KF #20. Interpersonal Savvy Archives - Page 8 of 11 - How to be Awesome at Your Job

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

Todd Davis
Thank you, Pete. I’m happy to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited myself. So, I want to get the story here. So, tell us about being the Chief People Officer at FranklinCovey. What a place to have that title. What’s that like?

Todd Davis
Yeah, thanks for asking. It is, it’s an honor. I’ve been here for 21 years, and I get asked about my title a lot – the Chief People Officer – what is that exactly? And it’s just as the name suggests. My focus and my primary responsibility is on the people. For those of you listening who are familiar, and most of the world is, with The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the late doctor Stephen R. Covey talked about the importance of balancing between production and production capability. He call it PPC balance – the production being, of course, the results that we get, and the production capability is the very thing that produces those results.

He used the analogy of the old nursery rhyme The Goose and the Golden Egg. And we talk about, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the old farmer goes out, sees the golden egg, cashes it in, can’t believe it. Each day he gets more and more excited about this golden egg, and finally gets so anxious that he cuts off the head of the goose to reach down and get all the little eggs, and of course there are none, and he in the process has killed the very thing that produces the golden eggs. I remember that every day, because while we’re certainly about results, like most organizations and companies and teams are, we’ve got to make sure it’s a careful balance and that we’re always taking care of the goose that lays the golden eggs. So that’s my quick little story about what my primary focus is as the Chief People Officer.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood, intriguing. And so now, I remember that lesson when I was reading as an impressionable teenager The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People myself, and it’s certainly a classic, legendary work. I’d like to know, did you have the opportunity to have any enriching exchanges with Stephen Covey himself?

Todd Davis
I did, and what a privilege for me. As I said, I joined what was then called The Covey Leadership Center, a little over 21 years ago, is when I joined. And then about a year and a half after I joined we merged with what was then called Franklin Quest, became Franklin Covey. But in those early years, Stephen of course, the majority of his time was out speaking around the world, but I had a couple of great opportunities to work directly with him.

I used to at one point in my career work in the Innovations department, where we would create all of our solutions and our training, and in that role I was on the set a lot, where we were filming Stephen in videos. And so, the downtime was my favorite time because I got to learn directly from the master himself, although he wouldn’t call himself that; he was a very humble person. But lots of memorable times with him, particularly during the filming of certain videos that he was in.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it. Well, could you maybe share an anecdote along the way here? I remember, I think I was reading Essentialism, where Greg McKewon, who was also a guest on the show – yay – he mentioned that Stephen Covey had a special sort of date planned with his daughter when he was out speaking on location, I think in San Francisco or so, and then someone said, “Oh hey, great seeing you! Oh my gosh, we should get dinner!” And he just stuck to his priorities and said, “Oh, I’d love to”, and his daughter was disappointed, “But unfortunately I’ve already got something planned.” So then he stuck with it, which is kind of the point, like the priorities and family. So that was cool. So it seems like the legend lives not only in books and trainings and audio programs, but also just in what people share. So I’d love to hear any memorable anecdotes for you.

Todd Davis
Well, what a great story that you just shared. And I will tell you, I was just asked to do a taping about this. It actually would’ve been his 85^th birthday on the 24^th of October. He died shortly before he turned 80. So several of us that had worked directly with him, they asked us to do these quick little video clips that they were posting on the FranklinCovey website. And his son, Stephen M. R. Covey, who still works with us and is the best-selling author of The Speed of Trust – to your point that you just made, he said, “My dad was larger than life, and as he taught such a principle-based philosophy around the world, he was even more so in person.” And to hear your story is just an excellent example of that.

I had the good fortune of having his oldest daughter, Cynthia, who lives in our neighborhood, and we’re quite good friends with Cynthia and her husband. And so to learn more about him and about what it was like through her and his children growing up with Dr. Covey is really fun too. I’ll tell you one that stands out, and it actually is why I believe Stephen was able to make such a quick decision when he was out to dinner with his daughter – the story that you just told.

When we were on set one time filming a couple of videos for an updated set of Habits course, there was some quiet time. And I remember we were outside in a big open area down by a cabin home that they have. And it was just Stephen and I, and I said to him, “Stephen, of all the things you teach, and we talk about so many principles and paradigms, we have so many great models and all of our content from the books you’ve written and all of that – if you could have people remember only one thing to make them more effective, what would that be?”

