The Leadership Habit

The Leadership Habit Podcast is excited to launch a new special series of episodes focusing on leadership in the multi-generational workforce. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be interviewing Millennials, Gen Xers and Boomers to find out what challenges they face, what stereotypes they deal with, and understand how we can all work together more effectively. Our second guest in this series is Manny Martinez. Manny is a Gen Xer, defined as someone born between 1965 and 1980. We will discuss Manny’s experience working with several generations at once during his career in the United States Air Force, and his insights on leadership as the President of Relentless Leadership, LLC, a Crestcom partner, and Management Consulting company. Enjoy.   Full Transcript Below   Jenn DeWall: Hi, everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall, and I am here today with leadership expert and Gen Xer, Manny Martinez, and this is going to be another installment of our Multi-Generational Leadership series. Today we are going to be interviewing Manny about his experience in the workplace as being a leader from the Gen X generation. And for those of you that don’t know Generation X, they were born between the years of 1965 and roughly 1980 that fluctuates a little bit depending on who you ask, but very excited to have Manny here. He is an amazing leadership expert, very, very passionate about servant based leadership, and I feel like he’s going to give us a lot of insight from the Gen X perspective as well as tools that we can use as leaders in our world today. So Manny, thank you so much for joining us. Manny Martinez: I’m delighted to be here. How Do You Define Leadership? Jenn DeWall: Oh, we are so excited to have you. So Manny. You know, just out of the gate, the question that we like to ask from a Gen X perspective, how do you define leadership?  Manny Martinez: Well, I see leadership as the ability to influence people to meet common objectives and goals. My generation, Generation X, grew up with people that their thought process sometimes was, well, I’m a leader. You’re going to do as I say. But that only takes you so far. I see leadership is the ability for me to be able to connect with other people and say, we know what the objectives are, we know what we want to achieve, and therefore I’m going to empower you to help you develop your tools, your skills, your abilities to be able to move forward and meet those objectives. Jenn DeWall: I love that. Being able to look at someone and say, Hey, I am here to support you, to develop you, to encourage you to be the best that you can be. Right. It’s not. You’re just here, and since you’re here you’re going to do exactly what I say, which we know does not work with many generations, and I would say especially younger generations like the Millennials that may be desiring a little bit more of that hands-on mentoring relationship. Manny Martinez: Yes, and I believe it’s in many ways it’s an art form because when you work with different people from different backgrounds and different age groups, as an example, I spent 30 years serving in the United States air force. By the time I retired, we had four different generations in the same work organization. It really took a lot of time, an art form, to figure out how do I talk to somebody who is 15-20 years older than me, and perhaps the next minute I’m talking to somebody young enough to be my daughter or my son. Jenn DeWall: Right. And that requires a lot of skill to pivot that. Because I feel like we hear things differently based on our generation, based on our generational experience, we look at things and determine different ways of doing things differently, because we just were born at a different time. So Manny, what is your role? Tell me a little bit more about your role within the military and your role in today and how you see leadership and why you’re so passionate about leadership.   Why are you Passionate About Leadership? Manny Martinez: Sure. Thank you. I think it’s easiest perhaps to tell you who I am and a little bit about what my background is, and that kind of answers that question for you. So I was, I was born in Puerto Rico, and I lived there until I was 12 years old. I moved to the States in 1983; that’s when I learned English. I knew a few little words, but then I learned English. I went to high school, and when I turned 18, the week after I turned 18 I entered the air force. I entered the military. I thought I was going to be in the military for four years and then get some education and come back home to Florida. Well, I got the itch, and I stayed in the military for 30 years. It was a great experience. I climbed the ladder of elite leadership all the way to the top, which was an honor and a privilege and I became a leader of people. And my job was to empower people to develop people, to give them the tools and skills to get to the next level, empowering teams as well. And as I finished my career in the service, I thought, how can I continue doing just that? How can I continue to pour into the lives of others so then they can achieve their highest potential? And from that, I became a business owner. I am the President of Relentless Leadership, which is a Crestcom authorized agent. And what we do is that today through Crestcom, we are transforming the leadership landscape. We are developing managers to become great leaders. By giving them those tools, those techniques, the abilities for them to grow and develop themselves as people. So then they can pour into the lives of others so they can make a difference in their organizations and our communities. And quite frankly in the world. Jenn DeWall: Right! It’s the ripple effect. Knowing that great leaders matter, they matter not only to your organization, but they also matter to the communities that they live in and how they impact that community impacts a broader community and then a global community. So we know that leadership has that strong ripple effect. You mentioned a little bit of your military experience that you had to think about how you approached different generations. How did you evolve as a leader of Gen X? Because the stereotype with Gen X is the tendency that they’re very hands-off and they just kind of want everyone to maybe manage their own responsibilities and just to get what we need to get done. And it’s kind of, you know, it’s being a very solo participant, right? Wanting to be very independent. Uh, but it’s, you know, that’s the Gen X generalization. Not to say everyone is like that, but that independence is one thing that’s associated with Gen X. But when we talk about servant-based leadership, it’s almost the opposite of a stereotypical Gen Xer. How did you learn that throughout your career? How did you learn how to pivot? How did you learn how to give?   What Makes Gen Xers Different? Manny Martinez: That’s a great question, Jenn. I think early on I found myself being very independent. Like most people in Generation X, both my parents worked. I would come home from school, and I would make myself lunch. I would iron my clothes and go to my part-time job as well when I was in high school. I was making myself dinners. I would come home to do my homework. I was very independent, and during my first few years in the military, I had a very good feeling about I have a role and responsibility, and I’m going to do this job the best I can. You gave me a task, and I would run with it. You told me to jump. How high, right? No questions, I’m going to just knock it out of the park. As I progressed through my career, I found that my relevance was much more so when I was able to give to others through my experiences, through the way of doing our roles effectively. Let me give you this example. In the military– this can be something a little foreign to most people outside of the military– as a leader, my number one job was to prepare the person that was my subordinate to take over my job. That’s very foreign to most people. My job was to prepare people and teams to get to the next level even before they arrived. Jenn DeWall: So getting them ready to take on that challenge or essentially acting as if they are already there even when they’re not. Manny Martinez: That’s right. And when you do that, some people might find that to be a bit scary. Why would I be showing you how to do my job? Isn’t that basically taking myself out? Well, the reality is, is what that allows you to do is it allows you to move into the things that you want to accomplish that you have never done. It raises your game, as well. And how wonderful it is when you can show people who are looking up to you as a leader. Let’s face it, when you know who your leader is, you know what they’re doing, you know what they’re saying, all eyes are on you, and you’re reaching down to them and saying, let me show you what it takes to get to the next level. And in some way, shape or form, you can give something of yourself to them that’s positive, and that helps them grow. And when they succeed, that’s when you know you’ve made a difference. I always thought I want to help people become better than I am. Jenn DeWall: Greater than yourself. That was, you know, and that’s, that’s also a book by Steve Farber, who is one of the experts and authors that we work with. But yeah, it’s helping people become the best that they can be– even better than you. And that’s difficult. When ego gets into play, I don’t want to lose my job. I don’t want to give these skills. I want to feel still valued. It’s a collective value that we’re creating. We’re creating more value by sharing that experience. Manny Martinez: I liken it to a team that plays basketball. You know, we all have individual roles. You have a point guard; you have a center, you have a forward. But, it’s because of those individual roles and what they know, how they contribute to the team. They’re not playing one-on-one basketball; they’re playing team basketball. And the same thing happens in any organization. There’s what you have to do in your role, your responsibilities and what you’re accountable for, but also understanding how that shapes the rest of your organization. And how leads, how that leads towards organizational success. It’s extremely important, so you have to relevant to your teammates. You have to be relevant to those above you and to those below you, and leaders today understand that the actions or inactions– that their responsibilities or responsibilities– go far beyond their desks, their corner office windows, which in the end, leadership is not about an office, and it’s not about a corner office window and a parking spot. It is about how are you being relevant to your organization, to your people. When your people succeed, you will succeed, Jenn DeWall: It’s a way of being. It’s how we are. And it does have a huge impact on the organization’s success and the individuals. Now I want to go back to those organizations or the different generations that you noticed in your experience in the military, what differences in leadership did you notice across the organizations or across the generations?   As a Gen Xer, How is Leading Multiple Generations Challenging? Manny Martinez: Across the generations, you know, over three decades of being in positions where I worked my way up to the top. In the beginning, there was that feeling that people had this rank has privileges thought. I am in a position of leadership, and therefore there’s a certain level of reverence, and a certain level of I need to give things to you. Over the years that’s changed, and now we see leaders giving back to their people because they recognize these are the tools they need; these are the skills they need. It’s both a very humble position to be in, but it’s also a very vulnerable place to be in. When you listen to people in your organization, and you truly listen to their concerns, what interests them? Where do you want to go? You find out very quickly sometimes how unprepared you are for leadership. It’s easy when you can just stiff arm and go, no, this is not for me, or the buck stops here or my way or the highway. That’s a very simple approach. Instead, when you’re having to listen to, and you should be listening to your people, your team, and respond to that, it can put you in a very scary place. I’ll give you an example. One of my roles, when I was in the military, was providing leadership support to our dining facilities. And on installation, you’ll have people who live in dormitories. They feed at the dining facilities, they go to eat, they get their three square meals at a dining facility, and we held a forum to listen to some of the concerns that dormitory residents had about perhaps food choices or food quality or expanding menus. Many of those, this happened a couple of years ago, many of them were Millennials. Now there I am in this forum on standing in front of this group, and they were so smart. They came to this forum not to complain. They came with copies of actual regulations that I’m supposed to be the expert on, and they’re calling me out on that. They were prepared to ask very smart questions. You want to talk about feeling vulnerable? I felt so uncomfortable, but they had such great questions. One of the things, as a leader, you have to know that you’re never going to know everything and that you’re going to make mistakes. And I did not have answers to certain things, and it was okay for that for me to say, you know what? I don’t know the answer to that, but let’s work on this and let me get you some answers. And I gathered a lot of feedback from them, and I worked very hard, got all the answers for them, and individually went back to each of those people and said, here are your answers, and I want to thank you for giving me this feedback. It’s going to make our team better. Weeks later, months later I would see some of these young people on base walking through different areas or walking down the street or driving around town, and they would be so happy, and they would continue to share feedback and inputs. That’s how I knew we were able to connect and bridge that gap in organizational leadership. Jenn DeWall: You know, I think you bring up a, I think what can be a common issue between a Millennial and a Baby Boomer or a Gen X and it’s the tendency for Millennials to question and they want to question, not necessarily for the reasons that people might think, which is to prove someone wrong, to undermine them or to prove themselves stronger. It’s because they are more naturally curious and were more or less conditioned to ask the questions of why. Yes. But when we think about how the Baby Boomer has grown up, that is the complete opposite expectation that they were raised with, right. To do, as I say, doing how to even ask a question of me, why are you asking that? And that is one of the things that I think can be a challenge in organizations with those two generations. Because one generation is taught to say, well, why learn more? Be curious. And another generation has to say, do what I, you know, do what I say. I’m the one; I’m the boss, I’m the one that knows.   Gen Xers Question Authority Manny Martinez: Yes, I grew up with a background of doing as I say, because I said so, and especially the beginning of my career, I was okay with that. This is, these are the rules. I don’t question them. I don’t challenge them. And I moved forward over the years. I started thinking, well, why do we do things the way we do them? And I think those are very fair questions to ask where a Baby Boomer might the question with, well, that’s the way we’ve always done it. And I’ve never met anyone, even a Baby Boomer who’s ever been happy with the answer. That’s the way we’ve always done it. But somehow we’ve accepted it and we just, okay, we’ll put up with it and move on. Well, maybe what we decided a few years back was a smart decision at the time. Maybe today it’s worn out it’s welcome, it’s grown stale, and it’s time to ask those questions. Manny Martinez: Why do we do things this way, and we need that kind of critical thinking skills. We raised my, my generation raised Millennials and Gen Z people to ask those questions, and now they’re coming into the workforce, and many of my peers resent that. I think that’s completely crazy. We encourage them to ask questions and now they’re asking questions because they’re curious and somehow you find that as being disloyal to the organization or talking back, Oh, hold on a minute, you encouraged this out of your children and now it’s your children’s generation who’s coming to work and they’re bringing that same mindset, which is a very positive mindset to be asking those questions. Maybe there is a good answer to this is the way we do it, and they just need to learn that. Imagine, for example, in the military it’s completely different culture first year, the second year in the service. You’re learning how to live in that culture and how to be productive and have value in that culture. It’s natural to ask those kinds of questions. Why do we cut our hair to where we cut it? How do we have these customs and courtesies? Why is fitness a fundamental aspect of military discipline? Those are valid questions. It’s not a, well they’re just being smart, or they’re just challenging authority. No, those are valid questions, and if we don’t know those answers ourselves to me, we need to start asking those questions. Right. Jenn DeWall: Have you noticed, or I guess what do you notice from your experience? I know that you may be an atypical Gen Xer right, in your belief that hey, it’s okay to ask that, and we’re not a generalizing all Gen Xers as being resistant to that- because there are definitely plenty. We’re just talking about the research and how they categorize and describe each generation. But when you were in the military, what observations did you make between that Baby Boomer and that Millennial coming in or that Millennial and Gen X or what did you see happen?   Finding Common Ground Manny Martinez: Sure. Um, and this might be a good point to talk about some of the better qualities, for lack of a better term, that each generation brings. Because it’s through that that we can really harness the common ground that we need in different generations. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. Let’s talk about those. Like the things that you see, those benefits of the organization- of everyone, their strengths. It’s just that sometimes we need the awareness around where everyone’s coming from. Manny Martinez: Right. I really enjoyed working with the Baby Boomer generation, particularly because they have so much ability to express verbally through oral communication, which was really helpful coming up. Many Baby Boomers that I worked with over the years and recently, their ability to talk to you one on one- and to kind of disarm you and puts you at ease. That’s a wonderful skill to have. And as a Gen Xer, which I grew up with, respect your elders. I knew that even though in my military positions, particularly in later years, I was in a position of leadership that was considered higher than somebody who was a Baby Boomer. I still showed a certain amount of respect for their age, and I let them in sometimes kind of take the driver’s seat in the conversation if they had an idea or a thought process. That was really amazing. Manny Martinez: I was not in any way, shape, or form felt feeling like that was a threat to me because if they’re going to do the job anyway, if the idea is wonderful, what if it doesn’t come from me? Who cares if it’s a great idea. At the end of the day, Baby Boomers I think are really necessary today because of that skill. Let’s take how we in younger generations we’ve really embraced technology very highly, but that’s been at a human cost. Baby Boomers understand the human interaction, that human contact. Sadly we have problems in younger generations with suicide and if Baby Boomers can provide an outlet in a work organization or work environment or they can make personal connections with younger people, perhaps that’ll bring some of that human, this back into what we do every single day and maybe wouldn’t have some of these social issues and communication issues that people are struggling with. Jenn DeWall: There is a lot of– traditional leadership– where it is the do as I say, because I told you so and then you know, being frustrated if someone challenges that as the question, you know, and condoning that and knowing that this new Millennial generation is coming in, they’re not necessarily looking for a perfect role model. Someone that’s going to stand up and be a spokesperson for perfection, right? That’s saying this is exactly how you’re going to survive. And if you wear this suit and if you wear this and you do this, this is where you’re going to climb that ladder. I would say that this younger generation and a lot of it is as a result of parenting is inclined to say, I want more. I want a deeper connection. I want work to be fun, right? I don’t just want to put my head down. I want to learn from you, not just give you accolades for being you. I want to learn from you. And knowing that they crave that, that intimate connection of authenticity, knowing that you’re a person that figured it out and they’re also figuring it out, you know, breaking down some, I guess it sums up into transparency. Jenn DeWall: I think that desire to just genuinely connect with people and yes, that’s an overall, I would say statement that is needed in much of the workforce today because we have a challenge with workplace loneliness. That is a huge issue that is in the U.S. that is drastically impacting mental health because people don’t feel connected to their organization, and we spend a third of our lives at work, so we need to make sure that we’re feeling connected. A third of our lives! It’s just crazy when you really think about that, how do you want to live and spend that time? And I would say that Millennials are probably pushing a little bit more to say they want more. They watched the recession happened in 2008 they know that there are certain things that were guaranteed to their elders that were not honored. And so they’re a little bit less trusting, right? They, they and they just want different things as a result of that. They want the organization to provide different things that I would say prior generations now that they don’t appreciate them or would have wanted them, but they may not have expected them in the same way. Manny Martinez: I, yeah, that’s great input there, Jenn. And all generations want to communicate and want to have common ground and finding that common ground can sometimes be challenging because I bring my lens, I bring my perspective into the workplace, into the home, into anything that I go into. I found some things that were very helpful to bridge those gaps. First, I knew that I had these blinders on, and I needed to know that when I would walk into the situation.   Communication Across Generations Jenn DeWall: So meaning if you’re, regardless of what generation you’re in, if you want some tips for how to go in and interact and have an impact, this is where we’re going. Right? So the first step is? Manny Martinez: Communication is so important! You have to learn from people what it is that they’re interested in. I like to get out of my office and walk around and talk to people, visit people, not with an agenda of, “Hey, did you get that email and I need you to do X, Y, Z. I want to make sure that you understand what I told you to do”, but walk into environments without an agenda. Hi Jenn. How are you doing? How was your weekend? How’s life treating you this week? What kind of hobbies, what kind of interests you have? You don’t have to know every single little detail of their lives. You have to get to know people. I’ve worked in organizations of hundreds of employees, and you might say there are too many people here. I’m not going to get to know them. Well, you kind of can. If you just get out of what you’re doing a little bit and deliberately get to know your people, right? Jenn DeWall: There’s an opportunity to likely meet a lot of people. I absolutely believe in that, and you know, take those steps. Manny Martinez: You also have to find what you’re strong on, what your strengths are, and I was always a very musical person. I found music was really helpful because every generation has its own music of a lifetime, and it’s an easy connection. My Baby Boomer secretary and I would have conversations about the beach boys or Neil diamond, and I was even a step further as a karaoke king. I could sing those songs. Jenn DeWall: What song by Neil diamond? Manny Martinez: Well, Forever in Blue Jeans. Jenn DeWall: Okay. Manny Martinez: [singing] “Money talks, but it don’t sing and dance, And it don’t walk.” Right. And she was, “Oh no, not again?” But we then we would have fun because I would sing these ridiculous songs as I would walk into the office. I would say, Hey, good morning and kick off with “Sweet Caroline,” she’d say, “stop it.” But it was great. We would break the ice that way, and we formed common ground, and it’s necessary because when times get tough, when you’ve tried to meet a deadline where you’re trying to take care of a particular job, you need those moments to help fortify those relationships. Likewise. I’d step out of that area, walk down the hallway, go meet with some Millennials, and we’ll be talking about Justin Bieber or talking about The Weeknd. Jenn DeWall: Look at you, Manny. The Weeknd referencing, right? Manny Martinez: It was great. And again, no agendas, but just, hi, how are you? What interests you? What hobbies do you have? How’s your family doing? And you get to know people at a personal level when you have those tough times where you have to. Now let’s take care of this. Now that you’ve built trust, you’ve built a connection with them, and you don’t have to use that position of power of I say so, or because I’m the boss, now you’re going to do it. It’s because I trust this leader. He understands me. She knows what I like, what I’m interested in. She cares about who I am as a person. Hey, that motivates people in any generation. And so finding that common ground is important and you’re not going to do that if you’re hiding behind your desk. If you’re just firing off emails, or if you’re making assumptions about, well, that person’s older, so they don’t understand. Or that person is younger; they don’t know what they’re talking about. Take that time to find the common ground and listen. Jenn DeWall: Ask them questions. People have stories. They have the experience, and they have the knowledge to share. I know at my coaching school that I went to, they taught us every person you meet is your teacher and your student, and we can all find common ground with each other. Yeah. I don’t think there are two people that could not find common ground. It might require a little bit more conversation, but they can find common ground in. What you’ve said is when you find that common ground, then you’re creating a foundation of trust because that individual feels that they are cared for, that they are seen and valued, and that’s essential. As a leader, that ties back with empathy as being that necessary skill that leaders need to have today to survive and not just survive, but to thrive in the workforce. That we know how to be empathetic to others and what, you know, as a Gen Xer, let’s talk about motivations of generations, right? Um, you know, every generation is motivated by different things. What motivates Gen X or you as a Gen Xer.   What Motivates GenXers? Manny Martinez: For me, I just sum it up with one word, and that’s value. Gen Xers want to know, am I adding value to an organization through the work that I do? Am I adding value to my customers or my clients based on the product or service that I give and do I add value to my employees, to my subordinates, to my superiors, through me being here, the product that I provide, the service that I deliver, when I know that I make a difference to somebody’s life that way, that motivates me. When I see a fellow coworker succeed and in some way I helped along the way, however small that might be, and I just feel lifted up because I’m like, this person is doing great, and I just feel so, so proud. Yes, they’re achieving their highest potential. They’re getting to the next level. This is wonderful. I worked in the world of human resources for many years in the military when clients and customers would come to me, they would have problems, and I just said, I’m an underpaid psychologist. People come to me with problems, and I’ll help them solve them. When they would walk away feeling better about themselves and just genuinely being thankful because I did something for them that took care of that need that was value and that motivated me throughout my career, and it still does as a Crestcom franchisee, I meet with people and we talk about different areas where we can improve our, our leadership skills and when they tell me that they successfully were able to learn something and put it to use in their organization and they see the benefits of that, that’s value that motivates me. Jenn DeWall: I love that. I mean value, right? Just knowing that impact you can have by investing time, maybe in a short conversation, maybe in a long one-on-one or a meeting where you can find out different ways that you can provide that value. Manny Martinez: And very often you don’t know just how critical value is. And what that, what that impact is on a person. As an example, I had a man years ago come into my office, and I was working in the ID card office, a customer service section. We, we did ID cards, identification cards, and he comes in all apologetics like, “Whoa, my wife lost her ID card. We need to do a new ID card. I’m so sorry.” He’s calling me sir. He, you know, he’s older than me. He’s calling me sir. I’m like, “listen. It’s okay. Let me take care of this for you. It’s not a big deal.” In the back of my mind, I’m thinking, and I do this all day long. It’s not that big of a problem. Well, several months later after I took care of that particular situation- and he left all happy. “Oh, thank you so much. Thank you.” He’s over thanking me. I’m thinking, dude, it’s okay. It’s just an ID card. You know? It’s not the end of the world. A few months later, I’m sitting in a waiting area in a medical clinic. I was waiting to do some processing for my next assignment. I was moving from Utah to Turkey, so a big change from the States to Turkey and it was fantastic. And I walk into this office area, and there are about 25 people sitting there, and I know that because my number of you are Nexus 25 and they’re on number one, and out of the corner of my eye, a shadow comes up and I had my paperwork to my medical paperwork sitting on my lap and this gentleman says, let me take care of this for you sir. And swipes my paper and walks away. It was that gentleman that comes in, apologetic about that ID card. He took care of my paperwork, gave it to me, and says, “Here you go, have a safe and wonderful reassignment in Turkey.” And I never had any idea he took care of me. I never, you know. How are you going to impact somebody’s life, right? Even though you might think what you’re doing is for lack of a better term, insignificant. Jenn DeWall: You never know. We never know. And even whether it’s maybe not feeling like a significant return, but we also never know how we interact with people as leaders, as employees, as colleagues. That will eventually come back in some way, shape, or form like the world is a very small place when you start playing in the pool. And so what type of mark do we want to leave? How do we want to leave people after interactions? I mean in, you know, one of the quotes that I also love is leave people better than you found them. As a way to really help them grow and that we’re here to serve as leaders, right? Like that’s what we want to do, and we want to create leaders that want to serve others and serving in a way where it’s that developing. It’s making people greater than yourselves. It’s, and we know that by taking that time and doing that, we are making our impact and mark on the world.   Learning From Every Generation Manny Martinez: Yes. And so Jenn, we must realize that every generation brings a set of skills and a toolkit that makes teams better. And we have to look for those, and we have to harness those. And when you do that, that’s where teams succeed. When you shut them out, when you don’t see that, you don’t value the traits and skills they bring, that’s when morale goes down, motivation goes down, and teams collapse. It’s extremely, extremely important to recognize those things. Um, Millennials, Gen Zers, I see them coming into the workforce. They’re so smart. They are way much more talented than Generation X. Trust me. There are way much more. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. Not more talented. They just have access to different information because of technology. Manny Martinez: I think that they’re just so much more open to ideas. Yes. I grew up in a very much fragmented, fragmented, but kind of a society and a world where everything had its little place, and now things are much more intertwined. And that’s a hard thing for me to do. So, for example, you know, work-life integration, I struggle with that. I’m one of those people that go when I’m at work, I’m 100% at work. When I’m at home, I’m 100% at home. But very rarely do I bring home to work and work to home. Sometimes I just see that because it’s, this is my compartment of work, my compartment of home. And I like the idea of work-life integration. However, I struggle with that. You know, I still go, okay, this is the box that I’m in right now, and this is the area that shall not touch. Right. And that’s a very Generation X thing to look at because work is work and home is home. Jenn DeWall: All right, I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to do my job. You do you. I’m going to do me. And that’s all we need to know. That’s right. And it is challenging. I mean, I think, you know, for me, and I’m a cusper Millennial, so 1982, I’m pretty open, and it’s because I have always just felt that, well, if you’re open, then it gives other people permission to be open about what they’re talking about. And then, we can collaborate better, or we can share knowledge differently, and we can do this. And yes, like work for me, I want to know my colleagues. I want to know who they are. I want to see them as people. I don’t just want to see them. So then I’m one day where I might get frustrated that I might say, well I really wish you would have done this and said I know Christian and yes, Christian is here right now in our lovely studio. Um, and so that was a joke- but still it’s I as a Millennial, I really value knowing what my colleagues are up to. What makes them tick, what makes them excited? We’re spending time together. You’re basically family. I want to know you. But yes it is a trained generational trait to say no, work is here and then home is home. So we don’t talk about home at work. Manny Martinez: Yes. And let’s face it, leadership today, the best ideas will not come from you as a leader. And if you think the best ideas come from you, you need to just do a little self-check. Jenn DeWall: Self-awareness.   The Best Ideas Come from Within the Organization Manny Martinez: The best ideas will come from the people that work in your organization. The people that you as a leader work for, not the other way around. I had to give up that idea and notion that I had to know everything about my job. I had to continue to grow and learn; that’s for sure. But I gave up the notion that I had to know everything, that if somebody came to me with a question that if I didn’t know the answer, I was a failure. That’s not the case. It just means that you need to continue to learn to continue to grow. People gravitate towards people who are vulnerable enough to know that they don’t have all the answers, but that they have the willingness and the desire to learn and to grow and to grow together. And that was quite all right. I would sit down with new employees, and I would say these things, I would say, you know what? I don’t know everything. And they’re looking at me going, wait a second. Jenn DeWall: Who says that? You’re not supposed to say this. Manny Martinez: You’re in this position 20 something years, and you don’t know? I just came to the military six months ago, and you’re telling me you don’t know everything. And I told them that because I wanted them to have the empowerment to do their jobs to the best of their abilities and that we expected them, that they were not going to know everything either. And I also told them I make mistakes. You know, the only reason why I’m here as a, you know, basically an elder in your organization is that I made a lot of mistakes along the way, but I learned a lot of lessons to help me get to the next level. And so I want you to know that I expect you’re going to make mistakes, too. And that’s okay. As long as you’re doing your best to do your job to the best of your ability, that’s going to be fine. And so my job is to allow you that space to make those mistakes, to learn along the way. If I do that, if I give you that empowerment, I give you that opportunity, then I’m doing my job. Now I’m relevant. I matter as a leader versus the, could you imagine if every decision you have to make, you have to run it by your boss? Every single one, every single thought process had to be reviewed by your boss, nobody wants to work in that sort of situation, but people in many, many places still feel like they do. And that limits their ability to really fully become the person that they should be personally and professionally. I don’t want to put you in a cage. I want you to flourish. I want you to be creative, and so your best ideas, I want to know about them. Jenn DeWall: Learn, grow, and be open. And that’s a great way to, for all the leaders that are listening, when you have someone that’s new to your team, new to your organization, being a little vulnerable with them, telling them that you don’t have all the answers and that they will not either. When you do that, and you’re setting the foundation for people to be more resilient, they can be more persistent. They trust you, and they respect you more. Manny Martinez: Sure. And it does not mean that as a leader, you don’t stop growing and learning. Absolutely not. I’ll give you a physical example — military, big into physical fitness. There’s a big difference between being a 20-year-old and a 40-year-old in these situations? Jenn DeWall: What do you mean by that? Manny Martinez: Something changes, right? You can’t do the things you could do at a younger age, or you’re not able to do as well physically. Yet, I did not want to be the person that did not, well, let me say it this way– I did not expect people to do things that I could not do myself. For example, in physical fitness, in the military, we do a lot of running. We did a lot of exercises. It is part of our lives as part of our culture. A 20-year-old comes to me and says, wow, you’re such a great runner. You’re in such great physical shape. I don’t know how you do it. And I would tell him, you know, I’m 20 years older than you, which means I have to work twice as hard to keep up with you. Yeah, and in many situations in leadership, you do have to work twice as hard to stay relevant, to stay meaningful, to be able to be that leader that gives and serves, and not be served. You have to do that otherwise, again, people are watching you. People are listening to you. That’s part of the job and the role of being a leader, and if you’re not doing the steps that it takes to continue to grow, eventually people are going to see that, and they’re not going to see you as relevant. And if you’re not relevant as a leader, perhaps that’s the moment for you to look and go, what is it that I’m not doing? What is it that I am doing, and where do I go from this point forward so that I can remain relevant?   What’s Your Leadership Habit? Jenn DeWall: I think that’s a great piece to end our conversation on is thinking about as leaders, what can we do, you know, to continue to challenge and evolve ourselves? How can we stay on top of whether it’s trends or practices or just continue to find opportunities for us to add value? It doesn’t have to be huge significant value. We can find many opportunities to add value, but if you’re not growing, you’re dying. That’s another one of my favorites, but many we like to end every podcast with one question as the podcast is called the leadership habit and everyone that we interview, we ask this question to. So my question to you to share with our listeners is, what is your leadership habit for success? Manny Martinez: Discipline. And that sounds sometimes a bit negative, but I want to make sure that I explain what that means. Self-discipline is so important and so vital to your success as a leader. For example, if you’re not taking yourself, taking care of yourself physically, spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually, you will be less of a leader. How do you show up to work? How do you show up to social situations? How do you show up at home is so important, and it begins with that discipline. How are you taking care of yourself physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and the piece about discipline that’s so important is when you do that every single day when things are going great, it’s wonderful. Life is grand. The business is moving forward; everybody loves you; you’re a rock star. But when things are not going well, when life’s a little rocky, and guess what? We all have peaks and valleys in life, and we all go through something in our lives at a particular time in our lives. Discipline is the key to being able to navigate those rough spots and if you have discipline, as in routines to help you in those levels, whether it’s too physical fitness, intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally, you’re going to be able to get through those tough times and get through them in a very positive and healthy way. So then when you’re back on top, you are still rocking and rolling, and you’re still that rock star. Discipline is the thing that allowed me to grow and develop as a leader. And discipline will be the thing that will help me continue to grow and develop as a leader because I have not stopped. And so it is those, that habit of discipline that helps me move to the next level. Jenn DeWall: That’s a great, great habit for our listeners. How can we add more discipline to help us grow and evolve and achieve the goals that we have? Manny, it’s been so great to talk with you today and talk about the different generations to hear your story. Thank you so much for taking your time to come in and talk with us. I was just so happy to hear your stories. So thank you so much for your time. Manny Martinez: Thank you, Jenn. It’s been a real pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you for tuning in today for our discussion with Manny Martinez about his experience working as a Gen Xer in the workforce today. You can connect with Manny on LinkedIn or Facebook. Tune in for next week’s episode, when we talk to Baby Boomer, Jim Lopresti. Jim Lopresti is a professor and President of CohereUs Consulting. We’ll be talking about his years of experience and the changes he’s seen as new generations enter the workforce.   The post Episode 13: Multi-Generational Leadership Featuring Manny Martinez, Gen Xer appeared first on Crestcom International.

