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Cort Dial - Heretics to Heroes: A Memoir on Modern Leadership

137: Cort Dial: You’re not telling me the whole story

Cort Dial Show Notes Page

Cort Dial was working with the leaders on a capital project in Saudi Arabia. 3 years and 8 million man-hours where required to build this project. Cort asked the supervisors to go all in and sign up to build the project without harming anyone. After months of being told no, Cort had a break through and got over the hump.

Cort Dial is a native Texan, born and raised in Houston and living today in Austin, Texas with his wife Julie, their children and grandchildren.

Cort was the third of four boys whose parents were happily married until their deaths. Cort’s dad was a fire fighter and his mom was a homemaker. His family is Catholic, however, Cort attended public schools where he excelled in basketball and golf.

When Cort was 15, his family moved to a golfing community in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma where Cort spent his days playing golf, fishing and swimming with his brothers and friends. Cort met his wife of nearly 40 years in high school and they were married two weeks after he graduated from Oklahoma State University where he majored in engineering.

He immediately joined Monsanto Chemical Company where he rose through the ranks and ultimately retired while in the corporate staff after 14 years. Ever since, Cort has been the sole proprietor of Cort Dial Consulting, LLC.

Shaped by the firsthand life and death stakes of his early career as an engineer in eight different chemical plants, Cort developed a profound commitment to “the health, safety and wellbeing of the men and women who design, build, operate and maintain our world.” That commitment has guided Cort most of his adult life and is the source of his belief that “business results are best produced through people, not systems or equipment.”

The Dial clan owns and operates two businesses grounded in a simple principle, “You’ve reached the summit of leadership when you can create extraordinary results while caring for people.” Cort’s consulting practice specializes in what he calls “performance transformation” and his unique approach to leadership he calls “All-In™ Leadership”.

The family’s other business, Trent Reynolds Player Development, is led and managed by Cort’s son-in-law, Trent and his wife Katy, is a youth baseball development enterprise whose guiding mantra is “Baseball is for a season, character is for life.” Katy and Trent are the parents of Cort and Julie’s grandsons Max and Jake. Cort’s son, Charlie, is a rising professional golfer making the long journey to the professional tour.

Today, Cort spends his days in Austin writing and teaching others his methodology. He is the author the Amazon Top 10 business book, Heretics to Heroes: A Memoir on Modern Leadership; named “The Best Business Book of 2016” by Canada’s Globe and Mail.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

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

“What forms a leader is a circumstance, a coach, and an individual that wants to develop.” -Cort Dial Click to Tweet

“There has to be a big game that everyone’s excited about playing.” -Cort Dial Click to Tweet 

“In our society, if you can’t touch or feel it, it isn’t valued.” -Cort Dial Click to Tweet 

“The most important thing for business performance can’t be quantified.” -Cort Dial Click to Tweet 

“By nature, we don’t follow procedures or anything, unless there’s good reason.” -Cort Dial Click to Tweet 

“Give people a good reason to come to work every day, passionate about what’s going on.” -Cort Dial Click to Tweet 

“Let’s start working in the self and social fields.” -Cort Dial Click to Tweet 

“If you create five conditions within your organization, people will give you a good rating.” -Cort Dial Click to Tweet 

“It’s built in our DNA to be part of a group.” -Cort Dial Click to Tweet 

“Give people opportunities to grow and develop, but only in service of the mission and vision.” -Cort Dial Click to Tweet 

“No organization or individual can outperform their self-image.” -Cort Dial Click to Tweet 

“In our society, we tend to turn human beings into its. And in reality, they’re thou’s.” -Cort Dial Click to Tweet 

Hump to Get Over

Cort Dial was working with the leaders on a capital project in Saudi Arabia. 3 years and 8 million man-hours where required to build this project. Cort asked the supervisors to go all in and sign up to build the project without harming anyone. After months of being told no, Cort had a break through and got over the hump.

Advice for others

Treat others as sacred human beings, instead of its.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Trying to find others to help as clients.

Best Leadership Advice

Most things that are important for performance can’t be measured.

Secret to Success

Knowing what needed to be said or asked and being willing to ask it.

Best tools that helps in Business or Life

The ability to interpret circumstances that best serve the people I’m leading.

Recommended Reading

Heretics to Heroes: A Memoir on Modern Leadership

Inspirational Presence: The Art of Transformational Leadership

Contacting Cort Dial

Website: http://www.cortdial.com/fastleader

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CortDial

Resources and Show Mentions

Increase Employee Engagement and Workplace Culture

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

137: Cort Dial: You’re not telling me the whole story

 

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 improved 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 likes to lay it on the line but does it with humility. Cort Dial is a native Texan born and raised in Houston and living in Austin, Texas with his wife Julie their grandchildren and children. Cort was a third of four boys whose parents were happily married until their deaths. Cort’s dad was a firefighter and his mom was a homemaker. His family is Catholic however Cort attended public schools where he excelled in basketball and golf. When Cort was 15 his family moved to a golfing community in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma where Cort spent his days playing golf, fishing, swimming with his brothers and friends. 

 

Cort met his wife of nearly 40 years in high school and they were married two weeks after he graduated from Oklahoma State University where he majored in engineering. He immediately joined Monsanto Chemical Company where he rose through the ranks and ultimately retired while in the corporate staff after 14 years. Ever since Cort has been the sole proprietor of Cort Dial consulting. Shaped by the firsthand life-and-death stakes of his early career as an engineer in eight different chemical plants, Cort developed a profound commitment to the health, safety and well-being of the men and women who design, build, operate and maintain our world. That commitment has guided Cort most of his adult life and is the source of his belief that business results are best produced through people not systems or equipment. 

 

The Dial clan owns and operates two businesses grounded in a simple principle, we’ve reached the summit of leadership when you can create extraordinary results while caring for people. Cort’s consulting practice specializes in what he calls performance transformation and his unique approach to leadership he calls all-in leadership. The family’s other business Trent Reynolds player development has led and managed by Cort’s son-in-law. Trent and his wife Katie is a youth baseball development enterprise whose guiding mantra is, “Baseball is for a season character is for life.” Katie and Trent are the parents of Cort and Julie’s grandsons Max and Jake. Cort’s son Charlie is a rising professional golfer making the long journey to the professional tour. Today Cort spends his days in Austin writing and teaching others his methodology. He is the author of the Amazon top ten business book—Heretics to Heroes-A Memoir of Modern Leadership named the best business book of 2016 by Canada’s Globe and Mail. Cort Dial are you ready to help us get over the hump? 

 

Cort Dial:  Yes I am Jim. 

 

Jim Rembach:   And I’m glad you’re here. Now, for everybody who isn’t aware we actually had a little bit of an issue with our first interviews so this is a redo and I want to thank Cort for coming back and actually helping us make sure that we had a good recording because the information that he actually provides both in his book and just in his in his teaching is very valuable to all of us and has a very unique perspective. So, Cort, I’ve given our listeners a little bit about you but can you share with us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better.

 

Cort Dial:  My passion is to help leaders capture the hearts and minds of their people and then focus that energy on whatever their business imperatives are. And right now I just completed a six year engagement with a large company and you know I’m excited about who’s around the next corner, who’s the next individual leader that I’m going to be coaching.

 

Jim Rembach:   I think you bring up a really interesting point when you mention and you talk about a six year journey. People oftentimes think that, hey just go to a training session or let’s just have a two-day or three-day workshop and everybody’s going to be better at communicating and connecting but that’s just not how it works, does it? 

 

Cort Dial:  No. What I believe forms of leader is a circumstance, a coach, and an individual who wants to grow and develop into extraordinary human being, extraordinary leader those three things together are what I look for. I bring the coaching I look for the circumstance and I look for the leader. In the case of this recent six years it was a gentleman who was in charge of deep water drilling, offshore in Gulf of Mexico and if you’re we’re what’s happened out there with the horizon disaster and then dropping oil prices he had a lot to do to change his organization make it profitable.

 

Jim Rembach:   There’s a whole lot of challenges when you start talking about that type of business and that type of industry and the different level of I guess you’d say people different types of organizations have everything from the day laborer or the laborer to very sophisticated and complex skill sets and jobs and education. So, when you start thinking about all of that how does an organization bring those multi different groups together?

 

Cort Dial:  Well there has to be a big game that everyone’s excited about playing and that’s one of the key jobs I believe that the leader is to articulate the vision if you will the big game were a lot to playing here. And in the case of this gentleman his big game was we got to be able to drill every well on budget on time the first time which has never been done in the industry in the Gulf of Mexico and that was a huge game for everyone. And like you say in his organization he has top one percentage from Stanford engineers and then he has people with probably an eighth grade education out on his rigs and everyone in between. Ultimately they were able to do that for months and saved him about close to million dollars and demonstrated the corporation, hey this is still a viable business. 

 

Jim Rembach:   When I started reading Heretics to Heroes and scanning over it– first of all it’s a really different and interesting approach that you’ve taken with writing that book because it’s more in the first person than it is talking about theory and ideas and maybe even practices and case studies about other companies but this was your life.

 

Cort Dial:  Yeah it’s essentially a nonfiction novel the way I look at it and that’s what I tried to do. I tried to have people follow my journey development and then once I reached the point where I was capable of coaching others what does it look like when I coach these others and I wanted to put people in the room when outstanding, coaching an extraordinary leadership was going on have and see and feel and hear what it looks like. And the feedback I’ve gotten on the book is—and even the gentleman who selected as a best book of the year is they love it because it touches them so much and affects him emotionally and inspires him so much.

 

Jim Rembach:   Definitely. For me oftentimes we think about in certain industries certain job types and the people who oftentimes you know fill those particular roles and when you start thinking about engineers, accountants, lawyers a lot of times they aren’t perceived as being touchy-feely people oriented type of folks and so their leadership comes across as very structured and very distant but you actually kind of changed that type of a characteristic or even a stereotype within these organizations and that’s what’s made the difference.

 

Cort Dial:  Yes. Well in our society in general if you can’t touch and feel it isn’t valued. What is the mantra in most businesses? If you can’t measure, you can’t manage it. And one of the first lessons I learned as a young man I was fortunate to work for the gentleman named Dr. Edwards Steming who was pretty famous in the 80’s and he said to me once, Cort the things that are most important for business performance can’t be quantified. And that started me thinking about what does he mean by that? So, that’s what’s missing in most organizations. They have great systems and programs and processes and they know all the behaviors that need to be exhibited in order to perform well it’s just getting people to do it is a challenge. By nature we don’t follow procedures we don’t follow anything unless there’s a good reason for doing it that’s the leaders job. Whoever’s at the top of any organization one of your main functions is to give people a good reason to come to work every day, passionate about what’s going on and ready to behave in the ways that we need to behave to perform.

 

Jim Rembach:   One of the stories that you talked about or situations, experiences I guess I should say, in the book is you introduce something that I just never heard before and correct me if I’m not pronouncing a correct but that was it Inshallah 

 

Cort Dial:  Mmm-hmm, Inshallah.

 

Jim Rembach:   Inshallah. Tell us about where that came about for you?

 

Cort Dial:  Well one of the things a leader was putting in front of a major capital project over in Saudi Arabia was that we’re going to build this thing we’re getting ready to build. Work three years, millions of man-hours and we’re not going to harm a single person and that anyone who’s done that type of work knows that’s impossible but that’s why it was such a big game. And I was working with the supervision of the initial supervisors, initial supervisors on that project because it’s always important to get the core there before anyone else shows up. And their answer to my question, my invitation was, can you sign up to build this thing without harming anyone was no for months. And they kept throwing this thing called Inshallah in my face which is a concept over there which essentially the way they put it was it’s in God’s hands we don’t have any control over whether anybody gets hurt. Ultimately I found that that wasn’t actually what Inshallah meant means is with my hard work and God willing it will happen, that’s me paraphrasing it and that’s what I was taught. I went to one of the mosques in Bahrain and met with a teacher there and he helped me understand it. When I went back and confronted these guys and said, hey you’re not telling me the whole story ultimately they committed to it and what they came to realize was it wasn’t that we need a new programs or systems we needed to start treating these men, and I say men because in Saudi there were no women, we need to start treating these men’s as we would any loved one look after them the way we would our own sons and think like that. Ultimately they worked million man-hours and didn’t have a single person leave the project for any medical attention which is impossible but they did it. And when you ask them why they did it? How did they do it? They’ll tell you because I was a father. I became a father I was much more than a supervisor I was a father.

 

Jim Rembach:   When you start thinking about the different generations that are in the workplace thinking also about how these generations have been brought up even going back to the whole, I have a day laborer it’s a sixth eighth grade education all the way up to the Stanford, Doctor and Engineering you have a situation where connecting to those people at that deeper level is not an easy task and so I know you talk about the big game but you also mentioned something about the five conditions of performance, how does all of that come into play so that that collaboration and that connection at a significantly deeper level than just, hey here’s my title and here’s my job responsibilities take place. 

 

Cort Dial:  A lot of times leaders will ask me, okay how do I capture the hearts and minds of people? And because what we really want them to do is stop working and when I call the systems and behavior fields not stop but don’t put any more investment in there you put enough in there let’s start working in what I call the self and social fields and that’s what’s going on inside of people in between people the social constructs in an organization. And so I I’ve developed years ago this sort of quick fixers, quick start up approach and basically you will create five conditions in the organization people will give you well beyond what if they normally give you to get a good rating and keep the boss happy. And those five things are a big game to play their commitment and confidence that we’re going to win this game especially confidence and commitment that the leader has. A sense of belonging, it’s built in our DNA to want to be part of a group and belong to a group throughout all our evolution if we were excluded from the group or excluded from the leader it meant death and so psychologically we are very hungry for belonging. People are looking for opportunity to grow and develop especially these newer generations coming in but what’s important is to give people those opportunities but only if they’re in service to the mission and the vision. And then to work on people’s positive—give them a positive self-image no organization or individual can outperform their self-image. 

 

So for example, what I was working on with those men over there was changing who they were being. Who they were being were like you said early accountants they were they were using the predictive mechanical part of their brain to say I know this is impossible I had all my experiences we can’t do this without hurting people, people die when you build things like this. And have them access another part of the brain we have which is the part that loves and cares and has concerned and can see the impossible and can say I don’t care if it’s impossible my son is not going to get hurt. I was trying to pull that out of them and has since have them shift on who they were being from being like mechanical predictors to human beings. You said it’s tough to access these things it’s actually very easy and simple if you just become a human being and stop being a manager stop being a supervisor and start looking across at this other human being and interact with them as if you’re interacting with something sacred a sacred being. And in our society we tend to turn human beings into it’s and in reality they’re thou’s and if you have thou relationship to all the different human beings you come in contact with you’ll have a profound effect on their hearts and minds.

