152: Rick Brinkman: I wasn’t trying to make a joke

152: Rick Brinkman: I wasn’t trying to make a joke

Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we uncover the leadership like hat that help you to experience, break out performance faster and rocket to success. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

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Jim Rembach:   Okay, Fast Leader legion today I’m excited because I think we all can learn from this person who we have on the show today. Dr. Rick Brinkman’s parents met in a Polish ghetto at the beginning of World War II. His father was German and his mother was Polish. They married and were sent to Auschwitz and survived through the grace of multiple miracles including finding each other again after the war. Rick has always felt even as a child that he was on a mission to turn conflict into cooperation and he’s been doing his part by teaching communication performing 4,000 programs in 17 countries over the last 30 years and writing five books published by McGraw-Hill. In his first book with McGraw-Hill, Dealing with People You Can’t Stand—How to Bring Out the Best in People at their Worst, he describes how to transform universal difficult behaviors like whining, negativity, nitpicking, attacks, tantrums, snipping, know-it-alls, passive yes and maybe and nothing people, that book is in its third edition has been translated in 25 languages and is used in college courses.

Whenever he would do trainings on difficult people the subject of meetings would always come up as many of these difficult behaviors occur in the meeting context. Though the strategies in the first book would be valid in the meeting context a more effective plan is to put a meeting process in place that prevents them from ever occurring in the first place. His current release, dealing with Meetings You Can’t Stand Meet Less and Do More, provides that meeting process. In Rick’s experience everyone at a meeting has something of value to contribute and when you put it all together you get something greater. The integration of people’s different points of view on any subject creates what he calls holographic thinking. Holographic thinking produces higher quality ideas and solutions and it does so quickly so you can meet less and do more. Rick currently resides in Portland Oregon with his wife Lisa and two Siamese cats. Rick Bremen are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   Yeah, I’m ready let’s do that.

Jim Rembach:   Alright. Now, I’ve given our 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.

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   Well, I love speaking in front of groups and teaching communication. I feel like every person I touch touches so many more it’s one big reaction after another. My mission is to give people the skills they need to prevent people from getting angry, stressed out, whining, miserable and that has a positive effect on everybody else.

Jim Rembach:   As you were saying that I started thinking about a part of the book that, I guess you can say—it’s kind of like that underlying thing or what happens before the communication in a verbal sense or even nonverbal starts to manifest itself. And you talk about different zones within the meeting process and you talk about one thing that I think people are just kind of oblivious to, and myself included, and that’s the caution zone. What is the caution zone? 

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   This is from the lens of understanding which is in both people you can’t stand and meetings you can’t stand. It’s a way of understanding human behavior in that we act in different ways depending on two factors, context, where are we what’s going on like at a meeting or we’re in a restaurant right now we’re doing this zoom interview or relationship, who are we with, We have four basic intents—we want to get things done, get things, right get along, and get appreciated. One of those becomes more important depending on where we are and what’s going on. So the caution zone is when people are not getting exactly what they need. If I need to get things done and let’s say we’re in a meeting context and l look at my watch we got to get this meeting done and people are going down tangents my behavior starts to get more controlling—alright, look people why don’t we do this, I just start taking over in order to get things done. On the other hand, if I wanted to get things right I’m usually going to slow things down because I have to make sure all the details get covered. If people are telling me at a meeting, oh, it’s about fifty, I’ll go about 50? And then I’m going to dive deeper into perfection into the details no one’s paying attention to. I f I want to get along with people and I’m not sure it’s happening I’m going to (4:43) things make sure everything’s okay between us. So in the meeting context I’m going to be very agreeable, you’re not really going to know where I stand I just going to—sure whatever you guys want. And if I want to get appreciate it’s not happening that caution zone is get attention—well, I’ve been doing this for 30 years and here’s what we did it my last company da-da-da-da-da and I start pontificating to get people’s attention. So, that’s that caution zone where people are just starting to act out it’s not full blown danger zone yet but it can quickly become that. 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, so as you were talking I started thinking about the fluidity of all of this. I see, even myself, and I see others kind of moving all around in this whole caution zone area. If I’m a person who is ultimately responsible for the results and I’m trying to get this group to be productive in its time together, how do I manage all of this?

