Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future - Archive
The Episode Archive for Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future
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Monday Mar 06, 2023
Monday Mar 06, 2023
Guest: Rob Chesnut
Companies that do not think seriously about a crucial element of corporate culture and integrity that are destined to fail. As our workplaces are becoming more diverse, global, and connected, integrity matters more than ever. It requires leadership from the top, but it also requires that everyone in the company have a shared sense of what integrity means in their workplace and a strong, empowered voice to put that integrity into practice. Rob Chesnut joins the show to share his experiences and about his new book, Intentional Integrity: How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution.
Intentional Integrity: How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution
Rob Chesnut provides this blog, an excerpt adapted from his latest book, Intentional Integrity: How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution (St. Martin’s Press, 2020), and used with permission. You can purchase his book here. This blog is a companion to his podcast Intentional Integrity: How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution.
The primary guidance I have for those who find themselves having to work out appropriate consequences is: put on your ethics goggles and be intentional. At every stage of this process, every leader involved should strive for fairness and honesty and be able to understand how decisions come across not just to those involved but to other employees.
Let’s work through a fictional example that will ground some of these ideas. Milo has spent the last year working as a logistics manager for a family-owned furniture company with 150 employees. The company has a code of ethics that includes a $100 limit on gifts. Milo’s administrative assistant, who is the nephew of the owner, mentioned to his uncle that Milo accepted a pair of Stanley Cup playoff tickets worth $500 from a shipping partner.
Clearly, Milo broke a rule.
The owner calls Milo’s manager and learns that Milo is an excellent employee who has never had any other complaint lodged against him. Next, the owner talks to Milo, who says he realizes that he was supposed to read the ethics statement but he never got around to it. He relates that at his last company, there was no policy about gift limits, so he did not think to check when the tickets arrived. He apologizes and appears genuinely upset to learn that he violated this rule. Not only was Milo contrite, he offered to call the vendor who gave him the tickets and reimburse the value.
Milo screwed up here, no question. He was careless . . . but, far as I can tell, not devious. Based on these facts, I’d probably advise the owner to give Milo a stern verbal warning. I’d be sure to say if he did this again, there would be serious consequences. I’d reinforce that he must read the code of ethics. I would remind Milo that he should not retaliate in any way against his admin, who had every right and arguably a duty to report his violation. If he’s already used the tickets, Milo probably should reimburse the shipper and explain that he made a mistake, in part so that the furniture company is not seen as a partner where high-value gifts are expected or appropriate.
This may seem lenient. The company has every right to “throw the book” at Milo . . . but he seems like a very good employee who made a mistake. Demonstrating compassion and thoughtfulness in this case might create an opportunity for the owner to remind everyone to reread the code of ethics, and thus prevent more problems. There is no mandated confidentiality involved in a verbal warning, and so Milo and his admin can talk about what happened, and others who might have questions can raise them as well.
So, let’s call that scenario one. Now, let’s alter the facts a bit.
What if Milo gets angry and defensive when asked about the tickets? What if Milo’s admin says that this is the third or fourth time the shipper has sent Milo tickets for a sporting event or a concert and that he has warned him several times that accepting the tickets is a violation of company policy? What if Milo’s manager says that Milo suggested the company shift more business to this shipper . . . just a few days after the shipper sent him the tickets?
In the second scenario, the results of the investigation suggest that Milo has engineered a relationship with the shipping partner that is a conflict of interest. So here we have two identical offense reports, but the details elevate the second scenario to a much more serious level. They may suggest a deliberate bribe by an employee of the shipper, and they may be significant enough to warrant terminating Milo immediately.
Wow, harsh. Terminating an employee can be catastrophic for that individual, and it can hobble a work team. It should never be done lightly, but some offenses, like sexual harassment or fraud or bribery, are so serious that once you have established that they occurred, you must act decisively and signal that this is unacceptable behavior.
As Milo’s example shows, the facts and details always matter. Intentions are important. Mistakes are different from premeditated acts. Investigations must be fair and full, approached objectively.
In the corporate world, disciplining an employee for a code violation is a necessary part of the integrity process. And I’ll be honest: it’s my least favorite part. While it’s fun and energizing to write a code of ethics and feel like you are shaping a great company where everyone will be proud to work, it can be infuriating, frustrating, and sad when someone violates that code. Sometimes people, for a wide variety of reasons, can make consequential mistakes that cost them their jobs, put their families’ financial stability in jeopardy, and create a permanent stain on their reputations—and the company’s as well. But you have to respond, or your code will have no credibility. You’ll fail as a leader, and the people who follow the rules will suffer.
Adapted from Intentional Integrity: How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution by Rob Chesnut (St. Martin’s Press, 2020).
About the Author
Rob Chesnut is the Chief Ethics Officer at Airbnb, a role he took on in late 2019 after nearly four years as the company’s General Counsel. He previously led eBay’s North America legal team, where he founded the Internet’s first e-commerce person-to-person platform Trust and Safety team. He was the general counsel at Chegg, Inc. for nearly 6 years, and he served 14 years with the U.S. Justice Department.
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Guest: Steve Terrell
In our current world, businesses are operating in a constantly changing environment and leaders are facing situations they have never had to deal with before. Having a Learning Mindset, an attitude that predisposes you to be open to new experiences, to believe you can and will learn, and to intentionally grow and develop from your experience, and exercising the Learning Practices are essential to becoming an innovative leader in today’s highly chaotic environment. By doing so, leaders can create an ongoing positive cycle of learning and performance that creates better performance and higher levels of learning. Steve Terrell, President of Aspire Consulting, joins Maureen to discuss the Learning Mindset and the Learning Practices from his book Learning Mindset for Leaders.
