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Scott Warrick knows how to stop employee problems before they start

249: Scott Warrick: Resolving employee conflict is simple

Scott Warrick Show Notes Page

Scott Warrick had a client that all of a sudden stopped communicating with him. After several attempts to connect without response, Scott learned he said something that offended someone during a workshop. After losing a lot of sleep, he resolved himself to the fact that he needed to take care of himself to move forward.

Scott Warrick was born and raised in Newark, Ohio. His father was a machine operator at Kaiser Aluminum and his mother was a secretary. He was the perfectly placed middle child, with a sister three years older than him, Pam, and Kelly, a brother three years younger than him.  Kelly passed away suddenly in January of 2018 at the age of 53. Kelly was one of Scott’s closest and dearest friends.

Scott paid for his own undergraduate degree by working at Owens Corning Fiberglas making ceiling tile and packaging glass wool. That was also the first union Scott joined. He was part of the GBBA, or Glass Bottle Blowers Association. Scott went onto work several jobs while carrying a full load of classes at The Ohio State University. In 1983, Scott earned his undergraduate degree in Organizational Communication. This is the degree Scott uses more today than all the others. Resolving Conflict is always the key.

Scott then started his career in human resources by holding a dual role at the Kirby Vacuum Cleaner Company. He was their Director of Human Resources by day and a vacuum cleaner salesman by night and weekends.

To earn money for his graduate degree, he worked in another factory, Kaiser Aluminum. That was the second union Scott joined, the Steelworkers. Scott then graduated from The Ohio State University in 1986 with his Master of Labor & Human Resources degree.

Scott then worked in human resources in various organizations throughout the later 1980s. At that time, the law was swallowing HR. So, while he was working as the Director of Human Resources at First Investment Company in Columbus Ohio, he was accepted at Capital University College of Law in 1992. Scott graduated from Capital in 1996 as Class Valedictorian (1st out of 233).

Scott then practiced traditional law from 1996 to 1998, but absolutely hated it. Scott always believed every lawsuit could be avoided if the parties just grew up, which is Emotional Intelligence, and addressed and resolved their conflicts.

Scott started his own private dual practices in 2001: Scott Warrick’s Human Resource Consulting, Coaching & Training Services (www.scottwarrick.com) and Scott Warrick’s Employment Law Services (www.scottwarrickemploymentlaw.com).

Today, Scott focuses most of his attention on working with clients to build their levels of Emotional Intelligence, which is vital to leadership skills, and to help them better resolve their conflicts, which means using the system he developed called EPR, which stands for Empathic Listening, Parroting, and “Rewards.”

Scott’s book, “Solve Employee Problems Before They Start:  Resolving Conflict in the Real World”  was written to help people do just that and make their lives better.

Today, Scott’s lives in Reynoldsburg, Ohio. He was been married to his wife Lisa for the last 32 years. They have two sons, Michael, who is in graduate school studying for his Master’s degree in Psychology at Roosevelt University in Chicago, and Nicholas, who is studying to become a Physical Therapist at The Ohio State University.

Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @ScottWarrick to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow – Click to Tweet

“If you can not address and resolve conflict in your life you are never going to be happy.” – Click to Tweet

“You will never go anywhere in your career if you don’t address and resolve conflict.” – Click to Tweet

“Customer service is easy as long as everything goes well.” – Click to Tweet

“The hardest thing you’ll ever do in this world is to control yourself.” – Click to Tweet

“Once you understand the brain you understand why you and I do the dumb things we do.” – Click to Tweet

“We are wired to get divorced and fired.” – Click to Tweet

“We have a brain that is wired for fight or flight.” – Click to Tweet

“Five seconds is the difference between success and failure.” – Click to Tweet

“We have developed an attack style mentality that we think everybody has a negative intent.” – Click to Tweet

“If somebody is really upset it means that their brain is flooding with adrenaline and cortisol.” – Click to Tweet

“We lose our short-term memory because we treat our brains like soccer balls.” – Click to Tweet

“Other people are allowed to have their opinions.” – Click to Tweet

“A human can turn on you in 17,000th of a second.” – Click to Tweet

“Your brain moves at 268 miles an hour; you can talk at 50.” – Click to Tweet

“There’s no such thing as a personality conflict.” – Click to Tweet

“You cannot have a relationship with someone that does not communicate.” – Click to Tweet

“There’s never going to be a replacement for talking to people.” – Click to Tweet

“Take care of your brain, you’re going to be so much better.” – Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Scott Warrick had a client that all of a sudden stopped communicating with him. After several attempts to connect without response, Scott learned he said something that offended someone during a workshop. After losing a lot of sleep, he resolved himself to the fact that he needed to take care of himself to move forward.

Advice for others

Everything is Emotional Intelligence. It’s first base.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

The constant struggle to remain sane.

Best Leadership Advice

There’s never going to be a replacement for talking to people.

Best tools in business or life

I’m able to relax when I need to relax.

Recommended Reading

Solve Employee Problems Before They Start: Resolving Conflict in the Real World

Daniel Goleman Books

Contacting Scott Warrick

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottwarrickconsulting

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ScottWarrick

Website: https://scottwarrick.com/

Resources and Show Mentions

146: Steven Stein: I can fade out a bit

Call Center Coach

An Even Better Place to Work

Show Transcript: 

Click to access edited transcript

249: Scott Warrick: Resolving employee conflict is simple

Jim Rembach: : (00:00)

Okay. Fast leader Legion today. I’m excited because I have somebody on the show today who may I share several passions and can really help us understand some of the basic and core fundamentals about us as human beings and how we can actually become better in the workplace and live. Scott Warrick was born and raised in Newark, Ohio. His father was a machine operator at Kaiser aluminum and his mother was a secretary. He was a perfectly placed middle child with a sister three years older than him. Pam and Kelly are brother three years younger than Kelly. Passed away suddenly in January of 2018 at the age of 53 Kelly was one of Scott’s closest and dearest friends. Scott paid for his own undergraduate degree by working at Owens Corning fiberglass making ceiling tile and packaging glass wall. That was the first union that Scott was part of. He was part of the GBA, the glass bottle blowers association.

 

Jim Rembach: : (00:56)

Scott went on to work several jobs while carrying a full load of classes at the Ohio state university in 1983 he earned his undergraduate degree in organizational communication. This is the degree Scott uses the most today than all the others. Resolving conflict is always the key. Scott. Ben started his career in human resources by holding a dual role at the Kirby backing cleaner company. He was their director of human resources by day and a vacuum cleaner salesman by night and weekends, so earn money to earn money for his graduate degree. He worked in another factory, Kaiser aluminum. That was the second union. Scott joined the steel workers. Scott then graduated from the Ohio state university in 86 with his masters of labor and human resources degree. Scott then work in human resources and various organizations throughout the later 1980s at that time, the law was swallowing HR, so while he was working as the director of human resources at first investment company in Columbus, Ohio, he was accepted at capital university college of law in 1992 and Scott graduated from capital in 96 as the class valedictorian first out of two 33 Scott then practice traditional law from 96 to 98 and absolutely hated it.

 

Jim Rembach: : (02:09)

Scott always believed that the lawsuit could be avoided if the parties just grew up, which is emotional intelligence and addressed and resolve their conflicts. Scott started his own private dual practice in 2001 Scott Warrick’s, human resource consulting, coaching and training services and Scott works employment law services today Scott focuses most of his attention on working with clients to build their levels of emotional intelligence, which is bottled to leadership skills and to help them better resolve their conflicts, which means using the system he developed called E P. R, which stands for empathetic listening, parroting and rewards. Scott’s book solve employee problems before they start resolving conflict in the real world was written to help people do just that and make their lives better. Today, Scott Scott lives in Reynolds, Burt, Ohio. He was married to his wife. He’s been married to his wife, Lisa for 32 years and they have two sons, Michael, who is in graduate school studying for his master’s degree in psychology at Roosevelt university in Chicago and Nicholas, who is studying to become a physical therapist and are at the Ohio state university. Scott work. Are you ready to help us get over the hump? Oh yeah. Looking forward to it. I’ll set, you know, I’m glad you’re here but I’ve given my Legion a little bit about you and, but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better?

 

Scott Warrick:: (03:27)

I’ve got a very unusual practice. Okay. First of all, I start from the premise. Uh, there is never a reason to go to court. Okay. And I will tell you right now, I’ve been practicing law for almost 25 years. I have never seen anybody who went to court that was glad they did it. Okay. People go to court and it’s really funny. People get all mad and everything. Uh, that’s wonderful. And then the bills start coming in. Okay. I’ll tell you, resolving conflict is make it really clear. If you cannot address and resolve conflict in your life, you are never going to be happy. You will probably get divorced. Number one cause of divorce is what I just told you right there. Number one, not addressing conflict, which we’ll talk about more. You’re going to get a union, you’re going to get sued. I nothing works if you can’t address and resolve conflict.

 

Scott Warrick:: (04:23)

And I will tell you right now, that is my passion that I, I go in and I train people. I love it when people, it’s really funny. Somebody read the book and I got a call from them and this is the most rewarding part of my day. I got this email from somebody, said she loved the book. She said, if Shida had this book five years ago, she’d still be married. And I’m like, I know, I know. It, it, it is very simple principles, but this is, you will never go anywhere in your career if you don’t address and resolve conflict. That’s my passion.

 

Jim Rembach: : (04:57)

Well, and I appreciate you sharing that and you and I share a couple couple things. Well, several of them are quite frankly, um, our love of baseball. Uh, we’re also both certified by MHS out of Canada and their EQI 2.0 system. I’ve also had Dr. Steven Stein, uh, who is the president of MHS on the show. And when I started thinking about this whole issue that you’re referring to, I mean it’s so much revolves around the whole self-discovery element. Cause a lot of times in conflict we’re pointing our fingers outward. And you know how the old saying goes when you do that, there’s three pointing back at you. Right? And that is true. It is so true. And through the book though, I mean there’s several different elements I that I want us to talk about and I want to make sure we get them, get through them all. But you at the very beginning you talk about customer services, employee relations, and vice versa. Kind of tell us what you mean about that.

 

Scott Warrick:: (05:50)

This is a big part of my practice because most people are in a company that I go into and it’s really because customer service is really pretty easy as long as everything goes well. Employee relations is a piece of cake. As long as everything goes well and that theory holds up well. If you start work at eight o’clock that holds up well until about eight Oh two okay. And here’s my premise and this is, and I’ll tell you, I love, we’ve talked a little bit about this and you’re going to, if you read the book, you get double doses of neurology. I can’t look at somebody and talk to them without looking at their forehead and their brain and wonder what’s going on up there. Okay? Um, and I’ll tell you it, when there’s conflict, you got an upset customer, right? They come in, they’re mad, okay?

 

Scott Warrick:: (06:42)

There is no difference between the conflict resolution, low resolution skills. And when I say, well, use this term later, verbal Jeet, verbal G is the term I came up with because I’m a towering five foot seven. I’m a monster, okay? I was actually this size in a junior high and everything, which why I made a good catcher, okay? Big and everything. But then I stopped growing. Everybody else got bigger. So, uh, if you cannot control yourself now to, I’m very sympathetic. Hardest thing you’ll ever do in this world is control yourself. And I have illegal windows in my car. They are illegal. They are too dark. I paid $185 fine every time I get pulled over. But I’m telling you, we all lose it. It’s better control. Okay, so got it. If you can control yourself, that’s emotional intelligence. Second is you got to resolve conflict.

 

Scott Warrick:: (07:40)

If you are ever in a conflict, you use those skills. You talked about E P R and Catholic listening, parenting and rewards. Those two together are verbal G. and if you’ve ever studied martial arts, which I have because I’m such a big guy, um, and that is resolving conflict. Now you give me a conflict with a customer. They’re the exact same skills. You have a conflict with an employee. They’re the exact same skills. So I get calls, it’s really funny. I’m doing customer service training next week and then I got a couple of resolving conflict in the workplace. Then we, after that, I got a call from a client saying, Hey, I know you do this conflict stuff with employees, but do you do something with customer service? So I just changed the title.

 

Jim Rembach: : (08:29)

It’s very true. And so for us, no. Um, and so let’s kind of go through that from a journey that we talked about, you know, self and inward looking, realization, actualization, all those things about self. Because the things is, well, we can work. We’re going to have a very, very difficult time being able to engage in any type of conflict. Uh, if we, we haven’t really done that work. Uh, and then also when you start talking about engaging in conflict, I think that’s where we see oftentimes people just Stonewall and you talk about that. It’s like, Hey, I don’t know how to do that. I don’t like that. It’s uncomfortable to me, so therefore I’m just gonna be quiet, shut down and just avoid it. And we can’t do that. Um, and that, that’s causing even more problems. And so it’s a magnifying effect that’s occurring.

 

Jim Rembach: : (09:13)

But we won’t go into that. And that’s a whole nother episode. I agree with that 1000%. So let’s talk about the [inaudible] in the book. You really hit and explain really well, uh, the neurology of EQs. And I think you and I even started talking about that. I see. I said, even yesterday, I had a hiccup, you know, in my neurology of EEQ because quite frankly, if I stop and dissect it, I did it myself. You know, I drank too much coffee. I didn’t get enough sleep for two days in a row. I mean, there’s several factors that came into play that I tried to tell a joke in it. And it was, it was backfired. It was stupid. Um, you know, and I offended somebody. It was like, you know, and I, I did, you know, I fell off my horse. Right. But if you can’t talk to us about the neurology of VQ and why it’s so important here.

 

Scott Warrick:: (10:00)

Yeah. Oh, it’s everything. And it’s really funny because I’m doing a full day session on the brain and let me tell you, I am obsessed with the brain because once you understand the brain, you understand why you and I do the dumb things we do. And let me just start off with this discussion. Humans, the saddest animal on the planet. All right? We’re the only animal that knows we’re going to die. The only one. So we’re the only ones who have the frontal lobes to worry about retirement. Okay? My cat, my cats, I have four cats and two dogs. That’s for therapy, okay. Uh, they don’t worry about anything, you know, then when we’re done in it. So first of all, we worry about things, okay? But we pride ourselves on our frontal lobes. We are wired to get divorced and fired. So they think about this, you and I now, and I’ll tell you this, I have to be very careful here because I took off people from the Bible bell, okay?

 

Scott Warrick:: (11:02)

Who are creationists and I get really nasty letter and I get death threats. I think that people take off their, what would Jesus do? And send me a death threat from the library cause I can’t track it, but please listen closely. What I’m saying, we have not evolved in 5,000 years. Now, creationists agree with this because they think the world is 5,600 years old. I have dear friends who are creationists, okay? And I don’t want to offend anybody, but let me tell you, if you’re a creationist, do you believe that the world is 5,600 years old? So 5,000 years ago, Fred Flintstone lived right here in Columbus, Ohio where I am right now. Okay? Uh, if you are an evolutionist and evolutionary theory, very clear man stopped evolving 10 to 50,000 years ago. So guess what? Everybody’s in agreement 5,000 years ago now, really get this, you and I live here, uh, out in the woods.

 

Scott Warrick:: (12:04)

Now we’re bigger and faster and stronger now, but that’s because of nutrition. Things like this. But really think about this. 5,000 years ago, 30% of everybody you and I know will have either been eaten by a wild animal or killed by another human. Yeah. Think about this. We got a brain that was wired, is wired for fight or flight. You and I are not wired to take the middle road. You and I are wired to run away or to attack all communication theory. Whether you look at crucial conversations, whether you look at [inaudible], whatever, okay? They’re all based on fight or flight. I use the terms retreat or an attacker, but it’s all the same. It’s what I studied back in the 80s with Ohio state. So you and I are wired for this now our emotional system, which is basically our amygdalas thinking of recent, this is two 1992 is when we discovered Dr. Joseph LeDoux discovered our amygdalas amazing in 17 thousands of a second.

 

Scott Warrick:: (13:16)

Our emotions kick it, and I like to put this in real world terms like you and I standing outside in the summer, we’ve all been bitten by mosquito. We turn and we smack the mosquito before cognitively we even know what happened. Our frontal lobes, our logical brain, two or three times at least slower than our emotional system. And if you’ve ever seen somebody just lose it and then they say, I don’t know what came over me. Well human came over you. Okay? So the vast majority of us, and when you understand the workings of the human brain, you understand that if you and I were wired to logically reason things out, deal with problems and our emotions would kick in later, all those people were eating that they didn’t live. Okay? Cause you and I’d be standing there and we’d see a lion. We take off, our ancestors took off there.

 

Scott Warrick:: (14:19)

We have some ancestors that would say, huh, what, what he’s going to do? And it’s too late. Okay. So really thank God for the slow witted. You know, humans, I’ll tell you, the people who survived are the ones who react first and think later worked great 5,000 years ago. It is net right there. Number one cause of divorce. That right there is each cue. You cannot separate brain health and understanding the brain and EEQ. That’s why I tell in the book and all my patients, all my clients, um, I’ll tell you, here’s a rule you got to follow. Five seconds is the difference between success and failure. I mean, you want to play a game, I’ll play a game. I’m gonna play a game. This is fun. I love this. Let’s do it. Okay. I’m going to give you a word to say. The word is joke. Now you and I are going to say this word together 10 times. Then I’m going to ask you a question. You give me an answer to what you’re saying. Okay, so all set. Let’s do it. Ready? Ready. The words joke. Joke, joke. Joke. You say it with me. Okay, here we go. Okay. Alright, ready? Go. Joe. Joe, Joe, Joe. Joe. What do you call the white part of the egg yolk? No, no, no, no jam.

 

Scott Warrick:: (15:40)

Here we go. Everybody falls for that. I really wanted to say, yo, everybody listening to this wants to say, Oh, it’s egg shell. A farmer’s. Call it all the human. Okay. So that’s how we’re wired. And the thing is, you’re a Miguel. Let’s have a memory system of their own subconscious, part of your subconscious. And so this gets into, if you don’t slow down in sync, I always love this people, they don’t slow down and think, and some star, someone famous, uh, is going to let loose before the end of this month. Racial slurs under floors, a religious slurs, something it’s going to ruin their career and people, Whoa. Where did that come from? It came from your Nicholas.

 

Jim Rembach: : (16:26)

Sure. Yeah. Let’s see, what did you say in that? I think we, we’ve gotten, unfortunately, I think sometimes it depends. Well, I think the pendulum swung too far is that we, we’ve lost compassion, um, or people actually being human and, which is to me is just a little bit of form of irony. I mean, yeah. You know, there’s a friend of mine who I had on the show, some of the beginning stages of, of the fast leader show, and there’s one thing that he said that always sticks with me. He says that, Hey, look, people, you know, no babies died here.

 

Scott Warrick:: (16:58)

Yeah,

 

Jim Rembach: : (17:00)

you’re, you’re overblowing things. And it’s like, it’s true. I mean, yeah. Okay. So your feelings, you know, we’re, we’re hurt. Right. You know, you were offended, but that goes back to the emotional intelligence thing and you talked about the whole, you know, they took off their, you know, what would Jesus do bands in order to be able to attack you? Uh, it’s like, look, you know, this whole inclusion issue, a diversity issue, um, I, I hate to say it, but it’s both sides that are not using their emotional intelligence.

 

Scott Warrick:: (17:28)

Oh, I have every right. And I agree with you saying 100% the difference between success and failure for both sides, it’s five seconds. You think five seconds you will know that yolks are yellow. Okay. And so exactly like you’re saying, we have developed a society that has cell phones. Okay. I mean, I’ve done dumb things in my life. We all have. But the difference today is that if you do something, someone’s going to record it and it might ruin you. And what you’re saying right there is we have taken on a mentality that says, I should never be offended. Let me tell you. United States Supreme court made this very clear in 1993 Harris vs forklift systems, great case to read. Uh, you are going to be offended. You’re going to be offended when you leave the house. You know, there was actually great, great example of this on if you ever watched duck dynasty, Neil Robinson, okay.

 

Scott Warrick:: (18:28)

Lives out in the by you and everything and ms Kay wanted to move into a multimillion dollar neighborhood and everything and he said, you know, you miss Kay can do whatever she wants to do. I just want to be able to go and whenever I want, just pee off my front porch. Well I don’t care how much money you got. Okay. People going to be offended and that is rightfully so you, you can’t do whatever you want to do on your front porch. You can’t do whatever you want to do cause you’re going to be offended. And we, we have developed, and I’ve got this in my next book that I’m working on because it gets into trust and things like this. We have developed an attack style of mentality that we think that everybody has a negative intent and they don’t. We attack people and I don’t know if you Google the Missouri Mizzou communications professor who literally attacked a young Asian photographer for taking pictures at a rally and she thought, she calls me, she needs a muscle over here. I’m like, wait a minute. You’re assuming right away because this tells me how you think this is how you’re primed and this how you project onto the world. Which honestly I think you might need to be assessed. Okay. But you seem to think because somebody’s offended you that they had negative intent and that now you’re going to attack and you’ve got every right. No, most people have positive intent. This month I got accused of using a racial shorter because I talked about the old days when I was growing up and I showed a picture of monkey bars.

 

Scott Warrick:: (20:06)

I had an African American woman got really upset and she put on there that I was offensive should never be allowed back cause that’s a racial swore. And I’m like, honestly, I’ve never heard that one before. So you are absolutely right. We are developing an attack stock. And again, we’re human. And, and again, let me just make this fairly clear. I am dealing, I’m representing different people pro bono because they are being sexually harassed at work or racially harassed at work. Uh, and I’ll tell you, I’m not an employee, an employee or attorney or an employee E attorney. I represent people who I believe are right. That’s what I decide and that’s who I protect. But all these folks that got protections, I will tell you there are people that if you compliment somebody’s hair, Oh, you had negative intent or use the term monkey bars or something like this and they’ll find the George on, you know, you’re right. We’ve got to get some humanity, but we gotta stop and take that five seconds and think, do you think this person had negative intent or positive intent? And most people really have positive intent. They really do. Some people don’t, but most people do.

 

Jim Rembach: : (21:17)

Yeah, most definitely. Now I think with, with that, um, you talk about three styles of communication that kind of can, you know, give a lens into what you were talking about in regards to this reactionary, uh, you know, behavior that we have or you know, even going in stonewalling piece. Look, you can’t talk about those three styles.

 

Scott Warrick:: (21:36)

Yeah. And, and just picture a baseball diamond, cause honestly, 60% of the brain is visual. Okay. And I always love this one. I’m a visual learner. Why don’t you and 7 billion other people on the planet. Okay. Cause uh, which we’re all wired at the basic, the same. Okay. Uh, and I’ll tell you just for your listeners, go Google the human genome project. We’re all related. Now let’s leave it at that. That’s why we’re all wired the same. But fight or flight, okay. We are all hardwired to attack into retreat. And my stereotypical people that I use for this Simon cow, okay. Now I don’t know what he’s like in his personal life, but he has this stereotypical reputation for being an attack. Okay. Well, we all know people who are tell it like it is. I’m an honest person, a or you just have to understand, I feel very strongly about this, which gets back to the point you were making.

