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KF #36. Instills Trust Archives - Page 5 of 6 - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Mar 01
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407: The Key Behaviors of Inspiring Leaders with Ash Seddeek

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Ash Seddeek says: "Your biggest value is not to share ideas, but actually ask good questions."

Ash Seddeek outlines the key leadership behaviors that inspire teams.

You’ll Learn:

  1. Ten key leadership behaviors that inspire followers
  2. One mistake that quickly kills a team’s creativity
  3. How to manage your bias like a pro

About Ash

Ash develops leadership, executive communications and strategic sales programs. He currently works with Cisco’s innovation startup teams to help them craft compelling value proposition narratives. Ash is also a mentor to entrepreneurs and a communications expert at the American Management Association.

He’s the bestselling author of the books Meaning, Start with a Vision, and The Road to Success.

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Ash Seddeek Interview Transcript

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

Ash Seddeek
Thank you very much for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so I was intrigued to learn that you were a Fulbright scholar not once but twice. Didn’t know that was actually possible. Could you tell us the tale?

Ash Seddeek
Absolutely. I actually come all the way from Alexandria, Egypt, where in my earlier life I was basically getting trained to become a linguist at the University of Alexandria. By virtue of my work there as a teaching assistant, I applied for a Fulbright scholarship. The first time I came to the US as a participant in a summer program.

Then the second time I actually applied to be an assistant group leader that essentially then sort of leveraging the first-time experience, sort of leading the group that went the second time around. That’s really how it happened as part of my working at the University of Alexandria.

Lo and behold, days go by and here I am actually leveraging a lot of that linguistics training in a lot of the executive coaching that I do with leaders today around leadership communications.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s cool. Excellent. Well, you’ve packaged some of these insights about leadership communications into your book, Meaning. Can you say what’s sort of the main message within this?

Ash Seddeek
The main message behind Meaning was really driven by the experience working at Cisco Corporation, especially at the highlight of the financial crisis in 2008. My job at Cisco at that time was to help understand the messaging that was happening outside Cisco about Cisco and also what the leadership team at Cisco needs to message, especially in Cisco’s largest conference, which is the sales kickoff conference that happens on an annual basis.

I saw John Chambers at that time, he was the CEO at that time, really grappling with how Cisco tried to re-sustain its position as well as also survive that financial crisis that were affecting basically the pockets and the budgets of its own customers.

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. Then within that you’ve sort of looked at individual leaders and what they were doing and found some interesting patterns.

Ash Seddeek
Exactly. The one thing that I saw and John and the rest of the executive team at Cisco were doing really well, and of course the technology at Cisco, just amazing how Cisco was making use of its own technology to speak across the 60,000 plus employees at that time.

Essentially helping them understand what was going on and re-clarifying the meaning of why do we continue to do what we’re doing, what sort of sustains our differentiation, and how leaders of all aspects and levels of the company can really help articulate that message all the way to the very last mile, every single employee, whether they are all the way in Cairo, Egypt; Dubai in the Arabian Gulf, or China, or India, or even in the US.

The ability to continue to message to the employees why we’re doing what we’re doing and how do we move from where we are today into the future was very critical task and responsibility that leaders need to have all the time.

I think in my mind, based on the research we’ve done for the book, this whole concept of communicating where we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re going is the fundamental task and responsibility in my mind, that the CxOs need to be communicating with their employees in organizations.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m curious, how does that shift if it’s at sort of the manager level?

Ash Seddeek
At the manager level, it becomes really a pivotal moment for the manager to understand that, again, a big part of their role is to help their team understand how the message that we’re hearing from the CEO and the executive team translates into what we do on a daily basis. How do we connect the dots between the piece of a product that we’re working on with the bigger product, with the bigger company, with the aspirations that the customers have?

That’s really where, as you’re saying, the manager’s role is very critical because a lot of the time the employees look up to that manager to explain what did John Chambers say and what does it mean to us.

Again, managers have that communication responsibility so that when I work with leaders and we basically talk about coaching and understanding what is a key pivotal responsibility for them, I mention the fact that they need to develop a signature talk that is really there to serve the purpose of translating that corporate vision and strategy and how it connects to what we do on a daily basis so that these employees have a very clear purpose and an understanding of how their little piece is actually part of that bigger puzzle and bigger vision.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, in your book, Meaning, you identify ten particular leadership behaviors that inspire followers. What are those ten?

Ash Seddeek
These ten behaviors and the way that we’ve collected them is we basically worked with – we interviewed a number of leaders across a number of industries. When we looked at the themes we found that there are five behaviors that are really more about that leader and how that leader interfaces and interacts with his or her environment.

Then the next five, and as I’m going to share with you the full list, the next five are really more about how they interface with everybody around them.

When you look at the top ten behaviors for leaders who really are very good at communicating meaning, we see that the very first behavior is about how they accept the reality that business cycles will inevitably ebb and flow. That’s really what we’ve seen at Cisco, the changes that were happening in the marketplace.

The second one is they definitely need to cultivate the habits of listening and learning. Again, there were some leaders that we spoke with that really demonstrated this really well.

The third one is to cultivate authentic humility in the sense that you really need to come across not as someone that knows it all, but someone who is really willing to listen and understand that this other person that I’m talking to may have a much better idea.

Then number four, being able to clarify and focus on the organization’s mission and values. People want to something that is bigger than themselves to hold into. It is that leader’s ability to focus that way, be able to understand what those values are and communicate them.

Then number five is very interesting because it’s really more about what happens to us when we achieve success. Sometimes we think that’s really where it emanates from. It has to start with us. But number five basically says, get of the way so others can succeed in the sense that you need to give people room. You need to give them space.

Sometimes when a question is asked and that leader likes to give ideas, he or she will jump in and give an answer. In my coaching I basically tell them pause, wait, let people in the room answer that question because that’s when you actually get them to see that they, themselves, can bring a lot of the ideas to the table.

Then the second set of behaviors, as I mentioned, are really more about managing relationships. Number six is about building a solid network of relationships knowing that it is incredibly powerful to be able to pick up the phone and connect the dots among five – six players and then all of the sudden you’re able to staff up an innovation initiative very quickly.

Number seven is about building strategic partnerships. Here we’re really talking more about not just internally but also across the industry. Of course, we see very good examples of that at Cisco and other companies.

Number eight is really more about caring for and rewarding people because if you don’t do the recognition and celebration of what people achieve in the company, again, human need, we understand it from people like Daniel Pink and others, they are looking for that recognition a whole lot more than any dollars you give them.

Then number nine is about over communicating with all stakeholders, especially in times of crisis or change. That’s really where we see companies that stay ahead of the necessary work that needs to happen around communication, especially around the times of change. That’s when you see people really doing well when they communicate and communicate repeatedly.

Then others fail when they assume that the change is not that big and it’s not big of a deal and everybody should just line up. Then they realize for human beings, change is real. You have to talk to them and you have to talk to them repeatedly about the why of the change and how they fit into that picture.

Then the very last behavior we see leader’s ability to build trust and buy in is very critical. When we look at all of these behaviors, that’s how leaders then have what they need in terms of internal skills as well as external networks to communicate meaning as we were saying at the very top of our conversation.

Pete Mockaitis
Interesting. Well, thank you for that run down here. I’d like your take on which of these behaviors do you think is the most critical or liberates the most inspiration from folks and why.

Ash Seddeek
I think the one that would really drive a lot of inspiration is having anchors in a value system and a philosophy that this leader or a team of leaders believe in because without having these anchor points in a value system, then we won’t have anything that essentially sort of grounds us.

If we’re facing difficulty and if somebody listening to us is in a very difficult situation, unless they have a value that’s similar to ‘I will rise, no matter what the difficulty is. I have achieved success in the past and I can achieve this success.’ Really holding on to a body of values makes a big, big difference.

That’s why we see HP and a lot of other companies publishing what they call the HP way. It’s the set of values. Apple did the same thing. A lot of leading companies make sure that they have a set of values that they communicate. Sometimes you may need to change them slightly, but you still do it in a way that really shows why we’re doing what we’re doing and how it’s going to help us achieve what we need to achieve.

I think when people see that you believe in something, that you honor it despite the challenges and the difficulties, then highly likely they will trust you more. They will buy more into your message. But if they see you shifting more because of profits and what the market demands all the time, then they will feel like maybe they could do the same thing and they could look for profits and other opportunities somewhere else.

Whereas if you give them something bigger than just the financial aspect, maybe the vision for what the company stands for, the mission. All of those things really give that leader the chance to inspire people, retain them for the long term because they are here not just because of what you give them, but rather what they are able actually to create with you and help accomplish.

Pete Mockaitis
I’d love it if you could maybe make it all the more real when we talk about anchor points in a value system. Could you give us some examples of hey, this company has this value and this is how they see it lived out in practical reality for real?

Because I think what’s interesting about values is that sometimes – well sometimes they’re not lived at all and it’s just sort of lip service. Integrity, like many companies have integrity as a value and then many companies show just how little they have when the scandals hit the headlines.

But I guess, on the flipside, I guess I’m thinking about – when I was working at Bain I thought they did awesome with regard to living their values. For example, one of them they’d call it the openness to the one percent possibility. That one percent possibility is that you’re wrong, that you’re mistaken. Then it was cool how it was okay as someone fresh out of college to correct a manager or partner with a different fact that would be contradictory to what they’re saying in a team meeting.

Or while discussing professional development with a manager like, “Hey, these are my goals.” The manager would say, “Okay, cool. And these are my goals and what I’m working on.” That kind of humility was really cool like “Hey, none of us are perfect. We’re all working on something.”

I’m with you. That liberates some inspiration for me in terms of this place is cool and they mean what they say on this little chart of operating principles and I like that. Could you give us some more examples of particular company has a particular value that shows up in a real way that unlocks inspiration?

Ash Seddeek
I think probably one of the best examples I can remember whenever you’re on one of those Southwest flights and you hear the airhostess making the comments just about when you’re landing. She makes you laugh. When you look at Southwest’s values, you’ll see that one of them is live the Southwest way. Under that banner, they basically say you have to have a servant’s heart and a fun-loving attitude.

You take this value and you make sure every employee in the whole Southwest system applies it. Then you see it showing up when you hear the pilot talking and being very personable and giving you the comfort and the trust that everything is going to be fine or when you hear the air hosts making a funny comment and again making you laugh on the airplane.

I think when the value then influences everyone’s behaviors all the way to the point that it becomes part of what you do on a daily basis, that’s really where it becomes an anchor point that everybody understands that’s our culture here because, of course, those values is what eventually constitutes that whole concept of culture the company has.

If people then start to embody it into actions and words, then you’re actually seeing a living example and not just a set of words that are written on a piece of paper. That’s the example that just comes to mind right away.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s a good one. I’d love to hear some more.

Ash Seddeek
When we look at innovation, for example, which is a big value at Cisco and also the idea that you should never really get religious about technology.

I think Cisco and a lot of other companies, they have figured out that if you get stuck in your ways, it will basically lead to extinction, whereas if you adopt more of an innovative mindset that basically says I need to be able to at times maybe walk away from something that I invested billions of dollars in.