A Learning Mindset is the One “Killer App” We All Need
This blog is provided by Steve Terrell, President of Aspire Consulting as a companion to his podcast Learning Mindset for Leaders: Leveraging Experience to Accelerate Development.
In Learning Mindset for Leaders, I have attempted to distil some of the knowledge and insights I have gained over my 30+ year career in leadership development, including the deep research into global leadership development I undertook while earning my doctorate in the field. Through this research, I sought to understand how global leaders learned and developed the important competencies and skills they needed to become effective global leaders. The essence of the research results is what I now call Learning Mindset.
Learning Mindset is the “Killer App” of learning, growth, and development through experience. It is the master competency, the one competency to “rule them all.” It is especially important that global leaders have a Learning Mindset during challenging or difficult situations because those are the very experiences that offer significant risks of failure as well as opportunities for personal and organizational development.
Leaders with a Learning Mindset who encounter difficult challenges have a strong tendency to create value from the crucible of negative experiences. As a result, they create their own virtuous cycle of learning and performance, enabling them to learn more from their experiences, which in turn results in
their being more resilient and performing better in VUCA conditions. This leads to achievement of better results and reinforces the importance and value of the Learning Mindset.
A Learning Mindset is an attitude that predisposes you to be open to new experiences, to believe you can and will learn, and to intentionally grow and develop from your experience. The dimensions of a Learning Mindset form essential capabilities for global leadership and bear directly on global leaders’ efficacy in a crisis. Believing in one’s own learning and growth potential enables global leaders to face new challenges with confidence, tempered with humility. Openness to experience allows them to take in a wide variety of information and to process it with an appreciation of its potential value. Being motivated, willing, and desiring to learn focuses global leaders’ energies and attention on grasping new problems and sensing new possibilities. Curiosity about others urges global leaders to wonder how people in other cultures approach the pandemic, what they can learn from different points of view, and make new connections based on new insights. An attitude of discovery and exploration energizes global leaders to investigate the challenges presented by the coronavirus dilemma. Perhaps most important of all, global leaders with a Learning Mindset engage in experiences with an intention and willingness to gain something positive from every experience, including – and sometimes, especially – extremely difficult, thorny, and dangerous experiences.
When global leaders enact a Learning Mindset they are better able to envision and reach for stability beyond the volatility; create space to reduce uncertainty; understand and simplify the complexity; and eventually find clarity for their organizations amidst the ambiguity.
If you’d like to learn more about Learning Mindset, you can order the book Learning Mindset for Leaders: Leveraging Experience to Accelerate Development from Amazon here.
About the Author
Steve Terrell, EdD, is the President of Aspire Consulting, a management-consulting firm that specializes in developing leadership capabilities needed for success. Aspire helps clients Turn Vision into Reality, by defining the leadership capabilities needed to successfully execute the strategy, and by designing and implementing development solutions that build the required capabilities. Steve is a leading expert on global leadership, learning from experience, and Learning Mindset. His book Learning Mindset for Leaders: Leveraging Experience to Accelerate Development is a widely-used resource for leaders and practitioners who want to expand their ability to learn from experience.
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Guest: Nashater Deu Solheim
Nashater Deu Solheim joins Maureen to share with our listeners how to use the power of psychology to get what we need from every interaction, while also maintaining positive, win-win team relationships. The hope is that we will walk away with new tips to inspire trust, easily navigate conflict, and create value every day—and that will help us gain traction and develop high-performing, fully engaged teams.
Grow as a Leader with These 3 Essential Psychological Skills
This blog is provided by Nashater Deu Solheim, Founder, and CEO of Progressing Minds, as a companion to her podcast The Leadership PIN Code: Unlocking the Key to Willing and Winning Relationships.
We’ve all had the experience of watching someone from the sidelines and admiring their leadership ability. Their skills are not always concrete, tangible, or observable from the surface. In fact, it is the subtle arts and nuances of what leaders do that makes it look so natural.
Some, of course, are natural-born leaders who are great with people. But great persuasion, influence, and negotiation can also be learned, and there is opportunity for you to learn the nuance of effective leadership as well. How do you, in a moment of leadership, translate all your expertise and knowledge towards positive engagement with your stakeholders or employees?
In a word, PIN: Persuasion, Influence, and Negotiation. Here’s why those three psychological skills are essential to your growth as a leader.
Persuasion
Persuasion is the process by which one person achieves their goal to change another person’s viewpoint or position on a matter. Persuasion is an everyday necessity for leaders. Persuasion is about closing the gap between you and your position and the other person and his position, which makes up a good deal of leaders’ time.
An engaged leader is curious in everyday interactions, asking the other party questions to establish their interest. Armed with answers, he can then start to challenge facts. Persuasion is often about guiding others to identify the gap between what they believe to be true and actual facts or likelihoods.
Parents do it with children. For example, when a child says, “I don’t want to jump off the diving board at the swimming pool.” The parent asks what he thinks will happen. “Well, I think I’m going to bang my chin on the board,” the child responds. The parent, in turn, explores the facts in the gap, pointing out that by standing at the end of the diving board, banging his chin is nearly physically impossible. The child is persuaded to change his perspective by drilling down into facts.
The psychologist Robert Cialdini has shown that humans are persuaded to another person’s point of view not by luck but by the manner and methods by which the persuader captures our motivations, interests, and what is valuable to us, thereby either motivating us or drawing us in towards the choices they would like us to make.
