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085: Bob Tiede: I didn’t think my heart was wrong

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.

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Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast Leader Legion, today I’m thrilled because we have somebody that’s going to help us with one of the most important aspects of leading others and ourselves and that’s asking questions. Bob Tiede grew up on a farm in South Dakota where he earned his PhD at age 9 that’s when his Dad conferred on him the title of PHD, Post Hole Digger after he successfully dug his very first post hole all by himself. Bob grew up in a very close extended family. His dad and his three brothers and one sister all have farms within 5 miles of each other. All five families along with grandma and grandpa went to the same church and Bob and all of his cousins attended the same school from grades one through 12. Bob Tiede graduated from the University of South Dakota 1971 where both he and his wife Sherry became involved with the Christian student movement now called Cru. 

Upon graduation they join the staff of Cru where they have now served for 45 years. Bob serves on the leadership development team developing next generation of leaders for Cru. Bob says in 15 to 20 years almost all of our current Cru leaders will no longer be leading in their places will be the leaders we are now developing. If we fail now Cru does not fail today or tomorrow but may fail in 15 to 20 years from now. Bob’s role on Cru’s leadership development team is to recruit outstanding leaders from business, education, government, medicine, military and nonprofit to coach Cru’s leaders every other week via Skype video. In 2012 Bob started his blog leadingwithquestion.com as a way to better connect with his target audience. Cru’s emerging leaders who are the 20 to 30 somethings. Today his blog provides a continued source of new tools, new questions for all of Cru’s coaches and leaders and is viewed by leaders in more than 170 countries. Bob and his wife Sherry are proud parents of four adult children and super proud grandparents of six incredible grandchildren all of whom love to ask their Papa Bob questions. Bob Tiede are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Bob Tiede:    Jim, I am so ready and so excited to join the day the Fast Leader Legion. 

Jim Rembach:    And I’m glad to have you. 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?

Bob Tiede:    You really mention, my mission statement is, developing the next generation of leaders for Cru. And as you shared it’s true not just of Cru but every organization 15 to 20 years almost every one of the current leaders will no longer be leading. And you know history is filled with stories of organizations, companies, churches once great thriving, vital, 15 to 20 years later they may not even exist or shell of themselves and when you dig around one of the things you find is that there was no preparation of the next generation to lead.

Jim Rembach:    And it’s  interesting that you say that. I’ve looked at a lot of statistics associated with what our CEO’s focusing in on. One of the things that’s really been on top of mind and on top of the list for over the past several years is this whole leadership pipeline, leadership bench strength, all those things associated with what you’re talking about. However, when you start looking at the amount of money that’s really invested by a lot of organizations and it varies by different countries as far as what to spend but it really is a lot of money but when you look at the effect or the impact on that next generation of leaders they say that the performance is so poor, why is that?

Bob Tiede:    Tell me more, Jim, help me understand the question just a little bit more?

Jim Rembach:    You’re the master of asking question, I should have known that was coming. For me when you start looking at the return on investment on leadership development it’s very low. Why is it low?

Bob Tiede:    Uh-mm, well I’ll hazard a guess. Jim we launched our current leadership program in 2005 we took about a year to develop it and we still don’t have a perfect program that is for sure. In fact, there’s a quote from the World War II Gen. George Patten, he says, “An imperfect plan violently executed today is far superior to perfect plan when it’s too late.” And so our commitment was we’re going to launch this thing and then we’re going to evaluate it and improve it and re-launch it and keep on going. But we came up with two components that I think make an incredible difference. And Jim I’m going to ask you a really silly question, if I didn’t know how to swim and I wanted to become a swimmer is there a book you could recommend that if I just read that book I could then say I’m a swimmer? 

Jim Rembach:    Of course not.

Bob Tiede:    Okay. How about a video series? Maybe a video that would show all the gold medal swims from the last Olympics, if I watch all of those videos could I then call myself a swimmer?

Jim Rembach:    I’ll even say that when I was a kid I had Mark Spitz poster on my wall with all his gold medals for many years and I still never got good at swimming. 

Bob Tiede:    Yes. If I want to become a swimmer what do I need to do?

Jim Rembach:    You got to practice.

