Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Welcome to the Leadership window podcast with Dr. Patrick Jenks. Each week through a social sector lens, Patrick interviews leaders and experts and puts us in touch with trends and tips for leading effectively. Patrick is a board certified executive coach, a member of the Forbes Coaches Council, a best selling author, award winning photographer and a professional speaker.
And now here's Dr. Patrick Jenks.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Welcome to episode 160 of the Leadership Window.
I have not talked much about on this show about where the title the Leadership Window comes from. I thought I might do that and start welcoming our guests to the window and let's go through it together. So the Leadership Window. Just a quick Sally, you may really be interested in this because we're going to talk a little bit about defining leadership today. Among other things, the leadership Window comes from our definition of leadership at the leader's perspective, which is our coaching company.
So we define leadership as a window of opportunity during which vision, inspiration and empowerment converge to propel people toward a shared goal. So it's kind of a long definition and it's got its parts to it. But we call it a window of opportunity because our philosophy on leadership is leadership happens in moments and whether or not we seize those moments determines whether or not we are leading in that moment. So we can be, you know, we can be leaders by position and not be leaders by moment and vice versa. We can be leaders by moment without having position of authority or any of those things. So it's a window of opportunity. And this is why I like to, this is why I call the show the Leadership Window is it's an opportunity for leadership. It's an opportunity for me to lead as the host of the show, always for my guests to lead with influence and value contribution and it's a real chance for our listeners to lead by learning. Learning is a part of leadership.
And Sally will tell you that self care, which maybe she would include learning in that is is a part of leadership, a big part of leadership. So it's not just pointing people around and telling them what to do.
In fact, it's not that at all.
But that is what the Leadership window is and I should probably explain that more often on the show.
And coming to the Window with me today is Sally Mildren.
She is the, her company is Commonweal Marketing, not Commonwealth, but Commonweal marketing. Go to commonwealmarketing.com if you want to learn more about her marketing company.
Her work is really centered though on the human, in fact, human centered leadership and marketing. We're going to talk about how those two tie together she's got an online community and a podcast called the Leadership Cafe. So we go from the cafe to the window today and maybe one day we'll hit the cafe together. But the, the core message here for Sally is really about human centered leadership. And boy, in. In a world where there's a lot of confusion between management and leadership, and in a world of AI and virtual meetings, I don't think there could be a more important message, Sally, than this one. So I've been looking forward to this conversation and I want to say thanks for connecting with us and welcome to the Leadership Window.
[00:03:52] Speaker C: Well, thank you. I feel like I need to order a chai latte or something.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: Well, you've got something in your hand there that our viewers can't see, but that's all right.
[00:04:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: Chai latte at the window. Yes, that's true, that's true.
[00:04:05] Speaker C: That'll mix both our worlds.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Leadership Cafe, you're coming to us from western Montana, if I remember correctly. So it's a little bit earlier there than it is here. So, yeah, the coffee and the way, you know, I just can't. I think anyone who. When you hear the word Montana, you just picture Yellowstone.
[00:04:22] Speaker C: Right, right, right.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Beautiful. What brought you to Montana?
[00:04:26] Speaker C: Family property. We have part of grandma's homestead that we were, wow, blessed to be able to build a house on. We have 10 acres and 360 degree views of mountains and trees and.
Can't complain. It's beautiful.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Poor, poor thing.
[00:04:46] Speaker C: I know. Catch me at minus 20 something in January. I might. Yeah, just a little.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: Yeah. But you know, house with the fire going. That's all right. That's all right.
[00:04:57] Speaker C: And working from home with the fire going is gorgeous.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Well, Sally, what did I miss in my intro? What do people need to know about you and the work you're doing?
[00:05:08] Speaker C: Well, I think something that's curious about my background is that I actually started in traumatic brain injury rehab and therapy and worked a stroke patients and those who'd had a heart attack or whatever and started in the healthcare field as a practitioner and made my way through life for a lot of reasons. One being that area of therapy I was in wasn't reimbursable in America, so that's a different story.
So I ended up in health care communications for a long time, for much of my career and marketing and by default, kind of, I was really good at what I did. So as happens with so many individuals, you're a great individual contributor. So you get promoted to supervisor or manager. And so this path of Leadership. And truly the the book that I wrote about human centric leadership is really forged from lessons that I had to just figure out on the way and learning from people and reading and research and other.
But it wasn't a one moment that made oh, this is how to be a better leader. It was the collection of all those moments you refer to that learning from and learning through, if you will, to become a better leader. And that's really the heart behind what we're doing at the Leadership Cafe.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: I Sally, at the risk of being self promoting, I have an MBA and I have a PhD in organizational leadership.
[00:06:58] Speaker C: Love it.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: And my real learning came in the field, not at school. You know, business administration and organizational leadership. You can learn all about the theory and the frameworks and I love them and I've got them, tons of them and we use them. But the real learning, as you say, comes in the crucible of leadership. And often we learn the things we learn most about leadership are the things that aren't working well or what we observe in leaders we don't want to be like. We learn a lot about leadership that way too.
[00:07:30] Speaker C: True. And I have a master's with in communications and Leadership studies which was that leadership organization realm at Gonzaga where I got my master's.
It's interesting to me because I think in the whole of all my school studies, the one book that stood out to me in the millions I have read, I feel like, was during my master's program and it was something from like the 1900s. And that book stood out to me so strongly because the whole principle of it was as they were talking about landowners and how they were trying to solve a problem for a whole of people who had worked the land forever and yet never owned anything and the people in charge made the decision and did what they thought was best for the people and it end up being so wildly wrong, it wasn't what they needed at all. And that book was hard to read because it was clunky, hard language that's not super accessible to our vernacular today. But it truly changed my life in helping me take a step back and realize that leadership wasn't about just doing the edicts and the direction and the whatever, but it was as much or more about listening and really getting to the heart of what worked for everybody. So that was, that was during my studies. That was the main thing I learned from education. The rest came from bumps and bruises along the way.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. It's funny how those, you know, a single book or a moment or a class or an experience, how a single thing can have such an influence on us throughout our lives and our worldview and our philosophy about. About things.