Effective persuasion is at the core of good business. Focusing on the needs, interests, and feelings of the other people in the room make it much easier to create a collaborative, energetic mindset. Reaching people isn’t necessarily about changing their mind. It’s about showing them that you understand theirs.
Influence
Influence is the power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways. Influence may seem ineffable, but it can often be traced to specific kinds of practices. In many cases, it’s the result of a person’s mindset, behavior, and conversation skills.
Influential people know how to ask effective questions, give clear responses, and steer conversation in a productive way. They know the power of body language and make an effort to put people at ease with their gestures and tone of voice. They also take the time to prepare, research the people they’re going to interact with, and take the time to learn about others’ cultures, interests, and goals.
Influential leaders have high-performing teams and respectful, cooperative, and collegiate rules of engagement. They have also built trust so deeply within their teams that they can challenge, handle conflict and differences of opinion, and use them to renew their agenda, goals and targets in a positive way.
There are some common errors that leaders make when it comes to cultivating influence. These errors can lead to dysfunctional work environments and can harm their relationships with clients. For example, positive influence comes from collaboration, not competition, but often, leaders focus on their own gains at the expense of others’ needs.
Another common influence error comes when leaders are reactive, not proactive. When they jump into tasks or make changes without ensuring that their key stakeholders or team members are committed, it can lead to conflict. Impulsive and unpredictable leaders will find it hard to establish trust among their employees.
Finally, rigid ways of thinking are bad for business. When leaders have a “know-it-all” attitude, adopt an “if it’s not broken don’t fix it” mantra, and hold a hierarchy-obsessed mindset, they often aren’t flexible enough to satisfy their clients and employees.
Negotiation
According to the Harvard Negotiation Project, negotiation is back-and-forth communication designed to reach an agreement, even though each party sometimes has conflicting interests. Negotiation is far more relevant to leadership than you might believe and not just in relation to contract, financial or commercial negotiations where there are rules to follow and margins to maintain.
In today’s world, negotiations between countries and political parties have huge business negotiations behind them with multiple aspects often related to defence, trade or access. Leaders negotiate with other people all the time.
Often, powerful leaders don’t think they should have to negotiate with their employees because people are employed to do what the leader asks. Yet negotiating is about creating the win-win in which the opportunity is framed. Yes, the employee may be obliged by virtue of their role to do the task, but creating a culture of willing collaboration rather than coerced delivery is the difference between an effective negotiating leader and an entitled one.
When looking at projects or negotiations, plan and strategize beyond reaching your goal. What potential scenarios could take place? What are the success factors versus failure factors? As in a one-minute leadership approach, make sure there’s no gap between what you want to communicate and what you’re actually doing. Much of this is anticipation and planning ahead for various scenarios.
Leaders fail at negotiating when they neglect the momentary check and balance of thinking before they speak and preparing before they act. On the fly is rarely a successful strategy unless you’ve over-rehearsed.
Great Leaders Rely on PIN Skills
As a leader, have you ever wondered why sometimes you get the traction you want with people and other times you don’t? It’s not luck—you must be able to persuade and influence those you lead to get results in a positive way.
PIN is the power of using psychology in business in order to have the positive impact and influence you need to motivate your team and peers. It also allows you to continuously negotiate with managers, stakeholders or adversaries to make real progress. Great leaders infuse PIN skills in everything they do to move their organizations forward with the willing participation of their teams, peers, and stakeholders to create the wins they need.
For more advice on persuasion, influence, and negotiation, you can find The Leadership PIN Code on Amazon.
About the Author
Dr. Nashater Deu Solheim brings a new toolkit to leadership development that is backed by decades of integrated experience in the areas of business and psychology. As a former forensic psychologist with clinical research in the neuropsychology of criminal minds, she developed a deep interest in effective learning strategies for lasting success. Now, as an expert negotiator who studied at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, Dr. Solheim has combined her experience as an executive leader in international private companies and government ministries to present The Leadership PIN Code, the definitive guide for helping business leaders secure influence and impactful results.
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Guest: Mitch Russo
Building a community around products and/or services is essential and when done properly can be immensely rewarding but leaders must take the time to do it correctly. Mitch Russo joins Maureen to discuss how leaders must spend the time to deeply understand what their tribe members want and need, then devise a way to give it to them, while providing a path to evolve individually and together as a group. Good leaders will stay focused on being a true leader and LEAD with vision, personality and purpose.
Revive Your Business — Shed Overhead, Thrill Your Clients and Boost Productivity
Mitch Russo provides this blog from his book Invisible Organization: How Ingenious CEOs Are Creating Thriving Virtual Companies ©2015 and used with permission. Mitch shares how leaders can begin the process and enjoy the benefits of a successful Invisible Organization, which embraces the work-from-home atmosphere. If you want to learn more, you can purchase his book here. This blog is a companion to his podcast, Building a Community Around Products and Services.
The whole world is moving in this direction. Your competitors may already be working virtually at some level. Some companies have tried and failed, others are succeeding and winning. You may already have a few people who work from home. That’s great, but it’s just a start. Transitioning to an Invisible Organization requires much more, and the rewards are much greater than you are aware of.
Why is it worth the effort to build an Invisible Organization? You can create more free time, higher profits, greater business success, and probably best of all, greater fulfillment for you and your staff. You might not realize it, yet the future of your very business may depend on it.
It’s not hard, but it does take determination and the willingness to rethink the way your company operates. The steps I provide are simple and direct regardless of what type of company you have or what industry you are in. I’ve done it myself, and I’ve helped others do it—with tremendous results. Now it’s your turn.
The goal of this book:
To get you into action quickly so that you can begin the process and enjoy the benefits of a successful Invisible Organization sooner rather than later.
The process will require you to master several new skills and strategies which will be the keys to unlimited business success. You’ll be challenged to find ways to become “invisible” in all areas of your company.
You’re going to evaluate every department, each staff member and every system you’re using now from a different perspective. You’ll discover ways to work more efficiently, and as a direct result, expand your business.
This process will take some time, but the cumulative results will be undeniable. You will create maximum results with minimum effort and cost.
Inevitably, this will enable you to increase your income.
When asked how they run their sales organization, some business owners might say, “We just pick up the phone, call a prospect and ask for the order.” That answer is no longer good enough. You need to break down exactly what it is you do into a series of steps that you follow with every single client or customer.
When you know exactly what it is your company is doing, you can tell a person exactly what it is you do with confidence. This leads to more business because people like systems. If they’re looking for someone to help them with a specific problem or service, they feel comfortable knowing that there’s a tried-and-tested series of techniques in place to get that job done.
Besides selling with confidence, good systems will make expansion easier and training more precise. They will let you build in and repeat successful processes. You can set up the training for your staff and track their results and improve them. You’ll know how long it takes to accomplish each action.
Once clearly defined systems are in place, you’ll then be able to easily discover ways to maximize your exposure with more effective marketing.
Your marketing system is a crucial piece of your business that will ultimately be generating income for you on its own. It will become a major component of your Invisible Organization.
The following chapters will share marketing techniques that go beyond the now-common Facebook and Google ads. These techniques will become huge profit generation systems when used in an Invisible Organization. If you already have great marketing systems in place and want to expand sales while cutting expenses, you are in the right place, too. I’ll show you how you can increase productivity and profits while improving the lifestyle of the CEO, the management team, and your staff.
How do I know this for sure? I did it myself. Now I want to help you do it as well.
As the CEO of Business Breakthroughs International, I built a multi-hundred-person organization spanning seven countries and with over 10,000 clients. We doubled our business three years in a row and managed twelve divisions, seven of which had their own Profit and Loss Statement and were profitable. At its peak we generated over $25 million in revenue per year with over five hundred clients every month. On average we had more than fifty working coaches and nearly 100 salespeople, all of them working from the comfort of their own homes. We didn’t own a single copy machine, and yet anyone who dealt with us thought we occupied a huge facility with a lot of parking spaces.
The company started as Chet Holmes International and evolved into Business Breakthroughs when Tony Robbins became our joint venture partner.
We collectively assisted thousands of companies with high-level consulting services, coaching and education. I created several new divisions, all profitable almost from day one.
I ran the entire organization as President and CEO from a home office, my spare bedroom converted to a workspace. It was comfortable, easy to work from, and it saved me countless hours and dollars I would have spent maintaining a professional, outside facility. Even though my personal assistant was 2,000 miles away, we functioned as a great team.
Before that, I was a CEO consultant and a venture investor. In that role, I saw hundreds of business models and directly participated in several as an operating executive.
Back in 1985, I built, ran, and sold the most popular time accounting software company ever built called Timeslips Corporation. At one point, Timeslips Corp had over 250,000 clients. We sold that business for over $10M.
With an Invisible Organization you won’t need the physical infrastructure you are currently using. Just imagine how much money you could save if you no longer had to pay for rent and utilities. Your first response may be, “That won’t work for our company.” But think about it. Wouldn’t it be a great way to boost profits and create leverage for your business if it were possible?
How much money could you really save? Let’s take a look.
A small architect’s office in Ashland Massachusetts has 12 employees. One is the CEO, another the bookkeeper, another is receptionist, and there is one tech to support the infrastructure. The remaining eight are engineers and draftsman. They have a 4,000-square-foot office space with a conference room, a reception area, and ten individual offices. After understanding their concerns about maintaining their “presence” in the area, I recommended the following, as their lease was up for renewal:
Current Monthly Costs:
Rent at $32/SqFt: $10,666
Electricity $816
Gas for Heat $437
Leased Servers Onsite $2,850
Custodial $300
Coffee Service $195
Snacks $150
Phone System Lease $532
Internet $450
Phone Service $295
Property and Facilities Insurance $310
Total: $17,001 per month
After the CEO decided it was time to become “invisible,” most of these costs were eliminated. The company downsized to an 850-sqare-foot office, which allowed the CEO to maintain his presence with the receptionist. This included a full conference room and two guest workstations with the equipment the company already owned.
The CEO returned his leased server to the leasing company and signed a contract for a cloud-based server, eliminating 3/4 of the company’s monthly expenses (and that included new equipment at his hosting company every two years with 24/7 tech support and backup). He sent his entire engineering staff home and gave them each $75 a month to pay for their Internet fees. They were delighted to save money on fuel and lunches, plus they were happy that they didn’t have to commute an average of 80 minutes anymore.
After going invisible, the company’s monthly costs were:
Rent at $36/SqFt $2,550
Electricity $327
Gas for Heat $196
Coffee Service $48
Snacks $54
Internet $250
Phone Service $96
Property Insurance $144
Remote Server Lease $650
Added Internet for Staff $750
Total: $5,065 per month
That’s an $11,936-per-month savings—about $143,232 per year— because they converted from a physical location to a virtual organization. Besides the savings, everyone loved working from home, except one engineer who didn’t have the self-discipline and had to be let go. As a result productivity soared, the quality of work increased dramatically, and people were logged into their servers from home at all hours of the day and night, willing to work extra if needed without complaint.
