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Jessica Hartung | Conscious Professional

221: Jessica Hartung: Change the way we think about work

Jessica Hartung Show Notes Page

Jessica Hartung is driven to build more mission-driven leaders. The things that are happening in our communities that are the fabric of our lives, are more often led by people who are self-interested and don’t have a healthy relationship with power. And our institutions and communities are suffering as a result. We need to change the way we think about work to lead our communities forward.

Jessica Hartung was born and raised in Downers Grove, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.   She had a very small immediate family – one older brother, and no cousins.  Her parents were both very active in the community.

Jessica’s mother was a teacher’s aide in an elementary school, and later worked at the Downers Grove Public Library – and still visits every library in towns where she travels, just for fun. Her father was a scientist, at Argonne National Lab, and became an activist for the environment, and engaged in urban planning to preserve the Lyman Woods and other irreplaceable natural habitats. In order to protect the environment and enact energy saving policies, he taught himself about the law, grass roots organizing, and public policy so he could testify before the necessary commissions to bring about water conservation and environmental protections. He was honored as Citizen of the Year by the Downers Grove Chamber of Commerce. As a clear example of a conscious professional who learned what he needed to create positive change, he has been an inspiration to Jessica on her path.

As a child, Jessica raised money for the neighborhood Park District as a way to show how important it was to protect the wild spaces.  Jessica grew up spending time by herself in nature, with a creek, trees and critters as friends as well as humans.

Intending to become a high school teacher, Jessica studied education at the University of Michigan, and after a conflict with her professor, she got a job working in a local start-up technology business.   Shortly thereafter she began a small consulting business, and began applying her desire to grow and develop the skills needed to create productive and enjoyable work environments.  Her first business; MacinTeach, was a Macintosh training and computer consulting firm that worked with non-profits and small businesses.  It was through working with the local Girl Scout Council as a computer consultant that she began to study leadership and learn about Frances Hesselbein, Peter Drucker and other leadership thinkers.

Today, Jessica inspires people to see the purpose of work as learning and development – and for us all to discover better ways of working that enrich our lives as well as create a positive impact. She is the author of The Conscious Professional: Transform Your Life at Work and founder of Integrated Work, a leadership development firm that works exclusively with mission-driven organizations, and serves as a learning laboratory about progressive work practices. Jessica is on a mission to build more self-aware, ethical leaders, and she is encouraged by increasingly widespread movement to use business as a force for good.

Based in Boulder Colorado for the past 24 years, she has raised two children, a 16-year-old son and 21-year-old daughter, and lives with her husband, astrophysics Dr. Steven Hartung. Most early mornings she can be found walking around the Twin Lakes Open Space taking in the scenery and watching for owls, kingfisher, osprey and the great blue heron.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to Jessica Hartung of @integratedwork to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow – Click to Tweet

“When we bring the things that we value, that which is important to us, into our workplace we find there’s all kinds of opportunities we didn’t realize.” – Click to Tweet

“There is a mutual beneficial relationship between work and life when we bring who we are to what we do.” – Click to Twee

“All development that’s conscious, deliberate, intentional development starts with an awareness.” – Click to Tweet

“We go from awareness into willingness; and not everything are we willing to do.” – Click to Tweet

“If you can’t say no, your yeses mean nothing.” Jessica Hartung – Click to Tweet

“If you don’t actually really have choice, then you’re not wholly into it.” – Click to Tweet

“Willingness is really important because it’s where we put our values into action.” – Click to Tweet

“When we say yes and are willing to grow in a specific area, then we start to actually practice.” – Click to Tweet

“How you learn to be a great leader, you do it by practicing.” – Click to Tweet

“Sometimes we’re building our awareness based on having done the work.” – Click to Tweet

“There’s no reason why excellent quality professional development shouldn’t be available for everybody.” – Click to Tweet

“We’re constantly going through the cycle of awareness, willingness and skill.” – Click to Tweet

“When people are not aware of course they’re not willing.” – Click to Tweet

“It’s my practice and belief that we have leaders at every level of the organization.” – Click to Tweet

“Everybody wants to be working together to create that future that benefits them and those around them.” – Click to Tweet

“We can own our learning, not just related to our job, but related to what kind of future we want for ourselves.” – Click to Tweet

“Fear, doubt and uncertainty kind of constrain our world if we allow them to.” – Click to Tweet

“Your developmental edge changes as you grow in your profession.” – Click to Tweet

“There are transferrable skills between our personal and professional lives.” – Click to Tweet

“When we’re investing in ourselves and choosing to own our learning and doing it deliberately, we have more control.” – Click to Tweet

“Work is the place where leaders; at every level.” – Click to Tweet

“It’s our turn to lead regardless of what our job title is.” – Click to Tweet

“Employee engagement, employee satisfaction, retention all increase when folks are using work as a learning experience to benefit themselves.” – Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Jessica Hartung is driven to build more mission-driven leaders. The things that are happening in our communities that are the fabric of our lives, are more often led by people who are self-interested and don’t have a healthy relationship with power. And our institutions and communities are suffering as a result. We need to change the way we think about work to lead our communities forward.

Advice for others

Work on building group facilitation skills to move ideas forward.

Holding her back from being an even better leader

Making sure that I make time in the mornings to really connect to myself and have meditative and contemplative time.

Best Leadership Advice

If you’re going to go into business with people, go into business with people with integrity. If they don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.

Secret to Success

Bringing what matters to you to each interaction.

Best tools in business or life

To focus on what’s happening with the other person.

Recommended Reading

The Conscious Professional: Transform Your Life at Work

Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead

Contacting Jessica Hartung

Website: https://consciousprofessional.com/

Website: https://jessicahartung.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JessicaHartungAuthor/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-g-hartung-749346/

Resources and Show Mentions

How to Supercharge Contact Center Agent Performance, Onsite & @Home

Call Center Coach

An Even Better Place to Work

 

Show Transcript: 

Click to access edited transcript

   221:  Jessica Hartung:  Change the way we think about work

 

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

 

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

 

Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast Leader Legion today I’m excited because I have somebody on the show today who’s absolutely going to be able to help us all as well as individually move forward faster. Jessica Hartung was born and raised in Downers Grove, Illinois which is a suburb of Chicago. She had a very small immediate family, one older brother and no cousins. Her parents were both very active in the Community. Jessica’s mother was a teacher’s aide in an elementary school and later worked at the Downers Grove Public Library and still visits every library in towns where she travels just for fun. Her father was a scientist at Argonne National Lab and became an activist for the environment and engaged in urban planning to preserve the Lyman woods and other irreplaceable natural habitats. 

 

In order to protect the environment and enact energy saving policies, he taught himself about the law, grassroots, organizing and public policy so he could testify before the necessary Commission’s to bring about water conservation and environmental protections he was honored as citizen of the Year by the Downers Grove Chamber of Commerce. As a clear example of a conscious professional who learned what he needed to create positive change he’s been an inspiration to Jessica on her path. As a child Jessica raised money for the neighborhood Park District as a way to show how important it was to protect the wild spaces. Jessica grew up spending time by herself in nature with a creeks, trees and critters as friends as well as humans. Intending to become a high school teacher Jessica studied education at the University of Michigan. After a conflict with her professor she got a job working in a local startup technology business. 

 

Shortly thereafter she began a small consulting business and began applying her desire to grow and develop the skills needed to create productive and enjoyable work environments. Her first business machine teach was a Macintosh training and computer consulting firm that worked with nonprofits and small businesses. It was through working with the local Girl Scout Council as a computer consultant that she began to study leadership and learn about Frances Hesselbein, Peter Drucker and other leadership thinkers. Today Jessica inspires people to see the purpose of work as learning and development and for us all to discover better ways of working that enrich our lives as well as create a positive impact. She’s the author of, “The Conscious Professional: Transform Your Life at Work” and founder of Integrated Work, a leadership development firm that works exclusively with mission driven organizations and serves as a learning laboratory about progressive work practices. Jessica is on a mission to build more self-aware ethical leaders and is encouraged by increasingly widespread movement to use business as a force for good. Based in Boulder, Colorado for the last 24 years, she has raised two children a 16 year old son and 21-year old daughter and lives with her husband astrophysicist, Stephen Hartung. Most early morning she can be found walking around the Twin Lakes open space taking in the scenery watching for owls, kingfisher, osprey and the great blue heron. Jessica Hartung, are you ready to help us get over the hump? 

 

Jessica Hartung:     Absolutely, my pleasure. 

 

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

 

Jessica Hartung:         Absolutely. I really appreciate the introduction and the way that you chose to focus on the whole person. One of my passions right now is how do we bring who we really are to what we do. And the reason that I’m interested in that is because when we bring the things that we value that which is important to us into our workplace we find that there’s all kinds of opportunities we didn’t realize ways in which we can add our signature approach we can use our values we can follow our interests we can follow the things that really matter to us, and you know the reverse is also true. I was working actually today on planning an event for the New Year’s and we’re using the same project management technologies and ideas and concepts that we use in workplace in in our home life. And so there is a mutual beneficial relationship between work and life when we bring who we are to what we do and we actually sort of wake ourselves up a bit more so that we’re paying attention and we’re actually being deliberate in how we go about learning at work learning from work and bringing those back and forth between our personal and our professional lives. 

 

Jim Rembach:    When you’re here start talking about that, of course, I have to reflect upon my own experiences and I’m like, well, gosh for me it took age and a whole lot of knees and elbows skinned in order to kind of come to those conclusions. And I would say for me a lot of that as far as conclusion aspects of in AHA’s whatever we want to call them, really didn’t start happening within the last decade, and I just turned 50 this year so I think there’s an opportunity for us to do a better job of mentoring others teaching others and I would also dare to say that there’s a lot that go through their entire career and never figure it out. One of the things, in your book, that I really liked which is very simple but yet pretty powerful is the AWS cycle. 

