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Jan 22
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930: These Charting Mistakes Undermine Your Communication with Nick Desbarats

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Nick Desbarats breaks down the surprisingly common mistakes we make when visualizing data–and shares basic principles for communicating data more effectively.

You’ll Learn:

  1. Why most charts are confusing or ineffective
  2. The top three mistakes people make with charts
  3. Why a “neutral” chart is an ineffective chart 

About Nick

As an independent educator and author, Nick Desbarats has taught data visualization and dashboard design to thousands of professionals in over a dozen countries at organizations like NASA, Visa, Bloomberg, Shopify, and the United Nations. He delivers main-stage talks at major data conferences and is a guest lecturer at Yale University, and his new book, Practical Charts, is an Amazon #1 Top New Release. 

Resources Mentioned

Nick Desbarats Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis

Nick, welcome.

Nick Desbarats

Thanks. I’m really delighted to be here. To be honest, I’ve been listening to the show, and it’s kind of an honor to be here. It’s a fantastic show. I’ve really been enjoying it.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, thank you. Well, I’m honored to be chatting with you. I’ve been loving your book, Practical Charts. First, I just want to ask, you’re a very sharp guy, and I want to know. Of all the places you could be investing your energies to enrich the world, why have you decided to go deep on charts?

Nick Desbarats

That’s a good question. My career path, can be summarized as circuitous, as in very indirect. I started out in software, and as a software developer, I got kind of bored of that, and then kind of moved around software organizations for a bit, doing some sales, marketing, that kind of thing, product management, product design.

And in my 30s, I kind of stumbled on to a lot of research around from the field of psychology, Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, cognitive biases, psychology perception. I was just smitten. I just inhaled that information, which I figured was kind of a sideline interest to my kind of real job. But then I went to a workshop, a data visualization workshop from Stephen Few, who’s one of the big gurus in this field in 2013, and it’s just mind-blowing. It really just opened up a whole new kind of field for me that I really wasn’t aware of, and that combined my two major interests, which were basically psychology and data.

Because, as I think it will come out probably in our discussion, there’s a lot of psychology when it comes to designing charts. And so, I just went whole hog into that and I, actually, started teaching these workshops in 2014, and it was a huge privilege, and I did that for a number of years. Steve then retired in 2019, and then I used that as kind of an excuse to start developing my own courses and workshops. And I’m still extremely interested. I have not gotten bored yet, that’s for sure.

Pete Mockaitis

All right, Nick. So, I get the memo that you absolutely love this stuff deeply and dork out over it, as do I. Tell us, what’s really at stake for the professional in terms of whether they become Master Jedi-level with their charts versus can fumble their way through PowerPoint just fine like the rest of us?

Nick Desbarats

Well, I’m not sure I would agree with that last part of your sentence, fumble through PowerPoint and sort of be okay just like the rest of us. I think, to be honest, if you haven’t had some formal training, basically, in this kind of thing, then you’re probably hitting a lot of problems and a lot of which you might not even be aware of. You might be leaving your audience, for example, with an incorrect understanding of the data, or they’re confused but they won’t say anything because they don’t want to look stupid.

Or the problems could be more obvious. They might actually be complaining about your charts, and saying, “This is just unnecessarily complicated,” or, “I don’t get it,” or, “What’s the point of this chart?” I like to compare it to sex and sales because these are two other things that people think you are kind of born knowing how to do, it’s like, “Well, what’s the big deal? Creating charts, how hard can it be? Select the data in Excel, and hit Make a chart, and Bob’s your uncle. There’s your chart.”

But like both of those other things, if you haven’t actually kind of learned the basics of how to do it, you’re probably not doing it very well. We’ve all had bad experiences with bad salespeople, for example, and it’s just because they just didn’t know how to sell very well. And it’s kind of the same thing with charts. There’s more to it than I think most people realize.

In fact, I kind of think of data visualization, i.e., kind of the process, or the expertise of making charts, as kind of almost like its own language, and until you’ve learned the basic kind of spelling and vocabulary of that language, you’re probably not communicating very well, whether you realize it or not. And so, many of the charts that I see are full of these kinds of basic, what I call, kind of spelling and vocabulary problems with charts, which are things like poor chart type choices, scales that are too wide or too narrow, poor color choices, and just a whole host of other problems.

And so, reading a chart like that from the audiences’ perspective is kind of like reading a poorly written document, a document that’s full of spelling errors, and grammatical mistakes, and weird word choices. And so, it’s going to be really hard for them to read it, which means they, oftentimes, are just going to skip it, they’re not going to read it. Or, if they do, they could be very confused by it, or, worse of all, come away with an incorrect understanding of the data.

And this is something that happens a lot more often than people tend to realize. And we’ve all seen charts that deliberately misrepresent data, but what a lot of people don’t realize is that this also happens accidentally way more often than people realize. And so, if you had some training in the sort of spelling and vocabulary of data visualization, you’re going to avoid all these problems, and then you’re going to create charts that are just way easier and quicker to read and understand, and, ultimately, way more likely to sort of accomplish whatever purpose prompted you to create a chart in the first place.

We don’t create charts for no reason. There’s always a reason. We’re trying to explain something to somebody, we’re trying to persuade them to do something, or make them aware of something, and all of those things are much more likely when the basic kind of spelling and vocabulary of your chart is competent, is done well, just like a document that’s written well.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, well said, Nick. Okay. So, if you don’t have some formal training in charts, and you think you’re doing fine, you may very well be accidentally misleading people, and they could be murmuring behind your back about how bad your charts suck. Or, even then, maybe if the people you’re presenting…

Nick Desbarats

Or, to your face.

Pete Mockaitis

Or, to your face. I guess, even if the people you’re presenting your charts to are not as sophisticated and able to discern what’s jacked up about your charts, I think I like that analogy to writing is it’s sort of like they might just meet your data with a shrug, like, “Yeah, okay.” Sort of like a piece of writing can be riveting like a page-turning novel, like, “Oh, my gosh, what’s going to happen next?”

Or, just like, “Okay, I guess,” and you’re just sort of tuned out, so it’s like folks aren’t even able to receive what can really be, and I guess I’m a bit of a dork here, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say, if you understand the story some chart sequences are telling you, they can be heart-thumpingly thrilling. I mean that in all sincerity.

Nick Desbarats

Hey, man, yeah. You’re in my tribe.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And so, if you’re thinking, “Yeah, Pete, I’ve never seen one like that,” I’m thinking about some of the folks who I think do it amazingly well that are available for view might be Andreessen Horowitz at A16Z. They’ve got a number of slide presentations that were on SlideShare and still, I believe, publicly available, which really do, they take you through a story, and you’re like, “Oh, wow, so that’s what’s going on with whatever tech sector, or investment, or whatever. And I really feel like I’ve read a novel, except in the artform that is a sequence of charts.”

Nick Desbarats

Yeah. Well, I mean, data storytelling is a big buzz term right now. Like, over the last few years, it’s just really taken off. And I think it deservedly so. I think, though, what has gotten maybe less attention but is still really important is, like I said, that sort of basic spelling and vocabulary, because a lot of what I see is sort of data stories are kind of torpedoed because of really basic chart design problems.

Because, oftentimes, a data story essentially consists of a series of charts, just like you were describing, but the chart types are wrong, the scales are too wide, the colors are weird, the labeling isn’t precise enough, and so users don’t actually even understand what the numbers in the chart represent correctly. They’re just having to think too hard, having to read a 45-degree or a vertical text, and so the way I sort of look at it is, yeah, storytelling is great, and it is a skill that I think a lot of people should be developing but before you do that, learn the basic language first.

You can’t tell great stories, you can’t write great essays or great novels if you can’t spell. And I think that there’s a lot more awareness of that now than there was, like there is a spelling and vocabulary to this. And if you haven’t really mastered that, then your stories are going to flop. You’ve got to kind of walk before you can run, essentially.

And, unfortunately, a lot of people, well, a lot of people do realize that, but lots of people don’t. And so, they’ll jump straight into courses or books about storytelling and data storytelling without having really mastered the basics first, and then they wonder why their data stories aren’t working.

Pete Mockaitis

Beautiful. I want to hear, and so we talked about these basic fundamentals, and I think you did such a fine job of coming up with the nuanced distinctions in your book, Practical Charts. And starting from the very beginning, I think you say we even start with the wrong question, which is, “Okay, I got a bunch of data,” and you think, “Okay, what’s the best chart type.” And you say, “Hold up. That is not the ideal first question.” Set us straight, Nick, what should we be asking ourselves?

Nick Desbarats

Well, you’re right, of course. Typically, when we sit down to create a new chart, we ask ourselves, “What is the best way to visualize this data?” And I think when you’re sort of maybe starting out, that is the question that people often have, but I think once you start to develop more experience, more expertise, you start to realize that, “Actually, the question I should be asking is, ‘Do I know why I’m creating this chart? Is there a problem that I’m trying to make the audience aware of? Am I trying to persuade them to do something? And if so, what is that thing? Am I just trying to explain something to them? And if so, what is that?’”

Because, until you’ve figured that out, you can’t really make any design choices. You can’t really choose chart types. It’s even hard to know even what data you should even be showing? Should you be showing the last six months of data or the last 12 months of data? All of these things depend on what I call the job – the job of the chart.

And so, really, I think that’s one of the things that I try to accomplish in the book, and also in the Practical Charts Course that I teach, is by the end of the book, you should be thinking of charts as graphics for doing a job, and not visual representations of data. Because if you think of charts just as visual representations of data, well, then even really bad charts would be fine because they are visual representations of data, but only good charts do their job. And so, you want to aim for a chart that does its job.

And so, at the end of the day, ultimately, that’s all that matters. People tend to get hung up on this sort of secondary characteristics, like how precisely people can estimate the values in a chart, or how fast they can read it, or how much information they can recall when the chart is hidden from view. I mean, they’re important but they’re not the thing that, ultimately, matters. What, ultimately, matters is, “Did the chart actually do whatever thing you wanted it to do? Did it do the job that prompted you to create that chart in the first place?”

And it might sound a little obvious but it requires a huge mental shift, and I can see it happening during my course just by the way that I’m teaching it in person. It lasts two full days, and it takes about that long to really fully make that leap to that sort of new way of thinking.

Pete Mockaitis

So, charts are graphics for doing a job and not mere visualizations of data. And so, I think when it comes to jobs, maybe you could lay out the menu for us. Because I think, sometimes, I find that the job is, “Okay, we’re being persuasive. We are trying to make a sales pitch, and the goal is that, whatever graphics we’re including will make the point that we are really awesome,” or, “This market opportunity is a big deal, so okay.”

But I think other times, in the course of day in, day out working with colleagues, they might say something like, “Hey, Nick, how about you put together a presentation to give us an update on where we stand?” So, it feels kind of vague or generic or broad or general, just like, “Show us what’s the state of things right now, or over the last month.” And so then, how do you think about choosing charts for that kind of a job?

Nick Desbarats

Yeah, you’re right. There tends to be a lot of focus when you look at different books and courses on data visualization, articles. They tend to kind of assume that we’re always trying to persuade people or something. But you’re right, you’re absolutely right. That’s not always the case. In fact, very often. We’re just trying to explain something to somebody, make them aware of some interesting trend, for example.

And so, yeah, and I try and sort of address that in the book and in the course as well to say it’s important to understand that these charts can have a very wide variety of different kinds of jobs. And, in fact, sometimes we’re creating charts just for ourselves, like charts that no one is ever going to see. We’re just using the chart for analysis. We’re using it to discover new insights and patterns in the data. And that is just a completely different use case than something where you’re abusing storytelling, for example.

And so, one of the things that I find is a little bit sort of, maybe even a little frustrating, is that people think that, “Oh, every chart has to tell a story. Everything is a data story.” It’s like, “No, some things are data stories but not everything.” We’re not always trying to persuade people to do something. Sometimes we are but sometimes we’re not.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay.

Nick Desbarats

And, by the way, sometimes when we get those kinds of requests that you were talking about in terms of, like, oftentimes, we’re just not even asked for an update; we’re just asked for data, where, “I need to see a breakdown of expenses by department for the last 12 months.” And those are actually very tough situations because the obvious next question that I think you should be asking is, “Well, why? Like, are you worried that there are certain departments that are spending too much? Or, do you want to see how they compare to their budgets?” There could be all sorts of ways to respond to that request.

And, unfortunately, a fair amount of the time, if we try and get that information, we can’t, it’s like, “Well, it was the CEO who asked, and they’re really busy, and so just give me a chart.” And it’s like, “Oh, crap, now I’m in a position where I have to try and create a chart, and I don’t know why I’m creating it.” And so, I have a whole section in the book about how to deal with this, and I have a technique that I call  spray and pray, where you, essentially, create multiple views of the data, and you make some guesses about what question they might have in mind, or what they might be wanting to know, and you build different visuals for those three, sometimes even four, different potentials reasons why they’ve might asked you for that information. And you hope that one of them is going to hit.

Pete Mockaitis

Nick, I think that’s so great, is that often it’s just a clarifying question away in terms of, “I want a status update of how things went over last month.” And if you ask a couple follow-up questions for clarification, it can be quite illuminating, it’s like, “Yes, I’m looking for cost savings opportunities within our operation.” “Oh, okay. Well, then I’m going to think about things differently,” versus “I want to see what looks weird, or different, or off, or broken so that I can allocate my energies to preventing a problem before it gets worse.”

Or, “I want to see what might be some of the most compelling opportunities that we need to go after in the subsequent months.” Any of those very different directions could spring forth from a, “Hey, just give me an update.”

Nick Desbarats

Yeah, exactly. And so, we’re lucky in those situations where we can actually ask those follow-up questions and get that follow-up information. And the first step, of course, realizing that you need that information in order to design your charts in the first place. But there are times when we ask and we don’t get answers, it’s like, “No, just give me an update,” or, “Give me expenses for the departments, and don’t ask me any more questions.”

And so, I think it’s important to know how to address both of those, but, really, the key thing that I think is, the step that people miss, is that step of figuring out, “Okay, why am I creating this chart in first place?” And that’s a crucial step. Because if you don’t know, if you don’t have some kind of insight that you’re trying to communicate, or some kind of question that you’re trying to answer, most of your chart design choices will be random, and your chart will end up communicating random insights, which is not helpful.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, I’m going to get into some very particulars, but before I do that, I’d love to get some general principles in terms of what are perhaps your top tips, or principles, or mistakes you observed as folks are trying to do this kind of thing?

Nick Desbarats

One misconception that I see a lot, especially amongst people who have more experience, who have more expertise, is that they believe that creating a chart or getting good at data visualization is just something that sort of requires experience, and trial and error, and intuition that’s developed over a long kind of period of time. And that’s what I believed for a long time as well.

But what I realized through teaching Steve’s courses, and now my own courses, is that it’s actually possible to distill a lot of these guidelines into surprisingly precise guidelines that don’t necessarily rely on having years of experience. And so, that was sort of the impetus, really, for me creating my course, and then the book that went along with it, is I was a little bit frustrated by the fact that people said, “Well, if you’re showing the breakdown of a total, sometimes it makes sense to use a pie chart, and other times a bar chart, and other times a stacked bar chart. Use your judgment. Do what feels right.”

And I was like, “Hold on a second. No, actually, these chart types are not interchangeable. There are specific circumstances under which it makes sense to use one or the other.” And so, really, that’s kind of, I think, a bit of a different approach that I brought to the field, and it is kind of, in some cases, it’s a bit controversial to say, “I think that we can actually sort of codify or formulate a lot of these guidelines in ways that can be applied by people who have even very little chart design experience.”

And they can follow steps and have a number of decision trees, in the course, and in the book as well, and you can just follow through the decision tree, and it will point you to the right chart for the right situation, the right design choice, or an expert-level design choice, anyways.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, Nick, I love that so much, and that really conveys that same analogy I’m reminded of, of like writing, in that some folks are just like, “Well, it takes a lifetime to really refine your writing style and to make it excellent.” And then you got Strunk & White, The Elements of Style who just dropped, “Remove unnecessary words.” And, like, that’s really a pretty good rule almost all the time. And it’s like, “Oh, okay, just by doing that, my writing is better.

Nick Desbarats

Yeah, exactly. And that’s actually, coming back to that language analogy, sometimes the way I describe sort of at least a lot of the books and courses that I’ve seen about data visualization is that imagine English as a second language, or you don’t speak English, and you’re trying to learn the difference between “they’re,” “their” and “there” the three ways to spell “there.” And your textbook says something like, “Well, this is actually kind of a nuance. It’s sort of ca omplex question. And over time, you’ll develop intuition which will sort of help you figure out what is the best spelling.”

And so, it makes it really hard and slow to learn the language, but as native English speakers, we know, it’s like, “No, actually, I can give you very simple guidelines which you can learn in, like, 60 seconds, which will point you to the correct choice every time.” But I think the difference with data visualization is that formulating those sorts of simple-looking guidelines and decision trees was actually really hard. It’s like the hardest thing I have ever done. And so, it’s not surprising, I think, that it’s taken a long time for those kinds of simple-looking guidelines to emerge about data visualization.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, Nick, could you maybe give us top three guidelines in terms of this makes a huge difference, and mistakes happen all the time?

