mindsets just naturally.

Steve Rush: Right, so lack of safety equals more prevention, more safety equals more promotion?

Ryan Gottfredson: For sure. Yeah, because we feel this Liberty in this ability to go beyond our current station, as opposed to just want to self-protect.

Steve Rush: Got it.

Ryan Gottfredson: Yup.

Steve Rush: So now I am going to turn the lens a little at you, and not only have you researched, spend lots of time thinking about leadership. We want you to think about leadership mindset hacks. So if you were to share your top leadership mindset hacks for our listeners, what would they be? Ryan.

Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah, great question. I think the first place that I would do. I would take the mindset assessment. The second one that I would do is, and let me just share with you a personal story on this, and I think one of the reasons why I focus on mindsets is I probably need the mindset work just as much as anybody else. And as I look back on my adult life, I primarily had a prevention mindset. I was focused on just playing it safe, I did not want to be an entrepreneur. I never wanted to take on any debt and right about the time when I started to do my deep dive into the research on mindsets, I had a CEO give me a book and he says. This book is going to change your life and the book is called The Five Minute Journal.

And I look at the title and I look at him and I'm very gracious. Thank you very much for giving this book. But in my head, I'm thinking there is no way in hell I'm journaling. Like this is not going to happen. Right? And so I bring the book home and I opened it up and sure enough, it's just five minutes a day. In the morning, it is inviting me to ask three questions. What are three things that are grateful for? What are three things that would make today amazing and fill in some self-affirmations. And I decide, I'll give this a shot. I will, do it for two weeks. And if something happens great, if not, I'll just toss it in the trash, and so I started doing this and every day, as I answered that question, what are three things that would make today

Amazing.

What that was doing, was activating my promotion mindset. And as I did this repeatedly over time, my promotion mindset became stronger and stronger and I became focused less and less on, how do I just kind of make today, go by easily and more about how do I make today Amazing. How do I make today better than yesterday? How do I make this week better than last week? And so after doing this for the course of several weeks, I felt the shift over to a promotion mindset and as I made that shift, well, that's when I decided I want to start up my own consulting business. I want to start doing public speaking. I took on debt to start my business, and then I decided to write my book. If you would have asked me three years ago, if I would have ever thought that I would be having this conversation with you. Talking to a guy across the pond and just having had a book that's hit the wall street journal and USA today, bestseller list, I would have said, you're crazy.

I don't see how that's ever a possibility, but that was only because I was looking at my world through a prevention mindset, as I shift to a promotion mindset. Well, I started to think and operate in very different ways, leading to us having this conversation.

Steve Rush: Mindset habits then.

Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah, so that is one of the keys and if you take my assessment for each of the different sets of mindsets, I identify different resources and activities that people can engage in. And if we could create a habit of activating and stimulating our positive mindsets, those will become the dominant mindsets that we rely upon as we navigate in our world.

Steve Rush: Super. Next thing we want to kick around is what we call Hack to Attack. So this will be a time where things haven't worked out for you, maybe something that's gone terribly wrong, or we've screwed up at it. We call it Hack to Attack, where we have used this as a lesson in our life and our work as a positive thing, or a positive force for the future. What would be your hack to attack?

Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah, great question. Early into my entrepreneurial venture. One of the things that I decided I wanted to try my hand out because I had seen other people who have been successful with this and I wanted to create an online course. And so I decided to create a somewhat of a quick and dirty online course, just to kind of learn how to do it. And I soaked up a, you know, a fairly sizable amount of financial capital to invest in learning how to do this and bringing it to life. And I brought it to life and I probably ended up selling only 10 courses, if that, right.

So from the outside perspective, this was a colossal failure but and part of this is partly cause I'm trying to take a growth mindset towards this. I don't look at that situation as a failure because I look back on that and I think, Oh, I'm so glad that I went through that experience because I learned a lot. I learned that I was not in the right position to create an online course. I learned what it takes to create an online course. I learned what I need to do to build a stronger foundation so that when I want to roll out an online course, it is much more successful. And so that was about two years ago. Fast forward till now is during the COVID-19 shutdowns is I've created an online course called High Octane Mindsets, which is designed to be the deepest and most comprehensive course on mindsets today and is designed to help people transform their lives, to get unstuck and blast towards a brighter future. And so now I've just been rolling this out over the last couple of weeks, and now I'm in a position where I'm much more successful because of the lessons that I learned previously.

Steve Rush: Super lessons to have and helping you in your work today.

Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So Ryan, the last thing we want to do is do a bit of time travel with you and we affectionately take our folk back to bump into themselves metaphorically when they are 21. What would be the advice that you would give Ryan when he was 21?

Ryan Gottfredson: Oh man, I could give a lot of advice, but the primary thing would be that you've got to focus on mindset. I mean, I vividly remembered this experience when I was 21 and I set a new year's resolution for myself that year. And the new year's resolution was essentially to improve my social life.

So I had just transferred over to a new university and I just wanted to make more friends and have a more, more social experience. And all of the goals that I set for myself for my new year's resolutions were around behaviours. Here are the things that I am going to do. Well, what I was overlooking was my mindset, and at the time, I did not have very positive mindsets. I had a fixed, closed, prevention and inward mindset. And so while I felt like I tried really hard on changing my behaviours, but I just didn't feel like it led to any positive results. And what I didn't realize at the time was, and I kind of gave up on goal setting because of this, because it was a really frustrating experience for me. The reason why it was so frustrating is because I was overlooking mindsets. I could change or try to change my behaviours all day long.

But if my prevailing mindset stayed the same, I'm going to continue getting the same results.

And that a much more natural way of developing ourselves is to not focus on behaviours, but to focus on the underlying mindsets and as we shift our mindsets forward, naturally our thinking and our behaviour and our success will follow. And so if I could go back to myself at 21, I would say, wake up to your mindsets and focus there and your personal development efforts, because it's going to be so much more natural and so much more effective. And that is not going to be as a frustrating experience as what you tried to do, really [Inaudible 00:40:27]

Steve Rush: Great advice and you certainly stirred my mindset today. So I will be heading over to take that assessment, let me tell you official.

Ryan Gottfredson: All right.

Steve Rush: Now, folks have been listening to this. So those with a growth, open and promotion mindset will be thinking, how can I find out more about the work that Ryan is doing at the moment? Where would you like to find out a little bit more about what you are doing?

Ryan Gottfredson: The best place to goes is my website. So that is ryangottfredson.com there you will find information where you can take the mindset assessment for free. You will find information about my book. I have a bunch of promotional giveaways associated with my book. You can learn about my online course. I've also got a tool that's called a digital mindset coach, which taps into the neuroscience behind mindsets to help people shift their mindsets more towards the positive. So whole bunch of resources that are there to help people awaken to and strengthen their mindsets, so that is the best place. Second best place is probably LinkedIn, so if anybody wants to connect with me on LinkedIn would be happy to do so.

Steve Rush: Super and we will also put the links to the mindset assessment, your website, and indeed, to the book, SUCCESS MINDSETS in our show notes as well.

Ryan Gottfredson: Perfect.

Steve Rush: Ryan it has been super chatting to you today. It has been really thoughtful. You have stimulated huge amounts of thinking in me and I am sure that is the case for our listeners too. So I just wanted to say on behalf of The Leadership Hacker Podcast, thanks for being on the show.

Ryan Gottfredson: Hey, thanks for having me on and thanks for being willing to dive into mindset.

Closing

Success Mindsets: Your Keys to Unlocking Greater Success in Your Life, Work, & Leadership

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Frank Zinghini is the guest on our show today, Frank is the CEO of Applied Visions Inc and one of the world’s top thought leaders on digital applications: You will learn

How he grew his business from his basement
The parallels in leading people and the digital agenda
The role trust plays in leadership
Leading his customers is as important as leading his team

Plus lots of leadership hacks!

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Frank Zinghini

You can learn more from Frank below

Applied Visions Inc – www.avi.com

Frank at LinkedIn

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Frank Zinghini is our special guest on today's show. He is the founder and CEO of Applied Visions, Inc. He is a founder and board member of Code DX and also the world best thought leaders on digital applications. But before we get a chance to speak with Frank. It is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: According to research, your smartphone is about 10 times dirtier than the average toilet seat; and given that you spend about 47 times a day on average touching it, that's pretty disgusting at the best of times, and during a pandemic it's downright dangerous, but it doesn't stop there. Just think of how many small items you touch frequently throughout your day, that you can rarely clean. Your computer mouse, your keyboard, maybe remote controls, jewellery, keys to name just a few. All of these items are likely to come in touch with some form of bacteria, which could be potentially harmful, right? So as you consider stepping up your disinfecting routine and as we come toward the end of this wave of the pandemic, we shouldn't really be taking our hygiene for granted. Now we bought you leadership innovation stories before and innovation is an important part of leadership and leadership development. Along with digital tech and innovation, it now means that you can carry your own disinfecting case with you anywhere like. Developers have created what they call the Clean Tray UV light sterilization case. It portable case uses four UVC led lights to kill the bank 99.99% of germs and bacteria on dirty surfaces and it can be done in as little as five minutes. The company said that sort of average twice as fast as any other UV devices, completely eliminating and disinfecting any material surface from plastic to leather. It is about 8.3 inches and Clean Tray is lightweight, enables you to carry it anywhere and disinfect just about anything you can, that you carry with you. Such as your iPod, AirPods, phone, tools, jewellery, watches, and so on. And for those of you that are in touch with your senses, they've even integrated a whole for essential oils, allowing you to infuse your belongings with a fresh smell.

Creative thinking and innovation is a key component of leadership. Our listeners have shared with us a couple of crazy Apps that are trending right now. The first is called Cuddlr. It is a location based social networking app, and basically allows you to find people in your area who just want a cuddle virtually or in person. Cute or creepy? You will be the judge. If you have ever misplaced your car in a multi-story car park or in a location. There are a number of apps that will help you “find my car” but this one is a find my car app with a difference. It is called Carrr Matey, You guessed it. It's got lots of rrrs and it lets you know where you parked your car, but instead in a Pirate Accent, crazy, you may think, but its trending now and stealing all of the Looty from all of the other trending apps, there must be some secret pirates among us.

And if you're considering building an app, maybe now is the time. In 2008, when Apple launched the app store, there were only 500 apps available. At the last count between iOS and Android, there are almost 5 million apps in usage and of these apps, there were over 400,000 apps that help you…. you guessed it, build Apps. That has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any insights or information that you would like our listeners to hear, get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: I am joined on today show by Frank Zinghini, he is the founder and CEO of Applied Visions Inc. He is an entrepreneur and one of the world's best thought leaders on software development and digital development. Frank, welcome to the show.

Frank Zinghini: Oh, it is a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

Steve Rush: It is our pleasure too. You are very welcome, so you have are really interesting backstory. You now lead a multisite, multi-disciplined business, of three companies, but it did not start that way. You started off your business from your basement as a one man band. Just tell us a bit about the backstory?

Frank Zinghini: I did. I don't know if it's a typical backstory, but it's an interesting one. After graduating college, worked two very interesting jobs that I really enjoyed, but in each case after about five years or so on that job, it just got a bit stale. And the first time I went on to a second job, and the second time I had sort of stumbled into an opportunity to do a little bit of freelance work at night. Moonlighting work in my basement, as you say, and found that interesting. I was actually building a helicopter simulator for a small business here in my area. And finished that one and they asked me to do another one and I was sufficiently disengaged, I guess at my day job that I decided to take the chance and try doing that as a full time engagement. And that led to another thing and another thing and another thing and hired people and got more customers. And 31 years later, here I am

Steve Rush: Awesome, so from flight simulators to digital development, that world has changed significantly in 30 years, hasn’t it?

Frank Zinghini: Three or four times over, yeah.

Steve Rush: Right. So how has your business morphed, changed or adapted?

Frank Zinghini: Oh, it’s well.. it has changed; as I said, several times over the years. Where we are now in terms of what technology is capable of doing for businesses and for consumers. I mean, it was the stuff of daydreams when I started all this. I mean, I started this before we even had personal computers, which I just realized it makes me sound old. But the value that you can realize by applying software and technology to pretty much any domain that you can imagine is just incredible. The ability to build something effective and get it out in people's hands and bring value out of it in a relatively short period of time compared to how it used to be. It is just amazing and it has really become an integral part of every business.

Steve Rush: Right.

Frank Zinghini: When I first started it was sort of a back office thing and, you know, yes, there were computers and yes, there was software, but it was always in service of some internal function and now it really is the business.

Steve Rush: Yeah and that digital forms part of every single business and across all channels.

Frank Zinghini: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Whether it be marketing, frontline, back office.

Frank Zinghini: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: You almost can't experience going to work these days without having to bump into an element of technology that's continually evolving. Right?

Frank Zinghini: Absolutely. A message I try to convey to customers all the time. I sum it up, as your App is your business. There is a lot more to it than that, of course, but you really cannot, you know, with few exceptions you cannot have an effective business in today's market without a digital presence.

Steve Rush: Right.

Frank Zinghini: Without a digital side through the business.

Steve Rush: So Applied Visions Inc. At the moment, what's your core focus with your clients, helping them with their thinking, their digital footprint, et cetera.

Frank Zinghini: There is a phrase. That I am not particularly fond of but maybe it is just because I don't like phrases like this. But digital transformation, but it's really building that digital side of your business, exposing your business to the digital world, having that presence being in your customer's pockets, on their phones, being in their lives, wherever they are. Being in the physical devices that are either in their homes or in their businesses or in their factories. Your business needs to be where your customers are wherever they are whenever they are there. And that is all summed up under that digital transformation phrase, but it's really helping companies achieve that.

Steve Rush: Right? And it starts with that conversation, I guess, with leaders as to, you know, what's their vision for the organization and then you come in and help them decipher and translate their future business vision and how your technology and apps and applications can support it. Right?

Frank Zinghini: Absolutely. That is actually on a good day, it is like that. Very often, my job starts with helping them form the vision in the first place.

Steve Rush: Okay.

Frank Zinghini: There are so many businesses out there that are just, you know, fighting the good fight day in and day out. And they're working the way that they've always worked and trying to keep it going. And the world is changing around them and they're slowly sensing that maybe things are different enough that they need to do something, but they don't exactly understand what it is and how to do it. And I get involved with those leaders as early as I can to help them see that and understand it and get their arms around it and figure out what that means for them and how to get to that next step in their evolution.

Steve Rush: That's key critical, Isn't it?

Frank Zinghini: I love it when a customer calls me up and says. We want to this digital transformation thing. Can you come in here and do it for us? I love that, but more often than not, it is, “what is all this digital stuff about?.. and how does it feel affect me?”

Steve Rush: There is also a common misconception, Isn't there that digital transformation is this thing of the internet and Apps and applications and platforms and software; actually digital transformation starts with human people thinking about what it is they need to try and do and therefore vision is absolutely where it starts. Isn't it?

Frank Zinghini: Absolutely and to the theme of your show, it is all about leadership at the customer side as well, because you can't just throw up a whole digital platform and tell your staff, okay, here it is, start doing this stuff now. It is an enormously transformative process for the business and the people inside that business need to understand it. They need to see where it is going. They need to see how it affects them and they need to see how their lives will change when you go down that road.

Steve Rush: And in your experience, not only being a leader of a digital and software business, but actually facing into organizations whose leaders are going through an element of transformation, change or digital transformation. What would you say has been the biggest impact for leaders as they have gone through this evolution?

Frank Zinghini: Well, there are lots of impacts, good ones and bad ones. I think the biggest impact on a good way that they see once it all starts to work. Is that they have a much closer bond to their customers than they have ever had before. There is this initial fear that I see and I deal a lot with mature businesses. Businesses that grew up around older technologies or without technologies at all, but they have an established business. They have an established customer base and I am talking about business to consumer, business to business, it is all the same. It is what, is your relationship to your customer? And they fear that going digital will somehow change that. You know, when I want to talk to my customer, I pick up the phone and talk to them and that is all I need and that is okay and you can still do that.

But once they have the technology in place, once they realize that now their business is in their customer's pocket, 24 hours a day, they actually have a better relationship with that customer. They have not given up anything. They have gained the ability to reach out to the customer whenever they feel like it. They have gained the ability to bring back data about that customer's behaviour that they never had before. And they could still pick up the phone and call their customers. Except now, they are much more thoroughly equipped for that call. They know more about what that customer is doing. It is always a joy to see that take place and to see that realization, the customers that wow, this stuff really works.

Steve Rush: Data driven insights is fundamental, not only for the way that we interact with our customers, but actually how we interact with our internal teams as well. Right?

Frank Zinghini: Oh, absolutely. It is so much easier to lead people to a conclusion that you think that they need to be led to when you've got the data to back it up. And you're not just trying to influence them and you're not trying to convince them that you just know what you're talking about. You've actually got data. I mean, there is plenty of things in life and in the world where data is not quite enough. But when you have data, you have data about your customer's behaviour, about the preferences, about their businesses, about their practices that can help support other decisions that you have to make to move forward,

Steve Rush: Given your experience of your clients and helping them with their thought leadership, Frank. How has the pandemic impacted underway organizations? And indeed individuals are either rushing towards digital or using digital in a different way.

Frank Zinghini: Interestingly it is, yeah. It has had all kinds of effects on people's behaviour and the way they look at the world. But when they actually sort of pick themselves up and start thinking about what does this mean to the business? What it really is doing is sort of helping accelerate their move in that direction. They are not necessarily saying, oh, now I have to do things completely differently. Although there is plenty of elements of that but in many cases, they are saying, well, I have been thinking about this for a long time. And I guess now's is the time to actually do it. I can't meet my customers anymore. They can't come into my business. I have to have a different way of reaching them in a different way of interacting with them. These are all things that they should be thinking about anyway, and they should be doing anyway for all the reasons we just discussed about where digital relationships are going.

It is just causing them to think about it more quickly. Now that said, there is plenty of businesses where a true business transformation is forced by this. We have a little corner of our business, where we have a software platform that we built that helps commercial kitchens manage meals subscriptions, prepared meals subscriptions. People can get on the website order, you know, meals for the next month or week. On a certain schedule, pick off a menu and then you can deliver these meals on a subscription basis. And that's been a popular business for a while with small commercial kitchens and now Freshly as an example of a large business doing that. Now we are being contacted by restaurants who are seeing how their lives have changed, probably permanently in terms of how many people they can bring into their place and how many people they can have in the front of the house. And yet they've got this commercial kitchen in the back. That is capable of so much more. They are looking at; can they add this sort of subscription meal delivery to their business? In addition to serving people in the restaurant and to dealing with one off takeout orders through whatever it is. Uber Eats or DoorDash or those things. Is there a way that they can work a recurring revenue subscription model into their business without losing the character of their restaurant? So that is just one example of how I think this current situation is forcing some businesses to actually think about a radical change to what they do and how they do it. But for the most part, it's really an accelerant.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Frank Zinghini: It is getting people to do things or at least think about things that they should have been thinking about for a while.

Steve Rush: And do you think there is an element of digital maturity? So we'll see the businesses that survive and adapt the most, who have a greater and more comprehensive digital strategy versus those that don't?

Frank Zinghini: I think so? I think it is a very necessary thing for them to do. One of the challenges I face when I carry my messages around and talk to businesses and they say, well, we did all that digital stuff. We have a website, and then we had somebody build us an App. But it's nowhere near a digital business. It is a little island of capability, and they don't talk to each other and they don't allow customers to really interact with the business and to serve themselves. It is not a true digital transformation. It is just a couple of pieces. It is the businesses who recognize that and say that was just our first step in this direction. How do we get to the next step? How do we make all this stuff, an integral part of our business? How do we make it really one big digital presence with just several doors into the room? There is a mobile app door. There is the website door. Maybe there is an intelligence device door, but all of it is a digital business that customers are interacting with not little stove, pipes of capability.

Steve Rush: And of course, digital will help them all connect to those elements together to be more effective and provide the right outcomes, for their customers.

Frank Zinghini: Oh, absolutely. And that gets back to your observation earlier about the leadership challenge for the customer. Doing these things because many businesses even to this day are stovepipe internally. You know, people have their domains; they have their areas of responsibility. They can be protective about it and, you know, for years, businesses have struggled to sort of integrate that smoothly internally, but there's still obstacles to that sort of integration when you come in with this digital integration and say, okay, now all that stuff that all you guys do, it's really just one big thing. Everybody is sharing data; it is all available to everyone. There is fluidity between departments. That can be a real leadership challenge to the CEO who recognizes the value of this transformation. Is trying to get his team on board with doing this.

Steve Rush: One of the core tenants of creating a great leadership partnership in the business you're in. Is that element of trust, because you are dealing with some really sensitive areas of conversation, strategy, but also things that could cause huge potential upturns and downturns for the organization. In terms of their risk.

Frank Zinghini: Oh yeah.

Steve Rush: How is it you go about creating that trust with your partners?

Frank Zinghini: That is probably the single biggest challenge that I have as a service provider. Doing what we do, it is all about trust really at the end of the day, all I'm ever selling to customers is trust that we can deliver on this thing that we're all talking about and it's enormously difficult. But we work on it, we work on it by making sure that our message is valid by making sure that we understand their business very well before we even start talking. It's about listening first and talking later, there's a lot of people in this space that think they know everything, and we'll go into an engagement with a customer and start waving their arms around and saying, this is what you should do. This is what you should do, and we will go in and we will listen for a very long time. As long as the customer is willing to talk, we are willing to listen to really understand what they are doing today, why they are doing it and what they hope to achieve. But in the end, it's all about earning that trust because if they choose to have us help them. There is nothing tangible there to start with. They are basically saying, okay, here do this. They are trusting us to deliver on the promise of everything that we've said. I do not take that lightly when a customer finally says, okay, let's do this. I recognize that they have just, you know, handed over their futures to us and their tactics, we can use. We move forward incrementally. I am sure you have had guests talking about agile development and there is this ways of doing this work so that you've got total transparency. Constant visibility as to what is going on and where are you going?

And, we work every day to keep our client's comfort level manageable, so they understand where we're going and that we're moving in the right direction. Let me tell you just a really quick anecdote. I had a client many, many years ago. It was a great client. One of the early stages of the businesses. We brought a lot of successful DOS products over to windows and again, I'm dating myself, but we got into commercial product development very early, and we bring a product field, everything we do. I was working late in this fellow's office once, he was the owner, this a great guy and I wanted to stay. He wanted to go home and I said, you know, do you mind if I stay? And he said, sure and reach and takes his keys out and hand them to me and gives me the alarm code. I said, you sure he trusts me with the keys? And he looked at me, he said. I am trusting you with the entire future of my business, I better be able to trust you with my keys. I had not ever really thought of it that way because I was very young at the time. This is one of my first clients and I never forgot that. Never forgot that, yeah. It is all about trust.

Steve Rush: And it is interesting how we apply that position of trust isn't it and perception of trust?

Frank Zinghini: Yeah.

Steve Rush: There was, you know, perceiving the keys, as a commodity or as a product. Where actually, it is much, much bigger than that. Isn't it?

Frank Zinghini: It was hugely symbolic to me and as I said, I have never forgotten. That was probably, I don't know, 25 years ago, maybe.

Steve Rush: And now as a CEO as well. That trust plays across the way that you lead the team.

Frank Zinghini: Oh, of course.

Steve Rush: Tell us a little bit about kind of how, from an leaders perspective you apply the similar principles.

Frank Zinghini: Yes, it is a slightly different and again, you know, it comes from being a service business. You know, sometimes I envy companies make commodity products, whether they're making cheese or auto parts or something, because there's an inertia to building products and you know, people can come in and go and your products will still come out the factory door. In a service business, the people in the business are the business. They are my inventory, they are my product, they are everything and I love it.

Steve Rush: And that is very different. Isn't it? To a traditional manufacturing business.

Frank Zinghini: Yeah, extreme.

Steve Rush: Because without those individual people who are providing that capability, knowledge and insight, there is no business. Right?

Frank Zinghini: Absolutely and a lot of companies will say that. Our people, our biggest asset but in a service business, and this is true of any service business. And, you know, I have tremendous empathy for anybody who's in a service business. It is absolutely true. The work that your people do, the relationships that they build with your customers. I will earn the trust of a customer and then turn around and hand that trust off to a team and now I have basically put my trust in them to serve the customer. So the whole process of making sure that we are constantly communicating. That I know what is going on and then I have sort of tried to instil the right values in people, so that that trust is earned every day of every relationship with every customer. It is a different sort of leadership and its great fun. I get tremendous satisfaction out of watching our teams do great things for customers. I used to get to do it for myself. I used to write the code. Now I don't do that anymore. Now I get to achieve that satisfaction by watching them do it, but it is a huge responsibility.

Steve Rush: Sure, it is and the other thing that you have become renowned for is that whole thought leadership, which is in fact what the whole Applied Visions is. You know, they hear some information here is some insights. Here is how we apply it. How do you go about helping individuals, organizations with how they lead their thinking or how you lead their thinking?

Frank Zinghini: I said before, it is more listening than talking. What I find in most of my relationships is that customers deep down know what they need. They know where they need to go. They just need to be encouraged to give it voice and they need to be reassured that it is actually the right idea. Too many people in my end of the business treat every relationship as a technology thing. And they'll go in and in the first meeting, they'll start talking about Azure or AWS or this or that or JavaScript, you know, they'll talk about all the technology that has to be brought to bear to solve this problem. But that comes much later. That is the plywood in the two by fours to build the house, but you've got to start out with, how do you want to feel when you're living in this house? What do you want to get out of this house? You know, it is all about that. And it actually become sort of my favourite part of the process now is to work with business owners to really understand what they think their challenges are? What do they think the right answers are and it is very rare that I would tell a business owner or leader is like, no, you are wrong. You are just wrong. Here is what you should do? because they know better than I do. They are right. My job is just to help them see that, well, that is absolutely correct. I see where you are going with that, but here is what that means in today's world. And here's the direction you've got to go with that to achieve what you just said. That is kind of my role is to lead their thinking along until they see the light. I hate to say that, but they see the solution. They see where this could go, and how it can actually benefit them. But they know, they know better than I'll ever know, so my job is just to help them realize that.

Steve Rush: I love that. It is almost coaching, but coaching through a digital lens, right?

Frank Zinghini: Yeah. Actually, I never thought of it that way as coaching, but you are absolutely right and I think, I don't know the number but I'd say 80% of leadership is coaching. One form or another. Coaching or coaxing or getting others to see where they should be going and not just telling them. Maybe sometimes you just got to tell them but most times, most times you're influencing, you're coaching them along, moving them to a conclusion.

Steve Rush: Right.

Frank Zinghini: So, yeah, coaching, I like that.

Steve Rush: Cool.

Frank Zinghini: I will use that.

Steve Rush: If we start to think about you as a leader of your businesses. And how you lead several businesses and you are a board member of another. This is the part of the show where we really want to get into your leadership brain and how you are constructed as a CEO. So at this part of the show, we'd like to talk about your leadership hacks. So what would be your top tips, your top leadership hacks that you could share with our audience?

Frank Zinghini: It is interesting because I consider myself, even to this day, sort of an accidental CEO as I said earlier, I kind of eased into this business and it kind of grew up around me.

Steve Rush: You became the CEO because of the growth of your business?

Frank Zinghini: Yeah, so I never really stopped to think about like, okay, now I should do this and now I should do that. But tips and tricks, hacks. I guess, you asked earlier about how do I get customers? Look at the customer relationship first that, aspect of leadership. You know, how do I get customers to move their thinking forward? And one thing I learned a very long time ago is never to be afraid to invest in building something, to show the possibilities, building a prototype if you want to call it that or even just a really well-crafted mock up or demo to help people realize where their vision could go. Nothing sells like a demonstration. You've got to put that image in people's minds and you know, a lot of people in businesses like mine would say. You can't spend that kind of time and money. That should be paid for but I guess on a larger scale hack that I've learned is to always take the long view and it's worth short term investments to build a long-term relationship. So if I want to have a couple of my guys go off for a week or two, or, you know, build some mock-up of what I believe to be this customer's vision so I can bring it back to them and show it to them and have them go, yeah, that's what we want. That is huge and that is part of building that trust. That wins their loyalty. It generates excitement. It is worth that investment. So yeah, I reinvest a lot in things like that and it is one of the reasons, I credit the fact that we have been doing this for 30 years, where a lot of companies like us have come and gone.

So that's probably one of my bigger, outward, focused hacks. Inwardly, I may have all kinds of things I do. That I just sort of take for granted that everybody does, especially with service businesses. I mention before, you know, you can't just go running around, shouting at people, telling them to do this, do that because you need them to be as invested in the relationship with the customer as you are. So I spend a lot of time influencing, understanding what drives individual people and making sure they're in positions where they can realize that and get the satisfaction that they're looking for. For whatever particular thing actually motivates them and then making sure all that lines up to meet the customer goals. There are businesses, some of them legendary where you can succeed through arrogance, shouting people and calling them stupid and telling them to do this, do this, because I know everything. This is not one of those businesses. I lead a lot more through influence, through guidance, through leading by example. We are all kind of moving along in the same direction. It is not my position to tell people what to do. I don't know if that counts as a hack?

Steve Rush: For sure. It does. You know, the whole kind of philosophy of the traditional kind of 1960-70s leadership is still kind of present in some organizations today, but people recognize that is never going to serve them well in the future. And the only way that you can really be a leader is to be amongst other leaders that you're instilling, in developing and creating.

Frank Zinghini: Yup. Yeah a big part of that is his ego. You know, we are all ego-driven to one regard or another, but when you are in a situation like this and you are leading. You have got to learn to put your ego in the background and look for your own self-satisfaction in sort of larger things down the line. You don't want to just be right all the time. You don't need to be right all the time. Andy Grove, I may be dating myself again? The CEO of Intel wrote a great series of books and one of the things he said that always stuck with me is you can be right, but you can also be dead right. And I try very hard not to be dead right and it often comes from your own desire to prove yourself right. So in that whole influencing thing, it's very important to put your own ego in the backseat and eventually you will have some successes. And then you can quietly in your own little study at home with your glass of single malt scotch. Look at the thing that you just delivered to your customer and say, you know, yeah, I did that. It was really your team that did it but you can say, yeah, I did that. You can satisfy yourself that way, but you don't need to do that in the office.

And again I don't know if these count as hacks, but the other thing that I try to instil on everyone as a cultural thing is that we should never be afraid of failure. I think fear of failure is a great obstacle for people and if you have a culture that punishes failure or mocks it or whatever no one is ever going to take any risks and nothing really interesting is ever going to happen. You’ve got to encourage. I mean going so far, what is the Facebook expression? Fail fast or something like that. You know, that has become part of this, whole break things fail fast. I don't mean that kind of thing. I mean, try something new if it does not work, backtrack, you know, don't go crazy about it, but don't be afraid to fail. Don't be afraid to speak up in a meeting and say, yeah, we tried that thing, thought it was a good idea, but it turns out to be a really bad idea. So we're not going to do that. Great, you learn so much from that. You learn so much more and there is lots of good quotes about this, that I can't pull out of my head right now, but you learn so much more from a failure than from a success.

Steve Rush: You do, don’t you?

Frank Zinghini: Yeah. Always, always. And you have to have a culture that says that's okay.

Steve Rush: We have a lot to the digital world for that principle of failure in business and getting comfortable with failure because it kind of was born in the digital evolution of experiment test and learn and agile development and we have kind of taken some of those principles now. Most organizations recognize that and it might even be labelled as failure. It might be labelled as learning and we just do that. We learn from it. If it does not work, we do something else.

Frank Zinghini: Yeah. It is a little harder in our business and this is again, where, sort of my job to make sure these messages are carried. You know, when you are doing work for customers, it is a service organization and they see something that we might call failure. They think, well, wait a minute. No, I thought you guys were experts. I spend some of my time helping customers understand as well that certain kinds of, I mean, there is bad failures don't get me wrong. I am not saying all failure is good. But you know, I have to help the customers see that this is a natural part of making progress of innovating.

Steve Rush: Yeah.

Frank Zinghini: You can't innovate and be perfect at the same time.

Steve Rush: Was it Thomas Edison who, who created the electric light bulb said that I have been really, really unlucky for many times, but I've only been successful once. It was a thousand times or something like that. He tried to get this light bulb up and running, but it was on the thousand and first time it actually worked,

Frank Zinghini: He got a couple of great quotes like that. I can't remember those either, but yes, and he's a smart guy, obviously. Don't be afraid to fail because if you're not failing every now and then you're just not trying hard enough.

Steve Rush: And failure is where we go next. So this part of the show we call Hack to Attack. Now, anybody that is evolved in business for as long as you have Frank and has been successful. There has always been times throughout our career where we can look back and think, oops. Well, that did not work out as well as I had expected, or maybe I have screwed up. And we call this section Hack to Attack. And it's where we've taken an experience or a lesson in our careers where it didn't work out. But we've used that as a positive in our work in our life. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Frank Zinghini: Oh boy, there is so many of them. Probably the biggest one and it is interesting because we talked a lot about trust earlier. And you know the biggest lesson I've learned is. I talked about how I built a great team and you have great people and you trust in them and all that, but you have got to be careful not to mistake confidence for competence. I have made that mistake a few times, you know, really understand people's capabilities, get past their own bluster. I have gotten much better at that over the years. You know, I have had situations where I have just put too much faith in people because it seemed like they could do it. And I've learned how to really understand people's capability and kind of related to that. It is probably not a surprise that as a service business, my biggest lessons are all around people. Because technologies come and go as stuff, come and go, but it is really all about the people.

Steve Rush: Right.

Frank Zinghini: So there is that and kind of related, but kind of not. I believe very strongly in compassion, being a compassionate leader, being a compassionate vendor to my customers. I mean the world needs compassion. I think there is a tremendous lack of compassion across all domains. And you can get so much farther if you just really understand what other people's needs are and what motivates them and what drives them and help them achieve their visions of success so that you can achieve your vision. To this day I live by that, but in the earlier years, I was probably too far in that direction. And I tended to put individual people's needs ahead of the needs of the business. And I have learned over the years that business has to come first because actually I had more and more and more people in the business and the needs of any one person as important as those needs are to that person. If there is a conflict between that person's needs and the needs of the business and by extension of the other people in the business. I have to make the call and it was not so good back then, but got better at it

Steve Rush: Awesome and learning and testing and learning, getting it right is all part of evolution of anybody's leadership responsibility.

Frank Zinghini: And that is a very important point. I am glad you said that because I think it is very easy and tempting to just sort of settle into a pattern after a while and think, Oh, I got this, I've done this before. I have seen everything. I know everything. I don't have to grow anymore. I don’t have to learn anymore. I got it done and like, that is never true. You never stop learning. I learned something new every day. I learned several new things every day and you have got to be open to that and you've got to be open to letting go of past assumptions. That is not the right word.

Steve Rush: Assumptions is probably the right word. Right?

Frank Zinghini: Letting go of the things that you thought you knew. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, you got to let go of the things you thought you knew because what you thought you knew and maybe it didn't know it. Maybe it was true, then. It is not true now and you have got to, you have got to be flexible. You got to be fluid.

Steve Rush: And that is a direct parallel between digital and leadership. You know, the level of both continually just evolve.

Frank Zinghini: Exactly.

Steve Rush: And it is being thoughtful about what I need to do to take advantage of how they are evolving.

Frank Zinghini: Exactly.

Steve Rush: The last place we would like to take you Frank is to do a bit of time travel now. I am going to ask you to jump into the time capsule. Bump into Frank at 21, and you have an opportunity to give Frank some advice. What would that be?

Frank Zinghini: Wow, 21. Other than, get a haircut. 21, where was I at 21? I guess just graduating college. Interesting, I guess it relates to what we were saying before. I have no regrets over the path I followed. I would run and follow the same path, so I would probably tell that 21 year old. And it's interesting you say that because the timing is about right. I talked about trust before. I talked about not buying into people's confidence over competence and all that and I don't know if you're old enough to remember Ronald Reagan when he was president, but I am.

Steve Rush: I certainly am.

Frank Zinghini: He famously said in some context, when talking about arms control with Russia, let me see if I can remember. Something like Doveryai, no proveryai. Or something like this. Trust, but verify and I think if I could tell 21 year old Frank, one thing. I would say listen to that. Trust people, but make sure you know what you are trusting in, make sure that trust is deserved.

Steve Rush: That is great advice. Isn't it?

Frank Zinghini: Because everything else flows from that because all of life is trust. People are trusting me I am trusting them. I am trusting the people that work for me. It is all about trust. Even now I am trusting people to wear a bloody mask in public, you know, so it is all about trust, so you've got to make sure that your trust is earned and deserved.

Steve Rush: Cool. Folks are listening to this thinking, how do I get hold of some information about Frank and Applied Visions? Where would we best send them to find out more about you and the work that you do now?

Frank Zinghini: After they have listened to this podcast, of course, because this has been great. I have really enjoyed this and I have said a lot of things. I never thought I would say, so this is terrific. Well we have a website and talking about vision. I was smart enough to register a three-letter URL when I could.

www.avi.com Applied Visions Inc. So it's real easy to find, you will find me there. You will find me on LinkedIn. I love interacting with people on LinkedIn. There is not a lot of Frank Zinghini’s in the world, so I should be pretty easy to find. There is a few, but not a lot. I try to blog regularly so you can subscribe to my blog and heck you can pick up the phone and call me.

Steve Rush: And we still do that, right? We still actually can speak to people, even though the digital world has replaced many mediums of communication. The phone is still a fantastic way to connect, right.

Frank Zinghini: You know it is funny. It is and interestingly enough. Our stay at home life over the last few months, I think has revived some of that. The need to just speak to people on the phone, because you know, you can't just go walk in and chat with them and we're kind of rediscovering how to have conversations like this. But yeah, I'm easy to find. And I love talking about the stuff. I will talk to until I am blue in the face about these things. And you know, I don't need to know that there's anything for me on the other end of it. I just like talking about this stuff.

Steve Rush: We have loved talking to you as well, and we will make sure that in the show notes, your links to both LinkedIn and your website are there for our listeners to click on as soon as they are done.

Frank Zinghini: Terrific.

Steve Rush: So Frank Zinghini. It has been absolutely awesome. Thank you ever so much for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Frank Zinghini: Well, I really appreciate being on your show. Thank you.

Closing

View Details

Brad Chase was the mind behind some of Microsoft’s largest and most successful initiatives, In episode 21, Brad explains why building winning strategies is the single most important element to business success, what he calls "the business success imperative." Learn from Brad:

Countless tips and a useful, memorable model to help leaders build first place strategies
Three components for strategy =ExMC2
Why strategy gets lost for some leaders
Build tall walls and retain your customers

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Brad Chase

You can learn more from Brad below

Brad on LinkedIn

Brad’s website and Book, “Strategy First” - https://www.bradchase.net

Full Episode Transcript Below

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Brad Chase our special guest on the show today. He was the mastermind behind Microsoft launch of Windows 95 and internet Explorer. He was also the executive at Microsoft responsible for the successful turnaround of MSN. Since retiring from Microsoft, he has been a philanthropist, board advisor and just released the first book, Strategy First. Before we get a chance to speak with Brad, it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Ever wondered what it takes to become a life master at the card game Bridge? The strategic card game normally takes players decades to accumulate 500 master points by playing at tournament and accredited clubs. An eight-year-old California boy has become the youngest bridge player to ever be awarded the title of life master by the world's largest organization, dedicated to the card game, The American Contract Bridge League said that Andrew Chen of San Jose was granted the title of life master just three days after his eighth birthday.

Andrew had set out the plan at the age of six years old to become a life master, and it has always been his goal. Andrew has been able to earn points in just two years by participating in local games and playing online. His final points towards the life master cycle came in May 27 when an online game hosted at the Palo Alto bridge club called Think Slam. When interviewed Andrew said, “I am totally thrilled, I feel like my hard work and patience and practice has paid off, and I want to thank everyone who helped me getting there”. Sounds just like an eight year old, doesn't it right? - Not.

Andrew’s brother, Charlie has also won rookie of the year. Who is just only 10 and recently just won the Paris event in the San Mateo County sectional tournament. What is it that draws you to the game of bridge so much?

Andrew said. “He just loves the puzzle solving element of the game, he likes to work things out”. And there are parallels here in the leadership world too, aren't there? We are often presented with problems and therefore puzzles and they present themselves with readily, but do we get really excited and motivated in solving them and in turn, turn on those helpful neurotransmitters or do we get frustrated and fearful and therefore unlocked less helpful thinking? And here is the thing. It takes practice just like Andrew would have played hundreds and hundreds of hands of cards to learn patterns and read things and to be aware of how their relatedness are connected. We as leaders also need to do the same thing. Practicing with our communication, our approach, our knowledge, understanding of the people and the businesses that we work with. The more we practice, the more knowledge we develop, and the more knowledge that we practice of what does and what doesn't work. It possesses us to have more effective and adaptive and responsive way to leading and supporting others and of course the more knowledge we have, the easier it is to see patterns in situations, so good luck with your next hand. That has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, insights or information that you think our listeners would like to hear, please get in touch.

Guest Introduction and main show

Steve Rush: Our guest on the show today is Brad Chase. He is a strategist, leadership and marketing expert and the author of Strategy First. Brad welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Brad Chase: Hey Steve, great to be here.

Steve Rush: So most people know you as been one of the inspire in inspiration behind some of the biggest and most successful initiatives that Microsoft during your successful executive career there, tell us a bit about your backstory?

Brad Chase: Well, my backstory is I start at Microsoft in 1987, after going to an MBA school here in the States, Northwestern Kellogg; I worked on a number of projects over time. I was the first leader of Microsoft office for example, leading the marketing of it and then I went and launched a MS-DOS 5, led the development and launch of MS-DOS 6 and perhaps got most known for leading the marketing of windows 95, which for your listeners that don't know was sort of the Microsoft product that ushered computers and arguably Microsoft itself and Bill Gates himself.

Steve Rush: For me, it was the inflection point. I remember, you know, when Windows 95 came along, it just completely changed the whole perspective of how people were perceiving and using PCs,

Brad Chase: Right? It was a very crazy time and I am sure we will talk more about it. And then after that, I didn't many initiatives related to the internet, like leading the teams on internet, different versions of internet Explorer, and then finally I was brought into turnaround MSN at the end of my career. And then I retired from Microsoft in 2002 and then for the past year, since then, I've been doing board work, consulting. I have been doing some philanthropy and advisory work and now wrote my first book

Steve Rush: For the most part, you saw enormous transformation and change across the whole of the Microsoft organization through some massive big initiatives. And there's a really interesting story that you share in your book around the whole principle of how you got windows 95 marketing campaign up and running with the backstory of start me up. Tell us a little bit about how that came about?

Brad Chase: Okay, well, I will tell you two pieces. The first piece is about Windows 95 itself. So I was brought in to lead the windows 95 marketing and had to build a marketing strategy for Windows 95 and one of the interesting things about that was that at the time, the strategy was not to tell anybody anything about Windows 95 and one night after putting the kids to bed. I was thinking hard about it and got inspired with what I called the e-strategy. Educate, site and engage. Educate all the different customers about Windows 95, get them excited about it and then engage the industry on Windows 95. And that e-strategy as we called it back then was sort of the foundation of a Windows 95 marketing strategy so we turned it all in a Ted instead of not telling anything about Windows 95, we flipped the marketing strategy and decided to tell everybody everything we could. And that strategy ended up being very successful as it was a way to get people bought into Windows 95, to understand it and not be scared about the change and to get third parties, building products.

Steve Rush: Until that time Brad, Microsoft really had not spent an awful lot of time in the TV and marketing space. What was the reason for that?

Brad Chase: Right. Well, that is a great question, Steve, so as part of this strategy, I set the goal to turn Windows 95 into consumer phenomenon. And part of that was let's do product TV commercials for the first time, which is where the rolling stone story comes in and that was a lot of fun and a crazy time. So in those days, the way we did it is we would have an advertising agency in this case, a firm called Wieden Kennedy, famous in U.S. originating, the Nike just do it ads. And they were very creative firm, but they weren't coming up with the right campaign for Windows 95 and after a few times, they finally came up with this idea of basing some ads on start me up the very famous rolling stone song and I said, wow, this is great. It is right on strategy, way to go and then they said, but we have one problem. We can't get rights to the song.

Steve Rush: Right:

Brad Chase: At first, we had some pretty heated discussions about that because why would you present a concept that we couldn't actually execute on?

Steve Rush: Sure.

Brad Chase: They said the only way the stones would do it is we sponsored their next concert tour for $10 million, which was not in my budget. So they said, well, we hope you will go do the negotiates with the stones, so I flew out to Amsterdam and this was in may I think of 95 and, you know, spent a whole day negotiating with the stones. And we went back and forth at this old ornate hotel and could not really make progress and they tried to convince me to stay the next day, but my schedule that time didn't allow for that, so they said. Well stay the next day and then you could go to the concert. That the stones were playing at the Paradiso. A great old theatre in Amsterdam and I said, well, I really can't stay. So they finally said, well, why don't you come to the dress rehearsal tonight? And so I went to the dress rehearsal, the stones played for two plus hours, they were fantastic. It was amazing and I was one of only two non-stones personnel in the building, in the theatre, so it felt like a private concert, it was just fantastic and at the end they asked me, so do you want to go meet the stones? And they thought about it and I decided that I didn't want anything to ruin the perfection of this private concert.

Steve Rush: It is pretty neat.

Brad Chase: So I decided no, and I was not really that interested in meeting the stones and I figured they weren't that interested in meeting me, but half the people I tell that story to say, Brad, you were an idiot. You should have gone and met the stones. And the other half say, Brad, you were super wise person to decide not to.

Steve Rush: I wonder how much that would have changed your emotional connectivity with that negotiation though Brad. Had you gone to meet with them?

Brad Chase: I guess we will never know.

Steve Rush: Yeah, you would not know, right.

Brad Chase: And then later we negotiated more over the phone, obviously, you know, many, many hours and days trying to work through all the issues about price primarily, but also rights to the music and how long we use it and so on. And eventually I said to the Stones, look, the launch is August 24th, 1995. We have a backup commercial we are going to run with.

Steve Rush: Right.

Brad Chase: So you have to decide. Here is my final offer, you know, basically kind of take it or leave it and they took it and there's more to the story and lots of other pieces, which we can get into, but that's sort of the high level overview of the start me up story. After we launched rumours started circulating that Bill Gates called Mick Jagger and offered him $12 million or $14 million. Sort of depended on the story directly and Jagger was so surprised that he said yes, because it was way more money than he ever expected, but all those rumours were not true arguably or speculation it was maybe Sone started those rumours themselves, but we don't really know.

Steve Rush: Maybe, good PR for them as well at the same time off course.

Brad Chase: Yeah. It was the first time Stones have ever licensed a song to for use in a commercial.

Steve Rush: And of course, it was a really successful campaign. I think it was probably was that inflection point, wasn't it that where people started to realize that yeah. Accessibility to PCs and information has led the way now to us speaking as we are now and having computers in our pocket most of the time, right?

Brad Chase: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I feel very privileged that I have seen this all happen. When I started Microsoft, the company had a goal of a computer in every home and in every office running Microsoft software. Because back when we started, computers were sort of a hobbyist machine. Well now not only are computers in every home and, you know, sort of every office, but in the traditional sense, but in the broader sense since, you know, phones are more powerful computers by a long shot. Computers that sent people to the moon or whatever that we really, I do have a computer in every home and in every office and in every pocket.

Steve Rush: Right and then following your retirement from Microsoft, you spun into the world of sharing your knowledge and your executive experience through your consulting and board work. During that time, when you start to think about strategy and speaking with the organizations you have worked and consulted with. What would be maybe some of the key themes as to why leaders really can't quite do, or haven't got hold of strategy, as much as you've experienced them, getting hold of other part of their business?

Brad Chase: I think that strategy sort of became lost along the way for many companies. They focused on, you know, sort of their business without thinking about it strategically because strategy is hard for many people and that is part of what I am trying to achieve with the book by the way. Is to make strategy accessible and easy for, senior business leaders, but even aspiring business. When I go around, I think people sort of think of strategic planning as some sort of formal exercise that, you know, only big corporations do and have separate departments for it but indeed strategy is the anatomy of business success and leadership success.

Steve Rush: And in your experience, do you often see organizations get confused with strategy versus planning?

Brad Chase: Yes. Organizations get confused on strategy versus planning. On strategy versus tactics, on strategy versus vision.

Steve Rush: Right.

Brad Chase: You know, and I can go on. There is, I think not a broad understanding of what strategy is and what I call strategy in a simple way is your plan to compete. If you think of building, your strategy is building your plan to compete and achieve your business goals. That is a sort of a simple way and compelling way to understand it.

Steve Rush: I like that. That is neat. So what was it that compelled you to finally put pen to paper?

Brad Chase: What compelled me to put a pen to paper was I was working with a lot of senior executives and CEOs and providing the essence of my strategy first model to them. And then I started getting asked to do some talks and that's something else I've been doing since Microsoft, strategy talks. And when I was doing these talks, people would come up to me afterwards and say, where's your book, where's your book? And so I said, well, okay, I've never done a book before. I will give it a try and I got inspired and I wrote the book.

Steve Rush: Awesome and I have had the opportunity to have a look at some of the key themes behind the book. And I kind of call it almost a bit of a user-friendly strategy toolkit almost. And there's loads of tools in there. There is loads of things in there that can really help people start to think about how they go about strategy from a practical perspective, rather than an academic perspective. Right?

Brad Chase: Yeah, that is right, Steve. It is set up that way on purpose. I very much had a vision for the book. My strategy for the book is that there has not been a strategy book, that lays out strategy in a non-academic non-intellectual way or as you put in a practical way, that gives you tools and stories that help you understand those tools that you could use on a regular basis in your business.

Steve Rush: The one thing that struck me when I first looked at it. Was the play on Einstein theory of relativity that you use, which is E X MC2 squared. Tell us a little bit, about how that came about.

Brad Chase: Yeah, sure. Glad to, so the first part of strategy is to remember the strategy is all about making bets and we make bets all the time in our life and we make bets and businesses as well, just like Microsoft, bet on the personal computer or Apple bet on consumer devices. And when you're trying to figure out what your bets are, I try to tell people there's three key components to strategy and the three key components are customer value, market potential and execution. And to help people remember that I came up with playing off of Einstein's famous equation, E = MC2, and I changed it to strategy equals E x MC2. And it's pneumonic. The E stands for execution. The M stands for market potential, and the C stands for customer value. And the C is squared because customer value can almost call strategies though, not all.

Steve Rush: Got that and to help your readers and the people you work with, get some real clarity over their strategy. You have broken this down into five real steps to help them through that thinking. And I wonder if we could just maybe spin through some of those and just have a think about how they work in principle, the first being seek change. Now, given the uncertainty that we are in at the moment. Do you see this as an opportunity for organizations and people to really seek different in a period of kind of turmoil?

Brad Chase: Yes, I do. But I also want to be realistic about the difficulty that businesses are going through in this COVID tsunami that we're facing today. You know, for a lot of businesses, there's just not a lot of great options, even with the greatest creativity or inspiration. That said, in some cases there are opportunities. You know, for example, if you are a business that has had to move much of what you do online, and you are a local business, now that you are online, you might be able to grow to new customer basis.

Steve Rush: Right.

Brad Chase: So while realistically it is a tough very, very tough for many businesses to manage around all the challenges of COVID. It is also in some cases, an opportunity. And for some lucky few, if you're the Microsoft teams group or you’re Zoom or your Logitech selling headsets. Now there is a whole set of product that, just happened to be in the right place, the right time or set of companies that are in the right place at the right time for them it is a huge opportunity.

Steve Rush: What do you think causes organizations to maybe feel more comfort rather than seek change readily? What causes that in your experience?

Brad Chase: Yeah, that is the same as life, right. Change scares people, and then they get frozen, but change is key to strategic opportunity. When there is change, there is always strategic opportunity. I mean, just look around and see the companies that have responded to the growth of the web and the internet. Those that have responded to that change have done very well generally while those who did not are struggling. And, you know, COVID unfortunately made that even more pronounced, but, you know, the internet was a huge opportunity for so many companies and those that took advantage of the change internet represented we're the most successful company of our era.

Steve Rush: The second step you have is call, mine the gaps. Tell us what you are trying to achieve here.

Brad Chase: Taking a change is sort of the textbook way people talk about strategy. Look for disruption or seek change, but it turns out of course that many times you have a great strategic opportunity just taking advantage of gaps that are out there in the marketplace, because companies are not competing at the top of their game. You know, for example, Google was not the first search company. And there was many search companies before Google, but Google came up with a much better, more compelling search product. And because of that and much more customer value than the other search products on the market. Google was able to build a huge business around search, you know, sort of the same with the iPhone. It was not the first smartphone, but it was so superior in so many ways that Apple like Google was able to mine a gap on customer value and build something that customers just loved a lot more than the competition and therefore build a big business. So there's example, after example of companies who mine gaps, where other companies were not providing enough customer value, or they were executing poorly, and these companies swooped in and built a winning strategy based on those gaps.

Steve Rush: Strategically, it is a winner isn't it? Because you already have evidence and data of other organizations and other businesses who are already operating a certain way. So you've got a lot of almost market research to call on before you enter into that business area, right?

Brad Chase: Yeah, that is right. In a lot of cases, when you're implementing a strategy of innovation, as one of the types of change or other types of change, there's not a lot of data and it's hard. Your instinct is what is driving a lot of the bet you are making. Whereas a lot of times it's something like, you know, let's say the search business, you know everyone was searching on the web, you know, it's a big business and there's a huge opportunity there. And you could easily find out by just your own experience, let alone doing more formal research that in the early days of search customers were not satisfied with the responses and building a better search was the driver for success.

Steve Rush: It is yeah. Excellent. The next part of your five-step process is the adapting to tides or adapted to tides, you call it and that is around kind of external factors and how you can respond to different environments and demographics as they change, Right? What would you say would be the biggest tides right now? Notwithstanding the obvious, it is in front of us. What would be maybe the emerging tides that you could maybe foresee that we should be thoughtful of as leaders of businesses right now?

Brad Chase: Well, wow. I think the tides are shifting and swirling in such ways now that it is hard to ignore COVID and try to guess you know, what is going to happen. We just don't know where the tides are going to go, but I have made some guesses in some blog posts of my own recently. Certainly, I think that automation is going to increase and AI is going to increase. Digital transformation is another tide that I think very important. Obviously, there is going to be more work at home. There is going to be a little bit less working in offices. You are going to have a lot more of folks rethinking sort of the foundations of how they do their business. I think that that is some of the tides that are probably pretty obvious other ones like, you know, more people eating in to eat out, you know, take out or food delivery services are going to grow. I mean, we could go on for quite a long time. But I think it's hard to say, what are the trends independent of COVID because COVID is going to transform how your business survives.

Steve Rush: And of course, to be very different for different economies and different environments of people. You've got to adapt to when opportunities or challenges present themselves so that you can become and become effectively agile and more effective as time goes on.

Brad Chase: That is right. I mean the five key tips to help build winning strategies. You know the one that we are talking about now. Adapt to the tides is often the one forgotten by leaders. The external environment around you, changes everything. Whether it is technology change, whether it is government regulation or institutions, whether its demographic changes and the way a different generation of people or different culture might affect your strategy. Or it might be something like, the way the economy is going or changing, which is obviously something now. Environmental changes like climate change or COVID and just societal change. For example, one could argue now that there is going to be a further trend towards casual clothes. As a result of people have been working from home, they are not dressing up for work and that might just continue even as we go back to the offices,

Steve Rush: The next part of your final step process is the expand universe. And that comes from thinking about rather than chase new and new markets and alluring, tempting business opportunities that it actually expand the universe you've got within your own customer base. Is that based on experience from your Microsoft days where you kind of learn this approach?

Brad Chase: Well, I think it is based on experience from Microsoft and beyond. I don't want to limit expanding the universe to just growing with your current customers. You can expand your universe very successfully by going to new customers or new businesses or through acquisition.

Steve Rush: Right.

Brad Chase: But often as you are implying people forget about the opportunity of expanding their universe via their own customer base, by offering a new ways or remove services whether existing customers. That is a key way to grow the business. You can't just keep selling to the same base the same way and grow your business over time. You do have to think about clever ways to grow your business and there is millions of examples of this because it happens all the time, you know, soda companies offering new sodas or different packaging for the same customers. You know, maybe you are an auto repair shop, like Midas in the United States that started with mufflers and then grew to breaks so they can sell more products to the same company.

Steve Rush: Got it and that last one I really loved by the way. You call this, climb short walls and build tall walls. How did that come about?

Brad Chase: So if you are going into a business, you ideally want to enter a business where the walls are not too tall. You know, you are not going to try to go compete with Microsoft and Amazon in the cloud business because the foundational cloud infrastructure business is so expensive and so difficult and requires all this really specialized expertise and data centres and so forth. On the other hand, you want to go into businesses that have short walls. You want to build tall walls, so if you are in a business, you want to think about how do I create walls around the business and then make it harder for my customers to leave. And there's lots of different ways to build tall walls. So for example, sometimes marketing is tall, you can build marketing tall walls with frequent flyer miles sort of a typical example, you know, that make people loyal to airlines, or at least when they were flying and there is many types of tall walls.

Another type of tall wall could be a brand tall wall. You could build a tall wall by having a brand that people trust and that is a brand that people rely on, another tall walls, what is called a network effect, and there is lots of different types of network effects. But for example, when you use your iPhone, you are more likely to keep using your iPhone because of the apps. And as more people use the iPhone because there's apps, then people build even more apps, so those apps make it harder for you to switch away from your iPhone. Just like other features, that Apple built in like FaceTime or instant messaging, or being able to use your air pods. Those are all things that Apple has done strategically to build tall walls and by the way, expand their universe and get more revenue. And so it's a great strategy on Apple front to do that, to add services and new products around the iPhone that make you more loyal to the iPhone and make it harder for you to switch. Oh, by the way, now people are buying their phones less frequently, buy new phones less frequently. So it used to be people bought a new smartphone every two years now it is more like three years. So as a consequence, these additional services not only are really important to build a tall wall for Apple. They are very important to grow profits.

Steve Rush: Really like that and it is an interesting philosophy, Isn't it? About when we are looking to grow businesses or organizations, what typically happens is we might have big ambitions and those walls just might be way too high, but actually we can start with a bit more pragmatic thinking and then build internally and start developing what we have. Really, like it, really neat, so at this part of the show is where we typically get to hack into the minds of great leaders and this is my chance to hack into your many years of experience. I am going to ask you to share with our listeners, if you could, Brad, what your top leadership hacks would be?

Brad Chase: Oh my pleasure. So the foremost one, the most important one is for your listeners to remember that there is nothing more important to the success of a leader or a business than building a winning strategy. If you think about it, there is lots of important leadership qualities. I could give you a long list and I am sure you have discussed many of them on your podcast, whether it be, you know, compassion or empathy, you know, and I can go on and on and on. Hiring great people, you know, and so forth but none of those things matter if you don't make the right bets and you don't build the right strategy. The first and most important one is that strategy is the most essential ingredient to leadership success. If you don't build a winning strategy, nothing else matters. Another key leadership hack is don't lose focus on your customers. That is one that I find happens a lot in the day to day craziness of running a business. Sometimes people lose sight of what their customers really care about, and if you are not on top of your customers and what their requirements are, what their values are, what interests them, then you are likely to build a strategy that won't be successful, so that's another one. And if you're in a big company, don't get lost in what often is called the ivory tower and all the layers of a big company that keeps you disconnected from your customers stay close and then a third one, I would say for a leader is hire to your weakness. It is really important to understand yourself well and your company well, and find people to round out your skills so that you have, you know, a pot of skills.

Steve Rush: I love, that hire for lack of skill and consciously. I wonder how many of our leaders genuinely, genuinely think I am not as strong here. Therefore, I am going to hire somebody who can really help fill that gap. Really neat, love that.

Brad Chase: By the way, I find lots of leaders hire people that they think aren't a threat to them, which is of course a mistake. So they don't hire to their weakness they hire people that will listen to them and what they want them to do.

Steve Rush: That in itself is a leadership gap, isn’t it? You know, having that lack of self-awareness is only going to seek to hold that individual back longer term.

Brad Chase: Totally agree. Great point.

Steve Rush: The next part of this show, we affectionately call this Hack to Attack. And this is where we look back at your work or your career. And we think about a time where things maybe haven't gone as well and maybe even screwed up, but we've now used that experience, that time in our work as a lesson that we now use positivity in life. So what would be your hat to attack Brad?

Brad Chase: So this requires a little bit of a story.

Steve Rush: Go for it.

Brad Chase: My hack to attack. So in around 1999, I was asked to go run MSN at Microsoft. And MSN was the least successful part of Microsoft at the time. Revenue was non-existent; traffic was low, sort of at the same level as other ineffective websites at the time. And the morale in the MSN group was the lowest of any group in the company and for six months, I really struggled to sort of figured it out. And I finally came up with a strategy, which I was pretty excited about and though we can go back and think about some of the other mistakes I made. The key one here was that I built a strategy around using the high traffic parts of MSN email, which at the time was Hotmail and communications properties such as instant messenger to drive people into the network and then you search to monetise them. And I had a couple other things we use to monetise them on shopping as well. And so I reorganized the entire group around this strategy and we made huge progress and communicating the strategy to the team and having a clear strategy for the team started to really help morale and we started to make huge progress. And within about a year, we went from an also ran to being number one in search worldwide. Number two; in the U.S., we had doubled our revenue and our morale gone from the worst in the company to just above the midpoint all in a year. It was an absolutely spectacular turnaround, but I made a huge mistake, which is I didn't really sell hard enough to my bosses, what the strategy was all about and why I was doing it. I sold it to everybody else.

And I had, you know, a lot of leeway because I'd been successful at Microsoft. But I didn't really get into the sort of you know, getting the senior execs to internalize why I was doing what I was doing. So we had huge success but then after this period of time there was some thinking above me, that search was more of a commodity business and that it wasn't important. The company wanted to reorganize search out of my group and that was not viable if MSN was going to continue to be successful. And upon reflection the lesson I learned the leadership hack was that I didn't work hard enough to persuade my bosses. That search was fundamental to our strategy and to where we were going. I kind of lived on the success I'd had in the past. In the past, I had been very successful in convincing people and executives about what I wanted to do and had been successful at it and I kind of lived on that past success. Instead of putting together very comprehensive presentation, demanding time with my bosses to explain why the strategy was so important. I kind of depended on my past success and as a consequence, they went through with the organizational change, despite my arguing to the contrary. And I ended up leaving Microsoft on good terms. There was lots of reasons I left more than strategic differences that I had. But the lesson from all this is that if you firmly believe in something.

Steve Rush: That is fantastic lesson.

Brad Chase: And you feel strongly about it, you have to fight for it, and you can't stop fighting. Fighting for what you believe in business strategy. And if you feel strongly enough, you know and then pull out all the stops to make sure that you do everything you can convince your leaders, or your boss that your strategies is the best.

Steve Rush: That is awesome. Thank you for that really great story. The last thing I would like to explore with you is to do a bit of time travel. For you to bump back into Brad when you were 21 and if you got a chance to have a conversation or a coffee with Brad.

Brad Chase: Well if you had a picture of me now, you would see a guy who's mostly bald and mostly grey.

Steve Rush: Yeah. I know how that feels by the way.

Brad Chase: So I probably would first tell them, enjoy your hair while you had it. On a more serious note. The lesson I just imparted it would have been one. The importance of strategy I certainly did not understand when I was 21. That was a lesson I learned over the years, and I would have loved to known that earlier. And so I think that would have been a key business lesson, of course, you know, in all these things, you have to understand what's important to you and what your goals are. And I think that the perspective you get with time about what's really important and being thoughtful about that is something else I would have imparted to myself at 21. I guess to summarize, I would have reinforced to myself the importance of strategy. I would have reinforced to myself at 21, the importance of understanding yourself and knowing what is important to you in a sort of a very thoughtful way so that you can go about your business in a self-aware, self-calm.

Steve Rush: Super, Brad thanks for sharing that. Now, folk listening to this, I am sure are going to want to learn a little bit more about the work that you do, and indeed get an opportunity to have a look at Strategy First, which is now available pretty much everywhere. So if you wanted our listeners to bump into you. Find out a little bit about that. Where is the best place they can do that?

Brad Chase: So I would recommend that they follow me on LinkedIn, which is really the only social network that I participate in, or to go to my website, bradchase.net, and follow my blog posts and learn about what we are doing there. And of course, read the book Strategy First you know, has much more detail of course, on the concepts that we've talked about here today.

Steve Rush: Sure and if they also join up through your website, there's some really useful tools they can download isn't there?

Brad Chase: There is. One of the things I recommend all companies do is a strategy offsite. And the strategy offsite starts with a honest self-assessment of the business today and where you're at versus your competition, which by the way, is something I didn't mention, but I should reinforce. Your strategy only matters relative to your competition and so that is really important. That is the way you evaluate it and you know, so you do a self-assessment and then you could have a discussion about where you want your strategy to head over time, and on my website are some worksheets that help you do that assessment.

Steve Rush: Great and we will make sure we put the links to your site and to your LinkedIn profile in our show notes, so as soon as people are finished listening, they can click straight over.

Brad Chase: That is terrific.

Steve Rush: So Brad it is for me to say. I feel more strategic just in having this conversation with you. It has been fantastic being able to hack into your mind. And all of the experience that you bring with it to where you are now I wish you every success with Strategy First, but I also just want to say, thank you so much for being part of our journey on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Brad Chase: Oh, it has been my pleasure, Steve. It is great to meet you as well and I hope people find my book and our discussions today, super helpful.

Closing

View Details

Siobhan McHale is a culture transformer with a track record of making workplaces better. She’s helped thousands of leaders create more agile and productive workplaces and written the best-selling book, The Insider’s Guide to Culture Change.

What we can learn from Siobhan today:

What Culture really is
The importance of looking at Culture through a commercial lens
The value of “Reframing Culture” for people, their roles and organization
Collective patterns of relatedness with Culture
The four elements of the Culture descriptor

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Siobhan McHale

You can learn more from Siobhan below:

Siobhan on Twitter

Siobhan on LinkedIn

Book: The Insider’s Guide to Culture Change

Find out more from the Barrett Values Centre here: www.valuescentre.com

Full Transcript Below:

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

On today's show, we have Siobhan McHale. She has written the ground-breaking book, The Insider's Guide to Culture Change. It is a global bestseller. She is also a culture transformer and people expert. But before we get a chance to speak with Siobhan. It is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: The Barrett Values Centre has completed some extensive research on the impact of culture and values around COVID-19. The Centre sought to answer questions that are useful and helping supporting leaders in their stakeholders address the challenges that they may face in interviewing 2,500, people worldwide, including 300 C-Suite executives. The pandemic has been referred to as the “great pause”, and it appears to have forced individuals and organizations to stop, look internally and consider what they may need to do to operate in the future and how their approach may also need to shift now. There have been global crises before, but never one that has affected so many people, and so directly in all our lifetime. The research compared personal values, pre COVID-19 to that we are experiencing now. And we've seen four new values emerge in the top priority during the pandemic, they are: making a difference, adaptability wellbeing and caring.

The values of continuous learning and family were already present pre COVID, but have since increased in their priority. There has been a real shift in values, moving towards more care and wellbeing amidst the crisis. Some interesting statistics that the report has shared is: wellbeing shifted from its position of 26 to 5, due to the importance placed on people during COVID-19. A traditional process focus has been replaced by focus on people, agility and communication. During COVID-19 results, orientation as an organizational value shifted from its number 2, position down to number 25 and achievement shifted from 6 to 50. Which leaves a question in leaders of how do you then drive results in parallel with wellbeing and people focus to maintain that positive culture? Not surprisingly, values such as agility had moved up from 43 to 8 and Digital connectivity had moved up from 50 to 2 and employee health had moved from 61 to now 5. One stark statement in the research was that employees are placing 15 times more emphasis than their leaders on the need for continued direction and communication going forward.

So as you look to thrive, following this pandemic, first take a look at your current state. Don't make assumptions about the values and culture of your organizations, but really evaluate them and learn from what the real landscape looks and feels like in your organization today. If we fail to really diagnosis the situation effectively now, it could mean that we deploy the wrong strategy, the wrong approach and the wrong energy and our next wave of planning. That has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any insights, information or stories, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Siobhan McHale. She is a culture transformer, and selected as a member of Thinkers50 radar for tackling the big issues of our time with rigor and energy, and she's also the author of the bestselling book, The Insider's Guide to Culture Change, Siobhan welcome to the show.

Siobhan McHale: Thank you, Steve. Great to be with you today.

Steve Rush: So before we get into the theme of culture and culture change, it would be really interesting just to explore how you become so fascinated by the theme of culture. Tell us a bit, about how you arrived here.

Siobhan McHale: Yeah, I suppose I started off studying psychology and as my classmates were revering down a path to become clinical psychologists, I was really much more interested in the world of work and in particular, what makes people perform at their best and their highest, rather than maybe looking at people who were more struggling with perhaps mental health issues in a clinical setting. I was much more interested in becoming an organizational psychologist, so that really started me on the path to exploring a workplace culture in particular.

Steve Rush: During your time in your management-consulting career, you travelled extensively across the world and you saw lots of different cultures. What was the, maybe the one or two things that you identified at that time, that really kind of drew you into the whole premise of culture and what culture is?

Siobhan McHale: Yeah, I travelled and worked across four continents, and during that time, I advised hundreds of leaders about how to create more productive and constructive work environments. But I work into some places where there were toxic cultures that really drained the energy from the organization and led to bismel customer service. And then on the other side of the spectrum, I work into some organizations that had amazing cultures that really delighted customers and had very engaged workforces, so I started to over a period of 30 years, started to research what made workplaces deliver, grow and adapt more easily. And really that is the subject of my book. How do you create workplaces that can deliver, grow and adapt?

Steve Rush: And it is really interesting in my experience of culture, you can almost walk into an organization and you might not be able to physically see it, but you can get that vibe. You can feel it very, very quickly, whether it is good or, less good, right?

Siobhan McHale: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: What causes that?

Siobhan McHale: I think culture is, one of those commonly used terms, but it really is the ways of relating. The ways of operating within the organization and it is not so much about, what happens at the individual behavioural level. It is more about how the organization functions at a collective level and sometimes those ways of relating are functional and sometimes they are quite destructive. And as I said, they can leak value, financial value included from the organization dropped by corrosive dropped.

Steve Rush: And I wonder how organizations apply a different lens versus I have a business strategy over here, here is my financials; here is my strategy, lots of hard and fast measures. But as you just rightly said, this could leak huge amounts of financial leakage. Organizations can lose a significant amount of revenue by just having the wrong culture and I wonder what causes organizations to look at culture differently to maybe other parts or tenants of that business?

Siobhan McHale: Yes, a great question. It is one of the big myths about, what is culture? And how we framed culture has been largely in many organizations in terms of employee experience. So we talk about culture as if it's just about employee satisfaction, employee engagement, inclusion, diversity. And of course, they're really important to aspects of culture, but they're not the I aspects. Culture relates to every part of your business, including how you manufacture, how you design, how you manufacture, how you sell, how you serve as your products. And this is the area that I think we've got to look at culture through a much more commercial lens, because you really need to have the right culture in order to deliver on your strategy. I think that is the question for management teams. What culture do we need to enable and fast track our business strategy?

Steve Rush: Is there something there about organizations and indeed leaders within an organization, or having a different perspective of what culture is?

Siobhan McHale: Yeah, I often say culture is one of the most talked about, but least understood concepts and workplaces today, and you need to have a common frame and a common language. And I think many leaders have been taught that in order to shape the culture, you simply document the values and the behaviours that you want to see, and you roll out those values and behaviour statements, and then you get a change in the culture. Now, we all know that's nonsense, but leaders haven't been given any other tools or many other tools in order to create the right culture that will deliver on their strategic intent and produce the financial results that they're looking for. So we've got to get leaders away from this notion that it's just about values and behaviours, and start to see that culture is about the collective patterns of relatedness that sit at the more systemic or collective level,

Steve Rush: Right, so over the 30 years of research that you have undertaken and extensive study around culture. Is there a simplified way in which you describe what culture is?

Siobhan McHale: Yeah, I would say, the ways of relating in the organization and it is the distinction I think, between the dancers and the dance. So the dancers are the behaviours but the dance is the ways of operating. The way that the organization functions and often we focusing just on the behaviours, but we don't, you know, the dancers, but we don't necessarily see the dance. And those are the patterns are what I call the agreements between the parts.

Steve Rush: That is a lovely way of describing it. I actually quite like that.

Siobhan McHale I did some work at the ANZ bank, which is one of the big four banks in Australia. And this was in the early two thousands, when the bank was really getting a lot of bad press about how it's customer satisfaction and its closure of rural branches and the CEO at the time, John McFarlane knew he had to turn around the organization and create better returns to shareholders and increase customer satisfaction. But when I walked into the bank, I could see that there was a passion that was very dysfunctional, that was keeping it stuck in the old ways and delivering very poor customer satisfaction. And the head office was taking up the role of order giver and the branches, the 700 branches were taking up the role of order takers, so the head office was giving the orders and saying, do this, do that.

And the branches were just stepping into the role of the order taker and each part both the head office and the branches were blaming each other for the poor customer satisfaction. And this pattern of blame was going around and round and actually leaking energy from the organization. So we had to see that passion first, before we could start to shift the culture and we put in a new operating model, we reframe the role of the head office from order giver to support provider to the branches. And we reframe the role of the 700 branches from order taker to service provider, to the customer and that new operating model and the reframing change the pattern of blame to a different passion between head office and branches, which was, we worked together to meet the needs of our customers.

Steve Rush: And sometimes it is just as simple as reframing, isn't it for people in the mix of that moment, so that they can see things in a different way and get a different behaviour, I guess?

Siobhan McHale: Exactly reframing is a very powerful tool that is often overlooked. Sometimes when we think about change, we think we have to change people's personality, but I often think that is the hard way, you know, personalities very hard wired and what right do we have to ask people to change who they are? And instead we can reframe, reframe people's role, reframe the role of a department, reframe the role of the team. You can even reframe the role of a whole organization, and get it pivoting, get it moving very quickly in a different direction.

Steve Rush: Now I am sure, you won't mind me mentioning this, but your work aim at. Not only was it instrumental in changing the fortunes, a failing Australian bank to becoming a number one performer globally at one stage, but also that John Kotter or Professor John Kotter. Which many of our listeners will be familiar with as one of the four runners in the world of leading change. Actually, contacted you and is using this as part of the Harvard Business MBA work, am I right?

Siobhan McHale: Yeah, so yeah, I was sitting at my desk one day when reception patched through a call from Professor John Kotter. And you can imagine I almost fell off my chair because I'd read all of his books and he was still is a guru in the space and he was my idol. And yeah, he was looking for a global case studies for successful transformation and successful culture change. And he selected the one that I'd written up as the case study that he was teaching Harvard MBA students about. So teaching people how you manage change and how you accelerate change more quickly. So, yeah, that was quite a pivotal moment for me because what it taught me was that my work could be beneficial beyond the bounds of the organization that I was working in. And that was one of the key moments when I also had this realization that I could share the findings of my research with a broader audience which also led me to, write the book.

Steve Rush: Awesome, and therefore The Insider's Guide was born?

Siobhan McHale: Yes, yes, indeed. The Insider's Guide to Culture Change.

Steve Rush: So, we are getting to the book in a little bit more detail in the moment, and there is a couple of things in there that when I read that were really insightful. I would love to explore those with you, but before we do, what is the reason that most leaders often struggle to get culture, right?

Siobhan McHale: Yeah, I think you know, it does relate back to how leaders see their role. And one of the things that I've noticed over the past 30 years is leaders tend to frame their role in terms of their running the business. So their operational role, their role is to run the business, but they don't necessarily see or take up their culture change role or that culture role. They don't necessarily see themselves as the chief culture officer and often in organizations, culture has been delegated to HR to, take up the mantle. And whenever that occurs in my experience, it's problematic because then culture becomes something that HR has to fix, and line managers tend to take a step back in those organizations and then culture doesn't get embedded truly in my experience.