 

Jessica Hartung:     Yes, I would love to. Jim, I’m really glad you raised that. As I was exploring how do people make deliberate change? Let’s say there’s an area that you want to improve or maybe you just generally want to get better at whatever your craft or your work is. Whether it’s leadership or management and you want to get better you want to first figure out where or what is it that needs to improve. What I find is that as a manager sometimes my role is to help people illuminate that and see, oh, this was an area they weren’t even aware could be improved or they weren’t aware of the impact they were having on others. All development that’s conscious, deliberate, intentional development starts with an awareness. Sometimes that awareness comes from ourselves internally sometimes it comes from information that we receive, a 360 degree feedback for instance, or a conversation with a colleague or even reading an article and realizing, oh, there’s something more possible or listening to a podcast that opens our minds a little bit more. So we go from awareness into willingness and not everything were willing to do. Which is actually a good idea because we want to focus on—there’s a phrase that says, if you can’t say no your yeses mean nothing. If you don’t actually really have choice then you’re not wholly into it you’re not actually choosing this. So willingness is really important because it’s where we put our values into action. That’s where we decide, are we going to take this on or not? And there are times when there’s developmental opportunities that we need to say no to because we’re focused elsewhere or we’re working on something that requires our full attention. But when we say yes and we are willing to grow in a specific area then we start to actually practice and that’s where we get into the development of skills. And that’s where, maybe we’re not very good at it at first, but that ability to get started and practice that’s what we do on a daily basis at work where we’re riding right on that developmental edge of our capability we might not really know how to do it yet. And so that’s where–there’s a lot of research now about deliberate practice and how people learn to be great athletes how they learn to be great musicians. The how you learn to be a great leader or a great whatever it is that you would like to be and work on that’s how you do it, by practicing. 

 

And so what I find is that people are constantly going through this awareness-willingness skill cycle in different areas of their work. Sometimes we’re building our awareness based on having done the work. So for instance writing a book, I had not done that before, and I thought I knew a lot more about it than I actually did. Once I started getting into it working with editors, oh, my word there’s a whole world, I just had no idea about. And so my awareness increased and I really had a commitment that I feel the executive, the leadership, development I’ve been doing with folks and individual conversations or in group conversations where there is an organization that wants to hire a professional development expert that’s too small of a group. I think this there’s no reason why excellent quality professional development shouldn’t be available for everybody who wants to engage in it we have the technology we can do this. 

 

So my willingness to put myself in an area where I don’t yet know how to do a great job and amplify my commitment that really spoke to my values of having an impact. I needed to write this book in order to improve the impact I have. And so then I build my skills and as I did, now I’m thinking about how the next book is going to be different because I’ve built more awareness. So we’re constantly going through that cycle of awareness willingness and skill and knowing that it makes everything make a lot more sense. Because when people are not aware of course they’re not willing. When they’re not aware of course they’re not working on it they’re not building their skills. And if you are a manager or a leader and you realize that someone’s aware but they’re not working on it it’s probably a willingness issue. So it gives you a chance to kind of diagnose where we are in the cycle and that gives us a lot more control.

 

Jim Rembach:    Gosh, as you were talking there are so many things that I started thinking about. First of all you actually have a diagram talking about the developmental edge, I want to talk about that in a moment, but then you also said something to me that resonated so heavily because it’s really why I developed call center coach is that we think that there’s a trickle-down effect that happens with leadership skills, development and competencies. Like, hey, if we give it—the investment and all the money to those folks at the senior level it’ll matriculate its way down to the frontline and that’s not what happens. 

 

Jessica Hartung:     I don’t think it’s a good bet. 

 

Jim Rembach:    It’s not, so we had this massive gap and we have this massive leadership crisis and we have a lot of leaders who are significantly worried about the bench strength of the leadership of their organization. 

 

Jessica Hartung:     Yes. 

 

Jim Rembach:    And so we got to be able to take it down to the frontline otherwise the crisis is just going to get worse. 

 

Jessica Hartung:     And that is something I would like to comment on, it is my practice and belief that we have leaders at every level of the organization. In my organization our administrative assistant receptionist who is working, she has such power in the organization as a leader that she either takes on or she doesn’t. One of the great things about being in a small business is that I’ve been able to build the culture of my organization with that in mind. In really helping to encourage her leadership she sets up people’s calendars and all in a billable environment everything is orchestrated around that. There’s tremendous leadership and how clients are received in how they’re actually acknowledged and her ability to influence our logistical side of our business is tremendous. In many organizations she would not be considered a leader because she doesn’t have direct reports. I think about leadership in a different way. I think about it as how we create the future together because you really know a leader is working together with you when you are together thinking about what kind of future are we trying to create? Oh, a stress-free, productive help, when we’re both orienting towards that, that’s leadership. So what kind of future you’re trying to create and how you go about creating it and does it, is that kind of future that includes other people and it is of advantage to other people as well as the organization those kinds of leaders are people, people want to follow. They’re excited to be a part of their team they’re inspirational because everybody wants to be working together to create that future that benefits them and those around them. That that’s really the kind of leadership that I think all of us want to be a part of and want to exhibit when it’s our turn to lead.

 

Jim Rembach:    There’s a really important point that you are talking about there that was heavily written about within the book and that is being able to develop within the current position that you are in. Because for the longest time I have always fought against people thinking that position of greater responsibility becoming someone who is a leader authority means that I have to climb some rung in some ladder. Sometimes it’s being the expert right where you are and being able to find gratification and appreciation within that you talk about that.

 

Jessica Hartung:     Yes. The thing that I’m really passionate about that part is that, why wait? If we were going to be, let’s say—telemarketing is my job when I was in college and I took that job because that professor in my education class was so bad that I had to tell him so and he asked me not to come back to class. And so I went and got a job in a business and part of the thing that was so exciting for me was that if you apply the idea of experimenting and testing and let’s try this and let’s work together to figure this out right where we are, because no one else in the company knew how to do telemarketing, and I realized that and I thought, oh well then I guess I need to learn. And that moment changed my life because it made me realize that whatever job we have whether our managers are looking out for our learning or not we don’t have to outsource that it’s actually something we can take on ourselves and own our own learning. And we can own our learning not related to our job related to what kind of future we want for ourselves. So I always had an interest in making sure that my jobs served my strategic line-of-sight as well as the organization’s and that really promotes that kind of learning where you’re saying, well I know some point in my future I’m probably going to need to influence people. So I took a job in sales. I thought if I need to know how to influence people at least better have some experience with this. 

 

And so while I was working in that job, selling computers that was actually how I started my first company was I was selling computers, what I realized is people would buy the computers but they still couldn’t get done what they bought the computer for they needed somebody to help them with that so I found a need and I filled it. And that idea of creating my own learning so that I could be in the position I wanted to be in that’s was transformative and it’s been something that’s made a huge difference for clients that have taken that on for themselves. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Gosh, you talked about the line-of-sight and that’s something I wanted to talk about as well but I also don’t want to leave the fact that I had mentioned something about this developmental edge. For me the illustration that you have in the book about it really for me a kind of allowed me to get an understanding of different levels of this that I really didn’t consciously think about but really ring true. And so when you start talking about those different levels—first of all in the center you’re talking about mastery, when I’m doing my role, my responsibility and then we have a comfort zone and then we have a necessary stretch and then you had mentioned the developmental edge. So tell us a little bit about how you came about this and in addition this whole fear factor and willingness thing. I start thinking about this developmental edge, is like, I’m not going out there because I may fall off. 

 

Jessica Hartung:     It’s so true. I think fear and doubt and uncertainty to kind of constrain our world if we allow them to. In a zone of mastery you have some areas in your work and in your life where you feel really like you know what you know you have expertise and you are good at it, and that’s a zone of mastery. Now sometimes the zone of mastery will last a lifetime. I used to be a masterful desktop publisher, well that does not last a lifetime because unless you continue to renew those skills the world moved beyond my mastery set. When you are in a zone of mastery it’s not just that you’re good at it it’s that you feel a sense of flow and connection it’s the where you like to work. Now in your job you can also work in other areas. Areas that you’re comfortable in and would be in your comfort zone. It’s not hard for you, you can do it but it’s not necessarily your smaller zone of mastery where you’re really excellent in the comfort zone it’s a wider sphere. 

 

Now when we get into workplace challenges we often have to stretch. We might have to do public speaking we might have a difficult conversation with someone or in other ways stretch ourselves to be a little bit more capable than we might otherwise feel we had the ability to do and it’s that’s necessary stretch that actually as an entrepreneur has been a huge part of my experience. I did not know how to do cash flow statements I did not know how to do it via government contractor I had to learn those things they were all necessary stretches. And then sometimes your necessary stretch takes you out on the very edge the limits of your capability and your capacity and your competence and you’re hanging on to that edge saying, okay, there’s got to be a way to learn my way forward. You’re absolutely right and a lot of reasons why people don’t do that is because their fear of not being good enough. Yet how do we learn how to be good? We practice. Yeah, we practice. And as we practice especially in the areas where we can be paying attention and be aware of the fact –we don’t yet know how to do this. 

 

An example might be when I had first started writing proposals for contracting work and consulting work. I hadn’t had a whole lot of consultant proposals that I’d seen so I didn’t have a whole lot of models I had to figure something out and do something. And then I got feedback and some clients hired me, some clients didn’t some people said, oh, this was really helpful or that, and so I gradually learned. Of course, I wasn’t great at all of them and some of them failed and that was part of that process. And then my playing field expanded, I actually now can write much more sophisticated much more involved proposals and in fact at this point I’m not actually writing those proposals I am training people to write those proposals. So it transitions, your developmental edge changes as you grow in your profession. 

 

Jim Rembach:    You said it many times within the book that willingness piece is for me I think that’s a critical tipping point. I even have this struggle with, especially, my oldest son on the difference between can’t do and won’t do he’ll turn a lot of his won’t do’s and I can’t do that. I’m like, ahh, you didn’t try again meaning that you won’t do that. 

 

Jessica Hartung:     You know the distinction that I’d like to make there that I think would be helpful is it may be a different framing or a different way. For instance, talking about children, my daughter who’s in college, she’s always been interested in animal genetics. Well, that’s not a class that you can take in college. She wants to figure out where she’s going to go to graduate school and she started fostering kittens from the Humane Society as a way for herself to understand, do I really like working with animals? She could say, I can’t go and I have that interview or I’m not willing to go have that interview with the professor at such-and-such a university because I’m nervous and I’m scared and it’s beyond my necessary stretch I’m falling off the edge there I’m not doing it. But instead what she said is, I’m actually not willing to do that. But what am I willing to do? And I think that’s jujitsu sort of move there is that we can turn willingness into can’t but we can also turn can’t into what are we willing to do? To start to find creative solutions where we can take a step forward maybe it’s just not the step that someone else had outlined for us. 

 

Jim Rembach:    That’s a great point, such person that creative thinking has to kick in. Okay, so you talked a moment ago about the strategic line-of-sight. For me again it seems one of those pretty simplistic but has a lot of significance and depth to it, if you can kind of walk us through that I think that would be very valuable.

 

Jessica Hartung:     I would love to. One of the things I’ve noticed, I work a lot with executives and people in leadership team who are working on a board and getting strategic thinking rolling even at that level takes a little bit of work. They might be actually formulating the strategy and looking at the priorities and so it’s part of their work to do that and still we have to translate if our strategy is this how does that relate over here and how does that relate over here. Well, once again why wait do not wait, do not wait until you’re on the board or at the C level to have those kinds of strategic thinking happening in your work. When you look at an area of your work and you say, all right am I responsible for let’s say customer service numbers or I’m responsible for a particular type of organizational fulfillment, how does that relate to our strategy? Where is the strategic line of sight between this piece of work that I’m doing and what’s really important to the organization? 

 

And the reason why you want to know what that strategic line-of-sight is because that development along that path you will get support from your organization for. Because if you’re developing the things that are already important to the organization and working on that and improving things in that way you know that that’s what people are looking for. I think it also works personally. When you say, what’s the strategic line-of-sight with what I really care about? If I had a personal strategic plan what would be my goals? What would be my priorities? How can the work that I’m doing today relate to that? Like I was saying about having a sales job that was really intimidating very scary I didn’t know if I wanted to do it but it was a great opportunity for me to say I can see how this relates I’m going to need to know how to influence people I’m going to need to understand the finances behind things I’m going to need to know this, this, this in my future. And so whether it’s project management, budgeting, communications, these are skills that you can learn in many, many jobs. And you’re looking for transferable skills that can be learned, honed and grown right where you are. So that it helps you in fulfilling your strategic objectives.

 

Jim Rembach:    I think what you’re talking about is—I mean for us is one of the competencies that we have in our model for those emerging leaders in customer care and contact centers and existing supervisors. We’ve identified six competencies, and one of the things that I keep saying is that they will help you grow beyond this role because business acumen is what you were talking about having that competency knowing and understanding that whole strategic line, the strategic side, how things connect how and what you do every single day impacts that and being able to convey that with those that are on your team why and how you’re important and how it connects.

 

Jessica Hartung:     Yeah. And Jim, one of the things that’s been happening for me lately as I’ve been talking to folks is seeing the bridge in between the personal and the professional. Someone I was speaking with recently has raised six children, okay, you learn a few things about project management if you learn a few things about managing resources and so I think that there are transferable skills between our personal and professional lives as well as transferable skills between multiple professional roles and when we’re investing in ourselves and choosing to own our learning and do it deliberately what happens is we have a lot more control over where our careers head and what opportunities come to us next. Because we’re actually creating those opportunities we’re making those opportunities by preparing our self because we can see that strategic line-of-sight. What would someone in the job you most want need to know? What would they need to be able to do? Let’s get started on learning it right now because there’s nothing stopping you. 

 

Jim Rembach:    That’s great point. You have the consultancy, you just wrote your first book, and you even mentioned something about the next one, you have the kids and I think you’re getting close to being that empty-nester but you got a lot of things going on, so if we talked about all of that and you have one goal, what is that one goal?

 

Jessica Hartung:     Hmm, I think my work in life has been oriented towards the idea of building more mission driven deliberate leaders. The reason I think that’s so important is when you look in our communities and I see the school board, I see the County Commission for this, I see the Neighborhood Association, I see the things that are happening in our communities that are the fabric of our lives, they are sometimes being led by amazing leaders but more often they are led by people who are self-interested and don’t have a very healthy relationship with power and have not built these skills and our institutions and our communities are suffering as a result. 

 

So what’s really been important to me is that we change the way we think about work. Work is the place where we grow leaders at every level. And this is where we practice our capabilities so that we can lead in our lives so that we can lead our families forward so that we can lead our communities forward our communities of faith our government institutions that require citizens participation it’s our turn to lead it’s our turn to lead regardless of what our job title is. But when we start to see work as that developmental opportunity for building transferable skills an actual like a second job that we have where we learn, I find that that enriches our job. We actually are more engaged. All the things that employers want employee engagement, employee satisfaction, retention those things all increase when folks are actually using work as a learning experience to benefit themselves and so everybody wins. That’s why I’ve really been working so hard to create a book and a business and as a team and getting out there because I believe that this is transformative for us as a society.

 

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

 

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Jim Rembach:     Alright, here we go Fast Leader Legion it’s time for the Hump day Hoedown. Okay, Jessica, the Hump day Hoedown is a part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Jessica Hartung, are you ready to hoedown? 

 

Jessica Hartung:     Yes. 

 

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

 

Jessica Hartung:     I think the thing that’s holding me back is making sure that I make time in the mornings to really connect to myself and have that meditative, contemplative time. When I do that my leadership is so much better. So changing my schedule so that that is something that is a non-negotiable every day that’s going to move my leadership forward and the lack of it holds me back.

 

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

 

Jessica Hartung:     If you’re going to go into business with people go into business with people with integrity. If you they don’t have integrity nothing else matters.

 

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

 

Jessica Hartung:     Bringing what really matters to you to each interaction makes you feel like you actually are a whole person. Like who you are is who you are wherever you are and that sense of integration is very fulfilling. 

 

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

 

Jessica Hartung:     Now I have to pick a different one besides awareness, willingness, skill because that’s a pretty good one. But I think the other tool that is very helpful to me is the ability to focus on what’s happening with the other person. I think through contemplation and meditation you focus on what’s going on with you but what that does is allows you to have greater capacity to identify and an outward mindset. What’s happening around you? What’s happening with others? And when you can do that you can develop solutions that are transformative.

 

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

 

Jim Rembach:    Thank you. There are so many wonderful, excellent books, right now I’m reading, Terah Moore’s—Playing Big, which is about that area of self-criticism and concerns that people have about how do we deal with our fears. So I’d recommend, Playing Big by Terah Moore as a great way to address that practically epidemic fear that people are having around, I’m not perfect therefore I can’t do it which then really limits the ability for you to play big.

 

Jim Rembach:     Okay Fast Leader Legion you could find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/jessicahartung. Okay, Jessica, this is my last hump day hoedown question. Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you can take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but 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?

 

Jessica Hartung:     I have been facilitating professionally for the last 20 years and during that time I’ve learned how to have conversations that people are excited to participate in and that create great results. If I could bring one skill back in time it would be facilitation skills, group facilitation to create an alignment and to create an understanding of what really matters and how do we move it forward. That’s something I’ve developed over time and boy bringing that back with me at 25 it would have changed a lot of things.

 

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

 

Jessica Hartung:     Absolutely. If you were to go to consciousprofessional.com you’d find out more about the book and current work that we’re doing there, jessicahartung.com also has some additional resources including some free downloads for strategies to help move your career forward. I’m happy to connect on LinkedIn as well as jessicahartung author Facebook page. 

 

Jim Rembach:    Jessica Hartung, 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 says 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 

 

Danita Bye - Millennials Matter

186: Danita Bye: This is not about complaining – it’s about doing

Danita Bye Show Notes Page

Danita Bye and her husband decided to buy a snowmobile sleigh manufacturing company. Then El Niño moved in and stayed for three years. Danita was angry at everyone. Then a mentor told her to stop playing the blame game. That’s when she developed the catalyst question.

Danita grew up on the TTT Ranch in northwestern North Dakota. 800 square foot house with no running water!  This means that she used an outdoor biffy daily and a took a Finnish sauna weekly. The sauna was located about a football field away from their house. Great in the summer time. Not quite as fun in the winter time when it was 30 below and the wind was howling at 30MPH!  FYI: Currently it’s offer one of the finest hunting preserves for pheasants in the nation!

Her parents have been married almost 60 years. She has one younger sister and two younger brothers.

Her parents continue to make a huge imprint on her life. They are entrepreneurs who figured out how to not only survive, but thrive in homestead country. So, Danita is an entrepreneur. They are intent on stewarding their gifts of encouragement and hospitality, especially to young adults. So, Danita is focused on building next gen leaders.

After completing a pre-med degree, she decided to shift directions and move into the business world. She started her career with Xerox Corporation in sales.  After about a decade in the technology space, she became an angel investor and part of a turnaround management team in the medical device world.

Having sold that company, she analyzed what she got a kick out of doing. She decided she loved helping business owners in the STEM space (Software, Technology, Engineering, Manufacturing) get traction with the sales teams. So, she started her own sales development firm, Sales Growth Specialists.

Her current book, Millennials Matter: Proven Strategies for Building Your Next Gen Leader, is part of her legacy – to inspire and encourage senior leaders to STOP complaining about Millennials, and to START coaching and mentoring them.  To inspire them to be intentional about the imprint of their Leadership Legacy.

After living for 30 years in Minneapolis, she moved back to the ranch in North Dakota about 4 years ago. She operates a global sales development and global leadership firm, overlooking the beauty of a pristine animal preserve.

She’s been married to Gordon for 33 years.  Has 3 Millennial children. 2 delightful grandchildren…with one more on the way.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

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

“They look mature, but they haven’t gone through all the trips, falls, and crashes that we have had in life.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“60% of business leaders express some concern with working with millennials in some way.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“It’s character that destroys a leader.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“If we want to be building good, strong, solid leaders for the future, we have to start coaching virtues.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“For long-term leadership success, you’re going to have to deal with a lot of no’s in life.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“What do you get out of bed and you just naturally do?” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“What is your core passion, what are you always thinking about.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“We can have a lot of discussion, but let’s put an action plan together.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“You’ve got too much talent, you’ve got too much opportunity, you’ve got too much brilliance – just shift into gear and get going.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“If you don’t create win alignment you’re not going to get the impact you want.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“You have your goal in place, you’re going to get obstacles, you’re going to get thrown off track and you just need to get back on track.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“Lack of accountability is a massive erodeer in our culture.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“If we will begin to look at what we can do differently, then that stimulates our own creative juices.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“Get active, get engaged in coaching and mentoring.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“Everything that you’ve been doing in life is preparing you to pass your leadership insight and wisdom and legacy onto the next generation.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“Don’t let excuses get in your way of making it happen.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“We don’t learn, we don’t serve, we don’t love by talking.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

“Everything we want comes from listening and caring about the people in our lives.” -Danita Bye Click to Tweet 

Hump to Get Over

Danita Bye and her husband decided to buy a snowmobile sleigh manufacturing company. Then El Niño moved in and stayed for three years. Danita was angry at everyone. Then a mentor told her to stop playing the blame game. That’s when she developed the catalyst question.

Resources and Show Mentions

Call Center Coach

An Even Better Place to Work

Show Transcript: 

Click to access edited transcript

186: Danita Bye: This is not about complaining—it’s about doing

 

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.

 

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

 

Jim Rembach:     Okay, Fast Leader legion today I’m excited because I have somebody on the show today who’s opened up my eyes to several things and I think we’re going to have a great discussion that you’ll get some benefit from. Danita Bye grew up on the Triple T ranch in northwestern North Dakota 800 square foot house with no running water this means that she used an outdoor biffy daily and took a Finnish sauna weekly. The sauna was located about a football field away from their house, it was great in the summertime not so much fun in the wintertime when it was 30 below and the wind was howling at 30 miles an hour> Currently it offers one of the finest hunting preserves for pheasants in the nation. Her parents have been married almost 60 years. She has one younger sister and two younger brothers. Her parents continue to make a huge imprint on her life. They are entrepreneurs who figured out how to not only survive but thrive in homestead country, so Danita is an entrepreneur. They are intent on stewarding their gifts of encouragement and hospitality especially to young adults so Danita is focused on building next gen leaders.

 

After completing a pre-med degree she decided to shift directions and move into the business world. She started her career with Xerox Corporation in Sales. After about a decade in the technology space she became an angel investor and part of a turnaround management team in the medical device world. Having sold that company she analyzed what she got a kick out of doing she decided she loved helping business owners in the stem space that software technology engineering and manufacturing helping them to get traction with their sales teams. So she started her own sales development firm, Sales Growth Specialists. Her current book, Millennials Matter Proven Strategies for Building Your Next Gen Leader is part of her legacy to inspire and encourage senior leaders to stop complaining about millennials and to start coaching and mentoring them to inspire them to be intentional about the imprint of their leadership legacy.

 

After living for 30 years in Minnesota she moved back to the ranch in North Dakota about four years

Ago. She operates a global sales development and global leadership firm overlooking the beauty of a pristine animal preserve. She’s been married to Gordon for 33 years. Has three millennial children and two delightful grandchildren with one more on the way. Danita Bye, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

 

Danita Bye:    We are ready let’s go let’s roll. 

 

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

 

Danita Bye:    You know what, my current passion is really about energizing and equipping those senior leaders to get on track, stop complaining and to start coaching and mentoring and working with those next gen leaders. So I’ve got posters all over my office that relate to that I dream about that that’s what I’m working on. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Now there are several things in your book that kind of stood out to me that I’m looking forward to talking with you about and there’s one phrase that you use that I think senior leaders including myself have to be very, very mindful of and that is you call it artificial maturity.

 

Danita Bye:    Well, that’s actually a concept by coined by Tim Elmore which is one of the people I follow, listen, and pay attention to. And where it comes is that with all the technology and information that’s at the fingertips for millennials if they can walk into any scenario and they look knowledgeable and confident and they look good but what business leaders are telling me is that when they trip and fall or they encounter something that they’re not finding on You Tube or Google that kind of confidence kind of cracks a little bit. And so it’s important for us as leaders and coaches to recognize that they look mature but they haven’t gone through all the trips and falls and crashes that we have had in life.

 

Jim Rembach:     You know the reason I bring that up is because I just had this conversation the other day with somebody where I talked about the perception of arrogance and I said you know, oftentimes, when we perceive somebody as being arrogant really what it is it’s a mask. It’s a mask for insecurity that doubt that whole self-assurance issue and it manifests itself as that arrogance. And so sometimes we just need to stop and take pause and say, okay, I shouldn’t judge this as arrogance and therefore be offended or irritated or someone buy it  but maybe try to seek out and discover what’s the underlying things that are going on here. 

 

Danita Bye:    Absolutely, absolutely. In the research that we did for the book sixty percent of business leaders express some concern in working with millennials in some way. And actually 53 percent of them cited what they call this know-it-all attitude and you’re absolutely right is to see it as a—you use the word mask I was going to say facade and it’s something for us as leaders to recognize and to push through and to keep asking questions and learning and asking questions and spending time in developing the relationship so that we could have an imprint on their lives. You’re absolutely right. 

 

Jim Rembach:     And I also love that with the acronym that you brought up in regards to helping really coach and mentor these folks in order to be able to build so that—you mentioned the word resilience and all that and it’s Dakota. Yes, not surprising, but tell us what Dakota means?

 

Danita Bye:    Well, let me tell a little bit of the backstory on that so as we mentioned in the intro I grew up on this cattle ranch in Northwestern North Dakota I’d been living in Minneapolis for 30 years and then through a series of events felt that it was important to move back to North Dakota, that’s where my parents still live, and to get involved with the business. It was about at this same time that I had this wake-up call in a sense to start focusing on millennials. And began to think about what are the things that are important for leadership that are important for resiliency and many of those things tie to the homes, the character, qualities in the immigrants and the homesteaders that I grew up with. And so I began to develop this concept of Dakota which is really taking some of the ancient virtues, which is a word we just don’t use in modern time as virtues, but taking those ancient virtues and put it into modern language. So D stands for determination A for awareness K knowledge O optimism T trustworthy and A accountability. And that really is taking some of those ancient virtues that make for solid long-term leadership and then put them into language at least I could understand and I’m hoping that our readers can understand it too. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Well, and I think when I started looking at my kids and their education and I don’t think they get that type of clarity on building the virtues, of course we’re trying to give those things at home and I say a lot of these words a lot because of what I get exposed to and all the people who I’ve met and so I mean they’re getting that benefit but outside of that I don’t see that it’s really occurring it’s just kind of like you were saying it’s non-existent not just in our vernacular vocabulary but just in our practices.

 

Danita Bye:    Just in our practices. When I first started researching and talking to colleagues about what I was working on millennials matter the pushback that I got from my colleagues and from business leaders when I mentioned the word character was, Danita, character that’s what you work on at home you don’t work on it in the business. And then there was a whole another set of colleagues, business leaders, who said character Danita that’s a little embarrassing to talk about in the workforce isn’t it? Yes, and we know when we look at all the headlines that it is character that destroys a leader that they can cover up the flaws but you know what? It’s that character flaw that will eventually undermine them. So if we want to be building good strong, solid leaders for the future we have to start talking about and coaching determination and trustworthiness and dealing with ethics and those virtues.

 

Jim Rembach:     Well, I mean you’re right. Because the reality of where we are today, you can try to avoid it all you want but it’s not going to help, is that there isn’t a lot of that taught in the home. I’ve had the opportunity to coach baseball for past couple years with some kids and I’m just looking at some of these kids and saying how they don’t have that strength and fortitude the courage it’s just non-existent they haven’t overcome things because it’s always been so simple and easily hand it to them they haven’t had the guidance in the mentoring and the tough love but we need that we all need it. So what’s happening is now they’re getting in the workforce and guess what they haven’t had it so you got to do it.

 

Danita Bye:    We got to do it, we got to do it. I was telling a story—I’m a pre-med student I shifted gears went to work with Xerox Corporation and in those days we had to make cold calls and our activity called for making 50 cold calls a day, excuse me 50 cold calls a week and of those 50 we would if we worked the numbers right we would get one yes. That means we got 49 no’s to deal with every week, ten a day. I would do pretty good the first time but you know, man, kind of thirdsy end of the day I actually had a rule that if I cried—this is when you just had like a tear well up if I had a tear well up three times a day I was still having a good day. And the fourth time I would call my boss Bob, who was a wonderful coach and a wonderful mentor, and I was telling this story and someone said, you know, Danita that’s the difference in today’s world people probably would quit and find a new job after the first no and what we know for long-term leadership success, man, you’re got to you’re going to have to deal with a lot of nose and life to get hold get traction so that is something that we as business leaders need to be acutely aware of and to begin nurturing that in our own teams and our own young leaders. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Without a doubt. And there’s one thing that you talked about too as well that I think could also be some of that fuel and foundation for some of that cure courage and you talked about knowing what your jazz is and I think we have to help younger people really do that I mean I think for many of us that are older that are supposed to be coaching and mentoring really don’t know what that is. I think everybody needs to find their own jazz.