The Leadership Habit Podcast is excited to launch a new special series of episodes focusing on the multi-generational workforce. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be interviewing Millennials, Gen Xers and Boomers to find out what challenges they face, what stereotypes they deal with, and understand how we can all work together more effectively. Our first guest in the series is Tyler Jane Jones. Tyler is a millennial defined as someone who was born between 1981 and 1996 she is an innovative thought leader that is inspired to bring about positive growth from within the healthcare industry in Denver, Colorado. Enjoy. Full Transcript Below: Jenn DeWall: Hi, everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall, and today I am here with Tyler Jane Jones, and she is here with us as part of our generational series that we are doing. For those of you that don’t know and you’re just tuning in, what we’re doing is talking to individuals in different generations to understand how we all come into an organization and work and collaborate together. And Tyler is part of the Millennial generation, which means that she was born between the years of 1981 to 1996. Tyler, thank you so much for joining us. We are so happy to have you on The Leadership Habit Podcast. Tyler Jones: Thank you so much. I’m really jazzed to be here. How Do You Define Leadership? Jenn DeWall: So Tyler, one of the questions we’ve been starting out asking people– because we want to understand the generational perspective is– how do you define leadership? Tyler Jones: I define leadership as helping a group of people reach a common goal. So that could be either helping out your clients or getting a new agile batch going forward, something along those lines, but not necessarily pulling that group towards a win but helping push from inside. And that’s when I’ve worked with different leaders who kind of take that approach. I see it as being most impactful, and that’s also kind of how I tend to lead- both as a traditional leader and then even as a nontraditional leader. And so someone who doesn’t necessarily have that role but still is able to take on a little bit of a leadership role. Jenn DeWall: That’s great. Now, we talked a little bit offline how about the fact that you and I are at different ends of the Millennial spectrum. I was born in ’82, so I’m just closer to that Gen X, and I’ve been in the career space for a little bit longer. And you’re closer to 1996. So tell everyone that’s listening what your career experience has been and how long you’ve been in the workforce. Millennials in the Workplace Tyler Jones: Yeah. So I guess I would consider myself as being in the workforce for the last five to six years, but I’ve been out of college for the last three years. So, that’s been a little interesting. I’ve had three different roles in the last three years at my huge corporate company, and to see how my view on the company, the business, and different leaders, and how my career trajectory has changed in the last three years– I think is really interesting. But also I can definitely see how people see Millennials as changing way too fast or moving from one thing to the next- because that’s kind of the route I’ve taken, I guess. Jenn DeWall: Yeah, you move fast, right? And there is a lot that’s attractive about moving fast because we get those new challenges and we have unique opportunities to learn and develop ourselves, which I think is a very exciting thing for Millennials. And it’s something that we really aspire to. Not saying that other generations don’t aspire for that, but it is an important thing for Millennials. When you think about your generation in the workplace, what do you notice as some of those perceptions or labels that Millennials get? Tyler Jones: I think a lot of it is moving quickly, really wanting to come in and jump full force ahead. And sometimes the older generations will be, “Whoa, Whoa, Whoa; you still have a ton to learn, calm down, slow your roll.” So definitely see that aspect, and we still have a ton to learn in terms of life experience, but I think we also come in being a part of the internet generation coming in with a lot more, even a lot more in school and we have better resources I guess in a lot of ways. So it’s interesting to see how that partners with some of these older generations who learned a lot of what they learned just by putting in the time. So that’s definitely an interesting aspect. Millennials and Technology Jenn DeWall: Yeah, that’s, I mean the technology piece is huge, right? It’s, and it’s something that I think, you know, Millennials get the bad rap, they think they are moving too fast, or they want to systematize things, or they want to make them more efficient through technology, and you know, as a result of their appreciation for technology, sometimes people make some judgements about them. Right? So maybe it’s the judgments, we had talked about this earlier, judging them for being lazy, for maybe wanting to automate something that in their experience using technology, they know that there’s an opportunity to make a process efficiency. But yet to others they think that the dependency on technology means that they’re lazy.  Tyler Jones: Think of people who have, I think of a lot of the people I work with who have been in very similar roles for the last 30 years of their career. They’re just on the edge. So those Baby Boomers who are on the edge of retirement and they see automation as “I’m losing my job”, where I look at it as “I don’t want to do an extra task that takes extra work if I can just plug it into Excel and have a macro do that versus me sitting there and doing it manually”, that doesn’t make sense for me, and it’s really easy for me to make that Excel macro and make those changes. And I feel there’s that aspect of job security, but then also we were taught how to do all of this since elementary school. We were taught how to automate processes or use the computer as a tool so that we can spend more time being creative and client-conscious– or what’s the word–looking to customize things for our clients. Because I’m not spending time doing all this manual work, so that’s definitely something that I think is slowly being taken off of all Millennials because it’s just something we need in the workforce. But definitely something a lot of people see as that stigma that Millennials are lazy. Jenn DeWall: Right. You brought up a really important point.  Millennials using and adopting technology was something that was ingrained throughout your whole education, starting at a young age. Whereas Gen X and Baby Boomers didn’t have computers to help them learn. Right? And it’s not right, wrong or indifferent, but it’s understanding that each generation comes to be as a result of our environment as a result of historical events, technology, how we’re parented, for so many reasons. And this is just one where, you know, if we don’t recognize that Millennials have been immersed in technology, then we can judge them unfairly. I would add because it’s also just understanding that we grew up in different times. I love to kind of dispel some of the Millennial–I guess judgments– it can add a lot of miscommunication or disconnects at the organization and so it’s not serving anyone when we’re trying to bridge that multigenerational gap. So technology is one of those labels, right? That we’re so dependent that we’re lazy. That’s stigma. What other stigmas do you notice, or did you feel you had to kind of prepare yourself for when you were early in your career in the workforce? Communication Across Generations Tyler Jones: I think communication’s another one. A lot of people see Millennials as they can only communicate through text messaging or emails, or we can’t communicate face to face. I don’t think that’s the case at all. I, it’s at least with the people I’ve interacted with as Millennials. There’s definitely , it’s a skill that you need to learn, but when I was going into the workforce and starting to work with these teams of people that had literally as many generations as you could fit into a team sitting on this, I made a point to make sure I communicated verbally with every single one of them or to almost help solve those problems too because it’s very easy when you’re sitting behind a computer, especially working, virtually to never pick up the phone, never have a video conversation, anything that, where that’s still going to help bridge those generational gaps more than anything. Tyler Jones: And bring those people together to let them know, Hey, I’m not just some newbie coming into the office thinking I know it all thinking that technology needs to take your job. Cause that’s not the case at all. But, I’m here to learn, and there’s a lot to learn from these other generations. Right? And how do we help bridge those gaps between them? And so I think, I guess it is a stigma that Millennials don’t have strong communication skills, but then how do we flip that around and use those communication skills to really work with those different generations in bridge all the teams together? Jenn DeWall: Right. Well, and Millennials, again, it goes back to technology. They’ve had options. Yeah. They’ve had options. It could be email. It could be face to face; it could be a text message; it could be social media. There are a lot of different options for communicating. And so I think it allows for some different, not necessarily a strategy, but a different point of view. Who am I trying to communicate to? What am I talking to them about? What’s the best mode? Whereas earlier generations weren’t necessarily– they didn’t have email. And so face to face or phone calls were always the easiest way. And so it’s not that Millennials are averse to them and don’t want to embrace them. It’s just that there have always been these other options for communication. It hasn’t been consolidated into only two main modes. We’ve had choices. Tyler Jones: Absolutely. And when I think of growing up, I had all these different outside voices coming in trying to communicate with me, whether it was my phone, whether it was the TV, whether it was a radio station, all the way to email and then your teacher sitting in front of you talking or the book you had to check out of the library. And so we’ve kind of had been forced to learn how to balance all of those, I think. And there’s definitely a lot we can still continue to do in terms of learning that balance. I think as a society as a whole, but then to help almost, I feel that’s an opportunity for us to help other generations kind of learn how to balance all of those and learn that maybe email is the best way to get this written out or maybe a phone call is the best way to get this information out.  Jenn DeWall: Well, and even thinking what can companies do to best support Millennials, right? Because college does, you know, Millennials are very educated, and many of them have a four year or two-year degree, whatever they have, but sometimes those degrees don’t necessarily prepare for the soft skills, which is another area where Millennials get dinged, right? They think that their communication or the reliance on how they want to manage a project through technology or how they want feedback and knowing that you will still need guidance. Right? Just because you went to school, does it mean that you feel you’re ready to take on the world? And I think sometimes people forget that those basics, those soft skills are something that you learn in the workplace. They’re not necessarily something that you’re learning in college. You’re not learning how to handle when you get feedback that doesn’t make you feel good, or you’re not learning how to respond urgently, or you’re not learning to look at each employer’s situation to try and understand what the cultural norms are. Right? We’re not learning those strategies to be able to probably show up in the way that people all of a sudden expect Millennials to show up when they walk in the room. Tyler Jones: Yeah. And there was, I think initially a lot of Millennials were known as, “Hey, we’ve got this figured out” because we do have this other book-smart information. But even to think in the last three years, how much I’ve grown in terms of those soft skills. And I almost look back on myself three years ago or even some of the new interns coming in and being, Oh, that’s something I guess you didn’t learn in college, you really should have worked on that. Or, that is something that you need to continue to work on. And I see that in myself even every single day. I’m sure. But how to help, I guess employers could do a really great job, and there’s a lot of opportunity for learning those soft skills but then also leadership programs that they have of new and upcoming early-career people coming into the workforce or mentorship programs. A lot of those mentorship programs, we grew up getting feedback instantaneously, you were saying, and that’s, I know another stigma, but how do we work with mentors to kind of help process that feedback? And continue to grow off of that. Are Millennials Too Needy? Jenn DeWall: I want to dive into the feedback piece because I know that that is a very big kind of frustration by some of other generations about Millennials. Oh my gosh, they need feedback all the time. You need to tell them what to do. You need to tell them they’re doing great. Give them a pat on the back. They’re used to, everyone gets a trophy, and there is just so much judgment laced in the desire of Millennials to need feedback. But if we take a step back, again going to the fact that technology is something that Millennials are so much more immersed in, social media provides instant feedback, right? You can go on to Facebook or Instagram, and you know instantly whether your friends think that what you’re doing is great or they’re just saying good job, or they’re sad for you, they’re happy or even down to your email. You have access to information a lot quicker. And you also, many Millennials have parents that are Baby Boomers who do want the best for their kids. They tried to do so much. They want to shield them from pain. So they were very accessible, right? And so they did. There were kind of your North star and so it’s the environment that you are used to that doesn’t make it right wrong or different for those that are judging that. But it is, you know, it’s kind of understanding their perspective and how they come to the table. That feedback is something that they really depend on because it’s useful to help them know if they’re on the right path. Tyler Jones: Absolutely. And you think even if I wanted a recipe to learn how to make something new, trying to learn how to use my kitchen a little bit more, I could instantly look that up. I don’t have to look through a cookbook. I’m trying to use more of those traditional homes that are cookbook methods. But I’ve always had that, and I’ve had that literally, I remember even printing off MapQuest for my mom to drive us somewhere because we had, we didn’t have to look at a map to do that even. So that instantaneous of this is where we need to go. And that, and then also in college, we were literally taught to ask for feedback every time we met with our boss or a mentor, as that’s an opportunity for you to show that you want to learn, you’re showing that you want to continue to grow and that you’re open to that change. And it’s not just, Hey, it’s my way. I’m doing it right, yeah, you can thank me later kind of thing. Cause that’s not it at all. It’s I’m going in asking for that feedback as I’m making myself vulnerable so that I can continue to grow and hopefully be as great as you are one day. And if I’m asking for your feedback, I respect you as that person. And so I kind of wish older generations would recognize that because that’s the place I’m coming from. It’s not necessarily the, well tell me how great I am because that’s not it at all. Jenn DeWall: Right? You’re not just looking to be showered with praise. You’re not helping me because I want to learn, and I want to be as successful as you are. And how did you get there? I want to know. Tyler Jones: There have been very few times in my life where I’ve been, what I would consider absolutely bored and not moving forward in any way. Normally, if that is the case, I have either the internet I can go to, which is never boring, or I can change jobs or whatever that is to make sure that I am constantly challenged or constantly stimulated. And all that information again, coming in from a million different places. And so how do, when I’m sitting there, and I’m asking for feedback, a lot of times I’m, all right, what can I, what can I tackle next? What’s, what’s my next challenge? Or what’s something I can continue to work on that? Jenn DeWall: Okay. Well, which goes into one of the judgments, right? So we talked to someone that represented Gen X,  and what he wishes of Millennials is about their urgent ambition. Meaning, okay, I’m here now. How do I get to there? Now, how do I get to there? Now, how do I get to there? How do you do there? And that is a label that I think there are absolutely some Millennials that definitely are very, you know, they want to go, they want to succeed, they want to grow, grow, grow and hit these milestones. But what this Gen X person was saying is he, he does wish that people would just slow down and kind of smell the roses. Think about all the developmental opportunities that you have in your role. How do you feel about Millennials being labeled as being too ambitious or they want everything yesterday? How does that feel? Tyler Jones: So that hits very close to home. That is me in a nutshell, and I know it, and I try to be very aware of it. Yeah. And literally my mom and grandma could tell me every single day you need to stop and smell the roses. It’s fine to be in this place of just uncomfortable in between and not be chasing after the next thing. And literally, I can remember back to even middle school, Oh this is kind of hard, but high school is going to be better next year. Or, Oh this is kind of hard. Senior year is going to be better cause I can drive or you know, and I’ve been doing that since I was young. And so I, it took probably until about last year when some different life events happened to really have that humbling moment of okay, how can I sit in this? How can I be uncomfortable in this? And that was my entire learning year of focus on that really hard work, I know I’m not going to be my boss tomorrow because as much as I think I can do his job or whatever, obviously I can’t, he has a lot more experience and a lot more a bigger picture that I don’t see yet. And so how can I continue to learn from him? How can I be a fly on the wall and almost seek out those opportunities versus just constantly being, what’s next? And I think it’s definitely something that Millennials that we do struggle with, right? I will 100% raise my hand with that one saying that’s where I’m at, but. Jenn DeWall: I am right with you. And then my bosses from when I was in my twenties were listening to this. They’d be, Jenn, you better say that too because of we absolutely you know, you talked about something, and I would call it in a different way cultural rites of passage or those milestones that we’re supposed to achieve in life. So you know, going from middle school, then going to high school, then go to college, then get the job, get their rings, you can get married, then buy the house, then have the kids then get wherever you want to get a dog in there, whatever that is. But we have all of these milestones, and there’s a point when in early adulthood where when we’ve accomplished those, it’s hard to find then where is our due North, where are we going? And so then I think that the career becomes the place that we invest in, want to accelerate more milestones because we’ve lost some of those big external ones. Tyler Jones: Oh, absolutely. And I think social media has something to do with that too, right? You look on social media, and you can probably tell me five people who just announced they’re pregnant or five people who just bought a house or five people who just got a new job , and we see that on the daily and so when we aren’t bringing something to the table, and that’s probably again a societal fault with social media, right? Everyone’s struggling with that. But when we aren’t bringing something to the table saying, Oh yeah, I am married, or I have checked off all these boxes, or I am getting a new job because I only stayed in that last job for a year. Any of those aspects, it’s just you feel uncomfortable. You’re okay, so what’s great about where I’m at right now? And almost looking for that validation again, it flips even to that extreme. Jenn DeWall: Great. That feedback, that validation, social media has become something where I think early generations weren’t as impacted because it wasn’t in your face that Susie Q just bought this amazing house that you’re just struggling to afford and they didn’t even have student loan debt so we can go down that way. [inaudible] Yeah, it’s, you know, it is really difficult when you have social media in your face and whether that’s in the professional form of LinkedIn where you’re then able to see, Oh who got a new job, who got a promotion, where are they going? And then you’re comparing yourself that way, or it’s going on to Instagram and saying, Whoa, you get to travel to all these great places or Oh, everything great must happen to you. It really does pose a unique challenge for, I mean everyone that’s on social media, but especially with the Millennials and Gen Z, knowing that that is such a piece of how they build their community, how they share their experiences and that they do spend more time on it than other generations just because it’s what they grew up with. That it does take its toll, and it does create that anxiety that in some way I am not getting my stuff right or I need to be doing more, which is then put into the workplace. Tyler Jones: Oh yeah. And that’s part of our brand too, right? I was taught my LinkedIn, my Facebook profile; everything should be reflective of my brand. So if my boss were to look at it or if someone hiring me where to look at it, they would get a sense of who I am, and that’s how I’ve always done things. And so to not have– or feel there’s something missing– or something’s not as sparkly and shiny on it as we think that Susie Q’s is that that’s hard and it’s hard to accept. But then also through even the last three years, it’s been kind of crazy to have that humbling notion that, Hey, everyone feels this way and everyone is in the same walk of life. Everyone’s going to be challenging on that or have challenges on that journey. And I think that’s something that we as Millennials need to really take some time and kind of come together and help support and lift each other up with that instead of necessarily, well because Susie got this, I need to get X, Y, and Z. Jenn DeWall: Well, and I think also creating that maybe that opportunity to bridge the gap with generations by just being open. Hey, I’m new here, and you already think that. I think I’ve got it all figured out. But really what I want to hear is about the opportunities that you failed or that you didn’t know what the heck you’re doing. Because in my perspective, being new to my career, I think that you guys have all of your stuff together cause that’s, I don’t have any other way to look at it because I don’t have all this experience and data to look at it any other way. But if an employer could open up that positioning of being more vulnerable and just saying, Hey, you know what Tyler, I didn’t have that right the first time. And the fact that you’re making mistakes, that’s wonderful. That’s how you’re going to continue to evolve and progress in your career. You know, if we had more of that openness and then it wouldn’t necessarily, I think warrant all of the feedback if we just had people that were all so open about their expectations or how the heck they got there. Because people hide the struggle or they hide the challenge, and then it’s harder to learn from, and it puts more pressure on you to feel you have to get it right somehow. Some way, you just have to have it right on your first try. What do Millenials Want out of Work? Tyler Jones: Have it right always, because that’s how we come off. Yeah, totally. And to think when I’m going into a new role, right? I started a new role two weeks ago, and so when I’m going into that and asking those questions of, okay, a where do you come from? How can I potentially learn from you in the future? But then also what have, what has your experience been working on these projects, and what has your experience been working with this process? And if I come in and instantly say, well, that process doesn’t look right. Obviously it should be automated, or it should move faster, shouldn’t have to go through all these hoops. There’s probably a reason why it has to be there. There’s probably a reason why it was created that way. And so how do I continue to grow and learn from that and be given that information. Maybe not given, but not the right questions to ask to get that information. Jenn DeWall: Great. That’s where mentors are huge, and having people that can give you insight that will help you grab at that bigger picture, which is the bigger picture is always can be a very challenging thing to adapt when you’re going from college and then going into your role. And I think that this is for any generation, it’s very easy when you’re just starting a job to look at your role and only see your responsibilities, but not necessarily connect them to why your job matters to what the company is doing. And not a lot of companies do a great job of providing that attachment or said in another way, creating that opportunity for Millennials to feel meaningful work. This is what you’re doing, and this is why you matter. And I love this about Millennials because they are challenging companies to say, why does this matter? Why do I have to care? Because if you want us to work hard, it’s not saying that we won’t work hard, but we will work hard when we’re more connected to it. So instead of thinking that we’re trying to rebel or not respecting it, help us get on the same bus that you’re riding, and we want to know, we want to see why we’re doing things because we to be a part of it. And the more that you can bridge that, you know, that sense of connection and collaboration, the more that you’re going to, I think see your Millennials or people that are early in their careers start to really connect with your organizational mission because they feel they’re not just there to get a paycheck. And do these, you know, maybe more entry-level tasks, they’re there to create this higher-level impact to the organization. Tyler Jones: Hundred percent. Absolutely. And I think all Millennials come into their role and they’re, okay, how am I going to change the world? Because mom and dad told me growing up that I could do anything. I wanted to change the world. And so how do I do that in these roles? And a lot of times I’m, I haven’t been told this, sit down and say, you still have a lot to learn. Even if you are making an impact right now, you can’t see that strategy yet. And so something I’ve really challenged myself with, and I think it was even one of my words for 2019 was seeing that strategic, bigger picture. And really pushing myself not to just say , okay, so I have to do tasks A through B, or task A through D, but I need to, there’s a reason why I’m doing this and how does maybe my boss or my director or my VP see that and how does it impact them? And then ultimately how does it impact our clients, our patients, our customers, any of those people who I’m coming in to work for and I’m in this workforce and this industry for a reason. So how do I connect all those dots and be inspired to do that because I think Millennials have a really high drive if it’s connected with passion. So I just listened to Daniel Pink- his book Drive, I love this book-It’s an older book. Jenn DeWall: Oh yeah. All about motivation. I bought that one. Tyler Jones: I listened to one of his talks on that this week actually, and I think it, it was spot on because yeah, sure, money’s influential to me. Being an influential person is influential to me, but really what gets me jazzed about getting up in the morning and really starting out on a project is I know what I’m doing is making a difference or I am doing something that’s going to revolutionize something. And that’s hard when you’re three years into your career. And yeah, most of the tasks I’m doing probably aren’t revolutionary. I don’t have that kind of impact yet, but how do I continue to change my vision towards that? And not just from the almost intern mindset of I need to complete these tasks because this is what’s on my list, Jenn DeWall: Right? It’s not just a to-do list. You’re learning everything so you can grow into that leader that you ought to become. I love that you brought up motivation because a lot of the organizations today will label Millennials as job jumpers, or you have to work to retain them cause they’re just going to leave. What do you think is important? I know we just talked about connecting with the mission, with what you’re doing with the purpose and getting that, but what do you think really keeps Millennials happy in a company? I know you’re not answering for every Millennial. So this, I know this seems a huge question, but in your opinion, what do you think really keeps someone as a Millennial happy in their company? Maybe through your friends, so your coworkers, what keeps them there? Tyler Jones: I think culture has a really big thing to do with it. We see, especially in Denver, right? We see all these really super sweet startups who have great break rooms, and they work hard, play hard, and yeah, they’re working 60 hour weeks, but then they are doing impactful things every single second of every single day and they feel important. Right? And so that’s a hard, hard gap to bridge for bigger companies because they’re employing tens of thousands of people. And so to not have, you can’t obviously tell everyone, yeah, sure, we’ll put a foosball table in a break room. Everything will be great. And, we’ll have these big inspirational speaker days, they can’t take that entire workforce out of it. So how do you create that almost internally and make it where again, those Millennials just feel impactful. They feel they’re doing something great. And they, they see where they’re able to go there I think is another part of it. As a Millennial, to be able to look and say, yeah, sure, I don’t know-how, what jobs B through E are going to be, but I know what jobs Z and A kind of look because that’s what I can see right now. And I’m hoping to continue to learn to widen my view so that I can kind of learn those little jobs in between. But the company I work for helps me see that as well. Right. They help me see what may be jobs C, E, and F look versus, I don’t know, they helped me kind of bring that whole vision to actual fruition. And again, it probably has a lot to do with mentors or management. Jenn DeWall: Absolutely. It’s what you just said. So the culture piece is huge, right? Wanting to go to a place where people are connected with the mission. It’s fun. But you know, one of those things is that is also important to Millennials is being able to see the future and set in a different way. They want a clearly defined career path. What am I working towards? I want to be motivated. I want to inspire, and they know that that also then can cause a little bit of that conflict in terms of then adding urgency. It’s, Hey, I got to A, now how do I get to B now? How to get to C and how to get to D. But companies I think cancel that down. But it’s still important to recognize that Millennials want to be able to see their future. And if they can’t see their future with you, they can’t see future growth or opportunity. They are going to look at other ways because they do value making that impact continuously, learning your lifelong learners. And so if they don’t see that, and if you’re not setting it up, then chances are they may start to consider other options where they can, where they’ll be able to receive that for themselves. Tyler Jones: And you think a lot of Millennials, I think even with Gen Xers is they, they don’t stay in a job for longer than three, four, maybe five years, right? To stay in one role. If there’s opportunity within a company to maybe say, all right, here are some different rules you can pop into as well, because then you can kind of against continue to learn and really stay fresh. Because mostly I’m not going to stay at the same company for the next 35 years. That’s hard for me to visualize. And I think that’s almost a societal shift, but a lot of that had to come from Millennials at the beginning. And so how do companies kind of help prolong that experience, I guess, and maybe keep them there for 15 years where they have eight different roles over that time. That’s, that’s very appealing to me. Jenn DeWall: Yeah, that’s feasible. Yeah. Right. But yes, it’s, I mean to say that people are staying in careers typical Baby Boomers, some of them where it’s 30 year anniversaries there it is societal, there’s so much that has changed that has brought a decrease into the amount of time that you spend with an employer — even looking at 30 years. We know as Millennials that initially they had lovely set of benefit packages or additional retirement options that were very appealing. But with the recession, all of that was taken away. But that was a very strong motivation or motivator to stay with an employer. But now that we can’t even bank on that, that’s one less lever that an employer has to pull to keep us there. And so it’s not that we’re averse to that. It’s just we didn’t have as enticing offers. We know we don’t, but he saw it and we saw what happened with the reception that our perception with the recession that things are just not planned, or we can’t take everything for granted because and at the drop of a hat something can happen where either we’re losing our jobs, and many Millennials struggled even to get a job because they were graduating rate when that started and graduated with so much college debt. Jenn DeWall: Right. Having and I myself have around $30,000 of college debt, and it’s insane. I am almost 40 I don’t want to continue to pay off my student loans, but it is a reason that does come into work with me. It does make me want to ask for more in terms of salary so I can be able to afford the life and then paying off these loans, which is, you know, I think something that not a lot of companies had to consider in terms of what quality of life is for a Millennial. Knowing that, especially in a place Denver where we already have a high cost of living, but then we have the burden of additional expenses student loans that make it harder for us to be able to then be those responsible adults and go and buy a house when we’re just trying to figure out how we can pay that back and when we can pay that back. We’re not necessarily on the, well I want to buy a house. I mean, we want that, but it’s just not as accessible as it was earlier generations. Tyler Jones: Oh absolutely. And I think our, our world of shrunk significantly, right? What we see in terms of new social media, everything I can communicate with someone. Heck, my husband lived in Japan for three years when I was in college, and I was able to talk with him on FaceTime every single day. And so to have that wider breadth and understanding of what’s around us, I think that’s everything from, yeah, the world’s a big place, but also I could go get this job over here in New York City because it looks super cool because so-and-so that I connected with back in college is now showing up telling me about it on LinkedIn. Right? It’s all connected. And so as Millennials, I’m not really wanting to sit still and just sit in that same job for 35 years because there’s a lot of other really cool things I can go do. And I’m now aware of it where I think older generations weren’t as aware of that. Because they saw what their newspaper put out, right? Maybe that evening news, Jenn DeWall: They didn’t have the same access to information and globalization wasn’t necessarily what it is today to them. And so knowing that, again, Millennials have different choices, and it’s the challenge back. Who’s to say that if you were in our shoes and saw this amazing job opportunity when you were my age, that you wouldn’t leap for it? Right? So it’s, you know, some of that is there’s just that exposure, you’ve always had options and so you know that it’s not just, you’re not stuck in one place. You can see the options Tyler Jones: And something I think companies can also do is provide that flexibility, right? There’s a very high chance that maybe one day we want to pick up and go live overseas for a few years. Can I still work my corporate job just remote from Europe? Yeah. In a lot of ways, I totally could, and my company actually supports that where I think some of these other companies have, you need to be in the office every single day or you need to be filling a seat. That’s just not feasible anymore. That’s not something that is going to keep. Millennials don’t want to come in and just warm a seat. We want to be, again, doing something impactful every single day, and I only have 24 hours in my day, and there’s a lot going on. I’d to be able to get my job done and then be able to go do whatever else I need to be able to take care of for the day. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. Which brings up that you don’t live to work, which is a phrase that can be associated with the Baby Boomers you work to live and even just those remote options or that flexibility does allow you to be able to live more. You can still give to your employer, but then you can still, you know, invest in your life outside of work. I would say that Millennials are still very, very, very willing to put in the long hours, but it has to be worth it. I think sometimes there’s the misconception that Millennials just want to come in at eight and then leave, you know, right at five or whenever they’re supposed to leave. But it all depends on how much you’re connecting that purpose and how much you’re giving that flexibility because Millennials do realize that life is short. Everything that we worked for our parents worked for wasn’t necessarily granted to them with the recession and everything that they lost. So I’m not going to spend my time just working and hoping that this is going to work out. I’m going to maximize the short life that I have. There’s just a different shift in terms of Holy crap; things can change in an instant. I want to make sure that I’m really enjoying this. There’s also the pressures though I think on the flip side of yes we enjoy this, but yes, a lot of Millennials are still very hardcore perfectionists. They have a high need for external validation, and so they will do whatever they can to make their boss happy, their peers happy. They want to do their best. Yeah. We want the flexibility. We want to do our, and so yes, we still think are very similar but different from our Baby Boomer parents,our counterparts that we want to work hard. The difference is we just need more of an understanding of the connection to us. Whereas maybe some Baby Boomers were taught you should just be happy you have a job or look at these benefits that you have. And Millennials are, well, if I don’t have this job, there are others, I have the internet, I can see all of these other places. I could also move to another place. We’re not as geographically fixed as some of the preceding and earlier generations. Tyler Jones: Oh, absolutely. And kind of was thinking about this as you were saying all of that, I think because of what we were taught growing up, right, we were taught I statements and how does that make you feel? We’re probably a little bit more emotionally attached to everything in our lives in terms of, and I could be offending a million people saying this, but I do not intend that at all. But when I’m going into work, I want it to make me feel good. I want to be doing something with that impact, with that passion. And I’m very aware of that. Instead of just, I know if I clock in from eight to five, then I’ll get that retirement package at the end of all of us. Because again, we weren’t promised that mostly with how today is society’s going. We aren’t going to get anywhere close to that. And so having those two different balances, but I think the flexibility for that is key. And then just having that passion behind it because I want to do other things, right? I don’t want to be necessarily a stay at home mom; my grandma and mom were, which was great that they had that opportunity. But that’s not again also feasible in today’s society. So how can I have it all almost especially as a woman in the workforce? Millennials and Money Jenn DeWall: Yes. And it’s the have it all, and things have changed. It’s not as easy to be a stay at home mom as it was back in the day because life is more expensive. We have more debt that we have to pay off. That has now a luxury to be able to go into that. And also in some ways it’s not reflective of, I would always say the need to have maybe that collaboration, feeling that Millennials love of feeling connected. It’s a little bit more isolating I’m sure for the stay at home moms when they don’t have that. I’m not a mom, so I could definitely be talking out of turn. But we’ve talked a lot about, you know, what Millennials want. They want flexibility, and they want a clearly defined work path. They want a culture that they work for that they love working in. Where do you think money falls into that? Tyler Jones: And that’s hard. I think I struggle with that personally. I don’t talk about money with people. It’s just uncomfortable for me, probably partially because of the recession. Right? I saw all of that huge thing explode. But at the same time, I see all my friends doing really super cool things and buying houses and going on amazing trips. I need to be able to afford my lifestyle. And that’s something, and I don’t necessarily have the experience in being able to ask for either. And so a lot of those money conversations I have, I’ll pass by a mentor or my dad or someone beforehand to be, okay, as an older generation who’s going to be receiving this conversation, like my boss or my manager, how do you take this? Because I know how I feel money definitely needs to fall into that, but it’s not the top of the line either. But it’s still that uncomfortable feeling of yeah, I know we have to talk about it, but it’s probably not going to be my favorite day of the week, and it’s going to be really super uncomfortable, and I need it in order to afford living in Denver. But I don’t know how to bring that up either. So it’s something that I’m continuing to learn about. But it, I said it with all those different factors, I don’t think it’s top of the line. It’s not bottom of the line either, but it’s on that list. Jenn DeWall: I think it’s important. I think it’s a necessity based on even just the debt, right? For those that have student loan, it’s a necessity, but it’s still not necessarily the number one reason Millennials will even drop a job to be doing something more exciting and get paid less for it. Tyler Jones: Yeah. You think of all the entrepreneurs, my sister has started up her own company, and she completely quit everything and was, all right, this is what I’m doing. Had no, set up clients at the very beginning and just said, I’m going to figure out a way to make rent this month and doing what I love, and she’s killing it. I’m so proud of her, but that’s a huge option right now. We’re able to do that, and we see people doing that again with the social media aspect, but how do we make all that work and how to companies bring that into play when they’re recruiting Millennials as well, I think is it’s, it’s not something that they need to be advertising top of the line, you’re going to be paid this much. Yes. Jenn DeWall: It’s still something to bring in. And I think that there’s a baseline understanding with all, with how tech-savvy Millennials are and then how many companies actually provide salary data, on Glassdoor or you can go on, and you can see what someone’s making and you’re looking at that. And so there is an expectation also when you go to the negotiating table, you want to understand how this is a baseline and where you fit into that. Or if you’re not at that level, what is it going to take to get there? Because you know what’s achievable because it’s on their company. What parts on, you know, a review of from former employees that have worked there. So it’s, it is interesting the way that, you know, money plays out, and it’s, I love that money is something that’s still a, it’s just a learned skill of negotiation I think is something that at levels, I don’t even think that’s a generational issue so much as talking about money as hard. What do you Love about Working in a Multi-generational Workplace? Jenn DeWall: And that requires us to really think about our worth and our value. And you know, it’s, there’s just a lot of emotions wrapped up into money sometimes. Yeah. And on the flip side, you could also just say money is money, right? Hey, I want this. If you can’t offer it, I’ll go find something else. There are those efforts too. We’ve talked a lot about what Millennials want. We haven’t maybe talked as much about what do you, about what we love about all the other generations. And so I want to give some love because I don’t want to make it sound like Millennials don’t appreciate the other generations because we absolutely do. And we all need to work together to create a common goal. It’s just about understanding that we all came up in different ways, in different backgrounds and experiences, technology, economic events, historical events. But what do you love about a generationally diverse workforce? Tyler Jones: Everyone comes in with those different views. And that’s something. I think it took me a little while to understand where that was coming from. But I highly value that. So when I think of the job, I actually just accepted and started in a few weeks ago. Part of the reason why I picked that team was that we had people on the team of all different ages. They all came from different backgrounds. They didn’t maybe necessarily all grow up within my company. And so because of that they’re coming into these project management kind of tasks, and we’re all working together as a team to say, Hey, what’s the best way we can do this? What’s the most efficient way we can do this? But I’m not going to have the same life experiences that my peer has, who is 20 years my senior, but also has done all these really super cool jobs leading up into this. Tyler Jones: And I’m just so excited to sit back and soak up a sponge. All of this knowledge because I know that all have something to bring my opinion. Still value, well valuable. But there’s so much still to learn from these other generations. I think of Baby Boomers; for instance, they often are those people who can really put their heads down and do really hard work but walk away. And I think they’re probably from the Baby Boomers. I know there are some of the happier people who are just really happy with simple things, and that’s amazing. I, I strive to have more of that, or I think of the GenXers and watching them just have so much, again, wealth of information in terms of experience, but then also they’re helping bridge that gap between us and the Baby Boomers. I don’t think I had the opportunity to work with all those different generations up until joining the large company I work for. And now I’m thinking moving forward in my career, I’m going to need some aspect of that at all times because it’s just so valuable to me. In solving those problems and I tend to be a problem solver. That’s what I to do. So I need those different people to work with to continue to grow on that. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. We need diversity. And that is the beautiful thing about multigenerational workplaces, that we do all have different backgrounds and experiences and ways of approaching things. And instead of saying, Oh Baby Boomers are awful at this, Millennials suck at that. They’re not great here. What are the ways that we can come together and learn from each other and appreciate our differences or how we look at things? You know, I do love the Baby Boomers that have a really strong and compelling work ethic to say we can get these things done, and here’s what you have to do. It is very heads-down, and they’re drivers, and they can accomplish so much. And I also love the Gen X approach, where they are a little bit more hands-off. They want their independence, they want to do what they’re doing, and they are in leadership roles, but they also allow people, I think especially those that report to them, they allow them opportunities to have more independence and autonomy, which I think looking at a lot of Millennials that report to Gen-Xers. That’s something that’s really nice because when we have more autonomy, then we have more opportunity to connect what we’re doing with that purpose and meaning for ourselves because it’s not restricted with red tape or expectations and expectations are there. But the red tape right there giving you more jurisdiction over how to problem solve. But knowing that problem solving in general, everyone’s going to approach something differently. And the, the deep institutional knowledge that someone has after being in a company for 20 plus years is invaluable in terms of what that does for any type of conversation and how they see things, how they can, you know, their strategic thinking skills that are so much more accelerated because they have that big-picture view, and it’s, you know, Gen X too of just kind of playing that they do play off of Baby Boomers and Millennials. I think that we all are a little bit different where there’s a lovely way that we all can agree to disagree or bring up different points of view and still get in there. And I think Gen Xers are still comfortable being in that middle. I mean, they’re the ones that don’t necessarily get the glory because they’re the smaller generation in between the two. But they really are that stability, right? They are very independent. They’re very self-sufficient. They can do what they need to do, but we need multi-gen and we also need to appreciate everything that every generation brings. And you know, really looking at it as every person you meet, regardless of their age or generation, is your teacher and your student. You can teach them something, and you can learn that. You can learn something from them. It’s not just a one-sided that just because you have this in-depth knowledge that I guess we all have to look at you. There’s just different ways that we approach things, and you know how we look at a problem and that we can all learn from each other. Tyler Jones: Yeah. And I think when you were saying all of that, I think most of my mentors right now are about Gen X or the end of, or the start of Millennials. And because of that ability to give the autonomy or give that independence, I’ve probably learned my most from them right now, but that’s just because of those people that they’re the people I’m working with where when we bring in all three of those generations together and pretty soon, if not already, I’m bringing it in Gen Z into the workforce. Right. They start this year, last year, and to get that, that wide variety of views is just so impactful, and I think it’s going to accelerate whatever company product that we have on the marketplace. Jenn DeWall: Great. You’ll be more innovative and more disruptive, and it’s the power of numbers. Tyler Jones: Yeah. All those great words. Jenn DeWall: You can do more when you have all those perspectives. Whereas if we limit ourselves to thinking that, you know, even if organizations limit themselves to just the boomers that are sitting in a room to make a decision and it’s not necessarily boomers, it could also just be people of a certain level. They’re missing out on the point of view that people have within different operational points of the business and how can we continue to open up a dialogue or create lines of communication between everyone so we can grow and we can become even more interconnected and stronger together. Tyler Jones: Yeah, and most companies and their clients are customers are multigenerational for the most part. And so how do we, you’re going to need something from a marketing standpoint that appeals to Millennials, which is going to be very different than what appeals to Baby Boomers. You can’t only pick one of those for the most part unless you’re AARP. Jenn DeWall: Right. Where you’re serving the retired people. Tyler Jones: Serving one specific generation. But when you’re serving today’s work, a world of so many different generations, how do we bring all of those people? It’s only beneficial for those companies to bring everyone together. Jenn DeWall: Yes. Well, it did pay attention to the fact that they are different. Market segmentation is a must to stay relevant because we don’t want the same things because we haven’t all had the same experience. And so it’s, it’s on, you know, it’s not probably the best business decision to treat us all the same because we have very different ways of looking at the workplace, which, so this is the leadership habit, workplace or leadership habit podcasts and talking about leadership, what do you think is important to, in a leader of a Millennial, what do you think that you need from a leader? Tyler Jones: I need that inspiration, which is probably asking for a really tall order, but I do need someone who’s, this is our big picture. This is why what we’re doing is super cool or going to change the world. And that’s, again, putting in a really tall order. But I need to kind of see that I need to have someone who tells me when there’s an opportunity for me to grow or, and maybe just answers my questions when I’m asking for that feedback, but also allows me to say, all right here, I understand you’re wanting to continue to learn. Here are some ways that you can continue to do that. I think those are the two most significant things I need to have that drive or passion behind it, and I need to see a direction forward than if I have a leader who can kind of do that and allow me to grow and allow me to see that amazing picture. I’m, I will do whatever I can. I said to work super hard for you because I know I’m waking up every morning doing something great. Jenn DeWall: Yes. Make the why connection, build the why and I love what you said because I think oftentimes they think that Millennials are just anticipating what their next move is they’re going to go but really know if you connect me with what we’re doing, and I can see how I play it, you know, a part, whether it’s big or small, that excites me. That makes me want to work harder for you. Tyler Jones: Yeah. That’s awesome. Jenn DeWall:  If you can find that in any different industry and an organization cause we are all different and motivated by different things. I have plenty of friends that think that leadership development is not necessarily as compelling and exciting as I do. But you know, at the end of the day, whether you are whether you’re a real estate agent or whether you’re working in healthcare or any industry, it’s connecting to what you do because then in many ways we are all making the world a better place through our organization. But sometimes the employer just has to do the due diligence to kind of create that story and start connecting that and infusing that into their organization so people can be united towards that time. And that common goal because I think it is important for Millennials to feel a part of something. I want to feel I’m a part of creating change or making acts impact. And so the more that employers can do that upfront in anticipation of that new Millennial that’s coming in, the more likely that they’ll have at retaining and engaging that Millennial.  What is Your Leadership Habit? Jenn DeWall: Taylor, I’ve loved our conversation today. It’s been so fun. And I just want to ask you one final question that we ask everyone, which is what is your leadership habit for success? Tyler Jones: So my leadership habit, I see it as a very beneficial, sometimes other people around me will say it’s kind of obnoxious. But again, growing up with all these different sources coming in with information coming at me from all these different places, I struggled to remember what all we needed to get done for the day, whether it was everything from work to personal to what I needed to buy from the grocery store. And it was, if anything, every single new piece of information that would come in, I would forget everything else. And it drove me bonkers. So I literally do the old fashioned thing and write lists all over. I have a notebook that never leaves my side. And even if I’m in the car and I come up with a thought, or I’m getting ready for the morning, and I get hung up with the thought of what needs to happen again, continue to make my impact on the world for lack of better terms. I need to have that all written down so that I can really focus on actually using my brain for good. And if I have those lists of things that either need to get done or I need to keep somewhere where it’s safe. So that’s my leadership habit. I keep a notebook and write a list every single morning. And that’s my start today.  Jenn DeWall: That’s awesome, though. I mean, it does, it can reduce your stress because you know what you’re supposed to do instead of trying to remember or jog your memory to recall that. And so it’s a lovely habit, right? Prioritization. That’s how we can accomplish great things. We have to keep our, make sure that we’re getting those small tasks that lead up to those big things. Exactly. Tyler Jones: And to make sure that those are off my plate so that I can focus on some of those bigger things too. I do not have to remember going to the grocery store because I know it’s already in my calendar in my notebook, but I can then Jenn DeWall: You can just tell Alexa now. Tyler Jones: I could, I have to work on that! And then actually be able to be present in those conversations that we’re having at work. Jenn DeWall: Yeah, and that’s great. The overstimulation is real, so whatever we can do to ground ourselves in our moment. Tyler Jones: Absolutely.  Jenn DeWall: Thank you so much for being here, Tyler. I really enjoyed our conversation, and I hope everyone else enjoyed this too. If you want, you can connect with Tyler on LinkedIn, and you’ll find that contact information in our show notes. Thank you so much, Tyler. Tyler Jones: Thank you so much. This was so much fun. Thank you for tuning in for our discussion with Tyler Jane Jones, about her experience working as a millennial in the workforce today. Tune in for next week’s episode. When we talked to Gen Xer, Manny Martinez, president of Relentless Leadership, LLC about how working with different generations can be a positive and rewarding experience.   The post Episode 12: Multi-Generational Leadership Featuring Tyler Jones, Millennial appeared first on Crestcom International.