 

Scott Warrick:: (22:32)

If I feel strongly about this, I got a right to rip your head off. No. Okay. That will end very badly for you. Alright? And I will tell you, you attack a human, and I’ll tell you this stuff, you ever attack, if you, you’re taking your life into your hands. Human animal is why is seven times more likely to kill you and all other 1024 mammals on the planet? We are seven times more deadly than any other animal on the planet. We kill for form. Okay? So that’s our fight. Now, most people that you and I know, and I call them, those are the attackers. Most people that you know and I know are nice people. Their aunt B from the, the the Andy old Andy Griffith show. So all your gen liars and gen Z are probably gonna have to Google that or do some research on TD land.

 

Scott Warrick:: (23:30)

Okay? Oh, you just offended an entire group. I just picked on the gen Z years and they were not blessed with the Andy Griffith show like I was growing up, but she’s so nice. Oh, she’s so sweet. She bakes pies. She’s an evil heartbeat. Okay. Every time there’s a conflict, she’s a nice person. I’ll smile to your face and then at the same time, I will go sit with my own bitty friend, my old city friend, Clara at the kitchen table and talk about her behind her back. Okay. That’s what I call retreating. Those are the passive aggressive. Now I’m kind of half tongue and cheek, but I will tell you, give me an attacker any day that the coach, they’re easy to coach because it’s like you just yelling to an employee. Yeah. If y’all know this employee, would you talk to a customer like that? Would you talk to the CEO like that?

 

Scott Warrick:: (24:25)

Well, no. Then what makes you think we’re going to let you talk to the biggest part of our budget like that and the people who execute our strategic goals? No, they’re actually easy. Okay. And I’ve never met an attacker that I didn’t send for a psychological assessment because I want him to get better. It’s not an insult. I want them to get better readers. Okay? And I want you to think of all the problems, number one, cause of divorce right there. It’s really funny, since the book came out, I’ve got a couple of conferences and sessions to do with marriage counselors and I’m like, you kind of understand I’m a lawyer. I’m kinda like the opposite of like marriage counseling. And they said no. So you got it. It’s, it’s, people said it. Marriage counseling at 100 bucks an hour. Talk about things. They should have been talking about the kitchen table for the last five years.

 

Scott Warrick:: (25:15)

And I want you to think how evil you are. An enabler. And I’ll tell you, I’ve got a real passion for this right here. Just nothing irritates me more than a passive aggressive. I think Jerry Sandusky, very Sandusky, uh, was caught in 1971. Okay. So I love this in the digital age, if you think you’re going to hide anything, forget it. Okay. In 1971 Penn state settle a child molestation case on behalf of Jerry Sandusky didn’t fire him. He wasn’t caught by the Patriot news until 2011. Now I ask all my audiences, it’s like okay and in the book, okay for that 40 year period, who’s responsible for all those little boys who were raped, if all the people who knew and didn’t do anything about it. So, and I’ll tell you right now from a legal perspective, my hats off to the EOC, I usually don’t compliment the federal government but uh, I’ll tell you their new guidelines for keeping harassment and bullying out of the workplace.

 

Scott Warrick:: (26:24)

They say you got to have bystander intervention and I agree with that 100%. If you’re going to stand by and watch somebody get sexually harassed, somebody get racially harassed or God help you, somebody who is yelling slurs at somebody cause they have a disability. Oh my. Um, if you didn’t get involved, you’re, you’re in trouble too. And I don’t know if you are watching the series or anything. See the New York Yankee fans yelling all kinds of disabilities, slurs at the Astros pitcher who is suffering from anxiety and depression. I will tell you right now, there is no difference in this world of yelling a disability slur at somebody and using the N word or the B word, the C word, the D word, whatever word you want, every bit is bad. So see now you kind of see why you don’t move up in our careers. We’re not happy cause we’re not addressing.

 

Jim Rembach: : (27:20)

Yeah. And so you talk about how we can actually, you know, moving up how we can, you know, so it’s EEQ it’s understanding itself back to realization, the realization, you know, doing some of that understanding your brain and how your brain works and we all, the reality is we all either need a coach, you know, or you know, a physician, you know, to help us to make sure that we’re working at our optimal level. We have all these things in society that are just fighting against us, which includes our diets. I mean, all of these things. I mean, all these people are talking about anxiety. We medicate the heck out of them. We don’t, we don’t help them, you know, really work through them and become their best. And there’s all these different factors that just keep compounding. Now one of the things that you’re offering as a way to kind of help us through that is the verbal G you talked about it and you mentioned it. Help us understand what [inaudible]

 

Scott Warrick:: (28:07)

perfect segue. That is the middle road. Don’t move to the left. Don’t move to the right cause both of those will be your undoing. They’ll be bad for you. So what do we want to do? First of all, and this is a, I know this is a really controversial topic. You have to be honest. And we all grew up with lying parents that were driving someplace or Oh yeah, well you know, daddy had this removed or aunt Betty had this. Don’t talk about this. Okay. And don’t mention this, but okay, first of all, I have a relationship with folks. Okay, so you’re going to be on, and that right there, I’ll tell you, that’s the hard part. The EEQ first base. I have had executives where I almost literally have to grab them by the scuff of the collar and drag them down the hall just to go in and address an issue with an employee.

 

Scott Warrick:: (28:57)

Okay. And we’ve all been there. I get these calls where somebody has been not doing their job or whatever for months. I got this one client, that gym down in Tennessee, he goes, Oh, she’s terrible employee. She’s just awful. She’s been doing this and this and this. It’s been six months. Can I fire her? And I’ll say, well have you, have you talked to her when you talk to her? What did she say? Oh I haven’t talked to her yet cause I don’t wanna upset her. Can I fire her? And I’m just, okay so you see this big hump right there. And so, okay, so what do I do once I sit down? He, he all are and understand, I like simple concepts. Very simple cause think about it, I got clients that range 10 employees to 50,000 okay. How are you going to get the same concept through to everybody?

 

Scott Warrick:: (29:51)

I can tell you getting it through to 10 people is difficult. Okay, so what do we do? All you do, you got to go talk to them and use your EPR skills. So the first thing you do, and I always use this as an example, always take a chair with me when I train because I have to sit in a chair. I like to sit back and just sort of relax and say, use my EPR skills, which starts with empathic listening. You know, we’re having a bit of a problem with this project or you know, your attendance has kind of been a problem or I understand there’s a problem between you and Sally, what’s happening.

 

Scott Warrick:: (30:26)

The key is bringing up the issue in shutting up. Okay? So EPR is just like CPR and it’s so easy to remember. But I’ll tell you, if you’re ever in a clash and we’re in a conflict with the customer or relative, your spouse, your kids, an employee, you sit down, bring it up and then shut up. Okay, because let’s just talk about the customer service or you got an employee, he’s really upset. If somebody is really upset, that means their brain is flooding with adrenaline and cortisol. Okay? Uh, which means you’re damaging your brain. You ever noticed that when you get flustered and frustrated and you can’t remember stuff, that’s because your emotional system, your medulla is, are connected. Sitting right beside, right behind your hippocampus, your short term memory transmitter, so all that cortisol and adrenaline, that’s your flooding is literally burning and frying your hippocampus. That’s why we lose our short term memory by our forties and 50s.

 

Scott Warrick:: (31:29)

We’ll do that. Don’t do that. The brain, the neurons in your brain have a life expectancy of 120 years. Never lose your short term memory ever. You should be on your deathbed. Your body will give out first, but we lose our short term memory because we treat our brains like soccer ball and don’t understand this blasting. It’s killing you so that I’m burn off that adrenaline. That’s what I’m pathic listening does and slow them down. You probably tell I’m a pretty fast talker. I just am hyper, but when I’m coaching somebody, I’ll say, no, let me just, I’ll slow it down and say, okay, just tell me what’s happening cause I want that five seconds to kick in for the frontal lobes and, and when they’re done. Also, here’s a novel concept. You might learn something.

 

Scott Warrick:: (32:16)

I’ll tell you, I learned a long time ago when I was a young attorney. Um, you know peop people a lie. Clients lie. If you go charging in with guns blazing, you can look like an idiot real quick. So I listen, I might learn something and I’ll tell you I’ve been mediating for 30 years. The next step is the P. okay? Paradigm. Now think what I’m saying. Active listening is really good. Empathic listening is, it goes one step further and think we sort of, I always like to play with the gen Z years and gen wires a little bit. Anybody under the age of 30 or early thirties because here’s something to think about. If I’m, I’m 58 years old, okay? If I’m going to sit there and talk to someone who was a young female, 22 years old, inner city, let’s say, never been to college.

 

Scott Warrick:: (33:12)

You think we have a different perspective on? Of course we do. Right? I was born in 1960. Okay. I saw president get shot on national television. Okay. Um, very different perspective from somebody who was born 1980, uh, 1990. So you see what I’m doing here? I got to listen. Not from your perspective, my perspective, but I got to listen from her perspective. Okay? So, and I got to repeat it back. So when she’s done E P I would say, okay, let me make sure I got this. I’ll make sure I’m tracking it. You’re telling me that this is a problem because of this and this and this. Now I understand. Okay. So if she says no. Okay, tell me again cause there’s something I missed. I got to repeat this to your satisfaction. Okay. Now, I’ll tell you the mediating for 30 years. And let me tell you, here’s one of my tricks I ever go in to mediate between labor and management or between one person and other person. First thing I’m going to do is I’m going to say, okay, I want someone on this side over here to tell me where this side’s coming from to their satisfaction. No one’s ever been able to do it, not Watson 30 years. Cause if they could, I wouldn’t be there.

 

Jim Rembach: : (34:33)

And I think another thing when you said going back to the whole neurology of the acute is, especially when you start talking about some of the younger generations, that whole prefrontal executive decision making part of the brain hasn’t been developed. I mean, if they’re in their, you know, teens, late teens, early twenties and needless to say, we preteen and they don’t understand consequences and they don’t understand, you know, if they do something, what could be the effect of that and the magnitude and impact and, and so it’s not that you’re being demeaning in any way when you’re engaging or trying to use your EPR skills. It’s just that you’re talking about their perspective. You know, there’s some brain issues as far as development goes that are there that maybe not be there.

 

Scott Warrick:: (35:13)

Yeah. Right. Now, think about this. I’ve never met somebody over the age of 40. They didn’t want to go back and talk to a 20, 25 year old them. Yeah, absolutely. Right. And I’ll tell you, insurance companies know this. Have you ever tried to insure a teenage driver?

 

Jim Rembach: : (35:31)

Yeah. Well we don’t need to talk about that. We’ve had, we’ve doubled insurance bill for my 16 year old, so let’s not go there. We’ll skip that conversation.

 

Scott Warrick:: (35:39)

My 21 year old, a be 22 in March, we pay as much to ensure him straight a student. I estate, uh, never been in an accident, never gotten it. We pay more for him than we do. My wife, my oldest son and me. Okay. So now having said that, you’re actually right, uh, a young woman we know today and we all know there’s always like, well that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s awfully, you know, scary. Typical girls develop earlier than boys. They do 25 year old for girl develop their frontal lobes. 28 for most guys. I’m sorry, we guys are waiting. Now think about this. You graduate medical school before you got your frontal lobes. That is scary stuff. Okay. So yeah, because, but then again, I’ll tell you one thing. Older people like me don’t like to hear technology is always gonna win. Look what we’re doing right now.

 

Scott Warrick:: (36:36)

The cell phones technology will help. So these kids and to me, anybody under the age of 30 is a kid cause they’re just like trying not to frontal lobes for the first time. Okay. Maybe I see something they don’t see. But I’ll tell you from a, from a uh, community communication and from a digital standpoint, maybe there’s something I don’t understand. So absolutely. Now that’s the diversity in collar or tolerance type of topic. So E, P. E. P. E. P. I will have clients on the phone to explain pretty complicated situations. I mean, I got unlimited notes on my phone. Unlimited. Okay. So I can easily spend three hours on the phone with a client and I’ll tell you, I will eat, pee you to death. Cause I’ll say, okay, let me make sure I got this cause I gotta make sure I’m tracking. Now think of the mistake we usually make.

 

Scott Warrick:: (37:28)

I have control of myself. So I’ve made it to first base. Hardest thing you’ll ever do. I’m not attacking, not retreating, I’m honest. So I’m addressing the issue going into second base. Here’s a mistake we typically make. You know, it’s like, Jim, I want to help you. I want to help you. So okay, you’re late to work. Let me explain to you what the problems are. Or you have this conflict, here’s what you’re doing wrong. I’m thinking, Hey, as long as I’m, I’m just trying to help you. As long as I’m just explaining to you what you need to do, everything will be fine. Okay? Look at the disrespect. Okay. I didn’t ask you your side. I didn’t ask your opinion. Our best of intentions are going to blow up on us. So EPA and then we go to the R. yeah, we’re gone. Okay, good.

 

Scott Warrick:: (38:18)

We’ll wrap it up. Big boy. Okay. Cause this really people, and I’ll tell you this is not common in today’s society. I’m going to say something else. Absolutely shatter. Other people were allowed to have their opinions. It doesn’t make you stupid because somebody else disagrees on gun control or something. So if I disagree with you, you’re dealing with a human and I will tell you when you study the neurology, never forget that human can turn on you and 17 thousands of a second and it’s their self esteem. So if I agree with you, you’re happy. If I disagree with you, I say I give you a reward or reward as a validation that you have a right to your opinion. So I would say, you know, I see what you’re saying or you know, I’ve heard that before and I see where you’re coming from but I disagree.

 

Scott Warrick:: (39:12)

Or what about this? And, and I love this because I have relatives who have very different political opinions from mine and I use these EPR skills on them all the time. And it’s funny because my wife says, you know, I can always tell when you’re going to do that EPR thing. I said, why? She goes, she goes, cause you always sit back, cross your arms and cock your head. And I’m like yeah cause I’m trying to be relaxed. Okay, if I’m relaxed, there’ll be relaxed. What we talk about politics and religion all the time. And think about this, I always throw this out, I think I mentioned it in the book, you know, talk about politics and religion at work. And people go, Oh my God, Oh my God, wait a minute. Politics and religion, you have an opinion, you got a right to your opinion, but it isn’t going to affect your life this second. Highly emotional, but the this very second, it won’t do that. You’re gonna talk to someone about their job. Oh that’s 10 times more dangerous. And that helps to explain the 38,000 physical assaults. The OSHA says we get an American workplaces every week. If you are critical.

 

Jim Rembach: : (40:19)

And you know, there’s another thing that you, that we talk about in the book that I think is critically important and that is that we should never use the word soft skills and because is that, you know, we use that because we just don’t know how to measure these things because they have significant impact. They are measurable and we can make a difference. And, and maybe we’ll go on that on another show because you and I are having so much fun. We need to keep rolling. But um, one of the things that I think is critically important for us to, you know, be attentive to in all of this is that it takes practice. Yes. Know, like getting better baseball it takes,

 

Scott Warrick:: (40:54)

yeah, that’s that muscle memory or what I would talk about, which really you’re rewiring your brain. Um, I was telling my, my clients, it’s like, okay, you’re going to have a difficult conversation with somebody. Talk to yourself in the car. Your brain moves at 268 miles an hour. You can talk at 50. Okay. Or role play with somebody. Okay. But you hit it right on the head. We got to practice it to get it into our, into our automatic reaction and, and I’ll tell you there’s no, like you mentioned, there’s no such thing as a personality conflict. Never, never. That tells me you can’t diagnose it. It is always first, which means I got an attacker or a retreat or so you can pinpoint it and fix it. Or I got somebody who’s not using their EPR skills. It’s always going to be something like that. But you hit it right on the head. Absolutely. These are no set. When somebody says soft skills, what that tells me is there’s not going to be definable skills for people to use. And honestly, training should never be like that. It should always be defined. This is what you do and it’s gotta be simple that you implement this into your culture. Everybody does it.

 

Jim Rembach: : (42:07)

Now, one of the things that we also do in this show is we learned from others by them sharing their stories. And you even said the word pump pump a little while back. And that’s what we talk about is getting over the hump. Uh, you know, it helps us, you know, to learn and, and hopefully go in a better direction. There’s a ton that you’ve gotten over the hump that you can share.

 

Scott Warrick:: (42:24)

Oh, mine. Um, you know, honestly, I, I put this in the book and I teach this stuff because I, I, I, I have to use it. I tell you that. Absolutely. I mean, every day is another home every day. Um, uh, I’ll tell ya, I’ve had more situations come up where these skills have saved me or, well, and again, you cannot have a relationship with someone who does not communicate with you. Okay. So, Oh yeah. I’ve got a horrendous situation I’m going through. I did. I, uh, I, uh, um, it’s a free clinic association here in Ohio and I’ve done stuff with them for seven years, great relationship, wonderful people. And then all of a sudden they just stopped communicating with me and they stopped choosing me for their sessions. And so I’m sure back in and said, Hey, um, I know I was turned down for your last session.

 

Scott Warrick:: (43:20)

I usually, you have me there. Um, you know, are there other topics you’re looking for? You know, are there other topics you’re looking for? And I never heard that nine months. This goes on and then I find out typical we’re talking about, apparently I said something and nobody can remember what it was. I said that offended two people out of about 60. And, and I’m like, okay, well you understand. That’s the very definition of hypersensitivity. Uh, I look, I understand if you don’t want to use me anymore, I mean that’s your choice. But I would like to know what it was. I said that was so offensive. Didn’t hear anything. Wrote back to the president, didn’t hear anything, wrote back to him again, didn’t hear anything. And so I said, look, I’m not hearing anything to you. I’m going to let my clients know the people who have to get on my distribution list.

 

Scott Warrick:: (44:13)

You would’ve had to have given me your card. That’s the only way. I don’t go out and buy lists or anything. You would have had to have given me your card or requested to be on it. So I said, look, I’m going to send out a note to all the folks that if they want to hear me, cause I got a lot of folks that come to my sessions, my sessions are full at your sessions, at your conferences, but I’m gonna let them know I’m not going to be there anymore. And I’m really upset about it. I, I wanted to work this out so I sent this out and it is just absolutely amazing to me. Uh, I let my clients know, but you see here we go. I have lost a lot of sleep. I have been meditating more because it really bothers me that this is a situation that I couldn’t rectify cause I’m one hand clapping.

 

Scott Warrick:: (45:00)

So I got actually on my website. You just, how strongly I feel about it. I’ve got a meditation recording there. I found this great British guy who’s Indian with this wonderful accent. I’m telling you, I’ve been meeting, I got a meditation mat in my office and a lot of that is over the distress over this stuff. So it’s a real hump for me cause it’s like, um, I better take care of my brain because this is going to really, it really did bother me but there was no saving it if your aunt Lee but Oh yeah, I’m really into the brain care and the EEQ and I think that if I hadn’t been as cognizant and stop and think I’d have said something really stupid cause I’m not just upset, I’m really mad. But Hey, that’s life. Right? That’s what happens.

 

Jim Rembach: : (45:45)

Well, uh, I can I, you know, you and I have also talked about the fact that you’re, again, another things we share is work. We study this stuff because we have our own issues to try to get through it and we’re trying to deepen our sense of understanding and awareness. And it’s a constant journey. It’s a journey. Okay. Now, okay, best literal age and we’re talking to Scott work and we’ll be back in a moment with the hump day. Hoedown now before we move on, let’s get a quick word from our sponsor.

 

Speaker 3: (46:13)

And even better place to work is an easy to use solution that gives you a continuous diagnostic on employee engagement along with integrated activities that will improve employee engagement and leadership skills in everyone using this award. Winning solutions, guaranteed to create motivated, productive, and loyal employees who have great work relationships with their colleagues and your customers. To learn more about an even better place to work, visit [inaudible] dot com four slash better. All right, here we go. Fast in your Legion. It’s time for the home. Oh, okay. Scott, the hump they held on as 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 robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Scott work. Are you ready to hoedown? Yes. That sounds like fun. Yeah. Right. So what is holding you back from being an even better leader today? By frankly, it’s a

 

Scott Warrick:: (47:03)

constant struggle to remain sane. Um, I honestly, I live this stuff. Uh, I drink half of my weight and water and ounces every day. Whole regimen of vitamins, uh, meditation, all of it. And as I get older, it is harder and harder. The brain recovers faster when you’re 30 than when you’re 60. But I am training right now for 80. And um, it’s, it’s a constant type of thing. I got to physically make myself get up from my desk and go and take care of my brain and it’s, it’s, it’s more important than your feet.

 

Jim Rembach: : (47:34)

What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

 

Scott Warrick:: (47:37)

I had a client years ago from the South down Alabama and all this stuff was coming out with email and email was the cutting edge back then. And he said, do you know, he said, I know this is all real good and everything, but you know, there is never going to be a replacement for talking to people. He’s right. And texts are everything. That’s great and everything. But I will tell you we’re still human. Yep. Got it.

 

Jim Rembach: : (48:05)

And what do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

 

Scott Warrick:: (48:10)

I think the best thing that I’ve been able to work on, and let me just preface this, I’m a PTSD survivor. I had my brain scan back in the two thousands in 2008 actually, and it was a mass and I worked really hard to, to improve it, rebuild it. And I went back for a followup scan in 2011 and it’s about 90% clear now. So I really value that. The best thing I’m most proud of is I’m able to relax when I need to relax. And I’m able to know when to lead to, to leave, uh, because I’ve got a healthy brain now. And that’s honestly, that’s probably one of the best things I got.

 

Jim Rembach: : (48:51)

And what would be one book that you’d recommend to our Legion? It can be from any genre. Of course, we’re going to put a link to solve employee problems before they start on your show notes page as well.

 

Scott Warrick:: (49:00)

Honestly, anything by Daniel Goleman, Daniel Goleman wrote it. I read it. Yeah.

 

Jim Rembach: : (49:08)

Okay. Best literal Legion. You can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fast leader.net/scott work. Okay, Scott, this is my last hump day. Hold on question. Imagine you had the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you could take all the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you, but you can’t take it all. You can only take one. So what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

 

Scott Warrick:: (49:31)

Oh, EEQ everything. DQ, it’s first base and that’s brain health. You can’t separate the two. But I would go back to a 25 year old me and say, look, you, you, you, you really aren’t that tough. But soldiers are tough. Maybe seals are tough, but they damage their brain. So tell you what, you need to take more time away from the desk. You need to cut clients loose. You need to take care of your brain. It’s not your body. It’s your brain. Actually. Your body is just a, uh, portable device or a portable instrument for your brain. Takes your body or your brain around, take care of your brain. You’re going to be so much happier because in another 20 years you’re going to be crazy and you don’t want to do that. So that’s the one piece of understand and learn. ECU and brain health.

 

Jim Rembach: : (50:23)

Scott, I’ve had fun with you. How do people get in touch with you?

 

Scott Warrick:: (50:26)

I have, my website’s got word.com that’s all they need to know.

 

Jim Rembach: : (50:29)

Scott, work. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom and the fast leader Legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump.

