virtues

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.

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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.

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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. 

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