In this episode of The Leadership Habit Podcast, Jenn Dewall talks to Mark Sanborn. Mark is the president of Sanborn and Associates, which is an idea studio dedicated to developing leaders in business and in life. Mark is an international bestselling author, keynote leadership speaker and noted expert on team building, customer service, and change. He’s the author of nine books, including the international bestseller, The Fred Factor: How Passion in Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary into the Extraordinary, and it has sold more than 1.6 million copies worldwide. In today’s episode, I am going to be talking to Mark about his newest book, The Intention Imperative: 3 Essential Changes That Will Make You a Successful Leader Today. Enjoy. Full Transcript Below: Jenn DeWall:                      Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall, and today I am going to be interviewing Mark Sanborn, and he is going to be talking about our latest book or excuse me his latest book, The Intention Imperative. Mark, thank you so much for joining us on The Leadership Habit Podcast. Mark Sanborn:                  Well, thanks and I have loved my association with Crestcom over the years. It’s gratifying to know that a lot of the ideas I’ve recorded are being taught wherever Crestcom does business. Jenn DeWall:                      Yes. And we are so happy, and you’ve influenced and inspired so many of the leaders that were participants in our program. And so we are so grateful for what you were able to do to help improve and create stronger leaders internationally. So, Mark, we’re going to be talking your newest book, The Intention Imperative and out of curiosity for our listeners that may not be familiar, what is intentional leadership and how did this become the topic or focus of your book? Mark Sanborn:                  Well, for the past 30 plus years, I’ve worked in leadership development, and one of my goals has always been to write little books about big ideas or to take big concepts and make them easy to understand. And that means that you go to what I call the irreducible minimums. I’ve always been curious and often been asked, you know, what’s the one thing all successful leaders have in common? And for years, I honestly couldn’t answer that because I’ve worked with so many leaders that did it so differently. They had different styles or personalities or approaches, but I started to realize that there was something that all unsuccessful leaders had in common, and that was that they were either unclear about what they were trying to accomplish or they were clear about what they were trying to accomplish, but they weren’t doing the right things every day to accomplish it. Mark Sanborn:                  And so this got me to thinking about what I have come to call the intention imperative. And that is being crystal clear about what you’re trying to achieve and taking the right action every day to achieve it. Now that sounds very simple, but I’m a big fan of simplicity. Occam’s razor said– the theologian said– make things as simple as possible but no simpler. And that’s what the intention imperative is because there are really only four kinds of leaders. You know, if you don’t have a vision and you’re not taking the right action, that’s really no leadership at all. But if you have a no vision and you’re taking a lot of action, and believe it or not, there are some leaders that just, you know, they’re busy but they’re not focused, that’s what I call wheel-spinning leadership. Now, if you have a very clear vision, but you’re not taking the right action, then that’s enthusiastic leadership because you can see it, but you’re not going to achieve it. It’s only when you have the vision, you’re taking consistent action to achieve it, that you’re really an intentional leader. And that’s really the premise of the book Jenn DeWall:                      Vision with intention- and you’re right. I mean, we see that all the time within leadership that they may have that vision in front of them, but they don’t necessarily combine that with the intention. And so it doesn’t move that move the needle to where they want to go and grow. Mark Sanborn:                  It’s a, what I call the triumph of operations over objectives. You know, sometimes we get caught up in what we’re doing, even if what we’re doing isn’t creating the right success. And there are other things that happen. You know, sometimes, a leader will inherit somebody else’s lack of vision. You know, they have a very unfocused agenda, or maybe they get distracted, you know, problems distract us and also opportunities to distract us. When I work with entrepreneurs, one of the biggest challenges they have is sticking with an idea long enough to see it come to fruition. Because along the way, as they’re, you know, implementing these ideas to create their new service or their new product, something they think is better comes along, and they switch gears. So there are a lot of factors that can derail leaders from being both intentional in what they’re trying to do and then taking the right action to do it. Jenn DeWall:                      I love that response. Just talking about those distractions that can impact leaders. Mark, how do you assure personal intentionality? Mark Sanborn:                  You know, I wrote the book for leaders at an organizational level- departmental-, it doesn’t matter how big or small your company is. If you’re an entrepreneur, these principles will apply, and I profile five very different companies in the book and proved that point. However, at a very personal level, I created a journal about a year ago called The Extraordinary Living Journal, and every day there are certain sections to fill out, and one of the most important sections each day is what I call the trifecta- and the trifecta in horseracing means you pick the top three horses in the order that they finish. You picked number one, number two, and number three. There’s a huge payoff, by the way, I’m not a horse racing fanatic or a gambler, but there’s a huge payoff if you can, can make that win. Well, the “trifecta in focus” is most leaders start their day more reactive than proactive. They go in, and they know there are things that need to be done, but the loudest person or the biggest interruption captures their attention. That trifecta is when you write down the three most important things you want to accomplish that day in rank order. The reason you want to rank them is because you don’t want to go for the easy low hanging fruit. You know, maybe number three, you know, you could get done but you never then start work on number one. So you start with your highest priority. If you accomplish that, then you go to the next and then finally to the third. And by being clear on what you’re trying to accomplish each day, you moved from simply being busy to being productive, and you are no longer at the whims of whatever happens because you have a very clear agenda of what you’re trying to accomplish. And that’s what I would call intentional leadership at a very personal level. Jenn DeWall:                      That’s a great example of something that leaders can do today, right? You gave an example of writing down what is most important to accomplish in a given workday and then prioritizing or ranking that one and two and three. I love that that’s a simple and easy action that someone could do tomorrow as they’re walking into work. Mark Sanborn:                  Well, I recommend that effective leaders do it every day before they start work. It doesn’t take that long. And by the way, I know right now there are a few leaders going, well that’s, that’s great if you’ve got simple little tasks, but we have these big ongoing projects and initiatives. Well, then you have to use a technique of chunking. And that is where you chunk down the big project into a, you know, bite-sized pieces and maybe the most important accomplishment of the day be meeting with the, let’s say, lead engineer on whatever this new initiative is and getting a progress update. So it’s not about achieving big goals in a single goal. It’s about having consistent chipping away at the stone of procrastination so that you eventually achieve the big project or the big goal and tiny bites. Jenn DeWall:                      That’s great. How, so we talked about, or you just answered how you can assure personal intentionality, but how do you, how do you assure organizational intentionality? Mark Sanborn:                  Well, it begins with the leadership being clear and then communicating two things. Number one, what it is that the big agenda is, you know, what it is we’re trying to achieve. And then number two, making sure that people are doing the right things to achieve it. You know, very often, we have strategic planning retreats. They often happen in the fall or towards the end of the year, we’d go to an ice offsite, and they hire a facilitator, and he or she helps us produce a 25-page document we make into a PDF and then distribute to everyone on our team, and few people read it. Most people don’t, and then they instantly go back to doing what they did yesterday. In other words, if you don’t refocus your team, you repeat your past performance, and that’s the reason why intentional leadership can fail when it isn’t communicated all the way down to every individual in the organization. Mark Sanborn:                  We know what we’re trying to achieve, and we know what we need to do as leaders, but one of the jobs of leadership is to get the people doing the work, focused on doing the high priority and the right things and you will always perpetuate past performance. If you don’t refocus people and say, you know, in the past you did this, but if we’re going to accomplish this new initiative, this new goal, you’re going to have to change your behavior and allocate how much time you do these things each day. So that’s how you make sure that you translate it down all the way to the, uh, lowest levels in the organization. Jenn DeWall:                      I love that. It’s all about that reframe. How do you get people to recognize that strategic goals have evolved and that if they modify their behaviors just in this way, they can better support the accomplishment of that goal? I love that. It’s another opportunity to clarify those expectations for people because that is a place where, especially a lot of the millennials that we happen to work with, they want that understanding of what they’re working for and how their job ties back to that big picture. And so this looks like an opportunity to just really help everyone be intentional into that strategy. Whereas right now, sometimes people don’t always get that opportunity or they may not have that same visibility. So they don’t understand how they influence it. Mark Sanborn:                  For anyone listening to the podcast and thinks this is maybe not concrete enough, here’s an easy phrase. You’ve gotta go from the what to how. Everybody needs to know what, but then they need to know specifically how if you ask somebody to do some things and they don’t know how to do it, or they, they can’t do what needs to be done, it doesn’t matter how motivated they are, they won’t succeed. So I like to get people refocused on if this is where we’re going, how do we get there? So it’s not enough to know the “what”. You’ve got to also help people with the “how”. Jenn DeWall:                      That’s great. So, in your book, The Intention Imperative, you talked about three major shifts that leaders need to make to be successful. What are they? Mark Sanborn:                  Well, I think they’re the three most important shifts in a world of work today. And these aren’t just in the US- I would suggest in my work and observations if they apply internationally as well. And the first is the shift from motivation to inspiration. Uh, motivation is important, but it’s not enough. Now here in the United States, 84% of millennials say they’d rather do work that matters than receive professional recognition. And that speaks very loudly to this idea that people want a purpose in their work. They don’t want to just do things and get paid for them. And by the way, motivation provides you a motive for doing something, whether it’s a salary or a bonus or a perk. I say inspiration is motivation to the power of purpose. It’s where you link the motives that you have to the higher calling that your organization serves. Mark Sanborn:                  I just recently had the pleasure of speaking for a Saint Jude children’s research hospital, their leadership-one of their leadership program commencements. And when you look at what’s being done in healthcare, and then you couple that to how they were able to provide services free of charge to children with serious cancer and how they have over the years dramatically increased the survival and success rate of that treatment. You know, that’s a far more powerful motivator than simply saying, you know, I work in the cafeteria or I’m in janitorial or I do maintenance, or I’m a researcher. You know, we all have motives for what we do every day, but when they’re tied to a much higher calling, a bigger purpose than ourselves, then we’re inspired. Jenn DeWall:                      Right. And which is what I believe so many people want to feel inspired and that connection with their work so they can feel that their time invested there is that they have that return, and maybe that return is just that feeling of doing something great. Maybe the return is doing something bigger than they ever thought they could. What about the second, the second major shifts that leaders have made from structure to culture? Mark Sanborn:                  Yeah. There are very few words more discussed in business than the word culture. And there are very few concepts less understood. You know, structure is the shape. Your organization, it’s your org chart. It’s for how things get done. But culture is really the, uh, the at flavor or the style of how things get done. Culture is a combination of everything we think and believe that results in what we do and accomplish. And it’s very pervasive. It covers so many things, but ultimately it’s about having everyone on the same page, not just in terms of the job they do, but what makes the culture, their tribe, their, their organizational membership. What makes it unique? And a lot of organizations today, they have a culture by design. It can be toxic, it’d be positive, or excuse me, they have a culture by default. You know, it can be a, it can be toxic or positive if they’re lucky. Mark Sanborn:                  But what I talk about in the book are the levers that you use to design and create the right kind of culture. And one of my favorites is that when we hire people, we often only hire for function, but not for culture. You know, if you have three people that you’re hiring for your accounting department, you could just hire on who’s the best accountant. But what if the best accountant is that kind of person that you know, goes against the grain of what the accounting departments about the accounting departments, very service oriented and they’re very enthusiastic. And this hotshot accountant is a very negative person who wants to be left alone. If you hire for function only, you end up with someone that takes away from your culture. And so you’ve got to keep culture in mind, not just function when you hire. Jenn DeWall:                      So it goes back to that. I think it’s, you know, I’ve heard this a few times before, but just hire for that. Um, I think it is actually from something I learned from you, which is, “hire for attitude and train for skill.” Does that sound right? Mark Sanborn:                  Exactly. And that doesn’t mean that skill isn’t important, most skills can be taught. But attitudes, very, very difficult to teach. And if you hire someone who is positive and receptive and hardworking and enthusiastic, even if they don’t have all the skills they need to be successful, you’ll be able to teach them and they’ll be able to learn them in fairly short order. If you hire somebody that has the right skills but doesn’t have the right attitude, you’ll never see that person fully engaged and you’ll never enjoy the benefits of those skills. And if you’ve ever tried to, as a manager or a leader, if you’ve ever tried to change someone’s attitude, I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I’m saying that it’s so difficult and frustrating that most people give it up, Jenn DeWall:                     Right. It’s time-consuming and you know, it may, they may just cut their losses and either decide to let them go or sometimes I’m sure that they let them stay and then they have that adverse effect or consequence on the team. Mark Sanborn:                  Well, you know this, there, there are some cliches that are valid. Cliches become cliches because they’re largely true and probably most of your listeners have heard this old bromide, you know you have to hire slow and fire fast, but the reality is most organizations hire fast and fire slow. You know, they’re anxious to fill a slot or a position and they don’t take the best candidate. They take the best candidate who’s available at the time. And then if that person doesn’t Excel or doesn’t do well, instead of cutting their losses, they say, wow, we just, I would hate to go through this hiring process again, the onboarding costs, time and money, we’ve just got this person settled into their role and maybe they’re not doing a great job, but let’s hope against hope that we’ll be able to, you know, to bring them around. So you should hire slowly and fire quickly. But most organizations just do the opposite. Jenn DeWall:                      That’s such a great line to remember it. For anyone that’s listening to this that does hiring, knowing that just taking your time to find that right fit, we’ll be the best thing that you can do for yourself because it can avoid having to fire someone down the line. So I know I went a little bit on a tangent there and well, let’s go down to that. That third major shifts that leaders make the shift from experience to emotion. Mark Sanborn:                  Yeah. You know, my friends Pine and Gilmore wrote the book, The Experience Economy. It’s one of my favorite business books of all time. And they talked about how to go from, commodities or products and services, to the bigger picture. And that is how to create the right kind of experience for your customers. And I respect their work greatly. I’ve learned much from them. But in my own work, I’ve noticed that in my mind there’s something even more powerful than the customer experience. And that is, uh, the, the customer’s emotions, how they feel about the experience. And I like to kinda summarize it by saying, make me your goals should be every day and your interactions with customers or clients is that at the end of the interaction they would think to themselves, you know what, I’m happier. I did business with him or her than I was before I did business with him or her. Mark Sanborn:                  In other words, you’ve created, and it’s a simple, and it’s only one of many emotions, but you create a very positive emotion. Because happy customers, happy clients, they buy more. They’re easier to service. They tell others, uh, you know, good things happen when people have a positive emotional state. The problem is most businesses do not design and deliver or emotion. They design and deliver for experience. Now it’s possible to have a good experience and still not be happy because you might have had a good experience, but it might not have been the experience that you want it. Now. The cynic would say, well then it wasn’t a good experience. Know that the company might have provided a really good experience, but you didn’t leave happier. You left disappointed. I mean it’s like getting a good meal and the food’s really good, but the service is really slow. And so it’s, it’s about how people feel at the end of the transaction, how they feel at the end of the interaction that matters most. And in the book I talk about what are the primary emotions that we should be trying to create. And by the way, this applies to the people that we lead, people that work with us, not just the people who do business with us. Jenn DeWall:                      What one of the three shifts that leaders have to make, do you feel can be challenging or the most challenging for a leader? Mark Sanborn:                  Well, all three of them. I mean, some leaders will just naturally be predisposed to, to make some of those shifts easier. But I don’t want people to think in a vacuum, you know because I say that culture is the engine. Inspiration is the fuel and positive emotion as the product. So these aren’t just three arbitrary changes. They’re interrelated, are interconnected. And so you really need to look at all three because I don’t think you’re going to inspire your employees at a negative culture. I don’t think you’re going to create a positive emotional response from customers if you’ve got unhappy employees, so they all three have to fit together and the good news is it’s impossible to be perfect in all three, but it’s very easy to improve in all three and that’s what I tried to do in the book. I don’t just talk about what to do. I get very specific how to inspire others, how to stay inspired, which if you’re a leader is a challenge. I talk about how to elevate the experience to deliver positive emotions. I talk about the five levers for creating and maintaining culture. So this isn’t just an abstract. While these are interesting ideas and we’d be good to do this. I talk very specifically about how to do it. Jenn DeWall:                      And I love that you provide that how, and especially even how to inspire when maybe you’re not feeling inspired because that’s a challenge that yes, many leaders face that some days, sometimes some years are great, but there may be some different goals or events that happen where we start to lose their luster. And it sounds like people could really use this to help to build this up for themselves as well as their team. Mark Sanborn:                  Well, I think so, and I certainly hope so. And I think people need to realize both emotion and inspiration are not all or nothing. You know, they’re cumulative and we’re all disappointed every day. But what we hope for is that we have more pleasant surprises and happy moments than disappointments. And so we, we kind of net out to the positive side when we do. And even when we make mistakes and serving customers, even though they’re temporarily unhappy in a kind of crazy way, that creates an even better opportunity to make them happy again. So I’m not a Pollyanna. I know that leadership can be and often is very challenging and frustrating, but by doing some of these things, you stack the odds in your favor so that the net balance will be more inspiration and more positive emotion in a better culture than if you hadn’t taken on the challenge. Jenn DeWall:                      Mark, what do you think are some of the challenges that people have? Like why aren’t they doing this today? Why aren’t they going from motivation to inspiration or structure to culture? What do you think is holding them back from making that shift? Mark Sanborn:                  Well, there’s all this awareness, and that is that most leaders, you know, they’re in the trenches, they’re busy running businesses and organizations and serving employees and customers. What I get paid to do in my work is to think about and to observe and to study and to research what’s going on in the world around us. You know, if a leader had as much time to think and study as I did, they would probably come to similar conclusions. But what I’ve done is I’ve said, look, I’m going to, uh, you know, I work with anywhere from 50 to 60 different clients a year and I’ve been doing that for over 30 years. I’m going to take what I’ve been able to observe and learn and, and teach you. And hopefully when people read the book, they’ll say, you know, I didn’t think about that, but it makes sense. Mark Sanborn:                  And that’s where you go from lack of awareness to awareness. Then the next thing is, is you’ve got to be willing to put forth the effort. And that means you have only so much energy in the day and you’ve got to design your day in such a way that you’ll know what’s highest priority, what matters most, and what will produce the biggest bang for your buck. And so you’re going to have to think a little bit about, okay, how am I going to do these little things that will make a big difference, uh, because the application is always a little more difficult and challenging than the, than the simple aspiration. Jenn DeWall:                      Absolutely. I appreciate that. Like that feedback and that just that insight, knowing that tiny little steps. Right. Again, it sounds so easy, it sounds so simple, but it is looking at what are the ways, what are the small actions that we can take to change our long term, our end goal, to actually make a lasting and a long-lasting change. Exactly. What was your greatest aha moment as you were doing research for this book? Did you have any personal aha moments where you’re like, this is it like after you’ve been in this leadership throbbing space for, you know, over 30 years, what was the aha moment for you? Mark Sanborn:                  Well, there were two big aha moments. The first was where the concept of book crystallized. I have four colleagues. We did some, uh, consulting and business development together for a few years. We called ourselves five friends because five of us were great friends for many years. And we, we worked with some, uh, businesses to help them grow their businesses and increase their success. And I’ll never forget. A couple of years ago we were to a two-day meeting in Phoenix and we were just going around the room and asking these business owners and leaders, you know, what are the biggest challenges you’re facing? And it dawned on me that they lacked clarity either in what they were trying to do or how to do it. And I thought, you know, every and there were people in diverse businesses and occupations and, and yet the problem was the same. And that’s when it struck me that this was the irreducible minimum clarity and effort is intentionality. Mark Sanborn:                  But then the second thing that struck me is I fleshed out these, these three shifts because I flushed out what it meant to be an intentional leader. I targeted five very, very successful organizations. Savannah Bananas, it’s not even a minor league baseball team. It’s a summer college league and their players don’t get paid. They actually stay in the homes of people in the Savannah, Georgia community. And, and they played games against other college teams. And the Savannah Bananas have sold out now 70 consecutive games when most minor league baseball teams have a hard time doing that. And I talked to their owner, Jesse Cole and studied what he did and they say, you know, we throw a circus and during the circus of baseball game breaks out. And so they really understand how these principles apply to entertainment. And then I spoke with my friend Dr. Nido Qubein at High Point University, one of the most successful, fastest-growing universities in the United States today, the premier life skills university in the United States. Mark Sanborn:                  And I found as I interviewed him, he was doing all of these things that I talked about how the words he used to describe what he was doing rung true and familiar to what Jesse Cole with the Savannah Bananas said, and Salzmann at Acuity Insurance said, or what the husband and wife team of Erica and Steven Johns at this little landscape company in Illinois called Envisioning Green. What they did and what Texas Roadhouse did consistently-  be that the best in category in their restaurant’s space. And it struck me. I didn’t prime people. I didn’t tell them, you know, Hey, I want you to talk just about these three things. I found out that anecdotal evidence very powerfully came together to support the conclusions. Statistical evidence is important. Sometimes it can be misused or it can be overvalued, but anecdotal evidence, this powerful tool would be too, because you get to see what leaders who are doing it day in and day out are doing and how they’re doing it. So it was great fun for me to combine that insight I had working with those business people and entrepreneurs with the observation is that I believe from the very successful in these five disparate kinds of businesses and organizations, Jenn DeWall:                      Savannah Bananas sounds like a great time. I mean that. I love that. That’s one of your examples. I love the diversity within your examples that as anyone that would pick up your book is able to find those commonalities and ways that different business areas are finding success using these principles and making these shifts. Mark Sanborn:                  Are you ready to read the book and say, well, that doesn’t apply to me. I’m a small business or that doesn’t apply to me. I’m a service business or that doesn’t apply to me. I’m a manufacturing business. I use this diversity of examples to show how truth is transferable. The truth, the principle doesn’t only how you apply it, whether it’s an academic or entertainment or insurance, or in the restaurant business or the landscape business. Jenn DeWall:                      And I think your message is so powerful also because it really does. You know, it focuses on that intention, which intention implied gives us meaning. But intention is something that also can take away ambiguity, which we know is one of the reasons that people will leave their jobs if they don’t feel like they understand what’s expected of them. And so I love that you can use these principles to apply it for a plethora of organizational challenges, whatever you may be faced facing, whether that be engagement or whether that be turnover. How else do you think that you’re like, our, our listeners could use your book. How else could it help them? Mark Sanborn:                  Well, intentional leadership then, right? Well, reduce frustration. Uh, reduce confusion and boys’ wondering what to do, why they’re supposed to do it, why what they’re supposed to do. This week was different than last week. One of the signs that an organization lacks intentional leadership meetings often in with big decisions being made that are contrary to the last meetings, big decision. And I’ve served on boards where in the last few minutes of a meeting someone wanted to revisit what should’ve been a, uh, a solid foundational piece of the business. And all of a sudden it was up for grabs. And that translates into the confusion and the frustration, the disappointment that you talked about when people don’t know what’s expected of people, if they had a choice between succeeding and failing, they choose to succeed. Most people do not fail intentionally unless they’re doing it maliciously unless they feel like they’ve been aggrieved and they haven’t been treated well. And then they might try to sabotage the work of the organization. But if you operate from the premise that most people want to succeed, I know I do. You do, Jen. Then the question becomes how do we help people succeed? And this is, this is one book and there are a lot of books, good books are written every year, but this is one book that says, by being intentional, you’ll help people in your organization as well as yourself. The more successful. Jenn DeWall:                      So this is something for you where up wherever you are, I guess in your and your journey as a leader. And yes, it’s our job as leaders, as managers, regardless of what our position is, is to assume positive intent, to assume that most people want to succeed and that if we’re not helping them get there, it’s not necessarily always the case, that they’re not worthy of it, that they don’t have the skillset, it’s that we may need to try some different techniques to help them be successful. Mark Sanborn:                  Well, and I don’t write about politics in the book. I, I follow politics closely, but I do not believe it is my calling, nor my brand into that really messy spectrum right now where people are so mean spirited and uncivil. But I will say this interesting. We elect politicians based on what they say they’ll do, but we don’t get to see if they’re successful until after we’ve given them the job. The reality is a lot of political leaders, their intentions to get elected and they say and do things to get elected that may or may not come to fruition after they’re in office. And we as voters have to learn to recognize what the true intentions are of the people who are elected to office. They make promises in advance. We don’t get to vote again for two or four years depending on what kind of office they hold on, whether or not they fulfill their promises. So I would say it’s kind of a side note. Look at what the real intention of someone is and radically in the current political system before liter can try to do anything they have to get elected. So that becomes their primary intention. And regrettably, sometimes a few of them make promises to commitments they’re unable to keep. Jenn DeWall:                      How do you like, how can we tell if someone is being authentic with their intentions or what type of tips or advice would you get? For someone to determine the authenticity of someone’s intention. Mark Sanborn:                  I’m married to an HR director and I’ve learned a lot from her and Darla, as I said, you know, past performance is the best indication of future performance. Not, not current promises or current commitment, but past performance. Now it, that doesn’t always mean that past performance will translate into a new sphere. Again, about when it comes to politics if you take somebody that comes out of a, a nonpolitical background that’s been very successful, they may be challenged to learn the political process. In other words, the skills that make them successful in business or philanthropy may or may not transfer right away. But for most business organizations, look at what someone’s done in the past and find out that secondarily how they’ve done it. A, an important nuance is that, uh, you know, nobody achieved great success by themselves. And when I looking at potentially hiring somebody, one of the ways I find out, you may have heard me say this and some of the Crestcom training, if they’re a team player I asked them to describe as something that they achieved, they’re very proud of. Mark Sanborn:                  And that, tell me how they did it. And then when I listened for is the repetitive use of the word wheat, I’m very leery of the person that says, well, you know, I was the quarterback of the football team in high school and we won the state championship and I threw for more yards, blah blah blah. Because he is basically discounting the other 10 players on the field that enabled him to succeed. So I’m always looking not just for what people have done in the past, but how have they done it? Have they destroyed relationships, have they burnout out others in the process or have been been a good team player. Jenn DeWall:                      I love that. And it’s a great tip for just how we actively listen in interviews. How does this person provide that example? Are they an I or are they a week? You know, going back talking about the culture and trying to find that right culture fit. It sounds like that’s something that our readers can use that ties right back to the firm structure to a culture mindset or mindset shift that our leaders need to make. Mark Sanborn:                  Yeah. And I think we need to understand that impressing people is a head game, but influencing people’s behavior game leadership isn’t just about what people think of you, although that’s obviously important as it comes to credibility. Ultimately leadership is about influence and that is our people better because they perform better and achieve more, are their lives better. And that’s really the difference between impressing people and influencing people. What is Your Leadership Habit? Jenn DeWall:                      That’s our goal to influence. And I know that you have influenced many people by talking about your book today, The Intention Imperative. I just have to wrap up by asking you the one question that we close every single one of our podcasts with. And that is- what is your leadership habit for success? Or to put it another way? What habit do you do consistently, repetitively, that you think you attribute your success to? Mark Sanborn:                  Well, that’s a good question because I just wrote a blog and actually recorded a video version of the blog called “Rise Early and Play Fast” and I’ve observed the most successful people tend to do two things when George W. Bush gave the eulogy for his dad, George H.W. Bush. He said, my dad liked to play fast. He liked to golf fast, like drive his boat fast, because he wanted to fit as much into each day as he could. He wanted to get onto the next activity, the next project. And of course, this is one of the great leaders of the last hundred years that he was speaking of. And then my friend Harvey Mackay who wrote Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. He’s in his eighties, and Harvey says, I can’t sleep fast enough. He said I get up in the morning, excited because I got things I want to do. Mark Sanborn:                  Dr. Nido Qubein gets up at 4:00 AM in the morning, and he reads for two hours before he goes on a walk. That’s how he prepares to go in, into work. So that’s what I do. I get up early, and I play fast. I, uh, I am an early riser. Now that doesn’t mean I deprived myself asleep. I’m a big believer that you have to have enough sleep to be healthy. But I get more done by rising early in playing fast than I do by staying up late and taking it easy. So that’s my favorite leadership habit of the moment. Rise early and play fast. Jenn DeWall:                      I love that. Well, Mark, thank you so much for joining us on The Leadership Habit Podcast. I really enjoy talking with you today. Thank you for tuning in to today’s podcast episode with Mark Sandborn. I hope you really enjoy hearing all about his new book, The Intention Imperative. To purchase Mark Sanborn’s new book, you can go to Amazon,  or follow the link in our show notes Thank you for listening. Until next time.     The post Episode 11: The Intention Imperative with Mark Sanborn appeared first on Crestcom International.

In this episode we interview innovation expert and speaker, Stephen Shapiro. Stephen cultivates innovation by showing leaders and their teams how to approach, tackle, and solve their business challenges. Applying the knowledge he has accrued over decades in the industry, Stephen is able to see what others can’t, opportunities to improve innovation models and the cultures that support them. Enjoy. Full Transcript Below: Jenn DeWall:                      Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining this episode of the leadership habit. Today we are going to be talking to Stephen Shapiro, who is an innovation expert, author, and keynote speaker. Jenn DeWall:                      So, today, Stephen is here to share with us how we can be successful in our innovation efforts. This comes down to both our mindset and how we look at innovation and also what we can do in our organization to help create an innovative culture. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you so much for joining us to be here. He traveled all the way from Orlando, and you’re here with us in Denver, Colorado. We are huge fans of your work. I have read a few of your books, and you have a new book that’s coming out, and I just wanted you know, our listeners to get to know a little bit about you and what you do. Stephen Shapiro:             Sure. So, I’ve spent my entire business life focused on innovation. Slightly earlier in my career, I was focused on optimization. So I’m an engineer by background, and one of the things that I was focused on was how do we optimize businesses? How do we make them more efficient? And one of the things that I realized is that if you optimize a company, they’re going to downsize the people. And I woke up one day and realized I was personally responsible for like tens of thousands of people losing their jobs. And I’m like this, and this is not what I want to do with my life. So I started focusing on innovation a little more than 20 years ago, and that’s all I’ve been doing since then. Jenn DeWall:                      And what excites you about the topic of innovation? Stephen Shapiro:             So I like it from a number of different perspectives. One is I liked the intellectual aspect of innovation because it is a really cool thought process. It’s fun. It’s enjoyable. But I also like the outcome of innovation because the outcome of innovation is obviously a company being more successful. But for me, the goal has always been job creation. I think if we’re going to create a powerful society, we want people to have jobs they love and the more companies that are successful; the more companies are growing, the more people they can hire. So, that’s been really my main driver. Jenn DeWall:                      My gosh, how exciting to look at innovation through that lens of what can we create, not only from a product perspective but that people side. How can we create jobs for people to be able to go out and maybe create new products or do their services and acts in their communities and support a global culture? That’s very exciting. Stephen Shapiro:             Yeah, it’s what’s really nice too is because it has moved beyond just product. Everybody can be involved in innovation, and I’ve worked with finance organizations on helping them be more innovative, which you think finance shouldn’t be innovative, but actually, they should definitely be innovative because there are different ways that we can do our work. It’s about experiences. How do we create a better experience for our customers? That’s all innovation. Innovation is anything that makes a company better. Jenn DeWall:                      Great. And I think that’s a good point to clarify because I know that for me not having a ton of familiarity around the topic innovation, I think I always just looked at it as something that was reserved for someone that was exclusively in product development. You never look at it as something that can be applied to your organizational structure or some of your processes. I think you do think of innovation in that way, but it’s not necessarily held in that same regard as what they think of the people in organizations that are more disruptive. So whether that’s innovation in terms of a car like Tesla and how that has shaped the way that we look at vehicles and low emission vehicles. But you know, for me it’s, it’s great to hear you say that innovation is really just not something that’s reserved to someone in a product development area or their research development area. It’s accessible and should be practiced by everyone. Stephen Shapiro:             I think we’re seeing a democratization of innovation. So the past in the past, innovation was sort of the privileged few who are wearing long white robes, and they were handing down the tablets from the mountain to the organization and say, here you go- implement. And the reality now is we want everybody to be innovating every day if possible. Now it might be small incremental improvements to the way that they’re doing their work. It might be bigger business model changes, but we want to be able to get better at collaborating across an entire organization because when we can deal with the collective wisdom of the organization, we get the best results. Jenn DeWall:                      So where does the innovation process start? You know, does it start with the problem? Does it start with the vision? Where would you say the innovation process starts as if you’re someone that’s looking at, maybe I want to do things differently. Stephen Shapiro:             So when you look at it at a macro level, I would say it starts with getting clear on the use of the word vision. I would say getting clear on your differentiator cause I think it’s really important for organizations to understand why people do business with you and not someone else. And if you can get clear on that, then it allows you to focus your energies. I always say innovate where you differentiate, the biggest problem that I see as most companies are dissipating their energies on innovating problems that aren’t important or they’re not relevant, or customers don’t care. It’s not going to create a lot of value. So the first thing is to get that clarity around where you’re going to innovate and why you’re going to innovate. And then from there you just figure out what are the problems, what are the opportunities, what are the challenges we need to solve? It’s not about the idea, and it’s not about sitting around and you know, looking at the clouds and, and trying to just come up with some cool ideas. It’s not that it actually is a very purposeful engineering-oriented type of discipline. Jenn DeWall:                      So it’s almost like we complicated it a little bit more too by not looking at it as the problem is that everything to say, maybe not, but just, you know, sometimes people think that innovation needs to be something big and new and just gigantic in terms of scope, but it’s not necessarily about that. Would that be a fair thing to say? Stephen Shapiro:             I think that’s a totally fair thing to say. I mean there’s all types of innovation. So you have incremental innovation, you have more radical innovation, your product innovation, you have business model innovation. So we have, there’s a whole wide range of innovation that we’re going to focus on inside of an organization. And I think the reason why it becomes complicated is not so much the process, but it becomes complicated because we don’t have a process. We seem to think that innovation is sort of this unstructured free thinking. Think outside the box approach. And that is the very thing that tends to destroy innovation in organizations because we don’t have an infinite amount of time, money, or resources to spend on innovation. So we need to get people focused. And if we focus people not on ideas, but we focus them on opportunities and problems, then we can really unleash the greatest amount of value with the least amount of energy. Jenn DeWall:                      That’s great. So you said focusing on the problems. So how do you solve your innovation problems? Stephen Shapiro:             The first part of solving a problem is actually to make sure that we’re asking the right question. And I think this is the big mistake that most companies make is we get caught up in solutions rather than the problem. We get caught up in answers rather than questions. And I think the key thing is anytime you’re making any investment and improving the business; you need to stop and ask yourself, what is the problem we’re really solving? And can we frame it a different way such that we could get a potentially a completely different range of answers because you could change one word in a problem statement and get a completely different range of possible solutions? So I think the reason why it becomes complicated is that we don’t have structure, although it seems to go against what most people think, the structure creates simplicity. And so when we have the right structure, we’re able to become much more efficient in what we do. And I think that’s really one of the big key misconceptions around innovation. Jenn DeWall:                      Right! You think that you don’t want to put, or you don’t want to try and take away, right? So you look at the structure as the enemy. Like if I do this, it will stifle their innovative efforts. They’ll feel bound to this. But it sounds like what you’re saying is structure is really that key to helping them solve their problem. When you say structure, what does that look like? Stephen Shapiro:             So let’s take a very simplistic example. I give you a blank sheet of paper and come up with all the different ways you can improve your business. You will come up with a lot of ideas, but I guarantee you they’re going to be the same ideas that everybody else has been thinking about. They’re not going to be very creative. They’re not going to be very valuable, most likely. And they’re probably going to be incremental concepts that people have been thinking about previously. But if I say, how do we improve productivity? Now, that’s still a really big, broad question and I would never ask that question. But if you start there, well now we’re getting people focused on a particular mindset. Structure helps people find better solutions. So instead of thinking outside the box, you want to find a better box. And that better box is the right question, framed the right way, solved by the right people to unleash the greatest amount of value. Jenn DeWall:                      Can you give me an example or give our listeners an example of what that right question looks like and maybe what a not so good question looks like. Stephen Shapiro:             Yeah. And you know, I guess there’s not really ever a right or wrong question. It’s just that particular questions yield particular results. Okay. And the goal with all of this is to make sure that we’re asking questions that are going to produce the results that we want. So I’ll just give a very simple example. NASA was doing some work where they want to take a washing machine and bring it into space- this is back when they were doing manned space travel, and they’re getting back into that now- because they want to be able to wash their clothes. And so if you think about that question, how do we bring a washing machine into space where there’s zero gravity? It’s a very complicated problem. There are pipes and pumps and valves, gravity and all these other things we have to start worrying about. And they, they were not successful in coming up with useful solutions. Stephen Shapiro:             So they went back and okay, maybe it is the wrong question and then realize the question was a much simpler question, which is how do we get clothes clean. Now one was focused on the process, the solution, which is the washing machine, whereas the other one was focused on the outcome, which is the result of getting clothes clean. And that led to a whole bunch of different innovations, which were interesting. They’re all about cleaning fluids, but you don’t need pumps, valves, and pipes. And then they changed one word in the statement. And they went from, how do we get clothes cleaned to how do we keep the clothes clean? Now all of a sudden you’re talking about a material science problem. You don’t even have cleaning fluids. You’re now talking about antimicrobials. And so one word in a problem statement can really fundamentally change the direction you take a problem. But most people get an idea; I want to put a washing machine into space. Great, okay, how do we do that? And they don’t step back and say, what are we really looking to do? Is there a different question? Because if I changed the question, I’m going to get different answers. Jenn DeWall:                      Great. Just changing the question. And too often I think it is true, people get that idea and right, wrong or indifferent, they get really excited to make it happen, right? Finding that solution. And so they’re less likely to take that step back. So for what you’re saying is to take that step back, think what is that outcome, the overall solution or idea or result that you are seeking and how do we accomplish that? So it sounds like you actually simplify it more. Stephen Shapiro:             Well, you do what, when you give people that clarity and whether, whether it’s simpler or not simpler, you give people clarity. And I think inside of organizations, people are so busy that if you say, “go innovate,” they have no clue what you want them to do. And at the same time they’re not going to be very efficient at doing it. So we’re going to get a lot of wasted energy. But if we give them a very well framed problem, now we increased the likelihood of getting something valuable from them in a very efficient manner. And I think that’s really the key. And the other advantage of focusing on questions than solutions is there’s a psychological challenge associated with people focusing on solutions, which is something called confirmation bias. And basically all that means is once I come up with a solution, an idea, a belief in something, no matter how much convincing someone else tries to do that, it might be a bad idea. I’m going to ignore all the evidence that contradicts my belief. I mean, we see this in all areas of life. So it eliminates all these psychological biases that we have. It eliminates the inefficiencies that we have in the way we do work. It really is. I mean, we tend to think about innovation as this big divergent activity where we want a volume of ideas. But I always say asking for ideas is a bad idea. Everybody has an opinion, suggestion or idea doesn’t mean it’s good. So we need to get to a point where people feel that they have clarity around what the organization wants them to focus on. Jenn DeWall:                      You know, you said you were talking about the ideas and in one of your books you talk about an engineering term called the signal to noise ratio. And I found that just fascinating to think about how you’re actually harnessing and, or excuse me, how you’re actually getting your innovation ideas. Could you tell our listeners what the signal to noise ratio is and how that relates to innovation? Stephen Shapiro:             Sure. So if you think about a typical suggestion box, suggestion boxes are still asking people to solve a problem, but in most cases is very broad problems. So like how do we improve the business? And what ends up happening is you could get hundreds or thousands of ideas on how to improve the business. From my experience, between one 10th of a percent and 1% of the ideas that are submitted actually have enough value, enough merit for them to be implemented. So that means that 99% of the time that we spend thinking about the problems, submitting the problem, and evaluating the problem is a waste of time. And the signal to noise ratio is basically just the ratio between what you want, which is the signal and the noise, which is everything that you don’t want. So back in the days, I’m dating myself here, but back in the days of cassette tapes, you know, obviously everything now we’re doing is digital. But back in the day when they were cassette tapes, there were chromium dioxide tapes. You had ferric oxide tapes, you had regular tapes and each of them had a different signal to noise ratio, which was the ratio between the sound and the background hiss and what ends up happening is when we look at innovation we tend to have very little sound and a lot of background his, so it’s an extremely inefficient process, and when you flip the whole process on its head, and you focus on the questions rather than the ideas, you now increase that signal to noise ratio because we’re focused on high-value opportunities for the organization. Jenn DeWall:                      So it’s not just casting this broad, this broad net and then hoping that you find a solution. It’s creating a very focused net to be able to grab those solutions and filter through. And I think one of the parts that you also may have addressed in your book, if I recall this correctly, was just the decision fatigue that can result with filtering through all of those ideas and how that can really be something that only probably puts you further away from innovative thinking. Stephen Shapiro:             Yeah, you have a decision fatigue, you have idea fatigue. I mean idea fatigue is really the first part, which is if you ask your employees for their ideas of how to improve the business and you got like, I remember one of my clients had brought me in after everything failed and they said what happened? They got about 2000 ideas of which they implemented two. And so what happens is you think about what people are taking time out of their busy day to think about an idea to submit that idea and then you don’t do anything with it. It creates a huge morale issue inside of organizations. So that whole idea fatigue, okay, I need to think of new ideas, but nobody’s doing anything with it. People burn out. Decisions- you know, people have to go through and evaluate each of these things. I get 2000 ideas submitted. I have to go through those 2000 ideas and see if they are any good. And in most cases, they aren’t. So I feel like I’m wasting my time. And that’s what we do is we’re just wildly inefficient, or you know, organizations are wildly inefficient in the way that they have tackled innovation. Jenn DeWall:                      Okay. And you brought up a really important aspect, which is how you are applying your innovation efforts and what you are expecting can actually create disengagement from your employees. So if you’re asking them to think of the next big thing, look at this that way, and solution, solution, solution and then they give you everything, and maybe they’re super excited, and then they give it to you only to have you say, Oh, that’s not going to work. Yeah. Who hasn’t had those up, those experiences in life where you are so excited, you really thought you came up with the next big thing or a new way of doing things. Only to find that all of your effort and time was all for not, yeah. It’s maddening in that that is Stephen Shapiro:             A reality. You know, if you look at, I mean, so like 3M is known for their 15% rule, which they do brilliantly, which basically means that 15% of their time they can spend on something other than what they’re actually tasked with doing. So if I’m working on adhesives, I’m working in the adhesives group, maybe I’ve got an idea for reflectives and adhesives and abrasives and how they can come together, and I can spend 15% of my time trying to create something new and different, and they do a brilliant job at it. But most companies do a terrible job at it. When you say 15% of your time, you can do whatever you want. Most companies end up wasting 50% of their time because people don’t know the parameters. Again, there are parameters. Sometimes it’s cultural parameters. So 3M it’s been, they’ve been doing it for decades. So there’s clarity around what that 15% means. It’s not just going off and doing whatever the heck you want. It’s still very purposeful, and there are constraints around it. Jenn DeWall:                      How do you bridge the gap between the problem that might be identified in the board room or in the upper-level leadership meeting to bring it down to your employee that might be able to make that impact? Like how do you help them understand that problem? Because I think sometimes in organizations the problem is lost in translation. Stephen Shapiro:             Well, there is in most organizations, a frost layer and the frost layer tends to be in the middle of the organization. And what happens is people at the top who see the vision of what’s needed, that message comes down, and it gets stuck in the middle. People who are closest to the customers and see what real issues are going on on a daily basis with the customers have ideas, but they don’t get to filter up to the top. So what’s wonderful now is because of technology, we have the ability to go from the top to the bottom and the bottom to the top and bypass anybody that’s going to stop the process. So if you’re an executive and you know this is an important problem, we need to solve this. If we can solve this one problem- I remember one client we were working with, they started with an idea platform and it was great. They got a lot of interesting ideas. But then after about nine months, the quality started to diminish. So we worked with them on creating what I call challenge-centered innovation, which is an approach where the question is the primary focus, and we ask people to solve it. And so the executives identified a series of challenges that if we could solve these problems, would create incredible value. And then they open it up to the tens of thousands of employees that they had to provide solutions and they got some brilliant solutions. And here’s the great thing is once you get a solution, you know that you want, you’re in a position to start implementing because you’ve planned in advance, you have the resources, you have the evaluation criteria, you have everything laid out. It is a wildly efficient method for being able to translate that vision that the executives might have and get engagement from everyone involved inside the organization. Jenn DeWall:                      That’s great. Challenge-Centered innovation. That is just one of the pieces that I think is really, really valuable. And how as a leader, how you’re looking at making an impact. You want to understand what challenges you’re trying to solve to be able to be effective. You don’t just want to say, Oh, I’m going to do this. I think it could work to boost margin or to grow our sales. It’s really what challenges do we want to focus on. Stephen Shapiro:             Right? Absolutely. And what we need to do when we ask people what problem we want them to solve, is we need to go through a thought process to make sure it’s not too abstract. So if it’s, how do I improve productivity, how do I increase revenues? How do I improve margins? Whatever it might be. When we ask people for their solutions, we’re going to get a lot of noise in the system. We’re going to get a lot of fluffy answers. So it’s really then deconstructing that, breaking it down. If it’s too abstract into something more manageable, because when you ask people for solutions, you don’t want thousands of solutions, you haven’t improved the process if that’s what you’re getting, you want dozens, and hopefully those dozens can be combined together in ways that will help create a new solution that we hadn’t even considered before. Jenn DeWall:                      Well, and if you think about challenge-driven innovation is a great way just to think about how we can be productive as a leader in general, right? Too often we have so many different problems that we’re probably trying to solve, and we have so much responsibility that it’s hard to filter in focus because we’re overwhelmed by the amount of data responsibility, so on and so forth that we’re giving. And so those challenges are really a way that we get to save our time because it gives very clear, definitive, this is what we’re looking for, this is what we know, that we’ve hit the right solution for it. And now we can take action to what you just said. Stephen Shapiro:             Exactly. It speeds things up because if you think about the traditional idea-driven process, which is the suggestion box, essentially somebody submits an idea, Hey, we could go do this. Now we have to go through the process of evaluating it on its own merits. Okay, is it going to create enough value? Okay, well we think it’s a good idea. Now we have to get somebody inside the organization who’s going to support it? Okay, well now we need to go find somebody who has money, a P & L owner or product line owner and we go to them. We say, what do you think of this idea? And in many cases, it doesn’t really fit us, but if they say yes, now we have to get the money, now we have to get the resources, and it’s a very long process. Whereas if you start with the problem statement, you start with the opportunity. We have the owners, we have the sponsors, we have the funding, we have the resources, we have the evaluation criteria, and we have the evaluators defined upfront before we even ask anybody to think about solutions. And then once we get solutions submitted, we have that objective criteria to help us be able to determine which ones are the right ones and we have everything in place just start implementation. It is so much faster, so much more efficient. One of my clients measured their idea-driven innovation program versus the challenge centered innovation program, and they found on an average they were getting a minimum of a ten-fold improvement on their ROI because they eliminated the wasted energy and they were only solving important problems. Jenn DeWall:                      That’s fantastic. And I feel like it’s also applicable to any area of your life, right? Even when you’re asking your friends or what, my husband says, what do you want to do for dinner? And then he gives a ton of suggestions without saying, what are you craving to eat right now? Where then I could say I would like some Buffalo wings, please. Versus him giving everything. I mean, you know, I know that’s a more fun example, but really it’s, we can look at how we can be more efficient and all of that, or our interactions, whether it’s negotiating with your spouse or what you want for dinner to figuring out what type of problems your organization wants to solve. Stephen Shapiro:             Well, I love that example of dinner because if you think about it, if you say to somebody, where would you like to go to dinner? The first thought is, okay, where all the places that I can go to. And so they’re mind is on now what kind of food am I interested in? And so the brain goes all over the place. And that’s basically what happens when you give somebody a blank sheet of paper. Now the other thing is they may give you an answer that you don’t like because you had something you were thinking about. Jenn DeWall:                      So that’s absolutely me with my husband. Stephen Shapiro:             So what I find to be useful as I figured out, okay, these are the three or four things I’m really craving. And then I’ll just say which one feels best to you? So I know I’m going to get something that meets my criteria, but I give them some level of choice. But it’s not an infinite choice because it actually makes it easier on the other person too. Because when you say where do you want to go to eat, it drives most people crazy because they are like, I don’t know, especially for your town where you don’t even know what restaurants there are. Jenn DeWall:                      Right. Or if you’re busy and the last thing you want to do is make another decision or research or think about it, you want it to be an easy choice for you. And it’s not that it has to be, you know, in the case of dinner it should be easier than trying to solve some of your organizational challenges, but you want it to be clear. You want those guard rails and those compass points to be established for you. So it’s, you know, just an easier way for you to make that transition into solutioning. Stephen Shapiro:             Yes. I mean when you, I mean I, I love the restaurant example, but mainly because it is such a simple way of describing the complexity that actually goes on inside of organizations. Because where do you want to go for dinner is a simple question, but it’s a very broad question and if you think about, but it’s still relatively narrow in the scheme of things because you’re still talking about just food as opposed to saying, where do you want to go? Well, that’s a much broader question, and that’s the whole beauty of asking questions is we can make them more specific, and we can make them less specific. We can shift them a little bit in a different direction and have a number of tools that I use with my clients that help them really say, okay, well I think it’s this problem, but no, actually it’s this problem. Stephen Shapiro:             Or it could be this problem, or it could be that problem. That’s the beauty of it. And I love a quote from Einstein, he actually never said these exact words, but he’s been quoted as saying this if I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem, 1 minute finding solutions. And I love that it’s a much shorter articulation of something that he said that was much longer. But what I love about that is most organizations are running around spending 60 minutes solving problems that don’t matter. And if you take the time to think about the question, figure out what is it that we really need to achieve and is there a different problem we can solve? You will unleash so much more creativity, so much more value and will be so much more efficient. Which, to me, is so important because companies are way too busy. Jenn DeWall:                      What are some ways that companies can solve their problems? Stephen Shapiro:             Well, when it comes to solving problems, my favorite assumption is somebody else has already solved your problem. If you are working on a problem and let’s say you work for a hospital and one of your big problems is we’re trying to get people checked into the emergency room quickly. Okay, well that’s now what most people will do in that situation is they’re going to talk to other hospitals again. But the solution to that one is actually talking to hotels. Someone has solved the check-in problem already. So if a hospital talks to a hotel, there’ll be much more efficient in the way they do things. So I always ask who else has solved a similar problem? And if you can get it to that level of simplicity when you can start thinking about who else has solved the problem, but in a completely different area of expertise, a different industry now all of a sudden, not only do you get much higher quality solutions, but you get them much faster. And that’s also one of the beauties of crowdsourcing when it’s done right, is you can find solutions from people in completely different areas of expertise who can find solutions to a problem that you’re working on. Jenn DeWall:                      I wonder if this is just more was sparked from hearing you, but I wonder how much was sparked from the, not necessarily the invention, but the coming of ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft, how many people saw that convenience that people were striving for and then built into maybe thinking about GrubHub or Postmates, which are different things of where we get our food, and it’s fast and it’s on-demand. And that just made me think like if they were looking at the Uber who thought about how can we get transportation in a different way that’s simple and easy and on-demand. And it’s thinking, how can we apply the same thing to the fast-food chain? But that’d be, would I be understanding that correctly or way off? Stephen Shapiro:             No, you’re spot on. Well, and Uber figured that out too because Uber eats is now crushing it. I mean, I think they think, I saw a statistic that they sold $10 billion in food last year. I mean, it’s like unbelievable. So, and, and the model that the, whether it’s the sharing economy, you know, that, okay, that now opens up a whole new set of models. And that’s the other thing there are; there are different models. You have the access model versus the ownership model. So instead of having to buy MP3s or CDs or DVDs or whatever it might be, well now you just need access to it. And then, okay, well what does that do? Now we get Apple music, we have Netflix, we have all these other different models where people have access to things, but they don’t own it. They end their subscription and boom, everything’s gone. So it’s a different model. And these cool models apply to every single industry. The concept of a Netflix rental has been applied to boat rentals. There’s a boat rental come in. It’s done some really cool things by applying that Netflix mindset to a physical product. So it is that cross-pollination where you get some really cool solutions and again, you’ll, you’ll accelerate the process. Jenn DeWall:                      Oh my gosh, I love that. Do you have anything else that you would want to add in talking about a challenge centered innovation before we go on to talk about Personality Poker, which is one of the, your innovation tools and books that organizations can use to help encourage better innovation? Stephen Shapiro:             Yeah, I would say that with challenge centered innovation, the key is asking the right question the right way to the right people. That’s probably the simplest way to put it. So the right question is to make sure that you’re asking something important. So not all problems are equally important. If you try to be the best at everything, you’ll be the best of nothing. So how do we get people to focus on our differentiator? How do we innovate where we differentiate? So those are the right questions and then asking them the right way is that reframing? If it’s too abstract, how do we make it more specific? If it’s too specific, how do I make it less so? How do I look at it from different lenses and different angles? Take the time. Anytime you’re working on a project, anytime you’re making any kind of investment, just put the pause button on it and just say, what’s the problem we’re really solving and is there a different solution? We jump to solutions so quickly, and the reason for this is because we’re not wired for innovation. We’re actually a primary wiring is around survival and so what we do is we survival, for the most part, the brain believes that what we’ve done in the past kept us alive, so we’re going to perpetuate the past and unfortunately unlike a lot of commercials that say, you know, past success is no indicator of future success. I would say it’s much worse than that. Past success is a pretty good predictor of future failure because expertise is the enemy of innovation and once you are successful at something, you now add in your brain. It is. It’s a survival mode where we’re thinking, okay, this worked. I’m going to do it. I’m going to hang onto it. I’m going to do what I’ve done before because it was so successful, and then the world changes around you, and you’re out of business. That to me is one of the key challenges for organizations is to just get out of their own way and recognize that your past experience, the deeper you understand your industry, the deeper you understand your customers, the deeper you understand what has worked in the past probably is a good predictor of what you will not see in the future. Jenn DeWall:                      I love that expertise is the enemy of innovation and to some of our leaders out there that may feel that pressure to always have all of the answers to get everything right the first time. It sounds like this has also given you permission to say it’s not the time to always be the expert. We need to lean into different ideas. We need to hear from different people to understand if there’s a new way that we can look at things. So you don’t have to put the pressure on yourself to always be disruptive, but just remember that you don’t want to hold onto your past because it’s going to dictate your future. And that may bring you right to a place where you’re going out of business, or you’re losing a job or X, Y, Z. The adverse consequences that we don’t want from building on the past. Successful thinking. Stephen Shapiro:             Yeah, and I love the way you described that because there is freedom. I mean we hire people because of their knowledge and their expertise, but there’s a point where their knowledge and expertise will get in the way. And especially as you move up the ladder, as you become a manager, you become a director. Once you get to these levels, you should not be the expert. You should be the person who pulls out the best thinking of everyone else on your team. So what you want to do is actually, instead of giving people answers and dictating what should happen, you want to give people the frameworks and the structure so that they are able to come up with the right questions. You know, there’s this mantra we always have in business, which is don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions. And I actually think that’s the wrong mindset. I want bigger, more important, better problems. And as a leader, if we teach our employees, teach our teams to become better at problem identification and problem formulation, they will become better at problem-solving. But you don’t start with a solution. You start with important problems that are reframed. Jenn DeWall:                      Yes, and helping them see the big picture of where you’re trying to go. And I’ve seen that before in a few different tech companies where they have it as a sign on their wall that says don’t bring a problem unless you have a solution. Right? And it’s, it actually is the opposite way to look at it, bring the problem, but make sure you’re asking the right questions to identify the problem. And then you can go into the solution. Stephen Shapiro:             Yeah. And even if you don’t have the right question, if you have a question that is important, other people can then help you look at the problem from different angles. And now what you thought was the problem. I remember one client I was working with; they thought they had a call center problem. The call center for some reason, just their response times were going down, the call volumes were going up. And so the original problem, that statement that they were focused on was okay, how do we improve the efficiency of the call center to handle the increase in volume? And you know, when we looked at it I said, okay, is that really what the problem is? And the issue was they had changed a few lines on the bills that were confusing and that one change caused this increase in call center volume, which then led them to think they had to be more efficient when in fact when they made the bills clearer, the call volumes dropped, and they solved the problem. So instead of it being a call center problem is actually a billing and invoicing problem. So it’s things like that we need to just make sure, are we solving the right problem? Are we solving the symptom? Are we working on something that – you know, because they could’ve made the call centers as efficient as possible. They could have hired more or used new technology, spent millions of dollars when in fact they could have spent one hour fixing some code on the billing system to just say, this is what’s really going on here. Jenn DeWall:                      Right? So it’s what’s your innovation costing you? One piece of it is what is your lack of an innovation process or lack of identifying the appropriate challenge costing you in terms of your time resources. What is it doing to your organization? How is it impacting morale? That’s, you know, I love your whole philosophy around how to identify the appropriate challenge and then what we can do to be innovative and that it’s something that it’s accessible to all of us just by asking the right questions. Yes. So another book that you have and it’s also a tool that organizations can invest in is Personality Poker. What is Personality Poker? I mean it sounds like a fun game that we’re supposed to play. Is that what it is? Well, it is a fun game, but it does have a point. Stephen Shapiro:             So when I was in the consulting world, I led a very large consulting practice, and I had this belief that there were some people who were innovative and then there was everyone else. It was, and I thought it was just a small percentage of the people were innovative. And what I realized over time was I was, I was wrong, I was totally wrong. Everybody’s innovative. We just innovate in different ways. We have different ways that we contribute because innovation is not the same as creativity. So if you think about innovation, the way that we’ve been talking about is it starts with the issue, problem, challenge, or opportunity. And we have to develop solutions, but then we have to implement, and we have to engage people because innovation doesn’t happen unless we get people involved. And what I realized is those four steps are four different people, four different categories of people. Stephen Shapiro:             We have some people who are great at analytics, the data, the numbers, of being able to look at are we solving the right problem? Is it important? Are we focused on what’s going to give us the greatest result? That’s one group of people. And Personality Poker helps you identify those people. It could be the people who are to finding solutions. And so the four steps of the innovation process link back to the four suits in a deck of poker cards. So basically the way it works, quite simply, 52 poker cards suits, colors, and numbers, but also words. And on the cards there are words that describe behavioral attributes such as organized, empathetic, creative, analytical. And what we do is we deal out five cards to everybody in the audience, and we have people trade. And the goal is to get five cards where the words best describe how you see yourself and whatever you end up within the end. So you have five cards with the words that really do describe you. The suits, the colors, and the numbers are going to help you determine how you contribute to innovation, how you detract from innovation who you need to partner with that you probably wouldn’t typically be inclined to partner with. We also use it to help understand what’s your innovation culture, what do you value as an organization and how is that driving innovation? So it’s a simple deck of cards that can have a profound impact on the way an organization thinks and utilizes its people. Jenn DeWall:                      What are some of the impacts that you’ve seen from people that have used Personality Poker? Stephen Shapiro:             So I think there are a few things. The first one is you want to make sure that everybody’s playing to their strong suit, which basically means, look, I’m, I’m a diamond and personality poke, which means I like new experiences. I like novelty. Novelty’s what I value. So I’m, I’m good at coming up with new ideas because I’m good at connecting dots. Now if you start giving me spreadsheets, I’m going to be, I’ll be, could I do it? I could do it, but I would be miserable. So the first thing is we get to see, and we’ve seen this so many times where people inside of organizations, we’re just in the wrong roles based on the work that they do that they aren’t naturally inclined to do. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is we look at teams. So individuals want to play to their strong suit, but we want to make sure that the teams are playing with a full deck. Stephen Shapiro:             And basically what that means is if you have, it’s natural for teams to hire people who fit the mold. The problem is if you’re hiring people who fit the mold, the team’s going to grow mold because it’s going to become stale. If everybody’s thinking the same way, you’re not going to get that innovation. So we need to make sure we have all the different styles somehow involved in the innovation process, that full deck. And there are so many other ways that we use it, dealing out the work to make sure we’re dividing and conquering and shuffling the deck to make sure we’re getting that creative tension. So there are so many different ways you can use it. But the results have just been profound in terms of retention and recruitment because now people feel as though they’re valued for the way they want to be valued. Stephen Shapiro:             But also when we look at it from a cultural perspective, we can also start now seeing what we tend to value the people who produce results, who follow through on plans. And that’s a typical “club” in the deck of cards; these are the people who are the implementers. The problem is the “diamonds” are- the creatives are- very different. And if you only use a one size fits all strategy for evaluating people, and if you look at your performance reviews, it will explain why you tend to lose a lot of people at particular styles. So we need to be able to evaluate people, praise people the way they want to be praised, not just one uniform way that the organization thinks that should be praised. Jenn DeWall:                      Right. And I love how you describe it, playing with a full deck. I think that with innovation, sometimes you can assume that innovation is only for the creatives. We don’t necessarily assume that it’s for your analyticals or for your implementers. And so I love that it’s really all about how can we make it where we’re all playing, that there’s diversity and it’s not just dependent on one person. It’s all of us together Stephen Shapiro:             For sure. And in fact, if you, my definition of innovation is innovation as an end to end process that starts with an issue, problem, challenge, or opportunity and ends with the creation of value. The “spades” are the people who are great at defining the problem. So that issue, problem, challenge or opportunity, we don’t think of them as being creative, but they’re the starting point of the innovation process. And if it’s about implementing, creating valuable, those are the clubs. Now, the black cards, the spades in the clubs, we never think we think of them as being left-brain analytical pain in the butt, “yeah, but…” people have nothing to do with innovation. But the reality is, the reason why innovation fails in so many organizations is not that they need more ideas, not because they need more creative people. They’re using the analytical people, they’re using the process-oriented people the wrong way, and they’re not tapping into the value that they can provide Jenn DeWall:                      So it’s looking at it as like, how can we create the environment for you to be able to thrive, to really help us solve this problem and this challenge. Now, I mean, it’s fair. I think that given that I’ve, I created myself, I think sometimes you do have that generalization that the more analytical is going to stop the innovative efforts. So then you kind of want to do things around them so they can’t stop it. Not that you’re trying to hide it, but you’re more concerned with them not necessarily wanting to, wanting to do what you’re doing because of the, yeah, but, or like, yeah, well this is going to cost or yeah, we’ve done that before. And I think instead of avoiding them, it’s about bringing in, inviting them to the table and saying, how can we all do this together? Stephen Shapiro:             For sure, for sure. I mean, we need all these different perspectives. And when I, I know for myself as a “diamond,” as a creative person, the first person I will bring onto my team is my opposite, which is a particular form of “club” — the person who’s really anal-retentive. I want- now they’re going to drive me crazy. I’m going to want to strangle them. I’m not going to have fun working with them, but I know I need them. Cause if I don’t have them, I’m just going to be off in La-La land. Because the red cards like to chase bright shiny objects, I’m like, Hey this is cool, but tomorrow something’s cooler, and nothing gets done. So it’s having that understanding that we all have blind spots in terms of what we’re good at and what we’re not good at and we need to partner with people who are going to complement us. And I mean that complement with an E, not an I. People are going to, if I’m a creative, I need a planner. If I, if I’m an analytical person, I might need someone that is more empathetic and about the people, not just about the numbers. So how can you establish, or I guess, how can you start to build a team that values diversity and thought the keyword is values. So the biggest mistake that I think most diversity programs make using the term diversity very broadly is it’s about numbers of people rather than appreciation. And one of the things we found is even with Personality Poker; if I have a spade,a diamond, a club and a heart working together on a team, and we don’t do anything to help them appreciate the value they provide, it is the most dysfunctional team you’ll ever have. But when you give them the tools to say, okay, I understand how you operate, what your contribution is to the process, I understand that this is where I’m going to be weak, and this is where you’re going to be strong. I understand here’s how you’re going to drive me crazy and how I’m going to drive you crazy. But we need each other. When you have those conversations, that’s the value. So for me, personality, poker, yeah, look it. It’s fun. You get to gift cards to other people. So you get to see how you’re perceived by your coworkers. That’s cool. But it’s the conversation that matters most. Why am I going to be valuable? Why are you going to be valuable? And that to me is the real cornerstone in the real value of anything like this. Jenn DeWall:                      Out of my own personal curiosity. I wonder what personality I would fit. I identify as a creative. I also have the shiny object syndrome where I definitely see something that’s great, and I want to follow that. So what does that make me in terms of the Personality Poker deck? Stephen Shapiro:             That’s a diamond. So diamonds are the bright, shiny object people of the worst kind. They’re creative, I think of diamonds is multifaceted. So Steve jobs said creativity is just having enough dots to connect. That’s what the diamonds are great at because we don’t necessarily want to be nailed down into a very narrow box. We’d like to bounce around and try new things. So we might not have depth, but we have breadth of experiences that we can then connect those dots and come up with solutions that other people might not have considered. So I would say you’re probably primarily a diamond. I think you probably have some heart in you. I, I sort of feel that you have a connection to people and that puts you in what we call the influencer category. So diamonds and hearts are the influencers. They have a lot of really cool and interesting ideas, and they’re able to share those ideas and get people excited about them. I find a lot of professional speakers fall into that influencer category, whereas program managers tend to be Hearts and clubs, they’re very good at the process. They’re very good at the plans, but they’re also good at getting people involved because if you have a great plan but no people to execute it, you have no results. So those builders, those clubs and hearts are really powerful. And there’s so many other different combinations, but it’s, I think the most important they want to leave with Personality Poker is who you are – is less important than who you are not. Who you are is less important than who you are not. And if you have five cards in your hand, 95% of the people in the audience, will be missing a suit from their hand. That is the big insight because whatever suit you don’t have in your hand tells you that’s the person you need the most. I always say the person you liked the least is the person you need the most. The person who’s going to drive you craziest because they are not who you are is the person you absolutely have to have on your team, and you have to value them and nurture them and make sure they feel like they’re being valued and you have to figure out how to communicate with them. Jenn DeWall:                      Oh my gosh, I love this. And I’m excited to do that with activity like with our organization and just get to see each other in a different way and through a different lens. So the last question that we like to ask everyone for The Leadership Habit Podcast is around understanding what brought you to your success. And so I want to end this podcast and this great conversation that we’ve been having with you, Stephen, with the question: what is your leadership habit? Stephen Shapiro:             Being a diamond, I don’t have a lot of habits. I lack discipline. The things I find that really do help me, and I find that environment is important to me. So I live in Orlando. I have annual passes to a number of the theme parks there. And I love to take my iPad and go to Disney or Universal or SeaWorld or wherever and just sit down, feel the environment, sit in a different place, go to a different park and see what’s going on and see how Disney creates these experiences. And then I like to write about it and think about it and reflect on how, you know, others can apply that. I like to-I have a hot tub. I love to sit in my hot tub. I mean, when I’m doing writing. So I just wrote another book and every morning before I would write, I would sit in the hot tub for about 45 minutes and just sort of really just clear my mind so that when I sat in front of the computer, my brain is quiet, and for some reason the words just flow much more easily than when I’m thinking too hard about things. Jenn DeWall:                      So it’s taking a step back. It sounds like for you, trying to observe and instead of just always thinking all the time. Would that be fair? Stephen Shapiro:             I think that’s right. Fair. And one of my challenges is I described myself sometimes the head on a stick. I think a lot; getting my brain to be quiet is very difficult. So anything I can do to quiet it is important. Like when I go to sleep at night, I have to read mindless mysteries because there’s something about if I try, if I’m trying to, I particularly like short stories because if I am trying to solve a who done it, I can’t be thinking about all of my work things that are going to be rolling through my head. So I start focusing on the more I focus on something other than work, and it requires concentration to solve the mystery. I tire myself out, and I pass out and fall asleep. So it really is just quieting the brain in any way possible. Jenn DeWall:                      Perfect. Well, thank you so much for sharing your leadership habit with us and also just spending your time and giving us more of an understanding of how we can be successful in innovation. I really enjoyed our conversation today, Stephen; and I’m really happy that we had you on the show. Stephen Shapiro:             Thanks. It was my pleasure.   Outro:                                   Thank you for listening to today’s episode of The Leadership Habit. If you want to learn more about Steve, check out his website, https://stephenshapiro.com . You can find his book, Best Practices Are Stupid: 40 Ways to Out-Innovate the Competition as well as his game, Personality Poker:  The Playing Card Tool for Driving High Performance Teamwork and Innovation on his website. In addition, be on the lookout for Steve’s next book, which will debut in early 2020! The post Episode 10: Cultivating Innovation with Stephen Shapiro appeared first on Crestcom International.

