September 2, 2025 • 47 mins
Capping a 25-year career as a chief marketing officer and executive vice president of business development, Scott Jeffrey Miller currently serves as FranklinCovey's senior advisor on thought leadership. As a senior advisor, Scott leads the strategy and development of the firm's Speakers Bureau and the production of podcasts, webcasts, and best-selling books. Scott also hosts On Leadership with Scott Miller, the world's largest and fastest-growing leadership podcast, with a reach of more than six million listeners weekly. Scott also authors a leadership column for Inc.com and is the best-selling author of the Mess to Success book series.
Not everyone should be a leader of people, and that's the heart of today’s chat. We’re diving into the idea that while leadership gets all the glory, it's not the only game in town, and let’s be real, it’s not for everyone. My buddy Scott Jeffrey Miller—an absolute powerhouse in the leadership space—joins me to break down why "power skills" are what really make the world go round, especially in this wild ride of a job market. We're tossing around concepts like self-awareness and the importance of building meaningful relationships over just flexing those hard skills. So if you've ever felt stuck in the leadership hamster wheel or just want to level up your interpersonal game, this episode’s got you covered with insights that could change the way you think about work, and maybe even life. Let's get into it!
The leadership landscape is changing faster than a toddler can throw a tantrum, and today’s conversation dives into the nitty-gritty of what it really means to be a leader in this chaotic world. Scott Jeffrey Miller, who’s not just a leadership guru but also a bestselling author and ex-CMO, brings some serious insights to the table. He’s challenging the notion that everyone should aspire to be a leader just because they’re good at their jobs. Miller points out that not every top performer is suited for leadership, and honestly, it’s about time someone said it out loud. We’re all about honesty here, and that’s one of the core messages: leadership isn’t just about having the title; it’s about having the skills—what Miller dubs 'power skills'.
These power skills are the interpersonal skills that actually move the needle in a workplace and include things like emotional intelligence, active listening, and effective communication. It’s a shift from the traditional 'soft skills' label, which has often been brushed off as less important. Miller emphasizes that it’s these skills that can make or break a leader’s success. He shares some personal anecdotes about his own leadership journey and the bumps he’s faced along the way, reminding us all that growth comes from learning from our mistakes. We also touched on the importance of self-awareness, which is crucial for any leader looking to improve. Knowing how you come across to your team can help you adjust and be more effective in your role.
The episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone looking to step up their leadership game. Whether you’re leading a small team or steering a large organization, understanding and honing your power skills could be the key to unlocking your full potential. So, if you’re ready to take your leadership to the next level, grab your headphones and tune in. You’ll walk away with some actionable advice and maybe a chuckle or two along the way!
Takeaways:
- Leadership isn't about being in charge; it's about building relationships and influencing others effectively.
- Not everyone is cut out to lead people, and that's totally okay—there are other crucial roles that keep things running smoothly.
- The skills that elevate you as a leader are often interpersonal, not the technical skills you were hired for.
- Self-awareness is key; understanding how others perceive us can transform our leadership style and effectiveness.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Foreign.
Not everyone should be aleader of people. I think the leadership
industry has done a majordisservice promoting leadership as
the most noble contribution.No, no. The person that's selling
because they're the ones thatare paying for the salary or writing
the grants or, you know,waiting on the tables or cooking
(00:23):
the food. Those are the mostimportant jobs that are actually
providing the service.Leadership is valuable. Not everyone
should be a commercial airlinepilot. Not everyone should be an
anesthesiologist. And noteveryone should be a leader of people.
Hi there and welcome to theStep up expert Voices for Leadership
Growth. I'm your host, KentKnievel. Every week I talk to experts
(00:44):
who focus on helping leadersstep up their leadership game. If
you're new to the show, thenon whatever platform you're using,
I encourage you to subscribeso you never miss an episode. One
last thing, as a leadershipdevelopment consultant and executive
coach, I have a particularinterest in supporting recent internally
promoted leaders. If that'syou, or if you support a leader who
has been recently promoted, Iencourage you to visit my website
(01:06):
at Kent Coach Playbook anddownload a free copy of my 90 day
blueprint filled withpractical advice for you or the leader
you support in hitting theground running and truly stepping
up to their new leadershiplevel. Without further ado, on with
the show. Welcome everybody.Today we are talking about power
skills and with me for thisconversation is Scott Jeffrey Miller,
(01:29):
eight time best sellingauthor, former CMO at Franklin Covey,
host of the largest leadershippodcast. We'd love to hear about
that later. And co owner ofthe fastest growing literary and
talent agency in the nation.Scott, thanks for joining today.
Kent, what an honor. Thank youfor the spotlight and the platform
to talk about the things thatI'm passionate about. I didn't say
(01:50):
competent about, I saidpassionate about passion.
Not always good distinction.And the honor is all mine. So as
I usually like to start, Iwant to hear about your career story.
I think you know, we weretalking just before I hit recorded
about, you know, the whatchapter I'm on in my career and I
would love to hear, you know,a little bit more and I'm sure our
audience would as well hear alittle bit more about your career
(02:12):
and how you landed on.
What you're doing today withthe highs or the lows. Which would
you like is there's an.
Equal number of both warts andall, whatever you're with.
Well, I live in Salt LakeCity, Utah with my wife and our three
young sons. I moved here 30years ago after a Short career at
the Walt Disney Company. I'mfrom the east coast, Orlando, Florida
(02:33):
and had a great run thereuntil they invited me to leave, which
is kind of how it happens atthe Walt Disney Company. So here
is a 27 year old singleCatholic boy from Orlando, Florida
and I move out to Provo, Utah.You can do the math. 30 years ago,
right? I think the priest andI were the only Catholics in Provo,
(02:54):
Utah. But Stephen Coveyinvited me to join his then small
boutique leadership firmcalled the Covey Leadership Center.
Dr. Covey, of course, is theauthor of the seminal book, the 7
Habits of Highly EffectivePeople. This book eventually became
the Franklin Covey Company,one of the dominant forces in leadership
development around the world.I spent almost 30 years, 30 years
(03:15):
inside of this organization,living around the world for them
in Chicago and London and backto Utah several times. Ultimately
I served as the chiefMarketing officer for eight years.
Three times the nationalaverage of a public company, cmo,
and then for several years asthe EVP of thought leadership. An
amazing career inside ofFranklin Covey. Learned about how
(03:38):
to become a leader. Soldseveral hundred million dollars of
leadership solutions toclients. Wrote eight books along
the way. Nonfiction books thatwere all about careers and mentorship
and management, marketing andparenting and leadership. Had the
privilege, like you, ofhosting a very popular leadership
podcast, nearly 500 episodes.Wrote a couple books about that,
(04:01):
and then about two years ago,decided I liked shining the spotlight
on other people as much as Iliked it on me. And so I, with a
partner, launched what is nowknown as the Gray Miller Agency.
We have about 200 thoughtleaders under representation on both
the speaking and literary bookside. So as you can see behind me,
if you're watching this onvideo, my life is books. I love books.
(04:24):
My boys, to their horror, arerequired to read 45 minutes a day.
And my oldest son and I justreleased our eighth book. It's a
parenting book that my 15 yearold son and I are touring the nation
on called Parenting WrongTurns, Right Lessons, which basically
exposes all the bad decisionsI made as a co parent, my wife of
our three sons. So.
(04:44):
So you're getting thatfeedback now instead of in 20 years.
Well, I'm sure I'm going toget my share. So I keep telling them,
tell it to your therapist,tell it to your therapist. We all
have an origin story, right?We do our best. There is no manual,
there is no training, there'sno certification, there's no certificate
or degree to be a parent.There's just the abuse and pain of
watching Tormented. I rememberthe nutshell.
(05:08):
I love that. I remember the.So we just get to leave with your
first child, right? So we justleave the hospital with this now
we just go, we're free to leave.
Totally, totally. Yeah. Yeah.Well, read my book because there's
a lot of validation on whatthings people are doing, right. And
maybe learn from some of mymistakes. And my 15 year old son
(05:31):
thanks you for his royalty onthe book as well.
Nice. Well, I know my copy'son the way, so I'm looking forward
to checking that out. Well, soI love that you wanted to talk about
power skills today. And Ithink the moment you said that, I
even threw out the, like, Ihave a feeling we're doing a. We're
kind of twisting the languagehere, trying to reframe what people
(05:51):
have been talking about assoft skills for a long time. Right.
And even in my time in hr,I've, I've, I've heard L and D leaders,
leadership development leaderskind of leaning in to say, why is
it that soft skills are thehardest skills? Right. But I love
the, the language here onpower skills. So where do you want
to start with thatconversation? What made you want
(06:12):
to start thinking, talking,writing about this topic?
Well, this is my ninth bookcoming out next year in the summer
from Matt Holt at Ben Bella.It's called the New Power Skills.
And the premise is basicallythat, you know, most all of us are
hired for our hard skills,right? Our technical skills, our
education, our credential, ourcertification, our degree. But most
(06:34):
of us are fired or relieved ofour jobs, case in point from Disney,
because of our interpersonalskills, known as soft skills, are
now the real power skills. Andso I really wanted to teach what
I thought were in essenceAlmost the top 30, if you will, interpersonal
skills that everyone needs tomaster. Because at the end of the
day, we're all in the samebusiness. We are in the relationship
(06:56):
business. That is not acliche. If you look at the most influential
leaders, they have the abilityto check their ego, to listen better,
to read the room, to moderatetheir own body language, to admit
their own mistakes, to offerapologies, to communicate effectively,
to possess great selfawareness, to frame problems, right?
(07:19):
To differentiate between theiropinions and facts. Both of those
are important, but they're notalways the same. And so I collected
about. Well, it started at 24and then it expanded to 29. And so
I'm still wrestling with whichof these skills I really want to
write about. They're allrelevant. They're extremely relevant
(07:39):
as the job market and theworld changes dramatically. But in
essence, these are the skillsthat get you promoted, build your
budget and your influence,build your credibility, and will
get you some inoculationagainst being talked to or being
taken to the woodshed, which Iwas on numerous occasions. I like
(08:01):
to joke, and I mean this withdeference, that my human resource
file was an expandable folderbecause I was always staying or doing
things that were, you know,regrettable, never, never illegal
or unethical or moral. But Ijust, you know, needed. Needed an
inner dialogue. I neededsometimes better discipline. Oh,
no, that's an internalthought, not something I should be
(08:23):
saying. So a lot of my booksare confessing my sins in the hopes
that others can learn from them.