Nicolaj Siggelkow | Connected Strategy

Stop Asking Customers to stitch Their experiences

Nicolaj Siggelkow on the Fast Leader Show

Nicolaj Siggelkow thought technology was important in connected strategies until he realized the more important factor was that organizations trying to be customer-centric required customers to stitch together their experience with different organizational departments.

Nicolaj Siggelkow is the David M. Knott Professor of Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is a Co-Director of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management and the former Department Chair of Wharton’s Management Department. He studied Economics at Stanford University and received a Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University. As recognition of his groundbreaking research on strategy, Nicolaj has been elected as a Fellow of the Strategic Management Society, the leading association of strategy researchers around the world.

He has been the recipient of more than 30 MBA and Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Awards, including the Lindback Foundation Distinguished Teaching Award, the highest teaching award of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Helen Kardon Moss Anvil Teaching Award, the highest teaching award of Wharton.

Professor Siggelkow is the Academic Director of several open enrollment executive education programs at Wharton and has been involved in many custom programs for organizations, teaching strategy and managerial decision making. He has run strategy workshops for small organizations to Fortune 500 firms, helping them develop and analyze their strategies.

He has developed the on-line course “Business Strategy from Wharton: Competitive Advantage” and is the co-host of the weekly Sirius Radio show “Mastering Innovation.” And he’s the co-author of Connected Strategy: Building Continuous Customer Relationships for Competitive Advantage.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @nicsiggelkow to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShowClick to Tweet 

“Rather than waiting for a customer to come to me for their particular need, can I anticipate the need?” Click to Tweet

“There’s a natural trade-off between how much value I provide to a customer and the cost it takes.” Click to Tweet

“What drives the happiness of your customers?” Click to Tweet

“The customer has to first become aware of the need they have.” Click to Tweet

“Different customers will have different preferences on how they want to interact with you as an organization.” Click to Tweet

“Companies will have to create an array of different customer experiences.” Click to Tweet

“Connected strategies are fundamentally about understanding customer needs.” Click to Tweet

“Connected strategies quite often runs exactly at the border of magic and creepy.” Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Nicolaj Siggelkow thought technology was an important in connected strategies until he realized the more important factor was that organizations trying to be customer centric required customers to stitch together their experience with different organizational departments.

Advice for others

Taylor the way you communicate with other people.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

I’m not very good at delegating.

Best Leadership Advice

Surround yourself with people that are smarter than you are.

Secret to Success

I’m a really good planner.

Best tools in business or life

My calendar.

Connected Strategy: Building Continuous Customer Relationships for Competitive Advantage

Cryptonomicon

Fall; or, Dodge in Hell: A Novel

Contacting Nicolaj Siggelkow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolajsiggelkow/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicsiggelkow

Website: https://nicolajsiggelkow.com/

Website: https://connected-strategy.com/

Resources and Show Mentions

Call Center Coach

An Even Better Place to Work

Show Transcript:

Click to access edited transcript

233: Nicolaj Siggelkow: We asked the customer to stitch experiences

Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader podcast where we uncover the leadership life hacks that help you to experience breakout performance faster and rocket to success. And now here’s your host customer and employee engagement expert & certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach. 

Call Center coach develops and unites the next generation of call center leaders. Through our e-learning and community individuals gain knowledge and skills and the six core competencies that is the blueprint that develops high-performing call center leaders. Successful supervisors do not just happen. So go to callcentercoach.com to learn more about enrollment and download your copy of the Supervisor Success Path e-book now.

Okay, Fast Leader legion today I’m excited because we have somebody on the show today who’s going to help us build continuous customer relationships. Nicola Siggelkow, is the David M. Knott Professor of Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is a co-director of the Mac Institute for innovative management and the former department chair of Wharton’s management department. He studied economics at Stanford University and received a PhD in business economics from Harvard University. As recognition of his groundbreaking research on strategy, Nikolaj has been elected as a fellow of the Strategic Management Society, the leading association of strategy researchers in the world. He has been the recipient of more than 30 MBA and undergraduate excellence and teaching awards including the Lindback Foundation Distinguished Teaching Award, the highest teaching award of the University of Pennsylvania and the Helen Karden Moss Anvil Teaching Award, the highest teaching award of Wharton. 

Professor Siggelkow is the academic director of several open and enrollment executive education programs at Wharton and has been involved in many custom programs for organizations, teaching strategy, and managerial decision-making. He has run strategy workshops for small organizations to Fortune 500 firms helping them develop and analyze their strategies. He has developed the online course “Business Strategy from Wharton: Competitive Advantage” and is the co-host of the weekly Sirius Radio show “Mastering Innovation.”  And he is the co-author of Connected Strategy: Building Continuous Customer Relationships for Competitive Advantage. Nikolaj Siggelkow are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Nicolaj Siggelkow:    I hope so. 

Jim Rembach:    I know you will. I’m glad to have you here. Now, I’ve given my legion a little bit about you but could you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better?

Nicolaj Siggelkow:    Well, of course, my current passion has to be my current research. I cannot lie this is what I been doing for the last couple of years together with my good friend and colleague Christian Terwieschth we’ve been thinking about this idea of how firms radically changed the way they interact with their customers. It has been actually fun kind of because what we’ve been able to do is while we were writing the book we were teaching it and that was kind of really a fun thing to do together with my MBA students and our executive audiences. You sort of try things out see whether it actually resonates so that they’ll say, well, this is not just an academic exercise but actually I can use it. This has been actually a quite fun experience and it’s also my first book so it feels like my first baby that I get out there so it’s been a quite exciting ride now. 

Jim Rembach:    I can imagine it is. The work that you are doing and talking about specifically in the connected strategy book is you have several case studies and essentially workshop and you call them workshops that people can actually use in order to help them with their practice of strategy. I think that’s one of the things that’s critically important for all of us is we can take all this knowledge and wisdom that’s book knowledge but until we can actually apply it and practice it we’re not going to get that good at it. 

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   Yes.  And I think that was really the intention of this book which makes it a bit differently. We all have these workshop chapters where we guide the reader through a worksheet tool and try it. We say at the end of the book—sometimes again this might feel a bit daunting—oh, gosh all these things to do—and so the end of the book said, well, maybe just do a few things to get your toe in the water. We don’t want to push you into the water but maybe force you to put your toe in the water to get going and thinking about these issues.

Jim Rembach:    I think that’s important when you start looking at a lot of things today and we’re going to get into something that I think is really important when you start talking about the coaching aspect of the experience. But before we do that, I think it’s really important to talk about when you start referring to this connected strategy, what does it really mean? And in the book you say is that—a firm with a connected strategy or firms they fundamentally change how they interact with our customers and what connections they create among the various players in their ecosystem. At its core a connected strategy transforms traditional episodic interactions with customers into connected customer relationships that are characterized by continuous low friction and personalized interactions. You talked about this magic of connected strategy. You talked about a place that has magic, and a lot of us that reference in Disney, when you’re referring to that definition come and give us some insight into how that flows. 

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   They’re really kind of two parts of a connected strategy. One is idea about really transforming these interactions with customers rather than waiting for a customer to come to me with their particular need can I maybe even anticipate the need that the customer that might allow me to actually have a much better personalized interaction that might enable me to anticipate needs that the customer has. So rather than having these episodic interactions think about something bad happens to me and I go to a hospital only then do I interact with my healthcare provider now having a much deeper connection with my healthcare provider from my Fitbit on the Apple watch. So that’s kind of the one part of connected strategy, it’s almost like the what? What do I provide to the customer? 

The second part of the connector strategy is the how? How do I actually create these connected customer relationships at a reasonable cost? Because again I know how to make me happy in terms of health care, just have a nurse and a doctor standing next to me 24-hour seven that would make me better but it’s very expensive. I think this is a part of where technology plays an interesting role of how we’re able to connect me to resources in a much more efficient way that can we create these good connected customer relationships. 

Jim Rembach:    Okay, as you’re talking about those different dynamics one of the things that you also present when to me what I was interpreting is something, and you didn’t use the word necessarily a ton but disruption, a lot of this connected strategy is all about disrupting the traditional past traditional journeys traditional interaction methods and types and frameworks. One of the things that you talked about is the efficiency frontier, explain to us what that means?

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   Usually, we can think about—so there’s a natural trade-off between how much value I provide to a customer, how happy I can make my customer through a particular product or service and the cost it takes. So if I just made this example, it would really improve my happiness as a patient if I would have immediate personal access to a doctor standing  next to me but that would be also really, really costly. On the other hand I might have just some telemedicine where I go to a website and I try to educate myself, my happiness of that is much lower but also the cost is much lower, I just have a website I can go to. There’s this usual trade-off between what we call the willingness to pay or the value that the customer perceives and the product and the fulfillment cost that it takes us to create that value in the eye of the customer. So there is of a frontier, if you wish an efficiency frontier the most amount of service you can provide given amount of cost that you want to incur. 

And so within any given industry that is sort of the frontier and different firms have placed themselves at different parts of this frontier some people are very high service but high-cost providers others also low cost low service providers. Now, what these connected strategies effectively have done is they’ve sort of pushed out this frontier. And now all of a sudden there are firms that can do both better. Again imagine let’s say Uber or Lyft, I think it’s a good example, the value I received from using an Uber or Lyft is somehow higher than the one from a cab usually it gets there faster usually it’s nicer usually it’s much easier to pay. So my utility my happiness as a custom has gone up. While at the same time the cost that Uber has of providing a ride from point A to point B is actually less than a cab company. So now it’s a firm that can provide a better service at a lower cost and that is really what drives disruption. All of a sudden now it’s not just a tradeoff anymore it’s actually better on both dimension that is really disruptive.

And so from the perspective of the existing firms it feels like, Wooh where’s this trade-off? This tradeoff is gone. Of course, it’s still there but it’s just now at a higher level. And this is exactly when we think about FinTech or Insure Tech or IOT devices, etc. all of a sudden customers say, wow this is a product that I actually or service I value more than what I’m currently getting and they can actually provide it at a cheaper price, Wooh, I like that. and so that’s exactly what drives disruption well as you’re talking I’m starting to think about to the whole development process and thinking about how it does become easier in order to get people to actually form new habits so if I’m thinking about this whole frontier component an element yes I push it out yes I can do potentially both things better that isn’t always a case but I have to go through a testing phase and so I have to I’m thinking about rapid development rapid deployment rapid adjustment and iteration I’m also thinking about rapid mothballing hey that didn’t work so they’re there to me there’s a whole lot of other components and elements that go into this strategy that we have to take into consideration so where does that come into play in regards to the whole journey as in the consideration and being able to connect create new strategy I mean so the interesting thing is about a lot of these connected strategies actually are not about technologies by instead of new technologies clearly enabler to happen but quite often the companies who create these new strategies they have not created that technology so again let’s thing over but who did not develop GPS cell phones and Google Maps  but they say look if I take these three elements putting and now kind of coming back to our earlier discussion.

Now I’m connecting previously unconnected parties here people with cars in a bit of time here are people who need a ride Wow I can use these technologies to create these new connections and all of a sudden I have a new business model that’s rather disruptive and so I think again what we’re stressing in this in the book and some sense the good news is in order to create a connected strategy you don’t need to be a technology company. A lot of these technologies that underlie connected strategies are out there more or less available to anyone. So really the creativity is much more on the business model side like I’m really trying to understand, hey, what’s that pain point that a particular customer has. And, oh, but this particular information and this particular technology and this particular new connection now I can create a new business model, that’s really where the creativity lies. 

Jim Rembach:    I think you just hit on one of the most important factors here. Being able to go through that creative thinking process and being able to understand how it could formulate new innovative elements that you can fit now into your framework. So if I’m looking at an organization or organization as a whole and looking into the opportunities that exists with the connected strategies where do you see some of the biggest opportunities?

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   Well so I think the interesting thing is that when we ask men it is quite often, so what drives the happiness of your customer? Because ultimately that’s what it’s about we’re trying to write and attract customers to products and our services our companies. And so when we ask them, what does a value drivers that your customers have? They very quickly focus on tangible and intangible aspects of their product. How fast is my product? How good is it? How many features does it have? Maybe what kind of brand perception do I have? Now all of this is of course important but what we are again stressing in our book is that it’s usually a much longer customer journey that a customer has with us. That sort of starts out at, the customer first actually has to become aware of a need that they have. Then the customer has to understand, okay, now I know what my need is, what are all the options out there that I might be able to use? I’m aware of my need, I need some let’s say, need to save for retirement, okay. Now finally I got aware of that need. But now, what are all the options? I don’t even know but all the options out there. Then what’s actually the best option for me to use? Then, okay.  Now I think I know what I need and I want, how do I get it? Do I need a broker? Can I do it myself? How do I pay? How does it work? There are so many different steps before actually—oh, how good is your financial product? But how good are your fund managers? This is important too. There lots of other pain points that the customer has. I think quite often these connected strategies start out by really having a deep understanding of kind of the pain points or what you call also the willingness to pain drivers the way kind of the delight customers along with this entire customer journey and ask, how can we also remove some of those frictions from the customer journey? That’s quite often sort of a starting point for thinking about, wow, how could we create a better relationship of the customer? 

Jim Rembach:    Al, I start seeing a lot of skill sets required in order to be the most successful here. I’m starting to think about the ability to understand and separate the difference between divergent convergent thinking. I’m starting to also see the understanding of emotion that goes into play with the whole brand loyalty as well as being able to modify behavior that I used to essentially, like, going back to the Uber Lyft thing. I used to hail a cab now I’m using an app all of these things there’s so much friction along the way. How is it most beneficial for an organization to approach this entire process if they haven’t really done it before it’s just kind of happened? Or we’ve been hanging our hat and our revenues on a particular product that is now 20 years old and now we have to start going through this process otherwise we’re going to get disrupted.

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   Just in terms of process wise I think we would suggest to really think about different customer journeys that your customer have you’re trying to understand these pain points. Then asking yourself, what are kind of information that we need to resolve these pain points? I wanted to piggyback a little bit on the word of emotion that you mentioned because I think that is really important. We’re describing a different set of what we would call it connected customer experiences that you can create as a company. One we call respond to desire, which is where a customer knows exactly what he or she wants. I need a car now to take me from the airport I need the accommodation in Chicago next week so a customer knows exactly what they want and they want to just press a button and you as a company want to make sort of the rest of that journey as smooth as frictionless as possible. 

And so in some sense if you think again about that customer journey that is sort of a customer experience that works at the end of that customer journey. It already starts just at the moment of your ordering and then it goes through kind of post-purchase experience. But there is a different connected custom experience we call curated offering. This is an experience that helps you actually understand what other best options out there for me? If I go to Netflix in the evening and say, I’m in the mood for a comedy, Netflix says that’s great we’ve got 10,000 comedies for you. That’s not helpful. But if Netflix could say here the five that you might like, okay, I would appreciate that. And oh by the way, here’s a new release that I didn’t know it’s not like I know exactly what movie I want to watch and just stream it  now but if you can help me in that process I have some—and so we would call that curated offering. Then we can go even one step further and that is becoming aware of your need and that is this coaching behavior that we’re talking about. I know I need to take my medication but I’m forgetful. I want to lose some weight but oh, sticking to my diet is hard. A lot of customers would like to achieve certain goals but actually it’s hard for them to do. There’s some biases there’s inertia and if I can help you as a company do that that’s potentially helpful for me as a customer.  

And then the fourth experience we call automated execution. Where the firm basically knows about your problem before you’re even aware of your problem and solves your problem. So that would be my printer that knows it’s about to run out of ink but then it just reorders itself. And so my ink arrives before my printer runs out ink. The important point, and this is sort of why I’m piggybacking on your emotion. The important point is to understand that different customers will have very different preferences of how they want to interact with you as an organization. Some customers would love automatic execution, everything in my life. Others find it really creepy. How did you know that I was running out of toner? Why is that Mr. Ex guy handing me a package? Some people will find this amazing other people will find this as creepy. And so we really have to understand how people react emotionally and psychologically to having the environment act upon you. One person loves another mother hitting on their shoulder, say hey, you should eat better or whatever. And another person said well, I don’t need that again turn it off. So, companies will have to create a whole array of different connected customer experiences and really understand each customer very well and then to know what’s the connected experience that this customer likes. Even the same customer might want different ones. If I sit down in front of my TV I’m not sure I want NeFlix to merely start streaming a movie. I have to say, Nicolaj, I know what you want. Just give me five, but I can think. And so I think this becomes really, really important to be successful in implementing a connected strategy.

Jim Rembach:    Okay, well, then when I start thinking about the emotion, the emotional intelligence and infusing that and putting that into your organization I started also looking at the immense amount of data that often exists especially when you start talking about customer interactions and a lot of that is historical in nature so it’s a post-mortem activity and insight. However, what we’re talking about is projecting it forward. So now I have to be proactive, reactive, speculative, I have to forecast I have to do all of that. I start looking at the importance of that post-mortem data, that data that has already occurred dead into us being able to maybe pivot and take a different direction. Where does that type of work, where does that type of activity really take place best for organizations?

Nicolaj Siggelkow:      Obviously, data is really, really important. Again just sort of one word of warning I guess that connected strategies are actually not fundamentally about data. Connected strategies are fundamentally about understanding customer needs. And once I understand then I actually know what the relevant data is. So I think a lot of companies currently are actually exactly stuck at this point. Because it has become easy to collect data I’m now sitting on gigabytes of data about you. I know every click you’ve done on every website you ever visit but have no idea what to do with it. And so unfortunately now a lot of companies have said, well, I don’t know but there’s someone else wants to pay me a few pennies for this information let me just sell it off. A lot of firms have gone that route. Now you as a customer being followed by the same ad and whatever website you click and you ask, how the heck did that happen? I think someone sold my information. What we would recommend is actually really start with the needs of the customer. Again with that customer journey and then ask yourself, what kind of information would I need to solve that particular problem? Maybe I don’t have it yet then I need to think about how I can get it. But I think engineering it that way around turns out to be I think way more manageable again. Because I think you’ve just mentioned this earlier, so if I have never done this, how would I even start? I think a lot of companies have started by saying, well, I guess it’s all about data so let’s collect data. And again this is really easy to do but that now they’re struck and they have no idea what to do with it and quite often again they just sell it off. Starting with the a customer journey starting with those needs and then reverse engineering what information I need is quite often much more efficient way to do that.

Jim Rembach:    As you were thinking too I started thinking about the problem that organizations have with quantitative data and qualitative data. So in other to have the number of clicks I have all of these things that are more quantitative in nature, however, I don’t necessarily have insight in the qualitative data that tells me why all those things are occurring and happening and understanding what we were talking about as far as that customer emotion piece. Oftentimes it’s a very core missing element to all of that that will prevent them or cause them to going in the wrong direction and I think it goes back with what you talking about is the whole emotion piece. But ultimately, when it all is said and done there’s revenue models that we have to focus in on if we’re not generating revenue all of this is for naught. You talk about six different revenue models that need to be considered. Can we go into those a little bit?

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   Sure. The intriguing thing about connected strategies is that all of the sudden the space of dimensions that I can use for a revenue model opens up. In the traditional model you come to a store and you buy a product and you pay the amount and then you own the part, that’s kind of the most traditional way. But what’s the problem with that? The problem with that is that I basically as a company have to extract basically all the future value that you see in that product at that point of purchase and that might be quite hard. Let’s take an example, let’s say, I’m trying to sell you a wonderful great new toothbrush that I promise you will detect cavities and will prevent you from having cavities in the next five years. And you said, wow, that would be an amazing product. And I say okay, I’ll charge you 600 bucks for it. And you said, Wooh, wait a second, if it truly worked I’d be happy to pay you $600 but how do I know it works? So the traditional problem in the traditional revenue model is I put all the risk on you, why trust me? Now that’s hard. 

So now with the connectivity—so now imagine my toothbrush is connected so I can understand when you’re brushing how we’re brushing every day. So now I could actually offer you a performance guarantee. I say okay, if you don’t get a cavity and you use my toothbrush in the way I ask you to do so and you will not get a cavity, are you willing to pay me $100 every year as a subscription fee for the absence of cavities? And now you say, hmmm, okay. Previously I could not do that because I didn’t know whether you’re using my toothbrush correctly or not but now I can do that. So all of a sudden I could have for instance a pay-for-performance contract. Next thing, you’re not having cavities, who else is happy about this? Insurance companies are happy about this because they’re usually paying half of the sort of use that you’re paying which is about a couple hundred dollars every year.  Maybe I can have the insurance companies subsidize my toothbrush. I can maybe get some revenue from insurance companies. The first thing was we can change the—what is being paid for. Is it just kind of the product or is it like a service and performance guarantee. 

The second thing we can change is who is paying. Quite often there are other parties in the ecosystem that generate value from my product. Maybe I’m able to extract that value from that. Thirdly, I can maybe say, well maybe the toothbrush is maybe not the best idea but I could charge you ten cents for every minute you use the toothbrush. I couldn’t do this before. You said, well that are rather silly with the toothbrush but for instance with jet engines, jet engines are now being sold that way. Rolls Royce is not selling a jet engine anymore to an airline they are selling what’s called power by the hour. They’re basically saying I’m selling you an hour of flying time. Now again that is a nice incentive alignment for the airline and the jet engine producer because the airline just says, I only care if this engine is working now when it’s broken. So now Rolls Royce has a very high incentive to make sure that engine is working now they’re gone much more to the maintenance. But again that’s kind of the—when are you paying? 

The other thing is sometimes how we pay can change. Premium models are actually very intriguing example of it. You may know the various games that you play on your phone like Game of Thrones—ah, no Game of Thrones—Clash of Clans, so if I ask you, would you be willing to pay $350 for a game you play on your phone? You probably say, no way I’m not going to pay you $300. But now every day you go, oh, for just for 99 cents I can get an upgrade that gives me that Dragon Slayer and then I can level up. Wow. Sure, what’s 99 cents, we pay $3.95 for a cup of coffee at Starbucks so how about 99 cents? And you do this every day and after a year you spend $360, and as a matter of fact you don’t feel bad about this, why? Because every day actually it was an enjoyable experience that you have. So if you can pull the time when the person actually experiences the value of your product and service if you can make that more closer to the point when the customer is actually paying again if a customer to derives value over time if I try to extract all of that value at the time of purchase that might be really difficult. But if I can charge you a little bit every time you use it because at that time you really see the value in the product or the service maybe you’re much more willing to pay at that time just a little bit. These are some ideas of how connectivity can actually allow us to have a much broader way of different types of revenue models. 

Jim Rembach:    And it also I think brings things full circle so it’s not that we’re doing these things to essentially fit within our existing model of business. Like you’re saying it’s opening up new opportunities of revenue that we’re possibly not taking advantage of that we could. You mentioned even that Rolls Royce example with the (28:14 inaudible) you kind of hit it on a little bit is that they’re actually selling the engine but the entire servicing element that goes along with it because for them, as we all have heard over and over, it’s not the profit or the revenue that they get from the sales of engines it is the whole servicing aspect and then the whole ongoing control of maintenance and actually from a brand perspective is more beneficial for them. 