Steve Rush: It is a neat reframe as well. Having that chief culture officer, I wonder how many organizations actually have one of these days? I am not familiar with many, if any.

Siobhan McHale: Yes. Well, I think the chief culture officer needs to be the CEO and HR has to reframe its role to be a critical leader, but in an enabling, function. So providing the tools, the support, the advice, the processes in order to embed the culture that is going to deliver on the organization's strategic imperatives and going to meet the business goals. And I think that's the work that HR has to do to start seeing its role, not just around employee experience, but how can you help managers at all levels to create a culture that might be a growth oriented or performance driven culture or commercial culture, customer driven culture, quality culture, and innovative culture. These are old things that managers are calling out for. How do I have an, a more adaptive culture in these disruptive times? And what I'm saying to HR folk is where is your toolkit for that? How can you walk up to those questions and have solutions for managers and leaders who are looking for that type of help?

Steve Rush: Got it, so your book now, The Insider's Guide to Culture Change is available and it is doing really, really well. and I'm delighted to see that is the case for you, so well done.

Siobhan McHale: Thank you.

Steve Rush: Tell us a little bit about the inspiration for the book and what it was that caused you to finally get all that research together and put pen to paper.

Siobhan McHale: Yeah, I really did want to, my parents did teach us their children to keep learning and to make a positive difference in the world. And one of the things I noticed was that there were a lot of people writing about culture, who had a brilliant lens. They were outsiders though, so they were either consultants or academics or journalists, and they were writing about workplace culture, a fantastic lens, but I had a different lens and that was an insider lens. So I had been the executive in charge of transformation in a series of multinational organizations, as well as being an external outsider. I have been a management consultant, but when I became an insider as the executive in charge of change, I just had a different experience, and I started to test and really see what tools can help accelerate culture change and what tools don't and I thought, well, where is that voice? Where is that voice of the insider? And it wasn't really there. And I had to stop asking and start picking up, you know, my responsibility in sharing what I knew rather than looking for somebody else to do that. So I decided, yeah, it needs to be told. These stories, these tools need to be shared and yeah. Decided to step into that role,

Steve Rush: Brilliant stuff. There was one thing that really intrigued me when I read the book, it was around activating the culture disruptor from an inside out perspective. Tell us a little bit about that?

Siobhan McHale: Yeah, so the culture disruptor is my four steps solution to creating the right culture for your business and it really is. It starts with step number one, which is you must diagnose what is really going on in your organization and in the external environment, too many people stepping to culture change in the wrong place. They start thinking about what type of culture do we need, and that is the wrong place to start. You need to start back at what is going on in the business environment and what are the external forces? What are the deeply embedded and often hidden patterns that are running us that we really maybe need to say goodbye to in the future. Sometimes the patterns that served you very well in the past and not the same patterns that are going to serve you in the future. So yeah, it is a four-step process to get to and continue to create a culture that is going to meet your business needs, starting with them analysing what is going on for you within your workplace, as well as the external environment.

The second step then is to reframe. Reframing is a very powerful tool, and you can reframe the role of the different parts of your business in order to create faster change with less noise. So it gives a lot of examples of how you do that, reframing in the book. And then the third step is to break the pattern. It sounds easy, but it is much harder than it sounds. And there's different tools to break some patterns that are may no longer be serving you. And then the fourth one is to consolidate your gains and this is where a lot of leadership teams and management teams, they lose puff. They run out of steam on the journey. So how do you keep going? How do you keep your foot on the change accelerator over the longer term?

Steve Rush: And momentum is probably the biggest key here. Isn't it? Because it is like rolling a big Boulder up a Hill.

Siobhan McHale: It is.

Steve Rush: You get so far and so far, and the energy starts to wane. What would be the one thing if I was a leader listening to this, that you'd say that would be helpful for me to maintain that momentum on any culture change?

Siobhan McHale: Yeah, I would say your leadership team form a, you know, give them the role of leading the change effort, the culture change effort, and have regular meetings with your management or leadership team. About how is the change going? I talk about seeing yourselves as captains of a ship, and instead of spending all of your time on deck. You need to get back onto the bridge and have a look at what is going on in relation to our change journey. How we tracking? What are some of the things that we are experiencing? We might have put something into the organization. How did that go? Often leaders do interventions, but they don't check how it went. You know, what was the reaction? What was the response? What was the feedback? Do we need to ahead in a different direction? So I would say having that management team and meeting regularly and diagnosing how's the change going and how do we need to move and adjust on the journey?

Steve Rush: It is a constant evaluation as well. Isn't it? It's just not one of those things you can set off and run and then think, right. Okay. We will keep going. It is a constant evaluation to pivot and to change and to modify, right?

Siobhan McHale: Absolutely, many leaders have been taught. You just spend months defining the values of the organization. You produce a glossy document and some posters; you roll out some workshops and that is it, and that isn’t it. As we know, seldom works, so we've got to try a different way. And that's why I think it's important for leaders to understand that they have a culture role and giving them the tools to take up this culture role at all levels. So it is not just senior executives, managers. At all levels need to be able to step into their role, to shape the type of culture that is going to deliver the business results that they need.

Steve Rush: You just spiked a thought in my thinking actually, because you are absolutely right. Culture, is not about a certain level of hierarchy leading this. This is a leadership responsibility for everybody in whatever role they do in the organization. I wonder how many organizations actually feature culture and the role that we have to play in leading culture as part of induction programs.

Siobhan McHale: I think it is really a great point. I think most organizations would talk to their new employees about their organizational values, but I doubt that many would frame people's role as a cultural leader. I think it is becoming more common, but you know, your role is to lead to the culture and bring it to life every single day. That is a very powerful reframe compared to here are the values and here is your mug or mouse pad with the values on it.

Steve Rush: Right.

Siobhan McHale: And that was one of the keys at ANZ bank. Every person was told, and one of our five values was that you will lead and inspire each other. So the reframe there was leadership will not come from the top. Each of you will lead and inspire each other and that was a powerful mobilizer on our change journey. That reframe for the 32,000 employees.

Steve Rush: I love that. I think that is really powerful, really powerful. So in your book, you also talk about there being a number of big myths about workplace culture. What is the biggest myth that you encountered?

Siobhan McHale: I think there are many, many big myths, but I think one of the biggest ones is that culture is somehow fixed and a one size fits all. So there is this myth that, you know, we have to keep the same culture as we have always had. It is like a mountain or a rock, whereas culture needs to adapt, needs to keep on being something that you examine and that you refine as needed. And it's not a one size fits all, you know, there's this thing, Oh, you must, we almost aspire to X culture. Well, you know, what about if you are in a military department, you might want to create a discipline culture to ensure that soldiers and civilians are safe in war torn regions. Whereas if you are a leader in a marketing company, you might want to create an innovative culture. So you can really impress and wow clients with your innovative ideas, so no two organizations will need a want the exact same culture, so it's not a one-size fits all state.

Steve Rush: I think you are right, super stuff. The one thing that intrigued me quite often, when I have conversations with my clients and their teams around culture and setting them up for success is the whole principle about how do we measure it. So there is lots of judicial outcomes that we can look forward in terms of behaviours and results, but how would you suggest is the best or the most effective way of measuring culture change?

Siobhan McHale: Yeah. Culture itself is, you know, I think if you go back to the ANZ example, what you've got to be able to see in your diagnosis of your culture are the passions of relating between the parts. So you've got to be able to see, for example, that the head office is in role of order giver and the branches are enrolled of order taker. And there's a pattern of blame between them. Now, that is not something you can measure. You've got to be able to go in there and diagnose that. If you don't get that diagnostic, right, the risk is that you go in and you say, Oh, we've got for customer satisfaction. Let's put in some training courses so that the branch staff know how to deliver better customer service to our customers. And that intervention could actually fuel the passion of blame in the organization, as you can imagine, because the branch staff might say, well, they don't even trust us to provide service.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Siobhan McHale: And it is not our fault. It is the head office. We don't have the authority to make decisions. So that diagnosis is not something that you can measure, but you can measure the outcomes of seeing the pattern and intervening to shift the pattern by for example, a customer satisfaction survey. So if you're aiming to have a culture of customer centricity, you can measure that by getting feedback from your customers about how they seeing your service, but the diagnostic is different to the outcome of the culture, if you know what I'm saying. The passion you can't measure as easily, you've got to be able to see that and it's not necessarily something that a survey will tell you,

Steve Rush: Of course and if you don't get that diagnostic, right, your outcomes and your measures of any kind will be incorrect in the first place,

Siobhan McHale: Correct, Absolutely and many times leaders rush off and they put in interventions that don't actually create any change. And sometimes it takes them backwards, which was happening at the ANZ. They were doing restructure after restructure, trying to train people and get them to increase the customer satisfaction. And it was having no impact until we went in and did a proper diagnostic.

Steve Rush: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So as part of your journey as well, and becoming renowned now for culture and leading cultural change, you've also been a leader of others. My job, as part, this show is to hack into the minds of great leaders. And I'm really keen to get into your leadership thinking now, and to find out what would be some of your top hacks. So tell us, what your top leadership hacks could be Siobhan?

Siobhan McHale: I would say for me, it is don't try to change somebody as a person. Modify the role, not the person. So for me, I found that that is an amazing way of allowing people to be their true, authentic selves but reframing their role. And I've had so many examples of them, just people seeing their role. In one way, for example, I was coaching somebody who was having real problems with their team, and getting people on board and there was just a lot of noise from her team. She drew a map of her role with seeing herself as an individual achiever and achiever rather than, and she was running up the hill on her own rather than galvanizer or mobilizer of her team. So just that awareness that she was involved with individual achiever and she needed to be enrolled of mobilizer shifted her whole way of interacting with her team. So that would be one of my big ones, reframe the roll rather than trying to modify or change the person.

Steve Rush: Fascinating. I have never thought of it that way before, because most people will try and coach cajole, encourage behavioural shift, where actually it might just be a simple reframe of the role. Right?

Siobhan McHale: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Which is a lot easier to fix of course, than someone's behaviours.

Siobhan McHale: Yeah, absolutely and sometimes we, have lots of…another guy, he came to me and he was looking for a job, but he'd been looking for a job for nine months and had cv, that was seven pages long with lots and lots of detail. And I flicked through it and he said, I just can't get a break Siobhan. And I flipped through it and I said, you know what? You are a problem solver. You are a fixer. He went, yeah, that is everything that I have done in my career. I have fixed problems. I solve problems. Anyway, within three months, he had landed a senior job in a very big organization in Australia. And I didn't even know about this, but my boss met his boss, two CEOs meeting each other. And she talked about the fact that she just hired this guy as the CFO.

And he said, why did you hire him? She said, oh, he is a problem solver. He is a fixer, just that simple reframe of what he actually did and the value that he brought, allowed him to go into the marketplace and sort of frame his role in a very different way. And it landed him a job so the power of reframing. How you and others see you and your role is incredibly powerful. My other leadership hacks and it is something that we help. We have talked about is don't rush too quickly to solutions. You know, I see a lot of leaders under a lot of pressure to deliver the results very quickly, take the time to diagnose the underlying issues and the patterns that are of relatedness between the parts. And the other one I would say is don't delegate your culture to HR to fix. Make sure you and your other leaders are actually leading culture and HR is in its role to enable that to happen with great tools and great solutions, but don't delegate culture.

Steve Rush: Super advice, thank you. We affectionately call this part of the show Hack to Attack. And this is where we explore with our guests times in their career or their lives, where things haven't worked out well, perhaps it's been adversity, but as a result of that, we're now using that experience as a positive in our life and our work. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Siobhan McHale: Yeah. When I was first, hired as a management consultant in London at Coopers and Lybrand, which is now PricewaterhouseCoopers. I took on board two big assignments at the same time. I was very keen I was ambitious, so I took on board. Work for two different partners and they were both full time jobs. And I went to one of the partners at the time and I said, listen, I'm really in a double bind here because I've got two massive assignments. And you know, I don't think I can deliver both of them. And he said, well, you've taken them on board now and you've committed. So you've got to deliver them and I stayed up for three weeks working, you know, burning the candle at both ends, but I did deliver both of them. And it was a big lesson for me about, you know, you make a commitment and you deliver on that commitment and no matter what it takes. So it was a really big lesson. It was hard one, but it stayed with me until this day. Whatever you promise, you deliver on that promise.

Steve Rush: Sets you up for success.

Siobhan McHale: Yeah, absolutely Steve.

Steve Rush: So Siobhan, if we were able to do a bit of time travel now and you were able to bump into yourself at 21, what would be the best bit of advice you would give Siobhan Then?

Siobhan McHale: At 21, I was still a student in Galway on the West coast of Ireland studying psychology. And I suppose I was wondering at that stage, what would my future look like? And I probably tell myself, don't be fried, follow your passions, travel the world, and yeah. Pursue your dreams and don't be afraid of being your true, authentic self in that as well. Just be who you are and follow your passions, follow your dreams. And that's sort of what I did, but looking back on it, it was probably with some trepidation, I was wondering what's going to emerge in the future. So don't be afraid to be your true self and follow your dreams.

Steve Rush: Awesome and of course it's not time bound to age, is it? And that's still probably holds true today, right?

Siobhan McHale: Absolutely, same lesson. True, Steve.

Steve Rush: So what is next for you then Siobhan?

Siobhan McHale: And in terms of what is next for me, I mean, I love my job. I'm the head of HR at DuluxGroup and I love my job and I'm also in my role as an educator. So I love being the head of HR at DuluxGroup and I also love being an educator and which is one of the reasons I wrote the book. So I'm leaning into both of those roles and really loving it, Steve,

Steve Rush: And more education and more supporting and helping other people's thinking, which today has definitely been part of too.

Siobhan McHale: Oh, thank you. I hope that it will help people to create better workplaces, which is always been my passion.

Steve Rush: So from my perspective, I just want to say, I am delighted that you are on the show and thanks ever so much for sharing some of your great insights. If folks wanted to get to know a little bit more about your work. Where is the best place they could find out a bit more?

Siobhan McHale: Yeah I would say LinkedIn is probably the best place to find me. And yeah, Siobhan McHale. It is S-I-O-B-H-A-N, Siobhan a very unusual Gaelic name, but yeah, that is the best place to define me, Steve.

Steve Rush: Brilliant and we will make sure we put your LinkedIn profile in our show notes, and we will also put a copy of the link into your book as well. So folks can find it when they've listened to you today.

Siobhan McHale: Great, thanks you Steve.

Steve Rush: Siobhan thanks ever so much for taking time out of your busy schedule and speaking to us from the other side of the planet. So our first Australian connection on our show. So thanks ever so much for being part of The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Siobhan McHale: It has been a pleasure.

Closing

The Insider's Guide to Culture Change: Creating a Workplace That Delivers, Grows, and Adapts

View Details

We can all relate to the fact that a strong vision defines success in personal and business life. In this episode Dr Oleg Konovalov, #1 global thought leader on culture, coach and best-selling author will discuss:

Vision is not a gift, but a well-structured algorithm that can be taught.
How to create and execute a strong and compelling vision.
Leadership is a system of growing
Why knowledge is the sexiest thing of all
Don’t rush to call yourself a leader

In this episode - there’s also a bonus 101 on emotional intelligence from yours truly!

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Dr Oleg Konovalov Below:

Website: https://www.olegkonovalov.com

Dr Oleg Konovalov on LinkedIn

Oleg on Twitter

The Book - Leaderology

Full Podcast Transcription Below:

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Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Joining me on the show today is one of the world's leading and recognized thought leaders. He is a business educator, bestselling author, and a speaker is Dr. Oleg Konovalov. Before we get an opportunity to speak with Oleg, it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: What makes someone a great leader? Is it having knowledge? Good genes? Vision? Courage? Well, many of us will have our very own variation based on our experiences and what we believe to be great in leaders. There is one commonality though that we are likely to share. What really distinguishes the world's most successful leaders is emotional intelligence or the ability to identify and monitor emotions of not only ourselves, but others around us. Organizations, they are increasingly looking through the lens of emotional intelligence when hiring, promoting, and developing their employees. And years of study have shown that more emotional intelligence somebody has the better, their chances of success and the better their performance. What most people fail to recognize though, is mastering emotion intelligence. Is actually a skill and it takes practice and let's not confuse emotional intelligence with all that ambiguous and pink and fluffy stuff that is perceived that only people with right-hand creative brains have. Daniel Goldman professor at Harvard University, who has also been renowned for his work and research on emotional Intelligence, has broken this down into four areas. Self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management and here is our brief 101 on emotional intelligence.

Self-Awareness well, this is the capacity to tune into our own emotions. It allows us to know when we are feeling the way we are, but also the reasons why we feel that way, as well as the people around us. It is about tuning into the feelings that help us, or hold us back about what we are trying to do. By understanding our own strengths and limitations, we can operate from a position of competence and clarity, knowing when we can also rely on other people.

Self-Management, this is the ability to keep disruptive emotions and impulses under control. This is a powerful skill for leaders, especially during a crisis because people will look to us to make sure that we can provide reassurance. And if we're calm as leaders, they can become too, I coined the phrase, your leadership barometer, because you're almost the weather forecast emotionally for people. This is about playing for the logical part of our brain, not the emotional part of our brain and the core competencies here are having that awareness of self-emotional control, adaptability being agile in the face of changing uncertainty, achievement orientation, striving to meet or exceed those standards. We set for ourselves and having a positive outlook so that we see the good in people, situations and events. This can really unlock creativity and opportunity.

Social-Awareness, social-awareness indicates the accuracy in reading and interpreting other people's emotions. Often through nonverbal communication first. Socially aware leaders are really able to relate to many different people in different ways. We are able to listen attentively and communicate effectively, even by observing what has not been spoken. Their core competencies here are empathy, always putting yourself in the shoes of other people, but in a meaningful way, an organizational awareness. Can you read the emotional changes and currents and undertones and dynamics within the people you work with, but also in the organization?

And the last is Relationship Management, and this is an interpersonal skill that really allows us to act in a way to motivate, inspire others while maintaining focus on important relationships. And the core competence is here are influence, gathering support from others, creating an engaging group of people, coaching and mentoring, dedicating your lives to work to giving feedback and supporting and coaching others, conflict management, being comfortable with uncomfortable disagreements in teams and sides so that you're able to help people find a win, win outcome. Teamwork, you are the team. Share those responsibilities and rewards contribute to the capability of your team as a whole; and lastly, Inspirational Leadership by inspiring and guiding others towards their overall vision. You will always get the job done, and you will always bring the team with you the best qualities along the way. So my final thought of the day, when was the last time you practiced your emotional intelligence? This is not about doing it, testing it, scenario playing. This is about practicing some of these key capabilities, competencies so that you can really fine-tune your capabilities. The more you practice, the more of an emotional intelligent leader you will become. That has been our brief 101 of emotional intelligence, and that has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any insights, information or things you would like to share with our listeners, please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: I am joined on today show by Dr Oleg Konovalov. He is one of the world's top global thought leaders. He is an author of four bestselling books, keynote speaker, and a coach. Dr. Oleg Konovalov, welcome to the show.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Steve, thank you very much for inviting and having me on the show. Thank you.

Steve Rush: It is incredibly our pleasure. Now you have had really interesting upbringing story journey to becoming one of the world's global thought leaders around subjects, such as vision, culture, and leadership. But tell us a little bit about your journey from life as a child to Russia, to where you are now.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Actually, I'm looking back at my life and I just I'm amazed myself because you know, being grown in a small town, which is part of this school Gulagstag left after the Stalin Heritage. It was not the best experience, but probably it has made me stronger. And I'm grateful for this because if you live too much comfortable life or, you're not building something big because you already have everything and you are not worried. You learn that something should be bigger than you and your ego to make your life meaningful. This is where I learned why I should make my life meaningful, and this was important. And you see at a certain point I was almost salty, I decided to move to the UK where I could learn much more than I know I could work in a different environment. It was a biggest reason why I have moved to UK on this. I am really grateful for that chance because it moved me much further than I was initially singing about it. It was…

Steve Rush: That moved you further academically, physically, mentally. How did that move you?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Mentally. I would tell you mentally, because physically you still remain strong, Ox at least in one great pace. Academia, academia is more or less a similar everywhere in the world. Was this a little bit up and down, but it is more or less similar, but it was mental challenge because you should learn everything from you, the way how people work, the way, how people interact, how socialize, everything. You learned everything from you, so you are born from you; it is another life in this term.

Steve Rush: That is a really nice way of looking at actually being reborn from you, I quite like that, yeah.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: You know, you should not have drag your old habits into your new life, because then the reason why did you change something? If you are still using the same old habits or way of thinking, you know, it would not put you far, whatever you would move. If you take, everything old was used, you moving into a new house or you taking old stuff with you? No. You are buying new furniture, new carpets, everything that you need from you to make it fresh and nice and this is important. And I think I'm very lucky and I love this industry. I have worked for many years in the fishing industry, which you know, is quite tough, but it is great in terms of interacting daily with incredible people, you facing a lot of challenges, but you are learning from them, and it was a tremendous experience. Allow it; a few of my projects actually in the fishing industry were highlighted in the times in the fishing news information in the fishing news UK. But then at certain point I realized, I want to know more. I want to learn more and I go on again for my diploma in management then for master's degrees and doctoral degree, and I probably those days was only the one in the fishing industry had a doctoral degree in business across the globe.

Steve Rush: And I guess that is your curiosity, your passion for learning that thought. How can I take some additional learning and transfer that to an industry, which historically hasn't got a lot of academic background to it, right?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Absolutely, because this is curiosity to learn. What is over there? What is beyond my conventional thinking? You know, our daily questions, you know, it's something beyond, yes, it's curiosity, but you know, we know curiosity kills the cat, but such a cat, which is not afraid to be killed in this sense, because curiosity, it's a great trigger to go further. And the same case, if you want to make something more important than your daily routine, you must learn how to make it great because we have all chances and opportunities to make our life meaningful. Our achieved goals impactful for many in positively, but he must be capable of handling something big and so you must learn, that is a necessity.

Steve Rush: Following the successful career, you had in the fishing industry where you led some really large businesses. Was it then that your curiosity that led you into the world of consulting?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Knowledge is a sexist thinking of all. Knowledge is their most demanded product in the world. Knowledge is what shifts us into the future. Knowledge is always in demand. And it's always respectful and always well paid, but it's most rewarding thing when you see people succeeding because of you helping them. This is far beyond our instant necessities, like food and shelter, because it is impact on the next generation, it is everything. You see, when we talk as a digital era being now, we should assume that it is a knowledge era triggered by people who changed the things in management that allowed to change technologies and so allowed to make this digital era coming, so it is knowledge

Steve Rush: And I guess knowledge was what led you to put pen to paper and your first bestselling book was the Corporate Superpower. And that was around, you know, taking some theory if you like, but giving it some structure. I have read it myself, It is around that whole theory of how do we give structure to culture? Tell us a little bit about that.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: It started from very, very curious point. We love talking about positive culture and how culture is important. Then I looked at, hold on why are we not talking about negative culture because the majority of companies, these days. They are still have negative culture and what I have found. Right about 450,000 articles, you could find only from academia on positive culture and only about 72 articles on negative culture. Whereas reality is completely opposite, and I said, hold on, what is the algorithm? Because whatever we are reading in the books or listening to the conferences. All discussion is wrapped around how to have a good culture, but how to have a clear, simple and effective algorithm was still remaining as a gap. And so, I decided to cover this gap and created corporate super power as an algorithm, as a response for everyday needs. Where every leader, every manager could open it and see how to create culture. What stance on it, you know, how to create values or defined values was the properties of engagement, everything, so to find the code, therefore I called at the end of the book. I called defined making a checklist because it is like winery; you are taking care of it. You growing, you cultivating it, and then you get a great result. And therefore it was important to give people really practical solutions instead of general chit chat and that's a good point of being an efficient industry. You must come with a result.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Because you can't sell the fish that you don't have. People need exact instruction. Simple, because we don't have much time for philosophical conversations about something being good or not.

Steve Rush: You either caught fish or you haven't caught fish. Right?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Absolutely. I love catching big fish and so big results.

Steve Rush: But laying behind that, I guess, would still be all of that foundation of disciplined structure. The people you work with that does not change does it?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: No, because I would call myself lucky, blessed, whatever, because I have worked with incredible professionals. I learn and study from incredible people from academia. You know, I am really grateful because it's a matter of who teaches you and not just a personality, not just a professional, but a whole person from whom you really learn how to be a whole person yourself and that is incredible. For instance, if we look at a simple point, which we often neglect, and outlook is one thing, but how you could connect dots, which seems like very non-relevant is a mastery itself. So you must know how to make so nice pictures, really vivid pictures that could give you the right answers or most effective answers.

Steve Rush: Now your next book was a Leaderology and Forbes is quoted as being one of the top leadership books of the last year. What was the inspiration for Leaderology?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: I really proud of this book because first of all, we were so thrown into the quoting leadership, leadership, leadership every day that we'll look at it a bit as function or one of the functions we diluting the meaning of leadership. We are taking many things for granted and so not realizing what is going on behind. So we're looking at leaders and declaring something, but leadership is a system. Is a system of growing people, is a system to be of master of everything you manage in terms of leading in terms of a context in which you and your people exist. And that stands not just as a system, as a whole, but its ability to create other productive systems in terms of what kind of organizations you create, what kind of people you grow to achieve those incredible results, how you make people stronger. Because one, I believe, if you help your people grow, people will help you to become a better leader. They will make you a better leader. It is a journey, if I work as a leader myself and take care of people, they will take care of me.

Steve Rush: Right.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: If I work as a good consultant for a company, whatever I do in the best way to help the company. They are bouncing, back with a feedback that makes me stronger as a consultant, as a coach. Well, I am a bit picky; I'm always trying to choose good clients. Those who are really willing to make a difference because they make me better coach and that's it absolutely because I'm learning from them probably even more than they've learned from me. I am just from different angle, but I am still gaining. So all of us, we are multiplying each other.

Steve Rush: They test and challenge your capabilities your worldview as well. Right?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: It is a matter how to reveal the people greatness to make them strong, whether it would be company or culture was in the company, or even every personality, which comes back home after office hours and it makes his family happy.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I see that. Now I love the start of Leaderology, because your first chapter is almost a letter to yourself when you were 30 and I think that is a really great idea, and I love reading it, but what was the inspiration for that?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: This was a reflection. What I have missed at those days, what I was really short, I wish I would have somebody in those days who would be telling me this is wrong, or this is right. Aside from this or do that, and it was critical to, make own mistakes, but it was important to reflect in which direction to go. What is important to see, because we have been emphasizing and enhance to repeat the same old bothering mistakes, old people like me? What have they been doing? Everything that had been taught by books or by senior managers. So more or less without thinking in which direction to go. And so repeating old mistakes again, and again, its draining your energy is draining, it is draining your time. It is not moving you far and the problem is I am 56, but as we're still dragging this old mistakes into the future, and therefore it was important to reflect where we should stop it and how to make this new house really fresh and new, and how to reinvent ourselves and get rid of old mistakes. And therefore it was an actual message to myself.

Steve Rush: Yeah, so it was almost a bit of a let's wave goodbye to some of that past and recognize that, you know, everything's going to be okay almost right.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Yes, because if you would not have bought it clearly structured on a paper, or you would not tell it to yourself, you still would be repeating it. But as soon as you go, okay, we shouldn't have been doing this and this, as soon as you said this, clearly you're easy. You are free; you are free from it, getting rid of it.

Steve Rush: So I love that. Yeah, if anybody gets a chance to read Leaderology, it is a really insightful start to what you go on to talk about, which is almost the anatomy of how we as leaders operate and that's your systems and stuff. But a lot of the work that you have done recently has been focused very much around the whole principle of vision. Now, as a leadership coach, I spend a lot of time actually coaching leaders around clarity of vision, but for some people, their view of the world is very different than one person's vision is very different from another. You even managed through your research and your work to distil this down into almost a subject matter and some themes. Just tell us a little bit about how that came about?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: First of all I will tell you why vision? My friends often ask me. Why did you didn't start your journey straight from Vision? And I said, because it was important to build up a platform for me to get down to vision, because it's still a bit of a miracle in it, but people are seeing what vision is. Is it a gift, or is it something different? And what I have found vision is not a gift. It is a hard work. Vision comes when you have conscious awareness of the problem reaches it’s peak and it must be well supported by learning, listening, diminished ego, full grasp of environment, your intuition. It is something that you really came to solve for others, so it is not a gift. It is a hard work to find it and define it, so it is a moment of creation that magical aha moment. When you, you have a vision and you must structure it clearly, and that consists of six elements, which is stimulus. So what kind of value I create for people? And they respond to it. It reflects scale because vision does not leave in the dead end. It's always has a potential for extension in depths, in breasts, geographically in quality, in everything. Assumes spotlight, because being increasingly leader is like being on a Broadway for 24-seven. You know, you are always responsible.

It is simplicity because if vision is not simple, it would not attract anyone. It must be understood, it defines very interesting point scanning because it must be relevant to the world, which will leave. If we are not scanning the world around us, we are missing can alignment with the world. So it does not become necessary or interesting for people and of course, excitement and passion, because vision is a strong emotion itself. And when you have passion for your vision, you bouncing it to people and they bounce it back and multiplying this passion. So it becomes a strong emotional force, which pushes people for something great, but then vision must be well communicated because here comes a difference. What is the difference between communicating and sharing vision? We communicate fast, but we share stories and emotions. So we need both to communicate strong vision and then it goes to execution where it's, you know, to handle something huge as vision, you must be a strong leader.

And so you must have a strong team and so it stands on a focus on a will to achieve it. It stands on a strong culture. It starts on a clear understanding of your capacities on an enabled and hazed and enabled decision making from all that of the team members on the influence of the expecting. So more or less, it is a six-step process. But what is important? Vision is an uncertainty; our whole life is uncertainty, but what happen? We grow, when we go through uncertainty, to reach a point of certainty, also comfort zone, but it all depends how quickly we would leave that comfort zone. If we will stay in it, we will be drawn into the swamp of comfort. We would not grow anymore and vision dies, but must keep going all the time and the process is quite simple. It is a business till now, which is a six steps process, which is teachable, manageable, very effective. The only thing in case we must consider as a moment, what I have found. Only 0.1% of modern leaders have vision, so it is important for many, but how many people would be willing to take this hard work and do it properly for other people is also critical.

Steve Rush: What do you think the reason is that most leaders really struggle with that concept, that vision is not binging fluffy, but it is really hard work. What do you think causes that in your experience?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Because vision is something big. People were really afraid to approach it. If you would hardly find many books on it, a couple of books, yes, but hardly find many. There is one thing is big, is quite mystical. So we would not touch it, it’s one thing. Point B you must be strong for yourself to accept this and grow as visionary leader, which is a bit different because you must develop courageous thinking. You must be confident and credible. You must develop all the time in Excellency. You must create a knowledge bank around you, not just followers, but a knowledge bank, so it's a hard walk in this sense. And courage to stand firm on your point is critical because what happens is this? We have too many leaders trying to please everyone, which would not have lead anyone far. We have too many leaders who are driven by their personal ambitious, so they will drive people off the cliff just to satisfy himself. So they are not bothered about vision at all and again, vision is needed for people who really generate something scalable. Yeah, it is not much needed for somebody, for instance, for a worker.

Steve Rush: I also wonder because when you create a vision, there is no immediate return. It is a little bit further away and therefore, if we are drawn into delivery of results and ambitions today, then sometimes the vision gets left behind.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Absolutely, What we prefer to manage we are keen and prefer to manage something, which is we could touch, or which is very visible. Go to the bottom line, quarterly report. Oh, we could manage them. We could see them, but vision is a bit greater, so it is not easy to stay in aligned with something, which is five or ten years ahead of you. And it is also moving because as vision progresses, it grows, so your goals are getting bigger and they move

Steve Rush: Never stops.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: No, never.

Steve Rush: And that is also in my experience, an element of a lack of awareness is that, you know, you set a vision and we leave it and we run away and we don't come back to on a regular basis to refresh it and rethink it. Right?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: You see, for instance, can you make your family life happier than today? Yes, you just need to find new meanings of every day, every time. It is the same in business, it pushes you far and far and far away, you know, from you being initially from that boy, you mentioned, can I say that I had a vision at myself? No, no. It came much later when I start really deeply thinking what I want to make different in my life, so it is a journey itself.

Steve Rush: Got it, so within your book Leaderology. You've got loads of other tips around the anatomy of leadership. At this part of the show, we are going to try and distil your 30 lessons that you have Leaderology in your years and years of experience of learning and culture and knowledge and trying to distil it into your top three leadership hacks, what would they be like Oleg?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: The first one would be don't rush to call yourself a leader. The most important and simple, but important question. You should understand. You could call yourself a leader. If people under your leadership achieved something serious, so the question would be what people achieved under my leadership, where I could call myself a leader. I never saw a wise leader, not being humble. Humility is critical. You should learn every day and you should have a strong backbone to admit that you don't know something and you could learn or take it from somebody from your team. The thing is, if you want to be good. Get coach, get mentor because you need that expertise to become stronger. Otherwise, you are sentenced to learn, simple basic things all your life. Don't waste it, take it from somebody who knows it already. You are saving life and you are saving your people effort to make this more effective now, today.

Steve Rush: There's no world champion sports person out there is there that have done it on their own. They have a team of people have helped them with their training and their thinking, and they all have a coach to unlock what they can't see for themselves. Right?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: No chance, because we are all in the one boat, right? And who could tell me who is rowing better? Who is a champion? We are all together.

Steve Rush: And at this part of the show also, we've really started to enjoy listening to leadership lessons from our guests where things haven't particularly gone well. So we call it Hack to Attack. Has there been a time in your career or your life where things did not work out for you or went wrong, but that is now become a learn for you, and you use that as a positive in your life?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Oh yeah. I don't know anyone who reached something serious in his life resolved being through the really tough life situations.

Steve Rush: What would be the one thing that is probably the biggest Hack to Attack for you?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: First, I got alone. Stay yourself. Whatever happens? Don't lose yourself. You could lose everything. You could lose money. You could lose house. You could lose everything. Be yourself, because if you lose yourself, you lose everything. Then no money could cover it. Nothing would cover it, and another thing, your goals must be much greater than your problems. If your goals are little, then problems are great. You are done your dead, and every lesson is a lesson. You are learning to be better and stronger because it is a moment of reinventing and it is always painful.

Steve Rush: Right? And learning can be tough.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: And nothing wrong with that. Just be proud of it.

Steve Rush: But it is those lessons and what you do with the learning. That makes a difference, right?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: It is a huge difference because again, what we will learn is important because if it is like something immediate or we are saying one thing, but if you are reflecting those lessons was in the time. You get getting much deeper meanings out of it and there are more, even more valuable because at the first point when you're losing something, you experiencing too much pain and pain is not the best teacher because it's often misleading you. You just need to overcome pain and then you learn even more than you have learned before supervise.

Steve Rush: Super advice. We are going to ask you to do a bit of time travel now Oleg. We are going to take you back to bump into Oleg at 21, and it is your chance to give him a bit of advice. So what would your advice be?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Learn. Learn deeply. I will tell you why. We all learning something at 21, but it is more like a shallow knowledge of everything. At 21, we are more jumping around. We are not learning deep. We start realizing the value of learning at a much later stage and being at 21 was much fresher mind. It would be more productive. It would be more effective and so learning is critical. It defines your life.

Steve Rush: It does, doesn't it? Yeah.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: It really does.

Steve Rush: The more you learn, the more, you know, the more, you know, the more you can respond, the more you respond, the more able you are to deal with situations.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: I could give you another perspective.

Steve Rush: Please do, yeah.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: I am one of the Marshall Goldsmith's hundred coaches and talking with him regularly and learning a ton from him. He's number one in the world on leadership and he is number one executive coach in the world. He's a father of executive coaching and he is a great model is learn as much as you can, help as much as you can and allow this because it is critical. The more you learn, the more you could give. Why their leaders should learn more? because I learn to help my people in the greatest sense. If I know nothing or no little. How I could help my people grow? No chance. I lean to be a better servant of my people. This is critical…

Steve Rush: It is.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: If I had known this at 21, my life would be much different, but not as colourful.

Steve Rush: And learning is what people listening today will be getting to, so learning about you and learning about some of your thoughts and some of your thinking, and particularly how by applying some real thought and structure around vision that can really change the dynamics. So thank you for sharing some learnings.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Thank you Steve, thank you. It was a great honour I love our conversation, thank you.

Steve Rush: I am pretty sure that people listening today will want to get a hands on a copy of Leaderology, or find out a little bit about the work you're doing at the moment. If we were to connect you with our listeners, how best could we do that?

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: They could go to my website olegkonovalov.com or legkonovalov.com or they could find me on LinkedIn. I am always happy to chat or respond, share what I know. Thank you.

Steve Rush: Awesome and we will make sure that we put links to your books and your website in our show notes as well Oleg. So folks can head over there as soon as they finished listening.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Wow, thank you.

Steve Rush: And I just wanted to say, you know, we have spoken a few times and I find that the work you have done really thoughtful and really helpful, and it's inspired me. And I'm just delighted that we've had the opportunity for you to join us on The Leadership Hacker Podcast, so Oleg, thank you ever so much from me.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov: Thank you very much. Thank you.

Closing

View Details

Nic Marks is the special guest on show 18. He is the CEO and founder of Friday Pulse, Statistician, Happiness Expert, and Ted Speaker. Learn from Nic about:

What happiness is and how to measure it
How feelings and emotions come before cognition
Why some nations and people are happier than others
What leadership activities increase happiness in the workforce
How human appreciation increases happiness in us all

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services

Find out more about Nic Marks Below:

www.fridaypulse.com

Connect with Nic on LinkedIn

Follow Nic on Twitter

https://nicmarks.org

Full Transcript Below:

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Joining me on today's show is CEO and founder of Friday Pulse. Statistician, happiness expert, and Ted speaker, its Nic Marks. Before we get to speak with Nic, It is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In our role as leaders, we have likely to have made some significant decisions of late. Our approach to making decisions will vary from individual to individual and while some considered and thoughtful strategic decisions would have absolutely been a must at work, recent research has found using a coin toss to decide major life decisions may ultimately make you happier. The new study has found overall happiness increased after a six-month period. The study titled, The Review of Economic Studies published in the Oxford University press also found that people that rely on a coin toss to make a decision are more likely to follow through with their choice and be more satisfied as a result. To find out the impact of using a coin toss economist Professor Steven Levitt from the university of Chicago, asked people to make important decisions such as whether to quit a job, move home, end a relationship or quit smoking using affirmative and negative assigned to either heads or tails of a coin.

Users were also asked to include their own questions such as, Should I get a tattoo? And prior to the coin toss, volunteers were also instructed to help identify third party judicators to verify the outcomes and assessed independently the results. After two months participants and their third party judicators were asked to conduct a survey; which found that participants favoured the status quo, making a change less frequently than they would predicted they would before the coin toss, according to phys.org. However, a further study conducted after six months found that this bias towards the status quo had gone, according to the six month survey. Those who were interested to make certain changes regarding major decisions were more likely to do so, and be happier as a result. Participants also said that they were more likely to make the same decision if they were to choose again.

According to the researchers, the findings were inconsistent with the conventional theory of choice, which states that people who are on the margins should on average report equal happiness, regardless of where they made the decisions. Professor Levitt said, society teaches us quitters, never win and winners never quit. But in reality, the data from his experiment suggests we would all be better off if we did more quitting. He went on to say, “a good rule of thumb in decision making is whenever you cannot decide what you should do choose the action that represents change rather than continue with the status quo”. The leadership lesson here is, we often get stuck in change and we're not sure on which direction to take, and whilst tossing a coin might give us a yes or a no to a certain direction. Does that change really bring something new? So that's been The Leadership Hacker News. We would really encourage you to share with us your insights, ideas, and funny stories around leadership, leaders around the world. Please get in touch.

Start of Podcast

Steve Rush: I am joined on today's show with Nic Marks. He is the CEO and creator of Friday Pulse. He is an author, Ted speaker and a statistician. Nic, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Nic Marks: Thank you very much, Steve.

Steve Rush: So statistician, numbers, I guess that must have started at an early age for it to become such a big feature in your life? Tell us a little bit about that.

Nic Marks: Yeah, there is a lot of syllables in that word as well isn't there statistician? I just was, I was good at maths and was not very interested in much else at school. I mean, I did my A- levels with double mass Physics and half of Physics is mass as well. It was sort of I could do, and therefore, you know, I was top, of the year at school, pretty much all the way through and pretty much ended up at Cambridge reading mass before I made a decision about anything and actually ended up not liking maths at Cambridge. Because it is very, very pure and therefore discovering, I was really an applied statistician. I liked using numbers to solve problems rather than the sort of abstractness of mathematics, which is what you get into in that space. So yeah, was kind of, what I was good at.

Steve Rush: So the fascination really was not just about the patterns and the numbers, but actually how can you use these numbers in a positive way and how can I apply them in doing something that is relevant for people?

Nic Marks: Yeah, that was the big eye-opener. When I started sort of solving things, particularly on health statistics, you know, they start setting you problems to solve maybe in A-level and anything that sort of had a bit more human side to it. I got quite, I enjoyed those questions more and that is what I was actually able to do at Cambridge. I was able to switch into an applied statistics course and you know we did sort of industrial psychology and Queuing Theory. I accused even now if I get in a queue and I can see it is badly organized. That put me in a rage and it is partly my Queuing Theory sort of ideas, but yeah, so anything, it was very practical I got interested in.

Steve Rushs: And even more so, during lockdown where there are queue everywhere, I should imagine for you particularly that is really challenging, Right?

Nic Marks: Well actually, what I don't like about queue is when they're not fair, I don't mind a fair queue, and actually the lockdown queue are very fair, aren't they, you know, you're standing there in order and you let older people pass if you're a certain time or key workers and that all seems very fair. What I really hate is like when you come into an airport and you're queuing up and there's a big queue at the, you know, the passport control and you know, one, they haven't put enough people on, but then you can't see if the front of your queue has got one or two people on it. And so the queue go at different rates and you always end up in this lower queue. In fact, you are statistically more likely to end up in this lower queue anyway, and then it feels unfair. And I once actually had an argument with passport control guy, not an argument as a discussion. I said to him, you know, why don't you queue up in a snake? And he said, Oh, actually it makes the average queuing time go up, which is a very fair thing. And I said to him, well, the problem is the experience of queuing is related to the standard deviation, not the mean and he looked at me and went…

Steve Rush: I should imagine that when down well?

Nic Marks: …Can you put that in writing please? My kids were very embarrassed.

Steve Rush: And who would have known that queues have so much applied maths behind it; Which I guess if you look around society that we are in, there are maths and numbers behind everything.

Nic Marks: I mean, totally. I mean, if you do marketing these days, digital marketing, you've got a lot of queuing theory and mathematics in there and about friction and flow and the way you model it. There is so many ways that at least a sort of A-level understanding of mass can really, really help you. I don't think you need to go much beyond that, but well obviously some people do, but it is very interesting to me anyway.

Steve Rush: So beyond University, then you started applying your learned mathematics, what happened next?

Nic Marks: I did a Masters and then I joined a consultancy. Anderson consulting who sort of now called Accenture and did programming and things like that. I quit really, when I realized they were going to sort of move me around the country to wherever they wanted me to work. And I just got engaged and was in London and didn't really want to move around. And I also started to make more choices in my life. I mean I think some people, this comes earlier, but I started thinking actually, what do I really want to work on? And I went to work for sustainability, environmental investment company, and I started getting more interested in things which were sort of, as I say, sort of more socially useful statistics. Yeah, and I did that for a bit, but I also had a slightly kooky side, but slightly different side. I got very into sort of personal development and I used to go to sort of men's encounter groups. Cause I did not really quite understand how to be a man in the world. I found slightly misogynists, and so I just started exploring all that. And the reason for that really was my mum was a therapist and in the end I trained as a therapist as well as do math statistics, which sort of makes for, I think, a very creative mix, but then unusual mix anyway,

Steve Rush: So that creative mixture you now have, has smudged that psychotherapy and your statistician background together to create what you do now. The last 12-15 years of your life. You have been really focusing on the whole principle of happiness and how we can be more focused and understand some of the metrics and numbers that sit behind happiness. Tell us a little bit. About how that came about?

Nic Marks: Yeah, it started in about 2001. I was doing some other work with a think tank in London called New Economics Foundation. And the director then director said to me, Nic, there is this word called wellbeing coming into public policy and no one knows what it means. And can you help us, he said drive some meaning under the word? And I being a statistician, I said, well, I'd like to know how we could measure it because then, you know, policy makers might take it seriously. So we started a project which eventually became my whole work, and it became something called a centre for wellbeing, but we even started to create metrics around wellbeing that was useful for local, national, and international agencies about people's experiences with life effectively. And some people in the field were already calling that happiness and I shy away from that for a while because it sounded a bit light for the government policy.

But I started to realize that it was a much more attractive word than wellbeing and also more relatable. Ultimately, you know, whether we enjoy our lives or not in whatever basis we want to do, there is kind of, what it is about, so you know, and you can talk to anyone about whether they're happy or not. We can then discuss what that means and we can discuss, you know, whether we mean the same thing, but it makes a much more fruitful discussion, so that is kind of how I got into it. Yeah.

Steve Rush: It is really neat principle. The whole happiness thing that I have explored and there are a number of great authors that have written around the similar subject over the last sort of 10 or 15 years. It almost feels a little bit pink and fluffy and subjective, and I guess what you are seeking to do is to create some more objectivity so that leaders can be a bit more thoughtful of their personal impact around that. Would that be a kind of fair assumption?

Nic Marks: It is kind of fair, but I don't like… it is not you, but I don't like this sort of split between objective and subjective because our experience of life is sort of necessarily subjective. You know, we are the subject of that experience and actually, what a lot of statistics and data does is it objectifies things, so it will say we can measure your standard of life because we can see that and touch that. So we can touch your housing, your income, your whatever, we can measure that, but we don't know what you're feeling, so we can't measure that and actually that's not true. It is just a different type of measurement, and then you have to be careful about how you do it, but you can put numbers on it, and so there is a way we use the word subjective. Which makes it feel like it’s very loose and it would change for everybody, but actually, whether people enjoy their lives or not is sort of gradable.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that makes those a sense actually. If somebody was to ask you, what does happiness mean? How would you describe it?

Nic Marks: Yeah, I have had various descriptions over the years, but so I often say its feeling good and doing well. And by that, I mean that it got a feeling element, but it's got a functional element to it and we use the word happiness very broadly in English language. So we use it as a sort of momentary feeling. I feel happy, but we also use it as what's tends to be called a cognitive assessment. You know, I feel happy with, or I am happy with, so we are sort of reflecting on a sort of judgment about something. And then there's a school of thought that thinks that happiness is a sort of capability that it's, you know, that knowing or feeding that I can deal with, anything is a feeling of happiness. It is sort of like a perceived resilience going forward that, you know, I can cope with things. So in that sense, I think that there is a functional element to an actually purely from a psychological perspective or a nuisance perspective than our feelings and emotions actually help us acts in the world. So there is a sort of, they are not just there as sort of a nice sensation actually motivate us to behave in certain ways. So that is how I tend to think of it as a, you know, feeling good and doing well.

But then there's another nuance, which I quite like, which goes actually right back to ancient Greek Philosophy, which is whether it's about pleasure and meaning. And the hedonist talk about pleasure and Aristotle and people had talked about, eudemonia thought about it as sort of meaning and virtue. Justified this idea that you can only know if you're happy when you're at the end of your life and you're looking back, which is quite harsh, but in a way I think it's both in the sense that if we have a life which is meaningful, but no fun, then we run out of energy quite quickly. And if it's all fun and pleasure and there's no meaning, then we sort of lose our way and we kind of need both of those parts and, they work in different timeframes and so there's a nice tension between them and a nice synergy between them. And obviously there are times when it get you in life, which, you know, you feel you've got lots of meaning, but no pleasure. And you can get yourself into a crisis about that. I mean, I been divorced and I have actually gotten a situation where my marriage was hugely meaningful to me, but I really did not enjoy it and that created a sort of crack in my life that I had to resolve. I think that way as well, so that's sort of two different ways of feeling good and doing well and pleasure and meaning.

Steve Rush: I quite like the whole principle of it is quite an emotional response as well isn't it. It is a personal response to what is going on around us, I guess.

Nic Mark: Yeah, Our feelings are very much about what is going on around us. They are sort of us, and our environment. In fact, the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio don't know, if you've ever read him. Have you read him?

Steve Rush: I have, I have.

Nic Marks: Have you read his most recent one? The strange order of things.

Steve Rush: Maybe give us a snippet from that.

Nic Marks: It is a funny title of a book, but basically he's talking about feelings and emotions come before cognition come before central nervous systems in our evolutionary history.

Steve Rush: Right.

Nic Markss: And, that they actually help us do three things, feelings. They help us monitor our environments. They help motivate us to act and they help us adjust those actions over time. And that first one of monitoring is sort of, you know, our feelings are actually, I have to say our feelings are data that they actually give us information about what's going on around us. And that's not just our feelings become emotions, but, you know, do we feel hot or cold? Do we feel hungry? Do we feel thirsty? It's basically telling us about, and it's motivating us to act in some sort of ways, but you know, our feeling of feeling frightened is that it feels like there's a danger out there and that we need to help avoid or get ourselves out of that threat. And we often have the feeling well before we have the cognition and that's really his argument is that the feeding comes first. Then we apply our intelligence to that feeling and deciding how we are going to act.

Steve Rush: And the cognition of course prevents us from doing crazy things, which is why the executive part of our brain slows down and stops in some cases what we will deal with those emotional reactions, of course.

Nic Marks: Yeah, I am not a total expert on the absolute specifics in it, but they absolutely are interconnected. Actually, even if you think about something positive, like happiness, which is a little bit of a sort of gateway word to a whole range of positive emotions. We can use the word very broadly, but then actually gets specifics. You know, some people would say, even if I say what happiness, mean to you? They will say contentment and other people will say joy. Contentment and joy quite different. Yeah, one is very high energy and one's quite low energy, and of course, there is actually a whole range of things in there. Like, you know, joy and enjoyment are different and amusement. And, you know, things like enjoyment, amusement, laughter are sort of very social and they are very about bonding with other people.

So when you're having a laugh with people or mucking around, you actually slow down…you shut down your executive decision making and your full intelligence because you're trying to bond, but it doesn't pay you to be your brightest, most sort of challenging self at that moment. You better to conform, so, you know, so actually, there are times when we are happy when, we are probably less intelligent, but there are other times, you know if we think about other forms of happiness, such as curiosity or interest, which are very engaging parts, that sort of positive emotion when we are absolutely fully using our intelligence. And I think it's sometimes why in business and organizations, people get worried about happiness. They try to think people be happy, clappy and not very bright. Well, there is certain forms of it, which that is true for, so they can point to it. But actually what they really want is people to be positive and safe, enthusiastic, and sometimes to have a laugh, but just maybe 5-10% of the time and other times we are doing other bits, so there's really this whole myriad of different positive emotions and we want to be agile and moving around between them.

Steve Rush: Sure. Now society also plays a massive part in this doesn't it? So over the last 10 or 15 years, if you think about it, societies describe happiness with good economies, wealth, good social wellbeing and obedience, having researched just that, all over the planet, what's your take on how that plays out?

Nic Marks: Well, it is for certain that nations have different levels of average happiness and actually different distributions of happiness in them and some that both the averages and the distribution can be explained by economic and societal factors. And, and then there's stuff more below that but you know, if we look at rank orders of nations on happiness, then Scandinavian countries tend to come top, and that's a lot to do with their social safety net. Which is, it's not really to do with the fact that that's the sort of…I was going to say the average, but by the average, I mean the media and the person in the middle is not particularly happy and Scandinavia and say in the UK or the U.S. but where they are, they do much, much better. Is that the bottom half of the distribution or the lowest 25% in terms of income are match less unhappy in Scandinavia than they are in the UK, the U.S. and places like that, so it is more that they don't have the tail of the distribution pulling the mean down. They have more equal distribution of happiness within it, and that's kind of interesting if you, you know, because people often go, oh, well, you know, you could say the Swedes are happier, but, you know, don't, they have high suicide rates, don't they have this. And, you know, I don't find the fins very extrovert, but, and that's probably all true. I mean, but there are other factors also, which is if you live in a broadly happy society and you are unhappy, you probably take it more personally, and so actually countries with a higher happiness rate may possibly have a highest suicide rate. Whereas if you live in a country such as India or Pakistan, or somewhere where there is much lower levels, you know, suicide rates are probably lower because people feel more normalized about their happiness.

Steve Rush: Less highs and lows, is that how I am reading it?

Nic Marks: Yeah, sort of. You feel less personal; you know if everyone around you is happy and you are miserable, you feel it is very much your fault. And so therefore, you know, I'm a burden on other people. Then you get into this very difficult logic where you start thinking it is actually better for you to take your own life, which is tragically, how some people get. Whereas if everybody is, you just feel like, what does that mean to all of us? Which you know, which in the current situation with the anxiety around looked down and COVID because everybody feels in the same boat, we are not sort of; we are feeling more open about our anxiety because we kind of know it's not about us feeling bad. It is about the environment, so that makes it easy to talk about.

Steve Rush: You also spent a significant amount of time pulling together, enormous research to create the Happy Planet Index. Just tell the listeners a little bit about what the Happy Planet Index is?

Nic Marks: Yeah, the Happy Planet Index is sort of a proposed alternative to GDP as a way of measuring the progress of nations. And I've always felt that GDP was a really bad measure of welfare, of the wellbeing of a nation. In fact, one of my first published bits of work is from 94 and it was an alternative to GDP, but it was very complicated. It was very objective. It was basically a huge cost benefit analysis of the economy and had a lot of assumptions in it. And I knew it was very complicated, but when I used to go talk to talks about it, rightly or wrongly, but it did show was that about the mid-seventies was about the highest in this index and it trading often. People go to me, that is how it feels to me, particularly older people would do.

Steve Rush: Right.

Nic Marks: And I always thought that is interesting. It does not say anything about what you feel. It is just a whole lot of economic data put together. That started me perhaps thinking about how you measure what you feel, but when it came to the Happy Planet Index, which was released in 2006, so like 12 years after that first bit of work, I want to do something very simple and easier to agree with. I sort of learned that complexity and indicators tends to put people off, or if they get interested, they then start looking at all the assumptions and the debate gets about the detail and not the bigger picture. And so what I did with the HPI was I said, well, you know, what's the outcome you really want from a country, and I said, it's to produce good lives that don't cost the earth and the planet, but in there is the sustainability element of it.

And so I went, well, you could measure good lives by asking, by looking at the data on happiness, across nations, say the quality of people's lives, you can then adjust that for the length of our life, so life expectancy, which is a very good, reliable piece of health statistics. You've got data on from around the world, but you've also got to think about the efficiency as a nation. Like how much resources does it use to get there? So the Happy Planet Index became a, you know, environmental efficiency of delivering wellbeing, a sort of bang for your buck indicator and that is what it is. It rank ordered nations across the world and basically you have some countries which have got high wellbeing, but high environmental impact and that will be typically Western rich countries. You've got countries which have got low wellbeing, but low environmental impact, so those are sub Saharan Africa and other nations, which are really struggling. Then you've got countries which are interesting, which I've got pretty good levels of wellbeing and much lower resource use and typically they were central Latin America and, some of the islands of the world, or some of the Asian countries, which were doing well. And that became interesting to think, you know, okay, how can we create a sustainable future, which is also a good future. Because the problem with the environmental movement, which, you know, I certainly have been a part of and absolutely bought into. I think they sell very negative visions of the future with the idea that you can scare people into changing their behaviour and I think we can all see over the last 25 years that has not worked.

So, you know, how do we do it in a way which we actually say to people, actually, this could be a better future. And in some ways, some of that is going on right now with COVID in that people are thinking about, oh, I'm staying at home, I'm traveling much less. It is actually less stressful for me, and it is about identifying those positives, you know, as we come out of COVID. It would be a shame if we don't take some benefits in reducing carbon emissions and other things. I mean, that would be disappointing having had this forced on us to not, gets some positives out and not everyone welcomes COVID; we could still get some positives out of it.

Steve Rush: Almost the planet's opportunity, if you just start giving back, isn't it at this time?

Nic Marks: Yeah, I mean, there are people that go all that way and say it's in a guy's feedback and I don't go quite to that level, but it's an opportunity, isn't it? I think like any setback is an opportunity to learn, even if you didn't want to get into it.

Steve Rush: We are going to start to talk a little bit about what you're doing at the moment with Friday Pulse, but just before we do, what is the happiest place statistically on earth?

Nic Marks: Well, last year's data showed Finland as the happiest nation. Then I, the only within country data that I know very well is the UK. And the regions of the UK, and I think it always surprises people, but actually London is the least happy region because it's urban because inequalities are high there and things of that, and people are very close together. Whereas the happiest region of the UK is Northern Ireland, which is much more rural and of course, recent memories of troubles, so they've actually got sort of point to go back to.

So there's sort of different things, but at the national level, it's Finland at the moment, but it has been Norway previously and Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark have done well. Costa Rica is a very surprising one that comes through that is particularly happy compared to its GDP. So yeah, that is the way it is sort of is.

Steve Rush: Cool, and what would be the kind of one or two things that are consistent across those higher ranking, happier places?

Nic Marks: So there is income distribution, which they basically tend to be more equal countries which is what Scandinavia is, and actually even Costa Rica is more equal than such of neighbours around it, you know, Nicaragua, Guatemala and all those other places around there. So it does very well in that and there's also high levels of literacy. Gender equality in Costa Rico, which of course are things that Scandinavia is particularly good at, so equality tends to come out stronger than people think, but of course, you know, richer countries are happier. That is sort of undeniable. They are just not becoming any happier with the extra amounts of wealth we have. We are not seeing those countries on a trajectory to become happier. The countries that are on a trajectory to become happier are some of the developing countries because they are reducing poverty. They are reducing, you know, early deaths, so you know that obviously is a positive.

Steve Rush: And I wonder, is it more visible to them at the same time?

Nic Marks: Yes, it probably is. I mean, there are differences between them, like South Korea has been studied quite a lot because they have obviously been one of the Asian tigers and, you know, their happiness levels have gone up, but they are very, very materialistic there. And they haven't gone up as much as say a country like Vietnam or something like that who is slightly less so, so there were interesting differences between them. And some of them have to do with density of population as well, but there's not just sort of one straight pathway, there are differences.

Steve Rush: Makes lots of sense. Thank you very much, Nic. So the organization you lead now, Friday Pulse. Seeks to take that distillation of happiness data, but from the colleagues and customers of the organizations that you work with. To create something that leadership and other colleagues can actually use as a lens to get a sense check of how their workforce feels, how happy they are almost. Tell us a little bit, about how Friday Pulse was created?

Nic Marks: Yeah, I did my Ted talk on the Happy Planet Index and other work I have done in 2010. And obviously that's quite an honour, and I sort of came out of it, thinking it sort of allowed an opportunity to sort of bookend that part of my work and I accidentally got into policy and I done it for 10-12 years then. When you are working on something like climate change, it is quite slow moving and, you know, I thought when I have got something in and maybe do something and I was always interested in business, my dad was a businessman. He led an organization and I thought, well, this is very applicable there. You know, if leaders knew how happy you are not, teams were, that would get them useful information. So I started creating a happiness at work survey, which was a one off survey to begin with and learned a lot about how the data worked in organizations started to get my own opinion about what I thought the drivers of happiness at work were and how we could measure them. But actually hadn't created a tool that was exceptionally responsive. You know, it's like a one off survey, like most other surveys are, but started to think, well actually, what really an organization needs to know is how it's moving through time.

And so start thinking, there is a way of measurement of happiness we call. There is three ways of measuring happiness really, We can do, what is called a cognitive assessment, which is what most surveys are, which is we ask people to look overall and reflect on it. You can do something which is called experience sampling, where you basically bleed people during the day or text them or whatever. Say, how do you feel right now? It gives really nice data, but it's really annoying. So the one in between is called episodal, measurements and you get to the end of an episode, you ask people to reflect back on it. And I decided to go for that way of measuring it and started off asking people various cadences, so a month, how has the last month been. A day, how has your day been? and settled on a week because daily was a little bit too annoying.

And also you could only just ask people how happy were you or not, and nothing more. If you ask them monthly, it was not very responsive. You so much can happen in a month. As we have learned recently and weekly is the sort of sprint of work. We go; we tend to work too, so we ask people on a Friday that is why we called Friday Pulse. You know, how was your week? How did you feel this week? And that creates a very responsive, we call it happiness KPI, but a very responsive metric, which when you group at a team level, there's effectively a measure of team morale. When you group at an organizational level, it is people's experience of the culture of the organization, experience of work right now. And so you can look at that, and I mean, the good thing about a question like that is you can ask, you know, truck driver, that question, you can ask a CEO with that question and they can give you an answer to it.

Whereas if you ask people how engaged were you this week, most people don't even know how to answer that question. They have an idea of what the top of the scale is particularly. They know if they are disengaged, they know where the top of the scale is. So when you ask people how you felt and were you happy or not? They can give you an answer that is very good, reliable data in that way.

Steve Rush: And what do you notice the themes are that contribute to a happy culture at work for leaders listening to this podcast?

Nic Marks: There are some general themes across an organization, and there are ways that you can articulate it. So the way that we do is we say there were five ways to happiness at work and, and they are connect, which is relationships are the most important. They are the cornerstone of creating good experiences or undermining experience for that case, for that matter.

The second one is to be fair, which is if people feel they are treated fairly, respectfully, then they can bring themselves to work much more. The third is to empower them sort of their autonomy delegating yet and use their strengths. The fourth is to challenge them, so this is sort of misunderstanding of happiness that people are happy doing nothing. It is actually not true they board and actually, people would like it when there is a bit of stretch. Not, if you stretch them too much, challenge them too much, they go and stress. If you under challenge them, they are going into apathy and boredom. You've got to get the right sweet spot, which has always tends to be the way anyway, and then the fifth one is to inspire, which is about meaning purpose, where they feel it doing is worthwhile.

So those five things connect be fair, impact, challenge, inspire are the big drivers, but then there is specific things that go on, which has really to do with the environment and what is going on around them very locally. Which is that some people, some teams will find them in a very stressful situation or their work environments are stressful. So with people moving remote at the moment and very quickly moved remote a few weeks ago, you know, that some people were happier working at home than others and lots to do their environments, whether they got children, whether they have the right equipment at home, where they had a quiet space, you know, whatever it was. So some of those things are very, very local and some of those bigger, broader cultural things. So yeah, those two effects really.

Steve Rush: And like any business and any part of any business it is feedback, data that I am getting an also alien to that is that leadership choices to what I do with that information as I receive it. Right?

Nic Marks: Totally and in fact, the whole of Friday Pulse is really a feedback loop. And actually it's very similar to therapy in some ways, which is that in therapy. Therapist listens to their client, and they reflect back to them and then they work with them about the challenges that they are facing. And we listened to the population, the employees by asking them every Friday, how do they feel? We feed that back to them and the team leaders, and then senior leaders, you stack the data up in nice reporting, and that enables people to then work together to make better experiences. So one of the things I am very keen on this, people don't just focus on the negatives. Don't just focus on the deficits. They actually appreciate the assets and the positives going on, and so on a Friday, we don't only ask people how they felt. We also asked them, what was success for you this week? Have you got anyone you want to thank because appreciating each other, is really important for both sides of that equation. Then we give people the opportunity to share a frustration or an idea to make things better. But actually most of our clients really, really work on accentuating the positive because in lots of ways, businesses tend to focus on how do you solve problems? What comes up? And actually probably often don't take the time to go, yes, good job, and to actually get that human appreciation, which actually we all really respond well to.

Steve Rush: And hitting back to the neuroscience we talked on a little bit earlier; of course, it will release different neurotransmitters that create that self-fulfilling prophecy of getting additional positive outcomes from our thinking and our behaviours, which helps improve happiness of course.

Nic Marks: It certainly does. And I mean, all of this works together, you know, physically, but I always think about it as like, you know, if someone compliments you and your sort of head goes up and your shoulders go back and you sort of feel bigger because you're feeling confident. Whereas when someone criticizes you, you can tend to sort of hunch up and pull your shell in, you know, and protect yourself. And we're much better when we're expensive and shoulders back, and actually other people like working with us more like that as well. So there is so much to be gained from being positive, but of course you have to be realistic. You know, it does not mean to say you let people travel down into a sort of fantasy world where everyone is doing a good job. No, it was a point is, you know, really differentiating and really understanding and helping people build on their positives.

Steve Rush: So this part of the show, we are going to turn away from you being a statistician, but look at you through your leadership lens of running an organization. And at this part of the show, we like to ask our guests to share their top leadership hacks or ideas. So if you could share based on your experience as a leader, your top leadership hacks, what would they be? Nic.

Nic Marks: I think that the big thing is listening to people, you know, I don't employ people to tell them what to do. I employ people to work with them and, get the best out of them and actually learning to bring the best out of them. The main way is listening to them even when they disagree with you, so I think listening is probably the first one.

Second one is I think little and often, I think I've tried to where I've gone wrong previously would be when I've tried to do big interventions. And actually I think doing smaller ones, checking is a much better way. But consistently I definitely have had to learn that, you know, leadership is a, weekly process, maybe even a daily process, but a weekly one, you know, where you're asking questions every week and you're listening every week rather than just sort of going, right. These are our goals for the next quarter. Then checking in 2-3 months later, realizing people have gone down a different tangent or, something has emerged, maybe for good reasons, but you don't know about them so I think little and often is probably.

The next one for me, definitely, I think inspiring people, which is that I hold the vision for the company. I don't necessarily hold the solutions, but I hold the vision for where we're going and why we're doing it. And remembering to remind people about that, so reminding them of the why, but it's actually, you know, bringing that into, your weekly work. I mean, particularly with all the adjustments we have made just recently and COVID and everyone going remote, you know, I sort of had to remind myself to remind everybody why we're doing this. If that makes sense.

Steve Rush: It makes sense. One of those things that you set up a vision to start with and other things get in the way. And we, as leaders also need reminding that is our job to remind people and to make sure that, we continually talking about the journey and how are we going to get there and what's going to get in the way and remove barriers. It's part and parcel of that. Isn't it?

Nic Marks: Yeah, it definitely is and it is actually a bit of the job I really like. Some of the detail bits, I am less good at it. I mean, it is funny; I am very good at details and stats. But I can sometimes of like, you know, I probably like many people not got the longest attention span and I sometimes sort of get stopped and I have to beat myself up for it, but the inspiring bit and the listening to how they feel and what they're doing. I mean, I can do that for ages because I really liked people and I really believe in what we are doing. So those are the bits I find easier. It is keeping people on track and the detail that is always my learning edge.

Steve Rush: Thanks for being so honest and great hacks also. So when we start to think that this partnership we've really enjoyed getting into the heads of our leaders and our guests where they've maybe screwed up in the past or something's gone catastrophic wrong, and indeed they are now using that experience as a positive in their life. We call this Hack to Attack. What would yours be?

Nic Marks: Hack to Attack? Well, I mean, in some ways I've sort of pointed to it with a little bit of those last bits, but I think that I have definitely been guilty of letting things run for too long cause I wasn't confident enough to challenge people. And, and so, you know, previously had someone in the business and you know, she has some really strong qualities, but just sort of always going pear shapes. And, and I, kept on coming back to every three or four months, but really we should have partied companies at least a year before we eventually did. And that cost us a lot, and she wasn't happy. She was not doing quite what she wanted. I was trying to, I guess, force her, so there was a role that needed doing and I was wanting her to do that role and she was not quite wanting to do it and she was definitely capable of it. But it just sort of ran on far too long, and in the end it all became very messy and angry. If I dealt with it much earlier. We would have had a lot less problems and it's the same problem I had with my marriage actually, which was that, you know, I let things run too long and I should have been challenging about that earlier. I think that is my weaknesses tending to gloss over some of the negatives, my positivity overrides listening to negative feedback or negative signals. And I think that's actually really important leadership is to be able to one, hear the negative signal and two, deal with it because it doesn't go away.

Steve Rush: It is great learning, Nic and also think about the themes that you are now encouraging other leaders to talk about through Friday Pulse. There is a lot of synergies there in terms of what your learned behaviour. What you are encouraging others to learn from now, so that is super stuff. The last thing I wanted to talk to you about, and this is where we are going to ask you to do some time travel. I want you to think about if you were able to bump into Nic at 21; you are able to give him one bit of advice that would make the difference. What would it be?

Nic Marks: I quite like my life, even my mistakes. So, you know, that is not like something I would massively want to change. I mean, I think I was a little uptight as a 21. I was a little serious and I had the future weighed on me quite a lot. I sort of kind of had this feeling. I wanted to do something and I probably wanted to do it quicker than was possible. And you know, and I mean, I have actually done things which are interesting. I think I would just say, you know, relax. It will be okay. Follow what you are interested in, I mean, in some ways I have done that actually. So, but when I was 21, I was a little bit; I was a little bit still uptight, yeah.

Steve Rush: If only Nic would know the 21-year-old, Nic who might have been a little bit uptight. Still found is way to be where you are now, which is, you know, impacting the lives of many of the people, so that's great advice.

Nic Marks: It is nice to think that. The 21-year-old Nic would be horrified at the thought that that 55-year-old Nic got divorced. He would not like that at all, but apart from that, he pretty much take the rest.

Steve Rush: Good stuff. Okay, as people have been listening to you, Nic. We will make sure that we encourage him to get over to Ted and have a look at the Happy Planet Index talk, which I think is really inspiring and I love that, but where else can they find out about the work that you do with Friday Pulse and indeed some of the things that you do now?

Nic Marks: Yeah. Friday Pulse is the name of the company, so it is fridaypulse.com and it is actually, we are offering it free for organizations up to a thousand people at the moment. So they can try it for three months and see how they go with it and see how they like the data and how they can work with it. I create blog articles and posts on LinkedIn most week. Connect with me on LinkedIn; I always like meeting new people there and I have a personal website, which is more my sort of speaking musing, which is nicmark.org. Nic is no K a in that, so those are the main ways to find me.

Steve Rush: We will make sure there in the show notes to accompany this podcast as well Nic. So as people are finished listening, they can literally just click into those links and then hop over to find you.

Nic Marks: Fabulous, thank you.

Steve Rush: Nic, I just wanted to say I am incredibly happy that you have chosen to be with The Leadership Hacker Podcast. I have spoken to you a few times now and I have loved the conversations that we have had and as a result, I know we're going to get a lot of happy hackers listening to you too. So thanks for being on, The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Nic Marks: Thank so much for having me.

Closing

View Details

Kristin Zhivago is the President of Zhivago Partners. She is a revenue coach, digital marketing expert and author of Roadmap to Revenue. In this episode you can learn about:

The role of Mindset in leading marketing
How to sell the way your customers want to buy
The buying process vs. The sales process
The difference between Brand and Branding
The benefits of a “No Jerk” policy

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Find out more about Kristin below:

Website: https://zhivagopartners.com

Blog: https://kristinswisdom.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinzhivago/

Book: Roadmap to Revenue

Full Transcript Below:

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

On today’s show, we have Kristen Zhivago. She is the president of Zhivago Partners. She is a revenue coach and a digital marketing expert. Before we get a chance to speak with Kristen, it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: South Korean baseball fans may not be allowed to watch their favourite teams live at stadiums due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but NC Dino stands where not empty, thanks to life-size cardboard cut-outs of portraits sent in by their fans. The Korean baseball organization league season kicked off this month after a five-week delay due to the coronavirus; all games were played however, without any fans in attendance. No fans were allowed in, even though the league reopened. Dino marketing manager Parc Jung-Un said, we thought about ways of giving enjoyment to fans and motivations to players, but keeping everybody safe, the club had more than 60 fans participating by sending their own pitches in, along with their favourite players and even their pets. Han Dong-Su a 38-year-old baseball fan said outside the stadium. I can't go in, but my avatar is cheering the team on instead of me and it just feels like I'm in the stadium. The club also set out cardboard, cut-outs of characters of other fans, of other teams and declared it support for them on Twitter. The South Korean team are getting support from baseball teams across the United States and across the world and more and more fans are set to send their cardboard cut-outs in to support the teams virtually. It was a major marketing hit, it is allowing a connectivity to the club while at the same time, promoting a togetherness, which of course connect fans loyalty and is demonstrating some great marketing leadership. That has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news insights or crazy stories that we could share with our listeners, please get in touch with us.

The Interview

Steve Rush: I am joined on today show by Kristin Zhivago. She is the president of Zhivago Partners. She is a revenue coach, digital marketing expert and author. Kristen, welcome to the Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Kristin Zhivago: Thank you very much, nice to be here.

Steve Rush: Keen to get inside the mind of what a revenue coach is but before we get into that, just tell us a little bit about your backstory. So you've been a leader of Zhivago Partners for a number of years, and you've worked through Silicon Valley for a while. Just tell us a little bit; about what you have done and tell, us maybe a little bit, about how you've arrived, where you've arrived?

Kristin Zhivago: So I started selling when I was really young and discovered really early on through some painful experiences that you need to know what you're talking about before you can sell it. And that painful experience was in a technical environment and I just was so embarrassed that I didn't know what I was talking about, that I decided to devote the rest of my career to selling and learning everything I could about tech, and I've been doing that ever since. It never stopped.

Steve Rush: Can you tell us a little bit about that experience?

Kristin Zhivago: Yeah, I was the first woman to sell machine shop tools in the U.S. as far as I know; the Pratt & Whitney Distributor told me that was the deal. He gave me a catalogue and you know, I was back in the days of miniskirts and I just went out and sold. Called on companies back then I was in San Diego. There was a small Silicon Valley growing and in San Diego and there was one machine shop foreman who kind of called me out. You know, everybody came out to see who was there and why she was in the machine shop. This was back a while ago and he asked me, you know, why is your drill bit better than the one I am using now? And I didn't have an answer, and he said, honey, you better learn this stuff before you go out and sell.

So that was my big fat, embarrassing moment, you know, as a senior in high school and I thought, you know, when you're senior in high school, you think you're hot stuff. And man, I just slunk back to the car and that's when I made that life changing decision, and been following that ever since, been a really great thing. Anyway, so started an agency in Silicon Valley, did that with my husband for a long time. Then the Macintosh came along and I said. Why don't you retire? I am going to go out and help people market in house because they were all using the Mac to do stuff in house and I ended up inventing myself as a revenue coach and I basically taught CEOs and entrepreneurs how to sell more by understanding what their customers really wanted to buy and how they wanted to buy.

It did a lot of marketing and sales turnarounds for companies of all sizes, including Dow Jones and did a lot of work for IBM for a number of years, writing instructions for their marketing people, so it was fun. But as I got older, I started realizing that the digital marketing stuff was really confusing business owners, especially those that weren't digitally astute themselves. Decided to help them and opened up a Zhivago Partners, which is a digital agency in 2017. That is where I am now, have a wonderful worldwide virtual staff and specialists, and core infrastructure people and we are just having a wonderful time.

Steve Rush: That is awesome and it is really interesting to notice that in many successful entrepreneurs like yourself, there's seems to be that epiphany moment, that moment where something's happened in their life, where they go, Grrrrrr, this is it. I'm going to head in this direction. Great it was so early for you in your career.

Kristin Zhivago: Yeah.

Steve Rush: You talk about a revenue coach. What is the role of a revenue coach?

Kristin Zhivago: Well, as I said, I did a lot of marketing and sales turnarounds, so I'd go into a failing marketing department or failing sales department and I always thought I could do it in two or three months. And it always took eight, I mean, it was just the reality and after a while I knew that, of course but it takes time to get the current team where they're at. Fire the jerk if there is a jerk, you got to get rid of them because he's dragging everybody else down. He or she and put the right people in the right jobs and get the processes fixed. 9 times out of 10, the biggest problems were always processes and I found that in all of my revenue coaching work, so I had literally have interviewed thousands of customers and worked with hundreds of CEOs and entrepreneurs and that is the biggest problem. They think they know what the customer is thinking and they don’t. So there is just a lot of stuff that you have to work on to turn things around and, make it a profitable exercise and make sure that you are marketing to the customer and doing the right thing.