Just imagine how much you would save on office furniture, partitions, phone sets, phone systems, and in most cases, even the cost of computers. Since you won’t maintain any of your own hardware anymore, you will no longer need a tech support person. Instead you’ll rely on your cloud system’s provider for help.
In the above example, profits soared and staff became more productive even before we started implementing the really cool stuff: interconnecting all their systems, building their document vault, and creating their automated training environment. That’s the next step, and that’s where your world will change when it comes to scalability.
Today’s cutting-edge systems will open doors you didn’t even know existed. Even if you own a manufacturing plant, or operate a medical center, or need manual labor, there are still certain departments that could operate virtually. When you have the proper training systems in place with clear policies and procedures, you can send your sales and administrative team home while watching their productivity increase. They will be happier and will keep more of their net pay.
It’s best to transition gradually. Start with just a few people to get used to how it works. Then begin to migrate, and watch the magic happen. Everything I’ve discussed in this book can be done without physical infrastructure.
The Invisible Organization by Mitch Russo © 2015
About the Author
Mitch is the author of the bestseller The Invisible Organization: How Ingenious CEOs are Creating Thriving, Virtual Companies, which is the CEOs guide to transitioning a traditional brick and mortar company into a fully virtual organization. It became an instant bestseller on Amazon across several categories. He cofounded Timeslips Corp, which grew to become the largest time tracking software company in the world before it was sold in 1998. Then, Mitch went on to join longtime friend Chet Holmes as President, later to join forces with Tony Robbins and together created Business Breakthroughs, International with nearly 300 people and about 25 million in sales. Mitch says, Make it Happen and he's doing that with yet another great company he founded, called PowerTribes. His websites are MitchRusso.com and PowerTribes.net.
To connect with Mitch Russo, email: mitch@mitchrusso.com.
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Guest: Marcia Reynolds
There is no more time to put it off – you have to have that uncomfortable conversation. Marcia Reynolds joins the show to help you turn resistance into a productive result. You will learn how to mentally prepare for your conversation as well as what to do while you are in it. No matter if you are wearing the hat of leader, parent, or friend, you will gain the confidence and tips you need to hold your next difficult conversation!
9 Types of Silence and the Impact of Each
Marcia Reynolds writes this blog. as a companion to her podcast Difficult Conversations That Get Positive Results as a part of the WBECS (The World Business & Executive Coach Summary) podcast series.
When you choose how to use your silence, you have the opportunity to align with, shift, and possibly transform the thinking of the person you are with. You must consciously choose how you are holding your stillness. Some of the 9 types of silence can hurt your connection with others more than help it.
For example, choosing not to speak when your brain is full of chatter is a kind of silence that can be disruptive. You aren’t present. You are biting your tongue until you can state what is on your mind. Others feel your impatient energy. They may yield the floor to you knowing you have something you are anxious to share or they may just avoid eye contact with you to keep you silent.
When in a conversation, especially a difficult one, you want to be aware of the silence you are holding. Is your silence alert and full of curiosity? Or are you just waiting to end what you think is a dead-end discourse? Are you open to receiving what your partner is expressing so you can share what you see and hear for clarification? Or are you just waiting for the opportunity to state your opinion?
9 Types of Silence and How You Use Them
Novelist, poet, playwright, and psychotherapist Paul Goodman identified 9 kinds of silence in his classic book, Speaking and Language.¹ Here is his list with my interpretation of how the silence might impact your conversations.
Dumb silence of slumber or apathy. Do you have nothing to say because you don’t care? Their words are bouncing off you like a wall.
Sober silence that goes with a solemn animal face. Have you given up being a part of the conversation and just listening because you feel you have to? You may feel like a prisoner until you are released.
Noisy silence of resentment. The judgment you have for the speaker is so loud in your head you don’t hear what is being said.
Baffled silence of confusion. You aren’t sure of the intention of the conversation, the meaning of the words, or the direction the story is going. You are reluctant to say anything because the speaker might not take your feedback well.
Musical silence that accompanies absorbed activity. Whether you are alone or with others, you are so immersed in what you are doing that it feels as if the world is silent around you.
The silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos. The science of awe and wonder reveals a beautiful combination of peace and curiosity when we feel a sense of oneness with what we see. We quietly accept the unknown but want to know more.
Fertile silence of awareness. What is being revealed has your head spinning. Are the thoughts arising from what you are curious about now or from what you think you now know? Observations and questions arising from your curiosity can further the conversation. Sharing what you think you now know might shut it down.
Alive silence of alert perception. Are you noticing everything in your visual sphere? Acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton said, “Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything.”
The silence of listening to whole person you are with. When you are silent but focused on the other, you can catch the drift of their meaning from their words, their expressions, and the energy they radiate. This is how you cultivate non-reactive empathy. You not only understand their experience, you are then able to reflect what you hear and notice to help the other person assess their thinking. This is an alive silence but not intrusive. This is the silence most useful to effective coaching and leadership conversations, and probably parenting as well.
Can You WAIT?
There is an acronym used in training for many years, WAIT – Why Am I Talking? Whether you are speaking out loud or you are allowing your brain to fill your head with words, ask yourself if silence would be more useful and what type of silence you want to hold.
