vulnerable

118: Dov Baron: I needed to fall and get smashed to pieces

Intro Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we uncover the leadership like hat that help you to experience, break out performance faster and rocket to success. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

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

Jim Rembach:     Okay, Fast Leader Legion, today I’m excited because I have one of those folks that is just very dynamic, great speaker, great thought leader and you’re going to have fun. Dov Baron was born in the UK. He is the eldest of nine children. His mother and father divorced when he was seven years old so some of his siblings are half-siblings. But growing up while other kids were watching cartoons, Dov describes himself as being a weird kid. He was fascinated by documentaries, politics and what made people do the things that they. Dov has always been an entrepreneur started his own business at the age of Dov, But being entrepreneurial was born of his inability to follow rules that didn’t make sense or were outdated to him as a high creative, high stimulus, individual. Dov is currently the President of Authentic Paragon Alliance, a strategic leadership consulting firm. He is a best-selling author of several books. His latest book is Fiercely Loyal, how high-performing companies develop and retain top talent.

Dov has been speaking internationally for over 30 years. Outside of his speaking and training Dov works with multidisciplinary leaders and executive teams to build the bonds that create organizational cultures that become fiercely loyal. He also writes for and has been published in many industry magazines including being featured on CNN, CBS small business pulse, Yahoo Finance, Boston Globe, USA Today, CEO, entrepreneur and many more. 

Dov currently lives in Vancouver with his beautiful wife his queen, Renuka and has three children a daughter age 40 and two sons, ages 29 and 30. He’s also blessed to have four grandkids. Dov are you ready to help us get over the hump? 

Dov Baron :     I am ready. Let’s do that hump. 

Jim Rembach:     Alright now I’ve given our Legion a little bit about you but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we get to know you even better? 

Dov Baron :     My passion is as always leadership. But the specifics of that leadership is giving—if you really want to look at what’s going to make the great leaders of today and tomorrow it is actually the sub-skills the very thing that we push towards the side is the thing we need to bring back. And so we’re very focused on and passionate about is bringing leaders to connect with their own purpose and then having the emotional intelligence to lead with purpose so they create fierce loyalty about between the people around them and all of their team members and their customers.

Jim Rembach:     Thanks for sharing that. I’m certified in emotional intelligence myself and I’ve been following this track and trying to become more aware and be better at being that one that does the connection and creates the rapport as a better awareness of self but let me tell you, growing up with three brothers in an area in Chicago that’s kind of rough I had some tendencies and behaviors that you weren’t necessarily high in emotional intelligence. I didn’t develop those early it didn’t come till later in life. So how do you actually help leaders that have had some early hardwiring in the wrong direction kind of redo themselves? 

Dov Baron :     It’s a great question Jim and the answer to it is actually right back to what you just said. In my experience most of the people who get to a leadership position have had some of wrong wiring. The positive side of it is that it’s created a drive in them that’s allowed them to move into a leadership position but they’ve got some rough edges around that and a lot of leaders tend to see things as this is the way, it’s the only way, it’s my way, and if you don’t do it my way it won’t work. Today’s leaders can’t do that anymore you can’t lead millennials who are now 38% of the workforce in that way/ So, one of the things that we do is we say, what you’ve already got is magnificent now let’s polish that let’s polish the diamond and bring forward the other skills that are waiting underneath because those rough edges is there to protect you they were appropriate at one point in time but they may no longer be necessary.

Jim Rembach:     Thanks for putting it the way that you did it makes total sense. We also talked about folks when you think about career progression they will hit a ceiling if they don’t exercise this different area within there within their potential skill sets if it hasn’t been developed in order to get into that next level and it typically happens about, you know your mid-40. So your technical skill and ability and knowledge of the particular business that you’re in or the job that you’re doing will help you get to a position of authority but you’re going to get smacked in the head if you don’t now switch and actually become better at those emotional intelligence skills. 

Dov Baron :     Absolutely right Jim. Of course if you’re going to be good at what you do then you have to be technically good at what you do there’s no doubt about that you’ve got to have the skill set to do it. But at some point in time you’re going to have to interact with others and if you’re going to lead you’re going to have to lead others. And if you don’t have the emotional intelligence skill set, if you’ve not worked on understanding how to have compassion and empathy and communication skills if you’ve not worked on some of those things, if you don’t have self-awareness and you don’t have awareness of others you’re going to fall very flat your face very quickly.