Steve Rush: Often businesses, I think, tend to market with their own lens don't they? Their own perception of, what their customers want and how does that kind of play out in the work that you do, changing that perception?

Kristin Zhivago: Yeah, that ended up being the main job of my career. In the sense that every time I went to work for a company, I would ask them what was important to their customers. And they had a list of, you know, 5 or 10 things that they really believed were important to their customers. Then I go out and interview their customers and their customers had a completely different list, so I knew that they were off the Mark. They just were not hitting the customer where the customer lived.

Steve Rush: Right.

Kristin Zhivago: And going back to processes, I realized that I had this sort of this famous quote now attributed to me, which is that branding is the promise that you make, but your brand is the promise that you keep and they are not the same quite often. The tools that people have to keep their promises so that their brand actually matches their branding are the people, the processes, the policies, and the passion of the leader. And there's one other, I can't remember at the moment, it's a lot of P’s. Anyway, the biggest one that was always a problem was the processes. They usually had pretty good people, if the guy wasn't a jerk, they had good policies, made good decisions, but the processes were terrible and people suffered under that, and even in the age of apps that we're living in now. Where you are only as good as your apps, processes are a big deal, which is why when I started this company. The first person I hired was an app whisperer and infrastructure assistant kind of person who helped me build the systems, which is basically what Amazon did. You know, Jeff Bezos. It was a process centric company and he just plugged in all these other products into the processes that he built.

Steve Rush: It is really neat and I particularly liked that quote by the way, branding versus brand. Branding is what you send out isn't it but brand is where you make that emotional connection with your customers.

Kristian Zhivago: Well, it is keeping your promises is whether you do what you say. If you say, we care about you and you leave them on hold for 15 minutes, when they first call, or they go through voicemail help. Well guess what. Your actions say, just the opposite, which is why people get angry at big corporations, because they make all these glowing promises in their ads and everything. We care about you and all that, and then you try to interact with the company and it is not like that at all. They are like your worst enemy kind of thing. They are stopping you from trying to achieve your goals. They don't understand you. They don't understand your mind-set

Steve Rush: And mind-set plays a big part and I guess we will come to pick some of that in a moment. I am keen to explore with you. We had a great conversation the last time we spoke where we share some similar views around the whole buying and selling principle. In my coaching and consulting career. Not once if I found anybody who likes to be sold to, but they still have sales driven teams. What is your experience about the kind of the dichotomy of buying versus selling?

Kristian Zhivago: Well, you bring up a really good point. Every CEO I have ever talked to, doesn't like to be sold to, and yet they hire salespeople and they go out and they hunt and they make a hundred cold calls and gets through to one person. That system is very broken; it is almost as broken as you can get in a business system. It just does not work and customers have gotten so good with caller ID and everything. They don't even pick up their phone. They just wait to see who it was and if, they think they really wanted to talk to them, they are going to leave a voicemail. I have probably bought something off a cold call, maybe once out of every three years or something like that. Maybe it is once out of every year. I don't know, but it feels like more and every CEO is the same way, but they don't treat their customers that way. They assume that these, you know, marketing has a lot of language about targets and a shotgun approach and, you know, rifle. We treat these folks like they're animals that we're hunting down and it doesn't, really work. It is kind of insulting and just calling someone out of the blue and thinking, or assuming that they are going to be in the market for your product at that moment, we're kind of forgetting that there's a moment in time when somebody wants to buy what you're selling. And that moment is very urgent and that moment drives all of the marketing things people do. Search engine optimization and they go out and they search, they talk to their friends, they read reviews, all of the things that you need to do to be there when they're ready are so much more important than just sending a guy out.

I have nothing against sales. I have been in sales half of all my life. In my own company, I have always had like an 80 or 90% closing rate. I know how to sell, but selling is not really selling anymore. Selling is being there when the customer has a need for what you sell. It is showing up when they go looking and then answering their questions, the buyer's journey is nothing more than a series of questions that need to be answered to this buyer satisfaction. And the minute you answer in a way that turns them off or something, they're not going to tell you, we all play poker when we're being sold to we're negotiating. We don't say, Oh man, you just blew it. I am probably one of the few people in the world that actually does stop the sales guy and say, you just blew it because I can't help myself. You know, I feel sorry for him, but I will say, you know, what you just said is an absolute turnoff and I will not buy from you. We are done and he would be just like….

Steve Rush: Good feedback!

Kristin Zhivago: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And I guess the sales, person's just going to get lucky if the customer is in that buying space, unless you really understand that customer need. And you understand the journey that they're about to take in that buying process, right?

Kristin Zhivago: Yes, but again, there is a timing problem. I mean, it is like going after somebody who is married and just, you know, trying to get them to love you. And it's like, no, excuse me, I'm married. It is kind of like that. I mean, if you are happy, where you are, nothing they say is going to make you change your mind. If you are unhappy and you are looking for a solution. Well, then you're going to be going out and looking for a solution and your mind-set will be, I have to solve this problem and you leave breadcrumbs all over the place, looking for a solution and the trick is people have to be there when they go looking in that specific mind-set. And that's how we get leads for our clients, we figure out what that specific mind-set is and it's very specific. Then we advertise to that, so to speak, we put the message out. We say those words, that appeal to them in that mind-set, so we are basically hunting for mind-sets and they come looking for us. It is a matchmaking thing.

Steve Rush: Got it, and your whole approach now is driven through that whole mind-set driven marketing approach, isn't it? Tell us a little bit more, about how that came about.

Kristin Zhivago: Yeah, I am actually going full scale on that. I am just about to launch it, so you are getting a preview, but is the idea that if you understand very specifically what their mind-set is, and the way you do that is as I pointed out in my book. Roadmap To Revenue, How To Sell The Way Your Customers Want To Buy. In chapter three, I explained exactly how to go out and find the information among your current customer, so you can basically reverse engineer a successful sale and create new sales in quantity because you will understand their exact mind-set and once you have that, then you want to make an offer that appeals to that specific mind-set. And that leads to an outcome that both of you are happy with. Customer gets what they want and you get what you want. You get a sale. It is a formula is very simple and the reason it is so hard is because people…I know that, you know, in my book, I talk about discovery debate and deploy, so you discover you debate and you deploy, which is how marketing should work, but people always miss the first part. They don't discover, they assume and that assumption is very dangerous and very expensive.

Steve Rush: I have experience that as a buyer too, having then ended up with perhaps the wrong solution as a result.

Kristin Zhivago: Oh yeah. That is really sad. I mean, regrets are in…especially when you are buying a B2B, but even in B2C, I mean, buying regrets are very sad because you have spent the money. You have gone through all that trouble to get the right thing up and in the case of say enterprise software; you have trained all your people. Then you discover we have all had this experience now because we have all had software long enough where you get the whole thing set up and then you discover there is a got you, that's a deal killer. It is a showstopper. It is like, wait, I remember I have one of my clients before I showed up who had a group working for him. They had this great software program and he started to put his whole business on it. He spent a hundred thousand dollars and then they discovered that it did not interact with their mail program. Now you roll your eyes and say, well, excuse me, but it was some interaction thing where when the lead came in, you know, they would be alerted and this was a little while ago. Now everybody assumes that is going to happen, but he had to stop the whole thing. He wasted a hundred thousand dollars, and all that effort and all that excitement and training and everything for something that did not work, so buyers are sceptical. I mean, I used to say we are selling software and a scepticism swamp because people have been burned so often.

Software has been around a long time now, and people have been disappointed and I don't know how many project management systems I've gone through myself. Probably 35 or 40 of them really, truly testing and trying to figure it out, making it work until you find the right one, and when it's good, it's really good, but getting there is hard and everybody promises that, Oh yeah, no problem. It is all good. You know, it all worked, we can make it work and then it does not work, and you are out all that time and money, it is very frustrating.

Steve Rush: Given that, we have so much more data, in our hands now and marketing can be more scientific. What do you think the reason is that organizations spend a disproportionate amount of time getting their marketing right? Versus getting their sales channels right.

Kristin Zhivago: Well selling is very understandable, so somebody who is a finance guy or an engineer or something, it seems very black and white. You know, you send a guy out there, you make a hundred calls and every day or every couple of days, and you know, you'll see results. I mean, it just seems like arithmetic. If you beat enough bushes, you are going to shake something out of the tree or whatever, I am using for my analogies. So it makes sense and it ignores the customer's mind-set completely. I mean, it even ignores the fact that they hate cold calls and they don't like being approached by salespeople and they do everything they can to avoid them in their own life, but they think it’s okay to do that to their customers, search for their prospects.

Steve Rush: Very true.

Kristin Zhivago: And another thing they do is they think that the salespeople are bringing back market data. And the way I get around that is I look at the CEO and I say, okay, your salespeople are going out there talking to customers and they're coming back with valid customer data, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, we hear from them and they call us after the call and blah, blah. Okay, so when was the last time you told a salesperson, what you were really thinking while you were being sold to? Crickets, because they never say, like I said, they're playing poker, they're negotiating. They don't want to tell the guy what they're really thinking. Unlike me, where I actually stopped the thing and tell the guy that he's got a real problem here. Because I feel sorry for him, CEOs won't do that. They are just going to let you be stupid, and you go through the whole thing and they shake your hand at the end of the call. Then the CEO goes right back to his computer and starts Googling the solution again, because he knows he is not going to hire that guy or that company, so they will not tell you what they're really thinking while you are selling to them. However, the secret, the big thing that I learned was that there are more than happy to talk after you have sold to them and they are happy.

They have invested in you and they want you to succeed, so they don't mind. People are basically unless, they're jerks. They are basically helpful and they'll spend 30 minutes on the phone with you. You ask open-ended questions, so you would get what they are really thinking. Not what you think, they are thinking with a survey or something where you are making them do multiple choice or whatever. But you really just doing that discovery and finding out what they really think about that subject, and getting the truth out of them. And then turning that into report that's anonymized and categorized by question and answer so that the executives in the company finally get to see what people are really thinking, why they bought from this company, not the other company, what the competitors did, what they think about, what their concerns were, what their biggest problem is. And that gives you a map, I mean, every single time we're talking hundreds of times that I came back in with this information and the CEO and the other executives were in the room. They were having that V8 moment. You know, where you slap your forehead, I could have had a V8.

Steve Rush: Right.

Kristin Zhivago: It was like, oh geez. I had no idea that people were feeling this way about us or gee, did they know that we made that mistake? Hmm, that is bad. You find the good stuff in the bad, and you actually understand who you're selling to for the first time and you respect them and you know, they're smart. Cause that is the other thing. Sometimes people think their customers are not that smart. Customers are pretty smart, people buy things from the time they're five years old and probably sooner now because of iPads and you know, Amazon and stuff. So we are experienced buyers and we know what we want and we know when we get it and when we're getting it from somebody and when we're not, it's very black and white. So they finally see the picture and then they start making good decisions, decisions that make sense and decisions that lead to more revenue and grow the company. That is what a revenue coach really does.

Steve Rush: That makes loads of sense, for me. Your book Roadmap To Revenue was named by Forbes as being one of the top marketing and sales books written and love to get a little bit of insight as to the key principles that you mentioned earlier. So in your book, you've got those three stages of discovered, debate and deploying. We covered off the discover bit, a little earlier on. In the debate stage, that is really, what you focus on the round that buying process. Tell us a little about that.

Kristin Zhivago: Well, during the debate stage, I then want to educate them to the type of buying journey that we are talking about and one of the biggest contributions I think I make in the book besides teaching people, how to discover. Is that there are basically four types of products and services in the world based on the amount of scrutiny that the customer applies to the purchase. So there's light scrutiny, medium scrutiny, heavy scrutiny, and intense scrutiny. Light scrutiny is impulse, cheap purchases, the candy bar at the checkout counter, you know, the tabloid magazine, whatever. Just one or two questions. Can I afford this? Can my waistline afford this? Should I buy this or not? That is light scrutiny. Medium scrutiny are products and services are things like clothing, where it's still pretty much one person making the decision and there's maybe 10 or 15 questions will this fit? Do I like the colour? You know, maybe you are, worried about your significant other liking it or not but it's a pretty simple buying process.

Heavy scrutiny is when you really are making a big purchase in the B2C side, its cars and houses and things like that. There is a contract; there is a sales person of some sort and I always think of these salespeople really should be sales guides or buying guides. They help you make the buying decision in an honest, straight forward, you know, what are your trade your way? So it is like the trade-offs, the things you need. What is your main concern? Okay, well this will work or maybe it won't, that's really what we need now rather than people who are out hunting. That is heavy scrutiny, then the B2B side. Those are big enterprise software programs or programs. You are going to run your business on. Something you make a deep commitment to, that is a big deal, and it costs a lot of money and then intense scrutiny, products and services are those where it's everything that the heavy scrutiny is, but you get married. It is a long-term contract. It is like two or three years and maybe it is a big consulting thing. That is where they are making airplanes, you know. Boeing or something, so the reason that I came up with this is because of the gap that I kept finding between the company mind-set and the customer mind-set, and I had to close that gap somehow. And I kept seeing people who were selling light scrutiny, products and services as if they were heavy scrutiny, products and services. Like you don't need a newsletter to learn how to chew gum kind of thing. It just was silly.

Steve Rush: Right.

Kristin Zhivago: And the same thing with the high scrutiny products and services, where they were treating it as a branding exercise, where all we have to do is just get the word out to everybody. And we're a great, and we can do this for you and make this big promise, but they weren't able to answer the very specific questions that the buyers had. Again, the buyer journey, which I was one of the first people to talk about selling as a buying journey is again, a series of very specific questions that need to be answered to the buyer satisfaction in order for the sale to be made. That is basically it, they weren't answering those questions. They did not equip their salespeople to answer those questions and these are end of the funnel questions. We talk about the funnel where they are really close to buying, and now they just want to have three questions answered.

Steve Rush: The big thing here is getting on the agenda of that customer and consulting almost with that customer in that buying process, right?

Kristin Zhivargo: Yeah, you are their advocate. You are on their side. You are trying to figure out what you can give them will actually satisfy those requirements. In an honest, no BS kind of way. That is really what buyers want.

Steve Rush: Right.

Kristin Zhivargo: And nobody gives it to them.

Steve Rush: And there is a lot of psychology involved here too, isn't there, so the whole principle around calling somebody a salesperson versus a buying person, like a buy an advocate or buying a system.

Kristin Zhivargo: Or buying guide or yeah, whatever the word is.

Steve Rush: Yeah, companies still have not quite caught on to that, have they?

Kristin Zhivargo: No, because again, it is so easy to just put a guy on the phone, you know, it just makes so much sense. You go out and you hunt and when you think about it, it's pretty crazy the states that we're in right now, because the buyers have completely rejected that approach. Yet we have a whole industry. I mean, there are millions of sales consultants and you know people out there who are continuing to help people get on that phone and make those calls and, you know, go for dialling for dollars. We are still doing that and the customer has left us in the dust. I mean, we are selling buggy whips in time when people are driving cars. It is that bad.

Steve Rush: Right and I think also my experience of sales people is the agenda shift from; I need to make a sale versus I need to help you buy is also the biggest thing that as consumers we are now really attuned to aren't we?

Kristin Zhivago: Yeah, you are so right. You know, the salesman's agenda, the minute he opens his mouth, I mean, it's just, okay. I understand you are trying to make a quota. That is all you care about is closing the sale. Well, I don't want to be closed. Nobody wants to be closed, it is like, okay, okay, okay, make a decision quick, quick, quick. Okay, it is going to all going to be fine. No problem, just sign here quick, quick, quick. And people know, like I said, this is scepticism swamp. They have grown up buying things and regretting those purchases and dealing with the, you know, one of the things that people totally ignore when you are selling B2B is the, reputation whiteboard. When I was doing marketing and sales turnarounds, I would be an entrepreneur working in a very big corporation and the first thing I learned was when you start that job, you get your own little personal whiteboard.

It’s like hung around your neck. It is just a small letter size thing. I mean, it is just, you know, my imagination of what this thing is, every time you make a mistake, there is a black mark on that whiteboard. And it there's no eraser, nobody ever forgets that you were the one that put in that enterprise program and the whole thing failed, or that you didn't make your quota or whatever it was or you said the stupid thing to one of the top executives on a bad day. You know, whatever it is, every time you screw up, there is a black mark on your whiteboard, and so one of the mind-sets of the corporate buyer is keeping those black marks off that whiteboard, avoiding corporate embarrassment. It is like one of the main drivers, the bigger the company, the bigger the issue. Because if you get too many black marks on your whiteboard, nobody will even pay any attention to you anymore in a meeting, they will just roll their eyes.

Oh yeah, there is Bob again, you know, well, don't pay any attention to him because he did that terrible thing back in 1979, we're never going to forget it. And the only way to get out of that in many cases is to just people that have that problem, they have to leave the company because nobody's going to respect them anymore. Nobody is going to take their advice. They are not part of the team they have been rejected. So that's, what is driving. That is the biggest driver is the embarrassment factor, and yet we don't address that at all when we're selling. People will just, you know, act like, Oh, well, you know, you just go out there and you are going to get all this and you will be a hero and the guy's like, yeah right, I'm going to be a hero. If this thing fails, I am going to be toast.

Steve Rush: My favourite sales person's line is when they call you up. And the first line is, don't worry. I am not trying to sell you anything.

Kristin Zhivago: So guess what, you have just started the relationship with a lie.

Steve Rush: Exactly, right.

Kristin Zhivago: I mean it is terrible. It is terrible, the way we treat people, when we are selling to them. It is really rotten. It is like bait and switch and you lie to them. When people say that to me, I say, oh, okay, well, gee, it is 7:30. I am trying to eat dinner and I don't know you, I've never heard from you before. Tell me really, why you are calling. If you are not trying to sell me something, do we know each other? You know, have we met before? I mean, people really should not call me because I am terrible about that stuff, I am so sick of it.

Steve Rush: We have a bit of fun with it in our family too, which we should not do, right?

Kristin Zhivago: No

Steve Rush: Because people are trying to make a living and we get it. But equally, if we've also been consumers of selling, we recognize those patterns in people's tonality, In particular when somebody says I am going to sell it, I am not trying to sell you something and we know they are and our hackles go up as consumers don't they? So heading over to your “Deploy” stage, what transpires here?

Kristin Zhivago: Well, This is just classic, you know, carrying out projects. I mean, truthfully, once you understand the mind-set of the customer and you have made a proper offer to that mind-set, then you have to say, okay, where are they looking for us? That is the biggest thing. Are they in social where they actually go to social to buy from us? Or are they just going to social to see what we're tweeting about? And they would only do that as part of their buying process, but they have to find us when they go looking and you know, Google still owns 95% of the search market, so guess what? That is one of the places you go and search engine optimization. Where you are using your content and you are getting out there. There is, some ways to get on the first page of Google. I am not going to say what they are right now, because I don't want to give it away.

Totally honest, a good content driven kind of way, but there's also advertising and advertising does work these days. That is where we are getting the most far leads for our clients. That fast stuff, there is sort of two things that happen. There is the quick get leads as fast as you can stuff. Then there is sort of the back end. You need to be there as they're looking around, especially if you're selling a heavier intense scrutiny product or service, they are going to check you out before they talk to a salesperson and another famous quote, which nobody attributes to me. But I really was the first person, as far as I can tell, to say in the stage of the web, by the time a person talks to a salesperson, they've already gotten 60 to 80% of their questions, 60 to 80% of their questions answered before they get a salesperson on the phone.

So they just want answers to those remaining very specific questions. They have already checked your site. They have checked your reviews. They have gone and talked to other people they have, you know, gone through Google and looked around. They have done a lot of homework and got 80% of their questions answered. Now they come to the sales person who by the way, is not trained to answer those very specific remaining questions and instead he wants to start his PowerPoint at, we were founded in 2001 and everybody's in the room. Oh God, do we have to sit through this now and go through the whole thing. They have two or three questions. If your marketing is really working, which by the way mine does which better do or I shouldn't be talking to you. By the time they get to me, they have two question and I sell a very intense product or service I sell, you know, we are getting married.

I am going to make sure that your company grows. That is my responsibility. That is big, intense kind of thing, so they have done all their homework. They have decided they want to do business with me already. And they just want to know, am I interested in taking them on? When can I start? How much is it? They have three questions. So one of the whole philosophies behind this heavy, medium light scrutiny thing is that if you can get through your marketing to the point with a heavier or intense scrutiny product or service, to the point where by the time they come to you, they have two or three questions. If it is a light scrutiny thing, man, you have done your job. That is the goal.

Steve Rush: That is really clever, I am really focused. I love it, so as a leader of marketing agencies, too, you have led people and this part of the show. We already want to tap into your leadership thinking if you had to distil your years of leadership into, let's say your top three leadership hacks, what would they be? Kristin.

Kristin Zhivago: I think the first one is don't assume. Never assume because when we assume we think we know it all. We think we know the answer, so you really have to always be curious, keep asking, keep trying to figure out, keep being humble, not only with your customers, but your partners, your staff just assume that you don't know at all. And by the way, I didn't get to this point until, you know, after my fifties, because you have to get over yourself. In order to get past that point of thinking, you know, at all, or wanting to know it all or needing to know it all, you really have to get over that and just keep being humble that you might in fact, learn something today from somebody else.

Steve Rush: Right?

Kristin Zhivago: And that is the key, because if you do that, then you are going to understand the customer's mind-set. You are going to understand your staff and what they want. What makes them happy and try to give it to them and the second one is, make it a nice place for nice people to work. I have a no jerk policy, clients, vendors, our staff, absolutely. The minute anybody puts their hands on their hips, that is it we are done because we don't do that around here, including me. I am not allowed to put my hands on my hips either by the way and that makes it a, culture where it is a nice place, a happy place. It is a safe place for good people to work and they love it. They love it. It is just so wonderful. You are not being stopped and by the way, the definition of a jerk is somebody who makes it harder for other people to do their work. Nice people try to make it easier for you to do your job. They try to help; they try to give you what you need and a jerk does just the opposite. Everything is a struggle. You never get a good decision. They love everybody paying attention to them because they don't know the answer. It is a power trip, so we have a jerk free environment and it is a wonderful place to work.

Steve Rush: I think I am going to be sharing that with my clients and colleagues. Hey, do you have a no jerk policy?

Kristin Zhivago: Yeah, exactly.

Steve Rush: Because ultimately we put up with a lot of BS from people.

Kristian Zhivago: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Unnecessarily, but if it's, you know, right from the outset, people understand, this is the way we do things. This is the environment we've got, just creates the right tone from the start. Isn't it?

Kristian Zhivago: Yeah and it helps you help your customers too, because one of the reasons it is hard for employees to help customers is because their boss is a jerk. So they have to work around that somehow. And if your boss a nice person who wants to help the customer. Oh gee, guess what, you know, you are all on the same page. Customers happy, you are happy. The boss is happy, so it is really a wonderful way to go.

And the third thing I would say that I've learned is never give up, never give up. I mean, no matter what is happening. I mean, I learned that in Silicon Valley, we had many recessions in Silicon Valley where people would think the Valley was dead, so when my husband and I were running an ad agency, we made this poster to call the Valley lives, and we sent it around. People put it up in their conference rooms.

And it was just about the fact that there's always money flowing somewhere. And there's trillions of dollars that change hands every single day in the banking system. Used to be 3 trillion, I think it is up to 5 now or something, but it's a lot of money. Somebody is always buying something somewhere and you just have to figure out who is it? What do they want? How can I help? What is their mind-set? How can I address it? Make an offer that will appeal to them in that mind-set. There is always a way to make money. If you are humble and you go after just that one thought that you are trying to help somebody achieve something. How can I take what I do and apply it to that? And by the way, that's a big deal right now with COVID and all this stuff's going on with this virus, same thing.

Steve Rush: Sure is.

Kristin Zhivago: What do people need? How can we help?

Steve Rush: If not even more so now just understanding their lens at a different level. Right?

Kristin Zhivago: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Things are different. This thing has radically shifted us. All of us, the whole world has shifted. It is a big deal, and so people are going to approach things differently and prioritize things differently and need different things. And we have to understand quickly what those mind-sets are.

Steve Rush: So we affectionately called this part of the show Hack to Attack, and it is where we learn from our guest’s. Period in their life or their career where things have not gone well, or they may have screwed up, but they have used that lesson. That is something that is now positive in their life. What will be your hack to attack?

Kristin Zhivago: You talked about it, that humility experience when I was a senior in high school, and I went out to my car with my tail between my legs. I remember distinctly standing in that parking lot. You know, I had a 52 Chevy. I did not even go into my car right away. I just stood there in the parking lot, feeling the full-scale humiliation and saying to myself, man, I just screwed up. I mean, you know, I had the whole thing ready. They would have bought from me. I saw the sale, you know, when you are a sales person, it is like, I tell people, I am a recovering salesperson. You saw it, you know, that he could have bought, but he did not, and it was because me.

Steve Rush: It is such a vivid emotion for you still isn't it?

Kristin Zhivago: Yeah. I knew right then, you know, and I was a singer. I was in show business. My whole family was in show business. I could hold an audience in the Palm of my hand while I was singing. You know, it was a big ego boost. And that's the other thing. I mean, you really do have to get over yourself to succeed in business. That was that moment where I knew there was something more than just holding an audience, just being good at performing. It was something way bigger and way deeper, and I've just devoted my life to it. That is really the main thing, you know, and every time you go through a recession or something and you have to learn, but the other big thing for me was that, that realization, that the difference between the gap between the customer's mind-set and the company mind-set is always amazingly large and they don't even know it. They don't even know how far off they are, so those two things were things that have just driven me and driven me and driven me,

Steve Rush: Brilliant stuff and the last thing we want to explore with you is to do a little bit of time travel now. And if you're able to bump into Kristen at 21, what would be the one bit of advice you would give her?

Kristin Zhivago: Kind of the same thing, like get over yourself, you know, calm down, watch more than you talk, look around. It is hard to figure this out. You know, I mean, I am not stupid. So I knew I had smarts and when you're smart enough to kind of get by in life. You have a tendency to think that, you know, you are pretty good. It was not that I was conceited, I was never conceited, but I had sort of a confidence in my own mental abilities and the problem with that is then you kind of like being right. And that's a big mistake. It is a big mistake because honestly, I mean, I have people working for me now that every single day somebody says something that makes me slap my head and go, yes. Golly. That is a great idea. That is such a great idea. We are going to do that. You know, and I have gotten more satisfaction in my older times now. My advanced age, I am much happier with those moments than I am with me being the one that knew the answer. To me, that is just, okay, I got a lot of experience. I know what to do in certain situations. I usually have an answer, but I am very calm about it. It is not a big deal to me. What is really exciting is when one of our staff comes up with a great idea that I hadn't even thought about. That is fun. It is really turned into a big high for me. I am so proud of them. I am so excited.

Steve Rush: Right.

Kristin Zhivago: So, that is the big thing.

Steve Rush: And it is also great leadership.

Kristin Zhivago: Yeah.

Steve Rush: Finally, we want to make sure that our listeners can get in touch with you and continue the dialogue where we leave off. Where would be the place that you would like them to go?

Kristin Zhivago: Best thing is just go to zhivagopartners.com I mean, everything's there, my blog articles, my podcasts, my book and as we roll out this mind-set driven marketing, we are going to have a guide for that. That is coming out over the next month or so, so everything that I do is pretty much in that. I also write a blog for the up and comers. It is kind of a labour of love. It is called kristinswisdom.com and that is just for people getting out into business who really went through the school system and did not learn anything about business. And of course, you're going to spend the rest of your life in business, so I'm just trying to help them understand what's really going on and what really works and hopefully avoid some of the mistakes that we all make when we're younger and full of our self.

Steve Rush: That is lovely and we will make sure that all of those links are in our show notes as well, so as folks are finished listen to this. They can actually just click into the show notes and go take a look. So Kristin it is just for me to say. It has been really lovely talking to you. There is some super hints and tips, and idea to help people think about the way that they approach marketing and certainly mind-set driven marketing for me I think where the future lays of organization and for business. So Kristin thank you so much for being on the Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Kristin Zhivago: I love it. You are great. I really enjoyed it, thank you so much.

Closing

Roadmap to Revenue: How to Sell the Way Your Customers Want to Buy

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Ian Mills and Mark Ridley are leadership development experts. They run the international development consultancy firm Transform Performance International and have co-authored several books. Most latterly, The Leaders Secret Code. In this episode learn about:

How Ian and Mark lead in a VUCA world

What can make leaders iconic

Understand destination beliefs and unlock leadership growth

How journey motivators can assist your development

SPECIAL LISTENER OFFER: Listen in to find out how you can get a FREE psychometric test and a copy of The Leaders Secret Code!

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Find out more about Ian and Mark below:

TPI Website: https://www.transformperformance.com

Follow Ian on LinkedIn

Follow Mark on LinkedIn

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TPI_Official

The Leaders Secret Code

The Leaders Secret Code Summary

The Salespersons Secret Code

Full Transcript Below:

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Steve Rush: Delighted to introduce our first duo on The Leadership Hacker Podcast. Ian Mills and Mark Ridley are leadership development experts. They also run the international development consultancy firm. Transform Performance International, and have co-authored several books. Most lastly, The Leader's Secret Code and as an extra special treat, we have a super giveaway today for some lucky listeners so hang around to the end of the show and find out how you can get your hands on our special prize worth over a hundred pounds, so before we get to speak Ian and Mark. It is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: One-mans dream to spend three years sailing solo round a Pacific nearly turned to disaster after borders started closing around the region; leaving him stranded alone at sea for several months. While people around the globe were, panic buying, stocking up, he was running low on food and fuel as he sailed between islands trying to find somewhere to dock. The sailor who only shared his surname, named himself as Mr. Wong set off from his home country of Singapore on the 2nd of February.

It was an adventure that the 59 year old experienced sailor had been meticulously planning for years. Everything from the exact amount of fuel he would need, weather conditions, food and places that he intended to visit. The one thing he had not planned on, of course, was a global pandemic. The plan was to set sail from Singapore to Polynesia, a journey that would take roughly four months in his yacht. Once there, he would spend, time exploring the region by land and by sea but he would soon learn that even his best-laid plans could go awry, especially in the face of a global pandemic. In late February, he left Indonesia on route for his next destination of Papua New Guinea; where he planned to stock up on fuel and food but a few days in Indonesia. While in Indonesia water, his autopilot broke and when he tried to anchor, he was told that the lockdown had already begun, the Pandemic had arrived and he was chased away. He eventually stopped at a remote Island. Where about 20 or 30 families lived there. They had no TV, no telephone and no communication with the outside world and they had not heard of a lockdown or a pandemic. As soon as he shared the news, however, they chased him off the Island and almost every stop off he could find also chased him away.

He kept on sailing by the 21st of April, he reached waters just outside Tuvalu, a tiny Island in the Pacific ocean. He was still about two hours from land when maritime officials who again told him he needed to leave and despite his plea, it fell on deaf ears, but they said no. Thankfully, he soon received word that the Fiji government had agreed to take him in and despite an horrendous experience, Mr. Wong was now safe. If we can consider the leadership and self-leadership parallels here, what might seem really counterintuitive for us all is to plan for what is completely unexpected, the crazy wildcard outcomes, so strategically, if we could be prepared when things go wrong, so as leaders just keep asking. What if? And we can unlock some great strategic thinking. That's been a The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, insights or interesting stories that you would like listeners to hear, please get in touch.

Start of Interview

Steve Rush: Excited to be joined today by Ian Mills and Mark Ridley. They are the co-founders of Transform Performance International and they have co-authored a number of books, the latest being The Leaders Secret Code. Ian, Mark welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Both Speakers: Thank you Steve.

Steve Rush: You are our first duo on the show, so I am really excited that we've got two leaders to hack into and two great brains to hack into some ideas and some thoughts today. But you guys have been a duo for a while, so I know that certainly from business perspective you work together, but how did you both meet and how have you arrived here?

Ian Mills: Mark and I met some 25 years or so ago when Mark was running a team of financial advisors for a retail bank in Exeter, Devon and I was the regional manager for that bank. And I remember very well my first meeting with Mark, I plan to meet this new leader and our organization. I had heard a lot of great things about him. I planned to take him out for lunch and I now know that in hindsight, Mark was imagining now that I was going to take him out for a very nice steak and a glass of red wine. In fact, I took him to McDonald's and I think that tells you a lot about our different perspective on motivation, leadership and the way in which you engage them, build a successful teams.

Mark Ridley: I would say just add to that, I pull Ian’s leg remorselessly over the fact that he took me to McDonald's for my lunch. To our conversation today, Steve, because at the end of the day, at the time, what I witnessed, I did not know it at the time, but what I was witnessing was a belief system from Ian in a style of leadership around focus and a practicality and you know, just getting things done. Whereas I wanted to spend more, time and be more affiliative and get to know this person. So the image of two guys sitting in pinstripe suits somewhere in deepest dark as Devon. Surrounded by kids on half term holiday trying to eat a burger on our first meeting in polite company. You can imagine that for me that was anathema and for Ian it was just business as usual. It is a real interesting way in which we often think about our behaviours and our beliefs. We think they are okay, but others perceive them very differently.

Steve Rush: It just goes to show, doesn't it Mark that people have a different lens from which they look through and as leaders we need to be really aware of that. Now, Transform Performance International. Just give us a little bit of a summary as to what you currently do and how you can really help your clients.

Ian Mills: Transform Performance International is a performance enhancement consultancy; we work with famous name organizations all over the world. In fact, we have worked in some 50 or so countries for organizations like HP, Cisco, Deloitte, American Express and many more to help them. Predominantly through people changing the way they perform. That might mean changing behaviours. It might be changing a culture. It might mean changing the way the organization engages with their customers and it might mean change the way they lead in a VUCA world. A volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world.

Steve Rush: Having learned from many, many of your clients and indeed working with each other, you have penned a number of books together, the most recent being The Leader's Secret Code. What was the inspiration for the book?

Ian Mills: The inspiration for the book was…The catalyst for the book was the fact that I am a member of a group in London called the entrepreneurs exchange. I meet with small intimate groups of entrepreneurs over dinner and typically, you hear one of them sharing their story. One of the things that I found over a number of years is that whilst this group is not in my target market for my business, I found their stories inspirational, intriguing, and beautifully articulated. On reflection one evening, I thought if only I could bought the magic of the way in which they share their success story that would be worth a lot of money. And I remember phoning Mark and say, Mark, I have the title of the book and the title of the book is The Entrepreneur's Secret Code and we just need to get on and write it.

Well that started a, a dialogue around, well should we really write about entrepreneurs? And in fact, we actually started research into selling and the reason we did that is we believe that everybody sells. Whether you are a leader trying to influence your organization or whether you are a parent trying to influence your children to get a bed on time or frankly. Whether you are a sales person or indeed an entrepreneur seeking to grow a business, so that was our first book. It is almost, I guess an obvious move to then consider how do we then do research into leadership and share the findings in a similar book and that book became The Leaders Secret Code that we're here to share with you.

Steve Rush: And I am guessing that having that foundation in research and academia removed some ambiguity away from where people might apply their own thinking in their own lenses. Is that right?

Mark Ridley: What we have learned about research is really quite fantastic Steve. If anybody out there is thinking about doing this for themselves, I'd really urge them to give it a go but do absolutely take your idea and then work with somebody who's got that experience of doing the research because the whole thing will be enriched. It is really has been excellent.

Steve Rush: And Mark, your book has been described when you read it is a bit like dipping into a box of your favourite chocolates, which sounds absolutely delicious. How does it make it so tactile for readers to dip into understanding how they go about The Secret Code?

Mark Ridley: Well that was a massive compliment. I was really gratified to read it. It is a great question because I think it goes to the heart of the philosophy that whenever we interact with people in business no matter what, project we are on, the metaphor of the chocolates I think is all around the different flavours. Everyone will have their favourite chocolate. You know, I know in the old quality street, I like the heart caramel and they took it out. So all of those kinds of things will resonate the people when they look into a book. We deliberately did not write a book that you could literally open up the first page and feel that you have to work your way through it. I am sort of going to sound like I am a poacher turn gamekeeper but, I have never been a particular fan of business books. I have always used them as a reference point. I have rarely read a book cover to cover and I was acutely aware even when we wrote the Salesperson’s Secret Code that what we wanted was, these different flavours and different chapters, different ideas, you know, to mix our metaphors. Sort of a smorgasbord of different things to tempt you rather than to have to Wade your way through something that was turgid from page one right through to page 155 or whatever.

Steve Rush: And that is the appeal I guess for those people who love to read from cover to cover; They can do that, my learning style is fairly similar Mark and having read your book, what I found myself being able to do is just to dip in and you know, and also re-reference some of those things when I was particularly looking at some of the things I was working on too. So I can, I can resonate with that for sure.

Mark Ridley: Every chapter is written in a particular way that even when you read the body of the chapter, there is hints and tips on the psychology that we have applied. There is little reference points, there is little stories that people can dip into, so we have attempted to address every learning style even in every chapter. You could read each chapter once a month and still get something from it.

Steve Rush: And those iconic leader stories I thought were great by the way and maybe we could just kick around a couple of those, so I read something that you captured from Michael Tobin who was an OBE. Who ended up taking his team Bobsleigh to help them understand their approach tell us a little bit about that?

Ian Mills: Yes, Michael Tobin or Mike Tobin is one of the iconic leaders that we profiled in the book. Anyone who reads the book will find that yes, we have data based on a thousand leaders, but we decided to profile a number of what we call iconic leaders who display many of the attributes that the research suggests sets top performing leaders apart. Mike Tobin is one of them. One of the things that he does that is, particularly impressive is he uses metaphor as a mechanism to convey a message to dealership teams around the change that he desires. So a good example of that is that one of his frustrations when he was running a public company was that his sales organization seemed to have a frenzy around the quarter end and hitting the sales targets, and he wanted to change their mind-set.

So one of the things that he did is he took them to an Olympic bobsled run. This is the sales leadership team and the reason of that is if you push harder at the beginning, you go faster at the end. And what he wanted the leaders to do is to recalibrate the way they lead their teams when he got back to the operations headquartered in the UK and in fact, one of the things that sets him apart, I think is his, creativity, his innovation, his different way of looking at things. I have already shared the bobsled story.

Another example is that he had a, an executive leadership team that in his opinion lacked the bravery to take the business to the, next stage and what he chose to do is to take that executive team swimming with sharks. And the reason he did that is that he believed that they would learn what it is like to face fear and they would be able to translate those behaviours back into the workplace. And of course, as you can probably imagine, there is nothing quite as scary as facing off to real sharks under the water, so it should be relatively easy to face the challenges and the struggles that they may be facing in the business environment.

Steve Rush: And for those leaders have got that cyclical business. For me, when I read that, it was just a great metaphor, but not only is it a metaphor, you can visualize how wonderful would it be to create an experiential metaphor so people can really make that connection. And I think that's the difference between what Mike Tobin did and what others may have said and done. You have a number of iconic leader stories in the Secret Code of your number of stories you have. Do you have a favourite?

Ian Mills: One of the leaders that we profiled that I particularly enjoyed the conversation

With was James Knight. James at the time was a major in the Royal Marines. He has a military cross, which I think says something about his, achievements and James is unlike what many of us might imagine a military leader to be like, which before I met James, you know, I imagined it to be quite a command and control. Quite a structured, dictatorial type approach. Whereas what I find with James is a very sophisticated, very curious, very empathetic, very engaging leader. One of the things that he said to me or one of the quotes that he gave me that I feel says an awful lot about James. Is he said to me Ian be interested, not interesting, and that is a good example of a belief that he holds that causes him to behave in a way that is congruent with that belief.

Steve Rush: And the belief of course that we might have is that people from an autocratic military background come with that set of rules and disciplines. And in my experience of having worked with some military leaders is quite often they're contrarian to what we might perceive. They have got that ability to be different and to be curious and be very entrepreneurial even though they have to follow strict guidelines and rules and routines. Mark, you've managed to pull together your beliefs into what you refer to now as destination beliefs and that helps people kind of focus on the key characteristics and behaviours required in order to tap into The leader's Secret Code. Can you just maybe for the listeners to share a seven destination beliefs are?

Mark Ridley: Sure, okay. Let me just briefly explain what I mean by a destination belief. You will imagine that when we asked, well over a thousand leaders for the research and a lot more since. When we asked leaders about their views of leadership, you will get repeat patterns and they will use maybe different language structure to describe those beliefs. But nevertheless, they will coalesce into, groupings of beliefs. And we bring those together almost into a set, of values if you like but, those are what the seven destination beliefs are. And the reason we gave them the destination epithet Steve, was very simply because what we realized very early on when we were writing the first book. Is that even if they don't realize it though, those core beliefs are guiding them or helping them navigate the way through what is often known as…going back to the military expression as a very VUCA world as we call it.

You know, disruptive, volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous and so on and so forth and that, is why we decided that we'd use this expression, destination beliefs. Seven core beliefs that we observed and practically every leader that we spoke to, and they are in no particular order. The first one is around control, and the destination belief that we got so often when we spoke to leaders was that, well, control matters as you might expect in a leader, but someone has to be accountable for success. Someone has to be accountable for that success, so that was control.

The next destination belief was resilience and that was really around this idea that I can withstand pressure, but the point that Ian was making a moment ago, I can withstand pressure and I can spring back into, the shape that I want. It may not be the same shape as I was before the pressure, but nevertheless I can do that and that was the sort of overarching resilience view. The next one was about influence. Practically every leader we spoke to talked about the need to be able to influence the right way. Again, you would be surprised if it was not that way, but the way we defined it was how I make things happen through other people and that was important. It is not how I make things happen. It was how I make things happen through others. Then the next belief was around communication. I mean influence in communications almost go hand in hand but, the belief there was quite simple. That every leader we spoke to understood the importance of the way, the manner and style of communication up and down the organization.

Not only with their immediate teams, however, but with wider stakeholders and audiences perhaps that are external to the business. In other words, they were always aware of the way in which they came across to other people, so that was around communication. Then we came on to strategy. Every leader we spoke to talked about the importance of having a big picture view, and we were very interested into how they came about getting that, view and so the belief is very simply. That everybody in an organization has to understand what the organizations goals are, how the organization is positioning itself and how it will best utilize its resources in order to achieve its goals, so that was the fundamental destination belief around strategy.

The next belief was around empowerment and this is often an overused expression. I can hear people sort of hearing the word empowerment and sort of metaphorically rolling of the eyes takes place. But what was really interesting was that of the successful leaders we spoke to and especially the iconic. The concept of empowerment was never far from the conversation and the destination belief there was that my role is to enable my people to feel empowered, to take the right actions and to be the best that they can be.

Fulfilment was the final destination belief, so many of the leaders talked about desire to reflect that. We might come onto that later on, reflect on success or not as the case may be, and we chose a simple mantra that when we are successful, we will probably feel fulfilment may not be everything, but when we are successful, we will probably feel fulfilment. Again, we will probably explore how people get to that feeling of success, but the overarching desire, destination belief was, look, I am here to lead, but I am here to be fulfilled for myself and probably to help others feel fulfilled too. That is a Cook's tour, Steve.

Steve Rush: It is brilliant. Yeah, it is a great lens to look through. I really like that whole kind of principle of those destination beliefs but of course, for the folks listening to this, they will all be at different stages of each of those destinations. And to help kind of with that thinking, you created what you refer to as journey motivators. Just tell us a little bit about how that works alongside the destination beliefs.

Mark Ridley: Well, basically when we were interviewing everybody we've ever spoken to in the project, and indeed, again, going back to the first book we did, we improve this methodology. We adopt and approach of interviewing people, which is a very loose conversation. I often describe it as a fireside chat, but as you will probably be aware, Steve. In our business, we do a lot of coaching and a lot of the techniques we use around coaching is to create an environment where the interviewee or the coachee creates what we call the metaphors for their own experience. When you ask direct questions, which can be very presumptive, have your own bias within them and so on and so forth, you don't always get as much out of it. So by following this semi-structured approach, sometimes it is known as clean questioning. What we discovered was that let's take control for an example.

You know I said a moment ago that the destination belief was all about someone or something being accountable for success. What we learned is that there is a spectrum of views and as you rightly say, people will be at different points. At some point in your leadership journey, you may be in a situation where that control comes from a place of being quite directive. At other times, you might come at it from a place where you believe that perhaps it is more important to be a little more participative and then allow others to shape that direction of travel. So the idea or the concept of controlling or being participative, directive or participative, it gradually forms into these two, what we call journey motivators. The Secret Code, Steve, is the way in which the top quartile performers appear to balance those often almost opposing views, the sort of the yin and yang, the sort of opposites attract kind of thing.

So you've got in the centre there you've got almost what I'll call this constructive contention between two belief systems, so the leader who is all directive is likely to fail. The leader who is over participative is likely to lose respect. The leader who is participative but also knows how to and when to put their foot on the gas and be a bit more directive is probably the leader who is going to be the most successful and that is the process we went through with all of the seven destination beliefs to arrive at the 14 journey motivators.

Steve Rush: Super helpful to get people into that mind-set to understand you know, what their strengths and development areas are at the same time I guess.

Mark Ridley: Yes, it is and at the end of the day is a very, very brief Cook's tour of that because I know we don't have time to go through every, one of them. With resilience to the idea is that Ian already alluded to the journey motivators were about working hard and working smart. With influence, there is a manner and style, which we came to call transactional style of influence versus transformation. I won't bore you with the detail at the moment, but with communication it was around unemotional and emotional communication. Strategy was very interesting, that was around going with the gut and going, with facts and data. Empowerment was around delegating with the right degree of authority, which we called quite unambiguous empowerment versus a very ambiguous, laissez Faire kind of approach and fulfilment was around achievement for oneself versus achievement with others in an affiliative way.

Steve Rush: So really clear and easy to follow. And Ian, I understand that as a result of the large amount of research you created and your experiences, you've now taken this to another level now by kind of applying some science behind this and you're helping your clients now consider how they're approaching their leadership style using data science, AI using some psychometric testing. How did that come about?

Ian Mills: When we wrote the book. One of the key things that we decided to do from my business point of view is to enhance our value offering for our clients by building a set of tools and instruments that will help leaders become more like the top performing leader. So one of those tools is a psychometric instrument that is an online self-assessment instrument where an individual will go online, they will answer approximately a hundred questions, and as a consequence we will share with them a 20 page report that will map them against the findings of the top performing leaders. It will provide them with suggestions on what they might consider doing that will help them become a higher performing leader. Essentially, it is about self-reflection, and provocation and insight to help any leader that is curious around what they might do in order to improve the way by which they perform.

Steve Rush: Having completed it myself, I found it really helpful. It also comes with suggested development ideas across each of those belief systems as well. Some of the things to help people move beyond having an opportunity to dip into the chocolate box of The Secret Code is that whole principle of reflective learning and then what happens next. In your reports, you have a section that says, I am at score of 80, and it tells me that I am more prepared to do things. How would that be helpful for me?

Mark Ridley: Well, reflective learning and change readiness. I think are really important aspect of this you know, somebody could, you know, read a book, they could read their leader secret code report. They could, could have an experience with, a family member, with a team member. It really does not matter, but that only has meaning. If you actually then go away and reflect and think about. What did I take from that? And even if you decide that you take in a sense nothing from it and don't need to change a mind-set or a behaviour from it. The fact of the matter is you have gone through a process of reflection. I have to say I'm continually surprised by the number of people we work with who will say to us, I am so pleased that the way in which you've engaged with us has given that space to breathe and to think and to reflect.

And I've got to say, I think at the moment, given everything that's going on in everybody's world, I think that's possibly never even been more true. But most people in my experience don't go through this process of reflective learning and it's certainly in our experience, a Mark of a reasonably high level of emotional intelligence. When we do give ourselves that space and have that awareness to go away and reflect. But having reflected, of course then you have to decide if you want to do something different and if you do want to do something different, are you ready for that change? And again, in the work that we've done, Steve in organizations around the world over the last 20 years. I was particularly passionate about getting this concept across because there is no point in throwing stuff at people. Throwing new concepts, throwing ideas or whatever. If the people in the organization are not in that state of readiness to actually make that change happen, and that might be quite a long process, but I think it is important that the climate of any organization include this ability to say, well, we know what we want to do different. Come on, let's have this honest conversation. Are we truly ready to do it?

And what I like about this idea of change readiness is this idea that when you might read your secret code report, for example, you might get a surprise and you might think, you know what? That is a shock to me. I had not even thought about that but that might push you into the reflective mode, but you might not yet be ready to do anything about it. On the other hand, you might read another area of the report and you might say, yeah, you know what, that resonates with what I have already been thinking about my career or my life or my behaviours or whatever it might, be.

And that contemplate of readiness is important too. We are at different points of the cycle and what we try to do with the report is Ian his already said. Is to simply to provide some nudges or some provocations so that if people read that report and it's talking about where they are relative to other leaders, there's just some ideas there for actually taking action, which of course is the next stage of change readiness. You know, am I currently prepared to try on a new behaviour or a mind-set as a consequence of what I'm learning around me. There is a lot to change readiness and reflective learning and I think very often as leaders and organizations themselves. We overlook that we are very good at delivering stuff to people, but the way in which we implement that is very often left behind and I think a lot of programs of change could be a lot more successful if more thought was given to that.

Steve Rush: Awesome. Thank you Mark. Really, appreciate that. Now this is the part of the show where I get to hack into your minds, so I am going to ask you for your top leadership hack that you could share with our listeners. Ian I am going to start with you first. Ian what would be your top leadership hack that you could share?

Ian Mills: Well, my top leadership hack. It is the first time I have been asked a question in quite that way, but I guess if it is my message for leaders, I believe that probably the thing that would be most transformational is to model people or model leaders who do something that you would like to be able to do. So don't do that in the broadest, most general way, but find leaders who are exceptional at something. That might be the way they engage people, it might be the way they present on stage. It might be the way that they empathize, whatever that particular behaviour is that you have observed, go meet them. Go buy them a cup of coffee, go have a conversation with them and find out how they go about doing that. Why they do that? What goes on in their head? Deeply immerse yourself in what it is that they do in order you too can copy and paste that behaviour into your leadership role and I think that's the one thing that I've seen others do that can be truly transformational in that performance.

Steve Rush: Love it. Thank you very much Ian. Mark your top leadership hack, what would that be?

Mark Ridley: Well, it actually builds on what Ian just said. Taking what Ian said. The next thing for me is about being aware of the beliefs that lie behind the outcomes that you are already achieving as a leader. Because you know, we hold a belief that behind the belief will drive a behaviour and out of that behaviour you will become whatever that belief is driving you towards. So you know that mantra of believe, behave, become is very crucial. So that my, my advice would be have the courage to investigate where, your beliefs are coming from and have the courage to try on different beliefs. I often say when I am working with leaders and they say, well we can't do that, and I will turn around and say, well, okay, but what might it be like if you try? Because inviting people to try on different beliefs is so important.

A close friend of mine who has taught me a lot over my career once said to me, Mark changing beliefs is very simple. What happened the day that you first discovered that father Christmas wasn't real? I hope there is no kids listening to this, but I, you know, the world did not fall in. I adapted and I moved on and my behaviours as a consequence became different up to that point. Of course, Father Christmas was it around that Christmas time, so it demonstrates to me that very often beliefs that we hold can be faintly ridiculous and the willingness to take a long, hard look at ourselves and almost laugh at our beliefs and as he Ian said, model the beliefs that others hold, I think is liberating. It is about creating flexibility and leadership style.

Steve Rush: I love the principle of trying on a belief. I can, again, metaphorically, you can almost feel and belief like a jumper or a hat or a label that you might wear.

Mark Ridley: You got it.

Steve Rush: And of course, by doing so you might bump into revelation, which is another form of how we create our belief system in the first place in this. I now know something today that I did not know yesterday and as a result of me trying on my belief, I might find out something new.

Mark Ridley: Like, exactly, yeah. I mean one of the questions I often say to leaders is. What have you learned in the last 24 hours? And that's exactly the point you've just made, Steve and then the next question of course as well. Okay, but what could you have learned if you have chosen to learn it?

Steve Rush: Love it.

Mark Ridley: And that's often a bringing people up short moment because you realized then that, you know, very often, again, we're too busy or we haven't really got that flexibility of belief to actually notice what we could have learned had we been bothered to try on that different belief.

Steve Rush: Sure, I would like to now get into what we call Hack to Attack. So this is where with our guests, we explore something that has gone wrong in your past. Collectively in your case, maybe as a business partners or as friends and colleagues, but now as a result of that going wrong in the past, you know, use that as part of your foundations to help you in what you do for your life and your work. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Ian Mills: You ask me what has gone wrong. Well I can't think of anything of significance, but you know, a bit of course, like any business person, there are many minor things that go wrong. You lose a bid, you lose a client, somebody leaves your organization and my opinion businesses a never-ending learning journey. That does not mean that you can become perfect overnight, but what it does mean is that you can begin to adjust your behaviour as a consequence of your own personal experience of what has worked, what hasn't worked, what have you observed elsewhere and what might you do differently in order to get to your desired destination.

Steve Rush: Sure. Mark, anything else for you?

Mark Ridley: The one that is coming to my mind and as you asked the question Steve, I suppose it has been triggered by the fact that we started this conversation in an area of where Ian and I first met. I am going to spring this one on Ian. We made it a little bit of an error in our career many years ago with rabbits. And the reason we made the error with rabbits was because we use them as a rather clever marketing campaign for financial services products and genuinely we wanted to attract interest in this financial services product. Because there had been a lot of issues around the regulation of this product and it was important that customers came and talked to us about what their options were. The only problem was Steve, but we did not really do enough research into the situation and we ended up being inundated with customers who thought that we were selling fluffy toys. We launched it around March time and it coincided with Easter and people thought we were having egg race in our retail outlets and it was a, shall we say, it did not go quite according to plan, so Ian, I to this day, blame you for signing that one off actually,

Steve Rush: Then it goes back to not working with pets and animals and all the rest of it, I guess.

Mark Ridley: Well, yeah, well it does see the real takeaway was we did that in an atmosphere of speed, haste and we probably did not take enough advice and counsel from wiser Sage heads. I have always carried that lesson with me. Always ask opinions, socialize ideas, Marion Hayes, repentant leisure kind of approach.

Steve Rush: Brilliant story. Thanks for sharing it Mark. Our listeners have got some real value out of listening to our guests on the show. Explore a little bit of time travel and that is exactly what I am going to do with you now, so I am going to ask you to imagine if you would. That you are going to do a bit of time travel and pump into your 21-year-old self and you have a chance to give them that one bit of Sage advice. Ian what would your advice be to your 21 year old self?

Ian Mills: Yeah, maybe the advice as I look back at my 21-year-old self would be to make sure that you get a job with an organization called Google at the earliest possible moment. Open and broaden your lens towards the art of the possible. Be curious, try and learn about the unknown or the unknown unknowns. And that will mean that you are opening yourself up to greater choice,

Steve Rush: Early adoption to new innovation. New companies that are entering the market, Right? Awesome. How about you Mark?

Mark Mills: Yeah, I like that. Mine is a little different if I look back at my 21-year-old self, oh but of a young gun going to set the world on fire, et cetera, et cetera. Hey, we all have those dreams and aspirations and it has been a pretty fantastic life, but looking back, I think I would say to myself four words, be prepared to pause, be prepared to reflect, get better at being open, especially to ideas and thoughts that might come from sources that you would ordinarily dismiss and then be receptive. Yeah, pause, reflect, open, receive.

Steve Rush: Super advice. Thank you so much, so what is next for Transform Performance International?

Ian Mills: What is next? First, Transform Performance International. Well in my opinion, and Mark may differ is I think it is keep doing the same. What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is organizations are continuously trying to perform better. The world, as I mentioned earlier, is a VUCA world. It is becoming increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. What that means is that leaders need to think differently about how they act and how they behave and their mind-set and the whole kind of perspective on what a great job looks like. So probably, more than ever, organizations will need support from organizations like ours that can provide research that can provide insight. That can provide coaching. The main thing that I see that will change is that we need to become more digital in the way in which we deliver content. So think about this fashion right now. This is a, a podcast. When I started my career, there was no such thing as a podcast given right now, the COVID-19 situation where we might have been running a conference, a face-to-face event that is now being delivered virtually, so change is a constant a need for behaviour. Change is a constant; the way by which you deliver the change will evolve further as we go forward.

Steve Rush: So exciting times ahead. Well done. Now we are incredibly excited to be able to share The Leader's Secret Code with our listeners and in a very different way. Super grateful for you gentlemen being able to provide this service today. For those listening, here is how you can get yourself a copy of the Leader's Secret Code. Head over to our social media platform on LinkedIn. It is The Leadership Hacker Podcast. You need to shout out Mark Ridley, Ian Mills and that you have listened to the show. The first 10 will receive a free transform performance international psychometric test, which usually costs 100 pounds. So head over there now and the first 50 will be entered into a prize draw to obtain a copy of The Leader Secret Code of which Transformed Performance International are giving away 10; so thank you and providing that to our listeners. So if our listeners wanted to learn more about you both, and indeed the work that you do as Transformed Performance International. Where would you like them to go?

Ian Mills: In order to contact either Mark or myself or my company? Our website address is www.transformperformance.com both of us are active on LinkedIn. So again, my name is Ian Mills. My colleague is Mark Ridley. You can find us on LinkedIn. Please feel free to invite us to connect.

Steve Rush: Brilliant and we will make sure that we put your details; both your LinkedIn profiles and indeed your website will be in our show notes. So as soon as everybody has finished listening to this, they can head onto our website or to the podcasts that they choose. Click on the links and find it straight away, so I would just like to say it has been super talking. It has been really fascinating learning about how the research has pulled together The leader's Secret Code and sharing some of the secrets with us today. So thanks both Ian and Mark for joining us on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Mark Ridley: Thanks for having us.

Closing

The Salesperson's Secret Code: The Belief Systems That Distinguish Winners

The Leader’s Secret Code: The Belief Systems That Distinguish Winners

View Details

Dr Simone Ahuja is a global expert on innovation strategy, a HBR columnist, author of Disrupt it Yourself and co-author of the bestselling book Jugaad Innovation. Dr Simone Ahuja will help you:

Explore how to grow internal innovation even during a crisis
Understand what Jugaad and Frugal Innovation is
How to Innovate more with less
Create Trust and a Permissionless society
Why compassion in innovation is so key

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Find out more about Dr Simone Ahuja and her work below:

Jugaad Innovation – The Book

Disrupt-It-Yourself – The Book

Blood Orange Website

Simone on LinkedIn

Simone on Twitter

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW ----more----

Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

On the show today, we have Dr. Simone Ahuja. She is the founder of Blood Orange and Innovation and Strategy Consulting Group. She is also a selling author and public speaker but before we get a chance to speak with Simone, it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: The global pandemic has turned many of us into home teachers, filmmakers, entertainers and inventors. Making use of what we have and being innovative with our time and our resources. The times we now live in has never been more relevant for innovation and creativity. One innovative CEO of an Italian 3D printing start up learn that hospital, nearby the town he lived in. Her suffering dreadfully through the coronavirus outbreak was running short of a small but critical component that connect respirators to oxygen masks. Other supplies just could not keep up with demand, and doctors were in search of a solution. Christian Fracassi, who told Reuters recently when he heard about the shortage, they got in touch with the hospital immediately. They then printed some prototypes. The hospital tested the following day and they worked. They then printed 100 vowels and delivered them personally to the hospital and this is now created a new thriving business for the start up. Similar efforts have popped up around the world where firms are now printing 3D face shields and other items to help with the crisis.

3D printing is relatively new technology that most manufacturers are now aware of, and some indeed are using quite readily and you can build anything from tiny components right the way up to houses. What this does demonstrate, though, is that in a crisis, this disruptive situation we find is in can correct disruptive thinking and innovation in us all. There is a global hackathon-taking place right now online.

A hackathon is where a group of people get together, including developers, subject matter experts, where they come up with quick ideas, build and prototype products super quick. This new global initiative, or hackathon is called CoVent-19, ironically, and it is hosting an online moon-shot competition to develop and deploy a mechanical ventilator. The CoVent-19 challenge is fostering innovation of rapidly deployable minimum viable mechanical ventilators for patients with COVID-19, and the ventilator dependent requirements and injuries. Their goal and mission is to close the gap between the actual resources available and those that are in need around the world and distribute that product as quickly and as efficiently as possible and only four weeks in from start of the competition and the moon-shot thinking. There are already three prototypes that are being tested live with patients around the world. This just goes to show that if we throw away those assumptions, new thinking can flourish and new innovation and new ideas can be born and developed really quickly. That has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any insights, news or stories you like our listeners to hear, get in touch with us through our social media or our website.

Start of Interview

Steve Rush: Dr. Simone Ahuja is a bestselling author, speaker and founder of the innovation strategy firm Blood Orange, is our special guest on The Leadership Hacker Podcast today, Simone. Welcome to the show.

Simone Ahuja: Thanks, Steve. Great to be here.

Steve Rush: So innovation and strategy is not where it all started for you, isn’t it? You start off in dentistry? If I am right.

Simone Ahuja: That is exactly right.

Steve Rush: So how did you end up going into dentistry then pivoting to doing what you are doing now?

Simone Ahuja: Yeah, People often ask me what is the connection between dentistry and innovation strategy, and I will tell you that one of the greatest skills I learned through dental trainings, I didn't practice dentistry for very long, but a long enough to understand how to manage anxiety. You know, there is obviously, there is a lot of that when folks come to the dentist. Ironically and interestingly, there is a ton of anxiety around innovation in some ways, because often when you are going into an organization, you are talking about innovation. It sounds like change and frankly, it is change and that change manifests as anxiety. So I think that, some of that training actually crossed over but it was actually a bout of Typhoid that left me pretty, pretty sick and hospitalized for 10 days. Some hallucinations, and high, high spiky fevers and maybe think that, you know, life is pretty short. This is not my path forward and I started to shift into a few other areas. I had been practicing improvisational comedy. I had been doing some filmmaking in addition to practicing dentistry very early on and I dove into those a little bit deeper. Ultimately, as I was making documentary films about emerging markets like India, I became kind of a market expert. We have a lot of Fortune 500 companies in Minneapolis, St. Paul, the area where I live and this was about the early mid-2000s.

Folks were saying, well, what can you tell us about these emerging economies? What is happening there? And as I became more of that market expert. I ended up making a documentary for PBS that was funded by Best Buy, the consumer electronics company. As they were thinking about not how to enter the market, but how do you look at a mind-set where if you don't have a ton of resources, like in an emerging market, but you still have to solve big problems, there's got to be a way to do that. What can we learn from that? So that really is where I first started diving into innovation, and that's where I realized that I love the anthropological piece of this, where I was diving in the market and talking to people, understanding what makes them tick and kind of putting different ideas together. Then that documentary led to a concept that I learned about called Jugaad. Jugaad Innovation I later called it with my co-authors and Jugaad is this way of doing more with less, so I don't have a ton of resources, but I've got to still solve these problems. How do I do it? And so, you know, we started writing about that in the Harvard Business Review and literary agent then pinged us and said, would you like to write a book about this concept?

And that is it. That is how it all got started. Back when I did this, I think it was probably thought of as a little bit more atypical. I think now we just call it a multidisciplinary background of these experiences in your hat.

Steve Rush: Exactly, right.

Simone Ahuja: But that is how it all started.

Steve Rush: It is a really neat and interesting backstory and often what I find through working with lots of entrepreneurs is there is often a moment in their lives where something has happened. In your case, it was not being very well. Created that inner self-thought of, “I got to do something different” and that's really neat. And you know, I never made the parallel between going to the dentist and innovation but I can see it, I can experience it. I work with a lot of organizations and you go through that same nervous in-trepidation that comes through, of “I don't know if it's going to work and will I be safe?” All of these same emotions really that happen in dentistry. What a neat parallel to have.

Simone Ahuja: It is and sometimes anticipation is the worst of it. Right? So if you can help people navigate that and have some compassion and understanding the why, I think, you know, I would say even younger in my innovation career. Well, I think I understood the anxiety. I probably was not as compassionate about it as I should have been. It is something that I have learned as I have kind of matured in my innovation strategy practice is really understanding the why? Why the fear? Why the anxiety? Why the push back? And helping people work their way through that.

Steve Rush: Jugaad Innovation has often been referred to as frugal innovation and Jugaad is the Indian word for frugality, is that right?

Simone Ahuja: Yeah, Jugaad is a Hindi term. It actually originated in Punjab. A northern state in India, and what it originally was like a jury-rigged farm vehicle. So take any parts that you have available to you. Make a vehicle that will serve multiple purposes. It could be tilling soil. It could be hauling things. It could be transporting people and, you know, these were not always the safest vehicles, but they were vehicles that would get the job done and everybody unfortunately does not have the choice to have the safest, most luxurious vehicle. But the concept was one of taking things that were readily available to use, so not thinking about what I don't have, but rather what do I have that can help me get these jobs done, right. All of us are familiar with that phrase jobs to be done. That vehicle is what the original Jugaad was and it became more of a colloquial term, so if you say I am going to do some Jugaad, it means I am going to fix this in some kind of way. Maybe it is a quick way to do it. Maybe it is an improvised way to do it and a lot of times those solutions are not the end all be all solution but there's something that can get you to the next step.

And there's actually some controversy in India. People who really understand the meaning of this word about, well, is it really valuable or not? And what I will say is when I worked in India for eight months doing my on the ground research for the book Jugaad Innovation. I learned about that practice of leveraging ingenuity and leveraging improvisation and thinking about what you have rather than what you don't have. For me, having been trained as a scientist and the empirical approach, you know, which is actually a kind of a good discovery process, it's still much more linear and so I was managing two teams, one team in India, one team in the United States and it was very interesting. All of them were so bright and putting forward great ideas, but they were different, so we learned a lot from each other. Where in the US the teams were putting forward a great ideas in a more linear fashion that were really valuable. The teams in India were… I will give you an example. We were filming some case studies about what is Jugaad or Jugaad Innovation look like? And we went out to look at some micro small energy like windmills that salt farmers had created in this desert called the Rann of Katch and we were literally in the middle of nowhere.

I mean there was and is still no G.P.S. in that area. And our guide was a man with a very long white beard and if he went down, we may go down with them. There was nothing, nothing really in sight, and we were trying to capture some of this story. The ground became kind of craggy and it was interesting because my team, we didn't have a Steadicam. Right, so we were filming this and we needed a better picture as we were driving along and we could not go and rent something. But my team immediately said, well, we'll do some Jugaad and that's when I remember thinking, like, What is that? Whatever it is, let's do that. Because we are going to run out of time. We are going to run out of water. We are going to run out of fuel and that is it. Shows over and so what they do is they just sort of fashion something out of whatever we had in the van, so we had pillows. We had some pipes. We had some twine and they put something together that allowed us to capture a more steady image that was good enough for us to continue forward and that's when it kind of dawned on me that this is a different approach.

And I think, you know, this is where I started really thinking about striving for perfection, which is really a kind of a myth in many ways. It is not to say you don't want to have excellence or safety and thinking about how do we improvise solutions. And that's the thing that I wanted to really bring back and share here in the United States and Europe and the U.K. What does it look like to have more of that improvised mind-set? And to be sure, you know, we have a ton of that in our entrepreneurial communities and if we look back further, our farmers, if we look at the way that small farms used to operate, those are the ultimate Jugaad innovators.

Steve Rush: It is a super story and if you think about the principles of Jugaad and being frugal, probably the environment that we are in now has never needed Jugaad more. Global pandemic organizations having to be really thoughtful about how they use their money, their resources. How do you think that the environment that we have been forced into now is going to change the lens as to how we might approach innovation in the future?

Simone Ahuja: So I love this question. I have been thinking about this a lot and I think Jugaad Innovation has never been more relevant than it is right now. In the face of a pandemic, in the face of a crisis like the one that we're in and we're seeing this in real time. So the priorities are getting very crystal clear, the simplicity. There is a lot of complexity in terms of things like, well, who is doing what? But in organizations that I am working with right now, everybody's peeling back all the fat. Let's get really focused on what our problem is. Let's identify that and let's address that in the best way possible, so the simplicity is coming forward. The idea of leveraging ingenuity is happening in a way like I've never seen it in a lot of organizations, and you'll see that, too, right? We see that in a lot of digital platforms that are getting quickly created. The way that, you know, there are teams working from home where they did not before. Organizations are starting to have to flex that way.

Steve Rush: Right.

Simone Ahuja: Which is, you know, creating an environment where we need to trust more, which is something we could talk about a little more as well. But ventilators are being created in a way that they weren't before. By organizations who never created them before or maybe, two people have to use two ventilators. Maybe these are things; we have to start thinking about so it is really creating a time when we have to leverage a more flexible mind-set. And this idea, you know, it's interesting. I was working with one organization where, you know, the senior leader came to me and said, look, we want you to help us think about how do we fend off external disruption and when the COVID crisis struck, there was sort of this question mark of should we continue with this? And, you know, the answer is you have to continue with this, because this is the disruption. It is just taking a different shape than we thought it would. It is not a start-up or another large organization. It is taken the shape of a pandemic. This is disrupting your business. This is disrupting the way you work and now you have to respond to it using these different principles. You know, you have to do more with less. You have to leverage ingenuity. You have to make sure you are addressing your customer needs, whoever they are, whether they are internal or external. Now I think is the best time to apply the principles of Jugaad Innovation to fend off this external disrupt.

Steve Rush: Got it and also, I think mindset is something you talked about, quiet a lot and this is something that you write about quite a lot in terms of the mindset around innovation and having a pandemic forces people into doing things. Creates that disruption at discomfort. How much of a mindset though, as to what you then do next plays out here.

Simone Ahuja: This is a really important question, so what I'm observing in real time with clients right now. Is that this pandemic is demonstrating what is possible. You know, there is an Oliver Wendell Holmes quote that says, “A mind once shifted or changed shape, can never return to its original shape.” And I believe that's true, so now what we have to do is make sure that there isn't…you know, there might be another shape shift that occurs in mind-set.

The question I have for the leaders who have seen this shape change is, now that you've seen people operating in a different way, now that you see people, for example, a person in one area going to another area, because that's where they're needed, not because they're worried about their title, because that's how they have to address the problem, the real problem at hand. The question for the leader is now, now what are you going to do? How are you going to make sure the shape is maintained or even accelerated? What are you going to model? What are you going to reward? What are you going to support? What systems will you put in place so we don't go back to the way it was? Nobody wants to stay in a state of heightened fear forever. It is exhausting; people are getting tired at the same time. There is a ton of good that is coming out of this. Leaders have to think about, what are the systems we put in place to support this? And I think what's really interesting about what we're seeing in real time in almost every organization is, you know, it's extracting more value out of organizations, out of people and stretching their limits. Even if they were pushing back against changing, it is showing them what they can do. It is a way that had to happen, so I think that's the piece that's really interesting, is now you're seeing it. It is not that some leader is saying, well, this is part of an innovation initiative. You have to do it, It is actually happening.

Steve Rush: Having a leadership mindset of innovation also is not just about you dictating the pace and creating the environments, set to the strategy. This is about how you unlock the capacity for innovation within the teams you work with, right?

Simone Ahuja: Yeah, that is right.

Steve Rush: Internally, most leaders who have more of an innovative mind-set will start to think about how they develop intrapreneurship in their teams and how do we create that entrepreneurial spirit internally. In your latest book, Disrupt It Yourself. You take that to another level don’t you? You call them DIY wires, disruptive it yourselves. Tell us a little bit about that.

Simone Ahuja: So intrepreneurship is gaining a lot of popularity right now. You know, as we see more and more start-ups that are potentially able to disrupt big established players. As we see that in only 14 percent of new graduates want to work in large organizations, large organizations are saying, well, hey, how can we embody some of that spirit and energy so that we can actually sustain ourselves? We know that the big companies are falling off the map, whether it's S&P 500 or other, you know, other indices, they're just not there as long as they used to be. So intrapreneurs were more higher ranking. They were really thinking more about the kind of existing products or enhancements or kind of related services, they were the lone wolf. They were kind of looking more at the past, whereas the deal DIY wires are more democratic. It is everyone.

You know, one of the first things that we do when we go into organizations is do kind of a check in on who is actually coming up with the ideas and if it's only people who are as senior leaders and corporate, we know that probably they don't have a really complete spectrum of ideas. Right, so it is about being democratized and being more inclusive. It is about altogether new ideas and to be very clear, it is not about chasing shiny objects. I think it is really important for organizations to think about how do we advance our existing business priorities using innovation as a tool, a leveller methodology. All right, so it is not that we are just going off on tangents here. We are still meeting needs. We are just doing it in a completely different way, and I think DIY wires are more collaborative.

You know, if the intrapreneur of, you know, 30 years ago, it's kind of the lone wolf in their garage, the DIY wire rather, is kind of someone who is more collaborative. They are able to enlist people. They understand that, you know, they are not going to have all this problem-solving prowess at their fingertips and not just the problem solving, but also how do you socialize and evangelize ideas? How do you keep ideas going? And then moreover, how do you keep the energy moving through the organization so it doesn't die out early? Those are some of the fundamental differences between an intrapreneur when the term was first coined 30 plus years ago and a DIY wire.

Steve Rush: Given, many folk listening to this will be leading organizations and teams.

They will be used to processes and systems that helped create the outcomes for innovation and thinking, things like Six Sigma and agile transformation. How do you move away from the control as a leader in holding onto these processes and give control to the teams to really kind of allow that flare an innovative flair and entrepreneurship and DIY wire is to come to the fore?

Simone Ahuja: So if we think about what Six Sigma is, it is really all about optimization and that is kind of a code word for sameness. Right, but that is tough, especially in today's environment. Things are changing really fast and we've especially seen that now in the midst of the COVID crisis, and you can't really schedule creativity and ideas and say, well, I'm going to have, you know, eight creative ideas on Wednesday at 3 p.m. So that is a huge challenge of the linearity and the sameness that Six Sigma Drive, so, you know, my sense is that is a discipline of the past, not of the future. Whereas, of course, if we look at, you know, agile, not as a software development approach, but as a management or a business approach, it makes a ton of sense because it really is one that kind of inspires organizational fluidity. All right, so we are thinking about. What are our requirements and how do our solutions evolve over time? You know, through the collaboration that we do, how do we think about not only what we are doing, but what we're not doing? And I think that's the power of agile. Right. You are updating along the way and removing things that are no longer needed.

Now, the thing that is interesting about this from a leadership perspective is this requires rapid change and this requires trust and I think that trust is so fundamental to innovation, and we see this over and over again. You know, we have seen this out of Google when they looked at their teams that were the most effective.

They were not the teams with the best pedigrees or the most experienced. They were the teams that built the most psychological safety and I think we have to hammer that message home. I recently with my team did some deep dive research with a team of leadership about this idea of safety. You know, what is working innovation? What is not? And psychological safety came up as a top barrier. However, out of, you know a handful of leaders; 80-plus percent said that is not true for my team. But we had the data in front of us, so it's a disconnect because nobody wants to feel like they're not fostering that safety and that trust in their teams, but it's happening all the time. And when you don't have the trust, you're not setting up an environment for new ideas. You are setting up an environment that is going to only do something safe. Something that we done before. You know, Adam Grant had a great tweet that he put out recently. You know if you are having issues trusting your folks who are working from home right now. Right. As everyone is shifting to most people working from home, you either should not hire them in the first place. You are not doing a good job motivating them. You are protecting your own core work at home habits or all of the above and I think that is actually quite true. So, you know if we think about is the old management paradigm, the old management paradigm is how do we keep people on the rails? And that's why Six Sigma made a lot of sense. That is exactly what Six Sigma is. How do we keep people on the rails? How do we keep things the same? How do we optimize?