Kahlil Gibran wrote in his 1923 classic The Prophet, “There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.” You can help people feel connected with your silence. They will come to feel safe with you, willing to reveal what is on their minds that they do not understand. Your curiosity and care can help them come to a new understanding filled with possibility. Gibran called this way of being with people, “rhythmic silence.” I believe this silence is what we hold when we are practicing Coaching Presence.
Alive, focused silence is a skill we can all develop. Find a moment to practice today.
Want to hear more from Marcia and other great coaching speakers? You can take part in the month-long 10th Annual World Business and Executive Coach free Pre-Summit by signing up here.
About the Author
Dr. Marcia Reynolds, president of Covisioning LLC, is endlessly curious about how humans learn and grow. She found coaching to be the best technology we have for accelerating the process of change. She has coached and trained leaders and coaches in 41 countries and has presented at the Harvard Kennedy School, Cornell University, and The National Research University in Moscow. Dr. Reynolds is a pioneer in the coaching profession. She is a founding member and 5th global president of the International Coach Federation. She returned to the board for two years in 2016 where she focused on credentialing requirements and strengthening relationships with coach training schools. She is the Training Director for the Healthcare Coaching Institute and on faculty for the International Coach Academy in Russia and Create China Coaching in China. Global Gurus recognizes her as one of the top 5 coaches in the world. Dr. Reynolds has published 5 books.
¹ Paul Goodman, Speaking and Language: Defence of Poetry. Random House, 1972. Out of print but you might find it in your local public or university library.
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Guest: David Nour
For most people and businesses, growth is linear, but some relationships can dramatically change our direction and ultimate destination - these are the Curve benders. How does strategic business relationships enable business model innovation? How does unplanned events such as COVID-19 become an impetus to rethink, reimagine, if not reinvent key parts of your business? How is agile alignment critical for leaders to balance speed and agility with patience to make the best decisions possible with their available data? David Nour joins Maureen to discuss these pressing questions leaders are facing in our rapidly changing environment.
Curve Benders: The Intersection of the Future of Work and Strategic Relationships
This blog is provided by David Nour, CEO of The Nour Group as a companion to his podcast Curve Benders: The Intersection of the Future of Work and Strategic Relationships.
During times of uncertainty, we begin to question ourselves. We wonder if we are on the right path, are we accelerating in our leadership, or do we have all the education and experiences we need to succeed as a leader? Instead of throwing this time to the wind, the global pandemic could be used to assess our value and emotional investment.
Just like Walmart or Apple, each of us should be thinking of our perceived market value. There are essential areas that you need to focus on to make sure you are at the highest value. At a time where global jobs are at risk for significant cutbacks or replacement by accelerated technology such as automation and AI, many leaders are in a global war against obsolescence. That's why you need to attend to all three areas of your personal market value: people, personal, and professional.
Core Ring: People
Your central ring is founded on people you can't live without: your friends and family. The core of your social sphere needs to be composed of individuals who provide a loving home and a stable social life. If your home life is unstable and disruptive, it will show up in how you lead at work. It will stifle your creativity, innovative ideas, and problem-solving with and through your team. However, when your core group is a loving ecosystem of close friendships, deep partnerships, and rich family interactions, it will provide you with the foundational support to accomplish any stress in your leadership style.
Having a nurturing infrastructure builds our leadership resilience. Many top leaders we admire confess that their success is often credited to their nurturing family and spouse.
Choose wisely who you spend your downtime with. It's better to be surrounded by fewer authentic friendships with equal emotional investment than to be surrounded by 100 acquaintances who, frankly, don't care about what you're doing. The world and our leadership obligations naturally put pressure on us, and if we don't have a solid foundation to stand on, it is a struggle to get ahead. If this is an area you think you need to pay more attention to, actively elevate it.
Second Ring: Personal
No pandemic, economic crisis, or war can take away your investments in your personal development as a leader. Crisis or not, we are at a time where we are living longer: the United Nations projects that the average life will be 95 for women and 90 for men. That means we don't just have longer lives; we are working longer too. Every leader, regardless of their tenure should be investing in his/her life-long education, spiritual grounding, and unshakable values. These are developments that are immediately in your control. Industries will always develop and evolve; therefore, life-long learning will be mandatory.
When we continue our leadership education, it will show us how to adapt and upgrade to the ever-changing framework we live by. No one this time last year would have expected we would be predominately if not exclusively working from home. Many who have thrived during this time have prioritized upgrading their digital infrastructure and mastering new remote leadership tools such as digital whiteboards.
That openness also expands to our spiritual selves. Whether you prescribe to an organized religion or consider yourself curious, we need to have personal spiritual grounding to believe in something more than ourselves.
When you focus on these non-negotiable values, they become guardrails for future direction and keep you in your preferred lane.
Third Ring: Professional
The final ring of your personal market value is the professional sphere. This is seen as your acumen: how you blend your knowledge and skills in the manner which you lead. Your past actions and expertise will inform your future decisions and problem-solving accurately. You will be better at cutting and adjusting productivity, revenue, and costs. This business acumen allows you to see the bigger picture, evaluate available options, and confidently make high-grade options. This is also leadership by modeling the business behaviors you want to see in others.
Your ability to focus on a few, strategic priorities necessitates leading others toward a common mission, vision, or against a possible enemy. That's where your leadership presence comes into play. You want to captivate a room or a person. When you have them on the edge of their seat, you have honed your gravitas. Aspire to be measured with your language, hold yourself confidently, and command the right kind of servant leader attention. These individuals don't throw around SAT words and leave their audience confused; they are succinct and careful with their message, recognizing the incredible power of the verbal and written language.