I love that. And I still lovehow you said invited to leave. I
think that's brilliant. So,interestingly, one thing I'm finding
in my own coaching work, and Iknow other, it's not a new thing.
I know others face this. Ijust kind of was inundated with a
(08:44):
handful of these kind of allat the same time, which is to your
point. You're hired for yourexpertise. You're often promoted
initially for your expertise.Right. And I found myself coaching
leaders who are stuck, havingfound themselves kind of in the middle
of everything suddenly. Right.Everybody's bringing everything to
(09:05):
them and they, you know,possibly unintentionally, maybe in
some cases intentionally havekind of wedged themselves in the
middle instead of elevating uptheir leadership and really working
through others and gettingthem to solve their own problems.
It just kind of rings similarhere of how do you leave, you know,
(09:26):
how do you begin to leaveyour, what we have traditionally
called hard skills thatexpertise behind in order to step
into your leadership.
Right.
Because I feel like it's aneasy fallback for leaders, right.
That like. Well, let me justgo back to the thing I'm really good
at, which is, you know,getting things done or however you
want to put that. I'd becurious what your reaction to that.
(09:48):
Well, I think I have a lot ofpassion for this topic. It's the
quicksand of everyone's careertransition because typically most
leaders are culled from theindividual contributor ranks. The
top sales producer, the mosteffective digital designer, the most
efficient dental hygienist.They become the leader of dental
(10:10):
hygienist or the director ofthe creative division, or God forbid,
the top producing salespersonbecomes the director of sales when
we know there's zerocorrelation between what makes you
a great individual salescontributor and what makes you a
great leader. Of salesleaders. I think the challenge is
what most of us don't rememberis what got us here, won't take us
(10:30):
and them there. So when wemake this transition from star, individual
contributor to leader ofpeople, the primary question you
have to ask yourself is how doI get work done with and through
other people? And your wholeparadigm changes, right? No longer
are you the genius, you're thegenius maker. To quote Liz Wiseman,
(10:53):
who I think wrote one of thebest books in our generation, Multipliers.
How do you get work done withand through other people? How you
do that is you recognize thatyou don't have all the skills that
you, you demonstrate humilityto recognize you aren't the master
at everything. You hire andrecruit people that are noticeably
smarter than you are andyou're comfortable with that. That
(11:14):
takes a lot of maturity not tohave to be the star in everything.
It's a huge transition forpeople. Most of us aren't trained.
I mean, it's a simpleconversation. Kent, man, you crushed
it for nine quarters in a rowwith your sales goal. We have an
open in our leadership ranksand we're thinking about promoting
you to lead the sales team.And Ken, I need you to know that
(11:37):
most of the skills that madeyou the top revenue producer are
not going to serve you or, orthe team well if you become the leader.
Let's inventory those andfigure out which ones are you literally
going to need to leave behindand which ones do you not possess
yet that you're going to haveto learn? I mean, I think it's a
fairly simple conversation toremind people what got you here.
(12:00):
Congrats, won't take youthere. So it's a mindset shift. Ask
yourself, how do I achievework with and through other people?
And nine and a half times outof ten, it's your self awareness,
it's your relationship skills.It's exercising an unnatural level
of patience. Someone else hasa different process. They process
(12:22):
information differently. Theyhave a different skill set than you
do. And to be able to say,wow, there are other ways to get
to the same or better resultsthat I got. Your job is to ignite
their genius, validate them,coach them, have high courageous
conversations on their blindspots, model feedback, all those
things that maybe aren'tnatural for an individual contributor.
(12:47):
No, I love that becausethey're learnable, right? It is learnable,
learnable.
However, I will tell you, theyare learnable. But for some people,
it may not be worth it. Imean, the biggest, if you were the
biggest crisis in leadershipis organizations that promote their
top performers throw them intoleadership with little to no training
or feedback. The leader getsin and realize, oh, I hate this.
(13:11):
I don't want to have highcourage conversations. I don't want
to give feedback. I want tohold people accountable. And then
do they go back to theirprevious job? No. They either get
fired or they quit and they goto the competitor. And so I implore
those who are identifyingfuture leaders sit down and have
really transparentconversations and say, this may not
be right for you. At the sametime, in most companies, the only
(13:33):
way to earn more money or toget promoted is to lead people. And
not everyone should be aleader of people. I think the leadership
industry has done a majordisservice promoting leadership as
the most noble contribution.No, no. The person that's selling
because they're the ones thatare paying for the salary or writing
the grants or you know,waiting on the tables or cooking
(13:56):
the food. Those are the mostimportant jobs that are actually
providing the service.Leadership is valuable. Not everyone
should be a commercial airlinepilot. Not everyone should be an
anesthesiologist and noteveryone should be a leader of people.
Right?
Yeah. I think in my, in mytime in talent management I tried
to caution leaders against.
Right.
Careful about potentiallyruining someone's career here.
(14:17):
Right.
Because if this doesn't workand we don't provide the support,
can they really step down,step back and stay here? Which it's
uncommon. It happens, but it'sreally uncommon. And it takes right.
To me to go down the path oftruly learning leadership. It takes
two, two things. Right. Andfrankly it's at every level.
(14:40):
Right.
It's not just that first jump,but it's each level jump from there
is you have to recalibratewhat equals job satisfaction to you.
Right.
Because let's use the salesexample. As a salesperson, job satisfaction
probably has something to dowith closing deals, putting up big
numbers. But when you're nowmanaging a handful of sales, you
(15:03):
know, sales reps, right. Youmight have to recalibrate for yourself.
Now I'm in meetings, now I'm coaching.
Right.
And I've seen so many leadersstruggle with even just that basic
recalibration of I'm in somany meetings, I don't feel like
I'm doing anything. Be likethat is actually the job now. So
how do you find, you know,your peace and your satisfaction
(15:25):
with what should be making upyour day to day? But it also takes
self awareness too to say,there is something here, I need to
make a change. I need to bedoing things differently. But before
we get on, I wanted to commenton one more thing which you said
was like, not everybody shouldbe in leadership, right? And I've
always thought and looked atthe difference between someone's
(15:50):
advancement drive versus theirleadership drive.
Right?
Now having both is great,right? Advancement drive being I
want that title. I want that,you know, pay and prestige. Leadership
drive being I actually likethe work of leading people. And in
my own experience, those whohave the advancement drive without
the leadership drive tend toflame out. Those who have the leadership
(16:14):
drive without the advancementdrive can make it, but only so far,
truly. And then, you know,those who kind of have that combination
of both have a lot moreRunway. But back to these things
being learnable, right? Youhave to recalibrate what equals success
to you and have the selfawareness to say something isn't
(16:37):
working.
Right?
There's something that's notworking for me. So when you start
to look at power skills, youknow, what are, what are your thoughts
on how someone, where doessomeone begin in this journey with
understanding which powerskills do they need to focus on?
Well, it's a big question,right? I mean, one of the, one of
(16:58):
the insights that I took fromthe Franklin Covey company is not
just the importance of havinga set of personal values, but having
a set of professional valuesand really thinking about your career
long term. What is it youreally want to do? What do you want
to accomplish? What is mostimportant to you? Like, my number
one professional value ismaximizing my income. And I'm very
(17:19):
comfortable saying that Mynumber two professional value is
working for and with a brandthat I'm proud to associate with.
And my third professionalvalue is to work with people that
I like and respect and wholike and respect me. So although
my number one professionalvalue is maximize my income, I'm
not willing to do that. Youknow, running cocaine across the
(17:40):
country. Right. Or doingsomething nefarious. And so I think
it's super valuable for peopleto get very thoughtful around what
are your hierarchicalprofessional values? And do not create
them because they may soundpithy at a cocktail party or they're
good for an interview. No, infact, Ken, I don't care what you
think about my personal andprofessional values. They're mine
(18:01):
and they're the lens throughwhich I make all my career decisions.
I think there's an arc topeople's career. You know, the research
shows that at about the 36months, 36 month in a job, people
get bored, that the challengetends to wear off and they don't
realize it, they've masteredthe job, the challenge is kind of
over. The euphoria of learningnew skills is over and they can kind
(18:23):
of do it in their sleep. Andwhat happens is they notice it after
other people notice it, othersnotice it and it becomes a brand
new miniature for them. So Ithink it's really valuable to disrupt
yourself, right. Act or beacted upon, have a plan or become
part of someone else's. So Ithink a power skill is vision, is
to have a vision for yourcareer, not abdicate your career
(18:47):
track to your boss oroutsource it to somebody else. Because
again, one of my favoritequotes is have a plan or become part
of someone else's plan. So itis. It is necessary for you to think
strategically about yourcareer requires you to be an insatiable,
curious learner to watchothers do they have. Are other people
(19:07):
pursuing careers or paths thatinterest you? Do your skills match
that? There's a time to plant,there's a time to harvest. I think
too many of us confuse the twoto want to harvest, harvest, harvest.
But sometimes you have toplant and the culture you're in and
wait till your time is there,wait until it's the right timing.
So all that I think is kind ofwrapped up in a bit of self awareness
(19:30):
introspection is do you have avision and a strategy? Because quite
frankly, right. A B planexecuted is better than an A plan
not executed. And it's one ofthe things I did best in my career
is I always had a sense forwhere I was going, where I wanted
to go, and I knew what thenext role was or the next promotion
looked like, which skills thatI possess, which did I not possess,
(19:52):
and did my best to learn thoseso that I could earn my way into
the next career. There's a lotof advice there. But I would argue
that most people I meet andcoach or mentor, they're thinking
about the next job. And Iwould say, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no. You're thinking about thejob after that job. What's the, what's
the two jobs after that? Soyou're building a path for yourself
(20:13):
that's meaningful and maybethat you have to disrupt yourself
and fire yourself before thecompany does that to you.
Interesting. Well, I like howyou've given people, with your own
example, you've given peoplepermission to put maximizing income
high on the list. I was justin a conversation yesterday around
what, what's your seven layersof why? And the person who is sort
(20:35):
of leading that Conversationalso said, hey, my number one why
is to maximize my income. Sothis is like two days in a row. There's.
But I like the, the again, the permission.
Right.
That's okay. If that is one ofyour main goals, part of your vision,
great. Just be honest aboutit. But then, you know, what does
that unlock for you?
