Podcast Episodes Archive - Page 4 of 27 - Red Slice | Speaker, Author, Leadership Trainer

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Molly McGrath: Fix My Employee! No, Fix My Boss!

No matter what side of the aisle you fall on – employee or leader – you may have uttered these words, “Why can’t I just fix them?!” Building strong relationships either way is both an employee AND a leader responsibility because empathy must flow both ways.

Today, I talk with Molly McGrath. She reveals some biases that leaders can break free from to be more effective, how to merge the perspectives of boss and employees to better understand each other, and you’ll love her actionable tips and examples on how you can initiate healthy communication, build trust, and create a more positive and high-performing environment with less drama and more impact. We also talk about the importance of re-dating and re-committing with your employees on a regular basis!

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

If we’re only hiring to the résumé, we are going to be missing out on a lot of the people skills that aren’t written down.
Self-awareness and self-care are two of the key pillars of empathetic leadership. We have to get our own house in order to understand our blind spots, triggers, and strengths, and know what we’re bringing into the conversation.
The work of leading is spending time with your people. You need to understand how each of your team are hardwired.

“You have to re-date your employees and re-enroll (your employees) every single day.” — Molly McGrath

Episode References:

Empathy Edge Podcast: Daina Middleton: How to do Layoffs with HUmanity, Inclusion, and Compassion

From Our Partner:

SparkEffect partners with organizations to unlock the full potential of their greatest asset: their people. Through their tailored assessments and expert coaching at every level, SparkEffect helps organizations manage change, sustain growth, and chart a path to a brighter future.

Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.

About Molly McGrath:

Molly McGrath is the Founder and CEO of Hiring & Empowering Solutions and the author of Amazon’s top #1 Best Seller: Fix My Boss: The Simple Plan to Cultivate Respect, Risk Courageous Conversations, and Increase the Bottom Line. She is also host of the Hire and Empower podcast.

Molly is a thought leader with 27 years of experience in the CEO space. Since the late nineties, She has coached, consulted, and directed presidents and founders of national organizations and over 4,500 law firms in executive-level leadership, continuous improvement, and team empowerment initiatives to infiltrate new markets, leverage partner ecosystems, and produce profitability.

Molly has 27 years of specific skill set experience in legal marketing, fractional CEO roles, conversation intelligence coaching, team development & empowerment, intrapreneur talent acquisition, Kaizen leadership, root cause analysis, revenue mapping, and action-based project management.

Connect with Molly:

Hiring & Empowering Solutions: hiringandempowering.com

X: x.com/HireAndEmpower

Instagram: instagram.com/hiringandempowering

Fix My Boss: The Simple Plan to Cultivate Respect, Risk Courageous Conversations, and Increase the Bottom Line: amazon.com/dp/1636801765

Hire and Empower With Molly McGrath podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1460184599

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Molly McGrath 02:31

Oh, thank you for having me, Maria. I’m excited to be here. I

Maria Ross 02:35

am really excited to talk about your book, fix my boss, the simple plan to cultivate respect, risk courageous conversations and increase the bottom line. And before we get into it and give people all the goodies and insights and actionable nuggets, tell us a little bit about your story and how you got into this world of coaching and executive leadership and all of that. What’s your passion there?

Molly McGrath 02:58

Yeah, well, at one point, I was an employee, so at the tender age of 27, years old, back then, when you would apply for a job through a classified ad, which is a newspaper for some of our younger listeners that might not resonate with that term, and had to mail in your resume, walk your resume. And I was really, blessed to be interviewed by a boss, if you will, a leader, actually CEO of a national organization for lawyers, which, if anyone knows anything about lawyers or the top intellect, everything is about skill set, knowledge, years of service, but they’re always interviewing from the resume or CV. And when I went through the interview, I had a phenomenal leader that really knew how to facilitate a conversation, how to lead with servant leader communication. And he said to me, you’re not totally qualified for this position. And he said a key word after that yet, but I see your energy. I see in this back in 1997 where energy and intuition, all that was so out there, woo, woo and was not commonplace in the league, in the workplace, they said to me, I’m going to take a chance on you, because it’s up to me, as a leader and a mentor and a coach, to really give you the framework where you can be set up for success. You have hard working. You have beautiful mindset, you have confidence, you have confidence. And the rest of it is on me to really provide you a place to grow and lead. So I started my, you know, career as an employee shined from a administrative assistant all the way up to CEO of the company. Then became a partner within the company because somebody took a chance on me, and they took their job description as a leader seriously. And through that, I would go to all we did conferences all over the world every quarter, and I would have our clients come to me at the cut. Tail reception, coffee break, what have you. And they’re like, Where can I find one of you? How can I clone you? How can and I’d hear this over and over again. And then I really became very passionate about the employee side, about really creating what I call in my first book, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs world. Love

Maria Ross 05:21

it, and so then you just kind of got fell into executive leadership coaching and doing the work, and you’ve worked with 1000s of leaders and founders and people all over the world. So we’re really going to be appreciating your insights today. I want to start first with some of the biases that leaders need to break free from in order to be more effective. What are some of the biases that we want them to be aware of?

Molly McGrath 05:47

You know, number one, I would say, is in regards to getting seduced by the resume or the CD Cv of people. So often they have to remember they’re hiring human beings first, human doing second. So a lot of times they’ll be say, I need somebody batteries included. I don’t have time to train on board or what have you. I’m like, great. You assume their batteries included, skill set, knowledge, work ethic, all that. Guess what? Now you still need to spend time with them. Might not be on training the specifics of how to do their job or your process or procedures, or what have you. But they’re a human being, and this a personal, relate, two sided relationship, so you’re still going to have to give them time, attention and feedback. So regardless if they need a little bit of skill set training, or they come in perfect, they have the years of service, skill set, all that you still need to spend time with your people outside a Slack channel or communication, ping pong, through email and other do just stop hiding out behind technology. Yeah,

Maria Ross 06:54

I think that’s so important, is you’re not going to get those people skills, that emotional intelligence, that emotional regulation, if we’re just hiring to the resume, and it doesn’t mean someone has the potential to strengthen that and build that, but that requires commitment, that requires time, that requires mentorship, and if we really, you know, if the goal, I always go back to the ROI, if the goal is that you have a high performing team and A high performing employee, then yes, spending the time is worth it. Because I hear that a lot is like, well, I don’t have time to be empathetic. I don’t have time to get to know but that’s your job as a leader. That’s actually where you should be spending your time. So I love that you talk about that. Are there any other biases we need to be aware of that are getting in the way of us being more effective leaders?

Molly McGrath 07:40

Yeah. Number two is that you have not won, and you can’t wipe your brow once you hire somebody and you have a high performance team, is retention is the biggest thing that most people look over. You hire someone, you get them, they give you entrepreneurial freedomship, time freedom, financial freedom. And we think that we are smooth sailing. Yeah, I’m always about gamification to keep up, especially myself as an entrepreneur. I’m running a team. I’m all to keep yourself on your toes. You have to redate your employees and re enroll them every single day. I always keep myself and healthy check to assume that there’s any given day that I could come in and somebody’s resigning, and then I always hear we’re like, oh my God, how did I not know you were unhappy? How did you get recruited and poached away from me? I have a recruiting side of my business as well, and I’ve had that for 30 years now, and it’s fascinating that you say so often when I’m interviewing people like, why are you talking to a recruiter today? Why are you looking for a new position? And the knee jerk responses, there’s no opportunity for growth. Blah, blah, blah. Like, let’s get real here. Talk to me, and 100% of the time, it’s abandonment. It’s the leaders not giving them time and attention feedback. And I believe in our job descriptions, whether you’re owner operator or your C suite or your HR or what have you, the number one bullet point in our job description is to grow our people up and to pour into them, make them feel like they matter and really it has to be authentic, if you know it’s not just something that you’re checking a box

Maria Ross 09:34

on for sure, and I’m so intrigued. You know you called your book fix my boss. So is your book meant for employees, or can leaders sort of pick this up to get into the mindset of what their employees are thinking.

Molly McGrath 09:47

Number one question I get about this book, the first title of this book was called, fix my employees, because that’s the question the phone calls, the emails that every time. 100% of the time it fixed my employees when people call me. And so going through the book, that was the title, and as I was sharing that with the C suite leadership entrepreneurs like, oh my god, I can’t wait to give my team this book, right. And my publisher is like, no, they’re every business book out there is written in the perspective of the leader. There’s something wrong with the employees. And the employees always tell me, they get handed all these business books at team development programs or what have you, and it’s written in the perspective of the entrepreneur. So we were like, my publisher, and I was like, visualizing running through the airport, and a business owner sees this book right in the window. It says, fix my boss, and the needle scratches. They’re like, well, if I You’re the leader, you’re like, Whoa. What is this chick telling my people? And so they’re going to buy it and 100% it’s for them, but employees gonna see it, and they’re like, Yes, finally, someone got has us. They understand us, and they’re actually gonna read it and digest it and implement it. Because this entire book, and there’s a company workbook with it, is not meant to be a one and done and read it is a book written for both of them with a very empowering title, I believe that’s going to cause each whatever seat you sit in, to kind of pause, but also maybe have a healthy level of fear of like, oh boy, what’s she going to be saying?

Maria Ross 11:37

Exactly. And, I mean, I think that subtitle of the simple plan to cultivate respect, risk, courageous conversations and increase the bottom time, not line, is really a, you know, a little teaser, a little appetizer for folks to understand what some of those secrets are. To fix your boss, but also it’s about fixing the relationship between the boss and the employee, and so I want to dive in for a second on how do we merge those perspectives? This is where empathy really comes in. We’ve I’ve talked a lot. I’ve been guilty of it too, as many empathy advocates have, of talking just to the leaders about empathy. But empathy is a two way street, and we’ve also got to teach that those skills to strengthen and flex your empathy muscle to everyone at all levels in the organization, so that empathy flows down, but it flows up as well. So how can we merge the perspectives of the boss and employees so that they understand what the other person sees?

Molly McGrath 12:38

I talk about this and train this all day, every day. I mean, what’s the saying? Leaders go first, so you have to make it a safe place, first and foremost, for people to use their voice and share sometimes in a courageous conversation of what’s not working or what have you in that regard. So how to have it both ways? The greatest hack that I have, especially for new employees coming on, and I’m using the word employee might be an independent contractor, overseas state side. I’m just using it very general, especially if you’re using overseas support team or contractors, is to actually a model that I have, which is, teach, show, do, go, grow. And what I mean by that is I say at the very first day, when you’re onboarding a new employee, have them walk around and shadow you right, and go through and watch you sit in every meeting, what have you. And then I debrief at the end with the boss and the leader and the employee. The employee, 10 out of 10 times is in tears. There they will say to me, my boss didn’t have a meal all day. They never went to the bathroom. They were in back to back to back meetings with existing clients, doing sales meeting trying to, you know, do diffusion on a certain department or a team, and they are just like this has got to stop there. Then they have a back for they have your back so they have an appreciation for what it takes to get clients. Service. Clients, get employees. Service employees process production, profitability, all that. So when they can walk in your shoes all day long, and they understand it and then debrief with you after that is the first way to get empathy. 10 out of 10 times when I hire new people and take them through that boarding process, I’m talking from a receptionist to an executive level person, they have such completion. They have such complete compassion for what you’re dealing with on the daily. How

Maria Ross 14:47

practical is that, though? How realistic is that for if you’re talking about a larger company with 10s of 1000s of people, and your person is remote and they’re not then they’re not in your backyard, how can a lead. Or do that with a new hire.

Molly McGrath 15:02

I have 10 full time remote people, Philippines, Honduras, Belize all over and I make them sit. And first of all, I make them watch my calendar every single day. And so I have a marketing coordinators, I have recruiters, I have executive assistants. I have coo I will make them sit in the Zoom Room every single meeting that I have. I have a virtual company. I have for 30 years now, and I make them sit and watch every single meeting. I tee them up. I’m like, here’s the goal. This meeting, it’s an hour long. Here’s what we’re walking into, etc. If it’s a sales person, you’re onboarding. Same thing. I just hired two sales people. I’m on boarding them right now, and they’re spending time and shadowing me for the entire week, seeing the meeting, seeing the follow up that comes out of every single meeting, right? And what have you. So do you think they’re going to march in my office when you back to back meetings or ping me and say, Do you have 10 minutes to puke all over me and dump on me. No, you know, I train too and the team. Another way to have empathy is to batch your communication. Don’t blow up your boss. Leader, HR, I’m working with a big company right now. They’re in 17 countries, big law firms, and their HR team is, I can’t even I’m witnessing what the employees do to the HR, and I’m getting them to sit in their perspective and understand that. So you know, before you send Lori an email that Susie just showed up late and looked at you cross eyed and did blah, blah, blah, they’re all remote, I want you to look at what’s on her calendar the hour before, yeah, you see she might have a 10 minute break, or you see she has no break at all, and pay attention to what she what happened in her day before, this emergency conversation you had to have. You know about your PTO, or whatever it is, and what look at what she’s walking into because she’s not able to be present. There’s a time and place for data and information and be aware of it in regards to what they’re carrying on their back for the day, for the week, for the month. And

Maria Ross 17:14

then how do you flip it so that the boss can have empathy for the employee? Oh,

Molly McGrath 17:19

I love this question in regards to it’s really the same way as well. So instead of pinging them and emailing them and say, did you do this? Are you doing this? Words have way and words matter. So I train a lot of times you mentioned emotional intelligence early. We’re getting ready to kick off a three month series on emotional intelligence, which I’m a huge fan of as well, but having that self awareness right? And that’s really what we’re talking about perspective and self awareness and self governing and self regulating. So for the boss, in the same way they can clarify, verify before, meaning, there are times when I need you to drop everything. I completely understand what’s on your plate right now. I completely understand what’s going on for you, but right now, this is an SOS. I need support in that. And just even when my bosses and leaders frame, you know, sandwich the conversation, it is all about what comes out of your mouth, the intentions and delivery. Your intentions might be pure. We need to do this, or we’re going to lose a client, or there’s real risk attached, but it’s all in the delivery and and sometimes it comes out sloppy or a brass or whatever. That’s okay, because, as you said, it’s a relationship. So if I’m an employee, I train my employees that if they’re like, did you do this? Like, don’t give it story and meaning in the moment. You know the urgency of this matter, or what have you de energized, and don’t make it personal. Give it now when you have your weekly meeting, one of the frameworks I have is what worked and what didn’t work about last week. And in regards to it might be that what did not work is there were 4000 emergencies. So something’s broken in our process or a system, right? Sometimes you might snap as an as an entrepreneur, leader, what have you. We’re going to hold space for that, but we’re not going to shut down, not do our work, or have to have this huge emotional conversation in the moment, always training and they teach us in the book time and place for debriefing,

Maria Ross 19:33

I love that. Yeah, with the new book coming out, the empathy dilemma, the five pillars to being both an effective and empathetic leader, to your point that you just made the first one is self awareness, because we have to get our own house in order to understand our blind spots and our triggers and our strengths, and we know what we’re bringing into the conversation. We know what we bring into the room when we enter it. And so the you know, the first two pillars of my five pillars are. Actually about self self awareness and self care, because then you can be in a place where now I can come in and maybe I won’t come in all guns blazing about this is an emergency, and to your point, empathy is not always about the decision that you’re making, because you have to make tough decisions as a leader that people won’t like. And I’m using air quotes here. People can’t see me, but that’s not the goal. The goal is not to make decisions that everybody likes or even agrees with, but you can be an empathetic leader in the way that you communicate information, and so it’s not just the decision you’re making. I did a whole podcast episode. I’ll put a link to that on layoffs with compassion. Sometimes it is just a business decision and it isn’t personal, but we also, as leaders, have responsibility to deliver that communication in an empathetic way. Do some people need time to process and come back and ask questions? Do other people want to ask all their questions right away? Do I know what questions they are going to have? Am I prepared to answer them when I tell them the news, and then what support might it? Might they need on the back end? So it’s doing all that preliminary thinking before you communicate with your team. And you know, as you know, that’s not just a leadership skill, that’s just a human skill, and being able to do that, yeah,

Molly McGrath 21:16

but I have two points I really want to grab on quickly of what you said, in regards to self awareness, with your two pillars, I always tell train my clients as well. In regards them, it’s okay if we have a moment where we have to just be very, you know, brass and all that, as long as we preface it with say that and we’re just like, Okay, I’m coming in hot right now. I know this isn’t an ideal, but I just need a lifeline right now, people, yeah, absolutely, I’ll do it, and the goal is to pay attention, right? Whether you’re the deliverer or the receiver of that, right? It’s an exception and not the norm. If it’s a norm, then we have a bigger problem in regard, right? That, I would say, Yeah, and

Maria Ross 21:58

that, you know, a lot of the leaders I interviewed for the new book, when they talked about what enabled them to be empathetic and effective was this idea of making the norm trust and collaboration and just respect and just a personal interest. And they said, and it’s not fake. They’re not doing it, you know, with some devious motive. They’re saying, I just get to know my team and get to know them as people and respect who they are, so that when I make the big ask, they trust me and they have empathy for me when I make those big asks. And so it’s building that foundation with your employees. You talk about respect, cultivating respect, and it’s that foundation needs to be there. So when you do have those moments where you lose it, you know people can give you a little bit more grace.

Molly McGrath 22:47

Yes, to your point, when you’re doing that on the daily and when you’re operating like that, yes, it’s how you build trust number one. But when you have to make the heavy decisions, lay off, or if it’s we’re restructuring our comp plan, or we’re no longer having unlimited PTO, where people think things are being taken away from them, or they’re very dictatorial, or big corporate, or what have you, when you deliver the message, in regards to, you know, we made the decision from who we were When we initially started off as small company, or what have you, and now we’re really treating this like a business. And when you have those conversations, there’s no sting, there’s no emotions around it, and then like and you speak into their listening in a way that makes a difference for them. As leaders and owners, I always say, I don’t think we’re ever delivering bad news or hard news or tough decisions if we live the way that you and your books communicate on the daily Yes, it’s a lot of work. It feels like a lot of work in the beginning. I don’t have time to have a weekly meeting with my team or daily huddle or a break bread lunch or what have you, but it goes a long way, because we can go on a whole tangent around retention statistics.

Maria Ross 24:07

Yeah, absolutely. And I know I’m kind of throwing you a curveball here, but can you give us an example of a leader you’ve worked with with which who may be really memorable to you in terms of the turnaround they did with their team?

Molly McGrath 24:20

Yes, I have one that is a very live example. As I told you, it’s a big company. They’re in 28 location, 17 states, and they have 28 office or 17 countries. 28 offices are opening, 10 more right now. And so huge organization, and I’m working with one of their firms in California, one of the offices in California, they brought me in, and they hired new leader, new manager, HR and business development call me, and so I kick off a program for them. What have you. There was so much resistance from this man. Manager leaders, I don’t have enough time. I am, you know, opening off two more, opening up two new offices, and within the next 30 days, blah, blah, blah, and just resistance. Did not want to meet with her team at all. Did not have time. We said, just, let’s play with this. I’m all about gamification. Let’s have fun with this, and let’s just try it on. We can always take it off if it doesn’t fit, but you have your team is full of drama. There is. They’re constantly killing HR with complaints. It is like referee Central, and there’s always the meeting after the meeting and what have you we’re like, can you just give them 30 minutes a week? That’s it. We created the agenda, which is going to talk about company news announcements upcoming, and then also team building, collaboration and getting to know people. What have you? Massive resistance. Made a commitment to that. Prior to that, she was constantly canceling meetings. Was supposed to be doing quarterly reviews. None of them had ever had them just thinking, well, if they’re not saying anything, so they must have forgot about it. Employees forget about nothing. They know they want that they want. Personal and professional growth. Made the commitment to 30 minutes super grouchy about having to do it. And again, you’re responsible for the energy you bring in the room and you leave in the room. They could sniff it out like a dog. And so they knew this was just a box checking. Had to do it. And then eventually started really getting into getting the agenda in the intentions meeting, in her bones and blood, and has not missed one meeting in five months, has had the weekly meeting. Has also implemented a 15 minute it’s your nickel. Open Door meeting. Every employee on her team gets that they come in, no agenda, no anything. And the ability to do that and has now started implementing to bring them into their UK office for their development programs that she never even knew about, that were free, that carried a lot of the burden in the load for her, yeah, I mean, she’s still sticky and stiff with it. Yeah, she’s still struggling, but it’s made the team are like, it’s consistent, it’s persistent. She’s keeping your word, she’s showing up and she’s actually present. Now, I mean, she would show up late, she would, you know, you could tell she was on her phone. She was, yeah, not there. And now it’s just really grounded and still

Maria Ross 27:35

well, and is that, I assume that’s impacting performance for her team as well, and maybe lessening some of the drama,

Molly McGrath 27:41

lessening the drama. They were always a high performance team, which is so fascinating, because you go to the senior leadership and partner this team, they pump out work. They are profitable by all measure and their work production. But it was the headache and heartache that it was making for the HR team, for the senior leadership team. And you know a saying is that it’s like a five year old, so if you don’t give them attention, they will get the black Sharpie and scribble all over the wall until they get your attention.

Maria Ross 28:15

Totally. Yeah. So I love it. What a great example of just this is the thing I always keep going back to spending the time. Is the job like, if you’re doing so much work that you can’t spend the time, then something’s wrong with the work, right? Because the work of leading is spending the time with your people. So I love it so much. So as we wrap up, can you share a few tips for how employers can initiate that healthy communication and create that positive work environment. You talked about a few through the course of the interview here, but what are one or two nuggets you want to leave people with if they’re dealing with an environment where there’s a lot of distrust and discord between the employees and the leaders? Well, I

Molly McGrath 28:59

say first and foremost, give them, like you said, the time and space and grace of your greatest resource that you bring, which is your time. So hard wire it, treat it like you would for an internal they’re your internal clients, just like you would for your external clients. You would never ditch a meeting with the client that’s paying you or what have you. So put a hard wire time, even if it’s one hour a week where you treat it, I like to call it a weekly stakeholders meeting, not shareholders, stakeholders. We are all stakeholders in our department and collaboration. So start there number one, and make it consistent. Do show up. Present. Show up prepared. Do not ditch the meeting. Do not have your cell phones in there and what have you. And really have an agenda and give it out to the team and ask them for their feedback. The way people that step up and lead and take ownership and pride in their position and really trust their leader is when their voice matters. And their conference allowed on it, so allow them to make revisions or additions that they would like to see in our meeting. It’s our meeting together. And so really, when you have that, they will be fully, wholly invested in them.

Maria Ross 30:17

Have you ever advised that when they when you start to establish that as a regular kind of team meeting, stakeholder meeting, that the leader sometimes let someone else lead it. That

Molly McGrath 30:27

was my second point. Okay, good, exactly. It’s so once they have that established, and trust me, it takes no more than three to four weeks of consistency with that, and then what they do is it depending on personalities. One thing you mentioned earlier that I think is really important, you need to understand how each year, people are hardwired. So I have a lot of assessments that I recommend to understand how they give and receive information. Like you said, do you get the news? And they need to go back to a high Fact Finder, and they need to process and then they need to come back a week later and have the second meeting as a high, Quick Start where they have 400 questions right then and there. And so knowing how people like to give them receive information is important, because when it comes time to this meeting, you might have a ton of technicians. If you’re an engineering firm or a law firm, or what have you. You might have introverts, extroverts lead, natural leaders, what have you. So know your team, if you have a healthy balance, I have people that do it one two ways. Anyone want to step up and start facilitating this meeting for a week, and then we’ll pass the baton. A lot of my clients. Well actually, for one, have one person each week on the team to still manage, lead and facilitate the conversation, even if they’re shaking in their boots, even if they’re nervous. It’s a growth opportunity. It’s a growth opportunity. So many people like, I don’t want to do that. I’m afraid I’m going to cry, I’m nervous, and that’s way. That’s why Toastmasters is such a beautiful program, if you’re old enough to remember that, yeah. Well,

Maria Ross 32:04

this has been so wonderful. And I know there’s tons more value in the book fix my boss, the simple plan to cultivate respect, risk, courageous conversations and increase the bottom time, the bottom line, and Molly, this has been so great. We’re going to have all your links in the show notes. But for folks on the go, where’s one of the best places they can find out more information about you and your work,

Molly McGrath 32:27

I would say the best way, easiest way, because we know time is of the essence. Go to hiring and empowering.com. Just opt in to our value. Add information that we furnish every Tuesday, we drop podcasts every Thursday, blog, and then I do a pocket coaching every Saturday. So a way for you to really just get some really rich whether you’re the employee, employer, leader, entrepreneur, HR, what have you. I really try to get in the perspective of each C and speak into each one.

Maria Ross 33:00

I love it. Well. Thank you so much for this conversation. It’s been wonderful, and it’s been so great connecting with you. Thank

Molly McGrath 33:06

you for having me and for your amazing work that keep it up. I can’t wait for your next book.

Maria Ross 33:11

Thanks and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate, review, follow, subscribe or share with a friend, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice. Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Cary Sparrow: Decoding Labor Market Data to Drive Human-Centered Decisions

Transparency is a cornerstone of empathetic culture. And when it comes to the labor market, pay scales, and required skills, the more information you can get, the more confident you feel in making decisions- whether you’re a hiring manager or a job seeker.

What do workers today want? What kind of benefits are the most appealing in competitive markets? How are others at this level getting compensated? Where is the best talent for our organization and what skills do they need?

Turns out data-based decision-making can actually be a very empathetic approach to being a more human-centered organization.

My guest is Cary Sparrow and we discuss what the data show workers today want (and it’s not all about pay!), the barriers to connecting the right talent with career opportunities, and the mindset getting in the way of organizations competing effectively for top talent. Cary shares his own empathetic leadership model in how he set up his team to support employees with broader life needs and how that resulted in finding great talent, keeping them, and making the company successful. Cary also offers practical next steps to help leaders navigate change and embrace what the data show they need to do to succeed in today’s labor market.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

What employees want has shifted significantly over the last few years, largely stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Transparency around pay is now an expectation from job seekers, even if your state does not require it.
You have to have data on the workers in your market. What workers need in NYC or LA, is likely going to be different than those in much smaller towns.
People in untapped talent markets were able to participate in the workforce more during the pandemic when things were fully remote than ever before.

“Employees are much more interested in understanding what is available to them for benefits and working conditions, more than they have been in the past, compared to salaries.” — Cary Sparrow

Episode References:

The Empathy Edge Podcast Episodes:
Rhonda George-Denniston: Why Betting on Your People Leads to Market Domination
Jessica Swank: How Box Navigates the New World of Work
Anna Litotta: Understanding Generational CODES

From Our Partner:

Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.

About Cary Sparrow, Founder & CEO, Wagescape

Cary Sparrow helps HR professionals and consulting firms to predict the future of pay. He is also a former US Navy officer who served on several nuclear submarines. 35+ years (combined) of engineering, military, consulting, technology, and operations leadership in achieving organizational growth makes him a guest of value to HR leaders and other decision-makers wanting to navigate the labor market, in today’s rapidly growing access to remote work and digital promptness. Here’s his one-sheet: https://legendarypodcasts.com/cary-sparrow/

Connect with Cary:

WageScape: wagescape.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/carysparrow

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Cary Sparrow 02:50

Thanks a lot, Maria. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Maria Ross 02:53

So we were just jibber jabbering before we started recording about like mutual ties with Minneapolis and the work that you’re doing around you know that you’re doing with wages scape, and how you’re supporting companies and consultants that are interested in trends in the labor market. And I want to talk a little bit, I want to take a step back and ask you how you got into this work, because you founded this company, so what was sort of the empathetic need that you discovered in the market that led to the creation of wagescape. So

Cary Sparrow 03:22

I founded wagescape Back in 2015 after coming out of several careers. So I started in the military as a submarine officer. I then went into management consulting. I then went into corporate America and was responsible for building out global HR infrastructure in a really large company, and along the way, always had a kind of natural disposition for finding new opportunities, for creating businesses and bringing new solutions to audiences that needed them. And I also had a really deep passion for unlocking the potential of talent anywhere. And coupled with that passion was kind of a pretty profound disdain for a lot of the ways that companies unfortunately stifle talent, and along the way, saw that one of the biggest barriers to connecting talent with career opportunities, connecting businesses with talent that could really help drive their own competitiveness was data, was data about what’s going on in the marketplace. I can, we could spend a whole other episode on why market data is so bad and the problems that presents. But basically, you know, if you’ve got a huge market and it’s really inefficient because there’s really poor information, you’re doing two, you’re doing lots of things wrong, but there’s a couple of facts of that in particular. One is a huge amount of inefficiency, which means that it takes more money and more people to do things that should be able to be done, you know, in a much more streamline way. But even more important than that is you’re stifling innovation. You are really preventing. Seeing the ability for folks to connect dots in ways that have never been connected before, and to create new ways to serve, you know, their customers, serve their audiences, serve their communities, and that’s what I saw with the waiver market, and we saw a better way to do it. And so I founded wagescape to pursue that with the idea that we would help companies, communities, individuals, you know, find ways to be much more innovative in terms of the jobs and careers that they can pursue, the ability to, you know, find and then grow the skills that companies need and so forth. And that’s basically been our guiding star ever since we started, right

Maria Ross 05:33

well, and it’s so apparent that transparency is a part of compassion. I’ve talked about that in my books and in other podcast episodes, this idea of sharing information because that not knowing is so disorienting for people, whether you’re the hiring manager or the talent, it’s not empathetic to keep people in the dark about where they’re going and leaving them stumbling around. And so I’m really struck by this idea of leveraging technology as a compassionate practice to give people the information they need so that they can find a mutually beneficial solution, right? So the hiring manager can find the right person and the talent can find the right opportunity. Yep,

Cary Sparrow 06:17

exactly right. And it goes even beyond that, and looking at kind of what are the systems, you know, and for example, the labor market touches every aspect of our life. It touches every individual, every family, every community, every government, every organization, every country, in very profound ways, every minute of every day. And so giving communities the ability to see, where are we attracting businesses, or where do we have, you know, capabilities within our population that could be, you know, given better opportunities from a career standpoint, helping governments make policies, helping universities figure out how to best serve, you know, their constituents, and educate and bring up the skills of their students. All of these are things that depend on a perspective of what’s happening in the labor market. And as I mentioned to start this off, the information that people are using to make those decisions is really very, very poor by any objective standard,

Maria Ross 07:08

and it runs the gamut. It’s not just transparency around pay. It’s transparency around what skills are in demand right now, right? It’s transparency around what are workers looking for. Yep. And so I’m curious your take what the data shows. I mean, I know what I’m out talking about in terms of what employees want, but what does the data show employees want in their culture and in their leaders and in their jobs? Well, there’s

Cary Sparrow 07:32

the what employees want has really shifted in the last few years, and a catalyst for that, obviously, was the pandemic. So, you know, we can start with the ones that are most obvious, in terms of work flexibility. Companies recognize, because they had to, that they could structure remote you know, remote organizations, employees, meanwhile, realize that they could contribute and be productive and valued in ways that didn’t depend on them having to commute two hours plus a day in cities, having them, you know, not spend as much money on their wardrobes, having them not spend as much money on, you know, extra home care arrangements with their families and so forth, and build in a lot more flexibility. And so that’s kind of an expectation, I think now, I think that companies are struggling with that, but employees definitely understand what the benefit to their lives are. I think transparency around pay is an expectation that is now a reality. It’s pretty clear, as we talk with our own clients who are recruiting firms that not having pay in your pay ranges in your job ads, whether your state requires it or not, really limits the number of job seekers that will even pay attention, will even bother to open your ad. If they don’t see a pay range right in the, you know, in the headline of the ad, they just skip right over it. And then, like I said, that’s not something that was driven by law, although lots of laws are moving in that direction now, but it’s driven by employee preferences, and they recognize that there are lots of jobs out there and lots of employers. I think that there’s a bit of back and forth and a bit of maturity that is developing around how individuals expect to be able to contribute in organizations, and the support that they have around those. And I think there’s pretty high expectations there. Or, you know, being able to learn and have a an ability to contribute. I think in some cases, to be honest with you, those expectations go beyond the experience, you know, that the folks have actually earned. And so there’s a little bit of sorting out that’s going on there. But employees are our employers are absolutely changing their approach to sort that out employee. I mean, we can just keep going on this list. For example. You know, employees are much more interested in understanding what is available to them for benefits and working conditions, more than they have been in the past, compared to salaries. So salary is important, but folks are very concerned about how. Are you going to be supporting, you know, my life well? And

Maria Ross 10:02

there’s multiple studies that are out now, including the 2024, business solver, state of workplace empathy report that shows, when we talk about what employees consider empathetic benefits, pay is like, 13th on the list in terms of, like, I mean, obviously we all want to get paid, but in terms of, you know, bonuses, things like that, what’s at the top of the list, like you said, is flexibility, and towards the top of the list is professional development. Are you going to invest in me, even if you know I might not be here in five years or 10 years? And we spoke to, I’ll put a link in the show notes. We spoke to Rhonda George Denniston, who is the chief learning officer at TBWA globally. And one of the things that she talked about was that they have a philosophy of, we already know you’re not going to we already know we only have you for about five years, but while we have you, we want you to be doing your best work for us. So we’re going to invest in training, we’re going to invest in development, we’re going to invest in professional growth, and we’re going to invest in benefits that support you as a whole person. And I just think that’s such a, you know, that seems so taboo to think of it that way, like, why would I invest in these people if they’re going to leave me in a few years? But the idea is to get the best out of them while they’re there so that your company can succeed. Yes,

Cary Sparrow 11:15

that’s right. Now, one thing I would say about pay and where that stands is, you know, prior to the pandemic, and prior to this period where we had not just wage inflation, but actual inflation. That was, you know, that we’ve all been living through. That goes back before even I mean, the last time we had those levels of inflation was when I was in high school, so, which is way too long ago. The conventional wisdom has always been that nobody ever left the company because of pay, they always left because of poor leadership and poor culture. That’s not true. Starting in 2021 that stopped being the case where wage inflation from 2021 through 2023 went up at 20% a year in terms of advertised wages. And in an environment like that, when you’ve also got you know the cost of your food, the cost of your, you know, the ability to heat your cost of transportation, the cost to take, you know, a vacation,

Maria Ross 12:06

if you it’s gotten a lot more expensive to live now, right,

Cary Sparrow 12:09

exactly, and so employees, absolutely will, you know, switch jobs for what in the past was not considered a meaningful pay difference, but now the pay differences can be, in fact, very meaningful. And I think that a lot of companies have really struggled with that reality. They’re used to, you know, they know how to lean into the things that are not related to pay, but especially if you have very wage sensitive, uh, employees, it’s, I think

Maria Ross 12:34

it probably depends on their sensitivity to your point. Because there are, there is some research that shows that people will stay in jobs even for lower pay and more hours, if they’ve got a supportive, empathetic culture. So but I think it’s depending on who you’re asking, right? If you’re asking someone who has five kids at home, well maybe, you know, and they’re living in San Francisco, or they’re living in New York, maybe not. But so that’s really interesting, that you really have to have an eye on the data in your market for your particular group that you’re hiring for, because we can’t always make the blanket statement

Cary Sparrow 13:08

that’s exactly right, and that’s you just listed a couple of the major deficiencies with market data that’s been available, and the deficiencies that the platform that we set up were specifically designed to correct. But for example, our clients that are in retail, for example, or in hotels and hospitality or, I mean, we’ve got one client that is a huge provider of the staffing for big, huge events like, you know, kiosks that sell T shirts and that sell hot dogs and sodas and beers and everything else, those employees will go down the street for an extra $50.50 an hour, they have no compunction whatsoever of doing that. You’ve got the higher paid employees that you see will be a little bit less sensitive. But to be honest with you, at the inflation rates that we’ve seen over the last couple of years, seeing an offer for a 20% raise is a meaningful difference almost to anyone. And that’s not, yeah, not uncommon, but especially for the folks that are really kind of scraping by to maintain a standard of living, yeah? I

Maria Ross 14:06

mean, it’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right? Like, exactly, but

Cary Sparrow 14:10

that’s where, like, you were you said, so a couple things that are really important. You have to know what’s going on locally, like, literally, who is within half a mile of of your location that’s offering something different. And, I mean, we’ve got one client, a huge retailer that has built, with our data, a huge alert system so on any given they can see who’s now advertising higher rates than us within a certain distance around every one of their stores in the country. And those go on to an alert list. I mean, it’s really very sophisticated, as opposed to the way that a lot of companies manage pay decisions, which is once a year, they go in and they look at how much they can afford to pay their employees, and they set their policies based on that which is completely out of touch with, kind of the power dynamics in the market, right, right?