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   You first want to recognize where people are in general in that zone. Are they being real agreeable or they seemingly have a need for attention? Are they always just staying on task, get it done or they diving into details to get it right? If you want to understand that about people—and then the people you work with they will seem to be in a certain zone more often than not that’s because we only know people in limited contexts and in relationship in general to ourselves. It’s an illusion. I was I was interviewing a CEO to do some seminars for a company she tells me she’s usually in that get it done control zone. If she gets a little too stressed out she admits she becomes a tank, that means—tank just runs over everybody– here’s what’s going on, boom. But then she says when she goes home she becomes a whiner to her husband about the problems at work. From her husband’s perception, how does she possibly run a company she’s such a whiner. He does not get to see her in her blazing tank glory. So, you got to know that people are moving around differently. The first thing to do is real he recognized yourself, where do you go? Are you really caring about the details or you just want to get it done? Are you needing our attention? Recognize the need yourself this one is the quickest way to then start recognizing well around you.

Jim Rembach:   Gosh, so I need to do a better job of having my radar up and mouth closed is that what you’re saying? Okay, really the book is about a plan and putting together a plan. How do we actually structure our plan so that we do get more done in less time?

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   You’re going to get more done in less time first of all begins in the preparation phase. I found that the problems in meeting all fall into either preparation people process in time not either really, all of them are simultaneously there. In the preparation phase one thing is questioning the meetings, this is really a good use of meeting time, meetings should be for interaction not information dissemination. Fun fact, Cambridge Psychological Society found that the average person’s 24 hours after a business meeting only remembers 9 percent and of the 9 percent they actually remember half is inaccurate in some way, so it’s kind of stupid to disseminate information. What you want to do is give it ahead of time people are instructed to read it you do not catch people up at the meeting and then you discuss the information, that’s a good use of meeting it’s got to be for interaction. The second thing we need is a good agenda. The agenda must be relevant to everybody who’s there if it’s not you’re going to have people multitasking and distracting.

Jim Rembach:   Even with that first point I started thinking about how I see most people come to a meeting you send them pre work you send them information beforehand to review—it’s like, hey bring your questions with you, they don’t do that and you put this and you’re crickets. Talking about that prep work, do you have to get some type of commitment with people or say, you know what? You didn’t look at it so you don’t have a seat or a say? How do you prevent that from happening?

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   Well, backing up a little, we have to have an agreement—hey, people how’d you like to try a process that will make our meeting shorter, more productive? It’s a rare human being who’ll say, no we don’t want that we love wasting time and being miserable, come on. So you have to come in first of all like—Okay people, let’s try and experiment that’ll make our meetings better that works to our advantages. Everybody hates meetings universally including the person, who you knew if they weren’t there would actually be a better meeting, even that person will tell you how bad it is. You got to come in with some sort of agreement then you briefed people on the process and then you run the process which is, we’re going to start on time we’re going to end on time we’re going to have relevant agenda every agenda items going to have a statement of purpose two lines or less telling you why is this so important I’m not doing ten million other things that I should be doing and also statement of focus, what do you want from me? 

For example, let’s say the office is being moved, so we have an agenda item office move. Statement of purpose is—to minimize the impact of the office move on you and your team’s workflow. Okay, that’s important, what do you want from me? We want you to come knowing your team’s workflow schedule. When you hear the presentation on how the office will be moved you can recognize when might be a better time of day or particular day to move. Now I’m oriented and that’s where focus starts at the meeting we have to be oriented to the right thing on the agenda. We’re going in, again keep in mind that we’re already briefed people in the process they know we’re going to do an experiment two times. Part of this experiment is, okay, you’re going to have to read the information and we’re going to start on time whether you’re there or not and we’re not going to re-brief you on the information. It’s not imposed because everybody hates meetings universally so it’s like—born free–finally somebody’s doing something about it instead of just letting it be chaotic.

Jim Rembach:   I’m thinking of a particular scenario where while I may have had some project manager responsibilities but it’s the executive sponsor who’s the one that’s the wild and unruly one, what do you do about that? 

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   What way are they wild and unruly? 

Jim Rembach:   They don’t look at anything beforehand they just don’t participate—I’m the executive, I don’t have to do that. 