When I was at Cisco, if you remember the flip camera, that was an acquisition that Cisco spent a lot of money on. At some point it was clear it was not the right direction where things were going and they were able to then say, “Stop. Let’s shift.”

I think seeing this in real life despite, again, the cost, then it shows you that it’s better to make that decision now, acknowledging the costs and be able to shift direction and focus on something that the market is looking for, also shows you that value.

And of course, at Cisco, when we were walking around with the employee badge, we actually had that written down on the badge, where make sure you never get religious about technology. What you really should be focusing on is what are the customers looking for and how can you be innovative and self-destructive so you can bring these technologies to market.

That’s another example where you need to look back at that value and make sure that that value is helping enlighten and educate the decision you’re making. Again, when we talk to leaders, one of the best things we could do is to really be comfortable really focusing on the values as something that has long-term application and value for the organization.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. Thank you. I’d also be curious, having studied all these things and synthesized and come up with the themes associated with these behaviors, does it now shine a clearer, brighter light on some behaviors that you’re like, “Oh my gosh, this is just terribly wrong,” in terms of are there maybe little things that leaders or professionals at large do frequently that are really just inspiration killers that you’d recommend we stop doing right away?

Ash Seddeek
I would say it’s been interesting for me over the past three years to realize, to your point, that a lot of the time the words you say on a daily basis, the actions you take on a daily basis are also driven by philosophies and points of view that you have, which in some respect, is essentially a set of values that you believe in.

If you think that the only smart one in the room is you because you’ve spent 18 years learning about networking or about fashion or about this or that, then that’s going to block you out from realizing that there are a lot more ideas in the room.

This really emanates from a value where you think, “Well, you know what? I am the source of intelligence.” Sometimes you only make this mistake of thinking that there are many solutions and I’m the only source for them. Understanding that we may have a bias to favor our own thoughts and then make sure that we manage that and be self-aware of it. Then basically say, “You know what? I would love to hear your ideas.”

Then all of the sudden everybody in the room is very much encouraged and inspired by the fact that you’re actually looking up and you’re basically telling them, “I know you guys are smart. I know you have ideas and I want to hear them.” Before you share anything, you want to sort of almost use that question and query process to uncover innovative ideas.

Again, one of the things I do with a lot of leaders is I basically tell them, “Right now your biggest value is not to share ideas, but actually ask good questions.”

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot, so you’re asking the questions first before you share your ideas.

Ash Seddeek
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
You mentioned managing your bias. I imagine at times that can be easier said than done. What are some of your favorite pro tips and best practices for pulling that off?

Ash Seddeek
I think one of the tips I would give people is being very transparent and vulnerable at the same time in the sense that you may tell people, “Hey, I have a tendency to overpower my own thought process and think the only way is probably some of the ideas that I’m bringing to the table, so if you see me jumping in say, ‘You know what, Ash? I’m not coming to you for solutions. I really want to show you a number of options that we’ve come up with and then and only then I’d love to get some of your input.’”

Because otherwise they may actually then think their ideas are not worth sharing with him or her and as a result maybe some innovative ideas never really see the light of day.

As much as these leaders share where their blind spots might be in a way that’s not necessarily showing it as a weakness, but rather as a blind spot that they want to be watching out for and they need to have the trust of their team to help them sometimes make sure that that’s not where we’re spending most our time, but rather we’re spending a lot of our time in uncovering as many ideas from across the team.

That’s really where diversity comes in in terms of the diversity thought and idea and innovation and making sure that collectively we’re finding what’s the best for the organization rather than, “Oh it came from this person or that person.”

I think looking at the outcomes that we’re trying to achieve then helps us really tone down where the source of idea is, not to the point that you completely not go back and celebrate where it came from, but once you are driven more by the outcome, it really helps you reduce the reliance on “Oh, he’s the only one that has these ideas,” or “She’s the only one,” but rather, “Let’s take a look at what the whole team can bring to the table.”

Pete Mockaitis
I really like that notion associated with the others bringing in the winning ideas. I just think about how often it’s not fun to be wrong.

Ash Seddeek
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
I feel like it can be wrong in any number of ways like the exact opposite approach that you thought of is the optimal one. Or for me, I find it’s often about I want to go fast, but we should slow down or I want to go slow, but we should speed up. I find it helpful to reflect upon the times that I’ve been dead wrong and it was so helpful that someone slowed me down or sped me up.

I remember one time I was in PayPal. I was making a payment to someone in the Philippines in pesos or PHP. It’s about 50 to 1 is the conversion rate. I accidently did it in dollars. I’m often frustrated when software goes slows. … said, “Oh, did you want to give 4,000 dollars.” It was like, “Oh no. No, I didn’t.”

Then sure enough, I appreciated all of the ways that software, the security, the two-factor authentication, the texting you this or that can really save the day at times for you.

When I want to go fast and I’m frustrated that it’s slowing me down, I find that it is helpful to remember. It’s like hey, it might not feel so great in the moment to have a force speed you up or slow you down or point you in the opposite direction that you wanted to go, but it sure feels better when you get the desired outcome than the outcome you would have got had you had it your way.

Ash Seddeek
Exactly, exactly. Absolutely, absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s handy for me in the humility, just coming up with those reminders. I’d also like to get your take on if there are any other kind of best practices in terms of tips and tricks, phrases or scripts that just really come in handy when folks are trying to live out and implement these ten leadership behaviors.

Ash Seddeek
I think an interesting idea that actually evolved over the past few months is what I’m now calling emotion one and emotion two. Emotion one, essentially most of us, leaders, whatever walk of life we’re in, a lot of the time when something happens, when someone comes to talk to you, you have that emotional reaction in your body.

A lot of the time leaders who are not emotionally intelligent, they will give in to that first emotion. Maybe it’s an emotion of frustration. Maybe it’s an emotion of “Oh my God, I cannot believe they screwed this up again.” Then the response is going to be one that they will not really like eventually.

What I’m basically starting to tell some leaders I work with is I want you to recognize that first emotion because once you recognize it, then you’re going to know it’s a pause moment, where you realize it is not going to be the best basis for what you want to say or do. What I advise them of doing is I advise them to let that first emotion wear off.

Then we come to the second emotion. The second emotion is really more driven by what outcome do we want to achieve eventually because as you said, maybe sometimes I need to realize that a particular activity I need to slow down in order for me to go very quickly in the future. Once you recognize the very first emotion, if you go with that flow of that emotion, you say something that you’re going to regret or do something that, again, you’re going to regret.

I tell leaders to be emotionally present, understand that the first thing that needs to happen is to realize that there’s no way for you to stop that emotion. Just let it go through the system and let it wear off.

Then ask yourself the question, “What is the action, the word that I need to say and do that would actually help us move our cause to the next step? What is it that I could say that would help that person I’m talking to understand that I emphasize with them, that I understand what they have to go through and that I’m willing to talk to them about what conditions for success do we need to create in order to take the next step.”

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot.
I think a lot of times for me the emotion one is like I’m hearing something that I think is outrageously wrong, ridiculous, absurd, offensive. I don’t know. I’m reacting strongly to something that I think is outrageous. My go-to phrase is just, “Tell me more.”

Ash Seddeek
I love that. Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Which doesn’t mean, listeners, if I say that to any of you, that means I’m furious. I sometimes just want to know more and I don’t know the perfect follow up question and I just say, “Keep talking about that,” is what I mean. That doesn’t mean I’m enraged.

But I find that it’s helpful for one, it buys you time because they will tell you more and you can breathe a little it as they’re doing so. And two as you learn more about where they’re coming from and their rationale for the idea, like nine times out of ten it’s like, oh, that’s really not so absurd after all.

Ash Seddeek
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
I still disagree, but it’s a plausible alternative to the view I had and now let’s sort of see what’s optimal together from here.

Ash Seddeek
Exactly, exactly. Right on. I love that too because, again, it helps you uncover. Maybe there are details that will change what I’m thinking right now. That’s the interesting part is when you actually uncover further details, then you realize something wrong happened with these guys and that’s why they were acting the way they were acting or they’re under some pressure that I did not understand or they were missing a piece of information.

Having that pause in the system, to your point, looking for more information is a very wise thing to do because, again, as leaders, you’re usually working with very high stakes situations. If you go with emotion one, it may actually mess things up.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Ash, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention about inspiration or being awesome at your job before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Ash Seddeek
Absolutely. I think one of the key nugget I share with people and it’s based on my experience having worked at Deloitte … in San Francisco. But when you develop an outcome-based thought process, it not only inspires you to do really well every single day, but also once you act that way, you also start inspiring other people.

Because a lot of the time if you don’t have that mindset of ‘I am here almost as a management consultant. I am here really to achieve success for my client’ and you start really looking at everyone that works with you as your own client, it helps you detach from the struggles and the challenges and the dynamics of the moment to be someone that is self-composed and is much more result- and success-focused that it just creates an interesting air around you that people want to work with you, people want to be part of any project you work on because you see you have that focus on ‘I am here to help achieve success, not just for me, but for people around me.’ It’s very inspiring.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s funny, Ash. I guess in some ways I’m naïve or idealistic and also a former strategy consultant for Bain, but for me it’s almost like that’s the only way that I just naturally think and operate and breathe and work. Sometimes there’s a bit of a disconnect in terms of realizing where other people are coming from and their priorities.

But I’d love it if you could maybe give us a bit of a flavor for okay, an outcome-based mindset is one way to go and to think, live, operate in the course of doing work. What are some of the main contenders or alternative mindset worldviews that are driving people if not the outcome-based mindset?

Ash Seddeek
I think what happens on the other side of that is you actually get – I call it sucked in – you get sucked into the dynamics of the situation.

Let’s say the other person makes a comment. You don’t like the comment, as we were talking about emotion one. You get sucked in to the dynamics of the conversation. All of the sudden you’ve created an unhappy other person who thinks maybe you are not open to new ideas or you don’t understand what they want or you’re not listening.

They walk away with that impression about you and perception about you and then starts to build up because she’s going to go or he’s going to go walk out to somebody else and say, “Oh, I was just sitting with Ash and I just got a vibe that he just doesn’t want to listen to what we want to do and I don’t think he’s going to really be able to help us.”

All of the sudden, when we don’t focus on that outcome-based thinking and we get into the flow of that conversation, we give into that first emotion, then we create a dynamic that’s not going to be helpful for us. It sort of militates against wanting to be awesome.

If you want to be awesome, then we have to state with that outcome-based where some of the language I use, and again, to your point, Pete, working in management consulting you know that one of the key things you want to say is, as you said, “Tell me more,” “What does the solution look like,” “How can we help you get it done,” “When we’re done what would it look like?”

You can help people articulate what they’re looking or, whereas if you get into the flow and the dynamics of the personalities, then it’s not a good situation. We see a lot of just toxic environments really coming out of a lot of people giving in to those feelings that happen in the spur of the moment without focusing on what the outcome that they’re trying to build is for that person that they’re sitting in front of.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Ash, I’d love it if you could for a moment enter the dark place and articulate what sorts of angry or reactive or what sorts of thoughts and responses internally or verbalized are popping up when folks are in this less optimal mindset when they’re working with folks.