Maria Ross 14:52

And, you know, I was just talking about this to someone in the context of education, in the context of the school system in America, right? Yeah. Where you know you’re gonna get what you pay for, like, yeah, maybe it’ll cut costs for you in the short term. But what are you giving up in terms of talent, in terms of innovation, in terms of engagement, in terms of all these other things we have to weigh that it’s not just a numbers decision. It’s gotta be about what is the long term strategy of the organization, and what are we actually trying to accomplish here? What is our purpose? So I love how this is bringing into impact. We talked about this before we started recording this idea that data, cold, analytical data, can be used as a mechanism, as a catalyst for making really compassionate, human, centered decisions. Yes. So can you talk a little bit about that, sure well,

Cary Sparrow 15:42

so I’ll just use my own company as an example. So when I founded wagescape, I came out of an environment where I had figured out how to work with global teams without necessarily even meeting individuals. And I also, just like I said, I had a growing disdain for a number of the unnecessary kind of management practices that a lot of organizations have as it relates to the way that they lead and develop and even attract talent and give them opportunities. And so made the decision that, first of all, we were going to be remote right from the beginning. So even before long, before remote was a thing, I could go out and find people that were interested in what we’re doing, and we’re available with the right skills that were needed regardless of where they were. So I have a global I have a very small company where we got about 15 people that work with us on a basis, that are spread all over the world, right? And we occasionally meet each other at like events and things, but we know how to work with each other in a way, and that’s super flexible. The other thing that we do and why that flexibility is it reinforces kind of other parts of the value proposition that that we offer is we look for people that you know are kind of outside, that may have opted out of a traditional career path. So we’re talking about like professional moms, for example. Or it’s not just moms, it’s dads now too that they’re the primary, you know, they’ve got primary responsibility for raising the kids, and they’ve got hugely, you know, highly qualified from a professional standpoint, like my, my head of it, my head of marketing, my head of product development, all are in this category, and my proposition to them was, I will give you really interesting work. You will make a huge difference. You’ll be a part of my leadership team, and I will give you all the flexibility you need in order to manage the other things in your life. Work is one thing in your life, and as a result of that, so many companies don’t realize how much talent is out there that have these realities in their lives, right? Would love to be able to contribute in a way where they keep they don’t take a step back, right? So if you I mean, what a horrible choice to say you can either be a parent in the way that you want to be a parent, or you can grow your career, but you can’t do both. Yeah, that’s a horrible choice to give people well.

Maria Ross 17:57

And I’ve talked to several guests on this show around this untapped talent that’s in the market that we overlook because they’re not fitting into this mold that we think is the way the workplace has to run. And the research that came out of the pandemic is that people got more involved in the workforce than they had been previously. Neurodiverse people from underrepresented communities, they were able to contribute in a way that they were not able to before, and the whole just blanket mandate from some companies to return to Office is actually shooting themselves in the foot, because you’re giving up that talent that can be there when you know not all innovation has to happen within four walls, and that’s where we need to change our leadership paradigms. Of you know, is it that they can’t innovate, or is it that you don’t know how to lead if they’re not remote? You’ve obviously led remote teams for a long time. You’ve honed that skill. But there’s a lot of leaders, and I have empathy for them. They’re scared. They’re like, I don’t know how to do this, and I don’t know how to do this well, I just will do better if I can see everybody

Cary Sparrow 19:00

Well, I think a lot of organizations had that. That fear was manifested in, like, conventional wisdom of how they had to set up the organization, and the pandemic smashed that conventional wisdom, yeah, because we had to, and a number of organizations embraced it. They weren’t comfortable with it, necessarily. They didn’t like the transition. But once they started to get through it, they realized, hey, we can give our employees a better deal, and by the way, that means we can tap into more talent. Yeah, there’s an upside, yeah, before, right when, regardless of where they are and regardless of what they look like, and you know what limitations they have, there are people that can contribute that we’ve never tapped into before. And there was a whole segment of companies that embraced that. And then there’s a segment of folks that are like, God, I can’t wait to get this over with, and I want everybody back in the office, yeah, and I think, you know, my own opinion is, so let me get this straight. You’ve got a whole universe of companies out there that have figured out that they can tap into talent that’s much better suited to what they need, engage them in a way that they’ve never been as engaged. In the work before and really optimize how much you pay them compared to what the value is that they give. So it’s a better match for employees productivity and your overall costs and your ability to compete. You’re going to say that you’re going to compete against those companies by bringing everybody back into the office and take away all the advantages that those companies have figured out that they can take. I, you know, good luck with that. Yeah, exactly, exactly how that goes. So

Maria Ross 20:30

I want to go, you know, you alluded to this. And you know, you talked about how you set up wagescape to support your employees broader needs, and specifically, how did that help you find great talent? Was it that folks found out about you and found out about the way that you were running the organization? Was it that’s what you were advertising in your job postings? Like, how did that actually happen, that they that you were able to tap in? Because I think one of the big barriers that people cite to even diversity in the workforce, right is, well, I don’t know where to find those people. And I’m like, You’re not looking in the right places. So how did you actually end up attracting, how did you end up, you know, for folks listening that are like, How can I do that? How can I find those untapped resources?

Cary Sparrow 21:18

Well, in terms of creating kind of a, you know, a concept around, you know, the jobs in the company that was more flexible and more inclusive. I put it right in the ads, right? So we’re not big enough, and we’re very young, so it’s not like we had this huge employment brand. We had no employment brand, right, right? We were just another very, very small company, right? And so I put it right in the ads. I went to places that tended to cater to folks that wanted a more flexible approach. There’s a couple of you can go online and find you know, groups that you know are specifically catered to working parents, working moms. But I just put it right in the ads, and that attracted you know, the folks that I ended up hiring, that was one of the main things that attracted them. And so there was a bit of a, you know, that enabled some self selection,

Maria Ross 22:08

right? Well, and because you’re actually, you know, it’s not just about, I want to hire all these diverse people and then bring them into an environment where they won’t flourish. You are actually advertising the environment, right? So that when you get them, you hold on to them and they stay.

Cary Sparrow 22:22

That’s the other thing is. So we keep people because our work fits with their life, but very importantly, because we offer amazingly interesting work. It’s challenging, but it’s rewarding. It’s, you know, every one of my team, I think, would line up and could go through instance by instance, of all the things that they’ve learned in these jobs. Yeah, that’s just, and that’s important, yes, and, and also attracting people where that is, right? I was really clear on that is, you’re going to learn a lot, and the job is, you know, a month from now, is not going to be the same, and that’s either going to energize you, it’s going to turn you off, but you should make a decision on that based on what’s going to work for you,

Maria Ross 22:59

exactly. And I think that’s a lot of the flack that you know, Gen Z and younger millennials get, but they crave that kind of variety. They crave that kind of like, I want to be challenged, I want to learn more. And it comes off as entitlement in many instances, but it’s really just about how that generation is wired, their generational code, as we’ve talked about on this show before. I’ll actually put a link to Anna lay out as episode about unlocking generational codes, and what is the operating system of each of these generations. Because once you understand that all the quote, unquote demands and entitlements make sense, and if you leverage them to your organization’s advantage, you actually can get phenomenal work and phenomenal loyalty out of those people, but it’s about understanding what people want, like, back to where we started here, what people want in the workforce today and what they want in a culture, and it’s changed. Like, we just need to accept that it’s changed.

Cary Sparrow 23:56

Yeah, we have. Most of my employees are not full time employees, again, part of the flexibility piece. But I’ve had other CEOs that look at me and said, Well, you know, you’re only getting, you know, 16 or 24 hours a week out of these folks. How can you run a business like that? I’m like, I’m getting the best 16 or 24 hours, exactly. I mean, do you honestly think that somebody working 40 hours a week. They’re

Maria Ross 24:20

not working 40 full hours. Yeah, exactly chooses

Cary Sparrow 24:23

to work 16 or 24 it’s not right. So I would say that, you know, our productivity level compared to the kind of the number of hours that are worked is very, very high, and our engagement level is very, very high. So I love

Maria Ross 24:35

that. So as we kind of wrap up, because you’ve given us so many great nuggets here, and things to think about. Is there one or two things you would advise companies that are hiring right now, like, Are there one or two actions you can give them based on the work you do at wagescape, the data that you see that you think could be something relatively accessible for them to do to start? Attracting and retaining that top talent.

Cary Sparrow 25:02

Oh, there’s so many things there, and so many companies now have really been down the path of trying, you know, lots and lots of things. And I would say, recognize that things are not static, and they’re not going back to the way that they used to be. So the more that you can make decisions that are about creating more flexibility in terms of how you make decision coming forward. A lot of organizations are set up to drive risk out, which means more standardization, more predictability. And I would say, embrace more opportunities. Find more ways to see, how can you do more, right? As opposed to how can you get conformancy? And that’s every leader’s opportunity every single day, multiple times a

Maria Ross 25:41

day. Well, what you’re describing sounds like really a design thinking mindset around how you, you know, try some things. I spoke to the CHRO of Box A while back, and what I loved was her vulnerability and saying, Nobody knows, nobody’s figured this out. Yet right like nobody knows what the right thing to do is, and the right thing is different for every company. So we’re doing a lot of experimentation. We’re doing a lot of listening. We’re doing a lot of let’s try this and see how it works. Oh, that was a spectacular failure. People hated that. Let’s try something else, and to not be afraid to do that while you’re running the business, while you’re generating revenue, while you’re trying to grow. I think that’s so important. And that’s that’s a big ask of some people who are reticent to embrace risk, as you said, yeah,

Cary Sparrow 26:28

it is a very different risk profile. It’s so good to hear that, you know, played back from kind of a design thinking standpoint, yeah, I will say though, that there’s a lot of people that really, really, really don’t like change that. Really want, you know, things to be very predictable. They want to be good at what they do. Yeah? They want it to be interesting within the bounds, very tight bounds of kind of, yeah, evolution and so you can’t ignore those people, no.

Maria Ross 26:56

So I’m saying I have empathy for them. Like, you know, they’re like, Wait, I’ve been working this way for 30 or 40 years, and now you’re telling me, I have to, like, ask my employees about their own personal lives, like, what?

Cary Sparrow 27:08

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, my risk profile is pretty much off the charts compared to a lot of others, right?

Maria Ross 27:15

It’s still not, well, you’ve been in the military, so it’s not nearly

Cary Sparrow 27:19

like what fighter pilots have and things like that. So, but it’s still pretty high, and there’s a lot of folks that, I mean, for folks that are energized by change as opportunities, you’ve got to remember kind of who’s around you, and to, you know, Learn, Build muscle to manage change in a way that brings, you know, everyone that you need along. I love

Maria Ross 27:39

this little tangent we’ve gone on, because it’s also about how you support people through change, because if you can help them feel comfortable and feel safe and let them know we may fail, and that’s okay, yeah, you know, they still might be a little hesitant because of their risk profile, but that goes a long way to bring some of those people along with you. Do you have a psychologically safe and a supportive environment that says, hey, we’re all in this experiment together, and we need to hear from you. We need to know, and we’re not going to get it right, and you’re not always going to get it right, but we have your back. Yeah, yeah, I love it. Okay. Well, this has been such a great conversation. Cary, thank you so much. We’re going to have all your links in the show notes for folks to connect with you. But for folks on the go, where can they learn more about you? Or wagescape.

Cary Sparrow 28:30

Go to wagescape.com or look me up on LinkedIn. Great. Cary

Maria Ross 28:33

Sparrow, and if you connect with him on LinkedIn, make sure you personalize a note. I always do this. PSA, and say You heard him here on the empathy edge podcast. Cary, thank you so much for your time today. It was a pleasure. Thanks very much for having me, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate, review, share with a friend, and don’t forget to follow us and subscribe until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

William Vanderbloemen: Be the Unicorn

What makes a perfect candidate or even company? You know the one where when you meet them or visit their offices, where you just know they’re something special? Is there a blueprint for how to be such a unicorn?

Today, William Vanderbloemen shares the 12 teachable traits you can master to be a unicorn candidate or company leader and we deep dive into four specific ones: Authenticity, Self-Awareness, Curiosity, and Connection – what those look like in action, and the data shows that anyone can master these skills with practice and intention, even if you think you’re not good at them. We discuss why these skills are anything but soft, and can actually catapult you to success. And William reveals the single biggest trait that helps you separate yourself from the crowd.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Every one of the 12 habits of unicorns can be learned. While some may seem more innate than others or may show up differently for different people, they are something everyone can learn.
In uncertain times, the people asking questions will be able to adapt quicker than those who are not.
We live in the best time ever to work on self-awareness. You can work on your own stuff, on any level, and it is no longer considered quackery as it used to be.

“After studying 30,000 face-to-face interviews, we discovered that what really separates somebody from the crowd is how they treat other human beings.” — William Vanderbloemen

Episode References:

The Empathy Edge podcast: April Hot Take: Why Empathy Starts with Self-Awareness
Book: Be the Unicorn: 12 Data-Driven Habits that Separate the Best Leaders from the Rest: amazon.com/Be-Unicorn-Data-Driven-Separate-Leaders/dp/1400247101
More book info and resources: www.TheUnicornBook.com
Assessment model: www.VanderIndex.com

From Our Partner:

Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.

About William Vanderbloemen, Founder & CEO, Vanderbloemen Search Group

William Vanderbloemen has been leading the Vanderbloemen Search Group for 15 years, where they are regularly retained to identify the best talent for teams, manage succession planning, and consult on all issues regarding teams. This year, Vanderbloemen will complete their 3,000th executive search. Prior to founding Vanderbloemen Search Group, William studied executive search under a mentor with 25+ years of executive search at the highest level. His learning taught him the very best corporate practices, including the search strategies used by the internationally known firm Russell Reynolds. Prior to that, William served as a Senior Pastor at one of the largest Presbyterian Churches in the United States.

Connect with William:

Vanderbloemen Search Group: vanderbloemen.com

X: x.com/wvanderbloemen

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/williamvanderbloemen

Facebook: facebook.com/vanderbloemen

Instagram: instagram.com/wvanderbloemen

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

William Vanderbloemen 02:41

It’s a joy to be with you.

Maria Ross 02:42

So before we get into it, tell us a little bit about your story. And how did you get into this work of helping leaders and helping organizations? Yeah,

William Vanderbloemen 02:53

well, it’s, it’s a weird story, Maria, I mean, like, well, I couldn’t have drawn it up and and I think the advice I give people who are looking for jobs, how do I find a perfect job? There are a number of different lenses I’ve put on when I’m looking for that, but one that would be a marker of my story is the job you’re thinking of taking should be a job that you’re only able to do because of all the things you’ve done leading up to right now. That’s the dream job, if you can say I’m taking my experience from this one and this one and this one and this and I had a very jagged or different path, I guess be a way to say it. I was a entrepreneur as a kid, for sure, started, I don’t know how many businesses learned things like distribution when I was a paper boy, figured out that the routes were really pretty randomly laid out. So I bought out a few routes from buddies, and, you know, reconfigured things and sold off the parts I didn’t want, including the dogs that chased me. I got rid of them. That was, that was me early, yeah. Then in college, I did a really, really good job of being a wild child. And, you know, or prodigal journey, if you want to. So about halfway through college, Faith got very real to me, and that’s not meant to proselytize or be pushy, but it just changed. It turned things around for me. And I’m like, wow, this is pretty amazing. I’d like to help people turn around. I love seeing change, and I didn’t know it then, but I’m a sales guy, so getting up making a pitch is, I didn’t even know it, but I like doing that. So yeah, ended up being a pastor. And I’ll speed this up. You ask a pastor, a recovering preacher, and open ended question, not good pastored. And the talent pool at the time was really, really small in my age group, particularly, lot of lot of boomers and retirees. So what that meant was scarcity of talent means you don’t have to be that good to rise to the top. And I ended up pastoring one of the probably top three Christian churches in the country, oldest church in the city of Houston in. And I was the youngest pastor they’d ever talked to. They were nice, nice people, but they really should have had a search firm. Shouldn’t hired me. Was there six years, went through divorce, which I would not recommend, but found myself single dad. What am I going to do? Joined a very large oil and gas company, Fortune 200 and he was on a management rotation, and that year, I was on the HR team, and the CEO had been there nine years, which I didn’t know is a lifetime for a company that large, right? It was bigger than Starbucks at the time, and he said, I’ve been here long enough it’s time to find my successor. We’re hiring a search firm. Well, I’d never heard of such thing. I knew what it was, but my rotation that year was in HR, so I was on the HR team, and, you know, I got to see firsthand what a search firm could do. And it made me say, Wow, let’s build something like that for churches, because churches don’t move that fast, it was awful. So I made the brilliant move in the fall of 2008 of quitting my job and starting a search firm, which 2008 was just a super good time to quit your job. Perfect timing, yeah, 16 year later. 16 years later. Here we are, yeah, and I’m getting to help something that was really important to me, and it’s branched out since then. So that’s

Maria Ross 06:20

all good, yeah. And I love you know, the title of your book, which we mentioned in the in the bio earlier, is be the unicorn, 12 data driven habits that separate the best leaders from the rest. And so was that book a direct result of the placements you were making, the leaders you were talking to, the companies that you were working with,

William Vanderbloemen 06:39

100% Maria, I wanted to do research during the pandemic, when everything was shut down, we had some extra time, and so I thought, well, this the first year, we’re not going to set a record on all fronts, so we’ve got a little time we can look at, well, we’ve done a rocket ride, like the best candidates we’ve ever interviewed. What do they have in common? So that we can spot great candidates, or we can be a better search firm. What we found, after studying 30,000 face to face interviews that we’ve done with not just talent, but the very best, we found, they do have things in common, and it wasn’t anything like I thought it would be. The list was not what I’d predict. In fact, I was wrong on most fronts.

Maria Ross 07:18

What did you actually think? What were one or two of the top traits you thought you’d find?

William Vanderbloemen 07:22

Oh, intellect, privilege. I happen to you look behind me. I happen to be born into a family that could afford to send me to Wake Forest for undergrad, and then I got a scholarship at Princeton for seminary. So, like, I thought it would be things like that, or even simple as well. He was the quarterback and she was the head cheerleader, valedictorian, or whatever. Knew what it was, and this is what I’m so excited to do with you. It was 12 habits that these, we call them unicorns, works for you where you live, but 12 habits that unicorns tend toward, that most of the rest of us neglect, and all 12 of them centered around you could call it emotional intelligence, soft skills, empathy, like kind of right in the zone of where you’re living, we discovered that what really separates somebody from the crowd is how they treat other human beings. And now it’s not just my opinion. It’s a data driven project that shows these things. If you do these things, you will stand out in the crowd. It’s like, it’s like, you ever, you ever meet somebody. Doesn’t happen often. You meet them, and within 345, minutes, you’re like, oh my gosh, this one’s different. This one’s special. Yeah, that’s what these unicorns give off. And instead of finding a map, like a how to find those people, kind of guidance system, we found a blueprint for building them. Because every one of these habits can be learned. Everyone can become more empathetic. It creates a dilemma, which we’ll hear about in this fall. But

Maria Ross 08:59

yeah, no. And that’s, I think that’s the important thing there, is that many of these things are teachable. Many of them stem from from habits and characteristics that are innate. It sometimes they look different for different people, depending on how emotional they are versus logical, or how they experience the world, or how they view the world, and I’m learning a lot more about that in terms of even being empathetic looks different to different people, depending on on how their brain works, right? But I think that’s the important thing, is we can’t just give up, and that’s always when I’m in front of a room full of leaders and I tell people that empathy is innate in us, but sometimes that muscle atrophies over time, whether it’s upbringing or environment. So I think it’s a cop out for many leaders to say, I’m just not naturally a people person, or I’m just not naturally empathetic the way you exhibit that could look different than what people you know have in mind, but it’s absolutely. Accessible to everyone. So I love that your book talks about these in terms of being teachable traits and to your point of being data driven. That’s exactly the work I do is showing people the data and the research that proves how empathy can be an advantage for you and how it can actually help you succeed and not succeed in spite of it. So I want to dig in a little

William Vanderbloemen 10:21

bit. Sorry to interrupt you, let me ask you a question. You’re the empathy expert. I think I know the answer. Can AI use empathy? Do you foresee that day?

Maria Ross 10:31

We’ve done a lot of episodes about that already, and I’ll link to many of those in the show notes. So yeah, there’s it’s a much more nuanced question that a yes or no, and we’ve spoken to many AI experts on the show so about that question. So let’s dig into this idea of under How did you come to an understanding, or what is your definition of soft skills, or human skills, as it as it relates vis a vis to business acumen or expertise? Well,

William Vanderbloemen 11:01

the research that we used was really an archeological dig. You know, sometimes you go into a research project with the conclusion you want to be true. That wasn’t the case. We just started digging around carefully and see what’s under this, what’s under this, what’s under this, and what separated these unicorns from everyone else was the way they treated individuals, human to human skills, and we saw it in 12 different manifestations. All the unicorns had a higher than normal testing around these 12 habits. We discovered 12 habits. We interviewed all 30,000 we surveyed them all. Then we surveyed a quarter million people to lay them against the 30 so lots of forensics that led to a real simple conclusion. I tell people, if you read the chapter titles in the book, you’d go, William, I could have written this and and the reality is, the alternate title that we joked about was, oh, I guess Mom was right. Most of these lessons or just like, treat people well,

Maria Ross 12:01

right? Everything we needed to know we learned in kindergarten, right?

William Vanderbloemen 12:04

That sort of thing. But this actually has the research to put underneath it absolutely

Maria Ross 12:08

and that’s what I love about it. I’m all about making these, making these claims about emotional intelligence and soft, quote, unquote, soft skills, which drives me crazy that they’re called soft skills, because they actually impact the bottom line, but people like you, people like me, others I know in sort of the the empathy advocacy space, are focused on on the ROI, are focused on the business case, and the data and the research that shows that this actually is not just somebody trying to equate these two things that have Nothing to do with each other. It actually does result in success. So let’s talk a little bit about a few. So I just I’m for folks listening. I’m going to list out the 12 traits, fast, authentic, agile solver, anticipator, prepared, self aware, curious, connected, likable, productive and purpose driven. So I want to dig into a few of these with you, and have you share how this showed up in your research, and what are some examples of it in action and as you, as you work with folks, what are, what are different ways that folks can learn this skill, build this skill for themselves, if they feel that for some reason, they’re particularly weak in this area. So let’s start with authentic and what

William Vanderbloemen 13:27

you mean by that, yeah, and let me, just before we dive into those, say anyone can learn these. It’s never been easier. There’s a map now it’s data driven, and by the way, there’s low hanging fruit, because the generation, you know, I’m the very edge of Gen X. I got millennial kids, Gen Z kids, and then whatever’s behind that, A, or whatever their alpha, yeah, and so, well, actually the next gen is Gen a, I then alpha, but, but the lack of human to human skills among the digital natives is frightening, and it’s because the whole Gen we gave them phones to look at, and they scroll, scroll, scroll. So so it’s easier than you can imagine. We just hosted a rehearsal dinner and for our son and the you know RSVP via email that people didn’t have RSVP, somebody wrote my wife back that just said, RSVP. Like that’s a question. That’s not an answer. Anyway, authenticity, basically, this is the hunger everybody wants. Are you the same on stage as you are the same off stage? Is there a difference between what I see in the boardroom and how you’re going to treat me wherever else you see me like? Is it one person, or is there stage William and behind stage, William and there, you know, that’s a balance. I mean, it used to be when I was cutting my leadership teeth. You never let them see you sweat. Same lead strength, right?

Maria Ross 14:51

Or there’s business you, and then there’s personal you, and never the two shall meet. Yeah, right.

William Vanderbloemen 14:55

And that was one side of a spectrum. And I don’t know whether it was good or not, but it’s a spectrum. Now we’re on the other side of the spectrum where, you know, Brene Brown has done amazing work and research. She actually lives about four doors from me, and so I would say I know her, but actually the truth is, my dog knows her dog, but, but, you know, it has led some people to think that authenticity means sharing every worst, scary part of you in your whole world, that’s not authenticity. So it’s not just go vomit on people. That’s not Authenticity. Authenticity. I feel like you’re authentic because I feel like you see me and you hear me. That makes you authentic to me. And in each of the chapters of the book, we go into case study for the authentic we have quotes from all the unicorns on what they do to practice authenticity. And then we have a section of it, and here’s how you apply it. Now, can I give you a how to apply it? That’s not in the book, okay? Authenticity, authenticity hack and and you’re the expert, so correct me if I’ve got it wrong. But you know, when you look people in the eye, where do you look? Nearly everybody says, Well, I just look them in the eye, right? Yeah, no, no, not really. Which eye? Well, I don’t know. I just look them in the eye, yeah, I know. I’m

Maria Ross 16:10

trying to think of how I do that. I’m not sure. Do I look at the time? I

William Vanderbloemen 16:13

don’t know, because I can look in that one little circle and I’m looking as much as I can. Oh, okay, so here’s the hack 90. You only use one eye to see. Use one eye to see, and the other is distance perception. That’s just the way every Humans built. 90% of all humans on the planet are right eye dominant. Their left eye just provides perception. It’s a higher number than who’s left handed, who’s right handed. So if you’re willing to gamble, there’s a 90% chance you’re right. If you guess that someone’s right eyed, and when you have a conversation with them and look them dead in just their right eye, nowhere else you ever talk to somebody, and you go, they made me feel like I was the only person in the room. That’s one way to do it, yeah, and if you get a really good interviewers, they know to do that, but it’s a little known act, and maybe you’re wrong out of 10 times. But who cares, right? But look them dead in the eye and then they will feel seen. I actually interviewed a few homeless mission directors, very large homeless missions, you know, like, what is the biggest source of pain for people suffering with homelessness? And every one of them said, Oh, they don’t feel seen, because, you know, you pull up to the stoplight and do you look at them? Do you not look at them? Do you look being seen makes you feel like the person looking at you is authentic well, and also,

Maria Ross 17:29

I think just kind of more macro to that is just, if you’re if, if people get the sense that you’re presenting a persona, that’s right, you’re not who you say you are. And I think that’s what happens sometimes with leaders who who unbeknownst unintentionally to what they’re trying to do, they’re not effective because they’re trying to put on a quote, unquote leadership persona, whether that’s out of fear or insecurity or imposter syndrome, they’re acting in certain ways that are actually not congruent with who they are and how they act outside of work. And you know that because you know those people that are in the workplace with you, or those leaders that potentially have been psychologically abusive and you’re like but I know they have a family. I know they have kids like people love them somewhere else. Why? Why can’t they bring that to work? Right? And it’s often because it’s out of fear or insecurity or hurt that they just think they have to present themselves in a different way, because I have to present my leader persona to you, or offer you in your in your instance, the perfect candidate persona.

William Vanderbloemen 18:37

Yeah, what we’re seeing in candidates right now, and I think it’s a this pendulum swing is, uh, false humility. That’s very off putting. It’s the same thing. It’s just the other side of the spectrum.

Maria Ross 18:48

Yeah, give us. Give us. What? What does that? What does that look like? I know about humble brags, but what is, what

William Vanderbloemen 18:53

is the living the humble brag okay? I mean, like, you know, what do you do for living? Well, I work alongside a great team that helps companies find their you know, hey, you can also say Bossy Pants way. I’m the CEO and founder of a company that helps right? There is a third ground you can say, Oh, we had crazy ideas 16 years ago and started a company. We had some great people come join us, and we’ve gotten do a lot of great work. I’m still learning, but I feel like I’ve learned some things along the way. Yeah,

Maria Ross 19:24

and you can be really proud of the work you’ve done, too. That’s okay, yeah, yeah. I think that’s such a great point, because, you know, we talk about marrying humility with empathy, because empathy actually requires humility for you to be able to put your own narrative aside for a second, sure to take in someone else’s. And I think people misunderstand what humility means, and it’s the pendulum swings too far each way. Either they’re like you said, they’re, they’re braggadocious or or they’re just trying to downplay every great accomplishment they ever had. And this. Facility, guys, this is what I tried. My son just turned 10. Yesterday. We we talked to him about being confident but humble and kind at the same time good, and learning that those are not either ORs. Those are both hands you can walk softly and carry a big stick exactly, boom, right there. Okay. The second one I want to talk to talk to you about is because this is actually pillar number one in the new book The Empathy dilemma. Is self awareness. So what? How does that show up in your work? And what is an example of that from the people that you interviewed and the unicorns that you spoke to,

William Vanderbloemen 20:38

it showed up. It shows up in everybody’s work, whether they realize it or not,

Maria Ross 20:43

the lack of it or the presence of it, right? Lack of it, lack

William Vanderbloemen 20:46

of it. The people who have presence, who have self awareness as a presence, are often dealing with people that are so unaware that they don’t even realize who they’re talking to. There’s a busy thing about themselves, they’re not so it’s not a trait that gets congratulated a lot. But I think if you think of the 12 habits as an archway with 12 stones, I think self awareness is the keystone to the whole thing. Pull it out. Everything else falls. You put it in. It’s easier to build the arch, right? And the funny thing is, we surveyed all 30,000 of the unicorns. Massive survey hired behavioral scientists. And, you know, did it right, right? And one of the things we asked them was to force rank the 12 habits. What do you need? Really need to work on? What are you really doing? Great at last place, self graded last place by a long, long, long shot. All the unicorns said, I got to get better at self awareness, which is usually the number one sign that you’re doing pretty good at it,

Maria Ross 21:46

if you’re self aware that you’re not very good at being self aware. That’s

William Vanderbloemen 21:50

so we surveyed the quarter million people, like the normal people, right? And we asked one of the things we asked them was, would you say you’re below average, average, above average in self awareness, one to five, right? 93% of everyone said they’re above average at self awareness. Now, I don’t know how many math majors are on this podcast, but I’m pretty sure there’s not a group on the planet where 93% of the group is above average. Yeah, yeah. It’s 50 and 50. So, so it’s self awareness is the single biggest blind spot for all of us, and it’s the thing people want to work on the most when they’ve already got it. And you know, you say, Well, I’m glad I’m not one of those 93% Hey, do you remember the first time you heard your voice recorded? Oh, yeah, yeah, I do. I was really not happy. I was, Who is this?

