The Leadership Habit

Kelly Swanson – Business Storytelling Speaker In this episode of The Leadership Habit Podcast, Jenn DeWall interviews Kelly Swanson. Kelly is an award-winning storyteller, speaker, author, and comedian. Kelly’s wacky wit and powerful stories have charmed hearts and tickled funny bones for over 15 years. In addition to her role as a funny motivational speaker, Kelly teaches people how she does it by sharing what she has learned about connecting and engaging, to have more influence in business through the use of one tool, strategic storytelling. Sharing her own powerful journey through story and the formula she discovered, you come to that magical place where the art of story meets the business of persuasion. Full Transcript Below: Jenn DeWall:                      Hi everyone. It is Jenn DeWall. And today on The Leadership Habit Podcast I am talking to Kelly Swanson who is a motivational speaker, a comedian, and a storytelling expert. So she is a storyteller, which to some of you hearing this right now, you may be asking yourself what is the correlation between storytelling and leadership? But I can tell you that today Kelly is going to offer you some insights into why storytelling is an essential skill that you need to add to your leadership toolkit. Welcome, Kelly! Thank you so much for coming in. You’re in all the way from North Carolina and we are so happy to have you here to interview for The Leadership Habit Podcast. Thanks for being here. Kelly Swanson:                  Thank you for having me. And hello to everybody out there listening as we talk about my favorite subject. Yes, I am a motivational speaker and a comedian, which means I tell you that you can do anything and then I tell you I’m just kidding. But if I make you laugh, it’s by accident today because I really am here in the other capacity to talk about storytelling because as a motivational speaker and comedian, I have spent 20 years deliciously benefiting from the value and power of stories and how they can give you so much more impact and influence in your work. So thanks for having me. It’s my pleasure. Jenn DeWall:                      I’m excited. I mean I know you’re going to make us laugh a lot today. I’m already going to laugh! Kelly Swanson:                  Oh Great! Raise the Bar! Jenn DeWall:                      So you know, to everyone out there that may not really understand what storytelling is, can you briefly just tell us what storytelling is and, and why that matters for leaders today? Why that is an essential skill. Kelly Swanson:                  Sure, sure. Because I do hear that a lot. What? What does storytelling have to do with our group? This is weird. What are we going to do? And the first place I need to take you is to ask you in your job and in your work and whatever your industry, how important is it that you are able to influence other people? How important is it that you need to get people to do what you want them to do? Are you in a position where you want to influence people, get them on board, change their minds to get them rallied around a vision? Are you ever trying to persuade people in business? Kelly Swanson:                  And of course the answer is yes. I mean, all of us in life are in the, I say work no matter what our industry, we’re all in the business of persuasion. Whether it’s to get somebody to embrace an idea or get somebody to hire us or promote us or just get our kid to clean up his room, that we’re all trying to influence. And that’s really where it starts, is from understanding that while in leadership, is that important? Jenn DeWall:                      Yes, absolutely. We need to understand how to have that influence. Kelly Swanson:                  Right! And have you ever had leaders that just told you what to do versus that inspired you to want to follow them and want to do it? I think there’s a difference, don’t you? Jenn DeWall:                      Absolutely. I mean, especially when people tell you specifically what to do. I feel like it’s so tactical and approach that it’s hard to connect to, right? You’re just thinking about it as, okay, I have to do this right now and there’s not a big emotional connection for me. And it’s just, you don’t really feel excited to get up and take that action. Kelly Swanson:                  And there’s actually a reason. Because of the data, the information telling people what to do on its own doesn’t have the ability to persuade people on an emotional level, which is really what we want as leaders. As leaders, most of us care about what will help hopefully care about what we’re doing and we care about our work and we care about the brand. We care about the vision, and we want those people to care about it too. And some of you listening are nodding going, I know exactly what you’re saying. We wish our people cared more. We wish they could see this from a bigger perspective than just their desk. We wish that they could see that this change is going to fit a bigger purpose. We wish they could see the people we serve. Do you get what I’m saying? So there’s this whole sense of, and I hear this over and over from business people, I care about this. Kelly Swanson:                  How do I make them care? And data cannot make them care. This is what we need to do. Does it make somebody want to be invested in it? And that’s why I love what I’m talking about today because storytelling has the ability to get those people to care in the same way that you do as a leader. Jenn DeWall:                      That’s powerful. Storytelling to Improve Employee Engagement Kelly Swanson:                  It is powerful. That’s about engaging your employees. I mean, have you heard there was the latest, I mean, everybody’s talking about employee retention and engagement and the latest Gallup poll I saw said that 76% of people are disengaged in their work and if this goes unchecked, it’s going to rise to 88%. Now imagine a world where 88% of the people have checked out. They just haven’t quit yet. I mean, we’ve met some of them in the places that we’ve gone into. We’ve seen them, right? That’s a big number. That’s a lot of people disengaged from their work and that’s our job as leaders is to get them engaged again. Jenn DeWall:                      Right. And storytelling by nature is a technique to engage. We give that, we give, you can give meaning and you can give purpose and we all know that person that’s disengaged in the office because typically they are someone that it makes it more difficult to take action or they become that obstacle. Or maybe their attitude is not connected so they’re no longer really seeing the value in the mission. And so they’ll complain and criticize it and they become, what I would say is like that cancer in your organization, they can just completely disrupt and disintegrate your team. Kelly Swanson:                  Yeah, and they can write a story. I always say if you as a leader are not writing the story, then they are. Jenn DeWall:                      Oh my gosh, that is such a good way to think about it. Right? Like writing the story of this place is awful to work at. Can’t you see? Look at how I’m seeing this. This person was treated that way. Kelly Swanson:                  Yeah, or writing a story about leadership. Oh, this is what they, it’s an us versus them. You get a lot of people in this us versus them mentality or not even having a story about your customers. They’re so disconnected from the people they serve that they’re not serving them in the best way because they no longer connect and engage with the meaning behind what they do. And that is exactly where storytelling comes in. And I’m so excited, Jenn, because for years I knew this just because I had learned it as a speaker and as a comedian and getting up on the stage, I just stumbled into this accidentally. I’ve always told stories. It’s been my gift since I was a child. I never really looked to see why it was working. But when you can get letters from people years later and they’re like, you changed my life. And, and I just saw the power these stories were having. Kelly Swanson:                  So I began to look and go, well, what is that? Let’s kind of unpack. And now the science backs me up and there are, there are studies and I can’t go into all of them. I’ll just, you know, there are studies at Princeton, Harvard Psychology Review that, to sum it up, back up what I’m saying, that data information, doesn’t have the ability to move people to action. But stories do. Storytelling forces your listener’s brain to actively connect and find their own similar experience. A story gives, gives the work meaning to them. And I’m just touching on a couple of them. Don’t believe me. Go do the research because it now, like I said, backs me up. So it’s a very, very- one researcher said that storytelling gives us the ability to plant ideas into other people’s minds. I mean, that’s like crazy, crazy powerful. Use that power for good! Storytelling is an Essential Tool for Leaders Jenn DeWall:                      So think about that, how that persuasion could actually play out. But you know, it is, it’s, and I think storytelling as an essential skill for leaders today has really come about at the perfect time as people are really desiring to have a job with purpose. They want to have meaning in their work. And if they don’t have the meaning in their work, they’re more inclined to look for the place that can give them that. And so knowing that that can be a simple solution to aid in your own retention and engagement of your employees, just by packaging your message and what they do in a different way. Kelly Swanson:                  And even to put a simpler term on it, it’s all about connection and engagement. It’s about connecting with people. That is one of the best skills I think we can have in many, many roles in our jobs. But especially as leaders, if you have the ability to connect on a personal level with the people you serve, then you will have a stronger, more unified team that wants to follow you. And is not just going through the motions and, and you’re right, people don’t leave jobs. They leave their bosses and they leave their coworkers. You know, many people leave because of the relationships that are in the office. So this helps with that as well. Jenn DeWall:                      Right. And I guarantee a lot of our listeners are maybe even thinking of what that relationship is, what the story or the connection or lack thereof that they have with their organization or what their managers and maybe be thinking, Oh my gosh, I’m ready to leave. Or if you notice that person as a leader where you can see that they’re disengaged, they’re checked out, and I think this is especially true for those high performers if we stopped challenging them, can make us slow down, turn into that disengaged employee story is kind of that way to pull them back and reinvigorate them with the purpose of their work and your organization. Kelly Swanson:                  And sometimes with leaders, it’s about sharing and being vulnerable and authentic and letting your employees or your team see a little bit of the personal side of you. I mean, I hear very different stories from people in terms of the leader who walks down the hall and doesn’t know anybody’s name and talks above everybody’s heads and who they feel no connection to, versus the leader who does know everybody’s names, who reveals things about his children or his pet. Connection is emotional. And I always tell people that when we’re influencing, it’s like we’re selling something to somebody else. And, and that’s what persuasion is. And the, without getting too deep into sales, cause that’s not the topic. The Cardinal rule of sales is that people buy from people they like, right? So if we’re trying to be persuasive as leaders, what are we doing to make them like us? Now you’re now some of you are going, this is not about making everybody happy. But, but what are we doing to create a trust, human being to human being? And I think we’re in an age when people want that authenticity from their leaders and their politicians and you know, the people that they hold up in this world and story shows people who you are. Sharing a little piece of your story allows you to connect with your employees. And I would just encourage anybody listening to take that bold little step to become a little more human to the people you serve. Jenn DeWall:                      And remembering that that vulnerability, it may seem like a huge step, right? Especially when we’re trained, I think to be a certain person when we walk through the doors of our workplace and then we can, you know, take off the mask when we leave and finally be our free selves. But really people are yearning for that connection. They want to understand you, they want to see you at a deeper level. And that doesn’t mean to tell them everything about your personal life, but it does mean to just say, Hey, you know, sometimes I’ve made mistakes or here is where I went wrong, or here’s what I love. We want to connect, right? We’re done with the fallacy of thinking that if you’re a leader, you’ve got it all figured out, we know that you’re perfect. That’s not true. And you have to share your vulnerability. So people understand that they can make mistakes, pick themselves up and become more resilient and better for it. We need that type of support. And also someone that’s going to give us the vision. Sharing Your Vision Through Storytelling Kelly Swanson:                  And those make better stories from leaders or you hit it right on the head, the stories where you failed, the stories that show you get what life is like from they sit. We don’t care about stories about everything this leader did right. And how great they are. No, we care about those, just like you said, I know what it’s like to be you. When I was first starting, you know those, the times you didn’t get it right or when you learned a lesson the hard way. And this is also another key word- I think- is trust. And salespeople buy from people they trust. So your team, your customer, your market. I mean they all need to trust you. This is a world of information overload and there’s just a lot of distrust in this world. And so as leaders, if you think about that, and I know this is kind of getting deep and I’ll just drop it and we’ll move on. But as a leader, we trust people. We don’t trust the job description. It’s a thing that happens personally between two people. Am I making sense? And that’s where stepping into your, your story, sharing your story and stepping into the story of the people of your team. I meet people in business who have strategies for actually where they just, I know somebody in healthcare there. They lead volunteers. So they’re in leadership over all the volunteers. They have a mingle hour every week and they put clothes off everything on their calendar and they walk the halls and they go find the people on their team and they share their stories and ask about their stories. And the woman said, at first it felt really stupid. She said I felt like it was a colossal waste of time. And she said a year later, I cannot tell you the difference it has made in our organization. She goes, they come to my kids’ games. We know each other’s birthdays. Because she took the time every week for one hour to go out there and step into somebody’s story. And it wasn’t a while, I’m here, let’s look at your evaluation. You know, it wasn’t, there was no agenda except to do that. And she said it had a radical impact on the morale and how long people stayed. And these are volunteers who aren’t even being paid to be there. Jenn DeWall:                      Wow. And that’s powerful, right? If, when we think about how short our life is, we want to make sure that we’re investing our time wisely. And I would argue that people want to connect. They want to understand who they’re sitting next to. They want to have great memories with their colleagues. They want to make work a great place, right? We have to earn a living. And so what can we do to create a place that we actually want to work and earn our living? And story will allow us to connect at a deeper level, which says that for the portion of our time that we have to spend working, we’re at least getting more of a value out of it than what we were before by instead of just doing tactical things and not connecting and just going in and then leaving. You know, we’re actually able to look at those hours and fill them with joy and happiness and connection and collaboration. All of those beautiful things that come along with it. Storytelling to Connect with Your Team Kelly Swanson:                 And there are some people listening now who were probably like, eh, we’re not all about kumbaya and making everybody happy, but I want to tell you that, and I firmly that Engagement is important and retention and keeping people there. But also if you start to embody those principles and you teach, you connect as a leader, it’s, you know, it’s from the top down and you teach your people to connect. Well, I’m going to tell you what, you better believe your people should connect with those customers that they’re serving, the people that are on the phone with the people who were coming in the door. It’s not, it doesn’t just stop at your team. Now teaching your team these same principles applies in creating customers that and turning them into fans. And you know, and everybody being the storyteller of the brand. So it’s not just internally, it’s something you also want to teach them to do. And reciprocate with the people who are actually that you serve. Jenn DeWall:                      Well and one thing you touched on earlier too, with storytelling you want to weave that into everything. But storytelling really does help people see that big picture vision, which is can be a big challenge for leaders that are new to their roles. As really kind of making that transition from looking at that purely, I do X, Y and Z and checking things off a to-do list to say, okay, what are all of the things that need to happen? And you know, taking that view, to see the forest from the trees. Yes. And the story really helps people to be able to start to expand their view. Is that right? Storytelling and Change Management Kelly Swanson:                  True. And it also helps them embrace change. I hear a lot in every, every different industry I go to, they all think they have the toughest jobs ever, but they’re all dealing with change. That’s a common denominator. And trying to get people on board with, yes, one more change. You know, and it’s really tough and I always tell them it’s not change- and this isn’t my opinion, I read an article on this- it’s not change people are afraid of. It’s being prepared for it. And so that if you can give them a story of what their life is going to look like. You get to walk them through the change because story allows you to test drive them to test, drive your message. I had law enforcement people, for instance, saying that the police officers didn’t want to use the cameras and they were having a hard time and they kept saying, you need to use the cameras. You need to use the cameras. Here we go again. Just the data, wondering why they weren’t, you know, they were still fighting it until they started saying, let me tell you the story of what happens in this scenario if you had had a camera sitting in front of your, of your car and they, they would just tell them stories of this is what your life is going to look like with this new change. And then suddenly, boom, they’ve got buy-in because they were, they were, they were allowed to experience it. That’s just one of the powerful things that the story does and I’ve seen it all the time is that, you know, I get in front of groups that asked me to come and motivate their staff and come in front of a group of strangers and come in and motivate them in 10 or 15 minutes. I have seen it’s only storytelling that can do that. I saw that at a hospital event where they had me come to speak for their employee appreciation and they were bringing all of them in and it was a big healthcare system and they were honoring the ones who’ve been there the longest and giving them, you know, certificates and claps and letting them stand up and say their name, and truth be told it was pretty boring. I mean, people were sleeping with their eyes open and waiting to, you know, half the spouses were mad. They had to put on the suit and you know, just the energy was low. And then the night was almost over and they called me up and he said, okay, we got a motivational speaker, which of course everybody just “loves”. Insert eye rolls here. But so they bring me up and I had 10-15 minutes and I’m like, okay, what do you do in 10 or 15 minutes, you know, to show these people. Cause that’s what it’s about. Don’t tell them how can I show them they appreciate it. And I told him, I told him a story, a true story. And you want to hear it? Are you sure? Okay. I’ll try not to. Okay. I’ll try not to drag it out too much. The Power of Story – A Woman With a Mop But anyway. It was I remember the story started when I was at another gig somewhere and I was, it was like zero o’clock. It’s early in the morning. It’s dark, I’m tired, I’m juggling my briefcase and my coffee and my cell phone and I’m tripping up through the parking lot. I’m there to give some kind of talk on, I don’t know, employee engagement or customer service. I don’t know. And as I get to the doorway on this ordinary morning I can hear singing and it was the wildest thing. It’s like it’s some woman was singing, it’s like some sweet morning when this day is over, I’ll fly away. Yeah. I mean, it was just coming out over the parking lot or loud staccato, just jubilant notes of a life well lived and the automatic glass doors opened up and Jenn, I could see this woman and she is standing there holding her mop as if I don’t know as if it were a beloved dance partner as if her faded cotton dress were made of the finest silk. And I sat in the corner of the lobby and I’m trying not to stare at this woman, but it was a blue, it didn’t matter because she was oblivious to everyone around her, like this was the most natural thing in the world for her to be dancing and singing and twirling her way across the marble floors of her hospital lobby. While the beeps of the monitors and the dings of the elevators, they just sang to her in sweet harmony and suddenly I could just, I don’t know, smell the perfume of my changed perspective- as I watched this woman turn her job into an art. And she didn’t know that I was near her later that morning and in the restroom, I watched her stop what she was doing and she went over to a stranger and she like laid hands on them and prayed for their wounded child and she didn’t know that I saw her later help that old man wrap the shawl tighter around his wife’s shoulders and she didn’t know that I saw her give away her lunch. And I’m watching all throughout the day and those cold, unexpected antiseptic corners of that hospital. And right there I saw pain, find healing. I watched sorrow meet comfort, and well I saw hopelessness find hope all wrapped up in this faded contrast and comfortable shoes. Some sweet morning when this day is over I’ll fly away. She was still singing at the end of that day when she went to meet her bus at dusk. And I’m standing in front of that window, the big Bay glass window right upfront, watching her go, wondering if I would ever see her again and I haven’t, but I’ll never forget her. And I’m by this sign that they have in the lobby, slick floor to ceiling – no doubt created by a group of marketing intellectuals. And the sign says quite simply, Excellence Starts Here. And I smiled and I wondered if their CEO knew just how true that really was. Because see that day on an ordinary, unsuspecting day, a woman with a mop showed me what it looks like when people serve. A woman who smelled of bleach and blessings showed me that happiness, peace, contentment, a love for what you do and why you do it isn’t something that’s handed down to you from the top or that you wait for somebody to bring you. It’s just a feeling you have. It’s the story you write in your head when you come to work. And she wasn’t singing because she had the best job in the place she was singing because that’s the story she wrote. And I believe if you write it enough, one day you’ll just wake up and it just is. But even more, that woman taught me that day, how every single one of us in our organization, no matter where we stand or where we sit, no matter whether we’re seeing one-on-one or on a telephone or hiding back in a cubicle, all of us has that powerful opportunity. That privilege. Sometimes I’ll even call it that divine appointment, to impact someone else’s life. Anybody who crosses your path. And that to me is amazing because she showed me how every single person, how we are all the storyteller of our brand because that woman with the mop, you- whatever your role is, might be the only one they see, the only one they talk to. And you see at the end of the day, we don’t do business with brands. We don’t do business with brick and mortar. We don’t do business with fancy signs and fancy taglines. And no matter how technologically advanced we get, or data-driven or whatever, we are still people doing business with people. We don’t do business with the system. And that’s why it’s so important, the jobs that we do. And I saw all that one day from a woman with the mop. And the funny thing is she had no idea. But I think if a woman with a mop can sing like that, then so can we. And I said to the hospital, I said, so don’t think that the work you do went unnoticed. And at the end of it, a man came up to me and he’d been crying and he was an older gentleman and he said, I just want you to know that I’m the woman with the mop. And he said I’ve been in maintenance with this hospital for 30 years. And he said, and nobody has ever told me that they appreciate what I do until tonight. And while I loved having that moment, it’s also sad to me that me, the stranger, the hired motivational speaker to come in off the street, was able to do in 15 minutes what their leadership didn’t do in 30 years. And that is not Kelly being a good speaker. That’s the power of storytelling. And, and when we tell that story or a story like that, it has, I mean if I may just ask you now Jenn, to just comment and not say, Oh that was great, but really talk about- or to say how good I look cause they can’t see me. So you just have to trust that I look good. Talk about that story. Why do you think that had such an impact or what you liked about it? Storytelling for Inspiration Jenn DeWall:                      The first thing that I would share is that for those that are in the room, they can see that I’m tearing up hearing that story. Because, I- you see that there are so many people that aren’t seen that are all part of the equation that makes our world, makes our strategy, makes everything come to fruition that everyone matters. And I think also there’s that piece of hope that comes with it, that we can find that happiness within ourselves, that someone does not have to bring that to us. That no matter what obstacle we’re facing or what job we are in, we can find a way to make it beautiful, make it enjoyable, and connect with others. Kelly Swanson:                  So you heard a story that wasn’t even about you, and you sat here and walked away and went, Oh wait, it inspires me to find hope in my own life and enjoy my job. Right? I mean that’s pretty powerful because I could tell you as your boss, I need you to have a better attitude and I’m not sure it would have the same effect. But that story, it just like it did with the maintenance man. That story wasn’t about him, but it was, he was standing in that story and his own at the same time. So what else did you notice about it, or any other comments about it that you would think of? Jenn DeWall:                      I think it’s, the other piece about the story is that when we step out of our own point of view and we kind of just get out of our head, we can actually see a lot of things that are happening around us. I guess that’s the other piece. Because you were talking about how you noticed her, the woman with the mop doing a lot of different things that you may not have noticed on any other day or those things are happening all around us in the form of a really great colleague that is doing something so amazing just to help out someone else to make their day a little bit better. And so I think, you know, that made me just realize that there are so many opportunities to see things in a different way, but I have to open my eyes. Kelly Swanson:                  And story allows me as a leader to paint the picture. It allows a nonthreatening way for me to illustrate what might be going on in our organization in a way that instead of pushing because you think you’re in trouble or I’m telling you to do one more thing, story has a pulling action and you are able to come to your own conclusion and, and make that leap to say, wait, I might be doing that here as well. I want to ask you another question. If you had just met me, sitting in that hospital after hearing that story, what would you think about me personally? Would you have any- now we’re not strangers, but pretend like we were, what kind of assessment? What would you think about me from that story? Jenn DeWall:                      I think one of the first things that I would think about or think about you is that you’re relatable. I can see you as me and that we both are trying to do the best that we can and I think it just, it really, I can see part of myself in you It’s just easier to have a conversation with you. Kelly Swanson:                  What about, what do you think I care about as a person? What do you think I value? Just based on that story, Jenn DeWall:                      I think you really value people, and how they, who they are, their contribution, what they do, how they do it. Kelly Swanson:                  The people are people and the point I’m trying to make is that when I tell a story, you come away with an idea about me from that story. Now, the funny thing is you have no idea if I really care about the little person or not. Jenn DeWall:                      That’s true. The Value of the Story is Transferred to the Teller Kelly Swanson:                  It is true. That’s how powerful. But you think you do now because I told you that story. Why? And this is, I love this, the value of the story is transferred to the teller. So when we talked a minute ago about developing trust and likability and showing people who you are. I just showed you how through one simple story, I am able to show a room full of people who don’t even know me, who I am. And we have developed a trust and a relationship there that you would not get had I said, let me just tell you first you can trust me. I care about the little person. Do you see? It’s almost laughable. That’s how- it’s why I’ve been able as a motivational speaker to go into any kind of setting from the business to the prisons, to the churches and make a connection. And it’s never about the message that I want to give. It is always about can I find a way to tell a story that we both can relate to that brings us closer together as people. That shows them, I get life from where they sit and that somehow sells my truth by finding what they care about and relating it. This is my story formula. When I talk about the triangle, every story is about three things. It is about me, the storyteller, the leader, whoever’s speaking, and it’s about you, the listener who’s ever buying this information, whoever I’m talking to, and then it’s about “it”. The message that I want to give that to me when I coach anybody in business with their stories and if there’s ever anything missing, it’s always in one of those areas. They’ll bring their five-minute story and I’ll say, Oh, it’s all about you. You don’t have anything about them. Or it’s all about them, it doesn’t have anything about you or it’s all information, it doesn’t have enough story to it. Does that make sense? Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah. It’s really helping to understand that there is a strategic approach to how we can communicate to be more effective influencers. And to think that it’s, you know, I think naturally when we don’t necessarily have the experience in storytelling, it’s very easy to give commands. Saying, okay, you have to do this because of this, right? Or we’re really busy. So it’s very easy to just take a more tactical approach like do this now. This is what needs to be done. And it really is that all about us and we’re forgetting that point of connection with the person that we’re talking to and how if we really want to inspire the action, we have to connect to them and we have to make a connection between each other. Kelly Swanson:                  And it sounds like a lot of work and a lot of people are like, oh, that sounds like a lot of work. I just want to go in there and have a meeting and tell people what to do. Well, then that’s fine. Tell them what to do. And you deal with the level of engagement you get. I’m just, you know, it doesn’t change the truth. This is what the tool is for, use it or not. It’s sitting here waiting for you. And the good thing is it’s, you don’t have to overthink it. The reason it may feel overwhelming, I would love to say to the people listening today to not get too deep in the weeds on it. That today, just understand the tool and its importance. To get used to thinking in every situation where you’re about to go influence somebody and you’re in a meeting or you’ve got a Facebook page or it’s marketing or it’s a demo or to sales call. Just start thinking, huh, I wonder if there’s a story I could use here? And even when you only have seven, 10 minutes in front of somebody, you can still throw in a quick little story. To some people, this is still a little bit overwhelming. So, where I often make it a little more simple is by people say, I don’t even know where to begin. I don’t know where to go get my stories. And I’m like, well, it’s the story is a tool to do something, so it starts with thinking about who you’re trying to influence and what’s the message, the particular message you want to give them and story is just going to be an illustration of that as it applies to real life and that’s kind of where you start to look. Storytelling, the application, my curriculum for storytelling always stays the same. Where it changes drastically is in the application is how are you going to use it? Who are you talking to? How do we craft the story? That’s about you, it and them. In this particular scenario. One thing I do want to say is there are a lot of people around here are in business who think they’re telling stories and they’re not. A list of facts is not a story. I’ll get a business come up to me and say, help us tell our story. We were started in 1942 with a candle and a garage and Ed and Earl and I’m like, that’s great, but that technically that’s a list of facts. That’s not a story. A story is about a person who it’s about an experience and somebody’s going through something and with, I won’t go too deep into the framework. I think it’s a lot to give them on this podcast, but it has a before and an after. It’s about an experience that somebody had. It’s a story that’s something somebody went through. I always say it’s a character with a conflict and a resolution and there’s more to it, but, but that, that’s where you have to start. And stories put a human face. I speak to a lot of IT groups and that’s been a challenge because taking storytelling to the world of it is, is a tough sell. But the way that it finally clicks for these groups is when I say you’re simply putting a human face on you, the leader in this case, for those listening today, on you. On whatever this is you’re trying to sell to the town council or whatever, and on the person that you’re talking to, this is all about making it personal. That’s what a story does. It makes it personal. Did that kind of explain it in a way that made sense? Jenn DeWall:                      Absolutely. That it really is about that the human, the human understanding, talk human to human, not these are our statistics and this is what that is. And talking only about ourselves and why we think that’s important. I acknowledge that our audience wants to connect with you. It’s, you know, the other thing that I think is interesting that story does, I’ve often heard the statistic and I don’t know where it comes from, but that you have three seconds to captivate someone’s attention, right? Because we’re all so busy, we’ve got so much on our brains going on. We’re thinking about all of our different responsibilities or the stuff that we need to get done and so we need to be really strategic in how we actually use that time to communicate something. And you just kind of made me think of how storytelling really does allow you to captivate. Storytelling as a Networking Tool Kelly Swanson:                  It’s like networking a little bit too. And once you start working the muscle, it starts getting easier. But that happened to me on a plane yesterday. Or was it the day before? Whenever I’m on the plane all the time and I’m sitting beside a guy now, I’m not strategically trying to connect to him, trying to sell him anything. I’m just sitting on the plane beside him. But if I were, this would have been a great strategy. And we both got our cell phones open and I happened to look down at his cell phone and he had his son and his dog, I assume it’s his son, a child, and a dog on his cell phone. And on my cell phone, I had a child and a dog and I and I, I nudged him. We hadn’t taken off yet. And I said, Hey, sorry to eavesdrop, but look how alike our cell phones are. And he went, Oh my gosh, what kind of dog is yours? I was like, Oh, German shepherd, he’s max. Let me show you his picture. And then he’s pulling up his picture and we are, you know, and we bonded instantly. That’s what it’s about. Finding common ground. Me and this guy beside me, we’ve, we might’ve had nothing in common. You know, it’s about searching for those things that even in a moment you can find. Now as leaders, many of us had the opportunity to earn people’s trust and you know, and whatnot. But for some of us, we don’t have a lot of time or we’re new and we’re trying to do it, you know when we’re new on the job. But it’s those little things stepping into someone’s story and finding things you have in common. And even if you don’t have it in common, sometimes just finding out, I’ll tell people when they’re giving a presentation and they’re, they’re worried because they’re like, I don’t connect. I’m all data and information. I might just open it up and tell us something about yourself and we don’t care what it is. We don’t care about the good stuff. You know, talk about how you’re addicted to Big Bang Theory or you’re a little bit OCD and you arrange, you know, you like lining up your M&Ms by color, whatever it is. Once you and I would even do that in the audience and you see people relax and warm-up and I say, don’t y’all feel like you know him better. And they all nod, and I’m like, that’s what it’s about. Sometimes we overthink it. Jenn DeWall:                      Yes, we complicate it. I mean I what came to my brain while you were just sharing that is almost that, that vision of childhood, how kids can very quickly find that sense of connection with each other. Like you like to play soccer. Me too. I also, you know, they pay attention, they’re observant and there’s not that judgment. There’s just that very quick assessment. I think the first piece with storytelling is that we can think it’s, oh my goodness, you have to draft this huge story that’s going to convey your message. But it also, it can be that where you can build a very captivating story, but you can also build a short story that builds that connection very quickly. Storytelling is Not Just for Extroverts Kelly Swanson:                  Understood. Yes. A lot of the people that when I’m working with them, they need a sexy story. They need an exciting story. It’s their brand story. We’re working to find the best thing. But for most people, I’ll say- they go, is this story good? Is this story good? I’m like, you’re asking the wrong question. It’s not about what’s the best story or which is the most exciting. It’s about what’s the right story that will illustrate the point you want to make to these people? You know, we’re not entertainers. Well, I mean we’re doing it to illustrate a point. So now in some cases we are crafting a story. The goal is higher. To get it on paper, to write it down. But you’re right in many cases is just, Hey, what’s your story? Where are you from? You know, it’s sharing that information and some of the people listening are probably thinking, well yeah, but you Kelly are probably an extrovert. And where we are introverts and it’s a lot harder for us. So I do want to say that I am not an extrovert. I am actually an introvert. And for most of my life, if you looked at me, I would turn beet red. I was way more comfortable on a stage even than walking off and having to talk to people. And to this day, the idea of walking through a room full of people that I don’t know and stopping table to table and chatting with them absolutely makes me physically sick. I learned how to be more extroverted. So if I can do it, so can you. And you can just learn these little ways to just have the courage to come out of your shell a little bit. But don’t just say you can’t do it because you’re not an extrovert. I had to because of my job, I had to learn how to, how to do that and find those little areas forever. You know where you’re just, you’re, you’re asking people about their outfit or their shirt. Maybe they’ve got a sports thing on their shirt. I remember I was, so I’m derailing, but this has been the last thing I said. But I remember one time that I had to go to- there were all the heads of all these big departments in a hospital and like head of cardiology and just all heads and stuff and their spouses and I was speaking the next day and they said, come to the party and just mingle, mingle and oh, it was so miserable. I stood, I spent the whole night in two places, one beside the waiter because I felt more comfortable talking to the staff and the second in the bathroom because I finally figured out that at some point everybody had to go to the bathroom and it was easier for me to make conversation. Now maybe a female that’ll work, maybe, you know, but it’s, so I get it. That is something that you have to think about and put into action. But when you see the benefits, when you see people get excited about your idea, when you see them sharing their own stories. We did an exercise, I guess online with a bunch of leaders within an organization and they all worked in different states and countries. And I made them all just tell a little personal experience story about why their job matters to them. A little story about, about their brand, the company where they saw the company’s values in action. And then I had them tell another story about a customer, someone they, that they got to experience getting the benefit of what they do and they grumbled and they fought the process and then we all got online and shared them. Jenn, it was the most amazing -people were crying people like, I never knew that about you. I never knew you were a foster kid and I never knew that happened to you. And oh, and they were just sharing these heartfelt stories. They walked away just a much stronger team because of it. It was a beautiful thing to see. Teambuilding Through Storytelling Jenn DeWall:                      And I think that’s an important thing to share because, for those that may be thinking, this is a little bit too emotional, right? Emotions are what can help build that team. They can build that foundation of understanding. And so even taking that time to be a little bit more human to a little bit more real, can it create an expectation for people that it’s okay to talk about who we are, to talk about our struggles, talk about our successes, to share that with each other. And that when we do that we’re able to understand and see that their point of view in a different way so we can communicate in a more effective way. So it’s essentially saying that if we take that time upfront to think about storytelling, to think about that connection piece, we are actually improving the relationships, we’re likely improving our ability to negotiate, we’re improving our ability to make decisions together. We’re improving our ability to create a strategy together because we’re understanding the different points of view. Right? And that’s one of the biggest challenges with decision-making is that when we have that big idea, it’s ours and we love it and we want it. And I know I fall victim to this all the time. You really want your idea to work. But what is really important to recognize is that there’s value in someone else’s piece of feedback. And the more that you understand that person, the more that you can actually take that feedback as something tangible and something that can actually help make something better. Instead of it being a piece of feedback that divides you. Kelly Swanson:                  It’s so amazing, isn’t it? Beautifully said. And, and also it helps when we get really deep into this with story to step out of it for a moment, step out of business. Because we’re like, Oh my God, look what it can do in business. Now, step out of it. And for those of you listening, think about your culture. Think about your faith, think about your history, think about your life. And look how much throughout history stories have been used. They have been integral parts of our culture, our faith. People have been moved by stories. When I teach my son history, it’s not the facts on the page that get him really invested in it. It’s when we go to the battleground and he hears the stories of the people who were there. It’s almost like this tool has been around since the beginning of time. It’s power has already been made evident. I know that sounds weird, but sometimes when you step outside of it and look at how and all these, I mean the power of our words to get people rallied around a vision. I mean that at the end of the day is, is all most of us have. That’s all these politicians really, you know, have at the end of the day is what story are they going to tell? Jenn DeWall:                      Right? And how can they connect to people and use that story to persuade an influence. Kelly Swanson:                  Look on social media. What are we sharing the most? What’s going viral other than the hate stuff? It’s the, it’s the stories. It’s the stories. I mean the guy talking with this little, the little story of the guy talking with his toddler, having that whole conversation. I mean, the thing’s been shared a bazillion times you see, I mean that’s what we even share the most people love to. They just love the stories. Jenn DeWall:                      They want to see themselves in there. And I think, you know, stories give hope. They give us a different point of view that they help us see the world in a different way that’s not unnecessarily so jaded as it can be. Sometimes when we only see that negative news or the bad things that are happening. Story is a way that we can actually find the beautiful things that are all around us. Putting a Human Face on the Work You Do Kelly Swanson:                  I was watching a group of scientists pitch their products internally in their company to get people, the business owners, and sellers to sell that product. And one by one they just came up and droned on with data and facts and information and people were falling asleep and nobody was paying attention. And then one guy gets up and he says, you know, I’m not going to talk about how we put this together. You know, he goes, I just want to talk about why it matters so much to me. And he just told a 5-10 minute story about why. He put a human face on the work that he does on himself, on the people, how they would be able to benefit from this product he created. And they talked about him for two days and for years, he’s the only one later that, that any of us can remember anything he said. Wow. And it’s all from the store. It’s all from the story. Jenn DeWall:                      Well, Kelly, this has been an amazing interview and the one I want to ask a few more things, but one, I know that you talk about the leadership story, which is essentially I think from my understanding, it’s that story that we want to tell has a leader and I know that you have a story template to guide people on that. Can you tell us a little bit about why it’s important to have our own personal leadership story? Kelly Swanson:                  I think a leadership story is the story that it’s your own vision and your own mission of who you want to be as a leader. The harder part is turning it, making it into story form instead of just a list of, I want to be a leader who I want to be a leader, who I want to be a leader who, but it’s almost the, it’s just like, I think every employee should have a story of how the work that they do matters to themselves, to the company and to the customers they serve. Does that make sense to you when I say that? Okay, so the leader is no different. The leader has the, you know, it’s my own leader story of the work I do and why it matters to me personally, the company and to the people we serve. Now, where are you going to use it? Is it a one size fits all? Is it something you know that those are all different questions. It’s not as easy as you need to have this one story and every Monday you’re going to know. It’s just, even if it’s just something you have in your head, I think to your people. Let’s say you’re a new leader and you’re in front of an entire group of people you’ve never met before. I think you will be benefited by getting up and being able to, in the beginning say, let me just sort of tell you my story. I grew up on a small farm and my grandfather ,you know, or whatever, I remember my first job at, or I worked at this company from something that tells the story and this is what I believe, you know, of what you believe in, why it matters. Is that making sense? Even if don’t know exactly where you would ever tell it. But, but I think sharing it with your people because now you’re not just a boss or a talking head and now even more importantly, you’re not the story they wrote for you. You know, it’s hard with, they wrote a story to now meet this person. Is that making sense? It’s kind of like with law enforcement, they always say it with their, we’re changing our story because sometimes a negative story gets written, right? And so how do we fix it? You go tell a positive one. You flood social media, which they’re doing with the police. I am the face. I am the, you know each story it puts, well now, now I can’t be mad at them all because look at that one. Dancing with the little kids on the street when he came back or look at that one who got pizzas for the ladies. Do you see what I’m saying? It it. I don’t know. I’ve talked myself into a wall. I’m not sure if I answered your question but, but I think we should have that. I have a whole- I called it my mission, but who am I as a speaker and why is this work important to me. And who do I want to be? I guess I could make it more of a story. I do have a story because I talk about being the picked-on kid growing up- and how I’ve spent most of my life feeling invisible and thinking that that to be happy, you needed to blend in and that you should be seen and not heard, that your voice doesn’t matter. And now look at me, I’m in a place where I’m encouraging people to tell your story and share it with the world because I want to let you know your voice does matter and you aren’t invisible. We see you. So that would be a great example right there of just a simple, my own leadership story. Not that great, but you know you’re putting me on the spot. Jenn DeWall:                      I mean that’s a powerful story though. How many of us have been told, whether it’s the expression children should be seen and not heard or just believing that our voices don’t matter. Storytelling gives us the opportunity to illustrate that our voices do have value. Our life experience has a value and we can use it to connect not only with our current team, but also in onboarding to set expectations with people so they can understand who you are and what you said- to really establish that trust. Kelly Swanson:                  And the woman with the mop. One could say, if I wanted to, I could say that’s one of my leadership stories. You know? I could say that day, I watched that- I’m kind of making it up pretending like I work at the hospital- but that day I watched that woman and she showed me what is important and how I believe we all should act. Do you see what I’m saying? And you could say that’s the kind of leader I want to be. You know, you could, you could use these stories that you see around you as part of your own story. Again, it’s why you do the work that you do and why it matters to you personally. It’s putting a human face on who this leader is that’s in front of them. Think About Your Leadership Story Jenn DeWall:                      So as like a call to action. Kind of in closing to our listeners, think about your leadership story. Think about what you want people to know about you and how by being a little bit more vulnerable, you can create a deeper connection that can allow you to work together to achieve greater things. Kelly Swanson:                  Sure. And I would also say think about specifically somebody you’re trying to influence. Is it a team? Think of a specific instance and think specifically of this, maybe, for example, you’ve got a team that’s low on morale and they don’t believe that their work really matters and you want them to know their work really does matter to the bigger picture. And so then and so that would be, think of the message you want to say. Think of who you’re trying to influence, what’s the message you want to give them? And then I would ask yourself, huh, is there a story that could illustrate this? Where have I seen this play out in life before? Where have I learned that? And then you could give up just like I did with a woman with a mop. We see it play out with her in the hospital lobby, but you could find some kind of example. So, it really is more a state of awareness of starting to look at all the places where you have touchpoints with the people that you serve and want to influence and, and how are you going to do that? Jenn DeWall:                      That’s beautiful. I love that. Kelly Swanson:                  Right? Yeah, it’s broad though. It’s hard to whittle it down to a strategy and it’s a tool that, I mean, it’s like a hammer, you know? So I say, what do I do with my hammer first? Well, I don’t know. Are you going to build a house? You know, do you need, I mean, what are you trying to do is where, where it starts next. I just don’t want people to forget about this tool. We have states now, in IT that are hiring Chief Storytelling officers. I mean, you’ve got companies who, their theme for the year is storytelling. It is a very popular word right now. So I think even if you take it back and go, you know what, we’re gonna go deeper into this and we’re going to discuss how we can be more strategic with our storytelling because this isn’t- okay go do this on Monday and you’re done. It’s too broad. Jenn DeWall:                      This is something that’s woven into what you do. Kelly Swanson:                  yes, yes. What is Your Leadership Habit? Jenn DeWall:                      And I know we are going to share with the listeners some ways that they can further connect with you, gain access to some of the materials that you have written that can help that become more compelling storytellers. So you know, make sure to everyone listening that you stay tuned to hear our directions because Kelly is going to share with you seven additional ways or tools that you can use to help you craft your story. Now galley, we like to close each of our podcasts with one question that we ask every individual that we, Oh I know. Brace yourself. Ready? What is your leadership habit for success? Kelly Swanson:                  Well give me a minute because this is important. Well, I mean, I would have to say no, that’s unfair because storytelling has been my secret weapon from day one. I mean that is every door that is opened for me. Everywhere that I’ve gotten in life, every changed life, every opportunity big and small has been because I have put time and attention into the stories that I tell. I have to say it’s the, it’s the storytelling that has been my secret weapon. Sorry I didn’t have anything more exciting. Jenn DeWall:                      That is exciting! I know you’re saying you’re like, Oh, I should probably say I run 5 miles every morning or something. Storytelling takes, it requires us to be intentional and to really think about the message that we want to have. The message that we want to send, and who we want to send it to. So it does require more upfront work. So it is a leadership habit. Kelly Swanson:                  Oh, it totally is! Jenn DeWall:                      But when we do that, you can find all of you, it seems like you’re writing consistent success stories everywhere you go, just by doing that upfront, work on having and paying attention to the story that you’re writing. Kelly Swanson:                  It’s about influence. And people don’t buy information. They buy the story. The one who tells the best story wins. Not really, but some people say that in marketing and stuff, but it’s, it’s, it’s, I can’t express to you how important it is if you want to have an impact on people To not just rely on the facts. Facts don’t- facts tell, but stories sell. Jenn DeWall:                      That’s a great closing point facts tell, but stories sell. So thank you so much for being here, Kelly. It was so great to interview you. And again, stay tuned. We’re going to give additional information on how you can access Kelly, how you can gain additional resources so you can become a great storyteller. Thank you so much, Kelly. Kelly Swanson:                  Hey, thanks for having me and thanks to you all for listening. I appreciate it. Now, go tell your story. Jenn DeWall:                      Thank you for joining us for today’s conversation with Kelly Swanson. If you’d like to learn more about Kelly, go to motivationalspeakerkellyswanson.com. You can download a copy of her book, The Story Formula, so you can go out and learn and understand how you can write impactful and influential stories. If you enjoyed our podcast, please share it with your friends and family and be sure to leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service. We hope to see you again next week as we discuss more “work fails” in our new minisode series!   The post Episode 18: The Power of Storytelling with Kelly Swanson appeared first on Crestcom International.

The Leadership Habit Podcast Minisode Series: Work Fails Hi everyone, it’s Jenn DeWall and I am so excited to announce that The Leadership Habit Podcast is starting a new series of minisodes about Work Fails, Work Fails! We’ve all had experiences when things did not go as planned in the workplace, but people don’t talk about it. And great leaders know that failure is a part of life and eventual success depends on how we handle situations and learn from them. So we decided to talk to people about real-life examples of when things didn’t go as planned, to understand how they handled it, what they learned from the experience and what advice they would share to help others that may be facing similar situations or to help them understand maybe potential pitfalls to avoid or prevent the same type of work fails that they may have had. Today we are talking to Jenny bridges, Marketing Director at Crestcom. She shares with us her work fails from her career in event planning and her time at a marketing agency. Enjoy!  Marketing Director Jenny Bridges Shares her Work Fails Jenn DeWall:                      Hi, everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall and I am so excited to be talking to Jenny Bridges today! We are kicking off our leadership series on work fails. Jenny is here today to share her experience of failures that she’s made throughout her career, mistakes that she’s made, how she’s learned from them, and how she has overcome them. So hopefully, you can learn from her to either avoid maybe making those same mistakes or at least not give yourself so much of a punishment for making them. Jenny, thank you so much for coming on the show. We are so excited to have you because we know that every leader has a fail. We all have work fails. Jenny Bridges:                   Oh, yes, I’ve had plenty. I think from every career I’ve had, there’s always, whether it’s major or minor, there’s still something you can learn. So I don’t look at failure as this big blown up cost- your-job type of mistake. I think I look at it as I could have done better and I have a learning from this. Take that learning and then move forward. Jenn DeWall:                      I love that! It’s about looking back and saying, “what could I have done better?” And I know that that’s something that you and I are relatively around the same age, so we’ve had a few years in our careers to at least see that things do get better. But to those that are listening, that are new in their careers, know that this is an opportunity to learn from someone that’s already been there. So Jenny, what are your work fails? I know we’re going to talk about a few on the show, but which one stands out for you or which one would you like to start with? Event Planning Goes Awry Jenny Bridges:                   I have a few, and I always try to think of trying to build up upon it. I did event planning, my gosh probably 10-12 years ago, ten years ago at this point. And if anybody knows event planning, it’s a super, super stressful job. I think it ranks in the top 10, like one of the top 10 most stressful jobs there is. Which sounds funny, because I think people always think of event planning as like, Oh my gosh, it’s this sexy job. Like you do put on these big productions and all this stuff and it’s like none of that. Jenn DeWall:                      You think of event planning like, it’s so fun. You get to do this, and you get secret access in these events – Jenny Bridges:                   It’s all the glitz and glam, and it’s so much hard work behind the scenes. I always reference it like a duck on water. Like you look really calm on the surface, but like underneath you’re like legs are going a hundred miles an hour, you’re super stressed out. And there was travel on top of it. So that made it also super stressful. So one small fail I had which I’ll start with that and like build upon as I did an event out in Oakland, but I had to drive from Bakersville to Oakland. So that’s like a six-hour drive. So I’m trying to remember – I flew in early, I did an event, and then I ended up driving late and got to the hotel at like 10:00 PM and part of our job- it sounds minute- but it’s like printing name badges. So we carried these like little name badge printers with us and it’s a big deal. Because if you’re trying on-site, you can’t really go drive somewhere and print them off, so you always just bring it with you. So you bring a lot of stuff. We call ourselves schleppers. It’s like you carry all of this equipment. You bring like suitcases, and you travel with like five laptops. So it’s kind of annoying to travel with all that. So I remember it was like maybe 11:00 PM or something and I was getting ready for the morning so I’d be there at like 7:00 AM and then I was going to print the name badges. There’s probably like 200 so I pulled out the printer, I pulled up my computer and then we had like these little travel kits with us. I have all the cords and things we need and I’m like digging through and there’s no cord. Jenn DeWall:                      No! Jenny Bridges:                   So I’m like, shoot. How am I going to print these name badges? I’m in a hotel in the middle of nowhere. Like I, what am I going to do? So then I started like stressing out because I’m also with my boss and I have to be there at like 7:00 AM. And there’s no like FedEx or print place. And they printed really weird on word docs, and you had to peel them off. So I was like, I don’t want to like just do the names like handwritten, which I could have done at the end. So I basically went down to like the front desk and I was asking them, do you have like a computer? I don’t think I had a laptop back then, but I was like I just need to get on your word system. And had to ask the hotel staff to let me get on their computer, and then  I was able to print off the Name badges. So it sounds like not a big deal but it was like 11 o’clock at night, I had been up for what felt like a day and a half and I was able to print it. But the fail was like you’re super detailed as an event planner and you always have to make sure you have all of your stuff. And that’s like one of my biggest pet peeves is not being prepared and I didn’t double-check that kit. Our front office person always packed it. I didn’t check for it. I just assumed it was in there. So the hard lesson for me is like always double-checking everybody else’s work or just what they’re packing. So it’s just not relying on everybody. I think for me, it was like not relying on anybody else saying they did it just to make sure. So like for me, I just, every event after that, I had like triple checked everything, especially if you went overseas because you can’t go by like those certain things out there. We even took a big name badge printer with us to Columbia because of reasons like that. So it was super stressful, but it went fine. So for me, it was just more of just like failing at my job and making sure that I was prepared. So it was a little fail. So yeah, it could have had bigger consequences to show up and not have any name tags for 200 people. You’re like, “sorry!”. That’s like the first thing- event planning 101, right? Jenn DeWall:                      I’m sure there are plenty of people that are listening to this that can think of how they might’ve made one small mistake, or they might’ve forgotten to double-check something. But then the consequence of not doing that ended up just increasing their stress tenfold and pausing that shift into panic mode when you know maybe for the next time if they could if they did do the triple-checking and looking at that, and they could hopefully alleviate or avoid that in the future. That’s a good one because we can beat ourselves up for that. Jenny Bridges:                   And I think it’s simple, and it’s easy to overlook those types of things, and it’s just more of just being prepared and accountable for yourself to make sure those things are there. Because it’s easy just to trust everybody else is doing their job as well as yours. And so it’s just like a small oversight but can have like a big impact is kind of how I looked at it. Jenn DeWall:                      If you’re the one that has to take full responsibility for something because you’re the one that’s going to the event, you have to take responsibility for ensuring everything is there, too. Jenny Bridges:                   It would kind of-  it’d be my fault. I wouldn’t be able to say like X forgot to pack it. Like that’s my job too. Jenn DeWall:                      So I think there’s ownership in there too. A lesson about ownership of what we do own versus how sometimes it’s easy to point fingers. And at that moment I can only imagine the frustration that would’ve come with being like, why didn’t they just pack this one? I’m so frustrated. But then at the end of the day, you’re the one that’s ultimately responsible for doing it. Jenny Bridges:                   Well. And if anything about leadership, in general, is like a big part of that is accountability. Like and saying like I have a piece or a part in this and I own it. And so I think you always have to own those things and be able to say like, yeah, I made a mistake, learn from it and then like move on past it. When Problems are out of Your Control Jenny Bridges:                   So this is a crazy story. The next one. So I’ll try to like truncate it down cause it’s kind of long. But I’m in the same place I was doing event planning for before, and I had a client out in California and we were doing an energy company’s event.  So we were out in the Redwood Forest, setting up an event and doing lunch and then a tour of the facility. There was no cell phone service. So my bosses couldn’t get ahold of me. It’s just a co-event planner and me. And we had a tent company come in and set up. The lunch is going on and then, I can’t remember what point of the day my client came to me and pulled me aside and asked me, “you hired the tent company, right?” And I said, “yeah.” And he’s like, “are they a reputable company?” And I was like, “well, yeah,” I just got them from the list of vendors in California for event tents that would actually come up into the forest and set the tents up. And everything, you know, it’s fine. I asked the client what was going on, and he told me that after the tent company left, the drivers went back down the mountain. There was a school somewhere, like a middle school, and they had stopped to use the restroom and had harassed one of the teachers there. And so it was like a big deal because the company that we were doing the event for, didn’t want, doesn’t want bad press. They’ve had experiences with that in the past. So even though it had nothing to do with us in general, but because I had hired them, it was this big issue. So I asked the client, “well, what do you want me to do?” It has nothing to do with our event that is taking place. It was just more of ok, let’s control what we can. So my concern was making sure he was okay with everything and then making sure the event went smoothly and that nobody knows what’s going on. So he’s agreed, “let’s just focus on the event.” I think he was more worried about like bad PR for their company even though it technically wasn’t tied to the event specifically. It was just the association that I hired them. So the event went great. Like no issues. Great. So I didn’t call my bosses during that whole thing. My job was to make sure the client is happy and the event is taking place and the attendees are taken care of. That was my focus. And working with my counterpart that was supporting me. So we get done with the event, we go back down the mountain by bus with the clients. The air conditioning on the bus breaks- also can’t control that. So with all that stress during the event, and then that happens. So we have the driver stop at a gas station, get water, and it was really hot. It was the middle of summer, and it was just one of those things where you think, can one more thing happen, you know? But they were all really nice and in good spirits. When we finally got back to the client’s office, everyone was like, thank you, for everything. It was still great, so the mood was positive, right? But then as we were getting back down the mountain, my coworker was like, “the two owners are calling me- and they are pissed because they had heard about what had happened.” So they were really upset with me that I didn’t call like stop in the middle of that and called even though I don’t know what they were going to do about it. So they said it was like, Jenn DeWall:                      You didn’t have cell reception anyways, right? Jenny Bridges:                   Yeah, well, I could’ve found one- there was a phone on site. So we had to take the red-eye back to Colorado and then I had to be back at my office at like 7:00 AM, and I got like an ear full of how it was my responsibility to tell the owners what was happening. If there was bad press that would’ve leaked. They said that for some reason, helicopters were flying over the event. So there was just like all this upset- and it was one of their preferred clients. So there was just all this pressure for them to want to handle it. So I looked at it as a fail because maybe I could have alerted them. You know, in a way, I’m not sure what they would’ve done at the time. My job was more about responsibility for the client and the customer experience at that point. But it was more like something I learned in the client relationship space was just like they come first- but also even though I sometimes think other people don’t need to know something, maybe they do from that standpoint. But you know, it’s hard too because I had to learn a hard lesson from them and the responsibilities they look for, and they’re like lead event planners. So just a really strange like event to like try to like handle. And make sure the guests got taken care of, the client was happy. And then to have something completely out of your control like happen. Jenny Bridges:                   And it’s a weird thing to have happen, but nothing like came out in the press about it. For the client, you know, there was all this like nervousness of it, but like nothing happened, but it was just more, they looked at it like I fail to like bring them into the conversation and like handle it even though in my head I had handled it. So for me, it was just like, okay, you know, next time like consider those things and maybe make a five-minute conversation or call to avoid like the conflict or what I had to deal with when I like got back. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, there’s a lot there and especially when you don’t have the jacked responsibility because of the things happening out of your control. But it sounds like there’s also that little bit of a learning of, Jenny Bridges:                   Okay, when I, as I can tell high-pressure situations, how do you handle them? Jenn DeWall:                      Or also how do you take into consideration the point of view of another party when you’re making decisions of understanding that to you? Like everything was under control, but then maybe if you were like, wait, how could they potentially see this? But you don’t know that. I think that’s also tied to our ability when we’re earlier on in our career, I don’t think, because college doesn’t prepare us for this I don’t think we’re conditioned to think about big picture things. Jenny Bridges:                   You’re just in the moment. You can’t think like past like, well if I don’t do this, this, this. You’re more likely just thinking, what’s my immediate job right now? That’s how I thought at the moment I’m not like, Oh well, what technically could happen? Cause it’s too stressful, I think. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah. And so taking that big picture thinking, you know, if you are in those situations where something does happen out of your control, maybe then asking the question like who else would potentially need to know this or be bothered if they didn’t know about this. And we use that and the more that we ask those questions about who else are we serving, the more that it can help us. Learning from Your Mistakes Jenny Bridges:                   And that’s kind of how I looked at it like from their perspective. But it took me a while to get there because I thought, given the circumstances like it was handled really well. So I did struggle with it at the time because I don’t feel, I didn’t feel like I did anything wrong. But then when I, I think even when I reflect back now or it’s like after I left that job I was like, well from their point of view they probably want to be able to handle like higher-level conversations or press if it came their way. And so I think they felt like it took so long for them to find out mostly because there wasn’t cell service. And other things happening that they wanted to be like at the forefront of it and not reactive. So for them to be able to, like if somebody would call or said something, why we were still at the event, they were like, they knew about it. Not like what, I don’t, you know, it wasn’t coming out of nowhere. So I got that. But I think other underlying circumstances made it harder. Just maybe the way they handled the conversation and things like that that made it difficult versus like, Hey, great job in handling a very stressful situation that like is very weird. Like that’s just like a weird story, it sounds like I made it up but that was a strange experience. But I finally understood kind of what their point was. So now I try to think of what I’m trying to handle. Certain things like am I the last person that needs to know or like who in the circle might need to know to your point of like they might, it might help me if this person is informed of X. Does that make sense? Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, absolutely. And how do you think, I mean emotionally I can only imagine coming back and just the. Jenny Bridges:                   Terrible. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, how conflicted you probably were, how frustrated you probably were like knowing like, Hey, I think I did everything that I could, but now. Jenny Bridges:                   I was deflated, I feel like at the time. And it was probably because we took the red-eye and got back so late and then you get up and then you know, you’re going in to have a really hard conversation where you’re not being, it’s more of like you’re looking at them, they’re looking at you as like you’re at fault. You didn’t do enough when you really felt like you did the best you could for that very weird scenario. So it’s hard at the time. Jenn DeWall:                      It’s a difficult spot. I know you have one more fail. When You Just Didn’t Listen Jenny Bridges:                   Yeah. This one was a past job where I worked at an agency and I think I just like track this one up to just being able to listen and you know, we were trying to produce a video for a client, and they weren’t very comfortable spending a large chunk of money on a brand video and we just kept trying to drive like our story home and then we thought we knew what was right and that, you know, part of your job working in marketing agencies and still be at the client and you know, in a way help them understand that you really do know their business at the end of they, they know their business better than you. And I think we kept wanting to sell an idea so bad that we weren’t really listening to the things that the client was saying that wasn’t working for her. And so I think it was my responsibility as like the client lead to hear her and understand that she was telling me even it might’ve been like subtle that this is not what she wants. And we kept forcing the idea and then we didn’t end up doing the video at fry, the relationship with the client. I think it affected me and like my ability to like, like do that job well with that account and grow that account kind of went stagnant and then that relationship was kind of frayed and that’s where the first time and like the, you know, for years I worked there that I felt like I had made like a big mistake with the client. So it was really hard to go through that. And with her, I’d have a lot of conversations where I had to basically, what’s that term, eat crow? What is it that people say? When you have to like basically like eat your mistake and be like, yeah, I messed up. I didn’t do right. You know, so I had to have two conversations with her. I basically had to, and that’s hard just to be like, yeah, we’re, we’re wrong. You know? And she did have a role in it for sure. But like our job is to like listen and be able to know when to say like you’re right, let’s move a different direction. And that, you know, it was hard to do that cause I blamed mostly myself even though there was a team of us for not being able to hear that. So that was a hard pill to swallow. Jenn DeWall:                   What do you think the takeaway would be? I mean the one obvious one I think is maybe, you know, practice being an active listener and especially if you’re in a situation like that where you’re solutioning like listen, so you can grab that key information instead of maybe because I think sometimes we get so excited about our solution that we don’t necessarily want to hear it because it doesn’t align with our solution. So it sounds like there’s a few different lessons. Like there’s listening, there’s a little bit about suspending our ego to trust that like, Hey, maybe this is a learning opportunity. It’s not an opportunity where our expertise is necessarily relevant based on what we’re hearing. Accepting Responsibility and Moving On Jenny Bridges:                   I think that a lot of that is relevant. I think it was, you know, active listening. But I also think it’s really hard when you’re trying to actively listen to a client that isn’t super direct because they’re not telling you- don’t do this. And then when you did ask questions, they still said yes. So that’s where a lot of the water, I would say it was muddied with that circumstance but knowing like you know how long the process got drawn out, there were more like little clues in there. I should have been more aware of them that I wasn’t looking at.  So I think you know, slowing down to like we were trying to like build in this tight timelines. There was a lot of like little points where it’s like if I would have slowed down or if I would’ve brought in maybe like other senior leaders to have conversations and you know, kept trying to, like I kept trying to just drive it instead of just take a step back and be like, I don’t feel like this is right. I think there were like other things I was maybe ignoring to your point of like we didn’t want to hear it because we wanted to do the project so bad. And it’s hard because that’s your job like as anybody in client relations is an advertising agency, your job is like the client and the partner in listening and relationships. So when you make a mistake in that area, it’s kind of like, it’s hard to swallow and be like, Ooh, that’s my job and I didn’t do it very well and it affected the relationship, you know? And I took a lot of blame on myself for that and then I kind of actually reevaluated like should I step away from that role for a while because you know, and that was the only mistake that I felt was like a big one in like, you know, five years at that place. So that was a hard one for me. Jenn DeWall:                      Did you end up stepping away from that role? Jenny Bridges:                   No. Jenn DeWall:                      I think that’s great because that’s, you know, there’s also the piece of we all are going to make mistakes, and at the moment it might feel so uncomfortable that all you want to do is leave that role. But trust that it does turn around, that there is an opportunity to learn from your experience and modify and keep going and find success. Would you agree with that? Jenny Bridges:                   Yeah, and I think, you know, I was really hard on myself at first, but then you, you know, you peel back a little bit, and you understand you can’t control your clients anymore. That you can control all your things, so like you can only do so much. And you know, we did, we did have a lot of conversations suggesting other things and trying to like, you know, make it right and have different ideas too. You know we had, we said we owned it, you know, and that’s a lot of agencies won’t do that either. So, you know, I think we did meet them halfway to try to course-correct. And that in the end, it just didn’t work out. And sometimes to have that happens, it just, your relationship with other clients phase-out. So it’s just harder to like have that happen when you have like a really good relationship before. But that’s the nature of like that the agency world anyways. So. Jenn DeWall:                      You shared so many great tips and tools. Hey, but we all make mistakes. That’s the whole point of this series is to show people that mistakes happen. But there are always lessons that are mistakes that when we learn from them, we can be that much higher successful, have a greater impact down the road. And you’ve shared quite a few different ones from preparation to, you know, thinking about the big picture and who would need to be involved to slowing down to listening. Jenny Bridges:                   It’s a good summary. Jenn DeWall:                      You shared a lot of great insights. I think just reminding ourselves that we all need these little messages. We know that listening is important, but here are the things, here are some of the consequences that can happen when we don’t listen. And how can we all learn from you to be more informed when we approach something? Because every person that we meet is our teacher and student, and we can all learn from each other. So I thank you so much for being vulnerable and sharing your work fails because we all have them. It’s not a matter of whether we have them; it’s just a matter of how we deal and learn with them. So thank you so much for sharing your story. Jenny Bridges:                   You’re welcome. Thanks, Jenn. Thank you for listening to today’s Work Fails Minisode! If you enjoyed the episode, please share it with your friends and family. And don’t forget to write us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service. Until next time! The post Minisode 1: Work Fails with guest Jenny Bridges appeared first on Crestcom International.

Finding Success in 2020 Happy New Year! We are excited to be in 2020 and know you have plans and goals for everything you want to accomplish to make sure that the year is meaningful and successful for you! To support you in that goal, on today’s episode of The Leadership Habit Podcast, we’re talking with Marilyn Sherman, the founder of Front Row Leadership, Crestcom faculty member, author, and hall of fame speaker. Marilyn will share insight on how you as a leader can create your seat of success in 2020! You will not want to miss her four tips on how you can accelerate your growth in 2020. Enjoy! Jenn DeWall:                      Hi, everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall here again with The Leadership Habit, and today I am interviewing Marilyn Sherman. She is the founder of Front Row Leadership, and she’s a hall of fame speaker. On top of that, she’s the author of four personal development and leadership books. I’m sure you can tell by my enthusiasm, but I am so excited to have Marilyn here on the show today. Thank you so much for joining us on the leadership habit, Marilyn. We are so lucky to have you. Marilyn Sherman:            Hi, Jenn! I’m so happy to be here. Jenn DeWall:                      Oh my gosh, yes. Yeah. Let’s get this going. I know we’ve got a great show that’s planned for today, but for those of our listeners that don’t maybe know you, could you share a little bit about who you are, front row leadership, and what you do as a speaker and as an author? Marilyn Sherman:            Well, I came out of the corporate world to follow my passion and my dream to be a motivational speaker helping people get out of their comfort zone and live their life in the front row. So for the last 20 plus years, I’ve been inspiring audiences to determine what it is that they really want in their business, in their leadership, and in their life. And so I came up with this concept of living your life in the front row. And I wrote a book about living life in the front row. And I speak about from our leadership, and I’m, I often talk about the seat of success because I truly believe that the most successful people out there are people who are intentional about where they sit and who they sit with. So that’s what I love to talk about, and that’s what I’ve been doing for a really long time. What is Front Row Leadership? Jenn DeWall:                      And we are going to talk about the Seat of Success on today’s podcast. And I know our listeners will love it for those that maybe don’t understand what Front Row is, what does it mean to be a “front-row “leader? Marilyn Sherman:            Okay. So imagine you’re at a particular venue where there’s like red ropes separating the VIP section from everybody else, and you’re escorted down. You go beyond those ropes to sit in that section. And you are treated with white-glove service, and they call you by your name and they thank you for being there and they ask you, is there anything else you need? And you sit down going, “Oh man, it doesn’t get any better than this.” That to me is literally a front-row experience, but you and I can have front row experiences, front row moments at any time in our life. Like if I were to ask you, you know, name a time in your life where you said it doesn’t get any better than this. It could be the day you walked down the aisle and made everybody laugh because of how fun and funny your wedding was. Marilyn Sherman:            Right? Or it could be the day you got the promotion in your job. Then people valued you, and they excelled, or they saw how much you Excel in your position. That would be a federal moment because there are a lot of people who are not so enthusiastic, they’re not so focused on a particular direction and they settle for what I would call general admission seats or even worse balcony seats. Jenn DeWall:                   They are barely present. Marilyn Sherman:            Oh yeah, they are so disengaged. If they’re in the balcony, they’re so disengaged. If they can leave their balcony seat and come back and no one would ever notice that they have left. That’s how disengaged you are in a balcony seat. And those are the people who they like, they show up maybe on time, maybe not, you know, they never volunteer for anything. They never throw their hat in the ring. They never suggest ideas. They’re just totally disengaged. And that brings down the whole culture of any team, any organization, any environment. So that’s, that’s why I’m so passionate about helping people find their purpose, discover their purpose, and then go for it. Jenn DeWall:                      I love that. I mean, it’s such a beautiful way, and I think that our listeners can probably ask themselves like, why? Where are you sitting? Where Are You Sitting? Marilyn Sherman:            Exactly? Where are you sitting right now? Because you and I wear lots of different hats. Like we have our health chair, our relationship chair, our work chair, our spiritual chair, our attitude chair. We have chairs all over the place. So for each one of those chairs, you can say, “okay, am I in the front row, general admission, or balcony of each of these areas?” And it’s funny, I spoke at a country club association, and I got a call from one of the attendees like two months later and just said, “Marilyn, I need to give you some feedback because after your front-row leadership speech, I went home and I had a conversation with my wife and I said, honey, we’re living in the front row aren’t we?” And he explained to her what the concept was. He learned from my speech and together, they decided that they had sort of set, got set in their ways and started living in their comfort zone. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great and it wasn’t exciting. So together, they decided what would front row to them be, and they decided it was an Alaskan cruise of all things right. They got so excited, they went on the cruise, they sent me a postcard and he said, “We had so much fun. We were so outside of our comfort zone. We were just living our life in the front row and we’ve already booked our second cruise.” So that’s just an example of just being aware of where you’re sitting in your life and choosing to sit in a better seat. Jenn DeWall:                      I love that, that there’s a choice in it. That you at the end of the day get to choose where you sit in your life, where you sit in your career if you’re up in the balcony and, or general admission or front row. No. Do you think that there’s a lot of people that are in the balcony? Cause I think at first when you describe balcony, you might think that those disengaged people maybe love being there, but I wouldn’t, you know, that’s not necessary to know. How do you see that? You Choose Your Seat of Success Marilyn Sherman:            Here’s the deal with people that are living and working in the balcony. They allow fear, intimidation, lack of confidence, and lack of courage to believe that that’s the seat that they deserve. So they have a low expectation of their own success. They say things like, well, I usually don’t get any opportunities. No one ever listens to me anyway. And you know what, I probably wouldn’t be a good manager, or you know what? I don’t think people will even like my idea so I’ll just keep it to myself, or I don’t have anything really a value to add cause people are going to question me and I’m going to not know the answer so you know what, I’m just going to be okay back here. So they, if you know me, you’ll know that whenever seat you’re in, you are in it because you chose to sit there. No one put you in a balcony. No one put you in general admission and no one’s going to hand you a front-row seat. You, you have to decide, you know what, there’s a chasm. There is a difference. There is a gap between where I am and where I want to be and I’m in charge of bridging that gap. What is the S.E.A.T. of Success? Jenn DeWall:                      Yes, today’s going to be such an amazing podcast. It’s all, you know, I mean it’s just really being intentional. We need to be more intentional. And you said it great. No one’s going to come there and hand you a ticket to the front row. That’s all on you. And what you want that to look like. And I think that ties into the topic you’re going to share with us, which is the S.E.A.T -and that’s an acronym- of success. I love a good acronym, don’t you? Yes, absolutely. Or, that coincides with your front row leadership. You guys can’t see it yet, but you’ll see it on our image. She’s got a chair that shows what it’s like, what you need to be in that seat of success. And I just think that this is a great time. There’s no better time to help people, you know, get back into that driver’s seat and control their success and recognize that this is an equal playing field. So long as you choose it, you can move from the balcony. Marilyn Sherman:            Here’s the deal. If you do not like your seat that you’re in and whether it be your relationship seat, your physical chair, that you know, the physical seat that you’re in. Your job chair, your position chair, even your own attitude chair, you have two choices. You either shift the perspective that you have about the chair that you’re in, or move to a different chair. And if you just take responsibility for that, you’re going to get a lot further in your life and in your career and in your relationship because you’re taking responsibility and accountability for the seat that you’re in. S: See Where You Want To Go Jenn DeWall:                      So let’s talk about that. The S.E.A.T of Success. What does that mean? Marilyn Sherman:            It obviously starts with the S for S.E.A.T, and that is to literally “see” where you want to go. See yourself in your ultimate front row. What does that look like? I can’t define your front row. No one can define what your front row is. You have to see it for yourself first. So I learned that from my mom and dad because they used to teach me all the time. There were eight kids, and my parents had eight kids in 10 years. So they showed me all the time how important it is to have a vision for your life. So they would sit us down and say, okay, where do you see yourself next week? How about next month? How about next year? How about five years? How about ten years? Where do you see yourself in your ultimate career goal? Where do you see yourself? What are your tombstone goals? Write them down. Let’s discuss this. I mean, it was a constant reminder of how important it is to see yourself, where you want to be in your life. So it was really ingrained in, in growing up. So that’s the, you want to have a seat of success. You have to see it first. Where do you see it? So that you will know if you’ve achieved it or not. Like, I wouldn’t want you to set a goal to be a better leader because that’s nebulous. That’s not as specific. You can’t say, well, yes I am, or no, I’m not because it’s so fluid. You would want to say; I want to be a leader where my staff will stay with me for ten years or more and they refer their friends to me. So we have a constant bench of people that want to work for me. Marilyn Sherman:            I mean, that’s an indicator of good management, good leadership, right? So you have to see what does success look like for you? What is a front-row seat look like for you in your relationship, in your job, with your leadership, with your business, with your spiritual walk, with your physical body, with your relationship you have with your spouse? What do you think gets in people’s way from being able to actually see the vision? Lack of the outcome you desire. I think a lot of people don’t understand how powerful it is to see it first and then have it become your reality. See, a lot of people have this mantra all believe it when I see it, and it’s actually, you’ll see it when you believe it. So if you believe, you know what, I deserve a front-row man in my life. In fact, this is what I did because I was single for seven years and I decided I’m going to practice what I preach. Marilyn Sherman:            And I literally wrote a list of everything I wanted in a man and came up with 356 traits on my list and then narrowed it down to the top 10, and in the top 10, he had to speak fluent French. So now I just celebrated 14 years of being married to Mr. Yves de Boisredon, and he is from France. I mean, like, who knew that you would put that on your bucket list? But I did, but I believed it because I believe that I deserve a front-row man in my life. And so this is, these are the traits that I want in this man. So I’ve manifested it. I think a lot of people believe that that’s a bunch of hooey. It’s hogwash. It’s not realistic. It’s like, Oh, please. And those people are fine. Just don’t ask me to have lunch with you because I don’t want to hang out with you. I want to hang out with people who have this belief that yes, you can have more in your life than you have right now. So I think that’s the number one thing is lack of belief that they deserve a front-row seat in their life and they can manifest it. Jenn DeWall:                      So powerful. How, how the heck do you see the vision? I mean, you listed a great way of thinking about how you were able to envision your now husband at 14 years. You identified over 350 traits, narrowed it down to 10; how do people create visions? Because there are some people that it might be really, really intimidating if they are maybe more like my husband, more analytical. It is really, really hard to start thinking and believing could happen that’s not actually in their present. Marilyn Sherman:            Well, what helped me growing up is I read a lot of biographies and autobiographies, and when you look at famous, successful people, people who are at the top of their game in their field, every single one of them has had some sort of adversity in their life that they had to overcome to be the first this or the first that. To be the most successful, this, or be the most powerful that, right? They all had to go through something. And so it takes away your excuses that if you say, well, I’m too poor. I live in too remote of a location, or I’m too female, or I’m too young, or I’m too old, or I’m too fat, I’m too thin, I’m too uneducated, I’m overqualified. Whatever excuse that has prevented you from achieving your dreams, I guarantee there’s someone out there who had that exact excuse, overcame it, and became a huge success despite that excuse. Jenn DeWall:                      So it’s your choice. You get to choose how much you let that excuse dictate. Marilyn Sherman:            So you, what you do to really make your vision, to create your vision is to sit back and reflect. What do you really want? What does success look like for you? What is your front row? Define it and then be on the lookout for people who are already there. People who have what you want and then read up on them, get to know them, read articles about them, read their book and you’ll realize, Oh my gosh, they did A, B, and C to get to where they are, and you know what I can do A,B and C too. So that’s how you create your vision. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah. Small steps. Breaking it down, get to know, educate yourself. And it’s also valuable in terms of really maximizing your fullest potential to truly have that front row experience in maximizing your own potential and what you can accomplish in your life. Marilyn Sherman:            In fact, my book is called, Why Settle for the Balcony? (How to get a Front-Row Seat in Life) E: Manage Your Energy Jenn DeWall:                      Yes. And to all of those that are just listening as I’m sitting here and probably thinking about more about myself, what can I do to be more of a front-row individual? I, you know, it can be really hard, but it is first just starting with the vision of where you want to be and maybe just breaking it down into those smaller steps. So let’s talk about the E. Marilyn Sherman:            Okay. The E is all about “Energy.” You need to focus your energy on those things that will move you toward your vision or your goal. You see, a lot of people talk about time management, and I say forget time management. Go for energy management because you only have so much energy. It’s a finite amount of energy every single day. So why waste one ounce of that valuable energy you have worrying about things that are out of your control? Fear, doubt, shame, insecurity, comparison to others. None of those things will help you achieve your goals and your vision. So don’t waste your time worrying about those things. And if you think about how much time we waste worrying about those things and worrying about what would people think, what will people say, how will people judge me and what will people think if I stretch out of my comfort zone and do something different. That is just, and it’s, it’s like energy draining. It is like taking away your energy and now you don’t have the capacity to go for your dreams. So you have to set those boundaries to protect your energy. Jenn DeWall:                      It’s funny you talk about the capacity to go for your dreams and how, when we’re not aware of where our energy is going, we don’t have the capacity. I think it’s; we forget to even look at it like that. We’re so immersed and maybe, I mean, I’ll go back to myself in my twenties gosh, was I very, very ambitious and wanted to be promoted 20 different times. You know, that was, I was highly ambitious, whether that was, you know, I’ve grown a lot, but I think at that point in time it was super easy then to always compare myself to my peers. Like who’s moving up faster and who’s got these interviews, who do they want? And I never thought about it as energy. And so I love that you’re making that connection between, it’s not about not wanting that, or not feeling good enough. You acknowledge it, all those things happen. But really looking at this as this is your energy that you have to use. How do you want to use it? Marilyn Sherman:            And you give off energy too. Like you can’t have this dream of being, you know, big stage motivational speaker. If you walk into a room and you suck the life out of it. I mean, I mean when you’re a leader, you walk different, you show up different, you introduce yourself differently, you meet people differently. I mean, your energy shifts when you are living your life in the front row or you’re walking toward the front row of your life. Jenn DeWall:                      What about the people that maybe have the energy, you talked about the ones that can zap the energy or if you are the one that zaps the energy out of a room, what if you have your vision and then all of a sudden you have your energy, and then you meet that person that wants to kill your vision? What do you do? How do you do that ever? Marilyn Sherman:            Have you ever heard that phrase? Do you pray for your coworkers? Pray they get another job? There’s usually one person on staff who’s like negative Nelly, who would always be saying, “No, that’ll never work. No, we’ve already tried that. No, we can’t do that. No, they’ll never go for it.” It’s like shut up. So you have to set your boundary of how much time you allow yourself in their presence. And they’re the kind of people that want comrades to be negative Nellies with- do not buy into that game. You set a boundary and say, “Wait, stop. Let’s move to a solution or resolution. Otherwise, I need to get back to work.” Because as soon as you say, “Oh my gosh, you are so right, this sucks.” Now you’ve got a friend for life, and they will interrupt you at all hours of your workday saying, “Hey, do you got a minute? Did you hear?” All the gossip that will drain your energy quicker than anything. And it’s so tempting. It’s so tempting. So you just have to set your boundary and then draw a line with these people and say, “You know what? I’m not into that. I’m going to focus on what’s right and what’s good in the world. And right now, this isn’t helping me.” Jenn DeWall:                   Gossip is keeping you in the balcony. I mean, and I guess if you think about it from a different level, the more that you gossip, the more that you’re showing yourself that you’re probably not a strong leader because you’re not able to rise above. And if you’re doing that, you’re likely going to stay in the balcony. Yes. Okay. Have that energy. I mean, it’s easy, right? We have to acknowledge it. I know that there are plenty of times it’s easy to get wrapped up into your frustrations and then want to vent about them, and then it all of a sudden quickly turns into, you know what else? I don’t like it or this person and that and yeah, Marilyn Sherman:            And people play the one-up game. Oh, you think that has, Oh my gosh, you should see what happened to me. Oh, my God. And it’s like, Oh no, no, mine’s worse. And then you play the who’s got it the worst game that doesn’t help anybody. Jenn DeWall:                      No. You feel like you feel awful when you’re done. There’s never, you know, there’s that point where if it’s an honest vent where you can feel like, okay, I just needed you to get that off my chest. But we know the difference and how that feels. Marilyn Sherman:            The reality is things happen. But you put a time limit on it. Say, I’m so angry right now, but I’m going to be angry for another seven minutes tops. That’s it. And then you allow yourself that anger to get it off the chest. But then after seven minutes, actually after three minutes you realize, you know what? It felt good. I’m done. I don’t need to be angry anymore, and people are like, really? You’re putting a time limit on your anger? Yes. It’s a reminder that you and only you are in charge of your anger or frustration or resentment or whatever it is that you need to get off your chest. Jenn DeWall:                      That’s a great tool. I mean time yourself, right? You know you can live in that emotion. You can be frustrated, angry, all of those things, but give yourself a timeline. Marilyn Sherman:            Yeah, you can go on vacation there. Just don’t live there. A: What is Your Attitude? Jenn DeWall:                   What about the A? Marilyn Sherman:            The “A” is a very good segue from energy, and that is your attitude. How do you show up? What is your attitude? Do you have a positive, optimistic, so grateful for where I