Ash Seddeek
Yeah. I think from my own personal experience, I remember in my early days working at Deloitte, where I went into a client where my mind was thinking, “This company should be a whole lot more advanced than this. They should know a lot of things already. They should have this. They should have that.” I was just getting frustrated with the fact that my own expectations and assumptions about a large organization were not present.

People walked away from the conversation with me saying to my boss, “Well, Ash, was really coming across as very arrogant. We feel he’s really talking down to us.”

As you uncover your perceptions about the situation and what you’re saying, I think the lesson there is figure out first what the other person knows, what their expectations are, validate some of your assumptions before moving to the next step.

That’s what we start to realize then that the most important thing is to really come across as someone who’s there to, as Stephen Covey says, “Seek first to understand than to be understood.” With that in mind, it really sets you up for success. Whereas when you walk in thinking you’re the smartest man/lady coming to the conversation, you’re really blocking out a lot more opportunity than otherwise.

I love what Stephen Covey says. I think that was the biggest lesson there was rather than going in thinking they should have all this stuff in place already, you basically ask the question, “What are the things that we have already so we can build upon and see what else is missing.”

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. Now I’d love to hear some of your favorite things. Could you start by sharing a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Ash Seddeek
The favorite quote that I heard a few weeks ago was, “I did it because I did not know it was impossible.”

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you.

Ash Seddeek
I don’t know what the attribution is, but actually it was a CEO of a startup company. He heard it somewhere. I said that’s just amazing because it allows us to have the freedom to pursue goals and aspirations without getting in mind whether somebody did it before us or not. We just keep going.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Ash Seddeek
I think the work that we’ve done for the Meaning book really gave us the chance to speak with leaders in a number of companies. It showed us how even in situations where the business is much smaller, the leadership communication challenges are pretty much the same. Of course, it gets much more compounded in a larger organization.

But the leaders ability to remember that they need to reiterate the reason why we’re doing what we’re doing and where we’re going is very, very important. That was very interesting. Now, I find out that a lot of CEOs, they get so entrenched in the daily grind that they forget that their biggest responsibility is the communication piece. That’s really where the coaching sometimes is very critical.

Also, the board of directors helps them to realize that you need to step out of the business and work on the business. The best part that you could do on the business is to really check on the vision and see if everybody’s heading in the right direction. Then come back and tell them where they need to steer the course so that they can correct any misalignments.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. How about a favorite book?

Ash Seddeek
I would say probably my favorite author is Tom Peters. I love all of his books, especially the Brand You books. I think, again, going back to management consulting, he really gives you a lot of ideas based on having been a consultant before. It gives you that insightful view on things, especially on yourself as the brand.

I love when he says the idea of each one of us looking at ourselves as a professional services organization of one, which, again, means everyone around you is a client. It helps free up your thought process. It helps you to really anchor what you do in your own value system of delivering value to the customer and clients and the team that you are a part of. That is being outcome-focused mindset.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. How about a favorite tool, something that helps you be awesome at your job?

Ash Seddeek
A favorite tool for me is definitely LinkedIn I think is an amazing tool in the sense that it gives me a much better level of access and knowledge about people I work with, industries I try to reach out to.

I think there’s a lot more to these social media tools that we have yet to discover in terms of how do we actually put it to use to create value for us and other people. I would say definitely LinkedIn is one of my top tools right now given the fact that I’m running an executive coaching practice and connecting with other coaches, connecting with clients, so really trying to find out what are the top leadership challenges that we need to help our clients with.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite habit, something that helps you be awesome at your job?

Ash Seddeek
Okay. Okay. I think a favorite habit is to realize that sustaining your energy is going to stem from the fact that you also take care of yourself and exercise, and make sure that you have time for yourself because with an opportunity for reflection, I have seen comes a lot of dividends. Your brain needs time to rest in order to connect the dots.

Sometimes you get an inspiration based on the fact that you essentially sat down and allowed yourself not to do anything. Maybe you’re enjoying your favorite drink or you’re reading a book, but you’re able to relax and be able to receive some of these ideas.

Because otherwise if you’re just, again, just going through the grind and you don’t give yourself a break, you may actually losing out on amazing opportunities for coming up with breakthroughs that your team may need, yourself might need. I think coupling energy-building activities plus also having downtime is very critical.

In terms of apps, probably I think the calendar app on our phones now makes a big difference in keeping us organized. I also use Evernote. I’m still trying to see if Twitter really is very valuable, but I do use it sometimes.

Pete Mockaitis
Is there a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with your clients or audiences?

Ash Seddeek
I think the best nugget is the idea of being what Tom Peters said around the professional service organization of one. It really helps you to have self-independent thoughts to really take care of what you have to take care of. You never really are giving into being a victim to any situation. You are always feeling like you are in command.

If something has to happen, it has to happen because you started it and it has to start with you. That’s very critical. I think a lot of the time we lose a lot of energy because we’re waiting for somebody else to do something or we think they’re not going to like it or this or this or that. I basically come back and say, “If there’s one action you could do now, what would it be and let’s do it.”

Pete Mockaitis
I dig it. Well, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Ash Seddeek
I would encourage them to visit ExecutiveGreatness.com. I will actually prepare for them a few downloads at ExecutiveGreatness.com/Pete/ and they find a downloadable on strategic leadership and also a free chapter of the Meaning book as well.

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

Ash Seddeek
I think to really make sure that they have that independent thought and don’t be affected by the environment as much as sort of coming back to their own desire to succeed and say, “If I were to do something today, what is it and let me make it happen.” That’s going to inspire themselves to do more and also inspire others by what they’ve done.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Ash, this has been a whole lot of fun. I wish you all the best with your clients and coaching and leadership inspiration stuff. Keep at it.

Ash Seddeek
Thank you so much, Pete. It’s been a pleasure.

Feb 13
0

401: Finding, Creating, and Maintaining a Great Work Culture with Brian Fielkow

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Brian Fielkow says: "Don't mold yourself to a culture that doesn't fit. You've got to understand what fits."

CEO Brian Fielkow walks through creating and maintaining a good work culture then reveals how prospective employees can find out if they fit a new workplace’s culture.

You’ll Learn:

  1. Why customers pay for culture
  2. Brian’s definition of a healthy work culture
  3. How to discover if you are a cultural fit at the interview stage

About Brian

Brian Fielkow, J.D., is the CEO of Jetco Delivery, a multimillion-dollar Houston-based trucking and logistics company with 200+ employees that was named a “Top Workplace” by the Houston Chronicle, highlighted on the 2015 Inc. 5000 list, and given the Gold Safety Award by the DOW Chemical Company. Brian is also the author of “Driving to Perfection: Achieving Business Excellence by Creating a Vibrant Culture.”

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Brian Fielkow Interview Transcript

Brian Fielkow
She’s well known in Hawaii and she’s starting to make a good name on the mainland. But the song, Island Inside Me, I wrote for my wife for our anniversary.

I just have these lyrics going around in my head, but I’m not a songwriter, I can’t sing, I’m not a musician. I connected with Anuhea. We put this song together sort of as an anniversary gift. It took off. It was a pretty cool experience. I don’t think I’ll have that experience again, but to have that song. Every once in a while I’ll hear it on Sirius-type stations. It’s kind of neat.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, well, could you sing perhaps the refrain or the chorus or a segment for us?

Brian Fielkow
Oh, you don’t want me to sing anything, but I know she’s got it posted. I know it’s available. It’s again, Island Inside Me, but if I sang it, I think we’d lose all of our listeners right now.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, fair enough. We’ll play it safe this time.

Brian Fielkow
Play it safe, yup.

Pete Mockaitis
You have a deep expertise when it comes to culture matters. You have some real hands-on experience instead of only doing research and writing books. Maybe could you orient us a little bit to where you’ve come from and why culture has become an issue that really matters to you so much?

Brian Fielkow
Yeah, I have kind of an interesting career. It’s not one that you could have ever planned coming out of school. I began my career practicing corporate law in Milwaukee. Maybe six or seven years in, I went to go work for my favorite client. They were in the recycling business. It was a wonderful opportunity.

We built that business while I was there for a good six – seven years. We sold it to Waste Management. I worked at Waste for a couple years. Then I bought my current company about 13 – 14 years ago, Trucking and Logistics. I’ve seen large Fortune 500 companies, I’ve seen entrepreneurial companies, everything in between.

It was interesting when I got into recycling coming out of the law business, I noticed that what we were selling were bales of cardboard. A bale of cardboard is a bale of cardboard, but we were commanding a premium. It took me a while to figure out why would anybody pay us more for what’s in the truest sense of the word a commodity.

It didn’t take me long to realize that other people would promise an order of a thousand tons and they’d ship 700. There was so much gamesmanship in the business, but we did what we said. People were paying us a premium for peace of mind. They weren’t really buying our cardboard; they were buying our peace of mind. That was a lesson I got very early on post law.

It kind of woke me up to the fact that every one of our businesses with rare exception to some degree is commoditized. I got really interested in de-commoditizing what we do, not having it to compete as much on price. Yes, the price is important, but if we can get to a situation where a customer appreciates our value proposition more than just the core product or service you’re offering, you can command a higher price.

Over the years I learned that what people are really paying for is your culture, kind of how you do things, what makes you different, that secret ingredient that nobody else can steal.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Your culture is what they’re paying for. It’s how you do things differently, your secret sauce. Is that how you define culture in those ways or do you have a particular definition that you run with?

Brian Fielkow
Yeah, let me give you how I define it. There are books and books on culture and the theory behind it. I’m not a fan of the theory because we’re practitioners and we need to know now. I’m going to keep it real simple and say that in simplest terms, you’ve got the beginning of a healthy culture when you’ve got the right people and the right processes working in harmony.

In a healthy culture, you’ve got the convergence of people and process, that’s what yields consistent and hopefully excellent results for the customer. You could have the right people and no process and every day is a new day. You could have the right process and the wrong people and forget about that. I’ve learned over the years that it’s getting the right people, the right process working in harmony.

It’s also rooting your company in a well-defined set of values. We have so many arrows coming at us in the business world, so many different priorities that sometimes we forget that there’s this adhesive that binds us together.

I can’t tell any business what their values should be, but once you’ve established your values, you’ve got to live by them. You don’t compromise your values. That’s something that your team needs to understand, your customers understand. It’s the adhesive that binds your company together through good times and bad, where priorities, on the other hand, they change by the day. We have customer issues. We’ve got service issues.

But those priorities never, ever compromise our core values, who we are and what’s important to us and what’s important to our team. Once you’ve done that, you’ve got to walk the walk. You’ve got to live and breathe your values. Whether you’re in the C-suite, whether it’s your first day on the job, you’ve got to agree that these are the rules that we’re going to play by.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s interesting you said you cannot tell another company what their values should be. I guess I’m imagining there are some that would generally be a recipe for good things and some that would be a recipe for bad things and a whole lot that it’s sort of – it’s a matter of finding the right fit in terms of the people and the processes and the industry and kind of what is your focus as a business.