Nick Desbarats

Yeah, probably number one is chart type choice. The most common problem I see in charts is something that was a line chart when it should’ve been a bar chart, or it was a stacked bar chart when it should’ve been a pie chart, for example. And I forgive people for making these kinds of, what I consider to be, mistakes, anyways, because there are a number of considerations that go into those kinds of choices.

But because it is so tricky, and there are so many factors to take into consideration, like, for example, if you’re just trying to figure out how to show the breakdown of a total, there are at least eight things you need to take into account in order to decide between sort of the five major chart types for doing that: your pie charts, bar charts, stacked bar charts, etc. And so, yeah, that’s probably the most common mistake that I see, and the solution is, well, you’ve just got to get a bit of training to know how to do this.

Probably the second most common type of problem that I see are problems with quantitative scales. So, these are the scales of numbers that you see in charts, like the number of employees, or dollars, or whatever. And I have a whole section in my book about that, and it kind of surprises people, because they’re like, “Isn’t that pretty straightforward? Like, why not just go with the default scales that come out of Excel, or Tableau, or whatever?”

And I’d say probably, maybe a third of the problems that I see with charts are related to quantitative scales, scales that are too wide, too narrow, start at zero when they shouldn’t, don’t start at zero when they should, have too many stops on them, for example, or not enough. And so, there’s a lot to learn about quantitative scales. And so, again, if you haven’t had that training, then this is a very common way that charts, essentially, misrepresent the underlying data.

So I guess the third most common would be labeling problems, usually insufficient labeling, or insufficiently precise labeling. And so, these are situations where you see a chart, it’s maybe a line chart, that says the quantitative scale is just labeled with transactions, and maybe it’s for over 12 months or something like that. Okay, is that like successful transactions, or successful and failed transactions? Is it accumulative total of transactions running throughout the year? There could be all sorts of ways of interpreting that.

And so, with inadequate labeling then, once again, the audience might assume that they’re looking at numbers that aren’t the actual numbers in the chart. And I would also kind of put in that labeling of key insights. This is sometimes controversial when I say I’m a big proponent of actually putting messages right in the chart, “We have a problem because transactions have been declining since July,” and actually putting that, like write it as a collar, or maybe even as the title of the chart. People tend to shy away from that but I think that there are good reasons to actually be really explicit about, “If I had a reason for showing you this chart, I might as well tell you what it’s for.”

Pete Mockaitis

Nick, I totally resonate with that. And it’s intriguing when I trained on this sort of thing, I’ve been accused of having sensational slide titles or headlines, I was like, “Wow, if these are sensational then you are accustomed to very, very boring…” I’m not swearing, I’m not using extreme language. I’m just saying things like, “Sales of this segment have dropped radically since this quarter.” It’s like, “Huh?”

And I guess that is sensational but I guess what’s really driving it, and my observation, is fear. And so, like, “You’re basically saying that the guy in charge of that thing over there is a screwup and a failure.” I was like, “No, I didn’t say. I’m just commenting on the most noteworthy thing that is to be gleaned from these data.” But it seems that folks are often, in many cultures, quite shy about calling a spade a spade because it has all sorts of emotional implications under the surface.

Nick Desbarats
Yeah, I think that there’s really kind of two ways that that problem surfaces. The one is what you just described, where you’re basically saying something that’s kind of maybe politically sensitive. And that happens, unfortunately, a lot. As the people who handle the data, we’re often the first to see the bad news. We’re the canary in the coal mine. We’re the deliverer of bad news.

But I think that there’s another kind of knee jerk or inherent objection that people have to putting any kind of interpretation in the chart at all. 

A lot of people think that that’s actually kind of unethical, that we’re biasing people’s interpretations of the data, and that charts should be these kinds of neutral interpretation-free, just the numbers kinds of representations of the data. And this all sounds great. It sounds perfectly noble. I don’t think it’s even theoretically possible though because this kind of relates to what we’re talking about before. When you create a chart, you have to have a reason for creating it in mind, a question you’re trying to answer, an insight you’re trying to communicate, an action that you want somebody to take. It’s baked into the chart.

Because if you don’t have that in your mind, you don’t have some specific job or thing that you’re trying to accomplish with the chart in mind, then you don’t get a neutral or unbiased chart. You get a chart that produces random insights, essentially. And so, because our interpretation of the data, and why the audience needs to see that data is baked into the chart, anyway, it’s in all of our decisions, it’s what we based the chart type choice on, it’s what we based our color choices on, it’s what we based our scale ranges on, and a whole slew of other choices, we might as well just tell them, “This is why I think you needed to see this data.”

They may disagree with it. They may have a different interpretation of the data, and that’s fine. Then you sit down and talk about it, and say, “Okay, we seem to have different views of reality in this situation. Let’s figure it out together then.” But the solution is not to try and produce these sorts of very generic “interpretation-free” charts because, like I said, that’s not even theoretically possible.

Your charts will always have your interpretation of the data built into them anyways, so you might as well kind of save the audience a bit of brain cells and just tell them, “This is why I think you needed to see this data.” And, like I said, if they disagree with it, that’s fine. Then you talk about it and try and get on the same page.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, Nick, I want to challenge you if we could have the rapid version of thinking about chart type and axis scale matters. Could I have the two-minute version of when is the absolute best and absolute worst conditions for using a pie chart?

Nick Desbarats

Yes. So, if you’re not very familiar with the data visualization field, you might be surprised to learn that pie charts, they are very controversial. The community is split. You have people who are violently opposed to pie charts, and those who think that they are just fine. And I’ve been in both camps. I used to be an anti-pie charter but then I sat down a couple of years, I had a long hard look at my reasons, and realized, “You know, there are valid use cases for pie charts.”

Pie charts have a couple of unique properties. The first is that they allow us to perceive fractions of the total much more quickly and precisely than any other chart type. Compared to a regular bar chart or stacked bar chart, I can immediately see, “This is about a quarter of the total,” “This is about two-thirds of the quarter,” “These two parts together represent about three-quarters of the total.” This discussion can get a lot more nuanced though, and, in fact, I just wrote a 3500-word article in the journal of the Data Visualization Society last month about this, and it went pretty viral because it is a big question.

But ultimately, that’s what I think is a major point that people miss around pie charts, and people who don’t like pie charts, is that they allow people to perceive fractions of the total much more quickly and precisely than any other chart type. Plus, the fact that it’s a pie chart immediately tells the audience that they’re looking at the breakdown of a total before they would’ve read anything. They don’t have to read the chart title or the labels or anything. They immediately know they’re looking at the breakdown of a total.

Whereas, with a regular bar chart, for example, they actually have to read the chart title, and the labels, and figure out, “Oh, these parts of a total. They’re not, for example, values over time” Whereas, the pie chart, it’s like, “Bang!” It’s instantaneous. So, they do have some unique properties that make them, I think, the best choice in specific situations. But knowing what those specific situations are requires a bit of training.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. All right. So, that’s the thing. It’s like if what we are all about is quickly and intuitively conveying the proportion of one segment relative to the whole, the pie chart can do that pretty intuitively. But if we’re venturing into other territories, like, “Let’s see how these proportions have shifted over time,” then maybe the pie chart is not going to be our friend.

Nick Desbarats

Yeah, or if, for example, you want to compare the parts very precisely, say, “Okay, here’s a breakdown of our sales by region.” But the main point of the chart is to show that we sold more in the West than we did in the South. Well, especially if those values are very close to one another, you should use a bar chart because one of the weaknesses of pie charts is that they don’t allow the parts to be compared very precisely to one another. But if your main insight is that, for example, the West plus the East accounted for more than a third of our sales, well, that’s going to be a lot more obvious in a pie chart than it will in a bar chart.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And what’s the top thing we should never do with our axis scale?

Nick Desbarats

That’s a tricky question because, as I mentioned earlier on, there are a lot of mistakes that people make all the time with quantitative scales. If I had to pick just one, I’d probably say that it’s starting the scale at zero when it shouldn’t be started at zero, or vice versa, not starting at zero when it should’ve been started at zero.

And this, again, is one of those questions that people tend to think has a really simple answer but it doesn’t. Like, I have a whole section in the book on how to make that decision. It’s not as straightforward as a lot of people think. And, by the way, that’s kind of the case with a lot of these design choices. People tend to think that they can be made very simply. Like, for example, when it comes to choosing chart types, a lot of people think, “Oh, well, if you’re showing data over time, always use a line chart. Or, if you’re showing the breakdown of a total, always use a pie chart.” But unfortunately, those are simple, yeah, but you’ll often make bad design choices.

And so, whenever I see very simplistic rules, like, “Always start the scale at zero,” or, “Never start the scale at zero,” unfortunately, they’re just too simple. You’re going to end up making bad design choices all the time if you rely on those very, very simple rules of thumb. It doesn’t have to be really complicated but it can’t be that simple. It needs to be a little bit more complicated.

Pete Mockaitis

All right, tell us, what would be a horrible context situation for us to start an axis at zero?

Nick Desbarats

So, I guess the classic example here would be body temperature. Let’s say we’re in a hospital and we’re tracking the temperature of a patient over time, and whether you’re working in Celsius or Fahrenheit, if you start the scale at zero, well, first of all, it’s going to be hard to see small shifts that could be very meaningful. If you’re going from, I don’t know…

Pete Mockaitis

Ninety-eight point six Fahrenheit to 102.

Nick Desbarats

Okay, yes. Or, 37° Celsius, choose your methods there. But if it just goes up two or three degrees, of course, that’s often very meaningful from a medical perspective, but you’re not going to see it very well if the chart starts at zero. And there’s another wrinkle in that situation as well, which is when you’re talking about something like temperature, at least on the Fahrenheit or Celsius scale, zero is kind of a meaningless number.

Zero degrees, Fahrenheit, for example, is not the absence of heat energy. That would be zero degrees Kelvin, which is something that’s totally different. And so, I would say that, yeah, in a situation like that, starting the scales at zero would be a huge mistake.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Thank you. Well, now you mentioned earlier, before we’re recording, that you have a bit of a reputation as a chart type killer, which feels like that needs to be a lyric in a rap song or something.

Nick Desbarats

The nerdiest rap song ever. I would listen to it.

Pete Mockaitis

And so, I noticed in your book that there was nothing, there was no mention of the Marimekko, or Mekko, and when I was in consulting, we were utterly infatuated with the Marimekko or Mekko. And we’ll link to this in the show notes if you all never heard of it. Sometimes it’s used as, for example, a market map. So, we might have on the X-axis, maybe we’re talking about different kinds of computing processors.

And so, on the X-axis, we might have phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, servers, and so we see, “Okay, so that’s the relative proportion of different segments of different devices that use processors.” On the Y-axis, we might see how much penetration percentage a given player in that field has, like, Apple versus AMD versus Nvidia.

So, we like to use that in consulting to show, “Hey, Nvidia, look how you’re doing nothing in tablets,” for example, “But all your competitors are. Maybe you should, too.” That’s often how that goes on but you’ve got a different point of view. Let’s hear it.

Nick Desbarats

Well, yeah, so I don’t discuss Marimekko Charts in the book because I tend to find that…well, maybe sort of coming back to one of the basic principles that I have. I’m a big advocate, of course, of showing the data in the simplest way possible that still communicates whatever it is that the chart needs to communicate.

And in my experience, it’s very, very rare that the simplest way to say what you need to say about the data is with a Marimekko Chart, which is kind of a complicated chart type. There’s a good chance you’re going to be needing to explain it to people, and there’s a lot of kind of moving parts to it. You have the heights of the bar segments, as well as the widths of the bar segments, and so it tends to be kind of hard on our working memory, the part of our minds where we do all of our thinking, which is actually very small. We can only think of a very small number of things simultaneously.

And so, if I’m thinking of using a chart like that, I always look for “Are there simpler chart types?” It might even be a combination of charts. I might have two or three charts but that are going to be sort of simpler to consume, and yet that say the same thing about the data. And so, I’m not saying never. It is possible where the simplest way to say what you need to say is a Marimekko Chart. It’s just in my experience it’s usually not. Usually, there are simpler alternatives.

I do mention chart types, though, like box plots, for example, and connected scatterplots, which I think are virtually never the simplest way to say what you need to say about the data. And this has generated a certain amount of sort of response when I’ve published articles about why I don’t use box plots anymore, for example.

But I’ve just found that things like strip plots, jittered strip plots, stacked histograms are virtually always much easier for audiences to understand because box plots are pretty abstract, if you even know what it is. A lot of your audience probably won’t even know what a box plot is, and they require lots of time to explain, and there are virtually always simpler ways of saying what you need to say about the data.

And so, I wouldn’t necessarily put Marimekko Charts in that category in terms of, like, they’re never the simplest way, but there often are simpler ways of communicating the information. 

So, yeah, there are a couple of chart types that I think fall into that category of never the simplest way. Like I said, box plots, connected scatterplots, and bullet graphs, for those who know what those chart types are. There are virtually always simpler alternatives. And I have articles about all of these. Maybe we can link to those in the show notes as well.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, that’s really resonating on a couple dimensions when it comes to box plots. I think the first time I encountered the concept of a box plot, I had to think about it for, like, 20 minutes and look at the box plot and then the percentiles. But then once I did, I was like, “Oh, okay. Cool.” It’s sort of like I had to do that hard work of understanding the concept of a box plot. And then when I saw them later, I appreciated them. But if you haven’t done that, then it’s going to not resonate. It’s, like, you’re in a different language.

And, likewise, with the Marimekko’s, I remember I was on a consulting project, and we were sort of showing a number of employees by country on the X-axis, and by function on the Y-axis, so we were using these Marimekko’s. And we had a client who hated the charts so much, he forbade us to make another one. And then I had a colleague who made one, nonetheless, and shared it with the manager, who said, “Didn’t you hear the guy? He said no more Marimekko’s.” And the consultant passionately pleaded, “It’s the best way to show it.” And so, he was shot down because the client tends to win these sorts of debates.

So, yeah, point taken. We can fall in love with a thing, and in so doing, lose connection to the audience and where they’re at.

Nick Desbarats

Yeah, that’s a great point, too. I wrote a blogpost with a very clickbait-y title called “My favorite chart type.” It was I guess about two years ago, where I basically argued that “This is actually something we should try to move away from, like having favorite chart types,” because, really, that can only make our chart type choices worse. We’re going to be biased towards using certain charts, even when they’re not necessarily the best choice.

It’s kind of like people who have their favorite words, and they tend to use those words all the time even in situations where it’s really not the right word. And so, I think one of the marks of somebody who’s gotten really good at this is that they don’t have favorites. They just use whatever chart type is most appropriate for the situation.

The catch is that it just takes some time to learn when to choose from these various chart types. In my course, I cover 50 chart types because I think that all of those are needed in kind of everyday, when you’re making everyday charts for reports and presentations. And it takes a while to learn when to use them all.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, tell me, Nick, anything else you want to make sure before we hear about your favorite things?

Nick Desbarats

I think, really, the point that I was hoping that was going to come out in the discussion, and I think it really did, is to encourage people to really start thinking about charts as graphics for doing a job rather than visual representations of data.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Nick Desbarats

There’s one that I really like from an American journalist called HL Mencken, who’s active in the 1920s. And he said that, “For every complex problem, there’s an answer that’s clear, simple, and wrong.”

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Nick Desbarats

I think pretty much anything by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, the sort of godfathers of the study of cognitive biases. That has just informed my thinking in innumerable ways since I first came across it. It’s well-summarized in Kahneman’s book Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And maybe that is a favorite book. Any other favorite books you want to highlight?

Nick Desbarats

Yeah, actually, but I’m going to cheat. I’m going to give you two. One work-related, which is How to Measure Anything by Doug Hubbard. It’s an absolutely brilliant book.

And then in terms of kind of general kind of books about living a good life, there’s The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Nick Desbarats

My website is PracticalReporting.com, all one word. And if you go on the top nav to the Contact/Follow page, then there’s my email form and where to follow me on LinkedIn. And I invite people to do that.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Nick Desbarats

I think it’s really important to develop this basic skill, like the spelling and vocabulary of data visualization. There’s a very rapidly growing awareness that this is something that a lot of people probably need to learn because, of course, so many of us are now handling data as part of our job. And, really, to me, that’s kind of the starting point. Before you start learning about data storytelling, or anything like that, learn the basics of the language first.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Nick, thank you. This is fun. I wish you many fun charts.

Nick Desbarats

Thank you. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Fantastic discussion.

Jan 18
0

929: Ending Overwhelm by Delegating Masterfully with Kelli Thompson

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Kelli Thompson reveals how to beat the cycle of overwhelm through smarter delegation.

