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00:00:27;12
- 00:00:34;04
Rick A. Morris: And
welcome to another edition of the the we're so happy to have everybody along on
this wonderful week.
00:00:34;04
- 00:03:26;04
Rick A. Morris: It
has been a fantastic week for us. We were in Louisville early on I got to see
the national championship game there in Louisville with some new clients some
new friends of course if you don't get a chance to see that game it was a fun
game to watch but we got to celebrate that in Louisville but we get to be back
home here now in lovely Birmingham Alabama which of course is still going nuts
after that game. But we are relaxing back at home and enjoying our own Work/Life
Balance. I wanted to do a quick shout out to Cinepear which is the organization
has been producing all of our video for our social media over the last three or
four months and the latest video which is brand new to our Web site
rsquaredconsulting.com We did a new video which was kind of about me in a lot
of things that we're doing and that has gone viral in the context of business.
So you know last two weeks I believe we have gotten over 25000 views of that
video across the different social media platforms Twitter and Facebook and
LinkedIn YouTube all those different areas so we certainly appreciate the
engagement of the audience and that it still is amazing me how that's continuing
to grow through tweets and everything else so we appreciate if you've been one
of those people that have seen the video tweeted and commented on it. We
appreciate it. But a lot of hard work went into that. We appreciate Cinepear,
their partnership with us and that's a partnership we see continuing to grow.
They are the ones that help us with the #PMMinutes which is a new web series
that we had launched this year and we're also going to be working with them to
launch the PM inspiration's series that we're going to be working on which will
be a branding through Alexa where you're going to be able to ask Alexa to help
with PM inspiration and you'll hear our voice in several of the speakers that
have been here on the Work/Life Balance. And as well if you're an Alexa user
you can now hear this podcast directly through Alexa by asking Anypod to play
the Work/Life Balance and she will oblige. So let's get right into our show.
We're very very excited. We have a return guestt. We believe it was a pre-launch
of this book. Prior I think we had them on September 2nd of the previous year
but we are going to do a panel interview with three different authors today
starting to save a lot of the general introductions that I do. Because we have
three different people here so we did have John Gates on the show with us
September 2nd of last year but we're now also joined by Jeff Grady and Sasha Lindekens
who all have helped write how leaders improve and now that book is launched.
We're so we we extended the invitation to John and his team back in September
to come back and join us. And here they are as I'd like to say Welcome to
everybody. How are you guys doing.
00:03:26;04
- 00:03:29;09
John Gates: Doing
great work. Thank you. Doing great. Thanks Rick.
00:03:30;13
- 00:03:49;15
Rick A. Morris: So
you know John we had talked before about the book right how leaders improve and
you know we've gotten into some of the research and stuff so I'm so excited to
have Jeff and Sasha here. But if you could recap for the audience you know and
just give us a general boke overview and you know why did you and your team
here that with us write this book.
00:03:51;03
- 00:05:14;06
John Gates: Yeah
well first of all Rick thanks again for having me back and for having Jeff and
Sasha. I think maybe the best way I can answer that question is with an analogy
hopefully sort of a timely analogy. So we're into the new year. And of course
lots of people make New Year's resolutions. And a pretty popular one is to lose
weight. And you know there are many books out there that suggest that people
try different diets for losing weight. Some of them are probably really good
books with good advice. But we all know that not everybody who makes that sort
of resolution and buys and maybe even reads one of those boats is actually
going to lose weight and some of those people who do lose weight probably won't
keep it off. So the analogy here is there are lots of books out there on
leadership lots of great books with you know lots of great advice. But we all
know that not everybody who buys and leads one of those books on leadership is
actually going to get better as a leader. So one of the reasons we wrote this
book was we we really wanted to sort of add to the literature in the field of
leadership by tackling the question how do leaders actually get better. And we
hope that through our study we got to answer that question. And the reason is
we wanted to write a particular kind of book. I was in a conversation recently
with somebody who's who's read the book.
00:05:14;09
- 00:05:55;06
John Gates: And
he used the term Pracademic to get at a sort of a combination of something
that's practical and at the same time academic so the book is based on
research. But we've also tried to offer up some too. You know anybody who reads
that book gets very practical. So we've identified a total of 10 insights into
how leaders improve based on a research and after each insight we offer some
practical recommendations for leaders seeking to improve for leadership
development professionals who are working with such leaders and for decision
makers and organizations who are trying to just get the best possible return on
investment from their leadership development efforts.
