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087: Roy Atkinson: Despite the fact that I grew up privileged

Roy Atkinson Show Notes

Roy Atkinson grew up as a privileged kid. Then Roy found himself needing to work his way through high school and college while his mother tended to her ailing mother and Roy’s father. Roy had to get over several humps to move onward and upward. But one of Roy’s most valuable lessons came later.

Roy was cited as the model for the “Digital Renaissance Man” by Charles Araujo, writing for CIO Insight. His varied background shows why.

Roy is a lover of language. He studied Spanish for three years and French for four before graduating grammar school. He returned to Spanish for three years in high school and two more in college, by which time he was the only non-native speaker in the class. He started reading Italian as well, and learned to speak it with friends and neighbors in New Jersey.

Along the way, he studied six years of Latin, two years of Greek, and two years of German in formal classes, adding some conversational Serbian through a friend. He is currently about six months into learning Swedish using Duolingo software.

Roy was also an honors student in English literature and philosophy at Iona College and at the State University of New York, at both the Purchase and Albany campuses.

This all ties back to his love of communication in all forms, and his desire to understand and be understood.

Roy learned customer service from the ground up, delivering newspapers, mowing lawns, walking dogs, stocking shelves and ringing up customers in a supermarket.

He paid for college expenses by pumping gas and playing music. After academia, Roy launched a musical career—he had been playing guitar, piano and percussion since childhood—and was able to work as a full-time musician and producer for over twenty years. He was voted “Best Solo Artist” six consecutive times by the readers of the New York regional publication Musicmachine Magazine and was inducted into the Musicmachine Hall of Fame in 1989.

In 1995, Roy changed careers and obtained a job running information technology for an international nonprofit think tank based in Camden, Maine. He was later hired by The Jackson Laboratory where his manager suggested he attend an HDI meeting, and Roy became a member and later a founding officer for the Northern New England local chapter.

When HDI, the professional association and certification body for technical support, needed someone with technical understanding, deep IT support experience, and excellent writing skills, Roy applied for and got the job. He has been with HDI since 2010 as their senior writer/analyst.

Roy currently lives near Bar Harbor, Maine.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

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

“Speak the language of the business that the business understands.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet

“Understand what success is to your business.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“Understand how to help customers be successful in your business.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“Express things in the terms that business units can understand.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“Be mindful, pick up on details for people.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“Earning your way in and getting familiar with people is really important.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“You can get disconnected with people if you push it to hard too fast.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“Understanding the other person is paramount in any relationship.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“Listen to what people have to say and how they say it.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“Being a good leader is to understand when you need to go in and when you shouldn’t.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

“Try to help other people get over difficulties they are facing.” -Roy Atkinson Click to Tweet 

Hump to Get Over

Roy Atkinson grew up as a privileged kid. Then Roy found himself needing to work his way through high school and college while his mother tended to her ailing mother and Roy’s father. Roy had to get over several humps to move onward and upward. But one of Roy’s most valuable lessons came later.

Advice for others

Eliminate obstacles from your people’s path.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Focusing too much on what other people think.

Best Leadership Advice Received

Leaders are people who make other leaders.

Secret to Success

Seek to understand and then be understood.

Best tools that helps in business or Life

My technology that helps me to connect with others.

Recommended Reading

Peter Drucker: Management Rev Ed

Contacting Roy

email: roy.atkinson [at] ubm.com

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/royatkinson

Twitter: https://twitter.com/hdi_analyst

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

087: Roy Atkinson: Despite the fact that I grew up privileged 

 

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

Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast Leader Legion it’s said that our experiences that makes us wiser. Well, then our guest today is one of the wisest because he’s had tons of experiences. Roy Atkinson was cited as the model for the Digital Renaissance man by Charles Araujo writing for the CIO Insight. Roy is a lover of language. He studied Spanish for three years and French for four before graduating grammar school. He returned to Spanish for three years in high school and two more in college by which time he was the only non-native speaker in the class. He started reading Italian as well and learn to speak it with friends and neighbors in New Jersey. Along the way he studied six years of Latin, two years of Greek, two years of German in formal classes, adding some conversational Serbian through a friend he’s also currently about six months into learning Swedish. Roy was also an honor student in English literature and philosophy at Iona College and at the State University of New York at both the Purchase and Albany campuses. This all ties back to his love of communication in all forms and his desire to understand and be understood. 

Roy learn customer service from the ground up delivering newspapers, mowing lawns, walking dogs, stocking shelves and ringing up customers in the supermarket. He paid for college expenses by pumping gas and playing music. After academia, Roy launch a musical career. He’d been playing guitar, piano, percussions since childhood he was able to work as a full-time musician and produce for over 20 years. He was voted best solo artist six consecutive times by the readers of New York regional publication, Music Machine magazine and was inducted into the Music Machine Hall of Fame in 1989. 