Today if we think about what the new management paradigm is in the 21st century, it is about creating space. It is about creating a permissionless environment and disrupt it yourself. I talk about the value of .What does it mean to be a permissionless environment? How do we build trust? How do we provide air cover and remove barriers for intrapreneurs rather than trying to keep them really kind of fine? So I think that that concept of trust. What I have realized is sometimes it is about the systems in place. Right, so if people come up with big new ideas or try something different, forget about not even rewards or incentives. They are actually penalties that is actually really true but what I've come to realize as I work with innovation teams, mostly in Fortune 500, is that it also can be a leadership issue. It also comes down to your own ability to lead and trust, which is connected to the broader culture but it's also connected to self. I would encourage any managers and leaders who are listening to podcasts to really look internally about why they may not be as trusting as they want to be.

Steve Rush: And to create a permissionless society you absolutely need trust, so for the folks listening to this, where would they start? What would be the kind of one place you would encourage them to think about or to take some action first to start the journey towards the permission less society?

Simone Ahuja: When we think about being permissionless, there are a couple of things that leaders can do. The first thing we talked about, the most important thing is how do I create air cover for my intrapreneurs? And I do that if I trust them, if I trust that they're working towards the greater good. Let's say we come to an agreement or they've identified a pain point for whoever our end user is and they're trying to solve it in a new way. How do I create space and how do I remove barriers that are coming up for them? And, you know, this is connected to having a more sort of decentralized approach to innovation. This means that even if somebody does not have innovation in their title, you are still supporting them and you are still allowing them and giving them that permission. Right. To be permissionless, and this is something that I see leaders butting up against very often where they, you know, the word permissionless. This is actually a title of one of the principles in my book. Make it permissionless; I got to tell you, if I've ever seen hackles go up. Permissionless is a big one.

Steve Rush: I bet.

Simone Ahuja: You can imagine. You have seen this in so many of the organizations you have worked with. Right, Steve?

Steve Rush: Right, I have for sure. It is a control thing, isn't it, really?

Simone Ahuja: It is.

Steve Rush: I am now having to give away control to something I had control of when I was a leader. I am now giving it to you and I am saying you have the ability and the permission to go ahead and you do not have to ask.

Simone Ahuja: That is right. That is exactly right and, you know, I think there is so much inside of it. It is about ourselves. It is about trust. It is about our mob. It is about the various metrics that we have. It is about not knowing necessarily what is that path look like? So if we think about, you know, how do we quickly and easily create a more permissionless, environment? There some simple things that you can do. The first thing is you have to start signalling this, so when people act in a permissionless way, you have to hold it up and say, look, this isn't exactly how all always did it. Here is someone who tried a different approach. Here is what we learned from it and I think it is important that it is not always, quote, “success”. Share the learning so that people understand…permissionless environment is also one where learning is valued as a currency. And it's not just the so-called wins are value. Right. By the way, you know, there is so much talk about failure. That is the other problem, so much risk aversion and there is a concern about failure. From childhood, there is a lot of shame around this word of failure and in our practice; we just don't use that word anymore. I know a lot of people like to, and I think it works for some organizations but what we've found is that if we prove a hypothesis out, it's learning and then if we disprove a hypothesis that's also learning and it helps people reframe their path forward.

And if you're experimenting and trying new things, invariably a lot of things aren't going to work out. What leaders can do is talk about it, signal that it is okay. Reward people who are acting in this way. You know, for some organizations, we have had to establish baby steps and that looks exactly like this. Instead of being broadly permissionless, you go to your manager. You agree on the problem that you are going to solve. You agree that there is a need for that. You kind of make your case about here's this pain point. I want to solve this problem. I don't know exactly how I'm going to do it, but I'm going to check in with you every so often. And maybe you establish a cadence of when you check in and hopefully that check in is more about updating idea sharing and barrier removal than it is about you shouldn't do that. You are off the rails and you are not going to hit your mark and, you know, this is going to affect our P&L. Right, so there are two different ways you can go. So the idea is, you know, create that kind of a system between individual contributors and managers, because sometimes you have to get that granular and it has to be a little bit more permission in the permissionless. To be realistic in some organizations.

Steve Rush: And you are so right about the whole principle of failure verse learning, and the reason that is so important for people to get their heads round. Is that failure goes to a different part of the brain than learning does. Failing goes to a part of a brain in the limbic system, and it can create responsiveness that is really unhelpful, whereas learning is a positive outcome and it triggers the right thinking but more importantly, keeps the front of our brain working, which is where we make executive decisions. It is absolutely important that people reframe in that way, isn't it?

Simone Ahuja: That is so true; Steve and I think this kind of winds back to what we were talking about earlier about the psychology and the neuroscience and so in a way, it is sort of like how are we compassionate around this? You know, why are people risk averse? Why is their perfectionism? Why are we not interested in failing? And a feeling is way too hard. Let's just call it learning because it literally….

Steve Rush: Right.

Simone Ahuja: Creates a different chemical response in our bodies.

Steve Rush: So true. If people are thinking now of a permission less society, got people running in different directions or doing crazy things. They have a wrong view wouldn't they?

Simone Ahuja: Right.

Steve Rush: Because that is not really what that means.

Simone Ahuja: That is right. It is not about, you know, I am going to intentionally run into walls over and over again. I have carte blanche to do whatever I think without really being thoughtful about the, best way forward or enlisting others or making sure I stay really connected to my customer or we're mitigating risk by, making the steps that I take or the experiments that I do really small. It is not at all about that. It is very much about, you know, testing your way forward and, and learning and in small steps and frankly, it is actually quite the opposite, right? And you know this from your practice. If we experiment our way forward and we take these tiny little bets over and over again, we'll get to a better outcome than if we make a couple of massive bets and one of them goes wrong or it doesn't work out in the way we want to.

Steve Rush: It de-risks the situation, doesn't it?

Simone Ahuja: It sure does. It de-risks the situation. That is exactly right.

Steve Rush: So if we have created more DIY wires as and they are running around now with this mind-set that says I have permission to be innovative and we're creating more disruption in our organizations. In your experience, is this ultimately going to lead to more disruptive behaviour and a lack of discipline?

Simone Ahuja: No. it isn't, I think what it leads to is it leads to more engagement. Now, while I don't think that, you know, we should hold up innovation only as an engagement tool. I think if that happens, that might be a little dangerous. We know that innovation is really imperative to sustain in today's environment. But what I've seen very clearly is that operating in this way and giving people…Dan Pink, you know, phrases and the research he has done that mastery and giving them the autonomy and often a sense of purpose that comes with, you know, solving problems about something that you care about. You identified that need is you create a tremendous amount of engagement. You provide more creative outlets, you get better ideas and it's not that everybody goes rogue. It is again comes back to this idea of trust.

And so it's about putting those people together in a way that you still have a system. You are still systematically connecting the intrapreneur. The DIY wire with their colleagues and the resources they need internally and externally. You might put formal functions in place, you might have something like a chief innovation officer, you might not, you might have more cells of innovation across your company but what you do have. As you have systems that work hand in hand with these creative outlets, so I would say the biggest thing that this approach leads to and very clearly is engagement. And I think the beauty of this for large corporations is they have a lot of talent in their ranks that's under-utilized. You can bring this out; you can retain the people who have this kind of entrepreneurial sense in them. You can retain them and then they talk to their friends and in a way, they become kind of a recruiting tool and I think that is really crucial as we know that, you know, a lot of Grads don’t want to work with these big organizations.

Steve Rush: I love that principle. I think the whole kind of mindset around it differentiates some organizations in some teams and therefore, you become a walking advert. Because you are allowed to perform. You are allowed to be innovative. You can demonstrate flair and creativity.

Simone Ahuja: That is exactly right and what we know is that a lot of these folks talk to each other, right? It is so easy to do that, you know, nationally and internationally. So it really does become a network. Well, this organization is actually embracing you know, being a DIY wire an intrapreneur. Okay, let me check that out, you know, because I think there is a lot of lip service to this kind of approach, but the companies that are actually enjoying it are attracting some really strong talent from the outside.

Steve Rush: So as a leader, in order to create disruption but also maintain discipline, that is part of the system, isn't it? So how do I go about doing that?

Simone Ahuja: I think that is an important question because we have to understand that creativity and driving disruption and having discipline are not at odds, in fact, that they are complimentary, right. When we put systems in place, systems that have flexibility. Systems that have guardrails and not sharp delineations, they are actually highly, highly complementary. So one of the most important things that people can do. If you want to start off really small, have an ideation session, have something like a hackathon, ask people to add in. That is a very simple starting place, you know, but just make sure you don't have an idea box where nothing gets executed on. That's the probably the biggest thing I would say the biggest don't have innovation. That is all way to create a kind of a structure. You know, companies like Intuit, if you read and, disrupt yourself. Do a great job of, of having things like hackathons and having places for people to add an idea.

But then they also have places for intrapreneur to connect to each other outside of there. They also have coaches, so these are people inside the organization who've been there. They have been the intrapreneur, they understand the passion behind the idea, they understand the challenges and the barriers that might come up. So you have these internal support system and then of course, if you have incentives and other metrics that support entrepreneurship, you have this discipline but you still get the creativity. So I was just talking to someone yesterday, in fact at a manufacturing organization where they have incentives that change every four months because the things that they're doing are changing very quickly and the incentives have to be changed a month in advance. Because if you are having incentives based on what you do over the course of a year, they may not be relevant over the course of year, so rapidly changing metrics I think are a part of that.

And that's where, you know, I think that this is where smaller teams can be really useful or again, that trust of asking a team, well, what do you think your metrics should be? You would help define the new KPIs. You are embedded in this more than we are. How many of these things should bring forward? How many of these ideas are going to come to fruition? How many of them are going to go to market and so on. So let the teams become involved in that and that co-design even of the metrics, KPIs, etc. Is a part of how you fostered the disruptive shifts without disruption in the system, it's a really beautiful marriage of creativity plus some structure because if you don't have any structure, what we find is then things just go off the rails. It is not going to really be effective.

Steve Rush: And it is a myth, isn't it? That, you know if you are creative and innovative, that it is mutually exclusive from execution. And of course it's not and that's where that leadership discipline comes in. Right?

Simone Ahuja: I think that is exactly right. So what I will say is, you know, after writing Jugaad Innovation and bringing these ideas back, what we've seen over the course of the last, let's say 10, 15 years, is that ideation has really changed. There will always be smart people in these organizations. But the ideas are getting broader, you know, these methodologies like lean and design thinking very parallel to Jugaad Innovation. Being divergent before your convergent, that is starting to become much, much more common. What is challenging is to bring the new ideas forward if you have to put them through a sieve of the existing system. Think about it this way, it is sort of like, are you building an executing for your end user or are you not doing that because of your existing business model? Right? So that is the trap that organizations get into and that is why, you know, we write about, you know, organizational agility and fluidity in addition to the mind-set of the innovators. If your organization has no space to shift in its structure, if you have no shift in metrics, you have no shift in the ability of teams to move around to some extent. You know, the ability to drive big innovation starts to become more limited.

Steve Rush: It is fascinating and I could spend all day talking about this with you, but our guests are also going to want to extract some extra top tips and ideas. I would like to ask you what your top leadership or innovation hacks would be?

Simone Ahuja: Yeah, I love giving people a quick starting points because sometimes it is just hard to get started. In terms of seeding an idea, one is just keeping the user at the centre. Who is your end user? And what is their real problem? Are you solving the right problem? And for an innovation crowd, that's old news, but what I'm here to say is it's still a massive problem. I see it every day in almost every organization. The user is not at the centre. We are still operating on a ton of assumptions. You know, another thing that folks can do is if there is pushback, you know, if people are trying to think about new ways to bring ideas forward, there is pushback. Enlist those people, those very people into your process. That is something I learned pretty early on. So, for example, we would often get pushback from legal and we learned as we sort of ate our own cooking and did our research is legal would be irritated and frustrated because they would always be brought in on the back end, not the front end.

And to be clear, it can't be anybody from legal, just anyone. It has to be the right person with the right mind-set but there are folks in legal out there who love helping you navigate the grid and they will finely do it. If you bring them in early, they can become an internal champion and advocate rather than sort of an adversary or someone who is pushing back on you on the backend. I think innovation is happening organically in every organization. Hold it up put it out there. Simple things like a leader, putting out an email saying. I think now's a great time to do this, to start cataloguing the innovation that is happening in your organization right now. Probably directly as a result of the COVID crisis. Sharing that, holding it up. And asking people what else is happening?

What have you seen? Send me a note let me know about it, and then asking the question, well, how do we make sure this really continues? That is really powerful to people, for people to see what's already happening in their organization and understanding shift is occurring, that we can do this here, and then finally I would say do more with less. You know, there is a chapter in my book Disrupt it Yourself that is a nod to Jugaad Innovation. It is called keep it approval, so this is really about how do we deliver high value at low cost? How do we do more with less? So I think that is a part of it is thinking about, well not what don't I have? Like I need a giant room with whiteboards and a lot of posted notes or I can get started right now. If I have a lunch and learn with a couple of people who have some big ideas and we just kick some things around. Doing more with less also means do less talking and get into action.

Steve Rush: Right.

Simone Ahuja: I think I will, end up there. I mean, if there is one thing that people should do is just, get into action, take a tiny little step, something that a third grader could understand. Your phrase starts with a verb; you know, research something for 15 minutes or call this person to ask them about how I might solve this problem. It start very small and get into action.

Steve Rush: I love those and they are super hacks. Thank you for sharing those with us today. Simone.

Simone Ahuja: My pleasure.

Steve Rush: This part of the show also, we want to think about how you've used something that may not have worked well for you in the past or a time in your work or your life where things have not planned out in any way, shape or form. We call this Hack to Attack. So what would be your Hack to Attack?

Simone Ahuja: I will go back to this piece about compassion. So I've learned that if you try to push innovation on people because it's the right thing to do, even if it really, you know, no matter, what you feel or think, if someone's not ready for it and you use a stick approach, it's not going to work in any meaningful and long-term way. And so I have become much, much more conscious and much more compassionate in my approach to innovation and teaching innovation in guiding leaders to have compassion. So for example, even if we think about the metrics, we might say, you know, it is important for everyone to bring ideas forward. Everybody has to bring five new ideas forward to this meeting. Which is a great way to start some meetings; by the way, that is another hack, but what happens is the people who are introverted. The people who are not comfortable speaking in a group environment get left out, and so an example of that kind of compassion is maybe those people are identified and, you talk to them separately and you make sure that they are not excluded because they don't fit a certain mould of what innovation looks like. So I would say that is one of my biggest learnings of the last several years. Push does not work. It is not effective for anyone. It does not lead to lasting impact. I think a compassionate approach to innovation is the way forward.

Steve Rush: I could not agree with you more, and the last thing I wanted to unpick with you is we do a little bit of time travel. At this part of the show is where we take you back to bump into Simone at 21. Now, if you could speak to Simone when she was 21 and give her some words of wisdom and some advice, what would that be?

Simone Ahuja: Follow your heart. Follow your heart. You know, as you get older, hopefully you come into your own. You start, you know, we talked about trust a lot today, and as you get older, hopefully you trust yourself more and more. You know, there is a kind of a balance in a way of what you learn. You know, there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom and part of that wisdom is understanding what intuition is and why there is intuition. So I would say those feelings that you have where you know something is or isn't the right thing, follow those earlier on and don't worry about what others say is, I think that's a very common thing we hear entrepreneurs say is there are lots of naysayers. That does not mean you don't take anyone else's opinion into consideration, but I would say follow your heart.

Steve Rush: It is clear that over the last 15 years. Having followed your heart, you've now driven not only something that helps others get into the principles of frugal innovation and Jugaad, but actually you can see in everything that you do Simone, and having watched some of your talks and having read Disrupt It Yourself, you know, compassion is a key theme that runs through that. So thank you for sharing that. As folks have been listening to you today, I am pretty certain that they'll want to know a little bit more about you. Where would you like my daily to go to find out a bit more about the work that you do and how they might want to connect with you?

Simone Ahuja: Thanks Steve. I am glad the compassion piece comes through. It is definitely something that is a high priority for me and for Blood Orange right now. If folks want to reach out or learn more about us. They can to blood-orange.com and if they want a tool that they can use, they can go onto contact and just drop in their email and write innovation action plan in the title and we will drop them out. A very simple plan that they can use to get started. We talked about getting into action so we can send them something like that. We've also got an innovations kind of StrengthsFinder assessment that folks can check in about as well.

Steve Rush: Great stuff and really practical help and advice through your website too, and it's just goes without saying Simone. I have really enjoyed chatting with you; I have studied your work for the last few years and had a ball having the opportunity to speak with you today. Thank you ever so much for joining us on The Leadership Hacker Podcast today.

Simone Ahuja: Thanks, Steve. This is a great podcast and I have enjoyed listening and being a part of this. Thank you.

Closing

Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth

Disrupt-It-Yourself: Eight Ways to Hack a Better Business---Before the Competition Does

View Details

Greg Orme is an Award winning author and business keynote speaker and is our special guest on Episode 14. Find out why we should stop competing with AI but to instead start to differentiate ourselves. Explore the superpowers you’ll need to future-proof your value in the workplace: Consciousness, Curiosity, Creativity and Collaboration. We talk about Greg’s, “Dance Steps”. You can learn one-step and put them together in any order. You’ll learn:

How do you create a culture of creativity?
Consciousness gives us the motivation and the time.
Curiosity is the fuel for creativity.
Why having an experimental approach is key!

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Find out more about Greg and his work below:

The Human Edge (Business Book of the Year 2020)

Greg’s website: https://gregorme.org

Greg on Twitter

Greg on LinkedIn

Read the full transcript below:

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Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

On the show today is Greg Orme. He is the author of the business Book of the Year for 2020, The Human Edge. Before we get a chance to speak with Greg. It is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, we explore what age do we really start to develop entrepreneurial spirit. Our spirit can happen quite early but according to combined studies of the Duke University, the Kauffman Foundation, The Founder Institute and Northwestern; the average age of an entrepreneur is actually 40 years old when launching his or her first start up and the average age of leaders of high growth start-ups is 45. While Tech Media is ripe with stories, a successful 20 somethings founding their first billionaire empire, the truth is that 40 somethings are much more likely to start companies and succeed. Adeo Ressi founder of “The Founder Institute”, developed research that shows that older age is actually a better predictor of entrepreneurial success. The research in question is not small scale either. To get the data The Founder Institute tracked 3000 global applicants, examined in detail thousands of organizations, a thousand enrolled founders and track 350 of their graduates. So do we think the age really helps? According to Ressi, older individuals have generally completed more complex projects from buying houses, raising a family and in addition older people have developed greater vocational skills than the younger counterparts. We theorize that the combination of successful project completion skills with real world experience helps older entrepreneurs identify and address more realistic business outcomes and opportunities.

This is borne out not only by research, which shows, amongst other things, that people over 55 are twice as likely to launch high growth start-ups than those under 35, but by scanning just a quick list of successful entrepreneurs: Ray Kroc was 52 when he shaped McDonald's into the multi-billion global organization that it is. Sam Walton was 44 when he started small little company called Wal-Mart. Lynda Weinman co-founded Lynda.com at 40 and subsequently sold that to Linkedin for $1.5 billion and not a “twentysomething” among them. The fact is innovation culture suggests that it is more trendy and more youth orientated and it is not as cool for older folk. This leadership mind-set can be limiting for all. It can frame older individuals by making them feel useless or expired once if fit certain age, and can also hold back younger people by making them feel that they haven't achieved or they have failed if they haven't found that their next big social media platform by the time they're 21. And of course, young people can become successful entrepreneurs for sure, but it's extremely misleading to believe that this is the norm so if you haven't hit your first million and you're in your 30s and 40s and 50s, there's still hope yet, and our next story shows that entrepreneurial leadership has gotten no age boundaries.

The Utah Highway Patrol said, “a trooper conducting a traffic stop on a suspected impaired driver instead found a five-year-old driver seeking to purchase a Lamborghini”. The highway patrol said in a Twitter post that a trooper conducted a traffic stop in Webber County on what he thought was an impaired driver; but the driver of the vehicle turned out to be a five-year-old boy who had made off with his parents car. The boy who was pulled over at the 25th Street off-ramp of the southbound Interstate 15, told the trooper that he'd taken his parents car after getting into an argument with his mother, who told him she would not buy him a Lamborghini. He decided to take his entrepreneurial spirit to the next level and head off in her car in search of that Lamborghini. The child told the trooper that he did intend indeed driving to California to buy the luxury vehicle for himself and his mom would not get in his way. His only downfall was that he only had three dollars in his wallet. That has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, insights or information, please get in touch with us and share your stories.

Start of Interview

Steve Rush: Our guest today sparks creativity and business innovation in a fast paced, changing world. Is the author of The Human Edge, which has just been awarded the Business Book of the Year for 2020, is Greg Orme, Greg, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Greg Orme: Well, I am delighted to be here, Steve. Thanks for thanks for inviting me.

Steve Rush: It is absolutely our pleasure, and congratulations, by the way, on winning the Business Book of the Year. Fantastic achievement. I am sure you have been delighted with that.

Greg Orme: It has just been fantastic; really, game changing for the book and something I am really proud of, it's just been wonderful.

Steve Rush: And so you should be, so before becoming an author, you started-off your career in the TV world, right?

Greg Orme: Yes.

Steve Rush: Tell us a little bit about the journey to here.

Greg Orme: Well, as a journo, I was a young journalist all the way back in the 1990s. My careers adviser at school advised me that it was not a good idea to go into journalism and of course, that is the only thing I wanted to do then. I clambered my way up from local newspapers, The Solihull Times to the Birmingham Evening Mail to the Nationals, down in London and then into television.

Steve Rush: And how did the television bit come about? What did that give you in terms of foundations for what you do now?

Greg Orme: Well, it is really funny, you know, because right now, obviously we're speaking when the world has gone virtual and so I'm doing a lot more webinars and sort of virtual presentations. And so the production of those really goes all the way back to producing television news because I was a young producer on London Tonight, which was the local television news there and then with ITN and ITV, and also along the way with the BBC.

So, you know, taking stories, really boiling them down to what the nuggets are, then deciding what format to use and writing scripts around it. It's all the stuff that you do when you're presenting, you know, virtual webinars and that kind of thing, so I've come full circle. It is really quite strange.

Steve Rush: So fantastic foundations given that when you were starting out your career, you probably had not realized the importance of calling upon them at a later date?

Greg Orme: Well, you never do, do you? You never know where your skills will take you. Actually, as a facilitator of face-to-face workshops and, you know, I facilitated boards of directors as well in my work on organizational change. Straight with organizations and via organizations such as the London Business School and Ducsy and various others. I found that idea of what a journalist does, which is to learn, ask interesting questions and then summarize and kind of guide the conversation. Has helped me all the way through my career. So yes, it has become really pertinent now, but I've always relied on those journalistic skills, actually.

Steve Rush: Communications are at the heart of everything we do, particularly when we are leading businesses, right?

Greg Orme: Yes. I mean, it is really central. I mean, my work now is sort of sits astride organizational change, but it is really working with the leaders that drive that change and catalyse it. And if you think about what leadership is, Steve, leadership is effectively communication and influence, especially in non-hierarchical organizations, which they increasingly are. It is your ability to move people through your communication, so it is separate to management, which is establishing what is going on and making sure there is some kind of consistency. Being a leader is all about communication. So even though I have not been a communication consultant for many, many years. Really, leadership is at the heart of the work I do with organizations and the people that run them.

Steve Rush: Right and given that you started out in journalism, you ended up in a leadership role and several leadership roles yourself and executive roles. How did that transition take place for you?

Greg Orme: Well, that came about because I went back to London Business School. They asked me back after I had done my executive MBA. To go back to be the founding CEO for a thing called the Centre for Creative Business, and that was a joint venture between London Business School and the big art schools, the University Arts London, which I said number of different art schools and fashion houses. The idea was we were exporting kind of MBA thinking from London Business School to creative businesses because the British government wanted more tax revenues from our creative sector and we were part of that, so that's how it started in terms of that was an executive role running and growing that. And then after that came to an end after four years because we had four years of funding. I then was an interim CEO with a large recruiting and HR services business called Randstad and Randstad; they are sort of global businesses, and I was a CEO of one of their businesses in the UK, so, yes, I had some experience at the front line, which is invaluable when I am helping people in similar situations.

Steve Rush: So during that time as CEO of a couple of businesses and getting into the world of creativity and innovation and new thinking. That was when you started your first book Spark, so how did that come about?

Greg Orme: The Spark was…it goes back to that idea of the Centre for Creative Business, and so the question that was often been asked, which is what can creative businesses. If we were sort of exporting, MBA thinking to creative businesses and it struck me that there is an interesting reverse of that question. Reversing the polarity issue to ask what can creative businesses, the likes of advertisers and TV production companies and design houses and architects teach the rest of the world. In terms of how they maintain an atmosphere of creativity in their organisations? I always think if you write a business book, you should have a central question that you are trying to answer, and the question there was, you know, what can creative businesses teach the rest of the world? And so that's what the spark is. It’s how do you create a culture of creativity? How do you have behaviours of leadership? Because in most of the research, that has gone into creativity in organisations and I mean all organisations, not just ones that call themselves creative. The sad thing is that creativity gets killed more often than its encouraged just by the rules and regulations of business, so it's something that you have to protect and nurture.

Steve Rush: In my experience as a coach and leading businesses too; one of the biggest things I find about creativity is often when you are more extroverted and you are able to come and demonstrate and showcase creativity, it's more noticeable. But actually there is an inordinate amount of learning to be had from people who appear less obviously creative, but equally have the same level of thinking and creativity and creative flair, if you like. How do you go about enabling that in people who are maybe more introverted?

Greg Orme: Yeah, absolutely. I am not sure. It is about introversion and extroversion for me. You know, looking at the research, I think introverted people can be just as creative as extroverted people. You probably just won't hear their ideas as readily. What is really interesting for me is that creativity is one of those words that's very exclusive. It is often thought of as for geniuses or for artistic people over a certain type of person, whereas the reality is we are all born creative. And then the culture of our schools, sadly, and also the culture of our businesses, kind of beat out of us. We realize that our creative thinking is not as welcome as we thought it might be. So there's a lot of really interesting research that shows that, you know, if you do creativity tests like the Torrance Test on kids that are five years old, something like 98 percent of them score very highly in their ability to apply divergent thinking, which is a foundational stone of creativity. By the time, we are fifteen that is gone down to 30 percent, and by the time we are in the workplace, it is down to twelve, five, two percent, and so it's our environment that knocks it out of us. In effect, I am on a mission with both my books really to try and help everybody to rediscover their creativity, not just the chosen few.

Steve Rush: That is a really interesting statistics. It is almost we have unlearned how to be creative by the environment through school, education, work and forced parameters around our behaviour.

Greg Orme: Yeah, well, unlearning is a really good word for it. In fact, George Land, who did the original study on this, who came up with these really rather depressing statistics. That was the conclusion of his report after 20 years of studying this cohort of American schoolchildren, that went into the American work environment was that if you are creative thinking is, you know, effectively unlearn it from your environment. Well, anything that can be unlearned can be relearned, so that is the silver lining from this, that actually you can rediscover your creativity as well as been a skill. It is an attitude. You know, you really can step back into your creativity enough, and that, as been a personal journey for me, and also, it's a personal mission for me to help other people do that because it's life changing.

Steve Rush: And it is really reassuring for those people who are listening to this who maybe think I'm not as creative as I'd like to be. We've probably got all of those foundations somewhere tucked away at the back of our brain. We just need to pull them forward, right?

Greg Orme: Absolutely. You know, I like to think of it as this. If creativity I was saying, is this exclusive word there. That, you know, one of those red velvet rope surrounds that say you can't come in. If you actually dig down to sub worlds that support it, like curiosity, questioning, learning, engaging, sparking two ideas together, talking to other people, we can all do these really simple things like questioning and learning. So if you can do that, our human brains are actually programmed to make connections to do what psychologists call general thinking, i.e. connecting things together. You can't help yourself. You just need to put the fuel and the energy into your brain and have the attitude listen for the ideas that come and don't dispel them. We can all do it.

Steve Rush: That is excellent I love that. So moving on to your work now. So global keynote speaker, facilitated hundreds of sessions across the globe for different organizations, and in parallel to that, have written your award-winning book, The Human Edge. What was the inspiration for book number two from where you left off with Spark?

Greg Orme: Yeah, well, you know, I was thinking it came sort of five and a half, six years later. And I'd done a lot of work with a lot of big organizations in automotive and banking and all sorts of different places, and had the benefit of traveling around the world and sort of being a fly on the wall in these offices, and so I started getting really interested in where is the workplace. The future going and what is the role of technology and disruption, particularly because I think we're in a very disrupted environment. Of course, is extremely disruptive. Now with COVID-19, but it was happening before that with artificial intelligence and data vacation and new generations coming into the workplace and new digital tribes online and obviously the environmental crisis that we're all battling with. So we're in a very unstable environment, so I started talking a lot about the technological angle of that, and I actually was making a keynote at London Business School. Had gone back for an alumni event and one of the executives, the lady came up to me after I'd finished my speech and said, that's all very well talking about how technology and machines are changing organizations. But what really occurs to me, you're going on about artificial intelligence and how it's going to change the world. Where does that leave me in terms of the skills that I need to survive and thrive in this in this world? And what about my daughters? You know, what should I be telling them to study and become? I thought it was a really interesting question and I didn't really have the answer, and that was about four years ago. From there, I started exploring what I thought were the answers to that question, that became The Human Edge, which is to me. How do you become more human in a world of machines and disruption in order to make the most of what you've got? So future proof your own career.

Steve Rush: Got it and it is really interesting when I look at how the world has changed over the last 10 or 15 years. There is genuinely a threat or a perceived threat by many people around the world of robotics and AI and how that's impacting, and I think you call that the human challenge in your book, don't you?

Greg Orme: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that has gone away a little bit now because I think we have all started to…I think it is still there, and that's where the debate was three or four years ago. It was human vs. machine, what is going to happen? And of course, actually in the same way, there's another trend. We have become a lot less trustful of our tech companies, our social media companies. We don't trust the ones on the West Coast, we've got Uber, which had a lot of scandals, and then we've got the Chinese unicorn and tech companies that are sort of veiled in secrecy. So generally, tech is not what it was, and also there is AI, which is, quote/unquote, taking our jobs. I think what I discovered in the book is for most people in the knowledge work industry; AI is not going to take your job, not anytime soon. What will happen is it will cheese slice away the algorithmic routine parts of your job, leaving you a space and this will happen over the next five to 10 years, leaving you a space in which to apply your own humanity. What differentiates you from machines? So that's an opportunity as well as a threat, and so that's what the book is about. It is taking that opportunity and really, really using you’re what I call human superpowers.

Steve Rush: And for me, it really is an opportunity but many people could be in that threat space because there is this. “If I let go of some of the routine tasks, I might be redundant” vs the mind-set that says no - It gives you more space for creativity and new ways of working.

Greg Orme: Yeah, and, you know, just to be clear, and I am sad to say this, I don't relish in bringing this news. That there will be some job types that will go completely. I think, you know, if you are a long distance lorry driver and that's, of course, autonomous driving, but it is really a subset of AI. That will probably go some sometimes or a lot of those jobs will go. Not all of them, because obviously driving in the city centre is far more complex than driving down a motorway, so there will be some types of driving that will go.

Effectively you can write down all the data and the decisions in any job type and then feed it into machine learning AI. It will probably get automated sometime in the next sort of five, six, seven years, but I think that's a small portion of jobs. Most jobs, as I say, will be cheese sliced and really what is left is what we do that machines can't, so, you know, we have a sense of humour. We have empathy; we can think generally. We can collaborate together. We can ask the next question rather than answering the last one, so that is curiosity, so this is why I came up with the idea of these 4 C of superpowers in the same way that I wanted to demystify creativity. I am hoping I can demystify all four of these C's and help people to develop them because they are skills that you can practice and get better at.

Steve Rush: And the book The Human Edge is about how we use our creativity and our curiosity, and you call them superheroes in our digital economy and I really love that kind of principle, and during the reading of the book, you have bunches and bunches of hacks often you refer to them as dance steps, actually. Let's get into the 4 C, I think it would be really helpful to go through how the 4 C’s of The Human Edge work together, so the first of the 4 C is consciousness and you say that's the gateway to the other 4 C. What is the reason that sits as the gateway?

Greg Orme: Well, just to explain the structure of it, there are 4 C and under each of the 4 C, there are two what are called dance steps that you mentioned. I call them dance steps, because you can sort of just like a dance step. You can learn one-step and then kind of do them in any order. They are not really linear. I don't think creative thinking is a particularly linear thing. However, there is an order, which is why I have done it in the order I have of consciousness, curiosity, creativity, collaboration and the order is this. I think that is the order of kind of ideation or allowing yourself to be creative and under consciousness. I have the idea of finding work meaningful, and I also have the idea of focus. Being able to direct your attention and find islands of time in which you can devote to your own curiosity and creativity, so the reason that is first is if you don't have the motivation to step forward and be courageous enough to be creative, you won't do it. Because it is an effort and it also implies for failure. Creativity always has failure as a component of it, and the other part, the other dance step under consciousness is this idea of focus and that is really about organizing your day in order or an average day in order to find time to be curious and creative. And so just to summarize that, my favourite quote on this is. Creative Minds may think like artists, but they were like accountants. What I am getting out there is that you really need to concentrate and focus in order to find the time to do it. Otherwise, you end up just chasing your tail in a very distracted world in which we are in now.

Steve Rush: That is a great analogy and one I think can resonate with most people as they listening in. Curiosity is the next C and that runs through the other C, and a particular like the reference that you use around questions are the hallmark for leadership in our century. How did that come about?

Greg Orme: Yes, so if you consciousness effectively gives you the motivation and the time. Curiosity, I think is the fuel for creativity and I think of the 4 C, Steve, as you know, they are all equal apart from their not. Creativity, a bit like the British prime minister. They sometimes say the British prime minister is the first amongst equals, I think, of creativity as the first amongst the C because curiosity and consciousness allow you to be creative.

Collaboration allows you to then take the ideas that come out of creativity and do something with them. So curiosity is really important for me because and the two dance steps are learning and questioning. Learning, because actually you need to keep pushing yourself forward and we know ideas come from when they when notions and concepts jump barriers between two different domains of knowledge, so you need to push yourself to learn outside of your specialisms and then what happens is you get these wonderful, serendipitous connections across boundaries in which ideas happen. So that is really, really important, I mean, you know we can all think of examples of that, so, for example. Ducal brings together the idea of academic citations with what was at the time this new-fangled thing called the World Wide Web, and that is what Google came from, so you need to learn…and the questioning helps you to challenge the world around you constantly, which again leads you to see it and frame it in different ways.

Steve Rush: And when you talk about creativity as part of your forces, you state within the book that, you know, consciousness and curiosity gives you the framework or the set up success or they set up creativity. And what particularly struck me within that is that you talk about luck as being a skill, and I wondered if we think about skills are refined and they are practised and we get better at them or not as the case may be through practice. How do you practice at getting lucky?

Greg Orme: Yeah. Well, I use that because it is a particularly provocative statement, isn't it? How do you practice being lucky? Well, I think the point is that a lot of people, if you ask them where do you have your ideas, they say, well, they sort of come to me, you know, I'm on a bike ride or I'm running or might be in the shower. And they see this as a lucky moment, this moment, this so-called aha moment, and I really find in my research about creativity. Is the aha moment even though it's got a great PR, you know, you could think of a hundred aha moments, the apple drop on someone's head or whatever it might be, what is much more important is the preparation that leads up to that. Aha moment. And that's what I mean about luck is a skill you can actually work on the things that will bring you aha moments, and what I do is put a lot of practical ideas in the book of what you can do to work on that.

Steve Rush: Got it, so the whole consciousness of being creative replays back in there doesn't it. It is taken those unconscious thoughts and thinking, bringing them to the conscious.

Greg Orme: Well, absolutely and one of the things I say is pay attention. Pay attention not only to the world around you. Look for the unexpected things that happen. A lot of the times we can spend our lives on autopilot. You know, we are driving the car. We are even not aware we were driving and we suddenly, 25 minutes later we are somewhere else. You know, it is about consciously from time to time paying attention to the world around you because that is where you get your ideas from and also listening to your own thoughts, being self-aware, because actually your subconscious brain often whispers to your ideas and sometimes you can miss them if your you're not paying attention. And there are 100 different other ways that creative people who make their living from coming up with ideas and in a way, I make my living from coming with ideas and putting them into books. Actually, they practice these habits every day to make sure they've got a store of new ideas coming. I mean, one of them is to literally waste nothing. When you read you look at a painting, have some way of collecting lots of things around you that you can go back to as a store of ideas.

For example, I use Evernote. I don't if you use this online way, so whenever I'm reading something online, I can tag it. It goes into my Evernote store and it is just kind of like having a brainstorm with a former self when I go through the things I have read, so, you know, there are lots of different habits that creative people use to ensure that they get lucky more often than.

Steve Rush: That is some really neat ideas and of course, they're lucky become the more successful you become.

Greg Orme: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and, you know, as long as you keep practicing these habits, I mean, another one is to understand our brain does not just work on its own. It is part of a system within our body. So if you want to operate at peak performance and be creative, which is one of our higher functions, you have to make sure that you're fit, that you have time off, you have time to play. You get good sleep. Sleep is incredibly important than the research around sleep now and its connections with creativity is absolutely compelling, so in the book, if people come in there, they'll find something they can do every day that will just, you know, incrementally build up those curiosity and creativity muscles.

Steve Rush: It is habit forming, isn't it? It's not one of those things you can just do in isolation. It has to be repeated and repeated and repeated so that you are laying down those neurological pathways to create those tactile foundations.

Greg Orme: Yeah. I mean, fantastic. You have mentioned the brain there and neuroscience because, you know, as someone who has applied psychology in my work for many years, I am so excited now that we can actually have some hard science in there as well. No offense to psychologists, but neuroscientists can show you which part of the brain is lighting up, and what is really interesting to me in terms of creativity and exploration, curiosity. That releases a neuro transmitter called dopamine and dopamine is called the motivation molecule is something that makes you want to get up and go and the light side of dopamine is if you can release it, it makes you want to do something, which releases more dopamine, so as you were saying, Steve, it's a virtuous circle. If you can release this dopamine for me when you are exploring in your curious, you want to do more of it, and as you say, it just gets more and more and more and then you surround yourself with more creative people. You do more creative things and then it becomes not just a choice, it becomes a kind of a lifestyle.

Steve Rush: Almost a factory that refuels itself on that journey, too.

Greg Orme: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you just take one aspect of this, I was talking about how curiosity underpins creativity and I think people should stop aiming at creativity is like aiming at happiness. It is completely pointless. You know, what you have to do is aim at the things that take you there by a circuitous route. Curiosity is the best route. I think that is the motor way to get into creativity and what we know about the curiosity is. It is like a muscle, so if you use your curiosity, if you are asking questions, if you are surrounded by curious people, you will be more curious and if you don't, your muscles won't get bigger and stronger. They will waste away and so be really careful about the people you're hanging out with, the things you're reading, the things you're watching, the podcast you subscribe to. How are you getting your new knowledge? That is what is feeding this desire to find out more.

Steve Rush: and in the spirit of curiosity, your last C is Collaboration. This is about building a network of human collaborators. Now, for most people listening to this they will be going yeah that is pretty obvious. Surround myself with a bunch of people who can help me, but what are the dance steps you've got here for collaboration?

Greg Orme: Yeah, well, collaboration is the umbrella term for use it but I get quite specific with the two dance steps. So the first dance step is this idea of networking. Now it may be sound straightforward, but I find a lot of people don't attend to their network. They see networking, something kind of, you know, like recruiters do. It is a little bit oily and, you know kind of business like that, really, it is about connecting to like-minded individuals and not just a small group of them. We all have so-called Dunbar's number, which is the amount of people in our sort of close network but really, it is about connecting to a much wider group because there is great research data to show if you have a wide, shallow network as well as some close colleagues. It is in that wide, shallow network of people away from you. That is where you will get your new ideas. In addition to that, you always have someone to take your new ideas too to get feedback, because honestly, most people's ideas are not very good. If you are going to have a large portfolio of ideas and by the way, that is the best way to be creative. Stop working on one idea. Work on quite a few. At the same time, then you want to try and improve them and the best way to improve them is to take them out to other people and get some honest feedback on it, so it's having this and developing and consciously, intentionally developing the network around you. That is incredibly important.

Steve Rush: Getting data for your creative, curious ideas. Is incredibly important because we come with our own biases, don't we? So how do we make sure that is the right data that we've got?

Greg Orme: All you can do, say for example, you know, when I'm writing my books, I have a group of twelve people or so who are really trusted colleagues who know the marketplace I'm writing for, who've written themselves, so I kind of just trust they... I don’t take it as read. I don't take it is like, oh, I must change that because they said this, but I will really, really closely listen to them, so I think it's a matter of understanding who you're going to for what. In terms of getting feedback and then honouring their feedback and just kind of keeping in mind and choosing the stuff that you really need. Because, I think one of the most compelling kind of insights that I actually find in this book and I did not realize before is, we know that creative superstars have something like 80 percent of the really, really good ideas. You know, you've got to ask yourself in all sorts of domains in mathematics and cooking and art and filmmaking, whatever it may be, Why are these people having so many good ideas? And the reality is they're not. What they are having is more ideas, creative people just generally cottoned on that, if you have more ideas, you will then have more to choose from, I think the follow up to that is even more fascinating that even the most creative people have been proven. They don't even know which of their ideas will work in the real world. They have to try them out and get feedback on them, and the trying out is the second dance step I have in collaboration, which is the idea of having an experimental approach.

Steve Rush: What does that experimental approach entail?

Greg Orme: Being experimental is the idea of saying taking an idea and saying, well, what is the shortest possible route of least investment in time and money and risk to find out if this works in the real world? It is trying things out, but in a much more structured and scientific way. It is actually a concept that is being well promoted and use from the West Coast in the tech industry, because, of course, you can release software with very little risk and see if it works. And so it's bringing that approach into your life and thinking it can be as simple as a behavioural change or a new idea. How can I just get some evidence of whether this works or not? So you set up a hypothesis, you try something that you some what happens and then you pivot and move again. Rather than saying, I love this idea, this is what is going to be the rest of my life investing all your gold and time and fortune into it and then 12 months later, finding out it was not a very good idea at all. It is about really doing things very rapidly.

Steve Rush: The world is moving so quickly, isn't it? By the time we've kind of got our idea implemented, ready to go, we could be late. We could have missed the opportunity entirely.

Greg Orme: Yeah, I mean, that is the other risk. I mean the first risk I was talking exactly. It was the wrong idea. More probably, it is the wrong version of the right idea or it could be that you missed your opportunity because you did not get the first draft in the marketplace. Although I have to say, Steve, I think, you know, if you think about the alternative, which is the more corporate way of doing things, which is say we've got a great idea, we can follow, the motion, we're going to put three million this and we're going to make it happen. And that's the sort of strategic approach that's actually probably faster in the long run but if you think about it, much, much more risky because you've kind of made the assumption something will work and you put a lot of money behind it. I personally, I prefer to not lose money on bad ideas so that is why I think experimentation might be slightly slower, because you are pivoting and moving and learning and pivoting and moving but it's actually is a better way of reaching a really good product or a really good outcome for an idea.

Steve Rush: I am with you. Now The Human Edge has won the Business Book of the Year for 2020. That is available for everybody to access download paperback, but what is next for you?

Greg Orme: Well, obviously, kind of my life splits into speaking and writing effectively, so on the speaking in the session’s front, you know, obviously, I'm now delivering lots of workshops, both online and off based on the insights in The Human Edge, and that's really exciting. So there is that a sort of kind of applying the knowledge that I have already got in terms of what is next in terms of writing, I don't know. I am looking all sorts of different things. I am very interested in communication, as you are saying, at the start of our discussion. You know, I was a journalist at one point. I have always used communication right at the heart of what I do, so I am kind of mulling ideas about how could I bring a new angle to communication and that is kind of interesting to me, but I'm really looking for questions, you know, coming back to the theme of ask better questions. I am always think, how can I ask a better question? And I'll know when I've got a good question I will start pursuing it with this experimental approach and see what comes from that.

Steve Rush: Perfect opportunity for experiments then.

Greg Orme: Exactly. Steve, I don't really trust the ideas I bring back off bike ride. I ride my bike around the lanes here in in Warwickshire and I get sort of high on endorphins about 45 minutes into the ride and have a load of ideas. Come back and I just think the best things ever and I always write them down and think I'll leave them for a couple of days, because when I come done off my endorphin high. I often find they are not very good at all, and so it is about not investing too early in your ideas and having enough of them and so I guess having enough questions is rather than getting obsessed by one straight away. But then following through and that is the writing process of when you have actually got the question. You have established, it is a good one, then you really need to focus.

Steve Rush: We wish you best with what happens next. Greg, so this part of the show we have become familiar with me hacking into the minds of our guests. And I'd just like to get a sense from yours, if you're able to distil some of your dance steps, some of your experiences as a leader. What would be your top leadership hacks you could share with our listeners?

Greg Orme: Wow that is a good question. The first one would be and I have already said it, but you know, I just re-emphasize it for people. I think it is the heart of good leadership; I think is really the cornerstone of good creativity as well. See if you can ask more and better questions every day. I think that is a great leadership technique because it not only sends a signal that you are curious in the world, it liberates other people to come into the conversation. It is a great way of really energizing a team, so I would say ask better questions.

Secondly, I would say and I have become very interesting and I do write about it in The Human Edge a little bit and I become more interested even since the book has been published in; the science underpins humour and fun. I would say to leaders in organizations, that you should be bringing humour and fun into the dynamic of your team. Because it helps enormously with cutting through in terms of your communication. It supports creativity and of course, it supports cooperation. If you can make someone smile, they trust you and that is what is needed more in companies now than ever. And generally, I would echo that the thrust of The Human Edge and my third one is if you're a leader, don't forget to drop the mask every now and then. Share your authentic self. Show your humanity. Because I think, people need that from their leaders and obviously, you can't keep doing it. Leadership is to some extent a performance art but I think people want to see a theme of humanity and authenticity and what you are doing, so drop the mask, and bring your humanity to work.

Steve Rush: I say great advice, thank you.

Greg Orme: You are welcome.

Steve Rush: Now to get inside and find out what your Hack to Attack is; and what that means is a period in your life or your work where something has not worked out as you had expected. Maybe it is screwed up. Maybe it has failed miserably. But as a result of the experience, we now use that in our life, and our work as something positive. What will be your Hack to Attack?

Greg Orme: Steve, you know, I do a lot of public speaking and keynote speaking. Well in the early part of my career, I was asked to give a speech and it was a kind of a more relaxed, informal kind of after dinner type thing and so I thought, you know, I don't want to ruin my ability to be in the moment and kind of react to it. I won't over prepare. I won't kill the magic, as it were, and I went along to give my speech and of course, as soon as I stood up in front of a couple of hundred people. Your brain works in a very different when you are up there and I could not you know, I did not really have it there at my fingertips. And I kind of realized in that moment, since I've really researched how other people do it and I looked at it and I've realized the actual preparation does not put you in the straitjacket. Being absolutely prepared when you are doing presentations and public speaking. Actually, counterintuitive, it releases you to be in the moment because you've got a very solid structure and so you can only leave a plan if you have a plan in the first place. So I find now when I deliver speeches, I kind of know what I'm saying down to literally 20, 25 second segments. I don't have a script because nobody can remember a script for long periods of time but I really know what I'm going to say, and that allows me to kind of, you know, leave those series of bullet points, because I know it's very solid underneath. So, yeah, I prepare in a really rigorous way for what I'm doing and it really helps.

Steve Rush: Super learning and preparation is foundation. So making sure that what you execute is executed in the way that you intend.

Greg Orme: Absolutely, you know, as I said, it makes me laugh and people still say to me. I am going to do this presentation. I am going to wing it because I wanted to be really fresh and in my view or maybe just me, but, you know, in my view, that's the wrong way to go. You need to be really super prepared and actually people think you are making it up as you go along. You are so well prepared but it is the preparation that allows for that serendipitous moment to happen.

Steve Rush: And then lastly, we would like to explore with you, Greg, is if you are able to do a bit of time travel, bump into the Greg at 21, what would be the best bit of advice that you would give Greg at that time?

Greg Orme: So much, I would like to say to the 21 year old me. Sadly, Steve, a very, very long time ago now. I think I only started writing quite late, really sort of seven, eight years ago. I was not writing back then. I would say to that person, I am sure the 21 year old me would not have had the confidence to think that he would go on to write award winning business books. So I would just say write. Write right every day, don't worry about what it's going to become or what it is, but just make sure every day you get 500 words down on something. Because what I have really discovered. Now, I have written business books and other pieces and magazine articles and created products. Actually, you don't know what it is until you start, so you just got to get going in and end the mess is actually where you discover the good stuff. So I would say just do it, whatever your creative output is and for anybody out there, whether you're a writer or whatever else you do, just do it every day because you'll find your ideas in that mess.

Steve Rush: Awesome advice. Thanks, Greg, so as folks are listening to this, they are probably thinking, I have heard a lot about The Human Edge. We know it's got awards. How do we get hold of a copy?

Greg Orme: Well, you know. Oh, it is on Amazon. It is on…oh crikey. Every online bookseller there is. It was not until recently in the WH Smith travel stores. I am not sure if it is still there. I have not been out of my house for quite some time but the best place to get it is online. If you put in The Human Edge by Greg Orme, you will find it on Amazon very, very quickly or somewhere else if you prefer to shop with someone else. And of course, if people want to become part of my network, I'm constant releasing videos and snippets and blogs all the time. I am very active on LinkedIn and you can find me at Greg Orme also to a certain extent at Twitter, and I think I am @gregoryorme on there, or you can go to my website, which is gregorme.org.

Steve Rush: We will also make sure, Greg that we put details of how to access your book and all your social media sites in our show notes and on our website too, so as folks have listened to this, they can click and follow you straight away.

Greg Orme: Fantastic. Well, it has just been a fantastic conversation with you. I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for having me.

Steve Rush: And thank you for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast, Greg. It has been super and a massive congratulations from us and our team on your superb award. And good luck with whatever the future holds for you now.

Greg Orme: Thank you, Steve and same to you, cheers.

Closing

The Human Edge: How curiosity and creativity are your superpowers in the digital economy

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Alain Hunkins is a sought-after speaker, consultant, coach and Author of the #1 Amazon best-selling book, Cracking the Leadership Code. In this episode you will learn about:

The brain science behind leading people
Real life leadership stories
The importance of “empathy:
How to communicate more effectively than ever before
The key components to crack the code

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Find out more about Alain and his work below:

Alain’s Website: https://www.alainhunkins.com/

Follow Alain on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alainhunkins/

Twitter: @alainhunkins

Cracking The Leadership Code

Full Transcript Below:

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Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Our special guest on today's show is Amazon's number one bestselling author, Alan Hunkins. Before we learn how to Crack The Leadership Code, it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, research provides evidence that leaders who are more mindful are more prone to forgiveness and that mindfulness exercises can actually facilitate a forgiving attitude and environment in the workplace. While there are so much studies focused on mindfulness is a relatively very little research and a potential impact that mindfulness can have. Author of the report, Johan Karremans, who studied the link between mindfulness and forgiveness, says this is just one of the small steps that we can take, and of course as leaders, forgiving people when they screw up is a really important element of helping people learn too. The difficulty in forgiving another person often lies in the process of immersing oneself in the emotions and thoughts about what's happened; which indeed could add insult to injury. The research was completed over five separate studies with five hundred ninety two (592) people in total. Karremans and the researchers found that the people who agreed with the statement such as, “I perceive my feelings in emotions without having to react to them” and, “I am good at finding words to describe my feelings”, tended also to agree with statements such as, “I tend to get over it quickly when somebody hurts my feelings”. The research also found that listening to guided, mindful attention instructions led to higher levels of forgiveness regarding a past event. Mindfulness might not just be helpful in reducing stress and improving happiness, as often it is seen stereotypically, but it also may be able to foster better interpersonal relationships and one that is a bit more forgiving.

Findings also indicated that mindfulness is positively associated with forgiveness because of his association with empathy. In other words, more mindful people are also more likely to report being better at adopting the psychological point of view of others, which in turn links to height and forgiveness. So as leaders, I'd like to invite you to think about the next time one of your colleagues fails or has not achieved YET what they're trying to achieve. I want you to consider how well equipped you are to deal with that situation and how mindful you are being at that time. Mindfulness is a really key component that should be in all leaders kit bags, being self-aware, being present in the now and focusing on what's present is a key attribute for all great leaders. That has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news or stories, funny things, anything that is happening in the world of leadership around here, please share it with us through our website or our social media sites.

Start of Interview

Steve Rush: I am joined on today show by, Alan Hunkins. He is a TEDx speaker. He is the author of the number one bestselling book on Amazon, Cracking The Leadership Code. He is also the Managing Director of the Hunkins Leadership Group. Alain welcome to our show.

Alain Hunkins: It is a pleasure to be with you today. Thanks so much, Steve, thanks.

Steve Rush: So hitting number one on the business communication sales in Amazon is just amazing. Congratulations, first and foremost.

Alain Hunkins: Thank you, thanks so much.

Steve Rush: So what is the back-story? How did you arrive at number one bestselling author? Share with us your back-story and tell the folks who are listening in, a little bit about what you have been up to.

Alain Hunkins: Yeah, sure. You know, it is funny looking backwards. You know, hindsight makes everything look 20/20 like it was a straight line. But on the journey, I never would have dreamed I would have ended up here, but if I had to look back and I see a common thread throughout my life, ever since I was like five years old. I have always been burning to answer the question, why do people do what they do. I am just fascinated by people, human behaviour and I was as a kid, I then moved into college. I studied some psychology. I also got very involved in theatre and actually went to an acting conservatory for graduate school, worked as a professional actor and as an actor. You're obviously putting yourself under the microscope in terms of behaviour and learning a ton about that, then got involved in teaching in schools and then moving from leadership training with children in schools to doing training, work in organizations, leadership training across the world.

And so it's been 25 years working with over 2000 groups in 25 countries, and so for me, what led to the book was as I continued to work with more and more people. I noticed that there were these patterns of behaviour that were emerging and not just patterns of what successful people did, but also patterns of what mediocre people did, were mediocre leaders doing. And so what I wanted to do was be able to capture those patterns and then categorize them and bring them to life through stories and examples and then look to the research that supported those stories and examples. And that's what led to the book, so I started with a blog post, you know, a couple blogs and just going blog after blog after blog.

I started seeing these patterns in the blogs start to emerge, and those patterns became the chapters and what became the different parts of the book. So that's what has led me on this journey and ultimately, it's all about helping people to become better leaders and from my take, when I say leader, I'm not talking about a job title or position. To me, leadership is very much a state of mind and a state of being. The fact is every single one of us need to influence others in the world to try to get things done, and whenever you are in that role of influence, you are a leader.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I agree and in my experience, I have often been quoted around, “leadership is not a role - It is not a job title”. It is just a set of behaviours that you carry and that of course can be demonstrated at any age, right?

Alain Hunkins: Absolutely and those behaviours can be learned. That is the good news. Right? We can continue to learn those behaviours as we go.

Steve Rush: For sure, yeah. I was intrigued to look at your TED talk and what I noticed about your TED talk which intrigued me the most was the principal about, as a leader you always have a target. Tell us a little bit, about how that came about.

Alain Hunkins: Yeah, sure. Back and I would say 2002; I had this wonderful mentor I'm still in touch with named Jeff. Jeff and I would meet for lunch every month or so and talk shop about leadership and life and on this particular day back in 2002, we were finishing up lunch and Jeff hands me this gift wrapped box, a little gift. He says congratulations on last weekend. See the weekend before I just gotten certified to lead a very complex training. I had spent years preparing for, so this was just way of thanking me. So I opened up the gift and inside there is this t-shirt and the front of the shirt said leader. I was really touched because I really felt seen and acknowledged by Jeff in that moment because he was a mentor and kind of like a father figure to me. So I said, thanks so much, Jeff and then Jeff, he had this shining baldhead in the light. He got this impish grin on his face. He said now turn the shirt around. On the back of the shirt. Is this large archery target, right? So I'll never forget what Jeff said next. He said, welcome to leadership. He said, as a leader, you are always a target. Now, if you are a great leader, you are the target of people's hopes, their dreams, their aspirations, even their envy. But if you're a lousy leader, you'll be the target of their disappointment and their criticism and their blame. So what type of leader you are going to be? That is up to you, and I think what Jeff captured with his t-shirt is what I have come to understand. As you know, leaders are in the business of managing people's perceptions. In everyone's mind, we want to think that we are the best leader. We are effective. We are well communicating, etc. But that's our own intention. That is not how we are being seen, and so we have to understand, we have to cross the gap between our own intentions and how the people that we choose to lead actually see us, so that's the story of the leader target t- shirt.

Steve Rush: It is a super story and a great metaphor because ultimately, we will attract what we set out to attract and a lot of that, of course is unintentional, isn't it?

Alain Hunkins: Oh, completely. You know, I think it starts unintentional. I think the work and the process of leadership development is learning how to make the unconscious conscious. And you do that in part by doing things and screwing up. Right. You make mistakes and go, oh, let's not do that again. I mean, I can think of lots of mistakes that I have made along the way. I mean, just as a quick example, I just think early in my career I was really keen for a new position. I had been volunteering for an organization and the executive director role opened up, and so I decided I was going to put my hat in the ring and step up to be the new executive director. Except it was through an election process, and I assumed that I voted in because I had the most experience. I was the most qualified. I was the most committed in my mind. I was a shoo in and I had this opponent for the job, a guy named Gary but Gary was new. I thought there is no way he is going to get more votes than me.

So we show up on Election Day. I make the long story short. Final score was thirty-eight votes to six. I first impulses. Yes, I have crushed it. I have won, and then I realized, no, actually, Gary, the 38 votes and I got six, so I got crushed and so that was a great wakeup call. I mean a horrible mistake and I felt terrible about it at the time, but you know, over time and all these tuitions you pay into the school of life start to pay dividends, and so what I learned from that experience, especially in debriefing with Gary, was Gary actually reached out to people. He built relationships with them. I did not do any of that. I assume that what I believed in and what I deserved would be mine, so I basically came into leadership with a sense of entitlement and I think the sooner that we can lose that or learn that lesson, the better off we're going to be. Because leadership is not about being entitled. It is not about being in charge. It is really about serving the people who are in your charge.

Steve Rush: So you talk about that quite a bit through the themes of your book. So let's get into the Cracking The Leadership Code and unpick some of those themes that kind of reoccur. One of the things that really intrigued me when I read the book was the whole principle about why old school leadership stopped working. Most leaders these days will recognize that we have had to transition. We have new ways of working. There are new ways of helping lead and create followers and indeed create more leaders. What was your experience about how that presented itself for you?

Alain Hunkins: Yes, What is interesting because I think most of us would recognize that we need to shift and there's got to be this new style of leadership. But what I found was not a lot of people are talking about is why. Why do we have to shift and where are we coming from? Where is the shift coming from? So I did some digging into the backstory of where the whole school of command and control leadership came from and it dates all the way back to the beginnings of the industrial age. So what I was fascinated by and I read some biographies of some of the biggest people at the time, one being a man named Frederick Winslow Taylor, who is considered the father of scientific management, which was all about. Okay, we now have factories. They had not existed before the beginning of the industrial revolution. How we are going to manage all the people in the factory. We've got hundreds of people like thousands of labourers. What are we going to do? And so he created this model that was all based on command and control, where literally and this has to do with the fact that 95 percent of the employees at the time were all doing the same repetitive manual labour.

So literally, it was management's job to think and it was labour’s job just to shut up and do what they are told, and that mind-set, that command and control mind-set became the foundation, the template for how we lead. In fact, his book, Taylor's book, The Principles of Scientific Management, became the core curriculum for the founding of Harvard Business School in 1911 and other business schools beyond that. And in fact, that book was voted the most influential management book of the 20th century in the year 2001. So realizing, oh, my gosh, we are all living out Taylor's legacy for better and for worse. I mean, obviously, there were some upsides, but that only worked up to a very specific point. No one is working in that industrial age life anymore, so we obviously need to shift and the challenge is, while we've tried to make the shift, unfortunately, too many leaders are still working from this antiquated playbook that dates from the early to mid-20th century.

Steve Rush: …and what do you think stops people moving away from that old school autocratic style of leadership? What you think the key reasons could be?

Alain Hunkins: You know if I had to boil it down to one word, and that is tricky, but I would say the word is “ego”. There is something that we all get a little drunk on our own power and when people get into that role of authority, it is so easy to fall into the trap and I am sure we all heard it as kids because I am your dad that is why. I am your mom that is why. We just kind of wield authority because we have it.

Because, let's face it, it takes a lot less effort to tell someone just shut up because I say so than it does to inquire and say, hey, what's going on? I mean, I will give you an example. I remember when my son Alexander, who is now 16, when he was about three or four and we had to get out of the house. We were getting somewhere and as four year olds, want to do. He was having trouble getting his shoes and his pants and everything on to get dressed. Instead of doing the nice thing, I found myself getting a bit testy with him. Come on, we got to go. Come on kind of raising my voice. And he definitely responded to me with a big puddle of tears, and I felt horrible. And I remember debriefing this with my wife afterwards, and she said, yeah, well, in the moment you were trying to kind of move him along, she said, but what were you doing 20 minutes earlier? To make sure that you created an environment where he could succeed, and that lesson really struck with me, so I'd say the number one thing that so many of us default to is just go just do. Short term it is easier but if we continue to go with that power struggle, command and control, it is going to get in our way. So I'd say that's the number one thing that, you know, it's so easy to default to that, you know, they've said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, so we have to be really mindful that we don't get too full of ourselves and our egos don't get too inflated.

Steve Rush: Sure is a really good lesson, and of course it might get stuff done short term, but it's never going to be sustainable and it's certainly not going to create the right habits and the innovation that we need for the future, Right?

Alain Hunkins: Oh, completely. I mean, that is why there is a huge difference between. If your goal as a leader at most compliance. Yeah, go ahead. Command and control all day. You will get compliance to a point. If people are desperate for a paycheck, you will get compliance. Now, granted, if they have alternatives, like many people do today with LinkedIn and Glassdoor, they're going to find the grass greener somewhere else but if you want compliance, command, control, but you're never going to get people's engagement. You are never going to get their commitment. If you operate from that mind-set for sure.

Steve Rush: Another key part of Cracking The Leadership Code for you was empathy, and it's one that really strikes home for me because I've studied this too.

Alain Hunkins: Yeah.

Steve Rush: …and in fact, a part of my book, Leadership Cake the “E” in the Cake is empathy, and you call this the basis of connection. What is the reason you focus on that as part of cracking the code?

Alain Hunkins: Oh, my gosh. I mean, it is so important. Empathy to me is the basis of connection and by the way, the subtitle of the book are The Three Secrets to Building Strong Leaders. And those three secrets are connection, communication and collaboration. So empathy for me is the basis of connection because at its core, what is leadership? To me, at its core, leadership is a relationship between two human beings and the most human and basic of connections is empathy and briefly defined empathy is showing people you understand them and that you care how they feel. I mean, Theodore Roosevelt said it very well. He said people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And until we feel valued and recognized, it's really hard to do anything else and I think particularly in the middle of this coronavirus pandemic, this need for empathy and human to human connection is more apparent than ever. I mean, everyone is, you know, socially isolating, social distancing. We are hungry for connection, and so to skip through that and think that we can somehow proceed with business as usual is ridiculous. I mean, this is such an opportunity for leaders at all levels to reach out and connect with other people or maybe the most valuable thing you can do right now is to stop and hold space for people and say, how are you feeling right now? What is on your mind? How can I support you? And those three questions with the power of just listening and being able to hold that for people is incredibly, incredibly powerful and helpful.

Steve Rush: That is right, and now more than ever, people are seeking understanding. They are seeking that their view of the world; they want people to understand, what it really feels like for them and of course, that is the core tenants of empathy, isn't it?

Alain Hunkins: Oh, completely and also and I can't remember where I saw this in the last couple of weeks, but I saw this around the pandemic. Is realizing that, yes, we are all having this shared collective experience and that while we are all in the same storm. We're not all in the same boat realizing that different people are dealing with the situation in many different ways, whether that's health wise, whether that's financially wise, whether that's just quality of life and living at home wise. So having some empathy, understanding that, yeah, we are not all the same, though, we can connect and relate to each other. The fact is, I don't need to know every single thing about you and be exactly like you, Steve, to understand and care about your experience. It is the most human of elements for us to be able to have.

Steve Rush: It is so true of course.

Alain Hunkins: Sure.

Steve Rush: Originally, you know, fifty thousand years ago when we lived in caves and our language was not particularly well informed, it was still having that core understanding of how the people felt and behaved. That created that community that existed even back then.

Alain Hunkins: Oh, yeah, for sure and that is back then, our world was probably limited to about one hundred and fifty other people, and that was about it.

Steve Rush: Sure.

Alain Hunkins: Just think about how we are now connected at this global scale. It is really tremendous.

Steve Rush: So if I have a leader who is listening in to us speak today and they maybe having some challenges in communicating with the people they work with ,or the team, and of course communication, helps build empathy. How do we go about cracking the communications code?

Alain Hunkins: Yeah, so communication is trickier than it looks. You know, the fact is the human default setting, again, because we are all different, is that we all hear things and understand things in our own way, so the first step to becoming a better communicator is to recognize that we don't communicate for communication sake. That the goal of communication is to create shared understanding between all parties involved, and the reason that is so important is because shared understanding becomes the platform from which we take all future action. So if we have 100 percent accurate understanding, we can make better decisions and get better results. If we have poor understanding. We are going to make poor decisions and get poor results, so some things that we want to do. First of all, knowing that misunderstanding just happens. It is like bacteria in the water. It does not mean to harm you. It is just there. You got to filter it out. We have to learn how to filter misunderstandings out of the environment, so in the book I go through six core actions you can take. I will just share a couple with you today, so one action you can take to create understanding is first have a very clear central message and put it out upfront. Be explicit, it should be no more than eight words, tops and it should basically be the summary of exactly what it is you're trying to say.

How many of us get emails, and the subject line doesn't relate at all, to what it says and then you are fishing through and going, what does this all mean? And you read through paragraph. We all know those people. You know some of us try. Some of us just hit delete. Right. We do have time for it. All of which to say is the more that you can clarify your central message, the more people can understand what is even the field that we are playing in. I have read some studies that somewhere between only 10 percent and 20 percent of what we share in terms of content actually gets remembered. So by having a clear central message, we can make sure that people are walking away with the right 10 or 20 percent as opposed to their own version of that 10 or 20 percent, so that's one key thing. Another key aspect to communication is what I call asking for a receipt, and what I mean by that is that communication can never be one way. In fact, it needs to be three ways that we put it out there, so we share what we want to say, and then someone should come back and say, this is my understanding of what you said.

And then the third way is back to that person. Say, yes, you've got a right or no, you don't and here's why. Right, so it is that back and forth. In fact, a great example of asking for a receipt comes from the fast food industry. So back in the 1980s, the fast food industry had some real problems with her whole drive thru process. Was very, very common for customers to drive up to the intercom, place their order, and then they drive up to the window to pick up their food order and to be filled with mistakes, and this went on consistently throughout the industry for years, and then suddenly the mistake rates just started to plummet. You might be wondering, well, what do they do, where they change? What new technology do they introduce? It was actually really simple. What happened was after the customer would place the order; the employees started repeating the order back. So if I get that right. Let me just check this, please. Its two hamburgers, one cheeseburger, two orders of French fries and three Coca-Cola. Is that right? Right, so it is something as simple as that to confirm the understanding. Now, what is amazing is so many of us have meetings on a daily basis with other people, and then the meeting ends like, okay, Is everyone clear what we're doing? Great, and we just go off, but we have never stopped and explicitly and overtly confirmed what it is that we say we are going to do. And look, if a Taco Bell franchise will do this for a ninety nine cent taco. Don't you think that our own decisions, our actions and our own businesses are worth the same level of quality? So asking for a receipt is another very simple, practical thing you can do to improve your level of communication effectiveness.

Steve Rush: Love that, super. Any other nuggets of communication code cracking you can share?

Alain Hunkins: Yeah, another really useful one is the idea of making all of your implicit assumptions explicit. The fact is human beings are good at many things, but mind reading is not one of them, and so if you've ever caught yourself saying something like, well, I sent the email, they should know what to do or doesn't senior management realize what a stupid process this is? That is really clear in your mind, but no one else is living there except you, and so whether it's something like checking in to see, are there questions that people need clarification on? For example, this is a really good time to make your explicit assumptions around. So we are all working remotely now from home. What is our expectations about how often we are going to communicate? And when are we going to communicate and how? So are we going to be doing this all via email? Are we using slack? Are we using text? Are we using WhatsApp or using Zoom?

This is a great time to step back and be really clear with the people around us. What are the right modes of communication? What is urgent look like? You know, urgent might mean I get back to you within one minute, five minutes, eight hours, and 24 hours. What does that mean? It means different things in different contexts, and so we can't just assume that we're all on the same page. Right, so clearly, when we don't have those things aligned, it creates conflict, creates conflict at work. It creates conflict in marriages and in families, with friends, so the more we can clarify and make our implicit assumptions explicit, the more clear and effective our communication will become.

Steve Rush: Those are super hacks, thank you for sharing those.

Alain Hunkins: Sure.

Steve Rush: My experience also tells me that you have to practice this; this is not something that is going to come natural to you because we all have our own way of communicating. Which is often very different from other people based on their experiences and their belief systems and so on. So it does take practice, right?

Alain Hunkins: Oh, completely. All of this takes practice. These are all skills, and the way any practice works is you start and then you try it, and then the key to all of it is to be intentional. Right, so if you look at the power of habit formation, you know, there is some mythic studies that say it takes 21 days to create a habit. Actually, it can vary. That is not actually true at all, but if you want to develop a habit, what we do know is that you do need to start somewhere. Right and so today is as good a day as any. So pick whatever you think will give you the biggest bang for your proverbial buck and pick something and then find ways to build some successes into your habit. So don't try to climb Mt. Everest all in one day. Just take one-step at a time. So, for example, if your habit is you want to work on cultivating the habit of appreciating someone, just think, okay, today, can I be intentional? Who is one person that I can appreciate or thank in a very explicit way? And then tomorrow practice it again, and then maybe the day after I'll say I'll do two people and just continue to build that until it feels like it's happening on muscle memory. So if you think about high performance athletes or great musicians, when you see them performing, they're not thinking, they're just responding because they've got so much muscle memory that is built into that, and in some ways, the practices and skills of leadership are no different. We want to be able to make this automatic and intuitive, and so when we are doing it, it looks like it is the easiest thing in the world, but all that easiness comes out of a lot of practice and hard work.

Steve Rush: And repeat and repeat and repeat until we've got that muscle memory, that tactile foundation, that means that you just don't get it wrong anymore.

Alain Hunkins: Exactly, and then also, a great way to check in with that is to ask for feedback from other people. In fact, I would say and you can call this a hack, but the number one thing that I think will help you to accelerate your leadership development is to get honest, constructive feedback from people who will give you the truth about how are you showing up. And so ask for the good, ask for the bad, ask to the ugly, and then when you get that feedback, don't defend it. Don't try to justify or blame or any of that stuff. Just say thank you. Thank you for the feedback, and then as you ask more and more people, you will see some patterns start to emerge. You know, when nine people start telling me, hey, Alain, you know, you can come across kind of rude and directive when you are under stress. It is nine against one, even though I think I am not rude, I am not arrogant. Well, nine people are saying that maybe it is time for me to stop and listen. Right, so being able to get feedback is a great and probably the most useful tool to accelerate your leadership development.

Steve Rush: It sure is, and you don't have to like it, but you do have to listen.

Alain Hunkins: Yeah, I like what you said about it, but you don't have to like it. You know, I think what you are touching on. I like to say that leaders need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable in so many situations like that. You know, it is not going to feel pleasant. It is not nice all the time, but if you are not stretching and growing, you are not learning. And so part of that growth goes out of your comfort zone to the discomfort zone. By its nature, the learning zone is not all comfortable. So go for it and grow. Like you said for sure.

Steve Rush: In your book Alain you talk about, motivation as being in search for the magic pill. Is it really a magic pill?

Alain Hunkins: Arrrgh… there is a search for the magic pill but the great secret to motivation is there is no magic pill, and so it is interesting how some people tend to have their go to’s to think, oh, this is what motivates people. In fact, I often tell the story about the famous film director Alfred Hitchcock, and a Hitchcock was known for his disdain of actors. In fact, he was quoted as saying all actors are cattle. Right, and then later on in his life, a journalist said to him, is that true? You said all actors are cattle. He said, no, I was misquoted. I never said all actors were cattle. What I said was all actors should be treated like cattle. Right, so it turns out 1965 Hitchcock was working on a movie called Torn Curtain, and the leading actor in the movie, Paul Newman, who at the time had been nominated for two Academy Awards, was already a bona fide Hollywood star, and Hitchcock and Newman were working on this. And Newman was a method actor, and he really like to get into his character very deeply and Hitchcock just wanted him to find his spot and read his lines, and so Newman came to Hitchcock one day and said, But, you know, Mr. Hitchcock, what's my motivation in this scene? And Hitchcock said, Everything you need to know is in the script, and Newman came back, as you know, he's Paul Newman is, you know, pretty defined.

He is going to say what he said, honest mind. No, but really, what is my motivation? And the story goes that Hitchcock turns to Newman and says, you motivation. Mr. Newman is your salary. Right, so the idea there being that Hitchcock is operating from that old school. I am giving you money. Shut up and do your job. Well, money motivates some people in some situations, but it is not a one size fits all solution for motivation.

Steve Rush: All right.

Alain Hunkins: And so in the book I go to through the whole section on motivation is basically humans are all operating with some basic fundamental human needs and there's different models of human needs. But in the book, I go through four broad places of human need, that people have a need for safety. People have a need for energy. People have a need for purpose, and people have a need for ownership. And what I go into depth and we can talk about some of these and you can decide which ones to talk about, Steve, is that there are things that we can do, some hacks as leaders, tips and tools and skills we can have to help people to get those needs met. And while we can't directly motivate anyone else, what we can do is we can create the conditions where motivation is more likely to happen, where people can motivate themselves.

Steve Rush: And there has been lots of studies over the last 10 years about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, but when it comes specifically to ownership, how does that play out?

Alain Hunkins: So if we think about it, ownership. So the idea of ownership. I love to use this example often, which is like if you have ever rented a car, which many people have in some point in their life. When is the last time you took your rental car to a car wash? Right. No one has ever taken there. Right. Why would you. You would never take a rental car because it is not yours. It is somebody else's to take care of, so the sense of ownership is that you want people to be able to own solutions, own their own challenges and if we operate from the idea that as the leader, it's our job to fix things and give advice and jump in and help people to get things done. What is going to do? It's been to create at a certain point a system of learned helplessness, where in some ways it’s like where the parent and they are the child. So one of the things that if you want to build a sense of ownership in people, one thing is ask them to step up.

And I'll give you a classic example of this. Actually, this came up this a couple of weeks ago. So one of my clients is a man named Peter who owns a small business, and Peter was really distraught because through all of what's been going on with the economic downturn, with the coronavirus pandemic, is he's looking at the financials. He is like; there is no way we can move forward with the whole company. I am have to lay off about 50 percent of the company, and he was struggling and struggling with how am I going to do this? How is going to be equitable and fair? And I said to Peter, I said, Peter, you don't have to go with the answers. Do you ever think that maybe you should just be honest and share your challenges with the company? So he did. He actually did a companywide Zoom Call. Explained, was very transparent about the financials, and the amazing thing was. The company just innovated and came up with these solutions that Peter never would have come up with, that involved people doing some job share, some people deciding they were going to take unpaid vacation or time off, and they created a solution where they didn't have to lay anybody off, but again. It is an example of the reason that happened is because Peter asked, and so it is a great example. If you want people to take ownership, create an environment where they're in charge of what they can be in charge of, and then see how you can support them to create their solutions and then to implement them.