Can I add a little bit to thattoo? Is it's not just okay, it's
(20:56):
awesomely. Right. I mean, Idon't know about you, but I work
for a living. Right. My, myvocation is not necessarily always
my avocation. Maximizing myincome isn't about greed. It's not
about buying a 10th Porsche.It's about giving myself some independence
and freedom and liberty. It'sabout providing for those who are
dependent upon me. It's aboutfunding the things I am passionate
(21:18):
about, perhapsphilanthropically or spiritually
or socially or politically.And so I am very comfortable proclaiming
from a mountaintop that mynumber one professional value is
maximizing my income. Not atthe expense of working with great
people who respect me, not whoI respect.
Right.
Working for a brand that I amproud of. I could have earned more
(21:40):
money, but it would have beena violation possibly of my number
two and number three values.So I make all my professional decisions
through those three lenses. Ithink people should be much more
comfortable declaring theirvalues and communicating their wants
and needs through them, butalso making sure that you are providing
the skill and the value.Right. I teach my three boys all
(22:03):
the time. You are paid indirect correlation to the skills
you have. This job pays thisand this job pays this. And so you
have to make sure that yourskills, you're developing them and
you're building them incorrelation to what your plan is,
what your values are. Knowyour value can be maximize your income.
But if you're not learning,you know, AI skills, you're going
(22:25):
to be obsolete in five years.
Yeah, yeah. Well, seeing asyou brought up AI, I've been doing
a little bit of thinking onthis. So when you wanted, when you
said you wanted to talk aboutpower skills, I kind of lit up because
AI is a real, real divisivetopic at the moment. You either have
people who are, it's comingfor all of our jobs, which it's coming
(22:50):
for some jobs for sure.
Right.
So it's become this realboogeyman. But then there's also,
you know, these conversationsaround. Well, it's certainly coming
for some of the menial tasksthat maybe a lot of us have built
our expertise around in ourcareers and so, you know, some of
the conversations that I'm inare what is this going to mean for
(23:13):
the importance of leadershipor even just power skills in general.
Right.
Because there's still quite abit of sci fi technical growth to
get to, I think, where therobots are humaning. I'd be curious.
Maybe less than we think. Right.
But you never know.
But yeah, you and I are veryclosely aligned on this. This may
(23:37):
sound like a cliche, but byand large, you're not going to lose
your job to AI. You're goingto lose your job to someone who knows
how to use AI and how toleverage AI. And I think that may
sound like a cliche, but it'sa good lens to work through. Yes,
there are going to be jobsthat are lost to AI and they probably
should be so that it canbecome more efficient, so we can
(23:59):
use our innate talents moreeffectively, so that prices perhaps
could go down. I was at aconference a few months ago. It was
a gathering of 100 Fortune 50CIOs and CHROs in New York City.
I sat next to an EVP fromLinkedIn and he said something that
I thought was smart. He said,you know, at some point, robots are
(24:22):
going to do all the work, AIis going to do all the thinking,
and humans are going to beleft to do all the relational, social,
emotional work. Now that maybe a bit of an overreach, but I think
I'll look through the lens ofthat is the power skills that are
going to be the most valuableare the ones that are unique to building
relationships and buildingculture and leading people through
(24:47):
their own transformation andstruggle and clarifying. Right. It's
like being a force of clarity.So I would encourage everyone to
not swing the pendulum one wayor the other. Everyone should be
spending some time every dayin and around AI. Whether that is
playing with ChatGPT, whetherit's listening to a podcast, watching
(25:10):
some YouTube videos, playingwith some different machine learning
tools, because it's going toimpact everybody swiftly. I mean,
I think in four years you'llbe able to go into Chat GPT and say,
I would like a 22,000 wordbook written in Scott Miller's voice
that teaches me the seven mostimportant skills. To open a stand
(25:32):
at a farmer's market sellingorganic guavas. I made that up. But
I mean, in four minutes you'llhave a customized book for you and
my voice on those skills onthat market. It's happening already.
People email me and say, hey,I just landed a new job. I wrote
my Cover letter in ScottMiller's voice because you want to
(25:53):
see it. I'm like, no, I don'twant to see it because there's so
much of my content between,you know, eight books and hundreds
of podcast interviews andLinkedIn articles and Inc. Magazine
columns. You could writeanything in my voice now. Not sure
anybody would want to, butapparently a couple do. I think it's
a good balance. Right. Allthings in moderation. Most of these
(26:13):
power skills are really aboutbuilding relationships and no AI
is doing that.
Yeah. Interestingly, a lot ofentrepreneurs are. I feel like leaning
in more on AI than I'm seeingpeople who are in, you know, corporate
roles at larger organizationsnow. Some of that has to do with
(26:34):
privacy concerns and IPconcerns and things like that, that
larger organizations, youknow, are more carefully moving in
the direction of using someAI. And I think those who I've seen
using it best, not. Not tomake a hard pivot and just talk about
AI here. But the people who Ifeel like are using it best are using
(26:54):
it as a collaborator asopposed to leaning on it to do all
the doing for them.
Right.
So it's now in some casespeople are building automations and
agents to take off some of theadmin back office work off their
plates, which I'm sure, as youalso have experience, the real bear
that that can be as anentrepreneur. But I feel like those
(27:18):
who I. I've seen and heardleveraging it best or leveraging
it as a partner as opposed toif that makes sense. Does that. Am
I making any sense?
It does make sense. I see it alittle differently in that.
Oh yeah.
Only because I'm an editor andI'm a literary agent and I'm a publisher.
And so I see daily all thebooks that are being published. Not
(27:40):
all of them, but most of themon AI. It is the number one requested
topic in our speakers bureau.In fact, just yesterday I booked
a renowned author on an AIbook to speak to a 5,000 person global
sales team. 5,000 people thatall sell a software solution. How
can each of them be using AIto better meet their goals, to better
(28:02):
meet their customer needs? Andso I think depending upon the business
you're in, the size of yourcompany, the impact that AI has on
your efficiency is going to bekind of like Moore's Law. I know
Moore's Law is not a thinganymore, Right. The computing power
of a chip. But it's, you know,the metaphor is not lost. I don't
(28:23):
think in terms of thisconversation will be very different.
A Year from now, I think it'llbe more different a year from now
than it was a year ago. Right.In terms of the quantum impact every
organization is having. And Idon't think you're going to see a
huge disruption of theworkforce. I don't think you're going
to see whole sectors beingeliminated immediately. Maybe three
(28:43):
years from now you will. Butthe people that will have the most
leverage, the most influence,the most job security are those that
master the interpersonal humanpower skills and keep their knowledge
and application of AI reallysharp. It's not one or the other,
it is absolutely both.
And yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah. So as people are wrestling
(29:06):
with these changes and, andyou know, I think I'm where you're
at too here with how powerskills are going to become a real
differentiator as well. Wheredo you recommend people start? I
mean, I think I, you know, oneplace I would usually recommend is
and, and you know, of course,because of my background.
(29:28):
Right.
It would be do you have anassessment of your, you know, your
skills? Do you know where youare strong, where you're not? So
as you're thinking about thepositioning of your book and the
research you're doing, how areyou recommending people move forward
with assessing and determiningpriority here?
This may surprise you, but itall comes down to self awareness.
(29:53):
Books written about it, all ofus talk about it, we think we're
self aware and we're not. Andso I would say it's the first power
skill, by the way, in the bookis really developing your self awareness.
What does this mean? It meansyou check your ego and you really
learn earn yearn tounderstand. What is it like to work
(30:17):
with me? What's it like to beled by me? What's it like to lead
me? What's it like to livenext door to me? What's it like to
be parented by me? To bemarried by me? To play pickleball
with me? What's it like tojoin a zoom call with me? To be standing
in a trade show booth for fourdays with me? I mean, these are like
(30:41):
really valuable questions andthe only way you know this is to
ask and you have to ask. Kent.Hey, Kent, can I ask you a question?
You and I just spent threedays at the CES conference in Las
Vegas. I'd love to know whatit's like to be at a conference with
me. And Kent's gonna say, oh,you're awesome, man. You're so funny.
(31:01):
You're so good. No, no, no,no, no, Really, I want to know, like,
what are the things I do thatannoy people? Nothing. Scott, you're
great. No, Kent, you're notserving me well. Because the matter
is most people are going tolie to you, right? Because most people
are cowards. And that's not acharacter flaw. It's a personality
trait, is someone has to feelimmensely safe to actually tell you
(31:23):
the truth because there's noupside for them. They're going to
insult you unless they're not.And so I have to be able to say to
Kent, kent, I have acourageous conversation I need to
ask of you. I really want towork on my interpersonal skills.
I know I have blind spots. Iknow I have blind spots. I'm louder
than I think I am. I talk morethan I think I should. According
(31:46):
to my wife, I'm not nearly asfunny as I think I am. Conversation
has some reference to, youknow who about it in the White House
and on and on. And so you'vegot to make it safe for the other
person to move outside oftheir comfort zone and discuss with
you. The kind ofundiscussables, I mean, if you didn't
have any other power skillthan just that one, is be able to
(32:06):
have a safe conversation. Andthen when Kent tells you the truth,
if he does, your response hasto be, wow, thank you. That was courageous.
Thank you for trusting meenough not to dispute it or dismiss
it or refute it or deny it.Thank you so much. Hey, can I ask
(32:27):
you a question? Kent, I knowyou're not a psychiatrist, but when
I do that, do you have anyreason to believe? Do you know why
I do that? Is there a certainsituation? Do I look like I'm jealous?
Do I look like I'm insecure?Do I seem in over my head? People
have opinions. They watch you,they see patterns. And so all of
that, all of that is to say,ask. Go to people and say, hey, can
(32:53):
you tell me three things thatI do that delight you and three things
that I do that offend you? Orbetter yet, just are there three
things I do that you thinkhold me back from building my influence,
from building trust withothers, from gaining credibility?
People will tell you that whatare three areas that if I were to
(33:13):
improve on, it could improvemy influence? Wow. I don't think
the vast majority of yourlistenership currently possesses
the courage or the desire toreally know what that's like. And
let me tell you how I've builtit. Like you, like I told you earlier,
(33:34):
I've hosted this podcast inbetween a couple of podcasts and
a radio program, nearly 700interviews of every thought leaders
in the world, right? Everybodyfrom Matthew McConaughey to Mel Robbins
to Melinda Gates to DeepakChopra. Everyone. Everyone. And once
a week, my oldest son and Icome home from church and we sit
in the driveway, we look atall the YouTube comments, all the
(33:57):
hate on Reddit, all the hate,and we laugh. And it's. It's horrible.
