September 10, 2025 • 32 mins
What if mastering the art of asking questions could turn you into an unstoppable leader? In this episode, Kevin chats with Dave Reynolds about how powerful questions can unlock deeper thinking, foster ownership, and promote growth in individuals and organizations. Dave shares insights on building a coaching culture where curiosity sparks conversations in every direction—up, down, and across. He explains the science behind how our brains respond differently to questions compared to directives and offers strategies for shifting from transactional to transformational leadership. From mirroring and probing to reframing and follow-up, Kevin and Dave explore practical ways leaders can build trust, strengthen relationships, and achieve better results.
Listen For
00:00 Welcome and Big Questions About Leadership
01:45 Meet Guest Dave Reynolds
02:11 Technical Glitch and Transition
02:19 Introducing Dave’s Background
02:36 About Rumin8 Group and Radicle Growth
03:09 Dave Joins the Conversation
03:25 Dave’s Journey to Writing the Book
03:57 Why Dave Wrote Radicle Growth
04:28 From Consulting to Authoring and Training
04:49 How the Book Idea Was Born
05:04 The Promise Behind “Unstoppable Leader”
06:01 What “Unstoppable” Really Means
07:06 Creating a Coaching Culture
08:00 Coaching Up, Down, and Across
09:06 Science Behind Asking Questions
10:13 Neurological Impact and Ownership
10:55 Barriers to Asking Questions
12:00 Why Leaders Avoid Asking Questions
13:08 Being Proactive vs. Reactive with Questions
14:21 You Don’t Need to Know All the Answers
15:13 Transactional vs. Transformational Leadership
16:27 Creating a Mindset Shift Around Coaching
17:15 Types of Questions to Ask
18:05 Confirming and Mirroring Questions
19:24 The Power of Silence and Mirroring
20:33 Building Trust Through Questions
21:18 The “If You Did Know” Question Hack
21:59 Paraphrasing and Confirming for Clarity
22:11 Probing Beyond Surface-Level Responses
23:42 Questions as a Relationship Builder
24:23 The Importance of Follow-Up Questions
25:33 Accountability as Motivation
26:07 Coaching at a Distance (Remote Teams)
27:20 Creating Connection for Remote Employees
28:06 What Dave Does for Fun
28:44 What Dave is Reading
29:41 Where to Find More About Dave and Rumin8 Group
Dave's Story: Dave Reynolds is the author of Radicle Growth: Transform into an Unstoppable Leader Through Mastering the Art of Questions. He is a serial entrepreneur who has launched and developed numerous new products and services over nearly two decades. He is the founder and CEO of The Rumin8 Group, a Growth Consulting firm that helps clients think strategically, facilitate team growth, and navigate crucial conversations. With a background in sales leadership, performance management, and succession planning, Dave is passionate about growth acceleration and how asking the right questions yields the best answers. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
This Episode is brought to you by...
Flexible Leadership is every leader’s guide to greater success in a world of increasing complexity and chaos.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Questions we ask them all day, but often.
And how well do we ask themin our leadership role?
How do you use questions to help yoube a more effective coach?
And if you had greater skillsand confidence in asking questions,
how would that change your resultsand outcomes as a leader?
(00:30):
It's a great question,and these are questions
that are that matter,and they're the kinds of questions
we're going to exploreduring this episode.
So welcome to another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast,
where we are helping leaders like you growpersonally and professionally
to lead more effectivelyand make a bigger, positive difference
(00:50):
for their teams, organizationsand the world.
If you are listening to this showin the future, you could join us live,
on your favorite social media channel.
You can find out when those are happeningand how you can get connected
and therefore see this,see them, see them, slash hear them sooner
(01:11):
and get the beautiful, wonderful ideasinto your practice sooner.
And you can do all that byjoining our Facebook or LinkedIn groups.
Just two of the platformswhere you can watch, go to remarkable
podcast.com/facebook or remarkable
podcast.com/linkedin to be LinkedIn.
(01:32):
And know what's going on.
Today's episode is brought to youby my latest book,
Flexible Leadership Navigate Uncertaintyand Lead with confidence.
It's time to realize that stylescan get in our way, and that following
our strengthsmight not always be the best approach.
In a worldmore complex and uncertain than ever, our
leaders need a new perspectiveand a new set of tools
(01:52):
to create the great resultstheir organizations and teams need.
And that's what flexible leadershipprovide you.
Learn more and orderyour copy today at remarkable
podcast.com/flexible.
And after all of that, we've gotthe administration out of the way.
Let me bring in my guest.
(02:12):
It looks like we might havea technical challenge.
Let me check on that really quickly.
See if that works.
And if it does, great.
And if it doesn't, we'll move on.
We're going to move on.
So let me introduce my guest.
His name is Dave Reynolds.Let me tell you a little bit about him.
He is a serial entrepreneurwho has launched and developed a variety
(02:33):
of new products and servicesfor nearly two decades.
He is the founderand CEO of the ruminate Group,
a growth consulting firmthat helps clients think strategically,
facilitate team growth, and navigatecrucial conversations.
With a background in sales leadership,performance management, and succession
planning, Dave is passionateabout growth, acceleration
(02:55):
and how asking the right questions yieldsthe best answers.
He explores those passionsin his new book, Radical Growth
transform into an unstoppable leaderthrough mastering the Art of questions.
I mentioned he's in another countrythan me.
He's in Halifax,Nova Scotia, Canada today.
(03:16):
And so hey, welcome, Dave.
So glad that you're here.
Appreciate it.
Thanks very much, Kevin, for having me.
And fantastic introduction.
Well, I took the one your mother gave me.
So let's see what we've got.
Someone here, this in Vienna, andwe've got someone who's here in Houston.
And we're glad that,that they and others are with us.
(03:38):
So what I want to do,
Dave, is sort of start outby making an assumption,
and you can tell meif my assumption is correct,
that when you were like,
I don't know, eight years old,you probably weren't
expecting to be,
a person who's written booksand that sort of thing.
I don't know, maybe you thought you weregoing to be a hockey player, I don't know.
(03:59):
But my question is like, tell usa little bit more about that journey.
In short, that leads you to this placeand the writing of this book.
Yeah.
It's funny, when I look backand where I would have been a,
I think I always knew I was going to bea salesperson in some way.
From persuasionto just being talkative, but
never thought that, I would wind up here.
(04:22):
And so anybody ever ask?
It's kind of a serendipitous momentof how one area job moved to the next.
So it's been really exciting.
And navigating to entrepreneurship,from inventing new products
to launching new productsto getting into consultancy
just by, you know,asking a lot of really intuitive questions
to a friend of mine that led to, hey,why do you start consulting for me?
(04:46):
And I said, yes, and I'll figure it out.
So here you are.
So why the book specifically?
You and I were talkingbefore the show started.
Before we hit record.
A little bit about what the book's doingfor you since it came out, but, like, why?
What led you to to decideto write the book?
Yeah, well, two things.
(05:06):
I think it was always on the bucket list,
that I always just said,I really want to write a book.
I was just always,in admiration of people that wrote.
But the second part was with,we serve clients
kind of all over the world,very industry agnostic.