Steve Rush: By giving control to those people; it makes it more collaborative and therefore you create more ownership. Right?

Alain Hunkins: Oh, absolutely. Right, because when you create collaboration and ownership, what you give people is a sense of autonomy. I love Daniel Pink in towards the book. He's got this fabulous book. You are pretty familiar with it, it called Drive.

Steve Rush: Sure, yeah.

Alain Hunkins: In Daniel Pink's Drive. Pink talks about the three major drivers of motivation. Right, so there's mastery that people get better at what they're doing, that there's autonomy, there's freedom to do what they want and also purpose that what they do matters. Bigger than themselves, and so this sense of ownership really ties deeply into the sense of both autonomy and mastery, is that when people own what they're doing, they can see how they can make progress towards it as well as they have this freedom to create things as they see fit.

I have yet to meet a single person who has ever said to me, wow, you know, I had this amazing leader and, you know, I loved about the most is the way they would micromanage me. Said no one ever so recognizing. Right, so recognizing that autonomy and mastery are keys to ownership. Yeah.

Steve Rush: So usually this part of the show Alain. We will start to hack into your mind to look for your top three hacks. Now you’ve shared bunches of superb hack, ideas and thoughts that will start to get the grey matter working with our listeners. But if you had to nail your top three leadership hacks, what would they be?

Alain Hunkins: All right. Hack number one, and this has to do with becoming more credible. Simple, simple, simple. Show up on time. Right, does not really get simpler than that. Yet maybe the most important thing, you know, they say that 80 percent of life is showing up because let's face it, timeliness is the easiest thing in the world to measure. You're either there or you're not. So hack number one. Show up on time.

Hack number two. Listen, so much of everything that we have talked about around communication and around connection and empathy boils down to. Are you listening to understand? Are you listening to tick a box? And the goal of listening should be to truly and deeply try to see the world through somebody else's eyes, to hear things through their ears. To step into their shoes, so hack number two is start cultivating a listening habit. And I'd say hack number three, read, you know, learn something new as much as you can. I have found that all great leaders are great readers. So whether that is audio books or actual books or Kindle books, read and learn, because there so much out there, I feel the more that I learn, the less I know, because the world is a big place, and we live in a time where there is so much information that is accessible to you so easily. And if you're not taking advantage of, somebody else's is, so learn, read and lead. Hack number three.

Steve Rush: Great stuff, so if we were to now start thinking about what we affectionately call now as The Hack to Attack. This is a time in your life, where maybe things have not worked out well, you may have screwed up, but we are now using that lesson as part of our life's work. What would you hack to attack be, Alain?

Alain Hunkins: Sure, so my hack to attack is recognizing the power of authentic, vulnerable communication. And I'll tell you, when I learned that was when I got curse out in front of a room of 300 flight attendants, so I will tell you the story on this, so I was working with a group of 300 flight attendants in Chicago. It was a two-day customer service training and I was both the master of ceremonies as well as one of the lead designers for the training. And I was getting ready to kick things off on the first morning, and before we were getting started, the audience was filling in. I was just walking around in the crowd getting to know people and found out that people were literally coming from around the world, and so there were some people from the UK, there were some people from the US, there were people from Europe. There was a table that had flown in all the way from Japan. They were up in the front, and one person said to me, oh, look, we literally just flew in from Japan all night. So if we fall asleep in the front, please don't take it personally, because the Asian table up here, we're really tired, so I meet with everybody and then it's time to get started, and so as we start, I welcome everybody to our training. And I'm telling everyone, thank you so much for coming in from around the world, and we have people from the UK, from the US. Up here, we have the Asian table, and so I go on and on with this, and then about five minutes after I am designed to start, I am going to be interrupted by a marching band. Now, this is all pre-planned.

I know this is coming, so five minutes in, the marching band comes in. Boom, they go off, do their thing, so while they're doing their thing, the guy that two tables back in the audience raises his hand and he asked me to come over. I walk over to him while the band is playing. And he says to me, who the F do you think you are? So he does not say f, he actually says the word. Who the F do you think you are? I am like, I am sorry. You call yourself a leader. You are a racist. I am like what, and he starts cursing me.

Who the f do you think you are? You call that the Asian table. What kind of racist are you? You would not call that the N-word table. Except he did not say the N-word table. He actually said the N-word, and he just coming on and on at me. And at this point, you can imagine my brain has exploded out of my head and I'm just trying to keep my balance, not fall over, because I'm getting curse at in front of this entire room. This is going on.

Steve Rush: Right, yeah.

Alain Hunkins: And I managed to after properly, I have no idea how much….it might have been half a minute or a minute. I managed to extricate myself from this guy, and I go back to the back of the room where my colleague Cynthia's back there, and I said, Cynthia, the band is about to stop playing in about three minutes. I just got totally cursed at. What comes next? Where are we? What are we doing? Like, literally, I had a complete amygdala hijack where my brain was just not functioning, and she said, okay, we are in Chicago. We are with a group of flight attendants. This is a customer service training. Oh, okay. Thank you, so I went back up on stage and I knew I had about 30 seconds left and I did not have a clue as to how I was going to handle this. This was not in my playbook. I was not expecting this at all, and so what I ended up doing was as the band finished, I just turned to the audience and just spoke from my heart, and I said, folks, before we go further, I just need to say I know today and tomorrow is all about customer service. And sometimes in customer service, things get screwed up and you have to make a customer service recovery. Well, this is one of those moments.

Before we go further, I need to apologize. I said some things earlier that some people found really offensive and if that's true, I'm really, really sorry. That was not my intention. That is not what I meant to do. That is not why I am here, and I practically broke down in tears saying all this to them. I was just really horrified that anyone could ever think that of me. I said, so if you want to talk to me off line or during anything, please let me know, so the amazing thing as I finished all that Steve was, you know, I let it go and I thought it was all done, and we continued on with the training, but over the next two days. Out of that three hundred people, literally twenty five, must have come to me and said, I just want to come over and tell you how much I appreciated how real you were with us, because, you know, we go through a lot of these kind of things at work and you being that authentic made such a difference. And it was from all of the consistent feedback. Again, twenty-five people all coming up to me saying some variation of that same thing, so what I learned there was when I let my guard down, I show up in a much more powerful way, because up until that point, I think I still was relying on all of my bells and whistles and shiny. You know, I am a performer. I can make this all happen. I can do a good job, and I was afraid of letting people see kind of what I call the vulnerable, the less than perfect me. And I think, you know, as leaders, if we can let our guard down, if we can take off the superhero cape and let people see that we're human like them, it actually makes us stronger. I know it is a paradox, but it actually takes a lot of courage to be that vulnerable and when you do that, You never know who you're inspiring.

Steve Rush: And what a great lesson, and if it wasn't for that individual being quite foul mouthed and cussing at you, maybe that wouldn't have informed your future operating style in the way it has.

Alain Hunkins: Yeah, absolutely. I guess, and you know, all these things, you never know when the teacher will appear, I look back on that, and I am super grateful for the lesson and like we said earlier, was it comfortable? Absolutely not. It was horrible at the time but there is definitely some gold to be mined from all of that to mine.

Steve Rush: One or two more final nuggets from you Alain. I would like us to think about doing some time travel now; and I’m going to ask you to time travel back to when you were 21 and bump into Alain at 21. What advice would you be giving Alain then?

Alain Hunkins: I love this question. I love, love, love this question. I thought long and hard about this. And for me, when I was 21, I was still so much caught up in the idea that talent and merit will speak for itself, and what I didn't realize is that the world is made up of human beings who seek and crave relationship. But I would have told 21 year old Alain is you need to build and sustain relationships. I look back; I have friends from high school and college who were really close and I did not maintain those friendships. I did not maintain those relationships, and I look back to the beginning of my work career and I thought the work itself would be enough and I had later in life. It was a lesson that I had to learn. I would say in some ways the hard way is that keep building relationships and no go to the people who energize you. And if they energize you, let them know that in whatever way you want and continue to cultivate ways to stay in touch and have those, because I find the older I get, the more important those relationships matter. And if I take that at a really kind of meta level that I think, you know, I'm now 51 and I'm what I consider on the downslope of this journey of my physical being. What am I going to take with me when I am done in this life? It boils down to it is the quality of those relationships, so I would say to the 21 year old, cultivate, sustain, maintain and nurture those relationships because they're the most valuable things in the world.

Steve Rush: That is Super advice and still relevant for most people who are listening today.

Alain Hunkins: Yeah.

Steve Rush: So let's think about how the folk listening to the show today can get hold of a copy of The Cracking The Leadership Code and more importantly, get to know a little bit more about the work that you're doing Alain.

Alain Hunkins: Yeah, for sure. So if people want to learn more about me in the book, The Easiest Place, because my name is difficult to spell. I have a different URL for the book, but you can find me from there too, so it is www.crackingtheleadershipcode.com. That will take you right to the book page. While you are there, you can download chapter one of the book to get a little free sample and preview of what it is all about and from there that links right to my webpage, which is alainhunkins.com so you can go there. You are also welcome to link with me on LinkedIn, which is Alain, A-L-A-I-N. Hunkins, H-U-N-K-I-N-S and obviously I do work in the fields of leadership coaching both one on one and group and organizational, as well as leadership development training and speaking. People can find out all about those things and be in touch if they are interested.

Steve Rush: What we will also do is include those links to our show notes and on our Website, so as soon as folks finish listening to this, they can go ahead, click on the links and learn more about you.

Alain Hunkins: Fantastic.

Steve Rush: So only leads me to say a massive thanks Alain. We have had a super time talking and listening to some of the stories. Again, a huge congratulations on the success of Cracking The Leadership Code and I just want to say personally a huge thank you for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Alain Hunkins: Oh, thank you, Steve. It has been an absolute delight being with you here today, really. Really a pleasure, so thank you so much.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media; and you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handle there is @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

Cracking the Leadership Code: Three Secrets to Building Strong Leaders

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Marc Effron is the author of the Harvard Business Review Publishing books One Page Talent Management and 8 Steps to High Performance. Marc helps the world’s biggest brands and most successful companies elevate the quality and impact of their talent and has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Influencers in HR globally. You can learn so much from Marc including:

The science behind why people succeed and fail.
Why big goals drive bigger results.
How to “maximise your fit” with your company.
Its ok to “Fake it” and be a success.
The relationships that you have will either accelerate or decelerate your career.

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Find out more about Marc and his work below:

Marc’s Website: https://www.talentstrategygroup.com

Follow Marc on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/effron/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TalentStrategyG

8 Steps to High Performance https://www.the8steps.com

Full Transcript Below:----more----

Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

On today's show, I am excited to be speaking with Marc Effron. He is the president of the Talent Strategy Group. He has co-authored One Page Talent Management and also authored The Eight Steps to High Performance. Before we get to speak to Marc, it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, many world leaders, politicians and businesses are coming under immense pressure from individuals and business owners who hold power, to relax safe distancing and quarantine measures, even though the signs say it's not quite time yet. How many of us have given permission or been asked to do things differently and then felt that weight of anxiety, nervousness and pressure within us, above us and around us, and particularly when the grounds full of noise is concrete to how we feel as leaders. So what will it take to hold our nerve when there is no roadmap for knowing where we're going or knowing how we're even going to get there? And how can we be sure that doing things differently bring better outcomes when there's no quick fix? The leadership problem here is if we give up too soon under pressure, we are likely to revert to old type, old behaviours and learn less. Of course, we will only know if we did the right thing in the future. So how will we hold our nerve in times like this? There's an old saying, “Aim for the moon and you might land in the stars”, well, that really applies now. We have been dealing with emotion and managing crisis and recognized our world and our businesses has changed. Science, Politics, Business and Economics have given us real guidance as to how we need to run and think about our businesses, and that should have informed and helped design our business plan. Oh, and if you haven't got a plan, but you just riding the waves here - get off your surfboard, look out to sea and see the next wave! Strategic thinking and planning can give us the foundations for success. Your plan should have strong foundations in which to work from to help you hold your nerve about doing the right thing and not necessarily doing things right.

Because we are all learning and new behaviours, new attributes and new ways of working. So pivoting a plan is absolutely okay, but not having a plan, will see you washed out to sea metaphorically. Key here - watch out for a groupthink! This will be a massive distraction for us and a massive, de-railer. We will be faced with things like, “everybody else is doing X we should do X”, “most people doing Y, we should do Y”. Don't do anything that's not right for you and your business, don't be swayed by groupthink. There are three things here that will help you hold enough:

Number one, Communication. Socialize and validate your thinking with the widest and diverse group of people that can help you avoid that groupthink and group action.

Number two, Evaluate daily. Are you on track? Do you need to stop what you are doing? Do you need to pivot?

Number three, Repetition. Repeat, repeat, repeat - creates new habits and new helpful routines in the way that you are working for the future. Whatever happens next, hold your nerve because your Leadership BarometerÔ is on show here. This is guiding the behaviours and actions of your team and your organization, and you may not even be aware that you have a Leadership BarometerÔ , but you do. You are the weather forecast for your business. That has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have news, insights, ideas you think could be helpful for our listeners. Get in touch with us through our social media sites.

Start of Interview

Steve Rush: On today's show, we have Marc Efforn. He is the president of the Talent Strategy Group and that's author of two Harvard Business books. One Page Talent Management and Eight Steps to High Performance. Marc, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Marc Effron: Steve, very happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Steve Rush: So you started out as a Yale graduate and after a number of different roles, ended up becoming the president of one of the world's leading talent strategy firms, tell us a little bit about that journey, Marc?

Marc Effron: Sure, so I will give you that brief history but let's even start before Yale. I had a very different life before that. I think what influenced a lot of what I do today, I learned there, so before I went to graduate school, I had experience as a congressional staff assistant and a political consultant. And learning a lot about influence and power in those roles was critically important. And I had no concept of big business when I got to business school at Yale, and so I think maybe it was helpful that I went in without any perspective about how companies operated. I got a lot of the raw material when I went to business school and then at business school really found out about this thing called organizational behaviour. And love the science around how people succeed and apply that in both consulting environments and corporate environments over the past 20 plus years and came to the realization that a lot of organizations that didn't manage talent well and that a lot of consulting firms didn't provide great advice about how to manage talent well. And so wrote that first book that you mentioned, One Page Talent Management as a way of saying, I think there is a better way of doing this and decided to put my money where my mouth was and start my firm, The Talent Strategy Group, about 11 years ago. Now, based on that book and luckily, things have grown. The firm has grown well since then, and that brings us to where we are today. A firm that helps some of the world's largest and most complex and successful organizations to manage talent and more effectively.

Steve Rush: And what do you think it is, sits behind talent? Is there a kind of a golden nugget? What would be the one thing that you would call out that sits at the core of managing talent?

Marc Effron: I don't know if I am smart enough to boil it down to one thing, but I do think we start with the perspective that better quality talent delivers better results. If we can kind of agree on that point. The rest is simply execution and I think that is the challenge that we face in many organizations, is that we in the HR field sometimes grossly overcomplicate what it means to build better quality talent. And if we're going to start at that kind of the pinnacle, the discussion, do we agree? Steve, moreso, do you agree that better quality talent delivers better results? Oh, yeah, of course we do - Great, can we agree on what better quality talent looks like? Not physically, but now what are the capabilities, skills, mind-sets that better quality talent needs to have in our particular organization? So not looking for a universal truth, but at the Steven Mark Company. What are the three things that are going to differentiate better quality talent? And we agree on that. Oh yeah, there are A, B and C. Cool. Well, let's figure out how we can build more talent that demonstrates those three capabilities. So we think about what really differentiates kind of great talent or organizations who build great talent, it is fairly linear. It is that series of steps. Do we agree that better quality talent delivers better results? Yes, we do. Great, do we understand the few things that will differentiate better quality talent? Yes. Great, then how do we get more of that better quality talent into our organization more quickly?

Steve Rush: And of course, each organization will have varying different degrees of different things, and I guess that's what keeps you so busy and so informed because everything is very different in terms of that differential behaviour as well?

Marc Effron: Yeah, absolutely and I think the key is not necessarily that there are a million different behaviours that will allow people to be successful at work. But in our organization, what are the few things that really matter? Because at the end of the day, organizations are both very similar and very unique. They are very similar in that people in organizations tend to behave like people in organizations so there are some universal truths we know about things like if we set big goals, people will perform better or if we work on engagement, they will stay more connected to the firm. But firms are also very different in that the three things that you need at Steve Co right now to succeed might be very different than the three things we need that Mark Co right now. Can we get clear about what those few most powerful, most differentiating elements are and ensure we are aligning everything we do around having more talent that has more of those few things.

Steve Rush: Got it. It makes loads of sense. No, we share a very simple principle that I saw in your latest book and your principle was, “focus on what you can change and ignore the rest”. I think that is just absolutely brilliant, but what was it that was the trigger point for you to writing your second book. The Eight Steps to High Performance?

Marc Effron: Sure. Well, I was probably two years ago now, maybe even more, my editor came to me and said, Hey, Marc, we think it is time that you wrote another book, and I said, thank you. I don't want to write another book. There are plenty of books out there already. Thanks very much. And she said, well, we actually think that there might be some room for another book on how people can be higher performers at work that takes this science based simplicity approach that you introduced in One Page Talent Management, and of course, appealing to my vanity is always a very good way to get me to do something. And I thought, well, if there is room in the book market place, where is that room found? What can I do differently in a book that others have not done? And I thought to myself, well, a lot of books actually don't focus on what's proven to be true. They are based on opinions or stories. A lot of books are written by very smart people. Professors, consultants, but not necessarily people who have had to manage and lead in the corporate world, and a lot of books are about one topic area, so they will tell you how to be more emotionally intelligent or know how to focus on your strengths but what they don't do is integrate. Well, here is all the advice that you may hear. Here is what has really proven, here are the few things that matter. And I thought, well, there probably is a gap in those three areas. So could I write a book that actually said what really matters? What can you focus on? That is proven to be true.

What should you ignore? Because either not changeable or not easily changeable. Then practically exactly what should you do? And I thought, you know what? One of the things that we don't do with new university grads or anybody entering the workplace is just tell them exactly that. Here are the few things that you can focus on that are going to guaranteed to make you a higher performer at work and that you should simply do as much of as you can, and here are a bunch of things that you just can't do anything about, so don't worry about them. Worry about executing on the few things that are actually proven to make you a higher performer. So the focus on what you can change says there are a lot of things we can change, what the book goes into, what Eight Steps talks about, what are those things? One of the few most powerful things you can do to increase your performance. And then it's very clear about here is the stuff that's going to affect how you perform at work that you probably can't do much about, so stop worrying about that.

Steve Rush: So when we leave university and college, there is no blueprint to becoming a highly successful individual at work and I guess The Eight Steps really gives us the foundations for some of those activities. So let's go ahead and step through those eight steps, starting with Big Goals. What was the reason Big Goals featured number one for you?

Marc Effron: Sure, and Steve, let me even start with a precursor to The Eight Steps, because what I find is, before we even talk about The Eight Steps, one of the things that maybe isn't as clear in the literature, but it's certainly clear from my years of practice is that the foundation of being a high performer is to have a high performers mind-set. And high performers mind-set says that, if I want to be a high performer, I'm going to recognize that I'm probably going to simply put in more time at work than other people put in. Now, sometimes that very innocuous statement leads to a bit of screaming around. Well, it is not about hours, it is about quality, and I work smart, not hard.

Great, but at the end of the day, two equally qualified, equally engaged, equally skilled people are put side by side. One dedicates 40 hours to their task. One dedicates 50 hours to their task. The person who dedicates 50 hours, to their task is likely to either be able to contribute more or learn more, connect more, develop more, do more things in those extra 10 hours a week that are going to quickly add up over the course of a year or two. So high performers mind-set starts with, I recognize all likely need to put in more hours in other people. I recognize that all likely need to sacrifice things that I enjoy because I am going to spend that time on work related activities. Maybe I am not going to go see my favourite sports team as often as I might like to. Maybe in my going to be able to attend to every social event that I would like to attend, there are things that I am going to do that are going to sacrifice, things I might enjoy doing. Spending time with my family because I am going to dedicate some of that time to work and being a higher performer. Finally, third part of that high performer’s mind-set. I recognize that performance is always relative. If I hit one hundred twenty percent of my goals this year but Steve hit one hundred forty percent of his goals, and Susan hit one hundred sixty percent of her goals. I might still have exceeded my goals, but I am the lowest performer in the group.

Performance is always going to be measured against who does the best, so those things really form that high performer’s mind-set that underlies each of these eight steps. Without that mind-set, none of these eight steps are going to work.

Steve Rush: That is really neat.

Marc Effron: Yeah, and to be honest, that eliminates 75 percent of the folks out there, and I think that is fine. You don't need to be a high performer. People live wonderful lives. They contribute to their communities. They are good brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, without having to be a high performer. But if you want to be a high performer, it's likely that your mind-set needs to incorporate those three elements, let's dig into big goals.

Steve Rush: Let's do that.

Marc Effron: I read through about 2000 scientific articles to try to understand when I wrote the book. What is actually conclusively proven to be true about individual high performance at work? What is not? And the one factor that came out loud and clear and it wasn't that much of a surprise, was that one of the most conclusively proven pieces of science around what we can do at work to be a higher performer is to set a few big challenging goals. Now, that sounds pretty obvious, but here is the problem. Our consulting firm works with big global companies every day, really smart managers, great HR Resources available to them, and yet in most of those organizations, goal setting is done very poorly. What does the science say about goal setting, and why we should do it better? What it says is that big goals drive bigger results.

Just flat out conclusive big goals drive bigger results, so if you are setting a few big stretch goals for yourself, it is very likely you're going to respond to those goals with more effort because we're hard wired to be high performers. If Steve says, Marc, jump a foot in the air, I will give you a dollar, I'm going to jump a foot. If you say two feet, two dollars, I will try that. Three feet, three dollars. I will try that. I'm going to keep responding to that additional challenge you give me with more effort up to the point where either I think, there's not a good relationship between the effort, the rewards, or if I say 4ft four dollars and you say no Marc, still three dollars, Then I probably won't do it. Or if I'm too physically exhausted to complete the task, I won't do it, but except for those two things, the bigger challenge that is given to us, the more effort that we'll respond with. And while more effort isn't always guaranteed to yield more performance, in many cases it is, so big goals drive big results but you can't have 20 big goals. You will kill yourself and that goes to how do we focus on the few things that matter most? That is another challenge a lot of us have. We are very busy. We have many tasks, many activities, and we oftentimes confuse tasks and activities with goals. One trick for your listeners is don't think about goals. Think about promises to your organization.

If you had to make your boss or your company three big promises about what you will deliver this year, what would those three big promises be? What are those three big deliverables be? And that might sound like a cute word trick. It has not intended to be it's really intended to shift your mind-set and say we all have goals and we hope we achieve our goals, and sometimes you do. Sometimes we don't, but how many times do you make a promise to someone not intending to fulfil that promise?

Steve Rush: And that is that intention and action gap, isn't it? Where we make lots of intentional statements of doing things, but the actions sometimes fall short. Is that goal based in your experience too?

Marc Effron: Yeah, absolutely and so the question then is. How do we raise the stakes for ourselves? To say it is not just a goal. I have made an emotional commitment to that goal. So I've made you a promise about what I'm going to do during the year. How do we really elevate that? So it's not just. Oh, yeah, it is on my list of stuff to do. Well, that's likely not going to be anywhere near as motivational as here's a big stretch goal that I've set for myself or that my boss has set for me that I know is going to be challenging a little bit scary and I might need to learn something new or behave in a different way to achieve it. But I know I'm going to get bigger results by setting something that is probably just out of my reach.

Steve Rush: That leads us to this second one, which is around behave to perform. What, does that really mean?

Marc Effron: Sure. I mentioned earlier, it would be really nice if we helped every new university grad to understand the few things that are going to matter most in their career.

And one of the things that my experience shows most leaders don't hear about until they're mid thirty. Is this concept of leadership derailers, many of your leaders may be familiar with those for those who aren't? Think of leadership derailers as your personality turned up too high. Some of the things that might have made you successful earlier in your career but if you keep doing them or you turn the dial ups, you are doing them even more. They are actually going to backfire on you.

Quick example. Let's say that you got early success because you're a brilliant project manager. Everything gets done on time, perfectly executed, no excuses. You pay a lot of attention to the detail. That is great, so you are a successful as a manager. People promote you or you promoted to be a director. You are still focusing on project management. You are really into the details, into the weeds. Stuff needs to get done, needs to get done on time. But you actually have some managers working for you who are supposed to be doing that and they kind of look at you sideways because you're playing around in their area. They kind of wish you would just manage instead, but because you drive good results, company likes that. They make you a vice president, man you are still in the weeds. Dig into those projects and really making sure that everything is perfectly executed. Well, now your peers and your boss are saying, well, I actually need more strategic thinking and more leadership. You need to be actually working with your team on projects and pushing that work down to the appropriate level. That type of factor says things that we do early in career may backfire on us or not be as helpful later in our career. Leadership derailers or exactly that, it might be that there is an element that you are very good at but you do it more frequently than you should, and it becomes something that derails you. Let's take a very practical example.

Let's say that you are someone who is very good at building relationships and calling attention to yourself. You are happy to talk about the quality of your work. You think that is the right thing to do to showcase it. Now, that is very helpful to emerge as a leader, so if you are an unknown leader in your organization, one fast way to emerge is to make sure that people know who you are and they know the quality of the work that you're doing, so we'll call it kind of waving your hand around. I want to be noticed. I want to emerge quickly as a leader. The challenge is that behaviour, when you are 24 looks one way. That behaviour when you are 34 looks completely different. Now, it is well, you seem awfully bold and convinced that your ideas are right.

You are sucking up airtime in meetings when other people might want to talk. You are disempowering your staff because their ideas never come to light. It is always your ideas; so that exact same behaviour has changed from being an asset to a liability and I think the key around behave to perform. Chapter 2 in Eight Steps To High-Performance is. Those derailers that are going to harm our career and that we need to pay attention to earlier than most of us do. Too many of us focus on, well, what is a great leader do? They do A, B and C that will take you so far, but at some point it's those derailers that you need to be aware of and eliminate or also going to hold back how quickly you progressed in your role.

Steve Rush: Step 3 in your eight steps is growing yourself faster. How do we compete with fast vs. quality?

Marc Effron: The key message there is that the science is pretty clear that we're going to grow most quickly through the experiences that we have. But far too often what we don't think about is what's the journey that I'm supposed to be going on? Meaning where am I today. So how do I show up today? How would I like to show up in the future? And in the book, I frame this as what we call a from too statement, and my colleague Jim Shanley. Who founded the Talent Management Institute at UNC with me, came up with this concept. It is brilliantly, simple concept that says before I develop my plan around how do I grow myself faster, let's chart out that journey and say, what do I need to move from or where do I need to move from and where do I need to move to? And that statement might sound like I need to move from being seen as a project manager who flawlessly executes and focuses on the smallest detail. To a leader who can bring others along and help them to execute in the same way that I would on large, complex global projects. So from that from too, says let's map the journey first. Where am I going from? And to, and then think about what are the few big experiences I need to get better at that. So grow yourself faster said, let's focus on the one thing that matters most in accelerating my development, which is getting me really high quality experiences. But let's plan those experiences by saying, am I clear about how I am perceived today at work and am I clear about how I want to be perceived at work going forward and then use experiences to fill that gap?

Steve Rush: So I really like that whole using experiences to fill that gap, because actually I don't think many people spend time focusing on the experiences they've had and transferring that to core foundations. And I guess that leads on to your next step, which if ever there was a time for connection and you call your next step “connect”, it is probably now.

Marc Effron: Sure. Connect is one of those steps that, to be honest, I didn't realize was as powerful as it was until I read through all that scientific research about how people connected to workplace and the strength in those relationships. Obviously, I intellectually understood that but when I read through connecting, what I realized is there is incredible power in connecting to help make you a higher performer, but it matters who you connect with and how you connect with them. What does the best science say about who to connect with? Well, it starts with your boss.

That boss relationship is amazingly predictive of how far and how fast you will move up in your organization. Now, here is where things get tricky. Some people are very uncomfortable being nice to their boss. No, not being unnice, but kind of building that personal, warm, friendly relationship is what the science says is. It is that trusting relationship, not the transactional relationship. A boss asked me to do something. I did it for them. But really, that more personal relationship. Do I have a cup of coffee with him? Occasionally. Have I invited the boss and her or his family over for dinner at my house? Do we travel together? Are there ways that I am getting to know that leader in a way that they really trust me and they really value my judgment? And they feel more than that. Some of that transactional connection of this person is an employee and there is obviously a lot of grey in what that relationship looks like. But what the science would say is the stronger that relationship is, the more quickly you're going to move up in an organization and part of that is just the basics, treating your boss that you would treat any other friend. Not every conversation is a work conversation. Maybe you are asking that person out to grab a sandwich or a coffee on a regular basis, but you are working hard to consciously build that relationship. And the science would also say that peer relationships are important, and one of the things I say when I'm working with leaders on this step is map the quality of your relationship with all of your peers.

All of the folks may be on the same team and other important folks who are peers in your organization. Rate those relationships on a basic scale. Let's called it a 5 to 1 scale. 5 is brilliant, 1 is you don't get along very well at all. Any of your peers who you would rate as a 3 or lower. You need to connect within the next two weeks. In this environment virtual coffee or just a check and call to say, hey, how are things going? That is not a transactional or call. And this might even be something that you need to preface with. Hey, Steve, I know we don't actually chat all that much, but I thought, you know, given the current environment, you can't hurt just to kind of have a bit more of a get to know call and understand what's going on with you and learn more about you and, you know, outside of the work environment. It might need to be that practiced of a conversation where you not kind of trying to suddenly say, oh, I am going to ask him a couple of questions about his weekend, but instead say, hey, I'm just trying to build better relationships. And I thought maybe we could just have a conversation. So connecting, doing it in a planned way, what is the quality of my relationship with my boss? What is the quality of the relationship with my peers and actively managing those to help you be a higher performer?

Steve Rush: It is really fascinating, in the research that I've concluded also in a very similar way, I found also that those colleagues who avoid people they’ve connected with less, also trust them less - and they also mirror that same lack of trust because it's a bi-product, isn't of connection?

Marc Effron: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: The next one is around “maximizing your fit” Marc, tell us a little bit about what that refers to?

Marc Effron: Mapping yourself is really understanding that your organization is going to change and evolve and organizations are changing, evolving more quickly than ever. They might get into a new market place. They might have a new strategy, a new way of having work get done, and if you want to stay a high performer, your job is to be looking at the future of your company and saying, given where I think my company is going. What are the few capabilities that are going to be valued in that environment that might be different than what's valued today? And to compare yourself to that future state and say, okay, I'm probably good at two of the four things they're looking for, I'm not really as good at two of the new things they're looking for.

How do I build that capability as quickly as possible? Because High Performers are always thinking about how do I ensure that I fit perfectly with the needs of my organization and not relying on the company to come to them and say, Oh, Marc, we're going to retrain you to fit with the future environment. But being much more proactive if you can't translate yourself your organization's strategy into those capabilities, talking to your boss or your boss's, boss and saying very explicitly, I want to continue to be a strong performer here, what new capabilities do you see our organization needing that I might need to build in the short term? So Maximize Your Fit is saying, the science is very clear that our fit with an organization helps to predict our success. And so our high performers are always going to be looking at themselves and saying, given where our organization is going and the capabilities they need to be successful in the future, it needs to be successful the future. Do my capabilities match kind of well, not very well or very well with that future state and where ever there are gaps that high performers working to build those capabilities and close those gaps as quickly as possible.

Steve Rush: That is great. Thank you Marc. When I read “fake it”, being one of your eight steps, so when we talk about faking it when I read this in your book, it really intrigued me because as I suddenly thought about, how does that square itself with authenticity? But in your book you write, “sometimes it's better than being your genuine you”. What does that mean Marc?

Marc Effron: It is interesting. The chapter six on “fake it” probably yields more screaming than any of the other chapters and it is often misinterpreted. People say, oh, you don't really mean that people should fake a behaviour. You mean that they should just kind of adjust things or adapt. I double down and say, no actually! What we are talking about, it is very likely that you are good at many things at work, that you have a lot of the right behaviours, skills, but it's also very likely going back to the de-railers that we talked about earlier, that there are one or maybe two things that either you do too much of or do too little love and you genuinely feel that those are the right things to do. You generally feel that the level at which you display them is correct, but you know that other people succeed by doing something very different.

So I mentioned earlier some people are very good at emerging as leaders by waving their hand around and calling attention to themselves. You might say, look, I feel that is just the wrong thing to do. Good work should speak for itself. I should not have to do that. You know, I just don't think that's the right thing to do. But the science would say if you do that, you're going to emerge more quickly as a leader. You might need to fake that behaviour. You might need to put on an actor's mask and say, I'm going to show up in this next meeting, not as myself, but as somebody who's more than happy to share what they've been working on and to draw some attention to themselves, because I know that is going to allow me to be a higher performer. And you might say, look, I don't like that behaviour. I don't believe in engaging in that behaviour, but I know it's the right thing to do to advance my career, and so what you might need to do is fundamentally fake that behaviour. Become for that one hour in that meeting a different version of you, and that's not adapting. That is not adjusting. That is saying I am going to be a different person in that meeting than I normally am and I can return to being the genuine or authentic me after that meeting.

The challenges is, if we always want to be our authentic selves. It suggests that we think that our authentic selves are the best possible version of us or the most effective possible version. And the science would suggest that's fundamentally not true. What is this look like in practice? I do this all the time. There is a gentleman, some of your listeners might know of who is a brilliant writer and brilliant speaker and coach named Marshall Goldsmith. And if you've ever seen Marshall Goldsmith on stage, he is one of the most engaging, entertaining individuals that you'll ever come across. I am not naturally like that on stage, even though I do a lot of presenting. And so sometimes if I'm feeling maybe a little bit nervous before a speech or it's a particularly large group I'm talking to. Before I walk onto that stage, I don't think to myself, what would Marshall Goldsmith do? I say to myself, become Marshall Goldsmith and I walk out on that stage far more animated and energetic than I would ever naturally be in my life, because I am wearing that Marshall Goldsmith mask. I am faking being Marshall Goldsmith. Now, when I am off that stage, do I go back to being much more of an introverted and quiet individual? I certainly do, but what I did in that section was I showed up as what that audience needed to see, really forget about the genuine me or the authentic me or the me who I wanted to be at that moment. What I knew was that somebody had paid really good money for me to show up and entertain and engage that crowd. And the right person to do that was Marshall Goldsmith, so it's Marshall Goldsmith's mind-set and my content. I faked it and it delivered far better results.

Steve Rush: I really like that. I think this demonstrates this is about modelling other behaviours to improve your capability, but not mimicking behaviours. And I think when you model and you are you still you, you're authentic. When you mimic, then that is where the intuition kicks in and says, I don't think that is true.

Marc Efforn: Great point.

Steve Rush: Commit your body is the next one. Now, how do you commit your body to becoming highly successful and improved performance?

Marc Efforn: It was interesting. As I read through all those academic articles, and the search simply started with let's find anything that claims that something improves performance at work. And I started to see all these articles come up that's talked about. Here are things that you could do to manage yourself as an individual to be more effective. Actually what I really thought I would find was a bunch of proof around exercise, that exercise was the key to being a higher performer at work because I could draw all sorts of logical threads and reasons why that was the case. But when all the research actually said was the single most powerful thing you can do to manage yourself is actually to manage your sleep properly. There has been a lot of writing on this recently. The challenges is that writing is oftentimes very confusing and sometimes contradictory. When you read across all the sleep literature. What does it say about how to ensure that you are a higher performer at work? Well, the first thing that your listeners would want to pay attention to is the separation between quality of sleep and quantity of sleep. The science would say quality of sleep matters much more than quantity of sleep. When you get low quality sleep, it affects what are called your executive functions. That does not mean that you function like an executive. It means things like strategic thinking and creativity and working well in groups of others. So low quality sleep actually undercuts the capabilities that are most likely to make you a high performer.

Now, luckily, scientists have dug into how do you increase that quality of sleep. And it might be a lot of things your listeners have heard of before, but the question is, what are we doing about that? Those factors are things like we sleep better in a cool room, in a dark room, in a quiet room. When we have not had caffeine for at least eight hours and we have not had any alcohol for at least four hours, a very monastic type of existence. And since most people don't live that monastic type of existence, the question is, can you improve one of those things? Can you make the room a little darker, a little colder, a little quieter, a little less screen reading beforehand? So this is not the necessarily for most high performers. How can you live a perfectly monastic life to get great sleep? But can you adjust some of those factors because the improved quality of sleep is guaranteed to help with performance. Now, on the quantity side, quantity still matters. The challenge of the quantity side is that the advice is a bit all over the place. The National Science Foundation, or National Sleep Foundation says that the right number of hours of sleep is somewhere between 6 and 10. Well there is a four-hour difference in there and I can do a lot with those four hours. So is it six or is it 10? When you read through all the literature on sleep, it suggests that the sweet spot, if you're getting quality sleep as well as somewhere between six and a half and seven and a half hours.

And if you don't get quantity of sleep, it's not going to affect your executive functions. It is going to actually affect your basic functions. You are going to be forgetful. You might not find your keys on the way out the door. You might stumble over somebody name in a meeting. It is not going to necessarily affect your higher order functions. Now, luckily, scientists have also studied, well, what happens if you can't get the quality or the quantity you want or any sleep hacks available to you? Staying with the theme of our conversation around hacking. Well, the good news is on the quality side, scientists have found that a 10 minute nap, not a five, not a fifteen, not an hour, a ten minute nap is the ideal length to make up for up to an hour of low quality sleep. So a 10 minute nap has amazingly restorative powers from being a high performer, recognizing that not everyone has a nap pod in their office. Science is very clear, 10 minutes of napping is amazingly powerful and for low quantity of sleep. What the science says is it is our old friend, caffeine. That is the best way to wake up some of those more basic functions, so sleep unbelievably strong foundation. The other six steps we have just talked about will not work well if you are not managing your sleep properly.

Steve Rush: And I read some research not so long ago actually around sleep is about four or five times more important to daily routines as nutrition. In other words, if I did not eat for three days, the worst I would be is hungry. If I did not sleep for three days, then I would be starting to really lose my mental cognition.

Marc Effron: I think that is a fantastic parallel. I think that that says a lot.

Steve Rush: And then the last one is avoid distractions. And I think we can all be distracted by things at work and of course, our brain is naturally looking for those distractions as well. How do you reference in your book and maybe share a little bit about what that means for you?

Marc Effron: Avoiding distractions is really all about focusing on what is proven to make you a higher performer, and that is challenging when every day there is a new TED Talks or a blog article or a book or something that says, hey. Look over here, here is a secret, simple, easy way to be a better leader or hear 3 secrets from billionaires or whatever the clickbait is that enters your browser, and we've just talked about seven factors that are absolutely conclusively scientifically proven to make you a higher performer. This step around avoiding distractions really said. Why don't you start with the things that we know are absolutely proven to be true. Instead of responding to whatever hit your inbox or whatever you see in your browser that seems like it is a fast and easy way to be a higher performer. The science is unbelievably crystal clear about what will make us a higher performer. Do those things first, as opposed to whatever seems trendy at the moment.

Steve Rush: Got it, and I think it is the whole philosophy of procrastination, isn't it?

Marc Effron: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: At this point in the show, we normally ask our guests to share that top leadership hacks, but you have already shared an abundance of your hacks. What I am keen to learn though Marc is from your experiences. We call this Hack to Attack, where things in the past that you've done maybe not worked as well or you screwed up on. But we now use that information and those lessons as part of our work or life for the future. What would be your Hack to Attack?

Marc Effron: Sure. This hack comes from early in my career. I was twenty-five years old, working as a political consultant in Southern California in the United States. And we had a small firm, made up of five or six people and our job was to help people in the construction industry to lobby local officials to get big projects approved. So in Southern California, this was many, many years ago. There was lots of open land and builders wanted to buy that land and get approval to build on it as quickly as possible, so we got friendly candidates elected and then we lobbied those candidates to get those projects approved. And this was, I guess, the late 80s and what we found was that business went very well for about two years, and then there was a recession and that recession hit the housing industry hard, and we only had three big clients who we relied on for all of our revenues. And those three clients quickly went bankrupt and we were left with absolutely no income, and that was a very painful thing. As a young individual who was just getting by at the time and the two big lessons that taught me, and certainly how I manage my business today and at times like this have been very helpful. One always structure the business for the worst case scenario, meaning if things shut down and you still need to pay employees, are you going to have enough in that company bank account to weather a six month or 12 month storm? My structure right now is we always want to have a year of payroll in the bank and that might sound extremely conservative, but right now, it seems like a really good way to manage.

So always structure your firm to survive the worst, but then also ensure that you are incredibly well connected across the industry, meaning at times like this when we look at the next year and aren't certain how business will go. I want as many people in our profession as possible to understand who our firm is, what we do, and how we can help them. Because, well, we have always known in the past where business would come from or likely would come from. It might be that all bets are off in the future. So I much rather work with a network of about thirty five thousand contacts. I'd much rather have thirty five thousand contacts and not be sure about which one of them will reach out next week, then rely on two or three companies and hope that they will continue to be the tent poles for the business.

Steve Rush: Super lessons, and now, more than ever, planning for worst case scenario will call out whether or not business has got those foundations and a very good lesson learned. Thanks for sharing. So a final thing that we would like to ask of you today, Marc, is if you were able to do a bit of time travel and go back and bump into Marc at 21, what would be the best bit of advice you'd give him?

Marc Effron: Probably two things and it reflects on what we have already talked about today. One is, recognize that the strength of the relationships that you have will either accelerate or decelerate your career. As an introvert, I am naturally not good at doing that, and it always seemed like a nice to do, not a need to do and it probably was not until the middle of my career when I understood exactly how essential that was. So one piece of advice I would give my younger self is, even if you don't feel comfortable doing it. Build lots of good relationships starting right now.

And the second one and this is a very Marc specific. I can be a bit lazy at times. I’m motivated around things I love and I am pretty lazy around things I don't love to do, and I think my advice to my much younger self would be just work harder. You need to put in more hours if you are at your desk and you think, oh, I can go home now, I have nothing to do. Sit there for another hour and think of something to do. We talked about hard work is part of having a high performers mind-set. I got to business school and I got my butt kicked the first semester on grades. I realized actually Marc, you simply need to work harder and put in more hours, and I have been doing that ever since and I think it pays off well. So build great strong relationships and work really, really hard.

Steve Rush: That is great advice as well, and I think it is that extra effort. The extra yards coupled with that mind-set of high performance will make a difference for people as they progress through their careers. So thank you for sharing. I suspect that colleagues and people have been listening to you talk today. We will be thinking where can I find out more about Marc. How can I get my hands on the eight steps? Where would you like people to go who have been listening in today?

Marc Effron: Sure. Well, if they want to learn more about the eight steps, I think the easiest way is to pick up the book. It is on Amazon and all the major platforms. If you wanted to just learn more about myself, read a lot more of my articles, then you can go to our corporate site. That is talentstrategygroup.com. There are probably 50 different articles that I have written parallel many of these same topics.

Steve Rush: And we will also make sure they're in the show notes, so after listening to this podcast, folk can go click on it and go straight to find out where and what you're doing right now. So Marc just wanted to finally say it's been super listening to you today and I've learned loads listening to you and I'm grateful for you taking time out of what I know is a pretty busy time for you at The Talent Strategy Group. So thanks for joining us on The Leadership Podcast.

Marc Effron: Thank you, Steve. I enjoyed the conversation and I appreciate your listeners tuning in.

Closing

View Details

Byron Low is known as the, “technical guy who has the ability to connect”. While he is an introvert and process oriented, he thrives on solving problems with his clients. His entire career has been dedicated to improving the lives of others, now you can listen to Byron and during this episode you can learn:

How curiosity can be a driver in your life and work
How introverts can be as creative and entrepreneurial as extroverts
Career decisions are made from necessity as well as design – and that’s ok
Being interestING isn’t enough – you need to be interestED.
How you take your thoughts – and turn them in to tools!

Find out more about about Byron on here Website: https://www.byronlow.com

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Read the full episode Transcript Below:

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Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

On today's show, we have coaching catalyst, the technical guy with the ability to connect. It is Byron Low. Before we have a chance to speak with Byron. It is The Leadership Hacker News

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, wherever you turn to receive your news, you are likely to bump into the phrase “new normal”. What is the new normal? I asked this question to a group of my professional colleagues, network and associates to evaluate what hasn't happened yet - the future, a label of a new normal as to whether that helps us or holds us back? Labels can often be referred to guises, mind-sets and other things that help us frame how we see the world and how we respond; and that's really important if we're trying to make a change or a step change in how we behave in order to change our behaviour.

However, when we start thinking about strategically, giving labels could often send us to thinking back to what normal was vs. new possibilities and new thinking. Overwhelmingly, the research I found through my network suggested that it was unhelpful to give the “new normal” its credence in our current status quo because it was helping us to refer back to biases, and of course, what's happening isn't normal and is unlikely to be normal because normality, as we knew things in the past, is never going to be how things will be in the future. In order to think strategically and thoughtfully, it's high time now to accept things how they are, adjust our approach because life will go on and what is normal tomorrow might not be normal the day after. What is not normal the day after could be completely different. So let's drop the labels of “new normal”, let's just focus on how things are, be present, be in the moment and control what we can control.

On a lighter note, from the not so normal, Loch Ness Monster watchers around the world are intrigued to find that in this period of lock down that Nessie has made a reappearance. A 55-year-old Irish hospital clerk caught what he believes is the legendary creature. Caught on camera it swam around the Irish loch on Monday. The official Loch Ness monster sightings register. That is right, there is one! confirming the footage, which shows something unexplained emerging from the Urquhart Bay at around 8:11 a.m. It is only the second sighting of the Loch Ness monster this decade. And I wonder, is that normal? Or just the new normal? That has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, insights or information you would like to share with our listeners. Please get in touch through our website or our social media channels.

Start of Interview

Steve Rush: On today's show, I have got coaching Catalyst, Byron Low. He has been a coach for twenty-five years, been included as part of strategic leadership of twenty two plus start-ups. And he's the technical guy that people connect with. Byron welcome to the show.

Byron Low: Thanks, Steve.

Steve Rush: So twenty-two start-ups. Twenty-five years as a coach. That is an inordinate amount of experience to be able helping you and your clients with, but for you, your first business entrepreneurship, if you like, started when you were in high school. Tell us, a little bit about that?

Byron Low: Yeah. Ever since I was a little kid, I have been one of those people that was curious and interested in a lot of things. Steve, I was the kid that read encyclopaedias and I am sure I know that in Europe you all have encyclopaedias. But in America, that was not a popular thing to do. I read encyclopaedias as a as a child, so that always gave me this…I have and always have had this very voracious appetite for knowledge. I will give an example.

When I was younger, we had a family set of encyclopaedias. But ask him for us a special kind of encyclopaedia called Jane's Encyclopaedia of Aviation. And he said, What is that? I said, well, it is a special encyclopaedia of just airplanes. And he looked at me like, what? Why would you want that? Well, I learned when I was a kid that my dad grew up on the eastern seaboard, of The United States, and when he was a kid. He had these cards and I got to see them. There are these cards that were the silhouettes of all of the German of the axis powered and also the allied powered airplanes, and the silhouette was looking down on it. You could see the actual airplane, and that really led me to this interest in just learning about that. So I learned all about World War 1, World War 2, all the aircraft and I had them all memorized, and I also learned about all manufacturers from, you know, from the very, very beginning. So I learned about all the different kinds of cars. My curiosity was always very, very strong, and that led me to want to start different kinds of businesses and I have always been kind of very kind of entrepreneurial. When I was even younger before high school. I was the one that kind of organize the youth activities and sports in my neighbourhood. I help people kind of get together and do things and even then, I was an introvert and I am still an introvert. But there was something there that was very enterprising.

Steve Rush: And enterprising I guess, comes from those thoughts you are having. So introverted people will take on that information, energy and power from their internal source where extroverted people obviously get their energy from external sources and people and surroundings. But that's not atypical for entrepreneurs to be coaches, is it? How did you wrestle with the internal dialogue that was saying, “I am introverted, but yet I still need to be extroverted and go out and find new things and new ways of working?”

Byron Low: That is a good question! I think even when I was younger; I was drawn to athletics, even though I was kind of a nerd in a sense or even as a boy, a technical person. I very much was drawn to being athletic and being involved in sports. I remember my family originated - you know, they are all in northern U.K. in Scotland. And I remember learning about cricket and even rugby and obviously football, your football and I remember having learning that I had cousins in Scotland, but I wanted to learn about their game. But I didn't really have any context for learning that, but for me, it was about learning the American sports of football, basketball and baseball and tennis, which were all the things that I played. The world of athletics is an external world and you can be an introvert and be an athlete. Absolutely, but that's really kind of how I bridged the gap with my internal world. Because you're right, introverts have this very, very large interior world. Mine as an introvert, It is vast and how I made the connection to the external world was through sports. And I absolutely love sports and I learned how to affiliate with others through sports, and it still is, it is a love of my life. I mean, I am actually very, very much missing that today because there are not any sports right now. I actually have a son who is 16, who is a baseball player and he very much wants to be a competitive baseball player someday. I am actually living through him; I can see in him what I had when I was younger in this intensity of wanting to be a better athlete.

Steve Rush: So your exploration of other people and other activities is your external energy, I guess, right?

Byron Low: That is right. I think my externality came in two places. It came both in academics working either with my classmates, because I remember even when I was in school, I remember a time when I was a freshman, I was taking a class in physics and learning about physics. And there was this one time where I was answering the questions in physics, but I was answering them in Spanish because the class I had before Physics was Spanish, so instead of putting velocity, I answered that the question of physics velocidad. So that became kind of a joke between me and my physics teacher. It was just simply that external world of academics and also the external world of sports in school that was really kind of where I was able to connect with people, so to speak.

Steve Rush: Got it, so then you progressed from high school, interestingly, what was the business you created in high school?

Byron Low: It was real simple. I had a friend in high school, whose family owned land, and they had a lot of trees on their land, and his grandfather actually had a wood splitter, which once you get the tree, you fill the tree and you knock it down and you chop it up with a chainsaw. You put the segments of the tree and a splitter and it literally splits those segments into firewood. It was a firewood making business.

Steve Rush: Brilliant, so from there then the technical side, that technical curiosity that you share earlier, that led you into moving into the field of engineering, right?

Byron Low: Yeah, I worked as an engineer for a few years with a company in Phoenix, Arizona called Garrett Turbin Engine Company. They were private; they were not a defence contractor, they were a private company that made small jet engines for private aircraft. That company eventually was purchased by another company, and I'm not even sure today if those engines are even in existence because our biggest competitor is a massive company out of the East Coast. It was a fun time, one of my most fond memories was… there was a time when we were working together as engineers. I think about, you know your basic cubicle setup and there was this one particular instance where I came across a problem where I thought I had a differential equation, and a differential equation is a specific kind of math problem and I called it out, “I think I've got a differential equation” and everyone around me came over to look at it and right then, because we are going to talk later about how to turn thoughts into tools and this is an example of how to turn thoughts into tools. I had a thought at that time. Oh, everyone is interested because it was kind of rare to run in this differential equation in real life work situation. We are not math class we are bunch of engineers. Every single guy that was on this little problem solving exercise, and again, I'm the youngest guy but I get everyone together, and we were all in this big area and everyone has as a blank piece of paper.

And it was going to be a race. Who is going to solve the problem first? And I happened to be standing behind a guy from Iran and a guy from Bangladesh, and they both started to answer this differential equation, and I knew how to solve the differential equation and I could see my other American colleagues trying to answer the differential equation. But when I looked over the shoulders of these two men who we're doing the same thing, the way they went about it was absolutely bizarre to me, which led to another conversation where these two guys ended up sharing with everyone else there. And no one knew that the way these guys thought of math and numbers was completely different than everyone else. The point is, is that the way that the gentleman from Iran, the way the gentleman from Bangladesh and then there was even another guy from Nepal, another guy from India, they all had very, very similar ways of answering the question. I promise you the answer, they question, they answer, the problem but they almost answer the problem in reverse, and it blew all of the North Americans minds, all of us. And that was an example of taking a thought I had and literally turned into a tool in real time. It was all about discovery. It was all because I was curious, and I was not afraid, even though I was the most junior. I was the least intelligent of that group. I had the least experience but I did not care because I wanted to know. I wanted to know the answer. I wanted to find out something, and it was absolutely fascinating.

Steve Rush: And do you think that is where you got the bug to become a coach? Because all great coaches need the ability to ask those great questions. Those restless questions, the teasing curious “pokey questions” as I call them. Is that where that kind of start for you?

Byron Low: Yeah, I think so. Most children, they identify with one parent. Some of us are blessed to have two, and I had two but with my two sets of parents, I identified with my mom. I long to connect with my dad, which I did not really have a great connection with my dad. But I definitely connect with my mom, and my mom was the was the extrovert. She was relational and I was the introvert but because of her intense curiosity, almost to an annoying level. My mom passed away several years ago. I took her to the grocery store and I had to go run an errand while she was in the grocery store, and when I came back. By this, like seventy-five years old. I come back to pick up my mom. My mom is still on the first aisle of the grocery store, and she is having a conversation with someone. She has been talking to the exact same person for like twenty-five minutes, and I thought she was going to be finished with her grocery shopping. But that's an example of my mom. My mom gave me this ability to connect with people, even though I am technical. So to answer your question, absolutely. It is a combination of having the ability, but also working on the ability to connect with people. Even though I am technically even though I've got this, I've got all these questions. I have to find a way and I try to be as creative as possible. I have to find a way to ask questions that are not offensive. They are not off putting. They are not intimidating because I love working with smart people.

But if you're the smartest person that can be intimidating, I don't mind being smart, but I don't ever have to be the smartest. What I want to be is. I want to be the most interested, not the most interesting, but the most interested. I want them to feel that I genuinely am curious and I want them to think that is almost that in itself is some kind of interesting as well.

Steve Rush: You know, it was that very thing that drew me to you when we first connected was that whole kind of technical-introverted yet coach, because most coaches I speak with and most coaches I work with, generally are more extroverted than introvert. So what was the kind of catalyst for you then to become a full time professional coach to help others?

Byron Low: You know, I have been doing this work for a long time, but I think it was during the economic contraction we had back in 2008, 2009. I was doing mostly consulting, and I was doing some coaching and it was really out of out of necessity. This is also a lesson, I think that there are times in life we think we have a plan. But life gives us an opportunity that we have to adjust and it really wasn't something I was planning on, Steve. I was not necessarily planning on a career of being a coach. It was during the economic contraction. We as a family went for a significant amount of time without income. I had to cash out all of our savings in order to survive, but then the launching and really, the commitment to coaching as a business. I tell this, even as I am working with clients, if they are willing to make a change in their career, if they are willing to change their career, going into a different kind of industry or wanting to make an adjustment. The way I made this this decision for me and again, this is for me, but this is also the advice I give. And I would love to hear your thoughts. I tell them for me personally, I had to do this because I feel like I had no other choice, and it wasn't like I wanted to do this. I happen to be very good at it, and I really, really love it, but it was never a plan but I also think it is important that there has to be that full commitment. Does that make sense?

Steve Rush: It makes load of sense, and I think anybody who has been brilliant, successful and has longevity in any career, they always truly invested in that career don’t they. They are not distracted, you know, on part time this and part time that, they are all in, and I think that is what makes a difference. And I wholeheartedly agree with that and sometimes that's forced upon us through a situation and other times it's through purpose and drive, right?

Byron Low: That is right.

Steve Rush: When we spoke last, one of things that really intrigued me about our conversation too was the way that you apply quite scientific approach to some of the activities that sits within a coaching experience. And you describe listening as a science. Tell me, what is the reason that you look at something that will do naturally, quite scientifically?

Byron Low: I think partly is where I am coming from. Coming from that technical perspective, that is my strength. That is where I am going to lean on, and when it comes to listening, listening is an incredibly relational thing to do. I am relational, I think. Because of my relationship with my mom and the examples of people that I had in my life, but I think that the reality is, is that I look at it as something that we all can obviously grow in. I don't care how technical you are and I have had clients who are the most technical people that you can imagine. You know scientists or Medical Doctors or Attorneys or, you know, Accountants, Economists, PhD. I honestly believe all of us, no matter where we are coming from. We can look at listening. Listening is one of the most incredible tools we have in our arsenal. All of us can have a tool kit that is very well equipped and that we can constantly be growing in our capacities, in our abilities to listen. It is very simple. Because I am technical, I don't necessarily think it's scientific, even though I do think that there are parts even how our brain is made that actually can help with that.

Because the bottom line is, is that ultimately it is a choice. It's like you said earlier, it's a choice. It is commitment, when we are committed to listening, listening first; it goes back to what I said earlier, I had a really good friend who passed away. He actually played music my wife and I, our wedding and he learned from a very young age because his dad kind of called out to him and said, John, do you want to be interested or do you want to be interesting? And I remember hearing that for the first time when I was in my early twenties working with John, and John was the most intelligent human being I've ever met. He was an absolute genius, but he was actually fascinated being interesting but I learned from him that I can listen. I can learn and also, again, I can lead with that curiosity.

Steve Rush: And if there were, people listening to this ironically and thinking how do I practice, better listening. Any tips, techniques that you could share?

Byron Low: First of all, I think you have to be interested. I think you have to be focused. I am not doing it now, but most of the time when I am on a call with a client; I am not sitting in front of my computer. I am now because I am literally hardwired into my computer and this technology is using this over the Internet. Most the time I am on my phone and when I on a call with a client, I am actually walking. I walk up to up to 15 miles a day, and the walking takes me away from my computer and it forces me to hear them.

You literally have to hear people before you can listen to them. So you have to have a good connection and it is absolutely frustrating, frustrating for me. Really been out of shape if I can't hear. I mean, physically hear. So the point is, is that you have to be able to hear them. You have to have a good connection. When I talk with other coaches, most of their coaching practices face to face or I am talking with a prospective client and they want to meet face to face if they are local. I am happy to do that, if it works out for both of our schedules but it really is not necessary to meet face-to-face and today's virtual world with what is going on in the world today where many of us now are at home, I don't think that's necessary. I think as long as we have a good connection. I think we can listen, but it takes a commitment you have to want to listen.

Steve Rush: Sure, and I wonder if your natural introversion plays to that strength actually, doesn't it? Well, you don't need to see an experience other the people. You can internalize that yourself.

Byron Low: Yeah, it is funny. Whenever I am on a Zoom meeting with clients or company of sorts and they always ask me, why don't you turn on your webcam? I tell them I don't have a webcam, and they don't believe me. I said, no, really, I don't want you to see me. I actually love anonymity. I don't ever want to be famous. Whenever I am on Zoom or another kind of screen share tool, I turn off the ability to see them. I think you are right. I think that really does lend itself really well to the interior world of the introvert.

Steve Rush: So we spoke a little earlier about the whole foundation for coaching for you particularly is around turning thoughts into tools and I know that is really big for you and certainly a big technique that you use with your client. How did that come about? And how do you now help other people turn their thoughts into tools?

Byron Low: You know, I truly believe that as a practitioner and as a coach, that's one of the things that is a differentiator that sets me apart, is that I have a high level of curiosity which leads itself to I really want to learn a lot, and I tend to read a lot. And because I read a lot, I find tools. I am consistently sending articles to clients that I read, I think that might help them. And it could be as simple as just as an idea or a thought that I get or I want to glean from an article. I learned a long time ago. We are all familiar with the concept of “either/ or” thinking. Right?

Steve Rush: Right.

Byron Low: It is “either this” “or” that and it is very binary, It's either yes or no. It is either black or white. I am really a proponent of not having that kind of thinking, as much as the thinking that is “both/and…” A “both/and”, kind of thinking that is really open more to possibilities, more to the idea can we ask two more questions. And the idea of seeing that as a tool when you look at the things that I read or the things that a client is going through, I really wanted to help them see that it really is going to be up to them and how they want to apply something. They need to have a shift in their thinking that is not binary. It is not about, you know. Can it be this or that? It could be both. It could be both and we can actually use that the word and it can be both/and something. So the possibilities of having of thinking like that versus thinking that is more cut off. It opens up the window of possibility. That is exciting, and I think that ultimately when we think about providing people those kinds of tools and turning thoughts into tools, it really is about and this is really, really critical. It is about the people. It is about all of us. We have to be able to listen to ourselves. Because, Steve, I believe that you have all the tools you need in order for you to become the best version of you. But it's going to be important for you to be able to hear yourself. And that's really what I believe and I convey to my clients. It is my job to set up the relationship and the conversation so that they can hear themselves, because those tools, those thoughts, they are not my thoughts. They are their thoughts; they are the client's thoughts. So it's really critical for them to be able to hear their own thoughts. I would also add it is critical for them to see themselves, because when they hear themselves and they see themselves that is when the beginning of change occurs. It can happen because that is when we be become more self-aware. But the hearing of those thoughts, that's the first step of capturing the thought that can become a tool. If they don't have the ability or capacity to hear themselves to capture that thought, they can never see the thought become a tool. Does that make sense?

Steve Rush: Huge amount of sense and it plays to the whole mind-set Philosophy too doesn't it? So what you described as the “either /or” that very much plays to a fixed mind-set, it looks for evidence you got. Whereas when you ask “both/ and…” that plays to the unconscious part of the mind that has all of those thoughts, deep rooted, that are unconscious that we don't maybe listen to every day that we drag out, and that give us the foundation for the new tools, right?

Byron Low: That is right.

Steve Rush: So once we have done we've got a this thinking going on, how do you then distil all of those huge amounts of thoughts and experiences that people might be having. How do you distilled that into, “right.. here are the tools that are going help you”.

Byron Low: It is going to be different for each client I am working with. But I think the important thing for all of us that when we're having conversations with people be at coaching conversations or just simply personal interactions, it's critical. That all of us that we meet the other where they are. That we don't have expectations, that we don't force people to be something that they're not. So along with this willingness to listen and the willingness to literally physically hear someone. It is also this willingness to be kind of non-judgmental or open or accepting of them. I think that as a coach, I have to and I want to. This has been a hard lesson and I remember learning this was back in about 2009-2010, when I was first starting my coaching practice. I was talking to a psychologist and he was talking about trying to remove the judgmental language from my vocabulary where I was, and again, this is a little hard to conveyances in such a short amount of time. But the idea of, it is actually possible for us to be with another and to switch off this idea of judgment. And it led to a tool that I have, which again, I like tools, I like creating tools.

And the tool is, it's called the “AUAC”. Awareness, Understanding, Acceptance and Commit. Awareness, Understanding, Acceptance and Commitment. The awareness is really the first step. We have to be aware and then understanding is we have to understand ourselves. We also have to be willing to understand the other and understand and the other is not only hearing them, but listening to them but at the same time, which the understanding leads to this idea of acceptance. And if you are ever around our family, because I have you know, I have three children and a wife and a dog and we have a beautiful family.

If we ever had an argument as a family, which we had many arguments, we would slow down the argument a little bit and would say, okay, it is not about agreement. I am not asking you to agree with me. It is about can we understand each other? If we can understand each other and we really can get to a point of acceptance where I accept what you are saying. I accept the situation. I accept, you know, the conditions that we are in, then we can finally get to a commitment and that ultimately is action. But we have to get to a place where we can understand each other and it absolutely is a waste of time when we're trying to get someone to agree with us. And that judge mental language that I had then, the judgment of thinking that I had, it was just ingrained in me even as a child. And it's still there, Steve but when I hear it in myself or when I see it in other people, I'm more sensitive to it now. In the last 10 years of coaching, I have had the privilege of coaching people that have completely, utterly different world views than I have. And that doesn't mean I can't coach them. It just means that I have to suspend that judgment and be able to accept them where they are. That is how I have grown, as I have been able to help others. I have be able to learn how to listen, but also learn how to understand, but ultimately how to accept and it has been a lot of fun.

Steve Rush: That is really neat, and I think understanding each other is so much easier than trying to agree with each other, because we come from our own perspectives and we come with our own biases and our own experiences of the world, where actually if we can just find that common ground, then we move forward quicker, right?

Byron Low: Absolutely, but I think some of our families are kind of rooted in this argumentative, almost pugilistic culture where we like to fight. We like to prove our point, and oftentimes, when we are in a thinking mind-set like that, it is a very fixed mind-set. We are not really even listening to the person. We are listening to our own thoughts about what we are going to say next, because we want to destroy that person. I have watched debate. I have watched different debates on, it could be a political debate or it could be a different kind of debate. But the idea of debate, what if debate was about understanding versus just simply about destroying the other? And I think even within our own political systems, if we all kind of got together to try to solve the problem versus trying to prove that we're better than someone else, I think we could get more done. But I don't know the whole political system and the process. It doesn't seem to be, you know, oriented towards that as much as is oriented, like you said, towards getting people to agree with them and to me, I just find that to be a glorious waste of time.

Steve Rush: I could not agree with you anymore. Well, this part of the show Bryon we ask our guests to share some of their top Hacks. In your case top tools, so what will be some of your top tools that you can share with our listeners?

Bryon Low: You know, I've got three. The first one is knowing yourself. I think its absolute critical that as we grow as leaders, it starts as we grow. The seed starts in our own heart as we learn about ourselves. We have got to learn. You know, ultimately what we believe, who we believe we are, what we stand for. There is a really famous book out right now by a gentleman. His name is Simon Sinek is world famous, Start With Why. I think knowing yourself and starting with why is absolutely critical. Simon also has one of the most watched TED talks ever on how great leaders inspire action, because I think all great leaders and as a leadership hack, all great leaders, they know themselves.

The second leadership hack is really about being honest, and what that means is being honest with what you have and graciously accepting what you have. If we are all honest about what we have, and we are all growing, that is really the point. And it's really about progress equals happiness and that's not something I've coined that actually comes from Tony Robbins, because I believe it's absolutely true. I believe that if we are progressing, no matter what. I even share this with my 16-year-old son because he wants to play, you know, competitive baseball and I would say to him, it is about progressing as long as you are progressing.

We are good. You know, some days we're going to have good days or we can take two steps forward and a step back where we've made progress. Some days it is two steps forward and three steps backward. So we are actually we did not go very far that day, but that is okay. But the point is, is that if we're honest about what we've been given, what we've been entrusted and we do the best and really it's an effort thing. There is a book by Carol Dweck and Carol Dweck, D-W-E-C-K. She is the foremost expert on Mind-set, and in her book Mind-set, she talks about this. It is really about that effort. So my leadership hack is know yourself, and then to be honest.

And lastly, as you can imagine, it's about being curious. I want to lead with that and for some clients; I encourage to do the exact same thing. For others, that is not their thing. But ultimately, it's about looking at the world as a world of possibilities, as a world of wonder. And I do so not only do I want to know myself. I want to be honest with what I have, and I want to work hard. I also want to be curious, because I believe that if we are curious, there is that idea that curiosity can lead to great questions and great questions can lead to other great questions. And to me, that sounds like a fun life.

Steve Rush: And lifelong learning also means you never get bored and you never get stale, because there's always something new you can go back to and incidentally, Carol Dweck is a bonus hack. Carol Dweck, as part of her famous work around mind-set. One of the things that I often help my kids and my clients with is the whole power of YET. So you can't fail at something but you just haven't been successful “YET”. It create’s just a different mind-set that helps people think about next possibilities vs. closing down actions and activities, so great hacks.

We have also become familiar in asking our guests on the show to share their “hack to attack”. So this is a period in a time where something's gone wrong, where maybe you've screwed up, but it's now become part of their learning. Part of the way that they do things and it is playing part of their future. What will be your hack to attack?

Bryon Low: My hack to attack has to do with connecting with people. I have a tendency like a lot of us do. As a matter of fact, in this last week, I probably have had a half a dozen conversations with folks who have spent their careers committed to the companies that they were working in. And because they were committed to the companies they were working in, they never, ever really worked on themselves. They never really worked on their career and if that sounds like you, I get it. The challenge I had was I suffered from that.

Which is really a form of myopia where you’re so focused and intense on what you're doing, you're not necessarily thinking about yourself or your career, you're thinking about the company you're working for, which has great benefits for the company, not so great benefits for the individual.

But what I also learned when I was just thinking through this process with Steve was not only was that true for me in my career, but it also was true for me in connections and people that I was working with, because whenever there was a change, whenever there was a change of location, a change of job. What I have learned was and I have always known this, but it just kind of. It was stark. I am not very good at keeping up with people. Look, I have no idea who is going to listen to this, but if there are people that are in my past that are listening to this, I am sorry. I understand that I have the capacity to relate. I do and I know that because there is a friend that I reach out to a couple of times a year, and we are always able to kind of pick up where we left off. Always and it is always deep and it is always meaningful. But for some reason, with keeping up with people, and when social media came on board, you know, back in the early 2000s and someone actually talked me into joining Facebook, and the whole idea of Facebook for an introvert is like it's very, very stress inducing. And I only did it because I was talked into it and I hated it from the very, very first time I was on Facebook, but just because I hate Facebook. I remember one time I was actually on Facebook and I have all these people that are connected to me, and while I was on Facebook looking at someone, someone started talking to me and that literally freak me out to have someone talk to me when I was on Facebook. I did not understand it, but the point is. Is that I think I have a lot of room for growth and opportunity to remain and stay connected with people and that takes effort, that takes work, that takes time and ultimately, I want to do that. And I think when I look back, I think people could feel a little confused by my lack of consistency there.

Steve Rush: And I guess this will absolutely play part of education for others listening to this, who are also introverted, who struggle with that. Conversely, of course, if you are extroverted and struggled to relax, struggled to be introspective and reflective. The same is absolutely true, just poles are different, right?

Bryon Low: Right and that really is something I think that with my extroverted friends and family that are almost like because I told you my mom was an extrovert. She had a very large family of sisters and brothers. My mom spoke to almost every single one of her siblings every single week on the phone.

I have two brothers and a sister, and let me just say I don't. I know I am not going to be my mom, but I have to get better in this. And I want to get better but the bottom line is, I really do a very poor job at this.

Steve Rush: Comes back to one of those hacks, know yourself, you know, these things and therefore, part of your not getting it right in the past, you're able to work on it for the future. Right?

Bryon Low: That is right, and I like what you said about what Dweck said yet. And even the utilization of something like Facebook. I have not figured that out and it is an opportunity for me to learn more. And I'm on Instagram, I'm on Twitter. I don't know what I'm doing. Honestly, Steve, but I am open. I want to learn and I want to build to make those connections.

Steve Rush: And learning by experience is often the best way.

Bryon Low: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: So if you were able to do bit of time travel, get back and bump into Byron when he was 21, what would be the advice you would give him?

Bryon Low: You know, the first advice is I would say just relax, because I come with this. This supercharged intensity about life, about myself. I even had a professor one time. Tell me, Byron, you practically vibrate. What she meant was that there is a level of intensity that I have it can be off putting. It can be intimidating, but I think what I would tell my younger self, because I have such and again, if you remember what Carol Dweck would talk about with a fixed mind-set person, and I think I was very fixed mind-set when I was younger.

They feel like they have to be the best. They feel like that, there is this like compulsion and it kind of pushes them. I don't necessarily feel that today but I think when I was younger, I would really want to and again I would have a caveat. I can give my advice to my younger self, but the caveat is this, my younger self would accept it.

I would say relax. Number one, relax and just allow your curiosity, your interest, your ability to connect with people. Just lead with that and have fun. I think there were times when I allowed my intensity to kind of rule and situations. Give you a personal example. To this day, I have never consumed alcohol and I remember had a colleague years ago. Say, the epiphany was, wow, you have never actually had any way of having that edge kind of off, of you. Because everyone knows me as intense. And no, I've never had a buzz, ever. And there's a reason for that. I come from a home, a home life where alcohol was abused, so I did not get to see the positive side of alcohol. I am not against alcohol at all, as a matter of fact, I have conversations with my children. I believe I am been very open but the reality is, is that I think that there is an intensity as a young person, there is almost this drivenness were there was not a terrific amount of grace that I was giving myself.

And what I would do is I would just simply say, it's going to be okay. You are going to be okay, just take it easy. And I would not necessarily say for me to drink. That is not the answer; the answer is to be a little more accepting of myself and to be a little more forgiving of myself and to be a little bit more self-compassionate to myself, if that makes any sense.

Steve Rush: Yeah. Lots of lessons there isn't there, and also, interestingly, if you look back on some of those key instrumental activities as part of your life, they're forming your work now and that's fantastic news. So Byron, if folk were listening to this and I wanted to find out a little bit more about your work, maybe connect with you through some social media. Where would you like them to find you?

Bryon Low: I am on Facebook. I am on Instagram and Twitter but I think the probably the best places is to go to Byron Low, B-Y-R-O-N L-O-W, bryonlow.com. You will get to see the kind of work that I do. And if you want to reach me, you can reach me at my phone numbers on the website. You can also reach me through email byron@byronlow.com. I would love to hear from you and but that's probably the best and the most direct and primary ways of getting hold of me.

Steve Rush: I will also make sure that we've got your contact details in our show notes Byron as soon as folks listen to this. They can click on the links and connect with these straightaway.

Bryon Low: Excellent.

Steve Rush: So finally, it is just for me to say that I have really enjoyed connecting with you. I have really enjoyed you being part of our extended leadership hacker community. And, you know, there's no question that as a technical guy, you absolutely have the ability to connect and I'm sure that's going to be the case through our listenership. Byron, thank you ever so much for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast. It has been a super pleasure to be speaking with you.

Bryon Low: Thank you, Steve. I very much appreciate it, and it was a lot of fun. I appreciate it and I hope the best for you and your listeners and for you and your family.

Steve Rush: Thank you Byron, take care.

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Angela Foster is a nutritionist, health and performance coach who works with athletes, entrepreneurs and CEOs of global organizations. She is also the CEO of My DNA EDGE.

In Hacking Your Leadership Health – You will learn:

How after fighting for her life she found her life and work passion
The relationship between sleep and leadership performance
How our physical and mental performance are integrated
Not all stress is bad for you and your team
How physical fitness improves your brain function
What Biohacking is and how it can enhance your health and your performance.

Find our more about about Angela on here Website: https://angelafosterperformance.com

Angela on Instagram

Download Angelas Short Course on Sleep here

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Read the full episode Transcript Below:

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Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

On the show today, we have Angela Foster. Angela helps global business leaders and their teams transform their mind and body for lifelong high performance. Before we get a chance to speak with Angela, it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, Billionaire Paul Singer leads his Elliott Management hedge fund, pre-warned two months ago his employees should start preparing for a month long quarantine, well before any town or city had mandated a lockdown. Mr Singer sent an internal memo on the 1st of February to all his employees in all his firm's offices around the world, saying try and make arrangements that you do not have to leave your home for a month if it becomes necessary. He didn’t have a crystal ball; what was playing out here was strategic thinking. The Elliott Fund Management founder is well known for being really cautious about anything that could affect markets, including crazy things like solar storms. In his memo, he added that his workers should have access to sufficient food, water and medicines and did not start telling his employees to start working from home until local authorities had to. But by then, his employees were well informed, and this memo wasn't focused on investment strategy but employee safety and it didn't address investment decisions. The firm had hedges of course, that naturally helped protect his investments from a downturn but of course, in any business, it's our employee’s well-being, their state of mind and their response to any challenges that are critical helping us move through situations.

Systems thinking is about developing strategies, strategy is about the future. Therefore, strategic thinking is thinking about the future and that includes some crazy stuff that we would have never anticipated could happen. But if it did, “what if” and “how” would we respond to it? In my teaching and coaching around strategic thinking, there are four things that we typically do when faced with thinking strategically.

The first thing we think is we think about the preferable. What are the things we want? And that is formed often by our desires and our worldview - possibly unhelpful. We look at the probabilities of things happening. We manage our risks and our investments and our business decisions, and then what are the plausible things that could go wrong and could go right? But when we talk about the art of the possible, we don’t often talk about the art of the possible. Because to get there we need scenarios, wildcard events and crazy thinking to really unlock future thinking and patterns and this does not mean we change our investment or business decisions. It means that we are thoughtful, that if these events did happen in the future, how would we manage them?