am attitude, or do you have an entitled attitude? Like you have an expectation that people are going to read your mind and fulfill your every wish? No. You’ve got to have an attitude that’s in alignment with getting you towards your vision and salespeople know this. This is sales 101. People buy from people who they like, trust, and believe. And if you’ve got this negative attitude and you’re sarcastic and you’re always putting people down and saying, Oh, just kidding, don’t take it so personally, people are going to be, they’re going to be repelled by you. Marilyn Sherman:            So, I firmly believe in having an attitude of gratitude and attitude of this is a good place. I am going to see what’s right about the situation. I’m going to learn from my mistakes. I’m not going to be fearful. I have an attitude of ambition. In fact, I grew up listening to all of these, you know, with the motivational tapes. So when I went to college, I went to Washington State University. Everybody thought I was so weird because my dorm room was filled with affirmations. So every day, I would just wake up and I would read the affirmations on my wall so would have a good attitude. So I had these posters that I made that hung down from the ceiling to above my window. And they, I even remember it. This was many years ago. Jenn DeWall:                      I would have loved that dorm room! Marilyn Sherman:            And my, because I wanted to, you know, Dr. Dennis Waitley used to say we move toward and become what’s uppermost in our minds. So every day I would wake up and I would see these signs motivated, dedicated, open-minded, level-headed, healthy, wealthy and wise. And those were the signs I had hanging from the wall in my dorm rooms because that’s what I wanted to be when I grew up. Isn’t that funny? That I remember them. Motivated, dedicated, open-minded, level-headed, healthy, wealthy, and wise. Jenn DeWall:                      No, that’s, I love that actually more in awe of thinking about how can I really start to even leverage affirmations to help shift my own attitude because it’s easy. It’s easy to get discouraged or frustrated. And then to throw your attitude out the window. Marilyn Sherman:            Another hack too, I learned this from Jack Canfield, and Jack Canfield is an amazing guy. He had he wrote the book, the success principles and I also, he was my mentor for a while, and I went to his training. Jenn DeWall:                      Did he also write- he’s part of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series- Marilyn Sherman:            Yes, he co-authored the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, and they sold 150 copies. New Speaker:                   Oh my gosh, he was your mentor. That is fantastic. Marilyn Sherman:            Yes, and he always said, “whatever you learn from me, share it.” You know, he was not one of these people that was really, you know, protective of material. He was like, no, put it out there in the world. So he taught me this hack. If you ever allow a negative thought to end your head and it comes out of your mouth, say the words cancel, cancel. Now, I don’t know exactly why you have to say it twice, but it’s about re-framing your brain. Like re-framing that, well, I would say a needle on a record, but the young people are going what the heck is a record and a needle? But you know, imagine a needle going around in grooves, right to play on an old LP. And it’s going to play that music based on the groove. But if you switch the groove, it goes to a different song. Marilyn Sherman:            So what you need to do with your brain is to quit defaulting to, I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough; I’m not attractive enough. Get that needle out of that groove and switch it to a new groove, which is, I am good enough. I am amazing. I am on the right path. I’m growing every day; I’m worthwhile. And now you’ve got an affirmation that is positive. So the cancel cancel is if you ever allow yourself to say anything negative about yourself or anybody else, just say, cancel, cancel, and then your brain stops and says, okay, what’s the reframe? I am good enough. I’m on my way. I’m getting better every day. I am worthwhile, and I’m so cute. I’m so good looking. Jenn DeWall:                      You talked about the attitude thing, and it’s, and I can say, from my experience as a coach, and you’ve have more experience than I do, but my experience as a coach, it was really easy to ask people, “Do you have a confidence issue?” And ambitious people will say, “No. Are you kidding me? I’m very good at my job because they’re always relying on their technical side.” And so I’m curious about those that may not even be aware that it’s their attitude that’s holding them back or their belief and it’s holding them back. So how do you, what do you recommend for people to actually create awareness instead of maybe thinking about that because I think there’s a lot of people that if they were more aware, they would actually make the changes. They just have no idea. Marilyn Sherman:            In my line of work, I get introduced to really high-end executives and high-end CEOs, and you know, running multimillion-dollar organizations and I get to share the stage with them or I get to go to the events pre-speech and I get to be in their rooms. And so I like to ask that question, especially women leaders who are running like multimillion-dollar organizations. And I’ve asked this question of them and I would say, how did you overcome your confidence or lack of confidence as a woman, as a woman in leadership? And 100% of the answers are I didn’t overcome it. I just learned how to manage it, which means every once in a while, it’s human nature to look at somebody else, and they, and you have the comparison trap. Oh my gosh, look it. There’s so much smarter than the more educated I am. There have more opportunities than I do. You stop and say, you know what? You’ve done this. You’ve come this far. You inspire other people. You look at, look at what you’ve done in your life. Celebrate that, and now all of a sudden that voice is gone and they go on to do it, to do what they need to do, so they haven’t gotten rid of it. They just learned how to manage it. Isn’t that fascinating? Jenn DeWall:                      I love that perspective. I think that it is just an understanding of how your attitude is, again, truly something that we have to make a conscious effort to be able to manage that. It’s not that all these people that you might be comparing yourself to, that they’ve got it all figured out and they don’t – Marilyn Sherman:            You’ve heard the phrase the imposter syndrome. Okay. There’s a lot of executives that have the imposter syndrome and that, that means that they’ve got this little voice, that fears that someone’s going to say, okay, I got it. You really don’t know what you’re doing in your position. I mean the imposter syndrome is someone who’s going to reveal that they’re going to find out that I really don’t know, or that I really don’t have my act together. But here’s the thing, and I don’t, I can’t remember who I heard this from, but they said if you were an imposter, you wouldn’t be asking the question. So, therefore, for all the listeners out there who have, who are feeling like every once in a while like, “Oh my gosh, if they only knew, you know, I’d be in trouble,” but guess what? You are so not alone. It is a very common, common, common thing to have a little bit of doubt once in a while. A little bit of self-confidence issue once in a while know that you are not alone and you work through it Jenn DeWall:                      And that it’s not a bad thing, you know, it’s not a bad thing. We’re human. It’s normal to have those types of feelings. And I think it’s always a great way of just reminding ourselves what value we do have- to what you said- coming back to our own value. So instead of listening to “I’m not good enough,” reminding yourself or reflecting on all those past accomplishments that you’ve had because you know it’s in there. I guess it’s so funny, people oftentimes- I like to call it that they forget their resume. Marilyn Sherman:            Interesting. Jenn DeWall:                      Like they have this resume of all these professional accolades, but then when it comes down to those moments where failure happens, mistakes happen, they completely forget their entire resume. So they forget why or how they were actually capable of getting where they are today. Marilyn Sherman:            Not only that, there’s always going to be someone better looking than you and worse looking than you. Obviously. It’s very subjective, but there’s always going to be someone smarter than you in the room. And someone not as smart as you in the room. There’s always going to be somebody who’s less experienced than you, and there’s always going to be someone more experienced than you. So let go of the comparison trap from this day forward. Let it go. Because it does not serve you. Jenn DeWall:                      Hey, you said it; it’s subjective. It’s your own viewpoint. And it’s not necessarily true. It’s just how you perceive the world. Marilyn Sherman:            Yeah, exactly. T: Have Tenacity New Speaker:                   I think that that’s so important that you called that out. Let’s talk about our last letter – T. Marilyn Sherman:            The last letter of our acronym S.E.A.T. is Tenacity. And I love that word, tenacity. And that really means to go forward no matter what. Like my dad used to always say, be tenacious. And I was an athlete growing up, and I was a volleyball player and he always used to say, go for the throat, be tenacious. So I love the word tenacity. So you and I, it’s never a smooth sailing to our destination. There’s always going to be winds that changed direction, right? There’s always going to be some sort of obstacle that prevents us from getting what we want. So that tenacious part, to have tenacity is to go through it, to work through it, to know that you are not alone. You can get through this. This is only a stumbling block. This is not an exit strategy. This is, this is not a final, you know, this is only temporary. It’s like when someone gives you bad feedback or criticizes you- criticism is just feedback. You learn from it and you move on. There are going to be days that aren’t as productive as other days- be tenacious. They’re going to be medical things that happen. You realize, “Oh my gosh, I did not know I was going to have MS,” for example. You are tenacious to get over it because other people have led very normal lives for a long time. Despite that, “h my gosh, I’m going through a breakup.” You know what? Be tenacious and hold your head high and know that you are worthy of good relationships in your life. So the tenacity part is to know that you’re not alone. Other people have had the same issues and adversity and stumbling blocks that you and I have had and they went on to do great things to spite it. So be tenacious. New Speaker:                   Do you have any advice for those people? Maybe we’re talking to that person that let’s say maybe they’ve applied for a lot of jobs and they haven’t had a callback, or maybe have applied for promotions and they haven’t seen that, and they’re feeling pretty down. How, how do you help them pick themselves up to start to be tenacious when maybe it’s a little difficult because they’ve been down for a minute. Marilyn Sherman:            Right? A good reframe is to just stop and be so grateful for what they have right here,right now. It’s like, I don’t want you to be so focused on the next chair that’s closer to the front row than the one you’re sitting in right now. I want you to be really, really appreciative of that. The fact that you do have a chair to sit in. Like there are a lot of people in the world who don’t even have a chair to sit in. Like literally, they don’t have clean running water. Right? So put your life in a perspective. Remember how I said either you have two choices, either change the seat you’re in or change the perspective you have in the seat, the perspective you have of the seat that you’re in. So if you are struggling because you’re not getting a callback, well guess what? Tomorrow’s a new day. You apply someplace else; you keep putting your resumes out there, you keep following up with people, you keep doing the right thing regardless of the outcome. And I promise you it will get better. It may not be in your time, but it will be in time. Jenn DeWall:                      And that’s the piece. I love that. That’s a great point to wrap that on is it’s, we don’t get to control the time, but again, it comes back to the control that we do have. Marilyn Sherman:            Yeah. And we do have control over how we show up and what we do when we do show up, we also have the control of who we sit with and where we sit. So be very aware of the people you allow into your life. Because sometimes there are people in our life that tell us, well go figure. You know, you’re not educated. It’s like Whoa. That’s where you pull out the list of all the people who never got a degree, didn’t even graduate from high school, and they made a huge success in some very niche market that no one ever thought was possible. Well, guess what? They had to do something, right? They had to overcome that in order to be a success. So that means you can too. There are no excuses. You know, I wrote a book about it – Is There a Hole in Your Bucket List? Because I think everybody should have a bucket list of dreams and hopes and aspirations. So think of your bucket of your dreams and your hopes. So it’s not a bucket list, it’s literally a bucket. But all of your lists would go in this bucket. But there are holes in the bucket. Those holes are created by nails. And the nails have names like fear, insecurity, doubt, shame, comparison to others. But who holds the hammer that pounds the nail into the bucket? Well, that’s you and I. So we need to stop pounding nails and our bucket lists. We need to put the hammer down the nails down and start patching up those holes and we patched them up with courage, with kindness, with compassion, starting with yourself, have compassion for where you are right now today because if you have any guilt that you’ve reached this far in your life and you’re not where you thought you’d be at this age, stop, give yourself some kindness and compassion and then go for it the next day. Jenn DeWall:                      I love that you just hit on, you hit on so much there that I feel like it’d be an entirely new podcast, but even just thinking about our environment that we’re in, how we can truly create a place for us to create that seat for success. What do we have to do to be able to make that, you know, I know that there’s the mindset piece, but are there some tough decisions that we have to make in terms of our coworkers, in terms of our friends? Yeah. To allow us to actually pursue that front row seat. Marilyn Sherman:            Well, you need to start asking questions. I firmly believe in mentorship and sponsorship and advocacy. So a mentor is someone that you can go to and really sort of let your hair down and say, you know what, I’m struggling with a, B, and C and what I really want is D and F. What advice do you have for someone like me who wants to get D and F and I’m stuck in B. So you need to have a mentor in your life that you can open up the kimono and say, I’m struggling. And your mentor could be someone in your own company, or it could be outside of your company, but it could be, it has to be someone that you trust, someone that you can open up to and share your struggles and your aspirations with. We all need a mentor in our life. And then when you show up and you do good work and you have this positive energy, people start to take notice. And that’s where advocacy comes in. Because if you are constantly showing up with this great attitude and positive energy and everybody notices it when you walk into a room, wow, the light changes. It’s just so bright. People take notice and people talk about you when you’re not in the room. So when a special project comes up, a special assignment or promotion some sort of a, you know, position that’s special for someone who is really put in the work, your name will come up. That’s advocacy and everybody needs advocacy, but you can’t control who advocates on your behalf. You just control how you show up on a consistent basis, positive, energetic, enthusiastic, engaged. And then sponsorship is you do that enough. Someone who is in a position to promote you or to hire you or to choose you or to give you a raise. They will be aware of you and they will be in a position to do something about it. Jenn DeWall:                      Sponsorship, advocacy, mentorship. Yeah. Ones that I think the first part that you had said too, which is so important, is to be able to own the opportunities that you have, your weaknesses, your mistakes, whatever that is, and give yourself permission to change instead of living in maybe your the criticism or bad feedback that you’ve gotten, but start with like understanding your areas of opportunity. Marilyn Sherman:            Yeah, for sure. And here’s a good hack, too. I want you to stop labeling yourself. Well, that’s just who I am. I don’t like meeting new people. I don’t like sitting in the front row. I don’t like asking questions. That’s just who I am. I’m always late. That’s just who I am. I don’t like to network. That’s just who I am. I say stop and reframe it. Say up until today; I’ve been someone who hasn’t been real good with time. Up until today, I haven’t been as engaged as I could be up until today. I’ve been someone very comfortable in the balcony because as soon as you say up until today, that means there’s hope for you and me to change in the future. Jenn DeWall:                      Marilyn, I’ve loved it. I love it. Marilyn Sherman:            I’m dropping truth bombs. Catch up, Jenn! Jenn DeWall:                      Yes, I know. If they could see me like you know the up until today, I think it’s such a, even up until listening to this podcast. Really thinking about everything that you’ve shared with all of our listeners, that there’s so much. You know the great thing about the concepts that you shared is none of this requires money, right? So you come at it from the first thing of I don’t have money or I don’t have access to this. Then you’ve missed the entire podcast because it’s really just about our own ability to do the work. Marilyn Sherman:            That’s an assumption people make. They assume it would cost too much to sit in the front row, but you have something of value, and if you have something of value and you are able to communicate that value to someone else who needs it, you can have an exchange of opportunity and it doesn’t cost anybody any money. Do you want to hear specific examples? I live in Las Vegas because that’s the convention capital of the world and my business is speaking at conventions. But before I lived there and my girlfriend that lived in Vegas saw that I was coming to town for a speech and Earth, Wind and Fire was playing that night. So they called me and said, Marilyn, do you know Earth Wind and Fire’s having a concert on the same day you arrive in Vegas? Do you want to go see them? And I’m like, Oh, gosh! So they picked me up at the airport and we drove to the event space to buy our tickets for that night. Now of course, our tickets for the nosebleed section. I’m so not a nosebleed person. I’m such a front-row person and I could see front row seats still open. And so they went to go grab a beer. I didn’t like to wait in the line, so I just took a walk. But I walked with purpose. I walked like I know exactly where I’m going. I didn’t, but I acted as if I knew where I was going. I had my head held high. I walked with a sense of purpose, never looked down, never looked at anybody. And I walked right through security and made it all the way down to the front of the stage. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, that was so cool. Marilyn Sherman:            Look at this. It is so different in front of the concert. And then I went to a very good looking young man who was standing next to the stage and I got out of my comfort zone. I said, excuse me, what time does this concert start? I thought it was supposed to start at 10 o’clock. He said, well, it is supposed to start at 10 but my uncle Phil isn’t scheduled to be out on stage until 10:15. And I said Phil as in Phillip Bailey, the lead singer of Earth Wind and Fire? He goes, “yeah, that’s my uncle. Why are you in the business? “I said, no, I’m a motivational speaker. He said, “Can you motivate me?” I said, “Sure! Any day above ground is a good day.” And then I started saying like, “there’s no such thing as a bad day, only bad moments that people choose to nurse all day long.” And he’s like, “wow, you’re really good. I have to go take my seat though. Where are you sitting? Down in front? Where are you sitting?” In the nosebleed section? He’s like, “who are you with?” “Two girlfriends.” He says, “wait right here.” He runs backstage and he comes back with three all-access badges. He said, “sit anywhere you with your girlfriends and then meet me right here and I will introduce you to my uncle and the rest of the band after the show.” I know. So I go running back up to my girlfriends and they’re like, Marilyn, where have you been in? These people tried to steal our seats. I said, well, they can have them because we’re going to the front row. And they said, “well, how did you do it this time?” And I just acted as if I knew where I was going, which created an opportunity for me to get to the front row, which created an opportunity for me to see someone that I could engage in a conversation with, which very quickly we found out that we both had something of value to share with each other that costs neither one of us any money. Marilyn Sherman:            See, most people take their seats in the balcony of their life and they don’t like the seat. They don’t like the view. They don’t like where they are and they complain about it. And once they complained about the bad view, the bad seats, the bad everything. Then they look at other people who have what they want and they make stuff up as to how they got there. And you know, I’m no longer talking about a venue at a concert. I’m talking about life. If you don’t like the seats you’re in, don’t complain about someone else who has it when you never applied for it. Jenn DeWall:                      Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I have, I love this. Yes. Okay. I don’t even want to end it there. Like I feel like I want to keep talking because it is, you nailed it. Like there are so many last final points. Marilyn Sherman:            I still have one. Jenn DeWall:                      My one last question anyways, so you keep going with your final one. I want to hear Marilyn Sherman:            Because I want to sort of put a bow on this. You know about living your life in the front row really is not all about you. The best seat in the house is when you, as a leader, are an usher for someone else to live their life in the front row. Yes. So in Vegas, if you ever go to a show, there will always be an usher and I guarantee you with two things, number one, they have knowledge of all the seats in the venue and number two, they have a flashlight and they look at your ticket with their flashlight and they say, follow me. And they use their flashlight to direct you on the most direct path to the seat that’s on your ticket. That’s what an usher does. They illuminate the path for you to get to your seat. Such a good leader. A great leader. A front-row leader is someone who becomes the head usher illuminating the path for their team to live their best life, to be the best at their game, to be the best version of themselves so that everybody in the department can live in the front row because everybody’s front row is different. But as a leader, you do it by inspiring them with your own light. Jenn DeWall:                      I’m crying because that was so nice I hate that I’m overly emotional, but I love that because you wrapped it up so perfectly – thinking like create your own seat for success- but then at the end of the day, it’s about being the usher, I just, I really started to tear up- that’s really good. Marilyn Sherman:            I love it. I love it. I love it. Jenn DeWall:                      Well, I loved our conversation, and I’m just going to wipe my eyes. Oh. Because clearly you can probably tell him the person that cries at every single movie. I’d be like, that’s such a beautiful story. What is Your Leadership Habit for Success? Jenn DeWall:                      I’ve loved our conversation. I loved everything that you shared in terms of how we can become frat row leaders by creating our own S.E.A.T. of success. And I obviously I teared up during the moment where you talked about how we can all be the ushers to help other people. You’ve just shared so many valuable insights, but I want to close on our final question, which is, what is your leadership habit for success? Marilyn Sherman:            Well, I’m super grateful for my mom and dad because they taught me this habit, and that is never sit in a place of knowing. It all always continue to learn and to grow. So my dad used to say, the more you read, the more you lead, the more you learn, the more you earn, and the more you know, the more you grow. So my habit is I’m constantly learning. I’m constantly going to see other speakers. I’m constantly listening to audiobooks. I’m constantly listening to other podcasts like this. I read books, so I’m a constant learner because I never want to lose that curiosity about how people become successful because it’s so inspiring. And then, I incorporate those into my keynote speeches. Jenn DeWall:                      Oh, gosh, I love that. Will you say that one more time for our listeners? Because I’ve never heard that expression before. Marilyn Sherman:            The more you read, the more you lead, the more you learn, the more you earn. And the more that, the more you know, the more you grow. So never be that person that says, I know it all, I have arrived. Here’s another one. It’s trite, but it’s a good one. When you’re green, you grow, and when you’re ripe, you rot. So don’t ever arrive at your leader, your leadership position, and then never learn anything from the people that report to you. Be open to learning from everybody and constantly learn because, like a piece of fruit on a tree, as soon as it’s right, it will fall off the tree and rot. So as long as you’re learning and growing, you will always learn and grow. Jenn DeWall:                      Thank you so much for sharing your leadership habit and for sharing all of your expertise. That was so great to have you on the show today. And just thank you again for sharing all of your advice and perspective and just giving the path for how all of our listeners can get their S.E.A.T. for success. Thank you, Marilyn. Marilyn Sherman:            My pleasure. Jenn DeWall:                     Thank you so much for listening to The Leadership Habit Podcast. If you’ve enjoyed our podcast, please share it with your friends. If you found value in it, please review us. By sharing it and reviewing it, we will be able to continue to spread our message to create more impactful leaders around the world, and most importantly, stay tuned for next week. As we begin our newest series: Work Fails. We are going to be talking about personal stories of failure and perseverance because we know that as leaders, failure is part of the process. These minisodes will take place twice a month and we hope that you’ll find as much value in them as we do. The post Episode 17: S.E.A.T. of Success with Marilyn Sherman appeared first on Crestcom International.

Customer Service and The Convenience Revolution with Shep Hyken This December, The Leadership Habit Podcast has been taking a look back at our first season and reflecting on all we’ve discussed so far. We picked out some of our favorite episodes from the past year to share with you. I hope you enjoy this look back and can’t wait to bring you more information and inspiration in the new year to come. For this week’s look back at 2019, Jenn DeWall chose Season 1: Episode 6, Customer Service and The Convenience Revolution with Shep Hyken. Shep is a Crestcom faculty member, customer service expert, best-selling author, and keynote speaker. This episode is one of her favorites from this year because I love his insight into customer service and how organizations must create a real customer service culture by identifying moments of misery and actively pursuing solutions for them. We also talked about how technology and convenience have changed the landscape of customer service and what we can all do to keep making our customers happy. His leadership habit is also about discipline, which might be a good reminder for all of us as we get ready to make our new year’s resolutions. We hope you enjoy this throwback episode!   Read the Full Transcript Here   Thanks for joining us this month as we took another look at some of our best episodes of 2019. The Leadership Habit Podcast will return with new episodes in January 2020. We have new exciting guests lined up and cannot wait to share them with you. If you have enjoyed our series or have comments about any of our episodes, please leave a review via your favorite podcasting app. We hope you have a great New Year!   The post The Leadership Habit Podcast: A Look Back at 2019 – The Convenience Revolution with Shep Hyken appeared first on Crestcom International.

Andy Bounds – Sales, Love and Enjoyment The Leadership Habit Podcast has been taking a look back at our first season and reflecting on all we’ve discussed so far. We picked out some of our favorite episodes from the past year to share with you. I hope you enjoy this look back and can’t wait to bring you more information and inspiration in the new year to come. For this week’s look back at 2019, I chose Season One, Episode Eight: Sales, Love and Enjoyment with Andy Bounds. Andy is a sales expert, international speaker, Crestcom faculty member, and an award-winning author. I picked Andy’s episode because he has such a fresh take on approaching sales and how not to look at sales as a dirty word, but rather a skill we all need in our daily lives. From convincing a child to go to bed on time to closing that multi-million dollar sale, the principles remain the same. I also really enjoyed his update of the ABC of sales instead of “always be closing”, his version is Afters, Building certainty, and Closing. There is so much good advice in this episode. I think it’s a great one to review and get ready to start a successful 2020 Read Full Transcript Here   Next Week on The Leadership Habit Podcast We hope you had as much fun with this look back on learning about Sales, Love, and Enjoyment with Andy Bounds as we did! We’ll be back with new episodes after the new year. We have exciting new guests lined up and can’t wait to share them with you. If you’ve enjoyed our series, please feel free to drop into your favorite podcasting app and write a review. Tune in next week when we take a look back at Jenn DeWall’s conversation with Shep Hyken, about customer service and the convenience revolution. Have a great new year! The post The Leadership Habit Podcast: A Look Back at 2019 – Sales, Love and Enjoyment with Andy Bounds appeared first on Crestcom International.

The Best of 2019: Legendary Career Coach, Aimee Cohen In December, The Leadership Habit Podcast will be taking a look back at our first season and reflecting on all we’ve discussed so far. We picked out some of our favorite episodes from the past year to share with you. I hope you enjoy this look back and can’t wait to bring you more information and inspiration in the new year to come. This week I picked season one episode seven take charge of your career with legendary career coach Aimee Cohen. I really enjoyed my conversation with Aimee about her book Woman Up: Overcome the Seven Deadly Sins That Sabotage Your Success. She really inspired our host, Jenn DeWall, to reflect and look at her own bad habits, think about where she was self-sabotaging, understand how she could learn about career development and better create her own personal brand. She’s an inspiration to us this year and we hope that all of our listeners really enjoy the feedback, tips, and tools that she provides, especially for those that are looking to make a change in the 2020 new year. Career Coach, Keynote Speaker, and author Aimee Cohen has tackled the hottest topics in today’s workplace with a practical and entertaining action-oriented approach. She has more than 20 years of experience as a career coach and has enjoyed working with professional men and women to take control and manage their careers with a nearly 100% success rate. In her book, Woman Up, Aimee shares her tips, tools, secrets, and strategies to overcome self-sabotage. Read Full Transcript Here   Next Week on The Leadership Habit Podcast Thanks for joining us for a look back at that conversation with career coach, Aimee Cohen. Join us next week, when we take another listen to Andy Bounds and his advice on Sales, Love and Enjoyment. The Leadership Habit Podcast will be back with new episodes after the new year. We have exciting new guests lined up and can’t wait to share them with you. If you’ve enjoyed our series, please feel free to drop into your favorite podcasting app and write a review. Have a great new year! The post The Leadership Habit Podcast: A Look Back at 2019 – Legendary Career Coach, Aimee Cohen appeared first on Crestcom International.

Love is Just Damn Good Business – A Look Back at our conversation with Steve Farber   This December, The Leadership Habit Podcast will be taking a look back at our first season and reflecting on all we’ve discussed so far. We picked out some of our favorite episodes from the past year to share with you. I hope you enjoy this look back and can’t wait to bring you more information and inspiration in the new year to come. This week Jenn picked Season One, Episode Nine: Love is Just Damn Good Business with Steve Farber. Steve is a bestselling author and member of our Crestcom faculty. Steve joined us to discuss his new book, Love is Just Damn Good Business and Jenn chose this episode because she really believes in his message, and they had a great time talking about it. Steve has such a refreshing take on customer service and how to love what you do and show that love to your clients. Jenn thought this would be a great topic to explore at such a busy time of year where love is so important to help us deal with our customers better and manage our employees. We can all benefit from a little more love. Steve Farber is a Crestcom faculty member, bestselling author, speaker, and President of Extreme Leadership Inc. He is a subject matter expert in business leadership and one of Inc. Magazine’s global top 50 leadership experts. You can find Steve’s newest book: Love is Just Damn Good Business on Amazon. In addition to his latest book, he also is the author of three other great reads: The Radical Leap, The Radical Edge, and Greater than Yourself, that Jenn DeWall and everyone at Crestcom would highly recommend! You can also connect with Steve by going to his website at SteveFarber.com.  Click Here for a Full Transcript    What’s Happening on Next Week’s Episode? We hope you enjoyed this look back at our interview with Steve Farber and Love is Just Damn Good Business. Next week, Jenn will be taking a look back at her conversation with Aimee Cohen and how to overcome the Seven Deadly Sins that Sabotage your Success. This will be a great episode for those of you thinking about what major changes you want to make in the upcoming new year! The post The Leadership Habit Podcast: A Look Back at 2019 – Love is Just Damn Good Business appeared first on Crestcom International.