I mean, it is. It isvitriolic. Vitriolic. I actually
wrote a whole chapter about itin the book because we look through
it and we say, well, that'skind of mean. Well, that's kind mean.
Well, that's not true. I do dothat. And that's true. And that's
true. And that's mean, buttrue. And we just process it, right?
(34:19):
I don't take it personally.You know, most of them tell me I
should not be alive. Well, Ithink that's a little extreme. But
I learned so much about whatit's like to listen to Scott Miller
as a podcast host and guest. Ijust talked for 12 minutes straight
right now. Right. My wifeshould be slashing me a note. Shut
up. I think the more we'reopen to other people's perception
(34:40):
of us because how we presentourselves is so rarely how we are
received by others. And if youcan get a grasp around how you are
received by others, whoa,you've just exploded your professional
opportunities. That was along, meandering answer, but as you
can tell, I'm super passionateabout it.
No, and I usually, I creditKim Scott with this, and I don't
(35:04):
know that she originated it,but she, in her book Radical Candor,
it talks about, you know, howdo you create a feedback culture
and it's the opposite of whatyou think, Right. Most leaders would
say, well, by giving feedbackmore courageously. And it's actually,
I think what you're hittinghere is it's actually by asking for
more feedback openly and inpublic. But I think important here
(35:26):
is not just asking, listening,and thanking, but if somebody's telling
you something actionable, ifyou ever want that person to give
you feedback again, you needto be seen doing something with that
feedback as well.
You are speaking my language,Right? The insight that I think is
the most profound in Kim'sbook, even though it's called Radical
(35:47):
Candor, is the fact that mostpeople practice ruinous empathy.
And that's the phrase sheuses. Well, I don't want to offend
Kent, or. I'm not sure how tosay it. Or no, no. I mean, you have
to build a brand that you areopen to feedback. Otherwise people
will just pull the chickenswitch and they won't tell you what
really is on their mind. Youhave to build the reputation, the
(36:10):
brand that I really want itand when you give it to me, I will
not shame you for it. And moreimportantly, I will go and behave
in accordance with that. And Iwant you to catch me doing that so
that when someone later iseither disparaging me or is being
duplicitous to me, doesn'ttrust me, that Ken can say, hey,
(36:32):
can I tell you actually,that's actually not my experience.
Scott came to me two monthsago, asked me for feedback. I gave
it to him first of all, hereceived it really well. I was surprised,
but even more so, I actuallysaw him taking better notes in the
meeting. He wasn't alwaysraising his hand first, he wasn't
dominating. And so I'veactually seen a change in Scott.
(36:52):
You build champions foryourself by modeling the implementation
of that says easy does hard,but it is a game changer.
For us and you might notalways be able to put it into action.
And therefore you might haveto have a follow up conversation
too to say, hey, I've giventhat feedback a lot of thought and
(37:12):
here's what I am and maybe I'mnot going to do with it and why,
but please keep, you know,keep it coming.
And on that front, recognizethat not all feedback is about you.
Some feedback is about theirex boyfriend who looks like you or
their girlfriend who soundslike you. Or perhaps they could even
(37:33):
be just jealous of you andthey're giving you feedback that's,
you know, so you have toreally understand from what intent
is this coming. Does thisperson really have my best interest
at heart? Have I given themany upside to give them this feedback?
Giving me the feedback?There's a whole art of this. And
by the way, you don't get itright the first time, you got to
(37:53):
practice it, you're going tostumble, you're going to fail. You
have to apologize and say,gosh, I know, Kit, you told me to
stop doing this. It's soingrained in me. I promise, I'm working
on it. You know, I bought a, Ibought a wristband or a different
pen to remind myself. Peoplethat have the right intent and if
they see you making attemptsat improving your behavior, they'll
give you the benefit of the doubt.
(38:14):
Right? Right.
And to your point, not, I'mgoing to put it in my words right,
not all Feedback is going tonecessarily be accurate or worth
actioning on. But that's whereI think, to your point, being curious
maybe with another person ortwo, approaching another person and
saying, hey, here's somefeedback I've gotten. Do you see
(38:35):
that? What's your perspectiveon that? So you could even triangulate,
you know, and understand, youknow, is this just coming from one
person? It's their experience.
Yeah.
Right.
Which doesn't mean it'sinvalid. It just means, all right,
so there's one person that Imight need to think about how I'm,
you know, taking intentionalaction around versus is this something
(38:56):
I need to work on much more broadly?
So well said. Right. Becausemy style no doubt fatigues some people,
but invigorates others. And Ihave to be situationally aware enough
to know in what circumstanceare my strengths. Lifting others
versus diminishing others andlifting my brand versus otherwise.
I think that's so valuable.It's one of the power skills is to
(39:18):
be able to really understandthe circumstance you're in and are
your strengths being overplayed.
Right.
Situations where I need todial down my energy or my personality
and there's others when Ishould dial it up because it's invigorating
to people or it could befatiguing. That comes back to self
awareness.
Yeah, yeah. Not only would Ilove to just, I think be on a long
(39:41):
haul flight sitting next toyou chatting for 14 hours.
I'm sure we dispute that.
All that to say I'm sure wecould keep going. Maybe I'll have
to have you back in a yearwhen your next book is out. We can
also talk about what you know,what has, what of our predictions
of AI have and haven't cometrue yet. But to get us into the
(40:03):
advice column here, what's onepiece of advice you have for it?
So this podcast is, you know,one of my focuses is helping leaders
step up their game in some way.
Right.
And so what's one piece ofadvice you have for leaders out there?
I'm going to repeat somethingI said before, not because I don't
have other content, but I'msuper passionate about it, is to
(40:24):
remind yourself every day youare in the relationship business.
And I don't think in myexperience most of us aren't as good
at developing relationships aswe would like to be. It may become
more natural for others.Here's a good example. I am a stutterer.
I have a quite debilitatingspeech impediment. Have my entire
(40:47):
life I've been Through decadesof speech therapy and speech pathology.
Braces four times. Invisalign,headgear. I have two speech coaches.
There are about 36 words Icannot say in public. And part of
my training was to learn howto avoid those words. There's a whole.
I write about it extensivelyin my books and sometimes I come
across as quite roboticbecause I over enunciate my words,
(41:09):
I over articulate my words.Sometimes I use the wrong word for
a replacement term and itseems a bit awkward. And so for,
you know, some of thatcontributes to my inability to develop
great relationships. I'mfairly impetuous and impulsive. I'm
impatient, I'm high energy, Itake control. I have some origin
(41:30):
story anxiety from my parentsfor a variety of reasons. All that
is to say, I am working dailyon how do I become a better friend,
how do I become a betterleader, when am I fatiguing people?
When am I dominating versuswhen am I setting a vision and path?
When am I rushing in to savethe day because I can just do it
(41:53):
faster or quicker versusshowing the patience. Let somebody
else struggle and do it theirway. All this comes down to what
can you do to better developrelationships? People want a relationship
with their leader. Thatdoesn't mean that I'm, you know,
hearing your confession everyday. It doesn't mean that I'm sharing
(42:13):
all of my sins metaphorically,but that I am, you know, judiciously
getting to know you and whatare your quirks, what are your personality
traits, what are areas thatyou need to improve upon? And I'm
comfortable sharing them withyou. And that I'm comfortable modeling
and saying, hey, listen, Iwant to be a better leader. Ken,
I'm sure there are some thingsI do that bug you. Would you share
(42:34):
them with me? Comes back tothe same theme. I mean, you see a
consistent theme. I'm not aone trick pony. I've written a lot
about a lot of topics, butthis is one that I see is the biggest
trip up to everyone'sleadership career is what's it like
to be led by you?
Right.
And that requires you to sortof be situationally different with
(42:55):
each person. I think one ofthe best books ever written is Gary
Chapman's the Five LoveLanguages. And you know, after. Have
you read this book?
I'm cover to cover.
You're aware of it, right? Sohe's a family therapist, a marriage
therapist, and he identifiedafter thousands of marriage encounters
that there were five lovelanguages. I think in order or not
(43:18):
in order, you know, physicalTouch, quality time, words of affirmation,
acts of service, and gifts.And usually the way you receive love
is also the way you give love,which is a mistake. Right?
Right.
My wife wants purses. I wantto be thanked for paying the power
bill. And so it's important toknow what is your partner or spouse's
love language, because most ofus give love the way we want to receive
(43:41):
love. The same in leadership,right. Is I want to be praised, I
want to be recognized. I wantthe trophy, I want my picture on
a PowerPoint. I want to go toHawaii for president's club. That
would horrify my wife. If mywife knew that you were going to
call on her in three minutes,she would excuse herself to the restroom,
get in her car and drive homeand would not care if you fired her
(44:01):
over it. She does not want anyrecognition. It's important as leaders,
you understand how do otherpeople want to be communicated to?
How do they want to be led?And it requires you to have really,
almost now a situationalleadership style to lead everyone
a little bit differently basedon their needs. And that can be exhausting
because. But that's the newleadership standard.
(44:22):
That's the job. Yeah. Yeah. Sofor those listening who support leaders
in stepping up their game,what's your advice to them?
Give them feedback. Give themfeedback. You know, have the courage,
say, hey, Kent, I have noticedsome areas in which I think you could
exponentially increase yourinfluence. If you're ever open to
(44:43):
them, I'd love to share themwith you. Happy to send them an email,
let you digest them so theycan be kind of devoid of agenda and
emotion. And once you digestthem, I'd be happy to, you know,
go for a cup of coffee andwalk around how they show up. I think
the higher up you get in theorganization, the less feedback you
get. Right. I mean, yeah. Youknow, talk about a career cul de
(45:04):
sac. Give the CEO feedback onher last town hall. PowerPoint deck
is probably not going to go so well.
Yeah.
But quite frankly, she needsit because everybody in the audience
is, you know, moaning andgrowing, wanting to take their Life.
On the seventh longitudinalgraph from Harvard Business Review.
Stop doing that. CEO. Stopdoing that. Stop the PowerPoint.
(45:27):
Get out from behind thepodium, walk down to the audience
and say, what questions do youhave? Nothing is off limits. What
questions do you have?Strategy, culture, product innovation,
collaboration. I may not beable to answer everything, but I'll
be as vulnerable as I can, andI'll be as truthful as I am legally
allowed to be given the stateof our organization or whatever it
(45:50):
is. Right? Stop with thePowerPoints. So the question was
how do those who supportleaders help them? I think it's exercise
a level of courageous anddiplomatic feedback.