And we were going through the process of
doing a lot of executivecoaching for their teams,
and they were just seeing so much growth.
(05:26):
And the CEO said, cheese,if you could just package this in,
you know, book our program.
She said you couldyou could do really well with us.
And so I didn't think about ituntil later that night, you know,
always got the abundance mentalitythat said, yeah, we should share this.
We should give this, even though a lot ofpeople try and keep those tactics in.
(05:47):
So we actually developedthe actual training program,
but we, we actually led with the bookfirst.
And, that's what got us here. So,
the CEO, it was, an admiration
and thankful that, they said, hey,you know, we should put this in a book.
I love that.
So in True Salesman,
fashion, I suppose you have.
(06:10):
You make a pretty big promisein the subtitle.
You say, transform into an unstoppable,viable leader.
So let's talk about that word unstoppable
just for a minute,because it's a big promise.
And I'm.
And I'm confidentthat you use the word intentionally.
So let's just talk about thata little bit.
Why unstoppable.
And, is it really true
(06:32):
that if we master the art of questions,we can become unstoppable?
Yeah. Amazing question.
And I think that I actuallynever been asked that before, but
the reason why we created that subtitlewas that we, the leaders that we work
with, that really start going throughand seeing the value of asking questions,
you really startsbreaking through the limitations
(06:52):
that a lot of people set for themselves,
not just individually,but teams and organizations,
because we start to think differentlywhen we ask questions,
we increase our level of ownershipand our level of accountability,
which overall, you know, increasesour level of execution.
And a common questionI asked clients that I work with is that,
hey, if you went back two years
to where we started and you kind ofsaw yourself today, what would you say?
(07:14):
And they'rethey're really kind of dumbfounded
that they said, like, I just I wouldn'teven know the person I am today.
And I think that being a leaderthat masters there are two questions
is you can create leadersthat create leaders and
and really can kind of change your futurejust by really grabbing
that skill and mastering it.
So one of
the things that you talk aboutthroughout the book,
(07:36):
and it really is, I think, hinted at ineverything you've said so far,
is that you're a believerin creating a culture of coaching.
And I said in the opening that you can'tdetach coaching from questions.
So what do you meanwhen you say a coaching culture?
How would I know?
Why would I want it, and how would I knowif I'm moving towards it?
(08:01):
Yeah.
And so we we are always an areawhere a lot of people want a strategy.
They want the strategythat's going to work.
And that could be a coaching methodology.
But it's the ideathat, you know, culture and strategy.
And I think the old saying was thatculture is strategy for breakfast.
We really want to make sureour coaching culture isn't just about,
you know, introducing, say, radical growthas a strategy is
(08:24):
we want radical growth to be part of,you know, organization's culture.
So they're sharing the terminology.
They're owning implementation.
And and coaching is being done everywherein the organization.
And you'll see in the book
we talk about coachingup, coaching down and coaching across.
Coaching shouldn'talways have to be a leader to an employee.
It should be peer to peer.
(08:44):
You should feel comfortable to lead up.
And that's when we really seeorganizations that embrace
coaching culture.
And that is an incredible thing becauseyou don't feel like you need to lead.
And and only one direction.
It can be multi-dimensional.
And that's where we seethe biggest influence of our growth is
when we see, you know,culture, coaching culture, take flourish.
(09:07):
All right.
So we want to create a coaching culture.
And and we've saidthat questions are a big part of it.
And so I want to talk aboutas we promised in the episode
title, talk about the Art of questions.
But before we get to the art, you saythere's also a science to questions.
So tell me about the science of questionsbefore we dive into the art.
(09:30):
Yeah,it was interesting when we were working
with our publisher on thisand we were kind of said, hey, you know,
there's an art and science to it,you know,
because you can see when you watchsomebody ask a question,
it looks like you couldn't replicatethat same process.
But the science side iswe really go on the idea
of when you're being asked a questionversus being given direction.
(09:50):
You know, there's a totally differenta neurological response
on how you actually own the response,
because you have a senseof ownership over it.
And that's like what we talk withstorytelling and or coupling, like
there is an actual relationshipthat you're creating
by asking somebody a question versustelling them what they need to do.
And this is really where we get morepeople involved in the commitment stage,
(10:11):
because the answers are coming from them.
So they have a sense of empowermentby providing those answers.
And in a lot of cases,we all know great questions.
You know, you have to ask multiple,so you can't live in a service
all the after and get deeperand people get a stronger
self-awarenessover being asked deeper questions.
So we get a lot of momentswhere they're having those realizations
(10:34):
and you can actually see their bodylanguage change.
When you can tellthat they've had that dialog
internally the whole time,and they'll say it.
And our response right away is, is thatthe first time you said that out loud?
And they're like, yeah.
And when they vocalize it,it just changes the relationship.
But the response.
(10:55):
Yeah, thoughts are fuzzy.
Words bring clarity. We can talk.We can think about things a long time.
But when we say them or write them,it changes everything.
And I often say, Dave, thatpeople don't argue with their own data.
Right.
So once people have said something,that's where
that that's a big part of wherethat ownership piece comes into play.
So I really appreciate thatwe started there.
So and by the way, everybody,in case you're wondering, to think
(11:18):
that this is an easy conversationfor me to have when the guy
who wrote the book about questions is hereand I'm sure he's, he's mentally
thinking about critiquing howwell I'm doing it, asking questions.
So I want to talk about barriersbecause like,
so far everyone would say,yeah, questions are good.
All good.
It's like it's like in the US
(11:39):
we'd say that's motherhood and apple pielike of course better questions.
And yet there are barriers,especially as leaders.
There are things that sort ofkeep us from doing it.
And this to meis one of the most important conversations
for us to have here.
And I hope that everyone who's listeningis, like, ready to take notes here,
like from your perspective and in yourexperience, Dave, what are the barriers?
(12:01):
Yeah.
The immediate barrierthat I would go to right away would be
that more relationships have ended bywhat wasn't said.
And what was that?
So I'd say more people just avoid askingquestions or having the conversation.
That would be one of them.
And the second one would be,and we've already mentioned
is they ask questionsand they accept surface level responses.
(12:23):
You know, hey, how's your day going? Good.
How are sales? Good.
And we accept these surfacelevel responses versus,
excuse me.
And you're asking amazing.
You know what's good,you know, and session sales.
And they're saying, oh, and you're asking
what's yourwhat's your goal for the month?
And you're going a little bit deeper.
(12:43):
So surface level for sure.
Looking for a reframe question.
So if somebody says, you know,I don't know.
Sometimes people might askif you did know, what would you say.
And, and sometimes you just have to look
at different, tactics like mirroring.
And I would say the biggest barriersare people avoiding the conversations.
(13:07):
I would say living at the surface level.
And I'll probably another pointis being proactive
with your questions versus reactive.
So a lot of times where somebody might aska question or reactively, you might be
actually stimulating an emotional responseversus a logical response.
So that would be really what I would say.
Some of the biggest barriers are when
because when you're asking proactivequestions,
(13:29):
you're invested in the conversationversus you're looking at checking a box
in a reactive environment.
One of the things
that I find and so so speak to thisif you want.