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   And so now again intriguingly—so there is actually a general principle here they’re sort of learning happening at two different levels. There’s the learning at the level of an individual customer or in the Rolls Royce example the learning about the individual engine. So I learn more and more about this engine and in some sense of I know exactly the state of each component inside the engine and so I’m now able actually to go from fix maintenance schedule where every six months I replace this particular component now I can replace it after five months if I need it or after seven months if I need it so I can do this much more effectively. But there’s also learning at the whole level of a population either a population of customers or in this case a population of jet engines because I’ve not just sold you one engine but I’ve sold hundreds of engines to let’s say, United, and now what Rolls Royce is doing is now I’m learning about all of these engines I learn about whether I learn about your routing and I can now actually help you run your machines more efficiently, think about routing more efficiently. And so now I’m starting to save you even fuel. Again there’s a common theme here that what connected strategies allow you to do is kind of what we would call moving up the hierarchy of needs of a customer. There are some fundamental immediate needs that I have but quite often they are more instantiation of deeper underlying needs. I made just one example, I might feel some heart palpitation now and I really want to talk to a cardiologist pretty quickly but really what I would like you to do is to deal with my cardiac problems but really what I would like you to do is to deal with my health issues whether it’s my heart or my elbow and really what I like it to do is to keep me healthy. There are sort of these hierarchy of need. As we are getting deeper connected with a customer we might be able to move up this hierarchy of needs. That really leads to two important consequences. On the one hand, again my happiness as a customer goes up and so I’m willing to pay more for these things because these are really more fundamental needs that I have. 

Secondly for the firm once I actually have achieved this level of a trusted long-term customer relationship all of a sudden I don’t have to compete transaction-by-transaction anymore. All of a sudden I have you now in a relationship, of course I still have to provide value to you that’s not changing, but I don’t have to compete transaction. It would be really tough to do if you have to do this every time you’re interacting with the customer. 

Jim Rembach:    We said it repeatedly and ultimately it drills back down to emotion. We talk about emotion a lot of different ways in the Fast Leaders show. One of the things that we look at are quotes because they can help give us the emotion that we need in order to persevere and achieve and all. Is there a favorite quote that you like then you can share?

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   I don’t think I have a favorite quote. One of our favorite examples that we have in the book it’s kind of the magic band in Disney World. Which again kind of gets this dual purpose of on the one hand creating a better customer experience where customers have make it much easier for them to purchase things and to open the hotel room open the fast lane but on the same time allowing Disney to create much more efficient park operations because they know where people are they can direct them to shorter lines. But I’m getting to a quote here, a quotable quotes or statement but the intriguing thing to us again is—if you take the example of—you walk with your girl at Disneyworld and Jack Sparrow comes up and greets your daughter by name and says, hi, Sophia how are you? Wow! That’s amazing, Jack Sparrow knows my name. Of course he knows the name because Sophia’s wearing a magic band and Jack Sparrow has a little handheld device that tells him that Sophia’s coming. And then Jack Sparrow says, Sophia do you remember we met at Anaheim last year? And Sophia goes, this is the most amazing day in my world because Jack Sparrow knows—any character that ever interact with Sophia and any theme park around the world. So Sophia things, that is the most magic day in her life and you as a parent go, man that’s creepy. And so I think—here’s now my quote, connected strategy is quite often run exactly at the border between magic and creepy. And that’s sort of where we’re coming back to this earlier point that I made, you really have to understand your customer really well because again what one person might think it’s a magic experience the other person might think it’s a creepy experience. So that I think kind of the big point to keep in mind as you develop these connected strategies. But again it’s not just one size fits all we need to have a broad array of these different kind of experiences that we can offer. And we need to understand, again sort of coming back to the word emotion, that emotional attachment that people have of how they want to interact with us. Some people just want to have a standoff—let me tell you what I want but then make it as easy for me as possible, that’s kind of response of desire. Whereas, others say you just do it for me, I love it.

Jim Rembach:    I would dare to say that when you start looking at coming to this culmination of your work, and I know it’s never going to end. I mean there’s going to be iterations I think the marketplace is going to force it I think globalization is going to force it AI artificial intelligence is going to force it and all of these things and finding a better spot for the human to create some of those emotional connections that cause that multiple revenue generation opportunities all that’s going to happen so your works never going to end here. However, we all often have to go through humps in order for us to come to these realizations and to learn and to be able to take advantage of these opportunities and to teach others like you’re doing now. Is there a time where you’ve gotten over the hump where you learn something that we can all learn something from?

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   It’s really interesting when we talk to the Disney team that created this magic band. There are some very interesting learning coming out touching on something that you were earlier asking and that is how to actually create these connected strategies and what are the big obstacles? Again we first thought about, well, it’s about again the technology creating the magic band is a difficult thing. And they said, yeah, that is also important but that’s just money you spend you get your R&D department going and you create these technologies. The really tough thing was the organizational change. How do we actually have different parts of our organization talk to each other and share information with each other? The problem, and this another interesting quote that that he said is, we really forced our customers to work through our organizational chart sometimes you had to deal with our online division then you had to deal with our theme-park division and you have to deal with our hotel division and we basically kind of asked the customer to stitch together these experiences. That I think is again to me kind of very interesting insight that we all talk about customer centricity as being sort of a key word why do we want to really put that customer in the middle but we ourselves are not at all organized that way.  

Our organizations are very much organized by function or by product line and again sort of—when I reflected on that said, wow, we are as universities probably as guilty of this as anyone. So we tell our students you want to appear general managers you need to know everything. You need to get a finance and strategy and marketing and operations and then all of that you need to know. Of course, we are organized by department. And so someone guys teach you strategies from an accounting and marketing and then we said to the student, you stitch this all together and you make sure that all comes together so that you are well-rounded manager. So again this idea of putting yourself into the shoes of a customer or a student and saying, how would that experience actually look like? It’s hard organizationally.

Jim Rembach:    I appreciate the work that you’re doing and that you’re continuing to do. 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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Okay Fast Leader legion now it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Nickolaj the Hump Day Hoedown is a part of our show where you give us good insights fast. I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust and rapid responses to help us move onward and upward faster. Nikolaj Siggelkow, are you ready to hoedown? 

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   As a German I will try my best.

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

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   I’m afraid I’m not very good at delegating.

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

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you are.

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

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   I’m really a good planner but that’s maybe because I’m German. 

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

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   My calendar. I need to have structure to my days. 

Jim Rembach:    What would be one book that you’d recommend to our legion, it could be from any genre, of course we’re going to put a link to—Connected Strategy on your show notes page as well.

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   That of course is the most important book, but personally, I love books by Neal Stephenson’s, all kind of novels great books.

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

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   Well, I think it is the kind of the skill to kind of communicate better with other people trying to really understand where people are coming from and really tailoring the way you communicate with other people that’s I think the skill I’m still learning but certainly I hope I’m a little bit better than I was when I was 25. 

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

Nicolaj Siggelkow:   Absolutely. You can just go to nikolajsiggelkow.com for my personal website or if you want to go to the book website that’s connected-strategyl.com. 

Jim Rembach:    Nikolaj Siggelkow, 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 a fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

END OF AUDIO 

Alan Stein Jr. | Raise Your Game

227: Alan Stein: I work hard to be coachable

Alan Stein Show Notes Page

Alan Stein Jr. spent most of his life with qualities that weren’t so endearing. But now he works hard on his self-awareness and clarity and to be coachable and open and to help others to raise their game.

Alan was born and raised in suburbs of Washington, DC. He is the son of two retired elementary school educators and has a younger brother that he works closely with.

Alan was incredibly active as a child and gravitated to any activity that involvement movement and expending energy – from conventional sports like soccer, basketball and football – to less conventional activities like martial arts, breakdancing and BMX biking. And while he enjoyed aspects of each, his true love has always been basketball. That was Alan’s first identifiable passion.

Alan was able to play basketball at Elon College (now Elon University) down in NC and began to develop an equal affinity for performance training, strength & conditioning and basketball-specific fitness. That led him to a 20-year career as a professional basketball performance coach where he was able to work with, work alongside and closely observe the best players and coaches in the game.

Always looking for a new challenge and constantly reinventing himself, two and half years ago Alan decided to make the pivot (pun very much intended) into corporate speaking. He is now a keynote speaker and author that teaches audiences how to utilize the same strategies in business that elite athletes use to perform at a world-class level.

Alan is also the author of Raise Your Game: High Performance Secrets from the Best of the Best. This book was written for leaders in sports and business takes a deep dive into the mindsets, rituals, routines, habits and disciplines required to reach peak performance, influence and significance.

Alan is a 43-year-old amicably divorced father of 9-year-old twins sons (Luke and Jack) and a 7-year-old daughter (Lyla). He still resides in the suburbs of DC but has and is fortunate enough to travel the world!

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @AlanSteinJr to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow – Click to Tweet

“The foundational principles of leadership, it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, they’re always going to be the same.” – Click to Tweet

“Sport can really teach some life lessons that are very difficult to teach.” – Click to Tweet

“What it takes to build a team is the same, regardless of what industry you’re in.” – Click to Tweet

“Most people think they are self-aware, but the vast majority are not.” – Click to Tweet

“Self-awareness is absolutely the foundation to which the rest of the house is built.” – Click to Tweet

“Coachability has to be a number-one mindset.” – Click to Tweet

“Almost every single dysfunction within a team is from selfishness or mis-communication.” – Click to Tweet

“Every interaction we have with a teammate is either going to strengthen our connection or erode it.” – Click to Tweet

“When you actively listen to someone, you send them the unconscious message that you care about them.” – Click to Tweet

“How we treat each other is going to have a huge impact on our children.” – Click to Tweet

“You need to connect first and coach second.” – Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Alan Stein, Jr. spent most of his life with qualities that weren’t so endearing. But now he works hard on his self-awareness and clarity and to be coachable and open and to help others to raise their game.

Advice for others

Be self-aware and be open to feedback.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Still trying to work through a few limiting beliefs.

Best Leadership Advice

It’s not about you, it’s about them.

Secret to Success

You need to connect first and coach second. Develop a love and care for the people that you lead and connect with them on a human level first.

Best tools in business or life

Emotional Intelligence

Recommended Reading

Raise Your Game: High-Performance Secrets from the Best of the Best

Leading with the Heart: Coach K’s Successful Strategies for Basketball, Business, and Life

Contacting Alan Stein

Website: https://alansteinjr.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlanSteinJr

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-stein-jr/

Resources and Show Mentions

Raise Your Game Show with Alan Stein, Jr.

Call Center Coach

An Even Better Place to Work

 

Show Transcript: 

Click to access edited transcript

Intro:     Welcome to the fast leader podcast, where we explore convenient yet effective shortcuts that will help you get ahead and move forward faster by becoming a better leader. And now here’s your host customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner Jim Rembach. 

Call center coach develops and unites the next generation of call center leaders. Through our eLearning and community individuals gain knowledge and skills in the six core competencies that is the blueprint that develops high performing call center leaders. Successful supervisors do not just happen, so go to callcentercoach.com to learn more about enrollment and download your copy of the Supervisor’s Success Path e-book now. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Okay Fast Leader legion, today I’m excited because we’re going to have somebody on the show today who really helps us bring some clarity to high  performance. Allen Stein Jr. was born and raised in the suburbs of Washington D.C. He is the son of two retired elementary school educators and has a younger brother that he works closely with. Allen was incredibly active as a child and gravitated to any activity that involved movement and expending energy from conventional sports like soccer, basketball, and football to less conventional activities like martial arts, breakdancing, and BMX biking. While he enjoyed aspects of each his true love has always been basketball that was Allen’s first identifiable passion. Allen was able to play basketball at Elon Collegenow Elon University down in North Carolina not too far from me, and began to develop an equal affinity for performance training, strength, and conditioning and basketball specific fitness. That led him to a 20-year career as a professional basketball performance coach where he was able to work with alongside and closely observe the best players and coaches in the game. 

 

Always looking for a new challenge and consistently reinventing himself two and a half years ago Alan decided to make the pivots pun very much intended as he says into corporate speaking. He is now a keynote speaker and author that teaches audiences how to utilize the same strategies in business that elite athletes used perform at a world-class level. Alan is also the author of Raise Your Game: High Performance Secrets from the Best of the Best. This book was written for leaders in sports and business and takes a deep dive into the mindsets, rituals, routines, habits and disciplines required to reach peak performance, influence, and significance. Alan is a forty three-year-old amicably divorced father of nine year old twin sons Luke and Jack and a seven year old daughter Leila. He still resides in the suburbs of D.C. but has and is fortunate enough to travel around the world. Alan Stein, are you ready to help us get over the hump? 

 

Alan Stein:     I’m always ready. Excited to be here my friend. 

 

Jim Rembach:    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? 

 

Alan Stein:     I’d say if we have to brush away all the cobwebs my true passion is just filling other people’s buckets. I very much consider myself a servant leader and take tremendous pride in serving others and trying to add value to their lives. Whether it’s through something like a conversation like this for a podcast or in person old or young in sport or in business it doesn’t matter. If I ever feel like I’m recharging somebody’s battery or fill in their bucket that brings me tremendous fulfillment. 

 

Jim Rembach:    It’s interesting that you say that because I kind of have that same need that same passion that same fulfillment that same desire and as I was reading through your book I started seeing a lot of that play out from different aspects talking about high performance. It’s having that commitment as an individual that whole self-piece then it comes to being able to connect with people who can help you do that so it’s not just giving that but it’s also being able to receive that and do it in community or as a collective and that’s kind of how you actually have broken out the book you talk about player, coach, and team. And you also mention in the book something about that transition into the business world and how very seamless and simple it is I see it because I’m involved with sport. I coach middle school baseball and  I see how that has to play out and I also see these little middle school boys who really just don’t know how to commit and play with one another treat each other with respect and I’m like, this is no different than the corporate world. 

 

Alan Stein:     So insightful with that point. That’s one of the things that helped make this transition somewhat seamless is how much transfer and crossover there is between what it takes to be successful in sport and what it takes to be successful in business or really in any area of life and that the foundational principles of leadership, of building trust, of effective communication, learning how to respect someone and hold them accountable those things, it really doesn’t matter what industry you’re in those principles are always going to be the same. That’s why I’m such a big advocate of youth sports and I’m so happy to hear that that you’re a coach because that’s ultimately one of the major benefits. The vast majority of the young people that play sports are not going to do so professionally when they’re older but sport can be such a tremendous vehicle and platform to teach these type of traits reinforce these characteristics and provide life lessons that quite honestly are hard to get anywhere else. I think I really started to get a much stronger appreciation for that when I became a father. My chief responsibilities outside of protecting my children and providing for them is hopefully modeling and giving them the tools that they need to grow up to be happy, well-adjusted, contributors to society. And I find that getting them involved in sports and activities and having them be coached is going to help them do that to a much greater degree than I could by myself and even a greater degree  to what teachers can do. I have a huge affinity and love for teachersbecause that’s what both of my parents did, but let’s be honest a math teacher is not going to be able to impact you in your life the exact same way as a baseball coach or a basketball coach so it’s important to be involved in as many of these things as possible for true development.

 

Jim Rembach:    Oh, wow, I never really thought about that whole classroom versus field issue and my responsibility just got a lot bigger I’m worried now.

 

Alan Stein:     And you know what’s funny is I know I positioned it that way I don’t want it to be versus but more of a supplement to each other as parents, as coaches, as teachers we should be concerned with working together to do what’s best for a young person’s development and there’s obviously glaring prose and strings to each of those different domains. But I’ve just found that sport can really teach some life lessons that are very difficult to teach as a teacher or even as a father. That’s why I encourage my kids to try as many different activities and as many different sports as they can. And that’s also the reason I think my message is fairly well received in the business world is people know that intuitively. They know that what it takes to build a team is going to be the same regardless of what industry you’re in or how old you are those principles they’re always going to be true.

 

Jim Rembach:    Without a doubt. One of the things about the sport area is that it’s experiential you’re practicing things you’re putting things into action. And a lot of times in a classroom that isn’t really happening you’re getting other insights and information that oftentimes really seems more difficult to apply. Also one of the things to me as we’re talking about this that really becomes crystal clear talking about translating into the business world is that—if we’re talking about serving customers if we don’t work together if we don’t have  that feeling of self in our contribution working collaboratively all of those things the customer experience gets affected as well.

 

Alan Stein:    Oh, absolutely. When you talk about the classroom, a classroom for the most part as much as you want collaboration and so forth it’s not really a team it’s 30 individuals that are trying to learn on their own and they get their own grades it’s not the same as a team if you and I are on a baseball team you’re counting on me you need me to do my part you need me to practice hard. In a classroom if the kids to my left doesn’t do his homework that doesn’t affect me but on a baseball team if the kids to my left isn’t going and doing batting practice that could affect me in fact it will affect me because they’re going to end up hurting our chance of being successful because they made the decision not to go the extra mile or to put in the extra work so I think that is one of the biggest differences. And again there’s pros to both, the self-reliance and the self-accountability of just being a solo student there’s great traits from that. But I think the team component is what makes team sports so special and then that’s what’s akin to business. As you said in business if you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do when you’re in the desk next to me you could potentially be taking lunch off of my plate. That’s where I just see so much harmony and alignment between team sport and business.

 

Jim Rembach:    These are all really good points. For mean for me I want to get into talking about your book, Raise Your Game because there are three things that stood out to me as I was going through this book and I mention again it’s in three parts, player, coach, and team. However, if you were to start to think about, real estate as far as a book is concerned, where is most of the content actually residing there’s three things that stood out to me one is self-awareness, that was a huge chunk, and then another chunk was going into the team part under communication and cohesion. So tell us a little bit about why those three take up more real estate in this book than the others. 

 

Alan Stein:    I’m a huge believer that self-awareness is the foundation to not just performance but to happiness, fulfillment, respectinfluence, success, significance, you fill in the blank but those things would be impossible to achieve if you’re not aware. I always find self-awareness rather comical because I find it very analogous to driving. Very few people admit that they’re a bad driver. You spend five minutes out on the road we know there’s plenty of bad drivers out there. There’s not very many people I think that would step forward and raise their hand and say, I’m not self-aware. I think most people think they are self-aware but it’s been my experience that a vast majority are not or at least are not as aware as they’re capable of.

 

The whole key with self-awareness is we have to know a starting point. We have to know where we are that’s one point and then we have to know where we’re going, it‘s no different than GPS. Right now if someone said, hey, Jim hey Allen how do you get to Chicago? Your answer is going to be different because you’re coming from Greensboro, North Carolina I’m coming from Gaithersburg, Maryland so we’re not starting from the same point. But you can’t give someone directions to where they want to go if you don’t know where they’re starting you have to have both points on the spectrum. There’s several different levels to self-awareness but self-awareness is crucial to knowing what you do well, what you love to do, what drives you and motivates you, what’s your learning style, what’s your personality style, how do you best feel appreciated knowing all that stuff. But then you also have to do the hard work and face what I would call the darker side which is what things scare you? What are your insecurities? What are your challenges? What are your blind spots? And of course by definition you may not know what your blind spots are but do you have the humility to acknowledge that you do have them that you don’t have all the answers in that you need help. And kind of putting all of those things together will give you an awareness of who you are as a person and then of course where you fit in with the organization. The example I use all of the time in basketball is a player that takes a bad shot  what a coach can live with that we can teach that but a player that takes a bad shot and doesn’t know it was a bad shot that’s the dangerous one because they’re going to continue to repeat that behavior and they don’t even know they did anything wrong in the first place so self-awareness is absolutely the foundation to which the rest of the house is built.

 

Jim Rembach:    Yeah, well there’s another part of that book in that particular section that I like too that you’ve addressed that’s coachability component. Because with the self-awareness you have to have the humility and be coachable and take that to try to make some changes. And if you’re not going to take the coaching how much are you going to actually have impact on the team. 

 

Alan Stein:    Very well said, that’s the number one trait that I would look for after self-awareness and someone that I was working with. Whether it’s a young person on your baseball team or a CEO or an executive of fortune 500 company is, are they coachable? Because in order to be coachable you have to blend in openness with  allowing yourself to be vulnerable but as we just said having the humility to acknowledge that you don’t have all the answers. That’s one of the things that’s been cool about being around some of these high performers whether it’s Kobe Bryant or LeBron James or Stephen Curry or Kevin Durant, these guys are already in the upper 0.01% of the human population at their specific craft and yet they’re all very open to being coached in fact they crave it they beg to have someone in their life that can help them get just a little bit better. 

 

Now when you’ve achieved the level of expertise and mastery that they have there’s not very many people that can coach you because there’s not very many people that can add to what you need to do because you’re already so accomplished and that’s why they crave those people even more. But, yeah, coach-ability has to be a number one mindset. That also parlays a lot into Carol Dweck who wrote the book Mindset the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. To be coachable you have to have a growth mindset and believe that improvement is still not only possible but will result in all of the work that you put in.

 

Jim Rembach:    Most definitely. Okay, okay so then going into the team side we talked about a lot of the real estate as I called it in the book being reserved for communication and then cohesion so why those two? 

 

Alan Stein:    It’s my belief that I would say almost every single dysfunction within a team is from one or two things it’s either from selfishness or it’s from communication or usually lack of communication or miscommunication at least within a couple degrees of that. Communication is vital and there’s a few things that’s so important to realize in a team atmosphere. One you’re always communicating something. Even when you don’t think you’re communicating you’re absolutely communicating something to your teammates or those that you lead. The obvious is the non-verbals which everyone talks about. Body language, eye contact, facial expressions, tonality but I’m talking more about the unconscious message that we send in all of our behavior. A great example, this happens all the time especially in the corporate world,  would be if you and I are working on a team together and we’re working on a project and I delegate an important task to you the unconscious message is I believe in you I trust you I know that you’re competent enough to do this well that’s the reason I’m asking you to do it and that unconscious message is a glue that will strengthen our connection. Conversely, and this happens just as often, if I micromanage you. I give you a task but then I either literally or figuratively stand over your shoulder and breathe down your neck while you try to complete it well. Now I’m sending a completely different unconscious message I’m basically saying Jim I don’t trust you I don’t believe in you in fact I think you’re such a moron there’s no way you’ll get this done if I’m not standing over you and that’s going to erode our connection and ultimately every interaction we have with a teammate is either going to strengthen our connection or erode it. And we have to be very intentional about making sure that we are as I said in the beginning filling buckets and making deposits and strengthening every connection.