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   Yeah, they would also have to be included in the process of how we’re going to do things and then play by the same rules. In the in the book there’s one great moments in meetings, people told me these stories, one of the things I recommend is by flight recording, you write down what people say and there’s various reasons for that, it gets the group the holographic thinking which we could talk about. Their case specifically, they had an IT director who didn’t have to be at the meeting but had the authority to come and would just make snarky distracting comments start an argument arguing on one side then five minutes later change and argue the other side. This person who had attended my program has remembered flight recording and he began the next meeting by saying, hi, we’re going to flight record and whatever anybody said he just simply innocently bulleted on the whiteboard and when the IT director made a snarky comment he bulleted it on the whiteboard and that ended those comments and the attendance of the director.

Jim Rembach:   That’s a great point. I guess you could say is a little bit of a passive-aggressive behavior however it definitely accomplished the ultimate end goal which is have a better meeting and get more done in less time. I can imagine talking about just this particular topic and you even said it yourself how people hate and you talked about a lot of words that were really rooted in emotion and a lot of this because people get frustrated. I know that there’s a lot of quotes that you’ve probably come across in your research and your studies in dealing with all of these different people but is there one or two that you can share? 

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   One of my favorites is and it relates to the agenda, it’s by Yogi Berra, if you don’t know where you’re going you end up someplace else. I think it’s very important to think of a meeting like a flight, an airplane flight, you got a bunch of people trapped in a contained space for an X amount of time they may feel it’s uncomfortable a waste of time the plane can leave late the meeting can start late then it can go off course or be hijacked it can arrive late then you miss your connections your other meetings. Imagine getting on a plane where the pilot says, well, will be leaving at some point and going somewhere we may get hijacked go of course that’s part of the course and eventually we will probably get to our destination we think. That’s crazy, right? It’s the same way in a meeting, so it’s got to be that structured the agendas your flight plan and questioning. The meeting’s existence is the part of the pre-flight checklist make sure we have all the right people there and why are we actually meeting. And then when you get into a meeting you really need three items, you need air traffic control and part of that is speaking order. There’s got to be an order to speak, otherwise the assertive people are going to dominate and the passive people drop out. Then there’s got to be a time limit for any moment to speak. 

Another part of air traffic control, you can have a whiteboard and whatever topic is on the floor at that moment gets written on the whiteboard, whatever process we’re using discussion, brainstorm, pro’s cons gets written in the process. So, now we’re all focused on the same thing at the same time in the same way, so that’s all air traffic control. Then we need flight recording, as I mentioned, where you take whatever people say and you bulleted on a PowerPoint slide or just something that’s visual to a whole group. When you make communication visual two things happen, one is it remains over time. If I have an important point at the meeting and I see it, you see it, ten minutes later it’s still there so that wipes out a lot of repetitions where people repeat themselves. If I have a concept that I feel is important to group mind and it’s not written I’ll say it a number of times as a way of keeping an awareness. Once I see it that’s great, that’s especially great for people who are in that get appreciation zone of the lens because they see that their message has landed and there it is on the on the whiteboard, flip chart or whatever, so that’s flight recording. And then we need a pilot who’s going to keep the time to make sure there’s a time limit every time anybody speaks and that we stay on track with our agenda.

Jim Rembach:   That’s very helpful. I think everybody can resonate and understand that so I don’t think you’d have anybody missing or getting dropped out because they didn’t understand what you just walk through, that’s perfect. Now, one of the things that I started thinking about too as you were talking is that there’s a difference between having a meeting by which you’re doing some ideation you’re having divergent type of thinking activities going on it’s a little bit more of that, hey bring some creativity to this process, you’re describing to me is what I still think of something that is not that divergent but convergent thinking process and say, we’re going to flow and we’re going to accomplish these things and work within our time frame within our box, is there a time where you’ll do something different if you’re trying to get divergent thinking happen?