Maria Ross 22:44

Because it doesn’t sound like the voice echoing it. Oh,

William Vanderbloemen 22:47

I listened to me all. Let me tell you something. I listened to me all day long, and I know what I was saying. That’s not me. That was kind of where I was, right, right? Yeah, that’s a lack of self awareness, yeah. And it’s almost impossible.

Maria Ross 22:58

How what is a tip or two on how to work on your self awareness?

William Vanderbloemen 23:03

Well, I think we live in the best time ever to work on self awareness. Why? William, well, you can work on your own stuff on any number of levels now, and it not be just quackery like and what do I mean? Okay, on a self awareness at a small level is learning what work you do best and what work takes more energy out of you. I can do detail work. I sent every bill when we started the company. I like, you know, cook, bottle washer, the whole thing. But the reality is, there are fewer mistakes on detail or in the documents. If I’m not doing them, I have more energy. I’ve got more time to give in things that so self awareness can be as simple as you’re interviewing somebody. You got a lot of C suite people listening today they’re interviewing and you ask them that old question that’s kind of thrown away as an icebreaker. So tell me about yourself. Some people are really thorough, and they’re like, you know, when I was one, I started walking, and then then you got other people who just talk about what they have for breakfast, like, that’s a great question to ask. It’s not a throwaway icebreaker, because you can answer it in a way. And if you’re listening for this kind of answer, you can figure out self awareness. Oh, you’re saying, Tell me about me. Maria, well, okay, let me tell you what I’m learning. Sign number one, it’s a present tense verb. It’s not a past. You know, I’m learning. And Maria, I’d love to come work with you, because your work is taking off. I mean, my goodness, you hit a nerve right before the pandemic, and your work’s just gonna so you’re probably growing real fast, and it’s up into the ride, and you’re making it up as you go. I actually thrive in those environments. I’m a seven on the Enneagram. I love the next party. I’m an extrovert. In my first job, I was supposed to build an email list. They didn’t even have an email list. They didn’t know what software he’s had to figure it out. As it went, we grew it to 100,000 email addresses within 18 months. Was pretty good. Second job, another one, where I had to go figure it out. Lot of people get paid. Realized by going to figure it out, I love it. Not Want an accountant. Don’t hire me.

Maria Ross 25:07

Yeah, yeah. It’s really, it’s really understanding those strengths and also understanding the blind spots and those emotional triggers too, knowing yourself well enough to know when things aren’t going well, how do you respond? And however you respond is okay. It’s just, what do you do to mitigate where you know, okay, this is what tends to happen to me. And I get, you know, I get a little upset. I My heart rate starts to go up. And so what I need in those moments is to leave the room and take a few deep breaths, or whatever. It’s just knowing that about yourself. And like you said, No, and that’s like you said, you know. And what I talk about in the book, in the new book, is, you know, there, like you said, there are lots of resources out there to help you. There’s the Enneagram, there’s Myers Briggs, there’s something called the hearty assessment that I talk about. There is Clifton.

William Vanderbloemen 25:59

Sorry, we built this. So we built an index. It’s at Vander index.com but it’s how do you measure up in each of these 12 habits compared to the general normal population and the unicorns? What are your three best? What are your three worst? We actually even built in a 360 tool where managers could give it to teams and teams could take it about I’ll have a conversation about we as a team are really good at these three, and we’re really lagging in these three. Okay, great. We

Maria Ross 26:26

are going to put a link to that in the show notes at Vander index.com that’s fantastic. Okay, let’s talk about my favorite one, because it is the number one trait of empathic people, which is curiosity. Yeah, so how did that show up in your research in terms of identifying if or self identifying candidate? How did candidates determine if they were curious people?

William Vanderbloemen 26:49

Well, you know, over the years, I’ve been doing this 16 years now, I have learned that here’s the best interview question I can ask. Now, when I do, I do very few searches. Now we really do have a great team. They do most of the work. If I’m involved in a search, it usually means I’m interviewing the finalists before they go to so there’s been a lot of other stuff done, and you’ve got to do baseline interviewing, right? But when you get down toward the end, here’s the single most effective interview question I’ve ever come up with. All right, you ready? Yeah. What questions do you have for me? Perfect. I learn more from hearing people’s questions as I get older than I do hearing their answers. And I think that, you know, I’m looking for curious because we’re entering forget and don’t forget empathy. I was about to say, Forget empathy. I often, but you just shut the podcast down if I said that. So forget whatever you want to forget, but you know, the the future is less certain than maybe ever. Like, what is this AI thing going to do? What happens? You know, can’t watch the news over the weekend because something might happen in the Middle East. That makes me crazy. I it’s a really uncertain time, and the people who are asking questions will be able to adapt quicker than the people who aren’t. So I’m incredibly interested in people who are curious. And to me, a lot of the automated tasks going to be better served by computers, but human curiosity will be a very hard thing to get replaced.

Maria Ross 28:14

Love that. Love that. Yeah. I mean, I definitely found the right career, because as a kid, I was, you know, why do you want to know that? Why are you always asking questions? Why are you so nosy?

William Vanderbloemen 28:24

Well, I asked, I actually, when I talk about this in a longer format, we don’t have time now, but I talk about how it atrophies two year you get tired of how many times the two year old says, why? Yes, we are trained to not ask questions, shut up and do what you’re supposed to, what like the world is going to try and drag that out of you, but you’re innately preset to a why? Yeah,

Maria Ross 28:43

exactly, and it’s why. You know, I’ve learned this little positive parenting tip is praising my son about the questions he asks. That’s a great question. You ask really good questions, and constantly reinforcing that and helping us reinforce that in young people too, so that they do, they don’t just go along. They question the

William Vanderbloemen 29:05

the single best mentor I’ve had for growth in our business, the guy that I saw when we first started growing, and when I was interviewing my friends say, who should I go to? I went to all my high growth friends and said, Who coaches you and and the reference that one of the leaders I respect most of the world said to me, said, William, go to him. He will get you asking questions that expand your mind. He’s not going to give you the eight ways to grow your business or the seven proven steps to blah, blah, blah. He’s going to ask questions that cause you to ask questions that opens your mind. Yeah,

Maria Ross 29:39

asking better questions. I love it. And then finally, let’s talk about connected because how do you how do you measure that in a data driven study?

William Vanderbloemen 29:48

Yeah, this has flipped quite a bit in the 16 years since I’ve started doing this. Used to be I got some more friends on Facebook. I got some more friends on Facebook. I’ve got likes. I’ve got this. That’s. I’m connected, right? Well, it’s so nauseatingly overdone now, right? And on how many platforms? Oh, there. Here’s one really super way to supercharge your connectivity. Okay? Do fewer conversations and community quality, not quantity, right when I moved here to Houston to pastor this big old church, it was right at Christmas time and all of the different, you know, groups of friends that come together, or support groups or Sunday school classes have their Christmas party. And I thought, well, I can get to every Christmas party. I can knock out meeting half of this congregation in three weeks. I had no idea what a bad idea that was. I could drop into a party and go say hello for 30 minutes so I could max out how many parties I could get to that night. And not only did no one feel like they talked to me, everybody thought I blew them off. Oh, so what I’m interested in now is I go to an event and I say I’m going to have 320 minute conversations here, and it’s going to be about more. What do they say? You know, surface level conversations of the weather, the next level down is about events. Then you can talk about people, but then there’s ideas. So I try and get down to, let’s talk about, you know, events or ideas, and not just people in the weather. But I think if you’ll focus on fewer, more thorough conversations, the person yeah and look them in the eye, the people you’re talking to, will tell your story for you, and you’ll feel unconnected

Maria Ross 31:31

absolutely, yeah, I’m a huge proponent of quality over quantity in everything, really, and not just in that, but just in so many things In our lives. So this has been such a great conversation as we wrap up, I just want to ask if there’s any more macro advice or a little golden nugget you want to share with people who, again, may be feeling like this, all sounds great, and I’m terrible at all this. I don’t know that I’ll ever get better at being able to read people or connect with people. What would you say to them? Yeah, I

William Vanderbloemen 32:05

would say that. First of all, I don’t know if you’re going to get better. Only you can answer that. You know, like it’s on you listen or decide whether you get better. I think in the book, we’ve built the perfect treadmill that will get you in better shape than any other fitness equipment on the planet, and now you have to get on it. So I don’t know whether you’ll get better listener, but I know you can, and I’ve seen it happen. And if there’s any way that this book can help you, all the resources, every part of the book, everything bonus content, all those things, you’ll find that the unicorn book.com, the unicorn book.com. I hope it helps you, and I hope it you know, if you’re a C suite leader right now, what would happen if, when people come to your company, everyone they met, they walk away going, you know, within five minutes, I was like, that person’s different. The security guard was different. The person I met in the elevator was what if people left your company with that feeling? That’s what happens when you train a team of unicorn unicorns.

Maria Ross 33:03

I love it. I love it, and you’ve already given us our great place to connect and get more information. The unicorn book.com. William, thank you so much for your time today and your insights. The book is phenomenal. Everybody. Check it out. Be the unicorn. 12 data driven habits that separate the best leaders from the rest. And I appreciate being in conversation with

William Vanderbloemen 33:24

you today

Maria Ross 33:27

Absolutely. Thanks so much, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Rate, review, subscribe, share it with a friend, and until next time, remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Courage to Advance: Leading Through Polarization with Mason Donovan

In this essential episode of “Courage to Advance,” host Kim Bohr and global inclusion strategist Mason Donovan tackle a critical challenge facing today’s leaders: maintaining organizational cohesion in an increasingly polarized world. Their timely conversation cuts through the noise to deliver practical wisdom on fostering productive workplaces where differences drive innovation rather than division.

Through real-world examples, Mason and Kim explore how thoughtful leadership can transform potential friction points into opportunities for organizational growth. Drawing from personal experience and extensive client work, they examine why some corporate inclusion initiatives soar while others stumble, offering senior leaders a strategic framework for making decisions that align with mission and market realities.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Inclusion is for the entire organization, no matter if you are in the majority or the minority group. It is more than just policy, it is operating with a lens of inclusion in every aspect of the organization.
Everybody has to own inclusion. While leaders may have a greater impact, they cannot be the only ones carrying the inclusion bucket.
Politics in the US have put almost everything, every cultural decision, in either the red or the blue. Think about those connections, think about what may be said to others by those decisions, then make a decision.
Hard, uncomfortable conversations will come up. Get ahead of them before they begin with policies and training.

“When you’re a head of organization, everything that you do in public is a representative of that organization.” — Mason Donovan

From Our Partner:

SparkEffect partners with organizations to unlock the full potential of their greatest asset: their people. SparkEffect helps organizations manage change, sustain growth, and chart a path to a brighter future through their tailored assessments and expert coaching at every level.

Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.

About Mason Donovan:

Founder/Consultant of The Dagoba Group

Mason was Managing Director of Client Solutions for Personified, a human capital consulting firm, before becoming a principal for The Dagoba Group, a New England-based consultancy that specializes in leadership development in inclusion and diversity. He has over 20 years consulting clients in the areas of talent acquisition, performance management, and leading inclusive teams. Mason holds a long list of sales achievement awards for direct sales and sales management. He believes diversity and inclusion is a marketplace differentiator. Co-author of The Inclusion Dividend and SET for Inclusion. Author of the Golden Apple.

Connect with Mason:

Website: thedagobagroup.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/masondonovan

Connect with Kim Bohr and SparkEffect

SparkEffect: sparkeffect.com

Courage to Advance recording and resources:

CourageToAdvancePodcast.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/sparkeffect

LinkedIn for Kim Bohr: linkedin.com/in/kimbohr

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

00:03
Kim Bohr
Welcome to Courage Advance. Welcome to Courage to advance leadership and transformation. I’m your host, Kim Bohr, and I’m joined today by Mason Donovan, a longtime friend and former colleague. And we’re here today to talk about leading through polarization. And before we dive in, let me tell you a little bit about Mason. So he is a global inclusion strategist and managing partner of the Dagobah Group, an integrated global corporate culture engagement consulting practice with specialties inclusive leadership, wellness, unconscious bias, work life balance, workplace dynamics, and client engagement. He’s also the author of three books, the Golden Apple, the Inclusion Dividend, and Set for Inclusion. I am so thrilled to have you here and excited for our conversation today, Mason. Welcome to the podcast.

00:59
Mason
Thank you. Thank you, Kim. It’s a pleasure being here. It’s honored being here with you and your listeners. I look forward to our conversation.

01:06
Kim Bohr
I think our listeners are going to really appreciate what we’ve, what we’re going to talk about today. And you know, although we’ve talked a little bit about what that’ll be, we’re really, we’re going to just lean into where our conversation goes. And just so our listeners know, we’re recording this just days before the US Presidential election. And we can all probably agree that there’s high emotion there feels like high stakes regardless of what side you’re on. And there’s a real opportunity to try to understand how do we move through this, not knowing what the outcomes are going to be. And yet we all still have to work and live together in pursuit of common goals that we share.

01:54
Kim Bohr
And so this felt like a really important conversation that you and I wanted to have in order to just talk through what’s going on and trying to see if we can bring to our listeners perhaps some tips and some ideas of way to think to try to you bridge that polarization that we all are just the reality of our society today. So from that perspective, I’d love for you to start to talk a little bit about what has brought you into the work of inclusion and really where do you come at, especially in this type of time that we’re in.

02:35
Mason
Sure. First I want to make a bold prediction though. So this podcast will drop a couple weeks after the election. So my bold prediction is by then we will know who is the president.

02:49
Kim Bohr
So I think that is a good prediction.

02:51
Mason
That’s my full prediction. Probably not the day after.

02:56
Kim Bohr
Agreed. We definitely feel that’s not, we definitely can agree that is not going to be a clear.

03:02
Mason
I’m not saying not that night so yeah, it’s. We are living in a world polarization. I think there’s not a single person out there that doesn’t feel it. It’s in our personal life, but it seeps into our work life. Right. So how do you keep that outside conversation, either keep it from coming inside or when it does come inside, how do you keep that from really deteriorating sort of the inclusive teamwork that you’ve created as a corporation? So I’ll go back to the question you have. What drew me into inclusion is that we both worked for a company called careerbuilder.com where we met.

03:45
Kim Bohr
Yes. Many years ago.

03:47
Mason
Many years ago. It was a really dynamic company, but it had. I’m not sure if you agree, but I’ll say it had a bro culture. What we would say is sort of, even though it wasn’t Silicon Valley, it had that Silicon Valley what you have broke culture. And I can tell you, as a gay man in that organization and not being out, realizing, feeling like I could never come out because it just didn’t ever feel like it filled the culture. There was inclusion. At the time, I didn’t fully understand what it meant to me personally, but also the organization. And there was a time when we created a human capital consulting firm, when I started working for them and we started to outsource some inclusion work.

04:34
Mason
And that’s when I really started to lean in and understanding what is inclusion, why is it important to me, how does it make me feel, but also how does it connect me with the company? So I leaned more into it and it wasn’t too long after that I realized I had a big passion for it and what it could do for, to allow somebody to be fully realized in their life. And so we ended up, I joined with my partner, Mark Kaplan, we created the Dagobah Group. And from there we really started to leaning and it blended to so many other areas that I am passionate about within the organization. And obviously we think of talent acquisition, but there’s talent assessment, there is the client engagement, there’s product creation.

05:25
Mason
There’s so many stories and where inclusion has really created a inclusion dividend as the name of the book has created that dividend that’s paid back many times over. And for me personally, I saw myself and how once I was able to bring my full self to work, how that made me more productive, how it increased my morale, increased my connection to. To the corporation. And I see that with our clients as well. And when they have a more inclusive workplace, what that means for everyone. And when I mean everyone. Whether it is you find yourself in the majority stakeholder group or the minority stakeholder holder group, inclusion is really for the entire organization. So that’s really sort of my lean in with inclusion. How to get connected.

06:16
Mason
On the point of view, for our corporation, we really look at inclusion of a way that can advance a company forward. So there are three types of inclusion firms out there. There’s the academic, the civil, and the corporate. So the academic are like Dr. Banaji, that’s really studying about unconscious bias. How does it impact our brains? How does it impact our decisions? Daniel Kahneman does the same thing. Is that whole academic world’s really doing that strong research that we use. The civil world is in the civil world. What they’re doing is really trying to push the legislation to be more inclusive. So out there and really working a lot of organizations out there, whether it’s HRC or NO W or naacp, they’re there to create a more equitable workplace in society and they’re there to really change legislation.

07:11
Mason
And then there’s the corporate, and that’s where we sit. And that’s how can we fully leverage our people to advance our company, to make our company better than it was before or if you’re nonprofit, to advance towards your mission. So that’s how we look at it. And it’s really about a. An actionable going beyond awareness. So because we think awareness is necessary, but it’s not sufficient, you have to move to action. And it has to be an alignment with the path forward for your company overall.

07:44
Kim Bohr
And I absolutely agree with you where that culture we came from was very much that bro culture. And it really did limit so many different areas of innovation. And I think that lack of inclusion was certainly a predominant reason why. And so when I think about the work you do with organizations, what you’ve shared with me before, and I think would be interesting just to elaborate on a little bit further with our listeners, is that it’s, it’s beyond just policy setting. It’s really operating from a lens of inclusion in every aspect of an organization. And so I’d love to have you just share a little bit about that because I think that is perhaps a little bit different than the way some people think of inclusion in maybe stopping just at a policy level.

08:38
Mason
Sure. And it’s, you know, it’s about putting inclusion. Anytime there is a people decision or a people challenge, inclusion should be part of that thought process. I give you an example. We had A company we’re working with, who are working with them on inclusive leadership. They called me up and just out of the blue and say, hey, we’re building a brand new headquarters. So this is a very large Fortune 1000 company. We’re building new headquarters and we’re thinking about how the conversations we had with you, how inclusion should be part of our everyday conversation. We think we never looked at the build out from an inclusive lens. We just looked at it from a functional lens. Could you come in and speak to us about. And we have a design team, we have those interested to talk about the building of our headquarters.

09:36
Mason
And I’d love that. We had a great conversation. We did visioning of them, like walking in, what do they see? What do other people see? Because diversity is, goes beyond just sort of those five or six or seven dimensions of difference you typically see in the EEO statement, right? They go beyond that. They go to areas such as parents and non parents, they go to areas like introverts and extroverts. They go to areas of economic class. And when you’re building out this headquarters, which will be their headquarters for the next 30, 40, 50 years, they need to look beyond what, you know, what is our functional need today? But what is our need for our people socially? Like, do we need social groups, do we need pods? How do we work with that?

10:24
Mason
How can we make this flexible enough to build for the future? And it’s always interesting when somebody thinks about, well, we’re spending a lot of money to build for this small group of people. And it always reminds me of the ada. So the American with Disabilities act, they came in and said that we need to make corporations, not corporations, we need to make spaces, buildings, spaces more accessible to those that have some ableness challenges, those that are in crutches or in wheelchairs or whatnot. And so what did, what happened? They put in cuts into the sidewalks, they put wheelchair ramps in, they put in elevator space, they probably put in some bathroom stalls that were bigger. And guess what happened? The majority of people using them was not the target audience. So I remember doing an audit once for a company.

11:17
Mason
We sat outside for three hours and all we did is look at the front of their building after they build a ramp. And the people who are using it, whereas it was 90% were, did not have even a challenge. It was the delivery guy, it was a person coming with the bike. It was the, it was somebody pushing a baby carriage. It was in the list went on and on to somebody that might have sprained their ankle. That weekend or somebody had a lot of roll on luggage to going in, out for business. So when we build out, we got to think of, you know, all the additional impacts, how this impacts everyone and not just that particular group. And another clear example of that, well, another one with it.

11:59
Mason
I used to travel quite a bit and I remember sometimes I would need to change my clothes in the airport because they’re going there and going to another firm or heading home. And the only stall you could do that is within the handicap stall. And I would find, oh wow, the majority of people going to those stalls or actually ones that were changing or had suitcase or other things with them. And one thing I always make sure, if I’m using this, I make sure that nobody else is there. So if somebody else did have a need, a verified need for that stall, that’s Jesus. But it just gives you another idea of when we’re building something out for individuals, it’s an entire group.

12:45
Mason
When we think of maternity leave and then we think of paternity leave and then we think, oh wait, what it really is, it’s really caregiver leave. And when you start thinking that and moving back and taking a broader range of what the leave is for and the leave is for to caring for a loved one, sometimes that might be an elderly mother or father that’s living with us or an adult child that needs more help and more care, or it might be a newborn baby or adopted baby. So when we start looking at these policies, how it impacts the entire organization and how it can really start to have a huge impact on us as a community within the corporation as well as, you know, the productivity, the morale, how that really moves a company forward.

13:36
Mason
So yeah, inclusion is not just about sort of our traditional approach to diversity. Like we need to get X number of women in or we need to represent the society and percentage of this particular group or another, it’s really about how we feel. It’s really about that climate that then allows. Inclusion is something that you can lead with globally. 50% of our clients are outside the US inclusion you can lead with globally and then you can allow for the diversity challenges at hand. Because your diversity challenges in London are probably going to be different than they are in D.C. Or Taipei or Tokyo or even within your department. I can tell you diversity challenges of almost any organization for their, say their HR support department are going to be very different from their technical service department or the sales department.

14:26
Mason
So inclusion allows for that diversity challenge locally. Then you can have this consistent approach for Everyone. And a guideline to go by.

14:38
Kim Bohr
I think that’s so important how you’ve described it, because it’s really at the heart of the design, and it doesn’t sound like it’s housed in one particular functional area. It’s really in the way you describe it. And what you encourage clients to think about is everybody has a piece of ownership in this area of. Of thinking from an inclusive place by how we. How we think about designing for the business and everybody in it, not just from a, you know, not just a sole function of maybe an HR lens. And I think that’s sometimes perhaps where this conversation gets stalled because it. It is maybe thought to live there versus everybody has a piece of ownership in it.

15:19
Mason
Yeah, I agree. It’s, you know, we. We all need to own it. We can’t just put it on the shoulders of the leaders, and we can’t just put it on the shoulders of who has D and I in their title. I typically have a metaphor. We will. I will ask a client, you know, if we’re in a workshop, how many here have digital security in the title? Maybe one hand might go up. And I say, okay, how many here feels, though digital security, data security is part of your responsibility? Every hand goes up. Because if we only allowed and focus on that one person that had digital security, they’re the only ones that worried about digital security, the only ones that cared about it. Well, guess what? You would. You would not have a secure data. You would not have a secure site.

16:05
Mason
You would not have sort of secure systems, because that. The first time somebody hits one of those. Those scam emails or gives information away on the phone when they shouldn’t, then it’s gone. So everybody has to own it. Another example, safety. We used to work with Dupont, who’s now owned by Dow. I remember the walking up. They had this grand staircase in Delaware, and the CEO was walking up and she had things in both arms, and somebody stopped her right away. Someone just out of the blue stopped her and say, hey, you can’t do that. You have to hold on to the railing. They had a rule, a safety rule, that if you’re going up the steps, you have to have one hand on the railing. And the CEO said, thank you. You know, you’re right.

16:52
Mason
And then she asked somebody if they can hold the other thing that was in her hand, and she walked out with their hand on the railing. And it was that individual that had the. Because the company owned safety so much, that had the power to stop. As CEO of a Fortune 500 company from making that step. And the CEO received it really well in the way you expect. So that’s ownership. Right. And same thing comes through inclusion, diversity, inclusion. Everybody has to own inclusion, whether you’re the entry level person or you’re the CEO. Obviously as leaders, you have a much greater impact and influence on the culture as those individuals. But you can’t be the only one that’s carrying that bucket.

17:37
Kim Bohr
Right? Right. And I think that’s such a powerful example of that in action. And so thinking about what we have in front of us today, we are well aware of CEOs that are perhaps more public figures that are really taking very maybe polarizing stances. And you know, it’s that maybe starts to become a conflict. Right. With what is maybe stated or implied or intended. And so I think the example you gave is such a great example of alignment. And yet maybe a lot of our listeners are feeling that’s not the kind of environment that they’re in. And so how do we start to think about when there is this clear, you know, do as I say, not as I do type of a situation that pops up where we all feel.

18:41
Kim Bohr
So I don’t know, maybe there’s this sense of like fairness that starts to creep in, especially when we’re seeing the dynamics and at play. So how do you start to address that type of scenario?

18:55
Mason
You know, it’s corporate culture is really started from CEO on down. And there is a culture of Simon Says in every organization. So if you remember the game of Simon says, and when I did my research on that a long time ago, I found that Simon Says is actually played in almost every country around the world. A different name for it, you know, somebody else says, but it’s the same exact game. And as we remember, it’s kids. Simon says, what happens is the leader says, does something different, but tells you to do, say they’ll tell you to pat your stomach, but they’ll pat their head. And we lose by doing what they do instead of doing what they say. And because we are just trained as humans, so often we follow the leader.

19:40
Mason
And so if your leader is saying one thing but doing another, we’re going to follow what they do, we’re not going to follow what they say. And so that’s, it becomes difficult. So we talk about polarization. There are leaders out there of CEOs, organizations that are very public with their political stance. They might even within their organization have a policy of not talking about politics. You know, it gets sticky because CEOs are people too, and they deserve to have their own personal opinions and their own political preferences. And so there’s that one argument is that they need. They have their own personal life. But when you’re ahead of organization, unfortunately, you give up a lot of that. Everything that you do in public is a representative of that organization. So let’s. I could just call one out. Elon Musk.

20:38
Mason
We all know that Elon Musk, the head of Tesla and of X and other companies, is very outspoken. I think people know he’s. He’s a very outspoken individual. And so the idea is, well, the concept is if you have a CEO like Elmox that’s very outspoken and very outspoken of who he favors and how strongly favors, if you have individuals within your organization that don’t agree with him, is there the safety to say that without reprisal? And those who do agree with them, do they feel more emboldened to be more political within the workspace? Because the CEO’s doing it, and so why can’t I do it? The CEO is doing it. So that becomes a very sticky wicket for the manager because the manager, organization realized to have inclusion, you really have to have a term we can discuss further on psychological safety.

21:40
Mason
People have to feel as though being themselves and be able to express themselves without the fear of reprisal. It’s interesting because in diversity inclusion, often you hear that we’re doing this to bring your full self to work. We want your whole self. Full self to work. Well, I always say, well, not fully. Right. Because our full self is. Some of us are very political outside of work. Some of us are very religious outside of work. Some of us have maybe a vocabulary that we would typically not use in work. And when we say, when organizations say bring your full self, what they really want to say is bring your full professional self. Right. You realize you’re in a profession, you’re in a community of colleagues in which you have to have respect.

22:30
Mason
In order for us to all work together, you have to have respect, and you have to look at some clear boundaries of where conversations go beyond the professional. Some are just legal. There are just some things that you don’t say that you’re just going to get. You know, you’re crossing line. You’re. Yeah, you’re. You are going to open yourself up to all kinds of litigation. But then there’s stuff that’s in the gray area, like talking about politics. So it’s as challenging for the manager. It’s challenging for a Manager. When you have an outspoken CEO one way or another, whether it’s a one sided party or another party, it doesn’t matter which party it is.

23:14
Mason
And how do you make it a safe inclusive space for those who might disagree with that or have whole different opinions as well as those who do agree that also might feel like they can’t speak as much as they can because of the policies. I think one of the things we look at with organization when this comes to hand is it’s not a surprise the election’s coming. The election is not a surprise. It happens every four years. When it comes to presidential election. Every two years we’re having some type of other election at the Rep or the senator level. So get ahead of it, create policies. Understand that the outside talk. When it becomes so passionate, we get close to the election like we are now, it’s going to happen. People are nervous. Both sides are nervous, both sides.

24:07
Mason
And in the end one side will win and one side will lose. And we’re talking about the parties. Hopefully everybody wins and whoever is elected works for all of us. But one party will win and one party will lose for that presidential spot. That’s just how it works. And they will.

24:24
Kim Bohr
That’s the heart of our democratic institution, right? Is the competition and the ideas that you know there’s going to be a trade off, you know and hopefully we get into the. Where we’re all trading off something that we gain something too.

24:39
Mason
Yeah, you do. And then you know, you sort of, either you cry or scream, you scream whatever you need to do, brush yourself off and you move forward with what you have. But the. Within the organizational space, you know it’s coming. So get ahead of that conversation. Create some, create some policies that in place of. Do you allow from attire. Do you allow political slogans coming into work? Not just coming into work. If you are a hybrid or remote organization, do you allow that? What’s in the personal space? Like if I had a political presidential sign behind me, is that allowable? Get that ahead of time.

25:15
Mason
Put those out in policies, communicate with that and understand, talk to people, open communication and realize that they will say, hey, I recognize there’s a lot of passion out there during this time and we want to talk about it, but we also have to respect each other and realize after the election is over, we’re still working together, we’re still in the same organization and we still have the same goals. Regardless of who wins the election. Our goal is XYZ for this corporation or for this Nonprofit mission. But as a CEO and understanding and as a leader organization, understanding your actions, no matter what the intent, have a huge impact. Now I’m going to bring something up you and I discussed before.

25:59
Kim Bohr
Yes.

26:00
Mason
Behind you. You have two pictures.

26:03
Kim Bohr
I do.

26:04
Mason
I want to ask you, why do you have, you know, RBG and MLK behind you? Why? What’s the reason for you to have that? And you know, you’re a CEO of your organization. These are behind you. These individuals are behind you in this talk and I’m assuming other business talk. Tell me why they’re there. What do they mean to you personally?

26:28
Kim Bohr
Yeah. So actually as the president and COO of the organization, you know what I found in back during, I think it was during the pandemic. And one of the things that I had a friend who, as an outlet during the pandemic, when were all shut in, started painting these pictures and she started doing everything from, you know, musicians all the way through some political figures. And when I happened to see these two that she had posted, you know, and was sharing online, I was really drawn to them. And what I was drawn to was the essence of the values that I shared with what they stood for, the, the doors that they opened that the work that they had to do that was really hard work to give all of us better opportunities.

27:33
Kim Bohr
And so when I saw these, I was really drawn to them. And I felt that so much of the work, even what we do at Spark Effect, we very much are working to help broaden the conversation, help leaders find understanding not just growth for themselves, but growth with their team in alignment into their organizations. And so I felt that it was very much aligned with my values and the values of our organization and the brand. And what was really interesting is you and I started talking about this topic in this moment. I had this light bulb moment together where when were talking around, oh, maybe I’m, as much as I feel like what I reflect doesn’t feel political to me, it feels a supportive, kind of more historically supportive of movement that has been around inclusion.

28:36
Kim Bohr
Maybe that’s not the full message I’m sending to those who join me in this setting that maybe don’t see it the same way. And that was really eye opening to me in our brief conversation we had as were talking about this because I had not, I hadn’t thought of that way. And I had my own maybe blind spot, if you will.

29:01
Mason
Yeah. And you know, it’s, we’re talking about sort of our at Dagobah we have a methodology when you’re making a decision, it’s called set Self awareness engages into. So the self awareness is what we, when we started having this conversation, you’re like, oh, wait, it’s something I didn’t even think about these pictures behind me because it’s of everything you just mentioned. They align with what you say, align with how the company works, with how Sparke looks at things. You know, moving people forward, opening doors. And then the engage system too, which is built off of what Daniel Comlin made popular, which was System one is our really quick, reactive decision making. It’s really sort of the back of the head thinking. And the majority of our decisions during the day are made that, whether you know that are made.

29:52
Mason
And they’re usually fairly accurate, except when it comes to people. When it comes to people decisions, they’re not so accurate because we’re going off of sort of our biases that we’ve, our experiences we’ve had and we stop looking at the individual. I mean, we think make decisions on our experience with the group. And so System two is when we really have to reflect and stop and reflect. I always tell people it’s like if you drive home as a commute every day, you probably, sometimes you realize you get home, you’re like, oh God, how did I get here? Did I go through stoplights? Did you know, did I hit somebody? Yeah, because you’re on system one the whole time.

30:29
Mason
System two is usually in the summer when all of a sudden there’s a detour and maybe you’re on the call, you’re like, hey, wait, hold on. I have to think, I have to figure out this is gone that system to your engagement system too. So we talked to a self awareness engaged System two. We had this conversation like, okay, this is what you think about what they bring. But what else might they represent in this conversation? Talking about polarization, they obviously represent the liberal side of the party politics. The politics in the US have put almost everything, every cultural decision on either the red or the blue. So I can say, you know, why not have a picture of Clarence Thomas up there? He was another Supreme Court justice.

31:14
Mason
There’s a lot of things that he has done that people can say that opened up the door. But I can guarantee you somebody who associate Clarence Thomas very differently as they would Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They’re both Supreme Court justices, they both served a long time, but they are connected very often to a one party or the other. And so the System two is. Am I sending that message beyond there is this something that. Beyond what they stand for, beyond party. Are they connecting to a party and my putting people off by having these. If they’re connecting politically to it and then Taylor is the last part of this. Okay, then make a decision. We thought about it. You raised your self awareness of what’s going on. You thought about what you’re doing now. Make decisions, take them up, put them down.