So here's the thing. Right now, in amongst managing a very turbulent and unpredictable business environment, are we strategically thinking today? Are we thinking what if? Are we scenario planning around some crazy ideas that might happen? Possibly could happen even if they are improbable and not that plausible today? If you are not, now is the time to really turn strategic thinking on its head, it could be a lifesaver for you, your well-being along with your staff and your business at some point in the future.

That has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, insights or information you think our listeners would like to hear. Please get in touch through our social media sites.

Start of Interview

Steve Rush: I am joined on today's show by nutritionist, health and performance coach who works with athletes, entrepreneurs and CEOs of global organizations. She is also the CEO of My DNA EDGE; we are joined today by Angela Foster. Angela, welcome to the show.

Angela Foster: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me here today. I am pleased to be here.

Steve Rush: So, this is a great opportunity for us to learn from not only a leader of a business, but somebody who works with other leaders, but fundamentally about leadership health and well-being and nutrition, but your career didn't start out that way. So I understand that you started out as a corporate lawyer. So how did the transition take place?

Angela Foster: Yeah. So as you say, initially was a corporate lawyer and I was working very long hours. As you can imagine, in one of the top city firms, putting together international deals, flotations sort of mergers and acquisitions and I think that at that stage, I kind of really undervalued my sleep will be one thing. And I was really that sort of classic type-A personality where I would push myself very hard.

I am pretty competitive, wanted to get the best deal done for the client and kind of neglected things. But I really got away with it and I think that classically, you know, when we're in our late 20s, early 30s, that's pretty easy to do, and then when I started a family, that's when things started to shift a bit because they were competing demands on my time. And also, most importantly, on my energy, and I unfortunately suffered with post-natal depression pretty severely and I think that was actually as a result of the way that I'd kind of push myself so hard and got sort of burnout, and then that eventually culminated in me.

You know, my kids came down with a cough. I sort of caught it and basically that manifested in me in double pneumonia, viral and bacterial. That kind of went the wrong way, it went south very quickly and so as urgently admitted into hospital fighting for my life. And that created a big shift in me and what I wanted to do and kind of, I guess, is kind of a bit of a woo woo moment where you look introspectively and yourself. And was I really living the best life that I wanted to? And when I made a full recovery, fortunately for me. With very little long term damage to my lungs, that really kind of started me off on a quest to see initially, well, how can I actually optimize my health and not just get back on track. But be stronger, fitter and healthier than I was before and got me very much into the performance arm of health, and then helping other people to do the same. And it was really about how can I combine optimized health with high performance? And then I realized that actually sustained high performance, that the optimal health is the very foundation of that. If you want to sustain that over the long term, so that is really how I made the transition.

Steve Rush: It demonstrated that you really have now got a true vocation in life, haven't you, as a result of that experience?

Angela Foster: Yeah, I have and I think that, you know, sometimes-bad things that need to happen in a way for good things to take their place. And that's very much been the case for me. You know, I definitely value, that experience has really taught me to value my life and practice gratitude on a daily basis in the morning. And it's also given me a newfound love of something I love. I was always a pretty kind of fit and healthy person, but this has really enabled me to take it to another level and to help as many people as I can.

Steve Rush: Yeah, for sure and of course, now, given the environment that we're all working in, many people are having to think about their work, their life and the way that they do things. In fact, many people now working from home and the opportunity that has presented itself in amongst this crisis could actually be one of those greatest opportunities for us to look a little bit more introspectively. Our health, our well-being as leaders. And how we might do things. What do you think some of your top thoughts or tips around taking this as an opportunity to really focus on our well-being and health?

Angela Foster: I think as you as you say, this is the perfect opportunity to do that. I think for many people, they know in their kind of their heart of hearts, really, that maybe they have been neglecting not necessarily all areas of health, but one or more. And the ones that come up commonly is people maybe haven't been sleeping enough, whether that's quality sleep or duration of sleep, or maybe they haven't been exercising as much as they should have been, maybe they haven't been getting outdoors and getting much fresh air because they've been stuck in offices or meeting rooms or travelling. Maybe, you know, they are buying food out and they have not really looked at their nutrition and thought much about how that really fuels their body.

And now that we're all in this quarantining phase, we've actually got a bit more time on our hands, and I think it's a real opportunity. With that has come obviously an element of stress and quite a big element of stress for many people, because particularly for leaders, they are managing teams. They've got concerns over what's going on with the economy and their business and whether they can keep those staff on long term. There are many challenges, but again, that in itself as well is an opportunity to think, well, actually, how have I been managing my stress as a whole? And now that I am at home, maybe I've got time to bring in some more stress management practices as well. That will make me a better leader and more resilient and I can also then use and inspire my organization with as well.

Steve Rush: Often colleagues are looking to their leadership at times like this to role models, and new thinking, behaviour. So this is a great chance to do that, isn't it?

Angela Foster: Yeah, absolutely and I think it is you know, it all comes from the top, as you say and I think that if we can use that extra time, that we have to focus on these practices. And that's really what I'm trying to do and I'm sharing with my clients and with organizations, you know, you can change the way that you do business, so a lot of the talks that I was giving that were live and it is properly the same for you. That were in person original, they can now actually be done online, so we still got that connection but if we can inspire people to really make good things come out of this and to become mentally and physically fitter than we were before, then that can only be a good thing.

Steve Rush: So let's unpick some of those things that you mentioned that could be great aid and assistances for us now. Firstly, let's think about power of sleep. What role does sleep play in high performance as leaders?

Angela Foster: So sleep is super important and as you know from the story, I just shared. You know, it something that I under-valued, partly because it was not valued for me in a corporate law firm, we would often neglect our sleep and actually push through all night on many occasions or with very little sleep.

And actually, the science that's emerging around sleep is stronger and stronger in terms of its support that it does for everything in terms of our mental cognition, our memory, our focus, our immune system. Importantly, that we really need to be bolstering at this point and also our exposure to more kind of long, not just immune system in terms of viruses and bacteria that we might be exposed to, but also our long term immunity from chronic diseases. But if we want to lead effectively, then it's important that we have optimize our physical and mental performance and they're very integrated. And, you know, Mother Nature, if you think about sleep, why has Mother Nature not dispensed with it? You know, all those years ago when we did not live in houses and we felt protected, it actually made us very, very vulnerable to be asleep. But it's so vital for our health and I think that now that we've got artificial light and we stay awake. You know, we can binge watch things like Netflix if we get into them. We maybe don't focus enough on our circadian rhythm and being in alignment with that. And actually the benefits that come from that, so we know that it's not just the length of sleep. Yes, most people need around seven, somewhere between seven to eight hours of sleep per night as an adult. But it's not just that duration. It is actually looking at the quality of the sleep that we are getting, so the sleep architecture is as important, if you like. So making sure that we are getting into that slow wave, deep sleep at certain parts during the night and that we are also getting enough REM sleep.

All of these things and enough light sleep people underestimate that the light sleep, which makes up almost half the night, is also important. But we need the sleep for pruning back memories. We need it for emotional regulation. We need it for that deep repair and we need also to regulate our metabolisms as well. So there's so many things that happen that I think people could really begin to look at that and actually prioritize that, you know, we know that everyone has a slight differences in their circadian rhythms. We kind of fall into one of four key groups, and that is a very genetic thing, but for the most part, we need to be optimizing all clocks, if you like, with the rising and the falling of the sun. And then within that, there's variations of sort of an hour or two in terms of are you more of a night owl? Are you an early morning person? And you can find out this information either by doing something like a DNA test, which would do a lot with my clients or even by taking Dr. Michael Breus questionnaire online, which will actually give you your sleep chronotype. And then people can use that information to start to understand not just how to sleep better, but also the best time to do everything and get their best work done, which we have, more opportunities to do now that we're working from home.

Steve Rush: And the importance of natural light is essential to our well-being, too, isn't it, because we are surrounded by computers, laptops, cell phones, iPods. How does that play into that sleep? Circadian rhythm, you talked about.

Angela Foster: Yeah, that plays a big part. So as you as you rightly mentioned there, we are exposed to a lot of light and unnatural forms of light and we're learning more and more what that light is doing.

You know, time will show the damage that it is doing, but there seems to be some links even with things like macular degeneration in terms of exposure to that artificial light. But it also is disrupting our circadian rhythm by keeping us awake for longer and exposing us to blue light at times of day where we wouldn't have had it before. Now, in terms of your sleep, and how well you are going to sleep actually starts with the way that you start the day. So while being at home in particular. I would encourage people to get outside as much as they can in the early morning. That is really important for resetting the circadian rhythm so that you’re going in line with nature and your natural body clock. You can also use things to actually limit the exposure of blue light inside. So for example, there all daywear glasses that you can use that protect your eyes. You can use red light blocking glasses. They are called blue light looking glasses, but they have like a red tinge. I track my sleep on with something called an Aura Ring, and that is very, very useful. And I can actually see what my deep sleep and REM sleep proportions are and what I found is that if I am blocking out the blue light in the evenings, even whether that's through work or watching television or even just lights that you've got on. Maybe if you are reading that, actually I will get enhanced deep sleep when I have done that and they are really easy to pick up, you can pick them up on Amazon. Swan-x, for example, or a good brand, and that really helps to enhance your deep sleep and that has been a big kind of game changer for many of my clients.

Steve Rush: It is really fascinating stuff. I worked with the investment bank in the Southeast Asia and they had this philosophy of power napping on the job. What is your take on power napping?

Angela Foster: I think power, is brilliant as long as you are not somebody that is having problems with sleeping at night, so I think you need to be careful when you're doing it and it's not too late in the day, but I think it's brilliant. I mean, one technique that works really, really well is to have a power nap after lunch and to have a small amount of caffeine immediately before having that nap. So that by the time that you come out of the nap, you've got the boost of caffeine coming in. Not something, you can do late in the day, but it is really powerful. The thing with napping is making sure that the nap is sub sort of 20 minutes, because once you go over 20, 25 minutes, you're actually going to start going into a deeper sleep and then you need to go through the whole sleep cycle.

Generally, one sleep cycle is about 90 minutes long, so that is why people will find that if they have a nap often and they wake up 40 to 45, 50 minutes later, they feel really groggy. And that's because that's not really a map now that's a sleep cycle, so you want to keep it quite brief, but it's very good in terms of recharging and then powering up for the rest of the day.

Steve Rush: So it is not a replacement for evening sleep. This, is a reboot sleep, yes?

Angela Foster: Yes, it would be and I think if you're somebody who's a good sleeper at night, then you could try that, I think, or if you're somebody who generally sleeps well, but for whatever reason, your sleep has been disrupted one night, then that could work well. But I think that if you are someone who really on a continual basis struggles to sleep at night, then you may find that napping during the day disrupts it further. These things, always trial and error, and what I find is the best thing you can do, like with anything else, is to always be testing it, you know, tracking it and then tweaking it and then looking back and seeing what results you're getting.

Steve Rush: Like anything to get good at it, you need practice and evaluation, right?

Angela Foster: Yeah, absolutely. Becoming a good sleeper sometimes does take a bit of work for some people.

Steve Rush: Another thing you talked about a little earlier, and again, a by-product of most leaders. Is that there is an element of stress, that comes with managing businesses, and teams, and products and so on, so forth. So in your experiences. All, stress a bad thing?

Angela Foster: I don't think all stress is a bad thing. I think that when stress is sustained and continuous, that is when it can become a bad thing. In terms of evolutionary, we were designed to have a short period of stress and then recover. So if we were met with a threat, we would have to kind of fight or flee and then we would have that recovery time. What is happening in modern society is that we are bombarded continuously with so many stimuli in terms of emails coming in and so many platforms as well that we are all communicating now. And then we've got the additional stress, particularly in a leadership role as well, that can combine to increase cortisol levels pretty high, and when we have high cortisol, we end up with other problems that start to come in, so we get increased inflammation in the body. We get higher levels of blood sugar, so going back to that evolutionary model, if stress is designed to get us out of a tricky situation, as soon as cortisol goes up, what happens is the body dumps glucose into the blood. Now, that is fine when you've got to actually physically fight or flee, but if you're just sitting at your desk anxious or maybe awake at night, that glucose isn't required. And so when glucose goes up, then we have another hormone that's triggered. We have insulin that is then triggered in addition to cortisol, which goes up to try and remove the sugar from the blood.

And this causes its own set of problems so it can lead to high blood sugar, insulin resistance, weight gain, in addition to the inflammation that it's causing from the cortisol and also from the release of glucose and insulin. So I think when we have sustained stress is actually causing underlying problems in our body. That is not to say that all stress is bad, so controlled doses of stress can actually make us much more resilient and higher performing. And, you know, there's a few ways that we can actually do that, which I share with you. For example, exercise is the one that people know the most. It is the most accessible, so if we think about when we are doing exercise. Whether it is cardiovascular, or strength work, we are creating microtears in the muscles, you going to make them a stronger over time or we are putting a little bit stress on the heart with cardiovascular work to actually make that heart muscle much, much stronger and perform better. Now, we can use that in other areas as well to help with resilience. So one of the things that I love to do, actually, and I encourage my clients and at first, they are a bit like, oh, no, I don't want to try this, is called showering.

And that, again, is a form of stress. These controlled doses of stress are known as Hormesis. So Hormetic stress is a small amount of stress that's designed to make the body stronger and so cold showering is one example of that because actually if you start the day. I actually love to do a workout, and then take a warm shower, and then finish it with cold. You come out feeling amazing and on top of the world, and actually, that, again, is just stimulating the small amount of stress. It is also mobilizing some of the white fat in the body into brown fat that can be used and burned is energy, so there is other benefits as well but that helps in terms of resilience as well. Is very similar to fasting, for example. Again, that is another form of Hormetic stress, so if we are doing a sort of 12 plus period of fasting, we are putting the body under a bit of stress there is some ketones that are being released, which can actually help to enhance Brain function and mental performance. And we're strengthening the body and the body's allowed to kind of do some cellular clean-up at the same time. So to answer your question is a bit long winded, but not all stress is bad, but controlled doses of stress of certain types of stress can actually be helpful.

Steve Rush: And I guess in your experience working with athletes is those little micro wins almost that gives them the edge and their performance?

Angela Foster: Yes, absolutely and athletes actually push themselves incredibly hard. But if you look at them, we were talking about sleep. They really, really do value their sleep. You know, I think if you look at Roger Federer, he sees for like 12 or 14 hours a day, because I think often the mistake people will make this mistake when they are under stress as well, is they will think, well, I do want to push myself too hard. So maybe if I am working really, really hard, then I shouldn't be exercising that hard and actually exercise again strengthens the immune system. It enhances our production of natural killer cells. But what is a problem is if we're under recovery, so is not so much that people overdo things. It is that they under recover.

Steve Rush: Got it, so if we start to think about some tips, techniques and hacks that the folks listening to this show can take away and practice in their leadership roles. What will be your top leadership, hacks they can apply for their health, their well-being and the way that they lead?

Angela Foster: Yeah, sure. We have spoken a lot about sleep and I would encourage them to definitely focus on sleep and to track it and to start to understand what works for them and to create a very solid evening routine. People often very focused now on their morning routines, which is brilliant. But actually to have that wine down routine so that you are recovering and repairing is really important and it becomes more important as we age as well. So we know that things like Alzheimer's tend to develop decades before we actually begin to see symptoms and some of that is genetic. You can look and check if you have something known as the APOB Gene, which predisposes you to that.

But making sure that you're getting enough sleep is absolutely vital to sustained performance. And to that leadership and the brain kind of washes itself as we're sleeping. So it is really, really important, so I'd say prioritizing sleep at a time like this and making sure that you're having that wine downtime in the evening, that you're limiting blue light, you're having alcohol. It might help you fall asleep, but you are probably going to wake up later and you are not going to be getting the quality of sleep. So keeping alcohol away from bedtime by at least three hours. Eating earlier, now that we are all working from home, we have the opportunity to do that as well. So that enhances the repair work that can go on during the night.

The other one, I would say is in terms of actually come back and thinking, what exercise have you been doing and focus on getting physically fitter. The benefits for that are not just for your body, but also for your brain. So again, we were talking about controlled forms of stress. This helps to release BDNF in the brain, okay, so that’s brain drive nootropic factor and that helps to build neurons and synapses and it also protects existing ones and exercise is a powerful way to help the production of BDNF, so it's also produced during sleep. The biggest inhibitor of BDNF is stress, and so I think building in stress management practices, particularly as people are under an extraordinary amount of stress at the moment, even just turning on the news is highly stressful at the moment in terms of what we're being fed. So making sure that you are taking time to relax and getting the practices like meditation and mindfulness based practices and maybe some yoga in is going to really help as well.

Steve Rush: Clear head equal clear body and a clear mind equal great performance, right?

Angela Foster: Exactly, and I think it is easy to get bogged down otherwise. People often neglect it but actually, it starts with you. So focusing on these things can really, really help.

Steve Rush: Some of the work you have published, and some of your article. You talk about Bio Hacks, just describe for the listening in, what a Bio Hack is, and maybe what one of those could be that we'd implement as part of our leadership routines?

Angela Foster: So biohacking is essentially using hacks, as you say to work with your biology, to enhance your health and your performance. So is basically using things that can unlock the best version of you. So these range from very simple things to using more advanced sort of biohacking technical gear. So some of the biohacking that I use with my clients is, for example, pretty much everyone I work with will do a DNA test so we can understand that their own genetics, so I don't believe there's one size diet, the fits all at all.

Personalized nutrition is the first place to start because we all processed things like carbohydrates and fats, for example, in very different ways, and so what you will see is that some people will say, well, the ketogenic diet has been absolutely amazing for me. Having a high fat diet has improved my mental cognition and they credit a lot of their performance with that. But that could be disastrous in someone else. It could actually cause real problems in terms of their cardiovascular health if they fall into a category and it is a smaller category than we first thought. But around sort of 10 percent of the population will not process saturated fats in as preferable way as maybe the rest of them, and so that predisposes them to things like heart disease.

Similarly, some people will process carbohydrates much, much faster and so they will get this release of sugar into the blood much more quickly. And that predisposes them to things like diabetes and also high levels of inflammation.

So that's just kind of one area with DNA testing, but that is a hack in itself and it's so simple to do. It is like a 60-second mouth swap that you can do at home and you can start to understand. You can understand your sleep, your circadian rhythm. You can understand what the most optimize for fitness is for you, so that is an example of a biohacking. Some of the more sort of advanced ones are, I might use say and you may have heard of the Muse device. It gives you some form of neuro feedback, so it is a meditation device and again, these are all simple things that you can do that don't cost a lot. I think that's two or three hundred pounds to buy and you put it on and essentially, it will take you through a guided meditation in a short space of time. You get actual feedback directly on whether you are in the zone and whether you are getting that kind of more calm, clear state of thinking and the way they do that is you'll have birds come in and sing when you've got into that slow way state, so you can actually track at the end of your meditation. It sounds quite competitive, doesn't it, for meditation? We can actually see, well, how many times was I in the zone? So as you're gently bringing your thoughts back, you will then hear the birds singing, so that's like an example of it.

Another one would be red light therapy. So, for example, I have really kind of high end red light at home that I'll go and stand in front of first thing in the morning and that simulates the sunrise. In the winter months, it is great or if you have missed it when it is very early in the summer. But also red light enhances the health of all mitochondria, which are these little energy powerhouses in our cells, so it's improving our physical health and these are strong enough to kind of go through into the internal organs. So we know things like the brain, for example, very mitochondrial, dense and so that can help and it can also help with skin health and anti-aging. So there's lots of different ones that I use, and then they're simple ones. You know, like if you want to offset some of the positive charge that we're getting from all these devices and things, then you can go down and just walk outside barefoot and actually do some grounding and earthing. So some are free and some are kind of fun sort of things to play with. They kind of toys, if you like, but they have some pretty significant health and performance benefits.

Steve Rush: These are some super hacks. Thank you for sharing those, and I am kind of sat here thinking I just need a dash out and get some of these. Where I go and buy these? It is really stimulating from a leadership perspective. It is really stimulating I was thinking me, so I'm grateful for you sharing that.

Angela Foster: Thank you.

Steve Rush: As we get to this stage of the show, also we want to find out from the leaders how they have been able to face into adversity and how they then used that adversity for future learning now, we call this Hack to Attack. Now, you've already shared the biggest hack you're probably likely to face was being faced with a near-death experience and then pivoting your career. But if you were able to kind of go back and reflect around a time where that was relevant or something hadn't worked out, so anything else that you could share. That would be you Hack to Attack.

Angela Foster: Yeah, I suppose what I do is I think. There is always times and I think now we are going through a pretty revolutionary time where everyone is experiencing a massive shift maybe in the way that they do business. Even for people who maybe already were working a lot from home or had teams that were and maybe already done a lot of stuff online. They probably still need to pivot a bit but it feels scary when you look at it as a big thing like that. What has been most powerful for me is a daily review. So each day I will sit down and ask myself a series of questions of how did everything go? Did I do what I set out to do? So have I shared enough value with people today? Have a major difference in people lives today? And what have I done to do that? And what could I have done better? And actually what I find is that enables me to pivot more often, and I think that's what we all being needed to do, maybe on a bigger scale at the moment but actually looking down and thinking, well, how is this working? And is it working in the way that it should? People often don't do that and then things get left for longer and then you need that big shift, which is obviously what happened with me, right.

I had neglected it, ignored it, ignored my health, and then it took a big thing for me to get back on track. And so that's taught me now that I guess I have less of those experiences where I need to make a big shift, because it's sort of incited me really to do more daily micro reviews and constantly just make these little small changes so that you can pivot more easily. And so I'd encourage people to do that, because even now, it might seem quite a big thing that's coming at you and there's going to be big changes ahead. But actually you can start to review on a daily basis what's going on, how you done things differently if you've been moving your meetings, for example, online and doing more across zoom. Are you still making those connections in the way you could before? you still connecting with your team? What else could you be doing? Could you be putting more in the diary to be with them? You know, its social connection is so important in organizations, but also for health. And we can see that with the blue zones, which if your audience are not familiar with the blue zones or pockets across the world where we are the longest lived.

So these are small sections of populations that are very diverse. They are all the way around the world. Things places like Okinawa in Japan. There is one in California, in Sardinia and Dan Butler is the guy that kind of led a lot of the research. Was looking into these places, if they have the highest number of centenarians and the lowest incidence of chronic diseases, how have they got to that stage? And he looked at. Was it diet? Was it lifestyle? What was it? And the common thread that came through was this social connection and cohesiveness, right from kind of Great grandparents right down too babies, there were other things like movement, and the way that they eat, but this was really the common thread. And so it's kind of a long winded answer, but I think it's about looking at how you're doing things on a daily basis, reviewing and then just making those even micro pivots as you need to as you go through and kind of really chunking it down.

Steve Rush: And of course, making those micro pivots will mean that we are less susceptible to that big event or the big stress and therefore it perpetuates almost, doesn't it?

Angela Foster: Exactly, and you're much more dynamic as well in that sense and ready to move and to change because you're more aware you're bringing into your conscious mind much more in terms of what you need to do and as you say, there are smaller steps that you can do. So I haven't had since then as many I wouldn't say there's been huge events. Of course, we have to make changes and even now, like I am making changes to my business every day because the things that I would do in person can't happen at the moment. And so, you know, I'm looking at and thinking, well, actually, how can I distil my knowledge in a different way, you know, when I might have been talking to teams of people in person and making a difference, how can I do that now? Make that information accessible by recording and putting it into membership sites and areas or courses that people can download and actually use to learn. And I think, yeah, that's what we need to be doing. And I think what it's showing us really is it's bringing forward, so if you feel the same but you know, when you go in and you talk, for example, at your children's education and you look at the jobs that they might be coming into, they are actually going to have to change and reinvent themselves. And we knew they were going to have to do this because so many things were going to be potentially replaced by robots that they were going to have to be much more dynamic in their enterprises and in the way they approach things. And I think what this virus has done is actually suddenly just shunt us all through that process all at once, and so it's really going to be doing everything that you can to stay on your A-game and that is basically optimizing your mind and body. And I don't think you can separate the two, they are one and they constantly feedback to each other.

Steve Rush: One hundred percent agree with you, and I think this will also just help create that reflection for leaders as well as to, you know, are they mutually exclusive in people's lives or are they part parcel of their personal well-being and development, too? So brilliant so far. The last thing I would like to ask of you is if we were able to do a bit of time travel, go back to when you were 21 and bump into Angela then. What would be the advice that you would give to her?

Angela Foster: Interesting, so a few things. I think the first one would be, and this definitely where I coach my children is to follow the thing that really lights you up. And for me, I think I wanted to be a lawyer, but I wouldn't say reading long case studies, case notes, sorry and cases from judges was really my passion. So I loved the thrill of closing the deal and certainly as a partner in a law firm at the higher end, you know, you are doing all of that negotiating. And that was a huge amount of fun for me, but the journey to get there was not a passionate one for me. You know, law, was not my love, if you like. Whereas having had the experience that I have had and completely changed direction. I absolutely love what I did. You know, I wake up every day excited to learn more, share more, give more and I think that if I could go back to myself at 21. It would have been to say, follow your passion, find out what that is, because you will always become successful at the thing you love and don't rush it because actually everything takes time and everything takes longer than you expect it to but follow your heart in a way. Because, you know, business is challenging, is extremely rewarding, but it is challenging at times. But I think if you're doing something that you really, really enjoy, then that's going to help you in every respect.

Steve Rush: It is true, isn't it? You don't find anybody who's really successful at something where they're not equally as passionate, you just don't find it. They don't exist, if somebody is successful, it's because they're passionate. It is because they have that investment in what they do. Conversely, if they are not passionate or not interested, then you never see that success.

Angela Foster: No, that is true and I think you live it, don't you? That is the thing.

Steve Rush: Right.

Angela Foster: You know I am passionate about getting people as physically and mentally healthy as they can. And obviously I had to look at both because my physical health had taken a decline alongside my mental health, and that's why I say they're so related. But I live that lifestyle and I love it and I think, yeah. No, you are right. I think that is where success comes from.

Steve Rush: Now, you have already started my thinking today as to what I am going to be doing next. And as soon as you know, we're done today, I'm going to be off doing a few things that I hadn't thought of before we have spoken today. Now there's lots of ways that people listening to this podcast can find out. You also have a very successful podcast called High Performance Health Podcast, and that is available, I guess, pretty much everywhere. That, would be right?

Angela Foster: Yeah, that is available on all the kind of main platforms that you would find. Podcast, yeah.

Steve Rush: And I would encourage our listeners to take a listen to that too, as part of their leadership thinking and behaviours too. And were else can folk find out a little bit more about the work that you're doing at the moment?

Angela Foster: So they can find me on my Website, which is angelafosterperformance.com, and they can find me on there. If they want to kind of get a bit more kind of tips in terms of how they can sleep better, then I've got a free sleep mini course, which they can just go to bit.ly/smart-sleeper that's there, and also they can follow me on social. So I'm kind of active across the three main platforms, less so on Twitter, but on Facebook, LinkedIn and also on Instagram and that's Angela Foster.

Steve Rush: And we will make sure we put those links in the show notes as well. So people, when they listen to this, can click on those links and go straight to find out a little bit more about what you're doing.

Angela Foster: Brilliant, thank you.

Steve Rush: So finally, just for me to say, I had a really good insight that, you know, there was a science behind leadership and our brains are a powerful tool in the way that we work, but our bodies are equally as important, and I just wanted to say thanks for bringing that science to leadership today, Angela. It has been really super insightful and I know our listeners will love it, and it goes without saying thank you for appearing on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Angela Foster: Thank you so much for having me here today. Steve, I have really enjoyed it, really enjoyed our conversation and I love what you are doing with The Leadership Podcast. I think it is absolutely brilliant, so thanks again.

Steve Rush: You are very welcome, thanks Angela.

Closing

View Details

John Spence is recognized as one of the top business thought leaders and leadership development experts in the world. As a consultant and coach to organizations worldwide, from start-ups to the Fortune 10, John is dedicated to helping people and businesses be more successful by “Making the Very Complex… Awesomely Simple.”

You can learn the following from John in this episode:

It is not just what did you read and learn, action steps you take as a result
How to create the reader to leader habit
The discipline of reading and application of learning
The four “P” of expertise and expert performance
AQ - your adaptability or agility quotient
Knowledge, Network and Love
Lifelong reading and learning gives you competitive advantage

Join our Leadership Hacker Tribe and connect with us:

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LinkedIn (Steve)

LinkedIn (The Leadership Hacker)

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Find out more from John Spence Below:

https://johnspence.com/

https://blog.johnspence.com

John Spence on Twitter @awesomelysimple

Full Transcript Below

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Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

On the show today, we have one of the leading business and leadership consultants in the world. He is a multiple author, a TEDx speaker, and he has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. It is John Spence But before we get a chance to speak with John; it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: The global pandemic is forcing companies to adapt quickly into change, to redesign their products and services or even create completely new propositions to meet the demands of its clients, customers and its workforce and what is apparent is. Organizations are rushing to the needs of their customers and their workforce readily and now is absolutely the time for innovation and new ways of working. We have restaurants and cafes and small shops that are turning to deliveries and providing doorstep delivery services and vital community services. We have vacuum cleaner manufacturers who are now retooled to provide ventilators for people who are suffering ill health. We have alcohol firms and beer manufacturers who have now pivoted, making hand sanitizers. So whilst this is a time of challenge and stress, anxiety for most businesses and I get that part of that journey myself and our business is suffering the same thinking and behaviours, too. It is also the time for innovation and change and by thinking outside the box and thinking differently, we are able to create new and emerging opportunities in amongst this crisis, and here's the thing. If we look at our language over time in Chinese, the word crisis means both danger and opportunity and in India, the word Jugaad, which we may be familiar with around innovation and frugal innovation also means joining or union where from adversity we can find opportunity.

And even in English, the word adversity represents a difficult or tricky situation, but not catastrophic. As leaders, it is our role to lead new thinking and new ways of working. So join with me and congratulate those organizations who are pivoting and showing innovation and join me and congratulate the great work of all those who are working through adversity. That has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, insights, information you think would be great to share on the show. Please get in touch on our social media sites.

Start of Interview

Steve Rush: Today's guest is recognized as one of the top business consultants and leaders in the world. He was named by American Management Association, one of America's top 50 leaders to watch in that list alongside Larry Page of Google and Jeff Bezos of Amazon to name but a few. He has gone on to write five books and has also featured in TEDx Speaker. I am delighted to welcome to the show, John Spence.

John Spence: It is a pleasure to be with you, my friend.

Steve Rush: John, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule. Just to give the folks who are listening some backstory, one of things that first intrigued me about you when we met is that you have been in leadership roles and leading teams for a long time. In fact, at age of 26, you were already a CEO of a Rockefeller Foundation. How did that come about?

John Spence: It is a twisted tale, but I will go through it quickly. I grew up in Miami, Florida, and a very wealthy family. My father was an attorney and went to one of the top prep schools in America and when I graduated; I got admitted to several different colleges. And I chose the University of Miami in Miami, Florida, because it was close to my boat and my girlfriend, which is not why you should choose university, which is also why about a year later, I failed out and was kicked out of the university.

I won't go through the whole thing, but I moved to another town where I live now, Gainesville, Florida, where there's another University. The University of Florida and I applied there and they refused to accept me, so I went to a tiny little college, restarted over completely and graduated there, got into the University of Florida and graduated number three in the United States in my major.

That is when I was hired by the Rockefellers. I was twenty-three years old, after about six months or so, the current CEO picked me as his right hand man and I would go into all meetings with him, board meetings, follow me around, do things like that. And a few years later, he faltered pretty dramatically and they put me in place to just sort of hold the place down for a little while, and things went so well that they left me in. I was at twenty-six; I was running a Rockefeller Foundation, International Rockefeller Foundation, with projects going on in 20 countries around the world and I had no idea what I was doing, but it seemed to turn out okay

Steve Rush: And I guess it is not just being in the right place at the right time. That got you noticed. If you maybe single out one or two of those things. What do you think it was that gave you the edge at that time?

John Spence: There were there were three things. Number one is I said yes to pretty much anything. If they needed someone to go to Costa Rica to negotiate a deal. Before I was CEO, I put up my hand, and go. If they needed someone to take on a project that no one else wanted, I would take it. So I pretty much said yes to everything to learn as much as I possibly could.

Number two, I was very, very, very lucky to get a mentor. Charlie Owen, who was Mr. Rockefeller's right hand man, would come into my office every Monday, put a book on my desk, and on Friday he would take me to lunch and I would have to make a book report. And he would not only say, what did you learn? But what will you apply? And I think that was the big differentiator. It is not just what did you read and learn, but what are three specific action steps you are going to take as a result of what you just read? And then he would hold me accountable for doing that in my job.

And then the last one was asking for help. I had a really good team around me. I had some very brilliant board of directors. I had three billionaires on my board. Everybody else was worth one hundred million dollars and I was not afraid to pick up the phone or send them a note and say, I need some help, I need some guidance, because I realized I failed out of the University of Miami because I did not ask for help. I did not go to the other students. I did not have a study group. I did not talk to professors. I tried to do it all by myself and that got me failure. When I got to be CEO. I realized I need all the help I could humanly get from everybody around me.

Steve Rush: Thinking about the discipline of book on your desk, reading that book. In the time that we have known each other, I think I describe your office as a library of leadership. How many books do you reckon you have read over that time?

John Spence: I have read a hundred to one hundred and twenty books every year since nineteen eighty-nine. I've got a little over two thousand books in my office, but I also have a private library at home. My office is just business books and then my home is history and classics and things like that. So yeah, I see that is a big part of my job. How do you read so much? Part of the reason is, this is what I do for a living is taken information to help other people.

Steve Rush: Right and I guess information comes from that whole foundation you created from learning and listening to other people. Right?

John Spence: Well, it comes from a lot of places asking for help, mentors, coaches, colleagues. But for example, when I was at the foundation very, very young before they named me CEO, we would be sitting in a board meeting and one of the billionaires would say, well, anybody have an idea on this? And I raised my hand. I would say, well, I read over here in Tom Peter’s book not this but the other but I think this all starts with Jim Collins book on this, and then I got one more idea I read from Chester Elton, and I think those three things apply and I still remember one of the billionaire, I love John's ideas. He is one smart kid, let's do that stuff. I am thinking none of those were my idea but yeah, so it's personal experience and the reading, study and learning. I am not a genius. I just have more access to ideas and information than most people.

Steve Rush: That is a great question. Do you though, do you have more access or do you have more discipline? What do you think it comes from?

John Spence: I have more discipline. Anybody can buy books, which lots of people have lots of books. It takes the discipline to read them and apply them. I mean, again, there is that step. There is always that second step of not just what did I read and learned, but how will I use it.

Steve Rush: So how do you go about creating that discipline, the time to be able to read hundred books a year?

John Spence: I read a minimum of one hour every morning. That is the way I get my day started. Up until the Corona virus. I would take myself to a local restaurant and sit down and for a minimum of an hour or still to this day, I read Fortune Forbes Inc. Harvard Business Review Strategy in Business and part of a book. Also I usually travel again. We are at an interesting time right now. I usually travel about 200 days a year, so I am very disciplined that the minute I get to the airport, to the minute I get home, I read at every spare moment I have. I don't watch TV, believe it or not, as a professional speaker who has spoken to audiences large as twenty six thousand. I am a very, very introverted, so when I am on the road, I stay in my hotel room and read and study.

And then also when I read a book, there's a couple of things that are important to me and I read a lot on Kindle now but if I can get 50 or 60 pages into the book and I haven't underlined anything. I just closed the book and put it away because I figure if the author can't teach me something in the first twenty/twenty five percent of the book, they're probably not going to teach me anything spectacular in the last hundred and fifty pages. I might have missed an idea but I don't want to waste my time.

Steve Rush: It is a good strategy and a disciplined strategy that makes stuff get done, right?

John Spence: Yeah, and then I also I have all kinds of symbols that if its hardcover book, I put a pound sign for numbers; I put an R circle it, which is reread. I underline it. What I will do is I read all the way through the book. Then I go back and reread just my highlighting, and I make notes off that and then I am sort of a freak. I read, I dictate my highlighting into a word, doc, and then I have all those saved so I can take a book of two hundred and fifty pages and get it down to maybe three pages of notes of the key ideas and I have literally thousands of pages of those.

Steve Rush: Wow, that is amazing, and I think for anybody listening to the show today who does not have this as a foundation in their life, what would be your recommendation? How would you get them to start?

John Spence: Twelve minutes a day during the week. That is an hour a week. To give you an example. The average college graduate in most countries. Yes, average university graduate only read half a book a year. For self-improvement or to get better at their job. What I call a skills based book, a half a book a year. If you were to read one book every other month, six books a year, you would be in the top one percent in your country. If you read twelve books a year, you are in the top 1 percent in the world. Nobody needs to read 100 or 120 books I am a freak. It is my job, it’s part of what I do because I see this foundation for my career. But if you just took twelve minutes a day during the week, that's an hour a week. That probably four or five books a year. If you are a semi-good reader, that just puts you in the top almost in the top 1 percent in your entire country for self-learning. If you're consistent in doing that in three or four years, you've now really piled up some interesting information, ideas, things that when combined with your real life, what I call the adjacent new with your real life experience, what you've been doing in business, everything you've done up to then. You take this interesting new idea you read out of a book, you put the two together and that becomes a new idea. You know, this is a new innovation, a new idea, a new strategy that didn't exist before the book ideas and your personal experience, and if you were to read, you know, 20 minutes a day, you can see the numbers. It is not really that challenging. Again, it just takes discipline.

Steve Rush: I guess ideas breed ideas and innovation breeds innovation, doesn't it?

John Spence: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Great advice, John.

John Spence: My pleasure.

Steve Rush: One of the things I was really intrigued about when I was to TED talk was around the whole principle of AQ. Our listeners will know the principles of IQ, the intelligent question. They probably be familiar with the emotional quotient. So the EQ and how we can respond and use our behaviours to respond to behaviours. Tell us a little bit about what AQ means and how leaders might apply them.

John Spence: Well, let's look at the other two quickly. IQ is another word that I use for competence. You've got to be good at your job. You don't have to, you know, be a NASA rocket scientists and have 48 advance degrees. You just got to be really competent at your job.

EQ, emotional quotient, which I see as sort of self-awareness and empathy put together. An area I struggle in traumatically is now actually more important than IQ. If you've got a modicum level of competence, your EQ, will be more important. I have done tons of workshops with organizations where it is usually three or five to one EQ over IQ is important to have a leader.

However, AQ, which is your adaptability, or agility quotient I see as the most important one going forward and the amount of turmoil we are facing in the world. Technology, things are moving so fast. Only people who are agile, adaptable, nimble can embrace new ideas. Let go of old ideas that don't work, try new things. Take a prudent business risks and be fast and not just embrace change, but drive change. That is what I believe is going to be the main driver of leadership success. If you are competent and you can get along with other people, but you are not nimble, you are in trouble. If you add the three together. To me, you've got the foundation for being a highly successful leader moving forward.

Steve Rush: And what do you think are the key components of that? AQ, what will be one of the things that I might want to focus on first?

John Spence: Well, AQ almost all comes down to what we have been talking about is exposing yourself to new and different information and not just business information. Go outside of your normal realm. Like I read physics and astronomy to try to expose myself to ideas that are so big and so challenging that it stretches my mind. I look at art; I do other things, music to try to understand the craft behind those. And all these other ideas and other people, you know, going and meeting people that do things that you don't do and asking about what are their, best ideas, how did they learn what they do. So the more information and ideas you take in. Now, the other thing that is really important and it's one of the foundations of becoming an expert at anything is I'll give you the four piece of expertise. This comes from a book called The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, a one thousand eight hundred-page book written by experts about how to become an expert, and they say there is four Ps.

The first P, Passion, which just stands to reason you're not going to become truly world class if something if you're not passionate about it.

The new the next one is persistence, and we've seen from Malcolm Gladwell's work and others that that's about 10 years or ten thousand hours of being persistent.

The third P, which is practice but it is a special kind of practice called deliberate practice, and what deliver practice said. If you've got a coach, a trainer, a colleague, a friend, someone pushing you to keep practicing and practicing on the hardest stuff. The most challenging stuff, which leads to the fourth and final P.

Which I think is the foundation of AQ, which is pattern recognition. Once you study your subject deeply, you have studied it for years, you have you read, you ask questions, you've got a mentor, a coach, all the sudden it becomes clear to you and you see patterns that other people don't see. Those patterns are what allow you to anticipate things that are coming down the pike. So someone that's nimble, agile, adaptable, part of the reason they can adapt so quick is because they have identified the pattern before it fully unfolds and that time between when they've identified it and other people see it is their competitive advantage.

Steve Rush: I love that John. I think it is a great example of a simple model but actually help us just understand the underlying all of this is the lifelong learning that curiosity, that in order to get that pattern recognition, you've got to have the foundations, right?

John Spence: You said the word, curiosity. You've got to constantly be interested in things, looking at things, learning things, being curious and wanting to understand things deeply. Nailed it. Nailed it.

Steve Rush: Now you have come renowned for making the very complex, awesomely simple. In fact, that was the title of your last book. How did that come about?

John Spence: That is exactly what we were discussing, pattern recognition. I was looking at businesses. I have had the great fortune of working with companies all over the world, from start-ups to Apple and Microsoft and Fortune 500 Companies, and every time I got in a company, I looked for the patterns, the patterns of what they were doing really well that allowed them to be the leader in their industry. Also the patterns of what I saw in companies that were struggling, dysfunctional and failing and after years and years of looking at that. Also while I was doing that, I found this really cool software program called Wordle.

And what Wordle allows you to do is to put the text of a document in there and it finds the pattern, it takes out the ands the does and oh’s and all that stuff, and it looks for the words that appear over and over again and then it creates a word cloud. And that word cloud shows you the pattern of the book, so I loaded my book Awesomely Simple in there to help me understand the draft of it. And then I went to a bunch of my friends who are authors and asked for drafts of their book or a copy of their books. I won’t drag you through it, but I put about two hundred and seventy thousand pages of the top leadership literature, the top articles, everything I could find in there, and it spit out a pattern and that pattern is what became the foundation of not only my book, but what I teach today to companies I worked with.

Steve Rush: What a great idea in using technology as well to help us find the thematic approach to how we lead. So in your book as well, you call on a certain number of characteristics or strategies that will help business leaders.

John Spence: Yes, and there nothing surprisingly new. There again, fundamental, but there is a big thing called the knowing doing gap. A lot of people know these things, but they don't actually do them every day. They don't implement them and take action on them. So part of the book and I'm not plugging the book is I've got lots of questions, workshops, things to think about, because, again, it's not just reading it, it's reading it, learning it and applying it. And these things I teach people, they go, oh, yeah, and I going now. On a scale of one to ten with ten-world class and one being terrible. Where would you currently rate yourself and or your organization? And when they raided a three or a five, they look at me and go, oh, I know this, but I'm just not doing it effectively every day.

Steve Rush: And in order to create some of the activity that expedites actions, one of the things you talk about in your book is that kind of creating urgency and I think most people would recognize the urgency is an incredibly important part of shifting behaviours and creating some shift in status quo. How do you do that without creating panic?

John Spence: Super, super, good question. I looked at a lot of the research and writings on change management and change theory. And then again with what I've seen in companies I've been working with for. Now, I am in my twenty-eighth year. There is three steps to this, two steps and the third one is creating urgency.

Step one is you have to create what I call an irresistible case for change and irresistible is isn't liking chocolate cake. Irresistible is you cannot resist this. It is happening you have no choice. Again, we are recording this during the pandemic. People are being sent home to work for their homes. We are doing social distancing, and by a voluntary isolation, you have no choice. You are not allowed to leave your house. So this is going to break a lot of people's patterns. This is going to make them adopt new ideas, new ways of working, new things happening, whether they wanted to or not. In any organization, to create a sense of urgency, step one is to let people know that change is mandatory you have no choice.

Now, after you have done that, the next thing to do is to immediately tell them about the amazing future that will be there. We are going to do this for the company. This new software is going to allow us to do these things. Being able to serve this customer quickly is going to allow the company to make more profit, but whatever it is, but you need to take that irresistible case for change and balance it with a vivid, compelling, exciting vision of what the change will lead to, we do the change. Here is the new future. Here is the better future, and then quickly, you want to tell people we need to move to the new future, we got to get there. We can't go back and that's what creates a sense of urgency because it takes too long. People sort of say, oh, this too, shall pass and they get resistant and you get a big group of people that just don't want to change, and that will slow everything down.

And one other thing that adds to that, that allows or motivates that sense of urgency is getting what's called a guiding coalition in your organization, and that should be your entire senior team. Whether it is two or three or five or twelve being ten thousand percent committed to the change, and being the leading example of embracing the change, and driving the change, which you also want to look for sort of the influencers in your organization. The people who may not have a fancy title, but they have been there for 5 or 10 or 15 years and everybody looks up to them. Know if Steve thinks it is a good idea, I am on board. You know, if John thinks it is a bad idea, I ain't doing it. You want to get that handful of people also, your change agents, your change cheerleaders to create and let everybody know. We got to go, we got to go right now.

Steve Rush: So I recognize the patterns you just share and very familiar and experienced those in terms of how I help my clients through that change. One of things, I also find John is that when we are creating the urgency with providing that vision for the change in the future. We have the right people around us. We still find that there are natural pockets of resistance. What is the most common thing that you notice as a resistance or a big resistance to change?

John Spence: It is fear. People like stability and safety and when people are faced with what they perceive as negative change, they go through a cycle of fear, denial, anger, begging, trying to negotiate. And they go through all these emotions, and actually they're the same emotions that people feel when someone close to them passes away. To some person, we are changing the software company. Some people you gave me a new desk. You move me to a new desk. You actually as far as you gave me a new chair. I love this chair. I have had this chair for five years. It is in the shape of my butt. I don't want anyone to take my chair away, and you have to, as a leader, understand that change drives lots of emotions, fear, depression, sense of overwhelm, sense of optimism. At first you have uninformed pessimism, people don't know what's going on with a change and they're scared and eventually you start to get informed optimism until finally you get adoption. And that's when people say, okay, the changes, okay, I like it. It is great. Then, of course, right after that, it is time to change again.

Steve Rush: And the one thing that is going to be constant in everybody's world is change and even by sometimes just labelling it change, we create an intentional fear, don't we? Because it is a label, it is a thing versus it is just going to happen. We are always going to evolve, but we may not be able to connect the dots forward, but when we look back, we certainly can do that, can’t we?

John Spence: Yeah, hence the reason that AQ now is so critical and we will become more critical going forward because the pace of change is going to continue to speed up and be dramatic. I think that we're seeing this worldwide right now and it's going to overwhelm a lot of people, but it's also going to give other people's strength and courage to understand that I can do this, that if I stay focused and I stay calm and I'm persistent, that I can handle this level of change. And I believe when we come on the other side of this, other changes up until now would have seemed pretty dramatic, will seem pretty mundane and easy to handle.

Steve Rush: And it will create a new foundation of resilience, I think, for us all, won’t it? As we come through the other side and I think without AQ, we probably won't be the cope.

John Spence: Agreed and I love the word you just use, resilience. We are going to need courage, vulnerability and resilience to get through this. Extremely well said, Steve.

Steve Rush: Thank you, John. This part of the show, we are going to ask all our guests to share their golden nuggets, the secrets. Now, when you have read thousands of books and as you have, I should imagine to narrow that down to three is going to be a massive challenge but I am going to set you the task, so if you could identify. What will be the top three Leadership Hacks? What will they be?

John Spence: Number one, which is the most important thing I have ever learned. I have done two TEDx talks…. is dedicate yourself to lifelong learning. You have seen a theme through all that but if you study successful leaders through time, they were avid learners, not just readers, but they were curious. You use that word earlier, curious. So stay curious, be I like say, addicted to learning. That would be my first nugget.

Number two is ask for help. You can't do this alone, which leads to the third one, which is a combination of the two and the single most important thing I've ever learned in my life. Which is you become what you focus on and like the people you spend time with, whatever your studying, whatever your reading, whatever you're learning, whatever you fill your mind with and whoever you choose to spend your time with will directly determine which your life will look like a decade from now.

Steve Rush: I love those top three hacks. Thank you. I remember when I was in San Francisco, was talking to a seed fund investor, and his little nugget was your net-worth equals your network.

John Spence: Exactly. There is a good friend of mine, Tim Sanders, wrote a book called Love is The Killer App and he broke it down to these three things, K, N and L. To be successful in your career. You must be bright, sharp, smart and talented is something that is highly valuable in the marketplace that is the K, Knowledge.

Network is the N. A lot of the right people need to know that about you and by right people, that's what I call hubs. People that if they are really impressed with how much you know and how valuable it is, they don't tell two or three people. They will tell 20, or 30 or 200 or 300 or 2000 through their giant networks. As long as you have the last one, the L, which is love. If you are a kind, loving person of integrity, a lot of the right people know that about you. And they also know that you're really good at something that's highly valuable. You have the foundation for a World-Class career.

Steve Rush: We've got a double bubble on our Hacks, thank you so much. The next thing I would really love to explore is that having the extensive career and indeed learning from all of the things you have experienced there bound to a time where things have not worked out so well. Maybe we screwed up. We call this Hack to Attack in The Leadership Hacker Podcast, what would be your Hack to Attack that you could share with our listeners?

John Spence: This is one that took me twenty, twenty-five years to learn. I am a very, very logical, data driven person. I like information, ideas, research numbers, blah, blah, blah. And I was really against the idea of leading with your gut but what I've learned over the years, and it's because I have entered into partnerships or business arrangements are hire people that there were red flags and I felt a little uncomfortable. I felt a little easy but I would be like, I don't feel decisions. I make decisions on facts. I realize now that when I see a couple red flags and I start to feel like something is wrong, that I will listen to that and more often than not, that should be a major determinant in my decision making, which is very hard for me to say. I have made many failures because I did not listen to my emotions, and my feelings and my concerns and my worries.

Steve Rush: It is really fascinating. Thank you, John. I have done lots of research on this, too. And this is comes from a neurological response to the pattern recognition that we unconsciously aware of, so we're scanning thousands and thousands and thousands of situations we may only be present all. Identify with one or two things in front of us but the unconscious mind is scanning millions and millions and millions of experiences for our life and our work, and it's giving that both meaning our brains a little nudge to say, pay attention to this. And of course, while we can't use our gut as the defining, it's definitely true. We should absolutely pay attention to it.

John Spence: That was a very hard lesson for me to learn.

Steve Rush: But you have learned that and as a result of learning from it, it's now paying dividends for you in your life and your work, so well then thank you. And then the last thing we want to explore with you would be that if you're able to turn the clock back and give it a time travel and you bump into John at 21, what would be the one bit of advice that you would give him?

John Spence: Wow, that is really hard. I think it would be to stay really curious and ask for help. And we've covered those because they've been so fundamental to me building a great career and early in my career, I was very confident I was right. I would argue with people, no, I am right. I got this. I understand it better than you do. I would argue with people 30 years older than me and then one day I woke up and realized, I'm not right. I have an opinion; I have a way that I see things from my perspective. And it's a well-thought out, a well-reasoned opinion, but it's just an opinion, so I would have said to myself, you know, you're not right, stay curious ask for help. Lots of other people have other ways to look at things and they're just as right as you are. So calm down, just calm down, John.

Steve Rush: Thank you John that is super. So as folks listening to us talk today. I am fairly sure that they'd be thinking John mentioned TEDx and also books and information. How can people get to learn a little bit more about what you are doing now and find some of the content that you have been able to create over your career?

John Spence: My Web site is JohnSpence.com but I am going to really encourage folks I've got to sign up for my blog slash newsletter. I've got a newsletter that comes out every two weeks and it is based on all of the stuff I'm reading. When I read a really good article, something fantastic that I am impressed with. I tweet it and my newsletter grabs all those tweets, but here is the cool thing. It is driven by AI, It's got an algorithm there when you open, my newsletter and you start to read stuff that watches what you open, how long you read it and it figures out what you're interested in. And it continues to customize your newsletter more and more and more on the things that are of the most interest to you. So as you as it continues to go, it gets smarter and smarter, and I learned probably 300 articles in a month and it will only pick the top dozen or so that it knows that you're going to be most interested in.

And then I only write a blog when it's something, again, I feel strongly about. I don't put one out every week. I just put one out when there is something that I feel is valuable for folks to read, so if you get to my Website, sign up for the newsletter, just sign up for the blog you get both and that will give you direct access to everything I'm reading and studying right now.

Steve Rush: And machine learning doing all the hard work for us. What could be better? John, that's kind of bought us to a natural conclusion for us spending some time together today. I just want to say it has been super, super useful. There is some great models, some great thinking in there that are going to help our listeners go away and reflect on their approach to reading and commitment to lifelong learning. And I'm hopeful this podcast will also help create the energy and excitement around the foundations for AQ. John Spence, thank you for joining us on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

John Spence: Absolutely my honour and my pleasure. Thank you.

Closing

View Details

Simon Tyler is the author of 'The Impact Book', ‘The Keep It Simple Book’, 'The Impact Code’, 'The Simple Way' and most recently the Business Book Awards finalist, 'The Attitude Book', is one of the world’s leading business coaches, consultants and inspirational speakers. His entertaining and thought provoking work cuts through complication and frustration and liberates individual potential. A pioneer in Simplicity, Impact and Attitude, Simon has spoken at hundreds of events for all kinds of organisations bringing his unique brand of connectivity and humour to his audience to shift attitudes and create impact.

You can learn the following from Simon in this episode:

How to use your own CTL-ALT-DELETE button
Distinction between Complicated and complexed
The 4 A’s to Action Model
How attitude defines our outcomes as leaders
The YOU Board of Directors
How to keep thinking simple

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Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Find out more from Simon Tyler Below:

www.simontyler.com

Simon's Simple Notes on Soundcloud

Full Transcript Below:

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Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, Dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

I am joined on todays, show by Simon Tyler. Simon is an inspirational motivational speaker, author and business coach, but before we get to speak with Simon, it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Numerous articles and research papers have been written over the last few years about developing culture in teams and business, where high levels of good culture were observed. There was a common thread across all of these articles and it may be less obvious than other behaviours. Where leaders showed and valued innovation and finding new ways of working this has led to significant higher levels of retention of staff and a higher than average level of engagement. So why is innovation for leadership and leading others so key? Leaders who promote and recognize innovation create and cultivate other visionaries; which, of course, will lead to new ideas and efficiencies but deeper than that, will motivate people around them and turn their ideas into solutions and outcomes. Giving control of innovation is the first step. Leaders don't need all of the answers and ideas, but do need to recognize ideation and innovation in others. It plays to our intrinsic motivation and that is what makes us tick, so creativity in this case is less important than leading innovation through others. Here is an example of two innovations that I found really interesting.

Having recently found our podcast charting on Spotify, I also found that Spotify had been innovative in thinking outside the box when it comes to find new audiences and of course, podcasts are one of them, but a new emerging audience is our four legged friend community. Spotify has now created playlist for dogs and pet owners, their research suggests that approximately 74% of owners of pets play music for them, in particular when they left on their own.

In other innovation news, most leaders can relate to the fact that being healthy in mind and body will help them make better business decisions. Folks at Fittrack.com created the ultimate health measurement tool to assist leaders and others in keeping fit and well. When you stand on a FitTrack scale, a very low safe electrical signal is sent from four metal electrodes through your feet, into your legs and abdomen. The electrical signal passes quickly through the water that is present in our hydrated muscle tissue and then meets resistance when it hits fat. So it can not only measure body fat, but also measures muscle, bone mass, hydration and other things to help us keep track of our vital functions and in turn helps us focus on what areas of our diet, exercise, nutrition we need to focus on. Of course, health and well-being are key components of all great leaders. That has been our Leadership News, if you have any news, insights or information you would like to share with us. Please contact us through our social media sites.

Start of Interview

Steve Rush: I am, joined today by Simon Tyler. Simon Tyler is one of the most experienced coaches in the world. He's author of five books and he is now prolific writer and blogger, is the author of the Impact Book, Keep It Simple Book, Impact Code, The Simple Way and the Attitude Book. Simon, welcome to the show.

Simon Tyler: Thank you, Steve. Good to be here.

Steve Rush: Now there are three kind of themes that seem to parallel across your writing, and that is impact, attitude and simplicity. That just happen by chance or is that through experience?

Simon Tyler: Chance you would say, the whole of my journey practically uncovering some of this conversation is I have allowed my life and my journey to unravel and accept whatever shows up, but it started very much with simplicity being called Simon. Unsurprisingly, to some of the listeners, I was a curse for been simple Simon through most of my life. So people call me “Simple Simon” and I railed against it all the way through our member.

My teens, I was desperately trying to prove to people know I am complicated, I am really complicated and pushback against it, pushback against it and I was working with a coach from the U.S. She was in the New England, and she and I did some work together. Her name was Kate, and we jokingly call ourselves Simple Simon and Complikate, which of course is very funny but it was about me accepting simplicity as perhaps the hill on which I stand, and it wasn't until I was coached by a guy called Drew Zel and that was probably 10 years ago where he simply challenged me. He said why don't you just accept it. I said, what you mean. He said just accept the fact that you are simple, Simon and there was a stony silence in the conversation and I just allowed it to be there for me, oh, maybe you are right.

And from that point on, I was much easier with that moniker and accepted it and out of that, I thought, well, maybe that is what I do. That is the impact I have with people when I rock up. I tend to ask the really simple question. I try and pull my clients or the teams or whoever I'm working with it, just back in a wall, what is really going on? And that's always informed me in the way I go about things, if ever I get stuck. I always go back to simplicity. How can I make this a little bit more simple? And that starts the moment again. It is a huge answer to your question, Steve but simplicity was the start and everything else is sort of spun on from there.

Steve Rush: And simplicity is really complicated to get to. We will kind of unpick some of the reasons why that may be in a moment. You talked a lot about being coached. So how did you end up being a coach yourself?

Simon Tyler: A long time back, I was director of a consulting company and one of the big projects for a client, I members putting together as I put together a team of we called them coaches. This was probably in the mid to late 1990s where really the phrase coach was not something that was common in a business setting. And whilst if we were to look back, they didn't really conduct coaching, as now we would understand it to be, it was more about understanding the skill gap and helping people fix a skill gap. It was quite interesting; coaching then was sticking around me as a word. I left that consulting company in 2000 and in not knowing where to go myself, I engaged the coach again in the U.S. because that is where there were much more supply of coaches and I was coached for a period of time. And once I got over my ridiculous Britishness of not really answering the question that they were asking. I really got so much from it and it was a profound shift. And as we all look back in where the big shift in your life, that was definitely one working with Scott Wintrip and he challenged me or helped me realize that the way in which I dialogue with people, the outcome of the conversations that people have with me, he says, in essence, it's coaching dialogue. Consider building a coaching practice. Okay, I will, so I began in 2000. I set up and I backed out of quite a lot of consulting client work and thought right, I am a coach. Here I am. Come on, everybody, come and be coached, and that was a slow old journey. Try to convince people what a coach was first before they agreed to coach with me. That is the way, my coaching began and it was a slow process picking up a client here and a client there. Not really known what fees to charge, so therefore not really making it a brilliantly viable coaching business. I carried on going and it just opened up more, more dialogues.

Steve Rush: And it is fair to say if you roll the clock forward, you have now coached hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. If there was perhaps…

Simon Tyler: Indeed.

Steve Rush: …if there was one theme that you can see that is maybe more consistent than not, what would you say that was?

Simon Tyler: Well, it is interesting, what shows up when I thought about, what is it? The dialogues that people have had with me for the bulk of the growth period of me as a coach were around leaders in transition, so they were people who been spotted as talent, as potential for growth in them, in their in organizations. But broadly speaking, the companies didn't know what to do with them other than give them more training and send them on more workshops and so on and so forth. And it was me in conversation saying, well, these people should be coached at the point that client used the phrase coaching to describe. A remedial action for somebody who wasn't performing well in their role. That's really interesting cause that's not who I coach, I coach people who want to grow, who aspire to something bigger, better, to be more themselves and to have more impact and I said, okay. We will do it and in essence. Risked the first pilot wave, which was a group of 12 people. I coached all 12 and all of them, to varying degrees, had a significant change effect as a result of the dialoguing with me, so I would say one of the pieces, therefore, and lots came from that. Was people in transition, people ready to move or not sure of where they are at all. Exploring what is next and it's that sort of dialoguing that perhaps formed the rump of the work I did through the early 2000s.

Steve Rush: And that is great to hear, and in my experience also of coaching people in similar transitioning; these are people who have already been identified as talent. They have the raw capabilities it just needs unlocking and through that dialogue, right?

Simon Tyler: Yeah, indeed and again, it goes back to my simple question sometimes just tapping, asking the question that people maybe a half asked in their own heads. And I think the questions that you ask yourself. My observation over the years is that you never truly answer it fully yourself. You might reach a difficult point in the thought and stop or you might part answer it and then leave it there, and it is only when you are in dialogue with somebody. One to one, who like me and I like yourself. I am sure and other coaches will just sit in that space and hold you to that question, that your answer gets bigger, deeper, broader and goes to more places and more gets unlocked.

Steve Rush: What do you think? The reason is that we don't take it to the 10 degree or that next set of questions, when we try a bit of self-coaching?

Simon Tyler: Well, life is very busy and my clients, I am sure that similar groups, the people that you work with, there is a lot going on. There is one of things I wrote about I think it is in the keep it Simple Book is Control Alt Delete, which is a function that we are all very familiar with on the computer. You press Control Alt Delete, you have a look at all programs that are running any one particular time on your PC and it is the same in people's heads. I metaphorically try and help people work that through. If we did a Control Alt Delete, there is a lot going on. So thought to try and manage our own thinking. It is a tough ask if we have got a lot on, we are trying to hold ourselves to a particularly deep question.

The brain is going to stop popping around with other stuff and lead us off in another direction. And there are many, I'm so delighted that in years where we've got to today. Mindfulness has been grasped by almost every organization. It is a way that we can improve the way that we connect with ourselves and release creativity and so on. Any step on mindfulness will bear fruit and the mindfulness technique is to just be aware of all the thoughts that are going on and learn. Build the muscle up; just sit with just one thought and it's not standard practice, we human beings tend to take on a lot physically and in our thinking, there's a lot going on, back to my control Alt delete. If you sit in there trying to think about a profound career-changing question and there is someone knocking at your front door, you are not there; your mind is going to drift away and that is a very simple example, but that describes it if it helps.

Steve Rush: And in the workplace, I guess the same plays out, doesn't it? So I wonder, what is the reason that people find it so difficult to keep things simple?

Simon Tyler: Again, it is the volume of stuff. That is going on in the world we are in now. People tend to be responsible for many things and not just many different things. Just the variety of them, that needs to be involved in all of their job agreement, it just varies so much from a quiet conversation to support someone to a bit of deep calculation type thinking. And that could be butting up against each other, and asking yourself to make that mental shift all the way through the day and to sit quietly and take on some of these more challenging. Potential breakthrough questions and breakthrough thinking is often it is in the too difficult box and I notice people push it out or I will do that when? When I get my next clear day, I am going to do that. I will clear all the appointments out on Thursday and I will do on Thursday. No, you won't.

Steve Rush: It is procrastination.

Simon Tyler: Yeah and it is clever procrastination and it is not a bad thing because what is that wonderful expression somebody use many years ago? Which is busy people look more important than important people and there's a an intense busyness, I notice, because there's a lot to be done. There is so much to be done, there is never going to be enough time to do everything you really want to achieve. The outcomes of people working with me is. I will get people to just pair some of that back, sounds obvious, but what is really important? What you really want to achieve here? And this lots of techniques I'd written about those sort of things in a number of different ways in all of the books. Just trying to just shift the way my readers and my clients and the listeners to my podcast. Just slowly pare back the noise that is going on then get to the important stuff.

Steve Rush: Thank you so much, that is really insightful and I think our listeners will resonate with that. Where they struggle with their own thinking about how simple they are keeping things or indeed how complicated they are making things.

Simon Tyler: You absolutely know. People will know when they reach that point of…there in a complicated zone, and there is a distinction between complicated and complex. Some things are understandably unnecessarily so complex, but complicated causes stuff inside us. When life has become complicated or our thinking has become complicated. That is when we can't think of thought for very long or we start to feel less than great. Our creativity gets stifled, just our mood shifts and all of the stuff I've written about our attitude changes when we're caught in complication and it just changes who we are so my alert to my clients is just notice. Just notice that all, there is a moment, let’s come back. Let's come back, see if I can just introduce a little bit more simplicity and start again.

Steve Rush: That there is a real hack there, isn't there? The difference between complicated and complex and noticing the difference and being wise enough to act on what's holding you back versus what can empower you.

Simon Tyler: They absolutely feel different. Complex feels different to complicated. If you tune in to how you feel and the thoughts that are triggered in a complex situation compared to a complicated situation, they feel completely different.

Steve Rush: I suspect that's got something to do with how we process information in our brain. We will feel complicated, which will trigger some of those neurological threat responses vs complex, which will keep us engaged and thoughtful and energized and looking for the stimulation, the mental stimulation that comes with problem solving.

Simon Tyler: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: So impact has also been a key theme for you in part of your life's work over the last 10 years. How would you say to leaders that are listening now that are maybe struggling to get the impact that they are intending?

Simon Tyler: Oh, that is a good start. What you have just said there. If they have an intention, that is cool. A lot of people don't have clarity over their intention. They just have this umbrella word…I want to have better impact. What do you mean by that? What sort of impact do you want to have? What is the footprint you want to leave? What is the change you want to cause in a room to a group of people? To the situation? To the strategy? Any thinking to get a little bit more clarity on what your impact is. Your intention is important. Starting there, I notice and perhaps this drove me around my work with writing the Impact Book. Is people then often jump from, okay, I've got the impact I want to cause. Now tell me the actions. What actions do I need to take? And as I unravel in that book, it's a path. Action almost is the fourth part whether you driving, causing, forcing, action for your impact and it is interesting listening to the other shows you had. Different people, different guest you talk about this in different ways, too and for me, it's working through the pathway of causing impact and I use four A's.

The first (A) is Attraction. How you attract people to the way, you think and getting people aligned to the impact you want to cause, more people on board with you, so in essence developing your magnetism as a leader.

The second (A) is creating appetite. So people find you, your message, what you stand for, your purpose alluring.

The third (A) then is advocacy. That is where you start to create people. Who advocate what you stand for, and you nurture them almost in effect as your cheerleaders, but they start to be part of what you are causing.

And then the final (A) action. That is where you start to create change and almost at that point, the change you want to create, you seek to create. It starts to happen anyway, because the previous steps you have taken.

Steve Rush: I love that Simon. Many of our listeners will be familiar with the good old-fashioned impact to action gap and what you are talking about here is the kind of three elements that sit before action. Which you unlock impact, right?

Simon Tyler: Absolutely. Yeah, and I write this, my notes, little impact notes in there, just hacks, if you like, to help people through each of those previous stages. And when you really become desperate to have impact, you're not going to invest in those earlier phases. Just being more authentic, being more authentic on a daily basis, which is you being you truly, does not feel like powerful enough or fast enough and you won't do it, and if you don't invest in that, the end is not going to happen. The action is not going to happen.

Steve Rush: You also wrote about this in your latest book, The Attitude Book, so, how do you see that attitude defines our outcomes as leaders?

Simon Tyler: Well, attitude. I love it. I did not realize it until I said to my publisher. Yep. Next one is going to be about attitude. They went, great, okay. Here is the deadline. Get it written by then. Oh, okay. Yeah, it is a big thing and a more and more I did my research around attitude and how it plays out and look for examples and stuff that had worked. The bigger and bigger it got, and here's me thinking I've just got to settle on 50 pieces of advice about attitude. It was a really the most difficult writing phase of all of my books was for the Attitude Book because it was just so big. You start to get into such a huge area, but I did obviously successfully managed and I use their deadline to get me to conclude, and I cut out almost as much as has gone into the attitude book. Which therefore leads with Oh, I wish I had. I have written about it subsequently, but attitude is the magic, if you like, or the magnet that makes it happen and attitude get affected all the time by what is going on around us. If we've got no real sense about what we want to have impact on, our attitude is going to just drift.

And it's your attitude that attracts people and situations and occurrences to your path. If you are clear, when you become clear and you can narrow your attitude range and I talk about that when I speak at conferences events. The first step is often to become aware of the breadth of the range of attitude that you carry with you and narrow them. Because if you got from your great day attitude, all the way through to a bad day attitude. That is just too great; people don't know where they stand. You attract a mishmash of stuff that just does not help you. Narrow the range, which takes a little bit of thought to just a little bit more control of your attitude initially, which then allows you to shift your attitude in the direction you want it to, and that, as I say, becomes magnetic and different things happen when your attitude changes. You see things differently, your whole body and mind thought, things you see and feel. The experience is different when your attitude is changed.

Steve Rush: Right - and it might sound a little cliché. But do you think you can choose your attitude?

Simon Tyler: Totally. Totally. At the time when you think, you need to. That is often the time when it is most difficult because you realize my attitude is not helping here. That is a really tough moment to change your attitude. Another lovely expression we would say is the best time to repair a roof is when the sun shining, but most people wait until they realize, ah, it is the winter. Now the time to repair my roof. Not a good time, but you can shift your attitude and it is a choice space thing and it's checking in, maybe when we get to my three hack's, we'll talk about some techniques that just get you back to the middle of you to become more determined and intention full.

And that's when it starts, and then there's some other pieces I wrote about in the Attitude Book, which is about your resilience. So your attitude, resilience so that it can withstand the pushback you will get or the counter attitudes or maybe there's a prevailing attitude in your team or in your company that doesn't fill up the one you want to have as well. And just like groupthink as people describe it, there is this attitude cluster I see in organizations. Be careful, just notice how that attitude attracts to that team or group or company. Certain situations, certain occurrences, synchronicities happen around those attitudes. If you are the leader, you're the one that's going to set the tone, set the attitude and it takes starting with just a few of the people around you who are aligned, That is when you start.

Steve Rush: You referred to in you are Attitude Books as a lot of this attitude starts with self and you have something, in there called the “YOU” BOARD OF DIRECTORS, just tell us a little bit about that.

Simon Tyler: Yeah, I like that one and that's similar, and again, the people who read all of my work will notice some fairly common threads or clusters around which the notes that I write tend to sit, and this is definitely one the “YOU” BOARD OF DIRECTORS. It is a moment, too, I suppose in any NLP terms they would say you are changing your position to look at same situation from a number of different angles that is all. And this came out of a conversation with a director in a financial company and he was a bit lost and not sure what to do, but stuck. So oftentimes coaches are very useful to help people get going, get momentum again through that stuck period, and the “YOU” BOARD OF DIRECTORS is a board of directors that is you but it needs a Cap change, if you like. I give the example of the chief executive you.

So if you were the chief executive of You PLC, managing you, your brand, what you do, what you're all about. How would the chief executive get involved? What would their role be? How would they in general terms, look at how you are doing? What results would they want to report about you? How would they talk about what lies ahead? They would be more strategically interested in what you are all about, other roles you may have a chief financial you who would look at the performance, the absolute performance, what is the personal finance? What is the financial implications of what you are up to? What are the risks involved right now? Where my investment may needed? And then you might have other roles, Chief Operating Officer, HR You, Chief Marketing You. So if you build that team and it is an opportunity to perhaps take a moment away from your everyday activity on that. Take yourself away for a board meeting for You PLC, and just work through and always invite people. If you have not got a professional conversation dialogue, you've got a range with a coach or a trusted colleague. Then maybe journal this, so put the chief executive You hat on and write as if you were the chief executive of You but just five minutes and it's a really interesting exercise that always bears fruit, and it just helps people shift the way they view themselves.

Steve Rush: It is really powerful to do that self-exploration thing, isn't it? And see the world from a different perspective.

Simon Tyler: Yeah, I am sure you have this as a frustration with all of my work. Quite a lot of the time people go, oh yeah, I get that. I really like that. I am going to do that and they never do. The difference is the people that make the grab the hack in your world that works for them, do something with it, work with it, sit with it, reflect on it. If you do that, that makes the difference.

Steve Rush: So, Simon, at this point in the show, we are going to go to think about your top hacks. Now ahead of today, you have written in your books over a hundred and fifty. If you include your blog, you probably weigh over 200 hacks and I know that trying to ask you to distil these down to your top few is going to be challenging for you but what would be the kind of two or three that you think would be my nuggets?

Simon Tyler: Well, there is never one. Whatever it needs to be for that person in that situation. It is the one, the one. I wrote a simple note, but you inspire this in me. My simple note that came out in the beginning of March was called The One or The One Thing which is about this to look at what would the one thing be. So thank you very much for inspiration on that, so I am going to give you three. Two from the books, but one is the overarching one, which I will finish on.

The first one is in the Keep it Simple Book, which is “3-4-3”, which apart from my favourite football formation, is just a very simple way of looking at what you're all about. And broadly speaking, and I found this in every contact with teams and groups of people through my entire career, broadly speaking of the ten things you're up to, three you'll be awesome at. That is the essence of you. Three you will be absolutely painfully detest and not very good at takes too much time and makes you feel bad when you react to those three. And in the middle of the four things that come with the turf of what you're about right now and you don't know whether they're going to be great things or not. The distinction for people that grow the fastest, that have the greatest impact and results, however they measure results, is you spend more time in your top three, the essence of you. Define what they are; make those the priority for your week ahead. Be the best version of you. I know people because their life gets filled. It seems to fill from the bottom end up those bottom three things. If you spend a day working on those three things, you feel rubbish. You don't like yourself or anyone else around you, and your attitude will change. They do not bring the best out of you and it is a conscious effort. Becoming aware of what my 3-4-3 is and spend all the time, I can pushing to make sure I am involved in my top three. Outsource, pay someone, swap or don't do the bottom three things. They are not going to grow you. They are not going to make the difference. They are not going to get you promoted. They are not going to have the impact. It is the top three that does. That is my one big nugget.

Brief one is pause, and that is powerful. If I listened to perhaps how I…one of the most common things perhaps I introduced into conversations with clients is helping them feel more comfortable with pausing and inviting them in their heads to count to three and in that pause, it's almost like an awakening. One, two, three and in that moment, the brain then just starts to relax. You get access to more of your brain's thinking capacity. You hear the question perhaps you just ask. You have a sense for what the right answer might be. You have a sense of what your other answers might be. It just awakens more, so pause and count to three would be my second.

And then my third hack would be what I ended up writing about and talking about in my podcast earlier March is about awareness. To heighten your awareness for what is going on for you right now and more and more of what I read about, and now I am writing about is about this, which is if you are feeling disgruntled, off-beat, It is okay. Notice it maybe even name it. The act of noticing what you are experiencing and naming it instantly alleviates the power and the grip it has over you. Just by doing that. Second step in there in the awareness piece is just to become ease. I am just not allow that to be, I am going to, except the fact that I fill up that right now. Just those two steps and there are more steps in this. But those two steps will liberate people from the tough situations they might find themselves in as opposed to trying to grit and work it through.

Steve Rush: There is some really fantastic hacks there, practical information and insights people into take away, start practicing. So thanks for sharing those. In my experience of working with people like yourself and others who have developed a huge knowledge base and capability over time is that has not always been that way, so we call this section Hack to Attack and this is to explore maybe time in your life for your work where things did not go as well. Maybe it did not pan out as you had expected, but we are now using that as a tool in our work, in our life.

Simon Tyler: Through my life, there has been a number of really challenging situations and I know looking back on them, they have all delivered something for me. And quite often it took a lot longer than just a few days to realize this is going to help the situation but I'm at a point now, fortunately, where I've really simplified my life and I'm fairly chilled about most things and it has come as a result of those situations, and there so many. I could probably talk about this one for the entire podcast in terms of how I've used them, how I resisted things going wrong and didn't want them to be that way, but then just allow them to be.