Jim Rembach:     So, for me one of the things that attracted me to you initially without even getting any exposure to your particular work was this whole concept of Full Monty leadership. To me I don’t know if you have the copyright infringement or anything on that area but I think to me it’s just totally brilliant to put it into that context. How did you come up with that and share with people what it is? 

Dov Baron :     I’d love to share that. Actually it came out it in a conversation with one of my mentors. We were talking about a marketing guy working for me who constantly struggled with how to best say what it is that I do. This mentor and I was having a chat and we were talking about the movie Full Monty and if you’ve seen the movie you know it’s about a bunch of financially struggling northern English guys who decide to compete with the Chippendales who are these young hot guys. And so these guys are also going to take their clothes up because they figure, well a lot of people show up give money. Well of course they’re in awful shape and they don’t look great they can’t dance so nobody showing up. So they’re looking for this queen of differentiation that will make them stand out. And what is the point of differentiation? Well they take everything off they go Full Monty which is a British term, they go Full Monty they take it all off. And when we were discussing the point of differentiation in the work that I do with leaders is showing them the value the impact of vulnerability, how powerful that is for bonding people to you. That vulnerabilities we’ve been trained to believe that it’s a weakness but it’s actually the most powerful strength you can have. And that when you reveal it all, again you do so with the sermon but when you reveal it all it actually bonds people to you rather than pushing them away from you. And I get that it’s an extremely scary thought for many old school leaders. 

Let me give you a little way to play with this for a moment so you can grasp it. I want you for a moment to think about somebody who is a trusted friend, somebody who is a really loyal trusted friend on one side, put them in your mind on one side and on the other side of your mind let somebody else you’ve known equal amount of time are just an acquaintance. What is the difference between those two people? You can’t say its time anymore because you’ve known them as long as each other. So what is the difference? And the answer is that a trusted friend has seen beneath the covers. You have revealed to them who you are beneath the mask. You’ve stripped away and reveal the weaknesses, the struggles, the challenges and they’ve done the same with you. And that’s what has actually created the bond between you. That is what you want with your leadership team. That’s what you want with the people that you are leading and guiding is you want to do that because today more than ever the number one challenge facing major organizations and small business alike is the ability to keep people loyal to them. If they don’t feel an emotional bond to you they’re going to take off pretty damn fast.

Jim Rembach:     I think that’s a great point. I was actually having a conversation with somebody the other day about employee engagement and she was wearing the badge of lean operation on her chest like it was something great but yet we’re talking about an employee engagement problem and the way that she was wearing that badge is when I started talking to her about some of the activities that I was referring to in order to help them improve engagement. She says, well is that going to require them to take time to do that? I’m like, “well yes.” And she says, “but we’re in lean operation” and I’m like, “and you have an employee engagement problem, if you don’t give your people the opportunity to interact and engage become vulnerable share those things you’re never going to overcome your engagement problem.

Dov Baron :     It’s very interesting isn’t it? Because you’ve just pointed out the great paradox which is we want a lean mean operation that it’s not high cost and we want employee engagement. And I got news for you, it’s a simple rule of Finance, you have to invest in order to get gains. And what people want in many organizations is they want to get a payout without doing the investment and the root of any business, I don’t care what business you’re in it’s not relevant just take a look the root of any business is your people. 

For decades we’ve said, my most important asset is my people, yet you don’t treat them that way as a leader this is so often the case. We need to step back and recognize that our people are our greatest asset and we need to invest in that asset because when we invest in them they will invest in engagement with the company. And remember disengagement are around 73% and what does that mean it mean? It means actually that active full engagement is actually globally only at 13%. That means that 13 out of a 100 people who work for you are actively engaged with your company the rest are either disengaged or actively disengaged which means poisoning people against your company. You better move those numbers up because it can make you go bankrupt.

Jim Rembach:     And I think too it puts in a context to where what we’re talking about a moment ago is that in order for the Full Monty and people get to the point to where they do the Full Monty it doesn’t happen quickly so you know you have to create the mood and the environment for them to get vulnerable and be able to share and make those connections and that’s an investment too. 