32:06
Mason
It’s a really good sort of very quick and easy mythology methodology to when you’re thinking about making decision now CEOs let’s take Elon Musk as an example again. So Elon Musk, as we said, is very public and he’s a good figure to use in these examples because he’s very well known, he’s very public. He’s ahead of a lot of the companies that we use or connected with. Whether it’s X or Tesla or one of the charging stations. Anything that’s connected to there, the self awareness some people would say is something that he might lack. Does he fully understand what he’s saying, how it impacts him? Now I can tell you a lot of shareholders think what he’s saying.

32:51
Mason
He’s not self aware because it’s impacting the sales of Tesla who that every time he tweets or says something that alienates a particular group of individuals, that’s a group of individuals that won’t buy another Tesla. And so there’s that engaged system too of like oh wait, what am I saying? And how is that impacting sort of the overall corporation? Again, as a CEO, whatever you say is magnify a hundred times.

33:19
Kim Bohr
Yeah.

33:20
Mason
Whatever you do is followed through. And you and I as being in the heads of our organizations, what we do and say and we think, well we’re not ahead of Fortune 1000. They still have an impact on who we work with and how we go about. So when we think of managers, when we think of even the manager level, we don’t have to look at the CEO level. When we think of managers, what they do and what they say has a big oversized impact on their team than one of the individuals on their team. And it’s really to take themselves through that piece and self awareness is the first step. Right?

33:54
Kim Bohr
Yeah.

33:55
Mason
So often we are, we have friends and family like they’re just, they just, they’re really well intended but they just don’t know how well how they’re being received.

34:05
Kim Bohr
Right.

34:06
Mason
And a lot of times we might think that with our. It’s funny, we, a lot of people Here, say about their mothers or their fathers, their parents. Oh, how can you say that? That’s sort of. That the fun personal side. But we see it in the professional side too, right? We see things that are, that might be a little off and then we see things that are a lot off and have a huge impact. And one of the things we look at is the little off. Are they happening a lot? Are there a lot of these sort of micro exclusions some people might call microaggressions? We prefer micro exclusions. These things that people are saying, they don’t know they’re saying. Like they may call the younger people in their and their group kids. Their intent might be just fun, you know?

34:51
Mason
You know, I have kids and I say kids. It’s just sort of a fun way of saying it. But how are they receiving it? Right?

34:57
Kim Bohr
Yeah.

34:58
Mason
How are they receiving as full grown adults that work in those organizations being called kids or when women are called girls in an organization? Because men, I can tell you, I never hear them call boys in a corporation. And I can tell you that they are, they’re not going to like it. But you know, when people, a lot of times it’s meant with good intent or no intent at all, like they don’t think about it. It’s not meant with ill intent, but is if these little things happen over and over again, these little sort of behaviors or words that builds up over time and there’s this accumulation effect that then has an outside of impact on your team or your organization and your culture, regardless of your intent.

35:42
Mason
I often will ask, tell somebody, okay, let’s believe a CEO is talking to a group of shareholders. And the CEO said, well, we intended to make 36 cents a share. Well, we came in at 29 cents a share. Do the shareholders really care what the intent was? They understand, of course, the company wanted to do well. Intended to do well. They really care about the impact.

36:05
Kim Bohr
Yes.

36:06
Mason
Really. What was the result in the end? And that happens with when our actions, what we say, whether it’s in the office, outside the office. So let’s go back to polarization. When we’re bringing politics and we’re discussing politics on the office, what is the intent? Yeah, Is it intent to persuade somebody? Is it intent to, you know, have camaraderie or just do off steam? But what is the impact of that?

36:29
Kim Bohr
So let’s talk a little bit about how do we address the reality that maybe it’s not politics explicitly, so maybe something’s not coming in as explicit, but yet we pretty you know, we, we certainly know we come at something differently because we’re sure, you know, we’re maybe on the opposite political spectrum, but yet what we find as we come together is that without talking politics, there’s still really misaligned dynamics.

37:04
Kim Bohr
And I know from, you know, the work we do when we’re trying to, when we do executive coaching with leaders and we’re trying to help them look at impact, there’s so much around the, you know, looking at it from a real, you know, what are the behavioral components, what are the behavioral elements of that are causing those, you know, the actions to be, to try to get to creating a better, bigger understanding around self awareness and inclusion. Yet that’s one layer of it. But not everybody’s going to have the luxury of an executive coach or somebody who’s pointed out. And so how do you suggest individuals who may be, you know, listening or they’re saying, you know, I’m. It’s not a specific political conversation, but there is. Clearly we do not see the world the same way.

37:58
Kim Bohr
And now it feels like we can’t, we’re not even working in an aligned fashion.

38:04
Mason
Yeah. And we’ve seen that. And it could be something that just happened in society. So the killing of George Floyd, it wasn’t political when it started. It was an event. It was a very sad event and tragic event that got a lot of people talking in the organization. It didn’t have a red or a blue attachment to it. It came with a lot of passion. And there was other incidents that happened time and time again after that. But people needed to have the conversation in work. Right. So they need to have the conversation. But then it would veer off. It would go veer off into politics or veer off into other areas and which people are uncomfortable with that conversation.

38:51
Mason
So you know, if you’re an individual and you don’t, you’re not a manager of the organization, the best thing you can do is just say, tell somebody, hey, you know, can we table this conversation? It’s making me feel a little uncomfortable in the area. I’m not ready for this conversation within work. Can we talk about the AI project? Like redirect gently, so gently put it aside and redirect the conversation to something that is, doesn’t have that sort of passion or flair with it. If you are a manager and then if it’s something that keeps coming up, then you need to, as an individual contributor, you need to discuss it with your management. Team.

39:32
Mason
And if it’s something that is just not stopping and if it’s making you feel or if you see it’s making somebody else feel left out or excluded or really feeling like it’s not a welcoming sort of conversation or culture. If you’re a manager, you can do a lot more, especially if a manager that sets policies or procedures. The first thing you need to do is, like I said before, is you need to get ahead of it, understanding it’s coming. If it’s not this election, it’s going to be the next. If it’s not this incident, it’s going to be another incident. And have a clear conversation. First thing you can do is have this clear conversation. Say, you know, we are a workplace of respect. Detail what that means. Detail what that means. When we come, this is what we do.

40:23
Mason
I remember that I used to work with Pfizer and one of their. They had these values and one of the values was no jerks. They just. I love that. It was just so plain and simple, no jerks, just don’t be a jerk. We don’t want a jerk here. And so. But it was very plain and simple. And I’m not saying adopt that, but I’m saying is they got ahead of it, right? And as a manager, you can get ahead. You know, this conversation is going in, going forward or might come at some point and just explain what is our policy around conversations that make us feel uncomfortable, whether political or not, how do we manage that? And second is provide training. It does not come as something that is innate to us to handle sensitive, these sensitive topics.

41:09
Mason
Because we’re at home, we talk about anything we want to talk about because we have family and we grew up with family. And you just say all kinds of things, right? And the end you can say, I’m sorry if something happened, right? Do that in work. It doesn’t work so much like that in work. So you really have to start to understand. Let’s develop our team, develop our managers, how to manage difficult conversations, but also develop our entire team about what is an inclusive workplace, what is a respectful workplace and what does it mean to us and what is sort of the actions around it. And what do you do when you come head to head when something’s not inclusive, something’s exclusive and you can do it. Sometimes it’s very simple. Again, assume good intent. We always say assume good intent, right?

41:50
Mason
But sometimes the very simple things you can do, it could be something talking in a group meeting and you notice that somebody that might be little bit More introverted or shy. Or it could be somebody that their native language is not the one that’s being spoken at the table. And every time they go to say something, they get cut off. And it’s not people coming off because bad intent, but just the conversations going that way, right? Everybody’s kind of jumping in, cutting everybody off, but this person, because they don’t have the command of the language or don’t have the sort of the extroverted character to put themselves out there. What they have to say is not heard. So what can you do about that? Well, an individual, whoever it is that notices that can say, hey, you know what? Deborah has something to say.

42:38
Mason
Can we all be quiet? Because I would like to hear what Deborah has to say and give Deborah that space.

42:44
Kim Bohr
Or John, I love that.

42:45
Mason
Or Jose, wherever it happens to be, give them that space right this week. So it could be something teaching your team and training your team and coaching your team to be able to do those very simple interruption techniques. So get ahead of what’s getting out there, the conversation. Create those policies and let people understand what is respect, what is the conversation. Where’s the culture of your team? Second, provide training. And third, provide space and time for those conversations. So I’ll go back to the. The incident I talked about with the killing of George Floyd. It was a tragic, as I said, a tragic incident that happened. And people had to talk about it, right? Couldn’t just quell it. People had to talk about it. So a lot of companies gave space. Okay, let’s just.

43:36
Mason
They gave us some safe space for people to talk about. Just express. What are you feeling? What does this mean to you? How does it impact you? And everybody else could just listen, right? Not interrupt those individuals. And so people can really just have this safe space and time so they can express that, express their feelings. And then when they’re outside of that space or that time, they can go about work and they don’t feel as though they have this on their shoulders. So that third thing is really to give space and time when something comes up that you feel as though it has to be discussed within your organization. So those three things are something that a individual contributor can do at certain levels, definitely a manager. And certainly as you go up in leadership chain, you can create as a corporate culture.

44:20
Kim Bohr
So let me ask, I want to ask just you to elaborate one piece. And then I do want to spend a little bit of time before we wrap a little bit more on the individual lens. So back to the lens of, you know, thinking about how you start to create these elements in an organization, especially when you’re in a position of authority to do so. It sounds like there’s an opportunity to take an inclusive approach by including some of these diverse perspectives in how you start to shape the boundaries and the policies. Just very much as you said, when you think about it from a design perspective, even in a literal physical building, is that something that you would certainly recommend also as a best practice?

45:03
Mason
Yeah, certainly. And another thing I didn’t mention is that companies, when they’re looking at what they want to respond to, where their mission, what’s aligned with their mission, they don’t have to respond to everything. You don’t have to respond to every incident itself. You don’t have to respond to everything that happens in the world. Because when you do, what will happen if it’s not aligned with the mission? You’ll forget your audience. Remember your audience, right? Remember who the audience, whether is that your clients or your talent pool, remember who that is and who you’re aligned with. I give an example. So we’ve done a lot of work with Goldman. We did a lot of work within the LGTQ space.

45:46
Mason
They decided not only that they were very conscious that they wanted an inclusive space with that dimension difference within the workspace, but they also took a decision, a very conscious decision that they were going to take a position outside the organization and publicly. But this is well thought out, really well within their mission and alignment. And they wrote during the Defense of Marriage act, when it was at the Supreme Court, they wrote an amicus brief to overturn DOMA which would allow same sex marriage. So something, they were very much in alignment and understanding where it was with the mission. And it wasn’t something that was just knee jerk. It came up and they decided to do that. When DOMA was overturned, they flew the pride flag from the headquarters.

46:36
Mason
And so it was something, it was very much to their core of what they believed, inclusion, how it aligned with their mission, internally, externally. If you don’t have those conversations, if you’re a PR team, your DEI team, your HR team, your marketing and sales team, don’t have that conversation up front. You will find yourself knee jerking reaction to everything that comes your way, especially if you are a consumer facing organization. Right?

47:02
Kim Bohr
Yeah. And I think you and I were talking about a great example that I think our listeners will remember, which was the Coors Light experience that they had. And I think, you know, when you. And I think that just really resonates that you knowing your audience and trying to create alignment needs to be done, you know, in from that place of true understanding and not necessarily trying to, I don’t know, it’s like make a, you know, perhaps wish for something that is impossible. So for our listeners that don’t, maybe don’t remember Coors Light, I think it was Bud Light. Was it Bud Light?

47:49
Mason
I think was Bud Light.

47:50
Kim Bohr
I think you’re, I think.

47:51
Mason
I’m not a beard drinker, but I’m pretty sure it was Bud Light.

47:53
Kim Bohr
I think you’re correct. It was Bud Light. So. Excuse me, for Coors Light, it was Bud Light. And what they had done was they decided to do some custom cans with a trans influencer who, which was very much outside of the audience. It was outside of the audience who consumes the product. And they took a very bold statement in doing so and then received quite an extensive backlash from lost market share and. Lost market share. Yeah, very much so.

48:31
Mason
Yeah. They used to be the lead beer and they dropped. They lost market share to hurt their stock. And you’re right, it’s where a company sort of forgot who the audience was. Now, the intent was to be inclusive. Awesome, great intent. But the way that they went about it and pursuing out there, it didn’t feel like it was in alignment with their target market. Who was actually buying the beer, who was, you know, who was within that whole target demographic. Maybe they’re looking to expand the demographic, but you know, there’s other companies out there that, and they felt the backlash. They started pulling back. And then other companies, whether it’s John Deere or Ford or tractor supply company, are all recently just sort of say, oh, you know what?

49:21
Mason
We’re pulling back on all our DEI efforts, either scrapping it all together or minimizing it. But that’s the, that’s doing the same thing, but the opposite way. You know, there is, oh, let’s do DEI and let’s do everything. That’s whether it’s in line with their mission or not. And then there’s, let’s not do any of it. You know, there’s two, there’s two things that are not going to change. Their clientele is going to become more diverse, especially in America, especially if going global. And your talent pool is only going to become more diverse. It’s not becoming less so. So if you want to ignore how to deal with differences, it will only impact your company negatively in the future.

50:01
Mason
Give an example when John Deere was announcing that they were pulling back from their DEI at the very same time, this very same time, they were paying over a million dollars for discriminatory hiring practices.

50:15
Kim Bohr
Wow.

50:16
Mason
You know, it’s. You can’t just. There’s. First, there’s laws out there. The laws. Well, regardless of what, you know, somebody, your policies.

50:25
Kim Bohr
Yeah.

50:25
Mason
The laws are still there. You still have to be compliant. Okay. But then there’s also people out there that still want to feel included, still want to feel like they belong. And as we started this conversation out before is when you start looking at, when you’re looking at creating more equity and inclusion, how can impact a greater audience? Right. How can that, what you do, support the greater audience and support a greater group of people by what you’re doing? We talked about the wheelchair ramps. We talked about, you know, parental leave and caregiver leave. You know, when you’re looking at these pieces, these policies, how can it support you as a entire audience? And remember your audience, remember who your. Remember who your talent pool is. And yes, remember your mission and what it is.

51:15
Mason
And if you’re a corporation, your sole mission, if you’re a far profit sole mission is to continue to make a profit. Because if you don’t, you won’t be in existence. If you’re not profit is to fulfill whatever your mission is. So when we look at, in our respect, when we’re working with companies, how do you align being inclusive with moving a company forward?

51:36
Kim Bohr
Right.

51:37
Mason
You can do good and you can be good and do good at the exact same time. But some companies just haven’t figured that out.

51:45
Kim Bohr
Right. And that’s a big miss because that is an opportunity for, you know, for, as you said, it’s the alignment and reinforcing the goals of the organization. And the bottom line, there’s those, they’re not mutually exclusive. You know, before we wrap up, let’s just. If we can spend just a couple more minutes on these individuals. So I think so many times we come into conversations, you know, and in this very charged environment, I think it’s very likely that this is happening where we make assumptions about what somebody is thinking or their perception or. And you know, when we’re working on projects together and we’re trying to move something forward and perhaps somebody reacts in a way that we don’t think is a way we would react to.

52:34
Kim Bohr
And all of a sudden we start to get the snowball effect in this, in the judgment that starts to lay blame. And then we really start to find the groups starting to break down and the team’s Breaking down. And I think that’s one of the concerns I have as I think about what may transpire as we come to the other side of this election. And I’m curious if you have any, just some, maybe some tips or things for people to think about that maybe will help try to, you know, try to help them reframe maybe what’s going on and try to find a common place for. For discussion. Commonality.

53:09
Mason
A great question. And I’ll bring something very personal to me into it. So we, as we mentioned right before this and something you didn’t know that was I was running in a state election. So I’m running for state. I live here in New Hampshire. I was running for state rep. I’m running for state rep. That’ll be over when this drops. I can tell you when I would go to our candidate forums, something I would always say and this first thing or the last thing I would say is everybody at this table, regardless of what part of the on loves New Hampshire. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re here. We might think of it a different way to get to that success and what we think is great for New Hampshire and. But we all love New Hampshire.

53:55
Mason
And you just substitute New Hampshire for your state or your organization or wherever you are that understanding and assuming good intent there, you know, they wouldn’t be there if they didn’t. So assume that good intent. But then understanding that the good intent you can help clarify. So for individuals that you think that they might have said something or did something that didn’t feel right, you say what do you mean by that? Like when somebody called, I mentioned calling them kids. Hey, I know what you call us kids. What do you really mean by that? Because we’re obviously not kids. What do you mean by calling us kids? And you might find that one.

54:37
Mason
They don’t realize they’re saying that or it’s really endearing to them because it’s something word that just feel because they have kids and it’s something that makes them feel like you’re like family and that’s why they’re saying it. And I don’t think you’ll ever find somebody saying that has ill intent typically. So understand that clarify when you find out what it is and in a very nice way, you don’t have to beat somebody over the head. You can just say, hey, could you speak more to that? Because I don’t understand. You know, this is how I took it. But you probably didn’t mean it that way. So when you assume good intent, clarify when you’re wondering whether it is there or not and then move forward.

55:22
Mason
We talked about that self awareness engages in two and Taylor and then move forward with that conversation and understand where you are. And when it comes to the polarization, realizing that I think both parties love this country and we’re talking about this election. We if we didn’t, we wouldn’t be so passionate. Right. We’d be so passionate of both sides is right. And we are very passionate on both sides if we didn’t love it. So let’s start there. Let’s start with that premise to move forward and discuss where we are. And and again, when you’re talking about your organization, use that as your premise as well.

56:00
Kim Bohr
I love that. Thank you so much for this rich discussion. So I think, you know, there’s a lot here that we’ve talked about and I think as we come through the other side of this election, there’ll be more conversations to be had and I hope that people will take from this time today some ways of reinforcing the opportunity inside their organizations, thinking about how to reach out to others and start to have a conversation that can be more one of that’s more around learning and growth. And so from that lens, we have some things that we want to be able to share as we wrap up. And we’ll have links in the show, notes for our contact information as well as some of these resources. But Willie, we both want to provide some free resources that are very relevant to this conversation today.

56:50
Kim Bohr
And so you’ll be able to download the core set from the courage to advance podcast.com and in that there’ll be, you know, both Mason and I believe very deeply in actionable, you know, tools and experiences that’ll allow you to move forward and not just feel, you know, just motivated alone or, you know, just the warm and fuzzies aren’t enough these days. We want to make sure everybody has something that’s really they could apply. So we’ll both be providing that. I think Mason, you know, you spoke to wanting to be able to do a little tailoring. Do you want to share a little bit about your thoughts there? Because you really wanted it to be personal.

57:34
Mason
I did. We discussed like building something ahead of time, but I wanted to see where our conversation went because as you said, we had a guide of what we’re going to talk about, but we didn’t exactly know where it would go. So it’s something I would build that’s bespoke, probably a one page based on our conversation here. They’re very bespoke to our conversation and it won’t be something that’s just off the shelf for somebody to download and bring this conversation further, maybe to bring it in with your team as well.

58:02
Kim Bohr
Thank you for being so thoughtful and doing that and I think that’s a very it’ll be a wonderful component that people get to take advantage of and as I mentioned, you’ll find the links to everything that we’ve been able to talk about and how to contact us and to learn more and links to Mason’s books and I want to again thank you so much Mason for sharing your insights. Thank you again to the Empathy Edge for hosting our podcast sub series and to all the listeners for tuning into this episode of Courage to Advance, where transformative leadership isn’t about having all the answers, it’s about having the courage to find them. Thank you again, Mason and thank you.
58:43
Mason
It was a pleasure. Thank you very much.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Dr. Steven Stein: Resilience, Grit…Or Hardiness? Which Helps Your Culture More?

Recently, we’ve heard a lot about resiliency, the ability to bounce back from challenge, and grit, that ability to grind away and never give up. But we’ve heard less about hardiness. It turns out hardiness enhances resilience, promotes personal and professional growth, and creates a more adaptive organizational culture.

Today, Dr. Steven Stein and I talk about hardiness and how it differs from both resilience and grit. He breaks down five key components of emotional intelligence and discusses how emotions impact our ability to make (or not make) good decisions. Dr. Stein offers the three C’s of Hardiness and how to improve hardiness to create a more resilient, healthy, and adaptive culture that impacts your bottom line.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

The concept of hardiness breaks down into the 3 Cs: commitment, challenge, and control.
If your goal is overly ridged or too narrow, it can become detrimental and paralyzing.
Resilience and hardiness definitely overlap. Where the overlap is, we see continuous improvement and forward motion.
When you balance emotionality with rationality, you can make better decisions, We call that wisdom.

“Hardiness means I can withstand the difficult situation and I can still deal with you (as a person), I can bring you along and make you stronger, and make the organization stronger.” — Dr. Steven Stein

From Our Partner:

Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.

About Dr Steven Stein: Clinical psychologist, speaker, best-selling author of Emotional Intelligence for Dummies and Hardiness: Making Stress Work for You to Achieve Your Life Goals

Dr. Steven Stein is a world-renowned clinical psychologist, international best-selling author and sought-after speaker, and founder and Executive Chair of Multi-Health Systems (MHS), a publisher of scientifically validated assessments for over 40 years, which has been named a three-time winner of Profit 100 (fastest growing companies in Canada), one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies since 2013, and Canada’s 10 Most Admired Corporate Cultures (2016, Waterstone).

A leading expert on psychological assessment and emotional intelligence, he has consulted with military and government agencies, including the Canadian Forces, U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy, special units of the Pentagon, FBI Academy, as well as corporate organizations, including American Express, Air Canada, Canyon Ranch, Coca-Cola (Mexico), and professional sports teams.

Dr. Stein consults with numerous reality TV shows, including Big Brother Canada, The Amazing Race Canada, MasterChef Canada, Bachelor Canada, Real Housewives of Toronto, Bachelor in Paradise, Blown Away, and many others, providing psychological expertise and candidate selection assessments.

Connect with Dr. Steven Stein

Multi-Health Systems (MHS): mhs.com

Personal Website: stevenstein.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drstevenstein

Book: Emotional Intelligence for Dummies

Book: Hardiness: Making Stress Work for You to Achieve Your Life Goals

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red SliceThreads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Dr. Steven Stein 02:49

Thanks, Marie. I’m looking forward to talking about it with you.

Maria Ross 02:53

So you know, we’ve heard in the intro, we heard your impressive bio and all the different organizations you’ve worked with. Let’s talk a little bit about your story quickly. That’s always kind of the first question I ask guests really briefly. How did you even get into this work? What made you want to be a psychologist and doing the really interesting work that you’re doing now?

Dr. Steven Stein 03:12

Well, it’s a pretty unusual route that I took. So I wanted to be a psychologist because I thought it was an interesting area. And I started out looking at sort of health areas like dentistry and medicine, but I really didn’t like blood very much, and I didn’t like pain, so and all my psychology marks, my psychology grades were all like A’s, and my biology grades were like C’s. So psychology, I think, was just calling me, right? So I went into psychology, and I did the typical thing as a psychologist. I worked in the children’s mental health center. I work with families and children and families, and I was also the head of research, so I did a lot of research and clinical work. And what happened was that’s when things took a bit of an odd turn. I’m going back quite a few years, when the micro computers were first invented. There was these two guys named Steve Jobs and Wozniak. Maybe heard of them, so they came up with this thing called an Apple computer. So at the time, I was doing this large research study comparing treatments for these really difficult adolescents. And in order to do my studies, they had to do what we call a pre test before we treated them and then post test after well, these kids, you know, they weren’t the most polite kids, so they told me where I could shove my tests, and that wasn’t very wasn’t very helpful when I’m trying to do research. No, no. So I saw one of these computer machines that just came out, and I saw kids like playing games on them. So I said, What if we put our diagnostic interviews on one of these machines? So I got myself a programmer, and we bought one of these boxes and we put it on, and I had kids, come on, hey, why don’t you just try this and see what you think? Well, the kids just loved it. I was getting all kinds of history that no one else was getting, and in fact, they almost had a lineup at my door of kids telling each other, hey, you got to go. This guy’s computer. So what happened was I eventually published a research study showing that we discovered more about these kids on the computer than all the clinicians that had ever interviewed them. They reported drug use, sexual abuse, attempted suicides. So I published a research paper on that, and I told the hospital. I said, You know what, I like to change the focus of my research into this computerized assessment and do less on the therapy. And they said, no, no, we don’t think so. So still intrigued me, so I took it home at night, and my wife at the time happened to be on maternity leave. We had our first daughter. She worked at an addiction treatment center, so I said, Well, why don’t we just open up a little company and start doing this right? Which is what we did. So we opened up a little company, started selling software diagnostics, two of us, the 345, and we became an overnight success. It’s 40 years later, but we now have over 200 staff. So that kind of took me in these different directions, yeah.

Maria Ross 06:00

And so you know your books, emotional intelligence for dummies and hardiness, making stress work for you to achieve your life goals. Very intriguing, very timely, especially coming out of the period of time we’ve all just come out of. And it’s got to be very heartening to you that mental health is such a focus right now for people, and hopefully not just some trend, you know.

Dr. Steven Stein 06:22

Well, you know, I sort of live with people telling me things were trends for 40 years. Computers were trends, uh, emotional intelligence was a trend, but we’ve been at it. Well, emotional intelligence, we’ve been at for over 25 years. So this is, I don’t really pay much attention to that. I mean, I remember when we first got in the news, when we started emotional intelligence, we were among the pioneers of that concept. And reporters used to ask me, isn’t this just some fad like re engineering or whatever? And I think my response 25 years ago was, listen, as long as there’s more than two people in the world on Earth, emotional intelligence will be important.

Maria Ross 07:01

Oh, exactly. I love that. So let’s dive in, because I love this concept of hardiness that you talk about. Can you talk about some effective methods to build resilience? Because that’s another buzzword right now, right? Building resilience through hardiness and emotional intelligence. Because a lot of people say, you know, and I’m raising a 10 year old, you know how important resilience is, but it seems so elusive, and how is it connected to hardiness and emotional intelligence? There’s kind of a lot of questions in that. But yeah,

Dr. Steven Stein 07:30

pick your pick. Yeah. Well, I’ll start off with what is hardiness. So there’s a lot of comparisons. People are comparing hardiness to resilience, and they are similar. The difference is resilience means when you’re you’re sort of motoring along, something happens, you have a difficult time, and then you eventually recover and get back to where you were with hardiness. What we’ve discovered is people who go along and something happens, some awful thing or whatever, but then you come back even stronger than you were. So that’s the sort of main difference, and what we know about hardiness is really interesting. My co author, Paul Barton, he’s a psychologist. He was the senior psychologist in the US Army, but he was a colonel. He’s a retired colonel, and he was at West Point. And as you probably know, a lot of leadership training is done at West Point, world famous leadership training. So Paul’s had the good fortune to be able to do research on these leaders or coming leaders. And the concept of hardiness has been researched for about 20 years now. So there’s a lot of background to this idea, this concept, and it really breaks down to three things, what we call the three C’s. And the first one is what we call commitment. And commitment means that you basically are engaged in the world. You have a purpose, you have something you’re working towards. You have something in the future, a goal, or it could be you have strong religious beliefs, or something larger than yourself that you’re aiming for. The second one is challenge. And what that refers to is when things become difficult for you in your life, you’re really good at knowing what things you can Oh, sorry. Challenge means you know how to look at it in a different way. You look at it like a puzzle. You sort of step back a little bit and get a little less emotionally involved and say, you know, if I was advising a friend of mine to deal with this problem. What would I have them do? So you have a way of, sort of changing your mindset when you’re looking at the problem. And the third is what we call control, and that’s knowing the difference between those things I can control versus what I can’t. So it’s raining out there. I can’t do anything about the weather, but I can take an umbrella or put on a raincoat. So making that distinction, that’s a simple example, but it gets way more complex in real life. And you know, learning how to deal with those three C’s, we find, and the research has shown, can help you in many ways to become much better at dealing with stress. Okay,

Maria Ross 09:58

so how? Does that apply to a workplace culture? So people listening say, that sounds great. We need more of that. How do you start building that culture of hardiness, of resiliency? Where can folks start?

Dr. Steven Stein 10:16

Okay, so where we tend to start is with the commitment. And what we look at there is, you know, what are we about? I mean, what’s the purpose of our organization? I mean, if you want our own example, we started, you know, my goal was to have psychology and kind of transform it into something that would be good for the world, that people could use, you know, as I started out as a psychologist, I was dealing with families, you know. And how many families can you deal with at a time? And I also was a university adjunct professor, so again, you only have so many students at a time, but in the work that we do, which is in the assessment developing psychological assessments and so on, we’re affecting the lives of at this point, millions of people. So the goal of of our organization and people who work here is to make the world a better place by tools. And we work with clinical samples. We work in public safety with offenders, and we work in organizations. Yeah.

Maria Ross 11:10

So how do you use what are the methods that you use to build resilience through hardiness and emotional intelligence? So

Dr. Steven Stein 11:19

the first thing we do is we do is we sort of find out what the organization stands for, what is our commitment, what is our goal, what do we want to do, and then we look at the ways in which we do it, and when there’s and that gets to the challenge. So things are difficult. We have problems we have so how do we solve our problems? How do we deal with these challenges? How do we step back? We work together. We create teamwork. We find solutions to problems, and we really differentiate the things beyond our control and those that aren’t. So the economy may be bad and our sales are down, right? But what can we do in the interim? Well, maybe we can learn more about our customers, we can do surveys, or we can study our products and maybe even work on new products when we have difficult times in our organization, that’s when we really invest in R, D. So when the economy gets better, we’re ready to roll with new products, and we’re just out of the gate. So it’s using these in a strategic way with your people to get them all on the same page so that they can get through the stressful times.

Maria Ross 12:20

So are companies that you’re working with doing this as like, a big transformation initiative they’re launching. It’s like, okay, it’s announced from on high. This is coming. This is what we’re doing. We’re going to be creating work groups, or does it start more organically, with a group within the organization that says, hey, this is something we want to take a look at within our team, we’re going to assess what our micro culture, what our commitment, challenge and control are, and then does it spread, or is it a comment? You find it happens both

Dr. Steven Stein 12:51

ways. We do mostly organically as you’re describing it. So I mean, ideally you want the buy in of the senior leadership, senior management. Otherwise it’s not going to really sustain so once you have that, and they understand the benefit of this and what how it could be helpful, then you start working with senior groups and working your way through the organization with the different groups. We’ve been doing this much longer with emotional intelligence than we have with with artines, because artines is a newer concept to bring it to the world. So with emotional intelligence, it’s bit of an easier sell, because people now know what it is and they want it, right? So it’s easier to roll that out.

Maria Ross 13:29

Is hardiness actually under, you know, I talk about empathy being sort of under the umbrella of emotional intelligence. Is hardiness similar? Yeah,

Dr. Steven Stein 13:36

that’s a good way of looking at it, yeah. So emotional intelligence, I’ll break that down a bit in terms of the model that we’ve been using. So there’s the five key components to emotional intelligence that we look at so the first is self perception, your ability to be aware of your own emotions, right? And the second is what we call self expression, the ability to express your emotions. If you want to be a leader, you have to know how to express how you feel. You have to be transparent, authentic. People have to see that. You know, you walk the walk, you talk the talk. The third area is interpersonal skills. So you want to have good relationships with people. You don’t want to be the boss who walks into the room and everybody shuts up and won’t talk anymore. When I walk into the room, my staff like to joke with me, and we have fun, right? And the next area is decision making, the role of emotions in helping you make decisions. Some people are over emotional when they make decisions, and some people use no emotion. They think all decisions are rational, which they aren’t. And the fifth area is what we call stress management, and that’s where the hardiness fits in. So people who are high in emotional intelligence are usually pretty good at managing their stress using some of these techniques that we’ve talked about

Maria Ross 14:44

well, and is that as a result of the other elements? Because if you are self aware and you’re able to express yourself, you’re probably going to be able to manage your stress a little bit better, because you understand your triggers, your emotions when you need to take a break, when you need to pull back. Do you. Think so they’re all interrelated, yes, exactly,

Dr. Steven Stein 15:01

exactly. That’s exactly how it works and and that’s exactly how we work through the cycle of emotional intelligence. It’s

Maria Ross 15:09

interesting because my new book that’s coming the empathy dilemma, it talks about five pillars that I’ve seen as common threads among leaders that are both empathetic but also highly effective, right? They’re not getting burned out. They’re not giving just giving it into whatever anyone wants. And the first pillar is self awareness. The second pillar is self care. And actually the fifth pillar, which you mentioned earlier, is joy, being able to bring some levity and relaxation to the group environment enables trust to flow, enables people to calm down a little bit about everything. And so I’m seeing all these parallels in what you’re talking about, but also what you mentioned that sparked that is decisiveness is one of the pillars as well, being able to make thoughtful, intentional decisions quickly, while still synthesizing multiple points of view. And so in your work, when you’re working with folks and you’re talking about emotional intelligence, I’d love to just dig into that one a little bit, because that one always seems to feel like a mystery to people. What have you seen in terms of the most effective and emotionally intelligent leaders in their ability to make a decision that others can buy into, even if they it’s not necessarily what they wanted, and in that leader’s own confidence in that decision.