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   Well with that we probably want to be in a brainstorm mode in that point and for that point we’re like, alright, first we’ll know we have x amount of time to do it. We would also, if were brainstorming for ideas, we would probably want to first consider what are the relevant criteria. Here are some factors, some factors are flexible some are not like federal law says, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, so we can’t violate that. Our budget is blah, blah, blah so maybe that’s a little bit more fixed. And then we have—but we’re looking for something that the customer is going to really appreciate and notice something that we can implement across all our departments, all these things that I’m naming are criteria. So, they give us kind of some parameters in which to be more creative because if we don’t have those few parameters we’ll be creative in ways but federal law says, alright here’s a great idea but the budget won’t handle it. To give people parameters in the first place and then set them loose that really unleashes great creativity. 

Jim Rembach:   Is there a risk by trying to have a divergent thinking activity process but then putting some convergent things on it like budget constraint it does potentially squash somebody’s ability to think differently?

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   It could to a degree. If you want you could have the option of not giving any criteria let everybody go yee-ha and then what’ll come up is—well, this is a great idea except for the budgetary thing so now we might but we really like it so now we’re at another step of kind of creative thinking what’s a way we could accomplish what we like about this idea but is not costing as much or violating the regulations—so you’d want to still pull out the essence of the idea. In fact, one thing I recommend to groups is that they make sure that whenever they have an idea and they share something they realize that every idea is the end result of, first of all, an intent and overall purpose that they run through relevant criteria that they know at least unconsciously and then out pops idea. 

I once had a couple do counseling, at the end of the visit she suddenly turns to him goes, honey let’s go to the rose gardens. And he goes, nah, she goes okay, I say wait a second what’s your intent? Why did you bring this up? She says, well we’re feeling closer than we have in a long time and we have an hour to pick up the kids I thought it’d be nice to spend some quiet time together. He says, oh that’s a great idea I will be outside too hot to buggy how about the cafe we’ve been meaning to try? Now she doesn’t really care about rose gardens itself she cares about time together that’s the intent rose gardens just the way to do it. Maybe she’s thinking time it’s on the way home it won’t cost anything budgets it’s a nice quiet place. That’s really why people reject or like ideas it’s for the intent and criteria. What I urge people to do is whenever they present an idea present it in this order intent, criteria, here’s what I’m thinking. Idea—that makes it clear to everybody else because we may not be able to do the idea that they’re suggesting but when we get their intent and their criteria that’s the goal, that’s the real gold in the room.

Jim Rembach:   I think that’s a beautiful framework, I’m sorry I’m going to have to steal that from you. 

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   You got it. 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, you’re talking about your bio, talking about these different books and talking about all the people you’ve met but I’m sure you yourself have had some humps that you’ve needed to get over and they’ve really made a difference for you so that you were able to get more done faster. But is there a time that you can share with us when you’ve had to get over the hump? 

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   I would say the first one that occurs to me as far as a hump is—being comfortable speaking in front of groups. I clearly at one point had an intuition that I had to get through that and that was in college. I started volunteering for talks or courses that required talks. I’ll never forget this moment and back then it’s early 70’s, I’m wearing overalls most of the time, and I could put my hands in the overalls there’s a comfortable place and I’m doing this talk for a big auditorium it was an anthropology course. Each of us had to read this short book, almost like a cliff notes about this particular culture, and this was some obscure truck tribe in South America I’d never heard of before. They really had nothing. They had no religion, they had no culture they didn’t make any arts and crafts. I went down the list that you’re supposed to go down I was just saying a deadpan, they have no art no culture nothing and the only tradition I could find is when your sister first goes out with a boy your brother has to beat up the boy and the room broke out hysterical and laughing. I wasn’t trying to make a joke that was true that was really true. I couldn’t believe the relief I got I’m just doing that. And that’s when I realized comedy I got to start integrating some humor into this which is good for me and good for everybody else. 

Jim Rembach:   That’s a good lesson. When you start thinking about all the things that you have going on all these different talks all these different coaching and consulting projects—this book, when you think about one of your goals, what is one of them? 

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   I really want to make a difference in the world. I remember—my mother was on death march as the Russian Front was advancing fast Auschwitz is now liquidated and taking people to west towards British American forces you dig a ditch in the road to slow the Russian tanks down if  you’re too weak they shoot you no time to waste. One night when they stopped to camp she broke down and start to cry the German soldiers are ** she said, I can’t take it anymore I’m starving I’m freezing kill me I want this to be over. He tears his sandwich he hands her half and says, listen the war is almost over you will live we will die now watch yourself or you go stand guard in front of this fire. The next day she woke up with a little bit of hope and noticed that whenever you march to a German town in the road bend a crescent there’ll be a clean blind spot the guards can see you. 