Bob Tiede:    I got to get wet. I got to get in the water and I think a lot of leadership development programs, this is my guess focus on what I would say, read the book, watch the video, and those are helpful but unless you get in the water with whatever that is you can’t call yourself a leader the only way a leader can learn to lead is to start leading. And so, one of the things we do on our leadership program is action learning. We put them in groups of about five or six we usually have four of these teams and each one of them is given a challenge, a major challenge, facing our organization. In other words, it’s not just a case study, it’s not busywork these are real stuff and they’re given six months 20% of their time basically a day a week, to do all the due diligence to come up and six months later to present to the leadership of Cru their solution. 

We are now on our sixth iteration of this and action learning has been a game changer because it actually allows them to get in the water. And the second thing, and when you were introducing me you mentioned this, we recruited outstanding leaders from outside our organization, the coach every other week are leaders. And Jim I’ll ask you another question, you may have a coach but if you had somebody you met with every other week and they just asked you these three questions, first question: “Jim last time we were together you said that by today you wanted to make progress in A, B and C, tell me how that’s gone? Now mind you they didn’t tell you what you needed to do last time you said here’s what I wanted to do. Second question: Can we confirm when we’re meeting again? It may be same time, same place, two weeks from today but you asked to confirm. Third question: Jim, by then what further progress do you want to make? Mind you, I’m taking notes because that would be my first question two weeks from now. Those two things have been game changers in developing leaders. Now do we have it perfect now? No. But do we feel really good about the investment were making that it’s actually making a difference? Absolutely.

Jim Rembach:    Yeah, thanks for sharing that. As I was thinking about what you were saying I started thinking about the distinction between what is training, what is mentoring and what is coaching. Those three questions are more coach based because you’re not putting in the answers all you’re doing is working with what’s already inside and that’s the key distinction I think that we really have to make these days with a lot of folks. Because they essentially want to tell people what they’re supposed to be doing and there’s no thinking that’s involve and so we’re not depositing in them were essentially just giving them all the answers and therefore they don’t have to come up within themselves and I think that is something that stifles a lot of growth and leadership opportunity in a lot of folks. So, when you start talking about—I think you talked about having a particular addiction about being a teller, right? 

Bob Tiede:    Jim, I’m a charter member of TA. Now most people don’t know what TA is, they’re familiar with AA for example, I don’t mean out of personal experience but they’ve heard of Alcoholics Anonymous—A.A.  T.A. stands for Tellers Anonymous. And we go to our meetings and I stand up and I said my name is Bob I’m a Teller and they say, welcome Bob. The truth is many, many years of my leadership I was what you would call a benevolent dictator. I was overly helpful. I was a micro director, a micro-teller. If you ask me Bob what time is it? I not only told you what time I told you how watches are made. And, oh! Jim, can I share really painful story?

Jim Rembach:    You sure can. 

Bob Tiede:    About 20 years ago, I was privileged and I was so excited I had an incredible leader volunteer at no cost to join our development team, our fundraising team. He had recently retired as one of the top five leaders at JC Penney’s, fabulous company he was the international executive VP. Two years later he resigned and a bit after that I discovered the reason he resigned. He said in his entire career he had never served under someone who so told him step-by-step what he needed to do. And I thought I was being helpful, but it was like, I was saying, “Here, you know, ABCD. Here’s another word picture, I’m not an artist and so if I see something that is—draw this picture by connect the dots, go from 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4 that’s kind of fun, but if you’re an artist and you work in an art studio and they insisted that you draw all your pictures that way and somebody else designed them you wouldn’t stay there very long because where is the chance to flourish yourself? Well, at that point I really didn’t understand, I really didn’t. It was a much later that I understood that being overly helpful, because again I even look back now and said, I don’t think my heart was wrong I was just stupid. But being overly helpful actually diminishes people, it doesn’t let them grow, it doesn’t let them flourish and they don’t own what they hear somebody else tell them to do. 

And so, it was much later, in fact I’d actually moved in to this role and in 2006, I came across a book, browsing a bookstore, I came across a book called Leading with Question by Dr. Michael Marquardt. As I browse that book in the bookstore, I only read a few pages, and said this one’s going home with me and I took it home and it was a page turner and reading that book forever changed my leadership. Because as I read that book I had the “aha” and I shared that awful experience, imagine losing a talent like that because you are being overly helpful, but I understood what I done wrong and saw this new paradigm, the great leaders lead with questions. You know, in the book there was a quote, there’s many quotes, but I love this quote from Dr. Peter Drucker: “The leader of the past may have been a person who knew how to tell but certainly the leader of the future will be a person who knows how to ask.” 