You’ll Learn:

  1. Why you seem less capable when you don’t delegate
  2. The four mindsets that hinder effective delegation
  3. How to ensure others don’t screw up delegated tasks 

About Kelli

Kelli Thompson is a women’s leadership coach and speaker who helps women advance to the rooms where decisions are made. She has coached and trained thousands of women to trust themselves, lead with more confidence, and create a career they love. She is the founder of the Clarity & Confidence Women’s Leadership Program, and a Stevie Award winner for Women in Business—Coach of the Year. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Closing The Confidence Gap: Boost Your Peace, Your Potential & Your Paycheck.

Resources Mentioned

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Kelli Thompson Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis

Kelli, welcome back.

Kelli Thompson

Oh, I’m so excited to talk to you again.

Pete Mockaitis

Me, too. Well, you’ve been talking a lot about shifting from a doer to a leader lately. Tell us, why, of all the topics you could research you’ve chosen this one?

Kelli Thompson

Yeah. Well, I think the things that we need most in our lives, what we’re most guilty of, sometimes become our most common topics. I mean, I don’t know, tell me where I’m wrong. But I just found myself always, and I don’t think I’m alone in this, Pete, in corporate America, I think a lot of times we promote the best doers. And I remember seeing this not only as a leader, I remember experiencing this myself, I remember I experienced this as an HR person. I think we say, “Okay, Pete is the best we have at producing these widgets. He’s amazing. He’s so fast. We should make him a manager.”

And so, I think sometimes what happens in this, we promote this person and we think this magic transformation is going to happen overnight, that tonight you’re going to bed, and tomorrow you’re going to wake up, and go, “Ooh, my new title, my new salary, I’m going to be comfortable delegating, coaching, having hard conversations, and really stop doing all the doing,” when I think, we don’t realize how payoff we get from doing.

Doing feels good. You can check a box. You get a gold star. We were raised our entire lives doing, “Oh, we’re so fast at this,” “You’re so quick,” etc. and it just feels good. And I think, even as a parent, I really have struggled with this, asking myself, “How much am I doing for my child?” So, I don’t think this has leadership implications or work implications. I think, as parents, we see this, too. We see somebody do something that that’s not how we would do it. They do it slower than us. It’s, like, really painful for us to watch. And so, we jump in and we do.

And even now, running my own business, it’s been really hard for me to let go of all the doing. But the problem is my business can’t grow if I’m doing all the doing. And so, I’ve had to hire a lot of help in the last 18 months, and so this topic has never been more important to me, or more relevant to me, in raising a teenager who’s gone off to college, but then also really learning the hard work of letting someone else take care of things for you and do it in their own way.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s really resonant. And as I’m thinking about my kids who are four and six, and then one super young, but it’s like they are capable of cleaning, and yet it is so much harder to ask them 20 times, sometimes literally 20 times, to pick up sort of maybe three key items. It might require 20 requests because they get distracted and they have imaginative play fun, which is adorable, and I sort of hate to put a kabash on that too much but sometimes it’s just not that quick.

And so, it’s like if I actually want the place clean fast, doing it myself is so much faster and less aggravating than asking many, many, many times, as opposed to asking them repeatedly. And so, yes, I could see from an emotional payoff perspective there’s a wide array of tasks in the world of work that would probably feel a whole lot better to just do yourself than to delegate and coach and to feedback-refine through other people to get done.

Kelli Thompson

Absolutely. And you really hit on something important because these are the things that I hear with leaders today, especially folks who are moving into kind of that first jump of leadership. So, they’re moving into team lead, maybe a manager, senior manager, director, is they say things, like, “Kelli, I don’t have time to delegate. I don’t have time to explain this to anyone.” They might say things like, “Kelli, I can’t delegate because people just make too many high-impact mistakes. I have company coming, and so we cannot make any mistakes in this presentation.”

The other thing that I hear a lot is when leaders say, and I remember feeling this, too, and even as a parent, “It makes me feel guilty. I feel guilty that I am delegating this.” It’s almost like I feel like I’m shirking work. But one of the things that I like to remind folks and offer them to consider is that people will make mistakes, expect them. Yes, it is normal to feel all sorts of uncomfortable feelings when you’re delegating because society has told us that our worth oftentimes is tied to our productivity, and, yes, people don’t do things the way that we would do them, and, yes, it can take some time.

But those things are going to be exacerbated when you are delegating and you’re waiting to delegate when the stakes are too high. So, I just want to talk about the overwhelm cycle. So, like, what tends to happen is, let’s just say, we are working on a project, we get more projects put on our plate, and we want to say to all the things because maybe we are in this belief that, “If I say yes to everything, I look capable and confident.” Well, then we get overwhelmed.

And so then, we delegate sometimes out of panic. Even as parents, right, it’s like we hoard and we hoard and we hoard, and, “Oh, my gosh, company is coming in an hour, and I’m delegating out of panic.” And so, when we delegate out of panic, lots of times we’re delegating when the stakes are way too high, when mistakes can’t be made, when it will take a long time to explain something to someone because the project that you’re trying to delegate is just huge.

And so, what happens is the stakes are high, we’re panicked, we delegate, and people make mistakes. Of course, they make mistakes because that’s what we do the first time we try something. And then when people make mistakes, as leaders and as parents, we get frustrated that people make mistakes, and we say, “See, I can’t delegate. I have to take this back. I have to jump in and fix it.” And so, we jump in, and we fix it, and tell ourselves a story, “See, I can’t delegate because nobody can do things as good as I can,” and the whole overwhelm cycle starts again.

So, one of the things I’d offer leaders and parents is to start delegating while the stakes are low. So, I can think of a time where I delegated out a presentation that needed to go to senior leadership, way, way, way too high of stakes because the people made mistakes. They didn’t put the slides together the way I would’ve done it. And so, what did I do? I took it back. And so, I had to learn to say, “Wait a minute. You don’t delegate out a whole presentation. You delegate out one slide. One slide that perhaps the person has expertise or experience in, and you coach them on the delivery of that one slide.”

And we should just hope that people make mistakes because if you’re delegating when the stakes are low, there’s low impact. In fact, those mistakes can be used for learning. When there’s a mistake in that single slide, we can have a coaching moment about it, we can start to talk about it, we can start to talk about delivery and presentation and those sorts of things.

And so, my challenge for you is to really think about, “How can I start to delegate when the stakes are low?” And if you are panicked about someone making a mistake, mistakes are still too high, let’s cut in half. Because here’s the thing, we’ve all learned through making mistakes, and that uncomfortable learning and growth moment, and I think lots of times we feel guilty that we’re dumping or shirking work when, in fact, the opposite is true.

And Gallup research shows us that one of the number-one things that keeps people engaged is the ability to learn and grow on the job. And so, if you’re hoarding all that work, you are not allowing people to learn and grow. And so, how can we create those safe spaces for people to learn and grow, and that’s what’s very low-stakes delegation, so that they can build their rep and confidence? So, when the stakes are high, we’ve got some reps under our belt.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, Kelli, can you tell me, really, what’s at stake for someone who’s an emerging leader who has done a smidge of delegating and coaching, and it’s like, “Nah, this isn’t working so well for me,” so they haven’t really embraced it, and they are continuing to do a lot, maybe 80% plus of what they were doing before? They started taking on the leadership responsibilities as well. Like, just how bad is it to keep on rolling that way if it’s comfortable, and you know you’re awesome at your job?

Kelli Thompson

Yeah, honestly, that, I think is the biggest hurdle is you are, you got promoted because you are awesome at your job. And so, when you get promoted into leadership, guess what? Because you’re awesome at your job you get more projects because they hope that you continue to be awesome at your job. But now, you not only have doing responsibilities, especially if you’re a working manager, but now you also have to hold team meetings, coach your team, develop your team, think strategically, plan for the future.

And so, what I see happen sometimes, and I think what the consequences are of this, is these leaders keep saying yes to these things. And then they often get told, “Well, you’re not being strategic.” “Well, because I haven’t left any time to be strategic because I’m still doing all of the doing.” The other thing that I see happen is burnout. More than ever with my own clients, lots of times they’re coming to me because they are so burnt out.

And when we do a little bit of a calendar audit, one of the things that we see is they are still holding onto and attending meetings that their team members are in. They should’ve stopped attending that meeting six months ago. They’re still hanging on to work projects that are no longer a development opportunity for them. They still just keep doing them because it feels good and they get the rewards and the accolades but they’re exhausted because they’re still doing all the doing, they’re still saying yes to all the things, and they haven’t delegated down.

The real impact, though, and where I see this, especially with the clients that I coach, because they’re coming to me wanting to accelerate in the organization but, unfortunately, it becomes really hard to accelerate in the organization when you continue to hang on to old projects. So, let me just kind of give you an example of what happens. So, they hang on to projects because they are the expert in what they do. And lots of times, that first promotion into leadership, we are managing people in which we have also done the work.

And so, you know what that means, it’s so easy to jump in and do and help and all the things, but as you promote, want to get promoted into leadership, guess what’s going to happen? You are going to start to inherit teams in which you have never done the work. And we see that with senior leaders all the time. They manage teams in which they’ve never done the work. And so, lots of times there’s a crisis of confidence that happens because, before, they got all their confidence and leadership expertise because they knew the work. But now they’re managing teams in which they don’t know the work.

And so, they have to learn how to lead in a whole different way, and that’s why delegation becomes so important. One, because you’re going to need to learn how to expand your leadership team to coaching people in which you’ve never done the work, so you can’t do anymore, but now your job is to coach, to motivate, to inspire, and you can’t do that if you are still hanging on to all those pieces of work that you know how to do, and you can jump in and do it better, faster. It becomes a real kind of skill and confidence crisis as people want to accelerate in the organization. And lots of times, it can really keep them stuck if they’re unwilling to start to delegate when those stakes are low, and test and trust people.

Pete Mockaitis

Kelli, that’s powerful and what a compelling case there. So, when you’re doing the stuff that you need not to be doing, you’re going to burn out, you’re not developing. It might feel good in the moment but developing also feels really good. So, you can just trade it for another source of work pleasure if you’re doing the stuff that is development-y instead of not development-y. And then, ultimately, you’re going to capped in terms of your career progression. It’s like, “Oh, I guess you just don’t have the capability to lead folks doing work that you have not done before because you’re not sort of inching in that direction.”

Okay. So, I’m also curious, could you tell us a hopeful story of someone who was struggling with these very common sorts of challenges and then did some things differently and saw some cool results?

Kelli Thompson

Yeah, so I’ll just throw myself under the bus here. So, I remember early on in my career, I went to my leader, and I said, “Hey, I want to develop my executive presentation skills.” I was that leader who was managing a team that I hadn’t done the work but I had gotten a few other teams, and so I’m thinking big picture, “I want to develop these presentation skills so I can continue to accelerate,” all the things.

And my leader, she was awesome, she goes, “Oh, that sounds great.” She goes, “You know what, all those slides that I have you prepare that I present to the C-suite every month for the month review, I’m gonnahave you come and you just present them.” And I’m like, “Oh, yeah, that sounds great.”

So, I go ahead and I prepare my slides, like I’ve always done, and we go to the top floor of our building, and I’m meeting with the CEO of the company, my boss, my boss’ boss, I think the CFO was there too, and I start presenting, and so far, so good. They’re asking me questions; I know the answers.

Well, what I didn’t know was she had prepped them ahead of time to let them know that I wanted this development opportunity, and I did not know this at the time. But they started to have a little fun with me, I think, and they started to ask me questions that, quite frankly, I didn’t know the answers to. Now, these questions were next-level questions that the senior leaders should be able to know and answer about sales, and revenues, and ratios, and all that sort of stuff.

Pete Mockaitis

“Kelli, how is this going to drive long-term scaleable synergies and keep going on?”

Kelli Thompson
Yeah, it was like that. And so, if you’ve ever been in a meeting like that, like let’s just pause and picture. Like, I’m stammering, my neck is red, I’m pitting out, I’m feeling like a complete idiot. It is so uncomfortable. But I know we’ve all been in meetings like that. And I don’t know who it’s worse for, the person, like me that’s sitting and stammering, or my boss, who is watching the train wreck go down in action.

And I think all of us watching the train wreck, and I know I’ve done this as a leader, have jumped in, interjected, saved the day, answered the questions, but she didn’t. She just sat there silently and gave me space to struggle through and answer the questions. She only answered questions when they were directed at her directly.

And so, the meeting finished, and we get in the elevator and we ride all 40 flights down, and she looked at me, and she said, “So, how do you think that went?” And I’m like, “Oh, my God, it went terrible,” and all the things. She goes, “You know what, Kelli, I prepped them a little bit. They were having a little fun at the end.” She goes, “But those questions are things that you’re going to have to learn how to answer.”

So, she goes, “I have a question for you. Who do you know that always seems to present well in front of senior leadership with those types of high-level questions?” And I actually named off a few people who I really admired. She said, “Great. I want you to go to them, and I want you to find out how they prep. And I want you to incorporate some of those methods so that you can do this again next month when I ask you to do it again.” And I was, like, “Oh, my gosh.”

So, I think we learn a couple of things from that. One, had my manager jumped in to save me, all I would’ve learned was that I only need to prep to a certain amount because, at any point, if this gets too uncomfortable for me or her, she’ll jump in and save. And so, when we do that to people, I know I’ve done that to people, they’re like, “Eh, I only got to do about this much. My manager will come in and take the rest,” and that really limits someone’s development and their learning because we never allow people that uncomfortable space for growth. So, one, she did not jump in and save me.

Number two, she did not tell me what to do. She just said, “How do you think that went? How do you want it to go? Who else do you know that does this well?” Well, she gave me my problem back, she’s like, “You go talk to them, you go figure out new ways, and then let me know how you’re going to present differently the next time.”

And so, she really let me own that discomfort and that struggle. And while it didn’t feel good, she still provided a lot of empathy, “Hey, we’ve all done this the first time. This is totally normal. They were testing you a little bit, so you can relax. You didn’t kill your career.” There’s lots of empathy and compassion but there was also this, “Hey, you have a new problem to solve, and how are you going to go about that for your own personal development?”

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, that’s beautiful. Thank you, Kelli. Well, now can you share with us what are perhaps the mindsets we need to adopt in order to pull this off effectively? And I think the answer to that is mistakes is to be expected, but you have more.

Kelli Thompson

There is. And so, maybe you can ask yourself these questions. I have found in my own life and in all of the hundreds of clients that I’ve worked with, there are four mindsets that keep us saying yes instead of saying no. And when I say, say yes, it’s doing all the doing, saying yes to all the things. Mindset number one is kind of a capability mindset. It’s this belief that, “Oh, if I don’t say yes, people are going to think I’m not capable.”

Then there’s sometimes a people-pleasing mindset, and it’s this, “Oh, gosh, if I don’t say yes, people are really going to be disappointed in me. They’re going to be really unhappy.” We say yes to keep people happy. Then there’s mindset number three. These are our responsible-caretaker mindset folks, where they’re like, “I have to say yes so that I look responsible and people know that I support them.” And then the fourth mindset that I often see is of, like, a perfectionist mindset, “I have to say yes so that I look perfect, and then I’m going to stall and stall and stall in this until it is perfect.”

And so, I think, sometimes, just by recognizing what’s happening in that moment can bring a little bit of self-aware so you can pause, in that way when your leader comes to you, and says, “Hey, can you take on this massive project?” or when you think about continuing to do the things instead of delegating, it’s like, “Wait a minute. Why am I hanging onto this project? Why do I feel that I’m the only one that can do this?”

I know for me, personally, capability mindset was a big thing, “If I delegate this and I delegate all this work, people are going to think I’m not capable, and that’s going to show up in my performance review, and my manager is going to be upset, and then I’m going to get fired,” we go down the whole spiral. So, maybe just really think about what is that mindset that keeps you saying yes, and then ask yourself, “Could the opposite actually be just as true?”

I know one of the things that I learned in my own life, and I know my clients have learned, is that sometimes when I say yes to too much, people actually start to question my capability. Why? Because I’ve said yes to too much. My quality suffers. I turn stuff in late. I don’t get back to people when I promised them. And so, now all my fears of looking incapable have come true.

And so, I think that would be the first place that I would really start is just to go, and we’re going to be like, “Why am I keeping this? Why am I taking this on? Why am I saying yes when I should be delegating and coaching others?” And so, something to take a look at.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s powerful. And it’s funny, when you said when you say yes too much, people’s perception of your capability declines. And where I thought you were going to go with is if there’s a restaurant that has everything in the buffet, like, “Oh, we got pizza, and French fries, and, oh, burgers, and sushi, and Lomi,” it’s like, “Hmm, yeah, I don’t know if you’re actually capable of making all these items well. I actually sort of have less faith in this restaurant as being able to do that.”

So, is that also a phenomenon that happens in the human work perception of each other’s skills domain? I imagine it would. What’s your experience?

Kelli Thompson

Oh, absolutely. So, I often call this rust-out. It’s a type of burnout. And so, you’re right. What can happen? “Because I’m people-pleasing, or I want people to see that I’m capable and responsible so I’m going to say yes to all the things. And now, all of a sudden, I’m running a project, and I’m quasi-managing a sales ops team, and, oh, yeah, why don’t you add in a little bit of training team to that or HR,” right? You have all of these things on the buffet. So, you’re just very mediocre at all of them.