In 1995 Roy change careers and obtained a job running information-technology for an international nonprofit think tank based in Camden, Maine. He was later hired by the Jackson Laboratory where his manager suggested he attend an HDI meeting and Roy became a member and later a founding officer for the Northern New England local chapter. When HDI, the Professional Association and Certification body for technical support needed someone with technical understanding, deep IT support experience, and excellent writing skills, Roy applied for the job and got it. He has been with HDI since 2010 as their senior writer. And Roy currently lives near Bar Harbor, Maine. Roy Atkinson are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Roy Atkinson:    I’m ready to get over the hump and help everybody else do it too Jim. 

Jim Rembach:       Sounds good. Now 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 you even better? 

Roy Atkinson:    My current passion is making sure that people get great service whether it’s IT support or customer service and making sure that the folks who are practitioners in those areas have good information to go on, that’s really my focus and my passion. 

Jim Rembach:    That particular focus and passion, I have that too Roy. So, when you start thinking about you and what you bring to it, needless to say your experiences are ton, but what do you like bringing to it that you think is kind of like your niche and your special song?

Roy Atkinson:    I think that in many senses I’m a translator and it not only goes for languages had someone tell back in the days when I was working in a supermarket one of the Cuban folks that work there told me that I should work at the UN as a translator and that translation skill not only works for languages but it also works for technology.  I was just writing something yesterday about being technology translators on how to support people, can help people understand and better utilize the technologies that they have if they can explain them in terms of people to understand. And in order to do that you have to have a deep understanding of the technology and be able to explain it in everyday terms, analogies, stories so that people get a hold of it and corrupt their brains around it. 

Jim Rembach:     Thanks for sharing that and the translation piece, I think the experiences that you’ve had bring so much to the ability to do that translation. But you and I had the opportunity to have a brief conversation after a recent call center conference in Long Beach the with the ICI contact center expo. It was after a keynote where they were talking about executive buy-in and they were talking about an executive at Delta dental of Michigan, Loobag Battagliari (?) was talking about his exposure and introduction to the contact center and held the director that was there, really helped indoctrinate him and helped communicate the contact center. And he talked about several things that I think probably both of us have written about. But that translation to the executive level is something that so many people struggle with at the frontline and even middle managers. With the experiences that you had, if you were to say that there’s one or two things that the folks can do in order to kind of breakthrough that barrier what would it be?

Roy Atkinson:    I think one of the most important thing, and this has been a big topic and information technology over the past few years, is learning to speak the language of the business, there it is again learning that language and delivering information in the language that the business understands. The business may not care about how many times you pick up the phone last month those and those metrics that are so important to contact center and support center managers so they can determine staffing and things like, if I go to the sea level and I say “Hey we enter 10,000 calls last month” they’re going say, “Okay, so what? It’s not important to me what’s important to me is how quickly did you get people back to work after something broke. Why did something break? That’s a big question. So understand what success is to your business and understand how to help the customers be successful in the business and then be able to express things in the terms that the business units can understand.

Jim Rembach:     When you started talking I started thinking about my own experiences being in contact center operations and some of the struggles that I had as a youth in my tenure in contact centers, and part of it was just what you’re talking about. And I think for me as the course of my career is gone and I’ve had the opportunity to sit on some boards for nonprofit organizations for-profit organizations and had those strategic conversations. When I was in operations if someone wants to say to me, you need to talk to your language for me it’s like, what is it? I’ve never exposed to it? Where do I go get it? How do I actually get past that hump of “I’m in the innocent unknowing bucket”? I’m clueless, what do I do?

Roy Atkinson:    So, one of the things that you can do is get yourself educated, okay, that’s one thing.  And one of the best way to do that is start reading. Read business publications, read Harvard Business Review, read Bloomberg. Get to look at the terminology, understand what they’re talking about. In my case, I decided back in 2010 that I really needed to have a more formal structure to that and so I started taking classes at Tulane University Freeman School of Business and pick up a master certification and advanced management strategy on 2011. So, I had that formal business background that would enable me to be more familiar with the terminology and understand what they were looking for and what the terminology meant to them and that’s super important. 

Jim Rembach:     There’s one other aspect that for me I’ve also found is that, you find uniquely different folks within different segments or areas of an organization when you start talking about personalities of course but the way that they actually connect with the business and the customer, and heck even themselves for that matter, is that you kind of have to start with that general framework but then you have to look at the individual and I even recommend to folks building a dossier on the folks that are decision makers within the organization. Like this person for example, loves coffee, I had the opportunity go to a workshop on the science of persuasion and this one guide during the break was talking about how he wasn’t able to connect with the person who he reported to directly and I ask him, “When you walk into his office, what do you see?” He goes, “Coffee” it was all over the place. This guy is a coffee aficionado. He buys coffee from all over the world.” And I said, “What about you?” He goes, “I hate coffee.” I said, “That’s your first problem.” 