One of the things that I find for leadersa lot of times is that they're,
they're afraid of askingbecause they don't know how to respond
to the answer or,
(13:51):
they don't askbecause they think they already know.
Yeah.
Commentsabout either one of those thoughts.
Yeah.
And I think like that's it's like,can I be a subject matter expert?
Can I respond to that?
So people will feel likethey need to immediately respond
and there's actually somethingreally graceful about pausing
and asking for a momentto think about that.
(14:13):
And if anything, it actually,
stimulates a deeper conversation.
I really agree with you a lot onthat is like having to feel like you.
You need to know all the answers.
Actually, if anything,when I enter an organization, the reason
why we're industry agnostic is sometimesthe less I know, the more I can help.
And so what I mean bythat is if I'm just curious,
(14:34):
I don't I don't have to really bethe technical expert,
but I can actually pull more informationout of the person I'm working with
and get it into a better systemjust by being curious versus, hey,
this is how I've done it,this is how you should do it.
And that for me is a great approach.
Yeah, I really do love that a lot.
I wantyou mentioned something in the book,
(14:58):
and I think this gets at this point, it
if we are if as we get betterat asking questions, we can do what
you suggest here.
You suggest that we need to movefrom being transactional
to being transformational.
What do you mean?
And what's the difference?
Yeah, transactional.
We see a lot of times, especially coachingin certain environments,
(15:19):
they're they're kind of ad hoc. They're,
they're doing because they have to do it,not because they want to do it.
It might be a KPI or a metricthat needs to be met to have coaching.
Transformational is is going.
I'm making an intentional, proactiveinvestment in coaching that I remember.
I've actually been in telecommunications.
We had to coach a certain amount of time,but once I started shifting
(15:41):
into seeing coachingas my competitive advantage for growth,
I really started realizing, oh wow.
And by having consistent coachingconversations, I'm actually
creating more dynamic leaders,
higher performing sales executors.
And not only am I making them better,
(16:01):
I'm actually teaching them a skill thatthat's transferable to their team members.
So the transformation happens
on also getting peopleoutside of their comfort zone.
But we're doing it in a way that they'rereally owning that process along the way.
So that's that's really where we seea lot of transformation, is really about
getting them into that growth mindset,but also pushing them outside
(16:23):
of their comfort zone and, and wherethey're they're owning the next steps.
I think it's interesting that the wayyou describe that,
that shift for youwas a transformation going from
I have to coach toI get to coach or I want to coach
or there's great value in mecoaching and and anytime.
And so that same transformationhopefully is occurring for all of you
(16:46):
listening in terms of, it'sokay for me to ask questions.
I want to ask questions,I can ask better questions.
And if I'm going to ask better questions,one of the things we need to know is
what are the kinds of questionswe can ask.
So, we learned a little bit of thisin school, but we've all slept since then.
But youyou take us a step further in that.
So when you think about ittoday, for us in the workplace,
(17:09):
as coaches, as, as as team members,what are the types of questions
we should be considering?
Yeah.
So when we lookat just your basic open ended questions,
I think we're all anybody that's onthis show is is listening.
We're already already doingthese open ended questions.
We're asking big or broad questions.
But what I'll I'll challenge everybodyon around open ended questions is start
(17:32):
with big and broad opening questionsso you can ask an open ended question
so people feel comfortable andthey give momentum into asking questions.
And they can be more specific with an openended question to get more detail.
I really feel that askingconfirming questions
is a really great strategyfor two reasons.
It shows your listeningbecause as a confirming statement,
(17:54):
you're having that say, you know,just to clarify what you just mentioned
was and you'll go through the area of ofjust telling I heard what you said
is, is that the most important next stepthat you're seeing?
And then they're using that opportunityto kind of confirm that,
those are really great.
One that's had a big impact.
We've worked with a couple big projectmanagement teams
(18:16):
is actually leveragingmirroring questions.
And we have an example of thisin the book.
And, I remember one of our clientsis saying, you know, we're really stuck.
You know,they're just not being not being helpful.
And and I know they're off track,but they won't admit they're off track.
And we went through this whole areawhere I said, okay, grab a timer.
And here's a set of questionsI ran through.
And so when she did a project,
(18:37):
they say, hey,can you give us an update on the project?
And she says, yeah, projects go well.
And the goal with Mary
is always saying the last three words thatthe person said in a mirroring fashion.
So she said the project's going well.
Put on the timer, let the silence happen.
18 seconds went by, whichprobably felt like two days, and they.
Said it felt like two days.
(18:58):
I have storiesI can tell you about that 100%.
It felt like forever.
Okay. But 18 seconds later, what happened?
10s later they said, you know what?
We've we've run into a couple roadblocks.
And she said, okay,
you've had a couple roadblocks again,hit the timer.
So she said she went for 15 secondsand they came out
with, we've got some,you know, issues of timing.
(19:22):
You know, we don'twe don't know why the budget's off course.
And we're seeing these things.
And she did still
keep doing the mirroring activityuntil they got into a deeper conversation.
She said the relationshipwas never the same after that.
It was perfectly on pointwhere they were engaged.
They were part of the process
because they were they were worriedabout putting these on the table.
But when you give people spaceand timing to really respond,
(19:47):
but you give them in an areawhere they really have to own the truth,
that is where mirroring really,truly comes into practice.
And, it's such an exciting activity,
but extremely difficult to wait18 seconds for somebody to respond.
That's a long time.
But here's the thingthe longer you're waiting,
the more you're especially if there'spositional power, which you describe here.
(20:08):
Right?
The coach, the boss, the leader person.
The longer we're waiting,
the more we're showing them that it'sokay, that we really do want to know
that we're not just asking the questions
on the checklistthat we really want to know,
and that space is giving that person timeto to think that through,
(20:30):
think it out, decide howthey want to say it to your point earlier,
and it can make all the difference.
And that's, that's athat's a drastic length of time.
Let me just tell all of you,it probably won't always take that long.
But I love that strategy,that mirroring strategy.
And you use something similar earlierin the conversation when you said,
well, someone answered, I don't know.
(20:52):
Well, if you did, no, what would you say?
I thought that was a brilliant question,and I wanted to bring it back
in case someone missed it before.
It's a great question.
If you did know, what would you say?
Because that'sthat's setting the person up.
To have
enough confidence to say whatthey're probably thinking.
(21:12):
Right. I just I just love that question.
I want to make sure that everyone sort ofhad that locked in for themselves.
So, life life hack heaven.
I was driving the other daywith my girlfriend and,
we said, you know, how do you,where would you like to go eat?
And, you know,and she said, doesn't matter to me.
And then I said, well, if it did matter,where would you like to go?
(21:34):
And she said right awaythe exact spot where she wanted to go.
I was like, oh, this is working.
You just so
you just salvaged relationships rightthere, Dave.
You didn't even know that you sawif you're watching everybody.
I kind of went like this
because every buddy that's in a long termrelationship has had that conversation.
(21:55):
I promise you that they have.
And, what what a greatwhat a great, great way to do that.
By using Mary in questions,we talked about open
ended questions, starting broadand getting more more specific.
We talked about confirming questionsor paraphrasing questions.