Dr. Steven Stein 16:32

So there’s a number of things that you got in there, they’ll try and so in terms of actually making a decision, that’s, I guess, the first step of what you’ve asked. So that is what we’ve looked at in decision making, is how emotions fit in with that. And again, it’s a matter of balancing your emotion with the decision. You do not want to be totally rational, because you can make a really rational decision that pisses off a lot of people, and that’s not a good thing. So you want a decision that is really the best situation for that the best decision for that situation, and that’s where you want your emotions to be balanced. You want to really look at it with a combination of rationality and emotionality. We call that wisdom. That’s what it means to be wise, right? So that’s the first part. Then your next part is, how do I sell that? So I finally decided that this is the course of action. We’re going to make cutbacks in the organization. It’s not going to be a popular decision, but this is our circumstance. So that gets into self expression. How am I going to deliver that message? So one thing I wanted, and empathy is critical, as you mentioned, critical there. Yeah, we’ve done a lot of research at that. I actually published a study looking at CEOs and looking at the profitability, comparing more profitable with less profitable. And these guys were all shot. These people were all shocked that empathy was one of the key deciders, because when you listen to people you respect the people you work with, they’re going to go all the way with you. They’re going to, you know, even in bad times, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So empathy and the other part that’s really important, because you said people kind of react negatively sometimes to empathy. That’s because they’re confusing empathy and sympathy, right? So sympathy, as I look at it, is more of an i statement, you know, Oh, I feel real sad that your husband’s not feeling well, right? Whereas empathy is more of a you statement, oh, you must be feeling really upset right now about what you’re going through. It shows that I understand what you’re feeling. It doesn’t mean I agree with everything or I’m going to give in to everything. All I want you to know is that I understand your point of view, and I know where you’re coming from Exactly.

Maria Ross 18:37

And that’s, you know, my work with the first book with the previous book, the empathy edge was about building the business case for empathy and demystifying those myths that empathy is not about being nice, it’s not about caving into demands, and it’s also not about agreeing with people. And that’s where so many people have burnt themselves out in the name of Being Well, it’s just because I’m a really empathetic leader, but what you’re doing is acquiescence. It’s not submit, it’s submission. It’s people pleasing. It’s actually not empathy, because if you don’t have decisiveness, if you don’t have clarity, if you don’t have self care, if you don’t have joy, if you don’t have self awareness, what you’re doing is likely not empathy, because otherwise you would be pulling back when you need to on the self care, and you wouldn’t necessarily be burning yourself out so you’re preaching to the choir. I love it.

Dr. Steven Stein 19:24

Yeah, we’re on the same page.

Maria Ross 19:26

I know, right? I love that. Okay, so talk a little bit. Let’s go back a little bit to this concept of hardiness, because does it ever get conflated with leaders who think hardiness means I’m always a stalwart. I’m always going to act like I have the answer. I have the right decision. That means I’m party right. Do you ever find that being conflated? Not

Dr. Steven Stein 19:51

a lot. I think it gets more conflated with grit, because grit seems to be out there a lot, and people are trying to adapt that, and we differentiate. From grit, both on the research level and conceptually, so in terms of, and I’ll sort of differentiate those grit, as you know, has become very popular, and the issue of grit is meaning I’m really determined. I’m really gonna, I’m gonna go all out. So, for example, I’m a musician. I play saxophone, and I used to think I want to be like John Coltrane or Stan Getz, and I could practice day and night month after month. I’m never going to be John Coltrane. I can, you know, and I finally realized that, and I stopped, I actually stopped playing because of that. And that’s so wrong, right? Because if I did become a musician, there’s many other things you could do than being a performer. You could be teaching music. You could be a studio musician, you could just play in a band, and so on. So you just do it for the love of it, and the love of it, which is sort of the end of my story, which I ended up doing. But the point here is that grit is just to continue pushing ahead no matter what. And the research side of that is kind of interesting. So there’s two studies that kind of look at that. One is a study of mountain climbers. The mountain climbers who had the highest grit tended to die on the hilltop because they wouldn’t give up. They were going to just keep going no matter what. And some of them ended up dying because they wouldn’t turn back when they should have and the other example of in the research side is in gambling. And if you have a lot of grit, you lose a lot of money at the roulette table, because you’re going to keep going till I win, right? And you’ll never beat the house. So that’s where hardiness differentiates. I mentioned challenge. So in challenge, I look at that situation and as a problem, and I say, Wow, I’m never going to be that famous musician, so maybe I should shift gears and do something a bit differently, right? So that’s how we differentiate hardiness from grit. And the other thing, I guess you were mentioning it meaning that I’m strong. I don’t have to whatever. I’m a stalwart, yeah, so this macho kind of thing, no, that’s not what it means at all. It means I can weather the storm and I can come out okay, or I can come out even stronger than I was before the strong, before the storm. But strong doesn’t mean again, I’m I’m this macho person. It means I can withstand the difficult situation and I can still deal with you. I can bring you along and make you stronger and and make the organization stronger. I

Maria Ross 22:21

think what I’m hearing from you, and correct me, if I’m wrong, is this idea that with hardiness, I think you mentioned it earlier, resilience is about bouncing back to our original position. Hardiness is more about kind of going through that storm, but coming out stronger at the end of it. So there’s some delta around maybe our own capacity, or our own mental state, or our own ability with hardiness? Is that an accurate statement? Very

Dr. Steven Stein 22:49

good. Yeah, excellent. All right, great. And again, it’s not something we just made up out of the blue. This has like over 20 years of research. See Paul, my co author, Paul was doing all this research in the military. So all the work he was doing was getting published in either scholarly journals or military journals. And nobody in the outside world really knew about this stuff. Yeah. So when he and I got together, I said, you know, Paul, we got to take this out into the world. I mean, people, this is great research, and people should know about it, right? So that’s why we decided to write the book hardiness together and to put it out there.

Maria Ross 23:23

So how can hardiness help make those working environments more adaptive, and what are the steps that leaders can take to practice it, to model it, to build it. What are some examples with clients you’ve worked with?

Dr. Steven Stein 23:42

Well, we have, and in the book, we outline a lot of these boring research, yeah, yeah. But, you know, we talk about what the situations are, what are the challenges that you’re undergoing? How are you dealing with those challenges now, what seems to be working and what’s not working? And then we break it down into these components, in terms of of how you look at the challenge, are your solutions, kind of emotional solutions, or are they logical solutions? And how else can we look at these solutions and we look at control in terms of implementing it. You can control the economy. You can’t control certain things out there. So what is there within your organization or yourself that you can control. What are the levers that you can pull to make a difference? And commitment is the other one we look at, where do you see yourself? Where do you see yourself going in terms of personal growth, and where do you see the organization going in terms of the organizational growth?

Maria Ross 24:35

Yeah, we I talk a lot about that in terms of both in the brand work that I’ve done, but even with this work now with empathy, is how one of the the practices of an empathetic culture is that you are actually aligned on mission and purpose and values. So you know that you’re all on the same mission and otherwise that it’s that difference, it’s that I think we’re. Going this way, you think we’re going that way that causes so much of our inability to connect? Because now I just think you’re not doing your job, or you’re not listening to me, or, you know, all the empathy goes away, because we actually, in our minds, think we’re on different missions 100% Yeah,

Dr. Steven Stein 25:17

and that’s what we frame as commitment, that what are we trying to achieve? What are our goals? And you know, in the book, we talk about how to build commitment within yourself as well as within the organization. So for example, we’ll start out with a 10 year plan. Where do you see yourself in 10 years? What would you like to be? And we have different areas. Like, how would it like to be, in terms of my career, in terms of my family, my friendships, don’t want to live in a city or in a country, like, Where do I see on all these variables? Where do I want to be? And then we sort of step back and say, Well, where do you think you want I want to be in five years? You know, what would that look like? And we bring it down to one year. And, you know, I think it’s really important that we get down to almost daily or weekly, where we have certain goals that we can say, well, I feel good today because I accomplished this little piece that adds to that bigger picture. And we learned this. You know, we did a lot of work with athletes in elite levels. Elite levels work towards those major goals, but they know it’s going to take a lot of time and a lot of work to get there, and it can be very discouraged easily, because you don’t feel like you’re moving forward, and the same with your career, right? You’re working your butt off, and you don’t feel you’re getting anywhere. You didn’t get that promotion, you didn’t get that raise. So this gives you a way to sort of look at the big picture and get through those little frustrations and and difficult times by saying, Okay, this may be bad, but this is what I’m shooting towards. I’ll put up with this for now, or I’ll try and change it this way, but I gotta keep that target in mind where I want to be.

Maria Ross 26:46

I have kind of a curveball question for you, since you’re talking about this, do you ever think I talk to a lot of leaders and a lot of experts on this show, and we always talk about the notion of goals and short term goals, long term goals? Do you ever think that we can to ourselves get to a point where the goal setting becomes detrimental, where we get paralyzed by goal setting, because it’s all we’re doing is assessing ourselves and our situation constantly?

Dr. Steven Stein 27:13

I think if they’re overly rigid goals or too narrow goals, you know, like, for example, my goal is to get psychology into the world. So that’s a pretty broad goal, right, right, right? It still guides me, you know, like when I look at doing a project or whatever, does that sort of fit or not? So I don’t feel comfortable with that, because I don’t know it looks more like anthropology or it looks more like biology, so I rule it out. So that way I keep on a fairly wide track. I mean, psychology is pretty broad, so I think you got to keep your goals fairly broad that you know that you give you flexibility. You don’t want to get locked in, and it’s not the end of the world if I go home today and say, you know, I didn’t really do anything to move forward. I mean, I’m not going to say that, because I’m on your show and I interviewed you, and we’re going to meet new people. So, you know, that’s a positive thing. I’m going to feel good tonight, but maybe tomorrow comes along and I don’t have this opportunity, I’m going to say, Well, I had it yesterday, and maybe I’m going to have it tomorrow, right? So there’s this optimistic way of framing it, so goals can be detrimental if they’re too rigid and too narrow,

Maria Ross 28:17

right? And almost unachievable in some Yeah, although, shape or form,

Dr. Steven Stein 28:22

what big hairy goal? I don’t mind that. Yeah. I don’t mind the big hairy goal, as long as you accept the fact that you know it’s going to take a while, and it’s going to be steps, and you might not get the full thing right, but you’re going to get closer to it.

Maria Ross 28:33

You’re going to get farther than you would have had you not had the goal right. Absolutely. Do you think that there’s a either or with resiliency and hardiness, or is it a both? And are they two skill sets you need to equally shore up for yourself? Well, I

Dr. Steven Stein 28:50

think there’s some overlap. Definitely overlap. Yeah. I mean, you know, some people fall apart at slightest stress, right? And that’s there’s not a lot of resilience or hardiness there. Some people are used to sort of falling down and picking themselves up and just keep going and fall down and pick themselves up. So it’s kind of repetitive. It they don’t learn from their mistakes, and that just happens the hardiness people, or if they follow the steps and build hardiness, they’re going to fall down and then pull themselves up and maybe be a bit smarter than they were before and fall down again, well, they’re going to even go up higher and be even smarter than they were before that. So we see it as kind of a continuous improvement in yourself, right?

Maria Ross 29:30

And like when you were saying that, I was thinking with hardiness, it almost sounds like you get back up again and you assess and you might do something different in the future, right? Yeah, okay. Well, this has been such a rich conversation. I know we can delve into all these little nooks and crannies, probably for hours, but I definitely want folks to check out your books, emotional intelligence for dummies and hardiness, making stress work for you to achieve your life goals. We’ll have links to all the things in the show notes for those that are exercising. They’re listening to us. What’s one best place that they can find out more about you and your work. They

Dr. Steven Stein 30:04

can come to my website, stevenstein.com,

Maria Ross 30:07

wonderful, and we will again put that link in the show notes. Thank you, Steven, so much for your insights today and for the work that you’re doing. It’s really important. Well,

Dr. Steven Stein 30:16

thanks for having me, Maria, great speaking with you, and thank

Maria Ross 30:19

you everyone for listening to another great episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate and review and share it with a friend or colleague and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Stay well and be kind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower, use it to make your work and the world a better place. Maria here, if you’re listening to this podcast, you already believe organizations can achieve radical success through empathy. But what is the state of empathy in the workplace today. How can we understand what everyone from CEOs to HR leaders to employees are thinking and feeling about how to do their best work? My go to source has been business solvers, state of workplace empathy study Now in its ninth year, business solver provides benefits technology that transforms HR solutions into a personalized benefits journey. What could be more empathetic than that? It’s technology with heart powered by people so they know a thing or two about empathy. Learn more about the state of workplace empathy. Study for yourself and put your empathy game plan into action. Visit business solver.com/edge to download the reports and keep the conversation going. New reports coming soon include diving into the mental health statistics and d, e, i, b, go to business solver.com/edge to get the insights you need to transform your organization.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

November Hot Take: Why History Needs Us to Be Empathetic Leaders Now More Than Ever

Today, I want to talk about something that’s been heavy on my heart: the importance of holding onto Real History as it’s unfolding, not just to understand today but to avoid repeating mistakes tomorrow.

Lately, I have felt anxious about the world we’re building and the future we’re leaving for our kids. When I look at what’s happening, I can’t help but think about the role models I want my son to emulate. It’s not just about those leaders at the highest levels. We can be leaders even if we don’t have the title. It’s about us, each of us, stepping up, being those role models, and showing that we can lead with both empathy and strength.

Let’s keep leading with empathy.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

The best leaders have the humility to recognize their flaws and understand that the best, most effective decisions come from inviting expert voices that aren’t their own so they can get a clearer picture of both risks and opportunities.
Use the upcoming leadership of the US to teach your children what kind of leader not to be.
Kindness, inclusion, and integrity are qualities worth pursuing—not just in others, but in ourselves.

“We can be leaders if we don’t have the title but some people, even if promoted to the title, even if elected to the title, will never be true leaders..” — Maria Ross

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Lately, I, like many others, have felt anxious about the world we’re building and the future we’re leaving for our kids because of the US presidential election earlier this month, so many people, black and brown communities, immigrants, women, LGBTQ plus folks, are moving through the world with uncertainty about their safety and opportunity to just simply exist and autonomously pursue health, happiness and opportunity, just like all of us want to and this isn’t just about policies anymore. It’s about celebrating and modeling in our policies a core value. I think we all share empathy, the kind of empathy that inspires ethical leadership, leadership grounded in values, not in titles, leadership that brings out the best in all of us, that activates us as citizens, to work together to solve problems. When I look at what’s happening, I can’t help but think about the role models I want my son to emulate. It’s how I got on this empathy journey in the first place, back when I was researching the empathy edge, I want him to look up to leaders who serve others with integrity, respect and genuine love for humanity, leaders who don’t put status above service, who don’t confuse loyalty with effectiveness, leaders who celebrate people’s differences and see the value in those diverse perspectives to make our world better, leaders who don’t need to be surrounded by flatterers and yes men, leaders who have the humility to recognize their own flaws and understand that the best, most effective decisions come from inviting expert voices that aren’t their own so they can get a clearer picture of both risks and opportunities.

I gotta be honest, I struggle with understanding how to explain to my 10 year old son why someone who’s been indicted multiple times, someone who lies, who sows division, who is hateful, misogynistic and racist and encourages others to be so why someone who has had multiple affairs cannot speak without lying, and who has committed sexual assault? How I explain to him that that is not appropriate behavior, that’s not the way a true leader acts, and that such people get to be president, and let’s be honest, Vice President, some would like to excuse this behavior by saying it’s just rhetoric, but we tell our kids not to say such things. So why is it okay for the leader of the free world to do it and not be held accountable? No wonder our kids think we’re hypocrites. Also with that rhetoric comes not only actual policies that put lives and livelihoods in danger, but it pits neighbor against neighbor. Maybe those supporters always felt this way and are just as they say, saying the quiet part out loud now, but we as a society used to check them on that behavior, and at least we didn’t have this type of rhetoric unabashedly coming at us from the leaders of our own country. I watched a great video on social media the other day, and I’m sorry I don’t have it with me to cite, but the video’s creator asked what people actually mean by Make America Great Again, like, what year in America’s history do they want to go back to exactly one where women couldn’t vote or do anything without their husbands, one where blacks couldn’t eat at the same lunch counters or go to the same schools as whites? The Creator mused, instead of going. Back to an America where gay and trans people had to live in fear in the closet. I would love to go back to a time when assholes had to stay in the closet because society would actually call them out for bad behavior. I guess if anything, I can use these moments to show my son what kind of leader he should not aspire to be, that he can be a better person than that.

He has asked me when he listens to the news with me, but if they’re all saying what he said is not true, why does he lie? And if he’s lying, why do his people support him anyway? And in those heartbreaking moments, I have to tell him, honey, I just don’t know. We can be leaders if we don’t have the title. But some people, even if promoted to the title or elected to the title, will never be true leaders. So this is really a call to action for all of us to step up and be the empathetic, strong, diverse, action oriented leaders that we want and need to see in the world. And it’s not just about hoping for these leaders at the highest levels. It’s about us. It’s about each of us stepping up being those role models and showing that we can lead with both empathy and strength, because the truth is, even if we never hold a title, we can still be the kind of leader our companies, communities and families need right now. So my call, my plea, my invitation to you today is to embrace the role you play wherever you are, use the leadership we will see over the next four years as a cautionary tale for your kids and for ourselves of what not to do, not as something to look up to.

Please, don’t let this negative type of leadership ever get normalized. Let’s prove to our kids, our employees, our world, that empathy and success can coexist. Let’s show them that, yes, kindness, inclusion and integrity are qualities worth pursuing, not just in others, but in ourselves. Each time we choose empathy, each time we choose to treat people with respect. We’re creating a model for them. We’re making history that one day they’ll look back on with pride. Thank you for listening and as always, let’s keep leading with empathy. I hope you enjoyed today’s hot take. As always, if you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend or a colleague and rate and review, because your feedback matters. And until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind

For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there. You can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Justin Jones-Fosu: How to Respectfully Disagree – and Not in a Passive-Aggressive Way

We prep ourselves for so many challenging conversations, whether asking for a raise, delivering a tough performance review, asking for more budget, or even debating a political issue as if we’re going to war. We brace for the confrontation. That puts us in a really unhelpful place to have true connection and conversation – and that just intensifies the misunderstanding and animosity with no helpful outcome.

But there’s a way out of this cycle. And woo boy! I clicked instantly with today’s guest and I know you will, too. Today, Justin shares a very personal story about his trip back to Ghana to confront his absent father and how he changed the conversation following his own 5 pillars to bridge the divide. We also discuss how to practice conversational receptiveness, and how to avoid the dotted line dilemma and the illusion of asymmetric insights which both hinder meaningful engagements with those we don’t see eye-to-eye with. Justin also unpacks actionable ways to have better conversations and cultivate curiosity through the Power of 3 Questioning module.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Plant the seeds with your kids of how to value humanity from a young age. Take them to places and events that will help them see more of the world and humanity.
Be transparent when you are working on your leadership and changing conversations. Bring your team in, make it fun and light, and have one meaningful conversation per week.
Just because it feels uncomfortable to learn about others and practice The Power of 3 Questioning. It doesn’t mean it isn’t working and strengthening your listening muscles.

“People are talking about things that are important to them. The question is, are we really listening?” — Justin Jones-Fosu

Episode References:

Justin’s book: I Respectfully Disagree: How to Have Difficult Conversations in A Divided World
The Empathy Edge podcast: Michael Bach: What Exclusion is Costing Your Company
Book: Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together by William Isaacs

From Our Partner:

Go to sparkeffect.com/edge and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.

About Justin Jones-Fosu, CEO, Work.Meaningful and Author, I Respectfully Disagree

Justin is a full-time dad-e who also happens to be an international speaker, a social entrepreneur, a critically acclaimed author, and a mountain climber (he recently conquered one of the famed 7 Summits). His passion for elevation extends beyond trekking, it’s mirrored in his work as the CEO of Work. Meaningful, a firm he founded in 2017 focused on workplace engagement and inclusion. He consults with, speaks to, and trains 10,000 to 20,000 people per year. He is a former radio host and former workplace contributor to NPR’s The Takeaway Justin’s most recent book, I Respectfully Disagree, challenges the reader to focus on building bridges with people rather than barriers from them. He also wrote The Inclusive Mindset and Your Why Matters Now.

Connect with Justin Jones-Fosu:

Work.Meaningful: workmeaningful.com

X: x.com/iworkmeaningful

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/iworkmeaningful

Instagram: instagram.com/iworkmeaningful

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

03:14

Super pumped and excited to be with you. Wow. We’re

Maria Ross 03:18

just talking about, I really like your energy. You’re lighting me up today. So folks are in for a treat. You know, we heard a little bit about your bio and the work that you do for companies like Toyota, Mercedes, Adidas, all the things, but tell us a little bit about your story and how you even got into this work of helping organizations and leaders improve their communication and understand each other better. How did you get here? Wow.

Justin Jones-Fosu 03:42

And really, the origin story started from a mom, to be completely honest. Mom, yes, my mom was one of the first black female air traffic controllers in the Air Force, and she told me the story that was really powerful, that she would be stationed in Japan for two years, and there were some soldiers in that same two year time frame that never left base. And she said, Justin, I don’t want you and your brother to be like that and never leave your metaphorical home base and not experience the beauty of people and cultures around you. And so I remember just she would take us to events that we didn’t know a lot about, and even ones that we disagreed with. I’d be sitting there mom like, why aren’t we even here, right? But she was planting these seeds of how we can value humanity and as a leader, one of the things that that’s been so impressed on me is, how do I value the humanity of those that I lead, whether at home, whether in my office and other places. And this specific story took me to this place of Ghana. So I am a dual citizen of both Ghana, United States. Uh, my dad’s from Ghana. My mom from America. That makes me African American. You might get that joke later, but the interesting thing you

Maria Ross 04:52

really are African American. Yeah,

Justin Jones-Fosu 04:56

in 2019 I was going to go back to Ghana. I’ve been there several times. Taking my kids for the first time, and I’m gonna go confront my dad. You see, my dad wasn’t in my life in ways that I felt I needed him to be growing up, and so when my parents divorced at four, I remember I would see my dad every other weekend. Then it became one weekend a month, and then there was two or three years where I didn’t see and or hear from my dad, and for a myriad of reasons, conflict between my parents, but I felt like my dad couldn’t have fought harder for me, and so I remember that I was gonna go and confront him Will Smith style. I’m not talking about the Chris Rock version, but more of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air version, yeah. And one of the things that stood out to me is I was a part of leadership Charlotte, as well as I have a really great therapist, and they help transform how I was going to approach it. So instead of going to confront my dad, they challenged me to go and hear his story. I like what somebody came up to me after one of my sessions. They were like Justin. They helped you to turn a confrontation into a conversation. And as I heard his story, and we had this conversation, and I asked more questions, and I was curious. And instead of going to tell Well, you’re wrong, and then I listened to how he got there. Now we still walked away, and I I disagreed and disagreed respectfully, but I better understood how he got there, and it allowed me to open up and realize that that whole process that I even went with with my dad, is actually the process that we take companies and leaders and executives through that they can create, not only these cultures within their own organizations, but these cultures at home and these cultures in their

Maria Ross 06:31

community. Oh, my God. I love that story, and I love that quote of turning a confrontation into a conversation. I often talk about empathy as a definition, so many times we get it wrong. If you can get empathy wrong right, we’re kind of doing it wrong. You know, I hate to say it that way, but we think empathy is people pleasing, or it’s just caving in, or it’s agreeing with someone. To this point, we can have empathetic conversations with people and still walk away with our own perspectives and opinions and ideologies intact. Yes, because it’s not about conversion, it’s about connection. And so we’re fans of the sea Yes, alliterations. I love it, but that’s so powerful, because I love how you and how you had to prep yourself. Yeah, you know. And that self awareness piece is the first pillar of the five pillars in my new book, The Empathy dilemma. But being aware of what you were bringing into the conversation and what you were bringing into the meeting is so important to being able to take that beat, take that pause, and not react so quickly. Yeah, I love it, and that idea of finding common ground, of like, I’m here to hear your story. I’m not here to condone what you’ve done. I’m not here to agree with you. And this is especially important, as we know with political discourse. Yeah, there’s a gentleman I talk about on the show all the time named Edwin rush. He runs the Center for building a culture of empathy. And back in 2016 2015 he had empathy tense set up at the most divisive political rallies we had in our country, and it was just to get one person and another person from each side into a tent to listen to each other, yeah, not to convert each other to their side, right, but to see each other as human beings. So your story is just such a personal example of that. I’m curious, do you feel like from that approach that you took? Do you think it made a difference to your dad, even though he might not have, quote, known you were doing it? Yeah,

Justin Jones-Fosu 08:34

I definitely. I think what we find often, not only with my dad and other people, is that when we approach people from you’re wrong, and how did you do this? Why in the world, you’re wrong and I’m right immediately, yes, defensive walls come up. Yeah. I love the body of research around conversational receptiveness that really talks through and I’ve done really good work about why people want to continue to have conversations with people, even if they disagree with and one of those things is in finding common ground, right? And choosing to seek understanding, and not only seek understanding, but utilize positive phrases like, wow, I can see how you got there. Well, thank you, right? And those are the things as my dad will open up and share a story, I could imagine me coming to my dad and saying, You abandoned me. You weren’t there for me. Why did you do it? And immediately the defensive walls can come up, of course, yeah. Rather than simply entering into the space of like, Hey dad, I realize I’ve never heard your story. You mind sharing with me? Yeah. Got along the story journey. One of the things I was able to do is to share and ask more pointed questions in terms of what happened when x? But I didn’t start with what happened when X? I started with, I’d like to hear your story.

Maria Ross 09:46

I love that. Yeah, it’s all about really understanding someone’s context. And you know when you go you know whether you’re having a difficult performance review or you’re having a contentious budget conversation with a colleague. I always. That phrase of like, it’s not about going in with, here’s why I’m right and you’re wrong, right? It’s try to take that breath and ask the question, first, tell me how you got here. Tell me why you think this is the right approach. Tell me what you think is going on right now. Are you happy with the way your work is going? Right? Tell me how you’re feeling about it? And then you can have a conversation where that person’s feeling heard. So it kind of lowers the temperature a little bit too, doesn’t it? Oh, 100%

10:30

so I’m sorry, go ahead.

Maria Ross 10:31

No, I was going to ask you more about this conversational receptiveness, because that’s actually a new term I haven’t heard about. And what are some other you know, you mentioned a few other tips there. But what do people do to prepare for that, to know that they’re going to go into a conversation where they might be triggered?

Justin Jones-Fosu 10:47

Yes, one of the things we talk about often is that the first thing that people should do in those conversations around respectful disagreements happens before it even happens. And that’s, I love, the five pillars. I thought you would talk about mine. We actually have five pillars as well. And pillar number one is challenge your perspective. And it happens before any disagreement even occurs, because the more we exercise those muscles of hearing people’s perspective, going in, understanding and listening and learning from others, that it allows us in those moments, to actually hear them deeper. So a practical action item. So the circles of grace challenge is one of those things that we challenge leaders to do and to lead their companies and organizations with. We recently took the Ford family foundation through this. And the circles of grace challenge is simply this that every six to 12 months I go to events experiences, or I engage with people in either which I don’t know a lot about or I disagree with, and I’m going asking two questions. One, what did I learn about these events, experiences and their people? And two, what did I learn about myself? Now, what was transformative, what we did with the Ford family foundation is at the end of the six months, we did a debrief, and oh my gosh, it was amazing to hear some people like, wow, I never knew they chose to focus on constituents and people that they serve within their organization. It’s like I didn’t know this about them, or I had mislabeled or, wow, I still disagree with them, but I want to have more conversations, and that’s because the inverted U theory applies here perfectly. It normally applies to performance, but it’s been attached to learning that says there’s two places that people don’t learn effectively, when they think they know absolutely nothing and when they think they know absolutely everything. And so yeah, how do we get people on that learning journey? It’s to engage and to choose to intentionally hear someone else. Yeah, well, and

Maria Ross 12:38

I think that’s why that’s such an important aspect of empathetic leadership of those leaders who are empathetic and effective is they are able to put ego aside. They’re able to say, I may not know all the answers, and I’m going to be willing to invite other perspectives into the conversation, because they’re not threatening me, they’re just giving me information. Yes, and so I, you know, I know, I’m sure, with your leaders that you work with, I tried to deflate their myths about empathy being this fluffy. Woo, Woo. Oh, it’s me crying on the floor with my employees, and I say, why don’t you just think of it as information gathering? Yeah, think of it as a way to just play detective and figure out. You know, you’re probably wondering, What the heck is that person thinking in a negative way. How about turning that into a positive way? Of like, Well, I wonder what that person is thinking instead of what were they thinking, right? But, and that seems to, like, calm their nerves a little bit if they’re sort of very uptight. And I say because you can’t, if you’ve got all your stuff in your head, you can’t take on another person’s perspective without defensiveness or fear, because you feel like it’s a personal attack.

Justin Jones-Fosu 13:46

Yes, yeah, and this is so true, because we’ve treated communication like war, right? Even leaders, we go into meetings and we talk to the person ahead of time like, hey, I need you to really support me on x, right? And somebody else goes so we’re developing allies, and we go in instead of approaching it from this place pillar four, seek the gray. And we’ve been challenging leaders to start off their meeting, saying, when we leave this meeting, we should have created something that is new and has not been thought of before, because when we seek the gray, right? Yeah, I come from Ghana, we have these drum circles. In a drum circle, you’re not going to get the same beat without each and every single person there, and how do we contribute now? Why is that important? And one of the best books that my professors during my MBA had me read was a book called dialog, the art of thinking together. And it was so profound because it’s not about a and convincing this other person of a. It’s not about B, convincing other person to be is, how do we create C together? And if leaders can start off their meetings, if they can challenge in our one on ones with those direct reports, it allows them to people say, You know what, they actually want a different perspective. They want to hear varying point, because we have to create something new.

Maria Ross 14:57

We have to and also, if everyone thinks this. Same way, you’re going to miss opportunities and you’re going to overlook risk. If someone’s looking at the problem or the challenge or the opportunity in a different way, we see more things that we miss. And this is the thing, you know, we could have a whole other conversation about the DEI be backlash, but that’s all very much about the culture war. The smart companies are actually still embracing deib, because they understand that it actually helps their bottom line. Yes, it helps them win, yeah. So they’re like, No, this is about I want all the information about every opportunity and every risk, and I want people to be looking at this in different ways, so you guys can have your culture war, but our company is still going to invest in

Justin Jones-Fosu 15:41

this, and that’s what I love about see, you’re so brilliant. That’s what I love about you, because you work right? You know, my last book, the inclusive mindset, the whole focus is, this is not something that we should do. This is something that we can it’s not the EIB is not something extra. It’s just a part of our everyday life, and how do we create spaces where people want to come to work, where people want to come back home, right our family members and loved ones, where people want to talk to us as neighbors? It’s these spaces we’re able to engage with people in real, meaningful conversations, because it actually drives results. When our people feel like they can bring their full and best selves to work. They show up with more creativity. Show up with innovation. They show up contributing to ideas in different ways. Rather than fighting. Can I fully be me at work? Yeah, that’s one of the things I’ve had to get even as a leader of a team here of like, Wow, am I creating these spaces for my own team. Yeah, itself,

Maria Ross 16:42

I had a guest on the show, Michael Bock, who does a lot of work. He calls it idea Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, accessibility. He does a lot of work up in Canada and in the US around that work, and has written a few books. And he presents when he was on my podcast. But he also does this as a keynote, he talks about the costs of exclusion like he’s actually gotten it down to $1 amount of how much money companies waste when they don’t enable people to come to work as their true selves, and they don’t enable the people to have those conversations and connect with each other. And it’s, you know, it is, it’s impacting the bottom line. So it’s just smart business. So we’re going to take a quick break, and then I want to ask you about the dotted line dilemma and the illusion of asymmetric insight, which I believe are concepts from your books. I respectfully disagree, how to have difficult conversations in a divided world. We’ll be right back, and we’re back with Justin Jones Fauci, and we are getting into we just had a great conversation about how to have great conversations, basically. And I want to talk a little bit about this concept, the dotted line dilemma. Can you explain to us what that means and how that gets in our way? Yeah,

Justin Jones-Fosu 17:59

so that aligned dilemma simply, where we start filling in the gaps, right? It’s making statements Right? Like, if I said something to you, like drivers who drive on the left side of the street are but what depends, right? You start filling in the gaps depending on what country we’re in, yeah, and our brains want to fill in those moments. And that’s the same thing that we do with people, right? Is that we want to fill in. We want to complete the dotted line, because our brains want to conserve energy for things. It thinks it doesn’t know. Imagine this, right? Imagine you’re driving. You take this exit. Monday through Friday, you take this exit, and one day you’re supposed to go straight. What do you do? Take the exit

Maria Ross 18:42

a million times. Yeah,

Justin Jones-Fosu 18:45

right, and I’m ready to autopilot, conserving energy, and that’s what we do with people and our teams right right before we get to know them, we take the exit based on second or third hand information. We start filling in the dotted lines, and that’s one of the big dilemmas that we have. But how do we drive forward? Pun intended towards some really amazing team members, employees and community members, but one of the ways that we challenge people to do that is in what we call one MC over W, right? And one is MC over W is only math we’ll do today. But thank you for one meaningful connection per week, and that’s where you build into your calendar, maybe the 15 or 20 minutes you have to put it in there, where you intentionally go and hear someone’s story. You intentionally go and ask, what brought you to our company? What brought you to our team, what brought you to our city? And if that’s too much, because you’re like, oh my gosh, Justin, how much I have so much stuff to do that’s 52 point 14 times a year, then make it one meaningful connection per month, put the W up down. That’s when we think we’ve been challenging leaders over and over again. Is like, what would it look like for us to eradicate the open door policy from our organizations? Because Open Door implies passivity. Hey, if you. Eat me. I’m here. We’ve even created a virtual Open Door office. I’ll be on teams Tuesday through Thursday, three to five. But what if we instead implemented what we call an out the door policy, where we intentionally go out the door to hear and experience the stories of our people that allows us to get closer, that allows us to hear those proximity breeds of empathy.