Roy Atkinson:    Exactly.  I’ve got a friend named Robbly Jess, who works for a company called Rack Space they’re famous for fanatical support and Robs thing he just love video calls with customers from Rack Space he’s in the support world, and he looks at the background when he’s on the video call he looks at the background maybe he sees a picture of a dog he understands that that person has a dog is a dog lover and so he’s able to send a bunch of dog bones to that person before the next time they talk, things like that are really important picking up on details for people, super important. And I think that—and I know personally I’m always a little bit jittery when people start asking for personal details because I want to feel comfortable with them but at the same time if somebody is mindful enough to pick up on something like that for me it makes a world of difference. I know that you love chocolate and so you send me chocolates, great, that’s a great way to make a friend and introduce yourself to further your relationship. Chris Brogan way back quite a few years ago, wrote a great blog which I refer people to still and it’s called, Earning Your Way In, and he talked about—maybe I met on Twitter and I re-tweeted one of your tweets or I liked one for you tweets and maybe next time I have a Twitter conversation with you and maybe you send me a direct message with your e-mail address saying I’d love to talk to you about this so I responded e-mail so now we’re connected on Twitter and e-mail next thing I connect with you on LinkedIn I get to look at your profile, I get to know more details about you, where you work and what you’ve done and what you do now. And then maybe we have a phone conversation and the next thing you know we’re having coffee together because I came to your city and that type of earning your way in and getting familiar with people is really important than I think. You can get disconnected so this is a delicate area because you can disconnect with people if you push it too hard too fast and understanding the other person of course is paramount in any relationship. So, listen to what they have to say, listen to how they say it. 

Jim Rembach:    I think those are all great pieces of advice. And for us when we start talking about how do we make sure there were on the right direction, right course, and those reminders a lot of times we lean to leadership quotes. Is there a quote or two that stands out for you that you can share? 

Roy Atkinson:    Today I was thinking about a quote from Peter Drucker and I’ll paraphrase it because I don’t remember it exactly but it has something to do with manager’s being people who get in the way of people getting work done.  And that can certainly happen at so many different levels it’s so easy for managers to insert themselves into places that are just creating stumbling blocks for people to get things done. So being a good manager and a good leader is to understand when you need to go in and when you shouldn’t, that’s a really important thing.  I love Drucker, I love Jim Marrone. Jim Marrone has so many different quotes, I can’t even think how many. I use to have a randomizer on my e-mail signature years ago that I think I had 30 Jim Marrone quotes and I would just insert one in my e-mail signature every time an e-mail out, it was great, I loved it.

Jim Rembach:    I know that looking at all the things that you’ve been able to get exposed to and that you really sought out in regards to your own growth and development and very creative as well as technical and structured so you’re working both sides of that brain which is awesome. But to really come into your own, a lot of times, we have to get over some humps in order for us to really find our zone and into really find a groove. Can you think of a time where you’ve had to get over the hump where it sets you in a better direction? Can you share that story?

Roy Atkinson:    There are a lot of humps that I’ve had to get over Jim and I guess one was, despite the fact that I grew up, kind of a privilege kid, I went to a small parochial grammar school, I went to a parochial high school, especially during high school and the early bits of college there were some internal things in the family my dad was ill, my mom was trying to take care my dad and her mother was also ill so she had to devote time and effort to taking care of her mom, all of these created some financial stress on the family and so throughout my high school and college years it was up to me to go out and pay my way and so that’s where some of that work experience comes as I was always working, always trying to figure out could I schedule my college classes in the morning and work at night which I did for quite a few years, so all of those things were difficult to overcome but the same time I learned things from every single one of those experiences. I learn some self-sufficiency from being able pay those bills. I learn to be creative in how I scheduled myself and what my tracks were in school and all that kind of things, so all of that played out in later years as I approach difficulty and try to help other people get over difficulties that they were facing.  

And they’re one of the most valuable things that I could do for people who work with me or for me, was to eliminate obstacles from their path. I remember one specific instance where one of my team members was rather discouraged on how to take a certification exam and he wasn’t sure he could pass it and didn’t know how he could take it because it was far away. And so I managed to convince the testing company to let him take the test remotely, which was not their policy, but I managed to convince them to do that. He passed the certification test and it kind of turned him around because he felt more self-confident. I think that type of thing is important, get the obstacles out of the way. 

Jim Rembach:    So, Roy, I know you’ve gone over a lot of obstacles. You’ve also done a lot of things from a creative side, you have a music business, you’ve been a musician, all those languages that you’re learning, the writing that you love to do, but when you start thinking about all of those things what are some of your goals?

Roy Atkinson:    I think that one of my primary goals is to help my organization be more successful. And I think one of the ways we can do that is by better communicating with our members in our communities. And so I try to increase the options for people, as a matter fact, today as we’re recording this we’re coming up on the first Twitter chat that HDI is going to do and so that will increase the options that people have to communicate with us not only on the subject that we’re going to talk about today but to feel more free about tweeting us and communicating with us that way, open up the channels make sure that people have as many options as possible to freely communicate that’s really important and that’s a limitation of another obstacle and maybe overcome their fear of getting on Twitter give them some place to start, that’s important too.