Multi-generational Leadership Featuring Stephanie McCauley, Millennial On today’s episode of the leadership habit podcast, we are concluding our multi-generational leadership series by talking with Millennial, Stephanie McCauley. Stephanie is a trainer and consultant and the founder of Unbenched, a Millennial community of likeminded adults with the mission to build a strong community that empowers each member to be a stronger individual. Join us for this discussion with Stephanie as she shares her insights as a Millennial in the workforce today. Full Transcript Below: Jenn DeWall:                      Hi everyone, it’s Jenn DeWall. Thank you so much for tuning into The Leadership Habit Podcast! Today, we are continuing our generational leadership series, and we’re interviewing another Millennial, Stephanie McCauley is here today, and she is going to give us another Millennial perspective. Stephanie, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. Stephanie McCauley:     Thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, we’re happy to have you and to talk about it from the Millennial perspective, which for those of you that don’t know, Millennials are considered those that were born between 1982 and 1996 and so Stephanie is going to share with us her take on leadership on what that looks like in the organization, how it feels to interact with different generations. And we are just going to go all-in on the Millennial perspective today. So to start, Stephanie, tell us what your role is and what you do. Stephanie McCauley:     That seems to be an easy question, but I feel like I have a lot of roles. So my day job role is I am a management and leadership trainer and a culture consultant for midsize and small companies. So that’s kind of my day job. And my side gig. – I run my own company, it’s called Unbenched, and we are an organization for young adults, and we provide purposeful activities and conversations to help better and strengthen all aspects of a person’s life. So with that, I do everything from marketing and social media to I plan the socials, volunteering events and our main events. We have somebody in our group who gives a speech, and I help that person come up with a topic, write the speech, work on their presentation skills, and things like that. So a lot of roles. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, absolutely. Unbenched. When you and I were talking about this offline, I love with the mission of Unbenched. How would you describe your mission of Unbenched? What are you trying to do with Unbenched? Because I think there are a lot of people that would really want to hear about that. Stephanie McCauley:     Yeah, absolutely. I think we are just trying to give every person out there a place where they can feel safe, and they can feel vulnerable, learn these different types of skills in a comfortable environment, and just give everybody some friends. It’s really hard to make friends outside of college. There are not as many opportunities. You have work, but where else can you meet some cool people? And also I just wanted to give a platform for everyone to tell their story. This is me; this is who I am; this is how I got to be this way. And I think we can learn from each other. And that’s really what unmentioned is doing is just kind of touching on all those aspects of service, volunteering, having fun, laughing that’s not just looking at a TV screen or drinking on the weekends. And then also learning from our peers in that self-growth. And our motto is life as a team sport. And we really feel that the more people you have on your side, the better you’ll be and more comfortable you’ll be in life. As a Millennial, How do You Define Leadership? Jenn DeWall:                      Right to be successful in your career. Just getting and building up your group of supporters and champions that are there to help you and act as a resource or a mentor to you. I hope that we continue to talk a little bit more about Unbenched because I think it’s such a powerful organization, which has such great opportunities for personal development. So, let’s get started. So as a Millennial, Stephanie, how would you define leadership? Stephanie McCauley:     I would define leadership as the process of motivating and inspiring other people to give their best effort into accomplishing a goal. Jenn DeWall:                      That’s great. I love that; it’s all about that motivation. Inspiring people. It is leading by example, right. Walking the walk or walking your talk. You know, your role as a consultant, as well as your role as the founder of Unbenched, probably gives you a unique opportunity to see the generations interacting in the workforce. How or what differences in leadership do you notice across the generations? Millennials Work to Live – Boomers Live to Work Stephanie McCauley:     I would say one of the biggest differences is just like the “why.” Like why people come to work. I feel like some of the older generations have, the harder I work, the better life I can provide for myself and for my family. And it’s a very structural, formal that’s like why become to work the harder you work, the more you can move up in, in society and at work. And I feel like Millennials have a much more relaxed lifestyle and they don’t think of work as why they’re put on this earth. Work isn’t the most important thing to them. And I think Millennials, they’re looking for a purpose. They’re looking for a passion, and they’re looking for a reason why they come to work every day. Why do they show up? Why am I doing this? It’s a lot of why am I here? And they need a lot more mentorship, and they’re looking for feedback and communication. And Millennials are really trying to grow as people. And I think it’s just a different view on why they come to work. And it’s a little bit more relaxed and not as formal and how they get there. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah. You’re talking about, and you touched on this, right, that you know the Baby Boomer generation has the reputation that they live to work, right. They want to provide for their families. They want to ensure they’re creating safety and security, and that’s what was modeled to them by like their parents to be able to, you know, establish a really great home and lifestyle so you, you, and your family can flourish. Whereas that Millennial generation is a little bit more on the- Hey, we don’t, you know, we don’t live to work, but we work so we can LIVE. Stephanie McCauley:     Yes. That’s what I was going for. Exactly. Jenn DeWall:                      The “whys” are a little bit different and it makes total sense given how Millennials were raised by the Baby Boomers most often and some Gen X, or it’s just, those parents have really created really nice networks of support and safety nets, if you will, for another word. But, and I mean that in the nicest way that the parents really wanted to do. What they could to provide for their Millennial children, to be able to give them access to any type of resources or give them that support. And then that, how that looks in the workforce is then that Millennials really still crave more of that support. They want that mentorship, or they want that guidance, and they want people to kind of like what you’re doing in Unbenched. They want to connect with people and learn from each other and grow with each other. Stephanie McCauley:     Definitely. Millennial Views on the Multi-generational Workplace Jenn DeWall:                      So, what is your biggest challenge in working with other organizations? Or excuse me, with different generations? Stephanie McCauley:     I think probably the biggest challenge is being that younger generation. I think sometimes I don’t feel like I’m taken seriously because of that. And I think a lot of the times just being younger, maybe I put that upon myself. Like, they’re so much older than me, they know so much more than I do. And I’m, and I should assume that they think the same way that, you know, they’re older and they know more than I do. So I think just like being taken seriously. But I really believe that generations, it’s just the same problems that come up with working with just different people, different backgrounds, different ideals. They grew up differently. There are the same issues, no matter what generation it is. I have similar issues working with people my own age than I do above. It’s just more working with different types of people. Jenn DeWall:                      That’s a great distinction there. Right? It’s not necessarily how we painted this conflict of all the generations coming together and not necessarily meshing. It’s actually that the world is different. People coming together with different value systems, different experiences, and we’re bringing that into the workforce, and because of that we just see things in a different way. Stephanie McCauley:     That’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s, it’s just dealing with different types of people — just another obstacle with somebody who’s a little A bit different than you. Jenn DeWall:                      How do you overcome when you feel that someone may not be taking you seriously? Like how do you overcome that, Stephanie? How do you personally do, like what tips would you give? You’re in leadership. Like what? What tips would you give for people when they feel like they’re not being taken seriously, but they really do want to be, and they care? How would they, how would they overcome that? Stop Making Assumptions Stephanie McCauley:     I think it all comes down to assumptions and stereotypes. So if I don’t think I’m being taken seriously, do I have any evidence to support that, or is that me stereotyping myself as a Millennial and stereotyping them as being a Baby Boomer, Gen X, or thinking that. If you want to be on the same playing field, you have to cut out all these assumptions, assumptions and stereotypes. Stereotypes come when our brains, we don’t have all the information. And so we try and pick, you know, from our experience, past experiences, and our knowledge and logic, and we try and come up with something to fill in the blanks. But, and that’s where stereotypes live. But really if we just cut out the assumptions, cut out the stereotypes, we’ll all be on that same playing field. So just because a Millennial is listening to her headphones doesn’t mean she doesn’t care or doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to talk. It might just mean that’s just one way for her to focus. Or somebody from an older generation– if just because they’re older doesn’t mean they’re stuck in their own ways and they don’t like new ideas or innovation. We just have to get those out of our heads and get to behaviors and facts. So always focus on behaviors instead of those attitudes. And it all comes back to don’t assume anything. Don’t stereotype people and just learn it for yourself. Ask the right questions. And it all comes back to behaviors. Millennial Stereotypes Jenn DeWall:                      I love that. And what you touched on one of the assumptions that when someone has their headphones on, they’re either not paying attention, they’re disengaged, they are X, Y, Z. What other assumptions do you notice that people make maybe about the Millennial generation or other generations? Stephanie McCauley:     I think being a Millennial, we, we get stereotyped as being lazy and not working hard or always needing like a hand to hold. I think those are definitely some Millennial stereotypes. As for some of the older generations, the Baby Boomers just that, like they’re so strict and Gen Xers – kind of, they just care about themselves and they’re super individual. So I think there’s a ton of different stereotypes out there. Millennials, they just want beanbag chairs. They don’t want to work hard. They just want a ping pong table and the promotion and the title of a promotion. So there’s a lot out there. Jenn DeWall:                      How do you feel about, you know, we’ve talked to some of the older generations are Gen X generations and Baby Boomer generations throughout this generational leadership series and, yeah, and I’m a Millennial too, so I don’t, I’m not saying this in any way that’s like trying to go against it, but some of that perception that is felt by the individuals that we interviewed, part of that are part of Gen X, and Baby Boomers is that Millennials want too much, too fast, right? They want to be promoted yesterday. And I actually can see that in myself because I was like that very much in my twenties. I wanted to go, go, go. I was comparing myself against my peers. I wanted to climb the corporate ladder. But how do you feel like we’re on different sides of the Millennial spectrum? So how do you feel about that perception that Millennials just want everything like yesterday and they want, we call it accelerated ambition on an earlier one (episode), but they just want things maybe too quickly is the perception that other said Stephanie McCauley:     Well, I would say that yes, Millennials, like they want everything right now, but so does everybody, and it’s just really dramatized in Millennial generation, and it’s just really put to the front. But I think all generations want the same thing. They want to move up at work, they want to grow, they want to be recognized, they want to be noticed, they want to belong, they want to feel good at work. But the Millennial generation is just really putting it out in front of everyone and not saying I; I’m not going to work. I’m not going to do this job because it’s not going to help me in my career. Where in the past, like a lot of times it, this is just the way it is, just this is how things work and the Millennials just kind of aren’t putting up with it. And I think all generations want the same things, but Millennials are the ones just kind of voicing it. And so they get stereotyped as is wanting everything now. But everybody wants everything now. If you would go, you know, talk to any Baby Boomer, they’d be like, yeah, I really wish I didn’t work that low, low, low-level type of job and I got to where I am faster. Of course, they would say they want it now. Jenn DeWall:                      Right. They want stability. Stephanie McCauley:     Yeah. And I, so I think it’s just a stereotype. Again, it’s just a stereotype. But you can twist it and just to cherish that, that ambition and say, well that’s great that they want to grow and want to move up fast or we’re going to show them the way of how to get there. How do you, how would you want a leader to manage? Like if you were in those shoes of wanting to climb up, you know, pretty quickly, how would you want your manager to respond if they, in their perception were like, you know, you’re really great, but we want you to like learn a little bit more. How would you want them to handle that situation? Maybe this is just advice to the leaders that might be managing a Millennial where they don’t exactly know how to respond without creating disengagement. How would you want a leader to manage that? Managing Millennials Stephanie McCauley:     Well, I think one of the biggest jobs of a manager is to know what your employees want and where they want to go, and it’s your job to help them get there. So if you have a one-on-one with a Millennial, find out what department they want to end up in or what position they want to be in, and then while they’re with you on your team, you can help them develop those skills. So, okay, I see that you want to be, you know, a manager one day, so I’m going to help you work on those people skills. Here’s a task that I think will benefit you. So it’s really about being a manager and finding those tasks that will help them build those skills to get them where they want to be. So a Millennial might want it right away, but as a manager, it’s your job to say, these are the areas I want you to work on until you’re ready for that job, and I’m going to help you gain those skills. Jenn DeWall:                      I love that. Great. Cause we know that Millennials want to like develop and they want to learn like they’re lifelong learners. And so if you are a leader, I love that piece of like advice and feedback. It’s just asking the question, you know if they want to go somewhere, find out if you can in a more concrete way what they’re interested in and look for opportunities that you can help them develop in that particular area. And explain that to them. Say, Hey, I know that you may really want to be here, but right now, this is kind of the process, or these are the additional areas that you need to develop. I still really value you. I want to help you get there. So I’m going to do that and just kind of sit tight for a little bit and let’s focus on getting you ready for this position by developing these other areas. Stephanie McCauley:     Exactly. Millennials, they want feedback because if you don’t give them feedback, then they don’t know what they’re doing right or what they’re doing wrong. So it’s super important for them to know that, because if you don’t tell them, then they don’t know that they’re struggling in an area. Or, if you tell them what they’re doing right, there are a lot more likely to repeat that behavior in the future. So Millennials, they want feedback. And as a manager, it’s your job to give them that feedback. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, to take the time and instead of, you know, saying, Oh my gosh, I’m so busy or I have this going on like I don’t have time for the feedback. They’re fine. We know that they want the feedback, they want the continuous growth opportunities, they want a defined career path. And if you’re not offering that and you’re not asking about it, chances are they may be starting to disengage if they haven’t already. Stephanie McCauley:     Oh, definitely. Are Millennials Less Loyal? Jenn DeWall:                      How do you think that loyalty has changed for the Baby Boomer generation who is extremely loyal to their organizations because of a pension and just that overall job security? But we know now, as Millennials, and we saw that recession happened in the US in 2008 2009 and how a lot of the things that help to give loyalty more credibility within the Baby Boomer generation, I kind of just dissolving or they’re not as accessible or not as reliable from Millennials. Therefore, Millennials are not necessarily as loyal anymore. How do you feel about that type of like generalization of Millennials? Stephanie McCauley:     I can definitely see that. And there’s so many jobs out there, and Millennials know that if it’s not working out here, they can just move on and go somewhere else because there’s so many companies fighting for this, this talent, and they know that. And I think the biggest thing is you want your employees to be loyal to you. So the number one reason people leave a company is because of their boss. The number one reason people stay at a company is also because of their boss. So I think it’s all about building relationships and people become loyal to the relationships that they build at that company. So if you want your employees to be, you know, these Millennials, you want them to be loyal to you and your company, then you treat them really, really well so that they don’t want to go somewhere else where you can say, Hey, I’ll help you wherever you want to go. I’m going to help you get there. But they like you and like working with you so much, they don’t want to go anywhere else. So I think that loyalty, it is a huge part, but I think you can bridge that gap by communicating and building that trust within your team. Jenn DeWall:                      What I love that answer, right? It’s all about understanding those reasons. Like people don’t leave the company, they leave, they leave their boss, right? And if their boss isn’t necessarily recognizing how to properly motivate or to engage in establishes relationships that, you know, they made it be losing that opportunity to build loyalty with their Millennial employee. From a Millennial perspective, what motivates you to do well? Is it money? Is it time? Like what motivates you? What Motivates a Millennial at Work? Stephanie McCauley:     I would say a few different things. The first I would say is other people. I’m such a team player. I don’t care if I let myself down sometimes, but if I let somebody else down, it just crushes me. So whenever I’m working on a team, I definitely am motivated to work hard, go to the extra mile, see what else I can do, ask if they need help because I just hate letting other people down. So working with other people is a huge motivator for me. Another is just enjoying my life, I’m more motivated when I’m doing things that I’m passionate about. So for me, I love bringing people together, and I like helping people become the best versions of themselves. So whenever I get to do that, I’m super motivated because I want to get it right. I love helping people. So I’m really motivated when I’m doing something I love. And last, I hate to say it, but it is money and it’s not money because I want to be this billionaire and I want to show off. It’s more because I really enjoy my life and money helps me do the things that I like to do, which are experiences. I love going to new restaurants and going to concerts and going on trips and money allows me to do all of those things. So that is a motivator. It’s not the only motivator, but it is definitely one of them. Jenn DeWall:                      Absolutely. And I think that you made that differentiation perfect. I don’t, you know, for Millennials it’s not necessarily THE motivator, but it does allow opportunities for different experiences or over travel. And then it also caves that opportunity to pay off student debt, Stephanie McCauley:     So Many student loans. Jenn DeWall:                      Right. Which, you know, many generations have not had to absorb that type of debt. And the way that Millennials have, you know, they haven’t had to finance it, or the cost of education was significantly lower. So it hasn’t been as much of a, just a rough thing to carry, you know, like that’s just a hard burden to carry for how much student loan debt that we had to absorb. Stephanie McCauley:     It really is, I mean, I know I’ll be paying them for many more years and same with a lot of my friends. So, it’s a burden and I mean just living in Denver, it’s extremely expensive. Just living is- the cost of living is so high, but then you also want to go on all these trips and there are so many cool restaurants and so much fun stuff to do that you don’t want money to hold you back from living your best Jenn DeWall:                      Work to live. Yeah, exactly. Like you want to be able to generate the money so you can live your life to the fullest and the best way. And I appreciate you like just sharing what motivates you because I think sometimes it’s, people forget that purpose is such a big piece of like wanting to have meaning, wanting to be connected and it’s not always unique to the overall purpose of the organization. Sometimes it’s just how well a manager or a leader shows or helps them see the purpose in their role and why they matter and how to impact the whole organizational or team success. That piece is important, right? Saying, Hey, Stephanie, like what you did yesterday. This is what it’s going to help us do X, Y, Z , and we couldn’t have done it without you. Stephanie McCauley:     Yeah. That is so huge. Just tying what someone’s individual work does for the company and to the values of the company. It goes so far and makes them just feel like they’re doing something that, and they’re not just showing up to work every day for a paycheck. They’re seeing this larger picture and when it, when a manager can do that for their employees, they’ll work so much harder because they feel like they have a purpose. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah. We all want to feel that too. And I think that goes across every generation. We want to feel like we have an impact and but sometimes I think leaders forget, they understand the responsibilities of the role and they train those technical sides and they forget about those connections that when you make those connections can actually really engage people and help them want to invest more because they can see their impact. Stephanie McCauley:     Yeah. I think a lot of the time we get caught up in the business of the day to day and the operations and making everything run, but we don’t realize that slowing down and recognizing our employees are taking the extra two seconds to show them how to do something right, will benefit them so much more in the long run. So if you encourage your employees, yeah, it might take five minutes out of your busy schedule, but now that employee is going to be a lot more helpful at work, they’re going to be a lot more successful, and they’re going to be a lot more motivated to the organization. Recognition and Feedback Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, absolutely. You know, you cited recognition as a piece of what type or how do you like to receive recognition as an individual, and do you think it’s the same for other Millennials? Stephanie McCauley:     I think it’s different for everyone. I don’t mind being recognized in front of a group. But I know some of my friends, if I recognize them, they’re just like so embarrassed that I said that. Some people just like a handwritten note or just to come up and individually say, Hey, I loved what you did, or I noticed that you worked really hard for me. It doesn’t really matter. I just like knowing that when I work hard, other people notice. I think everybody feels that way. Not just I got my work done onto the next thing, but people notice that I got my work done and I, and I did it really well. So I do like to be recognized for the things, it doesn’t really matter to me how, but I don’t mind in front of a group or a team, but I know some, some people that can that be mortified. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah. It’s more like, please don’t, Don’t put me out there. Stephanie McCauley:     I’m kind of, my face will turn red. I was like, Oh my gosh. But I’m like, okay, great. I like that. Yeah. Jenn DeWall:                      Well it feels good to feel good and to like be noticed accurately and know you’re making an impact. As a Millennial, what is your working style? Do you, I mean you touched on it earlier, you love to be a part of a team, but how would you describe your working style? Stephanie McCauley:     I think I go back and forth depending on what I’m doing if it’s collaborative or independent. Collaborative. Mostly I love bouncing ideas off of people. I get so much energy from other people. I love talking and just figuring out what they have to say if this is a good idea or a bad idea. I just love working with people. I think two minds are always better than one, but when it comes down to nitty-gritty and busywork that I like to do super independently, I like no distractions because I get distracted super easily. I like to just hammer it down and get to work. I don’t like when people listen to me when I’m on the phone. I don’t like it when people hover over me. So when I’m doing certain things I like to be super independent. But other than that, I, I love a good team conversation. Cubicles or Four Walls? Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, we know that we can learn from everyone else around us. So you knowing that your working style is to be more collaborative, would you say that you also appreciate like that open cubicle environment or would you still rather have like an office or something independent? That’s always, you know, they’ve gone back and forth. I know that 10 years ago it was all about the open concept cubes and now they’re pulling back, you know, what do you think that Millennials prefer or how would you, what type of environment do you thrive in? Stephanie McCauley:     I also go back and forth on that. I like having an open environment but not too open. So a cubicle where people can stop by or I used to share a cubicle and I loved that because I could just start talking and somebody would be there to listen whether– just in my office, I can’t just ask a random question or bounce an idea off of. But I do like the office and everything, for work. But one thing I would say is I, I like my space. So no matter where it is, I like knowing that this is my area. This is my desk. I have my snack drawer and I can put my papers here and I can put whatever else up on the wall. I don’t like the communal desks or where I’m super close to somebody. I like a little bit of privacy and a little bit of ownership over my space. I like it. Knowing that is a place that I can come and focus on work. So to answer here, your question, I like kind of the open cubes, but I’m pretty spread out. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah. You want to ensure that you have your own space to do you to sit down, focus, concentrate. That makes total sense. And it’s, it’s just funny because I think, I remember when they went down and I was at a large corporation at the time, but when they decided to break down all of our cube walls and make it, you know, more open-ended and it was awful. Yeah. I was so much more distracting. It was so much more. It’s just unproductive. Stephanie McCauley:     Right. And you feel like everyone’s judging you, like what’s on your computer screen or what are you, you, I saw you look at your phone. You just feel like everybody’s, even though usually nobody actually cares what you’re doing. People you feel like everybody’s watching you and making sure you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. Not that you wouldn’t be, but just, just knowing that other people could be judging you on that. I think sometimes the open, it’s just a little bit more pressure than having your own space and some walls. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, it’s, it was just, it was a struggle for me because people would walk into our office and our office had – just guessing right now– probably 10 people. And everyone would almost have to turn around and pay attention to whoever walked in. So it disrupted everyone that was in the office. Stephanie McCauley:     I get distracted super easily. And so I’m always like, what’s that? What’s going on? And then it takes me five minutes to refocus and it’s just not as productive. Distractions are huge. Our attention, I feel like Millennials, attention spans are like 10 seconds. What a Millennial Admires in Other Generations Jenn DeWall:                      Right. I mean they’re just different. Right. And technology impacts it makes it, so we do process access, you know, things quicker using technology and so we can get distracted, we can get, you know, just caught up and everything. What do you admire about working or about other generations? Stephanie McCauley:     I would say confidence. I feel like a lot of the other generations have a lot of confidence. And I don’t know if that just comes with experience, which it probably does, but I love working with older generations because they seem to really know what they want. And in who they are and they’re very confident and not afraid to be themselves. So I’m, I admire that. Again, it might just come with, with experience, but I admire that. Jenn DeWall:                      Right. Well and the, and it could, it likely does come with experience because the more that we know, the more confident we can be in what the value that we can offer others. But it is, we, you know, especially with looking at the older generations, we have so much that we can learn from everyone around us and especially the people that obviously have more experience, they’re going to have better institutional knowledge that you may not be aware of. They’re going to have different process and procedure knowledge that you may not know how something has come to be. And so initially on the face of it, you may not, you might kind of question it, but then you get that context from them and they understand why, why something would work and not work in a given context. Definitely. Yeah. Confidence is huge. Absolutely. How do you, how do you show up in your confidence knowing that, you know, one of the things you had talked about was not necessarily being taken seriously and not necessarily having the full experience that’s going to, you know, go against a boomer? How do you still show and share your confidence or how do you, what do you do to allow yourself to be competent? Stephanie McCauley:     I think It’s all mental. You have to tell yourself that you know what you’re doing and you have to pump yourself up and you have to get excited. You have to be, you’re your biggest fan and your biggest cheerleader. And I think in order to go in confident in something you’re not confident about is you just tell yourself that you can do it and that you are confident and you know those postures. Put your shoulders back, stand up tall and confidence shows in how you act. And if you’re keep telling yourself that you can do it, you can do it and that you are worthy, then that’s going to come off. And that’s going to show. So if you’re telling yourself, Oh my gosh, they’re so much better than me, Oh my gosh, they’re not going to take me seriously. That’s how you’re going to come off. And if you come off as confident, even if you’re not, it’s going to show, and you’re going to feel more confident, and the other person’s going to see that. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah stop comparing- comparison is the thief of joy. You’ve touched on that. We know that comparison might seem helpful at the beginning, but it also might be comparing someone else’s, and to our beginning, which isn’t, you know, an inappropriate comparison, and it can just discourage us from taking risks or being more vulnerable. Stephanie McCauley:     Oh, absolutely. I was boating this weekend. I was telling you a little bit earlier, and it’s funny, we have some people who are with us, and they’re just standing up on a wakeboard, and we go wild – we go nuts. We’re so excited that that person stood up, and then the next person goes, and they try and do a backflip and we cheer, and we get so excited when they land a backflip. Those are completely different things. Standing up on a whiteboard versus doing a backflip on a wakeboard, completely different. But we cheer the same because you can’t compare those two because wherever you are, it’s not going to be the same as somebody else. And if you tried to compare and you’d never be able to stand up on a wakeboard because you’re always comparing yourself to the people who did backflips. But really we’re all on our own life. Journeys are all at different spots, and we’re all not going to be able to do a backflip, but just by standing up that is going to be enough for that person. And that’s where that support comes, comes along, and you cheer everyone wherever they are on that journey. You just can’t compare yourself to somebody else because we’re all very different. What is Unbenched.org? Jenn DeWall:                      Yes, we absolutely are. I just want to ask, you know, we’ve talked a lot about a lot of different things and I just kinda wanted to, to go back to like Unbenched and what you do in the local Denver community because I would definitely love to highlight that as an opportunity for people to be able to get involved there and connect with other peers. Stephanie McCauley:     Yeah, absolutely. So basically we do two events a month, so one of them is going to be a social event. So we’ll go to a comedy club, we’ll do a happy hour, we’ll go on a walk, we’re going to hike all different types of things. Just to get to know each other in kind of a super relaxed setting and get to know Denver a little bit. We either do one of those, or we’ll do a volunteering event. So we’re going to Race for the Cure this month. We’ve made Valentine’s day cards for senior citizens. We’ve done a whole bunch of different meals and gifts and all these different volunteering things around, around Colorado. So we either do a social or a volunteering event a month, but our main squeeze or main juice is our community nights. And those are once a month. And at those we have food, we have a drink, and we play a game. And the game is something that you’d see on Jimmy Fallon or Ellen- charade type games. Just to get people comfortable with being uncomfortable is what it is. And it’s just to have some fun and let loose and laugh at yourself and other people. So we’ll play a game, and then we’ll have a member give, we call it a mailman speech. Give a message is kind of what it stands for, but it’s like a Ted Talk, and they can talk about whatever they want. Usually it’s a personal story and a lesson, what other people can learn, but it can be on anything that they’re interested in. Maybe a book that they read or really any topic that they want other people to know. And there’s no time limit. There are no rules or regulations. Stephanie McCauley:     It’s just for a chance for somebody to tell their story and other people to learn. And then we sit, and we do some discussion. So this is our self-growth part. So Unbenched really kind of nailing those service, social and self-growth and it’s really fun young adults. I don’t give an age. It’s for anyone who needs it because like I said, you can learn from anyone, and it’s important to learn from anyone. So Unbenched is really just an awesome place for young adults, to find something to be a part of that’s bigger than themselves. Jenn DeWall:                    Yeah. That community. Stephanie McCauley:     Yeah. Community. Jenn DeWall:                   How do they find it? Stephanie McCauley:     So you can go to our website, unbenched.org. Or you can follow us on Facebook, but just type in Unbenched, and we’ll pop right up. Yeah. Or we’re on Instagram as well, so we’re, we’re out there. Come check us out, follow us, find us, reach out, message us. We’d love to have you. Our first month is free. If you ever want to just come to check us out, meet us. Everyone can come to see what we’re about for free the first time. Jenn DeWall:                      That’s fantastic. And so for those of you listening on bunched.org, that’s also going to be in our show notes right now. This is more the Denver area, but I know that you have high hopes that this could go to many more places so you can have a greater impact. Stephanie McCauley:     That would be the goal is to have a chapter all over. So he moved to a new city. You already have a group in a community that you can be a part of. What is Your Leadership Habit? Jenn DeWall:                      That’s, I love it. I love it. I want to check out the event. I have one last question, and this is what we wrap up every podcast with. And that is the question of what is your leadership habit for success? Stephanie McCauley:     Well, we’ve touched on this a lot. I’m sure you could probably guess what I’m going to say, but it is connecting people. It’s a huge passion of mine, but I think that you can go so much further with other people and take help from other people. So I am all about connecting people together. So if I meet someone, I’m always asking, what’s your hobby? What are you interested in? Maybe they have a niche interest, and I know somebody else who has that same interest, and I can connect them, and they can do that hobby together. Or if somebody is looking for a job, I love being like, what are you looking for- sales? I know a great sales company. I’m going to set you up with this person. LinkedIn is awesome for that, but just connecting people, even if it’s just they have a common interest. Everybody is looking for new friends and new people to meet. So any opportunity you get to connect with other people, you should do it. Relationships aren’t just about you and that other person, but like what can you do for them to benefit their life? And it’s probably not, you know, just meeting with you, but who in your network could they also benefit from? Because I’m sure we all didn’t get to where we are on our own. We had somebody help us or connected us. So that is my leadership habit is always looking for connections and ways to connect other people. Jenn DeWall:                      To help them grow. That’s a big piece. You want those connections, and you can help people find success. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us today, Stephanie. It was such a great conversation. I really appreciate you. Stephanie McCauley:     Yeah, thank you. That was a ton of fun. Thanks for tuning in today for our discussion with Stephanie McCauley about her experience as a Millennial in the workforce. If you want to connect with Stephanie, you can find out more about her and on Unbenched.org, or on LinkedIn. If you’re looking for opportunities to develop your leadership skill set, head on over to crestcom.com there you can learn more about our 12-month leadership development program and find out how to schedule a leadership skills workshop for your team. If you enjoy today’s podcast, please subscribe. Tell a friend and write a review.   The post Episode 16: Multi-Generational Leadership featuring Stephanie McCauley, Millennial appeared first on Crestcom International.