In this episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, Jenn Dewall talks to Crestcom faculty member, bestselling author, speaker, and President of Extreme Leadership Inc., Steve Farber. Steve Farber is a subject matter expert in business leadership and one of Inc. Magazine’s global top 50 leadership experts. Steve is here to talk about his newest book, Love is Just Damn Good Business and how we can leverage love as a core business principle that generates measurable results.  Full Transcript Below: Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall, the Leadership Development Strategist for Crestcom. And today on The Leadership Habit podcast, we are talking to Steve Farber. Steve, it is so great to see you. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. Steve Farber: Thank you so much, Jenn. It’s a great pleasure to be here with you. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh, Steve, you’re a best-selling author, and I’ve had the privilege of reading the majority of your books. The Radical Leap, The Radical Edge, and Greater Than Yourself, but I haven’t been able to read your newest book yet, Love is Just Damn Good Business. Steve Farber: You know, it’s a funny thing. Neither have I! I mean, not in its book form anyway because yeah, at the time that we’re recording this -it’s just in production. So by the time people are listening to this, it’ll be out. So yeah, I’m excited about that. Thank you. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. Can you tell us a little bit about this is your fourth book? Steve Farber: Yeah, my fourth book. I’ve done several additions of the first three books, but this is my first entirely new book in, believe it or not, ten years. Jenn DeWall: Holy Cow. Steve Farber: Yeah. Yeah. So these ideas have been out there for, you know, for a long time- since 2004- was when the first edition of The Radical Leap first came out. So, you know, people have been, have been using these ideas in all kinds of businesses and all kinds of contexts for, you know, 15 years. And it’s just been amazing to see the impact that these simple universal ideas have had on so many different people in so many different businesses. So I’m really excited. I’m thrilled about the new book as every author should be. Love is an Untapped Resource Jenn DeWall: Right. This is your new product. I mean, even the title, right? For me, not having read it yet, like Love is Just Damn Good Business. It’s such an important statement that love can be invested and included when we say business, those two can live together, and they’re in our life. Steve Farber: Yes. And you know the reason that I like the title is- there’s one very simple reason. It’s because love is just damn good business. You’re right. We are not accustomed to hearing that word in the same sentence as business. There’s some kind of collective conditioning I think that we’ve all been subject to that says that love is weak when it comes to business. That love is, it’s too squishy. It’s too- it’s going to distract you from the hard work of business. And if you really look closely at it, if you put that under a magnifying glass, it’s just not true. It’s just something that we made up. What I’ve found in my work is that, and by the way, when I say in my work, I’ve been working with just about every kind of company you can imagine now. For now it’s been 30 years, believe it or not. But what I found is that not only is love not weak, not inappropriate to use a double negative, it really is at the foundation of what great leadership is. And is that the foundation of what great business is. So this is really our most potent competitive strategic advantage that we have. If we could really understand this and operationalize love as a business practice. Jenn DeWall: So is it fair to say that maybe love is an untapped resource for many organizations? Steve Farber: I think it’s very fair to say that, and maybe I’m oversimplifying this but for the most part we business people, (and I am one of them). We haven’t given ourselves permission to even explore it. And once we start asking the question, and this is the critical question, what does or what should that look like in the way that we do business? So in other words, I’m not talking about love as a sentiment or as an abstraction. I’m talking about love as a discipline and a practice. So for example, if we really loved our customers, which every company says it does- Jenn DeWall: but there are some days that they definitely may not show that they love them Steve Farber: Let’s just say that some days they may not show that they do. If you say, “Hey, what do you think about your customers? Tell me about them.” They’re not going to say, publicly anyway, “they’re a bunch of idiots, you know, if they would get out of our way, we can get our jobs done around here.” That’s not what they say. They say, “Oh, we love our customers; they are the center of our universe. We exist for our customers.” Every company says that. And they should, they should say it. But the point is, it’s not about saying it, it’s about doing it. So it’s not enough to say, “yeah, I love my customers.” The question is if you really did, what would you do differently? How would you show that in the way that you show up for them, in the way that you develop products and services for them, in the way that you service them in the way that you respond to their needs in the way that you handle complaints? You know, all of that stuff. If we lay that out there as the objective to show our customers that we loved them, I mean overtly and intentionally, it, it raises the bar on everything that we do and raises the standard on everything. On every expectation that we have internally and externally in our company. This is not a small thing. This is not a frivolous, you know, a Valentine’s Day card. This is serious stuff, and it opens up a whole new world of possibilities for us. Just like you said, untapped resources. Jenn DeWall: Yeah, it will. And I think, you know, love. I like how you just gave that example of do you really love your customers? Well, yes, that’s what we’re programmed to say. We’re a business. We know that we need our customers, we do value them. But it’s that second piece- like, well, prove it. Like how are you actually showing that you love them? Like what does love look like to you? Because sometimes with the cable company, I don’t feel that the way that they’re showing me love is true love. Steve Farber: Exactly. Exactly. But they’re happy to print a little button that says we love you in the webpage and put a banner on the wall that says we love our customers. Yeah. And so there’s a gap. You’re right. So for example, I’ll just to put this in tangible terms. We’ve mentioned a lot of talk about a lot of case studies in the book. So this is really, the book is really about example after example after example, about how do you apply this stuff? I don’t want just to inspire people and say, “Oh yeah, that’d be nice.” Well, here’s how this company does it. Here’s how that executive does it. Here’s how that leader does it. There’s a lot of that sort of illustration in the book because that’s how we learn, obviously. So for example, what would it look like if you loved your customer? What Does Loving Your Customer Look Like? Steve Farber: If you were, let’s take a really sexy business, like in shipping and logistics. Okay. So one of my favorite examples in the book is a company called Trailer Bridge. They’re in Jacksonville, Florida. Okay. So they are a shipping and logistics company. They primarily shipped from the mainland to Puerto Rico. Now 25, 30 years ago, they were toxic. They were the low price kind of alternative. They went bankrupt as a result of that, and then they emerged from bankruptcy a number of years ago and burned through four CEOs in three years. Wow. So just stop and think about what that culture was like right there. Customers only did business with them when they had to because they were the cheapest and that was how they tried to compete. Then, in the meantime, he had a really high turnover because people hated working there. And, you know, they had to turn the place around. So a guy named Mitch Luciano took over as CEO, and it just so happens he was an advocate of love. He had read The Radical Leap, The Radical Edge, Greater Than Yourself. You know, my first three books that we talked about and he really took this stuff seriously. So he said he was asked to take over as CEO, and he said, “okay, I’ll do it, but, I’m going to do this differently. I’m going to create a culture that people love working in. And if I can create a culture that people love working in, our customers are gonna love us because we do great things for them, they’re not going to just tolerate us, and all the crap that we do because we’re so cheap.” Right? So he said to his board, “be prepared.” Steve Farber: This is not going to look like it’s looked in the past because he was coming from a place of love. But first of all, let me tell you what the result has been the last two years. They have their revenue; their profitability has exceeded the previous 25 years combined. They are the number two “Best Place to Work” in the city of Jacksonville, Florida. They’re expanding. They’re growing. Their customer numbers are through the roof. It’s a true transformation because they’ve operationalized love. So that’s a very long backdrop to get to the specifics. Okay. Steve Farber: So for example, one of the things they did in the past as far as their customers were concerned, was they’re shipping a container from, let’s say Jacksonville to Puerto Rico. Okay, you’re a customer, and you’re shipping a car to Puerto Rico for your family, let’s say. And you’re expecting it to get there, to ship on a certain date and get there on a certain date. And then the company doesn’t ship. They don’t ship. Why didn’t they ship? Because the container wasn’t full enough, right? So they had a policy that said, unless we’re 70% full, we’re not going to sail it, and the number is X,  give or take a percentage or two That was very internally focused because it costs us money to do that. Right? So screw the customer. Right? So here’s the question. If we really loved our customers, what would we do? If the ship was only 50% full on the date that we said we were going to ship, what will we do? If we really loved them, we’d ship, right? Steve Farber: Because that’s what our customer expects. So that’s what they started doing. And now, you know, fast forward, they rarely ship less than 97% full. Wow. Because they’ve changed the whole expectation. And what Mitch did was, he pushed this idea through to the customer service folks. We love our customers. You do what it takes to take care of them. They’ve done things like send people out from their fleet to jumpstart a customer’s truck on the highway because their battery died after they picked it up from the dock. They’ve done so many things you know, and it just goes on and on. Just example after example of what love should look like? So that’s the challenge for all of us. It’s not enough to say, “Oh, I love my customers.” Like you said, Jenn, how do you prove it? Jenn DeWall: That’s such a powerful example! What a huge revenue gain just by starting to really introduce love into their business model. I love that. Why Don’t Business Leaders Cultivate Love? Jenn DeWall: I have a few questions about your book that I wanted to ask because it is, you know, going back to that topic, it’s something that can be a little vulnerable, a little uncomfortable because we’re not accustomed to talking about it in business. But in talking about your book, love, just damn good business, why don’t leaders spend more time cultivating love at work? Steve Farber: Yeah, I think it’s because we think that’s inappropriate or we have a misunderstanding of what it means, right? So we have to get really clear on what love means and what it doesn’t mean. So I appeal to common sense in this. Maybe that’s a dangerous thing to do on it. You know, I’ve had people say to me, well, “don’t you worry about,”- HR folks are particularly sensitive to this sort of thing. “Aren’t you concerned that people, that it’s going to give people permission to be inappropriate?” And it gets into that harassment kind of arena. So here’s what I have to say about that. That’s not love. That’s aggression, that’s predation, that’s not love. Love is about doing whatever you can to make the people around you as successful as they could possibly be. That includes your customers as well as your employees. So I think the reason we stay away from it is that it makes us nervous. We don’t really understand what it means. It has got some baggage associated with it. Another reason is what we, you know, what we talked about earlier. We’re kind of conditioned to believe that it’s what you do for your friends and family. And you know, people in your so-called personal life, but it doesn’t apply at work. Why? Because that’s the best answer we have. So I think that’s why we don’t pay attention to it as is. We think there’s something wrong with us. Steve Farber: Jenn, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people come up to me after listening to me speak at a conference or reading one of my books or whatever and say to me, ” you know what? I am so glad you’re talking about this because this is the way I’ve always felt. And I’ve always thought that there was something wrong with me. I thought that but haven’t done anything with it because people would think I was crazy.” So just hearing the confirmation that that impulse that you’ve had but haven’t acted on is the impulse you should act on is really liberating for a lot of people. There are people listening to this podcast right now, I guarantee you, that are saying, “wow, finally somebody is saying it now! What can I do differently? Because I know I’m not crazy.” Yeah. So that’s why we haven’t paid attention to it, because we haven’t thought we were supposed to. And maybe just giving people permission to pay attention to is enough to change the game. Jenn DeWall: I do think we are conditioned in some way to think that our focus should always be the product or business operations or that in that love is seen as an emotion. And so that’s something that furthers us from accomplishing those goals in those areas. We’re programmed to think that way. Like, don’t get emotional or don’t get too invested or don’t treat your people like people because we need to get this process going or this product that way. I think we’re conditioned to look at it that way. And I think, you know, I love that movement of really seeing your people. You’re seeing your people, your customers, your employees, your coworkers and asking, “What can I do to help make your life better? Make you better? Make us better?” Steve Farber: Yeah. We thought- we really did – think of love as an emotion, which it is. And according to the great Tina Turner, a secondhand one at that. But what’s really important in all of this, Jenn, is that we have a tendency, I think most of us have a tendency to sort things out into an either/or scenario, right? So I can’t do the “love thing” because I’m focused on product development, etc. Why are those mutually exclusive? The truth is, it’s about both. It’s not giving up one for the other. It’s not that, Okay – now I have to be a love-focused leader, that means I don’t care about results anymore, right? Entirely not the point. The point is you’re going to get better results no matter what it is you’re trying to do; and no matter how you determine or measure what those results are, results in terms of productivity results in terms of customer feedback, numbers, results in terms of turnover. It’s going to affect all of that. Now that sounds like a huge proposition, and it is, and I’m not saying it’s easy, you know. You show up for work tomorrow like, “now I love everybody.” It’s about starting with that and then getting to work, weaving that into the way that you do everything and that’s going to have an effect on all of the results that you get. How do you Measure Love? Jenn DeWall: And so I think it’s fair to say that it’s not all about trying to directly measure love as an emotion. It’s trying to see how switching your position and promoting love can drive the results. Because I think some “analyticals” might be saying you can’t measure love. So why would I do it? And it’s not about that. It’s about the ripple effect that’s created in your organization. Steve Farber: Exactly, but it’s also a really good question. How do you measure love? How do you measure if, if somebody is really, seeing love be more tangible in the way they work. It’s a hard thing to do. But there are lots of things you can measure. So for example, one of the things that we love to use in the business world to measure customer love, we just haven’t used that language, but it does measure. It is a net promoter score. Jenn DeWall: Ah Yes, yes. Steve Farber: Promoter score is all based on, how likely are you to recommend our product and service to friends or family? Well, if, if I love your business, love your product, love your service, love the way you guys treat me, take care of me as your customer. Damn right, I’m going to be talking about you, and that’s going to be a ten on the net promoter score. We can measure customer’s responses; we can measure productivity at work. You know, how likely are people to do great work efficiently and creatively and consistently? You know, all those things that most companies try to measure. Then the question is, can you draw a direct parallel between those increases in numbers and love? And I think you can. I think a lot of the evidence here is admittedly anecdotal. Uh, but I think it’s because love is such a foundational thing that it has an effect on so many other things that are measurable. So a good question to ask yourself is, how’s it working without it? Jenn DeWall: Yes. How happy are your people? Steve Farber: Oh yeah. At Trailer Bridge, how was it working without it? When they blew through four CEOs in three years and four heads of HR in the same period of time and went bankrupt. How was that lack of love thing working? And then what happens once you added it? Okay, now can I draw a scientifically airtight argument that shows cause and effect and maybe, maybe not. But the anecdotal evidence is pretty damn strong, and it’s certainly worth a try if for no other reason than it’s going to feel a lot better. Jenn DeWall: Great. Absolutely. Well, and you can see it, right? You see it. If you’re in an organization where people are unhappy, all you have to do is open your eyes, right? And you look around, and you can see people’s body language. You can see how they’re talking, and you can very easily see if they are in love with you. And if they love their jobs, like they will tell everyone about their jobs. If they’re not loving their jobs, they’re not going to tell anyone. And they will actually probably tell everyone never to consider working for you or doing business with you. Steve Farber: Yeah, great example. So, to finish up this Trailer Bridge story, the other thing that they found is that here was a company that was spending tons of money on recruiting, right? Because you had to convince people to come and work there. They spend virtually no money on recruiting anymore because their best recruiters are their own employees and they’ve actually, you know, trained their employees on recruiting because they’re always bringing friends and family and people on because they want them to come work with them at this great place called Trailer Bridge. So they’ve saved tons of money on recruitment and have completely up-leveled the quality of their talent because they’re getting the right people in the door because everybody wants to work there. Now I want to say, everybody, I know it’s a slight exaggeration. A lot of people want to work there now because of the culture they’ve created. Jenn DeWall: No, but that’s what happens. When those companies create that culture where people thrive, who wouldn’t want to work there, especially in a time where so many organizations are asking you to do more with less, if you’re in a smaller organization and thus the burnout rate is high, and you know, you’re not connected with what you’re doing. Or you can sense that there’s a lot of turnover and the culture is declining. Or if you’re experiencing layoffs or downsizing, there’s no love there. And how can you build that up? I mean, there are so many different periods that a business could really see value from bringing that into their culture. Steve Farber: Absolutely. Well, yeah, you know, you’re singing my song. Taking the Radical L.E.A.P. Jenn DeWall: Well, I have another question for you. Um, you have a L.E.A.P. model- and leap is an acronym- but I’m curious, what is your L.E.A.P. model for Extreme Leadership and how can it explain love’s pivotal role in business strategy? And how can leaders use it to run a successful business? Steve Farber: So, that’s a four-hour answer. I’ll try to do it in a couple of minutes. L.E.A.P. is a, obviously is part of the title of my first book, The Radical Leap. And it stands for Love, Energy, Audacity, and Proof. Okay? Cultivate love, generate energy, inspire audacity, provide proof. Now, so what you can infer from that is that I’ve been teaching this love thing for 15 years, because The Radical Leap first came out, as I mentioned, in 2004. Okay? So the whole framework is about applying love as a business principle. So you can think of it this way. Love is the foundation for the whole thing. Love generates energy. If you love your work, you’re more energetic about it. You bring more of yourself to it. If you love your team, you’re going to energize them. They’re going to be more committed. If you love your customer, as we’ve been talking about, you’re going to do things for them that are going to get them talking about you and spending more money with you, etc. Steve Farber: So love generates energy. Love also inspires audacity. The way that I define audacity is it’s not “think outside the box.” It’s more like “what box?” It’s, it’s a, it’s a bold and blatant disregard from normal constraints in order to change things for the better. So we need to be audacious in our goals. You know, Jim Collins taught years ago and talked about it in Good to Greatest, Built to Last, he talked about the Big Hairy Audacious Goals, right? BHAGs. So it’s that kind of a thing. We want to be audacious with our challenges that we set for ourselves and the impact that we want to have on the people around us, including our customers. Love inspires audacity. If I love what we’re doing and the values that we stand for and everything that we’re trying to accomplish together, I will be more audacious. Steve Farber: I’ll stretch more. I’ll think outside that proverbial box. I’ll try to accomplish really phenomenal things. And finally, love requires proof. So it’s not again, about using the right language. It’s about proving that we mean through the things that we do every day, including being congruent between our own words and our actions. Right? I need to prove my credibility to you by making sure that I’m consistent. That the things that you see me do are equated to the words that come out of my mouth. So if you take that L.E.A.P. framework: love, energy, audacity, and proof and apply it to anything that you’re working on. And I mean anything. So let’s say this podcast, okay? When you and the folks at Crestcom said, we’re going to do this really cool podcast- if you, first of all, love the idea, generate energy around everything that it would take to get it done, inspire you and the rest of the team to be audacious in the pursuit. Where are you going to reach people- all around the world, just in your neighborhood? Right? The more you love it, the more audacious you are. And then proving that you’re doing it through the actual steps, the implementation of the steps and the results that you get, right? Whatever it is that you’re trying to do if you can cultivate love for it, generate energy around it, inspire people to be audacious in the pursuit of it and prove that you’re making progress and it applies to absolutely everything. It’s a universal framework, and we’re seeing phenomenal results in companies. Like for example, Trailer Bridge We just, we see it play out over and over again. It’s, this is very tangible, concrete stuff. And, you know, I learned so much from my readers and my clients, you know, it’s amazing. I hear stories all the time, “well, here’s how we’re doing it.” I was like, wow, I never thought of that. That’s fantastic. So it’s a universal model. Jenn DeWall: You know, what’s interesting about love is its- I think the other piece that I probably pulled from that is that love gives you permission to be audacious, right? If you feel like you are loved and supported, and that you’re valued, who wouldn’t want to work harder for that? You know, love is a motivator. It’s extreme, like you said, the energy piece of the L.E.A.P. But love gives you permission to take risks because you can say, I, I’ve got this. You have that feeling that I can trust myself, or that I’ll figure it out if I hit any roadblocks. I think that’s a really powerful piece of the L.E.A.P. model. Steve Farber: Yeah, that’s a great observation. It comes back to the impact of culture on behavior, right? So every company nowadays says, “we want our people to be more innovative and creative,” right? We want to be disruptors. Yesterday we called it innovate. So we want people to be innovative, which means being creative, which means trying new things, which means being willing to take risks. And these are things that, that conceptually, just about every leader in business agrees with. But if I’m that person that’s being asked to be innovative and creative and take risks, if I’m scared that I’m going to be persecuted for taking a risk and then it doesn’t work out. If I really don’t believe that this company has my back, I’m just not going to do it. I’ll nod my head and say, “yeah ok, I’ll be more innovative, you betcha,” and that’ll be it. Right? So you’re right. When I feel loved, I’m going to be more audacious. I’m going to be more creative. I’m going to take more risks. I’m going to work harder because I’m intrinsically motivated to do that because I just want to make this place as great as it can be. Love is Not All Talk Jenn DeWall: Yeah. And we want to do well. I guarantee that every single person that’s listening to this podcast right now wants to add value. They want to have meaning. They want to do things with love because they, I mean, it’s a beautiful energy to have just in the sense that it’s very motivating. It takes away that that gossip mentality, it takes away that criticism when you look at things through the lens of love, of how I can make you better instead of how can I tell you what you did wrong? There’s a different way that we feel and show up. And I think at a fundamental human level, we all desire that. It’s just going back to our earlier conversation, it’s either been a shot down request or something that’s not necessarily acceptable in the workplace, or maybe we just haven’t seen that it could work successfully within an organization that you can talk about this because it’s been so shunned. Steve Farber: Yeah, that’s right. And you know, it’s not about just, you know, saying the right words. We really need to prove that we mean this. So from a leadership perspective, it’s not enough for me to, you know, to say, “I love you, man. I do. Just, hey, just want you guys to know that even though I treat you like crap, I really do love you. You know, at the deepest core of my being”, that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about how do you create an environment, what are the things you can do to show that love to those people that you work with and then they will be more likely to do better work. Steve Farber: It’s not an either-or scenario. It’s not I either have to love people or have high expectations. Absolutely not. The greater the love is, the higher the expectations are. And the more accountable people are. Because if I love this place and I love this business, love what we’re trying to do together, my, in some ways, my tolerance for apathy, subpar behavior, a lack of follow-through- my tolerance actually decreases, right? Because I love this place so much. So this is not about, I’m not going to give you, “I love you.” I’m not going to give you, “I’m not going to call you out when you do something wrong.” Of course I am. I’m more likely to, but I’m going to do it in a way that’s more positive in a way, that’s more constructive because what I want to do is build this place up, not feel better by tearing you down. Love and the Multi-generational Workforce Jenn DeWall: I am a millennial. I’m closer to a Gen-Xer though. I’m not a very young millennial. The one thing that I will say from my experience of working with a lot of other millennials is we have the desire for that feedback, for that support, for that culture. You know what you’re promoting right now, love is just damn good business, is something that I would say, and this is kind of a generalization, but this is something that millennials have really kind of challenged organizations to switch the way that they’re doing things. And I can see how this fits in so nicely with the desires of the newest, biggest generation that’s hitting the workforce yet. That people do want more of a human connection than in the old techniques that were used in the past. Jenn DeWall: We’ll be happy that you have a job here or you have this, and we don’t necessarily have to have regard for your emotions, feelings at X,Y and Z. That’s changed with the global economy. With all of the information, we can see that there are other companies that are providing those needs. And when you’re not, or if you’re still running things the way that you did before, people will continue to leave because they have choices now and choices that were presented in a different way than what they were ten, twenty or thirty years ago. And so I love that this is almost prescriptive as an approach that many companies can take to create a culture that is one where I would say your younger millennials want to stay. Steve Farber: Yeah, absolutely. You know, it’s really interesting, Jenn, because as you’re talking about the millennial generation and everything you said is true and I am a big fan of this thinking and with this, you know, native technology coming in, people that grew up with technology, and this desire for connection and making a difference. And the interesting thing is that this is not entirely new. Thirty years ago was it? Thirty years ago now, maybe a little less than that. You know, mid-nineties. Okay. When I first started at a place called the Tom Peters Company, right? So Tom Peters- who was one of the greatest management thinkers of our day- and I spent six and a half years as vice president of his company back then. These are the discussions we were having. Desire for meaning at work and that work is not a place that you’re going to, you’re not going to spend the rest of your life at one job that, that you’re going to, you know, contribute as much as you can while you’re here until you go onto the next great thing. Apple was talking about that back in those days, that your experience at Apple will help you anywhere else. It was kind of revolutionary. So this is not a product of the generation. This is a trend that we’ve been pursuing as business people for quite some time. What’s happening now, I think it’s the convergence of that desire with technology, with an older generation like myself, for example, who has grown up cultivating these ideas to some degree. So it’s not entirely shocking to us anymore. Right? So now we’re faced with how do we really make this happen? Steve Farber: We’ve been talking about it for a long time. Now we have a chance to really make this the norm versus the exception, the norm versus the aberration, right? I think it should be normal for you and I to, you know, meet up at a cocktail party, and I say to you, you know, “hey, what are you doing? What are you working on? Where are you working?” And you rave about your company, “Oh, this place is fantastic. This is great work. I can’t wait until Monday!” You know, that kind of thing. My reaction to that should be, well, of course, because that’s what work is supposed to be, but that’s not my reaction now. Right? My reaction, I was going to be really, that’s incredible. On the other hand, if you say, “Oh, it sucks! My boss is an idiot; people are stupid. My customers are, you know, they’re more honest than I want, and I’m just there to pay the bills.” I might have compassion for you listening to your tale of woe, but I’m not going to be surprised, right? Because that’s kind of what we expect. We need to flip that around, then. It needs to be that this is the norm. We spend so much of our lives at work. Why shouldn’t we bring our hearts there? The idea that, that we pluck our heart out of our chest and leave it throbbing on the sidewalk until the workday is over is, first of all, it’s insane. And second of all, it’s, it just doesn’t serve us. So why, why pursue it that way? Why not flip it around? How Can Leaders Do Better? Jenn DeWall: Yeah. Why not? Why not? So the, you know, one of the last questions I have for you then, Steve, is how can leaders apply love to better lead their organizations and elevate their customers? Steve Farber: Well, I’ve got a great book for them to read, to start with. That’s a good place to start. Jenn DeWall: Love is Just Damn Good Business. Steve Farber: Yeah, that’s a good plan! No, seriously, I think a lot of this starts with something very simple. And, you know, we can also think of this as a summary for what we’ve been talking about here for this last bit of time. Start by asking yourself as a leader, businessperson, entrepreneur, start by asking yourself a question similar to this. Why do I love this business? Why do I love this business? That’s the introspective part, reflection part. And the second part of the question is, and how do I show it? Or how could I show it better, right? So instead of giving folks a long list of things to do on this podcast, I would love for people to play around with that question. Now it’s a variation on the theme is, um, what do I love about this business? Because honestly, for a lot of people who say, “why do I love this business? Well, I don’t really,” they really don’t, “why do I love my team? Um, well, the team I’m in right now?” So I understand it’s a high bar for some people to start at. So, the variation is what do I love about this? Whatever the context is, this team, this company, this customer, and how can I show that better? And what that does, that question is designed to help you inspire yourself to get you thinking in the right direction and to start generating some specific actionable steps that you can begin to take. And then like I said, I was being half facetious you know, in the book you’re going to see lots and lots and lots of examples of people that have answered that question, that very question and answered every day in the way they do business. Jenn DeWall: That’s, I love that. That’s something that our listeners can really think about right now. What do you love about your organization, your customers, your projects, and assignments, your peers? And start to do that reflection and think about how would things change if we actually started to show them that we love them instead of saying that we loved them. What Is Your Leadership Habit? Jenn DeWall: Steve, I have one final question for you, and this is another question that we close every one of our podcasts with. And it is what is your leadership habit for success? What do you do to be successful or to be the leader that you are? Steve Farber: That’s a really great question. I don’t know that this falls in the category of habit. But if I look over the course of my career, maybe it does. It’s about talking with people. For me, it’s having a personal connection, and learning other people’s stories that has informed everything that I do. And it’s also how I’ve built my network of really beloved friends. So for example, it is not out of character for me when I get an email from somebody who’s read one of my books, for example, “So just wanted to let you know, I read-” they’ll soon, maybe say they read Love is Just Damn Good Business, “and I’m just writing to say I really appreciate it, it made a difference for me.” Well, what I do is I pick up the phone, and I call that person, for one thing. It blows their mind for another thing. And this is rather selfish on my part. It gives me a chance to get some of that energy, you know, head-on. And I am not exaggerating, Jenn. There are people that I now count among my closest friends that started exactly that way. No kidding. Yeah, absolutely. From 15 years ago, when The Radical Leap first came out, when I first started getting those kinds of emails, which kind of blew my mind at first. And I just followed up with the phone call. And I don’t do it 100% of the time. It needs to be more of a habit than it has been. But, that’s one way. And then the other way is, you know, I get to meet people when I’m out and about and speaking, and people come to our events here in San Diego, like the Extreme Leadership Experience or a certification program. And I get to hear their stories and, and that informs everything that I do reminds me why I do the work that I do. And it helps me be a better teacher because I didn’t make any of this stuff up. This is all based on observation and working with people and hearing their stories. Jenn DeWall: I love that. So it’s about, you know, it’s about connecting and being curious with people to understand their story. That’s genuine connections. It’s not just a, I’m going to send you a Facebook friend request, and we’ll call it a day. It’s I want to connect with you. Steve Farber: Right? So the habit part of that- the actual action is to engage in one-to-one live conversation in some form or another. Jenn DeWall: Oh, I love that. That’s a great challenge to our listeners to see if you can try what Steve does and have those genuine one-on-one connections. Steve Farber: Try me out! Send me an email. See what happens. Jenn DeWall: What’s your email, Steve, that they can email you at? Steve Farber: Steve@extremeleadership.com Jenn DeWall: That’s steve@extremeleadership.com, and you’ll also find it in our show notes. Steve, it was so great to talk to you today. I enjoyed our conversation and for those listeners, his newest book, Love is Just Damn Good Business is coming out, and I encourage you to check it out. I know that it’s going to be life-changing for you and your organization. Steve Farber: Thanks so much, Jenn. It has been a real pleasure. Thank you for joining us for this conversation with Steve Farber. 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.  The post Episode 9: Love is Just Damn Good Business with Steve Farber appeared first on Crestcom International.

