170: Managing Inner–and Outer–Critics with Dave Stachowiak

Pete Mockaitis
Dave, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Dave Stachowiak
Hey, Pete. Thanks so much for the invitation. I’m glad to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes. Me, too. So you have an interesting peculiarity about yourself which I was intrigued to hear. You are a lover of daylight savings time. What’s the story here?

Dave Stachowiak
There’s so many good reasons to love daylight saving time, and one of them is I have maybe a little bit of obsessive-compulsive disorder, not in an unhealthy way, but in a healthy way of I want all the clocks in the house to be aligned, if not perfectly, at least pretty close to being aligned perfectly. And so the changing of the clocks every six or seven months allows me the opportunity, without seeming weird, to go around and actually align all the clocks in the house and in the car perfectly right at the exact time that they’re supposed to be.
That said now, as a parent, I also have a wish for permanent daylight saving time because every time daylight saving time is going on or off, it totally throws kids’ sleep schedules into whack for a week. And I’m not quite sure why we don’t just have it be the same time all the time. So there you go.

Pete Mockaitis
I think I remember learning some of the history about it. And there was an episode of Veep that just cracked me up. This person was drafting legislation to abolish the time changes and to continue finding private prisons.

Dave Stachowiak
I’m not sure about the private prisons, but I’m all for the daylight saving time permanent… I’ve actually seen petitions online and I daresay I might have distributed a few.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, you are a man of principles. And maybe final follow-up on the daylight savings time is what is your master time that you’re operating from? Is it from your phone, or how do you reference that?

Dave Stachowiak
Ooh. Nice. It was the iPhone, and now it is my Apple Watch because I’ve read a number of articles about the preciseness that Apple has utilized with the watch. And it turns out Apple went through all kinds of lengths to ensure that the time on Apple Watches is as precise, as close to the atomic clock as you can get that’s reasonable in a consumer product. And so next time you’re at your New Year’s Eve party, go find the person with the Apple Watch because they’re the ones who know exactly when New Year is turning.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, boy. Well, so you have an eye for precision, then, so I look forward to hearing your pointed insights to some of these items. You have such a wealth of great resources with your podcast and your website, Coaching for Leaders. And going back and forth, there were a couple of elements I thought would just be a slam dunk. But let’s see. Wherever we go, it’s all good. I was really intrigued to hear some of your perspectives, first of all, about silencing the inner critic, which I think plagues many of us. What’s the story there?

Dave Stachowiak
It’s interesting, actually. We talked about daylight saving time and the precision that’s involved with it because the irony perhaps is the work that I’ve done over the last 10 to 15 years in people development, there’s almost never precision. There’s almost never right or wrong or exact answers for anything. And actually, this first topic is a perfect example of that because the inner critic is something that’s so personal to each one of us. And I don’t think there’s an always or never for a lot of things with people. And certainly with the inner critic, I think that’s a challenge, too.
And I don’t think we can silence it entirely. I think it’s just how we manage it to help us to be a little bit more effective with it. I had on the show a while back a woman named Tara Mohr. She’s the author of a really popular book called “Playing Big.” And she was a really good teacher for me in this way because the traditional advice is that when we hear someone’s inner critic coming out, when they’re telling us “I can’t do this,” or “I’m going to struggle with taking the next step on this,” or we hear a lot of fear, the traditional response for leaders and coaches and managers is “How do we build that person up? How do we help them to enhance their confidence?”
And Tara was a really good teacher for me when she came on the show because she said you’re not going to generally win an argument by trying to argue with the other person’s inner critic. Rather than doing that is to become aware of it and to become aware of your own inner critic, of course, and to hear its voice, but also then to recognize that everyone has an inner critic. At least most people do. And if you are allowed the permission to help the other person to perhaps get some clarity in what their inner critic is saying and what it sounds like, how do you then transcend that and move beyond it, and not silence it but move forward in spite of it?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that sounds like a great approach. Could you maybe bring that to life with an example?

Dave Stachowiak
Can I give an example of myself?

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely.