Gen X and Multi-Generational Leadership On today’s episode of the leadership habit podcast, we are continuing our generational leadership series and talking with Steve Born. Steve is the VP of marketing for Globus family of brands. In today’s episode, Steve shares his insights as a leader and member of Gen X, and how he’s adjusted to bridge the generational gap at Globus. Full Transcript Below: Jenn DeWall:                      Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall, and today I am going to be interviewing a Gen Xer for our multi-generational leadership series. Today in the studio, we have Steve Born and Steve is going to give us the insight on what it feels like and what it looks like to be a Gen X leader as well as how he interacts and how he sees the differences in generations in his organization and throughout his experience in his career. Steve, thank you so much for joining us today. Steve Born:                        Great to be here. Thanks for having me. Jenn DeWall:                      Great. And so for those of you that aren’t familiar, Gen X is the generation that was born between 1965 and 1981. You’re kind of that generation that’s right in the middle of everyone in the workplace right now. Huh? Gen X – The Jan Brady of Generations Steve Born:                        We are the official Jan Brady of generations. So we’ve got Cindy, you know that Millennials, the younger get all the attention. Then we got Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, the Boomers; everything’s about Marcia. So we’re officially right there. Jan Brady. Jenn DeWall:                      Right. And there are smaller, right and they’re respectively smaller than the Baby Boomer and that Millennial generation. So just a little bit smaller in population size. Steve Born:                        Yeah. You know, we’ve been sandwiched really by two huge cohorts with the Boomers, you know, leading that the free world, you know, for 30 years now, biggest generation of, of our lifetime. And then Millennials who match that Boomer number in terms of sheer size and, you know, we’re right in there, in between and quite a bit smaller but pretty sturdy. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, absolutely. And like I just looked up a recent statistic that said that Generation X actually makes up right around 50% of the leaders in today’s workforce. Steve Born:                        Well, we’re in that sweet spot right now, you know, between the ages of 40 to 54 right now. So we’ve got that responsibility. That’s that layer of responsibility right now where we’re driving the business; we’re in key decision-making positions, often case we’re not the owner, we don’t have our name on the door — but really carrying a lot of that responsibility with it. And with that managing on both ends, a workforce fall of eager Millennials who have way more knowledge than we ever had or have functionally at this point. And on the other end, the Boomers who bring that wealth of experience. And of course, you know, not to generalize our friends too much, but they’ll tell you at, at every turn, you know, how they did it and their day as well to manage that. So really it is, you know, the way that you framed it really in that, that tweener generation between the two sides. Does Gen X Get a Bad Rap? Steve Born:                        And actually before this a podcast, Jenn, I looked this, I wanted to see, okay, where within the hierarchy of generations, where does Gen X rank and actually found this cat, Brad Stanhope. Brad, if you’re out there, he’s a Boomer. You know, maybe by the end of this, this recording this podcast, we’ll turn it around a little bit, but Brad actually ranked generations one through five, and I’m not surprised to see that at the bottom of the heap was, was Gen X. And this is our life. This is kind of where, where we been our whole lives, you know, just kind of smaller, underappreciated, you know, between the mega generations of Millennials and Boomers that tweener. The Jan Brady syndrome. You know, I’m going to seek Brad out, and I’m going to, you know, have a few words with them about that, but being ranked five out of five, you know that, that’s tough because as you said right now too, we’re leading a lot of the organizational responsibility positions right now and kind of managing both ends of that. So I guess we have a hole to climb out of. Jenn DeWall:                      All right. Well, why do you think Gen X gets a bad rap by people? Like why would he give you a five out of five ranking? Steve Born:                        Jenn, excellent question. I’ve been thinking about this, probably my whole life. Is why Boomers with, with all due respect, Boomers have been the generation that’s been enlightened, that’s been empowered that their whole lives, they’ve been professional consumers, their parents weren’t in need of, for the most part, weren’t in need of kind of the essentials. So their focus was on their kids, and the focus was on bringing up this generation in a peaceful environment that had everything at their disposal. And the age of consumerism blossomed with Boomers at the helm. Every convenience that we have around the house today was, at some point, driven by a need from a Boomer. And so self-importance and that the value of following your muse and finding what’s important to you and that you can do anything in life and the world is yours. Just go get it. Steve Born:                        And, and life kind of creating that environment for them. And we needed that. We needed that consumer influence at that time in that workforce to, to take charge and get us out of the post-war recovery and, and with that, propel us and do amazing things. And so throughout their entire careers in their adult life, they’ve been constantly rewarded by these major advancements. You know, technological, even we had one yesterday with the 50th anniversary of the moonshot is that we have made in, in this, through this generation, we have made more advances in our culture, in our society than ever. And Boomers have been at the helm. And so course they feel it, right? Yes. We’ve done this. We’ve achieved, we’ve grown. Look at the status. We build America really to position the U.S. And and where we are today. It was really built on the, on the shoulders and the heels in the hands of Boomers. Steve Born:                        So they deserve no doubt they deserve all of that. And then you have us. Everything, the Gen Xers, the Jan Brady, not that charge. They were invested, and you know, I can, I say this with all due respect, but the world told them to invest in themselves, to go create, you know, what they want life to be and what they want their future to be. And kids, for the most part, were a byproduct and not a focal point. Really. I can speak, you know, from true experience on that, that, that the latchkey kid generation is no misnomer. They were out doing their thing, left us a key under the mat. We had to ride a bike from school back home with no helmet by the way to get the key- to survive. We like to do it ourselves because Boomers were out conquering the world. Steve Born:                        And you know, our, our folks were out conquering the world. They had big things to accomplish. We were a part of it, but not the focal point. And you know, so they had other priorities, that bigger balance of life where it wasn’t the generation that had five, six kids and, you know, everything was invested in that. There was a generation where, you know, it was a part of a more well-rounded sort of life situation. And we were part of it, but we weren’t THE part of it. We were in the back of the station wagon, you know, probably facing that back again, no seatbelt, you know, probably fighting with our sisters along the way. But really, you know, along for the ride along for where our Boomers that the parents, the older Boomers and, and matures before that, where they were going and where they were taking us and being the smaller generation, just the sheer numbers just didn’t work out in our favor. Gen X – The Formative Years Steve Born:                        And we went through our formative years, you know, coming out of school, a much different economic situation than the Boomers. You know, there was a supply and demand issue with the Boomers. That was their advantage. We needed workers; we needed roles filled, we needed leaders in jobs, which just definitely wasn’t the case for us because our jobs, the jobs we wanted were occupied by Boomers who are making it happen. And so we’ve been dominated, you know, by that force, that volume, that sheer scope. And then just when we thought we had it all figured out, then the Millennials come behind us. And really they’re the byproduct of the Boomer mentality; they’re the kids of the younger Boomers, so they have all that same energy and all that same appreciation for self-worth and self-accomplishment and fulfill your dreams and the investment in the kid. Steve Born:                        The SUV came out of the Boomer connection with their kids to be together. We’re a generation without SUVs because no one cared. You know, it wasn’t about that togetherness there. You take your bike by yourself, take your bike, you go, you find your way, you know, figure it out, kid. Where the SUV was created by that connection between the younger Boomer parents and the value of being with their kids and their kids’ friends and be with him at the soccer field and the baseball game and the swim meet and you name whatever millions of activities were going on for the Millennials that they were, by the way, awarded ribbons for each and every one of them. That is a really healthy spirit of that connection and that togetherness and that connection that we were a little bit out of the mix on that we were on our own. And you know, again, I’m dramatizing this overall, but for the most part I think that really characterizes who we are as a generation and, and builds our values and a lot of the independent spirit that you feel now from Gen X driven by that was because we had to be, we were brought up that way and, and our life situation and getting from here to there and things we’d participate in oftentimes it was because we’re on our own. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, you had to figure it out. And I think that you brought that up perfectly to really show how Gen X did become the independent generation that they are today. Just how the economy was different in terms of finding your own opportunity, how your parenting style was different in terms of how you, you know, I guess interacted, and there’s a little bit of that self-governance or raising yourself in that generation. And I think that’s, that’s a powerful thing to recognize that the Millennials had a lot more of that togetherness, whether it’s through the SUV or whether it’s the fact that mom and dad were still coming back and giving them the support, whereas Gen X was just more independent. You know, they didn’t necessarily – right, wrong or indifferent- didn’t necessarily have that intense involvement I think by their parents and that the parents really wanted them to figure it out on their own. Steve Born:                        You, you wrapped it up well and, and definitely didn’t want to, you know, insinuate that our parents were negligent for the most part. For the most part, it was a lot of it, I believe, there was some intent behind it. As you say, you know, in the end, well, they’ve got to figure it out sometime. I mean, you can just hear the voice of dad, you know, in the background like, well how is it going to figure it out if he can’t do it himself and the trial and error and that you know, you, you can do it. You figure it out sort of thing, which is really healthy. And I think in a lot of ways that’s a little bit of a consequence from the really good things that you get with younger Boomers, connection with their kids and the Millennials and that support that, that partnership, that nest, that you know, that you get that good thing. You get that feeling that, well, I can do anything. I can accomplish anything. I’ve got the support system around me. But a little bit of the compromise that you get from that is, well, that support system is just that. It’s not; it can’t do it for me. I’ve still got to do it on my own. Jenn DeWall:                      And that I think is the more difficult, lesson you see with the Millennial generation is the parental involvement was so strong for many, that the ability to develop coping skills and understanding how to pick yourself up and how to persevere is not as developed across everyone in the generation. Some people have that and understand how to do it. Some because they had lovely parents with the most beautiful intent, just didn’t have that opportunity to understand that life goes on after things don’t work out, and this is how you’re going to pick it up, and no one’s going to save you. You kind of have to learn how to just sit in it, reflect on it, learn from it, and keep going. Gen X Knows How To Advocate for Themselves Steve Born:                        Well, one example of that, I think you hit the nail on the head is sports. So you can learn a lot from the field. You know, growing up, both as a parent and as a kid. So we have two kids, my wife and I, my son’s going to be 19 next week, and my daughter’s going to be 21 coming up. But, so we had, I don’t know, 15 years or so of sports fields like every, you know, we’re at a field every day, doing something. And the coaches that I always appreciated were that they were Gen X coaches, who if there was an issue, no problem, but the kid had to advocate for himself, not the parents. So no problem. They would address anything, you know, playing time or coaching style or whatnot. But the rule of thumb was it’s got to come from the kid. Too many times the parents would swoop in, tried to solve the problem, never went over well, never worked out. You know, just a valuable lesson there in that, you know, the parents can be behind, not in front. And I think that’s sometimes a lesson in the workforce that some managers have to retrain. And some managers have to work around, is that, you know, it’s about you and advocating for yourself and where you want to be and not relying on someone else to do that work for you. Jenn DeWall:                      Right. Thinking that, Hey, they’re going to notice me, they’ll see me, and they’ll pick me up and bring me to this next opportunity or this next position. And I think that is something you might see. I think you probably see a balance of both with the younger generation, either that so much lovely confidence that they are very strong and advocating for themselves. And then you have the people that may need or really desire someone to do it for them. Right. But before we go back in there, I have loved our conversation so far. But for those that don’t know you, which I’m going to assume many of our listeners are just getting to know you for the first time. Steve, tell us about your path to where you are today, what your role is today and how do you, the evolution, how you grew and started through your career. Right. Steve Born:                        So currently, I am CMO of Globus family of brands, and we’re a travel company, and we specialize in international travel and have four different ways that we do that. And I’ve been with Globus now for 18 years, and I know some people probably just fell over when they were listening to that, but it’s true 18 years, and you know, I didn’t go into that with intent. Like I’m going to start this job, and then we’ll be there for 18 years, and then we’ll see where it takes you. But my path to that job started way back when, when I was out of school is wanting to be in the communications business and, and to be in marketing. And so, you know, the job market was really tough. I would take anything that was related to that and just get started. And the whole idea at that time was just get started. Steve Born:                        It doesn’t matter where what you’re making or what level, if you just go in and, and like we were talking about with that Gen X value, just get started. Just prove yourself. It’s up to you. Just do it. Get in there, you’ll figure it out. You figured out how to cook a Swanson microwave dinner every Saturday night when you were alone at home. You can figure this out, too. So there was a real priority on a sense of just urgency to get started. And that’s exactly what I did. I took an internship that I don’t even think it was paid you know, that’ll build into, you know, a full-time job, which, you know, got hired by the advertising agency. I started at $18,000 a year. And all I cared about was, is that enough to move out of my parents’ house? It wasn’t, but I did anyway. Steve Born:                        And you know, just lived, you know, hand to mouth and you know, just get in and, and make the best of it. I guess that was the approach. I don’t think that was unique to me, Jenn. I think that was really symptomatic of the generation and the time started working in 1990, and I think it was just about we’ll just get in and get started and then grow. Just you, you can do it with hard work, perseverance gain skills on the job, and just keep going. Just keep rolling. And kind of how I attribute success with it is that there wasn’t a lot, not just with me, but I think a lot of folks in our generation, not a lot of moving from one job to another, maybe one or two big moves, you know, that seminal move that gets you that big opportunity that you can’t refuse. Steve Born:                        But it wasn’t a natural part of what I saw from my peers. It certainly wasn’t with me. I’m in my second job right now. I think it was more symptomatic of that value that I can work this out, that it’s in my hands to make my situation better. If I’m not getting an opportunity that I want, it’s not my boss’s problem. It’s not the organization’s problem. It’s my problem. And I’ve got to figure out a way to make this a new reality. And the phrase I always use, it gets eye rolls from, you know, Millennials in our workplaces that, you know, the grass isn’t greener on the other side. It’s greener where you water it. And so make that investment in where you are and create your own reality and continue to grow and develop where you are before you look elsewhere. Jenn DeWall:                      No, that’s a great point too, because, for many, it’s the belief that either they don’t know how to advocate for themselves or feel like they aren’t really sure what to do to advocate. Like, what should I be advocating for? What do I even want to do? Do I even want to work here? Yeah, but what you’re saying is that remember the power is all within us, that before you take that leap to that next company, make sure you understand what you’re jumping for. What do you really want to achieve that you’re lacking in your current position, and can it be something that’s resolved from even a conversation with your own boss to say, I am really passionate about this, or I really enjoy this. How can I infuse some of this into my current role versus just abandoning that, which, you know, it’s interesting you said it’s your second job over your tenure. Is Gen X More Loyal Than Millennials? Jenn DeWall:                      And one of the characteristics that’s used to describe Gen Xers is they’re very loyal. And that to me that, you know, that really demonstrates that sense of loyalty. Like, I will work here, and I want to commit and invest my time for you. And it’s a beautiful thing because when you see that return for companies of having that institutional knowledge and someone that can also just develop everyone around them on the past, on the present and the future, it’s powerful in terms of what you can do for an organization given your tenure there. Steve Born:                        Right. Well, that loyalty, I’m glad you touched on that because that really goes back to what we were talking about, you know, getting started and when you’re being raised as a Gen Xer is pretty much our parents parenting style was you, it’s your deal. It’s your deal. Like if you were having an issue with your teacher at school, it’s something you need to account for. We’re not going to go in and talk to your teacher because we assume she’s right, and we assume that the overall organization, that the structure has a point. So if you’re struggling, you figure it out, you deal with it. We’re going to give the benefit of the doubt to the hierarchy to the structure. And you know, that’s not necessarily very nurturing, but certainly, you know, builds a lot of character and resolve about what you mentioned about loyalty and making of a situation once you want it to be. Steve Born:                        And of course, you know, don’t be ridiculous about it if you find a real roadblock or a difficult situation or there’s an opportunity you can’t refuse, of course, you know, to look at those opportunities. But really that to work through it first. Another thing you mentioned, Jenn, was advocacy. And I’m really glad that you brought that up too. I think, you know I’ve had a lot of experience with folks that I’ve worked with who are desperately trying to find that next step sometimes because they’re unfulfilled or sometimes because they just think that’s what life is and you just keep taking those next steps, and you take them quickly. And I’ve seen what I think the right way to advocate is from the viewpoint of the employer. And that is what can I do to help this business more than what I’m doing today? Steve Born:                        And that is a very different point than- what can you do employer to get me where I want to go? And it gets the same result actually that, that first is, is a faster result in that the viewpoint of it’s, it’s not about me or, or at least I’m going to frame it, not about me. I’m going to frame it in terms of what, how I can make a bigger contribution, and advocate for yourself based on that as opposed to, Hey, I’m not personally where I want to be. So what are you going to do about that? And that’s, that’s a challenge I think that we run into a lot in terms of that, that career growth with some of our younger employees. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, that’s a, you know, that’s a great point that I think is very easy, especially when we’re excited or if we’re experiencing pain or if we want something different and we’re comparing ourselves to our friends. We immediately have that sense of urgency to say; I want this. What can this company do for me because I’m going to leave? Whereas if we really start with that reframe of thinking, how can I add more value? What can I do to further the mission and strategy of this? Because sometimes in my past life I dabbled in HR and what I, like I had one experience that I will never forget, and it was a recent college grad, and she had come into my office, and she had seen a result on Glassdoor because you can see salaries there. You can see that information through a lot of different similar platforms. Jenn DeWall:                      But she came in, and she was like pushed it over and was like, I need to be making this. And she’s like, and if I don’t, if I’m not making this, then I’m going to quit. And I looked at her, and I felt like it was the, you know, a little bit of that nurture to say, I’m going to make this a teachable moment for you. Right? But versus thinking, you know, like first and foremost, like never go to the negotiating table and tell someone that you’re going to walk away. Right? Especially when you’re in an entry-level position, you have to understand that entry-level. Like you may be a great person, but if you’re already starting to show a lack of loyalty, what, what would incline someone to come to the negotiating table, right? And so sometimes it is thinking and remembering that as much as we do have a lot of power because we have that power of choice that’s associated with technology and globalization, that we still have to remember how we need to support an organization and that what the employer is actually going to want from right now. Steve Born:                        How did that work out for her? Jenn DeWall:                      So it worked out well. We did end up getting her a raise. But that was not, and it came after me having a direct conversation with her to say, yeah, I, you know, this is your teachable moment. You are lucky you met me and I not, you know what? I didn’t say that in a pompous way, but I’m like, I want to say that my background is within coaching, and I want to help you with this, but never do that to someone again because they will probably matter. Jenn DeWall:                      And so we have lots of, we had a few other meetings after that, and I eventually did work for her, and I said, this is what you need to do, right? We need to, how are you producing value for them? Why do you think that you earned this? And let me also teach you about what negotiation is. So down the line, if you are negotiating something so you know how to ask for it upfront versus after the fact. Yes. GEN X: Experience over Ambition Steve Born:                        And you know, on that story, people get employers, you know, no matter what the generation, Gen X, Boomers totally relate to ambition, totally relate to speed of growth and responsibility and adding and, and feeling more of, of not only your own ambition but where you want to be long-term. I totally get it. That and sometimes I don’t know if that’s something that clearly gets expressed because sometimes the pace at which that happens is a bit unrealistic in terms of expectations, especially at that entry-level because everyone’s exposed to everything, right? Everyone sees what everyone else is making. You can find, you know, you can find what you’re looking for. And so your visibility is so broad, but your experience with that is so narrow. And so it’s, we understand that the pace then of that progress can be seen as, as slow or, gosh, they don’t get it or they’re trying to just keep me in that spot because, you know, that works better for them. They don’t get me. It’s definitely not that at overall, again, just totally generalizing here, it’s that there’s a balance between knowledge and experience and just because you’re exposed to it and because you can see it and have functional knowledge it doesn’t mean that that is yet rounded out into the next opportunity. It’s like every Western, I dunno, do Western still exist? Every Western you see. Yeah, I know now. So in the old West… No Western movies. Okay. I should reframe that. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, you are dating yourself. Steve Born:                        Yeah, Google it. I mean, I’m sure you could find a Western on YouTube or something, right? So there’s always like the grizzled, you know, that gunman, and you know, the veteran gunman and there’s always that, you know, the young one and that the young guy is like a perfect shot, right? He’s like, excellent marksman. He can hit the cam off the fence post from a hundred yards away. It is like, let’s go; I’m ready. You know, let’s go out, you know, tackle the wild West. And the veteran always looked him in the eye. Like, you know, there’s a big difference between being able to hit that can and looking at a man in the eye with a barrel of a gun. That’s the difference between knowledge, that functional knowledge of being able to hit that can, and the experience of being able to know when to use it and have the wherewithal of, of having that experience to put it in play. So I think, you know, westerns probably teach us everything we need to know about generations right there. Yeah, exactly. Jenn DeWall:                      No, but I think that’s it. That’s a really great way to look at it. And I would put it back to you in a different way. I think that oftentimes we undervalue, the role of technical skills. And sometimes we may look at our technical functionality as now I am deemed an expert, but we’re missing the fact that the soft skills are on the other side of it and that those are the ones. So as in westerns, you might know how to shoot the gun, but do you know how to actually decide when to use it? Whom to use it with, what the consequences are willing to be that big-picture view of what you’re looking at and so I do love, I just love the western example, but it is very true. I think there are some times when you don’t have that experience. You place a lot of emphasis on the technical skills of your role, and you miss out on the fact that there is actually another side of it that you really need to have developed that will put you in a better position to actually be successful if you trust that that needs to happen. Steve Born:                        If you appreciate that is there, and I’ll tell you that the knowledge, the functional skill is miles ahead of where we were. Miles had the knowledge, the expertise, the confidence, that talent that the Millennials have that they can apply to a functional skill is amazing. I mean, I’m amazed at our workplace every day based on just the confidence in and the security that they can show in a functional skill. Now they’re, there are three parts to wisdom. One is that knowledge. Two is the experience we talked about in third kind of down the road, his perspective, you know, and being able to really have a feel of a when to apply it. But if, if all three layers, I don’t know if I’ve ever met a person that, that has nailed all three layers of this wisdom at the right time, I guess they’d be, you know, some sort of a, you know, guru or you know, Zen master if they, if they had all of that at one time. Steve Born:                        But if you can mine the functional talent that Millennials have in spades because of how well educated and informed and energized and accessible access that they had to the finest education and ongoing education that we’ve ever had as human beings. If you can, you know, add that on top of that knowledge, some sense of experience like, OK, like not to sound a hundred years old, but just that framing of, okay, maybe I don’t know everything. Maybe I could learn about application. And then that third level of, you know, having some perspective of like, okay, I’ve seen it work, and I’ve seen it not work. And, and just knowing when you’ve tried something and it hasn’t gone too well, just having that under you just really rounds out. That whole idea, of wisdom. I think it’s unfair to ask Millennials to have all three. I really do. Steve Born:                        I think a focus on that knowledge is exactly where they should be because the organization doesn’t have it without them. We don’t know how to do this, how to get from here to there, how to apply technology at the rate that it’s growing in the best way for our business. Thank God they’ve got it. Thank God that rounds out our workforce right now, and it’s much appreciated. If on the other end that more was appreciated from Millennials of like knowledge doesn’t equal wisdom that I need. I could learn from this old dude. I could see how it’s worked for them in the past. I could, you know, spend a little bit more time to kind of round out my viewpoint before I jump into something that, that I think what’s fair to ask is, is, is grasp that knowledge sees hold of it and don’t let anyone ever forget. You’ve got it. But to know that there’s, there’s experience, too that comes with it that can help guide you and maybe make things a little bit more graceful when you’re looking for that next opportunity. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, my grandpa said this to me, and he said it multiple times, but the quote, I have $1 million of advice, but to you it means nothing. And it’s speaking to the fact that he has wisdom. Right. But until I experienced it, until I understand it, it won’t have any value for me. And I think that’s kind of where, and I’m part of the Millennials. I’m part of what you would call the cusper (in between Gen X and Millenial generations), like in between, so and I’m a 1982 child, so I’m right there. Steve Born:                        You can appreciate everything. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, but it’s, you know, I think the sense of urgency, even when I was early in my career of just wanting to climb, climb, climb. If you asked me, you know, this is now over five years ago, before I switched trajectories and where I wanted to go, I would’ve thought I would’ve been a buyer, and I would have been doing all of these things at a large retailer or maybe a small retailer and now I would do that for fun, but I would never want to do it for a job again. But if I didn’t get the career opportunity that I wanted with as you know, and as fast of a time that I wanted it, yeah, it was devastating, right? Because we put that sense of urgency, we don’t understand how everything works. And so then yes, we come, and we can make those assumptions. Like my boss is holding me back or they don’t see this where it’s, it actually has nothing to do with you at all. Nothing to do with you. Right. It’s just the way that it goes and you need to rely on people that have, you know, a little bit more developed soft skills and experience to make those decisions, especially when they get higher up and they’re going to have a greater impact to your bottom line. Steve Born:                        And you know, my boss has taught me that there are always things that you won’t see. Everyone has a boss, and everyone has a boss who is privy to things that they are. It’s just the nature of the workforce, just the nature of the business world, and that sometimes you have to appreciate that you don’t have the full view and no one, no one does. I mean in unless really it is your company, your building, your name, you know, you are the shareholder, you know, it’s all you, then there’s no way around that. And that’s hard to swallow sometimes, especially if you are eager or not saying impatient, but if things aren’t moving at the, at the pace you believe it should. Just in appreciation that, okay, maybe there’s another side to the story. Maybe there’s more I need to help uncover here. And like we talked about earlier, you know, do that from the perspective of the employer. How can I add more value instead of how can I get what I want? How Does Gen X View Other Generations? Jenn DeWall:                      Right. So I want to go back to- I love our conversation. I want to go back to kind of understanding how you, as a Gen Xer,  see the differences in your organization or through your experience. What generational differences do you notice in the workplace with a Baby Boomer versus a Millennial versus a Gen Xer? Steve Born:                        Wow. Gee, isn’t that the big question right there?  