In this episode of The Leadership Habit, Jenn DeWall chats with sales expert, international speaker, award-winning author, and award-winning consultant Andy Bounds about how to be more influential, improving your sales, and enjoying life! Andy has spoken in 35+ countries, to audiences of all sizes. He has delivered keynotes at the Professional Speakers Association conference, as well as for blue-chip companies, Governments, professional bodies, and business experts. Andy has been awarded the title Britain’s Sales Trainer of the Year and described by AstraZeneca’s Global Communication Director as “a genius, whose advice can’t be ignored”, Andy’s insights stem from the fact his mother is blind. This has given him a lifetime’s experience of communicating from someone else’s point of view… so critical when seeking to persuade others. Andy and Jenn also talk about his online video club, and his three guarantees: Sales, Enjoyment, and Love.   Full Transcript Below Jenn DeWall: Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall and I am here with Andy Bounds. I am very excited to be here with him, and for those of you that don’t know him, he was awarded Britain’s Sales Trainer of the Year – that amazing, profound title. I’m so excited to have him here to discuss our opportunities to improve our sales, to learn how to be more influential and to overall create success within our careers. So you, Andy, thank you so much for joining us. Andy Bounds: Thank you. It’s lovely to be here with you today. Jenn DeWall: So, Andy, for those of you that aren’t familiar with you, I know that in Britain they likely are very familiar, but some of our audience may not have met you or heard you before. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do and who you are? Andy Bounds: Sure, of course. So my name is Andy Bounds and it’s my job to help my customers and sell more and/or to communicate better. So for example, we’ve helped one of the UK based banks with their largest-ever deal that’s worth two and a half billion. Andy Bounds: I worked in 40 countries. I’ve written three books on this stuff. And the reason I have different insights than anyone else I’ve met is to do with my family background. Jen, my mom is blind. So when I was learning how to speak as a two-year-old and I was sat on my mom’s knee and my mom was teaching me, but she was teaching me as a blind person. So she taught me to communicate from someone else’s point of view. Someone who doesn’t see the world the way that I do. Now when we’re selling, our customers are blind to why they should give us money. Our colleagues are blind to why they should put the extra effort in. And so I’m very good at helping people communicate with blind people, so other people see things from our points of view and do what we want to. Jenn DeWall: How powerful to be able to help shift and create that new awareness or that new line of sight and a new way of looking at things. And I think it’s going to be a really great discussion because we’re here to talk about one of the key products that you use within your business, which is your online video club. What does your online video club do? Is Sales a Dirty Word? Andy Bounds: Okay. So what I find is that, well in two words, sell more. So it helps people make more sales. But what I find is the way that we often learn is we go into a training room or where it’s wonderful stuff and then we go back into our workplace. And sometimes it’s a Wednesday afternoon and you think, oh, I have some training six months ago. I’m sure it will be relevant to this meeting, but I can’t quite remember it. And so what I want it was I wanted to produce something which people could use it exactly the time they need it. So for example, one of the videos on there is called, How to Feel Confident in a Scary Meeting. You know? So if you’ve got a meeting, what you do is you watch it, and then go into the meeting feeling OK. Another one is called Great Ways to Introduce Yourself When You’re Networking. So if you’re walking to a networking mingling event, you watch the video on the way there if you like, and you go in and you say the right things straight away. So my idea is I wanted to give people something which was super quick, five-minute videos, but super timely because you can look at it when you need it not six months ago. Jenn DeWall: Right. Well, that’s so important because I can tell you that I’ve been to a plethora of trainings here at my career and yes if you don’t have it accessible to you, you do forget it. So that’s nice that you have that on-demand option. So people can really think what type of support, like am I going into this meeting that is unchartered territory and how do I show up in a way that’s confident or how do I network in the way that I can at least show people who I really am and articulate the value that I really can bring to them. One of the challenges when we say the word sales, right? Like sales can seem like, oh I’m not in sales. Or maybe I’ll turn off this podcast because I don’t have a sales role. It’s not true. Right? What do you think about that? The dirty word of sales? Andy Bounds: I mean there’s two points there. Firstly, do we sell or not? And secondly, is it a dirty word or not? And what I mean by selling is it is convincing someone to do what you want. So when I have, as we call him in my house, Child Four – if I want Child Four to go to bed. Well, Child Four is six. So if I can’t say it in a certain persuasive way, he’s either not going to go or he’s going to go in a very grudging fashion. Or, I might be able to win because I have to. It’s my voice, but I don’t want it to be that sort of parent. So I want to be able to sell to him. The facts are, I want him to go upstairs, but in a way he’s happy with. And the skills you need with a six-year-old boy are often quite similar to the skills you need with an executive board of a large bank. So we all sell, whether we’re trying to get customers to give us money or our children to go to bed or our partner to let us go and play with our friends instead of having to do the housework one weekend or whatever it is. So the way I think about selling is it’s helping the other person say yes. So what we want in whatever guise that takes. Therefore I don’t think it’s a dirty word because sometimes if I can get Child Four to go to bed, you’ll have a better day tomorrow because he’s gone to bed. That’s not a dirty thing. That’s a helpful thing. If I help an executive board to buy something that makes them billions of dollars, well that’s not a dirty thing. That’s a helpful thing. So best practice is, selling is not a dirty word, it’s a helpful word, but it’s not just about getting customers to give you money. It’s about getting people to say yes to things that they want. Jenn DeWall: Yeah, I love that. The reframe, right? It’s helpful. It’s helpful for that business to be able to save money by you helping them. It’s healthy for your, for Child Four, to be able to have them go to bed on time so they can get that rest and their brain can develop so they are ready for the day. And so it is time to kind of, you know, reframe how we look at sales because regardless of your position, you are going to want to know how to influence and how to help people. Andy Bounds: Yeah. And people are very committed to things that are in their interest and they’re also very committed to things that they themselves have thought of. So, if I think weekly update meetings are a bit boring. If I say, “Team, our update meetings are boring, therefore we’re going to do X.” I might be coming at it from the mine. But actually what happens is it’s not a very good sale. But if I say to people, “You know how you’re really busy, I’d love to see if I can give you an extra half hour, or an hour a week.” Would that be okay? Well, they go, “Yeah!” because they want more time. And then I can say,” you know the update meetings we have every week, how do you think we might be able to speed those up so we can free up some time for us?” And then they might come up with some good ideas. So they see it’s in their interest and then they come up with the ideas. But that means that I get what I want, which is for the meetings to be shorter. So everyone wins. Now I would call that selling. I haven’t used the word sale, but I’ve come up with something which is helpful to them, helpful to me. Everyone’s happy, but it’s been done with charm and persuasion, not with shouting. Jenn DeWall: That is such great insight. And I know one of your videos talks about how I do what I do, or how you do that, what you do. And you have this profound insight and way of seeing the sales process that’s inspiring and empowering and accessible. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you do what you do and what that was about? Sales Up / Time Down Andy Bounds: Yeah. Cool! So as far as sales go, there are four words that matter. The first two are “sales up” and the other two are “time down”. In other words, we want to generate as many sales, as much positivity as we can, but we want to do it as quickly as possible. So the video, How I Do What I Do, talks about how I make my sales go up when my time goes down. And I mean, I know a lot about this anyway, but I started studying it a while ago because I wanted to stop working on Fridays, but I knew, if I stopped working on Fridays, my business is obviously going to shrink by a fifth. So I thought about it and analyze what I did with my time and very carefully analyzed it. And as a result of that, I stopped working Fridays and my business grew by a third. So I thought, it doesn’t even make sense. And it’s because what I did was I made sales go up, and time, go down. So for example, here are some things which I find super helpful. So if you’re watching this video and want your sales to go up and, or your time go down here for quick wins for you. Number one, the first thing I did is I looked at the outcomes of everything. So when I go into a meeting, I never go into a meeting saying, “Hey, we’re here for an hour and we’re going to talk about A and B and C and D.” Instead, what I now say is, ”Welcome to the meeting everyone, the outcomes we’re aiming for are X, and as soon as we’ve achieved it will stop the meeting”. So rather than say we’re discussing this for an hour, I say we’re looking to achieve this at the end of it, let’s get there as quickly as we can. Now we can do that. It doesn’t sound like a big thing, Jenn. But if you do that with every meeting, every conference call, every email, every conversation you find that you lose so much time you are wasting. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is an extension is I banned one-hour meetings. So I never have a one-hour meeting with anybody. Effort. Most corporate meetings last an hour. And the reason most of them last an hour is because that’s how they did it last week. Even if last week’s dragged on and the week before it dragged on, well we’ll have another one for another hour. It’s just ridiculous. But we do that. So I banned one-hour meetings and now the average length of my meetings is under 20 minutes, which means I might have three meetings at the same time that some people are having just one and each of my three meetings are focusing on outcomes. Whereas the one-hour meeting is not focusing on outcomes, it’s just discussing stuff. So they were two things. So number one focused on outcomes. Number two, no one-hour meetings. The third thing I did, and this sounds a little strange, is I stopped doing face to face meetings unless I have to now with my colleagues, I still have face to face meetings with potential customers. I tried to have fewer face to face meetings and I coached my EA about this, and I heard her on the phone the other day. It was brilliant because someone wanted an hour face to face meeting with me. And so Emma said, “You don’t need an hour with him, Andy is really quick at things like this. 30 minutes, 20 minutes should be fine.” And the other person I could hear says very positively, “Okay, that’s great. Thank you.” And then she said, “also his calendar is very full so he’s going to struggle to make a one-hour meeting anyway for a while. Why don’t we just have a telephone meeting instead of a face to face meeting?” And again the personal thought, this is great. So I’m getting 20 minutes, not an hour. It’s going on the phone, not face to face. It sounds like it’s in the other person’s interest, but it’s saving us time. And the reason I really like this one is then the person said to Emma, “Actually, on reflection, I do quite like face to face meetings.” and Emma said, “Have you seen Andy’s face? I’ll put in a phone call.” But what he got was a 20-minute telephone meeting. He’d asked for one hour face to face and I would call that just perfect selling.  The fourth thing and this is so we’ve got three so far focused on the outcomes. No one-hour meetings, there are as few face to faces as possible and the fourth one is a strange one, but most people I meet, Jenn are much better in the morning than they are in the afternoon. It’s like you have lunch and people fall off a cliff. It’s simple – I put my lunch break back by two hours and what I found was instead of eating at 12 o’clock and then being a bit rubbish after lunch, I had two hours longer. So I had a little snack at 12 o’clock but not much. And I have lunch at two o’clock, so that meant I had a longer morning and you wouldn’t believe what a difference it makes. So obviously that won’t work for everyone, but just little things like that, all incremental marginal gains meant that I stopped working Fridays and my business grew by a third. Jenn DeWall: Well, the interesting thing about what you just shared is that there was relatively any financial investment in terms of making these changes. You were able to push your time out by two hours by moving lunch. You were able to take time back by only scheduling the 20 minutes. You’re very focused on those outcomes. Like all of the solutions that you proposed are low cost. They are something that you could do right now. Today. Andy Bounds: You’re looking at the low cost, the low cost, low risk. So I mean, here’s another one you can do straight away today. So focusing on outcomes- when you’re sending an email- before you write the email, ask yourself, what action do I want the reader to take? What’s the outcome? And let’s say you want the reader to, I don’t know, send you the figures for the month. Then just write that at the top of the email. Please, can you hit reply and send me the figures for the month? That’s the outcome. And then you think, what will I do with the outcome? And you write underneath. So you might then say, please send me this month’s figures and then I’ll put them in the presentation for the board. Now can you see once you’ve written that, the length of your email just disappears because there’s nothing else to say? You know, you might call the email something like a quick question to ask. So now the other person, let’s say you’re writing to somebody called Bob. Bob gets an email saying a quick question to ask. That’s the subject line. Opens it up and you say, please can you hit reply and send me the figures and then I’ll put them in the board report. Well, imagine if you could do that every single email. It’s not just low cost, it’s low risk, and you were sending the email anyway, so it actually saves you time. Jenn DeWall: All right. And the time saving is huge because we all have so much going on. And the last thing we want to do is sit down in front of an email and be bogged down by two paragraphs trying to understand what the sender is looking for it. That’s maddening, right? Or especially when people do the see below and then make you read an entire email chain to try and figure out what the point is. Andy Bounds: Thank you, you just reminded of a good one from the other day. I had an email which was about this long from one of my customers and so I quickly rung her up and said,” Hey Julie, thanks for your email.” So firstly, she was amazed I rung her up cause you reply to an email with an email, right? That’s what everyone does. So I picked the phone up and said, “Hey Julie, thanks for your email.” So she’s like, “well that is good customer service.” And I said, ”I’m just popping out in a minute, Very quickly, what is it you want me to do with the information you’ve sent me?” And she said, “Oh, can you just answer the question at the bottom of paragraph three?” So I put the phone down, go to paragraph three, the say, “the answer is 12,” and she’s delighted. She’s got what she wants it, it took me 10 seconds instead of that 10 minutes of just hating the person who’s emailed you. Jenn DeWall: That’s a huge value in how the work landscape has changed. All of these work really well with the remote employees, right? So just instead of having that hour-long face to face meeting, picking up the phone and calling them and talking to them for 20 minutes instead of leaving your communication to be a virtual exchange. So really just connecting. It’s a short time investment and you get higher engagement just by being able to, maybe it is over video or maybe it’s over the phone, but at least you can go back and forth a lot very quickly to make sure you’re on the same page. Andy Bounds: Yeah, absolutely. You reminded me of things I should have been saying anyway, the quick win for everyone if you do ring your team, and working remotely, very often people are in because they want an update, you know, to know what’s going on. And I’ll say, if I say to you, give me an update, you probably don’t quite know what I want an update on so you’ll probably talk a bit too long and then I will talk too long, and the whole conversation was too long. So I always advise my customers rather than having a meeting called “Update”. What you do is you call it “Best, Worst, Next”. So when you bring a member of your team, you say, and you let your team know this is what you want, an advance. Andy Bounds: So they can prepare and you say very quickly, just two minutes at best thing, the worst thing, next thing. you know, what’s the best thing that’s happened to you this week and what’s the worst thing? How can I help you with that? And the next thing, what are you planning to do next week? You know, so what’s been the best success? What is your biggest challenge and what are you doing next? Now imagine if we had a conversation like this in two minutes, I would know what you were pleased with, what you were worried about and what you’re doing that I can maybe have two or three-minute conversation with you. I can tell you my best, worst and next, and we put the phone down five, ten minutes later. But it’s so rich, you know, it’s not an update. It’s not boring. It’s just bang, bang, bang- quick. And then we carry on. Jenn DeWall: Great. And so for the people that don’t necessarily, have that skill set, you’re adding structure, right? You’re saying like, this is your focus, here is your structure so you can make sure that that person gets what they need. You get what you need and here’s an easy way to do it from best, worst, next. I love that! We have a team meeting at 11. I think I’m going to have to introduce that into our team meeting. Jenn DeWall: Well, we’re going to talk a little bit more about your online video club and some of the different videos you had out there. And I kind of cherry-picked a few that seemed really intriguing to me and, but there are so many other topics that we won’t even be able to cover here, but we’re going to dive right in. So we know that every leader needs to know how to sell. It’s not just about selling a product or service, sometimes it’s just making sure that you’re influencing people. But one of your videos is talking about the three steps to winning more sales and you have the three steps of best practice selling. What are the three steps of best practice selling? The ABC’s – Afters, Building Certainty, and Closing Andy Bounds: Okay, so the three steps to getting them- beginning with ABC, which I was quite pleased with because when you’re in the middle of a sale or an influence saying it can be stressful and it’s hard to remember the right order. So if you remember ABC, no matter how stressed you are, it’s quite easy to remember. So the A stands for Afters and what I mean by Afters is finding out where the other person wants to be afterward. So let’s say that we are making an external sale, and let’s say we are, so it’s me talking to a potential customer. So if they say, “Andy, we’re thinking we might hire you for our conference.” Rather than me saying, “tell me about your conference.” I will say, “Okay, thank you. Can I ask you some questions so I can give you relevant information about me?” Andy Bounds: Now, of course, they’re going to say, ”Yes”. Of course, they’re not going to say, ”No, be irrelevant.” So they say, “what do you want to know?” And I say, “well, you know, after the conference, the conference is on a Wednesday, what sort of things do you want to see your team doing on Thursday, and Friday, and the week afterward? You know, what is the impact you’re looking to have here?” So that’s always the first question. The question is not telling me about the projects. The question is, tell me about the Afters of it. So if you’re a marketing agency, you don’t say, tell me about the campaign. You say, what business benefits do you want? You know, if you’re an attorney, you don’t start off by saying, tell me about the case. You say, what’s your endgame here? What are you looking to get out of it? And so as long as we know the future good. Because actually, that’s why people buy things. You know, I don’t buy a newspaper because I want a newspaper. It’s that after buying the newspaper, I’ve got the information. So I don’t want a newspaper. I want the information. I don’t want toothpaste, I want clean teeth. I don’t want an attorney. I just don’t want to go to jail. I don’t want a CPA, I just want to pay less tax. So we don’t want the thing. We want the ambassadors of the thing. So our job is to find the afters people want. So we have some future-based questions. So that’s the thing. Once somebody has told me the afters they want from the conference, I want my team to be doing this, this, and this, I then go to the B phase, and the B means to Build Certainty. So once somebody says, well, I want my team getting out more to meet potential customers, I then go into the B phase and say, Oh, I can definitely help you with that, for an example… And then I might give a story about how I helped another customer in the past. So a great way to build certainty is to do stories. And another great way to build certainty is to teach people things they didn’t know because when they hear something they didn’t know, they go, oh, Andy is clever, I didn’t know about that. Or Crestcom has got some great insights, I didn’t know about that. So ask questions to find the afters and then B, you say, I can help you with that. And then you build certainty. And then the C stands for Close. And that’s where you close the sale. Now there are various ways that you can close, but the simplest way to do it is to offer options. So rather than me saying, I can help, it’s going to cost $10,000 do you want it or not? Well, they might say no. It’s like if I say to Child Four, do you want to go to bed or not? I can tell you, he’ll say no. But if you give somebody options and you say to the customer, well the good news is there are two ways we could do this. Yeah. So option one is blah blah, blah. That’s $10,000 if you want and you can invest a bit more. We could do option two, which will be this, this, this, and this, that’s $15,000 which of these two do you prefer? And then the customer’s not thinking, do I buy from Andy? They’re thinking, which do I buy from Andy? So let me very quickly run through the ABC again, A- afters, find where they want to be after working with you. B, build certainty, prove they’ll get those off just by telling a story and teaching and so on. Then C, close it off maybe by offering options with different price points and then saying, which do you prefer? So it’s as simple as that. Afters, Build Certainty, and Close. That’s what the world’s best salespeople do. They might not use those words, but that’s what they do. Find the customer’s happy place and then prove you can get them there. Jenn DeWall: You know I love that notion of finding a happy place via the afters. Because I think especially when you’re new to understanding how to influence, you might understand the concept of knowing people’s pains, right? Understanding what you’re trying to help them with. But sometimes we get stuck and talking about the pains and we probably create a long list of what these pains are costing them. Instead of saying really what do we want to accomplish by alleviating or solving these pains. And so I love that it’s initially putting people into that strategic mindset of thinking, okay, this is where we want to go. Here we are and instead of just living in the, oh my gosh, this is awful. This isn’t working. Sales are bad, engagement’s low, you know, whatever someone else, someone else’s pains are. So I love that. And then to build certainty, right? And then, you know, of course, close the sale. So that’s really easy, like ABC, obviously, it’s a really easy way to remember how you can approach the sales process and how you can differentiate it. And I’m not going to just say sales, it’s how you can approach influencing people. Sales and Pricing Andy Bounds: That’s a great thing. Of course. Yeah, it is. It’s a beautiful way, it’s a helpful way. So remember I said before about helping that bank with that big deal, worth billions of pounds. When I had that conversation with them to start with, I’d done the afters thing and I found that the afters was they wanted to win the deal and that it was worth two and a half billion pounds and it was strategically essential. They want it. So I found all these things out and then we did the build certainty, and then when we did the close, and I put my price and fit the various options and they said, “that sounds great, Andy, but it is quite expensive. Can you do anything about the price now?” Because I’d already had the afters conversation when they said, “ can you do anything about the price?” I said, “absolutely, I can put it up if you want.” Andy Bounds: Which was quite funny. They didn’t and they said, “oh, what do you mean?” I said, “This is worth all this money to you. I’m charging you this much. It’s not even a fly on the windscreen of a truck. The amounts of money I’m charging it is tiny compared to the value. I don’t understand why you’re asking me to drop the price.” And then they said, “Yeah, but you might only be here for like two or three days.” And I said, “Yeah, I know. And then you’ll make two and a half billion pounds in two or three days. I don’t understand. What, what, what? Why are you asking this question?” And they said, “but we might be paying you quite a lot of money for just two or three days.” And I said, “do you want me to take longer?” And they went, “No!” This is helpful selling because, well what they want to see is they want sales up and time down. But because I knew what it was worth to them, and I knew they wanted it quickly, the most valuable thing I can do is help them with it quickly. So, therefore, I put in a price which is tiny compared to what they’re doing and that’s what I will call gold-selling because they made this much money and I made this much money. But both of us were happy. Jenn DeWall: Yeah. And you had obviously, in that example that you gave, there was resistance, right? They want to just say, can we adjust the price, can we pay less? And you were obviously offering the value and you’re very confident in what you do. But to someone that may encounter resistance what advice would you have for them to be able to stay confident when you are told they don’t really believe in the value offering and what that worth is. Andy Bounds: Okay. That is a great question. So here we go. , it is all to do with the power of the after. So remember I said the A, in A, B, C stands for Afters. Many, many years ago, and when I only did sales training, so no consultancy, no sales presentation creation,  no conference speaking. I just did sales training and what I thought was people were paying for the day- because they go to a training day and my rate per day is this, etc. And I found it quite scary, because when someone asked if you can drop your price? Then I worried about my own self-worth. I mean the stuff’s in my head anyway. Am I not being rude just telling them, should I not just tell them? Because we all know that I know the answers now. So I had big trouble with that. And then I suddenly realized they’re not paying for the training on the day, they are paying for the sales that happened after that day. And let’s say they make sales of let’s choose a small number, $1,000 and if they paid me 15 dollars, well that’s a very good return on investment. Now let’s make the numbers bigger. If they made $100,000 and they paid me $5,000- so I began to realize they weren’t paying for me talking on Tuesday. They were paying for the sales they will get on Wednesday. So it’s really not just for the customer, but for you as the salesperson. But you want to understand the afters that the other person wants. And the only way to do that is to ask good questions. My two favorite questions- and I ask these- I was nervous early on, I ask these now and I’m much more confident. The first question is, what impact do you want this to cause? You know, what’s the afters, what do you want to happen after this? And the second question- and this is so powerful- is help me understand why is this so important? What’s it worth to you if you achieve this impact? So the first question has the word impact. And the second question, has the word worth in it? What’s it worth to you if you get that? So once somebody says, the impact I want is I want my sales team to be better, I want them to sell more stuff and you want to say, what’s that worth to you? If they say, well, we’ve got a team of 20 they’ve got targets of $1 million a year, each $20 million, anything that gets in there at $20 billion, I would find that very valuable. Then can you see what happens to my confidence that they’re not looking at Andy, as someone who’s going to do a training course, they’ve actually said the word $20 million. They see someone who might help them get near the $20 million is great for their confidence. But in answer to your question, it’s great for my confidence too, because I’m now an enabler of $20 million. I’m not just someone who’s rocking up training. Jenn DeWall: I mean, I like to say confidence is the key to happiness. Confidence is the key to everything that we’re doing, but confidence is the key to influence. And I love that way of looking at the Afters is to say they’re not just looking at you and buying your product for what it is today. They are investing in you for what you can bring them tomorrow and it’s, that’s right. Yeah. That’s a great way for someone that’s new, that’s entering this process to remember it’s not all about you. You’re here to help them open up these opportunities down the line and that’s why you are able to charge what you are charging and that’s okay. Andy Bounds: Absolutely. Absolutely. And there are two things I promise you, your customers don’t want us. Number one is you and number two it’s your products and services. I can promise you they don’t want you or your products or services. What they want is the Afters of your products and services. So you walking up and say, hi, my name’s Andy. I’ve been an attorney for 20 years and I’m really good at law. I will go, meh. If someone comes up and says, you know how you’re about to go to court and face a fine of $20 million, well I can get you out of both of those. Well, that seems highly different. Customers don’t want to hear you say how great you are. They want to hear you say how great you can make them. Right? And if I could teach any salesperson anything, that’s the one thing. They don’t want to hear how great you’ve been in your past. They want to hear how great their life is going to be in the future. And once you’ve asked the impact question and the worth question, both you and them are now talking about the huge future happy place that they want- and your confidence, I promise you, goes up when they said this is worth $20 million to me.  Jenn DeWall: Yeah, and that’s right. It’s not about you. I’ve always been told or I’ve been told this once throughout my life or so, but it stuck with me- and that is you have three seconds to win someone over. And they are only thinking about what’s going on in their head and their life and their responsibilities. And so you have to always remember they’re only thinking about themselves. Just like when someone’s talking to us, we’re only thinking about ourselves and our needs. It’s not about you. It’s not personal. You don’t have to, you know, berate yourself or criticize yourself if you don’t nail it perfectly. You just have to really get and step into their shoes to understand why they would want to listen to you. Ask the Right Questions Andy Bounds: You’re so right- and all of it stems from you have to ask good questions. Yeah, you have to ask good questions. I don’t know any salesperson in the world who is brilliant, who doesn’t ask good questions. I mean, I’ve met a lot of extreme powerful salespeople and every single one of them is brilliant at asking questions. So some homework for someone watching this video. I would suggest when you pressed pause at the end of this video, write down five brilliant questions to uncover someone’s Afters. Then work out your best friend, as we say in Liverpool where I’m from, your best friend, your number one contact. Go and have a cup of coffee with them and say, what are your favorite five questions? And get a list of good ones. Because once you’ve got them, it’s so empowering for you and it’s so helpful for the customer and good sales. The ABC hinges on you asking good questions. I promise you your confidence skyrockets when you know good stuff to ask. Jenn DeWall: All right, one of my favorite questions? And this is what I like to ask when you have leadership that’s requesting things- and that’s, ‘What does success look like for you?” To really make sure that we’re on the same page because my vision of success might be different and it’s a great opportunity to uncover where that disconnect is and bridge the gap. What’s one of your favorite questions? Andy Bounds: Well. So the two I’ve said before, what impact do you want and what, what’s it worth? And another one which I ask, and this is good for anyone who does any advisory stuff like coaching or consulting and so on, so sometimes when people call me in for training or conference speaking and I ask- so obviously any trading or speaking I do will have an impact, but how long do you want that impact to last? And people always look at me maybe a bit like you’re looking at me now. Like what is that question, I never thought of that? And then I just say, “well sometimes people haven’t even thought of it and they just want good happy sheets at the end of the day though. So no business impacts, I just want a nice day. Sometimes people want a short term impact whereby people use a few things and then maybe just go back to what the world was like. Most companies who I speak to want a long term impact where we actually change people’s habits. So a year from now they’re doing things differently. So I just wondered with your company, how long do you want the impact to be?” Now, the reason I love that as a question is almost everyone goes through this mental thing or thinking, “hmm, before he asked that question, I hadn’t thought of that question and I was just going to do happy sheets. But now I’m going to study it like that. Clearly, the only answer to that is I want a long term impact.” So that they’re already learning from me. And then when they say a long term impact and then follow it up by saying,” okay, well the thing that dictates people’s long term behavior and the habits that they’re in. What plans have you got in place for changing the habits?” Andy Bounds: And that’s when they just look at me almost in tears going, “I haven’t thought about that either.” I can help you with that. Yep. So two really good questions. How long do you want the impact to be? And then when you explain do you mean long term and then when they say long term, the followup question, what plans have you got already to change people’s habits to get this long term change? I love both those questions because both of them teach. The client learns to build certainty by teaching. They teach the client something they haven’t thought of. It shows the clients I know more about this maybe than they know about it. It gets them thinking, but also the thinking. I’d love to have this next conversation with Andy because if he’s taught me something with just two questions, what might happen next? So I promise you, anyone listening to this- write down five questions. Go and speak to someone else and get some really good questions. It is the best differentiator you can get. Jenn DeWall: Right? Well in those questions it sounds like you want them to be open-ended, right? Open-ended questions where you can get your audience to really think about it. And so it’s not just a yes or no, where it’s easy to back out and say, you were like, yes, of course, I want growth. That’s a dumb question.  Andy Bounds: That’s right. I mean, I might ask you a couple of closed questions just to get them talking, you know, like how are we, you are you more interested in growth or, or whatever it might be. But then, I, you are so right. I want to ask the open questions and then once I’ve asked the open questions, however, they respond, I say “oh, actually, this is my favorite sales question.” However someone responds, I then say, can you tell me more about that? That’s my favorite is questionable. Because anytime you say, can you tell me more about that? Do you know what happens is they always tell you more about that. Jenn DeWall: Well, and people love talking, especially about themselves and their situation. And that absolutely, you know, in your online video club, you also have something that I think is so valuable to every leader or anyone that’s in a sales position or anyone that’s in a position of influence, which is how to manage when they say no, which is the dreaded response that we don’t want to happen. But what the heck happens? I mean, I know that you’ve got some great insight to that. Like how do you manage when someone says no to you? Cause I know my response sometimes being a very stubborn person, I can get really frustrated and you know, angry and just start to, you know, instead of thinking like, wait, there’s gotta be a more logical way I could approach this. Role-Playing for Better Sales Andy Bounds: The thing is, I mean, people often use the word objections for this- or concerns. I mean, I love the fight. Did you use the word dread? That’s the way that I dread, I call it my dreads. The stuff I’d dread people asking, can you drop your price? We already have a supplier who does what you do, we’re a multinational and your just one bald man from England. We don’t like consultants. We’ve had bad consultant’s experience before. We think sales is a dirty word, but you know all this. So I have my list of dreads like right, you will have yours like everyone watching this will outfit. And the most important thing I can share with you is that the reason you dread this stuff is big. Not because they say it. What you dread is you don’t know how to respond when they say it. Andy Bounds: So if you knew how to respond, you wouldn’t dread it. So like you probably don’t dread someone saying, do you think the grass is green? Because you know the answer to that. You don’t dread them saying do you think the grass is blue, because you have the answer to that. But you do dread can you drop your price, please? Because you don’t have the answer to that. So the only solution, the only solution to removing stuff you dread is to know in advance what you’re going to say in response. So what I did a few years ago, is I spent half an hour a day for about three weeks. So quite a time investment. But if you think, if you start doing exactly the same thing as I did three weeks from now, anyone watching this video, three weeks from now, you won’t have any dreads left. Because all I did is I worked out really good scripts that I was going to say in response. Andy Bounds: So I’ll give you some examples so I can share what I mean here. So what I did was I found a friend who I liked and I said to them, “I hate it when the customer says you’re too expensive. So can we do a little role play? And all I want you to say is you’re too expensive and I’m going to just verbally respond, whatever I say, ignore it and just say, you’re too expensive and I’ll have another go. And then ignoring, say you’re too expensive, I’ll have another go. And I want to try and say different things.” Now the reason you have to do it verbally is that people often write differently to how they speak. So you don’t want to be writing it down, you want to talk about it. But the other thing is your first answer will I guaranteed the rubbish because you dreading it anyway and therefore your answer won’t be very good. Andy Bounds: So I sat down with this person who I trusted and they said, you’re too expensive. And I started off with some terrible answer. I said something like, “well I think if you extrapolate the benefits you’ll get from working with me and compare it to the cost, you’ll find the return on investment, particularly over a number of years is, is very strong.” And then they just look to me and said, “you’re too expensive” and I have to try again. And I came up with another answer and then they went, “you’re too expensive.” And after my third one, it’s still wasn’t very good. Again,  you’re too expensive.” And we carried on doing this. And then gradually I got a bit crosser and I got crosser. My tone got a bit more clipped. It was never rude. It just got a bit more to the point. Andy Bounds: And then on about the fifth or sixth time around, they said, “you’re too expensive.” And I said, “oh, I don’t often hear that. Why do you say that?”And they said, “that’s it, that’s your answer.” And I said, “why?” Because when you said, when the customer says you’re too expensive, they speak from a position of power and authority. I’m the customer with the wallet. And I’m saying, you’re too expensive. And when you say, Oh, don’t often hear that, why’d you say that? It takes all that power away because you don’t often hear that. And also because I finished with a question, it puts the ball back in their court so they have to respond. And so then when I do that, and I’ve been saying that answer four years now and, and then when people respond, they go, “well your competitors are cheaper than you.” And so then I would do the role play with that, “because your competitors are cheaper than you.” I’d say, “Well I think you’ll find you’re not comparing apples with apples.” And he’d say, “your competitors are cheaper than you.” So we just did this thing again. So my answer when somebody says you’re too expensive is I say, I don’t often hear that. Why’d you say that? If somebody says, “can you reduce your price of it?” I say,” absolutely. What bits would you like to take out of my proposal?” We again finish with a question to hand the ball back to them. If someone says, your competitors are cheaper than you, this is my favorite one. Actually, I then say “Good.” and they just look at me. And I said, “because that means my company is the same as yours. We both have competitors who are worse than us, but I thought you wanted the best possible results or have I not understood that correctly?” Now you can hear how powerful that is because if someone says, how can I answer? Yeah, and so I promise you, Jenn, this did not come up five minutes. This was half an hour a day for three weeks. None of my clients know that I did that once. But if I hadn’t done that once, I wouldn’t have my dread answers setup. Right. Okay. So quite a long answer to your question. Let me give you the short answer: stuff you dread- work out scripts. Jenn DeWall: Yeah, work out the scripts because it builds confidence, right? The more that you can anticipate it, because especially with a lot of the things, whether we’re having a very big conversation that may not resonate with people. Or they may have concerns and questions, or if we’re going into a pitch meeting or sales meeting, remember that what you can control are your own questions. You can always control the questions that you asked. So if you don’t necessarily have that response, I love how it’s about taking that power struggle and you know, owning your worth and saying, okay, well tell me more. Or what would that look like for you? Or what do you want me to take out? So it helps to break down that fear that I think comes up for people where it’s like, holy crap, here’s the final moment that we’ve all been waiting for. Oh my gosh. When they may not want that, and it’s like, oh no, I have this because I have my script worked out. I know that I’m going to ask some questions to uncover more information. I love that. Again, it’s really just helping you set yourself up for success and you know, just thinking and being more strategic about it upfront and doing that essential preparation. Andy Bounds: And of course another thing reduces people’s nerves is- as far as price goes- is if you offer two options with different prices, because if I just say, I can help you, Jenn, but it’s going to be $10,000. Straight away my brain thinks, “what’s she gonna say to the $10,000?” But if I say, “the good news here is there’s two ways I can help you. This way is 10,000 or this way is 15,000. Which you want to do?” I don’t feel scared saying it because I’m offering you a choice. It’s not all on one. If you don’t like either, I can say what do you suggest instead? And we’re having a peer to peer, very friendly chat, you know? Jenn DeWall: Right. These are just people doing business as people do business with people. We’re just trying to figure out the best solution. But yeah, we complicate it in our heads sometimes because it can be intimidating, especially if there’s a lot on the line. Andy Bounds: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Jenn DeWall: You know your online video club covers the essentials that help people be successful within sales, but you also include an emphasis on, you know, having a life, right? Like having a life outside of sales and what you can do to rejuvenate yourself or to take care of yourself. Out of curiosity, why was that important to include that in your online video club? Andy Bounds: I’m, well, thank you for asking that question because most people don’t. They just want to know how to sell more. But actually, I put it in because it’s just pivotal to your, how can I put this? What you’re like on the outside is really affected by your inside. So if you are getting pretty busy at work and you’re not getting home enough and you’re not seeing your husband or your wife enough, or maybe your children. If your home life is suffering a little bit, it’s very hard to feel in balance. And it’s hard to express yourself with confidence, I find if I don’t think I’m getting things right in the right order. So, and I mean this with the utmost respect to all my customers, my main priority in life is my family. So therefore what I do is the thing that goes in my calendar first is my main priority. So at the beginning of each year, we think, what am I going to take off every Friday? I’ll try and take off as much of August as I can and it’s school vacation. We’ll have those two weeks at Christmas. We’ll also do this. So before my year starts, I have got my number one priority in. The second thing I do is I then think, when can I learn? To make sure that I keep interested and I keep it interesting. So I then start putting in my calendar when I might look at my own self-development. And I find that if I get those two rights, so I’m learning right and my balance is right, then it gives me a platform on which to build. I see so many people who get in bad habits because when they start in business, understandably, they do everything. They come for their business and you absolutely have to to get the momentum. Andy Bounds: But then all of a sudden the 30 years down the line and they’re still doing everything they can for their business. And they’re sometimes not seeing that their partners or their children or their friends or doing their hobbies and they become a business-doing thing instead of a happy, full person. And so the reason I put that on though was when there are three promises I make with the video club, sales, enjoyment, and love. You’ll sell more, you’ll enjoy selling more and you’ll live your life and you’ll love your videos, or you get your money back. Because I don’t want to just give people sales skills that help them sell more such that they don’t see that. Funnily, I want to help people get sales, enjoyment, and love so they have an enriched life both inside and outside work. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh, I love that. Sales, enjoyment, and love. It’s just so important. It really is. And I love that you used the word love, right? As something that we can aspire. Aspire to have more love, or to enjoy, whether that’s with our family or our friends or the things that we just genuinely enjoy doing, like our hobbies. But I love that there’s that emphasis on, you know, finding and making room, especially up front. So when you’re thinking about your strategic goals, what do I want this to look like? Making sure that you carve out space for the things that are going to bring you joy. The things that are going to fuel your success, that things that are going to excite you, the things that will only continue to build love and excitement and create that beautiful ripple effect for everyone that you touch. And I imagine that even in the sales process, the more that you’re able to design that well-rounded life that fills you up, you have to be contagious, even for the people that you interact within your business, whether you’re selling to them or not, you can relate as people. Okay. Andy Bounds: Absolutely. And first and foremost, I love the success that I’ve had and I love the success of my customers have. But I, I’m just a nice guy and I want to be happy and I want people who are around me to be happy. I want my colleagues to be happy. So the other day, for example, my PA  got in contact with me and said= I was running a workshop- so she just got in contact and said, something’s kicked off at home. I need to go. I’ll crack on with work later on. I trust her implicitly. And so I just sent her a note, I sent her a message and said, don’t do work. tonight. Sort out whatever it is, we’ll catch up tomorrow, it’s fine. Because her life is more important than her work life. That’s what I want her to think. And that’s what I want her to think I think. So the job she does with me, and she is brilliant, is supposed to facilitate her life. It’s not supposed to take over her. And so everyone has to be in balance. And that’s why I have to do a video on it because I can’t get sales and enjoyment and love if your selling more, but your family life is suffering. That’s not what I’m aiming to do here. What is Your Leadership Habit? Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. I’ve really, really liked our conversation a lot and so much. It’s been really, really nice. But I know that we have to wrap it up. So I have to finish with the last question that we ask everyone that’s on the leadership habit podcast and that is what is your leadership habit for success? Andy Bounds: Wow, I’ve got an exciting one and I’ve got an important one. I’ll do the important one first because this is just really, the most critical and that is follow up. So it’s not sexy. Follow up. And by follow up, I mean at the end of each day I have three Ds – I do all my follow up actions, and I put in my diary or my calendar when I’m going to do my follow up actions, and the other D is discipline. When it comes up in the calendar, I make sure I do it so that way I never forget anything. I always follow up on everything. Everyone can rely on me all the time. It is not sexy, but it’s part of my brand. So for all the lovely stuff people say about me, I always want people to say and do you know what? He would never let anyone down. So that’s the followup. Not Sexy, but really business-critical, life-changing, really important. On the exciting one-  and it’s, it’s just the concept of afters. Like we don’t do stuff we call stuff. Yeah. If I was a lawyer, my job is not to be a lawyer, its to cause my clients to not go to jail. My job is not to be a consultant, is not to be a trainer, an author or a speaker. It’s none of those things as far as my family goes. It’s someone who’s lovely to be around, loves the slots, and he always has this in his mind. As far as my customers go, it’s sales, it’s enjoyment and love. That’s what he brings us, and that’s what my job is. And I’d much rather do that than be a consultant. Jenn DeWall: Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to share your expertise and your experience and your attempts for success with us. I really, really mean it when I say I enjoyed our conversation and to everyone listening, you know, I love that idea of the follow-up. Sure. It may not be sexy, but it does help you stay plugged into your goals and dreams, which is very important. So thank you so much for being here, Andy. Andy Bounds: Oh, you’re welcome. And had a great time. Thank you, Jenn, for inviting me.   The post Episode 8: Sales, Love and Enjoyment with Andy Bounds appeared first on Crestcom International.

