The Leadership Habit

Harness the Power of Stewardship with David R. York On this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, Jenn sat down with David R. York to talk about The Gift of Lift: Harnessing the Power of Stewardship to Elevate the World. David is an attorney, a CPA, and a managing partner of York Howell & Guymon, named an Inc. 5,000 Fastest-Growing Company. David works with closely held business owners and ultra high net worth clients in the areas of tax and estate planning. He has authored multiple books, Entrusted: Building a Legacy That Lasts, and Riveted: 44 Values that Change the World. But today, we are going to be talking about David’s newest book, The Gift of Lift: Harnessing the Power of Stewardship to Elevate the World! Enjoy. Meet David R. York, Author, Estate Planning Attorney and CPA Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall. And on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I am so happy to be sitting down with David York! David, thank you so much for joining the show today. How are you doing today? David R. York:I am doing great. I’ve been looking forward to our conversation. Jenn DeWall: Oh, great! There are so many things that I talk about that I knew I remembered from our pre podcast call that I’m sure will come up here, but David, you know, you are an attorney, you’re a CPA, you’re a CPA, you’re an author of The Gift of Lift. Tell me a little bit about who you are and how you came to be. David R. York: Yeah. You know, I always tell people as an attorney and a CPA, I’m two of the most boring people in the world wrapped into one. You know, and I’m someone who knows an awful lot about very little. But when I came into estate planning, I came from a really technical background being a CPA. I did taxes for years, and I came to look at estate planning as the how and the what, right? How do you do estate planning? What is estate planning? And what I came to realize is that those are not the right questions to ask. It’s about the why of your wealth and who is around you. And it’s so much more about the purpose and people than it is about property or profits. And so, I’ve been kind of on this journey of, of, re-discovery of what wealth is and impact and all those things. Jenn DeWall: Gosh, how do you think you would’ve defined wealth? Like, you know, earlier in your life versus where you are today? David R. York: Yeah. You know, early on, it was about what’s on your balance sheet, right? Show me your assets, and I’ll tell you what you’re worth. And it wasn’t too long before I realized that there’s really little correlation between that. You know, I see people who live with such meaning and purpose and direction in life, they have such clarity, and it has nothing to do with how much or little they have in the bank account. It’s all about knowing who they are and knowing the impact they wanna make in life. And so, what I came to realize is people who have a lot of money tend to have one thing in common. They’re good at making money. Right? But that doesn’t necessarily tell you that they’re happy, content, fulfilled, engaged, or any of those kinds of things. Jenn DeWall: Right. And I feel like it’s something that I guess if I speak from my own experience, I think even the initial messages that I received in life were– I remember this, I wanted to join the Peace Corps. And the first thing that, you know, my mom had said to me was like, but that’s not gonna make you money. Yeah. And it was the starting of the lessons of, oh my gosh, should I be more concerned about the financial situation that I create? And should that be the purpose of like how, or should that be the motivator of how I choose or what do I choose to do? And I feel like, I don’t wanna say how many years later, but it’s many years later, I am on the other side of that. Feeling like you can have the money, but it’s not necessarily going to grant you happiness. And you wrote your book, The Gift of Lift. What inspired you to write your book? What Inspired Your New Book, The Gift of Lift? David R. York: Yeah, it was interesting. It was actually an experience I had six years ago with a client of mine and talked about success. She, her name’s Gail Miller, owner of the Utah Jazz, and one of the wealthiest women in, in the United States. And we were sitting down working on a trust that was gonna transfer the ownership of the Jazz with the golden intent of keeping it in the state of Utah. If you’ve never been to salt lake, we have beautiful scenery but not necessarily a lot to do <laugh>. And so, you know, the Jazz are really important to this community. And so she wanted to make sure it was. It stayed there. And so we were working on this trust and finalizing the details. And during the review of some of the documents, I just happened to ask her, I said, so how will it feel to no longer own the Jazz? And she looked at me, and she said, well, I don’t own the Jazz. And she went back to review her documents, and I, I was like, mm, you know, that, it, it kind of surprised me. And you know, here I am, I’m her attorney and helping her with estate planning. So I’m like, mm. You know, she’s a really smart lady, but I was like, well, no, you actually do own the Jazz <laugh>, and I’ll never forget she stopped what she was doing. She looked over at me. She said, no, I’m a steward of the Jazz. And it was honestly one of the most powerful experiences in my professional career because I saw somebody who had actually transcended ownership. You know, for most of us, we think the highest thing you could be is an owner, right. I own a piece of property. I own a business. I own a sports team. And yet she, she was above that. She had something that was, was bigger than ownership. And so it really made me sit back and spend years thinking about, okay, what is a steward and what is the mentality of a steward and what makes them different? What is Stewardship? Jenn DeWall: Who is this? I mean, I wanna get into like, what is a steward, because I think that this might be something, again, I would put back to myself, like it used to be like, I want the ownership because ownership was equivalent to success to feeling like you’ve made it, for lack of a better description, not to say I’m here today, but that was probably some of the earlier lessons that I had. So when you think about who you had in mind for this book before we kind of dive into understanding it a little bit more, who are the people that you had in mind? David R. York: Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. I’m probably gonna date myself here when I say this, but it’s kind of like playing slug-bug, you know, when you start looking for Volkswagens, you know, you start seeing them everywhere. And so, you know, the first thing I had to grapple with is, okay, what is a steward? And what I came to realize is that a steward is someone who’s fully invested in something bigger than themselves. So, at the essence, they have two things they have investment and they have transcendence. In other words, they’re all in, but it’s not about them. And as I started to look at that, I started to see examples of people, you know, one example, Nelson Mandela, obviously spent years in, in prison in South Africa trying to end apartheid. What most people don’t know, though, is he was actually offered his freedom six times. He had the opportunity to walk out of, Robben Island prison six times. And each time, he refused— because every time he was offered freedom, it was conditional. He had to leave the country or you could never speak in public, or you could never run for office. They always put conditions. And for him, his transcendent value was freedom. And he knew that you are not truly free unless you’re fully free. And so, for him, he was willing to continue to pay the cost and make the investment because it was about something that was more than just him. If it had been about him, he would’ve walked out the front door. But it was about something more, and it’s powerful and it’s life-changing. That doesn’t mean it was easy for him. You know, I also think of, Susan B, Anthony, you know, she was one of the leaders of the suffrage movement. She actually died 14 years before women got the right to vote, but it was because of her and her efforts, and she was all in, and she was all about equality for women. But it took her years and years and years. And so you start to see these people who just live fundamentally different lives and the impact that they make because of those two elements of investment and transcendence. Jenn DeWall: I never realized that Nelson Mandela was offered release. That is, you know, just to think about how purposeful, how intentional and the sacrifice that he had to make, to be able to stand for the cause. That is an incredible example. How do you think in, I mean, do you notice any moments that maybe that people start to make that shift or is it more intention or is it life forcing you to that? Stewardship is a Mindset of Investment and Transcendence David R. York: Yeah, you know, I think it’s about a mindset and unfortunately, and, and this is where I kind of saw it coming from an estate planning perspective because what’s the opposite of a steward? Well, it’s someone who lacks any investment and lacks any transcendence and, you know, I call those people consumers. Unfortunately, we see consumerism and the effects of consumerism all around us, right. That’s why the average American inheritance lasts 18 months. So you think about that, what people build and accumulate over the course of their lifetime is on average spent and consumed by the next generation in 18 months. And, and why is that? I, I think by and large is because what we say is we are gonna give you something that costs you nothing. So there’s no investment and there’s nothing bigger than yourself about it. And then we’re shocked when it’s consumed. And, you know, I’ve had a lot of clients who they see that issue, or they see that consumer mentality, or they’re afraid that all their hard work is just gonna be dissipated. So they come in and they wanna put a lot of restrictions and limitations on how their money can be used and how it can be spent. But the, the opposite of consumerism isn’t minimalism. It, isn’t less, it’s about something fundamentally different. And I think that’s what we, we see in society a lot, right. Is this consumer mentality is I’m not gonna invest in anything and there’s nothing bigger than myself. And we have a whole lot of really unhappy people as a result. So, yeah, what I want people to understand is it is not about being a world leader. It’s not about being a, you know, a billionaire it’s about having a mindset of being all engaged, but about something more than just you. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. It’s greater than you. Greater than what you’re there to do. And I like the perspective of thinking about it as a consumer approach that, you know, I think we’ve almost been conditioned to always think what isn’t it for me? Why should I care? What should I invest in? Instead of being like, but how could I help? How could I solve, how could I do this? In your book, you describe different types of leaders through your perspective. I’m curious. Could you tell a little, tell us a little bit more about the types of leaders? Stewardship in Leaders David R. York: Yeah. So then you think, okay, How do stewards express themselves in leadership? And I think they have a couple of things in common, first and foremost, and it’s kind of what we were talking about earlier. And that is, most of us live with what I call an if, then mentality of life, right? If I do this, then someone else will do this. Or if I accomplish this, then I will get this. And it’s all, it’s very, it is driven by expectation. And, and the problem with expectations is you either meet ’em, and at best you’re satisfied, or you don’t meet them. And then you’re unsatisfied, right? Steward leaders operate on a different mindset. It’s what I call the because/therefore, because of my transcendence, what’s bigger than me. Therefore I will do this. And what’s great about a because/, therefore, a model is it’s always achieved. If you think about it, I say, okay, if I can grow and sell a business for $10 million, then I’ll be happy. Right. That’s sort of if then, and we see that in society. But if you say, because I value compassion, therefore I will foster a child. I will give to the local food bank. I will check on my neighbor. Who’s sick, right? No matter what, because/therefore will achieve, its purpose. You will add compassion to the world and that’s your driver. Right. And so, that’s, I think one of the biggest things is that, stewards are more about direction than a destination, right? A steward leader says, these are the values that I have as an individual. These are the values we have as a business. And we’re gonna advance that. It’s about direction, and direction creates pull. As opposed to destinations, which is all about either failing or arriving, but then you’re done. Jenn DeWall: <laugh>. Yeah, it it’s, I mean, I like breaking it down like that. The, if, then the, this is what it is either we make it, or we don’t, if we are successful or if we are unsuccessful, this is what we’ll do. Instead of really leading with, I guess the core, the, I love the, because/therefore differentiator, because I think that, that one’s easy, maybe not easy, but from where I sit, sometimes it’s hard to find meaning in work when we live off of the, if/then like, okay, we’re just working like to, you know, get this job. But I like that therefore, because/therefore, or therefore, because like, I feel like it invites everyone into the conversation for how they can actually see themselves as a leader. David R. York: Yeah. Jenn DeWall: Instead of it just being a kind of person that’s out there, not really having control, not really maybe feeling like they let’s see, how am I trying to say that? I just feel like it’s more enticing. It’s more empowering to look at it in that way. Finding Passion for Stewardship David R. York: Oh yeah. It’s much more, it’s much more compelling. I, in 2019, back when you could leave the country and travel and have fun and do those things, I went with my family and went to Italy and, we got to tour a winery just outside of Verona, and beautiful it’s, but it had been around for– it’s a 130-year-old family business, fifth generation. And, we’re touring it. And we’re, I’m touring with, the daughter who’s running the family business now, raising the sixth generation there. And I asked her, I said, what’s the secret of a five generation hundred and thirty year old family business. And she said, it’s one word, you know? And I was like, geez, what is that word? You know, is it, family? Is it excellence? Is it wine? Like, what’s the secret? And she said it’s passion. But I loved her description. What she said is it’s a beautiful work, but it’s also very hard. You have to both look up and see the beauty and look down and do the work. And I thought that was just a perfect example of stewardship because she was a steward of that land. There were four generations before her. She hopes there are four generations after her. So she was a steward. But for her, the beauty was the transcendence. But that beauty led to her engagement and that day-to-day work. Right. So she was able to do the work because of the beauty. Why was there the beauty? Because of the work. Right? And so they actually work really well together to create that passion that allows them to be around for that long. Jenn DeWall: I love that perspective! So if you might be listening as David is talking about like even looking at what you’re doing and how it is, this cycle of things that can be fulfilling, that we are going to have, for lack of a better description, like the beautiful parts of our jobs that we love and the parts that we may not like that the work as you would describe it. But when we can merge those, when we put in that work, we can see that value, no matter what chair you sit in, or what title you have. So then let’s go to the other end of that. I know we’re gonna dive more in to really talk about what it means to be a steward. What’s the opposite of a steward at work? David R. York: Yeah, it’s that consumer, right? It’s that person who says, what’s in it for me? And they lack that investment. They lack that transcendence. And so unfortunately it can either lead to, like I said, two, two things, your expectations are met, but how many of us actually get a bump in happiness when we get exactly what we expect? Right. it doesn’t really do much for you. Or your expectations aren’t met, which leads to anger and frustration and even depression. and you know, I see this with people who own businesses, right? You know, they, a study showed that is upwards of 70% of people regret selling their business within a year of the sale of their business because they thought it would bring them all of these things. Right. Like if I go and I do this and I build my business and I sell it for a bunch of money and put it in my bank all, all, then I’ll be happy. And the reality is it does not bring that happiness and contentment that they, they thought. And so, that’s the problem with being that if then it’s very, quite frankly, it’s self-centered, and it’s very expectation-based. Jenn DeWall: And so if we look at that, what that looks like in a workplace, then it might be, just trying to think if there’s something off the top of my head, like maybe it’s, well, I don’t really wanna do that cause it doesn’t serve me. And then you, or what does, like, how do you see that show up for people’s work-lives or in people’s work lives? Stewards Have Clarity of Purpose David R. York: Yeah. You know, I think it’s a couple of things. One is I think when you can have clarity of purpose in a workplace, you actually draw people who are compelled by that. You know, and I tell people when you care about everything, you really don’t care about anything. Right. And we have to just realize that we are finite beings and we can’t care about everything. So what are those few things that really inspire us, guide us, direct us and make us tick. And so when you can be clear in a business about what your purpose is, you actually can draw other people who are like-minded and you get synergies from that. And the other huge benefit of having clear purpose is it actually makes decisions a lot easier. So, I worked with a family office, that they had just sold a business that had a great name brand, and you’d know the name brand. And, they were looking for their next things that they were gonna do. So we went through an exercise to say, okay, what do, what do we want this, this company to be known for? And they wanted to be known for three things. They wanted it to be known for loyalty. They wanted to be known for integrity and they wanted it to be known for excellence. Now, unfortunately, the acronym was lie. So let’s set that aside, but <laugh>, they were like, okay, we didn’t think through that. But, that afternoon they were going through and they were deciding on what they wanted to do with an investment. And there was an investment that they could make, they’ve been thinking about it for months. And it was one that they could make some good money on, but it was kind of geographically remote and it would take a lot of time and effort. And so they were kind of hemming and hawing, we could make money. What do we do? And I just asked them, I said, let me ask you this. Can you do this project with excellence? And they said done, we’re not doing the deal because yeah, we could make money, but we can’t do it with the excellence that we want to be known for. And that thing that’s bigger than us. And so, because we can’t do it with excellence, we’re not gonna do it. And so for them, it turned months of decision-making into a two-minute decision, because they had that clarity of that thing. That’s bigger than them. And, and it helped them drive what they decided to, how they decided to deploy their resources. Jenn DeWall: I feel like, think about how much stress you could save humanity if you helped them get clear on, you know, even three things that will just get that around your passion and purpose. Just, gosh, I’m thinking about decisions that I’ve waffled on that if I actually started with that first, how I could have saved myself stress or even, I mean, what my, my husband would say too, is that sometimes I say yes to a lot of things, because I feel bad. Yeah. Not because it’s what I want to do, but it’s because I feel in some way that someone, you know, might be upset or not as happy. And then I feel like how that shows itself is being overscheduled not doing things with excellence in the way that I would want to, which had, I actually started with that, you know, purpose that would’ve been different. A Message from Crestcom Crestcom is a global organization dedicated to developing effective leaders. Companies all over the world have seen their managers transformed into leaders through our award-winning and accredited leadership development programs. Our signature BPM program provides interactive management training with a results-oriented curriculum and prime networking opportunities. If you’re interested in learning more about our flagship program and developing your managers into leaders, please visit our website to find a leadership trainer near you.  Or maybe you yourself have always wanted to train and develop others. Crestcom is a global franchise with ownership opportunities available throughout the world. If you have ever thought about being your own boss, owning your own business and leveraging your leadership experience to impact businesses and leaders in your community, Crestcom may be the right fit for you. We’re looking for professional executives who are looking for a change and want to make a difference in people’s lives. Learn more about our franchise opportunity on the own-a-franchise page of our website at crestcom.com. Practicing Stewardship Jenn DeWall: Let’s think about the starting point. Where do you start? So if someone’s picking up your book and they’re thinking, how can I develop, you know, how can I develop into a better steward? How can I truly practice this? Where is the place that you would recommend that they start? David R. York: Yeah. You know, it’s really good because when you’re talking about that thing, that’s bigger than yourself, inherently, that’s a really deep and personal question. And I think you, you, you hit the head on the nail on the head and that is for some of us, the problem isn’t about caring. it’s about caring about too much, right? Like the world gets so overwhelming and there are so many things. And so it’s really just about understanding that core of who you are. And the only way I think you can do that is through questions and stories. You know, I, I like to say it this way, knowledge and information inform, but questions and stories transform, you know, and I think one of the knee-jerk problems we have in society today is we live in the information age. Right. So what we think we lack is information. We’re like, oh, if I just had all the right information if I had, if I just had the podcast that told me the one thing I need to know, I can use that information. But the reality is I think we need transformation. And transformation comes from sitting with questions. So, you know, in the book, I actually, I’ve got like 50 questions and it’s, there are just things for you to sit down and ponder, like, for example. So I’ll ask you, what is the greatest compliment that you could, you could receive? Jenn DeWall: You know, I think the greatest compliment I myself could receive is that I have in some way, inspired someone to see their life in a different way that they are yeah. That it’s for, and that one is probably that one’s yeah. I think it would be along with that of like feeling like they have the confidence and that they feel good enough to do something. David R. York: Yeah. And what I love about that one, is it gives you a good insight into what your core values are, right? Like what, what do you value? Who are you? And then what I loved about, and, and this is a critical element of stewardship, is it’s about other people. Ultimately stewardship is about other people. And they realize that, that others’ perspective is actually what brings value. And so it’s really just a matter of, of that. What, and I mentioned it earlier, it, it, you described it, but, you know, if you could be known for three words, what are they, you know, what three words do you wanna be described as these are just questions that as you ask yourself and you wrestle with and you ask other people, you start to get that clarity. And then that clarity actually becomes a great rubric for you to go through and decide what to do in life. So as life tosses you all these different things, you can look through with that perspective of what is bigger than you, that you, you are going to invest in it. Jenn DeWall: What’s what if, like, what’s the opposite in the, you know, if I think about the answer I just gave and is there, is there such a thing as being too much of a steward? Finding Balance, or Counterbalance David R. York: Yeah. No. The great thing to me is, you know, it’s funny, one of the buzz words you hear in the world today is balance, right? Like, oh, we need to have balance work-life balance, all of that. And to me, balance is about more or less. but I actually think we shouldn’t seek balance. We should seek a counterbalance. And counterbalance comes when you, actually balance two things against each other to give more strength to the other. And so, think about an elevator, an elevator works based on counterbalances. It actually doesn’t take a lot of energy, because all it takes is a little bit of effort on one side and you’ve got the weight of the other working together. So, you know, it’s kind of like, salty and sweet together, right? How, how good is salted caramel ice cream, right? It’s not about, oh it need to be more sweet or less sweet. It’s about adding that salt. That brings something different. And so, what I tell people is you get far more power when you combine that transcendence and that investment together. So, it’s not about titrating life up or down. I need to work more. I need to work less. No, this needs to be about why do you work? And that why will actually lead to that, that deeper engagement, but because it’s bigger than you, it actually takes some of the pressure off. Because it’s not something that you can achieve. It’s something that you can express. Jenn DeWall: It’s not an end destination. No, I feel like there, there has to be, I don’t know someone listening to this podcast, hopefully feeling like I now have freedom in some capacity, freedom to understand the purpose, but to let go of what I feel. And maybe this is my self projecting. Like there’s often this vision of perfection that is supposed to hit everything. And I think that can be really restrictive. It can challenge the way that I might look at success, how resilient I might be, whether or not I pursue it or I give up in general. And I like that. It’s, you know, it’s the journey. It’s, it’s the journey. It’s what you’re doing in the middle. It’s not, I think too often we get caught up in the, in the outcomes, as you’re saying, like we get so caught up in, what does success look like? Or how will I know when I’ve made it? Avoiding Perfectionism David R. York: <laugh> yeah, no, I totally, I totally agree. And then I think the other thing you hit on, which is huge is this problem of perfectionism, right? And there are actually all these studies out there that show that the levels of perfectionism are going up, like the expectations we have on ourselves, the expectations we have on others, just keep going up and up. And there’s a guy named Barry Schwartz, I think. And he came up with this term called “satisficing“. And basically, it’s about getting to the point of being satisfied with good and achieving an expression of what you value as opposed to, well, it’s gotta be perfect or I can’t do it at all. Right. So we just create these binaries of it’s gotta be absolutely perfect or I’m not interested. As opposed to, taking a step back and realizing, you know what, I can do a good job on this. and I, I may not be a perfect friend. I can be a good friend. I may not have the perfect advice, but I can beef with someone. Right. And just helping to, to again, take some of that pressure off, because it’s not about achieving it’s about advancing Jenn DeWall: Well, and it’s that’s that achievement is just rooted in that judgment. I remember in my twenties when, you know, I just can remember the first time that I had a boss tell me, Jenn, it’s about living in the gray. Yeah. But I think that was the hardest leadership lesson to really understand, because up until that point, life was a destination, there was enough judgment to tell me if what you’re doing is right or what you’re wrong, which then adds into that level of perfectionist thinking of like, I must do this as a right way. Like how do you even begin to think in the gray? Like if you, like, what are some of the questions that not even, this is kind of putting you on the spot in maybe a more conceptual way, but like how did you start to learn to live in the gray of like good enough? You’re like, it doesn’t have to be perfect. Like, I don’t know if you had any tips that you used because I still find that’s hard. It’s hard to know that we’re supposed to live in the gray, but then still assess ourselves as either winning or losing. And so I don’t know if you have any tips for how you’re able to come back and be like let’s refocus or is that always coming back to the why and the purpose and the passion? Or am I stacking way too many questions into this podcast where I’m at right now to even answer, it’s probably a mix of all. David R. York: No, I think it’s great. And I think, first of all, when I figure it out, I’ll let you know. Right. We’re all on a journey. <laugh> but, I think one of the issues that we have again is just such a lack of self-awareness. and I think we struggle so much. They did a study a couple of years ago, and they were looking for like the key characteristics of leaders in businesses. Like what, what is the key characteristic of, of highly successful businesses? And, they were like, we think we found it because we were not looking for this. But they said the number one characteristic of successful leaders is self-awareness. That they knew who they were. They knew their strengths, they knew their weaknesses. And again, counterintuitively, it takes a lot of the pressure off when you can understand fully who you are and you know, the gaps that you need and the people to surround yourself with. Self-Awareness is Key to Leadership David R. York: And it actually brings a huge sense of, humility, when you can actually be self-aware and humility is a great antidote to pressure and pride and all those things. it is kind of funny. I did see a breakdown the other day between male leaders and self-awareness and female leaders. And so they, they did a study and it was like 4% of male leaders were self-aware and 19% of female leaders were self-aware. So depending on how you can look at it, you’re like, oh, women are five times more self-aware than men. Or you can say no 80% plus aren’t self-aware either. Right. So yeah, but I do think it’s interesting because in general you do find women who are more relational. They, they tend to ask a lot of questions and tend to just understand a bit more of who they are. But I think that’s the key, is understanding that self-awareness and who you are. I think it makes you a better leader. It makes you a more mellow leader, and I think it makes you ultimately far more impactful. Jenn DeWall: I love, I love that stat that you just gave to even think. Yeah. 80% of people actually aren’t as self-aware as what they probably think they are. Yeah. Because I bet most of those leaders probably I think if you ask, if I ask that question to a class at Crestcom, I’m sure the majority of people would say like I’m pretty self-aware. David R. York: Yeah. In fact, what are the markers of a lack of self-awareness is if you think you’re self-aware! <Laugh> Like <laugh>, You know, like they did a, they did another study. I saw like, if you, if you think you can multitask, you actually can’t. They said it’s actually the people who don’t think they can, that actually can, because it’s such a small percentage, but honestly like a truly self-aware person is gonna be open to maybe there’s something I don’t know about myself. so yeah, if you, if you’re certain you’re self-aware, it’s probably an indicator that you’re not. Jenn DeWall: I feel, oh my gosh, I’m just laughing. Cause I’ve definitely heard, you know, I’ve seen the example in leadership where I’m talking to a leader and they would be the self-described, like I’m a people person. Yeah. And then you watch them and you’re like, but you are the opposite of a people person. I’m not sure if you can see that about yourself, but I don’t know. Or did someone tell you that and not maybe give you that feedback throughout the way? Because you do see that like I’ve absolutely hear, that’s not even, I’ve heard that a few times of someone saying like I’m a total people person and in my head I’m like, but I don’t think you realize like how your words are actually impacting all these people and they may not describe you with that language. David R. York: <laugh> yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, it’s so funny when I was a kid, my mom told me once that I was, I was patient I’m like such a patient person, because I like to, to, I was go, I went fishing and I could spend hours doing that. She’s like, you’re so patient. So, I grew up thinking I was patient. It was not until like 10 years ago I realized I am so impatient. I’m like the world’s most impatient person. but someone told me that and I believed it. The only reason I was patient, I liked fishing. I was impatient getting there. I was impatient heading home. I just happened to like that. And so I agree with you. I think sometimes we get these things both positive and negative in our head that are not truly who we are. and it takes some of that internal work. Like even just like, like what does a counselor do at the end of the day? All they’re doing is asking your questions. because you have the answers. You just, you need to be asking the questions to actually get to who you are. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. It’s I love that. It’s it really is questioning yourself in a kind way, in a curious way. Or I guess what advice would you have in terms of how they should be asking these questions? Because I think any, like, do you have any pitfalls that they should watch out for? Because I think again, we might just be starting with like, well, what does, you know, hitting the millionaire circle look like for me, this destination? I think it might be easy to even ask your yourself leading questions. So I don’t know if you have any pitfalls that you would maybe avoid or any guidance around like questions of open-ended. I mean guess is, is the first one of like open ended, but how do you answer ’em do you write them down? Do you just reflect and meditate on them? David R. York: Yeah, I, I think it really is. I think it’s a matter of just, and the big thing too, I think is avoiding the posing, right? Like we’re all supposed to give answers a certain way. And I think the key is just to ask yourself the questions and then give yourself honest answers. Not like, what are you supposed to say? Or not, what other people think. But, but honestly, what do you think? I, I really think that’s the key, but it does take time and it does take effort. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. It’s well, and it’s hard. I think that for some, depending on where you are in your life and what’s going on, when you’re asking yourselves these questions, your answers might lead to things that require some heavy lifting or some different choices and changes that I’m sure can elicit all of the fear or emotions or feelings of well, if I go back to like what really matters to me, you know, and it’s having that imprint or I forget the exact question that you had phrased, like, and then you find out, oh my gosh, is this, where is this where the midlife crisis happens, David? Is that why we start answering the question is too late in life. And then we’re go, we go into panic mode and buy the sports car. David R. York: <laugh> yeah. I mean, honestly, one of the nice things about the mirage and not getting there, is it still drives you forward. Because you think once I, you know, if I get there, then I’ll be happy. And I see that with, with so many people. And I remember, I mean, geez, even when my, my wife and I got married, I’m like, okay, if we could save up a thousand dollars, then I’ll feel completely financially secure, right? Like you’re living paycheck to paycheck and you’ve got nothing. And then you get that. And then it’s like, oh, if we could get just a little bigger house, if we could just have this or that, and you finally hit enough of those destinations and they don’t actually move the needle in life, I think that’s what midlife crisis is, is honestly, when you’ve checked off enough boxes that were supposed to make you content and happy and they didn’t. Then you’re like, then you start to realize, well maybe the next five boxes I’m working for. Aren’t gonna do that for me either. So maybe it’s not about checking boxes. Asking Yourself the Right Questions Jenn DeWall: Yeah. It’s about asking deeper questions. Well and understanding. I mean, I’m not sure. What do you see with, with how, like writing this book? Like, I don’t know if you notice those times then? Is it, do you ask the questions when we’re going into that new promotion or going into a new field or becoming parent or is any time the right time to ask the questions of yourself? David R. York: Yeah, I think it, every time is good! And it actually, it’s good to, ask your, to continually ask yourself. Because the reality is we are affected by life experiences, by good things and bad things and struggles and trials and difficulties. And actually you see so much growth. I see so many people who have gone through difficulties in life, and you talk to ’em about it afterwards. None of them would go back and not have that struggle or trial. They don’t necessarily wanna go through another one. Right. But it’s in those times of struggle and pain and difficulty where we actually get to an understanding of who we are, because a lot of stuff gets stripped away. And so I do think it’s good to re-ask yourself because who I am and what I value and what I believe has changed over time. And that’s not a bad thing. So I do think constant that self-reflection is really valuable. Jenn DeWall: So once you get those answers, like what, what is it like, how do you actually transcend? Like, is that as a result of small steps? Is it, I don’t know if you have any tips and techniques on like, you know, once you realize what that purpose is, how can you live in alignment with it? David R. York: Exactly. Yeah. That’s the right question is once I understand that thing that is bigger than me, then how am I gonna invest in that? And, and everybody has three things they can invest. You can invest your time. You can invest your talent, you can invest your treasure, right. You know, you can invest. And your time is really the most precious commodity. That’s the interesting thing I’ve I noticed is I don’t care how much resource financial resources you have. We all have the same amount of time. And that becomes the most precious to people when they have, extra financial resources. But where am I gonna invest those things in that thing? That’s, that’s bigger than myself. So actually, I find the investment side is actually easier. Once you understand the direction you want ahead. You. Jenn DeWall: So if I was, so if I was thinking about how can I take it? Because I love your book is gonna drop on June 6th. We want people to get The Gift of Lift. You know, we rise by lifting others. How can we become that steward first starts with asking you the questions, you know, and then thinking based on those answers, where are you going to invest your time, your talent, or I love that your treasure I’m like, do I have enough treasures to invest myself? I don’t know when you say treasure. It makes me feel like I need to have a big chest with a lot of gold coins in it. <laugh> and I dunno if I have that, you know, but I’m teasing, but really thinking. So that’s the investment of that going through and thinking, how do I want to invest my time, talent or treasure? What are other tips that you have for people as they’re really embarking on this life of stewardship? Stewardship Lies in Meaning and Impact, Not Money David R. York: Yeah. I, again, I do think it’s important to realize because you know, to me, we think money is a lead indicator of investment, right? Like the more money you have, the more investment you can make, the more impact, I oftentimes find money is a lag indicator. It comes after your investment of time and hard work. You know, I cannot tell you how many clients I work with that, come from absolutely nothing and they have that high level of cost. But the reality is that cost is the only thing that actually brings value. and when we, we try to bypass cost or pain or work, we actually end up undermining value. So, honestly, I just think it’s a cop-out to say, well, I don’t have enough money, so I can’t make a difference in the world. I mean, go back to the people in your life that made the biggest impact in your life. You think about those people. I think about an eighth-grade math teacher who believed in me. I don’t think she had a lot of money. She made a lasting impact in my life because she actually believed in me and it was one of the first teachers who ever did. Right. So, I think we just need to reframe what impact looks like. And it really is just a matter of taking your time and investing your talents and, and most people who have financial resources it’s because they invested those first two things. Jenn DeWall: My gosh, David I’ve loved our conversation because I feel like it’s, it’s soul-filling. When we really think about our purpose, which is often the legacy that we leave, that we, I think that’s the last question that we actually think about is like, did I do it right? I love your approach and really thinking, how do you wanna show up today? Like how do you wanna live your life? Not the destination you’re going to because we make a lot of assumptions. I mean, you see it from the perspective as an estate planner, I maybe watched it in terms of watching both of my parents, everything they worked for, be gone within a matter of years. And then you really that it’s through those situations that I think they force those questions, but everyone that’s listening to this has the opportunity to ask yourselves those questions. Now, instead of waiting for that situation where you might be forced into it, this is your opportunity to think about what your life can look like. What benefits have you seen? Because in closing, I, I wanna, I wanna sell it. Like, why do people need to hear this right now? If they’re going through blank? Like why do they need to hear this message right now? David R. York: Yeah. Because ultimately, the most content, the most impactful people are the ones who seek meaning in life and not happiness happiness is just such a fleeting temporary thing. And honestly I think a lot of us come to realize that, you know, it’s just the, it’s the hit of adrenaline that doesn’t last. But meaning comes from being deeply engaged in having other people involved. And so I think that, you know, maybe that’s a question you need to ask yourself, is, am I living life for happiness or am I living it for meaning? Because it’s gonna look very different. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. I love that. As a closing question, are you living your life right now for happiness or are you living your life for meaning, David? How can people get in touch with you? Your book drops June 6th, where can they purchase it? Tell us all the details. Where to Find The Gift of Lift on June 6th, 2022 David R. York: Yeah, it’s on all the natural resources, you know, Amazon, Kindle, Barnes & Noble. We’re working on an audio version for those like me who like to listen to books, but then you can also go to DavidRYork.com. I’ve got a Ted Talk on there about wealth and looking at wealth differently, and some other resources as well. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for your insights. Thank you so much for just your perspective. And I hope that the questions that you posed today brought some people to powerful answers so how they can live their life with more meaning. Thank you so much for being on the show, David! David R. York: Anytime! I loved talking with you. Jenn DeWall: Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast. I hope that you enjoyed my conversation with David and that you are leaving feeling inspired, wanting to ask yourself some questions so you can find more meaning. If you want to pick up your copy of The Gift of Lift, just remember it, it drops on June 6th, but you can actually get special pre-launch pricing for Kindle now! And if you want to connect more with David, find more resources that he has available, or just check in, see how you can book him for speaking head on over to DavidRYork.com and finally check out, his Ted talk all about building wealth.   The post Harness the Power of Stewardship with David R. York appeared first on Crestcom International.

Minisode: Leadership Presence with Jenn DeWall Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall! And on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit, we’re doing a minisode on leadership presence, which is actually something we just discussed in Crestcom’s monthly webinar! You’ll have to go to crestcom.com/leadership-resources/ to check those out! Today the topic is leadership presence—projecting confidence with authenticity. And as we start this, I want you to just reflect on when you first learned what leadership presence was. Was it something that someone sat down to tell you about? Was it something that you observed or you learned throughout your life? For many people, it’s actually something that we learn on the job. This means that we can often make some mistakes, errors, and missteps before realizing we weren’t supposed to do that. How Do You Define Leadership Presence? I want you to also think, how do you define, how do you know whether someone has leadership presence or they don’t? Because over 50% of HR practitioners believe that executive presence is difficult to define, meaning that we all have different expectations or different ways that we actually assess presence. And here’s the other statistic from those HR practitioners over 80% believe that it’s easy to spot. So even though they might think that it’s hard to define, it’s actually easy to spot. I like to describe leadership presence as our shadow. It’s what is always with us. It’s what people see, and leadership presence is a felt presence. And whether we like it or not, perception is reality. And again, I think this is important to know– that presence may be easy to spot, but we have to be mindful of the role that our own experience and bias can play that can give favor to someone’s presence. But what is leadership presence? It is defined as the ability to connect authentically on both an intellectual and an emotional level to motivate and inspire others toward a desired outcome. It is leadership. It’s also the ability to project confidence and composure under pressure. That means someone might make marks against your leadership presence. If, for example, you are in a meeting and you disagree with what someone is saying or maybe the direction it’s going to go. And instead of having a productive conversation, you might shut down, and your body language might move inwards. Your communication might actually be rude or condescending, or defensive. And people again are looking at that to determine, is this a leader I want to follow? Can I trust them? Why is Leadership Presence Important? Why do we need to care about what leadership presence is? According to the Center for Talent and Innovation, CTI, leadership presence accounts for 25% of what it takes to get promoted and impacts our individual success. It impacts whether we get promoted and whether we communicate in a way that makes people want to work with us, collaborate and do what we need them to do! It can also impact employee engagement and turnover. When employees are working with a leader they might deem as a bully or insensitive, or overly authoritarian— you’ll likely find that they shut down and look for a more supportive and productive workplace culture. Workplace presence also impacts our productivity and our ability to be resilient. And even how we treat our customers. The Four Pillars of Leadership Presence: Gravitas, Communication, Appearance and Character Now, there are four main areas of leadership presence. First is gravitas, and that’s essentially how you act and project your confidence— your actions. And that really plays into perception is reality. The second area of leadership presence is communication. Not only how we communicate verbally but also non-verbally. What’s your body language saying about a conversation? Are you engaged, or are you shut down? And its also appearance. But I would again say that there’s an asterisk next to this one. Because it depends on the industry that you’re in and the workplace culture in terms of what the expectations are for dress and appearance. Many companies have different expectations. And this poses a unique challenge as it relates to leaders in bridging the gap. So, for example, let’s say that you’re onboarding a new employee, and this employee came from a more casual culture. You might notice that they come in, and as far as their physical appearance, they come off as more casual. And you might find yourself judging them. Like, don’t they take this work seriously? Why aren’t they dressed like a professional? But you see, if you didn’t have the conversation with them, they dress based on what they know success looks like. And so, again, remember that appearance is something that we need to challenge. And then, of course, the final area of leadership presence is our character. You can think about that as our values, what we stand for. And, of course, what we fall for. The Center for Talent and Innovation actually describes this mix in three parts. Gravitas— how you act— accounts for 67% of your leadership presence. 28% is communication. And again, that’s both verbal and nonverbal, and then only 5% is appearance. What Can Harm Your Leadership Presence? But what do you need to watch out for? These are the things you could do that would negatively impact your leadership presence, or they’re eroding whether or not people want to trust you or follow you. One- the blame game. Hey, did you see what happened here? It’s all your fault. I’m not taking any responsibility for it. No, it’s their fault. They didn’t send the email. They didn’t do this. When you can’t take responsibility. It says that I can’t trust you. The second pitfall of leadership presence is inconsistency. People want consistency. Our brains actually operate better when we understand what’s expected of us. If you find your emotions change day to day, meeting to meeting, and that you aren’t consistent in how you react to problems or challenges, or maybe some days you actually go off the deep end when someone makes a mistake. But for others, you might have more empathy. Chances are, someone is going to assume your worst is your best. And then they might say, I don’t want to follow this person. Another pitfall of leadership presence is closed-off nonverbal cues. I know you can think of this person in a meeting with their arms crossed, and there are 20 other places they would rather be. If you are that individual, it’s telling people I’d rather not be here, or I don’t have any interest in this conversation or entertain me. And again, it’s creating this perception that you’re distant, disengaged, and maybe not even worthy or willing to collaborate with others. Other pitfalls of leadership presence would be: listening to respond. Leading from the tower, pretending that you are above it. If you want to have a productive and appropriate leadership presence, you must be willing to get your hands dirty and do the work, not just point and look down at others, especially in a time of crisis. And of course, another pitfall is a lack of professionalism, not understanding what you’re saying or how you’re saying it and how it could be construed by your audience. And this is what I want you to pay attention to. When are people determining or essentially judging your leadership presence? Well, one— first impressions! Are you meeting people with a nice, positive greeting, or are you indifferent to their presence? Maybe you don’t even look them in the eye or show them that you care that they are there. So first impressions when you’re first meeting a customer, a potential business partner, or even a new employee during that interview process. If they get the impression that you are not supportive or not open. That might signal to them that that’s not the right fit for them, which is important to pay attention to, especially where many companies compete for top talent. Leadership presence can also be undermined by your dress and attire. Are you wearing clothes with stains on them? Because you know, sometimes we have to take care of ourselves a little bit, or are you wearing really wrinkled clothing in your industry? Again, depending on what people are used to, they may want to see you in a different way. And so it’s very important to understand who you’re trying to influence and what their expectations are. And again, I understand that this can also be latent bias or that bias can be attached to appearance. But it also is something that we have to pay attention to. Presence is also determined by your communication style. How do you communicate what you say? Are you condescending? Or do you offer respect? And taking that one step further, even what you put online. What you’re putting on LinkedIn or your social media, if people can see that they’re making assessments about you, leadership presence is also determined in the face of crisis. Are you the leader that’s going to help us whether and navigate this crisis? Or are you the leader that might actually take us down? How to Build Your Leadership Presence So, how to build a leadership presence? First and foremost, understand this communication is a strong piece of leadership presence. And 70% of our communication is nonverbal. So it’s not always what you say, but it’s how you say it. An example of nonverbal communication is the tone that you use. Whether that’s an email or text message, or even just in a regular conversation. Also, your posture. Is your posture up? Are you slouched over? How are you moving your body? What are your facial expressions? Are you rolling your eyes? Are you smiling at inappropriate times? Eye contact. Now, of course, this is cultural. Is it appropriate to make eye contact when first meeting someone or communicating with someone? And hand gestures touch and, of course, physical distance. But let’s talk about the six ways to build a presence. It starts with intentional communication. Number two is consistency. Three is practicing empathy, and four is emotional intelligence. Five is connecting with others, and six is owning your value. Intentional Communication So let’s talk about intentional communication. The tip for developing your leadership presence through intentional communication is to make sure that you’re doing your research. What level of knowledge does that audience have? Do they, are they in the meetings with you? Meaning they’re very familiar or are unfamiliar with it. And are you adjusting your communication appropriately also? So when you’re going into a meeting or a presentation, or maybe you have something important to say to your boss, are you trying to talk about multiple topics? Or are you focusing on one topic? When we have a tendency to stack topics, it can actually confuse our audience. So make sure that you’re thinking through how much time I have, what I want them to know, and creating a structure accordingly. Also, understand less is more, especially if you are crunched for time. You want to make sure that your message is heard, but make sure that you’re eliminating filler words or things that actually have nothing to do with what you’re talking about. And one of my favorite tips, and many of you have likely heard this before, is when you are communicating, pretend that your words, the language you use, whether it’s in your email or in a conversation, will be placed on a billboard. Would that be something that you would want put on a billboard attached to your name? If the answer is no, it’s best that you rewrite or think of a different way to say something. And, of course, the final piece of rounding out intentional communication— always, always, always think before you speak! Now, if you’re going into a presentation or a meeting, consider these tips, the power of the pause. When you pause, you allow your audience to actually process what you’re saying. However, sometimes this can be difficult if we don’t prepare, or if we’re nervous, we might have a tendency to increase our rate of speech. And we might just jump over their pauses, which makes it more challenging for the odd to follow our conversation. More communication tips for a meeting or presentation, always explain the why. If you’re asking someone to do something, make sure they understand how it relates back to them. Or, to say it in a different way— what’s in it for me? The WIIFM! I like to also practice the rule of three. If I’m going to a meeting, I like to think what are the three things that I want them to walk away with. To do, think or know? And then, I’ll structure my conversation and presentation around those three things. And the other piece with communication is to consider what words and phrases you want to avoid that can negatively impact your presence. Filler words! Just like I’m sure that you’ve heard some of them in my speech already. We all have them, but if we want to have clear communication, this is where practice and preparation can help us reduce the filler words. Another phrase that I absolutely wish everyone would get rid of is,  “does that make sense?”Does that make sense signals to your audience that you might be confusing, and it also signals to yourself that maybe you’re not communicating clearly when we asked. Does that make sense? We’re assuming that the audience didn’t hear a message. So instead, wait for people to ask questions. Another phrase to avoid. I don’t know when we say, I don’t know. Yes, it’s forgiving. But another way to say that might be, let me check into that for you instead of, I don’t know or let me think about that for a little bit longer. Other phrases to avoid. I haven’t prepared much. Well, then why are we here? Or I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It can weaken your confidence and, then again, make your audience turn away from you. I hate to bother you. I might be wrong but avoid those phrases. If you want to come off confident. Consistency The second thing you can do to develop your leadership presence is be consistent, which means you need to be present. Do what you say. You will practice what you preach. Don’t just talk about it. Be about it. You must be the one that leads by example. And to do this, to help you, you might want to create a personal mission statement to guide you. That can determine what behaviors, words, or how you want to show up. Empathy The third thing to build leadership presence is to practice empathy. To be an empathetic individual requires us to be foundationally curious. Every single person is both our teacher and our student. We can learn something from everyone, and you know what? Sometimes we make really bad assumptions, and these assumptions can not only create conflict. They can create and damage our relationships and erode our communication. But when we lead conversations with curiosity, we likely will come to a different solution because we’re letting go of the judgements we had walking into it. Another way to practice empathy is to be flexible. Understand that your way may not be the way that works for everyone. And that’s okay. As long as you’re getting to that same destination that you both need to get to another tip, assume positive intent, assume that people actually want to work hard. They want to do well. And that they aren’t actually trying to erode or diminish or thwart your efforts assume positive intent that goes hand in hand with curiosity, you go into a difficult conversation, and you lead with I’m sure there’s something I’m missing. Assume positive intent. And then practice curiosity. You might be surprised at the direction that conversation goes. And of course, give, give, trust. Often our ego says, prove to me that I should trust you. If we want to give empathy, we want to assume positive intent. So we’re going to give trust to people. Emotional Intelligence The fourth area of leadership presence and how to develop it is your emotional intelligence. Your emotional intelligence consists of multiple parts. Your self-awareness of who you are, your ability to manage yourself, and how you perceive your relationships. And then, of course, how you react and interact in your environment. So if you want to exercise emotional intelligence, which is actually the foundation of presence, you want to understand who you are. To do this, you could think about your triggers. What things can get under your skin that you might then have an emotional reaction that you don’t want to have? If you, once you’ve identified that trigger, let’s say if someone’s late for a meeting, that triggers you because it says that in some way, they’re not respecting your time. Once you identify that trigger, I want you to ask yourself, what’s another to look at it. Maybe that person was stuck in traffic. Maybe they were derailed because they had to talk to a teacher after dropping their child off at school. Assume positive inten! Other ways to build your emotional intelligence— maintain our composure, practice deep breathing, make sure to get feedback on how others see you, but also be receptive to feedback. Sometimes our ego will say, there’s nothing wrong with me. I do everything. This is their issue. Well, there are two sides to every story. Connection And remember, with presence, perception is reality and, of course, understand what the needs of others are. If you want to know how to navigate the environment you’re in, including the team you’re on, you need to listen and pay attention. Who are the individuals that you’re working with? What are their strengths? What are their opportunities? How do they like to be rewarded? The fifth is to connect with others. If you want to build your presence, be a human being! Incorporate water cooler talk into your meetings and ask non-work questions such as what’s your favorite karaoke song or what’s your favorite color? I know this might feel like it’s a time-waster, but it’s actually a time-saver because it’s improving the relationships and communication and collaboration abilities of those that you’re influencing. And if you want to connect with others, know that we are all more alike than we are different and work to find common ground. One favorite activity that I love is to just have maybe groups of three or four, sit together and time them. And they can have five minutes to come up with something that they actually all have in common. It’s a quick way to see again that we’re all more alike than different and to get people talking. And the last piece that’s so important with connecting with others is to make sure that you’re creating psychological safety. Are you creating an environment where people feel free from retaliation and discrimination and feel free to be themselves? Own Your Value The final piece of building leadership presence is to own your value. And to do this, we want to see everyone as human to know that we can learn from them. And that just because they may be great doesn’t mean that we’re less than others, so we need to stop comparing ourselves. Stop comparing yourselves. The fastest way to erode your confidence is to try to be someone you’re not. And that’s often what happens when we compare ourselves and assume that that’s the person we need to be like. So to build your own confidence, create a great list. Write down all of your accomplishments or noteworthy achievements that you are proud of. And use that when you might not be feeling great, or you might feel discouraged, to remind yourself of how great you actually are. And, of course, check in with that inner critic. The inner critic always has a way of telling us that we’re not smart enough and not good enough. And here’s the thing about our thoughts. We always get to choose them. Where to Learn More So this was our conversation today on how to develop leadership presence. And just remember this— people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Thank you, until next time. And please check us out for our monthly webinars. Talk to us about bringing our webinars or leadership skills workshop to your team. We would love to come in and help to develop your leaders. Thank you so much for listening today. Bye-bye.   The post Minisode: Leadership Presence with Jenn DeWall appeared first on Crestcom International.