 

Jim Rembach:   You bring up a really interesting point, thanks for sharing that. There’s things that kind of hit me and one of the things that you bet I think about, and I kind of ran into this the other day just at the grocery store, some people you just can’t make that connection with and they just refuse to give it back even though if you keep giving it and giving it you’re just not going to get it in return. So, when I start thinking about an organization and I have multiple thou’s throughout the organization is that there’s some who are just going to—I absolutely refuse to participate and engage with that. What do then especially if they’re in a key role?

 

Cort Dial:  Well, if they’re in a key role you either need to move them into a more of a single contributor role definitely get them out of a leadership role or in most cases they will remove themselves. People don’t like to work in an organization where everyone’s going this direction and excited about it I’m one of the few that isn’t. The other thing I share with leaders is don’t expect everybody to sign up immediately. When you work with people in the way that we were talking about here you’re basically creating a psychological container with your vision and with your leadership that you’re putting people in. It’s like popping popcorn, you put the kernels in there those are the people your vision the future you’re inviting them to become part of is the actual popper and you’re the source of heat as a leader and if you do this well some of the kernels are going to pop. But there isn’t any popcorn popper, there’s some kernels of pop early some will take later and some that never pop, so, they expect everyone to pop that’s not going to happen. There’s certain strategies for treating all those different groups as they slowly start to sign up and get enrolled in what you’re inviting them to sign up for.

 

Jim Rembach:  I think that’s a great analogy. For I started visualizing all that and it totally makes sense in it. That is kind of the way it happens, I mean it’s simplistic in it’s vision but I mean that is what occurs. 

 

Cort Dial:  The people that resist to change like this are very useful because they’ll point out everything you need to overcome all the challenges all the reasons why it can’t happen and that’s essentially what you’re going deal with. Ultimately you want them and you want to guide them through these different stages ultimately into exploring your invitation and then you can’t force anyone to say yes so there is no choice so as a leader you have to be perfectly okay with anyone saying no thank you. However as you said earlier if some of them are in critical positions if they can’t find a way to say yes then they need to be moved or reassigned or whatever.

 

Jim Rembach:   So without a doubt when we’re starting to talk about all of this especially the length of the journey that’s necessary and the effort and the activity that needs to go involved there’s a whole lot of an emotion we need in order to be able to pull this off. One of the ways that we look for that on the show is through quotes and your book is just loaded with quotes for sure but is there one or two that kind of stands out to you that you can share?

 

Cort Dial:  I guess the one that I always go back to is that, you can’t quantify, Dr. Deming. What he basically said was, young man as you mature you’re going to come to realize that the things that are most important for safety, quality, productivity in any business result or human endeavor cannot be quantified. And that hit me like a ton of bricks and it caused me to begin a journey that I’ve been on ever since which is what are all these things that you can’t count you can’t see they don’t exist in time and space but I have a profound effect on our performance? 

 

Jim Rembach:  That is so deep and so profound in so many different ways. I think I kind of like what you’ve really alluded to with it as well is that it’s a lifelong journey in order to figure all that out and being mindful. I guess that’s where it starts and like you even said a moment ago is that it’s the whole self-peace all those things that start with me. 

 

Cort Dial:  Especially in a world that most people see this stuff as I’ve had it people call it psychobabble. We’ve all grown up in this world where if it doesn’t exist in time and space it isn’t real that’s it through the education system and through all the business. It’s funny though if you go back a few hundred years just the opposite was true where the mystical the spiritual was all that mattered and everything science was evil. So all I’m all I’m trying to do is, hey let’s bring this other half back into its rightful place. I’m not saying the mechanical and the system’s behaviors aren’t important, absolutely critical. As my dad used to say this an old Texas saying, you’re half-ass which ever cheek you’re missing. I’m not suggesting we stop doing the things we’re doing but we have to start learning how to access this other half of the equation and those who do leave other people in the dusk perform at a level no one ever thought was possible.

 

Jim Rembach:   That’s a great point. I know with the things that you’re doing with your work the book trying to develop—mentor others and really make us all in something that more people can actually participate in but—grandkids got a lot of things going on, what’s one of your goals?

 

Cort Dial:  One of my goals is to write a second book which is about the—how to do what I do. I’ve created this thing I’m calling a summit which has captured the entire process and all the materials involved. I’m now hosting these small very groups to come spend a week and meet with me in Austin and learn how to do what I do. People who would attend that are like people that are leading a major change in an organization or coaches those type of folks. And then the second big thing as I said I’m working on is writing a second book because a lot of people have loved the book and said, now how do I do what I’ve read about in that 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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Alright here we go Fast Leader legion, it’s time the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Cort, the Hump Day Hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So, I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust yet rapid responses are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Cort Dial, are you ready to hoedown? 

 

Cort Dial:  I am ready. 

 

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

 

Cort Dial:  I’ve sort of been spoiled because I’ve never had to look for clients and now I’m trying to figure out how do you reach this broader audience and give away in a sense give to others all that I’ve created over the years. 

 

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

 

Cort Dial:  We already talked about it. Most things that performance can’t be measured.

 

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

 

Cort Dial:  Because I had this knack of knowing what needed to be said it was dying to be said or asked at the moment and I was willing to ask it. 

 

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

 

Cort Dial:  The ability to interpret circumstances in the way that best serve me best serve the people I’m leading.

 

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

 

Cort Dial:  Inspirational Presence is by a gentleman named Jeff Evans.

 

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/cortdial. Okay, Cort, 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 piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why? 

 

Cort Dial:  Storytelling. Because it affects people emotionally captures their hearts and minds.

 

Jim Rembach:   Cort 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? 

 

Cort Dial:  Yes. I’ve actually created a landing page on my website, it’s cortdial.com/fastleader and that will tell them everything about me. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Cort Dial 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 thefastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

 

END OF AUDIO 

 

 

080: Paul Maskill: I wasn’t really helping the business grow

Paul Maskill Show Notes

Paul Maskill was doing all of the busy admin work in his business. Paul was working 60-80 hours per week but was not leading his business. He was failing to take his business to the next level. That’s when Paul made a decision that ultimately led him to become the leader that generated the business growth that led him to an even bigger business opportunity.

Paul was born and raised in Goodrich, MI with his older sister Nicole. Both his parents worked, his father own his own hardwood floor business and mother was in financial services.

Started at the age of fourteen working at the local country club washing dishes golf course and worked his way up to a bag boy. Living a somewhat normal childhood Paul fulfilled his boyhood sports dream to attend the University of Michigan.

After graduating with a Finance degree in hand, Paul set out to climb the Corporate Ladder in Chicago all the way to the top. Not long into his career in Corporate America, the buzz of a finance job in the big city lost its luster and Paul was looking for more.

Sitting in a cubicle for 10-12 hours a day while staring at spreadsheets and building someone else’s business, was not Paul’s idea of a living the dream. So, he quit! After taking two months to travel around South America, Paul decided to relocate to Raleigh, NC and start a career that was rewarding…after all, you only live once.

In 2011, Paul invested in his first Teach Grow A (TGA), combining his business experience with passion for sports. TGA makes golf and tennis more accessible to students ages 3-15 through on-campus afterschool programs, summer camps, parent/child events and more. Over the next 4.5 years, Paul grew his business to four franchises, impacting 1,000’s of kids each year.

At the end of 2015, Paul was ready to make his next move. He sold his four franchises for over 6x his initial investment and 3x his net profit. Soon after, Paul was hired by the franchisor to be in charge of Business Development.

Based on his business experience and ability to grow a business to over 40 employees and $400k in revenue in 4 years, Paul now works with current franchise owners to help build their business into an organization with people, processes and systems in place so that the business can thrive without relying on the owner (working ON versus working IN their business). He also works with all prospective franchise owners on putting together their business plan while evaluating all of the moving parts of the business and their geographic area.

Paul currently resides in Holly Springs, NC with his wife Angela and their new baby daughter Amelia.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @PaulMaskill and get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet 

“Help other people get where they want to go and it helps you get where you want to go.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet

“Being an entrepreneur might not be for everybody.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“It’s okay to be the wingman of an entrepreneur.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“Do the little things and big things will happen” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“If you focus on the little details you are going to set yourself apart from everybody else.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“Most business are pretty much a commodity at this point.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“Whatever you’re selling there’s probably a hundred other people selling the same thing.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“What are you going to do to set you apart?” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“Perfect all of your processes and then start to scale.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“It’s okay to make mistakes, that’s the only way you get to where you want to go.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“Delegating that first task is probably the toughest.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“People in general like to feel appreciated, even if you’re not an employee.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“Once it turns into a job they’re probably going to leave.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“Show appreciation for everybody no matter where they came from.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“You really have to throw your ego out the door and give credit to everybody else.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“Sports give you a lot of tools that you need to be successful in the business world.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“To build a viable business it does take time and patience.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

“You can always obtain knowledge again but you can’t teach someone to work hard.” -Paul Maskill Click to Tweet 

Hump to Get Over

Paul Maskill was doing all of the busy admin work in his business. Paul was working 60-80 hours per week but was not leading his business. He was failing to take his business to the next level. That’s when Paul made a decision that ultimately led him to become the leader that generated the business growth that led him to an even bigger business opportunity.

Advice for others

Stay organized. Perfect all of your processes.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Going a little too fast for others. I need to take a step back and explain myself before I get ahead of myself.

Best Leadership Advice Received

The golden rule. Treat others the way you want to be treated.

Secret to Success

Time management and organization. When you are organized you’re going to get a lot more done a lot quicker.

Best tools that helps in business or Life

A calendar.

Recommended Reading

Go Giver Bob Burg

The Go-Giver, Expanded Edition: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea

Contacting Paul

email: pmaskill [at] playtga.com

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PaulMaskill

Resources

TGA Franchise Info: http://playtga.com/franchise/fast/

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

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.

 

Need a powerful and entertaining way to ignite your next conference, retreat or team-building session? My keynote 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 help your attendees get over the hump now. Go to beyondmorale.com/speaking to learn more. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast leader Legion today I’m thrilled the share with you today’s guest because he has had success impacting the customer experience and has defied common practices. Paul Maskill was born and raised in Goodridge, Michigan with his older sister Nicole. Both his parents worked, his father owned his own hardware floor business and his mother was in financial services. Starting at the age of 14 working at the local country club, washing dishes at the golf course, Paul worked his way up to a bag boy. Living a somewhat normal childhood Paul fulfilled his boyhood sports stream to attend the University of Michigan. After graduating with a finance degree in hand Paul set out to climb the corporate ladder in Chicago all the way to the top not long into his career in corporate America the buzz of a finance job in the big city lost its luster and Paul was looking for more. Sitting in a cubicle for 10 to 12 hours a day while staring at spreadsheets and building someone else’s business was not Paul’s idea of living a dream, so he quit. 

 

After taking two months to travel around South America, Paul decided to relocate to Raleigh, North Carolina and start a career that was rewarding. In 2011 Paul invested in his first Teach, Grow, Achieve franchise, combining his business experience with passion for sports. TGA makes golf and tennis more accessible to students ages 3 to 15 through on campus afterschool programs, summer camps, parent-child events, and more. Over the next four and half years Paul grew his business to four franchises impacting 1000+ kids each year. At the end of 2015, Paul was ready to make his next move. He sold his four franchises for over six times his initial investment and three times net profit, soon after Paul was hired by the franchisor to be in charge of business development based on his business experience and ability to grow business to over 40 employees and $400,000 in revenue in four years, Paul now works with current franchise owners to help build their businesses into an organization with people, processes, and systems in place so that the businesses can thrive without relying on the owner. He also works with all prospective franchise owners on putting together their business plan while evaluating all the moving parts of the business and their geographic area. Paul currently resides in Holly Springs, North Carolina with his wife Angela and their new baby daughter Amelia. Paul Maskill are you ready to help us get over the hump?

 

Paul Maskill:    Wow! I am ready as ever Jim. Super excited to be here.

 

Jim Rembach:    I’m glad you’re here! And 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.

 

Paul Maskill:    Yeah! My current passion really is business, entrepreneurship, impacting people, which is one of the reasons why I still stayed with TJ even after selling the business I just really believe in the impact we can make in the local community. When you help other people get where they want to go I think it’s going to help you get where you want to go. So along with those hang out with the family, playing golf, playing tennis, playing basketball that’s really where my passions are today.

 

Jim Rembach:    Well you know, it’s interesting and one of the reason I wanted you on the show is because there’s a couple things that stood out to me. First of all, when you start thinking about becoming an entrepreneur and owning your own business everybody kind of has this dream of that and a lot of people are trying to find ways in order to be able to do that. You and I met through the podcasting scene and when you think about podcasts and the ones that are the most popular are about entrepreneurialism and so you actually had gone the opposite direction you became an entrepreneur but you are not an entrepreneur, maybe kind of, how did you do that and why did you do that?

 

Paul Maskill:    Yeah. So when I decided to sell my four franchises it really was just timing, the right person at the right time at the right price I wasn’t necessarily actively looking to sell it but if the right price came along, you know I’m a believer of what Warren Buffett says, buy low sell high and the right the right price came along and that really allowed me to do pretty much anything I wanted at that time. I was looking at starting another business a consultant business coach one of those things taking my experience and helping others and lo and behold I was able to get that opportunity with TGA. I’ve had a ton of experience obviously with TGA on a business level and having the success so I really had the opportunity to take what I was able to do and now really impact, I kind of look it and it would impact even more kids because I’m impacting all these business that surf kids.  So I’m still working for an entrepreneurial type business, our headquarters team is less than 10 so we’re still very front facing really entrepreneurial forward thinking, always looking to innovate and I do have a vested interest in the success of the TGA franchises going forward. So in my opinion still sort of entrepreneur but like you said I did kind of step back and now I’m technically working for somebody else but that is not to deter my entrepreneurial passion and enthusiasm and I actually do run an e-commerce store on the side as well. So yeah. I saw it as a great opportunity to take what I’ve done and impact others and continue to fulfill my passion around sports people and building business.

 

Jim Rembach:    Now there’s another thing that stood out to me of course is even when you—and I’m sure this is why you’re possibly working with—and even as you said now have an equity stake within the company as a whole, so your passion is really more than just having your own business and that for me is a little bit hard to understand is that it wasn’t the fact of owning your own business that was really the underlying passion, it was more so in the growth and impacting and making a bigger impact, would that be a fair assessment?

 

Paul Maskill:    Yeah. I would say that’s a fair assessment. I mean when you have a passion for whatever business you’re working in, it just makes that much easier to get to success because you’re driven, you want to make an impact, and you want to succeed. Not everybody, I mean even if you look at people that, say the first ten people that were working for Facebook they weren’t Mark Zuckerberg but they probably instill a pretty good passion for it and still probably had a pretty good outcome. So being an entrepreneur, being your own boss might not be for everybody but it’s okay to be the wingman of an entrepreneur and help them get where they want to go because every entrepreneur needs people and needs to surround themselves with successful people. They get to where they want to go and usually when they do that they also have some sort of vested interest in the outcome of the business.