So let's, let's. I'd like to learn a little more about how you're now applying your, your neuroscience sort of background experience to this idea of really both leadership and marketing.
Talk about what, what are the key elements there that, that are relevant between the neuroscience facts, concepts, dynamics and leadership and marketing.
[00:10:13] Speaker C: You know, one of the things that I have studied a ton is employee engagement. And part of that was because I got assigned that on top of marketing and customer experience, they're like, hey, fix employee engagement while you're at it.
And the thing I found in that practical context was the same thing that applied to what makes marketing better and is truly based on neuroscience. And so to help understand just a little, our brains are processing 11 million bits of information per second.
And to keep our head from exploding off our neck, the brain wisely will discard about 99% of those inputs because there's just no way to attend to all of it. I know some of us feel like we're processing that many things at once, but it's a fraction of what is really coming at us. And much like how the algorithm works on social media or on Google, our brain is this beautiful, super efficient algorithm, if you will, that will sort the information.
And what it's looking for primarily are two things. One, the brain is designed to keep us safe. So if we are, you know, and this comes back to hundreds and hundreds of years ago when we might have been hunting and gathering still, oh, gosh, there's a tiger in that bush. Be careful. So it comes from that place. But our brain is looking to make sure that we're safe, and it's looking for relevance.
And I think it's a powerful thing. When we look at how the brain responds to triggers or messages, to speeches, to posts, to email headlines, you have about two to eight seconds to be relevant, not just because the brain will see it. And if it's like, I don't see myself in here immediately, the brain will just push it aside before we've even had a chance to think about it.
[00:12:29] Speaker B: I wonder how much of that. And this is a very unscientific mind saying this, so pardon the ignorance.
I think you're right. The whole two to eight seconds. But is that the natural wiring of the brain or is that a culture we've created? It didn't used to be where you had to get someone's attention in two seconds or you're going to lose it. And you know, you mentioned a book, you know, that book that influenced you and it made me think about books that were written back then were so much more intelligent.
The vocabulary was wider, the concepts were deeper. It touched so many things today. Everything's shortcut, everything's AI, everything's emojis and acronyms and.
And I just. And video reels, you know, and I just wonder that two to eight seconds.
How much of that is hardwired in the science, like in a hardwired part of the human brain? And how much of that is.
Has been culturally shaped?
[00:13:30] Speaker C: Sure. And that's a fair question because your brain has the ability to. It's called neuroplasticity. That's the ability to adapt. And you've heard that and learn. Likely.
Yeah. And so what used to happen is when we had.
If you imagine you're in a tribe somewhere in a desert and there are three trees available with fruit, you're gonna work hard to get every single piece of fruit off of those trees. But when you have orchards and orchards and orchards of trees, you're gonna pick just the low hanging stuff, take the easy stuff and go. Because there are more options available to us. Another way it's kind of like is for those of you old enough, like me, when Internet was pretty new and you'd have the little.
And you'd be waiting for a page to load for it felt like forever, maybe a minute or two in those days, we wouldn't have bailed so quickly to a different site because we knew there are only three trees in this field here. But now that we've got millions of things at our hand. We have been to your point, we're conditioned to just. Our brain will just move on because they know there's more options. And so part of. I think it's a little of both. There is hardwiring, where your brain is looking for the things that your past choices and lessons have told you that what you're paying attention to now is saying is important to you.
Which I'll pause for a moment for a little sidebar. There we go. We hear that mind over matter, think positive things, blah, blah, blah. There actually is some science to that. Where we focus, our decisions will go. It's like, yeah, driver Zed. Where your eyes go, you will steer. And it is true neurologically that if, if you're filling your entire cup with political news from one side or the other, with negative stuff, with positive stuff, your brain begins to Search for that more of and much like it can fill your threads feed or your Instagram feed with what you see, your brain will begin to do the same thing for you.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Could not agree with that more so resonates. What a beautiful answer to my question and I love the analogies you used and the words. The term that came to mind is an economic one. Supply and demand.
They're the noise. And I. I'm sure this applies to your marketing work is how do you cut through the noise? The orchards, you know, when. When you're the only one, you're a tree that's out there and there's no other tree out there like yours that has the fruit yours has, you know, you've got a little bit more control over the. That attention. But when you're in an orchard and the noise and there's. You name it, whatever your industry is, even your nonprofit, I mean, this is what fundraising fatigue is about it just to his orchards I guides.
It's. It's some. So. So what you're saying in the hard wiring then, if I'm understanding it right, is that the hard wiring part of the brain is that it adapts and evolves just like the rest of us to our environment. And as we change it, the hard wiring part is the brain's ability to regulate that supply and demand algorithm that you're talking. That's so fascinating. Great, great analogies there. Thank you. I love it when someone can take something scientific and make me understand it that you've really done something when you do that.
[00:17:17] Speaker C: A caveat that the brain will isn't adapting to some external thing.
It's adapting to what you're paying attention to.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:28] Speaker C: So what you're focusing on to.
Okay, well, I did this before and I got embarrassed, so I'm not going to do that again. Yeah, it's that safety mechanism in that or. Oh. I took a risk and signed up for this marketing course and it was a bust.
So I'm not going to. So a lot of your patterns and choices are things that you can shift.