Well, you know, from my experience, one, one discernible difference that I can see is that you know, I would, I would define leadership as getting a group of human beings to accomplish an intended goal. And I don’t think that that definition of leadership is exactly what most Millennials would use. As opposed to saying, Hey, you know, a Gen X approach like we talked about with independence and kind of self-sufficiency is okay, that’s the intended goal. We’re going this way. You guys are with me. Let’s go. And you know, one difference I see with Millennials is, remember they were in the SUV, they were a part of the community, and they had been from day one. They were all together, and they were making the collective decisions together from day one. You know, be it, Hey, where are we headed in this SUV or what sport I’m going to play. Steve Born:                        Or things were dictated to them, they were a part of it. And I see that almost daily in the workplace that part of a project or even project leadership is more communal. And it’s more about I need to know my role and how it plays in the overall picture. I don’t just need to know that we’re going in that direction. And how I need the, why. I need that rounded out for me to be on this bus, you know, to be a part of it. And I need the why. And for us, the why was secondary. It was almost like why, what, what do you mean? Because that’s what, yeah, because that’s what my boss wanted of me and that’s where we’re headed. And isn’t it a given, you know? That’s where we’re headed? Can’t you see that’s where we’re going is that it’s assumed, and you know, taking that step back from a genetic standpoint and understand that people play a more valuable role than just fulfilling, you know, one specific slot in the overall picture and they can contribute more, and they have more, like we talked about, more knowledge functionally and overall they’re, they’re smarter, they have more to contribute, and they want to know more about the total picture than maybe just that one little piece that is the part that we need to happen in order to get to that, to the goal. Steve Born:                        So I think for Gen X, they’re, we’re still learning. I know that I am in stopping stepping back and saying, this is the “why.” This is what we’re all about here. And getting some buy-in on the why and making sure that people understand the whole picture before just charging ahead. Then you asked about Boomers. What’s the difference with Boomers? Steve Born:                        Right. I can, I guess from your perspective, it’s going to be more than more likely that you had Boomer leaders like to have a Baby Boomer leader, Baby Boomer leaders. How would you describe their style? Wow. Okay. So I don’t have vast, vast experience here because like you said, I’ve had two careers in my life. My boss is a Boomer; he’s a great guy. Okay, now I’m about to insult him. I feel like this is a trap. Ha! Make Yourself Relevant to Boomers Steve Born:                        The thing is you have to make yourself relevant to them. I’d say. Again, it’s about them, and it’s about what they have on their plate, and whether they’re going, that’s probably no different than any boss, no matter what generation you are actually. And now is the thing that I need either help with the decision or support resources. How is what I need relevant to them and what’s relevant to them I really believe is probably what’s relevant to all humans is that- I’m going to make this, it is going to help you. This is going to help you. This is going to help your work. This is going help your career; this is going to help your day to day life that I’m here for you. And then Boomers, everyone’s been there for them, their whole lives, their parents, their society, consumerism products, things were built literally designed for them around them. And I think work the workplace is no different. So how, how can this help you? How can it, how can this be a thing that I’m not going to burden you with? I’m actually going to help you out by involving you in this. Jenn DeWall:                      How do you think, in your experience, how do you think the workplace has evolved from when you started with more of a larger percentage of Baby Boomers in the organization to where you are today, where you’re likely having more Millennials and the Gen X mix in there? Steve Born:                        It’s, it’s better. It’s faster, it’s smarter, it’s more agile, it’s more dynamic, it’s more empathetic, it’s more responsible. These are all influences from Millennials. Everything I think I just rattled off about the “mores” is an influence from Millennials. Helping businesses keep pace and sometimes pushing businesses in directions like kids. You know, I’ve looked back on my life and kids, they can be the instigator really in a household to move ahead you know, be it a move or you know, something needs to happen or even, you know, like being more responsible in the house. And, and I think that’s no different in the workplace. We are far better off with the incredible minds that we have today entering the workforce. So there’s no doubt that businesses are, are more position now to compete on the international level due to that influence. If Boomers and, and Gen X can guide that with more of that balance of experience and perspective than we’re in the chips. Then we’ve really hit a home run. Steve Born:                        And I think that’s our responsibility for Gen X and Boomers before they completely give up and retire on our shoulders, which they will, you know, they will, they’ll get all the good houses and all the good condos. Jenn DeWall:                      And then Gen X will get nothing. Steve Born:                        We’ll get nothing and like it! Once more. But at least if you know before they had out can make that contribution to help round out that knowledge with really consciously trying to, to, to make perspective and experience tangibly in the, in the workplace. And that’s tough, you know, cause you can’t, no one has time to sit down and say, well come sit with me and let me impart my wisdom upon you, you know, for the next hour, let me schedule a meeting with you where I just give you, you know, random thoughts about success in the workplace. We have to consciously do that though. We have to consciously think of projects that we know through a connection with the Millennial by our side, that that’s going to give them a sense of perspective that’s going to give them a sense of experience and the project’s going to be better because they’re going to move it faster. Their knowledge is going to accelerate it. So I think that’s probably a practical way to do it in the workforce is by the project. To consciously pick out projects where you’re tagging Millennials for development. Gen X Working Style Jenn DeWall:                      And then you’re bringing into that, you’re answering that why the more that they can get involved in some of those projects, I think you’re helping them see that why, which is giving more of that desire for meaningful work or doing work with purpose. What would you say is your working style as a Gen X leader? Steve Born:                        Wow. To be critical about it. We’re going to do this here it is. Linear, I think, would be a style that would characterize a lot of Gen X, not just me. We’re here. We need to be there. It’s that way. Let’s go and charge, let’s go. And again, you know, going back to where we started a conversation, that’s really how we’ve lived our lives is gotta do it. Have to go no choice. And that’s probably, that is different, that linear approach. It’s more circular, I believe. You know, with Millennials and gather round, you guys are going to be a part of this. You guys are going to each contribute to something bigger than ourselves as opposed to just accomplishing a goal. You guys are going to be more fulfilled and rounded out by having this experience that is also, by the way, going to contribute to us getting to our goal. Jenn DeWall:                      So one of the things that I guess I’ve read about Gen X, and I’m not trying to put you on the spot for answering for an entire generation, but one of the things that I guess one of the criticism sometimes that can be brought out by Gen X is that they’re so independent and they have such a hands-off approach because they prefer that for themselves because that’s how they were raised, that sometimes they apply that to their Millennials and then that’s where they could have hiccups because the Millennial might be wanting a little bit more focus and hand-holding as a result of their parenting style. What do you have to say about that? The bad rap of saying that you’re too hands-off. Steve Born:                        Right? The downside of this self-sufficiency independence. I think there’s truth to it. I think there’s truth in every stereotype or every generality. That’s kind of the fun part of this podcast is we get to talk about it, you know, kind of bring these to light and make these broad generalizations. I think it’s true. I think that is a consequence just as we talked about Millennials may be a consequence of their involved and engaged parenting has been that they sometimes, you know, expect a soft landing. That’s a consequence. I think, in the case of where we were growing up that this single-mindedness and independent spirit is a consequence. It’s helped forge a lot. It’s helped get many businesses where they are now and get a lot of stuff done with a very little. But the downside is that we knew a better, we need to do a better job as we get to this point in our careers where it’s really the magical time where we need to think about consciously that this idea of perspective, and in stopping, and saying, wait a minute, people aren’t just going to follow me because I’m going, you know, people are going to follow me in, dedicate by following me. Steve Born:                        Like really dedicate their, their hearts, and their minds to a goal. They’re really going to be dedicated if there’s a difference in the approach and, and it’s hard. It is hard. It’s hard to slow down and to have that perspective. But it’s on us. It has to be a conscious decision that we make. That if we can provide that balance with that independent spirit, with that sense of the “why,” then I think we’re cooking with gas. Jenn DeWall:                      Well, and I think it’s, it’s not all just on you Steve, right? Because do the Millennial, it is putting that on. There is a level of ownership and responsibility that they, that Millennials, and I’m a Millennial, so I can say this like we have to make things happen on our own. We can’t trust that there is going to be always some great opportunity that just perfectly falls into our lap or that someone is going to see this beautiful like speck of talent and want to nurture and grow it. We have to take that responsibility to make it happen on our own, and also we need to learn what to do when things don’t go our way and that, you know, having those coping skills of saying, okay, well this didn’t work out. I don’t have to quit and leave. I can figure out another approach or I can do X, I can do Y. You know? It’s that balance of coming together. Yes, Gen X needs to slow down a little bit. Yeah. But Millennials, I would argue might need to step up a little bit and take more ownership of that. Some Tough Love From a Gen Xer Steve Born:                        Jenn, you’ve entered the tough love segment of the broadcast right now. Jenn DeWall:                      Is this where it turns into a parenting type thing? Steve Born:                        It is. I think, well, I was always of the belief that my boss is never going to lay awake at night worried about me and my career. And that sounds a little harsh. I mean, again, my boss is a great guy. I don’t know if he’s ever going to listen to this or not, but he’s a great guy and, but the reality is tough love. He’s not worried about me. He’s worried about the business, and he’s worried about him and his family and, and what he’s got going on. And so I can’t assume that I’m his problem, right? So I’ve got to show value to him. I can’t do the opposite. I can’t put it on him to do. And I do think that that’s a value that Gen X, for one reason or another, that really have an understanding of that. Like, my stuff is my problem, it’s not my boss’s problem. Right? So this, if there was a way that Boomers could have given that value, could you have done that? You know, to their kids about, you know, what your boss, it sounds harsh, because it’s the wrong thing to say. Of course, you want to believe that your boss is all the time thinking about you and your needs and your growth and where you want to be. And they really, they are but not like in the moment, you know, big picture. Of course. Jenn DeWall:                      That is an insane pressure or expectation to have. And I think to say it in a different way back to you, Steve- to maybe give you the ability to trust that you know, it’s okay. We don’t, no one has the attention span anymore to really be thinking about everyone at the same time. No one does. And it’s not; it doesn’t make a boss a bad boss. We’re not constantly having someone on the radar. It’s that we are all as a society juggling and wearing so many different hats that we don’t always have capacity to think about every single person and how that’s going to impact them. And that is where we have to have the ability to be our own advocates. Steve Born:                        The wisdom from this Millennial here, Jenn, is amazing. You know, that you just imparted you’re absolutely right. Just you have to make it relevant, right. No matter what generation you are, that if you want to get somewhere or you have a need that you need to fill, that there’s another group of human beings that are going to be involved in that decision. You need to make it relevant to them. Right. And maybe that’s part of the, the knowledge that the Millennials still need to round out a bit. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, they’ll, and they, we have, we’ve got time, Steve Born:                        You’ve got time. You totally have time. You guys are so far beyond where we are. I mean it’s, it’s really encouraging and exciting to think about where it’s going to go from here. What Advice Would You Give Your Younger Self? Jenn DeWall:                      I have, I have two last questions, and I’m not surprised that our conversation went over, but I have two last questions for you. The last question would be, what advice would you have given your younger self? Because you have, you have worked your way up the, you know, throughout your career, and you found a lot of success to now where you are today as a CMO. What advice would you have given your younger self? Steve Born:                        I think I got a lot of opportunities looking back. I think at the time I felt like I got them because I was great. You know, I was smart, and yes, of course they see it, they see it in me. But I think in reality I got opportunities because I took a shot and I tried to apply creativity and do things a little bit differently when I had an opportunity and if I was asked to do some things, like how can I do it in a way that stands out a bit and you know, that’s more fun. It’s more fun to work that way, you know, cause it at a minimum, you entertain yourself along the way, you know, to put more character in it. So looking back, I think that I gained a lot in my career by taking a shot at things. Steve Born:                        I mean still, you know, in the, in the circle of safety, you know, it wasn’t like crazy, you know, knife-wielding, you know, cat juggling sorts of risks, that sort of thing. Jenn DeWall:                      Cat juggling? Steve Born:                        Just a little Jerk, the movie reference right there. But you know, just when, when you have an opportunity to apply your personality to it and take a shot and have fun with it and stand out, make you make your mark, and I don’t think you can ever lose by that. At a minimum, if it doesn’t go over very well, you just learned a very valuable life lesson about boundaries. Jenn DeWall:                      Executive precedent. Steve Born:                        Yeah. I don’t think; you don’t have rarely looked back on things and think, Oh man, I wish I, I when I took a shot, rarely looked back and said, I wish I wouldn’t have done that. It’s the inverse. It’s the inverse. You look back, you say, Oh, I could have done more with that. I could’ve applied that differently. I could’ve had more creativity with that. I could have made that stand out a little bit more. So say take a shot. I mean, the world is cluttered like you said before, attention spans are tiny. What does it now, three seconds that people really have focus. So we’ve lost people. People have dropped on this podcast like flies. We’re not talking to anybody right now, but you know that just with that attention span and you know, express your personality, your, you’ve got one- take a shot. Once you have that, that content down, do that extra work to put that icing on the cake. I’d say that would be my advice. What is Your Leadership Habit? Jenn DeWall:                      That’s great. And I love that. Like be yourself, take risks and be authentic with it, you know? And if there’s anything to gain from it, if it’s failure, you’re still getting a valuable lesson. Exactly. So my last question for you, Steve, is, and you know, again, I could talk to you all day about this. I really enjoyed our conversation, and I hope that whoever is still actually listening has enjoyed it too. But we wrap up every one of our podcasts with a final question. And that is what is your leadership habit for success? Steve Born:                        My leadership habit for success is transparency. Transparency. I’m not smart enough to lie cause it, you know, can’t follow lies, there’s too much to keep track of. And so if you’re feeling it or you know, there’s a reason behind it. Put it out there, and people will appreciate it. I think you’ll get credit for being really direct about it. People are bad at hiding things anyway. And you know, Millennials are too smart. Humans are too smart, you know, they see right through it. If you’re not authentic that they know something’s up, they might not know what is up, but that something is up And so overall I just, I don’t think you can lose it all by transparency that if you feeling something or there’s a reason for it, that you can disclose legally of course, that you put it out there and you share it. Jenn DeWall:                      Great. And then you build trust along the way. And you did touch on a great point, too, with the transparency. People can sense it. Millennials can sense it, Boomers can sense it. Gen X can sense it. And I would just say just as similar as to why we need to watch for tone in an email; people can sense how you’re coming through to them. And so think about how you want to communicate and how do you want to build trust with people and to develop and nurture that relationship. Yeah. So transparency. I love that. Steve Born:                        Yeah, you wrapped it up well; it is people. People are too smart, you know, they can, they can see through it and if you’re not authentic. People know when a there’s a little bit of a hitch and like you said, even they can pick it up, an email or a text, a nuance. So, and then it’s a relief, too. You feel better when you’re actually, you know, able to put it out there at a minimum. It’s therapeutic. Jenn DeWall:                      Yes. Well, Steve, thank you so much for being willing to talk with us today about Gen X. I hope we didn’t make you too much of a target when you go back to work. Steve Born:                        I know exactly. Millennials and Boomers after me, Marcia and Cindy. Jenn DeWall:                      No, but thank you so much for joining us, for being interviewed and also imparting your knowledge on us. It was a great conversation that I really enjoy talking to you. Steve Born:                        Well, thanks. It was great to be here, and I hope it helped. Jenn DeWall:                      Thank you. Steve. Thanks for tuning in today for our conversation with Steve Born of Globus family of brands. If you enjoyed today’s podcast, please subscribe and write a review. If you’re looking for opportunities to develop your leadership skill set, how don’t over to crestcom.com there you can learn more about our 12-month leadership development program and find out how to schedule a leadership skills workshop for your team. Stay tuned for next week as we wrap up our generational leadership series with Stephanie McCauley, a millennial consultant, and trainer who shares her perspective working with multigenerational teams.   The post Episode 15: Multi-Generational Leadership Featuring Steve Born, Gen Xer appeared first on Crestcom International.

Baby Boomers and Multi-Generational Leadership In today’s episode of The Leadership Habit Podcast, we are continuing our multi-generational leadership series taking a closer look at Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials in the workforce today. We are talking with Baby Boomer, Jim Lopresti, president of CohereUS consulting and professor at the University of Colorado Denver Business School. Jim is going to share with us his unique insights as a professor and consultant working with multiple generations. Full Transcript Below Jenn DeWall:                      Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall here, and I am talking today to Jim Lopresti. He is joining us to talk and represent part of the Baby Boomer generation. As we talk about multi-generational leadership and how different generations come and connect and interact with each other in the workforce. Jim, thank you so much for being with us today. Jim Lopresti:                       Oh, you’re welcome, Jenn. Jenn DeWall:                      Now, Jim, for those that don’t know you, tell us a little bit about yourself. Jim Lopresti:                       Sure. I am a professor at the University of Colorado in Denver, and I teach leadership and management. I teach undergrads, but mostly graduate students. So I get a whole mix of generations in those classes. And I also have my own consulting practice, and I consult and coach professional coach people in all different industries. Jenn DeWall:                      On the topics of performance, leadership, Jim Lopresti:                       Strategic planning, Management, Development, leadership, Jenn DeWall:                      The whole gamut. So what they need to be effective as leaders. Jim Lopresti:                       Absolutely. Especially emotional intelligence. That’s my wheelhouse if you will. So emotional and social intelligence, which I’ve been teaching actually to the Denver Police Department. Climate silent scientists for NOAA and UCAR, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and HomeAdvisor. Jenn DeWall:                      Oh, wow. Yes. That’s fantastic. I mean, emotional intelligence is something that I think regardless of what generation you belong to; it’s absolutely something that’s essential for all of us to understand. Jim Lopresti:                       It’s for every human right walks this planet. If you don’t have it, people know it. And when you do have it, they will know that too. How Do You Define Leadership? Jenn DeWall:                      So let’s start out by just asking you from the Baby Boomer perspective. Jim, how do you define leadership? Jim Lopresti:                       You know, I just talked about this yesterday in my management class for my MBA course and I, it just kind of occurred to me when we were speaking in class. I said, guys, I’m going to give you a kind of my take on leadership and management. And I said, particularly leadership: it’s a verb. People consider it a title. I’m a leader, or they consider it a noun: leadership, but it’s a verb. It’s behaviors. So if we consider the behaviors that are necessary for leadership, then suddenly we’re not thinking, well, I’m a leader, so I have to do this or I do that I deserve this, or I don’t deserve that. So the whole concept of leadership as a verb takes it over and above an organizational kind of context and it means we should behave this way every day. When you leave your corner office, or on the 65th floor of the World Trade Center or whatever, and go out to lunch, you still take those who should take those leadership behaviors, qualities with you to the waitstaff and, and the Maitre D or the woman at the door or what have you. So for me, considering leadership as a verb, it’s a whole set of behaviors that we all should, emotionally intelligent behaviors that we all should practice. Jenn DeWall:                      So that’s such a powerful definition because I feel like it’s accessible. It’s a way of being. Jim Lopresti:                       It is. It’s exactly what it is because it’s a verb! Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah, but I mean, even thinking that it’s not just something where we draw on this behavior, or we show up that way for the eight, nine hours, however long we’re at our jobs, and then when we go home, we show up as someone else. It’s really who are we when we approached that its staff, as you talked about to our children, to the community, to our employee’s leadership is the way that we show up and interact with everyone. Jim Lopresti:                       Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s what makes for authentic leadership is just being yourself 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Baby Boomers in the Multi-Generational Workforce Jenn DeWall:                      I love that you’re a professor and a consultant because it lends itself to meeting with a large group of people that presumably are from different generations. Yes. What differences in leadership do you notice and see across the generations? Jim Lopresti:                       So for the Millennials that I have both coached as well as taught, they see leadership in a little different light than say a Baby Boomer or even Gen X. For them, leadership is something you work toward. But you work toward it. And I’m saying generally speaking, because they’re not all like this, I just want to preface at least this talk with, I don’t put everybody in their little generational box and say, these are the qualities that make you a Gen X, Baby Boomer, the Greatest Generation or, or a Millennial. There’s a tendency, I’ll use that word for Millennials, or I guess they’re called Gen Y. To be a little impatient about getting that leadership role. So it’s, it’s okay, I’ve been here for a year. Why aren’t I leading a team yet? And then I actually encountered this with a group that I was working within Pasadena, California last year actually. Um they, I was coaching some Millennials and then some Baby Boomers who were much, much higher up. And it was, an emerging leader program. And my Millennial coachees where we’re saying, you know, I’ve been here for a year, I really should have a much bigger team. I said, you know, you already have a team for your age and experience that I think can teach you how to be better at what you do and how to discover yourself. And, and again, this was all led from emotional intelligence because, you know, I would tell the Millennials this is about self-awareness and self-management. Understand who you are first and then manage your emotions, especially the impatience if you will if that’s who you are. And, and as your coach, I see a little more impatiences than I do with some other folks that I’m coaching a little older if you will. And they just look at me kind of confused and baffled and don’t really understand that it takes time to build that self-awareness. And it certainly takes time. Once you understand what your hot buttons are like I’m just not getting promoted in, it’s been three weeks. What’s the story to manage that, to manage that impatience or, or what have you? So Baby Boomers, completely different animal. I’ve coached a heck of a lot of Baby Boomers. I am one, so I can relate to them better. And they have a sense of loyalty that I, I understand most Millennials would have a tendency not to because organizationally the industries have all moved away from loyalty and it’s, Hey, I can always fill this role with somebody else. So if you don’t like it, here, hit the pike. My father who was the Greatest Generation and in most of my peers and colleagues were treated with respect and in turn we turned that respect to their respected organizations and so they were guaranteed work, if you will, or guaranteed it’s kind of a strange word anymore. They knew that when they got up in the morning, they go into work and they weren’t handed a pink slip and said, Hey, you know, you’re old. We can fill your job with somebody half your age and half your salary. So hit the pike. That happens now, I think far more frequently than it used to say 15, 20 years ago. So Millennials don’t have a sense of loyalty, nor have they any reason to have a sense of loyalty. Whereas Baby Boomers still do, despite the industry has moved away from, “Hey, we’re going to protect you. Don’t you worry about it.” What the hell is a pension? Jenn DeWall:                      Right? We’re not guaranteed that anymore. I mean, the last recession in the US definitely showed U S employees that companies are, as you said, are not invested in loyalty anymore. They’re not necessarily going to offer the things that are promised when you initially accept that offer. Jim Lopresti:                       Not even close. Yeah. So and I understand that, and I work with them because that’s a good reason to be impatient if you look at it is, you know, I’m not really guaranteed a job here, so I need to just build out my resume, and I can see how they would be impatient. But everything in moderation, as the Greek said, you know take it a little more slowly and, and build that self-awareness and that self-management (which Baby Boomers have had more time to do). Then you start to build the relationships and make that network a lot larger and stronger. And then people see your worth, and you get promoted. So yeah, it’s, it’s interesting the Gen Zs are still very young, so I don’t know. I have a few in my undergraduate class, but I haven’t; I don’t know where they stand on leadership. I suspect they probably carry a lot of the Millennial perspectives with them, especially the loyalty and the impatience. What about Gen X? Jenn DeWall:                      What about the Gen Xers? Jim Lopresti:                       Gen Xers are Jenn DeWall:                      I know sometimes they get mislabeled as like the forgotten generation. They aren’t the same size as the boomers and the Millennials. Jim Lopresti:                       And maybe that’s why I didn’t mention them because I forgot that. No, not really. Jenn DeWall:                      We’re teasing. We accept them! Jim Lopresti:                       No, and I have a lot of my MBA students are Gen Xers, and quite a few of my friends are Gen Xers, Gen Xers are– they have this kind of, I think they perceive themselves as somewhere between the, and this is a term that I constantly hear about Millennials, that they’re entitled. I have plenty of Millennial students at both graduate undergraduate and clients who don’t feel themselves entitled at all. It’s, I’m going to, I’m going to earn what I receive. I’m not expecting someone to hand it to me. Although I’ve read all of the crap out there that’s been written. Some of it’s good, some of it is, it’s just opinion. That the Millennials are the entitled generation, so everything should be handed to them without doing much work. Whereas Gen X, I think Gen X are they work very hard, and sometimes I think maybe they’ve been left out of the loop when it comes to understanding that they, they were very different from the Baby Boomers in that the loyalty thing wasn’t really bred into them either because again, the industry has changed. All industries have changed. Organizational behaviors changed towards their employees. So when I worked at Lucent for four years and then went to Sun Microsystems. A lot of Gen Xers, they’re very loyal. All thought this is going to be the job I will retire from. That wasn’t Sun’s idea, nor was it Lucent’s idea and it was their leadership. Their leadership was Baby Boomers, who screwed up, and it was also a Sun Microsystems. They and I, any organization that fails and is either taken over or just goes bankrupt, it’s always leadership. It’ll go back to leadership. The employees are doing their work; leadership is making the decisions around that work, and people are, are getting laid off in one round after another. And when you see that, especially the folks that I worked with at Sun Microsystems. When they see that, it makes them jaded. And so they get a little more hardened, if you will, and say, well, I’m just going to look after myself. So a lot of my Gen X friends and MBA students take care of themselves. I’m not saying they’re selfish, not, not even close to being selfish. It’s more like self-focused that no one’s going to take care of me, so I have to take care of myself. Jenn DeWall:                      And I think that you know, that makes total sense given that they’re dubbed that latchkey generation where parents weren’t there, they had to get that key from either that shoestring, which is What I had- a shoestring that was in our backpacks or underneath the doormat. Well, however, that went, and you had to fix yourself your meal, put yourself to bed; however, that worked out. But yeah, there’s a high sense of independence as a Gen X or just based on a lot of how they were raised Jim Lopresti:                       And self-reliance, self-reliance. Because they were the latchkey generation, they had to fend for themselves. Now that was something they did at home, but they also carry those behaviors to work with them. So they fend for themselves, they take care of themselves. I have I’ve worked with people in a different context, in different jobs as a consultant, and the Gen X project leads or program leaders took care of their people. They really did. They took very good care of their people. They also took care of themselves while they were doing it. Baby Boomers take care of their people. I think Baby Boomers had a tendency to maybe take care of their people a little bit more than taking care of themselves. Millennials, I don’t even know about them yet. Jenn DeWall:                      I think there’s a little bit what you see and it’s, I still think that you know, it’s still out to be determined to see like how they actually make that impact, but knowing that they desire so