 

Danita Bye:    Well yeah, I think where I’ve gotten at is just looking at myself. You know there’s times for all of us that we all—I ‘m not doing well I’m not having fun this doesn’t feel like it fits it’s not purpose a whole host of question that we have to wrestle with at different times in life. What’s been insightful for me is to keep just a mini diary for about a week on I loved doing this and this was the energizing and we can do the same thing with people these people are fun these people, man, you know they just SAP energy from me. And so I’ve found when I’ve been coaching young leaders and people going through transition that it just it provides some helpful aha’s. 

 

Jim Rembach:     So when you start thinking about helping people find their jazz what it is that that you do or that you guide people or to direct people or tools that you give people in order to be able to do that.

 

Danita Bye:    So I have a couple of tools that I like. One is a process called life’s core purpose. And in life’s core purpose you begin to look at what are you just naturally competent at what do you get out of bed and you just naturally do? So what’s your core competence and then what’s your core passion what are you always thinking about? I’ll use it an example for, I guess I’ll use for me, I am no matter what situation I am in I, I get things moving I get things moving off the dime. We can have lots of discussion but let’s put an action plan together no matter where I’m going about engaging so that’s a core competence. And then my core passion is about getting people launched on the growth path. To shift into gear for me it drives me nuts when people are status quo players. You’ve got too much talent you’ve got too much opportunity you’ve got too much brilliance shift into gear and get going. Once I was able to put words around that it was just helpful for me to be able to analyze activities and that’s one of the tools that I’d like to use. 

 

Jim Rembach:     So that’s interesting that you say that because with my son who’s 13 I’ve started asking him and I told him I’m got to ask it until he can actually help you know to formulate some ideas and thoughts around as I asked him I said what is that one thing when you go to bed that you have a hard time actually going to sleep you know because of it. And when you get up in the morning it’s actually top of mind and you’re like, I can’t wait to do this and be part of this and by the way, it can’t be a video game it has to be something that actually is got to better the world. So what is that thing that’s got to better the world that you really think about all the time?

 

Danita Bye:    I love that.

 

Jim Rembach:     Right now he’s like, I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know. I said well I’m got to keep asking. I said, you’re got to have to start seeking it out. I said, and if you can’t figure it out on your own I said we’re got to sit down and figure it out together. I said, because you have to have something that is a target for you something that gives you that internal juice and something that really causes you to take that extra step instead of sit on your hining. 

 

Danita Bye:    Absolutely. There’s lots of different ways it’s just a whole—obviously with parenting there’s a whole host of ways that we can do that. Interestingly when I was hiring and building a sales team I actually asked that as part of my interview process. Remember there was one in particular I asked that too and he was at that time he was 23 24 25 and he was a little cheapy she didn’t know if he should answer that and he says, well, what I really want to do is I really want to own an auto dealership, which had nothing to do with the medical device company that I was involved in which is the reason he was a little nervous about telling me this. And I said, great, let’s talk about owning that car dealership and why is that. What are the sparks? What are the things that are interesting? And then what sort of skills do we need to be developing on a regular basis so that you’re ready to run that auto dealership? And every time we had a rhythm of doing a quarterly review where we would step back and look at a big picture we talked about it every single time.

 

Jim Rembach:         That’s what we need to do some people talking about the status quo people they would say, well gosh I don’t want to hire this person because they don’t want to work here long they just want to auto dealership and they’re just not going to stay they’re not going to be motivated. That’s not what you should do what you should do is what you did is you take that and you use it as the way for you to actually get them to motivate themselves. There’s a saying that I heard a long time ago a Kirk Weisler who was actually a guest on my show, he said, don’t make the mistake. He goes, you don’t motivate anybody that’s not the way it works people motivate themselves your job as leader is to create the environment by which they will motivate themselves.

 

Danita Bye:     Absolutely, absolutely. When typically my work is with sales organizations and getting them unstuck and moving forward and one of the very first things that I find that we have to do is to help each salesperson create alignment between their personal goals and their professional goals. Often to get alignment we have to look at what their personal goals are, which is where we talk about what jazzes them, and we have to look at what their professional goals are not what their managers goals are not what the company’s goals are but what their goals are. Then we take those and start to weave those together to create something that is inspirational, fun, energizing that they can get out of bed in the morning and have some hope and some direction for the future.

 

Jim Rembach:    I think we’re a lot of leaders make a mistake is that they don’t realize that the manager meeting his sales numbers the company meeting their sales numbers and all that’s really an output that’s an output of all the things these other things that you were just talking about. 

 

Danita Bye:    Absolutely, absolutely. There’s at least three wins like a win, win, win strategy because no matter what you do it has to be the win for the salesperson employee it has to be a win for the company it has to be a win for the client it has to be—there are so many wins and unless you create that kind of win alignment you’re not going to get the engagement you’re not going to get the business growth you’re not going to get the impact that you want so it does all need to align and come together.

 

Jim Rembach:     Without a doubt. One other thing that you expose me to and I actually had to reach out to a friend was something called the Sisu spirit, which has some Finnish origin so I reached out to my Finnish friend Yona she gave me some additional insights into Sisu, but tell us a little bit about the Sisu spirit.

 

Danita Bye:    Well, growing up in the Finnish background, you mentioned it in the bio, this going to the sauna which was a football field away when you’re three years old and four years old and it’s 30 below and the wind is howling our parents never let us off the hook this is what we needed to do. So as I look at the growing up and leading that is that’s just what you do you have your goal in place you are going to get obstacles you’re going to get thrown off track and you just you need to get back on track. I pulled this out to make certain that I got my quote correctly. I was a young salesperson at Xerox, who as I’d mentioned got tears in my eyes like three times a day, but there was a quote that I blew up into a poster I know that you’ve heard it before but it goes like this—what you do when you don’t need to determines what you will be when you can’t help it. And isn’t that the Sisu spirit that there’s a whole host of things in life that we don’t want to do? In sales we maybe don’t want to make sales calls or we don’t want to talk to this person because they’re scary we don’t want to ask this other question cause really one with send people –there’s a whole host of things in life that make us uncomfortable or they don’t make us uncomfortable. And yet in doing those things it develops that resilience and that determination and that ability to keep going and I call that the Sisu spirit coming from my Finnish heritage. 

 

Jim Rembach:     It’s definitely something that I want to research a little bit more and hopefully expose my kids to that because I’m always trying to give them things that will hopefully help them find stronger and more firm footing. Anxiety is a huge problem with a lot of youth today, quite frankly for everybody today, for a lot of different reasons. 

 

Danita Bye:    Yes. We live in an anxious, anxious ridden society. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Without a doubt. You shared that quote, thanks for doing that, and I’m sure too when you start thinking about—you talked about that sales experience and actually growing through that you talked about in your bio being an investor a lot of different things that you’ve done having this business the book, but I’m sure there’s humps that you’ve had to get over that have taught you a lot. Is there one of those stories that you can share so we can learn?

 

Danita Bye:    So my life is filled with hopes it just seems like we’re always kind of working through. There’s one in particular that there was a mass of learning for me. I had been with technology business with Xerox Corporation for about ten years I had been in the medical device world for about a decade which I loved and then we were having some shifts and changes in our life and we decided that I would buy a snowmobile sleigh manufacturing company. Now in retrospect it was absolutely an idiot decision. Why would some—there were so many idiot decisions on this but anyway we did it. That was 1997, El Nino hit that winter there’s no snow. Most people don’t know this but the El Nino actually lasted for three years there’s no snow and I have a bit snowmobile sleigh manufacturing business. I was not happy. I was angry at my clients because they weren’t purchasing things. I was angry at my husband because he was the one who had kind of persuaded me that this would be a good idea and I was angry at God he’s the  one who makes it snow, right? 

 

As I was working with this I had a mentor who just really pushed in and said, Danita you’re playing the blame game and you are sapping your own creativity and energy and you need to shape up. Of course, I did not like that conversation I think I walked away angry from that conversation also. However, I guess I begin to process that and work with that I thought, okay, I’ve been sitting with this company that I hate for three years I’m just got to sit down and do a white boarding session and see what ideas I came up with. So, my husband and I sat down we came up with ten ideas. One idea was to sell the company and I thought that’s great because I don’t want to expand the company I want to sell it I hate it. We did everything we put all the paperwork together got the word on the street we had it sold in 45 days. And I sat and complained for three years and we sold it in 45 days? It was just a huge, huge lesson for me. Out of the experience and research developed a concept which I call the catalyst question. And there’s four things that I had to learn, one is, I can’t point the finger at anybody else I have to look at me. What might I do to get the results I want? And then number two is they use the word might. Might is a creativity question, so that’s what helped me to generate my options. What might I do, this is not about complaining this is about doing to get the results that I want? So that’s a key question that as I’m working with leaders that we start to integrate because lack of accountability is a massive eroder in our culture. 

 

Jim Rembach:     And that word has always kind of played a little bit of an irritation for me. Because for me I need to hold myself accountable. But I as a leader I need to create the environment by which people take ownership as well as convey that as an expectation because I think lazy leaders use accountability in the wrong way and they say, I’m going to hold you accountable and it becomes a control issue and I think it’s just totally misapplied in so many different ways. 

 

Danita Bye:    what a lazy leader will do. In my work with sales organizations we have actually researched over a million salespeople sales professionals and our statistics show that 60% of people within sales or the revenue generation side of a business have a tendency to point their fingers at someone else for not achieving an objective. They’re going to blame the economy they’re going to blame the competitor they’re going to blame the boss they’re going to blame the marketing department they’re going to blame someone and yes there are realities that we deal with. The reality is that if we will begin to look at what we might be able to do differently that kind of stimulates our own creative juices and helps us to reach out to the right people it helps us to ask a better set of questions. Again that’s an area where we as leaders we don’t hold people accountable we help to develop that culture of ownership.

 

Jim Rembach:     I really like the book and I highly recommend it and we’re going to actually put it on your show notes page. So for me when I start thinking about where you’re going with this and how things are progressing and you look at all these goals that you can have for your business and everything else what is one of those goals? 

 

Danita Bye:     Well, one of the goals is the message. The message of—get activated get engaged in coaching and mentoring. We baby boomers across the nation are retiring at record speed and many of them are at this time of searching for purpose. Some are afraid to retire because they don’t know what they’re going to be doing others are wrestling with feelings of relevance or it could be a really confusing time. One of my messages is that everything that you’ve been doing in life is preparing you to pass your leadership insight and wisdom and legacy on to the next generation. And I believe that this generation is calling out to us as senior leaders and that we as senior leaders need to respond and recognize that that that is a huge leadership legacy and responsibility that we can step up to. 

 

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.

 

An even better place to work is an easy-to-use solution that improves the empathy and emotional intelligence skills in everyone. It provides a continuous diagnostic on employee engagement and provides integrated activities that will improve the leadership and collaboration skills in everyone. This award winning solution is guaranteed to create motivated, productive and higher performing employees that have great working relationships with their colleagues and your customers. To learn more about an even better place to work visit beyondmorale.com/better. 

Jim Rembach:        Alright here we go Fast Leader legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Danita, the Hump Day Hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us a robust yet rapid response that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Danita Bye, are you ready to hoedown? 

 

Danita Bye:    I think so, I don’t know. 

 

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

 

Danita Bye:    Focus. 

 

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

 

Danita Bye:    Listen and ask more questions. 

 

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

 

Danita Bye:    Prosperity mindset don’t let excuses get in your way of making it happen. 

 

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

 

Danita Bye:    One of my best tools it’s called a life map. And it outlines my goals and three areas of my life and I go back to that on a monthly basis just to recalibrate and make certain I’m on track. 

 

Jim Rembach:     What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners that could be from any genre? Of course we’re got to put a link to Millennials Matter, on your show page as well. 

 

Danita Bye:    Yes, the book that we need to read is the Bible and specifically Jesus. Jesus is this phenomenal leader that we can learn a lot from.

 

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

 

Danita Bye:    It’s the ability to ask insightful deep questions so that you can also listen well. The reason behind that is one of my assets in life is to talk but the problem is we don’t learn we don’t serve we don’t love by talking everything we want comes from listening and caring about the people in our lives. 

 

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

 

Danita Bye:    I am at danitabye.com 

 

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

 

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

 

END OF AUDIO 

 

 

Doug Sandler - Nice Guys Finish First

173: Doug Sandler: I had no system and that’s the problem

Doug Sandler Show Notes Page

Doug Sandler was hired to be a DJ at a party hundreds of miles from his home. He was feeling on top of his game but within 15-minutes of the four-hour event, he realized why he was really hired sight unseen. He also realized that everything he had done in his career to that point was just about being lucky.

Doug Sandler grew up in Baltimore Maryland with his older brother David, his parents split when he was 2 years old.

He remembers growing up and loving life as a little kid…even though they had no money, they laughed and enjoyed life. His mom has been a huge inspiration in his life. Although he was not close personally with his dad, he was a strong influence in my business life. His life was cut short in his mid-60’s and he still follows the advice that he thinks his dad would be providing even to this day.

Doug has always had a love for the the service aspect of any job. From food service in college to the mortgage business when out of college, real estate, DJ, podcaster, author, blogger, speaker.

Doug Sandler is an entrepreneur and industry leader. His book, Nice Guys Finish First is a #1 ranked Amazon Best Seller.  As a podcast host of The Nice Guys on Business, Doug has interviewed Gary Vaynerchuk, Arianna Huffington from HuffPost, Dan Harris from Good Morning America, Ron Klain, White House Chief of Staff and dozens of celebs. Doug is a nationally recognized speaker, writer, and founder of TurnKey Podcast Company, providing podcast production, editing and launch services.

The legacy Doug wants to leave behind is that nice guys finish first.

He currently lives in the Washington, DC area with his wife Danielle and 2 kids Adam and Rachel.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

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

“You do have the right, when you are working for another organization to follow what you love.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet

“You can still have a wonderful life working for someone else.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“You can be a nice guy, you can be vulnerable, you can be empathetic and show gratitude without being a doormat.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“Those tapes that are going off in your head telling you once you’re down to stay down, you’ve got to erase those tapes.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“You’ve got to put yourself in a position to win every time.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“It’s not the circumstances that life is going to deliver to you, it’s how you handle the circumstances in your life.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“We’re all dealing with the exact same scenarios, we are all given the same opportunities.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“It’s just a matter of how we respond to the circumstance we are dealt in our life.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“You can say ‘no’ and be a nice guy.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“The negativity is certainly exposed a lot more often than ever now because of social media.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“People give themselves a mental enema almost every day on social media and share the crap that’s going on in their life.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“The good in the world is shared a lot more now.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“That person in customer service now represents the entire brand to the person they’re dealing with.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“Even as a nice guy, I still have negativity in my life.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“Social media and technology make it so easy for us to complain.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“Instead of being so negative and critical of everyone, I challenge you to find something they’re doing right and compliment them.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“When the negative thing happens you’ve just have to remember all of that positivity that’s come back.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“Don’t let that negative action put you in a period of stinkin’ thinkin’.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“So, what do you do to differentiate yourself, it’s all going to be in the service and support.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“Instead of letting life happen to me, you have to make life happen to you.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“Always stay in action, don’t let life happen to you.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

“You’ve got to staying in your zone of genius.” -Doug Sandler Click to Tweet 

Hump to Get Over

Doug Sandler was hired to be a DJ at a party hundreds of miles from his home. He was feeling on top of his game but within 15-minutes of the four-hour event, he realized why he was really hired sight unseen. He also realized that everything he had done in his career to that point was just about being lucky.

Advice for others

Keep moving.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Staying in the grove. Stay in your zone of genius.

Best Leadership Advice

Fail fast, and it’s okay to fail.

Secret to Success

Just return your phone calls.

Best tools that helps in Business or Life

The microphone.

Recommended Reading

Nice Guys Finish First

Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life

Contacting Doug Sandler

website: http://www.dougsandler.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/djdoug

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doug-sandler-1a346649/

Resources and Show Mentions

Call Center Coach

Empathy Mapping

 

Show Transcript: 

Click to access edited transcript

173: Doug Sandler: I had no system and that’s the problem

 

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

 

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

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, Fast Leader legion, today I’m excited because I get the opportunity to really have a good discussion about something that’s kind of been bothering me for a long time about being nice but not too nice. Doug Sandler grew up in Baltimore, Maryland with his older brother David. His parents split when he was two years old but Doug remembers growing up and loving life as a little kid even though they had no money they laughed and enjoyed life. His mom has been a huge inspiration in his life. Although he was not personally close to his dad he was a strong influence in his business life. His father was cut short in his mid-60s and he still follows that advice that he thinks his dad would be providing even to this day. 

 

Doug has always had a love for the service aspect of any job from food service in college to the mortgage business when he went out college real, estate, DJ, podcaster, author, blogger and speaker. Doug Sandler is an entrepreneur and an industry leader. His book, Nice Guys Finished First, is a number one ranked Amazon bestseller and has a podcast host of the Nice Guys on Business. Doug has interviewed Gary Vaynerchuk, Arianna Huffington from HuffPost, Dan Harris from Good Morning America, Ron Klain Wine House Chief of Staff and dozens of celebrities. Doug is a nationally recognized speaker, writer and founder of TurnKey Podcast Company providing podcast production, editing and launch services. The legacy Doug wants to leave behind is that nice guys finish first. 

 

He currently lives in the Washington DC area with his wife Danielle and two kids Adam and Rachel. Doug Sandler are you ready to help us get over the hump?

 

Doug Sandler:   Oh, yeah, let’s do it hump day is here. Come on Jim, let’s do it.

 

Jim Rembach:   I’m glad you’re here. 

 

Doug Sandler:   I’ve never heard a 1,500 word bio read in 32 seconds, so nicely done.

 

Jim Rembach:   I appreciate that. Now what people don’t know is I probably messed it up three or four times and I’m editing it so you hear it clean.

 

Doug Sandler:   Those of you in Jim’s community that are listening to this at one and a half or two X speed, slow it down.

 

Jim Rembach:   I’ll tell you we’re going to have a good time today. Now, I’ve given my Legion a little bit about you but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better.

 

Doug Sandler:   I love the podcasting space. This new media space has been great after reinventing my career probably a handful of years ago I discovered this space and fall in love with it and there’s no better way to make money than from your pajamas. So, I do love it for that reason. 

 

Jim Rembach:   That’s a really interesting point. You and I had the opportunity to talk off mic and we talked about the prior life and how you kind of—I think many of us we should be more aware and mindful and kind of follow the money. A lot of my listeners are actually within organizations and sometimes they have to follow the money for others. But even from an individual perspective and the whole “nice guys” concept for me. When and when you start thinking about—oh! gosh, being too nice and that tipping point to where you become someone who gets walked on. I’ve always kind of struggled with that like how much is too much nice? 

 

Doug Sandler:   Yeah, Can I comment on something that you said just a moment ago first and then I’ll get into how much nice is too much nice. What you said was, a lot of people follow the money and I do agree with that people do follow. Even when they work for organizations they follow other people’s money, I guess, but what I would say is step back because you do have the right when you are working for another organization to follow still what you love. Follow what you love follow the thing that you’re passionate about and that doesn’t mean that you have to be your own person and be an entrepreneur and take all the risk. You can still have a wonderful life working for someone else within their organization. Certainly I’m not conflicting with what you’re saying but I wanted to add a yes and you can still follow what you love to do even when you work for someone else. There’s plenty of people that do that whether it’s an architecture engineer or professionalism or whatever it is that they’re doing.