If you feel like you're a negative, if you're the Eeyore of the crowd and you want to be more positive, you can shift.
It's just little teeny baby shifts. But it's not some external thing in changing our brain. It's our choices, our focus, our experience.
And it's not completely stuck.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: And our relationship with our experience.
I've told a story many times about a coachee that I had once who got a new boss and within two days, decided there was no way she was going to be able to work for this boss.
And as she was explaining it to me, I'll cut through all the story about it.
What ended up happening was her boss said or asked her something that reminded her of a previous boss she had that she vowed she would never work for again.
And so she was projecting that past experience on this new boss based on one single interaction that made her assume and create the story in her own mind that this boss is like that other boss.
And fortunately, through some experimentation of relationship building in just a few weeks, we learned, she learned that she was making some ill founded assumptions and that this person wasn't at all who she was assuming her to be. So you're right. It's about our experience with our past. How we file that away, how we pull it up, how we project the past on the future.
[00:19:30] Speaker C: Right. And there's a system in our brain called the reticular activating system. Don't have to remember that.
But when once you see that little tick you don't like, that's what you're going to notice.
See, they did it again. I had a math teacher 100 years ago in high school and he had a really nervous blink.
And the guys in the class were awful to him. God bless Mr. Summers. Somewhere where you are we're sorry.
And they would count every time he did that little nervous blink.
And it's the same thing. Oh, I'm going to get a red pickup because there aren't any.
But then as soon as you decide that you're like everybody, red pickups everywhere. That is a function of your reticular activating system that is aligning to. Oh, hey, you said this was important. So now you're noticing more. And so it's good that you could help her because when we get a burr under our saddle, if you will, and notice something that bugs us, whether it's a partner, a boss or a child or ourself, that's going to be what our brain begins to go. Oh, hey, this is important to you. So I'm going to serve you up all this stuff. And we really can take control of that kind of thinking. So I'm glad you could help that
[00:20:56] Speaker B: counseling or coachee, that's, that's so good. I'll never remember the name of the term that you just said, but I'll go back res.
[00:21:05] Speaker C: Call it the rest.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: Yeah, all right.
[00:21:07] Speaker C: Very good.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: Well, boy, such interesting stuff. And I don't want to spend too much time in into the Science. I do. I am interested in what drove the inspiration toward the book. And let me say something about the book. I love these kinds of books.
For those of you that haven't read it, the name of the book that Sally has written is called Leading Real People A Guide to Human Centric Leadership for Today's New and Middle Managers.
And what I like about it is that it's what. It's what I call an airplane read.
You can read this. It's not a long book, but it's one of those what I love, Sally. I love books that are short but still pack so much punch. There's really no fluff in this book.
You've really hit on some key concepts that I just think are good for all of us to remember.
But talk a little bit about the inspiration for that book and what its key message is.
[00:22:14] Speaker C: Well, thanks for your feedback on the book. And I cut all the fluff. It was literally the final draft was 200 and something pages. I think it ended up 50 something.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:25] Speaker C: So there's. Nobody could fall asleep reading it unless you fall asleep fast.
So we.
The inspiration for this book really again came from experiences that I had had.
I went from a leader over one person to six people to 100 people.
And at that same time, and that was for a Fortune 40 company. I got asked to fix the customer experience problem, fix the employee engagement problem, which for the whole organization, not just my hundred staff, and.
And really help fix the culture of the organization.
And so There were about 4 or 500 people total in the organization. I was over about a quarter of them.
And the things that I learned in that process, which was hard but so exciting, came from listening.
So I started with doing what we called square table talks just to be different.
And no executives were allowed, no HR was allowed, no supervisors were allowed. And we had square table talks where anyone in the organization could come and just let's chat. We're going to work sheet this process. And at the first ones were about 20 people.
By the end of these square table talks, we had about 96% of the employees came voluntarily and talked about what was working, what wasn't working, what would they like to see. All of that and the process at the end of two years too long. Didn't read.
We had improved employee engagement 36% in two years.
And the customer experience, our customers. Then that went up almost 40% improvement in satisfaction from our customers.
Our retention dropped from. We were losing about 60% of our members every single month to less than 20%.
So the impact of just of this process really was powerful. And it was boiled down to not huge hard scientific leadership infrastructures and McKinsey coming in to save us. It boiled down to hearing what people need and empowering leaders to help give them that. And by and large, people weren't looking for raises and more snacks or a ping pong table. They were looking for the ability to solve the customer's problem.
And it was, it was that moment that, that shifted something in me where I realized that so much of leadership talking is about being in charge or reporting or whatever. And there's a whole list that is left off which is people aren't a box on a chart. They aren't a job description.
You could have, I had 70 people in a call center, they all had the same job description and you couldn't find two of them that did it the same way.
So it's easy to think. I have software programmers, you have 10 software programmers with one job description. They aren't all the same. And the things that they, that light them up, the things that are meaningful to them, the way they like to learn or want feedback, are not the same. And that was the real impetus that gave me the heart to want to share this human centric leadership, that it's less about being in charge and more about leading with empathy, being honest, and even leading with love. Which sounds squishy, but I believe it with all my heart.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: I do too absolutely believe in that.
One of the things, you know, going. One of the things I missed the most about organizational leadership, it was I loved my people. I always said that and it sounded corn, but I just, and I felt, I felt the love back.
We, we teach. Here's, here's an academic framework that we, I have absolutely seen over and over in the real world.
The whole self determination construct of autonomy, mastery and relatedness. And you know, look it up if you have, if you're not familiar with the term self determination theory, but it relates to the workplace in an extraordinary way.