Leading From the Jumpseat with Peter Docker On this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, Jenn sat down with Peter Docker to talk all about his newest book, Leading from the Jumpseat: How to Create Extraordinary Opportunities by Handing Over Control. Peter is passionate about enabling people to unlock their natural talents. He teaches leadership that is focused on commitment and human connection. This approach harnesses the collective wisdom of teams to generate extraordinary outcomes. He illustrates his insights by drawing on examples from his previous industry, flying and military careers, to explain powerful concepts that can be applied in any business. Peter is a trained leadership consultant and executive coach, and he has also worked with Simon Sinek for over seven years and was one of the founding Igniters on Simon’s team. He took his years of practical experience to co-author Find Your Why: A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team with Simon and David Mead, published in September 2017. It has been translated into over 25 languages and has sold over 420,000 copies. Wow. Peter brings a tremendous amount of expertise, and I hope you enjoy our conversation as we talk about his newest book, Leading From The Jumpseat: How to Create Extraordinary Opportunities by Handing Over Control. Full Transcript Below Meet Peter Docker, Speaker, Teacher, Author, Pilot, Veteran and More! Jenn DeWall:   Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall, and I am so excited to welcome Peter Docker to the podcast. You heard a tremendous bio. Wow. Peter, you have had quite a career. And I just wanna start off by saying thank you so much for donating your time, your expertise and your passion for leadership with The Leadership Habit audience. We are so happy to have you, Peter Docker:  Jenn. It’s a delight to be on your show. Thank you for having me. Jenn DeWall:  Great. Peter, we’re gonna be talking about a lot of things today. I know we’re going to get into your book Leading From The Jumpseat, but before are we getting into your book? Which people, I mean, I know they wanna hear more. We heard that teaser in the bio. If you could just share how you came to be, what, what’s your journey like that led you to today being now the author— and I know this isn’t even your first book— being now the author of Leading From The Jumpseat. If you could just share with the audience your experience that led you to where you are today Peter Docker:   Good heavens. Well, first of all, Jenn, I’m old. So, you know, it is quite a long story, I guess. <Laugh> but yeah, let’s start. When I joined the Royal Air Force in my early twenties, I joined the Royal Air Force as a pilot and an officer, and I spent 25 years in the Royal Air Force. I flew large aircraft jets and also fueling aircraft that carried gas to give away to fighter jets. And during my time, I led squadrons. I was a force commander leading people in combat during the 2003 Iraq war. I negotiated with the Russians when the Berlin wall came down on behalf of NATO. Good heavens, what else have I done? Oh, I’ve taught leadership at the defense college to the postgraduate level here in the UK. I’ve well, I’ve led $20 billion procurement programs. And that took me to Washington to negotiate with your state department. So all sorts of wonderful things to the Royal Air Force. But then, after about 25 years, I thought there was more I could do. So, I left after, as I say, just 25 years, I joined a consultancy that had got nothing to do with flying all the military, but it had everything to do with people. And what we did, we worked, it was a consultancy. We worked in high-risk environments, such as oil and gas, and mining construction, where people typically got killed and injured. And what we helped them to do was create cultures and create a way of leading, which ensured that everyone went home safely at the end of each day. So that took me to the Middle East. It took me to Africa. It took place like Kazakhstan, but then after about three years, I thought there was more I could do. So I left that job. And I started my own business, bringing together everything that I’d learned. And it was around about that time. I came across a fellow called Simon Sinek, and long story short there, he’s known pretty well for the books he’s written, but I spent eight years with Simon, helping him to take his message around the world. And in the process, I co-wrote the book Find Your Why with Simon Sinek and David Mead, which has done really rather well. But after about eight years, I thought that’s more I could do. So I left. That was another crossroads. And I sat down, I threw together everything I’ve learned through all the experiences I’ve had in my life. The privilege of that. Visiting 93 countries working with every industry you can imagine, and I’ve brought it all together, all in leadership lessons and put them in this book, Leading From the jumpseat: How to Create Extraordinary Opportunities by Handing Over Control. And yeah, I just wanted to bring together everything I’d learned and share it with other people so they can benefit from it too. Jenn DeWall:  What do you think? And this is more of a personal probe because leadership lessons can be hard to learn. Sometimes it can be that we had to let someone down. Sometimes we might. It felt like we let ourselves down. What was one of the hardest leadership lessons that you learned? What Difficult Leadership Lessons Have You Learned? Peter Docker:  Hmm, that, that’s, that’s a really good question because I, I think leadership lessons can be very hard to learn, and we don’t always learn them because we don’t give ourselves permission to sit and reflect. And I’ve been lucky in that I’ve dedicated several years to sitting and reflecting, not only on my own leadership lessons, but what I’ve and mistakes, but what I’ve learned from, from others as well from the boardroom, you know? So that’s the first thing having the opportunity to reflect on. I think, is really important. I, I think one of the greatest things I’ve learned is it sounds very simple, but it’s actually very tough. And it’s around leading yourself because it life’s a journey you to learn how to lead yourself. And the more we invest in that the better able we are to lead others. And as part of leading yourself, I think one of the greatest lessons is to learn how to be yourself. You know, that’s the simple thing many, many years ago when I was going through officer training for the Royal airs, I remember one of my trainers say, you know, be yourself as an officer, just be yourself. And at the time at the age of 2021 I didn’t really fully get it, you know, but it was much later on in my career where the penny really dropped. And I realized that, yeah, you’ve just gotta be yourself because while everybody else is taken, first of all, you know, <laugh>, but when you are, when you are yourself, it builds trust, it builds relationship. And whoever that person is when you’re being yourself, that is the greatest foundation on which to build your own leadership, whether it’s leading yourself or leading others. What Does Leading From the Jumpseat Mean? Jenn DeWall:  I gotcha. So those that are listening, even if you’re maybe not feeling confident, you’re looking to the left, looking to the right, trying to figure out who you should be. The answer is right inside. I love that learning how to be yourself, which is a challenging lesson because it’s easy to compare or think about. Am I getting it wrong? If I’m not doing what that person is doing and what that person is doing? Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that because I think we often don’t talk about the fact that we all struggle with that and that it is challenging, but I wanna get into your book because there are so many fantastic lessons, but first, why, why the title- Leading From The Jumpseat? Why, how, how did you come about picking that title? Peter Docker:  It was inspired by a story, and there are lots of stories in this book, but every story has got a purpose to it. A point to it. This story goes back to when I was still in the Royal Air Force, I was a senior officer, and I was a senior pilot, and we were flying large passenger jets at the time. The thought that you might go on holiday on vacation in, you know, carrying about 140 people. And on this particular day, I was checking doing the final certification of this new captain. His name was, was Callum, and he’d been a first officer for many years, but he’d just gone through about six months of training to equip him to become the captain, the guy in charge of the whole aircraft and all the safety, all the passengers. And the final part of that training was for someone like myself to be part of his crew and monitor him as we flew from the UK to Washington Dulles and then onto San Fran. And he did a great job. We landed in San Francisco, a very busy place. Landed in San Francisco, taxied it in, shut down, the passengers got off. And it was with great pleasure I could turn to him and say, Callum, great job. You’re fully certified. Now, as a captain, we’re stopping here the night, but tomorrow morning, we’ve got a full, full passenger load of people on the aircraft. I’ll be down the back with them. You’ll have a regular co-pilot you fly us back to Washington Dulles. And that was a great moment, as you can imagine because he really worked hard for this qualification certification. Anyway, the following morning, I was just reading a magazine. He came up to me he said, excuse me, sir. And he’s called me, sir, because I was very senior and ranked to him. You know, it was that deferential, but nonetheless, he out to me, he said, look, it’s really busy here. Alice, San Fran, during rush hour, can you come and sit on the jumpseat to help watch out, make sure we go the right way and watch out for other aircraft as we taxi. So the runway, because we don’t go there very often. And I said, yes, of course. I thought at the time how courageous that was because he just got me off his back after six months. And this was his opportunity just to, you know, do his thing. But no, he was connected to the higher purpose, in this case, the safety of everybody on that aircraft. And so he wanted me to sit on the jumpseat to help lookout. And the jumpseat is the third seat on the flight deck of most large aircraft. It’s usually empty, but crew members can sit there. And when you sit there, you can touch the pilots on the shoulders. You’re that close. And you got a great view out the front of the aircraft. So that’s where he wanted me to sit. So I strapped in, and we taxied out. He did a great job. He didn’t need me, but he, he did great. We lined up on the runway. We had clearance take-off. We thundered down the runway, and we’d only just climbed to about three or 400 feet. We’d just taken off. And we had an emergency. And Callum was wrestling with the controls, desperately trying to keep us away from the ground and what I chose to do in the next couple of seconds, which fundamentally affected whether I and everybody else, the 140 people on board, would survive or not. And this thing I did- absolutely nothing. I sat there with my hands in my lap, perfectly calm. Because at that moment, I didn’t need to lead. At that moment I needed to become a great follower. I needed Callum to feel that I had his back to feel quite rightly that I had confidence in him to sort out that problem and look, what business would I have. I had the day before signing him up, as a fully certified captain, if I didn’t think he could handle any problem that came his way, I just needed to stay out of his way and let him do his job. And that’s what prompted the title Leading From The Jumpseat because, you know, we all hand over control at some stage in our life. You know, if we’re the CEO of a company, we will retire. If we’re leading a team, we’ll move on to another team. Heck as a parent, which by the way, is one of the toughest leadership challenges. Many of us will face. Even as a parent, our kids will eventually grow up, leave home and start to lead their own lives. So handing over control is inevitable— jumpseat leadership. It’s all about embracing that. It’s all about focusing on lifting others up, not increasing or maintaining our own power, but empowering others, lifting them up and equipping them, such that when the time is right, they can take the lead and we take the step back. And it turns out that when we do that right here in the present, it creates the most extraordinary opportunities for our team and helps us to progress way quicker than we would otherwise. And it all came back to that story of taking off out of San Francisco. Jenn DeWall:  That is a powerful, insane, so many words to describe that story that I probably can’t say, right? Like, holy cow, how’d you do that? What?! What, but the first piece, because I think at a high level, I, you know, I love that concept of Leading From The Jumpseat, but what, what about the times of life or death? What, how, how do you possibly hand over and, and that’s what more of a personal question? How are you able to practice that self-restraint? Because sometimes, you know, when we bring that back to the non-life or death situation that we might see at the corporate workplace, you might see leaders jumping in and saying, no, no, no, I’ve got that. There might be a difficult email from a customer, and they just still jump in, and they, you know, they really struggle with even, I would say non-life or death situation. So how were you able to do, how are you able to just actually do that? Because that’s wow. Because I would be like, Nope, this is my life. Like, you know, just like a lot of people are probably like, this is my job. This is my blank, all of the reasons of why you should have jumped in, yet you still took a pause. Peter Docker:  Yeah. And you, you bring a, a great point out, Jenn, you know, most of us and most people listening are probably not gonna be in the situation I’ve just described. However, if they’re running a team, if they have their own business, let’s say they founded a business 10 years ago and they put their life and soul into that business, and they’re expanding and they know that they need to delegate and allow others to take the lead. It is just as scary when we’re handing over control. But unless we do hand over control, it’s the, it would be the same as just having one pilot. You know, you can only fly from A, to B, what we need are lots of pilots who can fly in the way that we would wish. So, you know, it is something that we face. The circumstances might be different, but they’re nonetheless very real. And I think some of the insights for the answer to your question comes back to that story, which is how did I get to be invited onto that jumpseat? Just think about that for a moment, because the relationship, the context had to be very, very special for someone in call’s position to invite me his senior, senior boss, who’s got way more experience than he has to invite me to sit on that jumpseat. When the easiest thing would’ve been to have kept me down the back with the other passengers. And I think when we start to dig into that, and this is what we, part of what we unpack in the book, it gives us insight into the sort of leader that we need to be to create those conditions for our people, where we feel, where they feel comfortable, inviting yourself to the jumpseat or whatever the equivalent is, you know? Leaders Need to Know Their Non-Negotiables Peter Docker:  And in order to get there, it comes actually back to your earlier questions, you know, something I’ve learned about leadership, the most important it’s about being yourself. It’s about being comfortable with who you are. It’s about being very clear on what your non-negotiables are. And I describe how to identify your non-negotiables non-negotiables are deeper than values. You know, values change. I’m sorry, but they do. You might think you’re a courteous person. Yeah. But Hey, if you are late for a business meeting and as you drive up to the parking lot, there’s just one more space. You’ll dive into that space. Even though at the corner of your eye, you’ll see someone else who’s been hunting around for the space. Yeah. Now you might feel bad about it afterward, but Hey, you’re not gonna be late for that meeting. So what happens to your value of being courteous? Hmm it’s circumstance-based, context-based your non-negotiables are much deeper. These are the things that are unshakable in you and describe how to identify these. But these then give us the, the handrail, the guide when we’re stepping into the unknown and they help us in situations of well, crisis, as well. So just like being on that jump, you know, you ask, how did I get there? Well, it’s all about being able to recognize what triggers fear inside of us and how to better respond to it rather than to react to it, which is what normally we would do. Jenn DeWall:  Oh my gosh, what triggers fear in me! Depending on the day, it can be a variety of things, but I love that because I think leadership there is whether you’re a new leader, whether you are new to an organization, whether you’re an existing or tenured leader, that’s making a new decision that may or may not be favorable. There’s fear. I think that’s the one, one universal that we can relate with is that we all are afraid of something, of letting someone down, or fear of doing the wrong thing. Peter Docker:  So fear is triggered by one of four things. OK? The first fear is triggered by when we sense that our life is on the line, and this is deeply ingrained. It’s part of our DNA. You know, it has us jump back when there’s an oncoming car that we didn’t see until the last minute. And it saves our life. So fear in those circumstances is good but general on a day-to-day basis. Thankfully, our life is not under threat, but fear then is still triggered by three other things. It’s triggered when we sense that our livelihood, our status or our reputation is under threat. And when fear is triggered because our status, reputation or livelihood is under threat, it generates a very different reaction, which is generally not helpful at all. It generates a situation where we close down, and we start seeing the world’s a place of scarcity rather than a place of opportunity. We start seeing it as a binary win, lose, and we gotta win at all costs. Instead of thinking of others, we start thinking of ourselves. That becomes our focus. We might become angry or the other extreme. We might become timid. None of these things are useful when we’re leading ourselves or others. And the biggest thing that comes out is ego. Ego is Greek for eye. And we’ve all seen it when we’ve seen others lead by ego. We know when we are led by ego, and it generally does not turn out well, we start making decisions, which end up hurting others, but here’s the good use. We always have a choice. We always have a choice. OK. And that is to see fear as a warning flag rather than react to fear. See it as a prompt to be driven instead by love. Now, when I start talking about love of the business context, people get a little bit twitchy, and that’s OK. Let’s just let go and embrace it. This is not about running around and hugging trees. You know, <laugh>, I’m talking about love as it shows up in business where we think about others. We think about our team. We think about the customers we serve instead of seeing the world as a play to scarcity. We see it as a place of opportunity and possibility. And instead of leading with ego, we lead with what I call humble confidence and humbled confidence. It’s all about, well, a confidence bit. First of all, it’s all about being absolutely clear on where we’re strong, resolute on where we’re going, absolutely resolute and ready to make decisions when they need to be taken. But importantly, we have the humility to listen to our team <affirmative> and whereas someone who’s being led by ego is determined to be the one with the answer, a leader who leads with humble confidence is focused instead on asking the important questions and becoming comfortable leading when they don’t know the answer. And that’s one of the main things in the book. A Message from Crestcom Crestcom is a global organization dedicated to developing effective leaders. Companies all over the world have seen their managers transformed into leaders through our award-winning and accredited leadership development programs. Our signature BPM program provides interactive management training with a results-oriented curriculum and prime networking opportunities. If you’re interested in learning more about our flagship program and developing your managers into leaders, please visit our website to find a leadership trainer near you. Or maybe you yourself have always wanted to train and develop others. Crestcom is a global franchise with ownership opportunities available throughout the world. If you have ever thought about being your own boss, owning your own business and leveraging your leadership experience to impact businesses and leaders in your community, Crestcom may be the right fit for you. We’re looking for professional executives who are looking for a change and want to make a difference in people’s lives. Learn more about our franchise opportunity on the own-a-franchise page of our website at crestcom.com. Leading From the Jumpseat with Commitment, Humble Confidence and Belonging Jenn DeWall:  You know, the book talks about three different themes about commitment, humility, confidence, belonging, and, you know, let’s unpack those at a greater level because I think it makes me also think, you know, going back to the conversation about ego is that fear that throws us into ego or our, are we, you know, what else is it that, you know, is it always fear? I don’t know if you know or can say it. I’m not expecting you to know the full answer to this, but from your lived experience, what do you see trigger people into or triggers people to go into a more of an ego response? Is it fear or is it other things? Is it like wanting other people to accept us, which I guess would also be fear? You know, is it always just fear? Peter Docker:  Short answer. Yes. You know, and I, I say that from not from scientific study, I’m not a scientist. I say this from a practitioner’s point of view. You know, I’ve led people in combat; I’ve led big commercial projects. And you can tell when someone when their behavior shifts from being sourced from a place of love and possibility to a place of fear and scarcity, and ego is always generated by fear. I saw this in I was running a workshop some years ago, one of the biggest companies on the planet, and I had the room all of the directors from the board and ego was present in the room. It was. They were not doing well as a company. Their stock price had fallen through the floor, and they’d lost a lot of their reputation. And instead of coming to the table with humble confidence, they came in there with their egos, all trying to have a pop at one another to try and put the other down. So as they could protect their own status, reputation and livelihoods, that was ego coming to the floor. You know, when I’ve flown within the military, I’ve led formations of many aircraft. What you don’t want in that formation is any pilot who’s got a big ego, you know. You don’t want that because they put themselves first instead of their wingmen first. Yes. And that’s when it falls down. That’s when people start to lose their lives. So, you know, when I talk about ego, when I talk about fear, when I talk about love. It comes from working with and observing companies. So in the business world, but also when people’s lives are on the line, you know, their life, their livelihood, their status and reputation, when it’s all on the line and ego can come out. Jenn DeWall:  Gosh, I’m sure there are a lot of listeners right now that can already put themselves into that boardroom into that training where they feel like it’s not even a conversation so much as this as it’s a debate of egos. Or a debate of, Hey, let me show you how I’m good enough, or let me show you how my idea is the best idea. And what are the consequences to a team when you show up with ego? I know some of them are probably pretty straightforward, but from your experience, what do you see if you’re just pushing and you’re not leading with that humble confidence? What are the consequences that people will feel are the ripple effect of that through the team and organization? The Danger of Leading With Ego Peter Docker:  Well, first, it’s disengagement, but also, it tends to be infectious. Ego tends to be infectious. I, I think one of the most dramatic stories from my book that illustrates what happens when the ego is in the driver’s seat goes back to March 1977 on the island of Tenerife, off the west coast of Africa. And it was the scene of the most horrendous air accident the world has ever seen. Two jumbo jets fully packed jumbo jets collided in fog on the runway. One was crossing the runway, and the other was trying to take off. 583 people lost their lives that day. And the subsequent inquiry identified quite a few factors. One was the poor radio communications between the air traffic controller and the aircraft, the KLM jet taking off. But one of the key factors was the ego of the captain of the KLM jet, he was captain by the name of Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten, and Jacob was one of them, the most highly respected, most experienced captains in that airline at the time. He trained other captains, he was literally the poster pilot on all the adverts for the airline. And when they lined up ready to take off, he pushed the throttles forward to start the take-off roll, thinking that they had clearance to take off. But they didn’t. And the other, the pilot and the flight engineer on, on the crew is what we call a cockpit gradient- he was so senior in comparison to their time on the in the airline and their rank that they felt they couldn’t question him. And the result was that 583 people died. The good news, I should say, Jenn, out of this is that out of that accident, the good thing that happened was something called well cockpit management. It’s, it’s about how we respond to one another on the flight deck of an aircraft called crew resource management. And it gets rid of this, what we call gradient, where you’ve got a very senior person and a very junior person. It, it creates an environment where the most junior person feels able to speak up. It’s called crew resource management. And so that’s one good thing that came out of it. And every airline pilot has been taught that since the early 1980s. But yeah, this is at the extreme of what happens when ego comes to the fall. But in businesses and smaller teams, it can have just as a dramatic effect and that people take a step back, they disengage, they just let you get on with it cause you know, best. Yeah. And they’re not part of the solution to the challenges that you’re facing, and then you are on a downward slope. Jenn DeWall:  Well, I’m curious, what would you say to someone that, you know, because I feel like there was this traditional leadership where ego was actually a very regarded skill or attribute of someone if they appeared confident or decisive and you know, maybe more direct or authoritarian that was more valued, but some of those things are much more into ego, but it’s understandable based on where your lived experience might be, but that you have come up learning that. What would you say to someone that says, well, I still get a lot of success with that, and why would I give it up now? Peter Docker:  Um, Good luck. Jenn DeWall:  Yeah.<laughter> Peter Docker:  You know that’s fine. Ask your people how they feel about it. You know, here’s the thing with ego as well. It is not just poor practice in my view, it’s a limiting practice because what comes with ego is the belief that you’ve got to be the person with the answer. Jenn DeWall:  Yeah. Peter Docker:  And if you are the only person with the answer, you become the constriction in the pipe. Jenn DeWall:  Yeah. Peter Docker:  Your team can only progress as quickly as your knowledge allows. But look, let, let’s not be too hard on ourselves because this is again baked-in in terms of our development. When we’re at school, we are rewarded for knowing the answer. You know, we put our hand up, we know the, and we’re rewarded. We then focus on the subjects where we feel we know the answer and we’re inspired to find the answer. We then perhaps go to a college university. We further specialize. And then we leave, we enter the job market, and we are hired because we’re the person who knows the answers <laugh> yeah. And if we do really, really well, we’re then promoted. And eventually, we get promoted to the point where we are no longer the ones who are doing the work. We are leading the experts who are doing the work. And that is very unfamiliar territory. So what happens? Fear kicks in. Because we’re outside of our comfort zone, and nobody has taught us how to manage this transition, where our job is no longer to be the expert. We are managing and leading the experts. And so what do we do? We revert to type. We revert to being well, no, I’ve got know the answers to this. When people come to us with a problem, if we know the answer, we tell ’em what to do. If we don’t know the answer, you say, leave it with me. Yeah. That’s a classic. I’ve done it myself. You know? And so people start to rely on waiting for you to tell ’em what to do. And you become the constriction in the pipe. The opportunity that is jumpseat leadership is learning how to be comfortable leading when we don’t know the answer and embracing that. Now, this doesn’t mean to say that we’re weak or timid, not a bit of it. What it looks like in practice is look, I don’t know the answer to this challenge. Let me tell you the reason why we’ve got to figure it out. And I gotta support you on my team to give you everything you need. So can work with me to figure out the answer to this challenge that we’re facing right now. Are you with me? Yeah, much, much different environment to work in. And one where you’re lifting people up where people are showing up where they’re working harder because they want to not because they have to. Right. And that’s how you accelerate the progress of your team. So all the people out there who are leading with ego, as I say best luck to you, <laugh>, you’re probably advanced quicker. If you learned how to lead from the jumpseat and learn to lead with humble confidence. Leading with Commitment Jenn DeWall:  Yes. I love that. I mean, and I’ll the last thing that I would even just from what you’re saying too, and like, what I would add is when you actually give yourself permission to not know all the answers, think about how much you can protect your own mental health in the form of stress, anxiety, burnout, by being able to allow other people to be and offer a solution. But I know we are writing and running through this. I love our conversation, but let’s get into the other two themes. So you talk about three themes in the book. One is humble confidence. The next one is commitment. Why is an important theme? Peter Docker:  Well, commitment. These three you’ve mentioned are commitments, humble confidence and belonging. They are three practices. And practice as a word’s important. It’s not about being perfect. We are not perfect as human beings. It’s about our intention and our trends. You know, that’s, what’s important to, to measure. And so we, we practice and we get better. Commitment is the first practice because commitment is all about figuring out what are your non-negotiables, what are those things that are unshakable? Now I’ll give you an example. Family, for many of us is something that’s a non-negotiable. You know, when I phone call about two and a half years ago for my wife, she told me she’d just been involved in a car accident. I dropped everything. I left the business calls. It was only two miles down the road. I was off nothing. Would’ve stopped me from going to her. And many people listening can relate to that. But it’s the interesting thing, Jenn, the energy, that least inside of me think about it. I was stepping into the unknown. I didn’t know what I was gonna find, but there was nothing on this planet, which would’ve got in my way. Would’ve stopped me from going. So identifying your non-negotiables it’s about identifying those other things that have got a similar amount of energy inside of them, because together they create this foundation that can help you move forward. Even in the face of adversity, even in the face of uncertainty, they act as a handrail. I’ll tell you in the book, how to do that. It’s through the choices that we make in life. Those are the clues, but when we identify these non-negotiables, they become stands. What we stand for and we can turn those stands then into action and turn them into commitments. What we’re committed to and this isn’t, you know, an airy-fairy thing. Commitment is a promise that we make to ourselves. Not actually anybody else to ourselves, you know, you and I could have a contract, we could sign it up and people say, oh, we’re committed now, but I can guarantee that if we wanted to get out of it, if we hadn’t made that promise to ourselves to follow through, we’d get out of it. OK. So commitment is a promise we make to ourselves to follow through. And so the first point book is helping people to understand those distinctions in language, to identify what their non-negotiables, what their stands are and how to use them to form commitments, to follow through. Because when we practice that, people start to build a relationship with us, it forms what we ultimately call character. It helps us to act consistently. And that helps us not only to lead our own lives well, but to lead others well, too. It’s the foundation as well of being able to have the courage to lead with humble confidence, you know? So that’s commitment, that’s humble confidence. Would you like to about that? Or should I dive into belonging? Jenn DeWall:  Let’s do a little bit more on commitment. I’m curious. You talked about what it looks like. What does commitment look like at work? Because I think many of us could probably relate to the non-negotiable of family. What are examples of maybe non-negotiables that you see that might be successful in the workplace? Peter Docker:  Sure. so <laugh>,let me give a story to illustrate this, because I think it’s easier to grab I went to university to study two subjects about which I knew nothing. OK. This was 18 years old electronic engineering, computing. I knew nothing. This was in 1981, good evidence it’s a long time ago. Right. But the reason I went to university to study those subjects was that I figured I’d be able to get a really well paid job at the end of it. And that was important. It was important because at the time both my parents had lost their jobs. Money was very, very short. Me going to university actually helped because at the time it was paid for by the government here in the UK. So it, it was, it was no cost to appearance. And I figured that it would reduce the burden on them and also I’d be in a position to help them afterwards. So that formed a non-negotiable in me looking back, I said, it’s about the choices we make in life. And this was a key choice of mine. And the non-negotiable for that event was that with me is the notion of self-sufficiency. I don’t wanna be a burden on anyone else. I wanna be self-sufficient and I want to be able to be in a position to help others. So that’s one of my non-negotiables. Now halfway through my degree course, something else happened. Argentina invaded the Falkland islands down in the South Atlantic, the Falkland islands, tiny islands, which are a British territory. And the people there consider themselves to be British. But at the time Argentina invaded, they imposed their will on those people. Now I knew hardly anything about the politics, but I was incensed by the fact that someone was imposing their will on others who were unable to help themselves. And so I left university mid-degree to join the Royal Air Force because I wanted to be part of a team that in future could help others in that sort of situation. Now what that pointed to that choice is something that is another non-negotiable, which is the notion of mutual respect. And if I see or sense anyone not mutually respecting– or mutual respect not occurring, that incenses me, that drives me forward. So how does that look in the business world? Well, those two things, those non-negotiables turn into sounds, which give me guidance, show me the way when I’m treading into uncertain territory, when I don’t know what to do, where there isn’t a roadmap, those and other non-negotiables help me to figure out what direction to, to head in and help me lead my team. Jenn DeWall:  I love that. And it’s the foundation. I think if you’re a new leader, I love that you talk about finding you’re non-negotiable because I think whether you’re an existing leader or a new leader when you’re a new leader, this could be one of the first places that you can build your confidence within yourself. Absolutely. <laugh> understanding what are the things, how do you want to treat others? How do you want to be treated? What are the things that you’re not going to stand for? And you know, what are the things that you might be like, OK, like, I don’t love that, but I’m not going to also, you know, jump over if something like that happens, too. Because I imagine there’s also a place like, is there a, is there a magic number of non-negotiables that you think are helpful? Like, is it, is it three, is it five or is it just all about consistency? Peter Docker:  It’s about consistency. It’s about where those non-negotiables have come from. And they, they come from those choices that we make in life, the big crossroads. But actually, here’s something right now that people can do. Think about a time where something has really triggered you and perhaps you felt like you were getting angry or annoyed in some way. Take a moment, pause and reflect on that. It’s probably because you feel strongly against something. OK. Jenn DeWall:  Yeah. Peter Docker:   Now take a moment to turn that coin over and recount in terms of what you feel strongly for. OK. So in the example of the reason I left university, you know, I, I was against what was being imposed on the the British population down the Falkland islands. When I turned that coin over what I found was my stand for mutual respect. OK. So this is something that’s we, we can, we can do right now, you know, beneath every complaint is a commitment for something. And it’s something I, that that’s a really helpful thing that one’s not in the book, but it’s really helpful. <Laugh> in a business, a team situation. If someone comes to you with a complaint, rather than trying to brush it under the carpet, sweep it away, ask questions to dig deeper and find what’s the underlying commitment. What’s really important to that person that they’ve had the courage to put their hand up, stand outta line and say, Hey, I’m complaining about this because when we can find that underlying commitment, instead of squashing the complaint, we can harness that energy that comes with it and work with the underlying commitments to achieve something remarkable. Leading By Practicing Belonging Jenn DeWall:  Yes. I love this. This is where we can envision success. What are we working towards? Where do we want to bring people a long? I love that. My gosh. And now we’ve got to go into the, the third practice– belonging, which I just love that this is a part of your book because belonging is so incredibly important to everyone yet. I think it’s often an overlooked area that people just kind of think like, does that really matter at work? I mean, they might know it on some level that it matters, but we don’t really look at it as a strategy because what? Like, they should be happy they have a job <laugh> but tell me what you mean by belonging. Peter Docker:  Well, as human beings, we all want to belong. We do. Yeah. You know, even going back to school, you know, we, we wanna find a group where we belong and <laugh> actually my, my children now they’re, they’re both grown up, but my daughter, when she was in her teens, here is something that any parents out there can relate to. You know, how do you get your teenage daughter to put her dirty laundry in the basket? <Laugh> Yeah, am right. It, this is, it’s actually a leadership challenge. How to you get her to choose to put that laundry in the basket. Well, what’s behind this is well, you can gain some extra insight because the time when she will choose to put it in the basket is what if she’s going out the weekend with her group of friends and she wants to wear a particular outfit that needs washing. Heck, she’ll put it in the basket. She might even go and wash it herself. OK. So what’s that all about? Jenn DeWall:  <Laugh> Peter Docker:  Because she strives, she wants to nurture this sense of belonging. Yeah. When people feel they belong in this case of teenage daughters is to belong to their group of friends by expressing through the fashion that they’re wearing. You know, that identity, it’s such a powerful driving force and in just the same way as it works at a fashion level with teenage daughters, it actually works in the work environment too. And I give an example in the book of this working at scale with an incredible company called as Aesop, a British based company, they’ve got about four and a half thousand people, average age 27. And they in, on online fashion retail, that’s what they do. But the whole story is in there, but they nurture a sense of belonging because when people feel that they belong, they want to step up. They want to take responsibility. They want to start to lead in exactly the same way as our teenage daughter starts to lead by choosing to put the washing in the laundry basket because they wanna be a part of the group that they wanna belong to. Yeah. So belonging is hugely important as leaders. We do well to nurture that sense of belonging and the way we nurture a sense of belonging is that we show that we care, not in empathy. Empathy is fine, but it’s not enough. Empathy is, yeah, I get it. I can see it from your point of view. No caring is showing well. It’s showing that we care at the human level and the way that we show that we care by giving people our time. And doesn’t need to be much time, you know, busy executives out there. I know your diary, your calendar is full, but you give your time. One of my most challenging leadership roles was leading 200 people during the Iraq war. And outwards as the, we were there four and a half months, and we flew large unarmed undefended aircraft. We got shot at quite a lot, and that was quite irritating, but you know, I had 200 people that I needed to care for. And what that looked like was, well, sometimes I’d sit down with a coffee on the floor, back against the wall with while the most junior people in my team, chatting with them, you know, how’s things at home, everything all right? I, I hear you had a new baby recently. You know, how are they doing? I remember during our time I had three people whose grandparents were dying, and we moved heaven on earth to get them back in time. You know, that’s just something that we did. Now you don’t need to make a song and dance about it. And we didn’t. But when people instinctively sense that you care, they are willing to contribute more. And so if your aim is to progress more quickly and further with your team, you need to care. You need to nurture a sense of belonging. Jenn DeWall:  Oh my gosh. And that’s, I just think of so many different examples. And I am seeing more company is practice this even in interviews. I had an organization that I recently am working with them now to facilitate. And one of the first things that they had said to me is we just want you to be you. We want you to be you, your unique self. We don’t want you to watch our current facilitators and try to be like them. We want you to be you because we know that you provide an individual perspective that makes the total unique. And that will probably stick with me for the rest of my life, because I have never up until that moment, two months ago, three months ago, actually a little bit longer than that, ever had an employer, actually bring that up in an interview process. And to now see it as I’m in that company, to see how true that is. Yes, you’re absolutely right. And makes me work that much harder. I just went through two and a half weeks of tech challenges, things that I could have just said, oh, I don’t know. Maybe you guys could figure this out, or you do this. But I called every single person on my end, my provider, I upgraded my, you know, I did so much all because they believed in me and they created the right place. But if they didn’t maybe have that approach, I’m not sure I would’ve invested in 20 hours of my tech challenges, investing in a new computer, buying a modem, all that stuff, because it wouldn’t have felt like my contributions or even why that would matter because I’m like, oh, they probably are fine anyways. Like we can do the work-around, but because they cared, I wanted it work the way that they want it to. Peter Docker:  Well, and, and here’s the thing, you know, what is it that you’re doing when you are, you’re spending some time with people. It can be a fleeting moment. And the more senior you are in a company, by the way, the more meaningful it is. Yeah. Those few moments, because people know instinctively how busy you are. But in those few moments, what are you doing? You’re lifting people up. And that goes to the heart of jumpseat leadership because when you lift people up, they then start to choose to leave and take responsibility. And that’s when, when people choose to do things, it’s so much more powerful than when we rely on telling people to do things. Jenn DeWall:  Yes. Peter, thank you so much for all of your insights today. I even love that- empowering people to choose. Empowering people to take that responsibility. Leading From The Jumpseat: How to Create Extraordinary Opportunities by Handing Over Control. Peter, how can people get in touch with you? Where can they purchase your book? Where to Find More From Peter Docker Peter Docker:  Well, my website is LeadingFromTheJumpseat.com and there’s lots of videos and resources on there. The book is available, paperback, hardcover, audiobook, e-book, in all the usual places, including Amazon and bookstore.org. And you can find me on social media, on LinkedIn.com/in/PeterDocker and Twitter, @PeterDocker, and Instagram. I’ve had to go at TikTok, but you know, Jenna, I don’t think I’m quite up to speed on TikTok yet. <Laugh>, you know what, let let’s stick to to what we know for, for the time being. But yeah, so you can find me, Jenn DeWall:  Oh my gosh, Peter, thank you so much for just again, your time, your expertise, your passion. And I love that. I’m so excited- Leading From The Jumpseat. Pick it up now. Thank you again, Peter. It was so great to have you on the show. Peter Docker:  Thanks for having me, Jenn. It’s been great. Jenn DeWall:  Hi everyone. Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Peter Docker. And if you want to know more, if you want to get your copy of his book, you can head on over to LeadingFromTheJumpseat.com. Now, if you know someone that could benefit from hearing Peter’s message— as I feel like everyone could— don’t forget to share this episode with them and of course, if you enjoyed this episode, feel free to leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming platform. Until next time.   The post Leading From the Jumpseat with Peter Docker appeared first on Crestcom International.