Dave Stachowiak
I think one of the bigger things I struggle with is hosting a show on leadership and doing something that is actually kind of uncomfortable for me and something I’ve struggled with through a lot of my career. And it’s not that I necessarily think I’m a horrible leader by any means, but I have really found that I’ve had to learn a lot of the things that I’ve had to learn along the way.
So for example, we’ve done a bunch of shows on giving tough feedback. That’s something that I’ve found that’s really challenging as a leader. And I’ve had times where… I remember way back in one of my very first management positions that one of my employees… I don’t remember if he said it to me or if he said it to one of my colleagues. It’s been a lot of years now, so I don’t remember the details of it, but I remember I got the message from him that “I would just really like it if Dave would tell me how it was.”
And that was a really good lesson for me because I learned from that that I needed to talk to people. But my fear was and my critic was, and in some ways still is, “I’m not good enough. I’m not going to be right. I don’t know enough to be able to give this person feedback because I’m not an expert. Maybe they’re right about their worldview and I’m wrong.” And so one of the interesting things that Tara taught me when she came on the show was that it’s really helpful to personalize and name your inner critic and to figure out what kind of voice it is you hear.
And I was thinking, “What’s the character of my inner critic?” And I think mine is probably like a Charlie Brown character, feeling sorry for myself. “I’m maybe not cut out for this. I’m a little too awkward.” And one of the things I’ve learned over the years is it’s better to be genuine, but it’s better to keep moving and try things and to mess up and to have failure. But getting stuck in that really uncomfortable place of just frozen and in fear is not a good place to be. And so I think that’s where, at least for me, getting clear on the inner critic has helped, of recognizing when it happens and then moving forward in spite of that fear.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s great. When you give it a name or a character, it becomes more distant by definition, like this is not me. This is a thought, a kind of recurring set of thoughts that I have a little bit of arm’s length distance from, and I can then engage a little bit. And so you’re saying, then, the best move is not so much to say “Oh, no. Come on, Dave. You’re great. You’re a super leader. You can do this,” is not to go in sort of direct competition with it, but rather how would you counter that?

Dave Stachowiak
Yeah. Well, that’s what we’ve all been taught to do, right? When someone comes to us and they say, “I can’t do this. I’m not good enough,” whatever, I mean, the kinds of things a lot of us say to ourselves (I’ve certainly said them to myself), and the other person says, “Oh, no, you can. You can do it. You’re great…” Tara made the point when she came on the show and said there are times that someone says the exact right thing and the exact right phrase that you need to hear. But for the most part, you’re probably not going to make a lot of traction of trying to argue with someone’s inner critic, and rather, to take a step back and to maybe observe that. “It sounds like there’s a lot of fear here.”
What would it be like to do this even though you’re not ready? And how could we maybe even test it a little bit or to try something that would give you some experience doing it? Because a big part of fear is just we don’t know what to expect, so we sometimes will start with something small or take a small action. That can be huge in moving us forward and then identifying if that fear is real or if that fear is really just fear.
I remember hearing a TED Talk. I think it’s a TED Talk from Chris Hadfield who was on my show a while back. A Canadian astronaut. And he gave this great talk on the distinction between fear and danger. So in his line of work as an astronaut, danger is real, right? So there’s so many things that are dangers of flying into space, and then there’s also a lot of fear. And he made the distinction between the two, of you have to be able to identify what you’re just afraid of and where is there actually real danger. And what can you do to mitigate the danger, but also how do you move beyond just having the fear?
And I think if we can help people to step back and to test that, and even for ourselves to sometimes take that first step forward, then we really are able to make a better decision. Is this something I’m just afraid of, for no maybe logical reason, or is there actually really real danger here? And most of us, in most of the roles we have in most of our careers, the danger is not that present. It’s usually fear in that old acronym False Evidence Appearing Real to stand for FEAR. It is the things that hold us back that aren’t necessarily going to help us in our careers.

Pete Mockaitis
And that point about danger is really interesting coming from an astronaut. It’s like, well, yeah, you could have yourself floating into space and die a cold, cold death. So that’s real danger. Or this space shuttle could explode. It’s happened tragically. So these points of danger are kind of really life-threatening, and so I think maybe our other fears… It’s like there’s a sense that there is danger, but that danger is on a smaller order of magnitude, like “I might get really embarrassed. Someone might no longer want to be friends or collaborate with me. I might see my bank account go down a good bit.” And so that’s sort of the level of danger that’s there in, I think, most of our work fears.

Dave Stachowiak
Indeed. And I’ve had all of those things you just mentioned happen to me. And now looking back, the amount of stress and worry that I put into those situations, either at the time or leading up to them or afterwards, wasn’t worth it most of the time. And it was Mark Twain who said, “I’m an old man and I’ve known many troubles, most of which never happened.”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, he’s so good with the quotes.