That night when they stopped to camp she realized they are many minutes at a time there was not a guard to be seen, there were 70 guards to a thousand girls, she got up and walked away. She went into this deserted German town into a deserted house there’s a Christmas tree, it’s January 1945, apples hanging on it, she eats an apple and before she could feel good she’s gotten away she realized she had just left her sister back there at Franville and think she’s dead. And she thinks, I could not live the rest of my life knowing maybe I could have done something I can do this once I can do this twice. She sneaks back let herself be captured finds her sister her friends tells them about the two opportunities. The next day they escape. And so the decision of that German soldier has gotten 69 years into the future to this moment in this interview. So, we’re all making a difference in affecting each other and I feel like I’m on a mission to turn conflict into cooperation. When human beings get together and really hear each other in meetings they can come up with ideas and synthesis that really is a greater good and takes all factors into account. 

Jim Rembach:   And the Fast Leader legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor. 

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Alright here we go Fast Leader legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Rick, the Hump Day Hoedown is a 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 a robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Dr. Rick Brinkman, are you ready to hold down? 

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   Let’s hoedown. 

Jim Rembach:   What do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   I probably take on too much. There’s so many things I’m interested in and love to do—whether it’s web design in my own site or video production, I love it all.

Jim Rembach:   What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   Lead without leading. Just really tune into people tune in to their strengths and be willing to just speak up.  You don’t have to order people you just have to step up and take charge in an easygoing manner. 

Jim Rembach:   What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   I listen more than I talk. Listening to people paying attention to those around us. Even going back to your caution zone if you start paying attention you’ll start seeing where people are going in the caution zone. It was always right there before your eyes but you were too busy thinking about what you say you’re trying to say it but you step back and you just observe for a while you start to see how all the pieces are moving around you and then it’s easy to intervene.

Jim Rembach:   What do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   Observing. Being an observer of people. Maybe because I was an only child so I was very entertained within my own mind but I definitely pay attention to what’s going on around and genuinely listen to people. And try to not just understand them but—they’re not always clear about what they want to say but I’m paying attention in a level where I’m going to help them get to what they want to say. I’m curious about where they really want to go. I already know what I know, why do I want to hear it again? I’d rather hear what other people have to say.

Jim Rembach:   What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners and it could be from any genre, of course we’ll put a link to Dealing with Meetings You Can’t Stand, on your show notes page as well.

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   That is the first one I thought of and then the meetings book. I listened to an audio book called Sapiens, it’s the story of the human race of mankind and wow that was what a fascinating read.  Our unique ability was to create conceptual things. Whether it’s conceptual things like religions or nationalism or capitalism or all these agreements that are really just agreements of our imagination together, what a ride that was from prehistoric days all the way to now I’m seeing everything in a different way—Sapiens. 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, Fast Leader legion you could find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/ Rick Brinkman. Okay, Rick, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25. And you’ve been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything back you can only choose one. So, what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   Wow! Well I think I would acknowledge that your intuition is right and trust your intuition because I’ve always done that. I got involved in my profession basically overnight. I wanted to be a physician and I found out about a holistic physician from a guy in a park when I was on a three-month open-ended trip after college and discover naturopathic medicine holistic medicine and boom I was enrolled the next day. When I met my wife I knew as soon as I met her and five months later we were married now it’s been 37 years. So, I would just tell myself that to do what you’re doing trust your intuition it’s all right on.

Jim Rembach:   Rick it was an honor to spend time with you today can you please share with the Fast Leader legion how they can connect with you?

Dr. Rick Brinkman:   They can certainly find me at dealingwithmeetings.com that’s a unique site within my site of Dr. Rick Brinkman and there’s all kinds of resources there agenda, template, template on how you convince people of doing experiment with your meetings at spot. Probably the most direct way, drrickbrinkman.com or just remember dealingwithmeetings.com and there’s links to the rest of me. 

Jim Rembach:   Rick Brinkman, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom the Fast Leader legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot!

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links from every show special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

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