But the one I will share was a toughie in my speaking business. All of my speaking has gone really well. I have loved my speaking career, I love the challenge of an audience, and I have become a little bit known for not necessarily having content, there will always be a path I will follow my speaking business, but not having content or being able just to move with what is working in the room. That came about as a result of something that went disastrously wrong in a speaking business where I was speaking at a leadership learning group and it was after dinner. The circumstances were not conspiring very well for me. The food was delayed, the drinking was accelerating and I stood up and I had been asked to do something very inspirational for this group of twenty-five, whatever it was. Leaders on this development program, and it did not go well at all to the point that I just stopped and said this is not going well. I am going to sit down now and enjoy the rest evening, and I just stop.

And I don't know where that voice came from. Some kind of an inner guidance in me, told me to do that and people were shocked. No, no, this is part of your plan. No, it is just not going well. This is not going well at all. Obviously, my drive home, I was there, there was a train I think so, so my drive home then was probably three hours on my own in the car in the early hours of the morning. I scoured myself and I tore myself to pieces like I'm going to sleep when I eventually got home. Thinking, that is it. I am never going to do it anymore. I am never do this anymore. Why? What am I thinking? Was I even thinking? And there's a whole pieces of dramatic and nasty dark introspection and it took three or four days for me to realize. There is a gift in this somewhere. There is an awesome in this awful as my coach friend Kate would say, and I just sat with it and thought, well, just wait for it to come up.

What is there for me to learn and what it was? It is just confirmed for me that the way I speak events is totally flexible. I am acronym free and arguably I am content ambivalent, and I was trying too hard to push content to a room full of people that was not ready. And that was a great learning for me just to be more fleet of foot and just be me. Just be totally real at speaking events and that served me so well since that time.

Steve Rush: It is a super story and I think many of our lessons can resonate with that moment where it is just not working out. The key, of course, in this is not self-coaching and finding that within most problems there is also a solution. Right?

Simon Tyler: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: So if you could time travel back to when you were 21 and you know how to meet Simple Simon at 21, what advice would you give him?

Simon Tyler: He was having a tough time at 21 I remember and did not really know who he was. I was in work and I was just plodding along trying to please people, and whilst that is still an important part, I think my advice would be to tune in a bit more with who I am. And I think all of my thinking was out there on other people. What did they think? What did they want? What do they want me to do? Who do they want me to be? It was a tough time; I remember 21 was a tough time, so my invitation perhaps to myself would be go to my edge more often. Tune into who I am. What is it I want? The gift now of what we know about coaching dialogues. I would love to have had that then at twenty-one to have had some kind of a mentor or coaching conversation, go to the edge, wherever my edge is? Go to there. I think I played safe and I played inside as much as my career, travelled in interesting directions, and it was great and served me well, I think more could have happened. I want me to believe a bit more in myself. I can remember how self-doubt was a really tough challenge, and that's sting a little bit, that come up every now and then, even at this late stage in my life I'm at now and perhaps finally just decide, decide what you want and head towards it. Because I don't think I just started decide until probably my late 20s. I could have had a different time, but who knows? I am pleased with who I am today.

Steve Rush: And that is a main thing, right? No regrets.

Simon Tyler: Yes.

Steve Rush: I should imagine our listeners have been stirred by what you have talked about and they are starting to think about some of the tools and techniques you have described. How can they find out a little bit more about your work? And where would they ideally go to find that information?

Simon Tyler: Well, there is lots, as I say, the simple notes that are not in the books. There are many, many of them that I have written. One every two weeks, so simontyler.com, there is a whole library and click through and the funny titles that hopefully will lead you into the ones that work for you. And also the podcast version of All My Simple Notes is available on Soundcloud. Simon Tyler, search that in Soundcloud. You will find me, so that is probably the best place to go, and obviously the books. Grab a book enjoy the book. Whichever one you choose. I would say there is a number out there for you to grab.

Steve Rush: And Simon last thing for me to say is it has been really super talking with you today. There is so much information, and I'm sure that there'll be an opportunity for us to regroup and have another conversation about more things that are simple that are impacting their simplicity in everyday life, so, Simon Tyler, thank you for joining us.

Simon Tyler: Thank you for inviting me. I enjoyed the inspiration you gave me, and I hope that happens again too.

Steve Rush: Take care Simon, thank you.

Closing

View Details

Michelle Box is the Chief Executive Officer at Boxxbury Marketing, where she trains entrepreneurs on marketing and business development. She is a columnist, a speaker and known as the Blonde Fixer!

In this episode learn from Michelle:

Leadership is not about age – it’s about behaviour and opportunity
Experience is a great learning opportunity – take every one!
There is no conventional path to CEO
You don’t need all the answers as CEO
Don’t restrict your value (price)
Dive into your teams goals and drive real results
Watch what you write on Social Media – it’s there for good!

Join our Leadership Hacker Tribe and connect with us:

Twitter

Instagram

Facebook

LinkedIn (Steve)

LinkedIn (The Leadership Hacker)

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Learn more about Michelle’s work:

Michelle Boxx - The Blonde Fixer - Instagram

Michelle Boxx – The Blonde Fixer - Twitter

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Full Transcript

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

On the show today, we have Michelle Boxx also known as the “Blonde Fixer”; before we have the chance to speak to Michelle… It is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: Given the environment that we are in with a global pandemic, many people are coming to terms with the fact that we may need to become more isolated. The irony is no more stark when you look at statistics that lie behind loneliness and isolation. Some research completed by campaigntoendloneliness.com found that loneliness increases the likelihood of mortality by 26 percent and comparable to well-known risk factors such as obesity and has a similar influence a cigarette smoking. And their research also shows that loneliness increases the risk of high blood pressure. So how do we mitigate some of these factors and increase connectivity?

Well, I look to research for those that are most isolated at this time and look to those on the International Space Station with NASA. In an article, it caught my eye; written by Corey Stieg of CNBC Make it, where she was following up on a tweet by one of the International Space Station retirees. Peggy Whitson, retired astronaut, spent six hundred fifty five days in the International Space Station with NASA and shares her five top tips to mitigate isolation and confinement so that this time could be useful and productive. In Peggy's tweet, she refers to these tips as behaviours or EB standing for “Expeditionary Behaviours”.

They can be applied to any situation involving working remotely as a group. So while we may not have a mission to space, the mission we may have would be just getting used to each other's company, new routines and having to create new routines, so here is Peggy's top tips.

She says communication is not just about using new mediums, but about being able to share information and feelings freely, that includes talking things through and admitting where there's a misstep or a mistake, as well as debriefing when something goes right. Good communicators are also effective listeners, which often means restating what somebody said to check in what has actually been said.
Leadership (and followership). Trust and responsibility are the hallmarks of good leadership and followership, according to NASA. Those in leadership positions should lead by example and provide the resources and solutions to tasks and goals. Team members can actively contribute to the leader's plan too.
Self-Care. NASA's definition of self-care is, “demonstrating your ability to be proactive and stay healthy”. If you get enough sleep, good hygiene, spending time on non-work activities it will make you happy. We should consider this as we are all been drawn to connecting through social media. If that is a good use of our time or not.
Team Care. Remember that we are all in this together. The best way to support your team is to be patient and respectful, according to NASA. Foster good friendships and relationships with your co-workers during this time offer help to others.
Group Living. The final expeditionary behavioural or EB is about building a group culture by take into account everyone's different opinions, cultures, perceptions, skills and personalities according to NASA. NASA say respecting roles, responsibilities and workloads will all create a harmonious group living.

But be thoughtful for those that haven't got the capacity to find others and pay attention and just notice those in our communities who may need that phone call or the letter we have yet to pen. That has been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, insights or stories you would like to share with our listeners. Please contact us through our social media sites.

Start of Interview

Steve Rush: Today's guest is Michelle Boxx, who is the Chief Executive Officer at Boxxbury Marketing, where she trains entrepreneurs on marketing and business development. She is a columnist and a speaker. It is the blonde fixer herself, its Michelle Boxx. Welcome to the show Michelle.

Michelle Boxx: Thank you for having me.

Steve Rush: So your journey to CEO is not a conventional one, is it? I was doing a little bit of prep after we spoke and met, and I found a couple of videos on YouTube. One in particular as a 15-year-old high school girl addressing a political rally, tell us a little bit about that?

Michelle Boxx: Yeah, absolutely. I initially started out in policy and politics, and my very first campaign ever was when I was 12 years old, and then I went on to interning in a presidential race here in the states, and then from there, I was given this opportunity. They thought would be really great at this rally to hear from a student speaker, and so they asked me; and I had not given a speech publicly before and I said, yes. Not really knowing totally what I was signing up for and then I went on to speak at this event; ended up having five hundred people at it, which is quite a lot for your first speech at fifteen years old and went on and gave that speech. It was actually kind of the catalyst to my whole political policy career and everything I'm doing now as an entrepreneur.

Steve Rush: So having so many experiences at such a young age in what most people would call an adult world and adult life, what are some of the lessons that you have learned from that time in your life that you now use in your adult life and your leadership career?

Michelle Boxx: Oh, I have gathered so much. You know, I learned a lot about through policy and politics. I learned a lot about communications, of course, but I also learned a lot about leadership. You know, speaking at that, that one. You know the video you found, which it is so funny that you found it. I have tried to take it down so many times, but I have lost access to the ago. And I've found through that, I ended up launching a website a few months later that was really a policy website geared at covering legislation here in the States and I recruited a whole bunch of my fellow high school friends to help me with it, and so we would literally read legislation, we would post content every day. And so the website got 10000 page views monthly just organically from us posting this information, and so that was really my introduction into marketing, into leading the team and everything that I do now as a CEO.

Steve Rush: And it is a super experience because people get often confused with leadership, has something to do with the job title or a career or a salary, but actually, what you have demonstrated is leadership is about just behaviours and we can have leadership skills and behaviours at any age, right?

Michelle Boxx: It is so true. A lot of it is really just jumping in and saying, okay, you know what, I am going to do my best here and I am going to figure it out, I mean, so many of us in life do figure things out as we go along. And so it's better to not wait for that moment of coronation, if you will, and instead just jump in and say, okay, I'm going to do my best here. This is the result we are looking to achieve and nurture these people in the process.

Steve Rush: It was an early start in politics. Did that turn into a full-blown career, what happened next?

Michelle Boxx: Yeah, so, you know, obviously starting out at 15. You are still in high school, so I end up graduating early at 16 and continuing in politics, so I was working in political campaigns. I became a radio media political commentator, so I had a weekly radio segment and I was a columnist as well, so I was writing a lot of publications, and so I got to work in campaigns in Nashville. I did some work in D.C., Kansas City, where I grew up and so it was really an interesting time for me because I was pretty much doing it full time but it was a myriad of things and all different aspects of policy, politics and media.

Steve Rush: Given that, you were so busy at such a young age. Any regrets, anything you might look back and think, we should done that differently?

Michelle Boxx: No, actually, I am incredibly proud of everything that I accomplished and showing that initiative so young. I think that is something I am proud of, it really did lay the foundation of everything that I do now. And, you know, I still had my social time with friends. I still, you know, still a very normal in a lot of ways, but at the same time, just very driven, very clear about what I wanted and I felt really blessed every day to have that opportunity. I mean, how many high school students can say that people actually cared at all what they had to say that young? So it was just a really cool experience for me.

Steve Rush: And of course, the more experiences we have, whatever age they are, that lays down those foundations that we can draw back on later in life. After your career in politics, you then became a really successful real estate agent. Tell us about the transition and the journey.

Michelle Boxx: Right, so it is such an unconventional path that I took, but you know, if you can put yourself in your shoes of a high school student who is getting quite a lot of attention at a very young age, there's definitely pressure associated with it. And I think when I turned 18, 19, I just realized that I needed to maybe take a step back. I think when you are 18 or 19; you don't totally know fully what you believe on the political policy realm just yet, a lot of it has been kind of spoon fed to you, if you will.

And so I took a step back and, you know, especially nowadays, I think it was such a smart move because, you know, Google, obviously, and you know, all the other search engines, they chronicle you forever. As you said, you found that video from when I was 15, and though, you know, if I had continued on down that path, I may not agree with some of the positions or the stances or the things that I had taken, and so I chose to be pretty quiet for a little bit.

I actually moved to a totally different city. I got my real estate license. I had had a subscription to Forbes since really, I was probably about 15 years old, I had always read about how so many CEOs, business executives, and successful entrepreneurs have a real estate background, and so I went ahead and I got my real estate license. And then it was an interesting experience getting your real estate license at city where, you know, no one.

Because real estate is very much a networking and connections kind of industry, and so I had to build everything from the ground up and I had to figure out business really quickly. When I had only been on really the policy and political end, so from there year one I think I sold only like four houses, but year two, I sold 20, and so to have that intense amount of growth obviously is considered pretty good and the industry, especially for a city that you just moved to. So I got to speak at the National Association of Realtors Conference that year, and just to talk about everything that I had accomplished. It was really cool because it's just another experience of realizing there are a lot of grit and determination that you really can succeed in any field.

Steve Rush: That is great, and what you have just described is a lot of internal drive and determination and focus. Of course, we all need that external lens. During that period of growth and development for you, how did you seek and find other ways to grow and become more effective in yourself and more effective as a leader too?

Michelle Boxx: That is great. I read a lot about business models actually, so it was a lot of modelling and seeing what other successful agents and brokerages throughout the United States had done, and to completely make their model my own, of course, with a few tweaks. I think if anything, that is something that has really propelled my successes to my ability to think extremely conceptually and to look at everything and say, okay. How do I break this down into a system? How do I turn this into something where, you know, is implementable for me? What are the step by steps that need to happen? And then from there going on and actually just doing the implementation.

Steve Rush: And all the great leaders I've worked with, coached, supported and worked with, they'll have this philosophy of lifelong learning, don’t they? Where they are able to just copy and paste and take the best bits of all of the people they work with, make it their own, also still of course maintaining that authenticity and it seems to me Michelle that you have managed to create a unique view that is also authentic.

Michelle Boxx: Thank you very much.

Steve Rush: You are welcome. During that period of time, transitioning from politics into real estate, what was maybe the one thing that you learned the most?

Michelle Boxx: I think the realization that you can't do everything alone, that you really do need support, so you need your mentors, you need your team, you need. I think that if you have a lot of internal drive, it is very natural to think, you know what, I can figure this out on my own. I can do all of this on my own. I am independent. It is fine, and then just really putting your ego to the side and saying, you know what? I don't have all the answers. Like you said, you know, copy and paste and really having the network around you to support you along your way up.

Steve Rush: And since leaving the world of real estate behind. You know, run a firm where marketing and business development of pivotal to what you help other clients with. How did that transition come about?

Michelle Boxx: Well, so the way I describe political campaigns or what people should know is throughout my time in real estate, I was in real estate full time for five years. And in addition to that, I was also running political campaigns, and so it's basically like having two full time jobs or some would say that political campaigns and end up itself is two full time job.

And so with real estate, you learn a lot about marketing. Obviously, you learn a lot about sales and you learn a lot about modelling and business. But then on the flip side with political campaigns, I imagine it as a business where you basically have six months to get the entire brand off the ground, to get the entire business off the ground, and you have one day, which is election day, to make all of your sales. And if you don't make all those sales, you're out of business, and so it's an intense amount of pressure. And so I really channelled all of that, and to realizing all of those experiences made me really, really effective in business and I realized that so many small business owners are really great at what they got into business to do, but they're not so great many times at the actual business end. When it comes to sales, marketing, business development, pricing, you know, all of those things.

And I realized with my experience I couldn't really help them. With real estate, I felt like I was looking more for a challenge. It started to be the same thing every single day and I needed to grow, and that has just been a hallmark of who I am. And so I went ahead and started my marketing firm and initially, it was just supposed to be marketing and it moved into Business Development as well as I realized the need of small business owners and we were generating revenue a week from starting.

Steve Rush: Well that is a massive achievement and so early into new business to be driving revenue, well done you. So you’ve become known as the Blonde Fixer and know if anybody ever met you Michelle or seeing you, they will know the blonde bit, but the fix a bit, not so much. So what is the most common things you often find yourself fixing for others, right now?

Michelle Boxx: Sure, so the fix or term in and of itself is actually a political term. A fixer basically handles crisis management for political campaigns or candidates and that kind of thing.

But I also shifted over into making it about business as well, so a lot of times for a business…so we worked with about 100 hundred businesses in our first year, whether it was on a retainer basis or just one off consulting calls.

And so a lot of times I would get on these calls and I would quickly realize we're not know anything about their costs and their pricing. And so many times I find that, you know, businesses are so focused on marketing and sales and getting the revenue in. That they don't check to make sure that they're properly structured, and if you're not properly structured in terms of your margins, then unfortunately, you're going to hit a cap eventually and if you don't have the margins built in. You are going to have a lot of difficulty in scaling your business long term, so a lot of times the very first thing we do is work on the pricing, so make sure they really have a real grasp of what their costs are.

And then also a grasp of what their current production limit is, whether it's a product or service, how much they can literally do right now without hiring anybody else, and then from there, we go ahead and make sure those prices are correct. For example, one of my clients we ended up increasing her pricing extremely significantly, and she said, well, no one is going to buy it at this price, and I was like, just try and you will see.

And so through that and then our marketing as well, she not only was able to raise her prices, which of course, increased her margins, but then she was able to actually get more sales and she was getting before, so that's basically what we do on a day to day basis.

Steve Rush: It is really interesting, isn't. What might seem obvious for most people geting that kind of basic foundations, right for their business. People often get distracted when they are running their business; the main reason is for that?

Michelle Boxx: I think it is overwhelming for a lot of small business owners. You have so many tasks that have to be done, so many hats to wear and it is easy to let things fall to the wayside. I think that sales and marketing does seem obvious when you look at it from a big picture view.

But on a micro view, many times they get focused in on the creativity or the production of the product or the service that they're creating, and everybody has different personality types as well.

So I think that's why so many small business owners I mean, we really look at how critical that is, though, because the majority of small business owners do fail within five years, which is one of the reasons I started the firm. I think a lot of it is easy to get distracted. It is easy to get overwhelmed, and it is easy to just keep procrastinating and pushing things to the side and hoping they will resolve themselves, but many times, they actually just get worse.

Steve Rush: And I guess just like many start up business owners and indeed most business owners, they arrived at being in their own businesses because they were good at something they were passionate about or had some real desire, but of course, that is not enough? You need people around; you have the right skill sets, the right personalities that can offer you differing views and different behaviours. Right?

Michelle Boxx: Absolutely, and also, just taking a look at, again, what your skill sets are, kind of what you just touched on. And realizing that if you want to be a person that is creative and just focus on the creative end which is what many like you said, many small business owners, that's what they start their businesses is, it is a passion project. That is okay, but you have to find a way to find the right people that will be on that other side for you, and we'll be doing the stuff that you may not want to do, and so that's a lot of where we come in. It is just filling that gap.

Steve Rush: Right and I also wanted to explore with you the whole principle of pricing, because when anybody runs that business and me included, getting the value vs. fee, vs. right proposition is incredibly important, and I think that confidence plays apart in that, doesn't it, particularly if you're new into business? So how do you help people with their confidence about getting the right price for the right value?

Michelle Boxx: I love this topic. I love telling the story about when my first real estate sales, where I was negotiating the commission for myself, so I was talking to a prospective seller and they asked me what my commission was. And I so desperately wanted this listing because I was just starting out, and I think that there is that feeling of desperation that a lot of small business owners find themselves in when making a sale.

And instead dialling into that desperation, I chose self-regulation and I took a step back, took a deep breath and said, you know what, I'm going to charge even more than I think I can get. I am going to charge way more, actually, and so I just leaned into it and said, okay, you know what, I want my permission to be this amount, and it had been about 2 to 3 percent more than a lot of people in my firm were getting.

And he said yes, and that was an incredible lesson for me to realize that so many of us do undervalue ourselves and so many of us, not only we don't see our own value, but we also don't realize that we are the determining factor of our value. We sell yourself short and so really being unapologetic and realizing what is the worst that can happen? You know what they say no, or they needed to negotiate. You can always renegotiate, and that is all it is but to sell yourself short is doing your business a disservice and doing you a disservice. And It feels good internally to be compensated well for your work, and I think it's incredibly important to just always say to yourself, okay, and how much more can I charge here? Just taking that beat, making that moment. How much can I charge? There has been times with that political consulting where I have literally doubled what I thought I could get. Just to see and make it a little bit of a game for yourself, just to see what people perceive your worth to be, and you will be amazed at how little resistance you get when you confidently say it.

Steve Rush: And of course, we all have a different value that we place on people's services, times and expectations but often it's our own internal dialogue that either talks us into something or talks us out of something; and actually confidence can increase value because people feel assured, they feel certain about the services and the products that they're going to get from you, right?

Michelle Boxx: Of course, there are clients for every price point that you want to charge. If you have a dream amount that you want to charge and you feel like you can justify that value, then there are people who out there who are willing to pay that. Your job is just to find them. That is really all it is. It is really all that marketing and sales is.

Steve Rush: So Boxxbury Marketing now in a period of growth. So what is next for you and for Boxxbury?

Michelle Boxx: So what we consistently found in year one was even though we worked with, you know, over 100 businesses, that many small business owners, of course don't have massive access to capital to pay intense monthly retainers over time. And then many of them also really needed a space to learn instead of just us doing the work for them, and so we have actually we're in the process of launching 60 different courses that cover our marketing, business development, sales, pricing, and just everything that you would need to know. So 60 different courses for 60 different industries, and we have also teamed up with other knowledge experts like business accountants and attorneys. So basically, these business owners will be able to purchase something that's specific to their industry to be able to build out this business model, and then from there, they'll be able to watch and have these courses permanently, and as we add to them, they'll get the new editions as well. So we're progressively hiring a sales team that is going to be to be selling these courses out and it's just really an exciting time for growth for our Boxxbury right now.

Steve Rush: Well congratulations on continued growth as well Michelle.

Michelle Boxx: Thank you.

Steve Rush: For all our guest that come on, the show. We ask them to share that top Leadership Hack so we can look into your mind. What is your top Leadership Hack?

Michelle Boxx: Absolutely, so one thing I would say is to facilitate feedback from your team. I found that it is so important to check our egos at the door and to simply not be afraid to get that feedback. You would be amazed at the wealth of knowledge that your team, whether it is your sales team or whoever else has, even if they have not been in executive positions. Many times, they can fill in that missing piece of the puzzle, so many of us as executive type’s area lot in our heads. And it's really important to rely on your team to see where those puzzle pieces are, where they can say, okay, look, actually, maybe this isn't as clear as you thought it was, or maybe we should be doing this so we can all feel a little bit more unified. And so facilitating that feedback from them and making it a two way street has been really critical to me and my staff.

The next would be empathy, compassion, and kindness, putting that all in as one. A good story about this is a sale member of mine on my team. She was recently experiencing trouble with rejection and I guess there had been a couple of people who had rejected her who were not very kind. And she got all the way to the point where she was ready to quit, and she never said anything to me, which is where that facilitating feedback that I already mentioned comes in but then the other thing was she had gotten so in her own head that she felt she wasn't cut out for the role. And so when she finally came to me and she told me that she was ready to quit, I just really instead dug in instead of accepting, you know, the instant quitting and then just tried to get in with her and where she was at, and so I empathize and provided solutions to her concerns.

And she's been a numerous sales positions before, and she told me that she had never had a leader tell her before that they actually cared and to show that they actually cared. And it's startling how many people don't feel like their leaders and the executives truly care about them, so really diving in deep with that and taking that time to slow down and really get into where they're feeling and then we were able to find a creative solution for her. Where she is still able to sell for us, but in a way that she does not hear the rejection in such an intense fashion. So just really customizing that for your team and being empathetic, I think is so critical.

The next would be investment in the individual. It kind of ties into that empathy aspect, but I really like to dive into my team's professional goals. You know, right now we have a really, really large sales team. Over 60 people and I dive into, you know, where do you see yourself going in life? You know, how does this job help you get there? Because I know that if they are happy and satisfied, they will stay longer, but I also know that if they really feel like a job is pushing them towards their best potential and really helping them elevate, then they're going to give the best result. Really just diving into them and investing in them as an individual's critical as well.

Steve Rush: Super hacks, thanks, Michelle, for sharing those. What is really important is recognizing is from a leadership perspective the more that you give and get on the agenda of others, the more that you get in return from working together. So great stuff, this part of the show also, we are going to invite our guests to share what we call the hack to attack. So this is when a situation is going particularly wrong or not worked out well, and we now use it as a tool in our kitbag to lead and support and help others. What will be your hack to attack?

Michelle Boxx: So this is quite the story. When I was about 17 years old, I would say. I tweeted something on Twitter and this was, of course, in my time in politics and policy. And I tweeted something without really thinking about it. I thought it was tongue in cheek, and apparently, people did not feel that way. We ended up getting screenshotted and put on an article that was seen by twenty thousand plus people and I received over a hundred hate messages, death threats, that kind of thing overnight, which is, of course, pretty alarming when you're 17 years older anytime, frankly.

And what I learned from that experience. Is one to first simmer down before you react, it was a pretty alarming time, but then I just really learned the importance of our words, that our words really have power, and it sounds trite to say, but it's so critical in terms of leadership at in terms of leading our team. Words can sting for a really long time, and so for me, it was just that reminder that, you know, to always check how something might be perceived before we choose to say it.

Steve Rush: Wow, it's a massive lesson to learn at such an early age, but one I suspect you use readily when you're coaching and counselling others, right?

Michelle Boxx: Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Rush: And of course, communication had changed now; where we could get away with saying it and people would hear things. They can unhear those things, maybe forget it. Whereas now with texts and social media, once we have written those words, they are there forever.

Michelle Boxx: Right. It just it is like a nice big punch, unfortunately, to a lot of people if you don't say things that correct way. And I think that it's just a reminder as well that. You know, when we put things in text, our tone of voice and a lot of the other senses that we use to typically engage with the world as is absent. All you got is the visual, and so to really be mindful of how that is perceived.

Steve Rush: And with social media, being so present in our lives, even more important now. To the final thing I'd like to explore with you today Michelle is, if we were able to do some time-travel, go back to meet that 15 year old Michelle, who was courageous, political activist, ready to take on the world, what advice would you be giving her now?

Michelle Boxx: I think that Michelle at that time was incredibly driven, but also really afraid of not getting to places fast enough, not accomplishing the dreams fast enough, and so I would really advise Michelle at that time to do something called living and day tight compartments.

And it's a concept that Dale Carnegie wrote about in his book about Stopping Worrying, and it's really to leave the past in the past. To leave mistakes in the past, of course, learn our lessons, but just leave them in the past and then also to not worry about the future and where it's taking us instead to have your plan to focus every day, minute by minute, hour by hour, focusing in on the tasks that need to get done. And once you have that plan in place, not leave it any time to second guess or to overanalyse, just implement, implement, implement, and you'll get to where you want to go.

Steve Rush: That is great advice. I can resonate with that, and of course, the more that we can focus on the now being present, more likely we be in control, rather the stuff that hasn't happened or stuff that's chasing us that really helps us be present in the moment and be more focused.

Michelle Boxx: Absolutely, and I think that it is really easy to not even realize how much we worry and how unproductive that really is for ourselves, as unproductive for our mental wellbeing and done for our performance as well. And so if you really start to be conscious of how much you worry every day and how much you're analyse, overanalysing and just in general getting nervous, you'll start to realize there's a tremendous amount of time every day that you waste, and so alleviating that actually makes you the most.

Steve Rush: So our listeners today, Michelle, may be thinking how to find out a little bit more about the work that you do. Now you've got a strong following on social media, so how would you like our folks listening today to connect with you?

Michelle Boxx: I would love everyone to check me out on both Instagram and Twitter. It is at @blondefixer, and I typically try to post helpful articles and just helpful tips in general, just things that we are implementing within our firm for our clients. I try to give free advice every now and then as well, and if you have any feedback from this episode or have any other questions, I would love for you to reach out to me there.

Steve Rush: So as folks have listened here, they can go to our show notes and click on those links direct to get to your social media pages.

Michelle Box: Perfect.

Steve Rush: Finally just for me. I just wanted to say a massive thank you, Michelle, for being with us on the show. I know it has been a busy time for you at Boxxbury and I'm super grateful for you sharing your Leadership Hacks. Michelle Boxx, the Blonde Fixer. Thanks for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Michelle Box: Thank you so much, Steve.

Closing

View Details

Avi Liran is the Chief Delighting Officer at Delivering Delight. He’s an inspirer, writer, humourist and TEDx/IDEASx speaker. Avi believes that everyone is a Chief Delighting Officer. He's an incurable optimist, he’s always been fascinated by the power of positivity, as well as the ability of words and tones to transform people’s lives and experiences.

What you can learn from Today’s show:

The power of delight.
Why some people struggle with “delight” and how to overcome it.
How delightfulness is for introverts as well as extroverts.
Transform people from a place of helplessness to helpfulness with “contribution”.
Avi’s top tips to get a VIP treatment by delighting others.
Avi’s top leadership hacks!

Join our Leadership Hacker Tribe and connect with us:

Twitter

Instagram

Facebook

LinkedIn (Steve)

LinkedIn (The Leadership Hacker)

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Learn more about Avi’s work:

https://www.aviliran.com

https://www.deliveringdelight.com

Click below for the full transcript

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Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me the leadership hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

On today's show, we are joined by, one of the best leadership development coaches in the world who is going to share some delight with us today. Before I introduce you to Avi Liran, here is a Leadership Hacker news.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: In the news today, it is important to recognize that keeping ourselves upbeat is an essential ingredient to keep us on the straight and narrow as we go through any crisis. Eddy Chapman, Bridlington amusement arcade owner, has started filling his grabber machine with toilet roll instead of soft toys given the global panic to rush to buy them and in doing so created quite a bit of a stir. In fact, one couple had travelled more than 60 miles to play the grabber game and looked incredibly delighted when they won some toilet roll.

In other news, a ban on skywriting - and skywriting is where planes write messages in air using smoke is set to make a comeback after government proposals to rethink and reintroduce ideas of how they can communicate, particularly when less people are visible and social media does not often work. Writing in the sky in the smoke, such as “Wash Your Hands” could make a comeback to our skies soon. It is important to generate new ideas and thinking when we need to. Leading and leadership comes from thinking outside of the box. What is normal? What is not normal? How can we do new things and interesting things to create the right energy and atmosphere? That is a leadership hacker news if you have any ideas, news or insights you would like to share with us. Please share through our social media.

Start of Interview

Steve Rush: Today I am joined on the show by a Chief Delighting Officer. What does a chief delighting officer mean? I hear you say. Well, I am delighted to say that on the show today, we have one of the world's best designers and creators of leadership development programs. He is a TEDx speaker. He has spoken in over 18 countries around the world and has helped thousands of leaders and managers in more than a hundred companies please introduce Avi Liran. Avi, welcome to the show.

Avi Liran: Thank you for having me.

Steve Rush: So the whole principle of delighting and delighting people might sound a bit fluffy, but you have been able to save managers and organizations millions of pounds and help generate millions of pounds in revenue. So just tell us a bit, about what does delight mean in this sense?

Avi Liran: Great questions and I would say that one of the case studies that I like most is with Marina Bay Sands. It is an iconic, integrated resort that has I believe it is the most frugal, integrated resort in the world they make a billion dollar a year and when they started, they became the biggest venue in Singapore with two thousand six hundred and fifty six rooms. You can imagine what would be the line for check-in and housekeeping. And they had a lot of teething problems and they had a change of leadership. They got fantastic training for service, which means that they were supposed to be great in service. It is an iconic place, but because of leadership, leadership was transactional and there was one, that was actually toxic and he was a COO the recent one. He would go and tell people you are fired just like Donald Trump. The problem with that was the people that came all the way from Vegas with the families got really, scared so it was a culture of fear and no wonder within just a few months they got to a horrible score on TripAdvisor. It was one hundred and forty. Then they called us and we work for about seven months together with the top 250 leaders. And within seven months, of going and grinding into what does it mean to become a chief delighting officer and making a commitment to be one, they managed to go up all the way to 36 place on TripAdvisor’s.

The commitment that the COO, the new COO that came instead of the gentleman that was there before him. When he started the first workshop with us he say, I took these guys to take you all the way out of your comfort zone. We think that may look fluffy, but if you don't want to be in Marina Bay Sands, a leader that will be delighting his team, if you don't want to have joy and you don't want to take care of your teams as a family please prepare a CV and go to Sentosa, which is the competition. I think that he made the commitment so well that every time that we had the workshop, he would come to say exactly that thing and at the end of the few days’ workshop, he would hand the certificate to each one of the leaders, shake their hands, look in their eyes and say, you are chief delighting officer. I think that was his commitment and the commitment of the leaders afterwards so cascaded. Then it is like they all went on the highway because they had the fantastic framework of service and they are doing extremely well. This is probably the most profitable single resort in the world.

Steve Rush: And that is amazing. Excellent story. Thank you for sharing what delight can mean in real sense. When was it that you stumbled across this principle of delight? How did that come about in your work and your life?

Avi Liran: Well, pretty, early. Everybody stumbles upon delight all the time. The question is all the guides us through.. We are going to see a lot of adversity in the world and lucky for me, I got fantastic parents and they were Holocaust survivors. They have seen the hardship, they escaped and they have seen their family slaughtered all in front of their very eyes and wounded and hungry and running for their life as refugees. And the inspiration came from my mum. I want to tell you a story that is not in my keynote or what you have seen. I remember after my father passed away and my mom as a doctor had two mortgages to pay and people will abuse and use her without paying her and she needed the money and one day in January it was raining cats and dogs and she came back after a home visit. And I asked her mum, so did you earn? And she said, no, and I was angry I say why? And she said, Avi you don't understand. These people are so poor, they don't have even money to go to A&E so I took the medicine because they can’t buy medicine and I gave them what the promotional people, the pharmaceutical company sales guys give to me. You don't understand Avi, I have three ways that they charge people. The poor don’t have to pay. Normal people will pay normal, the rich people will pay double, and I tell them that.

And I think I learned from her so much about how to look at every person as a human, how to have compassion and kindness. She once caught me not giving coins to a person that opened his hand and asked for it and she told me Avi, who are you to judge? Because I say maybe, he has used the money for drugs or liquor, and she say, you know what? You always can give someone from what you have. Then I remember my father they did not have much and, you know, once a month to buy you ice cream. And I want to thank my father and I say thank you, say don't thank me just bless me and bless me that every time I open the wallet, I have what to give to others. I grew up with people that were humble and kind and loving and at the same time did not have much, but they always had love to give and to smile and to help and I was blessed. I believe a lot of us in the world, no matter where we come from. And they're a good example of not complaining about what life did to you and surrender to that but being great contributors and I learned it from them, I'm grateful to them.

Steve Rush: That is a great story. So the whole principle of being delightful. What do you think the reason is that some people would struggle with being able to feel a little freer and be more delightful in the workplace? What you think holds people back?

Avi Liran: I think that some bad experience in the past prevent us and make us more cautious. And it's very interesting cause every time that they work with a group of leaders and they get to the essence of what is the engine of delight, probably we're going to talk about it later. They come to me and say so what if people abuse me? And the fears are really what if I'm going to give too much? What if I'm going to be too friendly? I believe at a certain time, not allowing yourself to delight is like being fearful and deciding after the first time that you had a relationship break to decide I'm going to stay single for the rest of my life. The fact is that the neuroscience of delight teaches us that when you delight somebody else you are immediately delighted back, because what happen is that your brain produces oxytocin and then immediately kick starts the reward circuitry in the hypo-campus. Dopamine is release, serotonin is release, and we become happier. So yeah, there is a lot of bad experience in the past that prevent people from trying. Some people are also introverts and they feel that they don't want to open up too much. Some people are simply not used to it. I would say fear but you know the antidote for fear is love and taking a step forward. My teacher and my mentor Lenny design a very beautiful, funny ritual about that. He asked you to put your hands in palm and say, I am afraid and I am going to do it anyway.

Steve Rush: And did it work?

Avi Liran: I guess so, because we don't want to live in the prison of ourselves, and actually if you think about if you're not delighting, you're sitting in a prison when the door is really open. You just need to go out and you don't have to do it in a rah-rah way. If you are introvert, there is a way to delight without making rah-rah. I don't believe that…actually, I find leaders that are introverts are much more delightful and delighting than the ones that are extrovert.

Steve Rush: Said some really interesting points I want you to explore with the Avi because as a coach, you know, there are those extroverts who you can see physically and non-verbally there delight or not as the case may be. How do you notice that and how do you respond to that with somebody who is introverted?

Avi Liran: Well, I think let's go into the essence of delight. What makes people delighted? And if you get that notion, if you only get this, I'll talk about the engine of delight and I'll make it as a question. What is the one verb, one word that is also an action is also a mind-set, a way of life that if you do it unconditionally, consistently, continuously, it will be the quickest way for you to earn trust, gain influence, feel a sense of belonging even if you are the new kid in the organization and feel happier together? I will repeat. What is the one word, one-way of life, one attitude that is also a verb that if you do that unconditionally, consistently and continuously, it will be the quickest way for you to earn trust?

Steve Rush: I am going to have a guess at something like contribution or making a difference.

Avi Liran: You got it. Contribution and contribution is what you do, and whether you are introverted or extroverted does not really matter but if, you have the mind-set of contribution, because there is a lot of science that say, when we give to other people, we feel happier or because we feel better about ourselves. There is lots of evidence from science that we are much happier when we give to others. We transform from a place of helplessness to helpfulness. Contribution is one level about the giving because giving is I give you what I feel that you need, in delight we call contribution as something that add values that the other person needs and if you seek to do that, whether you are introvert or extrovert, you're going to do well.

Steve Rush: Thanks Avi, that is really insightful and I think can resonate with people who recognize themselves that they're introverted or indeed extroverted. You have done quite alot of research into the subject of delightfulness and the role that that plays in culture. What kind of cultures do you see in organizations in the role that delight them plays to that?

Avi Liran: I see a culture that is transactional where the leader just care about results and does not care about you. It can vary on part it could be even toxic and I see Cargill Culture, you know, it is nice to work here, but there is not really an attachment. You don't feel like you're working for or feel a sense of belonging. It is nice to work here. People are nice. They give you a nice salary. They develop you quite a bit. It is not really delightful culture and on the other side of the spectrum, I see cultures that try to be too delightful. Pleasing, as you say, and they go Pollyanna, happy fluffy and soon they are not responsible for the cash flow and they go down the drain because they forget that there is a discipline that you need to have all the things, all the results together.

And in the middle, there is a culture of delight where you have both the brain and the results oriented leaders. At the same time, they pay attention to the heart and they pay attention…and they have different kind of mind-set, the leaders, I would say that if you make them go through what will be your retirement party, who's going to be there? Are they going to clap their hands so they are happy that you've just left or are they going to have some tears and they're going to be there hugging you and making a big celebration to stay in touch with you afterwards? And what do you want to see when you retire? Do you want to see people who say, oh, he is so successful because I was developing that person, this kind of culture is where the leaders understand that the way that they're going to develop their leaders, that's going to be working there.

Interestingly enough, we talked about contribution in the last day of the chief delighting officer course; we do an activity that is called the circle of contribution. I am not going to go too much into it because we are not going to have time but in the end, we find the five top contributors in the company. Don't ask me how but we find them? And we make them sit in a panel and we ask them, so why do you contribute? Now, of course, they are going to see a lot of nice things. Oh, it is obvious but here is what is not obvious. I notice that four or three out of the five top contributor in the company are very tired. They work so much to help other people that they are very tired but one or two of them is not and, you know, having this working on the circle of contribution hundreds of times I ask the question. So what do you do differently? And I realized that the these two that are not tired develop the habit that they teach the people that are reporting to them how to become a contributor and that's interesting because they are surrounding themselves with people that have the contribution mind-set and when we interviewed, I have to give credit to my partner, Daniel Lee. He did also the research. We interviewed two hundred and twenty people in thirty-seven countries, six continents, and 50 percent of them are ladies. We got to understand more about delighting and how all of these leaders shied away from being Pollyanna pleasers, and they went immediately to the soft spot, and one of the people that we interviewed was Craig Smith, the President of Marriott in Asia-Pacific. And he said sometimes people will do things for you that they would not do for the organization and this is how friendly you should be with them. So on one hand, don't be fluffy Pollyanna, but at the same time, you have to be friendly and care for the people, for them to follow you.

Steve Rush: So what if I am a leader and I am having a really, bad day. I recognize I need to be the chief delighting officer at the organization. If I am in a bad mood, I just can't shrug it. Tell me, how would you help me get out of that? What could I do that would help me be present and think about that?

Avi Liran: Well, I would like to invite you and the audience to do something with me, so I will answer but first I'm going to ask you, tell me, what do you do on a bad day when people ask you, how are you?

Steve Rush: I guess the internal voice always says, yeah, I am having a great day. I am fine. Often fine is what you hear and when I hear that, I think probably you are not fine.

Avi Liran: And what if you are a salesperson who need to sell something and I am asking you, how are you? And you know, the more you say, oh, I'm great or fantastic and all this your body will say something else. But the problem is also the more you project yourself to be better, you going to feel exhausted after the day where you're actually pretending to be happy and you're not and you're going to be exhausted at the end of the day, you're going to be inauthentic to begin with. What if I'm going to share with you a short exercise that will help you about that? And I invite also your audience to be with me. I would ask you to put your hands on the two sides of your hands as if they were horse blinders and every time you are going to say yes to a question of mine, please put your hands, your palm of your hands out one inch and up one inch, all right. Every time you say yes. Okay?

Steve Rush: Got it.

Avi Liran: So I will start with the first question. Did you wake up on a bed?

Steve Rush: Yes.

Avi Liran: Yes. Okay. Put your hands one inch to the side, one inch up. Do you have the roof above your head?

Steve Rush: Yes.

Avi Liran: Yes. All right, so you know that more than 200 million people don't have it and you have probably 10 million refugees at this point in time. Do you have running water?

Steve Rush: Yes.

Avi Liran: Yes. Well, you know that one billion people need to walk for more than an hour in order to get water. Do you have ability to provide for your family?

Steve Rush: I sure do.

Avi Liran: Yes, say yes. Put your hand one inch to the side and one inch up. Do you live in a free country?

Steve Rush: Yes.

Avi Liran: Yes. Do you have friends?

Steve Rush: Yes.

Avi Liran: Do you have people, that you love and people love you? And the list go on and on and your hands should be by now in the v positions making forty five and ninety degrees and you are in the centre and you look up and you say, I have all this and billions of people don't. And if you have all of this and I'm going to ask you in comparison to those who don't. Are you blessed?

Steve Rush: For sure.

Avi Liran: So you are blessed, and if you are blessed, can you be grateful for this blessing?

Steve Rush: Yeah, really neat.

Avi Liran: So what if you ask me Avi on a bad day. Avi, how do you feel?

Steve Rush: Yes. How do you deal with that when maybe you are feeling less? How do you get into that space?

Avi Liran: So when you ask me how do I feel, I am going to tell you blessed and grateful and sad or blessed and grateful and extremely angry. Whatever the situation would be and because I know that 90 percent of my life is great and the 10 percent when we put the horse blinder we only see in the morning what is not there. The to do list, the things that we need, people that hurt us, the emotions, the negative things that happen and how are we going to resolve all this and we don't see the rest, and what we did we expanded the horizon to see and to recognize the truth. I am not talking about inventing things to make myself feel better. I just acknowledge what I do have at this point of time and the interesting thing when I tell someone let’s say I tell my employee I'm blessed, I'm grateful and very angry. They can connect with me because they see that I am human. I did not pour on them my negativity.

I gave them a way to have the cushion that I am not in a good state of mind but at the same time, I want to be delightful. And when you look at your employees, if you want to give them permission, you create what you call organizational safety, because if they can come to you and say the same thing. If you are running a frontline or a business, you could see, oh, you know what why don’t you go to back office today or take half a day off I'll cover for you, and that is where you can make the delightful connection to understand. That is why I would like to be those first to take the chief delighting officer. By the way, everybody in the world is a chief lighting officer or can be a chief delighting officer. We have eight billions of us. I took it as a gimmick to make me as a chief delighting officer, but I am not the only one. The minute that you step into the mind-set of delighting other people, you are a chief delighting officer.

Steve Rush: Yeah, I like that and often it is sometimes giving ourselves a permission to think differently and behave differently with a different label. And being a chief delighting officer that gives us the capabilities that come along with that, too.

Avi Liran: Absolutely.

Steve Rush: Avi, you have also developed a technique and a solution, haven't you? So that wherever you go now, you get treated like a VIP. I would love it if you could share with our listeners how you can end up by going into a bar or a hotel or a coffee shop and get that VIP treatment just by being delightful.

Avi Liran: I will tell you an interesting story. A few years ago, I went to Manila. I usually stay there at the Peninsula Hotel because the general manager at that time was my client. I was in the lobby. I was talking to an H.R. Director of one of the top telecom companies. He had coffee. I could not have another coffee so I got water and, when the waiter came, he gave him a cookie and my water comes without cookie, and I want a cookie. So I stopped the waiter and I saw his name and I pretended that I had a conversation with a cookie and I said, the cookie feels lonely. Would you consider giving me one more cookie so it can get marry? He smiled and within a minute, he brought three cookies to me and that was delightful.

So what I did is I tried to stop the first person that I saw and to say who is the supervisor on the floor. She said I am, and I said, oh, okay, great. I want to tell you that this gentleman did a great job and he delighted me. I did not expect that and he made me smile. It was very fun and I asked her for the email of the hotel manager was my friend and the general manager is above him. I took the email; I sent a thank you letter. Her name was Sonia. What I received back in the email was the picture of the gentleman with three cookies, and that was really delightful. I think that when you have a mind-set of appreciating people, calling them by the name, understanding that sometimes they're pressed, it's understaffed and they're really doing the best. Sometimes, you know, I go and I take the small tissue and I clean the table a little bit because I see they are so engaged and I understand them. I tried to have a conversation, and by the way, I forgot that the name of the gentleman was Millard and Millard is also on my Facebook and he already left the peninsula and we still are in touch, and if you create conversation and make people feel that they're human because they're serving you.

Nobody goes to the F&B industry, hotel or airlines because of the high pay and the short shifts. It is a very demanding job and they are working for such a small pay, your acknowledgement of them as a person means so much to them. If you are kind to them, create a conversation, be thankful and grateful. Guess what happened? A few days later when I came, the hotel was packed. There was not a place to sit, and Millard found me, and found the only chair available and gave me a VIP service. Every place that I go, I make notes to be nice and be kind and not to be bitchy. And by the way, if you are dating someone and that someone is misbehaving to the people, that should be a red alert for you, because the way that they behave to other people is the way that is the real them. Be very careful from people that are not behaving nice to other people. You are defined not where everything is comfortable for you. You are not a big shot if you don't treat other people nice. That is the real person that you are. You are treating them with your pain. You don't need to inflict your pain on other people.

Steve Rush: So what I am hearing is if you are delightful to others, you will get delight in return.

Avi Liran: Most of the time and sometimes you need to enter into doses of compassion. They are three tools that you need to know because some people will be there to abuse you and I call them the black holes of delight. When you see your hand disappear and people try to take a bite of you have a conversation with them about it, and if you see that they insist on being black holes, then just disconnect and move on, because ninety five percent of the people you're going to meet are waiting to be delighted and waiting to reciprocate. Because the nature of delight is, once we are delighted we feel compelled to delight back.

Steve Rush: And Avi if you could give our listeners your top three leadership hacks. What would they be?

Avi Liran: I am not sure that I know how to hack the system for not working hard. Everybody that tells you, it took me about 14 years to become an overnight success. The first thing we talked already about is a mind-set of contribution. I think the second thing, when people don't behave in the way that you would like them to behave you need to set up the role of trying to understand what their pain is. If possible, use compassion. If compassion does not work use pity. If pity does not work, disconnect but don't get sucked to black holes and their negativity. I have four pillars when I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do the blessed, grateful exercise because I know that no matter how difficult and problem and you know, we had a coronavirus here in Asia, entire industry is suffering from massive losses.

I guess in Asia, a trillion dollar was shave and we are in the service industry. And, you know, the events were cancelled so if you're not having the ability to be less than grateful on the brink of a day, you're going to suffer. The second pillar of the day have for myself, I would say that I tried to change what I can, but I also understand there's a limit to what I can do and I accept whatever is impossible for me to accept because what you resist persists. The third pillar that I have is love. I learned to love myself at the time, especially after a big problem in my family. I was really, miserable and even depressed. I did not know how to love myself, but I learned how to do it, and I love what I do. I love my team. I love my work. I love my customers. Actually, I don’t have customers only friend, love my girlfriend. I love my kids. I love the world, and the last thing of course is coming back to contribution. People like you are giving fantastic contribution that was one of the reasons that I immediately say yes, with a lot of good tips. I am grateful for you to choose me to be here today to give value to your audience.

Steve Rush: Avi that is awesome. Thank you. We be grateful for you being here too. This part of the show we are going to ask our guest to we…call this effectually Hack to Attack. Time in your past where you screwed up, things haven’t work out as well as a result of that you now have some learning or some foundations that you use positive in your work or your life. Maybe if you need to share with our listeners your hack to attack.

Avi Liran: I think stories. People like stories much more. I called it convert the shit into fertilizer. In the contract of life, it says thy shall have adversity, challenges and issues but in the fine print, it says, thy shall not dwell in the shit, thy shall convert the shit into fertilizer.

Take one example. When I flew business with Turkish Airlines to Geneva, my suitcase came in shreds, and they would not pay me back and it was a struggle, and then a new GM came to Singapore is name is Genghis. And he was a righteous man and he saw the injustice and immediately arrange everything to be right. Not only that, he invited me for lunch, and immediately after that I invited him for lunch and we became great friends.

And guess what? Turkish Airlines took me to work for them. Actually, I got some of my great paying gig with them travelling the world and going to different places and in the world giving my keynote speeches and getting paid and not only got to one of the best friends in my life. I think everything that happens to you is giving you something. I would say that even a kick in the ass is kind of a push forward, and I learned so much more from my worst bosses than I learned as much from what not to do than my good bosses in life. And if you have this mind-set, you know that almost everything, with the exception of people that are psychopaths, stay away from them, you could turn around situation.

Steve Rush: Some wise words Avi. I am really, grateful for you sharing your hack to attack. If you could time travel back to when you were twenty-one and bump into your twenty-one year old self, what would be the one bit of advice you would give Avi at twenty-one?

Avi Liran: Well, there are several things that I did not get in my life and maybe that what has made me who I am. I would not change a bit because I would not be the person that I am now. Of course, all of us want to see the natural thing is to look at my deficiencies and say, oh, I would give myself a Stephen Covey book so I am going to be more efficient with time. Then I would not be who I am now. I'll be telling him, just be yourself because you developed so many beautiful things and naturally you had the beauty of finding the best in other people and to appreciate them, and if this only one thing I would change is I would be so much kinder to my mom. And if you are a young man today, I would recommend to you that your parents, loving parents just be kind to them. Sometimes we treat people better than the people that we really love because we can have the excuse that we could be ourselves. I would say you have to be the best version of yourself for the people that you love. They are the number one people in your life, and that is maybe the only tip that I would give to make sure you pamper and you carry with pride and great love the people that deserve it the most.

Steve Rush: That is lovely words. Thank you. So Avi I guess folks listen to this and thinking. How do I get to see, hear, or learn a little bit more about Avi work? So how can we connect you and connect them?

Avi Liran: Well, go to aviliran.com. You have a place to just give me a note, and by the way, you know, we are living in a beautiful world in a very tough time. Planets suffers and I see a lot of people share a lot of things about what's happening in the world, but they do nothing. So here is something that I would do to you if you going to connect with me on my website. There is a place there where if you have a new-born I would actually buy a tree for your new-born cause I just bought 500 trees to plant. Why? Because I want my kids to have air. And if you have a new-born, there is a form over there you put also your postal address and we will send you a certificate, of course it's all recycled paper, about the tree that was planted on the honour and hopefully you're going to do the same. I think that delighting can't be done alone, and maybe on the website, if you go to deliveringdelight.com you could even buy the shirt that says let's delight, because I don't believe I can delight alone. This is why if you in the audience become a chief delighting officer that you already are, just claim it spread the news around and if you have an event with your company and you want me to be your guest speaker, I will delight your audience and I make sure that they come with beautiful messages and unforgettable way. And thank you for having me around.

Steve Rush: Avi Liran it's been absolutely delightful having you on our show, too. Thanks Avi.

Closing

Steve Rush: I genuinely want to say a heartfelt thanks for taking time out of your day to listen in too. We do this in the service of helping others in spreading the word of leadership. Without you listening in, there would be no show. So please subscribe now if you have not done so already. Share this podcast with your communities, network, and help us develop a community and a tribe of leadership hackers.

And finally, if you'd like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event or you would like to sponsor an episode please connect with us on social media and you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook my handle @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube we are just Leadership Hacker. So that was me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

View Details

Govert Van Sandwijk is the Managing Partner of Time to Grow Global. He is the Best Selling Author of The Power of Professional Closeness and a Global Leadership Development Coach.

In this episode you will learn from Govert:

What is Professional Closeness
How to Listen to your prehistoric radar
Understanding trigger points and how the different parts of the brain work together
Why listening to your gut feel is so important.
Govert’s top leadership hacks

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Join our Leadership Hacker Tribe and connect with us:

Twitter

Instagram

Facebook

LinkedIn (Steve)

LinkedIn (The Leadership Hacker)

Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA

Find our more from Govert Van Sandwijk

Govert Van Sandwijk – LinkedIn

The Power of Professional Closeness – Book

Time to Grow Global Website

Click below for the full transcript

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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

On today's show, we have Govert Van Sandwijk. He is the managing partner of Time to Grow Global. He is also the author of The Power of Professional Closeness, before we get to speak with Govert. It is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: We reported on the last show that folk were using toilet roll to increase the fun factor in the face of adversity. That is no different this week, David Faulkner, who's a florist from Blossom's events in Truman, Arkansas, has created bouquets of loo roll to put a smile on the face of his customers. These arrangements are in response to the limited supply caused by the global pandemic at the moment. David tells us each bouquet comes with a dozen deluxe toilet rolls, fully customizable. David told GMA, We just want to lighten the mood. Well, I say, good on you, David.

In other news, researchers have shown that if we ask ourselves these six questions I am about to share with you, it will improve our self-care and self-care right now is incredibly important not only to us, but to those that we lead to, here is the six questions.

Number 1. What am I grateful for today?
Number 2: Whom I am checking on, or connecting with today?
Number 3: What expectations of normal life, I am letting go today?
Number 4: Am I getting fresh air today?
Number 5: How I am moving my body or exercising today?
Number 6: What contribution am I making to others today?

Six great questions that will improve our self-care and as leader’s resilience and well-being start with us engaging the body and the mind, the first step in clarity for leaders be the fittest leader you can be. That has been the Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news insights, let us know through our social media sites.

Start of Interview

Steve Rush: I am joined today. By best-selling author of The Power of Professional Closeness.

Founding Partner of Time To Go Global. Who has had assignments, in over 50 countries already.

So truly is an international leadership development coach, Govert Van Sandwijk. Welcome to the show Govert.

Govert Van Sandwijk: Nice to be here, Steve. It is a pleasure and an honour.

Steve Rush: So you started your journey, not in a traditional business sense, but coming from a neurological background. You started your journey, right. As genius psychologist? So tell us how you ended up from genius psychologist to international leadership development coach.

Govert Van Sandwijk: Okay, I will go further. Let's say the comeback journey and I can talk hours about this now. Actually, when I was just from university, the market for, you know, psychologists or this kind of background was really limited. Basically I found myself at the opportunity to have a job as a junior psychologist with the firm that was doing some work for the judiciary system. And basically, the task was to assess whether or not a suspected criminal was suffering of any kind of ontology, and basically, that was my first job out of the university. And one of the things actually, when I got into it is that I found it was super, super difficult to kind of maintain a more distant position in trying to do an assessment based on objective data and facts while all the time my gut was telling me something else. I kind of just started to become a little bit of a problem back then where I found and I really kind of got the meaning of it much later in my career.

But at that moment I found, hey, there's so much going on emotionally with me when I do this work, but I'm not able to use these emotions and to use these feelings about what I'm seeing, what I'm observing, etc. Because I am always being told, you know, you have to maintain your distance. And this was basically the mantra as well that we learned in a UNI. Created kind of attention and a feeling where I thought I am not doing my job in the best possible way, and that led me to think, okay, then probably this is not for me, you know. I went on to the next job where essentially I stepped into the headhunters game, so to speak, where I could use my psychological knowledge.

But I started to learn more about, let's say, a business context, which was a huge step for me. And also super interesting because as a recruiter or a headhunter back then, you have to learn a lot about a certain organization or a certain business in the shortest possible time. So you get to know a lot of different businesses and maybe on a pretty superficial level, but still you get to see in a lot of different kitchens, and basically that got me hooked, really hooked on, let's say, the organizational life and organizational practice as an area to work in.

Steve Rush: There is a massive shift there isn’t there between being in a psychological role where you're faced with lots of emotions that you haven't express? Conversely, then moving into a role where you reliant on that gut feel and using that intuition and emotion, can you recall a time where that really played out for you?

Govert Van Sandwijk: Yeah, to be honest, I remember this very distinct moment and I was sitting in this…I think it was an old nunnery converted into a, you know, a place where they had young criminals, let's say between 18 and 22. It was not a prison, but it was somewhere in between, like a holding, and I was interviewing I was assessing this guy, and he must have been three years or four years younger than I was at back at that moment.

The guy was suspected of pretty heinous things involving kids, and for me, this was kind of a turning point, and I was really young, to have kids myself. I just had father, my first daughter, well, first daughter, my daughter. But that moment for me, that really is the example where I felt I am really not able to do my job without properly listening to my emotions as well, and I felt at that moment, this is not the place for me, so I have to do something. So basically it was a fleeing of a certain situation that kind of let me start to look around me again, and then I ended up into the recruitment classic practice. But I wasn't that aware at that moment kind of the awareness about what was happening, that came much later.

Steve Rush: When was it you found first relying on that kind of professional closeness that you've come to create as almost your own now?

Govert Van Sandwijk: Yeah, that is a good question. The emotions, of course, you know, really working with the emotions that came actually in the job right after because, you know, you look at people's resumes. You look at their backgrounds. You talk to them and you know a lot about your client’s context as well. Then there is only so far that you can really kind of tick boxes on. While a lot of it is also relying actually on all your senses in terms of yeah, will this person be a right fit for this context? So then, you need to start to sense and to listen to your emotions, which was completely different I would say from before when the mission was, you know, use all the instruments and then maybe afterwards try to listen to your emotions as well. But the awareness, the real awareness about this, actually I think that started to develop pretty late, actually, after I started my own firm, which was probably five or six years later when I was 32. In the meanwhile, I have progressed from this recruiting firm to a Consulting Company, where I was leading the assessment centre practice, and at some point, they asked me, hey, do you want to become partner with our firm? And that was for me to triggering moment to say, okay, if you guys think I can become a partner in this firm, maybe it's time for me to consider to become partner of my own firm. I am 32, so I am young enough. If it all blows up within a year, I will have a huge experience to learn from, and then I can just pick up where I left off and I will find a job. Basically, that never happens, and now we are, I think what it is, 18 years almost down the line. I am still super happy with that start back then, when I was 32.

Steve Rush: And super busy, of course, if folk were listening around the whole concept of professional closeness, how would you describe that to somebody you would never really experienced? The whole philosophy of professional closeness before.

Govert Van Sandwijk: For me, professional closeness, first of all, it is a sort of a concept, but it's also really a lot like a mind-set. The concept or the mind-set itself in terms of what it really is, for me still maturing, but what I think helps is by looking at the opposites, first of all, and this is a well describes concept, which is called professional distance. You know, doctors, lawyers, a lot of people in professional roles, they get this mantra of you need to stay objective, meaning don't let you let your emotions get the best of you, don't get drawn in.

Don't feel basically I mean, to a certain extent, I can completely understand this, but my learning of these last 20 years is, is that your emotions. What you feel is not only making you able to connect better to the people around you and that you work with, but it also serves as a, let's say, a prehistoric radar for things that might be happening all around, but you're not yet 100 percent aware.

So listening to these emotions, using them, and leveraging them in order for creating better workplace relationships, having a better sense of what is happening in your contexts. Yeah, for me it has become, let's say what I describe, the power of professional closeness and as a leader

this starts with, let's say, really, really daring to start to listen to those emotions, but also start to show those emotions and opening up to the people that is closest around you.

Steve Rush: I love the whole principle of prehistoric radar because we all have the same kind of brain that has evolved over the last fifty thousand years. Some parts of evolved a little more than others, right, but we this tool to use, don’t we. How do you use the kind of psychology background to help you understand how different parts of the brainwork and how the decision-making process is impacted by that with your clients.

Govert Van Sandwijk: Yeah, I love the question and to be honest, when I was studying psychology back, let's say this is over 25 years ago. So back then, when it came to neuroscience, neuroscience was much less evolved than it is right now. We didn't have that much less factual background on how the brain works and how that translates into behaviour and how psychology, which is, you know, the study of studying the mind, but not necessarily from a biological perspective. So how did came together, I think is only something that started to really, evolve over the last 10 years. To be honest, I started to read up on it a lot and started to become fascinated by the fact that now we start to understand our brain. A lot of those old school and old fashion psychological concepts start to make sense. Some others, you know. Absolutely not anymore, but nowadays, the knowledge we have is at the level that we can also use it to monitor our own behaviours, to use it in the boardroom, to use it when leading. I think, you know, having this background or having this knowledge, it is an obligation to spread that knowledge as well from a leadership perspective, when we are doing our type of work.

Steve Rush: In your experience Govert, of working with executives and leaders, how much value would you put on them understanding their own behaviours from a neurological perspective?

Govert Van Sandwijk: Yeah, I talk about this in the book quit a lot. I think for me it is a cornerstone that should be, you know, if that would be a university or a school of leadership, like like a proper MBA, something like that. Then I think neuroscience and what it means would be one of the cornerstones, because really understanding trigger points, the unconscious behaviours, the defensiveness, how the different parts of the brain work together and how this translates into your own behaviour. I think that is an invaluable insight for everybody useful to be honest. I think it is one of the most valuable lessons that you can learn and it helps, of course, also to understand what is it that I can actually try to steer and to control and what is it that I need to kind of monitor and to react to.

Steve Rush: If I was a leader of a team or a line manager and I was really struggling to create that professional closeness, the, you know, getting that connectivity and understanding my team at a much deeper level. What, strategies would you share with me, that might be helpful to make that happen?

Govert Van Sandwijk: Well, first of all, I think the first thing is the acknowledgement of saying, okay, if you are leading a team, let’s say as a manager, you always have a responsibility or a mission or an assignment or a task. What I always think is the first thing is understand that your task, your mission or your assignment is not actually the mission itself, but it is making sure you create a team that is able to perform or delivered that mission. That is the first task, so it is all about human interactions and it is all about having everybody be at their best. Also working together towards that same mission.

For you as a manager, your first responsibility should be looking at the people instead of looking at what is my mission. That is the first awareness I think needs to have before you can even start to think about developing anything that comes close to professional closeness. Second of all, I think once you have this awareness you need to start to be able to understand your own behaviour triggers or peculiarities in terms of your reactions. Once you understand that, I think the third thing is show the people around you who you really are. To kind of take off your office face or your mask and show the people around you who you really are, because once they start to see, you know, you as a human being instead of as a manager with an assignment and a role and a status, then you have the right starting point in place. Then afterwards, I think there is a lot of different things that you might be able to do, but that depends also on the context. So there's tons of strategies and tips, so it comes down to daring to be you in front of your team.

Steve Rush: And I guess that also creates the more you give of yourself, the more people are likely to reciprocate, aren’t they?

Govert Van Sandwijk: Yeah, and that I think is the most important thing. It is really leading by example, you know, creating these conversations that have a certain depth and openness, which for me does not mean that you have to always be sharing your deepest secrets, but you have to be willing to share your real doubts about the things that you are doing and experiencing. And that can be about the professional context, but, you know, once you're in that place where you can really say, hey, you know, we are coming across this challenge and I've never done it. I am really unsure on how to attack this, so I need the help of all you guys. You know, once you are really, really kind of letting go of this idiotic idea that as a manager, you need to know everything. You need to have all the answers and you can start to work from that place. I think you already have made a big shift.

Steve Rush: That sounds great, thank you Govert and in me, kind of get into a little bit more about you over the past few weeks and months. It is fair to say you have done quite a lot of research around the whole kind of getting smart people together. It is often referred to as collective intelligence, and you did some research that says really just getting smart people together is just not enough. What would be the reason for that?

Govert Van Sandwijk: Yeah, this was something kind of struck me while I was doing the research on Book, and I was thinking, of course, you know. You know, what is the point of professional closeness in a business context? It is about creating a better atmosphere and also about creating better results for the company, right. I started to look into this concept of collective intelligence, and basically it says, first of all, if you have a bunch of really, really highly intelligent individuals and you put them into a room and they start to work together, this is not guaranteeing that you will have the most collectively intelligence team. And a collectively intelligent team is a team that is able to respond and react, and let's say be informed of all the challenges that they are facing. It is really the flexibility and the adaptiveness of the team to be functioning on a high performing level all the time, no method to call. What I found out actually is that there is three indicators being described as well in the book by Thomas Malone, which is called Super Minds.

Number one, it is social perceptiveness, basically social perceptiveness and the ability of the members of the team or the members of the group to read the emotions of others that are in that team. So being aware of the emotions of others in the team while you are working and while you are working together, which is the first indicator, and so if that is not there or if that's, let's say not there enough. You will never be able to tap into all those highly intelligence people because it will be still a fragmented bunch of very smart people together.

The second part is the degree of equality in participation, which basically comes down to if you have one or two people hogging the conversation all the time. This means that all the time, other people are basically not contributing to the conversation and not letting their brains work at the same problem as well, that was number two.

Then number three, as I think is the most interesting one, and also from the perspective that we've just had, the International Women's Day, it is actually the number of women in the group. It has been shown that the higher the number of women in the group, the higher its collective intelligence. To be honest, it is a bit of a combination of the first two factors, because women are a little bit more than men are generally more socially perceptive, and they are also less likely to harbour a conversation because they normally are already a little bit more about having everybody participate. I think it is very interesting if you look to these three points and you look, for instance, at your management team or your board. What is it that you see, how are we doing on those three indicators? Do we really see what is going on the faces of others? Do we monitor and do we see their emotions? Are we making sure that everybody has an equal say and that everybody is contributing? And in the end, are the women in the team, and of course, this is just the basic prerequisites. Well, it is a very, very strong starting point.

Steve Rush: It is really interesting, actually, because in my experience of having led board facilitation exercises and activities and coached executive teams where I see more diverse boards, I, you know, diverse in sexual orientation, in gender, and in thinking actually, the less group think, you also get right.

Govert Van Sandwijk: Yeah, the less group think, the more you need to really join forces and look at the situation at hand and trying to solve it in the optimal way, the best possible way given the circumstances, which is something else than letting your egos prevail, and I think that diversity in any sense will help a lot. Then again, diversity only is not enough, you have to also be willing as a leader to see, okay, are we using that diversity? You know. If it is still, you know, the most diverse group but it is only a couple of people who is doing the talking all the time. Then you are still stuck in not using everybody to their best.

Steve Rush: You are right, and I think it’s incumbent on us all as leaders however large or small our team is, is to just be aware and notice whether or not we have got full participation and unlocking that opportunity to have a broader conversations.

Govert, at this point of the show, we can ask our guests to share some of their top leadership hacks, so what would be your top leadership hacks? You could share with our listeners.

Govert Van Sandwijk: That is actually great timing for the question because the first one connects back to what we have been talking about just now. If you are a leader, a team leader or a CEO, it does not really matter. And you are leading your meeting or your bi weekly meeting and you're looking at the team and you're thinking somewhere in the back of your mind is this voice that is saying, hey, what a passive bunch. Once you hear this thought, you should be aware that probably you are doing too much talking. I have seen this over and over again. If you hear this, what a passive bunch in your minds, you need to sit down, zip it and really create space for others to start participating. That is for sure, my first act.

Steve Rush: What would be your next hack?

Govert Van Sandwijk: Yeah, the next one I would say it is actually connected to daring to listen to your gut feeling in a very literal sense. So let's say you're doing something and suddenly you start to get this turning feeling in your stomach and it makes you feel really, really uncomfortable, and your primary impulsive reaction would be I want to get rid of this discomfort. The heck I would say if you start to feel something like this. Train yourself to endure this discomfort, and to use this discomfort as an indicator. Of, hey, what is happening might be something new, so actually, it is super good because we want to innovate, so we are entering into a space that triggers me to become uncomfortable, but this is great because it really is an indicator that we are doing something new? But it can also be an indicator of that you are experiencing something that you don't want to do, but still might be the best thing to do for the company or for a given situation. I think always listen to your gut feeling and to endure it instead of to, you know, get rid of it right away.

Steve Rush: And I did some research when I concluded my book, actually, and research suggests that your got feelings is about four out of five times, right. Because it scans those unconscious thoughts and memories that we all kind of had for many, many years, right?

Govert Van Sandwijk: Yeah, I absolutely agree.

Steve Rush: We ask our guests to think about hacks that they have learned from times in the past where things have not worked out so well. Perhaps what they screwed up or they have been disadvantaged. Have you got anything that you could share with our listeners, which would be your hack to attack?

Govert Van Sandwijk: Yeah, so the hack to attack for me is basically be always prepared for the worst and be prepared emotionally. The first time that I kind of really, really experienced this in a bad way. The company was a couple of years old and then we had been working internationally on a huge assignment and we had like I think two and a half or three hundred thousand euros, which was in the pipeline of being paid.

And at some points the company said we have compliance issues and we need to stop every single payment until we have figured it out or if something is wrong, you can forget about the money. This situation really kind of stopped, but what I learned from it is really to prepare yourself when something like that happens that actually you cannot really anticipate.

Make sure that you train yourself to not be blown out of the water emotionally, because if you train yourself to be prepared emotionally and that you can handle, hey, yes, this is bad, but this means that I need to start acting in a different way. And instead of allowing myself to sit in these negative emotion of feeling victim to the situation, that is for me one of the biggest things and whether you are a leader, an entrepreneur or whatever. Make sure you are always prepared emotionally for the worst.

Steve Rush: It sounds academically dead easy, does not it, to get prepared emotionally, but how physically can I do that. What would be the one or two things that would help me train to get myself prepared emotionally?

Govert Van Sandwijk: Yeah, I think that is a great question, and it comes back to one of my hacks, actually. It is basically once something small, let's say surprising and not so nice happens, and when you start to have this emotional reaction, really use those moments to feel what is happening inside of your body to make a note of it mentally and really, write it down. So what do I experience? What do I feel? Look at the contexts and see at that exact same moment what helps you to calm down or to mitigate that feeling?

And if you do that quite a lot of times in situations where the stakes are not so high, you basically train yourself to react in a certain way. Then when something happens, when the stakes are really high, you have I would say a coping making mechanism already installed that will prepare you for when that situation really happens.

Steve Rush: Got it, so it is about setting down some tactile foundations, really, that unconsciously you create over time.

Govert Van Sandwijk: Exactly, absolutely.

Steve Rush: Super. Last question for you today is. If you were able to do a bit of time travel, go back to when you were 21 and bump in to your 21-year-old self. What will be the one bit of advice that you would give Govert then?

Govert Van Sandwijk: This is very much about my own journey. So what I would say to my 20-year-old self, I would say, hey Govert, don't rush into responsibilities. Use the time that you have right now to learn about cultures, to learn about social skills, to look around you, to learn about the world, but don't rush into responsibilities, trying to be, let's say, trying to live the adult life. Use this time right now when you actually don't have a lot of things to think about, when your backpack is relatively empty.

Steve Rush: It is great advice, thank you Govert. Folks probably listening to you speak, and we have mentioned your book, The Power of Professional Closeness. How can they find that a little bit more about the work that you are doing at the moment?

Govert Van Sandwijk: Yeah, I would say always good to take a look at our website, which is a timetogrowglobal.com and if you want to check out the book, just hop on over to Amazon - The Power of Professional Closeness - Govert Van Sandwijk and it's available. Read about it in the reviews to see if it is something for you, and of course, I will be happy to help if anybody wants to reach out directly.

Steve Rush: And we will also put a link in our show notes to make sure that people listening to this can go straight away. Click on those links as well Govert. Thank you for spending some time with us today. It has been delightful talking with you.

Govert Van Sandwijk: It was it was a great pleasure, and I am really happy to be part of, you know, your first five or 10 shows and I will be looking forward to have the podcast will evolve over time.

Steve Rush: Thanks Govert. Thanks for joining us.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

The Power of Professional Closeness: A Guide to Taking a Holistic Approach to Your Business

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Michael G Rogers is the author of the bestselling teamwork book "You Are the Team" (over 20,000 sold), and has a new book, "Do You Care to Lead." He is also an Inc. Top 100 Leadership Speaker and our special guest on Do you CARE to Lead?

You can learn from Michael that if you truly serve you unlock magical things with your team Care about your people and they will care about their work.
How to take “Rocket” rides and not “Subway” rides with your team.
Learn about the S.O.N.I.C. model and how applying it can truly propel your leadership impact.
Find out Michael's top leadership hacks!

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TRANSCRIPT

The Leadership Hacker Podcast: Episode 4 Michael G Rogers – Do You Care to lead?

[Start 00:00:00]

[Music Playing]

Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

On today's show, we are joined by the founder of one of the best blog on leadership in the world, teamworkandleadership.com and best-selling author of two best-selling books. Michael G Rogers. We will get to talk to Michael shortly, but first it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: It is life Jim, but not as we know it. Now that is a phrase Star Trek fans would know all too well. But it's something we can all now also associate with; given that, COVID-19 pandemic has swept the planet. Depending on your worldview, some would say the reaction to the Coronavirus is an overreaction, others may say the end of the world is near, and whenever your worldview the world and the businesses that we lead has changed forever. If ever there is a need for leadership, that time is now. Here is my top three hacks on how to lead through this crisis.

Number 1 - Stay steadfast and calm. I coined the phrase the “Leadership Barometer” and we all have one. This is where that metaphorical storm that we have to face in as leaders means others look to us to see how we're reacting so they can judge and how also to react in those situations. It is our responsibility to project a sense of calmness and surety, and that falls very much in the leadership space. Leaders who serve others can help their teams remain focus and productive even in the face of uncertainty. And as a leader, they will be watching you like a hawk to be true to yourself, to acknowledge their concerns and yours and help them assess the threats and emotions so you can guide them logically to effective solutions.
Number 2 - Communication. In times of crisis - communicate like you've never communicated before. Gossip and rumour will spread like wildfire in your workplace, especially in the absence of any official communication. As soon as you know stuff communicated promptly and factually and if you don’t know, then say so because if you don’t you will have a another virus in your business and it will be the communication virus on top of what you already have to deal with. As the myths and the legends, start to form and misinformation would disseminate through your business and things will be tough to deal with.
Number 3 - Keep the wheels turning. Do whatever it takes to engage your teams and keep them busy at this time. It is important to take advantage of technology like virtual meeting platforms like Zoom or WebEx or anything else that is a collaboration tool, that will help keep your people connected when they're less connected and isolated. Could also be a time to pivot your proposition and innovate and try new ways of thinking and new emerging technologies in crisis can also bring people together in adversity. So use this time well to forge deeper, more meaningful relationships with colleagues, friends and families. Perfect opportunity to learn about your leadership style and how you have dealt with the situation or not, as the case may be. One thing you do have to avoid, and that's doing nothing. It is now time for us to lead like never before, intentions is not enough. Action is what is required.

That is a leadership hacker news. If you have, any emerging stories or news articles that you think would be useful to share on the show. Please get in touch though our social media sites.