much of that mentorship connection of a supporter, I imagine. And some of them that I know are actually very attentive to how they can support. Because they want people to feel like they have someone that they can turn to and go to. But you know, in terms of the true, how they end up influencing as higher-level leaders, I think the jury’s still out that, that one. Yeah. And I think it will be up for a little while. Right? There are a lot more experience and time in the workforce. Jim Lopresti:                       I think we really, really need to be cautious about pigeonholing everyone just because of their age, when they were born. So I try to avoid that at all costs. Yes, there are tendencies and behaviors that as, as a unit of, you know, 20 years that we all share in a generation that there are trends, there are cultural values and norms that shift and change and that influences who we are and how we behave. But there are plenty of people who are very independent thinkers and don’t follow the crowd. I have students when I ask how many of you have social media? Most of the room, the hands go up. But I would say typically in a class of both undergraduates and graduates; there’s always between five and 10 in a group of maybe 40 who don’t have social media and don’t care to. And that always strikes me as, wow, that’s unusual because it’s everywhere. It’s ubiquitous. But, and then I had a student with me in my international entrepreneurship program in Barcelona who didn’t even have a smartphone. And this woman is 28. Wow. And she had a flip phone. She said, Nope, it’s, I, it’s too much of a distraction. And I said that’s funny because when I talk about smartphones in all my classes, I say put ’em away. It’s a handheld weapon of mass distraction. So I don’t want you looking at it or wondering who just texted you, who just liked you or tweeted you or what have you, put it away. It’s a distraction. Multiple Generations Means Multiple Communication Styles Jenn DeWall:                      I think the cell phone, and that’s what’s so interesting is initially I think with cell phones, it was very much the younger generations that grabbed onto that heads down in the phones. But now as smartphones are becoming the reality, I feel like you’re seeing that across every single generation where they’re either so immersed in social media or some type of game that they play or something where it’s hard to get anyone to put their phones down and connect into their present life. Which I think, you know, again, you had initially put that as a challenge within the Millennials, but as it’s becoming more and more common, I think it’s, you know, kind of infecting, if you will, all the generations. Jim Lopresti:                       It is, it is. And I think as older generations, I think use it more as expression. It’s a tool where you can express yourself in social media as well, smartphones. So whereas I think the younger generations use it for impression. So it’s to build this narrative of who I am. This is me and my bagel in the morning, and this is me walking along the beach, 43 different pictures of me walking along the beach to make everybody wish I were there with you, or oh, you’re so lucky. So there’s a huge difference I’m finding between the younger generations that use social media, which includes smartphones as an impression rather than an expression. Express yourself, you know, texting people and telling them something in whole sentences rather than just a bunch of acronyms, you know, OMG, FYI, a LOL. And on and on it goes. I find my Boomer friends and Gen X friends will actually write me whole sentences, and when they misspell a word, they’ll correct it and send it in the next text. You know, no way will that happen with the younger folks, Jenn DeWall:                      There’s not enough time for that. They’ve got all those other people to text. Jim Lopresti:                       They’re going to get that award for the best texter, or the best social media entity – Jenn DeWall:                      It’s funny, I mean I do know and I, there’s one person coming to mind, and I will just be nice and not out there, but one of the things that I tease her on is, and she is part of the Gen X generation, but she had dictates all of her text messages. So they end up being full paragraphs because she was dictating like five sentences into one thing. And it’s so funny because if you asked a, someone, that’s just a little bit more familiar with texting and emojis and everything, they will do and probably send a very similar type of communication, but it will be a quarter of the information and words. Jim Lopresti:                       Yes. You know (like other baby boomers), I’m very, very particular about my emails and my texts, so I have to reread them, make sure there are no typos. Maybe it’s because I have a Ph.D. in English and it would look bad. But my grammar has to be perfect. My texting if I, you know, fat finger a word or what have you, and it’s misspelled. I’ll always correct it. And then, you know, immediate text follow up. I’ll get texts from so many different people from so many different generations. Nope. It’s, although the older folks do tend to, they don’t like to misspell cause it makes them look bad. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah. That’s how exactly that’s how I was raised. But if you don’t spell correctly or if you don’t have proper grammar, Jim Lopresti:                       It’s basic communication skills, especially business communications. Jenn DeWall:                      Right. And they are essential. We still need to know how to properly formally communicate. Yeah. We can’t take everything and simplify it down to an emoji. It’s not going to be as effective. Jim Lopresti:                       Yeah, Don’t get me going on Emoji! Jenn DeWall:                      So in your role as a consultant, business owner, and professor, how do you bridge the generational gaps, or how do you address the generational gaps in your classroom or your business? Do you feel, do you find yourself taking a different approach depending on who you’re coaching or teaching? Jim Lopresti:                       I ask them how they perceive themselves, which is probably a good place to start. So how do you perceive yourself, say, as a Millennial you know, you’ve heard plenty of things about Millennials, etc., etc. Do you see yourself as the typical Millennial, and you know, more often than not, most of them say, not really. There are things that I see about myself that that is very typical with my friends, and they’re all Millennials or Baby Boomers. You know, I, there are things about me as a Baby Boomer that I see in my friends and, and how I perceived myself is for the most part pretty close with some variations and such that, you know, the Baby Boomers box. But I want to know what makes them different. And so, especially with the class, I’ll say, how many of you are Millennials? And typically 70% of the room raised their hands. Jenn DeWall:                      Do you ask this in your class? Oh, to kind of get an understanding? Jim Lopresti:                       Oh, sure. Oh, that’s fantastic. Absolutely. How many of you are Gen X and a couple of nontraditional aged students? And occasionally I have Baby Boomers too who, you know, are going back for a degree or finishing up a degree that they left, you know, behind when they either had a family or, or you know, life interfered while they were making other plans. So, and then we talk about that because I want to understand the different generations, learn things differently, and also how I present my material, and what I say is also contingent on different generational perceptions. So I want to say, okay, well you Millennials, do you perceive yourself as, and I’ll have slides that here’s the Millennial kind of typical definition and then Gen X and then Baby Boomers and how many of these apply to you folks? And we’ll spend an entire 75 minutes or even hours on defining because this is about self-awareness of course, and, and managing how you define yourself and how you present yourself to the world. So we go through that, and I think that’s critically important. I mean, I’ve, I’ve done consulting on generational leadership and how especially employers can work with different generations on their teams and such. It’s kind of like using the NBTI, the Myers Briggs. Now the ENFPs, same thing with, they all have qualities that define them or those tendencies that define them. And same thing with Millennials and Baby Boomers and Gen Xers and Generation Z. So I want to understand those tendencies, so I can work with them to help them understand themselves better. Jenn DeWall:                      What, in your perspective, what do you admire about each generation? I mean, is there anything, I mean, cause we’re talking about how there are different tech, there’s different technology that influenced each generation. There’s different historical events that influenced each generation. And so the generations have been generalized right into specific stereotypes, but they do all have their own, you know, beautiful qualities. What qualities do you admire from the generations? Baby Boomers and Loyalty in the Workforce Jim Lopresti:                       Well, OK. To go back to earlier stuff, I think the loyalty of Baby Boomers is incredibly admirable because, despite, as time has progressed and being a Baby Boomer, I’ve seen where my loyalty has changed. But I still, there’s still this strong inclination to be loyal to an entity, whether it’s an organization or what have you that I know isn’t going to be loyal to me or doesn’t consider me indispensable. And so I find that really admirable because it’s a great quality in leadership is leaders have to be loyal and sometimes you have to sacrifice that loyalty for something much higher. But when you do, you have to let people know and not kind of disguise it or hide it or, or even deny it, if you will. Which takes me to Gen X, which their independence, their self-reliance is sometimes absolutely breathtaking. How they can get things done without going and asking for help, and they figure it out and actually can be far more innovative. I think sometimes in their tendency to be self-reliant than say Baby Boomers who, yeah, I’m going to get help on this because I don’t know how to use a smartphone. And I typically don’t read directions. Therefore I’ll have my son or daughter or someone helps me with it. Or, you know, a friend who’s a generation below me. So and then the Millennials, I think, I think their impatience or this I don’t want to call it impatience cause that has negative connotations for sure. But this ambition, Jenn DeWall:                      Accelerated ambition. Jim Lopresti:                       There you go. I like that. That’s a beautiful euphemism. It drives them, it drives them to want to change things, and hopefully they’ll change the things that my generation kind of, I’m not going to say we screwed things up, but I don’t think we handled things in the best way because we didn’t have all the information that we needed. And there’s a whole variety of reasons why we are where we are right now in 2019. So I think their drive, their ambition, accelerated ambition I think can really help change the course of not only organizational behavior and politics, but also bleed out into the world too, into political arenas and such. I went to a concert the other night with a good friend of mine who was my coachee. He’s a senior manager at a medical device company in Colorado and his son is freaking brilliant. He won the robotics championship for all of the nation, not just Colorado, but entire nation. We went to a concert the other night, he’s 15 years old, which maybe that’s not even Millennial, that may be Gen Z, but I think that is Gen Z. He is so well-spoken. He’s so thoughtful, he’s attentive, he’s respectful. And, and at the end of the night, I know my friend was always telling me my son Aden really is very special and I’m going, Oh, most parents say that and tell me why. And he says he has these particular qualities. And this man did not lie. He wasn’t exaggerating. This kid really can change the world. And he’s trying, he’s trying to use robotics to help clean up the oceans of plastics. His ideas were so transcendent. He said it’s up to me now because you and my dad (baby boomers) kind of screwed things up. And I said, okay, I’ll admit to that. We tried our best; we recycled when people weren’t recycling. But granted, it was baby boomers that put us here or helped to put us here. So he said it’s up to me now and, and my friends and if his friends are like, he is – Mama Mia, we’re in good shape! Really it gave me- I went home that night feeling incredibly optimistic about the future. Jenn DeWall:                      How powerful of a feeling generated by someone that you know is young that is lacking in experience but not in, you know, as you had said, like transcendence, the ability to see what will happen, what everything looks like that we’re not seeing and how far is far, what’s great look like and what’s possible. Jim Lopresti:                       I embarrassed myself driving home, thinking what was I doing at 15? I was worried about zits or something. Jenn DeWall:                      Yeah. What was I doing? I mean, I was not a very cool kid in any way, so I can’t imagine I was doing anything beyond reading books or sitting at home. I was not, and I don’t anything. I had nothing of interest like that and nothing of that impact either at that age at all. Jim Lopresti:                       Never won any trophies. And certainly not robotics. Hello. I’m still fascinated that I can Skype people. Oh, this is all Dick Tracy stuff from my generation where you have to watch that a little TV and now, yeah, you have a watch, a smartwatch or the iPhone watch whatever the heck it is and you can talk to people on it. To me, that’s still amazing technology. Jenn DeWall:                      It is. I mean, the fact that you can call someone from your wrist, we’re not that far removed from that first cell phone and what that looked like to knowing where it’s at today and how truly mobile we are. Jim Lopresti:                       Yeah. And, and technology really has shaped the generations in very, very different ways, very different ways. Jenn DeWall:                      You know, one of the things that we touched on earlier when we dubbed it, and I am a Millennial, I’m, I’m that cusper, so in between Gen X and that, and I definitely know the parts of myself as being accelerated, ambitious. That what we coined, I had a lot of accelerated ambition in my twenties, and much of it was way too accelerated for my own benefit. And so absolutely. But I don’t think I had emotional intelligence until I went through the growing pains of learning it. And that’s when I think like EQ or emotional intelligence comes in. But you talked about what motivates Millennials, and yes, a lot of that is that I want to get to the next level. I want to be promoted. I want this. And that was definitely where I was about 15 years ago in my career. What motivated, what motivates you as a Baby Boomer? Jim Lopresti:                       Well, as a Baby Boomer, I think I’m a little different than a lot of my friends who are Baby Boomers. I’ve had a lot of different careers, not just jobs change. So change in my personal life, but also change in my professional life. And then change extended outward. I teach because I want to change lives. You don’t teach to get paid? Well, not even close. So I’m continually joking with all my classes. I say I’m not here because I in it for the money. I’m here because it’s important and significant and meaningful to me to at least change one life in this classroom in the next 16 weeks. And it works. It works because I’m so passionate and committed to my teaching. So for me, I’ve always been motivated by changing myself and then changing others by sharing what I found and if it’s useful, great. If it isn’t, you know, ding me on the evaluations at the end, then I’ll get better. They don’t, the evaluations, so it’s working, at least I think I’m teaching in a business school and have for the last 15 years with a Ph.D. in 19th century American literature. Now having said that, my focus has always been Thoreau and Thoreau was a deeply, deeply self-aware, self-managed, emotionally intelligent human being and has a lot to offer philosophically and psychologically. And that’s why he wrote all these books saying, here, folks, check this out and see if it can change your life. I learned from her at a very young age and I have used him as my coach and role model for the last 45 years. I read them at a very young age and knew that he was going to be a part of my life intellectually and personally. So. Jenn DeWall:                      No. I know that you said yours maybe a little bit different than your peers and this is going to be dicey because I don’t want to say this in any way that could be misconstrued, but do you feel that, you know, if you’re thinking about what motivates you, what do you think motivates your peers? Do you think it’s, they have that same level of self-awareness and they want to make that same impact of changing the world? Or do you feel like it’s, it’s that financial piece, which I think is where they’re kind of dubbed as, you know, they want to do live to work to make that money, right. Provide for their family and less about the self-awareness and growth. Not that some of them wouldn’t desire that, but that wasn’t always the first priority. Jim Lopresti:                       No. And, and I think my peers are more focused on being secure. And that goes back to the loyalty piece too. If I’m loyal to you, you’ll be loyal to me and secure me a job for the rest of my life. And that’s basically what’s happened to a lot of them. And as far as to change, I, so many, so many of my friends are resistant. I have three friends who are Baby Boomers who worked with me at Sun Microsystems. One of them was my manager and he, all three of them hate their jobs – And um they hate their jobs. They loathe their jobs, but they won’t change. I say, why don’t you look for, you have so much experience, and insight, wisdom from the industry and all three of them say I’m afraid to go out there now because there are so many younger people who know a heck of a lot more than I do. They have forgotten more than I know because they grew up with the technology. They grew up with all this stuff, and we adapted to it. We had stereo systems that were the size of, you know, a coffin. Had the record player in it and the whole deal. Whereas, you know, color TV, they never knew when there wasn’t colored TV. And that’s just way, way, way back for us as Baby Boomers. You didn’t grow up with black and white television. You didn’t grow up with a dial telephone. Jenn DeWall:                      I had a dial, telephone. Jim Lopresti:                       Was it a princess phone? Jenn DeWall:                      Ha! No, it was not a princess phone. Actually my dad had a rotary phone, so I didn’t know how to use that. And then we had, but you know, the advancement in technology in terms of the phone for me was the cordless phone. Jim Lopresti:                       Okay. There you go. Cordless phones that as you’re talking to a friend, you start walking in the other rooms in order to hear you, and the phone would pull you back. Well, you pulled it out of the wall. Sure. Been there, done that. How Technology Shaped Generations Jenn DeWall:                      Then, I mean when I was 16 or 17, that’s when cell phones kind of hit like the market at the mall. Like there would be a kiosk, and I remember I did have a part-time job, so I bought a cell phone, and I had that number for probably one month because that’s about as long as could afford it, then I didn’t get one until college. And I think it’s so crazy because my niece and nephew are all, you know, 12 or 10- they have phones. Yeah. Jim Lopresti:                       Oh yeah. I was at a restaurant the other night, and these three little children, none of which exceeded the age of 10, all had their little computers, and their parents were sitting there at the table with their smartphones while the kids all sat there with the computers. And I’m thinking, why the heck don’t they talk to each other? What did they say? Hey kids, how was your day? Well, I killed three orcs on my a video game, but there was no engagement. They were all isolated in their little units, and I’m assuming the parents were probably late Millennials, not late, but I guess early Millennials, the older Millennials, and these were, you know, small children all with their computers. Jenn DeWall:                      Do you think in this maybe something that we end up going off the record on and not including, but do you think that pressures at work have changed between a Baby Boomer to a Gen X to a Millennial? Do you feel like the expectations that you know where Baby Boomers had the loyalty, but you worked hard because you know there was going to be hopefully something that you could gain in that partnership with the organization? And right now it feels that and this just seems kind of epidemic around, every generation is expected to do more with less, maybe in a way that they weren’t once doing it. And so you think about how we’re supposed to do more, we’re more plugged in, we’re more stressed out, we’re processing more information than ever. And so yeah, I guess if I were that exhausted, maybe I would give a computer to the, like to my kiddos, I don’t have kids, but like, you know, like knowing that there, that work itself has changed and even just our culturally how work has impacted, and our community and our cultural system is also impacted our mental health. I don’t think we have the same capacity to handle things sometimes. Like there’s that point of exhaustion, which I just think hits earlier in the day than what it may used to. That could be a generalization or just my level of, but I’m just curious, like is there something there like Jim Lopresti:                       I think there, well, technology in itself has bled into everything. So I have to be technical at school and also in my consulting practice. And again, I think each generation has a certain proficiency and then especially Baby Boomers can run into a wall and go, Oh, okay, I’m not going there. That’s way too advanced for me. I’m good with just knowing these applications, but don’t get me to, you know, adopt any more because I already know Excel or whatever. Whereas gen Gen X is as far more, I think a lot of them could be far more advanced than Baby Boomers and Millennials have it all at this point in Gen Z, so, and they can run rings around people technologically, especially Baby Boomers for the most part. But I think it does bleed into everything and I think yes, you do tend to get exhausted. When I go home, typically I’ll pick up a book, and I’ll read it. I don’t want to look at a monitor anymore, and I have a house of about 3,400 books, so I have plenty to choose from. Baby Boomers and Communication Jenn DeWall:                      Oh my gosh, that’s amazing. Well, it’s the same for reading, but like the technology piece for what? For the develop proficiency that Millennials and Gen Z have with technology. I mean there is a little bit, to some extent of a compromise in their ability to socialize so that, that boomer though they may not be as quick to pick up a certain technology, they can form a relationship, handle a conflict, have a conversation, whereas the Millennial is so dependent on having that medium be the medium, you know, that medium piece in their conversation. Like everything goes through the phone instead of around the phone. Jim Lopresti:                       Right. When I talk about managing different generations, uh, when I do my consulting or, or even when I, when I’m in my classrooms or in, in the, uh, training room, I’ll say, folks have been full-blooded Italian. Having been to Italy countless times. And having taught there for a year in Rome, I realized that social media began, at least for me, in Italy where the piazza was the original Facebook if you will. So the Italians would get together, sit in the Piazza and every village, no matter how large, and then how small, if it’s a city if it’s a town or Hilltown, they all have a piazza. They have several Piazza’s. And people go, and they sit, they have their coffee, they have wine, and they talk about their families. They talk about their jobs, they talk about their lives, and they look each other in the eyes, and they smile, and they gesture. Now this is what brought on emojis is because people can’t gesture. They can’t see your face as you’re talking. So intimacy is lost in technology. And I say that’s why emojis were invented, to try to replace the intimacy of a face to face personal one on one or a group setting where people are smiling at each other. We see their body language and, and cues that they’re displaying in their behavior that you don’t see in an email and a text. Even if you do a video of yourself, it still doesn’t; it doesn’t bring in that glorious intimacy that I think we’re losing because we’re relying on technology to do everything for us to express ourselves. But worse to impress others with ourselves. So there needs to be far more expression in the world through technology and, and we’re not there yet. We’re not even close to it. I think it’s being subtracted rather than added. So, Jenn DeWall:                      No, and that’s a big, you know, that is just a big issue. How people do use in younger generations do use social media technology to impress, you know, and that you could talk about that for a long time because there are a lot of issues that are coming out as that, as a result of using that to impress. But I want to go back to, and this, you know, is just, you may or may not have an answer, but I know that, so you’ve been to Italy a few times. You’ve spoken, or excuse me; you teach in Barcelona. Do you notice generational differences across different, it’s culture? Jim Lopresti:                       Cultures? Yeah. Yeah. The funny thing about Italy is I’ve been in Italy 26 times. Jenn DeWall:                      Holy cow. I’ve been there one time Jim Lopresti:                       And one of those times actually lived there for a year. So I’m very Italian. I was brought up in a culture of Italians in Philadelphia. My grandparents, even two of my great parents who great grandparents who were still alive, were very, very Italian. And although they, they learned English rudimentary English, at least my great grandparents they still continued to the culture. And, and just because I was living in a different country doesn’t mean I leave my culture behind. So I assimilate incredibly well in Italy except when it comes to the technology, at least the Italian Millennials, it’s socially unacceptable to own one cell phone. The more cell phones you, you own, the higher up on the social ladder you are raised. So if you have three, you are so bloody cool, you should run for parliament or just be considered a hero among friends and peers. So that’s where technology has taken now they’ve had cell phones for longer than we have because we resisted as a nation because we had all this infrastructure of telephone poles, right? So we had above-ground telephone and cables and underground fiber networks. They weren’t going to just rip all that stuff out because of cell technology. So most of Europe is so advanced and cell technology than we are and will have been for a long time. So I’ve noticed that they too rely very heavily on technology, but the cell phone is just kind of a social status symbol. They still sit down at five o’clock, where you have a little glass of wine, you have free food. So it’s happy hour, Italian style, and they all get together, and they share their day, and they’re not loud. I can always tell American culture from Italian culture, especially in restaurants, in outdoor settings like Piazzas. The Americans are much louder than Italian. So Italians, they consider it rude to be Raucous in public, especially to display any drunken behavior. So you can tell foreigners anyway, in Italy and also in Spain when I was in Barcelona. Spaniards or Catalans, since they consider themselves cattle lines do not display present themselves in any abbreviated manner. In public. You don’t do that. It’s just low class. So it’s disrespectful to the culture. Well, the American students, what two, at least that I had brought with me, or I’d have to say, guys, behave, you’re not back home now. You’re not in Denver. You’re in Barcelona. So they got the message after a while. But again, you know, I think technology, as far as international cultures, they have advanced technology. They rely on it, but they still go back to the intimacy piece because it’s so deeply embedded in the culture and you will never replace it with technology. They will not dismantle Piazza’s and say, okay folks, you can do all the same thing you’re doing here on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and everything else. Not even close, not even close. Jenn DeWall:                      You’re making me want to go and sit in a piazza. Jim Lopresti:                       Oh, I want to go and sit in a piazza right now. Trust me; I’m Asian. Culture’s a little bit different there, there the Instagram group whether they’re Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese a Chinese very much into intendancy of the Instagram- sort of taking all those pictures. It was funny because when we were in Barcelona, there were lines and lines of Asian tourists and they were younger tourists in front of the Gothic cathedral and the Gothic quarter in downtown Barcelona. And they were taking pictures, continuous pictures, the same person. No, not do this pose and do that pose. And it was orchestrated. It was like, a fashion shoot. And they would take, I don’t know, well maybe 20 pictures and I said, what the heck? And then the next, the next person would come up, and the next person is what’s going on here. And one of my students that actually, the one who doesn’t have the smartphone, Caitlin said, Oh, that’s for Instagram. You’ve got to get the perfect picture. And then you post it on Instagram. Now I got to be kidding. I’m so far behind on that. Jenn DeWall:                      I am so far behind it. Every time people ask me for tech things, I mean, I’m sure if my friends are listening, they can attest to the fact that I’m awful at texting. My husband always makes fun of me because I don’t know how to use a GIF or an emoji. And it’s not that I don’t know-how. I just do not like it, and I don’t want to sit and look for the person because, to me, that like I’m just spending more time on something. If I’m trying to make fast communication, I don’t want to search for five minutes to find the perfect picture that’s gonna support my message. I don’t even have better things to do so much as I just don’t want to invest my time that way. No way. Jim Lopresti:                       I’m the same way, just not interested in doing it. Although I found it unusual that somebody was joking with me and sent me an emoji and they, it was flipping me the bird. Why is this an emoji for everybody to use for that matter? You know, but it’s out there. What is Your Leadership Habit? Jenn DeWall:                      Well, Jim, I’ve really enjoyed our conversation, and we like to wrap up every single interview with one final question, which is what is your leadership habit for success? Jim Lopresti:                       My leadership habit for success is to continually be seeking change in myself and in the people that I lead. If you consider my students, I am basically their leader, both MBAs and undergraduates, and in the people. When I’m in training organizations is, it again goes back to my whole Baby Boomers concept about, for me, change is, is one of the most important elements for me. When I want to, if I’m going to be sharing information to change people’s lives, I want them to share back so I can help change mine. I’m not just this vessel of all this wisdom and insight. I wish I were, ultimately. Hopefully I get there, I die, but it’s going to take a hell of a long time. But I want to change too. So it’s not a transaction for me. Leadership, it’s gotta be transformational, and especially in my coaching is yes, you hired me in, you’re paying me to help change the way you behave as a manager, as a leader. But I, I will also seek to change in this too in, in how I present myself to you and how you respond to me and how you change or don’t change. If you don’t, I’ve got to change the way I come and present myself to you and the questions that I ask and, and, and how our relationship continues to develop. So no changes. The only thing that’s constant so will stick with it. Jim Lopresti:                       Each person you meet is your teacher and your student. And your commitment to being objective. Right. I mean, especially along the topic of generations and saying that we aren’t. So Jim and I have talked a lot, and just because we’re talking about some of the generalizations out there does not mean that you are necessarily in this box. We know that there are plenty of people that don’t identify within those constructs constraints. But I, you know, it’s really, it was really nice for me to hear your commitment to just seeing people as people and meeting them where they are and seeing what type of impact you can have on that as well as the impact that they can have on you. Jim Lopresti:                       Absolutely. And everyone can change. Absolutely. Jenn DeWall:                      Yes. You’re not a tree. Right. Jim Lopresti:                       I like just to be a little more assertively ambitious. Jenn DeWall:                      Accelerated Ambition. Jim Lopresti:                       Yeah, that too! Jim Lopresti:                       Well, thank you so much, Jim, for being here. I enjoyed our conversation. Jim Lopresti:                       Thanks so much. Thanks for tuning in to today’s episode and our conversation with Jim Lopresti. If you’d like to get to know more about Jim, connect with him on LinkedIn, and you can find his information in our show notes. If you’re looking for opportunities to develop your leadership skill set, go to crestcom.com. There, you can learn more about our 12-month leadership development program and find out how to schedule a leadership skills workshop for your team. Stay tuned for next week as we interview Steve Born as he shares his Gen X perspective on working in a generationally diverse workforce. The post Episode 14: Multi-Generational Leadership Featuring Jim Lopresti, Baby Boomer appeared first on Crestcom International.