Love it. So fun. We startedout talking about power skills and
I feel like we've kind ofreally coalesced around self awareness
(46:14):
seeking, feedback giving, youknow, for those who are supporting
leaders, giving feedback. Sofor those who want more Scott Jeffrey
Miller in their lives, right?Where do they find you?
Well, my wife said it's nothard because she thinks I'm a little
overexposed. So you can googleme and I guarantee I come up. As
(46:36):
I mentioned, I co own the GrayMiller Agency. We are a fast growing
literary speaking and talentagency and we are a publisher as
well. I am no longer the hostof Franklin Covey's podcast. After
seven years, I retired andpassed the mantle to a new host.
But there are just shy of 500episodes both on audio and video
(46:56):
that you can look at. And as Imentioned, I've written eight books
on leadership, marketing,parenting, mentorship, career development,
and my ninth book is calledthe New Power Skills and it'll be
released in the summer of2027. 2026. 2026.
Awesome. Well, I'm reallylooking forward to that. Scott, thank
(47:19):
you for agreeing to come onthe podcast today. It was just a
pleasure having you.
Oh, thanks for the spotlight.Appreciate it, Ken.
All right, that brings us tothe end of our episode. Thanks for
listening. I'd encourage youto head on over to my website, Kent
Coach and start a conversationwith me there. Or check out my promotion
playbook at Kent CoachPlaybook. Before you go on with your
(47:39):
day, I ask that you pleasetake a moment to leave a rating and
a review wherever you listento podcasts. Five stars. That helps
put this podcast in front ofmore eyes and ears. Until next time,
take it easy.
Foreign.
Not everyone should be aleader of people. I think the leadership
industry has done a majordisservice promoting leadership as
the most noble contribution.No, no. The person that's selling
because they're the ones thatare paying for the salary or writing
the grants or, you know,waiting on the tables or cooking
(00:23):
the food. Those are the mostimportant jobs that are actually
providing the service.Leadership is valuable. Not everyone
should be a commercial airlinepilot. Not everyone should be an
anesthesiologist. And noteveryone should be a leader of people.
Hi there and welcome to theStep up expert Voices for Leadership
Growth. I'm your host, KentKnievel. Every week I talk to experts
(00:44):
who focus on helping leadersstep up their leadership game. If
you're new to the show, thenon whatever platform you're using,
I encourage you to subscribeso you never miss an episode. One
last thing, as a leadershipdevelopment consultant and executive
coach, I have a particularinterest in supporting recent internally
promoted leaders. If that'syou, or if you support a leader who
has been recently promoted, Iencourage you to visit my website
(01:06):
at Kent Coach Playbook anddownload a free copy of my 90 day
blueprint filled withpractical advice for you or the leader
you support in hitting theground running and truly stepping
up to their new leadershiplevel. Without further ado, on with
the show. Welcome everybody.Today we are talking about power
skills and with me for thisconversation is Scott Jeffrey Miller,
(01:29):
eight time best sellingauthor, former CMO at Franklin Covey,
host of the largest leadershippodcast. We'd love to hear about
that later. And co owner ofthe fastest growing literary and
talent agency in the nation.Scott, thanks for joining today.
Kent, what an honor. Thank youfor the spotlight and the platform
to talk about the things thatI'm passionate about. I didn't say
(01:50):
competent about, I saidpassionate about passion.
Not always good distinction.And the honor is all mine. So as
I usually like to start, Iwant to hear about your career story.
I think you know, we weretalking just before I hit recorded
about, you know, the whatchapter I'm on in my career and I
would love to hear, you know,a little bit more and I'm sure our
audience would as well hear alittle bit more about your career
(02:12):
and how you landed on.
What you're doing today withthe highs or the lows. Which would
you like is there's an.
Equal number of both warts andall, whatever you're with.
Well, I live in Salt LakeCity, Utah with my wife and our three
young sons. I moved here 30years ago after a Short career at
the Walt Disney Company. I'mfrom the east coast, Orlando, Florida
(02:33):
and had a great run thereuntil they invited me to leave, which
is kind of how it happens atthe Walt Disney Company. So here
is a 27 year old singleCatholic boy from Orlando, Florida
and I move out to Provo, Utah.You can do the math. 30 years ago,
right? I think the priest andI were the only Catholics in Provo,
(02:54):
Utah. But Stephen Coveyinvited me to join his then small
boutique leadership firmcalled the Covey Leadership Center.
Dr. Covey, of course, is theauthor of the seminal book, the 7
Habits of Highly EffectivePeople. This book eventually became
the Franklin Covey Company,one of the dominant forces in leadership
development around the world.I spent almost 30 years, 30 years
(03:15):
inside of this organization,living around the world for them
in Chicago and London and backto Utah several times. Ultimately
I served as the chiefMarketing officer for eight years.
Three times the nationalaverage of a public company, cmo,
and then for several years asthe EVP of thought leadership. An
amazing career inside ofFranklin Covey. Learned about how
(03:38):
to become a leader. Soldseveral hundred million dollars of
leadership solutions toclients. Wrote eight books along
the way. Nonfiction books thatwere all about careers and mentorship
and management, marketing andparenting and leadership. Had the
privilege, like you, ofhosting a very popular leadership
podcast, nearly 500 episodes.Wrote a couple books about that,
(04:01):
and then about two years ago,decided I liked shining the spotlight
on other people as much as Iliked it on me. And so I, with a
partner, launched what is nowknown as the Gray Miller Agency.
We have about 200 thoughtleaders under representation on both
the speaking and literary bookside. So as you can see behind me,
if you're watching this onvideo, my life is books. I love books.
(04:24):
My boys, to their horror, arerequired to read 45 minutes a day.
And my oldest son and I justreleased our eighth book. It's a
parenting book that my 15 yearold son and I are touring the nation
on called Parenting WrongTurns, Right Lessons, which basically
exposes all the bad decisionsI made as a co parent, my wife of
our three sons. So.
(04:44):
So you're getting thatfeedback now instead of in 20 years.
Well, I'm sure I'm going toget my share. So I keep telling them,
tell it to your therapist,tell it to your therapist. We all
have an origin story, right?We do our best. There is no manual,
there is no training, there'sno certification, there's no certificate
or degree to be a parent.There's just the abuse and pain of
watching Tormented. I rememberthe nutshell.
(05:08):
I love that. I remember the.So we just get to leave with your
first child, right? So we justleave the hospital with this now
we just go, we're free to leave.
Totally, totally. Yeah. Yeah.Well, read my book because there's
a lot of validation on whatthings people are doing, right. And
maybe learn from some of mymistakes. And my 15 year old son
(05:31):
thanks you for his royalty onthe book as well.
Nice. Well, I know my copy'son the way, so I'm looking forward
to checking that out. Well, soI love that you wanted to talk about
power skills today. And Ithink the moment you said that, I
even threw out the, like, Ihave a feeling we're doing a. We're
kind of twisting the languagehere, trying to reframe what people
(05:51):
have been talking about assoft skills for a long time. Right.
And even in my time in hr,I've, I've, I've heard L and D leaders,
leadership development leaderskind of leaning in to say, why is
it that soft skills are thehardest skills? Right. But I love
the, the language here onpower skills. So where do you want
to start with thatconversation? What made you want
(06:12):
to start thinking, talking,writing about this topic?
Well, this is my ninth bookcoming out next year in the summer
from Matt Holt at Ben Bella.It's called the New Power Skills.
And the premise is basicallythat, you know, most all of us are
hired for our hard skills,right? Our technical skills, our
education, our credential, ourcertification, our degree. But most
(06:34):
of us are fired or relieved ofour jobs, case in point from Disney,
because of our interpersonalskills, known as soft skills, are
now the real power skills. Andso I really wanted to teach what
I thought were in essenceAlmost the top 30, if you will, interpersonal
skills that everyone needs tomaster. Because at the end of the
day, we're all in the samebusiness. We are in the relationship
(06:56):
business. That is not acliche. If you look at the most influential
leaders, they have the abilityto check their ego, to listen better,
to read the room, to moderatetheir own body language, to admit
their own mistakes, to offerapologies, to communicate effectively,
to possess great selfawareness, to frame problems, right?
(07:19):
To differentiate between theiropinions and facts. Both of those
are important, but they're notalways the same. And so I collected
about. Well, it started at 24and then it expanded to 29. And so
I'm still wrestling with whichof these skills I really want to
write about. They're allrelevant. They're extremely relevant
(07:39):
as the job market and theworld changes dramatically. But in
essence, these are the skillsthat get you promoted, build your
budget and your influence,build your credibility, and will
get you some inoculationagainst being talked to or being
taken to the woodshed, which Iwas on numerous occasions. I like
(08:01):
to joke, and I mean this withdeference, that my human resource
file was an expandable folderbecause I was always staying or doing
things that were, you know,regrettable, never, never illegal
or unethical or moral. But Ijust, you know, needed. Needed an
inner dialogue. I neededsometimes better discipline. Oh,
no, that's an internalthought, not something I should be
(08:23):
saying. So a lot of my booksare confessing my sins in the hopes
that others can learn from them.
I love that. And I still lovehow you said invited to leave. I
think that's brilliant. So,interestingly, one thing I'm finding
in my own coaching work, and Iknow other, it's not a new thing.
I know others face this. Ijust kind of was inundated with a
(08:44):
handful of these kind of allat the same time, which is to your
point. You're hired for yourexpertise. You're often promoted
initially for your expertise.Right. And I found myself coaching
leaders who are stuck, havingfound themselves kind of in the middle
of everything suddenly. Right.Everybody's bringing everything to
(09:05):
them and they, you know,possibly unintentionally, maybe in
some cases intentionally havekind of wedged themselves in the
middle instead of elevating uptheir leadership and really working
through others and gettingthem to solve their own problems.
It just kind of rings similarhere of how do you leave, you know,
(09:26):
how do you begin to leaveyour, what we have traditionally
called hard skills thatexpertise behind in order to step
into your leadership.
Right.
Because I feel like it's aneasy fallback for leaders, right.
That like. Well, let me justgo back to the thing I'm really good
at, which is, you know,getting things done or however you
want to put that. I'd becurious what your reaction to that.