Start of Interview

Steve Rush: Our very special guest today is Michael G. Rogers. His first book, “You Are The Team”, sold over 20000 copies and his new book “Do You Care to Lead?” has just been published by Wiley. He is also an avid blogger. Michael, welcome to the show.

Michael: Yeah. Thank you, Steve. Glad to be here.

Steve Rush: So I will be useful for our guest to know, Michael that your career actually has been born as a very successful executive, having led some senior roles in Fortune 50 companies. You come from a place of experience rather than theory, too. Tell us a little about how you ended up here?

Michael: Yeah, sure, I started off in the learning. Well, actually, almost all my corporate career was in learning and performance, corporate training that area and I quickly moved it up into leadership positions there and took an interest in leadership. I had a particular leader that was a strong, strong mentor to me, still is actually. An inspiration behind the two books that I have written. He is the one that got me interested in doing leadership workshops and, you know, be a part of learning performance. I had that opportunity to do a little bit of that. And it really just got me super jazzed about leadership. I started reading a lot; I started speaking more and more. I started doing some development with teams on the side while I was working and started getting asked more and more to do deep dive kind of team development with senior leadership teams. I mean, it just was a lot of fun for me. I have been blogging for about 13, 14 years. I believe now. And that was kind of a strong catalyst behind the writing of the two books as well.

Steve Rush: So, Michael, what was it really sparked that interest and desire in you to want to lead and help others?

Michael: Yeah, I mean, that leader I had talked about, his name is David Ferris. He was just such a strong mentor to me and he was like the perfect model of leadership. Again, and so inspiring, and the way that he led me, the way that I watched him lead teams, people were fiercely loyal to this guy and they still love him even, you know, years later. Having the opportunity to have conversations with him about what made a great leader because of our relationship in terms of him mentoring me, it was really what sparked a lot of it for me. I decided to leave corporate about three years ago and do something else. I have always known I wanted to write a book, but it was not something was on my mind when I left corporate to try to do something else. I want to get it a different industry, do something around that. I started writing the first book and it came out really well. When I started promoting it, it started selling really well. I said, I will take this and do this full time. Go around, speak, and write. I love it. I am a passionate, passionate about team development, leadership and speaking and writing. I mean, I really, really, Steve, love what I do.

Steve Rush: Michael, in the time that we got to know and that's incredibly evident, passion and energy comes through rapidly and in the time that you start to write You Are The Team. What was it that cause you to have the team focus around leadership?

Michael: Yeah, so I had been doing some team development on the side. I had read Patrick Lencioni book, ‘The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, and if any of your listeners out there have not read that book, to me it is the Bible on teamwork.

Steve Rush: Right!

Michael: At least in terms of teamwork and relationships, which, you know, that is what teams are. I mean, fundamentally, at their core, they are about relationships. He just does a phenomenal job at talking about relationships, but I decide to focus a little bit differently. The book You Are The Team is about relationships, but it's also about commitment and it's about stepping up and committing to the team. And so a lot of people ask me all, why you title it, You Are The Team. You know, Mike, there is no I in team.

I know that technically, there is no I but figuratively there is, and it always starts with you. Teams don't just magically come together because you create a team and you say, okay, go out and conquer. Teams have to first commit and connect and this book is based on six values of commitment and connection. I had not at the time seen any books out there that had focused just on teammates, the person. There is a lot of books have focused on leaders and how to lead teams, but nobody was focusing just on the teammate. There is an opportunity here. There is a little of a niche here and I really feel that teams are only as successful as every person's commitment on the team and their own success, towards the team. You know, great teams are made up of great teammates, so that was really the reason why I wrote the book.

Steve Rush: Michael, how would you define team? In my work, I find myself often speaking to leaders who are in a team in a board environment, but are also leading teams. How do you square that activity through the team that you serve verses the team that you lead?

Michael: Yeah, well, there is different types of teams, right? There is a lot of different types of teams. I mean, one of the exercise I do quite often is I ask people to talk about the greatest team that they have ever belonged to. That could be a family team. It could have been a team that, you report into, it is a team that reports to you, because even as a leader, you are still lead a team.

You are still a teammate on that team to some degree. You know, there's volunteer teams, athletic teams, lots of different types of teams. To me, the definition of a team is a group of people that come together for a common cause that want to do something extraordinary together. That is how I would define team. I mean, that is like how I define leadership. I mean, to me, leadership is only leadership when people make a choice to follow you. If nobody wants to follow you then you fail to be a leader and a team fails to be a team, if they are not accomplishing extraordinary things. Every team has the potential to do that with the right ingredients.

Steve Rush: So what do you think it is then Michael? Create that connectivity that emotional closeness that brings teams together?

Michael: One of them and this is the same for leaders Steve is service. It is such a simple concept, we think about it and we talk about it, but we really never act upon it. I think there are so many opportunities around us. If we have this mind-set of putting others first to be selfless instead of being selfish, which I think a lot of us naturally that is just kind of how we are wired is to be more about us, but when we're more about them, when we're more about others, when we are putting other people first. We begin to serve others and I know of no faster way to create connection on teams than to have teams begin to serve each other. It is the same of leadership. I know of no other much…faster way to unlock your leadership than to serve the people that you lead. Not just doing your job, not just saying, hey, I have an open door policy. I am going to be with you once a month or whatever. I am talking about above and beyond. I am talking about really thinking and putting others first because it is completely magical on teams and it is completely magical and leadership as well. That is one big part in terms of connection. That is to me the fastest way you can create connection.

Steve Rush: Sure and that also builds trust, doesn't it?

Michael: Oh yeah for sure. Because a couple of things happen when you serve. First of all, it shows that you care and when people know you care, they're more likely to trust you. But when we spend time with people outside of what we normally do and service opportunities allows us to do that, many times we get to know people and the more you get to know people. Well, the more you trust the people, so, yeah, from both of those perspectives. You are absolutely right it does build trust. Trust that is part of the product of a connection, trust is built through action.

Steve Rush: So, Michael, if I am a team leader or a manager. I am struggling with consistent performance, so I have a big differential performance in my team. On the left hand side, I have my high performers on the right hand side over here. I have the people who are just taking up space and a bunch of people in the middle of the steady eddies. So how do you manage to pull that dichotomy together when coming to leading team performance?

Michael: Yes, I love that question, Steve. In my second book, Do You Care to Lead? I talk about five different classifications of employees and I call them all stars. They are all stars because I think all people have the potential to become great, but you as a leader, you need to act, and I think this is where a lot of leaders fail to act with their teams. You have got to either people moving people up, over or off, and the fourth option is never a choice, which is to do nothing.

Unfortunately, that is what a lot of leaders do. They just hope the problems will go away, but I really believe you should be spending ninety nine percent of your time or more on proactively nurturing people and trying to move them up. If you look at these five classifications of employees, I have what I call rock stars and we all know what the rock stars are. These are the folks that just get it done and then some. They are just amazing performers; we wish we had a whole team like them. They are innovative they are creative. They really are truly rock stars, and then you have your rising stars. Your rising stars are rock stars; they just don't have the experience yet and with the experience, they will become rock stars, but they are rock stars in what they do currently. They just don't have the experience yet, and then you have what you referred to steady eddies or I call study stars or middle stars. These are the folks that will meet expectations but not necessarily exceed expectations. Then you have your falling stars and we know who these people are. We wish they would just leave, and we kind of hope that at some point they will. We just fail to act to move them up, and again, leadership is a nurturing process.

And people on your team are watching you. They know who is moving up and who is not. You are going to have trust issues on your team if you are not proactively nurturing people. The fifth star is what I call deceiving stars. Deceiving stars are falling stars in rock star clothing. In other words, they are bringing the morale of your team down. Everybody on your team struggles with these people. They are the people that hoard information. They don't collaborate great, they take the credit for it for everything, but you as a leader, see them as a rock star. Until you do something with these folks, they will continue to drag some of the morale down. I have lots of stories I can share on that that particular area but your role as a leader and your team is watching you is to continually, again, you owe this to your team to, continually nurture it. I said, ninety nine percent or more, your time is spent on finding ways to move these people up. If you can't move them up, then you may have to make the difficult decisions to move them over or move them off. Moving over does not mean that you take your problem and give it to somebody else. You make sure that you find the right seat or the right bus for them to be on, and then of course, moving them office is really difficult. I mean, anytime you have to let somebody go fire somebody that is a hard thing. If you are doing it from a place of your heart, then it is the right thing for you. It is the right thing for that person, the right thing for the organization and your team.

Steve Rush: You are right, and as difficult as that might be. Your new book, Do You Care To Lead? We talked about earlier is now available across the globe. You've created some really practical approaches and focus on the philosophy of care and how transform performance and people, tell us a bit about that?

Michael: I will, and you know, I was thinking this morning it is interesting you asked that question because I was thinking this morning that really the two books are linked in terms of the word care. I really feel if teams will practice what I call my six Be’s of being an effective teammate, they will care more about those on their team. Caring is an important characteristic on teams because as you talked about trust and connection, I mean, caring is a product of that as well. So it is, but yeah in the second book, Do You Care To Lead? I come from a place of putting more caring into leadership. If I ask any leader whether they care about their people, they are going to say, yeah, I definitely care about my people. I had a leader once that if somebody had asked him if he felt I cared about him, I am pretty sure he would have said yes, but the reality is I didn't feel that way. And there was a recent Gallup Survey done where four out of ten people strongly agreed with the statement that no one at work, including their supervisor, cared about them. That means six out of ten people don't feel cared about, which is a startling number if you think about it.

Where leaders feel like people know they care about them. People don't feel, you know, the majority of people don't feel like they're being cared about. I go back to this leader that I had. You know, we would have regular one on ones. And I'm sure he thought by having those one on ones and by telling me that he was grooming me for his position and he was giving me some opportunity, it put me in a new senior kind of role to expose me to more of the business, to give me this opportunity. I am sure he thought from his perspective that he was showing he cared. To a small degree, it did, but here is the thing. He never spent time nurturing me. He did not develop me. He did not spend time helping me understand what his expectations are, what my new role was. Here is a resource. Here is your tools. These are all things that show that you care, let alone the fact that when we did meet, he never asked me about me. He never asked me about my family.

He never showed vulnerability himself. I would ask him, for example, about his family, but he would never ask me about mine. But when I asked about his family, he never opened up. He never opened up about mistakes that he had made or directions we had taken that we should have done differently. He did not feel real human to me, and so all of those types of things I talk about in the book around, you know, do you care to lead? Which is really about two questions. You know, first of all, do you want to lead? Because a lot of people are put in positions of leadership because they're just better technically or because they want to make their parents proud or their wife or their husband proud or power or more money or whatever it might be. But do you really want to lead people? Because if you don't want to lead people, it's going to be pretty difficult for you to care about people, and that really is the main question around the book is do you really, really, truly care about the people you lead? It makes an impact. It makes a difference on loyalty as well as results.

Steve Rush: Sure, in your book to help people come to grips with how to help people on that journey. You come up with five strategies serve, open up, nurture, inspire and commit. And I thought it be useful just to explore with our listeners a little bit about what lies behind each.

Michael: Well, absolutely. And this is what I call to Steve, my sonic approach leadership. It's an acronym that just fits really nicely, truly propels your leadership if you'll do these five things.

So Serve as I talked a little bit about that already. It is the quickest way to unlock your leadership, and there is lots of research that shows that when you serve others. There is scientific things that are happening. You know, there is these great chemicals in our body, neurochemicals in our body that are throwing a party when we serve others. In fact, when not only when we serve others, but when we just watch others serving others or when we anticipate service or we think about the service, these neurochemicals start to get released in our body, they feel really good. One of those neurochemicals is oxytocin, which is the same chemicals it is released when a mother is feeding her baby. It is a connection chemical, and that is why when I talk about service and connection, the quickest way for us to connect with others is to serve others. That is what is happening, and so and there's more I could go into around the magic and the science around it, because it starts with you as a leader and creating a culture of selfless service on your team and your organization starts with you as well. But it starts with you because of this connection chemical and the law of reciprocity in which people want to turn back and give back to you, and the law of multiplicity, which says that if one person is served. Not only do they want to reciprocate that service to you, but they also want to serve up to three to nine more people.

There is a great story in the book that I tell about a CEO and owner I think the business become fairly large. She had made the choice to create a service program and it changed everything. It changed how people feel. It changed the morale of the organization. It changed how their customers looked at them and the referrals they started getting. They started getting bigger and better referrals from customers and clients because of just the way that they treated their clients, which came all from just this idea that this leader had around creating a culture of service. It is just, truly absolutely magical in your leadership, so, yeah, that is the first one service.

Steve Rush: And that is amazing because it then becomes infectious. Not only are we triggering that neurotransmitter and those happy chemicals into a delightful space, but also becomes infectious for those people around us and it creates a self-perpetuation of that energy. We end up with a double bubble of winds.

Michael: Absolutely. Yeah, that is a double bubble. I like that. I should have put that in the book.

Steve Rush: When you talk about opening up as leaders. Is this about showing humility, some more of the human us?

Michael: Yes, being invulnerable and really the concept is something called psychological safety. It really is kind of a hot term right now. Vulnerability is a hot term right now in leadership. A lot of people realize now as a leader, it's important for you to come across as human. But a big reason why that's important to open up is so that you create the psychological safety. There was a graduate researcher by the name of Amy Edmondson. I think at Harvard University who had decided she want to study what made teams effective. She studied medical teams, and you would think that the medical teams that were most effective were the ones that have fewer errors. But she found out that it was actually the teams that made the most errors that were the most effective, and it wasn't that they made more errors. It is just that they acknowledged those errors more readily. As a result, she said this team had psychological safety. She is the one that coined it, psychological safety. People felt that they could talk openly about their mistakes. They could learn from their mistakes quicker because they were talking about those mistakes and acknowledging those mistakes. But people only acknowledge admit mistakes when they feel safe in doing so. A lot of people hide their mistakes, so creating psychological safety on teams is about creating an environment where people feel like they can raise their ideas, perspectives. They can disagree with people on the team. They feel like, again, they can humbly say, you know, I made a mistake. Or they can say this is a wrong direction that we are going or hey, you are better at this than I am. As a leader, that is your responsibility to build that on your teams, and I talk more extensively about that, in the book, how you do that.

But it definitely starts with you as a leader. You want to be vulnerable yourself. Sara Blakely is the founder of Spanx Company. She is a wildly successful female entrepreneur. A billion dollar company, and she talks about when she was growing up and this is so interesting, I love this. She said that when she was growing up, her father would ask them at the dinner table what they had failed at that day. And if nobody could come up with something that they had failed at, he would seem almost disappointed. He wanted them to talk about their failures because he knew it was the quickest way for them to become successful, and at her company Spanx, she created what she calls the whoops moment. Where they as a company talk about their mistakes openly as well and how they are learning from their mistakes. She shared hers as well; again, it starts with her. That is how the culture is created. You can't just say as a leader, I want everybody to be open. I want everybody to tell us when you make a mistake, but you are not willing to admit your own. That does not fly because you have not built the trust necessary. And there's some other things you need to put in place that, again, I talk about in the book, but that's a main one is for you personally to be more vulnerable.

Steve Rush: And leading by example is where it starts the whole psychological say because it easily be eroded if people in responsibility and leaders don’t practice that safety themselves, right?

Michael: You are right.

Steve Rush: How do you describe nurture, Michael?

Michael: Nurture is the opportunity for you to realize that people are different, they have different needs, and you have to spend proactively time on moving people up, over and off, and the fourth option, as I said before, never an option, which is to do nothing.

Nurturing is about not being a cookie cutter manager as well. I had a director that reported to me one time who was an absolute cookie cutter manager. She loved performance management. Performance management, to me kind of has a bad connotation. I get it in theory, how it should work and I think it can work as long as you don't cookie, cut it. She was really good at getting people if they did A, B would happen, if they did B, C would happened. She did not take an account individual people; she was really good at firing people. She did that quite a bit more than any other leader I knew. We had a lot of conversations about this. Try to help her to think more about people personally. Is like if I took an avocado tree, for example, and planted that tree in the mounds of Utah and avocado tree would not do well, it would not thrive. It need to be in the climate and the soil of Southern California where I grew up. If I took an apple tree and we have apple trees in my backyard here, I took an apple tree and planted it in the desert of Southern California. It would not do very well there either it would not thrive. And that's because each tree needs different nurturing, different sunlight, different climates, different soil, different care and people do as well. I mean, if you think a tree is complex, think about people. We need to be spending actively, proactively time with people and developing them again, moving them up over or off, never exercising that fourth option, which is to do nothing. We have to proactively be nurturing people.

Steve Rush: I love that tree metaphor. Thanks for sharing that, Michael. The I, when it comes to inspire. Leaders would with tell us, for sure. It is my responsibility to inspire and motivate my teams. Yet, some people really struggle with that. What do you think the reason is that they do?

Michael: I think many times it is because they forget about what I call the where, why and how. The where is where are you taking people? If I have you, Steve, in a rowboat in the middle of dense, heavy fog on a lake somewhere, and I'm telling you and the team to keep rowing, but you have no idea where you're going. But I just keep shouting, we got to keep rowing, guys. We got to keep rowing, you are saying where are we going? And you don't see land, You don't see any hint of where we're going. How long are you going to continue to roll? You know, you are eventually going to lose your motivation to row. In fact, maybe half of the team will row and half won't and you'll just keep going in circles. So letting people know clearly, where you are taking them is the difference between teams that kind of flounder and teams that are wildly successful.

They know where they are heading. Also important is to know the why. Why are we going there? If you are not clear on the why - people are going to have no desire to get up in the morning and try to go to the where, but if you can put that why in, it becomes more intrinsically motivating. People wake up and they want to come to work or they want to be a part of this team and succeed because you have been very clear on what that “why” is.

Then there is the “how”, and the how is you know, the strategic planning, the goal setting, all that other stuff. One of the things we often forget about in, goal setting or strategic planning is we do a really good job with an organization. We say, okay, here is our strategic plan. I like teams to consider how to create a strategy or having a strategic plan as well. I call these success lines so people have goals. As a leader, you are helping them because you are nurturing them, finding out what goals are best for them this year and having a success line. Being able to clearly demonstrate in your team's strategic plan and your goals and your individual goals, how they line up ultimately to the overall goal of the organization and success. What is the successful impact look like? And we have to talk more about that. The achievement of a goal itself, the completion of goal is not the achievement of a goal. The achievement of a goal is the successful completion of a goal and oftentimes we talk about the goal being completed, but we don't spend much time talking about what success look like for the goal.

Because that is really all to me. What we should be measuring, not just the fact we checked it off and so that where, why and how and I've got a number of other things I talk about in there, like celebration, recognition, rewards, upping your expectations of people. People will perform at the level that you expect and thanking people. I mean, these are telling stories. These are always you can inspire. But first and foremost, foundationally, the where, why and how you've got to be clear on that as a leader.

Steve Rush: It is a really neat principle of the whole “success lines”, I like that. It gives people the opportunity to visualize where they are going and how they going to get. Then, of course, for those people who are less visual. It gives them the context in that journey. So things that they have to do, the activities of all of the journey, and of course if we don’t have that, they start making up their own stories and fill in their own versions of events. Right?

Michael: Right. Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Rush: The fifth one, “C” for commit. How does that underpinning the other strategy?

Michael: So you as a leader have to be all in. I think what happens a lot of times with leadership is it's like the shoemaker. The shoemaker makes shoes for everybody else except himself. As a leader, I think oftentimes we are really good at giving others development opportunities, but we don't spend much time on our own. You I think, you know, it is important at the end of the book that I talk about your commitment to this process. Your IT listener’s audience out there. Maybe you have heard this story others probably have not. It is like the story of the pig and the chicken. They were walking down Main Street one morning and the chicken and pig had noticed a brand new restaurant that it opened up that was serving breakfast. The chicken turned to the pig and said we ought to open up a restaurant someday that serves breakfast. The pig says that is a great idea. What shall we serve?

And the chicken says, ham and eggs, of course, the pig says, well, that's great, except you're just making a contribution, I am making a full commitment. I like to tell leaders that you have to be the ham and the ham and eggs. And I'm talking about the fact that you have to give your life for it, but you do have to sacrifice a lot, you have to be all in! As the story goes with Cortez, you have to burn the ships. Your people have to know you are all in your committed. You are moving forward. If you don't have the commitment to these things, it becomes like any other book, any other workshop, any other opportunity. It is just spray and pray. You know, a lot of times the books they spray what they have to say and pray that you retain it. But until you commit, until you apply the things that you've learned. It ultimately does not become anything of value. It is just another book. It is just another concept. It is just another workshop. You have to be fully committed. You have to be ham and eggs.

Steve Rush: That is neat, and Michael, I just wanted to say, I think you have definitely been the ham when it comes to helping people on their leadership journey. We come to the part of the show where I am going into your mind Michael, so that you can share your leadership ideas and tips with others. So, were would you like to start?

Michael: Yeah, so I will give you some specifics around three of the ones that I kind of talked about already. The first one by far, I mean, to me, the most important one is to care about your people and really is the basis of what we have talked about, right. Because if you care about your people, they are going to care about their work. They need to know you care, when people know you care. They tend to be more loyal to you. As a result, they are going to want to do anything that you desire of them to do to become phenomenal as an individual, as a team, as an organization. They are going to be willing to take what I call rocket rides with you, not subway rides. Subway riders, same place every single day. You can get from A to B, but you very rarely get from A to Z. Leaders who care about people take their people on rocket rides. They get to Z, they go to places they have never been. They are inspiring. They are not boring like subway rides. Just really, truly show that you care about people.

The second is to be open. People want leaders now more than ever that are human. We talked about this before, how openness leads to trust and creates, you know, lots of benefits to teams.

But your ability to say, hey, you know what? Here is something that happened in my life that was difficult, that was challenging. Is a key to helping you feel like or people to feel like you are more human. Just sharing things and I'm not ask you to share your deepest, darkest secrets, although if it's appropriate, you can't have had leaders that have done that, that have had amazing results. I actually share one story in the book like that about a leader who talked about an alcoholic father and opened up about that, and everybody knew who this guy was. They knew who his father was but that openness did just create miracles on the team. Just be human, open up, and be vulnerable.

Then third is to nurture. And I've got a grid, if you go to doyoucaretolead.com, you can actually download a grid there that you can proactively classify people into those five star categories. That to me is a big hack; you have to be spending time proactively either moving people up over or off, and that tools a great tool. It is a great hack, I believe, anyways, for leaders to use.

Steve Rush: In the spirit of opening up Michael, this part this show is call Hack to Attack. This would be were something's not quite worked out as you planned or it went wrong but know you have used that learning as a useful activity and a useful tool for your work and your life. So what is your hack to attack?

Michael: My hack to attack and something that happened to me early on in my career, I won't give you a specific example, but I will demonstrate something that I learned from this in a way again, it goes back to caring, which is my number one hack. A big failure that I had as a leader initially was that I was afraid of conflict. I did not want to have difficult conversations with people. I know a lot of your listeners can probably relate to that.

Those are some of the most difficult things we do, as a leader is to tell somebody that, you know, they need to improve or else, but I learned early on that courage is not the absence of fear, but it's caring about something more than what you fear. I learned this from an experience I had when my children were younger.

I have eight children. I know, that is a lot of children. One wife, we have been married 30-plus years, happily married 30-plus years. I have a lot of experiences I can draw on that family, and this is one of them. My four-year-old daughter at the time, my 2-year-old son, Kelly and Jeff, who were playing in our living room. We lived in a fairly small house at the time. So they weren't very far from us, but Jeff had fallen asleep on the couch, and Kelly, our 4 year old, had come in and a bit of a panic telling us that he had fallen asleep and she was really worried about the fact that he was in the dark, because they were afraid of the dark. We, you know, as parents just kind of brush her off a little bit, unfortunately. I will tell you two different lessons I learned from this, but we kind of brushed her off and told her it was okay. Don't worry about it, Kelly he is fine. You know, there is no such things as monsters, and she went on her way and she was just really obedient. She is still like that today; she is just a good kid. After a few minutes, my wife decided, go check on her, and she did. She rounded the corner. She saw Kelly lying over her brother, protecting him from the things that she feared most. She had these tears streaming down her eyes, and I learned a couple things from that.

One is that, you know, people all of us have difficult moments. And it does matter if you’re 4 year old or a 30 year old, 40 year old, 80 year old. I mean, we all have our own challenges. We all have those things that we fear, and so empathy is really important. That is important thing for all leaders, right.

But the second thing I learned, is what I quoted you before, is that courage is not the absence of fear. It is about caring about something more than what you fear. As a leader, what I learned as I continue to grow and develop my own leadership is that the more I cared about those that I lead, the less it became about me and the more it came about them and the more it became about them, the easier it was for me to do those difficult things. Still hard, but I was more willing to do it because just like Kelly, I cared more about them than I cared about the things that I feared.

Steve Rush: And it is a great story and is course, proof that parents can learn from their kids, too.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I have learned a lot of lessons through my kids.

Steve Rush: And I am sure many more stories to tell. So finally, I would like to ask you Michael, if you were able to do a bit of time travel, go back and bump into your 21-year-old self, what would be the one bit of advice you would give Michael at 21?

Michael: Yes, so what I would do it is I would definitely serve more. I would serve; I would be a lot more selfless. I would be less concerned about myself like I was at twenty-one than I was about others. I would be much more concerned with others and what they needed. I would be focused on being a servant. This is something that we are learning more and more about in the leadership world, how to be an effective servant. I think we are far from practicing on a regular basis, but my 21-year-old self-leadership position, instead of I would do less telling, I would do more serving. Definitely, that is what I would do.

Steve Rush: So, folks listening to this Michael who want to get a little bit more closer to the work you do at the moment. Where would you like to send them?

Michael: Thank you for asking, Steve. You can go to my website michaelgrogers.com. Michael G as in Gary, Glenn, Garth. rogers.com, michaelgrogers.com. You can also go to my blog. I have a lot of content out there because like I said; I have been blogging for 13/14 years, something like that. I have multiple interesting articles that might be of interest to your audience. That is teamworkandleadership.com and if you go to doyoucaretolead.com, I have some bonuses out there. If you get the book that, you might be interested in as well.

Steve Rush: Leadership Hackers love a bonus. Thanks for that, Michael it goes without saying you have been a true servant to us today. It has been delightful speaking with you. Super lessons and models for our listeners to take away with. Thanks for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.

Michael: Yeah. Thank you, Steve. I was happy to be here, and it has been a lot of fun.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handle their @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

[End 00:43:42]

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Global Thought-Leader, Andrew Bryant, has been transforming individuals and organisations with his Self-Leadership Methodology through coaching, speaking and facilitation for over 20-years.

He is on a mission to 'Wake People Up' to live and work with intention and influence so that they create an impact. Learn how self-leadership is not selfish and how by tapping into personal mastery, we can create greatness.

What is self-leadership? Andrew describes "Self-leadership is the practice of intentionally influencing your thinking, feeling and actions towards your objective/s". Listen now to explore some more.

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Click below for the full transcript

The Leadership Hacker Podcast – Episode 3 Andrew Bryan – Self Leadership

[Start 00:00:00]

Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

Welcome to another episode of The Leadership Hacker Podcast. I am delighted to go explore self-leadership today with global bestselling author Andrew Bryant, but before we do that. It is The Leadership Hacker news.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: And it is almost sadness today that I am sharing, and whilst it is sad, we can also celebrate the life of Jack Welsh, who died recently at the age of 84. Jack Welsh was a Titan American businessman who transformed General Electric from an average performer into America's most valuable company. At one point, he ran the U.S. conglomerate from 1981 until 2001 and was once named manager of the century for its achievements by Fortune magazine. He was nickname Neutron Jack for his cost cutting, ruthless approach to efficiency and later became a bestselling author and a confident to many US presidents. For some, Jack Walsh was not a leader or perceived to be leader at all and didn't exude leadership behaviours. I would however, encourage our listeners to consider the backdrop to our working lives and culture when Jack started out his leadership journey. Our world has changed greatly since the late 1970s and 80s when Jack started his revolution at GE. Some of the behaviours may not be appropriate today that he displayed back in 1970/80, but we're still cutting edge and shaped and changed the way that people did things, what we can recognize and for. Was his famous brand of energy and leadership that created his legendary status, he had a four E's and a P for philosophy, which really shot him to fame on the global leadership arena, and for those of you less familiar with Jack's four E's and a P, let me just explain.

Energy Jack said. Energy is the ability to thrive and action and relish change. People with a positive energy. A generally extroverted and optimistic, they make a contribution and friends easy. They are people who don't complain about working hard. They love to work, they also love to play and have an overall lust for life. So ask yourself this question. Do you bring energy as a leader to your team? Every day? All day.
The next is energize. He was quoted as saying. “This is the ability to get others revved up.” People and energy ideas can inspire their team to take on the impossible and enjoy doing it. The ability to energize is apparent in some with an in-depth knowledge of their business, who sets a powerful and personal example with strong persuasion skills. So again, let us consider do you energize the people that work with you. To a point that they want to work with you?
The next was Edge. Edge to Jack meant having the courage to make tough yes or no decisions. Smart people can assess the situation from every angle, but smart people with Edge know when to stop assessing. Make a tough call even without information, and I think what Jack was talking to then was gut feel or intuition, and as a leader is essential for us to pay attention to that intuition, but do we?
The last E was execute. Being able to execute meant having the ability to get the job done and Jack would say people could have energy, energize everyone around them and make tough calls, but still not get over the finishing line. Being able to execute is a unique and distinct skill, and he would describe as a person knowing how to put decisions into action, pushing them forward to completion through resistance, chaos or any unexpected obstacles. People who execute well know that execution in business is about getting results for everybody. I wondered do we really drive for the execution of business results with clarity and thought.
And Jack would wrap it up with the letter P, which stood for passion. People with passion have heartfelt, deep, authentic excitement about work, Jack would say. I really care to bare bones about their colleagues, their employees and their friends, and they love to learn and grow and they get a huge kicker of people around them in doing the same.

So I would like to encourage you with a final reflection, thinking about Jack's four E's and a P. Do I bring an intense enthusiasm to all the aspects in my life? That is a leadership hacker news. Rest in peace, Jack Welsh, and thank you for the inspiration.

Start of Interview

Steve Rush: Today's guest is bestselling author of two books on self-leadership. He is a TED speaker and an international coach on self-leadership, Andrew Bryant. Andrew, welcome to the show.

Andrew Bryant: Thank you. Nice to be here.

Steve Rush: So folks might know you as the author of Self-Leadership, but they may not know much about the man behind the story. So tell us a bit about you and how you have arrived at where you've arrived at.

Andrew Bryant: I am English by birth. I am Australian by passport. I am Singaporean by residents, and I am Brazilian by wife.

Steve Rush: Wow.

Andrew Bryant: That explains a little bit of my so multicultural outlook. Growing up in England, I went to an English grammar school. I was a pretty good science student. I was destined to do medicine, but the government decided grammar schools were elitist and we got combined with the girls high school just before my A-levels and somehow I got distracted and I didn't get the grades for medicine. My first degree is in physiotherapy and I graduated way back in 1982, I worked a couple of years in hospitals.

I worked at University College Hospital, London, and then I did what most males physio do. I got involved in sport. I was on the medical team of the First Division Soccer Club. I worked with [Inaudible 00:6:20] I worked with Olympic athletes, and this was the mid-1980s before positive psychology, sports psychology, any of this stuff had been invented or discovered. Those of us who were curious about what makes the difference in performance and started to study things like linguistic programming and hypnosis, visualization and goal setting. I am sort of one of the grandfathers of slap movement in to how that became coaching as we know it today.

Steve Rush: And that is part of a lot of our work today. In helping other people as we kind of fall back on some of those tactile foundations that probably born in that sports, physiotherapy, psychology genre, right?

Andrew Bryant: I was going to transfer from physio to medicine, but I am glad it did not. Because physiotherapy is very pragmatic science and it teaches you the art of observation. You spend hours looking at people's running gait or how they throw a ball, and it is based on biomechanics, which is very science based. That skill in observation and listening is caught coaching, and I think it is caught a leadership as well, I think it is a very good discipline.

Then I studied traditional Chinese medicine, which is a systems based process and the distinction between Chinese and Western medicine. Western medicine is very, Aristotle Li and with a cause and there is an effect. In Chinese medicine, there is often multiple causes, so there is a confluence of situations, the results. In Chinese medicine, you don't get sick because it's hot. You get sick because hot and damp. You don't get sick because it's cold. You get sick because it is cold and windy. Now, anybody living in England understands exactly what that means. It gives you a systems thinking. Then when Peter Singer came out with the discipline, I went; this makes sense because looking at the interrelationship between forces was very much my training. The observation that I think gave me a good grounding to make me an effective leadership coach.

Steve Rush: Getting up to the stage of you, writing your book on Self-Leadership. What was it that created the energy and the focus to help you put pen to paper?

Andrew Bryant: Simple answer failure. I moved to Australia with my physiotherapy and my acupuncture ideas and I set up a chain of clinics. I was a successful entrepreneur. I focused my energy on a holistic wellness centre and invested huge amount of money. I had this great idea that, you know gyms and should actually be for people that need it as opposed to those guys that have kind of been lifting too many weights. Kind of wanted to go out to those really beefcake guys and say, hey, you're cooked, you can leave. But see, that would be a dangerous thing to do anyway. I had this vision that, you know, the health centres should be for people that need to be every, you know, ordinary people who want to get fit and healthy, and we need to create an environment where they felt comfortable. But I was years ahead of my time, and then the fitness craze hit Australia in around about to 1999, 2000. You buy a membership, but there is no servicing. They took off and I was charging forty-nine dollars a month. Sorry, yeah forty-nine dollars a month and they were charging forty-nine dollars a year. I went out of business in 2000 and then up three hundred thousand dollars in debt with no assets. Literally living in a backpacker's hostel, you know, paying the rent, day by day.

Steve Rush: Focuses the mind

Andrew Bryant: It really does focus. Now obviously I went through a period of self-criticism and self-doubt, self-judgment, all of the above. But when I kind of came out of the self-pity party, I was set up on the Blue Mountains and I thought, well, if I'm going to rebuild my life, what do I want to do that's important and significant? I don’t want to do what I have already done. I was offered a job setting up a physio clinic; I want to do something different, and what do I love to do? And I love the coaching, I loved opening people's minds up. I went okay, how can I go about that? And, you know, what's the methodology I'm going to use? That is where the research started. Then I got a client, I got my first big client that enabled me to go in and work with his management team. He said, you know, you helped my sports team improve. Now come work with my management team. I did not have a system. I just did the observation thing and went, Okay. What do they need to do to improve? I got results and that was great. Then I had that chip on my shoulder. I thought, well, not chips along with the insecurity. Well, I need the degree to back this up. I went off to do an MBA and I remember arguing with the lecturer on organizational behaviour. He said, well, you know, you have some good ideas. Why don’t you go write your own book? The rest they say is…

Steve Rush: History.

Andrew Bryant: Yeah.

Steve Rush: In the book Self-Leadership. You define self-leadership as the practice of intentionally influencing, thinking, feeling and actions towards your objectives. That is quite a strong statement. Tell us a little bit, about how that came about.

Andrew Bryant: Well, that is the shortest version. The thing about self-leadership is I am not the person that invented the term. In fact, the very, very first researcher was a guy called Charles Mantz who coined the term self-leadership. The concept of self-leadership goes back to the Roman Stoics. It goes back to the Greek philosophers. It goes back to louts. Influencing others is strength, but influencing self is true power. The concept itself is not original. It is human reality around that, you know, we have some sense of personal power. If we take ownership and so it is very much the ownership of, what can you take ownership of?

And you can actually take ownership of your thinking. We all have thoughts, but do the thoughts have our thought or do we have the thoughts? We all have emotions. But are we having the emotions or the emotions having us? Now, if you have ever been in a fury about something, you know that the emotions had you if you have ever been really sad about something, you've been gripped by the emotion, you were not in control, but when we go, I'm angry about this. Why am I angry about this? What is driving that anger?

What is that really about, then, we take that step back into the observer place, and that gives us choice. You know, that is the heart of Stephen Covey work. You know The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Was that proactivity between idea and action, that there is a choice point that we have as human beings.

Andrew Bryant: Just before I came on this, I was talking to a CEO pharmaceutical company who wanted me to coach one of his executives; I have been interviewed by his head of HR. Before, I spoke to him, she was obviously playing Buffa, I didn't waste his time. Then his opening statement was, tell me about yourself, because I have not had time to read the briefing material. I kind of wanted to do…in a groan, because that means I've got to tell my entire life story, which I'm doing again. It is a long life story and I have to edit it, and I just I want to come across as like, why are you a different coach? How do I go about that? I really took this point that, you know, the classic coach comes from the inner game and the outer game, and you will be familiar with a book called The Inner Game of Tennis.

Steve Rush: Sure I am.

Andrew Bryant: And that is coaching is about inner landscape. Outer coaching is how you hold tennis racket, how you serve the ball. The inner coaching is how you think about yourself as a tennis player and with leadership coaches. How do I think about myself as leader? I mean, just this week as coaching the CEO of an organization, it is very successful CEO. I have coached him in other organizations. He has been parachuted into this company, Joint Venture Capital Support, and he his stressing himself out because he built this runway and he has attached his ego. When I say build the runway, build the runway to profitability in a certain amount of time and a curtain number, and he's attached his ego to that. And if it doesn't work, he's feeling like a failure, and so the way he's created a mental schematic of that is his inner world is driving his outer communication. And he's actually, you know, the coaching was to help him not spread doubt amongst his troops, because he's having these doubts. But as the leader there, his doubts, they're not their doubts and their only doubts because he's made such a big deal out of this. Now, if the company burned to the ground, he would rise from the ashes and he would lead another organization. Is very successful, very competent, very intelligent individual. But the countries around that gap between his inner thinking and his execution in this case, his speaking was not as aligned and motivational inspirational as it could have been.

Steve Rush: Some folks, when they hear talk about focus on self, focus on me, some people might actually see that rather than being self-leadership as almost being a little selfish.

Andrew Bryant: Before I go there. Let me go somewhere else, right. Here is something I did with people, as I say, look, you know, if somebody drive outside the restaurant of the hotel in the Maserati or a Lamborghini, the Ferrari gets out, you know, after having rev the engine so that everybody's paid attention to, and then throws the keys to the valet. Do they have a big ego or a small ego?

They don't answer. Most people listening will say big ego. Actually, from a psychological perspective, there ego is fragile. Because they are engaging in egocentric behaviours, right. Look at me look at me, right. So egomaniacal egocentric behaviours are based on a need to feed an ego. When somebody has a healthy ego, a healthy sense of self. They don't need the attention. They don't need to throw the keys at the valet. They could turn up on a bicycle and they would be fine because they know who they are, right. So actually, when you do the work on yourself, you are a better human being to be in relationship with others, right.

Steve Rush: I like that.

Andrew Bryant: Ego. Yeah, actually. Collins talked about ego means just sense of self. Egocentricity is a fragile ego. Look at me. Look at me. I am not Okay. You know, a relationship should always be a good start where the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts. If two broken people are trying to get together and say, you complete me as the line from the movie go. Yeah, if two broken people meet each other trying to make one complete person, they are co-dependent. When two people have got their stuff together, meet. They create a relationship that has things over and above themselves. Self-leadership is not selfish because when we have taken care of ourselves, we have all the energy to focus on other people. We can listen. We can help and the simplest one is a metaphor that precedes me, but I use it as well. Is if you are on the airplane and the oxygen mask does fall from the ceiling. You are supposed to put it over your nose and mouth first before assisting others, because if you don't look after yourself, you're useless to anybody else.

Steve Rush: I like that metaphor. It is incumbent of all leaders to be mentally and physically fit as well as, you know, emotionally fit to help other people, right?

Andrew Bryant: Absolutely. Again, I was talking to somebody this morning, different person was saying earlier, and he was saying, you know, I have invested in myself and I am doing this and I am being more recognized at work. Wherever I go, there I am, right. Personal development is going to make you a better leader. Personal development is going to make you a better worker, co-worker, husband, or wife. Again, we are back to this. Working on yourself is not selfish because everybody else benefits. The biggest compliment you can do for somebody is to turn up and authentically be yourself. If you are hiding behind some mask or you are playing some game and then manipulating them into whatever bizarre reality you have, then we are not doing anybody a favour.

Steve Rush: And of course, people could spot when people are not being authentic. We get that gut feel that way, don’t we? We would not show where it comes from, but we just know it is not real.

Andrew Bryant: Well we are very good, at picking up congruency and incongruence. If there is an incongruence, that is what we pick up and it gives us that that squirmy feeling, as you say, in the gut. Being authentic is a conversation in itself. Right. How authentic are you allowed to be? You know, certain world leaders today, you would say they are very authentic, but they are rubbing a lot of people up the wrong way.

Steve Rush: Yeah, quite right.

Andrew Bryant: To your point about selfishness is. The human condition is, yes, we need to develop ourselves, but we always operate in some kind of tribe or group because the human being is a social animal. Just because I have my stuff together and I dont have it every day, but most days at least I have the tools and the strategies to lead myself. I cannot assume that the person I am talking to has got their stuff together. They may be operating from a strange mental model or mental schema. They may be having some insecurities. They may be dealing with some trauma; I don't know what's going on in their life, so I can turn up and authentically be me, but sometimes I might have to dial it down a little bit because, you know, I don't know the environment I am in. I don't have a relationship with this individual.

Steve Rush: In your book, Self-Leadership, you talk about a couple of characters in there to help people get through some metaphorical thinking. Drivers and passengers. Tell us a little bit, about how that comes about.

Andrew Bryant: Yeah sure. It is a very simple metaphor. I think most people who can drive like to drive, particularly if you have an open road and a nice car. I think that sometimes it is nice to be a passenger and sit in the back. When I fly into a foreign city to speak and I am picked up by a car and driven to the hotel. Both are appropriate in the right context, but if you are being a passenger in parts of your life, where you need to take control, then that is a problem. And so it's the awareness of do I need to take ownership and responsibility of this or am I just going to sit in the back and let somebody else drive? And a lot of the times people are going along in life waiting for instructions. You know, for me, I remember the C colon backslash prompt on a DOS computer, you know, is waiting for input, and a lot of people are like that. They are waiting for instructions. We live in a work environment where we want people taking ownership, who are agile, thinking for themselves, because frankly, if people are not thinking for themselves, they are going to be replaced by AI algorithm or some machine learning very quickly.

You need to look at your life and look at where I am being the passenger and where I am being the driver. Which brings us to a movie that I do remember, the very first Spider-Man where Uncle Ben says to Peter Parker, you know, with great power comes great responsibility.

Steve Rush: Great responsibility.

Andrew Bryant: Yeah. However, with great responsibility, stroke ownership comes great power. When we take ownership for thinking, feeling and actions, we start to influence our immediate environment and maybe the environment at large. We don't influence everything. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people that is life. However, the attitude, the mind-set of what can I take of. Can I be proactive? Can I offer a solution rather than sit there waiting for somebody else to fix it? And that's a huge difference in, you know, anybody who runs a company or leads a team knows that they have drivers and they have some passengers and they know what they rather have more of.

Steve Rush: And course, becoming a driver takes practice and persistence, and one of the subsets you talk about in the book in order to kind of unlock some of that is personal mastery.

From my experience around personal mastery. This is one of those things that just never stops. It is kind of like a symphony. It carries on it gathers momentum. What role do you see personal mastery playing in people's self-leadership?

Andrew Bryant: Well, in the self-leadership construct that I use for research so that my research or my talking is linked to other people. Is I think in self-leadership? The three elements, which is self-awareness. Do I know what I am thinking, what I am feeling? Self-regulation, which are our habits, and I think really personal mastery comes in the area of habits and then self-learning how we are doing. However when people don't understand what self-leadership is, they extend the definition of personal mastery to include self-learning. Peter Singer said that people with personal mastery are in a constant state of learning, which is great. So personal mastery is about living life on purpose. The self-regulation is doing things in alignment with your vision and your values, and if you continue to do those things, then you will be successful. If you value health, then you are going to exercise and eat correctly. If you value in relationship, you are going to invest in this relationship and you will have habits and strategies around that.

I recently wrote a blog where I added the vision, the values and perspectives, and I think that covers the learning. This was about our mental models and schemers that we talked about earlier. If you can have personal mastery, particularly in this very interesting world hashtag post truth is that you need to recognize your own perspective so that you are aware of your biases and be very tolerant I think of other people's perspectives.

Steve Rush: Yeah, that is important, too.

Andrew Bryant: Yeah, so there is a huge overlap between personal mastery and self-leadership. You can use the terms interchangeably or if you are specifically looking at researching the constructs, then personal mastery comes in the self-regulation piece of self-leadership.

Steve Rush: And in coaching of the people, I often have to delve deep into people's inner thoughts to get them to share their thinking and their learnings of what is taking place. In the workplace today, it is fair to say that diversity of thought is not really as common as it could be. What is your take on diversity of thinking and diversity of thought?

Andrew Bryant: Very good. Well, I think we Segway nicely from my previous statements, didn't we? Around perspectives. I am a great fan of diversity and inclusion of thought. In terms of diversity, inclusion, I am on the Faculty of Women in Leadership at Singapore Management University. But here were only looking at gender. Right, we are not looking at orientation or we looking at age or disability, etc. Whereas I think if we took a higher frame and said that diversity and inclusion of thinking gives us better results, and I think most people would agree with that. If you have ever worked on. You know, had a really good brainstorming session or you got a partner that, you know, you can you can bounce ideas off. You always end up with a better idea. I have co-authored two of the books I've written and having a co-author looks at something and they challenge you and you go, ah, yeah, I could see it a different way. Every time you have different thought processes, I think you…depending on where you are going you raise the standard. I remember when I did my MBA, learning about groupthink. Where everybody has the same idea and does the same thing, and like the metaphor of lemon running off the cliff. I think if we welcome diversity of thought, I was talking to somebody at a party at the weekend. I was bemoaning the fact that I think they stopped teaching, debating in schools because nobody can actually have a discussion about anything anymore or everybody jumps into strawman arguments or what about isms. Nobody can say, oh, that is an interesting point. You know, could you expand on that? And is there another way of looking at this? And, you know, where's your evidence for that? The ability to actually have dialogue without making it personal seems to have evaporate.

Steve Rush: And what do you think causes that emotional response?

Andrew Bryant: The emotional response to people is people attach their ego to their ideas and their perspectives. Remember I said we own our thoughts our thoughts are not us. We own our feelings our feelings are not us. Now because human beings are so tribal, we identify. A Manchester United supporter is a Manchester United supporter through and through. It is an identity; it may even be a generational identity from grandfather to father to son. If I meet a Liverpool supporter, there's a problem. Right. They are both members of a tribe, but they are members of a larger tribe if they are both English. Anybody who was not English, they would hate the Germans or the Brazilians or whatever. We have this tribal identity and the inability to have discussions with them. In England, you have Brexiteers and Romanians and Americans have got there Democrats and the Republicans. Is people very closely identified with tribes and are failing to step back from that and actually look at the arguments. Right, that there is good and bad on both sides, but are we talking about those things and leaders in particular need to be able to have the intelligence to hold contradictory thoughts at the same time. One of the coaching things I do with senior leaders is to get them to argue against, you know, they say, hey, I am going to do this, and I said, no, I want you to argue against it. Then I want you to argue for it again, and when they argued against it and then they argued for it. There for is much better because they argued against.

Steve Rush: It is a great technique of self-coaching to at the time, isn't it? As self-reflecting?

Andrew Bryant: Yeah, I think those mental disciplines and maybe it is because I am fifty-eight years old. Maybe, it is there. My son who is 12 is actually very good at art making an argument, and I really love. He has some self-leadership and that is great, so maybe I am just sounding like an old fogey, but it seems to be maybe it is the rise of social media. There is a whole bunch of reasons why, but it does seem to be that the ability to be aware of your own position and be okay to look at that without feeling like that's an attack on your ego.

Steve Rush: And I guess a lot of the behaviours that we carry through high school, university and then onto workers leaders is merely a learned behaviour. If we keep reinforcing those learned behaviours, we are reinforcing bad habits or we are creating new habits. Of course, kids and children are in the early stages of learning about leadership, and I observe leadership in my son's basketball court on a Saturday morning.

And for me, leadership is not an age thing or a role thing, it is a behaviour. What do you think we can learn from children when it comes to leadership?

Andrew Bryant: Like you, I learned from my kids, and I watch them learning and I watch them taking leadership positions in various things. The first thing you notice, of course, is kids are brilliant models, and as we are growing up, it is a survival mechanism to mimic and model behaviour. I remember driving along when my daughter was very small, and somebody pulled out in front of me and she goes. Is he a stupid idiot, daddy? I did not actually say it, like, obviously, I had probably said it at a previous time and she had led that. She has connected the behaviour to the phrase, and she was tiny when she said this. I think we can learn a great deal.

One of the strategies I teach in leadership and in coaching courses is feedback. There is a model I don't know whether I came up with it, but the acronym, I find this very sticky and that is fact impact on future. The fact is the observation of the reality, the impact is what that behaviour is doing, both good and bad and obviously, the future is the future behaviour. Managers and leaders learned this very quickly and I talk about when Tasha, my daughter, was about four. Coming down the stairs off the house that we had recently moved into, it had lot stares. As we moved into it, I had said to her, look, if you are coming down the stairs, hold onto the handrail. I was terrified. At about four, she would fall and I am walking past the bottom of the stairs. Tasha is coming down and she is not holding onto the handrail. I said, Tasha, she said daddy; I said what are you doing? She pauses and says, Well, I am coming down the stairs. I said what, are you not doing? And she does that cute little the four year olds do…oh, I'm not holding onto the handrail, so we establish the facts.

She was aware undeniably, of what her behaviour was at that point. So then, I asked the impact question, what might happen if you don't hold onto the handrail? And she thought for a moment and she said in her beautiful 4 year old language fall, ouch, blood. I said that is right. Fall ouch bloody, do you want fall ouch blood? But she said, no, I don't want fall ouch blood. I said what, are you going to do in the future? And she said, Hold onto the handrail. Now from that moment on, I never had to remind her until she was old enough. It did not matter and what I say to manage is if I could change the behaviour of my four year old and if my four year old could understand the current situation, the impact of her behaviour and the future behaviour, and tell me what she was going to do, what is the problem with your people? And the problem is that you're not doing this. You are expecting your people to know exactly what you are thinking and you are not really giving them effective feedback.

Steve Rush: It is great little model, love it. I think I will be using that next time myself too, thank you for sharing. This part of the show we are going to kind of delve into your top leadership hacks. If you could just share with the folks listening today. What would be your top three leadership hacks and nudges, tips, ideas?

Andrew Bryant: Well, I think obviously I'm going to start with number one, which is to practice self-leadership, which is intentionally influencing your thinking, feeling and actions towards your objectives, and as you do that, developing your personal mastery and therefore become more effective. Because let's face it, if you're going to be a leader, you have to be affect, so that will be no one.

Number two would be, listen for what is important now. When you really listen to people talk. They tell you what they value. It is as if they are broadcasting the P.I.N to their A.T.M. The secret code, people talk about what they value, and as a leader, you need to frame all communication in terms of what is important to your listeners. Only then can you influence them to move towards the objectives that you see as leaders. That would be number two.

My third leadership hack is to give up on perfection in favour of progress. As you take actions, they won't be perfect, but you're making progress as you take action and then you can use the feedback as I just shared fact impact feature to make it better. Because perfection will paralyze you through procrastination, so that is my tip.

Steve Rush: Want to kind of cast it back to…we going to call this hack to attack. There are times all of us could be familiar with in our lives where we have screwed up, we have got things wrong. Can you share with us maybe the one thing you can recall where it has gone wrong, but, you know, using that, learning to help you in your forward thinking and your future.

Andrew Bryant: Yeah and I would say that in one word, and that is disruption. I already shared with you the story that in 2000, the business model I have was disrupted as low cost health and wellness centres came into Australia. That disrupted me, and I went through a period of discomfort, obviously financial ruin and self-seeking, but I disrupted that. Then I decided what was important to me, my leadership hacks and that pivoted me into speaking, coaching, training. I ended up moving to Singapore because I had some big clients here, one of which was Singapore Airlines, and I built a big training business. I had trainers and I had staff and an office. Then we had the global financial crisis, and suddenly nobody was spending any money on training and development. Then I had to disrupt myself again. I realised I was working for everybody else. I was not doing the thing that I loved, and so I disrupted myself again. I got rid of the office, I got rid of the staff, and I streamlined it so that it was business that I wanted to do because I liked what's important to me was being front of people and making the change.

Having had those two in 2017, I saw that in moving to a very ME centric business model that also was massively vulnerable. I look forward and I could see that online learning was the future, and I did my first foray into that in 2017. Did not do very much of it in 2018, 2019 I absolutely put a huge amount of energy into that. I could coach globally; I recorded group-coaching programs and turned those into products like my executive presence accelerator, my C suite accelerator programs, so my hack to attack is always be disrupting yourself.

Steve Rush: And it is also interesting because if you're not disrupting yourself, you're creating comfort. Comfort is not helpful when we are looking to progress.

Andrew Bryant: No, it is not. I will agree with you there.

Steve Rush: Okay. So my final ask of you today, Andrew, is if you could turn back the clock, do a bit of time travel and bump into your 21-year-old self, what would be the one between advice you would give them?

Andrew Bryant: You know, I think my greatest lesson over the last few years is to really understand what is meant by the word humility. I did not need to like the word because I am a great believer that we need to be confident and particularly here, in Asia people mistake confidence for arrogance. I was always very anti the sort of fake humility that people have, but what I realized is that humility comes from the Latin humilitas, which gives us the word grounded. It means grounded, and I talked earlier about authentically turning up in relationships. I think what's made me happier, more effective in my life is getting grounded, is realizing who I am, what I'm good at, what I'm not good at, and operating from that grounded-ness and not needing to live my life for the acceptance of appreciation of everybody else, whether that's externally or mentally in a psychodrama. Often we live our lives for the appreciation of our parents, alive or dead. I know I did in my youngest 21 year old self was always thinking, well, you know, would my dad be proud of me? Then a few years ago, I was in a hospice holding my father's hands as he left this world, and he did say to me, I am proud of you, son. Although it was a beautiful moment, I did not no longer needed it because many, many years before I had learnt that I needed to be proud of myself, with or without my father or with or without anybody else.

Now, as you say, what I would said to my 21 year old self, I mean, between twenty one and forty one, I spent a lot of time and energy trying to impress people that didn't need to be impressed. I think that would be from the heart sharing to you.

Steve Rush: Thank you for sharing, really appreciate that. So folks are probably wondering, Andrew, how they can get to learn a little bit more about your C-suite accelerator, how they can find about your blog and your book. Where would you like them to go?

Andrew Bryant: That is very simple. We have been talking about self-leadership and so go to selfleadership.com on the home page they is obviously at the top navigation bar linked to blog. There are four buttons. One, if you are interested in personal coaching. One, if you are an organization and you want a self-leadership culture of your organization, one for the C-suite accelerator, and I can't remember what the fourth one for, but you go there selfleadership.com and all the things that we have talked about, the links all just flow off that home page.

Steve Rush: Well, Andrew Bryant, thank you ever so much for joining us on The Leadership Hacker podcast today.

Andrew Bryant: It is absolutely my pleasure, and it has been very enjoyable. Thank you, Steve.

Closing

Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handle there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off.

I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.

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Learn from L. David Marquet, a retired U.S. Navy Captain. He served in the U.S. for 28 years and shared his leadership lessons in his first book Turn the ship around. Stephen R. Covey said it was the most empowering organisation he’d ever seen and wrote about Captain Marquet’s leadership practices in his book, The 8th Habit.

In his latest book, Leadership is Language, David focuses on giving control to the doers, to allow them decide. David tells me, it’s time to ditch the industrial age playbook of leadership. In Leadership is Language, you’ll learn how choosing your words can dramatically improve decision-making and execution on your team. Marquet outlines six plays for all leaders, anchored in how you use language:

• Control the clock, don’t obey the clock: Pre-plan decision points and give your people the tools they need to hit pause on a plan of action if they notice something wrong. • Collaborate, don’t coerce: As the leader, you should be the last one to offer your opinion. Rather than locking your team into binary responses (“Is this a good plan?”), allow them to answer on a scale (“How confident are you about this plan?”) • Commit, don’t comply: Rather than expect your team to comply with specific directions, explain your overall goals, and get their commitment to achieving it one piece at a time. • Complete, not continue: If every day feels like a repetition of the last, you’re doing something wrong. Articulate concrete plans with a start and end date to align your team. • Improve, don’t prove: Ask your people to improve on plans and processes, rather than prove that they can meet fixed goals or deadlines. You’ll face fewer cut corners and better long-term results. • Connect, don’t conform: Flatten hierarchies in your organization and connect with your people to encourage them to contribute to decision-making.

David Marquet – www.davidmarquet.com

Read Leadership is Language

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Introduction

Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.

Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.

So join me on location today in London with bestselling author of two books. Turn the Ship Around and Leadership is Language. David Marquet, we are looking forward to speaking to David today, but before we do that, it is The Leadership Hacker News.

The Leadership Hacker News

Steve Rush: This year, 50 years ago, in 1970, an on-board explosion crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft. The surface module was damaged, forcing the ground crew and astronauts to abandon their original mission of landing on the moon. Now, most of you will be familiar with the story portrayed in 1995 movie with Tom Hanks, but less of you will know the leadership activity.

That has really stood this mission, aside from others, then that is a run.

The debriefing sheet cited the successful return of the crew down to the importance of organization, leadership and innovation as part of NASA's operations and remains one of the best examples of that trade to this day. On April 11, 1970, the Apollo 13 mission blasted off from Cape Canaveral, headed towards the from morrow formation, which has a number of major craters. Not long after lift-off, the mission suffered its first problem, a shutdown of one of the main engines with four main engines still working and firing. The spaceship was able to make its way into space. Two hundred thousand miles and two days later was getting ready for their moon-shot short in a wire between the auction hydrogen tanks on board the ship caused the explosion to the service module. With oxygen running out fast, the crew had to shut down a few cells to save power and used the lunar module to survive it. They then used this as a vessel to get them home as directed and coached from mission control on earth. The crew used the pull of the moon's gravity to break back into the atmosphere and get back to earth safely, despite observers watching the inferno engulf craft plunge into the sea.

Mission Control was led by flight director Gene Kranz. He coined the phrase failure is not an option. And when interviewed, he said the rescue was executed calmly and deftly without any doubts that it would succeed. However, the mission control logs say something else. When the Apollo 13 crew got into difficulty, the 20 plus mission control team had no idea what happened. Was a meteorite blast? Was it an explosion? And in their panic, they looked to Kranz for orders who, whilst under fire of questions and pressure, remained calm.

When those about him start to lose structure and discipline. Gene Kranz kept his head, Krantz was ahead of his time as a leader, but few at that time in the military would have recognized that calm, lack of instant order would have been leadership. Kranz calmness was a barometer for others, which steadied the mission control room much quicker than it would have done had he added loads more commands on top. During an hour of asking questions and evaluating the situation. Kranz was running low on energy and ideas, he recognized that he did not have all the answers and needed to unlock that from those who did. So what did he do? He gave control to the incoming team. He knew they had the information and therefore merely moved the authority to where the information was. He empowered junior officers to take control. He empowered others in his mission control room to think differently, great leaders create more leaders. They give control to others who are better placed and I have often said that if you are a leader, you should only control only what you can control. And someone who's epitomized this through their work and know that life as a leadership coach is David Marquet.

David Marquet was the commander of the nuclear submarine Santa Fe and realized during a simple drill, having one point of command was not only limiting to the efficiency of the operations of the submarine was downright dangerous. David's go on to write bestselling book, Turn the Ship Around and he's also now the bestselling author of Leadership is Language and know David also the president of the Intent Based Leadership Institute.

Start of Interview

Steve Rush: David, welcome to the show.

David Marquet: Thank you, Steve, for having me on your show.

Steve Rush: It is absolutely my pleasure. I have been a fan of your work for some time, so I appreciate you taking some time out in your busy schedule to be with us, too. So, David, I know that he spent 28 years in the U.S. Navy and that's obviously where you developed your leadership theories and you your thinking. But a started much younger for you, didn't it, when you were spending some time with your grandparents back in Pittsburgh?

David Marquet: Well, I was sort of this library kid. I was an introvert and my parents shipped me off to my grandparents in the summer. And Pittsburgh, which was this industrial town. It was a steel making town, and it really was not a lot of fun. They lived in sort of this urban area, but there was a library nearby, so I would kind of scoot out and go hide in the library and do all this reading.

I like history books. I would read all these history books. I read about submarines and the role that they play World War 2 and at the same time, the country was going through…this was the 70s. So the country was going through this sort of malaise and depression of…It doesn't seem like things are going right. Inflation was bad, oil shocks were there, Iranians taken Americans hostage. You could not get it back, blah, blah, blah. We are in the Cold War and all these things kind of gelled together for me, and even though I was probably an unlikely candidate to join, the military. I was born in Berkeley, California, a hotbed of radicalisms.

I called my parents. That is what I was going to do and of course, they tried to hide their… well, they were worried for me, I think a little bit, because I was kind of a sensitive, introverted.

But submarine force worked out well because you hide from people there, so it's a natural fit for introverts.

Steve Rush: So how do you go from being introverted to then being a US captain of a nuclear submarine?

David Marquet: Oh, you got me an introvert on base. In fact, I think it is a benefit because some of the extroverts I knew they sort of got away with just the sort of grand personality and I was forced to really be thoughtful about what I said. I did not like to speak, so I would say as few words as possible, but I felt there were quality words and the idea is, but my burden was I thought I was really smart, because everyone was telling me that at every step.

I was on the math team when I was in high school, and so there was this sense that I knew the answer and it fed this structure of leadership where a leader as decision maker and it got me promoted, and it probably is the right place to be when I was starting out. But a submarine commander, the complexity of the ship foiled that aspect of what I wanted to be. It is psychologically very seductive. You make decisions, people line up outside your door all day long. It feels good, but it is really depleting. It is very short term is a short-term win. It is like eating cotton candy. It is a high and then it just feels bad after that.

And that was the change I had to go through.

Steve Rush: And would you say that your introversion was almost a propeller to start giving control to other leaders to slow?

David Marquet: It was an enabler, but it was not the catalyst. The catalyst was I screwed up. I gave an order that could not be done on my ship. The story is I was trained for 12 months to go to one submarine at the very last minute. I should have said, no, you got to go to this other one Santa Fe because it was the worst performing ship in the fleet. The captain has quit and so we need someone over there in two weeks. It is you and I was just unbelievably despondent over this news because the Santa Fe was had this reputation of being the clown ship. It was terrible and it was a different kind of submarine. That was the kicker.

The patterns. Captains give orders, crew follow them is what we fell into, but immediately broke apart. It fell apart because you cannot orders, you don't know the details of the ship. It did not work, but I tried. Kind of candle light and sort of this very stark event, and where I embarrass myself by giving an order that could be done and I got the team together.

Two things, number one is in the past. I said, you know, I have to get better orders. But now it's like, no. I got to stop giving orders. It is me giving orders is the problem. Not the fact it was bad. Then the second thing was. I wanted to tell the team. Oh, you guy’s be proactive. You guy’s take initiative, but it's really you. You can only change your own behaviour.

Steve Rush: And what was the other moment for you when you realized you needed to change that behaviour?

David Marquet: When I gave this order and I suggested to the officer, hey, let's go and speed up on them back up…we were running on backup because we had shut down a reactor for an exercise on ourselves. And I said, let's speed up and he orders at second gear, and the sailor just kind of turns around in his chair and he looks at this quizzical eye, You guys are idiots look and I said, what?

On the Santa Fe, It is a one-speed motor, no second gear, I look at the officer, and it said, did you notice that? Yes, sir. And he give me this, like, really annoying smile and I'm like, why did you? But we all know it's because we do what we are told. That is how it is. Yeah, we did the same thing everyone else does, which I called sprinkling the fairy dust of empowerment. But we don't really mean it because structurally embedded in the organization, I'm going to tell you what you do, but fairy dust…speak up if you think it's wrong. This makes it hard to speak up.

Steve Rush: What do you think it causes people not to speak up in that environment, given your experiences?

David Marquet: Why?

Steve Rush: Yeah.

David Marquet: Because you corrected speed barriers. Sometimes very subtle. So, for example.

Let's say you raise your hand and I say, what is it? It sends a signal. You are really annoying us for slowing the thing down.

We also have inherited from the industrial age this idea of a bang the clock and continuing the production line as long as possible. In that environment, anyone who stops the production line is a problem; they are creating waves because then you have idle time. There are huge cultural barriers and the team does not have the tools. We actually don't have language in many teams for what to say to stop the clock. We are in a meeting and we say, oh, well, everybody has a chance to speak up, we don't practice.

Okay, if you don't agree with this. How do you voice that? And then even better, the way we run the meeting is don't talk about it and then vote, vote and then talk about it, because as soon as you start talking about it, you're narrowing variability and diversity of thought. The structures, then the language are designed to reduce variability and run away from uncertainty as quickly as possible, even though it is premature in many cases.

Steve Rush: And it is indicative isn’t it of that kind whole leader follower philosophy that you might have experienced it in your early career in the Navy.

David Marquet: So we have words. The industrial age organization design was this. One group of people will make decisions and one group of people will execute the decisions made by the first group of people. And we have labels because they all look like humans, but we need to know which tribe you're in and we call them leaders and followers or thinkers and doers or management and workers, and we pay people by salary or by hourly. White collar, blue collar. We wear different uniforms but there is this whole cultural industry. With artefacts and rituals to put us in one of these, two groups, and this is one of the things that is suddenly embedded in our language and in minor organization design, which is totally unhelpful.

Steve Rush: Yeah, and you talk about this in your new book. Leadership is Language.

David Marquet: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And you give the type to behave as colour, don’t you? Just tell us a little bit more about that.

David Marquet: Yeah. As an author, you have to create a new term. No one gets credit for there is a bunch of great ideas. Aristotle said everything let me reiterate them. I call them red work and blue work. So the doing work is what we call red work. Red being typically the colour of focus and action and blue work the colour of creativity, and the difference is when red work. I want to narrow my perspective, but in blue work, I want to broaden my perspective so I am using my brain in two fundamentally different ways and industrial organizations solve the problem by not asking people to change. The thinkers were just do thinking and the doers just did doing. And we didn't need the thinkers to do doing and the doers to do thinking. Now we say let the doers be the deciders. So what we're going to do is say this group to the organization at the bottom who used to just do what they're told. We are now going to pause and give them the chance to think and actually make decisions, but that requires them to use their brain in different way. That requires us if we are in the leading group, to talk in a different way.

Steve Rush: And as leaders, it is our responsibility, isn't it? I guess through our language will influence and either help new ideas and creativity or we will stifle them.

David Marquet: You can only control yourself. So when you say, oh, well, this person does not speak up, it the really frustrating working with them. The unhelpful behaviours is to go give them a lecture. How can I give you some feedback i.e. can I permission to be a jerk? You really need to speak up more. Well, how about this? How you look inside yourself and you figure out. You know what, the way we are running the meeting, the way I am asking the questions, if someone comes to me and says, well, I am not sure about this decision, and I said, why would you say that?

Again. Subtle, but it sends a signal you are wrong. Justify yourself, not, oh, tell me about that. I am really interested in that. We really need to know before we go ahead, launch this product.

If you think, we are off track.

Steve Rush: And one I guess create coaching culture as well, doesn't it? So the more questions you ask. The more evidence and inside you have from people to develop thinking and ideas. Right?

David Marquet: Yeah, so it is dicey because I do think that. Teaching is not telling and we can take moments to teach people. I think what happens is leaders don't do the hard work of building a decision-making factory. Putting structures in the team so that when a team has to make a decision or a person who owns a decision that the decision is going to consistently come out of quality decision, i.e. is going to help the organization do something and learn something. And, so if you don't do that, then what happens is I'm getting sucked into being the decision maker all the time, then evaluate and approve all these decisions. So what I think you want to do if you want to be a leader. Is to build decision-making factory.

Steve Rush: I love that. If you can imagine what this decision, making factory would look like. Just describe them for our listeners.

David Marquet: Well, best thing is what the book is about because. So the question is when do teams and people make bad decisions? And so we look at some industrial accidents and what are the conditions? And it turns out the basis the overall pattern is we're adapting its industrial age playbook where we're trying to narrow variability. The problem is we use it we do spare variability language. To embrace variability game, so one of the stories in the book is there is a ship in 2015 sails into Hurricane. Sank, all 33 people die. This is a ship that is seven hundred ninety feet long.

How did that happen? Well, fortunately, we were able to recover the black box, and so we have a 500-page transcript. It is the way teams talk for real. Not how we wish they talk or one or some fantasy world how they talk, but it is the actual language. Now, what you see is. All the behaviours that I saw in the Navy and to go back later and say, well, they are just bad people, they are oh, so they have been mariners for 30 years, most of the senior people were in the 50s. And they were promoted over the last 30 years based on a set of behaviours that they exhibited, those behaviours they exhibited over the last 30 years are exactly the behaviours they are exhibiting on this tape. So it is not them it's, its good people, but with the wrong playbook and it's a playbook that excludes variabilities, so there's a moment when two officers separated by two hours, they're coming up to a point where they can turn away from the storm and go behind the Bahamas. And it's this very halting, stilted, painful anguish language.

Steve Rush: Right.

David Marquet: And blaming them is wrong. Because the question is, why is the language like that? And if you go back earlier, we can see the playbook of continue at all costs. Don't stop because they deviating will take longer and burn more fuel.

Steve Rush: In my experience of coaching leaders as well. Is that being brave to try new things, to testing things, really we get to learn about ourselves. I mean, in your kind of experience of working with others and other leaders as well as working in the Navy, what would you say would be the one thing you have learned the most about being brave and trying new things?

David Marquet: Being brave and trying new things comes first and foremost from a place of security and safety. If you don't feel secure and say… at the extreme, if you have a lion running at you, you can run in a different direction, maybe but if you don't feel secure and safe. Then you are always in a constant. I'm proving myself mode, and that gets in the way of running experiments and being a little bit playful and trying some different things. If you are on a rugby team and you feel we have to win every game, then you are not going to be able to try different things and try different combinations of players then when you get to the final tournament, you'll have just done what you did versus another team, which maybe took some more.

They will know better. There may be a better way of setting up your players, but you will never know it. But it might be worse, so if you try it and then you lose one game, how do you respond to that? Oh my gosh, everyone kill themselves, so dreadful, like no.

Steve Rush: So cross your new playbook. You got six plays that you refer to…

David Marquet: Yeah.

Steve Rush: And there is some really interesting things in there. You have a principle in there call complete not to continue, so tell us a bit about that.

David Marquet: So when the industrial age, Imagine you are on an assembly line making cars. So there's a cost to tooling the assembly line. Once the deciders just figured out the quote, optimal way or an optimal way. We don't want downtime, just keep going and so every day feels like the next and there's never a moment to pause and celebrate, and there was never a moment to reflect on our work. Is making cars the right thing is making…. so, like, why did Elon Musk have to come from left field? To build the viable electric car.

Yeah, I know there were some electric cars in the traditional auto industry, but they really never did anything, and it's because we just continue…we make cars with four wheels and internal combustion engines. And so there's just not pause and reflect. If there is no complete. There is no pause and reflect. So what we want to do…let say you want to treat strategy like a hypothesis. Hey, here is what we are going to do and do it for five years. We know the world's going to change. I mean, 200 years from now. Who knows?

Steve Rush: So isn't a habit, though. Good for discipline and creating that routine and consistency.

David Marquet: Yeah. So when you do your thing, get into the habit. So, for example, let's say I start a yoga program. I like to do 20-minute yoga program in the morning, and so I don't know how I'm going to feel about it. Just thinking about it is not going to answer the question. I have to actually do it; I can't just do it twice.

Okay, so let's do it. I am going to do it for 100 days in a row. Then I can ask my wife. Do I seem calmer? Do I feel more in control of my life? How do I feel about this? Is it worth the extra 20 minutes that happens in the morning, which is a busy time for most people?

Two mistakes I see. One is obviously twice, and then when I evaluate it, the other mistake is, yeah, I am going to start doing yoga and you don't put an end point and then it's just forever and then it feels heavy and burdensome.

Steve Rush: So the other one of the six plays, it really intrigued me. And it's also something I experience a lot, too, in my world, is that people seem to shy away from emotion, but its emotion what really drives behaviour, right?

David Marquet: For people to make decisions, all decisions are emotional. We can do all the rational work we want, but at the end of the day, it going to passed a little emotional circuitry in our brain. And you know this, who am I marrying? Where am I living? Which house am I going to rent? The spreadsheet says this, but I can see us living here.

Steve Rush: Yeah. People want more sure than not sure, don’t they? In their world too.

David Marquet: Well they want certainty, but I think there is an emotional component to decision. Well we know it. I don't think it, we know it from science. So, hell, if you want.

So in the past, I didn't care about your emotions because you were just a doer and I don't need you to be self-reflective, so if you had a screwed up emotional life, it didn't cost me anything. First of all, it's immoral, but the second thing is. If you let the doers be the deciders, which is going to be better for you, the company and the people who are doing the work.

Then we have to have healthy emotions and healthy emotions only come from being feeling like a human being, so that's why the last play is connect and it kind of underpins everything. That this idea that until you feel a sense of connection. The connection is not trivial. Hey, would you do this weekend? And it's not. I agree with everything that you say. I don't want everyone from one party in one company. That would definitely not work, it violate the diversity thing. Connection is I actually give a shit about you in a deep…

Steve Rush: Meaningful level.

David Marquet: I want you to be successful in your life, because once you have that. If I need to go to you and say. You kind of showed up like a jerk in that meeting, it does not sting. Deep in my heart, I believe and I feel that you really love me. You want me to succeed and I want the same for you, so it comes across as an embrace, not a stick in the eye.

Steve Rush: Really powerful, isn't it? Really emotional, too. When you make that connection.

David Marquet: Yeah, listen to me. I am a submarine commander. That is the last place you find emotion.

Steve Rush: Does that changed too. When you were on-board, the Santa Fe?

David Marquet: Yeah, I think we did. If you asked me on my last day, I would say. Oh, yeah, we did really, really well. We made such a big change. I think now we made a change and we did well, but I think there is so much more we could do.

Steve Rush: And talking about emotional connections whilst on board the Santa Fe. Not many of our listeners might know this, but Stephen Covey, the famous author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, spent some time with you on board the ship, right?

David Marquet: Yeah, and that was a magic day. His book had a huge impact on me, and my life. He helped me understand what we were actually doing by putting it into words, and I was very sad when he passed away a couple of years ago.

Steve Rush: Sure, and he cited, you actually as being partly responsible for his eight habit. I just wondered how that felt when you heard that words from somebody with such a broad experience at that time.

David Marquet: Well, I was amazing and when he was on a ship, he said, this is amazing. It is the most empowering place I have ever seen. I want to write about you in my next book. And I'm like, sure, sure. Right. Then, sure enough, you know a couple of years later, this big box of books and I am like, no way.

Steve Rush: Did that inspire you somewhat to put pen to paper yourself?

David Marquet: Yeah, Plus my wife told me I needed to do it. After I left the Navy, I really wanted to tell the story. Not like here we were, how great we were, how great was I? But by doing this, we ended up creating so many more leaders. They have gone out and had much better lives.

Steve Rush: That is great. It is awesome stuff. And Dave just to finish it off. Could you just give us a few top leadership hacks?

David Marquet: Steve, my top leadership Hack. Start your question with how. How sure are you? Not are you sure. When you are running a meeting, a decision meeting. Vote first, then discuss.

Steve Rush: David thanks ever so much for spending time with me, really grateful. Good luck with leadership is language.

David Marquet: Thanks, Steve, for coming into town and doing this in person.

Steve Rush: You are very welcome.

And if you'd like to learn a little bit more about David and what he's up to at the moment, check that out in our show notes. Also, head over to davidmarquet.com and Intent Based Leadership Institute.

Closing

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