00:05:55;07
- 00:06:08;18
John Gates: So
we really wrote the book in order to really contribute something to the field
of leadership development that we hope is really really practical and helps
people to actually have success when it comes to helping leaders and group.
00:06:09;04
- 00:07:23;08
Rick A. Morris: Yeah
I think you brought up something interesting there. The fact that you know
people buy books they read books doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to
make that commitment to get better. I think the analogies I use on the show
quite a bit is you know they can grow rich. And if it's a de facto guide step
by step guide on how to become a millionaire and if you look right on the cover
you know it will tell you how many millions of copies that book is sold but we
don't know. You know millions and millions of millionaires and so there's the
different styles of people that are going to be the ones that buy the book and
never even cracked open and read it. There's going to be the ones that buy the
book and try to read the first chapter but never finish it and then those that
are going to you know go cover to cover and truly absorb it. And so that you
know that's a big thing. People buy it with the intentions. And so what we hope
to do and we hope to get across on the show here is not only do they need to go
buy this book but why do they need to really consume this information. What's
really going to make them better. And so one of the things I found really
interesting when we talked the last time John is you know there was there's
this term that we used which was right next right. We were talking about that
and Sasha could you describe that you know what is right. What are we talking
about when we talk about ripeness.
00:07:23;09
- 00:07:34;07
Sasha Lindekens: Sure
yeah. So that is the way we think about ripeness is it's a general level of
motivation or readiness to make a specific change.
00:07:34;09
- 00:07:55;20
Sasha Lindekens: And
maybe to make it more tangible for folks who want to share a story about one of
my daughters who when she was in kindergarten first grade second grade she had
absolutely no interest or desire to read which was as a doctoral level
graduate.
00:07:55;20
- 00:09:48;29
Sasha Lindekens: It
was mortifying and reading to me that my daughter was struggling in second
grade with Dick and Jane books. And then one day she comes home from school and
she's in tears and she says Mommy Daddy I'm the worst student in the class. And
we saw this as it finally an opportunity for her to take some take some action
on an essay written for her to be open to becoming a better reader. So we asked
her if she would be interested in getting a tutor and she said Yeah absolutely.
And we did tutoring with her for like a six months or so and all of a sudden
her reading scores started jumping up on I think that really captures the idea
of ripeness really nicely because early on no matter what we did we couldn't
get any internal interest desire or appetite to read. But once it became
important to her once she became ripe and she was really open to efforts to
help her read. And a lot of our work in executive coaching or leadership
development is similar to that you know people get 360 feedback assessments
that say they need to work on X Y or Z and that those who are right to make
those changes make significant changes and those who aren't. It's like pulling
teeth. So ripeness is that desire and motivation to make a specific change and
as we were interviewing our most improved leaders for our leaders improved book
started to see some patterns around what enabled people to be right. And that
caused us to come up with what we're calling the ripening model.
00:09:48;29
- 00:10:10;18
Sasha Lindekens: It's
an acronym and we think there's five components to someone being right. The
first is that there's a realization there's some sort of insight that something
needs to change and that the person who is the one who needs to make the change
in other words if not the boss it's not the organization it's them.
00:10:10;18
- 00:10:24;27
Sasha Lindekens: There's
a sense of personal accountability there. So that's where it starts if there's
not a realization and some personal ownership someone absolutely can't be ripe
to make a change.
00:10:24;27
- 00:13:08;27
Sasha Lindekens: The
second piece is calling inspiration and inspiration is around someone having a
motivation or an incentive to make a change. So think of my daughter she
probably had the realization that she wasn't a great reader but there wasn't
really a compelling incentive readings. Boring she likes to go outside and play
or or do other things she's very social and reading probably turned her off
because it was so introspective. But then as she started to put putting the
lowest reading group and maybe I can only imagine a kid at school made fun of
her or something. All of a sudden there was an incentive there and it was a
personally meaningful incentive. So that's the idea in our right model then our
P is around pressure. In other words there's some urgency driver and if you
speak with any salesperson they will tell you it's critical to have an urgency
driver y make a change now. And I think John raised the analogy of the time
example of of New Year's resolutions New Year's resolutions does provide some
sort of a urgency driver it's not a huge urgency driver but there is a why make
that change. And when we look at our most improved leaders we saw lots of
examples where something was creating pressure maybe a job opportunity in
particular was one of the most common that we saw. In other words they got
promoted into a new job and they needed to up their game or there was a future
opportunity. And if they were able to demonstrate broader skills then they
would be the one to two to move into that new opportunity. That's the P and the
type of model the is around expectation and this is around someone's confidence
in their ability to make the change and the knowledge of how to make the change
that we have the motivation and ability to make this specific change. And I
think a lot of times newer executive coaches or managers are well intended to
significant others dive right in on this. You know they say I believe in you I
know you can do it and let me tell you how to do it. So they're really trying
to help someone's expectation without looking at the preceding steps in the
model. And that has a predictably bad outcomes because they haven't. What that
does the person think they need to change is there any degree of motivation to
do that. The last piece of our right model is natural inclination.