And he did not even hesitate; he said, “It would be to plan each week before the week begins.” It wasn’t a script or anything; he just said, “It would be to plan each week before the week begins.” And I was kind of taken aback; I thought it would be something like, “Remember who you are…” But what I have learned from him is in that time when he… We certainly teach about weekly planning. In that time when he would do this and when I do this on a Sunday night or a Sunday afternoon, before my week begins, is when he would prioritize what are the most important things that are taking place this week? So that I don’t allow something urgent to come crash over it.

And while I don’t know what was in his mind when your friend told the story about lunch with his daughter, I would expect that when he was planning his week and he had an appointment with his daughter to go to lunch, that’s when he made the decision, right then, Sunday night, that “This is a very important relationship to me; nothing is going to get in the way of it.” And so it makes the decisions so much easier when the work week begins and all of the urgent things come flying at us, to say, “Gosh, I’ve got to address some of those, but these important things” – he called them “big rocks” – “These important things are going to remain important and they’re not going to get pushed aside.” So, there you have it.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it, thank you. That’s a real treat. I appreciate you sharing that. So, I also want to hear plenty about your book Get Better: 15 Proven Practices to Build Effective Relationships at Work. That is a recurring theme you like to discuss here – effective relationships at work. So tell us, what’s the main idea of the book, and why is it important right now?

Todd Davis
Well, like I said, I’ve been in FranklinCovey for 21 years. For the past 30 years I’ve observed and coached leaders and others at all levels of the organizations. And literally from the hundreds of principles and tools and paradigms contained in FranklinCovey’s world class solutions, I’ve seen through my work, through the roles that I’ve been in, time and time again those specific behaviors or practices, that I call them, that are the real accelerators to moving people in their relationships, and therefore their circle of influence forward, or that become real detractors, that people including myself, trip on.

Again, I don’t profess to be any genius, but I do profess to have thousands and thousands of reps – repetitions – of helping people work through their relationships – not as a family counselor, I mean in their work relationships. And because I have so many repetitions of that, I’m in a good position to identify which are the most common, like I said, to really help or really hinder those relationships. And I put them in a book called, as you mentioned, Get Better: 15 Proven Practices to Build Effective Relationships at Work. We’ve been writing this for two years now. For the first year, it was 21 practices. But we figured that was a lot, so we combined some of those and narrowed it down very carefully to these 15 that I identify in the book.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, fantastic. So could you maybe start us off by saying how do we maybe from a starting line perspective get an understanding of where we’re starting from, in terms of the current quality of relationships? Is there a means of assessing or evaluating how we’re doing here?

Todd Davis
Yes. There are lots of tools and surveys and things like that to measure everything, as we know, in the world, and certainly plenty of them out there are on relationships. My premise and philosophy is that the quality of a relationship is tied directly to the level of trust in that relationship. And that’s across all relationships, whether they are in my professional life, in my personal life. It all begins with, “What is the level of trust in that relationship?” So that’s how I discern for myself and for others where the relationship is at right now, because once we address that, once we have a sufficient level of trust, then we can go about working together, repairing a relationship that’s been broken, working through big and little obstacles. But it all ties first and foremost to the level of trust that we have.

Pete Mockaitis
And so now, when you say “level of trust”, I guess there are assessment that could measure that too. But do you have a quick sense, in terms of a couple of “Yes/No” questions you ask yourself to see if we’ve got it or we don’t?

Todd Davis
Well, that’s a great idea, and while we don’t put that in the book, I’m just thinking through all of the examples I have in the book – they all begin with, or at least are associated with, “How easy is this person to work with?” It doesn’t mean how easy is it because this person sees everything the way I see it or agrees with me, but do we have the communication – and again, it just ties back to trust – do we have enough trust that the communication is easy, that I can share things? If I see something very diffidently than Pete does, yet our level of trust is so high that I can say, “Hey Pete, you know my intent, and we’re seeing this thing very differently. And I don’t know that either way is right, but can we go ahead and talk about it?”

That’s the kind of dialog that is very common throughout this book. It’s very practical. Practice 8 is titled “Take stock of your emotional bank accounts.” And the reason I’m just mentioning that right now, Pete, is that we compare and we don’t compare an emotional bank account to a financial bank account. In a financial bank account you certainly make deposits and grow interest and have planned withdrawals. In an emotional bank account you certainly want to make deposits, but never with the intent of taking a withdrawal. And the more consistent deposits I make over time, the much higher level of trust I build. So that when, as human beings – and we’re fallible, we make mistakes – would I do that?

Well, if I’ve got a high EBA, I like to call it – a high emotional bank account level – then it doesn’t palm the level of trust, and therefore the relationship. So, I feel like I’m talking around your question a little bit, but I don’t profess to have, “If you ask these three questions, then you immediately know whether Pete and I have a great relationship.” But I do say that the level of courage and consideration you have in a relationship, and the amount of transparency you can have in your dialog, greatly determines where the quality of the relationship is.