 

Jim Rembach:    You know I  think that’s a great point. I mean for me I’ve always say that I’m not the person who necessarily has to be the one who has a spotlight shining upon them and really even when you start talking about the format of the fast leader show, one of the reasons I’m doing the fast leader show is to put the spotlight on other folks.

 

Paul Maskill:    Exactly.

 

Jim Rembach:    And I get to do that and I get to learn so much about their stories and the things that they’ve had overcome and gain different perspective and to me it’s just a valuable growth experience and for whatever may come of that in regards coming back to me it’s because I am, like you are saying, focusing on others and that’s my primary objective and where I get passion. And now another thing that we actually look at as far as passion is concern on the show are leadership quotes and I should just really start saying quotes in general because when you start thinking about quotes that impact us they really help us do lead ourselves and others better most often. But is there a quote or two that kind of helps you get up in the morning and be energized can you share that with us.?

 

Paul Maskill:    Yeah. Like you say there’s tons of quotes and if you’re on social media and Twitter and Instagram you’re reading quotes all day, but one thing that I kind of built our businesses around and really built our—the customer experience and the employee experience, cause both those groups of people are so integral in the success of any business, would be: Do the little things and big things will happen. So no matter what the task is if you focus on the little details, you are going to set yourself apart from pretty much everybody else. Most businesses are pretty much a commodity at this point, so everybody whatever you’re selling there’s probably a 100 other people selling the same thing or very similar so what are you going to do to set yours apart? It’s those little things, whether it’s your customer service, taking care of your employees, showing appreciation, anything and everything just take that little bit extra time to do something a little bit quicker, a little bit better, a little bit more well thought out and you will get to where you want to go.

 

So that was really what I kind of preach to our employees and that’s really what I lead by example with as well as if a customer called, call them back right away, email them back right away. It’s actually pretty amazing when you do that. What low expectation most customers have, because when you do that their like, “Wow thank you so much for calling me back within 24 hours.” I probably learned that from my dad originally when he would go out to estimates to people’s houses to take a look at their hardwood floors, he would show up and they’d just said, “Thanks for showing up the three other people we called didn’t even show up. “ So, I think, Do the little things and big things will happen, would have to be my leadership quote.

 

Jim Rembach:    Well I’m glad you shared the because that was also one of the other reasons that I wanted you on the show is because you were able to have success with these franchises  sold it for a profit. Obviously when you start thinking about, even the parent company of the franchisor offering you an equity stake to commit, and that’s huge, so obviously you stood out far beyond all of the other franchisees. When you start thinking about the little things, there’s often little things that can make massive impacts. You shared one thing about the communication response back but what else did you do differently and do you teach now these franchisees to do differently that will make a bigger difference so they did do stand out like you were saying because pretty much all  products and services become commoditized and we all as far as consumers look at our experience from a lot of different companies and compared them to the one that were doing business with in front of us so you know it’s now a situation where even the playing field has been kind of leveled across all different products and services that we purchased. What did you do different?

 

 Paul Maskill:    It probably starts even before. If you take a step back and not even your interaction with your employees or your customers I think it starts before that and really just staying organized. I’m very organized, coming from a finance background I have spreadsheets for everything and I kind of take the approach of when I’m doing something for the first time or I’m building a process or building a system, no matter how simple the task might be I always ask myself, would I be able to do it this way when I have 40+ employees? And would I be able to transition this task to somebody else doing it this way? And if not let’s take a little bit extra time, make it so in that way it’s repeatable, replicable and somebody else could do it and staying organized. 

 

When people start their business they have a lot of time to kind of do a little bit of everything so they’re probably not as efficient as they should be but as you start to scale your business you really have to get efficient. You can’t provide that great customer service or that great employee experience if you’re busy doing all these things that are not really organize from a time management and an efficiency standpoint, so that’s probably really one of the biggest things that I work with people is building that solid foundation so that way you’re setting yourself up for future success. So perfect all your processes get them all documented and then start to scale because then you’re going to have more time to go out in the field and make sure your employees are happy and showing them appreciation and  giving your customers a courtesy call and sending a thank you note to your most loyal customers, all those little things that then get people to promote you as well as continue frequenting your business.

 

Jim Rembach:    That’s some very good insight and thank you sharing it. I have a friend of mine who is kind of like a realtor for businesses. He works on the buy and sell side of small businesses and one of the things that he works with companies that are essentially getting ready to put their businesses on the market to be sold is that he’s working with them to help them build and document their processes.

 

Paul Maskill:    Exactly! Pretty much every time I did a process I would record it using a screen recording software, something like Camtasia as well as do a type up step by step process because I was, if you read the book, Built to Sell, that will really give everybody a good insight of building a valuable sustainable business. Thinking with the end in mind really does help get you where you want to go and when it is time to sell or to transfer ownership or even just to step back and have somebody run your business on a day-to-day basis and you can just kind of collect the profits in sort of a passive income way, having all those things in place will let you do it and make sure there is no bumps in the road from the sense of lower customer experience or lower quality of product your deliverable.

 

Jim Rembach:    Yeah. I think you also bring up this as an important point. Even if you’re an employee of an organization, this is an important point that’s going to help us move onward and upward faster. Even though it does apparently seem to be the case because were stopping and taking the time to document all of these processes, to document the different flows the different, and looking at things from a different perspective but in the long run. And that’s what we talk about a lot on the fast leader show, in the long run you’re going to move onward and upward faster if you have that foundation and those things in place.

 

Paul Maskill:    Exactly, and that’s spot on.

 

Jim Rembach:    So when you start thinking about, gosh, getting to the point as you are now, I mean you talked about going to university in Michigan and there was a sports dream and now you’re living and doing sports kind of through TGA and the work that you’re doing there but there’s had to be humps along the way where you’ve learned a lot lessons, 55555555is there a story that you can share with us on one you had to get over the hump?

 

Paul Maskill:    Yes, I think it would probably be when I was leading TGA and that time we probably had about 25 part-time coaches out there delivering our product and service and getting kids excited about golf and tennis but I was still doing all of the other works. All of the busywork, all the admin work, probably working 60 to 80 hours a week pretty easily which is taking time away for me leading the business having the ability to take it to the next level so really that was probably the hump to get over. I took a few days and just sat back and wrote down everything that I did on a regular basis, so it’s basically a big giant chart, whiteboard wrote down everything I did and I just started dividing them up in a similar roles and then created a team to fill those roles so that way I could begin to really take a business to the next level really continue to lead. I don’t want to get to the point where my employees felt like I wasn’t out there enough with them because I was always busy doing busy work that wasn’t really helping the business grow and then same thing on the customer side eventually you’re not going to build the service always customer. So I really took that step back realize what I need to do and then started putting the systems in people and processes in place so that way we could take our business to the next level.

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay, so that’s interesting and somewhat scary for a ton of folks. Because when you start talking about doing that and turning over that responsibility to other people, how did you get over the fact you still needed to control those things? How did you release that power?

 

Paul Maskill:    It does take a little bit of work because like you said when you start your own business you want to do everything your way and you think that is the only way. The way I got over it was one putting the right—finding the right people that I knew I could trust but then it really goes back to the systems and processes and I try to be as detail oriented as possible so that there was no way that they could do this process some other way, like there was no cracks that they could veer off and then all the sudden, why did you do it this way? You didn’t tell me that I needed to do it like that. So I really took the time to be very detail oriented and then provide them the support, training and leadership that they need to succeed. So meeting with them on a regular basis, showing appreciation, sending them messages and just checking in on to them to make sure they don’t have any questions and letting them know that it’s okay to make mistakes. I wouldn’t have gotten to where I was if I didn’t make mistakes, I think that’s the only way you do to get to where you want to go is making mistakes learning from it an and improving. 

 

And if you get on the same playing field and same mindset with them they’re not nervous they’re not worried about making mistake because they know that—we’ll figure it out together and we’ll improve the process along the way. Delegating that first task is probably the toughest but once you do it and you see it work you feel like a proud parent or something. So it’s like, you know that aha moment that all of a sudden, I can do this they can do this they’ve perfected that task let’s give them another one and give them some time to learn it and let them digest it. The beautiful thing about a few creating some sort of training videos or training library that they can learn it at their own pace, they can pause, rewind and really do what’s best for them. So, once you do the first one and get success then it’s kind of like the floodgates open and it’s a whole new world. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay, as you were talking—and thanks for sharing that, is that I started thinking about the flipside of this. One of the problems is that a lot of organizations have and today’s world is a problem with innovation. If you start thinking about, I have employees they now have VST standard operating procedures and everything is documented to a tee. We could possibly fall into a problem of stifling our ability to be innovative and our creative thinking. How did you balance that?

 

Paul Maskill:    Yes, so that’s really a great point because you don’t want to make these employees just feel like robots. We would meet once a month to have those brainstorming innovative discussions, Where are we? Where do we want to go? And how are we going to get there? So what new products we want to add? How can we improve our current products and deliverables? So, we would meet once a month I would take them out to dinner as a little bit of a sign of appreciation, thank you for your time, employees love appreciation, people in general like to feel appreciated even if you’re not an employee. So really, brainstorming with them—okay, this part is going really well can we improve it? What about this how can we make it better? And then what other new things do we want to add? What have you heard from our parents that say, I really wish you offered X, Y, Z. So, it’s really important to have those brainstorming meetings to kind of get the creative juices flowing. And what I found was the most valuable is when you put this team together everybody has different mindset, different mind frame and they see the world totally different than you do and they brought up so many things that I never would’ve even thought of just because my brain doesn’t  think that way so it’s really powerful because then you get 4, 5 people at the table that aren’t afraid to make a comment or make a suggestion it really does keep the innovation going, so I think that’s really important to stay connected with your people. Appreciate them so they don’t just feel like they’re just doing a job, once it turns into a job probably they’re probably going to leave.

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay so, Paul as you were going through and talking about that I started thinking about the word humility. You have to have the humility and be open to listening to all those ideas and thoughts from other folks, when you’ve created this—your baby, right? Where do you get your humility from Paul? 

 

Paul Maskill:    I guess just growing up realizing that one that you’re really not that important in this world. Right there 6 billion people, you’re not really anybody important so don’t treat yourself that way and don’t put yourself up in a pedestal. Everybody out there are probably going something more difficult than you, so I think there’s probably just part of the way that I was raised is to show appreciation for everybody no matter where they came from you don’t know what they’re going through. And then as you continue and start to build the business you really have to throw your ego out the door and you’ve got to give credit to everybody else that’s helping you build this business. 

 

So without employees you’re not going to have a business. Without customers you’re not going to have a business. and once you realize that and you’re okay with that you don’t need to be the center of attention you don’t need to be the first getting all the credit I have no problem giving the credit to other people and I think that really goes back to my passion for sports and when you watch really good teams play. I grew up watching the Detroit Pistons in basketball, basketball’s probably is one of my biggest sports passion is when they had really successful teams it was about the team it wasn’t about one star and they were kind of going against the grain but when you see that and you see people sacrificing something for the betterment of the whole organizational work or the whole team that really does make an impact on you so you know whether are your coaching or playing sports I think sports do give you a lot of tools that you need to succeed in and out of the business world.

 

Jim Rembach:    Yeah I think we’re learning that more and more. Thanks for sharing. So I you got a lot of things going on, you have an equity stake in TGA, you’re trying to build and help others grow their business and make an impact on more and more kids, you just have a brand-new beautiful baby, what are some your goals?

 

Paul Maskill:    Yeah so some of my goals, on a personal level it’s really just continue building businesses to allow me for more freedom. I’m the backend kind of being patient in there a lot of people I think it caught up in the get rich quick, I want to build this business and make all this money and then you know retire in two years but I think to build a viable business it does take time and patience. So you know my goal, they’ve all kind of come full circle when I was working in the corporate world it was like I had two different lives, I left work at 5, 6, 7 o’clock and I didn’t even think talk or deal with work but I didn’t like going at the same time so it’s like two different world now they all kind of come into one and I kind of used them to feed off each other so if I want to go play golf, tennis, or basketball I know that I need to get X, Y, Z done with work and if I want to hang out with family I need to get this done with work and I need to get up early to make sure I have time to do that and then on the opposite side in order to have a family that what we want to do and have the freedom we want, I got to work hard in business. So those are really my goals, is doing all those things kind of in a synergy way and I think the best way to build any business is by the more people that you impact and help get to where they want to go you’re going to be successful and you’re going to be a leader within whatever type of nitch, organization, wherever you’re doing your work, I think if you become a leader and you see that you’re putting other people first, it’s going to help you get where you want to go.

 

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

 

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

 

Paul Maskill:    I am ready and ready.

 

Jim Rembach:    Alright! So what do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

 

Paul Maskill:    Yeah so ironically this is the fast hump day hoedown, it’s probably going a little too fast sometimes for others, so I realize that my mind is probably assuming that people know things that they don’t know. So just going a little too fast and then I should just take a step back and explain myself before getting ahead of myself, especially getting ahead of them.

 

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

 

Jim Rembach:    It’s simple you learn it probably when your 3 or 4 years old. It’s the golden rule “Treat others the way you want to be treated”, when you do that to your employees and your customers and give them the experiences that you would want as an employer or customer you will be successful.

 

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

 

Paul Maskill:    Like we talked about before, time management and organization when you are organized and you have your time set up for success you’re just going to get a lot more done a lot quicker.

 

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

 

Paul Maskill:    I think it’s simple. A calendar. Kind of working from your calendar, making sure everything’s on your calendar, you got your time blocked off to make sure you get everything done. It’s simple but it still works.

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

 

Paul Maskill:     “The Go Giver” by Bob Burg I think is his name. Great book, his a great guy, out on twitter as well, his very responsive and love his message and what he does.

 

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

 

Paul Maskill:    I would have to say my work ethic and determination. So you can always obtain knowledge again, I mean there’s more resources out there than ever but you really can’t teach somebody how to work hard and hustle, I think you just kind of grow up with it and if you have it you can pretty much do whatever you want, not giving up and you can always go find answers to knowledge that you need. So that would be work ethic and determination.

 

 

Jim Rembach:    Paul 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.

 

Paul Maskill:    Yeah. So if you’re out on Twitter it’s just Paul Maskill is my Twitter handle. You can always send me an email, I’ll respond to your email personally PMaskill@playTGA.com and if you are interested in any sort of TGA information opportunity just head over to FranchiseTGA.com/fast so that’s a landing page, welcome page just for your listeners. You can schedule a call with me if you want to talk about anything, it doesn’t even have to be TGA, there’s a little survey there to see if a franchise might be right for you and more information on TGA in general what we’re trying to do.