00:13:08;29
- 00:13:40;18
Sasha Lindekens: And
what this gets at Rick is some people are more open to acting on feedback to
growing to developing to changing themselves than others. And this natural
inclination serves as a headwind or a tailwind to someone actually being able
to make a particular change. So we talk about ripeness that's really a bit of
an overview of what we're talking about there and we certainly appreciate that.
00:13:40;18
- 00:14:02;29
Rick A. Morris: So
I'm going to dive in a little bit further in that model. And I got a couple of
challenges but a couple of things that I've observed since I've heard that the
first time so we're going to dive into that when we come right back after this
break at least until the Work/Life Balance with Rick Borris.
00:16:53;09
- 00:17:02;10
Rick A. Morris: And
we're back to the Work/Life Balance we're interviewing the authors of how
leaders improve a playbook for leaders who want to get better now.
00:17:02;11
- 00:17:25;23
Rick A. Morris: And
we were just talking through a couple of their model points and in my mind was
was going to actually it was at a client site a brand new client site for us
this week and we were I was talking to their leadership team and I was like you
know by the way if you think that you know everything's perfect in your team in
your world then you're the problem.
00:17:25;23
- 00:17:54;06
Rick A. Morris:
I was kind of giving that speech to the leaders that everybody needs to
improve. Everybody needs to be pulling the string. And if if you're if you
can't see that right then you're the person that has the issue. You've got to
be a leader who's constantly looking and searching for ways to improve. But if
you think a man might seems perfect then that's an issue. And that's a maturity
thing that has come with growth in my world in my early 20s.
00:17:54;08
- 00:18:12;19
Rick A. Morris: I
remember managing restaurants and thinking that you know I was I was I was the
hardest working manager I really was. But I didn't have to be because I wasn't
empowering my team and I thought I was trying to lead by example and I didn't
recognize that I was actually squashing my team and in being a poor example of
a leader.
00:18:12;24
- 00:18:24;02
Rick A. Morris: I
was really just a manager and so there's this point on the low side we'll call
it the blind spot as you guys said and we were talking on break.
00:18:24;05
- 00:18:40;22
Rick A. Morris: On
the high side it's the Dunning Kruger effect of where there's a cognitive bias
where people just don't know they're are that bad. So how do we address that
and get people open to an environment where they can start to look at this and
model and start to recognize that.
00:18:40;23
- 00:18:54;29
John Gates: First
I have to improve before I can start to make improvements and I don't let any
one of you answer that cyclings from three guys that you've sent around to this
360 feedback Rick.
00:18:55;02
- 00:19:10;23
John Gates: I'm
not sure how much experience you've had. Using or receiving 360 feedback. But
that's a great dose of reality and perspective on what other people think of
you.
00:19:10;23
- 00:20:30;03
John Gates: You
know I tend to think of 360 feedback as being looking in the mirror as a
leader. And the numbers don't lie. Right. And there's anonymity involved and
there's a people will be a bit more courageous and direct in raising concerns.
Now certainly I'm confident that all three of us have worked with leaders who
have said in the past oh that's just a perception that's not real that's just
their perception they don't understand or they're biased and they're giving
that feedback because of their biases or something along those lines. Our
mentor Paul aski had a phrase that he was fond of saying. Perception is reality
doesn't. You know if people believe it then it's true. So I think that's one of
the things that we we discussed when we were talking about this dunning kruger
effect or a blind spot is if people have the perception and they're the ones
who determine if you're an effective leader you need to listen to it and it
doesn't matter if you don't think it's true.
00:20:30;03
- 00:21:33;21
John Gates: If
they think it's true then then it's impacting your credibility so that's one of
the places that we start with and the other that came out in the book and that
the three of us have I think regularly utilized or found to be helpful as often
and in one of these 360 feedback reports there's something that's a penetrating
message a message that sticks with people and if you were to ask them for
months six months a year after receiving a 360 feedback report would have a
remember it probably comes back to one short phrase that sticks out in their
mind and bugs them. We certainly saw that with our with our most improved
leaders that they could all point back to a penetrating message and get to that
you know that Rick you probably along your career as you mentioned at some
point you kind of realized there was something about how you were doing it you
could improve.