Pete Mockaitis
And I hear that, and so maybe it’s certainly not binary there, but rather more of a spectrum or continuum. But I think I hear just what your saying – it’s like there are some folks I could just tell them directly. It’s almost like the scope of things we can talk about, in terms of easily, versus, “Okay, we can talk about A, B or C just fine, but oooh, don’t you dare say something about the sacred cow or whatever, otherwise it’s going to get difficult. We’ll not have an easy time communicating with each other”, versus when it’s like, “Okay, this is just my observations right now, and here you go”, and you could just do that pretty effortlessly, then you’re sort of in the highest planes of trust.

Todd Davis
Exactly, yeah. Great comparison.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, cool. Understood then. I love it. So you’ve painstakingly whittled them down – you started with 21 and then it went down to 15. So I’m going to put you on the spot all the more. Could you share with us two or three of these practices that just make the massive difference?

Todd Davis
You bet. How about 15? All 15 of them. No, I understand. So they all do make a massive difference, but let me start with Practice 1. And I won’t go through all 15, but Practice 1 is Practice 1 for a reason: “Wear glasses that work”. The way we see things drives everything else, and that’s the big “A-ha!” for people. We already know – most of us know – our behaviors or actions lead to the results we get. That’s well known. We say we know it, but when we really stop and think about it, it’s how are we looking at things? What lenses are we looking through?

I got my very first actual set of lenses when I was in the second grade, and I to this day remember putting those on – after all the eye examining – putting those on, and for the first time I could see the leaves up on the trees. Now, you’re thinking, “How blind were you, Todd?” I was pretty blind. And previous to the new glasses I would look up there and I would see this green kind of mass. I mean I knew they were leaves up there, of course, but I could see this green mass kind of blurry. But here’s the point, Pete – I thought that’s what everyone saw when they looked up at the tree. I didn’t question it; I just thought that’s how people see when they look at the trees.

And that’s the principle of the point behind “Wearing glasses that work.” It’s seeing things as they actually are, versus what we’ve convinced ourselves they are, because of however old you are – eight years of life or whatever, in the second grade. And so what happens in life, both at work and at home, is that we have this shaped opinion, and if it’s shaped long enough, we’ve decided it’s the truth. And sometimes it is; I’m not telling people, “Hey, your opinions don’t matter.” Many of our opinions are very accurate, but often, especially in a relationship when we have a snag or a challenge or a hick-up, it’s because we are so set in the way we see things that we’ve forgotten there might be another way to look at things. I probably went longer than you wanted me to, but that’s the importance of Practice 1. And why it’s Practice 1 is because the way we see things determines how we implement or not implement all the other 14 practices.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood, yes. And so I’m wondering then, if we’ve got some myopia or challenges seeing things correctly or accurately, what’s the prescription to get things aligned right?

Todd Davis
Yeah, thank you for asking. So at the end of each practice I have an application, a “Get Better” application. So to your point, “Okay, where do I start?” So, with this particular practice, and this has proven to be widely effective, and I use it myself at times – I have a challenging situation or person. What I do is I go ahead and list out on a piece of paper all of the things that contribute to why I think that situation is so challenging. Write them all out – some of them are words, some of them are phrases – write them all out.

Then what I do and I coach people to do is go through that list and circle those things that are facts. And what I coach people if they are facts, what I mean by that is that you could show this list to 10 other people, 8 other people that are familiar with the situation, and they would agree with you that those things are facts, okay? So, what you’ll find is, I circle the facts, and certainly there are always a few things that some of you say, “Okay, yeah, I bet Pete and Debbie and Sarah, everybody would agree with that.”

But you look through, and all the things that aren’t circled are opinions, and they’re maybe strongly held opinions and maybe they’re quite accurate, but nevertheless it’s the starting point for me to say to myself, “Okay, is Pete…” Well, I won’t use your name because I’m going to use a bad example – but “Is Joe really lazy?” So I put this list together and I go, “So Joe thinks he’s everything, Joe graduated top of his class, Joe’s kind of lazy, Joe does really good work when he focuses.”

I put all these things down,and then I go through and I say, “Okay, what are the facts?” Well, would everybody agree with me that Joe’s lazy? No, I better not circle that one. Okay, Joe did graduate top of the class. We know that, let’s circle that one. Joe does do quality work – yup, I bet everybody would agree with that one.

