August 6, 2025 • 34 mins
What makes a leader truly transformative? In this powerful episode of Elevate Education, host Matt Palaoro sits down with Jeffco alum and leadership expert Shawn Vanderhoven, partner at the Wiseman Group and co-creator of the best-selling book Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. They explore the difference between leaders who amplify the talent around them and those who unintentionally diminish it.
Through personal stories and practical strategies, Shawn unpacks what it means to be a "multiplier" and how educators at every level can cultivate curiosity, create space for others to thrive, and lead brilliant work. This episode will leave you inspired and equipped to bring out the best in your team.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker (00:22):
Hello and welcome back to a new school year and a new season of Elevate Education. I'm Matt Pollaro, chief of student success here at Jeffco Public Schools and one of your hosts of Elevate Education podcast. I'm thrilled to be kicking things off with our audience as we continue exploring what makes educational, meaningful, innovative, and impactful. To start this season, we've got an incredible guest joining us. I'm so excited. Someone who is not only a Jeffco alumni, a proud Bear Creek bear as I understand it, but someone who has gone on to become a nationally recognized business innovator and leadership expert. Sean Vanderhoven. Welcome to Elevate Education. Hey, listen, it's so good to be on with you, Matt. I mean, it couldn't be more thrilled to come back to anything connected to those high school years. Yeah, well, Sean, we're excited to have you. You're a partner at the Wiseman Group, a leadership development expert and a co-creator of the second edition of the New York Times bestseller, Multipliers How the Best Leaders Make everyone smarter. You've advised global organizations like Intel, LinkedIn, Adobe, and this year, we're thrilled to have you as our keynote speaker for our Jeffco leadership launch. We're excited to have you help. Welcome back all of our school and central leaders. This is a time for us to really reground in our values, focus on students, and it's just such an honor to have Jeffco alone with your experience and insight joining us today. So thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks. I mean, seriously, I'm so pleased. I went to Kendall View Elementary School, then Carmody, uh, Junior high, then Bear Creek. Jeffco through and through. That's awesome. So, Sean, you've worked with some of the world's most recognized companies and leaders. Tell us a little bit how you got started in leadership development. Well, when I was a kid, you know, kind of starting off college time frame, I was working for a nonprofit that was really into leadership development. So they were a lot of leadership workshops. And the idea was just to have the younger kids that were participating in the program take leadership roles. And I just remember feeling, you know, first of all, impacted early by my peers who were who were acting one of those leadership roles and, and fell in love with the idea of just, you know, how can you as an individual can contribute to a group and, you know, and having sports coaches throughout my time at Bear Creek and, um, coaches have a huge impact on your life. And so the combination of of just who it influenced me growing up, uh, and then experiencing this as a young man, I thought, oh, I really want to do this. And so, interestingly enough, I started a leadership development company, uh, early. Totally failed. Of course, I didn't know anything. Um, and, and in this journey, bumped into had a chance to be mentored for just just an afternoon. This fellow by the name of Hyrum Smith. And and he was the one of the co-founders of Franklin Quest, which later bought Covey Leadership Center and became Franklin Covey, author several books and kind of one of their their speakers. And I asked him, you know, I told him I loved leadership and, uh, wanted to teach and to train and to learn the disciplines of leadership. And I, you know, I'll never forget he said to me, he said, you know, you're so young, you don't know anything. My recommendation, to you is that you go back to school, get a degree, which I wasn't planning on at the time, and, and get into industry and go learn and figure out how to not just be a student of these ideas of leadership development, but apply them and see if you can apply them to business and organizations in a way that actually moves the needle and impacts individuals lives. And man, I took that serious. I, I changed my plans. I was in software for 15 years, uh, trying to do everything I could to learn everything I could about leadership development, about productivity and teams and how could I apply those lessons. And so after about 15 years in, uh, I, I had my first opportunity to come out here in Silicon Valley and worked on a workshop with with a researcher. And then a couple of years after that, I ended up meeting Liz and joined the team to work on the second edition of multiplier. So it was it was it was really kind of a dream come true. It was a long 15 year period of of being a leader in an organization to try to grow and make a difference in that while trying to test and apply all these different concepts. Uh, before I was able to get on the research end of things. Yeah. Um, some of what you said that resonates with me is that early on, you had all of these influences in your life that really kind of coached and advised you on this journey, and even through failure, you found success, right? Um, and that's truly powerful. I mean, I think that is the impact that leaders can have on our lives when they see something in ourselves that we might not see yet. Right. So someone believed enough in you to say, hey, go out there and try this, try to apply it, learn from it. Um, and it just makes us better. You've had tremendous success. Um, you know, at the Wiseman group, you talk about multipliers right in your book. What is a multiplier and how do they unlock the full intelligence of a team? Yeah. I'll tell you a little bit about where this concept of multipliers came from. So so my partner at the firm is Liz Wiseman. She started it. She was at Oracle and had noticed this phenomenon. And so so Oracle at the time as early 2000, her responsibility was kind of all things learning. And she she ran what was called the Oracle University. And she noticed that there was a certain subset of leaders within Oracle that that when they interacted with people, people stepped up and they played bigger. It was like the speed and the quality of the ideas in the room just went bonkers, increased and accelerated. People took risks. The quality of work increased over time. People took more responsibility and accountability for themselves. It was almost as if they just made people smarter. She wanted to know what these leaders do, but what really piqued her interest was the contrast. You would have these insanely smart people. They were hiring from the Ivy League schools. You know, was kind of trying to find the best and brightest in class. And there were this other subset of leaders who she came to call diminishers, which is the opposite of multipliers. They as they interacted with teams, they just it was the opposite occurred. People played smaller, they measured their contributions. They, you know, you could tell they were operating a little bit more from a place of fear. The idea flow slowed down. She and she thought, man, I want to know what's the difference between these two types of leaders, these leaders who amplify our capability versus these leaders who shut us down? And and so she left Oracle and ran a study to try to figure out. I can tell you more about that later. But to figure out the difference between these multipliers versus diminishers. But back to the original question. What she learned in this research was that multipliers are these leaders who use their intelligence as a tool to access other people's capability. And that's the heart of it. They are intellectually curious about what other people can do There's they operate with an assumption that people know things, that people can do things, and that leads to a whole set of practices that we'll get into that multipliers operate with. So, you know, I want to make sure that I can differentiate between the two. And what I think I heard you say are multipliers are really those people that believe in others and know that they're capable of figuring things out, whereas these diminishers, so to speak, are maybe those people who drain intelligence for lack of better description and maybe drain the energy and capability from people around them, even if it's unintentional at times. Yeah. That's right. I mean, what multipliers do is they're very curious about what other people can do and how they can contribute. And they assume that people have something to offer. And when you assume that and they really believe that people are smart and capable and that they can grow, when you assume that you operate with a completely different set of behaviors than when you assume that people need your help to figure things out. And that was at the heart of what we learned in this research, is that diminishers tend to get into a place