And one of the things that I’ve noticed, and I even notice this for me, personally, especially in running my business because you kind of have to do the buffet of all the things, is those create a ton of energy leaks because my hunch is, and I work on this with my clients, there’s something that probably just totally ignites your energy.

Same with you, Pete, right? You probably do a podcast because you geek out, and it’s exciting, and people know you for it, and every time you come, you’re like, “Yes, this is going to be so fun. We’re going to have a great conversation.” That’s the type of energy that you want to bring into your work because it builds your brand as a leader, is you become known for something.

And so, when you start saying yes to all of these things that are outside your genius zone, at least in my own experience, I face a lot of what I call energy leaks. I was spending my time and energy on things that absolutely drained my energy. And that sort of energy drain creates rust-out. And I call rust-out as not using your talents. You feel rusty, you feel tired, and it’s actually a type of burnout.

And so, I love that you brought up this restaurant that offers too many things on the menu because they’re not known for anything, they’re not doing that one thing that they can do in their genius zone and offer excellently so they become known all over town as the place to go for that thing. And I don’t think leaders are any different. I think it’s so important to find that genius zone. What is it that you’ve been put on this Earth to do? Where do you make the biggest impact for your organization, drive their most revenue, save the most money? And how do you delegate everything that isn’t that?

Because my hunch is, if you’re doing work that’s not in your genius zone, you are robbing the people around you and below you of doing work in their genius zone. I can’t work in a pivot table. But you know what, I’ve got somebody on my team that excel in pivot tables, and numbers is their genius zone. Why would I rob them of that and do it in a mediocre way that just burns me out at the end of the day?

Pete Mockaitis

That is beautiful. And it’s so true in terms of, I think, we can all think of tasks that, really, we’re fired up to do, and tasks that we really, really, really dread doing, and then afterwards we just feel not great.

I also like what you had to say with regards to when you delegate, mistakes are to be expected. And this brings me back to one of my favorite conversations, Episode 528 with Aaron Levy, is that we have an expectation of iteration on certain things, and other things we don’t, and that’s really intriguing. It’s that if you look at that where you have it.

And it’s funny, I’ve been working with a composer to redo the music here – Shoutout to Breakmaster Cylinder – and it’s been really cool how we’ve been going through a lot of iterations, and I don’t mind. I actually really appreciate Breakmaster Cylinder for going through that with me, I appreciate that patience, they’re like, “Hey, here’s the eighth version. Tell me what you think about these things.”

And yet there are other times in which if it doesn’t come back perfect the first time, I’m really annoyed and irritated, and so I’m like, “What’s that about?” I think it has more to do with me than the person who is sending me something. And I think that’s just an intriguing area to explore within our own psyches, is, “Where do we expect mistakes and iterations? And where do we not? And why? And is it fair?” Can you help us sift through a little bit of this mess, Kelli?

Kelli Thompson

Yeah. So, I learned this lesson the hard way, as all hard things are learned. First, when I switched jobs, when I switched careers, and switched industries. And the second time I learned it was when I launched my own business. And so, I remember switching, I moved from banking and I went into, like, a healthcare tech startup.

And in my first 90 days, and I see this a lot with my clients, too, I think there’s this expectation, like, “I’m going to go in, and I’m going to knock their socks off, and I’m going to do all the things and achieve all the results in 90 days or less,” and it doesn’t happen that way. And, in fact, a lot of times you kind of push people the wrong way. People are like, “Gosh, who’s this person coming in and pushing their agenda?”

I had to learn a different way. I had to learn that, actually, your first 90 days should be about learning, “How much can you learn? How much can you ask? How curious can you be?” And when I was working for that tech startup, I had a gift that I didn’t I was going to give me a reading The Lean Startup.

Pete Mockaitis

So good. Eric Ries. Shoutout in the show notes. Link it.

Kelli Thompson

It’s so good. And if you don’t have time to read it, just watch the YouTube summary. You’re going to get everything you need. When I started my own business, I totally had a, “If I’m going to launch this, it better give me all the results I want.” But, thank goodness, I had read that book because I had to change my mindset, that when we try something, when we test something, when we delegate something, our goal should not be results. Our goal should not always be revenue, or perfection, or excellence. Our goal should be learning.

Because if we can go in with that curious, iterative, experimenter’s mindset, Pete, it’s the only reason I’m still in business five years from today, and I haven’t totally burnt myself out, or had unrealistic expectations. But it’s just way more fun. It is just so much more fun to be, like, “I’m going to just test this and just see what happens, see how the world responds to it.” Like, when your only job is curiosity and learning, it is so much more fun. It is so much more freeing.

Like, I know so many people who beat themselves up and it does, it causes depression, burnout when they launch something, and they expect it’s going to be perfect on that first iteration. Like, what a pressure to put yourself under as a leader, and what pressure to put people under us. So, I just find, personally, it is way more fun, and it is so much easier to be a leader for the long game, or be in a business like mine for the long game, when you are just thinking about iterating, and testing, and learning, and just seeing what the world gives back to you.

Pete Mockaitis

It’s so true. And I recently did a keynote speech to a bunch of creators, and it was really fun. And I sort of shared, “Hey, here’s ten of my creations, from books to podcast, to whatever, and you’re going to vote in advance. Was it a hit or was it a dud? And then I will tell you afterwards, and then what lessons I learned.” And so, it’s kind of a fun format we did.

And it was intriguing that, as I took this stroll through memory lane, the majority of the things I created were a dud, particularly the first time around, and then I took some iteration, or you scrap it, like you learn something. And one of the biggest lessons learned is just about sort of validating a concept before you build it. There’s some more Lean Startup action for you.

But what was really cool, some of the audience – shoutout to Jonathan Blevins – said, “You know, this was so encouraging because I’m embarking on this thing, and I put all this pressure on myself, like, this really has to succeed, it really has to succeed. But, no, it could fail and that can be fine.” And it really can.

And so, I loved what you said, in that world of delegating, is you want to give people those opportunities where they can fail and it can be fine because you’ve got some buffer in the deadline, you got a review step before it reaches the super CEO, or the clients who have a huge account with you, or whatever. Like, one way or another, it’s okay to fail, and, in fact, it might even be enjoyable, in so far as you come up with some new learnings and insights and aha-s along the way.

Can you give us some more practical tactical approaches for setting up that kind of safe delegating environmental vibe?

Kelli Thompson

Yeah. So, let me do it from two sides here. Side number one, I just want to continue to reiterate, delegate when the stakes are low. Okay, so let me give you an example from my own life. I didn’t go out and write my book, Closing the Confidence Gap, because it was the first time I’d ever talked about those concepts. Like, “No, we’re not going to go and put that out in a book.”

That book came from years of conversations, curiosity, asking questions, talking to people, and, quite frankly, putting information out. Like, I love sharing content on LinkedIn. I think it’s fun. It’s a good place to iterate and test, “I’m going to share this idea and see if people react to it.” And you know what, the more kind of people engage and react, I’m like, “Okay, I might be onto something. I can expand this and grow it.”

And sometimes, I’ll put stuff out and it is a dud. And so then, I have to ask myself, “Okay, was it tone? Was it too much? Was it too long? Is this idea not resonating right?” It’s really like a lab. And so, I wrote the book through lots and lots and lots of iteration and testing in low-stakes environments. Like, LinkedIn is a low-stakes environment to test ideas. But then we refine those ideas with people and with audiences, and I might share them with a small group, and then it gets into a book.

So, I want you to think about that at work, how we are constantly testing low-stakes environment where we can learn and it feels fun to learn, but I want to flip this and I want to put it also from the person who’s, like, “But, Kelli, I am not a manager. I’m awesome at my job. And because I’m awesome at my job, guess what, everybody wants me to do all the things.”

I want to share with you a tactic that actually my business manager did to me just about a month ago, because, as leaders, I just want to normalize, sometimes we get really excited about things. We read things, and we’re like, “Oh, I’m going to have my team work on this right away,” and we forget everything that we delegated to them the last three months.

So, that was me. I got all jazzed about an idea. I think it was some sort of competitive analysis, and I emailed my business manager, I said, “Hey, Kristen, I just thought about this, and we should do this this week.” And she so beautifully said, “Kelli, here are the three priorities that you gave me in the last month to work on for the business. Would you like me to stop one of these priorities so that you can focus on this one that you came up with today?” And, of course, she was very nice, she was very tactical, and I laughed, I was like, “Well, she’s read my book, and she used my technique on me.”

Because I think, sometimes, we forget, as leaders, what we’ve told people, what people are working on that maybe we forgot to tell them to stop doing, we’re like, “Oh, I forgot to tell them that’s not a priority anymore.” So, I think if you’re an individual contributor who’s awesome at your job, and you don’t want to be burnt out, just have a very intelligent conversation with your leader, and say, “I love that idea. Here’s the three things I’m working on this week because you said they were a priority, and they’re due by the 15th of the month. Is this still the case? Is this still a priority? Or, would you want me to pull one of these off the list so that I can put that one on?”

Like, let’s just have a priorities conversation because, that way, we’re not getting overworked, we’re not getting overloaded. And for somebody who has no one to delegate to, I think it’s a good way to manage up some of those delegation opportunities.

Pete Mockaitis

Beautiful. And tell me, when you’re engaged in some of the coaching, the follow-up, the accountability, the hard conversations, do you have any top do’s or don’ts or favorite scripts you like to use in the course of these conversations?

Kelli Thompson

I like to think of the four P’s. So, when you’re delegating something, talk about the purpose, “Why are we doing this? Why am I asking you to do this? Like, what is the bigger picture?” The second thing that I want folks to focus on is the second P, which is people, “Who is involved?” And when you think about people, “Who are the decision-makers? Who needs to be consulted in your work? And who just needs to be informed?”

And so, that’s a really good conversation to have when you’re delegating something because, then, you can say, “Who is the decision-maker here? Is it you, Pete? Or, is it still me? Do you still need to bring things to me? Or, are you capable of making all the decisions about this project? Who do you need to consult? What stakeholders do you need to talk to before you move forward on any progress? And then when you made these decisions, or you’re doing this work, who do you need to keep informed?”

The third thing is the process. So, I think this is a good conversation to have to say, “Okay, here is where, perhaps, you need to follow some standardized processes.” I used to work in banking, so there were just some rules we had to follow, like, “Hey, here are some rules you have to follow here to get this done, but here’s where you can have leeway.” I think it’s great. Instead of just saying, “Hey, do whatever you want.” I think that can cause a lot of panic in folks. So, let’s communicate what processes or systems do we need to follow here but where you can have a little bit of creativity.

And then the last P is performance. I see people miss this one all the time. I struggle with this one. But be specific about what great outcomes look like, meaning, “What does success look like in this project? Are there ratios we’re trying to achieve? Is there a certain revenue number we’re trying to achieve? Is it a certain number of signups, or money saved, or risks reduced?” Whatever that is, but be specific so that you can communicate to this person.

And I think about, like in my own team, when I’m talking, my business manager helped me implement a customer relationship management system. And so, when I delegated that to her, I said, “We will know we have been successful in choosing the right system because it will do, A, B, and C.” Like, be clear about that so that people aren’t just assuming that they know what the results look like, but we actually have a conversation about what looks like success.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s lovely. Well, Kelli, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Kelli Thompson

I would say, in terms of delegations, I think sometimes, we do, we feel it’s hard. We feel uncomfortable Sometimes we feel guilty. It’s hard sometimes watching other people struggle. It truly is because it evokes feelings in them and in us because sitting in discomfort is not something that we, as humans, enjoy.

But I would really just encourage you just to pause one moment longer. When you’re watching somebody struggle, when you’re watching your child try to clean the living room or use the vacuum, before you jump in, can you pause just one moment longer to allow them to work through that discomfort because that’s where all the learning happens?

Pete Mockaitis

Thank you. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Kelli Thompson

Because I love to play the long game. I’ve been really reciting this quote back to myself, which is, “Consistency isn’t sexy but it works. Just showing up every day, playing the long game keeps you from burning out.”

Pete Mockaitis

And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Kelli Thompson

So, every year, I love the McKinsey and LeanIn Women in the Workplace Report. It comes out every year, usually November-ish of every year. And the one I’ve especially been focusing on is this, is that first promotion that happens. And so, what they find is that the talent pipeline breaks down because, for every 100 men that are promoted, 87 women are promoted. And as those job roles continue to accelerate in the organization to the C-suite, it gets less and less and less and less.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And a favorite book?

Kelli Thompson

My favorite fiction book I read in the last year was Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. It is fiction but it does read like nonfiction when it talks about, again, women’s role in the workplace in which it takes place. But the book I waited way too long to read was, Never Split the Difference by Chriss Voss.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah, we had him on the show.

Kelli Thompson

Yes. And so, I won’t give too many spoilers but I will say that that is not a negotiation book. It is an emotional intelligence and empathy book, and I highly recommend all leaders read it.

Pete Mockaitis

And how about a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Kelli Thompson

I don’t know what I’d do without Calendly. It makes everything so easy, so much less back-and-forth.

Pete Mockaitis

And a favorite habit?

Kelli Thompson

My favorite habit is to lift weights almost every morning.

Pete Mockaitis

And is there a key nugget you share, something that really connects and resonates with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Kelli Thompson

“Confidence is a side effect of taking action.” I think, all too often, we wait until we feel confident to take action, but it’s after we take the action that we actually feel the confidence.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Kelli Thompson

You can go to my website, www.KelliRaeThompson.com. I’m Kelli with an I, and then R-A-E. The two places I hang out on social are LinkedIn. So, find me at Kelli Thompson, or Instagram @kelliraethompson.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Kelli Thompson
I would say find that one thing, one tiny thing, even if it you don’t manage people, I bet you can do it in your personal life. What’s one low-stakes item that is draining your energy that you can delegate, either to your children, to an outside company, or to somebody on your team?

Pete Mockaitis

Beautiful. Well, thank you, Kelli. I wish you many successful delegations.

Kelli Thompson

Awesome. Thank you.

Jan 15
0

928: The Introvert’s Powerful Approach to Networking with Matthew Pollard

By | Podcasts | One Comment

 

 

Matthew Pollard shares networking wisdom that anyone, particularly introverts, can use for great benefit.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The best way to answer “What do you do?”
  2. The two relationships that will transform your network
  3. The simple trick to get people interested in your expertise 

About Matthew

Matthew Pollard, known as “The Rapid Growth Guy,” works with businesses around the world, from startups to Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft and Capital One. Responsible for launching five zero-to-million-dollar businesses, he also founded Austin’s Small Business Festival, which is now a nationwide event. A native of Australia, he splits his time between North Carolina and Texas.

Resources Mentioned

Matthew Pollard Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Matthew, welcome.

Matthew Pollard
Mate, I’m ecstatic to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. I want to know, you’re the rapid growth guy, so why are we writing a book called The Introvert’s Edge to Networking?

Matthew Pollard
It’s funny. People would assume that rapid growth, sales success, networking success, is kind of an oxymoron with the concept of introversion. And while a lot of people think that, it’s totally not true. Let’s confront the stigma head on for a second. Most people think that introverts are terrible at small talk, yet David Letterman and Oprah Winfrey are introverts, so that makes no sense.

And then, “Oh, yeah, but we definitely can’t sell.” Well, Zig Ziglar, the most well-known sales trainer on the planet, who’s no longer with us, but him and his son, Tom Ziglar, are very introverted. And then you’ve got, “Oh, okay, if we can sell and we can do small talk, networking is the thing we definitely can’t do.” Well, that’s also not true. Ivan Misner, the founder of BNI, the world’s largest networking group, is an introvert as well.

So, really, I’m known as the rapid growth guy because I’ve been responsible for five multimillion-dollar success stories, and I help organizations, predominantly introverted small business-based, small business owners, obtain rapid growth in their business because I find them, they get stuck in this endless hamster wheel of struggling to find interested people, trying to set themselves apart, trying to make the sale, and always fighting on price, but also corporate executives. They have no idea how to sell their value.

And I find that the same methodology applies for people to create rapid growth in their careers as well. So, that’s how I’ve got the name but I spend my life trying to help introverts realize they’re not second-class citizens. Their path to success is just different to that of an extrovert.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. All right. Well, could you perhaps share a tale that lays it out in terms of what’s at stake for introverts, and whether they are networking well or not so well?

Matthew Pollard
Well, I think for a lot of people, there’s that old adage that, “If people don’t know your value, then it doesn’t matter how much you know. You’re never going to succeed in your career.” So, your network is directly related to your net worth. I think that’s changing a lot in the digital forum, but the truth is that I’m always pushing people to learn how to articulate their value in the networking room, whether they’re a career professional, whether they’re an executive, whether they’re just getting started in a career right through, and more especially for small business owners.

Because if you can’t articulate your value, and somebody’s politely listening to you in a room for two, two and a half minutes, you just got no chance online because people, then, give you fractions of a second. And I’ve seen people that we allow, or help get their messaging right in a networking room that have then gone on headhunted and get six figure increases in salary just because they’re getting their message correct. But without that in-the-room validation, it doesn’t work.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, let’s double click on that for a moment. Six figure increases in salary, that’s lovely. So, if someone’s going from 125,000 to 225,000, for example, near doubling, all based upon effectively having a good two-minute exchange with somebody?