00:21:33;21
- 00:21:57;15
John Gates: There
probably was a penetrating method right. There was a wake up call at some point
I don't know if it came from within or from someone else. But we tend to find
that there was a wakeup call usually delivered by someone else but sometimes it
comes from the person themselves through experience and maturation as you as
you mentioned yeah there's definitely yeah.
00:21:57;15
- 00:22:43;25
Rick A. Morris: Almost
losing a job or you know a poor review or things like that. Yeah. And you know
the interesting thing about a natural maturation is it's almost like if you
haven't seen somebody in five or six years and then all of a sudden their
appearance has changed drastically. I think people can mature in their business
you know life and the way that they lead people the same way. So I came across
some e-mails that I had written you know six or seven years prior in didn't
even recognize who that person was who was writing those e-mails. You know I
wouldn't let anybody who worked for me write e-mails in that tone with that
kind of ego. And then when I looked who wrote them I was like Dude that was me.
No kidding. You. You you.
00:22:43;27
- 00:24:17;12
John Gates: Your
reaction to that kind of having the so-called embarrassment of like who who
wrote that e-mail oh my god that was me penetrating messages all always have an
emotional component. So you know Sasha mentions you know there's a phrase or a
moment that happens but that phrase or that moment always has emotions related
to it. If someone's not feeling a strong emotion based on you know something
somebody wrote in a 360 feedback or something their boss says you a in a
performance review if they don't feel it they're less likely to make the next
necessary change. And you know you know that emotion can be positive or
negative. You know we tend to find coaches that there are plenty of negative
messages that are getting delivered. If you only do improve things and their
boss or their colleagues in a 360 are saying hey you know you know you are you
know you're a micromanager radiant the best looking your micromanager and you
need to kind of empower us more than people can feel either guilty or
embarrassed or maybe angry that people would say that about them. But that
emotion actually stirs energy that people. They use it the right way or get
help or support or coach and they go on skill development or whatnot. They can
use that energy that negative energy transform into positive action and kind of
do something about it. You know if there's a lack of all logic and no emotion
and the reaction the improvement probably won't take or might not stick.
00:24:17;13
- 00:24:27;22
Rick A. Morris: So
Jeff is that then the penetrating message kind of linking them to the incentive
and the right model is that essentially what's happening there.
00:24:29;02
- 00:25:48;14
Jeff Grady: Yeah
that's right. And there's a motivating factor that people have to avoid
cognitive dissonance. Right. So you know we have had leaders who see themselves
as good people and as caring human beings and then get really tough messages in
a feedback report from their team from their colleagues saying you know you're
a jerk and I can think of a leader right now. I think a lot. I get to good one
pretty recent where they got feedback and says basically you know you're not
treating people well you're acting like a jerk you're dominating airtime.
You're not listening to people you're not being inclusive of others ideas. It's
all about you know when people get that penetrating message right you're being
a jerk or oh my god am I being a jerk. It doesn't sit right with leaders most
of the time and they want to do something about it. There's a different feeling
you have that if someone tells them you're not a very good listener then if
someone tells them hey you're being a jerk but in some cases really that's
what's being said and people feedback and the messages they're getting. And you
know how they take it or how a coach or boss kind of friends that can really
impact whether or not they are the kind of quote unquote get it. Is it
penetrating or not.
00:25:48;26
- 00:28:10;02
Jeff Grady: The
message better have some emotionality to it. And I don't mean emotionality like
yelling screaming and pounding the table but like that the result is some
emotions get stirred in the person. I'll give you one quick story on one that
sticks out to me when I think about penetrating messages. That was a leader not
too long ago who was a great guy just a funny guy never met a stranger. I like
the guy I love the guy. He was great to deal with. Great to work with. He had
moved up and his organization was a fairly senior level this point that I was
dealing with him and he you know had been what most people would consider
successful but he was kind of worried about his credibility and legitimacy. Now
that was that kind of a more senior level of books being added fungibility
bigger team multiple teams et cetera et cetera and his feedback said a lot of
other things hey you're a great guy and we love you and you're great to work
with. And kind of you know you don't like a traditional boss you know you're
more casual. You joke around you tension when there's tension by telling jokes
or kind of like being self-deprecating kind of all things that were good. On
the one hand however he was still kind of overdoing it with the humor and the
funny stuff. And one of the things that he and I talked about his feedback I
said to him you know it's all well and good to be funny and humorous and kind
of not be overly serious and he kind of interrupting and he said to me he got
it before he even said it. He said yeah but I don't want to be the class clown.