where they assume that people will need their help to figure things out, and so from that flows a set of behaviors that can have this extremely diminishing effect on people's ability to contribute. Let's stick with that notion of diminishers for a minute here. Can you share maybe a time with us that you noticed someone unintentionally diminishing the people around them? How might you advise, or how did you coach that person to recognize what was happening and maybe point them in a different direction? There's two things that I'll say about this. You bring up this idea that what about this unintentional diminishing that we all can do. And There are these leaders who are just these incredible multipliers. Most of them, they're not born, they're built. And then there are leaders that are very bright, talented, capable, capable people. They'll get promoted into leadership because that's the fate, if you think about it, of talented and capable people, they get promoted and and it's and it doesn't necessarily mean that a great contributor like great player turns great coach or great contributor turns great leader. There's there's actually some learning that occurs for us to be able to wear that different hat and to look through that lens. So there are these leaders out there that are these diminishers. They believe that they're the smartest person in the room. They operate that way. They assume other people need their help to figure things out. We know what that feels like. It really shuts people down. We end up. We end up overworking for those individuals and being underutilized, which is exhausting. So back to your question. The interesting the most interesting thing that I think was uncovered in this multipliers research was the messy middle. And this is this accidental diminisher that you just mentioned. It's the it's the things that we all do where with the very best of intentions, we don't mean to, but we accidentally shut people down. I'll give you a few examples. I do all of these. You maybe you're full of ideas. You can't turn it off. You don't even need to come in contact with water. You just have to have a problem in front of you. And and you are, you know, somebody comes to you and they share a problem, and before they know it, they're walking out of your office with ten sticky notes that are kind of pinned everywhere on them, all written by your hand. These people are just they're creatives. They've got a lot of ideas. Well, sometimes when someone comes to us with a problem and we over share ideas, well, it can have this accidentally diminishing effect where people, well, they don't do the thinking themselves or they become idea lazy or they don't know what to execute on. They're they're kind of going, it's like a wild goose chase. They're going after everything in every different direction. Um, and so we mean to be creative and to be helpful and to generate ideas, but then in the end, it just it just leads to confusion and could even feel like that. Maybe your mind or your thinking is not needed. Just just one idea. Another one is and I'll share an experience where I do this. And by the way, I am totally an idea fountain. Uh, put a problem in front of me. You don't even have to give me a quarter, and I will give you 100 ideas. And it can be a real problem, especially raging teenage boys. I don't have any teenagers anymore. They're all from college now. But when I did, oh my gosh, the last thing they wanted to do was share a problem with dad, because you're going to get 100, 100 solutions. There's this other one that this, um, we call the pace setter, and it's the leader who wants to take initiative. They they like to move fast. They kind of want to set the pace of the team. Like, if you were to imagine in your mind a pace car, you know, what's the pace car's job in NASCAR. It's to get out in front of the group and to slowly accelerate. So the entire pack, which is going to move slower, can accelerate to speed before the race starts. Well, what happens if the pace car gets out and just nails the gas? You know they're going to leave the whole pack in in the dust. And it's and it's because I mean, well, well, if you ask the question what happens when a leader or coach or teacher gets too far ahead of the pack? Well, do people speed up or do they slow down? Well, they they slow down and we end up creating spectators instead of followers. This is me. Oh my gosh. I've got a serious pace setting problem. And it was after a project where we had just we were just releasing the second edition of multipliers and we were lucky and it sold well. And it hit the New York Times best selling list, We were thrilled as a team and thought that this just meant an all hands just celebration. But shortly after the win, a team member approached me and she said, you know, Sean, I got to tell you, this is bittersweet because on the one hand, I feel glad that we've had this success, but on the other hand, I just feel disappointed because I half the time I didn't even know what you were doing. I didn't even know where the ship was going and I found it. You were so far ahead. I found it difficult for me to to contribute. Oh, man. It wasn't what I wanted at all. You know, I was just trying to. Trying to. I was just trying to solve the problem. I was just trying to move the project in a direction, but I but I was I was kind of going at such a rate, in such a pace and far ahead from the team that they didn't know what I was up to, and so they couldn't anticipate their play or their move. And so I ended up accidentally diminishing, you know, a whole team of people and, and really wished that I wouldn't have. But here's the thing about it. I didn't mean to. It's not because I didn't believe that they were smart or capable. I just I'm wired this way. And if you're not aware of sometimes your strengths as a contributor, they will show up as a leadership liability. Yeah. Well, first and foremost, I appreciate your vulnerability. That in itself is a huge strength of yours. And quite honestly, any leader. So let me take us here. Many people think about positional leadership. How do you help all members of a team from the most junior staff member to the most senior staff member achieve their greatest potential? Yeah, well, I mean, what a what a great question and a tough one. Um, from a multipliers perspective, I think that what I've learned from studying these leaders is just the belief that that potential was there. So deep in their souls that when they didn't see it being actualized, they double click on it, they figure out, hey, what's going on here? Like, man, I know you. I believe you can do this. What? What kind of support do you need? What's holding you back? Like. And they're looking for that contribution expecting it, demanding it. And so kind of an answer to that question is I think about the multipliers, both the ones that I would want to go out to dinner with and the ones that I wouldn't, um, they believed I was capable and, and their behavior followed as much. They, they looked for my contributions. And when it was missing, they challenged me to contribute. And as a result, I did things for them that I honestly didn't think I was capable of. Yeah. So it sounds like, you know, they really held you to high expectations and you rose to the occasion. Right. And that's, uh, you know, often something that we discuss with our educators around what we want for our students is believe in them, hold them capable to what we know their potential will be and can be and should be, and all those things. And it sounds like also asking you the right questions to really push on your thinking and as a, as a tool or a strategy to kind of grow and stretch you in different ways that maybe you haven't grown and stretched in the past. Yeah. You picked something real quick. I'll just say this and I appreciate your observing it. The number one attribute, if you will, and practice of the multipliers that we studied were they were intellectually curious. They genuinely want to know what people are thinking, and they want to know how to move forward. And when you because they believe you've got something interesting to offer. And as a matter of fact, there was this there was a speaker that was coming through Silicon Valley, his name, C.K. Prahalad. We quote him the book. He unfortunately, we've lost him to cancer. He was finished his career at the University of Michigan, um, teaching at the MBA school there. And he said that, you know, the in the 21st century, the skill that leaders will need. It won't be what they know, but It will be the skill that they have to access what other people know. And I think that that is true to what how multipliers operate is. They have this skill and they have the ability to access what we're thinking because they they believe we've got something that, that they need to know about. Yeah. So for our listeners out there, what I'm what I'm hearing is stay curious. Yeah. Yes, yes. Yeah. How would you, uh, how would you suggest people bring some of these practices into their daily lives is that, you know, something that you, um, once you become aware, really just have to be intentional about doing? And how do you do that? Yeah. So you can first just kind of think about the concepts, listen to the book, read it. But if you think about these different ideas that we learned in this research is just the first thing, how do I how am I doing here? Do I do this? Do I believe that people are smart? How am I showing up? I think this is number one. And then I think after that it's, it's it's a question of like, okay, if there's, if I've got a strength that I think I could really put to work here, like, man, I'm great at asking questions or um, or man, I'm a naturally demanding person. How can I turn that into challenging people to do things that they don't think they can do is to lean on your strengths. And then I think the second thing is to ask yourself the question, like, okay, if I've got a accidental diminishing vulnerability or diminishing vulnerability, maybe where I slip into a place of arrogance and assume that I know better, or I just have a tendency to go into idea mode, or I'm a little careless in how fast I get into things is is to own. It is to try to to try to ask people, what do you see in my leadership? Uh, first ask yourself and then ask others, where do you see maybe that I have a tendency to leave people's best thinking on the table. And I think in the act of first this contemplation and then asking others for feedback, the process just naturally starts, and you're able to integrate this into your life in all sorts of ways. And I've seen this in all areas of my life, at home and with my kids and at work. And, um, you know, I'm a member of a church and church settings. And so, you know, there's there's been it's been this flowering in my life. You know, in the book you share that great leaders create space for others to think deeply and lead boldly. What would you say is a critical move that leaders can make to really enable this to happen? Yeah. Oh, I love that you asked that. What a great question. There's this practice that's super simple that you can do and it's called play fewer chips. Think about this concept. What if you give me. Maybe there's a 30 minute meeting and I get three chips, one two minute chip and two one minute chips. And you say, hey, Shawn, you got three chips. It's a total of. It's a total of five minutes for this 30 minute meeting. So you got to decide in this meeting how you're going to play your chips. And so maybe I play one minute chip to start kind of say here's what we're up to. Here's the question that we're after. Let's let's go for it. Maybe you look for a two minute contribution time where you're going to really weigh into something during the middle, and maybe you're going to a couple minutes, five minutes left, you're going to summarize a few things to make sure that we're kind of going in the right direction. It's a challenge that's quite it's fun, but it completely transforms the way that you see about creating space, because one of the things we learn about multipliers is that they tend to be restrained. they create space for other people to step up and play big. And they recognize when they need to step in. And when they do, they step in strong, but they but they liberate the room, if you will, for other people to contribute. Um, and so play fewer chips, you know, think about if you, if you recognize that, that maybe you could be creating more space for people in your staff meetings, you know, in your classroom, uh, you know, in the huddle, wherever that is, and you're wanting more participation. You can play fewer chips. So show up, be there all the time. Present strong but fewer, stronger, intense dosages of your contribution. I love that you said transform, uh, how you're creating the space. And I would imagine using something like playing fewer chips, I could see how an outcome of that would be people around the table who don't normally get the opportunity to have voice will feel seen, valued and respected. And that in itself, um, I think contributes to a healthier culture. Right? And really starts, you start to kind of demonstrate or show up as kind of a multiplier leader, right? The person who's bringing the best out in the team, uh, in what ways have you kind of noticed some of these strategies, like, um, shape the culture that you want to create? Yeah. Um, you know, one of the things that you and if you think about maybe back to your own career, like a time when you were working for a multiplier and just what the subtle things were that they did that shaped the culture. So I'll just I'll just pick a multiplier that, um, I worked for. I was living in Germany. I was working on a project for the Department of Defense. The lead on the team for the the main contractor was was Siemens AG. And, you know, one of the best German engineering companies, you know, oldest, largest deep, deep kind of thinking culture. And this fellow's name was Hartmut Becker. And one of the there was just all these little subtle things that he did. First of all, he tended to operate entire meetings where he only asked questions. And here he has this talented team of engineers all around him. And he's just getting their best thinking out. And then he would challenge things occasionally if it wasn't a question like, I don't know, I'm worried about that. Like, could you could you go into that deeper? Like help me see why that's true. And so there would be these a combination of this, this oscillating between questions and, and even challenging, uh, folks. And he was he was a little slower to share his point of view, especially in in larger meetings. But you always knew he had a strong point of view. And then on the flip side, this fellow was really good at when you gave him a deliverable that didn't meet a standard, he would sit down with you and be like, hey, I'd like to go through this. Thanks for delivering it. First off, always appreciation. A little ovation for the delivery itself, but then it was like, hey, you know, I'm I'm a little frustrated at this area and this area because here was the standard, let me show you what I wanted and this is where we are. How do we get there? So so it was always about telling me and others honestly what it was that wasn't meeting the mark and then asking the question, hey, how are we going to get this there? But he didn't rip it out of my hands and go complete the work himself, you know. So so there was this it was this combination of creating lots of air time and challenging people and asking lots of questions in meetings. And then in one on one, He wanted, you know, your very best work for the client and also for the standards of operating that they had. And then he would continue to hold you accountable in your position of ownership to get that thing done. And as a result people grew like crazy in that culture. Now the interesting thing about this is he worked for a a raging diminisher. So there was this subculture of multiplying in this larger culture of diminishing. And we and we see that happen all the time. Yeah. Well, it sounds like through that approach, he created the conditions for people to thrive. Right. And, you know, through this curiosity, he created clarity and alignment and empowerment. Right. People felt empowered to go do the work. And then he gave some firm but respectful feedback that made it better, but allowed the people to go and do it. Um, that's amazing. And I can imagine what it would be like to work for somebody like that. And it was hard, I'll tell you, it was hard. He was demanding as heck. And and you had to fill the space, for crying out loud. He was asking these tough questions. You had to bring your best thinking to every meeting. And then when you sat down and met with him, you knew that you would be celebrated and then challenged to take it to the next level. And so it was. It was. But man, people felt exhilarated because they were just fully utilized. Ah. That's amazing. That's amazing. Uh, so I understand that you're writing your next book that's maybe scheduled to be released sometime in 2026. Um, pause. How to slow down, create value, and lead brilliant work. Um, in our culture, the concept of slowing down is counterintuitive to, um, creating value or leading work. Can you unpack this title a little bit and what readers can expect? Yeah, and actually we just changed the subtitle, um, to how How to lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World, I'm glad that you said it the first way, the first time. That was the subtitle for a little bit. So it's still paused. Um, and but then we realized as we kind of got into this, that really what this book is about is how do you lead brilliant work in a busy world? Because everybody's busy and so, so, so let me tell you what we did and then what readers can expect. So we wanted to know. Well, first of all, contributors everywhere were telling us that one of the things that held them back from doing their best work was they just simply couldn't focus, that they found themselves switching between 100 different things, with a thousand pieces of communication coming at them from every direction, from slack to teams, to texting to email to all the meetings that we have working at home, working in the office hybrid, all of it. And and that there that that it was very difficult for people to get into a place of deep thinking and, and do the work that they believed that they were capable of. So this kept coming back over and over again in this survey that we did. On what prevents you from doing your very best work? So we started to interview people, and I ended up interviewing about 400 people, a little more than this, probably 500 by the time the book comes out, interviewing them about a time where they worked for somebody in the very recent, you know, kind of like Hyperconnected era where they they worked for somebody where they were able to consistently go deep in their work and to do something they were proud of versus a time where they were working for somebody who who made it worse or worse, like it was already distracting environment and just blew it up to the next level of distraction. And and so in those interviews, as we got those stories and you can imagine we teased out thousands of stories. We did a bunch of surveys, a bunch of workshops, and there was there was literally thousands upon thousands of data points that we looked at. We we we took the top 12 behaviors that were both helped people focus versus those that really amped up distraction. And we listed those out and that there was the news. We didn't expect it. We couldn't have called it. You don't even know if there's going to be anything worth sharing. The top 12 behaviors that people reported that helped them focus were all a form of slowing things down. The verses the top 12 behaviors that led to the most distracting situations for people and robbed them of their ability to concentrate, if you will. They were all forms of acceleration. That's where the book gets its name. Pause. So in the book, what you'll get is the differing mindsets of being a leader who fully utilizes speed to actually, you know, to slow things down, to create acceleration, to create higher performance. So you'll get the mindset that drives this kind of leadership versus the mindset that sometimes can get us into a place where, um, we're really, you know, we're we're kind of jacking up the distraction that's always there. And people can't get into these deep levels of concentration, and therefore they don't do the work that they know that they could. Yeah. I'm so excited about this book. Um, all right, I'm going to do some rapid fire questions here. Are you ready? Yeah. All right, here we go. A book that changed how you lead non-violent communication. Nonviolent communication. All right. Tell me a little bit more. It's. It's a book by, um, a psychologist, Marshall Rosenberg, It's not a very long book, and it's it's an easy. It's an easy listen to if you want to. I think it's three hours. It came out in the 80s. And the premise of the book is, is that oftentimes we don't communicate in a way that helps people really understand what we're needing or wanting, or we don't have the ability to listen to other people that we kind of get lost in. And he says judgment, analysis and comparison. So instead of me telling you, hey, this was a super fulfilling conversation you and I had because of the questions you asked me. And I just I really wanted to be able to explore this with you. That would be a non-violent response. And imagine if I was frustrated with you and I said, man, this podcast was just total waste. All you do is talk all the time. So the one is just a judgment and you can't hear anything in me. Whereas if I were to say to you, oh, you know, I feel disappointed because I, um, I really wanted to share with you what I was thinking. And, um, uh, I don't believe that that happened today. That that that is about me. I'm being honest, and I'm not being violent. I'm not judging you. I'm not telling you what you weren't. And this book essentially gives a model for how can you communicate in a way that's honest and tells people what you're feeling, needing and wanting, and that you can listen to others in the same way? So we don't get lost in comparison and judgment in a way where people never hear us or learn about what we really want. Okay. A leadership practice you swear by? Okay. Uh, yeah, I'd say it's learning how to ask great questions. You know, it's, um. I think for a lot of us, it's not where we start. And so let me turn that into a practice. That's the principle is ask a lot of questions, better questions. And that's before meeting. Write down everything that you're concerned about on a piece of paper, and then turn those those concerns into questions. And then go to that meeting and ask those questions. It's a there's a huge difference in this. If I come to you and say, you know, listen, I'm really worried about this podcast. I just don't think that we have the time that we're going to need to to cover this topic versus coming to you and say, hey, how do you think we'll deal with the time based on the information that we've got today? I mean, can't you just feel the difference just in that. Yeah it massively. That's right. And and it it doesn't make it doesn't put me on the defense you know. And I don't lose either by not being able to talk about the thing I'm concerned about. So just it's the simplest practice. Write down everything you're concerned about. Uh prioritize those. I'll give you one little more piece to that, because sometimes we can't get through all of our concerns. Rewrite those three, those top three questions. Go to the media and ask those three questions. You will be shocked at the result. Yeah, I mean, it invites me into the conversation, right? I show up differently in that moment versus if I feel attacked or hear something that I don't want to hear. Um, all right. A phrase or quote you return to. Uh, I think, well, the first thing that just popped in my head was, um, and I actually saw a LinkedIn post that you, um, put out there. I but it would be. something from Stephen Covey maybe the most powerful idea that he had for me that's never left my head is just, you know, seek first to understand before being understood. Yeah, I think it's I think it's an easy concept for us to get because we all know what it feels like when it doesn't happen. Um, and it's like a reminder to me that almost every good relationship has this going on, you know, at least one side of the equation, but most of the time both. That's absolutely right. And a version of that here in Jeffco, um, that our superintendent has emphasized is lean in, listen and learn. Right. So very cool. Yeah. Lean in. Listen and learn. Yeah. I love it. Yep. Uh, what's one question every education leader should ask their team more often? Ah. That's good. Let me think. I can I okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna give you one, but I wish I could give you two. Um, I think that the question that that we need to ask people is, what does success look like? Uh, because so often we assume that we know or we assume that other people know, and and that's not been my experience at all. My experience is, is that so often, I don't even know what success looks like. I'm kind of like approximating what I think success looks like in the scenario, but I definitely couldn't measure it or put it in some kind of like measurable terms that everybody would also say the same thing. And if you go into a team and you say, okay, here's the goal. Everybody write down on a piece of paper what success looks like. And there's ten people in the room. You might get ten different answers. So I think that having that that that question as a leader asking what does success look like? And really listening to each person and coming up with an answer that you all agree with, that that's what we're working for. I just think that it's something that we need to ask our team members more, because so often we assume that we have it, but we don't. Well, Sean, you have a brilliant mind here, and I couldn't possibly, um, sit back knowing that you might have a second question to offer. Um, I think the second question is then what do you need? Yeah, yeah. Um, but you have to kind of get to that second one through the first. Yeah. You're right. And actually, one of the questions that I probably asked most frequently when I meet with my team is, what do you need from me? But it's a good reminder, Sean, to start with, what does success even look like? Or how do you know you'll be successful? Yeah, because you're right. You have multiple people in the room. You're going to get multiple different versions of what success looks and feels like. So I appreciate that reminder, and I'm going to start to incorporate that into my own practice. Um, so some final thoughts here. You know, this conversation was such a powerful way to kick off the season, and we're just grateful that we're going to have you here and live and be able to welcome you back to Colorado in just a couple of weeks for our Jeffco leadership launch. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in to this episode of Elevate Education. We're excited for the year ahead and look forward to bringing you more conversations that inspire, inform, and elevate the work we do together in education. Um, I also want to invite all of our listeners to learn more at the Weisman Group.com read the book Multipliers How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, or connect with Sean on LinkedIn and Shawn. We're so excited to get our hands on your new book coming out in May. Pause. How to lead. Brilliant work in a Busy World. But for now, Shawn, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your valuable insights on leadership. Yeah. Thanks, Matt. This has really been a meaningful conversation. I just want to say how grateful I am to have even the opportunity to go back and be connected to Jeff Cohen in any way. because it's truly the best things in my life came from that time period, and it's really been an honor to be on with you today. Well, it's been an honor to have you. Until next time, take care and keep leading with purpose, everyone.