Maria Ross 20:21

Oh my gosh. I love that. And that’s so actionable. Like, do what you can do to actually proactively. And it might feel I always say this, you know, it’s about going to the empathy gym, right? Just like any fitness routine to strengthen a muscle, it feels weird at first. It hurts. You might get sore. You’re gonna feel uncomfortable. So if you’ve never done that approach. The first day you as a leader, go and ask to make a connection with someone. They might be like, what’s going on? Am I in trouble? Like you’ve never done this before, and you can be transparent with people that, hey, I’m trying this new thing. I encourage you to try it as well. I’m trying to find a way for us to build better connections and build, you know, better engagement with each other. So I’m going to try this out. You’re not in trouble. I’m probably going to come to you. We’re going to, like, go have a coffee. I don’t know, but I think that’s it’s the fear for people of flipping to develop the new habits sometimes, because they feel self conscious about but I’ve always been this kind of leader, and now one day, I’m going to come in and I’m going to start talking to start talking to you about what you did for the weekend. And I’ve never asked you what you’ve done in the weekend, and you’re like, what is happening? Are there layoffs? What’s going on? Yeah,

Justin Jones-Fosu 21:28

it’s talking to me, yeah. And so

Maria Ross 21:32

being transparent about, hey, I’m working on my leadership. I’m developing my leadership. A that’s a great model for your team, that you’re you as the leader. Are working on your leadership. Yeah, and two like, make them part of the fun. Make it light. Make it something that you guys can laugh at, you know, something like that. But that is such a great actionable thing. Okay, tell us about this other thing that gets in the way of these connections and healthy conversations, which is the illusion of asymmetric insight.

Justin Jones-Fosu 22:00

Yes, so illusion of asymmetric insight is where I can paraphrase. It’s where I feel like I completely know you. I get you right, but there’s no way you can understand me. I’m just complex. And that’s the the research behind that is how we approach people, not only people, but also groups, right? Imagine, you know, you’re a dog person, and you’re like, I get why I love dogs, but you just never understand dogs. Dogs are just unique, right? And cat people are like, well, you know those cat people, we just are so unique, but dogs, I mean, they’re simple, right? It’s easy to understand, and that’s and unfortunately, what we do with people is that we go into conversations instead of treating it with what we call beginner mind, we treat it with like you’re simple to understand. I’m really complex, so let me engage, right? And what the research actually suggests is that some of that’s fueled by ego, right? We talk about these three cells, and one of those is superior self is that I just I know I’ve had more experience. I went to this college, and I’ve had this position, I am a leader, and that gives me respect, and actually no our humanity should give us respect, and us as leaders model that behavior so they lose asymmetric insight in ways that we resist. It is by challenging ourselves to say, wait a minute, this person is probably more nuanced than I I’m thinking right now, let me ask more questions instead of hurrying to fill in the line. I don’t know if you’ve ever talked to somebody, and you’re always trying to finish your statement before you said it, right? I’m

Maria Ross 23:31

guilty of it too. I’m guilty of it too, because I get so excited. I’m like, I just want to help you find the right word, right? So, yeah, they’re

Justin Jones-Fosu 23:38

like, I went to a really good like, restaurant, because, you know, they love to eat, and they were like Jim, because I was on the way home, right? But that’s the that’s one of the reasons why I choose it to engage and hear the power of people’s stories and asking we talk about the power of three, one way to challenge the illusion of asymmetric inside is with the power of three. And what we found in as people listen is that people aren’t doing deep listening. They’re doing distracted listening, and we’re stopping at the power of one or the power of the power of two. What do I mean by that? So if I’m Sam Marie, how’s your day today? You’re like, Oh, my day is fine. I’m like, my day is fine, too. Power of One, power of two. Mary, how’s your day today? Oh, my day is fine. What made your day fine? Oh, I heard this interesting bald history. I know that ball has power of two, where the power of three goes at least into that third level of the conversation to better hear, understand, and get a better understanding of complexity that might exist.

Maria Ross 24:28

Oh my gosh, I love it. And so how does this go over in these big companies, when you’re having these conversations, do you find that, is it a hard sell? Is it you know, you’re working with leaders that are a little skeptical this is going to help improve their team’s performance or their own leadership capability, like give us a little insight on it, on what they’re thinking and feeling as you’re going into these organizations and talking to them about this, absolutely, one of

Justin Jones-Fosu 24:53

the organizations we work with, Asia coach, and one of the things I love is we practice this power of three, right? And. So they had opportunity to actually lean into this. And in this always. I mean, in any organization, you have a variety of people. Some people are really eager and excited, like, Oh, this is awesome. And some people are like, Yeah, this really gonna work. Is this another one of those sandwich models? I’m gonna tell you something that sounds good, give you feedback and give you like, No, right? But when they start practicing it, that’s when you see the transformation happen. So give you a great example. So we do the power of three, and we ask a very meaningful question about something that’s shaped who they are. And so people are listening and they’re practicing, and what they find is that some people are deep listening, some people still want to jump in, and then the debrief, what they talk and find is like, wow. Like, not only did I feel like more at ease of just hearing their story versus trying to jump in, but the person who was actually sharing their story actually felt heard. They actually felt heard. And oftentimes this doesn’t happen all the time with every person, but sometimes there’s just tears. And the CEO of a company, he said to me, he’s like, I’ve been working with this person for 35 years, and I thought I knew everything, and I just heard something new that I never knew, wow, and that’s gonna allow me to lead them better. And that’s the power of deep listening instead of distracted listening. So when you’re one on ones, when you ask, how was your weekend, then they say, oh, you know, it was good, instead of stopping there, that’s what made it good. Oh, well, I was, you know, did soccer practice with kids? That’s like, wow. You know the soccer did you play soccer growing up? You see, what just happened is that people are talking about things that are important to them. The question is, are we really listening?

Maria Ross 26:37

Yeah, oh my gosh, I love it so much. So, you know, we talk a lot about curiosity on this show, Curiosity is the number one trait of empathic people and empathic leaders. And back to our you know, point earlier that this is about information gathering. You know, empathy is about trying to understand someone’s context, and no better way to do that than to ask questions and be curious. Yeah, so how? What are some of the tips that you have for the leaders or the teams that you work with to maybe they’re not naturally curious, maybe they’re uncomfortable being curious. What are some tips that you have around how they can cultivate their curiosity in a way that feels genuine and natural for them.

Justin Jones-Fosu 27:20

Well, what I will say, and be completely honest about this, is it takes practice. The same way your empathy muscles, right? You talk about the empathy gym, it takes practice. So even the power of three, which is actually great moment of cultivating curiosity as we take that further, is that sometimes you don’t know what to say. You don’t know the next phrase. Use the power phrase. Tell me more. Invite three

Maria Ross 27:43

magic words

Justin Jones-Fosu 27:47

to come to, like, Oh, wow. Like this person actually wants to hear what I’m talking about. And that’s one way the more I’ve done it right? Because initially, when I even did that in my own life, because guess what, Justin was a distracted listener, right? And I still sometimes struggle with it is it felt mechanical initially, but now it’s just become a part of who I am. So I have people, my friends, who know I talk about this, and they’re like, Oh, you just did the power three. I mean, I had no idea I did it, right? Because I’ve just started being more curious and saying, This is, oh my gosh, this phrase is etched in my head.

Maria Ross 28:21

It’s the magic, three magic words we talk about all the time. Tell me more. Yeah,

Justin Jones-Fosu 28:26

more. The phrase, even before that, for me, that that’s kind of pushed me into that lens, is that we should seek to be more interested than interesting, and when we come from that approach, how can I be more interested in the people I encounter, rather than interest interesting, it allows us to hear people. That’s one reason I hate networking events, right? Because people, it’s very transactional. It’s like you work, right? Rather than asking deeper questions and learning and hearing some if you’re feeling comfortable doing it, you’re like the many people who are learning something new, whether in your marriage, whether as a parent, whether and you’re learning Pickleball for the first time or so, that thing may be you don’t know how to do it, and that’s why you take the tortoise approach. Yeah, the tortoise approach is not to be fast and showy and flashy and have it all together. It’s that I’m going to be strategic and steadily moving forward, and that’s leadership.

Maria Ross 29:23

So good, so so good. I think we’re going to leave it at that, because that is amazing, and I think that’s a really good last nugget and tip to leave people with. To your point, it does take practice, and just because it feels uncomfortable doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. So leave it there, all right. Well, this has been such a great conversation. Justin, thank you so much. I definitely want to encourage folks to check out the book. I respectfully disagree how to have difficult conversations in a divided world, which, as we talked about, is not just for leaders and business people, but for basically anyone who’s trying to have better conversations and relationships. So we will have all your. Links in the show notes. But for folks that are on the go, Where is one of the better places for them to get in touch with you and find out more about your work.

Justin Jones-Fosu 30:07

Find out more at how to respectfully disagree.com.

Maria Ross 30:11

Love it how to and we’ll put that link in there too. Thanks for your time. It was a pleasure to connect. Thank you Maria, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate, review, follow, share with a colleague or friend, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop, and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Tina Kuhn & Neal Frick: The E-Suite: Helping Execs Embrace Empathy for Success

One of the hardest jobs in business belongs to anyone with a C in their title. Today you’ll hear from Tina Kuhn and Neal Frick, co-authors and successful executives of global companies who have gone on this journey and had tremendous success.

We talk about the ROI of empathy from their own experience and what they have learned about embracing empathy as a strategic advantage. We discuss how fear and bias show up for executives and impact their decision-making. They share the rewards of being an empathetic leader, the best way to bring a leader on board to an empathy mindset, how to practice empathy when your large team is remote, and why simply being a “nice boss” without accountability can be super toxic.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Reactive leaders harm their organizations. Empathetic leaders advance organizations and the lives of those in the organizations.
There’s a difference between being a nice boss and being an empathetic leader. Being “the nice boss” is actually one of the most toxic things in an organization, and that is not empathetic.
Build in time for team building in remote environments. If you choose the right activities, you can create those connections.

“The way that I have found the most effective has been leading by example because pushing someone into a vulnerable space is the quickest way to be met with resistance.”

— Neal Frick

References:

The Empathy Edge podcast: Teri Schmidt: Empathy-Infused Team Building for Lasting Impact

From Our Partner:

Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.

About Tina & Neal:

Tina Kuhn is an accomplished CEO spanning cybersecurity, commercial, and US government.

She has extensive experience in organizational transformations, growth strategies and implementation, M&A due diligence and integration, financial improvements, process and risk management, operations management, business development, and proposal development.

Ms. Kuhn has served in a variety of executive leadership roles, including the President of Proximas Group, focused on integrating 6 companies and developing a growth strategy to take advantage of each company’s strengths.

Neal Frick is the CEO of Avandra Consulting and most recently served as CEO of CyberCore Technologies, which was sold to HP. He’s an author with more than twenty years of experience in organizational growth and leadership and has led successful initiatives around transformational change, strategic planning, and revenue, working with companies such as Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Lockheed Martin. His experiences have fueled his commitment to cultivating inclusive work cultures, where diversity and empathy are not just buzzwords but integral components of business ethos.

Connect with Tina & Neal:

The Lanzar Group: thelanzargroup.com

Tina’s LinkedIn: Tina Kuhn

Neal’s LinkedIn: Neal Frick

Medium Profile: medium.com/@TinaKuhn

Book: The E Suite: Empathetic Leadership for the Next Generation of Executives

tinakuhncommunication.com – The Manager’s Communication ToolKit – Dealing with Difficult Personalities

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. One of the hardest jobs in business belongs to anyone with a C in their title, whether CEO CFO or CMO, you’re tasked with managing p&l performance, and often a large amount of people who may or may not be geographically dispersed if you’re working for one of the largest companies on the planet, empathetic leadership can feel like a luxury you can’t afford, or worse, a waste of your time, while we clearly know it is not a waste of your time, and can result in bigger revenue, gains, more market share, and improvements in everything from retention to innovation, All bottom line benefits. But how can we help stressed execs balance all the things and build their empathy skills to better empower their people when so much revenue is on the line today, you’ll hear firsthand from two successful executives of global companies who have gone on this journey and have had tremendous success. Tina Kuhn and Neil Frick are co authors of the new book The E suite, empathetic leadership for the next generation of executives. Their vision of the future of leadership based on their in the trenches experience leading large global teams, winning multimillion dollar proposals and generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Together, they help executives embrace the future of leadership and unlock success the way they did. Tina is CEO of the lanzar group, and her career as CEO has spanned cybersecurity, commercial and US government. She’s led organizational transformations, growth strategies and implementation M and a risk management and more. Her executive roles include the president of Proximus group, where she integrated six companies, CEO and President of cyber core technologies, and vice president for Northrop. Grumman, managing over 1600 personnel and $440 million in business across US, government and international customers. Neil frick is the CEO of avander Consulting, and most recently served as CEO of cyber core technologies, which was sold to HP. He’s an author with more than 20 years of experience in organizational growth and leadership, and has led successful initiatives around transformational change, strategic planning and revenue, working with companies such as Boeing Booz, Allen Hamilton and Lockheed Martin. Interesting thing about Neil from an early age, he understood that investing in people leads to inevitable profits, and he learned these lessons from his father’s leadership, helping an employee through drug rehab and back into the workforce once sober, his father’s actions instilled a lifelong conviction in Neil about the inherent value of people over profits. Neil’s approach to leadership is grounded in the power of empathy and investment in people. His experiences have fueled his commitment to cultivating inclusive work cultures where diversity and empathy are not just buzzwords, but integral components of business ethos. Today, we talk about the ROI of empathy from their own actual experience and what they’ve both learned about embracing empathy as a strategic advantage and how you can get skeptical leaders and colleagues to see the value and strengthen their own we discuss how fear and bias shows up for executives and how it impacts their decision making. They share the rewards of being an empathetic leader. The best way to bring a leader on board to an empathy mindset. How to practice empathy when your large team is remote, and why simply being a nice boss without accountability can be super toxic. This was a rich conversation. Take a listen. Big welcome today to Tina Kuhn and Neil Frick, who are here to talk about the E suite and specifically empathetic leadership from the executive level. Welcome to the podcast.

Tina Kuhn 04:35

Thank you, Maria. We’re really happy to be here, and I want

Maria Ross 04:39

to start off as I do with all my guests to find out. And Tina, I’ll start with you. You are both co authors of the book The E suite, empathetic leadership for the next generation of executives. We’ve heard your wonderful BIOS at the top of the show, but tell us specifically what is the passion, what is the purpose behind you getting into this work and writing a book? Like this. So for me, really

Tina Kuhn 05:02

the catalyst was Neil. We were executives working together, and he started talking about empathy, and we realized we have very different styles. I’ll put that out there. We still have very different styles, but we realized when we applied and work through some of the aspects of empathy, our decisions together were much, much better than they were when we were making individual decisions. And it took a while for us to get there. Neil can can add to that, but we just found that it was this additive by having empathy and really looking at the big picture and not being myopic and taking into account everybody’s point of view.

05:56

Neil,

Neal Frick 05:56

I think you know, for me, throughout my career, had seen leaders do things two ways, very reactively, which ended up hurting organizations and really impacting the bottom line. And then I had a couple of examples really empathetic leaders. Tina, also being one of them, I don’t think she gives herself enough credit, who really advanced their organizations and advanced the lives of the individuals who worked for them, and I saw my career advance significantly working under those leaders, and started to model my own kind of philosophy around that. And then thought, Okay, how do we take this and apply it within the work company that we worked at? But then also, how do we kind of capitalize on this movement? Especially we started writing this during covid, when people’s perspectives on work were changing, and we thought, you know, how do we get this message about empathy out there? So that was for us, I think, the big push behind writing.

Maria Ross 06:58

So as you were both researching this book and really coming to this epiphany of the power of empathetic leadership. I know, you know, Tina, I know that you’ve discovered a lot of the same data and research that I discovered when I was writing the empathy edge around how there are CEOs out there who align empathetic leadership to business performance. What was surprising for you, especially as a CEO and as a C suite leader, what was maybe the one or two biggest surprises that you found in the research of wow, I didn’t even know that empathy was able to be a catalyst like this for business performance. So for

Tina Kuhn 07:37

me, I don’t know if I learned anything new, but it came to my just came to realize how important empathy was. You know, we’ve all been on teams where we had big deadlines, we worked together, we really everyone was highly productive, and we all felt good about it. I think everyone’s been part of that. That’s one of these why sports teams are so good. You have that community, you have that belonging and and when I consciously brought empathy into the workplace, it also brought in this belonging, and had other people feel that that belonging.

Maria Ross 08:20

So it was more that you kind of unlocked what that secret sauce was that you had kind of seen be present in teams, but you couldn’t really name it is that, would that be accurate to say that correct?

Tina Kuhn 08:29

And putting a name to it, and looking up the research and really embodying it into me allowed me to use empathy consciously instead of unconsciously, to build high performance teams.

Maria Ross 08:47

And Neil, how about you? Was there anything you were skeptical about in terms of trying to make you know, as I did, make the business case for empathy in executive leadership? Yeah,

Neal Frick 08:57

I think the biggest challenge for me was trying to understand the difference between sort of empathy, sympathy, compassion, and how to appropriately apply them. And the thing I go back to right is you may have someone on the team who is performing poorly, but they’re going through a really difficult time, and so you’re sympathetic to their plight, but the impact of that individual in the organization and the rest of the team is really detrimental. So as a business leader, you have to look at the whole picture and make a informed, strategic, empathetic decision about how to move forward. And I think that is something that you know, the the improper application of empathy, sort of the nice boss versus the empathetic boss. Yeah, can really kind of get in the way, and that’s something that I’ve struggled with. And I think through research with Tina, really kind of helped refine what that meant

Maria Ross 09:53

exactly, and that I’m on a mission to tell people empathy is not the same thing as being nice. And in in the new book, The Empathy. Dilemma when I talk about the five pillars of being an effective and an empathetic leader, you know, some of those pillars are about clarity, decisiveness, and the the empathetic thing is almost in the mode of how you do it, but it doesn’t mean you necessarily are making different business decisions. And would you say that that is something that executives embrace, or is it something they sort of struggle against, thinking, well, if I’m making a tough business decision, I have to be cold, I have to be data driven. I have to be, you know, I have to do it this way. What are you finding, Neil, in rolling out this work? What’s been the reception from other C suite leaders that you’ve been talking to.

Neal Frick 10:41

You know, it’s funny. It almost, it almost comes down to, I don’t want to say it’s generational, but it’s almost philosophical, which sometimes almost, almost becomes generational, where, if someone is receptive to the concept of empathetic leadership, they’re willing to have conversations around how to apply it appropriately. But if they think of empathy as sort of a weak scale, a soft skill, then that’s what they point to. But the education around it and showing them that look empathy and sympathy are not the same thing. Empathy and niceness is not the same thing. The nice boss is actually one of the most toxic things in an organization, when applied and appropriately, can really help to reshape people’s opinions about empathy, but it is a difficult initial conversation, because they’re like, oh, empathy, you’re gonna make me spend all this money on my employees, and, you know, I’m gonna have a bunch of people who aren’t working very hard. It’s like, no, no, that’s that’s not what I’m that’s not what I’m advocating for,

Maria Ross 11:37

right? Right? I always say, like, it’s not empathy. Is not you crying on the floor with your employees. That’s not what we’re talking about here, right? And so Tina, tell me a little bit. You know, you mentioned at the beginning that you and Neil have slightly different leadership styles. So tell us about what your leadership style as a C suite leader was, and did it change from doing this empathy work

Tina Kuhn 11:59

absolutely changed for the better, and I think my decisions are better, and I look at the big picture more from my style tends to be fast, fast decisions. I look at something, and I make a decision, and then I move on. And Neil helped me to slow down and really look at the big picture, look at different aspects of the decision. And I think I helped him maybe speed up the decisions. Yeah, and so together, we ended up with decisions. Because the worst, in my opinion, one of the worst things a leader can do is to not make a decision. So we were able to make very good decisions in a timely manner when we really look together and Neil. Neil helped me to see other points of views in the organization and other aspects of the decisions that I may not have looked at before, and so yes, it absolutely made me a better leader, but one of the things it did do is that it also allowed me to see where my weaknesses Were. Because Neil challenged me, I was able to to really see Oh, and sometimes it hurt and sometimes it was hard, but that challenge culture was also a way to bring about much better decisions in the organization, and I think the company was, you know, 1,000% better because of that challenge and the work on empathy than if we didn’t have that.

Maria Ross 13:48

Yeah, you’re touching on two of the five pillars in my new book, which is self awareness is the first one, and decisiveness and this idea that people think you can be either empathetic, the binary thinking kills me all the time, right? You have you can be empathetic or decisive. You can be empathetically decisive in terms of understanding other points of view. So you see the problem, or you see the challenge, or you see the opportunity from multiple perspectives, which some you might miss, but then you have to swiftly be able to make a decision, you can’t leave it lingering, because that’s actually the most unempathetic thing we can do as a leader, is to leave our people hanging right? So I want to switch gears a little bit, Tina, and talk about what you uncovered around fears and biases, whether they’re hidden or not, and how executives deal with their fears and biases, whether it’s ignoring them, whether it’s actually opening their eyes to them and being defensive about it. Tell me a little bit about how they play out with someone in such a senior role. You know, you’ve led, you’ve both led very large teams, you know, half a billion dollar companies, and how. Does that play out if there’s a C suite leader that is unwilling or unable to see their fears and biases and they just think, I don’t have any fears and biases, I’m a really strong, fair leader?

Tina Kuhn 15:11

Yeah, that’s a great question, and that was part of my growth process, was to find what are my hidden biases, what are my open biases, and what are my hidden biases? And what I found is that, you know, anger is that emotional energy that’s fighting against a fear or a threat, right? And so whenever, whenever you’re angry, it’s it’s really because there’s some fear behind it. And so I started looking at my anger. When did I get anger? Why did I get anger? And what was I afraid of? And it was a real pivotal moment for me to understand where my fears were. And I think it comes out in leadership by only wanting to have. I’m putting this in quotes, yes men around them, having people that are not having people to challenge their decisions. You know, there’s lots of fears that CEOs have. I mean, they’re the there’s a lot of pressure, and there’s a lot of people that kind of surround a CEO, the stakeholders, the customers, the employees. There’s just a lot there. And it could be a fear of failure that makes you angry. It can be a fear of failure from an employee, and their failure causes you to look bad. It can be a loss of your job, a loss of status, a loss of being treated unfairly, a fear of not being good enough to succeed. So those are just a few that you know, pop pop out, but that that fear and anger is a is a really interesting thing that I think every leader should explore, because it helped me to, for one, not be afraid, uncover my hidden biases and understand where my fear was, and once your fears are uncovered, then it’s easier not to have that fear anymore.

Maria Ross 17:18

Wow. Okay, so there’s so much in there to unpack, but I think, you know, one of my, my bigger questions that I haven’t really dived into in my work, is, what do we do with C suite leaders? Because this is really a personal development exercise when it comes right down to it, we want to talk about the ROI. We want to talk about how this is a leadership trait for success, but you also have to have a willing participant. And whether it’s at work or in their personal lives, there are just people who don’t want to go there. And so, you know, Tina, I’ll start with you, and then I want to bump it to Neil, what have you found works well with reaching these these C suite leaders who have spent their whole careers, you know, performing at a high level, having the answers, you know, doing all these things. What have you seen that helps them get to the point where they’re willing to do some of that personal development work that developing this skill of empathy requires?

Tina Kuhn 18:17

Yeah, that that’s a great thing for every CEO, and the people that work with CEOs to look at and, and I would say, probably one of the worst things to do is to come at the CEO with anger, because they’re not looking at, you know, anger just puts up barriers. And you want to, you want to do things that break, breaks down that barrier and have a good conversation. So I’ll just talk about what Neil did for me. So he came and, you know, actually talk through some of, you know, some of the decisions and why this was a better way to do things. And initially there was some resistance. And he just, he kind of kept at it, didn’t get angry, and really kind of gently pushed me into into a better place. And I think working with CEOs, if you have a or, or anybody that you work with that comes out with, you know, fear, anger, resistance to other people’s point of view, controlling, you know, all those kind of bad, difficult behaviors, to confront them with those same type of behavior, the bad behaviors is not going to go anywhere. You have to confront them with empathy.

Maria Ross 19:45

Yeah, you kind of have to model empathy in the interaction. Yes. And so now I’m going to flip that, because that is super interesting. So Neil, what do you think worked well to have you know, Tina, look at this in a new way and the other executives that you work with now?

Neal Frick 20:01

Yeah, sure. Well, I think you know, the first thing you have to do, obviously, if you’re going to approach someone that you’re working with, you got to do a lot of that work yourself and make sure that you’re in the right place to be able to understand where you’re coming from. As Tina said, you can’t approach someone in that headspace. But you know, there are going to be people who are not receptive. Regardless, Tina is a very receptive and was a very receptive leader. I’ve worked with people who were not as receptive. And the way that I found the best way is, typically, you have to understand what motivates that individual, right? Is it the bottom line? If it’s the bottom line, a lot of times, that raw data showing someone that, hey, this approach is historically demonstrated to do better through these studies, this company does this, and this is why it works better. Or, Hey, I did this this way, and we got this better result with this customer. Those can be really difficult to argue against when you’re a logical person, that can be something, you know, if you come at someone who is not very emotional with an emotional argument, they are going to potentially reject it, because that is not how they process information. So you really have to understand the person that you are approaching and approach them in a way that makes sense to them. And then the other thing you know that’s if you were working with someone directly, if you’re coming at it as from the outside, as a consultant, you know, I think if someone is approaching you and looking for ways to improve their organization, the likelihood is that they are receptive in some way, and the methodology is very much the same, understanding them and Understanding what is motivating them to make that change, applying that principle of empathy, listening and understanding, and then flipping it and showing them the way to grow their organization or to make those changes in a way that makes sense to them, is going to be the way to lay that sort of foundational trust. And then once you have that trust, then you can start to pile on some of the more complex, ideological or philosophical pieces that maybe they would be initially resistant to, but you just got to build that trust first, right?

Maria Ross 22:08

And that’s where you know, ultimately, they eventually have to make some behavior changes in order to embrace empathy as a leader. But I love the walking them through, because the reason I love this conversation is that that was the whole reason I wrote the empathy edge and researched it, because I thought, okay, the moral argument is not working, that people need to be more empathetic. So I’m just gonna meet people where they are, and I’m just gonna make a business case for it. And that’s how I got the skeptics along. Now the new book is actually for the converts, not for the skeptics. That’s the one for like, Okay, I’m on board. Ooh, here’s why it’s hard. Here’s where it gets sticky, right? And you kind of alluded to this in your answer, but I want to see if it, if there’s anything else to add around just the general complaint I hear about working with difficult people. It’s not necessarily coming from the C suite for their workers or from leaders for their teams. It’s kind of across the board. People are looking for advice and actionable strategies for how do I just work with difficult people? So what you said about convincing a leader sounds like it might be something similar to how you may want to approach a colleague. Would that be an accurate statement to make

Neal Frick 23:25

absolutely I mean, I think you know, all businesses, I mean, most interactions in a professional sense, are about people, and the key to understanding a person is to level set and to try to bring some common understanding right, to build that initial level of trust. If someone is difficult to work with, there is a reason. And it goes back to Tina’s comment about you know that that anger or that reaction being fear based, if you can try to genuinely work with someone to understand where they’re coming from and let them see where you are coming from, more often than not, you will be able to build some level of trust and start to work through it. Now that’s not across the board. Some people are really resistant. You’re always going to have some difficulties, but in most cases, people want to be successful. They want to work well with others, and so they’re looking for an opportunity to do that. So approaching people in that way by initially doing that work on yourself first, can be a really effective way to kind of start that conversation, especially if you are in a environment culturally that promotes that. It’s obviously much harder to do if you’re in a very toxic environment, of

Maria Ross 24:34

course, of course, yeah, and I think that that’s the important thing for all leaders to learn, is that even while they’re trying to develop their own empathy and improve their own leadership style, they need to create fertile soil for other people to be on that journey with them. Because them changing only their behaviors is only half the battle. It’s really creating that environment of maybe you vulnerably share with your team. And that, hey, I’m working on improving my empathy as a leader, and you know, I’d like you to go on this journey with me, and you can start to model those behaviors, or create protocols, create rituals within the organization where it starts to get modeled, it starts to get celebrated, it starts to get rewarded. So then, all of a sudden, that’s just the way we do things around here. But I think you know so many leaders, and you know from your experience as a C as CEOs, you know, I think we know why leaders are scared to admit they don’t have all the answers, and they’re scared to admit they may not know the right way to operate. But what have you found is the best way to unblock that for people. What is a way that you’ve gotten people who will say, I’ll never be vulnerable with my team, or I’m never going to share this, or I don’t need to get to know them personally. Has there been one or two methods or insights that you have found really helps them unlock that vulnerability and really understand what we mean by vulnerability? Again, not crying on the floor with your employees, but being able to admit. You know, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’re going to figure it out together. Or I don’t know the best strategy. Let’s get some more inputs. What have you found to be the best way to get leaders to make that leap? Tina, I’ll

Tina Kuhn 26:17

start with you. So as I think about some of the difficult people that I’ve worked with in the past, I think I really agree with what Neil said, and figuring out what motivates them, and then making sure they feel comfortable around around that. So I’ll just you know somebody who’s really controlling. Why are they controlling? What’s their motivation behind that? Is it a fear of failure? And so they have to control everything? I’m coming back to the fears because we, yeah, that’s a that to me. It kind of that’s traces down to everything. It’s like the bottom, bottom of the the funnel. And once I, once I figure out what their what their fear is, or motivation and reason why they act that way, and reason why they’re putting up roadblocks. So for somebody that’s controlling, give them something that will give them success, and start feeling comfortable with you, and start feeling like, oh, they can do it. They don’t have to. They don’t have to be like that. They can have success in a better way. And

Maria Ross 27:29

Neil, do you have anything to add to that about helping leaders unlock that vulnerability of being able to admit you know, they need other perspectives. They need other viewpoints in order to achieve the goals of the organization. How do we get them to be more vulnerable? Yeah,

Neal Frick 27:44

the way that I have found the most effective has been leading by example, because pushing someone into a vulnerable space is the quickest way to be met with resistance. And I’ll give a kind of a personal example. You know, I write a lot on medium, and I wrote an article when I was going through a particularly difficult time about, like, mental health issues. And as a CEO, writing about mental health issues, I got a lot of feedback from colleagues that was like, Whoa, you’re going to lose the respect of your team, and what are you doing? And I found the exact opposite. I found that I had team members come to me and say, Wow, thank you. I actually feel a lot more comfortable coming and talking to my boss now about what I’m going through, because I know that this environment is one where I can have an honest conversation about what I’m dealing with, and I’m not going to get fired, or I’m not going to be looked at as someone who’s maybe weakening the organization. And then I point to that and say, Hey, look at what this vulnerability, this thing that was really hard for me to do, and I didn’t like doing because vulnerability is hard, right, right? But this helped this person overcome something. And now I’ve got someone who is more willing to put in sweat equity for the organization, more willing to be, you know, a team player who also I’ve in some way improved their working condition because they’re less anxious about, you know, hey, if I show vulnerability, am I going to have some kind of negative impact to my job that is all positive, and all it took was me being honest. That cost nothing. What’s the return on investment that it’s immeasurable. But obviously that takes a leader who is willing to put that level of vulnerability out there, you know, so that it really starts with that individual.

Maria Ross 29:32

And that is so interesting, because I also think it’s worth mentioning that, you know, there’s a lot of leaders, when they hear this, either roll their eyes. They’re probably not listening to my podcast if they’re doing that, but or they say, Well, you know, I don’t, I don’t have that kind of vulnerability to share, right? I don’t have I don’t have a personal pain in my life. I don’t have this, like, hard luck story. I don’t have this whatever, when we talk about vulnerability. It’s not just those stories. It’s also the vulnerability of, Wow, this is a really hard decision we have to make. I would like other people’s input on it. So the vulnerability is, again, I don’t have all the answers. It’s not necessarily a personal vulnerability about something that’s happening in my personal life. It could be a vulnerability about how I’m dealing with something at work, in the context of work. And for some people, maybe that’s a that’s a good starting point of, okay, you don’t want to reveal everything about your personal life. I get that. That’s cool. You don’t have to have a hard luck story. You don’t have to, you know, but I bet there’s times in your work you’ve you’ve lacked confidence. I bet there’s times in your work you haven’t know what you don’t you haven’t known which route was the right route to take. I bet there’s a vulnerability around someone you really, really liked, who was underperforming, and you had to have a difficult conversation with them. Maybe one of the first I’m like, thinking out loud with with all of you, is maybe one of the first steps is, where are your vulnerabilities in the work context? If that makes you feel more comfortable, try sharing that with your team. Try showing your team that you actually are a human being and not a robot, and that these moments of insecurity, these moments of indecision, these moments of dueling priorities, happen to you as well as anyone else.