Matthew Pollard
This ideology actually started in the small business space. And what was funny is I actually had a lady that read my book, she reached out to me, and she was a small business owner at the time, and she said she was trying to get a corporate job. And I actually responded with, “You know, that’s not what I do.”

And she got upset with me, and she literally said, “Look, I know your ideology will work for corporations, and because there aren’t many authors in the introverted space, I just believe that you can help me.” And she said, “Really, I’m just trying to get one customer, one corporation to hire me.” I mean, “That’s kind of true but I can’t give you my online program. We have to work one-on-one. I’m willing to give it a shot if you’re up for it.”

And what was really interesting is we applied the methodology. And what I always focus on is you need to know the niche that you’re going after. And so, for her, what we’ve helped her realize was her real love was education technology. So, we got her to focus on education technology, we created a message for her, and she actually got a job that paid 180,000.

But the one specifically I was talking about was another gentleman that we worked with around the same time, and he actually was going to start his own business, and then he actually got hit by hurricane Katrina out in Texas. And I was like, “Mate, you’ve got scarcity in your life and uncertainty everywhere. You shouldn’t be starting your own business now.” He said, “But I want to start my own business. I don’t want to work.”

He was working for a large bank, and he said, “I’m traveling 250 days a year, and, on top of that, I’ve got to deal with all the stuff back home, and I feel like I’m always dealing with the same problem over and over, and I want to deal with lots of different types of clients.” And I said, “I don’t think you want to go and start your own business. I think that what you really want to do is work with an organization that has lots of business units. Then you can have the safety and security of an employment job but you can still work in lots of different business units and apply your ideology. But let’s understand what your ideology is.”

And what we realized is what he loved to do was create customer-centric moments that created organizational growth, so create that special contact moment that allowed that person that had that special contact to, then, share the praise with other people that created referrals and become more stickier customer and buy more stuff. So, I said, “What I believe you specialize in is creating these customer-centric moments which, then, creates a growth velocity for the organization that you work with, but you don’t need to work in your own business to do that. You can do that in a corporation. What we need to do is call you something like,” and I came up with the term the velocity architect.

And I said, “Call yourself the velocity architect, don’t call yourself a marketer, because when you say you’re a marketer, they put you in a box with everybody else. And while that may be what you need to do to get your first job, the people that go from middle to top-level management, they need to separate themselves. They’ve got to have something unique.”

So, we called him the velocity architect. We created the three major problems that most organizations have where they struggle to create customer velocity because they don’t create these customer-centric moments. And following up, he went from an interview with an energy company that had multiple business units, and it was a six-figure job but it was low six figures. I think it was about a $150,000-$190,000 job. And when he went for the interview, he introduced himself as the velocity architect, he talked about these customer-centric engagements, and he learned how to tell stories.

Because a lot of people try to educate on their value, and stories work far better. But once he did that, the person that he was doing the interview with said, “Look, you’re overqualified for this job but my CEO needs to meet you.” And they actually created a job for him that actually paid. It was over 100,000, it was in the 200s, more than the job he was applying for.

Because what you’ve got to understand in today’s world, people are looking, and I’m not talking about low-level jobs. I’m talking about medium to high-level jobs. They are looking for people that have ideologies that give their organizations value, and they’ll create jobs for you. They’ll headhunt people that have unique points of view. And in today’s digital world, if you can learn how to articulate that clearly and concisely in a networking room, you can leverage that online, you’ll find yourself getting headhunted. You’ll be able to leverage that message online and have people all over the world trying to recruit you.

Pete Mockaitis
Matthew, this is an intriguing thesis. You’ve got some juicy case studies and examples. Do you have any other compelling evidence that suggests that, in fact, this unique point of view that you have about unique points of view is dead-on true?

Matthew Pollard
The truth is that when you’re looking to go to a networking room, and, if you’re a small business owner listening to this, you should never be going to a networking room to try and find clients. I know you think that that’s what you need but, for me, finding another client is the wrong direction to go.

My belief is that finding, what I would call, momentum partners and champion relationships are where the power is and for career people listening that have got jobs, this is just as powerful for you because if you go to a networking room, and you’re looking for that next person that’s going to hire you, well, if you’re not looking for a job right now, it’s going to convince you that don’t need to be networking.

But then, on top of that, the biggest relationships that I have found useful in everything that you do, firstly, momentum partners, people that believe in what you do, and are willing to talk to other people about it, and you believe in what they do. And because of that, this ideology works much more effectively because if I said, “Oh, you’re looking for a marketing person, or a senior marketing-level position, you need to talk to this person.” It’s like, “Oh, I’ve already got a few people. I’ll get them to submit their resume,” as opposed to, “Oh, my gosh, you need to speak to the velocity architect.”

All of a sudden, this person is different and unique. They stand out. You’re at least willing to entertain having a dialogue with them. And then the next thing is this concept that I came up with which was a champion relationship, which is somebody that is far more advanced than you, that’s willing to share your praises and willing to endorse your work and give it credibility. Because if you’re the velocity architect, and you’ve got other people talking about what you do and why it’s amazing that are highly credible, and you network to find those people, then those people will allow you to constantly land work and create greater and greater success.

But what I really want to do is take a step back for a second and imagine that I’m a brand-new person. I’ve never had a job before. And I’m moving into just a customer service role. I’m just looking for a customer service role. If I applied for every customer service role under the sun, then I’ve got to have the best resume, I’ve got to interview really well, I’ve got to cite all the right things. I’m relying on a lot of luck to get that job, and, especially if I’m introverted.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe that introverts actually make the best salespeople, the best networkers, the best public speakers, the best leaders, but if I didn’t believe that, and I didn’t plan and prepare, which introverts are great at, but most often they prepare and plan in the wrong way, I might go and bumble my way through that interview, and hope that they can see the real value in me to hire me.

But if I, instead, said, “You know what, what I’m going to do instead is I’m going to focus on my passion. Maybe I’m really passionate about manufacturing organizations, and changing customer service in a manufacturing business. Well, then maybe I’ll only go for manufacturing-based interviews. And because of that, I can talk about my passion for the manufacturing space. I can talk about the mission that I’m on to transform the space. I can do more research to understand it more, and it makes me more relevant and more employable to that organization.”

And that is why it allows you to create far more success. This isn’t new stuff. If you say, “I’m a person that’s trying to get a client, and I’m a small business owner.” Well, if you niche down, you’re, of course, going to be seen as far more likely the only logical choice. And if you’ve got a message that resonates to that marketplace, of course, they’re going to be willing to pay you as a premium. Well, why is that different for a corporate job?

It’s not different. The truth is if they’d never heard of you, then separating yourself from the pack is the only thing that’s going to make sure you’re in the top three candidates to get that second interview. And that is why I recommend that you do this because what you want to do is you want to shine on your differences, and you want to be able to talk about your unique passion, your unique mission.

Oh, by the way, if you are going for an interview, the other thing you really want to understand is that in an interview, you think it’s all about you. It’s not. The biggest mistake you can do when you go into an interview is make it all about you. And, by the way, introverts hate talking about themselves, which is why interviews goes so poorly because they go into an interview and they think they’ve got to brag on themselves and talk about their credibility, yet, the truth is, the best way to be successful in a networking room, and in an interview, is to understand the organization that you’re working for and the objectives that they have, and then make your experience relevant to them, and talk about your care for helping organizations like them.

And, again, to do that, you have to think about your differences, your unique value, the specific marketplace that you love helping, like manufacturing, or the specific outcome that you love helping people get, like customer-centric velocity, and then make that relevant to the organizations you’re going for interviews with. But truthfully, it doesn’t just work for going for interviews. Getting promotions within current organizations has also worked tremendously well for us as well because you can share your difference and get stakeholder support within the organization for new initiatives or to create jobs within an organization you already work with. And we’ve seen that happen time and time again.

Pete Mockaitis
Matthew, that’s beautiful. There’s a whole lot here. Boy, let’s chat about coming up with your unique point of view. And you said one way is that you kind of find the intersection. We’ve got an issue that you’re into, and an industry that you’re serving. So, not just customer service for anybody but customer service for manufacturing companies or whomever.

So, can you give us some examples of additional articulations of unique point of view? So, we got the velocity architect as one example. And how we come to land upon what that articulation is.

Matthew Pollard
Absolutely. So, I would say that you need to focus on what you’re absolutely passionate about. And there’s a quote by Jim Carrey that I think is great for those people that are worried that it’s not going to work. And he said, “I learned a great deal from my father but nothing more valuable than you can fail at what you don’t want, so why not take a chance at what you love?”

And so, I’m going to suggest to everybody when they’re looking at this articulation, to really think about what they’re passionate about, what they really care about. So, for somebody that really cares about manufacturing, go into the manufacturing space and build your messaging around that. If you’re really passionate about technology then build it around something specific that you do in the technology space. I’ll give you an example on that.

So, let’s imagine you’re a managed service provider, you work in an organization that you just love technology and you help people fix all their computers and systems, and you’re looking for a high-level CFO job, sorry, a CTO job. Well, maybe that what you really are passionate about doing is helping those companies obtain hyper growth. So, maybe you want to go and get a job at like an accounting organization that has a growth-through-acquisition mindset, or a lot of accounting firms grow by buying other accounting firms and taking on their books of business, or a manufacturing business will say, “Okay, we’ve got all these products. Let’s go and buy other manufacturing firms so that we can take on all their products but also cross-sell all the products that we have.”

So, growth through acquisition is really, really prevalent in those industries. So, if I was a CFO, and I was looking at those kinds of industries, and I love working with hyper growth companies, what I would say is the biggest problem that they have, though, and this happens a lot with organizations like that, is they buy a book of business, but then they’ve got to mix the technology. And what you’ll find is there’s licensing issues. The organization is building this fortress to make sure no one can hack in. And now they’ve got to build this hyper freeway to have all the data transferring between all these different offices, and it creates all these issues and conflicts.

Well, if I was going to sell to myself as an employee, I might position myself as the acquisition lifeguard because I know they want to grow through acquisition, and I know the technology is one of the biggest hassles that causes the organizations to almost drown in the minutiae of doing this that causes CEOs to lose their support. So, I might call myself the acquisition lifeguard in order to do that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. So, you’ve got that clarity such that you become the only logical choice for a select few. And then it’s sort of like you have a moniker or a role or a title that goes there. Any tips on fine tuning that articulation? I think it’s so funny, I remember one time I was talking to someone, and he tried this. He said, “You know what, we’re a financial quarterback. You come to us and we’re going to find the best fixed income guy, the best stock picker, the best whatever.”

And it was so funny because I watch so little sports, I didn’t even understand the metaphor until much later, it’s like, “Oh, as a quarterback, your role is to throw the football or to pass a portion of my portfolio onto a specialist in different respects, much like a quarterback might throw to different players on the field.” I felt kind of like an idiot.

So, I guess, in a way, there’s a risk there that if you use a word that your target audience doesn’t have as much familiarity with, watch out for that. Any other pro tips on refining your moniker?

Matthew Pollard
So, there’s a couple of answers to that. So, firstly, you’re talking to an Australian with NFL terms so I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, there you go. Yeah.

Matthew Pollard
I’ve lived in the United States for 10 years but I will tell you, I’m still getting my head around the NFL. But, yeah, I’m careful with the word quarterback. Also, I’ve worked with people in Germany, that you have to be careful about the word capitalist because it used to be a socialist society. You’ve really got to think things through.

But the thing that I would say is that if you use your functional skill in the unified message, then it’s not a unified message.

So, if you are in data analytics, and you call yourself the data wizard or the data guru, that’s not going to work for you and here’s the science behind it. People’s brains are focused on putting you into a box to disqualify you or to say, “I need that.” I’ll give you an example. If I go into a networking room, and I say I’m a sales trainer, people will look at me like I’m one step above a scam artist.

And if you’re my ideal avatar, you’re going to say, “Oh, I’m an introvert. I am never going to learn how to sell.” And then I’ve got to dance around that topic and explain how I’ve got a book that sold 100,000 copies helping introverts succeed at sales, and I’ve got to convince you. I’m already starting from behind. That doesn’t work.

And here’s the real key. The goal of the unified message is to do only this, “Hi, my name is Matthew, and I’m the rapid growth guy.” And I say it just like I said I’m an accountant or an attorney. The goal is for you to say it in a way that it feels like it really encapsulates the value of what you do. It feels more authentic. Like, for me, if I say I’m a sales trainer, it doesn’t incorporate the value of what I provide really at all. It’s just a functional skill. It’s like me reading a book, like Emeth, and saying, “Oh, I’m an Emeth person.” It doesn’t define you.

Everyone has got unique talents, unique skills, unique past backgrounds that perfectly qualify them to provide a certain value, and, more specifically, provide even more value to a specific demographic that they’re passionate about. And because of that, what you want to do, and the only thing that you want to focus on, is making sure that your unified message does one of two things. Either get them to say, “How do you do that?” or, “What exactly is that?” It’s to make it vague enough but also to provide interest.

Now, if you’re in a networking room and you’ve read my book, then you know to be interested before being interesting. So, if you’ve been talking to them for 20 minutes, and they say, “Oh, my gosh, Matthew, I’ve been talking to you for the last 20 minutes. I haven’t even asked you what it is that you do.” And you say, “Oh, thanks for asking. I’m the rapid growth guy.” Well, of course, they’re going to want to ask what that is for two reasons.

You’re a puzzle they need to solve, and, secondly, you gave them so much value by being interested in them, they want to give you value back by listening to you. So, that when people then respond with, “What exactly is that?” I can then say, “Well, one of the things that I love to see more than anything in the world and go into my passion mission statement.” Now, notice, I didn’t say, “Well, I do this and I do this, or I have this skill set,” because, again, networking isn’t about talking about you. It’s about expressing your passion and your mission for transforming the world in some way, shape, or form, which is intoxicating for people.

So, let’s look at what a good unified message looks like. A good unified message has a word, and I’m always cognizant of using things like point guard or you said quarterback because those are country-specific, and also sometimes gender-specific, and also whether they’re interested in the sports. It’s complicated. Maven, architect, catalyst, all these kinds of words are, again, above an eighth-grade reading level but, truthfully, a lot of people that are trying to get high-level jobs, most of the people that you’re talking to will understand what they are, but also expresses the value of what you provide in some way, shape, or form.

And, look, you don’t need to hire me to do this. If you’re a small business trying to come up with your version of the rapid growth guy or a career executive, there is a template that I share at MatthewPollard.com/growth, and that will give you a five-step process which will help you, firstly, determine the niche.

And, by the way, if you’re a career professional and you think that you don’t need to niche, you are 100% wrong. If you specialize in an industry, especially when you’re first starting, you’re always going to get paid a higher premium, you’re always going to be able to get headhunted more effectively, and then, over time, you can broaden that niche but this will show you how to niche down as a career professional or as a small business owner, and discover your niche of willing to buy clients or willing to buy employers. And then it will show you how to create your unified message that will excite and inspire people to want to know more.

And it really is about leaning in to your unique passions, your unique skillset, your unique past customers or past employers, and saying, “What was I really good at? What unique situations caused my employers or my past customers to sing my praises, to talk about me in a really positive way?” and really looking at how to then articulate it.

Now, once you’ve got that, you then need to know how to articulate your passion and mission in a way that gets people to be even more interested, and then you need to explain your value for the first time, the jargon of what you do in a story. And if you can do all of that in an interview, in a networking event, or a podcast interview like this, then people will chase you from all over the world to hire you or to get you to be their consultant or their small business guru.

You pick your profession because people these days are actively looking for a message that they identify with. And for that, they’ll pay a premium. The problem is that in today’s overly cluttered world, most people still only push vanilla content, like they come at high skill, or, “We know insurance,” or, “I’m a marketing person, and I’ve got 20 years of experience,” and the truth is, if you can’t be the clearest, you have to be the loudest.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And you mentioned building relationships with momentum partners and champion relationships. Any pro tips on identifying these people and making the approach?

Matthew Pollard
Absolutely. And, by the way, introverts listening to this, you should love the idea of this because it means you’re going to networking events and not looking to be transactional. What I find is a lot of extroverts do this, which is they’ll go into a networking room, and they’re like, “Do you want to buy from me? What about you? What about you? Or, are you looking for somebody to hire? What about you? What about you?”

A lot of extroverts don’t like doing that either. They feel like it’s transactional but that then leads into what I call endless networking, which is where you don’t kind of downplay yourself. It’s, like, somebody asks you what you’re doing, you’re like, “Oh, my day job is this.” I mean, who wants to hire someone like that?

So, because of that, what I suggest is be more strategic about the networking events that you go to. So, firstly, a lot of people that go networking, they don’t do any research before they go, and that drives me crazy. It’s, like, if you’re going to go to a networking event, especially if you’re an introvert, which means it’s a little bit more uncomfortable, I want it to be more like a bunch of pre-planned meetings than anything else.