The Future of Work is Empathy with Work Innovation Specialist Sophie Wade In this week’s episode at The Leadership Habit, we are talking with Sophie Wade about what’s next now that the future of work has arrived. Sophie Wade is a work futurist, an international keynote speaker and a Workforce Innovation Specialist at Future of Work Consultancy at Flexcel Network. Over 475,000 people have taken her LinkedIn courses on empathy and the future of work skills. Sophie’s executive advisory work and transformative workshops help leaders understand and adapt to new business conditions and attract, engage, and retain a productive multi-generational distributed workforce. Sophie got her BA at Oxford University and MBA at International Business School INSEAD. Sophie’s second book, Empathy Works, The Key to a Competitive Advantage in the New Era of Work, comes out May 3rd! Tune into this conversation as Sophie and Jenn talk about what’s next now that the future of work has arrived. Full Transcript Below Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall, and I am so excited to be sitting down with Sophie Wade today to talk about what’s next. Now that the future of work has arrived. Sophie, you heard her incredible bio! Sophie, how did you become a workplace innovator? Tell me about your journey and how you came to be. I’m so excited to be talking about your book today, but let’s hear a little bit about you your experience within this work or anything that you wanna share. Meet Author of Empathy Works, Sophie Wade Sophie Wade:  So, well, I think, you know, my journey is actually kind of interesting and sort of important because I grew up in England. I am British and American now, but I’ve lived I actually studied Chinese and then having done science and, and have lived around the world and I’ve lived in five different, I and worked in five different countries, which really gave me a different perspective that, you know, work is different in every country and how people work and when they start and stop work and the attitudes they have towards it. So that really helped me sort of understand that there, there is no set way of working. There are sort of different rules in every place. And then my sort of first career, all about strategic development. I build a lot of financial models and help people raise money. But then I have two kids and when my, my daughter became three years old and, and they were sort of both complaining that they never saw me, I then started looking for workplace flexibility and sort of looked into it, did some research having got a job that was three days a week, cause it’s like, there must be many more people who want to work or have more flexibility in their work. And so I actually started working for a friend three days a week doing executive search for hedge funds, which was fascinating. But I really started looking into this aspect of workplace flexibility and this was 2011, so this was 12 years ago. And and so I decided that I had the, was going to try, you know, maybe spend a year, year and a half trying to get myself the kind of flexible job that was going to allow me to have better work life balance the, you know, very sort of old term now but, or set up company that was going to sort of work, sort of work on that. The Future of Work and Workplace Flexibility Sophie Wade:   And that’s what I did instead. I set up a company. And so I’ve really been in this space advocating for trying to, you know, connect people, trying to, you know, do consulting workshops. And then, around 2014, I came across the term, the future of work, of which workplace flexibility is a big chunk of it. And I realized that that was a, there was alot that was involved, and that was going to be very challenging for companies to adjust to because really driven by technology. So that’s how I really got into this and, and, and really looking at how leadership has changed, a lot of challenges between generations in terms of communications and miscommunications and Jenn, that is something that you are, we’ve had some great conversations so that was something. And then the last piece of it was through three pillars, and the third one was the decentralized workforce, which was increasing then of course, you know, we know a lot more about that since the pandemic started, but, but that was, that was sort of where it came from. And really, the sort of the human-centric counterbalance to this technology-driven world that we’re dealing with. So that’s how I sort of got there because the talent aspect of it, how people are working, has changed a lot with all the technology. Now that’s integrated into our work. Jenn DeWall:   So when you, oh my gosh, like so many questions, right? Like one question, what’s the biggest difference that you notice between the five countries that you’ve worked in terms of the attitude towards work, anything stand out or any, you know, any A-ha’s or interesting, I guess, observations that you’ve made? Work/Life Balance Around the Globe Sophie Wade:   One of the big changes I mean, I, so I lived in Germany. I lived in worked in Germany for two years and most people got to work nine o’clock on the dot and left at five o’clock on the dot and worked very hard during that time. But I was actually in, it was one of the first sort of online businesses, digital business and the technology people, the technologists were the only people really that I knew. And I knew a lot of them in the company who would be working over the weekend, who’d be working past five o’clock. So that was really interesting having been working before that, or recently before that in Hong Kong, where for the, you know, around five years that on and off that I worked in Hong Kong, I worked not only long hours, every weekday, but I worked two out of three Saturday mornings from nine till one, every single weekend. Like that’s just how the work was set up. And it, it was a while ago. I don’t know that they do that now. So going from sort of working five and a half days a week to, to, and long hours to a much shorter you know, schedule, I mean, I was working past five o’clock. So that, that sort of showed me immediately the range. And then, and, and also, you know, Europe had say, what I would say is a more balanced view of work. That work is important but it has its place and it is it, you know, there there’s non-work, and I wouldn’t sort of say life because these things were all, all integrated and should be in my opinion. But they have, it’s a more balanced, and it isn’t assumed that your work in the evening, it isn’t assume that you would work over the weekend. And so coming here to the us and I’ve always been engaged in, you know, digital media and lots of things. I was doing venture capital and I work very long hours and I always love my work, but it has a, there’s a very different work culture here compared to Europe. And that was, that was, there was a strong contrast from, from living in Germany to working here. Jenn DeWall:   Gosh, I love the perspective of even just bringing it back to our listeners that no matter where you sit, you likely have a different culture than the next. And it’s always important to remember that because when someone’s coming into your organization and you’re onboarding them, they are carrying with the norms of that past industry. And it’s really important to have those conversations with them to let them know what is it like here? What does work look like you? And I talked about it on the pre-fall even perception versus reality. How are you judging people in your workplace? How are you evaluating them and determining whether they’re a fit or whether they’re ready for the next role, those expectations are often missed when someone joins the team? Sophie Wade:  Huge. And, and, and, you know, I have talked about this in some of my speeches, which is about how people react and, you know, from a generational perspective, but it’s huge on the cultural perspective as well, in terms of, let’s just say hard work now, hard work for older generations typically means working long hours late at night, you know, grueling, probably grueling, boring work. And that’s kind of how it was. And it goes back to the Protestant Calvinist doctrines, which is like, you know, you will go to heaven if you suffer in your work. I mean, you know, it’s kind of, that’s where it came from. But now, you know, younger generations, if you’re you using really, you know, good tools and, you know, project management apps and, you know, slack and all the rest of it, you can be working very hard in 40 hours, get all your work done, achieve the same results and that’s hard work. how different you could be evaluated by someone older, it’s like, well, you know, yes, you know, she gets stuff done, but you know, she’s not working hard because, you know, she leave work at six o’clock or something like, right. That’s where you get serious repercussions from people who come at things with very different attitudes and understandings based on, based on their history. It’s not, there’s no critique. It’s just, we have different backgrounds and interpretations and experiences. And that really we have to be careful how we evaluate other people and how we judge other people based on, on sort of our own context. The Future of Work is Technology-Driven Jenn DeWall: My gosh, I love that response. And I hope that there are a lot of aha moments that were triggered by that. So let’s move into our conversation. What is next? Now that the future of work has arrived. I know that you had talked about it, you know, at a high level. And could you just say, what are the components again, or how do you define the future of work? Just a level set before we progress again? Sophie Wade: Huge. Yes. So the future of work, there are many definitions out there. Absolutely. It is very hard to nail on one, but the way I look at it, it is really based on technology. It is a much faster, interconnected, technology-driven world, which is because it’s all interconnected. We have a faster feedback loop. We have a lot of new technologies coming in, which are, meaning customer behaviors are changing, and we’re having to respond to much faster work. Isn’t linear in the same way because of how we have to react. So work itself has evolved. There’s much more knowledge work. There’s much more non-routine work. So non-routine versus routine work non-routine work has grown enormously over the last few years. Jenn DeWall: What do you mean by non-routine like special projects? What do you mean by non-routine? The Project-Driven Economy Sophie Wade: Well, anything that it, so we’ve had a lot of routines, you’re doing the same thing over and over again, predictable you project it out three to five years instead. Yes. Projects. So when we talk about non-routine work, then project work is a, is a huge portion of that. And in fact, the Harvard Business Review November-December 2021 issue said the project economy has arrived. They actually used Germany as an example that now 41% of their GDP was, was accounted for by projects and projects, because they’re not, they’re not linear, they’re not the same. They could be a bit different sizes and lengths and grouping together, different people. That’s a different way of working. And so that’s part of, so there’s a lot of things that have been changing about the speed and the nature of how we’re working and how predictable it is. Because if we are integrating new technology at our company, and then we have, you know, consumers who are then reacting in different ways to how the, you know, what the product is like, or how, how we’re delivering our service, that’s gonna change the behavior, which then changes kind of how we need to operate. And then what technologies are competitors integrating. And what does that mean about how com how our customers reacting to our products? So we have to just keep innovating and, and I sort of use know the video call, like zoom you know, Microsoft teams over the last two years, how many times have we noticed or been alerted to, but, but notice, oh, there’s a new future here. Oh, oh, cool. And we don’t kinda go, oh, there’s a big software release. And, you know, so we’re really used to, so the future of work is really about constant innovation, constant change in a more, in a less volatile way than during the pandemic, but it is to do with a lot of change. And now there have been societal developments which have, you know, helped move that along. In terms of now you have typical, we have two people in a family working for economic reasons. You have, you know, a lot of single parents, you have, you know, a lot of single mothers who are the, the primary or soul you know, earner in a, in a family. And so you have a lot of different societal situations, which make it more challenging, which are increasing the need to have more flexible working options. But, technology is really the drive in terms of how it’s changing so much about how we do business, how fast the marketplace is developing and how we need to work as a result. Is the Future of Work Everyone Coming Back to the Office? Jenn DeWall: Okay. Again, so many thoughts were stimulated. I, you know, I, I really do love that, whether it’s thinking about because I know in our pre-call, we had also talked about the fact that, or maybe I think it was us talking about the fact that there were organizations that are now forcing people to go back to a fully in-person structure and they’re met with resistance. Right. Do you talk about flexibility? What do you see from where you sit? Sophie Wade: From where I sit? I really look at that as being— it’s not gonna set up that business or institution that somebody was asking me a question on LinkedIn about, you know, their, their college reinforcing, reinstating, you know, old pre-pandemic rules. It’s not gonna allow entities to be competitive because when we’re talking about this technology-driven, fast-moving marketplace, when you’re needing to kind of like being able to pivot, not just, you know, you know, post-pandemic to be able to, to adapt to new marketplace developments, you need to, you need your company to be responsible. You need your employees to be responsive. It’s a mindset. It really is driven by a mindset. And if you want your people to be, to be flexible, they need to be in an environment that is flexible, and that includes their work arrangements. And so we also need employees to be engaged. We need them not just to be going through the motions and turning up, or, or staying at home and just doing, doing whatever. And just like, you know, checking the box at the end of the day, we do need people to be engaged because the problems are much more complicated, and we’re also working together much more closely. And, you know, we haven’t been used to that. Right. We’ve sort of come in our kind of like, yes, you know, showing up as, you know, of course, a two, two-dimensional person, and now I need to know who you are and be able to respond and you, and, and bring both help you bring your best self. And I bring my best self to tackle the problems of today. Human-Centric Management in the Technology-Driven Workplace Jenn DeWall: Okay. Now we have to go into it because I think seeing the whole person. And then, not the norm, right? Conditioned to come to work like, Oh, by the way, you leave your personal self behind. Deal with that on personal time we don’t see that, we don’t have time for that. And it’s interesting because I think it’s created confusion around younger generations that might want it, but then also are observing, and they’re like, well, maybe you don’t do that again. We’re just talking, we’re not labeling here if you’re listening to this, but, you know, because I think this can be a contentious topic, but talking about seeing the whole person, why do you think this is such a big piece of the future of work? Sophie Wade: I think, well, for me, this human-centric counterbalance to the technology-driven environment that we’re in now that you know, who are the people who are actually using the technologies, which are now the tools. We’re not so focused on the technology instead of, you know, living inside the factories that we needed to produce enough food. I mean, that’s where it all came from. We really focused on, on, you know, increasing production. Now we’re a place where we have sophisticated tools that we can really use. And it is the human beings that we need. And we need to have people be doing their best work. And if they’re gonna do that, they need to feel comfortable. They need to feel included and welcome. And so that’s where I come, you know, come from the empathy angle because empathy for me, I mean, it can be about being nice and being kind, but really empathy is about human understanding. And so when we’re thinking about like, who, if I want to engage you in my team, I, we need to, I need to understand who you are and you know, what your background is and okay, so you, you know, where do you live? And, and, and I don’t have to engage you sort of intimately, you know, in terms of like knowing, you know, confidential things about you or whatever you, whatever you are comfortable sharing. And that’s where we sort of need to understand, like, what are you comfortable sharing? What should I, or should I not share so that, but so that we have a relationship. So we have some shared understandings which helps us work together more closely, mostly particularly in the kind of more challenging dealing with the more challenging questions and issues and, and solving the problems, which are requiring us to come together. You know, somebody from marketing, someone from business development, someone from finance, you know, all the different and technology, we all need to be, you know, working together, coming with very different and diverse mindsets and context and backgrounds. And that’s what we need to solve the problems of today. And we need to be able to bring, you know, everything that we can to the table and the other people around the table, be able to, to deal with that and accept that and embrace that. So inclusion and empathy, which are really about welcoming and understanding people and, and allowing people to be comfortable and understanding they are, are, are absolutely critical to be able to move forward and be, and be competitive. You know, in today’s environment. The Future of Work Requires More Flexibility for Employees Jenn DeWall: I love even saying that, because that example earlier talking about flexibility, whether let’s say, for example, you are a single parent and you, you know, if you don’t get to know the whole person, you don’t know what they’re walking out to, like the type of responsibilities, what that schedule looks like. And I think the individual wants that tailor now, right? That’s what we’re saying. They want flexibility. Sophie Wade: And they just need that flexibility. There was one case I came across probably six or seven years ago and the flexibility that this woman needed at that point, she needed half an hour. She was a single parent. She had two kids, and the kids were, I think, like six and five and she needed to be able to get to work half an hour or later, so that she could put the two kids, six and five on the bus going to school. So you know, that’s all she needed and that was gonna make all the difference in the world to her because of her, her family situation. Jenn DeWall: Yes. And what’s interesting though, like again, because we’re challenging the generational norms, we’re seeing a full person, I have absolutely sat and mediated a conversation between a manager and their employee and the manager. And maybe this is generational. Maybe this is just their lived experience, could not fathom that this employee was asking for accommodations as it related to their children. And I think it was like a doctor’s appointment that was going to be recurring and, you know, really pushing them well, if you want to make that appointment, you have to do it outside of work hours, which when are medical clinics open, you know, like when are they actually able to get care? But it was so interesting to again, and I think, well, that was in 2018. Just to see that level of, in my eyes where I sat it was, yeah, let’s just push it out just as you said, a half-hour, like, and this is, is already what the employee had proposed. It’s like, could I come in later and work later? And this manager was still saying no. And I think then it comes down to our own ego of like wanting to enforce this and being resistant to change, to seeing things in a different way. Sophie Wade: Well, I mean, so yeah, a couple of things. One is absolutely weird. Human beings be, are creatures of habit. And that’s what we know. And I think, you know, that’s one of the reasons that, and also what we feel comfortable that we can control and sort of getting our arms around things. And so I think that’s one of the reasons where, why people do want to sort of go back to the, bringing people back to the office because it’s kind of like I can get my hands around it, but also, you know, I think one of the things, the big change that needs to happen, what’s very helpful when it happens is focused on results. Because if that manager had the comfort that that person, you know, is, is beholden to the results. And they kinda like, well, you know, as long as you get your work done, you know, you get it done. And at the same time, you know how I mean, we do now understand we have much more data now to understand how distracted that worker, that that employee is. If they can’t get it done. And they’re focused, you know, instead of being able to get their work done and really engaged in their work, they’re keeping distracted by the fact, well, how am I gonna get this done? How am I gonna get my kid to the doctor? These are, these are the issues that we now understand that we, that are sort of distracting people and not allowing them to really get the job done. A Message from Crestcom: Crestcom is a global organization dedicated to developing effective leaders. Companies all over the world have seen their managers transformed into leaders through our award-winning and accredited leadership development programs. Our signature BPM program provides interactive management training with a results-oriented curriculum and prime networking opportunities. If you’re interested in learning more about our flagship program and developing your managers into leaders, please visit our website to find a leadership trainer near you. Or maybe you yourself have always wanted to train and develop others. Press com is a global franchise with ownership opportunities available throughout the world. If you have ever thought about being your own boss, owning your own business and leveraging your leadership experience to impact businesses and leaders in your community, Crestcom may be the right fit for you. We’re looking for professional executives who are looking for a change and want to make a difference in people’s lives. Learn more about our franchise opportunity on the own-a-franchise page of our website at crestcom.com. Empathy Works – The Key to Competitive Advantage in the New Era of Work Jenn DeWall: I wanna jump in because we haven’t done the formal introduction, your newest book drops on May third. I believe that it’s called Empathy Works. What was your kind of perspective on creating that title or Empathy Works? I mean, yeah, Empathy Works, but what was your experience with wanting to name your book that. Sophie Wade: Well, it had a lot of, so it’s Empathy Works- The Key to Competitive Advantage in the New Era of Work. So empathy, what I started off with a title about strategic empathy because it was trying to sort of say, well, this is not, and empathy is not just a skill. It’s a cultural value. It’s a mindset, and it’s a skill I was trying to understand to, to sort of getting the point like how to, to communicate that it really is a, is strategic to enable companies to enable employers to, to really make a difference particularly. I mean, really, especially now we’re dealing with much more challenging over, so really trying to come up with something and came up, you know, the sort of play on words when I just suddenly came up, I was like, Hmm, that really resonates. Cause you know, you, you play around with titles, and I was strategic empathy being like, oh yeah, it’s fine. Or whatever, but it didn’t, it, it, but Empathy Works really seemed to just sort of nail it. It was, it, it, it like, and it does, it really does. Jenn DeWall: Absolutely. Well, even I think about empathy just goes back to seeing the whole person. So what message is the message of Empathy Works? Let’s talk about the messages that are within the book. What is its framework of it? Tell me more about your book and how your book is written. The Future of Work is Empathy Sophie Wade: So, thank you. The aim of the book, it’s not just to say, well, this, you know, human understanding and, and, you know, if we can tap into, you know, our people, that’s, that’s it, because we do have this new era of work, the future of work is, is really different. And I wanted to, to present a sort of framework that will help people really understand a way to move forward, not, not just as kind of like a skill that you can practice. Although there are lots of empathy habits, which I clearly layout in a very practical way. Like these are the things, the empathy habits you can practice as a leader, as a salesperson. But starting off with a framework, sort of understanding where we are, why we are here, you know, technology and all the rest of it. And what technology has done really allowed us to focus on rather than like a TV blasting out to millions and millions of viewers with a very sort of generic message. We now can actually focus and target to customers on a one-on-one basis. We can actually recognize them in the street and go, oh, that’s one of my customers. And we sort of have a sense of who they are. We empathize with them. So now, you know, lot of stuff that I have a LinkedIn course, which is, which has got, is called Empathy for Sales Professionals, which has been doing really, really well, because we need to understand and tap into and, you know, understand what the pain points of our customers are. So that’s the, that’s the first piece. And then we sort of look at the customer journey and all different elements of that customer journey. Sophie Wade: And so I sort of have this yin yang symbol and there’s the customer journey. And then there’s the employee journey. Well, if we have all these people within our organizations who are trying to get to, to empathize with customers and trying to understand whether they’re, you know, delivering the technology solution, whether they’re talking to ’em in the sales, or when you are, you know, wherever you are in the organization, all the different elements need to be coordinated and focused on understanding that particular customer. So they also need to be able to empathize, not with a customer, but with each other because it, this needs to be consistent. So the employee journey. What is the employee journey for each person from when they first are attracted to the organization and how they sort of get promoted all the milestones along the way? And now as they leave at some point, because, you know, not every organization is big and had, you know, diverse enough to be able to keep people, but you may want them to come back again in the future and also spread the word, about what a great organization you are. So have them as ambassadors. So there’s no more, there’s no sort of like when somebody’s left the organization near we burn the bridges. Jenn DeWall: There is, I, I say that because I, I still observe that. And I, I do think it’s, it’s bananas because I’ve watched employees that have been there for multiple years, great attitudes, great contributions, and right, because of a variety of reasons, it could be size, scope, career opportunities, development, the employee has chosen to move to a different thing. And then I watch the ego of leaders taking it. Maybe it’s incredibly personal, maybe whatever that is, but then you burn that bridge. And what do you think that employee’s gonna do? It’s like a slap in the face of all of the contributions. Like Sophie Wade: It doesn’t even make business sense, to have someone who leaves, if you have them as an ambassador of saying, oh my God, that company was so amazing, right? Recommending in a tight labor market. You don’t want people to anybody to be a bad out in your company or feel disconnected that we are in a, this, you know, we have a much more network fabric type of economy now, and they can be recommended. They can be introducing people or, you know, being, being a, you know, in sort of marketing, you know, your company. And they may come back. I mean, I have recommended in the past for people, if there are like warrants or options that you give employees, you can put them on hold, they can go and get valuable experiences somewhere else, and then come back and then reengage with that sort of, you know you know, employee optional, you know, warrants programs so that you actually encourage them to come back once they have more experiences. So I think that there’s, there’s a lot that can be done to have that, not be a sort of, you know, linear journey in and out of the organization at some point, because we know these 30-year careers are not there anymore, but it be sort of much more circular and, and networked, and people might have been an employee at one point, then they might be a part-time employee. They might later in the future become a sort of expert consultant. Because you know, that they know about this particular marketplace or we tried something there. And, you know, so there are lots of different arrangements that you can have, which with employees currently and in the future that aren’t necessarily full-time or, or part-time employees. So that’s the framework. It’s really the customer journey and then the employee journey. So that gives a framework, for the whole book. But really look looking at what I call the human-centric system. So it’s really then thinking about empathy, empathy in terms of, you know, integrating some remote, working some workplace flexibility, flexibility for people who may be fixed site. Cause there are a lot of employees still who, who don’t have any option. They have to be working on-site wherever that may be. And so remote working is gonna be a possibility for them, but they can still have flexibility. But, but with thinking about everybody’s situation and how to get to, bring the best help everybody do their best work. So that’s, that’s what it’s about. So it’s very, it’s practical. It sort of gives you the sort of the, it sets the stage gives a framework. And then as I said, it, it shows how empathy can be practiced, bringing it into the culture, integrating into the culture, elevating it as a cultural value, helping change the mindset. Because the mindset is really key in order to make workplace flexibility work. For example, it really is about focusing on each person as an individual. And, and then how you can practice empathy in all aspects of, of, of your work, teamwork, leadership and, and really, you know, a lot to do with inclusion as well. Empathy and inclusion are, are very closely connected. Embracing the New Rules Jenn DeWall: Absolutely well, and I think it’s important, you know, as, as the leaders are listening to this right now, thinking, examining, being curious with yourself, what are the beliefs or let’s call them old rules, traditional rules that may not serve today’s working environment. And what do you need to relearn or adjust to be able to accommodate that? Because yes, you said it’s a tight labor market. If you don’t accommodate it. Yeah. Someone else will. And it’s as I hate to be as direct and blunt as that, but for the most part, yes. And I think we talked about this in a pre-call, the companies that are, you know, really addressing, like seeing the whole person, making sure that they’re making certain accommodations, even changing the expectation of how a leader shows up. I feel like a leader shows up, I feel like the accountability of a leader is that much different. You can’t just show up as the office bully or the office jerk and be that authoritative person because you will have turnover underneath you. And then the buck will ultimately like, you know, that spotlight will shine on you and it’s again, don’t judge yourself for maybe embracing those things today, be curious with yourself about, okay, what can I let go and know that it’s just a new muscle that you’re building. It’s just a new muscle, but I have a question as it relates to I forget what you had said, which I loved, but I kind of equate it to the gig economy, right. The project or the project worker. And because that is a big piece. If I look at even myself as an individual, you know, I work, you know, quarter-time sometimes for Crestcom, part-time Crestcom, but then I have my own business, but then I consult and then I work for a different organization. I have five different email addresses. Right, right. And so when you’re really thinking about culture and the need for the individual to see the whole person to understand the scope because it also impacts, you know, even if I think about being a gig worker, cuz that’s kind of how I, I guess I would classify myself to some extent it’s that, you know, they have to see what else is on my plate because you can’t just drop in and say, I want you to do this now because I said so, and I forgot to drop no, actually like you have to be more mindful of what I have and I want to help you achieve your success. But it’s not the same like quick feedback loop when you’re talking to people that have different priorities. I dunno. But, and so my question with that, that being said, understanding that the gig economy is there and that empathy needs to happen. How do you preserve your culture in the face of a gig or project-based economy, because then you’re that individual is caught between cultures? Like how do you actually preserve that, from your perspective, I know we didn’t plan to talk about this, but it’s just more of a curiosity. Sophie Wade: Sure. There are so many things that you, you talked about there. So I do want to say that a key thing about how I see leadership changing and I will say, I’m sorry about it being so dark, it was very, very bright, here in New York, but it suddenly got dark so I’m sort of in the shade. Jenn DeWall: Hey! We understand tech challenges. Now I know I do. Every single person needs to understand when I set my lighting, the sun was shining, but I don’t need to stop and change my lighting! Work Culture in the New Era Sophie Wade: So, so thank you. So first of all, leadership has had to change enormously. And I actually, in my first book, I talk about going that leadership is going from ego to empathy. And, or, or you can sort of look at it as being the, for being from the person to the organization. And so, so you have this culture, which really is the culture and it isn’t driven by the leader, the leader sets, you know, helps set it, but it is a culture of the, of a company, something which is very much involved, everybody’s involved, and everybody loves it and every day but it, it really has changed how leaders need to interact with people and understanding all the different things that they’re dealing with. And so on a cultural basis, you know, these are, these are what connect they and us, they can be very strong for each individual organization when it comes to the project economy or the 1099 economy, I do, I personally differentiate between the gig economy, which tends to be in my mind, it’s sort of easier to differentiate between gigs, which are, tend to be very, very short term, lots and lots and lots of projects like Handy or TaskRabbit, something like that versus the 1099 economy where you have, you know, long, long term, but you know, maybe two days a week with one company one day a week, so that those are longer-term project or independent contracting relationships. And that changes because you have those certainly the research in past was showing that TaskRabbits and Handy and those type of gigs were supplemental income for the most part, not the main income. So 1099, when I’m looking at the 1099 income, that becomes important in terms of how it’s being supported and, and how much, how many more people are choosing a range of work arrangements, including which may be, you know, a part-time employment. And then, and then more project work on the site. So what I would probably say in terms of culture, connecting it is that you likely work for, for many of these, these companies that you’re working for have similar cultural characteristics, because you would not be working probably I’m guessing we don’t know each other very well, but I’m guessing you’d be choosing companies that have the kind of mindset or the kind of, or the same, the kind of vision that you, that aligns with your vision and the, and the kind of cultural values that you have. So you’re not, you’re not having to massively change the type of culture like, oh, this is a real sort of toxic culture versus this is, you know, that, or, or maybe you, you know, maybe you can deal with the toxic boss in, in, on one company, but, but overall the vision and the mission are similar so that it isn’t, it isn’t discord. You’re not having completely, you know, kind of like put on a completely different hat because we’re trying to be who we are every day and that that’s going to, if it isn’t consistent or congruent with the, the sort of environment and the, that we’re working in, or, or the people that we’re working with that becomes more challenging these days. And that’s why, you know, a lot of younger folks certainly are leaning into and asking about the cultural values before they go and work somewhere. Jenn DeWall: Interesting that you say that because I will not take, and maybe I am more of a project worker like 1099. I’m like, I’ve never gotten so many 1099s in my life before, like, as I was doing my taxes this year, because it is like, I will not do business now that I have a choice as an entrepreneur. I won’t do business with a culture that I think is, you know, just not a fit for me. I just won’t, I don’t I’ll find something else. I trust that I find some I’ll find something else or I’ll figure out how to offset, subsidize my income if I need to, but I will not compromise my values. Sophie Wade: And then on the other side that somebody who’s hiring you, they’re gonna want to have, you know, so we talked about cultural fit and the cultural fit, you know, can mean when it’s not a practiced what I would say correctly, cultural fit for me means that you are aligning values. It’s not about having people that look and sound the same or have the same education, you know, because there are certainly, it’s about having a lot of diverse people, but who have, who are aligned with their values because rather than being something that can, can be discriminatory. So, but it means that if I’m hiring you and I’m making sure that we, that, that we’re, it’s a cultural fit so that you are going to enjoy working in my company and you are gonna feel included and welcomed and comfortable and be able to contribute. And all the rest of it, that means that you, that we can feel connected on those values, even if I’m, you know, you’re not with and, you know, working with, with, with teams in, in the company, you know, five days a week. And, and so that’s, I think how you can, you can be working across different companies and different work arrangements because those values are profound to who, to who you are and to who, you know, you know, I am in my company, that’s hiring you. And that’s the way to connect us and have that sense of belonging, even if you’re not there five days a week. Jenn DeWall: No. And I love that you talk about the values because I can think about organizations where, you know, earlier in my career, you get your employee handbook. These are our five values, right? Honesty, trust, or whatever the heck they’re all about respect, right? They’re all the same at every company. It feels like sometimes. And then you come into the company and you’re like, oh, but these values are really just part of the employee handbook. We actually don’t hold people accountable to this. Right. It becomes funnier. It should be like, what are values now? And so it’s interesting to feel like there were these, like, I don’t wanna call it a of values because I do know there were plenty of people that absolutely adhered to them, but there were also people that were not held accountable to adhere to them. Mm. But now you have this thing of like, you can loosely as an organization, talk about your values, but I will enforce the values. Like I will make sure that I am standing confidently in that right place. So like, if you don’t actually adhere to your values, I will walk. And I think there’s a lot of people that will do that now from my generation. Sophie Wade: Oh, absolutely! Jenn DeWall: I’m not gonna just sit there if you’re gonna pretend and like smoke mirrors, make it look so cool. And it’s not by, like, why would I waste my time. Sophie Wade: My thing is if I don’t, if I don’t trust you as a company, right? This is, this is why the whole, the whole leadership dynamic has changed. And it’s going away from this command. I sort know, going from commanded coach. And I talk about this a lot in my book, because in that relationship, trust is so critical and trust and empathy and under in someone, because if you don’t trust me, there is no, I am so aware of the, or certainly the younger generation is so aware of the lack of job security in this country. It has been there for a long time, but it, we, I, I think, you know, I was certainly sort of delusion that, you know, there was more job security, but really when you are at-will, you are at-will. And, and, you know, you can be fired for, for any reason almost or just be let go because things have changed and these things are pivoting and, you know, goodness knows what, but if, if I believe the company values are integrity and trust and empathy or transparency, then I think it will least the company that I’m working for is going to give me a heads up, is gonna be open and clear with me so that even if things are changing, that they’re actually going to help me, you know, maybe find a new position or job and upskill, so that I, at least I can be looking for another job either inside the organization, there are companies that help people find jobs. Sophie Wade: I mean, seriously. I mean, obviously the, as outplacement, but really engage in trying to help someone find a job because things are changing. So if I think this company is going to help me in my career, I’m going to stay there and I’m going to that. Loyalty’s gonna come from the connection on the values when there isn’t any, any legal reason that, that sort of, that loyalty, the relationships and the sense of trust that, that are going to keep, keep people there. And the, you know, the feeling that, you know, this company’s investing in me they’re gonna keep me competitively challenged and, and developing me. And I actually was just talking to a friend of mine from business school, who his company just one, the company most likely to help me grow in my career. And that was a new, it’s a new category. And I was like, oh, that’s so awesome. Because what it means is that those employees are saying that company is going to help me stay competitive. And, and they were as well as obviously contributing the bit to the business, because if, if, if the employees are growing and developing, they’re obviously going to be, you know, investing in the business as well. So I thought that was a really interesting new category and was very exciting. Jenn DeWall: That’s so true. Like in the work that I do with Crestcom, gosh, Crestcom has been one of the best organizations at showing like support and value and feeling seen. It was just almost startling. At first, when I got that, I was like, what do you mean? Because I worked in a cutthroat or more cutthroat, two different cutthroat, like kind of conservative cultures, and then talked about this too. And now I’m working for another company. And the first thing that they said to me is we just want you to be you, don’t worry about everyone else. We just want you to be you. And, and those like, you know, I will absolutely take less money. I will, you know, work harder to just , but I will, because those values are so important. And yes, I have student loans to pay. Yes, I do. Sophie Wade: So pay her more! Jenn DeWall: Like, but I will still figure it out. If I, you know, I would still take less pay. I know that I’ll figure out how to pay my student loans or whatever debts I might have. And like, I will still do that because my happiness is so important, but I, I know that we’re near the end of show. And I just want to ask you Sophie, like any final thoughts as it relates to maybe the conversation that we’ve had today, or your book Empathy Works, what would you like to share on a final note with our listeners? Learning New Empathy Habits Sophie Wade: Thank you. This has been a great conversation. And I, so the thing about this book is, you know, ultimately the whole point of it was to be practical. And to actually, again, help people understand each other, because, well, you have to start with yourself first. So you have to have enough understanding about yourself, to be able to understand other people that you’re working with. And it could be within the company. It could be along your supply chain, anybody in your ecosystem, and really just leaning into that and, and being very practical about different empathy habits, which could be really small, just like, you know, having whether you’re working virtually or in person, you know, connecting with someone at the beginning or the end of the meeting, you know, oh, you know, how’s, how’s your dog doing? We’re both dog owners. You know, we had, we both had our dog dogs in interrupting us. And they actually out right, right here next to me, Jenn DeWall: Mine’s locked out right now. Mine’s locked out. She can’t come when we’re doing it live otherwise. Sophie Wade: Oh, OK. Well, I thought I’d have them here. . So you know, so we connect on that. These types of, of, you know, connections are so important. So that’s a very basic one, but there are lots of things that you can do in terms of empathy, which is like reading, reading, other people, looking at their faces listening to, to their voices. When somebody sends you an email or a text you know, looking checking, did somebody really mean that checking what, what they, what they meant without making a judgment? So there are lots and lots of practical things that in the book as well as sort of giving a, a greater framework. So the idea is really to, to bring more human understanding, you know, really lean into that the sort of the human-centric, as I said, counterbalance to this technology-driven landscape, because where now we’re coming out of the pandemic. I know we just had some huge new COVID cases coming up. But, but now that we’re coming out of it, there is no back to go back to. So we need to really craft the way forward for every single, you know, organization for their company, for their employees, and that’s gonna be different. So really trying to work out how to do that and how best to be able to connect with people and work that out, bringing everybody together and getting their contributions, because that’s gonna be the most successful way forward, really getting the expertise from, you know, more seasoned new managers and executives and the technology staff for from tends to be from people who’ve really grown up with the technology and having everybody together working together effectively. And that for me, is really using empathy to do that. So, so that’s kind of like the reason that I think this book is important is to, to sort of help people, you know, coming out of the pandemic and really being able to forge a new way forward, that’s going to be effective and enjoyable, and people engage in their work and have some fun of me. Come on. Jenn DeWall: I, we have one short life, like work does not actually this awful place. Like there are a lot of things that we can do and it all starts, well, actually, I’ll just say this. It all starts with empathy, Empathy Works! So how do people get in touch with you? Where can they get the book? The book drops on May 3rd. How can they get in touch with you? Where to Find Sophie’s Book: Empathy Works Sophie Wade: Wonderful. So please preorder, it is available on Amazon on all kinds of online retailers. Whatever your favorite retailer is, please go and preorder it there. And if you do, there is actually a preorder offer, you can get a free to get to, to join a live webinar where you can ask me questions live. So that’s great SophieWade.com. There’s lots of information about the book there. There are also worksheets that will be available in the book. You’ll see that there are worksheets to help you sort of go through all kinds of things and choose your empathy habits and stuff like that. So SophieWade.com. My company is also Flexcel Network, but sophiewade.com is where all the information about the book is. Also, I have some LinkedIn courses which are actually free for the month of April if you want to take advantage of those now. Jenn DeWall: Oh, fantastic. I love that. Offer free courses, Sophie, thank you so much for donating your time, passion and expertise to share your perspective, your lived experience in with The Leadership Habit listeners. I am so grateful to have you on the podcast. I hope to have you back again and for everyone listening May 3rd, preorder your copy. Empathy Works. Thank you so much, Sophie Wade, Sophie Wade: Thank you, Jenn. Really, really appreciate it! It’s been such a fun conversation. Jenn DeWall: Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast. I loved the conversation with Sophie. So many different thoughts, different points of awareness and reflections came up as a result of that conversation. And as Sophie shared her new book, Empathy Works, The key to Competitive Advantage in the New Era of Work comes out May 3rd, and you can head on over to Sophiewade.com and there you can actually preorder your copy if you know someone that could benefit from this episode or they could really maybe gain a new perspective from hearing our conversation, share this episode with them. And of course, if you enjoyed this conversation, don’t forget to leave us a review. I’m your favorite podcast streaming service. Thank you so much for tuning in until next time. The post The Future of Work is Empathy with Work Innovation Specialist, Sophie Wade appeared first on Crestcom International.