Dave Stachowiak
Yeah. He wrote that late in his life, and it just perfectly encapsulates what I think fear and the self-critic does to a lot of us, is it holds us back from something that, yeah, in the moment feels really uncomfortable and leading up to it and maybe afterwards. And so I think one of the things we can all do to really move us forward is to challenge ourselves to not eliminate the inner critic. We are human beings after all. We’re always going to have inner critics. But it’s to recognize it and say, “Okay. I hear you, inner critic. Here you are. Here’s your character. Here’s your name maybe. And I’m going to listen to you, and I’m not going to allow that to hold me back, and I’m still going to move forward in spite of that inner critic.”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes. And I like that. It’s sort of redirection, sort of like judo. It’s like we’re not going to try to overcome it, but rather come at it from the side or redirect the power of “Yeah, you’re right. I’m actually not quite ready and 100% competent and able to crush this challenge in front of me, but that’s okay. I’m going to take some steps forward and see what happens and sort of manage my downside risk and run some prudent tests, and we’ll just kind of go baby steps a little bit forward each moment.”

Dave Stachowiak
In fact, I’d argue that’s better than feeling 100% confident because one of the things that I think we all discover as we go through our careers is that most of the time, the things that are really the big opportunities for us, the big career moments, are things that we don’t have a lot of clarity on. And one of my very favorite quotes on leadership comes from Colin Powell who said, “Use the formula P=40 to 70,” in which P stands for the probability of success and the numbers indicate the percentage of information you’ve acquired. Once the information is in the 40 to 70 range, go with your gut.

Pete Mockaitis
So there’s two variables there. There’s the amount of information collected and there’s the probability of success. So I’ll just make sure I understand this correctly. You’re saying no need to wait until you have 100% certainty, clarity of information? Is that what it’s saying, that the information is also success, like information about how certain the outcome is?

Dave Stachowiak
Yeah, indeed. So the mistake for a lot of us is to wait until we’ve got 90%, 95%, 100% of the information and assuming that we’re going to have more success because of that. And the reality is we’re never going to have 90% or 100% of the information, and so we have to go with our gut based on the information that we have.
So I think what Powell is saying is we’ve got to do our due diligence to collect information, to get all the facts, to investigate, do research on things when we’re making decisions in our career, when we’re making decisions as leaders, when we’re making decisions about family and kids, where our kids go to school, and all those kinds of things that we do in our lives. But we can’t be paralyzed by the nagging voice in our head that says, “You’ve got to get more information. You’ve got to get more data.” We sometimes have to move forward in spite of that.
And one of the things I’ve learned in having a podcast over the last six years, Pete, is that I need to not have everything all figured out because my default setting, for lack of a better term, would be to wait until I have 90%, 95% of the information in most situations. And I have learned many times now over the last few years that if I will try things and test things, that I’m much more successful in the long run rather than waiting until I’ve got it all figured out and feel perfectly comfortable.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it. Thank you. And as we’re talking, it’s funny. I’m thinking, “Okay, what percent am I going to be cool with?” and I’m thinking, “Well, 67% means it’s like I’m better than 2 to 1.”

Dave Stachowiak
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
So that would be my threshold, near the limits of Colin Powell there. This is enriching. Thank you. And so now I want to talk a little bit about, in the realm of feedback, since we’re talking about the inner critic, and one piece that you were concerned about for yourself was the giving of feedback. So I’d like to kind of go on both sides of that feedback coin, both the giving of it and the receiving of it. That’s been a real theme over the course of this show here in terms of there’s a lot of fear that’s associated with it and then also a huge opportunity associated with the giving and the receiving of feedback. So could you share with us some of your learnings and best practices first on the giving feedback side?