So, let’s talk about how that actually works. I spoke at Intel a few years ago, and I deliver this presentation about how storytelling could be used for marketing and from a sales perspective.

One of these executives came up to me afterwards, and he said, “Matt, look, I’ve really loved my conversation with you.” He said, “I can’t talk to anyone that’s here as easily because I don’t know anything about them. Like, after your presentation, I had lots of things to talk about. As an introvert, I had lots of questions I wanted to ask.”

And I said, “Well, I’m confused. Like, from what I know about Intel, you’re classified as a newbie if you’ve been there for less than 20 years.” I said, “You’re part of the top 100 senior leaders in sales and marketing. I would assume that you’ve done this before.” He’s like, “Oh, we do it every year, but every year I still awkwardly connect with people.” And I’m like, “Well, isn’t there like a guest list? Like, couldn’t you connect with them beforehand, find out strategically which people are a part of internal groups or associations that you might be interested in, and then research what books they’ve posted about, or what they’re posting on their LinkedIn profiles?”

So, if you’re an executive that’s listening to this, I don’t want you to think that internally this is impossible. You can, these days, search everything about a person. I remember I was trying to get sponsorship off Dell, and I found one of the senior leaders had an open Instagram profile, and all he did was publicly talk about how much he loved Peloton.

Well, I’m a runner, and it was wintertime in Texas. It’s freezing to run outside. So, we were in a conversation, and he said, “How are you?” I said, “Oh, I’m great. I wish I could go running. The weather is terrible.” And for the next 20 minutes, all he did was talk to me about Peloton and how amazing it was. He would’ve bought anything I said to him after that because I was so interested in what he was talking about.

So, the first thing is that all relationships come from pre-research so that you go into networking events with a little bit of due diligence. And if you go into an interview, by the way, if you know who’s interviewing you, you do some due diligence on the person, not just the company. But then when you go to a networking event, you’ve got to look that people really fit into three boxes, “Who could be a potential client or who could potentially employ me?” And that will get you a short-term win, if you’re a small business owner, of money coming in the door.

But momentum partners, they need to hear something different. They don’t want to hear about your functional skill. They want to understand the difference you want to make in the world in a way that they can articulate to other people. And then they want to understand a simple way of sharing that. Now, a momentum partner is, and these are informal relationships, it’s not a tit-for-that thing. But if I believe in what you do, I might start recommending you to other people that I know that you would get value from connecting with, and you would for me. These are people that are around the same credibility level as me or lower.

On the other hand, champion relationships are a kind of like the senior leaders. For me, Ivan Misner, the founder of BNI, is an amazing champion for me. He’s endorsed my books, he’s had me speak at his conference, he’s constantly talking about how great my work is, he’s had me on his podcast twice. He and I are great friends but, truthfully, if he called me tomorrow and said, “Fly to Texas. I need you to pick up my drycleaning,” I would do it. These are the relationships you want to foster.

So, what you need to understand about these relationships is they don’t want to know how much you know. They want to know how much you care. So, I’ll give you an example. If I’m in a networking event, and I introduce myself as the rapid growth guy, well, most people would say, “You know, I’m a marketer, and I specialize in customer-centric engagements for a large corporation,” or something horrible like that. It’s so, “I, I, I,” it’s so transactional.

Where what I will do is I’ll say, “I’m the rapid growth guy,” and when people ask me, “What exactly is that?” I will say, “Well, one of the things I love to see more than anything in the world is an amazing introverted service provider with enough talent, skill, and belief in themselves to start a business of their own. But what I find, more often than not, is they constantly get stuck in this endless hamster wheel of struggling to find interested people, trying to set themselves apart, trying to make the sale, feeling like people only care about one thing – price. Do you know anyone like that?”

Now, if I’ve done my research before, I’ve likely connected with these people in advance, there’s familiar faces in the room, I’ve walked up to them to talk to them. I know they’re like that. So, because of that, they’ll respond in the affirmative. And then when they say, “Well, yeah, absolutely. I’m like that,” and I’ll say, “Well, I’m on a mission to help introverts like yourself, realize you’re not a second-class citizen.”

“Your path to success is just different to that of an extrovert, and rapid growth really comes down to three steps outside the scope of your functional skill, which you’re usually amazing at. And if you just focus on these three steps, you really can build a rapid growth business that revolves around you, your family, and your life, not the other way around.” 

And because of that, momentum partners and champions will go, “Wow, I want to introduce you to so-and-so. Or, have you thought about joining this association or this support group or this initiative that we’re having? I want to have you as part of it.” Because people are so used to getting so bored with these mundane introductions of what you do.

And when they hear passion, “I love to see this, I hate to see this, and I’m on a mission to do this,” for the first time, it is intoxicating and they will open up their rolodex for you. And, depending on whether they’re a momentum partner, i.e., the same level or below as you, or a champion, a higher level, the doors that they will open will be compelling. And, especially, you’ve been interested before interesting, and offering people in your rolodex, offering to just give them value in any way, shape, or form that you can beforehand, you will find that all of the doors will open for you, and you’ll create relationships like you’ve never seen before.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Matthew, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Matthew Pollard
Firstly, there’s nothing wrong with being an introvert. But, secondly, it’s not something you can change. 

Introversion is just this – where you draw your energy from. That’s it. It doesn’t mean you can’t engage in small talk. It doesn’t mean the strategies of small talk are different. And if you try to copy extroverts, my gosh, it’s going to be a really uncomfortable inauthentic feeling that you’ll have afterwards, and that’s why a lot of us ruminate afterwards.

But what I want you to know if you’re an introvert is, firstly, you’re not a second-class citizen.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Matthew Pollard
My favorite quote, is that “We can change who we are at every moment.” We get a second chance every second.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Matthew Pollard
There’s a Stanford study that says when we tell a story, it activates the reticular activating system of the brain, which means that the brain, between the storyteller and the story receiver, actually synchronize. It creates artificial rapport which we introverts can create into deeper rapport.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Matthew Pollard
I really loved Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I felt like that was a really great book for all people, whether they’re entrepreneurs or career professionals. I feel like it’s a really great book for everybody.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Matthew Pollard
I actually love at the moment ChatGPT. It’s providing a ton of value for a lot of different things at the moment.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Matthew Pollard
So, for me, I think planning is my favorite habit. And I think for introverts, I think that planning is absolutely essential because, otherwise, you’ll go into a sale and you’re uncomfortable. For me, any day that I feel like I’ve got anxiety or stress, it means that I’m moving away from my goals. So, I will re-read over my goals.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they tweet it, they Kindle book highlight it, etc., the say, “Matthew, that was so brilliant and touching when you said this thing”?

Matthew Pollard
The words “Introverts are not second-class citizens. Our path to success is just different to that of an extrovert.” And then you say right after that, “And I am an introvert, I should know.” And then tell your personal story, and my bet is you will find out that many of your bosses are also introverted so it will help you move up the ladder but also will inspire so many people below you to believe they can.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Matthew Pollard
Go to MatthewPollard.com/growth, download that template, and create that unified message, and discover your niche of willing to buy clients, or discover your niche of employer, and create a unified message.

My books are a great resource. Just go to TheIntrovertsEdge.com, download the first chapter, and I literally help you believe that you can sell, and then give you the exact process.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you, Matthew. This has been a treat. I wish you much fun networking.

Matthew Pollard
It was my absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

Jan 11
0

927: Fixing One-on-One Meetings Improves (almost) Everything with Dr. Steven Rogelberg

By | Podcasts | No Comments

 

 

Dr. Steven Rogelberg explains why one-on-one meetings are so critical—and shares best practices for both managers and employees.

You’ll Learn:

  1. Why having more one-on-ones actually saves time
  2. How to create a meeting agenda that works
  3. The right way to ask your manager for help 

About Steven

Dr. Steven G. Rogelberg, an organizational psychologist, holds the title of Chancellor’s Professor at UNC Charlotte for distinguished national, international and interdisciplinary contributions. He is an award-winning teacher and recipient of the very prestigious Humboldt Award for his research on meetings. Adam Grant has called Steven the “world’s leading expert on how to fix meetings”.

Dr. Rogelberg’s previous book, The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance (Oxford) has been on over 25 “best of” lists including being recognized by the Washington Post as the #1 leadership book to watch for.

He was the inaugural winner of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) Humanitarian Award and just finished his term as President of SIOP, the largest professional organization in the world for I-O psychology.

Resources Mentioned

Dr. Steven Rogelberg Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis

Steven, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Thank you. It’s really great to be here.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I’m stoked to be chatting about your book Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings. But first, I have to hear from you, can you think of a particularly transformational or consequential one-on-one meeting in your own life and what made it so special?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Yeah, it was really the experience of leading one with one of my directs, and just seeing how it impacted her. So, she came into the one-on-one in a really bad place, and then, by the end of it, she was in a different place. She was kind of charged up to address the challenges that she was confronting, and I was just grateful. It feels great to help one of your directs who is struggling.

Pete Mockaitis

Totally. And can you tell us, broadly speaking, and not just in your own experience there but in your research and across workplaces, really what’s at stake if we have one-on-one meetings go amazingly versus okay?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Well, the research is clear and powerful. Leaders who do one-on-one meetings well, the gains are tremendous. We see it positively affecting employee experience, employee engagement, even retention of your top talent. From a team perspective, there’s a strong linkage between good one-on-ones and team performance, inclusion efforts are enhanced, and the sweet composite of all this is, is that this is really good for the manager. Because as your people, and as the team thrives, it only reflects well on you. So, one-on-ones are one of these activities that everyone benefits from.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, as you did your research, tell me, did anything really surprised you, or strike you, or seem shocking?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

I thought it was really interesting that when we surveyed employees about how often they’d want a one-on-one meeting with their manager, well, let me throw it back at you, Pete. What do you think? What do you think the typical responses? How often do people want one-on-ones with their manager?

Pete Mockaitis

More than they’re getting is the theme, I would say.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

That’s a really good response. So, the typical response was, “Weekly.” And what was so interesting is that more senior employees actually desired even more one-on-ones than more junior employees. So, counter to generational stereotypes, we see a reverse of that.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, that’s right. That is a great reversal of generational stereotypes

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

I think that everyone wants to be seen, and one-on-one meetings are that opportunity to be seen. And I think with the senior-level folks, they know with their experience how critical it is to have this contact with their manager that really focuses on success, alignment, removing barriers and obstacles, so they get it. And because they get it, they want it.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. So, they know it matters and they want it all the more. So, that’s what we want. Well, what are we getting?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Well, the cadence out there is very variable, some managers are meeting with their people once a week. Many others are doing it once a month. That’s very common. Still, others do it quarterly, which is basically a no-meeting cadence. But more concerning is our research generally shows that around 50% of one-on-ones are rated sub-optimally, so we’re not realizing their full potential.

And then, Pete, the thing that’s crazy is that if you surveyed these two individuals leaving the meeting room, the manager thinks it went much better than the direct. They seem to have a little bit of a blind spot.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, that’s quite a confluence of forces, a perfect storm here. People want lots of one-on-one meetings, they’re not getting those one-on-one meetings. When they happen, they’re usually disappointing, and yet, the manager thinks that things are going just fine and dandy all at the same time.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Exactly. Pete, you literally just nailed why I wrote this book, it was to address that statement exactly.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. So, lay it on us then, Steven, if we are hurting on this dimension, what are the tops things we can do to improve it?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

So, some of the common mistakes is people don’t prepare, they don’t try to find this connective tissue between one-on-ones, and that’s really the wonderful value of one-on-ones is that you can create this connective tissue and to build momentum.

They’re not doing them at the right cadence. They are making the meeting more about the manager and less about the direct. They can’t help themselves. They talk more than the direct, which is one of the greatest predictors of one-on-one ineffectiveness. They don’t have a plan of action. They don’t involve the direct in creating that plan of action. They don’t kind of create an environment that’s psychologically safe, so the directs don’t come in there and actually share what’s important to them. They don’t, at the end of the one-on-one, recap what was agreed upon. And they don’t follow through on the various commitments.

So, those are some of the plagues that happen, but there are so many more. We could go into cancellations, for example. One of the biggest mistakes that managers do is they cancel these one-on-ones frequently. And think about what a signal that is to your employees, that basically you have this activity that’s about them, but if something else comes up that’s pressing, you cancel. You immediately lower the importance of your employees.

And what we found in the research is a much better practice is if you have to cancel, move up the meeting as opposed to move it back even if you only meet with that person for 10 minutes. But that type of a behavior, as opposed to being a negative signal, it becomes a positive signal, that no matter what, you’re going to find that time for your people.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s huge. And it’s so funny because it does happen all the time, I’ve seen it, and I’ve been guilty, I guess, on both sides. And it’s so interesting, I think the manager’s perspective is maybe something like, “Ah, well, this is something within my control, my people. I have some flexibility and leeway to move this around,” versus, “Super big deal client. That? Oh, no, I have to bend over backwards and deal with them, pronto. Like, I have no choice in that matter,” versus this meeting with my people, “Hey, man, we’re cool. Yeah, we’ll could shift that around. No problem.”

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis

But that’s not so cool.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

It’s not. It’s one of those things. People go through their workdays, they’re looking at signals, signals about their values, signals of their importance, signals about who their manager really is, and we have to be careful. Like, sometimes we say one thing but our signals and behavior suggests something very different.

And so, one of the things I really get into in the book is that this is not an optional activity. This is a core requirement of leadership, and the alternative title for the book that I played with is “This is the one meeting that should not be an email,” because this is a stage for leadership. This is where leadership really happens.

Now, we’ve all heard the old adage that people don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses. And one-on-ones are this opportunity to display awesome leadership, to foster these meaningful relationships with your people, to help them on their path and on their journey. And by doing so, all boats are raised.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Now, previously, you used the term connective tissue. Just to make sure we don’t lose that, what precisely does that mean?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

So, basically, one-on-ones really move to the next level when each one-on-one kind of connects with a past one-on-one. So, let’s say that you and I are having a one-on-one, Pete, and as part of it, it emerges that you are struggling with conflict management types of tasks, that it really brings you down, it drains you, it just takes this really big toll. So, we spend some time talking about it, we share some resources, what have you.

Well, at our next one-on-one, if I start the one-on-one by saying, “Hey, Pete, I know you’re working on some of the conflict management stuff. How’s that been going for you?” that conveys that I’ve been listening, that I care, that I’m tracking these things. So, to the extent that the story, the story of your career, the story of your success continues, it just becomes a much more powerful conversation. It’s like imagine a relationship with a friend who completely forgets everything that you both talked about last time. That friendship would not thrive.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, Steven, it seems like a huge part of this value and goodness can be unlocked simply by deciding, “Okay, this is a priority. I’m going to make the time. I’m not going to shift the meetings around. I’m going to take the time to thoughtfully prepare. I’m going to listen.” So, let’s say that someone is committed, they’ve got the will. What are some of the practices that even then they might overlook?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

So, one of the things is that I found it pretty surprising. When we were looking at some of the design factors around these, and I wasn’t sure about the importance of an agenda for one-on-ones. And it only happens around 50% of the time, but what the research showed is that when there was an agenda, but a lightweight agenda, those one-on-ones seem to excel much greater.

And so, when we think about what that agenda could look like, I want to share a couple approaches that seem to be most well received. One is the listing approach where you tell your direct, “Come to the one-on-one with a list of topics that you want to talk about. I’ll create a list as well but, please, know my list is secondary. I’m only going to bring up my list if it measures with yours or if we have time.”

“Also, when you’re creating your list, I want you to think big, small, long term, short term, you, your team, your organization,” because we want the employee to do a broader scale when they’re creating their list. So, that’s the listing approach, and that would be a great thing for a manager to facilitate. And the more you involve the direct in creating this process, the better.

The second approach is called the core-question approach, and this is where, with your direct, you basically identify four or five core questions that form the foundation of the one-on-one. For example, “What obstacles are you experiencing and how can I help you?” So, you create these questions together, and then the direct has the ability to really guide the meeting in lots of different ways.

Now, in both of these approaches, there’s a few things to keep in mind. One is we don’t want these meetings to turn into a status update, fall into a status update trap where all we talk about is, “What’s going on in that project? What’s going on in that project? What’s going on in that project?” because that is not truly a meeting for the direct. So, therefore, we want to make sure that we rotate questions over time.

It might be the case that we even dedicate certain amounts of time each one of these one-on-ones for a longer horizon career-based discussion. That’s totally fine. So, we want to make sure we’re flexible. We want to ask good questions but we even want to think about the response options associated with them, and let me give you an example, and maybe this might also fall into your category of surprise.

So, a very common question is, “How are you?” Well, it sounds like a reasonably good question. Sadly, it doesn’t work. When you ask someone “How are you?” they typically have automatic responses, “I’m fine,” “Pretty good,” “Great.” It doesn’t really tell you much. But if we changed the response options, if we asked the individual, “I’m interested in how you are but I want you to let me know, on a scale from one to ten, with one being horrible, ten being great, how are you showing up today?”