Hello and welcome back to a new school year and a new season of Elevate Education. I'm Matt Pollaro, chief of student success here at Jeffco Public Schools and one of your hosts of Elevate Education podcast. I'm thrilled to be kicking things off with our audience as we continue exploring what makes educational, meaningful, innovative, and impactful. To start this season, we've got an incredible guest joining us. I'm so excited. Someone who is not only a Jeffco alumni, a proud Bear Creek bear as I understand it, but someone who has gone on to become a nationally recognized business innovator and leadership expert. Sean Vanderhoven. Welcome to Elevate Education. Hey, listen, it's so good to be on with you, Matt. I mean, it couldn't be more thrilled to come back to anything connected to those high school years. Yeah, well, Sean, we're excited to have you. You're a partner at the Wiseman Group, a leadership development expert and a co-creator of the second edition of the New York Times bestseller, Multipliers How the Best Leaders Make everyone smarter. You've advised global organizations like Intel, LinkedIn, Adobe, and this year, we're thrilled to have you as our keynote speaker for our Jeffco leadership launch. We're excited to have you help. Welcome back all of our school and central leaders. This is a time for us to really reground in our values, focus on students, and it's just such an honor to have Jeffco alone with your experience and insight joining us today. So thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks. I mean, seriously, I'm so pleased. I went to Kendall View Elementary School, then Carmody, uh, Junior high, then Bear Creek. Jeffco through and through. That's awesome. So, Sean, you've worked with some of the world's most recognized companies and leaders. Tell us a little bit how you got started in leadership development. Well, when I was a kid, you know, kind of starting off college time frame, I was working for a nonprofit that was really into leadership development. So they were a lot of leadership workshops. And the idea was just to have the younger kids that were participating in the program take leadership roles. And I just remember feeling, you know, first of all, impacted early by my peers who were who were acting one of those leadership roles and, and fell in love with the idea of just, you know, how can you as an individual can contribute to a group and, you know, and having sports coaches throughout my time at Bear Creek and, um, coaches have a huge impact on your life. And so the combination of of just who it influenced me growing up, uh, and then experiencing this as a young man, I thought, oh, I really want to do this. And so, interestingly enough, I started a leadership development company, uh, early. Totally failed. Of course, I didn't know anything. Um, and, and in this journey, bumped into had a chance to be mentored for just just an afternoon. This fellow by the name of Hyrum Smith. And and he was the one of the co-founders of Franklin Quest, which later bought Covey Leadership Center and became Franklin Covey, author several books and kind of one of their their speakers. And I asked him, you know, I told him I loved leadership and, uh, wanted to teach and to train and to learn the disciplines of leadership. And I, you know, I'll never forget he said to me, he said, you know, you're so young, you don't know anything. My recommendation, to you is that you go back to school, get a degree, which I wasn't planning on at the time, and, and get into industry and go learn and figure out how to not just be a student of these ideas of leadership development, but apply them and see if you can apply them to business and organizations in a way that actually moves the needle and impacts individuals lives. And man, I took that serious. I, I changed my plans. I was in software for 15 years, uh, trying to do everything I could to learn everything I could about leadership development, about productivity and teams and how could I apply those lessons. And so after about 15 years in, uh, I, I had my first opportunity to come out here in Silicon Valley and worked on a workshop with with a researcher. And then a couple of years after that, I ended up meeting Liz and joined the team to work on the second edition of multiplier. So it was it was it was really kind of a dream come true. It was a long 15 year period of of being a leader in an organization to try to grow and make a difference in that while trying to test and apply all these different concepts. Uh, before I was able to get on the research end of things. Yeah. Um, some of what you said that resonates with me is that early on, you had all of these influences in your life that really kind of coached and advised you on this journey, and even through failure, you found success, right? Um, and that's truly powerful. I mean, I think that is the impact that leaders can have on our lives when they see something in ourselves that we might not see yet. Right. So someone believed enough in you to say, hey, go out there and try this, try to apply it, learn from it. Um, and it just makes us better. You've had tremendous success. Um, you know, at the Wiseman group, you talk about multipliers right in your book. What is a multiplier and how do they unlock the full intelligence of a team? Yeah. I'll tell you a little bit about where this concept of multipliers came from. So so my partner at the firm is Liz Wiseman. She started it. She was at Oracle and had noticed this phenomenon. And so so Oracle at the time as early 2000, her responsibility was kind of all things learning. And she she ran what was called the Oracle University. And she noticed that there was a certain subset of leaders within Oracle that that when they interacted with people, people stepped up and they played bigger. It was like the speed and the quality of the ideas in the room just went bonkers, increased and accelerated. People took risks. The quality of work increased over time. People took more responsibility and accountability for themselves. It was almost as if they just made people smarter. She wanted to know what these leaders do, but what really piqued her interest was the contrast. You would have these insanely smart people. They were hiring from the Ivy League schools. You know, was kind of trying to find the best and brightest in class. And there were this other subset of leaders who she came to call diminishers, which is the opposite of multipliers. They as they interacted with teams, they just it was the opposite occurred. People played smaller, they measured their contributions. They, you know, you could tell they were operating a little bit more from a place of fear. The idea flow slowed down. She and she thought, man, I want to know what's the difference between these two types of leaders, these leaders who amplify our capability versus these leaders who shut us down? And and so she left Oracle and ran a study to try to figure out. I can tell you more about that later. But to figure out the difference between these multipliers versus diminishers. But back to the original question. What she learned in this research was that multipliers are these leaders who use their intelligence as a tool to access other people's capability. And that's the heart of it. They are intellectually curious about what other people can do There's they operate with an assumption that people know things, that people can do things, and that leads to a whole set of practices that we'll get into that multipliers operate with. So, you know, I want to make sure that I can differentiate between the two. And what I think I heard you say are multipliers are really those people that believe in others and know that they're capable of figuring things out, whereas these diminishers, so to speak, are maybe those people who drain intelligence for lack of better description and maybe drain the energy and capability from people around them, even if it's unintentional at times. Yeah. That's right. I mean, what multipliers do is they're very curious about what other people can do and how they can contribute. And they assume that people have something to offer. And when you assume that and they really believe that people are smart and capable and that they can grow, when you assume that you operate with a completely different set of behaviors than when you assume that people need your help to figure things out. And that was at the heart of what we learned in this research, is that diminishers tend to get into a place where they assume that people will need their help to figure things out, and so from that flows a set of behaviors that can have this extremely diminishing effect on people's ability to contribute. Let's stick with that notion of diminishers for a minute here. Can you share maybe a time with us that you noticed someone unintentionally diminishing the people around them? How might you advise, or how did you coach that person to recognize