Could you give us an example of some values that are unique because I think a lot of organizations will say, hey, integrity of course is a big value. I think sometimes they live it and walk the talk and sometimes they don’t, but it doesn’t really seem so distinctive when you hear that integrity is a value.

But it seems like in your practice, integrity is defined as doing what you said you were going to do when you said you were going to do it really was a differentiator there. Could you give us some examples of different values and how they come to life?

Brian Fielkow
Sure. Let’s talk about integrity for a minute because you’re right. That can sound over used. What company in the world doesn’t say integrity is a core value?

But now look around and if you watch football as much as I do, you’ve seen the Wells Fargo ads, established in 1860-something, reestablished in 2018. Why? Because they had integrity issues that really hurt their reputation, opening up fictitious accounts. It was a pretty big deal. Wells Fargo had to do work to repair its brand because of integrity.

It’s something you take for granted, but then you realize that if you let it slip and don’t focus on it, it could slip intentionally or unintentionally. Something even as simple and common place as integrity, if you as the leader aren’t living it and are kind of looking the other way, one lie will breed a thousand lies.

If I’ve got a problem with a customer, I’m not going to make something up. I’m going to tell the customer what happened and how we’re going to fix it. Even though the customer may be upset, hopefully over time, the customer will respect me more because people can smell a lie a mile away.

If my team sees me behaving in that manner, they’re going to follow my lead. On the other hand, if my team sees me acting with integrity, they’re going to follow my lead. Especially as we’re starting to work with younger and younger employees, people just don’t want to work in a company where the values are adrift. Integrity.

Another great example is respect. Again, people use respect too loosely, in my opinion. When I say respect, what I’m talking about is treating people like human beings first and employees second. That’s the ultimate respect. The ultimate form of disrespect is anonymity, “Hey, you’re number 100. Go do your job. Punch in, punch out,” not knowing a thing about that employee personally.

As my company is growing, I can’t know a thing about all my employees but my managers better. There needs to be something in the culture that makes sure that my managers know their employees like I know my direct reports so that everyone is accounted for and that the ultimate form of respect, like I said, is making sure that people’s overall human needs are met and that nobody, no matter if it’s their first day on the job, feels like all they’re doing is punching a clock and if they didn’t show up, it wouldn’t matter. That’s just a horrible situation to be in.

Respect is a value. Those are some of the things that we do that promote respect regardless of what it is you do because you’re an important member of the team regardless.

Pete Mockaitis
Right, okay. I would love to dig in a little bit in terms of thinking about values when it comes to finding fit with regard to career planning. How do you think about that game—I’d say both in terms of zeroing in on what values matter to you and then assessing whether a company really has it? Because I think a number of cultural pieces in terms of how things are done in a given organization really can vary and vary fine and suit different people differently.

For example, I think that some folks would say, “Oh yeah, we’re all about collaboration and so we’ve got an open office floor plan and we’ve got bays with ten employees in each of them, so they’re always kind of seeing and interacting with folks. We’re always on Slack and doing that.” Then some folks would say, “That would drive me insane. I need my quiet time to really focus and go deep in creating stuff.”

That would be sort of a natural mismatch when it comes to sort of how you prefer to do your thing and how the organization is doing their thing. How do you think about navigating this whole fit and research game?

Brian Fielkow
Such a great question because whenever I see forced fun, I run away. I go in the opposite direction. For me, having a slide in the middle of the office and having all those amenities, that’s all well and good, but that’s not culture. People mistake that kind of stuff for culture. Culture is not campfire fun and games stuff. This is a hardcore business proposition.

If kind of the slide in the office fits your culture and it’s in the context of an overall healthy culture, it’s fine. But if you’re using those bells and whistles to get employees in and then once they come in, they realize you’re in a toxic environment, that doesn’t work.

To me, there’s some subjectivity to it. There’s definitely a component of individual taste. Maybe I prefer a company that’s more formal. Or maybe I prefer a company that’s more casual. Maybe having a social life with my coworkers is important. Maybe I don’t want it at all. Maybe the company is extremely hierarchical, has a well-defined org chart. Maybe the company is more loosely defined.

All that’s okay and none of that is indicative of whether the company has a healthy culture or a poor culture. It’s how the company chooses to operate. It’s its own personality. That’s where you’ve got to find the fit. Again, there’s no right or wrong answer there.

But when you want to talk about how do I find the right culture, regardless of whether it’s hierarchical or loose, whether we’re wearing suits or whether we’re wearing shorts, that’s the key is to dig beyond the surface, dig beyond the slide. It’s not one-size fits all.

I think the best advice I could give somebody is when you’re doing an interview, you definitely – you’re going to speak with the hiring manager. You might speak with human resources. But the real people you want to talk to are prospective peers, prospective coworkers.

We do that with pretty much all of our job interviews. Again, it doesn’t matter the level that we’re hiring for. We want to be sure that peers can talk unscripted and what it’s really like to work here. We want to make full disclosure. We want to make full disclosure about our company. We’re proud of it, but we know that just like any other company, we’re not a fit for everybody.  We’d rather know that before we make a hiring decision or before you would agree to join our company.

There’s nothing like a peer-to-peer interview where you can ask questions. “What’s it really like to work here?” The company’s recruiting brochure says X, Y, Z, but six months later is that really what’s happening? Do they have a good-looking recruiting brochure or are they really delivering the goods?

The absolutely best advice I can give is do your homework on the company. Understand what the company is all about. Understand its culture. But peer-to-peer man, that’s really where you’re going to learn what it’s like to work there.

By the way, if that peer-to-peer interview goes well, now you’re new coworkers, they know you before you start. They’ve got a vested interest in integration. They’ve got a vested interest in bringing you in and helping you succeed.

If they say to the hiring manager, “Wow, thumbs up. Let’s bring this person in,” that opens the door and creates a pathway for success in a way that just a traditional interview and “By the way everybody, here’s your new coworker who you’ve never met,” that doesn’t work quite as well.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m curious if that organization – if you’re interviewing an organization and they don’t have the wisdom to … process, do you have any pro tips in terms of how you’d go about proactively having those conversations and some of the key things you’d want to say when you’re in the midst of them to learn what you really need to learn?

Let’s say that I’m interviewing at an organization. They did not give me the benefit of engaging in these conversations peer-to-peer, so it’s a little bit more on me to be proactive in terms of finding these people, having these conversations. How shall I find them and engage them and what should we say when we’re talking?

Brian Fielkow
Well, a lot of companies may not offer the ability to interview a peer. First thing is you just ask. Say, “Hey, could I interview somebody in the department that I’m – can I meet with somebody in the department that I’m interviewing to work in?” A lot of times the companies may say yes, but if they say “No, that’s not our practice. We don’t do that,” okay, let’s respect that.

But I would still ask the hiring manager questions like “What are your company’s values? Give me a feeling for when those values were challenged. How did the company respond?” Just like they’re going to ask you those questions. They’re going to ask you, “Tell me a particularly difficult problem or difficult situation. How did you address it?” You better be prepared to answer that. Well, I think it’s a fair question for employers too is, “Tell me your story.”

If you look at an interview as a two-way street, not just the hiring manager interviewing you, look at it as a conversation. You’ll be able to develop the feel just almost organically in a conversation. If it’s that tight and that rigid and you don’t have that opportunity, the company is telling you something about its personality.

I’m not saying that’s bad. I’m just saying that’s probably not a place I’d want to work. That’s not kind of how we bring employees in. I want an open door, full disclosure. But if companies don’t do that, with social media you can still network and find people who work there and talk to them informally or former employees, talk to them. But you can also have that same conversation with your hiring manager.

I love it when people come in, they’ve done their homework on the company and they challenge me with questions. That tells me that I’m dealing with somebody exceptional, who understands that the interview is a conversation.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I love that point on social media. LinkedIn is so cool with all the filters that you can dig in and search for folks that way.

Brian Fielkow
People used to call LinkedIn the boring version of Facebook or Instagram, but LinkedIn is the encyclopedia for how to network. I use it all the time. It’s such a valuable tool.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. And I really love that question you asked in terms of “Tell me about a time a value was challenged,” because I think a lot of times you’re probably going to get total blank stare response, like “Uh, these are just the words we repeat. I can’t think of any real experiences to share with you right now.” That tells you something right there.

But now you’ve got me curious, Brian can you tell me about a time in your company that you had a core value that got challenged and how did you live it out?

Brian Fielkow
Sure. In 2015 – ’16, we’re in trucking and logistics in Houston. That was a rough time. The energy markets collapsed and business was really challenged. We had to make some very difficult decisions.

In doing so, it wasn’t like memos from the C-suite; we brought our employees into the process. When we had to make the company smaller and downsize, we met with our employees. We treated them with respect. We made sure that everybody knew what we were doing, why we were doing.

What it did is it created sort of a foxhole mentality that we’re not working around our employees. We’ve not sugar coating like, “Oh, everything’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” We brought them in and we fought the war together because we were so transparent and open with them. You’ve got to be prepared to share good news and bad news.

In doing that, for example, safety in our company is a core value. We don’t compromise it. Well, no matter how rough business got, no maintenance got deferred. Every single vehicle was maintained regardless of the company’s financial performance.

I’ve seen other organizations where “Oh, business is bad. Let’s figure out where to cut. Well, we can cut maintenance.” No, if safety is a core value, you don’t cut, you don’t defer maintenance. You keep running your business.

I can use that time when this company was really challenged and really stressed by a rough economy. People in other businesses were losing their jobs left and right in Houston during that time and we just took a very contrarian approach that we’re taking our employees with us. Even though we couldn’t take everybody with us, and we did have to let people go. It was done, like I said, with dignity, with respect and then with complete transparency to the rest of the team.

That’s created kind of I think an unparalleled level of camaraderie as the company has rebounded, recovered, and grown so well in the past couple years.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. That’s cool. Well, could you share some other perspectives when it comes to zeroing in on determining if a culture is a fit for you?

Do you have some extra perspectives and tips when it comes to determining if an opportunity has a good cultural fit for you?

Brian Fielkow
Yeah, I think that you’ve got to be careful not to conform yourself to become somebody that you’re not. Don’t mold yourself to a culture that doesn’t fit. You’ve got to understand what fits.

In our situation, in a healthy culture, you’ve got to have employees who are technically excellent and who are in line with the company’s values. You get yourself in a lot of trouble when you look the other way.

I’ve got a technically excellent employee that’s walking all over everybody else, just a horrible team player. Well, I have to either coach that employee back in to working within our values or they can’t be part of the team no matter how technically good they are.

A lot of times we look the other way when it comes to technically good people even if they’re destroying the morale of the company. As an employer, you’ve got to stand up to that and be sure that you’ve got people who are value aligned and who know what they’re doing.

Well, similarly, for the employees, you can’t really fake it. I’m assuming you got the job because technically you met the criteria, but in a healthy culture, I hope that you’re yourself, that you don’t force anything. In a healthy culture you’ll be challenged.

Hopefully that culture will make you a better employee and a better person and hopefully you’ll do the same. You’ll make the company a better company and you’ll improve your coworkers. But if it doesn’t fit, you’ve got to know it.