 

So of course, more times than not if I was micromanaging you I would have noble intent  I’m probably very particular that this thing gets done to a certain level I’ve worked really hard to develop the skill sets to perform at a high level and I want to make sure that it gets done to that quality. But the problem is that’s not the message that you internally receive you look at it as, Alan doesn’t trust me he doesn’t believe in me and that will start to pull the yarn out or the thread out of our relationship and then ultimately will start to evaporate our team cohesion so that’s a big portion of it. And another big part of communication is the listening. I’m a professional speaker I get paid to talk but I know that the real gold is in the listening and that’s where you can really form strong connections. Same thing aunderlying message, right now you’re doing a brilliant job of actively listening to me as I continue to talk. Whether you’re listening to me or it’s your listeners are listening to us when you actively listen to someone you send them the unconscious message that you care about them that have to say is important that you value what it is that they’re saying. Once again that is a glue that will strengthen any connection. If you’re talking to someone—if you and I are out to lunch and I’m talking to you and you keep looking down at your phone and you keep looking out the window and just kind of obligatory nodding your head I know that you’re not really listening to me and then unconsciously you’re telling me that I’m not important and that you don’t value me. And if that’s done repeatedly over time that will erode our connection and if that’s done in mass consistently it will start to dissolve any type of team cohesion and culture. So communication is absolutely vital and is pivotal to the greater picture of cohesion.

Jim Rembach:    As you’re talking I started thinking about one of the practices that I’ve tried to do more and more of is to be able to convey what my intent is. Because I want to remove the potential doubt and the assumptions that people will make in regards to my actions as far as some of the things that you’re talking about. So hey, if I am very particular and I this is very important to me and I and I will be able to look over your shoulder a lot more than I would this is why and being able to convey that. I think once you get past that eerie gray of perception you’re much better off and you can actually create better connections. I think people are going to be more attentive when you say how it is important what your intent is. You also open yourself up for feedback to say, I know this is what your intent is, however, this is what I’m perceiving. 

 

Alan Stein:    Absolutely, and that comes back to communication. In that instance you would be effectively communicating your intent and doing your best to dissolve any type of assumptions or preconceived notions or judgments and be able to explain that. That also parlays into that would show your ability to welcome feedback and to be coachable where you could say to me in this instance, Alan let me apologize in advance if it seems like I’m micromanaging you but I need to make sure this is done right please know that I’d really do trust you and believe in you or I wouldn’t have asked you to do this I know you’re competent but I’m going to keep an eye on you. However, if you feel like I’m stepping on your toes a little bit don’t be afraid to push back don’t be afraid to tell me that and give me that feedback. That type of dialogue is incredibly productive. And ultimately what that would tell me unconsciously well, Jim does care about me he’s cares so much that he’s already looking forward and seeing that this could potentially create an issue and he’s heading that off at the pass and that he’s open for me to share my honest feelings with him that will completely  again close that gap of connection between us, very well said. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Without a doubt. Everything that we’re talking about here is just loaded with emotion. And one of the things that we look to on the show are quotes to help guide us in the right direction and give us some inspiration. Is there a quote that you can share? Can you share one or two with us? 

 

Alan Stein:    I can share a few because as a father of three it’s very similar if you ask me which of my children I love the most you know I’m going to have to say all three because that’s the only politically correct answer and it happens to be true. Same thing with quotes, one of the things with quotes—I started writing down quotes when I was in middle school back on an old school yellow legal pad with pen and paper and then of course graduated to a Microsoft Word document and now I just have thousands of quotes because I really love language. There’s several that I love, one is and this one’s a little bit longer and I’ve got a shorter version, if you keep doing what you’ve been doing you’ll keep getting what you’ve been getting. If you don’t like what you’ve been getting you need to change what you’ve been doing. And I like that certainly it’s got a nice rhythm and flow to it but it also reeks of common sense which is if you want to get a different result then you need to have different behavior. I just like the way that it brings that up because most people continue to do the same thing over and over in their life and then they’re shocked when things don’t get better when their performance doesn’t improve. It’s like well, you’re just doing the same stuff you’ve been doing why would your performance magically improve? A shorter version of that is, if nothing changes nothing changes, so you have to be willing to make that change. I like those two. I also like, if you’re willing to do what others won’t do then you’ll have what others won’t have. When I was younger that always seemed to mean something monetarily or superficial like if you do things that others won’t do you’ll make a lot of money and have some toys that they won’t have. But now that I’m older and hopefully a little wiser I realize it’s the same thing with happiness and fulfillment. If you’re willing to make certain sacrifices and do certain things that most people aren’t willing to do then you’ll have a level of happiness and fulfillment that most people don’t achieve. So those are just a couple off the top of my head but we could do a whole podcast just on quotes Oh without a doubt so I know that we start talking about all of these quotes.

 

Jim Rembach:    Without a doubt. I know that when you start talking about all of these quotes and all this inspiration and all of that and  going through your book and looking at the things associated with  being self-aware, humility, all of these things that you had to have some humps to get over in order to get you to this point of knowledge and wisdom gain. Is there a time where you’ve gotten over the hump that you can share?

 

Alan Stein:    Yeah, the most obvious one was—and I know you had read it in my intro and I used language very specifically and intentionally. You mentioned that I’m amicably divorced and you don’t often hear those two words in the same sentence at least that’s been my experience and the reason I lead with that is I’m very proud of the fact that even though my marriage didn’t work out that my ex-wife and I are very amicable and respects to love each other and we make excellent co-parents to our children. We both realize that how we treat each other is going to have a huge influence and impact our children and that we owe it to them to do that in the most civil and respectable and loving way possible. So, when I was going through the divorce I actually decided to go ahead and get some counseling or some therapy or whatever word someone wants to use and that was incredibly helpful and very enlightening. In fact, when I look back on myself I would like to believe that I’ve always had a good heart as you mentioned I’ve had good intentions I think that I was a good guy, but boy, I had a lot of roadblocks and I had a lot of baggage I wasn’t near as self-aware as I am today same thing I lacked some humility before and in therapy certainly helps course correct that. Going through some therapy and having somebody kind of unpack these things and guide me has absolutely made me a better man which has allowed me to be a better father a better business person a better speaker. This happened five six years ago. I’ve spent the vast majority of my life with some of those qualities that weren’t quite as endearing and it’s really neat now that she, the therapist, really helped me get over that hump and it was a very enlightening feeling and I’m so thankful. It’s also these things are not anything that you ever arrived at. I still do the work today, the internal work, to sharpen my sword and master my craft and get better at these different areas. I still work on my own self-awareness and clarity on a daily basis and those things will even flow and  I work hard to be coachable and open and every once in a while I’ll find there’s times where I’m not and I’m a little resistant but I have now the tools where I can take a step back and take a breath and go, okay, Alan in that specific instance you were not very open to that other person’s idea alright we got to do better at that. So very, very thankful to have gotten over at least that hump and I’m sure I’ve got several more to get over for the rest of my life.

 

Jim Rembach:    Well, I think you bring up some really good points and all of that. First of all with focus and effort and support and help that we can do things differently and get the outcomes that we desire but we have to actually do those things. There’s several things that I’m thinking about too from an organizational perspective that are critically important because we know that executing getting things done is really one of the major roadblocks for organizations and even when you start talking about the customer experience, employee experience, and being able to deliver something that is exceptional is they struggle. They struggle to be able to do all of these things from an individual perspective, from a team perspective, in order to be able to have the desired outcome. When you’re talking about working with organizations that are trying to be able to deliver and differentiate, where are you finding some of their big roadblocks

 

Alan Stein:    A couple things one, I encourage that regardless of what industry somebody’s in that they work to make their relationships and their culture their major separator. Because we can copy technology I mean to a degree we can copy systems and processes we can copy designs and layouts we can copy prices very difficult to copy people it’s very difficult to copy relationships and it’s very difficult to copy culture. So, I love the way that you and I started this conversation talking about relationships and talking about creating connection and so forth. I really encourage folks to make that their secret sauce and to pour into that because it’ll pay them back heavily on the other end. As far as some of the roadblocks, it’s not really a one-size-fits-all I mean every organizations going to be slightly different with the things that kind of get in their way but one trend that I’ve noticed you need to practice the way that you want to play and this is another one that we can pull straight out of the playbook. 

 

I would imagine on some level, and I know it varies depending on the age of the kid that you’re working with, but I would imagine with the baseball practices that you hold. A good portion of those you’re doing things that are working on skills exactly as they’ll be needed when they play in the game. Certainly there’s ways to modify certain things but I would imagine that you have different dribbles and different activities and different things that you do that try to closely simulate what the kids will see when the actual game starts. I know for the basketball programs I’ve worked with that’s a big portion of it too. Yes, they would have a  fundamentals portion where they’re working on skill work but then they would do different situations in different scenarios and small-sided scrimmages and different time and score they would try to mimic the game as much as possible and that’s what businesses need to do. They need to figure out what’s the outcome that they’re looking to get and then how can they best simulate that in their training or in their practice. 

 

perfect example would be with sales, any type of sales professional. It may sound a little cliché and corny but are they doing any type of role playing? If you and I are both sales professionals and we have to sell  widgets for our company you and I should have 30 minutes a week that we’re going back and forth and this time you pretend you’re the customer and I want you to come up with some objections and I’ll be the sales person and then we’ll flip it and we’ll do something where I’ll be the customer and you’ll be the sales professional and let’s go through as many of these scenarios as possible. That way when you actually get to a big sales meeting or you have a proposal you’re not hearing these objections for the first time you’ve prepared for them. The same way that I would prepare to be a guest on your podcast or the way that I would prepare to deliver a keynote there has to be a preparation component. Sometimes I think folks fail to close the gap between what they need to do in preparation and what’s going to actually be recalled when it’s game time. 

 

Jim Rembach:    I think those are really important points and that applies to just about every single customer facing job that I come across. If you’re waiting to figure it out until you’re get in it you’re in trouble. 

 

Alan Stein:    And think too it doesn’t mean we can come up with every scenario. Let’s just say you and I we’re sales professionals were teammates we’re each working on our own commission however we want to work together because we still want the business to do well. That’s very similar to a team where two players are fighting for playing time but they’re wearing the same Jersey. But let’s just say we do this role playing, I have a customer come in and they throw me a curve ball that I’ve never seen before. I’ve never heard objection and I haven’t practiced this specifically but there’s two things to take from that. One, if we’ve practiced other things I can probably bridge the gap between some of the other scenarios and find ways to apply that to this. It doesn’t mean that I have to have been asked that very specific question but just the routine of practicing and going through role playing will better prepare me for that. But then whether I answer it well or I swing and I miss and I strikeout, to use some of your vernacular, then the key would be to go back to the team afterwards. And say, Jim, man that was a rough call. I just had I can’t believe it the client the client asked me this and I had no idea what to answer, what do you think? What would you have said if they asked you this? Can we brainstorm this together and now I’ve got that one logged so that if someone ever asks that one again I’ll be fully prepared. And that’s ultimately what experiences is, experience is accumulation of all of these different things that we’re doing. That’s why more times than not outside of, just say, likeability and raw charisma a veteran sales professional is probably going to do better than a new sales professional because they’ve seen so many other scenarios they’ve gotten in a lot more reps when it comes to selling. That would be something that I would highly encourage is we can have a sales meeting for 30 minutes a week where we do some role-playing and then we all bring up some of the successes and challenges that we’ve had in recent calls. Because if I’m a good teammate I’m also going to say, Jim, you’re not going to believe it the customer asked me this question and this was the answer I gave them and it blew their socks off they started just throwing money at me. So I just wanted to share that with you in case someone ever asks you the same question that you’d be able to do the same thing for them. 

 

Jim Rembach:    We learn best in community. Thank you for actually putting together this body of work and we hope you and raise your game gets the very best that it deserves. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor.

 

An even better place to work is an easy-to-use solution that gives you a continuous diagnostic on employee engagement along with integrated activities that will improve employee engagement and leadership skills in everyone. Using this award winning solutions guaranteed to create motivated, productive and loyal employees who have great work relationships with their colleagues and your customers. To learn more about an even better place to work visit beyondmorale.com/better. 

 

Okay, Fast Leader legion, it’s time for the Hump day Hoedown. Okay Alan, 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. Alan Stein, are you ready to hoedown?

 

Alan Stein:    I am ready to rock and roll

 

Jim Rembach:    Alright. What do you think is holding you back as a better leader today?

 

Alan Stein:    I still have a few limiting beliefs that I’m trying to work through. I’ll hear something at face value and sometimes dismiss it is something that I can’t do. I’m working now to be able to break through and have a limitless type belief.

 

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

 

Alan Stein:    It’s not about you it’s about them. And that needs to be the lens at which you look through everything. As a leader it’s not about you it’s about them.

 

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

 

Alan Stein:    I was taught at a very young age that you need to connect first and coach second. Develop a care and a love for the people that you lead and connect with them on a human level first and then you can work on leading them and coaching them, you can’t do it if you reverse the two.

 

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

 

Alan Stein:    Emotional intelligence without question.

 

Jim Rembach:    What would be one book that you’d recommend to our Legion, it could be from any genre, of course we’re going to put a link to Raise Your Game on your show notes page as well.

 

Alan Stein:    The first book that absolutely had a monumental impact on me was Leading with the Heart by Coach K, the head coach of Duke men’s basketball

 

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

 

Alan Stein:    I would take back self-awareness because at 25 I was severely lacking it. I only had a very narrow view of myself and the good and the bad so absolutely I’d go back with that self-awareness. If the 25 year old Alan would have been open to listening to that advice I think he could have could have sidestepped a lot of heartache and landmines and challenges.

 

Jim Rembach:    Alan, 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? 

 

Alan Stein:     Absolutely, pleasure was very mutual I enjoyed this conversation you asked some wonderful questions I had a lot of fun. If they’re interested in the book they can go to, raiseyourgamebook.com. If they’re interested in my speaking or anything else I do they can go to alansteinjr.com and I’m @AlanSteinjr on LinkedIn and Instagram and all of the major social handles and I love engaging with people on social. If anyone was listening to this if something resonated you want to drop me a line I would love to start some dialogue.

 

Jim Rembach:    Alan Stein Jr., 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 a fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

 

END OF AUDIO

 

 

Jennifer Moss - Unlocking Happiness at Work: How a Data-driven Happiness Strategy Fuels Purpose, Passion and Performance

170: Jennifer Moss: It’s been a driver of my happiness

Jennifer Moss Show Notes Page

Jennifer Moss had two young kids when she founded her company and then her husband became almost fatally ill. They thought he would never walk again, but after a six-week recovery where he focused on gratitude, they realized they found a new passion that changed their narrative.

Jennifer was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba but moved quite a bit when she was young. She lived all around Ontario including Waterloo, then Ancaster. In University, she went to Ottawa then London. After University, she lived in Toronto then San Jose, California but now she is back in Waterloo, Ontario along with her husband Jim and three kids Wyatt, Olivia, and Lyla. She will always miss the weather in California but is happy to be back home close to family in Canada.

Jennifer was raised by two awesome parents. She has a wonderful brother and sister who are almost a decade older than her. Jennifer jokes that she was a bit of a surprise. The family is very close, often gathering for Sunday dinners. Her parents nannied all three kids – even living with Jennifer in California so her kids would be exposed to a multi-generational household. She speaks to her parents every day still and they are often over at the house.

Jennifer’s parents were hugely impactful on her career. Her dad, Douglas had a great “rising star” story. He started his career sweeping up the banks and then went on be a Regional Vice President. Jennifer loved his brand of work ethic. It taught her about paying your dues, being grateful for the work, and that no job is beneath you. Jennifer is proud to get her hands dirty all the time in her company.

Her mom Sally, gave Jennifer her entrepreneurial spirit. She became one of a small group of nurse practitioners – hand selected by one of the most recognized medical institutions in the world. Sally would later leave nursing and start up a retail business as she always loved to sew and it became a passion-project-turned-business later in life. Sally would go on to be a manufacturer, run a team of seamstresses, own three retail stores and grow her efforts into a million-dollar business.

Jennifer’s career has been a “slow and steady wins the race” story. She studied communications in University and today she’s the Chief Communications Officer at Plasticity Labs. She started in communications in television, went on to film (loved it!), then stayed in communications in HR/big corporate/tech in Silicon Valley. This is where Jennifer believed she experienced the greatest amount of learning and developed a passion for purpose-driven work. It was during this time in her career that she received an award of Service from President Obama and attended his inauguration. It taught her that she wanted to make more of a social impact. Ironically, she moved back to Canada and then went on to lead the PR and Social Media team at an agency, a job she ended up hating because it was the opposite of purpose-driven. But, as the sole income earner at the time Jennifer stuck it out. It would end up being an important tool in her work building empathy in leadership and would teach her how to coach managers “what not to do” in their roles.

Jennifer is the author of Unlocking Happiness at Work: How a Data-driven Happiness Strategy Fuels Purpose, Passion and Performance and feels the most fulfilled and passionate she has ever been in any job and she plans to keep this one for good. They are on a mission at Plasticity Labs to give 1 billion people the tools to live a happier, healthier, higher-performing life. They are working on that goal right now.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @JenLeighMoss to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet

“One of the most important economic shifts we’re seeing right now is a desire to change the workplace.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet

“We’re going to see a lot of big organizations start to fail at recruiting and retaining people.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

“If we invest in well-being and happiness, it translates into high performance in every job.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

“We’ve been measuring for so long this antiquated metric of engagement.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

“When you look at purpose-driven jobs, engagement is high.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

“We’re not catching things like compassion fatigue, empathy fatigue, depletion, stress, anxiety and that’s killing our workforce.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

“We can look at how well-being and healthiness and happiness contribute to goals.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

“As humans we tend to over-complicate solutions.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

“We’re not doing a good job of understanding that it’s about individual experiences at work.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

“Every single organization has a different culture than another.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

“What is the secret sauce for organizations that drives and motivates people?” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

“In a lot of organizations, trust and communication is one of the biggest happiness detractors.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

“We have a fairly disengaged global workforce.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

“You can’t ask someone to meet certain expectations if you’re not going to give them the tools to meet them.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

“When you look at the key traits to being happy, mastery is a very important part of that.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

“Life is a bit of triage and priority setting.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

“You can have anything, not everything.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

“It’s our flexibility and resilience that’s going to make us have the most successful lives.” -Jennifer Moss Click to Tweet 

Hump to Get Over

Jennifer Moss had two young kids when she founded her company and then her husband became almost fatally ill. They thought he would never walk again, but after a six-week recovery where he focused on gratitude, they realized they found a new passion that changed their narrative.

Advice for others

Be patient that it will all work out.

Holding her back from being an even better leader

I get distracted by all the things I want to do.

Best Leadership Advice

Practice the Golden Rule.

Secret to Success

Intuition. I have a good gut and anytime I don’t follow it I get into trouble.

Best tools that helps in Business or Life

My Outlook Calendar.

Recommended Reading

Unlocking Happiness at Work: How a Data-driven Happiness Strategy Fuels Purpose, Passion and Performance

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Contacting Jennifer Moss

Email: jen [at] plasticitylabs.com

website: https://plasticitylabs.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JenLeighMoss

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenleighmoss/

Resources and Show Mentions

Call Center Coach

Empathy Mapping

54 Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Competencies List: Emotional Intelligence has proven to be the right kind of intelligence to have if you want to move onward and upward faster. Get your free list today.

 

Show Transcript: 

Click to access edited transcript

170:  Jennifer Moss It’s been a driver of my happiness

 

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.

The number one thing that contributes to customer loyalty is emotions. So move onward and upward faster by gaining significantly deeper insight and understanding of your customer journey and personas with emotional intelligence. With your empathy mapping workshop you’ll learn how to evoke and influence the right customer emotions that generate improve customer loyalty and reduce your cost to operate. Get over your emotional hump now by going to empathymapping.com to learn more. 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, Fast Leader legion today I’m excited because I have somebody on the show today who’s going to going to finally help us turn what is perceived as intangible into the tangible. Jennifer Moss was born and Winnipeg, Manitoba but moved quite a bit when she was young. She lived all around Ontario including Waterloo and then Ancaster. In University she went to Ottawa and then London. After University she lived in Toronto and then San Jose California but now she’s back in Waterloo, Ontario along with her husband Jim and three kids Wyatt, Olivia and Layla. 

 

Jennifer was raised by two awesome parents. She has a wonderful brother and sister who are almost a decade older than her. Jennifer jokes that she was a bit of a surprise. The family is very close often gathering for Sunday dinners and her parents nannied all three kids even living with Jennifer in California so her kids would be exposed to a multi-generational household. Jennifer’s parents were hugely impactful in her career. Her dad Douglas taught her about paying your dues, being grateful for the work and that no job is beneath you. Her mom Sally gave Jennifer her entrepreneurial spirit she became one of a small group of nurse practitioners hand selected by one of the most recognized medical institutions in the world. Sally would later relieve nursing and start up a retail business as she always loved to sew and it became a passion project that she turned into a million dollar business. 

 

Jennifer’s career has been a “slow and steady wins the race” story. She studied communications at university and today she’s the chief communications officer at Plasticity Labs. She started in communications in television went to film and then stayed in communications in HR in Silicon Valley. This is where Jennifer believes she experience the greatest amount of learning and developed a passion for purpose-driven work. It was during this time in her career that she received an award of service from President Obama and attended his inauguration. It taught her that she wanted to make more of a social impact. Ironically she moved back to Canada and then went on to lead the PR and social media team at an agency a job she ended up hating because it was the opposite of purpose-driven but as the sole income earner at the time Jennifer’s stuck it out. It would end up being an important tool in her work building empathy in at leadership and would teach her how to coach managers what not to do in their roles. Right now Jennifer feels the most fulfilled and passionate she has ever been in any job and she plans to keep this one for good. They are on a mission at Plasticity Labs to give one billion people the tools to live a happier, healthier, and higher performing life and they are working on that goal right now. Jennifer Moss, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

 

Jennifer Moss:   I am ready.

 

Jim Rembach:   I’m glad you’re here. I love the conversation that we had prior to interviewing I hope we can actually replicate some of that because people need to hear some of the things that we were talking about. I’ve given our Legion a little bit about you but can you share what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better.

 

Jennifer Moss:   My current passion is trying to convince global leaders and my government in Canada specifically to invest in a happiness ministry. I want us to have a minister of happiness just like they have in the United Arab Emirates.

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, so now, as much as—like I introduced you and talk about the intangible what are you talking about? Why in the heck would anybody be interested in having a minister of happiness?

 

Jennifer Moss:   That is a great question. I’m writing a blog right now and the question I included that is why the heck would we want a minister of happiness when we have all these other big problems to solve right now? And there are low hanging fruit that we should be dealing with those things. But one of the most important economic shifts that we’re seeing right now is a desire to change in the workplace and that’s being driven by our biggest work force and our youngest work force who are leaving jobs because they’re unhappy they don’t have the same stuff that we used to have in my mature generation where people at their age aren’t buying homes anymore they aren’t buying vehicles they don’t have to same golden handcuffs so, they will move out of a job if they are feeling a lack of well-being or happiness. 

 

When you look at the workplace and how important that is to create policies and programming and support for these young people who want to find happiness in their rules and they aren’t tied down to you and tied down to a work that has any sort of ownership problem we need to make commitments to that or else we’re going to see a lot of big organizations big corporations, government any sort of industry start to fail at recruiting and retaining those people.