Dave Stachowiak
Giving feedback is something that, of course, we all need to do in some way. And I think it depends what your role is within an organization and where you are in your career. If you’re in a leadership role, giving feedback becomes not only a good thing to do. It’s really a responsibility that we have to make people better, to help people to continue to grow. And so there’s an aspect…
I love what Kim Scott teaches (he was on your show recently, Pete) of really being very clear and direct, but also caring for people personally and as an entire person. And if we hold both of those at the same time, I think more often than not, that is going to serve us and serve the other person really well. And if we’re just giving feedback for the sake of giving feedback or to make ourselves feel good, or we’re just telling people good things because we don’t comfortable giving them the tough feedback, then that’s where we get ourselves into trouble. So I’d actually refer people back to that conversation on the giving feedback because I think she’s brilliant in how she articulates that in really doing it in a great way.
The interesting challenge I’ve had more is how to accept feedback. And I hadn’t really thought about this a lot until I had Sheila Heen on the show. She’s one of the co-authors of the book called “Difficult Conversations,” which is one of my favorite books on how to have tough dialogue with people. And she had a book that came out not too long ago called “Thanks for the Feedback.” And one of the things that they found as they went around the country and were teaching the Difficult Conversations material is that a lot of people were struggling with how to accept feedback. And how do you determine if feedback is good and valuable? And how do you actually get some good feedback? And what do you do with that information when you get it?
And so I, like a lot of people, was under the impression that the best way to get feedback is to fairly consistently ask people this question, which is “Do you have any feedback for me?” And I’ve been doing this for years. In fact, most of the time, when I would finish a project with a client or a training course or a coaching engagement or anything, I would often ask at the end, “Do you have any feedback for me?” And usually, the answer would be fairly vague. It would be something like “Oh, that was really good,” or “No. No feedback.” That was the most common thing. “No. No specific feedback. It was really good.” So I’d always hear some version. I shouldn’t say always, but I’d often hear some version of that.
Once in a while, someone would say something was helpful. But it’s kind of a broad question and I would get a pretty broad answer. And I never really thought that much about it. I just thought, “Oh, I’m doing a good job, right? I’m a good person. I’m a good employee. I’m a good leader. I’m asking for feedback regularly, and people are saying generally nice things, so I must be doing a good job.”
So what I learned from Sheila Heen when she was on the show is I wasn’t asking the right question, because when we ask a general, broad, vague question, we get a general, broad, vague answer. So one of the things she points out in her book and she coached me on is asking this question: “What’s one thing you see me doing or failing to do that holds me back?” Now, the power of that question is it’s assumptive, first of all. So it assumes there is something that isn’t working. And I think the other powerful piece about it is that it’s one thing. So you’re not asking for “Give me a dissertation on everything I’ve done.” It’s “Give me one thing that you see me doing or failing to do that’s holding me back.”
So when I first heard this question, I was like, “Oh, that’s so interesting. I’m going to try it.” So the next day, I went in and had a meeting with a client. And we had done many presentations before together. It was kind of like a team presentation event, and I would often ask him at the end of those events previously, “Do you have any feedback for me?” Of course, my standard question. Then he’d say something vague or nice. And this time, I did the exact same thing.
At the end, though, I said, “What’s one thing you see me doing or failing to do that holds me back?” He said, “Oh, the slides you’ve designed for this presentation. There’s too much information on one slide. If you could put each individual point you’re making on one specific slide and make it more graphic, it will look a lot better.” Now, by the way, Pete, I have taught slide design for years, so the irony was sort of funny. But I looked at my slides afterwards and he was absolutely right. I was not following some of my own design guidelines that I had been teaching, and I put too much on the slides for this particular presentation.
And I looked at him and I said, “That’s great feedback. Thank you so much.” And I did it differently the next time. And so it was really funny to me because here’s someone I had been asking the feedback question to for actually a couple of years prior to that and I’d never heard anything really that valuable. But all of a sudden, I changed the question I was asking and I got something that was helpful to me and ultimately to him very, very quickly.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fantastic. And because it’s realer and assumptive, “What’s one thing you see me doing or failing to do that holds me back?” I think it also requires, as with great feedback conversations, an extra dose of courage and humility to go there well, because it’s funny. I’m imagining I’ve got a keynote coming up here shortly. Most of my conversations with the client are just like “Oh, yeah, that seemed pretty good. Good, good, good.” And then that’s about the extent. And part of me doesn’t want to sort of prompt or incept the client, if you will, to come up with something he or she didn’t like. But the other nobler, growth-oriented part of me really does want to know. What is one thing or a couple of things that could make an impact? So tell me, how do you think about that one?

Dave Stachowiak
I think we all need to make a distinction when we’re asking for feedback. Are we really asking for feedback because we want to get better, or are we fishing for a compliment? And I have many times been fishing for a compliment. If I look back in my career, when I asked, “Do you have a feedback?” I was hoping they would say something like “Oh, you did a great job. That was really good.” And I felt good in the moment.