I’ve seen too many times where people jump at the money. They jump at the money. “Oh, somebody wants me, I’m going to accept the job,” without asking these questions of “Am I going to be happy?” You may make money and you’ll be miserable. Life is too short.

That’s why interviewing for culture and being aware of culture is just so critically important because we’ve all had maybe in our careers, the Sunday night blues, kind of that horrible feeling that Monday is coming and I’ve got to a place that I really don’t want to go. I’ve had that in my career.

Because I’ve had that in my career and I understand it so well, part of my job is to make sure that we don’t have the Sunday night blues, that people are excited to come to work because they’re treated right, because it’s a place that they know they fit in. But if you don’t fit in the place and it’s not right for you, you’ve got to know when to get off the bus too.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. Well, Brian, tell me, anything else you want to make sure mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Brian Fielkow
I like to always say that at the foundation of the culture is what I call the three T’s: treatment, transparency, and trust. If you’ve got that and if you work at a company – look I’m in the trucking business. I’ve got a lot of people who told me, “Well, geez, I never thought in my life I would get into the trucking business. How did you as a corporate lawyer decide to do it?”

First of all, I love the industry, but it’s an industry that a lot of people might not necessarily just automatically gravitate to. But it almost doesn’t matter what you do as long as you love the job, you love the people. I think treatment, transparency and trust, whether you’re in a medical office, trucking business, law office, doesn’t matter.

Treatment, like I said before, you’re a human being first, an employee second. The ultimate form of poor treatment is anonymity.

Transparency, is just making sure your team is engaged. The best way to engage your team is to explain the why. If you give me a memo and you say, “Brian, just do it,” my personality is going to be to rebel. I’m not going to do it because you told me to do it. But if you say, “Brian, look here’s why we’re doing it. Here’s the why. It’s not a democracy. I’m not asking for your vote. But here’s the why,” I’ll be a lot more inclined to participate. I’ll be a lot more inclined to support. Just make sure you take time to explain the why.

As an employee, if you don’t know why, ask why. If somebody says, “Well, never mind. It’s none of your business, never mind,” that’s a little tip, isn’t it? But the key to an engaged workforce is for everybody to know their mission, know the company’s mission, know their role. Why?

Then finally trust. If there’s no trust, let’s forget about all this. In a company where trust is lacking, where people say one thing and do another, you’re operating on quicksand. You’re never going to have employee satisfaction where there’s a lack of trust among coworkers, lack of trust where leadership doesn’t trust the employees, employees don’t trust leadership.

Treatment, transparency, and trust are the three critical elements that I would look for in any business. I don’t care what the business does, as a sign of a healthy culture.

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

Brian Fielkow
The problem with my favorite quote is it’s too long, but I’m going to just read a little bit of it. It’s Teddy Roosevelt’s quote that we’re all here in the game and there’s people on the sidelines. They’re always going to be throwing stones at you.

It says, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust, sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who actually does strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

I love that quote. I just love it because you’ve got people throwing stones at you your whole life. Just forget about those people and go out there and be your best.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome, thank you. How about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Brian Fielkow
I’d like to if possible move to a couple books that I’d like to kind of recommend.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Brian Fielkow
My favorite book, if you took all my books away, would be The Advantage by Pat Lencioni. I think that’s the one book that everybody needs to read in college, coming out of college. I go back to that book all the time. It really lays out the basis for healthy organization and your role in the healthy organization. Really, I like anything that Lencioni writes, but The Advantage is my favorite.

Another book that just came out last year that I’m really into is called The Motivation Myth. Because I’m not terribly into – as you probably can guess by now – I’m not into a lot of the motivational, feel-good speakers and those kinds of books.

What The Motivation Myth does is it takes the concept and turns it on its head and says it’s not like you have to have the motivation then you do the job, then you’re successful. The motivation comes from the journey itself.

The book argues that it’s those small steps. It’s the victories. It’s getting knocked down, getting back up. The motivation comes from those incremental successes. The more you have, the harder you work, the more motivation you have. Motivation isn’t like a prerequisite. Instead, motivation is one of the things that comes from doing something you love.

The book also argues that quit trying to be like some of the celebrity CEOs. They did what worked for them. You’ve got to figure out what works for you. Spend less time emulating and spend more time figuring out what your own formula is. I just love that as opposed to just, “Hey, do what I say. Follow my advice and you’ll be successful.” I just don’t buy that. I buy, you figure out your own formula and that’s the key to success.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. How about a favorite tool, something that helps you be awesome at your job?

Brian Fielkow
Trying to maintain a semblance of work/life balance. I’m not by any stretch nine to five, but I listen to my body rhythm. I listen to how I work. I’m up at crazy hours of the morning because that’s when I work the best, but unless something is really important, you’re not going to find me here – later in the day, you’re not going to find me here necessarily on a Friday afternoon.

What I’ve learned over the years is that we’ve all kind of grew up in this eight to five world or seven to five or whatever it is, but hopefully as technology evolves and as employers become more and more progressive – this isn’t true for every job obviously. If you’re a doctor or a nurse, you’ve got to be with your patients. But for a lot of jobs, the more you can listen to your body clock and know when you’re productive and kind of know when you’ve got that momentum, the more effective you’ll be.

I could do something in a half hour that would take me five hours if I picked the wrong time and the rhythm isn’t there. Listening to your body, kind of knowing how you work. Some people, as you know, are night owls. Some people, again, like me, are up before the sun. But being able to know that and capture it, I think, is the secret to optimum production and success.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. Tell me, is there a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with your employees and folks who are reading your stuff?

Brian Fielkow
When I’m talking to audiences, I do a lot of keynoting, there’s a couple things. First of all, take your frontlines with you. I use that all the time and it resonates. I don’t like doing keynotes and just kind of closing and leaving. I like to do keynotes and then saying, “All right, what are the takeaways? We’re not here to talk about theory. What are the things that you’ll implement the minute you get back to the office?”

A lot of my keynotes, a lot of my presentation revolves around frontline engagement because I think that as a country, we’ve broken our contract with our frontlines. The more we engage our frontlines, the better. Take your frontlines with you. Bring them in.

In my company our drivers are – we have an elected driver committee that’s part of how we run the company. We’ve got our drivers in management and operational decisions. Take your frontlines with you is very – people use that a lot.

The three T’s. If imitation is the ultimate form of flattery, I’ve heard other speakers use the three T’s, but I think I may have invented that one.

Then there’s 20/60/20, which people quote a lot. This is a story when I was at Waste Management. I got to Waste Management at a time when there was a CEO, a brilliant CEO, Maury Myers, was brought in to turn the company around.

He brought his management team into the room. It was a large room. He had a large team. And was kind of rumored to say this, something like this, “20% of you know where we’re going and you’re with me. You know that we’ve got to make changes. I appreciate that. 60% of you, you’re scared. The ship is changing drastically its course. I’m going to work 24/7 to win you over.

The remaining 20% of you have made up your mind. You don’t like me and you don’t like the direction that we’re going. Here’s the commitment I’m going to make to you. This will be the smoothest transition you’ve ever had out of a company, but make no mistake, you’re out.”

20/60/20 means don’t find yourself in that bottom 20. Figure out how to continue to rise in your company. You’ve either got to align with the company’s direction and values or leave. From an employer’s standpoint, you’re not there to bat a thousand, simply not. Part of your job is to weed out the people who are kind of a drain on your culture, a drain on your performance.

I’ll tell you people in my company will use 20/60/20 a lot. We all know what they mean. The three T’s, 20/60/20, take your frontlines with you really are essential things that I talk about not just when I keynote, but when I run my own company.

Pete Mockaitis
If folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Brian Fielkow
I would point them at my website, which is BrianFielkow, so B-R-I-A-N-F-I-E-L-K-O-W. com. They can also email me, just Brian—B-R-I-A-N @BrianFielkow.com. I’m easy to get in touch with and glad to kind of continue this conversation.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. Well, Brian, this has been a lot of fun. I wish you all the best in making your culture all the more vibrant and excellent and business growth and all that you’re up to.

Brian Fielkow
Thank you so much for the time. I really enjoyed this conversation.

May 02
0

294: Generating Greatness from Creative Workers with Todd Henry

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Todd Henry says: "Trust is the currency of creative teams. You cannot function... without trust because trust is what enables us to take risks."

Founder of The Accidental Creative, Todd Henry, shares lessons learned from managing creative employees AKA “herding tigers.”

You’ll Learn:

  1. Why bounded autonomy produces the best creative results
  2. The right–and wrong–way to provide feedback on creative output
  3. How you may be subtly eroding trust

About Todd

Todd Henry teaches leaders and organizations how to establish practices that lead to everyday brilliance. He is the author of four books (The Accidental Creative, Die Empty, Louder Than Words, and Herding Tigers) which have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and he speaks and consults across dozens of industries on creativity, leadership, and passion for work. His book Die Empty was named by Amazon.com as one of the best books of 2013. His latest book, Herding Tigers, is about what creative people need from their leader, and how to give it to them.

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Todd Henry Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Todd, it’s great to have you on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Todd Henry
It is great to be here, Pete. Thanks so much for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
I think we’re going to have so much fun. I’ve seen your podcast, The Accidental Creative, again, again, and again in the iTunes rankings that I probably check more than I should. Here we are talking to the man behind the brand.

Todd Henry
I’ll tell you, having been podcasting for a very, very long time I know how hard it is to build an audience and how hard it is to create something that so many people find valuable. Kudos to you because you have really climbed the top of a very difficult mountain and have stayed there for a very long time. That’s a testament to the value that you’re providing to the audience that ….

Pete Mockaitis
Oh shucks. Well, flattery is always a great start Todd.

Todd Henry
That was not planned, by the way. We didn’t talk about that in the pre-show that I was going to do this.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, you’re going to compliment me and then I’m going to compliment – let’s go back in time a little bit. Speaking of large audiences, you mentioned that once you were a country singer full time and you had audiences as large as 40,000 people.

Todd Henry
Oh my, I think we’re done here. Okay, this has been …. Yeah, I actually as I now call it – it’s funny with my kids I call it my misguided 20s. This was like 25 years ago now. But, yeah, I actually toured as a country musician singer. We played like West Coast Bakersfield, Buck Owens kind of really sort of rowdy honky-tonk kind of country music.

It was really fun for a number of years. We got to open for some great bands. One time we got invited to play at this festival over in I think it’s called St. Clairsville, Ohio, it was called, get ready for this, it’s called Jamboree in the Hills.

Somebody told me there were like 40,000 people there that day. It was really amazing. Seriously, I have never been in a situation before where it was like people as far as you can see. I speak events now and do all kind of – I have never seen a crowd like that before. It was literally – like I hear the phrase a sea of people, it was literally a sea of people. I couldn’t even see the end of the people.

That was really fun. It was a great experience. Then like so many of those kind of stories, I met a girl and realized that maybe the music business wasn’t necessarily going to be a long-term thing and ended up choosing gainful employment and marrying an amazing woman, which has absolutely been the right course of action. 25 years later here I am. That’s it. That’s my life story.