Dov Baron :     Well you know you just said that is really important it’s a progression and what does that mean? We have a model that we show it’s a (11:45 inaudible) model. And one of the central pieces around there is something called safety, this is the boundary that holds things together you can’t be vulnerable if you’re not safe. We all understand in order for you to succeed in business today you have to be incredibly innovative. You’re now seeing on everybody’s mission statement, we strive to innovate blah, blah, blah, but you know what? If you don’t create an environment for innovation, it won’t take place. What is an environment for innovation? It’s safety, its emotional safety. I’m going to know that I’m not going to get dumped on because you don’t like my idea. I got to know that it’s emotionally safe for me to show up and make a mistake. I got to know that it’s allowable for me to show my humanity and that you’ll show me yours as a result and that creates an environment, that creates innovation, growth and engagement. 

Jim Rembach:     I think that’s so true and I don’t think people really see how those are interrelated and interconnected and that if you want greater innovation you have to allow your people to be able to connect with one another. Because we all know—I don’t care it’s beyond intuitive we all know that when we work in collaboration and in concert with one the output is significantly greater than when we are working by ourselves. 

Dov Baron :     You got it. 

Jim Rembach:     So, how do we get to that point? It is the vulnerability piece. It is the no discovery piece. It is the safety of being able to fail piece it’s all those particular components. 

Dov Baron :     And we got to be willing to embrace that. And again I understand that it’s difficult for somebody who is a baby boomer even a gen X’er, Millennials though as I said they are 38% of the workforce, you’ve got to understand that’s what they want. So, whether you’re comfortable with it or not, I’m sorry I don’t mean to be rude, but nobody cares it’s not even relevant. If you want to be in business and if you want to lead you’ve got to learn to get comfortable with this. Because Millennials have the greatest bullshit meter in the world and if they don’t feel connected to you as a human being, they feel like you’re all about your title they will walk away. 

When I entered into the workforce I was asked, what do I want to do? That was a 20 to 40-year question. When Millennials enter the workforce, when they’re thinking about their career it’s a 4-year question ten times less, four years, they’re looking to change careers. If you can’t keep them in your company you’re not getting the ROI on the training and development and you’re going to spend between 1.5 and 2 times the annual salary of every individual on their training and development. What does that mean? It means if you don’t keep them for 1.5 to 2 years you don’t have any ROI. So, the part of the work that we risk is getting the people to stay for four years doubles your investment. And if you can bond them to you they will also become evangelical and that’s what you want, you want your people to become evangelical so they’ll bring other good people into the company as well. So you’ve always got these great pool of high talent, top talent people working with you, working for you and becoming evangelical for what it is that you do because they believe in you the leader because they get to know you the human being. 

Jim Rembach:     Yeah, and I think what you just did right there is put in a very tangible metric upon emotions. And a lot of people will say that, “well, that’s all the soft stuff there’s no hard figures and my reply to that is that it’s because you don’t know how to calculate it.” 

Dov Baron :     You know what Jim that’s a great point. So, a big piece of our work, central basin in this model, the central pin is purpose. And people go, “Well you know that’s really nice concept. I really actually quite like it but I just don’t see how it will impact my business.” So, as an example we’re talking about looking at the numbers and looking at the matrix, let’s think about a book you’re probably familiar with it which is called, Good to Great. Good to Great is a book that was written by Jim Collins and his partner back in ’94, not last week not last year ’94 and they were particularly fascinated by this idea that what is it that takes a company to be top in the Fortune 500? How do they get that? In that research what they discovered was that 83% of the companies that make it to Fortune 500 drop off into irrelevance within 15 years. They were fascinated by what is it? What’s the difference? What is it that gets the company knowing that it just got to the top but to stay there when others fall away. And guess what? They found that the companies that made it to the top and stayed there for multiple generations were all valued based, purpose driven organizations. What does that mean? They were all focused on the soft skills. So when you’re looking at the matrix, the measurement of that, that’s something you really want to pay attention to. If you want to get to the top you will need the soft skills. Like you said earlier at some point in time you’re going to hit the wall because your hard skills won’t be enough. 

Jim Rembach:     It just going to happen it’s inevitable. One of the things when we’re starting to talk about all of this is that it could be filled with a lot of emotion and inspiration. And we look at quotes on the Fast Leader show to help us move onward and upward faster, is there a quote or two that you can share?