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Dave Stachowiak
But if I look back on some of those situations, I’m sure there were things, and even some I know that there are things that I could have done better and things that probably were apparent to at least some of those people I talk to that I could have done better. And if I had asked that question, I would have gotten a lot better a lot quickly.
So I think the question comes down to are you more interested… And I don’t mean just you, Pete. I mean all of us. Are we more interested in being comfortable, or are we more interested in being competent and in continuing to grow and continuing to learn? And there are times for all of us, for me, too, that I’m interested in being comfortable.
So I think the real challenge for us is to push ourselves a little bit more to at least once a day or once a week or once a month or whatever is comfortable for you right now in pushing your comfort zone a little bit, of being willing to engage more so you can get more competent in your work. And the people who are willing to do that consistently are the people that are going to get better and better in their careers and ultimately develop skills that will make them more valuable in the marketplace.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely agreed. And what’s interesting, though, is also when it comes to maybe the fear component or the desire for the comfort in the moment, I think that on the receiving side, when I’m on the receiving side of that question and someone I’m managing or leading asks me that, it’s like a treat. It’s like, “Oh, well, thank you so much for asking.” It’s like I’ve been handed a gift. I’ve been handed a pass to share any number of little observations I’ve had and that maybe I’ve been holding on to in terms of “Oh, well, I haven’t been the ideal leader either, and we’re under a lot of urgent things, so I don’t want to make an issue of this.”
I appreciate them just kind of buckling down and getting it done on time. So I don’t want to be a jerk about it, like “In addition to staying up late, do it better.” So when I receive that question, I love it. It’s like, “Oh, thank you so much for asking.” And then I will often end up saying good things anyway because they’re good things to say, and say, “And at times, I would really love it if you were more succinct about the way we expressed this,” or “It would be great if we had a little bit more lead time associated with that.”
And so I love hearing that question, and I don’t think I’ve ever walked away from a conversation that started with that question with a lower opinion of the person afterwards, like “You know what? Now that you got me thinking about it, you are kind of lousy.” That just never happened.

Dave Stachowiak
Exactly. And almost every time, we miss the mark in some way. So even when it goes really well, even when we perform really well on a project or we’ve really satisfied a client or we’ve really helped out an employee, there’s almost always an opportunity to have done something differently or better. And so part of what is important with this is just doing it more often because the more often we do it, the more comfortable we get with discomfort. And the more comfortable we all get with discomfort, then it’s more about the learning. Then it’s less about hearing the critic and the emotions and all that getting in the way. That’s still there, but it’s quieter. And it allows us to open ourselves up to really challenge ourselves in so many ways.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I like that. Comfort with the discomfort really opens up doors. I really like that. And I want to hear a bit more, talking about frequency of feedback. I see this sometimes in literature in which there’s millennial bashing or millennial longings being expressed, and this is kind of a hot button issue, is some will say, “Oh, millennials ask for feedback too much…” Sometimes, I’ll read that somewhere online. But I’d like your take. It sounds like you’re asking for feedback frequently. Is it possible to do it too much or to be annoying or seem needy in some way?

Dave Stachowiak
Certainly, it’s possible. And that said, I think it comes back to what we were talking about a minute ago of are we asking because we’re fishing for a compliment and we need more reinforcement, or are we asking because we’re really trying to get better? So I think that that’s one of the challenges for each of us to ask and to test ourselves on before we ask for that feedback. And I also think it’s really helpful to be real with the people you work with and even the people who are managing you, and also asking the people you’re managing, if you’re the manager, of “What do you need?”
So I don’t think there’s nothing wrong with needing to hear positive reinforcement and needing to get some sort of regular feedback. And one of the things that I think that the millennials are kind of misbranded on is they need to keep getting praise all the time. I think one thing that’s true is they like getting a lot of interaction and they like being noticed. And that comes with positive reinforcement. It also comes with real feedback, too. And so that’s something that if you know that you need, I think there’s nothing wrong with asking for that.
And same thing, I think there’s a responsibility, if we’re working with someone who needs that, is to ask and to find out what people need and what’s going to keep them motivated. One of my favorite things to ask in a leadership position, and I often coach the leaders I work with on, is people say, “I just don’t know how to motivate this person, and I don’t know what they want or what they like,” or “Should I give them a lot of feedback?” or “Should I give them a little bit?” or “What do they need?” And one of the first things I’ll ask is “Have you asked them?” And almost always, the answer is no.
And so one of the things that we can do for ourselves is to just ask the other person, like “How would you like me to give you feedback? Would it be helpful to get feedback regularly? Is that something you like? Is it helpful to get praise? Does it annoy you? What do you like to be recognized on? What motivates you? What gets you up in the morning?” And so that may not be the first conversation you have with someone, but I think early on in a relationship, especially if you’re in a role where you’re a stakeholder and they’re reporting to you in some way, that’s a critical conversation to have, and that helps navigate some of that.
But to get back to your question, yeah, you can overdo it, of course, but what does it come down to? Are you asking to get better, or are you asking because you’re fishing for a compliment? So that’s the question I think all of us should be asking ourselves when we’re seeking that feedback and in those situations asking for interaction.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. Well, Dave, tell me, is there anything else you want to make sure to mention before we talk about some of your favorite things?