Jim Rembach:    So, now for the folks that are listeners that are in the support community, what will be the Twitter chat, hash tag that you’re actually using? 

Roy Atkinson:    It’s hash tag #hdichatat

Jim Rembach:    Perfect. So hopefully they’ll come see you. 

 Roy Atkinson:    One P M eastern time every Friday. 

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.

“Max on contact center agent performance is impossible unless your customer’s involved in grading and coaching agents. So make it simple for you and customers with the award-winning External Quality Monitoring Program from Customer Relationship Metrics. Get up over the hump now by going to customersgradeacall.com/fast and getting your $7500 rapid result package for free.” 

Alright Fast Leader listeners it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Roy, 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. Roy Atkinson, are you ready to hoedown?

Roy Atkinson:    I’m ready to hoedown.

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

Roy Atkinson:    Focusing too much on what other people think. 

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

Roy Atkinson:    Leaders are people who make other leaders.

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

Roy Atkinson:    Wow! Seek to understand than to be understood, Stephen Covey.

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

Roy Atkinson:    My technology. It allows me to connect with so many people in so many ways. 

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

Roy Atkinson:    I would highly recommend Management by Peter Drucker.

Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast Leader listeners you can find links to that and other bonus information from today show by going to fastleader.net/Roy Atkinson. Okay, Roy, this 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 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? 

Roy Atkinson:    I would take back a little bit better understanding of how to use a spreadsheet. Because at that point I was doing business it was a full-time job and I would’ve been better at it if I understood the financial side better.

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

Roy Atkinson:    Sure thing. You can find me on Twitter @RoyAtkinson or @yatkinson, you can also find me at @hdi_analyst, that’s the HDI side of my Twitter life. And you can e-mail me roy .atkinson@ubm.com.

Jim Rembach:    Roy Atkinson, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom theFast Leader Legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over for 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

 

 

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

Bob Tiede Show Notes

Bob Tiede had an Executive Vice President volunteer to fund raise for the organization he worked for. After two years he resigned. Shortly after that Bob learned the reason he resigned. It was because Bob was a benevolent teller. Listen to Bob’s story of how he learned a new way to move onward and upward faster.

Bob grew up on a farm in South Dakota where he earned his PHD at age 9!  That is when his Dad conferred on him the title of PHD standing for 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 3 brothers and 1 sister all had farms within 5 miles of each other.  All five families along with Grandpa and Grandma went to the same church and Bob and all of cousins attended the same school from grades 1-12!

Bob Tiede graduated from the University of South Dakota in 1971 where both he and his wife Sherry became involved with a Christian Student Movement now called Cru.

Upon Graduation they joined the staff of Cru where they have now served for 45 years. Bob serves on the Leadership Development Team – Developing the next generation of leaders for Cru.  Bob says, “In 15-20 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 15-20 years from now.

Bob’s role on Cru’s Leadership Development team is to recruit outstanding leaders from business, education, government & medicine, military and non-profits to coach Cru leaders every other week via SKYPE video.

In 2012 Bob started his blog LeadingWithQuestions.com, along with other social media efforts, as a way to better connect with his target audience: Cru’s emerging leaders who are 20 and 30-something. 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 4 adult children and super proud grandparents of six incredible grandchildren – all of whom love to ask their Papa Bob questions!

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

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

In 15 to 20 years almost every one of the current leaders will no longer be leading.” -Bob Tiede Click to Tweet

“History is filled with organizations once great that failed to prepare the next leaders.” -Bob Tiede Click to Tweet 

“The only way a leader can learn to lead is to start leading.” -Bob Tiede Click to Tweet 

“Being overly helpful actually diminishes people.” -Bob Tiede Click to Tweet 

“People don’t own what they hear somebody else tell them to do.” -Bob Tiede Click to Tweet 

“Great leaders lead with questions.” -Bob Tiede Click to Tweet 

“Starting with the simplest questions is what works best.” -Bob Tiede Click to Tweet 

“We all instinctively, when we answer a question, give a safe answer.” -Bob Tiede Click to Tweet 

“Silence is a great tool in asking questions.” -Bob Tiede Click to Tweet 

“If you ask a question be quiet, let them think.” -Bob Tiede Click to Tweet 

“Sometimes the longer the silence the better the answer.” -Bob Tiede Click to Tweet 

“Empower your staff to come up with the answers that they then own.” -Bob Tiede Click to Tweet 

“If you’re going to lead with questions, you got to listen” -Bob Tiede Click to Tweet 

“If you don’t ask, the answer is always no.” -Bob Tiede Click to Tweet 

“For a team to fire on all cylinders everyone’s oars need to be in the water.” -Bob Tiede Click to Tweet 

Hump to Get Over

Bob Tiede had an Executive Vice President volunteer to fund raise for the organization he worked for. After two years he resigned. Shortly after that Bob learned the reason he resigned. It was because Bob was a benevolent teller. Listen to Bob’s story of how he learned a new way to move onward and upward faster.