And you know, I used to think that those first two pieces of autonomy and mastery or competence were the more important ones. I have come to totally believe that the third element, the relatedness part, is the most important one. Because I've found that if people feel like they relate, they relate to their leader, they have a sense of belonging, they have sense of identity with the culture of the organization. There's a pride, there's a. I'm seen and I see, I'm a part of this.
That is something that unlocks engagement in a way that nothing else can.
And I think that's what you're talking about is this whole relatedness piece is paramount.
[00:28:18] Speaker C: Exactly. And you're gonna get a hallelujah from my old church girl here.
I feel like the, when you look at all the research from Gallup from, you know, all the big folks, that it comes down to exactly that. And people are like, oh, millennials are just lazy. They don't want to work. Gen Z is just this. Boomers are just this. The truth is, at every generation, people want to know they matter and they want to be seen. And neurologically to get nerdy again.
Our brains are wired to be social.
That's what our brain is looking for.
Not you used my name six times in an email.
You, it's that you saw me. And my. That is what's gonna break through that two to eight second window is I mattered. You saw me. You were talking to me. Not vaguely anybody, kind of middle aged white woman.
No, you saw me somehow in your message or your image or whatever. And it's 100% the key to better employee engagement, but also better leadership.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: Sally, are you a fan of Ted Lasso?
[00:29:36] Speaker C: Yes. Oh my gosh, I love him.
[00:29:38] Speaker B: So for those, you know, you either love the Ted Lasso show or you just really don't. It's just not your thing. I love it. And because the whole, the whole thing is about how leadership and coaching is not about. It's not about understanding soccer. It's about understanding people, which is what Ted has this gift for. And in one of the first episodes, the first or the second episode of the whole series, there's a kid that is kind of what we would call the water boy. I forget what they call him in the uk, but he's a nobody. He walks around, he picks up the dirty laundry, and his name is Nate or Nathan.
And the coach asks him what his name is.
When Ted first gets there to become the coach, he says, hey, what's your name?
And the kid looks at him like, what do you mean, what's my name? No one's ever asked me my name before. Nobody cares what my name is. And he tells him that. And he goes, well, waiting. He says, nathan. So a little while later, he says to Nathan, come over here. And Nathan doesn't even realize, like, are you talking to me?
Ted says, yeah, unless there's multiple. Nathan's here, I'm talking to you.
And just the scene was really about exactly what you just said. It's about being seen.
This water boy or whatever they call him that everyone just kind of either laughed at or just took for granted. Nobody ever really saw him, but the coach saw him, along with the star soccer player, saw him, saw him as equal. Because they're both people. They're both part of the team.
And that's what I love about Ted Lasso. Sorry. Sorry for the shameless plug there. But that's what you're talking about is it's the little things like that that people go, hey, he sees me.
Yes, she talked to me with respect and dignity. She actually wants to know what I think. What?
That's crazy. I think I like this.
[00:31:36] Speaker C: I think people, maybe some will hear this and think, oh, that's not real anymore. But when I was vice president over this team and I had call center staff, I made a point of handwriting a birthday card for everybody on my team when it was their birthday. Not a big deal.
And I cannot tell you the number of times that people would show up at my door and say, I have never had a boss acknowledge my birthday before.
It's like, it's. That kind of phrase came out of people's mouths and inside, it just broke my heart, because I feel like that is evidence that we're treating people like a job description or a box on a chart. And you'll never get rich engagement, and you'll never get superior customer experience out of a team that is run like a bunch of widgets and laborers.
It just doesn't work.
[00:32:43] Speaker B: I will encourage you, Sally, and all of our listeners to go back on our show to episode 139. We had Amy Daughters on the show, and she's been on some of the big talk shows and things about what she did.
I'll keep it short. She wrote handwritten letters and put them in the mail to every friend in her Facebook list.
[00:33:02] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: And it started. There's a deeper, much more emotional story about a connection that she made and wrote these personal letters to this woman in times of very trying times. And they became just such good friends. But the idea was that a handwritten letter, I mean, we still. You get something in the mail and your name is handwritten on. It's why marketing companies make their commercial envelopes look like they've been handwritten. They know this. You know, it's like, oh, they think we're stupid, but we. But we do it. We look at it and go, wait, is this from. Is this from a friend of mine from back when? Yeah, it is. It is really important.
Let me shift gears real quick here, because there's a part in the book about redefining leadership and I just shared at the beginning of the show our definition of leadership. I'd love to hear yours. Sally.
How do you think about and define what leadership even is?
[00:34:02] Speaker C: To me, I really feel like leadership is. It's not perfection, it's not position.
It's really the practice of making sure your team has everything they need to succeed.
And that's not just post it notes and paper clips. That's recognition, support, training, Runway to try and make mistakes and fix it or be part of the solutioning or whatever. And I think that's where a lot of people stop short is they don't involve the team in the ideation of what could help do this better.
And frankly, they know better than we do as a leader. They're on the front line. They know way better than we do. So for me, it's really about honoring and supporting and being the biggest cheerleader and then ensuring they have what they need to succeed.
[00:35:03] Speaker B: That is beautiful. And there is a concept in the book. I don't remember who you credit this to, the red thread concept.
I'll let you say more about it. But what I got out of it was it made me think of Dwight Eisenhower definition of leadership. The art of getting people to do things you want done because they want to do it. And he understood that.
It's about, it's not about motivating people on your motivations, it's about drawing out their existing motivations. If I can connect the work to what motivates my people, in order to do that, I have to know my people.
That's the leadership part. In order to do that, to draw out each person's unique talent, gift, motivation, I have to know who they are. But I would love for you to say more about this red thread concept.
[00:35:54] Speaker C: Sure. It's. It's a concept that was in Marcus Buckingham's book called Love and Work.
And he was used to work at places like Gallup, Accenture, lots of big research firms. And for years of his career he did research with housekeepers at like Disney World and was taking a look at what makes some love their job and others not. And he was really focused on engagement and employee productivity. And the thing that he discovered was for those who had a red thread, which is defined as something that lights you up, you could lose track of time. You can't wait to do this task again.
For those who had even 20% of their entire work time in a red thread area, their engagement was like 60% higher.
They were more loyal they lasted longer, there was less turnover.
And so the bottom line being, if we can understand our people enough to know what is it that just lights them up and ensure that some of their job can touch there, we've gotten so much further. We'll get better loyalty, more cooperation, more engagement, and that is a win for everybody.
[00:37:26] Speaker B: Well said. Love that concept. The red thread. Yeah, we call it, you know, what is it that gets you in the zone or your mojo or whatever. Now I am surprised at the 20.
That's not much. You know, that's like just, just make sure people have at least 20% of their bandwidth with an opportunity to be fulfilled in what they're, what they're thrilled. I had a pastor once years ago that said he wanted to create an atmosphere where people's gifts and talents made room for themselves.
Yeah, I love that, I love that phrase. I never forgot it. And I thought that's a good leadership concept. Just an environment.
To me, that's a leader's job, creating an environment.
[00:38:04] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: If, if people want autonomy, mastery and relatedness and that's what's going to give them the self determination and the engagement and the fulfillment, then all I got to do as a leader is create an environment where those three things are most possible.
[00:38:20] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: And that's different than staying in the work. You, you, you brought up a, a very common challenge in your book about, you said leadership requires you to shift from being the primary contributor to being the conductor of the orchestra. And your role is to coordinate, clarify and remove barriers. In other words, create the environment so that others can play their parts well. I just love that, that just really resonated. I'm telling you, the book is really full of just gold, gold nuggets in my opinion. And I'd like to talk about one of them. You've got a chapter in here about leading yourself and I love that, I love that phrase, but it means different things to different people. What is leading yourself mean to me?
[00:39:07] Speaker C: I, I, this comes truly from scars, this chapter in said role of 100. I lost myself. We did great work. And then beyond that, lost myself. The pressure came.
I stopped exercising, I stopped eating better. I would stay a little later, come a little, and really ended up in full burnout basically.
And at, you know, to end the story, not so great. I ended up being laid off in a value assessment.
Isn't that beautiful? I'm over a quarter of your staff and my position is no longer necessary.
And I could be really bitter about that. But the truth is my lack of lady, myself led to the place where I was disposable. And that is a hard thing for people to admit sometimes. I was part of the problem.
I made myself dispensable because in that moment where I abandoned my own self, my boundaries, my own discipline, I became insecure. And then I was just, oh my gosh, what did that look mean? Oh my gosh, you know, and you get in that, you know, RAS system going, yeah, there was that look again, you know, I became dispensable and I sabotaged my own leadership from losing what was necessary for me to remain a really strong and effective leader.
[00:40:50] Speaker B: That vulnerability and self accountability and learning, learning and self reflection is the most powerful moment we've had since we came on the air here.
I've told the story many times about getting crossways with a board that I worked for years ago and left there again, a little, little bitter, but, but then I had a good friend who kind of, you know, wagged her finger at me and said, hold on now, be careful about how you're thinking about this. And her question for me is, what have you learned about yourself in this and your role in this?
And it was a big learning moment for me. And listening to you say, you know, I realized, yeah, I, I did this. You kept saying, I, I became this and I allowed myself to that. Here's my question for you. How long did it take you to figure that out? And did you get any help figuring that out?
[00:41:43] Speaker C: I, it took me a few months. I mean, there was the licking, the wound that goes first and that's what the, the pay after you leave is for a lot of. There are some people that try to just move right past that. And I would say you cannot, you cannot truly move past that until you've healed. And so it did take me a few months. I had some help from an executive coach that helped me.
I probably should have gone to counseling too, honestly, but who knows?
But yes, I did have some help. And I think the thing that I've recognized in all of life, whether it was that or leaving a community or a job or transitions in life, is that taking care of myself. I grew up kind of in a, you know, a pretty structured faith community. How's that?
And, and self care was seen as something that was selfish, it was self centered, it was not other centric, whatever. And the thing that I realized over life was that self care is leadership.
First of all, neurologically, physiologically, if you aren't eating well, if you aren't getting enough water and let's Be honest. None of us drink enough water. So drink the water.
If we aren't moving our bodies and doing the things to keep ourselves sharp, we. We aren't going to be at our best. We can't optimally function.
If you put the wrong gas in my Audi, it ain't gonna function right.
And so you need the premium fuel in your premium body that you've been given to be able to do the best. And to me, when I really owned, I. I abandoned my boundaries and let the more and more and more I didn't speak up, I didn't do these things. It actually was kind of freeing to help me recognize a pattern that I could disrupt, but also learn the lesson and become a better human and a better leader the next time. And I think that's ultimately what is our responsibility. All of us, when we've hit a hiccup, we have to learn through it and be better on the other side.
[00:44:18] Speaker B: So. Well said. I can relate to the faith background. And you know, the term we used a lot was sacrifice. You know, that we're supposed to make a sacrifice. And I get that. I think, I think that's, I think there's value in it. But when it is at the expense, then.
We see this a lot in the nonprofit leaders we coach.
One of the assessments we use is a motivator's assessment. And we can see if someone is highly motivated by, you know, theory or regulation or aesthetics, economics. And one of them is altruism.
And not surprisingly, many of the leaders in the nonprofit sector that we coach score high in altruistic motivation.