 

Jim Rembach:   Yeah, I’m glad that you added that. As a matter of fact Laurie Bocklund, on the last episode, actually just talked about that yes and that she learned in her improv class.

 

Doug Sandler:   Oh, yeah, it’s the greatest. And I do feel like instead of saying but the yes end is an easy way to go. I never took improv but a lot of my friends have been through the comedy route so for me it’s very interesting to hear the yes and—and it does make you feel a little bit better when you hear, yeah and let me add this instead of, but, but, and the buts always stopped me dead in my tracks.

 

Jim Rembach:   Well, that’s an interesting point. Okay, so, we’re talking about nice and too nice but I would dare to say if you are nice you’re definitely using the yes end instead of but.

 

Doug Sandler:   Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think that now it becomes my habit not the yes end because I don’t know why those words even came in my head, I don’t think I’ve used those word for weeks or months the yes end. But let me answer the other question which is really cool, I think that as we discuss Nice Guys Finish First, it wasn’t just a book that I wrote but it’d the anti-nice guys finish last mentality. It really is you can be a nice guy you can be vulnerable you can be empathetic and show gratitude and do all of those things that I would consider being nice without being a doormat. It doesn’t mean that you’re a pushover at all it means you understand even more firmly the ground and you’re the security of the ground that you’re standing on allowing yourself to be vulnerable but still be a leader still be strong and not be stepped on.

 

Jim Rembach:   Well, that’s really interesting. As you were talking I started thinking and the word that popped in my head was values. And talking about that firm ground and knowing where you need to stand and that values component because I know for me I feel like I am a nice guy but then I’ve also let certain environments change my demeanor so it wasn’t so nice because I kind of lost sight of what my values were and got caught up in the moments. And of course, as I got older I could reflect and be able to identify those but when I was in it I didn’t necessarily do it all that well. So, how can somebody make sure that they’re always grounded well?

 

Doug Sandler:   I think you just have to understand where you are and who you are. As long as you’re comfortable with you scan those tapes that are going off in your head that tell you to once you’re down to stay down you’ve got to erase those tapes. You’ve got to put yourself in a position to win every time. You’ve got to put yourself in a position it’s not the circumstances that life is going to deliver to you, it’s how you handle the circumstances in your life that’s going to make all the difference in the world. We’re all dealing with the same exact scenarios we all are given the same the same opportunities out there. If you don’t think that you are you’re not putting yourself in a position. A lot of people say, well you’ve been lucky you’ve been able to reinvent your career and look how fast it’s going to—it hasn’t gone fast in my mind it’s so slow it feels like an overnight success in 30 years it takes you a long time to get there. Sure, I could have turned around based upon the circumstances that have happened in my life. My dad passing away in his mid-60s and I’m not having that leadership role in my life any longer. My mom becoming ill at some point everybody in my family around me having cancer and devastation I could look at that and say, my gosh there is so much, I don’t know if your show is explicit but if it’s not there’s so much poop in this world. And I look at that and say, with all this poop around there’s got to be a pony in here somewhere. And I think it’s just a matter of how we respond to the circumstances that are dealt in our life. Part of it is understanding that you can say no, be a nice guy, still say no say it gently say it with empathy say it with compassion and conviction and still have a friend on the other side of that no because they respect where you are because you’ve consistently taken action the same way throughout your entire life. And that really is what the true definition of nice to me. Consistent attitude, consistent behavior and it’s all positive.

 

Jim Rembach:   Thanks for sharing that. I also started thinking talking about that environmental component and proximity and all of those things that we have really to contend with in today’s world. I was talking to somebody the other day and I was like well I’ve actually worked out of a home office with the jobs that I’ve had in order to pass 17 years I’ve been in a home office and so sometimes the whole proximity component not being around certain people and having that negative thing constantly being on your shoulder and pressure to perform and all these things it’s kind of hard to slough those things off and really remain positive. So, when you start thinking about especially in the environment that we are today and thinking about the nice guys philosophy, values and all of that, do you think it’s declining or it’s actually growing?

 

Doug Sandler:   Well, I think because technology is so prevalent nowadays we see so much more than we have ever seen. So, I would love to be able to say I think negativity or positivity or whatever it is I can put a number on it and say it’s more prevalent now. I would tell you that the negativity is certainly exposed a lot more often than ever now because of social media. You have a problem with an organization or a leader within an organization you’re going to see it oftentimes directly on social media it give themselves a mental enema almost every day on social media and share all of the crap that’s going on in their life good bad or indifferent I’m not sure. From other perspective I think that the good in the world is shown a lot more now based upon the way that social media and the technology is out there. When a small act is rewarded or gratitude is shown through social media that’s good as well. I think that nowadays the lead-in towards being nice is definitely stronger now than it’s ever been because people realize how exposed their message and their brand is to the public. It’s so easy to get onto the computer and bash a company or say great things about them. So companies are very aware that it’s no longer Nike let’s say it’s that person in service that is dealing with Nike they now represent the entire Nike brand to that person that they’re dealing with. You better believe that there’s got to be some instructions given to that person in service and support how they have to handle or what they should be doing and how their customer service should be to that one customer.

 

Jim Rembach:   That’s interesting that you say that. For me I try to refrain—and you see it a lot in this industry that I work in which is customer care customer experience where a lot of the influencers, I won’t say a lot, some of the influencers in in the industry and experts in the industry, that word kind of has shaky ground in itself, like to videotape and then therefore on their own social platforms push out the bad experience they had at a restaurant or an airline or a retailer I try not to do that. And even when people ask me to contribute to certain things and they’re like, hey, tell us about your worst experience. And ‘m like, umm I kind of cringe when I want to do that because there’s just so much of that negativity. I would choose to rather focus in on the opportunity that exists. If we have all these things that are going on that are so negative and not customer centric and focused and what about the things that are and how do we actually get to that point? Let’s ditch the bad and focus on the good.

 

Doug Sandler:   Yeah, I mean I would like to say that I’ve never said a negative word on social media but that wouldn’t be the reality. Even as a nice guy I still have negativity that happens in my life and again I want to expose that to those that are close to me if they ask me my opinion on a particular product or I have an issue. On my show all the time and I have 600 episodes of the Nice Guys on business podcast under my belt. We’ve done plenty of negative, hey, listen this happened on this airline or this happened with this brand and we like to see how they respond. You give them an opportunity we invite people on our show all the time we invite people to respond to us on social media all the time. Some big brands tended or choose to ignore it and some big brands—I like to see where people sit because I’m in the world of customer service. For me I love putting somebody to the test and having them pass the test I’ll give them accolades if they pass the test. But I’ll also give them negative words if they don’t pass the test aren’t I important as a customer? Why? Why would my they want to ignore me I’m just a guy that has a product or service that has a—they’ve presented their product or service I have a problem with it, let’s hear what they have to say I’m curious I always curious.

 

Jim Rembach:   As you were talking I started thinking as far as the process by which you go and actually share that feedback. I remember there’s one time where I was sitting next to a guy on a flight he was just enraged the fact that he wasn’t able to be in first class and not only was he not in first class he was at the very, very back of the plane right against the bathroom, needless to say he couldn’t recline his seat and he had noise the entire trip, but I booked my flight late and it’s what I expected. He was just nasty and I’m like, do you think that would ever get you moved up?

 

Doug Sandler:   Yeah, there’s got to be that limit in your head that says, I think this is fair based upon the circumstance how much of this is me just wanting to run my mouth because I feel like I’m being anonymous in my bashing and how much of this is—if that CEO was sitting in front of me would I be okay having that conversation? The test that I run through is I’d love to have a conversation I’d love to invite that person on my show so that they could actually share why it happened this way and how we can try to resolve this from happening again. I don’t know I think it’s a very challenging thing I think that social media and technology makes it so easy for us to complain. On the other side of it, Jim, it makes it so easy for us to be able to say positive things too and we do much more of that than we do of bashing on our show. For me personally I do the same thing I love being able to share great news and great information as well.

 

Jim Rembach:   I think really that’s the key we just need to outdo what the norm is and the norm is that most people complain especially when it comes to customer service and customer experience than they do praise. Someone was talking to the other day about a letter that they received and I was actually kind of shocked and I’m like, people still do that they wrote a letter? I’m like, how old was that person? Sure enough it was someone who is of older age who was more familiar with the writing process. Every once in a while I think we do have to pull out the pen or even a pencil whatever it is and just write a note.

 

Doug Sandler:   We call it catching people in the act of doing something right. And if we can do that a little bit more often I think that you’ll have a lot—that’s all a part of that—if there’s a philosophy behind what nice is it’s showing gratitude and compassion and empathy and showing the gratitude instead of being so negative and being so critical of everyone I challenge you those that are in Jim’s community listening to this right now, when you stop listening to this episode at your office or whoever it is that you talk to next find something that they’re doing right and complement them. It’s so easy to do and it makes—it’s almost like it’s a selfish act because it makes you feel almost better than it makes them feel as well. I always want people to feel better about themselves after having had met me than before they got in my company. 

 

Jim Rembach:   I’m glad you said that. For me I think one of the best pieces of feedback that I received the other day was a video call that I had with somebody and when the call was over with and between their laughing they said I really appreciate because every time I talk to you helped me see things more clearly and it removed the worry that I have off my shoulder. To me that was the best feedback I think I could have ever received. 

 

Doug Sandler:   That’s great, yeah, that’s great. That shows that you’re in the right zone and when something negative happens to a nice guy like you or like me or like many of the tens of thousands millions of nice guys that are out there when the negative thing happens you just have to remember all of that positivity that’s come back and don’t let that negative action put you in a period of stinking thinking just stay your course and keep that nice attitude it’s all about consistency and that’s what people expect from you. 