We've talked about mirroring questions.
Any other question typesyou want to talk about before we move on?
Yeah, I would say to go backto the idea of surface level elements.
(22:16):
I would go into moreof the probing questions
and I would say this is where leaderscan probably strengthen
the most is that,you know, just asking probing questions.
And that doesn't meanasking the same question.
It's a matterof looking at a sequence of questions.
And I remember walking with the CEOby kind of one of the sales teams.
And see, you kind of want to show mehow to connect with everybody.
And he talk to the sales manager.
(22:37):
He said, oh, our sales.
The sales manager said, oh, they're good.
And I and I walk by and I could see us.
I was close enough with them that I said,perfect, hey, sales are good.
I said, how's your month gone?
Pretty good too.
So give me similar responses,like what was your goal for the month?
And they shared their goaland they said, amazing.
Like, where are you at month day?
(22:58):
He shares it.And I said, okay, interesting.
I said,are you on track to meet your goal?
And he said, well, not really.
And I said, okay, interesting.
So sales are good.
And we just kind of had a fun wayof challenging each other.
He said, these are some of the areasthat we're we're stalling in.
And it was interesting becauseyou had to go 3 or 4 layers deeper,
(23:18):
but it was interesting.
I watched in the office next week, the CEO
and he came out and said,hey, we're back on track.
And so it was interestingby probing and caring and investing,
we created a relationship with each otherthat he felt that he wanted to share.
Having committed to making a change versusgetting away with a surface
level questionand going back to not being on track.
(23:43):
So that highlights two things.
Everybody.
Number one is it's something that we saidbefore by asking the question,
you get people out of their headand putting words to it,
which changes their understandingas well as the commitment, as you said.
But the other thing
that questions do for us isthey can be a way to build relationship.
And if we as leaderswant to be more effective as leaders,
(24:04):
we want to have better relationshipworking relationship to other folks.
Questions.
One of the very best ways that we can dothat.
So, let's talk about follow upquestions, right?
Like or follow up in general.
Let's spend a couple of minutes there
before we sort of roundinto the final turn here.
Yeah, I would say follow up systemsand follow up
(24:27):
questions are probably what has helped usdrive the strong ROI for organizations
and probably the stronger systems thatwe teach our teaching and coaching process
is that every time that you'refinishing, say, coaching or conversation,
there should be a commitmentto some form of action
that comes from the progressionor coaching.
Now there's two scenariosthat people are used to a coach
(24:49):
that follows up and a coachthat doesn't, coach that doesn't.
Okay. Got away with it.
Accountability drops.
The coach that starts the next sessionby saying,
you know, what actions dowe commit to on our last session?
And they talk through them. Amazing.
Can you walk me through how that wentor how did that go?
And if you create that environmentof accountability,
(25:13):
that follow up systemnot only holds them accountable
to being the best version of them,
but they know somebodywho's also invested in their success
because they cared enough to follow upto make sure that they execute it.
And that's not only createda great investment between the two of us
or the group that we're coaching, where,
they just feel likethey they've got somebody in their corner.
(25:34):
And a lot of people see accountabilityas punishment, accountability
for us as motivation to go further.
Yeah.
If I sometimes say
some people think accountabilityis the longest four letter word
in the English language,but it doesn't have to be,
because really, what accountabilityultimately is ownership, right?
That's what I love that you tie tyingthat to motivation,
I love that. So,
(25:58):
one more work related question.
And yeah, a lot of folks
who are watching or listening are
their leadership.
Context is different than it was,
say, five years ago, because eitherthey have folks who are fully remote
or they only see some of the time,so that means some of the time,
all of these questionsand these skills of asking questions
(26:21):
and building a coaching cultureare all happening at a distance.
Do you have any specific advice?
If there's
anything change in our conversation,or would you put an addendum on anything
we've talked about?When you're doing it at a distance?
Yeah.
And this actually happenedwhen we saw a lot in the pandemic where
people switchedto being in that remote environment.
(26:42):
I think you can still have a very candid,
direct conversationin a remote environment.
I think initially a lot of people coachedin teams versus coached individually.
And we really wanted to make surethat people got back to, you know,
you can do remote team conversations,but you should always
still committo doing that 1 to 1 conversation.
(27:02):
And we always go back to the careand candor side.
Is that you?
You might care,but you might not be candid.
So you create distance.
You know, you might be candid,but you may not care.
And you create dysfunction.
But if you have care and you're candid,
you can create thosetransformative environments.
So I would say that remote always makes mefeel like they're connected to the team.
You're connecting to their contribution,you're getting them to open up.
(27:25):
Because especially people
in remote environments, depending on whattheir role is, they can feel very siloed.
They can feel very disconnectedthat that investment into
that conversationcan really pull them back together.
We had multiple organizationsthat I was a tech company
I would think ofas seven different countries,
and they just weren't used to managingpeople in a 1 to 1 environment.
Even if there were short conversations.
(27:47):
It's that small investmentthat adds up over time.
And we always use thisStephen Covey, the emotional bank account,
and that is hugebecause that just adds up over time.
100%. I agree with you on percent.
A couple things.
Before we go, I'm going to shift gears.
I want to ask you,Dave, what you do for fun.
(28:08):
Fun. There is a lot we run a lot.
I do triathlons, I do do our funds.
Give me more than run.
Yeah, a little bit.
Swimming and bike making involved.
Yeah.
And I just got into a time trial
bike this year,so it's a totally different, world.
And having your kind of your handsout on the road.
(28:28):
And I've kind of done Brazilian jiu jitsufor the last 12 years and got the chance
to travel all over the worldfor Brazilian jiu jitsu.
So I wouldn't say there's a sportI haven't tried, but
that's usually what keeps me stimulatedis, is that there's
sports running triathlonsthrough athletes and Brazilian jiu jitsu.
So everybody Kevin is guiltyof the stereotype.
At the beginning.
(28:48):
I said, the man's from Canada,so I used to I, I went to hockey,
I just I messed up right from the start.
So so Dave, what are you reading thesedays when you're not running or jiu jitsu?
Doing. Yeah.
You know what?
I actually just went
and got a couple of new books last night,and I was actually an avid reader.
I've been waiting to get this bookfor a while, and it was, by
(29:10):
Back to Your Time, DanMartel and, big fan of his work.
And really, as we're growing and scaling,we're trying to really put better systems
in there.
And, you know, the
book is really just dedicated to puttingbetter systems in place to grow and scale.
And the other book that I picked up as
well was the 8020 principle,which I think is, Richard Kosh.
And we speak to this all the time,
(29:31):
and I'm always looking for those extralittle tips, tricks, quotes.
So I'm really, really looking forwardto diving that one.
But I'm going to I'm going to go throughthat buy back good time first.
Real big advocate of what Dan does.
We'll have both of thosein the show notes, along with, information
about radical growth
transform into an unstoppable leaderthrough mastering the art of questions.
As I hold this up, Dave, where else,
(29:54):
do you want to point people,or how do you want people to
if they want to connect with you,learn more
about what you work,where you want them to go?
Yeah.
If you want to reach out to uson our website, ruminate group.com.