Now, you get responses of fives, of sixes, of sevens. Now, you have something to work with. You can explore it. You can understand it. So, we need to think about these questions. We want to have really interesting, important, relevant questions that your direct is really strongly informing. And then it’s about good facilitation, good engagement, asking lots of questions, “Tell me more about this,” “What are your thoughts about it?” because we, ultimately, want to give the gift of communication to the direct.

But I will say this and then I’ll pause, is that it is hard. The research has shown that people talk a lot because it activates the same parts of the brain as good food. So, we talk a lot because it feels kind of good, and we need to give that gift to someone else, namely the direct, for this one-on-one to truly shine.

Pete Mockaitis

Great perspectives here. And I love it we jumped right into some very precise practices. Maybe take a step back. What should be our mindset, our underlying goal, our approach, like, “I am doing this one-on-one in order to blank. Therefore, I will do it in the following style or way”?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

When rolling out one-on-ones, it’s really important to tie it to values, and we did this. If you ask managers about what they value, and you look at organization value statements, they are basically shouting one-on-ones. You invariably will see value such as helping others, supporting, leveraging team, all these things. Well, one-on-one is a manifestation of those values.

So, when you’re rolling this out to your folks, you want it to be about values, and that you are committed to their growth and their success, and you’re engaging in one-on-ones to basically live these values. And you’re going to be nimble, you’re going to keep changing these up based on their feedback, their ideas because you want them to have this large shaping influence for this to truly work.

And it’s constantly reminding yourself that this meeting is not for you. This is that one time where you are just fully focused on what’s on the mind of the directs. As a manager, you have power, you can meet with your direct anytime you want. You can send an email asking, “Hey, what’s going on with this project?” You can do that in an asynchronous document. There’s lots of mechanisms for you to have your needs met. This is just your mechanism to make sure their needs are being met.

And when we think about their needs, it’s not just their practical and tactical needs, but it’s their personal needs, the need to feel respected and trusted. These are fundamental kind of human needs. And when the one-on-one can address both of those sets of needs, then the direct leaves the one-on-one feeling pretty good. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to leave there with a big smile on their face because, who knows, maybe you talked about really hard stuff but at least they’ll feel truly seen.

Pete Mockaitis

Can you share, with these needs, is there a sort of taxonomy, or set of key categories, or top needs that should really be top of mind as we’re trying to deliver on these in the one-on-ones?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Love it. I provide a taxonomy in the book, and I lined up questions for each one of them, because you’re raising such a key issue. Really, the types of needs could be around the individual’s work, it could be the obstacles to their success. So, if we want to think about it as levels, so they have needs around their individual work, there could be needs around the team, there could be needs around the organization, better understanding organizational strategy, organizational priorities, organizational communications.

So, you have this individual, team, organization, and then you have the time horizon associated with each of them, they’re short term and long term. And in each of those boxes, that’s where you have those practical needs, and then underlying that are those personal needs, those psychological experience of the conversation. And those things together is really what a complete one-on-one is.

Now, with that said, you can’t do everything in these one-on-ones. You can only do so much. If your one-on-one is 20-25 minutes, which is okay if that’s what you need to do, we want quality over quantity. And if it turns out that the direct just wants to focus on one particular issue or one particular need, so be it. If that’s what’s on their mind, we want to go with it. We will remind them that, “Hey, I know you want to talk about some other things. It looks like we’re not going to get to them. Is that okay with you?”

So, again, we’re constantly signaling, “This is your meeting.” And because it’s their meeting, they can choose to spend as much time on any particular topic that they so desire.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, let’s shift gears for a moment, and let’s say you’re not the manager. You are the direct report who would like to have one-on-ones with more frequency, or you’re having the one-on-ones and they’re not hitting the mark. How do you recommend we show some initiative, some proactive shaping to get what we’re after here?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

So, how I frame it in my content is really it takes two to tango, each party does have responsibilities. While the manager has the most responsibilities, the direct does, too. And in our research, we’ve identified 10 key behaviors that directs have, and we don’t have time to go into all of them but let me share a few.

So, first of all, you can’t get what you need unless you know what you need. And so, before that one-on-one, the direct actually has to really think, really, really think about what their challenges, issues, problems are, needs are. And that takes a little bit of thought. And so many times, directs go into these one-on-ones not doing that. And by doing so, they’re violating the spirit of the one-on-one, and the void, the gap will be filled but with managers’ needs. So, know what you need, that’s first.

Second, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Asking for help is critical to human success but the research generally shows that there’s two types of help-seeking behavior. There’s autonomous help-seeking behavior and dependent. Now, dependent help-seeking is really where you ask the other party to solve your problem. Autonomous help-seeking is really about acquiring information or insights so you can solve your problem yourself.

An autonomous help-seeking is associated with long-term success; dependent is not. So, when you go in there, you know what you need, you’re asking for help in an autonomous way, you’re getting ideas, you’re listening to feedback, you’re checking yourself to not be defensive, you’re engaging in really good rapport behaviors because, who knows, maybe your manager is not good at establishing rapport so you’re jumping in to make sure there is good rapport, and you’re expressing gratitude.

You might even offer help to your manager because one of the things we know about help behavior is when you offer help to other people, they tend to offer help back to you. So, the direct has an active role to making these things truly work. But in so many regards, the direct is going to look at the signals, the signals of what the manager is doing and not doing, and those signals are really going to drive how seriously they enter into that one-on-one.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Steven, tell me, anything else critical you want to make sure to cover before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

I think there’s a few things that I’ll just kind of throw out there. One-on-ones are truly an essential activity, especially in a more distributive workforce. Everyone is craving feeling seen, and one-on-ones are the mechanism. I also want to put out there that one-on-ones are an investment of time that actually saves you time.

Namely, what has generally been found is that when you have these regular one-on-ones with your folks, you tend to get less spontaneous interruptions because people seem to save their issues. Furthermore, because one-on-ones elevate the direct’s performance, there’s less time spent on rework. Furthermore, because when one-on-ones are done well, employees are more engaged and they’re less likely to leave the organization.

So, the point being is that you have many managers who say, “I just don’t have time.” Well, the fact is this truly is going to make time. And one of the things I do in the book is I talk about other areas where you can drop activities to find time but this is just not one of them. This is a core activity of being a leader.

And then I want to say one other thing, which I think you might get a kick out of. The core elements of the book really lays out, it gives the manager choices. So, I’ve identified all these evidence-based techniques that can make these better, but I don’t prescribe. I don’t say, “Do A then B, then C,” because the science doesn’t align with that. This is also why I stress both the art and the science.

So, you know your values, you know your people, so you have choices, and you could take these choices and make them work for you. And there’s another interesting application of all this. One-on-ones could actually be done with your children. And I know that sounds crazy, and I’m not at all suggesting you have these rigid calendar holds with your kids, but the fact is a lot of the core elements of one-on-ones do apply to these familial relationships.

It’s so often that parents don’t actually truly talk to their child on the child’s terms, really exploring what’s on their minds, and just finding that dedicated space. And clinicians have been talking about this for a long time that when a parent does a lot of these same practices with their kids, it builds better relationships, more self-efficacy for them, and they thrive. So, I think that what’s cool about the book is that it’s not only good for your career, whether you’re a leader or a direct, but you can apply it to these other contexts.

Pete Mockaitis

You know, Steven, that’s powerful. And I recently asked my five-year-old son, “What do I do with you that makes you feel the most loved by me?” And he said, “When we have Dada-Johnny time, one-on-one.” And that’s powerful because it’s just like for the manager, it’s very easy to not do that in the midst of “This house is a mess, and there’s two other siblings crying out for attention.” So, it’s like you really got to conscientiously have to stop the world, and say, “No, this is what we’re doing right now.”

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis

“And me and Johnny are chatting, and no one else is allowed in the room. That’s what we’re doing now.”

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Oh, man, Pete, that is a beautiful story, by the way, and you just nailed it. That’s just a great example. It’s just as a young human to an old human, we all just want to feel seen. The thought of people taking an interest in us is so incredibly meaningful. And if we want to elevate work, people, teams, and humanity more broadly, we need to make time for these conversations.

Pete Mockaitis

Beautiful. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

I like the quote, “Living well is the best revenge.”

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a favorite book?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

There’s this book, and I don’t know the author, it’s called Postmortal. And, basically, it’s this dystopian novel that gets to a point where all humans can live forever, assuming they don’t fall off a building. And what is so cool about it is it just talks about the implications of a society that doesn’t die. And, clearly, that’s not sustainable.

But, at the same time, when people don’t die, it creates great challenges to institutions that we kind of take for granted. For example, what’s marriage if you don’t die? So, I just really liked the story and I liked some of the more intellectual kind of dilemmas that it created.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And, Steven, is there a particular quote that you share, a Steven original, that seems to really connect and resonate with folks?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

It might be something around the notion of stewardship. So, this is something I talk about a lot, that the best meeting leaders recognize that they’re inherently a steward of others’ time.

Pete Mockaitis

And, Steven, do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Make meaningful time available to those on your team, in your network, and do as much good as you can do, elevate as many lives as you can. And, ultimately, through both of those, the wonderful benefit is that you will thrive as well. And I always go back to one of the greatest predictors of life satisfaction is helping of others. And one-on-ones, that opportunity, sincerely and truly help others.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Steven, thank you for this. I wish you many transformational one-on-ones.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Thank you very much. And, definitely, folks can check out my website, StevenRogelberg.com. I have a ton of resources there for people, lots of things, checklists that they can download. I obviously have links to the book. The neat thing is I just want to get this book out there. I’m donating all my royalties to the American Cancer Society, every penny of them. So, check out the book if you want to have transformative one-on-ones, or check out the book if you want to help eradicate cancer.

Jan 08
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926: The Five Codes that Make and Break Trust with Jeremie Kubiceck

By | Podcasts | No Comments

Jeremie Kubicek shares how to end misunderstandings with the five codes of communication.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The root of every misunderstanding
  2. The simple trick to consistently meet people’s expectations
  3. How to repair damaged relationships  

About Jeremie

Jeremie Kubicek is a powerful communicator, serial entrepreneur and content builder. He creates content used by some of the largest companies around the globe found in the books he has authored: The 100X Leader; 5 Voices, 5 Gears; the National Bestseller, Making Your Leadership Come Alive; and The Peace Index. His new book, The Communication Code, co-authored with his business partner, was released last November.

Jeremie is the Co-Founder of GiANT, a company that certifies coaches and consultants that serve companies and their employees. Jeremie has started over 25 companies while living in Oklahoma City, Moscow, Atlanta and London.

Resources Mentioned

Jeremie Kubicek Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis

Jeremie, welcome back to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Jeremie Kubicek

So good to be here. Always good to be with you, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I want to hear about your book The Communication Code. You’ve done a lot of research on humans, relating, communicating, interacting. Any particularly noteworthy discoveries or learnings you have on all these lately?

Jeremie Kubicek

Yes, I do. In fact, we basically have a tool that we’ve used for eight years in our GIANT business, our community. But I’ve just done a lot of research around the idea of, “Why do people miscommunicate? And then, “How does miscommunication affect relationships? And what does it actually do?”

And so, the big aha that Steve Cockram and I had in this is every communication has an expectation attached to it. And every expectation has a code word, a clue. And if you can figure out the code word of what the other person is inferring or expecting, you’ll unlock that communication, that transmission of communication will get unlocked.

And when that happens over and over again, you’ll build healthier relationships, you’ll build more camaraderie, you’ll lower miscommunication, which will impact the other person. And so, how many people have relationships in their life?

Pete Mockaitis

I do.

Jeremie Kubicek

Yeah, everyone. And how many want those to be the best it possibly can be? Well, if that’s the case, wouldn’t it be good if you knew what the code words were? And wouldn’t it be great if you could figure them out before they told you, or the other person could tell you what the code word is? And that’s what we figured out.

We saw, like, “Oh, my goodness, there are five code words. If you figured out those five code words, it will unlock that communication, that one transmission of communication, which could then unlock the relationship.”

Pete Mockaitis

That’s so cool. And what’s coming to mind for me is I remember I had a really sweet woman, and mentor, her name is Marilyn Holt. Shoutout to Marilyn. And she just thought it would be kind of fun to get some students together to meet up with this billionaire friend of hers. She just thought, “Oh, I think you’ll probably learn some things from him, have some fun.” She’s like, “Hey, Ron, I think it might be great to get some students that I’m working with together to meet with you.”

And so, he just said immediately, “What do they want?” And she said, “You know, Ron, I’m sorry. You probably have everybody always wanting something from you. We just thought it’d be fun to get together and see a little bit about your story and journey, and have a cool experience for these kids.” Like, “Oh,” so he’s like surprised, like, “Oh, yeah, okay, let’s do that.” Because we do, we have this expectation which is formed by any number of things, and part of it could just be what most people tend to want when a stranger is calling up a billionaire.”

Jeremie Kubicek

That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis

And he’s like, “Oh, that’s probably what these guys want, too, is something in the world of what I could do for them with, I don’t know, jobs, or internships, or investments, or something.”

Jeremie Kubicek

And, in our case, we figured out this the really hard way. Steve Cockram is my business partner, he’s British. I was in London, we were meeting, I had just celebrated closing a strategic partnership, it was a pretty sizable partnership, and I was super excited about it. And I’m like, “Dude, we got to go to lunch. I’ve got so much to share.” That was a code, that was a clue, of like, “I want to celebrate.”

We get to lunch, and I start sharing the details of what I was excited about. And, again, I’m expecting celebration, high five, “Let’s have a great time. Let’s celebrate in this for a minute,” and he begins to critique. And the critique was, “Well, why did you do it that way? That’s not how you said we were going to do it. And what about this? And didn’t they provide this? And haven’t you…?” And I start turning green and red, Hulking out.

And, all of a sudden, I’m like, “What are you doing? Why can’t we just celebrate?” and I freak out. And he’s like, “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to celebrate?” I’m like, “Wasn’t it obvious I wanted to celebrate?” And what we realized was, in this whole encounter, that Steve’s tendency is to critique in the form of collaboration. He wants to collaborate but it can come across as critique. My aha was I wanted to celebrate, or I wanted to at least clarify beforehand, and that was the game that we’re playing. I was trying to express my celebration, and he was bringing his full critique, and we missed, and we realized, “Oh, my goodness, how many times does that happen?”

So, I took this executive team recently through this exercise. They’re all married. I said, “Think about your spouse and what they tend to communicate, and what do you receive, and what do you communicate, and what do they receive?” And eight out of eight missed it. They wanted different things, “I want care,” or, “I want you to clarify.” “What do you get?” “I get critiqued or collaboration” “I want collaboration and celebration but I only get care and I don’t really need that.”

In each case, they missed. So, then I reversed it, and I said, “What about you? What do you tend to do to them? And what does your spouse want?” And only seven out of eight were wrong. One of them got it right. My point was, “How many people are missing it every single day?” So, what happens when you miscommunicate? You begin to put up walls. You begin to move back. You pull away. You begin to infer, “Oh, yeah, you know, Pete. That’s just how he is.”

And then we work around people because we know how they’re going to respond. And then, over time, relationship expectations go down. You begin to not expect much and just kind of live with it.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah. It is funny how we do make these assumptions, like, “Wasn’t it obvious I wanted to celebrate?” And it’s obvious in our own minds and yet we can get it wrong all the time. So, lay it on us, you’ve got five flavors here, each one starts with the letter C. Can you start by giving us what are those five C’s?

Jeremie Kubicek

Yeah, so celebrate is the desire to express what you’re excited about. Care is the need for wanting to make sure that you’re taken care of. And clarify, clarity is really to clarify, “Is this what you’re saying, Pete? Let me make sure before I go in another direction. Let me make sure that I understand what you’re saying.” And then collaborate is the idea that you want me to help you. We want to work on this together. And then critique is you’re going to hold something up, I’m going to make it better. I’m going to show you where it’s wrong so that it can be right.

So, if you think about those five, that most of our interactions, the expectations are tied to those. So, if I’m going, like Steve example, I wanted to celebrate, and I wanted him to either clarify but he said, “You didn’t tell me. Why didn’t you just tell me?” And I’m like, “Why didn’t you just get it? It was obvious.” So, in this case, now I will go to someone, like in that case, I would say this, “Hey, Steve, I am so excited. I want to celebrate a few things. So, today is all about celebration, but then if you don’t fully get it, clarify. Ask me any questions. That’d be awesome.”

And I’ve given him two codes but the main one is, “I’m here to celebrate.” Or, he might come to me, as he does often, he goes, “Hey, Jeremie, I want to collaborate. I really value your input on such and such. I know you care for me. I’m not really here to celebrate. You can clarify if you want, but I really want to collaborate.” I’m like, “Cool. Got it.” So, now, I’ve been given the open door. I’ve been given the code word, and so I should be able to meet expectations. When we don’t meet expectations, that’s when all friction comes into relationships.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, this is good. And so then, collaboration, it seems like…well, I guess they’re all pretty big categories. Collaboration seems like just about anytime we’re trying to do a thing, it would fall into the collaboration zone, like, “I want to sell you something,” or, “I want to buy something from you,” or, “I want to figure a thing out together.” Then all that’s in the collaboration zone.