Dave Stachowiak
I love the quote from Eleanor Roosevelt. It’s commonly attributed to her. I don’t know if she actually said it. Apparently, there’s some dispute. But she said, “Do one thing every day that makes you uncomfortable,” or “Do one thing every day that scares you.” And I think it’s a great professional development plan for each one of us, is if we do that, and particularly what we’ve been talking about, Pete, feedback, our inner critic, having some of these tough conversations, if we’re willing to push our comfort zone a bit in these areas, not that we have to leap across a building in one day or anything like that, but if we’re willing to push our comfort zone regularly, it makes it a lot easier.
My very first job out of college, I went to work for a company that had a reputation for very tough, in-your-face feedback. And my first manager was the person in the region of the company that had the toughest reputation for that. In fact, she had the nickname of the drill sergeant, and it was well-earned. She was very in-your-face almost daily about a lot of different things. And I’ll tell you, the first couple of weeks, it was really uncomfortable. And after a while, I got used to it and I actually really appreciated it. And her praise, when it came, was really appreciated because I knew it was real and it was genuine.
And after a while, I got pretty good at that myself because I had been around her long enough and I was able to take that. And when I had a team and moved up in the organization, I was better at that than the average person in the organization. And it wasn’t because of me per se, but it was because I was willing to work through that tough situation with her and work with someone that was very different than my style. But I learned a lot and I took a lot away from that.
So I think courage comes before confidence, right? So getting feedback, if you’re asking for it, feels a lot better than when it comes unsolicited. So you can start to get used to asking for it and having open dialogue, and be willing to hear tough things and then do something with them and show people that you’re paying attention to feedback. That’s huge. That’s the kind of thing most people don’t do. A lot of people are comfortable with mediocrity in their careers.
So if you want to be awesome at your job, like your podcast says, Pete, being awesome is about pushing the boundaries. It’s being different than what everyone else is doing. So if you’re willing to do that for yourself and for the people around you, you really will tap into the awesomeness.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. Thank you. Now, could you share with us a favorite study, a piece of research or experiment you’ve found intriguing?

Dave Stachowiak
Like you, I’ve been a student of organizational behavior for many years, and I’ve always been interested in the Hawthorne studies that were done here in Chicago, Pete, just outside Chicago back in the early part of the last century. And famously, the Hawthorne effect came out of these studies. There was a plant there that researchers went in and they were looking at the differences in work productivity when they changed the lighting in the factory.
And one of the interesting things that came out of the study is they noticed that productivity went up regardless of what they did when they were doing the research. So what they found is that what ended up being significant was the fact that workers were being paid attention to. And now there’s been some disputes over the years as to how valid some of these studies were and some of the conclusions that came out of it, but there’s certainly been enough other studies that have shown that it’s really important for us to pay attention to people.
And I think that that’s key whether you’re a colleague, whether you’re reporting to a manager, whether you’re talking to a supplier, whether you’re raising kids. And there’s studies now even that will show that… I was trying to track down one of them, Pete. I knew you were going to ask about studies and I couldn’t find the reference to it. But someone on my show was talking about recognition a while back, and there was a study they were citing that showed that as far as engagement in employees within the organization, that managers who mostly gave critical feedback still had more engaged employees than managers that gave no feedback at all.
So you were better off doing it wrong and screwing it up than you were doing nothing. And so I think that’s a real call to action when I think about the work I do with customers and clients and in my relationships. Even times when I mess things up, that’s better than doing nothing. And it shows care and it shows concern. So that study is just kind of always in the back of my mind as the importance of showing up every day.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. Thank you. And how about a favorite book?