Lastly, you must develop your emotional courage to lead. There will be situations where uncomfortable topics or feelings arise. You must be willing to experience feelings like discomfort, risk, and disappointment. But the true leaders are the ones who push through the discomfort and take charge of their emotional courage and compassionately have a conversation. If you're not willing to examine any of those things, you won't be able to handle anything.
Are you lacking in any of these three areas? Start from the core and work your way out. If you find yourself coming short in one spot, consider investing in your growth today.
About the Author
David Nour, a senior leadership/board advisor, educator, executive coach, and bestselling author, is internationally recognized as the leading expert on applications of strategic relationships in profitable growth, sustained innovation, and lasting change. The author of eleven books, including bestsellers Relationship Economics® (Wiley), and Co-Create (St. Martin’s Press), as well as the forthcoming Curve Benders (Wiley, 2021), Nour serves as a trusted advisor to global clients and coaches corporate leaders. He is an adjunct professor at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management and was named to the Global Gurus Top 30 Leadership Professionals list. A Forbes Leadership contributor on the Future of Work, and an Inc. contributor on Relationship Economics, Nour’s unique insights have been featured in a variety of prominent publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fast Company, Huffington Post Business, Entrepreneur, and Knowledge@Wharton. He’s also the host of the popular Curve Benders podcast.
Born in Iran, Nour immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager with $100, limited family ties and no fluency in English. He graduated from Georgia State University with a bachelor’s degree in business management and went on to earn an Executive MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University. He resides in Atlanta, GA, with his family. Learn more at www.NourGroup.com.
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Guest: Jack Modzelewski
Jack Modzelewski joins the show to share about his leadership experiences and his new book, Talk Is Chief: Leadership, Communication, & Credibility in a High-Stakes World . With compelling stories and strategies, this book inspires leaders and aspiring leaders to treat their daily communication practices as seriously as their fiscal, operational, value creation, deal making, business transformation, and other executive responsibilities.
Everyone’s Actions Matter – How Will You Participate in Positive Change?
This blog is provided by Dan Mushalko as a companion to the interview with Jack Modzelewski, Leadership, Communication and Credibility in a High-Stakes World.
Humanity sits unquestionably in transition. This is particularly true in the United States, which faces three simultaneous and intertwined crises: a wounded economy, a blistering pandemic, and dynamic social upheaval from racial inequality.
There simply is no going back to the old normal. This tumultuous trio weighs heavily on realities we’ve hidden and ignored for too long.
Change, then, is inevitable. Whether that change advances us or mires us in the past depends firmly on our leadership. Successful change depends on everyone participating in the change process. This has never been more true. We each get to take an active role and, more than ever before, our voice impacts the success or failure of the changes we are seeing. The phrase, “many hands make quick work” applies here. Where a group of people are working together, toward a common cause, the change effort is much easier.
From individual Facebook posts to mass-appeal pulpits of TV pundits, too many of us are reacting to that change with fear. Poor leaders divide us to amplify our fear, wielding it for power at the polls.
Fortunately, there's a science to change. Change is inevitable, so of course it's been studied. Biology and chemistry, chaos theory and game theory – much of science rests squarely on the universe’s need for change. In business, this has resulted in the field of change management. From a broader organizational perspective, change is a vital part of survival. In biology, we see evolution and survival of the fittest. In business, similar principles apply. We hear them expressed as change or die. The same would be true of non-profits and political organizations.
If science and organizations thrive on change, where does all this angst come from?
Bluntly, fear of change is, in part, the result of bad leadership.
Short of Charles Dickens sending three ghosts to them in one night, our current crop of bad leaders won’t improve. That means it’s up to you to lead us through this change. We are in a time where the actions of each individual matter more than ever. Just calm one person. Allay their fear. All you need is one person helped to make a difference. It starts with you leading yourself. It doesn’t matter if you are a college student or a CEO, leadership always starts with yourself before you can effectively lead others.
How?
Try these steps:
Ask "why." Why is change happening? Why is it needed? How will it impact me?
Remember that (videos of throngs aside) real change is individual; it happens person by person. Your reaction matters.
Change is a choice. Ask them - What future would you choose? How can you help bring about a more positive, sustainable, and just future?
Keep in mind that much of the fear arises when people see change coming, but don't know how to deal with it in their personal lives or within their organizations.
Help them. From COVID to racism, explore why change is needed. Conflict feeds fear, so be calm and seek to understand. Compassion and empathy begin with you. You don’t need to agree or disagree, you can just listen and learn and reflect on what you are hearing before expressing your point of view.
Recalling how you have been successful at making personal and/or organizational change in the past can boost your self-confidence about your personal change journey.
Once you have managed your own concerns, share your personal success with others. How have YOU embraced change? How did you overcome the challenges you faced? Are you helping build personal or societal infrastructure so the change will be lasting and positive?
I believe in a positive future, one in which society helps every one of us become the best versions of ourselves. Understanding that change -- especially revolutionary change as we're undergoing now -- isn't intuitive. Positive change needs guidance from you.
About the Author
Dan Mushalko's professional life combined a short stint at NASA to a long ride in radio...with experiences often overlapping. Dan merges leadership, creativity, and science for people and organizations. The thread through it all: mixing creativity and leadership. Dan is a creative and innovative leader specializing in media management/leadership, creative concepts in audio, new communications technology, media analytics, creativity fostering and consulting, teaching, writing, and science.