4 Words to Transform Your Sales with Merit Kahn, CEO of SELLect Sales Development Jenn DeWall: Hi, everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall. And on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I sat down with Merit Kahn to talk about the four words to transform your sales. Merit Kahn is the CEO of SELLect- emphasis on sell- of SELLect Sales Development, author of Myth Shift: Challenging the Truths That Sabotage Success, co-host of The Smarter Sales Show podcast. And she is also a certified emotional intelligence coach and certified speaking professional. Since 1998, Merit has worked with salespeople, entrepreneurs, professionals, and sales teams, teaching them how to stop selling and start getting selected by their ideal clients. I hope you enjoy this conversation as Merit and I talk about the four words that can transform your sales. Meet Merit Kahn, Sales Expert Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone. I am so excited to be joined here on The Leadership Habit podcast with Merit Kahn. And today, we’re going to be talking about the four words to transform your sales. I feel like everyone’s probably like, what are those words, Merit? I want to know! But before that, before that we’re, we’re gonna leave that as a teaser, Merit. Can you just go ahead and introduce yourself? Tell us about who you are. This is your second time back on the podcast. We are so happy to have you. You provide a wealth of knowledge. So if you could just reintroduce yourself to our listening audience. Merit Kahn: Absolutely. Thanks for having me back. I am the CEO of SELLect Sales Development. We, we spell it S E L L E C T. That’s deliberate, not a misspelling. But we actually teach people to stop selling, and we want you to start getting selected by your ideal clients for your ideal clients of projects. And that’s really what we’re all about. So we teach a framework that helps people really us with the mechanics of selling what to do, or the action plans, what to, what to say or what to do, but really the mindset of strong sales and strong influencers. So Jenn DeWall: Wait, I mean, you made that sound simple, but here’s the thing. If the audience might be like, what do you mean stop selling? What do you mean by that? Because is that’s my job, right? If I want to generate revenue, what do you mean by that? Merit Kahn: Exactly. You know, I mean, I don’t know, maybe you’ve never gotten any of those pushy aggressive sales messages through LinkedIn or email again, your voicemail, those people that knock on your door, like all of the pushy, aggressive sales-y things that you’re kind of hardwired to push against. We don’t teach people how to do that. Most of the people that we work with, people, what people really appreciate is, you know, they’re professionals, they’re experts at what they do. They’re entrepreneurs, they’re, they’re good in their area of expertise, and they don’t necessarily want to feel like they’re pushing their solutions on anybody. They really wanna have what we call the new ABCs of selling. So it’s no longer about “always be closing,” that sales and pushing <laugh>. Now it’s about authentic business conversations. And so that’s when you are making that transition from sales old school, like how do, what do I say to close the deal and press hard? The third copy is yours. It’s Tuesday or Thursday better. Once you get rid of all that nonsense, you can really start to have authentic business conversations with your prospects and clients to determine together if there’s a mutual benefit to doing a transaction or creating a relationship together and do some appropriate business. And that’s what we’re all about. We wanna teach how to ask the right questions and, and create relationships that are truly those win-win partnerships. Transform Your Sales With Authentic Relationships Jenn DeWall: Gotcha. I mean, I love that you talked about the word authentic. I think that’s so important. And I feel like, I don’t know if it’s that people today aren’t necessarily being trained or educated on sales, but what I feel like I see as a consumer, as an individual more and more is I would say more aggressive sales tactics. Oh, you haven’t, you didn’t respond to my email that I never asked you to send me. Right. And they kinda get like worse and worse. And I’m actually very surprised because where I don’t know how some of these things are being picked up, but I am seeing more and more of it. And so I am begging people to hire you because I want someone, cause you also said the second word— appropriate. And you know, I, I really do feel like there’s a need for people to understand what is appropriate today. And just because you got my email does not give you permission to basically send me five, six emails when I never asked about your product. I mean, I don’t, like I never asked, don’t even know what your product was. I don’t even know why you asked me. Like, and it’s, I don’t know. I think it’s because when I get that second one, that’s really rude. I’m that more frustrated? Like why would I ever do business with you now, ever, even if I did think of you. Speaking for anyone in the universe right now, <laugh> Merit Kahn: Well, and what you’re speaking to you is pretty common. It’s, you know, nobody wants to feel sold. Nobody wants to be pushed into anything. We all wanna make our own decisions. We wanna make our selections and what people are forgetting. And, and actually, I, you know, I’m guilty of this and the first half of my sales career, I didn’t really understand the value of this. But really, the first step to a closed deal is always an open mind. And when you step over that, when you try to imagine that everything that you’ve got is, is this perfect solution for somebody and you’ve got the right answers and you’ve got something there. You know, if everybody just knew about this, we’d close more deals, we’d have more clients. And so there’s an excitement. I appreciate the excitement, the enthusiasm about your offers, but you haven’t earned the right to pitch that yet first you and, and also you’re going to run the risk of ruining re potential qualified prospects by not treating them properly in the very beginning, which the very first thing that you wanna do is make sure that they’re open to hearing your offers, your solutions, your ideas, your opportunities, because if they’re not, not, it’s really no different than talking to a brick wall. Right? <Laugh> you know, It’s like, they’re not hearing you so stop wasting your breath. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for saying that. Sorry that I went on my pain point. I am just fatigued of hearing those messages and I just don’t know where they’ve been picked up, but now we’ll get into the top of good hand because I know even just with the knowledge and truth that you just shared right now, this is going to be a great conversation. So the four words to transform your sales, what are the four words? Merit Kahn: Well, if you’re open to it, I’m gonna give you I’m you a couple questions before I reveal those words. Are you okay with that? Jenn DeWall: Yeah! The Four Words to Transform Your Sales: Are You Open To Merit Kahn: All right. So there was a study done at Pepperdine University a number of years ago. They were trying to figure out if people really identified themselves as being open-minded. So they asked people if they would rate themselves as more open-minded than the average, and 95% of people said yes. So I don’t know about you, Jenn. Like, I don’t know where you learned math, but I learned old math. I’m old. Right? So in old math, those numbers don’t work. 95% of us cannot be better than the average. Just doesn’t work. Maybe new math. I dunno. So if that’s the truth, then when I ask you, are you interested in something, Hey Jenn, are you interested in inviting me on the show to do a podcast? It’s pretty easy for you, actually. Well, you, that’s a bad example because you already know me and love me <laugh>, but it would be easy for you to say no to that. Like you can be uninterested in something, and it doesn’t impact you. Like you’ll sleep at night. No problem. Right. But if you wanna identify as somebody who’s open-minded and I ask you, are you open to inviting me back to do a second show on the podcast? It’s pretty hard to say no, I’m not open to it. Right? Because that speaks to who you are in terms of your identity. So the magic words I know, right? So the four magic words that will transform sales and I would argue pretty much anything else in life. Is, are you open to, and it’s really as simple as that, rather than asking somebody, if they’re interested in something, ask them if they’re open to it and, and see what happens from there. Jenn DeWall: I love that. Just, I mean, it’s so simple, right? Are you like, instead of, are you interested? And plus I feel like that gets added to like, Hey, let me know if you have any questions, if you’re interested, but “are you open to” actually makes me stop and think, I love that. And you described that. I didn’t even recognize the mind cycle that I just had marriage <laugh> of thinking like, yeah. Are you open to, because I think there is that piece of like it’s natural that’s or I guess in your experience, how do you notice, like how have you seen people apply that and change or transform their sales? Merit Kahn: Well, you mentioned LinkedIn. And so it seems like all of a sudden, you know, those of us who’ve been using LinkedIn for a really long time, you didn’t used to get the sales, the pushy aggressive lengthy sales messages in your LinkedIn messaging. And so now we’ve kind of, they’ve already, we’ve already trained ourselves like, oh, that’s, you know, not, not reading that one, like that’s a sales pitch. And so we are already not seeing it. So maybe just try this new approach and if you’re gonna do an automated, you know, process in your LinkedIn, try just less is more. Try getting to them open first because the truth of the matter is until they, they opt-in, in a sense and say, yes, I am open to learning a little bit more. Then you’re basically, you know, giving your sales pitch to the spam, you know, delete folder anyway. So none of that is making a difference. So if you just tried a different approach and if you even got a few bites on that, then you’re actually able to deliver your full message to somebody who’s actually open to hearing it. So I would just try that and just say, you know, Hey, we haven’t done business. Would you be open to having a conversation to see if what you, what we do, and what you might need is a match at all? It’s a little harder to delete that there’s a curiosity factor, and I’m not trying to sell you prematurely. Jenn DeWall: Yes. Well, and I feel like there’s that makes me feel like they’re respecting me my time, me as a person, whether or not I would even want to buy, I feel like there’s an implied respect through those four words. I don’t know if that is also an intentional piece, but it just feels much more you’re inviting me into the conversation instead of pushing all of your stuff and then I’m yelling at me if I don’t want it, which is how some of that stuff feels exactly. Transform Your Sales with Respectful, Authentic Business Conversations Merit Kahn: Yeah. You picked up on it. It is respectful, and it is an invitation and, and it does fundamentally feel different, but it also sets the stage for the conversation, the authentic business conversation that you really do wanna have. And you absolutely can’t have that if they don’t start with an open mind. So again, I, I always remind people, I’ll say it a few times. The first step to a closed deal is always an open mind. And so we really wanna be aware of that. That’s not something that’s baked into a typical sales process, right. You know, opening the other person’s mind, but it’s very simple. It’s very quick. And it’s really universal. In fact I use the same question, whether you and I are meeting one on one for a sales conversation, or I’m doing the opening keynote at a large conference. It, I open with the same question and that is, have you already decided it can’t get any better? Or are you open to a new possibility? And I mean, think about that. Have you already decided it can’t get any better? Or are you open to a new possibility? When you ask that question- First of all, there’s two people that have to answer that question. First. We need to ask ourselves because, honestly, if I don’t think anything’s gonna get better in my business, I’m not gonna go to that networking event. I’m not paying to go to that conference. I’m not picking up the phone. I’m not, you know, renewing sales navigator on LinkedIn, right? There’s a host of things that I’m not gonna do if fundamentally I don’t see any growth potential in my business. So that’s the first thing you have to first see more. You have to be open to new possibilities, maybe in an aspect of your business. Am I open to things being easier and the sales cycle being shorter. Okay. If I’m open to it, now I’m on the hunt for what are, are the ways that I can actually manifest that? Or maybe manifest the wrong woo-woo word. Execute right? Execute for all of the- Jenn DeWall: Just providing options, right? Merit Kahn: Yeah. You know, manifest if you want, but execute, if that’s more comfortable for you, it’s the same thing. But first nothing’s gonna happen unless you’re open to that new possibility. So the first person we ask that question is of ourselves. The second person is that we ask whoever we’re in a conversation with about a sales possibility. And so when I ask a prospect or an audience, that question, they have to think about that. They have to ask themselves, you know, am I open to a new possibility or is this about as good as it gonna get? And when they ask themselves that question, the magic is whatever they come up with as the answer that cannot be wrong. So I can’t force you to be open, but if I ask you the question, then you ask yourself and, and you discover for yourself that, yeah, yeah. I am open to a new possibility. And now it’s a whole different starting point to a sales conversation. Jenn DeWall: I, well, where do people get the starting point wrong? Cuz I, I love this. I can see that very clearly. Are you open to it? You know, you had talked about, it creates curiosity. It allows someone to make that choice conscious and intentional choice for themselves, whether they’re ready to invest and it sets the stage as you had said for that authentic connection, where do people get this wrong? I mean, I know we talked about a few different examples, but what are you seeing? And maybe we should preface it as you’re not incorrect, but maybe your sales process has an opportunity to change. <Laugh> are you open to it yeah. The Open For Business Framework Merit Kahn: I think there’s a, there’s actually a couple places where people get it wrong. So I’ll say it like this. Most people in a sales conversation are, are really relying on the mechanics of selling. The what do I say? So they start with their quote unquote elevator pitch and they dump all over somebody. Like here’s all the ways that we can help you. And they start with the how, instead of why, like nobody cares how you deliver your programs or your solutions or your products until they understand why it’s in alignment with what their concerns and frustrations really are. So, so that’s the first major mistake is people are just quickly getting to how they fix things without understanding why does that really need to be fixed in the first place? Right. the other thing that people are getting wrong is they’re in an argument with reality about how the they might be wired and how that impacts the words that come to them to even say in the first place. So let me unpack that a little bit slower. We have what we call our open for business framework. So when we work with a company or an entrepreneur, when I’m doing a program for an organization, there’s always three main components, you know, to be open for business is so much more than just having open office hours. And you’re able to transact business, you know, do a, a transaction, right. Being open for business, really open is its beyond the motions and the actions of, of B doing business. It’s a mindset as well. It’s an attitude it’s really being open to receive. It’s being enthusiastic about the business it’s being prepared. There’s a lot that goes into that. So the framework is really mindset, mechanics motion. So if you think about it, mindset is what you think. Mechanics is what you say, motion is what you do now. I hate to use the pandemic as an example at this year, at this point where two years passed all of the drama at this point, but it was a universal shared experience. It’s a little hard not to pick on it. Right. Jenn DeWall: Right! Merit Kahn: So if you tell me in an example, sales people, I was doing a lot of webinars at, or you know, early 2020 because what people were frustrated with is they didn’t know what was an appropriate conversation to have. You know, like I know I should to keep in touch with people. I know I should check in. I still think I need to sell something, but I’m not sure what’s appropriate. And so I found myself really leaning a lot more on the emotional intelligence training and, and certification that I’ve had. And what I recognized was there’s a, there’s a relationship between your level of empathy for others and your level of assertiveness for your own solutions. And when that was out of balance, it, it was ineffective in a myriad of ways. Transform Your Sales by Balancing Empathy with Assertiveness Merit Kahn: So let’s pretend you’re, you’re a sales professional, your business leader, and you’re making calls to your clients or prospects and you’re high empathy, but you have very little assertiveness, so that conversation is going to sound no matter how, how well you’re trained you’re gonna say, gosh, you know, it’s really hard out there right now and there’s so much change and are you okay? Is there anything I can do to help you? And you’re gonna feel good because you were putting yourself in their shoes and all of that, but you get off the phone, even knowing that what you have could really help them in this moment in time, but you don’t offer it because your high empathy, low assertiveness, Jenn DeWall: I can think of so many times that I, as a business owner, as a coach, like have done that of, you know, you get in and you hear a client’s needs and yes, you just start to like, I want to serve or fix or help. Oh my gosh. I can totally relate to that. <Laugh> Merit Kahn: Right. OK. So let’s, let’s that’s one example then there’s the other side of the coin, which is people who are highly assertive, not aggressive, aggressive is mean assertive is grounded in your solution, confident in your and all of that. So if you’re high assertive, but low empathy, and then you’re making those calls that same timeframe. Well now you’re just kind of coming across as a jerk. It’s like, do you not know that there’s a, a global issue going on right now? Like seriously, you’re trying to call me and sell me your widgets, like right? Jenn DeWall: A disconnect. Merit Kahn: What people really need. And I would argue, this is true in any marketplace, no matter what is going on in the world, we won’t always wanna balance our level of empathy and assertiveness and what that sounds like in actual language using the four magic words. So let some forum is, Hey, I know things are really difficult out there. I can’t even imagine what’s going on in your world and I’d love for you to, you know, share whatever is happening. But if you’re open to it, can we have a conversation about the one thing that is within our control and see if our solutions, as it relates to business development strategies and these crazy times would be appropriate for helping you out of, you know, the situation that you’re in right now. Now the words, the actual words, and maybe I embellished, maybe it’s a little longer than you might say it, but the premise is the same. It’s, I’m, I’m aware I wanna balance my empathy for them and my assertiveness that I do have a solution that can help. And I’m not gonna be quiet about it, especially if it’s a challenging time and I serve you right now. And the glue in between it is would you be open to having a conversation about the part that we can control? So that’s an example of really the importance of understanding how mindset plays in, because no matter what I train you to say in the mechanics of selling, if we’re layering that on top of you don’t know where you stand with empathy, assertiveness, self-regard, optimism, flexibility, some of the other emotional intelligence attributes that we can test for, then you’re at an incredible disadvantage because you don’t know how to adjust your approach or your language in different situations. Emotional Intelligence Transforms Your Sales Jenn DeWall: Which I think brings forth. Or I guess the question for me is, you know, I know emotional intelligence, I love that this approach is really rooted in that. What do you do for the person? Like I have to think that there is someone on LinkedIn that actually probably thinks that they have a balanced approach to both assertiveness and empathy. Oh, I’m not certain if you have the answer, but how do you work with clients to maybe develop that self-awareness around, Hey, like maybe this approach probably could be dialed down or dialed up. Like how do you help people generate that self-awareness? Merit Kahn: Well I, I look at the ink in the paper. I do an actual assessment. I use a tool from multi health systems out of Toronto and they’ve got a highly scientifically validated assessment tool. And that really does tell me, you know, it measures your level of self-awareness. So if there’s a lack of self-awareness, then I know I have to read the report a little bit differently to them see the reality of the, their current wiring. What I love about that whole body of work is that it’s a snapshot in time and it can change and you can put some deliberate intention behind learning and growing and expanding your capacity in any of those areas that we can assess. But in particular, I, I always think it’s interesting to look at the individual attributes, but it’s always really the combinations and how they play together. That really paint the full picture. And, you know, if you may have, you may not really see a finding the way that it, that others around you see it, but once you have that initial awareness, it just, it, it tunes you in to some of those potential blind spots that could be sabotaging your success without even knowing it. So I guess it’s another application for that. Are you open to question because you know, it really in, you know, you could ask a question of somebody, like, I know that you relate to yourself, you experience yourself as being balanced in empathy and assertiveness? And the example that I shared, would you be open to sharing with me real-world scenarios where maybe it’s been a little out of balance or maybe, you know, you’ve experienced other people out of balance and you kind of just invite them to discover for themselves where it may not be as balanced as they thought. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. And I think you hit the nail on that. If you find that you’re reflecting and you’re like, you know what, maybe I wasn’t showing up in this way as balanced, you had said it, it can be changed. You can change, you can grow only if are you open to, or you are open to <laugh>. Right. But I feel like that’s, you know, cause I think with emotional intelligence, it does get really easy to beat yourself up around maybe how you didn’t approach things in the past and how yes. Those relationships might be damaged or that person just maybe doesn’t remember at all, but give yourself permission to change today. So your first piece is mindset. Anything else you would add about the open to business framework as it relates to mindset? Merit Kahn: Well, mindset, really it’s more than the emotional piece. So I, I wanna, I don’t wanna step over the other pieces. It’s re you know, when I first started talking about the importance of a strong sales or leadership mindset, success mindset, you know, it, it’s one of those things. Everybody goes, yeah, that makes so much sense. And then they leave. They’re like, I have no idea what to do <laugh> to fix that or to figure out where I am, like, what is my mindset? It seems so ambiguous. And I really worked hard to try to figure out what are the pieces of that puzzle. I came down to three, there’s your internal mindset. That’s what you say to yourself. Those are your beliefs. Right? And you wanna do like a beliefs inventory. There might be things that you believe about money or the level of decision maker that you’re comfortable talking with, or the, the amount of money you think you’re worth. And maybe that got set at a certain point in your career and then life changed, or, you know, it used to be when I was in my twenties, I thought a hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money. And now I’m like, how does anybody live on that? <Laugh> like, oh my God. Right? So, but it’s shifted because my, my life experience shifted my needs shifted, right? So, but if my money mindset didn’t shift along with it, I’d be starving. So, internal mind is an opportunity to take an inventory of the beliefs that you have about different things that are either supporting you or sabotaging you. And sometimes those hand me down beliefs, we need to hand back. And so that’s the first piece, the second piece of the puzzle, we call behavioral mindset. And that is what your actions say to other people. So that’s, you know, you’re probably familiar with behavioral style assessments, personality assessments, disc profiles, things like that. And that’s understanding, you know, how your actions are gonna be interpreted by other people and how to adjust your approach so that you can be better understood by someone else who has a different style than yours. And then that third piece is your emotional mindset, which we’ve talked about, but that’s really how well you underst and your own triggers, how well you are in control of your own emotional responses. And you understand how that, how your emotions impact others around you. So those three pieces of the puzzle are very easy to identify. And then there’s very different ways that we work with clients to make sure that they’re strengthening their mindset in the appropriate ways that will help them have those awareness moments that then we can layer on the, the training and the, the skills and the action plans that really work with their strengths. A Message from Crestcom: Crestcom is a global organization dedicated to developing effective leaders. Companies all over the world have seen their managers transformed into leaders through our award-winning and accredited leadership development programs. Our signature BPM program provides interactive management training with a results-oriented curriculum and prime networking opportunities. If you’re interested in learning more about our flagship program and developing your managers into leaders, please visit our website to find a leadership trainer near you. Or maybe you yourself have always wanted to train and develop others. Press com is a global franchise with ownership opportunities available throughout the world. If you have ever thought about being your own boss, owning your own business and leveraging your leadership experience to impact businesses and leaders in your community, Crestcom may be the right fit for you. We’re looking for professional executives who are looking for a change and want to make a difference in people’s lives. Learn more about our franchise opportunity on the own-a-franchise page of our website at crestcom.com. Transform Your Fear of Rejection Jenn DeWall: Okay. I have to ask, it’s probably a personal question, right? How do you coach people? Because I, you know, one of the things that makes sales an intimidating thing to even pursue or to execute as an individual is the fear of rejection, which I know has to be tied to that emotional mindset or the behavioral mindset. How do you even coach people, like what would be your tips to manage rejection? Because that is still the hardest that’s, you know, the biggest reason of why I think you might be more assertive then is like, well, I’m just gonna push it down your throat. Like, and I don’t care. But what do you say to that? Because that that’s me, I’m sure there’s so many other people that are like, I just am afraid to sell because I’m afraid of being rejected. Merit Kahn: I actually think that the fear of reject the most effective way I’ve seen to deal with that fear of rejection is kind of coming in the back door. So we’re we’re impact mindset, but we’re gonna do it through being in motion. And part of that is, again, it’s that awareness it’s going through that exercise of, okay, I wanna, I’m just making up numbers here. I wanna close a hundred thousand dollars in business. And my average sale is $10,000. So clearly I need 10 of those. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> automatically takes you from everyone in the universe is a prospect. If you could fog a mirror, you could buy my stuff and maybe, you know, and I’ll reach my 10, my, my 10 customers to, oh, I only need 10. That’s not even one a month, like, huh. So I think there’s, there’s more power in the, the reality. Again, it does relate to emotional intelligence in the fact that we do wanna have a sense of, we can measure your level of reality testing and your level of optimism. So that’s another great combination to look at for sales people, like I’m really high optimism and I have to work at keeping reality in check, right? So that that’s like the beginning of the year, I’m like, of course I’m gonna make my aggressive goals that I’ve never hit my entire life. Like, of course this is gonna be that year <laugh> and like, absolutely. But then I have to be like, well, you know, and then the reality is this is my actual capacity, given the team that I have right now. If I really wanna reach that goal, I’m gonna have to do something different about the team. I’m gonna have to do something different about our offers, our marketing strategy, like there’s work to do, right. So it’s that balance of reality and optimism. That’s going to help you deal with that fear of rejection, you know, because I have to have a clear strategy to, to reach my goals and recognize that not everybody needs to fit in that picture and that that’s okay. It’s almost like, you know, it’s, it’s like dating. It’s like, I’m not gonna be a perfect fit for everybody. You’re gonna marry that one person. That’s the person Jenn DeWall: <Laugh> right. Merit Kahn: Just dating to find that person. Jenn DeWall: No, I think that’s a helpful way to look at it is like having optimism, the belief that it can work out, but also acknowledging reality and what might be the barriers or obstacles or constraints that you have that are getting in your way. And it’s, it’s not just you. There are other things outside of you that are impacting it like the pandemic. Merit Kahn: So the open for business framework Is all about the mechanics of selling. So that’s really focused on what do you say? And there are pieces of the process. And I think that when, when, when people are winging it through the sales process, not only does it feel unorganized for your prospect and they get a sense of, I don’t know if I can trust you because I’m not sure that either one of us knows a, what we’re supposed to do next, like it’s not up to your prospect to guide you through how to sell your solutions. Right? And so you really wanna be buttoned down with that, right? You, you need to know where you are in the sales process. It, it also eliminates a lot of the stress and the reason that people don’t like to think of themselves as salespeople because they feel like they’re pushy and aggressive because they don’t have a roadmap for it. And so it’s very simple. First we start with investigation, like, who really are your ideal, what’s the ideal profile. And and, and how do you approach that with a curiosity? So you’re really looking for who’s, who’s the right fit. And then you set an expectation, which is, you know, this is kind of how it works. And we’re first gonna, I’m gonna ask you some questions. We’re gonna determine if we kind of feel comfortable each other to going on to the next step. And then if we do, you know, we’ll make a decision, this makes sense or, or doesn’t it’s appropriate offer it isn’t. And so it’s kind of like putting that frame around the whole process and then you get into questioning, you know, there should never be a question that is ever asked of you at any time of, of the sales process where you don’t feel like you are in control anymore. And if you’ve ever had that experience, somebody gives you an objection or they ask a question you are prepared for, like, you sh there’s always a way to deal with that. And so I teach very in depth, very easy questioning strategies so that you’re never caught off guard. Once you have those things in place, then you can go on to qualification. And those are things like, you know, do they have pain, right? Like, is there a reason for them to buy? Do they have, you know, are they willing and able to make an investment to solve the problem and does their decision-making people process all of that? Does that match with something that I’m comfortable working within? So those are qualifiers. And at any point, somebody might not qualify for how you like to do business or, or your offers or how much you charge or any of that. So that’s the next piece. And then the final piece is– Finding Your Niche Jenn DeWall: Can I ask a quick question about the, like, about the, because I, I want, I wanna ask about objections, but even in the investigation, because I feel like, and whether it’s someone that, you know, is with it in sales or even leaders of an organization, I think one of the most difficult pieces it, or that I see is that they try to be, as you said, like, if they can fog up a mirror or they can buy my, they try to be everything to everyone. So I’m curious, how do you help people actually know you’re not just shutting down business by saying no to someone, because I notice that people, they can be told that advice or like make sure, and from a business capacity, you know, make sure you’re thinking about your core product and not deviating your innovation efforts from that. What do you give to kind of reduce that? I think what is it, a scarcity mindset then that we have of just feeling afraid that if I, if I niche down or if I really get specific, I’m gonna miss opportunity. How do you help people with that? Merit Kahn: I, I think that the, the easiest way to help them through that is to help them see really the potential of the marketplace, even if they niche down to something pretty small. So in our ex, in, in my world, as an example, you could say that we provide sales, training, coaching consulting to anybody who sells anything, right. Like, right. You could, but that’s a, that’s really hard to target. It’s really hard to find them, you know, like AI doesn’t program for that. Right. Like I but instead, you know, we, we drill down, okay, well really in who do we, who do we not serve? Well, if you sell to governments you know, any, anything like that, like, that’s just, that’s a whole nother animal. Like we don’t touch that. If you can click here, buy now, that’s probably not our market. And we actually drill down to, it’s still pretty broad, but it’s, if you sell something custom creative, it requires a consultation and not a click here to buy now, we’ve got something for you. Jenn DeWall: Oh! Merit Kahn: Right. It’s complex, creative or requires a consultation. That’s when somebody, so that could speak to my engineering firms that I work with. My, IT companies, my in entre entrepreneurs, the woman who sells to nonprofits. I mean, it’s like, there’s a lot in there, but it we’re narrowing it down to a type of a process, not necessarily an industry or a decision-maker. So there’s lots of ways to narrow down your market without being concerned about whittling away so much at it that there’s nothing left. You’re gonna like pick up the phone and call your two prospects. <Laugh> Jenn DeWall: I like you just, just, it’s just narrowing down. You’re not closing opportunities. You’re just narrowing the list. And I know that I cut you off. I thought you were gonna say a four thing unless you were gonna go into the third of the open to business framework. Merit Kahn: Oh, right. No. Well, the last piece of the mechanic step is presentation, but the thing that people get wrong is they get so excited about their solutions that they step over qualifications or questions. Because they feel like their solution is so good. It’s gonna do the selling for them. And yeah. If you’re in a consultative sales process and your solutions are so good, then guess what? They don’t need a salesperson! Jenn DeWall: Right. So like we’re coming to you, you don’t even have to ask Selling the Appropriate Product to the Appropriate Customer Merit Kahn: <Laugh>. Right. Yeah. So you only wanna, you wanna make sure that you are only presenting appropriate offers to the appropriate, you know, because they match for that pro prospect. And I, I have a whole online course on presenting proposals. And how do you, how do you set up the proposal? How do you go through all of that? I mean, there’s a lot of meat in there, but at the, you know, and it’s bare bones, it’s making sure you’ve gone through all the steps, checked off everything on the checklist before you get to that part where you’re really providing that, that solution and, you know, closing a deal. Jenn DeWall: I love the different, or just the distinction that you made of how important it is to balance, you know, going back to an earlier example the assertiveness with empathy, like your assertiveness might, your over assertiveness might show up in your mechanics piece by way of saying, everyone’s gonna want this. And that’s not true. Well, is there product, is there even a product or service that every single person on the planet would ever possibly want beyond water? Or like, Merit Kahn: No, even water, there’s so many types of water, bottled water, bubbly water, we can’t even agree on that. Jenn DeWall: If you really think of, like, I don’t know if there’s one thing I could think of that everyone loves or just feels that they need in their lives, unless it’s, you know, related to like me being alive. I don’t know what that is like, and I think, but maybe that example comes to mind because I think of that assertiveness, maybe that’s the way that I would think of it as like, Jenn, this is why you can’t try to please everyone. Cause you’re not there for everyone. And like just doing my own processing Merit <laugh>. Transform Your Sales with Straightforward Conversations Merit Kahn: Yeah. No, I, I love that. I’m like, I feel like I’m watching therapy in real time. Like just you know, I think it’s fine to be not a perfect fit for everybody. And the more comfortable you are acknowledging that upfront it, it, some, some people use it like a strategy, like a technique, like a sales technique to say, you know, we’re not a perfect fit for everybody, but if I could show you a way and they, they take this like good new sales principle, but they marry it with some old school, you know, thing that doesn’t work anymore. Like, don’t, don’t say if I can show you a way, that’s no one that’s just pushy. But I feel like, you know, it’s okay to say, look, we’re really not a perfect fit for everybody. So if you’re open to it, let’s just have a straightforward conversation. Merit Kahn: Like, let’s just, I’m not gonna, I’m not, I’m nothing to sell you or I’m not gonna push any solutions. I don’t even know if we’re, if it’s appropriate for us to do business together. So why don’t we just take a first step, which is, let’s have that conversation. Let’s discover for each other, for ourselves, if there’s enough of a match to, you know, have a deeper conversation, like let’s start with 15 minutes. Is there enough that we could uncover in 15 minutes that leads us to, it’s appropriate to have a next conversation. And in 15 minutes, I know my basic qualifiers, you know, like you know, I’m listening for, is it complex? Is it creative? Is it consultative? Is it high ticket? Because you know, we’re not the cheapest training outfit in town either. And my clients, if they’re low, if they’re selling based on price, we’re not a match for them. Merit Kahn: I don’t work with people like that. I don’t want you to be the lowest price provider ever. You’re never gonna you’re you don’t set yourself up to win that way. Right. So I know that there are certain qualifiers. I might as well get those out of the way first. And every one of my prospects is gonna have that same deal. Right before we got on this podcast. I had a discovery call with a woman in Austin, Texas. And that’s where our company is headquarters, but I’m in Denver and I’m the, you know, the lead trainer. We have some trainers on the east coast and, and in the, you know, Central US, but you know, her first, I said, how did you find out about it? She said, I looked up sales training, Austin. And I was like, Hmm, well, here we go. Like we, you know, so. You know, like, all right, well just ask you right outta the gate. Is it a deal breaker? You know, we, we are no longer doing right now. We’re not doing our local training center that we have in Austin. We’re not doing training in that delivery model right now. Are you okay with that? Are you open to a virtual training program? And she’s like, oh yeah, actually that would be much better. Oh, okay. You know, so I didn’t like she, she was still qualified even though that could have been a disqualifier right outta the gate. Jenn DeWall: I love that. Like, and it’s simple. I feel like just to ask your qualifiers, you’re saving my time. You’re saving your time. Yeah. Gosh. I feel like all of us would get time back if we, if we did ask those questions, I think that’s, so I wanna get into your third part of your framework, which is, I believe it was motion. Am I right by that? Measuring Your Progress Merit Kahn: Yes. So motion is all about what do you do? And that’s, you know, you start with your goals and then you build your action plan. You get really specific, but it’s about measuring and tracking. Make sure you have making sure you have the accountability structures in place to hold to make sure that you are going to reach your goals that you’re tracking well, every week you gotta check in on these things. And so we, you know, we have tools and tracking systems that we use with clients to check in and make sure that they’re holding themselves accountable or we’re holding themselves accountable because the numbers don’t lie. You know, if I, if I see that you are, you’re having a lot of discovery calls, initial conversations, but they’re not leading to an equal number of, you know, presentations where you’ve, you’ve gone through the qualifiers and now you’re presenting a solution. Well then there’s something wrong in that conversation. Or not wrong, but maybe that’s, you know, are we putting the, are we having calls with the wrong people? Are we not saying the right things on those calls? Like, why aren’t we leading to presentations or if you’re having a lot of presentations, but very few are turning in converting a closed business. Well then there’s something wrong with the presentation. So let’s use the numbers to tell us the stories to inform the coaching. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. And the part that I think is easy to be afraid of. Right. It’s easy to look at that and be like, but I have one, or I have a closed rate of 20%. And I feel like, I’ll just say, as a business owner, that’s often the one that I like to hide from <laugh> it’s like, I don’t wanna see the reality of what I think will happen and then reflecting, because I think that’s where the disappointment really sets it. And that’s where the, the, you know, that the inner critic just starts to say, are you in the right path? Are you doing the right things? So I love to hide from that, but obviously it’s not an easy thing to hide from because you can look in the bank and be reminded. <Laugh> like, Merit Kahn: You know, it’s, there’s no, there’s no getting around it. You’ve got to know what your numbers are. You’ve, you’ve got to track your percentages so that you, but not in an it, so it’s not to make yourself wrong. It’s to find the areas where you can improve. And I think there’s two things that, that make it a lot easier for people to come to grips with, with tracking their numbers. And one is that they, they let go of the make wrong part of this conversation. They lean into the fact that they have a growth mindset. That’s really the first thing. They have a growth mindset, so they know that they can improve and the numbers are strictly a tool to help them find the specific area is to spend their time on that improvement practice. Merit Kahn: And, you know, when you look at it like that, it’s like, oh, you know, okay, numbers gotta check my numbers, but I’m learning. And so I think that helps a lot. And the other thing is just that reality-testing piece, like, you know, balancing that like with optimism, like we talked about, as long as you can see a greater possibility, then the numbers are really just giving you access to make that a reality. It, but it’s not about, you know, we don’t track numbers to beat you up with them just to inform how do we help Where to Find Merit Kahn Jenn DeWall: And I love it. And to help you access what you want. Yeah. We need to understand that Merit I’ve loved our conversation. How I, I know I’m gonna reinforce this with the bumper, but I, I always love it when, when our guests share it, how can people get in touch with you? How can they have you help with their sales? Cause I would actually appreciate it more people did. So then I don’t get harassing emails. So if you could help them with that but how can they get in touch with you? Merit Kahn: I think the best thing that what I’d really like to offer people is an opportunity to do an online assessment. It’s very, it’s pretty in depth. It’s our sales SWOT on steroids. We like to call it. So, you know, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, but we’re just looking at that sales. We’re looking at the specific components of that open for business framework. So mindset, mechanics, motion. So if you go to MeritKahn.com/podcast, so M E R I T K A H N slash podcast, that’ll take you to a page there’s a free download. That explains a little bit more about the open for business framework. We’re always adding some new resources to that page, but there’s a link to take you to this online assessment. And let me tell you, Jen, what is, I won’t always be able to offer it like this, but for the time being until we’re way overloaded with it I will continue to make this pledge. I actually personally review all of the information that comes in through those SWOT assessments. And I do a personalized, a hundred percent custom, hi Jenn video to you to take you through what I see from the way that you answered that report. And, oh my gosh. I know it’s, it’s literally Jenn DeWall: Like an instant partner from taking that. That’s fantastic! Merit Kahn: Yes. Eventually we will get to the point where we need to automate that and it won’t be as personal, but I really believe that it’s a great tool. It’s been very eye-opening. It’s, you know, yes. You may wanna talk to us more about how we specifically can work with you on these things, but I will give you some various pinpoint feedback on what you can do and what’s the right part of that framework to start to work and, and make some progress for you. So highly recommend. Take me up on that. If it is, it’s a hell of an offer, I must say. And then also on that site, if you wanted to learn a little bit more about the select sales training offers, there’s a training tab on the Merit Kahn site wanna know about the speaking engagements I do for companies and associations, conferences, there’s information about that. And then there’s always the Let’s Talk button! 15 minutes on my calendar. I don’t know if we should work together. Let’s have a conversation if you’re open to it, take it, take me up on that too. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. You just really laid down some offerings there. I love that, but me, what I really appreciated was just walking through and just giving it and making it accessible and also answering probably some of my personal and likely other people’s questions too. Thank you for giving The Leadership Habit community, your time, your expertise and your passion. I was so thrilled to have you back on the show. So thank you again. Merit Kahn: Thanks Jenn! Jenn DeWall: Thank so much for listening to this week’s episode in The Leadership Habit podcast, I loved my conversation with Merit and I just felt like it was stimulating and it helped me gain the confidence that I needed to even approach sales in a different way. And of course she just shared a great offer with all of our audience. So if you want to have access to Merit’s free online SWOT and get feedback directly from Merit, you can head on over to MeritKahn.com/podcast. Or you can find that link in our show notes. It’s spelled Merit, M E R I T K A H N dot com slash podcast. If you know someone that maybe is struggling with sales, or maybe they’re just getting into the sales part of their business, share this episode with them, spread that as well. And, of course, if you enjoy today’s podcast, don’t forget to leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service until next time.   The post Four Words to Transform Your Sales with Merit Kahn, CEO of SELLect Sales Development appeared first on Crestcom International.