 

Jim Rembach:    Paul Maskill, 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

 

073: Bill Treasurer: I was embarrassed and tried to joke it off

Bill Treasurer Show Notes

Bill Treasurer was in his performance review when his boss told him to close the door. Bill knew what was coming next was not going to be good. He told Bill he was concerned he was becoming a brown-noser. Bill was embarrassed and ashamed. Listen to what he said next that made all the difference.

Bill grew up 22 miles from Manhattan, in a town called Larchmont, NY. While his friends were mostly old-moneyed rich kids, his dad worked at the NY Telephone Company and drove a Volkswagon bug.

What makes Bill, Bill, is that he never had it easy. He prides himself on earning the things he’s gotten, the hard way.

Bill was a scrawny kid who never excelled in team sports. One day, though, he and some friends were jumping around on the diving board at the public pool and, by mistake, Bill did a back flip. It was a moment that changed his life.

Springboard diving became his sport, his discipline, and his love. He won the Westchester county diving championships three times and later got a full scholarship to West Virginia University. Eventually, he became the captain of U.S. High Diving Team and performed over 1500 dives from heights that scaled to over 100 feet. Some of the dives Bill performed were while doused in gasoline and lit on fire. By the way, Bill has a debilitating fear of heights.

Now, Bill considers himself a leadership plumber. For the last two decades, Bill has worked with emerging and experienced leaders every single day. Sometimes he works with leaders on succession planning. Other times he’s doing one-on-one coaching with them. And sometimes he’s sharing what he’s learned from leaders with other leaders. Bill has done hundreds of keynotes and workshops sharing insights he’s learned from his leadership clients.

Bill is the author of Leaders Open Doors, which was inspired by a conversation with his then 5-year-old son, Ian. 100% of Bill’s royalties are being donated to programs that support children with special needs.

Bill is the father of three children, Ian, Alex, and Bina. Bina has cerebral palsy and is deaf. Bill considers her to be one of his greatest teachers. The common virtue that runs through Bill’s life and career is courage.

It was courage that allowed him to walk through his fear of heights, leave a six-figure job to start his own business, be a truth-teller to dominate executives, and face the challenges, realities, and joys of being the father of a child with special needs.

Along with his wife Shannon, Bill and his family live in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

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

“You’re not going to find your courage in your comfort zone.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet

“You’re job as a leader is to make people uncomfortable.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“You don’t find what’s better in your current condition.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“You need to encourage people into their discomfort zone.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“Listening is a sign of respect.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“Fear is really a question; what are you afraid of?” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“If you get on the backside of fear it will have taught you a lot about yourself.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“You better learn the do’s just as often as you learn the don’ts.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“If you stay in the safe place too long it becomes dangerous to your career.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“We learn best and deepest mostly though embarrassing experiences.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“We learn more through pain than we do from times that are painless.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“The greatest aspiration of a leader is to be confidently humble.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“You learn humility though humiliation.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“Sometimes it takes a good slap in the face from life that humbles you.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“Leadership is not about the leader it’s about those being led.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“If you’re puffed up and not humble you’re due for a face slap.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“If you get a right-sized ego you can become confident and modest.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“Our parents are our first imprint of what does a leader look like.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“You speed through this life, so you’ve got to make the most out of it.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“Play it less safe and learn to live without a net.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

“Keep doing the next right thing especially when you are afraid.” -Bill Treasurer Click to Tweet 

Hump to Get Over

Bill Treasurer was in his performance review when his boss told him to close the door. Bill knew what was coming next was not going to be good. He told Bill he was concerned he was becoming a brown-noser. Bill was embarrassed and ashamed. Listen to what he said next that made all the difference.

Advice for others

Use your life now and use it for good.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

The desire to be a more present father and husband.

Best Leadership Advice Received

Stop brown-nosing and believe in yourself.

Secret to Success

I’m really afraid of death. So I’m taking advantage of life because it’s fragile and moves fast.

Best tools that helps in business or Life

Writing is my passion place.

Recommended Reading

Learning Leadership: The Five Fundamentals of Becoming an Exemplary Leader
Self-reliance and Other Essays

Contacting Bill

Website: http://giantleapconsulting.com/ and http://www.billtreasurer.com

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/btreasurer

Resources

Leaders Open Doors, 2nd Edition: A Radically Simple Leadership Approach to Lift People, Profits, and Performance

Creating an even better place to work

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

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.

 

An even better place to work is an easiest solution that gives you a continuous diagnostic on employee engagement along with integrated activities that will improve employee engagement 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. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast Leader Legion today I’m excited because we have somebody on the show who uses a phrase that’s just totally fascinating to me and I’m looking forward to talk about it, it’s called Purposeful Discomfort. Bill Treasurer grew up 22 miles from Manhattan in a town called Larchmont, New York. While his friends were mostly old money rich kids, his dad worked at the New York Telephone Company and drove a Volkswagen bug. What makes Bill, Bill is that he never had it easy he prides himself on earning the things that he’s gotten the hard way. Bill was a scrawny kid who never excelled in team sports. One day though he and some friends were jumping around on the diving board at the public pool and by mistake Bill did a backflip, it was a moment that changed his life. Springboard diving became his sport, his discipline and his love. He won the Worchester County diving championships three times and later got a full scholarship to West Virginia University.

 

Eventually became the captain of the US skydive team and performed over 1500 dives from heights that scaled to over 100 feet. Some of the dive Bill performed while being doused in gasoline and lit on fire. By the way, Bill has a debilitating fear of heights, now considered himself a leadership plumber. For the last two decades Bill has worked with emerging and experienced leaders every single day sometimes he works with leaders on succession planning other times he is doing one-on-one coaching with them sometimes he’s sharing we learn from other leaders. Bill has done hundreds of keynotes and workshops sharing insights he learned from his leadership clients. Bill is the author of Leaders Open Doors, which was inspired by a conversation with his then five-year-old son Ian. A hundred percent of Bills royalties are being donated to programs to support children with special needs. 

 

Bill is the father of three children Ian, Alex and Dina. Dina has cerebral Palsy and is deaf. Bill considers her to ne one of his greatest teachers. The common virtue that runs through Bill’s life and career is courage. It was courage that allows them to walk through his fear of heights, leave a six figure job to start his own business, be a truth teller to dominant executives and face the challenges, realities and joys of being a father of a children with special needs. Along with his wife Shannon, Bill and his family live in beautiful Ashville, North Carolina. Bill treasurer are you ready to help us get over the hump?

 

Bill Treasurer:    Jim I can’t wait to help you get over the hump especially the Fast Leader Legion.

 

Jim Rembach:    Thanks Bill. Now, I’ve them 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. 

 

Bill Treasurer:    Man, my current passion is partly Purposeful Discomfort. I think it’s really important that people be courageous in their life and you’re not you find your courage in your comfort zone  you’re going to find it by stepping outside of your comfort zone into what I would call your discomfort zone. 

 

Jim Rembach:    As I was reading and learning more about what your thoughts around Purposeful Discomfort actually is there’s something that stood out to me that is something that I’ve really been advocating and talking about for a long time and to be honest with you something that I question myself about whether or not I should be doing that and that is that your job as a leader is to make people uncomfortable. 

 

Bill Treasurer:    Isn’t that surprising, it’s such a surprising statement. We would think that your job as a leader’s to pat people on the back and to make sure that they’re comfortable and to take good care of them and all that stuff is true but what’s really true is your job as a leader’s to make people uncomfortable. And that means nudging them outside of their comfort zones so that they’re growing, stretching, expanding their capabilities, constantly striving to do better than they did yesterday. A key question a leader needs to constantly be reinforcing and asking is, sure that’s good enough but what’s better? What’s better? Those two words are very powerful and you don’t find what’s better in your current condition, you find it outside of your current condition into what I would call your discomfort zone. 

 

Now, we need to be clear Jim, this doesn’t mean that because you’re making people uncomfortable that you have to be intimidating you don’t. I think that you should not—my title is Chief Encouragement officer. I believe in encouraging people, meaning putting courage inside of people not in-fearing by putting fear inside of them. That said you need to encourage them to move into their discomfort zone nudging them to get into discomfort so that they can grow, progress and evolve on behalf of their career and then on behalf of the company. So, your job is to make people uncomfortable.

 

Jim Rembach:    You bring up, as you’re talking—thanks for sharing that—there’s several things that run through my head, for people that don’t have the opportunity to see through this audio is I’m a big guy, I’m 6’4, I was 250 lbs. two months ago and I’m working on losing some weight I’m on my way to 220 lbs. and I made it public so now I got to do it but the doctor wants me 185 lbs. I said, “You’re nuts” but anyway, I’m a big guy and I’m not afraid of making feel uncomfortable when I see that they have more in them that for whatever reason they’re not allowing out. And one of the things that I found is because when you start putting in the fact that I’m a big guy I’ve got a big brow all of those things, I can be intimidating just by my presence than itself can do it. And so I’ve tried to be really mindful and try to really connect with people first at a level that is much deeper than the superficial and also I’ve learned more to share my intent so that it isn’t as fearful in the intimidation but regardless I’m going make you uncomfortable.

 

Bill Treasurer:    It’s a good point especially if our size is sort of imposing for others and if we ask them and invite them to do and encourage them to do uncomfortable things, we don’t want them to do it out of intimidation or fear we want to do out of their own want so that they excel and that they can close the gap between their potential asset that exists today and actualizing their potential as needs be tomorrow. Some of that takes good trust building between you and that person. If they see fit you truly have their best interest in mind in nudging them into their discomfort they’ll give you a lot more leeway than if they think you’re pushing them into discomfort because it’s going to somehow benefit you, make you more powerful, make your leadership spread around more so some part of it is the motive, are you asking people to do uncomfortable things as a leader does it benefits you and the organization or because it actually helps them add more value by increasing their skills and capabilities?

 

Jim Rembach:    Yeah. And so for me, I think, as you were saying that, without actually not cognitively assigning it previously. I guess what I’m trying to do more often that I was just totally aware of is earn the right to do it, if that makes sense. 

 

Bill Treasurer:    Yeah and I think your earn it. By you to do that investment upfront time to know what their goals are, their desires where they want to end up with their career, what their aspirations are and if you take that time and put that investment and really listen to them, you know, listening is a sign of respect it shows that you respect that person, you care about them, then once that trust is built you have a lot more latitude to be able to push and sometimes push forcibly because they know that that you’re doing it for their best interest cause you’ve taken an interest to find out what their best interest is. 

 

Jim Rembach:    That’s true. When you start talking about the things that we’re referring to and the learnings, there’s a lot of things that we need in order to help us stay on that direction. One of the things that we use on the show is leadership quotes, because they can have such a huge impact for us to stay the course maybe even go in a different or better direction or reset a direction. Is there a quote or two that kind of stands up for you that you can share?

 

Bill Treasurer:    Yeah. I love quotes and there’s the quote in the immediacy of the moment when I read a book, Oh, my God, that’s a great quote. I’m don’t remember them but I did recall a quote that means a lot to me and it’s because so much from my life is dedicated to courage, one of my website is couragebuilding.com because I’m a courage builder, that’s what I do, so as part of my practice as courage building, so this quote to me by Marilyn Ferguson, “Fear, she says, is a question. What are you afraid of and why? Just as the seed of health is an illness because illness contains information so she says, just as the seed of health is in illness because illness contains information your fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if you explore them. So I love that idea that fear’s a question and it’s a treasure house of self-knowledge if you explore your fear. Most of us see fear as something that we need to run away from, maybe occasionally fight or get frozen by and choke because we see it but really fear if we stay with it and get willing to work through it, walked through it and attend to it and listen to it, it might be telling us something on the inside. So fear’s really a question, what are you afraid of and why? And what it’s trying to tell you. So, it’s taught me a lot about the idea of courage to be present when you’re afraid and don’t run from your fear but stay with it because you’re probably, if you get on the backside of fear it will have taught you a lot redeeming things about yourself that is going to make you stronger individual in the long run. 

 

Jim Rembach:    As you were talking I started thinking about something that happened here recently. I’m helping coach my 10-year-old son’s baseball team and they actually go through a draft process to make sure that the teams are even, which is great it’s fantastic. After we got done through the drafting process the guy who’s in charge had said that one of the kids that we selected through our draft process, Coach Chris I helped him I’m the assistant, he was telling Coach Chris and I that his mom said please try not to put him on a team where somebody’s going to make him cry. And for me the things that you were just talking about—courage to me is a learned behavior and building that is a learned behavior we’re born with a clean slate we don’t know what fear—what do we always worry about kids? Why do we give them gauge at stairs? Because they have no fear. So the fear learned and then therefore courage has to be learned to overcome that fear. And I started thinking about that mother, I’m like, what are you preventing that child from learning, experiencing, growing? If you want to do that him.  

 

Bill Treasurer:    You know, she’s a loving mother who wants to protect his kids it’s kind of normal behavior. And you’re right we do too much of the teaching the don’t, don’t talk to strangers, don’t play with matches, don’t cross the road without looking both ways but the truth is you’ve got to learn to use matches and you got to have to learn how to interact with people so you better learn the do’s just as often as you learn the don’ts. But you’re right we over attend to protection and we do that internally too with self-protection. So, we avoid situations where we think we’re going to get harmed and we often stay in the comfort zone because it’s the safer place we think but if you stay in that safe place too long it can actually become dangerous to your own career, to your ability to have more influence as a leader. 

 

It’s funny that we’re talking about this, because I’m literally right now in the midst of writing a new book and the working title of the book is called, A Leadership Slap in the Face, and the idea is that we as leaders learn best and deepest mostly through embarrassing and humiliating experiences. We learn through pain, we learn more through pain than we do from the times that our pain less that we are always trying to avoid pain so we get into a pain less situation. And yet I of the humiliating experiences that I’ve had in my leadership life and they’ve been so important and informative and they’ve shape me as who I am. I think that the greatest aspiration of a leader is to be confidently humble. You’ve got to have confidence, true confidence authentic confidence, and grounded to humility but the reality is you learn humility through humiliation. You have a humiliating experiences and suddenly you’re not so far out of your skis anymore you bring your ego back into a right sized condition. And sometimes it takes a good slap in the face from life that sort of humbles you that then you can allow authenticity come in and get much more grounded and real and stop thinking of yourself as more important than the people that you lead because leadership is not about the leader it’s about those being led but if you’re puffed up and on yourself and not humble you’re due for a face slap. So the new book is a leadership slap in the face and it’s about that idea that not only are you going to have painful experiences, if you’re a leader worth your salt you certainly going to have them, but you might as well learn from them. So, let’s plan those experiences so you can benefit from them. 