And right then. He had his own penetrating message which is there's a lot of upside
to being kind of a nice funny humorous guy but it a senior level if you kind of
overdo it it has a consequence there's a downside. You don't take you
seriously. And for him that was the penetrating message that really stuck with
him and he keeps that in mind quite unforgettable for him. Right. I don't want
to clash Mansel I'm going to button up a little bit when it's appropriate that
Maugham's executive presence. I'm not going to joke around as much as I have
been you know especially with senior audiences and therefore I'll be a better
leader and more credible yeah I'm a little upset right now because Jeff you and
I promise we we're going to share that personal coaching message you gave to
me.
00:28:10;02
- 00:28:40;14
Rick A. Morris: So
I appreciate you sharing that with the audience. No no but that's that's
absolutely true. And I do appreciate the story and I think those stories are
what connects that message. It's it's you know it's great feedback. But once
you connected that to and he connected that right to that personal feeling the
moment he felt that that joke coming on in that meeting is when that that
connection would happen the way he would stave that off.
00:28:41;14
- 00:29:43;11
Sasha Lindekens: Yup.
And it's unfortunate one of the things that I would say surprised this but was
this illuminated a little bit in the research that we did with our most readers
is one or more of us that kind of thought well penetrating messages come from
the coach to say you know that's what we do and you know we think delivering penetrating
messages is a good kind of technique or tool. What we what we discovered is
sometimes it comes from a coach like after the 360 sometimes it comes from the
boss or a colleague or a direct report. And sometimes and this was kind of the
small surprise a fair number of times. It comes kind of from within the person.
Like it doesn't have to come from the outside it can come from within although
kind of helping the person get they are still can be pretty useful. So it can
be positive or negative or can come from multiple sources. As long as it kind
of hits home on a nerve and drives the motion we would consider it a useful
kind of penetrating message a good wake up call.
00:29:43;12
- 00:29:59;21
Rick A. Morris: I
had an interesting example. And if we can take one if we can I think if we can
do that interesting example when we come back we're against the hard break here
we're going to go ahead and let the sponsors pay us here for a second we'll be
right back here in the Work/Life Balance with Rick Morris.
00:33:03;08
- 00:33:11;20
Rick A. Morris: And
we're back to the Work/Life Balance we're discussing how leaders improve and
this is a book by Sasha Lindekens.
00:33:11;20
- 00:33:29;23
Rick A. Morris: Jeff
Grady, John Gates they are with Avion Consulting and you can reach them a avionconsulting.com.
And right before we went to break Sasha was about to share a story on
penetrating messages as well so Sasha please continue that.
00:33:29;23
- 00:33:48;18
Sasha Lindekens: Okay
great. So I was working with a leader a year or two ago and really talented
individual seen as a high potential but tended to consume a lot of the the
airtime in meetings.
00:33:48;20
- 00:34:00;11
Sasha Lindekens: You
know probably spoke over 50 percent of the time and the feedback was seemed to
be pretty ego driven like you just wanted to hear himself speak and wasn't
adding substantive value etc..
00:34:00;11
- 00:35:05;10
Sasha Lindekens: So
we're going through that feedback and it came back. It came back to me he said
to me I think it was the next day. Wow this was really shocking to me and
bothersome not necessarily due to the the business impact of it but I'm trying
to be a good Christian and this is not the behavior of a good Christian. So as
Jeff was talking about sometimes the the penetrating message is from what you
know it's the words of the coach or the feedback provider is using and
sometimes it's how the person internalize it and it's based on their their
their value system and that sort of thing. So that was an interesting example
of a penetrating message and I think it also served as a bit of a guiding
metaphor for the individual which is one of our other or other findings. So John
do you want to jump in and talk about.
00:35:05;12
- 00:35:12;26
Rick A. Morris: Yeah.
Yeah. You had talked about guiding metaphors before when we talked back in
September so why are those so powerful.