 

Jim Rembach:   I believe it. Okay, so what we we’re talking about here we’re talking about the nice talking about really improving our emotional intelligence skills and when we want to do that as an organization but that that path a lot of times we need to have beacons of light and one of the things that we look at on the show as a beacon of light are quotes.  Is there a quote or two that you can share?

 

Doug Sandler:   Sure. I don’t remember I think it might have been Henry—I can’t remember who said this, whether you think you can or you can’t you’re right. I’m trying to remember who it was that said that. It’s so true all of the things that we want to accomplish in life whether it’s personal or professional if you think that you can—maybe it was Dale Carnegie, I can’t remember. If you put your head in the right position and you think that you can do it you absolutely will be able to do it. If you’re negative about it and you don’t think that you can do it the same task you’re not going to be able to accomplish it.

 

Jim Rembach:   As you were talking I started thinking about my—and I’ve mentioned him before, my oldest son,  is that he’s more motivated by fear and so a lot of the things that will come out of his mouth are negative and that’s what happens when you kind of got have that fear wiring. I keep telling him I’m like, whatever comes out of your mouth is what you are. He’s like, what do you mean? I said, well, if you talk about negative things you become negative. I said, if you talk about other people in a bad way you become that. Whatever comes out of— he says, that’s just dumb. And I said you’re reinforcing through your head whatever you’re going to end up feeling. And sooner or later maybe it’ll click for him.

 

Doug Sandler:   The quote was a Henry Ford quote, I quickly looked it up and it is a Henry Ford quote. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Good job, the beauty of the Internet at your fingertips. I am reading your bio and you talked about the pivoting you talked about all of those things. To get to where you are today I’m sure there was a lot of humps that you had to get over, can you share a story with us so that we can hopefully get over our own?

 

Doug Sandler:   Sure absolutely. There’s a couple that come to mind and one of them which was really the creation of many of the conscious thought of this nice guys system that I’ve created over the last 30 plus years but really instituted within the last handful of years. I spent the last 30 years as a as a DJ. This this family hired me sight unseen to fly down from D.C. down to New Orleans to do their son’s celebration. I can recall very vividly getting down there they paid my bill they carted me from everywhere my ego was so in the way right now because I felt like they really were engaging my services. Within 50 minutes of this four hour event I remember setting up and they took me to the venue and the guest was like 75 or so adults and fifty or so I would call them kids but they weren’t any kids I’ve ever seen before they were more like monsters. So within 15 minutes of this four hour event they had managed to suck the helium out of every balloon threw pea soup on the walls they were drinking at the bar at 13 years old they lit toilet paper on fire in the bathrooms and this is all within 1/16th of the of the event 15 minutes into this four hour event. And I did what I thought any self-respecting entertainer or DJ would do at the time I put my head down and focused on my job and I started playing music. And of course I was playing music basically to a rowdy room of kids that would not respond no matter what I did. 

 

What I discovered during that pivotal moment in my life was had I actually invested a little bit of time and energy and resources in this client I would have discovered that this was not only the 49th of 50 events of these kids had been to that year through there, let’s call it the bar mitzvah circuit, but no matter what I did they wouldn’t respond positively and my feeling was why were they doing this to me? So, I invested no time, energy, resources in this client they had gone to so many events they didn’t hire me because they thought I was a good entertainer they hired me because I was so far geographically out of their area that there was no way that I possibly would have ever heard of these kids. And so you completely take a shift and you say why didn’t I just ask some important questions? Well, somebody might say, well, why didn’t they tell you? They don’t know what to tell me and what not to tell me I was the professional. So that’s the invest component of my program and actually inspired them to take action come up with a plan A and plan B in case this particular—I knew enough to know that that potentially could happen but it didn’t arm them with any plans. And then I had actually executed a plan I mean I wanted to execute some of those kids but I had actually executed a plan I would have carried out these plans perfectly. For me everything that I did in my in my career so far I was just getting lucky until I created this invest, inspire, and execute system I’d never realized that there was actually a system I could have put in place for that.

 

Jim Rembach:   I love that story that’s pretty good. They actually have to go outside of their geographic region, right?

 

Doug Sandler:   Right. Totally right.

 

Jim Rembach:   Listening to that I kind of started thinking that, well, part of that is just wisdom. You have to go through the experience in order to know that you needed to come up with the system so that it didn’t happen again. 

 

Doug Sandler:   Well, yeah, or you’re a guy that’s smart enough as I wasn’t at the time, and yes probably things going on all around me right now to know that I should be plugging into a system I had no system and that’s the problem. There was no consistent effort there was no phone calls there was no returns of voicemails there was it was like I would just do whatever I thought I wanted to do in order to get the next job I was so focused on the transaction and not focused on the relationship that it wasn’t good.

 

Jim Rembach:   That kind of—is where a lot of organizations start in addition to that they continue to do that way and then they ultimately become one of those organizations that becomes affected because somebody disrupted them.

 

Doug Sandler:   When your services begin to be a commodity because all you’re doing is going through the same action that everybody else is going through and the proof in the pudding for that business, for my entertainment my DJ business, is that I outlasted. I was 30 years into the business I’ve just recently within the last handful of years reinvented myself and what’s so great about it is that the majority of my competition or guys in their 20s and 30s–I’m 15 or 20 years older than them and five to ten times more expensive than many of those guys that are in maybe three to ten times expensive more than many of those guys that are in my market. I know it is not coincidence it’s understanding what customer service means it’s understanding how to invest that time and energy and your client and resources in your client understanding how to execute a plan. It’s not about playing music at a four-hour event it’s the year and a half that leads up to that event where you can build a relationship that’s the critical component of that business. 

 

Jim Rembach:   That’s interesting you to say that, I started thinking about differentiation you can choose how to differentiate because the fact is you need to do that how you are going to go about doing that. If you differentiate by product that’s a risky proposition these days. When you start talking about the fact that anybody can come and knock you out anywhere around the globe to me the smart choice is to differentiate on the entire experience component.

 

Doug Sandler:   Well, you have to. When you have two people that you’re never going to compare exactly apples to apples especially in the entertainment world if you have a commodity, a light bulb is a light bulb, so what do you do to differentiate yourself from someone that wants to buy from you? It’s all going to be in the service and the support. In my particular case, yeah, we still have to be able to do a great job on event day but the challenge is most people think it is about job day it’s about the celebration. Let me give you an example, two years before an event I’ve met with a guy and his wife and they’re designing this wonderful celebration. The host name is Jim and all the way through the process I’m calling the guy Jim and I know it’s Jim, and I know it I own that name. I get to event day and I’m introducing them and I say, welcome to the stage John, okay, so I’ve screwed that up.  On Monday morning, my agent is not going to get a call that says, he didn’t even know my freakin’ name. Because it was an honest mistake and we got it and I built a relationship. Now let’s take a slightly different track, I don’t call this guy and I’ll talk to Jim I don’t know anything about Jim on event day I just show up and I’m about to do Jim and Jan’s job. They’re about to be introduced and I say welcome to the stage John. On Monday morning my agent is going to get a phone call saying, you didn’t even take the time to learn my name. Okay, honest error, honest thing happened same exact end result except the different relationship was built on the first scenario as opposed to the second scenario. I’m going to swim through that first scenario, I’m going to sing on that second scenario.

 

Jim Rembach:   That’s true. You’ve got to invest in it, right? When I start thinking about where you’ve come and where you are I would suspect that even with a lot of the organizations that you’re working with a lot of individuals that you’re focusing in on, the family, you’ve got a lot of  things that you can look at from a goal perspective. If there was one that you had to choose from what would it be?

 

Doug Sandler:   I would say one of the goals is set goals. I think one of the critical opponents of this reinvention that I went through in 2013 when I discovered that I was not going to be a DJ until I was in my 70s and I couldn’t imagine spending my time doing the cha-cha slide in the cupid shuffle at 65   years old on the dance floor I needed to set a goal and I needed to take action. Instead of letting life happen to me you have to make life happen to you I set not only a practical goal of where I’m heading with my life but I set out a plan. This is what I wanted to do and it’s a jumbled mess along the way looking back but still this whole reinvention has been wonderful. So, I would say put yourself in a position where you do set some goals for where you want to go. Examine the goals frequently readjust if you need to and keep moving forward but always stay in action and just don’t let life happen to you because if it does it’s never going to take you in the path that you wanted to. 

 

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

 

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

 

Jim Rembach:   Alright, here we go Fast Leader legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Michael, 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. Doug Sandler, are you ready to hoedown? 

 

Doug Sandler:   Okay, let’s go. 

 

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

 

Doug Sandler:   Staying in the groove. You just got to stay in your zone of genius. Once you start slipping out of that you become less effective much less productive and you slow yourself down. So stay in your zone of genius.

 

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

 

Doug Sandler:   Fail fast. It’s okay to fail. 

 

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

 

Doug Sandler:   This is an easy one, just return your phone calls it’s amazing how many people don’t return their phone calls.

 

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

 

Doug Sandler:   Let’s see, I’m going to say the microphone. Because I’m in a podcast environment so I would say that tool I could not deal without. 

 

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

 

Doug Sandler:   Thanks Jim, I always promote this book because I think it’s so wonderful with its parable, the way that it’s written, Who Moved my Cheese, by Spencer Johnson. 

 

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

 

Doug Sandler:   I’d say that it would be more of a piece of advice it’s, keep moving. You want   to keep moving you can’t stay still nothing ever stays the same you’re constantly evolving and as long as you keep moving make decisions never have a doubt about the decisions you made just keep moving forward that would be any advice that I would give myself at 25. 

 

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

 

Doug Sandler:   The best way to reach me is just through my website which is dougsandler.com. 

 

Jim Rembach:     Doug Sandler, 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!

 

Jim Rembach:   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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