 

Jim Rembach:    That’s a perfect segue to one of the things that is the main standpoint of what we do on the show. We talk about humps that we had to get over, it’s just that out, we learn. And here’s the beauty about stay assail standpoints of what we do on the show is that we talk about humps that we’ve had to get over, right? It’s just that we learn and here’s the beauty about the stories being told by our guess is that it gives our listeners the opportunity to learn through those experiences. So, when you start talking about learning, failing all of those things we have to do that if we’re going to grow, we have to. And we have to get as many experiences but we don’t really have so much time on the earth so learning through the experiences of others and then we can help them take them as our own as valuable. So can you think about a time when you’ve had to get over a hump and that really taught you a lot that you could share?

 

Bill Treasurer:    Yeah. I tell you on embarrassing, humiliating experience that was so transformative for my career. I worked at a company called Accenture, it’s one of the world’s largest management consulting companies very reputable, and I was there and I was doing well and I was in the change management practice. In my performance review my boss said, “You know you’re doing pretty good over here’s some areas I’d like you to improve and there’s one other thing that I want to tell you, please close the door.” And I knew this is kind of serious, I said, “What it is? He said, “I’ve started to see something in your behavior and it really concerning me. My concern is that if you don’t address it it’s going to become a drag on your career. And if I’m noticing it other people are definitely starting to notice it. And you’re going to want to remedy it or you’re not going to actualize your potential as a leader and your career will plateau.” I said, “What is it? He says, “I think your becoming a brownnoser.”

 

Oh it hurts, it stung. I was embarrassed. I was like ashamed and I look at him and I tried to joke it off. I said, “What do you mean?” Hey, you’ve got a nice tie. And he didn’t laugh. But what he said next made all the difference. He said, “Bill, you’re a smart guy, you’re a clever guy don’t rely on laughing at my jokes harder than they are funny to get ahead because not only is it dishonest it’s manipulation, you try to get ahead by being a false friend to me. He said, I rather have you be a truth-teller, I’d rather know what you’re actually think about something than have you sucking up to me so that you can get farther ahead in your career. Trust yourself Bill, trust your inclinations tell me what you really think. That was so liberating. It was it was one of the most important things I’ve ever learned in my career and one of the most important things I ever learn about leadership and the ultimate message was to trust myself. And it freed me up it gave me permission to care less what other people think about me and it made me a stronger writer and a stronger consultant and I think probably stronger friend. By getting that face slap that humiliating, embarrassing moment that had to sting in order for me to bring about useful and maybe even profound change.

 

Jim Rembach:    You know it’s kind of funny that you say that, that whole brown nosing concept is something that kind of rebelled against for long times so I went the other end of the spectrum. Meaning that I wasn’t going to show people that I care. I wasn’t going to do that because I don’t want to be labeled as a brown noser and that in itself impacted me just as much as if I was one.

 

Bill Treasurer:    Interesting, interesting. This is an embellishment and I’m not saying that you and I are either one of the things that I’m going to talk about. Literally this morning before I got on with you today I’m into a chapter, and this is wild end of the spectrum of both conditions, the person who was into flattery or too much into modesty. The chapter is called. Pig heads and weaklings the end of your pig head it’s all about sizing your ego and the falseness of your showmanship but depths that is going to hurt you in a way that it did in my case.  In your case it might have been on the other side, I was the pig head and in this example if I’m too modest it can hurt my career too because I’m not going to get notice and I’m not going to get as paid attention to them I’m might not be included as much so there’s the danger of that too. I think the middle place is if you can get to the right place, what I would call right size that you can get a right size ego you can become confident, which is important, and modest at the same time.
Confident and humility but not false level of either condition. You don’t want to be overly modest and certainly don’t want to be overly on yourself, conceited. So it’s a delicate bounds that pig heads and weaklings is one of the chapters today. 

 

Jim Rembach:    And mine came from probably multiple years of getting beaten up by my two older brothers. I had to show them that I was the tough guy and can handle it. And also that they wouldn’t be able to intimidate me. So, you’re not going to win over me, man. And so I kind of cared a little bit of a different aspect to it. If you start feeling back to machismo I’m a soft hearted guy. 

 

Bill Treasurer:    Right, right. Yes funny how that works and how we respond to face. And now I’d say I went a little bit on the other direction too. My dad was a really dominant, my dad was a hot head my dad was one of those fathers that you do see at the ballfield. They’re yelling at their daddy and all that kind of stuff the big red face when he’d get upset about something. I love my dad, he was a great man but he was a hot head. So I think I rebelled against authority at a certain times in life in particular my late teens and early 20’s because he was the ultimate authority figure and I saw his authority as dominance and intimidation, I thought I don’t want to be like that it’s funny how we do respond to the situations in our family. 

 

I really think our parents our first imprint of what is a leader look like and a lot of times we do one of two things we either adapt their style wholesale without questioning whether that self fits us or we reject that style and say, I’m going to go on the opposite direction because I won’t be anything like that. I think what matters is how we end up getting our own style that’s unique to us and sometimes it takes years to develop that. 

 

Jim Rembach:    It’s definitely been that for me. Okay, so I know you’ve got a lot of things going on and we talked about some in the bio—with the coaching, and you referred to writing another book at the moment—the kids, the charity work that you’re doing, a lot of stuff going on. If you’re to say you had a goal, what would it be? 

 

Bill Treasurer:    My goal is to—I just love this idea of Mother Teresa, I’m not saying I’m anything like Mother Teresa but what I’m saying is I love her idea of being God’s instrument that uses his pencil. If I can situate myself into really being connected with the Divine Providence, and then if I can allow whatever that Providence wants to work through me to say that and have a positive impact on people then I feel like I’m doing my job. So I guess my goal is to be a good steward of the message that Divine Providence wants to put through me and give to others. To be a pencil in a way that Mother Teresa was. 

 

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.

 

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:    Alright, here we go legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay Bill, 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. Bill Treasurer are you ready to hoedown?

 

Bill Treasurer:    I’m ready for the hoedown. 

 

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

 

Bill Treasurer:    Probably the desire to be a more present father and husband. I’m on the road so much that I’ve lost sight of the fact that leadership begins at home. And so so much of my, this is not holding me back from being a better leader per se it actually helping me a more well-rounded leader. I’m out of balance in one world, my work world and having to bring my presence back to my family and home life and that might be giving up some things in order to do that. That is my current emphasis. 

 

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

 

Bill Treasurer:    Stop brown nosing and believe in yourself. Attach to that be courageous. 

 

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

 

Bill Treasurer:    I am really, really afraid of death. And I think that’s a good thing. I know that life is fragile and it’s staying fast and you speed through this life. So you’ve got to make the most out of it. Take a big a bite of this apple before you kick. Use it to your fullest advantage because it’s fragile and it’s going to go and it’s going to be very fleeting. So use your life now and use it for good. 

 

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

 

Bill Treasurer:    I’m lucky because I can’t do so many things. There’s so many things I’m incompetent at but the one thing I have a little degree of confidence for but more important passion for is writing. When I get lost in writing usually it’s a dreamy space and good things come out of that. So if I pay attention then it’s my passion plays my head tingles when it’s working well. Writing is my tool. 

 

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

 

Bill Treasurer:    Your listeners are going to really love this book. It hasn’t come out yet it’s by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, they’re friends of mine, their great leadership luminary gurus and they have a new book coming out this spring and it’s called, Learning Leadership and it’s a fantastic book about basically how do you learn leadership, so that’s’ a great one. And then I would say for any reader one of the pieces of work that had the most profound impact on me and my thinking is Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay and it’s called Self Reliance.

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

 

Bill Treasurer:    Play it less safe. Learn to live without a net and trust yourself. Just show up keep doing the next right thing but take action especially when you’re afraid. So do the next right thing, learn to live without a net, trust in Divine Providence and you’ll do great things in this life. Don’t play it so safe. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Bill 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? 

 

Bill Treasurer:    A bunch of ways, billtreasurer.com, couragebuilding.com, leadersopendoors.com, and my company giantleapconsulting.com.

 

Jim Rembach:    Bill treasure 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 fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

 

END OF AUDIO

 

 

046: Yvonne Nomizu: I kept pushing and getting frustrated

Yvonne Nomizu Show Notes

Yvonne Nomizu set a new vision for her organization with new measures and new strategy. But her team did not seem to be accepting her new direction. So Yvonne kept pushing and getting frustrated. Then she received some valuable feedback that help her change her approach. Listen to Yvonne tell her story of how she got over the hump and moved onward and upward.

Yvonne Nomizu was raised in New England the daughter of a mathematics professor, but migrated and found a true home amongst the San Francisco Bay Area’s sunny skies, natural resources, progressive thinking and envelope-pushing business endeavors.

She is most proud of raising two daughters who live today with a work hard-play hard attitude and who believe that an individual can shape the future. Because Yvonne is curious about a lot of things and enjoys just about every business challenge, she has worked in industries as diverse as hotels, investment banking, high-tech startups and pharmaceuticals.

Some of Yvonne’s most notable projects include taking inventory of food supplies at the Plaza Hotel in New York and having the executive chef surprise with a deer head hanging in a freezer, developing the Holiday Inn Express brand, designing and installing specialized ATM machines for opening day at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, and redesigning the taxpayer experience for the IRS.

Yvonne is currently CEO and Managing Director of Pacific Consulting Group where all her diverse experiences come together into helping client organizations understand what drives customer value and to forward-design products and services based on where the puck will be.

Yvonne lives in Atherton, California and is an active alumna of the Stanford Business School. She and her family enjoy downhill skiing, hiking and international travel. Combining her love of customer experience with her Japanese heritage, Yvonne has started a blog, cx-omotenashi.com, which encourages CX professionals to learn from the unique form of Japanese hospitality.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @YvonneNomizu and get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet

“Are you kind of following the trends…because everyone else is?” Click to Tweet

“Stop and ask the right questions.” Click to Tweet 

“Sometimes that very thing that makes you a good leader…stops you from asking the right questions.” Click to Tweet 

“If you do original thinking and ask the basic questions you can see the truth.” Click to Tweet 

“What am I going to do about it-is a personal leadership challenge.” Click to Tweet 

“A leader is someone who people follow.” Click to Tweet 

“How you get people to follow has a lot of elements to it.” Click to Tweet 

“It’s really no point unless I have the rest of my team behind me.” Click to Tweet 

“My goal is to be more in the moment.” Click to Tweet 

“I may not achieve a 100%, but I will get there.” Click to Tweet 

“You get more fuel, speed and power if you are in the moment.” Click to Tweet 

“Slow down, take it all in.” Click to Tweet 

“Stop worrying so much, have a level of faith.” Click to Tweet 

“Have the faith and you’ll be fine.” Click to Tweet 

Hump to Get Over

Yvonne Nomizu set a new vision for her organization with new measures and new strategy. But her team did not seem to be accepting her new direction. So Yvonne kept pushing and getting frustrated. Then she received some valuable feedback that help her change her approach. Listen to Yvonne tell her story of how she got over the hump and moved onward and upward.

Advice for others

Be more in the moment.

Holding her back from being an even better leader

Not enough sleep.

Best Leadership Advice Received

Slow down, take it all in.

Secret to Success

Work hard, play hard.

Best tools that helps in business or Life

My executive team

Recommended Reading

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Contacting Yvonne

Blog: http://cx-omotenashi.com/

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/yvonnenomizu

Resources

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

046: Yvonne Nomizu: I kept pushing and getting frustrated

 

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.

 

“Whether in the office or on the road work with your community or coach to practice great behaviour and produce great organization results. Capture real-time behaviour practice from competency-based development plans and invite feedback in an elegant and simple application. Take top performance mobile by going to Resultpal.com/fast and getting a $750 performance package for free”.

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay, Fast Leader Legion, I am thrilled to have the guest that I have on the show today because she is just so intelligent and it’s matched by her humour but I love meeting with her because oftentimes she hides that humor and I love trying to get it out. Yvonne Nomizu, was raised in New England. The daughter of a mathematics professor but migrated and found a true home amongst the San Francisco Bay area sunny skies natural resources progressive thinking and envelope pushing business endeavours. She is most proud of raising two daughters who live today with a work-hard play-hard attitude and who believe that an individual can shape the future. 

 

Because Yvonne is curious about a lot of things and enjoys just about every business challenge she has worked in industries as diverse as hotels, investment banking, tech start-ups, and pharmaceuticals. Some of Yvonne’s most notable projects include taking inventory of food supplies at the Plaza Hotel in New York and having the executive chef surprise her with a deer head in the freezer, developing the Holiday Inn express brand, designing and installing specialized ATMs for the opening day at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, and redesigning the taxpayer experience for the IRS. 

 

Yvonne is currently CEO and managing director of Pacific Consulting Group where all her diverse experiences come together into helping client organizations understanding what drives customer value and to forward design products and services based on where the pack will be. Yvonne lives Atherton, California and is an active alumna of the Stanford Business School. She and her family enjoys downhill skiing, hiking, and international travel. Combining her love of customer experience and her Japanese heritage, Yvonne has started a blog at cxomotenashi.com which encourages CX professionals to learn from the unique form of Japanese hospitality. Yvonne Nomizu, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

 

Yvonne Nomizu:    Jim, I am. Here I am.

 

Jim Rembach:    Alright. So I’ve given our listeners a little bit about you but can you tell us which your current passionate is, so that we get to know you better.

 

Yvonne Nomizu:    My passion is building a business that moves the needle on customer experience. It is such a ripe, wonderful area. I think there’s been unbelievable progress but I don’t think we’re there yet, so I’m so driven by that, it’s been infused in my career for the last 35 years and I’m going to keep going.

 

Jim Rembach:     Well you, here’s the reserve part of Yvonne kicking in. You are feisty, and you and I have had some really good conversations in regards to, how you do get not just moving needle but, how do you get people to shove that thing in the right direction.

 

Yvonne Nomizu:    Wow! You’re painting me as pretty aggressive here.

 

Jim Rembach:    No you’re not. You see that’s what I love, is that you have this depth and this strength. Okay, so being and doing what you’ve done and accomplishing what you’ve accomplished and being considered a CX expert that’s no small fee, but you are so reserved that oftentimes I just enjoy being with you, spending time with you. So when you talk about helping and assisting and supporting people to move, what do you see some of the things that kind of block people from doing that?