And the word they use is in the, in the assessment tool.
One of the assessment tools is that self sacrificial.
And one of them is like doormat, like to the point where what we forget as nonprofit leaders who wear the capes and we're the heroes in our community because we're, we're serving the people that but for us would not get served. And there's something very heroic about that. And we feel like, you know, we've gotta, we've just gotta do it.
The more, the less we take care of ourselves, the less we can actually accomplish that mission. If we can connect those two and understand I can actually help more people if I'm healthy, if my mind is straight, if I'm. If my energy is right, if I just wear myself down to a nub and I'm just burned out.
Now I'm set. Now I'm not sacrificing myself, now I'm sacrificing The mission.
[00:46:05] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:46:06] Speaker B: And if you can get that across to leaders, that's where the, you, you have something else here in the book. Sorry, I just, I'm highlighting pieces of the book that stood out to me.
There's a section in here about leadership that says that the best leaders have teams. They have, they have peers, they have mentors, they have coaches, they have therapists to help them stay grounded. So it's. They're building a structure, one of the components of your leading yourself. They're building a support system and they lean on that support.
And it made me think of, think of any high performing top athlete in the world or singer, artist, or actor, golfers. I mean, anybody, Fortune 500 CEOs, they have teams of people that do all kinds of things with them. And for them to make sure they're doing those things, they all, they all have coaches, by the way. All, all those people I just mentioned have coaches.
So. And that's not because they're bad and they need to fix themselves. It's because they're great and they want to stay great and get greater.
[00:47:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:47:14] Speaker B: And that's the mindset of leadership. I want to see more in the people that we coach. Is. I want, I'm, I'm already. I'm effective. I wouldn't be here, but I, but there's more. There's a, there's another level for me.
[00:47:26] Speaker C: Right. And I think that comes from A, honesty.
[00:47:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:32] Speaker C: And B, openness and curiosity toward growth. If we already have all the answers.
[00:47:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:41] Speaker C: We're done growing.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: Congrats, you arrived. You got it.
[00:47:45] Speaker C: And I, you know, there's the most successful entrepreneurs that I could look to as a. Inspiration or maybe somebody looks at it and goes, oh, why did they get all that? And I didn't. I could guarantee that part of the differentiation is that they have a structure of support, and that doesn't mean somebody to just, you know, smack talk with or vent at or whatever. Venting is fine as a momentary thing, but if that is your entire coping mechanism, it's not effective. It's not going to help you improve. And at the end of the day, as a leader, when we've stopped improving and challenging ourselves, I mean, I spend part of every morning reading before I get to a computer. I read from Adam Grant, from, you know, leaders and thinkers, the Ignatians, you know, all of them.
Because there's something to be found in, oh, how did Ray Dalio do it? Okay, how did.
There's something to be found in the thinking of others. Even if it's just starting to read and expose yourself to other points of view, that's important. But don't find your whole support structure within your organization. I don't think that's healthy because at the end of the day, as much as we'd love to believe that the HR gal is really there for us, she is an officer of the organization and at the end of the day she's going to do what's best for the organization and frankly to keep her job. So it's the things we think are safe.
I'm going to just vent to the executive secretary because she's my friend now. We've put them in a compromising position as well.
And it's honestly a little bit selfish and I have been guilty of that for sure.
To vent within your organization when you need help, to see your truth and move through it, it's a lot faster route to get help. Just trust me.
[00:50:01] Speaker B: This is, I think especially true for middle managers. In the middle managers have, they're truly leading from the middle and their loyalties get split.
They want me to be a leader, not just a manager. So I lean into my team.
I want to develop my team. I want to have, as you said in your book, I want to have their back.
But I also also have this corporate responsibility to the mission, to the organization. I got these bosses that are expecting certain KPIs or you know, ways of doing things and I've also got to be loyal to them. And so a lot of the middle managers will go to the, the upper managers and say, you know, hey, my team needs this, that and the other and they, they want to back their team and then their bosses tell them this is how it has to be and they go back to their team and rather than saying, look, we got to figure this out together, they go back and say, yeah, we didn't get our way. I agreed with you. I told them it wasn't right, but they said we had to do it because they're leaning into their, they don't know how to. They're trying to play both into their, in their defense, they feel like they have to do that. And so just having that people connection and the ability to have a team that is not insular.
[00:51:19] Speaker C: Right.
[00:51:20] Speaker B: Is I think really critical there. So yeah.
[00:51:23] Speaker C: And at the end of the day, you all work for the company.
[00:51:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:27] Speaker C: It's not, I, I think the frame of reference that you can get in in that scenario is a victim framework where you are the victim of this company policy. That doesn't Listen to me. But at the end of the day, they're there to make money. And so we have to find a way to lead our team and say, okay, so that. That option's off the table. What else is there? Let's be innovative within our own space. You don't have to be the VP to do it.
Let's be innovative and find a way. And honestly, that's been the story of every progression in my career, is not somebody came and endowed it upon me. It was that I was innovative and pushing forward and finding ways to make something easier or better or more helpful.
And that in and of itself is what opened the doors to promotions, to more opportunities, to whatever. And so I would just caution people to not become a victim in your own organization. If you don't like the culture around you, change it on your team.
[00:52:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Change it from the. From the bottom up, from the inside out.
I always tell people, bring the best version of yourself to work every day. You'll feel better going home. No matter how, no matter what version other people are bringing of themselves, bring your best version all the time. And so, you know, Marshall Goldsmith says us about employee engagement is we ask the wrong questions. Ask.
Did my supervisor, you know, how are they doing? Are they creating a really good relationship? Do they set good goals for me? Do they help people adapt to change? He said the questions are, me. Am I doing my best to develop a relationship with my supervisor? Am I doing my best to set goals for myself, to help my co workers adapt to change? What role am I bringing to the table?