We're very active on LinkedIn as wellif you want to check us out there.
And same thing for Instagram.
But, yeah, we're excited to reach outand connect for everybody and,
really appreciate the end of the show and,be able
(30:16):
to promote what we've been up to and,love the questions.
I'm always, always involved with the.
Ruminate, the numeral eight group.
So are you am I in eight group.com?
For those of you that can't see it,it was on the screen.
But if you wantif you're listening, that didn't help you.
So, before I say goodbye today,then before I say goodbye to you,
(30:38):
I have the question for youthat I ask you every single episode.
And that is now what?
What action will you take as a result?
Like if you didn't write down 4or 5 specific questions
from Dave,you might want to replay this and do that.
But whether it's that or whether it'ssomething else that you took, what are the
specific actions that you want to takeas a result of being here?
(31:01):
Because until you take action, this is notnearly as valuable as it could be.
It's sitting herelike like, soil unplanted.
But once you plant the seedsand take the action, then
a harvest can come your way.
So, Dave,thank you so much for being here.
We we had a fit and start.
We were planning to do this.
(31:22):
I don't know, six, eight weeks ago.
And I'm gladthat we finally got the chance to do it.
Thanks for joining me.
Thank you. Kevin,I really appreciate being on.
So everybody, if you enjoyed this,make sure you come back.
How do you do that?
Make sure you're subscribedwherever you're watching or listening.
And make sure you tell someone elseto come
listen to this or listen next week,because next week we'll be back
(31:44):
with another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.
Questions we ask them all day, but often.
And how well do we ask themin our leadership role?
How do you use questions to help yoube a more effective coach?
And if you had greater skillsand confidence in asking questions,
how would that change your resultsand outcomes as a leader?
(00:30):
It's a great question,and these are questions
that are that matter,and they're the kinds of questions
we're going to exploreduring this episode.
So welcome to another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast,
where we are helping leaders like you growpersonally and professionally
to lead more effectivelyand make a bigger, positive difference
(00:50):
for their teams, organizationsand the world.
If you are listening to this showin the future, you could join us live,
on your favorite social media channel.
You can find out when those are happeningand how you can get connected
and therefore see this,see them, see them, slash hear them sooner
(01:11):
and get the beautiful, wonderful ideasinto your practice sooner.
And you can do all that byjoining our Facebook or LinkedIn groups.
Just two of the platformswhere you can watch, go to remarkable
podcast.com/facebook or remarkable
podcast.com/linkedin to be LinkedIn.
(01:32):
And know what's going on.
Today's episode is brought to youby my latest book,
Flexible Leadership Navigate Uncertaintyand Lead with confidence.
It's time to realize that stylescan get in our way, and that following
our strengthsmight not always be the best approach.
In a worldmore complex and uncertain than ever, our
leaders need a new perspectiveand a new set of tools
(01:52):
to create the great resultstheir organizations and teams need.
And that's what flexible leadershipprovide you.
Learn more and orderyour copy today at remarkable
podcast.com/flexible.
And after all of that, we've gotthe administration out of the way.
Let me bring in my guest.
(02:12):
It looks like we might havea technical challenge.
Let me check on that really quickly.
See if that works.
And if it does, great.
And if it doesn't, we'll move on.
We're going to move on.
So let me introduce my guest.
His name is Dave Reynolds.Let me tell you a little bit about him.
He is a serial entrepreneurwho has launched and developed a variety
(02:33):
of new products and servicesfor nearly two decades.
He is the founderand CEO of the ruminate Group,
a growth consulting firmthat helps clients think strategically,
facilitate team growth, and navigatecrucial conversations.
With a background in sales leadership,performance management, and succession
planning, Dave is passionateabout growth, acceleration
(02:55):
and how asking the right questions yieldsthe best answers.
He explores those passionsin his new book, Radical Growth
transform into an unstoppable leaderthrough mastering the Art of questions.
I mentioned he's in another countrythan me.
He's in Halifax,Nova Scotia, Canada today.
(03:16):
And so hey, welcome, Dave.
So glad that you're here.
Appreciate it.
Thanks very much, Kevin, for having me.
And fantastic introduction.
Well, I took the one your mother gave me.
So let's see what we've got.
Someone here, this in Vienna, andwe've got someone who's here in Houston.
And we're glad that,that they and others are with us.
(03:38):
So what I want to do,
Dave, is sort of start outby making an assumption,
and you can tell meif my assumption is correct,
that when you were like,
I don't know, eight years old,you probably weren't
expecting to be,
a person who's written booksand that sort of thing.
I don't know, maybe you thought you weregoing to be a hockey player, I don't know.
(03:59):
But my question is like, tell usa little bit more about that journey.
In short, that leads you to this placeand the writing of this book.
Yeah.
It's funny, when I look backand where I would have been a,
I think I always knew I was going to bea salesperson in some way.
From persuasionto just being talkative, but
never thought that, I would wind up here.
(04:22):
And so anybody ever ask?
It's kind of a serendipitous momentof how one area job moved to the next.
So it's been really exciting.
And navigating to entrepreneurship,from inventing new products
to launching new productsto getting into consultancy
just by, you know,asking a lot of really intuitive questions
to a friend of mine that led to, hey,why do you start consulting for me?
(04:46):
And I said, yes, and I'll figure it out.
So here you are.
So why the book specifically?
You and I were talkingbefore the show started.
Before we hit record.
A little bit about what the book's doingfor you since it came out, but, like, why?
What led you to to decideto write the book?
Yeah, well, two things.
(05:06):
I think it was always on the bucket list,
that I always just said,I really want to write a book.
I was just always,in admiration of people that wrote.
But the second part was with,we serve clients
kind of all over the world,very industry agnostic.
And we were going through the process of
doing a lot of executivecoaching for their teams,
and they were just seeing so much growth.
(05:26):
And the CEO said, cheese,if you could just package this in,
you know, book our program.
She said you couldyou could do really well with us.
And so I didn't think about ituntil later that night, you know,
always got the abundance mentalitythat said, yeah, we should share this.
We should give this, even though a lot ofpeople try and keep those tactics in.
(05:47):
So we actually developedthe actual training program,
but we, we actually led with the bookfirst.
And, that's what got us here. So,
the CEO, it was, an admiration
and thankful that, they said, hey,you know, we should put this in a book.
I love that.
So in True Salesman,
fashion, I suppose you have.
(06:10):
You make a pretty big promisein the subtitle.
You say, transform into an unstoppable,viable leader.
So let's talk about that word unstoppable
just for a minute,because it's a big promise.
And I'm.
And I'm confidentthat you use the word intentionally.
So let's just talk about thata little bit.
Why unstoppable.
And, is it really true
(06:32):
that if we master the art of questions,we can become unstoppable?
Yeah. Amazing question.
And I think that I actuallynever been asked that before, but
the reason why we created that subtitlewas that we, the leaders that we work
with, that really start going throughand seeing the value of asking questions,
you really startsbreaking through the limitations
(06:52):
that a lot of people set for themselves,
not just individually,but teams and organizations,
because we start to think differentlywhen we ask questions,
we increase our level of ownershipand our level of accountability,
which overall, you know, increasesour level of execution.
And a common questionI asked clients that I work with is that,
hey, if you went back two years
to where we started and you kind ofsaw yourself today, what would you say?
(07:14):
And they'rethey're really kind of dumbfounded
that they said, like, I just I wouldn'teven know the person I am today.
And I think that being a leaderthat masters there are two questions
is you can create leadersthat create leaders and
and really can kind of change your futurejust by really grabbing
that skill and mastering it.
So one of
the things that you talk aboutthroughout the book,
(07:36):
and it really is, I think, hinted at ineverything you've said so far,
is that you're a believerin creating a culture of coaching.
And I said in the opening that you can'tdetach coaching from questions.
So what do you meanwhen you say a coaching culture?
How would I know?
Why would I want it, and how would I knowif I'm moving towards it?
(08:01):
Yeah.
And so we we are always an areawhere a lot of people want a strategy.
They want the strategythat's going to work.
And that could be a coaching methodology.
But it's the ideathat, you know, culture and strategy.
And I think the old saying was thatculture is strategy for breakfast.
We really want to make sureour coaching culture isn't just about,
you know, introducing, say, radical growthas a strategy is
(08:24):
we want radical growth to be part of,you know, organization's culture.
So they're sharing the terminology.
They're owning implementation.
And and coaching is being done everywherein the organization.
And you'll see in the book
we talk about coachingup, coaching down and coaching across.
Coaching shouldn'talways have to be a leader to an employee.
It should be peer to peer.
(08:44):
You should feel comfortable to lead up.
And that's when we really seeorganizations that embrace
coaching culture.
And that is an incredible thing becauseyou don't feel like you need to lead.
And and only one direction.
It can be multi-dimensional.
And that's where we seethe biggest influence of our growth is
when we see, you know,culture, coaching culture, take flourish.
(09:07):
All right.
So we want to create a coaching culture.
And and we've saidthat questions are a big part of it.
And so I want to talk aboutas we promised in the episode
title, talk about the Art of questions.
But before we get to the art, you saythere's also a science to questions.
So tell me about the science of questionsbefore we dive into the art.
(09:30):
Yeah,it was interesting when we were working
with our publisher on thisand we were kind of said, hey, you know,
there's an art and science to it,you know,
because you can see when you watchsomebody ask a question,
it looks like you couldn't replicatethat same process.
But the science side iswe really go on the idea
of when you're being asked a questionversus being given direction.
(09:50):
You know, there's a totally differenta neurological response
on how you actually own the response,
because you have a senseof ownership over it.
And that's like what we talk withstorytelling and or coupling, like
there is an actual relationshipthat you're creating
by asking somebody a question versustelling them what they need to do.
And this is really where we get morepeople involved in the commitment stage,
(10:11):
because the answers are coming from them.
So they have a sense of empowermentby providing those answers.
And in a lot of cases,we all know great questions.
You know, you have to ask multiple,so you can't live in a service
all the after and get deeperand people get a stronger
self-awarenessover being asked deeper questions.
So we get a lot of momentswhere they're having those realizations
(10:34):
and you can actually see their bodylanguage change.
When you can tellthat they've had that dialog
internally the whole time,and they'll say it.
And our response right away is, is thatthe first time you said that out loud?
And they're like, yeah.
And when they vocalize it,it just changes the relationship.
But the response.
(10:55):
Yeah, thoughts are fuzzy.
Words bring clarity. We can talk.We can think about things a long time.
But when we say them or write them,it changes everything.
And I often say, Dave, thatpeople don't argue with their own data.
Right.
So once people have said something,that's where
that that's a big part of wherethat ownership piece comes into play.
So I really appreciate thatwe started there.
So and by the way, everybody,in case you're wondering, to think
(11:18):
that this is an easy conversationfor me to have when the guy
who wrote the book about questions is hereand I'm sure he's, he's mentally
thinking about critiquing howwell I'm doing it, asking questions.
So I want to talk about barriersbecause like,
so far everyone would say,yeah, questions are good.
All good.
It's like it's like in the US
(11:39):
we'd say that's motherhood and apple pielike of course better questions.
And yet there are barriers,especially as leaders.
There are things that sort ofkeep us from doing it.
And this to meis one of the most important conversations
for us to have here.
And I hope that everyone who's listeningis, like, ready to take notes here,
like from your perspective and in yourexperience, Dave, what are the barriers?
(12:01):
Yeah.
The immediate barrierthat I would go to right away would be
that more relationships have ended bywhat wasn't said.
And what was that?
So I'd say more people just avoid askingquestions or having the conversation.
That would be one of them.
And the second one would be,and we've already mentioned
is they ask questionsand they accept surface level responses.
(12:23):
You know, hey, how's your day going? Good.
How are sales? Good.
And we accept these surfacelevel responses versus,
excuse me.
And you're asking amazing.
You know what's good,you know, and session sales.
And they're saying, oh, and you're asking
what's yourwhat's your goal for the month?
And you're going a little bit deeper.
(12:43):
So surface level for sure.
Looking for a reframe question.
So if somebody says, you know,I don't know.
Sometimes people might askif you did know, what would you say.
And, and sometimes you just have to look
at different, tactics like mirroring.
And I would say the biggest barriersare people avoiding the conversations.
(13:07):
I would say living at the surface level.
And I'll probably another pointis being proactive
with your questions versus reactive.
So a lot of times where somebody might aska question or reactively, you might be
actually stimulating an emotional responseversus a logical response.
So that would be really what I would say.
Some of the biggest barriers are when
because when you're asking proactivequestions,
(13:29):
you're invested in the conversationversus you're looking at checking a box
in a reactive environment.
One of the things
that I find and so so speak to thisif you want.
One of the things that I find for leadersa lot of times is that they're,
they're afraid of askingbecause they don't know how to respond
to the answer or,
(13:51):
they don't askbecause they think they already know.
Yeah.
Commentsabout either one of those thoughts.
Yeah.
And I think like that's it's like,can I be a subject matter expert?
Can I respond to that?
So people will feel likethey need to immediately respond
and there's actually somethingreally graceful about pausing
and asking for a momentto think about that.
(14:13):
And if anything, it actually,
stimulates a deeper conversation.
I really agree with you a lot onthat is like having to feel like you.
You need to know all the answers.
Actually, if anything,when I enter an organization, the reason
why we're industry agnostic is sometimesthe less I know, the more I can help.
And so what I mean bythat is if I'm just curious,
(14:34):
I don't I don't have to really bethe technical expert,
but I can actually pull more informationout of the person I'm working with
and get it into a better systemjust by being curious versus, hey,
this is how I've done it,this is how you should do it.
And that for me is a great approach.
Yeah, I really do love that a lot.
I wantyou mentioned something in the book,
(14:58):
and I think this gets at this point, it
if we are if as we get betterat asking questions, we can do what
you suggest here.
You suggest that we need to movefrom being transactional
to being transformational.
What do you mean?
And what's the difference?
Yeah, transactional.
We see a lot of times, especially coachingin certain environments,
(15:19):
they're they're kind of ad hoc. They're,
they're doing because they have to do it,not because they want to do it.