 

Yvonne Nomizu:    Okay, I’ve got three things that I think I naturally look at. One is original thinking, are you just following the trends? Are you just jumping on the train because everyone else is? What is really going on? And I’ve been known to say stop, stop the conversation let’s go backwards put the pause on. I think some of the reason why people don’t migrate there, it’s not that they’re not intelligent, it’s that they may not know what the questions are and so I feel I can be valuable in saying “Well, here are the questions” and people say, “ Those are so basic.” And I go, “Yeah. So basic but if you layer, sort of assumption upon assumption upon assumption and then jump on that bandwagon, you’re kind of off the train is pointing to the wrong direction. So, stop, ask the right questions. And Jim I talked about this, why don’t people ask the right questions, it’s not just an intellectual thing, I think there’s some kind of lenses that people bring on, and frankly the more senior you go the more you are moving towards being a leader in terms of seniority and experience the more you think you know it, you’re actually paid well for making the assumptions and cutting to the chase and have being wise. 

 

And so sometimes that very thing that makes you a good leader it was the thing that stops you from starting from scratch and asking questions, so one is original thing. The other one that you know I have talked a lot about is, courage. Because at some point if you do that original thinking and ask those basic questions you kind of see the truth and you’re like “Oops! I don’t really want to see that truth, I think I’ll go over here.” And so just saying now that I see that truth what am I going to do about it is a very personal kind of leadership challenge and it’s inside you, it’s inside your heart, it’s inside your head, you have allies and so on but someone’s going to take first step. And the third thing is for a lack of a better words, its innovation. That’s just, “I don’t care if I look  [6:00 inaudible] I don’t care if I look stupid, I’m not really here as a leader to be liked, if I expect everyone else to be creative then how come I’m not in front to of everyone coming up with a creative idea that turns out to be stupid. So I think what it is, is how do you feel good with those three things? How do you have fun with those three things? Because I think If you’ve got the original thinking, you’ve got the courage and you’ve got that “I think I’ll be wild and crazy right now” there’s always a time to assess, evaluate, filter, shut-down, you always can do that but why not have is this face where you can go for it. So, I think when you put those three things together people, it’s the journey, that’s the journey for leadership.

 

Jim Rembach:    And as you were talking I started thinking too about innovation, self-limiting beliefs, courage, all of those things really lend itself well to one of the things that we like to focus on the show and that’s leadership quotes. For me, I need to refer to something to help me pick myself back up again a lot of times and quotes to that just well. Are there some that kind of stand out for you, that do that for you and that you recommend others?

 

Yvonne Nomizu:    Yeah. The first one that makes me be self-reflective is the leader that someone people follow. I like that one because it’s not about your charisma, it’s not per se about you communication, your strategic thinking and all that, it’s sort of says that the reason you would want to be a leader is that people are following you in a certain direction. Now, how do you get people to follow, that has a lot of elements to it from setting vision and strategy and communicating, who you are and authenticity and all of that so then a lot of things follow from that but I think that’s the first one that says why would you want to be that anyway. And that’s what success looks like this, I can run that race and I can get to the finish line it’s really no point if the rest of the team is behind me. So that one is always level setting and great power.

 

Jim Rembach:    On the Fast Leader show we focus on learning and change that really works and for leaders to change it’s really a vital component to their career and personal success and it really doesn’t matter, if you’re part of an organization, you run your own business, you’re male or female, in government, it really doesn’t matter but we have to make choices and we have to ebb and flow and navigate and be resilient but, can you think about a time when you had a hump to get over in your journey and it really is something that will impact others, can you share that?

 

Yvonne Nomizu:    Yeah. It’s a recent story, and here was the situation, I was really pushing hard on getting my organization to understand the shift that we needed to take and I set a vision, I set some measurers, I did the strategy thing, I did some staff meetings and I kept pushing and I kept getting frustrated and I kept pushing and I kept getting frustrated. The new person I hired is best among experience came in and within a couple of weeks we have a very good relationship and said “Let’s try to communicate in a different way.” And I said, “well here’s what I care about, I care about the people, I care about the employees I want them to be, to really be hopeful about this new future, not afraid of it.” And when he goes, “Yvonne I need you, I need the rest of the staff to know you the way I know you because what you’re not sharing with the staff is how much you care about them, I know you that way now and you need to get that across.” And I said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course I care about them, I just decided to put this much in the 401k policy and I just decided to do this and everyone’s getting this vacation and these benefits.” He said “No” so I said “Okay, I’m going to be brave here” and at the next staff meeting instead of talking about the strategy and the measures, and the vision, and the client value, what we’re going to do and the innovation what we’re going to do, one person on the staff who’s been around for a long time asked a question, and I actually changed my tone, my voice went down and people afterwards said, “You sounded so completely different. “And I took a big deep breath and I said, “I’m very interested in hearing what you have to say about this, you guys are amazing, you are what this company needs to keep going.”
And actually once I started I couldn’t stop, so it was a little bit embarrassing for me because I had been so buttoned up in everything that I was saying on which I thought was very compelling. I just actually had a very awkward ends to my little speech and it was all like, “Wow! That was diarrhea of the mouth.” And then I stopped and then I quickly changed the topic and went on a little less to the agenda. And something shifted because I think they said, “We have never heard” maybe this was what you were telling me Jim “We had never heard that layer underneath.” My thing is that I think there’s a layer underneath, I process it pretty quickly and then I translate it to something that is sort of the charge for the troops but now what I’m committed to is revealing a little bit more of the layer underneath because frankly, that run of the mouth thing that I had probably had more impact than the previous five staff meetings where I was going on and on. So yeah I think it’s like where you’re coming from. 

Jim Rembach:    And that’s a great point Yvonne, and I appreciate you sharing that story because it was also so fresh and I can even tell a change in your voice as you were sharing that with us. And also that’s one reason why I kind of wanted you on the show because I do see you as one of those folks that a lot of times it is button up but there’s this underneath that has such a wealth of humor, intelligence, fun, fun-loving, and that’s one reason why I enjoy being with you so much, so thank you for sharing that.

 

So when you start thinking about so many things that you have on your plate, and I know that you with your volunteer work, with you doing work back with University, with your daughter, and of course your spouse all of those things, when you start thinking about all of that I mean what are some of your goals?

Yvonne Nomizu:    You know what it’s funny because now in my old age here, my goal is to be more in the moment. And here’s why I’m comfortable with that, because in the past I wasn’t that way and I was always working to where I was going because I was nervous about what I was going to get very much. So part of it is at some point you go “Don’t worry, you’ll get there” I start to have a confidence level about I may not achieve a hundred percent but I will get there. So, if I can relieve myself of that concern then it gives me more space to be in the moment and my story that I just told is actually how you in fact get more fuel and speed and power and influence if you want more in the moment. 

Some of my days are insane with my daughter applying for college and ranting and raving about the prom and then this and the boyfriend and I don’t have enough time with my spouse, and then I’ve got the business and then I just travel twice a month to the East coast to go to clients and I’m trying to help the clients too much as possible and it is crazy but I think I’m okay in the moment because there’s a trust that, “Am I going to focus on the right thing? I’m going to get it all done, in the long run I am okay but that helps me do is that it sorts of clears out half of the brain, the half the brain that was worried about the future and half the brain that was very goal focused and it freeze that up to actually be a little bit more high quality, more inclusive, more open, more absorbing of right now what’s going on and then actually I think I make better decisions. 

 

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. 

 

“A dried leadership pipeline shouldn’t clog your business from moving onward and upward. Get over the hump by filling the gap between leadership developments and top performance with result pal. Rocket to success by going to Resultpal.com/fast and getting a $750 performance package for free.”

 

Alright, here we go Fast Leader Legion, it’s time for the—Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Yvonne, 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. Yvonne Nomizu, are you ready to hoedown?

 

Yvonne Nomizu:    I’m ready.

 

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

 

Yvonne Nomizu:    *Lot* of sleep

 

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

 

Yvonne Nomizu:    Slow down, take it all in.

 

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

 

Yvonne Nomizu:    Work hard, play hard.

 

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

 

Yvonne Nomizu:    My team. My executive team.

 

Jim Rembach:    So what would be one book you’d recommend to our listener?

 

Yvonne Nomizu:    “Up in life”

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay, Fast Leader listeners you can find links to that and other bonus information from our show today by going to Fastleader.net/Yvonnenomizu. 

 

Okay Yvonne, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age 25 and you were given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you, but you can’t take everything you can only choose one, so what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

 

Yvonne Nomizu:    I would tell my twenty-five year old self to stop worrying so much, to have a level of faith and start your life whether it’s religious faith, faith in yourself, faith in people, faith in humanity. Ask the *faith* and you’ll be fine.

 

Jim Rembach:    Yvonne it was an honour to spend time with you today. Can you please share with the Fast Leader legion how they can connect with you?

 

Yvonne Nomizu:    You can reach me at Ynomizu (Y-N-O-M-I-Z-U) ynomizu@pcgfirm.com or people can call me on my cellphone 650 three zerp three five seven zero five

 

Jim Rembach:    Yvonne Nomizu, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom. The Fast Leader Legion honours 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

 

 

027: Parrish Arturi: It was a humbling experience

Parrish Arturi Show Notes

Parrish Arturi was not always calm, cool, and collected. Once while leading a project team for a new product the funding for it was removed. Parrish was very passionate about the work his team was doing and took the news of the project cut personally. Parrish lost his cool and then learned a valuable lesson. Listen to Parrish as he tell his story and what he learned on how to get over the hump.

Parrish was born in a Connecticut suburb just outside of New York. He was the fifth of six kids with names that all began with the letter “P”. His mother was a nurse and his father was a doctor and as a young child he could remember Sunday dinners and his grandparents’ house where the entire family would meet. His strong sense of family and caring for others has guided him to a successful career.

Parrish is currently the Senior Vice President for Service, Operations and Technology for Fidelity Personal Investing (PI), a unit of Fidelity Investments. In this role, Parrish and his team are focused on the strategy and development of an industry-leading service, operating in technology platform that enables Fidelity’s retail network to deliver outstanding experiences that drive business growth, customer engagement, scale and competitive differentiation.

Prior to this role, Parrish served as the SVP, Customer Experience, where he led the development and execution of Fidelity’s award-winning programs and capabilities tried customer loyalty and satisfaction in support of Fidelity’s vision of delivering the best customer experience in financial services. From 2004 2009, Paris served as SVP, Digital and Mobile channels. His responsibilities included digital strategy, experience and management of PWI’s online, mobile and social channels, including Fidelity’s primary consumer web destinations (Fidelity.com, 401k.com and NetBenefits.com) and mobile applications. Parrish was responsible for the delivery and execution against channel sales and service goals, as well as ensuring competitive leadership of Fidelity’s consumer digital offerings.

Prior to joining Fidelity in 2004, Parrish work for Wachovia. He was responsible for leading and building various areas of the e-commerce division, including online banking, brokerage and bill payment, online marketing, business development and interactive design. Previously he worked as a Managing Director at Signet bank, developing Signet’s information-based strategy, including the launch of one of the nation’s first Internet banking offerings. Parrish began his career at CUC International, where he served as a product manager in the new products division and as a marketing manager for affinity card products.

Parrish holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Wake Forest University and a MBA from Wake Forest University’s Babcock Graduate School of Management. Parrish currently serves as the vice chair of the Customer Experience Professionals Association, the international nonprofit organization created to guide enhanced the growing field of customer experience management.

Parrish currently resides in Boston, MA with his wife and three kids.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen and @parturi will help you get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet

“I’ve been successful because of the relationships I’ve been able to build.” -Parrish Arturi Click to Tweet

“The passion inside of me may not always be visible.” -Parrish Arturi Click to Tweet

“When there are good times enjoy them and relish them for what they are.” -Parrish Arturi Click to Tweet

“In challenging times you’re going to find the most insights and learning about you.” -Parrish Arturi Click to Tweet

“You don’t always know everything, there are other perspectives you’ll want.” -Parrish Arturi Click to Tweet

“Self-reflection is a really important characteristic for us to have.” -Parrish Arturi Click to Tweet

“One of the greatest thrills I get is when I see someone who had been on my team progress.” -Parrish Arturi Click to Tweet

“Treat your team how you’d want to be treated yourself.” -Parrish Arturi Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Parrish Arturi was not always calm, cool, and collected. Once while leading a project team for a new product the funding for it was removed. Parrish was very passionate about the work his team was doing and took the news of the project cut personally. Parrish lost his cool and then learned a valuable lesson. Listen to Parrish as he tell his story and what he learned so you can move onward and upward faster.

Advice for others

Self-reflection is a really important characteristic for us to have in business and in our families.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Keeping balance between being open to test new things and letting your past experiences dictate your perspectives on things.

Best Leadership Advice Received

Use the Golden Rule.  It sounds simple but it’s applicable in everything you do.

Secret to Success

Building relationships and working with people across diverse groups.

Best Resources in business or Life

Mentors and people in the community. But my most important resource is my wife.

Recommended Reading

Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less

Contacting Parrish

Email: parrish.arturi@gmail.com

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/parturi

More Resources

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

027: Parrish Arturi: It was a humbling experience

 

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.

 

Jim Rembach:     Thanks Kimberly. Okay Fast Leader legion you get the opportunity to have redemption with me today because I have a guest today that I had the opportunity to interview previously but the audio just came out so bad that he gracefully agreed to do this interview again. So, Parrish Arturi, thank you very much. 

 

Parrish was born in the Connecticut suburb just outside of New York. One of six kids that names all began with the P. Son of a doctor and nurse, caring person—glad to have him on the show. Parrish is currently the Senior Vice President of Services, Operations and Technology for Fidelity Personal investments, which is a unit of Fidelity Investments. In this role Parrish and his team are focused on the strategy and development of an industry-leading service operating in technology platform that enables Fidelity’s retail network to deliver outstanding experiences that drive business growth, customer engagement, scale and competitive differentiation.

 

Parrish like my wife is an alumni of Wake Forest University where he received both his undergrad and his MBA and he currently serves as the Vice Chair of the Customer Experience Professionals Association which is an international nonprofit organization created to guide and enhance the growing field of customer experience management. Parrish currently resides in the Boston area with his wife and three kids and they currently just got back from a fantastic vacation in Europe. Parrish has a strong family roots in both Ireland and Italy. Parrish Arturi, are you ready to get us over the hump?

 

Parrish Arturi:     Absolutely and I’m thrilled to be with you again, Jim. 

 

Thank you very much. Now, I’ve given our listeners a little bit of information about you but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you better?

 

Parrish Arturi:     Sure. My current passion and really that passion has been over the last several years and my career has been around helping people inspire better features, helping people to better—in terms of their financial life and in terms of personal life as well.

 

Jim Rembach:     When you say that something that is really a passion for you, where does that really come from?

 

Parrish Arturi:     Where it come from is—all the way back prior to my upbringing which is about help to make the world a better place. I think about my parents and what their focus on caring for people, helping the people they served get to a better place with their health. And I think about how we’re doing that and how I’ve really been passionate about that when I got into financial services and then now that I became a leader it was also about helping the people that were part of my team, help them become better and leave a legacy. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Now, you’re talking about legacy and you’re talking about caring things like that, you had shared with me that oftentimes as far as a childhood memories is concern, you knew those Sunday dinners grandparents that were first-generation immigrants, what impact do you think it had on where you are today? 