But then the other things that I’m seeing – they’re my opinions. And it causes me to sit back and say, “Okay, I feel strongly that Joe’s lazy. Is Joe really lazy, or should I look at this in a different way? What is causing me to think Joe’s lazy?” And that’s how we begin to examine the glasses we’re wearing. Now, it may turn out that Joe is lazy, but more often than not I can go back to saying, “You know what? I forgot the fact that Susan is a single mom. And she comes into work late every day, but that’s not because she’s careless; it’s because she’s got all these things to do in the morning with her kids.” Do you see where I’m going with this?

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely, yes. So you’re clarifying that there. And so the fact might be, “She appears at 11:00 am each day to work”, but the opinion is, “She doesn’t care, she’s checked out”, or any number of inferences you pull from those.

Todd Davis
Exactly. And when you do this exercise – I’m using some really black and white examples – but when you get into the more complicated examples… One I’m just thinking of the other day – someone I work with, a really talented person – they are difficult to work with. And when I started to look down on it, and this gets into another practice – “Get the volume right” – it wasn’t that they were trying to be difficult to work with, or they necessarily had this weakness; it’s that they straight dialed up too high. So getting the volume right, which is Practice 11, is all about our strengths.

This person happens to be very efficient. She’s very efficient, she’s very precise – what a great strength they have. But when she has the volume on that turned up too high, she comes across as kind of rigid and inflexible, and a little bit curt or abrupt in her emails. She doesn’t have that intention at all; she’s just trying to be efficient with people’s time, so she doesn’t do what you and I do with an emails, saying, “Hey Pete, hope your day is going great, hope everybody is fine. Have you had a chance to pull up those videos yet?” or something. She just sends an email and says, “Pete, do you have the videos yet?” And all of a sudden Pete reads it and goes, “Is she ticked off at me?” or whatever. So, I’ve been working with her, and again, truly blind spots, because this is a really good, talented person, but just was unaware of some of those nuances at work that were habits or behaviors that she’s got.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, thank you. Well, could you give us another key practice then?

Todd Davis
You bet. I’m looking through the list; it’s really hard to choose here. I would say Practice 13 – “Make it safe to tell the truth”. What this practice is talking about is, do you make it safe for others to tell you the truth? Think about when was the last time you asked for feedback. And maybe some people do it every day, but most people don’t. And I find we don’t ask for feedback, because it’s hard enough to give ourselves feedback, like getting on the bathroom scale, which I did this morning, and I did not like the feedback.

But it’s even harder because we forget what people’s intent is. Assume good intent makes it safer for people to tell the truth. When somebody tells you you’ve got a piece of spinach in your teeth at lunch, you don’t think, “You just want to criticize me.” No, you know that they’re just being considerate and want to help you. But when someone tells you, “I notice you kind of dominate the meetings, and it shuts down other people.” Well, then we get all defensive and we think, “You just want to criticize.” Why is it that we jump to that? People in general just want to help, so make it safe to tell the truth. We have an application for that in the back of this practice, and I’ll just tell you quickly one of the best things you can do to make it safe for people to tell the truth is ask them for feedback. Now, that sounds like a no-brainer, but the way you ask them for feedback.

So let’s say that I’m giving a presentation for a client, and I notice in the audience of these people that my friend Pete is there. So I go up to Pete after I give the presentation and I say, “Hey Pete, what did you think of my presentation?” Well, what’s Pete going to say?

Pete Mockaitis
It was fantastic.

Todd Davis
Thank you. And that’s why I continue to hang out with you. But suppose that maybe the day before the presentation I notice my friend Pete is going to be there and I called him and I say, “Hey Pete, I understand you are going to be in my keynote tomorrow. Could I ask you a favor? Would you mind while you’re watching me present, would you mind taking a few notes on things that you think I could do to improve the presentation? I’d love to hear what you think I’m doing well, but I’m really focused on improving my delivery skills. If you wouldn’t mind taking some notes. I value your opinion, I value your judgment. And then maybe we could get together the following day or at your convenience and if you wouldn’t mind sharing with me those things, I would really appreciate that.” Now, both scenarios I’m asking for feedback, but one is very different than the other. So that’s how we make it safe for others to tell us the truth.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, very good. And I think about sort of the opposite of these things – how we make it unsafe. One is defensiveness, which could take all sorts of shapes and sizes. And I guess I think it’s probably fair to say – maybe you’ve got stats on this, I don’t – but I think it’s fair to say the majority of workers in the United States do not feel safe enough to say what they really think needs to get fixed or corrected or adjusted to their bosses. That’s my hunch, intuition from talking to workers. I don’t know if you have any data or specifics, but does that ring true for you?