Neal Frick 31:25

Yeah, there’s, you don’t have to open the curtain and show anything personal. That’s not necessary, right? I talked about, you know, when I took over as CEO, I talked about imposter syndrome. And I think that is something that executives deal with a lot. They may not call it that, but it is this idea that, you know, we don’t always know what we’re doing. We don’t always know that the best decision, especially we have to make calls sometimes where we don’t have a crystal ball. We don’t know what the outcome is going to be, that in and of itself, and then the willingness to say when we do make a mistake, hey, that was the wrong call, and here’s what we’re going to do to fix it, and here’s how we what we learn from it, that vulnerability, in and of itself, is all it takes to set the foundation of we’re in an organization where if you make a mistake, it’s not the end of the world. And here is that safety net that starts that conversation, and that starts that cultural shift,

Maria Ross 32:13

absolutely creating a culture where it’s okay to take some innovative risks, it’s okay to make a mistake, it’s not irreparable. I think is so important. And you know, if you as as a worker, don’t see any of your leaders admitting those vulnerabilities, you’re going to go, wow, oh, it’s not safe for me to do that, which means I’m probably not going to innovate, because I’m not going to want to step outside the lines, which is a detriment to the organization at large, right? So, so as we wrap up, I just want to ask both of you individually. Tina, I’ll start with you. You know, you’ve managed teams of like 1600 people, I assume, across the globe or in different locations.

Tina Kuhn 32:53

It was across 40 states and six countries. Wow.

Maria Ross 32:57

Okay, so what’s one piece of advice you have for a leader. You know, this is the way we’re working now, some leaders are used to it. Some leaders are not. They’re used to you know, everyone’s in the same four walls, and I can see everybody. And we’ve talked about hybrid work and remote work on this show before, but I want to hear from someone who’s done it and been in it. What are one or two tips that you have had as a leader for making sure you were creating a cohesive team across geographic dispersion.

Tina Kuhn 33:28

Yeah, that’s a huge topic now, because of all the remote work, exactly being hired and you know just that, continued communication with people is just critically important. But I also want to go back to one of the things that was just said, one of my kind of favorite things to tell people is, if this isn’t the let’s make a decision. If it’s not the right decision, we’ll remake the decision so that decision so that they don’t feel that the decision is the end of the world

Maria Ross 34:07

exactly right,

Tina Kuhn 34:07

exactly and if it’s not right, we’ll just remake it and take a new path. And I think having people hear that over and over makes them able to make a decision and not get, not get stuck and not feel afraid, and not bring something to me that that maybe will change the decision that I already made, right? So I just wanted to add that to No. I

Maria Ross 34:36

think that’s great,

Tina Kuhn 34:37

that fast decision, um, I think people get so stuck there all the time, and I think that causes a lot of bad behaviors. We need to take fear of decisions. Yeah, we

Maria Ross 34:49

need to see more of a design thinking approach, even with our decision making. And, yeah, I understand that some decisions, you know, it’s it’s a little bit of a harder pill to swallow if the decision you’re going to make is going to cause. Cost the company $3 million right? So we do understand there’s ramifications of different decisions, but if you have the support of your leadership and if you have the support of the company, that’s the only way you disrupt, that’s the only way you innovate and stay ahead in the market. If you play it safe all the time, you’re never going to get further ahead. So I think that’s a really important point. And I want to go back to the question that I asked you, which was, you know, you mentioned communication is such an important part of that, and that’s such a broad term. So I want to get very specific. Was it about you making time for Team communications, as well as one on one communications? How did you manage your time to be able to keep that communication flowing. Was there some sort of structure in something you did every week, every month, every quarter? How did you how did you balance it between group meetings, where you know not every personality type can participate very well to individual or small groups? Can you share a little bit about that process of what that communication looked like, so that you were able to create that team environment, even across distances.

Tina Kuhn 36:09

Yeah. So I think the most important thing is to make sure your employees feel comfortable communicating with you, because the bigger your team with, I couldn’t do individual

36:21

talks with people, that’s all you’d be doing. Yeah, right.

Tina Kuhn 36:24

And even with even with smaller teams, you can over communicate, and I see it, especially when the remote work first started, managers were afraid that their employees were being productive, and so they kind of over communicated, over did things, so there’s that that bounce, but the most important is for them to feel comfortable coming to you when there’s an issue, so it’s more of a demand on talking. And that worked well. And I did go, and I traveled a lot, and I went and I met everyone, and I made sure that they knew that if there was any issue, that they could email me or call me. And I did get calls and emails, and it was, it was great. And then I, you know, dealt with with that. But it’s, it’s to make sure they your employees, know that they can come to you when they need to

Maria Ross 37:23

exactly, exactly. And Neil, any final thoughts on how to help executive leaders right now deal with the changing face of work and making sure that they can still create that team environment and get to know their their people, and maybe not, you know, get they don’t have to get to know all of them on a personal level. But how can they continue to build that empathetic culture, especially if they have a large, dispersed team?

Neal Frick 37:51

Yeah, I’ve worked, I actually was running some remote teams before. You know, remote teams were a thing, and the collaboration tools that we had back then were not great, but I found that one of the most effective ways to do things were to build in a little bit of extra time, even at like the top of meeting or at the bottom of a meeting, for I don’t want to call it chit chat, because it sounds not productive, but that opportunity to have sort of just a conversation, Just to have that a little bit of time to build relationships between members of your team, because things that happen naturally when you’re in an office environment don’t happen naturally where you’re in a remote space. And more often than not, some of the bonding that happens in an office environment really does allow for that interpersonal relationships to build, and it’s very difficult to do in remote environments. So, you know, build in a little bit of extra time to do that sort of team building. I don’t It’s tough when to do, you know, like specific remote team builds, but even just building in a little bit of extra time just to have those conversations and facilitate them can really help to just make people feel more comfortable.

Maria Ross 39:07

I love that. And actually, you’re reminding me of a past guest I had, Terry Schmidt, who talked about team building with a purpose, and how to actually make it happen in a remote environment. And so I’m going to put a link to her episode because her advice was gold around how you can how you can simulate that and still create connections in a remote environment if you choose the right team building activity, which most leaders don’t. So I’m going to put a link to her episode in the show notes. I want to thank you both today for your time. Tina Neil, thank you for sharing your insights. I definitely want folks to check out the book, the E suite, empathetic leadership for the next generation of executives. We will have all your links in the show notes. But Tina, can you just tell us real quickly for folks on the go or who might be exercising while they’re. Listening to us, where’s the best place they can get more information.

Tina Kuhn 40:03

So the link just, you know, HTTP, HTTPS, the E sweet.com

Maria Ross 40:10

Okay, the E sweet.com is where you want to go, and again, all those links will be in the show notes. Thank you both so much for your time today.

40:17

Thank you.

Maria Ross 40:18

Thanks and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate, review, follow and share with a friend or colleague until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathyedge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Chloé Valdary: The Theory of Enchantment

What’s love got to do with it, as Tina Turner famously asked? Is there even a role for it in…the workplace? Turns out, yes, but let’s be clear on what we mean by that! If you want to better resolve conflict, create inclusive cultures, and harmonize with upset customers to turn them into raving fans, this episode is for you!

Today, Chloé Valdary and I have a delicious discussion about the three principles of the Theory of Enchantment and how they apply to your workplace. We talk about the first step you can take to express gratitude for both your strengths and weaknesses and how this opens you up to better interactions and more understanding. We discuss what love at work looks like, why it’s not the same as romantic love, and how it creates a healthier, higher performing, and inclusive workplace. Chloé shares what prejudice actually means and how we can combat it to create better customer experiences and inclusive workplace cultures. Finally, we debunk the myth of the know-it-all leader or expert and why constant curiosity opens you up to more learning and better results.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

We are not conditioned to share our struggles and weaknesses in the workplace. Breaking that paradigm and bringing our whole selves to work will allow all of us to grow and love.
Ethically speaking, the word compassion means “with suffering.” You will experience suffering in life, but we want to enter the world in a way that doesn’t harm us as we move through it.
We cannot live life with no regrets. But we can have gratitude for the experiences we have had and the lessons we’ve learned.
We change over time. Do the Who Am I practice every three days or so, so you can begin to recognize your patterns and your habits of mind.

“”If we can remind people that they matter in every interaction that we engage in, whether it’s in the business context or not, that makes an impression. That is the kind of transcendent experience that speaks to what I mean by the word ‘enchantment’.”

— Chloé Valdary

Episode References:

The DOJO community: enchanteddojo.com
The Tuning Fork community: enchantedtune.com

The Empathy Edge: Kristine Scott: How to Resolve Conflict with Angry Customers or Colleagues

From Our Partner:

Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.

About Chloé Valdary, Founder, Theory of Enchantment

Chloé Valdary is the founder of the Theory of Enchantment, a New York-based DEI organization that fights against racism and bigotry by teaching love. Theory of Enchantment has trained businesses and orgs across many industries, including tech companies, hospitals, schools, and more. If you’re interested in bringing Theory of Enchantment to your business, contact the org at info@theoryofenchantment.com. If you are an individual seeking daily practice, check out enchanteddojo.com.

Connect with Chloé:

Theory of Enchantment: theoryofenchantment.com

X: x.com/cvaldary

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chloe-valdary-92426565

Facebook: facebook.com/theoryofenchantment

Instagram: instagram.com/cvaldary

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Maria, welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. What’s Love Got to do with it? As Tina Turner famously asked, Is there even a role for it in the workplace? Turns out yes, but let’s be clear on what we mean by that, if you want to better resolve conflict, create inclusive cultures and harmonize with upset customers to turn them into raving fans. This episode is for you. Chloe valdary is the founder of the theory of enchantment, a New York based dei organization that fights against racism and bigotry by teaching love. Theory of enchantment has trained businesses and orgs across many industries, including tech, hospitals, schools and more, they believe conventional dei programs don’t work, and that to actually improve employee well being comply with the law and better your bottom line, it’s much more effective to teach people how to practice being in a healthy relationship with themselves first Before they can ever build healthy relationships with others, and that’s where love and compassion come in. Today, we have a delicious conversation about the three principles of the theory of enchantment and how they apply to your workplace. We talk about the first step you can take to express gratitude for both your strengths and weaknesses, and how this opens you up to better interactions and more understanding. We discuss what love at work looks like, why it’s not the same as romantic love, and how it creates a healthier, higher performing and inclusive workplace. Chloe shares what prejudice actually means and how we can combat it to create better customer experiences and inclusive workplace cultures, and we debunk the myth of the Know It All leader or expert, and why constant curiosity opens you up to more learning and better results. This was such a fun conversation to have enjoy. Welcome Chloe valdary to the empathy edge podcast to talk about love at work, ending bigotry and all the important things. Welcome to the show.

Chloé Valdary 02:45

Thank you for having me.

Maria Ross 02:46

So as I do with all my guests, I want to start off your work is so interesting, and I want to find out how you actually got into this work. What was, what was the passion, what was the impetus behind it?

Chloé Valdary 02:56

I wanted to be someone who helped people solve conflict. So I studied the Israeli Palestinian conflict in college, majored in international studies with a concentration in conflict and diplomacy, and I saw a gap in the sense that there was no paradigm based explicitly on love and compassion and cultivating love and compassion as a way to help folks mitigate conflict. So I saw that gap, and build it by creating the theory of enchantment, wonderful. And

Maria Ross 03:26

talk to us a little bit about what is the theory of enchantment? I know that’s the name of your company, but I know there’s a whole philosophy behind that, so talk to us about that.

Chloé Valdary 03:34

Yeah. So the theory of enchantment, the idea behind it, is that in order to be able to love one another, we have to be able to love ourselves, and there’s so many barriers and challenges to loving ourselves. Probably the most primary one is being able to accept our own insecurities. We aren’t really conditioned to do that in the culture, and instead, we project our insecurities onto others. It’s sort of like a default thing that we do as a defensive mechanism. Oh, yeah. In order to sort of override that, we actually have to practice accepting our insecurities and directing love and compassion at ourselves, and then we’ll be able to direct that love outward. So there are three principles the theory of entrapment. The first principle is, treat people like human beings, not political abstractions. Second principle is, criticize to uplift and empower, never to tear down or destroy. And then the third principle is, root everything you do in love and compassion. And then all of the workshops and exercises that we have are meant to teach people how to embody those three principles. I love

Maria Ross 04:39

that, and so much of that resonates for me with the work that I’ve done. A lot of the empathy work starts with self you cannot make space in your own brain and your own heart for another person’s perspective. If you’re too defensive or fearful or even in a mode of self preservation, it’s too difficult. And so really. You know, starting with practicing mindfulness and practicing presence. But also, as I mentioned in the new book of mine, that’s out the empathy dilemma. It’s also about starting with self awareness. So we often think empathy is such an outward practice, but it’s got to start with understanding. What are our strengths? What are we bringing to the interaction, and what are our blind spots where, what are our triggers really understanding that and owning that? And I’ve seen that really powerfully impact CEOs and leaders when they’re able to put ego aside and say, No, I know there’s some things I need to work on. Of course, I’m human. Of course there are things I need to work on. And when they model that vulnerability for their teams, they make it safe for their teams to make mistakes, for their teams to go. Well, what are my vulnerabilities and my blind spots? So can you give me an example with working with one of your clients or doing a workshop where you know, were folks resistant to that were Did you see them sort of open up and understand the role that that self awareness and that self love and compassion plays in their interactions with others. I

Chloé Valdary 06:06

think that we’re all resistant to it on some level. So, you know, I have resistance to it, and I created this experience exactly that’s, that’s, that’s part of what it means to be human, right? That’s the first principle. So yeah, I’ve definitely encountered folks who experience resistance at the beginning of a workshop, and then slowly but surely open up and become more willing to be vulnerable. And that’s all about creating a safe environment, a safe space. And like you said, me as a facilitator, modeling that ability to own my own weaknesses and strengths. We also start all of our workshops out with an exercise called the Who am I game, where people ask themselves the question, Who am I for three minutes, and they’re encouraged to respond honestly with both positive attributes and negative attributes, and after writing down each attribute, actually say thank you and express gratitude, whether it’s a positive or a negative attribute. And what, what that really does is, first of all, it’s very strange for people to do it. It’s very strange for people to express gratitude for the things that they don’t like about themselves, but, but that’s part of what it means to be me, that those are also part of what it means to be you. And so really, the practice of enchantment, ultimately, is being able to give thanks for the full complexity of your being. And if you’re able to do that, you will actually be able to again direct that outward. But that task is a very hard task, and it takes practice, constant practice. It’s not you know something that you sort of like see as a definition, and you memorize it, and boom, you’re good. It really takes practice, because, as you said, we have triggers, and these triggers are often subconscious, right? And so the more we can bring the conscious mind of self awareness into noticing the triggers, not feeling stigma force the triggers Right, right, simply noticing and eventually moving to a place of gratitude, because those those are part of what it means to be us, then we can direct that outward towards other human beings in the workplace, in our you know, family groups and the other social groups that we are part of. Oh

Maria Ross 08:20

my gosh, so much to unpack there. Because number one, like you said at the top of this, we are not conditioned to admit our our struggles or our vulnerabilities or our weaknesses, especially in a workplace, especially when you’re a leader. And this old paradigm of, well, the leader has to have all the answers at all times, and has to be, you know, perfect in every way. And so we’re breaking that paradigm, thankfully, and we’re letting leaders bring their whole self to work so that their people can bring their whole self to work. But also this idea of triggers. You know, it’s funny, because you might be met with resistance of someone going, well, I don’t have any triggers, right, but we all do as part of the human condition and and your your thought about my last point is your thought about gratitude is so interesting, because just yesterday, I was on a walk with myself, and I was thinking about a past really toxic personal relationship that I was in, and I struggle because I learned so much in that relationship that has contributed to my happy marriage now with someone else, and it’s hard to go do I wish that never happened, because it was painful, and I it was triggered by finding some old diaries in the move that we just made to a new house. And I was like, am I thankful for that? Am I glad that I experienced that? I don’t know, but it is who made it is what made me who I am. And so just like any other vulnerability or any other pain point or any other friction, we can maybe wish, oh, maybe I wish I didn’t have to go through that, or I didn’t have to inflict that pain on someone else, or it. Have that pain inflicted on me, but ultimately, did we learn something from it that makes us who we are today? That’s the part we need to be thankful for. And say, I don’t wish it away, because it makes me who I am today. It’s just unfortunate that that had to happen that way. That’s kind of where I left myself off. Was just like, yeah.

Chloé Valdary 10:20

Can you talk about that? It? It’s an interesting it’s an interesting thing to wrestle with, because pain and suffering are a part of life, and it’s very, very difficult for us, myself included, sometimes, to digest that path. But it’s a fact, and one of our programs actually trains people to, it’s actually deeply inspired by Buddhism, and it trains people to, you know, watch sensations, whether they be painful or pleasurable, rise and fall, and notice the story that the mind attaches to them, because the sensations are actually separate from The stories themselves. And if we’re not quiet enough or present enough, we won’t notice that there’s two distinct experiences, or two distinct ways of relating to to reality. And like I said, that takes practice. So I think it’s I think it’s beautiful that you had this experience of looking back, you know, something that shaped you, something that molded who you are today, and something that was painful and but here’s the thing about, about that that’s interesting. You know, the third principle is root everything you do in love and compassion. The word compassion actually means with suffering, like, etymologically speaking, that’s what it means. And so there’s this idea within compassion of being able to allow what is to come into being, so that you can be with suffering again, because suffering is a part of life, and obviously you you want to show up in the world in such a way where you do not inflict harm onto others, and at the same time, you recognize, again, that pain and suffering is a part of life. So how can you enter into the world such that you’re relating to that pain and suffering in a way that doesn’t cause more harm, right? So that, and I think that looking back at your experience with gratitude, with grace, right? Gratitude and grace, those words are connected etymologically, as well, being able to look back at that experience and see how even though it was painful, it was, in a way, necessary to make you who you are. That’s where the grace comes through, right? That’s where the gratitude comes through. So, yeah, I resonate a lot with what you’re saying. Yeah,

Maria Ross 12:41

I think, because it’s hard, we I remember, excuse me, I remember when I was younger, I naively wanted to live my life in a way that I had no regrets. And that’s kind of impossible, right? I was, you know, I was like, I remember being in like, ninth or 10th grade and thinking that way. And, you know, we do have regrets, but we can regret we I guess we can regret the actions, maybe, or the things that happen, but we can be thankful for the lessons. I really feel like people are formed through the through the grit and the friction that they experience in their life, and not that I wish grit and friction for people, but it’s going to be there anyway, like you’re saying, and sometimes that carries over to the people, not even just in our personal lives, but the people we’re interacting with in an office environment, in a work environment, they can’t not be the people they are shaped by the experiences that they’ve had and what they’re going through in their life right now. And then forget all that as they’re doing spreadsheets and having meetings like it’s just finally realizing that that’s impossible for us to do that as human beings. So I want to talk a little bit about this idea of love at work, because I’ve written about this before, about making love a part of your business model, which sounds really super icky and uncomfortable for people like in the tech industry or my tech clients or what have you. But this idea that love is is not always romantic love. Love can be respect, love can be self compassion, it can be all of these things. So talk to me a little bit about how you help, maybe very analytical or left brain leaders understand the role that love can play, and maybe even right brain people, right like all of us, can feel uncomfortable with that. What do you mean by love when it comes to the workplace and to an office environment?

Chloé Valdary 14:31

Yep, in our culture. And so when people hear love, they think romantically, but love. So to your point, a lot of people, I think when they think of love, they think of love in a romantic context. Some people say romance is a religion in our culture, but love in the theory of enchantment philosophy is actually a reference to this concept of agape love, or unconditional love, which was, I think, most popularized by. By Dr King and the civil rights movement. It’s this idea that we are all interconnected. We are all interconnected in a web of interdependence. And so what I do has an impact on you, and what you do has an impact on me. And if we can show up with an awareness of that and with a appreciation and a sense of gratitude for each other and for again, the complexity and the fullness of what it means to be human, both myself as a human and both you as a human, then we will be more likely to create an inclusive culture and an inclusive community of belonging and in the workplace that actually matters. And let me explain how it matters in a practical way. Imagine this is coming from a real example that we that I had, of an experience working with a partner. Imagine that you are someone who is a frontline staff worker, and you have to be in service to someone who is trying to purchase something and the person who’s trying to purchase something is super annoyed, right? Let’s say they’re having a bad day for whatever reason, and something in the store wasn’t actually properly set up. And so they come to you with this attitude, with this very like irate attitude of anger, almost verging on rage, if you’re the frontline worker, you could respond in one of two ways. You could respond reactively, right? So the way that they’re showing up can totally change how you choose to show up. It can totally change your nervous system level reaction, and then you hate them on their vibration, right? And that’s probably what you’re going to do if you haven’t been trained to recognize what’s actually happening in front of you, or if you are trained in something like the theory of environment, you will be able to recognize that the person who is responding in front of you is in some sort of pain, and the pain really has nothing to do with you personally, right? And they’re trying to seek a way to discharge that pain, which is why they’re coming to you with this attitude, with this sort of way of trying to blame you. But blame is just a way that they’re trying to discharge pain. So if you respond to them in a sincere way that’s really concerned with asking them, what is the source of the pain, what do you need right now? How can I be of service so that I can service your needs right now, if you show up in that way, you actually shift the frequency of the interaction. And this actually happened. We had a client who was training in our theory of enchantment work for a long time, and someone came into their store and acted in that irate way, and they responded to them that in a way that actually, you know, harmonized the vibrations, like calm them down, essentially. And then the customer started to speak to them in a far more warm manner. The customer started to ask them about their day. The customer started to inquire as to how they were feeling totally changed the dynamic of the conversation, right? And of course, you can imagine how that can scale up in a business environment where folks are, you know, asked to be of service work. Workers are in a place where they’re asked to be of service. Of course, they’re dealing with humans. Humans can show up in any form or state, how they how the day has impacted them. And so imagine your workforce being able to respond in a way that brings harmony to all interactions in the business. That’s what love at the workplace does, right? So exactly that’s, yeah, I

Maria Ross 18:38

love that. And you know, it’s making me think about an episode that we recorded with Christine Scott. I’ll put this as a link in the show notes, but she does conflict resolution specifically for companies with customer service organizations and helping them resolve conflict exactly to your point, with angry or upset customers. And also what that does to not only help the well being and the retention and the engagement of the employee, but how it helps protect the company’s brand. You know, on the other end, you’ve got, if you’re not helping your people resolve conflict in an effective way, because they will be dealing with a variety of people, and they never know what those people are going to bring like you said, whatever, whatever’s happened in their day, whatever’s happened in their life, whatever, whatever anger or fear or distress they’re in being able to, you know, arm your your teams with the ability to effectively manage that and resolve that conflict is so important. And I remember talking to her even about, you know, some of the objective objections she gets is, well, this workforce, it’s very high turnover, it’s very seasonal, so it’s not worth investing in, in this training for them. And you know, both of us see it. You know, me as a brand strategist, I’m like the damage to your brand if you don’t is much, much greater if you don’t invest. And these people for however long you have them, enable them to be the best versions of themselves and to have the best interactions with your customers, whether they’re with you for two months or 20 years. So I love this. And the other point I want to make about what you’re talking about is there have been studies around the importance of empathy to how customers interact with your brand. And in one study, 97% of people said that empathy in the customer service experience is the most important element of a positive experience. And in some cases, even if the customer service representative couldn’t solve their problem, in the end, it was just how the interaction went. Did they feel seen? Did they feel heard? Did they feel understood? And that still left a positive impression for them on the customer experience. And I’ve you know, I can attest to that personally, so I’m sure we all can. So you know what you’re saying really resonates, because it’s this idea of, you know, leveraging love, leveraging compassion, to diffuse conflict, to resolve conflict, and find a way to connect regardless of the issue. So I love that, and I love that example of how you’re able to turn that around. And I should add that when you’re able to turn around an upset customer or an upset colleague, even they actually become your biggest champions, yeah, because when they have the negative experience that turns into a positive one, they’re going to talk about

Chloé Valdary 21:33

it right? Exactly. So exactly you make an impression, you make an impression, and also you show them that you care. And that’s really sometimes I think that people will, you know, we in the business world can forget the fundamental things when we are, you know, caught up in the Excel sheets, yes, or, you know, we it actually matters to signal to people that they matter and on a fundamental existential level, yeah. And if we can remind people that they matter in every interaction that we that we engage in, whether it’s in the business context or not, that really makes an impression on these I mean, again, I can’t say enough like that is the kind of transcendent experience that really speaks to what I mean when I meet, when I say the word enchantment, right? It’s a transcendent feeling of belonging in the world and then the cosmos at large. And that feeling is priceless. That was truly priceless. Yeah,

Maria Ross 22:39

so I want to shift gears a little bit, and I because I know you’ve done a lot of deib work with companies and bringing the theory of enchantment to bear on that and creating that inclusive environment. So I want to get into what role does prejudice play like? Where does it come from? And if we’re dealing with it, whether colleague to colleague, or, you know, customer service, rep to customer. We bring all those biases and those prejudices to our jobs, to our work, whether we’re a leader or we’re frontline. So where does that come from? And how can folks combat that? How can they be more aware and more cognizant of the fact that they might be treating different people differently

Chloé Valdary 23:25

Well, prejudice means to prejudge, right to judge before an actual experience of getting to know another human being, and oftentimes prejudice directed towards another person is actually a reflection of prejudice directed towards oneself. So the Who am I practice that I mentioned earlier is also relevant to this question, because what ends up happening is, you know, if I can, if I can see that I am, in some contexts, hard working, and I can express gratitude for that, and I can see that in other contexts, I am lazy, and I can express gratitude for that, I will be less likely to project the stereotype of laziness onto another group of people in order to feel good about myself. So so prejudice is working as a kind of coping mechanism, defensive mechanism, again, to deal with one’s own insecurities. If I can engage in practices like the Who am I practice on a regular basis, I will actually be able to cultivate a curious mind, a more grateful mind and a more curious mind and gratitude and curiosity that ultimately combats prejudice, because that’s the opposite of a prejudicial mindset or hard set. Is a curious is a curious mindset. It’s a it’s a grateful mindset. It’s an open present mindset. Again, these are all states of being that have to be cult. Made it through practice

Maria Ross 25:01

absolutely and as we’ve talked about on the show before, Curiosity is the number one trait of empathic people, and it’s because they they come at it with an open mind of trying to understand your perspective and your experiences without coming to the table thinking they know all about you, and they can, you know, assume what your experiences have been, yes,

Chloé Valdary 25:22

and and I think that part is really important, and it comes with not over identifying as a knower, right? And this is where the culture, this is where there’s just, you know, challenges to be overcome in the culture. One of the great, great narratives of our culture is that you are a good person if you know everything right, or you are a you know, elite person, if you know everything, you have to prove that you know everything. I have certainly struggled with that narrative, because, you know, growing up, I was bullied as a child for my for my looks, and so I depended upon my intellect, and I depended upon my my quote, unquote smartness to prove my sense of self worth. And then started to over identify someone who knows things, right? All I have to do is show up here and prove that I know things, and many people will love me. Yeah. So, yeah. So, like, really unpacking that, and, you know, slowly but surely removing those, those that armor is a part of that process too, because that’s when you’re able to show up as a curious person. Is like, you don’t act it doesn’t being able to know things, or knowing things is great, but you don’t. I don’t need to. I don’t actually need to know things in order to prove my sense of self worth, right? So once that becomes once that becomes true, then I can show up in a curious way, and I can make mistakes, and I don’t have to take myself so seriously, because this, this self that I am, is constantly changing and evolving. Anyway, I love

Maria Ross 26:59

that you said that because we, we do live in a culture where we deify experts and thought leaders and gurus. And, you know, I see it all the time in these cult of personalities of of some of the influencers in our world. And I, you know, people just look to them to just have all the answers and solve all their solve all their problems. And I have a real problem with people rising to that level of status and not taking the responsibility to say, look, I don’t have all the answers, like I can tell you what I think. I can give you advice based on the knowledge that I do have about this particular subject area. And so I always bristle when people call me an empathy expert, because I’m still working on it myself, you know? I mean, just ask my husband. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s, I think we all are, I think all of us who are kind of seen as thought leaders or experts, if we can vulnerably admit that we’re trying to keep learning and we’re trying to keep growing. That’s why I do with this podcast, because I want to hear from other people, and I want more points of view, and I want to add to my learning, because there’s no possible way any human can know everything about their particular subject. You can have a lot of domain expertise if you’re a, you know, rocket scientist or a brain surgeon or whatever, and that’s not to be discounted. But being able to put ego aside is a big practice, and empathy and being able to say, I you know, Chloe, I don’t know your lived experience. I don’t know how you might see this challenge at work, and that you might see it differently than I see it. And so there needs to be room for that conversation and that curiosity and that listening back and forth. Because you know, if you’re going to tell me what your point of view is, I should be actively listening to it.

Chloé Valdary 28:39

Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Maria Ross 28:41

I love it. I love it. So as we wrap up, I want to just leave folks with, you know, this is such great stuff, but how do we? Can you give us one or two actionable tips, and I hate to make you distill your practice down to that, but someone listening, listening, going, I want to get better at resolving conflict. I want to get better at bringing love into my workplace or into my team. What are one or two things you would tell them to start well, you

Chloé Valdary 29:09

know, I would actually suggest doing the Who am I practice every three days or so, so you can begin to recognize your patterns and your habits of mind.

Maria Ross 29:22

And can we? Can we review that really quick? Can we review that really

Chloé Valdary 29:25

so folks listening? So put put a timer on for three minutes, take out a sheet of paper. Ask yourself the question, Who am I? And for every answer that comes to you, say thank you, and say it out loud. Don’t just like write thank you. The vocalization of gratitude is really important step in this exercise, and be sure to include the things that you like about yourself and the things that you don’t like about yourself. And if you do this, you’ll come to discover you’ll never get to the bottom of who you are, because that’s actually what it means to be a human being. And you’ll also notice that you change over time. Which is also what it means to be a human being. And hopefully you will, you know, you will, you will increase. You will cultivate your capacity to give thanks, the more that you do this. And then the other thing I would say is, you know, we have experiences online that actually give people daily tips that they can, that they can tap into. One of those experiences is called the dojo. Go to Enchanted dojo.com, two Ds, check that out, and also tuning fork again, daily tips, daily practices. Enchanted tune.com and you can get into a daily habit with other people, actually, who are doing the practices on a daily basis, which creates, like, a social community, which just like makes the practices more stickier. So that’s what I would recommend to people to check out if they’re interested in deepening their their practice with us,

Maria Ross 30:50

I love it, and I will be sure to include both of those links in the show notes for folks so they can go back to them. It’s enchanted dojo and enchanted tune.com to access those communities. But what a great gift, Chloe to give us that exercise, you know, and also, you know, folks listening find time to do it. You know, set aside five to 10 minutes. I know we want to start the clock for three minutes, but you might need time to digest what you write, and so make the time to do that so that you can be a stronger leader and a stronger colleague, and just, you know, a stronger human being to show up for other people. So Chloe, we will have all your links in the show notes, as I mentioned. But for folks that might be on the go or exercising, what’s one or two of the best places to find out more about you and your work.

Chloé Valdary 31:35

You can go to theory of enchantment.com you can also follow me on social media at C valderie, that is my handle on both Instagram and Twitter. Love it, love it. Love it, love it.

Maria Ross 31:50

You’re one of the lucky people that has one singular handle. Unfortunately, mine are all over the place. So C valderie, b, a, l, D, E, R Y, on all the places. A R, A R Y, sorry. I just realized that V, a, l, D, A R Y, and I will have again, those links in the show notes for everyone. Thank you, Chloe, so much for your time and your insights today. Your work is beautiful and so necessary, and I really appreciate you taking the time to come on. Thank you, Maria. I appreciate you, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate, review, follow and share with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Stay well and be kind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathyedge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Courage to Advance: KPIs Don’t Tell the Whole Story: Why Your CEO Evaluation Is Falling Short

Welcome to Courage to Advance, hosted by Kim Bohr and brought to you by SparkEffect, in partnership with The Empathy Edge.

Tune in to our subseries every 3rd Thursday, right here on The Empathy Edge! Or check us out at www.CourageToAdvancePodcast.com.