It might be a KPI or a metricthat needs to be met to have coaching.
Transformational is is going.
I'm making an intentional, proactiveinvestment in coaching that I remember.
I've actually been in telecommunications.
We had to coach a certain amount of time,but once I started shifting
(15:41):
into seeing coachingas my competitive advantage for growth,
I really started realizing, oh wow.
And by having consistent coachingconversations, I'm actually
creating more dynamic leaders,
higher performing sales executors.
And not only am I making them better,
(16:01):
I'm actually teaching them a skill thatthat's transferable to their team members.
So the transformation happens
on also getting peopleoutside of their comfort zone.
But we're doing it in a way that they'rereally owning that process along the way.
So that's that's really where we seea lot of transformation, is really about
getting them into that growth mindset,but also pushing them outside
(16:23):
of their comfort zone and, and wherethey're they're owning the next steps.
I think it's interesting that the wayyou describe that,
that shift for youwas a transformation going from
I have to coach toI get to coach or I want to coach
or there's great value in mecoaching and and anytime.
And so that same transformationhopefully is occurring for all of you
(16:46):
listening in terms of, it'sokay for me to ask questions.
I want to ask questions,I can ask better questions.
And if I'm going to ask better questions,one of the things we need to know is
what are the kinds of questionswe can ask.
So, we learned a little bit of thisin school, but we've all slept since then.
But youyou take us a step further in that.
So when you think about ittoday, for us in the workplace,
(17:09):
as coaches, as, as as team members,what are the types of questions
we should be considering?
Yeah.
So when we lookat just your basic open ended questions,
I think we're all anybody that's onthis show is is listening.
We're already already doingthese open ended questions.
We're asking big or broad questions.
But what I'll I'll challenge everybodyon around open ended questions is start
(17:32):
with big and broad opening questionsso you can ask an open ended question
so people feel comfortable andthey give momentum into asking questions.
And they can be more specific with an openended question to get more detail.
I really feel that askingconfirming questions
is a really great strategyfor two reasons.
It shows your listeningbecause as a confirming statement,
(17:54):
you're having that say, you know,just to clarify what you just mentioned
was and you'll go through the area of ofjust telling I heard what you said
is, is that the most important next stepthat you're seeing?
And then they're using that opportunityto kind of confirm that,
those are really great.
One that's had a big impact.
We've worked with a couple big projectmanagement teams
(18:16):
is actually leveragingmirroring questions.
And we have an example of thisin the book.
And, I remember one of our clientsis saying, you know, we're really stuck.
You know,they're just not being not being helpful.
And and I know they're off track,but they won't admit they're off track.
And we went through this whole areawhere I said, okay, grab a timer.
And here's a set of questionsI ran through.
And so when she did a project,
(18:37):
they say, hey,can you give us an update on the project?
And she says, yeah, projects go well.
And the goal with Mary
is always saying the last three words thatthe person said in a mirroring fashion.
So she said the project's going well.
Put on the timer, let the silence happen.
18 seconds went by, whichprobably felt like two days, and they.
Said it felt like two days.
(18:58):
I have storiesI can tell you about that 100%.
It felt like forever.
Okay. But 18 seconds later, what happened?
10s later they said, you know what?
We've we've run into a couple roadblocks.
And she said, okay,
you've had a couple roadblocks again,hit the timer.
So she said she went for 15 secondsand they came out
with, we've got some,you know, issues of timing.
(19:22):
You know, we don'twe don't know why the budget's off course.
And we're seeing these things.
And she did still
keep doing the mirroring activityuntil they got into a deeper conversation.
She said the relationshipwas never the same after that.
It was perfectly on pointwhere they were engaged.
They were part of the process
because they were they were worriedabout putting these on the table.
But when you give people spaceand timing to really respond,
(19:47):
but you give them in an areawhere they really have to own the truth,
that is where mirroring really,truly comes into practice.
And, it's such an exciting activity,
but extremely difficult to wait18 seconds for somebody to respond.
That's a long time.
But here's the thingthe longer you're waiting,
the more you're especially if there'spositional power, which you describe here.
(20:08):
Right?
The coach, the boss, the leader person.
The longer we're waiting,
the more we're showing them that it'sokay, that we really do want to know
that we're not just asking the questions
on the checklistthat we really want to know,
and that space is giving that person timeto to think that through,
(20:30):
think it out, decide howthey want to say it to your point earlier,
and it can make all the difference.
And that's, that's athat's a drastic length of time.
Let me just tell all of you,it probably won't always take that long.
But I love that strategy,that mirroring strategy.
And you use something similar earlierin the conversation when you said,
well, someone answered, I don't know.
(20:52):
Well, if you did, no, what would you say?
I thought that was a brilliant question,and I wanted to bring it back
in case someone missed it before.
It's a great question.
If you did know, what would you say?
Because that'sthat's setting the person up.
To have
enough confidence to say whatthey're probably thinking.
(21:12):
Right. I just I just love that question.
I want to make sure that everyone sort ofhad that locked in for themselves.
So, life life hack heaven.
I was driving the other daywith my girlfriend and,
we said, you know, how do you,where would you like to go eat?
And, you know,and she said, doesn't matter to me.
And then I said, well, if it did matter,where would you like to go?
(21:34):
And she said right awaythe exact spot where she wanted to go.
I was like, oh, this is working.
You just so
you just salvaged relationships rightthere, Dave.
You didn't even know that you sawif you're watching everybody.
I kind of went like this
because every buddy that's in a long termrelationship has had that conversation.
(21:55):
I promise you that they have.
And, what what a greatwhat a great, great way to do that.
By using Mary in questions,we talked about open
ended questions, starting broadand getting more more specific.
We talked about confirming questionsor paraphrasing questions.
We've talked about mirroring questions.
Any other question typesyou want to talk about before we move on?
Yeah, I would say to go backto the idea of surface level elements.
(22:16):
I would go into moreof the probing questions
and I would say this is where leaderscan probably strengthen
the most is that,you know, just asking probing questions.
And that doesn't meanasking the same question.
It's a matterof looking at a sequence of questions.
And I remember walking with the CEOby kind of one of the sales teams.
And see, you kind of want to show mehow to connect with everybody.
And he talk to the sales manager.
(22:37):
He said, oh, our sales.
The sales manager said, oh, they're good.
And I and I walk by and I could see us.
I was close enough with them that I said,perfect, hey, sales are good.
I said, how's your month gone?
Pretty good too.
So give me similar responses,like what was your goal for the month?
And they shared their goaland they said, amazing.
Like, where are you at month day?
(22:58):
He shares it.And I said, okay, interesting.
I said,are you on track to meet your goal?
And he said, well, not really.
And I said, okay, interesting.
So sales are good.
And we just kind of had a fun wayof challenging each other.
He said, these are some of the areasthat we're we're stalling in.
And it was interesting becauseyou had to go 3 or 4 layers deeper,
(23:18):
but it was interesting.
I watched in the office next week, the CEO
and he came out and said,hey, we're back on track.
And so it was interestingby probing and caring and investing,
we created a relationship with each otherthat he felt that he wanted to share.
Having committed to making a change versusgetting away with a surface
level questionand going back to not being on track.