Todd Davis
It does ring true, and it’s the whole point of the chapter. While this book is written for everybody, certainly not just leaders in official leadership positions, but the whole premise of it is, unless you think you’re it, you’ve arrived, you have no area for improvement – and I haven’t met anybody that thinks that. So we all agree that we’re all in the state of getting better. Well then, how do you know where you need to get better? “Well, I just know.” I’ll ask people, “Do you have a blind spot?” “Oh sure, I’m sure I have plenty of blind spots.” “What are they?” And then they’ll tell me some of the things they think they need to improve on. I say, “Okay, so those aren’t really blind spots.”

Pete Mockaitis
“These are my blind spots, Todd. I have documented them clearly.”

Todd Davis
That’s exactly right. And so then I’ll say, “That’s really good to have self-awareness. Do you have any true blind spots? Do you understand they’re called ‘blind spots’ because…” “Oh, you’re right. Oh, I’m sure I do.” That’s the point of, “Now let’s talk about if you make it safe for others to tell you the truth.” “Well, how do I do that?” And this is to your question. Do you routinely ask – not every day, that would be annoying – but do you routinely ask your team, whether you’re the leader or not, or just a member of the team – do you ask them for feedback? Do you have a proactive way, a systematic way, of getting feedback from others? Most people don’t. And that’s okay – you’re human.

Well, I would suggest that on a monthly, quarterly basis, you put some kind of system together, even if it’s just an email to the team. And again, you don’t have to be the leader. Be a member of the team. Say, “Hey folks, so appreciate the opportunity we have to work together. It’s kind of my family away from home. I would really to improve in whatever I do.” Blah, blah, blah. “I’d love to hear any feedback from you on what you think I do well and what you think I could improve or do differently.” That might sound foreign to some people, “That’d be really weird for somebody to do that.” I’ll tell you, it’s not weird. And it’s team-changing, it’s culture-changing when you can encourage people to start doing that, and then it becomes the norm in an organization or a company.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’d love to get your take on… I think when you first do that, and folks are accustomed to their own norms, where they don’t do that, their thought is, “Oh yeah, I’m not going to walk into that minefield. No way, Todd. I’m either going to quietly hope that you forget about that email, or I am going to offer the most soft, circumnavigated version of something.” I guess it’s important and it’s powerful, but I’m wondering, how do you make the shift?

Todd Davis
Yeah. Well, I think if you’re really interested in improvement, if you’re really not looking for accolades, if you’re the one saying that you’re really looking for improvements – again, to make it safe, just first of all understand that people feel just like you just said: “Are they really going to want to give me feedback? Do they think this is a setup? Am I going to be at odds with this person after I tell them this thing?” So, if I’m sincere about getting the feedback on me and I really want to improve, I will – and I’m kind of making this up; every situation is different – but I would put in an email, “Please know I’m serious about this.” And I will share with them so they know, “Oh, he can hear.”

So I would say something like, “For example, some colleagues that I recently asked about this were telling me that while they know it’s unintentional, that I tend to dominate the meetings or talk too much. Now, I realize my passion maybe takes over, but I want to be aware of that. So if you’ve seen something like that, would you share it with me? Again, I’m really trying to make improvements on how I can be more effective in group meetings and things like that.”

Why I’m going into such detail, Pete, is if you will share with them an example, it’s like, “Oh wow, they really are serious about this. And they don’t have any ego, they’re willing to share with me an area that they want to improve. And in fact, they’ve already shared with me some feedback they got from somebody else.” I don’t pretend to say that that’s comfortable for everyone to do, but it’s really helpful if you’re willing to take a little bit of risk there and be vulnerable with others.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I love it. And that example is like, “Oh, he’s for real!” I think it’s great; it’s just that simple to add that. And they may have noticed the same thing, like, “Yeah, I noticed that about you. Someone told you that and you liked it. Huh, okay.”

Todd Davis
There you go. That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, could you maybe give us the antithesis of some of these, in terms of what’s something you see that people do all the time and they should just cut it out, because it’s counter-productive, it’s doing the opposite of building effective relationships at work, it’s destroying effectiveness of relationships at work?

Todd Davis
Well, again, I could talk about the antithesis of every one of these 15, but a couple of quick ones that just come to mind. Know yourself well and know where your tendencies, in not a good way, are to go. Because I think we can all be honest with ourselves; not with our blind spots because they’re blind, but with enough things to say, “Okay, I get that I have a tendency to do this or do that.”