In this episode, we dive deep into the often oversimplified process of CEO evaluations. We explore why boards need to look beyond traditional metrics and uncover common blindspots in CEO assessments. We’ll discuss the limitations of relying solely on KPIs and how to integrate both quantitative and qualitative measures to evaluate not just what a CEO achieves but how they lead. We’ll examine how robust CEO evaluations impact critical board responsibilities like compensation and succession planning. The conversation will also touch on incorporating empathy and emotional intelligence into assessments. Finally, we’ll reveal how well-designed evaluations can drive alignment between the board and CEO, fostering a culture of trust and continuous improvement. Join us as we uncover how to truly assess leadership effectiveness and drive organizational success through comprehensive CEO evaluations.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Having a relationship and building trust with some board members can create a safe space for the CEO, which can often be lonely.
Soft skills are the essential skills. It doesn’t matter what your organization does, these are vital skills in understanding the inputs and outputs to create success within any organization.
Data only matters if you can translate and interpret it into something useful and actionable.
While hitting the “whats” is important, the “hows” of getting to those “whats” are equally as important.

“When we talk about sustainable organizations, and the ability for organizations to grow, just hitting the numbers isn’t going to guarantee success. It’s important, but it isn’t the whole story.”

— Sandy Stelling, VP of Strategy, Analytics, and Transformation, Alaska Airlines

From Our Partner:

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About Sandy Stelling, VP of Strategy, Analytics, and Transformation, Alaska Airlines

Sandy most recently served as the Vice President of Strategy, Analytics, and Transformation at Alaska Airlines. A Pacific Northwest aviation leader for over 30 years, she drives change using her experience in engineering, technology, team dynamics, and process performance. She has been recognized for her collaborative, always curious, direct leadership style. Sandy believes deeply in building capability and creating capacity with individuals and teams. Her track record of building trust and coaching teams, leading through challenges and crises, and delivering financial results bring valuable perspectives to the boardroom. Sandy holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University. She currently holds leadership roles on several non-profit boards.

Connect with Sandy Stelling:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sandy-stelling-1984501

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CourageToAdvancePodcast.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/sparkeffect

LinkedIn for Kim Bohr: linkedin.com/in/kimbohr

Connect with Maria:

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FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Kim Bohr 02:04

Welcome to courage to advance the leadership and transformation podcast. I’m your host, Kim bore, and I’m joined today by Sandy Stelling to discuss how KPIs don’t tell the whole story and why your co valuation is falling short. So before we jump in, I want our listeners to learn more about our fabulous guests today, Sandy is most recently served as the vice president of strategy, analytics and transformation Alaska Airlines at Pacific Northwest aviation leader for over 30 years. She drives change using her experience in Engineering Technology, team dynamics and process performance. She’s been recognized for her highly collaborative, always curious, direct leadership style and Sandy believes deeply in building capability and creating capacity with individuals and teams. Her track record for building trust and coaching teams, leading through challenges and crisis and delivering financial results bring valuable perspectives to the boardroom. Sandy holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University, and she currently holds leadership roles on several nonprofit boards, which makes her an excellent guest for us today. Sandy, welcome to the courage to advance podcast.

Sandy Stelling 03:24

Thanks, Kim, happy to be here.

Kim Bohr 03:26

So you and I are have talked a little bit about this as we got ready for our conversation today. And really, where I think it’s the best place for us to start for our listeners is really to talk a little bit about the role of a board member and the role in evaluating the CEO, and what does that look like from your experience?

Sandy Stelling 03:53

Sure. So if I think back to when I first joined a nonprofit board, I think the simplistic view was always your responsibility as a board as a board member, is to ensure that the organization delivers financially and has financial health, and that also goes hand in hand with like advocacy and philanthropy. And so in the nonprofit world, it was really like the KPIs were the dollars and cents at the business of the organization and its ability to earn money and fund their mission and keep the work going. And I think just like with any for profit business, the words changed, the game has changed, and that isn’t enough anymore, which can sound daunting, but, but I think the fact is, it’s not enough anymore. And when we talk about sustainable organizations, and the ability for organizations to grow, just hitting the numbers isn’t going to guarantee success, it’s important, but it isn’t the whole story.

Kim Bohr 04:53

And how does that shift? You know, shift the responsibility of the. The the board members, and what their role is often seen to, to have. Well, I

Sandy Stelling 05:09

think what I found working with different CEOs or leadership team these organizations is there’s always the conversation about the what we’re going to do, the goals we’re going to set, what we’re going to achieve, you know, how we’re going to grow the organization or have greater impact. But I think what really has come to the forefront are the human dynamics that are at play when that’s happening. Because to that can it’s in my personal perspective, I think it’s more of a guarantee of success or not. Is because if you have strong teams, they can achieve anything. But if you have dysfunction within teams, or you have personality clashes, or style clashes, or just lack of good communication, or whatever those human dynamics are, that can be a non starter, right, and can really get in the way of achieving a lot of what you’re going after. And

Kim Bohr 05:59

how is that you do you see that as creating more risk inside from the board’s point of view of how they’re viewing what’s going on, can you speak a little bit from the

Sandy Stelling 06:10

audience as well? I would say at the at the worst case, you go, Okay, if you have, and I, you know, I’ve, probably, I’ve had the opportunity to be a board member in the gamut, when things were great, when things were not so great, and in not so great, I think what happens is it actually pulls the whole organization down. And can end up even pulling some board members into it, because different people will reach out to the board members that they have a good relationship with, people that they trust, and then all of a sudden you’re creating a little bit of chaos in how the organization is intended to run, when really the board is typically, in my experience working directly with the CEO, definitely has interactions with the leadership team, but the board’s responsibility is to ensure the performance of the CEO, and then that CEO has to extend down and get results with the organization. So what I’ve seen happen is, when it’s working well, right, then the board’s job becomes super easy in some ways, right? Because you’re coaching, you’re supporting, you may be asking challenging questions just to mitigate and manage any risks that you may be aware of because of the experience you bring to the board. But the team is working holistic, is working together, and a lot of that diversity of thoughts coming out organically within the team, within the leadership team of the organization, when it’s a little bit fractured, or there’s some other kind of stress or tension in the system, I think what happens is the conversations are different because now they’re about team dynamics and less about the work that we’re trying to get accomplished, right, right, and trying to wade through some other problems. So as much as you want to say, as a board member, it’s not your responsibility. When you talk about the sustainability and the risk and success of an organization, you do have to have a little bit of a lens into the culture and the dynamics of how they’re have, how people are working together or not working together, because that’ll start to send up signals if things are really off track, or if something is at risk of going off track,

Kim Bohr 08:04

that makes a lot of sense. And so when you you know a moment ago, you were speaking about how the landscape has changed, and that looking at these financial metrics isn’t enough alone. So can you speak to that lens of how the layering of more of the empathy and the emotional intelligence lens has come into play, into the board’s, you know, role of taking in that level of data as well. Yeah,

Sandy Stelling 08:32

you know, whether it’s depending on the size of the board, the CEO will have different depths of relationship with different board members, so for a period of time, you know, I was in a leadership role. I was a chair of a board, and working with the CEO of the board, I think one thing is to really build trust, because what I would recognize, and even in my, in my professional career, working directly for the CEO company, that’s like the loneliest job out there, yes, and probably a reason. It’s not for me, but I can see why, but I do think it’s a tough it’s a tough place to be, and I think having a relationship with some board members that recognize that, that can acknowledge that, that can create a safe space for a CEO, I felt that that was really important and part of my responsibility, so that they had a place to turn. They had somewhere to go to talk about what was on their mind and and so I think I naturally leave that way and the roles that I held. And so I carried that into my work as a board member. And I think that unlocked some things, some conversations, some relationships, some trust. It allowed the seat I saw the CEO and even other members of the team feel not comfortable but capable of being vulnerable or otherwise. Maybe they felt like, you know, we don’t want the board to know, we’ll just keep it you know, it’s like, no, we’re actually all on the same team, right? And then vulnerability. Quality is huge to unlock that, yes, and so I think that that’s and that, to me, is a big E to growth, right? If you can be vulnerable together, then you can actually discover, and I think, explore growth that otherwise wouldn’t be available to you.

Kim Bohr 10:19

I love that that’s so important. And I think that’s, you know, I think we’ve come a long way in our our journey of of leadership understanding, to recognize that now there’s strength in this under I’ve been bringing in vulnerability and empathy and, you know, EQ, and all of these things that perhaps were not seen as as important. I

Sandy Stelling 10:47

think a phrase I’ve used is, I, you know, over our career lifetimes, we’ve heard it. These are the soft skills, like you have technical hard skills. You know how to execute your job. You can, you know, balance the budget and deliver the results, and all the KPIs can happen. And people would then refer to this other stuff that we’re talking about as the soft skills. And I argue that till the cows come home, because I’m like, those are the essential skills. Yes, I love that. Then it’s, it’s irregardless of what the mission is, what the work is, what the job or task at hand is, if you can’t navigate with these essential skills, you’re kind of going to be you’re going to be stuck, it’s going to be murder.

Kim Bohr 11:21

Yes, these essential skills are the they’re the foundation. And that’s what we’ve talked about, the you know, the inputs to understand the outputs. Because at some point you could have a CEO with fantastic metrics, and if the inputs and the dynamics inside the organization are really toxic, there’s going to be a cliff for those metrics that performance won’t really, in most cases, be able to sustain, and the turnover and the disconnect of the leadership teams and things really starts to become apparent. And

Sandy Stelling 11:57

I think that’s where the board has has a role not to get involved in it, not to solve some of those dynamics like that’s not our place, but it is to be listening for, observing for because our primary responsibility is to help manage risk to the organization right in its current year and future years. And so if you know, and what everybody wants in an organization is, you know, risk that’s well managed and predictable outcomes and you achieve your goals, and you know it’s all just worked great. But I think as a board, then the biggest responsibility we have is to be able to from a removed space, again, not in the day to day, observe and listen for things that are risk. And it’s not always evident just in the numbers,

Kim Bohr 12:44

right, right? That loan doesn’t tell the whole story.

Sandy Stelling 12:48

It doesn’t tell the whole story. And so it’s understanding to your point, what was the process that got us that number, and what’s the collateral damage that maybe was incurred to get there? Right? Is that tolerable or sustainable? And what could be the downstream consequences of that kind of behaviors?

Kim Bohr 13:07

And I think for many of us, we think of it as followership, right? So gaining, you know, building followership is a skill, and when you think about the this inputs that bring in to play so many of these really important skills that CEOs and leaders need to have that’s such an important factor to that input of what what we’re going to look at and and the other end of it. So just to to pause for a moment and to make sure our listeners are clear on what we’re thinking about when we talk about CEO evaluations, there is a gamut of how this is done. For many organizations. It’s where we started off by saying that, you know, perhaps just the hard numbers, the hard KPIs, the HARD goals are the are the way it’s done and and for many listing, maybe they don’t realize this other idea is actually really prominent, and really is a more complete view than perhaps this those traditional way alone. And so we’re not advocating to throw that out. Of course, that is key. We’re advocating to expand it, to make it more comprehensive in a way that’s so beneficial and in the work that you we’ve both experienced before, that could look like 360s with key layers in the organization, including board members. It can look at interview conversations that are looking for trends and things like that. And I think one of the things that we find in the work is that data is key, and so the way we approach looking at these, this expanded, more complete view, is. Still a very much a data driven approach. I wonder if you could speak to a little bit of of how that data driven approach can, in fact, occur in these areas of skills that we’re talking about that maybe yet, are these now what we think of as essential skills? Yeah,

Sandy Stelling 15:16

well, I think that. So first of all, the data is still important. I’m not going to throw out the data here, like right? And the data has served well, especially over years, if you’re working with the same CEO, and there’s, you know, there’s some over time, you can see trends or movement, but like, even, again, in my professional life, when you got data and and honestly, working at an airline, we’re rich in data, but data is only useful if you can actually translate it into information. And so that’s where all the nuance of complexity live, right? So, and that, I think, is where the interviews and some of the written feedback and some of the more qualitative insights come from. You know, help interpret the data, because the data is you Okay, on a 05 scale, you’re getting all fives or all fives, but one, two, well, I’m curious about the two, right? Actually, the two alone is, it’s interesting, but it doesn’t tell me anything, right? So how do we then follow up with conversations to learn what that two is actually telling us? Because that’s where the improvement, the growth and the change is going to come from right? Otherwise, because the flip side of that is it’s very easy if the data is not coming with insights and information that you connect on. It’s easy to accept it when it’s good and it’s easy to dismiss it when it’s bad, right? And so you need and people are complex. So Kim, you’re a five, and you’re like, that’s interesting, but it tells you nothing, right? So we have to try. We have to get deeper into what are we learning? You know, what does this process? And we have a more comprehensive process that involves a 360 as you mentioned, we have conversations a subset of board members that work, you know, with our partners to figure out, like, the people who help us collect the data, to understand, like, what’s actually happening, and how do we take all of this information, not just data, and have constructive conversations that will not only support the CEO, but in turn, then support the organization, because that’s what as a board, we’re really trying to do, is ensure we have the right leader, leading in a way that’s going to grow, you know, support the organization the way that we intend them to. But it, it is. I find data it’s very easy to be like we’re data driven, only if you could turn it into something useful and actionable, right? Otherwise, you’re just data drowning, right? I think that that’s, you know, that would be easy to say, like, well, we have a process, and we collect data and then we hang it on the fridge. I mean, I don’t you have to do something with it. You interpret it in ways that become actionable. And

Kim Bohr 17:52

I think one of the things that stood out to what you were just saying, too, is that longitudinal view, right, the view of the cons and the and the consistency. So could you speak to where that consistency comes, how critical it is from not just the the process, but the the board being on the same page, you know, around how everybody’s going to view what the inputs are. I’d love to hear a little bit more about that. Yeah,

Sandy Stelling 18:21

I, you know one thing I think that’s bringing this more to the forefront and maybe a conversation is, I think in, you know, in the for profit world, right, leadership is changing as well, right? So even board members who now serve on nonprofits are coming from different experiences than maybe were had in the workplace 30 years ago, 20 years ago, even 10 years ago. And a lot of this, I think, has been accelerated with covid, to be honest, with the pandemic, because there were so many things that happened in 2020 2122 that really required leaders to lead differently. And I think that, you know, and it was like a step change, because all of a sudden, and I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but you had to care about your employees in a whole new way, right? And the people you lead needed things in a whole different way. So the needs were different, the climate was everything was different. So we’re longitudinal is interesting. So we go back to that. Is you can see, you can see progress. You may also then spot like setbacks. But even if you like, if something slides backwards, let’s just say that numbers go the other way. It allows you to have a conversation, to understand what was going on, and it allows for that if you have trust and vulnerability and the ability and empathy and the ability to have these conversations, it’s you can actually move through it, I would say more quickly, because you’re able to, like, have that safe space conversation and say, hey, you know what happened here? Well, this is what was going on. Oh, well, that makes sense. And then you can acknowledge that was a hiccup, or that’s a red flag, or that’s a blind spot, or. That is actually, that’s a pattern they’re seeing. And what does that mean, you know? And you’re able to have a conversation that is growth oriented and not like, penalizing, if that makes it that’s like, right? But it’s not to be like, you’re bad it’s like, well, this is interesting, right? And nobody wants to do a bad job Exactly, exactly.

Kim Bohr 20:19

I think, you know, I love that you talk about being growth oriented, because that’s like even, I think there’s a mis perception that when somebody becomes a CEO, they’ve hit their pinnacle, and they don’t either think they need to grow, or people don’t think they need to grow, and of course, they need to grow. We all need to grow in our different levels. It changes, and that type of feedback is really critical, as you said earlier, it’s pretty lonely and there’s a lot less feedback when you’re getting further up into the leadership roles. I think the other thing I want to just call out that you said was just so important too, is that during those years of our pandemic life, and where every the needs that we all had became so much more of a focus in ways that even maybe, maybe many of us seem to realize needed to be that hasn’t gone away. I you know. And so the as we move forward into, you know, our business of the future, the needs that people have are still there, and there’s and so it’s not like we traded those back off to, you know, to not having as much. And I think that is really it makes the stakes even higher for a CEO and a board in trying to make sure that’s being viewed as part of these inputs as well. I’d love for you to to share, you know, a story, if you have one that really can perhaps talk about the you know, gaining trust and alignment, you know, with a CEO when you’ve either brought the idea of this level of a depth to that person, or perhaps just the results. And how have the results you know, gained more of that is if you have something that you can share with the listeners. Well, I

Sandy Stelling 22:04

yeah, I think that I remember when we were engaged in a CEO evaluation process and working with the CEO, the one conversation that always comes to mind was, and again, we all come from different backgrounds and different experiences, right? But as those few board members who work on this process were discussing and preparing for the evaluation conversation, we kept coming back to the organization led by the CEO is hitting all the numbers like, check, check, check, check, check, but we also knew first hand accounts. You know, witness engage with stories that we heard, conversations that we had conversations with the CEO, that there was, there was some turmoil happening, and that became concerning as a board member of like, so they hit the numbers. And I think you mentioned it earlier, but I’m not confident. I want to be, but I’m not sure I can be confident they’re going to hit them again next year or to the next year, unless this turmoil is somehow addressed. And the conversation, which I think kind of stopped us all in our tracks, was so the what’s are good, but the how is a little concerning, and I think that they’re both equally important sustainability for the organization, right? And, and if you’re going to do the same thing day after day, year after year, maybe some of that could, like, could could exist, right? Because you’re just going to produce, you’re just going to, you know, bang out the same numbers, right? But that isn’t the way the world works. So how do you have the dynamics in play and the the human dynamics in play that can be nimble enough and adaptive enough to work together when these things are shifting and changing? And we kind of joke, a number of the board members and I have joked about like, it seems like every year there’s like, a thing and, you know, and like, so what? What’s the thing for this year. And there’s usually, there’s a, I wouldn’t say, like an existential crisis, but there is some sort of event or something that happens that makes the organization, like, pause and say, Okay, wait a second. We have to shift resources. We have to shift direction, we have to pull back. We have to something’s happening, right? And I think that’s true for any organization, right, that something happens, yeah, and if you don’t have and again, this is my perspective, if you don’t have the leadership in place and the team working together, it’s really hard to then make those shifts and adapt without losing your footing, right, without losing some footing. And I that’s so I think that when we worked so this, so when we were having the conversation of, yes, you hit all of the what’s the goals? You achieve? The goal or you missed one or two, fine, but you majority hit all the goals. But we want to have a conversation about how you got there, and some of the concerns we see as a board. And it wasn’t again. Wasn’t your bad person. That’s not it. We’re concerned about the health of the organization, being able to sustain the progress, to deliver results year after year after year, and that’s our responsibility, and that’s where our concern was showing up was. And I think that was the beginning of what has been a good multi year conversation and relationship of how one we’re there because we support, we believe, you know, we have confidence, but we want to support also some like adjustments, little adjustments here and there to make the organization stronger. And how can we be resources to help him, help amor, her

Kim Bohr 25:37

do that. And so it sounds like, in that scenario, that information was received as a supportive delivery, you know, as as, not a, you know, punitive, as you said, but more of this. Okay, I’ve got support to help figure this out.

Sandy Stelling 25:55

I mean, I think it’s a, it’s a, I think what also happens as a CEO, having worked with several of them. Part of the reason I think the role becomes lonely is every a lot of what you hear has also been thoroughly filtered by the time it gets to you. So, yeah. So the question is, do you have an environment, or do you have a few safe places you can go to have like the let your hair down, the conversation like the real, yeah, to the real, real. And I think that’s, that’s the level of trust. I think I felt that we created, I think that we have with, you know, a handful of board members that can just really let the hair down and say this is real, and the CEO can feel like that’s a safe space, and that conversations are confidential, and we’re there because we have their back, right? And it’s because we, along with the CEO, believe in the mission and the goals of the organization, and we’re that’s what this is about. This isn’t about you’re a good person. You’re a bad person. You’re, you know, do more of this. That’s tactics underneath the cause. And everyone I’ve worked with in nonprofit. It’s so such mission driven work. I mean, I’m just fortunate to work for a public company that was also very mission driven. So it’s sort of, it’s in my DNA is, anyway, worked out good alignment there. But I think that that you know definitely in nonprofit, people who go work for nonprofits, is because they believe deeply in the mission, and always coming back to that, I think is a really helpful way to open those conversations up and make more safe spaces to explore what can be adjusted or adapted for better performance.

Kim Bohr 27:29

I think that’s so important. And so I want to just explore a little bit further on the board and the board itself needing to align within itself as to how we’re going to take in this type of data, or how we’re going to find consistency year over year. So you spoke to you know, knowing that we’ve adopted a specific process and knowing things like that. But how do you navigate the reality that board roles evolve? There’s terms to them, and people you know typically are moving through and and so how, what kind of conversations are happening in those smaller, you know, teams of the board around, how are we going to commit to this and be consistent? And knowing that we’re, you know, we’re only holding these positions for so long. Is there anything you can can speak to there?

Sandy Stelling 28:18

I think that, you know, I’m very process oriented. I’m very I’m an engineer, you know, unapologetically, but I think that my mindset works in a way. And I’m not unique in this, but there are others on the board who share this is we want to we’re also responsible to ensure our processes support sustainability of the organization. And right? So not just the organization like CEO on down is going to be sustainable. We have to make sure that the board functions in an ongoing, effective way as well. And so I think we’ve collectively made a commitment like to in some way, like document these processes, shared them, onboard people, transitioning so it isn’t just handing over a playbook to someone else and be like, good luck. And so that’s one part of it. I think the other thing that we’ve been the folks, the other board members, I’ve had the privilege to work with, I think we’ve also be aligned and committed to continuous improvement. And so even every year, we may follow essentially the same process every year. We’re also going maybe we, could we do this different now, like maybe we should adjust how we did this. We did this last year, but we knew it wasn’t you’re not going to get perfect, but you can continue to get better. And I think always having that maybe it’s the growth orientation that if we want to continue to serve our CEO Well, we have to make sure that we’re continuing to reflect on our process and improve it, and, you know, take the feedback and continue to work it, because that is also going to serve Him and the organization, him or her and the organization well. And

Kim Bohr 29:52

where does that trans it sounds like some of that transparency. Do you advocate for some of that? Hey, how we, how we as a board, were thinking? About this to translate into a conversation with the CEO and in kind of the how, maybe how the thinking has evolved. Yeah, I

Sandy Stelling 30:09

you know, we’re very transparent. I mean, first of all, we’re fortunate to have a CEO who’s incredibly transparent. So, you know, our CEO is very comfortable sharing the results with the full board and and I think those conversations are helpful, because anyone who takes, you know, does an evaluation, takes survey, wants to know that, like, someone’s looking at the results, and then someone’s gonna take action on the results, right? Like, what’s the number one issue with employee surveys that companies I take the employee survey, everybody doesn’t think about it, right? That’s like, all the time, right? And so I think having the transparency of, like, here’s what we said, and then he, he or she also, like, CEO, our CEO, again, very transparent, shares their goals based on the prior year’s evaluation and what we’re setting up, not only with the board, but with their team, right? So again, we’re all in this together. Yes, right? And it creates a space. It creates a space of accountability, but it also creates a support system, because now everyone knows what they’re trying to do and is in a position to help them. Me

Kim Bohr 31:13

love that. So if you were, you know, giving advice to somebody who was, you know, a board member out there and our listeners and wants to really open up this conversation with a CEO or an executive director around let’s look at this in a more expanded view. Let’s, let’s be inclusive of what we do today. And here’s where we want to, you know, where we think there’s more opportunity. How, what would you advise them in approaching that conversation? Perhaps some of the things you would say, have them, you know, suggest they say, Yeah, I

Sandy Stelling 31:51

so I tend to use, like, um, pretty plain language that creates images, right? Just like, you know. So I would be like, let’s say they have historically been measured on what they achieve, right? The numbers, the KPIs, I would start having, I wouldn’t be like, let’s go get a big survey, and let’s get a third party and let’s go do this, because all of a sudden the CEO is going to feel threat, right? I would imagine that will be, that’s how probably I would respond. If everyone’s like, we’re going to you, I would, I would probably respond as like, threat alert, what’s going on. And I would be so paranoid. Be like, what did I do wrong? Right? That’s who I would be, like, what? But I do think that opening a conversation of always getting better and having conversations about some of the things, I think the examples of challenges that were recently faced, right, especially when it comes to, like, human dynamics, interactions, Team stuff, employees, whatever it is, yeah, being able to point to those and say, you know, and some of them would be let then lead the story, right? They had. They’re going to tell a story of, like, working with one of their leaders and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever the issue is, okay. How would you like to handle that different? And maybe that’s part of what we want to bring into the evaluation, is how you handle difficult conversations. I’m oversimplifying, but Right? Something like that, but some of those kinds of dynamics, but I think letting the CEO tell stories of where they’re struggled, which, again, you have to have trust and vulnerability and be able to have that and then look at ways to expand the evaluation, to start to surface some of those kinds of behaviors, is probably the way I would approach stepping into it, as opposed to, Like, bringing in the program. Yes, feel like you’re, you’re subjecting them, you know, all of a sudden they become a victim of a thing, right to owning their desire to grow, you know, owning that and saying, I actually do want growth. And this is a mecca. This is a, one of the ways we can help do that. Yeah,

Kim Bohr 33:56

I hear you describing, you know, partnership, curiosity, you know, co creation, co involvement, you know, in where, what can we do to to help look at your growth, also to help tell your fuller story. You know, in many ways. So I think that’s, I think those are really important factors and and moving away from a position that feels like it’s, you know, us versus them, and yeah, you want

Sandy Stelling 34:26

to get to a richer conversation where it isn’t just like a checklist, like I do the things right behaviors, it’s a little bit like what you do, how you do it. And then I think when you get deeper into these conversations, and I’ve had this opportunity with people that I’ve you know worked with in my professional career, you actually start to get and that really becomes interesting, because, like, again, it’s just be curious about yourself. Why do you why do you respond that way? Why would I feel threat, right, right, right? And you get into some of the why, and then, because you want to make sure that you. Everyone involved feels like they have agency. And so if, if the CEO feels like they’re being subjected to something because the board is imposing something, they’re never really going to have that agency over. You know, their leadership, right? They’re just, they’re just a part in a play, right to the start of their own show. And I think it’s really changing that up. And I think it don’t mean it to sound manipulative at all. I think it’s just human it’s leaning into human nature in a way, to unlock more, better performance, which is what each individual wants anyway, who doesn’t want to

Kim Bohr 35:38

be their best Absolutely. And I love simplifiers, right? Well, it’s, it’s, it’s, that’s the perfect example. And I love the word agency, because I think that is something that everybody wants to have. And, you know, I’ve heard, you know, this. This gives CEOs and the board and, you know, opportunity to have more collaboration as well. But for the CEO in particular, there is more control in looking at, how do I go about doing this, not just solely what I got because some because of that, I think that element of things feeling thankless at times. You know, there’s a lot to celebrate, too, when we look at the inputs, the how we got there, that is really should be surfaced and can be missed when we’re only focused on those metrics alone, right? I

Sandy Stelling 36:35

mean, when you when you can play to your strengths, you know, kind of where your brain is, when you can play to your strengths, you can find ways to use them in maybe circumstances you didn’t anticipate. Yeah, right. And so that’s one thing. I think that this creates the potential to discover some of that. Yes, right. So if you really good at storytelling, but I never, I never actually used my story telling skill to talk about the financial performance of the institution. I’m making it up. I’m making it up, right? But you could, yeah, I know all of a sudden you’re going to connect with a whole new audience and engage with different employees in different ways and or the board, or other things can happen. That’s one piece I think that’s really powerful when you kind of get into that, right, right? Yeah, and I personally find it fun but hard, right, right? Sometimes you you find things you didn’t want to find. This is true, right? You discover you have to come to terms with your own blind spots and go, Yeah, I do that, yeah. But yeah, if you can, if you can name it, then you can handle it

Kim Bohr 37:39

absolutely, and especially when you know you have a strong yeah team within your your board that’s going to support you in that process too. So before we wrap up, I want to ask you know, or at least maybe expand our conversation a little bit to the opportunity of you know, we’ve talked about how the boards were always talked about the CEO and evaluating and expanding in this way we’re thinking of one of the things I think is not always connected to this type of conversation is the benefit it brings to the organization itself, to the to The leaders who report to the CEO to creating an opportunity to align an evaluation to perhaps, maybe aspects of how others are evaluated on their performance throughout the organization. And I’m curious if you have any, you know, thoughts or experiences in that way where you could say, yeah, there’s a it creates, even a healthy organization, a situation that expands into that level of the organization where those dynamics are bigger.

Sandy Stelling 38:46

Yeah, I think, you know, for our the 360 process we use very much involves the leadership team that reports to the CEO, and so they also participate in the evaluation. They participate in interviews. And I think it’s important for the board to hear from them, right? Right? So we hear that through the data and the insights that come from conversations, right? We hear from them. And, you know, there have been times where that has been very insightful for us, because the board has one view, and the leadership team had a very different view, and that became a place to explore. Why is that? What’s going on? Who’s what are the why are the experiences so different, or the interpretations of the experiences so different? What’s going you know? And I think it was helpful to have that to help, again, help the CEO understand like, you know, and even explore that. This is interesting, and, you know, they’re kind of in the middle of it, but it’s, why do you think this is what’s going on? How can we help? You know, that’s always tricky, too, because we’re not an operational board. We’re just there to support, you know, and and work with the CEO and the team, but we want to make sure, like we’re not doing his job or her job, yep, but we want. To help them and support them right in that way. So I think having hearing from the people who actually are working with the CEO day in and day out, is a rich insight that a board member wouldn’t generally have, right? And I think it definitely rounds up the picture. But I also think the CEO’s self evaluation as part of the 360 process is also insightful. And you know, they’ll mark themselves again, year over year. What’s happening? They’ll mark themselves high. They’ll mark themselves low. What’s going on? Yeah, she thinks that. And then it does give us an opportunity to actually recognize strong performance where there may be being hypercritical. I say, Are you like, from our perspective, like I hear what you’re saying, but you should know, from our perspective, we think you’ve done fantastic at XYZ, at navigating problem, you know, a whatever. And I that. So those opportunities also come out of a process like this, where you get to recognize the strengths and the goodness. Not just we’re here to grow. We’re here to improve. It’s all we’re about. We’re like, no, let’s take a couple minutes and honor. Take some time and honor the strengths you bring to the table every day, how it shows up, how people see it, even if sometimes you get caught up and don’t see it, you get swept up, right? Like, don’t forget, you’ve got really great qualities that got you here exactly, exactly. You’re not here by accident, right? You’re not right in the organization by accident. But always having a growth mindset is not a bad way to move to the world, because the world is constantly changing,

Kim Bohr 41:35

absolutely. And I think just you know, for CEOs that can bring that level of insight and transparency back to that executive team that participated. I think that has the opportunity to just not only show that vulnerability, but strengthen those relationships too and and so it gives it kind of it’s that comes full circle for everybody involved. So as we wrap up, or is there anything you want to make sure we you share that perhaps we haven’t touched on, or you want to reinforce as we bring our conversation to a close,

Sandy Stelling 42:14

big question. It’s a big open question. You know. Again, just to bring it home, I think we can talk about process, and we can talk about evaluations, and we could talk about data, and we can get all into it. They have to remember, it’s humans. Human beings are complicated. They’re messy. And any process that’s evaluating the performance and effectiveness of another human being. You know, there’s risk involved, so I would just say focus on growth orientation and creating safe spaces for those conversations and the curiosity, because then I think you have the best shot at Unlocking Potential.

Kim Bohr 42:57

Agreed, the fabulous words to end on. So what I’ll want to share with our listeners is that we have three downloads for you. If you visit the website, courage to advance podcast.com, it will take you to our spark effect page, and there you’ll be able to download one or all three of these, and just to give you a snippet about each the first downloads a guide to those that are tasked with finding the process or finding a right partner, and addresses really important items that are needed to ensure successful evaluations, so much of what needs to be gathered in order for the Board’s interest and the CEOs. The second download addresses CEOs, highlighting how this expanded view reveals the behind the scenes factors contributing to the outcome. So those the hows and the inputs and the benefit to the CEO of thinking of it from this lens. And then the third download is really for board members, and it really is much about what we’ve talked about here today, whether you’re on a nonprofit or a for profit board. It ties into covering, how do you assess the risk and build trust between the CEO and the board in a way that’s really effective? And so you can find these links in the show notes, and you can also connect with us on LinkedIn. That’ll be in the show notes as well. And I want to just thank you again, Sandy, for sharing your insights and what you’ve brought to our conversation today. And I want to thank our listeners who have joined us today on our courage to advance

Sandy Stelling 44:30

podcast. Thanks, Kim. It’s been really fun, great conversation.

Kim Bohr 44:35

I really enjoyed it as well. We’ll hope to hear and from you more in the future, Sandy and we’ll look forward to our listeners tuning in on our next episode. Thank you

Maria Ross 44:47

for more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathyedge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop. Up and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

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Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Dr. Steven Stein: Resilience, Grit…Or Hardiness? Which Helps Your Culture More?

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Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

November Hot Take: Why History Needs Us to Be Empathetic Leaders Now More Than Ever

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Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Justin Jones-Fosu: How to Respectfully Disagree – and Not in a Passive-Aggressive Way

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Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Tina Kuhn & Neal Frick: The E-Suite: Helping Execs Embrace Empathy for Success

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Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Chloé Valdary: The Theory of Enchantment

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Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Courage to Advance: KPIs Don’t Tell the Whole Story: Why Your CEO Evaluation Is Falling Short

Brand Breakthrough Story Course

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

﻿FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

FULL TRANSCRIPT: