250: Liz Bywater: Slow down to speed upLiz Bywater Show Notes Page
Liz Bywater learned how to pivot her career after reflecting on her strengths and opportunities. She now teaches others how to slow down so they are able to speed up and move onward and upward faster.
Dr. Liz Bywater grew up on Long Island, NY and spent the majority of her childhood in the small, historic town of Miller Place. She is the middle of three children, with an older brother in Southern California and a younger sister in NY.
Her father was a deeply respected psychoanalyst and her mother a clinical social worker. Both were dedicated to helping others live happier and more successful lives.
Throughout her childhood, Liz was heavily involved in leadership activities. She was president of her high school class and held a variety of other top leadership positions, and she absolutely loved those opportunities.
Liz graduated at the top of her high school class, then spent four extraordinary years as an undergraduate at Cornell University before completing her PhD in clinical psychology. She took her expertise in people and behavior to a variety of settings, working first as a school psychologist, then a clinician in private practice, and finally a strategic confidant to senior executives across the Fortune 50.
Dr. Bywater works with top executives and management teams across an array of companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb, AmerisourceBergen, Biotronik, EMD Serono, Nike, Boeing, Thomson Reuters and more. She provides her clients with expert guidance and tools for success, based on more than 25 years of experience and outlined in her popular book, Slow Down to Speed Up: Lead, Succeed and Thrive in a 24/7 World.
Liz is thrilled at the opportunity to have a positive impact on her clients’ lives. She lives in Bucks County, PA, with her teenage son, Jonathan and cat, Pepper. Her daughter, Anna, is studying international business in nearby Philadelphia.
Quotes and Mentions
Listen to @drlizbywater to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow – Click to Tweet
“What are the ways and where are the right places to slow down long enough to make the best decisions?” – Click to Tweet
“There can be a sense of depression that comes with too much work, too much to do and too little time in which to do it.” – Click to Tweet
“This is the way it’s always been done, is almost never a good recipe.” – Click to Tweet
“You have to create change; you have to get out ahead of things.” – Click to Tweet
“There’s a lot that can be done by protecting time for thinking and planning and talking.” – Click to Tweet
“Success can always be replicated.” – Click to Tweet
“There has to be consistent repeat communications, it cannot stay at the most senior levels.” – Click to Tweet
“Discuss, address, and remedy concerns now to avoid trouble down the road.” – Click to Tweet
“You have to talk about what will we stop doing.” – Click to Tweet
“There has to be a deliberate pause where you give yourself permission to think about things differently.” – Click to Tweet
“Periodically take time where you are thinking through all of what you’ve been through and where you want to go next.” – Click to Tweet
“Be the leader that is most true and authentic to who you are. Don’t try to replicate somebody else’s style.” – Click to Tweet
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Hump to Get Over
Liz Bywater learned how to pivot her career after reflecting on her strengths and opportunities. She now teaches others how to slow down so they are able to speed up and move onward and upward faster.
Advice for others
If you are strong and resilient and confident in yourself and you remain connected to important people in your life, good things will come.
Holding her back from being an even better leader
Making sure that I am clearing things off my plate that are either non-essential, non-value added or I can give to somebody else.
Best Leadership Advice
Be the leader that is most true and authentic to who you are. Don’t try to replicate somebody else’s style.
Secret to Success
I am fortunately able to form really long-lasting and meaningful relationships with my clients.
Best tools in business or life
To make sure I do not try to do everything myself.
Recommended Reading
Slow Down to Speed Up: Lead, Succeed, and Thrive in a 24/7 World
Contacting Liz Bywater
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizbywater/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/drlizbywater
Website: https://lizbywater.com/
Resources and Show Mentions
Show Transcript:
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250: Liz Bywater: Slow down to speed up
Jim Rembach: : (00:00)
Okay, fast leader Legion today. I’m excited because I have somebody on the show who is really gonna address and uncover really one of the core reasons behind the fast leader show and why it’s called the fast leader show. Dr Liz Bywater grew up on long Island Newark, New York, and spent the majority of her childhood in the small historic town of Miller place. She’s the middle of three children with an older brother in Southern California and a younger sister in New York. Her father was a deeply respected psychoanalyst and her mother, a clinical social worker, both were dedicated to helping others live happier and more successful lives throughout her childhood. Liz was heavily involved in leadership activities. She was president of her high school class and held a variety of other top leadership positions and she absolutely loved those opportunities. Liz graduated at the top of her high school class.
Jim Rembach: : (00:55)
Ben spent four extraordinary years as an undergraduate at Cornell university before completing her PhD in clinical psychology. She took her expertise and people and behavior to a variety of settings working first as a school psychologist, then a clinician in private practice, and finally a strategic competence of senior executives across the fortune 50 dr Bywater works with top executives and management teams across an array of companies including Johnson and Johnson, Bristol Myers Squibb, AmerisourceBergen, Biotronik, EMD Serono, Nike, Boeing, Thomson Reuters, and more. She provides her clients with her expert guidance and tools for success based on more than 25 years of experience and outline in her popular book, slow down to speed up, lead, succeed, and thrive in a 24 seven world. Liz is thrilled at the opportunity to have a positive impact in our client’s lives and she lives in bucks County, Pennsylvania with her teenage son, Jonathan and cat Tepper. Her daughter Anna is studying international business in nearby Philadelphia. Liz by Rotter. Are you ready to help us get over the hump?
Liz Bywater:: (02:02)
I am ready. I’m very happy to be here.
Jim Rembach: : (02:04)
Aw, I’m glad you’re here. Now I’ve given my Legion a little bit about you, but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better?
Liz Bywater:: (02:12)
Yeah, of course. Well, my current passion is, is twofold. On the personal side, it’s all about, you know, where my kids are at and help helping them become successful, happy young adults. They’re really both on that point of launching into their lives. I’m on the professional front. I’m really enjoying helping executives and leadership teams as they navigate change, which is a very constant theme. I see. No matter which company I’m working with, whether it’s a merger or an acquisition or a leadership change or changes in the economy, you, you’ve heard it all. That’s what everyone’s dealing with right now. And there are lots of ways to really help make that more successful and less overwhelming and stressful.
Jim Rembach: : (02:52)
Okay. And when you say that, I start getting this vision in my head, you know, and all of these different pictures and all this, you know, fast track video on all this stuff starts going crazy and I start thinking about this whole speed issue. And then you know what, I have to learn how to actually move better and faster so I can keep up with all that. But that’s not what we’re talking about here.
Liz Bywater:: (03:10)
That’s not what we’re talking about here. That is a very natural and very typical response and I do see it across the board and many of my clients now are actually CEOs and some are have been elevated within their current organization. Many are going from one to the next and so there are so many elements on their plate that they have to think about. How do they establish those early relationships? How do they make sure they have the best team on board? How do they create a sense of unified vision and purpose and help clear off the things that are slowing the organization down rather than speeding it up. So that sense of, wow, it’s all going so fast and how do I navigate it? Well, super common, but we really need to talk about what are the ways and where are the right places to slow down long enough to make the best decisions, take the best actions and speed up where it’s really necessary.
Jim Rembach: : (04:02)
And the reality is, when you say all of that, if we don’t do that, we’re actually contributing to this massive anxiety crisis that currently exists in our society.
Liz Bywater:: (04:10)
Hundred percent, right? There’s so much anxiety across the, the, you know, the society we’re living in, there’s anxiety, there are physical ailments, people are missing work or they’re going to work sick and maybe getting their colleagues sick. Um, family relationship can take a toll and they often do. There can be a sense of depression that comes with too much work, too much to do too little time in which to do it. So yeah, there are very real personal impacts as well as business impacts to continually going too fast all the time.
Jim Rembach: : (04:41)
And so when we talk about this too fast thing, it maybe it’d be helpful for us to kind of, um, you know, explain a little bit what we’re meaning by that. Cause I shared with you a story of a friend of mine who is a technology consultant. What she does is people come to her and or hire her to actually go through and determine need from a technology perspective and then select, you know, even the, the right vendors, you know, for certain technologies. And so we started talking about, you know, a decision process that requires some internal analysis, external analysis, you know, a whole lot of, you know, deeper levels of understanding and connection. And she says that she can’t help, I’m a greater than 95% of the people that come to her. Because the problem is, is that they come to her in the 12th hour, not the 11th hour, meaning it’s way too late and they’re just needing to make a decision and get it done and get it in. And she’s like, I can’t, no, that’s just faster. And, and you know, you’re going to be, you’re going to have an outcome that nobody is going to be successful with. And she goes, and I’m just not going to be part of that. And really that’s what we’re talking about here, this rapid acceleration piece, all of these components, we’re just pushing, pushing, pushing, and ultimately we don’t end up moving fast at
Liz Bywater:: (05:58)
hundred percent correct. And it’s a great example and I see it in a lot of different contexts. Um, whether it’s, you know, a technology initiative, whether it’s hiring your executive team, whether it’s making a decision to buy or sell a company, uh, whether it’s a decision to take the next leadership position. I mean, there we can go on and on about the types of really important decisions that are made, um, way too fast without sufficient deliberation, um, without sufficient conversation with the people who will be involved in making something successful without taking what I call a strategic cause, which is really, really important. It’s not a luxury, it’s actually the opportunity to be thoughtful and deliberate and, and appropriately cautious in terms of is this a decision and an action that will get us the better, faster, more sustainable results? Or is it something that will lead us so far down the path that is going to cost us time, energy, money, political capital? All of that because as you know, your colleague was saying, when you get there, the 11th, 12th hour, the mistakes have already been made. The investments have been made and almost impossible to undo that kind of damage.
Jim Rembach: : (07:08)
Well, and he’s an even as you’re talking, and I started thinking about some of these conversations and even, Hey, I’m even guilty of the things that we’re talking about. I think we’re all [inaudible] nobody’s immune from this. Correct. Uh, so when I start thinking about the ways that we go about coping and defaulting, um, it just, it just contributes to the problems and there’s a lot of biases that take place. Um, and one of the biggest ones that I see that kind of aligns with this is people kind of look at each other and see what they’re doing and say, Oh, I need to do that. That is like one of the worst defaults I think I’ve seen and that we often do every single day. How do we keep ourselves from falling into some of these balls?
Liz Bywater:: (07:48)
Well. Um, first of all, you’re right, one of the sort of default mechanisms is if you haven’t had enough time to think and create a plan is to look to your left and your right and see what else everybody else is doing. And most of the time they haven’t taken the time to really think through what’s the correct decision. So then everybody’s doing something either equally wrong or wrong in different directions. Um, and another thing that a lot of my clients fall in into, and again I think we all can do this is well, it’s always been done this way. We’ve always worked with the clients in this certain way. We’ve always sold our product in this way. We’ve always interacted with the FDA in this way, whatever it might be. Always written. All of these reports and the, this is the way it’s always been done is almost never a good recipe because things change and you have to create change.
Liz Bywater:: (08:33)
You have to get out ahead of things. You can’t just keep dragging along because that’s the way it’s always been done. So, um, you know, again, the, the solution sounds impossible because we’re all so very busy, but it’s really not once you start taking time, deliberately protecting time, whether it’s blocking it out on your calendar, and I think that’s actually an important tactic. Um, or simply committing to yourself and others that at a certain point every day, every week, every month, every quarter, every year. And for each one of those, if you’re going to set aside a larger period of time, we’re going to sit and really think about what are we trying to accomplish? How do we best accomplish it? What needs to change, what will get us there faster but faster in a good, sustainable, productive way? What are the things that are holding us back? And sometimes that’s the going by default and just following the person to the left and the right. But when you take that time to sit, think, strategize, collaborate, get on the same page, just the people around you, you really do become in a much better position to innovate, grow, avoid repetitive mistakes. I call them, you know, regrettable repetitions. There’s a lot that can be done by protecting time for thinking and planning and talking.
Jim Rembach: : (09:47)
Well, in addition, in the book, and I had this conversation just the other day with somebody when they asked me kind of like, you know, what you’ve been working on or what you’re doing or stuff. And I pause for a second. I said, I said, I’m trying to gain expertise in, in becoming a pivot artist. You talk about pivot to give an analysis and you talk about impact. Tell us a little bit about that.
Liz Bywater:: (10:10)
Yes. So pivoting, it is very important to be thinking about pivots, pivot points, pivot opportunities. Uh, when I talk about leading through change, any organization that’s facing change, which is every organization is at a pivot point, right? Sometimes they’re small pivot points. Often they’re pretty large. Uh, what I write about in the book is two different kinds of pivot points. Um, and they’re broad categories and we can do a lot with them. Uh, one is pivotal successes and by pivotal successes, I mean, what are those experiences, events, opportunities, etc. In one’s life. And it could be going back to childhood. I’m a clinician by training. So I think the childhood stuff is pretty important in who we are today. Um, or it can be a pivot point among your team in your company and the industry, but what are those positive things that happen? You’ve got a great education and you’ve traveled internationally, you met some fascinating people, you invested widely, you took a great job, you’ve hired well, I could go on and on.
Liz Bywater:: (11:04)
Those are all, you know, pivotal successes and we can use those one to build confidence and also success can always be replicated. So when you look at those things and what is it that worked well there that I can bring to my company, bring to my career, bring to the people around me to accelerate success. That’s one piece of it. The other half is what I call pivotal regrets. And again, it’s broad. So pivotal regret is something that happened in one’s life and again, it can go back to childhood or it could be part of your educational years or in your career that somehow was negative. It may be that you made a poor decision that you failed at something that you really wanted to succeed at. It could be something bad that happened to you. It could be something that bad that happened to your company.
Liz Bywater:: (11:50)
Um, I mean, this is, this is a huge one. If we think about nine 11, like I was a huge pivotal regret in not only out the United States but across the globe. Not a regret because we created it or we made it happen, but a regret in the sense of it was something really negative that had a very powerful impact and can actually be used moving forward to make things better. So that’s what I talk about and really looking at all the good, bad, and the ugly of the past and not getting stuck there, but figuring out how do we use this to grow and change and improve and be smarter, safer, better, more interesting moving forward.
Jim Rembach: : (12:29)
Well, and if you wanted to get a little bit deeper in all of this, as you’re talking, I started thinking about mindfulness. I mean, you mentioned things associated with mindfulness. You started mentioning things associated with, you know, strength analysis, um, strength understanding and being able to, you know, leverage that, um, you know, to go, go forward. Um, because it’s our strengths that actually propel us. Um, if we focus on weaknesses, all we’re doing is just making a bigger anchor, right? Um, we’re not going to move. So we have to be, we have to be really mindful of doing that. Uh, and so when I start, you know, thinking about the ways that you would have broken down ways that people can, you know, avoid the pitfalls, you know, move forward. I mean, you’ve done it, you know, pretty darn quickly, you know, and the book, cause I’ve actually seen, you know, books were, you know, authors and experts attempt to do that.
Jim Rembach: : (13:17)
And you know, they put together volumes and volumes. Um, you know, ultimately don’t not distilling it down to what you’ve done here. So I really like the work that you’ve done with this, but when, when you start looking at the way that you’ve broken down the book, you have, you know, a couple of different parts. You have slow down. Uh, and then beat up. Right. And then you culminate it and a list of tools. We’re going to go through those in a little bit, but when you start talking about the slowed down piece to the speed up piece, cause a lot of times, you know, uh, especially in our society, you know, I’ve talked about this, you know, we’re like, Hey just give me the medication man. You know, Hey just, you know, maybe by this man, you know, Hey fire that person, hire that person. Right. It, you know, we, we, we, we make some unfortunate mistakes, you know, that prevent us from actually ultimately getting to the point of acceleration. So when you look at the slow down piece, the getting to the speed up piece kind of give me an understanding of some timelines.
Liz Bywater:: (14:15)
That’s a good question. Um, it’s interesting cause people don’t often ask something that’s specific. I’m really glad you’re asking that. It really does vary depending on the situation. So for instance, often the work that I do is within a very large company. I’m working at the C suite with the senior management. And so there’s pressure to go fast, but there’s really, you know, such a great importance to slow down. So one of the ways, for instance we do that is I might go in and meet with the CEO and the executive team for a day or two or three, um, at the beginning of an engagement. And that’s a tough slow down because none of those people really wants to put away their laptop and their notifications and cancel meetings or because everybody’s very, very busy. But taking a few days to sit and get full clarity about what are the key priorities, what’s the strategic direction, what’s our vision?
Liz Bywater:: (15:08)
Why are we here, what are we looking to achieve and how do we really get clear that we are taking the most effective path forward? People are clear on who’s going to do what, when, how are they going to help one another, clear away the obstacles. That’s the kind of flow down that actually can lead to almost immediate results. I mean, people can leave that session and start doing things differently right away. Um, there are other situations where I might be working with an individual. For instance, I just had someone come to work with me, uh, who is the head of a surgery department at um, a very large university hospital system and her slow down is, you know, she’s at a point in her career where she may want to do something different. She really needs to take her time to explore what does she want her life to look like? How much more does she want to accomplish in her career? How does she strike the balance? She’s still got children at home. So there are really a lot of things we can look at and there’s no urgency for her to make an immediate decision because she’s got a great job, she’s got a happy life. She’s just really being proactive and looking forward to the next chapter.
Jim Rembach: : (16:10)
Okay. When I start thinking about what you’re talking about, I start really getting to the point of, um, we have some strategic elements and issues that ultimately from an organizational perspective have to get down to tactical workflows and movement. And I’ve been talking about this lot and a lot lately where there’s, and in almost all organizations, well, uh, I would, I would say in all organizations, um, there is a disconnect between the head and the feet. Now the reality is, is the disconnection sometimes is just massive, but everybody’s just connected because there’s so many, uh, environmental forces which caused it to occur. Uh, and not just, you know, the internal cultural pieces. And so when I start thinking about the head and the feet moving in concert with one another so that we know we have that strategic alignment down at the tactical side, how is the work that you’re doing up at that top level ultimately filtering its way down so that the hidden, the feet are moving together
Liz Bywater:: (17:12)
and the head and feet do you have to move together? 100% you’re completely right. What I found works very, very well is that when I’m working at that top of the organization level, and I’m, we’re not only talking conceptually, you know, about what does it mean to slow down, to speed up. And I’m providing them some very specific tools that they can utilize with their teams. We’re making sure that there is, um, a very practical and compelling message that is cascaded down and across throughout the organization. So for instance, if I’m working with the CEO and the management team, well every one of those people has a set of people working for them. And you know, because we’re at such a high level, every one of those people has a team working for them and so on. Right? So they’re deep and they’re broad organizations.
Liz Bywater:: (17:57)
And so we’re creating, what is the messaging around things like staying crisply focused on priorities, helping the organization of what are those priorities, helping everyone know what are the things that have to come off their plate because they are no longer adding value or there simply isn’t time to do them. Well now maybe they’ll get done later. You know, I have ones who called now later, never something never get done because it’s exciting and cool as they may sound. There’s, they’re just not really strategically important right now. Um, but it’s really the cascading of communication. The follow through there has to be consistent repeat communications. It cannot all stay up at the most senior level because that’s just not the way organizations work. And that, I’ll just add one last little piece. Gem there also needs to be opportunity for people who are doing the work of code on the front lines who are really have their hands on, whether they’re customer facing or they’re creating product or they’re doing R and, D, they need to be able to bring information rapidly and quickly to the senior levels. So it’s really a dynamic kind of conversation that needs to happen.
Jim Rembach: : (19:01)
Well, yeah, right. So for me is you’re going through all of that. I’m starting to think about, you know, practices and processes and frameworks and all of that that probably just don’t exist in a lot of organizations. I just came back from a conference where we were talking about many of these particular issues and that, especially on the front line, um, you know, the reality is that they have to take care of each individual minute of every single day, uh, in regards to responding to interactions and requests. And all of that. And so oftentimes they’re just, they have their heads down. I mean, they’re getting the work in and out. However, when you start thinking about an organization accelerate and it accelerating oftentimes, well the thing that’s preventing them from doing that is the systems, the way that the way the organization was built. I mean, it’s hard for customers to be able to get served and get product than all of that.
Jim Rembach: : (19:53)
It’s hard for employees to navigate the system and ultimately just slows it down. So 80% of the system or 80% of the system issues. However, um, you know, we, we focus in on the individuals just doing their technical stuff and expecting it’s going to fix them. So that means going on what you’re saying about all of that information about, Hey, what’s broken needs to filter up so that again, in concert, the hidden feet moved together so that those people at senior level can help those barriers be moved, can help with enablement. You know, everybody talks about that flipping of the pyramid where you know, the servants, you know, are the executives, you know, and they’re the ones who are enabling the rest of the organization to move. How much of your work goes into flipping that pyramid?
Liz Bywater:: (20:35)
I would say a fair amount of the work does. And um, so, and there are a couple of ways this can happen. Sometimes it happens because I’m speaking directly with the employees who have that knowledge and that information who are dealing with the stressors and the difficulties and maybe even to see the opportunities that haven’t yet made their way up to senior levels. For some, sometimes I get the opportunity to have those conversations. That’s the take a look at a warehouse floor, you know, see what’s going on. And that’s really exciting fun work. That’s when you kind of really know what’s happening in a company. Um, and then I have, you know, the, the fun of bringing that up to the senior levels and really making them open their ears because you know, it’s very easy for it to become a dynamic where at one level, well it’s got to happen this way and on another level people are saying, well it isn’t incentive a chance and it won’t and to create a sense of a unified organization.
Liz Bywater:: (21:27)
And I actually like to think of that, you know, just in terms of my own way of thinking is us slow down to speed up organization where everyone is taking the time, not only to get everything off the to do list and to, you know, you of course you have to get customer after product in order to have to come in well and all of those things. But without the slowing down so that the right things are getting done by the right people at the right time. The communication is solid and strong and that it’s proactive rather than continually reactive and firefighting. All of those things are very common and there’s gotta be a ways, are ways to shift it and make all of that much better. And the whole organization thrives as a result.
Jim Rembach: : (22:05)
Yeah. And that’s exactly why [inaudible] so I said that you have written a book which explains why I called the past leader show why, what I called it. It’s not about the shortcut, um, until acceleration. And in fact, the shortcut is the long road, uh, because you’re gonna accelerate much faster. So it’s like doing it right and in order to help do it right, uh, you talk about these 36, uh, action actions to accelerate success when you’ve broken them down, uh, into, uh, essentially I call them pillars and call them, you know, topic areas. You know, what do you, you can tell us what you refer to them as, but, um, I, they’re called at assess, align, acknowledge, assign, articulate, acquire, address, assist, ask, anticipate, and accentuate. And now here’s the thing. Oftentimes I ask people what’s most important? And the reality is that all of those are, because that is the slow down so that you can accelerate.
Liz Bywater:: (23:11)
Yes, that’s exactly right, Tim.
Jim Rembach: : (23:14)
Um, I would dare to say that, I mean, they have to be followed in that order. So it’s a step process, isn’t it?
Liz Bywater:: (23:20)
Yes, it is, but it doesn’t have to be. So, um, it’s interesting. Sometimes I will meet with a large group of leaders. So, um, you know, I was down in Miami about a year ago and I met with, uh, the CEO and his executive leadership team and then the higher layer of directors and managers below them. So, you know, below within the organizational chart, maybe they were 50 or 60 people there. And, um, we were talking about the things that one can do that are, feel like slowing down, but they really are the path to getting things done faster, better, and with fewer mistakes and less overwhelmed, which is an important piece of it. And so what I did was I’ll show you this really quickly. I’ve created this little deck of cards and it’s simply my slow down to speed up 36 actions to accelerate. So everything that’s in the back of the book I put into this little set of cards.
Liz Bywater:: (24:06)
And, um, there are 36 of them. And what we did with this particular group, people had a ton of fun with this and you can do this in a lot of different ways with your, with your team, with your company. If I just randomly put these cards out on people’s desks and asked for volunteers to read a card and talk about ways that maybe they can or would like to implement this in their everyday, not to contest that they haven’t, but to say, Hey, this is something that I really could benefit from. You know, and maybe people could share ideas. So for instance, one card here says address concerns, discuss address and remedy concerns. Now to avoid trouble down the road, it’s just, you know, real simple little thing. And you could take this one card and say, you know what, why don’t we set up a meeting at the end of the day, we’ll take 15 minutes.
Liz Bywater:: (24:54)
Nobody’s going to sit down cause we all want to go home. We’re going to stand up, we’ll have our jackets on and we’re going to make sure that in those 15 minutes we are going to call out all of the concerns of the day so that tomorrow morning we all have some direction to hit the ground running. So I mean that’s an example of when you can do really fast, you can certainly take more time to dive deeper. Um, another one, align with other stakeholders and business partners, right? So in an organization and also be with your customers by the way. Um, in an organization, unless you are, you know, a one woman or one man shop and even then, not so much you have to speak to other people. You have to talk about what are we doing, how quickly will we do it? What will we stop doing, who’s doing what, how will we measure success, et cetera.
Liz Bywater:: (25:36)
I’ll give you just one more and we can move on. But there are, there are plenty of these. One was addressed. Expectations. Ask a stakeholders, you know, am I or are we meeting your expectations? Where are things going well and where do we need to change things a little bit? Um, you know, how can we revise so that we’re all getting where we need to be more rapidly and with fewer errors and mistakes. And so we can preserve a really good acceleration. Um, so again, this is just a way to make it really easy to use and reference those 36 actions to accelerate success. You can do them in an order or you can just flip through and find the ones that seem most pertinent to you or your organization or your goal at a given time.