The reason I’m doing that lead-in is there was a senior-level person who was really a talented person, and they also can get pretty defensive. Well, they had a big blowup with someone; this was seven months ago. And they blew up at this person, and they blew up at this person in front of a lot of other people too. And good for them, at least they came to me and they said, “Look, I’m going to come to you before they do, because I made a big mistake. I was anxious about this and this and this, and I got upset and I went to her, and didn’t handle it the right way. And not only that, I didn’t even do it in private.”

And I just thought, “Oh gosh, Joe” – we’ll make Joe the bad guy here again – so I said, “Okay Joe, here’s what I would do. Joe, I wouldn’t go back to her, because you sounded pretty threatening there.” Not “threatening” like “I’m going to do something to you”, but I mean that was pretty uncalled for and intimidating. “I would email her. I would write a very carefully-worded email. I would take full responsibility for what you just did, I would apologize, no excuses.”

And then because I know Joe well I said, “Let me tell you, Joe, as human beings we’ll have a tendency to want to explain ourselves, because you admitted it, I appreciate you telling me you were completely wrong and that was poor behavior. I appreciate you saying that. You’re going to want to defend yourself to her, and I ask you not to do that. Just take full responsibility. If you tell her what had just happened previous to that – why you’re so upset – I know that’s not your intent, but that’s making an excuse for your behavior. Don’t do that.”

So, about two hours later I get an email from the person who had been yelled at, and they said, “I just want to show you this apology I just got from Joe”, I’ll say. And she forwarded it to me not knowing that I’d even coached him or anything. And the email was a beautifully-written apology, taking full responsibility, and then went on with a final paragraph about why he did what he did. I’ve got to tell you, it was an exercise in patience. And I just thought, “Wow!” And I just went to him – not angrily, because that was what he models – I just went to him and I said, “You know what? You couldn’t do it, could you?” He goes, “I know. I don’t know why. I’m so sorry.”

So, that was a long story, but I’m telling you – you say, “What do people do wrong?” – well, he doesn’t know himself well enough. Now, he’s made amends since then and made some huge improvements, but know yourself well, know what your tendencies are – that’s the biggest faux pas. Just one other thing I would mention, it’s kind of overarching. I was doing an interview with somebody the other day on the book, and he asked me such an interesting question. He said, “Todd, you have years and years and years of coaching and talking to people about relationships. If you could have a sign hanging outside your door, before the next person came in…”

Now, I’m really not set up that way – it’s not like a doctor’s office where I have people in the waiting room, but I thought it was an interesting question and I enjoyed it. And I thought, “What would I have that sign say?” And in a minute it came to me. I said my sign outside my door would say, “Have you considered the other person’s perspective?” Have you considered? And I don’t mean, “Could you maybe agree with it? Could you disagree with it?” It’s not that at all; it’s just when we can step back and put ourselves in the place of the other person, and we’re so hesitant to do that because we’re so worried they’re going to think we’re siding with them. We’re not, and they’re not going to think that. Just take a minute and consider the other person’s perspective. When we can get people – two people or ten people or whatever – looking at things for a minute the way the other people are looking at it, just to understand their point of view – man, we can take off in moving forward so much quicker and with so much better, deeper, richer understanding of one another, and therefore have highly effective relationships.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s excellent, thank you. So then the things not to do are, one – apologizing, explaining yourself, which creates excuses.

Todd Davis
Yeah. And don’t assume. Last example. I see people just, “I know where Pete’s coming from” or, “Oh yeah, Pete always does this” or, “Well, I think Pete thinks this.” Well, don’t assume. Consider their perspective, find out more, take time to really understand where they’re coming from. That would be another one that I see as a big problem where you don’t do that.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. And it tends to really disarm folks as well, in terms of, “Well, here’s really what I think, and here’s really where I’m coming from, and here’s what’s really important”, and it in some ways can just open it wide up.

Todd Davis
Right, exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Todd, tell me – is there anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Todd Davis
Yes, I could talk forever, but Practice 10 is “Talk less, listen more”, so I’d better follow my own advice here and listen a little bit more. But every one of these practices – and I’m just looking through the list here – like I say, I’ve seen them in good ways and in bad ways so many times, and I think if people buy the book, each chapter begins with a question and it kind of gives you insight into whether this is an area of challenge for you or not. For instance, I’m looking at Practice 4, “Play your roles well”. Have you ever found that success in one area of your life comes at the expense of another area?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure.

Todd Davis
Yeah. So that’s where the chapter begins and I think most of us, including myself, would say “Yes, that’s happened to me.” Well, then you might want to dive into Practice 4, “Play your roles well”, which is all about deciding, “What are the most important roles in my life?”, and if I say 20, I’m in trouble. It’s five to seven roles – choose five to seven, both professional and personal roles – and decide what is the real meaningful contribution I hope to make in that role?

Pete Mockaitis
Is that five to seven total, or 10 to 14 total?

Todd Davis
No, that’s five to seven total. FranklinCovey has been in the business of effectiveness for a very long time, and whenever we have someone who says, “Well, I’ve got 20 very important roles and I need to focus on all of them”, they’re a good candidate for disappointing a lot of people a lot of the time. We through a lot of time and data recommend that you choose no more than seven roles, combination of both professional and personal, to be truly focused on at any given time.

Pete Mockaitis
So, can you give us an example of these role names?

Todd Davis
Sure, yeah. So my most important roles are that of a colleague, of a team leader, of a coach – and coach is how I like to refer to my Chief People Officer role, as a family member, and as a friend. There’s five. Those are my most important roles. And what I walked people through in the application here is, if you were to identify one person that’s influenced by you in those roles… So if I pick the role of family member and I choose one of my children, or if I’m a team leader and I choose one of the people that I lead in my team – and I’ll pick team leader, so Cindy’s somebody on my team. If Cindy were to give you a 5-star review, meaning 5 out of 5, what would you hope Cindy would say about you in your team leader role?

I’ll tell you – this can be relationship-changing. Then I have people write down just two or three sentences of, “What I would hope Cindy would say to me if she were giving me a 5-star review.” And not just think about it; write it out. And you go through that activity of writing it out, “Todd, while incredibly busy, always took time for me every week to make sure that I had the resources I needed.” I’m making this stuff up, but, “I made mistakes; he helped me learn from those mistakes and continued to give me more opportunity, showing that he trusted me.” You go through an activity like that and write out the ideal. It might not be what they say today, but what I’d like them to say – it changes what you do every day in your most important relationships.

Pete Mockaitis
That is powerful, and it reminds me of 7 Habits all over again, in terms of imagining the eulogy at your funeral, in terms of your overall life. You’re zoomed in on a particular role.

Todd Davis
Yes. And so, instead of waiting until the funeral to have nice things said about you… And again, the goal is to make meaningful contributions. But instead of waiting for the funeral or for your 80^th birthday, go through that exercise now so that today I can say like Stephen did, “No, I’m not going to cancel this lunch with my daughter. This is an important relationship to me.” So it’s a great re-calibration tool or exercise to do every morning, at the beginning of every week, whatever time you choose.

Pete Mockaitis
And when you say “role”, you specifically mean in relation to other people, as opposed to priorities, like fitness. Would it be cheating to say one of my roles is as an athlete? Or faith – one of my roles is a disciple of Jesus. So, is that kind of cheating when we talk about roles, or is that another exercise?

Todd Davis
Pete, I’m so glad you mentioned that, because I really emphasize, and not so much in the book here, but in 7 Habits – we talk about the role of “self”. And there is a reason why when you and I get on a plane and they go through all the routine stuff and they say, “Put your oxygen mask on first” – it’s not because we’re selfish or that important; it’s because take care of yourself first, because then you’re in a much better position to help others around you. And so, absolutely, you have the role of self. And what am I doing this week – like you said, exercise, or whether it’s meditation or whatever – to invest in myself so that I am in fact even in a much better position to help others and to be of service to others.

Pete Mockaitis
Todd, I’d love it, since FranklinCovey has been studying production and production capacity balance for decades… I’m deviating a little bit from the subject, but we can; we’re having fun. I’d love to get your take on, in the grand scheme of priorities and roles and goals and responsibilities – all this stuff – are there any rough rules of thumb that you’ve seen kind of consistently just make good sense, in terms of, “Spend no more than X or no less than Y hours a day, a week, in exercises, in mediation, in answering your email inbox.” It seems like… I’m imagining everyone’s context is different, and at the same time, we’re all human beings. And many of us listening are all professionals, knowledge workers. So, any kind of minimum recommended daily allowance type prescriptions you’d write here, when it comes to self-care versus others kind of responsiveness?

Todd Davis
Yeah, great question. Well, I think it’s different for everyone, and people are in different roles, in different stages of life and things like that. I don’t have data points here, because it is different for everyone. What I have found to be most successful for me and for many, many people that I coach, is to make sure each week I do an evaluation of the last week. So, in other words, it’s filled with a lot of things that I need to do differently.