 

Parrish Arturi:     I think it had a tremendous impact in terms of the time that we would spend together as a family and in terms of time that I would see my parents or my grandparents bringing people together, working hard and that’s where a lot of the value is created was in the personal interactions and our relationships. I thrive in this relationships, I like to think that one of the reasons that I was able to be successful in some part in my career because the relationships I’ve been able to build. 

 

Jim Rembach:    You are one of those folks that when I see just the way that you interact with others, the way that you carry yourself using just so collected and reserved—and when you start talking about that passion and that inspiration piece, sometimes when you look at somebody who is a reserved like you, where is the passion, where’s the drive? And so, at the Fast Leader show we focus in on quotes and things like that that kind of help us really get that drive. I mean, do you have some of that internal passion that you keep bottled up that comes from some of those quotes, can you share it?

 

Parrish Arturi:    Yeah. Absolutely. The passion inside of me may not be always visible, they’re maybe a fire burning inside, but it’s cool, calm and collected outside. And again that’s certainly not always the case but I pride myself on one to model the right behavior, the behavior that I would expect from others. And that passion comes from prior to what I observed and what I experienced in the family, may even be a birth order thing. Quite honestly, [4:45 inaudible] a fifth out of six, there’s a lot of activity going around me. And it was always a lot easier to observe and then react versus be the one out front all the time. 

 

Jim Rembach:    What are some of those quotes or passages that drives you?

 

Parrish Arturi:     Some of the quotes—there are a couple of them. One that I always think about is one from Martin Luther King that I find particularly poignant. It’s about, the content of a man’s character is not defined in times of comfort and convenience but were someone stands in times of challenge and controversy. And so for me, over the years from a business perspective as I’ve experiences those different times, everybody has ups and downs and ebbs and flows. When there are good times enjoy them and relish them for what they are and then in challenging times where you’re challenged most is probably where you’re going to find the most insights, the most learnings about you and about what you can do to take forward and how you can help others.

 

Jim Rembach:     For me, even when you talk about that quote and why it means so much to you, I think it goes back to what I had mentioned before as regards to being that reserve person but yet has that inner drive and passion. I mean, it’s really interesting to me how that quote is so congruent with the way that you behave but there are times when we do lose it, you mentioned it’s not always calm and collected. And we talk about getting over those humps on the Fast Leader show, can you remember a time where you’ve had a hump to get over where you kind of—“I had to go through that, I had to go through that learning in order to learn how to be more reserved and collected for the future.”

 

Parrish Arturi:     Sure, sure. I think it was about having self-awareness and insight. So, that’s part of the journey, part of the leadership journey overtime. There’s one particular time that I can remember, it was a hump and it was back when I leading new products and services, a digital products and services back in the late 90’s early 2000, when we’re just starting to test out capabilities with the Palm Pilot, [6:57 inaudible] remembers what this are, we had enabled banking, electronic banking on a Palm Pilot. I was very passionate about it and I knew that notion of mobility and wireless was going to be important, obviously it took several years for it to play out. But the product and the application that we had created—it was a tough time at the bank that I was working in, they wanted to reduce the funding and eliminate the product that we’re working on and I took that very personally. I also had run with the person that I was working, who I respected tremendously and she had a lot of experience and she’d always say, “You know, you don’t get it. You’re not the one making the decisions other people have a perspective on this.” And it was quite humbling for me but it also made me reflect that the way that I was reacting to it had a direct influence on the perception that other people had for me in terms of the level of maturity and how they may think about me and other roles that maybe available. 

 

That was a really important moment from me, just kind of crystallize that. You don’t always know everything. Even though when you’re younger that you –as a freshly man with MBA you might think that you know everything but you don’t, there’s a lot of other perspectives that you want to take in both next year and then around you that will help you become a better person.

 

Jim Rembach:    A couple things that stood out to me that you referred to and you talked about youth and that was many years ago, oftentimes those things do come back on us and luckily because we had that life experience oftentimes we can correct ourselves much faster than we would going to that original experience, but if you think about a piece of advice that you would give to her listeners from that story and that experience, what would it be?

 

Parrish Arturi:    The big piece for me is having self-reflection. So, whether it’s reflection in the moment or afterwards and also having—I also had the benefit of having a great leader who is willing to provide that feedback to me. And that, when you’re able to reflect, self-reflection is a really important characteristic fresh to have either as leader—as business leaders or as people with families or relationships that we want to make ourselves better or want to make the others around us better. 

Jim Rembach:    So, you had mentioned something about—since lower in the birth order and have the opportunity to observe before you stepped out, but oftentimes we don’t have that coach also that you referred to. I had this conversation with somebody a little while back saying, “ You know what, there’s just not a whole lot of that that goes on much more anymore.” And there could be a lot of reasons for that. It could be the overburden task related workplace that we live in that you can’t focus on, “I ain’t got time to focus on somebody else, I need to get this done.” 

 

So, therefore, we have to learn how to do more that self-reflection instead of relying for somebody else to point things out to us. Is there something that you do to help you be more self –reflective?

 

Parrish Arturi:    There is. Even on an annual basis for example, I was thinking about setting goals for the year both personal and professional. What we’re planning on doing for the year as a team and part of that process is reflecting back on the past year, think about moments, projects, initiatives where you can derive some insight from. So, I think that’s just kind of built in to my DNA now, I learned that as a learned trait from another leader that I work for and that’s part of how I think about doing that. And I also think about either family or teams that I work with, I think we’ve just build that into the dialogue or conversation and it started to become much more natural.

 

Jim Rembach:    That’s a very great point. First of all to have it as part of your framework and to practice it. You can’t just expect that it’s just going to happen, it’s something that you have to work at. For me too certain things that you’re talking about—the first couple of time where I’ve done it, not so good, right? But you have to be persistent, you have to keep going on.  But if you think about where you are right now and your current passions and the things that are giving you that excitement, what would it be?

 

Parrish Arturi:    What excites me most, Jim are two things: One, when we think about the customers that we serve at Fidelity and the difference that we can make in their lives with their futures, whether it’s with their children, whether it’s the retirement, help in their goals and dreams to become true, that’s really compelling and important. And I find I’m very passionate about that and the work that we do in helping our customers get to a better place, I find very inspiring. The second thing that was going to talk about would also be when I see that in teams or people that had been on my team. And one of the greatest thrills I get is when I see someone who’d been on my team advance and progress, I get a tremendous amount of fulfillment from seeing the growth of someone’s career that may had been on my teen. 

 

Jim Rembach:    And that’s other a thing that is scary for a lot of leaders. When you start thinking about having somebody who has the talents and the skills that may even surpass ours, I think for my perspective I want to be part of that development, but not everybody’s there. So, how do you feel about that? How do you get past that hump?

 

Parrish Arturi:    I think there’s a certain amount of insecurity and some might feel if they have that, I think it’s natural. But I also again, reflect on my career and there are people that helped bring me along it wasn’t always a seasoned professional that I have today, and others help bring me along so I feel that is like paying it back as well as know someone else model the right behavior that I aspire to be the same type of leader, same great leadership principles that they applied. 

 

Jim Rembach:    You had mentioned something about that planning process and that reflection process, typically folks when they do that they also have a goal setting process, what is one goal that’s important to you right now? 

 

Parrish Arturi: Our goal  for this year, the one and the next couple of years has been around transforming the service experience for our customers and our retail branch network. And so how that manifests itself are in a couple different ways, but it’s about service quality and it’s also about the experience that gets delivered inside our [14:14 inaudible] centers. And so, our goal for this year we have measures around, we instituted what we call quality review process, and so our goal is to improve our scores and the quality reprocessed by 20%, so, that’s like one very specific goal. We stop broader and then we narrow them down and time box them and think about what specific measures associated with them. 

 

Jim Rembach:    The Fast Leader legion wishes you the very best. Alright, here we go listeners, it’s time for the,   Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Parrish, 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. Parrish Arturi, are you ready to hoedown?

 

Parrish Arturi:    Absolutely, you got it. 

 

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

 

Parrish Arturi:    Good question. For me it’s keeping balance between being open to do new things, to test new things—our environment is changing so rapidly in terms of the innovations, and balancing that with letting your past experiences dictate your perspectives on things. 

 

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

 

Parrish Arturi:    Best leadership advice that I had ever received was, use the golden rule, so, that’s treat people how you want to be treated yourself. It sounds so simplistic but it’s applicable to everything that you do. So, if you think about in terms of leadership, treat your team how you would want to be treated yourself, as you’re part of a team. Would you want to understand what’s our shared vision is? Would you want know what your goals and objects are? What you want to get feedback and coaching? Absolutely. So, if you think about things along those lines and apply the Golden rule to your professional or your personal life you’re going to end up in a great place. 

 

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

 

Parrish Arturi:    If I reflect over my career it’s really been building relationships. Building relationships engaging people across diverse skill sets to achieve a common goal, a common outcome and a purpose. Whether it’s in financial services or it was in marketing is to bring people together across diverse groups and building those relationships.

 

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

 

Parrish Arturi:    That resources are the mentor that I have on business perspective, they’re also the people that I have in the community for example at Customers and Experience Professional Association has been tremendously helpful in terms of resources that we have. And then my pride and most important resource is my wife who provides me a ton of feedback and helps and supports in all of the work that we do. 

 

Jim Rembach:    What would be one book that you would recommend to our listeners?

 

Parrish Arturi:    One that’s on the top of my mind is, “Scaling up Excellence” I just read it, it by Huggy Rao and it’s basically how do you take concepts, and it’s particularly relevant with what we do in our customer experience. How do you take those bright spots and how do you think about scaling them across a very broad network. So, it’s particularly relevant to people that work in large organizations and how you create and sustain excellence on ongoing basis.

 

Jim Rembach:    Alright  Fast Leader listeners, you can find the link to that book and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/Parrish Arturi. Okay, Parrish this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you are given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you have been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have back with you but you can’t take everything you can only choose one thing, what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you? And why?

 

Parrish Arturi:    The skill and knowledge would be the ability to look at trends and to be able to engage in them faster. So, if I think about all over the years whether it’s been in financial services during the digital age it’s being able to look for trends and act on them quicker.

 

I could use that from a stock investment perspective too. [Laugh] 

 

You’re not the only one. 

 

Parrish, it was an honor to spend time with you today. Can you please share with Fast Leader listeners how they can connect with you?

They could connect with me electronically via email at parrish.arturi@gmail.com. They can connect to me on Twitter@parturi and also on LinkedIn.

 

Jim Rembach:     Parrish Arturi thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom the Fast Leader legion  honors you and thank 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

 

Art Hall Leadership podcast episode

010: Art Hall: I’m still struggling with it

Podcast Show Notes with Art Hall

Art shares with us a hump he is trying to get over now! Art finds himself in certain situations that impact him personally, when he should not. He is trying to learn how to not let certain things that are said become burdens and frustrations that he should not be carrying. But Art’s deep passion to help others and do what’s best often times prevents him from letting go. While Art is struggling with this issue now, he shares with us some valuable lessons he has learned thus far. Join me as Art tells his story on how you can get over the hump with him.

Art Hall was born and raised in Staten Island, New York and is the son of Art and Diane Hall. Art’s father was one of the founders of the New York City Marathon back in the early 70’s when it was held in Central Park before expanding to the five boroughs in New York City.

Like his father, Art ran cross-country, indoor and outdoor track in high school and undergrad. Art graduated from Binghamton University and started his career as a legal law librarian at Dechert Price & Rhoads in New York City. Eventually, Art moved to Atlanta and continued in the legal profession by working at Kilpatrick Stockton Townsend before landing a career at First Data. It was at First Data where Art learned the art of leading a contact center operation.

Art has more than 19 years of industry and consulting experience and is currently a Director with Alvarez & Marsal in Atlanta and specializes in strategy and performance improvement for strategic buyers for corporates and private equity firms.

Prior to joining Alvarez & Marsal, Art was Vice President of Sales and Customer Care for NetBank managing and overseeing the online bank’s international contact center operations for dealer financial services, retail and small business banking, mortgage servicing and wealth management.

Art is also an ordained minister at a non-denominational church in Union City, Georgia called Resurrection House for All Nations pastored by Chika Onuzo. Art is also a husband and a father to four children: Justin, Christian, Benjamin and Kaitlin.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Check out @art_hall4 getting over the hump @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet

“Being a consultant has taken a black eye in certain areas.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“Integrity means meeting your commitment.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“Integrity means meeting your word.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“Integrity means if you dropped the ball admit it.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“Integrity means being open, honest and complete in your communication.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“Charging a fair price is acting in integrity.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“The question that you are hesitant to ask, that is the very question you should ask.”-Tom Elsenbrook Click to Tweet

“There’s a lot of smithing in consulting.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“There’s a lot of questions I’d like to ask, but I can’t ask it the way it’s going on in my head.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“I’m not only thinking about the question but I’m thinking about the best way to ask it.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“When you need to deliver candid feedback, always ask permission.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“You don’t need to respond to everything.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“Humility is a big deal, but comes across in subtle ways.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“Don’t think to highly of yourself.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“Humility takes a lot of patience.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“If you practice humility it will propel you farther than presumption.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“Cross-fit is the biggest humility pill ever.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“Leave your ego at the door.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“Each problem has its own unique challenges and unique constraints.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“I have learned not to slave drive a group, but to empower them.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

“Lead from the front.” Art Hall Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Art finds himself taking certain things that are said too personally. What he is learning thus far is that situational feedback and communication can be a tug-of-war that requires a higher level of Emotional Intelligence. Art is learning how to improve his Stress Hardiness, Tolerance, Emotional Self-Control, and Effective Confrontation skills. Art is currently focusing on how not to take things so personally and to not respond to everything, and be more humble. Listen to Art as he works to get over this hump and what big humility pill he has found.

Leadership Epiphany

Humility is key. The challenge is that it takes a lot of patience and is a long road traveled. But if you practice it will take you further than you could ever imaging.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Pride

Best leadership advice ever received

Listen

Secret to Success

His faith

Best resources in work or life

Listening

Recommended Reading

The Economies of Rising Inequalities
Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Contacting Art

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arthall
Via email: ahall [at] alvarezandmarsal.com

More Resources

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

010: Art Hall: I’m still struggling with it

 

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 intelligent practitioner, Jim Rembach.

Jim Rembach:     Thanks Kimberly. Okay Fast Leader Legion, I am blessed because I get the opportunity to introduce to you Art Hall. No, not the game show host. Art Hall is a good friend of mine that I always look to for the right answer and being that image of class. 