About Aimee Cohen In this episode of The Leadership Habit, we talk to keynote speaker, elite career coach, and bestselling author, Aimee Cohen. Aimee has coached hundreds of clients for more than 20 years with the near 100% success rate. She empowers professional men and women to take control and manage their careers like a boss. Join us as we discuss how you can own your career development and understand why it matters. Aimee will also share some great easy steps you can take that can produce big results to create your own personal career success. Jenn Dewall and Aimee Cohen talk about how to overcome the common ways that people sabotage their success. Full Transcript Below: Jenn DeWall:                      00:45                     Hi everyone, it’s Jenn DeWall, and I am here with keynote speaker, coach, and author, Aimee Cohen. Aimee, I’m so excited to have you on our podcast today, and I know our listeners are going to love the conversation and the insight that you provide. I just wanted to maybe offer an introduction for the people that don’t know you. If you could tell them a little bit about yourself and what you do Aimee Cohen:                   01:09                     So well, first of all, thank you so much for having me and hello to all of your listeners. I’m Aimee Cohen – for almost 25 years been a career expert, keynote speaker, author. Essentially what I do is I help people sort of manage their career success. Jenn DeWall:                    01:27                     How Fun, I mean because we all need that, right? Regardless of maybe when we’re starting our careers or where we are in our careers, and sometimes we have those situations where we haven’t experienced them before. So we really need the guidance of someone like you to work with to help us remove those objects and keep going on our pathway to success. Aimee Cohen:                   01:45                     Exactly. I always say for all of the training and education and certifications that people get to, you know, for whatever profession it is, what people received the least amount of training and education on is how to manage their own careers. Nobody ever learns how to do that. So most people are just winging it, right? Most people, you know, it’s like you’re just expected to wake up one morning and magically have all of the answers and know exactly what you’re doing – and that’s actually not the case. Jenn DeWall:                     02:14                     Right. That’s so true. No, there is no one, there’s no blueprint and often even people that are going to college, they come out with no understanding of the things that they actually need to understand to be successful. Aimee Cohen:                   02:27                     Exactly. Don’t even get me started on that soapbox because again, with all of the curriculum that they have, especially in higher education, the one thing they never teach you how to do is actually then how to use that knowledge to either, you know, start your career, manage your career, navigate just a simple job search process, which is not simple, but it does take, does take education, it takes practice. It takes some really critical information that no one ever teaches you because let me tell you, I do use a whole lot of calculus on a day to day basis and I’m sure people could go back and look up their school curriculum and realize what they have not used. I think every single person should take some sort of career management course. Jenn DeWall:                      03:12                     Right? You need someone that’s going to help you and just show you the ropes so you can, you know, hopefully, avoid some of those like pivotal mistakes that can change your career because that can happen really quick too. Are You Sabotaging Your Success? Aimee Cohen:                   03:23                     Exactly. And that’s sort of what prompted the book, Woman Up: Overcome the Seven Deadly Sins That Sabotage Your Success. So over more than two decades working with individuals and speaking around the country and working with small groups, large groups there’s a lot that we can’t control in our professions and our industries and our organizations, things like that. But we can all take much better control of ourselves. So what I identified a really the seven most common self-sabotaging behaviors that we all commit, but the best part is, is that you know what to do to make sure that those do not derail your career, your success moving forward, how to fix it. Jenn DeWall:                    04:05                  Yeah. How to fix that? Who do you think would benefit from your book, Woman Up? I mean, I’m really excited. I love this, evidently, sins that sabotage your success because sometimes we’re not even aware of the stuff that we’re doing that gets in our way. Like who could use this book and how could it help them? Aimee Cohen:                   04:20                     Okay, well the short answer would be everyone, because again, this is, these are those subconscious sort of behaviors that we do to ourselves and we don’t even realize it. And we do them again and again and again. And it really is not until somebody kind of brings it to your attention, but more importantly, you know, cause I just, I don’t believe in just presenting the problem without also offering really simple actionable solutions that can make an enormous difference in managing your career. Jenn DeWall:                      04:50                     Hey, and we need those actions. I mean, and especially when they’re simple because when they’re too big and too grandiose, I can just feel like, can I even do that? I’m not even sure I can do that. I’m already way too confused right now about what’s going on. So it’s nice that they’re digestible and small actionable things that they can do. Aimee Cohen:                   05:06                     Absolutely. I mean it is the small things that really add up to the greatest amount of success. And I’ll give you a perfect example and because this is absolutely rampant when I’m out talking to people and it is under the um, kindness conundrum chapter in the book and how women especially, um, really are just paranoid about being labeled, you know, the dreaded B word, especially in the office place. And so what do they do? They err on the side of being so nice, so cordial, so conciliatory that they are constantly apologizing for everything. And this, over apologizing is one of the things, one totally subconscious. People don’t even know that they’re doing it. But for women, I mean just this tremendous desire and tendency to want to keep the peace. You want to be nice. You want everybody to like you. And so if you’re walking into somebody’s office and the first thing you say, Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. You are undermining your authority, your credibility in the workplace and you don’t even know you’re doing it. Jenn DeWall:                      06:19                     Great. You’re killing your own confidence. And it’s easy. I mean, I know I’ve been there definitely where you just want everyone to like you who doesn’t, right? Like I, I love getting along with my colleagues and sometimes I still misinterpret getting along as the need to do instead of recognizing that sometimes we, it pays to be assertive and to set those boundaries because you’re actually going to go further and your result. Cause I know that too more than I try to pretend to keep the BS. I get frustrated or that resentment starts to build and it’s all really my own fault because I want to keep the peace and I don’t say anything. Aimee Cohen:                   06:51                     Exactly. We do it to ourselves. And so once you realize, if you fall into sort of that category of being an over apologizer, those simple things that you can do, one, you want to be aware of it because I mean apologizing is a really strong leadership quality and trait. You know, you do need to take responsibility and take ownership if you’ve actually made a mistake. Okay, so that aside, so the first thing is, I mean, determine whether or not the, the egregious error is apology worthy. Have you actually done something that is worthy of an apology? 99% of the time that does not qualify. So if you find yourself just apologizing for everything, every sort of, you know, misdemeanor misstep, you walk into a room, I’m, I’m sorry for breathing. I mean, whatever you’re sorry for, then it’s time to learn a new language. So simple things. Substituting, I’m sorry for, excuse me. Pardon me, I didn’t hear you. Do you have a minute? Is this a good time? Jenn DeWall:                      07:56                     I love that switch. Just the simple language piece of thinking. How can we say it in a different way so we don’t have to kill our confidence in the process and we can actually still have a proper conversation with someone. Aimee Cohen:                   08:07                     Exactly. You know, and because men don’t walk around apologizing all the time and you know, but for women we do it and we don’t even realize it that this is one of those career killers that we can easily fix. Jenn DeWall:                      08:25                     I love this. I love, again, keyword, easy, easy. And you know, I think it’s great to so many of our listeners that, you know, struggle with just even anxiety. Knowing that it’s okay to not apologize. You know, it’s understandable that we might sit and think in our heads about all the things we could have done, but it’s okay. There are other options for how we can do it, but it’s up to us to step into our confidence. Stop apologizing. Aimee Cohen:                   08:49                     Exactly. I mean there’s, there’s a lot of other things to do and so one is just sort of manage that impulse to just blurt out an apology at every given moment. It may really sort of, you know, use your language skills, boost your confidence in a way that is really going to make a difference and also move your career in the direction you wanted to go. Jenn DeWall:                      09:11                     So your, your book talks about, you know, how we can overcome the seven deadly sins that sabotage your success. What are some of the ways that people sabotage their success? Aimee Cohen:                   09:22                     Well, not only is it over apologizing, but a big one, you know, especially for women is around sort of this perfectionism prison. It is just being trapped in this idea that everything has to be perfect. And when it comes to managing your career, the way that this shows up is in terms of taking risks, identifying opportunities and making decisions. So studies have shown that men and women evaluating job descriptions, okay, women really want to have nearly a hundred percent of that job description, meaning every requirement, every qualification, what is preferred? Mandatory. It doesn’t matter. They want 100% before they feel confident enough to put their name. And for the running, men need barely 60% Jenn DeWall:                     10:13                     wow. Aimee Cohen:                   10:14                     Because they think, well, I’ve got more than half, right? I’ll learn the rest on the job. Surround myself with really good people, I’ll be good to go. But so women, we want to be the expert first and then find the opportunity. Men find the opportunity and then worry about becoming the expert. So it’s very much this idea of this kind of strike while the iron is hot kind of mentality. Women, we want to make sure that all of our dogs are perfectly in a row. It’s the perfect time. I’m perfectly qualified. Everything has to be perfect before we’ll actually say yes and there really is no such thing. And so when you start thinking about it and start thinking about, so what are all the opportunities that I have missed that I said no to that I pulled myself out of the running that I self-selected because it was not going to be perfect or there was not a perfect guarantee of the outcome. Jenn DeWall:                      11:13                     Right. Well, it’s easy to think about that because the, you keep postponing success, right? Well if at once, I get this, once I get this, once I get this, well you could also be 90 years old by the time that you actually feel fully ready. Aimee Cohen:                    11:27                     Exactly. Nobody’s ever fully ready. That’s the whole point. And so there’s actually an example that I use from a client of mine. She’s a super successful attorney and she was sitting on our professional board and the board president term was ending and she got nominated to be board president. And so she calls me and first thing out of her mouth is, you’re never going to believe, which I was love when all the calls start off. You’re never going to believe. And she said, I just got nominated to be board president. And I said, that’s fantastic. Congratulations. What are you going to do? And she said, well, I couldn’t possibly accept the nomination. And she said, so here’s what I’m going to do. I have a plan because you’re always women. We always want to have a plan. Okay, here’s my plan. I’m going to spend the next two years, cause it’s a two-year term and I’m going to learn and shadow and mirror. Aimee Cohen:                   12:21                     I’m going to take a class and I’m sure there’s a Webinar and I’m going to do yoga, I’m going to meditate, I’m gonna talk to my sister, all my girlfriends and I’m gonna practice, practice, practice. And then I’m sure that in two years I will be perfectly prepared for this position. And, and she said, you know, because I’m not ready right now. I have never been president before. So think about that statement. Cause what I said, well that’s pretty much how it works. No one’s ever been president before, right? Right. You grow into the role. And so, and I said, so think about this. So you’re going to do all of this practice, all of this preparation for two years. What if the opportunity doesn’t exist in two years? And she said, I never thought about that. And so I said, all of those nerves that you’re feeling, all of that discomfort, borderline nausea that you are sort of struggling with, that’s the good stuff. That’s where the growth happens. That’s where you know that just on the other side of that you get to a whole nother level because as adults, the only way that we grow and learn is when we feel uncomfortable. I was like, do you want to be excited about that? Because you’re about to catapult yourself to another plateau. So you want to run towards that discomfort, not away from it. Jenn DeWall:                      13:46                     Right. Comfort should scare you. Comfort zone. Aimee Cohen:                    13:49                      It should as even doesn’t scare you at least a little bit. It’s not worth it. Jenn DeWall:                      13:53                     Right? And it’s, I mean it’s so easy to forget. We forget about all of our success and especially the further into our career we get, or maybe the more specialist we get in our industry, it’s really easy to think why can’t possibly do that. Cause you forget about all the times that you were vulnerable and didn’t know the heck you were doing and still figured it out. Exactly. It’s like, how do we do this? I always like to say that it’s like you show some your resume and it’s completely blank because you’ve forgotten all of your accomplishments in what you did and how you’ve overcome so much. So many challenges that made you where you are today. Learn to Brag Aimee Cohen:                   14:24                     Exactly. I mean, so this is what happens because people, everybody to the most part, you know, really suffers from professional amnesia. Okay. I mean we barely remember what we had for breakfast, much less what has happened over time. And what happens is, is that especially, I mean so many of my clients and the people that I talk to, classic overachievers, right? As you know, you cross something off your to do list, you a great accomplishment and then what happens, you’re on to the next. Nobody ever stops captures that success in a way that you should. So one of the biggest tips that I get, again, super easy but so, so effective is I make it mandatory for all of my clients. So if there’s any of my clients listening, you’ll laugh about this is that everybody should have a brag book. Oh, what is a brag book? Aimee Cohen:                   15:18                     Great question you ask because what I ask audiences is like who knows what a brand book is? Nobody knows it is a success journal. It is a way to track and log and catalog all of your successes, your accomplishments, your achievements. Because the one thing you don’t want to rely on is your memory, right? And so what the brand book does is, and it only contains positive information. Okay? So we’re not going in there and saying, I really failed at work today. That’s not what the Brag book is for. There are other books for that. It is just for positive information of any size. Because here’s what’s also important is those small successes lead to huge successes. And so you want to build that momentum and you want to stop and acknowledge and celebrate it. And so what the brand book does is a few things. Aimee Cohen:                   16:10                     One is, again, so you don’t have to rely on your memory, but now you have the information and the tests that I always ask is that if you got the call, the Jen, your dream job is right here in front of you. All you have to do is send me an updated resume in the next five minutes. Could you do it? I honestly don’t think I card. Congratulations. You’d be completely normal. And so because most people can’t, and so knowing that your resume is really a success story, you now would be able to go back to your brag book and in a matter of seconds, update your resume to send off for that dream job because let’s be honest, you will always want to operate from a position of power, not one of panic. I like that distinction. Power versus piano. Absolutely. Nobody’s at their best. When they’re panic it, your brain gets hijacked, your memory shuts down you, I mean, that’s why they call it panic situation because that’s what it feels like. Aimee Cohen:                   17:13                     So one, you can update your resume at a moment’s notice. Number two is everybody’s favorite activity, which is a performance review, right? Where you have to go in and justify your existence at an organization and remind that person what you have done over the last six or 12 months. Again, a near-impossible task to have that memory recall for information, stats, figures, you know, anything that you have done. And then the third real benefit of a brag book is that we all have highs and lows in our careers. Absolutely. And when you’re in a low, it is really hard to remember those highs because nothing is going well. And so when you need to remind yourself what a rock star you are, you need to have a place to go back to and look at just to give yourself that boost of, okay, I have done a lot, I can do this. You know what? I’ve also been through worse and look at everything that I have achieved. Okay, back on the positive bandwagon. And it is a power of positivity that again, this is where you have to be sort of your own BFF in this role because we all have those friends. We all have the, you know, the greatest cheerleaders in our lives. You call them and go, okay, I don’t think I’ve done anything you have. You’re fantastic. You’re smart, you’re wonderful. All of those things, you’ve gotta be able to do that for yourself. Jenn DeWall:                      18:42                     Right. And I love the distinction too of really like reflecting on that and saying, okay, I’ve been through worse, or I handled that situation in the past and look at how I overcame it. I may have some of the same emotions like I might be crying, I might be anxious or stressed, but I did that in the past and I still came through it and I’m a better person for it. Aimee Cohen:                   19:00                     Exactly. It, it’s really about sort of building that resilience muscle. And I mean, I’ll walk my clients through all the time, sort of rock star moments. Those are those moments where almost like on a visceral level, you can transport yourself back to those highlights. You know when you were at your peak performance, when everything just, it just, the stars were aligned. It was the perfect storm in the best possible way. You could do no wrong, you know you were at that pinnacle and so how do you get back to that? You know and cause one. Again, you can use it to boost your confidence when you think of those rock star moments, but also too, it gives you a great perspective when you think about, okay, I’ve been through worse, I’ve dealt with worse. Whatever’s right in front of you, it brings a back down to a manageable size. Jenn DeWall:                      19:52                     Oh, I love this conversation! I mean so much great knowledge for all of our listeners and we all need to hear that. Own Your Career Development Jenn DeWall:                      21:06                     I know that one of the things that we were going to talk about today is what are the areas that you have deep expertise in? It’s how to own your career development. So how can you, you gave us already so much so they can do easy steps like the brag book, but how can they own their career development? How can people do that when they feel like I’m just here, I guess I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to be too pushy. Maybe I have to wait, maybe I’m not ready. How can people own their career development? Aimee Cohen:                   21:39                     So again, simple but not always easy. So the first thing that I always talk about is [inaudible] for so long and it still exists. This idea that especially for women that if you just do a really good job, just put your head down and just work harder than anybody else work longer than everybody else. At some point, somebody is going to recognize how brilliant you are, tap you on the shoulder and seamlessly carry you. Yeah, through a spectacular career. And it’s not that that can’t happen, but we don’t want to rely on that strategy. I would say that’s the hope and a prayer, right? Strategy when it comes to managing your career. So everything that I talk about is sort of this, this proactive shift. It is from moving from passively short, sort of floating through your career to proactively managing your career. And the first thing is, is you need to have an agenda. You need to know where you are going. Jenn DeWall:                      22:42                     I’ve never, you know, you hear about an agenda for a meeting, but you never hear it for yourself. Like what does that mean? Aimee Cohen:                   22:48                     That means it’s a goal. What do you want to achieve next? And just because you’re in one seat doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to always be in that seat. So what is your plan? What is your next step and how are you going to get there? Because I guarantee you men always have a plan. They’re very vocal about it. Okay? In five years I’m going to be sitting in that corner office. I’m going to be on the C suite, right? Whatever it is. Women need a plan. And it is okay to more assertively design your career. Cause there’s a big difference between having a career by design versus one by default. Because if you are not managing your career, I promise you somebody else’s managing it for you. So the first thing is get a goal, have an agenda, and figure out what all of those little steps are along the way. The next piece to managing your career is all about visibility. Aimee Cohen:                   23:46                     Again, this idea that you’re just going to sort of hunker down, put the blinders on. I’m just going to do a really good job. No, you need to understand that Harvard, Stanford and the Carnegie Institute did a study and when it comes to overall job and career success, 85% of your success is attributed to soft skills. Holy cow, 85% that means only 15% is hard skills, technical knowledge, industry knowledge, expertise, things like that. 85% are all of those soft, interpersonal, emotional intelligence sort of skills and that people pay the least amount of time with. So this is about your network. This is about your visibility internally, externally, online. Do people know you? And more importantly, do they know what you do and the value that you bring? Are You well connected? No. Do you have a mentor, a sponsor? Do you sit on a board? Because invisibility when it comes to your career means dispense ability, Jenn DeWall:                      24:56                     right? They have to see you. What are your contributions and do you, you know, and it’s true, people are, I think in my twenties I used to have that belief of the rule that, you know, if I was at my computer after five o’clock I always loved to like I was working harder and that’s kind of what you, what I grew up in. And then the more that I was in it, I realized, wait, but I am really efficient so why would I stay here longer than I have to to get this job done? And I feel like even cutting that cord was really hard to finally set boundaries to say like, I’m not gonna stay here. I’m not going to do that. Like that visibility, piece doesn’t matter. There are different ways that I can show my value and contribution. Aimee Cohen:                   25:35                     Exactly. I mean, and again, that speaks directly to this idea that if we just work harder longer, you know, if we do more, if we say yes to everything, those, that’s the secret to success. And I’m telling you, those are the things that will actually kill your career faster. It is really about, it is about that networking part, you know, are you, are you sort of in the right places doing the right things? Are you paying attention to those relationships, those quality connections that you have in terms of, you know, making those pivotal moves decisions throughout your career? Jenn DeWall:                      26:16                     You mean, what are some examples of some individuals that you’ve worked with that have really taken ownership in that regard for their career and found ways to increase their visibility. Your Personal Brand Aimee Cohen:                   26:26                     So many ways. So you know, I mean a big part is, you know, first of all, identifying again what, what’s your goal? What are you trying to achieve? And this is really, this comes into play, especially when, let’s say you have, you’ve been considered a promotion couple of times and you’re being passed over again. And again, this is where you do have to do that deep dive. You do have to do that internal inventory. So what am I not doing? And oftentimes again, it really is a matter of those soft skills. And because just being a hard worker, you don’t, having a strong work ethic is not enough. This is also too about really being able to develop your personal brand and your value proposition. Jenn DeWall:                      27:14                     What is a personal brand? You know, it’s something that I think some people are really familiar with and understands what it is and for others, when we think of just the word itself, a brand, we just probably think of what we shop, what we use. We don’t necessarily think about ourselves as a brand. Could you tell our listeners what that means? Aimee Cohen:                   27:32                     Well, we could spend the whole time talking about a brand, but you talked about sort of branding in terms of what we, what we buy, you know, I mean all sorts of consumer companies who are really good job of branding and what branding does is it does two things. One, it distinguishes you in the marketplace and it creates lifelong loyalty. Okay. I’ve been using crest toothpaste since I was a kid. I don’t know why. I don’t know if it’s any better than any other toothpaste. So, I mean, just think of the products that you use just naturally, intuitively, instinctively, over and over and over. You know, you’ll look for it on the shelf. You grab it time and time again. The other example that I use a branding when I’m working with my clients to develop this, because again, this is again, one of those things that’s simple but not easy. Aimee Cohen:                   28:20                     Think of McDonald’s, okay? So McDonald’s is not known for its fine dining experience, right? Nobody, nobody goes there for that, for that experience. But the reason why there is a McDonald’s that exists on every single corner around the globe is that you can walk into every McDonald’s and get exactly the same French fry in exactly the same way it is. Consistency of experience that so you have now made a promise to your consumers, to your audience, to your customers, and you keep that promise over and over and over. You’ve distinguished yourself in the marketplace, you’re creating loyalty. People know that you’re from Hong Kong to Europe, to Canada and every single street corner in the United States, you can walk into any McDonald’s and get that same French fry. So when I’m working with my clients is figuring out what kind of French fry are you, what does that experience that you are creating? Aimee Cohen:                   29:22                     If there are, I’ll use myself as an example. If there are a hundred other career experts, how do you stand out accountants? How do you stand out attorneys, what makes you unique and what sort of makes people want to come back for more? Another way that I sort of talk about it terms of, you know, how can you, you know, also manage your career. Big Part of it is your executive and leadership presence because you need to appear and your presence needed to scream executive in all ways, all ways. So your behavior, your communication, your image. Does it say not only confidence, but it says here, I can absolutely represent this organization. I can be a brand ambassador if you will. You know you want me attached to your company internally, externally in every way possible. That’s additional value in a big part of the brand, Jenn DeWall:                      30:22                     Right? Well, it is. It’s all about managing your perception. What do people think of you and I think you know, early in your career I struggled with that. I’ll, I’ll say that for myself personally, I struggled with not understanding what perception was, right? Like the unfairness of it of saying, but wait, I know I laugh a lot, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care because I definitely had feedback from my first job out of college that I laughed too much and it was so interesting because I actually was very type A and very focused on my job. I just also have that playful personality. But you know what? It’s not to say that that person that gave me the feedback was bad. It’s just understanding what perception is and that based on your perception and image, people are making assumptions about how you can show up and do things. So you want to be more strategic about it instead of where I was emotionally reactive and saying, but it’s me. I’m just fine. I swear it’s, you know, I got kind of a little defensive and a little bit sensitive to it. Aimee Cohen:                   31:16                     It’s true. Perception is a reality, especially when it comes to your career. So think about this. So your, your executive presence is, is that perception which happens within the first seven seconds, seven seconds, seven seconds is that first impression. Okay? And it’s seven seconds for it to become a conscious and indelible thought in somebody’s mind. It is their opinion. It is their judgment. Seven seconds. So are you managing those seven seconds in the best possible way? So your presence is what people think of you. The first impression, your brand is what people say with that lasting impression after you’ve left the room. You know, so what lingers, what does that experience? How do they talk about you when you’re not in the room? And so think about this. Your executive presence again, those three components, behavior, communication and image account for 30% of what it takes to get a promotion. Wow. 30% so again, there’s a lot of things that you can’t control in your world, right? If the market crashes, if your organization goes through a merger and acquisition, I mean all sorts of things are beyond your control. Everybody can do a much better job of controlling themselves, especially when it comes to perception, presence, and branding. Jenn DeWall:                      32:40                     I love that and it’s, it’s really empowering the way that you describe it because it gives you that feeling that hey, to everyone listening, you have full control over this. Aimee just gave you full permission and now you have to do that for yourself. You have full control. Aimee Cohen:                   32:55                     Absolutely. And through all the control freaks out there, I’m right there with you. This is the best news possible is because instead of feeling like your career is always happening to you, right? I mean, what I spend the big majority of my time coaching and speaking on is learning how to sort of be in that driver’s seat of your career. You know, and really sort of being, knowing that you can take it from point a to point B, not just when you have to, but when you want to. You have all of the tools that you already need. I’m a big believer of the whole sort of image of Dorothy and the ruby slippers. You have everything that you need inside. You just have to know it. You just have to tap into it in the best possible way and use it to your advantage. Jenn DeWall:                      33:39                     What happens when maybe you haven’t created the best reputation or that best first impression and maybe you’re getting turned over for promotions or looked over for promotions, not even asked to consider applying for a job. How, what type of advice would you have for those people where it may seem that kind of their time at that organization may be expiring? Do you stick it out and try to change that behavior? Do you try and go to different pastures and hit the start over button? Cause I know that that’s a true case sometimes just like in my, the way that I responded earlier in my career, I made some mistakes and it’s hard to pick yourself back up and I know there’s going to be other people that have likely made some mistakes that they wish they didn’t do but turn through there. That’s where they are right now. You Are Not Stuck Aimee Cohen:                   34:25                     Well, I mean let’s just be honest, there’s not enough time in the day for me to list or enumerate all of the mistakes that I have made. And so I am right there with you and everybody has, and I always say this is the information that I wished I had earlier in my career. And it’s not that you’re not going to make mistakes, but then how do you manage it? How do you manage your reputation? How do you manage or how do you sort of fix, uh, you know, a situation where that first impression did not go the way that you wanted or you are for whatever reason, whether it’s guilt by association, something happens in the office and you just kind of get, you know, you get labeled in a certain way or pigeonholed in a way that is a movable. So, you know, when I’m working with clients, I always say you have three options to every situation. Aimee Cohen:                   35:15                     You can try to change it except it or leave it. And, and so weighing out all of those factors, but that there’s still power in that decision because you can try to change it. And sometimes there’s a lot that you can do. But to be honest, sometimes there is nothing that you can do. Sometimes really the best move is a clean slate. Sometimes the move or the best decision or the best realization is that, okay, maybe I’m not aligned with the culture of this organization. Maybe I’m not a good fit. Because you know, one of the hardest things to change it is a culture that an organization has. And so I’m a big believer that people should be doing sort of, you know, constant evaluation and reevaluation of who they are, where they are, what their career looks like, and you know, and if it’s time to make a change, just know that you are not stuck. Aimee Cohen:                   36:09                     One of the worst feelings in the world is feeling like you are powerless. The less that you have no recourse, that you have no options. And so believe me, I mean, there are so many times that you know, working with people, I work with people when they have absolutely hit rock bottom, they don’t are. It’s so hard. It’s so emotional. And you know, we’re talking about something that sort of takes place in our professional side of our lives, but it feels so personal. You know, we’re one person. We are one and the same. All of our lives are fully integrated, the personal and the professional. And so it takes a toll. It causes people to have a complete crisis of confidence. You know, especially the job search process or being turned down for a promotion, those sorts of things. It is designed to absolutely rock your world specifically. And so what do you do? You know, how do you manage that? How do you navigate it? And the first thing that I can tell anybody, if you are in that situation and listening today, you are absolutely not alone. Jenn DeWall:                      37:14                     And that’s so important to hear is that you’re not alone. And for people out there like this, I get, I’m probably giving so much work, my own personal experience, but it’s, it’s hard, you know, especially when you attach a lot of who you are to your career success as I’m someone that does that. And I think that’s what drives the craziness of Type A’s and working so hard-  because I had attached so much, right, wrong or indifferent, that’s how I’m wired. And so when things don’t work out the way they want to, it is debilitating and it sucks. Aimee Cohen:                   37:43                     It’s devastating. It’s devastating. I mean, for a lot of people, you know, there’s so much of our identity is tied to our title, our organization, our success, whatever that looks like. And when that takes a hit, so does the ego. So does the confidence it, it does, it, it absolutely rocks your world. And so how do you pick up those pieces? How do you put it back together? How do you make better choices, better decisions? And a lot of it is also, you know when I’m working with clients, one of the first steps is to really also define success for you. What does success look like for you? Because when we spend a lot of time comparing ourselves to everybody else, you mean especially now I’m the of social media. I mean everybody suffers from FOMO, right? Right. Fear of missing out or I should be doing this or look with so and so was doing and I should be further along in my career. I should have more money. Oh, the should’ve, could’ve, look what somebody else’s doing that, that comparison is, is also another, you know, really detrimental, um, sort of reality in our world right now that we are constantly battling against. Jenn DeWall:                      39:08                     Yeah. We just grab onto it and I think it’s all, you know, it’s that subconscious piece, right? It’s just looking. It’s so easy to look through social media and all of a sudden, you know, you’re on Instagram and 10 minutes in and you’re really just judging yourself because you’re not on that trip in Italy or you don’t have that amazing job that takes you all around the world or tasty to the nicest dinners. Or maybe you have so much money that you buy everything that you could want. It’s so easy. It happens so quickly, Aimee Cohen:                   39:34                     So quickly. I mean, you know, you’re looking at everybody else’s highlight reel one second and to your point then the next minute, you know you’re home in bed with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s for a week. Feeling so horrible about yourself, and again, feeling powerless or stuck or feeling like that. You know this is as good as it’s ever going to get. And I will tell you that I can say this because I’ve nearly a hundred percent success rate with my clients. No one ever has to settle ever. It’s not as good as it’s going to get because it can get so much better than you ever imagined. Jenn DeWall:                      40:09                     Oh my gosh, I love this. I know everyone at home is, when do we loving this too? Because you’re giving them that permission to say, I can make a difference. I can make a change. Jenn DeWall:                      41:11                     and we keep talking about so many wonderful parts of how to really own your career development. But I know that we were a little off course there and so we just talked about having that agenda and setting that goal. How else can you own your career development? Aimee Cohen:                   41:26                     Well, I mean there are things that you can do. I mean obviously, you do want to be a lifelong learner. You know, it’s really important more than ever that you are constantly keeping your skills current and relevant and investing in yourself, right? In terms of your own growth and development personally and professionally, there is no finish line. And so if you are fortunate enough to work for an organization that also shares that same value, fantastic. Doesn’t mean that you also can’t go above and beyond and do more. And if you are either on your own or you work for an organization where that’s not part of their offering, then you do want to take it upon yourself. Again, moving from the passive to the proactive. You want to make sure that your skills, your knowledge, you know in every aspect of your career is up to date, that you are anticipating what’s coming down the pipeline, that you’re in front of it, that you are prepared, that you are constantly positioning yourself so you are marketable and competitive. Things happen so fast now that you can easily be obsolete and you just want to make sure that does not happen to you. Jenn DeWall:                      42:38                     Right. Your skills can quickly become, you know, not necessarily as well I guess utilized, demanded just based on how fast that technology has changed things. Maybe the direction that your organization is going in and it is important to stay one step ahead. And you know, when you think about lifelong learning, is it really more about the technical skills? Is it about the personal development piece or do you see it as both? Stress, Burnout and Disengagement Aimee Cohen:                   43:02                     Well going back to this idea that we are fully, you know, one integrated person is, I do think it’s both, you know, wholeheartedly and going back to that 85/15% split, you know, 85% of our success is soft skills. We have to have those really powerful and impactful interpersonal skills and abilities. And so, you know, if you’re struggling with emotional intelligence, for instance, I mean that’s something that I would invest in wholeheartedly. You can totally move the needle on that and make drastic improvements. If you feel like, you know, technology is holding you back and you’re going to be overrun by the millennials that are going to be taking over the workforce by 2020 then you do need to invest in those hard skills. I mean, this is where you do want to take that, that honest inventory of what needs some tweaking, what needs a little improvement, because you don’t want to be caught flat-footed. You don’t want to be blindsided and you want to set yourself up for success and be the best that you can. Jenn DeWall:                      44:02                     Absolutely. And I know that everyone listening to this, right, like that’s they’re already taking one step in that direction because they are listening to a podcast to support their personal development, which is fantastic. And I liked the personal inventory piece about thinking, you know, being strategic and recognizing that what are the things in your industry or in your job that continuously change and how can you stay current to them. Maybe it is newspaper or meat, reading the newspaper or magazines or going and reading the articles or listening to podcasts or taking additional classes, but really taking ownership because in any career you can quickly become obsolete once you stop that learning process. Aimee Cohen:                   44:42                     Absolutely. And, and also too, it’s recognizing that your career life is a marathon. It’s not a sprint. And so a big focus now more than ever is because I mean people are absolutely working themselves to death. Yes. I mean such a bad problem. It really is. I mean health issues are on the rise. Mental health issues are, you know, at an all-time high, I mean stress, burnout, fatigue. I mean people are crashing in record numbers. And so this is also about, you know when it comes to personal inventory, you do need to look at your own health and wellness. You have to take care of yourself. I mean, we all live very complicated and busy lives. And I know that there’s also this, you know, I’m so busy competition that that exists as well. Everybody thinks that you know, you know, I, I work 12 hours a day while I work 15 hours a day. Aimee Cohen:                   45:40                     Well, I, you know, and plus I have two kids. Okay, I have 12 kids, right? There’s always gonna be somebody that has more than that is doing more. But you know, you cannot afford to crash. So is your health and wellbeing, are you taking care of yourself so you can go the distance? So you do show up each and every day as your best self. And so when those opportunities exist, are you in a position to optimize those opportunities? You know, do you have that, that clear focus, that mental energy, that reserve that you need to, you know, to really sort of, again, move the needle on your career? Or are you just spent, are you just done? You know, cause I will tell you if you are in there, I’m sure there are people listening right now. If you are at the burnout phase, it’s going to take more than a weekend because let’s be honest, there are so many people that are at that phase where they are disengaged. Aimee Cohen:                   46:40                     We are at a disengagement epic rate right now of people that are disengaged at work. They’re over, they’re overworked, they are too busy, they’re overrun. And we wear that as a badge of honor, right, right. I mean like how much coffee can you drink because you only get two hours of sleep at night. We wear that as a badge of honor and we are plugged in and connected 24 seven three 65 there is no relief. There is no release. And so this is, this is the reason why burnout and fatigue, exhaustion, all of the disconnection disengagement. Again, is that a record high and there is not. We’re, we’re on the brink of a long weekend. Right? If you’re thinking that these three days off, I’m using air quotes because nobody’s ever off, right, is going to cure it and by Tuesday morning you’re going to go back to the office fresh as a daisy. Aimee Cohen:                   47:38                     That’s not the case. You have got to take care of yourself every single day. You need to disconnect. You need to set better boundaries. You need to invest in your health and wellbeing and your fitness and you know, f in healthy relationships in your life. You know, for some people it’s time to clean house, right? Not just your closets, the people in your life, other toxic relationships that you need to look at, examine and maybe make some decisions about in addition to your wardrobe. You know, all sorts of things play a critical role in all of this. Are you doing things that actually feed your soul? Are you volunteering and you know, are you giving back? Are you helping others? You mean all of these things, all of these, um, sort of components add up to an overall, not just a successful career. Cause yes, that’s what I talk about. But it’s about being a successful person, having a successful life and a career is an important part of that life. But it’s just a part of it. Jenn DeWall:                      48:44                     Great. It’s not the full thing. And I love that you brought up mental health and how that is really impacting organizations across the country, across the world as people are being asked to do more and they’re working their hardest and yes, there’s that badge of honor. I worked 12 hours yesterday. And you know that competition and that feeling that we’re not good enough or we’re not enough if we’re not doing what they are and you know, mental health, they think for a while it’s been kind of that elephant in the room and the car or in your organization that hasn’t really been addressed. And I’m so happy that it’s something that more organizations are really looking at. How can we make that better? And that’s not to say all because there are definitely still some organizations that maybe aren’t aware of it, but how can you make that better? And you know, the other piece I think of is not only that personal fatigue and that stress and never feeling like you’re good enough and that you have it all together, but also that workplace loneliness too, that reason to it and how people don’t feel as connected because we’re all doing so many different things. Or maybe we’re a remote employee and we don’t have that connection. Aimee Cohen:                   49:46                     Exactly. And I mean it’s just, it’s just so interesting because May is mental health awareness month. Jenn DeWall:                     49:51                     Oh I did not know that. Aimee Cohen:                   49:53                     So it, you know, it’s shining a light on it but also recognize that mental health-related issues. So whether it’s stress, burnout, fatigue, depression, all of those things. So think about it in terms of this way it costs our US economy billions of dollars every single year in loss of productivity, miss days at work. Um, you know, healthcare-related expenses, all sorts of things. Because just when you think that you’ve, you’ve achieved whatever you’ve achieved, you’re at the bar, the bar gets raised and you’re expected to do more with less. And if you don’t, then you think is going to swoop in and steal your position. And so, you know, there is a tendency just to say yes to everything and take on more. And especially for women. I, I talk a lot about this, especially around the competency curse, is that we really do think that we can do it all and we can do it all by ourselves. Aimee Cohen:                   50:53                     Right, right. Is that, you know, at, you know, underneath all of our outfits there is a wonder Woman Cape and the magic bracelets. I do believe that that, that, and that’s what we all believe, but we have a breaking point and you don’t ever want to get there, you know, and you do want to take care of yourself and, and managing it. And this whole idea of disconnection again is at an all-time high. And you know, I just think that there is such a hunger, there is just such a need on a very sort of cellular level for people to be really connected. And so this is sort of moving away from kind of that transactional type of career to a much more impactful, meaningful career. I cannot tell you how many times that, you know, I’m working with clients and it’s the biggest thing that is missing. Aimee Cohen:                   51:56                     So based on, you know, just any kind of checklist, you’ll look at this person and from the outside, super successful VP title, more money than they know what to do with trips galore, whatever they need, right? But there is a hole that exists, a void. There is a lack of fulfillment, joy, overall satisfaction that is missing from so many people. And I know that it’s sort of that, um, kind of really tricky and elusive p-word when we’re talking about passion. But what is your passion? What is your purpose? Why are you here? And you know, really kind of taking or examining and looking at sort of what is the answer to that question? I am a big believer, you know, it’s a longer story than we have today, but I was not necessarily born a career coach, but I was born to be a career coach. There’s no question in my mind. So what were you born to be? And but also simultaneously, I’m a realist. And sometimes the passion and your profession don’t always align in the perfect sort of way, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t also explore and fill that passion and that need and that purpose in other ways in your life. There’s nothing to say. You can’t piecemeal this together. Right. And it’s thinking that you know, it’s not just about that they directly align, it’s, it’s on us also Jenn DeWall:                      53:26                     To find our own passions and recognizing that area of impact and that area of meaning. And it, you know, it’s not always our bosses fault or the organization’s fault. It’s on us to really like ignite that passion. We can’t blame anyone else for ourselves, but not having that. And that’s a big piece I think about career development is remembering that it can be done, but you have to own it. Like, we can’t put that on anyone else. Aimee Cohen:                   53:49                     Exactly. And that’s why I mean Woman Up, it really is that rallying cry to pull on your own big girl panties and take control of all of these things. I mean, don’t wait for somebody to either drive your career, tell you what your passion is, lay out the perfect opportunity at the perfect time, right in front of you. No, I mean, this is, you’ve got to take ownership of it, you know, and you do need to, you know, to drive all of these sorts of things in a way that’s important to you. Jenn DeWall:                      54:21                     Aimee, one last question. How do you help people find their passion? I know that’s gotta be something that you might help people do. Is it, am I getting that right? Aimee Cohen:                   54:29                     You are. I mean, I do it in the, in the context of, of sort of, you know, their career path and what they want to do and if it’s aligned if it’s not aligned, those sorts of things. But finding your passion is one of those, um, you know, really sort of deep conversations. But the way that I do it is yes, it is a deep dive, you know, into you what you want, what your interests are, what your strengths are, you know, all of those sorts of things. And then also attaching a strategy to it. So that’s where I made differ from others is that it’s passion with strategy, you know, so it doesn’t just sort of live kind of in this dreamlike state. I wish I could. I wonder if that, you know, this would be possible. No, let’s turn your passion into a possibility and then not just a possibility, a probability and make that happen. It’s all about identifying the goal, make the plan, work the plan, achieve the goal. What is Your Leadership Habit Jenn DeWall:                      55:29                     I love it. Thank you so much. And I have one closing question and that’s one question that we ask everyone that we interview, which is, what is your leadership habits for success? Aimee Cohen:                   55:41                     Wow. Well, my leadership habit is, you know, it’s, it’s similar to sort of what we were talking about today. I control what I can control absolutely. From branding and presence and all of those things. But my leadership habit actually was something that I had to learn and we’ve talked about it today, is that no one ever achieves any level of success alone. You need people, you need the right people, you need a tribe, you need allies and advocates and champions and cheerleaders around you. You need to surround yourself with the right people because if you want to go fast, you go alone. You want to go far, you go with others. Jenn DeWall:                      56:24                     Yes. Jenn DeWall:                      56:24                     I love that. Aimee, thank you so much for coming on to The Leadership Habit Podcast. I really enjoyed talking to you today. I feel personally inspired, and you know, I know that other people are also going to have that same impact. So thank you so much for sharing your tips and advice, and we’ll be sharing additional information about how you can contact Aimee. But if you’re interested in the book that we were talking about today, you can find Woman Up: Overcome the Seven Deadly Sins That Sabotages Your Success from Barnes and Noble and Amazon. But Aimee, thank you so much for joining us. We’re so happy to have you. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks so much for joining our conversation with Aimee Cohen. To find out more about Aimee Cohen as a speaker, work with her as a coach or buy her book, Woman Up. Visit her website, http://www.womanuppower.com. You’ll find tips, tools, secrets, and strategies to overcome the sins that sabotage your career success.   The post Episode 7: Take Charge of Your Career with Legendary Career Coach Aimee Cohen appeared first on Crestcom International.