Advice for others

Don’t be a teller; lead with questions.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

I need to become a better listener.

Best Leadership Advice Received

You have not because you ask not. You’ve got to ask.

Secret to Success

I love being part of a team.

Best tools that helps in business or Life

The paradigm that great leaders lead with questions.

Recommended Reading

Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions by Knowing What to Ask

Great Leaders ask Questions

Contacting Bob

Blog: http://leadingwithquestions.com/

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bobtiede

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

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.

 

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

 

Jim Rembach:    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.

 

END OF AUDIO 

 

 

043: Alison Circle: I have to get over myself

Alison Circle Show Notes

Alison Circle received the results from an organizational climate survey that revealed some devastating results. Finally learning to get over herself, Alison realized she needed to balance what she needed to get done with what people were asking of her. Listen to Alison tell her story of how she prevented undermining her own success.

Alison Circle came from hard-working American stock that has been in the U.S. for 3 centuries. She is proud to come from a family of patriots who have fought in every war since the American Revolution.

Alison is a student of history because it lets her keep perspective about what is happening today. Especially with a sometimes crazy media, may lead us to believe we live in the worst of times. We don’t. As the playwright August Wilson said, “If you don’t know where you came from how do you know you’ve earned their sacrifice?”

Deep in her bones Alison believes in the quote: “To whom much is given, much is expected.” She feels she’s been given so much that it would be unconscionable not to build opportunities for others.

Every day Alison goes to work knowing that she has the best job in the world and she takes the responsibility seriously and gives it all she can.
Alison is the Chief Customer Experience Officer for Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML), and in 2010 her work was recognized with the Library Journal’s Library of the Year and in 2011 she was named a “Mover & Shaker.”

Alison lives in Columbus, Ohio. Six blocks from my sister. She believe in the human connection to geography; living in Ohio I feel a powerful connection to the impact of the Ice Age.

She shares her home with her husband Riccardo and has daughter Sophia that attends The Ohio State University. Alison says, “Just thinking about her brings a smile to my face.”

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

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

“Hoping that they have confidence in me is not what’s going to make that happen.” Click to Tweet

“I have had to lead with great humility.” Click to Tweet 

“If I didn’t have a great team beneath me, I wouldn’t have credibility.” Click to Tweet 

“I have had to adapt to the culture instead of expecting the culture to adapting to me.” Click to Tweet 

“We hold ourselves back from making it better because we can’t think we can.” Click to Tweet 

“How do we make it happen, instead of I can’t do that.” Click to Tweet 

“Let’s start from the standpoint that the answer is…YES.” Click to Tweet 

“Seek first to understand.” Click to Tweet 

“Our frontline needs to see and touch me in this role; it’s the role, not me.” Click to Tweet 

“I’ve got to learn to balance what I have to get done and what people are asking of me.” Click to Tweet 

“If I am not touching people in the way they need…it’s going to undermine my success.” Click to Tweet 

“I can’t be independent and be successful.” Click to Tweet 

“The higher up you go, the less independent you can be.” Click to Tweet 

“I have had to flatten out myself in terms of how I go about doing things.” Click to Tweet 

“What are you doing to contribute to the lack of performance in your people?” Click to Tweet 

“Lead with your ears, not with your mouth.” Click to Tweet 

“Choosing the right words to lead makes all the difference.” Click to Tweet 

“As leaders we talk too much…we need to listen more.” Click to Tweet 

Hump to Get Over

Alison Circle received the results from an organizational climate survey that revealed some devastating results. Finally learning to get over herself, Alison realized she needed to balance what she needed to get done with what people were asking of her. Listen to Alison tell her story of how she prevented undermining her own success so you can move onward and upward faster.

Advice for others

If I am frustrated by what somebody else is doing or not doing, what am I doing to contribute to that.

Holding her back from being an even better leader

Too much work to do. I need to prioritize better.

Best Leadership Advice Received

Lead with your ears and not your mouth.

Secret to Success

I’m infatigable. I have so much energy and I give it my all.

Best tools that helps in business or Life

Write everything down and choosing the right words to lead.

Recommended Reading

Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry

Contacting Alison

email: acircle [at] columbuslibrary.org

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alison-circle-97a6b117

Additional 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

043: Alison Circle: I have to get over myself

 

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

 

“Contributing to the to the annual $150 billion in training and development investments is downright demoralizing so raise her spirits and training ROI by increasing learning transfer with Result Pal. Get over the hump now by going to resultpal.com/fast and getting a $750 performance package for free.”