Pete Mockaitis
That is good. The thing is with meeting an amazing woman, you have so much more fodder for your country songs.

Todd Henry
That’s true. That’s true. Well, see, that’s what happened. I got happy and then I didn’t have anything sad to write about anymore and I had to give up country music.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s unfortunate in a way but in another way we’re all being enriched by your work. Maybe you could orient us a little bit to what is Accidental Creative all about.

Todd Henry
Yeah, I started Accidental Creative about a decade ago. The goal of the company is to help people and teams be what I call prolific, brilliant, and healthy all at the same time. Doing a lot of work, doing great work, and doing it in a sustainable way, in such a way that they can continue producing high volume of quality work over the course of time.

It’s really difficult to do because we’re all facing the pressure to do more. Resources are scarce. Expectations are only rising. I’ve never worked with an organization and had someone say, “You know, it’s just amazing. Expectations keep going down.” No, of course not. Expectations are rising.

With that, we all have to adapt and learn how to build practices, and rhythms, and structures, and systems into our life to help us approach the work that we’re doing on a daily basis, which when we’re dealing with the creative process, when we’re trying to solve very complex problems is challenging because you can’t force creativity into a predictable system. You don’t know when that brilliant insight is going to happen.

The only way that you can systemize around creativity is by having rituals, practices, systems, wells that you draw from. The thing is, Pete, that you have to build those systems before you need them. If you’re going to create on demand, if you want to have a brilliant idea at a moment’s notice, you have to begin far upstream from the moment you need that brilliant idea. The way you do that is by building practices, systems, rhythms into your life. That’s really what we do is we work with companies to help them do that.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. We’re going to talk about that in sort of group settings with your book Herding Tigers and management and collaboration, but while we’re talking I can’t resist, could you give us maybe one or two practices you’ve found for yourself, for clients, for listeners that just rock in terms of a little bit of effort and a whole lot of result.

Todd Henry
Absolutely, yeah. Well, one is, it’s going to sound like the most basic thing in the world, but it’s not what we know, it’s what we do that matters. The practice is implementing a ritual of study into your life.

By study I don’t mean pull out the trigonometry textbook and dust it off. That may be fine. Maybe that’s what you’re curious about. But what I mean is are you building time into your day to fill your mind with valuable stimuli. Are you exploring your curiosity? Are you, as Steven Sample from USC called it, are you communing with great minds.

Are you allowing other people to fill your well so that when you’re in a moment, because creativity really is just connecting things, as Steve Jobs famously quipped? We’re connecting dots, sometimes no intuitive dots that live just outside the periphery of our field of vision.

The more stuff we put into our head and the more we begin to think systemically, the more non-intuitive dots we can connect. As we do that, we begin to create disproportionate value.

But it begins by not just putting things into our mind, but actually taking time to stop and think about, “Okay, how does what I’m absorbing right now affect or in some way relate to the work that I’m doing?”

I might be reading a book about gardening or particle physics, but I can glean insights from those books and apply them to the work that I’m doing and try to force them together and try to play with what Steven Johnson calls the adjacent possible. Explore and experiment and try to connect dots and play around with ideas.

I can do that during that study time in a way that I often can’t do in my on-demand role at work because we simply don’t have the time or the resources to be able to play around forever. Do you have a ritual of study in your life? That’s a huge, huge thing.

Then sort of on the other end of the spectrum. I’ll tell you that one of the most valuable practices that I’ve personally implemented and now many other people that I have talked to have implemented is taking a midday walk. It sounds incredibly simple. It’s well, like yeah, duh. Okay, but are you doing it? Is that something you’re actually implementing?

What this does for is it gets us out of our environment. Often when I’m trying to generate ideas with teams, I’ll send them on what I call a stimulus dive, which means I want you to go out into the environment. I want you to go out into the neighborhood around this office building or whatever, wherever we happen to be and I want you to just observe.

I want you to come back with one piece of stimulus. It could be something you find in a store. It could be something you pick up off the street. It could be something you see. You can snap a photo of it. Whatever it is, I just want you to observe your environment and think about how are the things I’m seeing and observing potentially helping me solve this difficult creative problem that we’re working on right now.

It’s amazing what just getting out and being active and getting out in the environment and allowing new stimulus to wash over you can do for your creative process. Those are two very simple things. There are a thousand more I can talk about right now. Two very simple and immediately implementable practices I think people could put in play to help them jog ideas more consistently.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. It just sounds like that would be a fun place to work. “Oh, my job right now is to – okay. I’m down with this. Thanks Todd.”

Todd Henry
Frankly one of the biggest hurdles I have to get people over is like, “Okay, are people actually working right now?” “Yes, they’re working. Yes, that’s what they’re – right now they are working.”

As a matter of fact if you just have them sitting and staring at the problem, that’s probably the least effective thing you could have them do right now. Very rarely do you solve a problem just by sitting and staring at the problem.

You have to go out. You have to look at parallel problems that have been solved in the past. You have to go out and challenge assumptions. You have to go out and look at what’s going on in the environment. You have to immerse yourself in different kinds of stimuli. Go do a dumpster dive, see what happens. It feels very inefficient, but these kinds of things reveal intuitive connections that are just beneath the surface that we often sort of overlook in our mad dash to try to solve the problem.

Pete Mockaitis
That sounds wise. You’ve collected a number of these practices, and mindsets, and mechanics, and goodies in your book Herding Tigers. Can you give us the overview on what’s this all about?

Todd Henry
Yeah, for many years I like creative teams and I would always hear this phrase, and you’ve probably heard it too Pete, that leading creative people is like herding cats.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Todd Henry
Every time I heard that it took everything I could, I mean seriously not to punch the person.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m not a cat. How dare you.

Todd Henry
Well, because what’s implied by that is that creative people are flighty, that they have no discipline, that they just bounce from thing to thing, that they think they are the center of the universe. They’re egomaniacs. I mean that’s really I think what is implied by that.

One time I was speaking at a conference and it just came out of my mouth. I said, “How many have heard this phrase, that leading creative people is like herding cats?” and all the hands went up. I said, “It’s not like that at all. It’s actually more like herding tigers. These are powerful, majestic creatures capable of great beauty one moment and then turning around and ripping you to shreds if they’re not led properly.”

Everybody laughed and I thought, oh, that’s really cute, so I put it as a line in the book and then that became the title of the book thanks to my editor.

Really what I wanted to communicate to leaders is listen, if you want to get the best work out of the highly talented creative people on your team, who are by the way very driven and very driven to do great work. They want to do great work because often they identify themselves by the work that they do.

Then you have to know what it is they need, which sounds intuitive, but I think we often make assumptions about what creative people need that aren’t actually true.

For example, we tend to think that creative people are all about freedom. “Just give me freedom. Don’t fence me in. No boundaries. It’s all about the idea. All about freedom.”

That’s not actually true. If you talk to creative pros who are in the trenches, who are professionals, who are really doing great work, they’ll tell you that a lack of boundaries is detrimental to the creative process. They need some kind of bounding arc. They need some kind of boundary to help them focus their attention, focus their assets, focus their time, their energy.

Orson Wells, the great filmmaker, once said that ‘the absence of limitation is the enemy of art.’ I think that’s a brilliant observation. Without some sort of limitation, some sort of bounding arc, it’s difficult for creative people to focus their energy on what really matters.

The book is really about what does it creative people need from their leadership and how do we create an environment in which highly talented, driven creative people can thrive.

Pete Mockaitis
That really resonates with me as I’m thinking about – so I’m making this course right now. I’ve been working with some designers and more. It’s like great creative folk in my own experience, it’s like they eat it up when I give them some guidance.

In terms of like, “You know what? That question mark there that you’ve put into that logo, to me it feels a little bit like looming and scary, like a monster being projected over a flashlight. I want it to be more calming and sturdy and stable, like we’ve got guidance coming for you to this question.”

Part of me thinks I’m a little bit crazy when I say these things out loud. It’s like, “Okay, Pete has some odd associations maybe from his childhood about a monster in his closet.” But then great creative folks like, “Oh, thank you. That is so helpful for me.”

Todd Henry
Yes, absolutely. That is super helpful and the way you provided that feedback is very helpful. It’s very specific.

One thing that drives highly talented creative people crazy more than anything else is when somebody says, “It’s not working for me.” Oh, thank you. That’s very helpful to me.

But when you say, and this is really important as well, when you say, “Hey, I see what you’re doing here. I see what you were going for. I think I understand your strategy and your logic here and it’s not quite working for me. Let me elaborate on why it doesn’t quite resonate with me. Do you think we could do something like this or do you think we could change this thing or do you think you can think about it through this lens?”

That is super helpful feedback for creative people because listen, they want to get the project right. It’s not just about following their idea. It’s about accomplishing the goal of getting the project right. You’re the client or you’re the manager, whatever. They want to please you. They want to do what satisfies your objectives, but they need very specific feedback.

They need to understand that you use them and you see what they’re doing and that you care about the thought that went into the project. When you just go up to someone and you say, “Well, it’s not working for me,” basically what you’re doing is you’re discounting the last three weeks of their work. You’re saying, “That’s not working. What else have you got for me?” Okay, not helpful.

I would, just as encouragement to you, Pete, the way that you offer that feedback, being very precise about what you like and what you don’t like, that’s exactly what creative people need from you in order to produce their best work.

Pete Mockaitis
Good, good. Sometimes I wonder or worry like, “Am I driving this person to the edge of their sanity?” Like, “Oh, this guy. Listen to-“but, so thank you for that affirmation that that is indeed helpful as opposed to pushing people to a breakdown of sorts.

Todd Henry
Well, I will also say that one of the other things that’s a struggle is that this exists in tension. Yes, feedback is important. Yes, being very precise and specifically setting boundaries is important, but there has to be freedom within those boundaries to explore, to take risks, to try things.

Some leaders go overboard on the controlling piece. They go overboard on the feedback piece. Instead of saying, “Hey, here are the boundaries. Here’s what I’m looking for. Why don’t you play around with this and see what you can come up with?” Instead they say, “I want you to make a video for me that does this and this and this. And here’s the look I want. And here’s an example of something that’s just like it. Now go make it.”

Well, that’s not very motivating either because there’s no challenge there. Yes, there is stability for the creative, but there’s no challenge there for the highly talented creative person. What they’re going to do is basically just say, “Okay, just tell me what to do. That’s fine. Just tell me what to do.”

You’re not going to get the best work out of them. You’re not going to get the blessing of their intuitive perception, that dot connection, their years of experience because you’re basically telling them what to do.

What we’re aiming for is a bounded autonomy. Freedom within boundaries. Then frequent checkpoints in which you give feedback, like you gave before, which is beautiful. It was wonderful feedback. That’s exactly what you need.

“Hey, here’s some feedback. Now why don’t you go work on it within these rails?” Then you check back in and say, “Okay, we’re getting closer. Now, let me give you a little bit more feedback. Now, go work on it. Great.” That’s what healthy creative process looks like.

Pete Mockaitis
That is well said. Thank you. If folks are making the leap associated from – they were doing the creative making of stuff and now they’re beginning to do some management of folks who are doing that for them or for the team, what are some of the key mental shifts, adjustments that need to go down?