And what I have found, and I think what we’ve all found, is that we do that self-reflection and that evaluation maybe on New Year’s day, maybe on our birthday, and that’s good, but boy, has a lot of time gone past. Whereas if we will get in the habit of doing that… Some people do it on a daily basis, but I do it on a weekly basis. So Sunday night is when I get set for the week. And a lot of people do that when they plan their week – that’s great.

What’s been most valuable for me is to pull up my calendar for last week before I do that, and to your point now, see where did I spend the majority of my time? I say my family and a couple of close friends are my most important people in my life. What does my calendar show, and my notes and everything else from the week? What does that show where I spent? And this particular daughter – I’m concerned about some things – and what have I done this week?

Because it’s surprising to people, it’s surprising to myself, how much time has gone by – meaning several weeks, several months and, “Oh my gosh, I was going to call my friend and we were going to go out to lunch. We talked about doing that, and has it really been three months since we did that?” Well, if you will re-calibrate every week and look over your priorities, however you list them – I have a values list of things that I want to make sure I address sooner than later – and then build them into your week going forward.

And that’s where I link right back to that day outside with Dr. Covey and I said, “If you could do one thing out of all the things you teach to be more effective in your relationships, what would it be?” And he said, “Plan each week before the week begins.” It’s stuck in my mind. We actually did a video tape around it because it was just so meaningful, especially coming from someone who understood relationships and effectiveness so much.

So, I think when your listeners and myself do that – we look over the week and we say, “Is there a rule of thumb how much time?” – well, I think the rule of thumb is to say, “If I really believe that these people – my family…” I’m just using this as an example, “The most important people in my life, and yet I can look back for the last three weeks and if I add it up I probably spent a total of seven hours with them in over three weeks” – I may want to shift some things going forward. Or if I said, “Gosh, I wanted to be the world’s best project leader on this particular project, even though I’m juggling four roles at work”, and then I go back and look at how much time I’m dedicating to that particular thing, it’s a real good look in the mirror, so to speak, to then maybe adjust what I do going forward.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright. Well Todd, this is so good. So much good stuff. I want to hear about at least a couple of your favorite things. Could you share with us now a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Todd Davis
I have three of them. They are posted right by me and they’re quotes that I love to live by. Have you got time for three?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh sure.

Todd Davis
Okay. The first is by Dr. Covey, and I think about it every day, and I like to remind people that leadership is a choice, not a position. That’s not the quote, but I’m just saying it’s applicable to everybody. But the quote is, “Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves.” And again, you don’t have to be a formal leader to do that, but communicate to people their worth and their potential so clearly, they come to see it in themselves. So that’s a quote that I love that I try and live by. And I do better at it some days than others.

Another one is by John Wooden. Well, it’s actually by Abraham Lincoln, but the coach John Wooden used it a lot. But it’s actually attributed to Abraham Lincoln. And Abraham Lincoln said, “It is better to trust and be disappointed once in a while than to distrust and be miserable all of the time.” Such a great quote, and again, not implying just be blind and gullible and be taken advantage of, but have a propensity to trust, and especially as we’re talking about relationships. Err on the side of trusting, unless and until someone gives you a reason to not trust. And then my last one… Can I give you the last one?

Pete Mockaitis
Go for it.

Todd Davis
Okay. This one is written by an old actress by the name of Fanny Brice. And Fanny Brice said, “Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you?” So, it’s just all about authenticity and be who you are.

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

Todd Davis
I would point them to www.GetBetterBook.com, and all of my information, my Twitter feed, LinkedIn and all of that is there.

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

Todd Davis
Well, I’m all about relationships, and sometimes people think that’s soft or that’s just for home. Actually the most effective people in their work have the most meaningful relationships. I was following a motor home the other day, and people have probably seen this bumper sticker – the motor home was pulling a boat and I think he had some ATVs or something stuck up on top. I’ve seen the number of toys he had there, and it was great. And I’m not putting that down; I would love to have all those things. And his bumper sticker said, “He who has the most toys wins.” And I was following that, thinking how great it would be to have those things, and I thought to myself, “He or she who has the most meaningful relationships wins.” And that is kind of my mantra, and again, I’m certainly not perfect at it, but it’s where my areas of focus is every day, is just building strong, meaningful, sincere relationships.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, fantastic. Well, Todd, thank you so much for taking this time. It’s a whole lot of good stuff and inspiration from a place that’s been an inspiration to me. So, a real treat to chat. I wish you tons of luck with the book Get Better, and Chief People Officering over at FranklinCovey, and your speeches and all you’re up to here.

Todd Davis
Thank you so much, Pete. It’s been a pleasure to get to know you, and I appreciate your time.