In this episode, Jenn DeWall talks to Customer Service expert and Chief Amazement Officer, Shep Hyken. Shep is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author and has been inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame for lifetime achievement in the speaking profession. Shep is also a Crestcom Faculty Member featured in our Captivate Your Customer module. Jenn and Shep discuss how brands create a great customer service experience, and how The Convenience Revolution is changing what great customer service looks like today. For more great stuff from Shep Hyken, visit hyken.com, listen to his podcast on Amazing Business Radio, or watch his new show, Be Amazing or Go Home on YouTube or Amazon Prime. Full Transcript: Intro:                                     00:08                     Shep Hyken is the Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations as a customer service and experience expert. SHEP works with companies to build loyal relationships with customers and employees. He is the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of several books on the topic including Be Amazing or Go Home, The Cult of the Customer, The Amazement Revolution, and more. Today we are going to talk to Shep about his latest book, The Convenience Revolution: How to Deliver a Customer Service Experience that Disrupts the Competition and Creates Fierce Loyalty. We hope you enjoy today’s podcast. Meet Shep Hyken Jenn DeWall:                      00:10:20               Hi everyone. Thank you so much for joining and listening to the Leadership Habit Podcast. My name is Jenn DeWall, I’m the Leadership Development Strategist for Crestcom, and today I am talking to Customer Service expert, author, and keynote speaker Shep Hyken. Shep, thank you so much for joining our podcast today. Shep Hyken:                      00:10:42               Jenn, it’s great to be here. You know, I love you. Can’t get enough of you. I’m so excited. Can you tell? Jenn DeWall:                      00:10:47               Shep, for those that don’t know you, I mean, you’re an author, you’ve written, what are you at seven books right now? I mean you- you’re around, you’ve got the industry. One of my favorite parts about your newest book, The Convenience Revolution is that you even have the buy-in from the CEO from Zappos, which is huge. Tony Hsieh. That’s awesome. Shep Hyken:                      00:11:09               He’s a wonderful guy. He’s endorsed three books now. Jenn DeWall:                      00:11:12               Holy Cow! And we know, we all know, especially those that are connected to customer service, that Zappos is really just a great brand in terms of how they maintain their house. Shep Hyken:                      00:11:21               They play at the top of the game. Jenn DeWall:                      00:11:22               Yeah. So Shep, for those that don’t know you, tell us about yourself, let them get to know a little bit more of who Shep Hyken is, and why it’s great to get to know you and how you can help them. Shep Hyken:                      00:11:33               So, Gosh, where do I start? Well, just a little background on me. I started doing magic shows when I was 12 years old, and I did birthday parties. Magic shows were my first customer service lessons from my parents, who told me to write a thank you note and call and thank them again. Find out what tricks they liked and if they’re not talking about the tricks, get rid of those and replace them with tricks they do talk about. And I had no idea that was called customer service, but that’s really what it was. It’s showing appreciation, getting feedback, process improvement based on the feedback- all at age 12. I went on to work in nightclubs, and that was when I was 16 years old. I was working. This is the best! I did comedy and magic at the Playboy Club, which is an unbelievable job for a 16-year-old young man. I’ve got pictures to prove it all! Of when I was working at the club. Anyway, then I went to college, and of course, during all these years, I had summer jobs in addition to my doing my magic and working in clubs. I had “real” jobs in retail, but I graduated college and the company that I was actually thinking I was going to spend the rest of my life in- about four or five months out of college said, we’re selling. And I thought, well, what am I going to do now? So I saw a couple of motivational speakers, Zig Ziglar, the famous great, you know, amazing motivational speaker and Tom Hopkins, who is a sales trainer and the two of them had an event that night. And I went and attended, and I thought, well, I’ve got that entertainment background, and I love the topic of customer service. I’m going to talk about that. I’m going to do this; I’m going to write a speech. So I went to the bookstore, bought a bunch of books- and there weren’t that many to buy back then. I mean if you went to the business section, it was one shelf of books. But I remember some of the first books were like Tom Peters wrote the book, In Search of Excellence, and that was a book that I picked up and around 1983, or whenever it was. It came out, a couple of other books came out at the same time. Anyway, I loved that book, and that’s how it all started. And so just being a speaker and then thanks to the Internet, all of my writing articles and things like that, I started to put content out there, and that’s how you and I met! And now here an opportunity for us to talk about customer service for you, for your customers, your people out there. Jenn DeWall:                      00:14:00               Well, I mean, it’s everywhere, right? Whether it’s with our internal customers as you were talking about- our employees, our peers that we serve, and then our external customers, like where are the people that are actually investing in our product and services? Shep Hyken:                      00:14:15               So what happens on the inside of a company, the way people are treated, the way you serve them, if you treat them like customers, if not even better, that’s how they’re going to treat customers on the outside of the company. Jenn DeWall:                      00:14:27               I love that. And it’s so true because when I’m angry, let’s say if my boss does something and I might get frustrated, you know, it’s natural then to have that carry throughout your day sometimes, right? We can carry that attitude with us and not even notice it that we have a little chip on our shoulder that can impact the way that we treat other people. Shep Hyken:                      00:14:47               And that’s not good. I mean, I, I heard it once, one of my people years and years ago, I don’t remember what caused it, but there was a difference of opinion between us. She was upset. And the way she answered the phone on the next call, I brought her back, and I said, here’s the deal. What happens here in the office- it’s a moment, it’s an interaction. Okay? We agree when we go back to work, we’re totally professional with whoever we encounter, internal or external customers. And I said, because you’re mad at me, you answered that phone in such a way that is almost embarrassing because it’s so against our brand and you’re just upset about something. I mean, at that time she wasn’t. I remember what we talked about- it wasn’t like your job was in jeopardy. But now that you’ve done that, yes, this is your first and only warning you’re going to get about how we treat customers. So what happens here, if you get mad, disagree with something, hey, that’s life. And you know what? It isn’t like we were arguing about something significant. It was kind of crazy; she asked if it was possible that we would ever consider a company car. And I said, you know, that’s a great thing to think about, but no, I’ve never thought about it. I don’t know how that would work. My gut feeling is, why would you need a company car? And it’s because her car wasn’t reliable. I go, that’s interesting, but I guess there’s a bus, there’s some train, whatever. And I think she didn’t like the answer. Jenn DeWall:                      00:16:22               I mean, I will take a company car any day! Shep Hyken:                      00:16:25               Sure. But company cars are not to get you from your place to the office! No, company cars- usually somebody is out on the road traveling on behalf of the company, and you don’t use your personal car for business purposes when you’re going on sales calls. And I don’t think she saw it that way. Jenn DeWall:                      00:16:44               I mean that’d be one of those nice things to have, but that’s definitely not an expected thing unless that’s in your job responsibilities. Shep Hyken:                      00:16:53               All right. So we went too far into the weeds on that one. Let’s get real. Let’s, let’s talk about some good information. How is Customer Service Evolving? Jenn DeWall:                      00:16:59               Yeah. How has customer service evolved over the last five years? How has it changed in the last five years- is it true that there’s a lot of disruption? Shep Hyken:                      00:17:06               Well, if you look at all the numbers last year, for example, New Voice Media came out with their bi-annual study- every two years they come out with it. Last year they said that the year before- because of customer service, 75 billion-with-a-B-billion dollars were lost because people were not happy and they switched to a different brand. So that was lost due to poor customer service. The year before, that number was 62 billion. And two years before that, it was 35 billion. So we’re actually going back about six years. And you’re watching the trend of people switching companies, leaving companies because of poor customer service. And when you look at those numbers, you think, wow, service must be getting worse. But, If you look at another study, the American Customer Satisfaction Index Report that comes out by the University of Michigan every year, you’ll look at all these years, and you’ll start to see there’s actually an increase in customer satisfaction. They’re happier. But wait a minute, they’re leaving faster. And I’ll tell you why they are happier. Almost every sector, including the government, by the way, is getting better at serving their customers. But they aren’t doing, or they aren’t getting better enough, better quickly, enough, better. They aren’t; they aren’t reaching the customer’s expectation. Because here’s what’s happened. Customers no longer compare you to the direct competition that you have within your industry. They compare you to the best service they’ve ever had. You mentioned Zappos when we first started our call. Zappos, Amazon, which happens to be the same company, Ritz Carlton, Four Seasons, the best restaurant you’ve ever gone to, the friendliest people you’ve ever encountered at a restaurant, even if it’s not a big fancy restaurant, the best retail store. Not because of their great reputation. But because there’s this one salesperson that calls you when there’s a sale, has your clothes waiting for you, takes time with you. These are the people in the companies that create a benchmark for others to aspire to be like. And the problem is the customer says, why can’t they be as good as, you know, whoever. And therefore they put the onus on that company to uh, raise their level of customer service. That’s why I think in the last five years, it’s not that service has gotten worse. It’s actually gotten better. But customers have gotten smarter, and this is what they expect. Jenn DeWall:                      00:19:26               And that’s funny that you say that. Because when I had a recent experience with a large retailer that you know, I was trying to make a return, and they weren’t letting me make the return. I was thinking, why can’t you be more like Nordstrom and Kohls? Who are two different retailers that have very, I would say, customer-focused and customer-oriented return policies where it’s yes we can, and we want to do what we can to help. And I didn’t even realize it now that I was comparing those experiences and expecting them to show up in the same way. Shep Hyken:                      00:19:56               And that’s exactly what happened. These other companies set the bar higher for you. Now what’s interesting is that people stand on policy. Most of the policies related to what you experience where they said no, was a policy that was created for the evil people in the world, the ones that are taking advantage of companies. And interestingly, if you take a look at those people and what the loss is by creating this policy. You know, if people stole from us, it probably is not nearly as costly as you saying, I never want to do business with them again- or the cost of trying to maintain the policy. For example, I love the Guitar Center. I play guitar, by the way. Do you want to know things about me? I play guitar with Eric Clapton. Yeah, on Youtube every night I play along with him and Carlos Santana and the Allman Brothers, The Who, The Grateful Dead – everybody! Anybody! I played with all of them on Youtube. So anyway, where am I going with this? Where was I going with this? I lost my train of thought. Jenn DeWall:                      00:21:27               There are some policies that are so old, and they were created for the people that take advantage – Shep Hyken:                      00:21:31               Yes! Guitar Center, yes. Here we go. So Guitar Center, you used to walk into a guitar center up until a few years ago, and there was a desk and a person behind the desk saying, um, can I see what’s in your purse? Uh, I see you’re bringing in a guitar. I need to log it in. So when you walk out, we know you walk out with the same guitar and not the brand new one that’s on the showroom that you switched it with, you know? So basically this was their idea of loss prevention, right? It was costing them several million dollars a year to prevent the loss of people stealing from them. Guess what? The actual losses weren’t nearly as expensive as the cost to try to prevent it. That’s number one. Number two, the aggravation that it caused, the 99% of the customers that were honest was not, it was irritating them, and I don’t want to go through that. I’m going to go find another place. You know, maybe it’s not the Guitar Center, but think about it, you don’t have to go back to that store anymore that has that bad return policy that’s based on people trying to take advantage of it. You can go to another store that will take care of you, and you already mentioned two of them, so it’s already on your mind. So think about what happens. Anyway, I love The Guitar Center; I just loved them as a store, anyway. And my friends who worked there, and I go visit them, and I buy, I bought a bunch of, you know, music and guitars and things like that over the years. What’s interesting is that they dropped it and everybody’s happy, you know, so, and I urge companies to take a look at the policies that they create, the structure they create. Number one, is it customer-focused? Number two, does it make it harder on the customer or easier? Is it just a non-event, is it necessary? And what’s the reason you have it? And you take a look at all of those together. And I think it’d be very helpful for companies to decide, okay, this is good. I hate using that word “policy.” This is a good “guideline” to look at. Guidelines you can bend, policies are tough to break. Jenn DeWall:                      00:23:31               Yeah. You brought up another thing. I tried to purchase contacts, and I had to submit my prescription, and there were just some issues with the contact company processing it. And so they eventually just canceled my account without telling me. So I did. I was waiting for my contacts, and they never get here, and then I reached back out to them, and they said, we’re so sorry we did this. And then they tried to run it again. Well my FSA, which is the method of payment that I used, had initially run it, and then they refunded it. So then the contact company told me they couldn’t help me because my card was declining. And then I call the number on the back of my insurance card, and they also tell me there’s a 30-day hold of when they’ll release the funds back to my account so they can’t help me. There’s nothing they can do, which means that then I individually have to pay for it out of my personal account and then figure out what forms I need to fill out to submit the amount for what I paid for. It’s insane the amount of extra work that was pushed back on me as the customer. Something that I thought was actually going to be a very simple and smooth transaction. Moments of Misery Shep Hyken:                      00:24:40               And I’m going to bet that that happens over and over and over again. I was doing work with an internet cable provider who will remain nameless at this point. They’re a very good company, but I just don’t, I mean, they gave me an example of a really bad customer service experience. They said this is what we try to fix and it’s hard to fix. So for example, you live in Colorado? I live in St Louis. Okay. Missouri. Let’s say we both could buy from the same cable company that they happen to have a presence in each of our cities. Right? So let’s say I’m the XYZ cable company customer in St Louis and I moved to Denver. Okay? And I switched my cable service to Denver. Okay. So I’m still a customer, but my phone number on my cell phone is still a Missouri number. Shep Hyken:                      00:25:31               So I called them and what they do is they recognize my phone number, and they routed me to the customer service department in St Louis, Missouri or Missouri. And now I’m talking to the person after I put in my account number, etc., etc., etc. And finally I’m talking to the rep, and the rep realizes after I tell the story, that I’m not Missouri anymore. He says I’m really sorry I can’t help you. I’m going to have to transfer you over to somebody that can in Denver or Colorado because there are different laws in different states and whatever. And guess what? And I’m forced to do this. You know, isn’t there a better way? And they said that a big percentage, it’s not like an overwhelming percentage, but it’s a big enough percentage enough that this happens, that it’s a real problem. And customers are put in this position of inconvenience simply because they moved and kept their same phone number and they’re trying to figure out, and by the way, they’re actively pursuing a way to fix this problem, so it doesn’t keep happening again and again. So let’s talk about how that happens- we’ll look at a moment of misery. And this is what I call the interaction points along the journey of a customer if it’s a moment of misery versus a moment of magic, a positive experience. Take a look at this moment of misery, what caused it. And, and we usually sit down with our clients, and we get a big group of people. When we say everybody, you’re in small groups. Okay. Now, within a larger group, I want you to write down the top three biggest complaints that you hear. I don’t care if they’re internal people complaining about another department internally. But, you know, like we’re out of stock. Could be a big one. Or, you know, the customer calls the shipment’s been lost. Our warehouse doesn’t always alert us when we’re out of stock, so we sell something that the customer can’t get anyway. What are the biggest complaints that you have? You list them all out and then you prioritize because you can’t handle all of them at once. Right? What are the most important ones and deal with one at a time or maybe two or three? If you have the bandwidth to do it, you take them on. You may not ever be able to eliminate, but you should definitely mitigate, diminish the number of times this happens because you’re going to get a group together and collectively you’re going to brainstorm, what if we did it this way? What if we did it that way? And I guarantee you will come up with ways that will be more effective. You may not eliminate the problem altogether, but you’re going to make it better for some. Jenn DeWall:                      00:28:04               Which is what we need to do, right? It’s not that we can try to be perfect and solve every single potential issue. There are plenty of things that we can’t control or just different interruptions, but there are lots of things you can control. Especially today, those reoccurring issues. What prevents people from really focusing their efforts on creating optimal customer service? What do you think gets in companies’ ways? Create a Customer Service Culture Shep Hyken:                      00:28:28               Sure. Well, first of all, it’s, it’s the culture. It’s the biggest thing. That’s the number one problem. A company that you say, why can’t they be as nice as so and so? Why aren’t they, why do they think this way? The culture has been created by leadership. So, let’s give you a real quick rundown on six ways to fix that. And I know this isn’t what we planned to talk about. I’m not going to create the customer focus. Culture is the way to start to create a better experience for your customers, both externally and internally. Number one, the leadership must define in a simple, clear statement. What is the customer service or customer experience vision going to be? I’ll give you an example, Zappos. Since you mentioned them, three words: Powered by Service. That’s it. Now, what does that mean? It’s a tagline. But if you use that internally and we’re powered by service when you come to work for us. By the way, Tony Hsieh, when you come to work for Zappos, he says, I have 10 core values. Every one of my people will follow and be part of this and believe in these values. And if they’re deficient in any one, they’ve got to go. They’ve gotta be, you know, willing to live all 10 of them. So once you hire the right people and you have a vision like powered by service, you start training them. What does that mean to you and your department? It means something different if you’re on the phones talking to a customer versus in the warehouse, putting shoes in and wrapping them up and shipping them out or anything else that Zappos sells. So, my favorite of all is nine words long. It’s the Ritz Carlton’s mantra. I call it a mantra, by the way. The one sentence or less, I call it a mantra. Actually, the Ritz calls theirs a credo and Horst Schulze, the first president, co-founder of the rich came up with this. “We’re Ladies and Gentlemen Serving Ladies and Gentlemen.” They put it on a laminated card. They have their 24 gold standards right underneath it. And every one of these standards is about you being a lady or gentleman serving a lady or a gentleman. Whether it’s an internal lady or gentlemen or an external, it doesn’t matter. But that’s the Ritz’s credo. And so once you establish and define what that statement is. And by the way, it doesn’t change. It is what you have for in the best case, decades. But it’s with you for years. And so you’ve got this statement, and now you’ve got to live to it. So number two, it’s gotta be communicated. Number three, you gotta train everybody to it. As I mentioned, people in the warehouse might be different than people in the frontline or the accounting department. Number four, leadership has to be a role model. Number five, leadership has to keep it in alignment. I want to ask the CEO, what’s your most important job? And he says, you know, I’ve put together deals, and we grow our company. But really what we’re known for is how we treat our people and our customers. I defend the culture. If there is somebody, some groups, some departments, some region out of alignment, we get it back in. That’s number five. Number six is, celebrate it when it works. And these six steps, simple as they sound, not always so easy. Simple is not easy, but if you’re a small company, really small, you know, entrepreneurial, 10 people, 50 people, a hundred people, you can do this in a really short time, maybe several months. If you’re a big company, you know, 80,000-100,000 employees or more, you’re talking, you know, five, six, seven years, which is fine. It takes a long time to turn the big ship, but those six steps are what will help create that customer-focused culture. Jenn DeWall:                      00:31:58               Yeah, it’s a big part of that leadership. How are you showing up? How are you showing up that is, or what ways are you showing up and what messages are you spreading to your organization about how you value or how you see customer service, right? You are that leader, and you have that role. People are looking to you for guidance. Whether you recognize that or not, it can be very subconscious. But if you’re kind of more agitated and annoyed that your customers or even at fellow employees, they’re going to take the lead from you. Recognizing that as a leader, whether or not you are on the front lines, you are impacting that experience in any, in almost every way based on how you show up. Shep Hyken:                      00:32:55               Jenn, you and I have a mutual friend, Mark Sanborn. Yeah. Yes. Who’s done one of the programs over there at Crestcom. Jenn DeWall:                      00:33:04               Yeah, and he was one of the top 30 speakers in the world. He’s got a good accolade there. Shep Hyken:                      00:33:10               Well he’s been a good buddy for years and years. He has a great speech called, You Don’t Need a Title to be a Leader. Okay. So that’s in general, and I say, well definitely that applies to anybody in customer service. Say – here’s the person you’re looking at. Wow, that person’s amazing. Listen to how he or she took care of that customer. I want to be able to do that. And that may be somebody who’s just a service or support person, not a manager, not a president of a company, not a director, not a CEO. You don’t need the title to be a leader. I want to be that person that other people look around, and everybody should aspire to be that person that you would say, you know what? That’s how I want to behave. The Convenience Revolution Jenn DeWall:                      00:33:54               Right. This is how I want to show up. You know we’ve had such a great conversation so far, but I really want to talk about your newest book, The Convenience Revolution. I love that book! You talked about the six principles of the convenience revolution, why is convenience important today? Shep Hyken:                      00:34:20               Wow. So pretty, pretty great setup on that. Well, number one, we all know customer service and experiences important. It’s becoming more and more important. So I’m going to go out on a limb and say most companies believe this to be true. And most companies believe that the products that they sell are good products or products that are at least a value to what people are paying. Number two, they think they provide good service. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. But the fact is they’re trying. So the customer experience plus a good product that they sell or maybe it’s a service- it’s one plus one doesn’t equal two- it’s the sum is greater than the parts. Where the sum is greater than the whole. So here’s the thing, what do you do now? Everybody believes, and everybody’s trying to do it. What’s the next level? So about a year and a half ago, I thought what the next level is probably not just good service, friendly, helpful, and it’s just a good experience, which includes everything about, you know, open up the box. That was a cool experience. I just got my new iPhone. Wow. That was cool. That’s part of the experience and the product. What if it was just easier to do business with a company? Because I look at the companies that I love to write about and I love to speak about, and I recognize they’re all really convenient to do business with. And who’s the most convenient company in my mind, on the planet to do business with? It’s as a question to you. I bet you know the answer. Jenn DeWall:                      00:35:46               I mean I know that Zappos is one, Zappos is one. Shep Hyken:                      00:35:50               And guess who owns Zappos? Amazon. Exactly. Amazon is the, in my mind, the most convenient company as a right, right. Think about it. So there are six convenience principles which we’ll get to in a moment, and they are great at all six. And by the way, you don’t need to be in all six of these areas to be amazingly convenient to disrupt your competition. People think disruption is about disrupting. Oh, they are a disruptor of what an entire industry. You know how few companies get to disrupt an entire industry, but you know that every day, companies are disrupting the local competitor that they go up against day in and day out. So the goal is you give them a good experience, you give them a good product, but then you add this level of convenience. And if you can be easier to do business with all things being equal, easier wins. Think about the convenience stores you’re driving down the street versus going to a big grocery store. All you need is a, you know, a loaf of bread and some milk and maybe, you know, whatever. And wouldn’t it be easier to just pull into a tiny little parking lot, run in, not a huge store to run around? You pull it off the shelf. Guess what? It’s always a little bit more expensive than these convenience stores, but nobody is complaining. And I think it’s important to realize that Amazon is as convenient as they are, and they offer a good price on top of it. So that’s really tough. Except now when you go to an Amazon page for a product, you’ll oftentimes see it’s at another retail where they are selling it for less money, and they give you a link to that retailer because they are so confident. By the way, it’s a great service. You’re helping me understand the good prices, but the value of having Amazon deliver it to me next day or two days from now and getting those emails that say it’s being shipped, it’s already there, you know, whatever they can make you feel so comfortable. And, and also how easy is it to buy from Amazon? One Click ordering. If you’re on the site and you’re all set up in there, you have an account, one click and it’s done. And now you don’t even need to open up your computer. Are you familiar with the Dash Button? It looks like a doorbell, and it’s specific to a product that you buy. So for example, if you bought a lot of tide detergent for your washing machine, if you bought toothpaste, deodorant, all of the things that you buy, you get a dash button. All right, so you’re running low on washing machine detergent, and you just push the button that has, you know, adhesive and it’s connected to your Wifi and it orders your detergent for you. Well, that was convenient. So here’s what’s cool. Okay. About, I’m going to say six weeks, maybe eight weeks ago, they discontinued the dash button. Do you know why? You don’t have to push your button anymore. Not only do you not have to open a computer, but you also don’t have to push a button. You just go look over at the Amazon Echo. You call out her name and say, please order me more washing machine detergent and Alexa or Google play or whatever smart devices, we’ll order it for you. And, uh, you know, you want a pizza, you don’t have to pick up the phone or order a pizza anymore. Domino’s pizza, which is one of the case studies in my book using technology, now has 10 different ways you can order a pizza to be delivered. None of them have to do with making an actual phone call Jenn DeWall:                      00:39:38               10 different ways! Shep Hyken:                      00:39:40               Well, you already picked up one of them. You, you showed me, you have your phone in your hand. That’s one way you can order from your smart device. Your Amazon Echo or your Google Home, you can order. Ford vehicles have a feature like OnStar with the GM,  and you can ask on the way home. It makes sure my pizza is there by the time I get home. I mean, it happens. There are so many ways; I love it. If you go onto the Domino’s pizza website, there’s a list of all the different ways you can order a pizza without having to pick up the phone. Jenn DeWall:                      00:40:21               Especially in the U.S. like we are very, very busy in our lives. We hectic schedules, especially if you’re a parent and you’re running your children around or even just the amount of hours that we work, we don’t have a lot of time to focus on those things that aren’t as fun but are necessities. Right? We need laundry detergent. I need to order dog food for my beautiful dog, Zoe. Like, I need all that, but I don’t really want to go to the store. And that’s why convenience is so important to me because I spend my time that way. Shep Hyken:                      00:40:51               Chewy.com dog food, they will deliver your 50 pound bag of dog food to your door so that you don’t have to go to the grocery store, pick it up, put it in your cart, take it out to your car from the car, take it to your doorstep. They’ll do this for you. And it’s called the subscription model. And that’s one of the big six convenience principles is you, you subscribe to something so you don’t have to think about it anymore. It just shows up when you need it on an ongoing, regular basis as you consume it. I’m a member of a great club called the Dollar Shave Club. Ooh, isn’t that exciting? And like, is this a subscription service for razor blades? Every month I get four new razor blades to replace once a week. And you know what? It works for me. It’s great. Shep Hyken:                      00:41:35               You’ve got software as a service, which is typically a software program where now you’re paying an annual fee or a monthly fee for something that you use to buy in a box. And think about what Microsoft did. Microsoft took up a box of software that would cost four or $500, and people would buy it and then they, it was time, you know, the new upgraded version. But no, this is working fine for me. So four or five versions later, several years later, they’d say, okay, now upgrade. When they said, let’s make it easy. Instead of charging you $400, let’s just charge you like $25 a month or $20 a month, you’ll get the latest and greatest all of the time. You’ll be able to use it on your computer at work and your computer at home. Matter of fact, most of them, well, you have two, three, four devices that you can hook it up to. Shep Hyken:                      00:42:24               So now, if you have a computer at the office and you want to hook it into your smartphone, you want to hook into your computer at home. They made it so easy and it’s ongoing recurring revenue for the company, and it’s just an easier on the pocketbook for the customer, and you never have to worry about it. You always have the latest and greatest. That’s the subscription model, by the way. So, the six principles- number one is simply to reduce friction, which is in all six principals. But some companies like Amazon, that’s a big part of their value prop. Uber and Lyft do it. It’s so much easier. You know, if you’re in the suburbs, like when I came out to your office, uh, you know, taking an Uber to and from the, you know, it’s, it’s just you can see the person driving down the street to come and pick you up. You don’t have to stop and pay, you pay, but it’s all in the system. So you just get out of the car when you’re done, and it’s really a convenient way of doing things. Shep Hyken:                      00:44:35               So, number one, reduce friction. Number two, self-service solutions. Can you incorporate something that gives the customer control over their experience? When you go to buy an airline ticket, you go online and buy it. You go to check in online; you’re taking control. You don’t have to wait in lines. Self-service is great and frequently asked questions on a website, youtube videos, you know that self-help from support. But other ways that you can get the customer involved in the, in the process. Walking out of a grocery store, you can go to the self-service lane, which means that you scan your own groceries, put them in your own bag. By the way, you will notice there is always an employee near the self-service area to help the people that get confused and can’t work the machines. Shep Hyken:                      00:45:23               And that’s an important lesson. Self-service doesn’t mean let the customer do it and forget about it. No self-service is, let’s try to give them a better experience. And if they need help, we’ll make sure we’re there to help them along the way. So number three is technology. How can you incorporate technology? We already talked about the dash button. Now using the, you know, smart speaker devices. Think about how you move money from one person to the next. If I want to Venmo you or PayPal you, I can get it to you literally in seconds instead of having to write a check and mail it to you or whatever. It’s amazing. So you’ve got technology, that’s three. Number four is a subscription model, which we talked about. Number five is delivery. Now, remember I said you don’t need to disrupt an entire industry. Shep Hyken:                      00:46:07               You know, Amazon kind of did that to the retail industry. Lyft and Uber did it to the taxicab industry. My car dealership, who I buy my car from- I don’t subscribe to this car. I bought it. I remember seeing the car in a display in a dealership that was maybe 10 miles from where I live versus where I would normally buy my car. That’s literally not even a half a mile from where I work. And I could drop my car off, get it serviced, and I could walk to work and walk back to pick it up. If they didn’t want to give me a loaner, I didn’t need one. Guess what happened? I go into this dealership, and the guy says, so you interested in looking at, I’m just looking, I don’t want to buy and here’s why. And he says, look around. There’s no waiting room. Shep Hyken:                      00:46:49               They’re actually is. It’s really small. He, if you buy a car from me, I will make sure that whenever you need service, we will bring you a brand new car, and we’ll pick up your car. We’ll bring it back when your car is ready. The next time you come in here will be to buy another car. Not because you need an oil change or your annual maintenance. And I went, wow, and what does that cost? He goes, I’m going to write up a deal. Go shop it to where you normally go. And if you feel that the value’s not there, we didn’t beat the price, you let me know and I’ll see what I can do. But I really believe that we’re going to be the best value and best price for you. By golly, he is, I’m on my third car with him. Jenn DeWall:                      00:47:26               He even put that into a contract to say, I want you to go out there and do this because I believe so much in the value that we’re offering that I trust that you’re going to go out there and shop around. And you may not find that, now that’s brave. Right? A lot of companies are a little bit more risk averse, and they don’t necessarily want to be that vulnerable, especially to that price point. Shep Hyken:                      00:47:46               Well, I think when you’re shopping for a car, it’s expected that you know, the customer’s gonna make sure this is a good deal and try to work that, work them over. And it was his way of saying, Hey, don’t work me over. Take the deal. And by the way, letting that customer walk out of the door is the riskiest part. Okay. That’s the riskiest part. But I was educated. I knew about what a dealership makes on a car just because of my background and what I do working with car dealerships, but I love this guy and I love the dealership and true to their word. And the people that bring me my car or pickup, bring me the loaner and pick up my car. Those are now the ambassadors of that brand. They, he or she needs to look at themselves as the ambassador of this company. I’m going to go out there, and I’m going to make them love us for what we do because otherwise, this customer’s not going to go into the dealership the next time they need to buy a new car or, or any other way. Until then, it could be five years, three years before the customer comes back. I want to make sure every touch point that I have with that customer is an amazing interaction. Shep Hyken:                      00:49:54               Let’s talk about technology then. I’ll give you number six. We talked about technology, but from the standpoint of being on hold, I can call a company – I called American Airlines just last night about something, and they said, thanks for calling, your hold time is 19 minutes. However, if you’d like, we can call you back in 19 minutes, so you don’t have to wait on hold. Just key in your number. Well, that’s total respect of my time. I love that. It’s technology that’s driving that, and they say if there’s a more convenient time, no, it didn’t happen on the call last night, but on many of these technologies, if there’s a more convenient time, uh, passed the 19 minutes, just key that in and we’ll call you back at that time. So that tells me they respect me as a customer. They respect my time. And that’s where a lot of friction takes place when you force people to wait and be on hold and, and you waste their time. All right. Number six is Access. Are you accessible to your customers? That can be physically, logistically, um, like a Walmart, for example, is probably, I can’t remember the stat that’s in my book, but I’m gonna try to think that like 90% of the US population is within 10 minutes or so of a Walmart. It’s some stat like that. It’s an incredible amount of people. Accessibility. One of the banks, I use them, a Huntington Bank is a lead case study, because what they said is, banker’s hours are not convenient to most customers unless of course, you’re marketing to the unemployed. So yeah. Jenn DeWall:                      00:51:44               Great business model too, right? Shep Hyken:                      00:51:46               Today, with technology, you can take a picture of your check and that’s how you make a deposit. You don’t necessarily have to go to the bank anymore. You can use your phone. Jenn DeWall:                      00:52:21               Yes, Access. I left a bank because so many other banks were offering that option to take a picture of your check and make that deposit. So I no longer had to go to the bank or an ATM. I thought it was strange that my bank wouldn’t offer that given the other big institutions I worked with could. And I had to leave them. And it’s not that they had bad service. They just weren’t as convenient. When you’re talking about the six principles, it’s not that every company needs to focus on all six to be successful. It’s really just focusing on one. Shep Hyken:                      00:53:11               I preface this in the book, some of the ideas are going to be like obsolete in a year, but there is a company, Mobile Mart I called it. It’s a foreign entity, and they have a driverless bus that goes around the neighborhood, and it’s a convenience store on wheels. You go online, and you order what you want and, and at a certain time every day that shows up at the street corner or somewhere on your block, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, this thing is running at two in the morning. That convenience stores stopping on your block. And the idea is, and by the way, it’s driverless, there are no people in there, similar to the Amazon technology of being able to walk in and pick up your item and leave. It knows because of your mobile phone that you’re on or off this vehicle. And I mean, whether that works or not, I don’t know. But this is the forward thinking that some of these companies are doing to create a better experience for their customers. Jenn DeWall:                      00:54:48               That’s crazy. How cool and yes, it’s hard to probably predict some of the ways that it’s going to evolve. Because I know that in my own experience, I wouldn’t be able to picture a driverless convenience store going through my neighborhood. That wasn’t even on my radar as something. And now that it exists, I hope that they have that here. And you know, if you don’t, especially if you don’t live in a 24-7 city, how can you account for that where you may not have access, where you need to get XYZ, just knowing that there’s something like that. I mean, even the fact that companies are going into delivery with drones. Shep Hyken:                      00:55:26               Yeah. And that, and so that’s the kind of thing. So imagine, and I talk about drone delivery. Well, Amazon also has distribution centers throughout the entire country. And in other parts of the world too. But imagine, like the Goodyear blimp. So the blimp goes by and it picks up a, for lack of a better term, a miniature warehouse of inventory. So, let’s say at a big sporting event like the Super Bowl or the world series or the Stanley Cup. And so what’ll happen is they know that there’s going to be a huge interest in, you know, hats and sweatshirts and all logoed merchandise with the teams, right? So what they’ll do is they’ll pick up a huge crate of this with the Goodyear Blimp type thing and float it close to where the event is. And as the merchandise runs out, down below with the retailer, it’ll drop ship literally from the sky using a drone. It’ll pop up with the merchandise so that they never run out. And then as soon as that container of merchandise gets low, they go back to the warehouse, pick up another one and go back over, isn’t that amazing? What is Your Leadership Habit? Jenn DeWall:                      00:56:44               Yes. Dropship has a completely different definition now. I spent almost a decade in retail, and that is not what dropship meant then. That’s amazing. Well Shep, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us. And I know we talked a lot about The Convenience Revolution, which is your newest book, but you have six other books, and I’ve read quite a few of them. They are a great resource for people to use to understand how they can create a stronger customer service culture, and what they can do to improve their customer service. Because I know that for those that are thinking, it’s just about the external customer, it’s really that customer service is all about how do we retain and engage our people because we need our people to make our mission and our results possible. Shep, I like to close each podcast interview with our question. What is your leadership habit for success? Shep Hyken:                      00:57:52               Wow, a leadership habit. So first of all, I wrote a whole book. It’s called Be Amazing or Go Home, on habits that are good for anybody. Many people cannot withstand the monotony of success. What that means is that “success” is habits. I’m disciplined. You know, every Sunday I have a Forbes column that comes out. Every Monday, I write an article about my favorite articles I read the week before. Every Tuesday, I have my podcast show. Every Wednesday, I have a newsletter. Every Thursday, I have a video that gets real. You see what’s happening. Every day I do something, and it happens at the exact time. The discipline to do that, day after day, week after week, year after year, it becomes monotonous. I hear people say, so I don’t do it anymore. Why? It works so well, and you stopped doing it? No. I think that people have a difficult time withstanding the monotony of what it takes to be successful. And I think the discipline of that, of doing what needs to get done, the habit, that’s what I think my leadership habit is. Jenn DeWall:                      00:59:08               Doing what needs to get done even on the days that you may not be feeling like it, you’ve got to do it. Shep Hyken:                      00:59:19               You still gotta do it! Jenn DeWall:                      00:59:21               So it’s all about that perseverance. And I think what some would call it, that grit. Just continuing to go, go, go, and build. Well, Shep, thank you so much for such an engaging podcast episode. I know that our listeners will love all of the tips that you gave. You’re so knowledgeable, and I hope that we’ve uncovered different ways that we can go about understanding new business opportunities in the customer service revolution. That was exciting for me, thank you so much for sharing. Shep Hyken:                      00:59:47               My pleasure. Thank you, Jen. Let’s do it again soon. Outro                                                              Thank you for joining us today for our conversation with Shep Hyken. To find out more about Shep and his work, visit his website at hyken.com. There’ll be a link in the show notes. While you are there, you can check out Shep’s blog on customer service, sign up for his newsletter, or contact him for booking at your next event. Don’t forget to pick up a copy of his latest book, The Convenience Revolution on Amazon, or your favorite bookseller! The post Episode 6: Customer Service and The Convenience Revolution with Shep Hyken appeared first on Crestcom International.

In this episode, Jenn DeWall talks to leadership expert Ron Crossland about the role of Innovative Thinking in Leadership. Ron has over 30 years of experience in the field doing both original and secondary research and has helped develop better leaders, create more innovation, forge better internal and external relationships and inspire greater performance in organizations and individuals. Jenn and Ron discuss being nerdy, loving the topic of leadership, and practicing both everyday innovation and long-term innovation in your organization. Full Transcript : Intro:                                   00:03                  Today we are talking with leadership development expert and Crestcom Faculty member Ron Crossland. Ron has worked with talent from the boiler room to the boardroom, helping individuals, teams, and organizations develop better leaders, create more innovation, forge better internal and external relationships and inspire greater performance. He has advanced the understanding of leadership through original and secondary research, blending science, and art data in philosophy with theory and practicality. Today we explore how innovation is key to great leadership and how to embrace innovative thinking to grow your organization. Jenn DeWall:                      00:45                     Hi everyone! It’s Jenn DeWall and I am so excited to be here today interviewing Ron Crossland. For those that don’t know Ron Crossland, he is an organizational consultant, he’s an author and he’s also an educator with over 30 years of experience within the leadership and development space. On behalf of Crestcom and The Leadership Habit Podcast – Ron, thank you so much for joining us. Ron Crossland:                  01:11                     Oh, I’m thrilled to be here. It’s a fabulous spring day here in Cincinnati and I can’t think of a nicer group to be talking with. Jenn DeWall:                      01:17                     Oh, good. Well Ron, for those that may not know you, I know as part of the Crestcom family, you are one of our expert faculty members and you helped really educate and help people develop compelling and unique innovative strategies. So you are really that driver on one of the recent innovation modules that we created. For those that may not be familiar with you, could you tell us a little bit about yourself? Ron Crossland:                  01:43                     I can! I became a student of leadership back in very early in my career when I was working for AT&T, a very large scale telecom here in the United States, and actually was sent off on a project to study leadership because it was a critical juncture at AT&T, where they were being broken up into smaller companies and everyone was worried about what would happen. So a buddy of mine and I actually had the luxury of spending a year interviewing all the known leadership gurus across the United States. At that time. We met everybody and talk to them. We were formulating our own module, our own ideas about leadership brands, and began thinking about writing a book on what we’ve learned. And we went to AT&T and proposed a leadership institute within AT&T that could be turned into a profit center, that literally not only would we educate AT&T managers on the subject, but that we would then actually be able to sell those same curricula to other companies that would come to our leadership institute and learn leadership from us. And we were turned down flatly. They said, no, nice idea, but we don’t want to do that. And so my partner and I said, well, okay- and we quit and started our own business. That’s how I got started in the subject of leadership. And I’ve been not developing small businesses to deliver a wide variety of different leadership topics ever since then. In the last 12 years since 2007, I’ve been in my own private practice but actually have accelerated some of my research. So I think I’m actually smarter now than I was even 12 years ago at this time. Jenn DeWall:                      03:26                     No, absolutely. Who are some of the people that you were able to interview during that time? Ron Crossland:                  03:35                     People like Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Tom Peters and a wide variety actually of a CEOs at the time. Other authors from the west coast. I mean, some of them I forget their names because they were big names at the time, but they were not lasting names. I would have to say probably the person that influenced me the most, was the former Secretary of Health Education Welfare, (John W. Gardner). He actually worked for Lyndon Johnson as president. He took me on as a project for a while. Like he was my mentor for a while. He probably still is the number one leadership authority and public sector leadership- and a fabulous man- former Olympic swimmer and a psychologist and a wonderful guy that worked for several different presidents in different capacities over the years. So those would be the cast of characters. So really it was a luxury year of study. I would say that for the folks that are interested and are listening to this podcast, the way that you could replicate that experience is simply go talk to people that you know about how they learned how to be a leader and they don’t have to be famous. They don’t have to have written a book and I have to know anything. Just go, and interview people, once in a while you’ll be amazed at the stuff you learn. Jenn DeWall:                      05:07                     Absolutely! I like to believe in the quote, “Every person you meet is your teacher and your student”. It is amazing just by having a conversation if you take out that pressure of being perfect or showing up in a certain way and you just truly engage in a dialogue, you can really learn some valuable lessons that you can apply to your own life. Ron Crossland:                  05:23                     Yeah, absolutely. Why Leadership Development? Jenn DeWall:                      05:25                     Out of curiosity are on why, why leadership development? Why is that important to you? Ron Crossland:                  05:32                     Well, how psychological do you want to get? I can tell you the public story or the private story. The public story is, I came of age in my own management career at a point in time when there was a huge change in North America. In the middle eighties was the engine where, uh, outsourcing first started pronounce itself. Globalization became a topic. And so leadership had exploded as a popular topic. Everyone was writing about it. Everybody wanted to know it because two important things were happening. One was that it was a growth period. So whenever there’s growth period, people are investing in and leadership development and their people- that that’s a trend that’s always true. During times of contraction, I lose my shirt. During times of expansion, I’ve got more work than I can take. Right? The second reason was globalization. That’s the very thing that is so popular in politics right now was the thing that drove the leadership explosion of the eighties and nineties because we didn’t know the real scientific answer, the scholastic academic answer to the question, can you take a leader from one country and put them in another country and actually make it work? And we were fascinated by what that meant and could you actually make that happen? And so I was simply living at a time when it was literally in the air and I got addicted to it. Jenn DeWall:                      07:02                     Yes. That’s one of the neatest things about leadership development or with working for Crestcom, knowing that we work to develop leaders all around the world. That as much as people may see cultural differences as something that really differentiates us. We actually have so many similar challenges, right? How do we innovate? How do we communicate in a way that builds relationships and connection and has influence? I love that about leadership development because it is a bridge where we can all see that we do and are faced with similar challenges and we’re not that different. Ron Crossland:                  07:46                     You have just basically summarize the field of research on this topic. Of all the talents that a leader can develop over the course of their lifetime, the one that is the most portable, meaning that it travels from one company to another or from one country to another, is the interpersonal skillset that a leader develops. And one of those wedges of interpersonal skill sets is your leadership abilities. That is the most durable- and think about it – our common humanity. As you study leadership, there are cultural differences in how it’s expressed in some fun ways. But the essence of it, the bottom of it is the same. We’re all human beings. Trust, communication, inspiration, helping people, motivate people. All those things are true for leadership around the world. There are some cultural nuances to that, but they are minor compared to the main things. Jenn DeWall:                      08:50                     I’m loving this conversation so much! I mean, it’s just great when you can connect with other people that see leadership as this opportunity to bring people together. It’s really powerful. So I love this, but I know that’s not why you’re here- to talk about our mutual love of leadership. We’re here to talk about innovation today and its challenges. And the lovely products that result from innovation are all around us. So we’re going to talk about innovation and how that can impact the way that you look at it in your own organization, how you could potentially improve processes or your approaches to innovation. So let’s dive right in and help people figure out how they can really grasp that concept of innovation. And really develop or further develop that innovative mindset. So Ron, could you talk a little bit about the difference between everyday innovation and long-term innovation? Everyday Innovation Ron Crossland:                  09:50                     One of my favorite ways to get this word innovation has this big connotation, especially in business. We’ve got a practice innovation and we’ve got to come up with new things and it’s the driver of all of our future business growth. There’s a lot of truth to that, but it implies that it takes a closeted set of specialists over in some laboratory, someplace doing some stuff. And for a lot of small businesses its sort of like, “we don’t got none of that”. The reality is that everyday leadership is a fundamental aspect of higher level leadership. And what I mean by everyday leadership is – it kind of comes back to our common humanity. Human beings possess this great knack for figuring things out and coming up with Band-Aid type solutions to everyday problems. Think about, think about the last time, you know you broke a shoelace and you didn’t have time to replace it. You figured out a way to, what? deal with that through the day, right? That’s individual genius at work. Or you ran out of some paper or you didn’t have enough donuts for the meeting or whatever. You come up with a creative quick little solution to that. And that’s what I mean by everyday leadership. We are naturally two kinds of things. Storytellers and problem-solvers. That’s fundamental to all human beings and what stories we do we like most to tell, the problems that we solved. Let me tell you about what happened the other day, blah, blah, blah blah- and how I fixed it. Whether it’s about relationships, or it’s about the coffee service, whether it’s about the truck that broke down. It doesn’t make any difference. These are the stories are embedded in the fabric of our lives because this is how our brains work. Ron Crossland:                  11:38                     So, I’ll give you an example of this, OK? I was thinking about a couple of recent experiences I had that might be pertinent to this topic. I have a group of people that I’m working with here in the United States. It’s a small company rapidly becoming a large company, and they have people scattered across the country and we bring them together quarterly for a little offsite to try to build some social bonds and stuff like that. And for a while we were doing in Chicago, the CEO of the company always wanted to take us to this special restaurant that he loved because he grew up in Chicago and it was his favorite pizzeria and stuff like that. And we would march into his favorite pizza place and that pizza place, well known in the Chicago area had a very precise way of doing things. And they marched you in and they lined you up and they serve food the way that they have been serving at for at least 20 years. Right. And that was nice and it was efficient- unless a glitch happened- if a glitch happened, it slowed the service down. And the last time I was there that particular night, there were three small glitches in a row that happened. And it took us probably an extra hour, to feed the 25 people that we had and we missed out on the next thing that we were going to do because of the glitch. They couldn’t handle exceptions to, their very precise way of doing things, right? Ron Crossland:                  13:04                     Fast forward, last time I met with this group was back in February, we’ve changed our location from Chicago to San Diego. We went to a very nice Italian restaurant there that was suggested by some friends of ours out in the San Diego area. And family owned, I mean this is an Italian family. I mean the sons of the Italian owner kind of family. Right? And the sisters and the grandmothers and the other cousins that work in this place. Right? We showed up, we had made reservations, special place outdoors. I was a little chilly. So they had the big heating things, you know, that keep the guests warm and stuff when you’re dining al fresco and that you think, and they had lost our reservation. Nothing was set up and they didn’t even know who we were. But, so what happened? They said, “OK, but you’re here now”. What happened? They immediately took three or four people quickly out of the back and off the front, immediately started setting up the chairs and tables like that, talking with us the entire time. Ron Crossland:                  14:12                     And in fact myself and a couple of other people said, how can we assist? And they said, come in and tell us how you want this design, how do you want the tables arranged? Who’s going to sit where, how many people you got? And we, and they actually enjoined us in helping set up and getting ready for our guests. And within 10 minutes we were ready to seat and start taking orders of 35 people. Off the cuff, immediate innovation. Why? Their customer service innovation was, we don’t turn people away. We bring them into the family. Think about that as an everyday way of thinking about innovation. We don’t have a standardized process. We have a way of thinking about your, our guests in our home. And it is that every day thinking about innovation that leads you to different kinds of solutions. It makes you think outside the box on a regular basis because you’re not bound by a prescribed process that everyone must follow. And if you have any deviations from it, then the process collapses. And so I use those as examples of how everyday innovation, everyday thinking about problem-solving, which is what innovation is and how it can actually occur. And at the second restaurant, they had an atmosphere of let’s just pitch in and solve this as opposed to how can we go back and fix a broken process. Jenn DeWall:                      15:38                     Yeah, sounds like it was adaptive innovation! Ron Crossland:                  15:42                     Very, very adaptive. Very much on the fly. And because of that and because, and the, and the guys helping us out, they were jovial. They were doing the over the top Italian singing while they were doing it and they made it an event rather than a grumbling request. Oh my God, we’ve got 35 unexpected people. How are we going to handle it? They made it like, oh, you got some friends over, hey, let’s break out some wine! See the difference? For any company in the world to look at innovation through that lens versus the others that know we must standardize a process. Now there are some things for which standardization of process is essential. I want a plumber that knows what they’re doing, right? I don’t want a couple of Italian pizza makers come in. and say, well I think I can fix this. I want a plumber that knows what they’re doing, right? But also wanting to a plumber that says, you know, you’ve got a kind of a screwy set up here, but I can figure out how to fix that. I want both things. And most of us do. We want our products and services be friendly and accessible and we want things to work well, especially when there are exceptions. And so I bring that to your attention as examples of everyday leadership, and everyday innovation thinking. Jenn DeWall:                      17:06                     So if I can simplify what everyday innovation is – not that it’s meant to be simplified- but really to say that when you are faced with any new problem that you receive is an opportunity to look at things in a different way. Just saying that they’re okay, here’s the problem, here’s my response. That process of this is what we follow, right? It’s okay, well this is could be the same