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Guest: Dale Meyerrose
The Pandemic, Activism, and Workforce Dynamics due to Political Decisions are three of the top issues leaders of today’s organizations must be considering as each can have major implications on the organization if not handled properly. Dr. Dale Meyerrose joins me today to provide guidance to today’s leaders through some of the points leaders must be aware of when facing each of these three hot issues.
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Guest: Mary Lippitt
Developing leaders must be balanced between the internal aspect of improving style and skill sets and the external ability to read their environment and set smart priorities. Our changing environment requires constant monitoring, analysis, and adaptation. Mary Lippitt joins Maureen to discuss her book Situational Mindsets: Targeting What Matters When It Matters.
Situational Mindsets Decoding Current Complexity
This blog is provided by Mary Lippitt, author of Situational Mindsets: Targeting What Matters When It Matters, as a companion to her podcast Situational Mindsets: Targeting What Matters When It Matters.
In our multifaceted and dynamic world, doing the right thing at the right time is difficult. We cannot rely on our experiences to cope with new facts, realities, and challenges. To fully understand all aspects of our situation we must practice mental agility and situational awareness.
Our extraordinary time mandates a systemic, disciplined, and rigorous analysis of current realities. What we do not know can derail us. Facts matter and point the way to successfully leverage change.
Situational Mindsets provide a foundation for wise decision making. As we expand our point of view, we discover new solutions, spot potential barriers, and earn support. Using this framework, leaders discover alternatives, weigh options, and set priorities. The six mindsets examine all organizational drivers and prevent us from recklessly rushing into action in the name of being decisive.
As Obi-Wan Kenobi told us in Return of the Jedi, “You’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.” Grappling with every aspect, prevents us from capitulating to superficial analysis and out dated assumptions. Employing Mindsets yield creative and strategic insights essential to cope with precedent setting threats. Each Mindset explores a key organizational aspect, including:
The Inventing Mindset examines opportunities for new products/services, creative designs, and new synergies.
The Catalyzing Mindset targets the customer, customer base, and building the organization’s brand.
The Developing Mindset supports seamless infrastructure, integrated systems, and effective policies.
The Performing Mindset improves processes, quality, workflow efficiencies, and profitability.
The Protecting Mindset develops talent, collaboration, agility, trust, and bench strength.
The Challenging Mindset evaluates challenges, trends, risks, and opportunities for sustained success.
Examining these mindsets counter our natural tendency to rely on past practice, register only confirming information, and accept limited alternatives. While “keeping things simple” is tempting, easy answers spawn problems. Addressing complex, interdependencies, and systemic challenges does not require an advanced degree, membership in Mensa, or a C suite title. It merely entails adopting a proactive disciplined practice of inquiry to reveal solutions and potentially unpleasant surprises. Consider our missteps with COVID.
The pandemic requires granular and long-term analysis. Consider the unintended consequence of the $600 federal unemployment benefit. The need was clear, but the problem of re-hiring furloughed lower-wage workers who earned more on unemployment was unnoticed. Overlooking a mindset invites dangerous blind spots.
A Mindset approach to COVID would address:
Developing new treatments, medications, and vaccines. This Inventing Mindset offers innovation synergies to leverage existing resources and practices.
Targeting the needs of first responders and essential workers and rapidly responding to hot spots. This Catalyzing Mindset also focuses on enlisting resources, including volunteers and organizational support.
Improving hospital capacity, distributing PPE, preparing guidelines for government, and the public, sharing information, and setting goals. The Developing Mindset also clarifies goals, roles, and responsibilities.
Evaluating patient data, conducting testing, and measuring treatment effectiveness, and reallocating resources to address gaps. The Performing Mindset also examines impact, fine tunes staffing, budgetary impact, and quality.
Educating the public on compliance, providing for basic needs created by the virus, training contact tracers, and recognizing our essential workers. The Protecting Mindset also fosters trust, confidence, and community support.
Identifying emerging trends, testing assumptions, re-evaluating off-shoring of our medical equipment, and forecasting future episodes. The Challenging Mindset also examines the impact of demographic, economic, regulatory, and security challenges.
What we see on the surface is not all that counts. We must go beyond our initial response to study complex realities, surface diverse viewpoints, and define implementable solutions. Effective leaders have shifted from thinking they have all the right answers to knowing that their role is to ask all the right questions. Inquiry increases engagement and improves bottom-line results.
The founder of IBM, Thomas Watson, kept a sign on his desk that said: “Think.” He felt that analysis was crucial to the firm’s success and actually trademarked the word “THINK.” The connection between thinking and success continues. However, our approach to thinking must expand with a new emphasis on critical, creative, and strategic thinking.
Success is never final. We must continually adjust to new realities. Situational Mindsets clears the fog produced by complexity. Mindsets reveal what has happened, what is happening, and what should happen. It enables us to leverage unprecedented change effectively.
About the Author
Dr. Mary Lippitt founded Enterprise Management Ltd. thirty years ago to help leaders navigate today’s challenges, increase collaboration, and boost critical thinking. Her new book is Situational Mindsets: Targeting What Matters When It Matters. You can contact her at mlippitt@enterprisemgt.com.
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Friday Mar 03, 2023
Guest: Martin Lanik
Organizations must rethink how they identify future leaders – today’s practices are often influenced by unconscious bias and result in unintentional discrimination, leaving potentially more capable talent behind. If organizations fix the broken rung, people will be promoted based on merit, not gender or race, and diversity will be enhanced. Martin Lanik joins Maureen to discuss the comprehensive study of fairness in how organizations prepare the next generation of leaders.