00:35:14;12
- 00:38:36;03
John Gates: Yeah
I think they're powerful because they they do a couple of things to help
leaders who are trying to improve just focus and recall what they're working
on. I come back to not only sort the example just now but just example from a
few minutes ago and he referred to the guy and came up with the term class
clown. He's not literally a clown but that two word description will probably
stick with him and help him to stay focused on what it is he's trying to
improve at. Another example something I experienced very recently is kind of in
the same vein just a few days ago I got a very nice thank you card from a
leader that was in one of our leader development programs last year and very
seasoned guy pretty senior leader. But he been passed over for promotion for a
couple of years now and in this thank you card he informed me that actually he
just got promoted to the executive vice president level. And very kindly said
hey I think the program I went through with you and your colleagues was very
hopeful toward that end it helped him to you know improve in some areas that he
was focusing on and I think that translated into a promotion. And I think I can
probably guess what part of the program he found most impactful. So this guy
played sports at a very high level and in one of our coaching conversations
something dawned on me I thought about a particular team that I knew that he'd
be familiar with given his background and in fact two particular players on
that team and so I offered up I said you know it strikes me that maybe you see
yourself a little bit more like I'll just call it player a win maybe to
accomplish what you're trying to accomplish. You really need to see yourself
more like Player B. And that really seems to resonate with him. Soon after that
he shot me an email saying I cannot play here. I am player B. And it had
something to do with really what it means to be a leader as opposed to just a
great team player and so to use that as an example I think this idea that I am
player be you know insert player name but I am player B. It helped him to stay
focused on what he was working on. He and I referred back to that sort of
analogy a number of times in our coaching conversation. So it sort of helped
with recall. It sort of guided his behaviors so it would be one thing to say
hey here the three or four behaviors that maybe you need to think about
changing to be the kind of leader that you want to be. And we did some of that
and I think the metaphor the analogy that hey this is the kind of player I want
to be like I think really helped the guy as he did more than some list of
action steps. But getting back to something just said earlier I think maybe the
most powerful thing that this comparison or this metaphor did for this leader
was that it really sort of struck him on a visceral level. It was really clear
that he no longer wanted to be perceived as a player a good team player. But
the guy who's really not you know a leader and he really wanted to be seen more
as player be the guy who was the team captain and the obvious leader on the
team. And so I think because really it was something he related to on such a
visceral level. I think it caused him to really take a small team effort
seriously.
00:38:36;04
- 00:38:54;29
John Gates: So
I think those are a few reasons why the guiding metaphor is is something that
we heard in our research as as really a powerful tool to help readers to get
better and then some of the things that John mentioned they are that tends to
happen when you don't have a guiding metaphor.
00:38:54;29
- 00:40:07;22
John Gates: So
we know cutting metaphors helps people focus and remember and kind of guide
themselves one way. If you don't have a guiding metaphor what we've noticed in
our other work in our leaders that don't improve as much or kind of coaching
engagements where it's been less sticky and they've kind of fallen off the
wagon more often or kind of backslid is that people sometimes can't really tell
you what the specific things that they should be working on are like six months
or a year later. Fast forward six or nine months and it's like hey what are you
working on. And they can't. Or we you. What are you trying to change
specifically in your behaviors as a leader and like they can remember kind of
one of the behaviors but not the other story that they originally had committed
to. And it's much easier more memorable to kind of remember the metaphor and
therefore then remember the children being kind of go with the metaphor so it
both kind of unifies things in some ways in people's mind kind of a vision of
it and it kind of tends to stick better out kind of individual behavioral
action items. You know don't always end up being sticky. All right. People
forget them over time.
00:40:08;23
- 00:41:23;29
Rick A. Morris: Yeah
it certainly brings it to life for me. You know I come up with one an auditory
thinker. So what's great about having a radio show like this is I work a lot of
my junk out right here on the show. It had done a show several several months
ago and during that had come up with the analogy for myself. Sysiphus and you
know so I have a great team around me. But but being a small business owner and
doing that stuff. It's it's the analogy for me with having massive ADD and
having to focus on so many different aspects of my business at all times was pushing
the rock up the mountain and hoping that the mountain was bigger every day so
that you know I would have work. But if you take that breath and get distracted
that the mountain the rocks are going to slide down. And I just have to keep
pushing and trying to keep pushing. And so I had come up with that analogy but
that has stuck with me and I'll even kind of smack myself on the rest when I'm
you know have lost five minutes or ten minutes down some YouTube spiral or
something going. All right Sysiphus let's rock. Right. But it works. Ever since
I did that show and ever since I made that analogy that that has become the
standing joke for me but it absolutely 100 percent works. I'm a living
testament of that.