 

Jim Rembach:   Well, one of the things that we also talked about that goes—okay, the whole attracting and retaining is one aspect of a work but we also had talked a little bit about  what is intangible or perceived as intangible from a performance management perspective. You shared a particular story and that to me I was like—I knew from an evidence perspective of this case that is out there I think we need to share.

 

Jennifer Moss:   I love the story and I included it in the book. It’s the story of Ruby receptionists. They are based out of or again they are—part of this news are gig economy where you can work from anywhere and you can be a receptionist for any company around the world. Some of these receptionist will manage ten different companies and as you know receptionist is your first line of defense the person that makes your first impressions. What they wanted to understand was how effective are they in their jobs and how can they make sure that they assimilate into the culture even just how can they improve on their typing skills. And so when the CEO decided to look into gratitude and understand that gratitude actually as an intervention will improve performance there’s lots of really great data and science already out there on she (6:34) to spend the next twenty-one days practicing gratitude and then doing their own hack around tracking the data of their performance. And so what they did was they saw after 21 days of practicing gratitude that they were able to reduce errors in their typing by 20-30 % that alone actually saved them $250, 000 dollars a year but it just improved their client relationships it changed the dynamic of their workforce and one of the most prosperous companies and rapidly growing companies now in this space. So, that’s a micro example I think of a broader theme around how we can start to look at these intangibles, as you say, interventions around well-being and happiness this very lofty concept. But if we invest in well-being if we invest in happiness how it translates into higher performance across every job every industry every individual.

 

Jim Rembach:   That might be a micro case but it has macro impacts.

 

Jennifer Moss:   Absolutely, yes. 

 

Jim Rembach:   When you start taking—okay, so now I have especially for them as a company I have multiple, I have many receptionist sort of thing about an organization as I have a lot of knowledge workers and I have a lot of contact center agents, you start multiplying these things. It also isn’t just a one-time benefit talking about the analytics and the impact is that it’s year-over-year reoccurring.

 

Jennifer Moss:   Absolutely. We see this across support we work in education, we work in public health we’re able to map patient healing and patient care to happier doctors and nurses to better more well staff it actually reduces the amount of time a patient will be on the drugs after they leave their pain medications after they leave the hospital. We are looking for example, in education we’ve been measuring for so long this sort of antiquated metric of engagement. But when you look at purpose-driven jobs like teachers and doctors engagements are high we show up in our jobs we are there because we care. And yet what happens is we’re not catching things like compassion fatigue, empathy fatigue, depletion, stress, anxiety and that’s killing our workforce that’s killing people individuals like literally actually hurting them and causing death. So, we have to understand that if we can improve those measures by better nuanced, better understanding or through data gathering then we might be able to solve some of these problems by intervening much earlier than we are right now. 

 

Jim Rembach:   You bring up a really interesting point about some of the metrics that we’re leveraging and prior to us actually recording is that—I talked about one of the things that I like to say is that when people come to me or they make some type of comment about particular metrics and they talk about certain performance like—well, that’s an intangible. For me I always have to come back and say—the reason it’s an intangible is because you don’t know how to measure it.

 

Jennifer Moss:   Right, exactly. I mentioned with that last case study you can figure out any way to measure anything really. We have the capacity to look at what we care about? What are our goals? For some a non-profit it might be getting more donors for staff inside of an education environment it might be better academic outcomes for students, we have ways to measure this and we can look at how well-being and healthiness and Happiness contribute to those goals. It’s simpler than we think we tend to try to as humans over complicate the solutions and yet we can easily fix these issues. Even just going back to kind of grandma’s rules around kindness and the Golden Rule and all these things that we’re supposed to be working on as just part of who we are. But as we’ve shifted away from some of these parts of our life that encouraged way of behaving it’s getting further and further away from us behaving that way. As we bring those in we can show that it actually increases people’s performance and tie it to the economic benefits because we are in a capitalist society we can prove that then those grammar rules kind of kind of get to come back in a way that’s supported by corporate and by government and all those other people that care about the bottom line. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, so as you were talking I started thinking about some of the underlying metrics associated with some of these performance metrics because when you start thinking about the ones that are oftentimes referred to as KPIs, key performance indicators, all of that and what an organization is actually tracking, maybe a department level or a team level of course it goes all the way up into the corporate levels if you start getting the shareholder wealth and value of your publicly traded there’s all kinds of different metrics. But there’s underlying metrics that often are the ones that you should be using from your management perspective because they’re going to drive many of those numbers that are often being tracked at a higher level. So, if you start thinking about some of those micro types of or underlying metrics, what are some of the ones that you see people now looking at that they didn’t looked at before?

 

Jennifer Moss:   Well, we get pretty deep into traits like their site cap and as part as positive psychology and psychological capital and they’re called hero traits but their hope efficacy, resilience, optimism, gratitude, empathy, mindfulness, predicted job satisfaction is important because it actually shows—do you feel like you’re going to come out of whole compression workloads that’s a problem. When you look at accountants they have these seasons that are really tough but they know that they’re going to step to the light at the end of the tunnel so predicted for job satisfaction we combine all that with what MPS, that promoter scores and some of those other scores and bundle it all together and understand what are the culture drivers? That’s like hygiene, trust communication this kind of table stakes inside of organizations when you meld all that together and look at things like hope for example when we see the hygiene of a company their trust and communication dive hope is the first thing to fall off. But if you don’t have hope what happens is you start to see that you might be able to effect change but if you don’t believe in the collective opportunity for change that reduces your hope or your feeling of efficacy so, all of these things tied together into this in creating really small data that is what helps us to analyze if you are in a good place plus it’s also time of measurement so we look at things every 90 days. 

 

then we look at day to day measurement of mood so you can be like we sometimes refer to it as that volatility factor, like in the stock market when people bump in and out of about their volatility range, inside of organizations they have this same thing. We might ask someone on an engagement survey on the day that they didn’t sleep the night before and we asked them to report on their engagement survey they’re going to give you miserable results. But if we ask people every 90 days and sort of getting check points with them we can see how the ebb and flow of everyday life and the nuances of experiences inside of the workplace factored in to that volatility. One of the things that is important to note is we also really want to focus on qualitative feedback. Sometime when I go into a team of 40 and there’s a manager and all I keep hearing about is how bad the coffee sucks inside of their break room sometimes—all it is just saying I hear you. You believe that the coffee sucks and the microwave doesn’t work so I’m going to go and fix that you’re amazed at how much happiness improves inside of these teams. We’re not doing a good job of understanding that it’s about individual experiences the whole being that comes to work and not these giant programmatic sweeping changes that actually feel like they fall on deaf ears.

 

Jim Rembach:   I think you bring up some really good points. For me going from that putting my analytics hat on you’re continually trying to track and understand the independent variables and how they’re driving the dependent variable which is at MPs or whatever it may be that you’re looking and trying to drive. So I would dare to say an organization also has to give you, as well as themselves, the opportunity to do some testing to find out what independent variables are actually going to impact what they’re trying to drive. 

 

Jennifer Moss:   That is an excellent point. What we found is that every single organization has a different culture than another. We work with Lululemon and then Banks and startups are very different than these giant global organizations, teachers and then doctors, these are all very different groups of people. And then when you also look inside those organizations what’s the difference between a developer and programmer or an IT engineer versus a salesperson it’s so nuance so we have to understand what is the secret sauce of that organization that drives and motivates those people inside that organization? Blend that with what the stakeholders and the shareholders and the CEO wants to drive towards. 

 

We also understand that if we can put that sort of leadership thinking mixed in with how people are actually driven and then figure out where the gaps are where it’s not meeting those people tie all that together in a bowl and be able to say, okay we know we can’t fix everything the Rome isn’t built in a day, but why don’t we target one thing that we see you’re doing well and then also combat one thing that is going wrong. And seeing that there’s nuances inside of cultures that corporations themselves have their own special culture—Lulu is a great example and that they hire a lot of athletes because athletes are very drawn to their brand. And so you’ve got a certain personality trait there and that they are already doing the work around their own psychological fitness. They’re doing yoga they’re doing meditation they are attracted to their brand and so you’ve got really high performing people that are heading towards them and so their culture has this capacity to attract really exciting young high-performing people. Whereas, you might not see that in an industry that isn’t as alluring or as exciting so there’s different problems there and different issues that you have to solve.

 

Jim Rembach:   I think I also want to go back there’s something that you’ve mentioned that might need to clarify a little bit because unless you’re in it you may not interpret it properly. You said, hygiene, the organizational hygiene. Now, we’re not talking about brushing their teeth and bathing themselves, what are we really talking about?

 

Jennifer Moss:   I use hygiene actually quite a bit—Shawn Achor he wrote the foreword for my book he’s written a couple other books he’s just a fantastic writer, researcher, he came up with the concept of happiness hygiene and it’s this idea of sort of the plasticity piece—practicing every day the ritual of improving your own health. Well, organizations have a hygiene too and you’re right it isn’t  brushing your teeth but it is just the table steak stuff where you come to work and you expect a certain level of—commensurate pay you expect to have a desk you expect to have certain things laid out for you. We consider these culture drivers as the hygiene of the organization that needs to be strong or else you won’t have a high-performing happy, healthy, company and that’s the trust and the communication piece and that sort of accountability space where that really does fall through. Unfortunately, in a lot of organizations that trust and communication piece is one of the biggest unhappiness or happiness detractors inside of organizations because they can’t get that right. Part of that is just scale, part of that is that you’re growing too fast, part of that is that we all have different ways that we want to communicate and just in general we have a fairly disengaged global workforce. There’s people there that are actually pulling those happy people away from being happy.

 

Jim Rembach:   As you’re saying that I started thinking about the independent variables that are going to drive the performance that you want, the hygiene is going to be different too. For example, especially when you start talking about—and it isn’t even a generational thing anymore—but you’re asking me to do a particular job and you’re not giving me the tools. You know you want me to do something technical and I’m working off on IBM AH400 green screen—hello!! That’s not a good hygiene. 

 

Jennifer Moss:   That is a great example. Again I’m going to steal this from you, you had so many today which is great but that is exactly –yeah, you can’t ask someone to meet certain expectations if you weren’t going to give them the tools to meet them. We need to get better at that. We need to understand that it’s frustrating when you have—technology is a great example because when it’s not working right for people it is extremely frustrating and you start to feel like you aren’t mastering your skills and mastery actually as it relates to happiness. When you look at PERMA and positive psychology, when you look at the key traits to being happy mastery is a very important part of that. When you look at PERMA which is purpose, engagement, relationship, meaning and accomplishment you look at what that means, if you don’t have the tools to be effective you are losing basically these five pillars of what makes you happy in your life and work. Organizations have to get really clear on how to make people feel more effective by providing them the tools. 

 

Jim Rembach:   I think you bring up a great point. I was just talking to a friend of mine who’s been with the same organization for over 20 years and he just started a brand new role which is very different from what he was used to doing. And he said, I just feel so overwhelmed I have so many things I need to learn. And so for me as I heard, because of being certified emotional intelligence and all the work that I’m doing and meeting wonderful people like you who just  spread my eyes even more wide open is that—what he was talking about was that whole mastery thing he has an insecurity now feels like he’s not competent feels like he’s starting all over again and there’s a lot of insecurities associated with that and as an organization you need to be aware of that and address that so that somebody can be more forgiving of yourself more than anything.

 

Jennifer Moss:   It’s so true. And what happens is this breakdown in succession planning you have someone comes into the role they don’t do a very good job of succession planning or leadership just fit someone into role and then says—you figure it out. And that’s one of the worst things that we can do for high-performing people because they are hardest on themselves and they have high expectations of how quickly they can acclimate but if we don’t have programs that get people feeling like they’re up to the task fast enough then you drive down your resiliency you drive down your hope you don’t feel effective and then you start to disengage. Succession planning is one of the most important ways that we can support these high-performing people to move into new roles.

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, now I do want to share because but we’re going to have to move on but there were some really important things to me that would help  a lot of folks keeps cup of mine and I’m just going to say you guys got to get the book who’s listening. You talked about that H3 model which is focusing on the positive and helping with change and then you also talked about a persist model, we’re not going to have time to go over those maybe we’ll have to get you back, but hey guys you need to get the book Unlocking Happiness at Work-How a Data-Driven Happiness Strategy Fuels Purpose Passion and Performance, and that’s where I am with that right now. As you and I are both very, very passionate about all of this and one of the things that we focused in on the show are quotes to help us give them some extra energy and hopefully be happier. Is there a quote or two that you liked that you can share?

 

Jennifer Moss:   I have lots. But one I love is, “You can have anything but not everything”. For me that’s about prioritization and understanding you have to be hear be in the moment right now and understand that life is a bit of triage and priority setting, I am always asked as a woman who has kids on stage, how do you do it? The answer is I don’t really do it. Either I figure it out as I go but I’m okay with that because as much as I want to do so many different things I have to understand what is my priority every single day and get other people to not burn out not to deplete. I was in Dubai and Arianna Huffington was talking about how we glamorize the leaders that burn themselves out and that is not what we should be doing we should not be glamorizing burnout we should be celebrating people who can prioritize. You can have anything not everything is kind of my motto and I follow it as much as possible. 

 

Jim Rembach:   I think that’s a really good one and kind of helps you hopefully stay in the right direction and move that direction faster. When I start thinking about all that and even myself  trying to do certain things and staying up late and getting up early and all that I’m like I’m burning myself out too many times. But there’s a lot of humps that you have to get over in order to kind of figure out the best path that’s for you. So for me sometimes I try cycling through and I don’t mean like bicycling cycling through different periods by which—okay, I know I’m going to be up late and then I need to go to bed early drives my wife nuts who’s the accountant she’s like—you were just up till two o’clock last night now you want to go to bed 10:00? I’m like—I have the opportunity to do it so I’ll do it. 

 

Jennifer Moss:   It’s so true. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Can you share a story about a time when you’ve had to get over the hump so we can learn?

 

Jennifer Moss:   Oh, gosh!! I have a million of them. I am a founder of a start-up and we had two young kids and we came here we’re considered mature founders we didn’t come straight out of university and start this tech company but we came into running Plasticity out of our personal passion sort of story. It started actually when my husband became almost fatally ill. He was a professional lacrosse player and had come off of winning the World Cup and finally beat the US, sorry to say after 28 years of losing granted that was their time, but he has gratitude in the hospital to recover and they didn’t think he was going to walk again. After six weeks we realized that our narrative our mood all of those things impacted our healing and if it changed our lives. We moved back from California to Canada and started this passion project essentially. I t took a lot of our life savings our life our commitment and there were a lot of hurdles along the way where we thought we were going to do this. And then just as we decided to turn down a job for me to work in a very cushy easy comes job we found out we were pregnant with our third. So, when you talk humps and big humps we knew that it would have to be triage. I took the baby, two weeks old, into some of our meetings with our investors it was definitely where passion moved us through those goals. But now I look back and it’s been six years eight years since Jim got sick and I wouldn’t change anything it’s been a driver of my happiness and a reminder of how you can have anything not everything every single every. I think you’re right and that you can choose to go to bed at 10:00 or 2:00 whatever the moment deals you but it’s our flexibility and our resilience that’s going to make us have the most successful lives.

 

Jim Rembach:   Without a doubt, and thanks for sharing that. I think for me hearing you tell that story, and I also had the opportunity to watch it on video when you told it and had a chance to have a little bit more detail associated with it, it was pretty impactful it tugs on you in a lot of ways. I can only imagine that when you reflect upon that time could you ever have foreseen that you would now look back on that in a positive way? 

 

Jennifer Moss:   No, the short answer. It wasn’t all at once it wasn’t like we just had some sort of gratitude epiphany and all of those stresses went away there was lots of times where I felt very sorry for myself and sad and it wasn’t a linear path to happiness there were some low moments. I know a year and a half or two later when we really understood that Jim was never going to go back to play there were some moments there where we thought there would be a recovery or comeback and that didn’t happen and so you go down again but what we learned was that we have the capacity to rebuild. 

 

And so the more we suffered losses or the more pain we would go through or the more we were forced to rebound that really did teach us that we can keep dealing with things and so now it’s just a faster process of rebounding we have higher resiliency we’re more fluent in gratitude. When we are being ironic as a co-founders of a happiness company and we aren’t following our rules we get quickly back to them because we know that it works. But we still have—I wrote this article for HBR called, Happiness Isn’t the absence of negative emotions, and it really is about us having a emo-diversity not feeling guilty for feeling sad being okay to be stressed but working on your psychological fitness so that when you deal with trauma then you can come out of it in a in a healthier, higher performing way and not get sort of stuck there. So that’s been the big learning.

 

Jim Rembach:   I’m glad that you shared that. For me when I started thinking about it’s like—okay, we’ll embrace it. Be sad. Be distraught. Embrace it. But you need to learn also when to let it go.

 

Jennifer Moss:   That is the big learning that I had. At first again I was still in this sort of first world problem place we had all the stuff we had all the things we’re living in California great house great jobs but we weren’t actually very happy and so it took me some time through that process to figure what does actually make me happy. It wasn’t the stuff it wasn’t what I’m is quoted on paper as being the definition of the successful life there were other things that made me happy and so that learning and that evolving slowly got me to this place and it makes me not live in that sort of feeling sorry for myself space as much. I still have bon-bon days and the times I just want to eat chocolate and have a glass of wine for myself that’s pretty normal but it’s few and far between versus when I had everything and I felt like that all the time. So, yeah, it’s been quite a journey.

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, you talked about the council, the global council, you have the practice you have the book and you got a lot of things going on but if you had one goal, just one, what would it be?

 

Jennifer Moss:   One goal? Oh, gosh, it’s funny I just talked about the—have everything not anything—I’ve constantly shiny object I have a real problem with feeling like I’m missing out I think. I do have a goal of writing a children’s book. I spend quite a bit of time working with youth and students we measure the happiness and intervene as young as kindergarteners we’re in testing right now with little JK’s and we’re asking them what makes them happy and do they know what empathy means and we’re measuring in this goal to follow them over the next 20 years in this longitudinal study to see how interventions at three years old impacts the rest of their life, so, that’s pretty exciting. I think my next steps are really focusing in on education and spending more time with little kids and writing children’s books around these hero traits and focusing in on that goal. When I was eight I put in a time capsule that I was going to win the Newbery Award for literature for children’s books so I’ve written the adult book I feel like now it’s my time to write the children’s book. 

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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Jim Rembach:   Alright here we go Fast Leader legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Jennifer, 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 that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Jennifer Moss, are you ready to hoedown? 

 

Jennifer Moss:   I’m ready to hoedown.

 

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

 

Jennifer Moss:   I think that I get distracted by all the things I want to do, so I have to get better at that. 

 

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

 

Jennifer Moss:   To be able to practice the Golden Rule which is, Do unto others as they would have treat them, not Do unto others as you would want to treat them. 

 

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

 

Jennifer Moss:   I have intuition, a pretty good gut and I follow it. Anytime I don’t I get into big trouble. 

 

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

 

Jennifer Moss:   I absolutely rely on my Outlook calendar, we’re talking about what is required, I have a very busy schedule and I have learned to rely on beeps and signals and Siri and all of those people that help me to be successful. 

 

Jim Rembach:   What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners and it can be from any genre, of course, we’re going to put a link to, Unlocking Happiness at Work, on your show notes pages as well.

 

Jennifer Moss:   I love Malcolm Gladwell’s, Blink, I was just in Dubai listening to him speak and he references it but it’s this idea of if we go with our gut we make better decisions every time because our bodies are like human lie detectors so I love his books.

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, Fast Leader legion, you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to www.fastleader.net/jennifermoss. Okay, Jennifer, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question. Imagine you were given the opportunity to 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. What skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

 

Jennifer Moss:   Patience. That everything is going to work out just fine. I had a quarter-century crisis like most young people do at 25 and they feel like they have to figure it all out by 25years old and what you realize is that you actually know nothing until you actually go through the experiences of life and then you get really chilled out. I love being 40. I love it. I feel like I’ve got all this relaxed way of thinking about the world and I wish I had that at 25. 

 

Jennifer, 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?

 

Absolutely. I’m active on Twitter, https://twitter.com/JenLeighMoss. I’m on Instagram and LinkedIn on those same URLs and then also https://plasticitylabs.com/

 

Jennifer Moss, 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. 

 

END OF AUDIO 

 

 

Steven Keith CX Pilots

161: Steven Keith: I really didn’t know how to fix it

Steven Keith Show Notes Page

Steven Keith was hired by a creative agency to build their digital consulting practice. As Steven began to build his team, he was hiring people and managing the team in a culturally different way than the legacy business. It wasn’t working. The CEO sat Steven down and told him he needed to fix it fast. Ultimately, Steven found success by getting the entire agency to focus on this one thing.

Steven was born and raised in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Along with his older sister Karen and young sister Julianna. His father was an ironworker that built skyscrapers and an executive assistant to the president of a large regional bank.

At an early age he could be found building dams and plugging up any creek he could find.

He is an indiscriminate learner soon to be graduating to amateur polymath—which all started at the University of Iowa’s radically-interdisciplinary guinea pig program in advanced liberal studies. At Iowa, Steven couldn’t commit to medicine, genetics, theology, philosophy or writing, despite several attempts, so he designed his own curriculum—within the realm of Epistemology (fancy word for theories of knowledge).

His first serious job out of college was a writing position at Morningstar, Inc. in Chicago where he bent the rules about writing for people interested in stocks and mutual funds. When the luster wore off, he grabbed the smartest technologist in the company to go spin-off a web software company called Gorilla. In his first year, in his own company (circa 1998), he was tasked with redefining the experience of brokers trading in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange—to transform everything into digital. That’s the point where his career in customer experience transformation was born.

While building his company in Chicago, Steven studied corporate language and communications (Psycholinguistics) at Northwestern University and Enterprise Marketing Strategy at the University of Chicago.

Today, Steven is the founder of CX Pilots where he works with companies in the Fortune 10 as well as the Fortune 10,000 by helping them transform their strategies and operations to become more systematically empathetic to their internal and external customers. Over the past year, he has begun to tighten his focus on the “client experience” (as opposed to the customer experience) for the CPA, Legal, Architecture/Engineering, Investment Banking and Insurance industries, where the relationship is the product. His super power is helping executives see CX through the lens of economics, organizational development, and innovation management.