Jim Rembach: : (26:19)
Well, and as you’re talking though, I start thinking about the fact that, you know, we have conditioned response, meaning that, Hey, this is w con talking about what we’ve always done things this way. We, we’ve always tried to, you know, speed things up, you know, and society pushes us that way and there’s so many factors that cause us to really display these behaviors and it’s just that it is behaviors. So how do know this is behavior modification you’re talking about? That is, it’s very hard to do. So. Yeah. When I start thinking about the transformation, how does that take place?
Liz Bywater:: (26:56)
Well, I think there are at least two main pillars to make this happen. One is the internal transformation, and this is not an easy thing to do, but if you are like the people that I work with, and I’m sure you’re this way and I try to be this way, somebody who wants to be very effective, create success, create good outcomes, um, you know, you, you have internalized a sense of pressure, do more, do faster, get more done, get better results. So there has to be a deliberate pause where you give yourself permission to think about things differently and to say, I’m willing to experiment with slowing down a little bit with doing things a little differently. Um, that’s one piece. That’s probably the hardest piece. The second piece is getting agreement with the people around you that we’re going to try something different and we’re not married to it.
Liz Bywater:: (27:47)
And if it doesn’t work in two weeks or six months or a year or whatever you agreed to, um, then we’ll consider it. Maybe either it was a failure or we have to try something and tweak it a little bit. But if you get agreement with your coworkers, with your boss, with your customers, that going faster, all the time is not effective and does not lead to true transformation and you’re all willing to be in this experiment together. That’s where you really begin to see change happen. And I will tell you honestly, when I bring these concepts and tools to the customers and clients that I’m working with, people are so relieved that they have permission as well as a set of tools to make a change.
Jim Rembach: : (28:31)
Needless to say, and when we start talking about going through this activity, putting the forth all of this effort, we need a lot of inspiration or be able to do that. One of the things that we lack on the show is to focus in on quotes. Do you have a quote or two that you like that you can share?
Liz Bywater:: (28:49)
Oh my gosh. Um, there are so many good ones. I’ll tell you one that I’ve come across all the time and you’ve probably heard it. Um, and I think it comes from Richard Branson and Viv attributed to Richard Branson, and I may be slightly paraphrasing, but he poses the question, well, what if we train our people so well that they leave us and by train it could be developed, take care of give opportunities. And the second part of it is, well, what if we don’t? And they stay. So investing in one’s people, investing in yourself, investing in change, it’s not the cost that many people think it is. It’s, it truly is investment with huge returns both on a business and on a personal level. And so I think that one’s a pretty good,
Jim Rembach: : (29:41)
yeah, it is. And
Liz Bywater:: (29:42)
I think you hit on an important point. It’s like don’t wait on the organization that give it to you. That mean you need to seek it. Do it yourself if it’s not being provided. Absolutely. Yeah. And I do have people come to me sometimes. I mean, often I will work, um, you know, an organization will come to me, a business will come to me, but more and more I’m seeing really smart, proactive people saying I want to be either more effective or I want to navigate the next change, or I’m going into a new organization and I really want to hit the ground running. I don’t want to make the mistakes that will be very difficult to repair inadvertently, you know. Um, and they, they are, they’re investing in themselves and it’s great, exciting work and it always pays tremendous dividends.
Jim Rembach: : (30:20)
Um, most definitely. However, I mean, you know, when you start talking about all this and the people coming to you and things like that, all of us have to get over certain humps in order to, you know, learn some lessons and hopefully get an a going in the right direction. Uh, and one of the ways that we actually also learn about avoiding certain pumps and getting over our own is when others share theirs. So is there a hump that you got over that you can share?
Liz Bywater:: (30:43)
Oh, yes, absolutely. Um, the idea of pivot points really came to me when I was reflecting on my own career path. I was delivering a presentation to a group of other consultants and advisors and I’m wanting to share with them some of what got me from, you know, early years of being a school psychologist to my clinical work to today where I really have the great opportunity to work with, you know, people in all kinds of companies around the world. And, um, some of the pivots have been personal. Um, one was I lost my dad about 10 years ago and he’s very smart, very inspiring man. And so there was some, you know, personal, deep personal loss that I had to work my way through. Um, and some of the pivots have been simply, you know, uh, the ins and outs of the economy and the way people hire experts such as myself. And so, you know, over the course of time, like any business owner, sometimes things have been thriving and wonderful. Sometimes there have been changes and each time there’s a change or a dip, I recreate and I find new ways to add value. And to hopefully be helpful to my clients and in, in all, in all sorts of new, uh, new, new manners.