what was happening and maybe point them in a different direction? There's two things that I'll say about this. You bring up this idea that what about this unintentional diminishing that we all can do. And There are these leaders who are just these incredible multipliers. Most of them, they're not born, they're built. And then there are leaders that are very bright, talented, capable, capable people. They'll get promoted into leadership because that's the fate, if you think about it, of talented and capable people, they get promoted and and it's and it doesn't necessarily mean that a great contributor like great player turns great coach or great contributor turns great leader. There's there's actually some learning that occurs for us to be able to wear that different hat and to look through that lens. So there are these leaders out there that are these diminishers. They believe that they're the smartest person in the room. They operate that way. They assume other people need their help to figure things out. We know what that feels like. It really shuts people down. We end up. We end up overworking for those individuals and being underutilized, which is exhausting. So back to your question. The interesting the most interesting thing that I think was uncovered in this multipliers research was the messy middle. And this is this accidental diminisher that you just mentioned. It's the it's the things that we all do where with the very best of intentions, we don't mean to, but we accidentally shut people down. I'll give you a few examples. I do all of these. You maybe you're full of ideas. You can't turn it off. You don't even need to come in contact with water. You just have to have a problem in front of you. And and you are, you know, somebody comes to you and they share a problem, and before they know it, they're walking out of your office with ten sticky notes that are kind of pinned everywhere on them, all written by your hand. These people are just they're creatives. They've got a lot of ideas. Well, sometimes when someone comes to us with a problem and we over share ideas, well, it can have this accidentally diminishing effect where people, well, they don't do the thinking themselves or they become idea lazy or they don't know what to execute on. They're they're kind of going, it's like a wild goose chase. They're going after everything in every different direction. Um, and so we mean to be creative and to be helpful and to generate ideas, but then in the end, it just it just leads to confusion and could even feel like that. Maybe your mind or your thinking is not needed. Just just one idea. Another one is and I'll share an experience where I do this. And by the way, I am totally an idea fountain. Uh, put a problem in front of me. You don't even have to give me a quarter, and I will give you 100 ideas. And it can be a real problem, especially raging teenage boys. I don't have any teenagers anymore. They're all from college now. But when I did, oh my gosh, the last thing they wanted to do was share a problem with dad, because you're going to get 100, 100 solutions. There's this other one that this, um, we call the pace setter, and it's the leader who wants to take initiative. They they like to move fast. They kind of want to set the pace of the team. Like, if you were to imagine in your mind a pace car, you know, what's the pace car's job in NASCAR. It's to get out in front of the group and to slowly accelerate. So the entire pack, which is going to move slower, can accelerate to speed before the race starts. Well, what happens if the pace car gets out and just nails the gas? You know they're going to leave the whole pack in in the dust. And it's and it's because I mean, well, well, if you ask the question what happens when a leader or coach or teacher gets too far ahead of the pack? Well, do people speed up or do they slow down? Well, they they slow down and we end up creating spectators instead of followers. This is me. Oh my gosh. I've got a serious pace setting problem. And it was after a project where we had just we were just releasing the second edition of multipliers and we were lucky and it sold well. And it hit the New York Times best selling list, We were thrilled as a team and thought that this just meant an all hands just celebration. But shortly after the win, a team member approached me and she said, you know, Sean, I got to tell you, this is bittersweet because on the one hand, I feel glad that we've had this success, but on the other hand, I just feel disappointed because I half the time I didn't even know what you were doing. I didn't even know where the ship was going and I found it. You were so far ahead. I found it difficult for me to to contribute. Oh, man. It wasn't what I wanted at all. You know, I was just trying to. Trying to. I was just trying to solve the problem. I was just trying to move the project in a direction, but I but I was I was kind of going at such a rate, in such a pace and far ahead from the team that they didn't know what I was up to, and so they couldn't anticipate their play or their move. And so I ended up accidentally diminishing, you know, a whole team of people and, and really wished that I wouldn't have. But here's the thing about it. I didn't mean to. It's not because I didn't believe that they were smart or capable. I just I'm wired this way. And if you're not aware of sometimes your strengths as a contributor, they will show up as a leadership liability. Yeah. Well, first and foremost, I appreciate your vulnerability. That in itself is a huge strength of yours. And quite honestly, any leader. So let me take us here. Many people think about positional leadership. How do you help all members of a team from the most junior staff member to the most senior staff member achieve their greatest potential? Yeah, well, I mean, what a what a great question and a tough one. Um, from a multipliers perspective, I think that what I've learned from studying these leaders is just the belief that that potential was there. So deep in their souls that when they didn't see it being actualized, they double click on it, they figure out, hey, what's going on here? Like, man, I know you. I believe you can do this. What? What kind of support do you need? What's holding you back? Like. And they're looking for that contribution expecting it, demanding it. And so kind of an answer to that question is I think about the multipliers, both the ones that I would want to go out to dinner with and the ones that I wouldn't, um, they believed I was capable and, and their behavior followed as much. They, they looked for my contributions. And when it was missing, they challenged me to contribute. And as a result, I did things for them that I honestly didn't think I was capable of. Yeah. So it sounds like, you know, they really held you to high expectations and you rose to the occasion. Right. And that's, uh, you know, often something that we discuss with our educators around what we want for our students is believe in them, hold them capable to what we know their potential will be and can be and should be, and all those things. And it sounds like also asking you the right questions to really push on your thinking and as a, as a tool or a strategy to kind of grow and stretch you in different ways that maybe you haven't grown and stretched in the past. Yeah. You picked something real quick. I'll just say this and I appreciate your observing it. The number one attribute, if you will, and practice of the multipliers that we studied were they were intellectually curious. They genuinely want to know what people are thinking, and they want to know how to move forward. And when you because they believe you've got something interesting to offer. And as a matter of fact, there was this there was a speaker that was coming through Silicon Valley, his name, C.K. Prahalad. We quote him the book. He unfortunately, we've lost him to cancer. He was finished his career at the University of Michigan, um, teaching at the MBA school there. And he said that, you know, the in the 21st century, the skill that leaders will need. It won't be what they know, but It will be the skill that they have to access what other people know. And I think that that is true to what how multipliers operate is. They have this skill and they have the ability to access what we're thinking because they they believe we've got something that, that they need to know about. Yeah. So for our listeners out there, what I'm what I'm hearing is stay curious. Yeah. Yes, yes. Yeah. How would you, uh, how would you suggest people bring some of these practices into their daily lives is that, you know, something that you, um, once you become aware, really just have to be intentional about doing? And how do you do that? Yeah. So you can first just kind of think about the concepts, listen to the book, read it. But if you think about these different ideas that we learned in this research is just the first thing, how do I how am I doing here? Do I do this? Do I believe that people are smart? How am I showing up? I think this is number one. And then I think after that it's, it's it's a question of like, okay, if there's, if I've got a strength that I think I could really put to work here, like, man, I'm great at asking questions or um, or man, I'm a naturally demanding