Steven lives in Raleigh, NC. When he’s not traveling to advise and support his clients he is either googling Calculus problems to help his creative high school junior Oliver pass classes that don’t excite him in the least, or sending money to East Carolina University’s Engineer School in support of his oldest son’s Simon STEM habit.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @stevenkeith to get over the hump on the  @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet 

“The difference really is in partnership economics.” -Steven Keith Click to Tweet 

 “The problems we’ve had with Customer Experience is that it’s a scope and scale game.” -Steven Keith Click to Tweet 

 “We’re trying to scale empathy and make relationships as meaningful as we possibly can.” -Steven Keith Click to Tweet 

 “How can you demonstrate that you provide value that is above and beyond?” -Steven Keith Click to Tweet 

 “It’s not only what your adding but how your adding value.” -Steven Keith Click to Tweet 

 “How well are you illustrating or amplifying your values?” -Steven Keith Click to Tweet 

“What are you doing on the economic side to work on your interpersonal relationship balance sheet?” -Steven Keith Click to Tweet 

“Service fits inside experience.” -Steven Keith Click to Tweet 

 “Everything that’s wrong about business that I’ve approached is a people thing.” -Steven Keith Click to Tweet 

“Allow your possibilities to blossom.” -Steven Keith Click to Tweet 

“Allow your passion to align with your work.” -Steven Keith Click to Tweet 

Hump to Get Over

Steven Keith was hired by a creative agency to build their digital consulting practice. As Steven began to build his team, he was hiring people and managing the team in a culturally different way than the legacy business. It wasn’t working. The CEO sat Steven down and told him he needed to fix it fast. Ultimately, Steven found success by getting the entire agency to focus on this one thing.

Advice for others

Develop the skills to communicate visually.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Time, trust and the risk tolerance of others.

Best Leadership Advice

Stop being so professionally promiscuous.

Secret to Success

I’m a deeply empathetic systems thinker.

Best tools that helps in Business or Life

Dealing with autism.

Recommended Reading

The Art of Looking Sideways

Contacting Steven Keith

website: http://www.cxpilots.com

email: steven [at] cxpilots.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/stevenkeith

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenkeith/

Resources and Show Mentions

An Even Better Place to Work

Empathy Mapping

54 Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Competencies List: Emotional Intelligence has proven to be the right kind of intelligence to have if you want to move onward and upward faster. Get your free list today.

 

Show Transcript: 

Click to access edited transcript

161: Steven Keith: I really didn’t know how to fix it

 

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.

The number one thing that contributes to customer loyalty is emotions. So move onward and upward faster by gaining significantly deeper insight and understanding of your customer journey and personas with emotional intelligence. With your empathy mapping workshop you’ll learn how to evoke and influence the right customer emotions that generate improve customer loyalty and reduce your cost to operate. Get over your emotional hump now by going to empathymapping.com to learn more. 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, Fast Leader Legion, today I’m excited because we have somebody who’s going to share with us some insights about the power of relationships in the customer experience. Steven Keith was born in Cedar Rapid, Iowa along with her older sister Karen and younger sister Juliana. His father was an iron worker that builds skyscrapers and his mother was an executive assistant to the president of a large regional bank. At an early age he could be found building dams and plugging up any creek he could find. He is an indiscriminate learner soon to be graduating to amateur polymath. Which all started at the University of Iowa’s radically interdisciplinary guinea pig program in advance liberal studies. At Iowa Steven couldn’t commit to medicine, genetics, theology, philosophy or writing despite several attempts so he design his own curriculum within the realm of Epistemology, a fancy word for theories of knowledge. 

His first serious job out of college was writing position at Morningstar Inc. in Chicago where he bent the rules about writing for people interested in stocks and mutual funds. When the luster wore off he grab the smartest technologist in the company to go spin-off a web software company called Gorilla. In his first year, in his own company which is around 1998, he was task with redefining the experience of brokers trading in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and to transform everything into digital. That’s the point where his career in customer experience transformation was born.  

While building his company in Chicago, Steven studied corporate language and communications at Northwestern University and Enterprise Marketing Strategy at the University of Chicago. Today, Steven is the founder of CX Pilots where he works with companies in the Fortune 10 as well as the Fortune 10.000 helping them transform their strategies and operations to become more systematically, empathetic to their internal and external customers. 

Over the past year he’s begun to tighten his focus on the client experience as opposed to the customer experience where the CPA, Legal, Architecture, Engineering, Investment Banking and insurance industries where the relationships is the product. His super power is helping executive see CX through the lens of economics, organizational development and innovation management. Steven currently lives in Riley, North Carolina and when he’s not travelling to advice and support his clients, he’s either Googling  Calculus problems to help his creative, high school junior, Oliver pass Calculus classes that didn’t excite him in the least. Or sending money to East Carolina University of Engineering School to support his oldest son Simon STEM habit. Steven Keith, are you ready to help us get over the hump? 

Steven Keith:   I sure am Jim. 

Jim Rembach:   I’m glad you’re here. I’ve given our listeners 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?

Steven Keith:   Yeah. The current passion as you mentioned Jim was the client experience. So I spend a lot of the early part of my career focus on customer experience learning what that meant and how it can be applied. Then for some odd reasons I started getting calls, inquiries from people in big legal firms, CPA firms who wanted to focus on building better client relationships. They wanted to apply the tenets of CX but they wanted to deal with to win, keep, develop, and nurture better client relationships. So, I’m very passionate about that, it’s very visceral and real instead of selling more products removing friction that prevents a lot of people from buying something, we’re talking relationships.

Jim Rembach:   So it’s interesting that you say that. For me, I’m like, okay—it’s becoming words all about relationship and so whether it’s B2B. B2C, even government for that matter. Going to some nonprofit organizations that the relationships is really a foundational component. Help me understand how it really differs when you start talking about those client type organizations versus some of those others?

Steven Keith:   The difference really is in partnership economics and that’s kind of a term that our team has come up with. When you’re dealing with a relationship that means millions of dollars, volume doesn’t really apply in the equation. The problems that we’ve had traditionally with CX is it’s a scope and scale game. We’re trying to scale empathy and make those relations as meaningful as we possibly can. It’s usually so that we can increase customer lifetime value from $460 to $750. Client experience these are oftentimes a figure relationships and there is really no volume we might be dealing with the customers set of 20. The economics of building those partnerships and nurturing them so that they remain as valuable as possibly can inside the firm, it’s just a little bit in the approach.

Jim Rembach:   That makes sense and I appreciate your clarifying that for me. Some of the things that started running through my head is—I started thinking about, hey, we’re just having meetings on the golf course building relationships or somewhere else so that we can have that non business type of connection and discussion and really get down to who people are not so much they do. But then I also my mind started running around that I would that in these types of environment you run a couple of risk. One risk being that one particular customer client is a large portion of my business and if they go we’re wiped out. So, what does that cause people to do different? And then the other thing is a risk associated with missing out on opportunities because you can invest in a relationship component. I can imagine, what kind of quandary are people dealing with in that environment that others may not besides the whole smaller client based scenario?

Steven Keith:   Let’s just talk about two lever that are happening and let’s just stick to one example. In the law firm what’s happening is a lot of large corporations, just think about the Fortune 50, they all have relationships with legal firms but they also have large internal legal frameworks some of my clients we’re dealing with they’re having a holy cow moment, my client is starting to insource much more of their legal and we’re losing tremendous opportunity so what leverage do we have? What do we have within our control where we can increase the value that we provide to prevent these huge corporate clients from insourcing a bulk of their legal? So, it really comes down to everything—strip the commodity out of the proposition. What it comes down to the relationship, the partnership of how can you deliver value, how can you demonstrate that you offer value that goes above and beyond what an insourced legal proposition withhold. It boils down to the experience that they have with you. What are the things that you’re doing specifically to add more value to that partnership? And how are you doing it? It’s not only what you’re adding but how you’re adding it. What we try to do is deconstruct those partnerships and re-engineer the process through which you can offer a better overall experience to that corporate client, that’s just one example. The same things happening in the CPA, accounting, consulting, a lot of these things are changing and what we’re trying to do is bolster these people who hold these key client relationships so that they’re not in danger of losing them.

Jim Rembach:   To me it sounds like a lot of your work is on the client retention side and so when I start thinking about the whole client retention side I’m starting to think about how does an organization flip it in order to do new business. Let me give you a little bit of background, my wife has actually been in this client service business as a CPA and tax accountant for as long as we’ve been married. Some of the stories without talking about the guilty or the clients, they just talk about how they just try to manipulate, and they’re not interested in building relationships it’s like, give me, give me, give me. Sometimes people that don’t have the power—her she can’t really influence people to say, we shouldn’t be chasing that that’s bad business there’s no relationship there to be found they do treat us like a commodity. And it’s like, what are you going to do for me? And it’s always that way. So, sometimes they get those customers and it’s just a total drain on resources. So how much are you—working with clients on that whole client acquisition side?

 

Steven Keith:   That’s where differ. You’re exactly right. It’s happening within the realm of our clients is that they come to us with a retention challenge it explicitly stated as, hey CX pilots we understand you’re focus on this we have retention problem. So we enter as retention experts but we leave as acquisition experts. What I mean by that is we help—remember earlier in our conversation I use the term partnership economics? 

 

Jim Rembach:   Yes.

 

Steven Keith:   Partnership economics is a way for these client centered organization—CPA like your wife’s firm, to calibrate the retention and acquisition side of things. The problem that oftentimes by CPA firms is they’re not thinking in terms of acquisition. They have relationships with clients that treat them as commodities and, a lot of times because I haven’t done a very good job of using content to illustrate the value that they can provide. So what happens as a result is they are subject to what they put out into the universe. If you act like every other CPA firm and you’re not doing anything in terms of differentiating yourself or doing a good job really animating firm as no sense humans interested in doing really amazing work and you’re just really diligently sticking to knitting there’s no reason for a client to treat you other than just a commodity vendor. We try to switch that around and when I say calibrating the retention and acquisition side it’s all about how can we tell a better story? How can we really amplify the unique differentiated viewpoints we have on client relationships? And that’s a content game. What we’re doing differently is trying to figure out how do we help people tell a story and how do we liberate the human side of these client relationships.

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, as part of that I’m also thinking that you would possibly advise them to say, if you have a potential client who’s not even interested and you going down that path and sharing that then you shouldn’t be pursuing it because it’s kind of like a disqualifier because you’re not going to be able to make that connection. Is that right or wrong? 

 

Steven Keith:   That’s right. A really cool way of looking at this, I was working on this problem earlier this week, as a matter of fact. One of the things that we did was we brought up an architecture firms their enduring values. In one breath we’re saying we have this really great powerful values and everybody in here inside of her culture really lives this values, it’s palpable a really important part of this thriving culture. But in the next breath we heard, working with all this these clients is a drag because they don’t share values. And so it comes down to how well are you illustrated or amplifying your values? And what work are you doing on the economic side work on your interpersonal relationships balance sheet, if you will? Are you looking at clients that share your values? Are there any energies going in to the acquisition side? Were you trying to attract clients that actually share those values? The answer is typically no, how do you do that? That’s a big unsolved mystery for a lot of these firms. It’s what compromises a bulk of what’s interesting in the work that we do. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay. Someone who is certified in emotional intelligence and listening to you talk it’s like you’re trying to raise the level of emotion intelligence in the entire organization and then you’re trying to find other emotionally intelligent organizations to be your clients. 

 

Steven Keith:   Yup. So cool exercise when we do this workshop with this client based firms we start to workshop with—when people are doing their introductions we ask, what do you believe your customer or client IQ is on the scale of 1 to 10, just generically? They go around the table they say, they have seven I don’t know me probably a four and so on. Then we say, what do you think your customer EQ is? And so it generally starts out with, what does that mean? It means this. And people will say, woo, woo, I’m pretty high I’m probably eight. And then we would go around the table and I tabulate this things. And then at the end of the workshop, after we’ve gone through this deep empathy problems and we’ve workshop the crap out of this stuff we go back and say, Okay, so your IQ is 8 and your EQ is 9 how do you feel now at every single time that we do this after 9 hours of grueling work trying to iron out the empathy problems we generally see a 3 to 5 point drop in how people self-evaluate in terms of their IQ and EQ.  And what’s interesting is people don’t think in terms of EQ people will generically say, I’m familiar with what my customers or my client’s needs are that’s the extent of their curiosity about their clients. 

 

Jim Rembach:      I think that the whole self-reporting piece is something that you really don’t have a whole lot of basis or knowledge in is extremely difficult.

 

Steven Keith:   People do self-inflate and one of the reason why we do the pre-workshop inquiry, say, what you believe your EQ or IQ is and then we ask again at the end of the session is we want people to realize that all—for 20 years some of our clients have been doing what they consider to be client service and now we’re coming in and we’re talking about client experience they’re two totally separate things. What’s really interesting and really valuable is to sit in the room and watch your client have that epiphany like, Oh, man, all these years we’ve been comparing service with experience, we can’t do that anymore. Service fits inside of experience so this whole new realm of manufacturing empathy that we need to get better at as an entire company. Part of what we do is we want people to arrive at that aha moment on their own just by asking them the right questions and asking them understand the system in which client experience happens. 

 

Jim Rembach:   I think it’s a really important insight is that you have to create an environment by which people do their own self-discovery. Also knowing that some will never discover, however, that’s the way you have to do it. You can’t just tell them they have to come to that conclusion. When we start talking about all this, client experience, customer experience, self-reflection and actualization, all those things are loaded with emotions. One of the things that we like to talk about on the show are quotes because they bring out a lot of that emotion and energy sometimes. Is there a quote or two that you can share that you like? 

 

Steven Keith:   Yeah. There’s one quote—I have a lot of quotes like every one I’m sure I love them I collect them. But there’s one that keeps coming back to me and every time I find myself talking to an executive he or she may be laying out, like, here’s the problem that we’re having this how I think you can help us. This same quote keeps popping in to my head and it’s kind of an (19:32 inaudible) quote, it’s from the brother of one of my favorite cartoonist, Charles Crumb, “How perfectly god dammed delightful it is to be sure.” It was such a simple, innocent quote and when you think about it it’s absolutely pack full of—it’s charged with so much. The meaning I take from this is about confidence. The sheer willingness it takes to move things forward it’s a double edged sword too. In my experience too often leaders need to be sure it need to be certain in order to move forward. And how likely is it that they’re truly sure? Not too often from my experience. The other side of sword is, what does it take to jump in the absence of being sure? What is it that what you do when you’re not absolutely positive about something. Everything that is wrong in business that I’ve ever approached it’s a people thing, it’s an emotional thing, it’s a leadership thing and it’s all and how well-meaning—when you take people to have all the best intentions how are they managing decisions? How are they managing decisions in the absence of feeling sure about something? I find that endlessly captivating.

 

Jim Rembach:   I think you just said a really important point and it goes back to that whole thing about understanding your EQ and being able to use it in order to be able to drive your professional performance as well as your personal performance. How do you become sure enough so that you do move forward knowing that you need to maintain some humility and knowing that you need to be adaptive of things don’t go the way you plan or if you got a new piece of information all of those leads to being more emotionally intelligent. I know—we’re talking about your background going from building dams to building client experiences there’s whole lot of humps in between. Is there a time where you’ve had to get over the hump that you can share? 

 

Steven Keith:   I’m not sure what joke the great cosmic manager in the sky has been playing on me but I’ve spent most of my career managing people, creative people, and I’ve grown many creative teams who’s mission was is to manufacture highly subjective and creative intellectual property—creative agency and so on. I’m probably one of the least conventional managers on the planet and I’ll just go ahead and admit that normal people have always hated reporting to me until they don’t. There’s one situation where I was brought in to a big creative agency to design and develop their digital and consulting practice. I was reporting directly to the CEO, he was a super conventional CEO and he’s one of those guys—the North Carolina’s governors call when they run out of ideas—he brought me in to build his agency’s new seven and eight figures strings of revenue and develop a digital practice. 

 

So, I’m building this team inside of this creative agency and in order to do that successfully I need to go out and find an onboard, and enculturate not only people with new skills but people that—all the agency employees that were there before me are going to get along with them. I was a person who is collecting gifted and talented people and pulling them in from all over nation and bringing them into this little conventional macrocosm and I had to figure out how to make this all work. The hump here is—so I have this very rigid CEO who wanted revenue from digital and I had all of these people that I needed to bring in to make it all work, who can you make that happen? Well, if you’re me you open source your leadership and management. In other words, you get this people to sort of manage themselves. Did it work? Nope, it didn’t. So, there I was baking this really delicate soufflé of a team, very complicated recipe and I was alienating all the existing teams adjacent to our new digital team. I was trying to building this futuristic leadership model within a highly traditional hierarchical environment and it wasn’t work. So, I had the CEO sit me down and say, hey, this sucks this isn’t working you need to fix something fast. And so, that was a huge problem and probably one of the most complex things in my career and I really didn’t know how to fix it right off the bat. It took a lot of introspective thinking and it was just a tremendous challenge. 

 

Jim Rembach:   How were you able to make the shift to where things didn’t come out for the better?

 

Steven Keith:   What I did essentially was I figured out that in order for me to be successful I needed to make this firm successful. The epiphany that I had was I had to get the whole agency to start organizing more around the customer. It was the most obvious move. The complications were really that I was trying to develop a highly empathetic practice inside of a highly inside out organization. They were organized to deliver PR and advertising and creative as efficiently as possible and keep as many people as billable as possible. So, customer experience doesn’t really on the table until we brought that at the center.

 

I was trying to throw as much of that inside out thinking out the door and lead from the outside in which went entirely against the grain of the organization. What happen is one of our clients at that time which was the, I guess it still is the largest health care insurance company in the State, came to us and said that they wanted us to architect a digital transformation and I was in charge of trying to make that happen. So I use that transformation as the proof that customer centricity or outside in thinking was the best approach and then so doing I wanted to illustrate to my own firm that, hey, they’re paying us enormous amount of money to make this happen and it works and this is how we’re going to structure it we should be eating our own dog food we should be doing this ourselves. And that helps us get over that humps. People started to see like, hey there’s a lot of validity to doing this instead of focusing on efficiency and billability keeping all of our people as valuable as possible we ought to be thinking about how do we make our client a lot more successful, how do we make our customer thrive? 

 

Jim Rembach:   It sounded to me like you did the same thing that you were talking about a moment ago where you had them come to that self-realization that, hey, instead of you trying to drive it, it was them absorbing it and coming to their own conclusion.

 

Steven Keith:   That’s exactly right. And I love to take credit for that being like a well-defined and pre-designed strategy but it was almost an accident. It took me a while to figure out like, holy crap, this is exactly how we’re going to do it. Again, the great cosmic manager in the sky sort of drop it off in my lap and it took me a minute or two to figure out like, aaah, so this is how we’re going to do it. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, so I know you’ve got a lot of things going on, you open up a couple other offices, you’re doing some travelling, you talk about all the client work and trying to really niche down on this client centric and client experience piece, but when you start looking at all these things you have going on, what’s one of your goals?

 

Steven Keith:   My central goal right now is Ikigai it’s a Japanese word for the process of allowing your possibilities to blossom. So, Ikigai is really all about just aligning you passion with your work. Specifically, how do you take your life’s Venn, the Venn diagram, and then consciously and deliberately make all of those circles more concentric. My goal is to figure out what do I truly love? What does the world need? What can I get paid for? What am I good at? And then make all those things—take them out of a Venn state and move them into a concentric state. 

 

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

 

Need a powerful and entertaining way to ignite your next conference, retreat or team-building session? My keynotes don’t include magic but they do have the power to help your attendees take a leap forward by putting emotional intelligence into their employee engagement, customer engagement and customer centric leadership practices. So, bring the infotainment creativity the Fast Leader show to your next event and I’ll help your attendees get over the hump now. Go to beyondmorale.com/speaking to learn more. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Alright here we go Fast Leader legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Steven, 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 get rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Steven Keith, are you ready to hoedown?

 

Steven Keith:   I certainly am Jim. 

 

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

 

Steven Keith:   Time, trust and risk tolerance of others. 

 

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

 

Steven Keith:   Stop being so professionally promiscuous. 

 

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

 

Steven Keith:   I’m a deeply empathetic system’s thinker. I think in terms of systems. 

 

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

 

Steven Keith:   I don’t know how to do this quickly. Dealing with autism. 

 

Jim Rembach:   What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners and it can be from any genre?

 

Steven Keith:   It’s definitely, The Art of Looking Sideways by Ellen Fletcher. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, Fast Leader legion you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to www.fastleader.net/stevenkeith. Okay, Steven, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question. imagine you were given the opportunity 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? 

 

Steven Keith:   Visual thinking. I think we’re all highly fluent in our native language to the extent that we can verbally articulate the things we want to say but if your job has anything to do with complexity and you need to help other people visualize alternate realities in the business context you have to be able to map things where words in your native tongue have limits. So being able to visually think through things or do what we call cognitive cartography, mapping out complex ideas, you’re developing that fluency is definitely something I want to focus on early in my career. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Steven 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? 

 

Steven Keith:   www.cxpilots.com is a good one, I’d say @stevenkeith on Twitter or steven@cxpilots.com

 

Jim Rembach:   Steven Keith, 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. 

 

END OF AUDIO 

 

 

Christine Comaford Smart Tribes Power Your Tribe

160: Christine Comaford: I had to reach to a deep place inside myself

Christine Comaford Show Notes Page

Christine Comaford fell to the ground and her body couldn’t stay standing. She had just found out that her step son died unexpectedly at college. While trying to cope with this tremendous loss, she had to fulfill numerous professional obligations. But she was unable to function. That’s when she found something that she had never realized before that has allowed her to experience an entirely new existence.

Christine was born in Hollywood, CA and raised in Palos Verdes, CA and Greenwich, CT. She has 1 older sister. Her parents divorced when she was 16, then re-married when she was in my 30s. She cried tears of joy during the entire ceremony!

Christine’s parents were both entrepreneurs and renegades in their own way. Her mom is an immigrant with English as her 3rd language (Russian and Spanish were first). She is an artist with fiber and jewelry as her primary mediums. She taught Christine about adaptability. Her father led Human Resources in the early days of Mattel Toys and Gallo Wine. He taught her about entrepreneurship and tenacity.

Christine was always involved in business ventures from lemonade stands to girl scout cookies. She got her first job at 14 at a bakery and discovered she loved business even more than she thought. She often questioned authority and “the rules” which led to her dropping out of high school and negotiating her way into college at 17.

She quit college once she fell in love with computers… why get a computer science degree when she could just teach herself to program then get a job? That’s what she did and after a few small companies she got a job at Microsoft. She had to pretend to be male to get an interview, but that’s another story. Later she launched and sold/took public 5 companies and then retired. The phone kept ringing and she was asked to use the cool tools she had shared with her employees to get great success. SmartTribes Institute was the result. Now she works with companies of all sizes that want to create peak performing leaders in emotionally engaging and resilient cultures. She knows people are tribal and company cultures providing safety, belonging, mattering yield powerful and sustained results.

There are 2 key aspects of Christine’s legacy:

  1. The many careers she has helped to shape. The people that have come together to form powerful teams, the conflicts that have been cleared. The emotional resilience and agility that has resulted. The great companies and many jobs in awesome cultures that she has supported.
  2. Christine’s volunteer work for the past 19 years has been with hospice patients. She has helped 40 people die with as much grace, peace, closure as possible.