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, Fast Leader Legion you are going to have some really excitement about this particular episode because it’s going to challenge what you’re traditional thought has been about government work and leadership. We have somebody on the show today who is getting things done for the better of her community, as well as her city, state, and the entire country. Her name is Alison Circle. Allison came from hard-working Americans stock that has been in the US for three centuries. She is proud to come from a family of patriots who had fought in every war since the American Revolution. Allison is a student of history because it lets her keep perspective about what’s happening today especially with the sometimes crazy media which may lead us to believe that we live in the worst times, we don’t. 

 

As a playwright August Wilson said, “If you don’t know where you came from how you know you’ve earned their sacrifice.” Deep in her bones Allison believes in the quote, “To whom much is given much is expected” she feels she’s been given so much that it would be unconscionable not to build opportunities for others. Every day Allison goes work knowing that she has the best job on the world and takes that responsibility seriously and gives it all she can. Allison is the chief customer experience officer for Columbus Metropolitan Library, and in 2010 her work was recognized with the Library Journals Library of the year and in 2011 she was named a mover and shaker.

 

Allison lives in Columbus, Ohio six blocks from her sister. She believes in the human connection to geography and living in Ohio she feels a powerful connection to the impact of the Ice Age. She shares her home with her husband Ricardo and has a daughter Sophia that attends the Ohio State University. Allison says just thinking about her brings a smile to her face. Alison Circle are you ready to help us get over the hump?

 

Alison Circle:    I am really ready. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Alright. I’ve given our listeners a brief introduction about you, but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you better?

 

Alison Circle:    Well, my current passion is around design and innovation. I’m responsible for the recreation of a 21st-century library here in Columbus and I have the incredible opportunity and privilege of leading that from a design innovation standpoint and it gets me out bed every day at 4:30 and I’m at work at 6:30 & 7:00 it gets me going all they long. 

 

For me I’ve been part of different committees, boards as well as being employed by certain organizations that it’s just is so challenging to get things to be done differently. And when you say innovation there’s this whole change management, organizational psychology, all these things associated with it and it takes so much knowledge, skill, and energy in order to be able to make an impact, how are you getting this things done?

 

Alison Circle:    Jim, there’s one important word that you omitted in that list and it is patience. Cause I’m by nature not a very patient person. My mother used to laugh at me when we go to the store as children and I’ll be out of the car in the store, bought everything as she and my sister were just getting out of the car, and I’m like, “Come on lets go.” As we talked about leadership and getting over the hump, I think the hardest thing for me has been to slowdown. The classic case of view ** ahead and you look behind and there’s nobody there behind you, I’ve got to be very careful about that. 

 

So, one of my struggles is how to balance pace, timelines, the pressures of getting it done with making sure that I bring my people along with me and provide clarity and consistency in what we’re trying to do. Because I can talk with my hands as much as possible and ideate all day long. But if I found anybody who believes it, who can deliver on it, I got nothing, so I have to be really mindful of that. 

 

Jim Rembach:    I would also dare to say that have been quite accustom and familiar with working with smaller groups and when you had taken on this particular role, my assumption is that kind of change—and you also had several constituents that you had to now be mindful of and try to get not just behind you but also to support you and push you forward, if you are to think about all of those things that you’ve been able to touch which one presented you with the most humps to get over?

 

Alison Circle:    I am leading an institution that is 137 years old. I am first person to lead the librarians who is not a librarian. So, you take this iconic, traditional, I guess I would not say traditional because librarians are also always trying to think ahead, but it’s a profession and to place someone at top that profession who doesn’t have that expertise is a challenge. 

 

It’s a challenge to sell the value that I bring, it’s a challenge to win people’s confidence and my hoping that they have that confidence is not what’s going to make it happen, and so I’ve had to lead with great humility and listening, problem solving with people because that’s what I can do for them, I can’t tell them how to be a better librarian. I have direct reports who oversee them, who are all professional librarians, and they do a masterful job. So, it’s a marriage of their skills with my design, creativity, execution ability, problem solving ability that has really made this work. Because if I didn’t have a great team underneath me I wouldn’t have the credibility, so, that’s been one of the biggest hump. 

And also I was an internal hire and I had been the marketing director before, I had come at the time when marketing was done by librarians and I came in bringing a professional expertise and a discipline, and that was hard for people. 

 

I must say overall in my ten years, this organization’s been patient with me as I have had to learn how to adapt myself to the culture instead of expecting the culture to adapt to me that makes sense. I came from a global brand agency where the pace, as you might expect, where the expectations were enormous and we had to deliver, that’s the bottom line, and then coming in to an organization that is very democratic, everybody feels right to a voice, and I didn’t know that, and that was a big learning development for myself.

 

Jim Rembach:    There’s many things as you were talking that stood out to me, and that whole adaptability, flexibility, collaborative aspects being able to slowdown in order to be able to speed up. And one of the things that we focus on the show are leadership quotes because I am certain as you are going through all of what you’ve gone through to have start seeing some success it required a whole lot of that energy that you are blessed with to have naturally but you still needed that inspiration, is there a quote tor two that stands out for you that gives you that extra jolt of energy?