At any rate as I grab that new paradigm in my leadership development role I began to teach out of that book, do presentations put them together they were so well received. One example, I had been with the global operations team of Cru and I was there for another meeting but the next morning kind of a check-in time, I was not going to speak that morning I’d spoken earlier, but during the check-in time one of the colleagues on that team a wife and mother, not my wife but on the team, she’s volunteered there she said, Oh! I’ve got to thank Bob. She said, Last night I think I had the best conversation with my son that I’ve ever had.” Her son was two years out of the University, was are ready succeeding as a young professional, but what she said is, you know every time we get on the phone my son will mentioned some topic and I will then tell him what he needs to do. She said, Last night when we got on the phone he mentioned the topic and I said, tell me more about that? And then he did. And I said, what do you think you ought to do? And he did share that all she did was ask basic questions and she said I think it was the finest conversation I’ve ever had. Thank you so much Bob. Well I turn around and said, let us thank Michael Marquardt for writing the book. 

Jim Rembach:    Thanks for sharing that. You’ve got me to start thinking about a couple of instances with certain individuals that I’ve had to where I’ve tried, I’ve attempted to ask the questions so that they can answer them for themselves.  However, it’s almost a situation to where two things. One was a choice, they chose to just—no, just give me the answer I need to hurry I need to go. And the other is, there was an older person that I think they had become so conditioned and brainwashed to have answers be given to them that when I started asking those questions they seem like a lost soul. So how do you reprogram or program somebody to actually answer questions that are given to them?

Bob Tiede:    That’s a great question I want to make kind of a comment. Someone have seen my research that the average four-year-old asked over 200 questions a day. And then we send them to school and in most again well-meaning teachers now it’s a five-year-old or six-year-old is asking a lot of questions and the teacher at some point says, Johnny it’s my job to ask questions it’s your job to answer them. And over time they get reprogram. I’m told that the average college graduate only ask 20 questions a day. And so we really do have this—what’s happening in the education system is don’t ask questions give answers and so reprogramming that can be difficult. What I find is starting with the simplest questions is what works best. For example, in my book—Great Leaders Ask Questions, which by the way have a free e-book on my blog, but in that book I share that I can teach anyone to lead with questions in 30 seconds. Can I try that with you Jim?

Jim Rembach:    Let’s do it. 

Bob Tiede:    Okay. I want you to memorize my four favorite questions I’m going to share them with you and we’ll see if 30 seconds later you can restate them back to me. Here’s the first question: What you think? And of course in the situation you would add about whatever’s on the table. What do you thinks the best way forward with his client? What you think we could do about this? So, it’d related. But first question, what you think? The second one is what else? The third one is what else? The fourth one is, what else? Now Jim, do you have this memorized?

Jim Rembach:    I think I do. 

Jim Rembach:    Let’s hear them. 

Bob Tiede:    I just remember the, what else, what else, what else?  Three times and I know when things are said three times we remember them best. What was the first one again? 

Jim Rembach:    The first one is, what do you think? 

Bob Tiede:    What do you think?

Bob Tiede:    And then, what else, what else, what else. Now may sound funny but here’s what I’ve discovered is that we all kind of instinctively when we answer a question give a safe answer we’re protective of ourselves it’s not a conscious thing it’s a subconscious. And if I say Jim, what you think about? And you give me an answer and I saw it Jim that’s stupid anyone knows that, we’ll you’re glad you didn’t say anything else. But if I say, wow! Jim tell me more, what else? And you give another answer. And I said Jim take a notes. Keep talking, what else. What I discovered is that you get to the gold nugget on about the third or fourth what else because they’re feeling really safe it’s like wow the guy asking must be really smart they keep asking me, they keep telling him more. But by is starting that way, you don’t make a big deal out of starting to lead with questions, you don’t ask him, and again you’re never trying to ask him I got you question your you’re not the 60 minutes investigator, and then you have listen and you appreciate what’s being said. 

Another key that I find and I shared in my book is silenced is a great tool in asking questions. Many times we’ll say, Jim what do you think about? And they’re not immediately answering. And so we say, well you know, and we ask it again or we stack another question because were uncomfortable with the silence.  But if we if you ask a question be quiet let them think they will answer and sometimes the longer the silence the better the answer. Jim that’s not a perfect solution you can’t make somebody talk that doesn’t want to but if you start simple give him time, appreciate what they say, you’ll begin to make progress I think with almost anyone.