Christine currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband Geoff Heron. Geoff does special effects and visual effects for major motion pictures—he’s done over 100 so you’ve definitely seen his work. She has 3 step kids, all grown.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @Comaford to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet 

“The vast majority of people haven’t fully tapped their amazing potential.” – Christine Comaford Click to Tweet 

“Everybody’s showing up the best they can with the resources they have.” – Christine Comaford Click to Tweet 

“We all have blind-spots, that’s why they’re blind.” – Christine Comaford Click to Tweet 

“The human being will go to whatever behavior feels best.” – Christine Comaford Click to Tweet 

“If we don’t know how we’re feeling, how can we get to how we want to feel?” – Christine Comaford Click to Tweet 

“Often when we have a problem we hyper-focus on it and we keep staring at it.” – Christine Comaford Click to Tweet 

“We choose the meaning that we make.” – Christine Comaford Click to Tweet 

“Nothing is good or bad, only thinking makes it so.” – Christine Comaford Click to Tweet 

“The meaning of your communication is the message received, it’s not the message sent.” – Christine Comaford Click to Tweet 

“Putting yourself out there is more important than smarts.” – Christine Comaford Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Christine Comaford fell to the ground and her body couldn’t stay standing. She had just found out that her step son died unexpectedly at college. While trying to cope with this tremendous loss, she had to fulfill numerous professional obligations. But she was unable to function. That’s when she found something that she had never realized before that has allowed her to experience an entirely new existence.

Advice for others

Have compassion for others and their challenges.

Holding her back from being an even better leader

Time management.

Best Leadership Advice

Putting yourself out there is more important than smarts.

Secret to Success

Tremendous tenacity

Best tools that helps in Business or Life

Meditation

Recommended Reading

SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together

Power Your Tribe: Create Resilient Teams in Turbulent Times

Contacting Christine Comaford

website: http://poweryourtribe.com

website: http://smarttribesinstitute.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Comaford

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/comaford/

Resources and Show Mentions

The Emotion Wheel Graphic – know what your emotions are

Resilience Cycle Graphic – anchor the outcome you want

An Even Better Place to Work

Empathy Mapping

54 Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Competencies List: Emotional Intelligence has proven to be the right kind of intelligence to have if you want to move onward and upward faster. Get your free list today.

Show Transcript: 

Click to access edited transcript

160: Christine Comaford: I had to reach to a deep place inside myself

Intro    Welcome to the Fast Leader podcast where we explore convenient yet effective shortcuts that will help you get ahead and move forward faster by becoming a better leader. And now here’s your host customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

The number one thing that contributes to customer loyalty is emotions. So move onward and upward faster by gaining significantly deeper insight and understanding of your customer journey and personas with emotional intelligence. With your empathy mapping workshop you’ll learn how to evoke and influence the right customer emotions that generate improve customer loyalty and reduce your cost to operate. Get over your emotional hump now by going to empathymapping.com to learn more. 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, Fast Leader legion I’m almost not excited to have this guest on the show today because I will be greatly disappointed if I only have her on once. Christine Comaford was born in Hollywood, California and raised in Palos Verdes California and Greenwich, Connecticut. She has one older sister. Her parents divorced when she was 16 and then remarried when she was in her 30’s she cried tears of joy during the entire ceremony. Christine’s parents were both entrepreneurs and renegades in their own way. Her mom is an immigrant with English as her third language, Russian and Spanish were her first. She is an artist with fiber and jewelry as her primary mediums. She taught Christine about adaptability, her father led human resources in the early days of Mattel toys and Gallo Wine. He taught her about entrepreneurship and tenacity. Christine was always involved in business ventures from lemonade stands to Girl Scout cookies. She got her first job at the age of 14 at a bakery and discovered she loved business even more than she thought. She often questioned authority and the rules which led her to dropping out of high school and negotiating her way into college at 17. 

 

She quit college once she fell in love with computers, why get a computer science degree when she could just teach herself a program and then get a job. And that’s what she did after a few small companies she got a job with Microsoft. She had to pretend to be male to get an interview but that’s another story. Later she launched and took public’s five companies and then retired. The phone kept ringing and she was asked to use the cool tools she had shared with her employees to get great success, Smart Tribe Institute was the result. Now she works with companies of all sizes that want to create peak performance leaders in emotionally engaging and resilient cultures. She knows people are tribal and that when company cultures provides safety belonging and mattering it yields powerful and sustainable results. Christine currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband Jeff Herron. Jeff does special effects and visual effects for major motion pictures. He’s done over a hundred so you’ve probably seen his work. She has three step kids all grown. Christine Comaford, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

 

Christine Comaford:   I’m ready. 

 

Jim Rembach:   I’m glad you’re here. I’ve given my Legion a little bit about you but can you share what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better. 

 

Christine Comaford:   My current passion is that Smart Tribe Institute it is really helping people step in to who they truly are. I find the vast majority of people even the eight billionaire’s I’ve worked with and two US presidents haven’t fully tapped their amazing potential. And when they learn to be emotionally agile when they learn to be resilient and adaptable at a deep profound level when they learn how to bring that experience to others we can do anything. 

Okay, so wait a minute, you’re talking about those that you’ve worked with and still they have issues with not being able to bring their full self, I can only imagine what the rest of us have issues with.

 

Christine Comaford:   Here’s the thing. Everybody is showing up the best they can with the resources they have. We bring them more resources than they can show up in entirely new ways. And yeah, it’s super wicked, courageous for as U.S. president and billionaires people we think are super accomplished to have the guts to say, I want to go to the next level. That’s like huge courage. 

 

Jim Rembach:   That is a good point. And when you start thinking about the next level it does require push. And that push oftentimes, if you’re already at a certain point well it doesn’t matter if you are or not you need others to help do that. 

 

Christine Comaford:   Because we all have blind spots that’s where they’re blind, right, you can’t see anyone. And when somebody says, wow I know I’ve got some blind spots I can’t see them but I’m getting these responses that I don’t want to get or I can’t seem to get over this hump or have these perpetual behaviors that I want to change, can you help me syndrome and see (4:20) and shift and when we say yeah, we’re about being emotionally agile. Jim, the human being will go to whatever behavior feels best whatever behavior on their behavioral menu feels best or if there isn’t a better choice a good feeling choice they’ll pick whichever behavior feels less bad. As leaders we have this amazing opportunity to help our people expand to edit to increase their range of behaviors that feel good. So, if accountability doesn’t feel good they’re not going to be accountable. What if we could take and make accountability feel good. So, we’re going to talk about creating more behaviors that feel good that actually get people what they want. Gosh! 

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, so as you were talking I started thinking—you said several things there and it brings me to something that you had in the book, so that for me I often find disconnect and confusion with, and quite frankly in a book it’s difficult to read so I’m going have to ask you for a larger map of it, and that is the emotion wheel. And so I think when you start talking about being able to connect with self, you guys can’t see this when she’s showing me a big picture of it, of your video.

 

Christine Comaford:   But I give you guys a picture if you want it.

 

Jim Rembach:   Definitely. 

 

Christine Comaford:   A nice pretty big color wheel. 

 

Jim Rembach:   And so looking at the emotion wheel and you see how it connects at the core, talking about the hub and the spindle of it, is oftentimes people will say something and describe themselves or a particular feeling or something like that maybe that they’re always used to actually describing themselves with and it connects back to fear. And so when you talk to them about fear they’re like, no, no, no I’m not scared—really? So the whole self-actualization piece to me I think is a major gap.

 

Christine Comaford:   Yeah. So here’s the thing, there are a lot of sub-flavors if you will. In the emotion wheel when you see the image of it that will get you, in the scared piece of pie the scared sector it can be rejected, it can be insecure, it can be anxious, it can be overwhelmed. How often do you hear people say that they’re overwhelmed? All the time. So, here’s the thing, if you look at Travis Bradbury’s recent research only 36 % of humans know how they’re feeling in any given time. If we don’t know how we’re feeling, how can we get to how we want to feel? So, we need to first step back and say okay, the emotion wheel’s great for this, you’re upset or whatever, what exactly is going on? You look at the emotion wheel you figure out what’s going on here then you can do one of the practices in the book. You can do maneuvers of consciousness which takes you through a process of resisting what is happening that you’re not enjoying to getting really curious to getting kind of amazed that it could even happen to getting in full appreciation. And in about 12 minutes you will shift your emotional state powerfully that’s how resilient we are. We can get in this hamster wheel where we’re just ruminating and obsessing about a particular thing or we can just grab power your tribe. We can use maneuvers of consciousness tool and we can get into something that we want.

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, I had this conversation just yesterday with the guidance counselor at my at my kid’s school. I have a daughter who right now is a freshman like many freshmen do she’s having some struggles. And then also when you start talking about the enormity and the impact of that year on your academic career it’s pretty significant. And I told her I said look, people don’t come out of the womb knowing how to achieve they have to learn that. When you start to have resiliency you have to learn how to become resilient in order to achieve.

 

Christine Comaford:   Yes. And often when we have a problem we hyper focus on it—ow, this feels bad, ow, I don’t like this and we keep staring at it. What I want us to learn how to do, because it’s so powerful, and you can do this with your daughter and it would be awesome is to say, yep, that’s bad we want to consent to it, that’s bad that’s painful we’re feeling overwhelmed whatever that’s super stressful consent to it we don’t resist it. And then we say and what would you like? And then we can go through the outcome frame and you can even do it with around your experience at school. What would you like? Okay, cool, something she can create and maintain not like someone magically we do something for her something she can create maintain. What would you like?

 

Second question, what will haven’t I do for you? How will you feel? What benefits will you get? Grab the emotion wheel because people are going, oh, I feel good. No, good is not an emotion. Okay, how will you know when you have that particular outcome question? 

 

Number three, how will you know? Well, when I’m getting these grades and when I show up at school and I’m not super nervous. We need to get evidence and criteria in question number three. 

 

Question number four, when we’re with whom would you like this? I just want to (9:19 inaudible) and I just want this right now. 

 

And then question number five, what a value might you risk or lose to get it? To get that outcome that you want in question number one, what that you value might you risk or lose? Wow, well I’m going to have to maybe stretch a bit. I’m going to have to maybe do more homework? I’m going to have to maybe get a guidance counselor. I’m going to have to not hang out with my friends quite as much, whatever, I’m going to have to tell people that I’m scared and I need help there’s always an ego risk there. 

 

And then question number six, what are your next steps? And by the time you’re done with an outcome frame please you guys do them for fifteen minutes. Please go deep if you’re going to do an outcome frame give it what it needs. When we go and we do now come frame for 15 minutes our reptilian and our mammalian brain takes it from being a fantasy to a reality. Because when we go in for 15 minutes we start to see, we start to hear, we start to feel, all the good feelings the visuals, the auditory, the kinesthetic experiences of being in that desired stage then we can actually start to create it otherwise it’s kind of like a glib fantasy.

 

Jim Rembach:   I think that’s an excellent point. As you were talking I’m like, Okay, well I hit on that, I hit on that to try to direct her and help her move forward. But it’s all those other pieces that I didn’t have and it’s going to allow me to close the loop, so thank you for sharing that. Ultimately, what we’re doing is we’re getting to the point where we can actually have and create a resiliency cycle. In the book you talked about this resiliency cycle and if you could hit on those real quick please.

 

Christine Comaford:   In the beginning we are needing to release resistance. Something happening it doesn’t feel good we’re not enjoying it and we are sitting there resisting it. When we’re resisting we’re giving it a lot of energy and that energy is actually what we need to do something to create what we want. First, we want to release that resistance and the maneuvers of consciousness that I mentioned is a great process because it takes you from being super resistant to really appreciating whatever that experience is. Next, we have to increase rapport with ourselves. We have to say, okay, so now that I’m not resisting anymore what would I? How am I feeling? What part of me is having a challenge with this?  

 

And we give you a bunch of tools and power your cards for that and next we get to make new meaning. Hey, because this is happening it actually means that, oh, it’s cold and rainy and wet outside, oh, bummer this means traffic’s going to be really bad. Oh, t’s cold and rainy and wet outside this means that I can sit down with Joe, who I’ve always been wanting to hang out with have a cup of coffee let traffic pass and establish this really cool relationship. We choose the meaning that we make. Stuff happens all the time we get tons of sensory input playing into our brain stem but we choose what it means. Nothing is good or bad only thinking makes it so. 

 

Next, we want to anchor that outcome. We figured out the outcome that we want. We’ve made the meaning that we want around it. Your daughter—it’s so awesome that I’m having this challenge at school because it’s really helping me stretch and grow and get to know myself and deepen my relationship with my dad, this is cool. Then when we learn how to anchor that we can set a visual auditory kinesthetic anchor in our body. For instance, we can anchor that good feeling so that when we have those hard days we can trigger that anchor and flood our systems with positive visual auditory kinesthetic cues. Then if we’re working with others we want to enroll, engage others. We want to build that tribal agility so everybody else has these tools and then we want to expand that tribal power so as a team we can adjust and adapt.

 

Jim Rembach:   When we start talking about being able to get into the team aspects of it and when we refer to the different transformations that organizations are just really being enforced to have to go through right now, for multitude of different reasons, is there’s a there’s a whole lot of emotions that come into play that could cause us to focus on those bad things instead of the positive things. You talk about to me it just jumped out, I’ll give everybody the actual page number, to me it was kind of subtle but it led on to some really important things. And that was on page 104 where you talk about people misunderstand one another daily. Why? Because we speak different languages and we’re not talking about English and Spanish we’re really speaking different languages at a subterranean or subconscious or primal level everyone deletes distorts and generates and formulates about the environment differently. And therefore every human has his or her own unique map of the world his or her map is created based on the environment in which he or she was raised in and a multitude of other factors. As a revolt as a result we are all essentially speaking different languages and this is how misunderstandings occur. So, we have to be aware of that going into, and we’re trying to create this tribal power and the resiliency, and understand something that you call the Meta Programs, tell us about that?

 

Christine Comaford:   Yeah. So, we often think back into the last time when somebody was upset based on what you said and you said to yourself or to them, but that’s not what I meant. It doesn’t matter what you meant, sorry, it matters what they received. The meaning of the communication is the message received it’s not the message sent its how it was received. This is why meta-programs which were discovered by Leslie Cameron Bandler in the 70s and refined in the 80’s there are over 60 meta-programs we’re just going to talk about four. Meta Programs are so powerful because they are the lens through which we experience the world. This is not personality testing that’s like the third floor of the building this is Meta Programs or the sub-basement. What’s interesting about Meta Programs is once you start to, and you guys will figure them out in a sec, once you start to decode somebody’s Meta Programs you understand the structure of their identity. You understand the structure of their belief system. 

 

Let’s go over a few of them. For starters toward or away, is a person motivated by going toward pleasure goals, goals, goals achievement, achievement, achievement? Or are they motivated by away, solving problems, mitigating risk, preventing disaster? We need to understand that because if we are goals, goals, goals toward oriented people toward pleasure we don’t think about the pain but we’re trying to sell an idea to our team engage them in a project deal with a conflict whatever and they are away, the person we’re talking to is all about mitigating risk solving problems preventing disaster, we’re not going to be speaking the same language. If we can sit down with them with that away person and say, wow, I have a problem I really need your help I want to avoid this bad thing from happening. They’ll be like, Oh, she’s speaking my language. When we use Meta Programs the person’s most primal part of their brain their creature neurology their reptilian mammalian brain says, they’re the same as me I don’t have to resist them. 

 

Okay, so the first one is to ward away. Start to think guys, are you more to ward or more away? There’s no right answer be who you are but also these are contextual. At work you might be one Meta Program around parenting, around money around romantic love you might be another. Let’s pick it a couple more to illustrate this point. The next are options or procedures: are you all about lots of choice lots of possibility “the world of my oyster” I want to be able to shock and jive and change and pick a bunch of different things? Or are you more motivated by a proven step-by-step process? Sometimes people get confused here. Option people like to create procedures for somebody else to follow.

 

A procedure person if you interrupt them while they’re walking through their five-step process or whatever they will start back at the beginning because it interrupted their flow it messed up their procedure. A procedure’s person is compelled to get to the end of the process so make sure that the end of the process is where you want it to be. You’re working with one of our clients. 

 

We use a lot of Meta Programs in sales and marketing and we laid out the whole process for their procedural prospects, sales prospects, and they came back to me and they said, it’s not working they’re not buying anything more. And I said, what was the last step in the process? They said, the close the sale is closed. They said, whoa, whoa, whoa the last step in the process should be the project is completed and we meet to discuss the next one. They’re like, oh, whoa, options, procedures know which one you are. And then next let’s look at active reflector. Active reflective, active is like Nike, just do it. Active people have a short sentence structure, they don’t use a lot of words they all about action, action, action they get really impatient, go, go, go. 

 

Reflective people want to consider, ponder, understand, analyze then they’ll make a decision. Active people sometimes decide too fast and make mistakes and have to rewind. Reflective people sometimes they take too long, they procrastinate, etc. You need to understand who you are and who you’re talking to. Ideally put active reflective persons together on a project. Let’s just do one more general a specific. In Power your Tribe we show you all the decoding questions and all the ways to figure out with somebody else and a ton of examples of Meta Program language. General specific, high-level in that net executive summary, specific people like lots of details and then they can start to understand what that high-level vision is. If a specific person is talking to or selling to a general person pretty quickly the general person will drop out of rapport they’ll be like, whoa, too much information just give me the net-net. Likewise, if a general person is selling to a specific person the specific person might not trust them, well, this was a little too high-level this guy doesn’t really know what he’s talking about, this is too flaky what’s he leaving out? So, high level explanation of Meta Program, super-powerful, beautiful stuff. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Well it is. And as you were talking you mentioned it about sales and marketing is I do create a lot of marketing content and material and communications and things like that and so what I try to do is use both ends of these things within a particular sentence. You’re talking about somebody going towards a goal and avoiding a fear. If you put that all into one sentence you actually appeal to both people because they’ll pick out the part that connects with them. 

 

Christine Comaford:   Okay, Jim, you just this before. The human brain deletes, distorts and generalizes, so, yes everybody what Jim said is really important. You can do a blended Meta Program message because a person will delete this stuff that’s not relevant to them, beautiful. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Absolutely. Gosh! Like I said, I didn’t want you on the show just once– 

 

Christine Comaford:   I’ll come back. 

 

Jim Rembach:   –we’re going to talk about that. There’s a whole lot of going back to the emotion wheel and everything that we’re talking about. There’s so much frustration as well as some of the positive things when you get these things right just the power and the ability to perform and exceed and overachieve is just tremendous but it’s loaded with emotion. 

 

Christine Comaford:   The connection between people the loyalty between people the confidence that you can build it’s just awesome the peace, yeah, it’s beautiful.

 

Jim Rembach:   Absolutely. One of the things that we look on the show to kind of help give us a little bit of emotional charge are quotes, is there a quote or two that you like that you can share?

 

Christine Comaford:   I love “Leap and the Net will appear.” I’ve taken so many risks in my life because I really felt like the right thing to do and people were like, you’re nuts you really shouldn’t do that, but I just felt it. I think all of us have like a little Spider Man sense, like a little spidey sense, my spidey sense was saying, go brave.

 

Jim Rembach:   I’m glad you have taken those risks because you’ve been able to produce some of the things like you have within the Power your Tribe and I’m sure you’ve affected a lot of lives in the process. With that for you to get to this point and take those risks and pit it and do all that there’s a lot of humps that I’m sure you’ve had to get over, is there a time where you’ve gotten over the hump that you can share? 

 

Christine Comaford:   January 15, 2015 my stepson died. He was 21, totally healthy kid, totally happy kid, super athletic using my prior book, Smart Tribe, to help not end, because it’s too big to end, but reduce binge drinking at Sonoma State University, he was doing all this amazing stuff he’d always been just this amazing child, and he died at 21. When I got the phone call from his dad, my ex-husband I fell to the ground it’s like my body couldn’t stay standing and I had a bunch of commitments to people and again, I’m super, super crazy responsible, and I had a really hard time functioning for a week. So my amazing assistant Alexis took care of smoothing things out for everybody. 

 

But it was hard to show up for people because I had like 40 executives that were flying down to the Dominican Republic to do this huge strategic retreat and they really needed my help. I had 300 people that were gathered in this other place I had all these big huge, gnarly commitments that I had to meet. And I had to reach down into myself at a level that I hadn’t reached down to even with my divorce, even with the death of my dad, I do reach to such a deep place inside myself and then of course I would find myself. And when I got was that even though I’m super responsible I realized that I’m more supported than I ever knew and that people really want to help. And knowing that has been huge for me because now I can let myself receive in a ways I couldn’t before. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Well thanks for sharing that and I’m sure, I can speak for myself and I’m sure the rest of the legion say we’re sorry about the loss of your stepson. For me I find myself in that story in a couple of different moments not the depth that you’re talking about but I know also that those days are coming in front of me so I appreciate you sharing that. When you start thinking about all of these things that you have going on right now, obviously family is very important to you, you have the work with the Power of Tribe in the Institute, speaking, all of these things, coaching, when you look at all of that that’s sitting on your plate, what’s one of your goals?

 

Christine Comaford:   I have so many. I think the biggest one is really to know that when I one day leave this life that I have really made a profound difference. That’s why I’m working now, you know I retired when I was 40 and here 55 here I am working. People are so remarkable and I do hospice volunteering as well and I just helped my 40th patient pass. The honor the privilege, leadership is a privilege, to help somebody step in to who they truly are there’s nothing like it. And to be able to do that every day, which all of us can, that’s what I live for.

 

Jim Rembach:   And the Fast Leader Legion, and even the southern boy here, 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:     Alright, here we go Fast Leader legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Christine, the Hump Day Hoedown is a part of our show where you give us good insights fast. 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. Christine Comaford, are you ready to hoedown?

 

Christine Comaford:   I’m ready to hoedown.

 

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

 

Christine Comaford:   Time management.

 

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

 

Christine Comaford:   Putting yourself out there is more important than smart.

 

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

 

Christine Comaford:   Tremendous tenacity. 

 

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

 

Christine Comaford:   Meditation.

 

Jim Rembach:      What would be one book that you’d recommend to our legion, it could be from any genre, and of course we’re going to a link to Power your Tribe on your show notes page as well.

 

Christine Comaford:   Power your Tribe or Smart Tribe.  

 

Jim Rembach:   So, we’ll put a link to both of your books on your show notes page and you’ll be able to find that legion at the fastleader.net/Christine Comaford. Okay, Christine, 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. What skill or a piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

 

Christine Comaford:   I would take back compassion, compassion for others and their challenges. Because when I was  25 I really didn’t get that everybody’s doing the best they can and I was really judgmental and really being able to take back what I see now around compassion and letting people be who they are I think would be lovely to have brought back then.

 

Jim Rembach:   Christine, 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. 

 

Christine Comaford:   Yes. Go to poweryourtribe.com that’s our new book website and then if you want to learn about a ton of other stuff about us you can go to our YouTube channel, Christine Comaford. You can follow us on Twitter @comaford and you can go to our company website, www.smarttribesinstitute.com.

 

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

 

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 www.fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

 

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