(09:48):
Well, I think I have a lot ofpassion for this topic. It's the
quicksand of everyone's careertransition because typically most
leaders are culled from theindividual contributor ranks. The
top sales producer, the mosteffective digital designer, the most
efficient dental hygienist.They become the leader of dental
(10:10):
hygienist or the director ofthe creative division, or God forbid,
the top producing salespersonbecomes the director of sales when
we know there's zerocorrelation between what makes you
a great individual salescontributor and what makes you a
great leader. Of salesleaders. I think the challenge is
what most of us don't rememberis what got us here, won't take us
(10:30):
and them there. So when wemake this transition from star, individual
contributor to leader ofpeople, the primary question you
have to ask yourself is how doI get work done with and through
other people? And your wholeparadigm changes, right? No longer
are you the genius, you're thegenius maker. To quote Liz Wiseman,
(10:53):
who I think wrote one of thebest books in our generation, Multipliers.
How do you get work done withand through other people? How you
do that is you recognize thatyou don't have all the skills that
you, you demonstrate humilityto recognize you aren't the master
at everything. You hire andrecruit people that are noticeably
smarter than you are andyou're comfortable with that. That
(11:14):
takes a lot of maturity not tohave to be the star in everything.
It's a huge transition forpeople. Most of us aren't trained.
I mean, it's a simpleconversation. Kent, man, you crushed
it for nine quarters in a rowwith your sales goal. We have an
open in our leadership ranksand we're thinking about promoting
you to lead the sales team.And Ken, I need you to know that
(11:37):
most of the skills that madeyou the top revenue producer are
not going to serve you or, orthe team well if you become the leader.
Let's inventory those andfigure out which ones are you literally
going to need to leave behindand which ones do you not possess
yet that you're going to haveto learn? I mean, I think it's a
fairly simple conversation toremind people what got you here.
(12:00):
Congrats, won't take youthere. So it's a mindset shift. Ask
yourself, how do I achievework with and through other people?
And nine and a half times outof ten, it's your self awareness,
it's your relationship skills.It's exercising an unnatural level
of patience. Someone else hasa different process. They process
(12:22):
information differently. Theyhave a different skill set than you
do. And to be able to say,wow, there are other ways to get
to the same or better resultsthat I got. Your job is to ignite
their genius, validate them,coach them, have high courageous
conversations on their blindspots, model feedback, all those
things that maybe aren'tnatural for an individual contributor.
(12:47):
No, I love that becausethey're learnable, right? It is learnable,
learnable.
However, I will tell you, theyare learnable. But for some people,
it may not be worth it. Imean, the biggest, if you were the
biggest crisis in leadershipis organizations that promote their
top performers throw them intoleadership with little to no training
or feedback. The leader getsin and realize, oh, I hate this.
(13:11):
I don't want to have highcourage conversations. I don't want
to give feedback. I want tohold people accountable. And then
do they go back to theirprevious job? No. They either get
fired or they quit and they goto the competitor. And so I implore
those who are identifyingfuture leaders sit down and have
really transparentconversations and say, this may not
be right for you. At the sametime, in most companies, the only
(13:33):
way to earn more money or toget promoted is to lead people. And
not everyone should be aleader of people. I think the leadership
industry has done a majordisservice promoting leadership as
the most noble contribution.No, no. The person that's selling
because they're the ones thatare paying for the salary or writing
the grants or you know,waiting on the tables or cooking
(13:56):
the food. Those are the mostimportant jobs that are actually
providing the service.Leadership is valuable. Not everyone
should be a commercial airlinepilot. Not everyone should be an
anesthesiologist and noteveryone should be a leader of people.
Right?
Yeah. I think in my, in mytime in talent management I tried
to caution leaders against.
Right.
Careful about potentiallyruining someone's career here.
(14:17):
Right.
Because if this doesn't workand we don't provide the support,
can they really step down,step back and stay here? Which it's
uncommon. It happens, but it'sreally uncommon. And it takes right.
To me to go down the path oftruly learning leadership. It takes
two, two things. Right. Andfrankly it's at every level.
(14:40):
Right.
It's not just that first jump,but it's each level jump from there
is you have to recalibratewhat equals job satisfaction to you.
Right.
Because let's use the salesexample. As a salesperson, job satisfaction
probably has something to dowith closing deals, putting up big
numbers. But when you're nowmanaging a handful of sales, you
(15:03):
know, sales reps, right. Youmight have to recalibrate for yourself.
Now I'm in meetings, now I'm coaching.
Right.
And I've seen so many leadersstruggle with even just that basic
recalibration of I'm in somany meetings, I don't feel like
I'm doing anything. Be likethat is actually the job now. So
how do you find, you know,your peace and your satisfaction
(15:25):
with what should be making upyour day to day? But it also takes
self awareness too to say,there is something here, I need to
make a change. I need to bedoing things differently. But before
we get on, I wanted to commenton one more thing which you said
was like, not everybody shouldbe in leadership, right? And I've
always thought and looked atthe difference between someone's
(15:50):
advancement drive versus theirleadership drive.
Right?
Now having both is great,right? Advancement drive being I
want that title. I want that,you know, pay and prestige. Leadership
drive being I actually likethe work of leading people. And in
my own experience, those whohave the advancement drive without
the leadership drive tend toflame out. Those who have the leadership
(16:14):
drive without the advancementdrive can make it, but only so far,
truly. And then, you know,those who kind of have that combination
of both have a lot moreRunway. But back to these things
being learnable, right? Youhave to recalibrate what equals success
to you and have the selfawareness to say something isn't
(16:37):
working.
Right?
There's something that's notworking for me. So when you start
to look at power skills, youknow, what are, what are your thoughts
on how someone, where doessomeone begin in this journey with
understanding which powerskills do they need to focus on?
Well, it's a big question,right? I mean, one of the, one of
(16:58):
the insights that I took fromthe Franklin Covey company is not
just the importance of havinga set of personal values, but having
a set of professional valuesand really thinking about your career
long term. What is it youreally want to do? What do you want
to accomplish? What is mostimportant to you? Like, my number
one professional value ismaximizing my income. And I'm very
(17:19):
comfortable saying that Mynumber two professional value is
working for and with a brandthat I'm proud to associate with.
And my third professionalvalue is to work with people that
I like and respect and wholike and respect me. So although
my number one professionalvalue is maximize my income, I'm
not willing to do that. Youknow, running cocaine across the
(17:40):
country. Right. Or doingsomething nefarious. And so I think
it's super valuable for peopleto get very thoughtful around what
are your hierarchicalprofessional values? And do not create
them because they may soundpithy at a cocktail party or they're
good for an interview. No, infact, Ken, I don't care what you
think about my personal andprofessional values. They're mine
(18:01):
and they're the lens throughwhich I make all my career decisions.
I think there's an arc topeople's career. You know, the research
shows that at about the 36months, 36 month in a job, people
get bored, that the challengetends to wear off and they don't
realize it, they've masteredthe job, the challenge is kind of
over. The euphoria of learningnew skills is over and they can kind
(18:23):
of do it in their sleep. Andwhat happens is they notice it after
other people notice it, othersnotice it and it becomes a brand
new miniature for them. So Ithink it's really valuable to disrupt
yourself, right. Act or beacted upon, have a plan or become
part of someone else's. So Ithink a power skill is vision, is
to have a vision for yourcareer, not abdicate your career
(18:47):
track to your boss oroutsource it to somebody else. Because
again, one of my favoritequotes is have a plan or become part
of someone else's plan. So itis. It is necessary for you to think
strategically about yourcareer requires you to be an insatiable,
curious learner to watchothers do they have. Are other people
(19:07):
pursuing careers or paths thatinterest you? Do your skills match
that? There's a time to plant,there's a time to harvest. I think
too many of us confuse the twoto want to harvest, harvest, harvest.
But sometimes you have toplant and the culture you're in and
wait till your time is there,wait until it's the right timing.
So all that I think is kind ofwrapped up in a bit of self awareness
(19:30):
introspection is do you have avision and a strategy? Because quite
frankly, right. A B planexecuted is better than an A plan
not executed. And it's one ofthe things I did best in my career
is I always had a sense forwhere I was going, where I wanted
to go, and I knew what thenext role was or the next promotion
looked like, which skills thatI possess, which did I not possess,
(19:52):
and did my best to learn thoseso that I could earn my way into
the next career. There's a lotof advice there. But I would argue
that most people I meet andcoach or mentor, they're thinking
about the next job. And Iwould say, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no. You're thinking about thejob after that job. What's the, what's
the two jobs after that? Soyou're building a path for yourself
(20:13):
that's meaningful and maybethat you have to disrupt yourself
and fire yourself before thecompany does that to you.
Interesting. Well, I like howyou've given people, with your own
example, you've given peoplepermission to put maximizing income
high on the list. I was justin a conversation yesterday around
what, what's your seven layersof why? And the person who is sort
(20:35):
of leading that Conversationalso said, hey, my number one why
is to maximize my income. Sothis is like two days in a row. There's.
But I like the, the again, the permission.
Right.
That's okay. If that is one ofyour main goals, part of your vision,
great. Just be honest aboutit. But then, you know, what does
that unlock for you?
Can I add a little bit to thattoo? Is it's not just okay, it's
(20:56):
awesomely. Right. I mean, Idon't know about you, but I work
for a living. Right. My, myvocation is not necessarily always
my avocation. Maximizing myincome isn't about greed. It's not
about buying a 10th Porsche.It's about giving myself some independence
and freedom and liberty. It'sabout providing for those who are
dependent upon me. It's aboutfunding the things I am passionate
(21:18):
about, perhapsphilanthropically or spiritually
or socially or politically.And so I am very comfortable proclaiming
from a mountaintop that mynumber one professional value is
maximizing my income. Not atthe expense of working with great
people who respect me, not whoI respect.
Right.
Working for a brand that I amproud of. I could have earned more
(21:40):
money, but it would have beena violation possibly of my number
two and number three values.So I make all my professional decisions
through those three lenses. Ithink people should be much more
comfortable declaring theirvalues and communicating their wants
and needs through them, butalso making sure that you are providing
the skill and the value.Right. I teach my three boys all
(22:03):
the time. You are paid indirect correlation to the skills
you have. This job pays thisand this job pays this. And so you
have to make sure that yourskills, you're developing them and
you're building them incorrelation to what your plan is,
what your values are. Knowyour value can be maximize your income.
But if you're not learning,you know, AI skills, you're going
(22:25):
to be obsolete in five years.
Yeah, yeah. Well, seeing asyou brought up AI, I've been doing
a little bit of thinking onthis. So when you wanted, when you
said you wanted to talk aboutpower skills, I kind of lit up because
AI is a real, real divisivetopic at the moment. You either have
people who are, it's comingfor all of our jobs, which it's coming
(22:50):
for some jobs for sure.
Right.