Jim Rembach:    Thanks for sharing that.  There’s a couple of things that I pulled out as you’re talking and one is be authentic with your listening, don’t judge, I think that’s important because you want to be able to build that trust, be patient. You’ve got to weight them out I guess if you want the answers, you have to weight them out. So I know you have a lot of things going on. I know you’ve been with Cru for—oh my goodness, having a 45 year career with one organization is just unheard of these days. But you got the grandkids, you’ve got a lot of things going on, so tell me Bob when you think about your goals, what else?

Bob Tiede:    Jim it’s interesting as I share my mission really is developing the next generation of leaders for Cru. When I look at those six grandkids sometimes Jim when I’m doing a presentation I would say, and I don’t know the next slide coming up but I’ll say, we’ve identified what we think are the six highest potential future leaders, would you like to see who we’ve identified? And of course, the audience ask for the next slides, my grandkids. And so, we are focused on developing them of course age-appropriate. But Jim, another thing that has become a sweet spot you mentioned that I started this blog leadingwithquestions.com I did it just as a better way to connect with the young emerging leaders in our organization. Also to provide a resource to the coaches that we’d recruited. And oh, Jim I make a funny comment I have no idea how 747 can get in the air but that doesn’t stop me from flying. And this thing called the Internet I still have no idea how it actually works but it doesn’t stop me from using it. And so you launch this blog it gets out there and I’m just blown away that I’m being followed now by leaders from 170 nations.

And so another mission statement I have is helping leaders increase their leadership effectiveness times ten and I really believe it is possible to increase times ten from moving from the paradigm of leading by telling, like I was the benevolent dictator, to leading with questions where we empower our staff to come up with the answers that they then own and are going to be much more motivated to execute on plus we get the best thinking of everyone. Another kind of silly story or question I ask is,  Jim if you are about with all your staff and they all had oars and are wanting to get across the lake how many of them would you like to have row with you?

Jim Rembach:    Every single of them. 

Bob Tiede:    Yeah.  So that I’ve never had a leader say otherwise Jim. But I then asked Jim, so why would any of us want to, with our staff, take them on into the future and we’re the only one that has an oar in the water? Why aren’t we asking them? What did they think? How would they approach this? And in that way you get the best thinking, the brain power of everyone on your team.

Jim Rembach:    We wish you the very best in all of your, what else is Bob? Now before we move let’s get a quick word from our sponsor. 

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Jim Rembach:    Alright, here we go Fast Leader Legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay Bob, 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.  Bob Tiede—

Bob Tiede:    I’m ready to go. 

Jim Rembach:    Alright you’re ready to hoedown. So, what do you think is holding you back from being even better leader today? 

Bob Tiede:    It’s simple. I need to become a better listener. You know there’s a quote by David Augsburger said that: “Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable.” If you’re going to lead with questions you got to listen and I have to become a better listener.

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

Bob Tiede:    Jim, I’m going to say that it’s from the brother Jesus James who shares in his New Testament book he shares this: You have not because you ask not. If you don’t ask the answers always no or no input, no insight, thoughts or wisdom from others, so you got to ask. 

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

Bob Tiede:    Here’s another quote, I don’t know who to attribute it to but the quote says, “None of us is as good as all of us.” I love being part of a team, the scripture says that one chases a thousand but two will chase ten thousand. And for a team to fire on all cylinders everyone oarer’s has to be on the water. And the only way that can happen is where that team culture is one of leading with questions. 

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

Bob Tiede:    Jim I’m going to sound like a broken record but I really believe it’s the paradigm that great leaders lead with questions. 

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

Bob Tiede:    Jim, I’d like to recommend the book by Dr. Michael Marquardt that forever changed my paradigm and his book is called, “Leading with Question”, it’s now in its second edition. It’s an outstanding book.

Jim Rembach:    Okay. Fast Leader listeners you can find links to that and other bonus information including Bob’s e-book by going to fastleader.net/Bob Tiede. Okay Bob, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age 25. And you’ve been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skill that you have now back with you. But you can’t take everything back you can only choose one. So, what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Bob Tiede:    Jim that’s easy. I would take back the paradigm that great leaders ask questions. 

Jim Rembach:    Okay, Bob it was an honor to spend time with you today, can you please share with the fast leader listeners how they can connect with?

Bob Tiede:    Oh, Jim, it’s been great to be with you. And Fast Leader listeners you can connect with me on my blog, leadingwithquestions.com again leadingwithquestions.com.

Jim Rembach:    Bob Tiede, thank you for sharing you knowledge and wisdom the Fast Leader Legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot! 

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

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