 

Alison Circle:    I was thinking about that question. And I’m going to answer that in two different ways. One is what lesson of quote is standing on the foundation of great role models that my parents provided for me. And to keep a clear-sighted vision on what’s important to get myself out of the way and to listen at what’s going on. But I was thinking about something—a quote that I found that is inspiring that I just read. I’m a big student of the creative process, so I love reading about composers and artist and writers, and I was just reading a book by John Lar who is Bert Lahr’s son who was the Cowardly Lion in Wizard of Oz. John Lahr was a theatre critic for The New Yorker for 25 years. One of my favorite playwright is August Wilson who wrote this magisterial cycle of the African-American life through the decades from the last century. And he was talking about writing a play and saying, “Oh, I just got to make this play better, but how am I going to do that?” And he said to himself, “I can always make it worst, why can make it better?” and I thought, “Isn’t interesting that we hold ourselves back from making it better because we can’t think we can do that. We sure do think we can make it worst, so why couldn’t we think we can make it better?” I think that level of optimism, and that can do spirit of I can plough through and I can figure it out, that is the quote that drives me forward. 

 

Jim Rembach:    For me there’s two things that stood out when you were explaining, and first of all thanks for sharing it, is that mindset—we talk a lot about mindset and getting your mind, and then choice. Oftentimes we make the choice on what you were just talking about whether our choice is to focus in on, “Well, I can’t do that.” Or more so, “How can I do that?” 

 

Alison Circle:    One of the things we’re working on here as part of a customer experience strategy is how do we make the answer, yes. If we think this is the right thing to do, how do we make it happen? Instead of, “Oh, man I can’t do that, and I can’t do that we’re going to have—okay, that’s all true but let’s start for the same point that the answer is yes. Now, let’s backfill and figure how it get there. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Thinking about the other side of that, oftentimes we rear the ugly head of the world policy. It’s too easy to fall back on, policy. I’ll be transparent, I was removed as a customer because somebody threw out the word policy, and for me, I said, “Well, if that’s what you’re going to fall back on then there’s nothing more to talk about.”

 

Alison Circle:    Right. Here’s my example, I was talking to one of our managers—a great manager, lovely person, positive, I’m standing there and a customer comes in and she has a book and she said, “Hey, I drove down here today, I check out this book, I already had the book I lost the book that I checked out I haven’t even opened the book that I bought because I forgot I bought it, can I give this to you? The first word out of that manager’s mouth was, “No.” and I thought, “Gosh, this lady drove down here how about—Gosh! Thank you so much, let’s make this right for you.” I mean it’s that subtlety of how do you make the experience a yes instead of automatically go to no, because of what you just said the whole idea of what the policy is, I can’t do that. But at least, act like the policy is not between my interaction between you and me. 

 

Jim Rembach:    That’s a great point. As you were even talking, I start reminding myself of just an interaction I had with my 12 year daughter and along those same lines. The first response was, no, and then she was giving me really something that aligns with what I was saying, and I’m like, “Why did you say no to begin with.” It’s a habit, it’s just a habit” and I think we have to be mindful of that and say okay, that is not a habit that going to permit or allow or enable us to be able to find a way to get a yes. 

 

Alison Circle:    Well, and more on that too is, I think about a quote is that perfect one is seek first to understand. What are you trying to tell me? And when people ask me questions or say something, what are they really telling me? And trying to understand what is driving the question. I did this all the time and you probably do this where you’ve say, “Oh, do you know when such & such is…instead of saying, I need to do X and I’m going to need Y for that. Does that jive with what the question is, I just ask? We’re not very directing clear on how we get the information that we need. I work really hard in trying to be clear and concise about what I’m asking of people. 

 

Jim Rembach:    That’s a very good point. There’s so many things that I am sure contributed to you being able to not only essentially fill the job responsibilities and role that you have right now but then also thrive at it because you have received a lot of recognition for the accomplishments that the library system has had. And I know as you just explain that it’s been a collaborative effort and a team effort and you’re the instigator in regards to all of that. Was there a hump helped you to meet the challenges that you have today and also you’re going to meet tomorrow that defined a better path for you, can you share for us?

 

Alison Circle:    We had an organizational climate survey a couple of years ago and it was devastating honestly it was not positive about upper management. We are stretched really thin right now and I had to understand that I can be as busy as I think I need to do but because of who we are our frontline people need to see and touch me as I embodied this role. It’s not me Allison Circle but it’s this role, there needs to be much greater touching and I can be impatient with that as I want it’s not going away. 

 

I think the thing I’ve had to learn as a leader, I’m a middle child so I’m pretty much about making everybody happy, but I have to realize that I’ve got to learn to balance when I got it I have to get it done and what people are asking of me. And it gets back to that same thing, “What are people really asking me?” And if our staff keep saying, “We need you to come out and talk to us, I have to get over myself and realize, “I may have this [16:28 inaudible] list over here” But if I am not touching people in a way they need to be touched it’s going to undermine my success. I’m also an extremely independent person, the thing I’ve have to learn the hardest is I can’t be independent and be successful. That’s actually the theme to all the things I’ve talked to you about it here, I can’t just go off and do something, like anybody who’s in the kind of role I am, we could probably do it and get it done at half the time It’ll even takes to explain it to somebody but you just have to understand that the higher up you go, the less independent you can be. 

 

Jim Rembach:    That’s a really good point. I would dare to say if you even feel that back a little bit is that our inability to do such that can permit us from moving up.

 

Alison Circle:     That’s exactly right. In looking at the questions you’ve given me ahead of time and reflecting on my journey to this role it has been less myself as this independent force, the only way I could think about is less vertical and more horizontal. That I’ve had to flatten out myself in terms of how I go about doing things instead of this vertical—I’m a soldier in the field when I’m going off and doing it. Does that makes sense? 

 

Jim Rembach:     Absolutely, it absolutely does. If you were to talk about getting over that hump and all of the learnings that you’ve had in order to affect and impact that survey result, if you were to give our Fast Leader Legion one piece of advice, what would it be? 

 

Alison Circle:     Here’s what I struggled with every day, if I’m frustrated by what somebody is doing or not doing, what am I doing to contribute to that? It’s not what is that person doing wrong, where have I lacked clarity? Where have I not held that person accountable? As a leader that is your responsibility. I was on the drive yesterday and talking to my management consultant, who is my husband now, I was frustrated about something. And he’s always so matter of fact about he said, “People process in tools so do the people understand, so we’ll do the people understand what is expected of them. Yeah, sure they do, blah, blah, blah. And he said, “Has it been written down, documented, do they understand it, do you know they understand it?” so you got to start there. To me the advice is, what you are doing to contribute to the lack of performance in your people, because that’s where it comes.

 

 Jim Rembach:    I think we can also carry that into our personal lives as well. 

 

Alison Circle:    No, I’m always right. [Laugh]

 

Jim Rembach:    I know for you, when you start talking about this energy, when you start talking about the recognition that you have been receiving as part of the work that you been doing and the transition in the ideation and the innovation, so many things that are going on for you and all the things that you have in your plate, if you were to talk about the goals that you have for the future, what would they be?

 

Alison Circle:    My professional goal is that we deliver extraordinary opportunities for the people in my community. I am so gratified that the first library we built was in a very depressed neighborhood, there had been no new development in that area in a generation. We had no children, we had people with their head down, no interaction, and today we have meeting rooms and meeting room usage that has gone up 350%. 

 

Our children flood the space, our circulation of children’s book outpace is our top category, we have 160% increase in circulation on kid’s books. What that saying to me is, we’re giving that community hope, that community feel people care about them, that they’re valued and we’re giving them a path to success. As we do this other buildings again umping that up and delivering opportunity to this community. On a personal level, I’d say it’s to continue to feel—what I have is kind of insatiable need for creativity, design and innovation and that always to me expressed through language, arts, music, design, and how can we constantly reinvent that. 

 

Jim Rembach:     The Fast Leader Legion wishes you the very best. 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, Allison 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, Allison Circle, are you ready to hoedown?

 

Alison Circle:    I’m yee-hoe ready to hoedown.

 

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

 

Alison Circle:     Too much work to do. I’ve got to learn to prioritize better. 

 

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

 

Alison Circle:     Lead with your ears not with your mouth. 

 

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

 

Alison Circle:     I’m indefatigable. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Say that one more time. 

 

Alison Circle:     I’m indefatigable. I have so much energy. I get up in the morning. I work 12-14 hour a day. I give it my all, I’m positive, happy and in the end I’m a well-adjusted person. 

 

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

 

Alison Circle:     It’s really important to write everything down. I’m a big believer that words really matter, choosing the right words to lead makes all the difference.

 

Jim Rembach:     What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners, doesn’t have to be business book? 

 

Alison Circle:     I’ll tell you what I just finished, last night I read, Building Art, which is the biography of Frank Gehry. The reason I suggest that is it talks about constantly looking at thing with a different eye and figuring out how to solve problems in an imaginative way. 

 

Jim Rembach:     I think that’s a great choice. Okay Fast Leader listeners, you can find links and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/Allison Circle. Okay, Allison 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 have now back with you but you can’t take everything you can only choose one, so what skill work or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

 

Alison Circle:     I would say stop talking. I think as leaders we talk too much. And even in our personal lives we talk too much, we need to listen more and really hear what the people are telling us.

 

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

 

Alison Circle:     I would love to, I love to hear from anyone about this and thank you again for having me today. My email address is acircle@columbuslibrary.org.

 

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

 

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

 

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