Dov Baron :     There’s a ton of quotes, if it’s okay I’d actually like to share one of mine because I think it just brings this home and what we’re saying. I don’t want to sound egoically but it’s not meant that way and it’s just this, “Hard skills may get you there but it’s the soft skills that will keep you at the top and make sure that when you get to the top you’re not there alone.” And I think that that’s something that I just want to drill into every leader’s brain. You’ve got to do that. Branson said, I can’t remember the exact quote but Branson said, “The companies of the future that are going to outshine and outdo their competitors are the purpose driven organizations.”

Jim Rembach:     And without a doubt. You’re talking about that younger generation they’re looking for purpose first not pay. 

Dov Baron :     Well, we as baby boomers look at that next generation. We think that we want to give them a rise, give them more money, give them a corner office, they don’t give a crap about those things what they care about is meaningful work. What is meaningful work? Working for a company who is purpose –driven so that they can align their purpose where it’s meaningful, that matters. 

Jim Rembach:     Absolutely. You and I have had the opportunity to chat previously and we’re kindred spirits in a lot of ways as I jokingly say, I think we’re brothers from another mother. And so like me I’m sure you’ve had a lot of humps to get over, is there time that you can share with us when you’ve had to get over the hump and it made a difference for you?

Dov Baron :     Hump? Now that would be a gross understatement. Jim, 1990 I was at the top of my career. I’ve been speaking for six years at that point in time and in June, 1990 I came back from a speaking, so I was pretty exhausted. My speaking managers told me that she’d given me four days off and I went up to a place called Whistler, which many of you might be familiar with it was home of the Winter Olympics in 2010. My buddy and I went up there it had been a really wet spring but it was a gorgeous day. We spent that late morning and early afternoon sunbathing by the lake and in the afternoon decided we were going to go for hike to a place called Brandywine Falls, which is this majestic place it’s amazing, glacial water rushes off the glacier down this twisting river and then plummets off the edge of a 200-foot drop cliff onto the boulders below, it’s stunning.  We hike down the bottom, being a bit of a lunatic as I was a bit of an adrenaline junkie, I challenge my buddy to go behind the waterfall to hiking face the spray 70-miles an hour get behind that we did it. I came on the other side I felt like I was Superman, I could do absolutely anything. And so I challenge my buddy, I said, “Why don’t we—you said a hike, let’s free climb. Now some of your listeners may be familiar with mountain climbing, it involves ropes and safety harnesses and all kinds of those kinds of good stuff and some people think it’s crazy, well, maybe not. Free climbing on the other hand is climbing without any of that stuff but at least you have the right shoes and the right clothing and chalk. 

If you want to take that into the go from the moderately insane to the fully completely nuts, you could try to free climb in wet clothing and wet shoes, that’s what we began to do. For those of you watching, listening you probably have lived in a high-rise or gone to a high-rise and you may have come to the 6th floor. Imagine yourself walking out onto the balcony of 6th floor and there’s no railing looking over the edge, if you’ve got problem with heights your legs might get a little bit wobbly, if you don’t have problem with heights you think it’s okay but you wouldn’t want to land from that. So now let’s take it from 6th to 7 to 8 to 10  to 12 foot stories up, 120 feet looking over that edge that’s the height I was at as I reach for a rock that dislodged the bigger rock and knock me down sending me hurtling to the boulders below and smashed me to pieces. Khalil Gibran, one of my favorite poets and philosophers said, “Your pain is the cracking of the shell of your understanding.” And on that day my understanding got shattered and that send me backwards in every possible way you can imagine. From being at the top of my career to nothing, to being literally shattered to pieces. So, yeah, there was a little bit of a hump. 

Jim Rembach:     Dov, the question is how did you survive and then what is survival even look like in those first few months? 

Dov Baron :     You know it’s interesting because there are two dominant questions. Every time I tell the story there’s always two questions that comes up in one form another. One is, what was it like to fall? I don’t know. Because as I reach for a rock 120 feet it dislodge a bigger rock and knocked me unconscious, may have saved my life. Second question is, people say, what did you learn? Or how did it change you? Some version of that question seems to be universal because we all get it at a deep level that there’s something we know that if you have a life-threatening event something about you changes you’re brought back to something. That recovery physically was brutal as you can imagine but emotionally it was far tougher because I looked okay, about ten reconstructive surgeries, I looked okay probably within five, six, seven months but the emotional recovery was far longer it was brutal. And all the time I remember, I’m a tough kid from the ghetto I’m a leader so I’m not going to show anybody. I’ve got a bull this whole idea of never showing any vulnerability so I hide all that. You ask me, how are you doing? I’m great, I’m coming back.  