Todd Henry
This is a real struggle. I love how you say the mental shifts. I call them in the book the mindset shifts that you have to make when you transition from maker to manager.

Listen, when you’re early in your career and you’re making work, you’re a tactician – again, when I say making work or I say creative people, we’re all creative as a function of our job. We have to solve problems. Creativity is solving problems. That’s what we do every day. If you have to go to work and solve problems every day, this applies to you. You are a creative professional.

But when we go to work and we do something functionally, so if we’re performing a task or producing some kind of work, and basically we’re accountable for making sure that that work is great. That’s our job and we produce a result or a product or whatever it is.

At the end of the day, we measure our success as a maker by how great the product is. I can draw a very direct line between my efforts and the end result. I can say, “I made that. That’s how I define myself.”

For example, in the world of agencies, creative agencies, which is where I spend some of my time, a designer can define themselves as a brilliant designer. They become known for their work. They have a style. They have a thing that they do.

Maybe if you’re a salesperson, you have a specific way that you approach sales, specific way that you approach relationships, and you become known as the person who does that thing. That’s what you’re known for. You’re the closer. You’re the person who can get the result, which is great.

But the moment you transition from maker to manager, you have to make a couple of significant shifts in how you think about it because you are no longer defined by the work you do. You’re defined by how you lead other people who are doing that same work, which is a difficult transition for people to make who have defined themselves their entire career as a person who does a thing.

“Okay, well if I’m no longer defined as a person who does a thing, who makes a thing, who manages a relationship, whatever that is, if that’s no longer me, how do I define myself as a leader? Who am I anymore? I don’t even recognize myself.”
Which is why many leaders when they first transition to a manager role, default to control. They default to clamping down, to stepping in, to doing the work for their team because they think I can do it better than my team members can. I’ve been doing it for five years. I know the job better than they do, so I’m going to step in and make sure that the job is done the way it needs to be done.

But there’s a problem with that and the problem is you’re not giving those people the chance to grow, to take risks, to develop their skills, and over time your entire team’s sphere of influence and their capacity never grows beyond your direct sphere of involvement.

You’re going to train your team just to stop and think, “Okay, you know what? Just tell me what you want me to do. I’m just going to wait for you to tell me what to do.” That’s what you’re going to train your team to do and you’re not going to retain people with a lot of potential, highly talented, creative people for very long if that’s your mindset.

You have to transition from a mindset of control, which is all about getting the work right now to a mindset of influence, which is “I am going to lead you and guide you and provide that bounded autonomy for you, give you a chance to play and take risks and try things with frequent checkpoints and I’m going to check in with you and make sure that you’re on course.

But I’m going to give you the freedom to experiment and play and develop your skills so that the capacity of our team is growing over time beyond the sphere of my direct involvement.”

That’s a really difficult thing, Pete, for leaders to do because they have been defined by the work they produce. You would think that when you get promoted to a managerial role, you would think, “Oh, hey, I’ve arrived.” Now the ego’s kicking in, all of that, but for a lot of people there’s a bit of an identity crisis that happens because “Who am I now? How do I define myself?” We have to define ourselves as people who lead by influence not by control.

Pete Mockaitis
Well said, well said. Now I’m curious when it comes to the influence and control point, a lot of listeners have shared that they don’t even have the option of control. They don’t actually have direct reports that they have the power to reward, to review, etcetera.

And yet within their sprawling matrix-y whatever organization, they need to be persuasive and influential and have folks indeed produce something and something good. I’d love it if you have any sort of special prescriptions for being influential in that space and getting things done and getting things done brilliantly.

Todd Henry
Absolutely. Well, first of all, you have to prove yourself as component. That’s the baseline for any level of influence in any setting is if you’re not doing the work, if you haven’t shown yourself capable of doing the work, no one is going to respect you. When I say stop doing the work when you transition to being the maker, that implies that you have actually proved before that you can do the work, that you’re stepping back from it.

But the main thing with regard to leading by influence is it’s really important when we talked earlier about making sure that you understand what drives other people, leading by influence is letting other people know what drives you. It’s letting them understand your leadership philosophy.

What is it that you expect from other people? How do you think about work? What are the battle lines that you draw when it comes to how you do your job and how you interact with other people?

For example, it’s really important that other people understand how you define what quality work looks like. That can be such a subjective thing.

You need to communicate to the people around you, “Hey, when you come to me with something, here’s how I measure whether this is good enough or not. Here’s how I measure whether an idea is right or not. Here’s how I believe conflicts should be handled. Let’s talk about that philosophy of how conflicts should be handled. Should it be handled individually? Should I be involved every time there’s conflict?”

It’s important that you communicate to other people. There has to be some overriding leadership philosophy or point of view that you’re communicating to other people so that they understand how to interact with you and they understand how you’re making decisions and they understand the guiding philosophy that is informing your personal choices and interactions with them.

There was an Australian business man who once told author Tom Peters that he basically had a very simple leadership philosophy. It was I want to reward excellent failures and punish mediocre successes, which means if you succeed in a very mediocre way, I am going to punish you because that’s not what we’re aiming to do here. I expect you to take risks and try things.

If you fail, but you fail in an excellent way because we’ve learned something, because you’ve learned something, you’ve developed a skill, you’ve given us a head start on our competition even though we’ve failed in some way, great. You will be rewarded for that.

It’s really important that we communicate those kinds of rails to the people around us and help them understand the grid through which we’re making decisions, the grid through which people are rewarded, the grid through which people will be reprimanded.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot. I’m thinking now about how do you measure quality. I think if we zoom into just the realm of reports, proposals, spreadsheets, maybe it’s not as sexy as a logo or a website or something, but in that realm, I’d love it if you could maybe share a couple sort of precise examples of how someone might articulate, “This is what I expect from an outstanding write up sent to me.”

Todd Henry
Yeah. That’s a great question.

Again, part of the challenge is that quality is, it’s right there in the word, it’s qualitative. It’s part of the challenge. What is quality in one circumstance may not be quality in another circumstance. It just totally depends on the objectives, depends on the client. There are probably clients who want something fast more than they want it to be maybe of the utmost quality from your sort of subjective opinion.

But I always like to encourage people at the end of any project to basically ask three questions to determine whether it’s quality or not, whether the project was successful or not in that way.

Number one, did we accomplish our objectives. We went into the project knowing we were trying to accomplish something, we were trying to create something, so does the thing that we did solve the problem we were trying to solve. If the answer is yes, great, wonderful.

Secondly, did we maintain our values in the process because if you produce something but in the process of producing that, you destroyed the team around you or there is all kinds of backbiting and infighting and everybody hates one another now, well, okay, I would be really hard-pressed to say that was a successful project because yeah, you produced a quality end product that accomplished the objective, but the team hates itself, so the process was in some way corrupt.

I think you have to include the process in that definition of quality too. Did we engage in a quality process? Did we maintain our values in the midst of it?

Then finally, and this is a little bit subjective, but I always encourage people to ask this question because I think it’s important, are we poised to do it again. If we had another project just like this come across our desk tomorrow, could we do this again? Are we able to do it again or are we completely spent? Are we completely burnt out? Are we at a place where I need three weeks in Hawaii to recover from this project, which is often the case?

This is what a lot of teams do. They sprint, sprint, sprint, sprint and it’s like, “Okay, we’ve just got to climb this mountain. Once we get to the top of this mountain, we’re going to be good.” They get to the top of the mountain and everybody’s like, “Okay, okay.”

Then they get to the crest of the mountain, they look over and there’s another bigger mountain right in front of them that the leader’s like, “Okay, let’s go take that one.” The people are like, “Are you kidding me? You told me this was the mountain we had to climb. Now there’s a bigger one in front of us.”

I think we always have to ask ourselves are we poised to do it again. Can we continue producing work at the rate that we’re producing this work or are going through cycles of crash, burn, refresh? I think that has to be included in the definition of quality and excellence as an organization in order to continue producing what can be prolific, brilliant and healthy over the long term.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot and it’s resonating. I’m thinking about my own exhaustion, like, “Hm, what needs to change here? Is it more help? Is it – yeah, is it just a clearer sense for how long things actually take because I’ve never used those tools before and it takes some time to learn those tools even though they say it’s supposed to be really easy on the sales page of the website.”

Todd Henry
Sure, absolutely. This gets sort of to the issue of trust. As a leader, you will lose your team if you do that.

If you are not being realistic with them, if you’re not painting a clear picture of what’s going to happen, when it’s going to happen, what’s expected of them, if you say things like, “Well, let’s just get through this and then we’re going to  have a couple days break,” and then you get to the end of the project on a Friday and you say, “Actually, I need you guys to come in this weekend because blah, blah, blah.” Whatever.

You’re like Office Space, right? Yeah, I’m going to need you to come in this weekend.”

You’re going to lose your team. Now you won’t lose them immediately. They’ll show up. They’ll do their job begrudgingly, but they’re not going to be engaged. I guarantee you they’re going to be looking for other jobs before too long if that happens very frequently because most leaders don’t blow trust in the big ways.

You’re not overtly lying to your team. You’re not overtly underpaying them. You’re not overtly doing things that are causing dissention and all that. It’s the little things that cause us to lose trust.

Trust is the currency of creative teams. You cannot function as a creative team without trust because trust is what enables us to take risks. Trust is what enables us to collaborate even when we disagree with an idea, I trust you enough that I’m willing to go your direction because I believe I trust that you have my best interests at heart. I’m willing to do that. If we begin to forfeit trust, we forfeit everything as a creative leader.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I would love to hear a few little examples of how trust gets eroded that might really strike home and cause people to look themselves in the mirror and go, “Uh oh.”

Todd Henry
Yeah. I’ll give you one very quick story. I live in southern Ohio. A couple of years ago there was a bear spotted in southern Ohio, which is an anomaly by the way. I’m not sure where you’re based, but we don’t really have bears around here.

My kids were freaked out. They’re like, “Oh my gosh. There’s a bear in southern Ohio.” They’re envisioning this bear climbing up the wall of our house and sneaking into their room and eating them in their sleep. I’m like, “Listen, listen, listen. That bear is like 100 miles from here.” I live in Cincinnati.

I was like, “Okay, the bear’s like 100 miles east of here. It’s out in the woods. That bear has no interest whatsoever in coming into the city. That bear is perfectly happy. It’s going to make its way back over to Kentucky, where it belongs. It’s going to be fine. Everything’s good. Don’t worry about the bear. You’re never going to see that bear in a million years.”

Two weeks later, Pete, two weeks later, I pull out of my driveway, I turn right, I go down to the bottom of the hill and there’s a news crew camped out at the bottom of the hill right down the block from our house. I roll down my window and I say, “Hey, what’s going on?” They say, “You’re not going to believe this about a half hour ago two joggers saw the bear run into the creek across the street,” a block from my house, Pete.

The bear was in my neighborhood. The bear was literally in my backyard. The bear that I had promised my kids, “Oh, it’s 100 miles away. There’s no way you’re ever going to see that bear,” was in my neighborhood.