person. How can I turn that into challenging people to do things that they don't think they can do is to lean on your strengths. And then I think the second thing is to ask yourself the question, like, okay, if I've got a accidental diminishing vulnerability or diminishing vulnerability, maybe where I slip into a place of arrogance and assume that I know better, or I just have a tendency to go into idea mode, or I'm a little careless in how fast I get into things is is to own. It is to try to to try to ask people, what do you see in my leadership? Uh, first ask yourself and then ask others, where do you see maybe that I have a tendency to leave people's best thinking on the table. And I think in the act of first this contemplation and then asking others for feedback, the process just naturally starts, and you're able to integrate this into your life in all sorts of ways. And I've seen this in all areas of my life, at home and with my kids and at work. And, um, you know, I'm a member of a church and church settings. And so, you know, there's there's been it's been this flowering in my life. You know, in the book you share that great leaders create space for others to think deeply and lead boldly. What would you say is a critical move that leaders can make to really enable this to happen? Yeah. Oh, I love that you asked that. What a great question. There's this practice that's super simple that you can do and it's called play fewer chips. Think about this concept. What if you give me. Maybe there's a 30 minute meeting and I get three chips, one two minute chip and two one minute chips. And you say, hey, Shawn, you got three chips. It's a total of. It's a total of five minutes for this 30 minute meeting. So you got to decide in this meeting how you're going to play your chips. And so maybe I play one minute chip to start kind of say here's what we're up to. Here's the question that we're after. Let's let's go for it. Maybe you look for a two minute contribution time where you're going to really weigh into something during the middle, and maybe you're going to a couple minutes, five minutes left, you're going to summarize a few things to make sure that we're kind of going in the right direction. It's a challenge that's quite it's fun, but it completely transforms the way that you see about creating space, because one of the things we learn about multipliers is that they tend to be restrained. they create space for other people to step up and play big. And they recognize when they need to step in. And when they do, they step in strong, but they but they liberate the room, if you will, for other people to contribute. Um, and so play fewer chips, you know, think about if you, if you recognize that, that maybe you could be creating more space for people in your staff meetings, you know, in your classroom, uh, you know, in the huddle, wherever that is, and you're wanting more participation. You can play fewer chips. So show up, be there all the time. Present strong but fewer, stronger, intense dosages of your contribution. I love that you said transform, uh, how you're creating the space. And I would imagine using something like playing fewer chips, I could see how an outcome of that would be people around the table who don't normally get the opportunity to have voice will feel seen, valued and respected. And that in itself, um, I think contributes to a healthier culture. Right? And really starts, you start to kind of demonstrate or show up as kind of a multiplier leader, right? The person who's bringing the best out in the team, uh, in what ways have you kind of noticed some of these strategies, like, um, shape the culture that you want to create? Yeah. Um, you know, one of the things that you and if you think about maybe back to your own career, like a time when you were working for a multiplier and just what the subtle things were that they did that shaped the culture. So I'll just I'll just pick a multiplier that, um, I worked for. I was living in Germany. I was working on a project for the Department of Defense. The lead on the team for the the main contractor was was Siemens AG. And, you know, one of the best German engineering companies, you know, oldest, largest deep, deep kind of thinking culture. And this fellow's name was Hartmut Becker. And one of the there was just all these little subtle things that he did. First of all, he tended to operate entire meetings where he only asked questions. And here he has this talented team of engineers all around him. And he's just getting their best thinking out. And then he would challenge things occasionally if it wasn't a question like, I don't know, I'm worried about that. Like, could you could you go into that deeper? Like help me see why that's true. And so there would be these a combination of this, this oscillating between questions and, and even challenging, uh, folks. And he was he was a little slower to share his point of view, especially in in larger meetings. But you always knew he had a strong point of view. And then on the flip side, this fellow was really good at when you gave him a deliverable that didn't meet a standard, he would sit down with you and be like, hey, I'd like to go through this. Thanks for delivering it. First off, always appreciation. A little ovation for the delivery itself, but then it was like, hey, you know, I'm I'm a little frustrated at this area and this area because here was the standard, let me show you what I wanted and this is where we are. How do we get there? So so it was always about telling me and others honestly what it was that wasn't meeting the mark and then asking the question, hey, how are we going to get this there? But he didn't rip it out of my hands and go complete the work himself, you know. So so there was this it was this combination of creating lots of air time and challenging people and asking lots of questions in meetings. And then in one on one, He wanted, you know, your very best work for the client and also for the standards of operating that they had. And then he would continue to hold you accountable in your position of ownership to get that thing done. And as a result people grew like crazy in that culture. Now the interesting thing about this is he worked for a a raging diminisher. So there was this subculture of multiplying in this larger culture of diminishing. And we and we see that happen all the time. Yeah. Well, it sounds like through that approach, he created the conditions for people to thrive. Right. And, you know, through this curiosity, he created clarity and alignment and empowerment. Right. People felt empowered to go do the work. And then he gave some firm but respectful feedback that made it better, but allowed the people to go and do it. Um, that's amazing. And I can imagine what it would be like to work for somebody like that. And it was hard, I'll tell you, it was hard. He was demanding as heck. And and you had to fill the space, for crying out loud. He was asking these tough questions. You had to bring your best thinking to every meeting. And then when you sat down and met with him, you knew that you would be celebrated and then challenged to take it to the next level. And so it was. It was. But man, people felt exhilarated because they were just fully utilized. Ah. That's amazing. That's amazing. Uh, so I understand that you're writing your next book that's maybe scheduled to be released sometime in 2026. Um, pause. How to slow down, create value, and lead brilliant work. Um, in our culture, the concept of slowing down is counterintuitive to, um, creating value or leading work. Can you unpack this title a little bit and what readers can expect? Yeah, and actually we just changed the subtitle, um, to how How to lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World, I'm glad that you said it the first way, the first time. That was the subtitle for a little bit. So it's still paused. Um, and but then we realized as we kind of got into this, that really what this book is about is how do you lead brilliant work in a busy world? Because everybody's busy and so, so, so let me tell you what we did and then what readers can expect. So we wanted to know. Well, first of all, contributors everywhere were telling us that one of the things that held them back from doing their best work was they just simply couldn't focus, that they found themselves switching between 100 different things, with a thousand pieces of communication coming at them from every direction, from slack to teams, to texting to email to all the meetings that we have working at home, working in the office hybrid, all of it. And and that there that that it was very difficult for people to get into a place of deep thinking and, and do the work that they believed that they were capable of. So this kept coming back over and over again in this survey that we did. On what prevents you from doing your very best work? So we started to interview people, and I ended up interviewing about 400 people, a little more than this, probably 500 by the time the book comes out, interviewing them about a time where they worked for somebody in the very recent, you know, kind of like Hyperconnected era where they they worked for somebody where they were able to consistently go deep in their work and to do something they were proud of versus a time where