00:41:24;03
- 00:42:07;05
John Gates: Ever
since that occurred we've so so many examples Rick very much like that as we
were doing our research. You know things like I need to be careful not to give
people answers to the test or I need to be careful not to pile on or I need to
be careful not to get too far into the weeds. It just seems like there's
something about creating a mental shortcut I want to you know stop trying to
roll this rock or this rock up this hill. There's something about that that
just really causes people to you know focus and take more seriously than maybe
they have in the past some here that they know they need to work on.
00:42:07;05
- 00:42:22;13
Rick A. Morris: I
couldn't agree more. And so Sasha you know we talked also really quickly and
we're about three minutes away from a break here but we do want to talk to as
well. Why do you think critical conversations were one of the findings of your
study.
00:42:25;02
- 00:43:01;28
Sasha Lindekens: Right.
So so what we've found is our most improved leaders cited a series of
conversations that they had gotten involved in after receiving 360 feedback or
after being part of a development program and they thought that was very
instrumental in enhancing their effectiveness. I think there's probably three
reasons why these conversations are so important. Number one leadership is it's
an interactive sort of event it involves influencing others and communication
is how that happens.
00:43:01;29
- 00:43:11;02
Sasha Lindekens: And
if you're looking to become more effective it's around engaging in new sorts of
discussions or changing existing conversation patterns.
00:43:11;02
- 00:43:46;20
Sasha Lindekens: So
I think the first reason why these critical conversations were important is
because leadership is about human interaction. A second reason I think these
are important is around these critical conversations that people were engaging
in often lead to perception change so people perceive you in a certain way and
then you're going back and saying Hey thanks for the feedback I just saw a
leader do this yesterday. Thanks so much for the feedback. Here's what I'm
working on with really value your feedback and input going forward.
00:43:46;20
- 00:43:53;23
Sasha Lindekens: And
oh by the way do you think I'm working on the right sorts of things. Well that
part's people's ears up when they hear something like that.
00:43:53;28
- 00:44:55;17
Sasha Lindekens: Maybe
leader x actually is going to change that takes some guts to do that to admit
foibles in front of others. Let me pay attention and see if there are specific
sorts of changes. I think the second reason these critical conversations are so
important is because they facilitate perception change. And the third reason is
a lot of times these sorts of feedback people were receiving were related to
conversations so this individual isn't engaging in team development or this
individual isn't providing enough direction or setting a vision and then to act
on that feedback he would need to have some of these critical conversations.
Three reasons I think why critical conversations stood out as an important
message are most proofreaders and again.
00:44:55;17
- 00:45:33;17
Rick A. Morris: So
all of this that we talked about so ripe as we talked about penetrating message
is guiding metaphors critical conversations. All this can be found in how
leaders improve a playbook for leaders who want to get better now. These are
the authors right here Jeff Grady John Gates Sasha Lindekens who we've been
talking about all segmental we've got one more segment for them but while we're
on break you can go and get your own copy on amazon.com or you can research
them at avionconsulting.com. We're going
to take our final break right here of the show we'll be right back after two
minutes you're listening into the Work/Life Balance right.
00:48:35;17
- 00:48:38;23
Rick A. Morris: And
we are back to the final segment of the Work/Life Balance.
00:48:38;25
- 00:49:06;15
Rick A. Morris: Quick
but a trivia as most of you know the music the lead in music can lead our music
to the Work/Life Balance was created by a group called the Party originally
formed by five members of the Mickey Mouse Club from the show in the 90s. It's
a group that I am a business manager and manager too and the one of the only
members that was on all seven seasons of the Mickey Mouse Club was Jason
Hampton who's appeared on the show with us a couple of times in today's
Chasen's birthday.
00:49:06;15
- 00:49:21;19
Rick A. Morris: So
the redhead ace on the dance floor. We wanted to say happy birthday to you
brother. We wanted to do a very popular segment on this radio show which is ask
our guests what is some of the best advice they've ever received and we'll start
with Sasha.
00:49:21;19
- 00:49:47;02
Sasha Lindekens: Great
question. I would have to say that some of the best advice I've ever received
is don't be a victim being a victim. If you're choosing to be a victim and
instead choose to take personal accountability and ownership that's served me
well. Many many times in my life.
00:49:47;14
- 00:50:09;05
Rick A. Morris: It's
amazing said that there's an incredible app called peptalk that I use in the
mornings to kind of get my engine running and Les Brown says don't be a. Says
be a victor don't be a victim. I love it. I love it. Yeah the victim goes it.