How to Make Strategies Stick with Executive Coach, Liz Kislik On this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, Jenn Dewall sat down with Liz Kislik to talk about how to make strategies stick. Liz Kislik, a Harvard Business Review and Forbes contributor, has over 30 years of experience speciaLizing in developing high-performing leaders in workforces as a management consultant and executive coach. Liz has helped family-run businesses, national nonprofits, and Fortune 500 companies like American Express, Girl Scouts, Staples, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and Highlights for Children solve their thorniest problems! In her TEDx talk about why there’s so much conflict at work and what you can do to fix it, Liz shows how diagnosing root structural issues can resolve current problems and help organizations thrive in the long term. Enjoy our conversation as Liz and Jenn talk about how to make strategies. Meet Liz Kislik, Management Consultant, Executive Coach and More! Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall, and you’re here with Liz Kislik! Liz, It’s so great to have you on the show. I’m so excited for our conversation to talk about how to make strategies stick. Something that I’m sure a lot of people are like, ‘Can you please give me the answer, Liz?’ I’m so happy that you’re on The Leadership Habit podcast. And I know we read your bio, but I would love to just hear it for our listeners to them, for them to get to know a little bit about you. Could you tell us maybe how you came to be, how you became really interested in the subject matter, and you really developed your expertise in this way, or what’s your story said simply? Liz Kislik: I’m very happy to be with you. I think you are really uncovering some of the issues that people need answers to. And in my story, when I graduated college, I wanted to go to work as opposed to going to grad school, which is what most of my friends did because I thought work was where the action was. And I still believe that even after going to grad school, I really saw that if you were willing to work hard and you also had to be lucky, you could get access to people and to opportunities. And I say that as a privileged person, I’m white. I am the child of educated people. So you have to know where you’re starting from, but in general, if you are willing to look for the things that are going undone and take care of them for other people’s benefit, they’re usually glad to have you. And so, I had a promotion every six months in the company I worked for after college. And when I was 23, I was running a 300 employee call center. And that was really too— it was too big a job. The hardest job I’ve ever had and one in which I was only partially successful, I was not successful for myself because I actually thought part of my job was to make sure everybody was happy at work. Jenn DeWall: And yes, I feel like a lot of people can relate to that right now. They’re like, that’s what keeps me up at night is trying to keep everyone happy. Liz Kislik: Right? And what I’ve come to learn is people need to keep themselves happy. What leadership needs to do is create the conditions in which work can be really satisfying. And the workplace conditions are good to work in. So they’re fair. They recognize people’s efforts. They know who you are—all that kind of stuff. And you have the opportunity to be curious about your job and what else is going on there. And to look for ways to make things better. And that can create satisfaction and meaning in an employee’s life. But no workplace leader can actually make everybody happy. And it’s a false, false premise. Jenn DeWall: Where do you think that we pick that up? Because I, I know that in your work, you see it in my work, what teaching for Crestcom. I hear it all the time, this expectation that as a leader, I’m supposed to know all of the answers, and I’m supposed to somehow make everyone happy. Where do you think you picked that up? Or where do you think some people, just from your perspective, where do you think people pick that up? Liz Kislik: I’m having a bunch of thoughts. For myself, I picked it up from my grandfather who had his own business and loved his staff and his staff loved him. And I learned about many of the things that he did to take care of his staff. And I just made the assumption that that included their being happy. But I think we learned it, you know, from the movies and TV and the way we learned about romance and stuff like that. You know, I think that’s all in there even though workplace and movie, sorry, TV and movie workplaces are often terrible, but that’s how we know that it’s supposed to be fabulous because they’re showing us that it’s terrible on purpose, you know? So we think, oh, the reverse must be this wonderful idyllic thing. Jenn DeWall: No, and it’s not. And it’s OK that it’s not because we are all so vastly different in a lot of different regards, different periods of our life, different periods of our career. So on and so forth that it’s going to be virtually impossible for any leader to get it right for every single being. I love that, cuz that’s gonna make, you know, I know we’re going to be talking about strategy and that’s likely an obstacle that many people have to overcome with strategy is knowing that it may not be accepted by all. But I wanna ask you one more question about your business as a workplace expert, knowing that you do go into organizations and help them. What are some of your favorite challenges to help them solve? Liz Kislik: I deal a lot with conflict. With interdepartmental conflict, with conflict within an executive or leadership team, with the kinds of problems that have been around a while and people don’t know what to do to fix them. And that really floats my boat because I get to be really curious about what’s going on. And so I get to ask everybody all kinds of questions and they tell me their answers. And then in a way I’m working with the same facts that anybody could have worked with. But as an outsider, I can see them differently. I can reframe the issues. And so often that means the log jam starts to adjust people, see what really could be changed and we get to make the work and the workplaces more satisfying for people. Jenn DeWall: Yes. Which I love. I am so passionate, and I really do believe that we can create a culture for everyone to thrive to, you know like there are still going to be some people that won’t like it. But I think just even how we treat people, how we resolve our conflict, how we actually support one another, we can create those things. And I have to believe that you all have that same vision that like we can actually create workplaces. People want to work at. Liz Kislik: It really is true. I, I think we have to give up the idea, first of all, that it’s natural and will happen automatically. Yeah. Because it doesn’t matter how good the people are. We all want slightly different things. We all have different styles. So it’s kind of unfair to assume things would just fall into a place that would be personally thrilling. You know, it all needs work. Why Don’t Our Strategies Stick? Jenn DeWall: Yes. I love that. That’s a perfect segue into our conversation about strategy. Because it has to start with that intention that we just can’t, you know, there, we have to be intentional about putting a plan or actions into place to be able to achieve a different result. It’s not just going to happen by accident. Well, it can, but it may not be the outcome that you always want. So let’s dive into our topic today. How to make strategies stick. Liz, from your perspective, what goes wrong in planning strategy? Liz Kislik: There are so many ways to answer this question again. OK. So the first thing that I’ll say is, people actually disagree about what strategy is, but don’t necessarily know that they disagree. Oh, tell me more. So I can’t tell you how many people I’ve worked with who think that strategy means ideas, that if they have thoughts about something we should do or how things could work, they assume that that strategy as if strategy occurs by thinking. And since it’s not, that means a lot goes wrong. Because strategy needs to focus on particular kinds of goals, their outcomes that need to be stated. It takes into account the actual real-world conditions, not just made-up stuff, not just the way you want it to be. It has to face what is really true. And, and maybe this is really the most challenging thing– it has to do that when you know, you don’t know everything. That the likelihood of being wrong is actually high because your strategy is pointing toward the future. I had a wonderful conversation with Rita McGrath, who’s a professor at Columbia law school and wrote this book called Seeing Around Corners about strategy. And this premise strategy is about taking us into the future. But when we plan, we’re mostly planning based on what we’ve done in the past. So there’s a big disconnect right at the beginning. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. I love that. Well, yeah, so many people, and I know we teach a class at cross com on innovation and our subject matter expert. And this quote always sticks with me. His name is Steven Shapiro, “expertise is the enemy of innovation.” I’m sure someone’s already, like, I heard her say that before, but it’s not my quote, but it is his. And I think that really shows the foundation of where strategy can go around is that we’ve got all of this past historical data that we’re using to make decisions that may or may not be relevant to get you to where you want to be. But yet, we don’t throw out the bad data. Don’t Forget—Past Performance is Not Indicative of Future Results Liz Kislik: Not even that we, we don’t even know. I mean, think about every prospectus you’ve ever seen. If, if you’ve ever considered an investment, it says past performance is not indicative of what’s gonna happen in the future. So when there’s actual liability involved, they know to write that down. Yes. Well, it’s true for the rest of us. Jenn DeWall: Yes, I, no. I love that. The other things that come to mind as you were sharing, where does it kind of go awry? People think it’s the idea. This is so exciting. It’s that shiny object, but then there’s no follow-through. And that’s what you’re talking about with the goals, with having small actions. We just think that the idea is fancy and exciting. So everyone else will follow suit. And I like that idea as well. “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast”— Peter Drucker Liz Kislik: Is it Drucker who said culture eats strategy for breakfast? I can’t remember. Jenn DeWall: I’m not sure. I don’t remember, but that might be him. Liz Kislik: And I would say that there is a gap in the middle of those things. So if strategy is the big idea, and let’s say it’s a good, big idea. You need a lot of plans to get you from the big idea to anything real that’s going to happen in the world. The strategy doesn’t make itself happen. And the question is, how does that get translated from, say, the boardroom to the desk level? And what are the various highways and byways in between where the vision, the big intention get communicated clearly, concretely– or as is much too often the case– vaguely or not at all? Sometimes all that happens is anybody’s manager is telling them what to do on a given Tuesday. That is just like what they did the Tuesday before. And there is actually no connection to the future. Look whatsoever. It’s as if we’re only living in an ever-present present. Jenn DeWall: My gosh, I can picture that just in the sense of even in earlier roles throughout an organization where you’re kind of just given the task, but your head down do the task, but you don’t understand how the task supporting that larger, larger vision, whether it’s supporting the larger vision because sometimes that’s not even clear. Right. And I think I had a little bit more ego in my twenties. And so, I wanted to connect to that vision. And so if I felt like my work wasn’t, then I’m like, well, this isn’t fun because it’s not visible. Right? I’m not gonna get the recognition! I had, I had an ego. Liz Kislik: But no, no, no! That’s even without wanting to be recognized. And there’s nothing wrong with that! First of all, it’s a huge motivator. Yeah. For people who don’t care about being recognized, it’s actually harder to know what will work for them. This goes back to the thing we talked about at the beginning, trying to make everybody happy. What people need is to know they are connected to something that is important, that has value. And if they don’t have the connection to the strategy, then all they have is task after task. And then it feels like anybody could do that. You don’t need them. You don’t need their level of speciaLization, expertise, dedication, et cetera. It could be a drone. So it’s quite remarkable how often, say, a CEO holds a town hall meeting and announces the strategy, and people get excited because it sounds good. And they think about what this might mean for them, but then they go back to their work and they don’t hear about it from their boss. So what does that mean? Does that mean it’s another flavor of the month? You know, we change this stuff all the time. People complain about that so often. Does it mean the strategy is happening, but their boss is not on board, so they’re not allowed to connect to it? Does it mean somebody in the middle wanted something different and is actually directing troops in a completely different way from where the CEO wanted to go? I have worked in workplaces where every single one of these things happens. Jenn DeWall: Yes. I love that. Well, the permafrost of middle management, right? Like that, or that’s how I guess how I’ve recently heard it described is that, you know, that idea comes down that strategy, the plan, and then people aren’t bought-in at the midlevel and then it doesn’t go anywhere because heck if they, you know, and I think there’s that accountability piece that you were talking about earlier. Its having the plan, but you, yes. I feel like I’ve seen that one. And the other one that keeps coming up is, is burnout by way of competing priorities and initiatives of having too much going on. I don’t know, from, from where that sits, like, I don’t know if there’s a magic number for the amount of strategies or if it’s so much that makes sure that you categorize them as this is a high priority, mid-level priority. So then people know that this is actually still where we want you to focus your efforts on. And these ones down here are nice to have, but not need to have, like, I don’t. How do you, how would you even start, I guess if you were going into an organization and they were like, we want Liz to come help us with strategy and your perspective as a workplace expert, how we, you even start? How Do We Start Making Strategies Stick? Liz Kislik: So every place is different because they do have a history, and you have to take it into account. For what you’re talking about, this idea of too many strategies, it can often help to think that there is a strategy that matches the vision and the huge thing we want to accomplish, which might be being number one in our marketplace for thus and so. Or it might be changing the lives of children in regard to whatever the thing is that we work on, then those things happen because there are a variety of initiatives, and this is the first place that stuff goes haywire because the initiatives belong to different people in the organization. Do all the initiatives actually roll up to the major strategy. Do they all contribute to the strategy? Has anybody at the executive level thought deeply about it? Are we making sure that the initiatives aren’t cannibaLizing each other, you know, those kinds of things, this stuff all takes so much effort and energy? It’s not surprising that it doesn’t get carried through end to end. Right. But if the initiatives are clear and say there’s a committee or a board or an executive team, or, you know, the CEO owner, whoever’s at the top, if somebody blesses this, this is a strategy. These are the initiatives. Then theoretically, there should be some kind of check-in process with the next level that happens periodically, not once. And then again, when you’re doing strategic planning for the next year, which is a big flaw in a lot of how strategy is conducted. You never hear about it again until, you know, the fourth quarter when we do the next one. Jenn DeWall: Right. So I’m laughing because it’s just, I’ve sat at the town hall. I’ve also watched it go from, ‘this is so exciting’ to ‘Oh, did we even do anything on that?’ The Commander’s Intent: Does Everyone Know Their Mission? Liz Kislik: Right! So there are a couple of metaphors that can be helpful. One that I like is Sherwood Forest, where Robin Hood was because Robin Hood would tell his Lieutenant, and they would spread out, and each had a group of villagers that they talked to, who then talked to other people. It’s true. The downside of this is the game of telephone, but if you do it well, this idea of many of us grew up with there was a class parent who would call certain people to communicate the news of the class. When we were in second grade, it actually works if it’s followed well and if the content is clear. So if you think of Sherwood Forest and how you make sure that your network of communication is actually robust and consistent, and you’re checking for breaks in the network, that can be a really helpful thing. Another helpful metaphor comes from the military, and it’s called commander’s intent. And this goes back to the idea of how do you choose which priorities. So theoretically, whatever the commander’s intent is, it is so well understood by every single soldier, every foot soldier, that if it came to it, and there was only one soldier alive, that soldier would know what their job would be to come the closest to meeting commander’s intent. That’s why you hear of these things where some heroic person in the military tries to take a hill by themselves. It’s because they are following the intent. They may be the last person standing, but they are going to try to carry out the mission as best they understand it. And when you believe you know what the mission is, then it’s sometimes easier to sort through those priorities. Does it actually serve the mission directly or not? And if it doesn’t serve the mission, who do you bring it to adjudicate? Should we be putting our resources, our time, energy, attention, focus, any of those things into this now? Or do we need to hold back because we need to serve the mission? Jenn DeWall: Yeah. I, the commander’s intent. I very much like that because if you’re listening to this, it’s having the high-level objective. What are you trying to accomplish? But I think it does get confusing. When you can tell that the commander’s intent is unclear or maybe it’s too complicated, that I can’t even understand it, which means I’m not gonna see how I’m gonna help you. But it also, I think you’re speaking to me in the sense that I’ve sat in rooms where we’re doing a strategy, but then there’s the next strategy and they’re not connected. And so then it adds this piece of, well a what? One’s more important, but B why are we doing this one? Why are we deviating from what we know to incorporate this? Is it because it supports our, our intent? Or is it because it’s what everyone else is doing? And if that’s the case, we’re probably not gonna follow through on it. Yep. But yet I’ve sat in multiple boardrooms where we have this vision, we’ve got a strategy to get there. And then somehow there’s this straggler that gets added in that has nothing to do with that one. And I, that’s a point of, I guess it’s just a challenge for me because then how do you articulate that? Right? Because when it comes down to strategy, I think I am a pretty direct person. You might probably know how I feel about something, but yet in those moments where you notice that other people in the room aren’t challenging that, it does become easy to be vulnerable to groupthink and being like, I guess this is fine. You know, I guess this is what we’re doing. I don’t wanna challenge it. I want to be mindful of our rank. And so, yeah. Then I’m just going to follow suit. I don’t know what you’re like. I’m sure you see that all the time, people just disengaging or not offering their point of view because they don’t even think, you know, why bother? Or this could be worse for me if I bring it up and everyone else is saying it. So again, why bother. Create a Safe Space for Different Ideas Liz Kislik: Right? Why make myself unsafe? Yes. Yes. OK. You’ve put a whole load in there. Let me think about how I wanna break that out. So there’s a kind of phase zero that comes before the situation you’re talking about. And this goes back to Drucker’s point about culture, no matter how good the strategy is, if by the time it gets to any individual decision-maker or someone who carries out decisions, if they don’t feel that they can ask a question about it safely, you are in a place where you’re actually paying for groupthink. Jenn DeWall: Ooh, I like that perspective. You’re paying for groupthink. Do you wanna pay for that? Liz Kislik: You are paying for people to keep themselves safe because what all try to do that one way or another, right? Some people will speak up because they fear the lack of safety that will come six months down the road if they feel that what they’re doing has diverged from the strategy. So some people will actually speak up, but it’s very frightening if everybody’s going along in a meeting where all that ever happens is rubber stamping. Very frightening to say something that is different from the mainstream. If you are in a situation like that, how do you ask about those things? One of the things that you do, is, first of all, you never give up. You know, as long as you come back to work the next day, you always have another opportunity to figure something out. So you develop a relationship with your boss, where you can ask confusing but curious questions in a nonthreatening way, if at all possible. And if you can’t develop that with your boss, you look for opportunities based on project assignments, based on the monthly birthday parties, whatever it is, you look for opportunities to have relationships with other leaders, because a marker of somebody who wants to accomplish more in an organization is somebody who is curious, why are we working on this? Explain to me how this thing happens. I’m so interested in why we decided that thing. Can you tell me more about the background. If you’re approaching it from, but I thought we said this other thing last time, that puts people on the defensive. Sure. But I’m so interested that says not only I wanna know, but I’m asking you because I care about your opinion. And people are much more likely to answer it even in tricky situations. So try to think about it with a, almost a kind of beginner’s mind. And as if you are a guest somewhere or you’re taking a tour in a museum and you’re asking how it came to be a certain way, as opposed to why questions that seem to be about what was the motive for this. Or judgment, isn’t this wrong. If we said the other thing, those why questions can be very tricky. Jenn DeWall: Yes, I, you know, and I dislike a lot of why questions for that same reason. It puts people on the defense and you want to be, you know, depending on the tone that’s added with that why, it can change the trajectory of any conversation. A Message from Crestcom: Crestcom is a global organization dedicated to developing effective leaders. Companies all over the world have seen their managers transformed into leaders through our award-winning and accredited leadership development programs. Our signature BPM program provides interactive management training with a results-oriented curriculum and prime networking opportunities. If you’re interested in learning more about our flagship program and developing your managers into leaders, please visit our website to find a leadership trainer near you. Or maybe you yourself have always wanted to train and develop others. Press com is a global franchise with ownership opportunities available throughout the world. If you have ever thought about being your own boss, owning your own business and leveraging your leadership experience to impact businesses and leaders in your community, Crestcom may be the right fit for you. We’re looking for professional executives who are looking for a change and want to make a difference in people’s lives. Learn more about our franchise opportunity on the own-a-franchise page of our website at crestcom.com. Be Intentional With Strategic Communications Jenn DeWall: I like that you talk so much about being intentional with your communication as it relates to strategy. Like it is very important to be curious, but it’s also very important to choose your words wisely, to make sure because if I go back to, you know, my example. I was at this organization for almost a decade and it was a large organization, different silos, different perspectives and different, I guess, microcultures of how they handled those types of questions. And in my last position there, I was in a part where my boss was great, loved him. I could ask him anything, his boss, his boss’s boss, if you ask them anything that sounded like it was threatening their strategy– blackball– you were done. And I wish I could say that wasn’t the truth, but it was. And it’s anyone that kind of asked that, but now I’m thinking I’m like, I wonder how I asked those questions 15, 20 years ago. Like I wonder how I did because what piece of that do I own where maybe, you know, I could have showed up and not asked the why question or I could have been more curious. I was still new. I was, I would still say I was new. I should have embraced the newness and then like help me understand, like I’m just new, I’m a beginner. Could you help me understand this? Liz Kislik: I give you a lot of credit for looking at your place in that, Jenn because so often we don’t recognize how we come across. Yeah. On the other hand, looking back at who those people were, something I try to explain to leaders is if the people who are asking the questions were in the position to craft the strategy themselves, they wouldn’t have the questions. So it’s your job to explain how it connects. And one of the ways I would encourage people lower down in the organization to ask about it is to say, it helps me do my job better when I have the context. It juices me up to know where this fits in the big picture, because then I feel like I’m serving our customer segment or I’m accomplishing this thing in the world. And not just that I’m completing certain forms. And that’s so valuable to me. I would love to know. Jenn DeWall: I love that expression. Like I would love to, you know, it gets me excited. Well, and, and that is the piece for me because I, if I think of my individual style and I’m sure there are other people like me, my career success is a big part of who I am. Not saying that’s the right way, but that’s who, how I am. I’m very career and success-oriented, but I’m also a fast learner sometimes, but I’m actually a learner that needs to like see everything before I actually can understand what to do. That’s just how I process. And so when I ask questions, it’s not to undermine, but it’s more to help me understand. But yeah. Yes. Going back to it. I guarantee there are many times I did not ask that question in the right way. Liz Kislik: Say it in the best way possible for the listener. Jenn DeWall: Yes. Yes. And that’s OK. Like, I mean, you and I, both, we live in, we live, eat, sleep, breathe leadership. I mean, we are all perfectly imperfect, but we also just have to learn. Mistakes are gonna make, be made. We might communicate something wrong, but what are you gonna do differently? Right. I mean, I, you know, we’re humans and I love tearning, but I don’t think I ever knew what emotional intelligence was when I was 22. Like, I don’t think I knew what that was. Yeah. You know, and that’s a big part part of strategy, but going back to that, like, so I love even the language of how you can, no matter what level you’re at that even if you are or feeling like maybe I don’t wanna ask this in the wrong way. I don’t want to be perceived as blank. To use it as, Hey, I get really excited when I understand how this fits into the big picture. Like, I would love to know a little bit more about this and it is interesting. So then what would be your advice to, let’s say someone asked it the wrong way. Like I did, let’s just, just say my, I probably didn’t ask it the wrong way. What would be your advice to that leader if someone’s asking questions and in that way, and you’re like, mm, what would your advice to the leader and how to respond to that? Ask Better Questions Liz Kislik: So it really depends on not just who the person is as in what’s their role in the organization, although that’s very important, but you know, there are people who play out different kinds of stylistic roles in organizations. So there might be somebody who is constantly the questioner. All right. So the first thing is getting kind of squared away in your role as a leader, that part of your job is to connect more tightly with the people who are carrying out the work. Because if they feel connected to you, they will approach the work with more vigor. You can get them to be involved in new things when you want it. And they will give you a pass from time to time as the leader, even when something goes wrong. So that’s just so valuable, just seems worth the investment to me. Right? So if somebody comes flying at me with a, well, why are you doing this in a way that sounds like, why are you doing this stupid thing? I’m making it worse than what you would’ve said. Jenn DeWall: I don’t know. I probably did it that way! I don’t remember. Liz Kislik: No, no, but that is the way people might take it. Sure. So a leader might think this person is asking me why I would do a stupid thing. Don’t they trust my judgment? Don’t they think I deserve to be here depending on who the leader is and how they’re constructed? They can get personally defensive. Yes. That’s hard. That’s why I’m suggesting all this careful language, but a good leader will think, oh, something about the communication has challenged this person. What do I want from this person in the long term? What do I want them to understand? How do I want them to feel about me and the organization? So the first thing I would say back is, oh, it sounds like you didn’t like it very much. I would acknowledge the implied slap. Because then the person coming at me actually knows they’ve been heard. Yeah. OK. So now I’m with you. Oh, you didn’t like that much, huh? No. OK. I wanna hear more about why you don’t like it. And then the leader has to choose in this situation. Is it better to find out why they don’t like it upfront and tailor my remarks to that, or to just talk about our logic, our purpose and then look for ways to tie it back to who the employee is and what they care about? And they are both equally valid, and it helps to know the people. Jenn DeWall: Yes. I love the acknowledgment and validation at the beginning of I hear you, or it sounds like from what, where I’m sitting, it, it sounds like this may not be, you know, a strategy that you, you feel comfortable with. Or tell me more about that. You know, and asking! Curiosity, I wonder if curiosity could solve so many leadership challenges. Assuming positive intent and all. Liz Kislik: Oh my goodness! So, Jenn, it wouldn’t solve them, but it would get you on the path. It would say we are in this together. Tell me more, one of the best phrases, another one I noticed, or I notice, I noticed that every time we have a meeting about strategy 42, you, you really seem uncomfortable and hang back in a way you don’t on any of the others. Can you tell me a little about what’s going on? I wanna know. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. You know, and it’s interesting that you say that because I do feel like leaders typically are aware of how people are responding to it. And that data is right there. But rarely, I shouldn’t say rarely, but I know that there are people that obviously know the discomfort or the discontent is there, but yet still are like, they don’t address it. Liz Kislik: There’s an old market research saw about not asking any question you can’t afford to have the answer to. And if leaders feel there’s nothing they can do about it, if they feel like I can’t ever make this person happy, it’s almost the reverse of what you were saying before of the lower-level person. If I can’t actively change the situation, why should I bother opening this can of worms? I’ll just avoid it. That is a common response. I’m sorry to say. Jenn DeWall: And sometimes it’s the necessary response too. Like it is it’s we, because it goes back to not everyone is going to like every single strategy and it doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t make the leadership team, a bad person. There’s often just more opportunities going back to communication. So as we’re closing out, I’m curious, like what would be any final tips that you would have on how to make strategies stick? Bring Purpose to the Forefront of Strategy Liz Kislik: I think in a way it’s, it’s like caveats or warnings. When you are in a conference room planning strategy, recognize that you have been through ideation, drafting, and revision with whatever group of people you’re doing this with. When you make your communications outward, they’re only hearing your finished product. They don’t know all the thinking that went into it, right? So it’s important to bring some of that thinking forward, not the things you rejected, but the context for why. This is where, why is important. The purpose really needs to be brought forward, not just the fact of what we’re doing. So that’s one major communication piece, making sure your network down to the desk level is sound is absolutely crucial. And being willing to answer questions and take on all comers as a way, not only to bring people closer, to understanding the value of the strategy and therefore getting them to commit to it. But it’s like research for when you revise the strategy, what are the things about operations that you don’t know because you’re not in operations. What are the things about customer conflicts that you don’t know because they didn’t happen to your customer? We can’t know everything and be in every place. So trusting the network to be able to bring the message out and learning from the network to get the responses in about what this means to people in the company, both of those are really crucial. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh, I love that. I’m going to throw out a random thing. Why don’t we just always talk about strategy and change management together? Like that is the other piece of like, when I think about pitfalls it’s because we talk about a strategy, not as a change, like why can’t we do that? Liz Kislik: Right. Right. And sometimes even saying that it’s change management. That sounds like something we’re going to do to you. Jenn DeWall: Right. Oh my gosh, that’s a good perspective. Liz Kislik: I don’t actually talk about change management much anymore, except as a conceptual thing, because too many people feel that they’re being done to. What’s our work? What’s our purpose? Let’s talk about that together. Where to Find Liz Kislik Jenn DeWall: Yes. I love that because we know that it let’s call it iteration. If it’s not changed, like evolution is always essential to stay one step ahead of the competition to serve your customers, whatever that might be and how can we continue to iterate and how do we make sure everyone understands the why. The why we need to do this? I think I love that your emphasis on really it’s how are we showing up in the communication? How are we making sure that we’re going all the way down to the desk level, that people truly understand why this is needed and how they are needed. As it relates to our strategy. I love that Liz I’ve really enjoyed our conversation. If our audience ever wanted to get in touch with you, Liz, how would they get in contact with you? Liz Kislik: Oh, the best place is to go to my website where also Jenn, if they want it, there’s 10 years of weekly writing on all kinds of leadership and workplace topics. And there’s actually a free e-book there of anybody in your audience who wants it about the interpersonal aspects of conflict at work and newsletters and, oh, there’s just so much stuff there. Or, of course, on LinkedIn, they can find me on Twitter. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. Perfect. I love all the resources that you just offered to our audience. Liz, thank you so much for showing up with your passion and your eloquence. I love your metaphors and stories. It was truly great to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for giving your time to develop the leaders around the world on the leadership habit. Liz Kislik: I really enjoyed it, Jenn. Thank you. Jenn DeWall: Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode of a leadership habit podcast with Liz Kislik. I loved the conversations, loved her metaphors and the perspective that she gave on how to approach strategy, as Liz shared at the end of our podcast, if you would like to get a free copy of her e-book , How to Resolve Interpersonal Conflicts in the Workplace, head on over to LizKislik.com. There you can find multiple resources of content, including her newsletter and blog, but don’t forget. You can also connect with Liz on LinkedIn and Twitter. And if you know someone that could benefit from hearing this podcast, share it with them. And of course, if you’ve enjoyed it, don’t forget to leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service until next time.   The post How to Make Strategies Stick with Executive Coach, Liz Kislik appeared first on Crestcom International.

How to Make Confident Decisions with Mo Hamzian, CEO at VEL Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone, it’s Jenn DeWall. And in this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I sat down with Mo Hamzian to talk about how to make confident decisions. Mo is a London Business School Sloan Fellow and the co-founder and CEO of VEL, a premium utopian tech-forward work cafe, an established leader with 20 years experience in nearly all things business. Mo excels at building businesses and creating value. He has successfully exited projects with a total value of over $150 million. And now I’m going to welcome you to join the conversation where Mo and I talk about how to make confident decisions. Meet Mo Hamzian, CEO and Sloan Fellow Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall, and I’m so excited to be sitting down with Mo Hamzian to talk about how to make confident decisions and to kick off. We’re gonna talk about Mo’s origin story, which is filled with confident decisions. How do you go from being, you know, an individual to owning an organization? So Mo, I wanna turn it over for you. We’ve just shared with our audience all the great things about who you are and what you do, but let’s hear from your mouth, tell us about yourself and how you came to be. Mo Hamzian: Yeah, thanks very much, Jenn. Lovely to be here. I, I listen to your show and, I’m a big fan of how you see the world and come of things. So, I’m glad to be here. You know, it’s interesting. I started, I graduated in the mid-1990s, and then I started working soon after, and you kind of watched the progression of terminology by itself and syntax and context of what entrepreneurship is about in the 1990s. What decision-making was about what the world context was about, you know, over the last sort of 30 years and how I’ve changed over time? It’s quite staggering, you know, you go through these kinds of seven-year cycles of shedding your skin and then renewing yourself with your new values, new systems. So I preface that because the current me <laugh>, in 2022 is far different to me 20 years ago. And, all my aspirations are different. How I see the world is different. To some extent, my value systems are, have evolved. Maybe the core engine is still the same that, you know, what you expect and what you want from yourself and that level of drive or some things you look for in your rudder. But all in all, I think I’ve, you know, evolved into someone that really wants to solve problems. And that’s been a common denominator in my life. And sometimes, that is transient. And sometimes that’s more long-term, depending on what business you get involved with. So at the moment, I see that the hybrid workforce has changed a lot, and we are. I’m sure we’ll talk about it. We’re bringing a really cool product to market there. But— walking backward— I moved to, to us in 2017. And let me tell you something, immigrating to countries is an imperfect decision, it’s very difficult. One to make and sometimes very tough to get. Right. But my family and I did it and, retrospectively, it was a good decision. And before that, I was pretty much in Europe, and I lived, my base was in London, and I traveled to different continents for work predominantly in real estate and F and B. but having come to the US, I’ve, I’ve noticed several differences between the US and maybe Europe and UK. And I would like to talk about some of those differences. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. Let’s talk about it. Let, this is our learning opportunity. I want to hear them. Mo Hamzian: So let’s put it in binary and broad-brush generalization here, you know, and my kind of UK counterparts, my <inaudible> about this slightly, but, you know, the UK and Europe are much more what established in terms of mindset and much more conservative and far more risk-averse. And to some extent, much more liberal in their thinking. Not always, but certainly in commerce. So when it comes to decision-making, the starting position is often “no,” <laugh> until proven, right? Yeah. So if it was binary, it’d be zero, not a one until proven, right. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing in some respects- science, for instance, that’s a very good thing or medicine, that’s a very good thing, but in commerce, sometimes you need to make decisions slightly faster. In the US today, I think that it’s not just the population of the US that supports it as the single largest global market. It’s also the mindset, the attitude of the US. Think in the US today, again, generally speaking, of course, that the mindset is the other way around and everything is “Yes,” it is possible until proven no. So that little small detail in how you see the world can collectively make an enormous difference in your own personal manifesto, but also the countries. What are the Barriers to Making Confident Decisions? Jenn DeWall: So essentially, it’s either you have to prove it to me, or I believe that it’s possible. You know, I don’t have to prove like something else needs to prove that it can work, or I can prove that it can work. Do you know? And I think that is a fundamental difference in terms of how even maybe leaders make decisions and how they might see themselves. I love that you called out that difference in maybe conservative approaches to decision-making because we’re talking about decision-making to our audience. Many people are struggling with how do you know whether or not you’re making the right decision? What information do you need to rely on? Or how do you make a decision when you don’t have enough information and even thinking? I love that where you’re going. What is your mindset around decision-making? Mo, what do you think are the barriers that people run into when they’re trying to make good decisions? Mo Hamzian: Well, often, decision-making, like many other things, is a muscle. Unfortunately, the education system doesn’t weave that into the ecosystem of the first 18 years of your life to actually teach you how to make decisions how to analyze. At what point do you stop analyzing, or at what point do you pull the trigger. What could outcomes look like? How do you change from outcomes? At what point do you, do you relinquish your decision and walk away from whatever you decided, but underlying all of that, I think human beings, you know, evolution has meant we have to have a certain amount of fear in us. You know, everyone wants to walk away from danger, and our ancestors and predecessors had some real dangers they had to get away from. So, because we are afraid, we are also afraid of making a bad decision and committing to it. So that’s, to some extent, loosely speaking, in terms of carnal terms, fear gets in the way of, of good decision-making. Doubt and self-confidence make for bad decision-making, but, you know, being alone, which is one of the things by alone, I mean, either a very small team or not being open enough with people around you to involve them in that decision-making. And again, we can talk about that. And, and in, in small organizations, you see that a lot, whereby people are so much in the trenches, traveling at such high speed, that they don’t bring the Periscope up all the time to be able to make better decisions for six months, eight months, twelve months down the line. And they haven’t supported themselves with the right people around them to help them be accountable for some of those decisions. Jenn DeWall: I love that. So do you feel like a piece of that is someone’s confidence to ask for help to make decisions? Like, is that a piece of it because you talk about fear, it’s the fear of, you know, maybe we can avoid making the decision because we don’t wanna get it wrong. I think every listener can probably relate to that, that none of us want to make the wrong decision. Of course, we want to make the right one, but then what are we doing to help ourselves actually make that right choice? Then I feel like we do, we suffer in silence, and we don’t maybe rely on or reach out for and find additional people that could potentially help us solve our problem or make that decision. Mo Hamzian: I agree. And, you know, decision-making can become micro whereby, you know, you can go through a series of seven or eight gates, eventually, micro-gates to eventually arrive at the ending decision, whatever that is. You, you want to buy a new fridge for instance, right. I mean, and that’s maybe a smaller decision, although it has a high cost to it. But having good information is important, and good data is important, but to what extent do you rely on its accuracy? Now, if you’re going into, for instance, in my business, you go into a 10-year lease whereby we will talk about this again, how quickly can you get out of that decision? What switching costs can look like. You may want to frontload some of that decision-making with other people around you and rely on better data than if you would, for instance, make a softer decision. So it depends on what kind of a decision you’re trying to make and what the consequences are, and to what. How much domain experience do you or do you not have? And having a lot of domain experience is amazing, but it also means the curse of the incumbent. You have a lot of blind spots. Because you may not have moved on with sign up the times, whether it’s because of technology or geo-market or whatever it is, then you think, you know, but in fact, you don’t. But because it is what you do, you think you know, and you don’t support yourself with the right kind of periphery mirrors if you see what I mean. What is VEL? Jenn DeWall: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it just brings up the fact that we also think that we know more than what we do and we are. We sometimes rely on that bad data instead of actually taking the time to maybe research or get a counterpoint or ask someone else their perspective. Could you at a high level talk about, because I think this will be helpful for our audience to know the type of business that you run because you were, you know, for lack of a better way to describe it, you wear a lot of hats. You are an entrepreneur. You are a CEO. I mean, how did, can you tell a little bit to our audience about what you do. Because you’re making decisions that are going to impact the long-term success of your organization, whether that’s the, you know, the rent that you’re going to pay for lease, but then also determining what next, where do we go? So if you could just share a little bit about who you are in your organization. Mo Hamzian: Well, I’m very lucky to be leading a really fast-growing company. We are, you know, tongue in cheek. If I met you and all your audience in a very large elevator, and you know, you guys ask what we do. We say we’re bringing the love child of Starbucks and WeWork to market. We believe the hybrid workplace has changed how we work and how we commute and where we work. And we think the coffee shop is one of those go-to places where millions of people around the world spend billions of dollars going to coffee shops to do some work five to eight hours a week. And coffee shops, to some extent, complement your home and your office. But coffee shops just haven’t been reinvented fast enough to create that micro-transactional, really good experience. So we said, you know, if GoPro was making a coffee shop, is Google was making a coffee shop. Mo Hamzian: What would it look like? What would the Red Bull version of a coffee shop look like? This extreme environment is built up from the ground up, where it takes into account lots of different parameters. For instance, if you’re lefthanded, what does it mean for your experience, and what does hygiene mean and lighting mean and air quality and privacy and acoustics and psychological safety. What did those mean in a coffee shop setting, and why can’t everyone benefit from that? And not just the elite who work at these giant corporations, which, I’m in love with that kind of building. So kind of democratizing that slightly at a very kind of easy price point. You can walk into us, spend $10 and experience that for an hour. So we’ve grown leaps and bound. We started with me. I found my co-founder and COO terrific guy named Jack two months into a month and a half off into my campaign. Mo Hamzian: We’re now, you know,10 advisors, 65 investors building a large team, building multiple locations at the same time. And looking, looking at really mouthwatering outcomes for ourselves of having 50 or a hundred of these in the next couple of years, which, which means with that level of scale, walking away from what we do, but actually how we do it. Lots of decisions are being made. And some of those are short-term, but some of them have a major impact long term getting them right is important. But knowing how to walk away from the ones that are less good is also important. What Framework Do You Use to Make Confident Decisions? Jenn DeWall: Wait, so how do you do that? Because you are, as an entrepreneur, you see opportunity, right? Isn’t that the mindset of an entrepreneur? How can we grow the business? How can we potentially scale? So question, how do you prioritize what to do first? Because I think that’s a decision that’s sometimes really difficult is, how do I prioritize what is important, especially when there are so many great solutions? How do you prioritize that? Or what do you do to help yourself make a more informed decision? Mo Hamzian: Well, we have a framework, and it’s not, I mean, we’ve adopted it. We haven’t come up with it. We have two frameworks actually that really help us one. We have something called the OKR, objective and key result, major companies around the world, kinda immaterial of, of which vertical they’re in, whether they’re established or newer companies- use that. This means whatever we are trying to do, there has to be an objective to do with it. And we have to be able to measure it at the end of it to have some sort of key result. We connect that to time and money, which means we then have monthly OKRs, which say this month, the team has to accomplish these goals associated with these goals are these key results. And the direct overview idea. And we spend four hours at the end of a month inventing what next month could look like. And we do it with quarter and fiscally at the same time. So that is a real kind of true north for us from there. We know how to allocate resources of time and money and, and, time of people. And then, we identify gaps. So the first and foremost is which direction you’re running. I mean, jumping into the weeds to make decisions is, is much harder, but if you know which direction you’re trying to run, it’s much better to then build branches from there. So we start from the top and build down into the permit. The second framework we use is something called the RACI, which is this idea that says good decision-making has to have some functions in it. There has to be someone responsible in that decision-making process. It could be more than one person. There has to be someone accountable, and it can only be one person accountable. The buck has to stop with that person. She or he is ultimately responsible for that decision. Then there is someone Jenn DeWall: Can I ask you something quickly, Mo? Sorry to interrupt you. Because I think sometimes people can be reluctant to either feel like, well, who should I make that way? Or who should I give that responsibility to? How do you determine, because I know that you likely have a lot of things going, how do you empower that autonomy to say the buck stops with you? You are the person because there’s a level of confidence that you need that individual to have to be accountable. So how do you select that person? Or how do you go about determining that? Mo Hamzian: The person who’s ultimately responsible, which is slightly different -the nuances of responsible and accountable are slightly different. [The responsible person] is a domain expert. They may be a, you know, social media guru, and their responsibility is to deliver certain results, manage the campaign, et cetera. But then the CMO who sits above them may be accountable for that because the CMO she’s managing bigger dependencies. She’s managing TV campaigns, different rollouts, customer acquisition strategies. In comparison, the social media manager who is the R in that campaign is not entirely aware of all the other spinning plates. So there could be the same two people in the department, but they just have different information flowing functions. So I think their main expertise is, is really important in, in the R and the person who’s ultimately accountable is someone who’s a little bit more senior who has been more of a periphery vision into other departments that have an impact on it. But then within that RACI, which gets even more interesting as someone who’s supporting a decision, someone who’s consulting on the decision and someone who’s being informed of the decision. For instance, if you have a CFO, she or he may be informed of the cost bearing of this decision, but it’s a one-way piece of traffic where they just need to hear the information, and you’re not expecting any traffic back from them to make a good decision. So, if your audience hasn’t come across, it’s helped us enormously to be able to scale really, really fast and not trip over ourselves bump into each other. Because in, when you’re trying to scale fast, the function becomes really, really important. And it’s within a function that decisions are made. And believe it or not, I fell off my seat when I came across this statistic, we– an average human being makes 14 million decisions a year- conscious decisions. So whether I should have a cup of tea or a cup of coffee is a conscious decision. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. Mo Hamzian: So if you’re making 14 million decisions and let’s say you’re awake, you know, you’re at work for half of those decisions, you take about seven or eight million decisions at work every year. Even if each decision had a hundredth of a penny cost to it, you know, a bad decision can cost you and your organization a lot of money. So investing in good decision-making, and there’s definitely an algorithm and science to it is really important. What Tools Help You Make Confident Decisions? Jenn DeWall: How do you invest in good decision-making? Mo Hamzian: Education training, creating an environment where people are psychologically safe, where you can make errors and volunteer that information. If you are in an environment where you are afraid to own up or admit or even call it wrong, you have some rigidity there that makes it difficult. Technology is incredible to be able to bring, to shine a light on it and bring some transparency into it. There are some algorithms out there on set plays at the same time, what you should do in certain situations. For instance, when you’re recruiting or when you’re making certain decisions that are repetitive. Should you interview 10 candidates, or should you stop at three? There are some statistics behind it that will help you determine that. And finally, it’s confirmation biases in your own heuristics to be able to make sure that you can get it out the way of a good decision. and sometimes that’s very hard to do, Jenn DeWall: Right? Absolutely. I am reading. And I said this, I think probably on a prior podcast, but I’m reading Adam Grant’s book that he wrote and released in 2021, Think Again. And I think, you know, it was very thought-provoking in the sense of how much confirmation bias do I actually have, because again, I actually think, because I’m aware of these terms, that I’m also aware of my bias, and then I’m actually less aware than I want to be. Right. Like, I wish that I could, but confirmation bias. I mean, we know like how do you overcome confirmation bias? Because I know I want to be right sometimes. So it feels good. Right? You get that little endorphin that says I made the right thing, or your ego is just wanting that validation. How do you overcome confirmation bias for yourself personally? Mo Hamzian: Well, it’s really tough because the idea of a bias is that it’s something of a blind spot inherently, which means it’s you can’t see it if it was. If you could see it, it wouldn’t be blind to you. Therefore having a good team is important. And by that, I mean a good organizational structure. You could have a good team, but just wrongly set up. So organizational structures become whether you’re flat, a hierarchy, or functional, whatever it is, I think that needs to be identified for you and your team. And our team is very small. So you can just be a couple of people, but still, you can have that structure in place. And an advisory board is incredible. Believe it or not, an advisory board initially, when you’re very small, very young- can be imaginary. It can come from books. You can read a biography of someone that you admire and what they’ve done in this life and get to know them and say, what would they tell me in that environment? That is, to some extent, a measure of accountability, even there. But as you get more, you know, you get larger and maybe older, or you build a business around an organization having an advisory board. And we have, we have six advisors with whom we meet about 16 hours a month on all. And it’s our time to say, can you help us put our head around the corner? What are we not seeing here? Stress test our decisions. And are we making the right call? Are we too committed to this? That our nose is too close to it, that we don’t see, you know, the woods from the trees and those things are about intention. It’s about wanting not to do it, and hopefully, you won’t do it. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. You’ve got that you bring just people to examine the problem. Did we pick the right solution? And you talked about a lot of key things within that, you know, actually having the accountability around the milestones, the check-in points, are we getting it right? Do we need to change or iterate? How do we miss the mark? I think that’s actually where a lot of people go wrong in that decision-making process is it’s more of that set and forget. They see the next big idea. They have, you know, assigned different people, probably not just one person to be accountable to it, but they’ve assigned multiple people. And then once it gets to the execution, they say, well, we implemented to check that box, onto the next, and then there’s no follow up on it. I’m curious. How like is that’s something that you do for yourself in advance? You’ll set this curriculum, or I guess, journey, if you will, that says, you know, we’re going to release and make this decision. When do you check in on it again? Or how do you build in those check-in points? Because I think that really is what people struggle with, or they just get so excited about the idea that they don’t think about the importance of that. Mo Hamzian: I agree. I agree. I come from a school of thought, that kind of very disciplined that says ideas are cheap and it’s about execution unless you’re able to deliver on it. It can be meaningless, actually. So, and we are also very lucky at VEL. We come from- we are remote-first, and we come from an environment that had to be remote-first, just pure necessity because we grew up and we innovated, and we became effective during COVID, which meant we had to be remote-first. With that comes— and I’ll come to question— but with that comes some responsibility of creating a digital environment whereby you’re still highly connected. These amazing companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, these people lived together for years on end, creating the product, creating these companies, creating culture, creating value. It’s much harder to do that remotely when you’re not together initially. Therefore you have to overcompensate using technology. And we have done that through the adoption of Slack, Miro, Monday, Teamflow. The list goes on for us, and each one has a different offering for us. So when it comes to a decision-making value chain or a decision-making trail, we have, again, the RACI becomes involved, whomever they are within that decision-making chain. And we have touchpoints. And because we don’t have an office, we have tried to create data rooms. If you imagine a real physical room, a live data room, which says, if Mo wants to walk into this room at 2:00 AM, the information should be live, should be current so Mo can add value, extract what he needs, get on with what he has to do, and then the same for everyone else. So we can create this environment where I can work at 2:00 AM if I want to, and I can work remotely, but there is a certain responsibility from the team in that. It takes, I’m getting used to. But if you can, if you can, if you can get it right, it can help you move much faster. Jenn DeWall: On-demand data rooms that actually contain real-time information. Right? Think about how happy, I mean, if I think, and I was maybe a new employee, and I was maybe to some of the meetings, how nice would it be to have a centralized place where I could observe the problem, understand the problem, understand even how I fit with the problem? I think that’s such an interesting concept, and I’ve never heard of data rooms before, but I love that from where I sit in, the problems that I hear from leaders when we teach through Crestcom’s programs just what a great place to make sure that we’re keeping communication open! A Message from Crestcom: Crestcom is a global organization dedicated to developing effective leaders companies all over the world have seen their managers transformed into leaders through our award-winning and accredited leadership development programs. Our signature BPM program provides active management training with a results-oriented curriculum and prime networking opportunities. If you’re interested in learning more about our flagship program and developing your managers into leaders, please visit our website to find a leadership trainer near you. Or maybe you yourself have always wanted to train and develop others. Crestcom is a global franchise with ownership opportunities available throughout the world. If you have ever thought about being your own boss, owning your own business and leveraging your leadership experience to impact businesses and leaders in your community, Crestcom may be the right fit for you. We’re looking for professional executives who are looking for a change and want to make a difference in people’s lives. Learn more about our franchise opportunity on the Own-a-Franchise page of our website at crestcom.com. What Harms Our Ability to Make Good Decisions? Jenn DeWall: I wanna bring it back down to, you know, your kind of recommendations or how you start with making that confident decision. And I know that one of the first things that you said is thinking about what is the outcome that you want to get. And we also talked about the importance of either having strategic partners or getting a different point of view to make sure that we can overcome some of those barriers. But once we figure out what decision, how do we then make it? How do we then make the decision? Because I think that’s where the, even though we might know at a high level, that the change is needed, the decisions needed. I think then there are a few things that can really inhibit us from making the decision. Yeah. I mean, we talked about fear earlier, but one might be, and this is what we had talked about earlier. What does it mean to be 70% okay with the decision and not know the other 30%, or do you have any tips on how you say I have limited data? How do I make this decision? Mo Hamzian: I love that point. So, so intelligent of you to bring it up. I think you can make quick decisions or long kinds of longer extracted decisions. But if you need access to information, I think it’s about assimilating information really, really fast. It means understanding what it means, being coherent with it. Even if there are gaps there, knowing that there are gaps, that’s good enough. Then, being in an evaluation phase. And we talked about this– decision-making has a large amount of fatigue with it, which can reduce willpower and can create an amount of stress, whether it’s for the individual or for the team. So it’s much easier to kind of sit in a holding pattern of evaluation, which means a non-attachment to the outcome. I’m purely evaluating the information at hand, and we haven’t discharged a decision. We could go either A, B or C. Mo Hamzian: We’re not quite sure yet. And actually protecting that space, even if it’s for 15 minutes, then once you’ve done that, the decision-makers at that point may not be the people who’ve been assimilating, the information, the decision-makers at that point, can’t in a short, sharp, effective way, actually make that decision. And it’s okay to make a decision on 70%, 80% sometimes actually more often than not, particularly in startup territory, and it is okay to make that. So as long as, you know, the switching costs the consequences and what it means to get out of it or change the route. But sometimes, knowing the error is, is also important. Once you’ve calculated the risk and the downside, you may be able to get much more comfortable with it. Talking about decision fatigue. I think that’s real. It does, it’s counterintuitive to think about it, but the more time you spend contemplating decisions, it does get harder to make it. Sugar levels drop, willpower drops, ability to resist temptations to confirmation biases drops. I mean, some of these are a marketer’s dream, you know, of getting us to buy something, but they’re also real within a team. What time of day you make the decision is important. Are you, you know, really simple stuff, are you hungry? Are you tired? Are you not? Sometimes these can’t be avoided. Of course. But the last thing you wanna do is to be in an eight-hour decision-making session. That does not exist. It’s not good for business. Jenn DeWall: Well, and I like that you bring up the important piece because again, we often think about it, and you probably have, we’ll have a much more high-level way to describe it, but we often, I think, just make decisions and are just like indifferent to them. We don’t think about what’s going on. We don’t think about what’s going to happen. We don’t think about it, is it the right decision? Is it not? So Mo many of us have been conditioned to look at like strategy decision-making through this lens of what’s best for the company. What do we need to consider? What’s the data that we have. And I do think, and it’s what you just called out a misstep that we, we don’t even realize that we’ll play into whether or not we make a great decision is our, is how we’re feeling physically. It is. Are we hungry? It is. Are we tired? I mean, we talk about that at a high level. I think many people know your health determines it, but right here, you just explained why your health is so important as it relates to overcoming decision or initiative fatigue, like being able to make sure that you are set up for success. You have enough sleep to be able to look at a problem objectively, or with a fresh set of eyes, you have eaten. So you don’t have any other annoying, maybe pings that could detract from your ability to focus. I just think that’s a really important point that you just made that not a lot of people even consider. It might just be, oh, I don’t have the information or, oh, they’re doing too much. And you don’t realize, but are you showing up as your best self right now? I just like that you bring that point up because I don’t think people often think about that innately as it relates to decision-making. Mo Hamzian: No, I agree. And you know, I think decision-making is much more of a sprint than it is a long-distance run. You know, if you, if you know what I mean, I think if you want to, if you, if you want to evaluate something, you can go on for days and weeks in, even months evaluating various scenarios and planning for it and knowing what risks are associated within outcomes, what gaps are there managing and allocating resources to it. But ultimately, it has to be sharp and effective. And basing that- and there are case studies out there that I think there is one with, with sort of Israeli judges that measured the consistency of the decision-making on verdicts before and after lunch. And they found why there were inconsistencies. They were making different decisions because of their sugar levels. So it is real of your physiological self; psychological self will have an effect on what kind of a decision you make. How do We Evaluate our Decisions? Jenn DeWall: Wow. I actually need to go and find and do more research on that because that is incredibly interesting to know that their accuracy of decision-making could have been impacted by the time of day that they made that decision. And by the physiological, I guess, feeling that they had or their physical feeling that they had at the moment. I mean, this is why this is important to everyone. I know that evaluation is a piece. How do you evaluate whether or not you hit the mark? Are there any tips that you think of what you look for to determine are getting it right? Mo Hamzian: Well, evaluation pre before the fact and after the fact is slightly different. After the fact you have data, you can measure it, and you ought to measure it. Otherwise, it’s not really a key result. and it shouldn’t be soft, intangible ideas of measuring. It should be clear and effective because if you’ve set good goals for the outcome, then you should be able to measure them. But you also have to have enough time have gone by, and I know I’m being abstract because the situations are so different. Sure. But the principles are the same. You have to have enough time have to have gone by for you to know the decision yielded results or not. Right? Let’s say you’ve gone into a lease. You’ve opened your doors, and you’re three months in, and you’re not hitting your marks on revenue yield, et cetera. Then you know, you, you can’t make a U-turn. It’s far too early. So giving enough time to go by in that scenario is important. But coming back to this idea of decision-making within an organization, whether how you measure it or how you evaluate it, I think this degree of culture. Then you need to bring in what do you stand for and what kind of environment do you want to create as micro teams, larger organizations about decision-making. How important is it to be right? How it is important to be not always right but be good at making decisions fast at making decisions. How fast do you want to travel? Some industries can’t afford mistakes. They move very slowly. And rightly so. But in some businesses, it’s much more important to move fast and be ahead of the competition. Hence this culture and philosophy of minimal viable product, minimal viable X. So, there are minimal viable decisions that you can make that will get you from one gate to the next gate. And then let’s see where we get up, and each gate and these are metaphoric ideas. Each gate can have this association of how much money do I need to put in? How much manpower do I need to now put in? Because it’s been validated. Now we need to get to the next process. Jenn DeWall: I love that you’re talking about it. Even from that financial piece, what do we need to do with objectives? I think sometimes that decision there might be a high-level decision that’s made at the executive level. And then it trickles down through the organization through, you know, smaller decision-making. But then people are still, you know, a little confused, what do I do? How do I do it? And I think that you just answered, you know, just the importance of why you need to plan at every single level. You need to see the problem see how it relates to it. Do you have capacity? And I think sometimes people might hear the objective coming from up top, and then they look at their teams, and then they may not have the capacity, but then they still might make the decision to go forward. And is it really going to be successful? Or how much time as you talked about thinking about time, we need time. How much time will you allow, given the resource constraints that you have to determine to make it right? I think a lot of people at the emerging leadership level, the mid-level leader, may not be exposed to using this type of data to make the decision. It still might be well. This is what, you know, the strategic initiative is. So let’s just go forth and implement, instead of really then thinking about it as another opportunity to strategize and make a great decision for the execution. I’m not sure if you see that where people feel, and maybe it comes back to our earlier conversation about the importance of having responsibility and accountability because if it’s not there, then that might be one of the primary reasons. We’re not even doing the diligence to think about how we can impact the success of this decision by planning. Mo Hamzian: I agree. There definitely should be a decision culture, domain fit for a good decision to come. I like some of the points you mentioned and raise this idea or this argument of how much of the decision can be delegated. I mean, look, look what automation robotics algorithms are doing in lots of industries. How much, how much decision, how many fewer decisions does a pilot have to make or a driver has to make today than 25 years ago? I think slowly we are gonna see that level of disruption in the boardroom. Whereby you can make fast, reliable, good decisions, even data visualization and business intelligence software that previously were reserved for conglomerates today. The startup can get it. There is an aggregation of data whereby you can say, I, I have the data, and it’s only pointing this way. And that level of transparency or visualization of being able to slice and dice is only going to get better. It might even get so good that it can suggest or recommend a decision for you, which means we can really focus on creativity, larger decisions, which are really, really complex, and the way we work might change! Overcoming the Fear of Making the Wrong Decision Jenn DeWall: So let’s close the worst possible outcome that people think about when, or as it relates to decision-making. Well, Mo, what happens if I make a mistake? What happens if I get it wrong? What advice do you have for people as it relates to learning from your mistakes? Because I think we go into it. We’re afraid we don’t wanna make a mistake. And then, when it happens, it can feed into that narrative. Look, you did it, you did it wrong and then make us more risk-averse in the future. So how do you help people learn from their mistakes? Mo Hamzian: Well, I’m no different, actually. I’m no different. It’s, it’s a human condition. Micro success is important. Therefore going through these gates and validating it in smaller chunks becomes easier because then you can follow the maps of how you got there. And it doesn’t shatter your confidence because you could have done six things, right? But the final thing is just not, and, and you, you’re mitigating risk somehow because you might have never ended up at the end if you’ve broken down the process a little bit more. Jenn DeWall: But micro successes, I love that reframing it. This is a micro success. We now have new data that says whether we’re getting it right or whether we’re getting it wrong, and that can build that confidence. It’s a reframe. I love that. Mo Hamzian: And, and getting, getting comfortable with errors is just one of the things that everyone needs to get better at as an organization. Whether, whether you call it a failure, we call it errors rather than a failure because everyone makes errors. Even if you made an error, you might not have failed. So culturally, we try to say it’s okay to do that, But ultimately there are consequences when you get it wrong, and sometimes you just have to be okay with those consequences. But if you move together as a team and you’re not solo in an ivory tower, everyone is caught off guard by surprise. And you discuss it, you get it wrong, and often you’re getting it wrong together. <laugh> So you don’t wanna be alone in it. That level of camaraderie is really unifying, and often, often teams come out. They may have got it wrong systematically for months at a time, but because they persevere, they’re a very good team. They’re putting everything in place correctly. They’ll eventually succeed and get it right and solve the problem. Where to Find Mo Hamzian Jenn DeWall: I love that. So there’s a level of vulnerability and acceptance. I like your reframe calling it in error, and this is going to happen. But then also another piece that I heard you say is then we were it to the team, and we have dialogue. And then we, it allows us to examine, Hey, what part did we maybe, I guess mis-think or not mis-think that’s not a phrase, but did we not think about correctly? And what are we going to do to course-correct? How can we continue to grow together? I love that. Maybe it’s because I’m obsessed with building connections and belonging. But when I know that people feel a sense of belonging and support, we work together better. Even if we are making errors or mistakes or failures. And, you know, again, you brought up another point of the important piece of the planning process with every single decision. What are the possible or potential consequences that can happen? And are you okay with them? Or can you weather that, if that occurs? Mo, I have loved our conversation today. I think you hit on so many great points. You are so highly intelligent and just brought a lot of different perspectives on how we can approach them and how we can be more resilient and more confident decision-makers, Mo, how do people get in touch with you? How can they connect and get to know more about VEL? Mo Hamzian: Well, I really enjoy connecting with people on LinkedIn, so I’m sure it’ll be your show notes. Please find me there. Vel, you can find us at myvel.com. And we are all social media channels, and our handle is @workatvel. I’m sure you put in the show notes. I enjoy meeting new people discussing new problems. So feel free to find me. Jenn DeWall: Yeah, if you’ve got a decision that you’re making, maybe they can reach out and connect with you and see What Mo would do! Mo, thank you so much for giving us or giving us your time, which we know is an important resource, but your expertise your passion to helping people. I greatly appreciate it. I look forward to the day that Vel comes to Denver too. So one day, it’s gonna come to Denver. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. It was great to have you on the show. Mo Hamzian: Thanks, Jenn. Well done. Jenn DeWall: Thank you so much for joining us on this week’s episode, The Leadership Habit podcast with Mo Hamzian. If you enjoyed today’s podcast, or better yet, if you know someone that could benefit from this conversation about how to make confident decisions, share this episode with them; if you want to connect with Mo, feel free to head on over to MyVel.com. You can find the link in our show notes. Also, connect with them on LinkedIn and feel free to reach out, to ask him for his insight on how to approach your challenges. And, of course, if you enjoy this episode, don’t forget to leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service.   The post How to Make Confident Decisions with Mo Hamzian, CEO at VEL appeared first on Crestcom International.

How Organizations Can Get DEIB Right with Martine Kalaw, Elevation Strategist Jenn DeWall: Hi, everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall. And on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I sat down with Martine Kalaw to talk about how organizations can get DEIB right? Martine is a DEI top leader and learning and development expert who understands the challenges that human resources executives have in driving DE&I in the workplace. Her book, The ABCs of Diversity, A Manager’s Guide to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the New Workplace, makes DEI accessible to everyone in the workplace, including managers. Martine knows that H.R. and middle managers are the core groups that can drive DE&I since they influence an organization’s makeup. So join our conversation as Martine, and I talk about how you can do DEIB right! Meet Martine Kalaw—Author, Speaker and Elevation Strategist Jenn DeWall: Hi, everyone! It’s Jenn DeWall, and on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I sat down with Martine Kalaw, and we are talking about, oh gosh, probably a conversation that I wish everyone could hear right now, how to do diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging- DEIB for short- right. Because so many organizations right now maybe are taking approaches that aren’t allowing people to see the importance of how and why we need to bring DEIB into the workplace. But before we get into our conversation, Martine, thank you so much for being here. Could you just go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself, how you came to be, how you came to be interested in this topic? Martine Kalaw: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Jenn. I’ll start off with. I was born in Zambia. My family is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo- formerly Zaire. I came to the U.S. when I was four years old. And I share that story because a few years later after my mother and stepfather died, I was orphaned, and I became undocumented and stateless. So I didn’t have a country to go back home to. In the process of, you know, figuring out and navigating that journey of pretty much not having a family, not having a country, not having a home. I was exposed to so many different communities. Whether it was, I put myself through boarding school, right? Found or had a benefactor who was able to pay my way through boarding school. So I went to a predominantly white Southern boarding school in Charlottesville, Virginia. So that was one community that I was exposed to. And I learned to navigate that. And even within that boarding school, within that prep school, the day students were from Charlottesville, they were Southern, of course. And they were very affluent. The dorm students were predominantly South Korean. And so that was another subculture or community. I went in, in middle school, I went to a predominantly African American middle school and then went to college. So I was exposed to so many different communities, including the undocumented community and stateless community. And that really shaped this belief that you know, I could actually be the interpreter of different communities, and I have like this sort of privilege where I could widen my lens because I was exposed to so many different communities and understand their perspectives, the questions they had the lack of clarity they might have about a different community. And so, for me, that just gave me an opportunity to be an interpreter. And in, in other words, a bridge-builder, right. And I also understood very early on that when you’re part of a marginalized community, it’s easy to feel a loss of dignity, right? Based on how others treat you and really what you want is not charity. What you want is for someone to invest in you to see the value that you can bring. And so this all sort of encapsulates into the whole conversation around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, because that’s really what it is. It’s about being an interpreter across different lines, different communities, different conversations, and being able to build those bridges. Right. And reminding anyone who has more opportunity, more access, more privilege that they get you right in the space of DEIB, they get to invest right in others. Right. So that way, they can build stronger communities. And I just apply that to the workforce. Get DEIB Right – Know The Difference Between Belonging and Fitting In Jenn DeWall: I love that. I love that it’s giving voice, you know, too, and within a workplace, it could be the marginalized groups. It could be the voices that are never listened to. And I love what you’re doing in the work that you’re doing because we obviously need it more than ever. But, you know, one of the things that it, we were talking about at Crestcom last week was even to understand what it might be like. And I’m curious if you have any thoughts on this, and you may or may not, but we were talking about the difference between fitting in versus belonging. Like, and I think that you know, in the workplace, how we were looking at it, as people don’t even realize that so many workplaces are designed to expect you to fit in that’s right. Instead of creating a place and fitting in might be, you know, looking at a problem in a certain way, dressing the same way. It could be a variety of things, but I’m curious, like how do you kind of address that? Or how do you see the difference between belonging and fitting in? Martine Kalaw: Oh, that’s such a great question because I think that it’s the distinction between assimilation and actually assimilation versus multiculturalism, right? So you can be part of an organization. I always contextualize it in the space of organizations, but you can be part of an organization where, you know, there are all these different regions that the organization you know has offices across the globe. So there fitting in, or a simulation looks like, Hey, let’s model, let’s have everyone acclimate to one type of region. Right. And oftentimes what I see with some organizations that are U.S. Based and have maybe a headquarter headquarters in us, somewhere in the U.S., and then they have offices somewhere, you know, in, in, in different locations in Europe, there’s this sort of expectation for everyone to sort of assimilating to the American culture. I don’t know that everyone realizes it, but that usually happens. Right. So that’s sort of like fitting in and belonging looks like multiculturalism. It looks like, Hey, okay, we’ve got offices in all these different locations. Let’s figure out a way to fuse. Right. And create one culture. And one culture looks like a mix of all these different subcultures together, coming together. And then we form our organization. So I think that it’s a lot harder to do that, right. To get to a place of true multiculturalism, where everyone feels that sense of belonging versus that assimilation and fitting in. Why Don’t Organizations Get DEIB Right? Jenn DeWall: Yes. Thank you so much for answering that. I was just so curious. Because I think people don’t realize the difference and what that can look like sometimes in an organization, let’s dive into it. Our topic is all about how to get DEIB— diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging– right. How to get it right. So we have to start out if we’re gonna talk about how to do it right. Where do organizations get it wrong? Or where do organizations and leaders today get this wrong? Martine Kalaw: Yeah. Jenn, I mean, this is controversial because some people might you know, historically the way that organizations respond to DEIB is, Hey, we’ve gotta do this because it’s the right thing to do. Right. We’ve gotta, it’s the right thing to do. So we have to respond to it. And oftentimes, that can come across as performative, and then there’s only so much. And so when, when it’s the right thing to do, it’s sort of bucketed in the space of charity. Right. And let me ask you, we all, in our, in our own personal lives, we have various charities, you know, that we’re connected to. Right. But you know, when push comes to shove or when, right. But when we’re, when we’re under, when we have constraints, you know, where do, does our charity in terms of priority? Where does it fall? Right. So we’ve gotta think about it within that context. So when organizations see it as the right thing to do, it seems like charity, right. It’s presented as a charity, and it’s not a high priority. So that’s where I believe organizations do it wrong. I believe that DEIB needs to be introduced into the organization, or even if it already was introduced as a charity, it needs to be reshaped framed as a business structure, just like anything else. Right. So when we think about it,  we think about security, right? Security initiatives in the workplace, data security, all of that, nobody says, oh, it’s the right thing to do. So we’ve gotta do it. No, the way that we frame things like security in our organization. Our company can’t function without security because… Right. And then, we start to create strategies around security. We look at the metrics. We look at all of that. And so this is where I feel like one of the one, one way in which organizations do it wrong is they’re not looking at DEIB as a business function or a business imperative. Secondly, it’s usually sort of dumped on H.R. and on one person, right? And the thing is human resources historically. And generally, I’m generalizing here, but we’re always, and I’ve sat in an or human resources capacity for many years, you know, in my career. But we’re always struggling to secure a seat at the table already, just in terms of, you know, the function of human resources. So now this, this, this concept of the right thing to do this charity initiative is now dumped on human resources. And now they’ve gotta like add this to their workload. They’re not necessarily equipped to do this on their own. They don’t even necessarily have the expertise, and now they’ve gotta figure this out. So it can feel very burdensome for human resources, right. And then they’re not given the resources to actually do, do anything because it’s seen as a charity. So there aren’t any, there aren’t any resources that are provided. So, you know what, it’s, they’re set up. We, as human resources professionals, are set up to kind of fail in this space of DEIB. So that’s the second thing that organizations do wrong. The third is when human resources, you know, owns, takes on, you know, ownership of DEIB. One of the things that we don’t necessarily we’re not equipped to do is identify what’s the return on investment. Why is this valuable? Quantify it just like we would for anything else, right. For security, if we’re building out security programs and the organization’s marketing sales, why is this, how is this going to affect the bottom line? And that’s a hard question to pose. And I think that organizations haven’t been given permission to see DEIB, in that, you know, in that lens or in that respect, because some people feel like it cheapens it, right. Because DEIB it’s so personal to many of us, it takes on a stronger meaning, but at the end of the day, what I always, you know, my, my is okay, so I understand it’s the right thing to do. I understand that there’s a whole emotional component. And there are people that are, you know, individuals from marginalized communities who have struggled in the workplace because of, you know, the lack of DEIB, right. But this approach that we’re taking for it be to be the right thing to do, how is it working for us? Right? Because we’ve been, we’ve been doing this for the last couple of decades. How far have we gotten? We need a new approach, a different approach and an approach that will allow all stakeholders to actually be involved in the conversation. And so that common language within an organization is revenue. It’s the bottom line start there. And then we can work, work our way back backward and really, you know, discuss the soft skills and the emotional, you know, the E.Q. component of DEIB as well. Looking at DEIB as a Continuum Jenn DeWall: And I think that’s a huge piece to touch on, is the emotional component, depending on where someone sits. And it’s, I’ve just heard, seen, you know, this resistance because people are afraid of it. They think they’re afraid of, in some ways like, and we talked about this in our pre-call like that blame and shame, or they feel like it’s been pushed as this check the box initiative, but yet they truly really don’t understand why this is so important. And so organizations, I think sometimes, you know, might be really forgetting to explain, like, what is this? Like, this is why it’s important. We’re working with human beings. Yeah. But yet people think that it’s coming as a response to one specific thing, and they’re missing out on all of the benefits. I’m just curious, like, as I know, I’ve seen it where it becomes this check, check the box, you’ve gotta do all these every single month, but we’re not even inviting them into the conversation. And we’re probably just saying like, and you’ve been doing it wrong, so no big deal, here’s the way to do it. Right. Or I don’t know. There’s just a lot of different ways I’ve seen this done. There’s a lot of people I’ve seen even enter the arena of diversity inclusion belonging experts. And I do think that you have to be, it’s not just, it’s a mix of different things and to get everyone on that same conversation, like how do we do it? It can’t just be a push. It can’t because then there’s that resistance. And yeah. I’d love to hear your response. Martine Kalaw: Yeah, Jenn, I would say that there’s a space. This is a continuum; DEIB is a continuum. It’s a continuum for every individual, every organization. So, you know, individuals that focus on, you know, a specific area of DEIB, whether it’s, you know, race relations specifically whatever it is, there’s a space for all of us. And every approach, I believe for organizations, just depends on where the organization is at the moment and what they need. Right. So we’ve gotta really be audience-specific. What I would say is absolutely, you know, I, I hear time and time again, as I work with different clients, I hear people say predominantly white men in these organizations that will share with me, Hey Martine, I don’t feel like I can say anything. I don’t feel like I have the right to say anything. I don’t wanna be shamed or blamed, and that’s a problem, right? Because we need everyone in the conversation. And when we look at organizations and the makeup of organizations and who’s sitting at the helm of the organization, it’s usually white men right now. So if they don’t feel comfortable or they that they can say anything in these conversations, then how are we gonna actually be able to move the needle and move things along. So we really wanna invite everyone in. And so, it really depends on the approach. Now, sometimes the approach looks like we’re gonna focus on, we’re gonna just do training. We’re gonna push training down your throats. We’re going to push unconscious bias, training down your throats. So it really becomes, you know, there there’s certain, there, there are elements of it’s, it’s gotta be a strategy, right? So that’s what I’m suggesting. Training is not going to be sufficient, but there’s nothing wrong with training when it’s combined with strategy. Right. And it’s the way in which we present training. I don’t even believe in DEI training. I believe in learning. There’s a difference, right? There are conversations discussions that look different than training. Right. And I also believe when it’s infused, and it’s incorporated or presented within the framework of foundational skills that manager, or specifically you know, already learning. That’s when it’s a lot more palatable. It’s a lot easier to process and digest. So that’s, that’s really, it’s that it’s really, you know, the way in which, you know, we structure the process that really matters. So that’s why, you know, I wrote this book on the ABCs of DEI, and it’s really for managers, right. It’s designed for managers because I believe when we think about, you know, the two groups that, influence the makeup of an organization, it’s human resources and middle management, right. Middle Managers Have to Get DEIB Right Martine Kalaw: Middle managers are involved with performance management compensation, you know, promotions. They’re also involved with hiring. They influence attrition, whether a person decides to say or not. So we all, most organizations offer some sort of manager development program. So DEI can be embedded right in that program. It’s just a different aspect of looking at each component of manager development when we’re looking at hiring. Right. And we, when we’re going through managers, are going through training on how to, you know, how to effectively interview behavioral-based interviews. Well, the only difference in presenting DEIB into that conversation is okay, managers, let’s talk about bias. Let’s talk about the tendencies that we all carry when we’re looking at resumes, right. When we look at a resume, we create a story about someone. We act, actually create a picture in our mind, I went to a liberal arts college. If I looked at a resume right now, one person who went to a liberal arts college and one who went to, you know, a law university, I would probably be more inclined to, you know, lean toward the person into a liberal arts college subconsciously. So managers, when we’re looking at resumes, let’s consider what those biases could be, and let’s try to figure out ways to mitigate it. Right? So that’s a different way of presenting DEI learning rather than, Hey, everyone, we’re gonna go through this training in here. You’re gonna go through this training. And yeah. And then you’re, you’re expected to like shift the way that you behave in the workplace. So that’s really what we get to do differently. And when we present it in this way, there’s less shame and blame, right. Because people start to digest this, and it becomes like a muscle, the more managers digest this, the more they actually start to behave differently. And then it permeates throughout the organization. Right. That’s a different approach. What Are DEIB Efforts Trying to Accomplish? Jenn DeWall: Yes. I love that. I’ve just, it really has to be a part of your culture, and it’s got to be a part of your strategy. Yeah. And people have to be, have permission to join the conversation. Those are like three things that I’ve said, and it’s not just training. There has to be dialogue. So let’s, let’s level set again. Martine, what does diversity equity, inclusion and belonging DEIB intend to do? Cause I know we talked about like, this is such a, you can approach this in a variety of different ways, but for those that might be still resistant, like, what is this intended to do? Martine Kalaw: Yeah. That’s a great question. I mean, we first wanna break out what DEIB you know what it means, right. When we look at diversity, there are so many different components of diversity. I don’t think everyone is fully aware of that. Right. I mean, I break it out into like three segments, right? One segment being, you be, you know, the physical-biological. So when we think about gender and race, okay. That is part of that, you know, the first component, the second component is cultural, right? I mean, so it, it thing, such things like you know, your age, your marital status, right. That’s a component, and the third is really behavior-based behavior. So that can be, look that can look like whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert. And all of those three components are really critical and more thinking about creating more diverse workplaces. Right. But I will, I will say, I do wanna make sure that I’m clear in saying that there are gonna be certain segments that are more important, more prominent. That should be more prominent within our organization or organizational initiatives. Right. You know, equity can look like a lot of things. We immediately think it’s solely about compensation. It is about compensation, but it’s also about, you know, creating a space where people have access, access to training, access, to leadership, access, to headquarters, access to mentors, things like that. Right. And then, you know, inclusion and longing are really about right. Creating a space where it’s not just about bringing someone in on the, bringing someone into the team, but it’s really making sure they understand how they contribute to the organization, how they contribute to your goals as a team. So that means connecting with them regularly, allowing them to share their ideas, making them feel involved. Right. And it also involves a level of representation. People feel more involved. They feel like they belong when they see other people that look like them, right. That are, you know, that are, have advanced within the organization. So that’s what DEIB really represents. And so the goal of DEIB within the organization is really to create organizations that foster, that allow all of us to always have our antennas up to our antennas so that we are thinking about how we can grow our organizations through the myriad of people that are coming into the organization. Right. So how do we find the best, smartest talent that represents, you know, that, that, that represent the the the makeup of the, of U.S. Pretty much, right? Like we want the organization to kind of reflect how the demographics of our country, that that’s one, right. Yeah. As, as possible. But how do we do it in a way where everyone feels like it’s fair? There’s fairness in that process. Right. And when we bring people in, how do we ensure that everyone feels like there’s fairness in the process of growing throughout the organization? Right. So that’s really what DEIB is intended to do. And at the end of the day, it benefits the organization as a whole. Jenn DeWall: Yes, yes. The organization. And I mean, this is the piece where I just wish everyone looked at it that way because it creates a place. We spend so much time at work. And if we can feel like we have a place where we belong, that we’re supported, that we’re invited into the conversation. I feel like there are mental health, positive, mental health impacts that can come for an individual positive sense of like the ripple effect. That’s there. If we just create a place for people to thrive or representative of where you’re at, like that is the piece that I hate, that it’s become kind of this hot button topic of like some people resisting it because of how it’s done because really it’s about seeing the whole individual that comes in and then understanding your organization’s structures, your processes, and how, and what they could be either helping or hurting that individual. It’s caring! Martine Kalaw: The thing that I will say is that it’s definitely not. I hear some people say it’s, you know, the goal of DEIB is to create this colorblind space. Right. And where everyone, every, you know, we don’t see color. And I actually disagree with that. I think that, you know, the challenge or the issue with, you know, this colorblind theory is it’s, it just dismisses people. Right. It it’s very dismissive of people because some of us, we, we want to it’s, it’s okay to see color it’s okay to see and acknowledge people for who they are and how they define themselves. That is okay, because we wanna appreciate that. Right. So that’s really, you know, it’s, it’s not about getting to a place where we’re color blind. It’s getting to a place where we allow people to define themselves and we’re accepting of that. And we don’t place meaning whether it be positive or negative, we don’t place meaning on people based on what we see, what we hear, but we place meaning on their actions. Right. That’s really where we wanna get to. That’s the goal of DEIB Jenn DeWall: Yes. I love that. I, I want it there. I want it now, Mar like, I want it to be this place for, that’s what we’re focusing on. We’re not getting maybe more confused, or I guess, like, I would say, even just excluding or disengaging from it, we’re getting to a place where we can understand what that looks like for someone. And I think the differentiation that you made, like assigning label is good or bad. Like, you still have to understand who that individual is like and what, like their pride is, who they are, how they see that it’s not going to be the same for every single one of us, even though you might notice similar things. And I put in air quotes, things like we’re still completely different people. How Do We Get DEIB Right? Jenn DeWall: Okay. So we’re gonna get into doing it right because we talked about, you know, some of those problems, I loved so many of the insights that you shared, Martine. How do we get DEIB right? Where do you start? Martine Kalaw: We start by first not using the, you know, academic-speak in the workplace because that just doesn’t, it, it, academia is a completely different space and structure. And when we do that, that’s when DEIB becomes really intimidating. Right? Human resources, professionals, individuals within organizations feel like, well, I don’t, I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’m equipped to lead these kinds of conversations. I don’t feel like, you know, we’re gonna get to that place, you know, where we’re actually doing DEIB right because we’re using academia as a framework. Right. So what we get to do is create our own common language around DEIB within our organization. Right. So that’s one way to do it. Right. But another thing that we get to, there’s Jenn DeWall: A quick question. And when you say like that, you’re just saying to like, modify, like, instead of calling it diversity, equity and inclusion and belonging find what is going to be the most productive to like, support those conversations in your workplace, that we don’t have to call it that because you know, it can be okay. Perfect. I love that. Just wanted to clarify that. Martine Kalaw: Yeah. We don’t have to call it that we don’t have to worry about. Okay. You know, do I understand, will I know when something is a microaggression, a microaggression is pretty much when someone, if someone comes to you and says, they’re offended by something you did or said, potentially that’s a microaggression. So it’s less about being able to define it and being able to figure out whether or not it’s a microaggression or not. And it’s really about just being conscientious of other people, right. And their emotions, their feelings, and not being, not feeling like you get to be the judge of how other people feel that’s a different way to frame or reframe all these concepts that are coming at us. So that’s really what I’m saying is people get so stuck in the minutia of the concept. People go, you know, I hear people say, well, you know, Martine, I really don’t understand, you know, what LGBTQIA+ is. And I feel like I need to understand all the different sub-components so I can actually engage in conversation. And you know, it, it doesn’t have to be that overwhelming. We make it a little bit too overwhelming. Let’s just start by asking questions. Let’s start with just acknowledging that we can enter space, like you said earlier, a space of dialogue where we get to learn from each other. That’s it. Right. So that’s, that’s a different approach. So that’s the first thing, another way of doing, doing DEIB right in organizations, is looking at the metrics and what I’m, what I’m suggesting is not just the metrics looking at like one layer of metrics. Cause that’s what a lot of organizations do. Right. They, you know, they’ll, they’ll say, okay, we’re gonna look across the board. We’re gonna look at gender. We’re gonna look at ethnicity across the board. All right. Yeah. The numbers look okay. So we’re fine. Identify Your DEIB Opportunities Martine Kalaw: That is not enough. Right. What I’m suggesting is that there are tools and systems out there that allow you to actually measure and look at the sub and the cross-section of different fields, different metrics. So you can look at gender and race, and age. Right. You can look at those three layers, right? The cross-section of all those three by the department by region tells a completely different story. Right. And that’s where you’re able to identify where there’s opportunity. Right. And a lot of organizations don’t like doing that because it’s, it’s frightening. They’re frightened of what they might see, but I wanna remind all of us that we’re all starting, you know, from an, a place of opportunity. So those numbers may not look like what you want them to look like, but that’s okay. Create a DEIB Strategy Martine Kalaw: Start from, you know, we’re all starting from, from, from home base. Right. So look at the numbers and remember that you don’t have to, the goal is not to try to grow them, like change the numbers over or night. It takes time. Right. So that’s a second thing that we can do differently or better in terms of DEIB really look at the cross-section of metrics and use systems, not H.R. systems, but there are other tools and platforms that are specific to DEIB that will support to in, you know, pulling those Infor that information in metrics. The third thing that I would say that we need to do, or we could do is identify immediately. And I mentioned this earlier, what’s the value, what’s the metric? What’s the benefit of DEIB in our organization.? Right. Because that is going to be the thing that draws everyone in, right. That’s going to be the equalizer of D I B. Right. So, and usually what I recommend is that it be quantifiable, right? So if you’re a B2B business or B2C business is there opportunity to grow your market, share, increase your market, share, right. Start there. If your B2B business, you know, is there opportunity to you know, generate more partnerships and who are your partners, look, you know, who do they work with? Who are they their customers? Right. so that’s how we start to actually make DEIB a business imperative. So those are three things right off the bat that we can start doing differently. Fourth, I’ll say is don’t run to start creating programs, cuz that’s very exciting. Like programs are lovely. Start to create programs, have a strategy. Why are you creating the programs? Right? Because if you create programs and no strategy, how do you scale it? Right. Where does the money come from to maintain these programs? So have a strategy. And I will say the last thing is make the distinction between EEOC. And this kind of goes back to the other point that we made earlier, Jenn , about, you know, people feeling, being fearful of engaging in DEI because they equate DEI sometimes with, you know, equal employment, you know, opportunities of equal employment, what is EEOC, equal employment opportunity. I forget what that last C stands for, but that’s more, you know, that’s more, it’s legal, right? It’s statutory, right. And DEI is more policy driven. So when we don’t address DEI, right. And let’s say someone, you know, we don’t have initiatives within our organization that support individuals to mitigate bias. DEIB is Not the Same as Equal Employment Opportunity Statutes Martine Kalaw: Right. And you know, and, and, and microaggressions, if someone con consistently experiences this, right. They might eventually feel like they wanna take legal action. Then it becomes an EEOC situation or issue. But EEOC is more statutory. Right. And DEI is more policy-based and policy driven. Right. So, I think it’s important that organizations make that distinction, you know, of course, E E O C is, is, is much more of it’s mandated. Right? We, we’ve gotta make sure that these, you know, the, these actions are taken and DEIB is, you know, it’s optional. But I think that this, you know, when we address DEIB and organizations and we focus on it first, we actually mitigate and minimize the, the op you know, the chances of us having more EEOC issues in our organization. Right. So that’s another, I think I listed four things that we can do, right in organizations to drive DEIB. Jenn DeWall: Who do you think are the individuals? I know that you talked about what earlier, so you’ve gotta have the strategy. Cause I think right now some people’s strategies are in introduce DEIB training into the work workforce, but that’s not necessarily like, what is the goal? The goal can’t be just to have the training. Like, what do you wanna see as a result of it? And I like that distinction that I think you’re making is like. It’s not just checking the box with that. Like, what are you actually wanting from that? And now, how do you build the strategy? It’s not just, just say, Hey, I got this. Understand the ROI of DEIB Martine Kalaw: And that’s why when you quantify it, right. When you identify what’s that return, what’s the value of doing this, right? You identify that first. And secondly, where are we now? Right. We look at the metrics. Where are we now? Then we get to create the strategy on where, you know, how do we get from where we are to where we wanna go. Right. So that, you know, where we are is our baseline, where we want to go is gonna help us reach our, you know, our, that ROI. And then we create strategies around that. We create processes, we create procedures and programs is part of, is a component of strategy, but it’s not the only strategy. Right? So like I said, you know, it’s one thing to say, we’re just gonna, we’re gonna have the training, but it’s another thing to say, we’re going to provide we’re gonna provide you know, managers with DEI training and it’s gonna be part of their manager development program. Right. We’re gonna do that. And we’re also going to now, you know, we’re gonna have a scorecard that actually that’s part of that. So we’re able to assess whether or not we’re actually moving the needle on DEI or going forward with performance, you know, performance evaluations. What we’re gonna do is we’re going to check for potential biases in the recaps that managers share, or we’re going to after performance evaluations and after promotions or in the process of promotions, we’re going to look at, you know, what’s the rate of promotion by gender, by race, by whatever. And how does that, you know, what’s that correlation to who’s leaving the organization, right? So that’s what I mean, when I say strategy. Or we’re going to, in terms of strategy, we’re going to look at our pipeline. We’re gonna look at who are we bringing in? Are we widening our pool of individuals who are coming in entry-level? Our internship program. What’s the, what’s the conversion of our interns? Where are we pulling our interns from? And then once we figure out, okay, this is part of the strategy we’re going to, you know, we want to you know, increase our pipeline and we wanna strengthen it. Or we want to, you know, create a different position entry level position so that we can widen our pool of candidates. Right. Because a lot of organizations, or I won’t say a lot, but some organizations will say, look, we only allow for candidates who have this particular degree, right. Come into our organization. And my follow up is, well, is there an opportunity to create another entry level position, right? That where a person can actually graduate from that position into, you know, this other, you know, position that you’re, you require a particular degree for. Right. So that they can grow and they can, you know, you can maybe sponsor them getting that degree. So that’s part of strategy development. And when you develop that strategy, what comes with it is, okay, well then what kind of learning do we need to, to also implement, right. And how do we support our managers? How do we support leadership in understanding why we’re doing this? Why this matters well, that it involves learning. That just involves discussions. Right? That’s how strategy can and should work more effectively. Embed DEIB in the Organization Jenn DeWall: Yeah. I’m happy that you even brought up just thinking about it’s rethinking different ways. I know that I worked for an organization that heavily recruited at big 10 universities. And then just thinking about all the places that they missed seeing talent, because they only went there and you know, it’s not just, I I’m so happy that you said that because we aren’t aware of our bias or even the, that affinity bias of how we naturally gravitate towards people that are most like ourselves, every person does it, it’s an unconscious bias. Like we’re not judging, we’re not throwing out judgment. We are throwing out the place to understand and reflect and think and be curious. And so how do you embed that strategy into the organization? How would you advise people to approach to that? Well thinking about like, cause I know that we had talked about how do we get, like what, how do people actually reinforce like the efforts of the organization? Does that lie specifically within H.R. to take that through? Or what do we need to do with leaders to help them embed strategy into the efforts? Martine Kalaw: So it starts with human resources cuz usually they’re the ones who are charged with that responsibility. So it starts there, but it can’t just end there. Right. What we know is that anyone even, you know, Chief Diversity Officers, the likely, you know, the, you know, the time span, they usually stay within an organization and their position on average three years. Because if they’re the only ones charged with that responsibility, it’s heavy, it’s a burden, and not one person can change, you know, DEI for an entire organization. So everyone has to be involved. So the way that I see it and the way that I recommend it recommended is yes, you’ve got human resources. If they’re charged with owning DEI they’re responsible, you know, they get to, you know, be responsible for identifying what that ROI is identifying, you know, what that strategy can look like. And we are building it out and presenting to their stakeholders, one being leadership. So leadership has to be held accountable as well. So when we’re talking about, you know, widening our pool of candidates, widening our networks, right. We get to hold leadership responsible. They get to, we get to hold them. We can hold them responsible in scorecards. Right. We can also look at usually, you know, in organizations, leadership, you know, they own different regions of the market or, you know, in that way. So let, why not have some sort of metrics around that? Now I wanna be clear that we’re not talking about quotas, right. So I know that that is a real fear for a lot of fear for people in organizations, right? That DEI means we’re going to have quotas, and it means we’re going to bring in individuals that are less qualified than, you know, than others. That’s not true, right? I mean, that’s not the goal of DEI, and that doesn’t happen. That shouldn’t happen because we’re gonna bring in, the goal is to widen the pool of candidates. And when you widen the pool of candidates, qualified, eligible candidates, you increase the likelihood of bringing in somebody, right. Who may not look like some, the majority of the people in your organization, but has just as much experience if not more and can contribute more. So what we get to do, though, is we get to hold each leader accountable to making sure that this stuff is actually happening in their area, in their region. They get to, you know, they’re holding their managers accountable, right? So our managers, so our human resources is driving the strategy, right? Leadership is being held accountable for this strategy. And the managers are in the middle, right? The managers are actually reinforcing all of this through the, the people, right? Because the managers are the ones who are actually doing the hiring. They’re the ones who are, are actually doing the promotions. They’re the ones who are actually, you know, determining compensation. So they’re kind of like in the middle, you know, actually implementing it, but their leaders are being held accountable for making sure that it’s happening. So that is how this relationship can work. And it is symbiotic way to really drive DEI strategy. Right? I mean, I think of it like a, you know, you think of a scorecard it’s not a scorecard, excuse me a playbook, right? I think you can, you can create and have a, a DEI playbook just like you would have a sales playbook. This is what, who, you know, this person’s gonna, you know, their responsibility is X, Y, Z. This person’s responsibility is X, Y, Z. And this is how we’re gonna actually see that it’s working. Right. And it’s not enough to say, we’re just gonna look at the makeup of the organization to see if it’s changed. We don’t want that. Right. Because that suggests creating, establishing, you know, quotas. That’s not what we want. What we’re looking at is how are we widening our pool of candidates? Who are we actually, you know, who are we looking at when we’re looking at resumes? What resumes are we looking at? And in conjunction with that, right? Are we helping our managers mitigate their biases? Cause we all have biases. Like you said, right. Do managers understand how those biases happen? And in that interview process, what are the different ways that we can mitigate biases? Yes. Managers can understand how to mitigate their own biases. But what if we had an ERG, you know, someone from our ERG also engage in the interview process of a candidate. So not only is the manager interviewing that candidate, but now there’s another pool of people who, you know, who have, who might potentially be unbiased, who can also interview that candidate. Right. That’s what it can look like. These are the type of conversations that can happen to actually make the change. You know, that we’re looking for, How to Learn More with Martine Kalaw’s DEIB Masterclass Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh, Martine, I’ve loved our conversation. And just as a reminder, it starts with your strategy and how are you getting people into the strategy, but also educating them on what it is and what it’s not, because I think you’re right. There’s a lot of noise in terms of people coming to conclusions or jumping, maybe assuming what it is. And that’s not like quotas, like it’s not what it’s designed and to do. It’s designed to expand. So you can have access to a broader pool of talent. Martine I’ve loved our conversation. I know I want to send our audience to your site. How do they get in touch with you? I know that you’re promoting a masterclass. Give us all the details on how we can connect with you. Martine Kalaw: Yeah, Jenn . So my next masterclass is April 27th from 12 to 1 Eastern Time. It’s just an opportunity for H.R. professionals, human resource professionals to join me. So we can talk about the five things that you can do implement in the next 90 days to really move di forward. Right? So we’re gonna really dig in and, and, you know, figure that out together and you can go directly to my website, https://martinekalaw.com/masterclass/. And you can go ahead and sign up and I’d love to have you there. Jenn DeWall: All right. Perfect Martine, thank you so much for sharing your time, your expertise, your passion, and also helping us understand how we can do it the right way to actually get the intended impact of what we want. I’m just so grateful for this conversation. Thank you for bringing a different way to look at DEIB. Check out her masterclass until next time, Martine. Martine Kalaw: Thank you so much. Jenn DeWall: Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode, The Leadership Habit podcast. I love my conversation with Martine Kalaw and as she shared, if you are an H.R. professional and you are interested in attending for live masterclass on April 27th, from 12 to one Easter, you can sign up at MartineKalaw.com/masterclass, or you can find the link in our show notes. And if you know that you could benefit from hearing this conversation, please share the episode and don’t leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service.   The post How Organizations Can Get DEIB Right with Martine Kalaw, Elevation Strategist appeared first on Crestcom International.