Jim Rembach: : (31:52)
So I would dare to say that, um, you know, the whole pivot exercise is something that we really should be doing on a regular basis for ourselves,
Liz Bywater:: (32:01)
100% because you know, we continue to grow and change all the time. I mean, it’s interesting my early training as a clinician, you know, always thought of those first five years. Your personality is set. Life is set by age five and frankly a lot of what we are is set by age five but most assuredly not all of it. And we are learning more and more the resilience of the brain and uh, the impact of ongoing life experience. And some of that is internal change, some of that is family, some of that is uh, the work that we’re doing. Some of that is the broader world around us. So yes to be periodically taking time where you are thinking through all of what you’ve been, how you’re getting through it, where you want to go next, what your personal vision is really, really timed. Very well said.
Jim Rembach: : (32:47)
So with that in mind, and you start talking about pivoting and moving in a certain direction, you’d started talking about iteration and, and, uh, you know, create a creativity and all of those things can help you continue to go. When I start thinking about it, I start thinking about goals that we need to create. And so for you, what’s one goal that you have?
Liz Bywater:: (33:04)
One goal that I have is to, and I hate to use the word balance because I don’t think it’s really quite a failure. The word integration is to integrate the growth, um, of the work that I do professionally to continue to work with exciting, interesting executives, you know, in, in companies, uh, far and wide, uh, and also be very presence as my children, uh, grow and expand. And my at my daughter finishes college and my son continues to pursue this music and all of those sorts of things really integrate, um, success involvement, engagement, uh, across the board
Jim Rembach: : (33:41)
and the fast leader. Religion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on, let’s get a quick word from our sponsor.
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Jim Rembach: : (34:07)
four slash better. All right, here we go. Fast leader Legion. It’s time for them home. Oh, okay, Liz. The hump day hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust, yet rapid responses are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Liz Bywater are you ready to hoedown I’m ready. Alrighty. So what do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?
Liz Bywater:: (34:38)
Making sure that I am continually clearing things off my plate that are either nonessential non-value-added or I can give to somebody else.
Jim Rembach: : (34:46)
And what is the best leadership advice you have ever received?
Liz Bywater:: (34:50)
Be the leader that is most true and authentic to who you are. Don’t try to replicate somebody else’s style.
Jim Rembach: : (34:57)
And what is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?
Liz Bywater:: (35:02)
I think one of the things that contributes to my success is the fact that um, I am fortunately able to form really good long lasting, meaningful relationships with my clients. And so we’re able to work together over the course of many years and many opportunities.
Jim Rembach: : (35:18)
And what is one of your tools that helps you lead in business or lie?
Liz Bywater:: (35:22)
Hmm. So, uh, one of my tools is to make sure that I don’t try to do everything myself and that I have very good colleagues and a mentor of my own that I will work with over many years.
Jim Rembach: : (35:33)
Okay. Liz, what would be one book that you’d recommend to our Legion and it could be for an Asiana of course, we’re going to put a link to slow down to speed up on your show notes page as well.
Liz Bywater:: (35:42)
You know, I really liked this book sapiens. Um, it is a fascinating read. It is a very easy read for someone who is not, you know, thoroughly scientific. I don’t know if you’re familiar with this, but it’s very interesting and I’m not quite through it yet, but sapiens is a terrific book to pick up.
Jim Rembach: : (35:58)
Okay. Past literal Legion. You can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fast leader.net/liz Bywater. Okay, Liz, this is my last Humpday hold on question. Imagine you have the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and take the knowledge and skills that you have back with you. But you know what, you can’t take it all. You can only choose one. So what skill or a piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?
Liz Bywater:: (36:21)
Oh, 25 that’s an interesting age. I would take back the knowledge that although life has ups and downs and pivots, um, if you are strong and resilient and confident in yourself and you remain connected to important people in your life, good things will come.
Jim Rembach: : (36:38)
Liz, I had fun with you today. How can people get in touch with you
Liz Bywater:: (36:41)
a couple of different ways? So my website is full of, uh, freebies and access to the book and a contact information. And that’s simply my name, live by water.com, uh, and by waters, just the way it sounds. So it’s Liz DYI water. Um, you can find me on Twitter. It’s dr Liz Bywater. You can find me on LinkedIn. Just Google my name. You’ll find lots of good ways to get in touch with me.
Jim Rembach: : (37:04)
Liz Bywater, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom. Capacity to Legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump.
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