So it's become this realboogeyman. But then there's also,
you know, these conversationsaround. Well, it's certainly coming
for some of the menial tasksthat maybe a lot of us have built
our expertise around in ourcareers and so, you know, some of
the conversations that I'm inare what is this going to mean for
(23:13):
the importance of leadershipor even just power skills in general.
Right.
Because there's still quite abit of sci fi technical growth to
get to, I think, where therobots are humaning. I'd be curious.
Maybe less than we think. Right.
But you never know.
But yeah, you and I are veryclosely aligned on this. This may
(23:37):
sound like a cliche, but byand large, you're not going to lose
your job to AI. You're goingto lose your job to someone who knows
how to use AI and how toleverage AI. And I think that may
sound like a cliche, but it'sa good lens to work through. Yes,
there are going to be jobsthat are lost to AI and they probably
should be so that it canbecome more efficient, so we can
(23:59):
use our innate talents moreeffectively, so that prices perhaps
could go down. I was at aconference a few months ago. It was
a gathering of 100 Fortune 50CIOs and CHROs in New York City.
I sat next to an EVP fromLinkedIn and he said something that
I thought was smart. He said,you know, at some point, robots are
(24:22):
going to do all the work, AIis going to do all the thinking,
and humans are going to beleft to do all the relational, social,
emotional work. Now that maybe a bit of an overreach, but I think
I'll look through the lens ofthat is the power skills that are
going to be the most valuableare the ones that are unique to building
relationships and buildingculture and leading people through
(24:47):
their own transformation andstruggle and clarifying. Right. It's
like being a force of clarity.So I would encourage everyone to
not swing the pendulum one wayor the other. Everyone should be
spending some time every dayin and around AI. Whether that is
playing with ChatGPT, whetherit's listening to a podcast, watching
(25:10):
some YouTube videos, playingwith some different machine learning
tools, because it's going toimpact everybody swiftly. I mean,
I think in four years you'llbe able to go into Chat GPT and say,
I would like a 22,000 wordbook written in Scott Miller's voice
that teaches me the seven mostimportant skills. To open a stand
(25:32):
at a farmer's market sellingorganic guavas. I made that up. But
I mean, in four minutes you'llhave a customized book for you and
my voice on those skills onthat market. It's happening already.
People email me and say, hey,I just landed a new job. I wrote
my Cover letter in ScottMiller's voice because you want to
(25:53):
see it. I'm like, no, I don'twant to see it because there's so
much of my content between,you know, eight books and hundreds
of podcast interviews andLinkedIn articles and Inc. Magazine
columns. You could writeanything in my voice now. Not sure
anybody would want to, butapparently a couple do. I think it's
a good balance. Right. Allthings in moderation. Most of these
(26:13):
power skills are really aboutbuilding relationships and no AI
is doing that.
Yeah. Interestingly, a lot ofentrepreneurs are. I feel like leaning
in more on AI than I'm seeingpeople who are in, you know, corporate
roles at larger organizationsnow. Some of that has to do with
(26:34):
privacy concerns and IPconcerns and things like that, that
larger organizations, youknow, are more carefully moving in
the direction of using someAI. And I think those who I've seen
using it best, not. Not tomake a hard pivot and just talk about
AI here. But the people who Ifeel like are using it best are using
(26:54):
it as a collaborator asopposed to leaning on it to do all
the doing for them.
Right.
So it's now in some casespeople are building automations and
agents to take off some of theadmin back office work off their
plates, which I'm sure, as youalso have experience, the real bear
that that can be as anentrepreneur. But I feel like those
(27:18):
who I. I've seen and heardleveraging it best or leveraging
it as a partner as opposed toif that makes sense. Does that. Am
I making any sense?
It does make sense. I see it alittle differently in that.
Oh yeah.
Only because I'm an editor andI'm a literary agent and I'm a publisher.
And so I see daily all thebooks that are being published. Not
(27:40):
all of them, but most of themon AI. It is the number one requested
topic in our speakers bureau.In fact, just yesterday I booked
a renowned author on an AIbook to speak to a 5,000 person global
sales team. 5,000 people thatall sell a software solution. How
can each of them be using AIto better meet their goals, to better
(28:02):
meet their customer needs? Andso I think depending upon the business
you're in, the size of yourcompany, the impact that AI has on
your efficiency is going to bekind of like Moore's Law. I know
Moore's Law is not a thinganymore, Right. The computing power
of a chip. But it's, you know,the metaphor is not lost. I don't
(28:23):
think in terms of thisconversation will be very different.
A Year from now, I think it'llbe more different a year from now
than it was a year ago. Right.In terms of the quantum impact every
organization is having. And Idon't think you're going to see a
huge disruption of theworkforce. I don't think you're going
to see whole sectors beingeliminated immediately. Maybe three
(28:43):
years from now you will. Butthe people that will have the most
leverage, the most influence,the most job security are those that
master the interpersonal humanpower skills and keep their knowledge
and application of AI reallysharp. It's not one or the other,
it is absolutely both.
And yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah. So as people are wrestling
(29:06):
with these changes and, andyou know, I think I'm where you're
at too here with how powerskills are going to become a real
differentiator as well. Wheredo you recommend people start? I
mean, I think I, you know, oneplace I would usually recommend is
and, and you know, of course,because of my background.
(29:28):
Right.
It would be do you have anassessment of your, you know, your
skills? Do you know where youare strong, where you're not? So
as you're thinking about thepositioning of your book and the
research you're doing, how areyou recommending people move forward
with assessing and determiningpriority here?
This may surprise you, but itall comes down to self awareness.
(29:53):
Books written about it, all ofus talk about it, we think we're
self aware and we're not. Andso I would say it's the first power
skill, by the way, in the bookis really developing your self awareness.
What does this mean? It meansyou check your ego and you really
learn earn yearn tounderstand. What is it like to work
(30:17):
with me? What's it like to beled by me? What's it like to lead
me? What's it like to livenext door to me? What's it like to
be parented by me? To bemarried by me? To play pickleball
with me? What's it like tojoin a zoom call with me? To be standing
in a trade show booth for fourdays with me? I mean, these are like
(30:41):
really valuable questions andthe only way you know this is to
ask and you have to ask. Kent.Hey, Kent, can I ask you a question?
You and I just spent threedays at the CES conference in Las
Vegas. I'd love to know whatit's like to be at a conference with
me. And Kent's gonna say, oh,you're awesome, man. You're so funny.
(31:01):
You're so good. No, no, no,no, no, Really, I want to know, like,
what are the things I do thatannoy people? Nothing. Scott, you're
great. No, Kent, you're notserving me well. Because the matter
is most people are going tolie to you, right? Because most people
are cowards. And that's not acharacter flaw. It's a personality
trait, is someone has to feelimmensely safe to actually tell you
(31:23):
the truth because there's noupside for them. They're going to
insult you unless they're not.And so I have to be able to say to
Kent, kent, I have acourageous conversation I need to
ask of you. I really want towork on my interpersonal skills.
I know I have blind spots. Iknow I have blind spots. I'm louder
than I think I am. I talk morethan I think I should. According
(31:46):
to my wife, I'm not nearly asfunny as I think I am. Conversation
has some reference to, youknow who about it in the White House
and on and on. And so you'vegot to make it safe for the other
person to move outside oftheir comfort zone and discuss with
you. The kind ofundiscussables, I mean, if you didn't
have any other power skillthan just that one, is be able to
(32:06):
have a safe conversation. Andthen when Kent tells you the truth,
if he does, your response hasto be, wow, thank you. That was courageous.
Thank you for trusting meenough not to dispute it or dismiss
it or refute it or deny it.Thank you so much. Hey, can I ask
(32:27):
you a question? Kent, I knowyou're not a psychiatrist, but when
I do that, do you have anyreason to believe? Do you know why
I do that? Is there a certainsituation? Do I look like I'm jealous?
Do I look like I'm insecure?Do I seem in over my head? People
have opinions. They watch you,they see patterns. And so all of
that, all of that is to say,ask. Go to people and say, hey, can
(32:53):
you tell me three things thatI do that delight you and three things
that I do that offend you? Orbetter yet, just are there three
things I do that you thinkhold me back from building my influence,
from building trust withothers, from gaining credibility?
People will tell you that whatare three areas that if I were to
(33:13):
improve on, it could improvemy influence? Wow. I don't think
the vast majority of yourlistenership currently possesses
the courage or the desire toreally know what that's like. And
let me tell you how I've builtit. Like you, like I told you earlier,
(33:34):
I've hosted this podcast inbetween a couple of podcasts and
a radio program, nearly 700interviews of every thought leaders
in the world, right? Everybodyfrom Matthew McConaughey to Mel Robbins
to Melinda Gates to DeepakChopra. Everyone. Everyone. And once
a week, my oldest son and Icome home from church and we sit
in the driveway, we look atall the YouTube comments, all the
(33:57):
hate on Reddit, all the hate,and we laugh. And it's. It's horrible.
I mean, it is. It isvitriolic. Vitriolic. I actually
wrote a whole chapter about itin the book because we look through
it and we say, well, that'skind of mean. Well, that's kind mean.
Well, that's not true. I do dothat. And that's true. And that's
true. And that's mean, buttrue. And we just process it, right?
(34:19):
I don't take it personally.You know, most of them tell me I
should not be alive. Well, Ithink that's a little extreme. But
I learned so much about whatit's like to listen to Scott Miller
as a podcast host and guest. Ijust talked for 12 minutes straight
right now. Right. My wifeshould be slashing me a note. Shut
up. I think the more we'reopen to other people's perception
(34:40):
of us because how we presentourselves is so rarely how we are
received by others. And if youcan get a grasp around how you are
received by others, whoa,you've just exploded your professional
opportunities. That was along, meandering answer, but as you
can tell, I'm super passionateabout it.
No, and I usually, I creditKim Scott with this, and I don't
(35:04):
know that she originated it,but she, in her book Radical Candor,
it talks about, you know, howdo you create a feedback culture
and it's the opposite of whatyou think, Right. Most leaders would
say, well, by giving feedbackmore courageously. And it's actually,
I think what you're hittinghere is it's actually by asking for
more feedback openly and inpublic. But I think important here
(35:26):
is not just asking, listening,and thanking, but if somebody's telling
you something actionable, ifyou ever want that person to give
you feedback again, you needto be seen doing something with that
feedback as well.
You are speaking my language,Right? The insight that I think is
the most profound in Kim'sbook, even though it's called Radical
(35:47):
Candor, is the fact that mostpeople practice ruinous empathy.