[00:53:26] Speaker C: That's.
[00:53:27] Speaker B: That's. That's engagement is what I'm bringing, not what I'm getting.
I have one more. One more principle I'd like to get your thoughts on. And then I want to learn a little bit about your marketing work before. Before we wrap the show.
Your. Your book in particular, Human centric. I've heard that term and some others. I've. I've heard everything from trauma informed to human centric to, you know, all these different things. And they're not the same thing, but they're sometimes in the same arena. The idea your book is strong on empathy and caring, and you just use the word love that's in the book. Look, here's the balancing act that I have found a number of my nonprofit, in particular nonprofit leaders, is there's also a mission accountability that has to be stewarded by the leader. And I find that many of my coaches have great difficulty disciplining, terminating when they need to, because the empathy is so strong. And so, you know, the altruism, it's not just to the clients we're serving out in the community.
It relates to our own people.
And I see a lot of what Kim Scott would call ruinous empathy.
Right. And so how do you help leaders balance that these are not mutually exclusive, that accountability and even consequence of accountability and empathy are not necessarily separate things.
[00:55:04] Speaker C: Such a great question. And honestly, something I've done right and wrong, I. I feel like as leaders, a misconception is that we can't tell our employees what we're on the hook for.
And that just makes no sense to me. It makes zero sense. Because truly, if honesty is a kindness and if they don't know what they're on the hook for, then they can't bring themselves to the table to help accomplish that. The responsibility lays squarely on your shoulders. And in being empathetic, we think insulating them from the accountability is. Is the kinder way. And, and I would actually say that is a ruinous way, to use your word. It's when there needs to be a shared definition of success. And I did that with that team of a hundred that I mentioned in the book.
Okay, here is what our contracts with the state says we have to do. We're failing on every measure.
And we had a board that they saw. We talked about it at every meeting. You know what started to happen?
I had my supervisors focus in on.
We would celebrate the big wins. We were not successfully passing a single metric, not a single one.
And I would show the team I had it on a board. We reviewed it regularly. We would celebrate the progress.
But then the interesting thing that started to happen was the staff knew, oh, darn it, I only got a 96. I want 100 on that score. They began to self monitor and to ideate ways to do better. They began asking more questions. They were curious about how to improve. They were bringing ideas forward.
Before that, before we were honest with the accountability, it was the leader's job only to make all that happen. But I couldn't do the job of the whole call center.
So the. It's misguided to think protecting people from the truth of what we're on the hook for is. Is the better way. It's actually kind of blindsiding them. Because I've heard staff before say, at jobs, I'd say, how's your day? And they're like, well, I didn't get a pink slip today, so I'm doing good. Good. Like that is a terrible way to live. And but that is the kind of message and the kind of vague fear people live under if they don't know what are we accountable for and where are we. They want to know the truth. And that actually creates stronger engagement, collaboration, innovation among the team. So I would challenge the thinking. Empathy's good, but it doesn't mean no accountability because that's just too mushy to move the needle.
[00:58:26] Speaker B: We say it all the time, accountability is the ability to account. It's an ability. And so what you're describing is that the team is, that's having your team's back is helping increase the team's ability to account for its commitments. I watch it in baseball games or other sports where, you know, the shortstop will miss an easy ground ball ball and it results in a run for the other team. Well, you know, they feel horrible and you know, the, the NBC camera is focused on that shortstop's face to look how disappointed and ticked off they are that they just let the whole team down.
And what I love is when you see the team, what the broadcasters will often say the team picked him up, meaning that's all right, on the next ground ball we'll get a double play, right? Or the shortstop goes to the plate when it's their turn to bat and hits a home run and redeems himself and everybody celebrates that teammate. That's not your normal home run. That is a, hey, you picked it up. You, you made up for your mistake in a way that really benefited the team. So that team I'm appreciating more and more as I go through the years of coaching and now into systemic coaching of coaching teams and things. Is that the mutual accountability, the team accountability is where the real magic lies.
[00:59:44] Speaker C: Right? And frankly, that is where people, you know, find their gifts and talents and rise. That's where people feel challenged and necessary and an important part of the team. They come together in cohesion with accountability and they produce at a level you won't see if they don't have any shared accountability.
[01:00:12] Speaker B: Well said.
Real quickly, let's shift. I want to hear about your. If you could sum up what is different about Commonwealth marketing? And, and I, I, my guess is that it's, it's human centric. So what's the difference there? How are you applying this human centric concept to really effective marketing? Particularly if you're thinking about so many of our non profit listeners, but not exclusively. Everything's about connecting with people.
How do you do that when you're helping a client in their marketing communications efforts?
[01:00:50] Speaker C: So our Core belief is that the most effective organizations have their marketing, which is their brand, their culture and their customer experience integrated.
And if marketing is not speaking to one, one human group in a way that matters to them, it's just more noise. And so we really take this art and science approach.
We apply the principles of neuroscience to know that that truth is honestly, 90% of companies talk about themselves, nonprofits especially, I have this program, this thing that this, this building, this dog food collection can. And we don't talk about you as a donor. What would matter to Patrick? What is really resonating with him that would get him to want to be part of this? Do are we the right thing? God forbid non profits rule people out.
Instead, we want to blanket this mass message that's trying to serve anybody who will listen basically with a little bit of frantic, desperate energy behind it, instead of being really clear about what is it that we're asking of you and is this the right message for you? If not, we're going to gear it towards somebody else. So it takes. It's not like I'm going through my CRM and saying, oh, Patrick likes dogs, so we'll only send him. But with today's technology, honestly, you can do a lot more of that. And you can make the message about the impact you're having. And when that resonates with me, I want to be part of.