Dave Stachowiak
I’m a huge fan of the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” I’ve been working with the Dale Carnegie Organization for years. It’s probably one of, if not the bestselling business books of all time. If you haven’t read it, it’s so worth a read because Carnegie gives all of us in that book the tools and the principles and the framework for how to do exactly what he’s talking about, how to actually interact with people well, and also what to do when you mess up. And a lot of the things are common sense, but they’re not common practice, and reading that book will help you to really put it into common practice.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite practice or habit?

Dave Stachowiak
Probably my biggest productivity hack is doing a weekly review, and it’s based on David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” system a bit. So sometime between Friday afternoon and Monday morning, I will take an hour and I will plan out the entire week. And I have a checklist that I run through every week. It starts off with write down five good things that happened the last week. So in some weeks, it really is forcing myself to write down, like “Remember good things are going on, so don’t just get tied up in all the stress that’s happening.” So I write down five good things that happened the last week. I kind of look at the last week, and then I’ll plan my schedule around what’s most important.
And I spend usually about an hour, sometimes an hour and 15 of planning out the entire week. Most weeks, I do that. And when I do, I am dramatically productive all week because I’m not thinking about what should I do next. It’s already thought through for me because I’ve spent one time that week thinking through what are the most important things I need to be doing in order that are both urgent, that have to be done, but also the things that are important in the long term that would continue to grow the business, help my clients, grow my career, all those things. And that is absolutely almost essential at this point and where my career is at for me to do that each week.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. And would you say there’s a particular piece that you share, and when you do so, it tends to get note taken or retweeted or really resonates with folks?

Dave Stachowiak
There’s certainly been a few things over the years, but one of the quotes that (I’ll put this on Twitter once in a while) really resonates with me… This actually goes back to the University of Illinois. You and I both graduated, Pete, from U of I, and we actually have the same degree. Did you know that?

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right. Yeah.

Dave Stachowiak
We have the same degree, and so I was thinking about this when you and I were going to talk. I grew up in Naperville, a suburb of Chicago, and so I would drive to go see my parents from Champaign-Urbana. It’s about a two-and-a-half-hour drive. And I had a red pickup truck in college, and I would get my red pickup truck and I’d put in Zig Ziglar tapes. Zig was like the first guy I listened to that was kind of like in the motivational training space, and I absolutely fell in love with his stuff. And his quote was the one that I’ve built a lot of my philosophy in my career around and my business around. And the quote is “You can have everything in life you want if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. It’s a winner.

Dave Stachowiak
It is. Anytime I put it on Twitter, there’s always a bunch of people who retweet it because it’s so true.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, it’s good. Thank you. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Dave Stachowiak
Coachingforleaders.com is the best way to go. And if you’re a podcast listener, as you are since you listen to this, just Coaching for Leaders is the podcast.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, excellent. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for those seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Dave Stachowiak
Yeah. Thanks, Pete. I think if you found what we’ve talked about today helpful, I have a free audio course on my website. And since you’re listening to a podcast, I think a lot of our listening community really likes audio courses. The course is titled “10 Ways to Empower the People You Lead.” If you go on coachingforleaders.com, you can sign up for a free membership. You’ll get that course. It’s 10 minutes a day for 10 days.
And what I’ve done is I’ve taken all of the expert interviews I’ve had over the last five years on the Coaching for Leaders show. And I’ve distilled it down to 10 key lessons, and it’s the voices of the people and the experts in each of those lessons. And we’ve talked about a couple of them today. The inner critic is one of them, but there’s nine other areas there that I think will be really helpful to anyone who’s wanting to become more effective in their work and in their life.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. Well, Dave, this has been such a treat talking to a fellow University of Illinois Organizational Administration degree holder and broadcaster.

Dave Stachowiak
It’s awesome.

Pete Mockaitis
And player of Zig Ziglar audio tapes whilst in college. We have much in common. It’s been a treat. And I wish you lots of luck with your career and show and family and all you’re up to.

Dave Stachowiak
If I had known you were listening to Zig Ziglar tapes in college, we should have hung out more.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s true.