Jeremie Kubicek

That’s right. And it doesn’t have to be so rhythmic where you have to say it every single time. You get good at it over time. I can now figure out expectations. By even asking a few clarifying questions, I can figure out what they need. But sometimes with my wife, we’re set in a hot tub and we’ll talk at night, and it’ll be like, “So, what do you need tonight?” And she’ll be like, “I just need you to listen.”

That’s care. Got it. That means she doesn’t need my critique, she doesn’t need any collaboration, she doesn’t want to celebrate. She just wants me to listen. That’s care. So, showing her care is different. Now, her showing me care might be a little different than hers. I need to talk out loud so I need her to listen in a different way, so there’s nuances to it but we get the gist of it.

But to start out, Pete, if you and I were in a meeting, you’re like, “Hey, Jeremie, I really trust you. I’m almost finished with this presentation. Critique it, man. Blow holes in it so that I can make this really, really tight.” Great. You gave me the communication code to know what to do.

Pete Mockaitis

And it is so handy when you know. It’s funny, I think critique is among the most dangerous. It’s like, “I am not looking for a critique.” And we’ve had some other guests say that one of the best things you can do when you’re offering feedback is to, first, ask for permission to provide some feedback, or I guess you’re getting clarification there.

Jeremie Kubicek

That’s it.

Pete Mockaitis

It’s like, “Oh, you know, I’ve got some ideas for improvement. Would you like me to share them?” And then for the other person really has permission to say, “You know, not today. We’re not in the headspace for that, but other days you are.” And it can be so valuable. Like, when you’re really wide open for it, it’s so huge.

I’m thinking about I was listening to Mr. Beast, the famous YouTuber, as to how he got so huge. And he said, “Oh, I had a number of friends and we would always just get together. We would just roast each other’s videos.” And I like he used the word roast because roast is sort of like a funny thing, comedians do a roast. So, it almost sounds fun and celebratory, and yet what it consists of is being told all the things you’re doing wrong in your videos and how you can make them much better.

And so, you’re right. If you’re not feeling that, it’s just like you’ll get way mad. You’ll get way mad at that person, like, “Hey, shut up, jerk. I’m out of here.”

Jeremie Kubicek

It’s not helpful. Right, because what happens is critique is different than being critical. Critical is when it’s negative, “So, you’re against me.” Well, if we’ve done communication really well, if we’ve used a communication code, we’ve built up really good communication, expectations are being met, that means I trust you. I know that you’re for me, you’re not against me. If I know that you’re for me, I’m probably going to be more open to your critique than if I feel that you’re against me, it’s going to feel like you’re critical and you’re always critical. So, constructive criticism, those words don’t go together.

It also, though, plays out to different personality types. So, we have something, I think, last time I shared on the five voices, which is our personality system that is so, so scalable and potent, but we have thinkers and feelers. Well, thinkers, the thinker voices are going to be pioneers and guardians. They’re going to be way more open to critique than the feelers, the nurturers, the connectors, some of the creatives, because they live in logic, and they live in just the thinking mindset, so they’re fine, “Sure, shoot holes in it.”

So, they go, “Hey, what do you think of my idea, Pete?” and they shoot holes in it, and they go, “Okay, great.” They leave and then they come back, “What do you think now?” “Oh, it’s great.” “Perfect. Thank you.” The feelers take an idea, and they go, “Hey, Pete, what do you think of my idea?” and they put it right over their heart. And, all of a sudden, you shoot at it, and then there’s blood, and they’re like, “Oh, dude, why did you put it over your heart? What were you thinking? Move it.”

And so, the feelers have a harder time, and I’m one, have a harder time. We have a hard time with anything that feels negative towards us. So, that means we have to really build up the right rapport, the right relational trust with another person, and that takes time. And that’s what we’ve done, is we just built tools that make leaders more relationally intelligent so that they can not miss. They can actually hit what the expectations of the other person are.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, Jeremie, this is sort of your knack, is you present something, it’s simple, it’s like, “Well, of course. I should just do that and we’ll all be better off. Cool. Cool. Cool.” Tell us, Jeremie, what are some the nuances, or the tricky parts, or the sticking points, like, “That sounds easy enough. How about we all just go do this, declare what C we’re in, we’re looking for?” Where do things go wrong?

Jeremie Kubicek

Yeah, it goes wrong because you need to think about your past. Every single person has a past with you. So, what’s it been like on the other side of you for the last five years or the last 25 years? So, it’s one thing if you’re like, “Oh, great. Figure out a new technique. Here we go,” and I start practicing it on someone. Like, well, wait. They’ve experienced you in a negative power test. They’ve experienced your domination where you brought low support and high challenge to them. You’ve been critiquing them for 15 years.

You can’t just change overnight. You actually have to get through a process of like, “Oh, my gosh, Pete. I’ve read this book, and I think I’ve realized I’ve been dominating. I didn’t mean to. I’ve been critiquing the entire time. I’m so sorry.” Stage one. Stage two is, “I’m going to practice The Communication Code.” But you’re going to have to do it for a long time for them to realize this is the new norm.

Because if you’re in a negative power, if you’re in a negative situation with someone, then it’s been an abuse of power, an abuse of your personality, abuse of your communication style, and that’s worn the other person out, and maybe their walls are so high. So, you got to let them drop their walls a little bit so they’ll actually begin to trust you again. That’s a nuance that people have to realize. If they want to experience true relational change, then they have to go back in the past and clean it up, which can be hard.

Pete Mockaitis
So, could you maybe give us a sample of what that conversation might sound like in practice?

Jeremie Kubicek

Yeah.

Jeremie Kubicek

“So, Pete, man, I’ve been reading this concept called The Communication Code, and I think I’ve realized in the first two chapters, it talked all about the negative power test. I think sometimes my personality is so overbearing that I feel like I probably don’t give you the chance to breathe or talk, or I think I’ve noticed also that you probably feel my critique more than you feel my celebration. Is that true?” And then I give you a chance to share.

And if you’re like, “Oh, yeah, that’s it.” It’s like, “Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry, man. I probably didn’t realize that was just naturally happening. So, if you’ll give me a chance, I’m just going to work on some things. So, I’m going to ask you a question whenever we get together. What do you need right now? Do you want celebration? Do you want care? Do you want clarity? And then I’m going to start there. If you want me to collaborate or critique, I’ll let you tell me but I’m going to try to work on clarifying first or celebrating a little bit even though I’m not very good at it.” That’s an example.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Yeah, that seems like it’d be lovely to hear on the receiving end of that.

Jeremie Kubicek
That would be nice.

Pete Mockaitis

You might be met with some skepticism, like, “Okay, Jeremie, let’s see how long this will last till you’re onto your next flavor of the month.” So, you might get some skepticism but it’ll be a hard time imagining a strong negative reaction. There’s a scene from Brooklyn Nine-Nine which cracks me up where they get an amazing new captain that they’re skeptical of, and they say, “Oh, she wants to meet with us and talk about our goals and our strengths. Like, what’s she up to? This can’t be good.”

And so, that makes me chuckle in the professional development space. But tell us, how are some ways that might be perceived negatively that we should be on the lookout for?

Jeremie Kubicek

Yeah, so it’s what you said, it’s being consistent. Consistency is the key to great leadership. If you’re consistent, and people know this isn’t the flavor of the month, this is something that you’re doing, and then you’re using the language consistently, then you’re going to probably work around it. We use language and tools at GIANT that get embedded in the water system. And over time, it creates common objective language versus subjective, subjectivity.

And that common objective language is a real source of help. So, that’s what we’ve experienced is if you can do that really well, just by practicing, that’s it. Just keep being consistent. And then, over time, it will break the other person down, and then they’ll start using the language. And it’s not crazy, right? We’re saying people have expectations. What if you met their expectations? See how that relationship will change.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, all right. Well, I’m curious then, if folks feel a little weird using the lingo, it’s like, “Jeremie, do I have to use the words care, celebration, collaboration, critique, and clarification? It doesn’t feel like me.” Are there any other ways you recommend flexing or adapting it?

Jeremie Kubicek

So, the way that I do it, I do it now. I’ll meet with somebody, and they haven’t read The Communication Code, or they don’t know the language. I’ll just ask, like, “Hey, can I ask you a few clarification questions?” if I feel like it needs to. And they’re like, “Yeah, yeah, sure.” “Great. So, in this case, are you saying this or this? Because I want to know, do you want me to…? Like, I’m ready to celebrate. Or are you looking for me to collaborate?” So, you can naturally weave it in almost like a decision tree, “Are we going to go left or are going to go right?”

So, by weaving it in naturally, it didn’t have to be crazy. If you sense someone just needs you to listen, you don’t have to say, “Do you need me to care?” You can just say, “Hey, do you just want me to listen? Would that be the most helpful?” “Yeah, it’d be great.” Because you have to train other people because they’re not used to sharing expectations either. Think of it, most of us don’t know how to share our own expectations. So, you have to give expectation and you have to pull expectation, and that’s ultimately what we’re trying to get people to do.

Pete Mockaitis

Now, I’m curious, when you mentioned one flavor of caring is listening, are there a few core subtypes or subcategories you might put in each of these?

Jeremie Kubicek

It’s based on personality. So, like a pioneer, which is a thinker, they would be someone, like in a Myers-Briggs, an ENTJ. They’re very type A driven, care for that person. It might mean that you’re listening to them and being a sounding board, and giving them a chance to vent or share their frustration. It’s getting the poison out so they don’t blow someone else up. That’s actually showing care.

Very different then to a nurturer because they want you to care for the things they care about. So, it’s just the idea of understanding care. And in the book, I go through each chapter. So, care, if you don’t know how to care, and here’s all the nuances, here’s all the subparts of care. The same with celebration. If you don’t know how to celebrate, what is a celebration? What’s it not? It’s not people looking for a parade. Just teaching people how to do these things that aren’t natural.

Pete Mockaitis

I’d love to get your hot take on sort of a couple of these details in terms of what is something that’s really high impact for folks, and that they tend to get wrong a lot?

Jeremie Kubicek

It’s interesting, and I think if you’re listening to this, you probably know this too. It’s almost like this Brooklyn Nine-Nine thing. There’s a cynicism that’s in culture. And when people hear buzzwords, they’re like, “Oh, he wants to celebrate. Oh, what does he want? Does he want us to throw…?” And they go off on these long tangential misnomers. And it’s like, “No, the guy wanted to high-five.”

So, here’s what we realized. There’s a custom communication code. There’s a general communication code, “Okay, hey, I want to celebrate or care, whatever.” But when I’m talking directly to Steve, for instance, and he’s talking to me, I can now tell him exactly what I want. Whenever we meet, “I want some care because you live across the pond. It can feel transactional if we’re only doing Zoom. Let’s text each other. Like, how is your weekend? How is your sports teams?” It’s just that we’ve been business partners for 10 years, so let’s make sure there’s some camaraderie. That’s showing care for me.

Then I want to be able to celebrate. But when I celebrate, I don’t want to celebrate me. I want to celebrate us. So, it’s nuanced, it’s specific of each word. I want to celebrate the whole dream team, the Avengers we’ve put together. I’m not looking for a personal celebration. That’s the way I roll. So, that’s what it means to being in third, and fourth, and fifth.

He did the same thing, he goes, “Jeremie, I want to collaborate with you. I want you to know you have freedom every single time to collaborate, which means I want to collaborate with you, too.” So, we went through each of them and we actually created a custom communication code. Oh, my goodness, the depths of like, “Oh, that’s what you want.”

So, now, imagine every marriage, every partnership, every friendship, every coworker, those that you spend the most amount of time with, let’s say the top three to five people. Imagine if you knew the custom communication code for everyone of those people. The chances of you communicating well will go up. The chances of your relationship to thrive goes up.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, that’s intriguing. And I’m thinking about with my wife in terms of critique. It’s like there’s a time and a place and a zone in which I really am, I’m eager, I’m hungry to hear, to learn, to understand. And I’ve even asked explicitly, directly, “What can I do that will help you feel most loved?” which is funny because that’s me. That’s my heart as a husband and as a strategy consultant at the same time.

Because it’s true, “We have finite time, energy, attention, resources, like I really do want to know what’s going to have the most bang for the buck, but it’s because I care about you, not because I’m an optimizing robot.” So, there are times in which I’m really hungry to know that, and there are times in which, like, “You know what, I’m really not in the mood to hear that right now. I don’t recall asking for your input on how I made this popcorn.”

Jeremie Kubicek

That’s right, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis

And so, yeah, I guess there’s an example right there with my communication code for a critique, is I don’t want the critiques to come unexpectedly, impromptu, out of nowhere. I want them to come in a, “Hey, let’s do some reflection about where we can improve and grow and do better.” And then it’s like, “Game on, yeah.” I’m anxious, I’m raring to go in those contexts. But when I’m thinking about something else, I have a set of expectations, I’m quite irritated by it.

Jeremie Kubicek
That’s right. Yeah, you just said it. And the better you get at it, the more you try, it becomes natural. It doesn’t become so rhythmic. And so then, it just kind of weaves itself in. And then sometimes I’ll say to my wife, “Hey, remember I’m needing a little clarity before a critique.” So, now I’m just giving a little hint, like, “Oh, yeah, yeah, you’re right. You’re right. Okay. So, let me ask it again.”

Because, again, it comes back to, “Are you an external processor or an internal processor?” So, that you’ve got extroversion and introversion, you’ve got thinking and feeling. All of these dynamics are at play between two people. Add in kids, add in a team, now the complexity is there. And if you can create common language, and you start realizing every communication has an expectation, and every expectation has a code, “Got it. What is the code?” Solve the code, solve the relationship.

It does not always work out that way when it comes to mother-in laws, or people who have narcissism, or other issues, but it’s still the idea that it makes relationships better.

Pete Mockaitis

And I like the way you said that in terms of, “Hey, it’s a reminder. I’m looking for this and then that,” which comes across as much more friendly than, “Um, I think what you meant to say was this.” It seems like you can provide that input in a very gentle, kind, friendly, non-accusative kind of a way which will, hopefully, be received fairly well most of the time, I’m guessing.

Jeremie Kubicek

Totally. That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, Jeremie, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Jeremie Kubicek

I think we’re great. It’s been fun to be with you, Pete. Appreciate it.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, yeah. You, too. All right. Well, let’s hear about a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Jeremie Kubicek

“Don’t despise small beginnings.”

Pete Mockaitis

And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Jeremie Kubicek

I’m doing research right now on fear-based performance. And what fear-based performance does inside teams, organizations, but also fear-based living, and what it does to your body, and where most of our health problems are coming from, from heart attacks, to arthritis and so forth. It’s very interesting.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a favorite book?

Jeremie Kubicek

The book I’ve re-read, it was The Second Mountain by David Brooks. It was a really good book. The concept is there’s a first mountain that everyone is trying to climb. And most people, once they get to the top, they’re like, “Was that it?” And then there’s a second mountain. It’s maybe my age. I’m 52. I believe that 55 to 72 are the influence years of life. For a productive individual, those are the most influential years. So, I’m preparing for that 55 to 72 run. And The Second Mountain gave me a really good context for that.

Pete Mockaitis

And a favorite tool, something you use that helps you be awesome at your job?

Jeremie Kubicek

I do this thing every day, it’s called The Examen. I do it at 5:30 every day. On the way home, usually from work or wherever I’m at, and what I do is I do three things. I look backwards, and go, “What was I grateful for today?” I’ll text that person usually. Second, “Where was I off? Where was I not at peace today?” And I radically go after it, “What was my tendency? What’s my pattern here? What happened? Why did I wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”

And by doing that, I’ve figured out I have 32 tendencies, and they’re interesting. Being defensive, oversharing, tendencies to namedrop, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And what it’s done for me is it’s allowed me my evenings to go better because I keep short accounts, and I don’t let things build up any more like I used to.

So, every single day, I’m kind of like, “Yup, good. I’ve put that to bed.” And then I think about my schedule the next day, “Am I ready for it and prepared for it?” That’s the last thing I do. So, that has helped me tremendously be at peace at night, sleep better, I wake up more energized. That’s my tool.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Jeremie Kubicek

Yeah, it’s something I always say to people, and it’s really about limiting beliefs, and it’s, “Who says you can’t?”

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Jeremie Kubicek

JeremieKubicek.com. J-E-R-E-M-I-E-K-U-B-I-C-E-K.com. That’s my speaking site. Or, GIANT Worldwide, so GiantWorldwide.com is what our main business is.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Jeremie Kubicek

Yeah, I think for each of you who are learning today, it’s like realize communication is a process, it’s a journey. It’s not a one-time transaction. If you want to get really, really good at it, you’ll start to think about the other person more than just yourself. What is it that they need right now? What are they wanting? What’s the expectation? Use the code words. When you do, you’ll start seeing breakthroughs happen. And just keep staying consistent at it, and that’s what I’m excited about.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Jeremie, thank you. This is fun. I wish you many lovely communications decoded.

Jeremie Kubicek

Thank you, mate. Appreciate you, Pete.