Over the course of the next two weeks that bear was seen basically in every place we go: restaurants – it was in the trash at some of the restaurants we eat it, it was seen in the trash of some of our neighbors, it was running around the neighborhood, people say it running in the moonlight, all around our house.

Let’s just say that dad lost a little bit of credibility with the whole bear thing with the kids. For like three months after that it was like, “Now dad, is this really true or is this kind of like the bear thing?” Not a good thing, but super cute. Cute story. Not cute for dad, but cute for the kids.

But we do this as leaders all the time. We do. I call this declaring undeclearables. We say something because we think, “Oh, this is most likely going to happen, so I can declare this as an undeclearable. Hey, if you work this Saturday, I’m going to give you next Friday off. Well actually something came up. I didn’t have anything to do with it, but somebody up above me said that we need to work on this thing, so I’m going to need you here on Friday.”

It’s a little thing. It’s a very little thing, but it’s not little when your team takes your words to heart.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, and they made a plan. They were going to do a cool think on Friday, now they’re not going to do it.

Todd Henry
That’s exactly right. They made a plan.

Pete Mockaitis
Had to disappoint their family, their friends.

Todd Henry
That’s right and it’s really easy to navigate yourself to a place as a leader where your words mean nothing. They mean nothing.

When it comes to encouraging your team to take a big risk to follow you into the metaphorical battle of doing complex, difficult creative work, they’re not going to follow you. They might follow you begrudgingly. They might go behind you, but they’re not really following you because they don’t really trust you anymore. It’s the little things we do as leaders that forfeit trust.

I encourage people to think about is there a place in my leading right now where I am saying things because most likely I’m going to be okay, but I can’t guarantee that it’s really going to happen because that’s a way that you potentially setting yourself up for a breach of trust. You have to be careful about your words because your words actually have weight to the people on your team. Your words matter.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s potent. Thank you. Todd, tell me, is there anything else you really want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Todd Henry
I think the main thing that I want to encourage people in is listen, if you have hired talented, bright, sharp, amazing, driven people for your team, understand that they care about the work and they care about the mission and they care about you as a manager. It may not always seem like it, but they care about you as a manager and they want – it’s really important to them that they’re doing work that matters to them.

You have to know them. They need to know that you see them, that you believe in them, you know what makes them tick, that you see the great work that they’re doing, the sacrifices that they’re making. This is another thing we often overlook. As managers we don’t recognize the blood, sweat and tears that actually goes into doing creative work.

I just want to encourage people, “Listen, you need to know your team. You need to provide stability for them and protect them from the chaos monster of the organization. But you also need to give them permission to take risks, to be themselves, and to know I see you, I value you, I believe in you and I know that you’re capable of great things. It’s just that we need those great things to be within a kind of bounded autonomy and creative pros will respect that.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it. Thank you. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Todd Henry
Yeah, it’s kind of a long one. I could say it verbatim, but I often share this when I speak. It’s by Thomas Merton, who’s one of my favorite thinkers and writers. He was a cloistered monk in Kentucky actually, just outside of Louisville in the mid-1900s and wrote I think some of the most potent observations about life and art and work and spirituality.

But he said ‘There can be an intense egoism in following everyone else. People are in a hurry to magnify themselves by imitating what is popular and too lazy to think of anything better. Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success and they’re in such a hurry to get it, they cannot take time to be true to themselves and when the madness is upon them, they justify their haste as a species of integrity.’

The part that really resonates with me is the part about being in such a hurry, they want quick success that they’re in a hurry to emulate other people in order to get it.

That’s a reminder to me that I need to step back on a consistent basis and ask, “Am I navigating according to where I believe I should be or am I navigating according to what everyone around me thinks I should do.”

Because it’s really easy, Pete, and I’m sure you’ve seen this in your work as well, it’s really easy to get to a place and look back and say, “I never wanted to be here. I just did what everybody else told me I should do or what they would do in my circumstance.”

There are all kinds of reasons people will tell you to take a risk or do something, Pete, right? There are all kinds of reasons. They will say, “Oh yeah, you should go do that,” because they just want to see if you’ll jump off the cliff. They don’t have your best interests at heart. “Yeah, you should go do that.”

You have to be really careful to make sure you’re navigating toward something meaningful and not just emulating others for the sake of quick success. That’s what that quote does for me.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s powerful and wise and I wish I took that to heart maybe in the first three years of my business. I just sort of said, “Oh, I should start a blog? Okay. Oh, I should be on Twitter? Okay.” It’s like, no, no, no. The very first step is to identify a need that I can contribute to in a helpful way that real people have.

Todd Henry
That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
And from a business perspective, will ultimately pay for. It’s like, oh, okay.

Todd Henry
That’s exactly right. Yes, absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s more important than starting a blog.

Todd Henry
Absolutely. We see this, right? We see people copying tactics because tactics seem to work in the short run. That applies to large organizations as well as small.

How many times have I come into an organization and you see the book du jour on somebody’s desk. It’s like, well, okay, everybody in the organization is reading this because it’s the book du jour. But it’s just the latest trend. It’s just the latest thing that everybody’s reading, but it’s not really solving their problem. It’s just we’re chasing after something.

It’s always important that you step back – by the way, if you want to make Herding Tigers your book du jour, I would fully endorse that. That’s totally great. But if not, if it’s not for you, that’s great too. We have to step back and ask what problem are we really trying to solve here and what’s the best way for us to solve this problem, not what would everybody else do in our circumstance.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely, thank you. How about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Todd Henry
Yeah, I’m actually – it’s funny, the first thing that comes to mind right now is I’m reading a book called The Hit Makers, which is about how things become popular in an age of distraction. It’s really fascinating.

One of the studies that they reference in the book is a study about the fact that people tend to – we tend to think that people like things that are extremely novel, extremely new, extremely creative from that perspective. The reality is we actually don’t. We actually like things that slightly push the boundary, but also feel extremely familiar.

That’s why a lot of the pop music that is so popular, people are like, “Oh, that’s so repetitive and mundane and whatever,” well, but there is something about it that is unique. There’s some hook or something that makes it feel a little bit edgy, but it’s still rooted in something very familiar to people, which is why a lot of pop music, popular music sounds very similar on the radio.

They all have sort of a unique hook, but really if you dissected the songs, they’re all often very, very similar because as human beings, that’s what we gravitate to.

If you’re in a place where you want to introduce an idea into your organization, it’s not always best to go in and say, “I have something nobody has ever thought of before.” No, no, you need to say, “Hey, here’s kind of where we are and here’s the ground that we’re kind of taking right now and here’s kind of an intuitive leap just beyond the bounds of where we are. What do you think?”

You have to contextualize it for people and help them connect the dots if you want it to resonate. I can’t remember the name of the study. I can’t remember who did it. But that’s the one that’s really clicking with me right now.

Pete Mockaitis
Good, thank you. How about a favorite tool, something you use that helps you be awesome at your job?

Todd Henry
Yeah, I use the writing tool Scrivener. For anyone who does long form writing, it is by far my favorite tool I’ve ever used for writing.

It allows you to write in a non-linear way. I tend to write my books from the inside out. I don’t write them from the beginning to the end, so I can work on sections at a time and just put a couple hundred words in a section and whatever I’m thinking about at that point in time. It’s great. Yeah, highly recommend Scrivener.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool, thank you. How about a particular nugget, something that you share that really seems to connect and resonate for people?

Todd Henry
It’s funny. The one that gets shared so often on Twitter, like every day there are probably 50 or 60 people that share this is ‘Don’t let your rituals become ruts.’

I think I spend so much time talking about rituals and building rituals into your life, but it’s really easy to allow the ritual to become the objective.

I always tell people, “Listen, your systems in your organizations exist to serve you, not the other way around. You don’t exist to serve your systems.” People think systems are set it and forget it. They think rituals are set it and forget it.

You know, “We have a recurring meeting every Monday. That’s what we do.” Really? How long has it been since that meeting’s felt extremely productive for your team?

I would just encourage people look at all the rituals, the systems, the methods, the things that are going on in your life and consider have any of these rituals become ruts for me and do I need to shake them up and do something different to jog my creative self.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that. Thank you. If folks want to learn more or get in touch, Todd, where would you point them?

Todd Henry
The best way to find me is at ToddHenry.com. That’s my personal site. From there you can get to Accidental Creative, the Accidental Creative podcast, which I’ve been doing for 13 years now, twice a week. You can check that out at ToddHenry.com as well and also find all my books.

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

Todd Henry
I do. Listen, friends, because I’m in the same boat that you are. I care very deeply about my work as I know that you do. I care very deeply about the people I work with, as I know that you do.

It’s important to recognize that that project you’re working on is going to be forgotten in 50 years. That company that you’re building right now, nobody is going to remember that in 50 or 75 or 100 years. That amazing campaign you did that won all of those awards, nobody is going to care about that in 50 years. Not to depress anyone, but that’s the reality.

The truth is the way that you influence the people around you, the way that you lead other people, the way that you impact their life for the better is going to continue to resonate down through generation, after generation, after generation. They way that you build into people is going to echo for generations to come.

That is your legacy. That is your body of work. That’s the only thing that’s going to last from how you spend your days right now.

My encouragement to anyone out there who has any form of leadership responsibility, which is all of us because we lead ourselves and lead other people, lead the people around us, but if you have influence over people, I encourage you to commit to being a leader who makes echoes because that is your legacy.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. Todd, this has been so much fun. Thank you for sharing this. I wish you tons of luck with Accidental Creative and Herding Tigers and all the cool stuff you’re doing.

Todd Henry
Thanks so much Pete. And thanks for the great work that you do. Very few people understand how hard it is to continue to produce great content like you do week after week. Thank you for committing to all of us who are fans of your work and continuing to stay committed to producing great work.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you.

Jul 21
0

182: Better Work Relationships through Bigger Empathy with Sharon Steed

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Sharon Steed says: "If we don't have empathy, then we aren't truly connecting with people."

Communications consultant Sharon Steed delves into how you can develop more empathy in communication and why it is needed in the workplace.

You’ll Learn:

  1. Why people aren’t listening anymore
  2. Pro-tips for being empathetic even with people you don’t like
  3. Three ways to tackle difficult conversations

About Sharon

Sharon is an international keynote speaker and consultant focusing on improving communication through empathy. A life-long stutterer, Sharon users her speech impediment to teach what empathy is and how to use it as a foundation for positive and effective communication. She’s spoken about this at conferences both nationally and internationally; at companies; and various events spanning multiple industries.

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Apr 25
0

147: The Sources of Motivation and Loyalty with Scott Love

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Scott Love says: "Everything you do is being observed and people are making a judgment about how they're going to respond in the future when you ask."

High-stakes headhunter Scott Love talks about employee loyalty, human needs, and what motivates people in the workplace.

You’ll Learn:

  1. Why people stay or leave their jobs
  2. The major forces of employee motivation
  3. How to become follow-able

About Scott

Scott Love is President of the Attorney Search Group, a professional speaker on employee loyalty, a high-stakes headhunter, and an author of three books. He was also a Naval Officer for four years, and moonlights as a stand-up comedian.

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