And that's the phrase sheuses. Well, I don't want to offend
Kent, or. I'm not sure how tosay it. Or no, no. I mean, you have
to build a brand that you areopen to feedback. Otherwise people
will just pull the chickenswitch and they won't tell you what
really is on their mind. Youhave to build the reputation, the
(36:10):
brand that I really want itand when you give it to me, I will
not shame you for it. And moreimportantly, I will go and behave
in accordance with that. And Iwant you to catch me doing that so
that when someone later iseither disparaging me or is being
duplicitous to me, doesn'ttrust me, that Ken can say, hey,
(36:32):
can I tell you actually,that's actually not my experience.
Scott came to me two monthsago, asked me for feedback. I gave
it to him first of all, hereceived it really well. I was surprised,
but even more so, I actuallysaw him taking better notes in the
meeting. He wasn't alwaysraising his hand first, he wasn't
dominating. And so I'veactually seen a change in Scott.
(36:52):
You build champions foryourself by modeling the implementation
of that says easy does hard,but it is a game changer.
For us and you might notalways be able to put it into action.
And therefore you might haveto have a follow up conversation
too to say, hey, I've giventhat feedback a lot of thought and
(37:12):
here's what I am and maybe I'mnot going to do with it and why,
but please keep, you know,keep it coming.
And on that front, recognizethat not all feedback is about you.
Some feedback is about theirex boyfriend who looks like you or
their girlfriend who soundslike you. Or perhaps they could even
(37:33):
be just jealous of you andthey're giving you feedback that's,
you know, so you have toreally understand from what intent
is this coming. Does thisperson really have my best interest
at heart? Have I given themany upside to give them this feedback?
Giving me the feedback?There's a whole art of this. And
by the way, you don't get itright the first time, you got to
(37:53):
practice it, you're going tostumble, you're going to fail. You
have to apologize and say,gosh, I know, Kit, you told me to
stop doing this. It's soingrained in me. I promise, I'm working
on it. You know, I bought a, Ibought a wristband or a different
pen to remind myself. Peoplethat have the right intent and if
they see you making attemptsat improving your behavior, they'll
give you the benefit of the doubt.
(38:14):
Right? Right.
And to your point, not, I'mgoing to put it in my words right,
not all Feedback is going tonecessarily be accurate or worth
actioning on. But that's whereI think, to your point, being curious
maybe with another person ortwo, approaching another person and
saying, hey, here's somefeedback I've gotten. Do you see
(38:35):
that? What's your perspectiveon that? So you could even triangulate,
you know, and understand, youknow, is this just coming from one
person? It's their experience.
Yeah.
Right.
Which doesn't mean it'sinvalid. It just means, all right,
so there's one person that Imight need to think about how I'm,
you know, taking intentionalaction around versus is this something
(38:56):
I need to work on much more broadly?
So well said. Right. Becausemy style no doubt fatigues some people,
but invigorates others. And Ihave to be situationally aware enough
to know in what circumstanceare my strengths. Lifting others
versus diminishing others andlifting my brand versus otherwise.
I think that's so valuable.It's one of the power skills is to
(39:18):
be able to really understandthe circumstance you're in and are
your strengths being overplayed.
Right.
Situations where I need todial down my energy or my personality
and there's others when Ishould dial it up because it's invigorating
to people or it could befatiguing. That comes back to self
awareness.
Yeah, yeah. Not only would Ilove to just, I think be on a long
(39:41):
haul flight sitting next toyou chatting for 14 hours.
I'm sure we dispute that.
All that to say I'm sure wecould keep going. Maybe I'll have
to have you back in a yearwhen your next book is out. We can
also talk about what you know,what has, what of our predictions
of AI have and haven't cometrue yet. But to get us into the
(40:03):
advice column here, what's onepiece of advice you have for it?
So this podcast is, you know,one of my focuses is helping leaders
step up their game in some way.
Right.
And so what's one piece ofadvice you have for leaders out there?
I'm going to repeat somethingI said before, not because I don't
have other content, but I'msuper passionate about it, is to
(40:24):
remind yourself every day youare in the relationship business.
And I don't think in myexperience most of us aren't as good
at developing relationships aswe would like to be. It may become
more natural for others.Here's a good example. I am a stutterer.
I have a quite debilitatingspeech impediment. Have my entire
(40:47):
life I've been Through decadesof speech therapy and speech pathology.
Braces four times. Invisalign,headgear. I have two speech coaches.
There are about 36 words Icannot say in public. And part of
my training was to learn howto avoid those words. There's a whole.
I write about it extensivelyin my books and sometimes I come
across as quite roboticbecause I over enunciate my words,
(41:09):
I over articulate my words.Sometimes I use the wrong word for
a replacement term and itseems a bit awkward. And so for,
you know, some of thatcontributes to my inability to develop
great relationships. I'mfairly impetuous and impulsive. I'm
impatient, I'm high energy, Itake control. I have some origin
(41:30):
story anxiety from my parentsfor a variety of reasons. All that
is to say, I am working dailyon how do I become a better friend,
how do I become a betterleader, when am I fatiguing people?
When am I dominating versuswhen am I setting a vision and path?
When am I rushing in to savethe day because I can just do it
(41:53):
faster or quicker versusshowing the patience. Let somebody
else struggle and do it theirway. All this comes down to what
can you do to better developrelationships? People want a relationship
with their leader. Thatdoesn't mean that I'm, you know,
hearing your confession everyday. It doesn't mean that I'm sharing
(42:13):
all of my sins metaphorically,but that I am, you know, judiciously
getting to know you and whatare your quirks, what are your personality
traits, what are areas thatyou need to improve upon? And I'm
comfortable sharing them withyou. And that I'm comfortable modeling
and saying, hey, listen, Iwant to be a better leader. Ken,
I'm sure there are some thingsI do that bug you. Would you share
(42:34):
them with me? Comes back tothe same theme. I mean, you see a
consistent theme. I'm not aone trick pony. I've written a lot
about a lot of topics, butthis is one that I see is the biggest
trip up to everyone'sleadership career is what's it like
to be led by you?
Right.
And that requires you to sortof be situationally different with
(42:55):
each person. I think one ofthe best books ever written is Gary
Chapman's the Five LoveLanguages. And you know, after. Have
you read this book?
I'm cover to cover.
You're aware of it, right? Sohe's a family therapist, a marriage
therapist, and he identifiedafter thousands of marriage encounters
that there were five lovelanguages. I think in order or not
(43:18):
in order, you know, physicalTouch, quality time, words of affirmation,
acts of service, and gifts.And usually the way you receive love
is also the way you give love,which is a mistake. Right?
Right.
My wife wants purses. I wantto be thanked for paying the power
bill. And so it's important toknow what is your partner or spouse's
love language, because most ofus give love the way we want to receive
(43:41):
love. The same in leadership,right. Is I want to be praised, I
want to be recognized. I wantthe trophy, I want my picture on
a PowerPoint. I want to go toHawaii for president's club. That
would horrify my wife. If mywife knew that you were going to
call on her in three minutes,she would excuse herself to the restroom,
get in her car and drive homeand would not care if you fired her
(44:01):
over it. She does not want anyrecognition. It's important as leaders,
you understand how do otherpeople want to be communicated to?
How do they want to be led?And it requires you to have really,
almost now a situationalleadership style to lead everyone
a little bit differently basedon their needs. And that can be exhausting
because. But that's the newleadership standard.
(44:22):
That's the job. Yeah. Yeah. Sofor those listening who support leaders
in stepping up their game,what's your advice to them?
Give them feedback. Give themfeedback. You know, have the courage,
say, hey, Kent, I have noticedsome areas in which I think you could
exponentially increase yourinfluence. If you're ever open to
(44:43):
them, I'd love to share themwith you. Happy to send them an email,
let you digest them so theycan be kind of devoid of agenda and
emotion. And once you digestthem, I'd be happy to, you know,
go for a cup of coffee andwalk around how they show up. I think
the higher up you get in theorganization, the less feedback you
get. Right. I mean, yeah. Youknow, talk about a career cul de
(45:04):
sac. Give the CEO feedback onher last town hall. PowerPoint deck
is probably not going to go so well.
Yeah.
But quite frankly, she needsit because everybody in the audience
is, you know, moaning andgrowing, wanting to take their Life.
On the seventh longitudinalgraph from Harvard Business Review.
Stop doing that. CEO. Stopdoing that. Stop the PowerPoint.
(45:27):
Get out from behind thepodium, walk down to the audience
and say, what questions do youhave? Nothing is off limits. What
questions do you have?Strategy, culture, product innovation,
collaboration. I may not beable to answer everything, but I'll
be as vulnerable as I can, andI'll be as truthful as I am legally
allowed to be given the stateof our organization or whatever it
(45:50):
is. Right? Stop with thePowerPoints. So the question was
how do those who supportleaders help them? I think it's exercise
a level of courageous anddiplomatic feedback.
Love it. So fun. We startedout talking about power skills and
I feel like we've kind ofreally coalesced around self awareness
(46:14):
seeking, feedback giving, youknow, for those who are supporting
leaders, giving feedback. Sofor those who want more Scott Jeffrey
Miller in their lives, right?Where do they find you?
Well, my wife said it's nothard because she thinks I'm a little
overexposed. So you can googleme and I guarantee I come up. As
(46:36):
I mentioned, I co own the GrayMiller Agency. We are a fast growing
literary speaking and talentagency and we are a publisher as
well. I am no longer the hostof Franklin Covey's podcast. After
seven years, I retired andpassed the mantle to a new host.
But there are just shy of 500episodes both on audio and video
(46:56):
that you can look at. And as Imentioned, I've written eight books
on leadership, marketing,parenting, mentorship, career development,
and my ninth book is calledthe New Power Skills and it'll be
released in the summer of2027. 2026. 2026.
Awesome. Well, I'm reallylooking forward to that. Scott, thank
(47:19):
you for agreeing to come onthe podcast today. It was just a
pleasure having you.
Oh, thanks for the spotlight.Appreciate it, Ken.
All right, that brings us tothe end of our episode. Thanks for
listening. I'd encourage youto head on over to my website, Kent
Coach and start a conversationwith me there. Or check out my promotion
playbook at Kent CoachPlaybook. Before you go on with your
(47:39):
day, I ask that you pleasetake a moment to leave a rating and
a review wherever you listento podcasts. Five stars. That helps
put this podcast in front ofmore eyes and ears. Until next time,
take it easy.
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