(23:43):
So that highlights two things.
Everybody.
Number one is it's something that we saidbefore by asking the question,
you get people out of their headand putting words to it,
which changes their understandingas well as the commitment, as you said.
But the other thing
that questions do for us isthey can be a way to build relationship.
And if we as leaderswant to be more effective as leaders,
(24:04):
we want to have better relationshipworking relationship to other folks.
Questions.
One of the very best ways that we can dothat.
So, let's talk about follow upquestions, right?
Like or follow up in general.
Let's spend a couple of minutes there
before we sort of roundinto the final turn here.
Yeah, I would say follow up systemsand follow up
(24:27):
questions are probably what has helped usdrive the strong ROI for organizations
and probably the stronger systems thatwe teach our teaching and coaching process
is that every time that you'refinishing, say, coaching or conversation,
there should be a commitmentto some form of action
that comes from the progressionor coaching.
Now there's two scenariosthat people are used to a coach
(24:49):
that follows up and a coachthat doesn't, coach that doesn't.
Okay. Got away with it.
Accountability drops.
The coach that starts the next sessionby saying,
you know, what actions dowe commit to on our last session?
And they talk through them. Amazing.
Can you walk me through how that wentor how did that go?
And if you create that environmentof accountability,
(25:13):
that follow up systemnot only holds them accountable
to being the best version of them,
but they know somebodywho's also invested in their success
because they cared enough to follow upto make sure that they execute it.
And that's not only createda great investment between the two of us
or the group that we're coaching, where,
they just feel likethey they've got somebody in their corner.
(25:34):
And a lot of people see accountabilityas punishment, accountability
for us as motivation to go further.
Yeah.
If I sometimes say
some people think accountabilityis the longest four letter word
in the English language,but it doesn't have to be,
because really, what accountabilityultimately is ownership, right?
That's what I love that you tie tyingthat to motivation,
I love that. So,
(25:58):
one more work related question.
And yeah, a lot of folks
who are watching or listening are
their leadership.
Context is different than it was,
say, five years ago, because eitherthey have folks who are fully remote
or they only see some of the time,so that means some of the time,
all of these questionsand these skills of asking questions
(26:21):
and building a coaching cultureare all happening at a distance.
Do you have any specific advice?
If there's
anything change in our conversation,or would you put an addendum on anything
we've talked about?When you're doing it at a distance?
Yeah.
And this actually happenedwhen we saw a lot in the pandemic where
people switchedto being in that remote environment.
(26:42):
I think you can still have a very candid,
direct conversationin a remote environment.
I think initially a lot of people coachedin teams versus coached individually.
And we really wanted to make surethat people got back to, you know,
you can do remote team conversations,but you should always
still committo doing that 1 to 1 conversation.
(27:02):
And we always go back to the careand candor side.
Is that you?
You might care,but you might not be candid.
So you create distance.
You know, you might be candid,but you may not care.
And you create dysfunction.
But if you have care and you're candid,
you can create thosetransformative environments.
So I would say that remote always makes mefeel like they're connected to the team.
You're connecting to their contribution,you're getting them to open up.
(27:25):
Because especially people
in remote environments, depending on whattheir role is, they can feel very siloed.
They can feel very disconnectedthat that investment into
that conversationcan really pull them back together.
We had multiple organizationsthat I was a tech company
I would think ofas seven different countries,
and they just weren't used to managingpeople in a 1 to 1 environment.
Even if there were short conversations.
(27:47):
It's that small investmentthat adds up over time.
And we always use thisStephen Covey, the emotional bank account,
and that is hugebecause that just adds up over time.
100%. I agree with you on percent.
A couple things.
Before we go, I'm going to shift gears.
I want to ask you,Dave, what you do for fun.
(28:08):
Fun. There is a lot we run a lot.
I do triathlons, I do do our funds.
Give me more than run.
Yeah, a little bit.
Swimming and bike making involved.
Yeah.
And I just got into a time trial
bike this year,so it's a totally different, world.
And having your kind of your handsout on the road.
(28:28):
And I've kind of done Brazilian jiu jitsufor the last 12 years and got the chance
to travel all over the worldfor Brazilian jiu jitsu.
So I wouldn't say there's a sportI haven't tried, but
that's usually what keeps me stimulatedis, is that there's
sports running triathlonsthrough athletes and Brazilian jiu jitsu.
So everybody Kevin is guiltyof the stereotype.
At the beginning.
(28:48):
I said, the man's from Canada,so I used to I, I went to hockey,
I just I messed up right from the start.
So so Dave, what are you reading thesedays when you're not running or jiu jitsu?
Doing. Yeah.
You know what?
I actually just went
and got a couple of new books last night,and I was actually an avid reader.
I've been waiting to get this bookfor a while, and it was, by
(29:10):
Back to Your Time, DanMartel and, big fan of his work.
And really, as we're growing and scaling,we're trying to really put better systems
in there.
And, you know, the
book is really just dedicated to puttingbetter systems in place to grow and scale.
And the other book that I picked up as
well was the 8020 principle,which I think is, Richard Kosh.
And we speak to this all the time,
(29:31):
and I'm always looking for those extralittle tips, tricks, quotes.
So I'm really, really looking forwardto diving that one.
But I'm going to I'm going to go throughthat buy back good time first.
Real big advocate of what Dan does.
We'll have both of thosein the show notes, along with, information
about radical growth
transform into an unstoppable leaderthrough mastering the art of questions.
As I hold this up, Dave, where else,
(29:54):
do you want to point people,or how do you want people to
if they want to connect with you,learn more
about what you work,where you want them to go?
Yeah.
If you want to reach out to uson our website, ruminate group.com.
We're very active on LinkedIn as wellif you want to check us out there.
And same thing for Instagram.
But, yeah, we're excited to reach outand connect for everybody and,
really appreciate the end of the show and,be able
(30:16):
to promote what we've been up to and,love the questions.
I'm always, always involved with the.
Ruminate, the numeral eight group.
So are you am I in eight group.com?
For those of you that can't see it,it was on the screen.
But if you wantif you're listening, that didn't help you.
So, before I say goodbye today,then before I say goodbye to you,
(30:38):
I have the question for youthat I ask you every single episode.
And that is now what?
What action will you take as a result?
Like if you didn't write down 4or 5 specific questions
from Dave,you might want to replay this and do that.
But whether it's that or whether it'ssomething else that you took, what are the
specific actions that you want to takeas a result of being here?
(31:01):
Because until you take action, this is notnearly as valuable as it could be.
It's sitting herelike like, soil unplanted.
But once you plant the seedsand take the action, then
a harvest can come your way.
So, Dave,thank you so much for being here.
We we had a fit and start.
We were planning to do this.
(31:22):
I don't know, six, eight weeks ago.
And I'm gladthat we finally got the chance to do it.
Thanks for joining me.
Thank you. Kevin,I really appreciate being on.
So everybody, if you enjoyed this,make sure you come back.
How do you do that?
Make sure you're subscribedwherever you're watching or listening.
And make sure you tell someone elseto come
listen to this or listen next week,because next week we'll be back
(31:44):
with another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.
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