Business Performance and Mindset: The Game You Must Win Now More Than Ever with Will Matthews Jenn DeWall: Hi, everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall, and on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I sat down with Will Matthews to talk about the game you must win now more than ever before. Will Matthews helps companies develop an outstanding emerging leader, and he is the author of the best-selling book, You’ve Got This! The Five Self-Coaching Keys You Need to Live Boldly and Accomplish Anything. Following 25 years of corporate experience and corporate leadership, Will now speaks internationally to companies and associations on the topics of self-leadership, developing emerging leaders and team excellence, Will’s presentations and training reveal insights that he has learned as an iron man athlete, business executive and professional development expert to help professionals breakthrough to the results and fulfillment that they want with warrior-like determination and skill. I hope you enjoy the conversation that will and I have. As we talk about the game, you must win now more than ever before. Enjoy. Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall, and I’m so excited to be sitting down with Will Matthews today to be talking about the game that you must win now more than ever. Will, what is this game? But before we go into it, I wanna know what the game is. Actually, no, we’re gonna, we’re gonna hold off for our listeners. Let’s just start off. Will, you have a great background that people have heard about. You’ve worked with so many different clients. Just tell us a little bit about yourself, how you came to be and how you even came to want to bring this message to the world. Meet Will Matthews, Business Performance and Mindset Expert Will Matthews: Well, yeah, first off, thanks so much for having me on the podcast. I’m super excited to be with you. I’m a big fan of yours, and yeah, so I’ll give you a little bit on me because I really wanna spend our time on how we can help move the needle together for your listeners. But I had a really, really long, you can see the gray hair. I’ve been around a while, and I’ve had a, I had a really long corporate career leading teams and sales, marketing operations. And, and after a while, after many years, even though I loved it, I recognized that I just wanted to contribute in a different way. I mean, all the, I dunno if anybody and the listeners can relate to this, but you know, viewers but you know, all the highs that used to be there, like you’d win the big deal or you got the big promotion or whatever it was. You know, they seemed to flatten out. They weren’t as exciting anymore. And the low, the hard times, and I knew I’d figure out a way through ’em. So all the juice that came along with the highs and lows of that, of my corporate roles and energy and information technology, we’re just kind of flattening out. And I thought you know what? That’s not how I wanna spend my time. I love the corporate world. Not saying that’s for everybody, but for me, I recognized the calling to go contribute in a different way. So I started my company Matthews Performance Group to really help people get to where they want to go in leadership, in sales results, in managing, and just kind of becoming more of who they really are, what they can bring to the table. Jenn DeWall: I love that. Now you’re an Ironman athlete. Something that I will never understand. I have massive respect. I don’t think I’ll ever be adding that to my resume, but I know that that’s an important part of your business. How do you use that to inspire how you serve your clients? Mindset + Skillset + Execution = Success Will Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. And, and the model that we’re gonna talk about just a little bit later is something I trademarked called Mindset plus Skillset plus Execution is what creates success in business. And mindset is number one, Jenn, for a reason. If you don’t have this dialed in the other two, it doesn’t matter. In fact, if you don’t have this dialed in, in my opinion, having worked with thousands, literally coached thousands of CEOs and business owners and sales professionals. If that’s not dialed in, I don’t even wanna talk about what your strategic plan is or, you know, your goals or whatever it is, because it’s not gonna matter until we kinda figure out where this is. What is your level of expectation that you can succeed? What’s your level of confidence, where’s your energy, your focus, your positive expectation, right? And focus on what you can control. All those things start here. Jenn DeWall: Well, I love that you’re talking about that because it is the place we, I think, especially if we are, if an organization or business leaders in pain, we wanna focus on the strategy to fix the pain, but we don’t realize that it’s, everything is an inside out approach that it all starts with us before we can go. And I think that’s so that you make that your primary step. Will Matthews: Yeah, no doubt. And you know so turns out in, in when you’re doing endurance sports like Ironman is one of those for sure. I’m doing my next one actually up in kind of your place of origin, kind of in the north. This is actually Wisconsin, but you know, close by for you, right. In Madison. So I’ll be doing that later this year, but Jenn DeWall: Wait, you’re doing the Ironman in Wisconsin? Will Matthews: Yeah. 20th Anniversary. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. That’s so exciting. I used to, I, the part-time job that I had throughout college because I went to UW, Madison was on State Street. And so every year when they ran the Ironman, I could watch them. So I have seen a lot of Ironmans, and I will probably see Ironman, but that’s congratulations to you. Sorry to interrupt. But that was just fun. I mean, yeah. People, people listening to Wisconsin, you look for Will Matthews if he’s running that Ironman downtown or down State Street. Will Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. So it’s a really, it’s a big endurance sport. And if you don’t know about Ironman, you can look it up. I won’t take the time to describe it. It’s a long day and, you know, look, it’s, it is about training. I’m training this afternoon, you know, I’m tr I’ve been training six months before. It is about building body strength and, and all those things. But you know what, again, if, if you wake up and you don’t have a way to dial this in, it’s not gonna really give you the result you want. So huge mindset fan, it works in sports. You see it all the time. If you, if someone so on the side of a, of a says, we have a good international audience there, you know, football or a soccer game, when the teams come out, you know, they don’t just kinda walk out, you know, sit on the bench before the game and, you know, look around. No, they come out, and they start. They’re like pumping each other up. Right. And they are getting people excited. Like, let’s go, we can do this. You know, my book, you’ve got this, it’s written that way for a reason like you’ve got, this is what we tell each other when we want to get people to rise up and bring their best to the table. So that’s how I look at it in terms of leadership development, and I work a lot, Jenn with emerging leaders, and the cool thing is, guess what? We’re always emerging. Yeah. So even though the target’s kinda that, that younger group coming in, maybe it’s their first, second, third leadership role. What’s cool is that the principles are applicable even if you’ve been leading for a long time. Where do Leaders Get Business Performance Mindset Wrong? Jenn DeWall: Okay. Well, and so many leaders, even, they may have advanced to mid-level positions, even executive positions without a lot of access to that learning and development. And so, I love how you differentiate that because everyone is learning. If you’re not growing, you’re dying. So let’s get, let’s get into the formula, let’s break down what it means. And maybe let’s talk about it, so it’s mindset plus skillset plus execution equals success in business. And that is your trademark formula. So if you were gonna say where from your experience, you’ve coached thousands of people, where do people get this wrong? So is it specifically with the mindset? Like where do they get it wrong? Will Matthews: That’s a great question. And actually the challenge, right? Think of it as a survey. You know, where are you think about it in your own life or those watching and listening to Jenn for you too, you know, think about it. Where when your day in and day out, we’ll have our ups and downs. And you know, our biorhythms of which is the course, the level of mental sharpness, emotional strength and physical strength, those are kind of on these sliding curves. And because of that, if you will, we have some days where we’re on top of the world, you know, are these lined up, we’re feeling sharp. We’re we slept well, everything’s going well in our lives. And we feel physically strong. We have other days when all three are really, you know, in the valley there, and we’re like barely hanging on energy-wise. And then, oh my gosh, you know, I have this huge emotional challenge from my personal life. Oh, by the way, I’m also not feeling great. Well, guess what? Unfortunately, the world doesn’t really care about that. We’d like to think it does, but it doesn’t. The world cares about results. So we wanna find a way, Jenn, to be able to bring your A-game, even on those days when you’ve got nothing in the tank. And that’s so, so if you think about the survey approach, where are you? So we know we have highs and lows, but in general, where are you in terms of one to 10, let’s say 10 is amazing. One being like hardly, hardly any skill at all, in terms of that mindset, what’s the mindset. I’m not asking you particularly to answer, but everybody, where are you typically in terms of mindset and mindset is strictly a way that you process and filter the world in a way so that you make sense of the world and decide how you show up and how you fit in or don’t fit in, in that world. That’s what mindset is, right. When we feel strong, when we feel excited, when we feel like part of something, something, that’s why we like to work with, you know, groups where we could feel like we’re part of something bigger. You know, all parts of our brain are firing. We’re getting better ideas. We’re excited. We’re, we’re motivated. Our mindset is really, really hot. Oftentimes we could be on the other side. So the idea for the listeners and watchers are, where are we 1 to 10, in terms of mindset by that definition in general. Yeah. And then from there, right? The other Jenn DeWall: I’m so curious because the mindset is, I, you know, we were just, I had this conversation this morning with someone and, you know, they were just talking about a conflict of that they were having with someone else. And this person is kind of much more in their head. And we were just talking about how difficult it actually is to help someone see, like, Hey, do you understand how your actions, how your thoughts are actually impacting this? How do you help people build that mindset awareness? Because I think that, that sometimes people think, oh, I’ve got it better than what I do. I think there are people that are listening that are like. I absolutely can answer that question. I know exactly where I am there, maybe feelers like me. And then there are people that maybe are just not self-aware. So how do you help people build that self-awareness? Will Matthews: I believe that we are, and I love what you said just a minute ago, you know? I’ll paraphrase, but you know, the idea that—guess what—what we create, what we experience in our career and our life is, is truly a, is created first on the inside. Right? And, and then it appears on the outside, we have this ability to affect the results we have. And, and I believe that’s where mindset really comes in. So then, one of the reasons that I left my corporate job to start Matthews Performance Group was I wanted to do more of what I saw myself. I saw strength. And that was that I could see the warrior by the way my brand is, is right back in right here, the instant warrior emergency program. And what do I mean by an instant warrior? Well, I believe that you, and I’m not talking about the warrior. I say that like striking out against another person or those things. I’m talking about, the discipline, the precision, the dedication, the focus. Jenn DeWall: Resilience! Develop Your Mindset with a Morning Ritual Will Matthews: Yes, exactly. Yes, exactly. So I recognize that I can see the warrior and I bet many of you can. I know you can, Jenn. I can see the warrior in somebody oftentimes before they can actually see it in themselves. And then what I love doing is helping them first identify with that, you know, the skills and then bring that to the surface on a more routine basis. Okay. So how do you develop a mindset? Where’s your question, you know, is I believe you work on it. I have a, and we’re gonna say it’s always here. Oh, I have a morning ritual. That is my incantation. Jenn DeWall: Yes, I was gonna ask you what you do in the morning, knowing that you have to be quite disciplined to train. I love that morning ritual. Okay. Will Matthews: Yeah. So that part of the morning ritual is, is my incantation. So that is something I read to myself. So let’s say somebody if you’re watching this right now and you’re in that slump, and you wanna figure out what, how can I bust that? How can I find a slump-buster so that I can bring it back? And as you said, Jenn, re be more resilient, bounce back up faster, then, you know, go back to the basics and like start at your day with a little bit of quiet time, whatever that is for you, whatever that is for you. And then get something where you just read or listen to you, something that really just fires you up. It’s, it’s inspiring, right? There’s so much of that available now with the, you know, YouTube and all these things. We have so much access to that. So for me, I read this every day. I’ll tell you, Hey, I’m human. I’m not always perfect at these things. Jenn DeWall: Right. Will Matthews: But I strive to get better and better. And when I’m in a place where, oh my gosh, I’m not feeling it. Usually, I’ve realized I haven’t been doing this morning ritual. I’ve been letting it go for some reason. So when I wanna get, if, if you out there having of slow time or a challenging time and listen, challenging times, come in all flavors. And, and as we record this, this podcast, you know, where there’s a lot of that in the world right now. And, and what, by the time you’re watching this, so probably still be a lot of different things going on. That’s part of the human experience, but our ability to get back to the basics and be able to bring ourselves up. So our mindset is helping us, not hindering us is very key to success. How Does Skillset Affect Business Performance? Jenn DeWall: Yeah. And I know I jumped the gun. I, I jumped the gun because I didn’t even help our listeners understand your formula. So let’s, let’s take it back a little bit. We just talked about mindset, but the formula, your trademark formula- mindset plus skillset plus execution, equals success in business. Now we just talked a little bit about mindset. What do you mean about the skillset? Will Matthews: Great. Perfect. So, yeah, I hope, I hope everyone gets that these are very simple words and very simple concepts, but it is that combination in that equation that I’ve noticed again, having coached literally thousands of people at all levels and organizations that differentiate those who are having success routinely from those who are having frustration and disappointment and might even, you know, washout, right. Because some of you out there are gonna change your business. You’re gonna change your company. You’re gonna have a positive impact. You’re gonna make amazing changes in the world, even. And others, not on this call on, but other people will have the very same opportunity, but they will not have that same level of impact. Right. So that’s why the equation is so important. You gotta have all three in order to have the kind of results that I believe most of us really want. Right. So we can, when we can kinda simplify it and think about these three things, life gets easier. So we talked about mindset. Once you have this dialed in, by the way, that’s an ongoing project. It doesn’t end.   Jenn DeWall: You can’t set and forget your mindset. You gotta keep working on it. Will Matthews: Exactly. I think, I think it was Zig Ziglar that said motivation is like, bathing. You really can’t just do it once. And for all right, You know, you gotta keep going. Jenn DeWall: Yes, I like that! Will Matthews: That. So, OK. So, but knowing how we got this, at least on a track. We’ve got, we have you thinking about what’s possible. We have you thinking, you know, you have yourself thinking about what you want to achieve, that it’s like, then you gotta know what to do. Right? You have to have some skills, whatever, whatever your profession, you gotta get the basics. I mean, whatever it is you do, you must do it well, right? In order to be one who’s considered to be at the top of your industry. So whatever those skills else are, if you were a doctor, right. Or a surgeon, let’s say specifically, you know, you, you can have a great mindset about every, about all the outcomes you want and you still have to know how to do a great, you know, Append- what’s that word- appendix… Why did I pick that one? Jenn DeWall: Appendectomy? I got one of those. So I think I can say that. Will Matthews: So you know how to do your work, if you’re in sales, you have to have the skills to be able to listen effectively, to be able to bring up the objections so that they’re not just hanging out there, you know, being able to call out the elephant room, you know, and I believe in one of the components of the skillset that I teach is what I call relationship science. Another trademark term, relationship science, no matter what your profession turns out, you’re gonna need the buy-in from other people. Jenn DeWall: Yes!! I said this quote this morning. It’s, and it’s a quote that I’m so glad. Like, I feel like my, you know, I have a lot of family members that have given me great one-liners, but you are never independent. We are always interdependent. Absolutely. Like your, your illusion of independence. Like that’s what she said to me during my formative years. Like you’re never going to be independent. So you can just stop thinking that. No, I love that relationship science. Continue on. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Understanding Relationship Science Will Matthews: So relationship science is really the ability to understand number one. What makes you tick, right? How you are wired, so to speak or how you, you know, how you prefer to be communicated with, etcetera. And then, but most importantly, which that’s great. That’s been the, from a self-awareness perspective, as you shared earlier, you know, that really dials up self self-awareness, but where the real, the real benefit is, is in understanding then how to, how to accurately understand how someone else is wired, your boss, someone on your team, your customer. Someone else in the organization that you need them to partner with you, even though you have no direct, you know, authority to say, Hey, you have to do this. Right. You can only influence. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. Will Matthews: So, so those, so that’s part of the skillset that no matter what your profession, being good at relationship science is one of the things that’s gonna, is gonna elevate you, hopefully from wherever you are, one to 10 on your skillset to something that is getting you closer to 10. How Does Execution Affect Business Performance? Jenn DeWall: Right? Right. You gotta, like, I love that. Starting with the mindset, where do you wanna go? I, I just, I love that image that you painted. What does it look like when players are coming out to perform their game? You know, like you’ve got this. Like, I, I feel like organizations would probably shake if everyone walked in being like, yes, I’m so empowered, but that’d be so awesome. But I think people would be like, what’s happening in the world, but yeah. You can have the right mindset. Like I wanna win. I want to do blank. And then all of a sudden, if you don’t think about other people or you don’t have the skillset, it doesn’t matter. And let’s go into execution. Like what does, so then like, let’s go into execution cuz you need the mindset, you need the skills to be able to then do it. And what’s execution mean. Will Matthews: Absolutely. Yeah. So there great, great summary. Yeah. So once you get this dialed in, you have a path to get better at what that is, whether it’s new education, new training, whatever happens, to be, to take you up a level in, in skillset. Again, you’re gonna have to continue, you know, we wanna continually evolve the question, so then execution. So he’s gonna have to say, if you, you can have this dialed in, you can know what to do, but if you go, if you don’t execute and what I mean by that is get the ball across the goal line or into the net or whatever happens to be. Then these other two don’t really matter. Right? So in back to interdependency, all three of these have to be, you know, dialed in, in order for people to have the kind of success that I believe they want. Yeah. And I believe your listeners and viewer want viewers to want, so execution has the ability to actually get up and do whatever that is. Right. And in leadership and, and also a big focus for a lot of the folks listening in as, as a leader, how do you execute? You know, there are a lot of assessments out there, Jenn, that are all terrific. One of those that I use a lot is DISC has been around forever, super-powerful, but there are a lot of really great ones, and what the takeaway and the reason I bring that up quickly is, you know, there are different kinds of people out there. So it, so, you know, typically there are four quadrants. I dunno how that happened to be, but typically most, most assessments are in quadrants are four. Quadrants. So recognizing it, part of your leadership skills is that your leadership approach is not a one-size-fits-all. Right. The way that you want to be led is not gonna apply to many of the people who you might be leading—so executing means how do I delegate? Well, I find, and I bet you do too. I find that for new leaders, especially, but actually, people have been around a long time. Delegation is one of the most difficult things for people to be good at doing and executing on. Jenn DeWall: Yes. And I laugh. Cause when I teach that class for Crestcom, there’s ultimately always one person that’s like, I actually thought I was a much better delegator. And now I realize that I’m not a great delegator. Like I, it’s not as simple as just saying, will you please go do this? Will Matthews: Right. Yeah. I know it’s so funny. Right. And so, and the bottom line is if you are not delegating, you are not managing, and you’re, you’re not leading. If you’re not good at delegating right now for, for those, you know, tuning in right now, get good at it. Right. It sounds like Jenn’s got some good ways of helping you on that. And, and the bottom line is like, you’ve gotta get good at it. And there are so many reasons why people aren’t good at delegating. I think delegating is one of the keys to execution.   A Message From Crestcom: Crestcom is a global organization dedicated to developing effective leaders companies all over the world have seen their managers transformed into leaders through our award-winning and accredited leadership development programs. Our signature BPM program provides interactive management training with a results-oriented curriculum and prime networking opportunities. If you’re interested in learning more about our flagship program and developing your managers into leaders, please visit our website to find a leadership trainer near you. Or maybe you yourself have always wanted to train and develop others. Crestcom is a global franchise with ownership opportunities available throughout the world. If you have ever thought about being your own boss, owning your own business and leveraging your leadership experience, impact businesses and leaders in your community, Crestcom may be the right fit for you. We’re looking for professional executives who are looking for a change and want to make a difference in people’s lives. Learn more about our franchise opportunity on the own-a-franchise page of our website at crestcom.com. Tips For Improving Business Performance Mindset Jenn DeWall: I wanna dive in, I know that we talked about tips l, because I just think that execution peeps and how you talked about the interdependency, that you can have the fanciest strategy, that if you don’t have the right mindset, that’s going to allow you to be resilient. Then you’re not gonna execute. Or like, I guess of the places that you might see people fail in terms of how they sustain this formula is that maybe when they don’t execute, then do you see them come back and then their mindset drops and then they kinda have to go through? Or what do you see when people are actually faced with those challenges, right? Like how do we? How do you recover and build your own resilience? If it didn’t work is what I thought it was going to be. Right. Right. And that outcome was different than what I had in my head. That’s delegation. Yeah, Will Matthews: Exactly. Yeah. And yeah, you’re right. It was a great way of describing the interdependency of those, of these three principles and, you know it, it turns out most people in my experience know what to do. Like within these three that we’re talking about here, most people know where they’re not at a 10. A 10 is a pretty lofty goal. So let’s say we’re between mindset, skillset, and execution, they’re gonna have some that are gonna be, it’ll look like a, like a trumpet key set, right? There are three keys on a trumpet. So, so it’ll be like this. And it’ll, it’ll change from time to time too. You’ll have a real high mindset, other days, not so high, but in general, people know where they need to dial it up, but it turns, you know, so, so why is that? Why, if you know what to do, how you need to, to show up more powerfully and then why don’t you? Well, distraction’s a huge part of that. Yeah. You might have your coffee or tea in the morning and you get to work whether it’s at home or at an office, and you’ve got you just, I’m gonna execute big time day. And if you walk in email lights up, your boss comes in, there’s all these things that are just like, take you out of that, Jenn DeWall: The – hey, got a minute, got a minute— Oh yeah Will Matthews: That’s right. And, and so we get distracted. And the other thing too, is that, you know, we might know that we’re not good at delegating, but it takes- as the example we’ve used today so far. But and we might know, know even that I could, if I tweaked it, I could get better, but it turns out that change is hard. Change is hard for people. And especially when you’ve tacked an identity to the way you’re doing things. I’m a compassionate leader. Beautiful. Right? I mean, I love that if compassionate leader to you knowingly or unknowingly means that you’re not gonna demand much of other people, right. That’s a possibility. That you’ve tacked your identity to being someone who’s not gonna demand much from other people. Therefore, are you gonna have an effective team? No. And frankly, it’s not actually compassionate leadership anymore. Because you’re not- the team’s not succeeding, but you can imagine. Or if you’re like bull-headed, a hard driver, you know, it’s like, I’m just gonna, you know, I’m not gonna change my way. I’m just gonna tell people what to do. Command and control the old school management leadership doesn’t work anymore. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. Okay. Can we talk about that? Because I, you know, even as a sidebar, I’m not sure what you’re seeing from your end is it just exploded over. Especially even I, that COVID and the pandemic really took its toll. Right. We’re all seeing the great resignation, but I feel like right now more and more articles are like, employees are expecting more and they’re gonna vocalize more. And I’m just curious, like what you’re seeing from your perspective on that, because the command in control, the, the different ways, if, if you’re listening to this and you’re still like, should I change? Right now there are so many people pushing back. So the accountability, I think, is that much higher. I’m not sure what you’re seeing on your end. Ask Yourself— Are You Ready to Grow? Will Matthews: Absolutely. Jenn. That old model, which, you know, Hey, look, it’s like the industrial revolution was great when we needed an industrial revolution. Right. You know, back in the, in early 1900s, we don’t need that anymore. We’ve gone on to other things. So that’s that model doesn’t serve anymore. Same with leadership, right? It’s like command and control where you just, you know, your boss has told you what to do and sat up on maybe an elevated platform and pointed, and you just go do this. And you were not really paid to think you were paid to do even when you run in leadership roles yourself. So it’s over, it’s never gonna work. And it’s not just that the younger generation doesn’t want it, frankly. Nobody really wants that anymore. So if those who really love the command and control model, cuz they felt pretty good about their role. But it’s gone, it’s gone. It doesn’t work. It’s no longer there. So the question is not so much. As I mentioned earlier,  change is hard. There are people watching this right now who guarantee you who may have had experience in the command and control and they get intellectually, totally get it. This is not the way to do it anymore. It’s flawed or it’s no longer relevant, but changing that behavior can be really hard. So the question becomes, and I really encourage people to write this down. When it comes to change of any kind, maybe in the, one of the three components we talked about today, mindset, skillset, execution, when it comes to a change, if you frame it as change and you have a resistance to change, because some people do, that’s gonna be hard. But let me ask you this, the question better question is, are you ready to grow? Jenn DeWall: Right? Will Matthews: Are you ready to grow? Because when you think about growing, it feels, can you almost feel the energy difference between I’m ready to grow and I need to change? Jenn DeWall: Yeah. Well there’s the need I feel like is also just guilt-inducing. Like I need to do this. I’m so desperate. And it’s not food and water. And then I think it adds a heaviness to the change. Yeah. You know, just that, oh my gosh. I don’t have a choice. I don’t know if you see them, people go into that defensiveness. Like I, you know, like what do you see? Like I saw your eyes just light up. Yeah. The defend, like I’m not changing. This is working for me. Why would they change? Right. Will Matthews: Yeah. And pretty soon they get all their office belongings in a box and they’re out the door because they didn’t choose to. I like the word evolve. Yeah. And, and we’re all capable of it. So if it’s, if anyone’s freaking out just know, you can do this. That is really just a thing, a thought process. Do I, am I ready to grow and become the stronger leader that I know I can be? And so hopefully this model might be one tool you can use to, you know, to be able to focus your energy and, and make the kind of growth that you’d like to create. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. Are, are you ready to grow? I feel like this is a great call to action. No matter what day you’re listening to this, are you ready to grow today? Are you ready to rethink? And I love that you said it leadership. If you want to be an effective leader, it’s all about your own evolution. Like and what worked today or may not work tomorrow and vice versa. I love that. Like question of just reminding that change is iterative and you’re changing every single day. Whether you realize it or not, that’s true, but really like you, you want to embrace it because I mean, I’m sure you’ve probably seen with your clients, people, you know, holding on to old ideas, not wanting to change. And then you find out that, well now your competitor has evolved their product and they’re changing or I don’t wanna change my leadership style. And then all of a sudden you are the one that’s in the HR office being talked to about, you know, how you could show up differently. I mean, you know, change is scary, but like, I guess it’s like, how do you help people understand the consequence of staying the same or not changing? Will Matthews: Well, I think the consequences happen naturally. Maybe it’s a lower performance review. Maybe it’s just not even a, a metric, but just feeling disconnected. It’s not feeling the energy you used to have for your job as the leader. Maybe not, maybe not getting the opportunities to lead at a bigger at, at a bigger scale, if that’s a desire for, for someone to go up the corporate ladder, so to speak or to get involved in mergers and acquisitions of other companies. So it’s you know, I, I like to say that, that we usually know when it’s time to grow because we’ll start to feel an internal tuck and you know, there’s only one truth. You’re either leading well or you’re not. Yeah. You know, there’s a, this is bit of a spectrum, but you’re either where you wanna be as a leader right now, or a salesperson or a business development professional or whatever it happens to be that is your, your niche or niche. But you’re either getting the results,  the personal reward, the, the, the emotional reward or you’re not. And if you’re not, great, I wonder what I could do. Oh, lemme think about these three things. Well, okay. Where is my mindset? What am I bringing to the table every day? As the leader, you know, you’re the tip of the spear. We know that you’re the tip of the spear as it goes, the leader goes to the team, always love this. When I work with teams, a lot of times it’s like the leader’s like I could, I could do great things if I only had a better team, you know? And the team’s like, we could be so great if we only better leader. And so somewhere in that circle of pointing, you gotta point at yourself and say, look, I know I can, this is the part I can control. I can control my level of focus, positive expectations. I can focus on what I bring to the table, my work ethic, my attitude, my active listening, I think is so important. How much am I present with people versus just nodding my head and say, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, on your, there are a lot of leaders who I still work with, who they’ll say, you know, sometimes I’m in my calls on my one on one meetings, that I’m on my phone. I’m like, are you kidding me? I mean, what’s the message that you’re sending when you have a one-on-one someone’s time, your time. And yet you are rejecting your email at the same time. I, these little tweaks we might have, you know, we’re so close to it that we can’t always see those places where we’re goofing up, but there everyone else can see them very clearly. Jenn DeWall: My gosh. Yes. They, they feel it. I think of like the joke, and I think this reminds me of that, of, cause it, it did used to drive me bananas. Like if you wanna have a conversation with me, if you’ve asked me to come in, or even if I have a question and I’m sure that some people can relate with this, you come in and you want to ask them a question and they don’t even look up. Right. And so then you just feel like, well, A- maybe I’m stupid because I have this question or B- this person clearly doesn’t have time for me when sometimes all takes is turning around or like, but to get to that, my favorite thing because of that experience, and I saw this on a meme was, it’s this reaction you look like every time I see you, you remind me of a software update. And I say, not now, right? Like that is like the thing of like how I think it’s that attention of understanding where you could be goofing up. Because as much as you’re so focused on that, it’s these, I love that you say it’s the little things that are undermining your ability to create your success. It’s that skillset piece, that relationship science piece that you were talking about. Will Matthews: Exactly. How to Boost Your Business Performance Mindset Jenn DeWall: Yeah. I wanna dive in and just talk about a few of your tips. Cause I know you kind of did this in a different flow, but mindset, you start your day, you have a ritual. I love that you read to yourself and what do you do? I’m curious, like, what tips would you have for someone that’s just like, okay, I’m at a four, I’m at a three. I’m not feeling great. Any tips for that person to broaden boost, like boost that mindset if they’re really feeling like I’m not there today? Will Matthews: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I was I had the privilege of being a, a coach with with Tony Robbins company for, for several years. And for those who know Tony Robbins you know, you’ll you’ll know this, if you’re not familiar with Tony Robbins, he’s just the guy who really does great work in helping people bring their potential to the table. And so one of the things that I I took away with from that was was this idea. And he, he used something called neurolinguistic programming NLP. Again, you may have heard that and may not, but, but NLP is really a way of understanding how your mind works so that you can support bringing a better mindset. So I’m just gonna give you an idea of something that I’ve, I’ve later put together. And that is like, look, if you wanna change your state, your, your emotional, physical, mental state, you can change it in any one of the following three ways, number one, your body. So like if I’m I’m standing up right now, cause I know that for me, that brings different energy for me. But if you’re in a slump yeah. But you know, check out your posture, you know, you know, imagine that you’re in a car, you’re driving a car and you’re 20 minutes late for the most important meeting in your, of the, maybe for the year, but at least the a month. And you’re late, not just traffic, you just left late. OK. So it’s all on you. You’re freaking out, traffic slowing down. What’s the, what’s the posture you’re gonna have in that car? What would that be? Jenn Jenn DeWall: Tense. I would just feel yeah. Down tense. I, I need to get there, get outta my way. I mean, that’s my mindset. Will Matthews: You’re hunched over, you’re you know, and you’re breathing, right? Your body part, this part of the body here is, you know, posture, gaze, keep your head up a little bit. Shoulder is back, right. Breathe for crying out loud! Like when you’re times like you’re are you breathing deeply and nourishing your body with oxygen or barely breathing enough to sustain life. Right? And so you realize when you wanna change your state, change your body! Stand up, walk around, pace, you know, get your posture where it needs to be. Number two is your, your mindset and mindset in this case is like, are you focusing on the times that you succeeded? Or are you focusing on the times when you failed? And our mind, our ego mind has a way of making sure we could always pull back the times that didn’t go our way. Yeah. Or we could always pull back the times that we screwed up. I mean, there’s a list. It’s like a legal pattern of those things that sit in your head all the time and we’re kind of negative. We have this negativity bias. We can pull those out really quickly, but are you able to pull up a time that you crushed it? Are you able to pull up a time when you felt so proud or connected or pleased or delighted in the way that that sales call went or the way that that, that meeting went? Right? So we wanna make sure that you, so body is one way another is like, where are those times? What is my arsenal to help combat the negative self talk that we as human beings have? Okay. Yeah. So you have those, you know, what was the most exciting, you know, it could be when you were a kid, it could be yesterday, anywhere in between when you felt so good, you know, it went your way. Maybe you hit the, you made the big, the final goal to win the soccer game, the football game, right? Whatever that is. So body first, then mindset getting arsenal placement, where you focus on your successes and have that arsenal. And then the third is your words. So our words are, it’s a whole other conversation, but this cliff note version, our short version is, look, our words, our words that we speak, go in and feed our conscious mind, which then in turn feeds our subconscious mind, which basically goes to work to create exactly what we tell ourselves is possible. That’s why all these things are so important. If it’s like, if you believe you can, you can, I’m gonna read this it from you for this. I love this. If you think you’re beaten, you are, if you think you dare not, you don’t. If you’d like to win, but you think you can’t, it’s almost certain you won’t, if you think you’ll lose, you’ve lost. FOr out in this world, we find success begins with a person’s will. It’s all a state of mind Jenn DeWall: Love that. Love that Will Matthews: It’s by Walter Wintle, from one of my favorite poems called “Thinking” it’s longer, but I’ve taken this excerpt because I love it. Walter, W I N T L E Walter Wintle. But anyway, you know, that’s the juice, right? So our words, that’s why I have the, in that I start my day with. And I hope that everybody now on the, on this meeting thinks about what could they read? What could they write for themselves? It would give, give them that anchor back to their successes, to their highest level of contribution. So when you do walk into that next meeting, you’re firing with all the right parts of your brain, Jenn DeWall: Right? You get to choose that. That’s what I think is so powerful about mindset. How am I feeling right now? Well, how do you wanna feel? How do you want to feel, and what are you doing that’s contributing or distracting from what you want to feel. And I just love that. You’re saying that because there’s so much power, like in a world where we can often feel like we don’t have power, we always have power. And I love that. Bringing that back, like just to reflecting on you choose based on that mindset. And that’s why building self-awareness is important. And it’s something to understand. Are you hurting yourself or helping yourself? I just love that. Well, like I think those are great, like tips. So let’s go, let’s dive into the skillset. Like how do you, you know, the relationship-building piece you had talked about? Like how do we the relationship science piece, I should say the trade relationship science, what are your tips for skillset? Yeah. NABA – Notice, Appreciate, Believe and Acknowledge Will Matthews: So I, when I think of skill set, one bucket, Jenn, is those things that are specific to your job. Okay. What does it take for you to be a top, a top player in whatever that is, doctor, lawyer, you know business development or accounting, whatever that basic set of skills, is there a certification you need to go get? So that’ll give you a higher level of performance over time. Okay. So that’s one bucket where I tend to work mostly with people though, is in that because we’re talking leadership, that’s about the interdependence right. Of people. So for me, it’s a few things like skillset, like number one. And I know it’s like an overused term these days, but number one, to what extent can you bring the skill of having a discipline of being grateful? Of expressing gratitude to those people around you? Not insincerely, everybody hates that. That’s not what we’re talking about, but sincerely identifying what’s something that you really, that you can notice, appreciate, believe and acknowledge- NABA. Jenn DeWall: Notice, appreciate, believe, and acknowledge somebody else. NABA. I love that. Will Matthews: So, so that you have, you know, when you’re in that mode, and you’re thinking about that, number one, you’re gonna see that warrior where they’re not seeing it. They’re, you’re gonna see the, the attributes they’re bringing, instead of just the things where you feel like they might have let you down. Because we’re gonna have both, but it gives you a, a pre a predisposition for focusing on the good of other people. So as a leader, number one, you know, being grateful, number two, get your disciplines in place. Your morning ritual, you know, be a warrior brave, full, courageous, right? Step in, give yourself permission to no longer tolerate, to no longer not say what needs to be said. Right. We always just love the people and a team who, and sometimes they’re like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe she said that. Or I can’t believe he said that! We so admire that somebody had it had the guts to say what needed to be said, that’s what leadership is. Will Matthews: And I love that. So it takes, it takes courage to do that. So that’s number two. Number three is to be an master of resiliency. To, you know, you talk a lot about resiliency and I love it. Yeah. But really, you know, resiliency, the way that I describe it is the, is the accelerator of happiness. And because you’re gonna typically, and I know people are going through devastating times right now and have over the last couple years. So I’m not saying you should just be able to take whatever hits you and just bounce back up right away. But to the extent that you’re looking at less critical, super terrifying things that might be. You might be experiencing the lesser things. We could get knocked off our game. Right. By very small things. Like maybe we didn’t get the raise. All right. How long are you going to. Jenn DeWall: Maybe you wore jeans to an event. Be Willing to Reinvent Yourself Will Matthews: Imagine that! Right. Exactly. Or, you know, maybe, you know, maybe we didn’t get the deal, whatever you, you know, some people, it takes some, two months to get over that. Yeah. And they’re not, and they’re not bringing their best for those two months. Some people two weeks, some people, two days, some people, two hours, we know people like that. Right. Whereas some whatever hits them again, I’m carving out the really, you know, like true tragedies, but the other more common things that might knock us off they’re back like that. So master number three, mastering resiliency. Number four is learning to reinvent yourself again and again and again. Yeah. So that’s what I call deliberate evolution, especially for people in leadership knowing how you lead today. That’s great. But you can at any moment reinvent your leadership style and let go of the old identity. Jenn DeWall: Well, and just because like, I think this is a really important piece because you will continue. Every listener is going to continue to grow and get feedback from an organization at some point throughout their career. And I think sometimes things happen to us that could imprint that we take on. I mean, you know, I talk about authentic leadership where we personalize that, and we then judge ourselves as not enough I’m too this, I’m too that. And, you know, in terms of resiliency, like it’s being able to say like, it’s okay, that you may not love that about me. Like, I love this about me. And, but then all also deciding, okay, well I did get that feedback and what do I wanna do with it? Do I want to assign it to myself? Is it relevant? Is it coming from a place of love? Is it, or do I want to say, you know what? I don’t need it, but also always giving yourself permission just because you might have shown up one way, one day doesn’t mean that defines who you are and what you’ll be. Gosh. Well, can we sing this around the rooftops to people? Because I think this is a big place that people get stuck. We just think that it’s like a definitive, like endpoint, instead of realizing that we’re always growing and that always goofing up. I mean, I’m just gonna do a plug here. If you haven’t read Adam Grant’s Think Again, his book that came out in 2021, all about relearning, all you’re doing is relearning. You’re just relearning. I just wish that people gave themselves the grace to be like, you’re human. So you’re gonna keep growing and you’re actually gonna make so many mistakes, but the more mistakes you make, Hey, the easier it is to be resilient. Like I goof up all the time. Yeah. But it’s hard. Like that’s, that’s the resilience piece is you have to do the work. Like, I guess that’s what I see is you, you have to do the work to be able to bounce back. You’ve gotta do the work! Will Matthews: Right. Yeah. And give, you know, and giving yourself. I love, I, I love what you say it. And actually, someone just gave me Adam’s Grant book. I haven’t read it yet. Sitting on my cabinet over here. Jenn DeWall: I, I see your second touch means you have to read it. Will Matthews: I’m super excited. But you know, and giving yourself permission, right. Is this giving yourself permission to reinvent yourself? There are people on this on this conversation, watching this, who have been leading for years. Right. Right. And, and, and it might be time, you know, it might be time for that next growth cycle. Maybe even growth sounds like too much energy. That’s okay. That you can just give yourself permission to adapt. The question is not, am I a good leader or am I not a good leader? The question is a way that I’m doing this. Is it working? Or is it not working? Yes. Working or not working, not good or bad or all those things. And if it’s, if you find it, what, the way it’s work way I’m doing it is not working. Then it’s okay. Take a breath, give yourself permission to explore. How can I bring in new ideas that will be useful and helpful to make me a more a leader who whose style is actually working at a higher level? That’s the fun part. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. Be kind, oh my gosh. I just, I hope that there are so many people that just felt like wrapped in a hug with those words of just like, it’s okay. Like I can figure this out, and it’s new, you know, take a breath. As you said, you are very calm, right? Like, and I’m such a big personality, but it is calm. It’s I love that you just held space. Hopefully, someone feels today that inspiration that I can change. I’m just glad that you shared that. We’re gonna go into our final point. I can’t believe we’re wrapping up this conversation. What are your tips for execution? Because you have to know that better than anyone with the amount of discipline you have, like what tips would you have to share with our audience for execution? Get Clarity About Your Desired Outcome Will Matthews: Yeah. And that’s really where that, that goal setting, you know, everyone. Oh, oh my God. No more talking about goals. It’s been around for so long. And you know, I understand that I have a model that I love and created that it really helps people kind of have more fun with it. But the execution comes down to number one, getting super clear, probably wanna write this down, get super clear first and foremost about what is your outcome? That’s what, you know, it’s not like, what do I have to do. It’s not a to-do list. As I put my hand, literally on a to-do list, because you have to have one. But when you’re in your execution mode first, it’s not about what you need to do. It’s about, it’s about your outcome. What about that? Where  my overarching desire. What do I want to be better? How do I want to achieve this in a different way? Right. So number one is outcome. Then the second very important piece is it’s still not what to do, but why. What’s my why for that? Why is it a must for me? Right. To deliver that proposal by Friday at one o’clock, if it’s not a must, then, then you’ve got a whole other situation because you’re probably doing work you shouldn’t do. But if it’s a must, if it’s mission critical, why is it a must? What’s it mean that’s where you want to tack your identity, tack your identity, to why that outcome is a must for you. And pretty soon you’re generating all kinds of energy and I believe more mental power to accomplishing that goal. Jenn DeWall: No, you can see it like then you’re like, yes, like I can do this. I can add that. I love that. That again, that iterative piece that we just talked about, it’s like, Hey, I want that like, yes. Now I can see this. Will Matthews: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And then finally, so once, you know, your outcome is super clear and, and that’s just a, that’s a mantra for me. And, and I believe that no matter what it is, even as we’ve prepared for our conversation today, I started right out with, and actually, you know, you, I think you worked the same way. Like what is my outcome? Right. That’s a great starting point. Even if you’re going grocery shopping. Right. what is your, what is your outcome? But in more of a leadership role, let’s say you’ve got a, what? Some leaders I could actually own this too. I, I really love the performance review process. You know, when you have a big team and you gotta really, and it takes a lot and it’s like, oh, if you’ve look, if I looked at it like, oh, I to write all these performance reviews, then that’s an energy drain. But if I thought, you know what, this is, if I got the outcome, I want this, I’m gonna do this anyway. You’re gonna do the thing anyway. Right? The performance reviews have to happen as a requirement. I’m gonna do it anyway. So I’m gonna change my focus and put it on an outcome that I want. And that outcome is up as an example, I wanna make sure that the comments I make are supportive of my team members and give them an opportunity to see ways that they can dial up their game. Jenn DeWall: Well, if I, every leader could do that, that would be, oh my gosh. I feel like people wouldn’t dread the performance process so much, Will Matthews: Exactly. Jenn DeWall: Yes, please. Will Matthews: And every leader can do that. That’s the good news. Right? So anyway, then, then you go, why? Well, what, what’s my why? Well, you know what as an example, our performance review, but you know what? I just want people to know how much I care. I want to dedicate my profession to helping them advance their career. And this is one of the great tools. Great. So now you got your why and is I love the idea of making it a must wherever you can. And then last, so now what do I need to do in order to accomplish that outcome? OK. I need to book time of my calendar to do those. I need to book the one OnOne meetings. I need to do these different things. Then it’s a different energy around that to do list than looking at it and going, oh wow. Why am I even in this profession? Right, right. Yeah. That’s a key execution outcome. Clear about why clear about your, why that you get making a must all the better, and then your plan comes into place. How to Connect with Will Matthews Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. I love that. Will just shared all of the truth bombs as it relates to building success, whether that’s for your team, your organization. His formula that we talked about today, mindset plus skillset plus execution equals success! Will, how can people connect with you? You’re a keynote speaker. You train, I know you help in a variety of ways. How can people connect with you? Will Matthews: Great. Well, yeah, well, thanks for that. Number one. Yeah, so my, my website, which I’m imagine will be somehow posted- Jenn DeWall: It’ll be in the show notes! Will Matthews: But yeah, MatthewsPerformanceGroup.com Matthews with two Ts.  MatthewsPerformanceGroup.com is where you can go to learn about, you know, my keynote speaking opportunities. If I could come to support your team or an association that you’re involved in, I would love it. Have super fun with a couple of different keynote titles. One is- The Game You Must Win Now More Than Ever Before. Coincidentally the same title we have today. Another is Going From Oh No to Let’s Go! Yeah. You are so bringing that kind of energy. So that’s number one. That’s really probably there’s, that’s probably the key place to go. As I know, you know, the book is available on Amazon. Jenn DeWall: You’ve Got This! Will Matthews: You’ve Got This, The Five Self-Coaching Keys You Need to Live Boldly and Accomplish Anything. So maybe those would be the two best ways for people to reach me. Always anxious to talk to people personally, too. So Will Matthews Performance Group dot com. I’ll be happy to reply. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. Send him an email. Maybe bring ’em your challenge will thank you so much for just sharing your expertise your time, but also most importantly, your passion! Your passion for why this matters and wanting success for all of the organizations’ teams and individuals around the world. Thank you so much for being here today. Will Matthews: My pleasure. So good to see you, Jenn! Thanks to everybody. Jenn DeWall: Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast. I really enjoyed my conversation with Will! I’m so inspired, just thinking about who I want to be, what type of leader, what type of individual? Now, if you want to connect with will, you can head on over to MatthewsPerformanceGroup.com. There you can find information about his keynotes that I have seen him speak before. I would definitely recommend him for your next event. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn at WillMatthewsYes,  Will MatthewsYes. And of course, don’t forget to get a copy of your book available on Amazon. You’ve got this, the five self-coaching keys. You need to live boldly and accomplish anything. I hope you have a great day. I hope you leave this feeling inspired and I’ll see you next time.   The post Business Performance and Mindset: The Game You Must Win Now More Than Ever with Will Matthews appeared first on Crestcom International.