problem, but how could I look at it differently so I could actually resolve it or stop a problem? And so then what is long-term innovation? What is that long-term approach? Like would you say it’s about the results that you want to achieve or what that end goal is and your strategy to get there? Long-Term Innovation Ron Crossland:                  17:50                     Long-term innovation is a higher order of thinking. It’s not about how to solve the everyday problems that confront us like you got some unexpected guests. So if we take our restaurant example, for example, you can go this way – How are we going to be able to continue to feed people high-quality food when we can’t source it? How do we think about how we make connections with local farmers versus sort of the large-scale food delivery people that we have to rely on also, so that we have a combination of a steady supply of quality, say in this case, proteins. But, we want fresh garden, seasonal vegetables and things of that nature. And we want them from a local environment. That requires long-term thinking about which farmers do we actually get together and what happens if those farmers come and go? Ron Crossland:                  18:49                     Because the small scale farmers are very, very mobile in most places. So how do we develop? How do we develop a schema that allows us to do that? Oh and oh by the way, exactly do we want to just own this restaurant for the duration of the patriarch? Or do we want to turn this into a franchise? Or do we want this to become a multiple location family business? Or how do we think about those kinds of things? It requires a different set of skills, and focus on innovation at a higher level, which requires, and this is part of my thing about innovation is that that level of innovation requires more risk because you’re risking time and you’re risking money to experiment. Experimentation for long-term innovation is that thing that most of us are afraid of, especially in small businesses. Because for small businesses it’s a high ratio of cost to profitability that you have to invest in to figure out if something’s going to work. But those individuals that figure that out, that are willing to invest in a riskier environment, tend to be the ones that then are more successful in growing a business. So a larger scale than up 10 to 15 or 20 person firm. That’s what a sort of way thinking. Jenn DeWall:                      20:15                     So, if I could say to our leaders out there, if you want to practice having that innovative mindset, it really boils down to two things. Asking yourself, what is another way to approach this problem or challenge, right? There’s always a new way to look at it. And what’s the vision that you’re aspiring for? Do you have a vision? Or are you just kind of going through the motions, right? Like, where do you really, really want to be and how can you put that vision and articulate it in a way that’s compelling and inspires action and where it feels that it’s the reality. So you can see all of those steps and actions that you’re taking, how they contribute to bringing that vision to life. Ron Crossland:                  21:00                     Absolutely. Vision and innovation are intertwined concepts, I love where you are going with this. When I was the head of some small businesses, we regularly had discussions about what do we want to try to achieve in the future as a group and how are we going to get there? Which begs the question, how? How will we do it? That’s where innovation comes in. Vision is about the end-state. Innovation is about how we’re then going to figure out how we’re going to reach that end state. Right? And, and so we regularly did that, and this is the thing that I would encourage all small business owners to consider. You have to get your employees together on a regular basis and say, how can we innovate? How can we do things differently? And it can go from the everyday experience of, well gee, could we simply have more flexible work hours? A kind of a chronic dilemma that small business owners have. Or do we really want to spend the money to open up down the street or in another city? Or move from this location to another location? Things like that, because the nature of infrastructure costs more money. And how do you get people involved in that? Where you’ve got to involve them in the decision-making? When they are involved, they will exert the effort, because it’s now a collective gain or loss. But if the owner is simply the one that makes these decisions, well then, it’s usually the owner that loses or gains big. And sometimes employees get left out of that mix and then you know, what happens? Then the work feels like a job, not like something you’re invested in. They go to work for something to do, rather than to do something. Which is a much different mindset Jenn DeWall:                      22:54                     And they need to see themselves as a part of that solution. As you said, that decision-maker. To feel that I can add value to this, and I want to add value to this because I know the outcome that we’re striving for and I want to be a part of that. But it has to be that collective effort. We have to offer those invitations to people because one person cannot really be the driver of an innovative effort. One of the things that we wanted to talk about was innovation as a risk assessment. What does that even mean? Innovation as a risk assessment? I don’t even know. Risk-Assessment Ron Crossland:                  23:35                     It’s like I was saying – we’re going to open up or we’re going to remodel our restaurant. We’re going to open up another division. We’re gonna replicate our auto body shop across town. And say in a large city, we’re going to have two locations. So that is an investment in what? You have to think. It’s not just the cost of finding some new property, finding a new building, buying new equipment, all those capital risks, right? That you take. And it’s also probably the number one risk – which is who’s going to staff it? Who’s going to be in charge now that I can’t be in charge of both places? Are we going to coordinate our efforts? How are we going to increase the overall business as opposed to suddenly over a little bit of time, see each other as competitors, location A versus location B. And I’ve seen that happen in small businesses where when they expand that first division where they expand and have two locations of something. They actually become rivals because they’re at war with each other, and squabbling over their interpersonal relationships. Ron Crossland:                  24:41                     So innovation is risk-taking. Risking in all those arenas, the economic capital, and financing and also the risks of a hierarchy. Who’s going to be in charge, who is going to lead? Are those things going to happen? How it affects hiring and firing, all of those kinds of complex things. Because I have to tell you, in small business, loyalty is probably a higher value feature than in large-scale businesses. And loyalty manifests itself in a wide variety of ways. Every fundamentally terrific, like Harvard case study, an example of a small business going big is when the owner-operator of that business has allowed their own people more judgment calls about how to innovate in the business. You know, we ought to have this machine instead of this machine. Or a client brings in a problem that is too difficult for us to sell, to serve. But then a couple of guys say, you know, gives us a chance, maybe we can figure out a way to solve their problem. We don’t know how to do it just yet, but we’ll take a crack at it if you’ll give us the chance. And so how many of those risks are you willing to take to expand your people’s abilities and knowledge? And what happens if three or four of them fail? But then one of them succeeds. You’ve now got what? Happy people, excited people, and another problem that you can now sell the next client, another solution to their problem. And so the risk assessment is around what’s your tolerance for failure? Nothing new has ever been done without multiple failures ahead of it. Ron Crossland:                  26:43                     I’ll give you a couple of historical simple case studies. Everyone knows about mobile phones, right? And now why do we even call them mobile phones? Because telephony is the least used app that I use on my little pocket computer. I use podcasts two hours a day at least. I use telephony APP maybe two hours a month, right? So why do we even call it that phone anymore? It’s beyond me, but because it’s everything but a phone. But the reality is, the very first one with the screen on it, it took about six years and $150 million make. You know how men’s razors, have gone from one blade up to five or six blades now. The very first two-bladed razor that was developed took $200 million in investment to figure out. $200 million! And so you think, how could a simple thing like that require so much investment? Well, here’s the thing. No one had ever been able to make a razor thin enough to have two blades and not break and hurt the individual that was using it to shave. The invention of the processes to refine steel to that level of thinness and sharpness with flexibility and not being able to break, housed in a new device of durable plastics and metals that would allow that to happen. You would think that would be easy. It took $200 million to do it. So for larger scale businesses, things like that can be very risky because you, you can throw $200 million at something and never get the solution. Ron Crossland:                  28:30                     So for a small business operator, just scale that down to -it’s a $20,000 investment decision as opposed to $200 million. It’s the same level of risk. It’s like I’m risking so much that it’s hard to recover if it fails. That’s why you need all of these geniuses at work with everyday innovation skills, helping you think through those problems. I can guarantee you and should probably get their spouses involved! You should bring them in because they’ve solved problems that you’ve never heard of before. So I’m an advocate of the more you can get, the more brain trust you can get, thinking on your team, the better! Multigenerational Workforce Jenn DeWall:                      29:17                     Yeah. Collective brainstorming! You know, we’ve talked about long term innovation, and now the risk assessment. But one thing that I’m more curious about is what is your take on how innovation has changed due to multiple generations in the workforce? How do you think that has impacted the coming of the millennial workforce crossing over with the baby boomers? How do you think that together they can work together to transform innovation or how they look at it? Ron Crossland:                  29:57                     This is one of the most exciting arenas to discuss in innovation that we can discuss. Technology in my lifetime has transformed the world, especially the educational world. And how children are learning. I can guarantee you, I would have loved to have had a pocket computer when I was taking my engineering classes at university when I was a young man. Rather than using a slide rule. And for those of you who are listening to this podcast that don’t know what one is, look it up. Jenn DeWall:                      30:29                     OK! I do not know what a slide rule is! Ron Crossland:                  30:34                     To be able to access the world’s knowledge through a flat screen of multiple sizes, some stationary, some mobile, rather than having to go to the university library and hope that the article that I needed was there. Which it never is, by the way. When I compare the access to it. So number one, we now have more generations that are at the same intellectual knowledge place than we’ve ever had before. It used to be that apprenticeship was the path towards mastery. And to some degree that’s still true. But apprentices today, if you want to think of a young person in business as an apprentice, they have more knowledge and more skill at current technology than the generations ahead of them. Ron Crossland:                  31:30                     So the idea that bringing that youthful exuberance and that not yet, well-tested knowledge that is already intellectually at a certain level with mine – to my long years of long-suffering, hard knocks and learn-by-mistakes kind of mentality is the best collision for faster innovation that this world’s ever seen. We utilize it poorly, in my opinion. We do not take advantage of the intergenerational effects of this. How many generations? How many different generations can you name by name? Starting with the octogenarians. I mean they are the depression babies. There’s still a few of them around in business, by the way. There are the people in my group, that’s the baby boomers. What are the, what are the multiple generations after that? Jenn DeWall:                      32:22                     Yeah, Gen X. Millennials. Oh, and I think it’s Gen Z, is that the next one? Yeah, Gen Z, the one that’s going to be coming in next. Ron Crossland:                  32:35                     We love to name them. We don’t even know what to name the next ones, but we’re already naming them because we know what? When they come in, they will already know as much as we knew who when we were 40. Jenn DeWall:                      32:48                     Sometimes it’s very easy to think that innovation is limited to historical knowledge and experience. And it’s not in any way to say that those don’t have a high value, because they do. But it is really exciting to know that people that don’t have the prescribed notions or those defined rules and judgments about the way things are done, that you can really lean in and leverage those generations that may have a different point of view. And even if you’ve heard that view before, maybe the first time you heard it, it wasn’t the right time. But maybe now it is the right time. Ron Crossland:                  33:34                     Precisely. Back in the 80’s I actually had a couple of buddies that, because I’m a nerd I think. I think scholastically and I’m always deep in academia. I’m just kind of one of those weird research-junkie kind of guys, right? A couple of buddies of mine and I thought about- back in those days carpooling was the big deal. To save the planet, you know, reduce on gasoline and stuff like that. If your community didn’t have good bus service or another sort of public transit then carpool, right? And we actually thought maybe instead of just carpooling for our friends, maybe we ought to just put up a poster at the local supermarket that says for 10 bucks a week we’ll drive you to work on our way. Isn’t that Uber? Why did that idea not work? Because the people that might have afforded that didn’t have a technologically easy way to connect with this. So what happened? A new business model that business model idea I was floating back in the 80s. I like to think I thunk of it, right? Jenn DeWall:                      34:49                     We should really let Uber know! Ron Crossland:                  34:54                     Yeah! I need to let them know that I sent out the mental wave and they responded. But think about it. So a new business model could come into being when the technology that that idea needed. The technology to support it. So that’s my caution for all the older generation of people. Is that the timing may not be right for several reasons. One of them, maybe there’s a technological advance needed. Number two, maybe the young person is simply more willing to try harder to make something work. Number three, they may have different connections than I ever can, that can bring resources to the table. I mean there’s, there are multiple numbers of things that can happen that let that old idea actually become the new idea that would work. And so it’s not this “oh it’s not invented yet,” or “gee, we’ve already tried that before” kind of mentality. In the innovation course that people take through Crestcom- if you’ll remember that little equation- that’s part of those arbitrary rules that, “I’ve already done it, that doesn’t work”. That’s an arbitrary rule. They need to regularly be re-inspected because now that rule that we discounted, may become a very valuable tool and so you’re exactly right about that. Letting those young people have more voice, simply inspiring the dialogue between the generations. It’s the thing that when you do more. Jenn DeWall:                      36:33                     Also looking at it from that perspective of today, instead of that rule that we want to be risk averse and so we want to avoid anything that we’ve done before that has caused pain, failure, loss of resources. Today instead of saying we’ve already done that, tried it, it’s not going to work, we can practice being curious. Saying, what is another way to look at it given the change in the economic landscape? What is the environment that we’re operating in, or changes in the industry? And if you’re a leader, whether you’re a baby boomer or a millennial, it’s important to know that it will be very natural for you to be that person that says, “oh, we’ve already done that, or oh, I’ve seen that”. Right? And we lean into that for the right reasons because we don’t want to waste our time and resources. But when we’re doing that, we can become roadblocks to the innovation process. Looking Back to Look Forward Jenn DeWall:                      37:32                     We are the ones that can sometimes prevent our own companies, organizations, teams, etc., to move forward. Because we’re just trying to play safe all the time and it’s not about being risky necessarily, or high risk. It’s about being aware of that things change over time and that there are always appropriate times to go back and look at it. Even if you think of it on a basic level of how people dress, right? How we see that those habits continue to come back, that whether bell bottoms, they can come back! Or you know, skinny jeans or any type of styles. Typically, when we look at them out in the future we say, oh yeah, that’s really old. We don’t want that. And then all of a sudden the future comes to us and we’re buying those looks. We want to be dressed fashionably and relevant to what’s going on. Even though if you asked us a year ago whether we would ever transition from a wider leg pant to a skinnier jean, we would’ve said, “heck no! I can’t believe people do that”. And then they find themselves looking in their closet only to find 10 pairs of that pair of pants. Ron Crossland:                  38:39                     Absolutely, you express that so well. And you reminded me, in my life – last fall, my sons came over for Sunday evening dinner. They regularly do this, but I was pleased as I could be that the youngest pulled out his mobile device, pulled out his streaming music service and pipe through the evening music as we had dinner a playlist of Sinatra songs. And I was just thrilled because he had gotten into that music because of the quality of the music. This idea that things come around. They do. We recycle ideas all the time. The old becomes new, the new becomes old, every time. In fact, I’ll come back to my original story. When my partner and I quit AT&T and just started our own business. It was because AT&T couldn’t imagine having a leadership institute that would be good enough that others would want to come to it. Within 10 years of us leaving and starting our own business, AT&T, GE, and other large scale companies were competing over which one of their leadership training departments were best in class and had the most to offer to other people. Jenn DeWall:                      39:57                     Oh no kidding! Ron Crossland:                  39:58                     We were 10 years ahead of our time and AT&T, for all of its promises, could not see the future outside old thinking technology. They couldn’t see the sociological trends coming. It was outside their scope. Sometimes you’ve got to listen to youth see the future. Jenn DeWall:                      40:20                     I love that. Going back to what I said earlier- every person you meet can be your teacher and your student. That requires us to drop off ego and to say that yes, your experience is valued, but it’s not necessarily always the right experience for where we are today. If you’re going to let your past success drive where you’re going in the future. We want that diversity in thought and that scope and how we look at it. Ron Crossland:                  40:58                     And from an academic standpoint- to back this up more scientifically than just anecdotally. The research on this has been proven multiple, multiple decades in a row. I’ve been looking at this research for 30 years, so every decade it’s re-proven, right? One of the two most common sources of innovation in any organization, smaller ones to sources of innovation that give you the most. The highest level of innovation may come from customers and from new employees because they haven’t been trained to think your way. They come in with a way of thinking that’s different. And that is gold. Any business person that wants to take advantage. Jenn DeWall:                      41:51                     Well, I love that you said the new employees, because how often do we get everyone in the door, and are so excited that they signed the offer, and then we look at it as, “oh, they’re here now,” and it’s an untapped resource to give us an understanding how we are perceived. When you have this fresh set of eyes looking at these processes based on their experience? Is this an efficient way or is there a different way that we could look at it? You know, leveraging that instead of saying, “oh, they’re new and they have to go around the block to figure out what we know”. It’s saying, “oh my gosh, how can we use this before we corrupt your mind into our own way of thinking?” But I mean corrupt in a lovely way, right? Because we have to do that so we can all support the organizational mission. But yeah. How can we tap into that? Jenn DeWall:                      42:40                     Well, you know, think that those are two great things to end on. I’ve really, really loved our conversation about innovation. And really thinking about untapped resources. Who can you go to, to gain really valuable insights into the way you innovate or how you could innovate? Knowing that it’s our customers, they’ll buy with us or they won’t buy. And that will be an indicator of where their preferences lie and what they want to see. And then, our new employees, right? How they’re looking at our business and how they can help to build and move our efforts forward. And we talked about a lot, right? Like really adopting innovation as everyday thinking and that essentially anything that you’re looking at is an opportunity to innovate. Should you want to, right? We may not need to innovate a new way to tie our shoes unless that lace is broken. But knowing that all of those problems are really just opportunities to say, how could we approach this differently? To not say that, “oh my gosh, you got it wrong”. Or, “oh my goodness, you made a mistake”. It’s okay. This is another opportunity to look at this problem in a different way. And also what’s that vision and how are we going to get there? Who do we need to have involved in it? How can we extend that invitation to them to be involved in our innovative process? What is Your Leadership Habit? Jenn DeWall:                      44:14                     You know, the last question that we like to end all of our interviews on, is about really understanding you as a leadership development expert, someone that has experienced much success within their 30 years in the industry. What is your leadership habit that brings you success? Ron Crossland:                  44:34                     Well, being the nerd, it’s an easy answer. Mine is never-ending research. As much as I see that the landscape of leadership has many very, very stable features we talked about, the same things, generation after generation. There’s so much more to learn that’s new and refreshing. And, that requires research. For me, it’s academic research, but I would recommend for others to just talk to other business people. Talk to people that aren’t business people. You’ve got a problem to solve. You know, if you’re sitting in the hair salon having your hair done, ask you’re stylist! Just say, “you know, I was thinking about this problem I have. How would you handle it?” You might be surprised what you could learn. Jenn DeWall:                      45:34                     I love that, and it’s a different way to connect, which is so valuable. Well, Ron, thank you so much for taking the time to be interviewed by me for The Leadership Habit Podcast. On behalf of Crestcom and you know, leaders everywhere, I’m just so excited that we had you on the show. And that we’re able to have that great high-level conversation and what we can do to look at innovation in a new way, and especially how we can embrace the multigenerational workplace that we have to solve our innovation problems. So thank you so much for joining us today, Ron. I we really enjoyed it and we look forward to working with you again soon. Ron Crossland:                  46:14                     That pleasure is my pleasure. Thank you so much. Outro:                                 46:18                     Thank you for joining us for today’s episode of The Leadership Habit Podcast. To find out more about Ron Crossland, connect with him on LinkedIn, also look through his books on Amazon or your favorite bookseller. You can find his book, Voice Lessons, Applying Science to the Art of Leadership Communication, or his books, The Leadership Experience or The Leader’s Voice, all from your favorite bookseller.   The post Episode 5: Innovative Thinking in Leadership with Ron Crossland appeared first on Crestcom International.

In this episode, Jenn DeWall talks to Simon T. Bailey, Crestcom faculty member, author and Breakthrough Strategist.  Simon is one of America’s top 10 most-booked speakers on change, leadership, and customer experience. He’s shared his wisdom on cultural transformation, personal and professional leadership development, relationship building, and creating platinum service opportunities across six continents. Join us as Jenn and Simon explore how to shift your brilliance, sharpen your focus and harness your individual and organizational potential. Full Transcript: Jenn DeWall:                    00:10                     Simon T. Bailey is a breakthrough strategist who’s life purpose is to teach people how to be fearless and create their futures. He has more than 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry, including serving as sales director for Disney Institute and has been named one of the top 25 people who will help you reach your business and life goals by Success Magazine. Simon has authored 10 books, including his most recent release, Be the Spark – Five Platinum Service Principles for Creating Customers for Life. Simon challenges individuals to dig deep to find and release their inner brilliance and become Chief Breakthrough Officers personally and professionally. Jenn DeWall:                     00:56                     Hi everyone and welcome to the Leadership Habit Podcast. I am here with Simon T. Bailey and I’m so excited to have him. He is one of our faculty members for a training that we developed called “Develop Effective and Devoted Employees”. Now, for those of you that don’t know Simon, he is a Breakthrough Strategist and he works with organizations to create cultural transformation. He is really passionate about creating an environment where employees can thrive and engagement is high, which can lead to amazing customer service. So he does that, but we’re also going to be talking about a few of his books today. One, in particular, called “Shift Your Brilliance”. It’s an amazing topic that I was really excited to talk to Simon about. And so without further ado, I just want to introduce you all to Simon T. Bailey, Simon T. Bailey:                01:45                     Thank you so much for having me. Good to be with you. Jenn DeWall:                    01:48                    Yes, we are so happy to have you. So Simon, for those of you that don’t know you, tell us a little bit about yourself. Simon T. Bailey:                01:54                     So I grew up in Buffalo, New York, go Bills!. Well, I live currently in a little small town of Windermere, Florida, which is a suburb of Orlando. And moved from Buffalo to Atlanta to Orlando, Florida. Been here for 20 plus years, used to work at Disney, left Disney a number of years ago to now do this work around the world. I have two amazing children. My son is 20, my daughter is 17 Daniel is in college. Madison is a senior. And both of them doing incredibly well. And when I’m not working, I’m a big movie goer. So you’ll find me at the movies with a bucket of popcorn, my feet kicked up. And if it’s a comedy like “Wedding Crashers”, I am laughing out loud! Jenn DeWall:                      02:47                   That’s a great movie too, by the way! Let alone, I mean, the movie theaters where you can put your feet up to where they have the reclining seats, those are the most amazing part about going to the movies in today’s world. Simon T. Bailey:                02:58                     Yes, absolutely.   Shift Your Brilliance Jenn DeWall:                     03:01                     So Simon, the topic that we’re going to talk about today is Shifting Your Brilliance. What does that mean? What does it mean to Shift Your Brilliance? Simon T. Bailey:                03:10                     It means letting go what has worked, in order to embrace what wants to emerge. Sometimes, individuals, they want broadband results, but they’re using dial-up methods in how they do what they do. So when you Shift Your Brilliance, you’re literally understanding- how do I see how I fit tomorrow- see how I fit tomorrow and make the shift. So it’s inviting people in that journey to do the deeper work, to say, how do I ensure that my head is aligned with my heart? My heart is aligning with my hands so that I can make the shift into where the world is going. Jenn DeWall:                      03:50                     I love that, you know, just connecting and really leaning into your heart and what you’re more passionate about. But why is that important for today’s leaders? Simon T. Bailey:                04:00                     Well, in a world of algorithms, autonomous cars and automation, we have to realize that soul intelligence is faster than artificial intelligence and social intelligence invites us on that journey to say when I shift my brilliance, what do I personally need to do? How do I begin to think about engaging my team and a fresh new way? And then, from an organizational standpoint, how are we creating a culture where everyone matters and everyone can step into their brilliance in the midst of disruption and change? Jenn DeWall:                     04:34                     Great! So it’s giving them the tools essential to make paradigm shifts and see their value, to be able to, you know, achieve greater heights or achieve different goals and solutions. Would that be right? Absolutely. Okay, perfect. And you know, I guess when I think of a leader, would the example be something as simple as, you know, shifting your mindset, just thinking, what’s another way to look at it? Simon T. Bailey:                05:00                     I really believe and I teach in the book, Shift Your Brilliance. What is the mindset and skillset that I need to have based on where I am, where my team is, and where the organization is going? So you didn’t have to unpack that and look at what are your behaviors? What are your habits? What are the skills that you need to acquire? What are the skills you need to polish and shape? So for instance, the number one skill being taught in Silicon Valley right now is empathy. How do I walk a mile in the shoes of everyone else? And how do I really practice conscious inclusion and realizing I don’t have all the answers, but when I come from an empathetic standpoint, I’m looking to engage everyone in the conversation for where we need to go, who we need to be, and what needs to be accomplished. Jenn DeWall:                     05:54                     Empathy. So powerful. Just think about our ability to see the other person and see their needs and understand how to, you know, transition or to change and adjust your style to be able to build that inclusive environment. Simon T. Bailey:                06:09                     Absolutely. And when you build that inclusive environment, everybody matters. Everybody is important, everyone has a contribution that they want to bring to a culture where they are seen and heard. Jenn DeWall:                     06:24                     Right! We want to feel that we matter and that the work we do has an impact. Whether it’s something grandiose or something small, and not to say we have to judge them by small or grandiose, but it’s just knowing that you being here, your actions, your work is really, really significant to us, because it’s part of what makes our success happen. Simon T. Bailey:                06:46                     Absolutely. Jenn DeWall:                     06:47                     Can you tell us a little bit about your story with shifting your brilliance and what that path was like for you? Simon T. Bailey:                06:53                     Yeah. For me professionally, I’ve worked with 6 different companies, I’ve had 10 different jobs over a 30 plus year period. And what I recognized when I was moving up the food chain as a manager, leader. I realized that leadership is both caught and taught, so you learn to lead or learn to manage based on how you’ve been led or what you’ve seen. It’s not just theory that’s in the textbook, it’s actually what’s been modeled for you in the environment. So where I failed as a leader, is I told people what to do. Instead of asking what do they think? I would have selective hearing instead of authentic listening. And I was a boss with an agenda instead of a leader with a vision. So what I quickly discovered is that you can never take people to a place you’ve not been yourself, and coming to the place to say, “I don’t know what I don’t know,” is now that leader- coming to a place of vulnerability, being honest to say, how do I engage everyone around me and moving quicker, faster towards a solution. And recognizing this, and this is how I really began to understand how to shift my brilliance. Years ago, leaders and managers were taught that you need to know everything. And in fact, I ran an adult daycare center, at best as a leader. And what I recognized is I hired smart men and women, but I would say, you know, bring me your hands and your heart, but coat-check your brain at the door. And the discrepancy, or the failure in that we were not getting the solutions that we wanted. So what I discovered in my own journey is that I had to come to a place where I released the need to be right. Number two, I had to understand saying that I don’t know, doesn’t mean that I failed. And number three, I had to understand letting go of that old mindset where I had all the answers to embrace the new mindset. And that is how do I ask the right questions in order to evoke brilliance coming forward in the environment. Jenn DeWall:                    09:11                     Yeah, it’s, you know, it’s all about suspending ego, right? We don’t have to have all of the answers and be right all the time. But in the traditional sense, I would say the ways that the pressures of a different time. I would say now, I think we’re in a different time in the workforce. We were expected to be perfectionists, to work really, really long hours without making any type of mistake. And we were also expected to keep it all together, even though I think it’s that example where it’s like looking at, you know, you’re just staying above water. It’s a duck that’s on water but its feet are just going rapidly underneath and you can’t see that. And you know the consequences of having that type of, I would say passion or philosophy about work is there’s the burnout. There’s not feeling like you’re having the impact. There’s the opposite. There are people not connecting with each other and worse- really irritating each other. So then that causes those things that I’m sure you’re familiar with turnover and retention challenges. But really it’s all about learning how to suspend that ego and look at every person you meet as your teacher in your student. Right? We’re all on this journey together to figure out how we can do something and how we can do it the best way possible. Simon T. Bailey:                10:26                     Yes. That is so spot on. Jenn DeWall:                     10:29                     And like you said – asking the right questions. What are those types of questions? How does that communication style have to shift? When we’re thinking about the type of questions that we asked to get the most out of people. Simon T. Bailey:                10:42                     So I think there are three questions that every leader or manager or team member has to begin to ask themselves every single day. Number one, why are we doing it this way? And that’s not to say that it’s the wrong way, but it votes. It then evokes question number two, is there a better way? And then question number three, what are we going to do today better than we did yesterday? And when leaders and managers begin to ask that question, it really encourages people to move towards a journey to look through the windshield of what’s possible and instead of the rear view mirror of the way it used to be. And those questions become the GPS coordinates that allow you to accelerate until tomorrow instead of being stuck in yesterday. The Vuja De Moment Jenn DeWall:                      11:34                     Perfect. Now in your book, “Shift Your Brilliance”, you talked about the Vuja De moment. It was something that I actually hadn’t heard about until I had read your book. So I’m going to go ahead and assume that some of our listeners haven’t heard of it either. So for those that aren’t familiar with Vuja De, what is Vuja De and why does matter? Simon T. Bailey:                11:53                     So we have to start with Vuja De is the opposite of Deja Vu. Deja Vu is been there, done that. But Vuja De is going there, doing that. So here’s the backstory. When I started writing “Shift Your Brilliance”, the book was actually called “The Vuja De Moment”, and after 3 title changes, 25 rewrites over a 2-year period. What I discovered is that Vuja De happens when you let go of what is comfortable and convenient, to embrace what needs to happen in order to move forward. Let me say it to you a different way. Change is your friend, not your foe. Change is a brilliant opportunity to grow. So Vuja De is the invitation to embrace the change. It’s the salmon swimming upstream to discover something different. So modern day examples of Vuja De- which might be overused examples- certainly Uber is one that comes to mind. They looked at the taxicab industry and they Vuja De’d it. So they went the opposite way of the way it had always been done. AIRBNB, they don’t own any real estate, but yet they’re in 190 countries around the world and they’ve grown faster in less than a decade than the normal hotel tourism companies that you know of, right? It’s Vuja De. It’s going the opposite way. If you even think of Zipcar, as compared to Hertz, Avis, Alamo, National- Zipcar creates a different model where they take a car and they put it in neighborhoods, certainly around college campuses where people can access it by a code. It’s Vuja De. So Vuja De is the opposite of Deja Vu and it invites you to say, how do we go the opposite way of the way it’s always been done? Jenn DeWall:                      13:54                     Oh, I love that. I think that we see that example in terms of business here. Denver has really embraced the electric scooters and so looking at, you know, how do people get around? It doesn’t have to just be a bike or walking or a bus. You can also pick up an electric scooter and you can get from A to B and then you can leave it wherever your destination is. Sounds like that might be a Vuja De example. Simon T. Bailey:                14:18                     Oh, totally, totally. Jenn DeWall:                     14:20                     You know, what are the benefits of thinking about things in terms of the Vuja De or Shifting Your Brilliance? What are the benefits of doing that both personally, organizationally? Simon T. Bailey:                14:30                     Yes, so the number one benefit personally, it allows a person to assess their skill set and their mindset in order to spark a way of doing things in a fresh way. So that personal benefit is, I get to kind of clear my lens to move quicker and faster. The second benefit as it relates to the organization is that in times of change, the learning organizations are going to be the organizations that thrive. Organizations that hold onto the way it’s always been done- their market share is going to erode, talent is going to leave- and they thought they were valuable- but they won’t be as valuable as they were in time past. Point in case, Eastman Kodak. When you look at Instagram was sold to Facebook or acquired by Facebook for $1.1 billion and they had only 13 employees. Whereas Eastman Kodak had thousands of patents, but they’re out of business. So it’s that whole thing of the organization thinking about how do we embrace this Vuja De or shift mindset? Which then leads to the third thing, which is we attract a team that creates talent and that talent that creates a team. That says you know what? I want to be a part of that organization that’s on the cutting edge, that organization that sees the old and the new and the new and the old, and then personally, I get to benefit and not just make money but make meaning and make a difference in the community. Jenn DeWall:                      16:08                     Great. Which you know, meaningful work is also something that’s very important. I think it’s important across all generations, but you see it very heavily in millennials, right? Wanting to work for those organizations that are innovative and disruptive and are giving and have meaning and so it’s so important to embrace Vuja De. If you think about who or what the composition is of your workforce. These are things that a lot of people want and can make you very attractive to want to do business with. Simon T. Bailey:                16:41                     Yes, absolutely. And the thing about it, millennials can do more research online now more than ever before through Glassdoor.com to kind of get the 411 on an organization even before they get there. Just think about if there was a website that existed called “Rate My Manager”, kinda like “Rate Your Professor”. I think managers and leaders would step up! But currently Glassdoor has all of that data right now and people who have left the organization- good, bad or indifferent- they post their feedback. And talent- millennial talent- is assessing what does the world say about you before they invest their time and energy. Jenn DeWall:                      17:28                     Right? Because who wants to start a career in an organization where you can tell based on maybe some of those reviews that they may not have a strong investment in learning and development, which is something that’s really important. There may not be a work-life balance. They may have poor managers, which you know, to your point, people don’t typically always leave organizations, they leave bad managers. Simon T. Bailey:                17:51                     Yes, absolutely. Jenn DeWall:                      17:54                     I would love to see if there’s a way that we could come up with a business idea to do “Rate My Manager”. People would really appreciate that and it would build in a level of accountability to say, “Hey, even if someone else around you sees this as you being amazing, these other people also feel it in a different way. So how can we merge those to make a better impact?”   See Differently Jenn DeWall:                      18:15                     So we’re talking about shifting your brilliance and I wanted to talk about the seven steps or the actions that you can take to shift your brilliance that are from your book. So you know, we’re going to start with action number one. It was See Differently. Simon T. Bailey:                18:30                     Yes. See Differently is to look at what you have always seen with a fresh set of eyes, asking those questions, is there a better way? Why are we doing this? What are we going to do about it? So seeing differently gives you permission to totally disrupt what’s happening. So let me give you an example. I was working with an organization not too long ago and once a quarter on a Friday, they take all of their employees and all of them go and work in different departments. Now two-fold benefit on Monday morning, they go back to that previous place where they work, the department they report to, but they come back with a fresh set of eyes because they saw something differently on Friday and they say, “On Friday I did X. What if we do Y and Z here in our department?” The second benefit is it stretches men and women to begin to see things differently and not do it the way it’s always been done. So that’s how you begin to see differently. How do we give individuals a different view of what’s been done? And then ask them, how do we improve it? How do we do it better? Because your answers are in the organization. It’s in the hearts and minds of men and women.   Harness the Power of You Jenn DeWall:                      19:51                     I love that first example about you know, going and working with the different department on a Friday. That’s a really unique way to break down the silos, or people operating in a vacuum, which can create a whole host of issues by people not having exposure to other things. That example. So the second action that you talk about is to Harness the Power of You. What does that mean to Harness the Power of You? Simon T. Bailey:                20:18                     So in my travels around the world, what I’ve discovered is now organizations are inviting you to take ownership of your career. So here’s the way to think about a career and we’ll use a kind of like a Wall Street portfolio investment portfolio as an example. Every company when they hired talent, they make a bet on that talent. A “BET” stands for their Brilliance, their Energy, and their Time. So when an organization brings in talent, they’re believing that talent brings their brilliance, their insight, potential, their ability, right? And they’re going to put their energy, show up every single day and go the extra inch, right? And then over time- 5, 10, 20 years- that person is going to become more valuable because compounded over time is everything that they learned. So when I started seeing that and thinking about that, I said, wait a minute, if I have a portfolio of experiences that I show up to company X, how do I keep my neck and my job off of the guillotine of cuts, right? The only way you increase your portfolio value is you’ve got to invest. You’ve got to be seen as talent that is worthwhile investing in. In other words, when you harness the part of you and incorporate it, you are a person that the company cannot live without. You are the SME, the Subject Matter Expert. You’re the go-to person that they say, we’ve got to have this person. And the only reason that happens is because a man or woman sees themselves as the CEO of Me, Incorporated. So I am thinking, how do I take my portfolio and increase the value of the BET that’s been made on me over time so the company can’t live without me? Jenn DeWall:                      22:17                     All right, so it’s personal branding, right? And that confidence piece, owning who you are and knowing your value. I know I’ve had, I’ve been working with people in my coaching practice- and what’s so interesting- is that when people have a competence issue, they’re really reluctant to focus on competence. Not because they don’t see its value, but because they’re so concerned with being and coming off as cocky or arrogant, but really it’s not about arrogance and cockiness. I like to say if you have that filter already, there is a check. You’re not going to go that far down. But it is about recognizing and seeing your value, seeing your strengths, seeing how you make everything better just by being you. Simon T. Bailey:                23:02                     Yes, absolutely. Jenn DeWall:                      23:03                     Oh my gosh, I love that Yeah, it’s leverage the power and harness the power of You. I think that’s so important and I wish everyone would do that. I can’t picture what that would look like if everyone did that in terms of how the happiness that people would have at work and to be able to come back home to their families and in their communities. Just really understanding that they matter and that we are so happy to have and see them. I love that whole- I just love that belief- and I think it’s super important.   Ignite a Fresh Vision Jenn DeWall:                      23:28                     So let’s talk about your third action. which is to Ignite a Fresh Vision. Simon T. Bailey:                 23:38                     It really starts with, how do I create a strategic life plan? And begin to think about where I would like to be in my career and in my business profession – and 90 days out, 180 days out, a year from now- how do I take ownership to take what is the vision and actually execute it? Jenn DeWall:                      23:59                     When do you think – or how far out should people be looking for a vision? Should they look one month out? Should they look one year out? What do you think works best for people? Simon T. Bailey:                24:08                     I believe it all depends on where you are in your career. We know that they are, you know, right now on the planet, six generations in the workforce, we know it’s predominantly Gen Xers, Millennials, certainly Gen Z is right behind them. Baby Boomers are there. So it depends on where you are right now personally and professionally. If you are a Boomer, I would certainly be looking at, you know what, if I’ve got another five years to work, what does that plan look like? If you’re a Gen Xer and you’re saying, I have about 10 to 15 years in front of me, what does that look like? If you’re a Millennial just getting into the workforce within the first five years of your career, I would invite you to create a 25-year plan. To say, okay, how do I think 25 years out, in 5-year increments, 18 months within that 5-year cycle. And then we say, begin to say, what are the skills I need? What are the relationships I need to have? What difference am I going to make and is the organization where I’m currently working, is the organization going to help me meet my longterm goals? So, depending on if you’re a Millennial, Xer or Boomer. Jenn DeWall:                      25:20                     Perfect. Yeah, it’s thinking about the- you know, it’s having a plan- but actually thinking about what the plan is versus saying, in 10 years I want to do this. It sounds like it’s more of a robust process, really think it out. Where do you want to be in five years? What type of skills do you want to have? Is the organization that you’re currently at going to be the one that will help you move to the next level? Or are there opportunities that you could be looking at within your organization to help support and move you to where you want to be?   Fuel Your Mind Jenn DeWall:                      25:49                     You know, your fourth action to take to shift your brilliance is Fuel Your Mind. Simon T. Bailey:                25:55                     Right! So the greatest advantage that everyone listening to this right now is to actually grow how you think. Right now, the greatest thing that parents- parents have to think about as their children enter the workforce. The question is no longer, what do you want to do? What do you want to be? In a world with algorithms and automation- the most important question you have to ask, in fueling your mind is, what problem have you been created to solve? Because if you’re not solving problems in this economy, then a job can be automated. So when you ask the question, what problem have I been created to solve? What it fuels within is how do I unlock creativity? Critical thinking. How do I truly become empathetic as we’ve already said? How do I become that storyteller? How do I look for the little nuances and the intangibles that are needed in moving my life, my business, my organization forward? So fueling your mind is how do I create a surround sound of learning? For instance, podcasts such as this one, books that I’m reading, conferences that I’m attending, putting together a personal board of directors, thinking about how to like upskill and creating a cornucopia of things that challenge you to fuel your mind to move forward. Jenn DeWall:                      27:26                     Yeah. So it’s investing in yourself and seeing where those investments can leave you. Whether it’s your time by listening to a podcast and maybe it will spark a new idea or just a different way to look at something or reading a book. And you can practice different skillsets like empathy once you see things from a different way. But I know in one of your blogs you said, “Readers are Leaders”, I believe, and I really believe that. It’s all about how can we invest in ourselves because it’s not as if there’s some amazing gift that all of us have built-in where we have this maximum potential of what we can ever get. It’s that within us we can develop ourselves and we get to determine our potential. It’s not fixed. And so by fueling your mind, that’s the way that you can do that. Thinking about how you can continue to grow and evolve. Simon T. Bailey:                28:18                     Yes.   Take the Wheel Jenn DeWall:                      28:19                     So the next action you can take to shift your brilliance is to Take the Wheel. What does that mean to take the wheel? Simon T. Bailey:                28:28                     Taking the Wheel, is finding that inner Madagascar or finding it and move it, move it, get to it. In other words, the best hand that will feed you at the end of the day is the one at the end of your risks. So taking the wheel is the invitation to say, what am I going to do to execute, move into action, get it done. Not wait for the tap on the shoulder, but how am I going to get up off my blessed assurance and make things happen? Jenn DeWall:                      28:56                     Yeah, it’s taking the wheel. It sounds like with that approach, you don’t have the opportunity, if you really want to shift your brilliance, to live in what some would call a victim mentality, meaning everything is happening to me or it’s their fault. Taking the wheel is truly taking responsibility for what you can control and making it happen. Simon T. Bailey:                29:15                     Absolutely. No one can stop you but you. Jenn DeWall:                      29:18                     There’s a lot of different examples within media of how people have really taken the wheel. There have been opportunities- or not opportunities- but moments that they’ve had to overcome adversity and they really had to decide if I want it to be successful, it only comes down to me. Simon T. Bailey:                29:36                     Absolutely.   Engage Your Gears Jenn DeWall:                      29:38                     So your sixth action to take to shift your brilliance is to Engage Your Gears. Simon T. Bailey:                 29:43                     Yeah! So engaging your gears is looking at all of the resources that are available to you. Obviously, with just a few clicks away, you can log online, find out just about anything you want to know. Google has become a deep fault of research way to find something quick and fast. But then also how do you leverage the resource of relationships? How do you begin to tap into organizations that can help cut down your learning curve and help you expedite where you’re attempting to go quicker and faster? So engaging your gears is asking yourself the question, what do I already have? What is missing? What do I need to know and who do I engage in order to get to the solution? Jenn DeWall:                      30:32                     So an example for maybe a new leader would be, how do I learn how to motivate and inspire and engage my team? What would they do if they, if you are a new leader, what are some examples of some ways that they may engage your gears? Simon T. Bailey:                 30:46                     Yeah. So three ways managers can engage new folks that they’re working with. Number one is to find out through a learning style, are they visual or auditory. The second thing is to recognize everyone likes to be recognized for the contribution that they’re making, but they want to be thanked in the way that suits them. So for example, do they want a handwritten note, do they want a text, would they like it face-to-face, would they like it publicly in front of a team. So a manager really understanding that person’s appreciation language so you recognize them accordingly. And then the third way is to celebrate what they’re doing right. So many times people are told what they’re not doing, but a manager that really wants to establish emotional equity with new team members tells people what they’re doing right. And as the equity begins to accrue in that account, that person says, wow, my manager, he or she gets me. I’m going to go above and beyond for that manager because they understand who I am. Jenn DeWall:                      31:52                     Yeah, they see you, they support you, they understand your strengths and look for opportunities for you to best utilize your strengths. You know, you said that it really great phrase there that some people may not be familiar with, but it’s an important part of their relationship that you develop with your team. And that was emotional equity. What does that mean? Simon T. Bailey:                 32:12                     Well, I talk about emotional equity is everybody has an emotional bank account. As Dr. Covey taught us in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Think about the equity you have in a house. You pay your mortgage, your mortgage that you pay over 30 year period. Eventually, you have built up equity in the house if the House has appreciated. So if you think about that in the context of business, when a manager works with the team and they build emotional equity, what’s happening is you’re telling that team member what they’re doing, right? They’re celebrating the wins. They are looking not at just the losses, but they see the losses as an opportunity to learn and grow. That creates emotional equity that allows, that person is saying, you know what? Oh my goodness, this is amazing. Let me anchor it in a little research. And I’m going to make a sharp left-hand turn from the right lane to make the point. Gallup says, in their research, 70% of human decision making is emotional, 30% rational. Gallup says, when people emotionally connect with the brand, they spend more, pay a higher margin and tell others about it. Now let’s come back to the point that we were making earlier. So if the decision is made emotionally and that manager has connected with that team member, that team member will show up before its time, they will go the extra mile and they will Yelp about that manager because of the emotional equity that that manager has invested in the relationship with them. Jenn DeWall:                      33:47                     Right? So when you invest in emotional equity, there are long term results that are associated. There are positive consequences, but if you ignore it, I think the results are the cultures that are created where people are trying to flee them and they’re leaving because they don’t feel like what they’re doing, their contributions matter. They have leaders that don’t respect them and see their value. And so it’s so important to have emotional equity built in. Absolutely. That’s great. Thank you for just taking that one step further. I just, I myself was very interested in hearing about that. So thank you. You know, the last action was to restart your engine.   Restart Your Engine Jenn DeWall:                     34:25                     So the last action of shifting your brilliance – So what does that mean to Restart Your Engine? Simon T. Bailey:                34:30                     Yeah, as you can tell, the book Shift Your Brilliance is built on a car metaphor. So it’s staying in line with restarting your engine stops, get stuck or it won’t turn over. And so borrowing that thinking, what if we step back and we look at where we are in business, in our career, in our organization, and we simply write down, what does the behavior I need to stop doing? What is the behavior or habits I need to start doing? And then what are the behaviors or habits that I have been doing that have allowed me to be successful? How do I accelerate those quicker, faster, right? So park, start, accelerate, it really invites you to assess – if I’m going to restart the engine, how do I now look at this tool of how to do it? Jenn DeWall:                      35:27                     Yeah. It’s a way of you taking control back. To say that I’m not at the mercy of a situation, that I actually do have the power of my own individuality and mindset to determine how I want to show up and how I want to be seen. I know for myself, earlier on in my career, I know one of the biggest challenges that I had was getting feedback right. When I had feedback, it was completely a shutdown. I would get it, I would personalize it. I would say, oh my goodness, you’re awful. I can’t believe you did this. And then you go into, you know, just judging yourself and being angry at yourself and then you might be angry at your colleagues because you did something that got bad feedback. As I’ve grown up and into my career, I really started to think, how do I really want to approach feedback?  Do I want to shut down and just go into a corner and put my tail between my legs? Or do I want to say, Hey, what is this like, this feedback, one- thank you so much for giving me feedback that requires your time and thought and two, I’m going to assume positive intent and say if you’re giving me feedback, it’s to figure out how we can do this better. So I love the notion of restarting your engine because even if we did go far down one path, we still have the opportunity to start again and go in a different direction. We get to change the programming.   What is Your Leadership Habit? Jenn DeWall:                      36:49                     So I have really, really enjoyed our conversation, and you know we’re going to be wrapping up our podcast for our listeners, but one of the last questions that we like to ask is what is your leadership habit? I know that action number four was to Fuel Your Mind. So I’m going to assume it might have something to do with that, but what is your leadership habit that brought you to your success that you’ve created today? Simon T. Bailey:                37:14                     It’s understanding it’s one thing to be a public success, but a private failure. And what I mean by that is the leader- the job of a leader- is never to motivate people to do more things. Even though that’s popular theory out there, you’ve got to motivate and inspire people to work harder. I believe that the habit every leader needs to have is the job of a leader is to invite people on a journey to discover the leader within themselves while they’re following you. So a leader can never take a person to a place that they have not been themselves. So the habit for me that I’m constantly working on is self-assessing my journey because I recognize that people might be following me unbeknownst to me. And how am I showing up in the world? Being flawed, being perfectly imperfect, and being okay with that because it’s the journey of leadership. So it’s that habit to put the mirror in front of your face every single day and to say, you know what, I’m not all that and a bag of chips. How do I move from me to we? How I begin to understand that I am because you are- that I can’t do it without you. And to your earlier point about the word ego, the habit of self-assessing your journey is understanding that EGO means Edging Greatness Out. So having the ability to be on a journey and to be honest with yourself and say, you know what? I don’t know what I don’t know. And when you reach that point, you practice what I call intellectual humility. Jenn DeWall:                      38:50                     Oh my gosh, and intellectual humility is a perfect place to end it on. It’s thinking about what is our journey? We are all on one and what do we want our journey to look like? How can we shift our brilliance to make that journey as amazing and beautiful and messy and you know, perfectly imperfect as it can be. Simon, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. I really, really appreciate it! Not only your book but your energy and your passion for development and really helping to make the world a better place via leadership. So thank you so much for just taking your time to share your wisdom with us today. Simon T. Bailey:                39:32                     Thank you for having me. Jenn DeWall:                      39:34                     Thank you for joining us. For today’s interview with Breakthrough Strategist, Simon T. Bailey, for additional resources and information on booking Simon, you can visit his website at www.simontbailey.com. You can find a link to the website in our show notes. Be sure to check out his blog and pick up a copy of his new book, Be the Spark: Five Platinum Service Principles for Creating Customers for Life. The post Episode 4: Shift Your Brilliance with Simon T. Bailey appeared first on Crestcom International.