Earlier you said you made the comment about nonprofit people are the cape wearing people. And I would suppose that the client or the end user of that nonprofit is the hero and not the staff. And when we can make that shift in our messaging way more effective, I'm
[01:03:08] Speaker B: picturing organizations right now that are good at doing that and you're it that's resonating. I can, I can envision that.
Yeah, that's good. That's good. I want, I want people to understand that marketing and communications is a. Oh man, what a gap. What a need in the sector. Because, you know, it's like anything else requires capacity.
But so many struggling nonprofits at least are, you know, just do. Just make sure we're posting on our Facebook page and make sure we're.
And it's so much more than that. It is a how are we connecting with the people out there? How are we connecting? Use that word in your book connection.
So, yeah, I love it.
[01:03:51] Speaker C: And we say a lot that more is not better.
We have this mindset in the sector of do more with less.
And I would challenge you to do better with less. Yeah, I like, don't just post to say you posted. That's not a service to you, your staff, or your followers because they.
You're in the two day second window and they're out.
You have to do better with less and make every action meaningful for humans.
Not just I did this because I'm supposed to. And I feel like that's where we're getting it so wrong.
[01:04:31] Speaker B: More is not better.
Better is better.
You know that. Go.
I'd be remiss if I didn't just say this since it popped in my head. We say this about boards all the time. One of the questions I get is, Patrick, what's the number of board members?
You know, do we not have enough?
And my answer is, there's not a mag. It's not like, oh, seven, right? Or 13 or what you. It's. It is.
I get the question a lot. Well, I'd rather have eight engaged board members than 15 where only five of them are engaged.
Okay, that's fair. My question is, would you rather have eight really engaged board members or would you rather have. Have 12 really engaged board members? You're making the wrong comparisons.
You know, it's so it's making sure that the board you have is engaged, not adding more board members. If you're going to add more board members, stick to the original concept of they need to be engaged board members and we need to actively and intentionally engage them. So I love that. More is not better. Better is better.
[01:05:33] Speaker C: Yep.
[01:05:33] Speaker B: I love it.
Sally, is there anything you came to this episode today wanting to share or talk about that we haven't. Haven't.
Probably a while.
[01:05:43] Speaker C: I just, I just feel like humans will always need to be seen and supported and inspired and truly, that's what human centric leadership is going to draw out of people. Doesn't come mushy with no accountability, but it comes with, here's the goals before us, here's the resources. If you're missing something, let me know. That's your job as a leader. Leader.
[01:06:09] Speaker B: Well, and it's, it's to add value. And you have absolutely thrown out a ton of value here today, Sally. Thank you. This just really rich, really rich thinking and it's inspired me. I do want to inspire people again. Get the book.
It's Leading Real People a guide to human centric leadership for today's new and middle managers. And by the way, I have Kindle Unlimited, so I got it for first free. So get. You know, there's ways to read this if, and if you don't, you know, it's. It's worth whatever bucks. I think it's eight bucks. Come on, man. It's. And it's so good. It really is. We just touched on just a few of the things that stood out to me.
Let me, let me move to two more questions. Sally, These are the, these are two questions I like to ask all my guests when we wrap a show.
And the first one is who comes to mind for you? And this can be someone you know, could be someone from the past, someone from history.
Watch from afar, whatever it is.
Who comes to mind for you as a leader who has had profound impact or influence on the way you view leadership today and why.
[01:07:20] Speaker C: Who comes to mind is a CEO of a hospital. I worked for Gene Reyno. He was a former air Force officer and he became the CEO of our hospital. And he was really impactful to me because he wasn't threatened by the innovation and the ideation and the questions or even a little bit of challenge because I'm a little feisty and I would come and go, I don't think this is working. And he, he never let that threaten. But he would be able to listen and then help guide in a way that was appropriate or right. In some cases, you know, you react and get a thought and that wasn't right. So I loved that he wasn't so precious and untouchable as a leader that I couldn't come and say, hey, I'm struggling with this thing. Or I had this crazy idea and he'd be like, you are a self winding top and I love it. Run with it, you know. So he really inspired me to not be afraid to think big and to, to ask questions, challenge a little bit. Sometimes I was right. A lot of times I wasn't.
[01:08:34] Speaker B: He was accessible.
Yes, that's, that's, that's great. That's incredible.
Last question. You're at the top of a mountain with a megahorn megaphone and there are all the leaders of the world at the base of the mountain. To hear what Sally Mildred has to say about leadership. What is that 15 second sound bite? What is the thing you would tell all leaders of the world is the most important thing to keep in mind about leadership? What would that be?
[01:09:03] Speaker C: Leadership is about empathy.
It's about seeing the humans in your charge and making sure they can be as successful as possible.
[01:09:18] Speaker B: In other words, it's about others.
That's a theme. I'm just keep thinking as we have gone through this, this episode in your conversation. I love your, I love your place in this, Sally. I love your positioning on it, your philosophies on it, they resonate. They align a lot, actually, with mine.
Leadership is about others. And yet we have, we do have to care for ourselves 100%. I have an alter ego named Dennis Ray. I won't go into it, but he's a comedic character that once said to a nonprofit conference, it ain't all about you, but but some of it is.
And that's there's actually a truth in that as leaders, it's not all about us. Some of it is we've got to take care of ourselves so that we can lead others.
So yeah, Sally, I appreciate it. Again, everyone, commonweal marketing.com and pick up the book Leading Real People.
And this is an episode worth going back and listening to twice. So, Sally, thank you, everyone. Thanks for listening in. We'll see you next time. Lead on.