Art Hall was born and raised in Staten Island, New York. He’s the son of Art and Diane Hall. Art’s father was one of the founders of the New York City marathon back in the 1970’s when it was held still in Central Park before expanding to the five boroughs. Like his father, Art ran cross-country indoor and outdoor track in high school and undergrad. 

He graduated from Binghamton University but his career started in the law profession for Dechert Price and Rhoads in New York City. He eventually moved to Atlanta where he found his way to First Data and got exposed to contact center operations and leading customer care.

Art has more than 19 years of industry experience and is currently the director at Alvarez and Marsal where he specializes in strategy and performance improvement. Prior to joining them he was with NetBank and that’s where I had the opportunity to meet Art. He was a part of one of the first financial institutions to be on the Internet. 

Art is also an ordained minister at a non-denominational church in Union City, Georgia called Resurrection House for All Nations pastored by Chika Onuzo.

 Art is also a husband and father to four kids Justin, Christian, Benjamin and Kaitlin. 

Art Hall are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Art Hall:    I’m ready to help everybody, even yourself and myself, over the hump.

Jim Rembach:      Hey, I know I need them and I know our legion listeners do too, so thanks for being here. Now, I’ve given our listeners a brief introduction, but can you please tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you better?

Art Hall:   Wow! I would say my current passion now is trying to restore the integrity of the trusted advisor to buyers. What I mean by that is, I think to some degree consulting with companies or being a consultant has taken a black eye in certain areas where the advisor who supposed to be trusted is perceived to be out to price couch a company or price couch a buyer. Or the advisor doesn’t necessarily tell the whole truth or doesn’t have the balls to tell the truth in a way that will help the buyer. My passion now really is to instore some integrity in the profession by being honest, by being open, by being complete with communication. By giving buyers options on what to do really thinking through crafting recommendations that would make sense for their culture versus shoving a recommendation down their throat or suggesting a recommendation that would be in our interests not necessarily in the client’s best interests, in short that’s really my passion now. 

At first starting and consulting was a huge learning curve for me, given I’ve spent most of my years in industry, and so I think over the past 8 years I really found my footing but this particularly has been a main driving force of mine, probably for the past four years.

Jim Rembach:   You know there’s a keyword for me that I often use that you had stated and that’s integrity. It’s interesting, I think they can kind of throw that word around and maybe don’t necessarily know what it means. I think they have a sense of what it means but what does it mean to you?

Art Hall:      I think integrity means meeting your commitment, meeting your word when you say you’re going to meet you word. I think integrity means if you drop the ball admit that you drop the ball and how you will rectify the issue quickly, and again in the client’s bet interest. Integrity means being open, honest and complete in your communication. You could be open and honest but not necessary complete, you can withhold some things back if it’s going to maybe jeopardize a relationship or jeopardize the next deal or jeopardize the future relationship that you may have established with the company. So I think being open, honest and complete in your communication is part of the integrity factor. Charging a fair price I think is also acting in integrity. The good thing Jim is that I work for a company that’s—integrity is part of our core values so it’s natural for me to digest that personally and professionally and then make sure that when I’m serving clients that comes out in our relationship. 

Jim Rembach:   It’s nice to have that congruency as far as with what you’re feeling what the organization is wanting to deliver, thanks for sharing that with us. Now, here in the Fast Leader show we always are searching for inspiration to help us get over the hump. One of the ways that we do that is we look at quotes and passages that others kind of like. Can you share one of your favorites with us please?

Art Hall:      When I first started at Alvarez and Marsal the CEO a business consultant, his name is Donaldson Brook, one of the things he told a large group—and I never forgot it—he said the question that you are hesitant to ask that is the very question you should ask, and that really stuck with me. Many times you can be in a situation, a client situation or even a personal situation, and there maybe thoughts or questions or comments that are going on in your head but for whatever reason and maybe some reticence or some fear in asking that very thing. But in any relationship, be it personal or be it professional, if you’re really trying to understand where the other person is coming from that question that you’re thinking about that you may be hesitant to ask that’s the very question that you need to ask to unpack or uncover another person’s perspective or another person’s side of things in order to get to some level of shared understanding, that’s what makes relationships and by extension leadership so important. So that’s one of the quotes or mentors that I live by.

Jim Rembach:   That’s really good one. Now, I have found for myself that asking that question that question has become a lot easier when I essentially smit it before it comes out of my mouth. 

Art Hall:  [Laugh] There’s a lot of smiting in consulting. So, coming out of industry and depending on the environment you could just lay your cards out on the table and that’s fine but in consulting there’s a lot of smiting. You’re right, there’s a lot of questions I would like to ask but I can’t ask it the way that is going on in my head. I’m not only thinking of the question but I’m thinking of the best way to ask the question or say something that, the client depending on the circumstances and the situation, would be able to digest or appreciate the question or the comments. So, you’re absolutely right, smiting—it’s an art, like my name Art, not necessarily science.  

Jim Rembach:   For me it’s—like under my breath I almost have to say, “Okay, help me lord.”

Art Hall:   [Laugh]  I was saying that today and I wasn’t even in a conversation, “My god, you got to help me [inaudible 8:28] [Laughter]

Jim Rembach:   Oh! That’s fantastic and thank you for sharing that with us Art. How do you think that you apply the meaning of that quote in your life?

Art Hall:     I work a lot with people both personally and professionally. And because I have a lot of interaction with people it’s now had become very second nature to think something, it could be a very tense situation and I had to figure out how to smit it and get it across in the right way. I met with a guy that I consider a mentor he is a [inaudible 9:06] his name is Randy [inaudible]

Jim Rembach:    He does now.  

Art Hall:    He knows now, hey, Randy. One thing Randy said to me about a month ago that I completely forgot is that when you need to deliver candid feedback and that feedback my rub the person the wrong way that the listener the wrong way, he reminded me to always ask permission like—may I have your permission to share this with you to share some candid feedback—and the moment they say yes, then you’ve already printed an agreement that you can now share very candid feedback that otherwise if you will just pointed it out would be very difficult for the recipient to receive. Now, even when getting that permission that doesn’t make conversation any easier but instead of digesting or suppressing that thing that’s going on in your head, at least you have an opportunity to get it out if you asked permission and they agree. 

Personally, I have that—serving in the ministry—I have that working at A & M that depending on the circumstance or the situation or the culture, asking for permission before just presumptuously blurting out what you think should be blurted out. With the right guidance of coaching, that at least I learned and I share with others. 

Jim Rembach:     Thanks for doing that and sharing that because those are some of the things that we want to be able to bring to light at the Fast Leader show. It’s not a scenario trying to do things quickly and creating shortcuts per se, oftentimes, our life hacks just have to do with knowledge and knowing how to do it right. 

Art Hall:    Yeah. Exactly. 

Jim Rembach:  And so that means we often have humps that we have to get over and they become learning and teaching moments that guide who we are and what we do today that we wouldn’t necessarily want to ever repeat, right?

Art Hall:    Yeah, right, right.

Jim Rembach:   Can you think of a moment in your life where you had, that hump to get over, where it helped you be the person you are today. Could you share that story with us?

Art Hall:   Yeah, I can. I have a hump that I’m trying to get over now and I can tell what that hump is and what I’m learning thus far. Many times I find myself in situations where I have to learn how to provide situational communication, situational feedback. A client is telling me something that they may not necessarily tell the project leader and they’re asking help for me to take what they’re sharing and share it back with a project leader that may or may not be too accepting of what the client says. And so I find myself in this tug-of-war with how do I provide situational communication to my leadership in a way that they would understand not only where I’m coming from with the particular perspective or where my client’s coming from. 

 

And the hump that I’m trying to get over is in certain situations a project leader may do something that I take it really personal. In certain circumstances I’m still learning how to get over that, like not take it so personal. I was in the meeting yesterday and this situation had come up and the woman I was speaking with is much older than me and she said, “Art, I’m a lot older than you and let me tell you what I learn,” I’ve just learned that when those things come up you don’t have to always answer it just let it go even though the person may think that they are right just let the issue go. I think that’s what I have a hard time doing is that certain things just impact me in such a way that it’s hard for me to let it go. I’m trying to learn to not let those things bother me because it just creates unnecessary personal stress and personal fatigue and mental stress that you don’t need to carry around with you because you suppress all that and the moment that individual presses the wrong button then, Boom! This is huge explosion. 

 

So learning your emotional intelligence and understanding what triggers certain reactions and how to manage your behavior in a way that is conducive depending on the environment or regardless of the environment that you’re working in, that’s a hump that I’m trying to get over. There’s areas where I’m getting over it successfully but there’s areas that I’m still struggling with. So I would say this situational communication thing is what’s really pressing me right now as we talk.

 

Jim Rembach:   I would agree with you from the perspective of having that same issue. It is a continual struggle for me oftentimes too. I think it will be easier if it was always with the same person, you kind of learn their habits, you learn where their values and their intent and all these things are coming from instead of you having draw perceptions and some make assumptions based on that and also think that a person who just likes to demean and impact others. 

 

The reality that I found is that very few people are really like. Oftentimes they get caught in the same situational moment too and the anxiety kicks over and the IQ drops and the EQ was already there to begin with and the impact or effect is both negative. Have you found one particular tactic that has seemed at this point to work for you a little bit better than others?

 

Art Hall:     I’m still searching Jim. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Are you?

 

Art Hall:     Yeah. I think what’s helping me now is just trying not to take it so personal. If it comes across via e-mail just delete it you don’t need to respond to everything. If the person’s opinions are really strong and they believe that they’re right they have that right to believe that they’re right. It’s not my job per se to try to change them to see things differently. I would say be humble that can’t really be humble. Humility is a big deal and it comes across in very subtle ways. 

 

For example you could be right about something and you know that you’re right but for me I always have to remember there’s part of the story or part of the situation I just don’t know. And without that perspective you will not be able to learn other things or be exposed to other things. Don’t think too highly of yourself, I think that’s one aspect of humility. Yeah, humility is key particularly when you’re working with people in any dimension, whether it’s personal or on business or particular vocation, people pick up on it. The challenge with humility is that it takes a lot of patience and it seems like a long road travel. It feels like that you get stepped on and pushed to the side but I tell you if you practice it, it will certainly propel you farther than taking shortcuts or being presumptuous in behavior. 

 

Jim Rembach:  I think you’re really on to something there because humility has been something that we’ve seen more and more folks focus in on from a leadership perspective of—even of self. We start talking about mindset, a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset and all that leads in to that humility component and understanding that perfection could actually drive you absolutely crazy. And because you’re not going to reach perfection in everything that you do, you need to accept the fact that we were born to fail and you have to allow yourself to fail because that’s what they have found when we learn the best. We have to fail to learn, so think about that, you have to allow that to happen and that’s where humility kicks in. 

 

Art Hall:    I have one. I have a curve ball coming now.  I’ve been doing cross fit, it’ll be eight years in August, and I could tell you that is the biggest humility pill ever in so many ways, ever. I mean we have something within cross fit community that they say that you want to leave your ego at the door. That’s very hard. If you’re type A, if you’re competitive, you could try to beat yourself or beat the other person but I’m telling you cross fit will teach you humility in a minute. 

 

Jim Rembach:    That’s a great piece of advice for some folks that are struggling with the humility piece, that find yourself in being a bullheaded person more than you need to be, get your hindy out there and do some cross fit. 

 

Art Hall:     Get you go. 

 

Jim Rembach:      Alright. Thanks Art, I appreciate that. I know that you talked about your work and having a passion and of course your family and your faith, however, what is one thing that’s really exciting you about the work that you’re doing today?

 

Art Hall:  This is pretty nerdy, but I like the idea of solving problems, complex problems that’s what’s really exciting. I think that’s why I’ve accepted as not only a part of my own DNA but also my role as an employee at A&M is that there’s no client problems that’s the same each problem has its own unique challenges and so there are unique constraints. And being able to be parachuted in to any environment and then helping that client solve or navigate their way out of a problem is exciting to me. So, I would say problem solving. 

 

Jim Rembach:  That’s great. So, what goals do you have for the future?

 

Art Hall:   One, my wife Katina is getting her third degree, I think, in Family and Marriage counseling. She got her Master’s in Public Policy from Georgia State back in 2000 and now she’s getting a Family, Marriage Therapy degree, she’s finishing in June, so I need to get her a new car, so that’s a goal—I’m sure she would like that. 

 

I’m here doing this interview in Staten Island, New York and I would like to get my brother a new carpet throughout the apartment that we grew up in, that’s one. I think aspirational at A&M, I’m hoping that this is the year for my promotion to Senior Director, that’s kind of one. Ministerial-wise my goal is to preach like my pastor, I’m getting better but still not there yet to where he’s at—I think he’s awesome, that would be another goal. 

 

Jim Rembach:    The entire Fast Leader Legion wishes you the very best. Now it’s time to transition to the Hump Day Hoedown.  Okay Art, the Hump Day Hoedown is the 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 yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Art Hall, are you ready to hoedown?

Art Hall:    I’m ready to hoedown. 

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

Art Hall:  Pride. 

 

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

 

Art Hall:  Listen. 

 

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

 

Art Hall:  My faith. 

 

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

 

Art Hall:   Listening.

 

Jim Rembach:  What would be one book you would recommend to our listeners?

 

Art Hall:   Woo, Thomas…it’s a book on income inequality by Thomas [inaudible 21:41] 

 

Jim Rembach:  Okay Fast Leader listeners what we’re going to do is we’re going to provide a link to that and other bonus information from today’s show and you can find that on our show notes at astleader.net/arthall. Okay Art, you are efficient in that first lightning round that was awesome. For our last question: Imagine you woke up tomorrow morning and you were 25 years old again and you are supposed to begin a new job as a manager of a team of people that is underperforming and disengaged but you’re blessed because you could take all of the wisdom and skill that you currently have and take it with you. Your task is to turn this team around. You get up in the morning, you’re ready you head out to work, what do you do now?

 

Art Hall:   I would hold a meeting with that group. I think the things that I’ve learned is not to slave drive a group but to really empower them, support them. And so, we need to—if I was placed in that situation now with what I’ve learned over the past 20 years—I think that the very first thing I would do is talk to each of them individually and collectively. Set some realistic goals and get in the fire with them. Not necessarily lead from behind but lead from the front.

 

Jim Rembach:   Art, it was an honor to spend time with you today. Can you please share with Fast Leader listeners how they can connect with you?

 

Art Hall:  Yes I can do that Jim. I could be reached by my mobile which is 404 759 9158. I’m on LinkedIn, Art Hall, you this African-American guy that looks very nice, there’s a nice suit, purple tie and a blue shirt, when you see that profile and that $100 smile, link in. And you can reach me by e-mail, my e-mail’s really long, so just go to LinkedIn and see that nice looking guy and that’s how you could find me. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Art Hall, 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 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 to the fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster. 

 

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