they were working for somebody who who made it worse or worse, like it was already distracting environment and just blew it up to the next level of distraction. And and so in those interviews, as we got those stories and you can imagine we teased out thousands of stories. We did a bunch of surveys, a bunch of workshops, and there was there was literally thousands upon thousands of data points that we looked at. We we we took the top 12 behaviors that were both helped people focus versus those that really amped up distraction. And we listed those out and that there was the news. We didn't expect it. We couldn't have called it. You don't even know if there's going to be anything worth sharing. The top 12 behaviors that people reported that helped them focus were all a form of slowing things down. The verses the top 12 behaviors that led to the most distracting situations for people and robbed them of their ability to concentrate, if you will. They were all forms of acceleration. That's where the book gets its name. Pause. So in the book, what you'll get is the differing mindsets of being a leader who fully utilizes speed to actually, you know, to slow things down, to create acceleration, to create higher performance. So you'll get the mindset that drives this kind of leadership versus the mindset that sometimes can get us into a place where, um, we're really, you know, we're we're kind of jacking up the distraction that's always there. And people can't get into these deep levels of concentration, and therefore they don't do the work that they know that they could. Yeah. I'm so excited about this book. Um, all right, I'm going to do some rapid fire questions here. Are you ready? Yeah. All right, here we go. A book that changed how you lead non-violent communication. Nonviolent communication. All right. Tell me a little bit more. It's. It's a book by, um, a psychologist, Marshall Rosenberg, It's not a very long book, and it's it's an easy. It's an easy listen to if you want to. I think it's three hours. It came out in the 80s. And the premise of the book is, is that oftentimes we don't communicate in a way that helps people really understand what we're needing or wanting, or we don't have the ability to listen to other people that we kind of get lost in. And he says judgment, analysis and comparison. So instead of me telling you, hey, this was a super fulfilling conversation you and I had because of the questions you asked me. And I just I really wanted to be able to explore this with you. That would be a non-violent response. And imagine if I was frustrated with you and I said, man, this podcast was just total waste. All you do is talk all the time. So the one is just a judgment and you can't hear anything in me. Whereas if I were to say to you, oh, you know, I feel disappointed because I, um, I really wanted to share with you what I was thinking. And, um, uh, I don't believe that that happened today. That that that is about me. I'm being honest, and I'm not being violent. I'm not judging you. I'm not telling you what you weren't. And this book essentially gives a model for how can you communicate in a way that's honest and tells people what you're feeling, needing and wanting, and that you can listen to others in the same way? So we don't get lost in comparison and judgment in a way where people never hear us or learn about what we really want. Okay. A leadership practice you swear by? Okay. Uh, yeah, I'd say it's learning how to ask great questions. You know, it's, um. I think for a lot of us, it's not where we start. And so let me turn that into a practice. That's the principle is ask a lot of questions, better questions. And that's before meeting. Write down everything that you're concerned about on a piece of paper, and then turn those those concerns into questions. And then go to that meeting and ask those questions. It's a there's a huge difference in this. If I come to you and say, you know, listen, I'm really worried about this podcast. I just don't think that we have the time that we're going to need to to cover this topic versus coming to you and say, hey, how do you think we'll deal with the time based on the information that we've got today? I mean, can't you just feel the difference just in that. Yeah it massively. That's right. And and it it doesn't make it doesn't put me on the defense you know. And I don't lose either by not being able to talk about the thing I'm concerned about. So just it's the simplest practice. Write down everything you're concerned about. Uh prioritize those. I'll give you one little more piece to that, because sometimes we can't get through all of our concerns. Rewrite those three, those top three questions. Go to the media and ask those three questions. You will be shocked at the result. Yeah, I mean, it invites me into the conversation, right? I show up differently in that moment versus if I feel attacked or hear something that I don't want to hear. Um, all right. A phrase or quote you return to. Uh, I think, well, the first thing that just popped in my head was, um, and I actually saw a LinkedIn post that you, um, put out there. I but it would be. something from Stephen Covey maybe the most powerful idea that he had for me that's never left my head is just, you know, seek first to understand before being understood. Yeah, I think it's I think it's an easy concept for us to get because we all know what it feels like when it doesn't happen. Um, and it's like a reminder to me that almost every good relationship has this going on, you know, at least one side of the equation, but most of the time both. That's absolutely right. And a version of that here in Jeffco, um, that our superintendent has emphasized is lean in, listen and learn. Right. So very cool. Yeah. Lean in. Listen and learn. Yeah. I love it. Yep. Uh, what's one question every education leader should ask their team more often? Ah. That's good. Let me think. I can I okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna give you one, but I wish I could give you two. Um, I think that the question that that we need to ask people is, what does success look like? Uh, because so often we assume that we know or we assume that other people know, and and that's not been my experience at all. My experience is, is that so often, I don't even know what success looks like. I'm kind of like approximating what I think success looks like in the scenario, but I definitely couldn't measure it or put it in some kind of like measurable terms that everybody would also say the same thing. And if you go into a team and you say, okay, here's the goal. Everybody write down on a piece of paper what success looks like. And there's ten people in the room. You might get ten different answers. So I think that having that that that question as a leader asking what does success look like? And really listening to each person and coming up with an answer that you all agree with, that that's what we're working for. I just think that it's something that we need to ask our team members more, because so often we assume that we have it, but we don't. Well, Sean, you have a brilliant mind here, and I couldn't possibly, um, sit back knowing that you might have a second question to offer. Um, I think the second question is then what do you need? Yeah, yeah. Um, but you have to kind of get to that second one through the first. Yeah. You're right. And actually, one of the questions that I probably asked most frequently when I meet with my team is, what do you need from me? But it's a good reminder, Sean, to start with, what does success even look like? Or how do you know you'll be successful? Yeah, because you're right. You have multiple people in the room. You're going to get multiple different versions of what success looks and feels like. So I appreciate that reminder, and I'm going to start to incorporate that into my own practice. Um, so some final thoughts here. You know, this conversation was such a powerful way to kick off the season, and we're just grateful that we're going to have you here and live and be able to welcome you back to Colorado in just a couple of weeks for our Jeffco leadership launch. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in to this episode of Elevate Education. We're excited for the year ahead and look forward to bringing you more conversations that inspire, inform, and elevate the work we do together in education. Um, I also want to invite all of our listeners to learn more at the Weisman Group.com read the book Multipliers How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, or connect with Sean on LinkedIn and Shawn. We're so excited to get our hands on your new book coming out in May. Pause. How to lead. Brilliant work in a Busy World. But for now, Shawn, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your valuable insights on leadership. Yeah. Thanks, Matt. This has really been a meaningful conversation. I just want to say how grateful I am to have even the opportunity to go back and be connected to Jeff Cohen in any way. because it's truly the best things in my life came from that time period, and it's really been an honor to be on with you today. Well, it's been an honor to have you. Until next time, take care and keep leading with purpose, everyone.
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