Go for it have it. All right Jeff you're up.
00:50:10;21
- 00:51:52;04
Jeff Grady: Yeah
I think that some of the best advice for a long list from a lot of smart people
wise people give me good advice over the years but one that stands out for me
is kind of a way to the idea of like getting better as a guy who's always
trying to get better myself and help others get better try and you know take my
own medicine. How can I be better as a coach as a leader or as you know as a
father as a husband as a whatever you know always trying to improve them. I've
gotten great advice about focus on the stuff that really matters. I have a bad
habit of trying to focus on everything and prove everything that I touch and
see and come across. And it's been really useful advice I've gotten at a number
of times from colleagues and in my personal life that I've gotten that feedback
from from my partners and friends here. Sasha and John to reinforce that
message of not everything is equally important what you're trying to help a
leader get better or whether you're personally trying to improve and is stuck
with me and I can continuously trying to kind of get better at getting better
at the right things and putting my energy into the big bucket and not trying to
kind of solve for everything so that's one of the best advice that I continue
to try and take advantage of you
00:51:52;19
- 00:51:59;05
Rick A. Morris: I
love it I actually was reviewing it today the love priorities from John Maxwell
and yeah it and talks about the three Rs what is required. What gives the
greatest return. And you know what brings me the greatest reward in
prioritizing.
00:51:59;05
- 00:52:06;23
Rick A. Morris: You
know based on those three it's of things. Yeah it gets things in perspective.
John what about you sir.
00:52:08;08
- 00:53:10;16
John Gates: Well
of course you've posed this question to me on air one other time. I recall my
answer from last time it was actually from my father and it was you know a
pretty profound piece of advice related to the importance of judgment in the
area of leadership and I want to give a different answer this time and actually
get a shout out to our fourth partner Steve Williams who's a great leadership development
professional and actually even though he's not one of the coauthors of this
book he was heavily involved in the writing of the book. So I shouted to Steve
and he gave me some advice. Not too long ago which was essentially in a range
of contexts. Just be careful the sort of moderate pace not feel like I got you
know get through all of my talking points in a given given context and
interestingly something happened in the last few months that I think really
happened to me in that area and has caused me to really focus on that more. And
so it was good advice and I feel like it's made me a better professional
outstanding.
00:53:10;24
- 00:53:13;26
Rick A. Morris: So
John any closing comments for the group?
00:53:14;08
- 00:54:17;21
John Gates: You
know my only closing comment is this at the outset of the program today Rick
you made reference to the book Think and Grow Rich and I recall that book from
when I was a young adult. And I guess what struck me when you use that example
is that as you pointed out you know it's a good book full of lots of good
advice for how to get rich but of course not everybody who's read the book is
actually rich. And I think that that gets at our whole approach to this study.
We didn't want this just to be a book where we say you know as leadership
professional leadership development professionals Here's our advice on how to
get better. We wanted to do a comparison of you know to go back to the thinking
rich analogy. Who were the people who actually did get rich. And when we
compare them to the people who didn't. What's the difference. And so you know
really we tried to tackle the question when you compare leaders who actually
have gotten better over time to those who have tried but haven't. What are the
trends that we see and we hope in the last hour that we've been able to share a
few examples of the insights that came out of that research.
00:54:17;23
- 00:54:38;11
Rick A. Morris: I
think he did. And again the book is called How leaders improve a playbook for
leaders who want to get better. Now you can find that on Amazon.com. Please go
get a copy and support the authors that support the show. And again Sasha Jeff
John I had a fantastic time the hour flew by. I really enjoyed it. We'll hope
that you guys are return to the show soon.
00:54:41;28
- 00:55:30;05
Rick A. Morris: Coming
up next week we're going to be interviewing Paul Cummings. He's written a book
called it all matters. A hundred and twenty five strategies to achieve maximum
confidence clarity certainty and creativity 125 strategies. That's a lot. So
we've only got an hour we'll see how many of those we can get through. As
always we love you guys for joining the show. We enjoy our listeners again. We
we've got numbers at the end of the year there 91 countries are listening to
the Work/Life Balance so if you're in one of those 91 countries we love each
and every one of you as we continue to grow this show. Lots and lots and lots
of exciting things are coming. So stick with us right here on the Voice of
America business network. We enjoy. We love you and we hope you'll tune in next
week right here on the Work/Life Balance. You've been listening to Rick Morris.