There is no back, you can’t come back you have to recreate. It was about 18 months that I fell on the floor in a heat and I found myself in the fetal position, bawling feeling devastated, feeling like I’ve lost everything at a soulful level and it brought me back to that place. And I would challenge each of you to remember this there is a voice within you it is very often a whisper but it’s telling you what your purpose is. It has your question and that thing you’re doing is right and makes logical sense but there’s something underneath that goes, you know what you’re a little bit off this just a tweak you’ve got a turn and it’s the call to your greatness. And that I needed to fall and get smashed to pieces to actually shut the heck up and listen, that’s what it did for me that was the turning point of my life. Not the fall, 18 months later in listening. 

Jim Rembach:     I’m glad you’re able to get your way up and out of that because you’ve definitely made a significant impact and I think just you sharing that story and the way that you shared and the way that you drew us in is a reason why you survived. 

Dov Baron :     Thank you so much. Thank you.

Jim Rembach:     I know you got a lot of things going on, grand kids, travel, of course your work and I know you’re still quite active from an athletic perspective you still like to do things as far as taxing your personal body. But what are some your goals?

Dov Baron :     My goals in a grand sense or in the little sense? In the little sense, we’ve got things that we’re releasing like we’ve got a new leadership course coming out, our goal is to get out there and to get a certain number of people to go through that and experience it. Of course, those kinds of goals. But my goal is always the same which is around my purpose. My purpose is to facilitate the purpose of others to allow them to bring up forward so they can really have rich, successful, and fulfilling lives having impact on others. I give you the goal as it came to me in clarity. Many years ago, for many years I owned a personal development company seminar company, and at the end of these five-day events which were 16 hours long people were very gracious they’d thank me. 

And we would say thank you and I would always answer with one simple question, for what? Because people like to be general and I want to make them specific because that allows them to get it. This one lady stood in front of me she said, “I want to thank you” and I said, “For what?” She took a pause, and I said, “Okay,” and she said, “For my grandchildren.” And I said, “For your grandchildren? That’s interesting, what do you mean? Your grandchildren are not here” she goes, “No, my daughter is here and you’ve changed my relationship with her and she’s pregnant and you will inevitably by virtue of what I’ve learned changed the relationship with my grandchild.” And it was at that moment that I got what I’m doing and what I’m doing is not about the direct impact in the moment but the ripple effect. So as you listen to this, I hope that you’ve been shifted in some way and brought closer to your own purpose and as a result of that that will impact the lives of the people you lead and your family and that is my goal.

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

Dov Baron : I’m ready. 

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

Dov Baron :    What’s holding me back personally? Just stepping further into courage. It’s all about courage, even more courage.

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

Dov Baron :    Tony Robbins said to me, “Who’s on your team? I said, I don’t know what that means? And he really explained to me that I needed a team and he was damn right.

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

Dov Baron : One of my secrets without doubt is compassion.

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

Dov Baron :    The willingness to see the greatness in others. 

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’ll put a link to your book on the show notes page?  

Dov Baron :    Thank you for (28:08 inaudible) which is mine, but the book I would recommend is the one we spoke about which is of course Good to Great by Jim Collins. 

Jim Rembach:    Okay, Fast Leader listeners you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going too fastleader.net/dovbaron. Okay Dov, 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?

Dov Baron :    I would take back the knowledge that it’s not always about the direct impact it’s about noises have to be forced, that ripple effect. Because the reason why is because I would often get deflated and I would lose my juice when I wouldn’t get the impact right away what I would actually get was—maybe even some negativity and I began to realize that the real shift is not always right in that moment but the people who went out to say thank you that’s wonderful but there are people who left the room whose names I will never know whose lives got changed and that’s what’s important. That was whatever to remind myself, it’s what would give me the foundation to stay. You’ve got to live your purpose even if you don’t see the results immediately. 

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

Dov Baron :    Thank you my friend, I sincerely appreciate that. You can connect with me in all kinds of ways, Twitter @TheDovBaron, Facebook DovBaron Leadership and of course LinkedIn. You can also go to our main site which is fullmontyleadership.com and you can also find me on iTunes-Dov Baron Leadership loyalty tips—in you YouTube and a whole bunch of other places. 

Jim Rembach:    Dov Baron, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom, the Fast Leader Legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. 

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

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