Executive Loneliness and Mental Health with CEO and Author, Nick Jonsson Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall. And on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I sat down with Nick Jonsson to discuss a very important topic, how to overcome executive loneliness. Nick Jonsson is the co-founder in managing director of one of Asia’s premier networking organizations, the Executives Global Network, or EGM for short Singapore, a confidential peer group network providing more than 600 senior executives and business owners, a safe haven to share their challenges, receive support, and learn from one another. Nick’s passion for mental health awareness paved the way for Nick to author his first number one international best-selling book, published in April 2021: Executive Loneliness: The 5 Pathways to Overcoming Isolation, Stress, Anxiety, and Depression in the Modern Business World. And today, Nick and I will be talking about how you can overcome executive loneliness. Meet Nick Jonsson, Author of Executive Loneliness Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall. And today, I am sitting down with Nick Jonsson to talk about an extremely- or what I would argue is an extremely important topic. We are going to be talking about on the podcast today executive loneliness, which is something that many of you might feel like you’ve experienced, or maybe as a leader, you just feel like you don’t really have the support or the confidence. And so today, we have Nick Jonsson to talk all about his book, executive loneliness, how we can address it, how we can identify it, and then what we can do to reduce that executive loneliness to help people feel included. Nick, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. The Leadership Habit today. We are so happy to have you and you joining us from another portion of the world today! Nick, where are you joining us from? Nick Jonsson: Hey, good morning, Jenn. I’m dialing in from Singapore. It’s 7:00 am in the morning, the sun is about to go up, it’s fantastic to be here with you. Thank you so much for raising this important conversation today. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. Thank you for writing a book on it. I think, you know, I mean, I actually, before we dive into it, because I know I’m going to go so many different ways, but Nick, how, what did your journey look like? How did you get to where you are today? Nick Jonsson: So I was born in Sweden, and then I actually went to study in Australia at university. And after that, I worked for almost 20 years in senior management positions in Asia. And through that, I realized when I was a senior executive at the top. I could feel many times it was quite lonely in the decisions. And I made some decisions by myself, big decisions that, when I’m looking back at them, were perhaps not the best decisions. So when I realized this and I went through some very challenging times myself, and when I came through them, looking back at this situation, I realized that I wish I had some support when I was there at the top of these organizations, making the decisions. So that’s when I decided that I needed to do something here. And finally to add to this, Jenn, a friend, a colleague of mine, another senior executive, died of suicide during this time. And that’s when I decided to make it my mission to really go out here and destroy the stigma we have surrounding mental health. Jenn DeWall: Yes, let’s destroy it! And hopefully, this episode will be another way that we’re going to help people understand that, you know, it’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to experience mental health challenges. You are not alone. And I’m just so happy, you know, that you are taking, obviously, that story of losing someone so near to you is tragic and how many lives could be saved just by having the conversation. Out of curiosity. What inspired you to write your book on executive loneliness? Nick Jonsson: So Jenn, as I started to dig into this topic. And the first thing I did was to do a survey, and I’m fortunate that I’m now the managing director and co-founder of the biggest peer network in age share for senior executives. So I sent out an anonymous survey to this network and asked them basically how they felt about stress, anxiety, and loneliness at work. And I was quite shocked with the findings, and they were also aligned with the global statistics that 30% of executives are lonely. So if 30% are feeling lonely and isolated, then I want to dig deeper. So I then started to interview them also one on one. As for every interview I had, I was more and more shocked as I uncovered what was basically beneath there. And so it’s actually through these surveys and interviews which formed the foundation for this book. 30% of Executives Felt Isolated—And That Was Before the Pandemic Jenn DeWall: Wow! 30%! I think that’s a high statistic of just feeling, you know, maybe like you’re on an island. And I know that I struggle if I ever feel, you know, alone. I know my personality style lends it to wanting to connect and collaborate with others. But I can only imagine because you have, at that top level of executive leaders, you likely have some of that, you know, the stress, the pressures that performing at that level in an organization, but then feeling I’m alone and I have to do it all right. Or I’m sure you talked about making decisions. I have to make the right decision, but how do I know? Why do you think it’s important that we address this topic? Nick Jonsson: Well, it is certainly during these times also with the pandemic, because the 30% I mentioned was before the pandemic, and I re-did the survey with the same audience now, also during the pandemic, and in December 2020, the number had doubled to 60%. So here we also see, you know, that the loneliness for senior executives has doubled since the beginning of the pandemic. And that was also the perfect timing for me to launch the book last year to really have this as a conversation starter. Because this is what the reality is- the executives are just lonely in the decisions, and they also definitely don’t wanna talk to anyone about it. And the other research I found was that 84% of them would not feel comfortable sharing about their loneliness. They wouldn’t express it to someone in the organization, again, due to the stigma. The Stigma of Executive Loneliness Jenn DeWall: So what do you think it would take her, I guess that stigma? Let’s go into that a little bit more. Why do we think that people just avoid talking about it or don’t bring it up? Is it all just the stigma, or I guess what is the stigma telling them that makes them reluctant to want to talk about it? Nick Jonsson: Well, especially here, if you think about that, I’m based in Asia, Singapore. And it’s the regional hub, basically. So if you have been appointed as a regional director for big international firms, and you are running perhaps 20 different companies in Asia, you are the one who’s supposed to be able to handle all the pressures, handle all the, all the work and the different challenges in the region you’re trusted and paid to do that job. So if you’re coming back then to telling your head office back in the US, for example, about your problems, they don’t want to hear about it. They don’t, and you are there to do the job. And that is how many of them feel scared, and they don’t wanna share about it, and so on. And just to add to this, Jenn. The survey findings also found that 75% of them also do not seek any help about it. That means that 84% then are not talking about it in the company. 75% are not even going to ask for professional help. They won’t go and see a psychologist or a doctor because, again, they are scared perhaps that someone will find out. Jenn DeWall: Which is that part makes me, you know, just unbelievably sad to know that there are people, you know, I don’t doesn’t matter what their title is to know that someone is struggling and might be experiencing these mental health signs or symptoms, but yet they’re not asking for help. And I think that makes sense because there still are a lot of organizations or firms that maybe you still think that mental health should be something that’s dealt with outside of work, and that work somehow doesn’t have anything to do with it. I, I don’t know why that has come to be or why that ever was somewhat of an expectation that you didn’t have mental health at work. I don’t know. What do you see? Do you feel like it’s more of a, is it an individual or is it really that, that organization not creating the psychological safety, or not breaking down that taboo of what mental health looks like? What do you think it’s been the individual and how they were raised that they weren’t supposed to talk about that? Nick Jonsson: Yes, Jenn, it is very much how we are raised. It’s always been that its sort of this stigma and the taboo topic to talk about, and we’ve carried this with us. And then as we wanna protect ourselves in our career, we don’t want, perhaps that colleagues should gossip or find out about it. So we are trying to protect it, and we’re keeping it inside us. Because also, perhaps we don’t wanna burden people around us, but there’s some light here as well, Jenn, with the pandemic. And that is that while a lot of the counseling and therapist was but you had to go visit a physical location before, the fact that we are on Zoom now, a lot of these sessions can happen anonymously. You can lock yourself in your office during the lunch break and have a one-on-one session with the therapist. And that is actually what I’ve included in my book Executive Loneliness. In the last part of the book, I have a lot of resources, contacts and hotlines, and it’s so much support available that most of it are actually free support groups. And so on that, you can join anonymously to get this help. So this is at least a positive move, Jenn. The Warning Signs of Workplace Loneliness Jenn DeWall: Yes. I think you bring up a great point that the pandemic really maybe opened the doors to make therapy accessible in maybe a more confidential setting. They could do it, and it could fit into the schedule a little bit easier. I know I personally have seen my therapist over a zoom call. I don’t think it was actually Zoom. It was a different video call software, but I loved it because then I could still see my therapist talk about my challenges, and Hey, I didn’t have to deal with the traffic on the way to get there. You know, it’s convenient, but I appreciated that, you know, Nick, how do you help people understand? Because I think there’s that other piece where maybe people are a little oblivious, or maybe they just aren’t sure how to recognize it. So what are some signs that you might be experiencing workplace loneliness? Nick Jonsson: Well, Jenn, you’re absolutely right. Many people will also deny it even to themselves; perhaps it’s very hard to know who’s suffering. And in my book, I call it a smiling depression because it’s are true. If you’re a successful business person, you’re hiding behind that smile, that facade. But it’s also true. Jenn, if you think about all the celebrities and we see so many of these days stepping forward, though, to say that they actually were suffering or are suffering. So in that sense, it’s very hard to find out who’s actually going through some challenges, but there are a few things to look for. One is definitely if they are isolating themselves if they’re cutting themselves off from groups. If they’re not showing up when they are supposed to, that’s one warning sign. If you arrange, for example, a coffee morning with the ladies and the same person, don’t show up a few times. That’s one warning sign that we see. Others can be that the person is losing or gaining a lot of weight, perhaps losing interest in hobbies. If they used to cook, if your husband used to cook every Tuesday night for 20 years, suddenly he stops this, then something is going on. Or perhaps if you used to play guitar for many years every day, there was your habit that you did that well, for now, you stop this, or a mother perhaps is losing interest in parenting for her baby someone who you see pick up some bad habits. Addictions. We have seen gambling. We have seen alcohol, drugs, addiction and habits all spiking through the pandemic. So if you see some of your friends or loved ones, you perhaps starting to drink too frequently, that’s something to look for. And the last one is, yeah, if the anger and temperament obviously are linked to all of this. So if you see someone who’s losing their temper too frequently, those are all signs to see if you can try to help. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. And I can relate to some of those. I can think about the peak, maybe peak stress times throughout my career, or with different positions where I definitely can relate to the isolating. And I think from my experience isolating, if I’ve ever felt excluded or not the valued or not enough, right? That could be a result of the cultural feedback. It doesn’t matter. Then I know, even though I’m a social person, my natural tendency is to want to avoid, to not be seen, to just be on my own, to do my job, you know, come in, leave, and hopefully do it all unseen. Initially, that isolation for me, I think felt it felt like it was the right thing to do. It felt like I was trying to help myself, but every time I did that, I would actually just be making myself feel worse because I, I want to connect with others. And I don’t know if any of our listeners can relate with that feeling like we do it initially out of a beautiful place of self-protection, but then we don’t recognize that we’re actually committing more self-harm that could be making it worse. I’m curious what is your take on that? Smiling Depression and Executive Loneliness Nick Jonsson: Yes, it’s very interesting, Jenn and indeed. And when I went through my challenges myself a few years ago, I realized that I had looked lost the connection within myself. If you cannot feel connected with yourself and well and happy with yourself, how can you possibly connect and feel great with another person? It’s just impossible. So that means that you can actually feel lonely in the middle of the room of your family and friends because you lost it inside you. So that explains exactly what you just mentioned and that you were even in if you were with your friends and so on, you didn’t feel connected at that moment. So, therefore, we have to start the journey of recovery internally, and once we have recovered internally, then perhaps we can add on the external relationship. So it’s a journey we walk through, and I take it actually in my book. I outline it as five different steps. It’s like a pathway to follow, and it starts within before you can go external. Jenn DeWall: My gosh, let’s go. Let’s go into that. I would love to talk about how do you recover. And I mean, I think the other important piece that you had mentioned or implied is that wherever you are right now if you’re reflecting on this and you’re maybe identifying yourself as experiencing this or feeling like you’re having some symptoms of mental health, know that you’re not alone and that this doesn’t determine who you are, you know, for the rest of your life. I think that’s a piece I wanna go into. How can you overcome it? But there are so many people, or I don’t know if you’ve ever had that experience where you feel a tremendous amount of shame or just that feeling of what is wrong with me for having these feelings? That self-judgment that comes in so strong. And I think in how I experience depression and anxiety is again, I’m just piling on. Jenn DeWall: I might have depression and anxiety, which I do, but then I feel a tremendous amount of shame, or I am, you know, fundamentally flawed or something because I have it. And I love that you talked about kind of that. I forget how you phrased it, the smiling depression because I’m often one of the people that they might think, oh my gosh, but she’s happy. And she laughs, and she’s smiles. Hey, that just means that I may not be sharing it. And I am pretty, you know, I, I have the outlets that I do talk about that, but I’m often one person that people think she’s too happy to be depressed. She’s too happy to have that. And that’s, you know, you can’t just assume that because someone’s putting on that happy disposition, that they’re never going to experience something like that. I don’t know if you see that where people are just like, I couldn’t possibly be that! No way! Nick Jonsson: Yes. That’s absolutely true, Jenn. Yeah. I call it the smiling depression in my book, and it, it, it’s definitely true. And especially if you look at famous people, successful people, they are trained, and they can really hold it. You can never ever see anything. And that’s always the first sad thing when we lose someone, we, everyone would first say, oh, we had no idea that he was so happy. He looked so great. And, and so on. That’s always the same story. And it’s just so sad. So it’s very true, Jenn. It’s impossible to see who’s actually smiling, smiling, and then suffering behind that. The 5 Pathways to Overcoming Executive Loneliness Jenn DeWall: And so let’s talk about how do you overcome it? How do you begin if you’re seeing yourself in this story, or maybe noticing some ways that you’re, you know, pulling yourself or moving and isolating, or if you’re picking up different habits or losing interest, how do you start to overcome it? Where what’s that starting point look like? Nick Jonsson: So that’s exactly what I laid out then in my book, and I, through my interviews and the surveys and talking with executives, also interviewed a lot of executives who have gone through it themselves. And since I also went through my own recovery, but the first step though, if I talk you briefly through the five steps, the first step is taking stock. It is about writing down what’s going on in your life. You have issues like in my case. For example, I had picked up too much alcohol. I gained weight from that. My blood results were not good. So I had to go and see a doctor later on. So the first step is taking stock. The second then is asking for help. I went to the doctor. So if you perhaps I’ve taken stock that you have some anxiety attacks and so on, then it is to talk to a therapist. Nick Jonsson: It is then asking for help. So then the third step is getting healthy. So really removing the illnesses or whatever you have in your body so that you are well internally. And then the fourth step is nurturing healthy relationships. So that’s about once you’re healed. Then on the first step, internally only on the fourth step, you can go externally to repair the relationships. Perhaps you have avoided people, perhaps you have avoided your friends. Perhaps also because you’ve not been well, you might have said something bad to some friends. Maybe you made some enemies, and it’s time to repair those relationships so that you can feel better about yourself. And then the final step I say is about finding your purpose in life. What is it that excites you? And from there on things, things really follow. Taking Stock of Where You Are Jenn DeWall: I wanna go back to step one, you know, taking stock of where you are in the moment because I think that there’s the piece around, self-awareness where I think people still may not recognize that they’re showing up in this way. And so how do you teach that person that’s been taught to, you know, not pay attention to your emotions, to keep those out of the workplace? How do you help them recognize? I’m curious if you have any tips to help them understand the feelings that they’re having, even though they’ve been told maybe their whole life that they shouldn’t have those feelings. Nick Jonsson: Yeah. So, Jenn, I had the pleasure of going through An anonymous 12 step program and taking stock was a big part of that. There, it was called a moral inventory. So the first step is then taking, in my case, I had the pleasure of going through a 12 step recovery program, and in the program, we were actually guided to do this. And there, we were given an empty spreadsheet in Excel, and we were asked to write down everything. And this was then called a moral inventory. So we had to spend a few weeks really writing everything we could think about. And, and then we would talk that through with someone who’d gone through it before, and they would be guiding us. Jenn DeWall: I got. I love that. And maybe even taking stock of what are the things that are keeping you up at night, the things that, you know, won’t allow you to fall asleep or what your triggers are throughout the day. And why are you triggered? What’s coming up for you? I think that’s the piece that people forget to bridge the gap. They might understand that they’re triggered or something happened, and they reacted in a certain way, but then they don’t realize that they can control the trigger. I think going through and writing all of those down is a fantastic way to just start to be curious with yourself. And I know that you’re not saying this, so I, and I wanna reinforce it. You’re not saying to write it all down to judge yourself. So when you’re starting to do this, it’s not so you can find this piece of paper and say, wow, really getting things wrong in life. No, it’s to understand what could be at the undercarriage, what could be the things that are keeping you stuck or, you know, making it challenging. It’s not to say, you know, to come to a conclusion that in some way, you’re not enough; it’s to say, to come to a conclusion, maybe this is an opportunity to do something about this. Nick Jonsson: Absolutely. And then later on in, in this step four there, to repair relationships you are actually coming back to that list and, and, and making amends for relationships that you had perhaps broken. And what I was surprised about in that first step, when I wrote down this inventory, was that I was after to go back to my childhood to really go deep inside myself. It might be things that, you know, you uncover then that happened a long time ago. And there was one particular incident with my sister I wrote down, and I can remember that happening a few years ago. And it, it was just an incident. We were at the dining table, and my son was quite young at the time, and my sister gave him a Coca-Cola, and he had never had a soda in his whole life, and I remember becoming quite upset, and I stormed off the table, and I just left. I didn’t say anything. And that incident had stayed with me for many years, and I felt so bad about it, but I never apologized for it. So I went back to my sister, and I made amends and apologized for that just recently, actually. And I was so surprised when I mentioned it to her that she couldn’t even remember the incident. She had forgotten all about it. For her, it was nothing for me. I walked around carrying this burden within my heart for a few years, avoiding my sister a little bit. I felt that we were not so close, and it was all in my mind. So after I made that amends, that meant our relationship flourished again. Jenn DeWall: Oh, I, that is a really great example of, you know, the importance of, I guess, I think there’s that piece of fact-checking. I know one of the things that I’m sure I see with clients, I know I’m sure you do too, is that it can feel so true to us because it’s inside of our brain. It’s the story that we’re writing in, reinforcing every day that it becomes the difference between true and the truth. And your truth was that your sister was upset with you. And I’m sure, so many people can relate to those moments where we might have had an overreaction. We didn’t show up as the person that we wanted, and we just felt that guilt and shame or frustration with ourselves, but then to think, Hey, did I actually check this? Did I confirm whether or not this story is real? And then going there and talking to your sister and finding that she didn’t, that was not a moment in her way or in her life in the same way that it was in yours. She wasn’t up at night thinking about that. What a beautiful gift. How did that, I guess? What type of release did you have you found out from your sister that she wasn’t, you know, that wasn’t something that she was holding onto? What did that do for you by finally going in and checking that out? Nick Jonsson: Oh, it makes you sleep much better at night, Jenn! And just as these, you know, you, the boxes and I went through about 30, 40 of these instances, it might have also been another story, you know, where I was laid off from my job for whatever reason. And I had resentments against my previous boss and later on, had to go back to him now and have another cup of coffee and discuss this, you know, what happened and to just clear the situation, and for every like that, something just lifted from my shoulders, and I felt lighter. I felt better. And again, yeah, I slept better at night, so it doesn’t take much. It takes about, you know, just looking back at that at that inventory. And then later on going over them one by one and ticking the boxes. But I want to say one thing, I was blessed that I had someone who done it before, who took me through this, but Jenn, this is what all the coaches are there for as well. There’s so many people who can help us if, if we don’t know how to do this. And in my book, I also have some tips and tricks how you can do it. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. I wanna go into talking about the resources that you have!  A Message From Crestcom: Crestcom is a global organization dedicated to developing effective leaders companies all over the world have seen their managers transformed into leaders through our award-winning and accredited leadership development programs. Our signature BPM program provides interactive management training with a results-oriented curriculum and prime networking opportunities. 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And I had to come back to taking stock. Because I think that’s the one that people still may not realize. Nick Jonsson: Yes. So step two is asking for help. So in my case, then I definitely needed to see a doctor because I was not healthy, I had not eaten well, I stopped the exercise. I gained a lot of weight, and yeah, I was consuming too much alcohol, and I was shy about it, but here seeing the doctor, I had to be honest because it was clear on the blood results. So actually didn’t Jenn DeWall: Yeah, you can’t get ahead of that one. The doctor knew something wasn’t right! Nick Jonsson: So then, I needed to seek help also for my alcohol problem. So I went to see also support group that helped me with alcohol addiction that I had picked up during this time. And through that, I gave a lot of confidence, and I started to address other areas in my life. I had, of course, then some issues, as I mentioned with relationships, and there, I also needed some professional help. I had gone through a divorce during this time, and my relationship with my ex-wife was not the best my son lived with her. So I also need to see a family, and we worked through everything, and I also repaired all those relationships and we have a very, very good contact and good relationships today. Jenn DeWall: That’s a, I really appreciate you sharing, not only being vulnerable and sharing the challenges or obstacles that you had gone through but also, you know, showing what it can look like on the other side, when we actually, instead of maybe just worrying about it or stressing about it. When we actually maybe would it be taking responsibility for it and saying, you know, asking for help? That’s what you’re saying is, you know, recognize it. Or one of my favorite quotes is you have to own it to control it. If you don’t own it, then you don’t get to do anything with it. Then it’s going to keep controlling you. And once you can own that and ask for help, but again, do you think, why do you think people don’t ask for help? I know this could go into, you know, the stigma with it, but why else don’t we ask for help? Because we talked about a few of those instances, I would love to talk a little bit more about this because I think it is a big area where people get stuck. Nick Jonsson: Yeah. They don’t even know what they should ask for help with. Because if you didn’t do step one, if you didn’t do that inventory, you don’t know what you have. It’s like, imagine if you’re running a, a, a store, but you don’t know what you have in stock. How can you even sell something? Right. So it’s here that in order to ask for help, you have to have it on this piece of paper and really analyze it and then go list by go one by one and ask for help and sorting every single step out and don’t skip anything. You have to be absolutely brutal with yourself and be honest with yourself and say to yourself, time to stop this bull and, and just, you know, really address it one by one. And as I said, not everything has to cost money because I know a lot of listeners may think, oh, that’s too expensive, out there are so many anonymous charity organizations addressing these issues. If it’s overeating, if it is smoking, whatever it is, there are so many networks are there to help you and go to those networks and, and, and ask for help. But the challenge of think, Jenn and here is the core issues that people are just scared to ask for help. So we need to practice that muscle. And that’s what I did by seeing the doctor then an anonymous group for the alcohol issue. And that gave me the confidence to address my relationship with my ex-wife with my son. And from there, I didn’t stop. I just continued to address everything I had on the list and just felt better about it. Jenn DeWall: I think that’s, you know, asking for help. It’s I think, you know, again, people don’t ask for it, they feel like there’s some type of judgment or they’ve created that story, and it’s gotten worse and worse. And I feel for me, I initially, I think when I suffered in silence, that’s when I tried to repress or I would just be driving home from work and I’d be crying or feeling that I would, I would try to hide it. And then I feel like it would be worse. Like I would almost be that much more reactive. I would kind of be that volcano. So then, you know, when you’d got to that next layer and I actually couldn’t keep it in anymore, I would explode. But then, every time I exploded, I felt better. And I think my goal with my mental health is now starting to say and give myself that, you know, permission I can ask for help. The Importance of Being Vulnerable Jenn DeWall: I can talk about my emotions. I can talk about being triggered by something. I deserve to have a space to have and hold my emotions. And now that I’ve given myself that, I think it’s easier for me to talk about other things because I don’t paint them in the way that I used to, as something that makes me flawed, wrong, less than their feelings that I’m having in a moment in time. Some of them might, you know, go back to my childhood or different traumas and experiences. But I now try, I try so hard to address things at the moment because I know that if I don’t, that it obviously will be the volcano, but then every single time I address them, things just feel better or things get resolved in a different way, or there’s a different level of understanding and curiosity that I can have for those that I’m interacting with. I don’t know. I mean, I feel like you also get forgiveness when you can let things go, and you know, not holding that resentment, which yeah—going back to the relationships, the avoiding step four, right. But things, how can we go back and make amends? How can we think about that? And you likely have hurt someone in your life or not shown up in an ideal way. Again, we’re perfectly imperfect. I think. What do you think that that, or I guess, how do you notice and do you notice this from you where you sit in the executives, you, you oversee, is there a strong notion of that perfectionism of, I have to be everything to everyone. I have to do it all right. You know, right now, and then I’m not gonna admit a mistake because then it means I’m not perfect. So then that means I’m not going to address and try to nurture and, you know, maintain that relationship with someone. I don’t know. Do you see perfectionism in your side, like in the interactions in the or individuals that you work with? Nick Jonsson: Yes, certainly Jenn, Jenn DeWall: Or is it just a US-centered viewpoint? I have no idea. I, this is what I love to ask these questions. Nick Jonsson: Yes. No, certainly Jenn, no, this is indeed a global thing. And perhaps it’s even a bigger thing in Asia. Imagine if you are an ex-pat coming from the US, you’re living and working in Asia, perhaps you stay a little bit in your ex-pat bubble. You don’t integrate exactly with the locals, perhaps due to language, cultural differences and so on. So there’s a much bigger distance already between you and the colleagues in your office. You might have less understanding for each other. So, therefore, there will be more conflict, more misunderstandings and even more challenges as well in the relationships. And there will be times when you perhaps are too busy and you, you are laying off people, but you might not do it in the right way. And you’re probably hurting a lot of people along the way. And if you don’t do that in a nice, or in, in the correct way, then it’ll come and hound you later on, and people will feel bad about it. And I remember when I was laid off from one job, I was crying, but also, my boss was crying. And that’s perhaps is how things are right. And the, we just need to try to do it in a less harmful way for the other party. But we have to remember that if we don’t do it in the best way, then we are only gonna hurt ourselves because we are human beings, after all. Jenn DeWall: Yes. And why do we forget that sometimes? Everyone is doing their best. That we all have challenges that we all have feelings. We’re humans. I think it’s so interesting in the era of leadership that we forget to give ourselves grace for being a human being that is someone that is going to do their best but ultimately won’t always make the best choices. It might not say the right communication. That’s the reality of life. I, you know, we don’t get to get away from that or escape that, but I know we’re gonna get into our, like before we get into a final question, I want to kinda go back to step five. Purpose. How is purpose important to being able to manage executive loneliness, to help in that connection? Why is a purpose for having one a significant part of that? Nick Jonsson: Well, I think that when you are a senior executive or a business owner, and you’re running something, many senior executives have a very big ego, and many people are used to being the one to tell everyone what to do. And I think that this is one of the challenges when we’re talking about this topic because it’s very hard for a senior executive to admit their mistakes. And they believe that they run the show to the point where perhaps, they’re not grounded enough. And that’s what we see many times. That, you know, they, they are perhaps too bossy and not, not open for suggestions and so on. And therefore, you know, it, it’s very hard for them to admit any failures they have or any challenges they have. So when it comes to purpose, I believe it’s important to imagine that you are not the most powerful person in the world. You’re not the one running the show. That you have to believe, and what I’m coming to is that there is a power greater than yourself. Are you the center of the universe? Then you ought to get a lot of trouble for it. That is my fair sense of purpose. Jenn DeWall: No, you have to know that’s your grounding. That’s your compass of understanding how to show up. And I don’t know if we can put something in there about within your purpose, also allow yourself to be imperfect because yeah, you’re not, you know, rewriting that definition of what it means to be a success, a successful executive or leader. It doesn’t mean doing 100% of the things, right? 100% of the time, it means and curious, leading with empathy, continuing to learn and grow. There are so many more things that that can mean. So let’s bring it back to what you can do. Maybe if you’re noticing someone in your organization that’s going through maybe symptoms of mental health, how do you support others? How can I as a leader? How can you, as a leader, can we support one another to address and address these mental health challenges? Addressing Mental Health in an Organization Starts at the Top Nick Jonsson: Well, the challenge is Jenn. If you don’t have a relationship with this person built up by now and you see someone who’s suffering, they’re most likely not gonna share anything with you. So it’s very important to be proactive here and break down these walls and the barriers beforehand to really build warm relationships. And it all starts with you being vulnerable by yourself. And what I’ve seen in an organization is it has to start from the top. If you, as a leader of an organization, are not vulnerable with your teams, you cannot expect them to be vulnerable with you. And if I may just mention a story, Jenn, from a book, I interviewed a, a managing director, a lady for a big bank in a big international bank. And she had worked her way up to the top in this male-dominated industry and elbowing herself, working extremely hard. Nick Jonsson: And basically, to quote herself, she said, I was a bitch. She pushed people away, but she pleased the bosses. She got the pay rises and what she was living on the paper. And what people saw was the dream. She would have a driver. She had the nanny, children in private school and everything else. She lived in a beautiful apartment, and everyone just adored the life she had, but inside she felt lonely and she felt isolated. Then when she had a, a, an accident, she had to have surgery on her face. She lost her confidence completely. And after that, she started to push people away further. So her team was pushed away further. Her husband at home was pushed away, and it went so far that she actually started to plan her own suicide. So when I interviewed her for the book, the first time she just opened up a little bit and she did, and she didn’t disclose everything. Nick Jonsson: But then a week later, she called me and we met for another coffee when she told me this. And I then managed to encourage her to to see a therapist. And she opened up to the therapist about this date, then discussed with her husband, sorted out these issues. And when the book came out and she was anonymous in the book, she, she bought a copy of the book and shared with her team members, asked them to read it. And then they had an open-door meeting and discussed it. And she said, by the way, that article there, the woman in the bank that’s me and they were all completely shocked. So that was basically the, the opening to this. And after this, they’ve had an open door policy. Her boss even came in and shared with her also that he went through challenges. So this is my point. Again, you have to be open, and you have to discuss things. Cause when you break down that stigma, and you have a warm open environment, then everyone can talk about everything. Jenn DeWall: Yes, yes, yes, yes. When you talk about it, then it gives people permission to also have those feelings to also be triggered or have a life that’s happening outside of work. It’s so interesting. Rarely if ever, have I ever observed a situation where someone was vulnerable and sharing a piece of themselves to be met with, you know, that judgment or, oh my gosh. That’s so, you know, I feel like more often than not, when someone does reveal that, then you do you empathize. I think that teaches you that at we’re humans, you can understand to be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. And that we all have, you know, information about others, but we’re also missing a lot of information or that, that vantage point into what they’re going through. I love that story of the executive because yeah, we paint a lot of stories about how everyone else has it better, and that’s simply not true. It’s just that we may not talk about it, but when you can start that conversation and, and please do not, this is what I cannot handle, Nick – is when this is going to be something that we’re talking about, because we feel like we should do it. Don’t pretend to talk about mental health. Do not pretend to talk about it because of it, something that you might be hearing or learning more about, you have to actually have a point of view. And also, I don’t notice, I don’t know if you ever see this, but sometimes in a room, I might have someone say, I’ve never thought that stuff. And the second that you say that you’re also triggering to people that there’s something wrong with them. So be mindful maybe if you can’t relate to the same extent, understand that everyone’s journey is their own. Overcoming Resistance to Talking About Loneliness Jenn DeWall: And that just because they’re going through something different doesn’t mean there’s something fundamentally wrong or that you’re winning it life because you’re not going through that. I don’t know. Those are probably two of my public service announcements is to make sure that you’re not just doing this because you want to be an attractive company to work for. You want to actually do it. And then two that don’t sit here and pretend, Ugh, I’ve never had that before. Because then you’re only going to further isolate yourself or those from, I guess, each other, other colleagues, I don’t know. Do you see that in the judgment land of people? Like, do you ever notice that? I feel like there’s always one person that’s like, I’ve never went through that before. And I think it’s a lie. I don’t believe them when they say that. I just think that they don’t want to know because they’re trying to keep that illusion of perfection. I’m curious. Do you see that? Nick Jonsson: Yes, Jenn, I, we also had this conversation in some sessions at work with the members in the senior executives and yeah, you’ll always get a, you know great topic, but it’s not so interesting for me, or it’s not relevant for me. So yeah, it’s very much that denial. And you know, and the way I see it, and then I come back to them. So, well, that’s great that you are, you are feeling so grounded and connected! But what about those around you? Don’t you have, you know, your team or about your family and friends. I think you should join this conversation anyway because there might be someone around you. You can help. And that’s the way to get people into this conversation as well. Because then how can you, they turn around and say, no, I don’t care about my team. I don’t care about my friends. I don’t care about my family. So no, thank you. Jenn DeWall: That’s a, a great, that’s a great idea how to approach it because I think you hit in terms of the language that they use. Like, oh, this is nice, but not for me. I just laugh. Cause I, I just think what the heck, we all have stuff, our brain is firing out all these thoughts. We’ve lived a life. We will have some of these things. Nick I’ve really enjoyed our conversation. And I know there’s so many things that I wish I could even go into as it relates to this topic. And maybe we bring you back and we talk more about how this relates back to diversity, equity and inclusion, but really creating that sense of belonging at work and why this is so important today. But I know that we don’t have time for that, but Nick, how could people get in touch with you? You, where can they book or how can they, how can they connect with you outside of this podcast? Because you need to talk to Nick. Nick is opening up the doors to very important conversations that need to be had and no longer should we lose people to suicide or other challenges as they relate back to mental health. We want to offer support to people. So how, how can they get in touch with you? Where to Find Nick Jonsson Nick Jonsson: Well the easiest way is to look me up on LinkedIn. My name is Nick Jonsson, and it’s spelled N I C K J O N S S O N. So they can follow me on LinkedIn. I share a lot of my articles and stories around the topic there. And otherwise, if someone is interested in the book, they can be, go to Amazon or Audible. It’s on all these platforms. So apple books also, and just look up executive loneliness. Jenn DeWall: Yes. Thank you so much for writing this book, and thank you for joining us to have this very, very important conversation. Nick Jonsson: And thank you so much, Jenn, for inviting me and for covering it. Jenn DeWall: Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast. I truly hope that you enjoyed my conversation with Nick on this very important topic. If you want to know more. Well, the first thing is to think about something that’s on your mind. Something that’s keeping you awake at night write it down and think about who you can share this problem with. Maybe this is a potential opportunity to connect with Nick. You can find additional information about Nick by going to ExecutiveLonelinessBook.com. There you can purchase his book, and you can also connect with him on LinkedIn and you can find his LinkedIn connection in the show notes. Until next time.   The post Executive Loneliness and Mental Health with CEO and Author, Nick Jonsson appeared first on Crestcom International.